Trio 22
Corebard - human bard, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Ubil - human cavalier (Gate70)
Highway - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
As the last Trio died in just a couple of minutes, we had to reroll yet again. We've had a lot of disasters lately. But we did survive this 1st session, though there was a death.
Here's the next Lord of Murder lamb to the slaughter.
And here are his group-mates:
There were many tasks we did without much problem:
* Sirines done pretty early - with Cavalier immunity to poison and charm, Ubil was naturally eager to take on the sirines. He was NOT immune to the feeblemind and confusion, so the party had to wait for him quite a bit this segment. And in the Pirate Cave, after we killed the nearby flesh golem, Ubil foolishly tripped the hold trap, and yes got held. In hindsight, he realized the dwarf with his better saves made more sense.
* Samuel done early - no problems here, though we did get miffed when a guard critical stole our kill of Tarnesh.
* The sirines enabled Corebard to get 3 level 1 spell slots - time for Basilisks! And yes, protection from petrification spell worked much better than using Korax. Corebard was surprised all baslisks were killed before the 4 turns of the protection wore off. We got our revenge on Mutamutin.
* Kirian was destroyed by stinking cloud and the paralyzation wand.
* Right about here the Trio made some mistakes, though not critical. Ubil foolishly tried to tank Neira and was duly confused - will he become a fallen paladin? But no Neira held him too and then killed him. We left his stuff and resurrected Ubil at a nearby Temple. But while Ubil was looting his stuff, Corebard foolishly "rested" - and he has the rest on heal option on, which meant all of Ubil's stuff went "poof". "Where's my shield" could be heard from Gate70 - oops!
* Oh somewhere on the way we took out Greywolf, we were very low level. But Ubil wisely decided to have Greywolf chase him while Corebard and Highway filled Greywolf with missiles. Ubil appreciated the sword upgrade.
* To prevent Corebard from being killed by Neira (who was held), Highway got into melee with Neira until Corebard recovered and was then Corebard was able to pump magic missiles and arrows into her. But Highway only had a non-proficient weapon. But what's silly is Corebard had just sold a melee dagger! So after the combat, we went to the 3 tombs area and got a free +2 dagger for Highway.
* To amend for his mistake, Corebard pushed to do Bjornin's quest so Ubil could get a good shield. That was duly accomplished.
* We did do Landarin's quest, but we lost the boots when Corebard rested and everything on the ground went poof. So had to be only partially done.
* As punishment, Ubil made Corebard lug around the panataloons.
* We sold our junk at high hedge and saved our session here.
Jan had been a valuable companion, so back in Athkatla, his comrades were happy to help the gnome to a cure that would heal his muse's baby girl. Mazzy was wearing Vhailor's Helm by that time so that her clone could dispel a caster githyanki's protections without wasting dispelling arrows. (I didn't install SCS's delayed arrival of bonus merchants for this run.)
The party returned to the Umar Hills armed with a stack of PfUndead scrolls. The little quests in Imnesvale were handled without incident. A Killer Mimic was Held, remarkably enough, and Jermien was kept alive with healing magic while his golem was taking it on the chin. Slaying a phoenix (Hold Monster) and two air elementals (missiles) netted Aerie an egg that housed her familiar to-be (and 12 extra HPs), as part of @Coutelier's Wings mod.
Promise navigated the Temple Ruins solo, hasted and under PfUndead. She took down four bone golems with her returning throwing dagger, and teased the lich near the AMAUNATOR puzzle into casting Comet, Dragon's Breath, some Remove Magics and ADHWs as well as summoning a dark planetar and a fiend she steered well clear off before she finished the creature off with a (non-proficient) Azuredge hurl.
The lich near the lava pool was left alone. Protected by a second PfUndead scroll, Promise then proceeded to destroy the shadow altar with a sunstone bullet, and the shade lord with her returning throwing dagger.
(I tried Azuredge there too but got no saving throw messages so figured the Shade Lord was immune to its vorpal effect.)
In Imnesvale the party ran into Valygar, who took Jaheira's place, much to the half-elf's indignation. Promise didn't really get this. Yes Jaheira had spoken against and helped slay Galvarey, but she hadn't renounced her Harperhood yet (the follow-up quests had yet to trigger). Also, Promise had saved her butt against Ployer, so she didn't feel overly indebted to the druid she had only occasionally adventured with.
I'm not sure if Valygar is a good pick btw, as he's basically a fourth single-class warrior type in the party. Without grandmastery unlike Mazzy, Korgan, and Promise, Valygar can become the more flexible fighter in terms of weapon choices, but I feel Anomen would be sturdier, add more utility, and require less immunity-granting and saves-improving gear so that Mazzy, Promise, and Korgan can share that gear between just the three of them. I guess I'll just have to make good use of Korgan's rage ability and of Promise's ability to read scrolls when the situation calls for it. Or change my mind.
When Mazzy had to look after her poisoned sister, the party recruited Rasaad, hoping to start the monk's quest, but Jan Jansen's extended quest (as per the mod of the same name) intervened. It culminated in a bloody battle with Vaelag and his guards. With a battered Korgan barely scraping by, Rasaad being little more than deadweight, and Valygar subjected to a PW:Stun,
it was a miracle everyone survived. Healing potions, Slow, Hold Monsters, an Exaltation from Aerie to bring Valygar back to his senses, and a summoned efreeti helped turn the tide of the battle.
With Rasaad the party went to the old amphitheatre, where the monks present were pitted against their leader Hammerhelm, and an encounter with the Vagrant Blades was handled so diplomatically that the party didn't get to receive, steal or loot a ring of duplication, which would have been great for Valygar. All the party accomplished was to antagonize one of the vagrants. Rasaad was left to continue his quest on his own as Mazzy returned to the group.
The party traveled with Neera to her hidden refuge, did some minor quests there, decided to go look for Wilson in the unlocked Heretic Temple area, messed up recruiting the bear (I think he needs to be talked to before buying him from the beastmaster), but did see Promise bluff her way through a monk initiation ritual before leaving the area. This is her battling some invisible stalkers (potion of absorption, potion of frost giant strength, oil of speed to turn the odds in her favor).
The Eyes of the Beholder helmet and a gem of true seeing she received were useful prizes.
@LavaDelVortel's wonderful shaman stronghold became available (visually very pretty and conceptually very fitting within the game like a vanilla stronghold), but I won't cover what I've seen so far of its content so as not to spoil it.
A red wizard and some mercenaries were slain at Delosar's Inn at the behest of Neera and her friends thanks in large part to Aerie and Jan's Hold spells. Reporting back at the hidden refuge opened up the red wizard enclave in Waukeen's Promenade, which led to the party acquiring a robe of the neutral archmagi for Jan, some arrows of dispelling, and plenty of scrolls, potions, and wands including wands of paralyzation and spellstriking.
The latter wand made Promise feel confident to the point of having the party return to the Temple Ruins to face their first dragon. Jan and Aerie only had level 5 spells, but that seemed to be enough with some Lower Resistances, a Spell Thrust for Spell Shield, two Hold Monsters and a Feeblemind memorized. The companions buffed outside the shadow dragon's lair. These buffs included the Emotion Hope and Courage spells as well as the usual suspects (Stoneskin, Blur, Improved Invisibility, Mirror Image, Spell Immunity, radial PfE, Remove Fear, Haste). No specific precautions were taken against Thaxy's special attack, but the idea was to have enraged Korgan melee the beast while the others would spread out and attack with spells and missiles.
Upon entering its lair, the still blue-circled dragon cast a Remove Magic toward Korgan and Jan. The gnome had thankfully buffed with SI:Abjuration, so he wasn't in immediate danger. He started casting of Lower Resistance, as did Aerie, while Promise went for a wand Pierce Magic and an enraged Korgan charged. In the next few rounds, Jan still had to cast a Malison, and Aerie tried in vain to Silence her enemy (she didn't want to risk wasting a Hold Monster or Feeblemind on a not yet Malisoned enemy). A Hold Monster failed to affect the dragon. As there was no save notification, it seemed to have freedom of action. In those few rounds Korgan took a massive beating and had to retreat, kite and quaff a potion, and Promise and Mazzy were hit by the dragon's level-draining attack. But then Thaxy got hit by Jan's Feeblemind, and all the party had to do was plough through hundreds of HPs. (The dragon had 1689 HPs at full health.)
It was almost sad to see such an ancient and beautiful beast slain so easily by a bunch of upstart adventurers, but then Thaxll'ssillyia was an evil creature that had worked with the Shade Lord.
The posts inspired me to do plays with NPC’s with the exact same alignment. To ensure I try all NPC’s. The idea has inspired me so much, that I actually look forward to new characters - it may be masked restartis, but I like it.
The next alignment entry is Barb Arian. A very chaotic, unwise, but still good dwarven barbarian. I am going to do the neutral good later, but after some doing the lawful way, I fancied some chaos...
The chaotic good characters in BG1 are Kivan, Coran and Alora. They are all super strong for a ranged party and Barb Arian as the kite. No healing spells and arcane magic doesn’t bother me, since Barb Arian has natural regeneration within sight early on.
Kivan is the easiest to pick up. The thing is, that he has a timed quest (I think), and a wish to seek revenge on Tazok in the bandit camp. We are going there eventually, but not without preparation - so Barb postponed picking up Kivan.
First thing was an amour upgrade. Barb traveled to a lake, where the level 1 barbarian spotted a flock of gnolls. Not daring to approach them, he waited. Scouted some more, retreated and waited.... Let’s cut the crap, and just say he really wanted Drizzts armour and scimitars (being specialised in scimitars and dual wielding). I went there first, because the items are crucial and if I didn’t succeed I could just restart (not reload) and not miss out on to much.
Drizzt took out most of the advancing gnolls, but let some pass. When low on health he healed him self. Once in a while a gnoll got a critical hit - and Drizzt seemed to kill that assailant. But who will win. Nerve wrecking to say the least. But at some point a gnoll broke his weapon and the combat log eventually told me that Drizzt lay unconscious. Time to move in. The barbarian easily led the 2 remaining gnolls away from Drizzt, and got the mercy kill for him self (with a blow to rep off course). The result was 12.000 xp, 2 mighty scimitars and a supreme armour. The gnolls we quickly expedited after levelling up, raging and using the scimitars. A solid - but nerve wrecking - start since I feared that Drizzt where not in the mood of given up his goods or life. But fortune smiled upon Barb.
The good luck was soon taken advantage off. Barb ran to the coast and made good use of his potion of clarity from Candlekeep. The sirenes met there doom, and Barb reached level five. The sirenes don’t scatter and fire the arrows at you if you place your character in their midst - this poor AI spelled their doom.
In the cave two rages and a lot of healing potions meant that the golems where expedited and the coveted constitution tome was in the bag.
The long treks attracted the attention of bandits, but Barb scalped them with no worry and almost undented.
Time for picking up some help. Kivan was taken in and we bought the composite bow +1 in Feldepost inn. We headed for Nashkell and got an armour upgrade for Kivan.
We even picked up a sword from Greywolf before killing the kobolds in the mine with arrows from Kivans mighty bow. Easy as pie. Mulahey was done in by raging and some arrows. Outside the mine we ran north not bothering with the valley of tombs. We wanted to save the xp for the party of four.
Next up Kivans revenge. We speeded our advance towards the camp - dodging Vicky along the way. Targouz (or what’s his name) gave up his life and a nice full plate for Kivan.
Resting before the main tent, meant that Barb with rage could go through the opposition with full health. A true manifestation of barbarian power. Kivan was affected by a horror spell when the foes fell, but the journal showed he had fulfilled his quests.. phew. I feared that he had failed to acknowledge that he wasn’t getting revenge just yet (hopefully).
In cloakwood we quickly picked up Coran, and gave him one of the two belts we had picked up. We like Coran better as a female, and we hope he becomes a better man contemplating the life of a woman. We shall see. From cloakwood 1 to 2 some ettercaps poisoned Barb and we had to flee to cloakwood 2 and safety?
Cloakwood 2 almost saw an early end to the game. The game so far had thrown nothing against Barb that a low ac, high hopes pool, good apr and a decent thaco couldn’t handle. But at the very first web trap the trio fumbled. Coran spotted the trap, retreated to snipe the advancing spiders whilst Barb tripped the trap... the whole party webbed, and the spiders managed to poison Barb. A nerve wrecking waiting game ensued.
Along the way Barb managed his save and broke free from the web. What to do? A potion first, and then run or rage? Run had been the better choice, but rage it was... another failed save vs web later and things where looking grim.
But the massive hp pool and the spiders meek poison meant that Barb could live another day. Any other spider kind had done him in for sure.
The rest of the trek to the wyvern cave was done with no risk, and we duly buffed before the wyvern cave (a mandatory visit in Corans quest). The fight was handled with no worry, emphasising the difference between careless and careful play.
We went back to the temple and finished Corans quest. Now both Kivan and Coran can stay - giving Barb some decent back up. The opposition now face a raged dwarf with 5 apr backup who has both decent thaco and damage output.
Drausus party where the first to truly feel the power. Drawn out one at a time, they fell in quick succession. In the mine Coran handled the traps, and the party handled the foes. Looting all as they went further down the mine.
At Daveorns lair we realised that we hadn’t done our shopping properly. No greenstone amulet and no potions of elemental resistance? But not to worry, we have rage and many hp. Just a quick rest, and we where ready. 8 tries later, and some 30 guards left dead we finally managed a full rest.. and had two rages as our disposal.
The traps where removed and Barb lured Daveorn out. We tried shooting him with arrows of biting, but we had no luck. A nasty fireball dented Barb but heavily injured the backup. But acid arrows and a mighty scimitar secured a win. Time for Baldur’s Gate and Alora.
In the temple we helped Alora and did her quest - I’d reckon? We took her along and hit the road. The foursome took on Basilisk country and the Ankheg cave for loot and XP. Alora is awesome with her rabbit foot, but her HP are abysmal. Definitely something I don’t like... I will have to struggle to keep her alive. She did manage to steal both Algernons cloak, the cloak of Balduran and the ring of free action, which did improve har standing amongst the crew.
We continued our questing outside the city for xp, reputation and loot. We have some shopping to do, and the bucket list is long. Potions, scrolls and arrows are the most coveted items.
The chaotic good are looking good in BG1. I will have to finish the lasts bits and quests and see if we can reach SoD. SoD will be a thing of its own, since no chaotic good NPC’s seem to be available - until Caelar. Yikes.
Barb Arian - another lamb for the slaughter
This is the second character from my: Alignment challenge.
First thing was an amour upgrade. Barb traveled to a lake, where the level 1 barbarian spotted a flock of gnolls. Not daring to approach them, he waited. Scouted some more, retreated and waited.... Let’s cut the crap, and just say he really wanted Drizzts armour and scimitars (being specialised in scimitars and dual wielding). I went there first, because the items are crucial and if I didn’t succeed I could just restart (not reload) and not miss out on to much.
Definitely chaotic (good) to murder Drizzt for his armor.
Barb Arian - another lamb for the slaughter
This is the second character from my: Alignment challenge.
First thing was an amour upgrade. Barb traveled to a lake, where the level 1 barbarian spotted a flock of gnolls. Not daring to approach them, he waited. Scouted some more, retreated and waited.... Let’s cut the crap, and just say he really wanted Drizzts armour and scimitars (being specialised in scimitars and dual wielding). I went there first, because the items are crucial and if I didn’t succeed I could just restart (not reload) and not miss out on to much.
Definitely chaotic (good) to murder Drizzt for his armor.
No no. It was a mercy kill . The drow person was lying unconscious on the ground, probably about to be taken to their stronghold for a living kebab. We all heard stories about that..
The only thing an honourable and good person with a wisdom score of 3 would do is to give the poor fellow peace. Rest in peace my dark elven friend.
Barb Arian - another lamb for the slaughter
This is the second character from my: Alignment challenge.
First thing was an amour upgrade. Barb traveled to a lake, where the level 1 barbarian spotted a flock of gnolls. Not daring to approach them, he waited. Scouted some more, retreated and waited.... Let’s cut the crap, and just say he really wanted Drizzts armour and scimitars (being specialised in scimitars and dual wielding). I went there first, because the items are crucial and if I didn’t succeed I could just restart (not reload) and not miss out on to much.
Definitely chaotic (good) to murder Drizzt for his armor.
In RL Osthryth was murdered by an assassin. Hope that doesn't happen to my character.
The upgrading of the assassins in Candlekeep was responsible for Osthryth's demise at the hand of Mendas in the first run, however upon starting again she was able to defeat all-comers at the keep.
She was a little miffed that she was unable to use most of the equipment that the assassins carried, but had the sense to realise that if she ever hooked up with a thief, it would be highly useful. She therefore tucked it all into her bag and ventured out into the unknown with Gorion, her mentor, only to discover that he was not as all-powerful as she had believed him to be.
She returned to Candlekeep and was horrified when she was denied access to her former home. She therefore arranged for Gorion's burial and returned to the site of the ambush. The belongings of Gorion proved to be of more worth than those of the assassins.
She therefore donned his equipment and decided to head for the nearby town of Beregost being fearful that further ambush could await her at the Friendly Arms Inn.
I made my way to Nashkel, picking up the Colquetle Amulet on the way. Lord Foreshadow gave me a ring, and in Nashkel I picked up some Ankheg Armour. I chatted with Noober and Oublek offered me some gold which I turned down as it wasn't mine to take. At the carnival I rescued Bentha. I had to flee three times before I was successful. However patience won the day.
South of Nashkel I fought and killed Zargos Flintblade. That too was a long battle which eventually had a successful outcome.
Similarly I had problems fighting Greywolf. I used summoned weasels which have a very limited attack, but they did keep him occupied until I blinded him. However, I was badly hurt and so moved away, leaving the weasels to attack in melee whilst I used my sling.
To my chagrin, Isra landed the deathblow. This meant that I lost out on the experience. Even worse, Isra didn't get it either. On the bright side, I am still alive.
Isra then accompoanied me back to Beregost where I delivered the Colquetle Amulet.
EDIT
We then went to High Hege, picked up Perdue's Sword, got Mellicamp back into shape, tried to help Aiwell, but failed. We then went ogrillon hunting.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no damage increase, max HP on level up.
Mods: SCS v32.7 (basically everything), see spoiler for WeiDU.
Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.7
Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.7
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: v32.7
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: v32.7
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: v32.7
Wider selection of random scrolls: v32.7
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v32.7
Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v32.7
Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v32.7
Faster Bears: v32.7
Improved shapeshifting: v32.7
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v32.7
Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v32.7
Ease-of-use party AI: v32.7
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32.7
Smarter general AI: v32.7
Better calls for help: v32.7
Smarter Mages: v32.7
Smarter Priests: v32.7
Potions for NPCs: v32.7
Improved Spiders: v32.7
Smarter sirines and dryads: v32.7
Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: v32.7
Smarter basilisks: v32.7
Improved doppelgangers: v32.7
Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32.7
Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v32.7
Improved kobolds: v32.7
Relocated bounty hunters: v32.7
Improved Ulcaster: v32.7
Improved Balduran's Isle: v32.7
Improved Durlag's Tower: v32.7
Improved Demon Cultists: v32.7
Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32.7
Improved Bassilus: v32.7
Improved Drasus party: v32.7
Improved Red Wizards: v32.7
Improved Undercity assassins: v32.7
Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32.7
Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32.7
Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32.7
Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32.7
Improved final battle: v32.7
Improved minor encounters: v32.7
Protagonist: Carran, Human Invoker.
A roll of 95, good way to start our adventure! Off we go...
Carran breezes through Candlekeep, his familiar easily besting both Shanks and Carbos unaided. Once clear of the keep, we pick up Imoen, Xzar and Montaron. The latter two luck out and both survive the bout with Tarnesh, and are rewarded with early retirement (meaning they are kicked out of the party and left by a table in the Friendly Arm Inn for the rest of the game). Khalid and Jaheira take their place.
We duck out to the east, help out Viconia, and subsequently recruit her (an early Plate Mail isn't bad, either). Good, party nearly assembled.
However, as long as we're up north, we head into the Ankheg den. Or rather, Viconia under Sanctuary sneaks in, swipes the loot, and sneaks back out. Ah, Wand of Fire, we'll give you a loving home. Since we had Viconia memorize a full complement of Command, we also take out a single Ankheg (that's all our measly damage output at this stage lets us tackle, even when we're autohitting...). We haul its shell down to Beregost and stash it in a barrel, later to be turned into Ankheg Plate the moment we hit 5000 gold.
The party proceeds south, clearing the entirely inconsequential areas on the way (Hobgoblins galore).
At long last arriving at the Nashkel Carnival, we pick up our final party member: Branwen. Yep, two Clerics, no real archer. Not sure how well this will work, but let's find out!
With oodles of Command available, we head into the wilderness west of Nashkel. An Ogre Mage ambush gives us a severe fright, but we calm down upon realizing this version only has a single L3 slot (which he wasted on Ghost Armor). Sure am happy he didn't close in on Carran and whack him once he was unconscious, though....
We clear the Xvart village, but rather than rest, risk traveling. Another Ogre Mage ambush leads to the first (and amazingly, so far only one this session) death: Imoen eats a Magic Missile, and 8 HP just isn't enough. Carran swiftly avenges her: We're out of Command, so the Wand of Fire steps in.
A quick return to Nashkel later, we keep clearing the areas to the west, the Wand of Fire doing good work when our piddly STR 15 frontliners can't deal damage fast enough. Carran eventually hits L2 (meaning a total of 18 HP, so he shouldn't be killable with a single arrow from a shortbow anymore), at which point we trigger Dorn's ambush: Both Bandit Archers are immediately Commanded to sleep, and we get another Plate Mail. Good stuff.
It should be noted we've been incredibly lucky with random scroll drops: Carran knows Agannazar's Scorcher, Web and Stinking Cloud (he was guaranteed to scribe them successfully with the Invoker bonus), which is a massive help once he reaches L3. All the western areas are swiftly cleared, and we even tackle the Vampiric Wolves at the Beregost temple. For that matter, we have scrolls of Lance of Disruption and Ice Lance also waiting to be scribed.... we even pick up a scroll of Knock. Very nice, considering Imoen will be dualing at Thief 6.
With the areas west of Nashkel clear, we move into the areas to the east, clearing everything but Narcillicus (we'll come for him once Animate Dead is up and running). That done, we return to Beregost: Imoen fubs the first attempt, but a Charm Person or Mammal allows her a second try, and we get Algernon's Cloak.
Imoen is gaining levels rapidly, so we decide to hit up Durlag's while she can still disarm traps. We've got some charges of the Wand of Fire, and there's plenty of buffing capacity, so the exterior is tackled without much issue. We head inside the tower and clear the floors aboveground, leaving Kirinhale and the Ghost for later (we still lack Animate Dead!), as well as the Basilisks on the balcony. We descend into the depths, clearing a little over half of the level with the Warders: Imoen hits the XP for Thief 6, and duals. Oh, we also got a random drop of a Fireball scroll, and Carran swiped the Monster Summoning II / MGoI scrolls in the bookcase here.
With Imoen a L1 mage, the Basilisks on the balcony provide a welcome boost. We also grab the +2 Scimitar: The trap is a simple Fireball one, so even Resist Fire / Cold on a tank is enough to grab it. Around here we also did our first real bout of spell scribing (I only scribe when there's potions to allow for 100% success rate), vastly improving our options. Imoen still needs to level, so we go after Mutamin and his pets. And yep, maybe two Clerics wasn't such a bad idea... they both finally reached L5, so we've got 4 Skeleton Warriors already. Mutamin is not amused, but his disappointment is shortlived. So is he, for that matter.
By now we're grotesquely powerful: Web, Fireball and Animate Dead is really all you need for BG1, and in a pinch, everything but Fireball can slide. We clear Shoal's area as well as the Sirines, and even go back for Narcillicus, all without issue. Since I wasn't sure what Bassilus might do in this version of SCS, I had left him alone until we could return with overwhelming force, but... he doesn't really do anything new?
A handful of buffs, an interrupted attempt to summon an Aerial Servant (I guess, it was a Conjuration spell), then down he goes.
By now we've cleared almost all outdoor areas: We've left the Red Wizards, though we could probably take them comfortably, and the Firewine Bridge. Yeah, I hate myself for it, but I will clear Firewine... once Imoen has her Thief levels back. For now though, it's high time to advance the plot! We introduce the Kobolds to the wonders of Fireball, and plunge into the depths. I'm glad I actually found a use for Power Word: Sleep (though it was cast from a scroll... I'd never memorize it).
Needless to say, Mulahey stands no chance whatsoever. Nor does Nimbul, some Skeleton Warriors sealing his fate. On our way back to Beregost, however, the Amazons take advantage of some Kobolds ambushing us and launch their own ambush! Of course, we were quite ready for them: A Detect Invisibility from Carran reveals the stealthed Telka, preventing her from landing a backstab on Carran, and it is then simply a matter of keeping the pressure up. But really, they don't have the levels to pose a serious threat at this stage.
You'll note Carran is wearing the Robe of the Good Archmagi. Since we hit reputation 18 (bit of a fluke since I've got 1/4 rep gain installed, but it can still happen), we did some shopping. Unfortunately, while Carran wasn't looking, Algernon got a bit frisky with Viconia... and she responded by having a Skeleton Warrior turn his interiors distressingly exterior. So our reputation is back to 9, and Viconia won't bugger off!
No sense crying over spilled milk, on to the Bandit Camp. I'm reasonably confident Carran could take them all single-handed by now, but we might as well let everyone chip in.
Moving into Cloakwood, we get the second set of bounty hunters. But they're even less of a threat than the Amazons: We quickly dispose of them and continue on our way.
With Jaheira in the party, we reach a peaceful solution with Seniyaad. The Cloakwood Spiders are cleared out: Our Cleric duo have reached L7, and (with the Ring of Holiness) we have three L4 Cleric spell slots, meaning Khalid, Jaheira and Carran all get Free Action for our assault on Centeol's lair, rendering the opposition moot. Likewise, the Shadow Druids cannot stand up to Web and Fireball. Finally, we tackle the Wyvern Cave using plain old buffing, and opt to return the Wyvern Head immediately (we restock a bit and sell off some valuables while in town). Returning to the outskirts of the Iron Throne mine, we lay our plans.
We're feeling exceedingly confident, so opt to simply rush Drasus and friends with some Skeleton Warriors and see what happens. We do have a trump card: Viconia can lay down Cloud of Pestilence. It's a 4th level spell, so it won't be blocked by Kysus' and Rezdan's MGoI, but our Skeleton Warriors are immune to it.
It works devastatingly well: The fully buffed Skeleton Warriors make absolute mincemeat of Drasus and Genthore, and proceed to turn the enemy Mages into finely chopped garnish. There was a bit of a fright when a Lightning Bolt went awry, zapping Khalid and Viconia a bit, but it didn't rebound in a dangerous way. Rezdan didn't even put up MGoI and so is rendered unconscious by a simple Stinking Cloud.
With the principal guardians down for the count, we push into the mine proper. I feel a little cheap for firebombing Hareishan from afar (she should've been allowed to get her MGoI up), but with our levels being what they are, I am certain she wouldn't have been able to do anything to us anyway.
Natasha unceremoniously succumbs to five super-buffed Skeleton Warriors (Recitation, Chant, Bless, Strength of One), getting off only a single Lightning Bolt. We retreat and prepare for Davaeorn. Unfortunately, upon arrival, we note that we apparently set off his encounter timer the first time we stepped foot on his level (he talked to a trap-tripping Branwen under Sanctuary, which shouldn't be possible). So he has a metric ton of guards accompanying him. Eh. Fireball! And buff Khalid up a little, including a Scroll of Protection from Magic.
It takes a while to crack all the locks using only our L2 arcane slots filled with Knock, but we leave no loot behind! The mines are flooded, and we make our way back to the Friendly Arm Inn, selling off all our ill-gotten gains. Imoen only needs about 15k XP to regain her Thief levels: This shouldn't take long to reach with the Baldur's Gate quests. Once we can disarm traps again, we'll delve deeper into Durlag's Tower, though we'll probably leave the Demon Knight alone as usual (very poor reward for the risk).
Trio 22
Corebard - human bard, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Ubil - human cavalier (Gate70)
Highway - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
As the last Trio died in just a couple of minutes, we had to reroll yet again. We've had a lot of disasters lately. But we did survive this 1st session, though there was a death.
Here's the next Lord of Murder lamb to the slaughter.
And here are his group-mates:
There were many tasks we did without much problem:
* Sirines done pretty early - with Cavalier immunity to poison and charm, Ubil was naturally eager to take on the sirines. He was NOT immune to the feeblemind and confusion, so the party had to wait for him quite a bit this segment. And in the Pirate Cave, after we killed the nearby flesh golem, Ubil foolishly tripped the hold trap, and yes got held. In hindsight, he realized the dwarf with his better saves made more sense.
* Samuel done early - no problems here, though we did get miffed when a guard critical stole our kill of Tarnesh.
* The sirines enabled Corebard to get 3 level 1 spell slots - time for Basilisks! And yes, protection from petrification spell worked much better than using Korax. Corebard was surprised all baslisks were killed before the 4 turns of the protection wore off. We got our revenge on Mutamutin.
* Kirian was destroyed by stinking cloud and the paralyzation wand.
* Right about here the Trio made some mistakes, though not critical. Ubil foolishly tried to tank Neira and was duly confused - will he become a fallen paladin? But no Neira held him too and then killed him. We left his stuff and resurrected Ubil at a nearby Temple. But while Ubil was looting his stuff, Corebard foolishly "rested" - and he has the rest on heal option on, which meant all of Ubil's stuff went "poof". "Where's my shield" could be heard from Gate70 - oops!
* Oh somewhere on the way we took out Greywolf, we were very low level. But Ubil wisely decided to have Greywolf chase him while Corebard and Highway filled Greywolf with missiles. Ubil appreciated the sword upgrade.
* To prevent Corebard from being killed by Neira (who was held), Highway got into melee with Neira until Corebard recovered and was then Corebard was able to pump magic missiles and arrows into her. But Highway only had a non-proficient weapon. But what's silly is Corebard had just sold a melee dagger! So after the combat, we went to the 3 tombs area and got a free +2 dagger for Highway.
* To amend for his mistake, Corebard pushed to do Bjornin's quest so Ubil could get a good shield. That was duly accomplished.
* We did do Landarin's quest, but we lost the boots when Corebard rested and everything on the ground went poof. So had to be only partially done.
* As punishment, Ubil made Corebard lug around the panataloons.
* We sold our junk at high hedge and saved our session here.
Journal of Osthryth the Illusionist Gnome
Final post
We cleared all the ankhegs that we could find north of the FAI, killed Sonner and his evil friends as well as a zombie who was bothering his former wife. Tenya then joined the party, after which we killed an ogre who had a couple of belts.
We sold the ankheg shells which gave us just enough gold to upgrade one of the belts such that when Tenya wears it she now has a decent strength. Of course this means that we now have insufficient gold for buying helms of charm protection.
Sirene then joined us and we cleared the temple area of wolves before entering a cave where we were asked to find a vampitic sword. In there was a suit of armour which furnished Sirene who is a tiefling cavalier who worships Ilmater. She is the only one in the party who can use a sword which we found on the body of Mendas. It is quite a good one, so I'm pleased to have a party member who can actually use it. Most of us have +1 weapons now, so breakages shouldn't happen. A couple of weapons are better than +1.
Gavin has now joined us as well and his superior asked us to find this Bassilus fellow.
This we did, and nearby we also found Zargal, his cronies and some ghasts.
The weasels that I summoned clearly prevented some of us being badly hurt.
They might not do a lot of damage, but they take damage that would otherwise have been inflicted on the party.
When we took on Bassilus we only had about 60 gold pieces which was causing some concern. With the reward for taking out Bassilus, we can now buy a helmet of charm protection.
We went on to kill the half-ogres that had hurt Bjornin and helped Drizzt against some gnoll.
We had just rested when we were once more requested to return to Lathander's Temple where we were asked to deal with Mutamin.
We got into conflict with some other adventurers who were quickly dealt with.
We cleared the area of basilisks and sirines. We also depetrified one of Mutamin's victims.
That would have raised our repuation if it hadn't already been at 20.
We returned to the temple to deliver the good news.
We called in at Gullykin where Alora joined us. We went through the secret entrance and Alora cleared some traps. We left Gavin in the basement and picked up Indira. We killed the Ogre-mage that Indira had been hunting and killed the skeleton so giving the skeletons peace. We dropped Indira off since we had finished her quest and picked up Gavin.
We had been hoping to fight our way through to the Firewine Bridge, but due to our wounds that would have been a Bridge Too Far.
We were requested to return to the temple whilst resting in the wilds.
We then had the last of Gavin's quests to complete. That was straightforward.
We then went to Ulgoth's Beard where Alora did some pick-pocketting. Sadly she got caught which caused our reputation to drop two points.
Returning to the South, we helped a dryad and Aaron, killing more assassins on the way. That brought our reputation back to 20. The assassins hurt Tenya badly forcing us to rest for 16 hours in a nearby cave since we were unable to rest undisturbed elsewhere.
We then descended into the mines of Nashkel where we were victorious.
When Sirene left us to make room for Xan, she said that she would meet us again at Lathander's temple.
We avoided conflict upon leaving, uysing grains and pulses to free David Jansen from some lady-ogres. However, when we bumped into some slavers, we were forced to confront them and emerged victorious. This boosted Xan's experience considerably, and since we were at the Friendly Arms Inn, we deemed it a safe place to drop him.
Heading back to claim our reward we got mixed up in a fight between Dorn and his enemies, All of them ended up dead which seemed good to us since none were worthy of surviving.
We then headed for the coast where we killed both sirines and pirates. Alora was well and truly taken out of the battle by the sirine's spells. We kept well away from her so as not to get into conflict and were able to kill them without too much trouble.
We headed north and have killed Droth and Shoal.
For the first time ever whilst playing this game, Gavin saved against Shoal's spell and wasn't even injured!!
The sirine in that area were also killed and a ring as returned in return for a potion of fiery burning.
We then headed south, helped an archaeologist, and killed a doomsayer before helping Brage who we took to the temple of Helm in Nashkel.
Got killed by the Mighty Kahrk Don't know how. I was nowhere near him so it must have been a spell.
I was ambushed three times in Candlekeep by well-armed thieves. I sold a dagger that one of them carried and bought a katana. Mendas had picked up some tomes which boosted my charisma somewhat, but noy enough to do much good.
After being ambushed, I followed the advice of Gorion and fled to the FAI where I was accosted by Tarnesh a mage.
After finding Joia's ring, I headed for High Hedge where I killed some gnolls. On the body of one of them was a sword upon which was etched the name Perdue.
After picking up Mellicamp I was ambushed. I foolishly thought that because they were ONLY kobolds, I would kill them easily. Due to my wounds I fled without picking up all the loot. "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day."
Sadly Mellicamp failed to survive.
Thankfully, neither did Zargos Flintblade.
After killing Greywolf, I reached level three and increased my proficiency with bows. Isra joined me which gave me the chance to dual-class.
A brief report on my latest run through BG1. After playing through a short 5E campaign for reals (at a brewery no less!) I decided to reproduce the group and play through the game with them a bit. The party wasn't particularly powerful- a hippy necro randy druid, a backstabbing shooty drow, a crocodile obsessed ranger, a swashbuckling bard, a protective cavalier, and a fire infected sorcerer... but it was fun to play around with them. In BG1 the druid Adorar (blame the random name generator!) was the protagonist, with Flara (Dragon Disciple, G3 mod), Vynd (Drow assassin, G3), Minsc (As a Beastmaster with some mod-added juice), Safana (as a Sniper), and the tank.... who was Sirene (chunked by green slime), then Ajantis (chunked by traps in Durlag's), and then finally Kagain (Fist of Order, who got along with Flara like a house on fire).
Apart from the frequent loss of our tank, the game went fairly smoothly. We cleared out Durlag's, Ulgoth's Beard, and most of the Northern Tales quests. Only occasional inattention (why is Adorar trying to melee Slythe who is now invisible oh crap) threatened to derail the run until I made the final battle rather over interesting by laying half the traps we'd disarmed all game (courtesy of Kjeron's trap overhaul mod) in the Temple of Bhaal.... with mixed results. Sadly the Bigby's Crushing Hands traps ignored the Protection from Magic Scrolls that most of the party were using... killing Vynd and Minsc, and chunking Flara. This meant that there was somewhat more running around than usual while Kagain hacked his way through several of Sarevok's cultists and their skeletal doubles. Still, alls well that ends well as a Adorar shifted into the form of an arachnid and bit Sarevok to death.
On to Amn (can't see Adorar loitering around the palace for Caelar) and the real challenge...
Trio Update 22
Corebard - human bard, protagonist (corey_russell)
Ubil - human cavalier (gate70)
Highway - dwarven kensai (grond0)
The party made good progress this session. Here's some of the things we did:
* helped a boy and his "dog"
* took down Vax and Zal
* returned a cat to a little girl
* crushed some ogrillions who had a DEX gauntlets. While that would in theory help Highway, he can't use them being a kensai. While here, also got the CHA tome. On the way out took out a bear and got some cold protection boots from a nobleman.
*
* Corebard wanted to use the protection from undead scroll in the 3 tombs area, but Grond0 still can't hurt jellies - he also mentioned he does have skill with two hand swords. So we paid Arghain a visit - with the sword upgrade, the party headed to the 3 tombs area.
* Highway destroyed the undead with the help of the protecion from undead scroll, while the party waited outside. However, while Grond0 was dealing with the Revenant, Ubil got impatient and picked a fight with Narcillicus. Corebard tried to help and was attacked by flinds, a dangerous enemy for Corebard. Highway was ready to help, and Ubil ran away from Narcillicus. The jellies made pursuit of Ubil. It was a mess (read: took some damage), but the party cleared out the enemies. Only Narcillicus was left, but magic missiles and arrows of biting from Corebard were too much.
* Corebard decided was now was a good time to do the main quest, hence we went into the Nashkel Mines - this went real well. Corebard put invisibility on Highway so he could use Kai on Mulahey. This ended up being a quick victory.
* Tranzig was beat quickly.
* Ankheg nest was cleared about now. This went well.
* Bandit camp (surface) was done. A paralyzation wand shot made Khosahnn have no chance. As for the tent, this was little danger since Ubil has resist fear spell. Corebard went invisible and used magic missiles on Brikt, and then Venkt - victory!
* We took on Aldeth since his sword was an upgrade for Corebard.
* Corebard gave his freedom potion to Ubil so he can safely trip the traps - this made this area go quite well. While here, Centeol was destroyed, so Spider's Bane was an upgrade for Highway.
* Drassus got hit with web and stinking cloud - the enemies fell quickly.
* Cloakwood mines also went well. Wands did huge damage to the Battle Horrors. A potion of magic blocking Ubil used to try to take out Davaeorn. However, it looked dangerous for a moment, as Ubil got held and it looked like Daveorn was going to try to summon some critters. However, arrows of biting and magic missile wand shots saved Ubil before Davaeorn could realize his plan.
* We were almost out of time. So took we took out Melium, and saved our session here.
We have 1 hour to do our worst. It looks like we have returned to Baldur's Gate after escaping from the Candlekeep catacombs which means Slythe is going to get an arrow of dispelling. He duly fails to survive a hammer and scimitar inspection so we pick up his invitation to the coronation. Duke Belt joins Slythe in ignomy but Liia Jannath seems happy enough with our efforts.
The Thieves Maze holds little danger for us so Grond triggers a couple of lightning traps and a fireball trap before telling Stawk to be careful about the remaining traps.
Rahvin and his mercenary gang are in for a long wait, as we skirt around them and enter the temple of Bhaal without their knowledge.
Stawk uses another arrow to dispel Sarevok's haste and Grond lays into Semaj as he teleports towards us. Stawk hits him with a dispelling arrow and he is dead without having dispelled any of our buffs.
Sarevok is saved the effort of plodding around after us when Grond decides to go for melee. Stawk adds a couple of acidic arrows but close-quarter hammering is too much for our foe.
SoA
We make our escape from the chateau without any glamorous (or otherwise) screenshots. Grond had picked up his Ashideena warhammer from a table while Stawk is happy for now with a couple of average scimitars. Despite our best effort Ulvaryl the vampire killed a group of assassins and left without giving us chance to finish her off.
We've got a clutch of loot to sell at a Promenade merchant next time, and hopefully we won't run into the freed Minsc, Jaheira, or Imoen, anytime soon.
Journal of Gharth the Golden
After Killing Greywolf, the Inquisitor Isra joined me, I levelled up and gained another proficiency point choosing long bows. I then dual-classed to become an Illusionist.
Together we made our way to the Carnival where Aerie asked me to help Bentha which we did by killing Zordral.
We made our way back to Beregost where we returned the Colquetle amulet and bought some guril berries to try and help a werewolf regain his human form. It didn't work.
We headed further north where we killed a zombie that was pestering it's former wife.
We were going to help Sonner and his friends, but upon discovering who was evil, we revised our choice about who to support and killed them.
We then hunted ankhegs until I regained my fighter abilities when I reached level 4.
At that point Gavin the Cleric of Lathander and Sirene the Cavalier joined the party.
We then returned a letter to Mirianne and received a ring in thanks, before heading south and delivering the rabbit we had bought at the carnival to an ogre who dubbed the rabbit "Little-little-Ugh.
At this point I realised that from a power-gaming perspective it would have been better to have helped a dog, a dryad and a cat before picking up Gavin and Isra as they would have joined with an extra level, but not too upset about it.
After reuniting Rufie with it's owner we headed towards the coast. We helped a dryad and then just after resting we were asked to return to Lathander's Temple.
We helped a deowned cat before complying.
At the Temple we were asked to deal with the murderer Bassilus which we did, the spell silence rendering him impotent.
After killing Bassilus we turned our attention to Zargal, and other enemies in that area before our buffing wore off.
After picking up a useful ring we then delivered Samuel to the FAI.
As it was nearby we cleared some wolves near Lathander's Temple and then went into a cave where we killed everything, dead or undead.
After returning to Beregost, we were once more summoned to Lathander's Temple.
We were sent to deal with Mutamin, but Lindin and others got in the way first.
However, Mutamin was finally killed.
We were then asked to seek out a murderer in Beregost which we did. It turned out to be lady Valeria. It seems that we were doing her a favour by killing her.
Journal of Gharth the Golden
We decided to visit the coast and found there a number of hostile sirine who were killed without excessive difficulty.
We tried to talk Sil into being reasonable but were unsuccessful. She became hostile so I left some summoned weasels in our wake in the hope of avoiding conflict. However she followed us to the Pirate Den where we killed her.
Since she was already dead we agreed to the pirate's request to kill her. They gave us 1000 gold pieces.
We went to kill the other sirine and then looted the cave only to find the pirates waiting for us outside.
They were not happy that we had taken their loot and attacked.
They died and so we then headed south to where Charleston Nib was doing an archaeological dig.
Gallor tried to get us to fight Charleston but instead we killed him.
The only thanks we got for sparing the workers was that they attacked us, hurting Sirene badly in the process thus forcing us to kill them.
Strangely Charleston himself was not affected by whatever caused the workers to become hostile. He then gave us another quest in the Firewine Ruins
Upon taking the idol outside, we were attacked by a doomsayer and two doom guards. We survived the attack.
We then helped Brage before returning to the coast where we killed Droth and Shoal.
We returned a ring to Arcand who rewarded us for it and then took on some more sirine.
We continued exploring the coastal area by going to the gnoll stronghold where we killed Gnarl and his crony Hairtooth.
Nearby were some more assassins Hilgaar and his cohorts. They were also killed without regret.
We then investigated a cave that had some useful treasure in it. We slept there before continuing.
We rescued Aaron and Dynaheir and returned with them to Nashkel. Leaving Aaron at Nashkel, from there we proceeded to the Wilderness lake where we killed assassins and half-ogres who attacked us.
Drizzt was then helped in a fight against some gnolls and he subsequently returned the favour by helping us find Dynaheir's Journal. We took her to Beregost where we bid her farewell. She has her journal back so she has no need of us and we currently have no need of her. We went to viit Gullykin next, picking up Alora after finding Smeagol's ring for him. EDIT
In the dungeons under Gullykin we met up with Indira. She seemed desperate to kill the ogre-mage down there so we let her tag along for a while.
We were given a quest by some Ghost Knights.
A mage called Lendarn was caught in the blast of a holy smite spell when we didn't even know of his existance. He must have been evil, so it was no big deal.
We then killed the ogre-mage:
When we exited, we killed Meilum.
Wer then entered a mini-dungeon that Charleston Nib sent us to. Isra was killed by the vampires there, but we were ultimately successful.
We dropped Alora and Indira off at Beregost before meeting up with Xzar and Montaron. Montaron was left in Beregost and Montaron picked up several useful items. We left him at Ulgoth's Beard and then picked up Tenya. We persuaded her to worship Tempus as well as Umberlee. We would like it if she stopped worshipping her, but that might take time.
The party where trekking in the wilderness zones for fame; and money, loot and xp. Heavily packed and ready for action. Like rappers - sort off.
The party did the basilisk area and ankheg ditto. The former provided the xp, and the latter was the financial success we had hoped. The party hauled all the shells back to the smithy, cashing 500 gp in pr. shell. A bag of holding would have speeded up the process a bit - but since the long treks healed Barb, it wasn’t that much of a delay.
A tour in Durlags would supply a coveted cup, helmet and xp to boot. Luckily I bought some potions of mirror eyes, since an ambush did scare me a bit..
The tower was a less scary experience experience than prior experiences. I usually play without a thief, so having two around was a treat. I managed to do the upper levels with ease, and I managed to do half of the basements first floor without taking a dent. First time ever.
The tower took its revenge when I tried taking on the doppelgängers whilst saving my resources... well I did manage to kill them, but they sure pack a punch when hasted and mirror imaged.
The warders where less of a hassle. The barbarian immunity to backstabs helps a lot. And a 8 apr backing group doesn’t hurt either... The entrance to the lower levels now lay open.
Although Barb wasn’t on max xp, I decided on only getting Durlags cup and Kiel’s helmet from below. The group was already strong as they where and Barb himself was nearly at the level cap. So the tower tour was cut short after getting the cup and helmet.
Looking at the pictures from the play, it was pretty obvious that the game needed a game plan. The party was travelling back and forth from the city and the wilderness. But since Barb was doing all the tanking and was regenerating whilst travelling, it didn’t seem to bother me while playing (in-game time wasting usually vexes me quite a bit - resting in particular).
When facing the iron throne we had 4 fireball necklaces. The iron throne top party was greeted by a four ball volley from each staircase - 8 in all. They didn’t like it one bit. On to candle keep after picking up the loot from the ashes..
In candle keep we headed straight for the Catacombs, and two more tomes.. Barbs wisdom pushed to a whooping 6 and strength to 19 - both a significant boost. Perhaps Barb will be that much wiser in the future - but he sure was stronger.
Back in the city Barb did the iron throne part 2, the undercellar and Ramizaths tower (I had forgotten about the int. tome). All done without a worry.
A real worry on the other hand was the palace fight. The palace fight is always the biggest worry in my playbook. If I play solo I recruit some help with the nymph cloak. The spell power and meat shields usually do the dirty work; and secure a win.
But since I try to improve my party play, I was trying to solve the palace fight/puzzle with party resources. Last time Dynaheirs web saved the day - slowing the advances whilst charname with free action mobbed up the foes. This time we had to rely on missile and melee power alone.
I duly buffed - reaching 15 apr within the party - all with supreme thaco and damage output - well besides Alora (who does have luck on her side on the other hand).
I had decided against using arrows of dispelling, and had just loaded with +1 arrows. As the battle started, the flaming fists, Belt, Barb and the assassins started a bloody melee. I had no way of pointing out the right targets (playing on a small iPhone 6 screen), and Belts HP bar showed that he was near death within the first rounds.
A ruby ring and a sword lying on the floor alerted me that Belt had died. But the assailants flock where diminishing. Llia was at full health seemed to hold her ground.
The hefty apr and damage output prevailed in the end and I killed the doppelgängers, and much to my surprise the sword and ring I the floor wasn’t Belts. A pleasant surprise, but the I quickly positioned Barb in harms way since big brother was still there. And Sarevok surely dealt some heavy blows, but to no avail against the massive hp pool of his younger brother (and Durlags goblet). The victory was secured.
Now to find your way in a heavily trapped maze - but with exact remembrance of the traps and two thieves it was the lesser task.
At the temple we detrapped as much we could without being exposed. Then we trapped the place just below the centrepiece (the point where Semaj usually spawns). We then sent Alora hiding in shadows against Sarevok. The script triggered, Sarevok stayed in place and Semaj shadow dooring to his death - or at least to his badly injured state. His death followed shortly after.
Now I just had to lure Sarevok out, dispel him and kill him. Easy.. But luring Sarevok out made Angelo follow. Angelo can be a pest, but luckily he did help a bit, since deciding to stand an inch from Sarevok and fire his arrows of detonation. Well game on, if it must be so.
We dispelled Sarevok, moved Barb (with 90% fire resistance - ring and scimitar) into melee. The others at a safe distance doing 11 apr with elemental arrows. The battle wasn’t just bloody but also quite fiery. But the outcome never in doubt.
Onto Sod. The opening dungeon should be a breeze with a 4 man party and 2 thieves. But the rest of SoD until the final battle will be with no party, since no one will meet the chaotic good requirements. There will be some bottle necks here and there... But Barb is sturdy. We shall see how sturdy he really is next time.
There were two major mistakes this session, one of which had lasting repercussions.
Carran et al romped, stomped and pomped (I think it's a word...) throughout the city of Baldur's Gate.
None of the opposition lived up to their moniker: When possible we'd use our abundance of Animate Dead slots to deal with situations, and when not, IWD THAC0-boosting spells made a mockery of most enemies (Emotion: Hope, Emotion: Courage, Recitation, Prayer, Chant, Bless.. they STACK!).
We swiftly found ourselves with nothing left to do but ascend the Iron Throne, and so we duly did. Apart from the guard on the first floor turning some of the merchants there red toward us (and said merchants then following us up the stairs, turning more merchants red, who in turn ALSO started following us up the stairs...) forcing us to be very careful to avoid accidental reputation loss, we made our way to the top floor without issue. Everyone turned invisible and snuck past the welcoming party, setting up shop in the back room.
The plan was the same as always: Send five supercharged Skeleton Warriors to cause as much mayhem as possible. We would then send a second wave of decidedly less deadly but still very annoying summons to soak up any Chaos/Confusion spells, and finally charge in triumphantly with the party once the enemy was well and truly worn down. Everything went well to start: Invisible Khalid commanded the undead hordes to take down Diyab and Aasim.
It was around here that I realized we hadn't seen Shennara make an appearance yet. How did I realize this, you ask? Carran suddenly found himself holding his own spleen.
I don't remember why Carran had his dagger equipped instead of his sling, but it likely saved his life. Clever tactics gone to crap (as they tend to), we threw caution to the wind and engaged in earnest. Took quite a bit of damage, and there was a bit of a nail-biter due to a Confusion, but we still came out on top!
Jeez. Carran should've just stayed invisible (I had him Haste the Skeleton Warriors, hence why he wasn't hidden). Massive mistake number one, but at least we pulled through.
We gathered the loot and headed out, not turning in the quest to Duke Eltan just yet.
We finished up the wilderness areas hitherto left untouched: The Red Wizards and Firewine Bridge... ugh. At one point we were fighting about 40 kobolds. Good times. Actually, no, not good times at all!
Imoen regained her Thief abilities some time ago, so it was high time to revisit Durlag's. The Warders dropped in record time; I think they lasted less than five rounds. No revolutionary tactics, just Animate Dead and buffing, same as always.
Neither the third nor fourth underground levels provided much obstacle; the most noteworthy thing to occur being a scroll of Melf's Minute Meteors dropping off a Greater Doppleganger.
We had enough divine slots to give everyone Protection from Lightning, and in combination with a massive opening barrage, this meant the chess battle didn't last long.
Truly, we should use Fireball barrage more often to speed things up. Certainly there can be no downside at all to dropping massive amounts of area-of-effect damage of a type known for chunking characters in close proximity to our combined main tank/source of damage.
We pushed into the fifth underground level, and since we had so many Wands of Fire by now, were using them along with Necklaces of Missiles to speed things up. This included the fight with Grael. So, let's see what happened here.
So... I made the connection that Khalid was actually just standing in range of the six fireballs we had launched (he caught fire, after all) and tried to move him back. Alas, there were two flaws in my brilliant execution: The first was that even a hasted Khalid cannot move very far in the space of 1/8 of a second (which was how long was left until all the fireballs exploded).
The second, well... notice that little icon on his portrait next to the magic resistance one? Seems I forgot to remove the Belt of Antipode from Khalid (we fought the Winter Wolves along with Khadran the Bear last on level four). And for some truly unfathomable reason, I didn't bother removing it even when Khalid was about to get hit by a literal firestorm.
I'm selling that belt next time around; I clearly can't be trusted with it.
No! Khalid! You weren't that great. In fact, you were pretty crappy. But you were still the best of a number of bad choices!
So... what to do? There aren't a lot of options to replace him with, but replace him we should (if nothing else, my preferred tactic for the battle with Sarevok works better with at least two warriors). We left Durlag's and picked up Ajantis, who came in at 32000 experience. I'm hoping we can get him up to level 7 before facing Sarevok, but I'm not sure there's enough experience left: Looks like we'll be taking down the Demon Knight and Aec'Letec, for once.
Loosing pretty much our only source of physical damage stung a bit, so I ended the session once the party made their way back into Durlag's. Next time we'll finish all the TotSC content and wrap up this iron crisis.
The story of Furia, Chaotic Evil human Priestess of Talos (1)
Wanting a distraction from all the high-powered LoB play with Promise, I chose to start a second run on a toned-down difficulty setting with more room for role-play. One of the things I don't enjoy about LoB is that it ruins clerics' Turn Undead ability, a signature skill of that class, so I decided to roll a cleric for this run. To keep things fresh in terms of game-play and companions I went with a Chaotic Evil cleric of Talos.
I'd never rolled a priest of Talos Charname, but the prospect of having a Storm Shielded Furia wade into a sea of fire and lightning on the battleground was an appealing one. I also figured out a form of playing evil that might actually be bearable to me if not in fact enjoyable. Furia isn't the calculating, ultimately self-serving 'smart villain' who makes sure to maintain a good reputation, nor the unrestrained sadist that I used to see as synonymous with chaotic evil. As a devout follower of Talos, Furia considers it her highest ideal in life to personify the destructive force of nature in His name. She is basically unconcerned with good and evil, as natural disasters like storms, earthquakes, fires etc strike randomly. She has an almost druidic reverence for nature, and might have become a druid had she grown up in the wild rather than under the monks' tutelage in Candlekeep. However unlike druids Furia doesn't believe she must protect nature from all harm, because nature is very self-destructive in and of itself. Destruction is a constituent element of the natural order. Furia is likely to act against the defiling of nature for worldly gains, which she finds lacking in randomness and authenticity. But she endorses random acts of destruction out of nobler, immaterial pursuits such as her own actions in service to the Stormlord.
Furia would probably call herself lawful neutral, a dutiful servant of her deity, and indeed she may not even be of evil intent, but of course the outcome of her particular ethos and temperament places her squarely in chaotic evil territory in the alignment chart.
Furia will seek out companions whose interests most closely resemble hers. This makes neutrals like militant druid Faldorn or doomguard Haer'Dalis better fits for a party than lawful evil gold-obsessed mercenary Kagain or scheming Edwin.
Btw Furia's stat roll is an untouched one. I would have liked higher Charisma, but I really can't complain. 88 very well-distributed points make for an amazing roll. (As for the low Charisma, I'll just play Furia as abstruse in her communication and detached from the mundane, which goes well with her very high intelligence and wisdom.)
I picked the 'hardcore' setting of SCS v32 rather than insane for a more realistic gaming experience. I'll make sure to limit meta-gaming on my end. E.g. enemies must be scouted before any pre-buffing is to be carried out, the party cannot act on my knowledge as the player that certain characters will go hostile, carry certain loot etc.
The day after my foster father's demise I was interrupted in my prayer for guidance when Imoen snuck up on me. I told her what had happened and reluctantly accepted to travel with her to the FAI. I soon found my unfinished prayers had been heard by Talos anyway as I met the Necromancer Xzar and his roguish companion Montaron. We would become fast friends. An ogre, Commanded by me and slain by Montaron seemed a fitting sacrifice to Talos as a thanksgiving for guiding me to my new companions.
At the FAI my ability to Command enemies proved useful once more, when a wizard loitering near the entrance to the inn turned out to be less than friendly.
It had been the fourth assault on my life in about two days...
At the FAI an imposing half-orc was not interested in becoming acquainted with me, but Gorion's old friends Khalid and Jaheira were. Both Khalid and Jaheira and Xzar and Montaron were rather eager to travel to Nashkel for an appointment with the town mayor Berrun Ghastkill. I had nothing against it. We stopped only to spend a night in Beregost and on the road south of Beregost, where Khalid defeated the imposing Berserker fighter Shar-Teel in a duel to my surprise. The warrioress replaced Imoen whose thieving skills were redundant with Montaron around. Shar-Teel had a violent streak but she respected me for being a fighting woman myself.
In Nashkel we met Berrun Ghastkill. He wanted us to investigate several deaths in the local mines. We agreed. But on our way to the mines we were waylaid by bandits, and counted ourselves lucky that the gruff half-orc from the FAI showed up to help us out. It turned out he had a score to settle with two of the ruffians. Xzar with his health drains, Shar-Teel dual-wielding her blades, Khalid and Montaron with their missiles, and myself, Commanding our enemies, all fared well. But the same cannot be said of Jaheira. She had closed in on two archers that were attacking us from the right, killed one but was then slain by the other.
Khalid finished the second bandit with a single arrow and the half-orc slew the last of our attackers with an impressive blow, but we aborted our mission anyway. We parted with Khalid, had Jaheira raised at the Nashkel temple of Helm and sent to the FAI, and were joined by Dorn, the half-orc Blackguard who had fought on our side.
To appease Talos, Xzar and I executed a clown that taunted me at the Nashkel Carnival. The night before, an ability to drain the life energy out people, much like Xzar and Dorn's aibilities, had come to me in a dark dream about Gorion's death. I decided to test this ability on the buffoon. It worked pretty well.
I took the bandit ambush and Jaheira's death near the Nashkel mines as a sign of the Stormlord for us to venture elsewhere first, but where? None of my companions seemed to know or even care. And indeed, why should we care? I knew I walked with the Stormlord's blessing. With an entourage of three ferocious warriors and a wise necromancer who shared my fascination with the destructive side of the natural order, I considered myself privileged.
We returned to Beregost, where I struck several spiders with a lightning bolt, relishing Talos's might even as the bolt struck me as well.
Up north we slew two ankhegs thanks to my Commands and we amicably settled a dispute between followers of Talos and Umberlee, all good people. Back in Beregost Montaron burgled around and found me an enchanted mace, and a fifth bounty hunter fell after Xzar, Dorn, and I had drained his health.
We also managed to restore a man who had been turned into a slime, using a cheap elixir.
Further south we were once more reminded of our own mortality when Dorn was slain by a group of berserk diggers at an archaeological site before I could Hold them.
I took a precious item with me from the site's ritual chamber, an idol of Kozah, as the ancients used to call the Stormlord. We had Dorn brought back to life and helped him take revenge upon another who had betrayed him, the necromancer Kryll
Back in Beregost we met with Aura, a Lantanese artificer, who placed some enchantments on the idol of Kozah. She worked it into a powerful (if cursed) item:
I carried it with me as a holy symbol of sorts. It didn't take long before I had to put the idol to good use. We ran into Bassilus, an infamous priest of Cyric and a dangerous man, whose head happened to be worth a pretty sum. We chose the battleground, allowing for a quick escape should we have to. He Silenced all of us except Xzar, while he saved against my own Silence. I still had my idol though, and with it I opted for a more aggressive approach:
It was Xzar who did him in with a wand of fire we had found in an ankheg lair. I took an enchanted hammer from Bassilus's dead hand, Ashideena. The weapon appeared to be blessed by Talos Himself: with every strike it inflicted an elctrical shock upon the target. While I wasn't proficient in the use of hammers, I took to training myself in its use.
In the same area, a sturdy hobgoblin who thought he could rob us with his two henchmen was also sacrificed by a glorious lightning strike from the idol of Kozah.
But my overeager use of the idol led to it being depleted of lightning charges, meaning I'd have to remove it and pay a skilled vendor like Thalantyr for a recharge. [Note: it doesn't recharge overnight as the item description states.] There was a lesson there. I had to use my Talos-given tools and powers sensibly. One skilled man capable of recharging the idol was the wizard Thalantyr, and skilled he was. He even managed to turn his former apprentice Melicamp, who had transformed himself into a chicken, back into his original shape using a skull. It inspired Xzar to keep a skull for experimentation as well, though I never saw him work any wonders with it.
@Blackraven : I love the RP behind your character!
It's sad that there are not more "lightning" based gear/spells for Talos' worshippers, I've always been fond of this particular element
Thanks @monico! I'm enjoying this more RP'ed run... As for the lightning theme, Furia ain't complaining with the upgraded idol of Kozah, Talos' gift, and Ashideena, though she is a bit jealous of Faldorn who can cast Call Lightning, Static Charge, and as an Avenger (eventually) Chain Lightning...
Thanks @monico! I'm enjoying this more RP'ed run... As for the lightning theme, Furia ain't complaining with the upgraded idol of Kozah, Talos' gift, and Ashideena, though she is a bit jealous of Faldorn who can cast Call Lightning, Static Charge, and as an Avenger (eventually) Chain Lightning...
Apart maybe from Call Lightning (that you already have with you Idol of Kozah), don't you want to add those lightning spells via EEKeeper to your spellbook, for flavour ? (maybe replacing other spells instead for balance?)
Like maybe add one of the Lightning wizard spells at lvl 5 instead of Flame Strike for example ? (I guess Chain Lightning, despite normally being a 6th level spell, wouldn't be overpowered as a 5th level priest spell)
As "RP" spells for Priest of Talos, I only see:
- lvl 1 onwards : Lightning bolt (special ability though, not the same)
- lvl 2 : no electricity based spell, but there are no real damage spell anyway
- lvl 3 : Glyph of Warding
- lvl 4 : Protection from Lightning
- lvl 5 : none
- lvl 6 : bolt of glory (not electricity damage, but still, it's a bolt)
- lvl 7 : none but there is the Storm of Vengeance HLA
My meaning is that it's weird that the Avenger kit has more electricity-based spells (Call Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Static Charge, Chain Lightning, although they lose Glyph of Warding) than a Priest of Talos
On the southern Sword Coast our party made mincemeat of all those that crossed us. That included quite a few winter wolves, the bounty hunter Greywolf, two overly cocky bandits Vax and Zal (whom I had Held), and some Amnian braggarts after Xzar and I made them change their tune with our magics.
We traveled north off the beaten path and reached lands inhabited by a multitude of basilisks. Among the many scrolls we had acquired was one that protected against petrification. Montaron read it and he took down most of them. Two however were in the direct vicinity of their gnomish master, a mage. Montaron ordered a ghoul he had somehow charmed to attack the gnome but the wizard made short work of our undead friend. It took a Hold Person that I cast at the remains of the ghoul, out of the gnome's sight, to secure our victory.
A band of trouble-making hunters met their doom when Xzar and I were done with them.
Finally, back in the area north of the FAI we tested our mettle against a horde of ankhegs, and came out on top thanks to my Commands and Xzar's Sleep spell.
My band was leaving behind their humble beginnings and turning into a force to be reckoned with. The Stormlord had granted me several new spells and powers such as the ability to raise skeletal warriors, to inscribe glyphs of warding, or to conjure forth a barrier of bones that would hit anyone attacking me in close combat. Likewise Xzar had mastered several new spells including a more powerful draining spell, Vampiric Touch. And it appeared his experimentation with the skull he had kept in imitation of Thalantyr had paid off after all, for he was now able to cast a spell by which he could launch explosive skulls. Skull Traps he called them. My warriors had improved their martial skills. Dorn for example had turned himself into a proficient marksman with his crossbow, while Shar-Teel had become faster and more precise with her longsword.
Our next move was to explore the coastal lands. We looked for another companion for that purpose, but we were unlucky. There was a red wizard in Nashkel who thought he could hire us as mercenaries without even naming a reward. We told him off and set out with just the five of us.
With Xzar's Horror and Sleep spells we easily dispatched groups of ogres and and even an ogre magi that had ambushed us. We barely broke a sweat routing a gnoll stronghold and a xvart village. And we even battled our way past sirines - thanks to Shar-Teel's rages and my Talos-given skeletal warriors - and flesh golems.
On the northern coast we were briefly joined by the ranger Kivan who helped us defeat some sahuagin, another ogre mage, and a nereid I subjected to the fury of Talos.
Kivan was a skilled fighter but he also had a softer, more vulnerable side. As Talos values strength in both body and mind, I felt he didn't quite fit in with the rest of us. We let him go.
In the western Cloudpeaks on our way back to Nashkel we killed two dim-witted men who wanted to cut down a tree for treasure, saving a dryad's life in the process. But when Xzar took a sample of her blood for experimentation, a small price for saving her tree I reckoned, the creature perished. I never knew dryads were so frail.
Anyway, we decided to finally enter the Nashkel Mines and find out what was going on there, even if it hardly seemed to concern us. It turned out lowly kobolds had taken over the mines. Their master was called Mulahey, a half-orc priest of Cyric. We had dealt with a powerful priest of Cyric before, Bassilus the murderer. This one was but a pale shadow of his brother in faith. Circle of Bones helped me remove many of Mulahey's kobold and skeletal minions, while my companions beat up the priest himself.
Talos - Cyric: 2-0.
In a vivid dream that night I relived the encounter with Mulahey but this time I strangled the half-orc's spectre, ensuring its permanent death. I woke up with another draining power.
An agent of the faction that apparently still wanted my head awaited me in Nashkel. As soon as he attacked we retreated and I neutralized him with a Silence spell. We decided to try and figure out who these people were and why they were after me and my entourage. Papers we found on this agent and on a contact of his in Beregost,
Oh Shar-Teel
led us to a semi-organized bandit group in the Wood of Sharp Teeth. But before we could enter their camp we had to deal with more bounty hunters, four of them. Xzar instilled fear in a dwarven warrior and a gnomish wizard with a Horror spell. Their cleric Silenced some of us just like I Silenced him. I also got off a couple of Hold spells, so all in all the encounter didn't give us too much trouble.
We penetrated the bandit camp with the help of a friendly bandit, looted it, used a few protective potions and spells (defense, strength, Remove Fear), and blew up the main tent with explosives.
Outside we slew Black Talon leader Taurgosz Tenbummer as Shar-Teel tauntingly called him,
stripped him of his equipment, and left before we'd be overwhelmed by the entire camp.
We continued our search for our hidden enemy, the Iron Throne, in Cloakwood. There, a base of theirs was to be found according to an Elven informant we had talked to at the bandit camp before Montaron planted a blade into the spy's back.
In Cloakwood we finally met another we considered worthy to join our cause, a combative Avenger druid by the name of Faldorn. While we had our philosophical differences, Faldorn and I found each other in our reverence for the natural order and in our sacred vocation of exerting the devastating force of nature wherever we saw fit. The first ones to face off against the six of us was another quartet of bounty hunters. With two backstabbing thieves in their midst I worried slightly about Xzar's well-being. But our wands of the heavens and of fire did much to scare them off,
while our warriors were more than a match for the other two.
Another group of four, guarding the entrance to the Iron Throne installation, were overcome by Faldorn. Granted, I Held their commander before he could act against us, but she held everyone in place with a Web and injured them with Spike Growth spells, making it very easy for the rest of us to dispatch them from a safe distance.
We battled our way through the mine toward the master of the mine, Davaeorn. A wizard named Hareishan and her men gave us a bit of trouble, inter alia in the form of a Polymorph spell that I saved against, before Faldorn caught her in another Spike Growth. Another wizard (Natasha, brute force disrupting her casting), and an ogre mage (Command) fell fast, before we reached Davaeorn's lair. We were still fighting two battle horrors when the first of Davaeorn's guards started pouring in.
Clumsy maneuvering saw first Montaron (hit by Xzar's wand scorcher and by a battle horror's blade) and then Xzar fall.
I left the door to Dorn and Shar-Teel, and finished the battle horrors off together with Faldorn (wand of the heavens and Chromatic Orb). Dorn and Shar-Teel, assisted by me, managed to hold the door, dispatching wave after wave of guards. In the mean time I revived Xzar and Montaron, and Faldorn competently handled Davaeorn with a slew of damaging area of effect magics.
We flooded the mine, a marvelous sight, and left for Baldur's Gate, where the Iron Throne's headquarters were said to be located.
Apart maybe from Call Lightning (that you already have with you Idol of Kozah), don't you want to add those lightning spells via EEKeeper to your spellbook, for flavour ? (maybe replacing other spells instead for balance?)
I'd thought about adding one or two druid spells but I believe a priest's spellbook is reset/corrected everytime they level up. I do like the idea of Chain Lightning as a level 5 or 6 spell so that Furia can consistently cast electricity spells at almost all spell levels. And I will see what happens if I add a Druid spell and level up after that. Thank you for the suggestion!
Even if it doesn't work, I feel there are plenty of spells befitting a priest of Talos if you take a somewhat broader perspective (weather/destruction and not just lightning):
- Cloud of Pestilence (level 4 SCS/IWD spell),
Level: 4
Sphere: Combat, Elemental Air
Range: Visual range of the caster
Duration: 4 rounds
Casting Time: 7
Area of Effect: 12-ft. radius
Saving Throw: Neg.
This spell transforms the air in a 12-ft. radius into sickening, grayish mists. The caster and non-living creatures are immune to the effects of the cloud. For every round of exposure to the disease-ridden air, a creature must save vs. Breath or suffer 3 points of magic damage, blindness, and the loss of 3 points of Strength and Dexterity. The blindness and ability score penalties last 1 turn. Cloud of Pestilence can only be cast by evil-aligned characters.
- Destruction (level 7 SCS/IWD spell, which I think fits the bill as well for a servant of a deity who is also called the Destroyer),
Level: 7
Sphere: Healing
Range: Touch
Duration: Instant
Casting Time: 9
Area of Effect: The caster
Saving Throw: Special
This spell instantly destroys a target, blasting it into small chunks. The victim is allowed a Save vs. Death at a penalty of -4; if successful, the target takes 8d6 points of magic damage instead of being destroyed. Destruction can only be cast by evil characters. Note that a character struck with a Destruction spell cannot be raised from the dead with a Raise Dead or Resurrection spell.
Earthquake,
- Firestorm,
- Energy Blades (1d4+5 missile damage and 1d10electricity damage), and
- Implosion.
So all in all, looking at the available spells and items, the game does offer quite a bit of RP material for a priest of Talos.
True, I was a bit too focused on electricity instead of storms/destruction in general.
Also, I was not familiar to the IWD spells, they add indeed a bit of flavour
Comments
Corebard - human bard, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Ubil - human cavalier (Gate70)
Highway - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
As the last Trio died in just a couple of minutes, we had to reroll yet again. We've had a lot of disasters lately. But we did survive this 1st session, though there was a death.
Here's the next Lord of Murder lamb to the slaughter.
And here are his group-mates:
There were many tasks we did without much problem:
* Sirines done pretty early - with Cavalier immunity to poison and charm, Ubil was naturally eager to take on the sirines. He was NOT immune to the feeblemind and confusion, so the party had to wait for him quite a bit this segment. And in the Pirate Cave, after we killed the nearby flesh golem, Ubil foolishly tripped the hold trap, and yes got held. In hindsight, he realized the dwarf with his better saves made more sense.
* Samuel done early - no problems here, though we did get miffed when a guard critical stole our kill of Tarnesh.
* The sirines enabled Corebard to get 3 level 1 spell slots - time for Basilisks! And yes, protection from petrification spell worked much better than using Korax. Corebard was surprised all baslisks were killed before the 4 turns of the protection wore off. We got our revenge on Mutamutin.
* Kirian was destroyed by stinking cloud and the paralyzation wand.
* Right about here the Trio made some mistakes, though not critical. Ubil foolishly tried to tank Neira and was duly confused - will he become a fallen paladin? But no Neira held him too and then killed him. We left his stuff and resurrected Ubil at a nearby Temple. But while Ubil was looting his stuff, Corebard foolishly "rested" - and he has the rest on heal option on, which meant all of Ubil's stuff went "poof". "Where's my shield" could be heard from Gate70 - oops!
* Oh somewhere on the way we took out Greywolf, we were very low level. But Ubil wisely decided to have Greywolf chase him while Corebard and Highway filled Greywolf with missiles. Ubil appreciated the sword upgrade.
* To prevent Corebard from being killed by Neira (who was held), Highway got into melee with Neira until Corebard recovered and was then Corebard was able to pump magic missiles and arrows into her. But Highway only had a non-proficient weapon. But what's silly is Corebard had just sold a melee dagger! So after the combat, we went to the 3 tombs area and got a free +2 dagger for Highway.
* To amend for his mistake, Corebard pushed to do Bjornin's quest so Ubil could get a good shield. That was duly accomplished.
* We did do Landarin's quest, but we lost the boots when Corebard rested and everything on the ground went poof. So had to be only partially done.
* As punishment, Ubil made Corebard lug around the panataloons.
* We sold our junk at high hedge and saved our session here.
Jan had been a valuable companion, so back in Athkatla, his comrades were happy to help the gnome to a cure that would heal his muse's baby girl. Mazzy was wearing Vhailor's Helm by that time so that her clone could dispel a caster githyanki's protections without wasting dispelling arrows. (I didn't install SCS's delayed arrival of bonus merchants for this run.)
The party returned to the Umar Hills armed with a stack of PfUndead scrolls. The little quests in Imnesvale were handled without incident. A Killer Mimic was Held, remarkably enough, and Jermien was kept alive with healing magic while his golem was taking it on the chin. Slaying a phoenix (Hold Monster) and two air elementals (missiles) netted Aerie an egg that housed her familiar to-be (and 12 extra HPs), as part of @Coutelier's Wings mod.
Promise navigated the Temple Ruins solo, hasted and under PfUndead. She took down four bone golems with her returning throwing dagger, and teased the lich near the AMAUNATOR puzzle into casting Comet, Dragon's Breath, some Remove Magics and ADHWs as well as summoning a dark planetar and a fiend she steered well clear off before she finished the creature off with a (non-proficient) Azuredge hurl.
In Imnesvale the party ran into Valygar, who took Jaheira's place, much to the half-elf's indignation. Promise didn't really get this. Yes Jaheira had spoken against and helped slay Galvarey, but she hadn't renounced her Harperhood yet (the follow-up quests had yet to trigger). Also, Promise had saved her butt against Ployer, so she didn't feel overly indebted to the druid she had only occasionally adventured with.
I'm not sure if Valygar is a good pick btw, as he's basically a fourth single-class warrior type in the party. Without grandmastery unlike Mazzy, Korgan, and Promise, Valygar can become the more flexible fighter in terms of weapon choices, but I feel Anomen would be sturdier, add more utility, and require less immunity-granting and saves-improving gear so that Mazzy, Promise, and Korgan can share that gear between just the three of them. I guess I'll just have to make good use of Korgan's rage ability and of Promise's ability to read scrolls when the situation calls for it. Or change my mind.
When Mazzy had to look after her poisoned sister, the party recruited Rasaad, hoping to start the monk's quest, but Jan Jansen's extended quest (as per the mod of the same name) intervened. It culminated in a bloody battle with Vaelag and his guards. With a battered Korgan barely scraping by, Rasaad being little more than deadweight, and Valygar subjected to a PW:Stun,
With Rasaad the party went to the old amphitheatre, where the monks present were pitted against their leader Hammerhelm, and an encounter with the Vagrant Blades was handled so diplomatically that the party didn't get to receive, steal or loot a ring of duplication, which would have been great for Valygar. All the party accomplished was to antagonize one of the vagrants. Rasaad was left to continue his quest on his own as Mazzy returned to the group.
The party traveled with Neera to her hidden refuge, did some minor quests there, decided to go look for Wilson in the unlocked Heretic Temple area, messed up recruiting the bear (I think he needs to be talked to before buying him from the beastmaster), but did see Promise bluff her way through a monk initiation ritual before leaving the area. This is her battling some invisible stalkers (potion of absorption, potion of frost giant strength, oil of speed to turn the odds in her favor).
@LavaDelVortel's wonderful shaman stronghold became available (visually very pretty and conceptually very fitting within the game like a vanilla stronghold), but I won't cover what I've seen so far of its content so as not to spoil it.
A red wizard and some mercenaries were slain at Delosar's Inn at the behest of Neera and her friends thanks in large part to Aerie and Jan's Hold spells. Reporting back at the hidden refuge opened up the red wizard enclave in Waukeen's Promenade, which led to the party acquiring a robe of the neutral archmagi for Jan, some arrows of dispelling, and plenty of scrolls, potions, and wands including wands of paralyzation and spellstriking.
The latter wand made Promise feel confident to the point of having the party return to the Temple Ruins to face their first dragon. Jan and Aerie only had level 5 spells, but that seemed to be enough with some Lower Resistances, a Spell Thrust for Spell Shield, two Hold Monsters and a Feeblemind memorized. The companions buffed outside the shadow dragon's lair. These buffs included the Emotion Hope and Courage spells as well as the usual suspects (Stoneskin, Blur, Improved Invisibility, Mirror Image, Spell Immunity, radial PfE, Remove Fear, Haste). No specific precautions were taken against Thaxy's special attack, but the idea was to have enraged Korgan melee the beast while the others would spread out and attack with spells and missiles.
Upon entering its lair, the still blue-circled dragon cast a Remove Magic toward Korgan and Jan. The gnome had thankfully buffed with SI:Abjuration, so he wasn't in immediate danger. He started casting of Lower Resistance, as did Aerie, while Promise went for a wand Pierce Magic and an enraged Korgan charged. In the next few rounds, Jan still had to cast a Malison, and Aerie tried in vain to Silence her enemy (she didn't want to risk wasting a Hold Monster or Feeblemind on a not yet Malisoned enemy). A Hold Monster failed to affect the dragon. As there was no save notification, it seemed to have freedom of action. In those few rounds Korgan took a massive beating and had to retreat, kite and quaff a potion, and Promise and Mazzy were hit by the dragon's level-draining attack. But then Thaxy got hit by Jan's Feeblemind, and all the party had to do was plough through hundreds of HPs. (The dragon had 1689 HPs at full health.)
This is the second character from my: Alignment challenge.
At first I was aiming to explore party play, just because I wanted to explore an exploit where you can get 2 rings of Gaxx. From Nalias and Rashads quests in BG2. But examining and deciding a route for the exploit I stumbled across these posts from DJkaru that inspired a different approach:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65178/choose-your-party-by-your-alignment-range
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/67373/choose-your-party-by-alignment-range-bg2-version
The posts inspired me to do plays with NPC’s with the exact same alignment. To ensure I try all NPC’s. The idea has inspired me so much, that I actually look forward to new characters - it may be masked restartis, but I like it.
The next alignment entry is Barb Arian. A very chaotic, unwise, but still good dwarven barbarian. I am going to do the neutral good later, but after some doing the lawful way, I fancied some chaos...
The chaotic good characters in BG1 are Kivan, Coran and Alora. They are all super strong for a ranged party and Barb Arian as the kite. No healing spells and arcane magic doesn’t bother me, since Barb Arian has natural regeneration within sight early on.
Kivan is the easiest to pick up. The thing is, that he has a timed quest (I think), and a wish to seek revenge on Tazok in the bandit camp. We are going there eventually, but not without preparation - so Barb postponed picking up Kivan.
First thing was an amour upgrade. Barb traveled to a lake, where the level 1 barbarian spotted a flock of gnolls. Not daring to approach them, he waited. Scouted some more, retreated and waited.... Let’s cut the crap, and just say he really wanted Drizzts armour and scimitars (being specialised in scimitars and dual wielding). I went there first, because the items are crucial and if I didn’t succeed I could just restart (not reload) and not miss out on to much.
Drizzt took out most of the advancing gnolls, but let some pass. When low on health he healed him self. Once in a while a gnoll got a critical hit - and Drizzt seemed to kill that assailant. But who will win. Nerve wrecking to say the least. But at some point a gnoll broke his weapon and the combat log eventually told me that Drizzt lay unconscious. Time to move in. The barbarian easily led the 2 remaining gnolls away from Drizzt, and got the mercy kill for him self (with a blow to rep off course). The result was 12.000 xp, 2 mighty scimitars and a supreme armour. The gnolls we quickly expedited after levelling up, raging and using the scimitars. A solid - but nerve wrecking - start since I feared that Drizzt where not in the mood of given up his goods or life. But fortune smiled upon Barb.
The good luck was soon taken advantage off. Barb ran to the coast and made good use of his potion of clarity from Candlekeep. The sirenes met there doom, and Barb reached level five. The sirenes don’t scatter and fire the arrows at you if you place your character in their midst - this poor AI spelled their doom.
In the cave two rages and a lot of healing potions meant that the golems where expedited and the coveted constitution tome was in the bag.
The long treks attracted the attention of bandits, but Barb scalped them with no worry and almost undented.
We even picked up a sword from Greywolf before killing the kobolds in the mine with arrows from Kivans mighty bow. Easy as pie. Mulahey was done in by raging and some arrows. Outside the mine we ran north not bothering with the valley of tombs. We wanted to save the xp for the party of four.
Next up Kivans revenge. We speeded our advance towards the camp - dodging Vicky along the way. Targouz (or what’s his name) gave up his life and a nice full plate for Kivan.
Resting before the main tent, meant that Barb with rage could go through the opposition with full health. A true manifestation of barbarian power. Kivan was affected by a horror spell when the foes fell, but the journal showed he had fulfilled his quests.. phew. I feared that he had failed to acknowledge that he wasn’t getting revenge just yet (hopefully).
In cloakwood we quickly picked up Coran, and gave him one of the two belts we had picked up. We like Coran better as a female, and we hope he becomes a better man contemplating the life of a woman. We shall see. From cloakwood 1 to 2 some ettercaps poisoned Barb and we had to flee to cloakwood 2 and safety?
Cloakwood 2 almost saw an early end to the game. The game so far had thrown nothing against Barb that a low ac, high hopes pool, good apr and a decent thaco couldn’t handle. But at the very first web trap the trio fumbled. Coran spotted the trap, retreated to snipe the advancing spiders whilst Barb tripped the trap... the whole party webbed, and the spiders managed to poison Barb. A nerve wrecking waiting game ensued.
Along the way Barb managed his save and broke free from the web. What to do? A potion first, and then run or rage? Run had been the better choice, but rage it was... another failed save vs web later and things where looking grim.
The rest of the trek to the wyvern cave was done with no risk, and we duly buffed before the wyvern cave (a mandatory visit in Corans quest). The fight was handled with no worry, emphasising the difference between careless and careful play.
We went back to the temple and finished Corans quest. Now both Kivan and Coran can stay - giving Barb some decent back up. The opposition now face a raged dwarf with 5 apr backup who has both decent thaco and damage output.
Drausus party where the first to truly feel the power. Drawn out one at a time, they fell in quick succession. In the mine Coran handled the traps, and the party handled the foes. Looting all as they went further down the mine.
At Daveorns lair we realised that we hadn’t done our shopping properly. No greenstone amulet and no potions of elemental resistance? But not to worry, we have rage and many hp. Just a quick rest, and we where ready. 8 tries later, and some 30 guards left dead we finally managed a full rest.. and had two rages as our disposal.
The traps where removed and Barb lured Daveorn out. We tried shooting him with arrows of biting, but we had no luck. A nasty fireball dented Barb but heavily injured the backup. But acid arrows and a mighty scimitar secured a win. Time for Baldur’s Gate and Alora.
In the temple we helped Alora and did her quest - I’d reckon? We took her along and hit the road. The foursome took on Basilisk country and the Ankheg cave for loot and XP. Alora is awesome with her rabbit foot, but her HP are abysmal. Definitely something I don’t like... I will have to struggle to keep her alive. She did manage to steal both Algernons cloak, the cloak of Balduran and the ring of free action, which did improve har standing amongst the crew.
We continued our questing outside the city for xp, reputation and loot. We have some shopping to do, and the bucket list is long. Potions, scrolls and arrows are the most coveted items.
The chaotic good are looking good in BG1. I will have to finish the lasts bits and quests and see if we can reach SoD. SoD will be a thing of its own, since no chaotic good NPC’s seem to be available - until Caelar. Yikes.
Definitely chaotic (good) to murder Drizzt for his armor.
No no. It was a mercy kill
The only thing an honourable and good person with a wisdom score of 3 would do is to give the poor fellow peace. Rest in peace my dark elven friend.
Definitely NOT chaotic (good) to murder Drizzt for his armor.
Chaotic neutral or chaotic evil perhaps!
Of course he might not have known that Drizzt is a good guy, in which case he could be forgiven for his evil actions.
Last post for my current run:
The dragon to the south east of Nashkel was WAY too powerful. If I return, I will ensure that I have a mage in the party.
In RL Osthryth was murdered by an assassin. Hope that doesn't happen to my character.
The upgrading of the assassins in Candlekeep was responsible for Osthryth's demise at the hand of Mendas in the first run, however upon starting again she was able to defeat all-comers at the keep.
She was a little miffed that she was unable to use most of the equipment that the assassins carried, but had the sense to realise that if she ever hooked up with a thief, it would be highly useful. She therefore tucked it all into her bag and ventured out into the unknown with Gorion, her mentor, only to discover that he was not as all-powerful as she had believed him to be.
She returned to Candlekeep and was horrified when she was denied access to her former home. She therefore arranged for Gorion's burial and returned to the site of the ambush. The belongings of Gorion proved to be of more worth than those of the assassins.
She therefore donned his equipment and decided to head for the nearby town of Beregost being fearful that further ambush could await her at the Friendly Arms Inn.
I made my way to Nashkel, picking up the Colquetle Amulet on the way. Lord Foreshadow gave me a ring, and in Nashkel I picked up some Ankheg Armour. I chatted with Noober and Oublek offered me some gold which I turned down as it wasn't mine to take. At the carnival I rescued Bentha. I had to flee three times before I was successful. However patience won the day.
South of Nashkel I fought and killed Zargos Flintblade. That too was a long battle which eventually had a successful outcome.
Similarly I had problems fighting Greywolf. I used summoned weasels which have a very limited attack, but they did keep him occupied until I blinded him. However, I was badly hurt and so moved away, leaving the weasels to attack in melee whilst I used my sling.
To my chagrin, Isra landed the deathblow. This meant that I lost out on the experience. Even worse, Isra didn't get it either.
Isra then accompoanied me back to Beregost where I delivered the Colquetle Amulet.
EDIT
We then went to High Hege, picked up Perdue's Sword, got Mellicamp back into shape, tried to help Aiwell, but failed. We then went ogrillon hunting.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no damage increase, max HP on level up.
Mods: SCS v32.7 (basically everything), see spoiler for WeiDU.
Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: v32.7
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: v32.7
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: v32.7
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: v32.7
Wider selection of random scrolls: v32.7
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v32.7
Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v32.7
Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v32.7
Faster Bears: v32.7
Improved shapeshifting: v32.7
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v32.7
Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v32.7
Ease-of-use party AI: v32.7
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v32.7
Smarter general AI: v32.7
Better calls for help: v32.7
Smarter Mages: v32.7
Smarter Priests: v32.7
Potions for NPCs: v32.7
Improved Spiders: v32.7
Smarter sirines and dryads: v32.7
Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: v32.7
Smarter basilisks: v32.7
Improved doppelgangers: v32.7
Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v32.7
Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v32.7
Improved kobolds: v32.7
Relocated bounty hunters: v32.7
Improved Ulcaster: v32.7
Improved Balduran's Isle: v32.7
Improved Durlag's Tower: v32.7
Improved Demon Cultists: v32.7
Improved Cloakwood Druids: v32.7
Improved Bassilus: v32.7
Improved Drasus party: v32.7
Improved Red Wizards: v32.7
Improved Undercity assassins: v32.7
Tougher chapter-two end battle: v32.7
Tougher chapter-three end battle: v32.7
Tougher chapter-four end battle: v32.7
Tougher chapter-five end battle: v32.7
Improved final battle: v32.7
Improved minor encounters: v32.7
Protagonist: Carran, Human Invoker.
A roll of 95, good way to start our adventure! Off we go...
Carran, Human Invoker, BG1EE Update 1
BG1EE updates: 1, 2, 3
We duck out to the east, help out Viconia, and subsequently recruit her (an early Plate Mail isn't bad, either). Good, party nearly assembled.
However, as long as we're up north, we head into the Ankheg den. Or rather, Viconia under Sanctuary sneaks in, swipes the loot, and sneaks back out. Ah, Wand of Fire, we'll give you a loving home. Since we had Viconia memorize a full complement of Command, we also take out a single Ankheg (that's all our measly damage output at this stage lets us tackle, even when we're autohitting...). We haul its shell down to Beregost and stash it in a barrel, later to be turned into Ankheg Plate the moment we hit 5000 gold.
The party proceeds south, clearing the entirely inconsequential areas on the way (Hobgoblins galore).
At long last arriving at the Nashkel Carnival, we pick up our final party member: Branwen. Yep, two Clerics, no real archer. Not sure how well this will work, but let's find out!
With oodles of Command available, we head into the wilderness west of Nashkel. An Ogre Mage ambush gives us a severe fright, but we calm down upon realizing this version only has a single L3 slot (which he wasted on Ghost Armor). Sure am happy he didn't close in on Carran and whack him once he was unconscious, though....
We clear the Xvart village, but rather than rest, risk traveling. Another Ogre Mage ambush leads to the first (and amazingly, so far only one this session) death: Imoen eats a Magic Missile, and 8 HP just isn't enough. Carran swiftly avenges her: We're out of Command, so the Wand of Fire steps in.
A quick return to Nashkel later, we keep clearing the areas to the west, the Wand of Fire doing good work when our piddly STR 15 frontliners can't deal damage fast enough. Carran eventually hits L2 (meaning a total of 18 HP, so he shouldn't be killable with a single arrow from a shortbow anymore), at which point we trigger Dorn's ambush: Both Bandit Archers are immediately Commanded to sleep, and we get another Plate Mail. Good stuff.
It should be noted we've been incredibly lucky with random scroll drops: Carran knows Agannazar's Scorcher, Web and Stinking Cloud (he was guaranteed to scribe them successfully with the Invoker bonus), which is a massive help once he reaches L3. All the western areas are swiftly cleared, and we even tackle the Vampiric Wolves at the Beregost temple. For that matter, we have scrolls of Lance of Disruption and Ice Lance also waiting to be scribed.... we even pick up a scroll of Knock. Very nice, considering Imoen will be dualing at Thief 6.
With the areas west of Nashkel clear, we move into the areas to the east, clearing everything but Narcillicus (we'll come for him once Animate Dead is up and running). That done, we return to Beregost: Imoen fubs the first attempt, but a Charm Person or Mammal allows her a second try, and we get Algernon's Cloak.
Imoen is gaining levels rapidly, so we decide to hit up Durlag's while she can still disarm traps. We've got some charges of the Wand of Fire, and there's plenty of buffing capacity, so the exterior is tackled without much issue. We head inside the tower and clear the floors aboveground, leaving Kirinhale and the Ghost for later (we still lack Animate Dead!), as well as the Basilisks on the balcony. We descend into the depths, clearing a little over half of the level with the Warders: Imoen hits the XP for Thief 6, and duals. Oh, we also got a random drop of a Fireball scroll, and Carran swiped the Monster Summoning II / MGoI scrolls in the bookcase here.
With Imoen a L1 mage, the Basilisks on the balcony provide a welcome boost. We also grab the +2 Scimitar: The trap is a simple Fireball one, so even Resist Fire / Cold on a tank is enough to grab it. Around here we also did our first real bout of spell scribing (I only scribe when there's potions to allow for 100% success rate), vastly improving our options. Imoen still needs to level, so we go after Mutamin and his pets. And yep, maybe two Clerics wasn't such a bad idea... they both finally reached L5, so we've got 4 Skeleton Warriors already. Mutamin is not amused, but his disappointment is shortlived. So is he, for that matter.
By now we're grotesquely powerful: Web, Fireball and Animate Dead is really all you need for BG1, and in a pinch, everything but Fireball can slide. We clear Shoal's area as well as the Sirines, and even go back for Narcillicus, all without issue. Since I wasn't sure what Bassilus might do in this version of SCS, I had left him alone until we could return with overwhelming force, but... he doesn't really do anything new?
A handful of buffs, an interrupted attempt to summon an Aerial Servant (I guess, it was a Conjuration spell), then down he goes.
By now we've cleared almost all outdoor areas: We've left the Red Wizards, though we could probably take them comfortably, and the Firewine Bridge. Yeah, I hate myself for it, but I will clear Firewine... once Imoen has her Thief levels back. For now though, it's high time to advance the plot! We introduce the Kobolds to the wonders of Fireball, and plunge into the depths. I'm glad I actually found a use for Power Word: Sleep (though it was cast from a scroll... I'd never memorize it).
Needless to say, Mulahey stands no chance whatsoever. Nor does Nimbul, some Skeleton Warriors sealing his fate. On our way back to Beregost, however, the Amazons take advantage of some Kobolds ambushing us and launch their own ambush! Of course, we were quite ready for them: A Detect Invisibility from Carran reveals the stealthed Telka, preventing her from landing a backstab on Carran, and it is then simply a matter of keeping the pressure up. But really, they don't have the levels to pose a serious threat at this stage.
You'll note Carran is wearing the Robe of the Good Archmagi. Since we hit reputation 18 (bit of a fluke since I've got 1/4 rep gain installed, but it can still happen), we did some shopping. Unfortunately, while Carran wasn't looking, Algernon got a bit frisky with Viconia... and she responded by having a Skeleton Warrior turn his interiors distressingly exterior. So our reputation is back to 9, and Viconia won't bugger off!
No sense crying over spilled milk, on to the Bandit Camp. I'm reasonably confident Carran could take them all single-handed by now, but we might as well let everyone chip in.
Moving into Cloakwood, we get the second set of bounty hunters. But they're even less of a threat than the Amazons: We quickly dispose of them and continue on our way.
With Jaheira in the party, we reach a peaceful solution with Seniyaad. The Cloakwood Spiders are cleared out: Our Cleric duo have reached L7, and (with the Ring of Holiness) we have three L4 Cleric spell slots, meaning Khalid, Jaheira and Carran all get Free Action for our assault on Centeol's lair, rendering the opposition moot. Likewise, the Shadow Druids cannot stand up to Web and Fireball. Finally, we tackle the Wyvern Cave using plain old buffing, and opt to return the Wyvern Head immediately (we restock a bit and sell off some valuables while in town). Returning to the outskirts of the Iron Throne mine, we lay our plans.
We're feeling exceedingly confident, so opt to simply rush Drasus and friends with some Skeleton Warriors and see what happens. We do have a trump card: Viconia can lay down Cloud of Pestilence. It's a 4th level spell, so it won't be blocked by Kysus' and Rezdan's MGoI, but our Skeleton Warriors are immune to it.
It works devastatingly well: The fully buffed Skeleton Warriors make absolute mincemeat of Drasus and Genthore, and proceed to turn the enemy Mages into finely chopped garnish. There was a bit of a fright when a Lightning Bolt went awry, zapping Khalid and Viconia a bit, but it didn't rebound in a dangerous way. Rezdan didn't even put up MGoI and so is rendered unconscious by a simple Stinking Cloud.
With the principal guardians down for the count, we push into the mine proper. I feel a little cheap for firebombing Hareishan from afar (she should've been allowed to get her MGoI up), but with our levels being what they are, I am certain she wouldn't have been able to do anything to us anyway.
Natasha unceremoniously succumbs to five super-buffed Skeleton Warriors (Recitation, Chant, Bless, Strength of One), getting off only a single Lightning Bolt. We retreat and prepare for Davaeorn. Unfortunately, upon arrival, we note that we apparently set off his encounter timer the first time we stepped foot on his level (he talked to a trap-tripping Branwen under Sanctuary, which shouldn't be possible). So he has a metric ton of guards accompanying him. Eh. Fireball! And buff Khalid up a little, including a Scroll of Protection from Magic.
It takes a while to crack all the locks using only our L2 arcane slots filled with Knock, but we leave no loot behind! The mines are flooded, and we make our way back to the Friendly Arm Inn, selling off all our ill-gotten gains. Imoen only needs about 15k XP to regain her Thief levels: This shouldn't take long to reach with the Baldur's Gate quests. Once we can disarm traps again, we'll delve deeper into Durlag's Tower, though we'll probably leave the Demon Knight alone as usual (very poor reward for the risk).
Carran is now a L7 Human Invoker.
Keep it up! You're doing well so far
Final post
We cleared all the ankhegs that we could find north of the FAI, killed Sonner and his evil friends as well as a zombie who was bothering his former wife. Tenya then joined the party, after which we killed an ogre who had a couple of belts.
We sold the ankheg shells which gave us just enough gold to upgrade one of the belts such that when Tenya wears it she now has a decent strength. Of course this means that we now have insufficient gold for buying helms of charm protection.
Sirene then joined us and we cleared the temple area of wolves before entering a cave where we were asked to find a vampitic sword. In there was a suit of armour which furnished Sirene who is a tiefling cavalier who worships Ilmater. She is the only one in the party who can use a sword which we found on the body of Mendas. It is quite a good one, so I'm pleased to have a party member who can actually use it. Most of us have +1 weapons now, so breakages shouldn't happen. A couple of weapons are better than +1.
Gavin has now joined us as well and his superior asked us to find this Bassilus fellow.
This we did, and nearby we also found Zargal, his cronies and some ghasts.
The weasels that I summoned clearly prevented some of us being badly hurt.
They might not do a lot of damage, but they take damage that would otherwise have been inflicted on the party.
When we took on Bassilus we only had about 60 gold pieces which was causing some concern. With the reward for taking out Bassilus, we can now buy a helmet of charm protection.
We went on to kill the half-ogres that had hurt Bjornin and helped Drizzt against some gnoll.
We had just rested when we were once more requested to return to Lathander's Temple where we were asked to deal with Mutamin.
We got into conflict with some other adventurers who were quickly dealt with.
We cleared the area of basilisks and sirines. We also depetrified one of Mutamin's victims.
That would have raised our repuation if it hadn't already been at 20.
We returned to the temple to deliver the good news.
We called in at Gullykin where Alora joined us. We went through the secret entrance and Alora cleared some traps. We left Gavin in the basement and picked up Indira. We killed the Ogre-mage that Indira had been hunting and killed the skeleton so giving the skeletons peace. We dropped Indira off since we had finished her quest and picked up Gavin.
We had been hoping to fight our way through to the Firewine Bridge, but due to our wounds that would have been a Bridge Too Far.
We were requested to return to the temple whilst resting in the wilds.
We then had the last of Gavin's quests to complete. That was straightforward.
We then went to Ulgoth's Beard where Alora did some pick-pocketting. Sadly she got caught which caused our reputation to drop two points.
Returning to the South, we helped a dryad and Aaron, killing more assassins on the way. That brought our reputation back to 20.
We then descended into the mines of Nashkel where we were victorious.
We avoided conflict upon leaving, uysing grains and pulses to free David Jansen from some lady-ogres. However, when we bumped into some slavers, we were forced to confront them and emerged victorious. This boosted Xan's experience considerably, and since we were at the Friendly Arms Inn, we deemed it a safe place to drop him.
Heading back to claim our reward we got mixed up in a fight between Dorn and his enemies, All of them ended up dead which seemed good to us since none were worthy of surviving.
We then headed for the coast where we killed both sirines and pirates. Alora was well and truly taken out of the battle by the sirine's spells. We kept well away from her so as not to get into conflict and were able to kill them without too much trouble.
We headed north and have killed Droth and Shoal.
For the first time ever whilst playing this game, Gavin saved against Shoal's spell and wasn't even injured!!
The sirine in that area were also killed and a ring as returned in return for a potion of fiery burning.
We then headed south, helped an archaeologist, and killed a doomsayer before helping Brage who we took to the temple of Helm in Nashkel.
Got killed by the Mighty Kahrk
I was ambushed three times in Candlekeep by well-armed thieves. I sold a dagger that one of them carried and bought a katana. Mendas had picked up some tomes which boosted my charisma somewhat, but noy enough to do much good.
After being ambushed, I followed the advice of Gorion and fled to the FAI where I was accosted by Tarnesh a mage.
Apart from the frequent loss of our tank, the game went fairly smoothly. We cleared out Durlag's, Ulgoth's Beard, and most of the Northern Tales quests. Only occasional inattention (why is Adorar trying to melee Slythe who is now invisible oh crap) threatened to derail the run until I made the final battle rather over interesting by laying half the traps we'd disarmed all game (courtesy of Kjeron's trap overhaul mod) in the Temple of Bhaal.... with mixed results. Sadly the Bigby's Crushing Hands traps ignored the Protection from Magic Scrolls that most of the party were using... killing Vynd and Minsc, and chunking Flara. This meant that there was somewhat more running around than usual while Kagain hacked his way through several of Sarevok's cultists and their skeletal doubles. Still, alls well that ends well as a Adorar shifted into the form of an arachnid and bit Sarevok to death.
On to Amn (can't see Adorar loitering around the palace for Caelar) and the real challenge...
Corebard - human bard, protagonist (corey_russell)
Ubil - human cavalier (gate70)
Highway - dwarven kensai (grond0)
The party made good progress this session. Here's some of the things we did:
* helped a boy and his "dog"
* took down Vax and Zal
* returned a cat to a little girl
* crushed some ogrillions who had a DEX gauntlets. While that would in theory help Highway, he can't use them being a kensai. While here, also got the CHA tome. On the way out took out a bear and got some cold protection boots from a nobleman.
*
* Corebard wanted to use the protection from undead scroll in the 3 tombs area, but Grond0 still can't hurt jellies - he also mentioned he does have skill with two hand swords. So we paid Arghain a visit - with the sword upgrade, the party headed to the 3 tombs area.
* Highway destroyed the undead with the help of the protecion from undead scroll, while the party waited outside. However, while Grond0 was dealing with the Revenant, Ubil got impatient and picked a fight with Narcillicus. Corebard tried to help and was attacked by flinds, a dangerous enemy for Corebard. Highway was ready to help, and Ubil ran away from Narcillicus. The jellies made pursuit of Ubil. It was a mess (read: took some damage), but the party cleared out the enemies. Only Narcillicus was left, but magic missiles and arrows of biting from Corebard were too much.
* Corebard decided was now was a good time to do the main quest, hence we went into the Nashkel Mines - this went real well. Corebard put invisibility on Highway so he could use Kai on Mulahey. This ended up being a quick victory.
* Tranzig was beat quickly.
* Ankheg nest was cleared about now. This went well.
* Bandit camp (surface) was done. A paralyzation wand shot made Khosahnn have no chance. As for the tent, this was little danger since Ubil has resist fear spell. Corebard went invisible and used magic missiles on Brikt, and then Venkt - victory!
* We took on Aldeth since his sword was an upgrade for Corebard.
* Corebard gave his freedom potion to Ubil so he can safely trip the traps - this made this area go quite well. While here, Centeol was destroyed, so Spider's Bane was an upgrade for Highway.
* Drassus got hit with web and stinking cloud - the enemies fell quickly.
* Cloakwood mines also went well. Wands did huge damage to the Battle Horrors. A potion of magic blocking Ubil used to try to take out Davaeorn. However, it looked dangerous for a moment, as Ubil got held and it looked like Daveorn was going to try to summon some critters. However, arrows of biting and magic missile wand shots saved Ubil before Davaeorn could realize his plan.
* We were almost out of time. So took we took out Melium, and saved our session here.
Stawk, ranger (Gate70)
Grond, berserker (Grond0)
We have 1 hour to do our worst. It looks like we have returned to Baldur's Gate after escaping from the Candlekeep catacombs which means Slythe is going to get an arrow of dispelling. He duly fails to survive a hammer and scimitar inspection so we pick up his invitation to the coronation. Duke Belt joins Slythe in ignomy but Liia Jannath seems happy enough with our efforts.
Stawk uses another arrow to dispel Sarevok's haste and Grond lays into Semaj as he teleports towards us. Stawk hits him with a dispelling arrow and he is dead without having dispelled any of our buffs.
SoA
We make our escape from the chateau without any glamorous (or otherwise) screenshots. Grond had picked up his Ashideena warhammer from a table while Stawk is happy for now with a couple of average scimitars. Despite our best effort Ulvaryl the vampire killed a group of assassins and left without giving us chance to finish her off.
We've got a clutch of loot to sell at a Promenade merchant next time, and hopefully we won't run into the freed Minsc, Jaheira, or Imoen, anytime soon.
After Killing Greywolf, the Inquisitor Isra joined me, I levelled up and gained another proficiency point choosing long bows. I then dual-classed to become an Illusionist.
We were going to help Sonner and his friends, but upon discovering who was evil, we revised our choice about who to support and killed them.
At that point Gavin the Cleric of Lathander and Sirene the Cavalier joined the party.
At this point I realised that from a power-gaming perspective it would have been better to have helped a dog, a dryad and a cat before picking up Gavin and Isra as they would have joined with an extra level, but not too upset about it.
After reuniting Rufie with it's owner we headed towards the coast. We helped a dryad and then just after resting we were asked to return to Lathander's Temple.
At the Temple we were asked to deal with the murderer Bassilus which we did, the spell silence rendering him impotent.
We decided to visit the coast and found there a number of hostile sirine who were killed without excessive difficulty.
We tried to talk Sil into being reasonable but were unsuccessful. She became hostile so I left some summoned weasels in our wake in the hope of avoiding conflict. However she followed us to the Pirate Den where we killed her.
We went to kill the other sirine and then looted the cave only to find the pirates waiting for us outside.
They were not happy that we had taken their loot and attacked.
They died and so we then headed south to where Charleston Nib was doing an archaeological dig.
Gallor tried to get us to fight Charleston but instead we killed him.
We rescued Aaron and Dynaheir and returned with them to Nashkel. Leaving Aaron at Nashkel, from there we proceeded to the Wilderness lake where we killed assassins and half-ogres who attacked us.
EDIT
In the dungeons under Gullykin we met up with Indira. She seemed desperate to kill the ogre-mage down there so we let her tag along for a while.
We were given a quest by some Ghost Knights.
First entry: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1115601/#Comment_1115601
The party where trekking in the wilderness zones for fame; and money, loot and xp. Heavily packed and ready for action. Like rappers - sort off.
The party did the basilisk area and ankheg ditto. The former provided the xp, and the latter was the financial success we had hoped. The party hauled all the shells back to the smithy, cashing 500 gp in pr. shell. A bag of holding would have speeded up the process a bit - but since the long treks healed Barb, it wasn’t that much of a delay.
A tour in Durlags would supply a coveted cup, helmet and xp to boot. Luckily I bought some potions of mirror eyes, since an ambush did scare me a bit..
The tower was a less scary experience experience than prior experiences. I usually play without a thief, so having two around was a treat. I managed to do the upper levels with ease, and I managed to do half of the basements first floor without taking a dent. First time ever.
The tower took its revenge when I tried taking on the doppelgängers whilst saving my resources... well I did manage to kill them, but they sure pack a punch when hasted and mirror imaged.
The warders where less of a hassle. The barbarian immunity to backstabs helps a lot. And a 8 apr backing group doesn’t hurt either... The entrance to the lower levels now lay open.
Although Barb wasn’t on max xp, I decided on only getting Durlags cup and Kiel’s helmet from below. The group was already strong as they where and Barb himself was nearly at the level cap. So the tower tour was cut short after getting the cup and helmet.
Looking at the pictures from the play, it was pretty obvious that the game needed a game plan. The party was travelling back and forth from the city and the wilderness. But since Barb was doing all the tanking and was regenerating whilst travelling, it didn’t seem to bother me while playing (in-game time wasting usually vexes me quite a bit - resting in particular).
When facing the iron throne we had 4 fireball necklaces. The iron throne top party was greeted by a four ball volley from each staircase - 8 in all. They didn’t like it one bit. On to candle keep after picking up the loot from the ashes..
In candle keep we headed straight for the Catacombs, and two more tomes.. Barbs wisdom pushed to a whooping 6 and strength to 19 - both a significant boost. Perhaps Barb will be that much wiser in the future - but he sure was stronger.
Back in the city Barb did the iron throne part 2, the undercellar and Ramizaths tower (I had forgotten about the int. tome). All done without a worry.
A real worry on the other hand was the palace fight. The palace fight is always the biggest worry in my playbook. If I play solo I recruit some help with the nymph cloak. The spell power and meat shields usually do the dirty work; and secure a win.
But since I try to improve my party play, I was trying to solve the palace fight/puzzle with party resources. Last time Dynaheirs web saved the day - slowing the advances whilst charname with free action mobbed up the foes. This time we had to rely on missile and melee power alone.
I duly buffed - reaching 15 apr within the party - all with supreme thaco and damage output - well besides Alora (who does have luck on her side on the other hand).
I had decided against using arrows of dispelling, and had just loaded with +1 arrows. As the battle started, the flaming fists, Belt, Barb and the assassins started a bloody melee. I had no way of pointing out the right targets (playing on a small iPhone 6 screen), and Belts HP bar showed that he was near death within the first rounds.
A ruby ring and a sword lying on the floor alerted me that Belt had died. But the assailants flock where diminishing. Llia was at full health seemed to hold her ground.
The hefty apr and damage output prevailed in the end and I killed the doppelgängers, and much to my surprise the sword and ring I the floor wasn’t Belts. A pleasant surprise, but the I quickly positioned Barb in harms way since big brother was still there. And Sarevok surely dealt some heavy blows, but to no avail against the massive hp pool of his younger brother (and Durlags goblet). The victory was secured.
Now to find your way in a heavily trapped maze - but with exact remembrance of the traps and two thieves it was the lesser task.
At the temple we detrapped as much we could without being exposed. Then we trapped the place just below the centrepiece (the point where Semaj usually spawns). We then sent Alora hiding in shadows against Sarevok. The script triggered, Sarevok stayed in place and Semaj shadow dooring to his death - or at least to his badly injured state. His death followed shortly after.
Now I just had to lure Sarevok out, dispel him and kill him. Easy.. But luring Sarevok out made Angelo follow. Angelo can be a pest, but luckily he did help a bit, since deciding to stand an inch from Sarevok and fire his arrows of detonation. Well game on, if it must be so.
We dispelled Sarevok, moved Barb (with 90% fire resistance - ring and scimitar) into melee. The others at a safe distance doing 11 apr with elemental arrows. The battle wasn’t just bloody but also quite fiery. But the outcome never in doubt.
Onto Sod. The opening dungeon should be a breeze with a 4 man party and 2 thieves. But the rest of SoD until the final battle will be with no party, since no one will meet the chaotic good requirements. There will be some bottle necks here and there... But Barb is sturdy. We shall see how sturdy he really is next time.
BG1EE updates: 1, 2, 3
Carran et al romped, stomped and pomped (I think it's a word...) throughout the city of Baldur's Gate.
None of the opposition lived up to their moniker: When possible we'd use our abundance of Animate Dead slots to deal with situations, and when not, IWD THAC0-boosting spells made a mockery of most enemies (Emotion: Hope, Emotion: Courage, Recitation, Prayer, Chant, Bless.. they STACK!).
We swiftly found ourselves with nothing left to do but ascend the Iron Throne, and so we duly did. Apart from the guard on the first floor turning some of the merchants there red toward us (and said merchants then following us up the stairs, turning more merchants red, who in turn ALSO started following us up the stairs...) forcing us to be very careful to avoid accidental reputation loss, we made our way to the top floor without issue. Everyone turned invisible and snuck past the welcoming party, setting up shop in the back room.
The plan was the same as always: Send five supercharged Skeleton Warriors to cause as much mayhem as possible. We would then send a second wave of decidedly less deadly but still very annoying summons to soak up any Chaos/Confusion spells, and finally charge in triumphantly with the party once the enemy was well and truly worn down. Everything went well to start: Invisible Khalid commanded the undead hordes to take down Diyab and Aasim.
It was around here that I realized we hadn't seen Shennara make an appearance yet. How did I realize this, you ask? Carran suddenly found himself holding his own spleen.
I don't remember why Carran had his dagger equipped instead of his sling, but it likely saved his life. Clever tactics gone to crap (as they tend to), we threw caution to the wind and engaged in earnest. Took quite a bit of damage, and there was a bit of a nail-biter due to a Confusion, but we still came out on top!
Jeez. Carran should've just stayed invisible (I had him Haste the Skeleton Warriors, hence why he wasn't hidden). Massive mistake number one, but at least we pulled through.
We gathered the loot and headed out, not turning in the quest to Duke Eltan just yet.
We finished up the wilderness areas hitherto left untouched: The Red Wizards and Firewine Bridge... ugh. At one point we were fighting about 40 kobolds. Good times. Actually, no, not good times at all!
Imoen regained her Thief abilities some time ago, so it was high time to revisit Durlag's. The Warders dropped in record time; I think they lasted less than five rounds. No revolutionary tactics, just Animate Dead and buffing, same as always.
Neither the third nor fourth underground levels provided much obstacle; the most noteworthy thing to occur being a scroll of Melf's Minute Meteors dropping off a Greater Doppleganger.
We had enough divine slots to give everyone Protection from Lightning, and in combination with a massive opening barrage, this meant the chess battle didn't last long.
Truly, we should use Fireball barrage more often to speed things up. Certainly there can be no downside at all to dropping massive amounts of area-of-effect damage of a type known for chunking characters in close proximity to our combined main tank/source of damage.
We pushed into the fifth underground level, and since we had so many Wands of Fire by now, were using them along with Necklaces of Missiles to speed things up. This included the fight with Grael. So, let's see what happened here.
So... I made the connection that Khalid was actually just standing in range of the six fireballs we had launched (he caught fire, after all) and tried to move him back. Alas, there were two flaws in my brilliant execution: The first was that even a hasted Khalid cannot move very far in the space of 1/8 of a second (which was how long was left until all the fireballs exploded).
The second, well... notice that little icon on his portrait next to the magic resistance one? Seems I forgot to remove the Belt of Antipode from Khalid (we fought the Winter Wolves along with Khadran the Bear last on level four). And for some truly unfathomable reason, I didn't bother removing it even when Khalid was about to get hit by a literal firestorm.
I'm selling that belt next time around; I clearly can't be trusted with it.
No! Khalid! You weren't that great. In fact, you were pretty crappy. But you were still the best of a number of bad choices!
So... what to do? There aren't a lot of options to replace him with, but replace him we should (if nothing else, my preferred tactic for the battle with Sarevok works better with at least two warriors). We left Durlag's and picked up Ajantis, who came in at 32000 experience. I'm hoping we can get him up to level 7 before facing Sarevok, but I'm not sure there's enough experience left: Looks like we'll be taking down the Demon Knight and Aec'Letec, for once.
Loosing pretty much our only source of physical damage stung a bit, so I ended the session once the party made their way back into Durlag's. Next time we'll finish all the TotSC content and wrap up this iron crisis.
Carran is now a L9 Human Invoker.
Wanting a distraction from all the high-powered LoB play with Promise, I chose to start a second run on a toned-down difficulty setting with more room for role-play. One of the things I don't enjoy about LoB is that it ruins clerics' Turn Undead ability, a signature skill of that class, so I decided to roll a cleric for this run. To keep things fresh in terms of game-play and companions I went with a Chaotic Evil cleric of Talos.
I'd never rolled a priest of Talos Charname, but the prospect of having a Storm Shielded Furia wade into a sea of fire and lightning on the battleground was an appealing one. I also figured out a form of playing evil that might actually be bearable to me if not in fact enjoyable. Furia isn't the calculating, ultimately self-serving 'smart villain' who makes sure to maintain a good reputation, nor the unrestrained sadist that I used to see as synonymous with chaotic evil. As a devout follower of Talos, Furia considers it her highest ideal in life to personify the destructive force of nature in His name. She is basically unconcerned with good and evil, as natural disasters like storms, earthquakes, fires etc strike randomly. She has an almost druidic reverence for nature, and might have become a druid had she grown up in the wild rather than under the monks' tutelage in Candlekeep. However unlike druids Furia doesn't believe she must protect nature from all harm, because nature is very self-destructive in and of itself. Destruction is a constituent element of the natural order. Furia is likely to act against the defiling of nature for worldly gains, which she finds lacking in randomness and authenticity. But she endorses random acts of destruction out of nobler, immaterial pursuits such as her own actions in service to the Stormlord.
Furia would probably call herself lawful neutral, a dutiful servant of her deity, and indeed she may not even be of evil intent, but of course the outcome of her particular ethos and temperament places her squarely in chaotic evil territory in the alignment chart.
Furia will seek out companions whose interests most closely resemble hers. This makes neutrals like militant druid Faldorn or doomguard Haer'Dalis better fits for a party than lawful evil gold-obsessed mercenary Kagain or scheming Edwin.
Btw Furia's stat roll is an untouched one. I would have liked higher Charisma, but I really can't complain. 88 very well-distributed points make for an amazing roll. (As for the low Charisma, I'll just play Furia as abstruse in her communication and detached from the mundane, which goes well with her very high intelligence and wisdom.)
I picked the 'hardcore' setting of SCS v32 rather than insane for a more realistic gaming experience. I'll make sure to limit meta-gaming on my end. E.g. enemies must be scouted before any pre-buffing is to be carried out, the party cannot act on my knowledge as the player that certain characters will go hostile, carry certain loot etc.
The day after my foster father's demise I was interrupted in my prayer for guidance when Imoen snuck up on me. I told her what had happened and reluctantly accepted to travel with her to the FAI. I soon found my unfinished prayers had been heard by Talos anyway as I met the Necromancer Xzar and his roguish companion Montaron. We would become fast friends. An ogre, Commanded by me and slain by Montaron seemed a fitting sacrifice to Talos as a thanksgiving for guiding me to my new companions.
At the FAI an imposing half-orc was not interested in becoming acquainted with me, but Gorion's old friends Khalid and Jaheira were. Both Khalid and Jaheira and Xzar and Montaron were rather eager to travel to Nashkel for an appointment with the town mayor Berrun Ghastkill. I had nothing against it. We stopped only to spend a night in Beregost and on the road south of Beregost, where Khalid defeated the imposing Berserker fighter Shar-Teel in a duel to my surprise. The warrioress replaced Imoen whose thieving skills were redundant with Montaron around. Shar-Teel had a violent streak but she respected me for being a fighting woman myself.
In Nashkel we met Berrun Ghastkill. He wanted us to investigate several deaths in the local mines. We agreed. But on our way to the mines we were waylaid by bandits, and counted ourselves lucky that the gruff half-orc from the FAI showed up to help us out. It turned out he had a score to settle with two of the ruffians. Xzar with his health drains, Shar-Teel dual-wielding her blades, Khalid and Montaron with their missiles, and myself, Commanding our enemies, all fared well. But the same cannot be said of Jaheira. She had closed in on two archers that were attacking us from the right, killed one but was then slain by the other.
To appease Talos, Xzar and I executed a clown that taunted me at the Nashkel Carnival. The night before, an ability to drain the life energy out people, much like Xzar and Dorn's aibilities, had come to me in a dark dream about Gorion's death. I decided to test this ability on the buffoon. It worked pretty well.
I took the bandit ambush and Jaheira's death near the Nashkel mines as a sign of the Stormlord for us to venture elsewhere first, but where? None of my companions seemed to know or even care. And indeed, why should we care? I knew I walked with the Stormlord's blessing. With an entourage of three ferocious warriors and a wise necromancer who shared my fascination with the destructive side of the natural order, I considered myself privileged.
We returned to Beregost, where I struck several spiders with a lightning bolt, relishing Talos's might even as the bolt struck me as well.
Back in Beregost we met with Aura, a Lantanese artificer, who placed some enchantments on the idol of Kozah. She worked it into a powerful (if cursed) item:
In the same area, a sturdy hobgoblin who thought he could rob us with his two henchmen was also sacrificed by a glorious lightning strike from the idol of Kozah.
It's sad that there are not more "lightning" based gear/spells for Talos' worshippers, I've always been fond of this particular element
Apart maybe from Call Lightning (that you already have with you Idol of Kozah), don't you want to add those lightning spells via EEKeeper to your spellbook, for flavour ? (maybe replacing other spells instead for balance?)
Like maybe add one of the Lightning wizard spells at lvl 5 instead of Flame Strike for example ? (I guess Chain Lightning, despite normally being a 6th level spell, wouldn't be overpowered as a 5th level priest spell)
As "RP" spells for Priest of Talos, I only see:
- lvl 1 onwards : Lightning bolt (special ability though, not the same)
- lvl 2 : no electricity based spell, but there are no real damage spell anyway
- lvl 3 : Glyph of Warding
- lvl 4 : Protection from Lightning
- lvl 5 : none
- lvl 6 : bolt of glory (not electricity damage, but still, it's a bolt)
- lvl 7 : none but there is the Storm of Vengeance HLA
My meaning is that it's weird that the Avenger kit has more electricity-based spells (Call Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Static Charge, Chain Lightning, although they lose Glyph of Warding) than a Priest of Talos
BG1EE: 1
On the southern Sword Coast our party made mincemeat of all those that crossed us. That included quite a few winter wolves, the bounty hunter Greywolf, two overly cocky bandits Vax and Zal (whom I had Held), and some Amnian braggarts after Xzar and I made them change their tune with our magics.
My band was leaving behind their humble beginnings and turning into a force to be reckoned with. The Stormlord had granted me several new spells and powers such as the ability to raise skeletal warriors, to inscribe glyphs of warding, or to conjure forth a barrier of bones that would hit anyone attacking me in close combat. Likewise Xzar had mastered several new spells including a more powerful draining spell, Vampiric Touch. And it appeared his experimentation with the skull he had kept in imitation of Thalantyr had paid off after all, for he was now able to cast a spell by which he could launch explosive skulls. Skull Traps he called them. My warriors had improved their martial skills. Dorn for example had turned himself into a proficient marksman with his crossbow, while Shar-Teel had become faster and more precise with her longsword.
Our next move was to explore the coastal lands. We looked for another companion for that purpose, but we were unlucky. There was a red wizard in Nashkel who thought he could hire us as mercenaries without even naming a reward. We told him off and set out with just the five of us.
In the western Cloudpeaks on our way back to Nashkel we killed two dim-witted men who wanted to cut down a tree for treasure, saving a dryad's life in the process. But when Xzar took a sample of her blood for experimentation, a small price for saving her tree I reckoned, the creature perished. I never knew dryads were so frail.
In a vivid dream that night I relived the encounter with Mulahey but this time I strangled the half-orc's spectre, ensuring its permanent death. I woke up with another draining power.
An agent of the faction that apparently still wanted my head awaited me in Nashkel. As soon as he attacked we retreated and I neutralized him with a Silence spell. We decided to try and figure out who these people were and why they were after me and my entourage. Papers we found on this agent and on a contact of his in Beregost,
We continued our search for our hidden enemy, the Iron Throne, in Cloakwood. There, a base of theirs was to be found according to an Elven informant we had talked to at the bandit camp before Montaron planted a blade into the spy's back.
Another group of four, guarding the entrance to the Iron Throne installation, were overcome by Faldorn. Granted, I Held their commander before he could act against us, but she held everyone in place with a Web and injured them with Spike Growth spells, making it very easy for the rest of us to dispatch them from a safe distance.
I'd thought about adding one or two druid spells but I believe a priest's spellbook is reset/corrected everytime they level up. I do like the idea of Chain Lightning as a level 5 or 6 spell so that Furia can consistently cast electricity spells at almost all spell levels. And I will see what happens if I add a Druid spell and level up after that. Thank you for the suggestion!
Even if it doesn't work, I feel there are plenty of spells befitting a priest of Talos if you take a somewhat broader perspective (weather/destruction and not just lightning):
- Cloud of Pestilence (level 4 SCS/IWD spell),
Sphere: Combat, Elemental Air
Range: Visual range of the caster
Duration: 4 rounds
Casting Time: 7
Area of Effect: 12-ft. radius
Saving Throw: Neg.
This spell transforms the air in a 12-ft. radius into sickening, grayish mists. The caster and non-living creatures are immune to the effects of the cloud. For every round of exposure to the disease-ridden air, a creature must save vs. Breath or suffer 3 points of magic damage, blindness, and the loss of 3 points of Strength and Dexterity. The blindness and ability score penalties last 1 turn. Cloud of Pestilence can only be cast by evil-aligned characters.
Sphere: Healing
Range: Touch
Duration: Instant
Casting Time: 9
Area of Effect: The caster
Saving Throw: Special
This spell instantly destroys a target, blasting it into small chunks. The victim is allowed a Save vs. Death at a penalty of -4; if successful, the target takes 8d6 points of magic damage instead of being destroyed. Destruction can only be cast by evil characters. Note that a character struck with a Destruction spell cannot be raised from the dead with a Raise Dead or Resurrection spell.
- Firestorm,
- Energy Blades (1d4+5 missile damage and 1d10electricity damage), and
- Implosion.
So all in all, looking at the available spells and items, the game does offer quite a bit of RP material for a priest of Talos.
Also, I was not familiar to the IWD spells, they add indeed a bit of flavour