I actually kinda doubt that, if we showed our work to a broader audience, they would have useful critiques of our methods and be able to tell us a better way to play the game. This forum really is the primary hub of IE powergaming now that the Bioware community has merged with it. There are still lots of folks out there who don't believe it's possible to solo the game with certain classes, or that don't think a no-reload run is even possible without just relying on sheer blind luck. There's a lot of inaccurate technical details elsewhere on the Internet, hence the effort to help fix up the wiki.
I think people would be amazed if they came here and saw what we were up to. Even the unsuccessful runs here are pretty damn impressive if you think about it.
It's high time I started to record my progress in this game, especially considering my party is now well past the touch-and-go first stages of the game. I'll get catching up now.
Here's the crew:
Hwynevyr, Human Paladin (F)
Anaya, Half-Elf Fighter/Druid (F)
Fango, Gnome Fighter/Cleric (M)
Phlebas, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric (M)
Linaea, Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief (F)
Dundas, Half-Elf Bard (M)
I'm running a classic IWD + HoW + TotL installation (I'm personally not a fan of the EE changes), with a few select tweaks.
WeiDU log:
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~DDRAWFIX/DDRAWFIX.TP2~ #0 #2 // DDrawFix -> Use WineD3D's DDraw Library: v1.0
~1PP_IWD_FIXES/1PP_IWD_FIXES.TP2~ #0 #0 // 1ppv: Fix character attack animation sounds in TotLM
~IWDFIXPACK/SETUP-IWDFIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #0 // Assorted Fixes: v6
~IWDFIXPACK/SETUP-IWDFIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #100 // Game Text Update: v6
~1PP_HQ_MUSIC_IWD/1PP_HQ_MUSIC_IWD.TP2~ #0 #0 // 1pp: High quality music for IWD HoW/TotLM
~IU_IWD/SETUP-IU_IWD.TP2~ #0 #0 // Item Upgrade for Icewind Dale: v5
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #0 // The Voice of Durdel Anatha: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #100 // Malavon's Golems: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #200 // Expanded Guello/Beorn Quest: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #300 // Marketh's Ring: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #400 // Presio's Duel: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #500 // Orrick's Rhino Beetle Shield: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #600 // The High Baptist's Flock: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Minor Item Restorations: v7
// Recently Uninstalled: ~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Restored Random Drops: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Restored Random Drops: v7
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2040 // Universal Clubs: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2152 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> Allow Armor Plus One Protection Item (Angel): v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2210 // Change Grandmastery Bonuses -> True Grandmastery (Baldurdash): v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2220 // Change Magically Created Weapons to Zero Weight: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2240 // Un-Nerfed THAC0 Table: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Exceptional Strength Weight Limit Changes: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2999 // Max HP at Level One: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3000 // Higher HP on Level Up -> Maximum: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Maximum HP for NPCs (the bigg) -> For All Creatures in Game: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3083 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Stacks of 120: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3200 // Sellable Items (Icelus): v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3250 // Never lose access to Orrick the Gray's trade goods: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3240 // Friendly Random Drops -> Randomize on reload: v4
Some of these options are left-overs from a previous installation, including the Friendly Random Drops reset on reload tweak. Since I won't reload, this won't change anything. I left Maximum HP on, since it's also on for all other creatures, and it allows a little more survivability at the exceedingly tricky early stages.
Everything else is largely cosmetic, except for True Grandmastery, an un-nerfed high-level THAC0 table, and slightly altered carrying weight limits (that scale more naturally with each %-point of exceptional STR). That, and the increased stacks: since we'll be relying on ranged weapons, and HoF enemies have such deep HP pools, it would be masochistic not to increase the stack-sizes for ammunition.
The party is fairly optimised in a few ways. We plan to take advantage of all the important non-random items, as well as exploit as much as possible the potential random ones, so we have a great variety of alignments and classes. The Paladin is important as her tanking will carry the party at the early stages, and the Bard is a class I would never consider playing without; also both of them enjoy nice, occasional XP/treasure bonuses from certain conversations. Every character is magic-capable, all except one is a warrior, and we ensure that even if a character or two is disabled we still have great versatility in the tactics and power available.
~ Easthaven ~
The first thing we do is boot out Hwynevyr, the Paladin. As a single-class she's an XP sponge for the needier multis, and we need to get summons as early as possible to take the pressure off the front-liners and make kiting less risky. She's also now served her initial purpose of using her LG alignment to give us the maximum starting reputation, which we need to keep throughout the game since there's no way to increase it.
We then do the Bard-related quests in town, including convincing Old Jed to quit his cups, singing for a townsperson's gem, and exchanging songs with Elisia for some crucial early XP boosts, before booting out Dundas, as well. Fango, our Gnome F/C, gets offended by a townsperson, for which he gets given a Knucklehead Trout, which we can immediately give to Damian for another early XP boost for our now-quartet.
We bask for a moment in the awesomeness that is Jeremy Soule's compositional work.
Then we go and poke some beetles to death (only about 20 minutes AFK), and pop into Pomab's to get our equipment and supplies.
~ Apsel's Wolf ~
Anaya, our F/D, takes point for the battle and runs in circles, while the others pelt the hound with missiles. The HoF wolf can easily hit for 20+ damage and it attacks early in the round, so any slip of attention can spell an early end to this run (since we currently can't afford to Raise anybody). Anaya is able to hold its focus and avoid excessive damage, and we eventually bring it down.
~ The Bridge Goblins ~
HoF mode has a normally very good "call to arms" system for enemies. When you hear an enemy make their battle cry (usually something like "Rraargh!") then that creature is summoning all nearby hostiles to join the battle (how close is "nearby" is not clear at the moment, but it usually means that a single group of enemies will converge on your party if you stray into the view of just one of the group).
However certain enemies seem to have been overlooked, including several of the early groups. We can use this to our advantage with the bridge goblins, and try to pull them one at a time, evening up the odds. Occasionally we'll accidentally alert more than one, but generally for this encounter the strategy works. Even so, we have to play very safe, and I hold nothing back in each battle with a single goblin, 'cause we can't afford any deaths at this stage.
Our primary tanks (Fango and Anaya) take it in turns to pull the goblins one by one from the cliff to the south west of the bridge. As a goblin approaches I organise the team up on the bridge, well away from the rest. With its attention taken by a tank we combine the following tactics in various ways:
1. Flank it with Phlebas, and hit it with Color Spray. Five times out of ten this impressively powerful 1st level spell will stun the goblin, and then we hit it with everything we've got. Normally its AC is too low and our THAC0 too high that most attacks miss, but this way we guarantee free hits, although not for long.
2. Anaya calls down a Sunscorch, which deals a little damage and roughly half the time blinds the goblin, giving it THAC0 and AC penalties.
3. Fango/Phlebas Curse it to reduce its saving throws to improve our chances of landing the above.
4. If we pull two or more Linaea lobs Grease to slow them down.
5. Linaea tries flanking for a backstab, which increases THAC0 considerably, and is occasionally useful.
One by one, they fall. If we still have spells left, we try for another. If not, we go and rest at the Snowdrift Inn: it's too risky right now to try tanking them outright, so we need all our spells.
~ Lupus Lupi ~
These canines can be a serious danger, since it's extremely tricky to inch around the corner and pull just one, and as before they hit hard, fast and are very quick on their feet. To make matters worse there is no kiting room. This means we have to tank them head-on, relying on our only slightly less rubbish HP than before. Thankfully we have our disablers/debuffs from before, as well as another trick up our sleeve.
Our corner inching appears to be controlled enough, as we only aggravate one. It still nearly kills Fango, but we blind it with sunbeams and eventually bring it down. We rest and heal Fango, then return. For the second Anaya pulls out our best card: Charm Person or Mammal. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's a life-saver.
We now pit the two wolves against each other, pelting the enemy one with our missiles till it falls. Finally Phlebas steps up and Color Sprays the friendly wolf, and we down it as well.
~ Orcs and caves ~
Linaea is feeling lucky so we send her in to try a pot-shot. It lands, though the orc still gets away, because even her best backstab leaves this HoF beast at just Slightly Injured. In fact this orc is not to be found inside the cave, since upon entering we find them all completely uninjured. Still, it was satisfying.
Inside, we Curse, Color Spray and Hold the two groups of brutes that rush us. The duration of the second isn't huge, so it usually needs to be reapplied to larger groups of enemies. That and some HP-tanking by our front-liners eventually brings the three down.
We heal up without resting and press forward. Unfortunately my new-ness to NR and documenting my runs means in the excitement of the next battle (the first big one!) I forget to take any screenshots, so I'll talk through it briefly instead.
We pull out another new crowd-control spell, better suited to big groups: Entangle. We then draw the nearest orc out of the main cavern, which activates their Call to Arms (the first enemies in the game to use it), aggravating the whole bunch: several orcs, orc elites, and a shaman. The arrows of the elites are particularly dangerous. We mitigate the risk by pulling back around the corner, which forces the enemy to come a lot closer to be able to target us. Before pulling back, we lob an Entangle and two Greases in their way, which should slow them down enough to break up their attack.
As the first orcs round the corner, we hit them with Hold Person. One is the shaman, and amazingly it sticks to him. Every missile we have is then focused on him, and he falls without issue, though we take fair damage from a couple of archers who weren't Held. We try another Hold, and eventually by combining those and Color Spray we flatten the remaining orcs. (This really was not as easy as it may sound, and I had to be extremely careful to keep the unarmoured Phlebas and Linaea away from those Elites' attention.)
Similar tactics apply to the remaining isolated groups of orcs in the cave, and we have a nice bit of luck on our first magical random drop: The Girdle of Beatification, which puts the wearer under a permanent Bless effect (THAC0 and Saving Throw bonuses), and which is arguably the best item available in that chest. Mopping up another group gives Fango his 4th Cleric level and the coveted Animate Dead spell. Summons in HoF share the HP, AC and THAC0 bonuses given to the enemies, and from now on they will form a corner-stone of our strategy for a lot of the game.
Feeling emboldened, we head back to the Snowdrift, pick up our two missing companions, and rest in preparation for the final fight of the caves.
[Please excuse the cheeky quick-saving. Old habits die hard.
Andddd Rhazi has fallen: I think the Creeping Darkness quest was changed somewhere along the line, and I can't talk to Vichand to get the scroll. I accidentally activated all of the Bridgefort fight, and Rhazi was hit by a Emotion:Helplessness. After both Khalid and Minsc died first, Rhazi was taken out by an archer. I really, really hate these large-scale fights where I can't even keep track of what spells are being cast, of even if a spell IS being cast. Back to Candlekeep.
Hard luck, @Neverused. That quest is really dicey. I don't know exactly what happened to you, but without the right stats or maybe the right class, Vichand or a certain guard (I've seen both of them guarding the chest, sometimes together and sometimes alone) won't hand over the scroll without a fight. If that fight doesn't end soon enough, the alarm goes off and the whole camp turns hostile. The Flaming Fist will come in to help from the southeast, but that takes a while and making your way across the map to hide behind them is really dangerous without Potions of Invisibility for the whole party. The mages in that fight are really deadly, and there are multiple targets for your Arrows of Dispelling.
Bladeservant et al arrived at the Cloakwood Mines and have defeated all the ground level enemies, even Tytus. Tytus has always been such a major pain in the butt in the past that sneaking past was a considered option except for the fact that Bladeservant is an Inquisitor!! True Sight made Tytus tough, but not excessively so. No backstabs made all the difference. Magic Missiles from Aura and Valerie were quite potent. Whilst his armour was good, it went straight into the Bag of Holding as it wasn't THAT good.
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.
Out of curiosity, have you made use of the Advanced Alchemy ability of Aura's kit? There's a large variety of potions there, including fire and cold resistance potions.
After a long day at work I fancied a relaxing trip going to the seaside. The sirines there were charming, but all found themselves charmed as I took the old football motto of getting my retaliation in first. Mendel picked up the XP for 5 of those - just losing this one to a critical.
The first 2 golems were lured outside and shot down with another 80 fire bullets, before the last one lost out to stealth attacks and the distraction of a charmed bat.
A trip through the Cloakwood was only briefly delayed by picking up Laskal's potion. At the mine Drasus & co were charmed one by one and fed to the nearby guards - one of those helpfully broke his weapon making it easier to ensure Mendel got the killing blow each time.
In the mine he stealthed down to Davaeorn and charmed the guard. In trying to trigger all the traps though Mendel got into Davaeorn's sight for a fraction too long and partially activated him. He didn't release his trigger or summon guards, but he did turn hostile. He still didn't react further as the guard dragged the battle horrors away, but after Mendel used stealth to avoid those he did react the instant Mendel came back into sight. A potion of magic blocking was used to ensure Mendel wasn't held by the web/stinking cloud sequencer.
Once all the guards had arrived Mendel started throwing in fireballs and then made a first use of wands to make dealing with the wandering battle horrors easy.
More fireballs killed most of the guards, allowing Davaeorn to move around again.
Mendel picked off the final guard with his sling before tackling the tricky problem of Davaeorn.
He was drawn over to the exit, where Mendel could dodge all his spells. He did get hit a couple of times while coaxing out all Davaeorn's MMMs, but disdained to use regeneration potions this time and eventually Davaeorn appeared to be out of tricks. Kiting him round Mendel used 27 charges from the wand of magic missiles while taking Davaeorn to near death, only to find he'd been too slow when the mage suddenly recovered all his health and spells. I've seen that happen too often to be really surprised though and fortunately Davaeorn had chosen a slow-casting spell and Mendel was able to run away from it (his aura was clouded so something like a magic missile would have been certain death).
After taking the opportunity to rest a few times until he had healed, Mendel went back down - and found Davaeorn was nowhere in sight. Assuming he was invisible, Mendel charmed a guard and dragged it downstairs and duly got the mage to show his face. Davaeorn killed him quickly though thanks to ignoring damage taken while he was casting.
Mendel eventually got him in position near the exit and got rid of MMMs and spells. This time he didn't kite him, but went up and down the stairs using MMs and stealth attacks. That only produced the same result though, with Davaeorn again renewing his spells and recovering HPs.
Trying once more, Davaeorn was drained of spells and MMMs for a third time. This time Mendel used the ring of energy to speed things up and I'd just checked that Davaeorn was down to 11 HPs when he suddenly started casting sunfire. If I'd used a potion of magic blocking Davaeorn might follow up with MMMs and if Mendel ran out of his sight he'd recover HPs again - so I decided to quickly retreat just enough to avoid the spell and hope a final ring of energy charge would finish him off before he switched to missiles - which it did.
After flooding the mine Mendel managed to travel to Baldur's Gate without a single ambush and will look forward to having a good rest there.
I'd not considered using the Ring of Energy on Davaeorn. Good thinking, @Grond0!
Davaeorn healing himself is very odd. That's only supposed to happen after 8 hours have passed, but that's 40 real-time minutes. Did the fight really drag on that long?
Just briefly... I have been running with an enchantress known as Siercal recently, who has reached level 5, dealing with the Nashkel Mines & Tranzig so far. Her party currently includes Jaheira, Khalid, Gavin, Isra, and Alora though I chop
and change companions a lot. Playing a mage is always an intensely nervous experience for me, some close calls for Siercal so far have included....
The Gnoll Fortress, 'improved' by the Extended Expanded Enhanced Mod to have a veritable army of souped up gnolls spawning. Ironically enough Dyanheir was killed as soon as we grabbed her- so I guess we just kept a lock of her hair to raise her with. Also, a berserk (War Hulk) Minsc criticaled Isra for about 50 damage at one critical point, so all in all I don't think Siercal will be too interested in having him around .
A kobold commando fire arrow hitting her for about 20 damage.
... and an ankheg surfacing right next to her with the party off fighting another one. She's been mostly invisible since...
An ambush consisting of not only the infamous circle of bandits but also Molkar's group, before invisibility was available. Swigged oil of speed and fortunately Dyanheir was their preferred target!
Moving on slowly. Expect to get to level 7 if possible before tackling the improved bandit camp.
I've attempted several runs since my last post, but they've all followed the same pattern of Shoal, Marl, Firebead, Nashkel for CLW, Algernon, Dushai, High Hedge flesh golems, Temple sirines, Mutamin's Garden, Lighthouse sirines and flesh golems, Durlag's Tower battle horrors and basilisks, reputation quests, and then the critical path.
Tired of not having access to open locks and find traps and having some experience with the shadow dancer, I rolled the only thief kit that's not in the combined hall of heroes (shadow dancer is still on the list but has been completed by @semiticgod).
Did all of the quests in Candlekeep, then went and killed Shoal, bringing me to level 4. Headed to Beregost, placated Marl, then killed Algernon. Went to Firebead for his quest, then set traps and killed him. In my SCS install (v32RC10), there's no reputation loss for killing him, so I was a bit surprised to have another reputation hit. Went and paid to bring reputation up, which was more than I had anticipated due to the Firebead hit.
Used traps to kill Elminster, bringing me up to level 6. Went to the FAI to sell Evermemory, and then went to kill Dushai, afterwards paying to bring rep up to 10. Headed to Nashkel to get CLW. Since I was down here, I stealthed through the mines and used traps to kill Mulahey. Wasn't sure how it would work after I attacked him, but he summoned his guards. Stealthed past them and out of the Nashkel Mines.
I trapped and killed Elminster in Beregost, then did the Temple sirines and High Hedge flesh golems, bringing me to level 8. All points have gone to set traps, find traps, and open locks. Low stealth values have been a bit tedious, but nothing too bad. Headed to the Bandit Camp via Raiken in Peldvale. Charmed and fed Taurgosz to zombies then charmed Raemon. Set up traps in the tent, then rested, trapped, and rested again. After re-entering, Raemon initiated conversation, everyone went hostile, and then they all immediately died to traps.
I trapped and killed Elminster at the Friendly Arm Inn. Stealthed through Cloakwood. Where I would normally charm Drasus, I just threw traps in front of him, rested, and repeated. He initiated conversation, killing him and the other front person. The traps were either too far from the mages, or they went hostile a moment later. Either way, I backed off to rest, then came back and threw two traps, killing one. I backstabbed the other.
Stealthed through the Cloakwood Mines and tried to use a charmed guard to kill Davaeorn. He didn't initiate dialogue but went hostile and killed the guard. I threw a couple of traps at him, which didn't kill him, so I set two normal traps and pulled him into them, which did the trick. The Cloakwood Mines were flooded afterwards.
I trapped and killed Elminster in Baldur's Gate. I probably hit level 9 at this point. After killing Elminster, I did quests to bring reputation up to 20. I finally bought the Greenstone Amulet at this point, plus a fair amount of other gear, as gold was in ample supply. I also did Mutamin's Garden, the Lighthouse, and the easy experience at Durlag's Tower. I probably hit level 10 here but don't really remember.
Next I did Durlag's Tower basement levels 1 and 2. Haven't done these fully before, and the last time I attempted level 1, I wasn't playing a character with find traps and lost to a dire charm trap. I really didn't have any issues on level 1 and used traps to kill three of the warders. Only the top one remained, and I threw traps at it. They weren't quite enough, so I place a couple of normal traps, and pulled it into them, which ended up being enough. I probably should have just used a backstab.
I went ahead and did level 2 to get Kiel's Buckler. I got caught in one of the clouds (stinking maybe) near Kiel's Helmet but recovered and survived that. I was pretty careful through the rest of level 2 and didn't have any big issues. I considered doing levels 3 and 4, but they didn't have enough useful loot to entice me.
Went back to Baldur's Gate and did the poison quest and the Iron Throne. I charmed everyone at the top level and grouped them up to die by traps. Only one survived but was slowed and quickly succumbed to arrows. Headed to Candlekeep afterwards.
In Candlekeep, I charmed both the Iron Throne leadership and Prat's party. Instead of using traps, I used them to kill each other. In my SCS install, this works without any issues as long as I save the party leader for last, but the followers went hostile after attacking one of them. It didn't provide any major obstacles but was unexpected. I had gathered all the manuals by the end of Candlekeep.
Afterwards went back and did the Ducal Palace so that Baldur's Gate would be safe to travel through. Charmed the nobles and placed them in different areas so the dopplegangers could be dealt with one by one. I would have used traps, but I don't remember them all transforming at the same time and didn't want to risk it.
After the Ducal Palace, I gathered the items I thought I would want to end the game with. Went and purchased back Evermemory to sell during SoD and picked up the second Evermemory in SW Baldur's Gate. With those, several Laeral's Tear Necklaces and other assorted high end gems, I probably had 40k-50k for SoD.
I haven't done Isle of Balduran and decided to try it to get the Staff Mace. It was going pretty smoothly up until entering the Wandering Eye. I had cleared the first level and set traps to drag down the enemies on the second level. I went up to trigger them and didn't realize how far the entrance spawn was from the stairs back down. I was quickly surrounded, and I think my aura was clouded from setting traps, as my potion of invisibility didn't go off before I was killed. I may have had my bow equipped as well.
It was a pretty disappointing end to an overall smooth run. I was shocked how fast the death happened. I don't think I would have had any problems in the Thieve's Maze, Undercity, or Temple of Bhaal. The bounty hunter was pretty fun to play, and it's hard to overstate the power of being able to throw traps. The main negative to traps was that enemies didn't always go hostile at the same time. The ability to reliably kill Elminster was nice, as it gave me some freedom in my opening routine. I'll likely give the dark moon monk, fighter/druid, or cleric/ranger a go next, as I continue to attempt classes that aren't already on the hall of heroes.
I'd not considered using the Ring of Energy on Davaeorn. Good thinking, @Grond0!
Davaeorn healing himself is very odd. That's only supposed to happen after 8 hours have passed, but that's 40 real-time minutes. Did the fight really drag on that long?
I wasn't timing it, but it could well have done. I always play at 60 fps, so it would only have been about 20 minutes. Although Mendel hit him many, many times he never managed to get through Davaeorn's various stoneskins before those refreshed. His very high resistance to fire meant that the wand of the heavens wasn't a good option and I was originally trying to save the ring of energy - hence the use of the wand of magic missiles. The latter was clearly too slow to kill him in time, but if I had optimized the fight a bit more the ring of energy could have done the job with a bit to spare. Part of the problem specific to me is due to not using healing potions. A lot of care is needed to avoid MMMs and Davaeorn (like a number of other magic users in SCS) has a nasty habit of producing more of those without actually casting any spells. I was thus having to be a bit cautious about exposure to those.
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.
Out of curiosity, have you made use of the Advanced Alchemy ability of Aura's kit? There's a large variety of potions there, including fire and cold resistance potions.
I hadn't considered using them.
Bladeservant then made his way through the Cloakwood Mines.
Xan casting web followed by Valerie casting fireball worked well a few times. By the time the party reached Davaeorn, Aura could make a bronze automaton which she did and after that brains weren't needed.
Bladeservant must have missed some people to rescue in the mines as his reputation plummetted and is now 13. Just as well that there are a few jobs that weren't quite finished down south.
Do you mean Davaeorn has more missiles than he should at his level? That’s a bug, if so.
@DavidW I suspect it's not that he has more than he should, but the script for the way they're used that makes them difficult to combat. I think Davaeorn is level 11, so with the 12 additional caster levels in LoB he would have 20 MMMs from a single spell. However, he won't use all of them at once. Sometimes he will change from the missiles and equip a staff - he might or might not then move forward as if to come into melee, but certainly won't do that for long. Instead he'll probably cast a spell or two more before switching back to MMMs. He's likely to do that switching several times in using them all up.
I'm not particularly arguing that treatment should change (although obviously the ability to switch between created magical weapons and standard ones is something not available to the player), just commenting that it means you need to be very careful about MMMs - particularly with a character without critical protection.
In the City there wasn't much that Mendel really benefited from - but he did most of the main quests anyway. That included:
- intervening in a fight between the daughters of Shandalar.
- gulping 3 mirroring potions while burning down a greater basilisk (a scroll of PfP would have been cheaper).
- saving a nymph from a crazed lover.
- talking to Degrodel and collecting the Cloak of Balduran before going back to charm the mage and feed him to his guards.
- Ramazith was another mage to be burnt down from stealth,
though I didn't bother with the remaining inhabitants of his tower. A potion of cloud giant strength was used to get the tome there and I got a bit more benefit from that by using stealth attacks to kill Lusselyn's mustard jelly.
- Jalantha was charmed and worn down by her own priestesses, though I did have to use an invisibility potion earlier in that fight when trapped on a walkway.
- Marek was distracted by a number of charmed gamblers to make it easier to run him out of spells then kite him without him being able to hide.
- the dopplegangers took a fair while to deal with. Even from stealth they were not easy to hit, so Mendel used up a few more wand charges on them to move things along.
- there was quite a bit more use of the wand of heavens against Sunin. However, for a few extra style points I decided to finish off his last 7 HPs with a pair of LMDs. The first of those was shown hitting as Mendel went out the door and he came back in and looked straight into the eyes of Sunin as he cast the second - only for the mage to immediately start casting in response. Belatedly I realized what had happened - sometimes if damage strikes during an area departure, the text shows the damage, but it's not actually applied to the target. With aura clouded that was a potentially nasty situation. However, Mendel changed to his speedy boots and was out of the door well before Sunin could cast. Despite reports to the contrary Sunin then found he was indeed affected (quite badly) by a wand magic missile.
- Mendel went to get his wands recharged before moving on to the Iron Throne. Nothing new was tried there - charm Diyab, sanctuary before the Shennaras attack him, produce skeleton warriors to kill the Shennaras, charm Aasim for more skeleton warriors and set them to killing the remaining characters - which they did comfortably.
After buying a few more potions, Mendel checked in with Duke Eltan and was sent back to Candlekeep. He used charm to help kill 3 of the Iron Throne leaders before spending a while finishing Brunos off himself.
In the catacombs I didn't bother killing the phase spiders guarding the tomb for once, but just stealthed past to get the strength tome with a potion of fire giant strength and DUHM. The dopplegangers and Prat's gang were also left alone, but I couldn't resist attacking the basilisks. The first of those had lost most of its HPs when 2 spiders teleported in.
Rather than give up the attack I decided to invest in a first significant use of buffing - a PfP scroll, potion of defense, stone giant strength and heroism gave him a significant combat advantage. The second phase spider landed 2 nasty criticals, but Mendel successfully laid hands on himself in between basilisk attacks and finished the spider with a critical of his own.
He then moved past the exit point in order to trap the basilisks against the narrow passage, so that he could attack them with fists without danger of retaliation. Unfortunately, in trying to move back to them I misclicked and exited instead - with no way of getting back inside . That didn't only mean losing out on the basilisk XP, as I'd also dropped a +1 morning star and boots of stealth on the floor while moving inventory round to use potions and switch weapons. At least it wasn't the strength tome I suppose .
And after writing that last bit I found that the basilisks had actually followed outside (despite not being able to get along the corridor). As a single hit could easily have been fatal, they were killed using missiles and stealth attacks.
He stealthed past the ogre magi and travelled back to the City to rest up and learn a second DUHM. The only things remaining he's intending to do in BG1 are Slythe, the palace and Sarevok.
This time for Slythe I tried to send a charmed courtesan round to catch Krystin's eye after Slythe chased Mendel. Whether that was the reason or not, Slythe found himself on his own in the inn - and facing not only Larze, but Bork and Ivanne as well. I'd made a mistake though in charming Larze before he'd spoken his dialogue. That meant his script kept interrupting orders and he wasn't attacking Slythe as much as he should have done - but he did enough.
At the palace I apparently got a bit too close to Sarevok while attempting to charm a 3rd nobleman (though I've done a similar thing before without the same result) and the fight started without Mendel having done any buffing.
Belt could possibly handle the 2 standard dopplegangers, but with the shaman and assassin as well he stood no chance. Mendel immediately retreated to avoid being killed by the assassin's backstab before concentrating on interrupting the shaman's spells with wand blasts. He stopped a number of those, but lost half his HPs to an unholy blight (that would have killed him outright if he hadn't saved).
Despite numerous blasts the shaman was still hanging on at near death when the assassin finished off the 2 flaming fist it had been engaged with and headed for Belt. Mendel lost the shaman using stealth and followed the assassin - to find Belt had killed one doppleganger, but was at near death against the other. He died soon after and the doppleganger turned to Liia (who was as usual just standing there like a lemon). Mendel tried to up the ante by switching to the more damaging firebreath potions rather than wands, but got hit when I was slightly careless with movement - taking him to single figure HPs. With Liia in mortal danger though I still didn't think Mendel had time to do anything defensive and he successfully used a couple of firebreaths. That left the doppleganger on Liia almost dead and I tried to use one last potion to finish it off. This time though the assassin was ready and stabbed Mendel as he opened his mouth to breathe ...
The first dungeon isn't too bad thanks to a Protection from Undead scroll. Unlike our lousy Archer, Viora the Fighter/Mage/Cleric can use Wands of Fire! We have no Arrows of Dispelling for Korlasz, unfortunately, but when Korlasz fails a save against Command, her defenses don't matter.
The Wand of Fire gets us past the undead in the second dungeon as well, and a Blindness spell puts down the Bronze Sentry. We get the dwarves killed and side with the lich, hide from the bridge fight, blind Tsolak the vampire, use the Sunfire shield on some trolls, and proceed to the temple of Bhaal.
We can't use a nonmagical throwing dagger to kill Morentherene instantly, which means we have to fight her conventionally. A Protection from Poison scroll and the Greenstone Amulet keep us safe from her ranged attacks, and when melee looks too dangerous, we soften her up with Wand of Fire charges from afar before finishing her off with a hammer.
Thanks to Chaotic Commands and Remove Fear, we're immune to virtually all disablers, and our prior Protection from Poison scroll will keep us safe from the Neothelid's poison breath. Ziatar and Akanna fall to the Wand of Fire, but we tank the Neothelid.
With mage and cleric buffs, Viora is nearly indestructible, and no mages at this stage of the game use any Remove Magic spells that could put us in danger. We can kill Darskhelin very quickly and tank his buddies at the end.
We intimidate Vichand into handing over the scroll to end the Darkness Rising quest and get the Hammer of Darkness +3, which we'll likely never use. One of the mages Breaches us during the Bridgefort fight, but this doesn't remove our Potion of Invulnerability, so our saving throws are still good. We use Potions of Firebreath to win this fight, since the Wand of Fire won't get past the mages' MGOI spells.
We nearly die to an acid blob trap when stealing the Sundermaul, though. It's the closest we've gotten to death that I can think of.
We kill Strunk with summons, use Potions of Magic Protection to get past the Maze trap in Hephernaan's room and Potions of Invisibility to escape, and deploy the Wand of Frost during the Coalition Camp invasion. The skeletons the Coldhearth Lich sent us are completely immune; the wand is party-friendly in this fight!
I had hoped to use Cloudkill scrolls to poison the mages in the second wave, but the clouds vanished before the fight. Instead, I used scrolls of Greater Malison and Chaos, but found them to be of little effect. Ultimately, we just killed the mages with sling bullets.
We use a bunch of Skull Trap scrolls in anticipation of the paladins of the third wave, and unlike the Cloudkills, they don't dissipate before the fight begins. All the Skull Traps trigger at once and absolutely thrash the enemy.
In the final wave, we knock out two enemies with an Emotion scroll and close in with our hammer. Again, Viora's numerous buffs mean that we don't need to worry much about our safety.
Now we have to lay siege to Dragonspear Castle. It's a pretty rough encounter under normal circumstances, but if you poison their supplies and lay the Barrel of Bwoosh and save your loot to sell off to Nazramu to get the gold to afford more resources, you can crush the enemy using Wands of Fire against the horde and Potions of Firebreath against Ashatiel.
Next up, Belhifet. The Sundermaul is a +3 hammer, so we have an excellent weapon to use against him. We also have lots of Greater Restoration scrolls, which let us heal Caelar to full HP over and over again.
But I'm not content to let Caelar do all the heavy lifting. Viora is a powerful tank in her own right, and she can trample Belhifet herself.
We encounter a game-breaking bug after Belhifet's death, which we fix with a reload and CTRL-Y.
SoD is over! Fighter/Mage/Clerics might not have access to Arrows of Dispelling and some other nice offensive tools, but their defenses are among the best in the game, and they're incredibly hard to kill. We won't have lots of Chaotic Commands scrolls in BG2 like we did in SoD, but we'll be able to cast our own Chaotic Commands spells, and SI: Abjuration will protect our buffs even further.
Really makes you appreciate how much better it is not to play LoB mode.
@Grond0: Tough luck on charming the noblemen. I've been able to charm that one with the Nymph Cloak once, but after subsequent tries have triggered the conversation, I now only use it on the southernmost two. Algernon's Cloak for the others.
Time to get back to posting on this run! The kobolds of the Nashkel mines aren't too much trouble; Kagain is an excellent tank and we can blast the Kobold Chieftain's group with the Wand of Fire. The same wand is instrumental against Mulahey. Notice us bombing Kagain with the wand to clear up the enemies in the northwest.
Kagain tanks Nimbul, who can't touch him due to bad THAC0, but Nimbul still applies some damage to Coran with Magic Missile. It's nothing we can't heal up at the temple.
Tranzig wastes a Horror spell on us. While we can't use any spells, Bardy McBardface's song does grant immunity to fear. Tranzig also nails us with Slow, but it's not enough to keep us at bay. The downside of a restless run is the lack of spells, but the upside is that we still have lots of fighters on hand. That amounts to a lot of attacks per round.
We run from the Lamalha ambush, Coran shoots down Geltik, and we torch Bassilus with the Wand of Fire.
For reference, this is what our party looks like early in BG1. Basically, Kagain is optimized for tanking and everyone else is just using missile weapons, because healing at temples is expensive and Kagain can regenerate during travel time.
Next up, the Sirines at the coast! We use a Protection from Poison scroll on Coran, but his armor and DEX already make him nearly impossible for the Sirines to hit him with their Arrows of Biting, and as an elf, he has 90% resistance to charm spells.
We make some lucky saving throws against the traps in the Flesh Golem cave, so the only threats are the golems themselves. Kagain is using Bruel's Retort, so he can hit them even if our archers can't.
Now it's time to take on the Ulcaster ruins. We have undispellable immunity to fear thanks to our bard song, but all is not well. When we approach the Wolf of Ulcaster, a bunch of enemies spawn on top of us, including a ghast right next to Bardy McBardface!
We use up a Potion of Freedom to make sure Bardy McBardface doesn't get paralyzed, but Coran is not so lucky.
Notice that the Wolf of Ulcaster's dispelling howl didn't take away our Potion of Freedom, so Bardy McBardface is still safe. We focus on killing the ghouls to make sure we don't suffer any more paralysis effects, and Bardy McBardface uses a Resist Fear scroll just in case I fail to keep the bard song active at all times. There's a chance I flub something up and one of my Wand of Monster Summoning uses prevents us from using the bard song in a given round. I don't have perfect awareness of when the bard song triggers.
Our fighters dispatch the last of the ghouls and I alternate between the Wand of Monster Summoning and Wand of Fire to slowly burn down the Wolf of Ulcaster without letting it approach us. When Coran recovers from the ghoul's paralysis, he pitches in with Arrows of Fire and the wolf goes down.
Kagain loots the last container and we are out! We kite Meilum to death and later get ambushed by Molkar's group. At first, I planned on running, but when we get three failed saves on Jaheira's Wand of Fear, I decide to stick around and fight. Wands of Fear last for 15 rounds, so we've got a lot of time to bring down the enemy.
We bankrupt ourselves buying the Wand of Monster Summoning, but it was worth it. Turns out the maximum charge for Wands of Monster Summoning is 100 in my install, not 50, so we're pretty much set for the rest of the game.
The fight with Tazok at the camp goes awry. Somehow, we turn the whole camp hostile after beating Tazok! Jaheira deploys the Wand of Fear to send the enemy into disarray.
We fire away with missile weapons to make progress, but wands are the real game-changer. We blast the lesser enemies with Fireballs, stun Taurgosz with the Wand of Paralyzation, and disable many more, even Venkt, with the Wand of Fear.
It takes a lot more work and we suffer plenty of damage, but there are no casualties. Next up, the Cloakwood!
@Grond0: Tough luck on charming the noblemen. I've been able to charm that one with the Nymph Cloak once, but after subsequent tries have triggered the conversation, I now only use it on the southernmost two. Algernon's Cloak for the others.
Thanks for the info @jessejmc. I haven't actually used charm on the noblemen much in that fight, so was probably just lucky when I got away with it last time . What seems slightly odd at first glance is that you are marginally further away from Sarevok there than when charming the middle nobleman on that row. However, I think that's to do with the way the game constructs hexes - you can always attack with weapons from further away if you do so at an angle rather than straight on for instance.
Sorry to hear your monk fall, @Grond0. I'm amazed you got so far.
That Ducal Palace fight seems just awful for a monk. I don't know how else to manage it safely aside from luring the nobles to the southern room with Algernon's Cloak and then using staggered charms from the Nymph Cloak to keep the doppelgangers from transforming more than one at a time.
I've started up the Archer run again, but I don't think I'll post on it until we're at least through Chateau Irenicus. There might be a lot of deaths in the future, and I'd rather not dwell on them. I've decided to think of the run as more of a long-term project rather than something to be finished quickly. The time commitment isn't that extreme when I think about it; the solo LoB metagame has gotten very streamlined due to necessity. That'll relieve some of the pressure and make things less tense. Besides, the only real sticking point is Belhifet, and I'll have plenty of time to experiment in my previous run before I have to beat him for real.
I've already restarted a few times, once due to a bandit ambush and a couple times because I wanted the starting video to be short. The IE games are slow-moving, so to make things faster for viewers, I'm going to keep things at 45 or 60 FPS (maybe drop down to 30 for extremely important and difficult parts like Belhifet and Melissan) and try to avoid wasting time in the inventory screen and such. I'll really need to add commentary to make it truly watchable for general viewers, but it's also important to keep things quick, so I might want to edit the videos to speed up certain sections (we'll lose a lot of time to failed charm attempts over the course of the run).
Bladeservant has got his reputation back to 19 by helping Dryads, Drienne's cat, a ghost, Charlestone Nib, Brage and a petrified woman.
He went to Firewine Bridge at the behest of Charlestone Nib. The first level there almost caused multiple fatalities in the group, but not quite. Retired outside and after sleep returned.
The second level had fledgeling vampires which he was not prepared for. Tenya got level drained and charmed.
The party killed the vampires and then used Algernon's Cloak on Tenya. They then went to the Nashkel Temple to restore Tenya. When they return, Tenya will have a better spell selection to deal with the vampires. However, they had been unable to open a chest, so they intend going to Durlag's first to get some potions of master thievery.
EDIT
Upon going to Durlag's Bladeservant dealt with most of the upper floors. He used a potion of mirrored eyes to deal with the basilisks, but unfortunately one of them used its gaze on Xan rather than himself and Bladeservant hadn't thought to buy another stone to flesh scroll after rescuing the woman in the basilisk area. He returned to Nashkel and bought two scrolls to be on the safe side.
For some reason Kirinhale has a yellow circle so she is impossible to speak to. Upon leaving and returning Bladeservant was able to speak to her and get the quest. He took the hair and gave it away, but she now has the yellow circle again.
To get rid of it, healing, dispelling magic and remove fear were all used to no effect so Algernon's Cloak was used, also to no effect.
I am rapidly came to the conclusion that she would have to be killed. Because she was panicked, this was exceedingly easy. Riglio was the next to die and the party then went down to the basement. The ghost was not attacked.
In the basement the doppelgangers were killed first. Despite having good statistics as far as traps were concerned, Aura had to use a potion of master thievery and a potion of perception. This did have the bonus of enabling other traps to be disarmed.
The wine was left near the warders so that they didn't attack when I didn't want them to.
Sadly just before leaving Durlag's, Xan was killed when attacked by too many enemies at once. A bit of carelessness there.
Reputation still 19.
EDIT
Upon returning to Firewine I discovered that there was only one vampire left, so there was no need to change the memorised spells. After that it was all spiders. They were tough, but no level drain or charming to be concerned about.
They are now delving underground, currently in the direction of Gullykin, but that could change.
I have just discovered that in this set-up, the kobold commadoes are immune to fireball. That always used to be my default spell for wiping them out en masse! They are however susceptible to holy smite.
This run was pretty smooth from the beginning. I was ambushed by wild dogs on the way to Shoal, and one of them got a hit in, as I'd avoided buying any armor. Started with maces so I could get The Stupifier and the Mace +1 from Thunderhammer (eventually going war hammers for Ashideena). Had to make sure to keep rep at 11 before killing Algernon and Dushai to avoid becoming fallen, but that wasn't a big deal. I attempted to get Drizzt's armor but accidentally activated him. Was going to use his armor to avoid swapping as much, but after gaining some levels stuck with sanctuary over stealth.
I did the easy experience of flesh golems, sirines, and basilisks then grabbed the constitution, charisma, and wisdom manuals before heading to the Nashkel Mines. Ran through them with sanctuary and fed Mulahey to kobolds. Killed Tranzig with skeletons while under sanctuary and headed to the bandit camp. Charmed Taurgosz and fed him to some bears. Charmed Raemon in the tent, summoned skeletons, silenced everyone, and that was that.
Used sanctuary through most of Cloakwood. Giant spiders were my favored enemy so cleared that area, gaining my max levels for BG:EE. I messed up charming Drasus and ran away to cast sanctuary. Rested and came back, summoned skeletons, silenced everyone, and they died pretty easily. Used sanctuary to get to Davaeorn. Charmed the guard, but Davaeron killed him without activating the dialogue, which happened on my last run as well. Summoned skeletons and killed him under sanctuary.
Headed to Baldur's Gate and did the poison quest, grabbing the wisdom, dexterity, and intelligence manuals, as well as the Nymph Cloak and the Helm of Balduran. Charmed Brathlan in the Hall of Wonders and fed him to Ragefast to get the Hammer of Dawn. Did the top of the Iron Throne by silencing everyone then using the Nymph Cloak. Grouped them on the stairs which I blocked with skeletons, and everyone died pretty quickly. This technique was used on Rieltar's and Prat's parties as well. Silence followed by charms and skeletons. Used a potion of cloud giant strength and draw upon holy might to get the last wisdom and strength manual.
Back in Baldur's Gate, I surrounded Tamoko with skeletons outside of Sorcerous Sundries and killed her for the Plate of the Dark. Cythandria was silenced and killed with war hammers. Quenash was charmed and fed to Krystin for the Cloak of Balduran, while Slythe fell to skeletons. Krystin fell to a combination of skeletons and her own cloud kill spell. The dopplegangers in the Ducal Palace were charmed and put in separate rooms. No major issues there, although Sarevok did get a couple hits in on me which took me to about 1/3 hitpoints.
Afterwards, I went and got Evermemory out of pawn from the FAI, plus several Rings of the Princes. Grabbed the Golden Pantaloons as well. I made sure to get the second Evermemory from southwest Baldur's Gate for SoD. Scrolls and potions were purchased. I recharged three of The One Gift Losts, two Wands of the Heavens, The Victor, Nymph Cloak, and the Greenstone Amulet and headed to the Thieve's Maze.
Cast protection from lightning and sanctuary on myself than ran through the maze. I skipped the Undercity party this time. I summoned three skeletons (using the other two slots for dispel magic) in the Temple of Bhaal and placed them where the mage teleports to. Triggered Sarevok under sanctuary and killed the mage. Was going to bomb the rest with The One Gift Lost, but they ran into vision and dispelled a hasty sanctuary. I ran and drank a potion of invisibility, only realizing at this point I forgot to purchase the Sandthief's Ring, which I had ample money for.
I was able to lure Sarevok away, dispel his haste, and sling bullets at him until he finally died, having to use charges from my wand of the heavens to kill battle horrors as they popped up. It was less elegant than I planned in my head, as the ease of most of the other encounters lulled me into a false sense of security, but it worked, and I'm on to SoD.
Bladeservant decided it was time to deal with Bassilus and Zargal. Bassilus was charmed and helped a lot in dealing with Zargal.
The party then headed north to deal with ghasts or whatever we found there.
What was not expected was a large party of elite hobgoblins who killed Bassilus before we were able to finish him off which was the aim. They hoped that he would be held by the ghasts and would then be easily killed. However it wasn't ghasts that turned up.
After claiming the reward, the party headed for Baldur's Gate.
On the way two groups of ankheg attacked and one of the parties hurt Xan badly:
On the bridge was a mixed party who attacked them at the behest of the Windstar family. After killing their leader, a web and fireball combination easily wiped them out.
Upon arriving in the Gate they were asked to deal with hobgoblins in the field of the dead which they readilly agreed to do, however, there was quite a lot to deal with in the city before leaving.
They were attacked upstairs by mages in Sorcerous Sundries, but web and fireballs quickly put paid to that assault.
The doppelgangers at the Seven Suns were then killed and a ring was given to Fergus which brings the party's reputation back up to 20 thus allieviating fears that Bladeservant might fall if an innocent was killed accidentally.
They then killed the ogre-mage and his carrion crawlers and uon exiting went to the Blushing Mermaid where they were attacked by Larz who hurt party members quite significantly before he was killed. Xan actually had to run away, as did tenya due to injuries. They were not buffed when they met.
[I have been quite pleased with the Artificer kit introduced by the Aura mod and will possibly use it for a solo run next time. Aura herself is a little on the fragile side, but in a solo run an Artificer should quickly gain proficiency]
Another charname enters the arena. This time a undead hunter - going for that illusive spot on the leader board.
I spent ages rolling a 98 for my undead hunter. This time with specialization in shortbow and flails (going to dualwield in BG2:ee if I get past Belhifet).
I am not using mods and playing on core. I am going to roleplay as paladin - so I am going abstain from some low hanging fruits... Here we go:
After CK I dismissed Imoen (not taking her potions), and killed Monty and Xzar. Some bad guys provided a nifty magical flail and some XP
The leveling and gearing up period produced some close shaves:
An important item on the bucket list is the con tome. With the greenstone amulet in hand Semi got her treasure. With Buckleys buckler Semi had one problem fewer.
After the basilisk where done with, Semi reached level 7 and started the main quest.
. Mulahey was done in.
Amazones and the tombs cleared. Biggest mishap was when Semi by accident didn’t give the dagger to the revenant..
but an armor clad undead hunter is not the worst character to suffer such accidents.
Bandit camp was sniped with a shortbow +1 and some magical ammo - the bracers of archery was still the best option. Well until the camp was looted
A belt was returned afterwards - being a paladin and all (the pantaloons stay put).
The mine was cleared with the one gift lost. Hareishan helped by misdirecting her lightning bolt... they are pesky. Daveorns spell where tanked with a potion of magic blocking and the mage was left dead.
In the big city Semi did some shopping and killed some bad guys - and shopped some more. Shopping helps I guess
Yes Larze was helpful by killing Marek.
I got a lift back to CK. Will do CK, then get Durlags goblet - before ending BG:ee - and head into SoD. But progress has not been made without risk - risk that I should have avoided. So we shall see how Semi will survive my lapses..
Bladeservant was sent to Ulgoth's Beard where he was asked to go to the Fields of the Dead to rescue captives from the hobgoblins there. However, he was first sent to Ice Island which turned out to be a profitable trip.
At the Beard Vynd turned his hand to pick-pocketting as is his wont, and Bladeservant emptied his pockets of gold in order to buy equipment there. They are now at the Fields of the Dead.
They entered a cave and upon seeing the hordes in there, they immediately left. An ogre mage followed them out who was immediately killed. They now have to decide whether or not to re-enter. Of course, now they have the luxury of deciding whether to rest and how much buffing they need.
Here we go again, Jethro's 2nd incarnation - a halfling Cavalier
Rest of the party:
Dust, Dwarven Defender
Azara, elven Kensai with focus on bows (yes, kensai can use them in this mod)
Lamys, generic sorcerer
Rancid, dwarven fighter/cleric
and Misery, Battle Caster
Weidu
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #0 // Classes and their abilities descriptions and changes, 2da files: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #1 // Feats: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #2 // Equipment overhaul: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #3 // Spell modifications: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #4 // New spells and spell redistribution: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #5 // Spontaneous casting: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #6 // Ranger and Druid animal companion: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #7 // Racial enemies: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #8 // Creatures regularization: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #9 // Level up by one level per pass: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #11 // Point buy system: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #12 // Update NPCs: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #13 // Rest once in 8 hours: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #14 // Free scrolls for arcane casters at level up: v2.16.1
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3041 // Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Stores sell a maximum of 5 Arrows of Dispelling: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4146 // Skip the Candlekeep tutorial sections -> Skip Candlekeep altogether (warning: breaks the 4th wall!): v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity party: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v32 RC10
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Remove Blur Effect from Items, e.g. Cloack of Displacement: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Reveal City Maps When Entering Area: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1253 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Quayle to the Nashkel Carnival: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1255 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Tiax to Beregost: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1256 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Viconia to South Beregost Road: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2152 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> Allow Armor Plus One Protection Item (Angel): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3020 // Identify All Items: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Easy Spell Learning -> 100% Learn Spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3060 // Remove "You Must Gather Your Party..." Sound (Weimer): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3120 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Are Never Angry About Reputation: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3123 // NPCs Don't Fight: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3191 // Disable Non-Hostile Rest Spawns: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3194 // Alter Hostile Rest Spawns -> Disable completely: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3205 // Stores Purchase All Item Types: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3300 // Death Cam: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3320 // No Depreciation in Stores: v8
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #101 // Prevent skeletal and incorporeal undead from being affected by Illithids' Devour Brain attack: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #202 // Revised Bhaalpowers -> Enhance the Bhaalpowers and standardize their casting time: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #204 // Prevent Mislead clones from singing Bard songs: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #205 // Prevent Project Image and Simulacrum clones from using quickslot items: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #211 // Make Death Ward protect against Vorpal Hits: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #216 // Bard songs break invisibility -> Only the Jester song breaks invisibility: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #261 // Altered XP rewards from locks, traps and scrolls -> Improved (lowered) XP rewards from locks, traps and scrolls: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #310 // Distinctive creature coloring: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #315 // Distinctive creature soundsets: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #510 // Expanded temple services: v4.53
And one who doesn't show in game; I've changed back how criticals work - i.e. helmets protect vs them, natural 20 is always a hit etc- same as vanilla. Should be a bit less drastic.
Fighter-cleric chooses Plant domain (Barkskin is awesome), kensai gets to choose focus (bows). Sorcerer bloodline - Undead.
We were of to a good start, blinding the Ogre, selling Ring of Wizardry for +1 Composite Longbow (best bow in the game for my kensai), and dealt with Beregost spiders.
Silke was first obeyed, then blinded and killed. Not much of a paladin behaviour, but worst is yet to come
I don't like wondering while level 1, so basilisk were next. Used Korax to deal with Mutamin, and got up to level 3 there.
Next was something I haven't done in a really long time. I don't remember what Drizzt is like in vanilla, but in my mod constelation he is unhittable on anything bar a critical hit. Maybe, after level 14, we could hit him below. As such, THAC0 is irrelevant vs him - it's the same deal if I fight him at level 1 or 10 - only crits work.
Took some time, some haste potions, some healing potions - but he fell. Rep dropped to 7; but it's for a good cause - Jethro gets his scimitars and his armor, which allows for dex-to-ac bonus, unlike full plate.
With him dead, we explore the coast, gather some loot, get some rep, and few levels. Also did ankhegs (they could only hit on 19 and above in melee, and only 20 on range, so Jethro was quite safe).
Donated some money to church, killed Dushai. It's all for good cause. With her ring, we went to Durlag for some fast xp. The hardest battle there was Mustard Jellys. They kept critting over and over again. Jethro came very close to dying, and had to retreat to survive.
Did the whole level w/o more troubles, left the tower w/o giving Love the wine bottle - that's above our league for now. Finished most of the wilderness areas, did Droth (I'm really happy that Shoal isn't an instakill anymore, even if having your protagonist in this state near Droth isn't for the weak of heart)
If that blindness didn't stick, I wouldn't be writing this now.
Sirens were killed by summoned skeletons. While cavalier is charm immune, in melee they crit on 18 and above, causing Feeblemind, which usually leads to death, hence I avoid coming close to them.
Two more battles worth mentioning - one, Bassilus. Combat log read that his final buff is Chaotic Commands. This means that he has a level 6 offensive spell. Harm comes to mind - but in this case, it was far worse. I hit him with all I had - arrows, spells, fire, swords - but no interrupt. He ended up summoning an Aerial Servant. I killed the priest and ran away - there's no fighting that.
The second is the priest who charges you to kill Basil. This is easilly one of the hardest battles in this mod setup. Buffed with Blade Barrier + Physical mirror, he's a force to be reckoned with. And uses Slay living.
His spells appear to be uninerruptible as well. I may have used Silence on him, but simply forgot about the option - we grinded him out, using potions to survive the barrier damage and spells to keep pressure on him.
After what seemed an eternity, I get a hit that disrupts one of his spells, and he dies the following round. This lasted for the entire duration of Blade Barrier - he's apsurdly beefed up.
With him dead, I return to main plot, laying waste all around.
Comments
I think people would be amazed if they came here and saw what we were up to. Even the unsuccessful runs here are pretty damn impressive if you think about it.
It's high time I started to record my progress in this game, especially considering my party is now well past the touch-and-go first stages of the game. I'll get catching up now.
Here's the crew:
Hwynevyr, Human Paladin (F)
Anaya, Half-Elf Fighter/Druid (F)
Fango, Gnome Fighter/Cleric (M)
Phlebas, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric (M)
Linaea, Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief (F)
Dundas, Half-Elf Bard (M)
I'm running a classic IWD + HoW + TotL installation (I'm personally not a fan of the EE changes), with a few select tweaks.
WeiDU log:
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~DDRAWFIX/DDRAWFIX.TP2~ #0 #2 // DDrawFix -> Use WineD3D's DDraw Library: v1.0
~1PP_IWD_FIXES/1PP_IWD_FIXES.TP2~ #0 #0 // 1ppv: Fix character attack animation sounds in TotLM
~IWDFIXPACK/SETUP-IWDFIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #0 // Assorted Fixes: v6
~IWDFIXPACK/SETUP-IWDFIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #100 // Game Text Update: v6
~1PP_HQ_MUSIC_IWD/1PP_HQ_MUSIC_IWD.TP2~ #0 #0 // 1pp: High quality music for IWD HoW/TotLM
~IU_IWD/SETUP-IU_IWD.TP2~ #0 #0 // Item Upgrade for Icewind Dale: v5
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #0 // The Voice of Durdel Anatha: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #100 // Malavon's Golems: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #200 // Expanded Guello/Beorn Quest: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #300 // Marketh's Ring: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #400 // Presio's Duel: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #500 // Orrick's Rhino Beetle Shield: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #600 // The High Baptist's Flock: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Minor Item Restorations: v7
// Recently Uninstalled: ~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Restored Random Drops: v7
~UB_IWD/SETUP-UB_IWD.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Restored Random Drops: v7
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2040 // Universal Clubs: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2152 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> Allow Armor Plus One Protection Item (Angel): v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2210 // Change Grandmastery Bonuses -> True Grandmastery (Baldurdash): v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2220 // Change Magically Created Weapons to Zero Weight: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2240 // Un-Nerfed THAC0 Table: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Exceptional Strength Weight Limit Changes: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2999 // Max HP at Level One: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3000 // Higher HP on Level Up -> Maximum: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Maximum HP for NPCs (the bigg) -> For All Creatures in Game: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3083 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Stacks of 120: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3200 // Sellable Items (Icelus): v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3250 // Never lose access to Orrick the Gray's trade goods: v4
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3240 // Friendly Random Drops -> Randomize on reload: v4
Some of these options are left-overs from a previous installation, including the Friendly Random Drops reset on reload tweak. Since I won't reload, this won't change anything. I left Maximum HP on, since it's also on for all other creatures, and it allows a little more survivability at the exceedingly tricky early stages.
Everything else is largely cosmetic, except for True Grandmastery, an un-nerfed high-level THAC0 table, and slightly altered carrying weight limits (that scale more naturally with each %-point of exceptional STR). That, and the increased stacks: since we'll be relying on ranged weapons, and HoF enemies have such deep HP pools, it would be masochistic not to increase the stack-sizes for ammunition.
The party is fairly optimised in a few ways. We plan to take advantage of all the important non-random items, as well as exploit as much as possible the potential random ones, so we have a great variety of alignments and classes. The Paladin is important as her tanking will carry the party at the early stages, and the Bard is a class I would never consider playing without; also both of them enjoy nice, occasional XP/treasure bonuses from certain conversations. Every character is magic-capable, all except one is a warrior, and we ensure that even if a character or two is disabled we still have great versatility in the tactics and power available.
~ Easthaven ~
The first thing we do is boot out Hwynevyr, the Paladin. As a single-class she's an XP sponge for the needier multis, and we need to get summons as early as possible to take the pressure off the front-liners and make kiting less risky. She's also now served her initial purpose of using her LG alignment to give us the maximum starting reputation, which we need to keep throughout the game since there's no way to increase it.
We then do the Bard-related quests in town, including convincing Old Jed to quit his cups, singing for a townsperson's gem, and exchanging songs with Elisia for some crucial early XP boosts, before booting out Dundas, as well. Fango, our Gnome F/C, gets offended by a townsperson, for which he gets given a Knucklehead Trout, which we can immediately give to Damian for another early XP boost for our now-quartet.
We bask for a moment in the awesomeness that is Jeremy Soule's compositional work.
Then we go and poke some beetles to death (only about 20 minutes AFK), and pop into Pomab's to get our equipment and supplies.
~ Apsel's Wolf ~
Anaya, our F/D, takes point for the battle and runs in circles, while the others pelt the hound with missiles. The HoF wolf can easily hit for 20+ damage and it attacks early in the round, so any slip of attention can spell an early end to this run (since we currently can't afford to Raise anybody). Anaya is able to hold its focus and avoid excessive damage, and we eventually bring it down.
~ The Bridge Goblins ~
HoF mode has a normally very good "call to arms" system for enemies. When you hear an enemy make their battle cry (usually something like "Rraargh!") then that creature is summoning all nearby hostiles to join the battle (how close is "nearby" is not clear at the moment, but it usually means that a single group of enemies will converge on your party if you stray into the view of just one of the group).
However certain enemies seem to have been overlooked, including several of the early groups. We can use this to our advantage with the bridge goblins, and try to pull them one at a time, evening up the odds. Occasionally we'll accidentally alert more than one, but generally for this encounter the strategy works. Even so, we have to play very safe, and I hold nothing back in each battle with a single goblin, 'cause we can't afford any deaths at this stage.
Our primary tanks (Fango and Anaya) take it in turns to pull the goblins one by one from the cliff to the south west of the bridge. As a goblin approaches I organise the team up on the bridge, well away from the rest. With its attention taken by a tank we combine the following tactics in various ways:
1. Flank it with Phlebas, and hit it with Color Spray. Five times out of ten this impressively powerful 1st level spell will stun the goblin, and then we hit it with everything we've got. Normally its AC is too low and our THAC0 too high that most attacks miss, but this way we guarantee free hits, although not for long.
2. Anaya calls down a Sunscorch, which deals a little damage and roughly half the time blinds the goblin, giving it THAC0 and AC penalties.
3. Fango/Phlebas Curse it to reduce its saving throws to improve our chances of landing the above.
4. If we pull two or more Linaea lobs Grease to slow them down.
5. Linaea tries flanking for a backstab, which increases THAC0 considerably, and is occasionally useful.
One by one, they fall. If we still have spells left, we try for another. If not, we go and rest at the Snowdrift Inn: it's too risky right now to try tanking them outright, so we need all our spells.
~ Lupus Lupi ~
These canines can be a serious danger, since it's extremely tricky to inch around the corner and pull just one, and as before they hit hard, fast and are very quick on their feet. To make matters worse there is no kiting room. This means we have to tank them head-on, relying on our only slightly less rubbish HP than before. Thankfully we have our disablers/debuffs from before, as well as another trick up our sleeve.
Our corner inching appears to be controlled enough, as we only aggravate one. It still nearly kills Fango, but we blind it with sunbeams and eventually bring it down. We rest and heal Fango, then return. For the second Anaya pulls out our best card: Charm Person or Mammal. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's a life-saver.
We now pit the two wolves against each other, pelting the enemy one with our missiles till it falls. Finally Phlebas steps up and Color Sprays the friendly wolf, and we down it as well.
~ Orcs and caves ~
Linaea is feeling lucky so we send her in to try a pot-shot. It lands, though the orc still gets away, because even her best backstab leaves this HoF beast at just Slightly Injured. In fact this orc is not to be found inside the cave, since upon entering we find them all completely uninjured. Still, it was satisfying.
Inside, we Curse, Color Spray and Hold the two groups of brutes that rush us. The duration of the second isn't huge, so it usually needs to be reapplied to larger groups of enemies. That and some HP-tanking by our front-liners eventually brings the three down.
We heal up without resting and press forward. Unfortunately my new-ness to NR and documenting my runs means in the excitement of the next battle (the first big one!) I forget to take any screenshots, so I'll talk through it briefly instead.
We pull out another new crowd-control spell, better suited to big groups: Entangle. We then draw the nearest orc out of the main cavern, which activates their Call to Arms (the first enemies in the game to use it), aggravating the whole bunch: several orcs, orc elites, and a shaman. The arrows of the elites are particularly dangerous. We mitigate the risk by pulling back around the corner, which forces the enemy to come a lot closer to be able to target us. Before pulling back, we lob an Entangle and two Greases in their way, which should slow them down enough to break up their attack.
As the first orcs round the corner, we hit them with Hold Person. One is the shaman, and amazingly it sticks to him. Every missile we have is then focused on him, and he falls without issue, though we take fair damage from a couple of archers who weren't Held. We try another Hold, and eventually by combining those and Color Spray we flatten the remaining orcs. (This really was not as easy as it may sound, and I had to be extremely careful to keep the unarmoured Phlebas and Linaea away from those Elites' attention.)
Similar tactics apply to the remaining isolated groups of orcs in the cave, and we have a nice bit of luck on our first magical random drop: The Girdle of Beatification, which puts the wearer under a permanent Bless effect (THAC0 and Saving Throw bonuses), and which is arguably the best item available in that chest. Mopping up another group gives Fango his 4th Cleric level and the coveted Animate Dead spell. Summons in HoF share the HP, AC and THAC0 bonuses given to the enemies, and from now on they will form a corner-stone of our strategy for a lot of the game.
Feeling emboldened, we head back to the Snowdrift, pick up our two missing companions, and rest in preparation for the final fight of the caves.
[Please excuse the cheeky quick-saving. Old habits die hard.
@CharlestonianTemplar, I'm a fellow inch-by-incher, so don't feel alone in that!]
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1061496/#Comment_1061496
After a long day at work I fancied a relaxing trip going to the seaside. The sirines there were charming, but all found themselves charmed as I took the old football motto of getting my retaliation in first. Mendel picked up the XP for 5 of those - just losing this one to a critical.
A trip through the Cloakwood was only briefly delayed by picking up Laskal's potion. At the mine Drasus & co were charmed one by one and fed to the nearby guards - one of those helpfully broke his weapon making it easier to ensure Mendel got the killing blow each time.
In the mine he stealthed down to Davaeorn and charmed the guard. In trying to trigger all the traps though Mendel got into Davaeorn's sight for a fraction too long and partially activated him. He didn't release his trigger or summon guards, but he did turn hostile. He still didn't react further as the guard dragged the battle horrors away, but after Mendel used stealth to avoid those he did react the instant Mendel came back into sight. A potion of magic blocking was used to ensure Mendel wasn't held by the web/stinking cloud sequencer.
After taking the opportunity to rest a few times until he had healed, Mendel went back down - and found Davaeorn was nowhere in sight. Assuming he was invisible, Mendel charmed a guard and dragged it downstairs and duly got the mage to show his face. Davaeorn killed him quickly though thanks to ignoring damage taken while he was casting.
Trying once more, Davaeorn was drained of spells and MMMs for a third time. This time Mendel used the ring of energy to speed things up and I'd just checked that Davaeorn was down to 11 HPs when he suddenly started casting sunfire. If I'd used a potion of magic blocking Davaeorn might follow up with MMMs and if Mendel ran out of his sight he'd recover HPs again - so I decided to quickly retreat just enough to avoid the spell and hope a final ring of energy charge would finish him off before he switched to missiles - which it did.
After flooding the mine Mendel managed to travel to Baldur's Gate without a single ambush and will look forward to having a good rest there.
Monk L8, 71 HPs, 128 kills
Davaeorn healing himself is very odd. That's only supposed to happen after 8 hours have passed, but that's 40 real-time minutes. Did the fight really drag on that long?
and change companions a lot. Playing a mage is always an intensely nervous experience for me, some close calls for Siercal so far have included....
The Gnoll Fortress, 'improved' by the Extended Expanded Enhanced Mod to have a veritable army of souped up gnolls spawning. Ironically enough Dyanheir was killed as soon as we grabbed her- so I guess we just kept a lock of her hair to raise her with. Also, a berserk (War Hulk) Minsc criticaled Isra for about 50 damage at one critical point, so all in all I don't think Siercal will be too interested in having him around
A kobold commando fire arrow hitting her for about 20 damage.
... and an ankheg surfacing right next to her with the party off fighting another one. She's been mostly invisible since...
An ambush consisting of not only the infamous circle of bandits but also Molkar's group, before invisibility was available. Swigged oil of speed and fortunately Dyanheir was their preferred target!
Moving on slowly. Expect to get to level 7 if possible before tackling the improved bandit camp.
Ran, but nice adrenalin shot running into this anyway!
Mods: none
I've attempted several runs since my last post, but they've all followed the same pattern of Shoal, Marl, Firebead, Nashkel for CLW, Algernon, Dushai, High Hedge flesh golems, Temple sirines, Mutamin's Garden, Lighthouse sirines and flesh golems, Durlag's Tower battle horrors and basilisks, reputation quests, and then the critical path.
Tired of not having access to open locks and find traps and having some experience with the shadow dancer, I rolled the only thief kit that's not in the combined hall of heroes (shadow dancer is still on the list but has been completed by @semiticgod).
Did all of the quests in Candlekeep, then went and killed Shoal, bringing me to level 4. Headed to Beregost, placated Marl, then killed Algernon. Went to Firebead for his quest, then set traps and killed him. In my SCS install (v32RC10), there's no reputation loss for killing him, so I was a bit surprised to have another reputation hit. Went and paid to bring reputation up, which was more than I had anticipated due to the Firebead hit.
Used traps to kill Elminster, bringing me up to level 6. Went to the FAI to sell Evermemory, and then went to kill Dushai, afterwards paying to bring rep up to 10. Headed to Nashkel to get CLW. Since I was down here, I stealthed through the mines and used traps to kill Mulahey. Wasn't sure how it would work after I attacked him, but he summoned his guards. Stealthed past them and out of the Nashkel Mines.
I trapped and killed Elminster in Beregost, then did the Temple sirines and High Hedge flesh golems, bringing me to level 8. All points have gone to set traps, find traps, and open locks. Low stealth values have been a bit tedious, but nothing too bad. Headed to the Bandit Camp via Raiken in Peldvale. Charmed and fed Taurgosz to zombies then charmed Raemon. Set up traps in the tent, then rested, trapped, and rested again. After re-entering, Raemon initiated conversation, everyone went hostile, and then they all immediately died to traps.
I trapped and killed Elminster at the Friendly Arm Inn. Stealthed through Cloakwood. Where I would normally charm Drasus, I just threw traps in front of him, rested, and repeated. He initiated conversation, killing him and the other front person. The traps were either too far from the mages, or they went hostile a moment later. Either way, I backed off to rest, then came back and threw two traps, killing one. I backstabbed the other.
Stealthed through the Cloakwood Mines and tried to use a charmed guard to kill Davaeorn. He didn't initiate dialogue but went hostile and killed the guard. I threw a couple of traps at him, which didn't kill him, so I set two normal traps and pulled him into them, which did the trick. The Cloakwood Mines were flooded afterwards.
I trapped and killed Elminster in Baldur's Gate. I probably hit level 9 at this point. After killing Elminster, I did quests to bring reputation up to 20. I finally bought the Greenstone Amulet at this point, plus a fair amount of other gear, as gold was in ample supply. I also did Mutamin's Garden, the Lighthouse, and the easy experience at Durlag's Tower. I probably hit level 10 here but don't really remember.
Next I did Durlag's Tower basement levels 1 and 2. Haven't done these fully before, and the last time I attempted level 1, I wasn't playing a character with find traps and lost to a dire charm trap. I really didn't have any issues on level 1 and used traps to kill three of the warders. Only the top one remained, and I threw traps at it. They weren't quite enough, so I place a couple of normal traps, and pulled it into them, which ended up being enough. I probably should have just used a backstab.
I went ahead and did level 2 to get Kiel's Buckler. I got caught in one of the clouds (stinking maybe) near Kiel's Helmet but recovered and survived that. I was pretty careful through the rest of level 2 and didn't have any big issues. I considered doing levels 3 and 4, but they didn't have enough useful loot to entice me.
Went back to Baldur's Gate and did the poison quest and the Iron Throne. I charmed everyone at the top level and grouped them up to die by traps. Only one survived but was slowed and quickly succumbed to arrows. Headed to Candlekeep afterwards.
In Candlekeep, I charmed both the Iron Throne leadership and Prat's party. Instead of using traps, I used them to kill each other. In my SCS install, this works without any issues as long as I save the party leader for last, but the followers went hostile after attacking one of them. It didn't provide any major obstacles but was unexpected. I had gathered all the manuals by the end of Candlekeep.
Afterwards went back and did the Ducal Palace so that Baldur's Gate would be safe to travel through. Charmed the nobles and placed them in different areas so the dopplegangers could be dealt with one by one. I would have used traps, but I don't remember them all transforming at the same time and didn't want to risk it.
After the Ducal Palace, I gathered the items I thought I would want to end the game with. Went and purchased back Evermemory to sell during SoD and picked up the second Evermemory in SW Baldur's Gate. With those, several Laeral's Tear Necklaces and other assorted high end gems, I probably had 40k-50k for SoD.
I haven't done Isle of Balduran and decided to try it to get the Staff Mace. It was going pretty smoothly up until entering the Wandering Eye. I had cleared the first level and set traps to drag down the enemies on the second level. I went up to trigger them and didn't realize how far the entrance spawn was from the stairs back down. I was quickly surrounded, and I think my aura was clouded from setting traps, as my potion of invisibility didn't go off before I was killed. I may have had my bow equipped as well.
It was a pretty disappointing end to an overall smooth run. I was shocked how fast the death happened. I don't think I would have had any problems in the Thieve's Maze, Undercity, or Temple of Bhaal. The bounty hunter was pretty fun to play, and it's hard to overstate the power of being able to throw traps. The main negative to traps was that enemies didn't always go hostile at the same time. The ability to reliably kill Elminster was nice, as it gave me some freedom in my opening routine. I'll likely give the dark moon monk, fighter/druid, or cleric/ranger a go next, as I continue to attempt classes that aren't already on the hall of heroes.
It's a standard monk. The blur is due to wearing the Claw of Kazgaroth, which is a pretty obvious choice for a monk.
I hadn't considered using them.
Bladeservant then made his way through the Cloakwood Mines.
Xan casting web followed by Valerie casting fireball worked well a few times. By the time the party reached Davaeorn, Aura could make a bronze automaton which she did and after that brains weren't needed.
Bladeservant must have missed some people to rescue in the mines as his reputation plummetted and is now 13. Just as well that there are a few jobs that weren't quite finished down south.
@DavidW I suspect it's not that he has more than he should, but the script for the way they're used that makes them difficult to combat. I think Davaeorn is level 11, so with the 12 additional caster levels in LoB he would have 20 MMMs from a single spell. However, he won't use all of them at once. Sometimes he will change from the missiles and equip a staff - he might or might not then move forward as if to come into melee, but certainly won't do that for long. Instead he'll probably cast a spell or two more before switching back to MMMs. He's likely to do that switching several times in using them all up.
I'm not particularly arguing that treatment should change (although obviously the ability to switch between created magical weapons and standard ones is something not available to the player), just commenting that it means you need to be very careful about MMMs - particularly with a character without critical protection.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1061496/#Comment_1061496
In the City there wasn't much that Mendel really benefited from - but he did most of the main quests anyway. That included:
- intervening in a fight between the daughters of Shandalar.
- saving a nymph from a crazed lover.
- Ramazith was another mage to be burnt down from stealth,
- Jalantha was charmed and worn down by her own priestesses, though I did have to use an invisibility potion earlier in that fight when trapped on a walkway.
After buying a few more potions, Mendel checked in with Duke Eltan and was sent back to Candlekeep. He used charm to help kill 3 of the Iron Throne leaders before spending a while finishing Brunos off himself.
And after writing that last bit I found that the basilisks had actually followed outside (despite not being able to get along the corridor). As a single hit could easily have been fatal, they were killed using missiles and stealth attacks.
He stealthed past the ogre magi and travelled back to the City to rest up and learn a second DUHM. The only things remaining he's intending to do in BG1 are Slythe, the palace and Sarevok.
Monk L8, 71 HPs, 156 kills
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1061496/#Comment_1061496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1061819/#Comment_1061819
This time for Slythe I tried to send a charmed courtesan round to catch Krystin's eye after Slythe chased Mendel. Whether that was the reason or not, Slythe found himself on his own in the inn - and facing not only Larze, but Bork and Ivanne as well. I'd made a mistake though in charming Larze before he'd spoken his dialogue. That meant his script kept interrupting orders and he wasn't attacking Slythe as much as he should have done - but he did enough.
At the palace I apparently got a bit too close to Sarevok while attempting to charm a 3rd nobleman (though I've done a similar thing before without the same result) and the fight started without Mendel having done any buffing.
Part 3: Siege of Dragonspear
The first dungeon isn't too bad thanks to a Protection from Undead scroll. Unlike our lousy Archer, Viora the Fighter/Mage/Cleric can use Wands of Fire! We have no Arrows of Dispelling for Korlasz, unfortunately, but when Korlasz fails a save against Command, her defenses don't matter.
SoD is over! Fighter/Mage/Clerics might not have access to Arrows of Dispelling and some other nice offensive tools, but their defenses are among the best in the game, and they're incredibly hard to kill. We won't have lots of Chaotic Commands scrolls in BG2 like we did in SoD, but we'll be able to cast our own Chaotic Commands spells, and SI: Abjuration will protect our buffs even further.
Really makes you appreciate how much better it is not to play LoB mode.
Part 2: Baldur's Gate
Time to get back to posting on this run! The kobolds of the Nashkel mines aren't too much trouble; Kagain is an excellent tank and we can blast the Kobold Chieftain's group with the Wand of Fire. The same wand is instrumental against Mulahey. Notice us bombing Kagain with the wand to clear up the enemies in the northwest.
Tranzig wastes a Horror spell on us. While we can't use any spells, Bardy McBardface's song does grant immunity to fear. Tranzig also nails us with Slow, but it's not enough to keep us at bay. The downside of a restless run is the lack of spells, but the upside is that we still have lots of fighters on hand. That amounts to a lot of attacks per round.
Now it's time to take on the Ulcaster ruins. We have undispellable immunity to fear thanks to our bard song, but all is not well. When we approach the Wolf of Ulcaster, a bunch of enemies spawn on top of us, including a ghast right next to Bardy McBardface!
The fight with Tazok at the camp goes awry. Somehow, we turn the whole camp hostile after beating Tazok! Jaheira deploys the Wand of Fear to send the enemy into disarray.
Thanks for the info @jessejmc. I haven't actually used charm on the noblemen much in that fight, so was probably just lucky when I got away with it last time
That Ducal Palace fight seems just awful for a monk. I don't know how else to manage it safely aside from luring the nobles to the southern room with Algernon's Cloak and then using staggered charms from the Nymph Cloak to keep the doppelgangers from transforming more than one at a time.
I've already restarted a few times, once due to a bandit ambush and a couple times because I wanted the starting video to be short. The IE games are slow-moving, so to make things faster for viewers, I'm going to keep things at 45 or 60 FPS (maybe drop down to 30 for extremely important and difficult parts like Belhifet and Melissan) and try to avoid wasting time in the inventory screen and such. I'll really need to add commentary to make it truly watchable for general viewers, but it's also important to keep things quick, so I might want to edit the videos to speed up certain sections (we'll lose a lot of time to failed charm attempts over the course of the run).
I feel better about the prospects of the run now.
Hopefully you'll be able to learn from the experience and do a bit better next time.
@semiticgod Looking good!
Bladeservant has got his reputation back to 19 by helping Dryads, Drienne's cat, a ghost, Charlestone Nib, Brage and a petrified woman.
He went to Firewine Bridge at the behest of Charlestone Nib. The first level there almost caused multiple fatalities in the group, but not quite. Retired outside and after sleep returned.
The second level had fledgeling vampires which he was not prepared for. Tenya got level drained and charmed.
The party killed the vampires and then used Algernon's Cloak on Tenya. They then went to the Nashkel Temple to restore Tenya. When they return, Tenya will have a better spell selection to deal with the vampires. However, they had been unable to open a chest, so they intend going to Durlag's first to get some potions of master thievery.
EDIT
Upon going to Durlag's Bladeservant dealt with most of the upper floors. He used a potion of mirrored eyes to deal with the basilisks, but unfortunately one of them used its gaze on Xan rather than himself and Bladeservant hadn't thought to buy another stone to flesh scroll after rescuing the woman in the basilisk area. He returned to Nashkel and bought two scrolls to be on the safe side.
For some reason Kirinhale has a yellow circle so she is impossible to speak to. Upon leaving and returning Bladeservant was able to speak to her and get the quest. He took the hair and gave it away, but she now has the yellow circle again.
To get rid of it, healing, dispelling magic and remove fear were all used to no effect so Algernon's Cloak was used, also to no effect.
I am rapidly came to the conclusion that she would have to be killed. Because she was panicked, this was exceedingly easy. Riglio was the next to die and the party then went down to the basement. The ghost was not attacked.
In the basement the doppelgangers were killed first. Despite having good statistics as far as traps were concerned, Aura had to use a potion of master thievery and a potion of perception. This did have the bonus of enabling other traps to be disarmed.
The wine was left near the warders so that they didn't attack when I didn't want them to.
Sadly just before leaving Durlag's, Xan was killed when attacked by too many enemies at once. A bit of carelessness there.
Reputation still 19.
EDIT
Upon returning to Firewine I discovered that there was only one vampire left, so there was no need to change the memorised spells. After that it was all spiders. They were tough, but no level drain or charming to be concerned about.
They are now delving underground, currently in the direction of Gullykin, but that could change.
I have just discovered that in this set-up, the kobold commadoes are immune to fireball. That always used to be my default spell for wiping them out en masse! They are however susceptible to holy smite.
And so we found another entrance to Gullykin
Mods: none
This run was pretty smooth from the beginning. I was ambushed by wild dogs on the way to Shoal, and one of them got a hit in, as I'd avoided buying any armor. Started with maces so I could get The Stupifier and the Mace +1 from Thunderhammer (eventually going war hammers for Ashideena). Had to make sure to keep rep at 11 before killing Algernon and Dushai to avoid becoming fallen, but that wasn't a big deal. I attempted to get Drizzt's armor but accidentally activated him. Was going to use his armor to avoid swapping as much, but after gaining some levels stuck with sanctuary over stealth.
I did the easy experience of flesh golems, sirines, and basilisks then grabbed the constitution, charisma, and wisdom manuals before heading to the Nashkel Mines. Ran through them with sanctuary and fed Mulahey to kobolds. Killed Tranzig with skeletons while under sanctuary and headed to the bandit camp. Charmed Taurgosz and fed him to some bears. Charmed Raemon in the tent, summoned skeletons, silenced everyone, and that was that.
Used sanctuary through most of Cloakwood. Giant spiders were my favored enemy so cleared that area, gaining my max levels for BG:EE. I messed up charming Drasus and ran away to cast sanctuary. Rested and came back, summoned skeletons, silenced everyone, and they died pretty easily. Used sanctuary to get to Davaeorn. Charmed the guard, but Davaeron killed him without activating the dialogue, which happened on my last run as well. Summoned skeletons and killed him under sanctuary.
Headed to Baldur's Gate and did the poison quest, grabbing the wisdom, dexterity, and intelligence manuals, as well as the Nymph Cloak and the Helm of Balduran. Charmed Brathlan in the Hall of Wonders and fed him to Ragefast to get the Hammer of Dawn. Did the top of the Iron Throne by silencing everyone then using the Nymph Cloak. Grouped them on the stairs which I blocked with skeletons, and everyone died pretty quickly. This technique was used on Rieltar's and Prat's parties as well. Silence followed by charms and skeletons. Used a potion of cloud giant strength and draw upon holy might to get the last wisdom and strength manual.
Back in Baldur's Gate, I surrounded Tamoko with skeletons outside of Sorcerous Sundries and killed her for the Plate of the Dark. Cythandria was silenced and killed with war hammers. Quenash was charmed and fed to Krystin for the Cloak of Balduran, while Slythe fell to skeletons. Krystin fell to a combination of skeletons and her own cloud kill spell. The dopplegangers in the Ducal Palace were charmed and put in separate rooms. No major issues there, although Sarevok did get a couple hits in on me which took me to about 1/3 hitpoints.
Afterwards, I went and got Evermemory out of pawn from the FAI, plus several Rings of the Princes. Grabbed the Golden Pantaloons as well. I made sure to get the second Evermemory from southwest Baldur's Gate for SoD. Scrolls and potions were purchased. I recharged three of The One Gift Losts, two Wands of the Heavens, The Victor, Nymph Cloak, and the Greenstone Amulet and headed to the Thieve's Maze.
Cast protection from lightning and sanctuary on myself than ran through the maze. I skipped the Undercity party this time. I summoned three skeletons (using the other two slots for dispel magic) in the Temple of Bhaal and placed them where the mage teleports to. Triggered Sarevok under sanctuary and killed the mage. Was going to bomb the rest with The One Gift Lost, but they ran into vision and dispelled a hasty sanctuary. I ran and drank a potion of invisibility, only realizing at this point I forgot to purchase the Sandthief's Ring, which I had ample money for.
I was able to lure Sarevok away, dispel his haste, and sling bullets at him until he finally died, having to use charges from my wand of the heavens to kill battle horrors as they popped up. It was less elegant than I planned in my head, as the ease of most of the other encounters lulled me into a false sense of security, but it worked, and I'm on to SoD.
The party then headed north to deal with ghasts or whatever we found there.
What was not expected was a large party of elite hobgoblins who killed Bassilus before we were able to finish him off which was the aim. They hoped that he would be held by the ghasts and would then be easily killed. However it wasn't ghasts that turned up.
After claiming the reward, the party headed for Baldur's Gate.
On the way two groups of ankheg attacked and one of the parties hurt Xan badly:
On the bridge was a mixed party who attacked them at the behest of the Windstar family. After killing their leader, a web and fireball combination easily wiped them out.
Upon arriving in the Gate they were asked to deal with hobgoblins in the field of the dead which they readilly agreed to do, however, there was quite a lot to deal with in the city before leaving.
They were attacked upstairs by mages in Sorcerous Sundries, but web and fireballs quickly put paid to that assault.
The doppelgangers at the Seven Suns were then killed and a ring was given to Fergus which brings the party's reputation back up to 20 thus allieviating fears that Bladeservant might fall if an innocent was killed accidentally.
They then killed the ogre-mage and his carrion crawlers and uon exiting went to the Blushing Mermaid where they were attacked by Larz who hurt party members quite significantly before he was killed. Xan actually had to run away, as did tenya due to injuries. They were not buffed when they met.
[I have been quite pleased with the Artificer kit introduced by the Aura mod and will possibly use it for a solo run next time. Aura herself is a little on the fragile side, but in a solo run an Artificer should quickly gain proficiency]
Another charname enters the arena. This time a undead hunter - going for that illusive spot on the leader board.
I spent ages rolling a 98 for my undead hunter. This time with specialization in shortbow and flails (going to dualwield in BG2:ee if I get past Belhifet).
I am not using mods and playing on core. I am going to roleplay as paladin - so I am going abstain from some low hanging fruits... Here we go:
After CK I dismissed Imoen (not taking her potions), and killed Monty and Xzar. Some bad guys provided a nifty magical flail and some XP
The leveling and gearing up period produced some close shaves:
An important item on the bucket list is the con tome. With the greenstone amulet in hand Semi got her treasure. With Buckleys buckler Semi had one problem fewer.
After the basilisk where done with, Semi reached level 7 and started the main quest.
Amazones and the tombs cleared. Biggest mishap was when Semi by accident didn’t give the dagger to the revenant..
Bandit camp was sniped with a shortbow +1 and some magical ammo - the bracers of archery was still the best option. Well until the camp was looted
The mine was cleared with the one gift lost. Hareishan helped by misdirecting her lightning bolt... they are pesky. Daveorns spell where tanked with a potion of magic blocking and the mage was left dead.
In the big city Semi did some shopping and killed some bad guys - and shopped some more. Shopping helps I guess
I got a lift back to CK. Will do CK, then get Durlags goblet - before ending BG:ee - and head into SoD. But progress has not been made without risk - risk that I should have avoided. So we shall see how Semi will survive my lapses..
Btw. Here she is:
At the Beard Vynd turned his hand to pick-pocketting as is his wont, and Bladeservant emptied his pockets of gold in order to buy equipment there. They are now at the Fields of the Dead.
They entered a cave and upon seeing the hordes in there, they immediately left. An ogre mage followed them out who was immediately killed. They now have to decide whether or not to re-enter. Of course, now they have the luxury of deciding whether to rest and how much buffing they need.
Rest of the party:
Dust, Dwarven Defender
Azara, elven Kensai with focus on bows (yes, kensai can use them in this mod)
Lamys, generic sorcerer
Rancid, dwarven fighter/cleric
and Misery, Battle Caster
Weidu
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #0 // Classes and their abilities descriptions and changes, 2da files: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #1 // Feats: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #2 // Equipment overhaul: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #3 // Spell modifications: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #4 // New spells and spell redistribution: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #5 // Spontaneous casting: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #6 // Ranger and Druid animal companion: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #7 // Racial enemies: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #8 // Creatures regularization: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #9 // Level up by one level per pass: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #11 // Point buy system: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #12 // Update NPCs: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #13 // Rest once in 8 hours: v2.16.1
~3ED/3ED.TP2~ #0 #14 // Free scrolls for arcane casters at level up: v2.16.1
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3041 // Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Stores sell a maximum of 5 Arrows of Dispelling: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4146 // Skip the Candlekeep tutorial sections -> Skip Candlekeep altogether (warning: breaks the 4th wall!): v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity party: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v32 RC10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v32 RC10
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Remove Blur Effect from Items, e.g. Cloack of Displacement: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Reveal City Maps When Entering Area: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1253 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Quayle to the Nashkel Carnival: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1255 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Tiax to Beregost: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1256 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Viconia to South Beregost Road: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2152 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> Allow Armor Plus One Protection Item (Angel): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3020 // Identify All Items: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Easy Spell Learning -> 100% Learn Spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3060 // Remove "You Must Gather Your Party..." Sound (Weimer): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3120 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Are Never Angry About Reputation: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3123 // NPCs Don't Fight: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3191 // Disable Non-Hostile Rest Spawns: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3194 // Alter Hostile Rest Spawns -> Disable completely: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3205 // Stores Purchase All Item Types: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3300 // Death Cam: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3320 // No Depreciation in Stores: v8
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #101 // Prevent skeletal and incorporeal undead from being affected by Illithids' Devour Brain attack: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #202 // Revised Bhaalpowers -> Enhance the Bhaalpowers and standardize their casting time: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #204 // Prevent Mislead clones from singing Bard songs: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #205 // Prevent Project Image and Simulacrum clones from using quickslot items: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #211 // Make Death Ward protect against Vorpal Hits: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #216 // Bard songs break invisibility -> Only the Jester song breaks invisibility: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #261 // Altered XP rewards from locks, traps and scrolls -> Improved (lowered) XP rewards from locks, traps and scrolls: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #310 // Distinctive creature coloring: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #315 // Distinctive creature soundsets: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #510 // Expanded temple services: v4.53
And one who doesn't show in game; I've changed back how criticals work - i.e. helmets protect vs them, natural 20 is always a hit etc- same as vanilla. Should be a bit less drastic.
Anyhow, to game. You can read about class/rule/spell chages from 3ed mod https://github.com/Holic75/Baldurs-gate-dnd-3.5
Fighter-cleric chooses Plant domain (Barkskin is awesome), kensai gets to choose focus (bows). Sorcerer bloodline - Undead.
We were of to a good start, blinding the Ogre, selling Ring of Wizardry for +1 Composite Longbow (best bow in the game for my kensai), and dealt with Beregost spiders.
Silke was first obeyed, then blinded and killed. Not much of a paladin behaviour, but worst is yet to come
I don't like wondering while level 1, so basilisk were next. Used Korax to deal with Mutamin, and got up to level 3 there.
Next was something I haven't done in a really long time. I don't remember what Drizzt is like in vanilla, but in my mod constelation he is unhittable on anything bar a critical hit. Maybe, after level 14, we could hit him below. As such, THAC0 is irrelevant vs him - it's the same deal if I fight him at level 1 or 10 - only crits work.
Took some time, some haste potions, some healing potions - but he fell. Rep dropped to 7; but it's for a good cause - Jethro gets his scimitars and his armor, which allows for dex-to-ac bonus, unlike full plate.
With him dead, we explore the coast, gather some loot, get some rep, and few levels. Also did ankhegs (they could only hit on 19 and above in melee, and only 20 on range, so Jethro was quite safe).
Donated some money to church, killed Dushai. It's all for good cause. With her ring, we went to Durlag for some fast xp. The hardest battle there was Mustard Jellys. They kept critting over and over again. Jethro came very close to dying, and had to retreat to survive.
Did the whole level w/o more troubles, left the tower w/o giving Love the wine bottle - that's above our league for now. Finished most of the wilderness areas, did Droth (I'm really happy that Shoal isn't an instakill anymore, even if having your protagonist in this state near Droth isn't for the weak of heart)
If that blindness didn't stick, I wouldn't be writing this now.
Sirens were killed by summoned skeletons. While cavalier is charm immune, in melee they crit on 18 and above, causing Feeblemind, which usually leads to death, hence I avoid coming close to them.
Two more battles worth mentioning - one, Bassilus. Combat log read that his final buff is Chaotic Commands. This means that he has a level 6 offensive spell. Harm comes to mind - but in this case, it was far worse. I hit him with all I had - arrows, spells, fire, swords - but no interrupt. He ended up summoning an Aerial Servant. I killed the priest and ran away - there's no fighting that.
The second is the priest who charges you to kill Basil. This is easilly one of the hardest battles in this mod setup. Buffed with Blade Barrier + Physical mirror, he's a force to be reckoned with. And uses Slay living.
His spells appear to be uninerruptible as well. I may have used Silence on him, but simply forgot about the option - we grinded him out, using potions to survive the barrier damage and spells to keep pressure on him.
After what seemed an eternity, I get a hit that disrupts one of his spells, and he dies the following round. This lasted for the entire duration of Blade Barrier - he's apsurdly beefed up.
With him dead, I return to main plot, laying waste all around.
Next stop, Cloakwood.