@Wise_GrimwaldViconia will romance a Nevil but she draws the line at dwarfs... you could mod that bit if you like
[edit] Neera (the wild mage) is willing to give dwarfs a go
of course Dorn will be happy to bend him over and if you want to call that a romance then fine mate
As promised, the first item on the agenda was to get the nymph cloak by killing Ragefast.
A quick shopping tour followed before returning to the City and commencing the poison quest by killing Jalantha. I came a bit close to death just after that though when taking on the nearby basilisk. I hadn't rested for ages and the only area damage spells left were 3 Fogs - which were not enough to kill it. Rather than resorting to consumables I hoped to finish it off with a sling bullet - the shot hit, but didn't quite kill it and I was only just in time to take a potion as it gazed.
Reverting to somewhat less risky strategies, Marek was disposed of to get his bow with the help of a first use of nymphs.
Ramazith's tower was cleared and Degrodel's guards pulled outside into lightning blasts. A few other encounters were completed without trouble before the Iron Throne party were dragged downstairs in ones and twos to be ambushed by summons (those were killed by Gardush, but he was convinced to take their place for a few rounds).
@Wise_GrimwaldViconia will romance a Nevil but she draws the line at dwarfs... you could mod that bit if you like
[edit] Neera (the wild mage) is willing to give dwarfs a go
of course Dorn will be happy to bend him over and if you want to call that a romance then fine mate
Thanks for the quick reply. A pity. At least I have a RL romance.
In Candlekeep the violet potion was used to grab the strength tome.
I didn't buff against lightning, but successfully managed to bypass the trap going out (something I'm not always successful at). I failed to get across Prat's line of sight before he reacted, making that fight far harder. A summoned wolf distracted Prat while I did some tricky manoeuvring to get into a position where spirits could attack Tam without him attacking me. A similar sort of thing happened with Prat after he was dominated by a nymph. The other 2 didn't recognize the source of area damage and could just be bombed from out of sight.
Back in the City, some nymphs were used to successfully confuse Slythe and Krystin and they were quickly held and finished off before I collected the Cloak of Balduran from Quenash.
At the palace there was more use of confusion, but a full battery of that only affected one of the dopplegangers. Horror snagged another though and I used dispelling arrows to reduce the effectiveness of a couple more - before nymph holds made quite sure there was not going to be a problem with the dukes.
Spirits were mainly used to clear a way through the maze. That's a relatively slow method though and time was up before I could get onto the Undercity party.
However, since the kit is clearly broken, albeit in my favour, I am thinking that perhaps I should abandon my game. A shame as I was enjoying it.
Sounds like an excellent reason for carrying on to me .
I'm glad that I took your advice even though the party didn't survive much longer. WE took Rose into the party and ended up taking on Silke. That was OK, but then troupe members attacked us. Whilst we killed some of them, they had more party members than we did and due to Rose being panicked, in effect far more party members. They won. The first time that I have had Rose in the party and hence the first time that I have fought this battle.
So, this was my first and very short attempt with Narial the Undead Hunter:
Please don't laugh too openly, I have only one finished playthrough in BG:EE and I'm still learning
Here are my stats since I'm going to restart in Candlekeep later with the same character again.
I'm not experienced enough to have the courage to go with randomized rolls. However, to avoid going with exaggeratedly powerful stats, I had put myself a limit of 10 minutes to roll, and 93 was the highest I got during that time. I could have gone for 18 DEX and 9 INT, but I decided to have at least one of the important stats slightly less than perfect.
I put two pips in longsword and two in morningstar.
Playing on Core Rules. no mods.
Max HP on level up, will be turned off after reaching level 3.
Deactivated Weather (lightning is too frequent and too precise to be natural).
Narial will be roleplayed as a Paladin of Lathander. She won't steal from containers in inns, homes, streets or wherever, she won't open locked doors without very good reason, and she won't rob graves unless they're clearly infested by undead. She will loot corpses, because others will take what she leaves there. And of course she will take everything from enemies or their strongholds/dungeons.
She will pay 100 GP per character level to a temple, preferably of Lathander, every 10 days. But she won't be lawful stupid. If it's necessary for the greater good, she might bend the truth, and the rules, a bit. Those decisions will be made along the way.
**********************
So, here's my first failure report
Shank and Carbos were no trouble, but I had to use my first healing potion against that stupid wolf outside of Candlekeep already.
Recovering the ring for Joya cost me another one or two potions against the hobgoblins.
Then, Tarnesh. That went well, because Imoen's wand of magic missiles interrupted his spellcasting.
I picked up Khalid and Jaheira at the FAI. I'm sure a paladin would stick to Gorion's friends, although I might exchange them for Branwen and Ajantis later. Got a plate mail for myself (AC -1 now) and missile weapons for everyone.
We were successful against the ogre with the belts, kiting a lot and using our missile weapons. Nobody got hurt.
Of course I returned the belt to its owner. I couldn't afford more than two potions of healing and one antidote with my money. I still felt that I should take on the spiders in Landrin's home as soon as possible. That was quite stupid. Especially because I went in alone, so that I wouldn't endanger the others, because I couldn't keep more people healed and didn't want to sacrifice anyone.
So, I killed one spider until I couldn't keep up with the poison anymore. Then I ran outside to have Jaheira heal me (potions gone), the spiders followed, and that was it.
I guess I shouldn't go in there until I can afford a few more antidotes and healing potions next time. Or at least I should have used the Oil of Speed. Or taken someone with me, like Jaheira, using Entangle. Or in fact anything other than running in with 14 HP and 1 APR against 4 huge spiders.
Moving on to Ulgoth's Beard, Kaliara learned a couple of 4th level spells - and the minimal XP given for those was enough to tip her over the edge of a level.
There were still plenty of unexplored areas and Reprise headed all the way back south to the Cloud Peaks. At the Gnoll Stronghold he picked up the bracers of dexterity to greatly improve his AC.
He also got the charisma tome to push that up to the dizzy heights of 7.
Kaliara had learned magic missile courtesy of the stash in the kobold cave and made use of that to bombard a blinded Doomsayer before Reprise moved up to inflict a final blow.
Bjornin's half-ogres were then killed, so that Reprise could finally acquire a shield (having been too mean to buy any).
Looking for some more quick XP, they moved on to Durlag's Tower. Battle horrors outside were blinded and dispatched easily enough. Kaliara then protected both characters against petrification to deal with the basilisks on the roof - resulting in a level each.
Meilum offered a more attacking set of bracers, though Reprise is likely to stick to his dexterity ones and Kaliara to her AC protection ones.
After moving through the Nashkel Mine, Reprise tried an unprovoked attack from invisibility on Mulahey. He made the mistake of believing that was an accident though - and Reprise finished him off with a second blow.
Outside the mine the amazons were blinded, webbed and stunk out - none of them managing any real action.
Deciding that was a bit too unfair, Kaliara allowed Nimbul to buff before casting at him - but succeeded with a blind anyway.
At the Bandit Camp the bandit archers failed to do much damage. Taurgosz tried rushing forward, but couldn't catch anyone and failed to survive a 3rd attempt to blind him.
Inside the tent several webs were used, but Hakt seemed to be protected in the shadow of the tent pole and stayed free. Kaliara tried several times to blind him without success before losing patience and signalling a general attack. That delay in attacking allowed Britik to outlast the web and he managed to get one blow in on Kaliara - but that was his lot.
A quick trip through the Cloakwood led to the mine. Genthore and Kysus were blinded from range before webs were used. When Drasus was then blinded in turn the fight was pretty much over.
After our short exit from Candlekeep last time we found ourselves standing over the body of Shoal the nereid. This spurred us into action and we quickly returned a ring to the wise mad Arcand. After that excitement we carried on for two hours, with the 13 screenshots below as evidence of our heroic deeds gung-ho behaviour.
It started so well with us expertly selecting a well-matched trio of gnolls outside High Hedge. The fight raged across the map and drew a fourth gnoll in to try and teach us a lesson. None of us dared risk too much melee so Milam used most of his throwing daggers as we ran and targeted from range. It was all over in a matter of seconds after several minutes and we went inside to discover a potion case was too expensive until we sold some gems.
On to Beregost where we dealt with Neera before heading south.
Milam had been viewing our equipment and decided Coremage should have a two handed sword exactly like the one Arghain was waving about. Milam quickly ran out of throwing daggers and took a thumping so he ran around without fighting any further. Coremage then ran out of arrows and after a second thumping he too ran around without fighting. Harvey had obviously also taken a thumping but had sufficient bullets to bring the fight to a near-successful conclusion. Which was - we got the sword alright, although Coremage had fallen in combat and couldn't make use of it until after a temple visit.
We healed our wounds at Nashkel before running into Neira. She came outside to fight us and between the three of us we managed to defeat her.
It was time for us to get some rapid experience so we headed over to the basilisks. They presented little problem to us thanks to Coremage having plentiful Protection from Petrification spells memorised. Harvey found himself being bitten once or twice though, and Milam also found their teeth were sharper than their gaze.
We thought we had the edge on Mutamin. He proceeded to demonstrate that we had underestimated him and while we finally put him into the dirt he'd managed to do the same to Harvey while also spreading the pain to both Milam and Coremage.
(in single player it's likely Milam could have saved Harvey but in multiplayer it was just too tricky (plus Milam thought he had a Melf active on him so he could well have been blocked from a healing spell by that; instead Mutamin had moved on to Larloch's so Milam could at least have tried)
Kirian and her gang had to wait until we had raised Harvey. A combination of blinds, webs, stinking cloud and lightning made it easy for us to fatally dampen their resolve.
We then proceeded to rescue Melicamp (he later died in High Hedge) and moved on to Bassilus. A well-executed plan failed to appear but nevertheless we found a way to get rid of him without any of us perishing.
Zargal and his hobgoblin pals were unable to fight their way out of a web and we tried to rest on our way to the lighthouse. Not a good idea, but after this little debacle we killed the ambushing sirine with lightning and missiles.
Rather than wait for a feeblemind on Coremage to expire, we shoved him off the edge of the map and arrived in a ghast ambush. The feeblemind had expired so we ran back to the coast again for another rest.
Ardrouine failed to recognise her son was safe despite the trio of dead worgs. Perhaps she had seen the masterful way our web had held all three worgs, and all three of us. ahem.
The first set of three sirines fought back against our next nefarious plan. This time Harvey was too far from the edge of the map so we had to wait out a feeblemind and pretend it was all part of the plan.
On the way to a minor diversion from the second trio of sirines Harvey attacked a carrion crawler and ran. Coremage failed to spot it and was held, so Milam and Harvey used a wand and special ability before attacking further with missiles. The result - Coremage failed to die. Result.
Sil and her sirines were picked apart with webs and lightning, no problems there.
Milam had no plan for how to deal with flesh golems but Harvey sneaked into their cave and made a nuisance of himself. Coremage gulped some potions to melee them so Milam gulped another potion and helped him. Harvey was unable to drink anything but between the three of us we made short work of them.
We're all still alive so are looking forward for more multiplayer mayhem next week.
(the second attempt was ended by Tarnesh. I had very bad luck, got waylaid by 9 bandits on the way to the FAI. Imoen died, I had to run and couldn't take her wand. I couldn't hit Tarnesh before he got his mirror images up, and then he had all the time in the world for horror and magic missiles)
Imoen successfully interrupted Tarnesh with her wand again, so I could kill him quickly. We got Khalid and Jaheira, defeated the ogre with the belt fetish as before, kiting and with ranged weapons.
Somewhere along the way, Jaheira made level 2.
This time, I went into Landrin's home with 5 healing potions and 2 antidotes. And I had remembered to get the easter egg Ring of the Princes +1. (I'm going to use easter egg items, like the Ankheg plate. I'll already miss out on several items, XP and gold with my LG "no stealing, no breaking into houses" rule)
When I had drawn the spiders' attention, I called in the others and had them fire at them. I still needed several potions, but this time it worked.
Then we ran into Neera, but we survived.
We cleared the maps between Beregost and Nashkel, killing every hobgoblin, bandit and gibberling, returning the boots to the kleptomanic dwarf (or halfling?) and a letter to a woman, then Jaheira started to complain, so we went to Nashkel.
We survived Neira, too. Imoen interrupted her spellcasting twice with her wand while we kept attacking. Neira managed to cast Hold Person, but only hit Jaheira (I'm immune anyway).
When she died, I made level 2.
As I said, max HP on level up will be deactivated after level 3.
I think I'm going to get Minsc and rescue Dynaheir next.
I'd love to continue playing, but I have to sleep.
A Fog annoyed the Undercity party and Rahvin was persuaded by summons to fire exploding arrows to hit his comrades. After the resulting disagreement the survivors didn't take long to finish off.
In the temple I decided this time not to just kill things using trap damage. Sarevok was dispelled by an arrow and, after Semaj teleported out and killed a waiting nymph, he choked in a series of Fogs.
After more nymphs appeared Sarevok survived being doomed and targeted with 3 hold monster spells. He was dominated just after that and confused later on, but resisted all further attempts to hold him. However, he had no answer to a bit of running round and a small amount of further Fog damage.
Arriving in the SoD dungeon, I spent some spare money with the priest before persuading Porios to surrender. Downstairs, a PfU scroll allowed free progress through to find a group of mercenaries. Area damage hurt those and the Flaming Fist healer healed the bit of retaliation they managed. A single nymph ran interference while I used dispelling and acid arrows to force a surrender out of Korlasz. However, she wasn't allowed to walk away.
Back in Baldur's Gate, equipment was sold for 62k gold to fund some further purchases. I didn't bother killing any of the NPCs to get more, but just picked up the Spectacles of Spectacle and did the quest to get the Battle Tankard (which prevents fatigue).
After marching out of the City I sorted inventory out with the help of my new bag of holding. Typically the first thing I do on the road is go to help the vampire in order to get a regeneration ioun stone. However, with regeneration of my own and lots of healing spells, that wasn't necessary this time. Hence I went straight for the bridge, where I nipped behind a tent until Caelar arrived to negotiate.
A charge of Sandthief's ring let me bypass the enemies in the Troll Claw Woods on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. I was close to levelling up, so took the time to kill a hill giant and his animal friends there - learning Pixie Dust as a result.
That was used to sneak past several groups of enemies and I've just arrived in the temple.
@Arvia for the future, if you speak to Landrin prior to killing the spiders, and you have NPC reaction sufficiently high (I find 18 CHA usually suffices), then she gives you 6 Antidotes to help in completing your mission.
@Stromael , I did speak to Landrin before.
I wondered why during my first run she had given me antidotes, and now she doesn't. I thought it was because I had NPC project installed back then.
But my last Undead Hunter had 18 CHA, not 17, so that was the difference.
Thank you for pointing that out.
I guess that if (okay, realistically speaking: as soon as) I have to start again in Candlekeep, I might reroll. I didn't want ridiculously perfect stats, but maybe that was too ambitious for a beginner.
After invisibility allowed limited combat on the way through the Nashkel Mines, a pair of battle horrors were blinded and meleed.
Davaeorn then had no answer to Reprise - who was protected from being targeted by improved invisibility.
In the City, Kaliara was keen to acquire her own boots of speed. A pair were duly obtained from Lothander, though she had to wipe a thick film of grease off the bottom.
Marek was then another only able to stand gormlessly while improved invisible attacks rained in on him.
A few more encounters passed without incident before an attack on the Iron Throne. A first use of skeletons were added to webs to provide an easy victory.
After being sent to Candlekeep there was a nasty looking moment when Reprise was caught in the fringes of a web trap next to a phase spider. However, his save vs death of 1 protected him for the short time until he broke free.
Prat managed to escape his own web, but failed to do much damage to Reprise with his lightning bolts (Reprise snuggling in close there so that the initial cast missed him - though a rebound hit both him and Prat) and paid the penalty.
Back in Baldur's Gate, Slythe lasted only a few seconds against some summons.
The dopplegangers at the palace didn't do much better after losing track of Belt early on (another use of improved invisibility).
The Undercity party lasted a few rounds, but didn't inflict too much damage before it was time for a final showdown. That started badly when Reprise got a bit too close to Sarevok and both missed a chance for a free shot at him and activated all of the defending party. Fortunately Angelo didn't rush out with the others, but Tazok and Sarevok got a few whacks in on the defending summons while Semaj was being hacked down.
Reprise managed to tag Sarevok with a dispelling arrow before the last of the summons fell and then, to simplify movement in the battle, Reprise stayed still long enough to finish off Tazok - but he was taken down to 24 HPs in the process. With Kaliara also low on HPs that meant a period of pretty tricky movement. We couldn't go far from the entrance because of the danger of bringing Angelo into the combat and the only useful wand Kaliara had was a wand of fire - which, with limited use of pausing, meant there was a real danger of Reprise getting caught in the scorcher as both Kaliara and Sarevok ran around.
Just before that screenshot Reprise had decided enough was enough and used a regeneration potion to push his HPs back up. With that done and Sarevok looking a bit sick himself, he then went back into melee and found a killing blow.
Inside the old temple, area damage sorted out Ziatar from out of sight.
The Neothelid is very dangerous for a solo character and sometimes has a nasty habit of staying underground for long periods - meaning buffs can run easily out. Without ironskins, I decided not to take it on this time, but still buffed with protection from poison and a potion of magic shielding (to defend against both charm and hold abilities). An initial attack on Akanna was followed by a retreat to draw the aerial servants away. Coming back invisible a bit more damage was done before the Neothelid arrived. Another retreat and invisible return was then enough to finish her off to get the wardstone.
On the way out the 11th dagger found Morentherene's heart.
At Boareskyr Bridge the first order of business was to get the scroll from Vichand. If you don't kill him quickly the entire camp will be alerted - firebreath potions are a pretty good way to kill him quickly, but a shaman has a better alternative (you can also intimidate him into giving you the scroll).
The cave in that area has the Circlet of Lost Souls (in certain circumstances the +2 THAC0 from that is more beneficial for a shaman than the Helm of Balduran). To avoid the possibility of my own spell being disrupted I used a Necklace of Missiles for the first time to thin out the goblin hordes.
The non-magical dragonscale armor is a significant upgrade for a shaman and they can't use the dragon shield - so there was no issue about what to make from Morentherene's scales. The smith also forged some bullets after I killed a dark wraith to get some voidstone shards.
After buying yet more potions from Thirrim, I surrendered the fort. That still left the mage guarding the bridge. Dispelling arrows are a pretty good weapon against him, but the Ring of Energy is better - that will reliably disrupt his spells to make sure he does not generate a portal.
On the way to the Coalition Camp I came across a group of orcs and trolls and took a bit of time to kill some of those - I just picked up the Firefly sling invisibly though.
At the camp I used the Spectacles to get hold of the genie vendor and picked up the Bwoosh and poison. Leaving the camp, I went invisibly through Dead Man's Pass (picking up the Heart of the Mountain, even though I won't actually use that. There was then only enough time left to go and rescue Skie from Dragonspear and move on to the Underground River area - so Belhifet will have to wait for the next session.
Shaman 10, 89 HPs (incl. 5 HPs from Helm and 10 from ring), 431 kills
I thought that I would try a half-orc run for a change. I intended using the Magus kit, but then discovered that all my sorcerer kits are broken, so it is an "Eye of Grumuush" paladin, a Berserker/thief, a shaman, and an illusionist.
I started a solo run as an Alchemist (the kit is really nice btw @semiticgod I've been wanting to try it out for a really long time, thanks for making cool stuff like this), and everything went fine until I pressed the space-bar to instantly pause the game while pressing enter, only to find out that the space-bar also dismisses the dialogue box in the EEs. Tarnesh was not merciful of my mistake and killed me while I stood there, dazzled at what just happened.
I don't feel very comfortable playing the EEs because everything feels different (particularly the GUI), but I still want to play on them to get rid of that feeling and I also want to try out the IwD spells SCS adds, so I decided to play a F/D next and take with me a small core group of spellcasters.
So far nothing interesting happened. We killed the belt Ogre, Tarnesh and the Spiders in Beregost. I plan on recruiting Branwen, dual-classing Imoen and later on picking up Quayle.
Edit: forgot to mention: mods are SCS, randomiser, aTweaks (although, the creature components won't install on BG:EE), jimfix and Max HP for all non-joinable creatures from the tweaks anthology. Also, I've put both WeiDU logs on my otherwise useless website here, just in case anyone wants to consult them directly.
Starting off in Jon's dungeon Kaliara regularly ran into traps - but Reprise kept healing her with plenty of rests and the place was cleared without any undue problems. Ulvaryl fell victim to a particularly spicy curry Reprise had enjoyed.
The circus was the first port of call after arriving in the City proper.
Kaliara had hoped to learn stoneskin there, but was disappointed to find that on the abjurer's prohibited list - so it was just as well we hadn't followed up on our tentative discussions about searching it out in BG1.
After checking in with Gaelan Bayle the Copper Coronet was put under new management.
Reprise then splashed out on Azuredge as a weapon befitting a dwarven defender.
The Graveyard district offered plenty of opportunities to make use of Azuredge and the top was soon cleared of undead - including narrowly rescuing Nevin from his uncle.
Downstairs the spiders inflicted plenty of damage on the poorly protected Reprise before Kaliara boosted her kills tally with a fireball on Pai'Na and her spider swarm.
Kaliara rather enjoyed watching Reprise writhing in flames. As a result, when travelling invisibly towards the Docks - knowing Suna Seni would try an ambush - she didn't bother putting fire protection on the dwarf, but threw in another fireball. It was probably fortunate for Reprise that all the enemies died instantly, saving the need for a follow-up fireball .
Looking to improve his AC a bit, Reprise sought out Officer Dirth. He resisted two web tangles from Kitthix and a blind - but had no real chance of fending off a melee attack.
Travelling to Watcher's Keep failed to find Renfeld, but did allow the purchase of a potion case. After recent nasty experiences with vampiric wraiths we didn't try our luck inside at this time.
Coming back to the Bridge District I got distracted by a discussion about the prospects for meeting a vampire in the night - and a would-be mugger was surprised to find themselves gifted with over 11k gold. Fortunately the weight of that appeared to slow the mugger down a bit and hits from missile weapons did just enough damage for Kaliara to send in a fatal magic missile before the mugger could disappear. Note though the interfering Cowled Wizard that has teleported in just before this screenshot to warn about infractions of Athkatla's laws on magic use - Kaliara keeps muttering something about a license as a result, but we haven't got around to getting one of those yet.
It was amusing to see Kaliara talking to Rampah and convincing him that we didn't have the price of a roasted rat on us - moments after picking up a huge pile of gold virtually under his feet.
While in the area the skinner quest beckoned. Reprise invited the Rune Assassins to attack him and defensive stance worked well enough to keep him alive there.
Still in the area Reprise decided to get the tomb ready for a later visit to sort out the lich. PfP allowed him to open the door and he nipped inside to loot the containers. However, Kaliara thought the move inside signalled a desire to tackle the lich and went downstairs to look for it. Reprise then opted to follow and see how luck held out against the lich. Fortunately on this occasion stupidity was rewarded as Reprise managed to launch Azuredge fractionally before the lich put buffs up - allowing the axe to ignore improved mantle and make a deadly hit.
The final action then saw the kidnappers sorted out and another set of pantaloons recovered.
Reprise, dwarven defender 10, 131 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 105 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 11, 54 HPs, 70 kills (+97 in BG1), 0 deaths (+2 in BG1)
At the Underground River, a chaotic commands scroll allowed me to grab some myconid summons - though those were never used.
The free action ring allowed a gargantuan spider to be kited before a cyclops was blasted with lightning. That allowed me to go invisibly through to the underground entrance.
After buying yet more potions from Bellowgulp, I moved straight to place the Bwoosh and then blagged a way past Turin into the inner sanctum. The cleric there sold me some more greater restoration scrolls before I went invisible to use the elevator. Placing the poison doesn't break invisibility, but you need to show yourself to open the elevator again.
Pixie Dust then took me outside and, although one of the mages there used Oracle, I was already safely clear by the time that triggered.
Back at the Coalition Camp, exploding arrows made short work of some ogres and trolls (friendly fire casualties don't seem to concern anyone in these fights). There was more of the same for the groups of mages and then clerics. Running round the final wave more explosions killed everyone except Grimgor - he was finished off with standard arrows, though I still had about 40 of the exploding variety left.
Once more arriving at Dragonspear I quickly buffed and then went straight to find Ashatiel. He was killed with acid arrows before he even had time to finish his sanctuary.
Inside the castle I followed Caelar into the portal. The demons there use non-magical special abilities, so I took a potion of clarity before skipping through the first area. The Ring of Energy and acid arrows did most of the work against demons in the second area to persuade Thrix to open the door.
I realized at this point that I'd not yet taken my final level (despite being at the XP cap). Ironskins could come in handy in close quarters against demons, so I took those before resting. I then used long-term buffs - fire, electricity, poison and mind focusing before activating the lift. Other potions were used during the trip, then once the enemies were all dead, I renewed ironskins and used several Champions Strength scrolls.
On arrival, I recruited Caelar (on the grounds she would be expected to fight Belhifet, but gave her no orders to try and replicate the position where she would fight as a neutral) and used a magic shielding potion to ensure I wasn't caught out when the clarity potion taken in the lift expired. I switched to the Battle Tankard to enable me to keep restoring Caelar without penalty. It took 6 lots of restoration before Belhifet decided he'd had enough.
My hour was up then, but I ran through the epilogue anyway to be ready to start in BG2 next time. Even though I haven't used the Claw in BG1 or SoD, I decided to take that through to BG2 - so dumped the Helm of Balduran while pulling the pantaloons out of the bag of holding to ensure they transferred.
Shaman 11, 76 HPs, 515 kills
Spells to date (in order of selection, though the first spell listed at each level is a shaman only addition not requiring a pick):
L1 - Spirit Ward, CLW, Bless, Doom, Armor of Faith, Entangle
L2 - Writhing Fog, Charm P / M, Slow Poison, Resist Fire / Cold, Barkskin, Goodberry
L3 - Spiritual Clarity, Call Lightning, Summon Insects, Rigid Thinking, Protection from Fire
L4 - Spirit Fire, Animal Summoning I, Call Woodland Beings, Death Ward
L5 - Recall Spirit, Pixie Dust, Ironskins
I decided to change my initial party slightly. Still 100% half-orcs and mostly neutral. I tried making a Magus but all my sorcerer kits appear to be broken. Not sure whether as a result of the mod or the installer. Anyway, Illusionist is fine.
I am not sure whether the fact that my party consists of 100% half-orcs is because of our own racial prejudice or that of the others in Candlekeep. Certainly we felt that there was a certain amount of cliquishness there. We will have to be quite sure that they have something to offer before we accept someone from another race permanently.
In Candlekeep we discovered that somebody wants us dead. that somebody was unsuccessful.
EDIT
Tarnesh was also unsuccessful, so we were able to go in search of Joia's ring and returned it to her.
We then made our way to High Hedge where Urkatz acted as the tank since she had the splint armour. It wasn't enough however for the gnolls killed her. We then went to the temple to get him healed.
We subsequently helped Mellicamp get back into shape and afterwards tried to do the same for Tonder, but after throwing him the antidote he attacked us with the result that we had to kill him. At High Hedge we were then given a +1 sword in return for his body.
South of Beregost we killed two Ogrillon and then three overly officious Flaming Fist mercenaries. We didn't get much exxperience for killing them, but we did get three decent sets of armour.
Urkatz had to heal us during the battle, but we were still hurt afterwards, so we all had a long 16 hour rest before proceeding onwards. At first the weasels had kept us safe, but they were unsummoned in the midst of the battle.
We were then able to reunite the rabbit Jumper with its owner who was delighted.
I made a few minor attempts here and there myself during the past months, but nothing worth reporting on really. The current run looks sufficiently interesting though - I could start coverning it in the coming days.
Making our way to Nashkel, we found the Colquetle Amulet and we were given a ring by Lord Foresow. In the town we found some Ankheg Armour and had a chat with Noober. We also talked with Oublek and turned down a reward that Greywolf should have. In the Carnival we bought a rabbit for Ugh and were forced into killing Zordral. Bentha gave us a potion as a reward but Blukka didn't think it sufficient and so helped himself to a little extra.
After killing Zordral I reached level 2 and when I slept, I gained the ability to heal.
We headed south and fought Zargos Flintblade. He killed Blukka before he died, but then the game crashed. I replayed the battle and this time it was Urkatz who died. After killing Zargos we returned to Aerie who raised Urkatz at the cost of 100gp. Urkatz then healed herself.
We then took Samuel to the Friendly Arms Inn whereupon Lagaxh became a level 2 Illusionist and Blukka became a level 2 thief (Still level 1 fighter)
Heading south we again met up with Firebead and gave him a tome. We then took the Colquetle amulet to Mr. Colquetle thus becoming fully accredited heroes. Our reputation increased still further when we got Eltolth back into shape.
We were then forced to fight Silke. The battle was not hard despite Silke putting Blukka to sleep. However it was a bit annoying having to wait for him to awaken. Silke however will never awaken unless somebody pays for her resurrection. I don't think that will happen.
Before getting our reward, Blukka pickpocketted three potions of defence to ensure that our reward was adequate.
We then took little-little-ugh to ugh who was delighted. Urkatz became a level2 fighter.
Summon weasels and command were enough to defeat Bassilus. We hardly got hurt.
North of the Friendly Arms Inn we quickly defeated Sonner and his cohorts. One of them had the sense to lead us into a bandit ambush, not that it did them any good.
We then killed the widow's undead husband much to her relief. Afterwards we boosted both our experience and our gold reserves by going hunting for ankhegs.
We called in at the Friendly Arms Inn where we delivered some of Landrin's belongings and aquired some pantaloons. We met Dorn on the way out and then proceeded south again.
After visiting Nashkel we were ambushed by bandits, an ambush that was interrupted by Dorn who has decided to join us. He joined at level 3. Perhaps we should haave gone looking for basilisks first.
One thing that I can't understand is why having one more half-orc in the party should lower our reputation, unless that is, that it is nothing to do with race but rather that his reputation has gone before him.
I didn't have enough XP to get to level 12 and get fire elementals in Jon's dungeon, but with ironskins other summons and plenty of area damage progress was easy anyway going through the first level. I was surprised to find the Helm of Balduran there, but checking on my SoD save it looks like I went through the bag of holding, but didn't take the Claw out of the gem bag. Oh well - it's arguable which bit of equipment is better for a shaman anyway.
On the second level I used some animal summons with the aim of distracting the mephits while I destroyed the portals. However, although I was some way from the radiant mephit and not even close to the line of fire, I underestimated the spread and length of its color spray and was knocked unconscious. A follow-up second spray got me again - that gave the mephits the time to finish off the summons, work through my stoneskins and and come uncomfortably close to killing me as well.
After resting I decided to offer no more chances and stayed invisible while a dog decoyed the mephits into the end room. I attempted to finish off Ulvaryl with a spirit fire after taking her to near death, but she changed into bat shape a moment before the spell activated.
There's quite a lot of mucking about with inventory in the dungeon to slow down progress, but there was still just time for a quick visit to the circus - I got my 12th level there.
Shaman 12, 83 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 93 kills (+515 in BG1)
Allow me to enter a new contestant into the challenge - a half-elven cleric/mage going by the name of Ammanas.
With so many exciting tactical possibilities available to the multi-class, I'm still unsure of how I'm going to play the run. I suppose there will be a lot of experimenting going on, with hopefully some quality shapeshifting time down the road.
Utilizing the relatively newish SCS component that treats spell triggers and contingencies as special abilities (automatically available upon reaching the respective mage levels), rather than learnable spells, was one of the main reasons behind my decision on the class. It may seem like a substantial boost, but in the end it effectively just cuts the rest times necessary to prepare the triggers/sequencers and, by doing so, it incentivizes the player their use them more often or more actively.
One exotic topic I'm curious to explore are the various "breaking points" for Sanctuary and Invisibility spells. In my previous playthroughs I've noted certain inconsistency regarding which type of spells cancel which type of concealment. Combing Sanctuary with arcane spells (including triggers) and Invisibility with divine spells could yield some interesting results. Just to give an example, it seems that (i) Chant does not break Invisibility (even when used within range of enemies), (ii) neither Web nor Hold Person break Invisibility when cast on self via sequencer.
As with all of my other clerics, also Ammanas needed to have an assigned deity (though, with the exception of the official kits, this is a purely imaginative choice and does not affect the actual gameplay in any manner). Valkur, the Captain of the Waves, felt like the right call in this case - let us hope this will serve him well when navigating the stormy waters of the saga. The pantheon choice also corresponds with his chaotic good alignment.
Our starting weapon proficiencies are staves and slings. The two available mage spell picks comprise of Find Familiar and Blindness.
Mods: SCSv32, JimFix, BGTweaks (for removing helmet animations, removing item blur effects and some other minor adjustments) Note: In order to keep it cool, Ammanas' sprite has been adjusted to elven mage via EEkeeper. SCS difficulty slider: Tactical
Edit: Apologies for all the typos in the original post.
South of Nashkel we reunited Rufie with his owner, killed the fastest dart thrower in the west and his accomplice, and also a winter wolf.
Heading west we saved a dryad and a cat before going to help Drittz. Whilst there we killed some half ogres before returning to Bjornin where we were rewarded.
We picked up Montarin who did some pick-pocketting on our behalf.
We then dumped him at Ulgoth's Beard. Using our accumulated wealth we then bought and memorised some spells which should make life a bit safer for our mage.
We then killed Corsonne who caused more problems after he died due to his summoned dryads who dominated Urkatz and Blukka. To avoid them hurting other party members or each other we used a web spell which worked to some extent. Only 7 hit points were suffered.
In Nashkel we were sent in search of Aaron and his beloved. This led to us going to the gnoll stronghold where we were attacked by a powerful group of assassins.
We used web to disable them and tried to use our wand of fire, but it didn't work!
We killed some of them but then they used a chaos spell that affected everyone but me. Eventually we prevailed, but only after Lagaxh had been killed by one of our own party.
We returned to the carnival where Aerie raised her. After that we healed her. Aerie asked us to find her boots which we did. The battle to get them was arduous rather than dangerous.
Aerie gave us a ring of protection +1 to thank us. I suppose that we will now have to return to the gnoll stronghold to find Aaron.
Upon leaving Aerie's tent, I was struck by lightning which took away half of my health points. After getting healed, we had to sleep again as we used up ALL of our healing spells to recover.
Comments
[edit] Neera (the wild mage) is willing to give dwarfs a go
of course Dorn will be happy to bend him over and if you want to call that a romance then fine mate
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
As promised, the first item on the agenda was to get the nymph cloak by killing Ragefast.
Reverting to somewhat less risky strategies, Marek was disposed of to get his bow with the help of a first use of nymphs.
A return to Candlekeep will be next up.
Shaman 9, 77 HPs, 281 kills
Thanks for the quick reply. A pity. At least I have a RL romance.
However, I discovered that my Strifeleader should have the spell "Razor's Edge."
Upon further investigation, I discovered that he should have had it since level 1 and shouldn't have had "Dread Blast" until level7.
He has had it since level 1. No wonder he defeated the Candlekeep Assassins so easily!
He is now a level 4 Strifeleader.
However, since the kit is clearly broken, albeit in my favour, I am thinking that perhaps I should abandon my game.
Sounds like an excellent reason for carrying on to me
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
In Candlekeep the violet potion was used to grab the strength tome.
Back in the City, some nymphs were used to successfully confuse Slythe and Krystin and they were quickly held and finished off before I collected the Cloak of Balduran from Quenash.
At the palace there was more use of confusion, but a full battery of that only affected one of the dopplegangers. Horror snagged another though and I used dispelling arrows to reduce the effectiveness of a couple more - before nymph holds made quite sure there was not going to be a problem with the dukes.
Spirits were mainly used to clear a way through the maze. That's a relatively slow method though and time was up before I could get onto the Undercity party.
Shaman 9, 77 HPs, 316 kills
I'm glad that I took your advice even though the party didn't survive much longer. WE took Rose into the party and ended up taking on Silke. That was OK, but then troupe members attacked us. Whilst we killed some of them, they had more party members than we did and due to Rose being panicked, in effect far more party members. They won.
Well scripted. Too well scripted!
Please don't laugh too openly, I have only one finished playthrough in BG:EE and I'm still learning
Here are my stats since I'm going to restart in Candlekeep later with the same character again.
I'm not experienced enough to have the courage to go with randomized rolls. However, to avoid going with exaggeratedly powerful stats, I had put myself a limit of 10 minutes to roll, and 93 was the highest I got during that time. I could have gone for 18 DEX and 9 INT, but I decided to have at least one of the important stats slightly less than perfect.
I put two pips in longsword and two in morningstar.
Playing on Core Rules. no mods.
Max HP on level up, will be turned off after reaching level 3.
Deactivated Weather (lightning is too frequent and too precise to be natural).
Narial will be roleplayed as a Paladin of Lathander. She won't steal from containers in inns, homes, streets or wherever, she won't open locked doors without very good reason, and she won't rob graves unless they're clearly infested by undead. She will loot corpses, because others will take what she leaves there. And of course she will take everything from enemies or their strongholds/dungeons.
She will pay 100 GP per character level to a temple, preferably of Lathander, every 10 days. But she won't be lawful stupid. If it's necessary for the greater good, she might bend the truth, and the rules, a bit. Those decisions will be made along the way.
**********************
So, here's my first failure report
Shank and Carbos were no trouble, but I had to use my first healing potion against that stupid wolf outside of Candlekeep already.
Recovering the ring for Joya cost me another one or two potions against the hobgoblins.
Then, Tarnesh. That went well, because Imoen's wand of magic missiles interrupted his spellcasting.
I picked up Khalid and Jaheira at the FAI. I'm sure a paladin would stick to Gorion's friends, although I might exchange them for Branwen and Ajantis later. Got a plate mail for myself (AC -1 now) and missile weapons for everyone.
We were successful against the ogre with the belts, kiting a lot and using our missile weapons. Nobody got hurt.
Of course I returned the belt to its owner. I couldn't afford more than two potions of healing and one antidote with my money. I still felt that I should take on the spiders in Landrin's home as soon as possible. That was quite stupid. Especially because I went in alone, so that I wouldn't endanger the others, because I couldn't keep more people healed and didn't want to sacrifice anyone.
So, I killed one spider until I couldn't keep up with the poison anymore. Then I ran outside to have Jaheira heal me (potions gone), the spiders followed, and that was it.
I guess I shouldn't go in there until I can afford a few more antidotes and healing potions next time. Or at least I should have used the Oil of Speed. Or taken someone with me, like Jaheira, using Entangle. Or in fact anything other than running in with 14 HP and 1 APR against 4 huge spiders.
Going to restart tonight. This time with a plan.
Reprise (male dwarven defender, Grond0); Kaliara (female human abjurer, Gate70)
Previous updates
Moving on to Ulgoth's Beard, Kaliara learned a couple of 4th level spells - and the minimal XP given for those was enough to tip her over the edge of a level.
There were still plenty of unexplored areas and Reprise headed all the way back south to the Cloud Peaks. At the Gnoll Stronghold he picked up the bracers of dexterity to greatly improve his AC.
Kaliara had learned magic missile courtesy of the stash in the kobold cave and made use of that to bombard a blinded Doomsayer before Reprise moved up to inflict a final blow.
Looking for some more quick XP, they moved on to Durlag's Tower. Battle horrors outside were blinded and dispatched easily enough. Kaliara then protected both characters against petrification to deal with the basilisks on the roof - resulting in a level each.
Meilum offered a more attacking set of bracers, though Reprise is likely to stick to his dexterity ones and Kaliara to her AC protection ones.
After moving through the Nashkel Mine, Reprise tried an unprovoked attack from invisibility on Mulahey. He made the mistake of believing that was an accident though - and Reprise finished him off with a second blow.
Outside the mine the amazons were blinded, webbed and stunk out - none of them managing any real action.
At the Bandit Camp the bandit archers failed to do much damage. Taurgosz tried rushing forward, but couldn't catch anyone and failed to survive a 3rd attempt to blind him.
A quick trip through the Cloakwood led to the mine. Genthore and Kysus were blinded from range before webs were used. When Drasus was then blinded in turn the fight was pretty much over.
Reprise, dwarven defender 7, 91 HPs, 223 kills
Kaliara, abjurer 7, 39 HPs, 56 kills, 2 deaths
Milam (Avenger)
Harvey (Sun Soul Monk)
Coremage (Fighter / Mage)
After our short exit from Candlekeep last time we found ourselves standing over the body of Shoal the nereid. This spurred us into action and we quickly returned a ring to the wise mad Arcand. After that excitement we carried on for two hours, with the 13 screenshots below as evidence of our heroic deeds gung-ho behaviour.
It started so well with us expertly selecting a well-matched trio of gnolls outside High Hedge. The fight raged across the map and drew a fourth gnoll in to try and teach us a lesson. None of us dared risk too much melee so Milam used most of his throwing daggers as we ran and targeted from range. It was all over in a matter of seconds after several minutes and we went inside to discover a potion case was too expensive until we sold some gems.
On to Beregost where we dealt with Neera before heading south.
Milam had been viewing our equipment and decided Coremage should have a two handed sword exactly like the one Arghain was waving about. Milam quickly ran out of throwing daggers and took a thumping so he ran around without fighting any further. Coremage then ran out of arrows and after a second thumping he too ran around without fighting. Harvey had obviously also taken a thumping but had sufficient bullets to bring the fight to a near-successful conclusion. Which was - we got the sword alright, although Coremage had fallen in combat and couldn't make use of it until after a temple visit.
It was time for us to get some rapid experience so we headed over to the basilisks. They presented little problem to us thanks to Coremage having plentiful Protection from Petrification spells memorised. Harvey found himself being bitten once or twice though, and Milam also found their teeth were sharper than their gaze.
(in single player it's likely Milam could have saved Harvey but in multiplayer it was just too tricky (plus Milam thought he had a Melf active on him so he could well have been blocked from a healing spell by that; instead Mutamin had moved on to Larloch's so Milam could at least have tried)
We then proceeded to rescue Melicamp (he later died in High Hedge) and moved on to Bassilus. A well-executed plan failed to appear but nevertheless we found a way to get rid of him without any of us perishing.
Ardrouine failed to recognise her son was safe despite the trio of dead worgs. Perhaps she had seen the masterful way our web had held all three worgs, and all three of us. ahem.
(the second attempt was ended by Tarnesh. I had very bad luck, got waylaid by 9 bandits on the way to the FAI. Imoen died, I had to run and couldn't take her wand. I couldn't hit Tarnesh before he got his mirror images up, and then he had all the time in the world for horror and magic missiles)
Imoen successfully interrupted Tarnesh with her wand again, so I could kill him quickly. We got Khalid and Jaheira, defeated the ogre with the belt fetish as before, kiting and with ranged weapons.
Somewhere along the way, Jaheira made level 2.
This time, I went into Landrin's home with 5 healing potions and 2 antidotes. And I had remembered to get the easter egg Ring of the Princes +1. (I'm going to use easter egg items, like the Ankheg plate. I'll already miss out on several items, XP and gold with my LG "no stealing, no breaking into houses" rule)
When I had drawn the spiders' attention, I called in the others and had them fire at them. I still needed several potions, but this time it worked.
Then we ran into Neera, but we survived.
We cleared the maps between Beregost and Nashkel, killing every hobgoblin, bandit and gibberling, returning the boots to the kleptomanic dwarf (or halfling?) and a letter to a woman, then Jaheira started to complain, so we went to Nashkel.
We survived Neira, too. Imoen interrupted her spellcasting twice with her wand while we kept attacking. Neira managed to cast Hold Person, but only hit Jaheira (I'm immune anyway).
When she died, I made level 2.
As I said, max HP on level up will be deactivated after level 3.
I think I'm going to get Minsc and rescue Dynaheir next.
I'd love to continue playing, but I have to sleep.
Sleep - clearly not a true enthusiast
Good to see you enjoying it! If you do want any advice on how to do some of the trickier encounters then people would of course be glad to help
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
A Fog annoyed the Undercity party and Rahvin was persuaded by summons to fire exploding arrows to hit his comrades. After the resulting disagreement the survivors didn't take long to finish off.
In the temple I decided this time not to just kill things using trap damage. Sarevok was dispelled by an arrow and, after Semaj teleported out and killed a waiting nymph, he choked in a series of Fogs.
Arriving in the SoD dungeon, I spent some spare money with the priest before persuading Porios to surrender. Downstairs, a PfU scroll allowed free progress through to find a group of mercenaries. Area damage hurt those and the Flaming Fist healer healed the bit of retaliation they managed. A single nymph ran interference while I used dispelling and acid arrows to force a surrender out of Korlasz. However, she wasn't allowed to walk away.
Back in Baldur's Gate, equipment was sold for 62k gold to fund some further purchases. I didn't bother killing any of the NPCs to get more, but just picked up the Spectacles of Spectacle and did the quest to get the Battle Tankard (which prevents fatigue).
After marching out of the City I sorted inventory out with the help of my new bag of holding. Typically the first thing I do on the road is go to help the vampire in order to get a regeneration ioun stone. However, with regeneration of my own and lots of healing spells, that wasn't necessary this time. Hence I went straight for the bridge, where I nipped behind a tent until Caelar arrived to negotiate.
A charge of Sandthief's ring let me bypass the enemies in the Troll Claw Woods on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. I was close to levelling up, so took the time to kill a hill giant and his animal friends there - learning Pixie Dust as a result.
Shaman 10, 79 HPs, 367 kills
Real life is no reload, too, and my children are merciless in the morning.
Thank you. I'm going to ask when I get to the trickier parts. I've been reading here, but since most people use SCS and I don't, it's different.
I wondered why during my first run she had given me antidotes, and now she doesn't. I thought it was because I had NPC project installed back then.
But my last Undead Hunter had 18 CHA, not 17, so that was the difference.
Thank you for pointing that out.
I guess that if (okay, realistically speaking: as soon as) I have to start again in Candlekeep, I might reroll. I didn't want ridiculously perfect stats, but maybe that was too ambitious for a beginner.
Reprise (male dwarven defender, Grond0); Kaliara (female human abjurer, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092559/#Comment_1092559
After invisibility allowed limited combat on the way through the Nashkel Mines, a pair of battle horrors were blinded and meleed.
In the City, Kaliara was keen to acquire her own boots of speed. A pair were duly obtained from Lothander, though she had to wipe a thick film of grease off the bottom.
After being sent to Candlekeep there was a nasty looking moment when Reprise was caught in the fringes of a web trap next to a phase spider. However, his save vs death of 1 protected him for the short time until he broke free.
Back in Baldur's Gate, Slythe lasted only a few seconds against some summons.
The Undercity party lasted a few rounds, but didn't inflict too much damage before it was time for a final showdown. That started badly when Reprise got a bit too close to Sarevok and both missed a chance for a free shot at him and activated all of the defending party. Fortunately Angelo didn't rush out with the others, but Tazok and Sarevok got a few whacks in on the defending summons while Semaj was being hacked down.
Reprise, dwarven defender 8, 112 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 323 kills
Kaliara, abjurer 9, 48 HPs, 97 kills, 2 deaths
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092702/#Comment_1092702
Inside the old temple, area damage sorted out Ziatar from out of sight.
At Boareskyr Bridge the first order of business was to get the scroll from Vichand. If you don't kill him quickly the entire camp will be alerted - firebreath potions are a pretty good way to kill him quickly, but a shaman has a better alternative (you can also intimidate him into giving you the scroll).
The non-magical dragonscale armor is a significant upgrade for a shaman and they can't use the dragon shield - so there was no issue about what to make from Morentherene's scales. The smith also forged some bullets after I killed a dark wraith to get some voidstone shards.
After buying yet more potions from Thirrim, I surrendered the fort. That still left the mage guarding the bridge. Dispelling arrows are a pretty good weapon against him, but the Ring of Energy is better - that will reliably disrupt his spells to make sure he does not generate a portal.
On the way to the Coalition Camp I came across a group of orcs and trolls and took a bit of time to kill some of those - I just picked up the Firefly sling invisibly though.
Shaman 10, 89 HPs (incl. 5 HPs from Helm and 10 from ring), 431 kills
I don't feel very comfortable playing the EEs because everything feels different (particularly the GUI), but I still want to play on them to get rid of that feeling and I also want to try out the IwD spells SCS adds, so I decided to play a F/D next and take with me a small core group of spellcasters.
So far nothing interesting happened. We killed the belt Ogre, Tarnesh and the Spiders in Beregost. I plan on recruiting Branwen, dual-classing Imoen and later on picking up Quayle.
Edit: forgot to mention: mods are SCS, randomiser, aTweaks (although, the creature components won't install on BG:EE), jimfix and Max HP for all non-joinable creatures from the tweaks anthology. Also, I've put both WeiDU logs on my otherwise useless website here, just in case anyone wants to consult them directly.
Reprise (male dwarven defender, Grond0); Kaliara (female human abjurer, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092559/#Comment_1092559
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092815/#Comment_1092815
Starting off in Jon's dungeon Kaliara regularly ran into traps - but Reprise kept healing her with plenty of rests and the place was cleared without any undue problems. Ulvaryl fell victim to a particularly spicy curry Reprise had enjoyed.
The circus was the first port of call after arriving in the City proper.
After checking in with Gaelan Bayle the Copper Coronet was put under new management.
The Graveyard district offered plenty of opportunities to make use of Azuredge and the top was soon cleared of undead - including narrowly rescuing Nevin from his uncle.
Kaliara rather enjoyed watching Reprise writhing in flames. As a result, when travelling invisibly towards the Docks - knowing Suna Seni would try an ambush - she didn't bother putting fire protection on the dwarf, but threw in another fireball. It was probably fortunate for Reprise that all the enemies died instantly, saving the need for a follow-up fireball
Looking to improve his AC a bit, Reprise sought out Officer Dirth. He resisted two web tangles from Kitthix and a blind - but had no real chance of fending off a melee attack.
Travelling to Watcher's Keep failed to find Renfeld, but did allow the purchase of a potion case. After recent nasty experiences with vampiric wraiths we didn't try our luck inside at this time.
Coming back to the Bridge District I got distracted by a discussion about the prospects for meeting a vampire in the night - and a would-be mugger was surprised to find themselves gifted with over 11k gold. Fortunately the weight of that appeared to slow the mugger down a bit and hits from missile weapons did just enough damage for Kaliara to send in a fatal magic missile before the mugger could disappear. Note though the interfering Cowled Wizard that has teleported in just before this screenshot to warn about infractions of Athkatla's laws on magic use - Kaliara keeps muttering something about a license as a result, but we haven't got around to getting one of those yet.
While in the area the skinner quest beckoned. Reprise invited the Rune Assassins to attack him and defensive stance worked well enough to keep him alive there.
Reprise, dwarven defender 10, 131 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 105 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 11, 54 HPs, 70 kills (+97 in BG1), 0 deaths (+2 in BG1)
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092702/#Comment_1092702
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092938/#Comment_1092938
At the Underground River, a chaotic commands scroll allowed me to grab some myconid summons - though those were never used.
After buying yet more potions from Bellowgulp, I moved straight to place the Bwoosh and then blagged a way past Turin into the inner sanctum. The cleric there sold me some more greater restoration scrolls before I went invisible to use the elevator. Placing the poison doesn't break invisibility, but you need to show yourself to open the elevator again.
Back at the Coalition Camp, exploding arrows made short work of some ogres and trolls (friendly fire casualties don't seem to concern anyone in these fights). There was more of the same for the groups of mages and then clerics. Running round the final wave more explosions killed everyone except Grimgor - he was finished off with standard arrows, though I still had about 40 of the exploding variety left.
Once more arriving at Dragonspear I quickly buffed and then went straight to find Ashatiel. He was killed with acid arrows before he even had time to finish his sanctuary.
Inside the castle I followed Caelar into the portal. The demons there use non-magical special abilities, so I took a potion of clarity before skipping through the first area. The Ring of Energy and acid arrows did most of the work against demons in the second area to persuade Thrix to open the door.
I realized at this point that I'd not yet taken my final level (despite being at the XP cap). Ironskins could come in handy in close quarters against demons, so I took those before resting. I then used long-term buffs - fire, electricity, poison and mind focusing before activating the lift. Other potions were used during the trip, then once the enemies were all dead, I renewed ironskins and used several Champions Strength scrolls.
On arrival, I recruited Caelar (on the grounds she would be expected to fight Belhifet, but gave her no orders to try and replicate the position where she would fight as a neutral) and used a magic shielding potion to ensure I wasn't caught out when the clarity potion taken in the lift expired. I switched to the Battle Tankard to enable me to keep restoring Caelar without penalty. It took 6 lots of restoration before Belhifet decided he'd had enough.
My hour was up then, but I ran through the epilogue anyway to be ready to start in BG2 next time. Even though I haven't used the Claw in BG1 or SoD, I decided to take that through to BG2 - so dumped the Helm of Balduran while pulling the pantaloons out of the bag of holding to ensure they transferred.
Shaman 11, 76 HPs, 515 kills
Spells to date (in order of selection, though the first spell listed at each level is a shaman only addition not requiring a pick):
L1 - Spirit Ward, CLW, Bless, Doom, Armor of Faith, Entangle
L2 - Writhing Fog, Charm P / M, Slow Poison, Resist Fire / Cold, Barkskin, Goodberry
L3 - Spiritual Clarity, Call Lightning, Summon Insects, Rigid Thinking, Protection from Fire
L4 - Spirit Fire, Animal Summoning I, Call Woodland Beings, Death Ward
L5 - Recall Spirit, Pixie Dust, Ironskins
I decided to change my initial party slightly. Still 100% half-orcs and mostly neutral. I tried making a Magus but all my sorcerer kits appear to be broken.
I am not sure whether the fact that my party consists of 100% half-orcs is because of our own racial prejudice or that of the others in Candlekeep. Certainly we felt that there was a certain amount of cliquishness there. We will have to be quite sure that they have something to offer before we accept someone from another race permanently.
In Candlekeep we discovered that somebody wants us dead. that somebody was unsuccessful.
EDIT
Tarnesh was also unsuccessful, so we were able to go in search of Joia's ring and returned it to her.
We then made our way to High Hedge where Urkatz acted as the tank since she had the splint armour. It wasn't enough however for the gnolls killed her. We then went to the temple to get him healed.
We subsequently helped Mellicamp get back into shape and afterwards tried to do the same for Tonder, but after throwing him the antidote he attacked us with the result that we had to kill him. At High Hedge we were then given a +1 sword in return for his body.
South of Beregost we killed two Ogrillon and then three overly officious Flaming Fist mercenaries. We didn't get much exxperience for killing them, but we did get three decent sets of armour.
Urkatz had to heal us during the battle, but we were still hurt afterwards, so we all had a long 16 hour rest before proceeding onwards. At first the weasels had kept us safe, but they were unsummoned in the midst of the battle.
We were then able to reunite the rabbit Jumper with its owner who was delighted.
I made a few minor attempts here and there myself during the past months, but nothing worth reporting on really. The current run looks sufficiently interesting though - I could start coverning it in the coming days.
Until then!
B.
After killing Zordral I reached level 2 and when I slept, I gained the ability to heal.
We headed south and fought Zargos Flintblade. He killed Blukka before he died, but then the game crashed. I replayed the battle and this time it was Urkatz who died. After killing Zargos we returned to Aerie who raised Urkatz at the cost of 100gp. Urkatz then healed herself.
We then took Samuel to the Friendly Arms Inn whereupon Lagaxh became a level 2 Illusionist and Blukka became a level 2 thief (Still level 1 fighter)
Heading south we again met up with Firebead and gave him a tome. We then took the Colquetle amulet to Mr. Colquetle thus becoming fully accredited heroes. Our reputation increased still further when we got Eltolth back into shape.
We were then forced to fight Silke. The battle was not hard despite Silke putting Blukka to sleep. However it was a bit annoying having to wait for him to awaken. Silke however will never awaken unless somebody pays for her resurrection. I don't think that will happen.
Before getting our reward, Blukka pickpocketted three potions of defence to ensure that our reward was adequate.
We then took little-little-ugh to ugh who was delighted. Urkatz became a level2 fighter.
Summon weasels and command were enough to defeat Bassilus. We hardly got hurt.
North of the Friendly Arms Inn we quickly defeated Sonner and his cohorts. One of them had the sense to lead us into a bandit ambush, not that it did them any good.
We then killed the widow's undead husband much to her relief. Afterwards we boosted both our experience and our gold reserves by going hunting for ankhegs.
We called in at the Friendly Arms Inn where we delivered some of Landrin's belongings and aquired some pantaloons. We met Dorn on the way out and then proceeded south again.
After visiting Nashkel we were ambushed by bandits, an ambush that was interrupted by Dorn who has decided to join us. He joined at level 3. Perhaps we should haave gone looking for basilisks first.
One thing that I can't understand is why having one more half-orc in the party should lower our reputation, unless that is, that it is nothing to do with race but rather that his reputation has gone before him.
Something to remember for another time.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1091792/#Comment_1091792
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092077/#Comment_1092077
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092291/#Comment_1092291
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092496/#Comment_1092496
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092702/#Comment_1092702
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1092938/#Comment_1092938
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093090/#Comment_1093090
I didn't have enough XP to get to level 12 and get fire elementals in Jon's dungeon, but with ironskins other summons and plenty of area damage progress was easy anyway going through the first level. I was surprised to find the Helm of Balduran there, but checking on my SoD save it looks like I went through the bag of holding, but didn't take the Claw out of the gem bag. Oh well - it's arguable which bit of equipment is better for a shaman anyway.
On the second level I used some animal summons with the aim of distracting the mephits while I destroyed the portals. However, although I was some way from the radiant mephit and not even close to the line of fire, I underestimated the spread and length of its color spray and was knocked unconscious. A follow-up second spray got me again - that gave the mephits the time to finish off the summons, work through my stoneskins and and come uncomfortably close to killing me as well.
There's quite a lot of mucking about with inventory in the dungeon to slow down progress, but there was still just time for a quick visit to the circus - I got my 12th level there.
Shaman 12, 83 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 93 kills (+515 in BG1)
Allow me to enter a new contestant into the challenge - a half-elven cleric/mage going by the name of Ammanas.
With so many exciting tactical possibilities available to the multi-class, I'm still unsure of how I'm going to play the run. I suppose there will be a lot of experimenting going on, with hopefully some quality shapeshifting time down the road.
Utilizing the relatively newish SCS component that treats spell triggers and contingencies as special abilities (automatically available upon reaching the respective mage levels), rather than learnable spells, was one of the main reasons behind my decision on the class. It may seem like a substantial boost, but in the end it effectively just cuts the rest times necessary to prepare the triggers/sequencers and, by doing so, it incentivizes the player their use them more often or more actively.
One exotic topic I'm curious to explore are the various "breaking points" for Sanctuary and Invisibility spells. In my previous playthroughs I've noted certain inconsistency regarding which type of spells cancel which type of concealment. Combing Sanctuary with arcane spells (including triggers) and Invisibility with divine spells could yield some interesting results. Just to give an example, it seems that (i) Chant does not break Invisibility (even when used within range of enemies), (ii) neither Web nor Hold Person break Invisibility when cast on self via sequencer.
As with all of my other clerics, also Ammanas needed to have an assigned deity (though, with the exception of the official kits, this is a purely imaginative choice and does not affect the actual gameplay in any manner). Valkur, the Captain of the Waves, felt like the right call in this case - let us hope this will serve him well when navigating the stormy waters of the saga. The pantheon choice also corresponds with his chaotic good alignment.
Our starting weapon proficiencies are staves and slings. The two available mage spell picks comprise of Find Familiar and Blindness.
Mods: SCSv32, JimFix, BGTweaks (for removing helmet animations, removing item blur effects and some other minor adjustments)
Note: In order to keep it cool, Ammanas' sprite has been adjusted to elven mage via EEkeeper.
SCS difficulty slider: Tactical
Edit: Apologies for all the typos in the original post.
South of Nashkel we reunited Rufie with his owner, killed the fastest dart thrower in the west and his accomplice, and also a winter wolf.
Heading west we saved a dryad and a cat before going to help Drittz. Whilst there we killed some half ogres before returning to Bjornin where we were rewarded.
We picked up Montarin who did some pick-pocketting on our behalf.
We then dumped him at Ulgoth's Beard. Using our accumulated wealth we then bought and memorised some spells which should make life a bit safer for our mage.
We then killed Corsonne who caused more problems after he died due to his summoned dryads who dominated Urkatz and Blukka. To avoid them hurting other party members or each other we used a web spell which worked to some extent. Only 7 hit points were suffered.
In Nashkel we were sent in search of Aaron and his beloved. This led to us going to the gnoll stronghold where we were attacked by a powerful group of assassins.
We used web to disable them and tried to use our wand of fire, but it didn't work!
We killed some of them but then they used a chaos spell that affected everyone but me. Eventually we prevailed, but only after Lagaxh had been killed by one of our own party.
We returned to the carnival where Aerie raised her. After that we healed her. Aerie asked us to find her boots which we did. The battle to get them was arduous rather than dangerous.
Aerie gave us a ring of protection +1 to thank us. I suppose that we will now have to return to the gnoll stronghold to find Aaron.
Upon leaving Aerie's tent, I was struck by lightning which took away half of my health points. After getting healed, we had to sleep again as we used up ALL of our healing spells to recover.