Time for Ust Natha: this is where things so very often go wrong for me. A mistake inside the city can often be fatal, since I'm pretty sure I have the improved version of Ust Natha, and I don't have either the setup or the skill to pull off beating the siege as @semiticgod did. Our purchases in the city are the Firetooth Dagger (Jehu), that +4 shield (Anomen), that rod that can kill golems, (Anomen), and a couple rare potions such as shielding and a scroll or two. We report to Solaufein, and go attempt to rescue Phaere without resting. The backstabber of the Underdark party with the Dragon's Breath is causing a few problems, and Nalia and Imoen have no Stoneskins. Mirror Images keep them alive, and Jehu casts Nature's Beauty for the first time from invisibility. Summons and a lot of damage finish the fight.
As I posted in the Adventurer's Lounge, I had an interesting situation where Phaere and Solaufein went red when a Death Spell was cast near them, and attempted to target. As this was a known strategy in both the original games and the EEs with no warning about targeting the Drow, and there's nothing in the SCS documentation about Death Spell now turning neutrals hostile, I considered this a bug and reloaded the fight. (As I said in the other thread, I highly suspect it's the fact that Death Spell now sweeps friendlies to kill bugs from the Insect Plague line of spells, and if so, that's definitely unintended to turn characters hostile.)
We complete the fight a second time casting no other spells other than healing spells to make sure Phaere stays alive after she's targeted by some of the Umber Hulks early on. We end up with a success, return to the city, and do the only two side-things I'm willing to do: Qilue's brain and the pit fights. The pit fights are fairly easy, though I'm still extremely Beholder-phobic, and send skeleton warriors to finish that fight.
I think Moira or Mazzy might have the saves to outright tank Beholders, but heck if I'm going to test that in a no-reload. Qilue is handled by a very quick smash (her skull) and grab, and we get out without fighting any of her attendants. Multiple high level magic resistant mages in a fight we're pinned against the wall with no maneuverability is not something I'm comfortable. Earlier in the run, I couldn't even win in the Troll Mound with a no-setup no-maneuverability beginning, so... It's simply not worth it. I don't like rest spamming, so the beholder Spelljammer is handled by our warriors + Fire Elementals. They were all under Improved Invisibility, so the only way Moira or Mazzy could fail a save was after being dispelled, but they're immune to magic for a short time after that anyways, so Anomen was the only one that wasn't 100% safe here, I think.
We resolve the rest of the main quest line as peacefully as we can, claiming the Sverneblin patrol leader's helmet and Solaufein's cloak. From here, we have 3 Invisibility 10" memorized: I think one of my previous failures was from talking to the Drow warning against the slime cult that starts a 1 hour timer while on a similar timer for Phaere. The best and safest solution is to simply never start the timer. We use 1 to get everyone into the Female Fighter's Society where Jehu turns down Phaere's advances. Jehu drinks a potion of invisibility to pass by the questgiver a second time.
Egg guards are quickly killed, and some types of summons are used to tank the Clay Golems while we slaughter the others. We're doing the double-cross, and make sure we put in Phaere's eggs. We cast another Invisibility 10" to report back to Phaere, and we're brought to the temple. After watching the mayhem and picking up the items, Imoen casts a Haste on us via scroll and we book it out of Ust Natha. I forgot that turns Imoen visible, though, and she has the cloak of Displacement on so she has the blurred animation already: the slime questgiver talks to her as we're running, and she either drinks a potion or casts Invisibility to get out. We escape safely, report back to Adalon, and get teleported to the end. Not shown: the failure message that our identities have been discovered, probably from technically failing the slime worshipper quest. That thing has a very, very slim margin of error.
There's a few quests left unfinished: Unseeing Eye, Mae'var, Planar Sphere, Planar Prison, and Firkraag with a few minor encounters in between. We start with the Unseeing Eye. The most dangerous part of the beginning was when a Wandering Horror affected Jehu, and he risked walking randomly towards enemies. Imoen turns him invisible, and he recovers before he does anything too stupid. Undead aren't a problem for us right now: Anomen is a high level Cleric, and Mazzy still has the iMoD as her second most used weapon. No liches spawn, and we have no problems with that. In the Beholder hive itself, Anomen reworks his spellbook slightly to give us probably the safest method of clearing Beholders.
Imoen follows invisibly, and clears all the Beholders and Gauths with those five. A pathing issue gets them sighted by the blind priests despite the obvious problems with that statement, and the other five members join in to smash them quickly. The Unseeing Eye is handled by the same five skeletons, with Imoen firing off the Rift Device.
There's an issue trying to finish the quest: the expended Rift Device didn't seem to be created after using the Rift Device. I scoured the area wondering if I had dropped it, or rested to see if it would recreate in Imoen's inventory, but it wasn't to be found. I created the expended Rift Device via console, and returned it to Amaunator's Avatar before finishing the quest with Helm.
The Planar Sphere is next. We use summons, area spells, and Fire Seeds from Moira to safely clear all the Halfling mages: none of them get a dangerous spell off the ground near us that I remember. More Fire Seeds are used to disrupt Lavok, and the most dangerous thing he did was manage a Dispel Magic or Remove on Mazzy. We try the same thing on Tolgerais, but the insta-summons Efreeti and Djinni are giving us a few problems with the cloud spells, and the fact that there're two mages splits our attention. He survives a bit longer, though not long enough to truly threaten us. I think he used a PW:Blind at some point, but he only does surface damage before killing him. We regenerate a bit while Spirit Summons tank against the Fire and Ice rooms, and invisible walls are enough to negate any threat the golems might have posed. In Hell, SCS apparently made a few upgrades I don't recall: there are some minor demon-things that have decent THAC0 and can Hold via something or another. We kill two of the Nabassu's for their hearts and finally return to the Prime with no deaths suffered.
So it's hour 18 or 19 or something and I'm waiting for night for the final Temple quest (the Dawn Ring) as well as the first Thief quest: in the meantime, we do some shopping (Robe of Vecna for Imoen, Sling of Everand for Anomen) and take on the Guarded Compound. The bottom level is pretty simple, and we do a full buff sequence for the second floor. Everyone equips a range weapon, and Imoen detects the traps immediately. Acid Rain (Nalia) and Spike Growth (Jehu) help disable their spellcasters, while either Mazzy or Anomen detect their Thief with True Sight via gem or spell. Further rounds see Jehu detecting Invisibility, debuffs being thrown around by both Imoen and Nalia, and our three warriors killing off their fighters. Nalia is hit by a Dispel, but all their heavy hitters had already fallen, and we emerge deathless. Nobody even wants Celestial Fury.
There's still a bit of time before darkness, and I try to find anything to do without leaving the city. The first half of the Planar Prison questline fits the bill fairly well, and Jehu is the first to get 3m experience and his first HLA. He chooses Spirit Form, which is pretty weak, all things considered: it's the prerequisite for Favored of the Spirits though, which is really nice for a CHARNAME. Bad dialogue gets Mekrath killed without hunting down an imp. Whoops.
It's nighttime, so we can complete the last temple quest and the first of the thieves' quests. I think there might be a violent option or a pickpocketing option, but I have no idea how exactly how that'd work, so I play it safe. The only two non-optional fights are Rayic Gethras and Mae'var and his guild themselves: Rayic is no longer a threat, especially with Fire Seeds disrupting all his spells while we wait out or burn his spell protections/PfMW, and Mae'var's assassins are affected by a Chaos spell, and the most irritating thing they do is kill each other before I can nab their experience. Also, Anomen is really, really such a prick. He does get a level though.
Next up is the Planar Prison. Imoen, Jehu, Anomen and Nalia buff up during the fight before entering the portal, ending with a Mass Invisibility before entering the portal. All 6 have a Death Ward up as well just in case. We gang up on their mages in the entrance, never allowing them a chance to actually hurt us. Skeleton Warriors and elementals are thrown at the Yuan-Ti mages, and AoE spells kill them. The random talking Wyvern and Master of Thralls don't end much better, and the Warden's spellbook is depleted a bit by summons before we engage him and take him down, even while slowed.
The Wave shaft reminds us we haven't crafted any weapons: Imoen gets Gesen's shortbow, and the Wave is bagged for now. We don't have the Silver Sword: I can't bring myself to kill the Githyanki Wild Mage that asks for it back, and generally just hand it back to him. Windspear Hills are next, and we have much better counters than before. Semiticgod gave a method of avoiding vampires by dodging their spawn trigger: Anomen has a counterpoint with Turn Undead.
Imoen almost dies due to bad pathfinding at the turncoat party: she gets pushed through the door into the melee by some of the others, but a potion of Invisibility gets her out safely. The other party doesn't stand a chance against our superior firepower and gear, and fall very quickly. We use Spirit Summons to tank against the golems, and we rest and do a full-ish buff upstairs before facing Firkraag. 5x Pro from Fire from Nalia, Emotion: Hope, Emotion: Courage from both mages, Stoneskin and Ironskins on whoever could cast it, Improved Haste on Moira and Mazzy, a final Pro from Fire from Anomen, Impervious Sanctity of Mind and Entropy Shield on both Jehu and Anomen, and Chaotic commands and death ward on everyone, Mass Invisibility on everyone, and finally SI:Abjuration and Spellshield on Imoen.
Firkraag tries to scorch everyone, but fails to do any damage. Mazzy can hit on a roll of a 2, and despite doing some damage in melee and dispelling Moira, he can't kill any of us, and we have an unusable Carsomyr.
We do a similar setup sans fire resistance against Thaxll'ssilyia, and I think we took this fight in either two or three rounds. He did a bit of damage on Mazzy, the absolute horror.
Only a few more things to do before Bodhi: the Mindflayers in the sewer, and Kangaxx. I'm being stubborn in how little I'm resting: this is still the same spell selecting against the Shadow Dragon, and that means we have very few Chaotic Commands. We still have far too many summons, and some careful kiting almost gets us out with 0 deaths, but I miss two critical hits happening to Anomen in quick succession and he dies to brain suckage. Nalia use a Rod of Resurrection to bring him back up. Soon only the Alhoon is left, and my typical anti-mage strategies aren't enough for him since he has his psionic powers to turn back to. And he still has 9th level spells on top of that, but we feed him 4-5 summons to drain his spellbook before facing him as basically another mindflayer. Returning aboveground, Moira takes Crom Freyr for melee, and we forge and store two sets of dragonscale armor.
We rest, buy up a few more scrolls of Protection from Undead, and go Lich hunting. Both the Shade Lich and Elemental Lich do nothing of note before being hit by the iMoD, but there are issues with Kangaxx again. His lich form is handles as easily, but Mazzy is too close to him as he starts his spells, and Moira has nobody to throw Fireseeds at for disruptions. Summons are unsafe since that gives Kangaxx something to target: I should've unequipped Mazzy's armor to have an easy target for Moira. Kangaxx summons a Balor under a Timestop, and casts a sequencer of 3 Remove Magics targeting said Balor: Mazzy is revealed, and we have no backup scrolls. Kangaxx summons in a Dark Planetar as we start booking it for the entrance. Only Kangaxx follows, though he always manages to follow exactly in the same space as Jehu does. I use CTRL-J to move Jehu's model a pixel or so away every time the two of them get stuck in each other. We change zones a few times to try to get away from Kangaxx before realizing he can only see Mazzy: she leaves for outside, but since the area is still loaded from the others, Kangaxx doesn't follow. Moira gets her 4 hits in for spell failure, Mazzy comes back in, and Mazzy claims Kangaxx's ring for herself.
Time for Bodhi! Anomen invisibly pops 80% of the vampires on the top layer, and the others die to our allies. Downstairs, we try to make sure our allies don't killsteal us, but Eric wanted the 90k experience apparently. Oh well: 15k experience per person is pocketchange at this point of the game. We also decide to clear the rest of the tombs that we didn't do before (read: none.)
After a bit of shopping and inventory management (Arrows of dispelling for Moira finally, and the Iron Horn of Valhalla for a longer-lived Fire Seed target are highlights), we go to Suldanessellar. Nalia levels, and takes her first HLA of Summon Planetar: this will make later fights much, much easier.
There're two fights in the city itself that gave any degree of trouble: some pathfinding from Mazzy triggered two of the upgraded Rakshasas in the north while we're trying to deal with an Adamantine Golem in the south. Jehu was using Shamanic Dance for summons against the Adamantine Golem, so moving means losing our front line, but the Raamalit casts a Sphere of Chaos into the middle of us, so we scatter. Anomen, Mazzy and Moira eventually take down the Adamantine Golem, though Nalia is hit by a Breach or Dispel Magic. One of the two Raamalits melees Imoen while our ranged units throw things at it, while Jehu and Moira are on the other side of the Sphere of Chaos fending off another one. We're out of Breaches ourselves, so we end up having to wait out their spells before killing them, since normal weapons don't work on them anyways.
I buff a lot more sloppily for Nizi, and the results show: I should've rested and been more willing to use summons to tank for us. Mazzy and Anomen both try tanking the acidic dragon, and both fall: fortunately, there's 0 chance he can cast now, and Moira takes the dragon out.
With a wide open area, I expect to drain Irenicus' spellbook with summons before killing him. There was a moment's worry when Irenicus used Teleport without Error during a timestop straight to Jehu, though he used that time just to summon a few things (which included a Balor), but Jehu just ran instantly out of vision. Nalia summons her Planetar, and I send it roughly to Jehu's old position. I expected it to do something, but it outright won that fight.
Jehu takes all the Good options in the trials, and do another full buff before the final SoA fight. With two Balors in the mix, our goal at the beginning is to have them kill our summons while we run like all heck is behind us to the southern part of the map. I mess up timings in the buffs and summons, and Nalia's Planetar despawns before doing anything, and Imoen's summon is interrupted by cutscene, so our only celestial available is Anomen's Deva.
We get to the south safely, and start pulling the demons in one by one with summons. Jehu has Conjure Fire Elemental in 6th level slots and Conjure Earth Elemental in 7th level slots, so after buffs has 10 strong summons to throw at these demons. Anomen still has at least 3 Skeleton Warriors as well. I didn't know whether Vorpal hits were on the menu, but that was confirmed fairly early on with a Balor Vorpalling an elemental. We managed to pull each one in one by one until only Irenicus is left, with only the Death Throes doing any damage to us. Fireseeds on a surviving elemental or skeleton warrior disrupts Irenicus' spells, and Whirlwind/Greater Whirlwind from Moira and Critical Hit and Power Attack from Mazzy are enough to finish off Irenicus. SoA is complete, and we're at the elven head things awaiting Ilesara's party.
Stats: Jehu, Human Shaman 19. 99 HP (5 from helm). 91 kills. HLAs: Spirit Form, Favored of the Spirits
Spell selections:
Level 1: Armor of Faith, Cure Light Wounds, Curse, Doom, Spirit Ward, Sun Scorch.
Level 2: Alicorn Lance, Charm Person or Mammal, Cure Moderate Wounds, Resist Fire and Cold, Slow Poison, Writhing Fog.
Level 3: Call Lightning, Cure Disease, Dispel Magic, Spike Growth, Spiritual Clarity.
Level 4: Call Woodland Beings, Death Ward, Poison, Spirit Fire, Static Charge
Level 5: Chaotic Commands, Insect Plague, Iron Skins, Recall Spirit, Spike Stones
Level 6: Conjure Fire Elemental, Entropy Shield, Fire Seeds, Spiritual Lock
Level 7: Conjure Earth Elemental, Ether Gate, Impervious Sanctity of Mind, Nature's Beauty
Mazzy, Halfling Fighter 21. 119 HP. 379 kills. 5* in Maces, 1* in Axes, 3* in Crossbow, 2* in Dual Wielding. 3 deaths. HLAs: Power Attack, Critical Strike
Moira, Dwarven Wizard Slayer 21. 148 HP. 429 kills. 5* in Longbow, 5* in Warhammer, 1* in Dual Wielding. 1 death. HLAs: Whirlwind attack, Greater Whirlwind Attack.
Anomen, Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric 23. 109 HP. 262 kills. 5* in Sling, 5* in Flails/Morningstars. 3 deaths. HLAs: Summon Deva, Implosion.
Imoen, Human Thief 7 -> Mage 18. 70 HP. 37 kills. 0 deaths. HLAs: Summon Planetar.
Nalia, Human Thief 4 -> Mage 18. 73 HP. 93 kills. 0 deaths. HLAs: Summon Planetar.
Unnie was wondering why she hadn’t
reached the level cap yet, and realised that her righteous party where nice and all, but the xp was scarce when parted 5 ways. So some tougher foes where next up. And with higher risk...
Unnie even got her self poisoned - for the loot and xp.
Even the iron throne baddies where eradicated - with a volley of fireballs. But still nowhere near the level cap.
Before going to CK, Unnie considered her options. Werewolf- and Ice island both sounded unappealing, so Durlags tower it was... I haven’t used the wand of frost that often before, but this time around the wand came to good use.
The chessboard was webbed by Dynaheir and set on fire. Thinking all was ok, Unnie set out for the king. Unnie thought her self safe with good saves and the boots of grounding. Without the boots and Durlags cup she surely would have died.
Buffing is still necessary on insane - go figure
The bottom level was cleared without much fuss: free action, protection from poison and plenty of healing potions being the bread winners.
The undead knight fell surprisingly quick. I had feared far worse, and was pleasantly surprised to see the 16.000 xp tick in without (too) much hassle.
Ck was done. Not killing Rieltar, but everyone in the caverns. The traps being really nasty on insane ... the loot was awesome as usual
Back in the city the iron throne and the undercellar where done easily.
And for the palace fight Dynaheir had a spell sequencer web, and another web in store. I managed to cast the combo to early, and saw most of the webs duration wasted on some nobles... Only after a while the nobles changed... and the fight was on.
The palace guard, the assailants and the dukes rammed together in a bloody mess. Unnie came out on top, but owe much to dumb luck.
Not making the same mistakes again, Unnie buffed like a mad man for the maze & webbed and cloudkilled the undercity goons. Sarevok was softened up with 3 webs and 2 cloud kills - which Unnie took no harm from. When softened, Unnie delivered true justice to her sibling
Unnie settles the score, and will go into SoD with the same premise: lawful good party, no stealing and unjustified killing and playing on insane
Journal of Mildgyth the Mace
Last Post
Due to lack of concentration, didn't notice that I was poisoned by the wyverns and went for the potion too late. What makes it worse was the fact that they died before me and I was one level short of getting fighter abilities back!
Journal of Eanflæd of Deira
I would have liked to have been a cleric of Kelemvor, but sadly was unable to due to lack of somebody to teach me what to do. Perhaps that is something that I can learn later. Only time will tell.
EDIT
It wasn't Eanflæd was killed by the upgraded assassins that I created in Candlekeep.
I am starting again however with Eanflæd II.
Chapter VIII (North Forest/Forest of Mir/Marching Mountains, Siege Camp, Oasis), 14 Eleasias 1370
Keldorn woke from a nightmare. His heart was pounding and aching at the same time. In the dream, he finally made it back to the Firecam Estate, excited to finally be home, after months on the road with Dispenser. When he got there, Keldorn could not find anyone. After combing the estate entirely over and over, he decided to go to Mithrest Inn, where he found Maria and his daughters living with Sir William (dreams can be weird like that). Maria told him she thought he had died in a dungeon somewhere. “After a year,” she said, “I decided to go on with my life and marry William. . . . The girls love him.” Keldorn’s heart tore open at the thought. After everything had Lady Maria left him? He woke, scared, and alone. “Where am I?” After he cleared his head, he looked around and remembered that they had just arrived in Amkethran the night before. He suddenly felt a twinge – he was so far from home. Suddenly he felt vulnerable and yearned for home. “Duty! Damn!” he thought to himself. He felt the unusual sense of being torn between home and duty. He had given Dispenser his word; now, for a moment, he wished he had not.
Their travels with Dispenser led from Saradush to the North Forest, the Forest of Mir, and the Marching Mountains until they reached Yaga-Shura’s Siege Camp. They were in Giant Territory – Yaga-Shura’s territory. Dispenser’s destiny became clearer and muddier at the same time. Their first duty was to defeat Yaga-Shura and halt the siege of Saradush. The North Forest provided a good snapshot of what was ahead. There, they battled their first Fire Giants, and some of Yaga-Shura’s soldiers, Yaga-Shura Mages, and two Cleric’s of Talos before moving on to the Forest of Mir. There was an ancient Bhaal Temple there, overrun with a Master Wraith and undead (Skelton Warrior, Skeleton Mage, Swamp Horrors, a Skeleton Assassin, several Devil Shades and Shadow Fiends). Battling through them provided the secret to defeating Yaga-Shura. Now the Temple is the lair of Nyalee, a human Druidess and mother of Yaga-Shura by Bhaal. Angry with her child, she told Dispenser that the key to killing Yaga-Shura was to retrieve his heart and bring it to her, along with hers. Yaga-Shura’s heart, she said, would be found at his lair in the Marching Mountains.
The brutally hot, lava-like Marching Mountains contained Yaga-Shura’s Lair. After battling several Fire Giants and Hell Hounds, they reached the entrance to the lair, a massive complex within the side of the mountains. Inside, they systematically took out room after room filled with Fire Giants, including two Elite Fire Giants, Elder Fire Elementals, Bone Fiends, Flaming Skulls, Salamander Nobles, Hell Cats, and other creatures that thrive in extreme heat. The fiercest foes in the lair guarded Yaga-Shura’s heart, including Berenn, a Fire Giant Cleric and Imix, a powerful Fire Elemental. Once defeated, however, Dispenser had a clear path to retrieve Yaga-Shura’s heart from beneath his marble bed and return it to Nyalee. Upon returning to the temple in the Forest of Mir, and giving both Yaga-Shura’s and her own heart to Nyalee, she became hostile, calling forth a couple of Shambling Mounds, two Dryads, and a Vortex Spider from the swamp around them. The battle was quick, but leaving the temple, they discovered they were about to be ambushed by the Drow Matron Arhkenneld, several Arhenneld Drow and a Demon (Greater Yochlol) who had come for Yasraena. Instead of engaging, they attacked from range: Dispenser cast Fire Storm, Nalia Cloudkill, and Neera Incendiary Cloud to devastating effect. Some of the Drow moved from the area of effect where they were cut down by Yasraena, Isra, and Keldorn, all using their Greater Whirlwind ability. With the other Drow dead, it left only the demon and the Matron Mother, a mighty Cleric/Mage. The demon went down quickly, but the latter took a long time to defeat.
ISRA FELLS YAGA-SHURA'S CLERIC
They finally tracked down Yaga-Shura at his Siege Camp. The Fire Giant King himself went down with a whimper once Dispenser had him cornered. The moment Keldorn brought Gram the Sword of Grief deep into the giant’s thigh, bringing him down to his knees, the rest of his army melted away. Dispenser became wary when just as the battle ended, Melissan arrived to bring the news that Saradush could not be saved and all the Bhaalspawn were dead. Her questionable timing, along with Gronmir’s accusations about her true intentions troubled Dispenser, but he agreed to meet her in Amkethran (where Iylos had been a monk).
BATTLING YAGA-SHURA
KELDORN KILLS YAGA-SHURA
In an Oasis, before arriving in Amkethra, a Tethyrian war-party ambushed them and inflicted three casualties, including Keldorn himself. It is not often that Dispenser gets caught off-guard, especially with Yasraena and Isra as his closest advisers. They all agreed that it was a team failure, but Dispenser nonetheless, took full responsibility.
On arrival, the Abbot of the Monastery, Balthazar, ‘welcomed them’ and informed them that Melissan had come and gone. He provided Dispenser with the locations of the lairs of Sendai and Abazigal, two more Bhaalspawn who want his Dispenser’s head.
PARTY INFORMATION
ORDER OF MARCH: Yasraena, Isra, & Keldorn (Shock), Dispenser (leader), Nalia (Arcane Support & Traps), Neera (Arcane Support)
In the SoD dungeon the Crew could easily have killed the first group of enemies - but why bother when you get all their XP and items just for talking to Porios.
Downstairs, the Shadowed Soul can drain HPs quite fast, so he got a round of missile attacks before switching back to melee for the others.
HPs lost were topped up by the Flaming Fist healer - effectively at no cost as remaining gold will be lost at the end of the dungeon anyway. The next lot of undead included wights, so they were shot rather than meleed. The next group has an invisible wraith, so the Crew retreated behind the Fist, so the wraith would attack them (though as they had lots of money, they could just have paid for restoration if necessary).
There's a fear trap near the shadows, which can result in more enemies being drawn in when not wanted - but Al was now wearing Kiel's helmet, so could trip that safely. I don't normally bother with the areas of the dungeon outside the main route, but the Crew lit up a torch to open up a secret area.
The next group of mercenaries could be a problem for a more lightly armored party, but Vito was able to comfortably hold the line there while the others shot down the opponents. Nearby some skeletons were headed up by a skeletal mage, but his attempt at Spook wasted the last few seconds of his life.
In the final battle, Korlasz was totally unable to handle the multiple attacks coming in and didn't even have time to surrender. I hadn't bothered about that possibility though as I felt there would be no prospect of his mercenaries causing real trouble anyway - and they didn't.
Even with strength up to 25, Al could not bash several of the chests, but he did open the one with the staff head - and Bugsy survived the FoD trap there. They finished off the remaining quests and reported back to Fanegonorem to get another +2 shield.
At the Baldur's Gate Palace they dealt with some assassins before venturing out into the city. The Crew did all the quests there that I don't normally bother with. That included an impressive simultaneous killing of 3 of the robbers at Sorcerous Sundries.
Selling loot brought from BG1 raised 117k of gold and there was more to add to that after killing various NPCs and investigating what they had to offer - that included another set of full plate from Minsc. Belegarm sold one more of those and Minsc is resurrected with new equipment outside the palace before leaving the city - meaning everyone could be dressed in full plate . Stripping another lot of Safana's equipment also means everyone has their own Necklace of Missiles in case they want to resort to fireballs at some point.
After filling containers with all the stuff from the storage chest, the Crew were ready to stop mucking about with the mini-quests in the City and get on with some real work. They started by going to the Coast Way Forest to find a vampire. Normally I help the vampire there, but with a party regeneration is less needed and I decided to give Tsolak a good staking for a change. A volley of missiles sent him floating back to his cave.
Baby Face was the first to follow - and immediately be charmed. The others had stayed too close, so Vito had to run him round in close quarters to prevent Ikros and Isabella from being drawn into the fight.
After tripping more traps the Crew made it into the cave to deal with Tsolak and pick up a boot and a half of speed. Isabella also handed them the Sun Catcher shield.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, Mizhaena restored the levels Bugsy lost to a trap and the Crew rested to heal before setting out to explore. The first significant challenge they came across was a gargantuan spider. They're pretty dangerous for soloers due to both the web tangle and stunning hit abilities, but parties can make pretty short work of them.
I found Takos' remaining heirlooms and, even though I would have quite liked to hang onto both the mirror and shield, chose to complete the quest to get Vito a returning dart. I expected to get the shield back as a reward, but Takos didn't even offer that - despite Vito's charisma of 18. I had planned to let him go, but that struck me as just mean - and you know what happens to meanies!
That came at the cost of 10 reputation, so not really worth it, but the need for justice is paramount .
Another quest oddity I don't remember is that Carline turned into a wraith after the Crew activated all the menhirs. This is another quest I don't bother with solo (so I haven't done it that often), but I think previously she's always reconciled after an initial confused speech. Talking to Cromnus again resulted in the same dialogue path, but this time Carline behaved as expected - so I'm not sure if the earlier behavior was intentional or buggy.
Teleria was given no chance to atone for her misdeeds - she and her golem were shot down from distance without reacting.
The main encounter in that area is the dwarven dungeon and the Crew headed there next. They quickly disposed of the enemies in the opening area and picked up Cromnus' treasure. Without using a lot of finesse, they battled through to find Coldhearth, mixing up their melee and missile attacks to suit various opponents. Before reporting back to the dwarves though they cleared the rest of the dungeon with the help of a bit of window-shooting to deal with the panic-inducing mummy (if the rest of the dungeon has been emptied, then running around in a panic is relatively safe) and plenty of resting to heal damage.
They got the Secret Revealed from the dwarves and Coldhearth only lasted a couple of seconds after that dispelled his protections.
After grabbing the phylactery a dwarven chain threw it to Vito, to save an extra second or two.
He then rushed off to burn it up with the others tailing on afterwards.
With everything else done in the area, the Crew moved to the bridge and found a welcoming party very happy to see them - in fact their faces lit up when the Crew arrived.
Barrachus just survived that, but went down to a couple of missiles immediately afterwards. Caelar eventually arrived to find the Crew waiting impatiently to talk. With that out of the way, they'll be off next to the Troll Claw Woods.
To make this next run completely different I am using the same character (Eanflæd I of Deira) but will not dual class, but keep her as a berserker. Eanflæd of Deira was born about 20 miles from where I now live and was a queen of Deira.
Journal of Eanflæd II of Deira
I somehow survived three assassination attempts in Candlekeep and another during which my friend and mentor Gorion was killed. I was heartbroken by this as I feel some guilt about his death. If he hadn't protected me, he would still be alive.
Michio doesn't want to die in the dwarven dig site, so should he be cautious (part 123456 7)
Michio looks in his book of spells. Down one margin he has been sketching madly, and although these sketches are entirely accurate he finds he cannot remember the first of them. We must have done this just after getting Viconia and Safana raised from the dead.
Anyway, back to the dig site. Michio's next sketch reveals that bonebats attacked us - one of our stealthing characters finding they can either see through the shadows or use other senses to hone in on us. We hadn't expected to be tracked down in this way, nor for many of the undead in the area to pick up on the bonebat movement and converge on us. Michio is planning an orderly retreat until he sees Corwin has been held.
That's not good. We position to try and defend her but the number of enemies is mounting and our attacks are blunted by their resistance. Michio knows we cannot hope to help Corwin with combat, and that casting invisibility on her will not help, so he gets Viconia to shield her and try her Turn ability.
The Turn works, but the situation goes from bad to worse as Michio is held. Undead are all around us, and although they are being Turned it is a major concern.
Corwin recovers (she has been level-drained by this time) but a mummy is approaching and the still-held Michio can't help but think it will be resistant to Turning. Safana panics and as she is the only person with immunity to hold this means we need to be a bit more resourceful. If only we knew how.
Michio's hold wears off, while Viconia's Turning has a couple of zombies helping us. All the other undead require magical weapons to hit so the zombies are more of a buffer and no use in actual combat.
From this point we take control of the combat, grateful to have survived. Michio (and I) can hardly believe he is still alive having fully expected to have perished.
We manage to keep a better formation and approach for the remaining undead in this second level until a Shadowed Soul emerges behind a group of skeletons. Safana goes for a backstab but is herself killed. We finish it off and retreat to get our thief raised again.
Our next foray inside takes us to the lich. We have a plan and it works, but between the time we retrieve and destroy it's phylactory it has returned so we kill it a second time before reporting back to the dwarves upstairs.
We decide to move on and kill the Crusaders at the Coastways Crossing bridge. We then have to find an alternate route to our next destination and after ignoring Jaheira we recruit a new skaldish bard meat-shield. Voghiln by name, chewed by nature everything. Viconia switches back from her warhammer to a sling.
We travel some more to get some ambushes out of the way (goblins + myconids, and a baby dragon which shows us a cache of items).
We're unable to get any more ambushes so our attempt to fireball any shadowy figure will have to wait.
Any dragon perched atop an old temple of Bhaal is asking for trouble, and we are more than happy to supply it.
If the dragon has a half-sibling nearby then we'll happily supply trouble there too.
We buff up properly for a neothelid. Don't look at this sketch as you may see that Voghiln forgot to use a greenstone amulet charge. Fortunately three sets of Magic Missiles combined with Corwin's arrows almost finish it in one volley and a desperate scrabble over the next few seconds sees us finish the job before it de-surfaces.
Despite our best efforts a Shadow Aspect gets past our initial attack and forces Corwin to run. A tripple whammy of Magic Missiles and our archer convince it to die though.
There is no need for us to face this group of nasties, other than them being there and them having some neckwear that Corwin requires. Our plan may not have been perfect but everything goes in our favour. Michio has used his artistic licence to capture the action without any reference to numerous pauses mid combat.
Party equipment at session-end indicates that Viconia and Voghiln should swap their rings of protection - hopefully they will remember before continuing the adventure.
Some nights, thinks Michio, you should have just stopped and not done a little bit more. Still, all's well that ends well. At least so far. (part 1234567 8)
A goblin cave near Bridgefort is treated to a skulltrap + fireball combo - after all, it worked great on the goblins and worgs outside. It works well inside too.
We activate the portal outside and enter Bridgefort. After getting the smith to forge some armour from dragon scales a brief check confirms it is useless and the shield might have been a better option (then again it might not as those using shields are happy with their choices).
We've already picked up what is required to deal with the large object that arrives inside the fort when we distract the main defensive caster. Kicking the object breaks a few bits off so we convince the smith to forge 80 arrows that Corwin will save for, well, later. If we get that far.
Khalid is inside and Michio wastes no time telling him to man up and attack when he hears us at the main gate. Then we return to camp and tell everyone to attack. We'll be right behind you, now be good cannon fodder and stand between us and the enemy.
Such despicable tactics allow us to unleash malison, slow, fireball, skulltrap, glitterdust, hold and plink away from range while Voghiln blocks anyone who manages to run the gauntlet. The Barghest turns up to make a complaint about our ungentlemanly conduct. We deny all knowledge of his accusations about many of his army including mages having stood on traps inside their camp - Safana smiles sweetly and affirms that nothing about her is ungentlemanly. Hormorn and Vichand are smarting from the snares but we still get to shoot at them when they make their way towards us.
Edwin(a) takes some damage through stoneskins and just misses a friendly-fire fireball cast by one of our supporting casters. Perhaps he took similar damage before.
Michio has to step back and re-apply stoneskin as an enemy caster uses Remove Magic. We've done the same back to them though.
We'd rather not dwell further on this bloodied battle, so here are the pictures instead.
The battle has gone better than we could have hoped. Too good in fact.
Goody.
Goody goody.
Michio snarls as Viconia and Edwin flounce off with all their equipment. This never happened to the other fellow (wossisname, Blaggerd).
This means we are down to four of us to stop the bridge from being destroyed. Not only that, but all our protective buffs were to be cast by Viconia and Edwin. Corwin tries arrows of dispelling while Michio uses Remove Magic but the enemy mage still manages to open a portal. We quickly regroup as Voghiln gulps two potions of fire resistance. Mephits and salamanders try their best but we defeat them - the salamanders easily dealt with but the mephits get us with scorcher attacks and at least one attack on a barrel.
We've gulped a few healing potions during the bridge encounter as a precaution, so are in good health. Michio falls over and has a vision of Bhaal's death followed by a visit from a hooded man we have encountered once or twice earlier in our travels.
Michio is looking at the party gap, and recruits Khalid. Yes, this might work - he can wear Kiel's helmet and he can actually shoot things. We put up with him all the way to the next encampment where we can see our old companions. Edwin is happy to join again (Michio surmising reputation of 20 does not matter but any change in reputation being problematic) so we strip Khalid of his gear and get Viconia back into the party too. Michio is a little worried that they may clear off again if reputation drops to 19 or 18 for any reason.
Michio is looking at the party gap, and recruits Khalid. Yes, this might work - he can wear Kiel's helmet and he can actually shoot things. We put up with him all the way to the next encampment where we can see our old companions. Edwin is happy to join again (Michio surmising reputation of 20 does not matter but any change in reputation being problematic) so we strip Khalid of his gear and get Viconia back into the party too. Michio is a little worried that they may clear off again if reputation drops to 19 or 18 for any reason.
I'm surprised they're available again, but I've never tried recruiting PCs in SoD so I guess leaving just has a different mechanic there. I would also expect Viconia rejoining to have dropped reputation back down by 2.
I would also expect Viconia rejoining to have dropped reputation back down by 2.
I checked and you are correct. Had been paying attention to reputation in BG:EE but forgot to do so in SoD, and only reminded when the party disbanded.
You've got to get up early in the morning to get the better of Michio - he had a lie-in before plodding on a bit further (part 12345678 9)
Finally, the killable unkillable shadowy figure. This heavy air could ignite matters.
We try to scout out an entire map but the newly re-recruited Edwin(a) decides to use their reset AI script. After defeating the enemies his script is set back to None.
Inside a cave we carefully deal with spiders before getting caught out by more troublesome enemies. Safana is kept alive and we emerge without anyone perishing here.
A little further on Michio is honoured to receive an artwork so exquisite he almost rips up everything in his journal. This is beyond comparison.
When dealing with some Displacer Beasts one of Voghiln's special measures is observed. More on that later.
A couple of Shambling Mounds and a hamadryad think they can pick us apart. It's a good test for us and Voghiln is proving his worth as meatshield.
As we get to the end of the session Michio realises Voghiln has a different tack to that expected of a meatshield. There is no focus on absolute armour class and saving throws, but a smattering of effects that can help him maintain presence in combat. Against the deadliest of foes he can no doubt slink away but while facing what has been encountered to date he is able to stand his ground in a steadfast manner.
Journal of Eanflæd II of Deira
Once again Mellicamp was humanised and Tonder killed.
Not a bad result.
Upon returning to Beregost, when Silke and Karlat attacked, I killed.
I then returned Perdue's sword. The gold he gave for it seems ludicrous to me, not that I'm arguing.
I levelled up upon killing an ogrillon.
I was then sent to deal with Bassilus, which turned out to be straightforward.
Dealing with Zargal proved to be MUCH harder.
It was a bit embarrassing looking fir Kessy's rabit, but I WAS successful.
In Nashkel I found some decent armour and Oublek offered me a substantial reward which was actually for another adventurer called Greywolf.
In Nashkel, I was just in time to stop the assassination of Bentha.
Killing the assassin Zargos Flintblade proved to be easy.
As did the killing of Tarnesh
Heading north, I killed 3 evil fishermen, a zombie and some ankheg.
I then killed a couple of druids who attacked me.
To the east of the temple, I killed some powerful wolves.
At Rudier's request we investigated a cave and killed many of the inhabitants thereof.
And then headed southwards where I killed Greywolf.
Next I killed those famed Wagnerian characters Tristan and Isolde.
When I took a replacement rabbit to Ugh, he was delighted.
I then killed a Trio of assassins before helping Drizzt.
I then reunited Rufie with his owner, killed vax and Zal, helped a dryad and killed some ogres near the gnoll encampment before investigating a cave where there were some tomes which upgraded my abilities.
The big question now is whether to continue as a solo adventurer or whether to join up with other like-minded adventurers.
Now level 7.
Pushing on into Spellhold, Tens first job was to prevent a dream becoming a nightmare. He attacked Sarevok hard - in fact rather too hard as the big man could not get his final speech out through the continuing attacks and Tens eventually had to retreat a bit to give him a chance to recover.
After sending Imoen off, Nearv spied out a group of yuan-ti. Tens promptly sent a couple of smites that way. Both of those caught Nearv in the area of effect, but he seemed to learn something from the experience.
Nearby, poking a blank wall caused a pit fiend to appear and prompted Tens to make a first use of his WW ability.
Nearv, meanwhile, had learnt to use any items and gave the Staff of the Magi (gained at extreme hazard) a quick trial - and 30 seconds later consigned it to the bag of holding, probably never to be seen again . A few undead were exploded on the way to find something else to poke that produced monsters. There was a nasty moment there when Nearv backstabbed an illithid, prompting it to throw a psionic blast back at him - Nearv saved, but a hidden Tens was stunned by the area effect before he could finish off the illithid.
Fortunately the backstab had nearly been fatal anyway and the illithid panicked, allowing Nearv to finish it off without danger. However, that did prompt him to lay several traps to make sure that a beholder didn't cause any similar problems.
There was various running round a lich, gradually draining it of spells before Tens came into melee. He had the lich on the point of death when Nearv showed his goal-hanging instincts as he came in for a backstab.
There were no problems on the next level. Tens didn't feel quite himself at one point and decided to have a sleep. Fortunately Nearv took his nap around a corner and wasn't disturbed when Tens woke up grumpy.
Tens buffed up his melee prowess and tacked a GWW on top to make a mess of a group of golems that tried to lock us in a room.
There was a moment of doubt in the fight against Irenicus when Tens stayed attacking him a bit too long and got trapped in place by the Asylum inhabitants during a timestop. However, Irenicus was pretty much ready to give up by then anyway.
It was Nearv's turn to get trapped next when a group of murderers surrounded him - they're pretty low level though and most of them flopped down unconscious in response to a greater command.
After we found our ship, Nearv tried his best to kill Desharik. A couple of backstabs failed to finish him off though and despite appearing hostile Desharik still gave his normal speech to see us on our way.
The voyage ended up in Fish City, where Tens sold a bit of junk to push our gold hoard up to about 300k - shouldn't be too long now before we decide we can afford the odd purchase . We didn't bother killing everything there, but a priestess, king and prince left a big hole in the local nobility.
In the Underdark we spent a fair while running round with a group of drow before moving on to the deep gnome village. Their leader was worried about a local balor - don't know why, he didn't seem much of a threat!
In the Western Tunnels, Tens was reminded that his saving throws are still pretty awful when he was held by a gauth - fortunately the anti-magic ray from the beholder soon set him free.
Traps and skeletons made pretty short work of some death knights before we went to tackle the largest group of kuo-toa.
Tens felt confident that the odd buff would allow him to GWW through the prince's regeneration - but didn't really have the chance to put that to the test once Nearv snuck up behind.
The drow were a bit more successful, confusing Nearv after losing one of their number to traps.
However, a couple of skeletons kept the drow at bay, while Tens sent the enemy skeletons running. Once the drow were dead, Tens followed up and the skeletons found they had nowhere left to run ...
The final action saw us emptying the giant soul gem. The lich there managed to survive traps, but didn't cast anything nasty before being finished off.
Tens, cleric 16 / ranger 14, 127 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 642 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 27, 101 HPs, 393 kills (+158 in BG1), 4 deaths
I missed my typical early morning session as the game was not responding properly. That meant squeezing a session for the wizard slayer into a day already packed with multi-player and Trio commitments was difficult - but I managed to get my priorities right.
The start saw my return from the Underground River to the Coalition Camp. After a failed parley it was time to face some invaders. The first 3 groups there stood no real chance against exploding arrows at 7/2 APR. To guard against being targeted by spells I used one of my 5 PfM scrolls against the final group - but they all went down very quickly anyway.
Another PfM scroll meant Ashatiel was pretty well doomed even before being tagged by a stunning dart.
Moving on into the castle I watched as Hephernaan opened a portal before following him through. As usual I ran straight through the first area before using exploding arrows to thin out the first group of opposition in the next area (the proficiency bonuses from grand mastery allow them to do decent damage even to things immune to fire).
The second group took slightly longer, but when the hellcat stayed visible a bit too long, I was free to move on to the elevator.
In the close quarters of the elevator, boots of speed were not much use - so I put on the Lucky Boots to boost my saving throws. I also used another PfM scroll there, as I had them spare, and added protection from fire, lightning and poison. I also used up all my myconids to try and avoid any damage in the elevator - and did that successfully.
Against Belhifet I let Caelar join and expected her to tank Belhifet while I sorted out the other devils. However, Caelar decided rather unusually to take a nap at the start of the combat. That nearly caught me out - she was down to 3 HPs when my restoration saved her an instant before Hephernaan landed what would have been a killing blow.
She got up shortly after that, which should have made the rest of the battle relatively easy - but I made a beginner's mistake when using DUHM at the wrong time, leaving my aura clouded with Caelar in need of healing. Once more luck saved me though as Belhifet chose that moment to teleport away rather than continuing to attack Caelar when one more hit would have killed her.
Rather than risk being affected by fear aura, I kept Kiel's Helm equipped - even though without the Battle Tankard the fatigue from using restoration meant I needed criticals to hit Belhifet. With almost no damage from me, I used up 12 greater restoration scrolls during the fight to keep Caelar going (I still had 8 more though) and eventually the job was done.
I quickly ran through the epilogue, remembering to take the pantaloons out of my bag of holding so that they will transfer to BG2. There were still a bit over 10 minutes available in the session, which was enough time to make a start in Jon's dungeon. I'd transferred there with 754k XP, so was able to take an immediate level there.
Wizard Slayer L11, 119 HPs, 14 kills (+621 in BG1)
Since I couldn't decide what to do next with my berserker, I decided to have a complete break from running a tank and started a gnomish illusionist. With my improved thieves in candlekeep I fully expected her to die there, but casting weasles was enough to keep them at bay until their demise. She was however badly hurt twice by Mendas and had to use two of her three healing potions. I bought replacements before leaving.
In Jon's dungeon I thought the only likely threat would come from the steam mephit in the elemental plane (and, though that could have just been missed out, I didn't want to do that) - being stunned and mobbed by all the mephits would have gone through HPs very quickly. However, although horror is bugged in BG2EE, it can still be very useful. When the steam mephit was panicked, it moved from its original position, helping to drag it further away from the others. Although being panicked doesn't prevent an enemy from attacking, other enemies seem to be less likely to follow a panicked enemy attacking than they would normally be. The result was I was able to tackle the steam mephit on its own - and the rest were no real threat.
There's a similar sort of problem with the mephit portals, but in that case killing the first 2 with ranged attacks is easy. Even if the other 2 gang up, they're unlikely to be able to kill a warrior in the time disabled by color spray (so long as a melee weapon is equipped). In this case I managed to kill the magma portal before the radiant mephit could use its color spray - and then saved against that anyway.
Regular resting kept HPs high to make other encounters straightforward, though Ulvaryl unfortunately escaped with a single HP left.
The circus offered a nice easy introduction to life in Athkatla before I checked in with Gaelan.
Then it was off to the Copper Coronet to find a bow upgrade.
Handing over the inn to Hendak then got me to level 12.
The final piece of action was going to the Docks to find Officer Dirth. He was affected by a second horror, which reduced his attacks and made it a bit easier than expected to win a shooting contest.
Wizard Slayer L12, 127 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 118 kills (+621 in BG1)
In Troll Claw Woods I settled the Irregulars peacefully (just for a change) before working through the area. There were no real challenges there, though the Crew rested up to heal their light wounds before entering the troll cave. Rather than using multiple fireballs I decided to just attack. The shamaness was the first to go down and the others didn't put up much of a fight.
The dwarves' keen eyesight was then able to pick out a bit more treasure in a hidden cave - though nothing of use to them.
With the area clear, they set off for the Forest of Wyrms, but found more orcs and trolls on the way - after their recent practise at troll clearances that was no trouble at all.
I often look forward to the Firefly sling found there, but Carlo already had the +3 sling from Durlag's Tower, so Firefly was just bagged.
I'd noted that a level-up was close on arrival at the Forest, but then forgot to look out for that. After killing a couple of groups of wyverns and several other things, checking up showed everyone well over and they bumped up to level 9 and all took grand mastery in their preferred weapons.
Inside the spider cave, Mad Dog got a rare opportunity to tank for the Crew thanks to his ring of free action. While he's rather more vulnerable than Vito, he still had a bit in reserve after ploughing through several groups of spiders. Vito though fronted up for the brief time necessary to take down a big-boy beetle.
A few more spiders and bugbears were demolished on the way to a dragon's cave - which was left alone for now. More bugbears were shot down, including their leader, Snorgash.
I didn't bother counteracting a hold person that a shaman managed to complete there - as there was no-one left to take advantage of Vito's incapacity.
There's a trap in a side corridor there that can be fatal for soloers, but the Crew were prepared to risk that in order to finish off the last few bugbears.
Inside the main temple they cleared all the guards on the way to Ziatar. The whole Crew equipped darts of stunning for the first time there, but in fact the very first dart thrown effectively ended the battle.
After releasing the prisoners, the Crew opened the door to the Neothelid. Both his poison and disablers are pretty nasty, but I felt the Crew would probably be able to handle that without buffing. If the Neothelid had stayed underground a long time, things might have become difficult, but he surfaced reasonably quickly - and regretted his mistake.
After resting up it was time for the Shadow Aspect. He got a nasty opening backstab in on Vito, but didn't go back invisible quickly enough thereafter.
The Fractal Blade offers yet another +3 option for Belhifet, though no-one has proficiency with it. For Darskhelin there was again no buffing. The plan was for a missile assault on the illithid while Al sent in a horror to see what that did. The missile assault stopped Darskhelin in his tracks, while the horror affected another of the group.
The missiles then switched to the mage and Vito should have gone at him in melee. However, a combination of being slowed and getting hung-up on Mohad's icon meant he made no progress - while taking heavy damage. Rather than risk a casualty I decided to allow him a potion of invisibility here.
Shallen was then targeted and, though he's vicious in attack, he has no real defences.
After that the remaining couple of enemies were easily mopped up.
Their work in the temple was completed by summarily dealing with Akanna.
That still left though the issue of a dragon on the way out. Throwing daggers were of course the easy option, but I decided that the Crew should not be resorting to such tactics. Instead they unleashed a missile storm on Morentherene, while Baby Face ran her round. A wing buffet affected half the Crew, but the dragon had not even got around to a proper Breath when it breathed its last.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge they came across another green dragon - this one also failed to survive under a hail of missiles (they hadn't yet made use of Morentherene's scales, so this one did not start hostile - but that didn't save it once it had pointed out the location of a treasure hoard ).
For those interested in history Æthelburg of Kent was of royal descent and married King Edward the Northumbrian King.
Journal of Æthelburg
Near High Hedge I was assaulted by gnolls so I immediately summoned some weasels to keep them busy whilst I cast other spells and used my trusty sling. I cast sleep which was highly effective and then used my sling. The sleep wore off and the weasels were unsummoned simultaneously so the one remaining gnoll loomed ominously before me. One more missile from my sling was however sufficient to kill that one also.
Heart pounding, I returned to Beregost to rest after picking up the loot.
I then returned and headed soutyh where I rescued Mellicamp from a wolf.
Returning to High Hedge with Mellicamp I was attacked bu a skeleton. More weasels and more slingshots was sufficient to bring me to level 2.
Mellicamp was transformed successsfully
Not so a werewolf.
I got a sword of flame for the body, a sword that I can equip!
With a little help from Isra and summoned weasels, we killed Greywolf.
Oh my, thinks Michio. I can't remember much detail about parts of our travels so will have to rely on these crazy sketches. Sometimes you don't really want to be reminded about it. Take for example our journey to get a cure for the illness going around camp. We did a minor deour into a basement and thought Chaotic Commands on Voghiln would be fine.
The fledgling vampire inside took one look at us, figured out Corwin was an easy mark and dominated her instead. Now everybody knows a dominated archer in a contained room is bad news even if you got her to switch to fists as the domination homed in on her, so we used Remove Magic on her double quick. Problem solved.
Not so, the vampire dominates her a second time and this time she still has her bow equipped. Rather than cure the symptoms we go for the root cause and kill off the vampire while blinding Corwin to nullify her attacks. By this time Safana and Viciona have lost some levels but after the combat Viconia uses lesser restoration to get us back in order.
We return back to camp with the cure. A reputation bump sees Viconia and Edwin(a) flounce off again, fortunately only so far as the campfire so within 30 seconds they are back in the party and reputation drops as Viconia rejoined.
It's time to seek out the entrance to the Underground River. A large group of hobgoblins seek to kill us but a Cloudkill wipes most of them out and the remainder try some backstabs with varying degrees of success and no fatalities on our side.
Some Displacer Beasts fall victim to our spells. This is going well.
Michio has heard that it's always good to have ogres on your side. A slip of his tongue is enough to ensure that this will NOT be the case and we are forced to slaughter them all. Consequences of this will be later...
Eventually we determine the entrance to the Underground River must be behind this heavily fortified gate. Move aside please.
We are about to step inside when Viconia suggests we should complete other tasks first. She has a point, so we travel across to Dragonspear Castle and start to loot what we can after gaining entrance peacefully.
There is a bit of a kerfuffle at one stage but nobody else joins in the fight and we pretend it never happened. One of Safana's 3 traps activate too so there are only 2 left for anything that happens later.
Finally, reputation goes our way.
Oh that felt good thinks Michio. In fact, here it is again (only happened once but let's dwell on it)
Once everything else is done or broken (shards of Tempos, we're looking at you as one of the commanders can't be spoken to about them following the combat with Recruit Qing) we head back to the Underground River. Despite taking great care we eventually find ourselves struggling to manouvre and one of us is bleeding everywhere.
Oh they've died. Cleric!
Aah. It's Viconia who has died.
We struggle on and gain the upper hand despite Voghiln faffing around. What are you doing man!
A quick check of the map's walkable terrain shows Voghiln is somewhere he shouldn't be. Presumably bumped mid-combat. Michio orders a save, exit, load but that doesn't work. This is annoying.
We consider what to do, can't think of much eventually settle for some crazy stuff that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company (as combat had ended I opted to use Ctrl/J but in hindsight think I should have killed him and gone to get him raised)
After returning to camp to raise Viconia, we purchase 10 scrolls of Raise Dead. A long trek back to where we are sees us do a bit more then face down the Dark Magicians. They're quite dark.
With them dead we can see a deep crevice to another plane. We have nothing to hurl into it so retrace our steps and explore a couple of caves.
That's better, we have some remains to chuck down there now. So we do.
Michio wants to take down Strunk. The two have never met before but the other 5 party members have varying moments of deja-vu and suggest caution should he get into his stride. Nonsense thinks Michio, we'll just stop the Strunk stride before it starts.
We place the barrel of bwoosh and con our way into the Warrens. We loot everything that moves and free Slug the ogre and his buddies. This can't be a bad thing for us to do...
Anyway, there is a lift to the castle basement and once there we poison both the water and the food suppies before departing. A slight delay to our departure sees Safana gulping a healing potion but she still finds time to die before invisibiity 10' is cast. We grab our dead companion and her gear, and race for the exit.
As soon as we are outside we use a scroll to raise Safana and head for the map exit. Part way there Corwin asks if we saw any stalker gauntlets in our travels. We think back and no we didn't. We check near the Displacer Beasts and no that wasn't the right place to look either. In fact it's a bad place to look when your party splits up and your almost-dead thief runs into an ogre camp complete with two drow and a recently-bereaved Slug.
(A quick check of earlier saves during the write-up confirms we missed a small area in the Forest of Wyrms so that's careless. Not that Corwin really needed the gauntlets anyway but they may have been a good choice for Safana)
Once we kill them off we raise Safana again and return to the camp. It looks like battle is ahead of us so we choose our combat wisely, and at one point note the trolls + ogres had tripped more of Safana's pre-emptive snares. Trolls + ogres:
Mages:
Crusaders:
Grimgor finds out the hard way that Dumathoin Dwarves supporting us is more than his meagre forces can handle.
WIth the coalition camp safe we can head to Dragonspear Castle and join the assault. Of course, we'll stand at the back and see if we can take a safe short-cut to Ashatiel.
Well, that worked. Michio is just congratulating himself when the realisation dawns that he is, to put it mildly, stuffed. His first job is to realise he has no Stoneskins to hide behind. Ooh this is going to be painful.
Ashatiel opens with an array of buffs. Michio recognises this is a good idea and does the same. Cloudkill seems like a suitable buff and fortunately for him there is a gnome-sized space unaffected and it comes complete with a gnome already present.
Once cast, Michio realises this means he cannot run safely. Bad idea. Bad idea. A Remove Magic doesn't appear to affect Ashatiel much either.
Michio fishes in his potion cases past various concoctions he can't use as a mage, and finds one of Stone Form. +3 to saves sounds eminently sensible (although quite why he didn't think of a protection from magic scroll, don't ask).
Michio alternates his non-proficient (Michio, you are the master tactician) throwing dart and gulping potions before using oils of fiery burning and potions of explosions. Ashatiel is using spells and ranged attacks also so Michio has time to wonder how he is surviving quite so well.
A quick check of his saving throws gives a major clue while 5% magic resistance also makes a slight contribution.
n.b. Ashatiel uses Sanctuary twice so Michio continues with Grond0-esque area explosions, and Michio decides not to use a wand of monster summoning in case Ashatiel regards it the same as protaganists using invisibility and calls foul.
With the courtyard in our hands we find a last pocket of resistance and counter invisibility to kill Chloe their sneaky counterpart and then batter the rest of them down.
A final rescue and then we can make our way inside.
(I thought Michio did well in single combat, thought he'd lose quickly but he managed to hold on and use potions to wear Ashatiel down)
Some great stuff here! Congrats @Gate70 for finally taking Blaggerd all the way, and good luck with your new run. BTW you said you had no use for the green dragonscale armor, but I see you have Safana in your party. She can wear the armor and still use her thieving skills, and it can be worn with a protection ring/cloak/necklace unlike the shadow armor. So unless she really needs the shadow armor's stealth bonus, I'd go with the dragon armor.
I found Takos' remaining heirlooms and, even though I would have quite liked to hang onto both the mirror and shield, chose to complete the quest to get Vito a returning dart. I expected to get the shield back as a reward, but Takos didn't even offer that - despite Vito's charisma of 18. I had planned to let him go, but that struck me as just mean - and you know what happens to meanies!
I love the funny bits you tend to include in your reports @Grond0, may the crew and your Wizard Slayer fare well.
@Neverused, impressive progress despite several setbacks, stay strong! @CharlestonianTemplar, getting very close, hope you can keep focus! @Wise_Grimwald, nice to see you run a mage for a change, quite rare for you I think! @jessejmc, sorry about your Darkmoon Monk. You play well, so I hope we'll see more of you in this thread.
Promise, Human Invoker (3)->Fighter
My last post was over two weeks ago. I haven't had much time to play, but enough for another update.
Promise and party were thorough in their questing in Chapter 10, starting with all the little quests and some trading (and pickpocketing, a quiver of unlimited +1 bolts among other things) at the Coalition Camp and in Bloodbark Grove. After that they rescued Skie and convinced some crusaders to let them enter the castle courtyard for some more goodies and XP. None of these quests were particularly dangerous although the sentry of Tempus was hard to kill. It took Promise countless strikes and swift retreats to take it down and claim its shield for Sirene.
A Shadowy Figure was slain after it got stuck in multiple Webs.
In the Underground River area, the party avoided the blind albino wyrmlings as well as the monsters surrounding Ferrusk's lair, but handled all the other quests and encounters fairly well. Ferrusk was Held from out of sight by Aura, who cast that spell at a suit of armor placed on the ground in front of him.
Strunk had no comeback from an arrow of dispelling (Corwin) and the party's many attacks per round.
In Kanaglym the companions buffed a bit for Hephernaan's dark magicians. Arrows of dispelling, wand stuns and webs neutralized several enemy mages, allowing the party to focus on their leader, Kherriun. Nevertheless they were too slow in dealing sufficient damage fast enough to prevent a hostile Halathlaer from appearing, but once the ghost jar was broken, the spectral dragon switched sides. Sadly she fell battling some skeletal warriors and undead sentries.
Zhadroth was pulled into the prime material plane, but gave us no dialogue choice to antagonize him (even reloaded later to check, nothing worked), so Promise had to let him go, and forgo his robe and ring. The endless watcher was not amused. Promise and Sirene, both protected from Undead, were battling it when Zhadroth returned to kill the sentry off. It bequeathed Emily the Astral Crossbow.
I still haven't found a good way to navigate the castle cellars and on LoB dififculty I feared the party would fail to kill enemy groups quick enough to avoid getting overwhelmed. Instead, the party were invisible and hasted as they ascended and rushed straight to Hephernaan's chambers. Sirene and Baeloth blocked the doorway to stop any nosy crusaders from entering. Aura used invisibility potions and Sanctuaries to poison the food and water supply. To be more precise, she had concocted a sleeping draught, and used that instead of DeLancie's poison. She also picked up Daeros's full plate for Sirene, which required a strength potion for the low strength gnome. (Promise stuck to mundane full plate and a protection ring). She did get detected by one of the many casters with detection spells, but made it back to Heph's chambers after swigging an invisibility potion.
Emily took Baeloth's place in the doorway. She was immune to poison thanks to her green dragonscale and Sirene thanks to her innate Cavalier resistances. It allowed Promise to safely bombard the enemy, that had followed Aura back toward Heph's chambers, with Cloudkills from scrolls, while Baeloth added many castings of Chaos. It did work to soften many foes up.
Sirene and Emily would allow the occasional crusader through, so that the others could finish them. When they were out of Chaos and Cloudkill scrolls, Baeloth and Promise resorted to Webs (in Promise's case from scroll), and that worked even better, especially when I figured out that one party member (Sirene) was enough to block the entrance, so that Emily could contribute with her crossbow. The party managed to take down the majority of the crusaders in sight with ranged attacks, wands, and Baeloth's spiders summons. Promise scared for a moment when Raizarn cast a Chromatic Orb at her, but thanks to a -5 bonus to saves from items plus her innate -2 against Invocation spells, she was never in danger of instant death.
This somewhat cowardly approach took ages so you can imagine my horror when Hephernaan, who had been given a real beating while he was Webbed, wouldn't surrender with just a single HP of health to his name.
I feared I'd have to reload, but when he was allowed to move out of sight and an invisible skeleton warrior from Aura followed and attacked him, he did finally retreat.
The party got out invisibly, and reported back to the coalition.
Baeloth scribed a number of spells on scroll using his aTweaks ability (Stoneskins, Webs) in preparation for Belhifet before the party went to parley with Caelar and the coalition leaders. We all know the outcome of that talk, time for the crusader attacks. Light buffs (potions of invulnerability/defense, oils of speed), elemental ammo, several Webs from Baeloth, five skeleton warriors, and archer support turned the encounter with the trolls and ogres into a walk-over.
That strategy worked just as well against the wizards (fought with wizard slayer backing)
and the priests and paladins (fought with the dwarves of dumathoin).
Granted, the wizards required a few arrows of dispelling and they did manage to deal damage with fireballs, while the wand of paralyzation was used a couple of times against the paladins/priests.
All in all the first three waves were slower on LoB difficulty but not necessarily harder. The final wave did cause the party some trouble and even led to the first casualty in the run up till that point. An orc shaman gave the enemy a nice start with an Insect Plague affecting Sirene and Promise. And not much later, one of Auziel's rogues, confused by an enemy spell, backstabbed Sirene. The stab didn't outright kill her but I just failed to keep her safe. She suffered a few more hits shortly after and fell. As so often, Web made all the difference. Here you can see the entire enemy crew affected by it.
The party prevailed, and Aura raised Sirene. Everyone rested and moved on to Dragonspear.
At the gate of Dragonspear castle, Promise buffed with Stoneskin, mind focusing for better dex/AC, absorption for a huge AC boost against blunt weapons, magic protection, fire giant strength, invulnerability, speed, and Blur. She went Improved Invisible, and sought out Ashatiel to for a duel. With a Breach Ashatiel got rid of Promise's Stoneskins and Mirror Images at one point but that was all she could do against the Bhaalspawn she had so badly wanted to kill. A Sanctuary delayed the inevitable but once that spell expired, it was over for the avariel.
Note that Promise kept the returning throwing dagger from Kivan's quest of early BG1, in her main hand for 2 APR with the main hand. With Twinkle in the offhand, and an oil of speed she enjoyed 5 APR. In fact all of Promise's equipment was BG1 stuff. The powerful rings (crusade, purity) had gone to Corwin and Sirene, who were unable to wear generic protection rings due to their enchanted armor.
A nervous Promise then entered unpromising Avernus... I have such a poor track record against Belhifet, and doing this on LoB difficulty wasn't likely to make things easier.
Upon arrival the party immediately paused to buff like hell, in keeping with their environs. 100% fire, cold, acid, electricity, and poison resistance from scrolls; (fire giant) STR boosts for meleers Promise and Sirene, (agility/mind focusing) DEX boosts for everyone to offset multiple potions of stone form for cumulative saves bonuses, (fortitude) CON boosts for everyone but Promise and Baeloth; invulnerability for the warriors (for even better saves), and speed for everyone. Everyone had either reached the XP cap or was at least very close to it, so the party ignored the devils in the first area and headed straight to the bridge, where they failed to sneak past the first group of devils invisibly. One of their ilk had a detection ability, which revealed Promise. She charged the group along with Sirene, who wasn't just Promise's sister-in-arms on the frontline, but had also become her (hesitant) lover. Archers Corwin and Emily provided ranged support. Aura just stood by detecting illusions, and Baeloth stayed his hand, but was ready help out with any spells. Promise and Sirene did get hit a number of times, and both drank regen and healing potions, but their victory was pretty sound.
The second group, summoned by Thrix was handled in the same way, with one of the fiends going after Emily, which distracted her quite a bit. Promise wagered her soul for an enchanted longsword that no one could use.
On the elevator, Webs turned out to remain relevant even against hell's minions. All the devils were dispatched with ease, and the last group in no rush as the party re-applied some buffs and buffed even further for Belhifet. The warriors had about 15 invulnerability potions each (of which they drank about half), invulnerability and speed were renewed, Promise cast Stoneskin from scroll, and Baeloth cast Enchanted Weapon on Sirene's Martyr's Morningstar and Spell Immunity from scroll on himself to neutralize Belhifet's Dispel Magic. It was only in Belhifet's lair that I discovered Baeloth had cast the latter spell but hadn't actually picked a school to get immunity against. (I must have clicked too fast on someone else in the buffing process.) He was stripped of all his defenses, quickly cast a Stoneskin to be able to take any hits, but found himself panicked soon after. Great way to start this battle huh?
He seemed to be alright just walking around with not too many devils in the area yet and with Promise Webbing some of the already present devils, so the others decided to just focus on hurting Belhifet (and trying to keep Caelar alive), and they did surprisingly compellingly. I must admit I did start preparing the party for this battle from the outset, i.e. as early as in BG1:
- Cavalier Sirene with her kit bonuses against demons and devils, specializing in maces/morningstars (as per anthology tweaks) and taking a pip in single-handed weapon style for crits with the Martyr's Morningstar (a weapon that fits nicely from an RP perspective as she's a paladin of Ilmater);
- Archer Emily with her demonic/fell racial enemy and grandmastery in crossbows;
- Archer Corwin with her demonic fell racial enemy and grandmastery in longbows;
- and Promise with Stoneskins/Blurs/MI's from scroll to tank Belhifet while hacking and slashing away at the fiend, and with extra effective Webs thanks to her Invocation spell school
made for a great anti-Belhifet quartet. Rather than picking one champion from their midst to battle Belhifet, all four were sufficiently buffed and capable to be a threat to their foe. This is Sirene showing Belhifet what she was capable of early on.
Corwin (Kiel's helmet) and Sirene (innate fear immunity) had Durlag's goblet for full heals, and Promise and Emily had about 25 scrolls of Greater Restoration between them, so the quartet had longevity in addition to their offensive threat. Promise used one of those Greater Restoration scrolls to keep Caelar going, but a second one was wasted on her former enemy as she got stunned. The same fate hit Baeloth not much later,
resulting in the run's second casualty. Note how Belhifet is already very badly injured here, even if that meant he had hundreds of HPs still.
Aura, whom I'd been most worried about, walked around detecting illusions and casting Invisibility purge. She suffered a lot of damage as well as spell disruption while casting True Seeing, but got away with it. The quartet just kept the pressure on Belhifet and it was Sirene who did him in with a critical.
Journal of Æthelburg
Near High Hedge I was assaulted by gnolls so I immediately summoned some weasels to keep them busy whilst I cast other spells and used my trusty sling. I cast sleep which was highly effective and then used my sling. The sleep wore off and the weasels were unsummoned simultaneously so the one remaining gnoll loomed ominously before me. One more missile from my sling was however sufficient to kill that one also.
Heart pounding, I returned to Beregost to rest after picking up the loot.
I then returned and headed soutyh where I rescued Mellicamp from a wolf.
Returning to High Hedge with Mellicamp I was attacked bu a skeleton. More weasels and more slingshots was sufficient to bring me to level 2.
Mellicamp was transformed successsfully
Not so a werewolf.
I got a sword of flame for the body, a sword that I can equip!
With a little help from Isra and summoned weasels, we killed Greywolf.
It took all of 7 days to recover from those wounds. Isra joined me whereupon I deemed it safe to take on Zargos Flintblade. I was right.
Isra's true sight and my weasels made it relatively easy to save Bentha.
We did some babysitting for Mrs. Blackwood and now have a reputation of 18. So I am now a hero!
We returned to Beregost where we delivered the Colquetle Amulet and a letter to Mirianne.
The warriors had about 15 invulnerability potions each (of which they drank about half)
This initially seemed like a bit of overkill to me, but I'd hazard a guess you're referring to heroism potions here ...
Thank you Grond0, I was pleased myself and impressed with tha party's ability. You're right about the potions. The party had collected 61 potions of heroism and saved all of them for the final battle.
@StummvonBordwehr, I forgot to mention you in my previous post, but it's good to see you in action again with your Undead Hunter, and I like the fact you're using a party for a change. Best of luck!
In the SoD dungeon the Crew could easily have killed the first group of enemies - but why bother when you get all their XP and items just for talking to Porios.
Thanks for this. Never though to check if the first set of mercenaries surrendered with Porios. It turns out they do.
Trio 19 FINAL update!
Corearcher V - elven archer, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Menty - gnomish bounty hunter (Gate70)
Scurvy - human abjurer (Grond0)
We did really good this session - until we didn't. So we found ourselves at Ulgoth's Beard, and not sure what to do next. It seemed like working on the main quest would be appropriate, so we went to the Bandit Camp. Unsurprisingly, Corearcher V's archery was pretty deadly against the enemies, including the 1st used of call shot vs. Khosahn. Tazok's Tent was also overkill, as Menty laid a trap and did a backstab - arrows of biting then finished off Venkt. I think Scurvy managed to hold or stun someone as well.
We then proceeded into the Cloakwood. Menty did a a pretty good with traps here and no real problems. Corearcher did bumble into a trap and set it off, but there were no enemies around...we didn't need the Spider's Bane so we pressed further into the Cloakwood.
Drassus party had a heck of a time with things like web, stinking cloud , thrown traps and Corearcher's magical arrows. It was just too much. The party did well in the Cloakwood Mine. Menty got a nice backstab vs. Davaeorn's guard, as you can see below.
Against Davaeorn, Corearcher quickly got 3 shots off, and Scurvy finished the mage off with a bullet. Think the only spell Davaeorn managed to get off was dimension door...
In the City we wiped out a group of mages at Sorcerous Sundries easily enough. Corearcher wondered if they should skip the ogre mage in the sewers - well he was right to be hesitant! The party did not have any freedom potions, so Corearcher tried a potion of invulnerability. We spawned into the sewers and think Scurvy tried sleep, but too many of the crawlers resisted. So then Scurvy and Menty ran away and abandoned their group-mate, so naturally Corearcher V got held.
By now, Scurvy realized her mistake in running and she ran back to try to help, but then the ogre mage promptly confused Scurvy. Menty tried to help, but with the automatic hits on Corearcher, since he was held, there was no saving Corearcher V - RIP.
Trio 20 1st and final update Lark - half-elf skald, protagonist (Grond0)
Dummar - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Corerage V - half-orc berserker (Corey_Russell)
After rolling up new characters and leaving Candlekeep we quickly dealt with a blinded Shoal. Then we wended our way down to Nashkel to rest and get some Bhaal healing. Corerage V decided to take on Zordral there and consumed just enough potions to withstand the magical assault on him.
Next up, Arghain provided an unbreakable 2-handed sword on the way to Firewine Bridge - which proved to be the beginning of the end. Dummar tried to dispute whether Meilum really was good with the sword - and was presented with a convincing argument.
Lark ran Meilum around for a while to allow Corerage V to shoot him down.
Setting off for the temple, an ambush by a few skeletons led by a ghoul didn't initially seem too dangerous. However, in Dummar's absence, it appeared that Lark was being given the honor of being chosen for target practice - and his HPs evaporated well before he reached the map edge ...
One way or the other, Michio and gang will part company with SoD. (part 12345678910 11)
We are barely inside Dragonspear Castle when we observe looting occurring and put a stop to it. Once the offenders leave we rationalise such behaviour and strip everything out that can be lifted, unscrewed or bashed into our backpacks. One rule for others, and another rule for us.
Daeros' spirit is nearby so we release him and visit Belegarm for a final shop. Then we take part in an impromtu (on our part) portal opening and observe as Hephernaan and the Crusaders enter it.
A quick buff and we follow them. Michio takes a few moments to grasp the situation and only manages to do so when his companions shout at him to help kill Illaruel and stop further enemies from arriving. He misses, but Edwin(a) gets the job done.
Safana, in her greenscale armour (thanks @Blackraven ), leads us carefully up a large set of stairs and then we get into a short fight with some Abishai. They drop like flies and we move on.
Thrix evidently wants to delay us, so we attack. All we achieve is to have him turn hostile with his first set of summoned minions. We scrap around for a while with Corwin then Safana then Voghiln dominated at times. After a while Thrix only has two hellcats supporting him, and when we kill one of them it becomes easier for us to handle them. Corwin uses +2 arrows for what is probably the first time and down goes Thrix followed by his last hellcat.
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Through the next imposing door lies the Hellevator. We buff a bit then activate it, buffing more as we ascend. We have to guess at our arrival time (we can't see any buttons or hear any bing-bing etc. - who built this thing) and one or two buffs expire before we arrive while we still have a few others that we fail to apply in time. We'll do our best.
Belhifet and Hephernaan look like trouble so Michio convinces Caelar to fight with us. Our opening gambit is to focus on Hephernaan and shut him down quickly. He lasts long enough for Caelar to pick up some deep wounds.
We switch to +3 weapons and missiles, but Belhifet is tough. Even with our combined efforts we are struggling and if Caelar falls we will be forced onto the back foot.
After what seems an eternity, but may only have been a couple of minutes, Belhifet falls. Good job too as Viconia gets stunned and a moment later is half-dead. Another few seconds and we'd have been a drow down.
Our victory is short-lived, as Skie fails to survive the afterparty and Michio is banished. Worse, he discovers his golden pantaloons he so preciously held onto were stuffed into his luggage container and not retrieved at an appropriate point.
Shadows of Amn
Michio renews his acquaintance with Imoen to escape the initial dungeon. She is arrested outside, leaving Michio with the accrued packhorses (Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshimo) and a chance to reconsider them for longer-term lackeys to drag into danger.
I only had enough time this morning to either write up yesterday's MP session or do a bit more with my WS. Oh well, when in doubt - play!
At L12 my basic saving throw was 4 against spells - making me far too vulnerable for comfort. One way to deal with that is to get specific protection against the more common disabler threats. For a fighter type the Suna Seni ambush is pretty easy - and that nets protection against hold from Arbane.
Diving under the Copper Coronet I ran some hobgoblins around. That resulted in an otyugh following me, but with the lack of space in the passage it had teleported into an adjacent room - where the black lotus users were somewhat startled by just how real their dreams seemed to be today .
After putting some ingredients together, I was able to collect Lilarcor for protection against charm and confusion.
I was planning to go to the Graveyard next, but was delayed on the way.
After delivering Renfeld back home I switched between weapons as necessary while dealing with Prebek and Sanasha.
I then looted the Harpers for a bit more XP and gold.
At this stage I was slightly handicapped by mainly using a long sword for melee - I've only just put 1 pip in that, so a scimitar would still be better at the moment. As a result I decided to take a look at Watcher's Keep. That was well guarded by vampiric wraiths though, so there will be nothing doing there for a while.
Back in Athkatla I successfully made it to the Graveyard this time. The only real danger there was the horror from the Crypt King - and that's easily dodged.
I got up to 13th level by digging a man out of his grave and finished off the investigation of the tombs.
All that running around took a while though and my hour was up before I could dive underground.
So far, so good in Athkatla. I think BG2 is significantly easier for a wizard slayer than SoD, so need to try hard to maintain concentration now I'm here.
Wizard Slayer L13, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 195 kills (+621 in BG1)
Comments
Introduction
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3
Time for Ust Natha: this is where things so very often go wrong for me. A mistake inside the city can often be fatal, since I'm pretty sure I have the improved version of Ust Natha, and I don't have either the setup or the skill to pull off beating the siege as @semiticgod did. Our purchases in the city are the Firetooth Dagger (Jehu), that +4 shield (Anomen), that rod that can kill golems, (Anomen), and a couple rare potions such as shielding and a scroll or two. We report to Solaufein, and go attempt to rescue Phaere without resting. The backstabber of the Underdark party with the Dragon's Breath is causing a few problems, and Nalia and Imoen have no Stoneskins. Mirror Images keep them alive, and Jehu casts Nature's Beauty for the first time from invisibility. Summons and a lot of damage finish the fight.
As I posted in the Adventurer's Lounge, I had an interesting situation where Phaere and Solaufein went red when a Death Spell was cast near them, and attempted to target. As this was a known strategy in both the original games and the EEs with no warning about targeting the Drow, and there's nothing in the SCS documentation about Death Spell now turning neutrals hostile, I considered this a bug and reloaded the fight. (As I said in the other thread, I highly suspect it's the fact that Death Spell now sweeps friendlies to kill bugs from the Insect Plague line of spells, and if so, that's definitely unintended to turn characters hostile.)
We complete the fight a second time casting no other spells other than healing spells to make sure Phaere stays alive after she's targeted by some of the Umber Hulks early on. We end up with a success, return to the city, and do the only two side-things I'm willing to do: Qilue's brain and the pit fights. The pit fights are fairly easy, though I'm still extremely Beholder-phobic, and send skeleton warriors to finish that fight.
I think Moira or Mazzy might have the saves to outright tank Beholders, but heck if I'm going to test that in a no-reload. Qilue is handled by a very quick smash (her skull) and grab, and we get out without fighting any of her attendants. Multiple high level magic resistant mages in a fight we're pinned against the wall with no maneuverability is not something I'm comfortable. Earlier in the run, I couldn't even win in the Troll Mound with a no-setup no-maneuverability beginning, so... It's simply not worth it. I don't like rest spamming, so the beholder Spelljammer is handled by our warriors + Fire Elementals. They were all under Improved Invisibility, so the only way Moira or Mazzy could fail a save was after being dispelled, but they're immune to magic for a short time after that anyways, so Anomen was the only one that wasn't 100% safe here, I think.
We resolve the rest of the main quest line as peacefully as we can, claiming the Sverneblin patrol leader's helmet and Solaufein's cloak. From here, we have 3 Invisibility 10" memorized: I think one of my previous failures was from talking to the Drow warning against the slime cult that starts a 1 hour timer while on a similar timer for Phaere. The best and safest solution is to simply never start the timer. We use 1 to get everyone into the Female Fighter's Society where Jehu turns down Phaere's advances. Jehu drinks a potion of invisibility to pass by the questgiver a second time.
Egg guards are quickly killed, and some types of summons are used to tank the Clay Golems while we slaughter the others. We're doing the double-cross, and make sure we put in Phaere's eggs. We cast another Invisibility 10" to report back to Phaere, and we're brought to the temple. After watching the mayhem and picking up the items, Imoen casts a Haste on us via scroll and we book it out of Ust Natha. I forgot that turns Imoen visible, though, and she has the cloak of Displacement on so she has the blurred animation already: the slime questgiver talks to her as we're running, and she either drinks a potion or casts Invisibility to get out. We escape safely, report back to Adalon, and get teleported to the end. Not shown: the failure message that our identities have been discovered, probably from technically failing the slime worshipper quest. That thing has a very, very slim margin of error.
There's a few quests left unfinished: Unseeing Eye, Mae'var, Planar Sphere, Planar Prison, and Firkraag with a few minor encounters in between. We start with the Unseeing Eye. The most dangerous part of the beginning was when a Wandering Horror affected Jehu, and he risked walking randomly towards enemies. Imoen turns him invisible, and he recovers before he does anything too stupid. Undead aren't a problem for us right now: Anomen is a high level Cleric, and Mazzy still has the iMoD as her second most used weapon. No liches spawn, and we have no problems with that. In the Beholder hive itself, Anomen reworks his spellbook slightly to give us probably the safest method of clearing Beholders.
Imoen follows invisibly, and clears all the Beholders and Gauths with those five. A pathing issue gets them sighted by the blind priests despite the obvious problems with that statement, and the other five members join in to smash them quickly. The Unseeing Eye is handled by the same five skeletons, with Imoen firing off the Rift Device.
There's an issue trying to finish the quest: the expended Rift Device didn't seem to be created after using the Rift Device. I scoured the area wondering if I had dropped it, or rested to see if it would recreate in Imoen's inventory, but it wasn't to be found. I created the expended Rift Device via console, and returned it to Amaunator's Avatar before finishing the quest with Helm.
The Planar Sphere is next. We use summons, area spells, and Fire Seeds from Moira to safely clear all the Halfling mages: none of them get a dangerous spell off the ground near us that I remember. More Fire Seeds are used to disrupt Lavok, and the most dangerous thing he did was manage a Dispel Magic or Remove on Mazzy. We try the same thing on Tolgerais, but the insta-summons Efreeti and Djinni are giving us a few problems with the cloud spells, and the fact that there're two mages splits our attention. He survives a bit longer, though not long enough to truly threaten us. I think he used a PW:Blind at some point, but he only does surface damage before killing him. We regenerate a bit while Spirit Summons tank against the Fire and Ice rooms, and invisible walls are enough to negate any threat the golems might have posed. In Hell, SCS apparently made a few upgrades I don't recall: there are some minor demon-things that have decent THAC0 and can Hold via something or another. We kill two of the Nabassu's for their hearts and finally return to the Prime with no deaths suffered.
So it's hour 18 or 19 or something and I'm waiting for night for the final Temple quest (the Dawn Ring) as well as the first Thief quest: in the meantime, we do some shopping (Robe of Vecna for Imoen, Sling of Everand for Anomen) and take on the Guarded Compound. The bottom level is pretty simple, and we do a full buff sequence for the second floor. Everyone equips a range weapon, and Imoen detects the traps immediately. Acid Rain (Nalia) and Spike Growth (Jehu) help disable their spellcasters, while either Mazzy or Anomen detect their Thief with True Sight via gem or spell. Further rounds see Jehu detecting Invisibility, debuffs being thrown around by both Imoen and Nalia, and our three warriors killing off their fighters. Nalia is hit by a Dispel, but all their heavy hitters had already fallen, and we emerge deathless. Nobody even wants Celestial Fury.
There's still a bit of time before darkness, and I try to find anything to do without leaving the city. The first half of the Planar Prison questline fits the bill fairly well, and Jehu is the first to get 3m experience and his first HLA. He chooses Spirit Form, which is pretty weak, all things considered: it's the prerequisite for Favored of the Spirits though, which is really nice for a CHARNAME. Bad dialogue gets Mekrath killed without hunting down an imp. Whoops.
It's nighttime, so we can complete the last temple quest and the first of the thieves' quests. I think there might be a violent option or a pickpocketing option, but I have no idea how exactly how that'd work, so I play it safe. The only two non-optional fights are Rayic Gethras and Mae'var and his guild themselves: Rayic is no longer a threat, especially with Fire Seeds disrupting all his spells while we wait out or burn his spell protections/PfMW, and Mae'var's assassins are affected by a Chaos spell, and the most irritating thing they do is kill each other before I can nab their experience. Also, Anomen is really, really such a prick. He does get a level though.
Next up is the Planar Prison. Imoen, Jehu, Anomen and Nalia buff up during the fight before entering the portal, ending with a Mass Invisibility before entering the portal. All 6 have a Death Ward up as well just in case. We gang up on their mages in the entrance, never allowing them a chance to actually hurt us. Skeleton Warriors and elementals are thrown at the Yuan-Ti mages, and AoE spells kill them. The random talking Wyvern and Master of Thralls don't end much better, and the Warden's spellbook is depleted a bit by summons before we engage him and take him down, even while slowed.
The Wave shaft reminds us we haven't crafted any weapons: Imoen gets Gesen's shortbow, and the Wave is bagged for now. We don't have the Silver Sword: I can't bring myself to kill the Githyanki Wild Mage that asks for it back, and generally just hand it back to him. Windspear Hills are next, and we have much better counters than before. Semiticgod gave a method of avoiding vampires by dodging their spawn trigger: Anomen has a counterpoint with Turn Undead.
Imoen almost dies due to bad pathfinding at the turncoat party: she gets pushed through the door into the melee by some of the others, but a potion of Invisibility gets her out safely. The other party doesn't stand a chance against our superior firepower and gear, and fall very quickly. We use Spirit Summons to tank against the golems, and we rest and do a full-ish buff upstairs before facing Firkraag. 5x Pro from Fire from Nalia, Emotion: Hope, Emotion: Courage from both mages, Stoneskin and Ironskins on whoever could cast it, Improved Haste on Moira and Mazzy, a final Pro from Fire from Anomen, Impervious Sanctity of Mind and Entropy Shield on both Jehu and Anomen, and Chaotic commands and death ward on everyone, Mass Invisibility on everyone, and finally SI:Abjuration and Spellshield on Imoen.
Firkraag tries to scorch everyone, but fails to do any damage. Mazzy can hit on a roll of a 2, and despite doing some damage in melee and dispelling Moira, he can't kill any of us, and we have an unusable Carsomyr.
We do a similar setup sans fire resistance against Thaxll'ssilyia, and I think we took this fight in either two or three rounds. He did a bit of damage on Mazzy, the absolute horror.
Only a few more things to do before Bodhi: the Mindflayers in the sewer, and Kangaxx. I'm being stubborn in how little I'm resting: this is still the same spell selecting against the Shadow Dragon, and that means we have very few Chaotic Commands. We still have far too many summons, and some careful kiting almost gets us out with 0 deaths, but I miss two critical hits happening to Anomen in quick succession and he dies to brain suckage. Nalia use a Rod of Resurrection to bring him back up. Soon only the Alhoon is left, and my typical anti-mage strategies aren't enough for him since he has his psionic powers to turn back to. And he still has 9th level spells on top of that, but we feed him 4-5 summons to drain his spellbook before facing him as basically another mindflayer. Returning aboveground, Moira takes Crom Freyr for melee, and we forge and store two sets of dragonscale armor.
We rest, buy up a few more scrolls of Protection from Undead, and go Lich hunting. Both the Shade Lich and Elemental Lich do nothing of note before being hit by the iMoD, but there are issues with Kangaxx again. His lich form is handles as easily, but Mazzy is too close to him as he starts his spells, and Moira has nobody to throw Fireseeds at for disruptions. Summons are unsafe since that gives Kangaxx something to target: I should've unequipped Mazzy's armor to have an easy target for Moira. Kangaxx summons a Balor under a Timestop, and casts a sequencer of 3 Remove Magics targeting said Balor: Mazzy is revealed, and we have no backup scrolls. Kangaxx summons in a Dark Planetar as we start booking it for the entrance. Only Kangaxx follows, though he always manages to follow exactly in the same space as Jehu does. I use CTRL-J to move Jehu's model a pixel or so away every time the two of them get stuck in each other. We change zones a few times to try to get away from Kangaxx before realizing he can only see Mazzy: she leaves for outside, but since the area is still loaded from the others, Kangaxx doesn't follow. Moira gets her 4 hits in for spell failure, Mazzy comes back in, and Mazzy claims Kangaxx's ring for herself.
Time for Bodhi! Anomen invisibly pops 80% of the vampires on the top layer, and the others die to our allies. Downstairs, we try to make sure our allies don't killsteal us, but Eric wanted the 90k experience apparently. Oh well: 15k experience per person is pocketchange at this point of the game. We also decide to clear the rest of the tombs that we didn't do before (read: none.)
After a bit of shopping and inventory management (Arrows of dispelling for Moira finally, and the Iron Horn of Valhalla for a longer-lived Fire Seed target are highlights), we go to Suldanessellar. Nalia levels, and takes her first HLA of Summon Planetar: this will make later fights much, much easier.
There're two fights in the city itself that gave any degree of trouble: some pathfinding from Mazzy triggered two of the upgraded Rakshasas in the north while we're trying to deal with an Adamantine Golem in the south. Jehu was using Shamanic Dance for summons against the Adamantine Golem, so moving means losing our front line, but the Raamalit casts a Sphere of Chaos into the middle of us, so we scatter. Anomen, Mazzy and Moira eventually take down the Adamantine Golem, though Nalia is hit by a Breach or Dispel Magic. One of the two Raamalits melees Imoen while our ranged units throw things at it, while Jehu and Moira are on the other side of the Sphere of Chaos fending off another one. We're out of Breaches ourselves, so we end up having to wait out their spells before killing them, since normal weapons don't work on them anyways.
I buff a lot more sloppily for Nizi, and the results show: I should've rested and been more willing to use summons to tank for us. Mazzy and Anomen both try tanking the acidic dragon, and both fall: fortunately, there's 0 chance he can cast now, and Moira takes the dragon out.
With a wide open area, I expect to drain Irenicus' spellbook with summons before killing him. There was a moment's worry when Irenicus used Teleport without Error during a timestop straight to Jehu, though he used that time just to summon a few things (which included a Balor), but Jehu just ran instantly out of vision. Nalia summons her Planetar, and I send it roughly to Jehu's old position. I expected it to do something, but it outright won that fight.
Jehu takes all the Good options in the trials, and do another full buff before the final SoA fight. With two Balors in the mix, our goal at the beginning is to have them kill our summons while we run like all heck is behind us to the southern part of the map. I mess up timings in the buffs and summons, and Nalia's Planetar despawns before doing anything, and Imoen's summon is interrupted by cutscene, so our only celestial available is Anomen's Deva.
We get to the south safely, and start pulling the demons in one by one with summons. Jehu has Conjure Fire Elemental in 6th level slots and Conjure Earth Elemental in 7th level slots, so after buffs has 10 strong summons to throw at these demons. Anomen still has at least 3 Skeleton Warriors as well. I didn't know whether Vorpal hits were on the menu, but that was confirmed fairly early on with a Balor Vorpalling an elemental. We managed to pull each one in one by one until only Irenicus is left, with only the Death Throes doing any damage to us. Fireseeds on a surviving elemental or skeleton warrior disrupts Irenicus' spells, and Whirlwind/Greater Whirlwind from Moira and Critical Hit and Power Attack from Mazzy are enough to finish off Irenicus. SoA is complete, and we're at the elven head things awaiting Ilesara's party.
Stats: Jehu, Human Shaman 19. 99 HP (5 from helm). 91 kills. HLAs: Spirit Form, Favored of the Spirits
Spell selections:
Level 2: Alicorn Lance, Charm Person or Mammal, Cure Moderate Wounds, Resist Fire and Cold, Slow Poison, Writhing Fog.
Level 3: Call Lightning, Cure Disease, Dispel Magic, Spike Growth, Spiritual Clarity.
Level 4: Call Woodland Beings, Death Ward, Poison, Spirit Fire, Static Charge
Level 5: Chaotic Commands, Insect Plague, Iron Skins, Recall Spirit, Spike Stones
Level 6: Conjure Fire Elemental, Entropy Shield, Fire Seeds, Spiritual Lock
Level 7: Conjure Earth Elemental, Ether Gate, Impervious Sanctity of Mind, Nature's Beauty
Moira, Dwarven Wizard Slayer 21. 148 HP. 429 kills. 5* in Longbow, 5* in Warhammer, 1* in Dual Wielding. 1 death. HLAs: Whirlwind attack, Greater Whirlwind Attack.
Anomen, Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric 23. 109 HP. 262 kills. 5* in Sling, 5* in Flails/Morningstars. 3 deaths. HLAs: Summon Deva, Implosion.
Imoen, Human Thief 7 -> Mage 18. 70 HP. 37 kills. 0 deaths. HLAs: Summon Planetar.
Nalia, Human Thief 4 -> Mage 18. 73 HP. 93 kills. 0 deaths. HLAs: Summon Planetar.
Permanently lost: Aerie, Jaheira, Yoshimo.
Previously:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112959#Comment_1112959
Unnie was wondering why she hadn’t
reached the level cap yet, and realised that her righteous party where nice and all, but the xp was scarce when parted 5 ways. So some tougher foes where next up. And with higher risk...
Before going to CK, Unnie considered her options. Werewolf- and Ice island both sounded unappealing, so Durlags tower it was... I haven’t used the wand of frost that often before, but this time around the wand came to good use.
The chessboard was webbed by Dynaheir and set on fire. Thinking all was ok, Unnie set out for the king. Unnie thought her self safe with good saves and the boots of grounding. Without the boots and Durlags cup she surely would have died.
The bottom level was cleared without much fuss: free action, protection from poison and plenty of healing potions being the bread winners.
Ck was done. Not killing Rieltar, but everyone in the caverns. The traps being really nasty on insane
Back in the city the iron throne and the undercellar where done easily.
And for the palace fight Dynaheir had a spell sequencer web, and another web in store. I managed to cast the combo to early, and saw most of the webs duration wasted on some nobles... Only after a while the nobles changed... and the fight was on.
Not making the same mistakes again, Unnie buffed like a mad man for the maze & webbed and cloudkilled the undercity goons. Sarevok was softened up with 3 webs and 2 cloud kills - which Unnie took no harm from. When softened, Unnie delivered true justice to her sibling
Last Post
Due to lack of concentration, didn't notice that I was poisoned by the wyverns and went for the potion too late.
Journal of Eanflæd of Deira
I would have liked to have been a cleric of Kelemvor, but sadly was unable to due to lack of somebody to teach me what to do. Perhaps that is something that I can learn later. Only time will tell.
EDIT
It wasn't Eanflæd was killed by the upgraded assassins that I created in Candlekeep.
I am starting again however with Eanflæd II.
Keldorn woke from a nightmare. His heart was pounding and aching at the same time. In the dream, he finally made it back to the Firecam Estate, excited to finally be home, after months on the road with Dispenser. When he got there, Keldorn could not find anyone. After combing the estate entirely over and over, he decided to go to Mithrest Inn, where he found Maria and his daughters living with Sir William (dreams can be weird like that). Maria told him she thought he had died in a dungeon somewhere. “After a year,” she said, “I decided to go on with my life and marry William. . . . The girls love him.” Keldorn’s heart tore open at the thought. After everything had Lady Maria left him? He woke, scared, and alone. “Where am I?” After he cleared his head, he looked around and remembered that they had just arrived in Amkethran the night before. He suddenly felt a twinge – he was so far from home. Suddenly he felt vulnerable and yearned for home. “Duty! Damn!” he thought to himself. He felt the unusual sense of being torn between home and duty. He had given Dispenser his word; now, for a moment, he wished he had not.
Their travels with Dispenser led from Saradush to the North Forest, the Forest of Mir, and the Marching Mountains until they reached Yaga-Shura’s Siege Camp. They were in Giant Territory – Yaga-Shura’s territory. Dispenser’s destiny became clearer and muddier at the same time. Their first duty was to defeat Yaga-Shura and halt the siege of Saradush. The North Forest provided a good snapshot of what was ahead. There, they battled their first Fire Giants, and some of Yaga-Shura’s soldiers, Yaga-Shura Mages, and two Cleric’s of Talos before moving on to the Forest of Mir. There was an ancient Bhaal Temple there, overrun with a Master Wraith and undead (Skelton Warrior, Skeleton Mage, Swamp Horrors, a Skeleton Assassin, several Devil Shades and Shadow Fiends). Battling through them provided the secret to defeating Yaga-Shura. Now the Temple is the lair of Nyalee, a human Druidess and mother of Yaga-Shura by Bhaal. Angry with her child, she told Dispenser that the key to killing Yaga-Shura was to retrieve his heart and bring it to her, along with hers. Yaga-Shura’s heart, she said, would be found at his lair in the Marching Mountains.
The brutally hot, lava-like Marching Mountains contained Yaga-Shura’s Lair. After battling several Fire Giants and Hell Hounds, they reached the entrance to the lair, a massive complex within the side of the mountains. Inside, they systematically took out room after room filled with Fire Giants, including two Elite Fire Giants, Elder Fire Elementals, Bone Fiends, Flaming Skulls, Salamander Nobles, Hell Cats, and other creatures that thrive in extreme heat. The fiercest foes in the lair guarded Yaga-Shura’s heart, including Berenn, a Fire Giant Cleric and Imix, a powerful Fire Elemental. Once defeated, however, Dispenser had a clear path to retrieve Yaga-Shura’s heart from beneath his marble bed and return it to Nyalee. Upon returning to the temple in the Forest of Mir, and giving both Yaga-Shura’s and her own heart to Nyalee, she became hostile, calling forth a couple of Shambling Mounds, two Dryads, and a Vortex Spider from the swamp around them. The battle was quick, but leaving the temple, they discovered they were about to be ambushed by the Drow Matron Arhkenneld, several Arhenneld Drow and a Demon (Greater Yochlol) who had come for Yasraena. Instead of engaging, they attacked from range: Dispenser cast Fire Storm, Nalia Cloudkill, and Neera Incendiary Cloud to devastating effect. Some of the Drow moved from the area of effect where they were cut down by Yasraena, Isra, and Keldorn, all using their Greater Whirlwind ability. With the other Drow dead, it left only the demon and the Matron Mother, a mighty Cleric/Mage. The demon went down quickly, but the latter took a long time to defeat.
ISRA FELLS YAGA-SHURA'S CLERIC
They finally tracked down Yaga-Shura at his Siege Camp. The Fire Giant King himself went down with a whimper once Dispenser had him cornered. The moment Keldorn brought Gram the Sword of Grief deep into the giant’s thigh, bringing him down to his knees, the rest of his army melted away. Dispenser became wary when just as the battle ended, Melissan arrived to bring the news that Saradush could not be saved and all the Bhaalspawn were dead. Her questionable timing, along with Gronmir’s accusations about her true intentions troubled Dispenser, but he agreed to meet her in Amkethran (where Iylos had been a monk).
BATTLING YAGA-SHURA
KELDORN KILLS YAGA-SHURA
In an Oasis, before arriving in Amkethra, a Tethyrian war-party ambushed them and inflicted three casualties, including Keldorn himself. It is not often that Dispenser gets caught off-guard, especially with Yasraena and Isra as his closest advisers. They all agreed that it was a team failure, but Dispenser nonetheless, took full responsibility.
On arrival, the Abbot of the Monastery, Balthazar, ‘welcomed them’ and informed them that Melissan had come and gone. He provided Dispenser with the locations of the lairs of Sendai and Abazigal, two more Bhaalspawn who want his Dispenser’s head.
ORDER OF MARCH: Yasraena, Isra, & Keldorn (Shock), Dispenser (leader), Nalia (Arcane Support & Traps), Neera (Arcane Support)
MONSTERS DEFEATED (ordered alphabetically by value): * Berenn Fire Giant Cleric/26 (40.5k @ YL); Master Wraith (30.5k @ FMT); Yaga-Shura (30k @ SC); Elite Fire Giants (2 @ 26k @ YL); Imix, Fire Elemental (25k @ YL); Adamantine Golem (25k @ YL); Yaga-Shura Lieutenant Mage (25k @ SC); Yaga-Shura Lieutenant Thief (25k @ SC); Chinchila, Wolfwere (18k @ MM); Matron Mother, Drow Cleric/Mage//20/20 (18k @ FMT); Arhenneld Drow (5 @ 16k @ FMT); Fire Giants (2/5/16/8/1 @ 16k @ NF/MM/YL/DS/SC); Demon, Greater Yochlol (16k @ FMT); Shambling Mounds (2 @ 16k @ FMT); Elder Fire Elementals (2 @ 14k @ YL); Bone Fiends (4 @ 12k @ YL); Burning Men (5 @ 12k @ YL); Nyalee, Druid/20 (12k @ FMT); Salamander Nobles (9 @ 10k @ YL); Skeleton Warrior (10k @ FMT); Aerial Servant (1/1 @ 9k @ YL/SC); Flaming Skull (2 @ 9k @ YL); Hell Cats (3 @ 9k @ YL); Hell Hounds (2 @ 9k @ MM); Clay Golem (8k @ YL); Tethyrian Captain (2 @ 7.3k @ SC); Skeleton Mage (7.2k @ FMT); Erinyes (7k @ YL); Swamp Horrors (2 @ 7k @ FMT); Fire Elementals (2 @ 6k @ YL); Merlinious, Kobold Kensai//17 (6k @ MM); Skeleton Assassin (6k @ FMT); Tibbit, Kobold Archer//18 (6k @ MM); Toop the Brave, Kobold/Fighter//15 (6k @ MM); Yaga Shura Elite (6k @ SC); Cleric of Lathander (2 @ 5.4k @ OA); Tethyrian Pikemen (8 @ 5k @ OA); Shadow Fiends (4 @ 4k @ FMT); Tethyrian Battlemage (2 @ 4k @ OA); Tethyrian Archers (14 @ 3.5k @ OA); Fire Trolls (2 @ 3k @ MM); Yaga-Shura Officers (2 @ 3k @ SC); Vortex Spider (2.7k @ FMT); Devil Shade (2k @ FMT); Yaga Shura Mage (2k @ NF), Clerics of Talos (2 @ 1.4k @ NF); Yaga-Shura Officers (2 @ 1.4k @ NF); Yaga Shura Soldiers (7 @ 2k @ SC); Desert Trolls (4 @ 1.4k @ OA); Nymphs (2 @ 1.4k @ FMT); Yaga Shura Soldiers (14/1 @ 650 @ NF/SC)
* Legend: Bhaal Trials = BT; DS = Disturb Sleep; Forrest of Mit/Temple = FMT; Marching Mountains = MM: NF = North Forest ; OA = Oasis; RE = Random Encounter; Saradush – Sd; SC = Siege Camp; Yaga-Shura’s Lair
LEVEL UP: Yasraena, Fighter/25; Keldorn, Inquisitor/19-20; Neera, Wild Mage/17; Dispenser, Cleric of Tyr/27-28; Isra, Cavalier/22; Nalia, Mage/Thief//20/4
CASUALTIES: Neera (Elder Fire Elemental), Isra (Tethyrian ambush), Nalia (Tethyrian ambush), Keldorn (Tethyrian ambush)
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE: (Gold earned = ~ 7221)
Armor & Weapons: Shuruppak’s Plate, Runehammer +4 (+5), Longsword +4 (The Answerer), Short Sword +4 (Short Sword of Mask); Short Bow +4 (Darkfire); Erinne’s Sling +4
Gems/jewelry: Laeral’s Tear Necklaces (3), Rogue Stone, King’s Tears (9), Star Sapphire (5), Ruby Rings (5), Emeralds (8), Diamond, Sphene Gem, Bloodstone Amulet, Black Opal (4)
Potions: Superior Healing (46), Fire Giant Strength (4), Extra Healing (72), Invulnerability (11)
Scrolls: Death Fog
Wands: Resurrection, Cursing (2),
Misc & Artifacts: Girdle of Fire Giant Strength, Juggernaut Golem Manual
BEST KILL:
1) Yasraena, Bodhi (91k exp)
2) Nalia, Saladrex (64k exp)
3) Keldorn, Chromatic Demon & Isra, Demilich (55k exp ea)
4) Neera, Fire Giant (650 exp)
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Inn at Amkethra
NEXT STEPS: Sendai’s Lair
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 19– Heroic) (+1 - rescued daughter of the Mayor of Amkethran)
Dispenser: LG Cleric (Holy Justice of Tyr)/28 (HP 98) Large Shield +2, Helm of the Noble +1, Holy Symbol of Tyr, Gauntlets of Dexterity, Cloak of Balduran, Girdle of Fire Giant Strength, Rings of Fire Resistance & Regeneration & Boots of Etherealness w/ Flail of the Ages +3 (Acid, Cold, Fire) & Longsword +4 (The Answerer) (Bastard Sword*, Flail*, Long Sword*, Mace/Morning Star*, Warhammer*, SSS*, SWS*, TWS**); Abilities: Detect Invisibility, Hold person, Holy Word, Strength of One, Slayer Change; High-Level Abilities: Elemental Summoning, Energy Blades, Mass Raise Dead, Implosion, Storm of Vengeance, Summon Deva; Skills: None; Spells: Earthquake, Energy Blades, Finger of Death, Fire Storm, Gate, Implosion, Resurrection, Aerial Servant, Animal Summoning III, Blade Barrier, Bolt of Glory (2), False Dawn, Harm, Heal, Sol’s Searing Orb, Wondrous Recall, Cause Critical Wounds, Chaotic Commands, Cure Critical Wounds, Flame Strike, Greater Command, Mass Cure, Raise Dead, Righteous Magic, Slay Living, True Seeing, Cause Serious Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Death Ward, Defensive Harmony, Farsight, Free Action, Restoration, Negative Plane Protection, Free Action, Neutralize Poison, Poison, Protection from Evil 10’ (2), Animate Dead, Cure Disease, Cure Medium Wounds, Dispel Magic, Holy Smite, Invisibility Purge, Prayer, Remove Curse, Rigid Thinking, Zone of Sweet Air, Aid, Chant (3), Draw on Holy Might (2), Hold Person (2), Resist Fire & Cold, Silence 15’ (2), Slow Poison (2), Armor of Faith (2), Bless (2), Command (2), Cure Light Wounds, Doom, Faerie Fire (2), Protection from Evil, Remove Fear, Sanctuary; (Adv AI) (1)
Isra: LG Paladin (Cavalier of Sune)/22 (HP 128), Red Dragon Scale Plate, Ghadir Family Ring, Painbearer’s Amulet, Pale Green Ioun Stone, Cloak of the Shield, Boots of Hastened Departure w/ Two-Handed Sword +5 (Carsomyr), Mace +3 (Storm Star), Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise, Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, (Axe**, Bastard Sword**, Mace/Morning Star**, Two-Handed Sword**, THWS**); Abilities: Cure Disease, Detect Evil (23), Lay on Hands, Protection from Evil (20), Remove Fear (20); High-Level Abilities: Death Blow, Greater Deathblow, Greater Whirlwind Attack, Magic Resistance, Whirlwind Attack; Skills: None: Spells: Defensive Harmony, Free Action, Neutralize Poison, Cure Disease, Holy Smite, Zone of Sweet Air, Chant, Draw on Holy Might, Armor of Faith, Bless, Command; (Adv AI) (2)
Yasraena: CG Fighter//25 (HP 153), Shuruppak’s Plate, Wong Fei’s Ioun Stone, Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, Boots of Speed w/ Short Sword +5 (Ironkiss), Short Sword +5 (Fireflower) & Warhammer +5 (Runehammer), (Short Sword/Nija-to*****, Two-Weapon Style***, Warhammer**), w/ Gauntlet’s of Extraordinary Specialization, (Sword Sword*****, 2WS***) w/ Rings of Regeneration & Anti-venom; Abilities: None; High-Level Abilities: Death Blow, Greater Death Blow, Magic Resistance, Power Attack, Whirlwind Attack, Greater Whirlwind Attack; Skills: None: Spells: None; (Adv AI) (nil)
Keldorn: LG Paladin(Inquisitor)/20 (HP 143), Plate of Balduran, Helm of Charm Protection, Girdle of Stone Giant Strength, Greenstone Amulet, Ring of Regeneration, Cloak of the Shield, w/ Blessed Paladin’s Bracers, Horn of Valhalla & Boots of the North w/ Two-handed Sword +5 (Graham the Sword of Grief), Crossbow +5 (Firetooth), Flail +3 (Defender of Easthaven), (Crossbow**, Flail**, Long Sword**, Two-Handed Sword**, THWS**); Abilities:: Detect Evil (21), Protection from Evil (18), Dispel Magic (5), True Sight (5); High-Level Abilities: Deathblow; Greater Whirlwind Attack; Whirlwind Attack; Skills: None; Spells: None; (Adv AI) (3)
Nalia: CG Mage/Thief//20/4 (HP 72), Necklace of Protection +1, Robe of the Good Arch-Magi,Dusty Rose Ioun Stone, Improved Cloak of Protection +2, Amulet of the Master Harper & Amulet of Power w/ Shortbow of Gesen, Staff of the Magi; (Club*, Crossbow*, Dagger*, Dart*, Q/staff*, Short Bow*, Short Sword/Ninja-to* ); Abilities: Set Snare, Scribe Scrolls; Skills: OL 85, PP 40, FT 105, MS 55, HS 70, DI 10, ST 10 w/ Cloak of Elvenkind, Boots of Elvenkind; High-Level Abilities: Extra 6th Level Spell, Extra 7th Level Spell; Spells: (w/ Ring of Acuity & Halruuan Component Pouch), Time Stop, Freedom, Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting, Pierce Shield, Simulacrum, Spell Trigger, Khelban’s Warding Whip, Limited Wish, Ruby Ray of Reversal, Spell Sequencer, Chain Lightning, Contingency, Pierce Magic, Spell Deflection, Summon Nishru, Animate Dead, Breach, Cloudkill, Cone of Cold, Lower Resistance, Monster Summoning III, Fire Shield (Blue), Fire Shield (Red), Greater Malison, Improved Invisibility, Minor Sequencer, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, Secret Word, Dispel Magic, Fireball, Flame Arrow, Haste, Lightning Bolt, Slow, Spell Thrust, Ghoul Touch, Invisibility, Knock, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Ray of Enfeeblement, Stinking Cloud, Web, Blindness, Chromatic Orb, Grease, Identify Magic Missile, Spook; (Adv AI) (nil)
Neera: CN Wild Mage/17 (HP 47) Robe of Invocation, Bracers of Defense AC6, & Belt of Inertial Barrier, w/ Quarter Staff +2 & Throwing Darts (Dagger*, Q/staff*, Sling*); Abilities: Scribe Scrolls; Skills: None; High-Level Abilities: None; Spells: Maze, Simulacrum, Incendiary Cloud, Improved Chaos Shield, Mass Invisibility, Prismatic Spray, Project Image, Chain Lightning, Contingency, Improved Haste, Pierce Magic, Cone of Cold, Domination, Feeblemind, Lower Resistance, Minor Spell Turning, Sunfire, Confusion, Fire Shield Red, Greater Malison, Improved Invisibility, Stoneskin, Teleport Field, Dispel Magic, Fireball, Haste, Hold Person, Melf’s Minute Meteors, Remove Magic, Blur, Chaos Shield, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Ray of Enfeeblement, Stinking Cloud, Magic Missile (4), Chromatic Orb, Nahal’s Reckless Dweomer; (Adv AI) (nil)
MOD USED: Amber v5, Tyris Flare v8, Foundling v4.2, Pesty v3.1, Asher v1.12, Gavin v23, Sirene for BG2, Isra v3, Paina, Tashia v1.2, Vampire Tales, Ninde, Saerileth, Arath v4, Dace v5, Tsujatha, Kelsey v5, Keto v5, Sarah v5, Nathaniel v4.4, Iylos v2.6, Adrian v4.3, Naphele v2.5, Fade v5.5, Saradas Magic v1.6, de’Arnice Romance v6, Unfinished Business v26, Plane Touched Races, Wheels of Prophecy v8.3, NPC Flirt v1.06, Romantic Encounters v14, Tweaks Anthology, Deities of Faerun, Song & Silence v9, Rogue Rebalancing v4.92, Wizard Slayer Rebalancing v1.14, SCS v32.7, Atweaks v4.53, Item Randomizer
(Current AI) (Chain of Command rank)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112203/#Comment_1112203
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In the SoD dungeon the Crew could easily have killed the first group of enemies - but why bother when you get all their XP and items just for talking to Porios.
The next group of mercenaries could be a problem for a more lightly armored party, but Vito was able to comfortably hold the line there while the others shot down the opponents. Nearby some skeletons were headed up by a skeletal mage, but his attempt at Spook wasted the last few seconds of his life.
In the final battle, Korlasz was totally unable to handle the multiple attacks coming in and didn't even have time to surrender. I hadn't bothered about that possibility though as I felt there would be no prospect of his mercenaries causing real trouble anyway - and they didn't.
At the Baldur's Gate Palace they dealt with some assassins before venturing out into the city. The Crew did all the quests there that I don't normally bother with. That included an impressive simultaneous killing of 3 of the robbers at Sorcerous Sundries.
After filling containers with all the stuff from the storage chest, the Crew were ready to stop mucking about with the mini-quests in the City and get on with some real work. They started by going to the Coast Way Forest to find a vampire. Normally I help the vampire there, but with a party regeneration is less needed and I decided to give Tsolak a good staking for a change. A volley of missiles sent him floating back to his cave.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, Mizhaena restored the levels Bugsy lost to a trap and the Crew rested to heal before setting out to explore. The first significant challenge they came across was a gargantuan spider. They're pretty dangerous for soloers due to both the web tangle and stunning hit abilities, but parties can make pretty short work of them.
Another quest oddity I don't remember is that Carline turned into a wraith after the Crew activated all the menhirs. This is another quest I don't bother with solo (so I haven't done it that often), but I think previously she's always reconciled after an initial confused speech. Talking to Cromnus again resulted in the same dialogue path, but this time Carline behaved as expected - so I'm not sure if the earlier behavior was intentional or buggy.
The main encounter in that area is the dwarven dungeon and the Crew headed there next. They quickly disposed of the enemies in the opening area and picked up Cromnus' treasure. Without using a lot of finesse, they battled through to find Coldhearth, mixing up their melee and missile attacks to suit various opponents. Before reporting back to the dwarves though they cleared the rest of the dungeon with the help of a bit of window-shooting to deal with the panic-inducing mummy (if the rest of the dungeon has been emptied, then running around in a panic is relatively safe) and plenty of resting to heal damage.
With everything else done in the area, the Crew moved to the bridge and found a welcoming party very happy to see them - in fact their faces lit up when the Crew arrived.
Vito - L8, 93 HPs, 559 kills, 2 deaths, **** scimitar / ** darts
Baby Face - L8, 103 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 561 kills, 0 deaths, **** long sword / ** crossbow
Mad Dog - L8, 109 HPs, 498 kills, 0 deaths, **** axe / ** dual wielding
Carlo - L8, 87 HPs, 491 kills, 0 deaths, **** flail / ** sling
Bugsy - L8, 108 HPs, 470 kills, 2 deaths, **** hammer / ** shortbow
Al (PC) - L8, 103 HPs, 503 kills, **** 2-handed sword / ** longbow
Journal of Eanflæd II of Deira
I somehow survived three assassination attempts in Candlekeep and another during which my friend and mentor Gorion was killed. I was heartbroken by this as I feel some guilt about his death. If he hadn't protected me, he would still be alive.
Michio looks in his book of spells. Down one margin he has been sketching madly, and although these sketches are entirely accurate he finds he cannot remember the first of them. We must have done this just after getting Viconia and Safana raised from the dead.
The Turn works, but the situation goes from bad to worse as Michio is held. Undead are all around us, and although they are being Turned it is a major concern.
We manage to keep a better formation and approach for the remaining undead in this second level until a Shadowed Soul emerges behind a group of skeletons. Safana goes for a backstab but is herself killed. We finish it off and retreat to get our thief raised again.
We travel some more to get some ambushes out of the way (goblins + myconids, and a baby dragon which shows us a cache of items).
Any dragon perched atop an old temple of Bhaal is asking for trouble, and we are more than happy to supply it.
A goblin cave near Bridgefort is treated to a skulltrap + fireball combo - after all, it worked great on the goblins and worgs outside. It works well inside too.
We've already picked up what is required to deal with the large object that arrives inside the fort when we distract the main defensive caster. Kicking the object breaks a few bits off so we convince the smith to forge 80 arrows that Corwin will save for, well, later. If we get that far.
Khalid is inside and Michio wastes no time telling him to man up and attack when he hears us at the main gate. Then we return to camp and tell everyone to attack. We'll be right behind you, now be good cannon fodder and stand between us and the enemy.
Such despicable tactics allow us to unleash malison, slow, fireball, skulltrap, glitterdust, hold and plink away from range while Voghiln blocks anyone who manages to run the gauntlet. The Barghest turns up to make a complaint about our ungentlemanly conduct. We deny all knowledge of his accusations about many of his army including mages having stood on traps inside their camp - Safana smiles sweetly and affirms that nothing about her is ungentlemanly. Hormorn and Vichand are smarting from the snares but we still get to shoot at them when they make their way towards us.
Edwin(a) takes some damage through stoneskins and just misses a friendly-fire fireball cast by one of our supporting casters. Perhaps he took similar damage before.
Michio has to step back and re-apply stoneskin as an enemy caster uses Remove Magic. We've done the same back to them though.
We'd rather not dwell further on this bloodied battle, so here are the pictures instead.
Goody.
This means we are down to four of us to stop the bridge from being destroyed. Not only that, but all our protective buffs were to be cast by Viconia and Edwin. Corwin tries arrows of dispelling while Michio uses Remove Magic but the enemy mage still manages to open a portal. We quickly regroup as Voghiln gulps two potions of fire resistance. Mephits and salamanders try their best but we defeat them - the salamanders easily dealt with but the mephits get us with scorcher attacks and at least one attack on a barrel.
Michio is looking at the party gap, and recruits Khalid. Yes, this might work - he can wear Kiel's helmet and he can actually shoot things. We put up with him all the way to the next encampment where we can see our old companions. Edwin is happy to join again (Michio surmising reputation of 20 does not matter but any change in reputation being problematic) so we strip Khalid of his gear and get Viconia back into the party too. Michio is a little worried that they may clear off again if reputation drops to 19 or 18 for any reason.
I'm surprised they're available again, but I've never tried recruiting PCs in SoD so I guess leaving just has a different mechanic there. I would also expect Viconia rejoining to have dropped reputation back down by 2.
I checked and you are correct. Had been paying attention to reputation in BG:EE but forgot to do so in SoD, and only reminded when the party disbanded.
Finally, the killable unkillable shadowy figure. This heavy air could ignite matters.
Once again Mellicamp was humanised and Tonder killed.
Not a bad result.
I then returned Perdue's sword. The gold he gave for it seems ludicrous to me, not that I'm arguing.
The big question now is whether to continue as a solo adventurer or whether to join up with other like-minded adventurers.
Now level 7.
Tens (male half-elf cleric/ranger, Grond0); Nearv (male dwarf assassin, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1110591/#Comment_1110591
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111665/#Comment_1111665
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1111826/#Comment_1111826
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112026/#Comment_1112026
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112129/#Comment_1112129
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113016/#Comment_1113016
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113095/#Comment_1113095
Pushing on into Spellhold, Tens first job was to prevent a dream becoming a nightmare. He attacked Sarevok hard - in fact rather too hard as the big man could not get his final speech out through the continuing attacks and Tens eventually had to retreat a bit to give him a chance to recover.
After sending Imoen off, Nearv spied out a group of yuan-ti. Tens promptly sent a couple of smites that way. Both of those caught Nearv in the area of effect, but he seemed to learn something from the experience.
Nearv, meanwhile, had learnt to use any items and gave the Staff of the Magi (gained at extreme hazard) a quick trial - and 30 seconds later consigned it to the bag of holding, probably never to be seen again
There was various running round a lich, gradually draining it of spells before Tens came into melee. He had the lich on the point of death when Nearv showed his goal-hanging instincts as he came in for a backstab.
There were no problems on the next level. Tens didn't feel quite himself at one point and decided to have a sleep. Fortunately Nearv took his nap around a corner and wasn't disturbed when Tens woke up grumpy.
There was a moment of doubt in the fight against Irenicus when Tens stayed attacking him a bit too long and got trapped in place by the Asylum inhabitants during a timestop. However, Irenicus was pretty much ready to give up by then anyway.
After we found our ship, Nearv tried his best to kill Desharik. A couple of backstabs failed to finish him off though and despite appearing hostile Desharik still gave his normal speech to see us on our way.
In the Underdark we spent a fair while running round with a group of drow before moving on to the deep gnome village. Their leader was worried about a local balor - don't know why, he didn't seem much of a threat!
The final action saw us emptying the giant soul gem. The lich there managed to survive traps, but didn't cast anything nasty before being finished off.
Tens, cleric 16 / ranger 14, 127 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 642 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 27, 101 HPs, 393 kills (+158 in BG1), 4 deaths
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113080/#Comment_1113080
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113152/#Comment_1113152
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113258/#Comment_1113258
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113399/#Comment_1113399
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113530/#Comment_1113530
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113711/#Comment_1113711
I missed my typical early morning session as the game was not responding properly. That meant squeezing a session for the wizard slayer into a day already packed with multi-player and Trio commitments was difficult - but I managed to get my priorities right.
The start saw my return from the Underground River to the Coalition Camp. After a failed parley it was time to face some invaders. The first 3 groups there stood no real chance against exploding arrows at 7/2 APR. To guard against being targeted by spells I used one of my 5 PfM scrolls against the final group - but they all went down very quickly anyway.
Another PfM scroll meant Ashatiel was pretty well doomed even before being tagged by a stunning dart.
In the close quarters of the elevator, boots of speed were not much use - so I put on the Lucky Boots to boost my saving throws. I also used another PfM scroll there, as I had them spare, and added protection from fire, lightning and poison. I also used up all my myconids to try and avoid any damage in the elevator - and did that successfully.
Against Belhifet I let Caelar join and expected her to tank Belhifet while I sorted out the other devils. However, Caelar decided rather unusually to take a nap at the start of the combat. That nearly caught me out - she was down to 3 HPs when my restoration saved her an instant before Hephernaan landed what would have been a killing blow.
I quickly ran through the epilogue, remembering to take the pantaloons out of my bag of holding so that they will transfer to BG2. There were still a bit over 10 minutes available in the session, which was enough time to make a start in Jon's dungeon. I'd transferred there with 754k XP, so was able to take an immediate level there.
Wizard Slayer L11, 119 HPs, 14 kills (+621 in BG1)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113080/#Comment_1113080
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113152/#Comment_1113152
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113258/#Comment_1113258
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113399/#Comment_1113399
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113530/#Comment_1113530
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113711/#Comment_1113711
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113897/#Comment_1113897
In Jon's dungeon I thought the only likely threat would come from the steam mephit in the elemental plane (and, though that could have just been missed out, I didn't want to do that) - being stunned and mobbed by all the mephits would have gone through HPs very quickly. However, although horror is bugged in BG2EE, it can still be very useful. When the steam mephit was panicked, it moved from its original position, helping to drag it further away from the others. Although being panicked doesn't prevent an enemy from attacking, other enemies seem to be less likely to follow a panicked enemy attacking than they would normally be. The result was I was able to tackle the steam mephit on its own - and the rest were no real threat.
There's a similar sort of problem with the mephit portals, but in that case killing the first 2 with ranged attacks is easy. Even if the other 2 gang up, they're unlikely to be able to kill a warrior in the time disabled by color spray (so long as a melee weapon is equipped). In this case I managed to kill the magma portal before the radiant mephit could use its color spray - and then saved against that anyway.
The circus offered a nice easy introduction to life in Athkatla before I checked in with Gaelan.
Wizard Slayer L12, 127 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 118 kills (+621 in BG1)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112203/#Comment_1112203
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112333/#Comment_1112333
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1112952/#Comment_1112952
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113296/#Comment_1113296
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113457/#Comment_1113457
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113578/#Comment_1113578
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113791/#Comment_1113791
In Troll Claw Woods I settled the Irregulars peacefully (just for a change) before working through the area. There were no real challenges there, though the Crew rested up to heal their light wounds before entering the troll cave. Rather than using multiple fireballs I decided to just attack. The shamaness was the first to go down and the others didn't put up much of a fight.
With the area clear, they set off for the Forest of Wyrms, but found more orcs and trolls on the way - after their recent practise at troll clearances that was no trouble at all.
I'd noted that a level-up was close on arrival at the Forest, but then forgot to look out for that. After killing a couple of groups of wyverns and several other things, checking up showed everyone well over and they bumped up to level 9 and all took grand mastery in their preferred weapons.
A few more spiders and bugbears were demolished on the way to a dragon's cave - which was left alone for now. More bugbears were shot down, including their leader, Snorgash.
After resting up it was time for the Shadow Aspect. He got a nasty opening backstab in on Vito, but didn't go back invisible quickly enough thereafter.
Their work in the temple was completed by summarily dealing with Akanna.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge they came across another green dragon - this one also failed to survive under a hail of missiles (they hadn't yet made use of Morentherene's scales, so this one did not start hostile - but that didn't save it once it had pointed out the location of a treasure hoard
Vito - L9, 108 HPs, 641 kills, 2 deaths, ***** scimitar / ** darts
Baby Face - L9, 115 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 611 kills, 0 deaths, ***** long sword / ** crossbow
Mad Dog - L9, 117 HPs, 550 kills, 0 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Carlo - L9, 106 HPs (incl. 9 from helm), 521 kills, 0 deaths, ***** flail / ** sling
Bugsy - L9, 122 HPs, 518 kills, 2 deaths, ***** hammer / ** shortbow
Al (PC) - L9, 110 HPs (incl. -9 from Claw), 559 kills, ***** 2-handed sword / ** longbow
Journal of Æthelburg
Near High Hedge I was assaulted by gnolls so I immediately summoned some weasels to keep them busy whilst I cast other spells and used my trusty sling. I cast sleep which was highly effective and then used my sling. The sleep wore off and the weasels were unsummoned simultaneously so the one remaining gnoll loomed ominously before me. One more missile from my sling was however sufficient to kill that one also.
Heart pounding, I returned to Beregost to rest after picking up the loot.
Mellicamp was transformed successsfully
Oh my, thinks Michio. I can't remember much detail about parts of our travels so will have to rely on these crazy sketches. Sometimes you don't really want to be reminded about it. Take for example our journey to get a cure for the illness going around camp. We did a minor deour into a basement and thought Chaotic Commands on Voghiln would be fine.
The fledgling vampire inside took one look at us, figured out Corwin was an easy mark and dominated her instead. Now everybody knows a dominated archer in a contained room is bad news even if you got her to switch to fists as the domination homed in on her, so we used Remove Magic on her double quick. Problem solved.
Not so, the vampire dominates her a second time and this time she still has her bow equipped. Rather than cure the symptoms we go for the root cause and kill off the vampire while blinding Corwin to nullify her attacks. By this time Safana and Viciona have lost some levels but after the combat Viconia uses lesser restoration to get us back in order.
Michio has heard that it's always good to have ogres on your side. A slip of his tongue is enough to ensure that this will NOT be the case and we are forced to slaughter them all. Consequences of this will be later...
There is a bit of a kerfuffle at one stage but nobody else joins in the fight and we pretend it never happened. One of Safana's 3 traps activate too so there are only 2 left for anything that happens later.
Oh they've died. Cleric!
Aah. It's Viconia who has died.
We struggle on and gain the upper hand despite Voghiln faffing around. What are you doing man!
A quick check of the map's walkable terrain shows Voghiln is somewhere he shouldn't be. Presumably bumped mid-combat. Michio orders a save, exit, load but that doesn't work. This is annoying.
After returning to camp to raise Viconia, we purchase 10 scrolls of Raise Dead. A long trek back to where we are sees us do a bit more then face down the Dark Magicians. They're quite dark.
Michio wants to take down Strunk. The two have never met before but the other 5 party members have varying moments of deja-vu and suggest caution should he get into his stride. Nonsense thinks Michio, we'll just stop the Strunk stride before it starts.
Anyway, there is a lift to the castle basement and once there we poison both the water and the food suppies before departing. A slight delay to our departure sees Safana gulping a healing potion but she still finds time to die before invisibiity 10' is cast. We grab our dead companion and her gear, and race for the exit.
(A quick check of earlier saves during the write-up confirms we missed a small area in the Forest of Wyrms so that's careless. Not that Corwin really needed the gauntlets anyway but they may have been a good choice for Safana)
Once we kill them off we raise Safana again and return to the camp. It looks like battle is ahead of us so we choose our combat wisely, and at one point note the trolls + ogres had tripped more of Safana's pre-emptive snares. Trolls + ogres:
Ashatiel opens with an array of buffs. Michio recognises this is a good idea and does the same. Cloudkill seems like a suitable buff and fortunately for him there is a gnome-sized space unaffected and it comes complete with a gnome already present.
Michio fishes in his potion cases past various concoctions he can't use as a mage, and finds one of Stone Form. +3 to saves sounds eminently sensible (although quite why he didn't think of a protection from magic scroll, don't ask).
Michio alternates his non-proficient (Michio, you are the master tactician) throwing dart and gulping potions before using oils of fiery burning and potions of explosions. Ashatiel is using spells and ranged attacks also so Michio has time to wonder how he is surviving quite so well.
A quick check of his saving throws gives a major clue while 5% magic resistance also makes a slight contribution.
n.b. Ashatiel uses Sanctuary twice so Michio continues with Grond0-esque area explosions, and Michio decides not to use a wand of monster summoning in case Ashatiel regards it the same as protaganists using invisibility and calls foul.
(I thought Michio did well in single combat, thought he'd lose quickly but he managed to hold on and use potions to wear Ashatiel down)
I love the funny bits you tend to include in your reports @Grond0, may the crew and your Wizard Slayer fare well.
@Neverused, impressive progress despite several setbacks, stay strong!
@CharlestonianTemplar, getting very close, hope you can keep focus!
@Wise_Grimwald, nice to see you run a mage for a change, quite rare for you I think!
@jessejmc, sorry about your Darkmoon Monk. You play well, so I hope we'll see more of you in this thread.
Promise, Human Invoker (3)->Fighter
My last post was over two weeks ago. I haven't had much time to play, but enough for another update.
Promise and party were thorough in their questing in Chapter 10, starting with all the little quests and some trading (and pickpocketing, a quiver of unlimited +1 bolts among other things) at the Coalition Camp and in Bloodbark Grove. After that they rescued Skie and convinced some crusaders to let them enter the castle courtyard for some more goodies and XP. None of these quests were particularly dangerous although the sentry of Tempus was hard to kill. It took Promise countless strikes and swift retreats to take it down and claim its shield for Sirene.
In the Underground River area, the party avoided the blind albino wyrmlings as well as the monsters surrounding Ferrusk's lair, but handled all the other quests and encounters fairly well. Ferrusk was Held from out of sight by Aura, who cast that spell at a suit of armor placed on the ground in front of him.
In Kanaglym the companions buffed a bit for Hephernaan's dark magicians. Arrows of dispelling, wand stuns and webs neutralized several enemy mages, allowing the party to focus on their leader, Kherriun. Nevertheless they were too slow in dealing sufficient damage fast enough to prevent a hostile Halathlaer from appearing, but once the ghost jar was broken, the spectral dragon switched sides. Sadly she fell battling some skeletal warriors and undead sentries.
I still haven't found a good way to navigate the castle cellars and on LoB dififculty I feared the party would fail to kill enemy groups quick enough to avoid getting overwhelmed. Instead, the party were invisible and hasted as they ascended and rushed straight to Hephernaan's chambers. Sirene and Baeloth blocked the doorway to stop any nosy crusaders from entering. Aura used invisibility potions and Sanctuaries to poison the food and water supply. To be more precise, she had concocted a sleeping draught, and used that instead of DeLancie's poison. She also picked up Daeros's full plate for Sirene, which required a strength potion for the low strength gnome. (Promise stuck to mundane full plate and a protection ring). She did get detected by one of the many casters with detection spells, but made it back to Heph's chambers after swigging an invisibility potion.
Baeloth scribed a number of spells on scroll using his aTweaks ability (Stoneskins, Webs) in preparation for Belhifet before the party went to parley with Caelar and the coalition leaders. We all know the outcome of that talk, time for the crusader attacks. Light buffs (potions of invulnerability/defense, oils of speed), elemental ammo, several Webs from Baeloth, five skeleton warriors, and archer support turned the encounter with the trolls and ogres into a walk-over.
All in all the first three waves were slower on LoB difficulty but not necessarily harder. The final wave did cause the party some trouble and even led to the first casualty in the run up till that point. An orc shaman gave the enemy a nice start with an Insect Plague affecting Sirene and Promise. And not much later, one of Auziel's rogues, confused by an enemy spell, backstabbed Sirene. The stab didn't outright kill her but I just failed to keep her safe. She suffered a few more hits shortly after and fell. As so often, Web made all the difference. Here you can see the entire enemy crew affected by it.
At the gate of Dragonspear castle, Promise buffed with Stoneskin, mind focusing for better dex/AC, absorption for a huge AC boost against blunt weapons, magic protection, fire giant strength, invulnerability, speed, and Blur. She went Improved Invisible, and sought out Ashatiel to for a duel. With a Breach Ashatiel got rid of Promise's Stoneskins and Mirror Images at one point but that was all she could do against the Bhaalspawn she had so badly wanted to kill. A Sanctuary delayed the inevitable but once that spell expired, it was over for the avariel.
A nervous Promise then entered unpromising Avernus... I have such a poor track record against Belhifet, and doing this on LoB difficulty wasn't likely to make things easier.
Upon arrival the party immediately paused to buff like hell, in keeping with their environs. 100% fire, cold, acid, electricity, and poison resistance from scrolls; (fire giant) STR boosts for meleers Promise and Sirene, (agility/mind focusing) DEX boosts for everyone to offset multiple potions of stone form for cumulative saves bonuses, (fortitude) CON boosts for everyone but Promise and Baeloth; invulnerability for the warriors (for even better saves), and speed for everyone. Everyone had either reached the XP cap or was at least very close to it, so the party ignored the devils in the first area and headed straight to the bridge, where they failed to sneak past the first group of devils invisibly. One of their ilk had a detection ability, which revealed Promise. She charged the group along with Sirene, who wasn't just Promise's sister-in-arms on the frontline, but had also become her (hesitant) lover. Archers Corwin and Emily provided ranged support. Aura just stood by detecting illusions, and Baeloth stayed his hand, but was ready help out with any spells. Promise and Sirene did get hit a number of times, and both drank regen and healing potions, but their victory was pretty sound.
On the elevator, Webs turned out to remain relevant even against hell's minions. All the devils were dispatched with ease, and the last group in no rush as the party re-applied some buffs and buffed even further for Belhifet. The warriors had about 15 invulnerability potions each (of which they drank about half), invulnerability and speed were renewed, Promise cast Stoneskin from scroll, and Baeloth cast Enchanted Weapon on Sirene's Martyr's Morningstar and Spell Immunity from scroll on himself to neutralize Belhifet's Dispel Magic. It was only in Belhifet's lair that I discovered Baeloth had cast the latter spell but hadn't actually picked a school to get immunity against. (I must have clicked too fast on someone else in the buffing process.) He was stripped of all his defenses, quickly cast a Stoneskin to be able to take any hits, but found himself panicked soon after. Great way to start this battle huh?
He seemed to be alright just walking around with not too many devils in the area yet and with Promise Webbing some of the already present devils, so the others decided to just focus on hurting Belhifet (and trying to keep Caelar alive), and they did surprisingly compellingly. I must admit I did start preparing the party for this battle from the outset, i.e. as early as in BG1:
- Cavalier Sirene with her kit bonuses against demons and devils, specializing in maces/morningstars (as per anthology tweaks) and taking a pip in single-handed weapon style for crits with the Martyr's Morningstar (a weapon that fits nicely from an RP perspective as she's a paladin of Ilmater);
- Archer Emily with her demonic/fell racial enemy and grandmastery in crossbows;
- Archer Corwin with her demonic fell racial enemy and grandmastery in longbows;
- and Promise with Stoneskins/Blurs/MI's from scroll to tank Belhifet while hacking and slashing away at the fiend, and with extra effective Webs thanks to her Invocation spell school
made for a great anti-Belhifet quartet. Rather than picking one champion from their midst to battle Belhifet, all four were sufficiently buffed and capable to be a threat to their foe. This is Sirene showing Belhifet what she was capable of early on.
Aura, whom I'd been most worried about, walked around detecting illusions and casting Invisibility purge. She suffered a lot of damage as well as spell disruption while casting True Seeing, but got away with it. The quartet just kept the pressure on Belhifet and it was Sirene who did him in with a critical.
Post-battle party screenshots:
- Promise: ** scimitars, ** daggers, ** flails, ** TWS, 434 kills incl. 263 from BG1 (Neothelid)
Hoping for the best in BG2, which I've never played on LoB difficulty.
This initially seemed like a bit of overkill to me, but I'd hazard a guess you're referring to heroism potions here ...
Near High Hedge I was assaulted by gnolls so I immediately summoned some weasels to keep them busy whilst I cast other spells and used my trusty sling. I cast sleep which was highly effective and then used my sling. The sleep wore off and the weasels were unsummoned simultaneously so the one remaining gnoll loomed ominously before me. One more missile from my sling was however sufficient to kill that one also.
Heart pounding, I returned to Beregost to rest after picking up the loot.
Mellicamp was transformed successsfully
We returned to Beregost where we delivered the Colquetle Amulet and a letter to Mirianne.
Thank you Grond0, I was pleased myself and impressed with tha party's ability. You're right about the potions. The party had collected 61 potions of heroism and saved all of them for the final battle.
@StummvonBordwehr, I forgot to mention you in my previous post, but it's good to see you in action again with your Undead Hunter, and I like the fact you're using a party for a change. Best of luck!
Thanks for this. Never though to check if the first set of mercenaries surrendered with Porios. It turns out they do.
Corearcher V - elven archer, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Menty - gnomish bounty hunter (Gate70)
Scurvy - human abjurer (Grond0)
We did really good this session - until we didn't. So we found ourselves at Ulgoth's Beard, and not sure what to do next. It seemed like working on the main quest would be appropriate, so we went to the Bandit Camp. Unsurprisingly, Corearcher V's archery was pretty deadly against the enemies, including the 1st used of call shot vs. Khosahn. Tazok's Tent was also overkill, as Menty laid a trap and did a backstab - arrows of biting then finished off Venkt. I think Scurvy managed to hold or stun someone as well.
We then proceeded into the Cloakwood. Menty did a a pretty good with traps here and no real problems. Corearcher did bumble into a trap and set it off, but there were no enemies around...we didn't need the Spider's Bane so we pressed further into the Cloakwood.
Drassus party had a heck of a time with things like web, stinking cloud , thrown traps and Corearcher's magical arrows. It was just too much. The party did well in the Cloakwood Mine. Menty got a nice backstab vs. Davaeorn's guard, as you can see below.
Against Davaeorn, Corearcher quickly got 3 shots off, and Scurvy finished the mage off with a bullet. Think the only spell Davaeorn managed to get off was dimension door...
In the City we wiped out a group of mages at Sorcerous Sundries easily enough. Corearcher wondered if they should skip the ogre mage in the sewers - well he was right to be hesitant! The party did not have any freedom potions, so Corearcher tried a potion of invulnerability. We spawned into the sewers and think Scurvy tried sleep, but too many of the crawlers resisted. So then Scurvy and Menty ran away and abandoned their group-mate, so naturally Corearcher V got held.
By now, Scurvy realized her mistake in running and she ran back to try to help, but then the ogre mage promptly confused Scurvy. Menty tried to help, but with the automatic hits on Corearcher, since he was held, there was no saving Corearcher V - RIP.
Trio 20 1st and final update
Lark - half-elf skald, protagonist (Grond0)
Dummar - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Corerage V - half-orc berserker (Corey_Russell)
After rolling up new characters and leaving Candlekeep we quickly dealt with a blinded Shoal. Then we wended our way down to Nashkel to rest and get some Bhaal healing. Corerage V decided to take on Zordral there and consumed just enough potions to withstand the magical assault on him.
Next up, Arghain provided an unbreakable 2-handed sword on the way to Firewine Bridge - which proved to be the beginning of the end. Dummar tried to dispute whether Meilum really was good with the sword - and was presented with a convincing argument.
Setting off for the temple, an ambush by a few skeletons led by a ghoul didn't initially seem too dangerous. However, in Dummar's absence, it appeared that Lark was being given the honor of being chosen for target practice - and his HPs evaporated well before he reached the map edge ...
We are barely inside Dragonspear Castle when we observe looting occurring and put a stop to it. Once the offenders leave we rationalise such behaviour and strip everything out that can be lifted, unscrewed or bashed into our backpacks. One rule for others, and another rule for us.
Daeros' spirit is nearby so we release him and visit Belegarm for a final shop. Then we take part in an impromtu (on our part) portal opening and observe as Hephernaan and the Crusaders enter it.
A quick buff and we follow them. Michio takes a few moments to grasp the situation and only manages to do so when his companions shout at him to help kill Illaruel and stop further enemies from arriving. He misses, but Edwin(a) gets the job done.
n
Belhifet and Hephernaan look like trouble so Michio convinces Caelar to fight with us. Our opening gambit is to focus on Hephernaan and shut him down quickly. He lasts long enough for Caelar to pick up some deep wounds.
After what seems an eternity, but may only have been a couple of minutes, Belhifet falls. Good job too as Viconia gets stunned and a moment later is half-dead. Another few seconds and we'd have been a drow down.
Shadows of Amn
Michio renews his acquaintance with Imoen to escape the initial dungeon. She is arrested outside, leaving Michio with the accrued packhorses (Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshimo) and a chance to reconsider them for longer-term lackeys to drag into danger.
Current party inventory:
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113080/#Comment_1113080
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113152/#Comment_1113152
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113258/#Comment_1113258
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113399/#Comment_1113399
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113530/#Comment_1113530
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113711/#Comment_1113711
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113897/#Comment_1113897
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113958/#Comment_1113958
I only had enough time this morning to either write up yesterday's MP session or do a bit more with my WS. Oh well, when in doubt - play!
At L12 my basic saving throw was 4 against spells - making me far too vulnerable for comfort. One way to deal with that is to get specific protection against the more common disabler threats. For a fighter type the Suna Seni ambush is pretty easy - and that nets protection against hold from Arbane.
Diving under the Copper Coronet I ran some hobgoblins around. That resulted in an otyugh following me, but with the lack of space in the passage it had teleported into an adjacent room - where the black lotus users were somewhat startled by just how real their dreams seemed to be today
After putting some ingredients together, I was able to collect Lilarcor for protection against charm and confusion.
I was planning to go to the Graveyard next, but was delayed on the way.
At this stage I was slightly handicapped by mainly using a long sword for melee - I've only just put 1 pip in that, so a scimitar would still be better at the moment. As a result I decided to take a look at Watcher's Keep. That was well guarded by vampiric wraiths though, so there will be nothing doing there for a while.
Back in Athkatla I successfully made it to the Graveyard this time. The only real danger there was the horror from the Crypt King - and that's easily dodged.
So far, so good in Athkatla. I think BG2 is significantly easier for a wizard slayer than SoD, so need to try hard to maintain concentration now I'm here.
Wizard Slayer L13, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 195 kills (+621 in BG1)