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.
Good catch. Some of them were initially invisible (I thought they hadn't spawned), but I had forgotten about it.
I think I just flubbed and didn't empty the charm spells of the sirine that got me. When I went back through, they would sometimes go invisible (instantly too, not through the casting animation), but none of them ever attempted to charm me again. When I didn't mess that portion up, placing the sirine by the shaman's spirit animals before attacking caused her to melee the spirit animals while everyone else attacked at range.
Corerage IV the solo dwarven berserker - update 11
So Corerage IV battled the minions of Irenicus in Suldensslessar. As expected, the golems were by far the most difficult - a number of times RoR heal was the only thing that kept Corerage IV alive. Silver Sword was extremely useful here, as a few times it killed the pesky adamantite golems. GWWs were able to see off Nizi.
Time for Irenicus himself. Used a protection from magic scroll - interestingly enough, what actually beat him was Corerage IV's non-magical sword.
So then I did the good routes in Hell, except not for the 3rd challenge. I then had to rest to get rid of my scroll, and then get my bonuses from the Tears.
For the battle with the demons, the key prep was BoIB, potion of magic shielding, auto-pause on target destroyed, and GWWs with Silver Sword - the sword got quite a few vorpal hits on the demons which was extremely helpful.
So then it was battle with Irenicus himself - Corerage IV had a heck of time trying to hit him - he even had to resist a maze!
But I did have 80% resistance (potion of magic protection, amulet from Ust Natha, flesh armor). Note the reason this happened is my rage expired. But after this I attacked with his non-magical sword and was hitting Irenicus - time for GWW! Had to do it twice and yes victory!
Illsaera was defeated easily with GWW, shield of reflection, and true sight (book of infinite spells).
Pocket Plane #1 was EXTREMELY difficult. Massive enemies, plus very strong enemies like Duke Eltan, Ellisime, and Aran Linvail. Corerage IV nearly died, but he ran and RoR heals. He also used sunrays from helm of brilliance and Daystar with the mass of enemies.
But Corerage IV did pull through. Saradush is next!
About the halberd +4 missing.
I think you meant the harbinger sword:
the sword that got imported into BG2 in vanilla version if you did the item import trick and had the great sword +3 in your inventory. The Harbinger sword is for sale at one of the merchants in Ust Natha.
There are two prolific halberds +4 in the Ust Natha quest line as well:
1) the Blackmist (trade with demon the MM summons, and
2) the dragons breath - which I think you had in mind
. Its wielded by the ogre Boz in an ambush just outside the city - the ambush happens first time you exit the city at the handmaidens request.
A quiet opening to the session saw a number of areas being ticked off as completely explored. Not many spells were generally used, though there were a fair number deployed to ensure the wolf pack at the Beregost temple caused no trouble. That encounter also got Frisky Bits a 5th cleric level - meaning it was possible to produce 4 skeletons at once. Frisky Bits guided them in to quickly cut through the first group of basilisks - getting Falesia to level 6 and adding a further skeleton to her repertoire.
There was no need to rest though - the original PfP lasted long enough to kill all the remaining separated basilisks, silence Mutamin and cut him down and finish off his greater pet basilisk - though Frisky Bits did have to retreat when it expired just before the final lesser one fell.
After a rest Kirian's mob were silenced, then webbed and quickly disposed of.
The party then continued on with their program of totally clearing areas. That took them back to the Lighthouse where sirines struggled to break free of webs (in umodded there's a good argument for using stinking cloud instead with skeleton summons, but SCS sirines will try and escape from area effects, so the harder saving throws of web are more beneficial).
The first 2 golems were drawn outside into the waiting skeletons, while the third faced a buffed party while distracted by Cuwaert.
No one would receive a huge benefit from the constitution tome, so in the end Sky kept it for himself - pushing that up to 18 will mean he can use the Claw without a HP penalty. Cuwaert took Relair's mistake - that provides him a potential alternative to using fists in melee, though that's unlikely to be used in practice.
Returning to the Doomsayer's area, an encounter with gnolls produced an invisibility scroll that Frisky Bits gleefully grabbed - the bonus for learning illusion spells meant there was no chance of failing with that one.
Laryssa had been left in the area before, but was given no chance to talk.
Moving on to the xvart village, Borda was not allowed to even offer his dodgy wares (his magic resistance prevents silence, so skeletons joined in the attack there).
The final area south of Nashkel to be investigated was the Valley of the Tombs. The SCS Revenant there has a ranged hold attack which can be dangerous to a solo player, but that was no concern after it was blinded.
That encounter got Sky his 6th level, giving a significant upgrade to his spirits. After Cuwaert introduced himself to Narcillicus only long enough for the mage to produce a pair of mustard jellies, but not take any other action, the jellies were led singly down to the spirits to allow the rest of the party free attacks. Narcillicus then went silently to his grave.
Frisky Bits took charge of the wand of monster summoning, though that's unlikely to get any use in the near future with so many other summoning options available. I made a slight mistake while clearing the last bit of that area after throwing a web behind against a pair of chasing ankhegs, then misjudging the distance to the first of those that got stuck and seeing Cuwaert flounder into the web when trying to attack with his darts. Falesia had to hastily make use of command to ensure the other ankheg did not take advantage of the free hits.
It's a while since the party got a reputation increase, but they didn't have to do much to save Arabelle after sleep had worked its magic.
On the other side of the road, the demise of some half-ogres encouraged Bjornin to offer a reward to take reputation to 19. After racking my brains for a while for what I'd missed I realized Sky had not yet introduced himself to Oublek and doing that hit maximum reputation. I didn't go totally mad with the shopping, but Star got a shortbow and the Shadow Armor, Falesia got a heavenly wand, Sky got the +3 staff and the Claw, Cuwaert picked up the Horn and Frisky Bits gained lots of new spells - Waiver gained the least, with wands of sleep and fear that will probably never be used. Frisky Bits fancied a new robe as well, but was told sternly to go and find some more treasure first - I could have bought it, but as a general rule I save all gems and jewelry worth more than 1,000 gold for use at the start of SoD.
At Firewine Bridge, Meilum was charmed and killed by zombies in order to get his PfM scroll. Just after that though there was a reminder of the potential dangers of ranged enemies. A horde of ambushing skeletons nearly all targeted Waiver and got pretty good rolls. Running away seemed very unlikely to succeed and I grudgingly gave him one of the 6 potions of invisibility found so far to save him.
After resting up, the party went through various kobolds to find Meilum. He was charmed and attacked Kahrk along with some skeletons, but didn't make too much impression and ran away - to be punished for his failure (of course the reward for success would have been the same ).
After Kahrk emerged from a Shadow Door by lobbing chaos at Falesia the party left the area and rested. On their return they scouted out Kahrk's location invisibly. He was silenced and webbed - that didn't prevent a magic missile sequencer from firing when a skeleton came into his view, but that was the extent of his resistance.
Next up I suppose I should do the Firewine Ruins, even though that's not much fun ...
Sky, shaman L6, 50 HPs, 140 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian, L6, 55 HPs, 64 kills, 0 deaths
Star, swashbuckler, L7, 48 HPs, 271 kills, 0 deaths
Frisky Bits, cleric/illusionist, L5/5, 31 HPs, 126 kills, 1 death
Waiver, avenger, L7, 41 HPs, 145 kills, 0 deaths
Falesia, priest of Lathander, L6, 40 HPs, 140 kills, 0 deaths
It's very noticeable how much of a difference the swashbuckler bonus has made to Star - he's now opened up a big lead in the kills count.
Coreage IV did the bare minimum in Saradush, since he will easily get to the experience cap being solo. He fought his way to Gromnir without much problem. Gromnir fell fast (GWW), and his minions did hurt Corerage IV but he still prevailed.
The North Forest was no problem at all, and the giants here were led to the bridge they can't cross to be picked off.
Facing Gorion, however, almost went badly. Corrage IV forgot to enrage and got confused! But fortunately he had the foresight to protect himself against undead, so it didn't hurt him in the end.
Yaga's temple went pretty smooth, as Corerage IV had 127% fire resistance and 100% blunt resistance, so as long as he prioritized killing the slashers, the initial giant ambush wasn't too bad. Ronarch's horn was used extensively here, as well as haste potions. It almost very smooth, but he went to draw out the enemies near Nylee's heart, he got hurt badly and nearly died.
But he ran and did RoR heal and came back to finish them off. Nylee was easily defeated by enrage, GWWs and 100% blunt resistance to negate the shambling mounds. Yaga Shura was also pretty easily defeated with 100% blunt resistance (Ronarch's horn + hardiness)
Next up was the pocket plane #2. While Corerage IV did kill his doppleganger, the doppleganger's buddies nearly killed Corage IV. He ran as far as he could, equipped sling (so Angelo's arrows would be reflected by the reflection shield).
Then Corerage IV did RoR heal. He was out of sight of Semaj. Then Semaj helped Corerage by finger of deathing Angelo!!!
Oasis will be completely skipped since Corerage IV does NOT need the Answerer. He will get some goodies from the smugglers, then will try on Draconis. I decided I might as well do him 1st, since I would much rather die to Draconis then work hard to clear Sendai's enclave just to die to Draconis. I am very near experience cap anyways, so might as well.
I then head to the Temple, draw out the sirines one at a time, cast their spells, and then place them by Sky's spirits. Everyone else attacks from range. Four sirines later, Star and Falesia are level 2. We purchase some +1 bullets and arrows from Thunderhammer and travel to High Hedge. We kill the gnolls on the east side then draw out the flesh golems and use Sky's spirits to tank them. The spirits die pretty quick to the golems, so I end up falling back, picking up some skeletons on the way. Eventually, we're victorious.
We return to Beregost, kill Karlat, and return Perdue's short sword. This grants enough experience for Star to hit level 3 and 95 set traps (planning for the manual of dexterity) which will help with Elminster. I set the traps, and we witness the unmaking of a mage.
I grab the girdles and head north to the Friendly Arm Inn. We command Tarnesh, and he doesn't survive the round. We head north and clear the ankheg area, only getting hit once.
We sell the ankheg shells and head south, grabbing Mirianne's letter, the Worn Walkers, and the Colquetle's Family Amulet. We head west and clear the area and start setting traps for Drizzt. We get them all set, then a war dog spawns and triggers them. So we attempt to reset them. Gnolls and ogre berserkers continue to spawn. I eventually decide to give up on that, trigger the gnolls, wait until they've almost killed Drizzt, then try and swoop in for the kill. I don't get any hits, and then more gnolls show up, and then more gnolls. By the time I've run them around and can get back to Drizzt, he's already been killed. I take his gear and head back to Beregost, too exhausted to even take a screen shot.
On the plus side, no one has died yet. A personal best! I'll probably go and get Evantar's Gift from Dushai next and start gaining reputation. I may do the basilisks as well, but as these are my first runs with a mage and access to repeatable protection from petrifications, I'm thinking about doing the basilisk loop. @Grond0 and @semiticgod aren't that far ahead of me, so I haven't resorted to that yet, but it's calling out with its temptations.
Star, swashbuckler L5, 38HPs, 52 kills
Falesia, PoL, L4, 23HPs, 25 kills, 0 deaths
Cuwaert, barbarian L4, 38HPs, 35 kills, 0 deaths
Waiver, avenger, L4, 23HPs, 20 kills, 0 deaths
Frisky Bits, C/I, L3/3, 21HPs, 11 kills, 0 deaths
Sky, shaman, L4, 24HPs, 14 kills, 0 deaths
Corerage IV the solo dwarven berserker - FINAL Update!
So Corerage IV goes to battle Draconis. Defeating his mage form went well. But the mage was hasted and chasing Corerage IV so Corerage IV had enough and burnt down the mage - however, when Draconis changed to Dragon, Corerage IV found himself inside Draconis and could not move - needless to say the dragon chewed through Corerage IV's HP quickly - RIP Corerage IV.
@Corey_Russell: Bug-induced deaths are okay for reloads, if you want to keep going. That's a pretty blatant and recent example of a bug.
While it is a bug, it's also system wide. That is, I experienced this bug (of unable to move) throughout the entire run, both this run and others I have ran. I look it more like a feature, albeit poorly thought out one. Because I can't avoid it myself - Draconis was hasted and I couldn't get away from him. Since I will just run into the bug again on a reload, won't bother. Will try a party instead.
The session started with an invasion of the Bandit Camp. That went smoothly up to confronting Taurgosz. I anticipated he would struggle against Grame's spells, but in fact he saved against 4 commands and a hold person. His decent attack and defense also allowed him to send Grame running, despite having consumed several potions, and Grame had to resort to a magic missile to finish him off.
Grame then switched to acting as target while Wedimus killed the final bandits (less dangerous than it might appear on the screenshot as they were out of arrows by this time).
Inside the tent remove fear and true sight made Venkt easy and the others didn't last long.
Seeing the bracers in Tazok's treasure chest was a reminder we hadn't been to visit Meilum yet, so remedied that.
That got Grame to level 7, providing a significant upgrade to skeletons and access to new spells. The skeletons helped deal with battle horrors and basilisks at Durlag's Tower
before Grame made use of free action in the Cloakwood to collect up some ettercaps to be introduced to Wedimus.
The cavalier invaded Centeol's nest to get a nice sword and, unusually for us, also suggested beating up the wyverns in their cave (the cavalier immunity to poison might have something to do with that).
At the mine Drasus & co were silenced and beaten up.
We didn't bother resting before continuing on through the mine. Skeletons helped out against the battle horrors and one of those got the killing blow against Davaeorn.
There were still 2 skeletons left when the mustard jelly wobbled its last and we tried to rest, but the guards were determined not to allow that. We were equally determined though that this looked like the perfect place to rest (in order to get DUHM to break open a treasure chest) and did eventually get our heads down - though by that stage there were 15 screenfuls of junk littering the floor .
In Baldur's Gate we prioritized the poison quest in order to get a second pair of boots of speed.
The final action of the session saw Wedimus equip the Helm of Balduran to help in working through Degrodel's guards (providing a final level for Grame), before the mage became yet another silent victim.
Coremage the human level 13 berserker/level 15 mage - ToB adventure continues...
Traveling with: Keldorn, Sarevok, Jaheira, Anomen, Imoen
Just a quick update. The party has defeated Gromnir and cleared out the North Forest. Unfortunately, we cleared it a bit too well - somehow the merchant die - doh! But the party must press on. We will press into Marching Mountains next session.
In the Firewine Ruins Star went invisibly through to start with, clearing all the traps. The rest then made their way through, dealing with the kobold hordes and the ghost knight on the way to find Lendarn. He was fed a succession of skeletons to try and use up his spells and hopefully create some collateral damage - and there was a bit of that. Cautious probing using invisibility and stealth drew the ogre mage out to its death. Lendarn was wandering around, but kept wandering through Writhing Fogs and they eventually brought his wandering to an end without ever having seen his enemies. I was still a bit worried about Jenkal backstabbing, but he failed his save against a command.
They cleared out Gullykin, picking up a second +1 sling in the process before moving onto Firewine. They had problems there against Icharyd, due to him abandoning attacks on skeletons to turn on any of the party members who attacked him. I could have killed his first incarnation with spirits with no problem, but I was unwilling to pay the cost of lightning protection for the second version and decided to come back later when better equipped to deal with that.
That meant Durlag's Tower was the obvious next destination and a couple of battle horrors in the way there were blinded to make them vulnerable. The third battle horror went down to lightning and other damage spells before the doom guard suffered the indignity of being doomed and beaten up by fists while being nibbled by insects inside a web.
Inside, skeletons made the ghasts easy, while PfP meant there was no need to muck about hiding from the basilisks on the roof. However, a mistake there did result in a first death for Cuwaert. On the way up to the upper roof a couple of dopplegangers attacked and I retreated to the bottom level where Cuwaert enraged while the others started shooting. It would have been easy to run the dopplegangers round as Cuwaert normally does, but I wanted to assess just how good (or bad) he was in melee and didn't run until he was in single figure HPs. I was only just getting round to going to heal him after the battle when his rage ran out. Unlike the 15 HP gain for a berserker, the loss of which will no longer kill you in the EE when rage ends, the additional HPs from constitution increase for a barbarian can kill you - and in this case did.
Riggilo was surrounded by skeletons, doomed, blinded and webbed.
Falesia used the tome there before buffed skeletons had a go at Kirinhale - successfully taking her down at the first attempt before she went ethereal. Skeletons then did most of the work against the ghost to complete the clearance of the upper tower.
Downstairs, Star disarmed traps on the first level and pulled enemies back into waiting spirits.
I had thought that process complete, but was caught out when Star went to finish looting and found a couple of wraith spiders had regenerated. She was webbed and Frisky Bits had to dash in to make her invisible to save her.
When it was time to take on the warders I produced a skeleton army with the hope they would kill one or two of them. They should have killed Fear, but he had a minHP effect and I wasted a while attacking him using weapons and magic attacks without reward. Sky recharmed Waiver to counter a dire charm and Frisky Bits took an invisibility potion after Avarice disappeared again after already backstabbing them once.
They retreated back into the Tower, but Avarice followed and got a lucky backstab to kill Star.
Sky dispelled his invisibility, but he recast that every round or so - and then Love arrived.
With the odds looking increasingly poor everyone beat a retreat.
Coming back again I set skeletons up on the entry floor and then tried to drag Avarice upstairs. He refused to play that game though and stubbornly stayed invisible even when the text reported Sky had dispelled invisibility. Changing tack I went downstairs invisibly and produced some skeletons out of sight to attack Avarice (Love having disappeared somewhere). Avarice had a strong preference for attacking party members and was not an easy victim. However, he wasn't regenerating and the damage taken eventually added up.
After resting they explored the area until they found Fear. He was pulled out on his own, but was still immune to normal damage once taken down to 1 HP. Trying out a range of attacks though found a chink in his defences as his body turned into a raging pyre.
After resting, Pride made pretty short work of skeletons, but Cuwaert managed to run him round while only being hit once. A combination of spells and a first significant use of wands helped bring him down.
That got Star to level 8, pushing her open locks skill up to 90. Checking the area failed to find Love, so I thought he must still be upstairs - and he was. On his own he was no match for skeletons, meaning the door to the next level now lies open.
Coremage the human 13 berserker > 15 mage - ToB Update 3
Traveling with: Keldorn, Sarevok, Jaheira, Anomen, Imoen
I am pleased to report Coremage and gang have successfully obtained the two hearts Nylee wanted. Protection from Fire and resist fear kept up at all times makes this much safer. The only hiccups was when Keldorn and Sarevok died to the 4 giants outside Yaga's temple. But fortunately they weren't chunked. Once inside the Temple, we did fine, although the front-liners (Sarevok, Keldorn) were gulping healing potions like they were going out of style.
Will deal with Nylee and Yaga Shura next session. The only real problem we are having is our money - we are always so short on gold, which is why Coremage doesn't even have robe of Vecna (couldn't afford it). Even so, will sell some of our gems and try to get some healing potions from Saradush, since we go through them so fast, then Nylee and Yaga Shura.
We head to Ulgoth's Beard to kill Dushai for her ring then raise reputation to 10 at the Temple (for CLW) and spend about 5k at High Hedge for spells for Frisky Bits. Afterwards, we head to Nashkel, kill the assassin, and buy potions at the carnival. Frisky Bits drinks the red potion and memorizes the spells collected so far. We swing by the Gnoll Stronghold to pick up bracers for Cuwaert to offset his 5 dexterity and the charisma manual for Star. We head to the mines.
We're ambushed and kill everyone to pick up Rancor for Cuwaert. Frisky Bits is killed by lightning... We head back to Nashkel to revive them and rest.
Back at the mines, Falesia is killed in a fight with kobolds. On the way out to revive her, AI pathfinding picks a different route while I'm not paying attention, and we trigger more kobolds, leading to Frisky Bits's death.
After we get to Nashkel to revive them, we go back to the Mines. Star sets traps, and we kill Mulahey. Because of the lightning blast from earlier, Frisky Bits equips Talos's Gift. We avoid the amazons (we'll be back soon), but Nimbul is silenced from off screen and killed.
We head to Beregost via High Hedge and meet Officer Vai at the Jovial Juggler. Cuwaert gets drunk. Elminster is trapped but survives. We could have left the map in time but was trying to get in a hit or two to finish him and Cuwaert dies. In retrospect, I should have had Frisky Bits precast blindness on Star and prepare to lay down another trap if needed. That might still not be guaranteed to kill him, but it was probably my best bet.
Tranzig was silenced and kill. On the way to Peldvale, we're ambushed by assassins. Drakar and Halacan are held on the first round, and Morvin is held a round or two later. I wasn't paying enough attention though, and Molkar manages to slay Sky. Afterwards, the assassins fell quickly.
After arriving in Peldvale, we kill Viconia and talk our way into the bandit camp. Cuwaert drinks a potion of absorbtion, and Frisky Bits casts invisibility on the whole party. Cuwaert takes the contents of the chest and drinks an invisibility potion. We sneak out (we'll be back later).
We head to the Friendly Arm Inn and lay traps for Elminster, gaining slow poison in the process. This time the traps work. I didn't think of blind with a spare trap until after this, but I lucked out.
Elminster appears again after Cloakwood, and we may be able to survive the forest, but I would rather go into it better prepared. I raise reputation to 12 through donations and will begin clearing most of the map next. I probably won't kill Elminster again, as it will be a -10 reputation, and there are far fewer reputation quests available that late in the game.
Starting SoD for the first time. I explore around a bit, experimenting with arrows of detonation. Awesome. I'm poisoned and barely get off my antidote before stealthing, cutting it very close with a mercenary group. I engage Korlasz, and after I clear most of her minions, she lands a confuse before my greenstone amulet activates, and thus ends my run.
This is likely my last solo shadowdancer attempt. I'll either attempt an easier solo class or a class that isn't on the hall of heroes using a smallish NPC party. The simultaneous run is still going strong, but it's harder to keep track of 6 characters.
Since we have access to stealth and strong ranged attacks, Chateau Irenicus is pretty simple, though we have to keep a crossbow and some bolts on hand in order to destroy the Mephit Portals from afar, since you only find a few arrows in the starting dungeon SCS. We buy containers, the Ring of Air Control, and a bunch of arrows at the Adventurer Mart, and we just barely manage to afford the Glasses of Identification from Arledrian. By the time we're out and about in Chapter 2, we're already at level 12!
Fun fact: Varscona actually has equal THAC0 to a scimitar for us even though we have no pips in longswords, simply because Espellier gets a +1 bonus to longswords and short swords as well as bows due to being an elf. If you're wondering what that weird-looking ring is, I have a mod that gives unique icons to all manner of BG2 items, so if you see something that looks like a mod item, it's actually just a vanilla item with a different icon.
The Ring of Air Control has always been an extremely important asset for solo no-reload runs. The Improved Invisibility effect only lasts 10 rounds and can easily be dispelled, but it does make for a spectacular escape option when we spot a dangerous Enchantment spell coming our way or when we realize we're taking too much damage and need to fall back.
I actually use the ring to escape the slaver stockade twice because the guards were too strong. They're actually surprisingly hard-hitting for an early-game fight.
The Ring of Air Control only works once per day, so it's important to use it only after mages have used Remove Magic or divination spells, if possible. If we used it as a pre-buff against the mages here, we could have gotten killed by a fear or paralysis spell.
That Prismatic Spray trap is actually pretty easy to avoid if you have the timing right. You just have to hug the left side of the wall after you trigger it so you can outrun the Prismatic Spray spell. I always use an Oil of Speed to make sure I can outpace it.
We buy the Blade of Roses as well as the Nymph Cloak, since I didn't realize that you stopped getting discounts past 20 CHA. The sword is still a nice weapon to use against Iron Golems, of course, and the Nymph Cloak has some situational uses.
Suna Seni falls to a Potion of Firebreath. I think this is pretty much the ideal solution for any solo run; it's very fast and very reliable.
I use the level 3 Protection from Fire spell to let us kill Rayic Gethras with the repeating Fireball trap. I probably have the resources to handle him without it, but I prefer dealing with him early because I'm afraid of accidentally running into Bodhi when I have 15,000 gold and getting locked out of the Mae'Var questline if I side with her.
We nab scrolls of Protection from Undead and Protection from Petrification to help us deal with the Umar Hills and Trademeet questlines. First up is the Umar Hills, since I want to go there before I get enough XP to trigger the lich spawns. Fearful of having the Protection from Undead scroll wear off during the Shade Lord fight if I use it early on, I try to tackle the enemies without it, and end up having to flee to the surface so the light outside can clear the field.
It happens again when I get mobbed by a Bone Golem and the other sub-lich spawns, and I actually have to use the Ring of Air Control to escape, but when I get back, I finally use the Protection from Undead scroll and hurry to chop up the Shade Lord.
I then use the Protection from Petrification scroll to keep us safe from the djinn in Trademeet. They have excellent damage output by early game standards even if their Flesh to Stone spells can't hurt you, since they have lots of Stoneskin spells and Improved Haste, but I get extremely lucky and manage to land an arrow on the exact frame that Khan Zahraa tries to cast Stoneskin!
Genies, celestials, demons, and dragons all have instantaneous casting in my install, but even a spell with a casting time of 0 has a 1-frame window during which it can be disrupted. At 30 frames per second, though, it's extremely rare to actually land that hit, and impossible to time.
Getting the Shield of Harmony means we can finally sell off Arbane's Sword and Lilarcor, since the shield already provides all the same immunities. At the Troll Mound, I use the Efreeti Bottle to loot both containers without any fighting: first, I approach under stealth, then summon the Efreeti, then have it cast Invisibility on itself, then I sneak over to the first container, loot it, have the Efreeti cast Invisibility on me, and then send the Efreeti off to lure the trolls away and let me use stealth right after I loot the second container.
I sneak past everything else, grab Belm (yay!), and use the Efreeti to blast Dalok.
Dalok always pre-buffs with Physical Mirror and the enemy summons lots of critters early on, so handling him is really dicey for an Archer. The Efreeti, however, can run around out of their range and periodically turn around to instantly cast damage spells on Dalok. I have to make sure the Efreeti is listening to my orders, though; it has a very stubborn script that makes it cast spells in its preferred order, which is much more defensive and less practical for our purposes than just spamming Fireball and stuff (it generally likes to spam Invisibility).
Back in Athkatla, I do something incredibly, incredibly stupid: I pick a fight with the Crypt King without having Peridan equipped or a Potion of Clarity already drunk. The Crypt King instantly casts Horror right after his dialog, and Espellier's mediocre saving throws mean there is a 10% chance of failure.
Fortunately, we happen to use the Efreeti Bottle at the beginning of the fight, and if the Efreeti makes its saving throw, it can keep the Crypt King distracted for maybe 10 rounds until Espellier recovers. In the end, both of us make our saves, but that was still roughly a 5% chance of death.
Incredibly foolish on my part, but we've scraped by.
We use a Potion of Explosions against Pai'Na's spiders and cut her down with the help of the Efreeti, then proceed to the Mae'Var questline. I discover a new way of winning the fight: you can charm Mae'Var before delivering your report to Renal Bloodscalp, which gives you control over Mae'Var's spells before the fight begins!
We empty his spellbook, using his last Improved Haste spell on us before we report to Renal. When we come back to fight him, he is pinned in a corner and out of spells.
I stop by the Adventurer Mart to buy Espellier the Armor of Deep Night, Vhailor's Helm, and the Shield of Balduran. Normally the Armor of Deep Night wouldn't be as useful for no-reload purposes as a nonmagical suit of studded leather combined with the Bracers of Defense AC 3, but in my install, rings/amulets/cloaks of protection can be worn with magical armor, but only provide save bonuses instead of the additional AC bonuses, per PnP rules. It's actually a nice buff for a solo character, since it lets you improve your saving throws more than you otherwise could.
Once again, I make a foolish decision that could have ended the run. While running away from a bandit ambush, I drink a Potion of Invulnerability instead of a Potion of Magic Shielding or Oil of Speed to escape an Emotion spell.
We make our saving throw, but if that mage was an Enchanter, we would have had a 10% chance of death.
Now we need to go to the De'Arnise Hold and grab the Flail of Ages. Espellier will always be strongest when using missile weapons, but for late-game tanking, we're gonna want to dual-wield the Flail of Ages with the Defender of Easthaven.
I do Durlags Tower far less often than other bits of BG1, so my memory was a bit hazy about the order I should do things on the second level. However, I seemed to make good progress and avoided being trapped by the dopplegangers closing the doors. The last of those generated by opening the teleportation device killed a couple of skeletons before falling to what I think was the first use of LMD by Sky.
The dopplegangers on the bridge can be dangerous, but I was patient there - largely using Writhing Fogs with 3 invisible blockers across the passageway.
I was running short of options from my own abilities, but succeeded with a silence against the last doppleganger and was thus able to avoid the need to rest or resort to wands.
I also decided not to confirm that the deadly corridor trap is still impossible to disarm and left that .
I did then rest before some skeletons made a limited impression against the dwarven doom guards, but some pretty well judged Fogs disposed of those with just a small amount of collateral damage.
On the next level down Star was sent invisibly to detrap the ashirikuru area. There was a glitch there though with the final trap when she only detected it as she stood on top of it - I'm pretty sure she should have had enough time to detect it previously, but there were probably line of sight oddities around the corner there.
Despite firing several times the trap did not immediately kill her, but this trap does continuing damage over time and poor Star kicked the bucket once more. I decided perhaps that was an indication I should go and do something else instead of creeping around a few feet at a time, but thought I should clear this bit of area first. The greater ghouls were no problem to sort out with invisible blockers. Sky then tried to use detect illusions on the ashirukuru in their original locations, but that didn't seem to work at all. However, Cuwaert put his immunity to backstab to good use to drag those back to their doom as well.
As a break from Durlag's I decided to get another breath of sea air after raising Star. Waiver went to talk to Shoal (managing to survive the experience thanks to changes in v2.5) and Droth was quickly eliminated.
Shoal was then killed rather than have her teleport away after completing the quest.
Frisky Bits fancied the Gift of Peace helm, but noted that would take the weight of her standard equipment above her normal carrying capacity. To get round that, she successfully made the claim it was about time to buy her a robe of the archmagi. After doing that and returning the party buffed up to sort out an ogre clan - Frisky Bits had learned quite a few more spells at Durlags, including haste, which gave a major boost.
They went straight after the sirines in the area as well - Cuwaert was charmed, after carelessly not raging, but his attack is so poor anyway that was no real threat.
Larswood and Peldvale were cleared with the help of skeletons to tank groups of Black Talons and webs to stop them running round. A farmer then got his fields fertilized with well-rotted zombies. That just left the Red Wizard of Thay area as not yet visited. A number of call lightnings there helped dispatch the big group of spiders.
A couple of webs helped an initial attack on the mages, but 2 of them survived and finished off the skeletons. However, they used up nearly all their spells in the process and were easily then disposed of.
At that point I remembered to check XP and saw that several of the party had levels available. They took those before returning to Ulcaster. After skeletons saw off Icharyd's initial incarnation, Waiver and Falesia both used 2 protection from lightning spells, while Sky added a couple of priest scrolls of that. With everyone being protected it was easy to shoot the undead creature down.
Inside the dungeon I realized I'd forgotten to memorize remove fear. However, Sky had a resist fear scroll in his case, so Frisky Bits made use of that. Fortunately the wolf tried an immediate horror howl there, rather than attempting dispel magic first, and it then just had time to start bringing out some support before falling.
Other than the TotSC content, I think the only thing not done which is available prior to the Nashkel Mine is Daer'Ragh and his phoenix guards. I can't remember how dangerous they are with SCS though, so will leave them for the moment and go to the mine next. I was originally intending to save the session there, but it was still too early for breakfast so decided to do a bit more .
At the start of the mine v2.5 has altered the spawning behavior of the kobolds slightly. They now spawn a bit to the north-west of whereever you talk to the miner (as opposed to having a fixed location). That means it's hard to get them to arrive out of sight, but it's still easy to trap them - and Star hadn't made much use of traps for a while, so jumped at the chance.
It didn't take long to clear the mine - web + Fog is particularly effective against low-level enemies.
The kobold chieftain broke free of web just long enough to poison Waiver, but the poison was immediately slowed.
Mulahey was charmed and beaten up by one of the kobolds before being finished off when he tried to run.
Back in Nashkel, Nimbul was silenced and webbed.
In Beregost, Officer Vai happily paid over the odds for the 71 bandit scalps that had been carried around for a while, while Tranzig proved unable to deal with a bunch of skeletons.
Rather than go straight to the Bandit Camp I deliberately started some long-distance travelling to tempt some SCS ambushers to have a go. The amazons were the first to try their luck and got off to a bad start when Lamalha was charmed. Things didn't get any better for them as both backstabbers missed their attacks, leaving the party undamaged.
Molkar's merry men got an even worse start. Not only was Molkar charmed, but Waiver succeeded with stunning something with a chromatic orb for the first time in the run. At least this time they managed a single hit on Cuwaert before the lightning crashed down.
Next up will be the clearance of the Bandit Camp. Doing that solo in LoB and SCS can be a real slog, but it shouldn't be much of an obstacle for this party.
Sky, shaman L8, 67 HPs, 375 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian, L7, 64 HPs, 88 kills, 1 death
Star, swashbuckler, L8, 52 HPs, 423 kills, 2 deaths
Frisky Bits, cleric/illusionist, L6/6, 38 HPs, 169 kills, 1 death
Waiver, avenger, L9, 50 HPs, 208 kills, 0 deaths
Falesia, priest of Lathander, L7, 48 HPs, 222 kills, 0 deaths
Thanks to commandeering Meilum's bracers, Sky is eating into Star's kills lead and it could be a close finish between those two.
I only linger in the De'Arnise Hold long enough to get the Flail of Ages; I don't bother much with TorGal. Our Vhailor's Helm clone can do most of the work and help tank the trolls.
Over at the Unseeing Eye area, we use our clone to distract the beholders with the Shield of Balduran, but she gets paralyzed by a Shadow Fiend and we have to bust out the Efreeti to bomb the beholders instead.
SCS beholders can't steal the SoB from a clone, so a clone with the shield is a great tool against the beholders in the final area, where there are no Shadow Fiends to paralyze her.
The Unseeing Eye isn't too much trouble. Once we nail it with the Rift Device, we can deal pretty quick damage with Acid Arrows.
We finally buy the Firetooth crossbow, get the Silver Pantaloons, and hit level 18, where we take Power Attack as our first HLA. Here we are right after we stun-lock the backstabbers in the first task for Bodhi.
The weird-looking helmet is Vhailor's Helm.
I accidentally choose the "hero's task" for Bodhi's second quest, which means I actually have to fight someone instead of opting for a nonviolent method. Fortunately, Power Attack gives me an easy way of locking down mages, and Darts +5 from the Cloak of Stars can go right through SCS mages' Mantle spells.
Even if I can't kill them right away, Power Attack lasts for 2 rounds and the stun effect is active for 2 rounds, so you can lock down a mage for up to 4 rounds, and once their weapon immunity spells are down, an Arrow of Dispelling from a clone can help speed things up.
There's a Maze trap in Aran Linvail's lair, but we have the level 2 Detect Traps spell and therefore know exactly how to walk around it.
The fight with Aran Linvail is a little more complicated than normal because the cleric manages to land a Remove Paralysis spell on Aran, curing the stun effect from Power Attack. But even when Aran casts PFMW, we can still stun him again using nonmagical arrows.
The Mace of Disruption gets us past the Vampiric Wraiths in the first level of Watcher's Keep, letting us loot the place as long as we use Detect Traps to avoid the petrification trap in the northeast library, and we head to Firkraag's lair, where we learn that Mist Horrors can cast Chaos!
Fortunately, we don't wander far before the confusion runs out, so we don't trigger the Ruhk Transmuter early and take a lot of spell damage while Espellier is disabled. I bait out the rakshasa's spells with Kitthix, who dies very quickly, and then pounce on it once its opening PFMW wears off.
In the next area, we walk around the spawn trigger for the undead area and use Power Attack and our clone to deal with Samia. Power Attack also pins down all of the Guardians in the maze, as well as the golems later on.
We finally get Smite, and immediately use it against Conster, literally knocking him into the next room.
We return to the De'Arnise Hold to deal with TorGal. Two Critical Strikes from Espellier and her clone are enough to put him down, and while we have to do a lot of micromanagement to deal with the remaining enemies, since there are so many of them, we can nail the mages with Power Attack and Arrows of Dispelling.
Now it's time to take down Kangaxx. By excellent luck, we land two fast kills with Azuredge on both the Elemental Lich and Shade Lich. I make sure to drop the Rogue Stones before entering the Elemental Lich's lair, just in case I pick the wrong one and find myself in the Twisted Rune.
The odds of killing them are actually pretty high just with Azuredge, since we can land at least two hits before their PFMW spells trigger between Espellier and her clone, as long as we use Whirlwind Attack to ensure we make our attack rolls early.
We have the resources to handle Kangaxx and his demi-lich form, but for safety's sake, I go ahead and use a Protection from Undead scroll on Kangaxx to prevent his buffs from firing, then nail him with an Arrow of Dispelling before he hits 1 HP. His demi-lich forms dies in one hit.
I finally kill Prebek and Sanasha (can you believe I waited this long to fight them?) with the help of Arrows of Dispelling from our clone, loot the Harper Hold, and have our clone kill Valygar. We now have access to the Planar Sphere! Smite can pin down any mage in this area besides Lavok, due to Lavok's innate immunities to disablers.
Lavok, however, is also perfectly doable. We can bypass his Improved Mantle with Darts +5 and cut through his Stoneskins with Whirlwind Attack for 20 effective APR between Espellier and her clone.
This won't necessarily work on Tolgerias due to his illusion spells, which I believe he casts via Chain Contingency, but Tolgerias has no immunity to the stun effects of Smite, and we can nail him to the wall before his buffs fire.
I'm not fighting as fair as I did with my Fighter/Mage/Cleric, but we don't have access to many resources as an Archer. All of the other solo no-reload successes, at least those with SCS and Ascension, had access to either mage spells or undispellable immunities to disablers (that would be the Barbarian run), and we don't even have shorty saves due to being an elf. Archers are very much glass cannons.
We kill Mekrath to steal his Rod of Resurrection (we have to use the Shield of Harmony to block a dangerous Chaos spell) and now we're ready for Spellhold. Here we are right before we leave.
We kill Perth the Adept with Smite and get lucky with the Book of Daily Spell, getting the Spell Turning page right off the bat.
Yuan-ti Mages are nasty, but by now, Power Attack makes them largely a non-issue. The lich is another story, but by using a Protection from Undead scroll on Espellier, we can slip by and kill Dace with Azuredge.
We could kill or at least disable the Fallen Planetar with a Smite spell, but I decide to just wait until it vanishes. Rather than risk losing our Protection from Undead scroll to a Remove Magic spell, I just run past the lich. The lich starts summoning demons and I hesitate a moment, wondering if I should wait until the demons are gone and then pounce, and then I see an unusual vanilla behavior: the summoned demons actually attack the lich! Out of curiosity, I wait longer, and the lich doesn't even fight back, losing its life to a Glabrezu.
The black portrait bug kills Espellier from out of nowhere, which costs us a bit of progress. Irenicus pre-buffs with Improved Mantle, but we can get past his defenses by summoning a clone on the first round, having our clone use Whirlwind Attack, and then flinging a bunch of Darts +5 his way. Irenicus spends his first round summoning clones of the party, so we get a lot more time to break down his defenses than we would against a normal mage.
By now, our saving throws are good enough that we don't have to worry about losing the run to a Sahuagin's paralyzing bolt, but I still equip the Shield of Reflection anyway just in case. We stun the priest with the Cloak of Mirroring, side with Villynaty, and smash Ixilthetocal, whose immense damage output is little concern to us--now that we have Hardiness, we can hit 80% damage resistance with the Defender of Easthaven and Armor of Faith!
I don't want to turn the city hostile before I leave, but I do want to take the Wave Blade from Villynaty's corpse, so I use the Nymph Cloak to charm him (which takes many tries) and send him off to die against a Bone Golem.
In the Underdark, we use HLAs and two rest periods to deal with the drow party, drink a potion to shrug off a mind flayer's Psionic Blast, and proceed to the Demon Knights. Since I no longer have ATweaks installed, these guys are no longer Death Knights and therefore a Protection from Undead scroll and the Mace of Disruption are useless against them. They nail Espellier with PW: Blind, but we run away until it wears off and then crush them.
I planned on killing the Balor in the svirfneblin settlement with Called Shot STR drain, but the damage along brought it down.
The Kuo-toan Prince has sky-high regeneration, but with two clones, we can stun-lock him, and his low base HP makes him very susceptible to burst damage.
Power Attack also gets us past N'ashtar and the mind flayer ambush, while Critical Strike ensures we take down the Egg Guards without worrying about critical misses.
Stealth gets us past all other obstacles in the Ust Natha questline, including Taso Kala. I let Adalon kill the drow guarding the Underdark exit and hurry back to Athkatla. But then we run into a very dangerous foe.
Remember how we murdered Drizzt back in Baldur's Gate so we could steal his scimitars and sell off his chain mail?
Well, Drizzt doesn't, and I see no reason to remind him. I lie to his face.
In a previous run, my unkitted fighter run, he actually remembered me, and I think it's because I had his scimitars in my inventory when I imported my save game from SoD. That didn't hold for this run, however, which means we can avoid a fight and even solicit his help against Bodhi without apologizing for kiting him to death while Teyngan ran circles around him.
At the Bandit Camp some skeletons were summoned before activating the enemies. As they poured forwards many of them were caught in a web and they didn't last long with Frisky Bits using a couple of fireballs, Falesia holy smites and Sky spirit fires. None of the party took any damage in return.
After cleaning up the odd straggler and looting the place the party moved on to the Cloakwood. Falesia is now dressed in full plate, though the ankheg plate has been retained just in case Frisky Bits wants to use it at some point.
I missed a trick when going back to Beregost to hand over more scalps and bumping into Elminster before I could stop - missing a potential opportunity to get another 26k XP there.
A bunch of skeletons helped clear the first Cloakwood area and deal with Seniyad.
Frisky Bits got her 7th cleric level there, meaning her skeletons now get +1 weapons like Falesia's.
In the second area a couple of phase spiders teleported in as a greeting party, but found a shocking reception.
Working through the area I tried jumping in and out of the nest, but pathfinding problems made that a slow business and more enemies than I planned followed - though still not enough to be a real danger.
It was more of the same in the third area with skeletons smashing through the opposition. Amarande failed to get her first spell off and was then silenced - though she would have been dead before being able to cast again anyway.
In the fourth area the hamadryad was killed - and the game froze. Loading the autosave the same thing happened again. For the third attempt I changed the order I was doing things slightly and didn't summon any skeletons - and this time she died without protest. Rather than take the time to establish an invisible attack in the wyvern cave, I just dragged the enemies out into a skeleton and web ambush.
At the mine the exterior was cleared before Drasus & co were silenced ready for disposal.
With inventories full up the party returned to Beregost to sell some loot. They attempted to hand a wyvern head over to Kelddath at the temple, but he greedily took the whole stack - greed though is not always a good idea.
Going through the mine, Hareishan and most of his guards died in Fog.
On the next level down Natasha put up a good show against 5 skeletons - killing 3 of them before running out of spells.
I tried to rest before going down to Davaeorn's level, but was ambushed. That resulted in bringing out a nymph for the first time.
A further attempt also failed and resulted in the party getting low on spells and a bit down on HPs, so they retreated up to the top level to rest where only one guard spawns at a time.
For Davaeorn they charmed the guard, then used him to pull back the battle horrors, then sent him to hack down Davaeorn.
After looting the area they flooded the mine. I intended to dodge the slave outside - to keep the reputation gain for later - but wasn't quite careful enough with the pathfinding.
Before going to the City I paid a visit to High Hedge to double-check if there was anything worth buying there - and then to kill Thalantyr.
Here we are after Spellhold. We've got basically all the gear we might need for the rest of SoA.
But we still want the Wand of Wonder for ToB dragons, and that means visiting the Alhoon's lair. Fortunately, by now I've bought dozens of Potions of Genius and Potions of Mind Focusing, so we can crank Espellier's INT up to almost 100, giving us a near-guaranteed defense against mind flayer attacks.
Plus, we can hide from the Alhoon entirely using a Protection from Undead scroll. Boosted by an Oil of Speed, we rush into the Alhoon's lair and go straight for the container with the Hammer of Thunderbolts and Wand of Wonder.
Then, as the enemies close in and I prepare to fight my way out and flee the battle, the unthinkable happens.
The Alhoon has sensed our presence thanks to the senses of its peers, and knowing that a Protection from Undead scroll is hiding its target, it has fired a Remove Magic spell at its own Magical Sword, ensuring that all of my defenses are instantly wiped out.
Now we are boxed in, unbuffed, have no invisibility against the Alhoon, and all of our Potions of Genius are completely gone. It will take at least a couple rounds to fight our way out of this, and if the enemy lands just three hits, Espellier will die and the run will be over.
I consider my options. Espellier's aura is clear, as I always wait a few seconds after activating pre-buffs before I enter a fight. However, I can only use one item or spell in this round, and I need to do multiple things to escape.
The most obvious solution is to use a new Protection from Undead scroll to keep the Alhoon at bay. This is a simple issue: the Alhoon has spectacular THAC0 and can easily land hits and kill us with INT drain within a single round if it engages us. Its THAC0 is 4, and the best AC we can get against crushing weapons with equipment along is -10, or -15 if we absolutely cripple our APR by equipping a shield (remember that as an Archer, Espellier only has 2 base APR with a normal weapon). A Protection from Undead scroll will keep that Alhoon off our backs.
Problem is, that does nothing to hold off the other mind flayers, and while they need to roll critical hits to drain Espellier's INT, they have 4 APR and only need to land three hits. We can probably survive long enough to kill a mind flayer and escape the box, but the odds are still incredibly high, maybe the double digits.
The second solution is to drink a Potion of Absorption. This will force everyone, including the Alhoon, to roll a 20 to hit me, even if I don't equip all the best gear. But this won't stop the Alhoon from casting other nasty spells, and it still allows the Alhoon to attempt a few attack rolls, and critical hits are always a possibility.
The third option is to drink a Potion of Magic Shielding, in case a Psionic maze or an Ulitharid's Psionic Blast comes out, both of which would have a 5% chance of working under normal circumstances and would mean guaranteed death.
Fourth, I can drink a Potion of Genius and hope I can break through the wall before the Alhoon walks over to me. That'll force the mind flayers to roll 4 critical hits instead of 3... but that's a pretty mediocre improvement, and if I roll critical misses, I could be stuck in the box for several life-threatening seconds.
Fifth, I can use Greater Whirlwind Attack to cut through the wall as quickly as possible. But that does nothing to help my defenses, and if I can't escape soon, the Alhoon will close in on me.
The root problem is that we have no guaranteed means of avoiding a stat drain kill if the enemy makes some good attack rolls, and if I miss any of my own, I risk giving the enemies precious seconds to kill me.
Look at how thick this wall is. Even if I kill the first mind flayer, I might not be able to slip past the one behind it, and I've got another mind flayer and umber hulk making their way to the east. They'll reach me within a few seconds.
Finally, I see the solution. But even then, it's a big gamble, because if I don't use a Protection from Undead scroll, the Alhoon might cast Time Stop, and that would be game over unless I got boxed in in just the right way.
I need to use Smite.
Smite won't do anything to the Alhoon; it has Absolute Immunity active. But it does mean I'll have guaranteed hits on other targets--no worrying about rolling critical misses--and the knockback will clear the way much faster than simply killing the target.
I use Smite and target the nearest mind flayer, sending it hurtling to the south. I pause repeatedly, making sure we don't spend any extra frames getting stuck behind one of the enemies, and then run into an umber hulk, forcing us to hold still long enough to knock it back. The way is clear!
We make it out of the room, and there is no Time Stop or teleporting Alhoon to chase after us. We flee the sewers and the Temple District. We have the Wand of Wonder, but the risk was absolutely horrific. I really should not have rushed in like that. I should have waited for the enemies to come to me, or used a preemptive Smite to knock them back, to make sure I didn't get boxed in when I went to loot the container with the wand and hammer.
Regardless, we are now out. There's only one more component to forge Crom Faeyr: the scroll itself, in the hands of Thaxll'ssillyia. We drink Potions of Invulnerability to make sure the dragon can't blind us for more than a round with its breath weapon, then summon a clone, use Called Shot, and fire at the dragon point-blank. The dragon dies of STR drain just as it blinds us.
We've saved up some Protection from Undead scrolls and Bodhi's lair is a cakewalk. Through excellent luck, we land a kill on Tanova immediately with Azuredge, and when Espellier levels up and gains Grandmastery in crossbows, we switch to the Firetooth crossbow and shoot down Bodhi in seconds.
To Suldannessellar! We manage to rest safely in the nearest building, just north of the city entrance, once you clear out the golems. That might be a good way to rest in Suldannessellar, which otherwise has a high chance of some very nasty rest ambushes.
Before I face Nizidramanii'yt, I want to go get the Helm of the Rock from Watcher's Keep. That requires dealing with a bunch of high-powered statues, including two epic-level mage statues. I flee to the southernmost room to wait out their buffs and their demons under invisibility.
Then we go back and kill the statues with Power Attack.
As long as we equip the Cloak of Reflection for the air chamber and frequently rest outside to get back our clones and HLAs, the second level of Watcher's Keep isn't much trouble. I don't mess with the Chromatic Demon; he can rot there for all I care.
Unfortunately, the Helm of the Rock is for fighters only--rangers and paladins can't use it. That means the best undispellable acid resistance we can achieve against Nizidramanii'yt is 50%, with the Shadow Dragon scale.
I head back to Nizidramanii'yt. We use Called Shot before engaging him to make sure we're already draining 2 STR per hit, and the dragon falls in seconds.
He didn't even get to make an attack roll.
We head back to the Underdark to grab the Greenstone Amulet. Invisibility won't protect us from the Hive Mother, but a simple haste effect lets us run all the way to the amulet without letting the Hive Mother actually do anything to us; we're only in its field of vision for a couple seconds.
I stop by the Temple District to see if there's anything left to buy, but when the mind flayers from the Alhoon lair show up aboveground, I spend only a few moments fighting before I decide to run for it.
Despite our fears of the Alhoon, I decide to go to the mind flayer city in the Underdark, knowing that there are no scary mind flayer liches to hit us with Remove Magic. Drinking dozens of Potions of Genius protects us from INT drain and Potions of Invulnerability ensure successful saves against Psionic Blast and Psionic Maze. SCS mind flayers can pummel us with Ballistic Attack, however.
If you're wondering why I'm boxed in here, that's actually intentional: I can avoid using a Control Circlet or Slayer Change just by luring a mind flayer up to the two force-locked doors.
Then, to my surprise, I discover that there is a Dispel Magic effect in this dungeon: the Master Brain uses a Psionic Disjunction spell, a variant of the guaranteed dispel effect from Mordenkainen's Disjunction, a Fallen Solar spell that gave me grief in previous runs in Ascension.
But my buffs remain intact when it hits, so we don't need to drink any potions before rushing back in to splash around in the brain.
The Master Brain is coded as a mage, but its levels are 20/9/5, and apparently it doesn't use the 20 for the purposes of its mage spells. If the Psionic Disjunction casts at the average of the Master Brain's levels, that could explain the failure to dispel our potion buffs.
There's only three things left to do before facing Irenicus at the Tree of Life: buy a bunch of potions from Adratha, kill Adratha for the Periapt of Proof Against Poison, and then kill Firkraag with Called Shot even though the loot and XP are all but meaningless to us, simply because Firkraag is an easy kill at this point.
Irenicus casts Improved Mantle. We use Greater Whirlwind Attack with the Sling of Everard. He has 10 Stoneskins, but we have 20 APR.
Wraith Sarevok is helpless. Our Armor of Faith now casts at level 20, which means our maximum physical damage resistance is 85%.
We're ready. Here's Espellier at the end of SoA.
Notice that we have just now broken past the XP cap. We don't need the extra HLAs or HP (honestly, we hit our peak at level 28) and we don't actually get any Archer bonuses aside from extraneous castings of Called Shot, but I don't like being confronted with a level or XP cap and knowing that my character is never going to improve.
I lose all my buffs to a Remove Magic spell, of course, and as it happens, we drink a Potion of Invisibility immediately before Irenicus casts Time Stop--just like in my ill-fated unkitted fighter run!
The demons aren't so easily fooled by invisibility and make a beeline for Espellier and her clone. We briefly kite them before Irenicus begins casting Time Stop again, but our clone keeps the demons occupied, allowing Espellier to escape their field of vision and use stealth to wait out the Time Stop.
Irenicus teleports over to our clone, still in the south, and the real Espellier takes down two of the demons with the Quiver of Plenty +2 (upgraded by Cromwell thanks to a mod) and the Defender of Easthaven. Meanwhile, we refresh our Armor of Faith and Hardiness spells.
The remaining two demons come after us, unaccompanied by Irenicus, and fall to Strong Arm and the Firetooth crossbow. Irenicus still has PFMW spells left, but we can run away until they wear off and then nail him with Firetooth. He's immune to +1 weapons and therefore Arrows of Dispelling are useless, but interestingly enough, he has no immunity to fire damage.
With his spells useless and our damage resistances at 85% at highest, Irenicus can no longer threaten us. We crush him with the Defender of Easthaven and Crom Faeyr.
Shadows of Amn is over! Normally, SoA is a gimme in my runs, but we actually had some hideously close calls in this one. I'm proud of using Smite to escape the Alhoon's lair, but it's still embarrassing that I let myself tackle the Crypt King without having immunity to fear active.
Now things are gonna get tough for a while. We need to kill Illasera (easy), Gromnir (hard), Yaga-Shura (easy), and six dragons (really hard) before we can get the Scorcher Ammunition and trample the remainder of the saga... as long as I'm extra careful about Abazigal's Maze spell.
I've never posted a non-Baldur's Gate run in this thread before, but I'm going to make one exception. My two favorite cRPGs other than then Baldur's Gate series (which is the clear Nr. 1) are Pillars of Eternity and Dragon Age: Origins. Having recently done (and completed) a few Pillars of Eternity no-reload runs, for a while now, I've also thought about giving DA:O a go. In fact, this is my second attempt - more on that later.
I'm starting this run with a lot of experience playing this game already, having completed about 10 full playthroughs on various difficulty levels with all of the various origins, classes and specializations. Considering that I'm playing the ultimate edition on GoG, playing on nightmare difficulty is the clear choice, considering all the free goodies you start with in this version of the game would make the game far too easy for my taste otherwise. Considering the sheer power and flexibility of the class, going for a mage is an unsurprising move. Most people woud propably agree that 1 warrior, 1 rogue and 2 mages is the most useful party composition to go with, and with there only being 2 NPC mages (one of them with a rather weak specialization and the other one locking you into a potentially difficult and very long quest), playing your own is very sensible. Obviously, this means I'm picking the mage origin.
Regarding stats, skills and spell choices for my first few levels, here are my general thoughts: The most important thing for no-reload play in my mind is access to the most powerful defensive spells in the game. Heal is an obvious one, regeneration another good addition, and force field is propably the best emergency button available - so we're going to need that one. I never use offensive forcefields, they are reserved to save a party member in truly dangerous situations. As for offense, I want to eventually have access to the Cone of Cold + Stonefist combo (the resulting shatter effect will instantly kill any enemies of normal rank) - it helps that winter's grasp (as another good single target option) and rock armor are both very helpful as well (in fact, rock armor is crucial for my mid-game strategy).
Some further considerations: I want to use the staff "Final Reason", because it's available early on and the best staff in origins which actually deals physical damage. Various foes are immune to elemental damage types, which would force me to swap out my weapon otherwise. Final reason hits everything, and to make use of its fire damage bonus, we're also going to go into the fire tree (until we hit fireball, a great opener - but flaming weapons will be very effective as well to support our party).
As for stats, this one's easy: 5 points in cunning to get to 16 (yes, I could skip these and take the fade essences, but I don't plan to rush to the tower and want to max out coercion early on), everything else will go into magic. For skills, we need coercion, combat training and survival (crafting skills can be done by inactive characters - at least combat training and survival offer some stat benefits).
Aside from our build (I will expand on that once we get access to more levels), our ai scripts are also quite important: Micromaniging every second of combat in DA:O would be quite annoying and tedious compared to BG, but the game has a truly excellent and easy to use menu in order to set your own ai behaviour. This, in my opinion, is the key to success in many ways: The "official" scripts are all terrible - they will tend to spam your most powerful and costly abilities at everything in sight. I want to do the opposite: My scripts only consist of very few things, most notably every character auto-attacking the target of the main tank, with only one or two active abilities added into the rotation (for example, the efficient and cheap arcane bolt) plus healing for the mages in case I don't pay attention (regeneration on 75%, heal on 50%). The tank can also get a taunt script in case vulnerable party members get attacked. Everything else will be sustained abilities (I use a lot of these).
The reason for this is simple: I want to have my endurance and mana plus my cooldowns at the ready in case I actually need them. Mostly, I'm using my mage cc and defensive spells manually. Non-mage party members really don't need to do much except for attacking (in fact, a lot of rogue abilities will be less effective than auto-attacks if you build your rogue the right way).
Now, with the basics out of the way, lets get started with the mage origin: Valeria starts with her harrowing, simply using arcane bolt and winter's grap plus a few heal spells to easily clear the area and take down the demon:
I really don't like Jowan, so I tell Irving about his plans, take down some spiders (I don't know if these have the deadly overwhelm ability available to spiders later in the game, so I make sure to not let them get into melee range if at all avoidable) and make my way to the phylactery chamber:
Valeria gets recruited by Duncan, and we walk around Ostagar for a while, eventually picking up Daveth, Jory and Alistair. Alistar is our first permanent companion, and I'm going to use him throughout the game. My build for him is simple: 42 Strength so he can use level 7 massive armor, cunning 16 for survival rank 4 and everything else into dexterity to max out defense. I don't like constitution-based tanking too much, though it's perfectly viable - I've just been getting better results with defense compared to health.
A quick explanation of mechanics at this point: Defense prevents your character from getting hit, armor is a direct reduction of incoming damage. I prefer both of these stats above actually increasing your health pool - especially armor. In fact, Valeria herself is going to get a ridiculous amount of armor soon. However, for now we have to find some darkspawn blood vials and grey warden documents, which isn't as easy as it sounds. While hurlock archers are annoying, but not too bad with shield defense and heal, and genlock rogues can be stunned out of stealth with mind blast, the very first truly dangerous encounter awaits: The hurlock emissary in front of the bridge.
I know this fight quite well. It's a serious challenge. If we approach this foe as a group, he will throw a fireball at us, potentially killing our entire party and certainly taking everyone to near death plus knocking them down. We can't just run at him. If you do damage to him, he retreats back into an area filled with traps and additional darkspawn. There are also invisible genlock rogues around there. My solution is to have Daveth approach him by himself and shoot him once with his bow:
The emissary doesn't want to waste his fireball on one party member for now, and shooting him triggers his retreat. We can clear out a first group of genlock rogues for now. Daveth, once again by himself, approaches the bridge to do a very dangerous job: He has to lure the emissary back to our party or force him to waste his fireball (though the cooldown isn't long, it is, nevertheless, an opening). The deadly spell is unleashed on poor Daveth, but Valeria is prepared with her own heal spell to counter the damage:
Daveth ends up surviving, and Valeria starts dishing out damage while the others rush at our foe:
Buffed with flaming weapons, a quick victory in melee combat is ensured:
The remainder of the area is easy in comparison. We gather all the experience we can, because we need forcefield before facing the ogre in the Tower of Ishal. The tower itself has a few encounters of note. Right away, the second emissary of the game has to be fought, and he, too, likes to use fireball (igniting some burning oil on the ground) - but since I know this, I can get him to use his fireball on the oil right away before running back and waiting until the oil doesn't burn anymore. He is rushed in melee combat and knocked down by shield bash shortly after that:
By now, we have not only forcefield, but also fireball. With this spell as our opener, the large groups of darkspawn in the tower don't stand a chance against Valeria. The only enemy we have to be really careful with is the ogre at the top of the tower - it can grab and punch a party member, pretty much dooming them - unless we use forcefield, which is exactly what we do once one of the tower guards gets grabbed:
With Valeria saving her mana for heals, the encounter is easily finished:
So now, we are on the road to Lothering. I will end this post with a short debate about our next stop - the mage tower is the obvious choice for the stat boosts, picking up Wynne (the best NPC mage) and some great equipment, but... we won't go there right away, for a simple reason: That's what I did when I tried to no-reload this game for the first time a few months ago, and this is where I died. The lengthy fade section in the tower forces you to play solo for a few hours, and one of the areas there, "Mage Asunder", involves fighting your way through multiple groups of hostile mages by yourself. These mages can use all kinds of crowd control and nukes, including fireballs - and while they're easily killed (one of your own fireballs is usually enough), they will often get off at least one spell before you can take them down. If you get hit by a fireball while without a party (which results not only in a lot of damage, but also in getting knocked down), you WILL die. This is what ended my previous run, and we can't let this happen again.
This is why I've decided to try some new and obscure spells - spell shield and anti-magic ward, which I've never used before (killing mages instantly with mana clash has always been enough for me when it comes to specifically countering spellcasters, but there's a cast animation to this spell, allowing an enemy to throw one spell back at you, which could be fatal. Also, there's of course a resist chance, which is significantly higher on nightmare difficulty). To get the experience for these spells (and also the shatter combo, which I definitely want to have for the fade solo play), I'm propably going to try my hand at some early DLC content, which is new for me. I used to only own the Stone Prisoner, and after buying the ultimate edition, I only ever completed the other DLC options during the endgame.
One final note: Aside from luring foes and triggering scripts, you might have noticed that my fighters and rogues are always equipped with melee weapons, even if they're trained in archery. Why is that? Well, in my opinion, the DA:O ai is terrible with ranged party members, as they often get forced into melee combat and change their weapons, always staying in melee combat after that. Also, the damage output of ranged rogues is not that great until much later (in Awakening, they are ridiculously strong, though the ai is still not good at using them). Also, flaming weapons, which is a significant damage increase, only applies to melee weapons. I also like to have my rogues close to the enemy so they can throw grenades and apply poison effects. So... once I get Leliana, I will have her dual wield despite her not having any points in dual wield abilities.
Shall I go ahead and add another Hall for non-BG runs to @Ygramul's starting posts? I can call it the Hall of Heroes for Non-BG Runs until we have a better name. I have some IWD and IWD2 runs to post there, plus the DWM run, but I don't remember if anyone else has any non-BG runs to add at the moment.
@semiticgod I'm a bit conflicted about this. Adding a Hall for IWD1 seems reasonable, as multiple people have been posting runs of it over the last few months, so we can certainly consider it to be an active category of no-reload runs (plus, there's an EE version and a forum for the game right here as well). On the other hand, some other games have only been attempted by one person, so it could feel a bit like putting personal pet projects rather than shared community experiences into the hall. While sharing runs of other games is entirely reasonable and a welcome addition for those interested in these games, I do think that the focus of the thread should remain on BG or at least the infinity engine games.
That being said, thinking about it, I do realize that this sounds somewhat closed-minded and elitist, and adding a hall for other games really doesn't hurt anyone, instead giving more people an opportunity to celebrate their successes here, so there's really no good reason for me to object Feel free to add a non-BG hall!
You know, since there's generally a time lag in between my posts and I'm less likely to post a run that ends before I start posting on it, I think I'll dedicate a post to my ill-fated solo fighter run.
Snowy Tae was our Charname, a wielder of scimitars and longbows just like Espellier was in BG1.
The early game was pretty typical, starting with the unprovoked murder of Algernon, which allowed us to feed Silke to the Beregost spiders and lure Dushai to a quiet spot where we killed her for her ring. Korax ate everything in Mutamin's Garden, giving us the levels we needed to fight our way past the Battle Horrors outside Durlag's Castle, tank the stun trap, and then chop up the basilisks on the roof so we could grab the Scimitar +2, which we used to kill Meilum. After feeding a charmed Mulahey to some kobolds, we used a Potion of Clarity to handle the sirines by the coast, one of the few times I've ever actually bothered fighting them.
Since we had no access to stealth, we had to burn limited resources to burgle the bandit camp without being seen. In a major turn in the run, we accidentally picked the wrong dialog option talking to a druid in the Cloakwood, and discovered that he was actually considered an Innocent by the game. We lost half our reputation in one fell swoop.
Precious charges of the Ring of Invisibility and Potions of Invisibility let us loot the Ulcaster ruins, but we didn't have enough to safely charm everyone in Drasus' party without dealing with nasty rest spawns in between charm attempts, and we ended up having to buy the Greenstone Amulet and hike all the way back through the Cloakwood just to deal with Kysus without worrying about a fatal disabler.
Then I discovered that I could lure Drasus over to the west and repeatedly leave the area and come back until I successfully charmed him, which allowed me to feed him to Rezdan.
After getting tired of kiting Drizzt, we went back to the bandit camp and used Algernon's Cloak to screw with the bandits.
When I came back for a re-match with Drizzt, I learned I could use Teyngan as a decoy so I could fire away at Drizzt without kiting. I would later use this strategy in Espellier's run.
Burning charges from the Greenstone Amulet let me deal with Bassilus and the mages of the Cloakwood mines, though a charmed guard did all the work fighting Davaeorn. In fact, the Greenstone Amulet neutralized almost every mage in BG1, with a little extra help from Arrows of Dispelling here and there. The amulet is incredibly strong; no lone mage can dispel it and follow up with a disabler in the same round.
Standard solo strategies get us past the rest of BG1, and we discover in SoD that a charmed Brother Deepvein will trigger his own Glyph of Warding spell and go hostile.
With plenty of buffing from potions and items and Arrows of Dispelling for enemy mages, SoD is actually pretty doable for a solo fighter. I found this surprising because Minsc died frequently in my first run of SoD.
Given enough buffs, you can hit sufficient AC than you can tank a lot of otherwise very tough enemies. For everything else, there's Potions of Firebreath, Arrows of Dispelling, and Arrows of Detonation.
Six Greater Restoration scrolls kept Caelar alive throughout the fight with Belhifet, where normally she would die horribly in moments.
Much of BG2 is very similar to Espellier's run, even down to the smallest encounters.
Everything was going fine, and then ATweaks mephits nearly killed us. The Steam Mephits have a chance of stunning the target with no save every single hit, and for a moment, I thought we were doomed to get stun-locked to death while the mephits dealt scratch damage.
But then, the mephits failed to stun her enough times in a row that Snowy Tae finally recovered. I was pausing and un-pausing as fast as I could, which meant that we could drink a Potion of Invisibility the instant she recovered, ensuring that she didn't get stunned again.
A dwarven fighter can get the saving throws and stats to trample almost anything without too much trouble; it's a very low-maintenance build for solo purposes. Mummy rot could have killed us when we were fighting ATweaks undead in Firkraag's dungeon, but I've suffered to that effect before, so I already have Elixirs of Health to cure it. Otherwise, we can stomp all sorts of things. We can even kill the Unseeing Eye when we roll a 1.
Idiocy undermines me sometimes, though, like when I forget to get the Ring of Free Action from Spellhold even though I remembered to fight all the critters before it.
Going through the screenshots, it's weird how similar they were. I even use the Nymph Cloak to charm Villynaty and feed him to the remaining enemies, though I used the sea zombies instead of the Bone Golem. One difference is the Drizzt dialog, as I mentioned before.
Otherwise, yeah... the two runs are mirror images of each other, down to getting instant kills on Tanova, the Shade Lich, the Elemental Lich, and Kangaxx's demilich form in the first round.
By the way, the Alhoon's lair? In this run, I fought the non-undead mind flayers before venturing far into the room, and we had no trouble at all, unlike in Espellier's run.
The dragon fights are different, too. We couldn't use STR drain without Called Shot. But this is a fighter with Grandmastery in flails, so we can tank all sorts of crazy monsters.
I failed to summon a clone before dealing with Irenicus at the Tree of Life, so we couldn't land an early kill using Greater Whirlwind Attack and the Sling of Everard, but we still managed to wait out his defenses and summoned demons by running around for a billion years.
And here's Snowy Tae running away from a massive horde of demons before eventually getting surrounded.
Shall I go ahead and add another Hall for non-BG runs to @Ygramul's starting posts? I can call it the Hall of Heroes for Non-BG Runs until we have a better name. I have some IWD and IWD2 runs to post there, plus the DWM run, but I don't remember if anyone else has any non-BG runs to add at the moment.
Definitely a nice idea. You could even split it: Non-BG IE Games, and Non-IE Games.
I should start posting my IWD HoF NR run, though it's slow-going, and time for playing is limited, let alone writing up.
Before we can get to Lothering, we have to rescue our Mabari war dog from a horde of darkspawn. This isn't trivial: The dog starts out basically surrounded and uncontrollable, and if it dies during the battle, you won't get it as a party member. An easy solution: Protect it with forcefield and blast the horde with a fireball:
Morrigan joins us for now (and we will keep her around until we get Wynne). Her initial build is pretty bad and without relevant defensive options - to turn her into a truly flexible mage, we will add heal and forcefield to her arsenal. She'll also be our herbalism specialist. Meanwhile, Alistair now has access to taunt, threaten and bravery (my first priorities) and will try to get shield wall, the weapon + shield passives plus any templar skills (holy smite offers a great AoE knockdown option).
We don't do much in Lothering for now - just picking up Leliana and making our way to camp. However, we get ambushed by a huge group of hostile refugees who manage to surround and knock out morrigan - who isn't able to successfully activate her mind blast in time:
Luckily, a significant number of enemies dies to Valerias fireball, and she succeeds with her own mindblast (which isn't only an AoE stun, but also an aggro reset). We make our way to camp, do some trading and return to Lothering to complete the remaining sidequests, which isn't much of a problem. Now, Valeria has hit level 7 by now, which means that she gets to pick her first specialization. While I normally like spirit healer + blood mage, for no-reload purposes, we want to go arcane warrior first - which allows us to use our magic stat to substitute strength requirements for armor. At camp, we buy the cheap blood dragon armor set. With this and rock armor at the ready, Valeria is a defensive powerhouse for now - until much later in the game, most normal-rank enemies will only deal 1 damage to her with their auto-attacks.
Now, we need experience and equipment in order to prepare for the circle tower. The Stone Prisoner is our first option, as I know this DLC quite well. The darkspawn in the village are easily dealt with, and the emissary downstairs is distracted by the villagers, allowing us to rush him down before he can do anything too dangerous. The only significant battle is against the desire demon Kitty - we get hit by a rather unfortunate cone of cold, affecting the entire party except for Leliana - and with Alistair at low hp, things don't look great. Leliana, though, is able to use an acid bomb to instantly take out three rage demons, reducing any damage Alistair woud take:
Valeria barely gets out of the freeze effect in time to forcefield and heal Alistair - that was close. This also pretty much spells victory for us:
Maybe I should mention my planned Leliana build at this point: She will get 34 dexterity for evasion, 20 strength to use rank 7 leather armor and everything else will be invested into cunning to boost her bard abilities and lethality. She will only use daggers and mostly take passives from the generalist rogue tree, plus lockpicking and, if we get there, dual-wield passives plus momentum as a sustained ability. Also, song of courage and later on, assassin specialization. Her skills will be stealing, combat training and survival (Zevran will handle poison-making).
Also, regarding Leliana, while traveling, her personal quest triggers - this ambush isn't entirely harmless, as there are traps, archers and a hostile spellcaster (a witch) involved. While the witch isn't actually in line of sight at the beginning, we can use winter's grasp (which kind of ignores LoS) from both Valeria and Morrigan two times to remove most of the danger:
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As you can see, Valeria has access to the shatter combo by now. We follow up on Leliana's quest by travelling to Denerim, first dueling Ser Landry and then fighting Majorlaine. Not an easy fight because of enemy mages and her being boss rank - so we quickly retreat to the first room in the building and carefully lure enemies to us (having taken out travelers with fireball and coc spells earlier on):
Majorlaine is now isolated - she can still do a lot of damage with her daggers, but she spends most of her time sustaining the now-useless captivating song:
We're done in Denerim for now, so we return to Ostagar for another piece of DLC. This one I have less experience with. Running into a hurlock emissary I didn't know about shows us how deadly these foes can be: The party gets hit by a fireball, and we are extremely lucky that Valeria is able to resist (though she has the spellward at this point, giving her a 30% chance to do so):
Everyone else is knocked down and taking fire damage from the DoT effect, and Valeria is unable to save Morrigan. Leliana is healed up, though, and Alistair drinks a healing potion. However, having just recovered for a bit, the emissary throws down a second fireball! This time, Valeria gets hit (though Leliana isn't in range for that one) - and goes unconscious, with no one around to heal her. Luckily, Alistair and Leliana are able to take out the emissary and the final genlock archer:
That was close. If Valeria didn't resist the initial fireball, this could've been the end of this run. Walking into unfamiliar territory with a relatively low level is quite dangerous, and this shows us that we really need anti-magic abilities soon. Luckily, any other spellcaster during this DLC isn't able to surprise us, as we're very careful, and Morrigan finally has a relevant amount of defensive abilities of her own. We take out the risen ogre, with a good old forcefield saving a grabbed Leliana:
The genlock necromacer is also easily dealt with, and we have some nice armor that Alistair can't use yet because his strength isn't there for now. Next DLC: Soldier's Peak, the other one I don't have much experience with, especially in the early game. Turns ot that this one is pretty much a cakewalk for us: No dangerous ambush situations, no enemies with potential instant kill abilities. The final desire demon does have CoC, but only hits Alistair:
Valeria does learn spell shield and anti-magic ward for now. I propably should've gone for the tower next, but I decided to finish the Denerim sidequests first. No trouble with the various bandits (they aren't high level enough to have scattershot yet, which is the only thing that would make them really dangerous), but the blood mage's hideout is an extremely dangerous area (that I should have kept around for much later, to be honest). A lot of good strategy here involves luring groups of opponents back through doors where you can destroy them with crowd control and AoE spells. Instead, feeling very powerful after having completed Soldier's Peak without any issues, I ended up rushing into a room full of enemies (and more incoming), isolating Leliana in the process:
You can see an enemy mage in the upper left corner here. I didn't notice him at this point for some reason - until he threw a fireball at my party while Leliana was drinking a healing potion. Morrigan didn't stay up, things were looking grim once again. Valeria barely made it out, threw a heal at Leliana and got knocked out by another spell from the still-active mage before being able to drink a healing potion. At this point, Alistair was able to stun the pesky wizard and take him out, together with Leliana, however, with no magic-users left on my side, Leliana herself fell to some arrows - Alistair was the only one left, though only one foe was left standing, and my main tank still had endurance to keep this final archer stunned - so we survived, although barely:
That was far too close. After using a bunch of injury kits, I vowed to only lure foes back to me in this building from now on - the next large battle looked much better: This is how you open a fight here:
Getting almost destroyed by this mage also made me finally put spell shield and anti-magic ward into action, though I still was getting used to these abilities. Spell shield drains your mana whenever you get hit by a spell (about the same amount as the mana cost of the spell hitting you), so I was a bit too careful about using it when I really should've just kept it active in any significant mage battle and used lyrium potions if needed. For the final room, we once again lured our opponents outside:
I activated anti-magic ward on Valeria for the final mage battle here - even if the party would've been hit by a fireball, Valeria would've been unaffected and able to heal up at least Alistair and propably Leliana - though the blood mage leader was taken out as soon as he entered our hallway, and we only had to worry about a lesser mage, who ended up not doing anything too threatening:
Now, all sidequests outside of the main quest areas (Redcliffe, Circle Tower, Dalish Camp, Orzammar) are finished. Time to make our way to Lake Calenhad. May we survive the fade this time around.
Comments
Good catch. Some of them were initially invisible (I thought they hadn't spawned), but I had forgotten about it.
I think I just flubbed and didn't empty the charm spells of the sirine that got me. When I went back through, they would sometimes go invisible (instantly too, not through the casting animation), but none of them ever attempted to charm me again. When I didn't mess that portion up, placing the sirine by the shaman's spirit animals before attacking caused her to melee the spirit animals while everyone else attacked at range.
So Corerage IV battled the minions of Irenicus in Suldensslessar. As expected, the golems were by far the most difficult - a number of times RoR heal was the only thing that kept Corerage IV alive. Silver Sword was extremely useful here, as a few times it killed the pesky adamantite golems. GWWs were able to see off Nizi.
Time for Irenicus himself. Used a protection from magic scroll - interestingly enough, what actually beat him was Corerage IV's non-magical sword.
So then I did the good routes in Hell, except not for the 3rd challenge. I then had to rest to get rid of my scroll, and then get my bonuses from the Tears.
For the battle with the demons, the key prep was BoIB, potion of magic shielding, auto-pause on target destroyed, and GWWs with Silver Sword - the sword got quite a few vorpal hits on the demons which was extremely helpful.
So then it was battle with Irenicus himself - Corerage IV had a heck of time trying to hit him - he even had to resist a maze!
But I did have 80% resistance (potion of magic protection, amulet from Ust Natha, flesh armor). Note the reason this happened is my rage expired. But after this I attacked with his non-magical sword and was hitting Irenicus - time for GWW! Had to do it twice and yes victory!
Illsaera was defeated easily with GWW, shield of reflection, and true sight (book of infinite spells).
Pocket Plane #1 was EXTREMELY difficult. Massive enemies, plus very strong enemies like Duke Eltan, Ellisime, and Aran Linvail. Corerage IV nearly died, but he ran and RoR heals. He also used sunrays from helm of brilliance and Daystar with the mass of enemies.
But Corerage IV did pull through. Saradush is next!
Well done on Core mage reaching ToB.
About the halberd +4 missing.
I think you meant the harbinger sword:
There are two prolific halberds +4 in the Ust Natha quest line as well:
1) the Blackmist (trade with demon the MM summons, and
2) the dragons breath - which I think you had in mind
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1055886/#Comment_1055886
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A quiet opening to the session saw a number of areas being ticked off as completely explored. Not many spells were generally used, though there were a fair number deployed to ensure the wolf pack at the Beregost temple caused no trouble. That encounter also got Frisky Bits a 5th cleric level - meaning it was possible to produce 4 skeletons at once. Frisky Bits guided them in to quickly cut through the first group of basilisks - getting Falesia to level 6 and adding a further skeleton to her repertoire.
After a rest Kirian's mob were silenced, then webbed and quickly disposed of.
Returning to the Doomsayer's area, an encounter with gnolls produced an invisibility scroll that Frisky Bits gleefully grabbed - the bonus for learning illusion spells meant there was no chance of failing with that one.
Moving on to the xvart village, Borda was not allowed to even offer his dodgy wares (his magic resistance prevents silence, so skeletons joined in the attack there).
The final area south of Nashkel to be investigated was the Valley of the Tombs. The SCS Revenant there has a ranged hold attack which can be dangerous to a solo player, but that was no concern after it was blinded.
It's a while since the party got a reputation increase, but they didn't have to do much to save Arabelle after sleep had worked its magic.
At Firewine Bridge, Meilum was charmed and killed by zombies in order to get his PfM scroll. Just after that though there was a reminder of the potential dangers of ranged enemies. A horde of ambushing skeletons nearly all targeted Waiver and got pretty good rolls. Running away seemed very unlikely to succeed and I grudgingly gave him one of the 6 potions of invisibility found so far to save him.
After Kahrk emerged from a Shadow Door by lobbing chaos at Falesia the party left the area and rested. On their return they scouted out Kahrk's location invisibly. He was silenced and webbed - that didn't prevent a magic missile sequencer from firing when a skeleton came into his view, but that was the extent of his resistance.
Next up I suppose I should do the Firewine Ruins, even though that's not much fun ...
Sky, shaman L6, 50 HPs, 140 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian, L6, 55 HPs, 64 kills, 0 deaths
Star, swashbuckler, L7, 48 HPs, 271 kills, 0 deaths
Frisky Bits, cleric/illusionist, L5/5, 31 HPs, 126 kills, 1 death
Waiver, avenger, L7, 41 HPs, 145 kills, 0 deaths
Falesia, priest of Lathander, L6, 40 HPs, 140 kills, 0 deaths
It's very noticeable how much of a difference the swashbuckler bonus has made to Star - he's now opened up a big lead in the kills count.
Coreage IV did the bare minimum in Saradush, since he will easily get to the experience cap being solo. He fought his way to Gromnir without much problem. Gromnir fell fast (GWW), and his minions did hurt Corerage IV but he still prevailed.
The North Forest was no problem at all, and the giants here were led to the bridge they can't cross to be picked off.
Facing Gorion, however, almost went badly. Corrage IV forgot to enrage and got confused! But fortunately he had the foresight to protect himself against undead, so it didn't hurt him in the end.
Yaga's temple went pretty smooth, as Corerage IV had 127% fire resistance and 100% blunt resistance, so as long as he prioritized killing the slashers, the initial giant ambush wasn't too bad. Ronarch's horn was used extensively here, as well as haste potions. It almost very smooth, but he went to draw out the enemies near Nylee's heart, he got hurt badly and nearly died.
But he ran and did RoR heal and came back to finish them off. Nylee was easily defeated by enrage, GWWs and 100% blunt resistance to negate the shambling mounds. Yaga Shura was also pretty easily defeated with 100% blunt resistance (Ronarch's horn + hardiness)
Next up was the pocket plane #2. While Corerage IV did kill his doppleganger, the doppleganger's buddies nearly killed Corage IV. He ran as far as he could, equipped sling (so Angelo's arrows would be reflected by the reflection shield).
Then Corerage IV did RoR heal. He was out of sight of Semaj. Then Semaj helped Corerage by finger of deathing Angelo!!!
Oasis will be completely skipped since Corerage IV does NOT need the Answerer. He will get some goodies from the smugglers, then will try on Draconis. I decided I might as well do him 1st, since I would much rather die to Draconis then work hard to clear Sendai's enclave just to die to Draconis. I am very near experience cap anyways, so might as well.
Wish me luck!
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056308/#Comment_1056308
Briefly: Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Antipode, diamond. High Hedge (avoiding Elminster). Beregost, Marl, Algernon's Cloak, Firebead, Stupifier, Neera, Mansion.
I then head to the Temple, draw out the sirines one at a time, cast their spells, and then place them by Sky's spirits. Everyone else attacks from range. Four sirines later, Star and Falesia are level 2. We purchase some +1 bullets and arrows from Thunderhammer and travel to High Hedge. We kill the gnolls on the east side then draw out the flesh golems and use Sky's spirits to tank them. The spirits die pretty quick to the golems, so I end up falling back, picking up some skeletons on the way. Eventually, we're victorious.
We return to Beregost, kill Karlat, and return Perdue's short sword. This grants enough experience for Star to hit level 3 and 95 set traps (planning for the manual of dexterity) which will help with Elminster. I set the traps, and we witness the unmaking of a mage.
I grab the girdles and head north to the Friendly Arm Inn. We command Tarnesh, and he doesn't survive the round. We head north and clear the ankheg area, only getting hit once.
We sell the ankheg shells and head south, grabbing Mirianne's letter, the Worn Walkers, and the Colquetle's Family Amulet. We head west and clear the area and start setting traps for Drizzt. We get them all set, then a war dog spawns and triggers them. So we attempt to reset them. Gnolls and ogre berserkers continue to spawn. I eventually decide to give up on that, trigger the gnolls, wait until they've almost killed Drizzt, then try and swoop in for the kill. I don't get any hits, and then more gnolls show up, and then more gnolls. By the time I've run them around and can get back to Drizzt, he's already been killed. I take his gear and head back to Beregost, too exhausted to even take a screen shot.
On the plus side, no one has died yet. A personal best! I'll probably go and get Evantar's Gift from Dushai next and start gaining reputation. I may do the basilisks as well, but as these are my first runs with a mage and access to repeatable protection from petrifications, I'm thinking about doing the basilisk loop. @Grond0 and @semiticgod aren't that far ahead of me, so I haven't resorted to that yet, but it's calling out with its temptations.
Star, swashbuckler L5, 38HPs, 52 kills
Falesia, PoL, L4, 23HPs, 25 kills, 0 deaths
Cuwaert, barbarian L4, 38HPs, 35 kills, 0 deaths
Waiver, avenger, L4, 23HPs, 20 kills, 0 deaths
Frisky Bits, C/I, L3/3, 21HPs, 11 kills, 0 deaths
Sky, shaman, L4, 24HPs, 14 kills, 0 deaths
So Corerage IV goes to battle Draconis. Defeating his mage form went well. But the mage was hasted and chasing Corerage IV so Corerage IV had enough and burnt down the mage - however, when Draconis changed to Dragon, Corerage IV found himself inside Draconis and could not move - needless to say the dragon chewed through Corerage IV's HP quickly - RIP Corerage IV.
Back to the drawing board!
While it is a bug, it's also system wide. That is, I experienced this bug (of unable to move) throughout the entire run, both this run and others I have ran. I look it more like a feature, albeit poorly thought out one. Because I can't avoid it myself - Draconis was hasted and I couldn't get away from him. Since I will just run into the bug again on a reload, won't bother. Will try a party instead.
Grame (male elf priest of Helm, Grond0); Wedimus (male human cavalier, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056227/#Comment_1056227
The session started with an invasion of the Bandit Camp. That went smoothly up to confronting Taurgosz. I anticipated he would struggle against Grame's spells, but in fact he saved against 4 commands and a hold person. His decent attack and defense also allowed him to send Grame running, despite having consumed several potions, and Grame had to resort to a magic missile to finish him off.
Seeing the bracers in Tazok's treasure chest was a reminder we hadn't been to visit Meilum yet, so remedied that.
At the mine Drasus & co were silenced and beaten up.
In Baldur's Gate we prioritized the poison quest in order to get a second pair of boots of speed.
Grame, priest of Helm L8, 60 HPs, 89 kills
Wedimus, cavalier 7, 79 HPs, 251 kills, 0 deaths
Traveling with: Keldorn, Sarevok, Jaheira, Anomen, Imoen
Just a quick update. The party has defeated Gromnir and cleared out the North Forest. Unfortunately, we cleared it a bit too well - somehow the merchant die - doh! But the party must press on. We will press into Marching Mountains next session.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1055886/#Comment_1055886
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056195/#Comment_1056195
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056412/#Comment_1056412
In the Firewine Ruins Star went invisibly through to start with, clearing all the traps. The rest then made their way through, dealing with the kobold hordes and the ghost knight on the way to find Lendarn. He was fed a succession of skeletons to try and use up his spells and hopefully create some collateral damage - and there was a bit of that. Cautious probing using invisibility and stealth drew the ogre mage out to its death. Lendarn was wandering around, but kept wandering through Writhing Fogs and they eventually brought his wandering to an end without ever having seen his enemies. I was still a bit worried about Jenkal backstabbing, but he failed his save against a command.
They cleared out Gullykin, picking up a second +1 sling in the process before moving onto Firewine. They had problems there against Icharyd, due to him abandoning attacks on skeletons to turn on any of the party members who attacked him. I could have killed his first incarnation with spirits with no problem, but I was unwilling to pay the cost of lightning protection for the second version and decided to come back later when better equipped to deal with that.
That meant Durlag's Tower was the obvious next destination and a couple of battle horrors in the way there were blinded to make them vulnerable. The third battle horror went down to lightning and other damage spells before the doom guard suffered the indignity of being doomed and beaten up by fists while being nibbled by insects inside a web.
Riggilo was surrounded by skeletons, doomed, blinded and webbed.
Downstairs, Star disarmed traps on the first level and pulled enemies back into waiting spirits.
Coming back again I set skeletons up on the entry floor and then tried to drag Avarice upstairs. He refused to play that game though and stubbornly stayed invisible even when the text reported Sky had dispelled invisibility. Changing tack I went downstairs invisibly and produced some skeletons out of sight to attack Avarice (Love having disappeared somewhere). Avarice had a strong preference for attacking party members and was not an easy victim. However, he wasn't regenerating and the damage taken eventually added up.
After resting they explored the area until they found Fear. He was pulled out on his own, but was still immune to normal damage once taken down to 1 HP. Trying out a range of attacks though found a chink in his defences as his body turned into a raging pyre.
Sky, shaman L7, 59 HPs, 266 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian, L7, 64 HPs, 72 kills, 1 death
Star, swashbuckler, L8, 52 HPs, 329 kills, 1 death
Frisky Bits, cleric/illusionist, L6/5, 36 HPs, 145 kills, 1 death
Waiver, avenger, L8, 45 HPs, 174 kills, 0 deaths
Falesia, priest of Lathander, L7, 48 HPs, 164 kills, 0 deaths
Traveling with: Keldorn, Sarevok, Jaheira, Anomen, Imoen
I am pleased to report Coremage and gang have successfully obtained the two hearts Nylee wanted. Protection from Fire and resist fear kept up at all times makes this much safer. The only hiccups was when Keldorn and Sarevok died to the 4 giants outside Yaga's temple. But fortunately they weren't chunked. Once inside the Temple, we did fine, although the front-liners (Sarevok, Keldorn) were gulping healing potions like they were going out of style.
Will deal with Nylee and Yaga Shura next session. The only real problem we are having is our money - we are always so short on gold, which is why Coremage doesn't even have robe of Vecna (couldn't afford it). Even so, will sell some of our gems and try to get some healing potions from Saradush, since we go through them so fast, then Nylee and Yaga Shura.
Will keep at it.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056308/#Comment_1056308
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056509/#Comment_1056509
We head to Ulgoth's Beard to kill Dushai for her ring then raise reputation to 10 at the Temple (for CLW) and spend about 5k at High Hedge for spells for Frisky Bits. Afterwards, we head to Nashkel, kill the assassin, and buy potions at the carnival. Frisky Bits drinks the red potion and memorizes the spells collected so far. We swing by the Gnoll Stronghold to pick up bracers for Cuwaert to offset his 5 dexterity and the charisma manual for Star. We head to the mines.
We're ambushed and kill everyone to pick up Rancor for Cuwaert. Frisky Bits is killed by lightning... We head back to Nashkel to revive them and rest.
Back at the mines, Falesia is killed in a fight with kobolds. On the way out to revive her, AI pathfinding picks a different route while I'm not paying attention, and we trigger more kobolds, leading to Frisky Bits's death.
After we get to Nashkel to revive them, we go back to the Mines. Star sets traps, and we kill Mulahey. Because of the lightning blast from earlier, Frisky Bits equips Talos's Gift. We avoid the amazons (we'll be back soon), but Nimbul is silenced from off screen and killed.
We head to Beregost via High Hedge and meet Officer Vai at the Jovial Juggler. Cuwaert gets drunk. Elminster is trapped but survives. We could have left the map in time but was trying to get in a hit or two to finish him and Cuwaert dies. In retrospect, I should have had Frisky Bits precast blindness on Star and prepare to lay down another trap if needed. That might still not be guaranteed to kill him, but it was probably my best bet.
Tranzig was silenced and kill. On the way to Peldvale, we're ambushed by assassins. Drakar and Halacan are held on the first round, and Morvin is held a round or two later. I wasn't paying enough attention though, and Molkar manages to slay Sky. Afterwards, the assassins fell quickly.
After arriving in Peldvale, we kill Viconia and talk our way into the bandit camp. Cuwaert drinks a potion of absorbtion, and Frisky Bits casts invisibility on the whole party. Cuwaert takes the contents of the chest and drinks an invisibility potion. We sneak out (we'll be back later).
We head to the Friendly Arm Inn and lay traps for Elminster, gaining slow poison in the process. This time the traps work. I didn't think of blind with a spare trap until after this, but I lucked out.
Elminster appears again after Cloakwood, and we may be able to survive the forest, but I would rather go into it better prepared. I raise reputation to 12 through donations and will begin clearing most of the map next. I probably won't kill Elminster again, as it will be a -10 reputation, and there are far fewer reputation quests available that late in the game.
Star, swashbuckler L5, 38HPs, 87 kills
Falesia, PoL, L5, 28HPs, 46 kills, 1 deaths
Cuwaert, barbarian L5, 43HPs, 79 kills, 1 deaths
Waiver, avenger, L5, 30HPs, 31 kills, 0 deaths
Frisky Bits, C/I, L4/3, 26HPs, 24 kills, 2 deaths
Sky, shaman, L4, 24HPs, 33 kills, 1 deaths
Jase, half-orc shadowdancer (attempt 13, update 3):
Previous attempts
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1055358/#Comment_1055358
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1055539/#Comment_1055539
Starting SoD for the first time. I explore around a bit, experimenting with arrows of detonation. Awesome. I'm poisoned and barely get off my antidote before stealthing, cutting it very close with a mercenary group. I engage Korlasz, and after I clear most of her minions, she lands a confuse before my greenstone amulet activates, and thus ends my run.
This is likely my last solo shadowdancer attempt. I'll either attempt an easier solo class or a class that isn't on the hall of heroes using a smallish NPC party. The simultaneous run is still going strong, but it's harder to keep track of 6 characters.
Part 7: Shadows of Amn
Since we have access to stealth and strong ranged attacks, Chateau Irenicus is pretty simple, though we have to keep a crossbow and some bolts on hand in order to destroy the Mephit Portals from afar, since you only find a few arrows in the starting dungeon SCS. We buy containers, the Ring of Air Control, and a bunch of arrows at the Adventurer Mart, and we just barely manage to afford the Glasses of Identification from Arledrian. By the time we're out and about in Chapter 2, we're already at level 12!
The Ring of Air Control has always been an extremely important asset for solo no-reload runs. The Improved Invisibility effect only lasts 10 rounds and can easily be dispelled, but it does make for a spectacular escape option when we spot a dangerous Enchantment spell coming our way or when we realize we're taking too much damage and need to fall back.
The Ring of Air Control only works once per day, so it's important to use it only after mages have used Remove Magic or divination spells, if possible. If we used it as a pre-buff against the mages here, we could have gotten killed by a fear or paralysis spell.
We buy the Blade of Roses as well as the Nymph Cloak, since I didn't realize that you stopped getting discounts past 20 CHA. The sword is still a nice weapon to use against Iron Golems, of course, and the Nymph Cloak has some situational uses.
Suna Seni falls to a Potion of Firebreath. I think this is pretty much the ideal solution for any solo run; it's very fast and very reliable.
Getting the Shield of Harmony means we can finally sell off Arbane's Sword and Lilarcor, since the shield already provides all the same immunities. At the Troll Mound, I use the Efreeti Bottle to loot both containers without any fighting: first, I approach under stealth, then summon the Efreeti, then have it cast Invisibility on itself, then I sneak over to the first container, loot it, have the Efreeti cast Invisibility on me, and then send the Efreeti off to lure the trolls away and let me use stealth right after I loot the second container.
Fortunately, we happen to use the Efreeti Bottle at the beginning of the fight, and if the Efreeti makes its saving throw, it can keep the Crypt King distracted for maybe 10 rounds until Espellier recovers. In the end, both of us make our saves, but that was still roughly a 5% chance of death.
We use a Potion of Explosions against Pai'Na's spiders and cut her down with the help of the Efreeti, then proceed to the Mae'Var questline. I discover a new way of winning the fight: you can charm Mae'Var before delivering your report to Renal Bloodscalp, which gives you control over Mae'Var's spells before the fight begins!
Once again, I make a foolish decision that could have ended the run. While running away from a bandit ambush, I drink a Potion of Invulnerability instead of a Potion of Magic Shielding or Oil of Speed to escape an Emotion spell.
Now we need to go to the De'Arnise Hold and grab the Flail of Ages. Espellier will always be strongest when using missile weapons, but for late-game tanking, we're gonna want to dual-wield the Flail of Ages with the Defender of Easthaven.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1055886/#Comment_1055886
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056195/#Comment_1056195
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056412/#Comment_1056412
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056718/#Comment_1056718
I do Durlags Tower far less often than other bits of BG1, so my memory was a bit hazy about the order I should do things on the second level. However, I seemed to make good progress and avoided being trapped by the dopplegangers closing the doors. The last of those generated by opening the teleportation device killed a couple of skeletons before falling to what I think was the first use of LMD by Sky.
On the next level down Star was sent invisibly to detrap the ashirikuru area. There was a glitch there though with the final trap when she only detected it as she stood on top of it - I'm pretty sure she should have had enough time to detect it previously, but there were probably line of sight oddities around the corner there.
As a break from Durlag's I decided to get another breath of sea air after raising Star. Waiver went to talk to Shoal (managing to survive the experience thanks to changes in v2.5) and Droth was quickly eliminated.
Shoal was then killed rather than have her teleport away after completing the quest.
Larswood and Peldvale were cleared with the help of skeletons to tank groups of Black Talons and webs to stop them running round. A farmer then got his fields fertilized with well-rotted zombies. That just left the Red Wizard of Thay area as not yet visited. A number of call lightnings there helped dispatch the big group of spiders.
At that point I remembered to check XP and saw that several of the party had levels available. They took those before returning to Ulcaster. After skeletons saw off Icharyd's initial incarnation, Waiver and Falesia both used 2 protection from lightning spells, while Sky added a couple of priest scrolls of that. With everyone being protected it was easy to shoot the undead creature down.
Other than the TotSC content, I think the only thing not done which is available prior to the Nashkel Mine is Daer'Ragh and his phoenix guards. I can't remember how dangerous they are with SCS though, so will leave them for the moment and go to the mine next. I was originally intending to save the session there, but it was still too early for breakfast so decided to do a bit more
At the start of the mine v2.5 has altered the spawning behavior of the kobolds slightly. They now spawn a bit to the north-west of whereever you talk to the miner (as opposed to having a fixed location). That means it's hard to get them to arrive out of sight, but it's still easy to trap them - and Star hadn't made much use of traps for a while, so jumped at the chance.
Back in Nashkel, Nimbul was silenced and webbed.
Rather than go straight to the Bandit Camp I deliberately started some long-distance travelling to tempt some SCS ambushers to have a go. The amazons were the first to try their luck and got off to a bad start when Lamalha was charmed. Things didn't get any better for them as both backstabbers missed their attacks, leaving the party undamaged.
Next up will be the clearance of the Bandit Camp. Doing that solo in LoB and SCS can be a real slog, but it shouldn't be much of an obstacle for this party.
Sky, shaman L8, 67 HPs, 375 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian, L7, 64 HPs, 88 kills, 1 death
Star, swashbuckler, L8, 52 HPs, 423 kills, 2 deaths
Frisky Bits, cleric/illusionist, L6/6, 38 HPs, 169 kills, 1 death
Waiver, avenger, L9, 50 HPs, 208 kills, 0 deaths
Falesia, priest of Lathander, L7, 48 HPs, 222 kills, 0 deaths
Thanks to commandeering Meilum's bracers, Sky is eating into Star's kills lead and it could be a close finish between those two.
Part 8: Shadows of Amn
I only linger in the De'Arnise Hold long enough to get the Flail of Ages; I don't bother much with TorGal. Our Vhailor's Helm clone can do most of the work and help tank the trolls.
Over at the Unseeing Eye area, we use our clone to distract the beholders with the Shield of Balduran, but she gets paralyzed by a Shadow Fiend and we have to bust out the Efreeti to bomb the beholders instead.
The Unseeing Eye isn't too much trouble. Once we nail it with the Rift Device, we can deal pretty quick damage with Acid Arrows.
I accidentally choose the "hero's task" for Bodhi's second quest, which means I actually have to fight someone instead of opting for a nonviolent method. Fortunately, Power Attack gives me an easy way of locking down mages, and Darts +5 from the Cloak of Stars can go right through SCS mages' Mantle spells.
There's a Maze trap in Aran Linvail's lair, but we have the level 2 Detect Traps spell and therefore know exactly how to walk around it.
We have the resources to handle Kangaxx and his demi-lich form, but for safety's sake, I go ahead and use a Protection from Undead scroll on Kangaxx to prevent his buffs from firing, then nail him with an Arrow of Dispelling before he hits 1 HP. His demi-lich forms dies in one hit.
Part 9: Shadows of Amn
We kill Mekrath to steal his Rod of Resurrection (we have to use the Shield of Harmony to block a dangerous Chaos spell) and now we're ready for Spellhold. Here we are right before we leave.
Remember how we murdered Drizzt back in Baldur's Gate so we could steal his scimitars and sell off his chain mail?
Well, Drizzt doesn't, and I see no reason to remind him. I lie to his face.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1055886/#Comment_1055886
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056195/#Comment_1056195
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056412/#Comment_1056412
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056718/#Comment_1056718
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056908/#Comment_1056908
At the Bandit Camp some skeletons were summoned before activating the enemies. As they poured forwards many of them were caught in a web and they didn't last long with Frisky Bits using a couple of fireballs, Falesia holy smites and Sky spirit fires. None of the party took any damage in return.
I missed a trick when going back to Beregost to hand over more scalps and bumping into Elminster before I could stop - missing a potential opportunity to get another 26k XP there.
A bunch of skeletons helped clear the first Cloakwood area and deal with Seniyad.
In the second area a couple of phase spiders teleported in as a greeting party, but found a shocking reception.
It was more of the same in the third area with skeletons smashing through the opposition. Amarande failed to get her first spell off and was then silenced - though she would have been dead before being able to cast again anyway.
In the fourth area the hamadryad was killed - and the game froze. Loading the autosave the same thing happened again. For the third attempt I changed the order I was doing things slightly and didn't summon any skeletons - and this time she died without protest. Rather than take the time to establish an invisible attack in the wyvern cave, I just dragged the enemies out into a skeleton and web ambush.
At the mine the exterior was cleared before Drasus & co were silenced ready for disposal.
Going through the mine, Hareishan and most of his guards died in Fog.
For Davaeorn they charmed the guard, then used him to pull back the battle horrors, then sent him to hack down Davaeorn.
Before going to the City I paid a visit to High Hedge to double-check if there was anything worth buying there - and then to kill Thalantyr.
Sky, shaman L8, 67 HPs, 461 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian, L8, 73 HPs, 113 kills, 1 death
Star, swashbuckler, L9, 58 HPs, 490 kills, 2 deaths
Frisky Bits, cleric/illusionist, L7/7, 45 HPs, 190 kills, 1 death
Waiver, avenger, L10, 52 HPs, 245 kills, 0 deaths
Falesia, priest of Lathander, L8, 56 HPs, 258 kills, 0 deaths
Part 10: Shadows of Amn
Here we are after Spellhold. We've got basically all the gear we might need for the rest of SoA.
Plus, we can hide from the Alhoon entirely using a Protection from Undead scroll. Boosted by an Oil of Speed, we rush into the Alhoon's lair and go straight for the container with the Hammer of Thunderbolts and Wand of Wonder.
Now we are boxed in, unbuffed, have no invisibility against the Alhoon, and all of our Potions of Genius are completely gone. It will take at least a couple rounds to fight our way out of this, and if the enemy lands just three hits, Espellier will die and the run will be over.
I consider my options. Espellier's aura is clear, as I always wait a few seconds after activating pre-buffs before I enter a fight. However, I can only use one item or spell in this round, and I need to do multiple things to escape.
The most obvious solution is to use a new Protection from Undead scroll to keep the Alhoon at bay. This is a simple issue: the Alhoon has spectacular THAC0 and can easily land hits and kill us with INT drain within a single round if it engages us. Its THAC0 is 4, and the best AC we can get against crushing weapons with equipment along is -10, or -15 if we absolutely cripple our APR by equipping a shield (remember that as an Archer, Espellier only has 2 base APR with a normal weapon). A Protection from Undead scroll will keep that Alhoon off our backs.
Problem is, that does nothing to hold off the other mind flayers, and while they need to roll critical hits to drain Espellier's INT, they have 4 APR and only need to land three hits. We can probably survive long enough to kill a mind flayer and escape the box, but the odds are still incredibly high, maybe the double digits.
The second solution is to drink a Potion of Absorption. This will force everyone, including the Alhoon, to roll a 20 to hit me, even if I don't equip all the best gear. But this won't stop the Alhoon from casting other nasty spells, and it still allows the Alhoon to attempt a few attack rolls, and critical hits are always a possibility.
The third option is to drink a Potion of Magic Shielding, in case a Psionic maze or an Ulitharid's Psionic Blast comes out, both of which would have a 5% chance of working under normal circumstances and would mean guaranteed death.
Fourth, I can drink a Potion of Genius and hope I can break through the wall before the Alhoon walks over to me. That'll force the mind flayers to roll 4 critical hits instead of 3... but that's a pretty mediocre improvement, and if I roll critical misses, I could be stuck in the box for several life-threatening seconds.
Fifth, I can use Greater Whirlwind Attack to cut through the wall as quickly as possible. But that does nothing to help my defenses, and if I can't escape soon, the Alhoon will close in on me.
The root problem is that we have no guaranteed means of avoiding a stat drain kill if the enemy makes some good attack rolls, and if I miss any of my own, I risk giving the enemies precious seconds to kill me.
Look at how thick this wall is. Even if I kill the first mind flayer, I might not be able to slip past the one behind it, and I've got another mind flayer and umber hulk making their way to the east. They'll reach me within a few seconds.
I need to use Smite.
Smite won't do anything to the Alhoon; it has Absolute Immunity active. But it does mean I'll have guaranteed hits on other targets--no worrying about rolling critical misses--and the knockback will clear the way much faster than simply killing the target.
I use Smite and target the nearest mind flayer, sending it hurtling to the south. I pause repeatedly, making sure we don't spend any extra frames getting stuck behind one of the enemies, and then run into an umber hulk, forcing us to hold still long enough to knock it back. The way is clear!
Regardless, we are now out. There's only one more component to forge Crom Faeyr: the scroll itself, in the hands of Thaxll'ssillyia. We drink Potions of Invulnerability to make sure the dragon can't blind us for more than a round with its breath weapon, then summon a clone, use Called Shot, and fire at the dragon point-blank. The dragon dies of STR drain just as it blinds us.
Before I face Nizidramanii'yt, I want to go get the Helm of the Rock from Watcher's Keep. That requires dealing with a bunch of high-powered statues, including two epic-level mage statues. I flee to the southernmost room to wait out their buffs and their demons under invisibility.
Unfortunately, the Helm of the Rock is for fighters only--rangers and paladins can't use it. That means the best undispellable acid resistance we can achieve against Nizidramanii'yt is 50%, with the Shadow Dragon scale.
I head back to Nizidramanii'yt. We use Called Shot before engaging him to make sure we're already draining 2 STR per hit, and the dragon falls in seconds.
We head back to the Underdark to grab the Greenstone Amulet. Invisibility won't protect us from the Hive Mother, but a simple haste effect lets us run all the way to the amulet without letting the Hive Mother actually do anything to us; we're only in its field of vision for a couple seconds.
Then, to my surprise, I discover that there is a Dispel Magic effect in this dungeon: the Master Brain uses a Psionic Disjunction spell, a variant of the guaranteed dispel effect from Mordenkainen's Disjunction, a Fallen Solar spell that gave me grief in previous runs in Ascension.
There's only three things left to do before facing Irenicus at the Tree of Life: buy a bunch of potions from Adratha, kill Adratha for the Periapt of Proof Against Poison, and then kill Firkraag with Called Shot even though the loot and XP are all but meaningless to us, simply because Firkraag is an easy kill at this point.
Part 11: Shadows of Amn
Irenicus casts Improved Mantle. We use Greater Whirlwind Attack with the Sling of Everard. He has 10 Stoneskins, but we have 20 APR.
I lose all my buffs to a Remove Magic spell, of course, and as it happens, we drink a Potion of Invisibility immediately before Irenicus casts Time Stop--just like in my ill-fated unkitted fighter run!
Now things are gonna get tough for a while. We need to kill Illasera (easy), Gromnir (hard), Yaga-Shura (easy), and six dragons (really hard) before we can get the Scorcher Ammunition and trample the remainder of the saga... as long as I'm extra careful about Abazigal's Maze spell.
Dragon Age: Origins no-reload run: Valeria, elven mage, update 1
I'm starting this run with a lot of experience playing this game already, having completed about 10 full playthroughs on various difficulty levels with all of the various origins, classes and specializations. Considering that I'm playing the ultimate edition on GoG, playing on nightmare difficulty is the clear choice, considering all the free goodies you start with in this version of the game would make the game far too easy for my taste otherwise. Considering the sheer power and flexibility of the class, going for a mage is an unsurprising move. Most people woud propably agree that 1 warrior, 1 rogue and 2 mages is the most useful party composition to go with, and with there only being 2 NPC mages (one of them with a rather weak specialization and the other one locking you into a potentially difficult and very long quest), playing your own is very sensible. Obviously, this means I'm picking the mage origin.
Regarding stats, skills and spell choices for my first few levels, here are my general thoughts: The most important thing for no-reload play in my mind is access to the most powerful defensive spells in the game. Heal is an obvious one, regeneration another good addition, and force field is propably the best emergency button available - so we're going to need that one. I never use offensive forcefields, they are reserved to save a party member in truly dangerous situations. As for offense, I want to eventually have access to the Cone of Cold + Stonefist combo (the resulting shatter effect will instantly kill any enemies of normal rank) - it helps that winter's grasp (as another good single target option) and rock armor are both very helpful as well (in fact, rock armor is crucial for my mid-game strategy).
Some further considerations: I want to use the staff "Final Reason", because it's available early on and the best staff in origins which actually deals physical damage. Various foes are immune to elemental damage types, which would force me to swap out my weapon otherwise. Final reason hits everything, and to make use of its fire damage bonus, we're also going to go into the fire tree (until we hit fireball, a great opener - but flaming weapons will be very effective as well to support our party).
As for stats, this one's easy: 5 points in cunning to get to 16 (yes, I could skip these and take the fade essences, but I don't plan to rush to the tower and want to max out coercion early on), everything else will go into magic. For skills, we need coercion, combat training and survival (crafting skills can be done by inactive characters - at least combat training and survival offer some stat benefits).
Aside from our build (I will expand on that once we get access to more levels), our ai scripts are also quite important: Micromaniging every second of combat in DA:O would be quite annoying and tedious compared to BG, but the game has a truly excellent and easy to use menu in order to set your own ai behaviour. This, in my opinion, is the key to success in many ways: The "official" scripts are all terrible - they will tend to spam your most powerful and costly abilities at everything in sight. I want to do the opposite: My scripts only consist of very few things, most notably every character auto-attacking the target of the main tank, with only one or two active abilities added into the rotation (for example, the efficient and cheap arcane bolt) plus healing for the mages in case I don't pay attention (regeneration on 75%, heal on 50%). The tank can also get a taunt script in case vulnerable party members get attacked. Everything else will be sustained abilities (I use a lot of these).
The reason for this is simple: I want to have my endurance and mana plus my cooldowns at the ready in case I actually need them. Mostly, I'm using my mage cc and defensive spells manually. Non-mage party members really don't need to do much except for attacking (in fact, a lot of rogue abilities will be less effective than auto-attacks if you build your rogue the right way).
Now, with the basics out of the way, lets get started with the mage origin: Valeria starts with her harrowing, simply using arcane bolt and winter's grap plus a few heal spells to easily clear the area and take down the demon:
A quick explanation of mechanics at this point: Defense prevents your character from getting hit, armor is a direct reduction of incoming damage. I prefer both of these stats above actually increasing your health pool - especially armor. In fact, Valeria herself is going to get a ridiculous amount of armor soon. However, for now we have to find some darkspawn blood vials and grey warden documents, which isn't as easy as it sounds. While hurlock archers are annoying, but not too bad with shield defense and heal, and genlock rogues can be stunned out of stealth with mind blast, the very first truly dangerous encounter awaits: The hurlock emissary in front of the bridge.
I know this fight quite well. It's a serious challenge. If we approach this foe as a group, he will throw a fireball at us, potentially killing our entire party and certainly taking everyone to near death plus knocking them down. We can't just run at him. If you do damage to him, he retreats back into an area filled with traps and additional darkspawn. There are also invisible genlock rogues around there. My solution is to have Daveth approach him by himself and shoot him once with his bow:
This is why I've decided to try some new and obscure spells - spell shield and anti-magic ward, which I've never used before (killing mages instantly with mana clash has always been enough for me when it comes to specifically countering spellcasters, but there's a cast animation to this spell, allowing an enemy to throw one spell back at you, which could be fatal. Also, there's of course a resist chance, which is significantly higher on nightmare difficulty). To get the experience for these spells (and also the shatter combo, which I definitely want to have for the fade solo play), I'm propably going to try my hand at some early DLC content, which is new for me. I used to only own the Stone Prisoner, and after buying the ultimate edition, I only ever completed the other DLC options during the endgame.
One final note: Aside from luring foes and triggering scripts, you might have noticed that my fighters and rogues are always equipped with melee weapons, even if they're trained in archery. Why is that? Well, in my opinion, the DA:O ai is terrible with ranged party members, as they often get forced into melee combat and change their weapons, always staying in melee combat after that. Also, the damage output of ranged rogues is not that great until much later (in Awakening, they are ridiculously strong, though the ai is still not good at using them). Also, flaming weapons, which is a significant damage increase, only applies to melee weapons. I also like to have my rogues close to the enemy so they can throw grenades and apply poison effects. So... once I get Leliana, I will have her dual wield despite her not having any points in dual wield abilities.
That being said, thinking about it, I do realize that this sounds somewhat closed-minded and elitist, and adding a hall for other games really doesn't hurt anyone, instead giving more people an opportunity to celebrate their successes here, so there's really no good reason for me to object
Snowy Tae was our Charname, a wielder of scimitars and longbows just like Espellier was in BG1.
Standard solo strategies get us past the rest of BG1, and we discover in SoD that a charmed Brother Deepvein will trigger his own Glyph of Warding spell and go hostile.
Much of BG2 is very similar to Espellier's run, even down to the smallest encounters.
Going through the screenshots, it's weird how similar they were. I even use the Nymph Cloak to charm Villynaty and feed him to the remaining enemies, though I used the sea zombies instead of the Bone Golem. One difference is the Drizzt dialog, as I mentioned before.
And here's Snowy Tae running away from a massive horde of demons before eventually getting surrounded.
Definitely a nice idea. You could even split it: Non-BG IE Games, and Non-IE Games.
I should start posting my IWD HoF NR run, though it's slow-going, and time for playing is limited, let alone writing up.
What other games do people NR?
Before we can get to Lothering, we have to rescue our Mabari war dog from a horde of darkspawn. This isn't trivial: The dog starts out basically surrounded and uncontrollable, and if it dies during the battle, you won't get it as a party member. An easy solution: Protect it with forcefield and blast the horde with a fireball:
We don't do much in Lothering for now - just picking up Leliana and making our way to camp. However, we get ambushed by a huge group of hostile refugees who manage to surround and knock out morrigan - who isn't able to successfully activate her mind blast in time:
Now, we need experience and equipment in order to prepare for the circle tower. The Stone Prisoner is our first option, as I know this DLC quite well. The darkspawn in the village are easily dealt with, and the emissary downstairs is distracted by the villagers, allowing us to rush him down before he can do anything too dangerous. The only significant battle is against the desire demon Kitty - we get hit by a rather unfortunate cone of cold, affecting the entire party except for Leliana - and with Alistair at low hp, things don't look great. Leliana, though, is able to use an acid bomb to instantly take out three rage demons, reducing any damage Alistair woud take:
Also, regarding Leliana, while traveling, her personal quest triggers - this ambush isn't entirely harmless, as there are traps, archers and a hostile spellcaster (a witch) involved. While the witch isn't actually in line of sight at the beginning, we can use winter's grasp (which kind of ignores LoS) from both Valeria and Morrigan two times to remove most of the danger: