Good to see the thread busy . I picked up my run with Adorar the druid in the Underdark- a terrible place to pick up the run as I often mess up there. I started off in that spirit by pulling Mr. Diggot from the soul trap but fortunately we were able to deal with him. Then things really went pear-shaped. We went to get the light gem and I fleetingly thought that next time I have an evil character I’d get around to spitting the gnome on a sword rather than fighting the Balor. I wasn’t too worried because hey, Death Ward was up, SCS Balors don’t chunk according to the readme, and I had the component installed that reduced chunkings anyway.
You know what happened next. Minsc was chunked, Isra was chunked, Sarah was stunned and then chunked. Lots of spells later the Balor was just barely taken down before it decapitated Haer too. I realised afterwards that Atweaks wasn’t installed so Death Ward wasn’t a factor this run anyway, at least not vs no save chunkings...
Cutting my losses Kelsey, Haer, and Adorar popped in for some shopping at the Drow city, killed some Kuo Toa, and then bribed their way out. That’ll teach me to pick up a run casually! I’ll have to wait till I’ve got my mojo back to continue this one.
Tappa - Elf female Enchanter
Krypto - Human male Blackguard ( @Grond0 )
Efforts to ignore our current connectivity issue continued briefly until giving up at the next set of drops. It didn't take us long to wrap up the Candlekeep chores and find Shoal the nereid. She saved against blackguard poison but as she was blinded we just took our time in killing her.
After playing games with a carrion crawler and some xvarts Tappa decided she'd find a decent two handed sword for Krypto to replace his non-proficient staff. That looks like a suitable item.
Tappa then realised she was dragging the ankheg plate armour around when Krypto could make use of it - so this should make him go from zero to antihero.
We emptied our backpacks in Beregost, returning some boots to Zhurlong, an amulet to Mr Colquetle and delivering a letter to Mirianne before blinding Silke and Karlat to defeat them. We might even have returned Perdue's sword to him, if not we certainly should have done.
Tappa was all lined up to go hunt basilisks but that will have to wait for our next attempt to connect. (That would also allow Krypto to replace his ropey ranged rockflinger with a double-pipped longbow)
@Grond0 Though I'm sure that Torosar could make a star appearance on an Indian wedding with these, it's not really it
@Wise_Grimwald I'd be curious to hear which ones you have in mind as I may be missing something all the time (I'll note Helm of Defense was not available as we never faced Shoal's ogre mage).
A small hint maybe?
I was thinking in particular of the Helm of Defence
I wasn’t too worried because hey, Death Ward was up, SCS Balors don’t chunk according to the readme, and I had the component installed that reduced chunkings anyway.
You know what happened next. Minsc was chunked, Isra was chunked, Sarah was stunned and then chunked. Lots of spells later the Balor was just barely taken down before it decapitated Haer too. I realised afterwards that Atweaks wasn’t installed so Death Ward wasn’t a factor this run anyway, at least not vs no save chunkings...
As far as I can tell, that SCS component doesn't actually apply any change to the vorpal balor weapon; it's still a 15% no-save chunking. Death Ward does protect against it (immunity to opcode 13 "Kill Target"), but the SCS version of the Balor has a Remove Magic for that.
What does the component do? It gives the vorpal balor weapon to more creatures; the underdark balor in vanilla just has a weapon that hits for 1d12+strength bludgeoning damage with enchantment 4.
The chunking-reduction component doesn't do anything about vorpals; those specify the kind of death they cause, and an "explosive" death is always a chunking.
I've hotfixed my installation so that the balor weapon actually does allow a save (I went with a -2 penalty), and so that balor and planetar weapons don't chunk. Attached here, for anyone else that wants to use it.
Update - I found the version of the balor weapon that SCS is supposed to use, and switched to that. It's a 20% chance, with a save at -4. New version of my hotfix attached.
Cheers, will give that a try. I’m pretty certain that at least some of the chunkees had Death Ward up, but I also have Spell Revisions and various other mods installed which might muddy things.
A pretty good session today saw the levels racking up - Soygib the biggest beneficiary with 5 of those.
The first bit of action was to finish off the escape from Jon's dungeon. The main item of business there was to ensure Ulvaryl died rather than running away when she was badly hurt. Vince aimed to do that by skull trapping her (along with his comrades), but Soygib had had the same sort of thoughts and got in first with a magic missile.
What was impressive though was just how fast Soygib moved after I unpaused the game - successfully getting out of the area of effect even though the skull trap had already been launched. One might almost have thought that Gate70 had been expecting something of this sort .
The circus didn't really test our abilities, but provided a nice easy introduction to Athkatla.
An ambush by Suna Seni came as no surprise and Vince tried to disrupt that with a skull trap, only to find himself being disrupted. By the time he'd retreated and got around to sending in an emotion to disable the mage, his companions had already killed all the other ambushers.
That ambush was on the way to Watcher's Keep, where Vince added a potion case to his bag collection. However, prudence overcame avarice and we didn't test out whether Corethief could defeat a stone golem using Arbane non-proficiently.
Back in Athkatla we headed to the Graveyard, where Vince put his newly learned stoneskin to use by acting as a tank while the others did the main damage to enemies. Here, the Crypt King had just gone through Vince's defenses, when it realized its own had also disappeared.
Downstairs, various spider encounters included laying a couple of skull traps where some spiders would generate.
Soygib then put a fireball to use in the nearby hive, to leave Pai'Na without help of succour.
Up to this stage, Corethief had been willing to rely mainly on stealth attacks, but he now wanted a more martial alternative set of armor and led the way to find Officer Dirth. Blinded, trapped and backstabbed - at least his agony was short-lived.
After returning Renfeld, we went to tackle Prebek. Soygib one-shotted him with a backstab - confusing Sanasha (as Prebek is the one scripted to open conversations) and she stood still while being slaughtered.
The Harper building was duly looted before we tried to get a bit of extra treasure and XP out of Lucette - Kitthix doing the trick there with his web tangle.
While in the area, we started Mae'Var's quests. That meant a trip to the Temple district in search of an amulet. As we arrived during the day though, we nipped into the sewers to pass the time (as you do). A sea troll menace and the local rakshasa gangster boss were sorted out there.
Back at the Docks, Rayic Gethras' house proved to be a haven for mephits. Corethief took a lot of damage from their fire attacks, but kept that under control by drinking potions.
The golems were no trouble, before we sneaked upstairs past Rayic himself. He spotted us in the act of producing summons though, which could potentially have been nasty. However, Rayic's defenses were unable to handle a chaos spell and he failed to recover from that.
The final action was to expose Mae'Var and punish his misbehavior. The thieves on the ground floor were particularly numerous this time and it took a while of running round to deal with those. Downstairs, things were always under control though, with traps, chaos and the odd summon allowing a quick fight.
Enchanter - L11, 66 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 72 kills (+95 in BG1)
Thief/illusionist - L10/11, 56 HPs, 70 kills (+144 in BG1), 1 death
Fighter/thief - L9/11, 104 HPs, 89 kills (+228 in BG1), 1 death
Fire elementals make Irenicus' dungeon trivial to complete. I had the XP for level 13 near the end of the first level, but chose not to take that. Instead, I left a fire elemental and some lions downstairs, before giving up 250 XP and dualling to a fighter. Giving a flask back to the genie provided 15k XP and the elemental portals a further 20k to take me to level 6.
The lions disappeared soon after, but the elemental stuck around long enough to deal with the other enemies - including Ulvaryl.
The bonus for escaping got me to level 7 and a welcome APR increase.
To make things far less risky early on, I bought the ring of air control, along with a +2 sling, a couple of potions of firebreath and a potion of invisibility for emergencies. After checking in with Gaelan Bayle I went to the Docks to relieve Officer Dirth of his armor. He wasn't keen to give it up, but by using the 2 entrances to the thieves guild I was able to rest during the combat to refresh HPs while he remained wounded.
Now suitably dressed, I triggered the Suna Seni ambush while invisible. A Bhaal horror sent the mage there running and a single shot finished her off.
The others could then be run round without any need to resort to using firebreath. Shortly afterwards a similar thing happened while rescuing Renfeld.
Returning him to the Docks was enough for level 8. Prebek & Sanasha have no direct counter to improved invisibility, but stoneskins (and the need to cast it next door to avoid annoying the Cowled Wizards) slowed things down enough that Prebek managed to damage me with a spell as I finished him off.
I bought a potion case at Watcher's Keep, but wasn't yet up to fighting a stone golem (let alone vampiric wraiths), so didn't explore inside.
Looking for more easy XP, I went to Windspear Hills and used invisibility to avoid fighting there while returning the acorns. Then it was back to Athkatla where a scroll of PfU let me clear the Upper Graveyard - getting up to level 9 and achieving grand mastery with my sling there.
I had 2 ambushes on the way to Trademeet, but didn't take much damage in those. After resting to heal up, I attacked the genie - very unusually for me actually using a PfP scroll to protect against instant death. The efreeti then popped out of his bottle to help out inside the tent.
Given my saving throws are so poor, the Shield of Harmony is a very useful reward for that (while dualling from a cleric or druid prevents fighters from using proscribed weapons, there is no such restriction on armor or shields).
With improved defenses, restoring the circus was no longer a real challenge. Neither was handing the Copper Coronet over to Hendak.
Back at the Graveyard, there was some danger in tackling spiders underground given my poor saves - but the efreeti helped deal with those and gain me a second summons.
In the Promenade I decided it was time to recover my favorite room at the local inn from a bunch of interlopers. The efreeti put in a stinking cloud to slow down the casters, while Kitthix used web to immobilise Brennan. With him dead Kitthix successfully also webbed Mencar, though he actually died when Smaeluv graphically demonstrated the drawbacks to having a party member that uses a berserking sword. The efreeti disappeared just as Pooky, who was another one unable to work out how to deal with improved invisibility, became the last to fall.
At the Bridge District I successfully suppressed my natural inclination to press 1 in conversations and hence avoided giving all my hard-earned money to a mugger. I was still dealing with his friends when Sansuki asked for help - but he would not have got any even if I wasn't busy, given I'm still fairly vulnerable to level drain. Solving the skinner quest was enough for level 10 and I decided I was now a match for the Rune Assassins with the help of my friends. Going downstairs invisible ensures that only the first assassin will chase you back up - and its backstab was absorbed by the efreeti, before the assassin was webbed by Kitthix. Using Brennan's ring to go down invisibly again, the same thing happened to the second assassin.
The ghasts could then be quickly shot down (and no bone golem appeared this time).
Deciding it was time to do a bit of lich-hunting, I did some preparatory work. Another PfP scroll allowed me to safely open the trapped door in the Bridge District. In the Temple sewers I avoided the rakshasa for now, but did kill the troll for Roger with the help of the efreeti. I had a problem with the second of the vampiric mists after killing the first of those easily enough. The other one was webbed, but I was unable to see it around the edge of the door and it went invisible to attack me - despite my best efforts I've found it's almost impossible to prevent the efreeti releasing a scripted fireball in that sort of situation, which took me down to 11 HPs before the efreeti redeemed itself with a critical to kill the mist.
Now with access to the lich, I used a scroll of PfU and an oil of speed to kill it quickly. The one in the Bridge District followed, before I topped up giant strength with DUHM to get into the hidden area in the Crooked Crane. I couldn't use Daystar, so stopped off at the Promenade to buy the Ring of Energy on the way back to the Docks. A second DUHM opened the door to Kangaxx and 5 charges from that later I had the Ring of Gaxx.
Druid 12 / Fighter 10, 75 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 153 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
After the Gorion ambush we headed south after picking up Gorion's belt. We were able to help Mellicamp, but as we left were attacked by a bear. Command made us safe, but it awoke unexpectedly and dealt a death blow before another command could be cast. It also died almost immediately. At least raising Swift only cost 100gp. It could have been worse. We do have a gem worth 1000gp.
After acquiring a mace in Bergost and talking to Marl we headed south where ogrillon were not a problem. The same could not be said for the Flaming Fist who were wearing plate armour. At least we now have plate armour.
We then rested successfully. Whilst trying to do that earlier a gibberling hurt me!!
I decided I should be plenty tough enough now to at least poke my head inside Watcher's Keep. The stone golem was duly killed, though not that easily - I had to run outside to get healed by the cleric before finishing that off. After that though there were no vampiric wraiths and clearing the top level was not too hard with most of the work on the statues being done with sling (getting to level 11 with the first of those).
Back at the Bridge District, I dealt harshly with some kidnappers.
Their victim was only released on payment of a ransom in silver though. Dracandros and his gang were pulled out of their hideout - the mage was easy to hit and couldn't manage to complete any spells against the 7 APR possible using Gaxx haste and the Crimson Dart non-proficiently.
There was then more running and shooting to sort out the Fallen Paladins (though I did stare into the white's of Anarg's eyes to see how he would react to being all alone).
I'd already got to level 12 by bringing Anarg a goblet, so not too long before I can get my druid powers back.
By this time the last of the night-time vampire ambushes had taken place, so there was some easy XP to be gained. After paying Gaelan Bayle his 15k, I checked in with Aran Linvail before webbing Lassal at the Docks.
After resting, Kitthix was up to his tricks again, to ensure the Guild Contact wouldn't drink any of his potions.
Leaving the vampires for the moment, I did the Sir Sarles quest. Killing Neb was easy enough, though the acid trap in his house was a nasty one and not far short of ending the run.
A further temple quest provided a bit more XP.
Still 40k XP short of my goal though, I dived back into the sewers and shot down the rakshasa there.
Mekrath was another web tangle victim and his umber hulk guards took me close to the target. That was then reached by killing the elemental guarding Mekrath's mirror.
After feeling pretty comfortable for a while just playing as a fighter, I'll now have to switch gears again and try to remember to make good use of my druid abilities as well.
Druid 12 / Fighter 13, 78 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 248 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
Tappa - Elf female Enchanter
Krypto - Human male Blackguard ( @Grond0 )
Our third outing saw this pair grab rings of wizardry and protection before proceeding to the rock garden. The lower group of basilisks were no bother to us.
Krytpo questioned how we would deal with Mutamin so Tappa suggested his immunity to horror would suffice and so it proved - although Krypto added in some poisoned hits to make certain.
Krypto carefully sighted Baerin before stepping back, waiting for Tappa who foolishly took a step too far and received a non-too-friendly welcome from Kirian. Krypto sighed and charged in to draw the enemy attention as Tappa blinded Baerin then failed to blind Peter.
By this time Krypto had been held so Tapps should retreat but instead she went for a second blind on Peter, and he saved against that too. Tappa had to run and saved against a hold person but not against horror.
A few rounds of chasing went on before a summoned kobold got the killing blow - and celebrated by unsummoning as Tappa collapsed to the ground. Not that Tappa held out much hope anyway with Lindin having no summons remaining to block his path he'd have finished Tappa off quickly anyway.
Alright, as I mentioned Carran the Invoker is on hiatus, so I'm starting a fresh run. Updates will be exceptionally condensed.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no damage increase, max HP on level up.
Mods: SCS v32.7 (basically everything).
Protagonist: Aldain, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric.
That's a seriously good roll. It was sorely needed too, given how stat-intensive a Fighter/Mage/Cleric is.
Aldain starts with ++ in Warhammers and Two Weapon Style. His first three pips will be, in order, + Flail, + Flail, + Two Weapon Style, allowing for flawless dual wielding pretty early in BG2. As he is 1/3 cleric, for BG1 he will travel with the canon party of Imoen as a pure thief, Khalid (going for +++ Longbow so we don't have too many melee combatants), Jaheira with ++ Sling, Minsc (naturally with a two-handed sword) and Dynaheir.
Cliff-notes adventure: A F/M/C out of time, part 1
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Aldain takes off running, dealing with Carbos and Shank without much issue. Imoen, Khalid and Jaheira are recruited (Tarnesh as always being helpless before Command), and a rest later Aldain swipes the Ankheg treasure under Sanctuary, and the party takes down a single Ankheg for good measure: Three first level cleric slots so two Commands memorized, thus it was safe. The ankheg shell is stored outside the Beregost smithy for later use.
The party heads south to Nashkel, only clearing the unimportant areas on the way. Minsc is picked up, and we are treated to the interesting experience of clearing the Gnoll fortress with a 13 HP main tank in Khalid. Somewhat surprisingly we survive unscathed, release Dynaheir, and finally have the party together.
Next follows a wirlstorm of clearing content: All lower-level areas to the west of Nashkel are thoroughly cleansed. We also deal with Bassilus (gaining Aldain a proper weapon) and the minor stuff north-west of Nashkel, including the Doomsayer, who is still not immune to the Wand of Fire. With plenty of money, we also have the Ankheg armor made.
The party is currently resting outside the FAI, preparing to take on the Ankhegs now that Minsc has enough hitpoints to conceivably survive two crits in a row. The XP from the Ankhegs as well as the Fishermen quest and clearing the Zombies to the north should be enough to catapult us well out of low-level territory, and once that's done the rest of BG1 is usually a smooth ride.
There haven't been any close calls or real dangers: After all, we have Sleep, Command and Entangle available, and if things start looking hairy a Wand of Fire blast usually does the trick.
Aldain is now a level 2/2/3 Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric.
After yet another early death, we took a deep breath and reviewed our recent report card. It was difficult to decipher that though under the numerous scribbles in red ink saying "must do better", so we just generated a new random pairing and set off.
Shoal was blinded and shot, before we avoided being bitten by wild dogs in a couple of travel ambushes. Frogg picked up some decent armor in Nashkel and Myst bought a PFP green scroll there (transmuters not being allowed to use the mage version). The basilisks were duly dealt with easily enough before we rested to take on Mutamin. Myst had picked up and learnt both magic missile and acid arrow on her travels and was pretty confident she could deal with Mutamin - which she did.
There was, however, a nasty moment there when Frogg was sent running by horror. He ran a pretty long way and part-circled Kirian's position - getting perilously close to coming into visual range, before regaining his senses just in time.
Myst's 4 blind attempts only took effect on Baerin. However, she also threw in 2 stinking clouds and those proved highly effective - keeping the other 3 quiet while Frogg shot them down (he had learned from our previous run and, unlike Krypto the blackguard, actually bought a longbow to make good use of his specialism in that).
After winding north via the FAI, we stopped off at the ankheg area. The first of the ankhegs in the nest proved highly resistant to sleep and Myst used 4 of her 9 spells without effect. That left her out well before the end, but Frogg plowed on regardless. The penultimate ankheg fought back strongly though and the rare sound of glugging bounced off the walls as Frogg gulped 3 potions during the fight and another 2 afterwards to boost HPs prior to the final ankheg (which tamely died anyway in the event).
A few final tasks in Beregost included blinding Silke, playing a game of shooting round the pillars of the local hostelry with Karlat and tucking a few spiders in for a good night's sleep.
Transmuter 5, 28 HPs, 23 kills
Ranger 5, 48 HPs, 55 kills, 0 deaths
Abandoned run with halfling assassin that was in spellhold... I guess I've come to accept that after finishing BG1/SoA so many times anything with a balanced party is too repetitive - even if charname is something I've never played before.
I never liked solo runs, so I'm now trying some "unbalanced parties" to make things more interesting.
The first up is rangers and thieves. Charname is a halfling swash; party is Imoen, Nalia, Jan, Valygar, Minsc. In particular, this is hard because the party cannot cast cleric spells, including death ward or chaotic commands. Healing is also much scarcer. Will see how that goes. I think this is my first run in maybe ever without Jaheira.
I'm not really sure how I will deal with stun late game; but maybe really good saves + vampire touch for mage hp is enough...? I am going to restrict the use of the sword of Avoreen to ToB, as it is Mazzy's personal sword and she is not in the party. However, I think it is reasonable to think she would let you use it when you call her to the Bhaal Plane (assuming she comes equipped with it).
First run ended in druid grove of all places after a ~70 damage lightning bolt chunked Jan. The irritating thing is I think the cast should have been interrupted but wasn't or something was weird with the timing of Jan's aura not clearing. Anyway c'est la vie.
Great to see the improvements in Ascension and SCS in the interim! Playing SCS Insane with almost all difficulty adds (no price increases for chapter 2; I think that's the only one I skipped). No shop stealing and no item recharging conducts.
An obvious early target to revert to older tactics was Tarnor's party. A group of spirit wolves and an elemental killed Gaius to open hostilities as an insect plague drifted towards them. The combination of inability to use spells, paralyzing bites and nymph hold spells quickly made a mess of the rest of the party.
Moving on to the Unseeing Eye quest, I headed for the old temple. A beholder and a couple of gauths were in the way. However, I now had an automatic save against death rays and, with the help of the Shield of Harmony, could nip in and out shooting at them as long as I was careful to manage damage taken from cause wounds spells.
Improved invisibility then made saving against the petrification trap safe. I wasn't quite high enough level for a lich to appear among the undead and killing them was no problem. That's partly because of an oddity about greater mummy stats. You need +3 weapons to hit them, but they are unable to hit anything requiring even +1 weapons. Hence spirit summons could tank them with no problem.
After soaking up a death spell with the efreeti, 3 spirit lions killed the main group of beholders and gauths, gaining me another level in the process.
After dealing with the remaining beholders in the area, they attacked the blind priests, with the help of an insect plague.
One of them died there, but the others were more than sufficient to deal with what was left of the Eye after using the Rift Device.
After dealing with Gaal, reporting back to the temple was sufficient for level 15.
Back at the Copper Coronet the sewers were no longer a daunting target. Captain Haegan was drawn out of his hideout into the sewers to meet some summons, while I only bothered with a single fire elemental to make sure of the wizards.
With reputation at 18, I returned to Trademeet in search of the last bit. With Flame Blade I could kill most trolls directly, while those immune to magic weapons could be dealt with by the elemental or efreeti. It didn't take long to pile up a heap of troll bodies outside the aptly named Troll Mound.
A group of druids lasted only seconds while being mauled by lions and blasted with some of their own lightning medicine.
I picked up Belm, which makes the possibility of dual-wielding at some point a bit more attractive, before moving on to find Faldorn. The key to making that fight easy is to shut down her casting - and an immediate insect plague did that. I hadn't rested to get spirits or elementals back, but a couple of nymphs were more than adequate to finish her off.
Reporting back to the High Merchant pushed reputation to 19 and also got me to level 16. Clearing the tomb got me my last needed point of reputation, but out of the goodness of my heart I still helped reunite Tiris with his love.
I'd deliberately not done Mae'Var earlier, so that I could buy the nymph cloak from Gorch - allowing me to get minimum shop prices to stretch the 150k gold acquired so far. Purchases included Vhailor's Helm. My standard rule is not to allow that to be used in combat in SoA, but I did make use of it so that a simmy could place PfM on me to get the berserker horn - not that that has any likely use for this character.
After spending all my money, it was time to find some more and I decided to begin that process by completing work in the Docks area. That included looting the Harper building before running through Mae'Var's quests. I got to level 17 on the way through Rayic's house before the mage himself was plagued by insects.
Mae'Var's guild was robbed before he failed in his attempt to become the last man standing.
The bit of spare cash now available was put to use to buy up Adratha's potions. With those in hand, she was attacked to unmask a group of rakshasas.
Despite the messengers telling me to mount a challenge, I also checked in at the Grove to confirm that they would not accept my claim to be the Great Druid (must be at least level 14).
To relieve the frustration of not being allowed that particular challenge, I sought a different one in Athkatla by openly using the ring of air control to annoy the Cowled Wizards. The groups of those are pretty easily handled by a druid - send a single summon in first to prompt their death spell, then further summons can lead in insect plagues.
To be really safe you could also use protection from lightning to avoid any danger from stray bolts. I got to level 18 from the second of the groups (taking grand mastery in daggers) and all the other standard groups died without taking any significant action. The leaders did manage to create lots of summons before being shut down, but once affected, even Zallanora was unable to do anything more.
Another decent source of treasure is the equipment found on Captain Dennis and his men - and that was soon being pawned in the local shops.
With encounters in the City now starting to be in pretty short supply, I decided it was time to head for the Planar Prison. There are 2 particular items of equipment that I highly prize for this character there - one sought out by most people, but the other is hardly used by other people I think.
Druid 12 / Fighter 18, 93 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 449 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
Today's session was generally pretty serene, but there were a few blips to liven things up .
Things opened with a trip to the FAI to return a few items and pick up some pantaloons. Then we turned our attention to increasing our reputation, starting off with relieving a blinded Greywolf of his sword.
Further quests went to plan, with the exception that Melicamp failed to survive, until we returned Brage to Nashkel to get reputation to 19. At that point Myst fancied her chances against Neira in the inn. Myst successfully blinded her, but not before Neira had tagged Frogg with rigid thinking. That's particularly dangerous for a ranger (or paladin), whose gods don't appreciate the slaughter of innocent civilians. Initially Frogg started backing away from Neira and Myst tried blinding her with the hope she would stop in empty space. However, that initial attempt failed and Frogg ended up standing close to a civilian. A second blind did work, but the danger remained and Myst took her life in her hands in an attempt to drag Frogg away from her potential victim. That attempt failed though and moments later reputation had dropped back to 9.
A tour of remaining areas of the Sword Coast saw a few points added in a partial reputation comeback and there were some significant XP gains as well. Those included Frogg running the Doomsayer around while Myst threw in magic missiles and treating groups of sirines to stinking clouds.
That latter tactic nearly backfired against the second group when Myst attempted to force-attack Sil, but only succeeded in running into the cloud herself - fortunately Frogg was able to finish Sil off on his own just as the clouds lifted.
Inside the cave Frogg took an absorption potion to tank the golems. The first 2 failed to register a hit, though the final one got a couple of digs in before snuffing it.
Durlag's Tower offered the chance of some more quick XP, but Myst chose to go to the Nashkel Mine instead. Mulahey saw her setting herself for some stinking clouds and tried catching her to have a talk. That resulted in the clouds being laid in a different position than usual and, even though Mulahey saved long enough to open a conversation, he was still in the cloud and collapsed before he could cast anything.
Outside the mine the clouds worked as intended on the amazons.
Nimbul was swiftly dealt with, before the final action saw Tranzig's ghost taking over the conversation after his body slumped to the floor.
Transmuter 6, 34 HPs, 65 kills
Ranger 6, 64 HPs, 168 kills, 0 deaths
YIKES is the current version of the scs upgraded Torgal fight difficult on insane. Not only did it wipe my party, it wiped my party like 5 times on reload. Party was about 400k.
Torgal has massive hp / regen, and runs around hasted doing 100+ damage a round with very low thac0
2 Yuanti mages as high level casters that do things like 3x ice storm sequencer
2x spirit, 2x spectral, 2x giant trolls
umber hulk elder
I thought I was going be cheesing the fight by scroll summoning 4 elementals and laying 6-8 traps between charname and yoshi. That did not happen.
I think this fight is still doable at this level / party combo, but it's much more difficult than prior fights. I think its also more difficult than previous versions of the mod? I don't remember there being so many trolls and the mages I think used to be a bit tamer.
For a potential next time:
Bringing more fire breath potions, which do a lot of damage if you run around the room with them
Bring fireball potions, which I think pierce globes but in any case would have given charname and yoshi something much more useful to do during the fight
Make sure as much of the party is fire immune or at least resistant as possible
I think with a big enough alpha strike with fireball potions and a cloudkill and chaos for the mages, plus a stack of traps by the entrance for torgal is probably enough to reliably take control of the fight.
It seems you can use the fact that only torgal can see invisible to lure him into traps. Which won't kill him alone, but will get him about 60-80% of the way there.
Could also potentially come back later (Nalia definitely leaves the party after ~7 days if you don't go to the keep, but I don't know if she has a subsequent timer if you pick her up at the keep after she leaves)
@Jabberwock I haven't tried that fight with a party, but I agree it's pretty nasty for a solo character. You might want to try retreating upstairs at an early stage of the fight. Another lot of traps there could be helpful and you may be able to split up the chasing group.
I entered the Planar Prison invisibly and with improved haste - allowing me to strike down the mage before his buffs triggered. Despite having forgotten to memorize stoneskin, and taking a backstab as a result, the rest of the greeting party went down easily.
That provided me with not just some boots of speed, but the Pixie Prick dagger. That's useful just as a +3 weapon, but also makes enemies save against death or go to sleep for 2 rounds (making it arguably a better disabler than Celestial Fury for instance) - and few enemies recover from that.
Insect plague sorted out a group of yuan-ti mages before the Master of Thralls became the latest enemy to bemoan mislaying their magical weapon when some spirits came to call.
Bursting the orb gained another level and prompted a revolt by some thralls.
The Warden put up a decent defense and managed to kill the spirit lions, but died himself in the process.
I now had plenty of money to buy Roger's potions to complete my shopping requirements for the moment and decided to stretch my legs a little away from the city. The first port of call was the de-Arnise Hold. There was nothing there that was likely to trouble me and nothing did. Killing the golems in the temple area provided me with level 20 and a first HLA.
TorGal and his troll helpers were then trying to compete out of their class.
I would have refused the chance of a stronghold anyway, but Nalia didn't even offer that - presumably on the grounds that one of the responses I gave in the Druid Grove had already started that questline, even if it's impossible to finish it.
Next up was Umar Hills, where I got another level after completing the tasks around town.
Moving on to the ruins, Anath was overcome with a sudden urge to take a nap.
In the temple, most of the undead were no real threat, but the liches were. My spell save of 1 left me vulnerable to a number of spells, such as symbols and FoD - so summons had to be drip-fed in to get rid of those before I showed myself.
For a change I tried to Harm Thaxy, but missed the attack. Summons couldn't withstand the dragon, but ironskins helped keep me going long enough to take her down - gaining another level as a result.
Even at just the 6 APR from Gaxx haste, the Shade Lord was too slow to withstand a melee attack.
On the way out of town I picked up Valygar's body and that was soon greasing the locks on the Planar Sphere door, where it didn't take long to rack up another level.
That level also meant that I could finally get strength to 25 using DUHM. The delay is because for a dual-classed character the average of levels is used, which is rather unfair (it should be the highest active level). As a result, rather than needing to get to fighter level 18 to get a benefit of 6 to strength, I needed to get to fighter level 23 - after having already got to druid level 12.
There were again a number of casters that could have been dangerous, but they were tackled by summons or insects. In the case of Tolgerias I attempted a sneak GWW while he was trying to detect invisibility, but critically missed the 4th attack - allowing him just enough time for buffs to fire. That meant a quick retreat and sending in a summon as distraction before finishing him off.
Carrying on, there was yet another level gained from a bunch of golems just before returning the Sphere back home.
Druid 12 / Fighter 24, 111 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 632 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
The final external area I was interested in was Windspear Hills. Some disguised paladins had been waiting there for many weeks and finally got the glorious deaths they craved. Moving on to the dungeon, Digdag was given no chance to retreat and fight another day. The Ruhk was another theoretically well-protected enemy that couldn't resist lying down in the middle of the fight to open up the inner dungeon.
The large group of vampires is a potential problem if you're vulnerable to domination or level drain - but with the AoP and SoH I wasn't and the XP from those just provided another level. Even without any buffs I could still beat down the regeneration of greater werewolves, if only with difficulty and the XP kept flowing quickly as I moved deeper into the dungeon. A couple of groups of golems and more werewolves were enough for level 26.
Protection from fire lasted long enough to sling all the genies to death. The Director had some magic resistance, but not enough to prevent him being rendered unconscious. Summons were used for the first time against Samia's party, but I didn't bother with any spell support for them. As a result, Kaol survived their assault, so an extra nymph was generated and guided in an insect plague before holding him for good measure.
Spirit snakes killed Conster before I decided to try Harm again for the fight with Firkraag - and this time it took effect .
Unfortunately that proved to be a very bad thing as it led to a typical spot of carelessness . I should have retreated immediately after hitting Firkraag - and definitely when immediate follow-up strikes by summons were fractionally too slow to beat Firkraag's stoneskin firing. However, I didn't run and was affected by both dispel magic (getting rid of ironskins) and dragon fear. I would have needed to be very lucky to stay out of Firkraag's sight after he finished off the summons - and wasn't ...
Just a brief update - Cordan the dwarven barbarian has made it past Irenicus and is now in ToB. In the Underdark, Imoen got chunked by the party that you have to deal with before you go rescue Phaere. A crazy lightning bolt ricocheted like 20 times wiping out most of the party. Cordan I think was saved by his cloak of mirroring. His current party is Anomen, Mazzy, Sarevok, Nalia and Viconia. Will keep at it!
Today's session felt a bit dodgy to me, with a number of potentially dangerous situations - but we both came through unscathed.
The first target was the Bandit Camp, where Frogg dealt with the ordinary bandits easily enough before running Taurgosz round until Myst managed to land a blind.
The assault on Tazok's tent can be made far easier if you have invisibility. I had looked at buying that for Myst, but couldn't bring myself to spend so much on it, with reputation only 14 . As an alternative, Frogg ducked out of the tent to dodge Venkt's horror before going back in. That meant a more level fight than usual, but we prevailed with a little bit in hand.
Frogg volunteered to open the trapped chest, but Myst first gave him the Boots of Grounding - good job too as he would probably have just died without those.
In the Cloakwood the lack of invisibility also made the spiders and ettercaps a bit trickier. To get into sight of the final one of the group of ettercaps you have to skirt very close to the edge of a trap. That meant Myst was reluctant to use slow poison to cure Frogg when he started leaking HPs, due to the danger of MP bumping ending up triggering the trap. Fortunately Frogg was able to finish off his opponent while he still had some HPs in reserve.
At the mine, initial blind attempts failed, but both mages were killed while stuck in webs. Drasus escaped those, however, and Frogg had to tank him while Myst helped out with magic damage. By that time the webs had finished, but on his own Genthore wasn't much of a threat.
A relatively small amount of fighting was required on the way through the mine to get to Davaeorn. The battle horrors there were dragged back one at a time and dealt with easily enough. Frogg then used a magic blocking potion to protect him while he chased down Davaeorn.
Myst stayed near the entrance, though he still very nearly got hit by a bouncing lightning bolt. He also had a nasty shock when following Frogg. He'd seen that Frogg had triggered one glyph trap, but moved away so quickly the glyph was left hanging there. However, he hadn't realized there was another glyph trap which hadn't triggered at all as Frogg ran through - the combination could easily have been deadly, but Myst survived.
On arrival in Baldur's Gate, Myst suggested doing the ogre mage to get a better reward after dealing with the Seven Suns. To avoid being targeted, Myst used a potion of invisibility while Frogg took another potion of magic blocking. The latter though didn't prevent Frogg from being immediately held by the carrion crawlers' (natural) attack. That gave Myst a great excuse to throw a couple of fireballs from his wand onto Frogg's head to deal with the scavengers.
By this time we needed 4 reputation points and I had in mind getting those by returning a dagger, clearing the Seven Suns and handing in an Angel ring. The latter attempt failed though when it transpired that Myst, rather unusually, had not yet picked up such a ring. Frogg quickly remedied that by giving Noralee back some bracers.
With prices now at low levels, Myst indulged in some purchases, mainly of spell scrolls, in the City and Ulgoth's Beard. Then it was back to the City to do the poison quest - successfully gaining boots of speed from Lothander before preventing Marek from completing a spell.
There was another potential glitch going up Ramazith's Tower. Frogg used a potion of invulnerability to ensure the ghasts couldn't hold him and, when they were all fixated on him, called out to Myst that "They're all on me". Myst duly came up the stairs - before retreating rapidly down again as a ghast appeared right in front of him .
A bit more shopping followed, before we took a detour to Durlag's Tower to pick up the quick XP there. Myst was a bit unsure whether the single potion of mirror eyes he'd bought would be sufficient for 4 basilisks, but Frogg was confident. Indeed he had reason to be, as the hasted ranger tore through the lot with several of the 10 round duration still left.
The final action saw us trying to beat up the guards to Degrodel's house. That proved trickier than expected when lots of them chased Frogg back outside. With his own spells soon depleted, Myst once more resorted to wands, but had a near escape when a scorcher aimed at an invisible stalker took far longer to activate than expected - and ended up coming perilously close to burning up an innocent bystander.
Though we were both pretty battered, we still saw off Degrodel before calling time.
Transmuter 8, 42 HPs, 110 kills
Ranger 7, 76 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 277 kills, 0 deaths
Note: Playing SCS / Ascension Insane as a party of rangers and thieves. Charname is halfling swash.
Party arrived in Spellhold. Been interesting playing without chaotic commands, although it turns out stun is quite rare in the early game so immunity to charm and confusion are the primary issues, and there are several items that provide those. The biggest danger turns out to be greater command, as the party can't get sleep resistance. So far a focus on saves, keeping charname out of the thick of the fight, and invisibility casts if someone falls asleep have mostly held things together.
Also been interesting to play with yoshimo with other thieves in the party. He (for me at least) tends to join the party as a utility thief focused on locks and finding traps. Because he doesn't need to play that role here, he's been able to focus on setting traps. It turns out bounty hunter traps are really strong! I don't think throwing them from out of sight in combat is an exploit, but in any case it is quite effective as a fast-cast, party-safe AOE that later on does save or hold as well.
Valygar got a point in axes to be able to use azure edge, and along with a potion of haste it made him my primary vampire killer. Yes, minsc has racial affinity but I wanted Minsc to get points in flail asap to use the flail of ages.
Charname has mostly been relegated to throwing darts, as a thief without a helmet is just too vulnerable to crits to use on the front line, other than very judiciously. He does have -9 AC with spirit armor and 3 APR with belm, so he is OK in melee just quite vulnerable with ~80 hp and no helmet.
Torgal went down without too much trouble this time after I learned to not play fair with him. The trolls, including Torgal, can't protect themselves from fire items so enough fire potions + wands + traps gets the fight under control pretty quickly. I didn't want to leave the keep to get resist fear (which I had forgotten to purchase earlier), so yoshi and I think Nalia got feared by his aura and spent the fight running around and the party still won pretty handily.
Shade lord fight was probably the easiest iteration I've had. After the Torgal issue I was in no mood for a fair fight and gave him dispel illusion -> secret word -> breach -> focus fire. He was dead in a few rounds.
Windspear hills was an endless source of embarrassment as the party kept having to flee back to trademeet for one reason or another. A few mistakes led to deaths, and I didn't really have the right summons to deal with clay golems safely so I kept having to return to a cleric in town for curse removal. Vampires eventually fell to azure edge, but the fight was much dicier than I has hoping due to their backstabs, regen, fairly good saves (ancient / elder much better than fledgling) and generally strong melee abilities. I had thought poison works on vampires but it doesn't and so the traps didn't do much here.
Also had a very clean win against Tanova. Invisible character w/ detect illusion really accelerates fights and can make them much cleaner because it can lead to a second round breach, which leaves the enemy caster only getting off 1 or maybe two spells.
Will have to decide later whether I am brave enough to fight deirex and house Jaellet; I am inclined not to but if I'm feeling stronger then I might. Feels too risky that he summons fiends and a planetar or casts wish and I lose control of the fight.
Will probably do both mind flayers + beholders though.
A lich spawned in spellhold guarding the vampire that the party needs to kill to get off the first floor.
Minsc is already dead and the party can't res him until getting back to brynlaw..
I think I may have to resort to maximally cheesy tactics to have even a chance of getting past. Maybe a set of traps set way back + out of LoS fireballs to kill his mummies + summons to waste his spells + wait for his buffs to expire + lure him into the traps.
I can't see how a ~1.2mm exp party without any divine buffs or equipment can possibly tangle with a lich safely in a fair fight. Too easy for him to summon a balor, or spell sequence petrify / disintegrate, or to use any number of other attack vectors the party can't handle.
That's such a rough spawn that it makes me want to playtest to see what the max level/exp the party can bring to spellhold is without getting the lich...
Another early bath for this run, as traps claimed a further victim.
The session had started smoothly with Alai being blinded at the Iron Throne before webs kept other enemies in place while destruction rained down on them.
Looting the Candlekeep tombs had been no trouble, but leaving them was a different matter. Frogg triggered the repeating lightning trap, but magic resistance from his cloak prevented any damage. Myst also triggered it, but found the bolt bouncing across the corridor at exactly the point she'd run to ...
@Jabberwock - Random liches (Spellhold, undead hut, ruined temple) show up if the protagonist has 1 million XP or more if you're playing SCS/insane. SCS ties it to difficulty, so going down to lower difficulty changes things; 2 million protagonist XP at Hardcore, no random liches at Tactical or lower (Or, if you fine-tune the setting for random spawns, that's what applies).
Vanilla gets you the random liches at 2 million protagonist XP regardless of difficulty, but also gives them fewer minions.
Difficulty of random monster is also one of the few SCS components that allows higher than insane difficulty. On Legacy of Bhaal you get always liches regardless of your experience.
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
Fresh from the shocking conclusion to the 204th attempt we rolled up two more randoms. Norgh thought briefly about his companion's abilities and surmised she would have to be Lawful Good so she could use the fabled Azuredge axe if we ever cross it's path. That means Norgh, who cannot use axes anyway, could be less good and more evilly aligned which has potential to dither over helping or hindering (slaying) any silver dragons we stumble across.
Then we set about things. Those things being the tasks around Candlekeep, Shoal the nereid, matters stretching from Beregost to Nashkel and carting Samuel to the Friendly Arm Inn.
(side note - Gorion asked if we were taking matters seriously when we confirmed we were ready, both in our skivvies and Stef using a non-proficient quarterstaff. We'll pick stuff up as we go)
Norgh ensured Stef had decent armour (first the studded leather taken off Montaron's freshly-slain corpse and then some ankheg plate dug up in Nashkel) before realising Stef also needed a proper weapon and our reputation wasn't even up to rescuing cats from waterfalls. The 0gp lure of a +0 staff is strong with Grond0
So we went to deal with Greywolf which gave Stef a +2 longsword with additional cold damage. By this time Stef had already purchased a +1 sling for Norgh and we were experimenting about how to best use it. As Norgh moved towards our intended victim for what must be the seventh time (in multiplayer clicking a moving target to attack often ends up as a command to move in close and stand suicidally idle with ranged weapon rather than fire a missile from a safe distance) we joked for the nth time about strangling Greywolf with the sling and thus almost invented the garotte as a melee use for the sling.
With Greywolf finally dead and a few minor kills giving Stef a bit of XP under her belt (the blunted girdle from an ogre) Norgh reckoned his Cavalier was well up to dealing with ankhegs. He was almost right, finding she only required 4x Command, 2x Aid and 2x Cure Light Wounds to get the job done. She might have wanted more but that's all he had available to cast.
We rest up, and Norgh reminisced about the bits that he forgot about. Such as being chased around by Zal and Vax or killing a trio of fishermen and the now ever so slightly less annoying when dead Noober.
Never mind that though, we're all set to hand in the drowned cat next time. If we remember.
Comments
You know what happened next. Minsc was chunked, Isra was chunked, Sarah was stunned and then chunked. Lots of spells later the Balor was just barely taken down before it decapitated Haer too. I realised afterwards that Atweaks wasn’t installed so Death Ward wasn’t a factor this run anyway, at least not vs no save chunkings...
Cutting my losses Kelsey, Haer, and Adorar popped in for some shopping at the Drow city, killed some Kuo Toa, and then bribed their way out. That’ll teach me to pick up a run casually! I’ll have to wait till I’ve got my mojo back to continue this one.
Tappa - Elf female Enchanter
Krypto - Human male Blackguard ( @Grond0 )
Efforts to ignore our current connectivity issue continued briefly until giving up at the next set of drops. It didn't take us long to wrap up the Candlekeep chores and find Shoal the nereid. She saved against blackguard poison but as she was blinded we just took our time in killing her. After playing games with a carrion crawler and some xvarts Tappa decided she'd find a decent two handed sword for Krypto to replace his non-proficient staff. That looks like a suitable item. Tappa then realised she was dragging the ankheg plate armour around when Krypto could make use of it - so this should make him go from zero to antihero.
We emptied our backpacks in Beregost, returning some boots to Zhurlong, an amulet to Mr Colquetle and delivering a letter to Mirianne before blinding Silke and Karlat to defeat them. We might even have returned Perdue's sword to him, if not we certainly should have done.
Tappa was all lined up to go hunt basilisks but that will have to wait for our next attempt to connect. (That would also allow Krypto to replace his ropey ranged rockflinger with a double-pipped longbow)
I was thinking in particular of the Helm of Defence
What does the component do? It gives the vorpal balor weapon to more creatures; the underdark balor in vanilla just has a weapon that hits for 1d12+strength bludgeoning damage with enchantment 4.
The chunking-reduction component doesn't do anything about vorpals; those specify the kind of death they cause, and an "explosive" death is always a chunking.
I've hotfixed my installation so that the balor weapon actually does allow a save (I went with a -2 penalty), and so that balor and planetar weapons don't chunk. Attached here, for anyone else that wants to use it.
Vince - enchanter (Grond0)
Soygib - thief/illusionist (Gate70)
Corethief XXIII - fighter/thief (Corey_Russell)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1129171/#Comment_1129171
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1129433/#Comment_1129433
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1130312/#Comment_1130312
A pretty good session today saw the levels racking up - Soygib the biggest beneficiary with 5 of those.
The first bit of action was to finish off the escape from Jon's dungeon. The main item of business there was to ensure Ulvaryl died rather than running away when she was badly hurt. Vince aimed to do that by skull trapping her (along with his comrades), but Soygib had had the same sort of thoughts and got in first with a magic missile. What was impressive though was just how fast Soygib moved after I unpaused the game - successfully getting out of the area of effect even though the skull trap had already been launched. One might almost have thought that Gate70 had been expecting something of this sort .
The circus didn't really test our abilities, but provided a nice easy introduction to Athkatla.
An ambush by Suna Seni came as no surprise and Vince tried to disrupt that with a skull trap, only to find himself being disrupted. By the time he'd retreated and got around to sending in an emotion to disable the mage, his companions had already killed all the other ambushers.
That ambush was on the way to Watcher's Keep, where Vince added a potion case to his bag collection. However, prudence overcame avarice and we didn't test out whether Corethief could defeat a stone golem using Arbane non-proficiently.
Back in Athkatla we headed to the Graveyard, where Vince put his newly learned stoneskin to use by acting as a tank while the others did the main damage to enemies. Here, the Crypt King had just gone through Vince's defenses, when it realized its own had also disappeared. Downstairs, various spider encounters included laying a couple of skull traps where some spiders would generate. Soygib then put a fireball to use in the nearby hive, to leave Pai'Na without help of succour.
Up to this stage, Corethief had been willing to rely mainly on stealth attacks, but he now wanted a more martial alternative set of armor and led the way to find Officer Dirth. Blinded, trapped and backstabbed - at least his agony was short-lived.
After returning Renfeld, we went to tackle Prebek. Soygib one-shotted him with a backstab - confusing Sanasha (as Prebek is the one scripted to open conversations) and she stood still while being slaughtered. The Harper building was duly looted before we tried to get a bit of extra treasure and XP out of Lucette - Kitthix doing the trick there with his web tangle.
While in the area, we started Mae'Var's quests. That meant a trip to the Temple district in search of an amulet. As we arrived during the day though, we nipped into the sewers to pass the time (as you do). A sea troll menace and the local rakshasa gangster boss were sorted out there.
Back at the Docks, Rayic Gethras' house proved to be a haven for mephits. Corethief took a lot of damage from their fire attacks, but kept that under control by drinking potions. The golems were no trouble, before we sneaked upstairs past Rayic himself. He spotted us in the act of producing summons though, which could potentially have been nasty. However, Rayic's defenses were unable to handle a chaos spell and he failed to recover from that.
The final action was to expose Mae'Var and punish his misbehavior. The thieves on the ground floor were particularly numerous this time and it took a while of running round to deal with those. Downstairs, things were always under control though, with traps, chaos and the odd summon allowing a quick fight.
Enchanter - L11, 66 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 72 kills (+95 in BG1)
Thief/illusionist - L10/11, 56 HPs, 70 kills (+144 in BG1), 1 death
Fighter/thief - L9/11, 104 HPs, 89 kills (+228 in BG1), 1 death
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131059/#Comment_1131059
Fire elementals make Irenicus' dungeon trivial to complete. I had the XP for level 13 near the end of the first level, but chose not to take that. Instead, I left a fire elemental and some lions downstairs, before giving up 250 XP and dualling to a fighter. Giving a flask back to the genie provided 15k XP and the elemental portals a further 20k to take me to level 6. The lions disappeared soon after, but the elemental stuck around long enough to deal with the other enemies - including Ulvaryl. The bonus for escaping got me to level 7 and a welcome APR increase.
To make things far less risky early on, I bought the ring of air control, along with a +2 sling, a couple of potions of firebreath and a potion of invisibility for emergencies. After checking in with Gaelan Bayle I went to the Docks to relieve Officer Dirth of his armor. He wasn't keen to give it up, but by using the 2 entrances to the thieves guild I was able to rest during the combat to refresh HPs while he remained wounded.
Now suitably dressed, I triggered the Suna Seni ambush while invisible. A Bhaal horror sent the mage there running and a single shot finished her off. The others could then be run round without any need to resort to using firebreath. Shortly afterwards a similar thing happened while rescuing Renfeld. Returning him to the Docks was enough for level 8. Prebek & Sanasha have no direct counter to improved invisibility, but stoneskins (and the need to cast it next door to avoid annoying the Cowled Wizards) slowed things down enough that Prebek managed to damage me with a spell as I finished him off.
I bought a potion case at Watcher's Keep, but wasn't yet up to fighting a stone golem (let alone vampiric wraiths), so didn't explore inside.
Looking for more easy XP, I went to Windspear Hills and used invisibility to avoid fighting there while returning the acorns. Then it was back to Athkatla where a scroll of PfU let me clear the Upper Graveyard - getting up to level 9 and achieving grand mastery with my sling there.
I had 2 ambushes on the way to Trademeet, but didn't take much damage in those. After resting to heal up, I attacked the genie - very unusually for me actually using a PfP scroll to protect against instant death. The efreeti then popped out of his bottle to help out inside the tent. Given my saving throws are so poor, the Shield of Harmony is a very useful reward for that (while dualling from a cleric or druid prevents fighters from using proscribed weapons, there is no such restriction on armor or shields).
With improved defenses, restoring the circus was no longer a real challenge. Neither was handing the Copper Coronet over to Hendak. Back at the Graveyard, there was some danger in tackling spiders underground given my poor saves - but the efreeti helped deal with those and gain me a second summons.
In the Promenade I decided it was time to recover my favorite room at the local inn from a bunch of interlopers. The efreeti put in a stinking cloud to slow down the casters, while Kitthix used web to immobilise Brennan. With him dead Kitthix successfully also webbed Mencar, though he actually died when Smaeluv graphically demonstrated the drawbacks to having a party member that uses a berserking sword. The efreeti disappeared just as Pooky, who was another one unable to work out how to deal with improved invisibility, became the last to fall.
At the Bridge District I successfully suppressed my natural inclination to press 1 in conversations and hence avoided giving all my hard-earned money to a mugger. I was still dealing with his friends when Sansuki asked for help - but he would not have got any even if I wasn't busy, given I'm still fairly vulnerable to level drain. Solving the skinner quest was enough for level 10 and I decided I was now a match for the Rune Assassins with the help of my friends. Going downstairs invisible ensures that only the first assassin will chase you back up - and its backstab was absorbed by the efreeti, before the assassin was webbed by Kitthix. Using Brennan's ring to go down invisibly again, the same thing happened to the second assassin. The ghasts could then be quickly shot down (and no bone golem appeared this time).
Deciding it was time to do a bit of lich-hunting, I did some preparatory work. Another PfP scroll allowed me to safely open the trapped door in the Bridge District. In the Temple sewers I avoided the rakshasa for now, but did kill the troll for Roger with the help of the efreeti. I had a problem with the second of the vampiric mists after killing the first of those easily enough. The other one was webbed, but I was unable to see it around the edge of the door and it went invisible to attack me - despite my best efforts I've found it's almost impossible to prevent the efreeti releasing a scripted fireball in that sort of situation, which took me down to 11 HPs before the efreeti redeemed itself with a critical to kill the mist. Now with access to the lich, I used a scroll of PfU and an oil of speed to kill it quickly. The one in the Bridge District followed, before I topped up giant strength with DUHM to get into the hidden area in the Crooked Crane. I couldn't use Daystar, so stopped off at the Promenade to buy the Ring of Energy on the way back to the Docks. A second DUHM opened the door to Kangaxx and 5 charges from that later I had the Ring of Gaxx.
Druid 12 / Fighter 10, 75 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 153 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
After the Gorion ambush we headed south after picking up Gorion's belt. We were able to help Mellicamp, but as we left were attacked by a bear. Command made us safe, but it awoke unexpectedly and dealt a death blow before another command could be cast. It also died almost immediately. At least raising Swift only cost 100gp. It could have been worse. We do have a gem worth 1000gp.
After acquiring a mace in Bergost and talking to Marl we headed south where ogrillon were not a problem. The same could not be said for the Flaming Fist who were wearing plate armour. At least we now have plate armour.
We then rested successfully. Whilst trying to do that earlier a gibberling hurt me!!
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131059/#Comment_1131059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131408/#Comment_1131408
I decided I should be plenty tough enough now to at least poke my head inside Watcher's Keep. The stone golem was duly killed, though not that easily - I had to run outside to get healed by the cleric before finishing that off. After that though there were no vampiric wraiths and clearing the top level was not too hard with most of the work on the statues being done with sling (getting to level 11 with the first of those).
Back at the Bridge District, I dealt harshly with some kidnappers. Their victim was only released on payment of a ransom in silver though. Dracandros and his gang were pulled out of their hideout - the mage was easy to hit and couldn't manage to complete any spells against the 7 APR possible using Gaxx haste and the Crimson Dart non-proficiently. There was then more running and shooting to sort out the Fallen Paladins (though I did stare into the white's of Anarg's eyes to see how he would react to being all alone). I'd already got to level 12 by bringing Anarg a goblet, so not too long before I can get my druid powers back.
By this time the last of the night-time vampire ambushes had taken place, so there was some easy XP to be gained. After paying Gaelan Bayle his 15k, I checked in with Aran Linvail before webbing Lassal at the Docks. After resting, Kitthix was up to his tricks again, to ensure the Guild Contact wouldn't drink any of his potions.
Leaving the vampires for the moment, I did the Sir Sarles quest. Killing Neb was easy enough, though the acid trap in his house was a nasty one and not far short of ending the run. A further temple quest provided a bit more XP. Still 40k XP short of my goal though, I dived back into the sewers and shot down the rakshasa there. Mekrath was another web tangle victim and his umber hulk guards took me close to the target. That was then reached by killing the elemental guarding Mekrath's mirror. After feeling pretty comfortable for a while just playing as a fighter, I'll now have to switch gears again and try to remember to make good use of my druid abilities as well.
Druid 12 / Fighter 13, 78 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 248 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
Tappa - Elf female Enchanter
Krypto - Human male Blackguard ( @Grond0 )
Our third outing saw this pair grab rings of wizardry and protection before proceeding to the rock garden. The lower group of basilisks were no bother to us. Krytpo questioned how we would deal with Mutamin so Tappa suggested his immunity to horror would suffice and so it proved - although Krypto added in some poisoned hits to make certain. Krypto carefully sighted Baerin before stepping back, waiting for Tappa who foolishly took a step too far and received a non-too-friendly welcome from Kirian. Krypto sighed and charged in to draw the enemy attention as Tappa blinded Baerin then failed to blind Peter. By this time Krypto had been held so Tapps should retreat but instead she went for a second blind on Peter, and he saved against that too. Tappa had to run and saved against a hold person but not against horror. A few rounds of chasing went on before a summoned kobold got the killing blow - and celebrated by unsummoning as Tappa collapsed to the ground. Not that Tappa held out much hope anyway with Lindin having no summons remaining to block his path he'd have finished Tappa off quickly anyway.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no damage increase, max HP on level up.
Mods: SCS v32.7 (basically everything).
Protagonist: Aldain, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric.
That's a seriously good roll. It was sorely needed too, given how stat-intensive a Fighter/Mage/Cleric is.
Aldain starts with ++ in Warhammers and Two Weapon Style. His first three pips will be, in order, + Flail, + Flail, + Two Weapon Style, allowing for flawless dual wielding pretty early in BG2. As he is 1/3 cleric, for BG1 he will travel with the canon party of Imoen as a pure thief, Khalid (going for +++ Longbow so we don't have too many melee combatants), Jaheira with ++ Sling, Minsc (naturally with a two-handed sword) and Dynaheir.
Cliff-notes adventure: A F/M/C out of time, part 1
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
The party heads south to Nashkel, only clearing the unimportant areas on the way. Minsc is picked up, and we are treated to the interesting experience of clearing the Gnoll fortress with a 13 HP main tank in Khalid. Somewhat surprisingly we survive unscathed, release Dynaheir, and finally have the party together.
Next follows a wirlstorm of clearing content: All lower-level areas to the west of Nashkel are thoroughly cleansed. We also deal with Bassilus (gaining Aldain a proper weapon) and the minor stuff north-west of Nashkel, including the Doomsayer, who is still not immune to the Wand of Fire. With plenty of money, we also have the Ankheg armor made.
The party is currently resting outside the FAI, preparing to take on the Ankhegs now that Minsc has enough hitpoints to conceivably survive two crits in a row. The XP from the Ankhegs as well as the Fishermen quest and clearing the Zombies to the north should be enough to catapult us well out of low-level territory, and once that's done the rest of BG1 is usually a smooth ride.
There haven't been any close calls or real dangers: After all, we have Sleep, Command and Entangle available, and if things start looking hairy a Wand of Fire blast usually does the trick.
Aldain is now a level 2/2/3 Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric.
Myst (female half-elf transmuter, Grond0); Frogg (male elf ranger, Gate70)
Previous run
After yet another early death, we took a deep breath and reviewed our recent report card. It was difficult to decipher that though under the numerous scribbles in red ink saying "must do better", so we just generated a new random pairing and set off.
Shoal was blinded and shot, before we avoided being bitten by wild dogs in a couple of travel ambushes. Frogg picked up some decent armor in Nashkel and Myst bought a PFP green scroll there (transmuters not being allowed to use the mage version). The basilisks were duly dealt with easily enough before we rested to take on Mutamin. Myst had picked up and learnt both magic missile and acid arrow on her travels and was pretty confident she could deal with Mutamin - which she did. There was, however, a nasty moment there when Frogg was sent running by horror. He ran a pretty long way and part-circled Kirian's position - getting perilously close to coming into visual range, before regaining his senses just in time.
Myst's 4 blind attempts only took effect on Baerin. However, she also threw in 2 stinking clouds and those proved highly effective - keeping the other 3 quiet while Frogg shot them down (he had learned from our previous run and, unlike Krypto the blackguard, actually bought a longbow to make good use of his specialism in that).
After winding north via the FAI, we stopped off at the ankheg area. The first of the ankhegs in the nest proved highly resistant to sleep and Myst used 4 of her 9 spells without effect. That left her out well before the end, but Frogg plowed on regardless. The penultimate ankheg fought back strongly though and the rare sound of glugging bounced off the walls as Frogg gulped 3 potions during the fight and another 2 afterwards to boost HPs prior to the final ankheg (which tamely died anyway in the event).
A few final tasks in Beregost included blinding Silke, playing a game of shooting round the pillars of the local hostelry with Karlat and tucking a few spiders in for a good night's sleep.
Transmuter 5, 28 HPs, 23 kills
Ranger 5, 48 HPs, 55 kills, 0 deaths
Abandoned run with halfling assassin that was in spellhold... I guess I've come to accept that after finishing BG1/SoA so many times anything with a balanced party is too repetitive - even if charname is something I've never played before.
I never liked solo runs, so I'm now trying some "unbalanced parties" to make things more interesting.
The first up is rangers and thieves. Charname is a halfling swash; party is Imoen, Nalia, Jan, Valygar, Minsc. In particular, this is hard because the party cannot cast cleric spells, including death ward or chaotic commands. Healing is also much scarcer. Will see how that goes. I think this is my first run in maybe ever without Jaheira.
I'm not really sure how I will deal with stun late game; but maybe really good saves + vampire touch for mage hp is enough...? I am going to restrict the use of the sword of Avoreen to ToB, as it is Mazzy's personal sword and she is not in the party. However, I think it is reasonable to think she would let you use it when you call her to the Bhaal Plane (assuming she comes equipped with it).
First run ended in druid grove of all places after a ~70 damage lightning bolt chunked Jan. The irritating thing is I think the cast should have been interrupted but wasn't or something was weird with the timing of Jan's aura not clearing. Anyway c'est la vie.
Great to see the improvements in Ascension and SCS in the interim! Playing SCS Insane with almost all difficulty adds (no price increases for chapter 2; I think that's the only one I skipped). No shop stealing and no item recharging conducts.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131059/#Comment_1131059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131408/#Comment_1131408
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131425/#Comment_1131425
An obvious early target to revert to older tactics was Tarnor's party. A group of spirit wolves and an elemental killed Gaius to open hostilities as an insect plague drifted towards them. The combination of inability to use spells, paralyzing bites and nymph hold spells quickly made a mess of the rest of the party.
Moving on to the Unseeing Eye quest, I headed for the old temple. A beholder and a couple of gauths were in the way. However, I now had an automatic save against death rays and, with the help of the Shield of Harmony, could nip in and out shooting at them as long as I was careful to manage damage taken from cause wounds spells. Improved invisibility then made saving against the petrification trap safe. I wasn't quite high enough level for a lich to appear among the undead and killing them was no problem. That's partly because of an oddity about greater mummy stats. You need +3 weapons to hit them, but they are unable to hit anything requiring even +1 weapons. Hence spirit summons could tank them with no problem.
After soaking up a death spell with the efreeti, 3 spirit lions killed the main group of beholders and gauths, gaining me another level in the process. After dealing with the remaining beholders in the area, they attacked the blind priests, with the help of an insect plague. One of them died there, but the others were more than sufficient to deal with what was left of the Eye after using the Rift Device. After dealing with Gaal, reporting back to the temple was sufficient for level 15.
Back at the Copper Coronet the sewers were no longer a daunting target. Captain Haegan was drawn out of his hideout into the sewers to meet some summons, while I only bothered with a single fire elemental to make sure of the wizards.
With reputation at 18, I returned to Trademeet in search of the last bit. With Flame Blade I could kill most trolls directly, while those immune to magic weapons could be dealt with by the elemental or efreeti. It didn't take long to pile up a heap of troll bodies outside the aptly named Troll Mound. A group of druids lasted only seconds while being mauled by lions and blasted with some of their own lightning medicine. I picked up Belm, which makes the possibility of dual-wielding at some point a bit more attractive, before moving on to find Faldorn. The key to making that fight easy is to shut down her casting - and an immediate insect plague did that. I hadn't rested to get spirits or elementals back, but a couple of nymphs were more than adequate to finish her off.
Reporting back to the High Merchant pushed reputation to 19 and also got me to level 16. Clearing the tomb got me my last needed point of reputation, but out of the goodness of my heart I still helped reunite Tiris with his love.
I'd deliberately not done Mae'Var earlier, so that I could buy the nymph cloak from Gorch - allowing me to get minimum shop prices to stretch the 150k gold acquired so far. Purchases included Vhailor's Helm. My standard rule is not to allow that to be used in combat in SoA, but I did make use of it so that a simmy could place PfM on me to get the berserker horn - not that that has any likely use for this character.
After spending all my money, it was time to find some more and I decided to begin that process by completing work in the Docks area. That included looting the Harper building before running through Mae'Var's quests. I got to level 17 on the way through Rayic's house before the mage himself was plagued by insects. Mae'Var's guild was robbed before he failed in his attempt to become the last man standing.
The bit of spare cash now available was put to use to buy up Adratha's potions. With those in hand, she was attacked to unmask a group of rakshasas. Despite the messengers telling me to mount a challenge, I also checked in at the Grove to confirm that they would not accept my claim to be the Great Druid (must be at least level 14).
To relieve the frustration of not being allowed that particular challenge, I sought a different one in Athkatla by openly using the ring of air control to annoy the Cowled Wizards. The groups of those are pretty easily handled by a druid - send a single summon in first to prompt their death spell, then further summons can lead in insect plagues. To be really safe you could also use protection from lightning to avoid any danger from stray bolts. I got to level 18 from the second of the groups (taking grand mastery in daggers) and all the other standard groups died without taking any significant action. The leaders did manage to create lots of summons before being shut down, but once affected, even Zallanora was unable to do anything more.
Another decent source of treasure is the equipment found on Captain Dennis and his men - and that was soon being pawned in the local shops.
With encounters in the City now starting to be in pretty short supply, I decided it was time to head for the Planar Prison. There are 2 particular items of equipment that I highly prize for this character there - one sought out by most people, but the other is hardly used by other people I think.
Druid 12 / Fighter 18, 93 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 449 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
Myst (female half-elf transmuter, Grond0); Frogg (male elf ranger, Gate70)
Previous updates
Today's session was generally pretty serene, but there were a few blips to liven things up .
Things opened with a trip to the FAI to return a few items and pick up some pantaloons. Then we turned our attention to increasing our reputation, starting off with relieving a blinded Greywolf of his sword. Further quests went to plan, with the exception that Melicamp failed to survive, until we returned Brage to Nashkel to get reputation to 19. At that point Myst fancied her chances against Neira in the inn. Myst successfully blinded her, but not before Neira had tagged Frogg with rigid thinking. That's particularly dangerous for a ranger (or paladin), whose gods don't appreciate the slaughter of innocent civilians. Initially Frogg started backing away from Neira and Myst tried blinding her with the hope she would stop in empty space. However, that initial attempt failed and Frogg ended up standing close to a civilian. A second blind did work, but the danger remained and Myst took her life in her hands in an attempt to drag Frogg away from her potential victim. That attempt failed though and moments later reputation had dropped back to 9.
A tour of remaining areas of the Sword Coast saw a few points added in a partial reputation comeback and there were some significant XP gains as well. Those included Frogg running the Doomsayer around while Myst threw in magic missiles and treating groups of sirines to stinking clouds. That latter tactic nearly backfired against the second group when Myst attempted to force-attack Sil, but only succeeded in running into the cloud herself - fortunately Frogg was able to finish Sil off on his own just as the clouds lifted. Inside the cave Frogg took an absorption potion to tank the golems. The first 2 failed to register a hit, though the final one got a couple of digs in before snuffing it.
Durlag's Tower offered the chance of some more quick XP, but Myst chose to go to the Nashkel Mine instead. Mulahey saw her setting herself for some stinking clouds and tried catching her to have a talk. That resulted in the clouds being laid in a different position than usual and, even though Mulahey saved long enough to open a conversation, he was still in the cloud and collapsed before he could cast anything. Outside the mine the clouds worked as intended on the amazons.
Nimbul was swiftly dealt with, before the final action saw Tranzig's ghost taking over the conversation after his body slumped to the floor.
Transmuter 6, 34 HPs, 65 kills
Ranger 6, 64 HPs, 168 kills, 0 deaths
Torgal has massive hp / regen, and runs around hasted doing 100+ damage a round with very low thac0
2 Yuanti mages as high level casters that do things like 3x ice storm sequencer
2x spirit, 2x spectral, 2x giant trolls
umber hulk elder
I thought I was going be cheesing the fight by scroll summoning 4 elementals and laying 6-8 traps between charname and yoshi. That did not happen.
I think this fight is still doable at this level / party combo, but it's much more difficult than prior fights. I think its also more difficult than previous versions of the mod? I don't remember there being so many trolls and the mages I think used to be a bit tamer.
For a potential next time:
Bringing more fire breath potions, which do a lot of damage if you run around the room with them
Bring fireball potions, which I think pierce globes but in any case would have given charname and yoshi something much more useful to do during the fight
Make sure as much of the party is fire immune or at least resistant as possible
I think with a big enough alpha strike with fireball potions and a cloudkill and chaos for the mages, plus a stack of traps by the entrance for torgal is probably enough to reliably take control of the fight.
It seems you can use the fact that only torgal can see invisible to lure him into traps. Which won't kill him alone, but will get him about 60-80% of the way there.
Could also potentially come back later (Nalia definitely leaves the party after ~7 days if you don't go to the keep, but I don't know if she has a subsequent timer if you pick her up at the keep after she leaves)
Anyway. RIP.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131059/#Comment_1131059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131408/#Comment_1131408
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131425/#Comment_1131425
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131555/#Comment_1131555
I entered the Planar Prison invisibly and with improved haste - allowing me to strike down the mage before his buffs triggered. Despite having forgotten to memorize stoneskin, and taking a backstab as a result, the rest of the greeting party went down easily. That provided me with not just some boots of speed, but the Pixie Prick dagger. That's useful just as a +3 weapon, but also makes enemies save against death or go to sleep for 2 rounds (making it arguably a better disabler than Celestial Fury for instance) - and few enemies recover from that.
Insect plague sorted out a group of yuan-ti mages before the Master of Thralls became the latest enemy to bemoan mislaying their magical weapon when some spirits came to call. Bursting the orb gained another level and prompted a revolt by some thralls. The Warden put up a decent defense and managed to kill the spirit lions, but died himself in the process.
I now had plenty of money to buy Roger's potions to complete my shopping requirements for the moment and decided to stretch my legs a little away from the city. The first port of call was the de-Arnise Hold. There was nothing there that was likely to trouble me and nothing did. Killing the golems in the temple area provided me with level 20 and a first HLA. TorGal and his troll helpers were then trying to compete out of their class. I would have refused the chance of a stronghold anyway, but Nalia didn't even offer that - presumably on the grounds that one of the responses I gave in the Druid Grove had already started that questline, even if it's impossible to finish it.
Next up was Umar Hills, where I got another level after completing the tasks around town. Moving on to the ruins, Anath was overcome with a sudden urge to take a nap. In the temple, most of the undead were no real threat, but the liches were. My spell save of 1 left me vulnerable to a number of spells, such as symbols and FoD - so summons had to be drip-fed in to get rid of those before I showed myself. For a change I tried to Harm Thaxy, but missed the attack. Summons couldn't withstand the dragon, but ironskins helped keep me going long enough to take her down - gaining another level as a result. Even at just the 6 APR from Gaxx haste, the Shade Lord was too slow to withstand a melee attack.
On the way out of town I picked up Valygar's body and that was soon greasing the locks on the Planar Sphere door, where it didn't take long to rack up another level. That level also meant that I could finally get strength to 25 using DUHM. The delay is because for a dual-classed character the average of levels is used, which is rather unfair (it should be the highest active level). As a result, rather than needing to get to fighter level 18 to get a benefit of 6 to strength, I needed to get to fighter level 23 - after having already got to druid level 12.
There were again a number of casters that could have been dangerous, but they were tackled by summons or insects. In the case of Tolgerias I attempted a sneak GWW while he was trying to detect invisibility, but critically missed the 4th attack - allowing him just enough time for buffs to fire. That meant a quick retreat and sending in a summon as distraction before finishing him off. Carrying on, there was yet another level gained from a bunch of golems just before returning the Sphere back home.
Druid 12 / Fighter 24, 111 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 632 kills (+193 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates at:
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131408/#Comment_1131408
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131425/#Comment_1131425
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131555/#Comment_1131555
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131748/#Comment_1131748
The final external area I was interested in was Windspear Hills. Some disguised paladins had been waiting there for many weeks and finally got the glorious deaths they craved. Moving on to the dungeon, Digdag was given no chance to retreat and fight another day. The Ruhk was another theoretically well-protected enemy that couldn't resist lying down in the middle of the fight to open up the inner dungeon.
The large group of vampires is a potential problem if you're vulnerable to domination or level drain - but with the AoP and SoH I wasn't and the XP from those just provided another level. Even without any buffs I could still beat down the regeneration of greater werewolves, if only with difficulty and the XP kept flowing quickly as I moved deeper into the dungeon. A couple of groups of golems and more werewolves were enough for level 26.
Protection from fire lasted long enough to sling all the genies to death. The Director had some magic resistance, but not enough to prevent him being rendered unconscious. Summons were used for the first time against Samia's party, but I didn't bother with any spell support for them. As a result, Kaol survived their assault, so an extra nymph was generated and guided in an insect plague before holding him for good measure.
Spirit snakes killed Conster before I decided to try Harm again for the fight with Firkraag - and this time it took effect . Unfortunately that proved to be a very bad thing as it led to a typical spot of carelessness . I should have retreated immediately after hitting Firkraag - and definitely when immediate follow-up strikes by summons were fractionally too slow to beat Firkraag's stoneskin firing. However, I didn't run and was affected by both dispel magic (getting rid of ironskins) and dragon fear. I would have needed to be very lucky to stay out of Firkraag's sight after he finished off the summons - and wasn't ...
Myst (female half-elf transmuter, Grond0); Frogg (male elf ranger, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131586/#Comment_1131586
Today's session felt a bit dodgy to me, with a number of potentially dangerous situations - but we both came through unscathed.
The first target was the Bandit Camp, where Frogg dealt with the ordinary bandits easily enough before running Taurgosz round until Myst managed to land a blind. The assault on Tazok's tent can be made far easier if you have invisibility. I had looked at buying that for Myst, but couldn't bring myself to spend so much on it, with reputation only 14 . As an alternative, Frogg ducked out of the tent to dodge Venkt's horror before going back in. That meant a more level fight than usual, but we prevailed with a little bit in hand. Frogg volunteered to open the trapped chest, but Myst first gave him the Boots of Grounding - good job too as he would probably have just died without those.
In the Cloakwood the lack of invisibility also made the spiders and ettercaps a bit trickier. To get into sight of the final one of the group of ettercaps you have to skirt very close to the edge of a trap. That meant Myst was reluctant to use slow poison to cure Frogg when he started leaking HPs, due to the danger of MP bumping ending up triggering the trap. Fortunately Frogg was able to finish off his opponent while he still had some HPs in reserve.
At the mine, initial blind attempts failed, but both mages were killed while stuck in webs. Drasus escaped those, however, and Frogg had to tank him while Myst helped out with magic damage. By that time the webs had finished, but on his own Genthore wasn't much of a threat.
A relatively small amount of fighting was required on the way through the mine to get to Davaeorn. The battle horrors there were dragged back one at a time and dealt with easily enough. Frogg then used a magic blocking potion to protect him while he chased down Davaeorn. Myst stayed near the entrance, though he still very nearly got hit by a bouncing lightning bolt. He also had a nasty shock when following Frogg. He'd seen that Frogg had triggered one glyph trap, but moved away so quickly the glyph was left hanging there. However, he hadn't realized there was another glyph trap which hadn't triggered at all as Frogg ran through - the combination could easily have been deadly, but Myst survived.
On arrival in Baldur's Gate, Myst suggested doing the ogre mage to get a better reward after dealing with the Seven Suns. To avoid being targeted, Myst used a potion of invisibility while Frogg took another potion of magic blocking. The latter though didn't prevent Frogg from being immediately held by the carrion crawlers' (natural) attack. That gave Myst a great excuse to throw a couple of fireballs from his wand onto Frogg's head to deal with the scavengers.
By this time we needed 4 reputation points and I had in mind getting those by returning a dagger, clearing the Seven Suns and handing in an Angel ring. The latter attempt failed though when it transpired that Myst, rather unusually, had not yet picked up such a ring. Frogg quickly remedied that by giving Noralee back some bracers.
With prices now at low levels, Myst indulged in some purchases, mainly of spell scrolls, in the City and Ulgoth's Beard. Then it was back to the City to do the poison quest - successfully gaining boots of speed from Lothander before preventing Marek from completing a spell.
There was another potential glitch going up Ramazith's Tower. Frogg used a potion of invulnerability to ensure the ghasts couldn't hold him and, when they were all fixated on him, called out to Myst that "They're all on me". Myst duly came up the stairs - before retreating rapidly down again as a ghast appeared right in front of him .
A bit more shopping followed, before we took a detour to Durlag's Tower to pick up the quick XP there. Myst was a bit unsure whether the single potion of mirror eyes he'd bought would be sufficient for 4 basilisks, but Frogg was confident. Indeed he had reason to be, as the hasted ranger tore through the lot with several of the 10 round duration still left.
The final action saw us trying to beat up the guards to Degrodel's house. That proved trickier than expected when lots of them chased Frogg back outside. With his own spells soon depleted, Myst once more resorted to wands, but had a near escape when a scorcher aimed at an invisible stalker took far longer to activate than expected - and ended up coming perilously close to burning up an innocent bystander. Though we were both pretty battered, we still saw off Degrodel before calling time.
Transmuter 8, 42 HPs, 110 kills
Ranger 7, 76 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 277 kills, 0 deaths
Party arrived in Spellhold. Been interesting playing without chaotic commands, although it turns out stun is quite rare in the early game so immunity to charm and confusion are the primary issues, and there are several items that provide those. The biggest danger turns out to be greater command, as the party can't get sleep resistance. So far a focus on saves, keeping charname out of the thick of the fight, and invisibility casts if someone falls asleep have mostly held things together.
Also been interesting to play with yoshimo with other thieves in the party. He (for me at least) tends to join the party as a utility thief focused on locks and finding traps. Because he doesn't need to play that role here, he's been able to focus on setting traps. It turns out bounty hunter traps are really strong! I don't think throwing them from out of sight in combat is an exploit, but in any case it is quite effective as a fast-cast, party-safe AOE that later on does save or hold as well.
Valygar got a point in axes to be able to use azure edge, and along with a potion of haste it made him my primary vampire killer. Yes, minsc has racial affinity but I wanted Minsc to get points in flail asap to use the flail of ages.
Charname has mostly been relegated to throwing darts, as a thief without a helmet is just too vulnerable to crits to use on the front line, other than very judiciously. He does have -9 AC with spirit armor and 3 APR with belm, so he is OK in melee just quite vulnerable with ~80 hp and no helmet.
Torgal went down without too much trouble this time after I learned to not play fair with him. The trolls, including Torgal, can't protect themselves from fire items so enough fire potions + wands + traps gets the fight under control pretty quickly. I didn't want to leave the keep to get resist fear (which I had forgotten to purchase earlier), so yoshi and I think Nalia got feared by his aura and spent the fight running around and the party still won pretty handily.
Shade lord fight was probably the easiest iteration I've had. After the Torgal issue I was in no mood for a fair fight and gave him dispel illusion -> secret word -> breach -> focus fire. He was dead in a few rounds.
Windspear hills was an endless source of embarrassment as the party kept having to flee back to trademeet for one reason or another. A few mistakes led to deaths, and I didn't really have the right summons to deal with clay golems safely so I kept having to return to a cleric in town for curse removal. Vampires eventually fell to azure edge, but the fight was much dicier than I has hoping due to their backstabs, regen, fairly good saves (ancient / elder much better than fledgling) and generally strong melee abilities. I had thought poison works on vampires but it doesn't and so the traps didn't do much here.
Also had a very clean win against Tanova. Invisible character w/ detect illusion really accelerates fights and can make them much cleaner because it can lead to a second round breach, which leaves the enemy caster only getting off 1 or maybe two spells.
Will have to decide later whether I am brave enough to fight deirex and house Jaellet; I am inclined not to but if I'm feeling stronger then I might. Feels too risky that he summons fiends and a planetar or casts wish and I lose control of the fight.
Will probably do both mind flayers + beholders though.
Minsc is already dead and the party can't res him until getting back to brynlaw..
I think I may have to resort to maximally cheesy tactics to have even a chance of getting past. Maybe a set of traps set way back + out of LoS fireballs to kill his mummies + summons to waste his spells + wait for his buffs to expire + lure him into the traps.
I can't see how a ~1.2mm exp party without any divine buffs or equipment can possibly tangle with a lich safely in a fair fight. Too easy for him to summon a balor, or spell sequence petrify / disintegrate, or to use any number of other attack vectors the party can't handle.
That's such a rough spawn that it makes me want to playtest to see what the max level/exp the party can bring to spellhold is without getting the lich...
Myst (female half-elf transmuter, Grond0); Frogg (male elf ranger, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131586/#Comment_1131586
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Another early bath for this run, as traps claimed a further victim.
The session had started smoothly with Alai being blinded at the Iron Throne before webs kept other enemies in place while destruction rained down on them.
Looting the Candlekeep tombs had been no trouble, but leaving them was a different matter. Frogg triggered the repeating lightning trap, but magic resistance from his cloak prevented any damage. Myst also triggered it, but found the bolt bouncing across the corridor at exactly the point she'd run to ...
Vanilla gets you the random liches at 2 million protagonist XP regardless of difficulty, but also gives them fewer minions.
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
Fresh from the shocking conclusion to the 204th attempt we rolled up two more randoms. Norgh thought briefly about his companion's abilities and surmised she would have to be Lawful Good so she could use the fabled Azuredge axe if we ever cross it's path. That means Norgh, who cannot use axes anyway, could be less good and more evilly aligned which has potential to dither over helping or hindering (slaying) any silver dragons we stumble across.
Then we set about things. Those things being the tasks around Candlekeep, Shoal the nereid, matters stretching from Beregost to Nashkel and carting Samuel to the Friendly Arm Inn.
(side note - Gorion asked if we were taking matters seriously when we confirmed we were ready, both in our skivvies and Stef using a non-proficient quarterstaff. We'll pick stuff up as we go)
Norgh ensured Stef had decent armour (first the studded leather taken off Montaron's freshly-slain corpse and then some ankheg plate dug up in Nashkel) before realising Stef also needed a proper weapon and our reputation wasn't even up to rescuing cats from waterfalls. The 0gp lure of a +0 staff is strong with Grond0
So we went to deal with Greywolf which gave Stef a +2 longsword with additional cold damage. By this time Stef had already purchased a +1 sling for Norgh and we were experimenting about how to best use it. As Norgh moved towards our intended victim for what must be the seventh time (in multiplayer clicking a moving target to attack often ends up as a command to move in close and stand suicidally idle with ranged weapon rather than fire a missile from a safe distance) we joked for the nth time about strangling Greywolf with the sling and thus almost invented the garotte as a melee use for the sling.
With Greywolf finally dead and a few minor kills giving Stef a bit of XP under her belt (the blunted girdle from an ogre) Norgh reckoned his Cavalier was well up to dealing with ankhegs. He was almost right, finding she only required 4x Command, 2x Aid and 2x Cure Light Wounds to get the job done. She might have wanted more but that's all he had available to cast.
Never mind that though, we're all set to hand in the drowned cat next time. If we remember.