After going through BG1 yesterday morning, I was aiming to do the same to SoD this morning ... but started making too many mistakes towards the end and didn't quite make it .
In the SoD dungeon, Porios was coerced into surrendering without a fight. The undead downstairs were killed using a PfU scroll, while the mercenaries were overcome in a running fight. Korlasz was hit with dispelling arrows and persuaded to surrender, but didn't leave quickly enough to survive her retreat.
In Baldur's Gate I killed a few NPCs and stripped their items. The only quest I did was to get the tankard helmet (which protects against fatigue) in case I want to use that during the fight with Belhifet.
After moving out with the army I headed straight for the Coast Way Forest. Helping the vampire there gets you a regeneration ioun stone and that was pretty much secured after 2 acid arrows killed the mage before he could buff. I don't typically bother with Teleria back in the starting area (even though he's an easy victim as he doesn't retaliate if you attack from long range). This time though I decided to double-check whether the Stone Ally was usable by a wizard slayer (unsurprisingly, it wasn't). At the bridge I had no means of going invisible, but if you're quick enough to move behind the tent out of sight you can avoid any attacks anyway until Caelar comes to negotiate.
I just ran through the Troll Claw Woods, ignoring attackers, on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. There was bow work to get through the enemies outside the temple, but some of those inside required melee to avoid dragging in more opponents. However, the damage taken was recovered using regeneration to open the way to the temple proper. Before facing magic threats though I decided to retreat and do some more travelling.
The idea of that was to find the ambush area with the myconids - and a few transitions later I did that. The goblins above ground had a witch doctor, but horror and some quick shooting disposed of him and the rest of the goblins were no threat. The first group of myconids only used confusion and even if confused (which I wasn't) I was confident I could beat them up. The second lot included a feeble-mind effect from a blue myconid, so I softened them up with an exploding arrow before retreating back out of sight. I saved against the following effects anyway though and finished off the myconid with another shot. The prize there was the Spell Breaker sword - providing me with a bonus of 4 to spell saves.
Back at the temple I worked through Ziatar's guards before tackling the main manhalf-dragon. He failed to save against a first attempted horror and was shot down before he could recover. The Neothelid was a more dangerous opponent. He uses non-magical attacks, which I had no way of protecting 100% against, so was aiming to just get past him as quickly as possible, kill Akanna for the wardstone and run away. After running past the Neothelid initially, two exploding arrows badly hurt Akanna before she disappeared and a sunfire from the Suncatcher shield finished her off immediately afterwards. Annoyingly though, the Neothelid appeared totally blocking the corridor exit and continued to move towards me, pinning me in place in the doorway against a magical sword and an aerial servant. Things looked extremely bleak there against such high-damage opponents and with no good options I used a greater restoration scroll to recover HPs and switched to scimitar to try and hack a way out. I was lucky there - getting 2 criticals in my next 4 attacks to kill the aerial servant, while it missed one of its attacks.
I was worried the other aerial servant might still be invisibly blocking me, but I was able to get back into the room with the hope that the Neothelid would follow. However, it stayed blocking the entrance and I had to sneak in another restoration after being taken down to 11 HPs when the remaining aerial servant showed itself (and my DUHM expired - a lot was packed into those 10 rounds started prior to initially running past the Neothelid). Now the aerial servant was visible it was just possible to avoid it while running round in a narrow space out of sight of the doorway and finally I saw the good news I'd been waiting for as the Neothelid abandoned its blocking tactics, allowing me to exit.
I think that's the first time I've ever used a restoration scroll in SoD apart from the final battle with Belhifet ...
On the way out the 5th dagger thrown found its way into Morentherene's heart. I also realised that I'd hit the XP cap at some point in the temple and took my 10th level.
At Boareskyr Bridge I used the dragon scales to get a shield upgrade. Typically I kill Vichand to get his scroll, but decided not to take the risk this time of him disappearing (if you don't kill him quickly the whole camp goes hostile) and just intimidated him into handing it over. After shooting down a dark wraith I made some arrows out of the spell stone shards before going to surrender the fort. That still left a potentially difficult battle with the mage on the bridge as I had no guaranteed way to disrupt his spells. However, with THAC0 of 1 with my bow, dispelling arrows had a good chance to hit and the 3rd of those got through. A Bhaal horror got most of the guards off my back while I finished off the mage.
At the Coalition Camp I picked up the Bwoosh and poison and also talked to Helvdar about his boots. I wouldn't normally bother with those, but the +3 to saving throws for dwarves are pretty tempting to a wizard slayer and worth the effort of killing various enemies on the way to find a bearskin.
After rescuing Imoen from the Castle I went to the Underground River. With saving throws now much better the myconids there were no problem and they handed over a Bloom-sac for summoning some helpers - surprisingly, that's counted as a natural item that wizard slayers are able to use. The Soft-feet boots protected against web tangle from the gargantuan spider on the way to find the cyclops. A running fight dealt with the mages and the rest of the guards there easily enough to open the way to the underground area. Inside there I couldn't resist killing Strunk, along with an investigating patrol. I then placed the barrel of Bwoosh and blagged a way into the inner area.
The priest there offered a few more restoration scrolls before I activated a PfM scroll and took the lift up. Myconids provided a distraction to ensure I didn't get blocked in while poisoning the food and water and waiting for Hephernaan to open the lift back up. Running for my life I then just managed to get past the bridge near the exit before enemies could block it.
Back at the Camp exploding arrows were the order of the day and quickly dissolved the first 3 attacks. With 4 PfM scrolls left, I used one of those for safety while shooting up the final group. Swift Rabbit got one backstab in, but when he died in an explosion the danger was effectively over.
After resting up I headed for Dragonspear. Another PfM scroll and high missile avoidance stats meant Ashatiel had no real chance in a duel to quickly end the siege. Inside the castle I followed Caelar through the portal and just ran through the first area. In the second area I used exploding arrows to deal with the devils quickly - though they're immune to fire, the missile damage from those arrows also has an area effect. I took a couple of hits doing that though, as well as some arrows from the Erinyes. I also forgot about the fear effect from the bone fiend and was lucky to save against one of those before switching to Kiel's helmet (taken from Minsc).
I took Thrix's wager, even though none of his items are of use to me, before resting up again. Kiel's helmet, the lucky boots and Spell Breaker could have provided full protection against disablers while going up the lift, but I forgot I'd replaced the helm with the regeneration ioun stone before encountering the bone fiend and started running in terror. Although my saving throw against wands was 2, it was still a nervous time as I saved against 3 more fear auras before recovering my senses. Switching between scimitar and Spell Breaker whenever I saw a dire charm starting to be cast, allowed me to finish the enemies off safely.
However, I put back on the regeneration ioun stone for the remainder of the lift journey and got caught out when affected by fear before I had a chance to change back after the cut scene. Caelar did pretty well to survive until I recovered and my first thought was to try and bring her back from near death with a restoration scroll. Unfortunately I hadn't equipped either Spell Breaker or Spider's Bane and Belhifet took full advantage with an immediate hold person - I don't think I've ever died as a result of that against him before ...
Quick note on Ammanas' run:
I got a bit ahead with the game without posting on his progress. We had managed to defeat Sarevok and, after skipping SoD, Ammanas was last seen approaching D'Arnise Keep on his own. That was when I got a restartisis stroke, as I was feeling the urge to play a more staightforward character. Sorry to disappoint - I'm certainly hoping to be back with a different run.
The first action of the session saw Sansuki calling for help. We were willing to do so, but that was a potential problem when 3 vampires appeared right next to Reprise - who had no immunity to level drain. Kaliara bravely strode forward to try and get their attention and a bit of running round later Azuredge had claimed 3 more victims at the cost of a single hit for Kaliara.
We'd already picked up an ugly necklace for Mae'Var, so the next task for him was to sort out Rayic Gethras. Kaliara thought she had the perfect answer there by sending in a nishruu, only to find that banished by a remove magic from the mage (we're not totally sure if that's a MP glitch or just an undocumented feature of a spell we don't use much). A skeleton warrior proved sufficient as a replacement distraction though.
The remaining tasks were swiftly done before an attack on the guild. Kaliara brought out her new pet area effect there with a death fog - its acid vapours fortunately not quite extending far enough into the slave cage to claim another innocent victim.
Back at Watcher's Keep there were no vampiric wraiths waiting, making an initial entrance easy. Reprise used a stone giant potion, which would be sufficient in combination with DUHM to break open the chest with the Crimson Dart. Of course it might have been better to wait to take the potion until he had checked whether he had a DUHM left for the day . Some time later a trip to Mrs Cragmoon had got a replacement potion and a couple of statues dismembered when they objected to us handling their sacred book. Reprise then tried to perform a ritual with a bell, book and candle - only to find that Kaliara was asked to provide answers to the ritual (apparently as a result of casting improved invisibility on Reprise and getting even closer to the container than he was as a result). She found the whole process a bit confusing and it was a good job she wasn't already injured when the gods took a dim view of her lack of preparedness.
A second attempt was successful though and the remaining statues joined their erstwhile colleagues.
Reprise couldn't think of a worthwhile next target, until Kaliara mentioned she had a bit of a hankering for a really magical staff. With the phrase "I'm game to die if you are" ringing in his ears, Reprise quickly led the way to the Bridge District where he talked Kaliara through his foolproof plan for dealing with the Twisted Rune. A major component of that was the use of PfU scrolls and Kaliara enquired gently as he was beating a trapped door whether he had any such scrolls . A sheepish visit to a nearby temple later and Reprise threw a rogue stone into the doorway to open a secret portal.
The PfU scrolls used after talking to Shangalar worked a treat and Azuredge quickly finished him off.
The hope was that Shyressa would come wandering into view as well, but she proved reluctant to do so. Losing patience, Reprise threw up the efreeti to try and attract her - but it was immediately paralyzed and death spelled by Vaxall. The berserk warrior followed, but after it was also paralyzed, Vaxall moved to try and melee it rather than continuing gaze attacks - bringing it into sight of our hapless heroes. Reprise had very good saving throws, so was in no particular danger, but Kaliara was very vulnerable to a death ray and things looked dodgy when she was dominated. However, Vaxall followed that up with an anti-magic ray - dispelling the charm and allowing Kaliara to disappear with a potion.
Meanwhile Reprise had been girding for battle and when he waded into melee using Gaxx haste, Vaxall lasted only a few more seconds.
A skeleton warrior then held Shyressa still long enough to be hit by a flying axe and a couple more skeleton warriors ran distraction against Layene to end the contest.
After that excitement, a trip to the de'Arnise Hold was a bit of an anti-climax. The enemies there had no real chance, with the closest thing to danger being when Kaliara was caught in a golem's poison cloud - forcing Reprise to break off combat to get some use out of one of his Bhaal abilities.
TorGal was duly dealt with, but Reprise turned down the opportunity to get more involved with the management of the estate.
The final action saw a trip to Umar Hills. Kaliara felt a bit aggrieved by being held by the Killer Mimic despite not being in the cave at the time - but that behavior is nothing new to us.
We'll be moving on to the Temple Ruins next time.
Reprise, dwarven defender 14, 143 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 325 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 14, 62 HPs (incl. 5 from ioun stone), 190 kills (+97 in BG1), 0 deaths (+2 in BG1)
A new run with a Champion, a fighter/cleric and a mage, all who, due to the visit of a Charismatic Champion of Kelemvor, decided to follow Kelemvor themselves. They are all lawful Good Dwarves, and not surprisingly were friends even before the Champion arrived in Candlekeep.
We survived without problems in Candlekeep, not even getting wounded.
We headed to the Friendly Arms Inn where we were attacked by Tarnesh:
Indeed nobody got wounded until we rescued Mellicamp from a wolf. That wolf hurt me quite badly.
We attempted to help both Mellicamp and Tonder, but failed both times.
We then returned a rabbit to it's owner and headed south.
However we were able to return Perdue's sword after killing Karlat. We also helped Alanna's neighbour and took a letter to Mirianne.
We were attacked by three flaming fist mercenaries and killed all three of them. A summon weasels kept two of them occupied whilst we killed the first who was disabled using command. We then killed the others before the weasels were unsummoned, one of which was killed by the mercenaries.
We then killed some hobgoblins and picked up the Colquetle amulet on the way to Nashkel where we found some ankheg armour which I am now wearing.
We talked to Noober and turned down a reward wrongly offered to us by Oublek. As a result we have become heroes.
We went to the carnival to help Bentha and then helped Aerie by finding her boots. In return she have us a +1 ring of protection that can be worn alongside other protective items.
We then headed south, Killed Zargos Flintblade and picked up the wand of frost. We returned to Aerie who identified it, slept and returned to kill Greywolf. Upon doing so Isra offered to help us. We gratefully accepted the offer since she is a cavalier and hence there should be no causes of conflict between us. She is at level 2 like me.
We killed the evil Sonner and his party as well as nearby undead husband of a widow.
We then cleared the ankheg in the area and told Farmer Brun of his son's death.
Heading northward we met Tenya, and feeling that she was in need of moral guidance as she grew up, we invited her into the party. What surprised us was her power as a cleric. We had assumed that as a child she would need a certain amount of molly-coddling, but instead is the strongest cleric that we have.
We also picked up Gavin, and at his Temple's request, killed Bassilus.
And then Zargal.
We headed south and rescued a cow before killing a party of ogres and a party of gnolls led by Arghain. The latter provided Isra with a +1 sword.
In transit we killed a carrion crawler:
We then went to the lighthouse area where we rescued a boy from some worgs without any problem.
However we then ran into a group of sirines. Their use of blindness, poison arrows and the like were deadly and killed two of our party, Deathslayer and Gavin were killed.
We went to Aerie, the cheapest option of bringing them back to full health, and had them raised and healed.
Upon leaving the tent we talked to a newcomer whom I have never met before.
He warned us of assassins who he then turned on us.
He used a poison upon us which made us unable to fight. However Aerie then stepped in and helped us.
Deathslayer used web to neutralise two of the assassins whilst we attacked the other. He was quickly killed helped by a command spell.
We then used missile weapons on the others to avoid being webbed ourselves. We also used miscast magic on the mage, but that proved to be unnecessary as the mage died before being released from the web.
After that we bought Little-little-ugh and took him to Ugh.
and then proceeded to do some more ankheg hunting.
In the Basilisk area we killed a party of "Adventurers." In my opinion, little better than bandits.
Then Precious was returned to Smeagol much to his delight.
Tenya then took us to meet Lethe whom we were forced to kill.
Surprisingly, I don't have to recreate my character from scratch: importing actually works this time! I did manage to lose two innate castings of Entangle but I couldn't care less, and for some reason Thael can't use two level 2 priest spell slots, but at this point those two low level spells aren't going to matter. I think it's SCS that allows all joinable NPCs to customize basically everything? Imoen gets some crossbow proficiencies so she can actually use the duergar's weapons.
The cons of this is that neither Jaheira nor Imoen have spells memorized: they leveled from level 0, and we're still only allowed 1 rest by SCS, and I'd rather not burn it this early on. Fortunately, Jaheira is still really useful due to Faith and Powers: she can shapeshift to a Python form to get -5 AC, and a poison damage-over-time on-hit on a failed death save. Minsc, at least for this early stage, is still useful: he can hit the Otyugh from stealth, retreat to a door, stealth again, and thus not take any damage while we have almost no spell resources to spare.
A Cloudkill from Thael takes out Illyich and co. in the library room, we shoot down the Cambion, and there's only traps and regular duergar left on this map. A bit of stealth from Minsc gets to the genie and back twice, claiming the Sword of Chaos, and after letting Yoshimo join we assault the Mephit portal room. Jaheira takes the lead, managing to avoid the Radiant Mephit's unconscious effect, and the rest follow swinging at the portal. We take our one rest here.
Ulvaryl isn't an issue with Enchanted Weapon remaining as one of Thael's level 4 picks, and the mage collapses moments later. Might & Guile enemy thieves are significantly less dangerous than Rogue Rebalancing ones, since the base backstab is only x2 and I don't think they're given feats to increase it, so... We dispel their invisibility anyways, but we're out of Irenicus' dungeon with almost no threat to us.
Plot happens, we begin SoA proper. Invisibility 15" once we get into the circus allows us to bypass the worst of the illusions. Since Thael is a C/M himself, this is one of the few times I don't feel like Aerie would actually help, and we continue with Minsc, Jaheira, and Yoshimo. Kalah falls after a bit of coercion.
A possibly fatal situation is avoided in the Copper Coronet: one of the mage guards cast Horror, and in fact managed to fear multiple of us including Thael… But Thael had cast Remove Fear maybe a second before affected by Horror, and the spell projectile was enough to restore the party's senses.
The Beastmaster is usually a bit of a meatgrinder, but a summoned Spirit Bear from Jaheira (1xday innate from being a F/D, I guess) manages to take out the Beastmaster without turning everyone else aggressive. So much for Tabitha's loyalty. We take the key, and don't bother fighting the animals. Hendak takes his sweet time coming for Lehtinan, so we shoot him down ourselves. Anomen joins us temporarily. We still don't rest before the sewers, heading for the slaver compound. We clear it out with only some hitpoint damage from the Mustard Jelly and the Otyugh, and solving the riddle gives Thael another level and we finally rest.
We enter the compound under invisibility, and cover the staircase with a Cloudkill while Minsc and Yoshimo fight Haegan. And... they lose. Minsc dies to a throwing axe while trying to retreat, but Jaheira, Anomen and Thael clear the left successfully. Thael rests and raises Minsc, and the only other dangerous fight in the compound is negated with Cloudkill and Holy Smite.
So, party decisions: Thael and Jaheira can cover most divine spells, and Jaheira for now is a good front-liner with the Python and later a Wyvern form. Yoshimo and later Imoen covers thief skills, and Imoen also gives me a full mage. I'm a bit lacking in physical damage, but Minsc is 100% not safe to use: Scales of Balance is giving him penalties to every saving throw and an experience penalty for his awful mental stats that he's incredibly not worth using. I plan to use Keldorn, Mazzy, and Rasaad initially before realizing I have the Soultaker mod installed as well, and could then use Skie. Might not be the most optimal choice, but I'm curious to see how the mod works. We have 3 days before we can use Skie thanks to how the mod handles the Soultaker, so it's time to start some quests and pick up people.
Keldorn is the easiest one to get to: Cloudkill and web from out of view do a ton of damage to Tarnor the Hatchetman's gang, and arrows and bolts pick up the remaining ones. SCS sometimes has a group of Beholders teleport into the area, so we dismiss Minsc to the FAI, recruit Keldorn, and hoof it back aboveground and to Umar Hills.
Keldorn has Free Action on his armor, which is really useful for the Mimic since neither Thael nor Jaheira can cast the spell. The Ring of Free Action is going to be really useful once we get to Spellhold. Regardless, Jaheira also makes the saving throw and assists Keldorn in cleaning up the Mimic. Lilaarcor and Chaotic Commands lets the two of them safely take the Umber Hulks, and we finish up by clearing a Stone Golem.
In the ruined temple, we can't actually just rely on Fire Elementals to clean everything up like I'm used to: Jaheira doesn't have the spell, even if she had the level, due to the spheres. So since I feel like playing safely anyways, and we have no infinite ammo launchers besides the Throwing Axe +2, Keldorn hides behind an invisible wall and chucks axes and Anomen Turns Undead. If I were smart, I would've purchased Azuredge for this, but I'm stubborn and chop down the shadows 1 by 1. Mazzy helps a bit after being recruited, but we don't have too many magical arrows and she's relegated to sword duty for a bit. A misclick at the fight before the AMAUNATOR spelling trick thing reveals Thael, and we finally all break invisibility and fight our way through the rest of the temple. We rest, invis up, and approach the Shade Lord.
My usual method here... doesn't work, since I don't have a Ranger that can abuse Hide in Shadows to break aggro from the Shade Lord. An Enchanted Weapon on Mazzy allows her to kill Shadow Patrick and the Altar with regular arrows, with Anomen Turning Undead to clear the Shadows that spawn. I then try to have Mazzy shoot the Shade Lord and retreat... And he follows. Without enough invisibility potions to burn, we have to fight straight-on now, but I wasn't planning on this and have no way to break the Spell Turning/Protection from Magic Weapon combination that the Shade Lord innately casts. The Shade Lord targets Keldorn with a Finger of Death, which is shrugged off, and then a Chromatic Orb at Thael. Checking on my saving throws, Thael's not quite safe and drinks a Potion of Invulnerability. Again, if I were smart, I would throw up Shadow Door as well, but nope. It takes two or three cycles of all of this, and fortunately Keldorn saves against a second FoD, but the Shade Lord falls.
We return, set up a trading agreement between Umar and the resident monsters, find Valygar to unlock the Sphere, and return back to Nem to set Skie's soul free. It's set up as a series of fights, which though we take some damage in, isn't enough to kill any of us. She'll be available for recruitment in a few days, if I understand the mod correctly.
Three more quests are quickly done: Rune Assassins in the Tanner's basement are dealt with by having Keldorn exhaust their invisibility potions with Ilbratha, invisibility of his own, and True Seeing, and the others can overwhelm the Ghasts and Bone Golem.
Secondly, after like 10 area transitions, we finally find the two ambushes and do the Harper Hold quests with nothing of interest to report. Well, except getting Jaheira cursed and having to do the third quest to kill Ployer on her behalf, but whatever. A bit of running around has Keldorn return home to his wife temporarily, and we're at the De'Arnise Keep in his absence.
Ah, it's possible to shoot the Shade Lord and then immediately disengage and stealth, so he never gets to cast a spell or even attack. Unlike, say, the Bandit camp, he won't follow characters that turn invisible or stealth. I suppose a Thief can perform the same thing, but I've always used a ranger for the Hide in Shadows.
Theoretically it's still possible even without stealth, but I messed it up early on and had no stealth to fall back on and had to take the fight in full.
Narial the Undead Hunter, continuation of 3rd attempt
I am excited to say that Narial and her party have completed the Ice Island, Durlag's Tower, killed the cultists and Aec'Letec, saved Duke Eltan and both of the Grand Dukes at the palace and are now ready to enter the thieves' maze!
The ice island was not too difficult, I'm not going to share postcards from there. I decided to skip the Isle of Balduran, because I didn't go there during my first playthrough, heard that it can be tough, and won't head into unknown territory during a no-reload. Next time.
Durlag's Tower:
I've read somewhere that you can fight the four warders (or wardens?) one by one. I have no idea how. We fought them all at once. But since they had threatened us before, I considered it okay to cast Remove Fear and Haste on us before talking to the last one, just in case.
Fortunately, we were out of the area where Avarice cast Cloudkill. And I forgot to use the Greenstone Amulet again, and Love almost Dire Charmed me. I took a Potion of Magic Blocking just in time.
Love was the first one to die, Pride the last. How poetic. And the nasty invisible Avarice almost killed Minsc.
On the second level, I noticed again that cleric spells are really amazing, they just have those incredibly long casting times...
Branwen couldn't even say the first letter of Zone of Sweet Air, until she fell unconscious. We survived with a lot of kiting, ranged weapons, and temporarily hiding Imoen and Alora in the lever room. When Branwen finally woke up and finished her spell, there was only one Greater Doppelganger left.
Imoen reached level 6 after the next fight. That alone was already worth coming here.
The Dwarven Doom Guards had killed me during my first run, but this time I knew better than to run into their room. I drew them out into the hallway one by one and tanked them while the others fired. Nothing complicated.
That stupid Ashirukuru room cost me about 10 Elixier of Health. I don't know why I felt that I *had* to kill them.
I got a little careless with the Greater Wyverns, one of them almost got me. Then, the dreaded chess board. I was too nervous to take many screenshots. Minsc and Alora died, the rest of us took Potions of Absorption. We killed the king and queen quickly with fireballs and flamestrike from wands, but only the pawns fell with them, the two bishops kept fighting. We caught them in a web and fired at them.
Here just an "it's over, but we were there" picture. As I said, too nervous during the fight.
We let Islanne teleport us out, Raise our dead companions, sell our loot, and then we walked back and finished the last level. After getting information from Clair, we buffed to the teeth and walked in to face the Demon Knight. I wish I hadn't used the mirror, because one of the Mirror Fiends landed the killing blow on the Demon Knight and therefore robbed us of 15000XP!
We finished the mirror fiends mostly with elemental arrows, but one of them threw Confusion at me. I hadn't used the Greenstone Amulet, again. And this time I wasn't even fast enough with the potion.
Even Confused I kept hitting the bad guys, which was good, but then (with Boots of Speed and Hasted) I ran around when they were all dead, and started to attack poor Dalton, who then turned hostile!
Imoen stopped me with a Dart of Stunning, and then Ajantis tried to charm Dalton with the Nymph Cloak. He always saved, so Imoen cast Greater Malison from a scroll, and then it worked, and we sent him back to his mom.
We took down the cultists at Ulgoth's Beard (one of the assassins stabbed Alora to death, but didn't chunk her) and then prepared to face Aec'Letec.
We took Potions of Mirrored Eyes at the last possible moment. We focused our attacks on the cultists and kited Aec'Letec until all the others were dead. We had buffed enough that his Hold and other stuff didn't work, but he damaged Minsc and Ajantis a bit before we could face him. He's not that difficult to fight once he's alone.
I don't remember when exactly it happened, but Imoen has reached level 7, and we found a Stoneskin scroll for her to scribe, yay!
It was time to go back to the city. We found proof against Sarevok at the Iron Throne with as little fighting as possible. Wands of Sleep and Paralyzation got us past the Flaming Fist, and we took Duke Eltan to the harbor master.
We got the invitations from the Undercellar and went to the Ducal Palace.
I had placed myself, Ajantis and Minsc as meat shields in front of the dukes, but Belt kept wandering off. At one point I thought Liia wouldn't make it, but we always had the archers take down those closest to them and placed the tanks between them to attack, and Ajantis decided to Lay Hands on Liia, just in case .
A paladin does what's required. Then Sarevok whacked me quite a bit with his sword and disappeared.
Now we're at the entrance to the thieves' maze, ready for the finale.
Edit: Forgot to mention, I used our money from Durlag's Tower mostly to stack up on potions, and to recharge the Greenstone Amulet.
We have just finished D'Arnise Keep. Jan killed most of the trolls with his firetooth crossbow. We ran across the dreaded "black portraits death" bug. My main character was full health and the single troll hadn't even made its 1st attack yet. Clearly a bug so will reload.
This bug sure messes with the spirit of no-reload play... the run continues...
Sad way to die - personally, while I relented last time, I hate dying when it's obviously a bug. My mistake? Absolutely! But a bug? As long as it takes me to play one time through, dying six months into it is really, really discouraging if I didn't drop the ball myself. Last time was in the Ducal Palace - I wiped everyone out, and then died. Argh.
ISRA was indebted to her friend Sirine. She sat in her scented bath, as clerics and Paladins of Συνε are want to do before their daily prayers. Up until now, for over seven months she only washed her hands – the minimum required – and Isra was not one to strive for the minimum. The last time she had had a chance to properly prepare for worshipping her goddess was before she consented to protect Prism near the Nashkel Mines. Sirine knew it was bothering her friend and interceded with Keldorn to provide a private corner of the vestibule at the Song of the Morning to allow Isra to properly worship. The fact that Συνε and Λαθανδερ were long allied made it an easy decision for Keldorn, besides, he looked on Sirine almost as a daughter he never had.
Isra arrived early this morning, before any of her companions had stirred at the Burning Wizard and she would be back well before daylight. Late last night they returned from a trek that began at the Lighthouse, north to the Shipwrecks Coast across Lion’s and Coast Ways to Mutamin’s Garden and finally, Spider Wood. Everyone, including Isra, was exhausted the night before and Dispenser dispensed with his concerns about confronting the Flaming Fist, deciding to stay at the Burning Wizard.
Isra rose from her bath, toweled off behind a petition that Keldorn provided for her privacy, perfumed herself, and readied herself to pray. Looking back, she was thankful that she, all of them, did not lose their leader, Dispenser, at the Shipwrecks Coast. Late in the evening, after marching and fighting all day, a Nereid approached Dispenser and, before he could do anything, kissed him, and came within a gnat’s arse of killing him. The Nereid did not last long after that but then an Ogre Mage, who stole her essence, appeared just as the confrontation escalated. He was a tough customer, as Ogre Mages usually are, but he paid for his affront dearly.
NASTY OGRE MAGE!
She remembered, also, the uneasiness of battling in Mutamin’s Garden. Even with her unbridled courage in battle, the thought of instant death upon the gaze of a Basilisk was unnerving. Despite that, however, with Indira’s help – Protection from Petrification spells – the party was able to destroy two greater and eight lesser Basilisks in just a few hours, ridding the garden of further danger from petrification. The evil mind behind the garden, Mutamin, proved little more than a bully, easily dispensed with.
WARPED GNOME
PARTY INFO
ORDER OF MARCH: Indira (recon), Sirine & Isra (shock), Dispenser (leader), Imoen (Traps), Valerie (Arcane support)
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Resting, recuperating & resupplying at Beregost (Burning Wizard)
NEXT STEPS: Friendly Arm Inn, Fishing Village, Wyrm’s Crossing, Farmlands to Ulgoth’s Beard
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 20 - Heroic)
Dispenser: Cleric (Holy Justice of Tyr)/7 (HP 49) Mail of the Dead +2, Shield of the Stars +1 w/Girdle of Bluntness & Ring of Free Action; L/Sword +2/+1* & Warhammer +2/ (+1)* (SWS*) & Wand of the Heavens; Spells: Defensive Harmony, Animate Dead, Dispel Magic, Holy Smite, Chant, Draw/Holy Might, Hold Person, Silence 15’, Slow Poison, Bless, Command, Doom, Protection from Evil; Remove Fear; Abilities: Cure Affliction (2), Healing Touch (2), Hold person, Strength of One; Divine Might; (None) (1)
Sirine: Paladin of Ilmatar (Martyr)/7 (HP 56) Full Plate & Cloak of Protection +2; 2H/Sword +1** (Flail**, THWS**) & Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise; Abilities: Sacrifice, Martyrdom, Lay on Hands (3), D/Evil (8); (Advanced AI) (2)
Isra: Paladin (Cavalier of Sune)/7 (HP 61) Fallorain’s Plate Mail +1 w/2H/Sword +2 (Spiders Bane)** & Morning Star +1** w/ Gauntlet’s of Weapon Skill, (THWS**, Mc/MS*), ), Abilities: Remove Fear (6), Prot/Evil (6), Lay Hands, D/Evil (9), Cure Disease; (Advanced AI) (3)
Indira: Fighter/Mage 6/5 (HP 29) Indira’s Chain Vest, Ring of Protection +2,Girdle of Piercing & Boots of Speed; Composite Short Bow +1*** w/Bracers of Archery & L/Sword +1***; Spells; Haste, Melf’s Acid Arrow (2), Magic Missile (4); (Advanced AI) (4)
Imoen: Thief/Adventurer//8 (HP 47) Leather w/Ring/Prot +1; S/bow +1* & Dagger of Venom* (Short Sword/Ninja-to*); Skills: OL 90, PP 45, FT 90, MS 85, HS 90, DI 25, ST 30, w/Master Belt & Boots of Stealth; (Thief Ranged) (6)
Valerie: Sorcerer/7 (HP 20) Robe of the Good Arch-Magi & Ring/Protection +1; Ring Energy, Necklace of Missiles, Sling +1* (Dart*); Spells: Remove Magic, Spell Thrust, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Ray of Enfeeblement (5), Web, Magic Missile (5), Chromatic Orb (#), Spook (5),Sleep (5), (Advanced AI) (5)
@CharlestonianTemplar is back! I love that we have two passionate roleplayers who exhibit the paladin ethos in you and @Arvia. This is what Baldur's Gate is all about!
You can avoid it by simply saving and reloading once. The game runs out of object slots and, to avoid crashing, it simply drops the ones it already has, and because it then fails to find the protagonist, the game ends. Objects are re-loaded whenever you enter a different Master Area (basically, any area big enough to be on the world map), so doing that also saves you from this bug.
By "Objects" I mean anything with graphics that gets represented in-game: from projectiles fired to the protagonist to I think even some spell effects, they all share the same (limited) amount of slots.
Credit for this info goes all to @Bubb, I'm just posting about it because it has a very simple solution given (I think reloading in this case is fine. Same if your game gets stuck playing the Bear death sound) how annoying the problem really is.
@CharlestonianTemplar , now at last I know who my "teacher" was talking about. @BelgarathMTH had mentioned you when I was reporting my first BG:EE playthrough in his Minimal Reload thread, doing a fully roleplayed paladin run and trying myself at some storytelling along the way.
I love to read roleplay stories in run reports, and I'm always glad to see that we paladin players aren't such a minority after all .
I had Gavin in the party and was waiting for him to be summoned to the temple to be given his quests, but for some reason that hasn't happened so I took him to the temple and dropped him before doing anything else. Though we did clear the area where the caves are first.
The followers of Kelemvor Continued
We visited the basilsik area where I read a scroll in order to avoid being petrified.
We then went down the mines. (Sorry, no screenshots)
We picked up Xan, helped some lady ogres with their diet and killed the assassins in Nashkel.
EDIT
I have discovered from reading posts from Gavin's creator that BGT messes up Gavin's quest. I could have waited for ever and nothing would have triggered.
Xan's quest triggered and after freeing the slaves we took them to the Friendly Arms Inn. We left Xan there to make room for Dynaheir. We will now go in search of her and Aaron.
@CharlestonianTemplar is back! I love that we have two passionate roleplayers who exhibit the paladin ethos in you and @Arvia. This is what Baldur's Gate is all about!
Thanks buddy. I appreciate that much. Dispenser and his holy ladies will keep plugging along in between breaks from my seminary graduate thesis and CS Lewis Fellowship. Ugh.
Narial the Undead Hunter, end of 3rd attempt or "How Sarevok became the Lord of Murder"
I died during the final battle. But I've learned a lot.
I'm glad for the information that disarming a trap doesn't break Invisibility, although it says so in the spell description:
I had believed that before, and progress through every dungeon had been painstakingly slow, with my rogue alternating between Hide in Shadows and Find Traps, creeping forward, becoming visible while disarming, rushing back and hiding again, and of course always taking multiple attempts to hide successfully...
Now, I could let Alora walk ahead through the Thieves' Maze, disarm every trap even among Skeleton Warriors, then put her back into safety and take care of them with my Undead Hunter.
She checked the path in the Undercity, spotting a suspicious group. We approached carefully, ready for battle. They talked to us and then attacked, and we hurled Potions of Explosion and Oils of Fiery Burning at them and engaged the survivers.
I had forgotten that one of them had Arrows of Detonation, so we had to go back to a temple to raise Imoen.
I then cleansed the ruins of all the undead abominations and met Tamako in front of the temple. I pulled her back to the others in case she wanted to attack. I had been forced to kill her during my first playthrough, but either I had different dialogue options now, or paid more attention to them. I was glad to find a peaceful solution.
And then, my big mistake.
I see now that I had won the final battle during my first playthrough at the first attempt through sheer, dumb luck. Back then, I had just buffed with everything I had, rushed in with my party, triggered all the traps, taken a Potion of Freedom at the last moment, kept the spellcasters occupied with my archers and tanked Sarevok. Then he died and it was over, without giving me the chance to kill Semaj and Angelo.
I wanted to approach it more carefully this time. So, I had my buffed party wait in the background, took Alora to explore and disarm the traps, which didn't work, even with buffed Find Traps at 150 or something (*can* they even be disarmed?).
Anyway, somehow Sarevok spotted us despite her invisibility, and then the fight started without giving us the opportunity to position ourselves. I hadn't known in which order to do Haste/Potion of Freedom. We had taken the potions first, and Haste didn't work. So, we were slow to position ourselves, targeted the wrong spellcaster to interrupt, got dispelled (I think that was Angelo), and didn't have time to renew the more important buffs. I immediately failed against Web and Stinking Cloud and fell unconscious with Sarevok right beside me, and none of the others could distract him from hacking me to death. End of story.
(I have tried again and succeeded after another two reloads. I think I know better what to expect now, and to make Angelo a priority target, and to scatter my party and them. *And* to use those Arrows of Dispelling that I found in Durlag's Tower)
Okay, this has been fun. I'm sad that it's over, but also glad I've made it that far. But I think I'm going to finish SoD with my other paladin (with reloads) first before I try again. So that I know what to expect in SoD, of course, because some day I'm going to make it through the final battle, too!
Getting to Sarevok is in itself a pretty neat feat for your 3rd attempt, especially since you went into Durlag's: I consider that much, much harder than the main quest and always avoid the lower levels. I'd recommend using another Protection from Magic scroll on your CHARNAME for the final battle though: there're 4 that I know of/are easy to get: High Hedge, Sorcerous Sundries, top level of Ramazith's tower, and Hafiz in the area with Samuel the Deserter. Of those, I use one at Davaeorn, one at Sarevok, one at the Siege of Dragonspear itself, and one for Belhifet if CHARNAME isn't a caster.
The traps in the middle cannot be disarmed and are repeated traps, for whatever it's worth: you either have to trigger them with a safe character to get the Webs and such in the center, or just avoid them.
I wanted to approach it more carefully this time. So, I had my buffed party wait in the background, took Alora to explore and disarm the traps, which didn't work, even with buffed Find Traps at 150 or something (*can* they even be disarmed?).
Anyway, somehow Sarevok spotted us despite her invisibility, and then the fight started without giving us the opportunity to position ourselves. I hadn't known in which order to do Haste/Potion of Freedom. We had taken the potions first, and Haste didn't work. So, we were slow to position ourselves, targeted the wrong spellcaster to interrupt, got dispelled (I think that was Angelo), and didn't have time to renew the more important buffs. I immediately failed against Web and Stinking Cloud and fell unconscious with Sarevok right beside me, and none of the others could distract him from hacking me to death. End of story.
@Arvia the lightning traps on the left side of the temple can be disarmed. The traps in the central area can be seen, but not disarmed. The stinking cloud and web 'traps' can't even be detected (as can't the spaces on the right of the temple that generate battle horrors).
Sarevok can initiate his dialogue on an invisible person, but won't himself do anything further if you don't take any action. The only one of his friends that will react following the dialogue is Semaj - he will teleport towards the temple door, but can't see invisible either. It's thus possible to get the jump on Semaj and kill him before deciding what to do about the others.
My last couple of attempts have been with a true-class mage and a sorcerer - both of those died prior to getting into BG2 as I started taking greater and greater risks and eventually came a cropper. That's probably indicative of me playing too much, but rather than take a break immediately I thought I would have another go with the sorcerer and try and discipline myself to getting as far as possible without taking any damage.
Typically, after leaving Candlekeep I head straight for Shoal, but there's a chance of a single kobold archer on that route. It won't necessarily get a shot in if it gets a poor initiative roll, but I avoided the risk of that by going straight to Beregost.
In Beregost some spiders were pulled out of their house and blinded. The same then happened to Silke to get my first level.
Some further minor tasks around the town ended with Perdue getting his sword back to provide another level.
Algernon was then killed for his cloak and that was put to use to pull sirines out of the temple. Three of those in turn were worn down by wild dogs and finished off to get me to level 4 - gaining invisibility and the opportunity to rest and travel in safety (so long as I remember to use it ).
In the next area, Korax followed me down to the south of the map before being charmed. He acted as the target while sorting out the southern group of basilisks - getting me to level 5.
The northern basilisks soon followed, before I went invisible for total safety while Korax paralyzed Mutamin - that left me just shy of level 6, but with Korax's job done he provided the missing XP.
Kirian's friends were all blinded before she was stuck in a web and blinded - skull traps then put a mercifully quick end to them.
A trip to the FAI saw an ogre cut down by magic missiles to get his belt. I picked up the ring of wizardry before webbing Tarnesh from out of sight. Further north, Tenya got her bowl back while the nearby ankheg surfaced into a web just as I disappeared (going invisible while in sight means the ankheg doesn't go back underground).
At Ulgoth's Beard Dushai was killed for her ring (attacking her no longer makes villagers hostile in the current EE, though you still lose reputation).
At the Lake area I activated a number of the gnolls around Drizzt without going into his sight range. I was quite prepared to allow them to kill Drizzt, but when one broke its weapon I picked off all the others so that Drizzt would be rendered unconscious - providing an easy XP haul.
With reputation down to 3 visiting civilized areas would have been dangerous. I also wanted to boost reputation to get the good awards rather than arcane spells given I would have so many of those anyway. The first port of call was the Lighthouse area where some worgs were enough for level 7.
High charisma overcame poor reputation to persuade Charleston Nib to seek help and that also gave a bit more quick XP from the Doomsayer. A dryad's tree was saved, Greywolf was intercepted, Arabelle kept intact, Firebead given some reading and Mr Colquetle handed an amulet before I rested to get CLW.
Sorcerer L7, 36 HPs, 99 kills
Edit: always a bad move to post. Almost immediately after doing that I misjudged where a web was and got stuck in the edge of it with a ghast bearing down ...
@CharlestonianTemplar is back! I love that we have two passionate roleplayers who exhibit the paladin ethos in you and @Arvia. This is what Baldur's Gate is all about!
Thanks buddy. I appreciate that much. Dispenser and his holy ladies will keep plugging along in between breaks from my seminary graduate thesis and CS Lewis Fellowship. Ugh.
I will be returning to having paladin parties soon. My current party is led by a paladin and has in it another (Isra).
However, I may try out something else first. There are a few types of parties that I would like to investigate. Of late I have been trying out mixed parties that serve the same god. They tend to be a bit unbalanced, but are quite fun.
My current party has just released Dynaheir and Aaron. However, it is now time for bed. Dynaheir's diary can wait. My current party is lawful good except for Tenya. We are hoping to turn her to the good path however.
EDIT
We helped Drizzt against some gnolls and killed some half-ogres. We then went in search of Dynaheir's diary and found it. We then visited a new area where we were attacked by wizards of Thay. They died as a result.
After dying to a Bear in an ambush (was off-screen, ran into it, then pressed M instead of pausing. Died instantly), I created a human Avenger, Ceres, and decided to play it safe, so I did the Beregost quests for level 2, Shoal for level 4, and the Basilisks for level 7. Currently at the Nashkel Mines, a variety of quests have been resolved, but nothing worth mentioning. Real stats are STR 10 and DEX 18.
Going solo until I have a reason not to, since Avengers progress very fast in BG1.
Edit: always a bad move to post. Almost immediately after doing that I misjudged where a web was and got stuck in the edge of it with a ghast bearing down ...
Playing an Avenger made me notice how the AoE indicator for Web is slightly smaller than the real radius of the spell, and it's already made me land it unto myself once (and that was the last time I used it before I got level 7).
We proceeded to the bandit camp where Tazok was defeated but not killed. In the ensuing battle we killed all the bandits that we encountered, web being a mixed blessing as some of us got caught in our own web. We did however prevail though Tenya was killed.
We went to get her raised and then sold some of our equipment and scalps thus becoming quite rich. Perhaps shopping will soon be in order.
We encountered Tranzig and were merciful to him, perhaps a bad idea that!
We aldo encountered Tristan and Isolde and killed them without compunction. Summoned weasels helped reduce their attacks upon us.
EDIT
We headed northward were we killed Necardian and cohorts before moving on to the Camp once more.
There were only 8 live bandits there who we killed before looting the tents.
We then killed Brotus Bloodthirsty et al, but not before he killed Isra. We will therefore raise Isra before returning to the FAI.
I showed how great I am by asking Neera to lay 3 skull traps before talking to the doorman... a +3 sword later we moved on
the big boss died easy this trip with everyone having at least 1 +3 weapon, killing his mage pet was really the only obstacle to success... well that and the fact I spend the bulk of the fight running around paniced
as a side note the lords released me but that is a poor reward so perhaps being a miss goody goody isn't my best option now that I must get out of the city?
The first dungeon is kinda tricky with our group. We still only have Mirror Image to block attacks, and a stray backstab could easily kill one of us. Resting is dicey since there's a chance that a whole bunch of skeletons will spawn, and there's not much room to rest if we get too many skeleton spawns while trying to rest under invisibility. We really need to take down Porios in one go.
How do we do this? Well, there's a convenient little bridge right before the first fight, and we can block it off with just two invisible sorcerers. Once we've scouted out the other enemies, a sorcerer to the southeast can fire a Lance of Disruption while too far out of reach for the enemies to get us.
Aiming the Lance of Disruption is actually really tricky at these long distances, since a single pixel can throw off the lance by several circles. It takes a lot of finagling, but we manage to sneak a lance through the door and splatter Porios.
We still only have so many castings of Lance of Disruption, though, and we need to shuffle out the sorcerers since a sorcerer can't serve as an invisible wall and fire off offensive spells at the same time. One of the archers nails us with an Arrow of Biting while we're trying to pick off individual enemies with Magic Missile, but we have a Bhaalspawn Slow Poison for that.
Things get more complicated when it comes to Porios' room, since the guards are at a weird angle where we can't hit them with LoD unless we're inside the room and therefore vulnerable. We solve the problem by placing two characters at the doorway to form an invisible wall, then Webbing the fighters so they won't run out of range of Magic Missile.
We have to be very careful about our spell slots. You'd think a party of sorcerers would never run low on spells, but a lot of fights really drain our resources since we don't have any damage output or defenses that don't rely on our spell slots.
Since we're on Tactical/Core difficulty, there are no Bone Bats in the next area, which means we can safely reach Korlasz just with Invisibility. We Web her and blast her before dialogue for a safe kill.
Arriving at Coastway Crossing, saving M'Khiin, and slaying the local critters with LoD and Magic Missile bumps the little sorcerers up to level 7. For the dwarves of Dumathoin, we make sure to kill the level-draining wights with Magic Missile so they won't shatter any of the dwarves and destroy their amulets, which we'll need if we want to recruit the help of the Coldhearth Lich. We clear out most of the lich's dungeon's undead with LoD and MM, as well as a few enemies in the Troll Claw Woods, because we really need the XP for some upcoming fights, but trade out one sorcerer for Baeloth, who is much sturdier than any of us.
I somehow anger Morentherene, and suddenly we have a young green dragon on top us. When she nails us with a wing buffet, I realize we need outside help to handle the situation.
She slays one of our sorcerers before we escape, and since we can't kick out that party member without losing them forever, we have to stay with a party of 5 until we have enough XP for Viconia or M'Khiin to cast Raise Dead for us. But that's a long way away.
In the meantime, we minimize the risk to our party by replacing all of our other sorcerers with NPCs. Edwin and Baeloth summon critters to hold off Morentherene while we make progress with Magic Missiles and some Sun Soulrays from Rasaad.
Morentherene doesn't obliterate us with her poison breath weapon as I feared, allowing us to bring her down before we ran out of summoning spells. We trade out some NPCs so our sorcerers will keep gathering XP, but keep Safana so we can set some traps.
Since the bugbears include some Stalkers with a backstab multiplier, we kill them in safe batches by running in and out of the room. That doesn't let us kill the invisible Stalkers, of course, but it does mean there's less pressure on our Mirror Images from the other enemies, allowing us to dodge the backstabs when they do come.
Now that we're a safe distance from the surviving bugbears and won't immediately appear in front of them, we can Web the others out of sight and safely dispose of them. We then lance Ziatar from range.
Before fighting the Neothelid, I trade back our sorcerers for some NPCs, since I'm afraid the Neothelid will apply too much pressure. Its Magical Swords soak up Safana's traps, but we deal fast damage to the Neothelid when it appears... only for the Neothelid to blast us with its breath weapon at the last second, instantly killing Edwin.
Fortunately, our sorcerers survive the blast, so Edwin was the only death. He's not worth sacrificing a precious party slot, so we kick him out of the party, making it impossible for us to raise him later.
For Akanna, we lure an Aerial Servant into some traps to soften it up and finish it off with Magic Missiles. It eases up on the pressure when we face Akanna herself, who falls quickly to Magic Missiles.
We don't bother with Darskhelin because he's far too dangerous due to his 90% magic resistance, but we do go around killing every monster we can find to make sure we're as high-level as possible for the Bridgefort fight.
Since we don't have nearly enough spell slots to win the fight with the Barghest, we surrender the fort and focus on the bridge battle itself. A Spell Thrust takes down the Bridge Mage's troublesome MGOI, allowing us to blast her with Skull Trap. Baeloth lands Dispel Magic on her as well, opening her up for a barrage of Magic Missiles.
Notice that Khalid has joined the party--he insisted, and I'm not sure it's possible to surrender the fort without bringing him along. The enemies put him down quickly due to his lack of armor, and we barely manage to win the fight by Webbing the archers until we can finish off the fighters with spell damage.
We dump Khalid and retrieve the sorcerer we left at the fort, and we keep hunting for XP. We get a nasty scare when a Bombardier Beetle sneaks up on us and an orog nearly kills one of us with a backstab, but we suffer no fatalities. During Dosia's quest, we kill the Greater Basilisk by Webbing it, but I've never seen it actually attack anyone before, and last I checked its APR was set to zero in Near Infinity.
We have no defense against the Web Tangle or unconsciousness poison of Gargantuan Spiders, so when the time comes to approach the Underground River, we set up a wall of Skull Traps before lancing the spiders at range. We blast the Cyclops and his friends with spell damage, and while there are a couple of nasty mages about, the southwest mage arrives without MGOI and the druids we rescued far northwest summon some critters to help us out, allowing us to wait for a Sword Spider to slay the other mage.
In the Underground River, we slay Strunk with a great volley of Magic Missiles, earning us another level and finally getting Stoneskin on all of our sorcerers except for the dead one. We let the Ettin Ghost kill a few Crusaders before we realize it'll be much harder on us due to its 100% magic resistance, and so we get past its MR using Lance of Disruption.
Since we have lots of Spirit Armor spells, we can get immunity to a lot of disablers by stacking Spirit Armor for negative saves vs. spell--that means it's a bit safer for us to handle the myconids and umber hulks to the south. We Web Ferrusk and bomb him with Skull Trap, but we find the enemies to the west to be more troublesome, as a Gargantuan Spider survives our barrage of Skull Traps and snares one of our sorcerers. Only an Invisibility spell at the last minute keeps them safe from getting crushed by a Dark Treant.
We fight some shadows in a cave for a little extra XP, but I back out when I see an invisible wraith is targeting us as well, and we're not well-poised to deal with level drain. We also slay two Albino Wyrmlings before an acid breath weapon nearly kills us and convinces us to bail.
I rest a few times to spawn some enemies. We can't deal with spider ambushes, but the Dark Treants that spawn on resting in this area are worth 4000 XP each and are easy to take down with Magic Missiles alone. I kill a few until we finally hit 250,000 XP on Charname. That's enough for level 10 and therefore our first level 5 spell pick, Lower Resistance.
More importantly, it means that when Viconia joins our party, she gets bumped up to level 9, finally allowing us to raise our fallen sorcerer!
Having the party back together again fills us with determination.
Comments
Previous updates:
After going through BG1 yesterday morning, I was aiming to do the same to SoD this morning ... but started making too many mistakes towards the end and didn't quite make it
In the SoD dungeon, Porios was coerced into surrendering without a fight. The undead downstairs were killed using a PfU scroll, while the mercenaries were overcome in a running fight. Korlasz was hit with dispelling arrows and persuaded to surrender, but didn't leave quickly enough to survive her retreat.
In Baldur's Gate I killed a few NPCs and stripped their items. The only quest I did was to get the tankard helmet (which protects against fatigue) in case I want to use that during the fight with Belhifet.
After moving out with the army I headed straight for the Coast Way Forest. Helping the vampire there gets you a regeneration ioun stone and that was pretty much secured after 2 acid arrows killed the mage before he could buff. I don't typically bother with Teleria back in the starting area (even though he's an easy victim as he doesn't retaliate if you attack from long range). This time though I decided to double-check whether the Stone Ally was usable by a wizard slayer (unsurprisingly, it wasn't). At the bridge I had no means of going invisible, but if you're quick enough to move behind the tent out of sight you can avoid any attacks anyway until Caelar comes to negotiate.
I just ran through the Troll Claw Woods, ignoring attackers, on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. There was bow work to get through the enemies outside the temple, but some of those inside required melee to avoid dragging in more opponents. However, the damage taken was recovered using regeneration to open the way to the temple proper. Before facing magic threats though I decided to retreat and do some more travelling.
The idea of that was to find the ambush area with the myconids - and a few transitions later I did that. The goblins above ground had a witch doctor, but horror and some quick shooting disposed of him and the rest of the goblins were no threat. The first group of myconids only used confusion and even if confused (which I wasn't) I was confident I could beat them up. The second lot included a feeble-mind effect from a blue myconid, so I softened them up with an exploding arrow before retreating back out of sight. I saved against the following effects anyway though and finished off the myconid with another shot. The prize there was the Spell Breaker sword - providing me with a bonus of 4 to spell saves.
Back at the temple I worked through Ziatar's guards before tackling the main manhalf-dragon. He failed to save against a first attempted horror and was shot down before he could recover. The Neothelid was a more dangerous opponent. He uses non-magical attacks, which I had no way of protecting 100% against, so was aiming to just get past him as quickly as possible, kill Akanna for the wardstone and run away. After running past the Neothelid initially, two exploding arrows badly hurt Akanna before she disappeared and a sunfire from the Suncatcher shield finished her off immediately afterwards. Annoyingly though, the Neothelid appeared totally blocking the corridor exit and continued to move towards me, pinning me in place in the doorway against a magical sword and an aerial servant. Things looked extremely bleak there against such high-damage opponents and with no good options I used a greater restoration scroll to recover HPs and switched to scimitar to try and hack a way out. I was lucky there - getting 2 criticals in my next 4 attacks to kill the aerial servant, while it missed one of its attacks.
On the way out the 5th dagger thrown found its way into Morentherene's heart. I also realised that I'd hit the XP cap at some point in the temple and took my 10th level.
At Boareskyr Bridge I used the dragon scales to get a shield upgrade. Typically I kill Vichand to get his scroll, but decided not to take the risk this time of him disappearing (if you don't kill him quickly the whole camp goes hostile) and just intimidated him into handing it over. After shooting down a dark wraith I made some arrows out of the spell stone shards before going to surrender the fort. That still left a potentially difficult battle with the mage on the bridge as I had no guaranteed way to disrupt his spells. However, with THAC0 of 1 with my bow, dispelling arrows had a good chance to hit and the 3rd of those got through. A Bhaal horror got most of the guards off my back while I finished off the mage.
At the Coalition Camp I picked up the Bwoosh and poison and also talked to Helvdar about his boots. I wouldn't normally bother with those, but the +3 to saving throws for dwarves are pretty tempting to a wizard slayer and worth the effort of killing various enemies on the way to find a bearskin.
After rescuing Imoen from the Castle I went to the Underground River. With saving throws now much better the myconids there were no problem and they handed over a Bloom-sac for summoning some helpers - surprisingly, that's counted as a natural item that wizard slayers are able to use. The Soft-feet boots protected against web tangle from the gargantuan spider on the way to find the cyclops. A running fight dealt with the mages and the rest of the guards there easily enough to open the way to the underground area. Inside there I couldn't resist killing Strunk, along with an investigating patrol. I then placed the barrel of Bwoosh and blagged a way into the inner area.
The priest there offered a few more restoration scrolls before I activated a PfM scroll and took the lift up. Myconids provided a distraction to ensure I didn't get blocked in while poisoning the food and water and waiting for Hephernaan to open the lift back up. Running for my life I then just managed to get past the bridge near the exit before enemies could block it.
Back at the Camp exploding arrows were the order of the day and quickly dissolved the first 3 attacks. With 4 PfM scrolls left, I used one of those for safety while shooting up the final group. Swift Rabbit got one backstab in, but when he died in an explosion the danger was effectively over.
After resting up I headed for Dragonspear. Another PfM scroll and high missile avoidance stats meant Ashatiel had no real chance in a duel to quickly end the siege. Inside the castle I followed Caelar through the portal and just ran through the first area. In the second area I used exploding arrows to deal with the devils quickly - though they're immune to fire, the missile damage from those arrows also has an area effect. I took a couple of hits doing that though, as well as some arrows from the Erinyes. I also forgot about the fear effect from the bone fiend and was lucky to save against one of those before switching to Kiel's helmet (taken from Minsc).
I took Thrix's wager, even though none of his items are of use to me, before resting up again. Kiel's helmet, the lucky boots and Spell Breaker could have provided full protection against disablers while going up the lift, but I forgot I'd replaced the helm with the regeneration ioun stone before encountering the bone fiend and started running in terror. Although my saving throw against wands was 2, it was still a nervous time as I saved against 3 more fear auras before recovering my senses. Switching between scimitar and Spell Breaker whenever I saw a dire charm starting to be cast, allowed me to finish the enemies off safely.
However, I put back on the regeneration ioun stone for the remainder of the lift journey and got caught out when affected by fear before I had a chance to change back after the cut scene. Caelar did pretty well to survive until I recovered and my first thought was to try and bring her back from near death with a restoration scroll. Unfortunately I hadn't equipped either Spell Breaker or Spider's Bane and Belhifet took full advantage with an immediate hold person - I don't think I've ever died as a result of that against him before ...
Names were never my strong suit
I got a bit ahead with the game without posting on his progress. We had managed to defeat Sarevok and, after skipping SoD, Ammanas was last seen approaching D'Arnise Keep on his own. That was when I got a restartisis stroke, as I was feeling the urge to play a more staightforward character. Sorry to disappoint - I'm certainly hoping to be back with a different run.
Regards,
B.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1093046/#Comment_1093046
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1095922/#Comment_1095922
The first action of the session saw Sansuki calling for help. We were willing to do so, but that was a potential problem when 3 vampires appeared right next to Reprise - who had no immunity to level drain. Kaliara bravely strode forward to try and get their attention and a bit of running round later Azuredge had claimed 3 more victims at the cost of a single hit for Kaliara.
We'd already picked up an ugly necklace for Mae'Var, so the next task for him was to sort out Rayic Gethras. Kaliara thought she had the perfect answer there by sending in a nishruu, only to find that banished by a remove magic from the mage (we're not totally sure if that's a MP glitch or just an undocumented feature of a spell we don't use much). A skeleton warrior proved sufficient as a replacement distraction though.
The remaining tasks were swiftly done before an attack on the guild. Kaliara brought out her new pet area effect there with a death fog - its acid vapours fortunately not quite extending far enough into the slave cage to claim another innocent victim.
Back at Watcher's Keep there were no vampiric wraiths waiting, making an initial entrance easy. Reprise used a stone giant potion, which would be sufficient in combination with DUHM to break open the chest with the Crimson Dart. Of course it might have been better to wait to take the potion until he had checked whether he had a DUHM left for the day
Reprise couldn't think of a worthwhile next target, until Kaliara mentioned she had a bit of a hankering for a really magical staff. With the phrase "I'm game to die if you are" ringing in his ears, Reprise quickly led the way to the Bridge District where he talked Kaliara through his foolproof plan for dealing with the Twisted Rune. A major component of that was the use of PfU scrolls and Kaliara enquired gently as he was beating a trapped door whether he had any such scrolls
The PfU scrolls used after talking to Shangalar worked a treat and Azuredge quickly finished him off.
After that excitement, a trip to the de'Arnise Hold was a bit of an anti-climax. The enemies there had no real chance, with the closest thing to danger being when Kaliara was caught in a golem's poison cloud - forcing Reprise to break off combat to get some use out of one of his Bhaal abilities.
The final action saw a trip to Umar Hills. Kaliara felt a bit aggrieved by being held by the Killer Mimic despite not being in the cave at the time - but that behavior is nothing new to us.
Reprise, dwarven defender 14, 143 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 325 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 14, 62 HPs (incl. 5 from ioun stone), 190 kills (+97 in BG1), 0 deaths (+2 in BG1)
After that we bought Little-little-ugh and took him to Ugh.
and then proceeded to do some more ankheg hunting.
In the Basilisk area we killed a party of "Adventurers." In my opinion, little better than bandits.
Then Precious was returned to Smeagol much to his delight.
Tenya then took us to meet Lethe whom we were forced to kill.
We later on killed a Revenant.
Introduction
Update 1Update 2
Surprisingly, I don't have to recreate my character from scratch: importing actually works this time! I did manage to lose two innate castings of Entangle but I couldn't care less, and for some reason Thael can't use two level 2 priest spell slots, but at this point those two low level spells aren't going to matter. I think it's SCS that allows all joinable NPCs to customize basically everything? Imoen gets some crossbow proficiencies so she can actually use the duergar's weapons.
The cons of this is that neither Jaheira nor Imoen have spells memorized: they leveled from level 0, and we're still only allowed 1 rest by SCS, and I'd rather not burn it this early on. Fortunately, Jaheira is still really useful due to Faith and Powers: she can shapeshift to a Python form to get -5 AC, and a poison damage-over-time on-hit on a failed death save. Minsc, at least for this early stage, is still useful: he can hit the Otyugh from stealth, retreat to a door, stealth again, and thus not take any damage while we have almost no spell resources to spare.
A Cloudkill from Thael takes out Illyich and co. in the library room, we shoot down the Cambion, and there's only traps and regular duergar left on this map. A bit of stealth from Minsc gets to the genie and back twice, claiming the Sword of Chaos, and after letting Yoshimo join we assault the Mephit portal room. Jaheira takes the lead, managing to avoid the Radiant Mephit's unconscious effect, and the rest follow swinging at the portal. We take our one rest here.
Ulvaryl isn't an issue with Enchanted Weapon remaining as one of Thael's level 4 picks, and the mage collapses moments later. Might & Guile enemy thieves are significantly less dangerous than Rogue Rebalancing ones, since the base backstab is only x2 and I don't think they're given feats to increase it, so... We dispel their invisibility anyways, but we're out of Irenicus' dungeon with almost no threat to us.
Plot happens, we begin SoA proper. Invisibility 15" once we get into the circus allows us to bypass the worst of the illusions. Since Thael is a C/M himself, this is one of the few times I don't feel like Aerie would actually help, and we continue with Minsc, Jaheira, and Yoshimo. Kalah falls after a bit of coercion.
A possibly fatal situation is avoided in the Copper Coronet: one of the mage guards cast Horror, and in fact managed to fear multiple of us including Thael… But Thael had cast Remove Fear maybe a second before affected by Horror, and the spell projectile was enough to restore the party's senses.
The Beastmaster is usually a bit of a meatgrinder, but a summoned Spirit Bear from Jaheira (1xday innate from being a F/D, I guess) manages to take out the Beastmaster without turning everyone else aggressive. So much for Tabitha's loyalty. We take the key, and don't bother fighting the animals. Hendak takes his sweet time coming for Lehtinan, so we shoot him down ourselves. Anomen joins us temporarily. We still don't rest before the sewers, heading for the slaver compound. We clear it out with only some hitpoint damage from the Mustard Jelly and the Otyugh, and solving the riddle gives Thael another level and we finally rest.
We enter the compound under invisibility, and cover the staircase with a Cloudkill while Minsc and Yoshimo fight Haegan. And... they lose. Minsc dies to a throwing axe while trying to retreat, but Jaheira, Anomen and Thael clear the left successfully. Thael rests and raises Minsc, and the only other dangerous fight in the compound is negated with Cloudkill and Holy Smite.
So, party decisions: Thael and Jaheira can cover most divine spells, and Jaheira for now is a good front-liner with the Python and later a Wyvern form. Yoshimo and later Imoen covers thief skills, and Imoen also gives me a full mage. I'm a bit lacking in physical damage, but Minsc is 100% not safe to use: Scales of Balance is giving him penalties to every saving throw and an experience penalty for his awful mental stats that he's incredibly not worth using. I plan to use Keldorn, Mazzy, and Rasaad initially before realizing I have the Soultaker mod installed as well, and could then use Skie. Might not be the most optimal choice, but I'm curious to see how the mod works. We have 3 days before we can use Skie thanks to how the mod handles the Soultaker, so it's time to start some quests and pick up people.
Keldorn is the easiest one to get to: Cloudkill and web from out of view do a ton of damage to Tarnor the Hatchetman's gang, and arrows and bolts pick up the remaining ones. SCS sometimes has a group of Beholders teleport into the area, so we dismiss Minsc to the FAI, recruit Keldorn, and hoof it back aboveground and to Umar Hills.
Keldorn has Free Action on his armor, which is really useful for the Mimic since neither Thael nor Jaheira can cast the spell. The Ring of Free Action is going to be really useful once we get to Spellhold. Regardless, Jaheira also makes the saving throw and assists Keldorn in cleaning up the Mimic. Lilaarcor and Chaotic Commands lets the two of them safely take the Umber Hulks, and we finish up by clearing a Stone Golem.
In the ruined temple, we can't actually just rely on Fire Elementals to clean everything up like I'm used to: Jaheira doesn't have the spell, even if she had the level, due to the spheres. So since I feel like playing safely anyways, and we have no infinite ammo launchers besides the Throwing Axe +2, Keldorn hides behind an invisible wall and chucks axes and Anomen Turns Undead. If I were smart, I would've purchased Azuredge for this, but I'm stubborn and chop down the shadows 1 by 1. Mazzy helps a bit after being recruited, but we don't have too many magical arrows and she's relegated to sword duty for a bit. A misclick at the fight before the AMAUNATOR spelling trick thing reveals Thael, and we finally all break invisibility and fight our way through the rest of the temple. We rest, invis up, and approach the Shade Lord.
My usual method here... doesn't work, since I don't have a Ranger that can abuse Hide in Shadows to break aggro from the Shade Lord. An Enchanted Weapon on Mazzy allows her to kill Shadow Patrick and the Altar with regular arrows, with Anomen Turning Undead to clear the Shadows that spawn. I then try to have Mazzy shoot the Shade Lord and retreat... And he follows. Without enough invisibility potions to burn, we have to fight straight-on now, but I wasn't planning on this and have no way to break the Spell Turning/Protection from Magic Weapon combination that the Shade Lord innately casts. The Shade Lord targets Keldorn with a Finger of Death, which is shrugged off, and then a Chromatic Orb at Thael. Checking on my saving throws, Thael's not quite safe and drinks a Potion of Invulnerability. Again, if I were smart, I would throw up Shadow Door as well, but nope. It takes two or three cycles of all of this, and fortunately Keldorn saves against a second FoD, but the Shade Lord falls.
We return, set up a trading agreement between Umar and the resident monsters, find Valygar to unlock the Sphere, and return back to Nem to set Skie's soul free. It's set up as a series of fights, which though we take some damage in, isn't enough to kill any of us. She'll be available for recruitment in a few days, if I understand the mod correctly.
Three more quests are quickly done: Rune Assassins in the Tanner's basement are dealt with by having Keldorn exhaust their invisibility potions with Ilbratha, invisibility of his own, and True Seeing, and the others can overwhelm the Ghasts and Bone Golem.
Theoretically it's still possible even without stealth, but I messed it up early on and had no stealth to fall back on and had to take the fight in full.
I am excited to say that Narial and her party have completed the Ice Island, Durlag's Tower, killed the cultists and Aec'Letec, saved Duke Eltan and both of the Grand Dukes at the palace and are now ready to enter the thieves' maze!
The ice island was not too difficult, I'm not going to share postcards from there. I decided to skip the Isle of Balduran, because I didn't go there during my first playthrough, heard that it can be tough, and won't head into unknown territory during a no-reload. Next time.
Durlag's Tower:
I've read somewhere that you can fight the four warders (or wardens?) one by one. I have no idea how. We fought them all at once. But since they had threatened us before, I considered it okay to cast Remove Fear and Haste on us before talking to the last one, just in case.
Fortunately, we were out of the area where Avarice cast Cloudkill. And I forgot to use the Greenstone Amulet again, and Love almost Dire Charmed me. I took a Potion of Magic Blocking just in time.
Love was the first one to die, Pride the last. How poetic. And the nasty invisible Avarice almost killed Minsc.
On the second level, I noticed again that cleric spells are really amazing, they just have those incredibly long casting times...
Branwen couldn't even say the first letter of Zone of Sweet Air, until she fell unconscious. We survived with a lot of kiting, ranged weapons, and temporarily hiding Imoen and Alora in the lever room. When Branwen finally woke up and finished her spell, there was only one Greater Doppelganger left.
Imoen reached level 6 after the next fight. That alone was already worth coming here.
The Dwarven Doom Guards had killed me during my first run, but this time I knew better than to run into their room. I drew them out into the hallway one by one and tanked them while the others fired. Nothing complicated.
That stupid Ashirukuru room cost me about 10 Elixier of Health. I don't know why I felt that I *had* to kill them.
I got a little careless with the Greater Wyverns, one of them almost got me. Then, the dreaded chess board. I was too nervous to take many screenshots. Minsc and Alora died, the rest of us took Potions of Absorption. We killed the king and queen quickly with fireballs and flamestrike from wands, but only the pawns fell with them, the two bishops kept fighting. We caught them in a web and fired at them.
Here just an "it's over, but we were there" picture. As I said, too nervous during the fight.
We let Islanne teleport us out, Raise our dead companions, sell our loot, and then we walked back and finished the last level. After getting information from Clair, we buffed to the teeth and walked in to face the Demon Knight. I wish I hadn't used the mirror, because one of the Mirror Fiends landed the killing blow on the Demon Knight and therefore robbed us of 15000XP!
We finished the mirror fiends mostly with elemental arrows, but one of them threw Confusion at me. I hadn't used the Greenstone Amulet, again. And this time I wasn't even fast enough with the potion.
Even Confused I kept hitting the bad guys, which was good, but then (with Boots of Speed and Hasted) I ran around when they were all dead, and started to attack poor Dalton, who then turned hostile!
Imoen stopped me with a Dart of Stunning, and then Ajantis tried to charm Dalton with the Nymph Cloak. He always saved, so Imoen cast Greater Malison from a scroll, and then it worked, and we sent him back to his mom.
We took down the cultists at Ulgoth's Beard (one of the assassins stabbed Alora to death, but didn't chunk her) and then prepared to face Aec'Letec.
We took Potions of Mirrored Eyes at the last possible moment. We focused our attacks on the cultists and kited Aec'Letec until all the others were dead. We had buffed enough that his Hold and other stuff didn't work, but he damaged Minsc and Ajantis a bit before we could face him. He's not that difficult to fight once he's alone.
I don't remember when exactly it happened, but Imoen has reached level 7, and we found a Stoneskin scroll for her to scribe, yay!
It was time to go back to the city. We found proof against Sarevok at the Iron Throne with as little fighting as possible. Wands of Sleep and Paralyzation got us past the Flaming Fist, and we took Duke Eltan to the harbor master.
We got the invitations from the Undercellar and went to the Ducal Palace.
I had placed myself, Ajantis and Minsc as meat shields in front of the dukes, but Belt kept wandering off. At one point I thought Liia wouldn't make it, but we always had the archers take down those closest to them and placed the tanks between them to attack, and Ajantis decided to Lay Hands on Liia, just in case
A paladin does what's required. Then Sarevok whacked me quite a bit with his sword and disappeared.
Now we're at the entrance to the thieves' maze, ready for the finale.
Edit: Forgot to mention, I used our money from Durlag's Tower mostly to stack up on potions, and to recharge the Greenstone Amulet.
Sad way to die - personally, while I relented last time, I hate dying when it's obviously a bug. My mistake? Absolutely! But a bug? As long as it takes me to play one time through, dying six months into it is really, really discouraging if I didn't drop the ball myself. Last time was in the Ducal Palace - I wiped everyone out, and then died. Argh.
Isra arrived early this morning, before any of her companions had stirred at the Burning Wizard and she would be back well before daylight. Late last night they returned from a trek that began at the Lighthouse, north to the Shipwrecks Coast across Lion’s and Coast Ways to Mutamin’s Garden and finally, Spider Wood. Everyone, including Isra, was exhausted the night before and Dispenser dispensed with his concerns about confronting the Flaming Fist, deciding to stay at the Burning Wizard.
Isra rose from her bath, toweled off behind a petition that Keldorn provided for her privacy, perfumed herself, and readied herself to pray. Looking back, she was thankful that she, all of them, did not lose their leader, Dispenser, at the Shipwrecks Coast. Late in the evening, after marching and fighting all day, a Nereid approached Dispenser and, before he could do anything, kissed him, and came within a gnat’s arse of killing him. The Nereid did not last long after that but then an Ogre Mage, who stole her essence, appeared just as the confrontation escalated. He was a tough customer, as Ogre Mages usually are, but he paid for his affront dearly.
NASTY OGRE MAGE!
She remembered, also, the uneasiness of battling in Mutamin’s Garden. Even with her unbridled courage in battle, the thought of instant death upon the gaze of a Basilisk was unnerving. Despite that, however, with Indira’s help – Protection from Petrification spells – the party was able to destroy two greater and eight lesser Basilisks in just a few hours, ridding the garden of further danger from petrification. The evil mind behind the garden, Mutamin, proved little more than a bully, easily dispensed with.
WARPED GNOME
PARTY INFO
ORDER OF MARCH: Indira (recon), Sirine & Isra (shock), Dispenser (leader), Imoen (Traps), Valerie (Arcane support)
MONSTERS DEFEATED: Greater Basilisks (2 - MG), Flesh Golems (3 - LH), Sirine (6/3 – LH/SC), Sword Spider (SW), Lesser Basilisks (8 – MG), Denak (Red Wizard - Conjuror/6), Mutamin (Mage/Necromancer/5), Diana (Red Wizard - Conjuror/5), Droth (Ogre Mage), Ettercaps (9 - SW), Ghasts (4 – SC), Ogre Berserkers (2 – SC), Giant Spiders (2 – SW), Brendan (Red Wizard – Conjuror/4), Lasala (Red Wizard – Conjuror/3), Carrion Crawlers (3 - LH), Bandit Leader (CE), Half Ogres (2 – SC), Huge Spiders (7 – SW), Ogres (2/1 – SC/CW), Ogrillons (4 - SC), Dire Wolves (8 - SC), Worgs (3 - LH), Hobgoblin Elite (5 - LH), Bandits (10 – CW), Wolf (SC), Diseased Gibberlings (6), Hobgoblins (11 – LH), Tasloi (2 – SW), Xvarts (19 - CW)
Legend: CW (Coast Way), LH (Lighthouse), MG (Mutamin’s Garden) SC (Shipwrecks Coast), SW (Spider Wood)
LEVEL UP: Valerie, Sorcerer/7, Imoen, Thief (Adventurer)/8, Sirine, Paladin of Ilmater (Martyr)/7, Isra, Paladin (Cavalier of Sune)/7
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE GAINED: (Gold = ~1056 gp [50,406)
Armor & weapons: Splint Mail +1, Arrows of Biting (36), Leather Armor +1, Mage Robes (3 - Cold Resistance, Electrical Resistance, Fire Resistance)
Gems/jewelry: Diamond, Mithral Ring, Fire Opal Ring, Bloodstone Amulet, Pearls (10)
Potions: Magic Protection, Mind Focusing
Scrolls: Greater Malison
Wands: Frost, Fire
Misc & Artifacts: Manual of Gainful Exercise, Tome of Clear Thought, Tome of Understanding, Cloak of the Wolf, Bracers of Defense AC8
BEST KILL:
1) Isra, Dispenser, Sirene: Greater Basilisks (7000 exp each)
2) Valerie: Shoal the Neried (5000 exp)
3) Indira & Imoen: Vampiric Wolves (2000 exp ea)
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Resting, recuperating & resupplying at Beregost (Burning Wizard)
NEXT STEPS: Friendly Arm Inn, Fishing Village, Wyrm’s Crossing, Farmlands to Ulgoth’s Beard
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 20 - Heroic)
Dispenser: Cleric (Holy Justice of Tyr)/7 (HP 49) Mail of the Dead +2, Shield of the Stars +1 w/Girdle of Bluntness & Ring of Free Action; L/Sword +2/+1* & Warhammer +2/ (+1)* (SWS*) & Wand of the Heavens; Spells: Defensive Harmony, Animate Dead, Dispel Magic, Holy Smite, Chant, Draw/Holy Might, Hold Person, Silence 15’, Slow Poison, Bless, Command, Doom, Protection from Evil; Remove Fear; Abilities: Cure Affliction (2), Healing Touch (2), Hold person, Strength of One; Divine Might; (None) (1)
Sirine: Paladin of Ilmatar (Martyr)/7 (HP 56) Full Plate & Cloak of Protection +2; 2H/Sword +1** (Flail**, THWS**) & Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise; Abilities: Sacrifice, Martyrdom, Lay on Hands (3), D/Evil (8); (Advanced AI) (2)
Isra: Paladin (Cavalier of Sune)/7 (HP 61) Fallorain’s Plate Mail +1 w/2H/Sword +2 (Spiders Bane)** & Morning Star +1** w/ Gauntlet’s of Weapon Skill, (THWS**, Mc/MS*), ), Abilities: Remove Fear (6), Prot/Evil (6), Lay Hands, D/Evil (9), Cure Disease; (Advanced AI) (3)
Indira: Fighter/Mage 6/5 (HP 29) Indira’s Chain Vest, Ring of Protection +2,Girdle of Piercing & Boots of Speed; Composite Short Bow +1*** w/Bracers of Archery & L/Sword +1***; Spells; Haste, Melf’s Acid Arrow (2), Magic Missile (4); (Advanced AI) (4)
Imoen: Thief/Adventurer//8 (HP 47) Leather w/Ring/Prot +1; S/bow +1* & Dagger of Venom* (Short Sword/Ninja-to*); Skills: OL 90, PP 45, FT 90, MS 85, HS 90, DI 25, ST 30, w/Master Belt & Boots of Stealth; (Thief Ranged) (6)
Valerie: Sorcerer/7 (HP 20) Robe of the Good Arch-Magi & Ring/Protection +1; Ring Energy, Necklace of Missiles, Sling +1* (Dart*); Spells: Remove Magic, Spell Thrust, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Ray of Enfeeblement (5), Web, Magic Missile (5), Chromatic Orb (#), Spook (5),Sleep (5), (Advanced AI) (5)
MOD USED: BG NPC v23.3, BG NPC Music v6, Plane Touched Races _v0,0, Indira v12, Isra v2.3, Finch v4.0, Gavin v14, Drake, Sirene v2.5, Verr’sza v5.2, BG UB v16, Tweaks Anthology Beta 4, Song & Silence v9, Deities of Faerun, Rogue Rebalancing v491, Level 1 NPCs, SCS v31, aTweaks, Item Randomizer v7
(Current AI) (Chain of Command rank)
You can avoid it by simply saving and reloading once. The game runs out of object slots and, to avoid crashing, it simply drops the ones it already has, and because it then fails to find the protagonist, the game ends. Objects are re-loaded whenever you enter a different Master Area (basically, any area big enough to be on the world map), so doing that also saves you from this bug.
By "Objects" I mean anything with graphics that gets represented in-game: from projectiles fired to the protagonist to I think even some spell effects, they all share the same (limited) amount of slots.
Credit for this info goes all to @Bubb, I'm just posting about it because it has a very simple solution given (I think reloading in this case is fine. Same if your game gets stuck playing the Bear death sound) how annoying the problem really is.
I love to read roleplay stories in run reports, and I'm always glad to see that we paladin players aren't such a minority after all
The followers of Kelemvor Continued
We visited the basilsik area where I read a scroll in order to avoid being petrified.
We then went down the mines. (Sorry, no screenshots)
We picked up Xan, helped some lady ogres with their diet and killed the assassins in Nashkel.
EDIT
I have discovered from reading posts from Gavin's creator that BGT messes up Gavin's quest.
Xan's quest triggered and after freeing the slaves we took them to the Friendly Arms Inn. We left Xan there to make room for Dynaheir. We will now go in search of her and Aaron.
No we are not my friend. Law and justice shall prevail.
Thanks buddy. I appreciate that much. Dispenser and his holy ladies will keep plugging along in between breaks from my seminary graduate thesis and CS Lewis Fellowship. Ugh.
I died during the final battle. But I've learned a lot.
I'm glad for the information that disarming a trap doesn't break Invisibility, although it says so in the spell description:
I had believed that before, and progress through every dungeon had been painstakingly slow, with my rogue alternating between Hide in Shadows and Find Traps, creeping forward, becoming visible while disarming, rushing back and hiding again, and of course always taking multiple attempts to hide successfully...
Now, I could let Alora walk ahead through the Thieves' Maze, disarm every trap even among Skeleton Warriors, then put her back into safety and take care of them with my Undead Hunter.
She checked the path in the Undercity, spotting a suspicious group. We approached carefully, ready for battle. They talked to us and then attacked, and we hurled Potions of Explosion and Oils of Fiery Burning at them and engaged the survivers.
I had forgotten that one of them had Arrows of Detonation, so we had to go back to a temple to raise Imoen.
I then cleansed the ruins of all the undead abominations and met Tamako in front of the temple. I pulled her back to the others in case she wanted to attack. I had been forced to kill her during my first playthrough, but either I had different dialogue options now, or paid more attention to them. I was glad to find a peaceful solution.
And then, my big mistake.
I see now that I had won the final battle during my first playthrough at the first attempt through sheer, dumb luck. Back then, I had just buffed with everything I had, rushed in with my party, triggered all the traps, taken a Potion of Freedom at the last moment, kept the spellcasters occupied with my archers and tanked Sarevok. Then he died and it was over, without giving me the chance to kill Semaj and Angelo.
I wanted to approach it more carefully this time. So, I had my buffed party wait in the background, took Alora to explore and disarm the traps, which didn't work, even with buffed Find Traps at 150 or something (*can* they even be disarmed?).
Anyway, somehow Sarevok spotted us despite her invisibility, and then the fight started without giving us the opportunity to position ourselves. I hadn't known in which order to do Haste/Potion of Freedom. We had taken the potions first, and Haste didn't work. So, we were slow to position ourselves, targeted the wrong spellcaster to interrupt, got dispelled (I think that was Angelo), and didn't have time to renew the more important buffs. I immediately failed against Web and Stinking Cloud and fell unconscious with Sarevok right beside me, and none of the others could distract him from hacking me to death. End of story.
(I have tried again and succeeded after another two reloads. I think I know better what to expect now, and to make Angelo a priority target, and to scatter my party and them. *And* to use those Arrows of Dispelling that I found in Durlag's Tower)
Okay, this has been fun. I'm sad that it's over, but also glad I've made it that far. But I think I'm going to finish SoD with my other paladin (with reloads) first before I try again. So that I know what to expect in SoD, of course, because some day I'm going to make it through the final battle, too!
(I always play Chaotic and often Evil individuals, but I have a great deal of admiration for those who can realistically role-play Lawful Good.)
The traps in the middle cannot be disarmed and are repeated traps, for whatever it's worth: you either have to trigger them with a safe character to get the Webs and such in the center, or just avoid them.
@Arvia the lightning traps on the left side of the temple can be disarmed. The traps in the central area can be seen, but not disarmed. The stinking cloud and web 'traps' can't even be detected (as can't the spaces on the right of the temple that generate battle horrors).
Sarevok can initiate his dialogue on an invisible person, but won't himself do anything further if you don't take any action. The only one of his friends that will react following the dialogue is Semaj - he will teleport towards the temple door, but can't see invisible either. It's thus possible to get the jump on Semaj and kill him before deciding what to do about the others.
My last couple of attempts have been with a true-class mage and a sorcerer - both of those died prior to getting into BG2 as I started taking greater and greater risks and eventually came a cropper. That's probably indicative of me playing too much, but rather than take a break immediately I thought I would have another go with the sorcerer and try and discipline myself to getting as far as possible without taking any damage.
Typically, after leaving Candlekeep I head straight for Shoal, but there's a chance of a single kobold archer on that route. It won't necessarily get a shot in if it gets a poor initiative roll, but I avoided the risk of that by going straight to Beregost.
In Beregost some spiders were pulled out of their house and blinded. The same then happened to Silke to get my first level.
Algernon was then killed for his cloak and that was put to use to pull sirines out of the temple. Three of those in turn were worn down by wild dogs and finished off to get me to level 4 - gaining invisibility and the opportunity to rest and travel in safety (so long as I remember to use it
In the next area, Korax followed me down to the south of the map before being charmed. He acted as the target while sorting out the southern group of basilisks - getting me to level 5.
A trip to the FAI saw an ogre cut down by magic missiles to get his belt. I picked up the ring of wizardry before webbing Tarnesh from out of sight. Further north, Tenya got her bowl back while the nearby ankheg surfaced into a web just as I disappeared (going invisible while in sight means the ankheg doesn't go back underground).
At the Lake area I activated a number of the gnolls around Drizzt without going into his sight range. I was quite prepared to allow them to kill Drizzt, but when one broke its weapon I picked off all the others so that Drizzt would be rendered unconscious - providing an easy XP haul.
With reputation down to 3 visiting civilized areas would have been dangerous. I also wanted to boost reputation to get the good awards rather than arcane spells given I would have so many of those anyway. The first port of call was the Lighthouse area where some worgs were enough for level 7.
Sorcerer L7, 36 HPs, 99 kills
Edit: always a bad move to post. Almost immediately after doing that I misjudged where a web was and got stuck in the edge of it with a ghast bearing down ...
I will be returning to having paladin parties soon. My current party is led by a paladin and has in it another (Isra).
However, I may try out something else first. There are a few types of parties that I would like to investigate. Of late I have been trying out mixed parties that serve the same god. They tend to be a bit unbalanced, but are quite fun.
My current party has just released Dynaheir and Aaron.
EDIT
We helped Drizzt against some gnolls and killed some half-ogres. We then went in search of Dynaheir's diary and found it.
We proceeded to the bandit camp where Tazok was defeated but not killed. In the ensuing battle we killed all the bandits that we encountered, web being a mixed blessing as some of us got caught in our own web. We did however prevail though Tenya was killed.
We went to get her raised and then sold some of our equipment and scalps thus becoming quite rich. Perhaps shopping will soon be in order.
We encountered Tranzig and were merciful to him, perhaps a bad idea that!
We aldo encountered Tristan and Isolde and killed them without compunction. Summoned weasels helped reduce their attacks upon us.
EDIT
We headed northward were we killed Necardian and cohorts before moving on to the Camp once more.
There were only 8 live bandits there who we killed before looting the tents.
We then killed Brotus Bloodthirsty et al, but not before he killed Isra.
I showed how great I am by asking Neera to lay 3 skull traps before talking to the doorman... a +3 sword later we moved on
the big boss died easy this trip with everyone having at least 1 +3 weapon, killing his mage pet was really the only obstacle to success... well that and the fact I spend the bulk of the fight running around paniced
as a side note the lords released me but that is a poor reward so perhaps being a miss goody goody isn't my best option now that I must get out of the city?
Part 4: Siege of Dragonspear
The first dungeon is kinda tricky with our group. We still only have Mirror Image to block attacks, and a stray backstab could easily kill one of us. Resting is dicey since there's a chance that a whole bunch of skeletons will spawn, and there's not much room to rest if we get too many skeleton spawns while trying to rest under invisibility. We really need to take down Porios in one go.
How do we do this? Well, there's a convenient little bridge right before the first fight, and we can block it off with just two invisible sorcerers. Once we've scouted out the other enemies, a sorcerer to the southeast can fire a Lance of Disruption while too far out of reach for the enemies to get us.
Since we're on Tactical/Core difficulty, there are no Bone Bats in the next area, which means we can safely reach Korlasz just with Invisibility. We Web her and blast her before dialogue for a safe kill.
I somehow anger Morentherene, and suddenly we have a young green dragon on top us. When she nails us with a wing buffet, I realize we need outside help to handle the situation.
In the meantime, we minimize the risk to our party by replacing all of our other sorcerers with NPCs. Edwin and Baeloth summon critters to hold off Morentherene while we make progress with Magic Missiles and some Sun Soulrays from Rasaad.
Since the bugbears include some Stalkers with a backstab multiplier, we kill them in safe batches by running in and out of the room. That doesn't let us kill the invisible Stalkers, of course, but it does mean there's less pressure on our Mirror Images from the other enemies, allowing us to dodge the backstabs when they do come.
For Akanna, we lure an Aerial Servant into some traps to soften it up and finish it off with Magic Missiles. It eases up on the pressure when we face Akanna herself, who falls quickly to Magic Missiles.
Since we don't have nearly enough spell slots to win the fight with the Barghest, we surrender the fort and focus on the bridge battle itself. A Spell Thrust takes down the Bridge Mage's troublesome MGOI, allowing us to blast her with Skull Trap. Baeloth lands Dispel Magic on her as well, opening her up for a barrage of Magic Missiles.
We dump Khalid and retrieve the sorcerer we left at the fort, and we keep hunting for XP. We get a nasty scare when a Bombardier Beetle sneaks up on us and an orog nearly kills one of us with a backstab, but we suffer no fatalities. During Dosia's quest, we kill the Greater Basilisk by Webbing it, but I've never seen it actually attack anyone before, and last I checked its APR was set to zero in Near Infinity.
We have no defense against the Web Tangle or unconsciousness poison of Gargantuan Spiders, so when the time comes to approach the Underground River, we set up a wall of Skull Traps before lancing the spiders at range. We blast the Cyclops and his friends with spell damage, and while there are a couple of nasty mages about, the southwest mage arrives without MGOI and the druids we rescued far northwest summon some critters to help us out, allowing us to wait for a Sword Spider to slay the other mage.
More importantly, it means that when Viconia joins our party, she gets bumped up to level 9, finally allowing us to raise our fallen sorcerer!