Hope went to help Charleston Nib having already been asked to do so. That was easy enough, fighting the monster outside less so. She then helped to get Brage back to the temple of Helm where she was rewarded but also given another task.
To the south another assassin was killed as was Greywolf.
The emeralds were returned and afterwards Oublek was enlisted unwillingly to fight a baby dragon.
He sadly died, but at least his name will be honoured by the way in which he died.
Another assassin was then killed in the Inn. The idol will now be taken to the temple of Lathander.
Zebedee now says: "Time for bed" as does my wife.
EDIT
Hope completed all of Gavin's quests, returned the ring to the dwarf in the sirene area and taken the axe from the body of a sirene to its owner. The rewards for completing Gavin's quests was used to upgrade the belt from the ogre with a belt fetish. This now means that Aura no longer needs to keep casting strength spells.
They cleared the ankhegs north of the FAI again with the result that Indira levelled up.
Upon trying to help the dryad in the south, Aura used one of her powerful arrows against Krumm and accidentally killed the dryad as well. Ooops! Lost 10 reputation points!! The party had only recently reached 20 points. They would have been on 23 if the limit had not been there!! A pity that this accident hadn't happened slightly earlier.
Aura will obviously need to be more careful with those arrows. At least there are still a number of quests available to raise the reputation again, but getting to 20 again could be difficult. Giving gold to temples might even be necessary.
Hope completed all of Gavin's quests, returned the ring to the dwarf in the sirene area and taken the axe from the body of a sirene to its owner. The rewards for completing Gavin's quests was used to upgrade the belt from the ogre with a belt fetish. This now means that Aura no longer needs to keep casting strength spells.
They cleared the ankhegs north of the FAI again with the result that Indira levelled up.
Upon trying to help the dryad in the south, Aura used one of her powerful arrows against Krumm and accidentally killed the dryad as well. Ooops! Lost 10 reputation points!! The party had only recently reached 20 points. They would have been on 23 if the limit had not been there!! A pity that this accident hadn't happened slightly earlier.
Aura will obviously need to be more careful with those arrows. At least there are still a number of quests available to raise the reputation again, but getting to 20 again could be difficult. Giving gold to temples might even be necessary.
There is certainly no room for any more such accidents. Hope would become fallen.
EDIT
In the end Hope spent all that she could on raising reputation. She only had enough gold to raise it 3 points, but that could be worthwhile in the long run.
Alright, time to tie up loose ends. Which will be quite the undertaking, given how many sidequests we left undone before departing for Spellhold...
Anomen gets his Knighthood, and we take the opportunity to enlist the aid of the Order against Bodhi.
While travelling invisibly to the Umar Hills, we get the annoying but not very dangerous Rakshasa ambush (Rakshasa do not react well to ADHW).
Yep, you read it right, Umar Hills. We're going to both take down the Shadow Dragon and deal with the Shade Lord.
So, SCS Shadow Dragon isn't that bad. Tons of HP, Stoneskin, a PfMW contingency, and a breath attack that causes level drain as well as blindness. Oh, and it has some Invisibility-like power it uses after it takes a beating.
We prepare via Limited Wish (for party-wide NPP), lots of Remove Disease to counter the blindness and True Sight.
We are then soundly beaten, as I preserved almost all buffs for dealing with the Shade Lord immediately after, and Thaxll'sillyia is no slouch in melee combat (and has a serious reach to boot).
Coming back with a full set of spells tailored to the dragon (every buff imaginable, as well as Breach, Lower Resistance and offensive damage spells) allows for a smooth victory.
Remembering how absurd Improved Shade Lord is in comparison with his vanilla incarnation, we depart and return once again with maximum buffs and offensive spellworks. Most important is probably NPP, again granted via Limited Wish. Of course, by now we are quite a bit over-leveled, and after some initial damage from Mazzy, a single Sunray is enough to finish the Shade Lord.
Hooray! We gather the loot and head back to Umar Hills. That's one major sidequest finished.
Now that Mazzy's friends are avenged, her own sidequest triggers, and we are roped into heading for Trademeet. We take down Barl and hang around the local pub for a day as Mazzy waits for her sister to recover. Once that's done, I figure we may as well help out Trademeet while we're here. The party departs for the Druid Grove.
We push through oodles of trolls and other creatures; major Troll groups are treated to numerous Fireballs with Mazzy & Minsc being made immune to fire damage. We also watch gleefully as the Shadow Druids fighting some Trolls are killed, mostly because they were trying to preserve their spells for turning on us after fighting said Trolls. A triple Fireball sequencer along with some Skeleton Warriors then spells the end of Kylan Lind and friends.
We push through well over a dozen Red Myconids and their Spore Colonies on the bridge. Ihtafeer and her cronies are treated to 2x ADHW (overkill, but Rakshasa are annoying enough to warrant it). We also used several Zone of Sweet Air to keep clearing their cloud spells.
A few spawns of scrubs later, we finally reach the Druid sanctuary (I count Dalok and his adherents to the scrubs, as we basically just meleed them down). While equipment is taken from the one to challenge Faldorn, buffs are not dispelled. Under all manners of buffs (most importantly Improved Haste & Improved Invisibility) Jaheira gets off Insect Plague -> Flame Blade -> Dolorous Decay and proceeds to scorch Faldorn.
Hooray! We return to Trademeet, handing in Ihtafeer's head on the way, and are showered in rewards; the Shield of Harmony goes to Minsc, as Mazzy has fantastic saves anyway and is likely to shrug off the effects the shield protects against. We finish by retrieving the Circlet of Waukeen and handing it over to Logan.
Since we're close by, we might as well clear the three little areas near the Underdark exit. Small Teeth Pass provides no obstacle (really... they're Orcs). North Forest actually gives us a little scare when two Ancient Vampires attack from the south in tandem with some Yuan-ti and their ever-present mage charging in from the east. Fortunately, Mazzy gets a good Azuredge hit in killing one of the Vampires, and even Imoen is high enough level that her Remove Magic destroys the Yuan-ti mage's defenses. Benedict does end up popping an ADHW, since there were so many (albeit individually weak) enemies on the field.
To the south are a bunch of no-name (I guess evil?) adventurers standing around. This must mean we are supposed to kill them! We go a bit overboard, letting loose our second ADHW as well as an Earthquake. The enemy party duly falls, and we get a pleasant surprise. I can't remember if this scroll is always there or not, but I'll take it regardless.
The mage also had a Robe of Cold Resistance. Which, sadly, is the best (in fact only) mage robe we've found so far. Lookin' good Benedict, lookin' good!
That just leaves Forest of Tethir. Most of it passes without incident, although by now I am getting a little careless with the mook spawns. A Kuo-toan wizard gets off a good Chaos, leading to a few party members taking a beating (Benedict was never in any danger). Afterwards, as we try to power through a Yuan-ti spawn with neither buffs nor offensive magics, Minsc has a few vital organs perforated, but we prevail.
We help Coran on the way out, and return to Trademeet. Another three minor areas cleared!
With Imoen's only L8 spell being Simulacrum, it seems a good time to flesh out the spellbooks. There really aren't that many crucial L8 arcane spells whose scrolls are available for purchase (Benedict already knows ADHW and Imoen has a scroll to scribe), but we pick up Incendiary Cloud and Pierce Shield for both of them, whilst Benedict also aquires Power Word, Blind. While in Athkatla we also hand in Yoshimo's heart.
So, we're almost done with the wilderness areas. All that remains is Windspear Hills. Upon arrival, we take down the Knights with bare minimum buffs, and are subsequently invited to spend the night at Garren's.
Once the customary ambush occurs, I get a bit of a giggle at popping Power Word, Silence at Plath Rededge.
So, Orcs & Hobgoblins are understandably not much of a threat anymore. The Ruhk Transmuter is as annoying as always, but we simply push through its Fireshields, massive damage notwithstanding.
The Vampiric Mists to the west are handled by Minsc under Amulet of Power, with Mazzy supporting using Azuredge. Orc Archers attempting an ambush are swiftly dispatched, but the two Stone Golems and attendant Juggernaut Golem prove a handful. The Juggernaut Golem has something like 90% physical resistance, and we take several solid hits before we can put it down (but down it goes). After this Jaheira started wearing a helmet.
We put down the Troll Cook and its Hobgoblin entourage, and proceed north, where we get a rather impressive Undead spawn. From memory, I believe it was 3x Elder Vampire, 3x Ancient Vampire, 3x Mummy and 2x Ghast. Limited Wish -> NPP along with a few Improved Haste (one would've been sufficient) and Improved Invisibility saves the day.
In comparison, the host of various Shadows to the east are no bother at all. We head west and accept Samia's offer, clearing the Director Beholder, and Mazzy under Protection from Fire making short work of both Efreetis and the Guardian Elemental. Samia of course betrays us, but we cut a swathe through her band in no time flat. Kaol proves troublesome, so we just close the door for a bit and let him deal with 5x Skeleton Warriors (apparently he didn't memorize Death Spell).
Westward! Wolfweres and another Juggernaut Golem (this time we used the Skeleton Warriors to soak up the blows) fall before us, along with an Air Elemental. We use the remaining Skeleton Warriors along with a Mordenkainen's Sword to hold off the Adamantite Golem as Mazzy plinks it to death with Azuredge at range. This just leaves Tazok, who is rather more dangerous than I remember (but that may be because we literally just bumrushed him). He deals some good damage, but one melee brute isn't going to take us down at this stage.
We nip downstairs, then boldly nip back upstairs, taking on Conster. It takes a few rounds to tear down his spell protections, but once Breach removes his Improved Mantle and Stoneskin, Conster lasts less than two seconds against a concentrated missile barrage.
But for all that, what kind of hero would leave a Red Dragon alive in his wake? No hero at all, that's who!
We take a good rest under Invisibility 10' Radius, and following massive buffs (really, ProFire/PfE10'/Mass Invisibility/IHaste would've sufficed) we engage the dread drake, our ranks bolstered by four Fire Elementals and a Skeleton Warrior.
Well... that was easy. Firkraag had a Spell Sequencer with Remove Magic cast on himself at the start of the fight, but only the Skeleton Warrior was in range. The dragon eventually managed to dispel Mazzy's buffs, but other than that he didn't really do much, leaving Benedict and Imoen free to reduce his spell resistance, tear down his defenses and start dealing damage. Or they would have, except Firkraag succumbed to physical damage before we could even get off our ADHW's. Heh.
A glorious victory! We make our way back outside and report to Garren. Next time, we shall surely cleanse the last vestiges of filth squirreled away in the city of Athkatla, and we shall do so clad in resplendent Red Dragon Plate. We'll probably see about pawning Carsomyr too.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 182 (2nd and final update) Strummer (male half-elf skald, Grond0); Rackrig (male human blade, Gate70) Previous update
Once again, after lots of searching, I managed to find a way to die .
The early part of the session saw no problems, with a number of enemies ignoring lingering foul smells to take a nap on the job. That took us up to the Bandit Camp.
Inside Tazok's tent things seemed to be going fine when Venkt was another stinking victim. The time taken to kill the others allowed Raemon just enough time to recover though. However, with him at near death and Rackrig uninjured it didn't seem too important that Strummer had been poisoned by Hakt. A few seconds later though and Raemon had hit Rackrig 3 times in a row, including 2 criticals, and Strummer was left without support
- he reacted by using the wand of fire for the first time to scorch away Raemon's final few HPs.
After passing through the Cloakwood pretty quickly, there were more stinking clouds to help dispose of Drasus & co. Inside the mine things started going wrong when only Strummer went invisible on the way down to the second level. Rackrig used defensive spin against the guards there, but still got badly damaged and Strummer once more unlimbered his wands and just managed to save his companion with a couple of HPs to spare.
Upstairs, resting recovered HPs until both characters went invisible for a final rest before going down to find Davaeorn. A guard appeared though so they moved down the passage a bit and tried again, and again, and again, and again. At that point they were almost at the exit to the next level when disaster struck as I clicked on a bat when moving. Not only was that conversation unfulfilling, but Strummer was now visible. However, no guards followed us down to the next level, so I tried immediately resting once more - thinking that if we were ambushed again we would go straight back upstairs. I was surprised though that the dozen or so guards that appeared did so behind us (blocking the entrance and extending back down the passage beyond the exit, past the point that you could normally move). Even worse, many of the guards had bows and Strummer immediately found himself low on HPs and poisoned. After running out of immediate range, he found a brief window of opportunity to successfully cast slow poison before running on - only to be confronted by another guard from our previous visit to the level. He should have just tried to run past that one and hope he wasn't hit, but made the fatal mistake of turning back with the aim of using a potion of invisibility.
However, his aura was still clouded from the slow poison and the chasing archers already had their eye in ...
Hope returned to where she found Isra, returned the armour and cleared the basement, temporarily at least, much to the delight of Luckyfoot. It was tough. The party kept on getting decidedly unhealthy due to their reluctance to using potions of fire resistance in a dungeon containing hordes of kobold commandoes which kept on reproducing. Aura's healing arrows were used in abundance, being replaced by arrows of fire. Aura's arrows come without cost, so it was a win-win situation.
Hope then went to the Lighthouse area where the party were beset by sirenes. All of them have been killed but Indira has been charmed and Hope has had both Feeblemind and Confusion cast on her. I just hope that all party members survive the next five minutes.
EDIT
Hope rescued Dynaheir and Aaron. Took Aaron's ring to his betrothed, helped Drizzt, killed some half-ogres, found Dynaheirs journal, and gave her a lot of scrolls to learn.
Reputation now 17. When she has a charged wand of fireballs, it will be time tyo take on those demons in the mines perhaps.
Now it is bedtime or Hope's clothes will be turning into rags and her coach into a pumpkin.
EDIT
Hope returned to Beregost where she fought Silke and Karlat before helping get Eltoth back into shape. She is now a fully accredited hero again so it won't be long before she goes shopping. Of course to do that, she first of all needs to get some gold.
Brole quickly established an alibi - it wasn't him.
Noober looked to be in similar danger and there was only one way to stop Minty turning him stale.
Our search for the next hapless victim turned up a likely candidate.
Brole purchased a few axes, laughing at the thought of actually spending hard-earned cash on a magical +1 variant. Five spares should be plenty for the rest of the game, or some basilisks at least.
A quick count confirmed many broken axes so Brole relented and splashed out at Feldeposts - now where to test this +1 axe. Ah yes, an ankheg nest and let's pick up any stragglers on nearby maps.
With a magical weapon to hand it seemed to make sense to go play with flesh golems. They put up a good fight but Brole's special abilities were enough to keep him alive.
By this time Minty had decided to test her breath weapon - Brole standing in the way naturally but that's just a kind gesture to check whether his regeneration has kicked in.
On to Durlag's Tower where we find some battle horrors. Brole is less concerned about them than Minty's breath weapon but she instead elects to try out a skulltrap.
[
The gnoll fortress sees Minty recover her breath.
Current status.
Grond0's random roller has thrown out a less fragile pairing with this duo of EE kits. We've kept them alive for a couple of sessions now and have optimistically named the saves "About to die" and "Prepare to die in Nashkel Mine".
Benedict, Human Conjurer, BG2EE SoA Update 9
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
BG2EE SoA updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7,8, 9, 10, 11
The party returns to Athkatla and pays Cromwell a visit. I had forgotten that Red Dragon Plate really isn't that spectacular (50% Fire resistance is nice, but not nice enough to accept significantly worse AC): The main point seems to be that it only requires 8 STR. It goes to Anomen for now.
So, more cleanup to do. We head for the Temple District to finally tackle the Cult of the Eyeless. Tactics consist of leveraging our serious level advantage. Mazzy pretty much never misses with Azuredge, so Wraiths and the like aren't a concern, and for some reason the other Undead spawns are almost exclusively regular Mummies and Ghasts. There's one big Beholder spawn past the bridge to the forgotten temple, but very few things that aren't straight up magic-immune are going to survive a 3x Skull Trap sequencer.
We no longer memorize cure spells, so have to break out a Cure Serious Wounds scroll to deal with the manifestation. Following this, we head back upstairs and down to the Unseeing Eye's pit.
Again, most of the undead are just Mummies, certainly there's no cause for ala-
Crap on a stick.
OK, we'll need to improvise. That's Time Stop the Lich is casting, but it takes a long time to finish. Imoen and Benedict both have Death Fog (casting time 4) memorized, so I toss out both, hoping to luck out.
Hooray! I don't know if Liches are just immune to Acid damage (though it wouldn't surprise me) or if this one's bizarre buff routine actually incorporated Protection from Acid, but even though it suffers no damage, the Lich is interrupted.
With no Time Stop to contend with, Benedict sends a Projected Image to the front. ADHW, Incendiary Cloud, Ruby Ray of Reversal... we pull out all the stops. The Lich keeps getting interrupted by damage it is immune to, and eventually we can land a Breach. Mazzy seizes the moment.
Hooray again! The attendant Skeleton Warriors dropped a Protection from Energy scroll, which was a nice bonus.
Alright! Off into the cheap knock-off of the actual Beholder Hive that is the hive of the Unseeing Eye.
The Blind Priests get a few disablers and Skeleton Warriors, whilst the few Beholder spawns are handled via another Projected Image of Benedict hurling mass death at a distance (though honestly just the Skeleton Warriors would've sufficed). Anomen gets to take down the Unseeing Eye:
... but is unfortunately Petrified by the summoned Death Tyrants as he tries to make good his escape. Could've been easily avoided if I'd just splurged and given him an Invisibility potion.
The Skeleton Warriors finish the Tyrants, and Minsc pops the Stone to Flesh ability of the Ring of Earth Control. Anomen is recruited back into the group, and immediately dies (why? Not entirely sure...).
However, Jaheira had Wondrous Recall memorized, and so raises him, and this time Anomen stays alive. Good!
Mission accomplished, we tell the Avatar the good news, and then tackle the remnants of the Cult. We show our disdain by a Projected Image of Imoen (such plebians do not merit the attention of Benedict) tackling them, with a few Skeleton Warriors and Mazzy for support.
Hooray once more! We loot the lot and take off for the Temple of Helm, receiving further accolades and picking up the Sir Sarles quest. Which we duly complete, and we take care of Ned on the way. The Illithium is of course spent towards the Improved Mace of Disruption, since the temple is perfectly happy with the alloy artwork. We also recover the Dawn Ring from Borinall and his laughable guards.
Time for another death! As we swing by the Sewers yet again to save Haer'Dalis, I opt for the path of least resistance and drop a Firestorm on a Yuan-ti spawn in Mekrath's lair. Works wonders, except one Yuan-ti survives long enough to get a spell off.
It's been a rough couple of days for Anomen. Jaheira Raises him and we're back on track: We retrieve the mirror for Mekrath, take offense at his tone and have a Projected Image deal with him.
Still in mop-up mode, we depart for Trademeet (after starting the Limited Wish adventure) and save Tiris. Eventually we find the good Gong and return triumphantly to Captain Dennis. And around here, something glorious happens: Benedict hits 3 million experience. Our first HLA? Summon Planetar. Should be good fun to pop against Irenicus...
Running low on things to do, but not quite done yet! We accept Renal Bloodscalp's offer and start investigating Mae'var. In the midst of doing so, Minsc & Jaheira catch up to Benedict experience-wise; Minsc takes Power Attack (I want at least one Critical Strike on every fighter), but Jaheira sidetracks a little and goes for Elemental Summoning + Greater Elemental Summoning, as she got both a Druid and Fighter level at once. It's quite possible fighter HLA's would've been a better investment, but these two summoning spells aren't bad either.
Finally, with the evidence we need in hand, we are ordered to take care of Mae'var. Which we do! But for some reason he didn't drop the Shadow Armor. It's not a big deal, no one needs it and we've got gold aplenty, but still.
Quite exhausted by his recent rampage, Benedict retires to the Sea's Bounty Tavern.
Next time, we will finally get Benedict a stronghold, finish our dealings with the tiefling and his compatriots, and then set to tackle the final challenges of SoA: The Guarded Compound (shouldn't be a problem), the Crooked Crane Lich (Benedict can take him single-handed!), the Twisted Rune (might be a problem) and Kangaxx (meep). But we must be careful: For all that the party is powerful (and it is.. very, very powerful), we are never more than a slip of concentration and a failed save away from failure...
Hope went into the Nashkel mines and had to use nearly all the useful spells to defeat the duerger halfway down.
They therefore left the mine to rest thinking that it would be safe to do so. It wasn't, for hordes of kobolds attacked and they were even more badly hurt.
Nevertheless they tried sleeping again and this time they recovered.
The rest of the mine was straightforward and they returned to the Cartnival.
The mod that I installed to change Xan to a fighter/thief isn't working anymore. I think that I will therefore leave him behind and just use a party of five.
I'm really surprised that someone would like to turn Xan into a F/T considering that the game has lots of thieves/characters that may dual into thief and how amazing Enchantment spells are in BG1.
We use Fireballs to smooth the way out of the first dungeon of SoD, and an Arrow of Dispelling takes down Korlasz as always. We rearrange our gear before leaving the first dungeon, since Kagain, Jaheira, Coran, and Shar-teel leave the party, and Jaheira only comes back a little later. Due to careful inventory management, we've brought tens of thousands of gold in loot out of BG1 and can build up a nice trove of goodies for SoD.
Since we're low on NPCs, we recruit Dynaheir alongside Minsc, if only because Dynaheir can use wands. Corwin is the big game-changer due to her excellent damage output, but wands are still our primary tool for key fights. SoD is heavy on large groups of enemies, and the Wand of Fire is absolutely critical. We don't have a 20-CON dwarf to tank everything anymore.
I decide to side with the dwarves this time around. The lich isn't much trouble with the Secret Revealed at our disposal.
We recruit M'Khiin and Rasaad just to provide a small buffer, but the Wand of Fire is doing the real work, and once we get to the Troll Claw Woods, we ditch them both for Jaheira and Voghiln.
We have several Protection from Poison scrolls, so Morentherene can't deal much damage with her poison breath, and between Flame Arrow scrolls and Corwin's bow, she doesn't have the HP to stick around long.
We torch the cultists, and while Ziatar hides behind Sanctuary, Potions of Firebreath, the Wand of Fire, and the Wand of the Heavens all go right through it.
Corwin can pin down big targets, and the Wand of the Heavens can go through Akanna's Potion of Invisibility as long as we target her before she goes invisible.
The inability to rest isn't that crippling at this point. We've already built up a massive amount of potions, wand charges, and magical arrows of various sorts.
Bridgefort is a bit higher-intensity, and when I'm worried about one of the mages hitting us with some ugly disablers, I send in Corwin alone, well-buffed and with an Oil of Speed to let her kite the enemies. The enemy archers aren't that dangerous, the melee grunts aren't too fast, and while it's hard to keep a whole party protected from spells, it's very easy to cover one character.
Corwin shoots down the Bridgefort Mage with an Arrow of Dispelling and Acid Arrows. While we're in the Coalition Camp, we discover that Khalid survived the Bridgefort fight!
Which is interesting, because in BG1, he got permanently killed by a Green Slime. Somehow he came back to life to play a role in SoD's plot, which means he can also rejoin the party! We dump Voghiln, since Jaheira+Khalid and Minsc+Dynaheir are pairs and Corwin is priceless.
The Wand of Paralyzation disables the cyclops, Arrows of Dispelling kill the Crusader Mages and Strunk inside the Underground River. We flee from Hephernaan and company with haste and Potions of Invisibility and head back to the Coalition Camp--there's no need to mess with any of the optional fights in this area.
For the Coalition Camp invasion, we use Arrows of Detonation against the trolls and ogres, Arrows of Dispelling against the mages, and pre-cast Web scrolls from Dynaheir to snare the paladins and clerics, allowing us to bomb them without opposition. Corwin crushes the last wave of boss enemies with Arrows of Detonation and Arrows of Dispelling.
The siege of Dragonspear Castle itself is a simple affair. Corwin blasts the crap out of the Crusaders and Bardy McBardface slays Ashatiel with an Arrow of Dispelling and some Potions of Firebreath.
We chop up the demons in Avernus and arrive at the final fight covered in potion buffs and fortified with lots of immunities courtesy of our Chaotic Commands scrolls. Minsc hacks away at Belhifet with the Dragon Blade +3 while our fighters dispatch the other demons and Jaheira keeps Caelar alive with Greater Restoration scrolls.
Khalid joins the fight against Belhifet with the Voidsword +3 and Corwin fires away with Arrows of Fire +2, boosted to +3 enchantment from an Enchanted Weapon scroll, so we have three different fighters hammering away at Belhifet. Between the missile damage, slashing damage, and magic damage, Belhifet only clings to life for a few precious rounds.
Done!
SoD is now over, and we are about to enter Shadows of Amn without a single reload or a single rest. The Wand of Lightning trick will prove instrumental in stretching our resources, since ordinary wands won't keep pace with enemy stats later on in SoA.
Having done SoD, Semi Ramis started her bid for the throne in Irenicus dungeon.
The claw of Klazgorath was imported from SoD and sanctuary was learned for safe passage past the memphits
Semi could not resist hacking down the portals whilst most of the memphits where locked behind the door...
She did prevail in the end.
Semi shopped the reflection shield. It always yields a full plate and a safe haven when panicked in the opening attacks
A quick tour to the watchers keep could give both xp and gold. But the opposition changed Semis mind
even an undead hunter has to think twice at level ten. But the bracers where an upgrade.
Having specialized in flails Nalias quest is a given thing. But at the keep Semi realized that her saves against the Yuanti mage werent sufficient. So she detoured to Trademeet
When Semi arrived in Trademeet she had accidently dragged the guard captain down to the geenies. The guard helped take down the geenies - Semi protected from petrification off course. A valuable shield and a precious flask the main prizes (besides money).
Back at Torgals place, Semi assmebled the flail, used sanctuary to dodge the umber hulks and got the geenie to help take down Torgal.
Back in the city the slaves where freed, Edwin struck down for a key and Trademeet paid another visit
For XP and loot the liches where killed - including the demilich. Regeneration and better saves in sight
Then the unseeing eye. The eye had ended a run before, and prudence where justified once again. A sumonned skeleton soaked the worst of the spells and Semi killed the eye just in time.
The various parties and gangs where smacked down - justice is in town...
The xp pushed Semi into epic levels and her HLA’s. Semi picked summon Deva, and went for Watchers keep. The first two levels cleared.
The snake put up a fair fight, and a stun held Semi for quite some time. But Semi prevailed. Semi was going to save the Chromatic Demon for later, but misclicking on the way back brought the fight to a unprepaired Semi...
Semi summoned a deva and a geenie. The later winning the day when the demon turned into ice form...
The victory gave Semi the confidence to face the planar prison. The victory was flawless since Semi manage to rush the warden whilst he was barking orders.
Windspear was done next. Semi had misplaced her Tasheron bow and had real problems with the golems. But the small dart +3 who was misplaced in the missile container saved the day.. still havent found the bow.
Semi left the dragon alone - for now. Her stronghold quest bids her kill it later.
Next up was Rassad. Yes him. Rassads quest has some cool items. A gem that gives a daily true sight and a cloak that gives chaotic commands (20% chance) - both giving Semi some ammo against mages and maze spells. The planar sphere is yet to come and a maze trap in fish city... Semi did the ques and got the gem and cloak - and is now awaiting and contemplaiting.
I'm really surprised that someone would like to turn Xan into a F/T considering that the game has lots of thieves/characters that may dual into thief and how amazing Enchantment spells are in BG1.
Sorry mis-typing late at night. I meant fighter/mage.
My reasoning for that is that my party is rather arcane heavy. Even Aura can cast arcane spells.
I also had Dynaheir and Indira.
I didn't originally plan to have Xan in the party due to him not being of Good alignment.
Smite is a critical resource for Viora, and combined with Vhailor's Helm, it lets us stun-lock key enemies like Perth the Adept and pesky Fallen Planetars that enemy liches like to throw at us.
Notice the absurd number of buffs we have active--I have an auto-buffing spell on hand now, and Fighter/Mage/Clerics have every type of buff in the game.
We hit 7.5 million XP on the way out of the Spellhold maze and finally gain access to level 7 mage spells. Irenicus buffs with Improved Mantle, so we summon a clone and cut through his Stoneskins with the Sling of Everard and Whirlwind Attack.
At this point, anything less than a major boss fight is trivial for Viora. We have Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear, Death Ward, PFMW, SI: Abjuration, Stoneskin, Spirit Armor, Improved Haste, and 14 fighter levels. We're all but impossible to touch and have spectacular damage output, and whenever we run into a mage, we can crush it with Greater Whirlwind Attack or Smite. I skip the mind flayer city and beholder hive, and the rest of the Underdark is cake.
For undead, we always have Protection from Undead scrolls and the Mace of Disruption +2. Bodhi has a nasty backlash effect against melee attacks and is immune to disruption anyway (at least in her first form; the post-dialog Bodhi might be different), so we use the Sling of Everard instead.
Now we just have to do a few quick chores. Dragons are now easy pickings since we can hit them with a few castings of Lower Resistance and follow up with a PFMW-protected Harm spell before using Critical Strike to land a guaranteed hit.
We clear out Firkraag's lair, use Whirlwind on Raamilat back at Suldannessellar, and strike down Nizidramanii'yt with another Harm spell. By now, we have level 8 mage spells and can use Spell Trigger to cast Lower Resistance three times in one round.
We stop by the Temple sewers to grab the Wand of Wonder and Hammer of Thunderbolts, where we notice that one of the enemy clerics in the mind flayer area can cast Harm! We run away until the duration expires (it only lasts 10 or 12 seconds), since a lucky critical could have dropped us down to 1 HP. Once we forge Crom Faeyr, we stop by the mind flayer city and trample the squid people. Note that Mantle is perfectly capable of blocking mind flayer attacks; PFMW isn't your only option.
Over at the Twisted Rune, Smite from our clone and a Greater Whirlwind Attack from Viora herself are enough to strike down Layenne before she can cast a single spell.
We now have access to the Staff of the Magi and therefore at-will, aura-independent invisibility. Shangalar gets Time Stop and Summon Dark Planetar off the ground, and at one point even Wishes our defenses away, but we can wait out his various buffs, mess him up with Holy Word a little, and eventually smoosh him with the Mace of Disruption when he's out of PFMW spells.
Time for the Tree of Life! We Smite Irenicus with the Staff of the Magi, and while he's immune to the stun effect, the dispel effect from the Staff of the Magi makes contact and True Seeing removes his Mirror Images, allowing us to destroy his defenses and take him down before he can cause any trouble.
The fight with the Slayer starts off nicely. The Ring of the Ram disrupts a spell despite all of the Slayer's defenses, and we have the damage output to smash the demons in short order.
The Slayer tries to get another spell off the ground, but when we kill the first Balor, the resulting magic damage explosion disrupts it. When he tries for the third time in a row to cast a spell, we nail him again with the Ring of the Ram--since we equipped it before summoning a clone, both our clone and Viora herself can use the ring.
We pay too little attention to our clone's HP, however, and it collapses soon after. When the Slayer hauls out a Fallen Planetar, we stun-lock it, and when the Slayer hits us with Spellstrike, our Spell Shield absorbs it.
Our summons cling to life and we still have other spell buffs on hand, so we're still in perfectly good condition. The Slayer, however, only has so many PFMW spells, and when it runs out, we crush it with Crom Faeyr.
Done!
We're going to have to pay close attention to our buffs in ToB, since a Fighter/Mage/Cleric doesn't have many spell slots for PFMW, but otherwise we should be immune to pretty much everything for the rest of the game. Only Melissan poses a serious threat.
We Smite Illasera, kill her in seconds, and flood the first Pocket Plane trial with the Wand of Cloudkill. By the time the big three arrive, there are already multiple clouds on the map and Irenicus is hard-pressed to avoid spell disruption.
By the time we slay Sarevok and turn our attention to Irenicus, his PFMW is about to run out, he hasn't gotten a single spell off the ground, and we nail him with Power Attack and nonmagical bullets before he can try to use a Spell Trigger to maintain his weapon immunities.
Bodhi, completely blind thanks to a Protection from Undead scroll, falls to sling bullets and the path to Saradush opens up.
Against Gromnir, we accidentally lose our buffs to Remove Magic, but stay safe with a Potion of Magic Shielding and the Staff of the Magi until we're ready to re-engage. We can deal with a lot of enemies just by bashing them with the staff, though Karun the Black falls to Power Attack since I'm concerned about letting him cast Time Stop.
We knock down the enemies one by one until Gromnir is alone. Even a Barbarian like Gromnir can't out-tank a Fighter/Mage/Cleric (though, on the player side, there are valid arguments that the Barbarian is a stronger option against Ascension Melissan).
We go ahead and level past the original XP cap just for the heck of it, though I'd prefer not to rely on level 9 mage spell slots for key fights. At this point, though, the extra levels are meaningless: we can race through the fire giant area with the Staff of the Magi, blast the undead in Nyalee's grove with Sunray, and hit Nyalee herself with Harm. Our best methods don't really require level 9 spells.
Yaga-Shura has no magic resistance or spell protections, so Harm is a guaranteed kill on him as long as you have Critical Strike or Time Stop to ensure a successful hit.
For lesser encounters, I'm willing to use level 9 spell slots, though. It's just fun to be able to chop through herds of enemy grunts with Black Blade of Disaster.
We land a lucky kill on Odamaron with the Mace of Disruption (a Protection from Undead scroll lets us make the strike before his PFMW pops up) and we slay Ogremoch with Harm, though we need to use PFMW to avoid Ogremoch's dispel effect on hit. We also hit the Ancient Vampire with Harm, but Diaytha needs to be handled with conventional weapons.
Sendai is not a problem. We have the Staff of the Magi as an instant escape option at all times, and our spell slots allow us to summon more than one clone per day, which makes it very easy to topple Sendai statues.
The drow nearly chop our clone to pieces, but an instant-casting Greater Restoration bails it out. We steadily crush the drow, and while our clone is gone by the time the real Sendai appears, we can get past both PFMW and Improved Mantle using the Sling of Everard and nonmagical bullets as needed, and she can only keep her Stoneskins up for so long.
Done! Here's Viora right before dealing with Draconis.
Fully buffed, Viora is a fortress. The dragons don't stand a chance.
We use Whirlwind Attack and nonmagical sling bullets to remove the human Draconis' Stoneskins. We try to land a quick kill on his dragon form with Harm, but his spell protections thwart us every time. Ultimately, we just end up bashing him to death with Crom Faeyr.
The same thing happens to Anadramatis (she even has an instant-casting Spell Trap!), but it's substantially easier since she's bugged to use her bare fists instead of a real weapon. I don't like relying on bugs, but honestly, it's hard to imagine Viora of all people getting slain by a basic dragon.
During the quadruple dragon ambush, we use the Staff of the Magi to remove the Haste spells from the twin black dragons, then run around peppering them with charges from the Wand of Wonder. Our luck is pretty bad, though, and it takes 31 charges before we petrify a single one of them. For the survivor, I just kite it with slings.
We have a new clone on the map, but unfortunately, it fails a save against Dragon Fear the moment the green dragon arrives. We have better luck with the Wand of Wonder, though, and petrify her just a few rounds later.
All that's left is Carnifex, who has no special spell protections to speak of. PFMW keeps us safe while casting Pierce Shield to lower his MR, paving the way for another clean Harm kill.
We use Farsight and a clone with the Shield of Balduran to slay the Tyrant Golems, a safe way of handling them that doesn't put the main character in danger. We tank the drakes and start kiting Tamah, who does a lot to wear down our Stoneskins and dispel our buffs. All the while, our longer-duration defenses are wearing off.
In the end, I have to re-cast a lot of my key buffs like Chaotic Commands just to make sure we're not defenseless when Abazigal transforms. We sling down Tamah, use Limited Wish to cast Shapechange, and summon a clone to smash Abazigal while in Iron Golem form.
Two Tamah clones spawn. I'm willing to fight two copies of the same critter in this fight, but not three, so I CTRL-Y the spare one and slay the other using an Iron Golem clone of my own and the Sling of Everard.
Abazigal and Viora trade magic attacks to remove each other's defenses, and Abazigal loses his buffs before we do. Our clone can deal spectacular damage in Iron Golem form with Greater Whirlwind Attack.
We counter a nasty double Remove Magic+Greater Malison Spell Sequencer with a quick SI: Abjuration, but our clone despawns and we have to back off to use our PFMW Spell Trigger. Abazigal still has magic attacks left, so he dispels our Spell Shield, forcing us to use Spell Trap from the Staff of the Magi lest Abazigal land a fatal Maze spell on us.
We summon a new clone, and since our Limited Wish Shapechange hasn't worn off, our clone can still switch to Iron Golem form. But ultimately, we wear him down using sling bullets.
We slay the Ravager using brute force, with our clone tanking the Bone Blades and Viora slinging from afar with the Shield of Reflection.
By the way: If you're wondering if I completed this entire run and am just now posting it, that's not entirely true. All of Viora's run so far was completed a while ago, but I haven't actually entered the final fight at the Throne of Bhaal yet.
Viora is fully capable of taking down Melissan, but it's been a very long time since I actually played her run, and I may have forgotten some key habits that I didn't practice at all during my LoB Archer run. I'm going to have to spend some time studying her inventory and spellbook to make sure I understand what resources we're working with. I'm hoping I'm not too rusty.
Hope dealt with the xvarts attacking Annabel which brought her reputation up to 19. She thought that visiting Ulcaster might raise it to 20, but it didn't. All she succeeded in doing was getting Gavin and Dynaheir dead. That was expensive!! The visit to Ulcaster may not have been beneficial, but actually surviving was a big plus. Hope was panicked which was the reason that everything else went wrong.
She did then find a way of increasing her rep. It was by babysitting in Beregost. Not the most life-enhancing of moments! She then went shopping, primarily to stop Dynaheir dying again. She was hoping that bracers that really improve AC might be available, but was disappointed. She sold a lot of low value equipment to provide enough gold for her shopping spree, and also to make room for picking up equipment in the future.
Perhaps a visit to the bandit encampment is now in order.
Siercal the enchantress has made some successful progress over the last few weeks, completing all of the Tales of the Sword Coast and some of the Northern Tales content without much of a hitch. The only dangerous moments have come from dodgy pathfinding walking into lightning traps, but fortunately she was able to swig a potion and survive the bounce where necessary. Her present party are Alora (trueclass rogue), Kale (Barbarian), Drake (Priest of Tyr), Coran (Stalker), and Isra (Cavalier). In all honesty much of the run has consisted of her loitering invisibly but she reveals herself when necessary. Party morale is good, and hopefully we can keep things together. As an aside I've been noticing a few dialogue options for quests that I didn't notice before, possibly because Siercal's mental stats are very good. For example the high priestess of Umberlee was originally quite happy for us to take the wisdom tome as we'd warned her that it might be unsuitable for her rituals.
Hope visited the bandit camp at the invitation of some bandits in Peldvale. She got a completely different conversation to the one that my characters usually have. She didn't have to fight Tazok at all!
The camp was relatively easy.
Gavin and Hope have fallen in love with each other and have now gone to visit his parents.
While there, Thorin a dwarven Defender joined them.
The party is now a bit better balanced.
EDIT 1
The party fought Vallius and Najara at the FAI. Thorin was the only one fighting melee whilst the others used spells and ranged weapons.
Dynaheir used fireballs which also hurt Thorin, though not so much as he was wearing a ring to protect him from fire.
The equipment that they were wearing is pretty good and will be used by Thorin and Hope.
This means that Hope's ankheg armour can now be worn by Gavin. It doesn't give better protection than the Full Plate that he was wearing, but it is lighter.
They then rested.
EDIT 2
South of the FAI they came across Davenport et al.
By using Aura's stealth, they determined that they were hostile and used Holy Smite and Fireballs. This eliminated some but not all the enemy, so web was then used and Hope finished the job using melee.
Using these tactics only Dynaheir was hurt significantly and the boots of health recently acquired in the fight at the FAI were used to bring her back to full health.
Invisibility Radius 10' is now needed before the party deals with the Section HQ in Beregost. Hope will go and see if it is for sale at High Hedge.
EDIT 3
It was available. Bought that and a few other spells. Gold less than 60, so wasn't able tyo buy any more.
Now at the top of the Section HQ in Beregost. A lot of fighting to come, but also a lot of experience and also quite a lot of gold from selling equipment that isn't needed. Always assuming that the party gets out alive.
EDIT 4
I have just discovered something. When Davenport went hostile it was as a result of getting in the crossfire in the battle with Necardin. We therefore didn't get the opening dialogue with him, just the battle. I have his key, but cannot get into the HQ, just the rooms at the top. No more of that quest.
It looks like in future runs I will have to fight Necardian before going to the bandit camp in order to prevent Davenport getting embroiled in the battle.
After killing Tristan And Isolde using Web, Fireballs and ranged weapons, Hope took the party to Cloakwood where they agreed to find Perwell who has been kidnapped.
So you might remember Yvralline beating Sarevok about 10 months ago, alright. If you don't, here's the final post for BG1, so, now, finally having some free time, I wanted to go back to play her, only to realise I don't have the saves. Yep. I lost the saves.
What would be the advisable thing to do in this situation? I could make a character as identical to her as possible (I forgot to install Song and Silence in my current BGT install so no Gypsy kit), and continue through BG2, or just drop her altogether.
Needless to say I'm gonna setup a save backup system so I don't do something this dumb next time. Currently gonna focus on getting that running and starting out with a [rolls random character generator] male LN Dwarven Fighter? Sounds pretty boring, so I'm going to play a human Shapeshifter instead.
Attached my WeiDU.log to this post. I'm running SCS, aTweaks, IR, SR and a good bunch of other stuff as well. I've only done minimal bugfixing of issues I already know about, so I might actually run into something that's broken. If that happens I'll just save, close the game, fix it, then continue playing. Unless I die to it in which case I'll just restart.
@CrevsDaak: Re-creating the character sounds fine. It doesn't change the difficulty of the challenge if all the stats and items (if applicable) are the same.
@CrevsDaak: Re-creating the character sounds fine. It doesn't change the difficulty of the challenge if all the stats and items (if applicable) are the same.
I won't be able to give her the same spell selection since I forgot what she had, and I'll have to console in the Claw and the Golden Pantaloons since I had them when I beat Sarebro but I'm just going to create her right in BG2 and give her the correct XP by editing the save. But other than that, yeah, I can do it. I guess I'll just recruit Cernd instead of playing a Shapeshifter myself.
I'm still working on the saves backup program right now so I'll start the run tomorrow if I get some time to play.
Chateau Irenicus is really ugly without rests, since we have few means of healing ourselves. We try to avoid combat for the most part, using Imoen's precious spell slots to run over the otyugh safely. Yoshimo lands some backstabs, but we're still reliant on Minsc as our primary tank, and he isn't that sturdy without support.
Yoshimo dies to a backstab on the way out, but we manage to clear most of the dungeon before we escape. Healing is expensive, so we're still low on resources. I'm concerned about our ability to survive the early game, so I bring Aerie into the group just because she nets us a few more spells.
At the slave stockade, I see a Greater Command spell coming out of the cleric, and flee to the lower levels since we have no way of surviving Greater Command if we fail too many saves. The slaver guards still follow us downstairs, though, and Yoshimo is a prime target for the enemy due to his poor AC.
We drink all of our remaining potions and use what few spells Aerie has left, but we're boxed in and we simply don't have the gear to handle the pressure. The whole party goes deeply in the red, and eventually, I'm forced to have Bardy McBardface drink a precious Potion of Invisibility just to avoid getting cut down.
In the end, only Bardy McBardface and Yoshimo survive the encounter. Minsc, Aerie, and Jaheira didn't have the stats to compete with the enemy, and only Yoshimo was able to use stealth to escape the fight.
We resurrect everyone but Aerie at heavy cost to our money supply and bring Anomen into the group for extra muscle. Back at full HP, we finish off Captain Haegan and proceed to the Slaver Wizards. One of them charms Yoshimo, unfortunately, but Anomen gets a Dispel Magic off the ground (his family shield grants immunity to normal missiles, which might have helped us avoid disruption) and fixes up our thief. Yoshimo manages to hide behind a corner and get a shot at another crushing backstab.
Anomen gets charmed, robbing us of our most disposable tank, and our next best tank, Jaheira, gets charmed soon after. We're functioning at very low capacity, but as the rounds tick by, we have time to wear down the enemy mages' Stoneskins, and Yoshimo protects us from any scary new spells despite his poor THAC0.
We're still alive, but this is a bad sign. We're already having difficulty keeping up with the enemies, and we're a long ways away from getting the funds we need to shift the game in our favor.
We use a Stinking Cloud scroll against the Beastmaster and Tabitha. For safety's sake, we wait until both of them fail their saves vs. death before we close in on them.
We ditch Aerie in favor of Jan, whose limited spellbook could prove lifesaving in these fragile early days. In the Suna Seni ambush, he targets the unarmored enemy cleric due to the cleric's high AC and manages to stun Suna Seni by catching her in the area of effect. However, we can't fully capitalize on the stun effect before it wears off after 12 seconds because Jaheira is already casting Call Lightning, and it's too important to interrupt. That spell takes down Eldarin, a rather dangerous enemy because of his armor and bow.
We aren't making fast progress, though, and the enemy mage could really screw things up for us, so we need to close things out quickly. I reluctantly have Minsc use a precious Potion of Firebreath to end the fight before things get out of hand.
Now that we have the Tuigan Bow and a Protection from Undead scroll, it's time to go get Mazzy. We kick out Yoshimo to make room for Mazzy, but the rest of the dungeon proves rather sticky. The enemies are too strong for us to take down without taking heavy damage, and we actually have to run out of the dungeon to burn away the Shadows with the light on the surface. The Skeleton Warriors aren't affected, though, and Mazzy has to shoot them down while Anomen lures them around.
We use an Invisibility 10' Radius scroll to hide the group and use a Protection from Undead scroll on Minsc so he can loot the rest of the area and safely kill the Shade Lord. A Sunstone Bullet brings down the Shadow Altar in one hit and Minsc chops down the Shade Lord.
Now that we have a decent gold supply and access to some better resources, we can drop Anomen, who is mostly dead weight, and Jan as well, since Bardy McBardface can already use all the nice wands and scrolls that Jan can. We bring back Yoshimo, who is a bit more useful in combat, and recruit Korgan. We'll need lots of fighter levels if we're going to compete without access to per-rest abilities.
We slay Prebek and Sanasha by provoking them and then having Yoshimo watch their buffs expire while the rest of the party waits outside. We have to deal with Korgan's quest to keep him from leaving the party, but we're not really equipped to handle the numerous undead beneath the graveyard, so we burn an Invisibility 10' Radius scroll to slip past them. Unfortunately, Korgan's dialog won't trigger until Bardy McBardface is visible...
...so I burn another Invisibility 10' Radius scroll to make sure we don't get chased on the way out. We finish off Korgan's quest fairly easily, since we have more fighter levels now as well as better AC.
We won't need Yoshimo for a little while, so I kick him out and continue with 5 characters. We're starting to get a handle on things, but the inability to rest is imposing some pretty heavy burdens on our resources.
* Lassiter decided with 48 HP and enrage the Nashkel Mines should be easy for the party. And indeed it was.
* Enrage, silence and hold person was far too much for the amazons to handle, as you can see by the screenshot below.
* We were unable to do the Melicamp quest, some MP bug we think
* Tranzig quickly defeated
* We noticed we hadn't done the basilisks yet, so we worked on the enemies in that area. Gate70 lead the way protected by a green scroll. For Mutamutin, Lassiter accidentally attacked Mutamutin with his sling, but this appeared to interrupt Mutamutin's mirror image - unsurprisingly, Mutamutin fell quite fast. Gate70 was totally unfair with silence and hold persons on Kirian's group - Lassiter's enrage and attacking while dual-wielded didn't exactly help Kirian either. The party does a lot of damage since Ulder also dual-wields and even London gets 2 APR with his werewolf form, which he uses in most encounters.
* Sirenes were dealt with, Lassister leading the way with a potion of clarity. Potion of absorption helped with the flesh golems and enrage was used to defeat the hold person trap since the party doesn't have a thief. At this point Grond0 dropped from game, but Gate70 was kind enough to give Grond0 his experience back, though Grond0 grumbled he had 3 less HP than he had before...you just can't please some people.
* Lassister had a new enrage since he made level 5 in the Pirate Cave area, so the party dealt with the sirenes and ogres in the other coastal area.
* Lassister lead the way against the Ankhegs - he didn't use a shield, but with so much melee damage the party does, as well as with Lassiter having the best armor money can buy (full plate) and boots of avoidance, Lassiter didn't take a single hit. In fact, the only person who got hurt badly was London who got impatient and tried to tank an ankheg before the tanks arrived.
* Silke was quickly killed for her staff upgrade for London, although he won't use it much since if he's wanting to melee he will usually use his werewolf form.
* Was time to do the bandit camp. As long as Ulder and Lassister lead the way, the party took minimal damage. Didn't do too much looting with no thief, but our gold is more than 20,000 so not a big deal at this point. For the tent, Ulder wanted to show off by using sanctuary to the upper corner and using silence. This failed to silence Venkt, but it did silence Raemon, which means the party got to stand right next to Venkt before attacking. Unsurprisingly, Venkt died before he could cast a single spell, and the rest were easy to mop up.
* Lassiter decreed that the party would not run from Cloakwood ambushes except Wyverns for experience. What should have been an easy spider ambush got tricky as Lassiter got poisoned and his antidotes weren't healing him (MP lag). But eventually the antidote took, though the rest of the party was getting their slow poisons ready if it didn't. Fortunately, by this point Lassiter had 74 hP, so he had a buffer before any poison would kill him.
* The party skipped most of the Cloakwood, really only fighting enemies that were in our way. By far the trickiest was Cloakwood Area 2 with the web traps, since no free action and no thief. However, London showed great skill in pulling enemies to the party without setting off traps, which meant we could set off the traps once the enemies were dead.
* For Drassus, the party pulled out the stops, including quite a few potions on Lassiter - Lassiter also used a potion of firebreath which was pretty devastating. I think London got confused, but nothing bad happened as there was only one enemy left and he was running in fear.
* We ventured into the Cloakwood Mine. The party didn't have much time left in the session. We tried to sneak to level 3 but Gate70 got spotted. Worse, we got Heirashan's attention. However, the whole party got out of sight so she only cast invisibility. Gate70 got his act together and successfully sneaked past Heirashan and brought the party to level 3, where we mopped up the weak hobgoblins and guards greeting us.
* Last act of the session was getting some free potions - we saved our session here. Davaeorn will have to wait to next week.
Lassister is a slight leader in kills at 142, but Ulder is quite close at 132. No one would expect a druid to be a kill leader, and indeed London is last at 91. However, having nearly 100 is pretty good for a druid.
Our tactics became clearer. Brole would swing, or throw, an axe. Minty meanwhile perfected the web-skulltrap spells. This was enough to see us in and out of Nashkel Mine, through the bandit camp and clear the entrance of Cloakwood Mine.
Deep inside Cloakwood Mine Minty tries to skulltrap some more before turning Brole invisible and letting his axe take the final credit.
We make our way into Baldur's Gate and play it safe - Brole deciding to attack a webbed greater basilisk before Minty can blind it. That she does, just in time for it to die.
Lothander picks up a bad case of grease, albeit after Minty suffers a wardrobe incident and badly wounds herself while looking in her scroll case. A couple of minutes later Marek is unable to capitalise as Minty has used Improved Invisibility on the two of us. Brole can't remember the exact words but Minty described Marek as standing and waiting for his impending doom while we hacked away at him.
Brole suggests everyone look away for the next couple of screenshots. Even the hardiest of Dwarven Defenders gets a bit squeamish as a Dragon Disciple unleashes a skulltrap in the entrance of a tavern. Fortunately for us, Grond0's all too brief assessment of there being no neutral casualities turned out to be the correct one. Still, never ever do this at home. Or in no-reload.
Degrodel became a victim of blindness.
We wrapped up the city plot quests in the sewers, a skulltrap bouncing off Brole's head and taking out the crazed ogre mage and his carrion summons. We moved to check containers and that allowed more summons to appear and meet their own skulltrap event. Brole starting to wonder if Minty was casually probing away with her spells to see exactly how far she could push before he retaliated. Carry on.
At the Flaming Fist HQ we found that reporting back to Scar gave Minty her final level and a chance to learn a suitable level 2 spell (knock) rather than relying on the scrolls of such we kept picking up from dead bodies.
The Iron Throne HQ was next, some Improved Invisibility allowing us to position in our usual annihilation zone and making sure that's exactly what became of it. Yes, web and skulltrap to start with some meteors proving to be as hard as throwing axes when push comes to shove.
A brief conflab sees us decide to do another 10-15 minutes. Such a good idea in principle but as the position of the red dot shows we found Minty had a somewhat fatal reaction to a repeating lightning bolt trap and our session came to an end. Brole sat down and had a brief sob before quitting.
This was clearly an unmitigated disaster so we rolled up two more randoms and agreed to re-convene tomorrow
A wizard as grand as Benedict certainly needs a tower to call his own. Unfortunately, there's a distinct shortage of towers in Athkatla, so we'll have to settle for the planar sphere.
We push past the initial enemies; Kitthix soaks up the cursed Clay Golem blows, and the Sauhagin deal some damage, but nothing major. The nasty Halflings are treated to a time-stopping Projected Image of Benedict's, and simply cannot keep up. Taibela and Necre to the north are embarassingly undone by a single Remove Magic.
To the east, a Juggernaut golem (as usual) gets a few good licks in, but we push through. The guardian golem is restored and opens the path to Lavok... who is not shy about letting loose the high-level spells. However, with no Illusions to hide behind, we can just power through his spell protections (Mazzy distracts him) and apply Breach liberally. If we didn't have Mazzy it would've probably been fine with standard summons.
With Lavok down for the count, we agree to help get the Sphere back to Athkatla, swipe the loot to the north and west, and head outside. The Tanar'ri here are completely outmatched by this stage, and we swiftly aquire a heart.
So, Tolgerias. Actually he wasn't that bad! I barely remember the fight, which should tell you it wasn't that spectacular. Benedict had a Time Stop left and got it off first, followed by ADHW (killed the lower-level mage) and Tolgerias dropped right after to a Fire Storm from our Planetar. I really don't remember if he didn't pre-buff with Protection from Fire (unheard of) or if we just dispelled it somehow.
The Fire room is handled by Mazzy and Minsc, both under Protection from Fire (nothing in there can really hurt you then, there's no Remove Magic in play). Similarly, the Frost room is done under Protection from Cold. We push north to the engine room. Here we get a double Golem spawn, which means we take some serious damage, but it's just damage... we can cope with it. The Sphere is restored, Lavok beqeaths it to us, and we have a stronghold. Hooray! Also, Anomen leveled, and picked Summon Deva as his first HLA. Hooray again!
So, I finally realize that we need to rest outdoors for Jaheira's romance to progress. En route to the De'Arnise keep, we get a hopeless ambush of Rakshasas, after our Flail of the Ages. You're about 8 levels too late to be a threat, fellas.
And around here, Imoen finally hit L18, picking Summon Planetar as her first HLA. Three celestials per rest, not bad. Jaheira leaves for the Harper Hold, we save her and get pretty much nothing worthwhile in terms of loot. Before tackling the last major sidequest, we go after the Crooked Crane Lich. Not wanting to risk Benedict in a one-on-one duel, Imoen steps up and duly destroys it (her shiny new Planetar playing a large part).
We also clear that strangely hostile party in the Bridge district, to no real reward apart from some crap to sell and a little experience.
Alright... we've put it off long enough. The Planar Prison, and it's grotesque epic-level Warden.
The initial fight goes fine, as Remove Magic cripples the Yuan-ti mage. Of course, we are now high enough level ourselves to get the worst random spawns, which in this case means fighting something like 5 spawns of 1x Greater Yuan-ti/2x Yuan-ti/2x Yuan-ti mages. We didn't bring enough Remove Magic...
Still, we push through to the Master of Thralls. Anomen gets off a seriously wicked Flame Strike. Pity almost everything worthwhile (read: Mages) always have spell protections up, or I might consider actually using it now and again.
So, the Warden. I'm pulling exactly zero punches: He's not immune to Time Stop, so Time Stop it is. Twice. With three ADHW. And Planetars. And two Elemental Princes (Jaheira's Greater Elemental Summoning somehow brought two of them forth). Powerful as the Warden is, he can't contend with that, and though it takes surprisingly long to cut through his defenses, they inevitably fail.
So why is no one dying ever? Because I am being prohibitively careful. Everyone gets ProFire/ProCold/ProElec/Death Ward/CC/PfE before a major battle, and Benedict and Imoen get PfME/Spell Turning/Spell Deflection/Spell Shield/SI:Abj. We have the slots, and even though it gets tedious, it works.
With the Warden down, we rescue Haer'dalis and friends, and return to the Prime. Where we are promptly ambushed again by Rakshasas, then Gith seeking their Silver Blade. Minsc delivers the blade to them, sharp end first. Well OK, no, we just ADHW them, but it sounded cool.
So, now we're really running low on things to do... there's basically only high-risk stuff left. We need to power up! To this end, 110k are invested in L9 spell scrolls from Ribald: Now Imoen has Time Stop, Benedict sports Spell Strike, and they can both set up Chain Contingencies.
The Elemental Lich is the first to get a taste of what we are now capable of. Though the Lich triggers secondary defenses once we tear down his first batch, he does not renew PfME, much to his detriment. Minsc got his buffs dispelled, was promptly Feared and took off into our own Fire Storm, but we got him back under control before long.
And here, Benedict actually reaches L19! Huzzah! For his second HLA, he chooses Comet. We celebrate by taking down the Shade Lich; he survives quite a bit longer than the Elemental Lich, but there's really nothing he can do in the long term (although he did Imprison our Planetar.. nasty Lich!). All that damage on Mazzy was the work of a single summoned Cornugon, it just stayed at a distance and flung Lightning Bolt at us. Quite effective.
Alright. All that's left is the Lich of Liches, Kangaxx. I don't like it, but I do like his ring... OK. OK! We're doing this.
Taking a page from Semiticgod's playbook, Imoen sets up 3x RRoR at nearest enemy on Helpless, while Benedict sets up 2x Pierce Shield, 1x Khelben's Warding Whip on the same conditions. We will trigger these with Project Image once Kangaxx turns into a Demi-Lich, as otherwise we'd lack the spell slots to tear down his Lich defenses as well (we could, but then there'd be no ADHW, and that's just not going to happen).
So, everyone gets the full buffs previously described. Other than that, we've got Pierce Shield, ADHW, Time Stop, a Spell Strike, RRoR, Project Image to trigger our Chain Contingencies, Spell Turning/Spell Deflection/Spell Shield/SI... if it's a spell that can help protect us, we've got it.
Mazzy triggers the dread Lich, and the game is afoot. The battle with Kangaxx the Lich goes quite well: He runs out of big spells fairly shortly, and a Planetar brings him low. Though he is successful in stripping buffs from anyone without SI:Abj, and tosses a double Acid Arrow sequencer (powerful spellworks indeed...) at Anomen. When it becomes clear that he's about to drop, Jaheira pops a Fire Elemental, and Imoen & Benedict conjure some Sword Spiders. The intent is of course not to kill Kangaxx with such paltry monsters, but rather to hopefully distract him (and they can actually block him from moving around too much as well).
Kangaxx the Demilich is here. To my glee, the summons successfully box him in. To my horror, his Trap the Soul apparently has a better reach than I remembered. Mazzy successfully saves however: She is Mazzy, after all. Benedict triggers his Projected Image, which pops a Time Stop, but not before Imoen eats an ADHW (which she thankfully saved against and so remains alive). Jaheira and Anomen start casting Shield of the Archons to hopefully avoid getting Imprisoned, but Kangaxx interrupts Jaheira's casting with MMM.
The battle rages. Kangaxx summons a Demon, and throws Trap the Soul at Jaheira. I see it coming, she gulps a Potion of Invulnerability, and saves. Phew. Romances have always been buggy when it comes to Imprisonment/Petrification. Anomen is not so lucky: Kangaxx tears down his Shield of the Archons, and Anomen just can't make the save.
But Anomen's sacrifice was not for naught. We have broken through Kangaxx's defenses. He renews them, but an ADHW gets through.
Wait... what? Isn't Kangaxx (in Demi-lich form) supposed to be immune to ALL magic (barring anti-magic spells like RRoR, Pierce Shield etc)? The Wiki purports that he is specifically immune to ADHW. Well and truly strange, and it kind of tarnishes the victory, but what's done is done. Now let's have a look at the loot.
Hencefort, Mazzy saves against ALL the things!
We rest up, restore contingencies and sequencers, and release Anomen, who happily rejoins.
Next up: The Alhoon.
The Illithid goons guarding the approach prove an absolute nightmare, as they fall back into their routine of casting Ballistic Attack every chance they get (which is a real problem when you're fighting five of them at once... it's 100-150 irresistable damage every three rounds or so). Mazzy comes perilously close to getting bumped off, but we persevere.
Everyone gets the standard buffs, Skeleton Warriors are summoned, and we move to engage the Alhoon and its cronies (Mind Flayers, Ulitharids and a few Umber Hulks). It's a fairly long battle, in which the Alhoon repeatedly removes protections from everyone without SI:Abj, leading to two untimely deaths. Minsc died since he is Minsc and that's pretty much what he does, while Jaheira dropped after the Alhoon's last gambit, an Improved Haste/Tenser's Transformation Spell Trigger which allowed him to int-drain her twice in no time flat.
However, turns out Tenser's Transformation wasn't that great a choice: The Alhoon can't really do much now if he can't catch us. Mazzy leads him on a merry chase, and Sunnis lands a good hit with accompanying Dispel. And that's all the Alhoon wrote.
Anomen had a Wondrous Recall left, so Minsc and Jaheira are immediately raised. We recover the Wand of Wonder and Hammer of Thunderbolts, and depart. Once more, we need to rest outdoors for Jaheira's romance to progress, and once more we get a Githyanki ambush, this time a full dozen. We let a Planetar deal with them.
A rest later, Dermin finally puts in an appearance. And gets a Comet for his troubles. Now all we should need to do is wait for Terminsel to appear and the romance should conclude with the Harper Pin!
We return to the city, and head for the Guarded Compound. The Efreeti/Ogre Berserkers/Ettercaps (heh...)/Nishruu on the ground floor prove no real issue, though Benedict is slightly singed by a Fireball.
We buff profusely, head upstairs, and proceed to steamroll Sion et al: Dual Time Stop, ADHW, even a PW: Stun. They can't really hurt us, but we can absolutely hurt them. Sion is of course immune to magical damage via PfME, but we take down his SI:Abj, leaving him vulnerable to Remove Magic.
Benedict swipes Sion's Adventurer's Robe, mostly for the looks. Imoen will be wielding the Celestial Fury, to no real effect, I imagine. The only opposition left in Athkatla is the Twisted Rune... let's rectify that.
We buff in the same manner as always, but put up a wall of four Skeleton Warriors and a Planetar as well.
The Skeleton Warriors distract Vaxall (who can do next to nothing against them) while Benedict and Imoen focus on Shangalar, and the Planetar merrily destroys both Shyressa and Revanek.
His protections undone, Shangalar falls to Azuredge, like so many before him.
Layene is not immune to acid damage, and so suffers under our multitude of Death Fogs blocking her path. By the time she reaches us, non-magical arrows are enough to finish her off. Note also that we managed to strip Vaxall of its Protection from Elements, and it is now seconds away from succumbing to several Incendiary Clouds.
With all enemies dead and gone, we aquire the Staff of the Magi. The saving throw bonus is excellent, but as a pure arcane caster, Benedict should never have to save against anything. The once-per-day 8 hour duration Spell Trap is the real prize in our case.
We shuffle back and forth between Athkatla and the De'Arnise hold a bit, triggering some romance talks and ambushes. Eventually, our apprenti are finished with our second Reaching Ring, which goes to Imoen.
One ambush was a bunch of Ogres and two Ogre Magi, one of which actually dropped Improved Mantle.. sure, why not? At some point, Anomen levels again, taking Implosion as his second HLA.
Finally, enough time has passed that we get summoned back to the Sphere to deal with Ketlar Argrim. Which we do, and that's it... since we traded the lives of two of our apprenti for the Reaching Ring, Morul won't make potions for us. Boo!
Athkatla and the surrounding countryside has been all but purged of miscreants. There remains little for Benedict to do but, bristling with arcane potency, descend into the depths of the dead and wrest Imoen's soul from the cold claws of Bodhi. Though we may take a little detour to Watcher's Keep first.
Hope's run came to a tragic end in Durlag's but her place was quickly taken by Faith.
I was doing a little bit of rolling during a short bit of spare time and got a 99 roll with 18/00 strength, my third best roll ever. I will probably use it fairly soon.
My best roll of 103 got lost due to computer failure a long time ago.
Always back up data!!!
A new run with another female inquisitor called Faith the Fair. Not quite as good a roll, but not bad.
I forgot to do another screen shot after I finally decided where to put that last point. At least having it there proves that it was an actual roll and not a character created with Keeper.
Journal of Faith the Fair
It was because of my strong faith in Tyr the god of justice that I became a paladin.
Because Faith is such a common name, many started adding the words "The Fair" to differentiate me from others with the same name.
I believe that it was my blonde hair that first gave arise to the addition, but others have said that it was due to my fair looks whilst still others say that it is because I try to be fair in my dealings with others.
I started this journal shortly after leaving Candlekeep. My early life in Candlekeep was fairly uneventful other than for the visit of Goodheart a highly experienced and wise Inquisitor of Tyr. He influenced me greatly and without that influence, I would not be the person that I am today.
Just before I left Candlekeep I was attacked by three assassins, fortunately only one at a time, otherwise I would not be writing this journal.
Mendas was the most dangerous as with his highly effective equipment he was able to injure me badly. Sadly, the equipment is of little use to me as it can only be used by thieves.
After leaving Candlekeep Gorion we were ambushed whereupon at his instructions I ran for my life. I felt rather guilty in doing that as I had always thought of myself as being reasonably courageous.
Subsequently I restored some of my self-esteem by restoring Joia's ring to her and the Colquetle Amulet to the family. I also got Mellicamp and Tonder back into shape.
I restored Jumper to a little girl and bought another rabbit for Ugh and afterwards delivered a letter from Mirianne's husband to her.
Whilst looking for an axe in the possession of a sirine I returned a ring to Arcand the Mad.
The result of all this is that I have reached Level 4 and have been recognised as a hero.
Samuel then needed taking to the FAI and the axe needed delivering to Durin. Both these tasks were fulfilled with no further problems.
Rufie was then reunited with his owner and Vax and Zal were despatched to the next life.
The ogre with the belt fetish was next!
At the FAI Tarnesh was the next to die with help from True Sight. I was then given some potions by someone from Beregost who wanted me to kill some spiders.
EDIT
North of the FAI I cleared the area of Ankheg both above and below ground. Those fights were touch and go and I needed to repeatedly leave the area to rest. It was in this area that I reached level 5.
In Beregost Silke and Karlat were killed and Eltoth is back to his normal shape.
My reputation is now 19.
I sold some ankheg shells and then went to find four more in order to reach level 6.
Journal of Faith the Fair
A petite little thing called Aerie asked me to save Bentha from the clutches of Zordral. How could I refuse? Being forewarned of the dangers, I cast protection from evil and also true sight before entering. That turned out to be very wise. Nevertheless, Zordral cast acid arrow on me before dying, so I enlisted Aerie's help in healing me as quickly as possible.
After heading westwards, a dryad also entreated me for help which I gladly did, killing Krumm and Caldo in the process. I had to use no fewer than three healing potions during the battle, but to my relief I found replacements for them in a nearby cave after killing the dire wolves for which the cave was home.
Nearby I found a ghost but couldn't work out what was wrong with it. I suppose that I could have just killed the ghost but I didn't feel that was the best solution.
A bit further west still a party of ogres including an ogre mage attacked me. When I saw that the ogre mage was casting confusion, I fled. Fortunately it didn't affect me with the result that I was able to slay all of them.
Further west still was the Gnoll Fortress.
There, I was attacked by some half ogres who were quite easy to kill, but some assassins also got involved in the fight and they were harder to deal with. I blasted them with my wand of missiles twice, the first time safely, but the second time I had to target it too close to myself for comfort, just to ensure that they didn't cast any nasty spells. I survived.
I killed a lot of xvarts and gnolls, the most dangerous being a xvart shaman. He was in a cave and when he cast horror I fled ouside. Some of the xvarts followed me and they were quickly killed. Upon re-entering the shaman bombarded me with acid arrows and minor drains with the result that I had to use healing potions. I was glad that there were replacements in a nearby chest.
On the way back to Nashkel a winter wolf assaulted me, and outside the mines so did Zargos Flintblade.
Greywolf then picked a fight with me, but it was Isra that killed him.
I had been intending to go shopping but then this happened.
Fortunately when it happened, my reputation was 20.
Comments
To the south another assassin was killed as was Greywolf.
The emeralds were returned and afterwards Oublek was enlisted unwillingly to fight a baby dragon.
He sadly died, but at least his name will be honoured by the way in which he died.
Another assassin was then killed in the Inn. The idol will now be taken to the temple of Lathander.
Zebedee now says: "Time for bed" as does my wife.
EDIT
Hope completed all of Gavin's quests, returned the ring to the dwarf in the sirene area and taken the axe from the body of a sirene to its owner. The rewards for completing Gavin's quests was used to upgrade the belt from the ogre with a belt fetish. This now means that Aura no longer needs to keep casting strength spells.
They cleared the ankhegs north of the FAI again with the result that Indira levelled up.
Upon trying to help the dryad in the south, Aura used one of her powerful arrows against Krumm and accidentally killed the dryad as well. Ooops! Lost 10 reputation points!! The party had only recently reached 20 points. They would have been on 23 if the limit had not been there!! A pity that this accident hadn't happened slightly earlier.
Aura will obviously need to be more careful with those arrows. At least there are still a number of quests available to raise the reputation again, but getting to 20 again could be difficult. Giving gold to temples might even be necessary.
They cleared the ankhegs north of the FAI again with the result that Indira levelled up.
Upon trying to help the dryad in the south, Aura used one of her powerful arrows against Krumm and accidentally killed the dryad as well. Ooops! Lost 10 reputation points!! The party had only recently reached 20 points. They would have been on 23 if the limit had not been there!! A pity that this accident hadn't happened slightly earlier.
Aura will obviously need to be more careful with those arrows. At least there are still a number of quests available to raise the reputation again, but getting to 20 again could be difficult. Giving gold to temples might even be necessary.
There is certainly no room for any more such accidents. Hope would become fallen.
EDIT
In the end Hope spent all that she could on raising reputation. She only had enough gold to raise it 3 points, but that could be worthwhile in the long run.
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
BG2EE SoA updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Anomen gets his Knighthood, and we take the opportunity to enlist the aid of the Order against Bodhi.
While travelling invisibly to the Umar Hills, we get the annoying but not very dangerous Rakshasa ambush (Rakshasa do not react well to ADHW).
Yep, you read it right, Umar Hills. We're going to both take down the Shadow Dragon and deal with the Shade Lord.
So, SCS Shadow Dragon isn't that bad. Tons of HP, Stoneskin, a PfMW contingency, and a breath attack that causes level drain as well as blindness. Oh, and it has some Invisibility-like power it uses after it takes a beating.
We prepare via Limited Wish (for party-wide NPP), lots of Remove Disease to counter the blindness and True Sight.
We are then soundly beaten, as I preserved almost all buffs for dealing with the Shade Lord immediately after, and Thaxll'sillyia is no slouch in melee combat (and has a serious reach to boot).
Coming back with a full set of spells tailored to the dragon (every buff imaginable, as well as Breach, Lower Resistance and offensive damage spells) allows for a smooth victory.
Remembering how absurd Improved Shade Lord is in comparison with his vanilla incarnation, we depart and return once again with maximum buffs and offensive spellworks. Most important is probably NPP, again granted via Limited Wish. Of course, by now we are quite a bit over-leveled, and after some initial damage from Mazzy, a single Sunray is enough to finish the Shade Lord.
Hooray! We gather the loot and head back to Umar Hills. That's one major sidequest finished.
Now that Mazzy's friends are avenged, her own sidequest triggers, and we are roped into heading for Trademeet. We take down Barl and hang around the local pub for a day as Mazzy waits for her sister to recover. Once that's done, I figure we may as well help out Trademeet while we're here. The party departs for the Druid Grove.
We push through oodles of trolls and other creatures; major Troll groups are treated to numerous Fireballs with Mazzy & Minsc being made immune to fire damage. We also watch gleefully as the Shadow Druids fighting some Trolls are killed, mostly because they were trying to preserve their spells for turning on us after fighting said Trolls. A triple Fireball sequencer along with some Skeleton Warriors then spells the end of Kylan Lind and friends.
We push through well over a dozen Red Myconids and their Spore Colonies on the bridge. Ihtafeer and her cronies are treated to 2x ADHW (overkill, but Rakshasa are annoying enough to warrant it). We also used several Zone of Sweet Air to keep clearing their cloud spells.
A few spawns of scrubs later, we finally reach the Druid sanctuary (I count Dalok and his adherents to the scrubs, as we basically just meleed them down). While equipment is taken from the one to challenge Faldorn, buffs are not dispelled. Under all manners of buffs (most importantly Improved Haste & Improved Invisibility) Jaheira gets off Insect Plague -> Flame Blade -> Dolorous Decay and proceeds to scorch Faldorn.
Hooray! We return to Trademeet, handing in Ihtafeer's head on the way, and are showered in rewards; the Shield of Harmony goes to Minsc, as Mazzy has fantastic saves anyway and is likely to shrug off the effects the shield protects against. We finish by retrieving the Circlet of Waukeen and handing it over to Logan.
Since we're close by, we might as well clear the three little areas near the Underdark exit. Small Teeth Pass provides no obstacle (really... they're Orcs). North Forest actually gives us a little scare when two Ancient Vampires attack from the south in tandem with some Yuan-ti and their ever-present mage charging in from the east. Fortunately, Mazzy gets a good Azuredge hit in killing one of the Vampires, and even Imoen is high enough level that her Remove Magic destroys the Yuan-ti mage's defenses. Benedict does end up popping an ADHW, since there were so many (albeit individually weak) enemies on the field.
To the south are a bunch of no-name (I guess evil?) adventurers standing around. This must mean we are supposed to kill them! We go a bit overboard, letting loose our second ADHW as well as an Earthquake. The enemy party duly falls, and we get a pleasant surprise. I can't remember if this scroll is always there or not, but I'll take it regardless.
The mage also had a Robe of Cold Resistance. Which, sadly, is the best (in fact only) mage robe we've found so far. Lookin' good Benedict, lookin' good!
That just leaves Forest of Tethir. Most of it passes without incident, although by now I am getting a little careless with the mook spawns. A Kuo-toan wizard gets off a good Chaos, leading to a few party members taking a beating (Benedict was never in any danger). Afterwards, as we try to power through a Yuan-ti spawn with neither buffs nor offensive magics, Minsc has a few vital organs perforated, but we prevail.
We help Coran on the way out, and return to Trademeet. Another three minor areas cleared!
With Imoen's only L8 spell being Simulacrum, it seems a good time to flesh out the spellbooks. There really aren't that many crucial L8 arcane spells whose scrolls are available for purchase (Benedict already knows ADHW and Imoen has a scroll to scribe), but we pick up Incendiary Cloud and Pierce Shield for both of them, whilst Benedict also aquires Power Word, Blind. While in Athkatla we also hand in Yoshimo's heart.
So, we're almost done with the wilderness areas. All that remains is Windspear Hills. Upon arrival, we take down the Knights with bare minimum buffs, and are subsequently invited to spend the night at Garren's.
Once the customary ambush occurs, I get a bit of a giggle at popping Power Word, Silence at Plath Rededge.
So, Orcs & Hobgoblins are understandably not much of a threat anymore. The Ruhk Transmuter is as annoying as always, but we simply push through its Fireshields, massive damage notwithstanding.
The Vampiric Mists to the west are handled by Minsc under Amulet of Power, with Mazzy supporting using Azuredge. Orc Archers attempting an ambush are swiftly dispatched, but the two Stone Golems and attendant Juggernaut Golem prove a handful. The Juggernaut Golem has something like 90% physical resistance, and we take several solid hits before we can put it down (but down it goes). After this Jaheira started wearing a helmet.
We put down the Troll Cook and its Hobgoblin entourage, and proceed north, where we get a rather impressive Undead spawn. From memory, I believe it was 3x Elder Vampire, 3x Ancient Vampire, 3x Mummy and 2x Ghast. Limited Wish -> NPP along with a few Improved Haste (one would've been sufficient) and Improved Invisibility saves the day.
In comparison, the host of various Shadows to the east are no bother at all. We head west and accept Samia's offer, clearing the Director Beholder, and Mazzy under Protection from Fire making short work of both Efreetis and the Guardian Elemental. Samia of course betrays us, but we cut a swathe through her band in no time flat. Kaol proves troublesome, so we just close the door for a bit and let him deal with 5x Skeleton Warriors (apparently he didn't memorize Death Spell).
Westward! Wolfweres and another Juggernaut Golem (this time we used the Skeleton Warriors to soak up the blows) fall before us, along with an Air Elemental. We use the remaining Skeleton Warriors along with a Mordenkainen's Sword to hold off the Adamantite Golem as Mazzy plinks it to death with Azuredge at range. This just leaves Tazok, who is rather more dangerous than I remember (but that may be because we literally just bumrushed him). He deals some good damage, but one melee brute isn't going to take us down at this stage.
We nip downstairs, then boldly nip back upstairs, taking on Conster. It takes a few rounds to tear down his spell protections, but once Breach removes his Improved Mantle and Stoneskin, Conster lasts less than two seconds against a concentrated missile barrage.
But for all that, what kind of hero would leave a Red Dragon alive in his wake? No hero at all, that's who!
We take a good rest under Invisibility 10' Radius, and following massive buffs (really, ProFire/PfE10'/Mass Invisibility/IHaste would've sufficed) we engage the dread drake, our ranks bolstered by four Fire Elementals and a Skeleton Warrior.
Well... that was easy. Firkraag had a Spell Sequencer with Remove Magic cast on himself at the start of the fight, but only the Skeleton Warrior was in range. The dragon eventually managed to dispel Mazzy's buffs, but other than that he didn't really do much, leaving Benedict and Imoen free to reduce his spell resistance, tear down his defenses and start dealing damage. Or they would have, except Firkraag succumbed to physical damage before we could even get off our ADHW's. Heh.
A glorious victory! We make our way back outside and report to Garren. Next time, we shall surely cleanse the last vestiges of filth squirreled away in the city of Athkatla, and we shall do so clad in resplendent Red Dragon Plate. We'll probably see about pawning Carsomyr too.
Benedict is now a L17 Human Conjurer.
Strummer (male half-elf skald, Grond0); Rackrig (male human blade, Gate70)
Previous update
Once again, after lots of searching, I managed to find a way to die
The early part of the session saw no problems, with a number of enemies ignoring lingering foul smells to take a nap on the job. That took us up to the Bandit Camp.
Inside Tazok's tent things seemed to be going fine when Venkt was another stinking victim. The time taken to kill the others allowed Raemon just enough time to recover though. However, with him at near death and Rackrig uninjured it didn't seem too important that Strummer had been poisoned by Hakt. A few seconds later though and Raemon had hit Rackrig 3 times in a row, including 2 criticals, and Strummer was left without support
After passing through the Cloakwood pretty quickly, there were more stinking clouds to help dispose of Drasus & co. Inside the mine things started going wrong when only Strummer went invisible on the way down to the second level. Rackrig used defensive spin against the guards there, but still got badly damaged and Strummer once more unlimbered his wands and just managed to save his companion with a couple of HPs to spare.
Upstairs, resting recovered HPs until both characters went invisible for a final rest before going down to find Davaeorn. A guard appeared though so they moved down the passage a bit and tried again, and again, and again, and again. At that point they were almost at the exit to the next level when disaster struck as I clicked on a bat when moving. Not only was that conversation unfulfilling, but Strummer was now visible. However, no guards followed us down to the next level, so I tried immediately resting once more - thinking that if we were ambushed again we would go straight back upstairs. I was surprised though that the dozen or so guards that appeared did so behind us (blocking the entrance and extending back down the passage beyond the exit, past the point that you could normally move). Even worse, many of the guards had bows and Strummer immediately found himself low on HPs and poisoned. After running out of immediate range, he found a brief window of opportunity to successfully cast slow poison before running on - only to be confronted by another guard from our previous visit to the level. He should have just tried to run past that one and hope he wasn't hit, but made the fatal mistake of turning back with the aim of using a potion of invisibility.
Hope then went to the Lighthouse area where the party were beset by sirenes. All of them have been killed but Indira has been charmed and Hope has had both Feeblemind and Confusion cast on her. I just hope that all party members survive the next five minutes.
EDIT
Hope rescued Dynaheir and Aaron. Took Aaron's ring to his betrothed, helped Drizzt, killed some half-ogres, found Dynaheirs journal, and gave her a lot of scrolls to learn.
Reputation now 17. When she has a charged wand of fireballs, it will be time tyo take on those demons in the mines perhaps.
Now it is bedtime or Hope's clothes will be turning into rags and her coach into a pumpkin.
EDIT
Hope returned to Beregost where she fought Silke and Karlat before helping get Eltoth back into shape. She is now a fully accredited hero again so it won't be long before she goes shopping. Of course to do that, she first of all needs to get some gold.
Brole (male dwarven defender, Gate70); Minty (female dragon disciple, Grond0)
Brole quickly established an alibi - it wasn't him.
[
Current status.
Grond0's random roller has thrown out a less fragile pairing with this duo of EE kits. We've kept them alive for a couple of sessions now and have optimistically named the saves "About to die" and "Prepare to die in Nashkel Mine".
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
BG2EE SoA updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7,8, 9, 10, 11
So, more cleanup to do. We head for the Temple District to finally tackle the Cult of the Eyeless. Tactics consist of leveraging our serious level advantage. Mazzy pretty much never misses with Azuredge, so Wraiths and the like aren't a concern, and for some reason the other Undead spawns are almost exclusively regular Mummies and Ghasts. There's one big Beholder spawn past the bridge to the forgotten temple, but very few things that aren't straight up magic-immune are going to survive a 3x Skull Trap sequencer.
We no longer memorize cure spells, so have to break out a Cure Serious Wounds scroll to deal with the manifestation. Following this, we head back upstairs and down to the Unseeing Eye's pit.
Again, most of the undead are just Mummies, certainly there's no cause for ala-
Crap on a stick.
OK, we'll need to improvise. That's Time Stop the Lich is casting, but it takes a long time to finish. Imoen and Benedict both have Death Fog (casting time 4) memorized, so I toss out both, hoping to luck out.
Hooray! I don't know if Liches are just immune to Acid damage (though it wouldn't surprise me) or if this one's bizarre buff routine actually incorporated Protection from Acid, but even though it suffers no damage, the Lich is interrupted.
With no Time Stop to contend with, Benedict sends a Projected Image to the front. ADHW, Incendiary Cloud, Ruby Ray of Reversal... we pull out all the stops. The Lich keeps getting interrupted by damage it is immune to, and eventually we can land a Breach. Mazzy seizes the moment.
Hooray again! The attendant Skeleton Warriors dropped a Protection from Energy scroll, which was a nice bonus.
Alright! Off into the cheap knock-off of the actual Beholder Hive that is the hive of the Unseeing Eye.
The Blind Priests get a few disablers and Skeleton Warriors, whilst the few Beholder spawns are handled via another Projected Image of Benedict hurling mass death at a distance (though honestly just the Skeleton Warriors would've sufficed). Anomen gets to take down the Unseeing Eye:
... but is unfortunately Petrified by the summoned Death Tyrants as he tries to make good his escape. Could've been easily avoided if I'd just splurged and given him an Invisibility potion.
The Skeleton Warriors finish the Tyrants, and Minsc pops the Stone to Flesh ability of the Ring of Earth Control. Anomen is recruited back into the group, and immediately dies (why? Not entirely sure...).
However, Jaheira had Wondrous Recall memorized, and so raises him, and this time Anomen stays alive. Good!
Mission accomplished, we tell the Avatar the good news, and then tackle the remnants of the Cult. We show our disdain by a Projected Image of Imoen (such plebians do not merit the attention of Benedict) tackling them, with a few Skeleton Warriors and Mazzy for support.
Hooray once more! We loot the lot and take off for the Temple of Helm, receiving further accolades and picking up the Sir Sarles quest. Which we duly complete, and we take care of Ned on the way. The Illithium is of course spent towards the Improved Mace of Disruption, since the temple is perfectly happy with the alloy artwork. We also recover the Dawn Ring from Borinall and his laughable guards.
Time for another death! As we swing by the Sewers yet again to save Haer'Dalis, I opt for the path of least resistance and drop a Firestorm on a Yuan-ti spawn in Mekrath's lair. Works wonders, except one Yuan-ti survives long enough to get a spell off.
It's been a rough couple of days for Anomen. Jaheira Raises him and we're back on track: We retrieve the mirror for Mekrath, take offense at his tone and have a Projected Image deal with him.
Still in mop-up mode, we depart for Trademeet (after starting the Limited Wish adventure) and save Tiris. Eventually we find the good Gong and return triumphantly to Captain Dennis. And around here, something glorious happens: Benedict hits 3 million experience. Our first HLA? Summon Planetar. Should be good fun to pop against Irenicus...
Running low on things to do, but not quite done yet! We accept Renal Bloodscalp's offer and start investigating Mae'var. In the midst of doing so, Minsc & Jaheira catch up to Benedict experience-wise; Minsc takes Power Attack (I want at least one Critical Strike on every fighter), but Jaheira sidetracks a little and goes for Elemental Summoning + Greater Elemental Summoning, as she got both a Druid and Fighter level at once. It's quite possible fighter HLA's would've been a better investment, but these two summoning spells aren't bad either.
Finally, with the evidence we need in hand, we are ordered to take care of Mae'var. Which we do! But for some reason he didn't drop the Shadow Armor. It's not a big deal, no one needs it and we've got gold aplenty, but still.
Quite exhausted by his recent rampage, Benedict retires to the Sea's Bounty Tavern.
Next time, we will finally get Benedict a stronghold, finish our dealings with the tiefling and his compatriots, and then set to tackle the final challenges of SoA: The Guarded Compound (shouldn't be a problem), the Crooked Crane Lich (Benedict can take him single-handed!), the Twisted Rune (might be a problem) and Kangaxx (meep). But we must be careful: For all that the party is powerful (and it is.. very, very powerful), we are never more than a slip of concentration and a failed save away from failure...
Benedict is now a L18 Human Conjurer.
They therefore left the mine to rest thinking that it would be safe to do so. It wasn't, for hordes of kobolds attacked and they were even more badly hurt.
Nevertheless they tried sleeping again and this time they recovered.
The rest of the mine was straightforward and they returned to the Cartnival.
The mod that I installed to change Xan to a fighter/thief isn't working anymore. I think that I will therefore leave him behind and just use a party of five.
Part 5: Siege of Dragonspear
We use Fireballs to smooth the way out of the first dungeon of SoD, and an Arrow of Dispelling takes down Korlasz as always. We rearrange our gear before leaving the first dungeon, since Kagain, Jaheira, Coran, and Shar-teel leave the party, and Jaheira only comes back a little later. Due to careful inventory management, we've brought tens of thousands of gold in loot out of BG1 and can build up a nice trove of goodies for SoD.
Since we're low on NPCs, we recruit Dynaheir alongside Minsc, if only because Dynaheir can use wands. Corwin is the big game-changer due to her excellent damage output, but wands are still our primary tool for key fights. SoD is heavy on large groups of enemies, and the Wand of Fire is absolutely critical. We don't have a 20-CON dwarf to tank everything anymore.
We have several Protection from Poison scrolls, so Morentherene can't deal much damage with her poison breath, and between Flame Arrow scrolls and Corwin's bow, she doesn't have the HP to stick around long.
Which is interesting, because in BG1, he got permanently killed by a Green Slime. Somehow he came back to life to play a role in SoD's plot, which means he can also rejoin the party! We dump Voghiln, since Jaheira+Khalid and Minsc+Dynaheir are pairs and Corwin is priceless.
The Wand of Paralyzation disables the cyclops, Arrows of Dispelling kill the Crusader Mages and Strunk inside the Underground River. We flee from Hephernaan and company with haste and Potions of Invisibility and head back to the Coalition Camp--there's no need to mess with any of the optional fights in this area.
For the Coalition Camp invasion, we use Arrows of Detonation against the trolls and ogres, Arrows of Dispelling against the mages, and pre-cast Web scrolls from Dynaheir to snare the paladins and clerics, allowing us to bomb them without opposition. Corwin crushes the last wave of boss enemies with Arrows of Detonation and Arrows of Dispelling.
SoD is now over, and we are about to enter Shadows of Amn without a single reload or a single rest. The Wand of Lightning trick will prove instrumental in stretching our resources, since ordinary wands won't keep pace with enemy stats later on in SoA.
Semi Ramis the undead hunter is still alive and is at 4.5 million XP - just about to do the planar sphere quest, and going to spellhold.
Previously
Having done SoD, Semi Ramis started her bid for the throne in Irenicus dungeon.
The claw of Klazgorath was imported from SoD and sanctuary was learned for safe passage past the memphits
She did prevail in the end.
Semi shopped the reflection shield. It always yields a full plate and a safe haven when panicked in the opening attacks
A quick tour to the watchers keep could give both xp and gold. But the opposition changed Semis mind
Having specialized in flails Nalias quest is a given thing. But at the keep Semi realized that her saves against the Yuanti mage werent sufficient. So she detoured to Trademeet
Back at Torgals place, Semi assmebled the flail, used sanctuary to dodge the umber hulks and got the geenie to help take down Torgal.
Back in the city the slaves where freed, Edwin struck down for a key and Trademeet paid another visit
For XP and loot the liches where killed - including the demilich. Regeneration and better saves in sight
Then the unseeing eye. The eye had ended a run before, and prudence where justified once again. A sumonned skeleton soaked the worst of the spells and Semi killed the eye just in time.
The various parties and gangs where smacked down - justice is in town...
The xp pushed Semi into epic levels and her HLA’s. Semi picked summon Deva, and went for Watchers keep. The first two levels cleared.
The snake put up a fair fight, and a stun held Semi for quite some time. But Semi prevailed. Semi was going to save the Chromatic Demon for later, but misclicking on the way back brought the fight to a unprepaired Semi...
The victory gave Semi the confidence to face the planar prison. The victory was flawless since Semi manage to rush the warden whilst he was barking orders.
Windspear was done next. Semi had misplaced her Tasheron bow and had real problems with the golems. But the small dart +3 who was misplaced in the missile container saved the day.. still havent found the bow.
Semi left the dragon alone - for now. Her stronghold quest bids her kill it later.
Next up was Rassad. Yes him. Rassads quest has some cool items. A gem that gives a daily true sight and a cloak that gives chaotic commands (20% chance) - both giving Semi some ammo against mages and maze spells. The planar sphere is yet to come and a maze trap in fish city... Semi did the ques and got the gem and cloak - and is now awaiting and contemplaiting.
Sorry mis-typing late at night. I meant fighter/mage.
My reasoning for that is that my party is rather arcane heavy. Even Aura can cast arcane spells.
I also had Dynaheir and Indira.
I didn't originally plan to have Xan in the party due to him not being of Good alignment.
Part 6: Shadows of Amn
Smite is a critical resource for Viora, and combined with Vhailor's Helm, it lets us stun-lock key enemies like Perth the Adept and pesky Fallen Planetars that enemy liches like to throw at us.
We hit 7.5 million XP on the way out of the Spellhold maze and finally gain access to level 7 mage spells. Irenicus buffs with Improved Mantle, so we summon a clone and cut through his Stoneskins with the Sling of Everard and Whirlwind Attack.
For undead, we always have Protection from Undead scrolls and the Mace of Disruption +2. Bodhi has a nasty backlash effect against melee attacks and is immune to disruption anyway (at least in her first form; the post-dialog Bodhi might be different), so we use the Sling of Everard instead.
Over at the Twisted Rune, Smite from our clone and a Greater Whirlwind Attack from Viora herself are enough to strike down Layenne before she can cast a single spell.
Time for the Tree of Life! We Smite Irenicus with the Staff of the Magi, and while he's immune to the stun effect, the dispel effect from the Staff of the Magi makes contact and True Seeing removes his Mirror Images, allowing us to destroy his defenses and take him down before he can cause any trouble.
We're going to have to pay close attention to our buffs in ToB, since a Fighter/Mage/Cleric doesn't have many spell slots for PFMW, but otherwise we should be immune to pretty much everything for the rest of the game. Only Melissan poses a serious threat.
Part 7: Throne of Bhaal
We Smite Illasera, kill her in seconds, and flood the first Pocket Plane trial with the Wand of Cloudkill. By the time the big three arrive, there are already multiple clouds on the map and Irenicus is hard-pressed to avoid spell disruption.
Against Gromnir, we accidentally lose our buffs to Remove Magic, but stay safe with a Potion of Magic Shielding and the Staff of the Magi until we're ready to re-engage. We can deal with a lot of enemies just by bashing them with the staff, though Karun the Black falls to Power Attack since I'm concerned about letting him cast Time Stop.
Part 8: Throne of Bhaal
We use Whirlwind Attack and nonmagical sling bullets to remove the human Draconis' Stoneskins. We try to land a quick kill on his dragon form with Harm, but his spell protections thwart us every time. Ultimately, we just end up bashing him to death with Crom Faeyr.
During the quadruple dragon ambush, we use the Staff of the Magi to remove the Haste spells from the twin black dragons, then run around peppering them with charges from the Wand of Wonder. Our luck is pretty bad, though, and it takes 31 charges before we petrify a single one of them. For the survivor, I just kite it with slings.
Viora is fully capable of taking down Melissan, but it's been a very long time since I actually played her run, and I may have forgotten some key habits that I didn't practice at all during my LoB Archer run. I'm going to have to spend some time studying her inventory and spellbook to make sure I understand what resources we're working with. I'm hoping I'm not too rusty.
She did then find a way of increasing her rep. It was by babysitting in Beregost. Not the most life-enhancing of moments! She then went shopping, primarily to stop Dynaheir dying again. She was hoping that bracers that really improve AC might be available, but was disappointed. She sold a lot of low value equipment to provide enough gold for her shopping spree, and also to make room for picking up equipment in the future.
Perhaps a visit to the bandit encampment is now in order.
That demon didn't know what hit it....
Not a terribly pleasant sight to see wizards throwing out lvl. 7 spells, so he ate fire shortly after...
Faldorn & Branwen also had stints in the party but Drake may well be around for SoD as well so he's in for now.
The camp was relatively easy.
Gavin and Hope have fallen in love with each other and have now gone to visit his parents.
While there, Thorin a dwarven Defender joined them.
The party is now a bit better balanced.
EDIT 1
The party fought Vallius and Najara at the FAI. Thorin was the only one fighting melee whilst the others used spells and ranged weapons.
Dynaheir used fireballs which also hurt Thorin, though not so much as he was wearing a ring to protect him from fire.
The equipment that they were wearing is pretty good and will be used by Thorin and Hope.
This means that Hope's ankheg armour can now be worn by Gavin. It doesn't give better protection than the Full Plate that he was wearing, but it is lighter.
They then rested.
EDIT 2
South of the FAI they came across Davenport et al.
By using Aura's stealth, they determined that they were hostile and used Holy Smite and Fireballs. This eliminated some but not all the enemy, so web was then used and Hope finished the job using melee.
Using these tactics only Dynaheir was hurt significantly and the boots of health recently acquired in the fight at the FAI were used to bring her back to full health.
Invisibility Radius 10' is now needed before the party deals with the Section HQ in Beregost. Hope will go and see if it is for sale at High Hedge.
EDIT 3
It was available.
Now at the top of the Section HQ in Beregost. A lot of fighting to come, but also a lot of experience and also quite a lot of gold from selling equipment that isn't needed. Always assuming that the party gets out alive.
EDIT 4
I have just discovered something. When Davenport went hostile it was as a result of getting in the crossfire in the battle with Necardin. We therefore didn't get the opening dialogue with him, just the battle. I have his key, but cannot get into the HQ, just the rooms at the top.
It looks like in future runs I will have to fight Necardian before going to the bandit camp in order to prevent Davenport getting embroiled in the battle.
After killing Tristan And Isolde using Web, Fireballs and ranged weapons, Hope took the party to Cloakwood where they agreed to find Perwell who has been kidnapped.
"Time for bed," said Zebedee.
What would be the advisable thing to do in this situation? I could make a character as identical to her as possible (I forgot to install Song and Silence in my current BGT install so no Gypsy kit), and continue through BG2, or just drop her altogether.
Needless to say I'm gonna setup a save backup system so I don't do something this dumb next time. Currently gonna focus on getting that running and starting out with a [rolls random character generator] male LN Dwarven Fighter? Sounds pretty boring, so I'm going to play a human Shapeshifter instead.
Attached my WeiDU.log to this post. I'm running SCS, aTweaks, IR, SR and a good bunch of other stuff as well. I've only done minimal bugfixing of issues I already know about, so I might actually run into something that's broken. If that happens I'll just save, close the game, fix it, then continue playing. Unless I die to it in which case I'll just restart.
I'm still working on the saves backup program right now so I'll start the run tomorrow if I get some time to play.
Part 6: Shadows of Amn
Chateau Irenicus is really ugly without rests, since we have few means of healing ourselves. We try to avoid combat for the most part, using Imoen's precious spell slots to run over the otyugh safely. Yoshimo lands some backstabs, but we're still reliant on Minsc as our primary tank, and he isn't that sturdy without support.
At the slave stockade, I see a Greater Command spell coming out of the cleric, and flee to the lower levels since we have no way of surviving Greater Command if we fail too many saves. The slaver guards still follow us downstairs, though, and Yoshimo is a prime target for the enemy due to his poor AC.
We use a Stinking Cloud scroll against the Beastmaster and Tabitha. For safety's sake, we wait until both of them fail their saves vs. death before we close in on them.
We slay Prebek and Sanasha by provoking them and then having Yoshimo watch their buffs expire while the rest of the party waits outside. We have to deal with Korgan's quest to keep him from leaving the party, but we're not really equipped to handle the numerous undead beneath the graveyard, so we burn an Invisibility 10' Radius scroll to slip past them. Unfortunately, Korgan's dialog won't trigger until Bardy McBardface is visible...
Lassiter - gnomish berserker, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Ulder - half-elf cleric/ranger (Gate70)
London - half-elf shapeshifter (Grond0)
The Trio got a lot done today:
* Lassiter decided with 48 HP and enrage the Nashkel Mines should be easy for the party. And indeed it was.
* Enrage, silence and hold person was far too much for the amazons to handle, as you can see by the screenshot below.
* We were unable to do the Melicamp quest, some MP bug we think
* Tranzig quickly defeated
* We noticed we hadn't done the basilisks yet, so we worked on the enemies in that area. Gate70 lead the way protected by a green scroll. For Mutamutin, Lassiter accidentally attacked Mutamutin with his sling, but this appeared to interrupt Mutamutin's mirror image - unsurprisingly, Mutamutin fell quite fast. Gate70 was totally unfair with silence and hold persons on Kirian's group - Lassiter's enrage and attacking while dual-wielded didn't exactly help Kirian either. The party does a lot of damage since Ulder also dual-wields and even London gets 2 APR with his werewolf form, which he uses in most encounters.
* Sirenes were dealt with, Lassister leading the way with a potion of clarity. Potion of absorption helped with the flesh golems and enrage was used to defeat the hold person trap since the party doesn't have a thief. At this point Grond0 dropped from game, but Gate70 was kind enough to give Grond0 his experience back, though Grond0 grumbled he had 3 less HP than he had before...you just can't please some people.
* Lassister had a new enrage since he made level 5 in the Pirate Cave area, so the party dealt with the sirenes and ogres in the other coastal area.
* Lassister lead the way against the Ankhegs - he didn't use a shield, but with so much melee damage the party does, as well as with Lassiter having the best armor money can buy (full plate) and boots of avoidance, Lassiter didn't take a single hit. In fact, the only person who got hurt badly was London who got impatient and tried to tank an ankheg before the tanks arrived.
* Silke was quickly killed for her staff upgrade for London, although he won't use it much since if he's wanting to melee he will usually use his werewolf form.
* Was time to do the bandit camp. As long as Ulder and Lassister lead the way, the party took minimal damage. Didn't do too much looting with no thief, but our gold is more than 20,000 so not a big deal at this point. For the tent, Ulder wanted to show off by using sanctuary to the upper corner and using silence. This failed to silence Venkt, but it did silence Raemon, which means the party got to stand right next to Venkt before attacking. Unsurprisingly, Venkt died before he could cast a single spell, and the rest were easy to mop up.
* Lassiter decreed that the party would not run from Cloakwood ambushes except Wyverns for experience. What should have been an easy spider ambush got tricky as Lassiter got poisoned and his antidotes weren't healing him (MP lag). But eventually the antidote took, though the rest of the party was getting their slow poisons ready if it didn't. Fortunately, by this point Lassiter had 74 hP, so he had a buffer before any poison would kill him.
* The party skipped most of the Cloakwood, really only fighting enemies that were in our way. By far the trickiest was Cloakwood Area 2 with the web traps, since no free action and no thief. However, London showed great skill in pulling enemies to the party without setting off traps, which meant we could set off the traps once the enemies were dead.
* For Drassus, the party pulled out the stops, including quite a few potions on Lassiter - Lassiter also used a potion of firebreath which was pretty devastating. I think London got confused, but nothing bad happened as there was only one enemy left and he was running in fear.
* We ventured into the Cloakwood Mine. The party didn't have much time left in the session. We tried to sneak to level 3 but Gate70 got spotted. Worse, we got Heirashan's attention. However, the whole party got out of sight so she only cast invisibility. Gate70 got his act together and successfully sneaked past Heirashan and brought the party to level 3, where we mopped up the weak hobgoblins and guards greeting us.
* Last act of the session was getting some free potions - we saved our session here. Davaeorn will have to wait to next week.
Lassister is a slight leader in kills at 142, but Ulder is quite close at 132. No one would expect a druid to be a kill leader, and indeed London is last at 91. However, having nearly 100 is pretty good for a druid.
Brole (male dwarven defender, Gate70); Minty (female dragon disciple, Grond0)
Our tactics became clearer. Brole would swing, or throw, an axe. Minty meanwhile perfected the web-skulltrap spells. This was enough to see us in and out of Nashkel Mine, through the bandit camp and clear the entrance of Cloakwood Mine.
This was clearly an unmitigated disaster so we rolled up two more randoms and agreed to re-convene tomorrow
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
BG2EE SoA updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
We push past the initial enemies; Kitthix soaks up the cursed Clay Golem blows, and the Sauhagin deal some damage, but nothing major. The nasty Halflings are treated to a time-stopping Projected Image of Benedict's, and simply cannot keep up. Taibela and Necre to the north are embarassingly undone by a single Remove Magic.
To the east, a Juggernaut golem (as usual) gets a few good licks in, but we push through. The guardian golem is restored and opens the path to Lavok... who is not shy about letting loose the high-level spells. However, with no Illusions to hide behind, we can just power through his spell protections (Mazzy distracts him) and apply Breach liberally. If we didn't have Mazzy it would've probably been fine with standard summons.
With Lavok down for the count, we agree to help get the Sphere back to Athkatla, swipe the loot to the north and west, and head outside. The Tanar'ri here are completely outmatched by this stage, and we swiftly aquire a heart.
So, Tolgerias. Actually he wasn't that bad! I barely remember the fight, which should tell you it wasn't that spectacular. Benedict had a Time Stop left and got it off first, followed by ADHW (killed the lower-level mage) and Tolgerias dropped right after to a Fire Storm from our Planetar. I really don't remember if he didn't pre-buff with Protection from Fire (unheard of) or if we just dispelled it somehow.
The Fire room is handled by Mazzy and Minsc, both under Protection from Fire (nothing in there can really hurt you then, there's no Remove Magic in play). Similarly, the Frost room is done under Protection from Cold. We push north to the engine room. Here we get a double Golem spawn, which means we take some serious damage, but it's just damage... we can cope with it. The Sphere is restored, Lavok beqeaths it to us, and we have a stronghold. Hooray! Also, Anomen leveled, and picked Summon Deva as his first HLA. Hooray again!
So, I finally realize that we need to rest outdoors for Jaheira's romance to progress. En route to the De'Arnise keep, we get a hopeless ambush of Rakshasas, after our Flail of the Ages. You're about 8 levels too late to be a threat, fellas.
And around here, Imoen finally hit L18, picking Summon Planetar as her first HLA. Three celestials per rest, not bad. Jaheira leaves for the Harper Hold, we save her and get pretty much nothing worthwhile in terms of loot. Before tackling the last major sidequest, we go after the Crooked Crane Lich. Not wanting to risk Benedict in a one-on-one duel, Imoen steps up and duly destroys it (her shiny new Planetar playing a large part).
We also clear that strangely hostile party in the Bridge district, to no real reward apart from some crap to sell and a little experience.
Alright... we've put it off long enough. The Planar Prison, and it's grotesque epic-level Warden.
The initial fight goes fine, as Remove Magic cripples the Yuan-ti mage. Of course, we are now high enough level ourselves to get the worst random spawns, which in this case means fighting something like 5 spawns of 1x Greater Yuan-ti/2x Yuan-ti/2x Yuan-ti mages. We didn't bring enough Remove Magic...
Still, we push through to the Master of Thralls. Anomen gets off a seriously wicked Flame Strike. Pity almost everything worthwhile (read: Mages) always have spell protections up, or I might consider actually using it now and again.
So, the Warden. I'm pulling exactly zero punches: He's not immune to Time Stop, so Time Stop it is. Twice. With three ADHW. And Planetars. And two Elemental Princes (Jaheira's Greater Elemental Summoning somehow brought two of them forth). Powerful as the Warden is, he can't contend with that, and though it takes surprisingly long to cut through his defenses, they inevitably fail.
So why is no one dying ever? Because I am being prohibitively careful. Everyone gets ProFire/ProCold/ProElec/Death Ward/CC/PfE before a major battle, and Benedict and Imoen get PfME/Spell Turning/Spell Deflection/Spell Shield/SI:Abj. We have the slots, and even though it gets tedious, it works.
With the Warden down, we rescue Haer'dalis and friends, and return to the Prime. Where we are promptly ambushed again by Rakshasas, then Gith seeking their Silver Blade. Minsc delivers the blade to them, sharp end first. Well OK, no, we just ADHW them, but it sounded cool.
So, now we're really running low on things to do... there's basically only high-risk stuff left. We need to power up! To this end, 110k are invested in L9 spell scrolls from Ribald: Now Imoen has Time Stop, Benedict sports Spell Strike, and they can both set up Chain Contingencies.
The Elemental Lich is the first to get a taste of what we are now capable of. Though the Lich triggers secondary defenses once we tear down his first batch, he does not renew PfME, much to his detriment. Minsc got his buffs dispelled, was promptly Feared and took off into our own Fire Storm, but we got him back under control before long.
And here, Benedict actually reaches L19! Huzzah! For his second HLA, he chooses Comet. We celebrate by taking down the Shade Lich; he survives quite a bit longer than the Elemental Lich, but there's really nothing he can do in the long term (although he did Imprison our Planetar.. nasty Lich!). All that damage on Mazzy was the work of a single summoned Cornugon, it just stayed at a distance and flung Lightning Bolt at us. Quite effective.
Alright. All that's left is the Lich of Liches, Kangaxx. I don't like it, but I do like his ring... OK. OK! We're doing this.
Taking a page from Semiticgod's playbook, Imoen sets up 3x RRoR at nearest enemy on Helpless, while Benedict sets up 2x Pierce Shield, 1x Khelben's Warding Whip on the same conditions. We will trigger these with Project Image once Kangaxx turns into a Demi-Lich, as otherwise we'd lack the spell slots to tear down his Lich defenses as well (we could, but then there'd be no ADHW, and that's just not going to happen).
So, everyone gets the full buffs previously described. Other than that, we've got Pierce Shield, ADHW, Time Stop, a Spell Strike, RRoR, Project Image to trigger our Chain Contingencies, Spell Turning/Spell Deflection/Spell Shield/SI... if it's a spell that can help protect us, we've got it.
Mazzy triggers the dread Lich, and the game is afoot. The battle with Kangaxx the Lich goes quite well: He runs out of big spells fairly shortly, and a Planetar brings him low. Though he is successful in stripping buffs from anyone without SI:Abj, and tosses a double Acid Arrow sequencer (powerful spellworks indeed...) at Anomen. When it becomes clear that he's about to drop, Jaheira pops a Fire Elemental, and Imoen & Benedict conjure some Sword Spiders. The intent is of course not to kill Kangaxx with such paltry monsters, but rather to hopefully distract him (and they can actually block him from moving around too much as well).
Kangaxx the Demilich is here. To my glee, the summons successfully box him in. To my horror, his Trap the Soul apparently has a better reach than I remembered. Mazzy successfully saves however: She is Mazzy, after all. Benedict triggers his Projected Image, which pops a Time Stop, but not before Imoen eats an ADHW (which she thankfully saved against and so remains alive). Jaheira and Anomen start casting Shield of the Archons to hopefully avoid getting Imprisoned, but Kangaxx interrupts Jaheira's casting with MMM.
The battle rages. Kangaxx summons a Demon, and throws Trap the Soul at Jaheira. I see it coming, she gulps a Potion of Invulnerability, and saves. Phew. Romances have always been buggy when it comes to Imprisonment/Petrification. Anomen is not so lucky: Kangaxx tears down his Shield of the Archons, and Anomen just can't make the save.
But Anomen's sacrifice was not for naught. We have broken through Kangaxx's defenses. He renews them, but an ADHW gets through.
Wait... what? Isn't Kangaxx (in Demi-lich form) supposed to be immune to ALL magic (barring anti-magic spells like RRoR, Pierce Shield etc)? The Wiki purports that he is specifically immune to ADHW. Well and truly strange, and it kind of tarnishes the victory, but what's done is done. Now let's have a look at the loot.
Hencefort, Mazzy saves against ALL the things!
We rest up, restore contingencies and sequencers, and release Anomen, who happily rejoins.
Next up: The Alhoon.
The Illithid goons guarding the approach prove an absolute nightmare, as they fall back into their routine of casting Ballistic Attack every chance they get (which is a real problem when you're fighting five of them at once... it's 100-150 irresistable damage every three rounds or so). Mazzy comes perilously close to getting bumped off, but we persevere.
Everyone gets the standard buffs, Skeleton Warriors are summoned, and we move to engage the Alhoon and its cronies (Mind Flayers, Ulitharids and a few Umber Hulks). It's a fairly long battle, in which the Alhoon repeatedly removes protections from everyone without SI:Abj, leading to two untimely deaths. Minsc died since he is Minsc and that's pretty much what he does, while Jaheira dropped after the Alhoon's last gambit, an Improved Haste/Tenser's Transformation Spell Trigger which allowed him to int-drain her twice in no time flat.
However, turns out Tenser's Transformation wasn't that great a choice: The Alhoon can't really do much now if he can't catch us. Mazzy leads him on a merry chase, and Sunnis lands a good hit with accompanying Dispel. And that's all the Alhoon wrote.
Anomen had a Wondrous Recall left, so Minsc and Jaheira are immediately raised. We recover the Wand of Wonder and Hammer of Thunderbolts, and depart. Once more, we need to rest outdoors for Jaheira's romance to progress, and once more we get a Githyanki ambush, this time a full dozen. We let a Planetar deal with them.
A rest later, Dermin finally puts in an appearance. And gets a Comet for his troubles. Now all we should need to do is wait for Terminsel to appear and the romance should conclude with the Harper Pin!
We return to the city, and head for the Guarded Compound. The Efreeti/Ogre Berserkers/Ettercaps (heh...)/Nishruu on the ground floor prove no real issue, though Benedict is slightly singed by a Fireball.
We buff profusely, head upstairs, and proceed to steamroll Sion et al: Dual Time Stop, ADHW, even a PW: Stun. They can't really hurt us, but we can absolutely hurt them. Sion is of course immune to magical damage via PfME, but we take down his SI:Abj, leaving him vulnerable to Remove Magic.
Benedict swipes Sion's Adventurer's Robe, mostly for the looks. Imoen will be wielding the Celestial Fury, to no real effect, I imagine. The only opposition left in Athkatla is the Twisted Rune... let's rectify that.
We buff in the same manner as always, but put up a wall of four Skeleton Warriors and a Planetar as well.
The Skeleton Warriors distract Vaxall (who can do next to nothing against them) while Benedict and Imoen focus on Shangalar, and the Planetar merrily destroys both Shyressa and Revanek.
His protections undone, Shangalar falls to Azuredge, like so many before him.
Layene is not immune to acid damage, and so suffers under our multitude of Death Fogs blocking her path. By the time she reaches us, non-magical arrows are enough to finish her off. Note also that we managed to strip Vaxall of its Protection from Elements, and it is now seconds away from succumbing to several Incendiary Clouds.
With all enemies dead and gone, we aquire the Staff of the Magi. The saving throw bonus is excellent, but as a pure arcane caster, Benedict should never have to save against anything. The once-per-day 8 hour duration Spell Trap is the real prize in our case.
We shuffle back and forth between Athkatla and the De'Arnise hold a bit, triggering some romance talks and ambushes. Eventually, our apprenti are finished with our second Reaching Ring, which goes to Imoen.
One ambush was a bunch of Ogres and two Ogre Magi, one of which actually dropped Improved Mantle.. sure, why not? At some point, Anomen levels again, taking Implosion as his second HLA.
Finally, enough time has passed that we get summoned back to the Sphere to deal with Ketlar Argrim. Which we do, and that's it... since we traded the lives of two of our apprenti for the Reaching Ring, Morul won't make potions for us. Boo!
Athkatla and the surrounding countryside has been all but purged of miscreants. There remains little for Benedict to do but, bristling with arcane potency, descend into the depths of the dead and wrest Imoen's soul from the cold claws of Bodhi. Though we may take a little detour to Watcher's Keep first.
Benedict is now a L19 Human Conjurer.
I was doing a little bit of rolling during a short bit of spare time and got a 99 roll with 18/00 strength, my third best roll ever.
My best roll of 103 got lost due to computer failure a long time ago.
Always back up data!!!
A new run with another female inquisitor called Faith the Fair. Not quite as good a roll, but not bad.
I forgot to do another screen shot after I finally decided where to put that last point.
Journal of Faith the Fair
It was because of my strong faith in Tyr the god of justice that I became a paladin.
Because Faith is such a common name, many started adding the words "The Fair" to differentiate me from others with the same name.
I believe that it was my blonde hair that first gave arise to the addition, but others have said that it was due to my fair looks whilst still others say that it is because I try to be fair in my dealings with others.
I started this journal shortly after leaving Candlekeep. My early life in Candlekeep was fairly uneventful other than for the visit of Goodheart a highly experienced and wise Inquisitor of Tyr. He influenced me greatly and without that influence, I would not be the person that I am today.
Just before I left Candlekeep I was attacked by three assassins, fortunately only one at a time, otherwise I would not be writing this journal.
Mendas was the most dangerous as with his highly effective equipment he was able to injure me badly. Sadly, the equipment is of little use to me as it can only be used by thieves.
After leaving Candlekeep Gorion we were ambushed whereupon at his instructions I ran for my life. I felt rather guilty in doing that as I had always thought of myself as being reasonably courageous.
Subsequently I restored some of my self-esteem by restoring Joia's ring to her and the Colquetle Amulet to the family. I also got Mellicamp and Tonder back into shape.
I restored Jumper to a little girl and bought another rabbit for Ugh and afterwards delivered a letter from Mirianne's husband to her.
Whilst looking for an axe in the possession of a sirine I returned a ring to Arcand the Mad.
The result of all this is that I have reached Level 4 and have been recognised as a hero.
Samuel then needed taking to the FAI and the axe needed delivering to Durin. Both these tasks were fulfilled with no further problems.
Rufie was then reunited with his owner and Vax and Zal were despatched to the next life.
The ogre with the belt fetish was next!
At the FAI Tarnesh was the next to die with help from True Sight. I was then given some potions by someone from Beregost who wanted me to kill some spiders.
EDIT
North of the FAI I cleared the area of Ankheg both above and below ground. Those fights were touch and go and I needed to repeatedly leave the area to rest. It was in this area that I reached level 5.
In Beregost Silke and Karlat were killed and Eltoth is back to his normal shape.
My reputation is now 19.
I sold some ankheg shells and then went to find four more in order to reach level 6.
A petite little thing called Aerie asked me to save Bentha from the clutches of Zordral. How could I refuse? Being forewarned of the dangers, I cast protection from evil and also true sight before entering. That turned out to be very wise. Nevertheless, Zordral cast acid arrow on me before dying, so I enlisted Aerie's help in healing me as quickly as possible.
After heading westwards, a dryad also entreated me for help which I gladly did, killing Krumm and Caldo in the process. I had to use no fewer than three healing potions during the battle, but to my relief I found replacements for them in a nearby cave after killing the dire wolves for which the cave was home.
Nearby I found a ghost but couldn't work out what was wrong with it. I suppose that I could have just killed the ghost but I didn't feel that was the best solution.
A bit further west still a party of ogres including an ogre mage attacked me. When I saw that the ogre mage was casting confusion, I fled. Fortunately it didn't affect me with the result that I was able to slay all of them.
Further west still was the Gnoll Fortress.
There, I was attacked by some half ogres who were quite easy to kill, but some assassins also got involved in the fight and they were harder to deal with. I blasted them with my wand of missiles twice, the first time safely, but the second time I had to target it too close to myself for comfort, just to ensure that they didn't cast any nasty spells. I survived.
I killed a lot of xvarts and gnolls, the most dangerous being a xvart shaman. He was in a cave and when he cast horror I fled ouside. Some of the xvarts followed me and they were quickly killed. Upon re-entering the shaman bombarded me with acid arrows and minor drains with the result that I had to use healing potions. I was glad that there were replacements in a nearby chest.
On the way back to Nashkel a winter wolf assaulted me, and outside the mines so did Zargos Flintblade.
Greywolf then picked a fight with me, but it was Isra that killed him.
I had been intending to go shopping but then this happened.
Fortunately when it happened, my reputation was 20.