Thanks for reading my journals buddy and thanks for the warning. I've been getting cocky because this party combo literally destroys opponents in a flash - until they don't.
A slightly longer session than usual saw us making plenty of progress yesterday. That started with wandering down towards the beholder hive, Tens being reminded by Nearv there of his vulnerability to kuo-toa bolts and slapping on chaotic commands in case that helped. After resting Tens buffed up his melee abilities and topped those off with GWW before descending to face the elder orb. That extra punch allowed him to kill the orb pretty quickly.
That was just as well as the nearby beholder took advantage of his failure to buff defenses by charming and slowing him. Nearv was on the job though and finished off the beholder a moment later before spending a bit of time evading Tens.
Deciding that caution is my middle name (though if I make that claim in our sessions, Gate70 tends to respond my first name is Lackov), I spent a few moments reviewing Tens' equipment and the dangers he would face - and concluded that by adding the Shield of Harmony to the Cloak of Mirroring and Amulet of Spell Warding he could tank standard beholders indefinitely. That seemed to work and we started to make progress through the hive.
Nearv was less well protected by items, but survived being held here when Tens unleashed his GWWs to finish off the final couple of gauths surviving from a large group.
Nearv then pushed his luck by trying the same thing against a different couple of gauths guarding the Greenstone Amulet - and this time Tens was unable to kill the gauths quickly enough and had to unlimber his rod of resurrection.
Another large group of beholders was problematic because of the elder orb's ability to use imprisonment. However, Kitthix did a great job there by getting paralyzed near a spike trap - the orb moved forward with the desire to taste spider flesh and got itself well and truly spiked.
With that area clear we moved next door to try out the illithids. Tens was still relying on his leather armor, so was rarely in melee (normally only doing that for the second necessary to allow Nearv to get his backstab in). However, things went pretty smoothly. There was one amusing incident when we'd used a chasing ulitharid to unlock one of the closed doors for us (they only need to get close to the door to do that). Nearv ran away to the next room to hide and the flayer started to chase - only to suddenly wander off in the totally wrong direction. We both immediately recognized that it had suffered from poor pathfinding, when the game responds to a blockage in a corridor by diverting movement to a different path (even if there is no different path that gets there ). We quickly tracked it down and gave it a mercy killing.
With the remainder of the rooms empty and echoing, Tens used his tracking skills and Nearv his ears (following the noise of wailing) to seek out - and destroy - the Master Brain.
Simyaz made a fatal attempt to waylay us after we exited the illithid lair.
A group of drow fared no better on our way to their city. Inside there we improved on last time (when I immediately annoyed Qilue's servant and we had to run for it before doing any quests). We agreed to help find Phaere and burnt up another group of ambushers aiming to stop us.
A field of traps then made rescuing Phaere easy.
She was fobbed off with a svirfneblin's helmet and a piwafwi cloak before tasking us to swap the dragon's eggs with her fake variety. Tens successfully sneaked in to make a switch, but one of the guards outside the egg room realized something was going on and started running around. I think he may have caught a glimpse of Nearv waiting by the exit as the whole temple suddenly went hostile - and when we went outside the word had already spread there as well. Just in case Phaere could intervene we hurried to her quarters, but she was clearly in no mood to help out her agents and we ran to the exit before that could be closed.
We gave Adalon back her eggs before sneaking out of the Underdark to consult with Elhan. He sent us back to Athkatla where Kruin tried to persuade us not to make the Silver Sword. We killed him, but then felt a bit bad about that and sold the pieces rather than making the sword. We did though reconstitute Gesen and the Wave halberd as well as buying a few more items - like the Defender of Easthaven (though we had to dig into our last 300k gold to do that).
Returning to the Graveyard we went to find Bodhi. Her host of vampires mainly melted away against the iMoD - with Tens still protected by using the Shield of Harmony. He added hardiness and Armour of Faith (I think both of those being used for the first time) to face Bodhi - but that was definitely overkill.
Reporting back to Elhan we moved into Suldanesselar. The horde of golems were mainly ignored as we moved through the city acquiring necessary items. Demin was in trouble there against a couple of rakshasa and Tens used his new smite HLA there for the first time to save her.
The first moment of concern was when Tens was too slow to get through Raamilat's defenses and got caught in a timestop - fortunately nothing dangerous was used against him during that.
Nearv laid down a full series of traps for Nizi - but she proved unable to handle even half of those.
There was another nasty moment in the temple when the Avatar proved somewhat less than omniscient when missing a couple of enemies behind a pillar. They sneaked up on Tens during a cutscene, but once control was restored he was able to get away with still a small cushion of HPs left.
On the tree my solo runs tend to leave a summons for Jon to unload a totally inordinate number of spells on - but this time he was prevented from such a waste by the cordon of traps Nearv had left.
While doing the hell trials we had a brief discussion about whether a multi-class ranger could fall (they couldn't in the original game). Concluding it was all too likely Beamdog would have fixed that, Tens took the goody, goody route with all the trials. Once all the tears had been cashed in, Jon appeared - his death field successfully wiping out most of the traps waiting for him. That meant some running around was required to shoot down the demons before doing the same to the Slayer. Eventually that was done though and Jon proved once more just what a lousy predictor of the immediate future he is.
Tens, cleric 19 / ranger 16, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 749 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 33, 124 HPs (incl. 11 from ioun stone), 446 kills (+158 in BG1), 5 deaths
Michio does enough to assemble his SoA crew (part 12345678910 11 12)
Michio wastes no time in trading out of Yoshimo and into Jan. Also in this area is Viconia, she replaces Jaheira. Now, what to do about Minsc for his own good, to save him from a chunking.
The search for a meatshield takes a wrong turn and Michio finds himself locked in a combat arena with unsuitable spells. Cloudkill and fireball work once confusion lands, and a dagger blow finishes the combat.
One thing leads to another and the replacement meatshield has a quest that needs doing. We have no magic licence at this point so are mainly reliant on muscle. That may not be enough so Jan bangs out a couple of rounds of his special ammunition. That will do nicely, although our newest recruit is now whining about a second quest so Michio hopes a brief search of Valygar's house will suffice.
The four of us decide to loot a bit of Watchers Keep and end up clearing the entry level when no Vampiric Wraiths turn up.
Michio still has space for two further travelling companions. The first requires murder and torture. Fine by us, not so for Rayic Gethras.
Meanwhile the ambushes are piling up. Our heavily armoured fighter is at the back of our group during each ambush meaning everyone else gets to share the pain before we can re-group. At some stage we purchase a magic licence in case we run into vampires in a more inhabited area.
Tracking down party member six runs into trouble as we carelessly wander past the Temple of Lathander. Michio remembers too late that he sent Jan in to loot their statue instead of a Sanctuaried Viconia, and everybody got angry including the guards outside.
We retreat a bit, save against a hold spell and move on once an invisibility 10' spell takes effect.
After clearing the sewers of a Rakshasa we run into Keldorn. He looks ideal to join our party but Michio has other plans and bids him farewell. Instead, we kill Mekrath and enlist Haer'Dalis.
So the party is assembled. Four arcane casters seems a bit excessive but the berserker and cleric seem to accept the imbalance. Time will tell.
Party, and inventory. Michio observes Edwin has no robe, maybe that was bagged, stored or sold in SoD. Never mind, not important. Also, Michio has finally learnt how to handle darts.
I started today's session by following up on the kidnap victim from the Graveyard. That gained me a new pair of boots (actually pretty helpful considering that wizard slayers are more vulnerable to missiles than most fighter types) and some pantaloons - but at the cost of a couple of reputation points.
Looking to earn that back I went once more under the Copper Coronet, but this time continued on to find the slaver ship. Nipping in and out of there a couple of times allowed the guards to be split up for easy disposal and left Captain Haegan on his own - he was then scared to make fighting him even easier.
The first slaver wizard saved against horror, but was unable to cast anything under a missile assault.
The second was scared, but that resulted in a mis-firing script spamming stoneskins - so I had to wait until he recovered from the panic before finishing him off.
I sold the loot and was disappointed that the fear wand I paid 100 to identify only fetched 81 gold - just look at the mark-up its being sold for though, even allowing for its refurbishment .
Looking for some relatively easy XP, I headed for the de'Arnise Hold. The trolls there were no danger so long as I didn't let them gang up on me, while a single yuan-ti mage has virtually no chance of casting anything at me before being shut down.
Glaicus would have been very dangerous in a straight melee contest, but he was scared from out of sight and taken to badly injured before attacking - he still got a couple of hefty blows in before losing his morale though.
The first golem in the temple got me to level 14 and the other little ones soon followed.
I rather suspected the big one would be indigestible in a single setting and that proved to be the case. However, a quick rest (to get my HPs back, while his remained diminished) and return saw it off.
At that point I took a load of junk to Athkatla to sell before returning to try and finish things off. The first 3 umber hulks were done individually, using Lilarcor to defend against confusion. The last couple then proved eager to get at their food, before also being taken down one at a time.
I inched towards TorGal, in order to get him to chase on his own.
In the first combat with him he was winning comfortably and I had to run. As he was faster than me, missile use would not have been easy, so I took him to the stairs and went down - I knew he would follow, so immediately went back up before he could catch my scent again.
The second time was nip and tuck, but with him at near death he hit to put me in danger as well and once more I ran for it. The third contest was similarly even, but once again I was not confident that I would get the final blow and retreated. The fourth contest he was winning more easily, but having studied the rolls in the combats to date it seemed pretty clear to me that I'd been unlucky and did have a reasonable chance of success. Looking at the clock I realized time was up for the session, but decided to take the "I've started, so I'll finish" line from Mastermind and closed in for a 5th bout. That time I thought he should have gone down, but he seemed to rest on my shoulder for a bit rather than falling (a behavior pretty common with trolls unfortunately) - and I had to run again (this time feeling quite vulnerable as I was slowed as well for a bit while he was chasing).
The 6th time I thought he should once again be due to fall over, but he still seemed reluctant to do so. However, I took advantage of a anomaly with the game engine associated with area transitions - enabling you to rest if there's nothing else on the map, even if an enemy had been in active combat and is in the process of following you from another area. That allowed me to rest in the blink of an eye between me getting upstairs and him following - and the break in combat was enough to trigger his unconscious state as he arrived and let me finish him off.
Wizard Slayer L14, 133 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 293 kills (+621 in BG1)
Coremage V the human conjurer - FINAL Update!
Traveling with:
Anomen
Sarah (dwarven fighter thief)
Alena - human evoker
Neera
Chunked: Aerie, April (berserker), Mazzy
Well attempted to do Neera's quest. Got wiped out by that massive group of enemies in the 2nd group inside the red wizard enclave - RIP Coremage V.
Think I want to try a smaller group next time, just not sure what yet.
Unnie had vowed to take on her life on the harshest conditions - only doing good and lawful acts, and only with companions of similar mindset.
The rules where set on insane, and the next part of the run proved that playing on insane in SoD is a something entirely different - compared to BG 1 and 2...
The prologue caused no problems. A protection from undead, a potion of speed and cloud giant str., meant that the undeads where soon expelled. The traps hit hard, but a “tag a long healer” meant that it didn’t spoil the run. Only at one point - when I needed a knock spell for a chest - did the wandering undead cause a stir. The undead wander erratically when they can’t see their foe - but only Unnie was protected... A slight delay but a vital warning of things to come - better AI is troublesome.
In the city only Dynaher met requirements for joining the party. Minsc dying again... sorry big guy - we will leave you with Imoens healer and see you in SoA. Talked briefly with Rasaad, but couldn't recruit him. Amongst the minor quest, the undead hunter refrained from picking up the battle tankard. Yes Unnie is really strict.
On the road again, Unnie first picked up Corwin and then rushed to pick up Rasaad.
And help a fellow undead hunter along the way.
The trap by the vampire cave dealt ludicrous damage. But Unnie survived - probably due to her level drain immunity. In the end Unnie rejoiced since her group was complete.
The warrens of the undead was mandatory for Unnie. With 6 scrolls of undead left this was not a big feat. Even the bronze sentry fell quickly - I have struggled with that one prior. But a party effort saw an easy victory. The undead and Coldheart didn’t know what hit them, and Coldheart was freed from his miserable life as an undead - you’re welcome buddy.
Back at the main map the menhir quest, the lost heirlooms and the missing refugees quest where done. Heavy focus on getting some xp; the xp curve being somewhat less steep when playing with a group. In general things went smoothly when Unnie could soak up the attacks, but some enemies where a bit to smart for that. Especially the spiders sought out the most fragile members and outright killled them - good thing Mizhena is so close by and has such low prices. A wastly improved AI the main reason for the better targeting as I see it - SCS light perhaps?
The parley by the bridge saw another map open, and more quests. More quests, more money and xp. With some risk off course....
The advancing coalition camp was moving to Troll claw woods, which is a dragon’s flight from Bridgeport and the Forrest of wyrms. Forrest of wyrms sounds like a fun place for a xp wanting party, so going there was a no brainer....
It started out well. The hill giants where webbed and slaughtered. The spiders where treated to some cloud kill spells. Unnie was protected against poison, and the spiders succumbed to it instead - oh the irony. A green dragon was daggered to death (daggered may not be a real word, but the xp and the scales where very real).
The bugbears webbed and the cultists cloud killed behind closed doors. The winning strategy was web and cloud kill - nothing more, nothing less. Ziatar stunned (thanks for the pro tip in this thread), and the neolithid did deal some damage, but not against Unnie, who was safe with a greenstone amulet charge and closing the door on the magical sword that the Neolithid summoned. Going underground is a neat ability - if only it could bring its summons.
Akanna was stunned, and killed. Her arieal servants appeared and dealt brutal blows. If only they could open a door.... but they can’t and Unnie will live another day.
Since I brought an archer along, it seemed obvious to take on the mercenary party in the temple: the archers eye being the main prize. I usually dodge that part and had already taken of for bridge fort - but reading the walkthrough for the whereabouts of the said archers eye suggested I’d take the trip back for a revisit...
Four webs secure a fixation of most of the party, and three cloud kills meant that most didn’t survive said tactic. The mindflayer was the only one escaping, but fell to the righteous party - Unnie being protected by the greenstone amulet and the party pelted the mindflayer into submission (well actually death to be honest)..
Bridgefort revisited was a trip of low risk. The mage threatened into given up the scroll, the wraith taken on by Unnie the undead hunter and the fort surrendered. Easy and almost risk free.
The bridge it self was another business. The usual tactic seemed viable I’d reckoned. The webbing worked well, and the cloud kill as well. Poison being a safe bet against the barrels. The mage was webbed and fell to poison. But the fight got out of hand, since the difficulty setting meant that a stream of fire elementals spawned? The spawning point being on top of my party, and the elementals had to be taken on by an archer, a low level monk and an unprotected mage in melee.. I decided that Unnie should kill the webbed assailants, and that the rest should lead the elements away from the bridge - at the cost of their lives. The stuff of legends I say.
Drawing the elementals away ensured some help from the flaming fist and the bridge was kept in safe distance from the fiery fire based assailants. The AI was for once in Unnies favor - not so much in the party’s... But all’s well that ends well as someone said. And the cost of resurrection was manageable.
The bridge was opened, a chicken lowered into a well, and the final camp was opened. A brutal trial, but the party had harder tribulations ahead of them.
Hey there, hi there, everyone! I'm just dropping by to say howdy and to wish y'all well.
As some of you know, I'll be around for a couple months or so. I'm focused on PoE this winter, but it's wonderful to see the BG challenge alive and vibrant. So many familiar faces! And even some familiar characters! I'm looking forward to catch up reading!
There were a couple of giant trolls to finish off in the de'Arnise Hold. The second of those provided a good illustration of why high APR is so devastating. It's not just about the damage you can inflict, but the slight hesitation caused to an opponent whenever they are hit (slowing down movement and causing them to miss attacks while in melee range). That meant that the troll made slow progress running at me and it was already at negative HPs by the time it reached me, without me having moved at all while shooting.
Outside I reported to Nalia, but told her to look after her own Keep.
Back in Athkatla I returned to the Bridge District to complete the skinner quest. I wasn't up to facing all the enemies at once, but nipping down and upstairs quickly pulled the ghasts up before the first Rune Assassin turned invisible. The Assassin was next and this encounter illustrated the possibility of getting a backstabber to waste their attacks. An attacker actually becomes visible as a result of attacking fractionally before the attack is made. Therefore, if you can be moving out of range at exactly the right moment, they will become visible without ever managing to attack. Of course, predicting/achieving exactly the right moment is a chancy business in any encounter and even more so against hasted enemies. However, I successfully did that here and duly finished off the Assassin pretty easily.
The bone golem was next, chasing upstairs before the second Assassin went invisible. After it was shot down the Assassin was the final opponent. It did get its backstab in, but only for 27 damage and I still had something in hand when he fell.
Continuing work in the Bridge District, Dracandros' friends were drawn out one by one before the mage was shut down and shot up to get me to level 15.
I took a second pip in long swords there - forgetting about scimitars for now. A visit to the Temple District started the Unseeing Eye, Sir Sarles and Fallen Paladins quests. The latter waddled around the Bridge District in their plate armor glancing at each other and wondering who was going to be the next to be picked off by the elusive archer in front of them.
With reputation up to 17 and spell save now down to 1 (meaning flesh to stone was no threat without my having to pay for any protection), I decided it was time to visit Trademeet. The first genie there was cut down comfortably, though its efreeti bottle was no use to me. Inside the tent, 2 hasted and stoneskinned genies working together would be a potential threat. To counter that I threw in a Bhaal horror on arrival. I was hoping that would either affect just the Khan or both of them - but it only got Faafirah. Normally I kill him first to get his XP (as he disappears if his master dies first). Rather than risk trying that in this situation though I ran out of the tent, with only the Khan following due to the horror - and he went down quickly enough.
I picked up the Shield of Harmony as a reward. In the unlikely event that anyone has studied these reports carefully, you might have noted I've not been using a shield to date. That just reflects me playing a little game (being stubborn) and deciding to wait for this shield (which also allows me to ditch Lilarcor) rather than spend money on a more basic one.
At the Grove, progress through to the Troll Mound was easy. Inside, the trolls were tackled with only minor damage until the last 2 giant trolls attacked together. I took a fair amount of damage while killing the first of those and ran away from the second - returning after a rest to finish it off.
There were a couple more little retreats to prevent a group of druids ganging up on me. They attacked me twice with call lightnings during that process, but only one of those stuck - my MR is still only 15% at the moment, so successful resistance checks are still rare, but later in the game that can be pushed over 100% and become really helpful.
Kyland Lind tried to call off the attack, but the continuing stream of arrows launched at him cut him down before he could get away.
Wizard Slayer L15, 136 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 361 kills (+621 in BG1)
@Alesia_BH Good morning and welcome back I'm currently on a break myself, mostly in just-reading mode, but I will certainly follow your new PoE attempts!
I've not made much progress with this lot in the last few days (all but the last bit of the update was done before that), but thought I should bring their record up to date.
At Boareskyr Bridge, Vichand didn't have time to buff.
Typically I would take his scroll and go more or less straight to surrender the fort. However, the Crew were looking to be rather more ambitious than that. They cleared the exterior area before entering a goblin cave - making sure the witchdoctor had no chance to cast anything there.
Inside the fort, shields made from dragon scales and rhino beetle hide provided more AC upgrades and there were a couple of minor weapon upgrades available as well. After shooting down a wraith,
Jegg also made some +3 arrows, while the Crew paid to make up some more boots of speed. I don't think I've done that before and the transition seemed to be bugged: first Carlo took two lots of mysterious 10 HPs damage and then the boots transformed themselves into boots of grounding - I've no idea what was going on there. Pressing on regardless, Junia set them up to be attacked by undead, but without appreciating how tough the Crew were and paid the price - though Vito did get level drained.
On the roof a Greater Feyr was struck down.
The Crew rested up after that, but before trying to raise the siege on the fort I thought it would be a good idea to get Vito's level drain restored. The local clerics weren't up to the job, so the Crew set off back to the Coalition Camp - sorting out some myconids on the way.
They brought the Flaming Fist back with them to help the fort and initially just offered ranged support - switching to melee to end the resistance after the mages were shot down.
Against a full party the mage on the bridge had no chance of completing anything.
Before leaving the area they dropped a dart down a well and killed the spirit that objected to that.
Arriving at the Coalition Camp I agreed to get some boots for Helvdar, some miscellaneous items for Waizahb, sold a bag full of junk to Nazramu for 234k, agreed to help Dosia with a mysterious illness, trained some recruits for Halasan, refused a commission to carry out a murder and shut down a thieves guild.
On the way to Dead Mans Pass I came across a dead magic zone. It's a while since I didn't just run away there, but I took a guess at where the enemies were - and got that reasonably correct, with just a single mercenary surviving fireballs to be shot down instead.
On arrival they started working through the area, primarily using missile weapons (mainly because their ammo case was full and inventories were getting cluttered as well). They soon came across a bearskin that looked like it would make a good pair of boots.
Further on they found a hidden cellar and quickly cleared the various shadows occupying it.
Al used a frost giant strength potion, boosted by DUHM and the Chill Axe to get to strength 25 and kick a container open there - collecting the amulet of whispers as a reward. Another feature in the area was a cave. Some spiders in that were no trouble, but a killer mimic and its friends could have been painful if more than Vito had been held.
It was hiding the Bow of the Banshee (not as good as the +2 composite bow Al already has), but also some +3 arrows that might get used at some point. I seem to remember Nuber transforming into an annoying ghost if you kill him and generously allowed him to just walk away.
A quick trip back to the Camp got some Lucky Boots made for Al. I tried to persuade Helvdar to accept some ordinary ones instead, but he was having none of it.
I'm not sure what the test is there - that dialogue normally works for me, so presumably it's not just an encounter check using reputation and charisma. While standard encounter checks are overwhelmingly used in BG1, I believe there is a rather greater variety in SoD and I would guess that Vito's low wisdom and/or intelligence proved costly.
The Crew have just arrived at Dragonspear and will see if they can get entry to the castle next time. I dislike all the little quests there, but will try and get through them to maintain this as a completionist run.
Unnie noticed that the coalition camp has been growing in size ever since she left Baldur’s gate. As a renowned hero she is expected to partake in curbing the crusade - and bringing Caelar to justice.
So the first thing you do is bringing the genie vendor in from the fugue plane - or where the heck these creatures reside. Time for some shopping. Selling from my main stock of supplies netted more than 400.000 gp, and Unnie bought all the upgrades in gear she desired - and potions and scrolls to boot.
Unnie did most of the in camp quests and took the trek to dead mans pass for the first trip outside the camp. The party faced little opposition when facing opposition from afar: webbing them and cloud kill as a first move - and then a head on result. Unnie didn’t want to change her winning formula.
Feeling confident Unnie headed for the entrance to the underground river. Caelars seal the main objective. The camp was heavily guarded, by both a cyclops and a large contingent of fighters and mages. The bread winner was going to be web and cloud kill. The formula worked well, and the first damage reports seemed in favor of an easy victory. But Unnie has forgotten to scout the area properly, and mages and fighters bypass the web cul de sac, and attacked the unprepared and unbuffed party. The ensuing fight was a mess and the result where the death of two party members - back to Mizhena.
But with the much coveted seal in the sack and a lesson learned. Web is a nice spell, but it will be increasingly less relevant. But it still had some relevance.
In the crusader camp some questing, a ring and bow was picked up. Unnie scouted the camp and almost all the quests where completed. Afterwards the other maps where completed. The underground river supplying the best quests, loot and xp.
In Kanalgym, web and cloud kill proved valuable for the last time. The necromantic cabal where webbed and Cloud kill. The main mage was immune to the noxious clouds, but not to a arrow of dispelling and arrows of biting - weird but nice. A lich was drawn from the planes and killed. A nice robe and a robe of regeneration a nice upgrade/addendum to my gear.
A drow party where angered when Unnie showed her big heart and let the young lovers elope. Unnie faced the consequences and got a nice cloak with neat resistances as a reward. Having cleared most maps and quest, it was time for the main quest.
The stone dowser was placed and Unnie went to face Hephernan. Protected from magic, Unnie revealed herself, and got Hephernans attention. The ensuing fight saw (another) the death of Corwin. But Unnie prevailed in the end. Unnie & Co escaped invisible - baiting out the true sight spells from the mages by advancing slowly and retreating fast when the foes started casting. The basement was filled with foes, and a fight would not have ended well - especially without Corwins bow.
When Unnie finally escaped the castle, she felt that the final fights where going to end her. The opposition being to powerful and massive.
Back at the camp Unnie had to appear at the parley and then prepare for a difficult fight.
The fight is in 4 waves if you count in the final attack.
I had noticed along the way, that the enemies hit often and hard, we hitting not so hard and less often. But my elemental damage seemed to be on par with the enemy’s ditto. So Unnie tried that strategy. I have no proof of my theory. But Corwin seemed to decimate all 4 waves with 3 arrows of detonation each. Fire protection was put on Unnie, only afterwards realising that she had only buffed up til 50% resistance... the Durlags goblet took care of that problem.
The attack on Dragonspear was next up. Unnie just waited for her time, and only faced Ashatiel along the way. Buffing with a protection from magic scroll ensured an easy victory, and the route to Avernus was open.
In Avernus the demons where bested, and Thrixs riddle answered - a nifty (and necessary) long sword the prize. Time to buff..
8 scrolls of protection from acid, fire, acid, cold, 12 potions of mind focusing and invulnerability , 12 scrolls of champions strength, 3 potions of cloud giant strength, 19 potions of heroism later and Unnies party was ready for Big B.
Inventory
Stats
My plan was to let Corwin, Unnie and Caelar deal damage. Rasaad was doing scrolls of resurrection and I actually had no plan for Dynaheir.
Thing started out well. Dynaheir got some spells off and casted fireshield blue from scrolls. Big B was injured before Unnie took a dent.
Trying to safe Caelar means that I with drew her from the fight, and let Rasaad heal her. The move meant that progress halted. Trying to shift pace, Unnie went all in.
The gamble worked, but at the cost of two npc’s. I have lost count of how many times they have been brought back from the afterlife. But Unnie survived in the end, and even Caelar whom I usually leave on the floor.
I bring Unnie into SoA with 500.000 xp and a memorised sanctuary spell (for the pesky memphits). SoD was a hard trial, but I did learn along the way - and the party experience was a nice change. Keeping the npc’s alive will require some practice though.
Michio and his SoA crew set to work in chapters 2 and 3 over a couple of days (part 12345678910 1112 13)
Michio decides to see how his gang can deal with trouble. While Tarnor the Hatchetman seems like a suitable test we decide to see if they can be faced without the attention of Gaius. Once he is down the rest of the gang crumble before us.
Returning the portal gem to Raelis Shai sees her use it to open a portal. Who'd have guessed. After clearing a few creatures we are joined by a group of bounty hunters. They disappear with Raelis and her troupe, including Haer'Dalis.
We sense an opportunity to look for loot in the Planar Prison. Naturally there will be riches and rewards so off we go. It doesn't take us too long to clear the place but we only check one cell (the gith) before defeating the Warden and rescuing Haer'Dalis.
Rather than carry an illithium alloy around all day we palm it off to the Temple of Helm. They suggest we aid their counterparts at the temple of Lathander. Michio is doubtful of this and a check under invisibility confirms they are unlikely to be very welcoming. Their loss, as we move on.
Having dropped off Renfeld much earlier we choose to complete Xzar's rescue of Montaron. Xzar is assassinated in front of our eyes so it seems only fair to kill off the attacker. She doesn't get away today.
Our open quests look a bit light so we head down to the waterfront and try to help Mook but fail to keep her alive, or to kill her attacker.
We think to return a stuffed teddy bear to the spirit of a child called Wellyn. This has a minor side-effect of revisiting the Southern Tunnels and helping Edwin obtain the Nether scroll.
Edwin's quest looks to have progressed, but now Jan has his quest activated. He stays at home while the rest of us do his dirty work. It doesn't take long.
Well, that's all done. How about we head down into the sewers under the Slums and see what we can find. As we sent about this seemingly simple task Edwin's Nether scroll investigations take an entirely expected turn. Michio is compassionate, and in no way picks the most insulting comment he can come up with.
The rest of the slavers are defeated then we return to the Copper Coronet for our reward and a rest. Then we pick up the main plot again and find ourselves in the vampire nest. Lassal looks like he is going to be twice the usual amount of trouble to us (bug), but neither of him can stop us.
None of the vampire minions have stopped our progress so Bodhi turns up. She is made of sterner stuff but so are we and she soon retreats.
We'd like to think that's the last we'll see of vampires but Sansuki rounds a few more up for us. Thanks.
Since our skills against undead beings has been proven so far we set about removing liches from the city. Korgan clears the Crooked Crane and Temple sewers of two, but a third in the Bridge district panics him so we step in to even the odds by 6-1.
We had planned on only using five scrolls of protection from undead to leave Korgan in an enraged state but the struggle against the last lich sees our confidence against Kangaxx fade. Six scrolls it is then, and a clean if anti-climatic victory.
We've cleared much of the city, so now it's time to see what Nalia wanted us to deal with at the De'Arnise Hold. Trolls mainly. With Korgan fronting our party we find this to be a very easy matter to deal with.
Trademeet and the Druid grove are next. Spiders and Trolls can often be troublesome but with four casters we have a suitable array of spells to play with, and one of them trivialises much of the area.
We've picked up a fair amount of loot so decide to sell it. Michio doesn't think too much about this until Jan speaks. Oh yeah, these gnome illusionists can complicate matters - no trade today just a fight that we're not prepared for and have to step outside to prevent cloudkill damage mounting.
Haer'Dalis gets confused fighting myconids but the rest of us finish that combat and wait for him to come to his senses. Then we tell Cernd to eat on his own, although we will be nearby. That completes the druid grove activity so we return to Trademeet for a reward. There are a couple more things to do so we choose to return an item of interest to the mayor, and conclude the skinner murder investigation by killing a pair of skindancers.
Umar Hills next and some temple ruins. There are no liches there so the undead are easily handled. Apart from Jan perishing un-noticed when trapped by shadows. Viconia raises him with Michio crossing his fingers while promising to take better care of the party. It might happen. It might not. Jan pretends not to be bothered and plays with Malison instead.
There's a Shadow Dragon. Jan lays three snares while Korgan enrages and Haer'Dalis offhands the Improved Mace of Disruption. We're still fairly inexperienced to be tackling such a foe but Haer'Dalis does a reasonable job and Korgan is outstanding - he remains in melee throughout and only gulps a couple of healing potions while we dismantle the draconic defences.
A brief inspection of our buffs and health convinces us to step outside and face the Shade Lord without resting. Viconia drops a Sunstone bullet onto the Shade Altar while everyone else attacks the Shade Lord. Haer'Dalis' offhand mace hit ends the combat before he can try a Daystar Sunray.
Edwin's Nether scroll situation continues. Luckily Degardan either believes our tall tales or opts to find a more opportune moment to confront us.
With all the Umar Hills quests completed we recruit Valygar briefly at the expense of our illusionist/thief. After opening the Planar Sphere we drop him off and make the short walk to the Jansen home. Jan is waiting for us and rejoins.
We visit Cromwell at the Docks and forge shadow dragon armour for Viconia. Deciding to visit the local tavern turns out to be a mistake, for Degardan. We see the signs of teleportation and anticipate who is coming and why, so buff as he arrives. His Cone of Cold looks to be not much of a problem to us so he's in trouble even if he has badly wounded Baron Ployer and other more innocent bystanders.
Oh. The Cone of Cold reaches the rest of us and Jan reacts badly to it - we should have anticipated that or at least stepped back as a precaution. After finishing off Degrodel we are thankful Viconia has a Raise Dead memorised to get Jan breathing again.
ToB begins, and as a worrying sign, I'm no longer going to keep even a tentative death counter anymore: I'm pretty sure that any estimation I make is just flat out wrong now.
I heavily underestimated Illasera, and tried to not use my mage HLAs at the beginning of the fight. Illesara gets a Fallen Planetar off, and I have Imoen try to go for a PfMW -> Maze combo. It's blocked by Magic Resistance. In the meantime, both Mazzy and Moira die to Illasera in melee, if I'm not mistaken: it wasn't the Fallen Planetar. We've cleared basically all of Illesara's minions, but that Fallen Planetar is a problem: two Firestorms are covering the map, and our boots of speed were on Mazzy and Moira, and Jehu can't outrun the Fallen Planetar, and doesn't have the base saves to survive a Dispel -> Vorpal hit. I think there's also a couple Efreetis or Djinnis keeping Imoen and Anomen busy.
Jehu flees to the northwest while Nalia summons a Planetar, which loses the Vorpal chicken fight. He tries to cast Favored of the Spirits, but gets a very distressing message that Illesara is attacking him, and the Fallen Planetar is invisible. He breaks off instantly, and begins running back to the south, taking off his ring of free action while Imoen summons her own Planetar. He drinks an oil of speed, and manages to get close enough to be thrown a pair of boots of cheetah speed. Fortunately, Imoen's Planetar wins this particular game of chicken, though I guess Anomen was hit by PW:Stun.
The Planetar Raises Mazzy who Lays on Hands herself instantly, though Anomen dies to Illasera while stunned. The Planetar finishes off Illasera before Raising everyone else. Honestly, Planetars are wayyyyy out of line for HLAs, especially compared to, say, Devas or... literally any Cleric or Druid HLAs. Why do the epic-level Clerics get worse angels than mages, anyways? Why do the mages get the angel that casts Raise Dead?
Time for the vengeance trial. Jehu covers the area with greater summons from his Shamanic dance, and no resources outside healing potions were used before Irenicus, Bodhi and Sarevok: the Drow Clerics consistently spammed Unholy Blight and continually got chip damage on Mazzy and Anomen.
My last run ended here after another Fallen Planetar from Irenicus absolutely wrecked us in that tiny trial room. However, he has a flaw: he's a non-undead, non-demon spellcaster, which means that normal weapons can hit him. This normally isn't enough to stop him, but Moira's a Wizard slayer, and aptly named this time: a GWW shuts Jon up, and Moira closes in for the kill. Mazzy has the iMoD for Bodhi despite the Cloud of Bats, and Sarevok is a melee fighter with no ranged option, so is easily kited to death.
We do a bit of questing and busywork in Saradush: most importantly, we get Imprisonment for both Nalia and Imoen. I'm 100% fed up with Fallen Planetars, and will PFMW -> Imprison them on sight now. We also buy every Boots of Cheetah Speed we can get our hands on, and everyone except Jehu has them normally equipped now. Jehu still has the Ring of Free Action, just in case of rogue Slow spells or Holding spell or the like.
There's a slight mishap in Gromnir's castle as we pull a battle mage and don't disable him in time. Getting through Absolute Immunity as well as standard spell defenses is a huge hassle, but no one dies in the four-round period and we press onwards and upwards. For Gromnir himself, we start with our full assortment of buffs listed before, and this time spare no HLAs. Nalia get a Planetar off the ground, Moira's GWWing their mages, Imoen clears some of the Efreetis and Djinni they're starting to carry in sequencers with a Death Spell, Anomen is trying to clear the thieves and archers on the right side, and Mazzy is fighting Gromnir by herself. I think Jehu was either summoning or detecting illusions, maybe he cast an Insect Plague? Mazzy wins against Gromnir, probably with the help of some healing potions, and it seems our only casualty was our mages' Stoneskins.
Outside Saradush, after saving a merchant, we head to Nyalee's grove immediately. The Master Wraith ambush is fairly inconsequential: improved Mace of Disruption and a very high level Cleric turning undead isn't easy for them to bypass. Even then, someone gets level drained and we rest to clear the level drain, and again for the exhaustion. The skeleton mage inside the compound sadly gets HLAs, and so immediately casts a Fallen Planetar. Kill me. We summon our own, and after the entire field is filled with Firestorms or other damaging spells, our Planetar kills the other. Really. Why do those things have fighter-like stats with a vorpal sword and immunity to lower-enchanted weapons, the capability to cast 9th level mage spells (Fire Storm), 7th level Cleric spells (Holy/Unholy Word), 5th level Druid spells (Insect Plague) and 3 instantaneous Heals? It's to the point where the only reason I fear mages now is because they can summon these abominations. At least they're worth SOME experience, though frankly they're worth more than 20k. Moira gets a replenishment of Fire Seeds and is using the Berserk Warrior to take out the Skeleton Mage, by the way.
Onto the Fire Temple! I'm fairly sure Mazzy dies at least once trying to tank the Fire Giants and the Chinchilla group, but I have no screenshot evidence to prove this. In the temple itself, we use Invisibility to sequester ourselves in a corner, and Jehu dances for Elementals to tank for the Fire Giants. Unfortunately, it seems the Fire Giant's AIs are a bit smarter than I expected, and would always target a party member when they could. This led to a ton of potion drinking and repositioning and kiting, but we finally get in without a death.
There's no Fire Lich in play, so we make short work of all the other challenges in the first area. There's a ton of kiting since every punch hurts, but whatever. Second floor, Jehu shows the strength of a Shaman by providing an endless supply of summons to clog up a chokepoint, and lets our stronger ranged fighters plink away safely.
But then Berenn shows up, and reveals that he has Mage and Cleric HLAs. He gets a Storm of Vengeance on our casters, and *sigh* a Fallen Planetar on our summons. Nalia counters with PfMW -> Imprison. I. Hate. This. Also, apparently, a Chaos was used that affected Imoen.
Eventually he dies not even to a greater elemental spirit, but a lowly Bear.
Note to solo-reloaders: there's a Maze trap in the area somewhere. Probably you all know this already, but I'd hate to see a run get that far to die to a silly no-save trap like that.
Imoen while invisibly scouting the final bit of the temple runs into Imix, who can see her. She gets Feared by Keening from a Burning Man, I think, and the rest of us hurry to her. Mazzy is thrown the Wave from a bag of holding, and a few hits later, Imix is no more.
Back at Nyalee's place, we buff ourselves and get summons when she's upset at her own betrayal. Go figure. Nothing here's really an issue, and I don't recall a dangerous moment here. Yaga Shura himself isn't powerful enough to withstand a concentrated assault, and a Planetar finishes him off. If you can't frigging beat them, join them I guess.
Second Pocket Plane challenge time! I usually remember this as an easy time, but then again I normally don't even get this far with SCS. Semaj falls fairly quickly in the initial barrage, but guess what? He casts a Fallen Planetar again in a very cramped room. Yay!
It takes a lot of kiting to get it into the proper position of being Imprisoned by Nalia. In the meantime, both the eastern and southwest areas are burning with two more Firestorms. The mirror Jehu is untankable with his Dispel-on-hit weapon and what looks like either Haste or Improved Haste, and multiple of us nearly die trying to kite it while the others shoot my clone down. Jehu manages to kill his own doppelganger.
We get to Amkethran, and just sell all of our loot and finishing the basic fetch quests before leaving. I'm not dealing with a demilich for that reward, thank you very much.
We take this time to head to Watcher's Keep: I tend to keep it until ToB to not trivialize SoA with the equipment outside of the Potion case and the Firetooth crossbow. Everything is running fairly smoothly until the last of the statue fights. I wasn't prepared for the SCS version of this at all: Anomen is caught out by some contingency or sequencer with a Symbol: Stun and Sphere of Chaos in it. He of course dies for it. Everyone else is scattered around the floor somewhere: Nalia is in the old priest's quarters trying to cast a Planetar (not sure if she completes the spell), Jehu is trying to kite a different warrior in the fireplace room, Imoen's firing a weapon in between casting spells somewhere near him, Mazzy is... attacking a Fireshield for no good reason, and Moira is in the south fighting like 3 statues and losing. It takes a long while of kiting and a bunch of potions and summons and spells, but eventually we clear everyone out with no further deaths.
2nd floor of Watcher's Keep is simple in comparison. There's no true threat here that I know of, and the Chromatic Demon makes the mistake of going into an Ice form. Anomen's been memorizing two Flame Strikes for such a long time that he's never cast (I'm really bad at remembering to use my single-target spells), and well... ice melts. Also, the first screenshot demonstrates what keep happening to my characters:
they randomly get stuck within other character models, though this was a teleport. I generally solve these by CTRL-Jing them slightly out of the model before fleeing or fighting.
I take a look at my Weidu for a second, see a randomized maze on the 3rd level, take a look at the potential loot of levels 3-5, and decide it's almost certainly not worth the danger. Back to the main quest. We make a quick stop back at Amkethran to sell some things and buy Protection from Electricity and Acid mage scrolls for Imoen: it's time to hunt some Dragons. Imoen and Nalia do a quick rearrangement of spells to get 6 Pro. Acid spells memorized, and add them to our standard buff routine for Draconis. A well-timed Death Spell gets four Invisible Stalkers before they can do anything.
I didn't realize that Draconis' death aura upon switching forms kills Celestials too: one of our Planetars are killed by that, but we can just summon a second one. It doesn't matter though: even in Dragon form, Draconis isn't buffing with Absolute Immunity, just PfMW, so two GWWs from Mazzy and Moira with regular weapons is a straight kill with only some melee damage to speak of. And Planetars, of course, can cast Heal 3 times because of course they can.
Going further in, we run into issues with the Lizardfolk Shamans. They start the fight with two Nature's Beauty, though somehow only Mazzy and Jehu are blinded by them. Jehu counters with his own Nature's Beauty, and blinds most of the melee fighters. It takes a bit more work and everything is a lot more scrappy, but we have no deaths here. The dragon that guards the breath potion in SCS is also no threat, and the amulet of immunity to Wing Buffet goes to Moira. And then we have to get the rope from Amkethra.
I completely forgot about the next ambush there, and we're unrested and unprepared and unbuffed against the party of 6 demons that jump you on the return trip. Imoen is shredded very quickly by Fireballs, and despite drinking a potion, falls I think for the first time (and by no means the last).
The demons are cleared by our Warriors, and a quick raise and a rest means we get to Amkethra and back for the 4 consecutive Dragon fights. I don't remember the order of the dragons, and I think I buffed for Fire initially instead of Poison. If that were a failed save on my main character, that would've been fatal.
We cut through the first three fairly easily, though Mazzy is taken down by the 3rd one I think. Carnifex takes down Anomen with another Breath Weapon: his Pro. Fire must've been dispelled at some point without me noticing. Summons give Moira enough breathing room to take down another dragon.
Two challenges left: the Tyrant Golems, and Abazigal himself. I do a quick juggling of save items: I think Mazzy and Moira are permanently safe, and Anomen is safe as long as he has a Potion of Invulnerability up. For the heck of it, we summon a Planetar near the end of the fight, and it... vorpalizes a gigantic floating head. Not going to lie, I was holding my breath the entire time since I'm very, very unused to fighting Beholders without summons or invisible bombardments.
After sending some children to kill some kobolds for us, we rest and buff for Abazigal. This time, we have 6 Pro. Electricities instead of Acid, and it says something that I don't remember the fight, and the screenshot of the aftermath is showing that we lost like 80 health total among our three melee fighters, and I'm pretty sure some of that is from the multiple Frost Salamander Fireshield:Blue auras or something. The rest looks like it came from two autoattacks. After a few revelations, Abazigal falls for good.
Jehu is given the boots of speed to run around for a bit while the Slayer fruitlessly chases after him while being pierced by a thousand missiles.
And then because I'm stupid, I decide to head towards Sendai's enclave without resting, thinking that the Drow outside are easy enough to clear with an army of summons. This goes about as well as you could expect. We clear the first group of Drow and Beholders in the southwest easily enough, and go to the tombstones to successfully clear the second group, and I SHOULD have rested here, but noooooooo I have to keep going for no good reason. We don't have the resources to easily clear spellcasters anymore, or enough True Seeings to deal with their Fighter/Assassin warriors with septuple backstabs, and no Stoneskins on my mages anymore. Anomen dies first to a Prismatic Spray that fortunately doesn't petrify him.
On top of that, there are two Spheres of Chaos randomly on the first. Imoen is invisible and completely separated from the rest of my team by one of the spheres. Jehu casts a Mass Raise Dead to get everyone up and healed, only for Nalia to fall over to a single backstab. Fortunately, there was no chunking involved again.
Anomen casts his own Mass Raise Dead at the end of the fight and says something I agree with fully. We take a well-earned rest, and prepare for Sendai's area. The fights I'm most worried about are Sendai of course, and the Lich fight because he again casts a bloody Fallen Planetar and I have no way outside of Fireseeds to stop that. We'll see if I can get them active in time, else Nalia is again Imprisoning a Planetar.
Stats: Jehu, Human Shaman 22. 105 HP (5 from helm). 99 kills. HLAs: Spirit Form, Favored of the Spirits, Mass Raise Dead, Elemental Summoning, Implosion.
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, Protection from Fire, 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, Heal, Spiritual Lock
Level 7: Conjure Earth Elemental, Ether Gate, Impervious Sanctity of Mind, Nature's Beauty, Shield of the Archons
Mazzy, Halfling Fighter 26. 134 HP. 486 kills. 5* in Maces, 1* in Axes, 4* in Crossbow, 2* in Two-weapon style. HLAs: Power Attack, Critical Strike, Smite, Hardiness, WW, GWW x2
Moira, Dwarven Wizard Slayer 26. 163 HP. 545 kills. 5* in Longbow, 5* in Warhammer, 2* in Two-weapon style. HLAs: Power Attack, Critical Strike, Smite, Hardiness, WW, GWW x2
Anomen, Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric 28. 119 HP. 360 kills. 5* in Sling, 5* in Flails/Morningstars, 3* in Two-Weapon style. HLAs: Summon Deva, Implosion, Energy Blades, Mass Raise Dead, Aura of Flaming Death, Storm of Vengeance.
Imoen, Human Thief 7 -> Mage 21. 83 HP (10 from Crown of Netheril). 62 kills. HLAs: Summon Planetar, Improved Alacrity, Comet, Dragon's Breath.
Nalia, Human Thief 4 -> Mage 21. 77 HP (7 from Ioun stone). 145 kills. HLAs: Summon Planetar, Improved Alacrity, Dragon's Breath, extra 6th level spell
Permanently lost: Aerie, Jaheira, Yoshimo.
Comments on late-game Shaman: I'm playing Jehu himself really, really safely despite the danger I constantly put the rest of my party it and so I've probably not given him a chance to shine offensively. Shaman HLAs are not very impressive, and I think the Fire Giant temple was one of the last times infinite bulky summons come in handy. I'm almost always dumping all his 4th and 5th level spells in defensive spells, and my only offensive 6th and 7th level options are in the form of summons, Fire Seeds, and Nature's Beauty, which is good, but not amazing at this point. For a more aggressive non-PC Shaman, I'd recommend Harm for Heal or Fire Seeds, and Fire Storm or Creeping Doom instead of Conjure Earth Elemental or Shield of the Archons.
Note to solo-reloaders: there's a Maze trap in the area somewhere. Probably you all know this already, but I'd hate to see a run get that far to die to a silly no-save trap like that.
And don't forget to carry around a PfM scroll to dispel the maze effect in case you do get caught somewhere.
I cleared the remainder of the Grove without trouble. That included picking up Belm to use as my standard main-hand weapon for the time being and scaring a pair of myconid breeders.
I used to like watching those toddle around in the grip of horror, but in the current version of the EE they seem to just fix in place. The final group were scared - although that doesn't prevent attacks it does slow them down (as well as giving you a good chance of casters failing to complete spells) and that made it easier to stun all 3 opponents with darts - I then watched Cernd gnaw his way through Faldorn.
Returning to a hero's welcome at Trademeet gained me another level.
I then helped Tiris out, before clearing the local haunted tomb (every town should have one).
That pushed my reputation up to 20 and I invested in a first summons there (Ras) as well as Tansheron's bow (for hitting things like Iron Golems). At that point I realized I'd left the rakshasas in the Grove alone out of habit. However, I couldn't use any of their potions anyway, so went back to deal with them. Their cloudkill and death fog spells were forced rather than standard spells (so spell failure didn't stop them). However, nipping in and out meant they were still no trouble.
Back in Athkatla I bought a few more things - including Azuredge. I didn't bother about getting the Sword of Roses or Helm of Glory to further reduce prices, as I could already afford almost everything I would want to buy. Azuredge was put to work at Watcher's Keep and did a good job on the vampiric wraiths there (at a cost of 500 to pay for restoration).
None of the remaining enemies on the top floor were really a threat and I was able to loot most things there - my strength wasn't quite enough to get the Crimson Dart, but that's not much of a loss with Azuredge and Tansheron's Bow available.
A bit of running and shooting could deal easily with all the statues except the archer and I got Usuno's Blade (as well as a level) doing that.
By this stage though I concluded I had no need of it and immediately sold it. I thought even the archer would probably be second best in a ranged contest to finish off the statues - and I did indeed win that with a little bit in hand despite starting off wounded.
Wizard Slayer L17, 142 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 411 kills (+621 in BG1)
Continuing work in the Bridge District, Dracandros' friends were drawn out one by one before the mage was shut down and shot up to get me to level 15.[/i]
while the Crew paid to make up some more boots of speed. I don't think I've done that before and the transition seemed to be bugged: first Carlo took two lots of mysterious 10 HPs damage and then the boots transformed themselves into boots of grounding - I've no idea what was going on there.
Roach Handymonk turns the boots and a half of speed into a pair of boots called either "boots of speed" or "paws of the cheetah". Only the latter are actual boots of speed, while the former are faulty boots that cause the wearer to run around for a bit and take some damage. I wasn't aware that they could become boots of grounding. Usually when I see they're "boots of speed", I just sell them right away.
@StummvonBordwehr, congrats for making it past Belhifet!
- Was Corwin wearing mundane hide armor in your endgame, or is that a suit of armor I've overlooked thus far?
- You said you had Caelar retreat to receive healing from Rasaad. In case you weren't aware, note that Greater Restoration can be cast from afar, so next time you can just keep Caelar fighting (just don't wait too long with reading the GR scrolls).
@Alesia_BH, always great to see you back, as other have said. It was only yesterday that I saw you'd commented on my Transmuter Naivasha (who's currently still on hold). I still have some unreported progress with her, so maybe I'll post an update on her and then get her going again.
Promise has escaped from chateau Irenicus. Low quality equipment and enemies' -11 bonus to AC, massive HP pools, -5 to Thac0 and an extra attack meant that Promise and any companions would stand no chance in fair fights with the dungeon's inhabitants. Promise and party nevertheless managed to cover much of the dungeon's content. It did involve leveling up Imoen, Jaheira, and Minsc (thank you SoD) and allowing Imoen and Jaheira to memorize spells through EEKeeper before actually starting the action. I wanted to use EEKeeper anyway to slightly tweak NPCs (Imoen level 9 Thief -> Mage; Jaheira some weapon profs changed).
Jaheira's Pixie Dust (memorized twice) allowed the party to navigate the dungeon invisibly, with Imoen revealing herself to open locks / pick up items from containers etc and relying on stealth to disappear again. Minsc did the same to activate the janitor golem (running away from a mephit and locking the door).
Jaheira's fire elemental dealt with two lesser clay golems, some duergar, and an otyugh before a duergar mage dispatched it with a Chromatic Orb.
Jaheira, still in the safe central room, summoned some boring beetles to lure several duergar to a corner of the library, ensuring the corridor remained free.
Imoen reached the djinni in the plane of air using stealth. It was given its flask before the party moved the portal adjacent to the starting room. They met Yoshimo and welcomed him into their ranks. Jaheira cast Pixie Dust on everyone and they returned to Ilych's room. Fortunately it was relatively quiet because most of the duergar had been drawn toward the library by the fire elemental and the beetles. Yoshimo managed to Hold both Ilych and a second duergar with his third and last thrown trap, so that the party could kill them off with ease.
The companions then needed a rest, which I assumed would be peaceful (SCS allows for one undisturbed rest), but apparently 16 hours was a bit much to ask:
The party did have their health fully restored and their spells memorized, so things could have been worse. Still, the duergar mage was awfully quick to show up. He more then undid the party's HP recovery with a Lance of Disruption that hit right after Jaheira had finished her casting of Pixie Dust.
Had difficulty-based damage increases been activated, this might have caused to Imoen to flee (not sure what amount of HPs she needs to stay with the party).
Anyway the party healed up with potions, went through the portal again, summoned beetles and a fire elemental, did some minor prebuffing (II, MI, DUHM, AoF, Barkskin, Haste) and attacked the mephit portals. They were actually dealt with quite easily, I don't know about their AC, but it was almost as if they had no LoB AC bonus? Or maybe their normal AC is just really bad.This is Promise (22 STR thanks to DUHM, Helm of Balduran, Grave Binder +2) dispatching one of the portals with a hit roll of 8:
The fire elemental helped a lot too. It also dealt with the clone in the neighboring room and some assassins, mephits, and duergar that stood between the party and the throne room. Thrown traps, beetles, Chaos, and Doom -> Blindness helped the party defeat the more dangerous assassins close to the exit. More summons, Spike Growth, and Web saw the pary defeat Frennedan.
And Stoneskinned Imoen hasted herself, looted the forge room, and saved against a Dire Charm and a Blindness as she ran off. The party made it to the exit with the duergar in hot pursuit.
Imoen has been taken by the cowled ones, and Promise has taken a pause to think about quest order and the best party for this challenge. Most people seem to play this mode with custom parties, but I want NPCS. Any suggestions for a SCS/LoB party are welcome...
Imoen has been taken by the cowled ones, and Promise has taken a pause to think about quest order and the best party for this challenge. Most people seem to play this mode with custom parties, but I want NPCS. Any suggestions for a SCS/LoB party are welcome...
Impressive, I only tackle LoB with solo (relying on summons and/or stealth to avoid fights) or custom parties.
Depending on playstyle, I'd recommand:
- either vast use of summons (a bit boring though), Cernd and his Fire Elementals would be a good asset ;
- debilitating/crowd control spells (slow, hold, webs, etc.), sadly there are no specialist NPC mage who could specialize in such CC spells (enchantment mainly, but also alteration for Slow or Polymorph Other). Still, Aerie or Edwin could cover this area (especially Aerie at high level with sequencers filled with Malisons, Doom, and CC spells)
- the easiest LoB run I had was focusing on high ranged DPR, but it was with a custom party specially created with this in mind. DPR was so high that it felt like normal non-LoB gameplay. Not needing repositioning between each felled enemy was also very important for better damage output and field control.
With a mix of the above in mind, I'd say: Cernd, Aerie, Mazzy (ranged), Keldorn or Anomen to tank (Korgan would be better but doesn't fit RP-wise). Last spot would probably be DPS, Valygar (good scout too) or Rasaad (although I hate that NPC and it would take a long time to make him good) maybe?
EDIT: there's no thief in the party composition I suggested, maybe Nalia->Imoen as a last spot ? But that's a bit arcane-heavy, not much melee DPS.
while the Crew paid to make up some more boots of speed. I don't think I've done that before and the transition seemed to be bugged: first Carlo took two lots of mysterious 10 HPs damage and then the boots transformed themselves into boots of grounding - I've no idea what was going on there.
Roach Handymonk turns the boots and a half of speed into a pair of boots called either "boots of speed" or "paws of the cheetah". Only the latter are actual boots of speed, while the former are faulty boots that cause the wearer to run around for a bit and take some damage. I wasn't aware that they could become boots of grounding. Usually when I see they're "boots of speed", I just sell them right away.
Thanks @Blackraven - I hadn't considered the possibility that the transformation might not always succeed.
Michio gets a bit way too confident about his party ability and everything falls apart (part 12345678910 111213 14)
Michio thinks he has cantered through SoA and almost pays the price at the start of this session. The Planar Sphere should hold no horrors for a careful party. Say like one where Korgan enrages before attacking halflings with spellcasters. Forgetting to enrage sees him stunned and only a timely counterspell from Viconia saves his bacon. He recovers in time to gulp a couple of potions and carry the fight while Haer'Dalis is Mazed. Not our finest hour, but worse is to come.
Necre and Taibela, nor golems, can prevent us from reaching and mortally wounding Lavok. He pleads to see daylight one more time and we agree on the basis that there must be a reward involved somewhere.
All we have to do is grab a demon heart, deal with Tolgerias, cope with hot and cold rooms, bash some golems apart and feed the heart into a many-mouthed machine. Simple.
We leave the Planar Sphere and only remember much later that Michio might want to take ownership of it. We'll get back to that, maybe. In the meantime a review of our map suggests we should head to Windspear Hills. Don't forget the acorns.
Edwin groans aloud, not more ruins filled with fodder. We could battle our way through easily or alternately our Conjurer could impatiently force his way through with injudicious use of Death spells.
It is only a minute or two before his Death spells for the day are all used up. Korgan enrages to greet some vampires and Haer'Dalis uses Mirror Image and a Daystar Sunray to thin them out.
Samia and her tomb looters are given chance to talk their way out of trouble - like the three snares they are standing on. They decline our kind offer so we kill them.
After dealing with some wolfweres and Tazok we meet Firkraag and he tells us to go back upstairs and speak with Conster. That doesn't end well for him.
We should walk away but instead we go back to confront Firkraag for the final time. Haer'Dalis panics but Korgan remains in place and we overload debuffs onto the huge red dragon before starting our offensive spells. Korgan has done all the hard work so it is only fitting that Edwin steals the kill. We then wait for Haer'Dalis to stop running around for the next minute or so.
That all sounded reasonable thought Michio. How about a staff of the magi. Yes it's risky with circa 1.7m xp each but look at the reward.
You know it's bad when Korgan blanches. Oh, go on goads Michio. What can possibly go wrong, apart from we all die.
It starts reasonably well, if you think Shangalar the lich surviving our initial attack, Revanak coming in for some melee and Vaxall the beholder looming into view sounds good. Note Korgan is using a +3 weapon against Shangalar - nobody in the party spotted that.
It's not long before Jan dies. Korgan realises for the second time today that he forgot to enrage. He gives it a go but stops to move. Meanwhile Haer'Dalis has been de-buffed by Vaxall and has turned to panic and run. Viconia has retreated from Vaxall but has Revanak injuring her. Nothing to see here...
We take a full Wilt, Korgan getting the brunt of it and gulping a potion. He's still not had chance to enrage, and still not realised his +3 weapon isn't up to the lich.
Vaxall floors Haer'Dalis with a Death Ray, but fails to kill off Korgan. We're down to four now and it seems best for our dead to remain that way instead of trying to rod them alive mid-combat.
Viconia, Michio and Edwin manage to peg Revanek as Korgan finally realises his weapon error and switches from Shangalar to Vaxall. He has enraged too so is feeling confident. Michio is feeling much less confident as nobody is between himself and Shangalar - Viconia is the far side of him closer to Korgan, and then she panics.
Layene has come into play, having spotted Korgan. She adds a Firestorm so we add a Cloudkill and Korgan outlasts Vaxall. A summoned efreeti has fireballed us so Edwin zaps it with a Death spell. That fails but Michio's cloudkill doses up some poison to do the job and down goes the efreeti.
Michio and Edwin are trapped by Cloudkill so are squirming near Shangalar. Korgan looks back at them, and then at Viconia who is being chased by Shyressa the vampire and a pit fiend. He goes to help Viconia, figuring the mages can look after themselves. Maybe.
As soon as Shyressa is dead, Viconia recovers and runs away. Korgan races back to Shangalar, picking up Daystar on the way. A couple of hits and the lich is finally removed from combat. If only Korgan had thought of this much much earlier.
Viconia gulps extra healing potions as she cannot completely outdistance the pit fiend. Meanwhile Korgan is proving his worth by disposing of Layene and then the pit fiend. Viconia uses raise dead > wondrous recall > raise dead and we get out of there in six pieces. Somehow.
Michio proudly waves his new staff. See, that was easy.
Nobody is looking at him. He's invisible, the fool.
I spent the first couple of minutes of a pretty solid, if unspectacular, session trying to remember what I should be doing next - before heading for the Temple sewers. A rakshasa was the first major target to be chopped up there - though with no real reward as I can't use his cloak.
I explored a bit further and ran into a troll - I was close to killing that when it occurred to me that perhaps I should talk to Roger first (he will give you a a reward for killing it anyway, but not as good as if you get the quest properly) and ran back to find him.
Mekrath used a forced spell to produce a skeleton warrior, but shooting him at 5 APR he had no chance of doing anything worse.
Incidentally, his rod of resurrection is, a bit surprisingly, usable by wizard slayers - though it contravenes my personal item-based healing restriction so was just sold anyway, The yuan-ti opposition could be thinned out a bit by shooting ones blocked in by others not yet in sight and the last couple of yuan-ti mages were quickly shut down.
I left Tarnor's party for now and progressed further to open up access to the lich. I went on to kill a few beholders with the help of Balduran's Shield, but had failed to learn Bhaal CLW in BG1 and was therefore unable to get the quest to open up the main beholder area. At some point in that contest though I was rewarded with another level.
At level 18 I could get strength up to 24 and busted down Neb's door to have a stern word with him.
I tried to palm Sir Sarles off with some dubious quality illithium before doing a bit more temple work by recovering a relic for Lathander.
Next, I decided it was about time to hand over funds to Gaelan Bayle. Ras was used for the first time to distract Lassal while he was shot up.
Typically I don't pay Gaelan until after all the vampire ambushes, but this time Tanova had been slow to show up and chose to appear now with Lassal's blood still dripping from my axe. I did have the chance to evade her, but tried to take her down anyway with Azuredge. She survived about half a dozen hits before falling - and managed to drain me of 4 levels during that.
After killing her acolytes with far less trouble I paid for restoration and went to sort out a couple of Thieves Guild renegades at the Five Flagons. Even though I can't use his potions, it was a matter of honor to prevent the Guild Contact from drinking them, so I dug darts of stunning out of my bag. Ras was ready to try and delay his progress, while I shot with 5 APR (boosted by Arbane haste) - but he failed to survive the first dart anyway.
After reporting back to Aran, time was up - so the Athkatlan undead problems (both vampires and liches) will have to wait for next time.
Wizard Slayer L18, 145 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 532 kills (+621 in BG1)
@StummvonBordwehr, congrats for making it past Belhifet!
- Was Corwin wearing mundane hide armor in your endgame, or is that a suit of armor I've overlooked thus far?
- You said you had Caelar retreat to receive healing from Rasaad. In case you weren't aware, note that Greater Restoration can be cast from afar, so next time you can just keep Caelar fighting (just don't wait too long with reading the GR scrolls).
Thanks @Blackraven. Its always good to have you posting - your posts are always a treat and I Treasure your time spend on feedback. Thank you on both accounts.
As you mentioned in a prior post, party playing is something I rarely do. But it has been rewarding and I have been learning a lot. I do have tendency to guard my charname rigorously - and the rest of the part not so much... so the process is educational for me - even though my NPC’s did die a lot....
In the fight Corwin did have a regular hide armour and a RoP (or cloak) +2. I always favour saving throws over ac - which is a double edged sword. The ac and saving throws where both boosted by a potion (or 2?) of invulnerability. So the lesser amour and ac was a minor problem (most of the time).
The reason why I pulled Caelar out of the fight was because she was heavily injured, and I needed her to pull out to stay alive. Rasaad had to run after Caelar to get the spell casting started.
In the end the fight was successful. I did manage full concentration in the beginning. But when Belhifet turned badly damage, I let down the guard and lost 2 party members. Lesson learned: playing no reload requires full concentration (as if it wasn’t obvious...).
Ps. Corwins favoured enemy in the unmodded game is skeleton - not demonic/fell alas
@Grond0 : I am very interested in your Wizard Slayer. My first attempt at no-reload was with a WS (random rolls for stats/race etc.) and I found it quite interesting.
What weapons do you prefer/recommand ?
I ended up with darts and it was quite interesting with the high APR and special darts, but I guess bows would be very good too (arrows of dispelling/explosion in BG1/SoD), or even crossbow with the crossbow of speed + magical bolts
What melee weapons would you recommend for a full saga run (no mods) ? And lastly, are there special recommendations to play a WS effectively ? The drawbacks seem so stringent that I don't see much versality in gameplay.
Comments
Thanks for reading my journals buddy and thanks for the warning. I've been getting cocky because this party combo literally destroys opponents in a flash - until they don't.
Tens (male half-elf cleric/ranger, Grond0); Nearv (male dwarf assassin, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1110591/#Comment_1110591
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1110957/#Comment_1110957
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113891/#Comment_1113891
A slightly longer session than usual saw us making plenty of progress yesterday. That started with wandering down towards the beholder hive, Tens being reminded by Nearv there of his vulnerability to kuo-toa bolts and slapping on chaotic commands in case that helped. After resting Tens buffed up his melee abilities and topped those off with GWW before descending to face the elder orb. That extra punch allowed him to kill the orb pretty quickly.
Deciding that caution is my middle name (though if I make that claim in our sessions, Gate70 tends to respond my first name is Lackov), I spent a few moments reviewing Tens' equipment and the dangers he would face - and concluded that by adding the Shield of Harmony to the Cloak of Mirroring and Amulet of Spell Warding he could tank standard beholders indefinitely. That seemed to work and we started to make progress through the hive.
Another large group of beholders was problematic because of the elder orb's ability to use imprisonment. However, Kitthix did a great job there by getting paralyzed near a spike trap - the orb moved forward with the desire to taste spider flesh and got itself well and truly spiked.
With that area clear we moved next door to try out the illithids. Tens was still relying on his leather armor, so was rarely in melee (normally only doing that for the second necessary to allow Nearv to get his backstab in). However, things went pretty smoothly. There was one amusing incident when we'd used a chasing ulitharid to unlock one of the closed doors for us (they only need to get close to the door to do that). Nearv ran away to the next room to hide and the flayer started to chase - only to suddenly wander off in the totally wrong direction. We both immediately recognized that it had suffered from poor pathfinding, when the game responds to a blockage in a corridor by diverting movement to a different path (even if there is no different path that gets there
Simyaz made a fatal attempt to waylay us after we exited the illithid lair.
We gave Adalon back her eggs before sneaking out of the Underdark to consult with Elhan. He sent us back to Athkatla where Kruin tried to persuade us not to make the Silver Sword. We killed him, but then felt a bit bad about that and sold the pieces rather than making the sword. We did though reconstitute Gesen and the Wave halberd as well as buying a few more items - like the Defender of Easthaven (though we had to dig into our last 300k gold to do that).
Returning to the Graveyard we went to find Bodhi. Her host of vampires mainly melted away against the iMoD - with Tens still protected by using the Shield of Harmony. He added hardiness and Armour of Faith (I think both of those being used for the first time) to face Bodhi - but that was definitely overkill.
Reporting back to Elhan we moved into Suldanesselar. The horde of golems were mainly ignored as we moved through the city acquiring necessary items. Demin was in trouble there against a couple of rakshasa and Tens used his new smite HLA there for the first time to save her.
On the tree my solo runs tend to leave a summons for Jon to unload a totally inordinate number of spells on - but this time he was prevented from such a waste by the cordon of traps Nearv had left.
While doing the hell trials we had a brief discussion about whether a multi-class ranger could fall (they couldn't in the original game). Concluding it was all too likely Beamdog would have fixed that, Tens took the goody, goody route with all the trials. Once all the tears had been cashed in, Jon appeared - his death field successfully wiping out most of the traps waiting for him. That meant some running around was required to shoot down the demons before doing the same to the Slayer. Eventually that was done though and Jon proved once more just what a lousy predictor of the immediate future he is.
Tens, cleric 19 / ranger 16, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 749 kills (+195 in BG1)
Nearv, assassin 33, 124 HPs (incl. 11 from ioun stone), 446 kills (+158 in BG1), 5 deaths
Michio wastes no time in trading out of Yoshimo and into Jan. Also in this area is Viconia, she replaces Jaheira. Now, what to do about Minsc for his own good, to save him from a chunking.
The search for a meatshield takes a wrong turn and Michio finds himself locked in a combat arena with unsuitable spells. Cloudkill and fireball work once confusion lands, and a dagger blow finishes the combat.
Michio still has space for two further travelling companions. The first requires murder and torture. Fine by us, not so for Rayic Gethras.
We retreat a bit, save against a hold spell and move on once an invisibility 10' spell takes effect.
So the party is assembled. Four arcane casters seems a bit excessive but the berserker and cleric seem to accept the imbalance. Time will tell.
Party, and inventory. Michio observes Edwin has no robe, maybe that was bagged, stored or sold in SoD. Never mind, not important. Also, Michio has finally learnt how to handle darts.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114111/#Comment_1114111
I started today's session by following up on the kidnap victim from the Graveyard. That gained me a new pair of boots (actually pretty helpful considering that wizard slayers are more vulnerable to missiles than most fighter types) and some pantaloons - but at the cost of a couple of reputation points.
The first slaver wizard saved against horror, but was unable to cast anything under a missile assault.
Looking for some relatively easy XP, I headed for the de'Arnise Hold. The trolls there were no danger so long as I didn't let them gang up on me, while a single yuan-ti mage has virtually no chance of casting anything at me before being shut down.
At that point I took a load of junk to Athkatla to sell before returning to try and finish things off. The first 3 umber hulks were done individually, using Lilarcor to defend against confusion. The last couple then proved eager to get at their food, before also being taken down one at a time.
The second time was nip and tuck, but with him at near death he hit to put me in danger as well and once more I ran for it. The third contest was similarly even, but once again I was not confident that I would get the final blow and retreated. The fourth contest he was winning more easily, but having studied the rolls in the combats to date it seemed pretty clear to me that I'd been unlucky and did have a reasonable chance of success. Looking at the clock I realized time was up for the session, but decided to take the "I've started, so I'll finish" line from Mastermind and closed in for a 5th bout. That time I thought he should have gone down, but he seemed to rest on my shoulder for a bit rather than falling (a behavior pretty common with trolls unfortunately) - and I had to run again (this time feeling quite vulnerable as I was slowed as well for a bit while he was chasing).
The 6th time I thought he should once again be due to fall over, but he still seemed reluctant to do so. However, I took advantage of a anomaly with the game engine associated with area transitions - enabling you to rest if there's nothing else on the map, even if an enemy had been in active combat and is in the process of following you from another area. That allowed me to rest in the blink of an eye between me getting upstairs and him following - and the break in combat was enough to trigger his unconscious state as he arrived and let me finish him off.
Wizard Slayer L14, 133 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 293 kills (+621 in BG1)
Traveling with:
Anomen
Sarah (dwarven fighter thief)
Alena - human evoker
Neera
Chunked: Aerie, April (berserker), Mazzy
Well attempted to do Neera's quest. Got wiped out by that massive group of enemies in the 2nd group inside the red wizard enclave - RIP Coremage V.
Think I want to try a smaller group next time, just not sure what yet.
Too much running in that kind of group. I want to take it easy on my mouse hand.
Before
Second entry: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113730/#Comment_1113730
Unnie had vowed to take on her life on the harshest conditions - only doing good and lawful acts, and only with companions of similar mindset.
The rules where set on insane, and the next part of the run proved that playing on insane in SoD is a something entirely different - compared to BG 1 and 2...
The prologue caused no problems. A protection from undead, a potion of speed and cloud giant str., meant that the undeads where soon expelled. The traps hit hard, but a “tag a long healer” meant that it didn’t spoil the run. Only at one point - when I needed a knock spell for a chest - did the wandering undead cause a stir. The undead wander erratically when they can’t see their foe - but only Unnie was protected... A slight delay but a vital warning of things to come - better AI is troublesome.
In the city only Dynaher met requirements for joining the party. Minsc dying again... sorry big guy - we will leave you with Imoens healer and see you in SoA. Talked briefly with Rasaad, but couldn't recruit him. Amongst the minor quest, the undead hunter refrained from picking up the battle tankard. Yes Unnie is really strict.
On the road again, Unnie first picked up Corwin and then rushed to pick up Rasaad.
And help a fellow undead hunter along the way.
The trap by the vampire cave dealt ludicrous damage. But Unnie survived - probably due to her level drain immunity. In the end Unnie rejoiced since her group was complete.
The warrens of the undead was mandatory for Unnie. With 6 scrolls of undead left this was not a big feat. Even the bronze sentry fell quickly - I have struggled with that one prior. But a party effort saw an easy victory. The undead and Coldheart didn’t know what hit them, and Coldheart was freed from his miserable life as an undead - you’re welcome buddy.
Back at the main map the menhir quest, the lost heirlooms and the missing refugees quest where done. Heavy focus on getting some xp; the xp curve being somewhat less steep when playing with a group. In general things went smoothly when Unnie could soak up the attacks, but some enemies where a bit to smart for that. Especially the spiders sought out the most fragile members and outright killled them - good thing Mizhena is so close by and has such low prices. A wastly improved AI the main reason for the better targeting as I see it - SCS light perhaps?
The parley by the bridge saw another map open, and more quests. More quests, more money and xp. With some risk off course....
The advancing coalition camp was moving to Troll claw woods, which is a dragon’s flight from Bridgeport and the Forrest of wyrms. Forrest of wyrms sounds like a fun place for a xp wanting party, so going there was a no brainer....
It started out well. The hill giants where webbed and slaughtered. The spiders where treated to some cloud kill spells. Unnie was protected against poison, and the spiders succumbed to it instead - oh the irony. A green dragon was daggered to death (daggered may not be a real word, but the xp and the scales where very real).
The bugbears webbed and the cultists cloud killed behind closed doors. The winning strategy was web and cloud kill - nothing more, nothing less. Ziatar stunned (thanks for the pro tip in this thread), and the neolithid did deal some damage, but not against Unnie, who was safe with a greenstone amulet charge and closing the door on the magical sword that the Neolithid summoned. Going underground is a neat ability - if only it could bring its summons.
Akanna was stunned, and killed. Her arieal servants appeared and dealt brutal blows. If only they could open a door.... but they can’t and Unnie will live another day.
Since I brought an archer along, it seemed obvious to take on the mercenary party in the temple: the archers eye being the main prize. I usually dodge that part and had already taken of for bridge fort - but reading the walkthrough for the whereabouts of the said archers eye suggested I’d take the trip back for a revisit...
Four webs secure a fixation of most of the party, and three cloud kills meant that most didn’t survive said tactic. The mindflayer was the only one escaping, but fell to the righteous party - Unnie being protected by the greenstone amulet and the party pelted the mindflayer into submission (well actually death to be honest)..
Bridgefort revisited was a trip of low risk. The mage threatened into given up the scroll, the wraith taken on by Unnie the undead hunter and the fort surrendered. Easy and almost risk free.
The bridge it self was another business. The usual tactic seemed viable I’d reckoned. The webbing worked well, and the cloud kill as well. Poison being a safe bet against the barrels. The mage was webbed and fell to poison. But the fight got out of hand, since the difficulty setting meant that a stream of fire elementals spawned? The spawning point being on top of my party, and the elementals had to be taken on by an archer, a low level monk and an unprotected mage in melee.. I decided that Unnie should kill the webbed assailants, and that the rest should lead the elements away from the bridge - at the cost of their lives. The stuff of legends I say.
Drawing the elementals away ensured some help from the flaming fist and the bridge was kept in safe distance from the fiery fire based assailants. The AI was for once in Unnies favor - not so much in the party’s... But all’s well that ends well as someone said. And the cost of resurrection was manageable.
The bridge was opened, a chicken lowered into a well, and the final camp was opened. A brutal trial, but the party had harder tribulations ahead of them.
As some of you know, I'll be around for a couple months or so. I'm focused on PoE this winter, but it's wonderful to see the BG challenge alive and vibrant. So many familiar faces! And even some familiar characters! I'm looking forward to catch up reading!
Have fun! And stay safe out there!
Best,
A.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114111/#Comment_1114111
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114216/#Comment_1114216
There were a couple of giant trolls to finish off in the de'Arnise Hold. The second of those provided a good illustration of why high APR is so devastating. It's not just about the damage you can inflict, but the slight hesitation caused to an opponent whenever they are hit (slowing down movement and causing them to miss attacks while in melee range). That meant that the troll made slow progress running at me and it was already at negative HPs by the time it reached me, without me having moved at all while shooting.
Back in Athkatla I returned to the Bridge District to complete the skinner quest. I wasn't up to facing all the enemies at once, but nipping down and upstairs quickly pulled the ghasts up before the first Rune Assassin turned invisible. The Assassin was next and this encounter illustrated the possibility of getting a backstabber to waste their attacks. An attacker actually becomes visible as a result of attacking fractionally before the attack is made. Therefore, if you can be moving out of range at exactly the right moment, they will become visible without ever managing to attack. Of course, predicting/achieving exactly the right moment is a chancy business in any encounter and even more so against hasted enemies. However, I successfully did that here and duly finished off the Assassin pretty easily.
Continuing work in the Bridge District, Dracandros' friends were drawn out one by one before the mage was shut down and shot up to get me to level 15.
With reputation up to 17 and spell save now down to 1 (meaning flesh to stone was no threat without my having to pay for any protection), I decided it was time to visit Trademeet. The first genie there was cut down comfortably, though its efreeti bottle was no use to me. Inside the tent, 2 hasted and stoneskinned genies working together would be a potential threat. To counter that I threw in a Bhaal horror on arrival. I was hoping that would either affect just the Khan or both of them - but it only got Faafirah. Normally I kill him first to get his XP (as he disappears if his master dies first). Rather than risk trying that in this situation though I ran out of the tent, with only the Khan following due to the horror - and he went down quickly enough.
I picked up the Shield of Harmony as a reward. In the unlikely event that anyone has studied these reports carefully, you might have noted I've not been using a shield to date. That just reflects me playing a little game (being stubborn) and deciding to wait for this shield (which also allows me to ditch Lilarcor) rather than spend money on a more basic one.
At the Grove, progress through to the Troll Mound was easy. Inside, the trolls were tackled with only minor damage until the last 2 giant trolls attacked together. I took a fair amount of damage while killing the first of those and ran away from the second - returning after a rest to finish it off.
There were a couple more little retreats to prevent a group of druids ganging up on me. They attacked me twice with call lightnings during that process, but only one of those stuck - my MR is still only 15% at the moment, so successful resistance checks are still rare, but later in the game that can be pushed over 100% and become really helpful.
Wizard Slayer L15, 136 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 361 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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113962/#Comment_1113962
I've not made much progress with this lot in the last few days (all but the last bit of the update was done before that), but thought I should bring their record up to date.
At Boareskyr Bridge, Vichand didn't have time to buff.
Inside the fort, shields made from dragon scales and rhino beetle hide provided more AC upgrades and there were a couple of minor weapon upgrades available as well. After shooting down a wraith,
On the roof a Greater Feyr was struck down.
Arriving at the Coalition Camp I agreed to get some boots for Helvdar, some miscellaneous items for Waizahb, sold a bag full of junk to Nazramu for 234k, agreed to help Dosia with a mysterious illness, trained some recruits for Halasan, refused a commission to carry out a murder and shut down a thieves guild.
On the way to Dead Mans Pass I came across a dead magic zone. It's a while since I didn't just run away there, but I took a guess at where the enemies were - and got that reasonably correct, with just a single mercenary surviving fireballs to be shot down instead.
On arrival they started working through the area, primarily using missile weapons (mainly because their ammo case was full and inventories were getting cluttered as well). They soon came across a bearskin that looked like it would make a good pair of boots.
A quick trip back to the Camp got some Lucky Boots made for Al. I tried to persuade Helvdar to accept some ordinary ones instead, but he was having none of it.
The Crew have just arrived at Dragonspear and will see if they can get entry to the castle next time. I dislike all the little quests there, but will try and get through them to maintain this as a completionist run.
Vito - L9, 108 HPs, 702 kills, 2 deaths, ***** scimitar / ** darts
Baby Face - L9, 115 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 658 kills, 0 deaths, ***** long sword / ** crossbow
Mad Dog - L9, 117 HPs, 607 kills, 0 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Carlo - L9, 106 HPs (incl. 9 from helm), 564 kills, 0 deaths, ***** flail / ** sling
Bugsy - L9, 122 HPs, 550 kills, 2 deaths, ***** hammer / ** shortbow
Al (PC) - L9, 110 HPs (incl. -9 from Claw), 601 kills, ***** 2-handed sword / ** longbow
Before
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1113730/#Comment_1113730
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114283/#Comment_1114283
Unnie noticed that the coalition camp has been growing in size ever since she left Baldur’s gate. As a renowned hero she is expected to partake in curbing the crusade - and bringing Caelar to justice.
So the first thing you do is bringing the genie vendor in from the fugue plane - or where the heck these creatures reside. Time for some shopping. Selling from my main stock of supplies netted more than 400.000 gp, and Unnie bought all the upgrades in gear she desired - and potions and scrolls to boot.
Unnie did most of the in camp quests and took the trek to dead mans pass for the first trip outside the camp. The party faced little opposition when facing opposition from afar: webbing them and cloud kill as a first move - and then a head on result. Unnie didn’t want to change her winning formula.
Feeling confident Unnie headed for the entrance to the underground river. Caelars seal the main objective. The camp was heavily guarded, by both a cyclops and a large contingent of fighters and mages. The bread winner was going to be web and cloud kill. The formula worked well, and the first damage reports seemed in favor of an easy victory. But Unnie has forgotten to scout the area properly, and mages and fighters bypass the web cul de sac, and attacked the unprepared and unbuffed party. The ensuing fight was a mess and the result where the death of two party members - back to Mizhena.
But with the much coveted seal in the sack and a lesson learned. Web is a nice spell, but it will be increasingly less relevant. But it still had some relevance.
In the crusader camp some questing, a ring and bow was picked up. Unnie scouted the camp and almost all the quests where completed. Afterwards the other maps where completed. The underground river supplying the best quests, loot and xp.
In Kanalgym, web and cloud kill proved valuable for the last time. The necromantic cabal where webbed and Cloud kill. The main mage was immune to the noxious clouds, but not to a arrow of dispelling and arrows of biting - weird but nice. A lich was drawn from the planes and killed. A nice robe and a robe of regeneration a nice upgrade/addendum to my gear.
A drow party where angered when Unnie showed her big heart and let the young lovers elope. Unnie faced the consequences and got a nice cloak with neat resistances as a reward. Having cleared most maps and quest, it was time for the main quest.
The stone dowser was placed and Unnie went to face Hephernan. Protected from magic, Unnie revealed herself, and got Hephernans attention. The ensuing fight saw (another) the death of Corwin. But Unnie prevailed in the end. Unnie & Co escaped invisible - baiting out the true sight spells from the mages by advancing slowly and retreating fast when the foes started casting. The basement was filled with foes, and a fight would not have ended well - especially without Corwins bow.
When Unnie finally escaped the castle, she felt that the final fights where going to end her. The opposition being to powerful and massive.
Back at the camp Unnie had to appear at the parley and then prepare for a difficult fight.
The fight is in 4 waves if you count in the final attack.
I had noticed along the way, that the enemies hit often and hard, we hitting not so hard and less often. But my elemental damage seemed to be on par with the enemy’s ditto. So Unnie tried that strategy. I have no proof of my theory. But Corwin seemed to decimate all 4 waves with 3 arrows of detonation each. Fire protection was put on Unnie, only afterwards realising that she had only buffed up til 50% resistance... the Durlags goblet took care of that problem.
The attack on Dragonspear was next up. Unnie just waited for her time, and only faced Ashatiel along the way. Buffing with a protection from magic scroll ensured an easy victory, and the route to Avernus was open.
8 scrolls of protection from acid, fire, acid, cold, 12 potions of mind focusing and invulnerability , 12 scrolls of champions strength, 3 potions of cloud giant strength, 19 potions of heroism later and Unnies party was ready for Big B.
Inventory
My plan was to let Corwin, Unnie and Caelar deal damage. Rasaad was doing scrolls of resurrection and I actually had no plan for Dynaheir.
Thing started out well. Dynaheir got some spells off and casted fireshield blue from scrolls. Big B was injured before Unnie took a dent.
Trying to safe Caelar means that I with drew her from the fight, and let Rasaad heal her. The move meant that progress halted. Trying to shift pace, Unnie went all in.
The gamble worked, but at the cost of two npc’s. I have lost count of how many times they have been brought back from the afterlife. But Unnie survived in the end, and even Caelar whom I usually leave on the floor.
I bring Unnie into SoA with 500.000 xp and a memorised sanctuary spell (for the pesky memphits). SoD was a hard trial, but I did learn along the way - and the party experience was a nice change. Keeping the npc’s alive will require some practice though.
Michio decides to see how his gang can deal with trouble. While Tarnor the Hatchetman seems like a suitable test we decide to see if they can be faced without the attention of Gaius. Once he is down the rest of the gang crumble before us.
We sense an opportunity to look for loot in the Planar Prison. Naturally there will be riches and rewards so off we go. It doesn't take us too long to clear the place but we only check one cell (the gith) before defeating the Warden and rescuing Haer'Dalis.
We had planned on only using five scrolls of protection from undead to leave Korgan in an enraged state but the struggle against the last lich sees our confidence against Kangaxx fade. Six scrolls it is then, and a clean if anti-climatic victory.
Umar Hills next and some temple ruins. There are no liches there so the undead are easily handled. Apart from Jan perishing un-noticed when trapped by shadows. Viconia raises him with Michio crossing his fingers while promising to take better care of the party. It might happen. It might not. Jan pretends not to be bothered and plays with Malison instead.
Introduction
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3
Update 4
ToB begins, and as a worrying sign, I'm no longer going to keep even a tentative death counter anymore: I'm pretty sure that any estimation I make is just flat out wrong now.
I heavily underestimated Illasera, and tried to not use my mage HLAs at the beginning of the fight. Illesara gets a Fallen Planetar off, and I have Imoen try to go for a PfMW -> Maze combo. It's blocked by Magic Resistance. In the meantime, both Mazzy and Moira die to Illasera in melee, if I'm not mistaken: it wasn't the Fallen Planetar. We've cleared basically all of Illesara's minions, but that Fallen Planetar is a problem: two Firestorms are covering the map, and our boots of speed were on Mazzy and Moira, and Jehu can't outrun the Fallen Planetar, and doesn't have the base saves to survive a Dispel -> Vorpal hit. I think there's also a couple Efreetis or Djinnis keeping Imoen and Anomen busy.
Jehu flees to the northwest while Nalia summons a Planetar, which loses the Vorpal chicken fight. He tries to cast Favored of the Spirits, but gets a very distressing message that Illesara is attacking him, and the Fallen Planetar is invisible. He breaks off instantly, and begins running back to the south, taking off his ring of free action while Imoen summons her own Planetar. He drinks an oil of speed, and manages to get close enough to be thrown a pair of boots of cheetah speed. Fortunately, Imoen's Planetar wins this particular game of chicken, though I guess Anomen was hit by PW:Stun.
The Planetar Raises Mazzy who Lays on Hands herself instantly, though Anomen dies to Illasera while stunned. The Planetar finishes off Illasera before Raising everyone else. Honestly, Planetars are wayyyyy out of line for HLAs, especially compared to, say, Devas or... literally any Cleric or Druid HLAs. Why do the epic-level Clerics get worse angels than mages, anyways? Why do the mages get the angel that casts Raise Dead?
Time for the vengeance trial. Jehu covers the area with greater summons from his Shamanic dance, and no resources outside healing potions were used before Irenicus, Bodhi and Sarevok: the Drow Clerics consistently spammed Unholy Blight and continually got chip damage on Mazzy and Anomen.
My last run ended here after another Fallen Planetar from Irenicus absolutely wrecked us in that tiny trial room. However, he has a flaw: he's a non-undead, non-demon spellcaster, which means that normal weapons can hit him. This normally isn't enough to stop him, but Moira's a Wizard slayer, and aptly named this time: a GWW shuts Jon up, and Moira closes in for the kill. Mazzy has the iMoD for Bodhi despite the Cloud of Bats, and Sarevok is a melee fighter with no ranged option, so is easily kited to death.
We do a bit of questing and busywork in Saradush: most importantly, we get Imprisonment for both Nalia and Imoen. I'm 100% fed up with Fallen Planetars, and will PFMW -> Imprison them on sight now. We also buy every Boots of Cheetah Speed we can get our hands on, and everyone except Jehu has them normally equipped now. Jehu still has the Ring of Free Action, just in case of rogue Slow spells or Holding spell or the like.
There's a slight mishap in Gromnir's castle as we pull a battle mage and don't disable him in time. Getting through Absolute Immunity as well as standard spell defenses is a huge hassle, but no one dies in the four-round period and we press onwards and upwards. For Gromnir himself, we start with our full assortment of buffs listed before, and this time spare no HLAs. Nalia get a Planetar off the ground, Moira's GWWing their mages, Imoen clears some of the Efreetis and Djinni they're starting to carry in sequencers with a Death Spell, Anomen is trying to clear the thieves and archers on the right side, and Mazzy is fighting Gromnir by herself. I think Jehu was either summoning or detecting illusions, maybe he cast an Insect Plague? Mazzy wins against Gromnir, probably with the help of some healing potions, and it seems our only casualty was our mages' Stoneskins.
Outside Saradush, after saving a merchant, we head to Nyalee's grove immediately. The Master Wraith ambush is fairly inconsequential: improved Mace of Disruption and a very high level Cleric turning undead isn't easy for them to bypass. Even then, someone gets level drained and we rest to clear the level drain, and again for the exhaustion. The skeleton mage inside the compound sadly gets HLAs, and so immediately casts a Fallen Planetar. Kill me. We summon our own, and after the entire field is filled with Firestorms or other damaging spells, our Planetar kills the other. Really. Why do those things have fighter-like stats with a vorpal sword and immunity to lower-enchanted weapons, the capability to cast 9th level mage spells (Fire Storm), 7th level Cleric spells (Holy/Unholy Word), 5th level Druid spells (Insect Plague) and 3 instantaneous Heals? It's to the point where the only reason I fear mages now is because they can summon these abominations. At least they're worth SOME experience, though frankly they're worth more than 20k. Moira gets a replenishment of Fire Seeds and is using the Berserk Warrior to take out the Skeleton Mage, by the way.
Onto the Fire Temple! I'm fairly sure Mazzy dies at least once trying to tank the Fire Giants and the Chinchilla group, but I have no screenshot evidence to prove this. In the temple itself, we use Invisibility to sequester ourselves in a corner, and Jehu dances for Elementals to tank for the Fire Giants. Unfortunately, it seems the Fire Giant's AIs are a bit smarter than I expected, and would always target a party member when they could. This led to a ton of potion drinking and repositioning and kiting, but we finally get in without a death.
There's no Fire Lich in play, so we make short work of all the other challenges in the first area. There's a ton of kiting since every punch hurts, but whatever. Second floor, Jehu shows the strength of a Shaman by providing an endless supply of summons to clog up a chokepoint, and lets our stronger ranged fighters plink away safely.
But then Berenn shows up, and reveals that he has Mage and Cleric HLAs. He gets a Storm of Vengeance on our casters, and *sigh* a Fallen Planetar on our summons. Nalia counters with PfMW -> Imprison. I. Hate. This. Also, apparently, a Chaos was used that affected Imoen.
Eventually he dies not even to a greater elemental spirit, but a lowly Bear.
Note to solo-reloaders: there's a Maze trap in the area somewhere. Probably you all know this already, but I'd hate to see a run get that far to die to a silly no-save trap like that.
Imoen while invisibly scouting the final bit of the temple runs into Imix, who can see her. She gets Feared by Keening from a Burning Man, I think, and the rest of us hurry to her. Mazzy is thrown the Wave from a bag of holding, and a few hits later, Imix is no more.
Back at Nyalee's place, we buff ourselves and get summons when she's upset at her own betrayal. Go figure. Nothing here's really an issue, and I don't recall a dangerous moment here. Yaga Shura himself isn't powerful enough to withstand a concentrated assault, and a Planetar finishes him off. If you can't frigging beat them, join them I guess.
Second Pocket Plane challenge time! I usually remember this as an easy time, but then again I normally don't even get this far with SCS. Semaj falls fairly quickly in the initial barrage, but guess what? He casts a Fallen Planetar again in a very cramped room. Yay!
It takes a lot of kiting to get it into the proper position of being Imprisoned by Nalia. In the meantime, both the eastern and southwest areas are burning with two more Firestorms. The mirror Jehu is untankable with his Dispel-on-hit weapon and what looks like either Haste or Improved Haste, and multiple of us nearly die trying to kite it while the others shoot my clone down. Jehu manages to kill his own doppelganger.
We get to Amkethran, and just sell all of our loot and finishing the basic fetch quests before leaving. I'm not dealing with a demilich for that reward, thank you very much.
We take this time to head to Watcher's Keep: I tend to keep it until ToB to not trivialize SoA with the equipment outside of the Potion case and the Firetooth crossbow. Everything is running fairly smoothly until the last of the statue fights. I wasn't prepared for the SCS version of this at all: Anomen is caught out by some contingency or sequencer with a Symbol: Stun and Sphere of Chaos in it. He of course dies for it. Everyone else is scattered around the floor somewhere: Nalia is in the old priest's quarters trying to cast a Planetar (not sure if she completes the spell), Jehu is trying to kite a different warrior in the fireplace room, Imoen's firing a weapon in between casting spells somewhere near him, Mazzy is... attacking a Fireshield for no good reason, and Moira is in the south fighting like 3 statues and losing. It takes a long while of kiting and a bunch of potions and summons and spells, but eventually we clear everyone out with no further deaths.
2nd floor of Watcher's Keep is simple in comparison. There's no true threat here that I know of, and the Chromatic Demon makes the mistake of going into an Ice form. Anomen's been memorizing two Flame Strikes for such a long time that he's never cast (I'm really bad at remembering to use my single-target spells), and well... ice melts. Also, the first screenshot demonstrates what keep happening to my characters:
they randomly get stuck within other character models, though this was a teleport. I generally solve these by CTRL-Jing them slightly out of the model before fleeing or fighting.
I take a look at my Weidu for a second, see a randomized maze on the 3rd level, take a look at the potential loot of levels 3-5, and decide it's almost certainly not worth the danger. Back to the main quest. We make a quick stop back at Amkethran to sell some things and buy Protection from Electricity and Acid mage scrolls for Imoen: it's time to hunt some Dragons. Imoen and Nalia do a quick rearrangement of spells to get 6 Pro. Acid spells memorized, and add them to our standard buff routine for Draconis. A well-timed Death Spell gets four Invisible Stalkers before they can do anything.
I didn't realize that Draconis' death aura upon switching forms kills Celestials too: one of our Planetars are killed by that, but we can just summon a second one. It doesn't matter though: even in Dragon form, Draconis isn't buffing with Absolute Immunity, just PfMW, so two GWWs from Mazzy and Moira with regular weapons is a straight kill with only some melee damage to speak of. And Planetars, of course, can cast Heal 3 times because of course they can.
Going further in, we run into issues with the Lizardfolk Shamans. They start the fight with two Nature's Beauty, though somehow only Mazzy and Jehu are blinded by them. Jehu counters with his own Nature's Beauty, and blinds most of the melee fighters. It takes a bit more work and everything is a lot more scrappy, but we have no deaths here. The dragon that guards the breath potion in SCS is also no threat, and the amulet of immunity to Wing Buffet goes to Moira. And then we have to get the rope from Amkethra.
I completely forgot about the next ambush there, and we're unrested and unprepared and unbuffed against the party of 6 demons that jump you on the return trip. Imoen is shredded very quickly by Fireballs, and despite drinking a potion, falls I think for the first time (and by no means the last).
The demons are cleared by our Warriors, and a quick raise and a rest means we get to Amkethra and back for the 4 consecutive Dragon fights. I don't remember the order of the dragons, and I think I buffed for Fire initially instead of Poison. If that were a failed save on my main character, that would've been fatal.
We cut through the first three fairly easily, though Mazzy is taken down by the 3rd one I think. Carnifex takes down Anomen with another Breath Weapon: his Pro. Fire must've been dispelled at some point without me noticing. Summons give Moira enough breathing room to take down another dragon.
Two challenges left: the Tyrant Golems, and Abazigal himself. I do a quick juggling of save items: I think Mazzy and Moira are permanently safe, and Anomen is safe as long as he has a Potion of Invulnerability up. For the heck of it, we summon a Planetar near the end of the fight, and it... vorpalizes a gigantic floating head. Not going to lie, I was holding my breath the entire time since I'm very, very unused to fighting Beholders without summons or invisible bombardments.
After sending some children to kill some kobolds for us, we rest and buff for Abazigal. This time, we have 6 Pro. Electricities instead of Acid, and it says something that I don't remember the fight, and the screenshot of the aftermath is showing that we lost like 80 health total among our three melee fighters, and I'm pretty sure some of that is from the multiple Frost Salamander Fireshield:Blue auras or something. The rest looks like it came from two autoattacks. After a few revelations, Abazigal falls for good.
Jehu is given the boots of speed to run around for a bit while the Slayer fruitlessly chases after him while being pierced by a thousand missiles.
And then because I'm stupid, I decide to head towards Sendai's enclave without resting, thinking that the Drow outside are easy enough to clear with an army of summons. This goes about as well as you could expect. We clear the first group of Drow and Beholders in the southwest easily enough, and go to the tombstones to successfully clear the second group, and I SHOULD have rested here, but noooooooo I have to keep going for no good reason. We don't have the resources to easily clear spellcasters anymore, or enough True Seeings to deal with their Fighter/Assassin warriors with septuple backstabs, and no Stoneskins on my mages anymore. Anomen dies first to a Prismatic Spray that fortunately doesn't petrify him.
On top of that, there are two Spheres of Chaos randomly on the first. Imoen is invisible and completely separated from the rest of my team by one of the spheres. Jehu casts a Mass Raise Dead to get everyone up and healed, only for Nalia to fall over to a single backstab. Fortunately, there was no chunking involved again.
Anomen casts his own Mass Raise Dead at the end of the fight and says something I agree with fully. We take a well-earned rest, and prepare for Sendai's area. The fights I'm most worried about are Sendai of course, and the Lich fight because he again casts a bloody Fallen Planetar and I have no way outside of Fireseeds to stop that. We'll see if I can get them active in time, else Nalia is again Imprisoning a Planetar.
Stats: Jehu, Human Shaman 22. 105 HP (5 from helm). 99 kills. HLAs: Spirit Form, Favored of the Spirits, Mass Raise Dead, Elemental Summoning, Implosion.
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, Protection from Fire, 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, Heal, Spiritual Lock
Level 7: Conjure Earth Elemental, Ether Gate, Impervious Sanctity of Mind, Nature's Beauty, Shield of the Archons
Moira, Dwarven Wizard Slayer 26. 163 HP. 545 kills. 5* in Longbow, 5* in Warhammer, 2* in Two-weapon style. HLAs: Power Attack, Critical Strike, Smite, Hardiness, WW, GWW x2
Anomen, Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric 28. 119 HP. 360 kills. 5* in Sling, 5* in Flails/Morningstars, 3* in Two-Weapon style. HLAs: Summon Deva, Implosion, Energy Blades, Mass Raise Dead, Aura of Flaming Death, Storm of Vengeance.
Imoen, Human Thief 7 -> Mage 21. 83 HP (10 from Crown of Netheril). 62 kills. HLAs: Summon Planetar, Improved Alacrity, Comet, Dragon's Breath.
Nalia, Human Thief 4 -> Mage 21. 77 HP (7 from Ioun stone). 145 kills. HLAs: Summon Planetar, Improved Alacrity, Dragon's Breath, extra 6th level spell
Permanently lost: Aerie, Jaheira, Yoshimo.
Comments on late-game Shaman: I'm playing Jehu himself really, really safely despite the danger I constantly put the rest of my party it and so I've probably not given him a chance to shine offensively. Shaman HLAs are not very impressive, and I think the Fire Giant temple was one of the last times infinite bulky summons come in handy. I'm almost always dumping all his 4th and 5th level spells in defensive spells, and my only offensive 6th and 7th level options are in the form of summons, Fire Seeds, and Nature's Beauty, which is good, but not amazing at this point. For a more aggressive non-PC Shaman, I'd recommend Harm for Heal or Fire Seeds, and Fire Storm or Creeping Doom instead of Conjure Earth Elemental or Shield of the Archons.
And don't forget to carry around a PfM scroll to dispel the maze effect in case you do get caught somewhere.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114111/#Comment_1114111
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114216/#Comment_1114216
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114325/#Comment_1114325
I cleared the remainder of the Grove without trouble. That included picking up Belm to use as my standard main-hand weapon for the time being and scaring a pair of myconid breeders.
Returning to a hero's welcome at Trademeet gained me another level.
Back in Athkatla I bought a few more things - including Azuredge. I didn't bother about getting the Sword of Roses or Helm of Glory to further reduce prices, as I could already afford almost everything I would want to buy. Azuredge was put to work at Watcher's Keep and did a good job on the vampiric wraiths there (at a cost of 500 to pay for restoration).
A bit of running and shooting could deal easily with all the statues except the archer and I got Usuno's Blade (as well as a level) doing that.
Wizard Slayer L17, 142 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 411 kills (+621 in BG1)
Roach Handymonk turns the boots and a half of speed into a pair of boots called either "boots of speed" or "paws of the cheetah". Only the latter are actual boots of speed, while the former are faulty boots that cause the wearer to run around for a bit and take some damage. I wasn't aware that they could become boots of grounding. Usually when I see they're "boots of speed", I just sell them right away.
@StummvonBordwehr, congrats for making it past Belhifet!
- Was Corwin wearing mundane hide armor in your endgame, or is that a suit of armor I've overlooked thus far?
- You said you had Caelar retreat to receive healing from Rasaad. In case you weren't aware, note that Greater Restoration can be cast from afar, so next time you can just keep Caelar fighting (just don't wait too long with reading the GR scrolls).
@Alesia_BH, always great to see you back, as other have said. It was only yesterday that I saw you'd commented on my Transmuter Naivasha (who's currently still on hold). I still have some unreported progress with her, so maybe I'll post an update on her and then get her going again.
@Neverused and @Gate70, great progress guys!
I've made a tiny little bit of progress myself:
Promise, Human Invoker (3)->Fighter
Promise has escaped from chateau Irenicus. Low quality equipment and enemies' -11 bonus to AC, massive HP pools, -5 to Thac0 and an extra attack meant that Promise and any companions would stand no chance in fair fights with the dungeon's inhabitants. Promise and party nevertheless managed to cover much of the dungeon's content. It did involve leveling up Imoen, Jaheira, and Minsc (thank you SoD) and allowing Imoen and Jaheira to memorize spells through EEKeeper before actually starting the action. I wanted to use EEKeeper anyway to slightly tweak NPCs (Imoen level 9 Thief -> Mage; Jaheira some weapon profs changed).
Jaheira's Pixie Dust (memorized twice) allowed the party to navigate the dungeon invisibly, with Imoen revealing herself to open locks / pick up items from containers etc and relying on stealth to disappear again. Minsc did the same to activate the janitor golem (running away from a mephit and locking the door).
Imoen reached the djinni in the plane of air using stealth. It was given its flask before the party moved the portal adjacent to the starting room. They met Yoshimo and welcomed him into their ranks. Jaheira cast Pixie Dust on everyone and they returned to Ilych's room. Fortunately it was relatively quiet because most of the duergar had been drawn toward the library by the fire elemental and the beetles. Yoshimo managed to Hold both Ilych and a second duergar with his third and last thrown trap, so that the party could kill them off with ease.
Anyway the party healed up with potions, went through the portal again, summoned beetles and a fire elemental, did some minor prebuffing (II, MI, DUHM, AoF, Barkskin, Haste) and attacked the mephit portals. They were actually dealt with quite easily, I don't know about their AC, but it was almost as if they had no LoB AC bonus? Or maybe their normal AC is just really bad.This is Promise (22 STR thanks to DUHM, Helm of Balduran, Grave Binder +2) dispatching one of the portals with a hit roll of 8:
Imoen has been taken by the cowled ones, and Promise has taken a pause to think about quest order and the best party for this challenge. Most people seem to play this mode with custom parties, but I want NPCS. Any suggestions for a SCS/LoB party are welcome...
Impressive, I only tackle LoB with solo (relying on summons and/or stealth to avoid fights) or custom parties.
Depending on playstyle, I'd recommand:
- either vast use of summons (a bit boring though), Cernd and his Fire Elementals would be a good asset ;
- debilitating/crowd control spells (slow, hold, webs, etc.), sadly there are no specialist NPC mage who could specialize in such CC spells (enchantment mainly, but also alteration for Slow or Polymorph Other). Still, Aerie or Edwin could cover this area (especially Aerie at high level with sequencers filled with Malisons, Doom, and CC spells)
- the easiest LoB run I had was focusing on high ranged DPR, but it was with a custom party specially created with this in mind. DPR was so high that it felt like normal non-LoB gameplay. Not needing repositioning between each felled enemy was also very important for better damage output and field control.
With a mix of the above in mind, I'd say: Cernd, Aerie, Mazzy (ranged), Keldorn or Anomen to tank (Korgan would be better but doesn't fit RP-wise). Last spot would probably be DPS, Valygar (good scout too) or Rasaad (although I hate that NPC and it would take a long time to make him good) maybe?
EDIT: there's no thief in the party composition I suggested, maybe Nalia->Imoen as a last spot ? But that's a bit arcane-heavy, not much melee DPS.
Thanks @Blackraven - I hadn't considered the possibility that the transformation might not always succeed.
Michio thinks he has cantered through SoA and almost pays the price at the start of this session. The Planar Sphere should hold no horrors for a careful party. Say like one where Korgan enrages before attacking halflings with spellcasters. Forgetting to enrage sees him stunned and only a timely counterspell from Viconia saves his bacon. He recovers in time to gulp a couple of potions and carry the fight while Haer'Dalis is Mazed. Not our finest hour, but worse is to come.
You know it's bad when Korgan blanches. Oh, go on goads Michio. What can possibly go wrong, apart from we all die.
It starts reasonably well, if you think Shangalar the lich surviving our initial attack, Revanak coming in for some melee and Vaxall the beholder looming into view sounds good. Note Korgan is using a +3 weapon against Shangalar - nobody in the party spotted that.
Michio proudly waves his new staff. See, that was easy.
Nobody is looking at him. He's invisible, the fool.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114111/#Comment_1114111
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114216/#Comment_1114216
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114325/#Comment_1114325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1114497/#Comment_1114497
I spent the first couple of minutes of a pretty solid, if unspectacular, session trying to remember what I should be doing next - before heading for the Temple sewers. A rakshasa was the first major target to be chopped up there - though with no real reward as I can't use his cloak.
Mekrath used a forced spell to produce a skeleton warrior, but shooting him at 5 APR he had no chance of doing anything worse.
I left Tarnor's party for now and progressed further to open up access to the lich. I went on to kill a few beholders with the help of Balduran's Shield, but had failed to learn Bhaal CLW in BG1 and was therefore unable to get the quest to open up the main beholder area. At some point in that contest though I was rewarded with another level.
At level 18 I could get strength up to 24 and busted down Neb's door to have a stern word with him.
Next, I decided it was about time to hand over funds to Gaelan Bayle. Ras was used for the first time to distract Lassal while he was shot up.
After reporting back to Aran, time was up - so the Athkatlan undead problems (both vampires and liches) will have to wait for next time.
Wizard Slayer L18, 145 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 532 kills (+621 in BG1)
@StummvonBordwehr, congrats for making it past Belhifet!
- Was Corwin wearing mundane hide armor in your endgame, or is that a suit of armor I've overlooked thus far?
- You said you had Caelar retreat to receive healing from Rasaad. In case you weren't aware, note that Greater Restoration can be cast from afar, so next time you can just keep Caelar fighting (just don't wait too long with reading the GR scrolls).
Thanks @Blackraven. Its always good to have you posting - your posts are always a treat and I Treasure your time spend on feedback. Thank you on both accounts.
As you mentioned in a prior post, party playing is something I rarely do. But it has been rewarding and I have been learning a lot. I do have tendency to guard my charname rigorously - and the rest of the part not so much... so the process is educational for me - even though my NPC’s did die a lot....
In the fight Corwin did have a regular hide armour and a RoP (or cloak) +2. I always favour saving throws over ac - which is a double edged sword. The ac and saving throws where both boosted by a potion (or 2?) of invulnerability. So the lesser amour and ac was a minor problem (most of the time).
The reason why I pulled Caelar out of the fight was because she was heavily injured, and I needed her to pull out to stay alive. Rasaad had to run after Caelar to get the spell casting started.
In the end the fight was successful. I did manage full concentration in the beginning. But when Belhifet turned badly damage, I let down the guard and lost 2 party members. Lesson learned: playing no reload requires full concentration (as if it wasn’t obvious...).
Ps. Corwins favoured enemy in the unmodded game is skeleton - not demonic/fell alas
What weapons do you prefer/recommand ?
I ended up with darts and it was quite interesting with the high APR and special darts, but I guess bows would be very good too (arrows of dispelling/explosion in BG1/SoD), or even crossbow with the crossbow of speed + magical bolts
What melee weapons would you recommend for a full saga run (no mods) ? And lastly, are there special recommendations to play a WS effectively ? The drawbacks seem so stringent that I don't see much versality in gameplay.