Silas and party destroyed Sarevok at the temple. Even though I am not playing him here anymore, I want to see how he does in SOA/TOB. What's the easiest way to save him (and Imoen) and move them over to BGII? I'm using BGEE and BGEE2. Thanks, CT
Charname is saved automatically, just open BG2EE and Import Save.
As for Imoen, out of luck. Unless it is an EET game she will be replaced by BG2-Imoen. You may edit her using EEKeeper, though. Just take note of her XP, spells, thieving skills and go for it.
After a couple of weeks off the Trio got another outing today. After being unable to help Tiris in Trademeet last time, we decided to head to the Bridge District to do the skinner quest that's required as a precursor. That proved easy enough despite Tabetha being held by a ghast - her buffs protecting her long enough to kill the Rune Assassins.
The quest was made a bit harder though as a result of Rejiek sticking around and constantly attacking rather than running away (multiplayer bug when a client first talks to him).
He was eventually convinced to leave us alone using invisibility and stealth.
Next up was running through Mae'Var's tasks. While in the Temple district we had to wait for night to fall to get the amulet and made use of the time to get a new cloak.
Rayic Gethras then sensed he had company and started casting true sight to check - but the slight delay that caused meant his buffs only fired after he was dead.
A few threats of violence later and some actual violence was perpetrated on Mae'Var and his gang.
Tabetha fancied a missile weapon upgrade and Yertone put on a nymph cloak to boost his charisma and bring the price of the Firetooth crossbow under 9k.
While we were still low level, we went to the Umar Hills - that meant we were only facing skeleton warriors and shadow fiends in the undead groups and they didn't cause much trouble. There was a nasty moment though when I was in Gery's inventory and didn't hear any warnings that the bone golem from near the second group had arrived to try and get revenge for the destruction of the first group of undead. As I rejoined the action, Gery was taken down to 19 HPs and trapped in a corner. However, a pause allowed him to make use of the single invisibility potion he was carrying and once the bone golem moved away Gery could help shoot it down.
Tabetha was 11th level thief by this time, meaning her traps did poison damage - and that was bad news for Thaxy.
The Shade Lord survived a couple of hits with Azuredge, but ran out of HPs just after his buffs triggered - everyone picking up a level as a result.
After collecting Valygar's body we moved on to de'Arnise Keep for the final action of the session. That featured the mystery of the reappearing wall - Tabetha finding it impossible to move through a secret door when the wall reappeared on Gate70s screen, while we chuckled at her pushing her nose against what was an open space on our computers.
The combats were all pretty quick and easy - with the iron golem being unusually quick with all 3 of us having +3 missile weapons (crimson dart, Firetooth and Azuredge).
We then just had time to see off TorGal before saving, though Nalia will have to wait until next time to get a report.
Archer - L11, 110 HPs, 217 kills (+315 in BG1)
Inquisitor - L11, 144 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm; 10 from bracers), 140 kills (+191 in BG1), 0 deaths
Illusionist/thief - L11/12, 54 HPs, 48 kills (+66 in BG1), 1 death
The Archer run is now at the Coalition Camp! I was planning on surrendering the fort, but when I realized that I forgot to have the supplies poisoned to spite the conquering Crusaders, I decided to go ahead and do the Bridgefort fight normally. That meant buffing with Chaotic Commands, an Oil of Speed, and Potions of Clarity, Invulnerability, and Heroism. I tried to help keep our allies in the Flaming Fist alive with the help of a Lesser Stone Golem, but ultimately, the enemy overwhelmed them, and we had to clear the field by kiting with Arrows of Detonation and then following up with other magical arrows and the Ring of Energy. Arrows of Dispelling brought down the mages early, and a Potion of Magic Shielding kept us safe from one of those wicked 20d6 LoB Flame Arrow spells.
I summoned another Stone Golem before confronting the Crusader Mage on the bridge. She got her pre-buffs twice, but two Arrows of Dispelling were enough to break her, and Acid Arrows at -9 THAC0 and 4 APR killed her within a few rounds. When the Lesser Stone Golem despawned after 10 rounds, we kited the survivors. Durlag's Goblet kept up our HP.
We used the Spectacles of Spectacle to bring Nazramu to the Coalition Camp and also free a tiefling in the northeast of Dead Man's Pass, earning us the Ring of the Tiny Fiend, which will summon 1d4 mephits for us for 10 rounds, once per day. We're gonna have to fight the Cyclops and the other Crusaders in front of the Underground River, but once we get past them and use the Nymph Cloak to charm Ferrusk and feed him to some critters, we'll have four different summoning items: the Stone Ally, the Ring of the Tiny Fiend, the Myconid Bloom-sac, and the Amulet of Abnormally Awesome Ankheg Summoning, all of which can be easily recharged since we have 50,000 gold even after purchasing everything we wanted at the camp (though we'll lose a few thousand when we do some last-minute shopping right before meeting Hephernaan).
Then comes the Coalition Camp invasion. But we still have 74 Arrows of Detonation, which amounts to 1,812 area-effect damage before we completely run out. That should be enough to handle the invasion, and any leftovers can clear the field to Ashatiel during the siege of Dragonspear Castle. Ashatiel herself should fall to Potions of Firebreath, and if we somehow run out before she dies, we have lots of Ring of Energy charges.
We should be able to tank Belhifet by stacking Potions of Heroism and using Durlag's Goblet to heal hundreds of HP at a time, but hopefully we'll be able to use Greater Restoration scrolls to keep Caelar alive as our tank.
Silas and party destroyed Sarevok at the temple. Even though I am not playing him here anymore, I want to see how he does in SOA/TOB. What's the easiest way to save him (and Imoen) and move them over to BGII? I'm using BGEE and BGEE2. Thanks, CT
Charname is saved automatically, just open BG2EE and Import Save.
As for Imoen, out of luck. Unless it is an EET game she will be replaced by BG2-Imoen. You may edit her using EEKeeper, though. Just take note of her XP, spells, thieving skills and go for it.
Thanks, I can do that and make her exactly like she is now with EEKeeper. Since both Khalid and Jaheira died in my run, it will only be the two of them in Irenicus' dungeon.
Btw, getting ready to make a run with a Holy Justice of Tyr Cleric using your kit.
The Archer run is now past the Underground River. We had a surprisingly hard time getting past the Cyclops; there are a lot of enemies and a lot of HP to get through, and the animal friends we got from the druids didn't last very long. I ended up having to use hit-and-fade tactics with lots of Nymph Cloak charges to charm individual critters to use as decoys against the others.
We kept Spider's Bane close at hand and made a point of equipping it whenever we saw a Web Tangle coming from one of the Gargantuan Spiders that joined the fight. Unlike SCS spiders' Web Tangle spells, which use a save vs. spell, an SoD Gargantuan Spider's Web Tangle forces a save vs. breath, and it comes at a -2 save penalty. Even with all of our gear, we still had a 5% chance of failing a save and potentially getting killed (the duration is 2 rounds, but wearing the Dragonscale Armor gave us 100% poison resistance and therefore immunity to the sleep effects of Gargantuan Spider poison). I toggled Spider's Bane on and off to switch between superior movement rate and immunity to web effects and paralysis (Web Tangle spells use both opcodes, which is redundant now that EE web effects are no longer just cosmetic).
So, if you're going up against the Cyclops and the Crusader Guards, either take out those spiders first or make sure you're protected against web.
With the badge from the Cyclops, we could talk our way into the Dragonspear Castle courtyard and convince Corinth's buddies that he was a traitor, earning us Corinth's Bow when they executed him on the spot. Back at the Underground River, we charmed Ferrusk and fed him to the myconids, just as planned, and charmed Strunk to use his spells to weaken the ettin ghost before letting the ghost stomp him to death. Killing Strunk is important since it removes some Water Elementals from the siege of Dragonspear Castle later on.
Once we bought some more Greater Restoration scrolls from the Crusader priest, Potions of Invisibility and stealth allowed us to poison the supplies and escape from the area the moment we broke invisibility to speak with Hephernaan and re-enable the area transition on the elevator. The Coalition Camp invasion is next, but we have all of our summoning items at full charge and we haven't had to use up any Arrows of Detonation since the last session.
With the badge from the Cyclops, we could talk our way into the Dragonspear Castle courtyard and convince Corinth's buddies that he was a traitor, earning us Corinth's Bow when they executed him on the spot. Back at the Underground River, we charmed Ferrusk and fed him to the myconids, just as planned, and charmed Strunk to use his spells to weaken the ettin ghost before letting the ghost stomp him to death. Killing Strunk is important since it removes some Water Elementals from the siege of Dragonspear Castle later on.
It is possible to talk yourself into Dragonspear without the badge (I don't know if there are stat requirements on that though). That lets you get a badge without fighting - meaning you then don't need to do the potentially difficult fight with the cyclops .
Looking at the officer's dialog file, BDDSSEN.dlg, it seems you need 16 or 17 Charisma to talk past them. If you choose the right dialog option, that's all you need, but some arguments also require 17 or 18 Strength or 17 or 18 Constitution. Bards can do it with any Charisma value.
The bard option is highlighted in blue. Response 41 appears to require the least Charisma.
Rhazi, Human Sniper (Rogue kit from Might and Guile), part 2 Introduction
We left off killing Mulahey and the Revenant: we also want to get the Wand of Monster Summoning and to get the extra 5k from killing Narcillus and the two Mustard Jellies. We somehow manage to peel off the Mustard jellies without Narcillus engaging in a spellcaster duel, and I learn that somehow, despite having no backs and definitely no weak points, mustard jellies can indeed be backstabbed. Call Lightning ends the fight.
Dynaheir levels up at the return of Joseph's ring, and I guess I should put my minor gripe about EENPC here, though I guess there's no way to avoid it: normal Wizards that are classed to Sorcerers have farrrrrr too many spells known. Dynaheir, on recruitment, had 6 level 1 spells, 5 level 2s, and I think 3 level 3s, and that was BEFORE I actually started leveling her up as a sorcerer. I suppose that the best way to avoid this would be to remove the spells from her spellbook before changing her class, but I didn't realize that at the time. Andddd I might be abusing the fact that I have far more flexibility with her than I should. Oh well.
We turn up north after killing Nimbul: a Large Shield, Elves' Bane, and the Boots of Avoidance should be enough to avoid Ankheg attacks. Minsc scores a critical on an 18, somehow: I think he has the feat that reduces criticals to 19-20 and maybeeee that's a benefit of 2 points in 2h weapon focus as well? It's a bit odd though.
Further north, Imoen puts all the points she's been hording in pickpocketing to good use. Rhazi is now safe from Spider web doom. We also buy Aule's Staff, Greenstone Amulet, and the Cloak of Displacement as well as miscellaneous ammunition types.
Bandit camp: Dynaheir is supreme here with a scroll of Cloudkill from west of Nashkel, and a Web or two of her own. Basically, we approach from the west, we trigger the alarm, Dynaheir layers down the Cloudkill while the rest of us hold off incomers with missiles. Nobody's high enough level to survive immediate death on a failed save.
Ambush 1: Minsc takes a boatload of damage trying to tank. In fights where we can't get Khalid in front, things can eat through his health. Regardless, we downed the mage and the rest can be kited with difficulty.
We finally take out Sil and her Sirenes, and loot the CON tome: it also goes to Rhazi. Why? I don't actually know. I think there's SOME benefit to having 18 CON in SoB's revised stat system. The only irritation is when Imoen was charmed, and firing arrows point blank into us. Oh, and when Khalid's brain was eaten and we had to wait like 5 minutes real-time doing nothing while we waited and waited for that effect to wear off.
In Cloakwood, we turn against Aldeth: we don't get to do his consortium, but we get the Guide from his brother. Oh, and because Jaheira forced us to. But this druid line from the NPC Project, or this druid line + SCS... this is going to get crazy. I haven't had a death yet this run: this line is going to force several since I went in completely blind.
First, the spiders. Dynaheir sends Rhazi in invisibly with his Ring of Free Action to clear/trap the webs, and after that Khalid with a scroll of Protection from Poison tanks while the rest of the group turns the spiders into pincushions. Jaheira levels up, and gains her first level 4 slots.
The next area is where the Druid line starts. I first had to fight through a Hamadryad whose dying animation is broken: any time a party member killed her, the game froze and was forced to quit. I CTRL-Y'd her the third time, and she stayed dead that time. And then druid. DRUIDS. At this point, a pure level Druid is level 7 without serious powerlevelling elsewhere. At worst, they likely have access to Call Woodland Beings. These druids, which we fight 5 or 6 of at once, are apparently level 9+. Any we don't kill means that there's another Nymph on the field, and MORE spellcasts to deal with. We get blindsided by a Insect Plague, and in the ensuing Fear effe
ct (Imoen didn't have time to swap to resist fear...) Dynaheir is taken down in melee. We win, though, nobody at higher than yellow health.
We return to the FAI, raise Dynaheir, then proceed to the area right after SpiderCloakWood, where the next battle with the Shadow Druids is supposed to happen. I'm expecting Insect Plague now, and Imoen's bard aura is set for Resist Fear. I'm going along merrily with a fight when I see this:
That's a Greater Fire Elemental: there's at least a level 11 druid in play. That's Dynaheir's web, trying to buy us time in the north while we deal with the south. We send Minsc to the north anyways as a distraction, when suddenly Minsc dies from full health.
I check my logs: he was hit by a Chromatic orb and died. We're up against at least a level 12 Avenger, at the midpoint of the game, in a quest that's pretty much unignorable if we have Jaheira in our team. What in the world was NPC Project thinking here? That's at least 6 Save or Die spells (granted, at +5) but I merely got lucky that Minsc was the one targeted and not Rhazi. I somehow get Rhazi into stealth, and a backstab puts down the fire elemental, and the druid is targeted down with Bolts of Lightning before he could pull off any more stunts. This quest is absurdly out of place in levels here.
After raising Minsc, we finally can assault the Mines. Drasus and Genthore fall quickly, but it was never those two that would be dangerous. I make a huge error and don't drink a potion of Magic Blocking on Rhazi while dueling them down: Sunfire, being a self-target spell technically, does NOT break invisibility and I wasn't prepared for it. In the seconds that followed, the other mage casts Chaos, with disastrous results. Rhazi kills Jaheira instantly, and we again get lucky as Rhazi paths behind the stables instead of into any further danger. We aren't very healthy at the end of the fight: one critical would've been the difference.
Rhazi is getting Bala's Passport from now on, just in case of surprise bombings like this one. The other mage battles in the compound are relatively easy, comparatively. Hareishan's guards are lured into a narrow corridor without her, and a Protection of Magic + Spirit Animals guarding the door combination is enough to end Davaeorn's tyranny. We don't kill all the Battle Horrors in time, to my chagrin.
Oh, one thing here that I learned while killing the Battle Horrors: the wand of Fire is purely cosmetic, as far as I can tell. The scorcher beam and fireballs are there visually, but they do 0 damage, no saves or anything. Summon Monster Wands seem to work 1/3 times or something. I don't know if this is Scales of Balance, SCS, or whatever, but those two broken wands are now, well, broken. In the Gate, we have this happen too: that wand was a fireball used on us. No damage was taken, no civilians were killed.
We do our normal gauntlet: Basilisk, Ogre Mage, Doppelgangers, Marek and Lothander, and the temple of Talos. Which has lower levels than the Shadow druids. I'm still salty. Helm of Balduran (given to Khalid), undermountain gang, Ramazith for the INT... There's another Ring of Free Action available with the Iron Throne. I want. We lure them all downstairs: they come as a group, and Chaos is fired, but Imoen saves through it via potion and "cures" Rhazi by shooting him with an arrow. Khalid is saved by the enemy: when he got too low, they cast a PW:Sleep on him, and the AI always prioritizes killing awake creatures instead of finishing off the sleeping ones. We escape without casualties.
Ogre Mages: I really need to start prebuffing myself. Dire Charm is terrifyingly irritating, and in the general chaos Minsc's charm caused, Jaheira is killed by a combination of scimitar slashes and Magic Missiles.
Potion of Magic Shielding keeps us safe from Prat, and Jaheira levels up after killing the two Basilisks and host of spiders. Tomes are identified, all of them going to Rhazi. Back at the Gate, Cythandria has some BS of a Breath saving throw, and Slythe is surprisingly easy to kill: I think with Might and Guile, his backstab modifier's been nerfed significantly. It's only a x2 instead of a x4. Oh, we also got back Duke Eltan from his healer using an invisible screen for Rhazi. Not the first and not the last time I'm going to be using it... but it's late now, and I need to get up early: I'll post the rest of Rhazi's BG1 run soon. (He's actually in the starting dialogue of SoD now.)
This pairing made a chunk of decent progress, however the screenshots focused on less than successful elements and this eventually proved fatal.
Venturing down into an ankheg nest with the kensai leading sounded like fun. Kaxir made a good show of this though and Cheery's resolve only failed with the final beast, taking lead position as worried that Kaxir was looking a tad fragile against any hit.
Nashkel mine beckoned and proved to be relatively straightforward. The Glamazons thought their luck was in when Cheery became mentally unbalanced but Kaxir helped out with a few throwing daggers. Zeela tried to disable him and failed, but she re-focused on him as he moved back into range and her second attempt was successful. Cheery may well have been out of control but even in this state he proved too much for the ladies to deal with and regained his senses just in time to finish off Zeela.
We moved on to the bandit camp where Raemon got a bit of a lucky break. Cheery had set a snare and planned to do more, however a quirk meant that Raemon could see him (this may have been a multiplayer issue where Raemon used my host viewpoint to locate the thief rather than the client viewpoint).
With Cheery detected, battle started and Kaxir decided to rush in. Venkt had mirrored by this time and Kaxir failed to hack the real caster down, meaning the next spell was cast successfully and Kaxir failed to save against Horror. Venkt then emptied his spellbook into the running kensai despite Cheery's best efforts to distract him.
(we crossed our fingers and hoped for the random roller to throw out a couple of hardened warriors next)
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 178 (1st and final update) Tweedle (male elf enchanter, Grond0); Nuriu (male elf mage, Gate70) Previous run
And in answer to Gate70's question of whether hope would be fulfilled - no . Two squishy mages set out from Candlekeep. They picked up a level each from shooting a blinded Shoal and worked their way down to Nashkel. The early signs hadn't been good though with me accidentally getting too close to Neera when trying to blind her and then failing to deal with multiplayer lag and allowing Vitiare to victimize Tweedle at the Carnival.
On the way back to Beregost that carelessness proved costly. That journey is safe by day, but I didn't ensure that was the case and a full bandit ambush always looked like being bad news. Their initial round of shots scored 4 hits and I paused the game as Nuriu crumpled to the ground with only 2 of the hits having yet arrived.
Tweedle did well to survive that initial round, but it was a long way to the map edge with bows firing at him and his chances of making it never looked good ...
@Neverused: It's not actually possible to buff for that Ogre Mage ambush at Candlekeep; your buffs are removed due to the travel time, and I think there's a brief period during which you can lose your buffs against after you arrive, but before the Ogre Magi speak with you. A Potion of Magic Blocking or Potion of Invisibility, drunk right after the Ogre Magi talk to you, can prevent both Dire Charm and Chromatic Orb nonsense, though it's difficult to protect the whole party.
Is there a known bug with 2.5 version of Sphere of Chaos? The spell sometimes reduces HP to 1, makes max HP 17, even if it was over 100 before. Is that a known abilitly of this spell?
@Aasim: That sounds like the polymorph to squirrel effect, which is supposed to set max HP to 5. It's not quite accurate in your case (maybe you have items or spells that modify your HP and are influencing these numbers?), but being reduced to Near Death regardless of HP is typical for that spell. It's a 10% chance and offers a save vs. spell. The polymorph effect is mentioned in the spell description, but it doesn't specify that it also comes with an HP change.
Did you not notice a squirrel animation replacing your character's sprite? In some cases, immunity to the polymorph opcode doesn't actually grant immunity to the HP effect, since in BG2 at least, polymorph spells and items actually give the target a special squirrel weapon which has several effects, only one of which actually uses the polymorph opcode. Critters that are supposed to be immune to polymorph spells actually need to be immune to Polymorph Other specifically to avoid the HP effect; being immune to the polymorph opcode is insufficient.
If the target was a party member, that's a bit strange, because to my knowledge, the only way the player can get immunity to polymorph effects is via Mustard Jelly form, but the jelly form's 100% MR would block the "polymorph" effect (really a Create Weapon opcode, but whatever) entirely, so that doesn't seem like the Sphere of Chaos polymorph effect could work partially, setting HP but not actually changing the character's sprite.
Bladeservant and his party took on Tazok, who, to my surprise when he was badly injured, told the bandits to kill them. The party killed the bandits in view and then killed a party of assassins to the south. They then headed to the area between the FAI and Beregost where they killed all the bandits, a few xvart, and another party of assassins. They then went to Beregost where Tranzig was killed.
It was now time to return to the camp. There was no problem there.
Najarra at the FAI was the next to feel our blades.
Now time for Cloakwood.
The Archer run has just completed the Coalition Camp invasion and the siege of Dragonspear Castle, leaving only Avernus and Belhifet left to complete. The Coalition Camp invasion was tougher than I thought. Arrows of Detonation don't kill nearly as fast as in normal mode, and we had to use a lot of our summoning item charges to stave off the enemies and buy us time to fire more arrows.
Note that we only used the Myconid Bloom-sac at the very tail end of the invasion for fear that their confusion spells would cause a Crusader to drift towards the south of the map and trigger the rest of the waves all at once. You can NOT let ANY enemies even APPROACH the barrels at the south of the map, because it's virtually guaranteed to result in an unstoppable flood of enemies who will walk right past you to the barrels and trigger an instant game over. We used other summoning items for the first three waves instead, though we would have had less trouble if we had fully charged the Amulet of Abnormally Awesome Ankheg Summoning, since it starts at 5 charges but can be recharged up to 10.
We took scattered damage from stray enemies and our own Arrows of Detonation, which Durlag's Goblet was able to take care of. When we lost our buffs to a Dispel Magic against the second wave of Crusader Mages (that Dispel Magic is almost impossible to avoid), we had to use a Protection from Magic scroll to keep us safe from enemy spells; ordinary potion buffs were not enough. After using the Protection from Magic scroll, we also followed up with a Chaotic Commands scroll to protect us from any Darts of Stunning the enemy might throw at us, plus a Potion of Invulnerability to improve our AC and a Potion of Clarity for fear immunity, just in case I forgot to equip Kiel's Helmet before drinking from Durlag's Goblet.
To my surprise, the enemies at the siege of Dragonspear Castle are much more numerous in LoB mode, and we couldn't plow through them even with lots of Arrows of Detonation. Even after poisoning their food and water supplies, it seems the Crusaders are distinctly stronger than the coalition fighters in LoB mode, and you really need to carry the fight yourself. In the end, I decided to just drink a Potion of Invisibility and run straight to Ashatiel, avoiding the enemies in the northeast.
Ashatiel fell to some arrows and 5 of our last 6 Potions of Firebreath. She always tries to heal herself behind Sanctuary, which renders her helpless if the player has wands, offensive potions or scrolls, or the Ring of Energy to strike through the Sanctuary.
Now we have to tackle Avernus. It should be safe, albeit time-consuming, to kite the demons before the elevator, but I'm worried about certain buff durations running out during the lengthy elevator ride to Belhifet.
My second run with Mesmer the archer a little while ago took rather more risks than the first - probably reflecting I was a bit tired of that character. Having got a reasonable distance with a Heart of Fury monk in IWD, I thought this time I would try that in BG - using the same SCS installation as for Mesmer.
While quite a bit of the gameplay is similar for a monk to an archer, the former doesn't have anywhere near the same THAC0 at range. Without that, I knew Mendel would struggle to hit most things, so was keen to take as many short-cuts as possible. Progress so far has included:
- after Candlekeep killed Imoen, Xzar and Montaron for their equipment (also found an invisibility scroll at Gorion's burial site - pity this isn't a mage character ).
- went to Beregost to get a potion bag from Neera, calm down Marl and kill Algernon.
- south of Beregost charmed an ogrillon and tried to use that to help get the boots of stealth. However, it made little progress against hobgoblins so I decided to try and finish it off myself - and got the required critical pretty quickly to rack up a first level (getting a good start with 10 HPs). The hobgoblin with the boots was then charmed and worn down against its fellows.
- travelled down to Nashkel during the day to avoid ambushes. Talked to Noober and rested to learn LMD. Killed the defenceless Vitiare and also undertook a bit more work by charming Oopah and setting him on Zordral (using stealth and area transitions to avoid the mage's spells). That was enough for level 3 and the good start continued with 10 more HPs.
- at the Lake, activated a single gnoll to attack Drizzt. After it broke its weapon I could just leave the game until it had eventually knocked Drizzt unconscious. Killing him provided 2 more levels, with an additional 15 HPs.
- charmed the sirines at Beregost temple and successfully finished all of them off.
- charmed the ogre to get its belt on the way north, before returning a bowl to Tenya.
- spent a while kiting Dushai (just ignoring the village going hostile this time).
- with reputation down at 3, returning Joia's ring put Mendel on the threshold of another level.
- he took his first damage in a hobgoblin ambush on the way to the Nashkel Mine. Greywolf was charmed there and would have given the level, but died to a critical from a kobold (the first XP lost like that in this run to date). However, Mendel was so close to the level anyway that killing the last 2 kobolds tipped him over - just the 6 more HPs this time regrettably).
- Mr Colquetle and Firebead boosted reputation further before a trip to the basilisk area. Mendel followed Korax round there, dual-wielding Drizzt's scimitars to help finish off paralyzed enemies as quickly as possible. Everything went pretty smoothly there and Mutamin was also tagged quite quickly. However, the monk's lack of APR (and the fact I hadn't yet got Meilum's bracers ) meant Korax didn't have time to hunt down the final target of Mutamin's special pet basilisk. I don't normally use charm on the basilisks, but that was the obvious response here and that worked at the second attempt. I considered resting in order to get another charmed creature to soak up Kirian's chromatic orb, but decided to take the risk (partly laziness and I also wanted to attack during night-time to make stealth easier). Unfortunately Kirian saved against an initial attack and the basilisk didn't. Peter then helped against the others before being forcibly retired.
Monk L6, 51 HPs, 37 kills
I was originally aiming to get up to level 7 there, but the loss of the greater basilisk prevented that to slightly take the gloss off a generally pretty good opening.
The Archer run has ended. I picked the wrong dialog option with Thrix and so he didn't pose the riddle I needed to get a +3 longsword, forcing me to use a short sword I wasn't proficient in. Worse yet, Caelar died, having gotten overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies. Greater Restoration is not a viable means of keeping her alive in LoB mode; there's just far too much damage and you can't summon decoys and heal her in the same round. When we were out of summons, we switched from arrows to tanking.
We got Belhifet to Near Death, all the way down to 166 HP, and then my Champion's Strength scrolls wore off.
Without them, my THAC0 was barely subzero with my main hand. Belhifet's AC in LoB mode with Improved Invisibility is -24, and we needed high rolls to hit him.
We were so incredibly close. After 12 hours of incredibly intensive gameplay at 45-60 FPS over the course of 6 days, where the mouse inputs were so fast I needed to take Ibuprofen just to keep the pain in my hands from distracting me, the run has come to an end. I was so afraid of Belhifet and I so badly wanted to get through to SoA, because then I knew things would be okay.
It's gone. I worked so hard, and it came to nothing. It's such a spectacular waste, and I feel bad for having tried.
I genuinely don't know if I'll try again. I feel calmer now, but it's so much work and so much pain just to get the thing to that point. I can make fast progress if I hurry, but it hurts my hands; my hands aren't really geared towards fast and precise movement. I have to strain to operate quickly. The upside is that a complete video record might be as short as 25 hours, and maybe a lot less if I edit the videos to speed up certain portions, though I have no experience editing videos.
You know, one of the lessons I learned from my first attempt, with an Archer/Mage, was that these runs can be downright unpleasant if your only goal is to complete the run. No-reload runs are supposed to make the game more fun and dramatic; not more tense and frustrating.
You know, when I was doing this run, I caught myself thinking the same kinds of things I did when I did the Archer/Mage run. I thought that this would be the final challenge, so to speak, the one thing after which I wouldn't have anything else to do--the end of my challenge runs. That idea ended up torturing me because I couldn't get away from it.
But with the v2.5 patch adding -11 AC to LoB enemies, suddenly my old Archer/Mage run doesn't feel legitimate anymore, because it was done on the "easier version" of the game. It no longer feels like the "final challenge," because now there's another one. That -11 AC might seem simple, but it's actually a huge complicating factor in LoB gameplay. Also, there's a saving throw bug in LoB mode that made it easier, and we only recently got a hotfix to give enemies the +5 to saving throws they seriously do not need, but are intended to have, in LoB mode.
Now the "final challenge" is something different: a solo no-reload LoB+SCS+Ascension run in v2.5. And now that the original challenge has been beaten by characters with mage levels, with druid levels, and with cleric levels (Archer->Mage, Cleric/Mage, and Totemic Druid->Fighter), I feel compelled to do it with a non-spellcasting character, and an Archer is the safest bet for me because it'll let me kill Melissan with STR drain in 10 seconds. That's kind of a big deal for me because losing to Melissan would be excruciating.
But Belhifet is just a huge obstacle, and even now, I barely have the means to take him down. He's so much worse in the new update; he has -24 AC now, and you just can't approach that without stacking Champion's Strength scrolls, which only last so long. You need to build up so many resources just to make the fight doable.
But if I can do this run, that'll be it. I'll be done. And if the next update adds any new bonuses to LoB critters, that won't really introduce any new challenges; it'll just make the old ones impossible. Make LoB Belhifet any stronger and it won't be possible to beat him no matter what you do, so there's no temptation to try out a new run.
I particularly want to put it on Youtube. The no-reload challenge here isn't widely known (not just the LoB one, but any of them), and I'd kind of like to show off the work of our community to a broader audience. There are so many people elsewhere on the Internet who don't know just how far you can push the Infinity Engine, and it would be nice to tout the work of this community and impress some folks.
Besides, I think it might shock some people at RPGCodex and other fora that the best powergaming work on the Infinity Engine was done not by a gang of hypercompetitive snobs and elitists, but by a warm, welcoming, generous group of friends. People are nice here, and I think it would be cool if folks knew that we were also kicking ass.
Besides, I think it might shock some people at RPGCodex and other fora that the best powergaming work on the Infinity Engine was done not by a gang of hypercompetitive snobs and elitists, but by a warm, welcoming, generous group of friends. People are nice here, and I think it would be cool if folks knew that we were also kicking ass.
I suspect you might just end up causing more grief for yourself . If you start playing the competitive game elsewhere I think it's more likely others will just point out all the 'flaws' in your attempt and ways you've made the challenge easier rather than being impressed.
@semiticgod Maybe you shouldn't. You've already said that these kind of runs aren't fun for you, and that you should not do a run like this just for the trophy of having completed it (if you ever complete it).
I recommend playing Legacy of Bhaal with the bonus experience turned on and the experience cap removed. The point of those is not to make the game easier but to make the game more fun to play. It is really tedious and unsatisfying to fight enemies that are super-powerful and get almost no experience for doing so.
The difficulty decrease of playing with bonus experience and no experience cap can be balanced out by setting restrictions, such as no wands, no summoning any creatures, no Durlag's Goblet, no XP loops, no Protection from Undead scrolls, or whatever other restrictions you want.
Continuing his progress, Mendel:
- went to the Red Wizard area and charmed them one by one, getting the Ring of Energy and another level from Denak (and another welcome 10 HPs).
- at Firewine Bentan was charmed, but left to enemies to finish off to protect reputation. Meilum, however, was fair game (after being used to chop down Kahrk).
- at the Nashkel Mine, stealth saw Mendel safely through to Mulahey without the need for any fighting. The cleric accepted his bona fides, making repeated charm attempts safe and easy. Mulahey was then pitted against the kobolds and beaten unconscious by the last of those.
- in Nashkel Mendel rested to get a second LMD before charming Nimbul at the second attempt. He was pitted against the mighty Minsc and found wanting.
- in Beregost Silke was charmed and helped tank Tranzig's spells before dying against some spiders.
Landrin then got his goods returned and Mendel picked up the pantaloons.
- at High Hedge he tried charming Permidion Stark to act as a tank against the golems. I was hoping that he would have a minHP ring, but no such luck and Mendel gave up on the idea of killing the golems at that time - though leaving both outside ensured he could kill them later (without annoying Thalantyr) if he wanted to.
- he ran away from both SCS ambushes before going to Peldvale to get a lift to the Bandit Camp with Raiken. Taurgosz died against some skeletons before Raemon was charmed at the first attempt. He was placed where he couldn't move, but the charm meant the tent could be looted without fear.
- Mendel rested to get horror, but then decided to bump reputation up. Playing on core I tend to go for both possible Bhaal horrors with solo characters, but the LoB saving throw boost is active on this installation meaning that the more powerful enemies are all likely to have automatic saves to that.
- Melicamp failed to survive, but all the other reputation quests were duly completed. Some of those require quite a lot of work in LoB, but Mendel usually had some assistance with that. For instance the final point to maximise reputation came with the help of Arghain against some xvarts bothering Arabelle.
- some shopping followed (and I remembered to sneak past the hostile villagers at Ulgoth's Beard to ensure they were not forced into the inn to make the shopkeeper there hostile). The purchases included 80 bullets of fire from Thalantyr and those were put to use against his golems. The first took 44 shots and the remaining bullets got the second to badly wounded - a succession of stealth attacks then finished it off.
- with just over 20k XP needed for his final level, Mendel decided to head for Durlag's Tower. The Greenstone Amulet allowed him safely onto the roof and a PfP scroll allowed him to melee the basilisks. That was done with fists - they have a longer reach than one-handed weapons giving a fraction of a second warning of a basilisk switching to melee. The first greater basilisk still managed to hit him a couple of times though and Mendel resorted to a potion of regeneration to keep safe. It took nearly 4 hours game time to kill the lesser and first two greater basilisks, but with space to move around in Mendel could mix in stealth attacks on the final one without worrying about basilisks forming a gang. That sped things up a little bit to ensure his scroll didn't run out. The XP from the last basilisk provided level 8 and another 10 HPs.
Monk L68, 71 HPs, 92 kills
By monk standards 71 out of 80 HPs at this stage is really excellent. However, with the LoB double damage and no critical protection Mendel's life is still likely to be measured in seconds if he ever gets trapped .
Not only is it brilliant (I don't like much games, but Sekiro is really impressive); but the sheer ammount of deaths you will experience is this game (it's beyond difficult) makes it the very opposite of No-Reloading. You do have infinite respawns, so not all is bad. There are people who made through THAT w/o reloading, which borders insanity, given how little the game has been available.
The monsters/bosses in this video are actually easy, compared to what you meet later.
Bladeservant went to deal with Centeol only for Xan to tell her that her looks were merely illusion which Xan dispelled.
The battle with the others was straightforward due to the fact that Fay ran into the web cast by Valerie and all the enemies attacked her. This brought her health down to Near Death so some arrows of healing were fired at her. (Not many left)
Afterwards Tenya and Bladeservant healed her before resting. As is her wont, Jini shared a passionate night with Bladeservant.
It was then realised that we had a dragon to fight and insufficient protection against fire. The party headed to the area east of the Nashkel Mines to remedy that before returning.
With the ring of fire protection, Bladeservant was able to take on the dragon single-handed as he was immune to fire damage.
Of course the dragon was nothing like those in SoA.
We were so incredibly close. After 12 hours of incredibly intensive gameplay at 45-60 FPS over the course of 6 days, where the mouse inputs were so fast I needed to take Ibuprofen just to keep the pain in my hands from distracting me, the run has come to an end. I was so afraid of Belhifet and I so badly wanted to get through to SoA, because then I knew things would be okay.
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Wow! You folks play the game on a whole other level than my inch by inch, deliberate, special forces style.
We're not all ninjas. Both my trilogy no-reloads took about 6 months . The realtime with pause gameplay of BG + roleplay elements seems less likely to trigger a 'flow state' of heightened attention for me, as compared to turnbased formats like boardgames & roguelikes where I find it quite pleasurable to be 98% blur of action, 2% "mmmm, better make a cup of tea and think this situation over".
Comments
Charname is saved automatically, just open BG2EE and Import Save.
As for Imoen, out of luck. Unless it is an EET game she will be replaced by BG2-Imoen. You may edit her using EEKeeper, though. Just take note of her XP, spells, thieving skills and go for it.
Gery - half-elf archer (Grond0)
Yertone - human inquisitor (Corey_Russell)
Tabetha - gnome illusionist / thief (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1047141/#Comment_1047141
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1050824/#Comment_1050824
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1052228/#Comment_1052228
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1053408/#Comment_1053408
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056321/#Comment_1056321
After a couple of weeks off the Trio got another outing today. After being unable to help Tiris in Trademeet last time, we decided to head to the Bridge District to do the skinner quest that's required as a precursor. That proved easy enough despite Tabetha being held by a ghast - her buffs protecting her long enough to kill the Rune Assassins.
Next up was running through Mae'Var's tasks. While in the Temple district we had to wait for night to fall to get the amulet and made use of the time to get a new cloak.
Tabetha fancied a missile weapon upgrade and Yertone put on a nymph cloak to boost his charisma and bring the price of the Firetooth crossbow under 9k.
While we were still low level, we went to the Umar Hills - that meant we were only facing skeleton warriors and shadow fiends in the undead groups and they didn't cause much trouble. There was a nasty moment though when I was in Gery's inventory and didn't hear any warnings that the bone golem from near the second group had arrived to try and get revenge for the destruction of the first group of undead. As I rejoined the action, Gery was taken down to 19 HPs and trapped in a corner. However, a pause allowed him to make use of the single invisibility potion he was carrying and once the bone golem moved away Gery could help shoot it down.
Tabetha was 11th level thief by this time, meaning her traps did poison damage - and that was bad news for Thaxy.
After collecting Valygar's body we moved on to de'Arnise Keep for the final action of the session. That featured the mystery of the reappearing wall - Tabetha finding it impossible to move through a secret door when the wall reappeared on Gate70s screen, while we chuckled at her pushing her nose against what was an open space on our computers.
Archer - L11, 110 HPs, 217 kills (+315 in BG1)
Inquisitor - L11, 144 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm; 10 from bracers), 140 kills (+191 in BG1), 0 deaths
Illusionist/thief - L11/12, 54 HPs, 48 kills (+66 in BG1), 1 death
I summoned another Stone Golem before confronting the Crusader Mage on the bridge. She got her pre-buffs twice, but two Arrows of Dispelling were enough to break her, and Acid Arrows at -9 THAC0 and 4 APR killed her within a few rounds. When the Lesser Stone Golem despawned after 10 rounds, we kited the survivors. Durlag's Goblet kept up our HP.
We used the Spectacles of Spectacle to bring Nazramu to the Coalition Camp and also free a tiefling in the northeast of Dead Man's Pass, earning us the Ring of the Tiny Fiend, which will summon 1d4 mephits for us for 10 rounds, once per day. We're gonna have to fight the Cyclops and the other Crusaders in front of the Underground River, but once we get past them and use the Nymph Cloak to charm Ferrusk and feed him to some critters, we'll have four different summoning items: the Stone Ally, the Ring of the Tiny Fiend, the Myconid Bloom-sac, and the Amulet of Abnormally Awesome Ankheg Summoning, all of which can be easily recharged since we have 50,000 gold even after purchasing everything we wanted at the camp (though we'll lose a few thousand when we do some last-minute shopping right before meeting Hephernaan).
Then comes the Coalition Camp invasion. But we still have 74 Arrows of Detonation, which amounts to 1,812 area-effect damage before we completely run out. That should be enough to handle the invasion, and any leftovers can clear the field to Ashatiel during the siege of Dragonspear Castle. Ashatiel herself should fall to Potions of Firebreath, and if we somehow run out before she dies, we have lots of Ring of Energy charges.
We should be able to tank Belhifet by stacking Potions of Heroism and using Durlag's Goblet to heal hundreds of HP at a time, but hopefully we'll be able to use Greater Restoration scrolls to keep Caelar alive as our tank.
Thanks, I can do that and make her exactly like she is now with EEKeeper. Since both Khalid and Jaheira died in my run, it will only be the two of them in Irenicus' dungeon.
Btw, getting ready to make a run with a Holy Justice of Tyr Cleric using your kit.
We kept Spider's Bane close at hand and made a point of equipping it whenever we saw a Web Tangle coming from one of the Gargantuan Spiders that joined the fight. Unlike SCS spiders' Web Tangle spells, which use a save vs. spell, an SoD Gargantuan Spider's Web Tangle forces a save vs. breath, and it comes at a -2 save penalty. Even with all of our gear, we still had a 5% chance of failing a save and potentially getting killed (the duration is 2 rounds, but wearing the Dragonscale Armor gave us 100% poison resistance and therefore immunity to the sleep effects of Gargantuan Spider poison). I toggled Spider's Bane on and off to switch between superior movement rate and immunity to web effects and paralysis (Web Tangle spells use both opcodes, which is redundant now that EE web effects are no longer just cosmetic).
So, if you're going up against the Cyclops and the Crusader Guards, either take out those spiders first or make sure you're protected against web.
With the badge from the Cyclops, we could talk our way into the Dragonspear Castle courtyard and convince Corinth's buddies that he was a traitor, earning us Corinth's Bow when they executed him on the spot. Back at the Underground River, we charmed Ferrusk and fed him to the myconids, just as planned, and charmed Strunk to use his spells to weaken the ettin ghost before letting the ghost stomp him to death. Killing Strunk is important since it removes some Water Elementals from the siege of Dragonspear Castle later on.
Once we bought some more Greater Restoration scrolls from the Crusader priest, Potions of Invisibility and stealth allowed us to poison the supplies and escape from the area the moment we broke invisibility to speak with Hephernaan and re-enable the area transition on the elevator. The Coalition Camp invasion is next, but we have all of our summoning items at full charge and we haven't had to use up any Arrows of Detonation since the last session.
It is possible to talk yourself into Dragonspear without the badge (I don't know if there are stat requirements on that though). That lets you get a badge without fighting - meaning you then don't need to do the potentially difficult fight with the cyclops
The bard option is highlighted in blue. Response 41 appears to require the least Charisma.
Introduction
We left off killing Mulahey and the Revenant: we also want to get the Wand of Monster Summoning and to get the extra 5k from killing Narcillus and the two Mustard Jellies. We somehow manage to peel off the Mustard jellies without Narcillus engaging in a spellcaster duel, and I learn that somehow, despite having no backs and definitely no weak points, mustard jellies can indeed be backstabbed. Call Lightning ends the fight.
We turn up north after killing Nimbul: a Large Shield, Elves' Bane, and the Boots of Avoidance should be enough to avoid Ankheg attacks. Minsc scores a critical on an 18, somehow: I think he has the feat that reduces criticals to 19-20 and maybeeee that's a benefit of 2 points in 2h weapon focus as well? It's a bit odd though.
Bandit camp: Dynaheir is supreme here with a scroll of Cloudkill from west of Nashkel, and a Web or two of her own. Basically, we approach from the west, we trigger the alarm, Dynaheir layers down the Cloudkill while the rest of us hold off incomers with missiles. Nobody's high enough level to survive immediate death on a failed save.
In Cloakwood, we turn against Aldeth: we don't get to do his consortium, but we get the Guide from his brother. Oh, and because Jaheira forced us to. But this druid line from the NPC Project, or this druid line + SCS... this is going to get crazy. I haven't had a death yet this run: this line is going to force several since I went in completely blind.
First, the spiders. Dynaheir sends Rhazi in invisibly with his Ring of Free Action to clear/trap the webs, and after that Khalid with a scroll of Protection from Poison tanks while the rest of the group turns the spiders into pincushions. Jaheira levels up, and gains her first level 4 slots.
The next area is where the Druid line starts. I first had to fight through a Hamadryad whose dying animation is broken: any time a party member killed her, the game froze and was forced to quit. I CTRL-Y'd her the third time, and she stayed dead that time. And then druid. DRUIDS. At this point, a pure level Druid is level 7 without serious powerlevelling elsewhere. At worst, they likely have access to Call Woodland Beings. These druids, which we fight 5 or 6 of at once, are apparently level 9+. Any we don't kill means that there's another Nymph on the field, and MORE spellcasts to deal with. We get blindsided by a Insect Plague, and in the ensuing Fear effe
ct (Imoen didn't have time to swap to resist fear...) Dynaheir is taken down in melee. We win, though, nobody at higher than yellow health.
We return to the FAI, raise Dynaheir, then proceed to the area right after SpiderCloakWood, where the next battle with the Shadow Druids is supposed to happen. I'm expecting Insect Plague now, and Imoen's bard aura is set for Resist Fear. I'm going along merrily with a fight when I see this:
Ogre Mages: I really need to start prebuffing myself. Dire Charm is terrifyingly irritating, and in the general chaos Minsc's charm caused, Jaheira is killed by a combination of scimitar slashes and Magic Missiles.
Potion of Magic Shielding keeps us safe from Prat, and Jaheira levels up after killing the two Basilisks and host of spiders. Tomes are identified, all of them going to Rhazi. Back at the Gate, Cythandria has some BS of a Breath saving throw, and Slythe is surprisingly easy to kill: I think with Might and Guile, his backstab modifier's been nerfed significantly. It's only a x2 instead of a x4. Oh, we also got back Duke Eltan from his healer using an invisible screen for Rhazi. Not the first and not the last time I'm going to be using it... but it's late now, and I need to get up early: I'll post the rest of Rhazi's BG1 run soon. (He's actually in the starting dialogue of SoD now.)
Kaxir (male dwarf Kensai, Gate70); Cheery (male gnome Swashbuckler, Grond0)
This pairing made a chunk of decent progress, however the screenshots focused on less than successful elements and this eventually proved fatal.
Venturing down into an ankheg nest with the kensai leading sounded like fun. Kaxir made a good show of this though and Cheery's resolve only failed with the final beast, taking lead position as worried that Kaxir was looking a tad fragile against any hit.
With Cheery detected, battle started and Kaxir decided to rush in. Venkt had mirrored by this time and Kaxir failed to hack the real caster down, meaning the next spell was cast successfully and Kaxir failed to save against Horror. Venkt then emptied his spellbook into the running kensai despite Cheery's best efforts to distract him.
(we crossed our fingers and hoped for the random roller to throw out a couple of hardened warriors next)
Tweedle (male elf enchanter, Grond0); Nuriu (male elf mage, Gate70)
Previous run
And in answer to Gate70's question of whether hope would be fulfilled - no
On the way back to Beregost that carelessness proved costly. That journey is safe by day, but I didn't ensure that was the case and a full bandit ambush always looked like being bad news. Their initial round of shots scored 4 hits and I paused the game as Nuriu crumpled to the ground with only 2 of the hits having yet arrived.
Did you not notice a squirrel animation replacing your character's sprite? In some cases, immunity to the polymorph opcode doesn't actually grant immunity to the HP effect, since in BG2 at least, polymorph spells and items actually give the target a special squirrel weapon which has several effects, only one of which actually uses the polymorph opcode. Critters that are supposed to be immune to polymorph spells actually need to be immune to Polymorph Other specifically to avoid the HP effect; being immune to the polymorph opcode is insufficient.
If the target was a party member, that's a bit strange, because to my knowledge, the only way the player can get immunity to polymorph effects is via Mustard Jelly form, but the jelly form's 100% MR would block the "polymorph" effect (really a Create Weapon opcode, but whatever) entirely, so that doesn't seem like the Sphere of Chaos polymorph effect could work partially, setting HP but not actually changing the character's sprite.
It was now time to return to the camp. There was no problem there.
Najarra at the FAI was the next to feel our blades.
Now time for Cloakwood.
Note that we only used the Myconid Bloom-sac at the very tail end of the invasion for fear that their confusion spells would cause a Crusader to drift towards the south of the map and trigger the rest of the waves all at once. You can NOT let ANY enemies even APPROACH the barrels at the south of the map, because it's virtually guaranteed to result in an unstoppable flood of enemies who will walk right past you to the barrels and trigger an instant game over. We used other summoning items for the first three waves instead, though we would have had less trouble if we had fully charged the Amulet of Abnormally Awesome Ankheg Summoning, since it starts at 5 charges but can be recharged up to 10.
We took scattered damage from stray enemies and our own Arrows of Detonation, which Durlag's Goblet was able to take care of. When we lost our buffs to a Dispel Magic against the second wave of Crusader Mages (that Dispel Magic is almost impossible to avoid), we had to use a Protection from Magic scroll to keep us safe from enemy spells; ordinary potion buffs were not enough. After using the Protection from Magic scroll, we also followed up with a Chaotic Commands scroll to protect us from any Darts of Stunning the enemy might throw at us, plus a Potion of Invulnerability to improve our AC and a Potion of Clarity for fear immunity, just in case I forgot to equip Kiel's Helmet before drinking from Durlag's Goblet.
To my surprise, the enemies at the siege of Dragonspear Castle are much more numerous in LoB mode, and we couldn't plow through them even with lots of Arrows of Detonation. Even after poisoning their food and water supplies, it seems the Crusaders are distinctly stronger than the coalition fighters in LoB mode, and you really need to carry the fight yourself. In the end, I decided to just drink a Potion of Invisibility and run straight to Ashatiel, avoiding the enemies in the northeast.
Ashatiel fell to some arrows and 5 of our last 6 Potions of Firebreath. She always tries to heal herself behind Sanctuary, which renders her helpless if the player has wands, offensive potions or scrolls, or the Ring of Energy to strike through the Sanctuary.
Now we have to tackle Avernus. It should be safe, albeit time-consuming, to kite the demons before the elevator, but I'm worried about certain buff durations running out during the lengthy elevator ride to Belhifet.
My second run with Mesmer the archer a little while ago took rather more risks than the first - probably reflecting I was a bit tired of that character. Having got a reasonable distance with a Heart of Fury monk in IWD, I thought this time I would try that in BG - using the same SCS installation as for Mesmer.
While quite a bit of the gameplay is similar for a monk to an archer, the former doesn't have anywhere near the same THAC0 at range. Without that, I knew Mendel would struggle to hit most things, so was keen to take as many short-cuts as possible. Progress so far has included:
- after Candlekeep killed Imoen, Xzar and Montaron for their equipment (also found an invisibility scroll at Gorion's burial site - pity this isn't a mage character
- went to Beregost to get a potion bag from Neera, calm down Marl and kill Algernon.
- south of Beregost charmed an ogrillon and tried to use that to help get the boots of stealth. However, it made little progress against hobgoblins so I decided to try and finish it off myself - and got the required critical pretty quickly to rack up a first level (getting a good start with 10 HPs). The hobgoblin with the boots was then charmed and worn down against its fellows.
- travelled down to Nashkel during the day to avoid ambushes. Talked to Noober and rested to learn LMD. Killed the defenceless Vitiare and also undertook a bit more work by charming Oopah and setting him on Zordral (using stealth and area transitions to avoid the mage's spells). That was enough for level 3 and the good start continued with 10 more HPs.
- at the Lake, activated a single gnoll to attack Drizzt. After it broke its weapon I could just leave the game until it had eventually knocked Drizzt unconscious. Killing him provided 2 more levels, with an additional 15 HPs.
- charmed the sirines at Beregost temple and successfully finished all of them off.
- spent a while kiting Dushai (just ignoring the village going hostile this time).
- with reputation down at 3, returning Joia's ring put Mendel on the threshold of another level.
- he took his first damage in a hobgoblin ambush on the way to the Nashkel Mine. Greywolf was charmed there and would have given the level, but died to a critical from a kobold (the first XP lost like that in this run to date). However, Mendel was so close to the level anyway that killing the last 2 kobolds tipped him over - just the 6 more HPs this time regrettably).
Monk L6, 51 HPs, 37 kills
I was originally aiming to get up to level 7 there, but the loss of the greater basilisk prevented that to slightly take the gloss off a generally pretty good opening.
The Archer run has ended. I picked the wrong dialog option with Thrix and so he didn't pose the riddle I needed to get a +3 longsword, forcing me to use a short sword I wasn't proficient in. Worse yet, Caelar died, having gotten overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies. Greater Restoration is not a viable means of keeping her alive in LoB mode; there's just far too much damage and you can't summon decoys and heal her in the same round. When we were out of summons, we switched from arrows to tanking.
We got Belhifet to Near Death, all the way down to 166 HP, and then my Champion's Strength scrolls wore off.
Without them, my THAC0 was barely subzero with my main hand. Belhifet's AC in LoB mode with Improved Invisibility is -24, and we needed high rolls to hit him.
We were so incredibly close. After 12 hours of incredibly intensive gameplay at 45-60 FPS over the course of 6 days, where the mouse inputs were so fast I needed to take Ibuprofen just to keep the pain in my hands from distracting me, the run has come to an end. I was so afraid of Belhifet and I so badly wanted to get through to SoA, because then I knew things would be okay.
It's gone. I worked so hard, and it came to nothing. It's such a spectacular waste, and I feel bad for having tried.
You know, one of the lessons I learned from my first attempt, with an Archer/Mage, was that these runs can be downright unpleasant if your only goal is to complete the run. No-reload runs are supposed to make the game more fun and dramatic; not more tense and frustrating.
You know, when I was doing this run, I caught myself thinking the same kinds of things I did when I did the Archer/Mage run. I thought that this would be the final challenge, so to speak, the one thing after which I wouldn't have anything else to do--the end of my challenge runs. That idea ended up torturing me because I couldn't get away from it.
But with the v2.5 patch adding -11 AC to LoB enemies, suddenly my old Archer/Mage run doesn't feel legitimate anymore, because it was done on the "easier version" of the game. It no longer feels like the "final challenge," because now there's another one. That -11 AC might seem simple, but it's actually a huge complicating factor in LoB gameplay. Also, there's a saving throw bug in LoB mode that made it easier, and we only recently got a hotfix to give enemies the +5 to saving throws they seriously do not need, but are intended to have, in LoB mode.
Now the "final challenge" is something different: a solo no-reload LoB+SCS+Ascension run in v2.5. And now that the original challenge has been beaten by characters with mage levels, with druid levels, and with cleric levels (Archer->Mage, Cleric/Mage, and Totemic Druid->Fighter), I feel compelled to do it with a non-spellcasting character, and an Archer is the safest bet for me because it'll let me kill Melissan with STR drain in 10 seconds. That's kind of a big deal for me because losing to Melissan would be excruciating.
But Belhifet is just a huge obstacle, and even now, I barely have the means to take him down. He's so much worse in the new update; he has -24 AC now, and you just can't approach that without stacking Champion's Strength scrolls, which only last so long. You need to build up so many resources just to make the fight doable.
But if I can do this run, that'll be it. I'll be done. And if the next update adds any new bonuses to LoB critters, that won't really introduce any new challenges; it'll just make the old ones impossible. Make LoB Belhifet any stronger and it won't be possible to beat him no matter what you do, so there's no temptation to try out a new run.
I particularly want to put it on Youtube. The no-reload challenge here isn't widely known (not just the LoB one, but any of them), and I'd kind of like to show off the work of our community to a broader audience. There are so many people elsewhere on the Internet who don't know just how far you can push the Infinity Engine, and it would be nice to tout the work of this community and impress some folks.
Besides, I think it might shock some people at RPGCodex and other fora that the best powergaming work on the Infinity Engine was done not by a gang of hypercompetitive snobs and elitists, but by a warm, welcoming, generous group of friends. People are nice here, and I think it would be cool if folks knew that we were also kicking ass.
I suspect you might just end up causing more grief for yourself
I recommend playing Legacy of Bhaal with the bonus experience turned on and the experience cap removed. The point of those is not to make the game easier but to make the game more fun to play. It is really tedious and unsatisfying to fight enemies that are super-powerful and get almost no experience for doing so.
The difficulty decrease of playing with bonus experience and no experience cap can be balanced out by setting restrictions, such as no wands, no summoning any creatures, no Durlag's Goblet, no XP loops, no Protection from Undead scrolls, or whatever other restrictions you want.
Previous updates
Continuing his progress, Mendel:
- went to the Red Wizard area and charmed them one by one, getting the Ring of Energy and another level from Denak (and another welcome 10 HPs).
- at High Hedge he tried charming Permidion Stark to act as a tank against the golems. I was hoping that he would have a minHP ring, but no such luck and Mendel gave up on the idea of killing the golems at that time - though leaving both outside ensured he could kill them later (without annoying Thalantyr) if he wanted to.
- Melicamp failed to survive, but all the other reputation quests were duly completed. Some of those require quite a lot of work in LoB, but Mendel usually had some assistance with that. For instance the final point to maximise reputation came with the help of Arghain against some xvarts bothering Arabelle.
Monk L68, 71 HPs, 92 kills
By monk standards 71 out of 80 HPs at this stage is really excellent. However, with the LoB double damage and no critical protection Mendel's life is still likely to be measured in seconds if he ever gets trapped
Always feels bad when you're close.
If I may suggest you something in between No-Reloads, it's definitely
Not only is it brilliant (I don't like much games, but Sekiro is really impressive); but the sheer ammount of deaths you will experience is this game (it's beyond difficult) makes it the very opposite of No-Reloading. You do have infinite respawns, so not all is bad.
The monsters/bosses in this video are actually easy, compared to what you meet later.
The battle with the others was straightforward due to the fact that Fay ran into the web cast by Valerie and all the enemies attacked her. This brought her health down to Near Death so some arrows of healing were fired at her. (Not many left)
Afterwards Tenya and Bladeservant healed her before resting. As is her wont, Jini shared a passionate night with Bladeservant.
It was then realised that we had a dragon to fight and insufficient protection against fire. The party headed to the area east of the Nashkel Mines to remedy that before returning.
With the ring of fire protection, Bladeservant was able to take on the dragon single-handed as he was immune to fire damage.
Of course the dragon was nothing like those in SoA.
Wow! You folks play the game on a whole other level than my inch by inch, deliberate, special forces style.