Today's session started with releasing various inhabitants of a giant soul gem, before moving on to the beholder hive. With the need to kill the elder orb quickly before used imprisonment, Reprise attacked with Gaxx haste while Kaliara threw up an Incendiary Cloud. That was brave of her, given she had no fire protection, but Reprise managed to retreat upstairs before she finished burning to a crisp.
There were lots more beholders, but their damage could not penetrate Reprise's Cloak of Mirroring and that was regularly lit up while cutting a way through to the other side of the hive.
There was another elder orb there, but by this time Reprise had learned smite as an HLA. In addition to the knock-back and stun effect, that has the advantage that all attacks for a round are critical hits. That feature proved its worth when an initial roll of 1 was still described in the text as a "solid hit" and sent the orb crashing into a wall. Reprise couldn't finish it off before it recovered from the stun though and that proved fatal for Kaliara who had joined in the attack trying for a quick kill, but had no defense against a death ray sent at her just before the orb croaked.
Fortunately she had been carrying a rod of resurrection and was soon back on her feet.
The nearby illithid complex offered a different sort of threat. Reprise had an intelligence of only 10, which was not sufficient for him to realize he could only survive a single hit by mind flayers before his brain was fully emptied - hence he spent much of his time in melee. However, although we don't pause that much in MP, I did keep a close eye out for devouring attacks and paused immediately to break off combat whenever one of those struck.
I also tried to ensure that Reprise was only fighting one of the illithid at once, to avoid being killed by a simultaneous strike. Kaliara had her own problems as her saving throws were not good enough to ensure protection again psionic attacks. She dealt with that weakness quite successfully by use of the Staff of the Magi to go invisible when attacked and provided a useful means of distraction to help Reprise target single victims (as well as acting part of the time as an invisible blocker). However, she did get caught out at one point when she was dominated. That looked like being another fatality as Reprise had already been hit once and was blocked by another illithid from coming to help Kaliara. Fortunately the illithid didn't seem to pursue the attack as vigorously as it might have done and Reprise made good use of the next few seconds by:
- retreating a couple of paces.
- activating smite.
- knocking his own attacker back out of the way by throwing Azuredge.
- knocking Kaliara's attacker back as well.
Finishing them off was then straightforward and there were no more problems on the way to sort out the Master Brain.
Adalon provided disguises and I managed to restrain my natural tendency to hit "1" whenever a conversation pops up (which at the Gates results in the drow not being impressed by you boasting you've just comes from Adalon's lair). Inside the City Gate70 commented that it seemed to have been quite a while since we were there - and that showed after N'ashtar and his group spent too much time in the clouds:
- I was slightly surprised when Kaliara refused the opportunity to do some preparation for rescuing Phare. All became clear though when she cast her favorite death spell and the illithids and umber hulks vanished in a puff of dust.
- I hit the wrong conversation option when intending to just take a helmet off the svirfneblin patrol leader and had to kill the whole patrol instead.
- when switching the eggs I forgot that while the guards on the egg chamber don't turn the whole city hostile, those closer to the exit will. We therefore hot-footed it out of the city before the gates were locked against us.
- Adalon transported us to the gate, but we cleared the Western Tunnels before making use of it. The prince had his full regeneration and Reprise was only just able to beat that down using Gaxx haste.
He also beat up some demon knights in order to get a nice big sword. That can only be used by evil characters, but you never know what might happen to him in hell ...
Reprise, dwarven defender 24, 173 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 780 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 20, 69 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 287 kills (+97 in BG1), 1 death (+2 in BG1)
Part 4 felt like two hours of good fun, until I looked back at the screenshots and the scrappiness of the session hit home.
We started by entering Nashkel Mine. Milam used his spider form to try and keep up with Harvey.
This tactic worked nicely and it was soon time for us to deal with Mulahey. Even with his minions he stood no chance.
Lamahla and her amazon crew found web and lightning too much to deal with when being shot at.
Nimbul got the same treatment, lightning making an appearance in time to kill him.
The bandit camp exterior saw some decent fighting but Coremage was well equipped and Harvey was able to race about. Suffice to say that we had no concerns.
The same was almost true inside the tent, but one of Milam's webs caught Harvey and he had to sit out most of the combat.
On to Cloakwood where Milam got ahead of himself and blundered into a trap he thought his companions had already sprung. Wake up Milam - and think yourself lucky that Coremage had some nice arrows to shoot at spiders with.
Milam rewarded Coremage by fishing out an elixir of health when an ettercap fang found it's mark.
A bit further on a pair of huge spiders were being troublesome while Coremage and Milam were webbed - Milam eventually freed himself and delivered some lightning.
Inside Centeol's lair we struggled until Milam used chromatic orb to stun the spider chasing Harvey. Once this was done we could set to work - only our nymph had used a charm spell and despite our best efforts we couldn't get Centeol to help us.
The entrance to Cloakwood mine was well guarded. Web and stinking cloud sorted them out though while Harvey shot the two mages before Coremage and Milam could get a look in.
Our journey through the mine was brief and uneventful. Only the battle horrors presented us with any trouble and after a while Coremage growled at Milam to use the wand he had given him. A few moments later Coremage realised he had a much better wand at his own disposal.
Coremage wanted a potion of magic blocking so he could chase Davaeorn down. Milam decided better though, and gave a second potion to Harvey before protecting himself from lightning. It was not Davaeorn's finest hour but he teleported several times before expiring.
We made our way into Baldur's Gate, and immediately hit problems in the sewers. We survived though, despite it looking very shaky at this point.
Things couldn't get much worse could they. The brawlers of undermountain thought otherwise and with two of us indisposed it was left to Coremage. He was struggling and at one point we questioned whether Gorpal Hind was going to help out - and then he did. So we survived that little fracas.
Degrodel's guardians proved to be a major headache. First they killed Coremage, and on reviving him we found his evermemory ring and spiders bane two handed sword had both vanished. Maybe more had gone - but that was all we noticed.
On our return several of the guardians had gone but one invisible stalker remained to be dealt with. We pushed our luck inside by attacking Degrodel and he pushed back equally hard. Coremage and Milam ran around scared while Harvey tried and died rather than drink a healing potion.
We got Harvey raised after using summons and improved invisibility to kill Degrodel and went somewhere for a rest.
We just need to remember that we've been poisoned by Marek and Lothander so will need to deal with that next time. Sunin will also get some interest in his evermemory ring.
Journal of Templar the Trustworthy
I took them to the one who says: "We shall all live again one day."
Is that the Ghost of Ulcaster as in the one who wanders around outside, the one you give the book to from the treasure pile inside? If so, that was the one who also gives you the blade.
That is indeed the ghost that I went to. Looks like a bug and that I will simply have to either use EE Keeper to get the sword or use brute force and ignorance in the cave. I am pretty sure that with my party brute force and ignorance would work. I was just trying the more elegant route.
My character is now dead, so as far as I am concerned the question is now academic unless the same problem resurfaces in my next game.
A new run with Seth the Seer. I have changed this to just have one character rather than two. I used Shadowkeeper to make Isra an Inquisitor rather than a paladin. I know that can be done upon installation, but I don't want to reinstall.
Journal of Seth the Seer
I was raised in Candlekeep and had great hopes of becoming a paladin, preferably an Inquisitor.
Sadly I failed. This is probably because of a lack of holiness on my part. Whilst I try to be holy, I fail so often. For instance, I know that breaking into people's chests and taking the contents is wrong, but still I do it! Perhaps that is why I did it in full view of a witness. It resulted in me getting caught and having to pay a fine. It relieved my guilt somewhat.
At least the martial training was not wasted as I switched to being a Fighter/Illusionist. The only other bit of paladin training that is of use is that I can still cast "True Sight." It is that which makes me a seer rather than being able to see into the future like the Wise Alaundo. All I can see is what is true in the present. Even that is a useful talent however particularly as so many use illusion. I can hardly complain about that since I myself am an Illusionist.
Corebrawl the gnomish fighter and his band of fighters update
Traveling with:
Sarah - dwarven berserker
April - dwarven berserker
Jenny - halfling fighter
Rorc - half-orc kensai
Yoshimo - bounty hunter
CHUNKED: Selia the fighter/thief (disintegrated)
The party has made tremendous progress. We have done most major quests and even defeated Bodhi, and even without death, although April nearly died...
Selia got disintegrated in Planar Prison, so decided was time to get Imoen. As is my practice, I recruit Yoshimo just for the trip to Spellhold - his heart is worth 200,000 exp after all. Fighters take lots of damage in the bigger fights, of course, but they are tough and usually survive. Some of the potentially more difficult fights, such as Tanova and Tarnor's gang, we one at a time sent our few summons to draw out the more dangerous spells, then that made those groups much easier to deal with. Gaius still got off a finger of death at a berserker, but the berserker saved so nothing was accomplished by Tarnor's gang.
We are currently in Brynnlaw, about to enter Spellhold. I would have recruited a fighter/thief to replace Selia but there aren't any and I don't count Yoshimo since you can't keep him.
An unusually long session yesterday saw us leap forward, deep into ToB. The session started travelling away from the Underdark Exit and we bypassed Drizzt invisibly on the way back to Athkatla. Kruin was waiting for us there and provided the remaining piece for the Silver Sword.
That, along with Gesen and the Wave, was soon put back together and we also bought up various items previously ignored (like Vecna, AC3 bracers, RoAC, Ring of Energy - though I realized later that should have included the Defender of Easthaven to complement Reprise's defending skills).
We hadn't previously visited Firkraag, so couldn't make Crom Faeyr. However, that was soon remedied with a rapid trip through his forces.
Firkraag himself was a bit more difficult than anticipated thanks to his use of dispel magic and horror to send a planetar running. I also got the timing to renew GWW wrong and that allowed Firkraag a couple of seconds to do some final damage before a skeleton warrior got the fatal blow.
In the sewers we went in search of illithid. As usual Kaliara mixed up acting as a distraction and an invisible blocker and progress was easy enough.
At that point I travelled back to the Underdark Exit, only to be reminded there was something missing . Sheepishly I went back to the Graveyard District, where a quick rest avoided having to work through ambushing vampires. Downstairs, Reprise equipped the iMoD to make himself virtually immune to vampire attacks and it didn't take long to send Bodhi on her way.
In Suldanesselar there were plenty more golems to face. They appeared to be resistant to vorpals from the planetar and the Silver Sword, but Kaliara had bought the Rod of Smiting and claimed a number of kills with that. Rather than attack Nizi, Reprise decided to test out the Wand of Wonder. That has a chance of producing a no-save petrification that ignores magic resistance. It took 7 attempts to get that to happen, so standard attacking would probably have been quicker - but look at the size of that statue!
On the Tree, Kaliara waited for Jon to use his time stop, safely out of sight of him. Unfortunately, she wasn't out of sight on my computer and Jon took the opportunity to target her with a FoD - fortunately she saved. After the time stops Reprise decided to come into melee. That would be very dangerous in single player, due to the possibility of maze - and Reprise duly disappeared. However, Kaliara observed from a distance while a planetar pummeled Jon - until she finally came back into sight of him to prompt his parting speech.
In the hell trials, Reprise was content to act as a goody-goody in the first few trials. Often I dislike losing dexterity as the price of saving a companion, but as Reprise has a low dexterity anyway and wears the bracers to boost that the loss had no impact this time. He did though get in touch with his evil side in order to get Blackrazor (also allowing him to use the Soul Reaver).
Jon's final incarnation didn't manage much of a fight after being assaulted by a planetar.
In ToB, Illasera proved once more to be rather a wimp. The first challenge in our new pocket plane saw most of the attackers burn up in Incendiary Clouds. However, the final 3 characters were very slow to enter and the clouds had pretty much burned up by the time they appeared.
They lasted a while thanks mainly to Aran Linvail spending most of the time invisible - once Kaliara successfully Fingered him though the battle was swiftly over.
After finding a mage's spellbook, Reprise kept an assignation with a vampire in the prison. Using the iMod that gave a nice XP boost before Reprise let several groups of prisoners out of their cells - finally boosting reputation up to 20 after our earlier accidents with fireballs.
We got the jump on Gromnir by going up to his room invisibly and dealt with him and his companions easily enough.
Moving on to the Forest of Mir, we didn't bother with protection from undead. That proved a problem for Kaliara as some of the undead could see through her invisibility - and she keeled over once more.
However, the RoR let her quickly bounce to her feet and lead the way to the Fire Temple. Reprise put on Gromnir's helm and used defensive stance, while Kaliara contributed protection from fire. With immunity to fire and blunt damage - and being healed by standing in lava - Reprise had no problem dealing with the fire giants at the entrance.
The rest of the Temple was also straightforward, with Berenn's group struggling to make an impact through a hole in the wall, while Imix was too late to recognize the weapon being Waved in front of him.
Nyalee really shouldn't have changed her mind about helping us.
After tracking down Yaga-Shura, Reprise did some initial damage, but thought the big man still had plenty of fight. However, Kaliara was capable of doing pretty nasty spell damage by this time and Yaga-Shura Wilted under her attack.
We picked up the Answerer at the Oasis on the way to Amkethran. Reprise remembered there that he was now evil and stood by chuckling to himself as some mercenaries cut down the mayor's daughter.
However, after buying K'logorath and some stony boots from a local merchant, the reputation loss was regained by helping a monk on the way out of town.
The session closed with an assault on Sendai's enclave. Rather than bother with all the drow, the aim was just to kill the Woodcutter and head for the revealed entrance. The woodcutter duly died under a GWW assault, but the entrance stubbornly stayed in shadow. With true sights running that meant some combat was required until the game eventually remembered what it was supposed to do next. We passed through quite a bit of the early stages invisible as XP levels were already looking pretty high anyway. Odamaron was a first victim for the Runehammer (Reprise has high mastery in hammers, so that was even more of an upgrade from the iMod than usual).
Reprise then put on Gromnir's helm again to render Ogremoch's attacks irrelevant and waded through the Hive Mother's attacks to finish her off.
Captain Egeissag failed to even get into range of Reprise as a succession of blows from K'logorath hit home.
Finally tracking down Sendai herself, we worked through a succession of statues - Reprise acting as tank while Kaliara stayed to one side throwing in clouds and other spells. That all worked well and it didn't take long before Sendai had to come into combat herself. Reprise was more cautious against her and just threw his axe in a succession of GWWs to avoid the fate of a planetar that was Harmed by Sendai.
Her buffs kept her going for a while, but eventually the flying axe worked through her defenses and signalled her end was nigh.
Reprise, dwarven defender 36, 222 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1143 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 28, 71 HPs, 417 kills (+97 in BG1), 2 deaths (+2 in BG1)
Corebrawl and his band of (mostly) fighters is working their way through Spellhold. Yet again got that annoying mysterious death bug and lost my progress and had to do things over again.
This bug, in combination with the collision bug (which I have lost several runs to), plus the nerfing of the dispelling arrows, is heavily tempting me to go back to original BG II for my no-reloads. In the original, melee/ranged parties could still beat Melissan as dispelling arrows removed her protections, but now that doesn't work in EE, that greatly handicaps non-magic based parties. Melissan already requires +4 weapons to hit, she hardly needed the nerfing of the dispelling arrows - that's my 2 cents, anyways. In the original, dispelling arrows were also important for non-magic parties against dragons.
Now, the dispelling arrows are a waste of money, as they only affect enemies that didn't need dispelling arrows in the 1st place. I think that was why the dispelling arrows were so expensive in the 1st place, as they COULD work on dragons and Melissan. Now their cost makes no sense.
In any case, Corebrawl has just made it past Spellhold area 2.
I was playing a game to just see what happens if I do silly things.
In the area south of the Friendly Arms Inn when I was approached by the old man (Elminster) I went to the top left hand corner and surrounded myself with weasels so that he couldn't initiate conversation. I then attacked with the weasels and my trusty bow and he turned my character into a chicken. He then disappeared. I went to the Friendly Arms Inn and whilst in transit the spell wore off.
I don't know if this has been introduced by a mod or if it is standard EE behaviour. I thought it quite amusing.
Of course this change means that he is no longer killable, which is a shame. One of the EE changes that I don't appreciate. (They did the same to Tazok. Unnecessary and unwanted changes IMO.
rummble under Spellhold
I wasn't in the mood to ask nice for the key but I stuffed up laying too many traps upstars and had to fight without my gear... magic missile, insect plague sorted him out before the fight really started and a storm of web \ fire cleaned up the peons
@Corey_Russell: What did Arrows of Dispelling strike as in vanilla BG2? I thought they were always coded as +0, striking as +1.
As far as damage, yes, that's probably right. But as for the dispel effect, that occurred independent of what it took to hurt an enemy. Thus, while Melissan could not be hurt by dispelling arrows, the dispel effect could still trigger if it hit. This is how my all paladin runs defeated her in vanilla, as well as how the paladins dealt with dragons who did PfMW, but now in EE, not sure I could repeat that due to this change. Incidentally, a number of weapon effects worked like this in vanilla, e.g. the weapon effect could trigger, though the enemy could not be hurt by the basic damage of the weapon. In vanilla (without fixpack), I think the IMoD for example, the trigger effect could kill a vampire that requires +3 to hit.
Journal of Seth the Seer Images inside the spoiler tags
At the Friendly Arms Inn I charmed the Dwarven Caravan Guard to fight Tarnesh.
I was hoping that Tarnesh would win after being greatly weakened since the +4 mithril armour would have been a great boon.
However the dwarf has good resistances that make him exceedingly hardy. (The arrows of freezing that the other guards have no longer hold him I know. I checked in another game. I don't know if the arrows have been nerfed or if he has been made immune to hold)
Tarnesh used a spell that caused him to panic. Another that charmed him, and acid arrow as well. I used a charm person spell which negated the second spell.
There was one occasion that was touch and go since I had to save against hold.
Eventually the battle was reduced to mundane weapons and one arrow was sufficient to win the day.
In Beregost the battle against Silke was interesting since I was still only level one. As Silke cast mirror image, I cast weasels. The weasels don't do much damage but they do occupy the attention of those that they are attacking and they do a great job of getting rid of mirror image. When she no longer had extra images Silke used sleep on them whilst I charmed one of those that I was trying to save. Silke killed him with acid arrow (That would have killed me!) Meanwhile I charmed another of those that I was trying to save. She put him to sleep. (Again, if that had happened to me it would have been end of story. We were now both out of spells but my armour spell was still active. That was enough to win the battle.
It brought me to level 2.
I was able to help Mellicamp, but won't try to help the werewolf until I can afford some decent arrows.
More weasels kept Karlat busy whilst I pumped him full of arrows. By the time they were killed his health was so poor that his death was inevitable.
I was quite pleased to have won at level one. Not easy and so quite satisfying.
I then joined up with Sirene. Her healing spells and her sword were a real boon.
We headed south together along the road killing ogrillon, overly officious flaming fist mercenaries, Tristan unt Isolde and numerous bandits and hobgoblins.
We aquired the Colquetle amulet and Lord Foreshadow's ring.
In Nahkell we found some ankheg armour and we talked to Noober. We turned down a reward which belonged to the bounty hunter Greywolf.
Heading south we killed Zargos Flintblade and Greywolf, weasels once more being of great worth.
We then searched for and found a wand of frost and a ring of fire protection.
We then took Samuel for healing.
After doing so, our reputation became 20 after which we went hunting ankhegs.
After killing 3 of rhem the paladins levelled up.
This made the killing of the rest of them very easy.
We went to Beregost to sell the shells with the result that we now have over 10,000 gold pieces.
A little shopping is now called for I believe.
EDIT
I found that I need a bit more gold for the item that I want.
I have reunited Rufie with his owner.
I have helped Bentha against Zordral and killed those who wished to chop down a dryad's tree though I haven't told her yet.
I have also released a woman from petrification near the Temple of Lathander. I am now thinking of teaming up with Gavin.
I really underestimate the enemy group guarding the path to the lift. Turns out there's a Wizard Slayer, Turin Brassbreaker, among the enemies, and a backstabber that in previous runs just never made a noticeable impact.
We fall back and hide under Invisibility until the spell failure wears off and return with Mirror Images restored. Turin Brassbreaker has extremely high magic resistance for such a low level Wizard Slayer, which means we have to do most of the work with Lance of Disruption.
We actually have to fall back a second time to handle the other enemies before finishing off Turin with Lance of Disruption; a stream of Magic Missiles just isn't reliable enough.
We poison the crusader supplies under Invisibility and flee Hephernaan before returning to the Coalition Camp. Pre-cast Web and Skull Trap spells wreck the first three waves and most of the fourth...
... but we narrowly miss the Piercer of Boils with our Web spells in the final wave and he gets a Call Lightning off the ground. Even with guaranteed saves courtesy of Spirit Armor, it deals 26 on our main character--very scary. We heal up with Cure Light Wounds, and Mirror Image manages to block the second strike of Call Lightning after the shaman has fallen.
The dialog box clues me in to the last enemy, Swift Rabbit, still being alive albeit Webbed and invisible, so I throw out Skull Trap to finish him off before the Webs wear off and he tries nailing somebody with a backstab.
Now for Dragonspear Castle! There's no way Frisky Bits could safely handle Ashatiel, so we have to fight things out. Fortunately, Spirit Armor and Protection from Fire spells keep us safe, and Lance of Disruption and Skull Trap are great against enemy crowds. We carve the path with brute force.
We still need to fight Ashatiel, and while we can do so as a group, Ashatiel has allies of her own--and she buffs with MGOI, making our spells useless. Once I see her MGOI, I go invisible and let the other members of the coalition keep her busy. Once her MGOI fades, we pounce.
Avernus is next. Spirit Armor and Stoneskin block everything the local demons can throw at us, and the abishai's solid but breakable magic resistance can't keep all of our spells off of them.
Plus, we have LoD to go right past their MR--and since Stoneskin can block LoD while we have no way of blocking Skull Trap, LoD also lets us target the invisible and untargetable Hell Cats without harming the party.
Unfortunately, we are at an impasse. To safely kill Belhifet, we flat-out need to have one sorcerer at level 11 and the others at least at level 10. Without level 10, we can't use enough Lower Resistance spells on Belhifet before he disappears, and we need Resist Fear to avoid getting disabled, because the fear effect in the final fight uses a save vs. wands, not spells, and Spirit Armor stacking does nothing for our other saving throws.
Resting causes 3 enemies to appear, which can include low-XP lemures and high-XP imps. We have to spend a very, very long time to get enough XP for everyone, and the strategy boils down to one thing.
Bear in mind that the imps aren't harmless--they have a very deadly poison attack that we can only shrug off thanks to Stoneskin.
Once everyone is at the minimum level we need to tackle Belhifet, we stack Spirit Armor spells, grant 100% fire resistance to the party, and step onto the elevator. The Hell Cats give us some grief because they constantly go invisible, but we can get past their MR with Lance of Disruption without losing too many Stoneskins by using some careful positioning to minimize friendly fire.
Finally we reach the top of the tower. We quickly fall back to avoid Remove Magic, then drop Belhifet's MR to zero and fire off Greater Malison in one round (we delay Greater Malison to make sure it hits right after Lower Resistance.
I remove Caelar's bug-induced immortality with CTRL-R and she falls a little faster than she would have without the bug.
Now we have to trap Belhifet. Since he hasn't yet gone invisible and gotten saving throw bonuses from Improved Invisibility, he has a 50% chance of failing his save against each Web we cast at him, while our Spirit Armor stacking makes us all immune. We immediately snare him and follow up with Acid Arrows, and we have lots of them thanks to Minor Sequencer, courtesy of SCS v32.
We absolutely crush Belhifet with Acid Arrow, Magic Missile, and Lance of Disruption, with plenty of spell slots to spare. The only damage we ever took was from one of our own lances when friendly fire cleared away a sorcerer's Stoneskins.
We finish off Hephernaan with a lance and Aun Argent seals the gate to Avernus behind us.
Since our reputation is low, we get the evil escape ending. We always travel under Invisibility, however, and Corwin finds no trace of us.
Siege of Dragonspear is over! We head to Shadows of Amn on the run from our own ill fame. Feeling our sins crawling down our backs fills us with determination.
Corebrawl the gnomish fighter's run continues (barely)
Traveling with:
Sarah - dwarven berserker
Jenny - halfling fighter
Rorc - half-orc kensai
Imoen - thief/mage
CHUNKED:
Selia - fighter/thief, disintegrated in planar prison
April - berserker, chunked by Adalon
Well the run continues, but just barely. The party did excellent in the Kua-Toa Lair, even defeating the demon knights in record time. We also did excellent in the Beholder's Lair clearing the whole area, since not afraid of the imprisonment with two berserkers clearing the way. We also destroyed the Illithids in their city without much trouble.
However, we needed Adalon's blood, and up to this point I had never defeated Adalon in EE and in fact had a recent run end there. The vanilla method of attacking from the alcove didn't work last time I tried it, so gave Adalon a very fair fight - we surrounded her and everyone attacked. We got her to 1/2 health then she buffeted and then her cold attacks were very powerful. In the end, everyone was dead and Corebrawl was feared! And April got chunked as well!!!
But wait! Corebrawl is out of range of Adalon and she does not pursue! He uses some expensive potion buffs, equips some bolts from Watcher's Keep and attacks - thanks to his ****** in crossbow he got good hits and despite heavy damage from her cold breath, Corebrawl avenges his friends' deaths!!
Fortunately, Corebrawl had RoR to put everyone back together. April is gone forever, she will be missed - also a few important items disappeared with her, her shield of harmony and the shield of balduran - the run must continue!
We escaped the Underdark, and have forged a few items with Cromwell's help. We will try to get the flesh armor forged next.
Whew!
EDIT: Just noticed one of the items lost when April got chunked is the IMoD. Ouch!
CHUNKED:
Semia - fighter/thief (distintegrated in planar prison)
April - berserker, chunked by Adalon
The run continues. We did quite a bit of dragon hunting in chapter 6, all successful.
dragon victories
Suldanesslar was freed. Irenicus defeated at the Tree of Life.
Valygar was killed while fighting Irenicus in Hell, but since we were already planning on replacing him with Sarevok once we could do that, we didn't really care. Irenicus eventually gave it up, but it took him a while to realize he was lost...
Illsaera was easily defeated. We have recruited Sarevok and will work on pocket plane challenge #1 now.
Ceres completed a good amount of the Baldur's Gate quests, and got a few other useful items (2nd Necklace of Missiles, Hands of Takkok, Manual of Bodily Health, Helm of Balduran, darts of both Stunning and Wounding and last but not least, a good amount of Potions and another Batalista's Passport) as well as enough XP to attain level 11.
Most memorable moment: Static Charge killing the Ogre Mage in one (!!) hit.
I melee'd the Carrions to death first, the moved away from the Ogre, then I cast the spell, wait one second before re-engaging him, and boom!! He's dead. I didn't think it would do anything actually, but since it's a 4th level spell, it's rather useful against Mages, specially when they have no resistance to Lighting.
Sunin also saw to it, although it made him run in panic, which is something that, when a Stoneskinned mage does it, is annoying because you know you're spending your next five minutes watching your character chase them. Five stone skins (note the lack of capitalization, he luckily did not recast the spell!!) later, Ceres got in the final hit and he turned into XP. Sweet XP.
Since I'm doing most of the quests in Baldur's Gate simply because of how easy and safe they are, we had to pick up Alora for about ten seconds to get the Telescope. She only had enough XP to get to level 2 (weird), but that was enough for her to get 100% in Open Locks, so it's alright I guess. We'll be recruiting her again soon, after we take care of the Iron Throne, since I might take her to Candlekeep with me.
I just lost a solo Cleric of Talos run in ToB. I was relying heavily on the Slayer trick to remain in Ravager form indefinitely by first using Divine Protection, the SCS v32 version of IWD's Shield of Lathander, to prevent the lingering damage that's otherwise fatal. It was working brilliantly ever since Spellhold, but apparently it wasn't wise to fight Sendai within the first 10 rounds of using it, even if that allowed me the maximum duration for my other buffs. The Ascension Slayer forms can send you into a berserk mode periodically and not even immunity to the berserk opcode can block it. While in this state, you can't heal yourself, which means you have to be able to survive with only your own regeneration to help you. Once those berserk rounds are over, though, you're in the clear--it's perfectly possible to solo Ascension Sendai in Ravager form using the Slayer trick; I just made the mistake of entering the fight before those berserk rounds were over.
The problem was that Ascension Sendai involves multiple mages onscreen at once, which means Breach is more or less inevitable for priests. Without Armor of Faith active, a cleric only has 53% damage resistance in Ravager form with the Helm of Dumathoin equipped, and even with 450 HP, the drow can cut you down very quickly.
A solo cleric or druid should still be perfectly viable even without the Slayer trick. Chain-casting Divine Protection should keep you safe, and Aura of Flaming Death and/or Fire Shield from the Staff of Fire (both of which can notably be Breached or dispelled) should thin out the drow fighters before they become overwhelming. Running around will also help, which isn't possible in Ravager form or with the Big Metal Unit equipped, since it's easy to get boxed in. Druids can also escape being boxed in by equipping the Earth Elemental Token to get bumped to a new spot. A Shaman might be able to stay somewhat safe with Spirit Form, but I'm not sure if Spirit Form's invisibility will be dispelled by True Seeing since the effect is nonmagical and it isn't coded as an Illusion spell.
Valerie was exhausted when Mendas finally fell – her Robe of the Good Arch-Magi & Cloak of Non-Detection, soaked through with sweat & grime. She had no doubt that these last many days on the Isle of Balduran, and at sea, had been the toughest she and the others had experienced yet. Destroying Karoug, a Greater Wolfwere, and then Selaad Gan, a Loup Garou, had been long, trying, brutal affairs in which patience, discernment, skill, and most of all, well patience, had been paramount. These monsters simply would not die and no creature, humanoid or other, that they had faced to date could measure up. Discovering their weakness & then exploiting it quickly enough to outlast their ability to rejuvenate was tiresome & required repeated trial & error, escape & evasion. Finally, a Wolfsbane Charm, a dagger called Werebane in the hands of Sirine, & a barrage of offensive magic proved enough to bring them down. In between they had battled dozens of wolves, werewolves, and their more powerful cousins, wolfweres. Finding the Sword of Balduran after killing Karoug was almost an insult - they all had a sense at least one god somewhere was smiling a wry smile at their realization of the irony.
DEFEATING KAROUG!
BRINGING DOWN SELAAD GAN'S WIFE
AND SELAAD GAN HIMELF
On the tail end of breezing through Ice Island, Dispenser had hired on to go on a knowledge hunting foray for Mendas, a mysterious man living in Ulgoth’s Beard. The quest led them, first, to the Merchant’s League in Baldur’s Gate, and then, to the Island of Balduran, somewhere in the Sea of Swords. In retrospect, the entire adventure had been a ruse to allow Selaad Gan’s (Mendas’) clan of werewolves to escape the island & come to the Sword Coast. But that was behind them now. She stared blankly at Imoen and Indira as they cleaned out the treasure in a now unlocked chest in Selaad Gan’s home. Valerie did not care about the gold now – she just wanted to get to the inn and plop down in the room Dispenser had rented for them all.
The next tenday, at the time of day called Highsun, Valerie looked around the Ulgoth’s Beard Inn as she and the others ate dinner, the first meal of the day along the Sword Coast. This meal was particularly tasty after days and days of saltfish, jerky & hardtack. They dined on bacon, garlic & onion porridge w/bacon fat, bread, cheese, ale, mead & two wines. Imoen & Indira sat across the table from her, chatting. She, Isra, and Sirine sat opposite talking w/Dispenser, who was at the head of the table. Dispenser was trying to decide when they would depart for the infamous Durlag’s Tower far to the south of Ulgoth’s Beard and, somewhere east of Beregost & Nashkel. One question was whether, at risk of confrontation w/Flaming Fist, to make a foray into Baldur’s Gate to purchase a set of Plate Armor (if one could be found) – Isra’s had disintegrated on return from Balduran – a late casualty of the now former iron crisis. Sirine suggested trying Taerom in Beregost. They had given him an Ankheg shell & he had seemed eager to make a set of Ankheg Plate - Sirine thought he might be done. They all agreed it was worth the chance – besides, they all had aches & pains – residual effects of the Isle of Balduran. A few days to work them out could not hurt. Valerie suddenly found it surreal that that they had all just returned from an island somewhere out . . . there . . . and were now planning another adventure to the most feared place on the Sword Coast.
PARTY INFO
ORDER OF MARCH: Indira (recon), Sirine & Isra (shock), Dispenser (leader), Imoen (Traps), Valerie (Arcane support)
MONSTERS DEFEATED: Greater Wolfwere (IBN), Daese (Mage-Necromancer/10 & Wolfwere), Vampiric Wolves (4), Wolfwere (17 – IBN), Dread Wolves (10 – IBN), Werewolves (14 – IBS), Brown Bears (3 – IBS), Dire Wolves (10 – IBN), Worg, Ulf (Thief/6 - BG), Merchant League Counting House Guards (Fighter/6 [4], Thief/6 [3] - BG), Wolves (3 – IBN)
Legend: Baldur’s Gate (BG), Isle of Balduran – South (IBS), Isle of Balduran – North (IBN)
LEVEL UP: Valerie (Sorcerer/8)
CASUALTIES: Indira (2 - Wolfwere, Vampiric Wolf)
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE GAINED: (Gold = ~ 2040 gp [34,187])
Armor & weapons: Sword of Balduran, Dagger +1/+4 (Lycanthrope)
Corebrawl the gnomish fighter and his group of mostly fighters - FINAL Update!
Traveling with:
Sarah - dwarven berserker
Sarevok - human fighter
Jenny - halfling fighter
Imoen - thief/mage
Rorc - Half-orc Kensai
Well the fighters tore through everything in ToB - until they met Draconis, who tore through my fighters - RIP Corebrawl.
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3021 // Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are immune to the iron crisis: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3550 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v32.6
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #40 // Change Viconia's Skin Color to Dark Blue: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #140 // Fix Boo's Squeak: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #160 // Make Magic Shields Glow (plainab/grogerson): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #191 // Use Character Colors Instead of Item Colors -> For non-magical shields and helmets: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Remove Blur Effect from Items, e.g. Cloack of Displacement: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Separate Resist Fire/Cold Icon into Separate Icons (Angel): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1010 // More Interjections: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1036 // Make Cloakwood Areas Available Before Completing the Bandit Camp -> All of Cloakwood Except the Mines: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1060 // Breakable Iron Nonmagical Shields, Helms, and Armor: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1075 // Send BioWare NPCs to an Inn (DavidW/Zed Nocear): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1090 // Exotic Item Pack: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Reveal City Maps When Entering Area: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1251 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Alora to Gullykin: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1252 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Eldoth to the Coast Way: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1253 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Quayle to the Nashkel Carnival: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1254 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Shar-Teel to North Nashkel Road: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1255 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Tiax to Beregost: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1256 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Viconia to South Beregost Road: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2040 // Universal Clubs: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2060 // Weapon Styles for All: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Change Experience Point Cap -> Remove Experience Cap: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> P&P Restrictions: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Multi-Class Grandmastery (Weimer): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2220 // Change Magically Created Weapons to Zero Weight: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2320 // Trap Cap Removal (Ardanis/GeN1e): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2330 // Remove Delay for Magical Traps (Ardanis/GeN1e): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2339 // Remove Summoning Cap for Regular Summons: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2357 // Alter Multiclass Restrictions -> Install options one and two (everyone can multiclass anything): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single Classes: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2410 // Druids Use 3E Alignment Restrictions: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Exceptional Strength Weight Limit Changes: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2520 // Allow Mages to Use Bucklers and Thieves to Use Small Shields (Angel): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3060 // Remove "You Must Gather Your Party..." Sound (Weimer): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3070 // Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices -> Low Reputation Store Discount (Sabre): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3120 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Are Never Angry About Reputation: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3123 // NPCs Don't Fight: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3125 // Neutral Characters Make Happy Comments at Mid-Range Reputation: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3190 // Rest Anywhere (Japheth): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3191 // Disable Non-Hostile Rest Spawns: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3200 // Sellable Items (Icelus): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3290 // Personalize automatic save names -> Use scheme: 000000000-Protagonist-Save-Name: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3330 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Adjust Evil joinable NPC reaction rolls: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4025 // Allow NPC pairs to separate: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4050 // Change Jaheira to Neutral Good: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4170 // Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge: v9
Starting character sheet:
Prologue
Do everything available.
Chapter One
A pretty standard start. Most of the time is spent earning relatively easy experience to level 5, gaining some key items (Algernon's Cloak, Edventar's Gift, and the Greenstone Amulet), and beginning to raise reputation.
Chapter Two
More gaining experience and lesser items and raising reputation to 20. I make some very sloppy plays but fortunately save against a charm from Mutamin and a sirine. I also have trouble with the battle horrors at Durlag's Tower as I begin to learn the limits of studded leather armor.
Sell Drizzt's armor. Oublek. Noober. Red and Violet potions. The One Gift Lost. PfP Scroll. Sendai (studded leather +2). Statue. Korax + basilisks (level 6). Korax dies on Mutamin and the last Greater Basilisk. Save vs Mutamin's charm because of Potion of Mirrored Eyes. Battle horrors. Greenstone Amulet -> wisdom manual. Basilisks (level 7). Doom guard. Did all 4 sirines at once. Greenstone fell off on the last, but I saved. Phew. Melicamp dies. Meilum's bracers. Ardrouine. Potion of Clarity -> Sirines. Flesh golems. Constitution manual. Sirines. Caldo and Krumm. Drienne's cat. Gnarl and Hairtooth. Charisma manual. Brun's son -> Reputation 20. Some ankhegs. Charm Denak, who dies to tasloi. Wand of Frost. Charm and waste Mulahey's spells.
Chapter Three
Revenant. Narcillicus and mustard jellies (level 8). Nimbul. Officer Vai. Tranzig. Raiken.
Taurgosz is charmed and close to death from a hobgoblin elite. I try to get the final hit, but miss, and he sounds the alarm. He dies to hobgoblin elite poison, and I end up having to flee.
Lamalha and party. My first arrow of biting lands on Zeela, poisoning her. The second one poisons Lamalha. Telka backstabs me, and I charm her with Algernon's cloak. Cleaning up with both casters disabled and a helper is easy.
Molkar and party. Halacan saves against the arrow of biting, but I manage to charm Drakar. Halacan approaches to melee and dies after getting off a glitterdust. Drakar holds Morvin. Easy after that.
Stealth when I arrive back at the Bandit Camp. Decide to just enter the tent and get the stuff, but everyone follows. Utilizing Icingdeath and Batalista's Passport, I bomb everyone down with The One Gift Lost.
Chapter Four
I side with the merchants. The druids blind me, but I manage to charm one and run to stealth. He was out of range so is still alive and manages to blind Seniyad. I eventually poison Seniyad, and it goes quickly from there. With spiders as my racial enemy, I clear the second zone. Amarande for Club +2. Pass through Cloakwood 4, stopping to backstab the hamadryad.
Mostly stealth through the mines, giving money to the slaves and freeing the dwarf. After I kill the battle horrors, I go out to rest and get boxed in. I quickly realize I don't have the AC to fight my way out, so I drink my last invisibility potion and pause.
My One Gift Lost only has two charges left because I forgot to recharge it. There's a few I can get in Baldur's Gate, but I'd rather not waste it. I check my potion case and find an Oil of Fiery Burning. Icingdeath and Batalista's get me to 90%. I drink a Potion of Defense. Seeing that it didn't break invisibility, I drink several healing potions to get back to full health. I remove my Studded Leather +2 and equip a RoP for -6 AC. I use the Oil of Fiery Burning and one charge from The One Gift Lost to weaken everyone. I survive!
I rest and head back down. The guard is still charmed. I will try to kill Davaeorn with him but have prepped a Potion of Magic Blocking just in case. The guard worked.
Chapter Five
Do a bunch of stuff around Baldur's Gate.
Recharge my amulets. Sandthief's Ring. I do some shopping on the world map and pick up the Golden Pantaloons. Dexterity manual. Bag of holding, arrows, potions, and scrolls. Marek. Nadine. Lothander. Kill Jalantha. Basilisk. Yago. Wisdom manual. Varci. Ragefast, Nymph Cloak. Euric. Nadarin. G'axir. Lothander. Nadine, The One Gift Lost. Brielbara, mustard jelly. Marek. Ramazith disappeared so I couldn't get his ring. Helm of Balduran. Aldeth. Scar, Jhasso. Angel skin ring (level 9). Ogre mage. Sunin's ring of wizardry. Stealth through the Iron Throne, avoiding the top floor fight. Elton.
Chapter Six:
Ogre mages (Paws of the Cheetah, stealth, and backstabs). Charm Kestor (should have picked someone else) and kill Rieltar and party. The manuals are retrieved with the violet potion. Prat is charmed and fed to spiders. Sakul is charmed and holds Tam while I backstab Bor. Clean up the rest, kill the basilisks, and head out.
Chapter Seven:
Backstab Cythandria. Charm Tamoko, waste her spells, and use her own Finger of Death on herself. I should have assumed I wouldn't receive experience and killed her instead.
Charm Larze and Quenashe (cloak) and kill Slythe and Krystin. Charm and relocate all the noblemen which allows me to take them on essentially one by one. Fight my way through the Thieve's Maze, using a Potion of Absorbtion and fire resist to mostly be undamaged.
I botch charming Rahvin's party so go it alone. Charming bats mostly gets Sarevok and party rounded up, and I enter and leave stealth from range to shoot them with arrows of detonation and dispelling. Angelo dies first, then Semaj, then Tazok, then Diarmid. Clean up the skeleton warriors, dispel Sarevok, and he falls.
Character sheet
My last BG:EE completion was over 30 attempts ago. I've mostly been picking at random from the list of classes missing from the Hall of Heroes. This was not the class I was expecting to make it to SoD on.
Because of how hard the Iron Throne fight is, I decided to separate the enemy and take them down individually instead of trying to go at them all at once. This proved very effective and I won although not without almost dying to a multiclass spellcaster and his Burning Hands.
Candlekeep was a breeze. I ended up using the Violet Potion, skipped the Spiders in Prat's level because I didn't have a second scroll of Prot. from Poison for them, and got some cool stuff (see Inventory picture below).
Back in Baldur's Gate, Ceres killed Slythn and Krystinn with a the Wand of Heavens, then rushed to the Ducal Palace. The fight started out rather badly: I wasted a round before casting Insect Plague, and Belt died instantly from critical hits, but Liia was able to hold on for the entire duration of the fight due to her buffs. I think it's the first time something like this happens. Anyway. Ceres used Bless and later Curse, that little boost to the Flaming Fist topped with liberal usage of Wands of Heavens helped end the fight rather quickly. Then I kited Sarevok for a bunch of rounds and the battle was finally over!
Ceres' inventory right before starting the Maze. Currently level 12, will post stats once she reaches BG2 I guess.
Next is the Maze and taking down the big guy himself.
well the sharks died easy which made me uneasy moving into the underdark, I took my time and gave everyone a fare fight; Backstabs for the mind suckers, gas for the mushrooms, swarm | pets + gas for the patrol, taps for the soul trap guys and the portal mage.
when we meet lady silver she turned us into drow and I asked Hexxat to lay a full set of traps at her feet but I wanted a couple of items first so the shop had a range dagger and this fish thing wanted me to help him kidnap the girl he was obsessed with... he really did like her for her mind so I assume that is the underdark version of true love? any way she just happen to drop this very nice dagger
with that done we fight a quick two battles to get a good sword and go back to tell miss silver we changed our minds about being her lackies; standard Druid opening of a fire pet attack with swam stopped her casting and I sent Hexaat to the back to lay a new trap line whilst two Fire storms keep her entertained... a very pissed silver dragon charged at us once the swam stopped and the traps did the deed
Because of how hard the Iron Throne fight is, I decided to separate the enemy and take them down individually instead of trying to go at them all at once. This proved very effective and I won although not without almost dying to a multiclass spellcaster and his Burning Hands.
Next is the Maze and taking down the big guy himself.
My style in almost all big battles, 'Divide and conquer.' I like to think of my party as a Special Forces A team - quick strike, withdraw, separate. It's not always possible, but I'll take 6 on 1 anytime I can. Just did it with the warders in Durlag's Tower last night.
Faera got out of chateau Irenicus accompanied by Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc, and Yoshimo, without much trouble, but once escaped life didn't treat her kindly. It began with the Circus Tent, where Kalah's "illusions" caused Minsc and Jaheira tremendous difficulty.
and where the Quayle Redone mod resulted in the party being transported to another area with an ogre mage that even when panicked by Jaheira's Insect Plague, perma-killed prospective party member Aerie.
City ambushes went well, thanks to traveling with radial Invisibility. With a caster-heavy party of Faera, Nalia, Jan, Quayle, Jaheira, and Yoshimo, this allowed for plenty of AoE damage and disabling. Thieves guild was fine too, thanks in part to pre-set snares by Yoshi and Jan.
With Nallia in the party, clearing the Arnise Keep was high on the to do list, but boy were we ill-prepared for that. Even with cheesy invisible blockers and plenty of castings of Minute Meteors, the party could do little, as the spirit trolls would simply nuke them with Flamestrikes and Unholy Blights.
In the city the party quested a bit more (Harper quest, Slavers), and they slew all Cowled Enforcers with thrown traps, spike growths, cloudkills, and eventually death fogs.
But back at Nalia's Keep, the party suffered more against the trolls. Relying on invisibility they found their way to hasted Glaicus who chunked Yoshimo with two consecutive critical hits.
The party eventually defeated TorGal and company by first casting more AoE stuff from a safe distance, leaving only TorGal and one umber hulk elder to battle. Lower Resistance + Malison + a Blindness from Faera disabled the troll leader, although he kept running around a lot, making it hard to hit with ranged attacks.
Insect Plague caused the umber hulk to panic. TorGal fell to Minute Meteors, the umber hulk was slain by Jaheira, who somehow got confused in the process despite there being no icon in her portrait. It was therefor quite a shock to see her strike down Quayle (thankfully not permanently).
Next up was Trademeet. The party approached Faldorn's lair invisibly. Faera had to challenge the shadow druid (as a consequence of the multiple strongholds mod that I use to give NPCs their own strongholds).
She dealt quite a bit of damage through her fogs and clouds, but Faldorn nevertheless managed to summon some beetles, creatures I did know from SoD, but I hadn't fought them in close quarters. One of the bugs stunned Faera, and that was how Faldorn succesfully defended her position in the shadow druid circle.
some unfinished business
I used some bottleneck tactics to bash our way out of the underdark... only stopping to grab the belt
once outside we asked Drizzt to help and popped into the bridge district to finish the wild mage questline, of course different people jumped us as soon as we came back to the city but I forgot the Giff... assume the death of the city guard makes doing the tanner quest impossible?
we finished the bard quest by sending the pets to kill the boss and a single gas to handle his peons
Comments
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1096251/#Comment_1096251
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1096927/#Comment_1096927
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1097055/#Comment_1097055
Today's session started with releasing various inhabitants of a giant soul gem, before moving on to the beholder hive. With the need to kill the elder orb quickly before used imprisonment, Reprise attacked with Gaxx haste while Kaliara threw up an Incendiary Cloud. That was brave of her, given she had no fire protection, but Reprise managed to retreat upstairs before she finished burning to a crisp.
The nearby illithid complex offered a different sort of threat. Reprise had an intelligence of only 10, which was not sufficient for him to realize he could only survive a single hit by mind flayers before his brain was fully emptied - hence he spent much of his time in melee. However, although we don't pause that much in MP, I did keep a close eye out for devouring attacks and paused immediately to break off combat whenever one of those struck.
- retreating a couple of paces.
- activating smite.
- knocking his own attacker back out of the way by throwing Azuredge.
- knocking Kaliara's attacker back as well.
Adalon provided disguises and I managed to restrain my natural tendency to hit "1" whenever a conversation pops up (which at the Gates results in the drow not being impressed by you boasting you've just comes from Adalon's lair). Inside the City Gate70 commented that it seemed to have been quite a while since we were there - and that showed after N'ashtar and his group spent too much time in the clouds:
- when switching the eggs I forgot that while the guards on the egg chamber don't turn the whole city hostile, those closer to the exit will. We therefore hot-footed it out of the city before the gates were locked against us.
- Adalon transported us to the gate, but we cleared the Western Tunnels before making use of it. The prince had his full regeneration and Reprise was only just able to beat that down using Gaxx haste.
Reprise, dwarven defender 24, 173 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 780 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 20, 69 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 287 kills (+97 in BG1), 1 death (+2 in BG1)
Milam (Avenger)
Harvey (Sun Soul Monk)
Coremage (Fighter / Mage)
Part 4 felt like two hours of good fun, until I looked back at the screenshots and the scrappiness of the session hit home.
We started by entering Nashkel Mine. Milam used his spider form to try and keep up with Harvey.
We just need to remember that we've been poisoned by Marek and Lothander so will need to deal with that next time. Sunin will also get some interest in his evermemory ring.
Character inventory at conclusion of the session.
I have at last worked out a strategy for dealing with the improved sirines in the lighthouse area and the improved diggers at the archaeology site.
The party also went to Ulcaster and found athe new area for the improved Ulcaster ruins.
It was there that the run came to an end largely due to not knowing what to expect.
It was a lightning bolt that did the damage.
I did at that point reload and discovered an effective way of dealing with the situation.
I then took the idol and the armour to the ghost of Ulcaster but didn't get the vampyric blade.
I am wondering if I took them to the correct ghost.
I took them to the one who says: "We shall all live again one day."
If anyone knows, please tell me.
A new run should start tomorrow.
It was good to develop strategies for three areas that are new to me.
One of the good things about the new areas is extra tomes. They make it worthwhile taking the extra risks in entering them
Is that the Ghost of Ulcaster as in the one who wanders around outside, the one you give the book to from the treasure pile inside? If so, that was the one who also gives you the blade.
Good luck with your new attempt!
My character is now dead, so as far as I am concerned the question is now academic unless the same problem resurfaces in my next game.
Journal of Seth the Seer
I was raised in Candlekeep and had great hopes of becoming a paladin, preferably an Inquisitor.
Sadly I failed. This is probably because of a lack of holiness on my part. Whilst I try to be holy, I fail so often. For instance, I know that breaking into people's chests and taking the contents is wrong, but still I do it! Perhaps that is why I did it in full view of a witness. It resulted in me getting caught and having to pay a fine. It relieved my guilt somewhat.
At least the martial training was not wasted as I switched to being a Fighter/Illusionist. The only other bit of paladin training that is of use is that I can still cast "True Sight." It is that which makes me a seer rather than being able to see into the future like the Wise Alaundo. All I can see is what is true in the present. Even that is a useful talent however particularly as so many use illusion. I can hardly complain about that since I myself am an Illusionist.
Here are my details:
Traveling with:
Sarah - dwarven berserker
April - dwarven berserker
Jenny - halfling fighter
Rorc - half-orc kensai
Yoshimo - bounty hunter
CHUNKED: Selia the fighter/thief (disintegrated)
The party has made tremendous progress. We have done most major quests and even defeated Bodhi, and even without death, although April nearly died...
Selia got disintegrated in Planar Prison, so decided was time to get Imoen. As is my practice, I recruit Yoshimo just for the trip to Spellhold - his heart is worth 200,000 exp after all. Fighters take lots of damage in the bigger fights, of course, but they are tough and usually survive. Some of the potentially more difficult fights, such as Tanova and Tarnor's gang, we one at a time sent our few summons to draw out the more dangerous spells, then that made those groups much easier to deal with. Gaius still got off a finger of death at a berserker, but the berserker saved so nothing was accomplished by Tarnor's gang.
We are currently in Brynnlaw, about to enter Spellhold. I would have recruited a fighter/thief to replace Selia but there aren't any and I don't count Yoshimo since you can't keep him.
well there is always Sarevok
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1096251/#Comment_1096251
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1096927/#Comment_1096927
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1097055/#Comment_1097055
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1097806/#Comment_1097806
An unusually long session yesterday saw us leap forward, deep into ToB. The session started travelling away from the Underdark Exit and we bypassed Drizzt invisibly on the way back to Athkatla. Kruin was waiting for us there and provided the remaining piece for the Silver Sword.
We hadn't previously visited Firkraag, so couldn't make Crom Faeyr. However, that was soon remedied with a rapid trip through his forces.
At that point I travelled back to the Underdark Exit, only to be reminded there was something missing
In Suldanesselar there were plenty more golems to face. They appeared to be resistant to vorpals from the planetar and the Silver Sword, but Kaliara had bought the Rod of Smiting and claimed a number of kills with that. Rather than attack Nizi, Reprise decided to test out the Wand of Wonder. That has a chance of producing a no-save petrification that ignores magic resistance. It took 7 attempts to get that to happen, so standard attacking would probably have been quicker - but look at the size of that statue!
On the Tree, Kaliara waited for Jon to use his time stop, safely out of sight of him. Unfortunately, she wasn't out of sight on my computer and Jon took the opportunity to target her with a FoD - fortunately she saved. After the time stops Reprise decided to come into melee. That would be very dangerous in single player, due to the possibility of maze - and Reprise duly disappeared. However, Kaliara observed from a distance while a planetar pummeled Jon - until she finally came back into sight of him to prompt his parting speech.
In the hell trials, Reprise was content to act as a goody-goody in the first few trials. Often I dislike losing dexterity as the price of saving a companion, but as Reprise has a low dexterity anyway and wears the bracers to boost that the loss had no impact this time. He did though get in touch with his evil side in order to get Blackrazor (also allowing him to use the Soul Reaver).
In ToB, Illasera proved once more to be rather a wimp. The first challenge in our new pocket plane saw most of the attackers burn up in Incendiary Clouds. However, the final 3 characters were very slow to enter and the clouds had pretty much burned up by the time they appeared.
After finding a mage's spellbook, Reprise kept an assignation with a vampire in the prison. Using the iMod that gave a nice XP boost before Reprise let several groups of prisoners out of their cells - finally boosting reputation up to 20 after our earlier accidents with fireballs.
Moving on to the Forest of Mir, we didn't bother with protection from undead. That proved a problem for Kaliara as some of the undead could see through her invisibility - and she keeled over once more.
Nyalee really shouldn't have changed her mind about helping us.
We picked up the Answerer at the Oasis on the way to Amkethran. Reprise remembered there that he was now evil and stood by chuckling to himself as some mercenaries cut down the mayor's daughter.
The session closed with an assault on Sendai's enclave. Rather than bother with all the drow, the aim was just to kill the Woodcutter and head for the revealed entrance. The woodcutter duly died under a GWW assault, but the entrance stubbornly stayed in shadow. With true sights running that meant some combat was required until the game eventually remembered what it was supposed to do next. We passed through quite a bit of the early stages invisible as XP levels were already looking pretty high anyway. Odamaron was a first victim for the Runehammer (Reprise has high mastery in hammers, so that was even more of an upgrade from the iMod than usual).
Finally tracking down Sendai herself, we worked through a succession of statues - Reprise acting as tank while Kaliara stayed to one side throwing in clouds and other spells. That all worked well and it didn't take long before Sendai had to come into combat herself. Reprise was more cautious against her and just threw his axe in a succession of GWWs to avoid the fate of a planetar that was Harmed by Sendai.
Reprise, dwarven defender 36, 222 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1143 kills (+323 in BG1)
Kaliara, abjurer 28, 71 HPs, 417 kills (+97 in BG1), 2 deaths (+2 in BG1)
This bug, in combination with the collision bug (which I have lost several runs to), plus the nerfing of the dispelling arrows, is heavily tempting me to go back to original BG II for my no-reloads. In the original, melee/ranged parties could still beat Melissan as dispelling arrows removed her protections, but now that doesn't work in EE, that greatly handicaps non-magic based parties. Melissan already requires +4 weapons to hit, she hardly needed the nerfing of the dispelling arrows - that's my 2 cents, anyways. In the original, dispelling arrows were also important for non-magic parties against dragons.
Now, the dispelling arrows are a waste of money, as they only affect enemies that didn't need dispelling arrows in the 1st place. I think that was why the dispelling arrows were so expensive in the 1st place, as they COULD work on dragons and Melissan. Now their cost makes no sense.
In any case, Corebrawl has just made it past Spellhold area 2.
In the area south of the Friendly Arms Inn when I was approached by the old man (Elminster) I went to the top left hand corner and surrounded myself with weasels so that he couldn't initiate conversation. I then attacked with the weasels and my trusty bow and he turned my character into a chicken. He then disappeared. I went to the Friendly Arms Inn and whilst in transit the spell wore off.
I don't know if this has been introduced by a mod or if it is standard EE behaviour. I thought it quite amusing.
Of course this change means that he is no longer killable, which is a shame.
Has this happened to anyone else?
I wasn't in the mood to ask nice for the key but I stuffed up laying too many traps upstars and had to fight without my gear... magic missile, insect plague sorted him out before the fight really started and a storm of web \ fire cleaned up the peons
As far as damage, yes, that's probably right. But as for the dispel effect, that occurred independent of what it took to hurt an enemy. Thus, while Melissan could not be hurt by dispelling arrows, the dispel effect could still trigger if it hit. This is how my all paladin runs defeated her in vanilla, as well as how the paladins dealt with dragons who did PfMW, but now in EE, not sure I could repeat that due to this change. Incidentally, a number of weapon effects worked like this in vanilla, e.g. the weapon effect could trigger, though the enemy could not be hurt by the basic damage of the weapon. In vanilla (without fixpack), I think the IMoD for example, the trigger effect could kill a vampire that requires +3 to hit.
Images inside the spoiler tags
At the Friendly Arms Inn I charmed the Dwarven Caravan Guard to fight Tarnesh.
I was hoping that Tarnesh would win after being greatly weakened since the +4 mithril armour would have been a great boon.
However the dwarf has good resistances that make him exceedingly hardy. (The arrows of freezing that the other guards have no longer hold him
Tarnesh used a spell that caused him to panic. Another that charmed him, and acid arrow as well. I used a charm person spell which negated the second spell.
There was one occasion that was touch and go since I had to save against hold.
Eventually the battle was reduced to mundane weapons and one arrow was sufficient to win the day.
In Beregost the battle against Silke was interesting since I was still only level one. As Silke cast mirror image, I cast weasels. The weasels don't do much damage but they do occupy the attention of those that they are attacking and they do a great job of getting rid of mirror image. When she no longer had extra images Silke used sleep on them whilst I charmed one of those that I was trying to save. Silke killed him with acid arrow (That would have killed me!) Meanwhile I charmed another of those that I was trying to save. She put him to sleep. (Again, if that had happened to me it would have been end of story. We were now both out of spells but my armour spell was still active. That was enough to win the battle.
It brought me to level 2.
I was able to help Mellicamp, but won't try to help the werewolf until I can afford some decent arrows.
More weasels kept Karlat busy whilst I pumped him full of arrows. By the time they were killed his health was so poor that his death was inevitable.
I was quite pleased to have won at level one. Not easy and so quite satisfying.
I then joined up with Sirene. Her healing spells and her sword were a real boon.
We headed south together along the road killing ogrillon, overly officious flaming fist mercenaries, Tristan unt Isolde and numerous bandits and hobgoblins.
We aquired the Colquetle amulet and Lord Foreshadow's ring.
In Nahkell we found some ankheg armour and we talked to Noober. We turned down a reward which belonged to the bounty hunter Greywolf.
Heading south we killed Zargos Flintblade and Greywolf, weasels once more being of great worth.
We then searched for and found a wand of frost and a ring of fire protection.
We then took Samuel for healing.
After doing so, our reputation became 20 after which we went hunting ankhegs.
After killing 3 of rhem the paladins levelled up.
This made the killing of the rest of them very easy.
We went to Beregost to sell the shells with the result that we now have over 10,000 gold pieces.
A little shopping is now called for I believe.
EDIT
I found that I need a bit more gold for the item that I want.
I have reunited Rufie with his owner.
I have helped Bentha against Zordral and killed those who wished to chop down a dryad's tree though I haven't told her yet.
I have also released a woman from petrification near the Temple of Lathander. I am now thinking of teaming up with Gavin.
Part 5: Siege of Dragonspear
I really underestimate the enemy group guarding the path to the lift. Turns out there's a Wizard Slayer, Turin Brassbreaker, among the enemies, and a backstabber that in previous runs just never made a noticeable impact.
We poison the crusader supplies under Invisibility and flee Hephernaan before returning to the Coalition Camp. Pre-cast Web and Skull Trap spells wreck the first three waves and most of the fourth...
Now for Dragonspear Castle! There's no way Frisky Bits could safely handle Ashatiel, so we have to fight things out. Fortunately, Spirit Armor and Protection from Fire spells keep us safe, and Lance of Disruption and Skull Trap are great against enemy crowds. We carve the path with brute force.
Unfortunately, we are at an impasse. To safely kill Belhifet, we flat-out need to have one sorcerer at level 11 and the others at least at level 10. Without level 10, we can't use enough Lower Resistance spells on Belhifet before he disappears, and we need Resist Fear to avoid getting disabled, because the fear effect in the final fight uses a save vs. wands, not spells, and Spirit Armor stacking does nothing for our other saving throws.
Resting causes 3 enemies to appear, which can include low-XP lemures and high-XP imps. We have to spend a very, very long time to get enough XP for everyone, and the strategy boils down to one thing.
Once everyone is at the minimum level we need to tackle Belhifet, we stack Spirit Armor spells, grant 100% fire resistance to the party, and step onto the elevator. The Hell Cats give us some grief because they constantly go invisible, but we can get past their MR with Lance of Disruption without losing too many Stoneskins by using some careful positioning to minimize friendly fire.
Now we have to trap Belhifet. Since he hasn't yet gone invisible and gotten saving throw bonuses from Improved Invisibility, he has a 50% chance of failing his save against each Web we cast at him, while our Spirit Armor stacking makes us all immune. We immediately snare him and follow up with Acid Arrows, and we have lots of them thanks to Minor Sequencer, courtesy of SCS v32.
Since our reputation is low, we get the evil escape ending. We always travel under Invisibility, however, and Corwin finds no trace of us.
Traveling with:
Sarah - dwarven berserker
Jenny - halfling fighter
Rorc - half-orc kensai
Imoen - thief/mage
CHUNKED:
Selia - fighter/thief, disintegrated in planar prison
April - berserker, chunked by Adalon
Well the run continues, but just barely. The party did excellent in the Kua-Toa Lair, even defeating the demon knights in record time. We also did excellent in the Beholder's Lair clearing the whole area, since not afraid of the imprisonment with two berserkers clearing the way. We also destroyed the Illithids in their city without much trouble.
However, we needed Adalon's blood, and up to this point I had never defeated Adalon in EE and in fact had a recent run end there. The vanilla method of attacking from the alcove didn't work last time I tried it, so gave Adalon a very fair fight - we surrounded her and everyone attacked. We got her to 1/2 health then she buffeted and then her cold attacks were very powerful. In the end, everyone was dead and Corebrawl was feared! And April got chunked as well!!!
But wait! Corebrawl is out of range of Adalon and she does not pursue! He uses some expensive potion buffs, equips some bolts from Watcher's Keep and attacks - thanks to his ****** in crossbow he got good hits and despite heavy damage from her cold breath, Corebrawl avenges his friends' deaths!!
Fortunately, Corebrawl had RoR to put everyone back together. April is gone forever, she will be missed - also a few important items disappeared with her, her shield of harmony and the shield of balduran - the run must continue!
We escaped the Underdark, and have forged a few items with Cromwell's help. We will try to get the flesh armor forged next.
Whew!
EDIT: Just noticed one of the items lost when April got chunked is the IMoD. Ouch!
Traveling with:
Sarah - dwarven berserker
Jenny - halfling fighter
Rorc - half-orc Kensai
Imoen - thief/mage
Sarevok - fighter
CHUNKED:
Semia - fighter/thief (distintegrated in planar prison)
April - berserker, chunked by Adalon
The run continues. We did quite a bit of dragon hunting in chapter 6, all successful.
dragon victories
Suldanesslar was freed. Irenicus defeated at the Tree of Life.
Valygar was killed while fighting Irenicus in Hell, but since we were already planning on replacing him with Sarevok once we could do that, we didn't really care. Irenicus eventually gave it up, but it took him a while to realize he was lost...
Illsaera was easily defeated. We have recruited Sarevok and will work on pocket plane challenge #1 now.
Most memorable moment: Static Charge killing the Ogre Mage in one (!!) hit.
Sunin also saw to it, although it made him run in panic, which is something that, when a Stoneskinned mage does it, is annoying because you know you're spending your next five minutes watching your character chase them. Five stone skins (note the lack of capitalization, he luckily did not recast the spell!!) later, Ceres got in the final hit and he turned into XP. Sweet XP.
Since I'm doing most of the quests in Baldur's Gate simply because of how easy and safe they are, we had to pick up Alora for about ten seconds to get the Telescope. She only had enough XP to get to level 2 (weird), but that was enough for her to get 100% in Open Locks, so it's alright I guess. We'll be recruiting her again soon, after we take care of the Iron Throne, since I might take her to Candlekeep with me.
The problem was that Ascension Sendai involves multiple mages onscreen at once, which means Breach is more or less inevitable for priests. Without Armor of Faith active, a cleric only has 53% damage resistance in Ravager form with the Helm of Dumathoin equipped, and even with 450 HP, the drow can cut you down very quickly.
A solo cleric or druid should still be perfectly viable even without the Slayer trick. Chain-casting Divine Protection should keep you safe, and Aura of Flaming Death and/or Fire Shield from the Staff of Fire (both of which can notably be Breached or dispelled) should thin out the drow fighters before they become overwhelming. Running around will also help, which isn't possible in Ravager form or with the Big Metal Unit equipped, since it's easy to get boxed in. Druids can also escape being boxed in by equipping the Earth Elemental Token to get bumped to a new spot. A Shaman might be able to stay somewhat safe with Spirit Form, but I'm not sure if Spirit Form's invisibility will be dispelled by True Seeing since the effect is nonmagical and it isn't coded as an Illusion spell.
DEFEATING KAROUG!
BRINGING DOWN SELAAD GAN'S WIFE
AND SELAAD GAN HIMELF
On the tail end of breezing through Ice Island, Dispenser had hired on to go on a knowledge hunting foray for Mendas, a mysterious man living in Ulgoth’s Beard. The quest led them, first, to the Merchant’s League in Baldur’s Gate, and then, to the Island of Balduran, somewhere in the Sea of Swords. In retrospect, the entire adventure had been a ruse to allow Selaad Gan’s (Mendas’) clan of werewolves to escape the island & come to the Sword Coast. But that was behind them now. She stared blankly at Imoen and Indira as they cleaned out the treasure in a now unlocked chest in Selaad Gan’s home. Valerie did not care about the gold now – she just wanted to get to the inn and plop down in the room Dispenser had rented for them all.
The next tenday, at the time of day called Highsun, Valerie looked around the Ulgoth’s Beard Inn as she and the others ate dinner, the first meal of the day along the Sword Coast. This meal was particularly tasty after days and days of saltfish, jerky & hardtack. They dined on bacon, garlic & onion porridge w/bacon fat, bread, cheese, ale, mead & two wines. Imoen & Indira sat across the table from her, chatting. She, Isra, and Sirine sat opposite talking w/Dispenser, who was at the head of the table. Dispenser was trying to decide when they would depart for the infamous Durlag’s Tower far to the south of Ulgoth’s Beard and, somewhere east of Beregost & Nashkel. One question was whether, at risk of confrontation w/Flaming Fist, to make a foray into Baldur’s Gate to purchase a set of Plate Armor (if one could be found) – Isra’s had disintegrated on return from Balduran – a late casualty of the now former iron crisis. Sirine suggested trying Taerom in Beregost. They had given him an Ankheg shell & he had seemed eager to make a set of Ankheg Plate - Sirine thought he might be done. They all agreed it was worth the chance – besides, they all had aches & pains – residual effects of the Isle of Balduran. A few days to work them out could not hurt. Valerie suddenly found it surreal that that they had all just returned from an island somewhere out . . . there . . . and were now planning another adventure to the most feared place on the Sword Coast.
ORDER OF MARCH: Indira (recon), Sirine & Isra (shock), Dispenser (leader), Imoen (Traps), Valerie (Arcane support)
MONSTERS DEFEATED: Greater Wolfwere (IBN), Daese (Mage-Necromancer/10 & Wolfwere), Vampiric Wolves (4), Wolfwere (17 – IBN), Dread Wolves (10 – IBN), Werewolves (14 – IBS), Brown Bears (3 – IBS), Dire Wolves (10 – IBN), Worg, Ulf (Thief/6 - BG), Merchant League Counting House Guards (Fighter/6 [4], Thief/6 [3] - BG), Wolves (3 – IBN)
Legend: Baldur’s Gate (BG), Isle of Balduran – South (IBS), Isle of Balduran – North (IBN)
LEVEL UP: Valerie (Sorcerer/8)
CASUALTIES: Indira (2 - Wolfwere, Vampiric Wolf)
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE GAINED: (Gold = ~ 2040 gp [34,187])
Armor & weapons: Sword of Balduran, Dagger +1/+4 (Lycanthrope)
Gems/jewelry: Wolfsbane Charm
Potions: Storm Giant Strength (2), Cloud Giant Strength, Heroism
Scrolls:
Wands: Frost, Lightning (2), Magic Missiles, Fear
Misc & Artifacts:
BEST KILL:
1) Valerie: Greater Wolfwere (8000 exp)
2) Isra, Dispenser, Sirene: Greater Basilisks (7000 exp each)
3) Indira & Imoen: Vampiric Wolves (2000 exp ea)
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Resting, recuperating & resupplying at Ulgoth’s Beard
NEXT STEPS: Durlag’s Tower
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 6/6 (HP 31) Indira’s Chain Vest, Ring of Protection +2,Girdle of Piercing & Boots of Speed; Composite Short Bow +2*** w/Bracers of Archery & L/Sword +1***; Spells; Haste, Flame Arrow, Hold Person, Melf’s Acid Arrow (2), Magic Missile (4); (Advanced AI) (4)
Imoen: Thief/Adventurer//8 (HP 47) Leather w/Ring/Prot +1 & Darkveil; 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/8 (HP 23) Robe of the Good Arch-Magi & Ring/Protection +1; Ring Energy, Necklace of Missiles, Sling +1* (Dart*); Spells: Greater Malison, 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)
Traveling with:
Sarah - dwarven berserker
Sarevok - human fighter
Jenny - halfling fighter
Imoen - thief/mage
Rorc - Half-orc Kensai
Well the fighters tore through everything in ToB - until they met Draconis, who tore through my fighters - RIP Corebrawl.
Back to the drawing board.
Mods: SCS v32.6 and Tweaks Anthology
Difficulty: Solo, Tactical
Weidu log:
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3021 // Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are immune to the iron crisis: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3550 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v32.6
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v32.6
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #40 // Change Viconia's Skin Color to Dark Blue: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #140 // Fix Boo's Squeak: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #160 // Make Magic Shields Glow (plainab/grogerson): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #191 // Use Character Colors Instead of Item Colors -> For non-magical shields and helmets: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Remove Blur Effect from Items, e.g. Cloack of Displacement: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Separate Resist Fire/Cold Icon into Separate Icons (Angel): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1010 // More Interjections: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1036 // Make Cloakwood Areas Available Before Completing the Bandit Camp -> All of Cloakwood Except the Mines: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1060 // Breakable Iron Nonmagical Shields, Helms, and Armor: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1075 // Send BioWare NPCs to an Inn (DavidW/Zed Nocear): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1090 // Exotic Item Pack: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Reveal City Maps When Entering Area: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1251 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Alora to Gullykin: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1252 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Eldoth to the Coast Way: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1253 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Quayle to the Nashkel Carnival: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1254 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Shar-Teel to North Nashkel Road: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1255 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Tiax to Beregost: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1256 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Viconia to South Beregost Road: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2040 // Universal Clubs: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2060 // Weapon Styles for All: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Change Experience Point Cap -> Remove Experience Cap: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> P&P Restrictions: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Multi-Class Grandmastery (Weimer): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2220 // Change Magically Created Weapons to Zero Weight: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2320 // Trap Cap Removal (Ardanis/GeN1e): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2330 // Remove Delay for Magical Traps (Ardanis/GeN1e): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2339 // Remove Summoning Cap for Regular Summons: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2357 // Alter Multiclass Restrictions -> Install options one and two (everyone can multiclass anything): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single Classes: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2410 // Druids Use 3E Alignment Restrictions: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Exceptional Strength Weight Limit Changes: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2520 // Allow Mages to Use Bucklers and Thieves to Use Small Shields (Angel): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3060 // Remove "You Must Gather Your Party..." Sound (Weimer): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3070 // Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices -> Low Reputation Store Discount (Sabre): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3120 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Are Never Angry About Reputation: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3123 // NPCs Don't Fight: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3125 // Neutral Characters Make Happy Comments at Mid-Range Reputation: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3190 // Rest Anywhere (Japheth): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3191 // Disable Non-Hostile Rest Spawns: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3200 // Sellable Items (Icelus): v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3290 // Personalize automatic save names -> Use scheme: 000000000-Protagonist-Save-Name: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3330 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Adjust Evil joinable NPC reaction rolls: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4025 // Allow NPC pairs to separate: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4050 // Change Jaheira to Neutral Good: v9
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4170 // Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge: v9
Starting character sheet:
Prologue
Do everything available.
Chapter One
A pretty standard start. Most of the time is spent earning relatively easy experience to level 5, gaining some key items (Algernon's Cloak, Edventar's Gift, and the Greenstone Amulet), and beginning to raise reputation.
Chapter Two
More gaining experience and lesser items and raising reputation to 20. I make some very sloppy plays but fortunately save against a charm from Mutamin and a sirine. I also have trouble with the battle horrors at Durlag's Tower as I begin to learn the limits of studded leather armor.
Chapter Three
Revenant. Narcillicus and mustard jellies (level 8). Nimbul. Officer Vai. Tranzig. Raiken.
Taurgosz is charmed and close to death from a hobgoblin elite. I try to get the final hit, but miss, and he sounds the alarm. He dies to hobgoblin elite poison, and I end up having to flee.
Chapter Four
I side with the merchants. The druids blind me, but I manage to charm one and run to stealth. He was out of range so is still alive and manages to blind Seniyad. I eventually poison Seniyad, and it goes quickly from there. With spiders as my racial enemy, I clear the second zone. Amarande for Club +2. Pass through Cloakwood 4, stopping to backstab the hamadryad.
Mostly stealth through the mines, giving money to the slaves and freeing the dwarf. After I kill the battle horrors, I go out to rest and get boxed in. I quickly realize I don't have the AC to fight my way out, so I drink my last invisibility potion and pause.
Chapter Five
Do a bunch of stuff around Baldur's Gate.
Chapter Six:
Ogre mages (Paws of the Cheetah, stealth, and backstabs). Charm Kestor (should have picked someone else) and kill Rieltar and party. The manuals are retrieved with the violet potion. Prat is charmed and fed to spiders. Sakul is charmed and holds Tam while I backstab Bor. Clean up the rest, kill the basilisks, and head out.
Chapter Seven:
Backstab Cythandria. Charm Tamoko, waste her spells, and use her own Finger of Death on herself. I should have assumed I wouldn't receive experience and killed her instead.
I botch charming Rahvin's party so go it alone. Charming bats mostly gets Sarevok and party rounded up, and I enter and leave stealth from range to shoot them with arrows of detonation and dispelling. Angelo dies first, then Semaj, then Tazok, then Diarmid. Clean up the skeleton warriors, dispel Sarevok, and he falls.
Character sheet
My last BG:EE completion was over 30 attempts ago. I've mostly been picking at random from the list of classes missing from the Hall of Heroes. This was not the class I was expecting to make it to SoD on.
Candlekeep was a breeze. I ended up using the Violet Potion, skipped the Spiders in Prat's level because I didn't have a second scroll of Prot. from Poison for them, and got some cool stuff (see Inventory picture below).
Back in Baldur's Gate, Ceres killed Slythn and Krystinn with a the Wand of Heavens, then rushed to the Ducal Palace. The fight started out rather badly: I wasted a round before casting Insect Plague, and Belt died instantly from critical hits, but Liia was able to hold on for the entire duration of the fight due to her buffs. I think it's the first time something like this happens. Anyway. Ceres used Bless and later Curse, that little boost to the Flaming Fist topped with liberal usage of Wands of Heavens helped end the fight rather quickly. Then I kited Sarevok for a bunch of rounds and the battle was finally over!
Ceres' inventory right before starting the Maze. Currently level 12, will post stats once she reaches BG2 I guess.
Next is the Maze and taking down the big guy himself.
well the sharks died easy which made me uneasy moving into the underdark, I took my time and gave everyone a fare fight; Backstabs for the mind suckers, gas for the mushrooms, swarm | pets + gas for the patrol, taps for the soul trap guys and the portal mage.
when we meet lady silver she turned us into drow and I asked Hexxat to lay a full set of traps at her feet but I wanted a couple of items first so the shop had a range dagger and this fish thing wanted me to help him kidnap the girl he was obsessed with... he really did like her for her mind so I assume that is the underdark version of true love? any way she just happen to drop this very nice dagger
with that done we fight a quick two battles to get a good sword and go back to tell miss silver we changed our minds about being her lackies; standard Druid opening of a fire pet attack with swam stopped her casting and I sent Hexaat to the back to lay a new trap line whilst two Fire storms keep her entertained... a very pissed silver dragon charged at us once the swam stopped and the traps did the deed
My style in almost all big battles, 'Divide and conquer.' I like to think of my party as a Special Forces A team - quick strike, withdraw, separate. It's not always possible, but I'll take 6 on 1 anytime I can. Just did it with the warders in Durlag's Tower last night.
BG1: 1
SoD: 2
Brief, final update on Faera Sparklestone
Faera got out of chateau Irenicus accompanied by Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc, and Yoshimo, without much trouble, but once escaped life didn't treat her kindly. It began with the Circus Tent, where Kalah's "illusions" caused Minsc and Jaheira tremendous difficulty.
City ambushes went well, thanks to traveling with radial Invisibility. With a caster-heavy party of Faera, Nalia, Jan, Quayle, Jaheira, and Yoshimo, this allowed for plenty of AoE damage and disabling. Thieves guild was fine too, thanks in part to pre-set snares by Yoshi and Jan.
With Nallia in the party, clearing the Arnise Keep was high on the to do list, but boy were we ill-prepared for that. Even with cheesy invisible blockers and plenty of castings of Minute Meteors, the party could do little, as the spirit trolls would simply nuke them with Flamestrikes and Unholy Blights.
Next up was Trademeet. The party approached Faldorn's lair invisibly. Faera had to challenge the shadow druid (as a consequence of the multiple strongholds mod that I use to give NPCs their own strongholds).
She dealt quite a bit of damage through her fogs and clouds, but Faldorn nevertheless managed to summon some beetles, creatures I did know from SoD, but I hadn't fought them in close quarters. One of the bugs stunned Faera, and that was how Faldorn succesfully defended her position in the shadow druid circle.
I used some bottleneck tactics to bash our way out of the underdark... only stopping to grab the belt
once outside we asked Drizzt to help and popped into the bridge district to finish the wild mage questline, of course different people jumped us as soon as we came back to the city but I forgot the Giff... assume the death of the city guard makes doing the tanner quest impossible?
we finished the bard quest by sending the pets to kill the boss and a single gas to handle his peons