So the Trio had another good session today. We got pretty far on the main story line - on to the action!
* We paid a visit to Durlag's Tower. We took out the surface enemies, the basilisks on a higher level, and of course Balsa wouldn't let us leave until we got himself charmed getting the wisdom tome. Defoe tried to "show off" his superior saving throws by charging through the stun trap guarding the basilisks - but he got stunned. Coreranger, with his "inferior" saving throws (6 worse) made his save. With his group mates out of action, he went ahead and talked to the nymph upstairs so they get the free experience by handing the looter downstairs the nymph's hair. Grond0 like usual, didn't allow the thief to enjoy his nymph's hair and immediately killed the thief.
* Looks like it was time to deal with the Bandit Camp - with two tough dwarves leading with the way, and Coreranger's backstabs and arrows doing a number on the bandits, the final result was never in doubt. As for Tazok's tent, the enemies fell extremely quick.
* Time for the Cloakwood. Like usual, we ran like cowards from all ambushes. For the traps in Cloakwood Area 2, we used skeletons to draw out the enemies, and then trip in the traps in safety. We only went through the area, we didn't need the Spider's Bane. We pressed up to Drassus and pals.
Unsurprisingly, with a cleric in the party, and Coreranger's elemental damage arrows, the enemies fell quick.
Like usual, we pressed into the Mine and went straight to Davaeorn. Coreranger distracted Daveorn while protected by a potion of magical blocking - eventually Daveorn was out of dangerous spells, and with his friends, Davaoern fell quickly.
* By the time we made it to the City of Baldur's Gate, we were well equipped, and did the City tasks pretty easily. There were no deaths.
We will take out Sunin and then the Iron Throne will be our next target next session.
When they get stuck like that, I wouldn't have any problems using ctrl J.
Having said that sqishy Npcs of mine have died due to that bug in my current game and I've lived with it.
I only survived because Charname was my tank.
I have never used the console before. I guess it's time to get used to it, because I'm starting to use more mods, so it's more likely that I'm going to encounter more bugs, too...
I think you have to do what makes sense. After all, the idea is to play a game as close to reality as possible without feeling like you've cheated or been cheated. My last PC died on something ridiculously dumb at the Ducal Palace but this time I kept that in mind. I think you play like I do, where realism is important. Don't give that up over dumb stuff - but always remember - a Nereid will kiss your PC to death.
When they get stuck like that, I wouldn't have any problems using ctrl J.
Having said that sqishy Npcs of mine have died due to that bug in my current game and I've lived with it.
I only survived because Charname was my tank.
I have never used the console before. I guess it's time to get used to it, because I'm starting to use more mods, so it's more likely that I'm going to encounter more bugs, too...
I think you have to do what makes sense. After all, the idea is to play a game as close to reality as possible without feeling like you've cheated or been cheated. My last PC died on something ridiculously dumb at the Ducal Palace but this time I kept that in mind. I think you play like I do, where realism is important. Don't give that up over dumb stuff - but always remember - a Nereid will kiss your PC to death.
Since version 2.5 she only leaves you unconscious with 1 HP. That's good, because I don't like to send someone else ahead to talk to suspicious strangers. That's my job.
BGII:SoA - Chapter III, the graveyard, Trademeet and Umar. 1 hour 30 minutes.
We start the session outside the hideout of Pai'Na, so continue round the area killing off spiders. Painter takes great delight in triggering several traps - and Droch inquires if he'd like an arrow to help him on his way.
As we get to the end of the circular chamber Droch realises we should have done the second part of Aran Linvail's jobs so have to go back and deal with traitors to the thieves guild. Something like this.
On our way back Sansuki begs for our assistance and we duly oblige. Painter is drained from level 12 to level 9 but he gets the last laugh with a Daystar Sunray.
Once we report in to Aran, he tells us to go investigate the vampire nest. We don't need asking twice and quickly pick up the Mace of Disruption. Painter wants to press on but Droch decides to get the Mace improved by a dwarven smith in the docks. That way we have no excuse when, not if, Painter is next drained.
As soon as the improved mace is ready we return to the graveyard and test it in the surface tombs. It works nicely so we go back into the lower vaults and bump into Tanova. She puts up a tricky fight - Painter enquiring whether Droch has arrows of dispelling. He's a bit upset but not entirely surprised when it turns out Droch has minimal arrows available. OK, we'll do it the hard way even if that involves some stunning and mazing with a dash of lightning bouncing off the narrow corridor walls. We'll be fine says Droch, as he steps back and lets Painter take the brunt of things.
One Greater Ghoul is easily dealt with but a second takes advantage of multiplayer lag to dance around with Painter and instead head for Droch who gets held despite trying to keep his distance. Painter duly steps up and after a brief tussle we are down to a last-hit decider. If the ghoul hits Painter, he will no doubt perish and Droch will surely follow. Painter demonstrates his panache and refuses to buckle under pressure, allowing Droch time to recover.
With the vampires done we should report in but instead Droch heads out to Trademeet, annoying Painter when he uses a slow poison to save a guard from spider venom. What a soft touch he is.
The Dao Djinn are booted out of Trademeet and we head into the druid grove and a troll mound. We almost clear it out when a spirit troll appears from nowhere and ravages Painter to within a pixel of his life. Droch steps in but we both have to retreat outside. Once we are rested we go back inside and finish the job.
Painter has grabbed the Belm scimitar by this stage, and we celebrate by handing Faldorn over so Cernd can show her the error of her ways (like not wearing werewolf-proof armour). His fangs are easily more than she can deal with so we head back to Trademeet to report our success.
After doing this we sort out the Trademeet tomb tussle, and then Jenia turns up. Painter is unperturbed but Droch vaguely remembers we didn't deal with Reijiek Hidesman fully last time and sent Lt Aegisfield to his certain death. Anyway, we finish off the skinner quest and Droch is most upset when the un-poisoned guard nearby is the only one who doesn't pitch in and try to help us. How ungrateful can you get.
With Trademeet all wrapped up we'll go check on the tanner building to see if Lt Aegisfield has been stuffed inside a container. Painter is all set to go downstairs but Droch insists on a bit of buffing. Two ghouls, two rune assassins and a bone golem later we're quite happy that the mild buff worked a treat. Of Lt Aegisfield there is no sign.
Umar Hills looks like a quiet place to take a break. Painter is making hard work of matters though and there is a greater mummy in one place so Droch lazes against a doorway, hiding in the shadows. Painter uses his Boomerang +2 dagger (courtesy of ex-captain Dennis and his gang) to cut down the undead.
That worked well, and we're forced to repeat it a second time when the undead near a floor-letter puzzle take umbrage to us.
The next area of this temple contains a dragon. We'll call it Thaxll'ssillyia, for that is it's name. Or near enough. Droch is a little concerned but Painter is using Belm and Improved Haste to get to 10APR and feels he is up to the task. Maybe. Painter is so relaxed about these horrendous impossibilities.
Thaxxy manages to get up Protection from Magical Weapons. Normally that would be bad news for us, very bad news. Typically fatal news.
Fortunately for us, we've landed a fatal hit already and the dragon slumps to the ground. Painter is straight in, heaving scales off for some armour we won't need and a few other valuables.
We reckon there is a Shade Lord outside so rest and do a minor buff before Droch switches to a sling. On stepping outside we assess the situation and Droch shuts down the Shadow Alter before anything happens. Painter uses a Daystar Sunray but the Shade Lord survives - for about 1/2 a second as we switch our attacks to him and that's as long as it takes.
Droch has 259 kills and is level 13, Painter closing the gap with 246 and is level 14.
Looks like they need to sell some treasures.
(n.b Painter finally handed in Neb's head towards the session end, and we each have some pantaloons)
I love how the Kensai and Archer's raw damage output can basically settle most disputes (with a little due care, of course). How many rounds did Thaxxy actually last, there?
It would have been about the end of round 2 I think. Thaxy wasted a bit of time with a remove magic, which meant his PfMW only went up after Droch's final arrow had already been launched (one of the slight peculiarities of that spell being that its protection applies against things when an attack is made, rather than when it hits).
I'll take your word for it, I was too busy thinking about when to retreat from a badly wounded dragon.
& a couple of screenshots I overlooked. Shadow Altar and Shade Lord.
Ansgar and company acted and fought with honor, defeating a demon cult and their object of worship, overcoming lycanthropy, putting a definitive stop to the Iron Throne, and thwarting Caelar Argent's crusade. However when the time came to face Belhifet, Hephernaan and several lesser devils, the party was soundly defeated. All but Ansgar and Safana failed to evade the enemy's opening Dispel Magic. It was not scripted (to be cast at the start of the battle as I mistakenly assumed, because it only came a few rounds after the entire party had initially retreated. Should have let one character linger (Dynaheir should have read her SI:Abjuration scroll).
Within no time Safana was Held, and all the others except Ansgar panicked. That Dispel Magic made me lose interest in the battle (I was genuinely annoyed that all the careful pre-buffing was for naught because of one simple spell that is useless when I cast it). Safana (backstabs) and Ansgar did a decent job at injuring Belhifet but were nowhere near victory when Ansgar went out with a bang: Sundermaul (the only weapon he could hit Belhifet with) caused an earthquake to occur. It knocked our hero out, and turned him into easy pickings for Belhifet. I was sad because I had really enjoyed the run (no symptoms of restartitis unlike with other recent runs).
So are we going for revenge against Belhifet? Well I'm not exactly making that likely... To keep the game fresh I decided to go with a Legacy of Bhaal run, something I haven't done in about two years. Until this week I hadn't played its 2.5 iteration where enemies get a -11 AC bonus but a +5 saves penalty. It seems to favor parties with plenty of debilitating magic combined with muscle to plow through enemies' massive HP pools. I'm playing with NPCs rather than a custom party, as I enjoy that more. It remains to be seen if I can make it fun to play LoB mode because if I don't I know restartitis will kick in again. Bonus damage is disabled. I discovered that later and decided to stick with it for the sake of consistency.
The protagonist is Ronja, a Halfling Fighter/Thief with maxed out physical stats (took me quite a while to roll a 90), and two ** in slings and ** in scimitars:
Progress was initially slow, mainly because I had to think carefully about how to proceed without endless running around and hoping for crits, and about who would become Ronja's companions.
While a custom party may allow for stat and (dual-)class optimization, playing with NPCs has its advantages as well. One of those is being able to solo the early game without having to share cheap XP before forming a party. Ronja pocketed only the safe and easy XP in Candlekeep (circa 500 XP including XP from picked locks and from BGQE's Linda and Sir Trun mini-quest). Killing one rat took her ages so she didn't bother with the rest; Shank and Carbos were shunned altogether.
Relying on stealth (her first 40 skill points had all gone to HiS/MS), Ronja then traveled straight to Drizzt who was annihilated by gnolls. Knowing there was nothing she could have done to stop those monsters, she didn't feel too bad about taking his gear. She intimidated a wounded hobgoblin (200 XP) before she went and met Captain Brage, whom she traveled to Nashkel with (1000 XP). After that, Noober (400 XP), Albert (1000), Firebead (300), Marl (900), Eltolth and Alanna (500), the Dudleys (500), Drienne (200), Mrs Blackstone, (400), Samuel and Lena (500), Mr Coquetle (250), and Farmer Brun (1500) were all kind enough to give out 'free' XP.
In my previous LoB experiments I would have tackled the rogue ogre, the hobgoblin in green armor with the boots of stealth, Tenya (who only requires a single hit), and maybe Mirianne's ogrillons and Landrin's spiders, but due to the -11 AC bonus they all had to wait.
At circa 8000 XP and with a lowly rat as her only kill, clearing Mutamin's Garden would make her reach the 32,000 XP mark, the optimal point to start forming a party. Ronja only read the green scroll from the Nashkel Carnival after having lured Korax toward Mutamin, to give her as much time as possible. Korax did great at paralyzing first the gnome and later his pets. Dual-wielding Twinkle and Icingdeath and not having to roll for hits, Ronja dispatched the monsters fairly rapidly. She and her ghoulish friend were just preparing an assault on Kirian and her men, when Korax turned hostile. It was Ronja's cue to leave the area and start looking for more loyal companions.
Aura (installed as a Gnome Cleric/Artificer), Emily (Half-Elf Archer), Kivan (EEKeepered into Elf Archer), and Sirene (installed as a Tiefling Cavalier Paladin of Ilmater) joined in that order. Tiax joined only for a short while so his ghast could help the party defeat Landrin's spiders and get their intended 6th member, Garrick (Human Skald). Sadly my Rogue Rebalancing Skald proved to be bugged: every round, the song gives a AoE explosion animation (similar to that of one of the Shaman's AoE spells, Writhing Fog?). While not harming anyone I found it too bothersome to put up with, so Garrick was out. He made place for Baeloth (Drow Sorcerer), who wasn't as good at buffing the party but brought lots of arcane spells to the table.
Quayle with his arcane and divine magic and wand proficiency would probably be a stronger addition than Aura whose thief levels the party didn't really need, but I love Aura and she has an exciting personal quest, so we decided to keep her around.
The nice thing about this set-up is that it can be maintained in SoD as well. All companions except Kivan return in SoD, and Corwin can take Kivan's place. What I also like is that two Archers with demonic/fell as their racial enemy, and a Cavalier are among the best martial characters that might stand a chance against Belhifet, should we make it that far. Not that that's saying much in my case. I believe I have the poorest track record against Belhifet of all the no-reloaders here and I've never even faced the mofo in LoB mode.
Tarnesh was defeated with the help of a skeleton and a Silence from Aura.
Neira was Held, Gnarl and Vax were charmed with Algernon's cloak and set against their partners in crime, but the go-to tactic soon became Web (of which Baeloh had five/day) + ranged attacks. It took advantage of enemies' saves penalty and it neutralized their huge AC boost.
The only downside was that it left Sirene idle during battles, since she was specialized in two-handed swords and two-handed weapon style, and the only ranged weapons she could use (throwing axes/daggers) were somewhat expensive and scarce. An attempt to remedy that through Kivan's BG1 NPC Project quest with Jozzi the Seasnake and its returning throwing dagger reward failed when the party saw Jozzi slain by a sahuagin captain a mere moment before the latter fell himself.
The party had more success against a Silenced and Webbed Droth.
Bassilus made me wonder whether the +5 penalty to saves applies to all foes.
How can an unbuffed Bassilus save against Algernon's charm with a roll of 23? He was eventually charmed and sadly failed to kill Zargal and co before they finished him.
Dushai's ring of free action became Sirene's means to contribute in battle. She would melee and tank, when necessary, the Webbed enemies.
Without having invested any skill points in pick pockets, Ronja managed to get a PP score of 125 (Cat's Grace and Luck from scroll, deep red iuon stone with +1 Dex, potions of mind focusing, master thievery, perception). It was enough for a sell-and-steal-back session at the Nashkel Carnival.
As Baeloth didn't know Invisibility or Invisibility 10' Radius, the party worked toward leveling him up (from 40k to 60x XP). The drow killed two battle horrors at Durlag's Tower with wand scorchers after having cast Haste on himself to facilitate moving around. Aura and a skeleton she summoned killed some basilisks there. Her goggles protect against gaze attacks. The web tactic worked well enough against ankhegs and sirines although one ankheg badly injured Sirene. It was there that I noticed bonus damage had been disabled, because before that we hadn't been taking hits.
Ronja swigged a potion of freedom to help out in melee against the vampiric wolves that were immune to mundane missiles.
Dorn was slain by his enemies and avenged by the party, Greywolf Held by Aura, and Melicamp didn't survive an anti-chickenation spell, much to the XP-hungry party's disappointment.
Other high profile targets were Meilum, the Revenant, Sendai & Co,
and the party of Kirian.
.
A couple of mostly smaller quests - Charleston Nib/Doom Sayer, Mirianne's ogrillons, Tenya, polar bear - were completed, resulting in Baeloth's level-up. And the ghasts of Durlag's Tower's upper levels and a baby wyvern in Nashkel sufficed for Aura to reach her 6th cleric level, enabling her to summon a second skeleton.
Without invisibility the party sometimes had to kill groups of random monsters that they would have preferred to ignore, but other than that the party has been able to progress reasonably smoothly and efficiently.
@Blackraven Sad about Ansgar and company.
It sounds as if that battle is well designed by the writers so that the dispell magic comes when it is most effective! The ideal of course would be to have it cast at different points in the battle on a random basis so that you cannot plan ahead as much. That of course would make the programming much more time-consuming.
I like the portrait of Kivan. I haven't seen that one before, probably because I haven't had him in my party for years. (Pre EE)
I presumed Emily is from a mod since I have never met her, and as a result of googling her found four other NPC mods that I hadn't previously heard of. Please let us know what you think of her.
I think that you could have had Sirene as an Inquisitor. That is the install that I use, as it makes her more versatile.
The true sight and dispell magic are both useful too. In my opinion more useful than immunity to poison which can be gained with green scrolls if/when needed. I presume that you knew all that already though.
Journal of Cyreta and the Cyricists
We were told to go to Candlekeep and did so, being met by a party of ogre/mages. We had web and dispell invisibility in our spellbooks, so they weren't much of a problem.
Candlekeep inself was no problem. We killed Diarmid on the way out which was different. (When I have tried to do it in the past the game crashed)
We were met by Fabio who took us back to Restenford where we solved a murder case. We had Fabio in our party for the duration of the quest. It was easy enough due to having considerable experience. Fabio was weak, but strong enough to survive. The battle with the lizards was the hardest battle.
Upon returning to the outskirts of Baldur's Gate, we decided to finish off all the quests outside the city first. We therefore went to Durlag's Tower.
Drizzt then let it be known that he wanted us to accompany him to Icewind Dale.
Upon reaching Ulgoth's Beard we got into a battle with Demon Cultists.
We thought that was the end of them, but apparently not. Drizzt will have to wait a little longer.
EDIT Two more screenshots
The demon cultists have been eliminated. Drizzt needs to wait no longer. The party is now in the nine hells. I thought that we were going to Icewind Dale. If I had known where I was going, I would have packed differently!!
@Wise_Grimwald, thanks for your post, and for your sympathies. Sometimes it's sad to see a character go down. I agree with you that the Dispel is well-designed, although I trust Belhifet to cast it even at a sole character with SI:Abjuration if they're the only character in his line of sight.
As for my current run, I took and cropped Kivan's portrait from this source, should you ever want to use it yourself. I like him and his quests in the BG1 NPC Project.
I also like Emily so far. She's supposed to learn to craft her own arrows but hasn't developed the skill yet, and she has a quest in Baldur's Gate (finding her biological mother) that I have yet to play. I'll mention anything interesting in my write-ups. Since I also have Sirene and Aura on board and there is no cross-mod content, I haven't seen much of her banters with other NPCs though. She does have some nice banter with fellow ranger Kivan.
I chose to install Sirene as a Cavalier mainly with Siege of Dragonspear in mind. With the huge -11 bonus that enemies get in Legacy of Bhaal mode, the innate +3 Thac0 and +3 damage bonuses against fiends and dragons seemed helpful. @histamiini has experimented extensively with a solo Cavalier in the LoB solo no-reload thread. Non-dispellable protection against fear, charm, and poison are welcome too but not the main consideration. I agree with you that over the whole saga, Inquisitor Dispels (un-nerfed in my current install) are extremely useful. Maybe I should consider Keldorn for BG2, if BG2 comes up...
As detailed in my first post, Ronja and her companions made sure they were pretty experienced (55-60k XP per character) before taking on the big plot quests. They navigated the Nashkel Mines under Baeloth's radial invisibility, stopping only to Web and dispatch the group of kobolds carrying the vials of poison as those vials and a piece of corrupted ore yield 1500 XP with the Unfinished Business mod.
Inside Mulahey's cave Aura placed four traps: two regular thief traps and two alchemical traps. Aura can set four different types of alchemical traps. In this case she used acidic compound traps, which reduce physical resistance and damage by 25% of anyone within their AoE (so the party had to watch out for friendly fire here). Those traps would weaken Mulahey's summons somewhat. She also summoned two skeletons. Everyone, including the skellies (and Aura under Sanctuary), then moved to Mulahey. The half-orc soon got stuck in Baeloth's Web but resisted Aura's Hold Person. Sirene attacked him dual-wielding her +1 morning stars. Her starting pips were ** in two-handed weapon style and ** in two-handed swords, but auto-hits favored dual-wielding. Her level 3 and 6 pips had gone to maces/morning stars (grouped together as one category per Anthology Tweaks, which makes sense to me). Kivan, Emily, and Ronja attacked with their missile weapons. When Mulahey saved, his call for mercy was denied. Aura interrupted his casting with the wand of the heavens and Bealoth Spooked him, causing the half-orc to wander into the Web again for easy disposal.
More Webs allowed the party to deal with the remaining minions.
Nimbul was Webbed and Silenced thanks to being protected by MSD instead of MGoI.
Tranzig forced Ronja to drink a potion of magic blocking when he cast a potentially lethal Chromatic Orb at her. Aura's skeletons took care of him.
In the Wood of Sharp Teeth the party stayed on the down low although they did save Nim Furlwing's hunting dogs from attacking dire wolves and kill Osmadi and Corsone in Larswood, again relying on Webs. On their way to Peldvale, the party got waylaid by Lamalha. Everyone was invisible and moved to the south east corner of the area to think of a plan, but Zeela completed the casting of a detection spell before everyone had reached the corner. They were still in sight of Lamalha when they were revealed. Baeloth quickly cast a Web, and Aura started a casting of Hold Person, but when the combat log betrayed an imminent backstab by Maneira, the party immediately fled the scene.
The risk of permanently losing Baeloth to a x5 backstab was simply not worth the rewards that encounter offered.
The party infiltrated the bandit camp via Raiken, but Kivan blew their cover when he saw Tazok. In Kivan's defense he had forewarned the party of it, and he pretty much handled the half-ogre on his own. With his composite longbow +1, his racial bonus, his racial enemy, the +1 dex ioun stone, and the legacy of the masters it was almost as if LoB mode was disabled for a moment. Kivan rolled a 3 for his killing shot.
Baeloth cast invisibility on the party, they rested and upon waking up they heard a bandit announce to the entire camp what had happened with Tazok.
The party entered Tazok's tent, where Ronja positioned herself in front of the second blue banner, out of Raemon's sight. She tried an Algernon's charm, which requires a save vs breath at -1, on Britik but like Bassilus, he saved with a roll well over 20 (23 to be precise). It looks like some characters in my current LoB set-up get a bonus to saves while others get a penalty, or maybe some items/spells are somehow nerfed? This definitely requires further research. Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influencing did work on Britik.
The gnoll was ordered to take on Venkt, and did so successfully despite getting hit and poisoned by bandit arrows. Venkt simply didn't retalliate. Baeloth joined Ronja, read a scroll of PfPoison, drank two potions of cold resistance, and equipped the boots of avoidance, the cloak of displacement, and the elves' bane girdle. He then summoned monsters with his wand, and cast several Webs. Ronja and Baeloth both got held by the webs (there was just so little room to manoeuver in the tent), but they survived because the enemy was stuck as well.
The other party members were positioned on the other side of the tent and had sufficient space to move about a bit and to take the bandits down one by one.
There's quite a bit of gold and some useful scrolls and potions to be found at the camp, but the party just left under invisibility.
In Cloakwood Aldeth Sashenstar and his hunter friends were taken down with some difficulty. Not only was Aldeth magic-resistant, moving around (kiting) also led to the involvement of several huge spiders and tasloi who of course sided with anyone but Charname. It took a lot of running around, but eventually the party prevailed.
The choice to take the druids' side was a metagamey one: it causes Dabron Sashenstar to spawn in Baldur's Gate, and he drops the Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy, which grants a +5 Thac0 bonus, useful for Emily when her Army Scythe doesn't cut it.
The spiders too required a lot of kiting, some invisible blockers to speed things up, and skeletal help but clearing the entire area provided a 6th fighter level for Ronja and Spiders' Bane for Sirene so she could pass her ring of free action on to Ronja.
Molkar's ambush took place between the spider area and the druids area. This time the party didn't have to flee. Morvin and Drakar we caught in Baeloth's Web. Aura managed to Hold Molkar. But Halacan did get to trouble the party. Like Tranzig, he tried to take out Ronja with a Chromatic Orb, and from pretty close range. It cost the party another potion of magic blocking.
Baeloth stunned the gnome with the wand of paralyzation, and re-stunned him at one point because his Mirror Images kept popping up, making it difficult to injure him even while stunned. Drakar managed to free himself from the Web at near death but was finished off by Kivan in the middle of casting a spell.
The party dealt with Peter of the North and his baby wyverns (Web and invisible blockers) and received a spider egg from Teodor (a BGQE feature). They slew more wyverns before they reached the Cloakwood mine. Interestingly, Webbing the bridge guards and fighting them out of sight of Drasus still caused him and his men to go hostile and join the fray.
He got caught in the web but quaffed a potion of magic shielding once he saved. The party retreated to the wyvern area, and actually had to retreat more than once (Drasus's rages and the mages' enchantment spells causing the party trouble). Eventually Ronja charmed one of the guards, and had him approach the enemy so they would waste some of the pre-buffs and spells on him. The party stayed back and waited out a fire elemental.
Ronja placed a suit of splint armor on the ground just in front of Kysus, the first enemy in sight. Aura could then cast Hold Person from out of the wizard's sight but still catch him in the spell's AoE.
Kysus and Webbed Rezdan and Genthore fell to missiles and fireballs. Drasus had to be stopped by four invisible comrades so that Kivan and Baeloth could finish him off at their leisure.
Inside the mine, the party used invisibility and Aura's Sanctuaries to walk around unhindered and to loot some of the chests.
In Davaeorn's lair, Ronja charmed the first guard and disarmed the traps, Aura summoned three skeletons, and Hasted Baeloth dispatched two battle horrors with wand scorchers. 38 wand fireballs were more than enough to kill all of Davaeorn's guards but it was the charmed guard and the the summons who finished the Dimension Dooring wizard himself.
Ronja looted the place, avoiding combat with the mustard jelly, and the party left for Baldur's Gate.
They've just committed their first mistake in Baldur's Gate: after being tipped by a noblewoman, they went to talk some sense into Ragefast without having spoken to Ramazith first. As a result there is no Ramazith, so no amulet of metaspell influence for Baeloth and no ring of protection +2 either. On the plus side Emily has already secured her crossbow of accuracy (Dabron was Held from out of sight by Aura). The party will probably take on most of the quests in Baldur's Gate. Any noteworthy events shall be covered in a next update.
Ramazith should be in his tower even if you didn´t speak with him about the nymph. When you enter, he will run upstairs where you can normally fight him.
Ramazith should be in his tower even if you didn´t speak with him about the nymph. When you enter, he will run upstairs where you can normally fight him.
Interesting. I haven't found any definitive info about what's supposed to happen. Beamdog representative @Balquo states in this older thread that Ramazith isn't supposed to be around if you've already freed Abela, because then he can't give you his quest anymore.
When Ronja entered Ramazith's tower she saw the mage for a split second but then he disappeared, and she didn't find him upstairs.
In my last playthrought I killed him and I didn´t speak with him before freeing the nymph. I had the latest version of EE without SoD + some mods (SCS, UB, NPC Project but nothing that should change his behaviour).
So our 1st order of business was to deal with Sunin. Coreranger went in for a backstab and yet another critical by Defoe finished Sunin off.
Defoe did a buying spree for Coreranger, then the party dealt with the iron throne. Defoe used a few potions, and combined with Balsa's silence, hold persons, skeletons, and Coreranger's considerable damage with his acid arrows it was a clean victory.
Time to go off to Candlekeep. This was pretty much by the numbers - well almost. On the way back to Balsa who was waiting for Defoe and Coreranger (who thsemselves was going after the strength tome), Balsa Defoe mis-stepped and nearly died to the lightning bolt trap. Close one!
Prat was silenced then finished off with Coreranger's arrows of detonation. On return the City, both Slythe and Krystin were easily destroyed.
In an eerie premonition, Corey_Russell begged his companions to not kill him by wrong dialog. So what does Grond0 do? Well we easily beat the dopplegangers - but in Grond0's "click happiness", he clicked to move but looks like he actually selected a dialog choice which popped up that moment - as luck would have it, Grond0 picked the option accusing Sarevok without evidence, and Coreranger was summarily flamestriked. RIP Coreranger.
Since we're outside Valygars tax haven log cabin we feel it is only fair to step inside and ask him for a key to the Planar Sphere - surely he doesn't need that in addition to his house and country retreat. A short while later we deposit his body into the entrance of the Planar Sphere and decide it should be left for later - we have more important matters than this newly-greased doorway.
Droch is thinking some boots of speed are just what Painter wants. Our choices are to head to Spellhold now, or to drop into the Planar Prison. We decide the second of these is next but it means dealing with Mekrath first. On the way we run into Tarnor the Hatchetman and one of his gang manages to scare Painter while the kensai is busy trying to kill Gaius.
Droch wasn't expecting this, and Painter probably wasn't either. Droch redoubles his effort on Gaius as Painter runs around attracting a green slime and some kobolds into the fight. Painter is hanging on determinedly but eventually a voice (we'll call it Grond0) suggests that Droch should stop playing with Gaius and eliminate Gallchobhair who has merrily sniped away most of Painters health.
Droch does as he is bid, and also casts a cure light wounds onto Painter, but it is too little too late and Painter slumps to the ground. Droch could continue the fight on his own but decides to avoid an XP gap and get Painter raised so we can share it equally.
A quick temple visit later Droch realises he hasn't picked up any equipment for Painter, so hands over the +4 Usuno's Blade. Painter is not proficient with such weaponry but in the hands of a kensai that doesn't really matter. We return to the sewers and finish off the remants of Tarnor's gang.
With the entrance to Mekrath's lair now available we head straight inside to introduce ourselves. That doesn't take long at all, and Droch suggests a rest is in order - he can see Painter eyeing up trapped containers and we're both a bit wounded.
So we rest and Painter duly bashes open chests. It's a good job we rested as he made sure we took heavy lightning trap damage that would otherwise have proved fatal. We'll rest again then.
Now we can finally get ourselves into the Planar Prison. Neither of us die in there although Painter takes great delight in single figure hit point combat on more than one occasion. This is distracting Droch somewhat but we get there in the end. There is nothing finer in life than rescuing Haer'Dalis getting some boots of zippiness.
Painter is racing away from Droch thanks to his boots, so Droch decides we should press our luck and head over to Spellhold in search of a boot-vending machine. Don't be silly, that is an imaginary contrivance which would require mithral tokens no less. We'll see.
We scout around Brynnlaw and rapidly ascertain that Perth the Adept holds the way into Spellhold. Held.
(we both hit him but arrow arrival time is too slow and a kensai-one-chop will suffice)
Spellhold, or a meal beforehand, makes us queasy and we wake up in separate quarters. Painter is shut in a cell while Droch is in a glass container. He's angry about this but not as jarred-off as six thieves soon are. Irenicus thinks he has all he needs from Droch so he hands us over to Bodhi who has a game of cat and mouse planned.
We get to search around the maze and Painter can't resist seeing if a genie will reward him for summoning while an area effect is active. Well, the genie came and went without so much as presenting us with a suit of armour that neither of us could have used. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Painter resumes his minimal hit point spree, and survives umber hulks, undead and a summoning altar before Droch drags him into a group of ritualistic kobolds. It becomes clear they don't worship us but they do subscribe to the school of lightning. It all gets a little painful to tell the truth, but we are too stubborn to admit defeat and soldier on. Success.
It appears we need the helping hand of a vampire to get out. That's lucky for us.
Painter looks ready for a break but Droch has got into the spirit of things and drags him into combat with some yuan-ti. We do OK for a while but eventually Painter has to make a break for it. He dashes away and prepares to return, only to find that several extreme distance multiplayer skulltraps have been cast at him. He keels over dead, and Droch fishes in his pocket for the rod of resurrection before hiding in the shadows.
With Painter raised we return to finish off the yuan-ti. Let's pick on something easier.
Droch then foolishly stands too near a summoned efreeti and an ulitharid dominate bounces off the efreeti and also tags the archer.
Painter is already (once more) at minimal hit points so facing up the ulitharid with a dominated archer would be fatal for him. He retreats and once Droch comes back to his senses we employ the kensai runaround with an archer volley to finish off this crafty enemy.
A trio of clay golems don't make much of an impression on us.
Fifteen mithral tokens. Count them! Fifteen. It's time to go un-vend some boots of speed. Droch puts them on and we race off - scaring Bodhi away and resting a couple of times for Slayer changes.
Lonk gets a stoneskin up but that only delays the inevitable for a moment or two - so quick was it that it merited an expansion of the combat log to see who did the damage (both of us)
Droch reckons Irenicus has had enough of combat within 3 seconds and retreats, but Painter just wants to make sure. Yep, he's sure.
With Irenicus gone we return to Brynnlaw to steal and scuttle a ship. The usual sort of welcome awaits us in the city of caverns.
That seems like a good place to close the session.
Droch has notched up 324 kills while Painter has slashed his way to 379 kills. Inventory:
Trio 16 - FINAL Update!
On the way back to Balsa who was waiting for Defoe and Coreranger (who thsemselves was going after the strength tome), Balsa mis-stepped and nearly died to the lightning bolt trap. Close one!
Trio 17 (update 1) Sink - undead hunter (Grond0)
Corethief XVI - berserker (Corey_Russell)
Tonic - skald (Gate70) Previous run
Still in a slightly confused state as to how our previous run ended, I failed to fully min-max Sink - as Corey noted when Sink started getting tired before the other characters. Never mind - his constitution of 15 should provide enough HPs anyway .
The first significant action saw Sink heading by reflex to kill Shoal, when Corethief XVI piped up questioning whether we should be hunting Droth in order to get his helm. Safe in the knowledgehope that a forced kiss from Shoal would only harm him, not kill him, Tonic puckered up. When Droth appears he's not hostile until he's talked to - which gave us the chance to shoot Shoal (killing her provides far more HPs than completing her quest) before Corethief enraged and confronted Droth. He quickly went to near dead, but managed to cast invisibility to provide himself with the opportunity to escape - but fortunately for us he chose to try and charm an enraged berserker .
Incidentally, this run is unusual in that all of us are playing human characters. My random selection of a paladin forced that choice, while bards are also pretty limited. As a berserker, Corey could easily have chosen a different race - just possibly the given name of Corethief XVI provides a clue as to why he didn't ...
In Beregost some spiders didn't last long before we headed to the south. The big strength of skalds is the major combat bonuses they give the rest of the party (starting at +2 to hit and damage) and Tonic was taking advantage of that by running opponents around while trying to keep the others within song range. With multi-player lag that's not always easy to do safely though and an ogrillon took advantage when our intrepid skald strayed a bit too close to his fists.
After a temple visit, Corethief had his eye on an armor upgrade and suggested a group of Flaming Fist could provide that. He had to do some running of his own there after suffering in melee, but this time all ended well.
Arriving in Nashkel some even better armor was on offer for Sink, while Tonic got a chance to practice his shooting to ensure Noober wouldn't be bothering us any more. Sink had his eye on a protection from petrification scroll at the Carnival, but Tonic told him not to bother as he'd already stocked up during a visit to Thalantyr to get a potion case. That made fighting basilisks pretty safe and further levels were soon being racked up.
Enrage dealt with Mutamin and provided Tonic with the chance to learn stinking cloud - which in turn gave enough of a combat edge to allow a reasonably comprehensive victory over Kirian's group.
With the session almost over we travelled to the Lake area before saving. Sink was keen to acquire Drizzt's swords though and felt that was best done outside a session to avoid a boring period for the others. He duly skirted round Drizzt's location to activate the gnolls and then sat back for 6 minutes or so while they did the dirty business.
The armor gained should also come in handy for Tonic if he's going to continue to run around singing most of the time.
Upon entering the nine hells we discovered that Wulfgar buffed to protect from fire was more than a match for the demonknights and Drittz could cope with the tanari. Belhifet and Marilith were tough though.
For a while we moved to cooler climes, but then once more entered hotter regions.
Being evil we allowed Drizzt to die and took on Jarlaxle and Artemis Enterai instead. It was NOT a good exchange.
[img][/img]
The rest of the area was deadly to say the least, but I at least survived and went to spend a small fortune in raising the dead. I had no ability to cast "Protection from the undead" and so energy drain and the like were a major problem.
Since I have failed to kill that demon in the Icewind Dale dungeon every time with a full party, it was a no-brainer when it came to deciding whether to take it on single handed!!
[ I discovered a very good reason for having good clerics in the party. ]
I decided to leave Jarlaxle and Artemis at the carnival, so having room in the party once more, we decided to pick up Xzar again. So we will now return to Icewind Dale.
Coremage V the human conjurer Update
Travling with: April - dwarven berserker
Sarah - dwarven fighter/thief
Imoen - human thief/mage
Alena - human invoker
Dynaheir - human invoker
Coremage V posted a long time ago, but he's made some progress since then. He's completed chapter 5 without a problem. Candlekeep was also pretty easy, with a buffed berserker taking down Prat. Slythe had no chance. Duchal Palace went well with slow being a key spell there. Maze was also simple enough. Undercity Party got utterly destroyed by our mages:
Time to deal with my half-brother! Imoen got spotted which brought everyone (uh, oh!). We first destroyed Samaj as fast as possible, then concentrated on Sarevok.
One by one our party was falling - April, Sarah, then Alena. But wait, Imoen, Coremage V and Dynaheir were able to take Sarevok down before he could engage Coremage V! Victory!
The MP characters (Sarah, April, Alena) will move onto Amn.
RESTRICTIONS ON THIS RUN: Only mage characters can replace our mage characters (multi or dual OK). Also only a thief can replace Sarah (multi or dual OK), and only a warrior of some kind can replace April. On to Amn!
@Corey_Russell Congrats on taking out the big guy. It's surprising that we didn't meet. I am just approaching him now. EDIT
Sarevok falls yet again. [The first time playing evil.] I tend to play chaotic good as that is my own personality trait.
Tamoko has now joined the party.
Saverok's sword was stolen in much the same way as the soultaker dagger. It looks as if that sword is going to be important.
EDIT 2
We have stopped Korlatz and have returned to the Ducal Palace. Having Tamako in the party was not good. She spoon-fed the party all the way. It would have been REALLY annoying if I hadn't already completed that area.[/b]
Coremage V the human conjurer Update - the dangers of min-maxing
Traveling with:
April - dwarven berserker
Sarah - dwarven fighter/thief
Alena - human invoker
Aeire - avariel cleric/mage
Nalia - human thief/mage
So the run is going good. But ran into something new - killing my own characters - repeated!y! How you ask? Let me explain.
We were in Nalia's keep about to engage Torgal. But first Sarah was looting the chests in the room next to Torgal. But right about when the berserker's rage expired (we had just killed the umber hulks), Sarah went to full health and died! But there's no traps! Thought it was a bug at first.
So then we go to Watcher's Keep and resurrect her - and she immediately died and dropped her armor. So then I resurrected her and the MOMENT I PUT ON HER ARMOR, she died again!!! Finally it dawns on me what is going on - the orcish armor has a CHA penalty -and that is killing Sarah! Here's her character sheet.
So we sell the orcish armor, resurrect Sarah (remember have to resurrect her twice because she dies immediately 2nd time but only drops the armor the 2nd resurrection.) Expensive lesson (3200 gold). But eventually Sarah helps us defeat Torgal, so all's well in the end...
Also earlier, Nalia got whacked for 70 damage in a single hit from the iron golem - had no idea it could hit that hard...had to resurrect Nalia too. And Aerie is not yet high enough level to raise anyone. The priest at Watcher's Keep is making a killing!
@Corey_Russell Obviously he's in a profitable profession. Of course anyone who could raise the dead in RL would be able to make a killing. (Terrible pun intended)
Shunned by the gibbering hordes and expelled from his tribe, Bongo the lone gibberling embarks on the journey towards enlightenment.
Statwise, Bongo is the equivalent of a human monk and has a natural attribute roll. He has two modes of attack: up close he rends opponents with his claws (fists), and at range he throws rocks (sling).
This is a solo no-reload run on core difficulty, no mods. Let's begin.
Bongo found the remnants of a battle between a powerful mage and some other humans, and since there was nobody around who was still alive, he proceeded to rummage the bodies for valuable loot.
As he scurried off heading east, he came across several others of his own kind, all of whom had such a strong distaste for his sophisticated ways that they attacked him on sight. Bongo fought them off with ease, since those savages haven't yet figured out the utility in weaponizing aerodynamic rocks.
However, Bongo was about to find his match both in terms of power and intellect: a vicious ogre with a raging affinity for belts and girdles. The ogre spotted him and attacked!
Against such a powerful foe, Bongo had to utilize his most powerful weapon—hasty retreat. Being a fledgling monk, Bongo had the speed to easily outrun his opponent, so he began circling an array of broken down wagons and periodically threw rocks at his pursuer. The battle was fierce and it felt like it went on forever, but after around twenty minutes Bongo finally managed to lodge a rock so weighty against the giant's cranium, it caused the exhausted beast to keel over.
Satisfied with his hard-fought victory, Bongo made off with the giant's belt collection.
@Corey_Russell Obviously he's in a profitable profession. Of course anyone who could raise the dead in RL would be able to make a killing. (Terrible pun intended)
Sarah doesn't look much like a dwarf!
She had surgery to look more like a human. It was a painful process, but she thought it was worth it.
So then we go to Watcher's Keep and resurrect her - and she immediately died and dropped her armor. So then I resurrected her and the MOMENT I PUT ON HER ARMOR, she died again!!! Finally it dawns on me what is going on - the orcish armor has a CHA penalty -and that is killing Sarah! Here's her character sheet.
And here I thought Khaleesi (Sarah) was pretty hot. Good save.
Comments
Coreranger - half-elf stalker, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Balsa - dwarven fighter/cleric (Gate70)
Defoe - dwarven defender (Grond0)
So the Trio had another good session today. We got pretty far on the main story line - on to the action!
* We paid a visit to Durlag's Tower. We took out the surface enemies, the basilisks on a higher level, and of course Balsa wouldn't let us leave until we got himself charmed getting the wisdom tome. Defoe tried to "show off" his superior saving throws by charging through the stun trap guarding the basilisks - but he got stunned. Coreranger, with his "inferior" saving throws (6 worse) made his save. With his group mates out of action, he went ahead and talked to the nymph upstairs so they get the free experience by handing the looter downstairs the nymph's hair. Grond0 like usual, didn't allow the thief to enjoy his nymph's hair and immediately killed the thief.
* Looks like it was time to deal with the Bandit Camp - with two tough dwarves leading with the way, and Coreranger's backstabs and arrows doing a number on the bandits, the final result was never in doubt. As for Tazok's tent, the enemies fell extremely quick.
* Time for the Cloakwood. Like usual, we ran like cowards from all ambushes. For the traps in Cloakwood Area 2, we used skeletons to draw out the enemies, and then trip in the traps in safety. We only went through the area, we didn't need the Spider's Bane. We pressed up to Drassus and pals.
Unsurprisingly, with a cleric in the party, and Coreranger's elemental damage arrows, the enemies fell quick.
Like usual, we pressed into the Mine and went straight to Davaeorn. Coreranger distracted Daveorn while protected by a potion of magical blocking - eventually Daveorn was out of dangerous spells, and with his friends, Davaoern fell quickly.
* By the time we made it to the City of Baldur's Gate, we were well equipped, and did the City tasks pretty easily. There were no deaths.
We will take out Sunin and then the Iron Throne will be our next target next session.
I think you have to do what makes sense. After all, the idea is to play a game as close to reality as possible without feeling like you've cheated or been cheated. My last PC died on something ridiculously dumb at the Ducal Palace but this time I kept that in mind. I think you play like I do, where realism is important. Don't give that up over dumb stuff - but always remember - a Nereid will kiss your PC to death.
The EE introduced the possibility of talking to her without suffering a fatal kiss
Since version 2.5 she only leaves you unconscious with 1 HP. That's good, because I don't like to send someone else ahead to talk to suspicious strangers. That's my job.
Droch (male elf archer, Gate70); Painter (male dwarf kensai, Grond0)
BGII:SoA - Chapter III, the graveyard, Trademeet and Umar. 1 hour 30 minutes.
We start the session outside the hideout of Pai'Na, so continue round the area killing off spiders. Painter takes great delight in triggering several traps - and Droch inquires if he'd like an arrow to help him on his way.
As soon as the improved mace is ready we return to the graveyard and test it in the surface tombs. It works nicely so we go back into the lower vaults and bump into Tanova. She puts up a tricky fight - Painter enquiring whether Droch has arrows of dispelling. He's a bit upset but not entirely surprised when it turns out Droch has minimal arrows available. OK, we'll do it the hard way even if that involves some stunning and mazing with a dash of lightning bouncing off the narrow corridor walls. We'll be fine says Droch, as he steps back and lets Painter take the brunt of things.
The Dao Djinn are booted out of Trademeet and we head into the druid grove and a troll mound. We almost clear it out when a spirit troll appears from nowhere and ravages Painter to within a pixel of his life. Droch steps in but we both have to retreat outside. Once we are rested we go back inside and finish the job.
After doing this we sort out the Trademeet tomb tussle, and then Jenia turns up. Painter is unperturbed but Droch vaguely remembers we didn't deal with Reijiek Hidesman fully last time and sent Lt Aegisfield to his certain death. Anyway, we finish off the skinner quest and Droch is most upset when the un-poisoned guard nearby is the only one who doesn't pitch in and try to help us. How ungrateful can you get.
With Trademeet all wrapped up we'll go check on the tanner building to see if Lt Aegisfield has been stuffed inside a container. Painter is all set to go downstairs but Droch insists on a bit of buffing. Two ghouls, two rune assassins and a bone golem later we're quite happy that the mild buff worked a treat. Of Lt Aegisfield there is no sign.
That worked well, and we're forced to repeat it a second time when the undead near a floor-letter puzzle take umbrage to us.
Thaxxy manages to get up Protection from Magical Weapons. Normally that would be bad news for us, very bad news. Typically fatal news.
Fortunately for us, we've landed a fatal hit already and the dragon slumps to the ground. Painter is straight in, heaving scales off for some armour we won't need and a few other valuables.
Droch has 259 kills and is level 13, Painter closing the gap with 246 and is level 14.
Looks like they need to sell some treasures.
(n.b Painter finally handed in Neb's head towards the session end, and we each have some pantaloons)
Keep it up, guys.
& a couple of screenshots I overlooked. Shadow Altar and Shade Lord.
Within no time Safana was Held, and all the others except Ansgar panicked. That Dispel Magic made me lose interest in the battle (I was genuinely annoyed that all the careful pre-buffing was for naught because of one simple spell that is useless when I cast it). Safana (backstabs) and Ansgar did a decent job at injuring Belhifet but were nowhere near victory when Ansgar went out with a bang: Sundermaul (the only weapon he could hit Belhifet with) caused an earthquake to occur. It knocked our hero out, and turned him into easy pickings for Belhifet. I was sad because I had really enjoyed the run (no symptoms of restartitis unlike with other recent runs).
The protagonist is Ronja, a Halfling Fighter/Thief with maxed out physical stats (took me quite a while to roll a 90), and two ** in slings and ** in scimitars:
Progress was initially slow, mainly because I had to think carefully about how to proceed without endless running around and hoping for crits, and about who would become Ronja's companions.
While a custom party may allow for stat and (dual-)class optimization, playing with NPCs has its advantages as well. One of those is being able to solo the early game without having to share cheap XP before forming a party. Ronja pocketed only the safe and easy XP in Candlekeep (circa 500 XP including XP from picked locks and from BGQE's Linda and Sir Trun mini-quest). Killing one rat took her ages so she didn't bother with the rest; Shank and Carbos were shunned altogether.
Relying on stealth (her first 40 skill points had all gone to HiS/MS), Ronja then traveled straight to Drizzt who was annihilated by gnolls. Knowing there was nothing she could have done to stop those monsters, she didn't feel too bad about taking his gear. She intimidated a wounded hobgoblin (200 XP) before she went and met Captain Brage, whom she traveled to Nashkel with (1000 XP). After that, Noober (400 XP), Albert (1000), Firebead (300), Marl (900), Eltolth and Alanna (500), the Dudleys (500), Drienne (200), Mrs Blackstone, (400), Samuel and Lena (500), Mr Coquetle (250), and Farmer Brun (1500) were all kind enough to give out 'free' XP.
In my previous LoB experiments I would have tackled the rogue ogre, the hobgoblin in green armor with the boots of stealth, Tenya (who only requires a single hit), and maybe Mirianne's ogrillons and Landrin's spiders, but due to the -11 AC bonus they all had to wait.
At circa 8000 XP and with a lowly rat as her only kill, clearing Mutamin's Garden would make her reach the 32,000 XP mark, the optimal point to start forming a party. Ronja only read the green scroll from the Nashkel Carnival after having lured Korax toward Mutamin, to give her as much time as possible. Korax did great at paralyzing first the gnome and later his pets. Dual-wielding Twinkle and Icingdeath and not having to roll for hits, Ronja dispatched the monsters fairly rapidly. She and her ghoulish friend were just preparing an assault on Kirian and her men, when Korax turned hostile. It was Ronja's cue to leave the area and start looking for more loyal companions.
Aura (installed as a Gnome Cleric/Artificer), Emily (Half-Elf Archer), Kivan (EEKeepered into Elf Archer), and Sirene (installed as a Tiefling Cavalier Paladin of Ilmater) joined in that order. Tiax joined only for a short while so his ghast could help the party defeat Landrin's spiders and get their intended 6th member, Garrick (Human Skald). Sadly my Rogue Rebalancing Skald proved to be bugged: every round, the song gives a AoE explosion animation (similar to that of one of the Shaman's AoE spells, Writhing Fog?). While not harming anyone I found it too bothersome to put up with, so Garrick was out. He made place for Baeloth (Drow Sorcerer), who wasn't as good at buffing the party but brought lots of arcane spells to the table.
Quayle with his arcane and divine magic and wand proficiency would probably be a stronger addition than Aura whose thief levels the party didn't really need, but I love Aura and she has an exciting personal quest, so we decided to keep her around.
The nice thing about this set-up is that it can be maintained in SoD as well. All companions except Kivan return in SoD, and Corwin can take Kivan's place. What I also like is that two Archers with demonic/fell as their racial enemy, and a Cavalier are among the best martial characters that might stand a chance against Belhifet, should we make it that far. Not that that's saying much in my case. I believe I have the poorest track record against Belhifet of all the no-reloaders here and I've never even faced the mofo in LoB mode.
Tarnesh was defeated with the help of a skeleton and a Silence from Aura.
The only downside was that it left Sirene idle during battles, since she was specialized in two-handed swords and two-handed weapon style, and the only ranged weapons she could use (throwing axes/daggers) were somewhat expensive and scarce. An attempt to remedy that through Kivan's BG1 NPC Project quest with Jozzi the Seasnake and its returning throwing dagger reward failed when the party saw Jozzi slain by a sahuagin captain a mere moment before the latter fell himself.
Bassilus made me wonder whether the +5 penalty to saves applies to all foes.
Dushai's ring of free action became Sirene's means to contribute in battle. She would melee and tank, when necessary, the Webbed enemies.
Without having invested any skill points in pick pockets, Ronja managed to get a PP score of 125 (Cat's Grace and Luck from scroll, deep red iuon stone with +1 Dex, potions of mind focusing, master thievery, perception). It was enough for a sell-and-steal-back session at the Nashkel Carnival.
As Baeloth didn't know Invisibility or Invisibility 10' Radius, the party worked toward leveling him up (from 40k to 60x XP). The drow killed two battle horrors at Durlag's Tower with wand scorchers after having cast Haste on himself to facilitate moving around. Aura and a skeleton she summoned killed some basilisks there. Her goggles protect against gaze attacks. The web tactic worked well enough against ankhegs and sirines although one ankheg badly injured Sirene. It was there that I noticed bonus damage had been disabled, because before that we hadn't been taking hits.
Other high profile targets were Meilum, the Revenant, Sendai & Co,
A couple of mostly smaller quests - Charleston Nib/Doom Sayer, Mirianne's ogrillons, Tenya, polar bear - were completed, resulting in Baeloth's level-up. And the ghasts of Durlag's Tower's upper levels and a baby wyvern in Nashkel sufficed for Aura to reach her 6th cleric level, enabling her to summon a second skeleton.
Without invisibility the party sometimes had to kill groups of random monsters that they would have preferred to ignore, but other than that the party has been able to progress reasonably smoothly and efficiently.
The party:
Ronja:
It sounds as if that battle is well designed by the writers so that the dispell magic comes when it is most effective! The ideal of course would be to have it cast at different points in the battle on a random basis so that you cannot plan ahead as much. That of course would make the programming much more time-consuming.
I like the portrait of Kivan. I haven't seen that one before, probably because I haven't had him in my party for years. (Pre EE)
I presumed Emily is from a mod since I have never met her, and as a result of googling her found four other NPC mods that I hadn't previously heard of. Please let us know what you think of her.
I think that you could have had Sirene as an Inquisitor. That is the install that I use, as it makes her more versatile.
The true sight and dispell magic are both useful too. In my opinion more useful than immunity to poison which can be gained with green scrolls if/when needed. I presume that you knew all that already though.
We were told to go to Candlekeep and did so, being met by a party of ogre/mages. We had web and dispell invisibility in our spellbooks, so they weren't much of a problem.
We were met by Fabio who took us back to Restenford where we solved a murder case. We had Fabio in our party for the duration of the quest. It was easy enough due to having considerable experience. Fabio was weak, but strong enough to survive. The battle with the lizards was the hardest battle.
Upon reaching Ulgoth's Beard we got into a battle with Demon Cultists.
EDIT Two more screenshots
The demon cultists have been eliminated. Drizzt needs to wait no longer. The party is now in the nine hells. I thought that we were going to Icewind Dale. If I had known where I was going, I would have packed differently!!
As for my current run, I took and cropped Kivan's portrait from this source, should you ever want to use it yourself. I like him and his quests in the BG1 NPC Project.
I also like Emily so far. She's supposed to learn to craft her own arrows but hasn't developed the skill yet, and she has a quest in Baldur's Gate (finding her biological mother) that I have yet to play. I'll mention anything interesting in my write-ups. Since I also have Sirene and Aura on board and there is no cross-mod content, I haven't seen much of her banters with other NPCs though. She does have some nice banter with fellow ranger Kivan.
I chose to install Sirene as a Cavalier mainly with Siege of Dragonspear in mind. With the huge -11 bonus that enemies get in Legacy of Bhaal mode, the innate +3 Thac0 and +3 damage bonuses against fiends and dragons seemed helpful. @histamiini has experimented extensively with a solo Cavalier in the LoB solo no-reload thread. Non-dispellable protection against fear, charm, and poison are welcome too but not the main consideration. I agree with you that over the whole saga, Inquisitor Dispels (un-nerfed in my current install) are extremely useful. Maybe I should consider Keldorn for BG2, if BG2 comes up...
BG1: 1
As detailed in my first post, Ronja and her companions made sure they were pretty experienced (55-60k XP per character) before taking on the big plot quests. They navigated the Nashkel Mines under Baeloth's radial invisibility, stopping only to Web and dispatch the group of kobolds carrying the vials of poison as those vials and a piece of corrupted ore yield 1500 XP with the Unfinished Business mod.
Inside Mulahey's cave Aura placed four traps: two regular thief traps and two alchemical traps. Aura can set four different types of alchemical traps. In this case she used acidic compound traps, which reduce physical resistance and damage by 25% of anyone within their AoE (so the party had to watch out for friendly fire here). Those traps would weaken Mulahey's summons somewhat. She also summoned two skeletons. Everyone, including the skellies (and Aura under Sanctuary), then moved to Mulahey. The half-orc soon got stuck in Baeloth's Web but resisted Aura's Hold Person. Sirene attacked him dual-wielding her +1 morning stars. Her starting pips were ** in two-handed weapon style and ** in two-handed swords, but auto-hits favored dual-wielding. Her level 3 and 6 pips had gone to maces/morning stars (grouped together as one category per Anthology Tweaks, which makes sense to me). Kivan, Emily, and Ronja attacked with their missile weapons. When Mulahey saved, his call for mercy was denied. Aura interrupted his casting with the wand of the heavens and Bealoth Spooked him, causing the half-orc to wander into the Web again for easy disposal.
Nimbul was Webbed and Silenced thanks to being protected by MSD instead of MGoI.
In the Wood of Sharp Teeth the party stayed on the down low although they did save Nim Furlwing's hunting dogs from attacking dire wolves and kill Osmadi and Corsone in Larswood, again relying on Webs. On their way to Peldvale, the party got waylaid by Lamalha. Everyone was invisible and moved to the south east corner of the area to think of a plan, but Zeela completed the casting of a detection spell before everyone had reached the corner. They were still in sight of Lamalha when they were revealed. Baeloth quickly cast a Web, and Aura started a casting of Hold Person, but when the combat log betrayed an imminent backstab by Maneira, the party immediately fled the scene.
The party infiltrated the bandit camp via Raiken, but Kivan blew their cover when he saw Tazok. In Kivan's defense he had forewarned the party of it, and he pretty much handled the half-ogre on his own. With his composite longbow +1, his racial bonus, his racial enemy, the +1 dex ioun stone, and the legacy of the masters it was almost as if LoB mode was disabled for a moment. Kivan rolled a 3 for his killing shot.
The party entered Tazok's tent, where Ronja positioned herself in front of the second blue banner, out of Raemon's sight. She tried an Algernon's charm, which requires a save vs breath at -1, on Britik but like Bassilus, he saved with a roll well over 20 (23 to be precise). It looks like some characters in my current LoB set-up get a bonus to saves while others get a penalty, or maybe some items/spells are somehow nerfed? This definitely requires further research. Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influencing did work on Britik.
In Cloakwood Aldeth Sashenstar and his hunter friends were taken down with some difficulty. Not only was Aldeth magic-resistant, moving around (kiting) also led to the involvement of several huge spiders and tasloi who of course sided with anyone but Charname. It took a lot of running around, but eventually the party prevailed.
The spiders too required a lot of kiting, some invisible blockers to speed things up, and skeletal help but clearing the entire area provided a 6th fighter level for Ronja and Spiders' Bane for Sirene so she could pass her ring of free action on to Ronja.
Molkar's ambush took place between the spider area and the druids area. This time the party didn't have to flee. Morvin and Drakar we caught in Baeloth's Web. Aura managed to Hold Molkar. But Halacan did get to trouble the party. Like Tranzig, he tried to take out Ronja with a Chromatic Orb, and from pretty close range. It cost the party another potion of magic blocking.
In Davaeorn's lair, Ronja charmed the first guard and disarmed the traps, Aura summoned three skeletons, and Hasted Baeloth dispatched two battle horrors with wand scorchers. 38 wand fireballs were more than enough to kill all of Davaeorn's guards but it was the charmed guard and the the summons who finished the Dimension Dooring wizard himself.
They've just committed their first mistake in Baldur's Gate: after being tipped by a noblewoman, they went to talk some sense into Ragefast without having spoken to Ramazith first. As a result there is no Ramazith, so no amulet of metaspell influence for Baeloth and no ring of protection +2 either. On the plus side Emily has already secured her crossbow of accuracy (Dabron was Held from out of sight by Aura). The party will probably take on most of the quests in Baldur's Gate. Any noteworthy events shall be covered in a next update.
Interesting. I haven't found any definitive info about what's supposed to happen. Beamdog representative @Balquo states in this older thread that Ramazith isn't supposed to be around if you've already freed Abela, because then he can't give you his quest anymore.
When Ronja entered Ramazith's tower she saw the mage for a split second but then he disappeared, and she didn't find him upstairs.
Coreranger - half-elf stalker, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Balsa - dwarven fighter/cleric (Gate70)
Defoe - dwarven defender (Grond0)
So our 1st order of business was to deal with Sunin. Coreranger went in for a backstab and yet another critical by Defoe finished Sunin off.
Defoe did a buying spree for Coreranger, then the party dealt with the iron throne. Defoe used a few potions, and combined with Balsa's silence, hold persons, skeletons, and Coreranger's considerable damage with his acid arrows it was a clean victory.
Time to go off to Candlekeep. This was pretty much by the numbers - well almost. On the way back to Balsa who was waiting for Defoe and Coreranger (who thsemselves was going after the strength tome), Balsa Defoe mis-stepped and nearly died to the lightning bolt trap. Close one!
Prat was silenced then finished off with Coreranger's arrows of detonation. On return the City, both Slythe and Krystin were easily destroyed.
In an eerie premonition, Corey_Russell begged his companions to not kill him by wrong dialog. So what does Grond0 do? Well we easily beat the dopplegangers - but in Grond0's "click happiness", he clicked to move but looks like he actually selected a dialog choice which popped up that moment - as luck would have it, Grond0 picked the option accusing Sarevok without evidence, and Coreranger was summarily flamestriked. RIP Coreranger.
Back to the drawing board!
Droch (male elf archer, Gate70); Painter (male dwarf kensai, Grond0)
BGII:SoA - Chapter IV: Valygar, Tarnor, Mekrath, Planar Prison, Spellhold. 2 hours 10 minutes.
Since we're outside Valygars tax haven log cabin we feel it is only fair to step inside and ask him for a key to the Planar Sphere - surely he doesn't need that in addition to his house and country retreat. A short while later we deposit his body into the entrance of the Planar Sphere and decide it should be left for later - we have more important matters than this newly-greased doorway.
Droch is thinking some boots of speed are just what Painter wants. Our choices are to head to Spellhold now, or to drop into the Planar Prison. We decide the second of these is next but it means dealing with Mekrath first. On the way we run into Tarnor the Hatchetman and one of his gang manages to scare Painter while the kensai is busy trying to kill Gaius.
Droch wasn't expecting this, and Painter probably wasn't either. Droch redoubles his effort on Gaius as Painter runs around attracting a green slime and some kobolds into the fight. Painter is hanging on determinedly but eventually a voice (we'll call it Grond0) suggests that Droch should stop playing with Gaius and eliminate Gallchobhair who has merrily sniped away most of Painters health.
Droch does as he is bid, and also casts a cure light wounds onto Painter, but it is too little too late and Painter slumps to the ground. Droch could continue the fight on his own but decides to avoid an XP gap and get Painter raised so we can share it equally.
With the entrance to Mekrath's lair now available we head straight inside to introduce ourselves. That doesn't take long at all, and Droch suggests a rest is in order - he can see Painter eyeing up trapped containers and we're both a bit wounded.
So we rest and Painter duly bashes open chests. It's a good job we rested as he made sure we took heavy lightning trap damage that would otherwise have proved fatal. We'll rest again then.
We scout around Brynnlaw and rapidly ascertain that Perth the Adept holds the way into Spellhold. Held.
(we both hit him but arrow arrival time is too slow and a kensai-one-chop will suffice)
We get to search around the maze and Painter can't resist seeing if a genie will reward him for summoning while an area effect is active. Well, the genie came and went without so much as presenting us with a suit of armour that neither of us could have used. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Painter is already (once more) at minimal hit points so facing up the ulitharid with a dominated archer would be fatal for him. He retreats and once Droch comes back to his senses we employ the kensai runaround with an archer volley to finish off this crafty enemy.
Lonk gets a stoneskin up but that only delays the inevitable for a moment or two - so quick was it that it merited an expansion of the combat log to see who did the damage (both of us)
Droch has notched up 324 kills while Painter has slashed his way to 379 kills. Inventory:
Sink - undead hunter (Grond0)
Corethief XVI - berserker (Corey_Russell)
Tonic - skald (Gate70)
Previous run
Still in a slightly confused state as to how our previous run ended, I failed to fully min-max Sink - as Corey noted when Sink started getting tired before the other characters. Never mind - his constitution of 15 should provide enough HPs anyway
The first significant action saw Sink heading by reflex to kill Shoal, when Corethief XVI piped up questioning whether we should be hunting Droth in order to get his helm. Safe in the knowledgehope that a forced kiss from Shoal would only harm him, not kill him, Tonic puckered up. When Droth appears he's not hostile until he's talked to - which gave us the chance to shoot Shoal (killing her provides far more HPs than completing her quest) before Corethief enraged and confronted Droth. He quickly went to near dead, but managed to cast invisibility to provide himself with the opportunity to escape - but fortunately for us he chose to try and charm an enraged berserker
Incidentally, this run is unusual in that all of us are playing human characters. My random selection of a paladin forced that choice, while bards are also pretty limited. As a berserker, Corey could easily have chosen a different race - just possibly the given name of Corethief XVI provides a clue as to why he didn't ...
In Beregost some spiders didn't last long before we headed to the south. The big strength of skalds is the major combat bonuses they give the rest of the party (starting at +2 to hit and damage) and Tonic was taking advantage of that by running opponents around while trying to keep the others within song range. With multi-player lag that's not always easy to do safely though and an ogrillon took advantage when our intrepid skald strayed a bit too close to his fists.
Arriving in Nashkel some even better armor was on offer for Sink, while Tonic got a chance to practice his shooting to ensure Noober wouldn't be bothering us any more. Sink had his eye on a protection from petrification scroll at the Carnival, but Tonic told him not to bother as he'd already stocked up during a visit to Thalantyr to get a potion case. That made fighting basilisks pretty safe and further levels were soon being racked up.
With the session almost over we travelled to the Lake area before saving. Sink was keen to acquire Drizzt's swords though and felt that was best done outside a session to avoid a boring period for the others. He duly skirted round Drizzt's location to activate the gnolls and then sat back for 6 minutes or so while they did the dirty business.
Current character records:
Undead Hunter - L4, 31 HPs, 34 kills
Berserker - L4, 44 HPs, 16 kills, 0 deaths
Skald - L5, 37 HPs, 5 kills, 1 death
Upon entering the nine hells we discovered that Wulfgar buffed to protect from fire was more than a match for the demonknights and Drittz could cope with the tanari. Belhifet and Marilith were tough though.
For a while we moved to cooler climes, but then once more entered hotter regions.
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Since I have failed to kill that demon in the Icewind Dale dungeon every time with a full party, it was a no-brainer when it came to deciding whether to take it on single handed!!
[ I discovered a very good reason for having good clerics in the party. ]
I decided to leave Jarlaxle and Artemis at the carnival, so having room in the party once more, we decided to pick up Xzar again. So we will now return to Icewind Dale.
Travling with:
April - dwarven berserker
Sarah - dwarven fighter/thief
Imoen - human thief/mage
Alena - human invoker
Dynaheir - human invoker
Coremage V posted a long time ago, but he's made some progress since then. He's completed chapter 5 without a problem. Candlekeep was also pretty easy, with a buffed berserker taking down Prat. Slythe had no chance. Duchal Palace went well with slow being a key spell there. Maze was also simple enough. Undercity Party got utterly destroyed by our mages:
Time to deal with my half-brother! Imoen got spotted which brought everyone (uh, oh!). We first destroyed Samaj as fast as possible, then concentrated on Sarevok.
One by one our party was falling - April, Sarah, then Alena. But wait, Imoen, Coremage V and Dynaheir were able to take Sarevok down before he could engage Coremage V! Victory!
The MP characters (Sarah, April, Alena) will move onto Amn.
RESTRICTIONS ON THIS RUN: Only mage characters can replace our mage characters (multi or dual OK). Also only a thief can replace Sarah (multi or dual OK), and only a warrior of some kind can replace April. On to Amn!
EDIT
Sarevok falls yet again. [The first time playing evil.] I tend to play chaotic good as that is my own personality trait.
Tamoko has now joined the party.
Saverok's sword was stolen in much the same way as the soultaker dagger.
EDIT 2
We have stopped Korlatz and have returned to the Ducal Palace. Having Tamako in the party was not good. She spoon-fed the party all the way. It would have been REALLY annoying if I hadn't already completed that area.[/b]
Traveling with:
April - dwarven berserker
Sarah - dwarven fighter/thief
Alena - human invoker
Aeire - avariel cleric/mage
Nalia - human thief/mage
So the run is going good. But ran into something new - killing my own characters - repeated!y! How you ask? Let me explain.
We were in Nalia's keep about to engage Torgal. But first Sarah was looting the chests in the room next to Torgal. But right about when the berserker's rage expired (we had just killed the umber hulks), Sarah went to full health and died! But there's no traps! Thought it was a bug at first.
So then we go to Watcher's Keep and resurrect her - and she immediately died and dropped her armor. So then I resurrected her and the MOMENT I PUT ON HER ARMOR, she died again!!! Finally it dawns on me what is going on - the orcish armor has a CHA penalty -and that is killing Sarah! Here's her character sheet.
So we sell the orcish armor, resurrect Sarah (remember have to resurrect her twice because she dies immediately 2nd time but only drops the armor the 2nd resurrection.) Expensive lesson (3200 gold). But eventually Sarah helps us defeat Torgal, so all's well in the end...
Also earlier, Nalia got whacked for 70 damage in a single hit from the iron golem - had no idea it could hit that hard...had to resurrect Nalia too. And Aerie is not yet high enough level to raise anyone. The priest at Watcher's Keep is making a killing!
Sarah doesn't look much like a dwarf!
Shunned by the gibbering hordes and expelled from his tribe, Bongo the lone gibberling embarks on the journey towards enlightenment.
Statwise, Bongo is the equivalent of a human monk and has a natural attribute roll. He has two modes of attack: up close he rends opponents with his claws (fists), and at range he throws rocks (sling).
This is a solo no-reload run on core difficulty, no mods. Let's begin.
Bongo found the remnants of a battle between a powerful mage and some other humans, and since there was nobody around who was still alive, he proceeded to rummage the bodies for valuable loot.
As he scurried off heading east, he came across several others of his own kind, all of whom had such a strong distaste for his sophisticated ways that they attacked him on sight. Bongo fought them off with ease, since those savages haven't yet figured out the utility in weaponizing aerodynamic rocks.
However, Bongo was about to find his match both in terms of power and intellect: a vicious ogre with a raging affinity for belts and girdles. The ogre spotted him and attacked!
Against such a powerful foe, Bongo had to utilize his most powerful weapon—hasty retreat. Being a fledgling monk, Bongo had the speed to easily outrun his opponent, so he began circling an array of broken down wagons and periodically threw rocks at his pursuer. The battle was fierce and it felt like it went on forever, but after around twenty minutes Bongo finally managed to lodge a rock so weighty against the giant's cranium, it caused the exhausted beast to keel over.
Satisfied with his hard-fought victory, Bongo made off with the giant's belt collection.
She had surgery to look more like a human. It was a painful process, but she thought it was worth it.
And here I thought Khaleesi (Sarah) was pretty hot. Good save.