Due to reinstallation I lost my previous game. However here is another which sadly was quite short.
It ended after killing three ankheg. Having used her three command spells, we rested, only to be ambushed by another ankheg.
Unfortunately I was its target and was killed.
I will start again with the same party at Candlekeep.
If you have been following the portraits thread, you will know that I have used a recent posting there for my dwarven female.
Well the lich got me. In hindsight, by being more aggressively cheesy I think I could have gotten him. He never moved an inch during the fight, so the trap strategy didn't work.
What would probably work is: lure his g. mummies, skeleton warriors and bone golems away and kill them. Then rest. Then trigger his buffs. Then wait 20 turns until his immunities wear off. Then buff the party. Then either: drain spells with summons; or, if he casts pfMW as a first spell on reengagement, hit him with breach and level 6+ damage spells. Can also hit him from out of los with death fog (which might get him if he truly refuses to move), chain lightning via the vase next to him, or the scroll of delayed fireball that is found in the dungeon.
Once I saw he wasn't moving I should have just waited the 20 turns and I would have had a good chance of winning. But alas. Needless to say, taking him on in a relatively fair fight did not work out. He has full damage immunities, a spell trap, timestop and a lot of adhw and it was just too much for a gearless party at level ~12-13. Although it was actually failed saves on a minor sequencer horror x2 that actually got us. If anyone had made their saves we could have closed the door and at least gone another round with him.
Journal of Blackwolf the Brave
I was called Blackwolf after my rite of passage to womanhood. All we prepubescent girls who wished to become women had to spend at least a day in the forest armed with nothing more than a hunting knife.
We were expected to hunt and the name of the most powerful animal that we killed would become part of our new name as an adult. I impressed the entire tribe by killing a black wolf without getting wounded. I caught a fish first by tickling its underbelly. That fish was then used to bait a trap that I made with my knife. The wolf fell on to some stakes that I hidden under some branches.
That incident made me very self reliant and caused me to despise those that aren’t.
Obsidian, Ravenstaff and I always found that we could work well together at Candlekeep due to out similar attitude to life.
None of us felt duty-bound to help others, but we had this attitude, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
We are all lawful evil, which doesn't mean that we are always lawful. It just means that we try to follow the eleventh commandment. If we do get caught we pay the appropriate fine.
Candlekeep proved to be safe for us, so after the ambush we went to Beregost for provisions. That was not as safe as we thought. We were attacked by Silke who WAS a mage before she attacked us.
Mere seconds later we were attacked by an assassin who met an identical fate.
We then went in search of Perdue's sword and in the process tried to help a so-called mage called Mellicamp. He proved to be not worth the effort as he died.
Fighting some ogrillon proved to be extremely dangerous, though we did survive to tell the tale.
Once equipped we followed Gorion's advice and went to the Friendly Arms Inn. We killed some hobgoblin and went on to an area infested with ankheg. That proved to be valuable both for acquiring experience and useful possessions.
That also proved to be dangerous, but not to me, so that turned out OK. Gardon was killed, but since he has proved to be a useful ally, I had him raised at the FAI.
There we were attacked by another assassin anotherf mage who proved to be not up to the title as we killed him easily.
We returned to kill off the rest of the ankheg before returning to Beregost.
In Beregost we received a useful ring in return for a minor favour.
We then continued on our way to Nashkel, but were assaulted by some Flaming Fist Guards. They attacked us on suspicion of us being bandits, yet we have been actually killing them and have three scapls to prove it.
We didn't get much in the way of gold or experience, but we did get some decent armour out of it, more than we currently need. We'll keep it in case it is needed in the future.
We headed south, picking up the Colquetl amulet on the way to Nashkel where we picked up some ankheg armour and turned down a reward due to Greywolf. We went north from the carnival where we acquired a +1 two handed sword which replaced the two swords that had broken through useage.
We picked up a wand of ice near the mines and then headed east wher we picked up a ring of fire protection before taking Samuel to the FAI where we talked to Dorn.
We then picked up Xzar and Montaron leaving them in Beregost before heading south where we met Dorn again.
He joined our party after we helped him against his enemies, sleep being a very useful tool. We gave him a ssuit of armour that had once been worn by the Flaming Fist. He has a quest for us which looks to be straightforward.
We are currently popular amongst the general populace, but it would be helpful to us if they thought us heroes even though it is not in our nature to actually be such.
EDIT
Disaster struck! We were attacked by Neira who was easily killed but she cast rigid thinking on Ghardon who killed an innocent before we could stop him. We are now disliked. Regaining our reputation will not be easy. We do have some gold from selling ankheg shells, but that was intended to be used on better equipment and spells.
EDIT
We decided to spend 1250 gold pieces to bring our reputation back to 12.
Unlike the previous session there were minimal level-ups this time, but we made a bit of progress.
The session started with paying Gaelan Bayle and heading to the Docks to get our monies worth from Aran Linvail. After resting to heal up damage from the previous session we went to find Lassal - but encountered some other vampires on the way. Soygib had stoneskin and AoP to protect him, but the lack of weapons that could hit Del resulted in Vince resorting to a wand to finish her off.
Lassal then appeared, noticed the traps detonating under his feet ... and disappeared.
After going to the Bridge District we did a bit of looting before dealing with the Rune Assassins comfortably (helped by the non-appearance of a bone golem).
While in the area we refused to hand over our hard-earned cash to some muggers before going in search of the kidnappers. Soygib entered their house invisibly though and, even though Vince came in visibly on his heels, the kidnappers refused to open a conversation in the cut-scene. We eventually had to reload and do the area again - part of the reason for making less progress this session than the previous one. Just before we left Vince remembered that the original intention of going to the Bridge District was to sort out the Guild Contact - and Kitthix soon neatly packaged him for disposal.
The next destination was the Umar Hills, but Corethief was keen to get a weapon upgrade before tackling the undead there. The lich at the City Gates looked like a promising source for that and, as he can't see through invisibility, we could just have stolen it and run. However, as a change from relying on PfU scrolls, we decided it would be fun to tackle the lich directly. For certain values of 'fun' we were correct about that ...
The initial tactic worked well as Soygib went and stood next to the lich protected by improved invisibility. That prevented the lich from taking any action other than defensive buffs. However, none of us had weapons that could breach its mantle spells and its immunity to level 5 and below spells meant it was only at injured status when Soygib appeared and it sprang into action.
It didn't use dispel magic, so our protections against fire and horror prevented a wholesale disaster, but there was still a fair amount of pain going around - fortunately Vince was out of the way for much of that after succumbing to maze.
A symbol stun left both Soygib and Corethief helpless and a follow-up symbol death left the lich with only a single target.
Vince reappeared at some point while the lich was targeting Soygib and things looked dodgy when he was petrified.
Any further damage would have destroyed the statue, but it looked like the lich was out of area damage spells for the moment. Vince dodged a few single target efforts, like domination, before agreeing to Soygib's request from the void to go and get him raised. On return, Soygib went to pick up his equipment, while Vince recruited Corethief back into the party.
Finally, Soygib proved that, despite appearances, there was at least one working brain cell among us. He opened the chest, extracted Daystar and a moment later a sunray flaring inside the tomb spelled the end of the combat.
Apart from using Daystar earlier, another tactic that we could have used would have been for Vince, who had a couple of shadow doors memorized, to enter first and stand by the lich - I think it would then have been killed without ever activating properly.
At Umar we did the tasks around the village - Vince discovering the others were on the hunt for a mimic as he was on the way to the ranger's shack.
Things got a bit trickier though on the way to the temple when a horde of shadows attacked. Corethief was surrounded, so Vince took the excuse to drop a skull trap on top of him.
That briefly opened a path, but Corethief was stuck in place by strength drain and Vince had no more area damage. That didn't seem too important as a few shadows were picked off. However, Corethief was using a shield to boost his defenses and relying on his save vs death of 2 to protect him from being held by shadow fiends. That meant he was unlikely to be held - but he was anyway and, with a ring of enemies, his life was measured in scant seconds. Fortunately, Soygib was close by and enough shadows had already been killed that he was able to get in with an invisibility before those seconds had quite run out.
Soygib then activated the mirror and ran the pursuing shadows into the blazing light.
Inside the temple there were no more real problems. As we were still pretty low level, the groups of undead facing us were only shadow fiends and skeleton warriors and they proved easy enough to handle.
Thaxy should not enjoy the experience of standing on poisoned traps, but that will (hopefully) be a tale for next time.
Enchanter - L12, 67 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 80 kills (+95 in BG1)
Thief/illusionist - L11/11, 57 HPs, 96 kills (+144 in BG1), 2 deaths
Fighter/thief - L9/11, 104 HPs, 128 kills (+228 in BG1), 1 death
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
How much can we achieve in 2 hours 6 minutes, and can we avoid party death.
Norgh remembers he recently learnt how to summon skeleton warriors so our first deed of the day is to head to the coast and pick on / off some sirines.
Once they are all dead we head inside a nearby cave and Stef considers using a few potions (handed hill giant strength, heroism and speed). She skips daintily over a hold trap and a charm trap to attack the third flesh golem so Norgh lumbers after her and uses his dwarven saves to beat each trap but only arrives in time to observe the golem fall.
So we move on, picking up Melicamp and silencing Bassilus after speaking to him.
This gives Norgh a +2 hammer, replacing the +1 flail he briefly used - not being able to remember what body supplied that.
Our way back to civilisation saw us take on / out the Doomsayer. Stef held in for a decent time but our lack of punch gave it time to injure her. Norgh fishes into his potion case and can only find a strength potion (there was another oil of speed but he can't quite bear to see that being used here). Norgh becomes the target as Stef gulps the strength potion and moves in for the kill.
After the combat Norgh realises his splint armour is sub-par and stoicly whines about this to his lawful good Cavalier companion who suggests brutalising some Flaming Fist mercenaries to obtain their equipment. Really Stef this should not be considered, so instead Norgh suggests taking that of Lindin instead. Skeletons for basilisks, horror immunity for Mutamin and Silence + Command for Kirian's gang allows us to get the armour upgrade without much fuss.
Fresh from dealing with one set of basilisks we head for the group atop Durlag's Tower. First though we must fight our way past Battle Horrors and Doom Guards. Stef's armour is sufficient for this and avoids most non-critical attacks but our attacks are somewhat lacking and Stef is needing high rolls (17-18+) while Norgh is requiring criticals. After only 15 minutes or so of miss miss miss miss combat we wear the enemy down and proceed.
The basilisks are beaten with a Santuaried entry and skeleton warrior gazeshield before Norgh hands Stef a ring of fire resistance to augment her innate fire resistance.
On our way out Stef suggests we play with lightning traps. Norgh had much much earlier considered the nature of Grond0ism and thought this a highly likely scenario (the only difference this time being Grond0 asked before doing it!!). Norgh therefore cast a previously memorised protection onto Stef (which may well have irritated Grond0 who enjoys a shock and aw shucks campaign against these traps).
Stef then said she couldn't bash the chests so as Norgh prepared to cast Draw Upon Holy Might he observed the rare sight of Stef glugging a strength potion so she could manage all on her own.
Norgh used the tome of Wisdom, while Stef has previously used one of Charisma. The Constitution tome proved how resilient it was and made off (vanished) as Norgh passed it to Stef.
It was around about here that Stef asked why we hadn't visited Firewine Ruins. Norgh was blank, why would we want to do that. Stef slowly explained about the bracers carried by Meilum and things clicked for Norgh who thought "ruins" when he heard "ruins" and not "bridge". He blithely ignored the unspoken suggestion from Stef about how the bracers would have immeasurably (30%?) helped against the battle horrors and added a quick detour to our route. Meilum put up quite the fight, refusing two Commands despite an earlier Doom but found to his cost that the best swordsman of the sword coast was a woman, called Stef.
Norgh was by this time feeling he should focus on the task in hand and deal with Nashkel mine. Thus he stated that the plan was for him to follow Stef who chuckled at the simplicity of the idea. Is this cleric for real?
A few minutes later we silence and command Mulahey.
The plan worked said Norgh. Not only that, it was perfectly executed.
Stef muttered that clerics should know better than to tempt fate / the gods with such words. She may have a point.
Norgh felt a bit lazy about dealing with the four amazons outside the mine, summoning only one of his three available skeleton warriors and proceeding with combat after failing to silence Lamahla. The skeleton lasted long enough for us to finish Lamahla and the Cavalier immunity to poison allowed us to finish off the other three foes before they could do much mischief.
After racing up to the Friendly Arm Inn Norgh remembered we were heading to Beregost so we worked our way back and for once Tranzig didn't get to say his I surrender speech before, or after, dying.
We've worked out where the bandit camp is and have arrived there ready to deal next time. Norgh still has a few items to sell but is confident we'll find space to pick up further loot we find in the camp should we succeed.
p.s. we returned the drowned cat at some point, and Melicamp survived his antichickenator spell too.
After witnessing the dramatic scene with Imoen's capture at Waukeen's Promenade, we headed to Adventurer's Mart to trade all the loot from Irenicus' dungeon for the Ring of Air Control and rested at the Den of the Seven Vales.
Torosar then paid a visit to Kalah's circus where he freed Aerie and challenged the gnome. Our buffs were Iron Skin, Chaotic Commands, ProElectricity, ProFire, Barkskin (which had not seen much use in BG1 due to availabilty of the ankegh armor), DuHM and RoAC II and we opened by summoning our Spirit Lion.
Comfortably untargetable (under Improved Invisibility) and untouchable (Iron Skins), we could safely bring in our Fire Elemental as well. For Kalah this was simply too much firepower to defend against, though it did take us some time to cut through all of his MIs before he fell.
Torosar bought some panic-button potions (1x PoI, 1x Potion of Freedom) and proceeded to the Slums for a cup of tea with Gaelan. On our way to the inn we got held up by Cohrvale and Bregg - they learned the hard way that there is little sense in engaging in criminal activities without getting at least +1 weapons.
We got rid of that "beastmaster" filth at Copper Coronet by first cloaking our little army with Pixie Dust and then striking from the shadows at close distance. He never had the chance to open the cells and his Tabitha didn't seem to care much about the master being torn to pieces either.
After freeing Hendak, Torosar purchased Sling of Seeking and continued to the sewers. The two hobgoblin parties, the kobolds and the otyugh were all duly cleared with nymphs and spirit animals.
We rested before entering the slaver compound to prepare for Captain Haegan and his slaver crew. Relfection Shield tends to make this battle trivial but, being a druid, we had to find a workaround. Torosar buffed with Iron Skin, Oil of Speed, Chaotic Commands, Barkskin, Strength of One, DuHM and Physical Mirror (to simulate Reflex). He entered invisible and attacked the priest at range.
We waited for Unholy Blight to land and then summoned our Spirit Lion and a Fire Elemental, the latter being immediately shut down by Greater Command (I really ought to do something about my elementals constantly sleeping throughout the combat).
Our nymph did not last long enough to do anything meaningful and Torosar also had to counter Hold Person with Potion of Freedom.
Silence from the priest came a little inconvenience, but a freshly summoned Spirit Lion and DuHM gave us sufficient leverage to pull through.
The Fire Elemental was then sent to deal with the trolls inside the cell and we could call it a win.
We reported back to Hendak and decided to use all our money to pay the 15k fee to Gaelan.
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
Session three opened with us stood near the bandit camp. Stef prepped herself for action but Norgh found himself in the lead. After dropping a few enemies we encountered Taurgosz Khosann. No doubt Stef could have dealt with him on her own but Norgh felt a Doom > Command > Command combo was in order.
Stef took the full plate armour and +1 shield, passing down the ankheg plate to Norgh. After resting up to heal Norgh bashed a chest open to upgrade his shield to +1 too then cast Sanctuary to enter the bandit tent. A bout of Silence inside allowed Stef to enter and after killing Venkt we split our focus. Norgh thought he did well to kill Hakt after only two Command > Sling shots but afterwards Stef confessed to switching to throwing daggers and killing Hakt while allowing Raemon and Britik to try and melee her at the same time. Not that they achieved anything and they failed to land a single blow before dying.
We headed to High Hedge to sell their gear, and then reluctantly back to the bandit camp to pick up the forgotten scrolls that would allow us to determine to location of Cloakwood. It's an easy mistake to make but with two of us (and many thousand games played) you'd think we'd remember the basics like this.
After perusing the scrolls for a fraction of a second we worked out where Cloakwood lay and stomped over there as quick as we could. Norgh cast Free Action on Stef to deal with web traps and strangely for a Paladin (Cavalier) character we didn't discuss retrieving Spiders Bane but just left. Stef is dual wielding long swords so a two hander isn't a great loss to us.
Outside Cloakwood Mine Drasus found himself lost for words and bereft of companions. His two mages died quickly while Genthore took a couple of Commands - leaving another Command for Drasus to fail.
Stef equips the boots of speed and races off. Norgh realised we should have rested before entering the mine so took a chance at a rest near the first guard on the "plug" level. This was a successful rest but if not Norgh figured two heavily armoured characters with a few spells and much health would be fine.
After killing a few guards we found Yeslick, who explained the well thought out construction of the mine. Apparently we would have no chance to descend to the next level without drawing the attention of guards. Stef pointed to a dark corner of a nearby cell as Norgh cast Sanctuary and wandered down the stairs - leaving Yeslick most perplexed about how the armour-clad and clinking Cavalier managed to get downstairs without being noticed.
We steam-rollered through the next level taking the shortest and least defended route to arrive at a final set of steps. Going down them led us to a final guard who failed miserably at his job. Stef then drew the attention of two Battle Horrors - not ideal but not a major problem for both of them to attack together as Norgh had handed her a strength potion moments before.
So Davaeorn. Cunning as a fox who used to work as a professor of cunning said Stef under her breath. So cunning in fact that he failed to work out a single potion of magic blocking would be enough to foil him.
Norgh used his amazing recollection skills to make absolutely positively sure that we picked up the key to the mine plug at this point. Stef may or may not have gasped in astonishment, or even relief, as this meant we would not have to trudge back to Davaeorn's severed remains in a couple of minutes time.
We proceed to flood the mine and make our escape. Then we head into Baldur's Gate and find a tome of dexterity for Norgh. A short while later we've been poisoned, and killed Jalantha Mistmyr but Lothander is nowhere to be found at the Blade and Stars inn. A short discussion ensues whereby we realised we have metagamed and failed to talk to the diviner followed by talking to Lothander a second time. Off we go.
The diviner tells us we need to speak to Jalantha Mistmyr. Fine, but she's dead...
Lothander tells us to hurry, and clears off...
We head back to the Blade and Stars. Lothander is so pleased to see us, and our skeleton warriors which are encircling him. We take his antidote and stab him to the ground. His boots fit Norgh perfectly and our neutral evil cleric can now keep pace with the fleet-footed Stef.
Larze the ogre is the first to find out what trouble two speed-booted characters can cause. He survives two Commands before Norgh slaps his head and casts Doom. He survives a third and final Command so we resort to playing catch with him. He fails to catch us but our thrown daggers and bullets eventually catch up with him.
Stef says the unpetrified statues at the centre of town will be easy marks, but despite surrounding Vail we miss him every time and he vanishes. His adventuring companions fare less well though.
Norgh spots a high-rise tower and decides we should investigate it. At one stage he casts Free Action on Stef and takes his life into his hands, and although she is sorely tempted to say the path is clear of ghasts when it is unsafe to ascend, she patiently waits and shouts down to Norgh when it is indeed safe.
We clear a few more areas before Norgh attempts to silence Desreta and Vay-ya. Stef : -
a) doesn't realise
b) doesn't care
c) inadvertently moves
d) some of the above
e) all of the above
The net result is that Vay-va is silenced but Desreta is closing in to speak. After a brief discussion, Norgh draws Desreta away while Stef sets about Vay-Ya. Norgh joins in only for Desreta to get angry and a bit frustrated.
CSI: Baldur's Gate later concludes that Desreta for whatever unknown reason attacked a harmless bypasser before returning to us. We have no idea why and ultimately it made little difference but it wasn't something I've seen her do before.
Norgh heals Stef and tries to rest but instead ends up chatting to a noblewoman. Stef joshes with him that he tried to spend the night with her instead and his only retort was that a couple of minutes would have been plenty. Come on party 205, keep your minds out of the gutter and stop wondering if the noblewoman is in the ship looking for a bit of rough but not one so rough as Norgh.
After a few more quests around town we hit the Iron Throne. Stef protects Norgh from fear in case anything goes awry, then Norgh Sanctuaries in and adds a trio of Chanted skeleton warriors. Two Silences later Stef arrives and we hack everything down mercilessly. Stef and Norgh emerge unscathed again, the same cannot be said for Zhalimar Cloudewulfe and his ex-companions.
With the majority of tasks in the city completed we return to Candlekeep and do our best to loot the catacombs below. We emerge with a teeny tiny bit of space left in our backpacks so make a fortune selling what we don't want and prepare ourselves for the Coronation next time. We're sure they will wait for us before commencing.
I've got a mage planning to dual to fighter on the go in this challenge late in BGEE, but am not enthused by that and haven't played for a few days. Seeing a recent comment on the Forums that a single class druid couldn't complete this challenge, gave me a good excuse to start a new run to have a go at that. I do agree that druids will have a more difficult time against Melissan compared to any other class and they are indeed the only class I have any doubts about completing in principle (practice of course is a different story). However, in the unmodded game at least, I'm fairly sure it's only more difficult rather than impossible.
First things first though - it's a long way to TipperaryMel.
- a lion ate Shoal to get me to level 3.
- I encouraged a single gnoll to beat Drizzt into submission (I didn't even have to retreat to achieve that) to get to level 5.
- picked up the ankheg armor and learnt LMD in Nashkel, along with a further level courtesy of Noober.
- Bentan was killed for his scroll, Meilum for his bracers and Dushai for her ring as reputation took a further hammering.
- with bounty hunters likely to appear in civilized areas, I went to help out Charleston Nib and kill the Doomsayer with the help of lions. Brage and Oublek added further boosts to make me merely disliked.
- with inventory a problem, a lion killed Neera to get her gem bag, then Firebead offered a good trade for a scroll case. Before speaking with Thalantyr to get his potion case I used lions as distractions for his golem guards - taking me to level 7.
- following Korax around the basilisk area was enough for level 8.
Korax also sorted out Mutamin before being joined by spirits and a first nymph to wipe the floor with Kirian's crew.
- at Durlag's Tower, the battle horrors outside didn't last long. Ghasts inside could hurt spirits, but not hold them (or me) and had little sticking power - but enough XP to take me to level 9.
I used chaotic commands there to boost my poor wisdom (I used that as something of a dump stat as lower level additional spells are not much help to totemic druids).
- as yet I had no way to kill the basilisks on the roof at Durlag's, but could manage another decent source of XP at the coast. Lions made short work of the sirines and golems there. After picking up the constitution tome I bought Buckley's Buckler to activate constitution regeneration.
- clearing out the ankheg nest would probably have been easy enough on my own, but with the help of lions the task became pretty trivial - but still enough to get me to level 10 and maximise the power of spirit summons.
- in the Nashkel Mine, chaotic commands and free action would have rendered Mulahey's spells useless, even if he'd had the chance to complete the first of those.
- on the way to the Bandit Camp I stopped off at the FAI to pick up the pantaloons - I suspect having the set of those will be crucial to give me some sort of chance against Mel. At the Camp, the bandits were helpless against spirits (who now needed magic weapons to hurt them). Taurgosz fell to a single lightning blast, while Venkt & co were pulled outside to be eaten.
Resting gave me Bhaal horror.
- I skipped through the Cloakwood invisibly before using insect plague for the first time to slaughter Drasus and his friends.
More invisibility took me down to Davaeorn. The battle horrors there were doomed (in both senses), before tackling Davaeorn. I got the timing on an insect plague there wrong and Davaeorn teleported out of range. However, I was buffed against lightning and the lions were more than capable of tanking the mage.
I rested to get a second horror, before flooding the mine and getting a reward from a freed slave.
- Moving on to Baldur's Gate, I quickly ran through the encounters to grab desired equipment, including tomes, helm & cloak of Balduran and a nymph cloak (to push charisma to 20).
- there were still a number of things undone around the realms, so I did a quick tour. The charisma tome, ring of energy, crushing girdle and fire resistance ring were grabbed, while several more reputation points maximised that.
- with 120k gold to spend (not including about 40k already stored in bags to make available in SoD) and minimum prices, I had plenty of money to buy up pretty much everything potentially worth having before returning to the City.
- for the Iron Throne I snuck in, but rather than just talk to Faldorn and leave peacefully I sent in spirits to attack (including a first use of a spirit wolf with their paralysing bite). They got spell support from nymphs as well as my insect plagues, making for an easy victory.
- in Candlekeep I played safe by protecting against lightning while looting the tombs (using up the violet potion there). Prat would have been easy to deal with, but with no benefit from doing so I just bypassed him.
- after resting to get a second DUHM back in Baldur's Gate, I went to find Slythe. With so much resource to spare, I used darts of stunning on him (he would probably have lost out to lions anyway) without bothering with Krystin.
- at the Palace, the dopplegangers attempt to make a concerted attack was disrupted by a trio of confusions, along with a couple of insect plagues and a horror. They would have needed to be incredibly lucky to press home an attack in the face of that lot - and they weren't (the second screenshot there is also of interest as it shows that Liia is acting as one of the party for the purpose of generating XP).
- in the maze I again broke with my normal habit by buffing against the traps . I bypassed the Undercity party and went straight to confront Sarevok.
- in the old temple, I decided not to cheese Sarevok with traps. Instead, a LMD from distance annoyed him and going back towards him invisibly persuaded him to advance a bit and send Semaj teleoporting out.
He was met with a lion. A plague was cast on the lion out of sight of Semaj (to avoid him using a scripted sequencer on me) and that allowed the lion to quickly finish him off.
Sarevok then chased a lion and was doomed before a trio of nymphs tried hold monster on him. He needed a bit of luck to save against all those - but didn't get it.
The hold effect on him prevented his death script from firing immediately, but the referee was clear - he had to go.
Here's my character record and inventory on transfer to SoD.
Druid 10, 83 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 170 kills
That equates to just over an average of 8 on the d10 dice rolls, so a pretty good base of HPs to work from.
Cliff-notes adventure: A F/M/C out of time, part 2
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
As planned, the party rather uneventfully cleared the Ankhegs, helped Tenya and slew some Zombies. We also nipped past Ulgoth's Beard and spoke with Hurgan to reveal Durlag's Tower, as we may want to at least tackle the upper floors soonish.
With the Fine Weapons component installed, the only option for a two-handed sword that won't break (and is reachable at this stage...) is Spider's Bane, so the Nashkel Mines were next on the agenda in order to advance the plot. The mines themselves were of little concern, although Aldain got slightly singed by his own Fireball at one point.
However, upon our return to Nashkel, Nimbul proved a handful, unleashing a 2x Chromatic Orb sequencer which stunned Minsc, taking Dynaheir out of the action with an Emotion: Hopelessness, and finally hitting Aldain with an Icelance (against which he saved), a Chromatic Orb (which stunned him) and several Magic Missiles. Fortunately, Jaheira had a few healing spells memorized, or things could've easily ended here. Eventually Nimbul ran out of spells and succumbed, a mere guard stealing the killing blow.
We plowed on towards the Bandit Camp, killing Tranzig and buying a few scrolls on the way. Both ambushes (Amazons and Molkar & co) happened and were duly dealt with, after which we arrived at the camp without major incidents. And wouldn't you know it, clearing the camp was supremely uneventful: Khalid got caught in our own Web at one point and took a single Arrow of Ice, but that's the grand total of damage we sustained.
The path to Cloakwood opened, we rushed through, obtaining Spider's Bane as well as clearing the Druids (Jaheira's presence allowing a peaceful resolution to Seniyaad, not so much for the Shadow Druids) and the Wyvern Cave. We left the actual mines alone for the moment, returning to Beregost for the 2000 gold bounty, as well as clearing the local wolf pack around the temple.
The party is currently preparing to clear the remainder of the wilderness areas. Thereafter we'll return to the Cloakwood, rush through Baldur's Gate, and do Durlag's to ensure we finish at the XP cap (I will probably not bother with the Ice Dungeon this time around, as there are Stoneskin scrolls aplenty available first thing in SoD and said dungeon really has nothing else going for it).
Aldain is now a level 4/3/4 Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric.
In the SoD prologue I took an immediate level before:
- going invisibly to Porios and making him surrender.
- going invisibly to find the doorkeepers and persuade them to run away.
- going invisibly to approach Korlasz. An attack by summons included a cause wound spell from a nymph that prompted Korlasz to surrender, but she failed to get away anyway.
- completing Fanegonorom's quest was enough for level 12 (hitting my level cap for SoD already).
- in the City I killed some NPCs for their gear. Adding the items transferred from BGEE gave me more than enough cash to buy anything I wanted. I also picked up the Spectacles of Spectacle and did the quest for the Battle Tankard in case I want to get immunity to fatigue.
- on arrival at the Coast Way Crossing I didn't bother going to the Coast Way Forest, but just headed straight for the bridge. There's just time to get behind the tent before enemies react to you even if you're visible - but arriving invisibly gives you plenty of room for error.
- I bypassed the Troll Claw Woods invisibly, but came across some orcs and trolls on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. Rather than killing anything there I just nipped into the cave and picked up the Firefly sling just in case I find a use for that.
- after sneaking into the temple I killed Ziatar with fireballs from out of his sight. Typically I use a potion of magic shielding for the Neothelid, but in this case I went with chaotic commands and free action ring, along with ironskins and protection from poison. A couple of lions ensured that combat didn't last long. Akanna was almost killed by the lions and a first appearance of a fire elemental, but disappeared into sanctuary - but I wasn't letting her play that game. On the way out a single thrown dagger was perfectly aimed.
- at Boareskyr Bridge a couple of nymphs called down lightning on Vichand, though my blast was sufficient on its own. I used the dragon scales to make a shield - one of the oddities about that is that druids are normally able to only use bucklers, but can make use of this (presumably using similar thinking to allowing the use of the ankheg armor. After handing over the scroll and killing a wraith, I used the voidstone shards to make some bullets. On the roof I bought some potions from Thirrim, though I had to use up a potion of clarity to defend against the Greater Feyr that appeared first. On the bridge I normally use the ring of energy to interrupt the mage's casting, but insects seemed more suitable for a druid and he didn't last long against spirits.
- at the Coalition Camp I used the Spectacles to make Nazramu available as a vendor. He didn't have much useful to me, but offers good prices when buying things from you. I didn't bother with any of the quests though before accepting the Bwoosh and poison and leaving.
- there was nothing of interest to me at Dead Man's Pass, so I skipped through there on the way to Dragonspear to rescue Skie.
- moving on to the Underground River area I sneaked through there to find a couple of druids and killed Jamven to get the Root of the Problem Club (that will allow me to dual-wield weapons that can hit Belhifet). After retreating invisibly, summons chewed through some myconids and spiders before a cyclops lasted only a few seconds against them. With the Seal in hand, I went invisible and slipped past the guards into the underground entrance. I placed the Bwoosh before convincing Turin that knowledge was a dangerous thing to get into the Warrens. Going up in the lift invisibly I poisoned the food and water before waiting for Hephernaan's conversation in order to reopen the lift and running away.
- back at the Camp I prepared for an invasion by pre-summoning a fire elemental. That helped group the first lot of enemies into a convenient clump to use firebreath potions and a couple of those saw the elemental still unscratched. The mages in the second group are also vulnerable to those potions and went down quickly to a couple more potions - though I lost my buffs to a dispel from the wizard slayers. The third group has rather more HPs, but 3 potions and a few attacks saw them off without any hassle. The final group was partly disabled by the elemental dragging in some insects before more potions left just Grimgor to be slashed to pieces.
- at the Castle, I took a few potions before going to find Ashatiel. The first stunning dart that hit him effectively ended that contest.
- inside the Castle, I followed Caelar through the portal. I skipped any action in the first area, before bringing out summons for the second. The elemental proved to be a scaredy cat, but the real cats made short work of the first opposition group. I'd taken a potion of magic shielding to protect me before that fight and, given it took only a few rounds, assumed that was still active. However, the cut scene with Thrix must be scripted to take far longer than the actual time consumed (I've noticed before that's a nasty feature of SoD, meaning for instance that it's often necessary to rest again as cutscenes playing during the rest result in 24 hours passing, so that invisibility runs out). As I was aware of that potential problem, I should have checked my stats before the new enemies appeared, but didn't do so and paid a heavy price by being held almost immediately. I had though already thrown a stunning dart that stopped the hamatula in its tracks and the 3 spirit lions would have easily been able to kill the other demons given a bit of time. Unfortunately, all the demons were scripted to attack me and not the lions and a bit of time was thus not available. They killed 3 of the 5 actively attacking me and the 4th died immediately after me, but 'twas all in vain ...
I regret to report that Torosar perished in the Eastern Tunnels of the Underdark. The way it happened was, unfortunately, rather dumb on my part. I had not experimented with the Slayer Form since the original SoA and I learned the hard way that there is no timer upon which the protagonist changes back, but rather takes magic damage after spending too much time in the form...a lot of magic damage. Nevertheless, we had a good time with the Mind Flayers and altogether had a great deal of adventuring throughout Amn together with Viccy.
I regret to report that Torosar perished in the Eastern Tunnels of the Underdark. The way it happened was, unfortunately, rather dumb on my part. I had not experimented with the Slayer Form since the original SoA and I learned the hard way that there is no timer upon which the protagonist changes back, but rather takes magic damage after spending too much time in the form...a lot of magic damage. Nevertheless, we had a good time with the Mind Flayers and altogether had a great deal of adventuring throughout Amn together with Viccy.
B.
Sad to hear of the demise, but glad to find out about that damage which I knew nothing about. Rarely do I use the slayer form.
'Long-life challenge' - totemic druid {2} (update 1)
Previous run
Starting again, I took a relatively cautious approach in BGEE. As with the previous totemic attempt, early levels were gained from Shoal, Drizzt and the basilisks to make travelling safe (with a potion of mirror eyes just in case of a basilisk ambush). Further high XP encounters, like at Durlag's Tower and the Lighthouse, got me to level 10 to maximise the power of the spirit summons. They made the main quest straightforward and I soon had access to Baldur's Gate.
I intended to manipulate reputation to get the evil options of LMD and horror before raising it to get DUHM and allow cheap shopping. I did though forget to rest before flooding the mine and talking to the slave and decided to accept a slow poison rather than fiddle around further.
There were no particular problems in the City and Sarevok once more came to a grinding halt when he was targeted by nymphs.
Hit points are a bit down on last time, but still perfectly serviceable. After 2 failures in a row in SoD, I'll try to be more careful there in this run.
There was the usual quick trip through SoD, with not much done other than the required encounters. I made sure this time though to renew buffs where necessary and with quality summons available there was no question about the ability to kill opponents if they couldn't disable me.
Although this time I did have the Battle Tankard, I chose not to try and keep Caelar alive, but just concentrate on attacking Belhifet. It only took 8 or 9 rounds to finish him off while dual-wielding scimitar and club - the 6 Champion's Strength scrolls used meant I was hitting him pretty much all the time.
For the epilogue I took off Balduran's Helm with the aim of getting the Claw of Kazgaroth to transfer instead - I think that's probably more useful in the early stages of BG2, although the THAC0 bonus will potentially be missed in ToB.
I already had the XP to take level 13 at the start of BG2EE, so was extremely overpowered for the dungeon. Essentially I just used 1 spirit lion at a time, but brought out a full set of summons to successfully prevent Ulvaryl from running away.
Level 14 was a cool 750k XP away, but the circus provided a nice easy start on that. The Copper Coronet was no more difficult, with me staying safely out of trouble while a lion roamed the premises. Another lion sorted out Suna Seni's attempted ambush while I was travelling invisibly to Watcher's Keep to get the potion case. On arrival there I had a very nasty discovery - I didn't have the pantaloons in my inventory. I had them in SoD, but I guess I must have been so busy thinking about taking the Claw out of my bag to make it import that I forgot to do the same with the pantaloons. I suspect that will mean the fight with Mel will go from extremely difficult to impossible, unless anyone has any bright ideas about what to try .
In the meantime I'll press on to see what happens ...
The pantaloons ... how exactly is the Big Metal Unit that important? Sure, it's better than other armor, but that's not usually the sort of thing that makes or breaks a run. And then, it comes with the drawback that it tends to crash the game when combined with shapeshifting.
(Druids can't use crossbows, so the rest of the stuff is completely useless.)
The pantaloons ... how exactly is the Big Metal Unit that important? Sure, it's better than other armor, but that's not usually the sort of thing that makes or breaks a run. And then, it comes with the drawback that it tends to crash the game when combined with shapeshifting.
(Druids can't use crossbows, so the rest of the stuff is completely useless.)
I was thinking primarily of the Big Metal Rod (which any character class can use) rather than the Big Metal Unit. The latter may also be useful to reduce incoming damage, but there's something of a trade-off in the final battle between better AC and ease of movement, so it's not always easy to tell whether it's helpful or not. It's true that the Rod uses crossbow proficiency and hence I would suffer a penalty of 3 to THAC0. However, using it grants a bonus of 10, so it's still by far the most likely weapon a druid can use to hit Mel. In addition the base APR of 5 is much higher than any other weapon and the damage from the pulse ammunition goes through stoneskins, which cuts down the number of spells she can cast. Without that ability I suspect a strategy of run and shoot is doomed to failure (and melee would be no better). I could imagine summons and a simmy helping to overcome 1 of Mel's incarnations - maybe even 2 if you got really lucky - but to win the entire contest I think will need something more.
As for spells: Nature's Beauty could be promising, particularly paired with the Magic Resistance spell - though the chance of completing both spells is likely to be minimal. I'm not sure about Harm - I suspect she is immune to that, though don't remember for sure. Insects might do a bit of damage, as could cause wounds spells and Bolt of Glory, Physical Mirror could potentially be used to make her hurt herself (but it only lasts 9 rounds). Gate could provide a distraction, while Symbol: Stun could leave her pretty helpless if you can get past her MR.
I still think more will be needed though to provide any realistic chance. What items do druids have access to that might be of significant help?
Actually, you answered the question there - the Rod, unlike all other crossbows, can be used by druids. That's what I was missing.
The closest substitute to the pulse ammo (1d4+1 magic damage, 5 APR, +7 attack) I can think of is the Crimson Dart (1d3+3 physical damage, 3 APR, +3 attack). Of note, insects are very good at eating through stoneskins - if you can get that going, physical damage will get through.
Other weapons can deal more damage, but you'd have to enter melee and dual-wield with heavy penalties to get more than 1 base APR.
Looking at her... I don't see any Harm immunity. There's immunity to instant kill effects, but nothing about that "set HP" effect. You would have to land the melee attack, but it might well be an instant win.
Inside the Keep summons made short work of the top floor. Defensive buffs used to pick up treasure included negative plane protection and death ward - spells which I don't normally use. However, using wondrous recall can be a good way to effectively change your spell selection during the day, without needing to rest.
After rescuing Renfeld, insect plague was used on Prebek. After looting the Harper building, completing the quest and then killing some nearby pirates was enough for level 14.
The 1.5m for the next level required quite a lot of work, but it didn't take long to tick off the Skinner quest, Dracandros, Captain Dennis and freeing a kidnap victim. More reputation upgrades were gained from the Fallen Paladins and returning Neb's head before I went to Trademeet. Faldorn was eaten by insects there before another similar challenge saw me appointed the Great Druid (gaining a handy +2 ring of protection for that). Helping Tiris and clearing the tomb provided a couple more reputation points.
Clearing the slaver ship pushed reputation to 20 and prompted a bit of shopping. I also belatedly remembered at that point to get an ankheg shell from the Bridge warehouse and make armor out of that. Mae'Var's tasks provided a decent XP haul before I headed for the Temple sewers. After clearing those I moved on to the Unseeing Eye. The lich on the way killed a lot of summons, but did eventually run out of spells and was crushed by a bear. That got me quite close to level 14 and sending lions in to deal with the beholders soon provided the remaining requirement - gaining not just an HLA, but 1 level 4, 3 level 5, 4 level 6 and 5 level 7 spells.
After the long wait for level 14, druid levels again come thick and fast with only 150k XP needed - and level 15 was gained by killing the Eye. Having a bit absent-mindedly done that using the Rift Device I wondered if that had been a good idea - I could instead have tried to smuggle it out and use it on Mel. I've never done that, but might give that a go in future if it looks like a druid needs a bit more help against her.
I sneaked into the Planar Prison and produced some summons to sort out the Bounty Hunters. More summons, including a first use of a deva, then cleared the rest of the area.
The Cowled Wizards attempt to suppress adventurers using the RoAC proved disastrous for them when groups were assaulted by a Deva leading in an insect plague with a firestorm landing immediately afterwards.
Another benefit of level 15 was that DUHM had given me the ability to kick open some new doors. Those included the door to Kangaxx's tomb and I was soon using the Ring of Energy on Kangaxx to become the proud new owner of the Ring of Gaxx. I also briefly returned to Watcher's Keep to get the Crimson Dart.
Venturing further afield I cleared the de'Arnise Hold, though didn't bother picking up most of the treasure there as there's not much left to buy anyway.
I was up at level 21 by now and decided to take a well-deserved rest in the Druid Grove. That led to an encounter with a troll shamaness and then saving Loren to get Joolon the lion - adding to my choice of cat summons.
Next up was Umar Hills. I noted in doing the quests in the village that the Shield of the Lost provided by Madulf is, surprisingly, usable by a druid. In the temple area, Thaxy was overcome by summons, including a first use of Greater Elemental Summoning. For the Shade Lord, where summoning in advance was not possible, I took advantage of the fact that spirit summons do not cloud your aura to produce a pack of wolves in short order to chew him up.
Back in Athkatla the last of the vampire ambushes finally triggered. I'd been wearing the Helm of Charm Protection for a while, so the vampires were not much danger anyway. However, that encounter suggested it was about time I went to pay Gaelan Bayle. Running through Aran's tasks, I got to level 25 (completing my collection of HLAs) by sending Bodhi packing.
There's still a fair amount of work to do though before I take ship for Spellhold.
The Planar Sphere didn't take long to deal with. Tolgerias was eaten by wolves there before he could buff and left behind the Ring of the Ram - another potential way to damage Mel a little bit. The Staff of Fire and Helm of Defense are other items that could potentially be of some use.
The last of the external areas I planned to tackle was Windspear Hills. Firkraag killed my druid dualled to fighter there recently after he was Harmed, but I failed to finish him off. This time MR protected him from Harm and he successfully fought off the various summons sent in against him. Rather than risk another defeat, I resorted to leading him upstairs where he was trapped behind a table and could only use a breath weapon that was easily defended against.
The final bits of conflict saw Shangalar failing to see through a PfU scroll before the rest of the Twisted Rune fell to a single deva. I kept chaotic commands up, while dealing with the illithid hideout in the sewers. That provided me with the Wand of Wonder - that's an extremely powerful item as it has a chance of a no-save petrification that ignores magic resistance (unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that Mel is immune to that effect). At the Guarded Compound the enemies were dragged downstairs into summons one or two at a time.
Taking ship to Brynnlaw, I went straight to find Perth and killed him with a firestorm from the shadows. I took a quick look at his book before dumping the burning hands that resulted. There were no problems in Spellhold and a first use of Energy Blades saw Irenicus quickly running away.
In Fish City I grabbed the Cloak of Mirroring, but forgot to get the orb before going to find the prince - so just killed him.
In the Underdark, summons killed the balor. I cleared a route to the exit in the Western Tunnels and went on to defeat the prince to get his bracers. With no need for XP, I just sneaked into the beholder hive to get the Greenstone Amulet and left the illithid alone. I just did a quick bit of shopping in the drow city before retreating and going to kill Adalon to open the exit.
Back in Athkatla I had nothing to forge, so I've just picked up surplus items from storage and am heading for a final confrontation with Bodhi.
Bodhi was summarily dismissed, to take me to the XP cap at level 31. At Suldanesselar, Nizi beat off an initial attack, but I retreated and came back armed with 2 Firestorms instead of 1. In the temple I was paralyzed by the glabrezu - but not before summoning Rillifane to kill all the enemies.
On the tree Jon failed to hold off a pride of lions to open a route to hell. In the trials there I obtained +20% elemental resistance, immunity to +1 weapons, -2 to AC, -2 to required saving throws and +2 strength. The slayer went through a lot of summons, but once its spells were gone and I could join in the fight it went down quickly enough.
In ToB, summons dealt with the first pocket plane challenge. For Gromnir the mages died in a firestorm, while the others were run round using Firetooth. A PfU scroll made getting in to see Nyalee at the Temple of Mir risk free. At the Fire Temple I attempted to just use fire protection to grab the wardstones, but should have used haste as well and got caught in one of the small rooms by a whole bunch of giants. A spirit bear to shake them up and an invisibility potion let me get out without fighting though. Other than a single bone fiend that blocked the stairs there was no fighting either while grabbing a pair of hearts and running. For Yaga-Shura I went invisible after damaging him and then led him to the edge of the map when he reappeared - it then seemed fitting to beat him up while in earth elemental shape.
There were no weapons of interest to me at the Oasis, so I just ran through there to get to Amkethran. The only purchase made there was some gargoyle boots as I moved on to Sendai's Enclave. Summons did the bulk of the work in killing the drow captain to gain entrance there. Energy blades cut down Thelyn'yss while spirit bears provided a distraction and I moved on invisibly to drop a couple of fire storms onto Odamaron. Ogremoch hits pretty hard and managed to dispel my stoneskins - but only an instant before Firetooth (being used in melee due to it being +3 to hit) pierced him for the final time. Diaytha was occupied by summons and finished off by fire storms.
Moving on to find Sendai, I started off taking my time dealing with the first few statues, but paid for a spot of carelessness. The way the statues went I twice got involved with killing the next one before having dealt with the drow that appeared. I could have avoided that easily enough using invisibility, but I was thinking it would still be possible to inch into sight of the drow and deal with them piecemeal. However, in fact all 6 of them attacked as a group as soon as I appeared to one of them. There wasn't enough space to hide from them and true sights prevented me from staying invisible. I thought I would still get away with it by taking rat form for the first time, but came just into sight of the next Sendai statue with my aura clouded - and a symbol: stun exposed my relatively poor saving throws.
It's actually possible to return to rest in the pocket plane between statues, so it wasn't necessary to conserve spell resources there in the way I started off. Oh well, there's always next time ...
Feels like it would be useful to include mod/difficulty summaries at the header of AAR posts. Feels like that's at least as important as the other details posters include.
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
Our fourth session starts with us standing outside Sorcerous Sundries. A quick check confirms we need to pick up invitations to the Coronation. Those of Slythe and his partner will do.
At the Coronation we defeat the greater doppelgangers before they can kill Belt or Liia, and are sent into the Thieves Maze. Norgh casts protection from electricity at one point and we make our way through the maze and into the Undercity area.
A bout of Silence causes problems for Rahvin and his gang, with our skeleton warriors attacking while we join in from a safe distance.
Stef lures Sarevok out by using a potion of invisibility then we set about Semaj as he teleports into our waiting skeleton warriors. Once he is down we draw Sarevok closer and he fails to save against a web trap even before Norgh can Doom him. Once the Doom lands we finish him off quickly and without much danger.
On to SoA
Stef uses poison immunity to brave numerous traps, and at one point we gleefully test two magical blunt weapons against the jailkeep golem and destroy it within 2-3 rounds.
The rest of the chateau is dispensed with and we make our way into the city of Athkatla. The circus tent issue is resolved then we head to the Slums and set up a deal with Gaelan Bayle. Two mugs to the south of his house succumb to a Greater Command and are killed in this state.
Suna Seni and her slavers get another Greater Command in their ambush, she being the only one to save against it so another one-sided combat.
We're finding our feet nicely by this time so pick up a potion container at Watchers Keep and the berserk warrior horn in the Bridge district before taking on the Rune Assassins. Fortunately for us there is no bone golem, and one of the assassins failed to turn up as Stef took a great deal of damage but declined to run until it was dead (and only then in case the second arrived with a backstab).
Norgh decided Steph should have the full plate armour we "found" in the Seas Bounty tavern, and we returned Renfeld to his friends. A straight-forward battle with Prebek and Sanasha followed, whereupon Norgh found his lack of buffing (had protection from lightning memorised and didn't bother) a slightly fatal mistake. Stef as initial target of the lightning took no damage and for a moment or two didn't register that Norgh had perished.
The session began well enough with the death of Thaxy. He was badly wounded by traps before making the mistake of chasing Soygib into a corner - allowing Corethief to line up some uninterrupted shots to her rear.
The Shade Lord then perished in a sunray.
After picking up Valygar's body, we returned to Athkatla to enter the Planar Sphere. There were immediate signs there could be trouble ahead when Corethief was mazed - though that was actually a blessing in disguise as it allowed the halflings to be pelted with area damage.
Shortly after that though there was a much more serious situation when Necre and Taibela sent a chaos in from distance that incapacitated Corethief and Vince.
Corethief was already badly injured and his chances looked distinctly dodgy when the mages advanced - but a well-placed cloudkill from Soygib disrupted many of their spells, as well as killing Necre.
Taibela eventually advanced out of the cloud, but by then the chaos had worn off. Taibela was protected from direct attack by improved invisibility and spell turning - but that didn't help her against a wand fireball.
Not learning from that mistake, we went to find Lavok. Vince was a bit surprised that he was activated and failed to get quite enough distance from Corethief when Lavok unleashed a vicious wilting ...
Trio 24 (1st and Final Update)
Trillon - half-elf, fighter/mage, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Oggzy - half-orc, fighter/thief (Gate70)
Terry - dwarf, priest of Tyr (Grond0)
We hadn't done much - beat up Melium and Greywolf, got a two-hand sword from Arghain, saved Samuel. Grond0 mentioned should be be easy to get a magical staff for Oggzy (rather than you know, just buy it cheap from Thunderhammer Smithy) from Silke. It didn't start off well, as Silke saved vs both silence and blind. Just as bad, the backstab from Oggzy was rather weak, as it only dropped Silke to half-life. Silke got off a vicious lightning bolt that killed Oggzy, herself, ... and Trillon. THE END.
It's a long time since I attempted a one-day challenge. Partly that reflects that competing against the clock is a bit more stressful than I generally like these days, but it's also just the difficulty of getting a relatively uninterrupted day to make the attempt. I thought though I'd have a go at that today. I haven't told my wife that yet, but as it's my birthday I think I've got a sporting chance of getting away with it . I won't be able to avoid all interruptions of course, but may well have enough time available to have a proper crack at this.
After experimenting with various characters, the detailed preparation I did before was for a fighter/thief (see here). I did include a berserker in the early trials, but felt that would be a bit slower to make progress. However, I think it doesn't require as much thought and I suspect the less of that required the better my chances at the moment .
I'll be playing under my standard rules for my long-life challenge, so that I can tick off another character there in the unlikely event I do make it through. I've already had one attempt with a berserker in that challenge (losing that run to a bug in Suldanesselar) - the starting character specializes in daggers and 2-handed swords. I don't have a detailed script to work from, but I'm pretty familiar with the game, so hopefully won't waste too much time with mistakes.
It's now 1.53 am and, since I'm aiming to finish before midnight, I'd better get on with it ...
The party has been doing well all of Throne of Bhaal - until it met Sendai - Anomen, Mazzy and Nalia were all CHUNKED! I ended up recruiting Keldorn, Korgan and Jan. However, the under-leveled party could not defeat Draconis and we were slaughtered - RIP Cordan.
Comments
It ended after killing three ankheg. Having used her three command spells, we rested, only to be ambushed by another ankheg.
Unfortunately I was its target and was killed.
I will start again with the same party at Candlekeep.
If you have been following the portraits thread, you will know that I have used a recent posting there for my dwarven female.
What would probably work is: lure his g. mummies, skeleton warriors and bone golems away and kill them. Then rest. Then trigger his buffs. Then wait 20 turns until his immunities wear off. Then buff the party. Then either: drain spells with summons; or, if he casts pfMW as a first spell on reengagement, hit him with breach and level 6+ damage spells. Can also hit him from out of los with death fog (which might get him if he truly refuses to move), chain lightning via the vase next to him, or the scroll of delayed fireball that is found in the dungeon.
Once I saw he wasn't moving I should have just waited the 20 turns and I would have had a good chance of winning. But alas. Needless to say, taking him on in a relatively fair fight did not work out. He has full damage immunities, a spell trap, timestop and a lot of adhw and it was just too much for a gearless party at level ~12-13. Although it was actually failed saves on a minor sequencer horror x2 that actually got us. If anyone had made their saves we could have closed the door and at least gone another round with him.
I was called Blackwolf after my rite of passage to womanhood. All we prepubescent girls who wished to become women had to spend at least a day in the forest armed with nothing more than a hunting knife.
We were expected to hunt and the name of the most powerful animal that we killed would become part of our new name as an adult. I impressed the entire tribe by killing a black wolf without getting wounded. I caught a fish first by tickling its underbelly. That fish was then used to bait a trap that I made with my knife. The wolf fell on to some stakes that I hidden under some branches.
That incident made me very self reliant and caused me to despise those that aren’t.
Obsidian, Ravenstaff and I always found that we could work well together at Candlekeep due to out similar attitude to life.
None of us felt duty-bound to help others, but we had this attitude, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
We are all lawful evil, which doesn't mean that we are always lawful. It just means that we try to follow the eleventh commandment. If we do get caught we pay the appropriate fine.
Candlekeep proved to be safe for us, so after the ambush we went to Beregost for provisions. That was not as safe as we thought. We were attacked by Silke who WAS a mage before she attacked us.
Mere seconds later we were attacked by an assassin who met an identical fate.
We then went in search of Perdue's sword and in the process tried to help a so-called mage called Mellicamp. He proved to be not worth the effort as he died.
Fighting some ogrillon proved to be extremely dangerous, though we did survive to tell the tale.
Once equipped we followed Gorion's advice and went to the Friendly Arms Inn. We killed some hobgoblin and went on to an area infested with ankheg. That proved to be valuable both for acquiring experience and useful possessions.
That also proved to be dangerous, but not to me, so that turned out OK. Gardon was killed, but since he has proved to be a useful ally, I had him raised at the FAI.
There we were attacked by another assassin anotherf mage who proved to be not up to the title as we killed him easily.
We returned to kill off the rest of the ankheg before returning to Beregost.
In Beregost we received a useful ring in return for a minor favour.
We then continued on our way to Nashkel, but were assaulted by some Flaming Fist Guards. They attacked us on suspicion of us being bandits, yet we have been actually killing them and have three scapls to prove it.
We didn't get much in the way of gold or experience, but we did get some decent armour out of it, more than we currently need.
We headed south, picking up the Colquetl amulet on the way to Nashkel where we picked up some ankheg armour and turned down a reward due to Greywolf. We went north from the carnival where we acquired a +1 two handed sword which replaced the two swords that had broken through useage.
We picked up a wand of ice near the mines and then headed east wher we picked up a ring of fire protection before taking Samuel to the FAI where we talked to Dorn.
We then picked up Xzar and Montaron leaving them in Beregost before heading south where we met Dorn again.
He joined our party after we helped him against his enemies, sleep being a very useful tool. We gave him a ssuit of armour that had once been worn by the Flaming Fist. He has a quest for us which looks to be straightforward.
We are currently popular amongst the general populace, but it would be helpful to us if they thought us heroes even though it is not in our nature to actually be such.
EDIT
Disaster struck! We were attacked by Neira who was easily killed but she cast rigid thinking on Ghardon who killed an innocent before we could stop him. We are now disliked. Regaining our reputation will not be easy. We do have some gold from selling ankheg shells, but that was intended to be used on better equipment and spells.
EDIT
We decided to spend 1250 gold pieces to bring our reputation back to 12.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131402/#Comment_1131402
Unlike the previous session there were minimal level-ups this time, but we made a bit of progress.
The session started with paying Gaelan Bayle and heading to the Docks to get our monies worth from Aran Linvail. After resting to heal up damage from the previous session we went to find Lassal - but encountered some other vampires on the way. Soygib had stoneskin and AoP to protect him, but the lack of weapons that could hit Del resulted in Vince resorting to a wand to finish her off.
After going to the Bridge District we did a bit of looting before dealing with the Rune Assassins comfortably (helped by the non-appearance of a bone golem).
The next destination was the Umar Hills, but Corethief was keen to get a weapon upgrade before tackling the undead there. The lich at the City Gates looked like a promising source for that and, as he can't see through invisibility, we could just have stolen it and run. However, as a change from relying on PfU scrolls, we decided it would be fun to tackle the lich directly. For certain values of 'fun' we were correct about that ...
The initial tactic worked well as Soygib went and stood next to the lich protected by improved invisibility. That prevented the lich from taking any action other than defensive buffs. However, none of us had weapons that could breach its mantle spells and its immunity to level 5 and below spells meant it was only at injured status when Soygib appeared and it sprang into action.
At Umar we did the tasks around the village - Vince discovering the others were on the hunt for a mimic as he was on the way to the ranger's shack.
Inside the temple there were no more real problems. As we were still pretty low level, the groups of undead facing us were only shadow fiends and skeleton warriors and they proved easy enough to handle.
Enchanter - L12, 67 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 80 kills (+95 in BG1)
Thief/illusionist - L11/11, 57 HPs, 96 kills (+144 in BG1), 2 deaths
Fighter/thief - L9/11, 104 HPs, 128 kills (+228 in BG1), 1 death
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
How much can we achieve in 2 hours 6 minutes, and can we avoid party death.
Norgh remembers he recently learnt how to summon skeleton warriors so our first deed of the day is to head to the coast and pick on / off some sirines.
So we move on, picking up Melicamp and silencing Bassilus after speaking to him.
Our way back to civilisation saw us take on / out the Doomsayer. Stef held in for a decent time but our lack of punch gave it time to injure her. Norgh fishes into his potion case and can only find a strength potion (there was another oil of speed but he can't quite bear to see that being used here). Norgh becomes the target as Stef gulps the strength potion and moves in for the kill.
Norgh used the tome of Wisdom, while Stef has previously used one of Charisma. The Constitution tome proved how resilient it was and made off (vanished) as Norgh passed it to Stef.
It was around about here that Stef asked why we hadn't visited Firewine Ruins. Norgh was blank, why would we want to do that. Stef slowly explained about the bracers carried by Meilum and things clicked for Norgh who thought "ruins" when he heard "ruins" and not "bridge". He blithely ignored the unspoken suggestion from Stef about how the bracers would have immeasurably (30%?) helped against the battle horrors and added a quick detour to our route. Meilum put up quite the fight, refusing two Commands despite an earlier Doom but found to his cost that the best swordsman of the sword coast was a woman, called Stef.
Norgh was by this time feeling he should focus on the task in hand and deal with Nashkel mine. Thus he stated that the plan was for him to follow Stef who chuckled at the simplicity of the idea. Is this cleric for real?
A few minutes later we silence and command Mulahey.
Stef muttered that clerics should know better than to tempt fate / the gods with such words. She may have a point.
Norgh felt a bit lazy about dealing with the four amazons outside the mine, summoning only one of his three available skeleton warriors and proceeding with combat after failing to silence Lamahla. The skeleton lasted long enough for us to finish Lamahla and the Cavalier immunity to poison allowed us to finish off the other three foes before they could do much mischief.
Previous posts (BG1): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Previous posts (SoA): 8
Torosar then paid a visit to Kalah's circus where he freed Aerie and challenged the gnome. Our buffs were Iron Skin, Chaotic Commands, ProElectricity, ProFire, Barkskin (which had not seen much use in BG1 due to availabilty of the ankegh armor), DuHM and RoAC II and we opened by summoning our Spirit Lion.
Comfortably untargetable (under Improved Invisibility) and untouchable (Iron Skins), we could safely bring in our Fire Elemental as well. For Kalah this was simply too much firepower to defend against, though it did take us some time to cut through all of his MIs before he fell.
Torosar bought some panic-button potions (1x PoI, 1x Potion of Freedom) and proceeded to the Slums for a cup of tea with Gaelan. On our way to the inn we got held up by Cohrvale and Bregg - they learned the hard way that there is little sense in engaging in criminal activities without getting at least +1 weapons.
We got rid of that "beastmaster" filth at Copper Coronet by first cloaking our little army with Pixie Dust and then striking from the shadows at close distance. He never had the chance to open the cells and his Tabitha didn't seem to care much about the master being torn to pieces either.
After freeing Hendak, Torosar purchased Sling of Seeking and continued to the sewers. The two hobgoblin parties, the kobolds and the otyugh were all duly cleared with nymphs and spirit animals.
We rested before entering the slaver compound to prepare for Captain Haegan and his slaver crew. Relfection Shield tends to make this battle trivial but, being a druid, we had to find a workaround. Torosar buffed with Iron Skin, Oil of Speed, Chaotic Commands, Barkskin, Strength of One, DuHM and Physical Mirror (to simulate Reflex). He entered invisible and attacked the priest at range.
We waited for Unholy Blight to land and then summoned our Spirit Lion and a Fire Elemental, the latter being immediately shut down by Greater Command (I really ought to do something about my elementals constantly sleeping throughout the combat).
Our nymph did not last long enough to do anything meaningful and Torosar also had to counter Hold Person with Potion of Freedom.
Silence from the priest came a little inconvenience, but a freshly summoned Spirit Lion and DuHM gave us sufficient leverage to pull through.
The Fire Elemental was then sent to deal with the trolls inside the cell and we could call it a win.
We reported back to Hendak and decided to use all our money to pay the 15k fee to Gaelan.
Regards,
B.
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
Session three opened with us stood near the bandit camp. Stef prepped herself for action but Norgh found himself in the lead. After dropping a few enemies we encountered Taurgosz Khosann. No doubt Stef could have dealt with him on her own but Norgh felt a Doom > Command > Command combo was in order.
After perusing the scrolls for a fraction of a second we worked out where Cloakwood lay and stomped over there as quick as we could. Norgh cast Free Action on Stef to deal with web traps and strangely for a Paladin (Cavalier) character we didn't discuss retrieving Spiders Bane but just left. Stef is dual wielding long swords so a two hander isn't a great loss to us.
Outside Cloakwood Mine Drasus found himself lost for words and bereft of companions. His two mages died quickly while Genthore took a couple of Commands - leaving another Command for Drasus to fail.
After killing a few guards we found Yeslick, who explained the well thought out construction of the mine. Apparently we would have no chance to descend to the next level without drawing the attention of guards. Stef pointed to a dark corner of a nearby cell as Norgh cast Sanctuary and wandered down the stairs - leaving Yeslick most perplexed about how the armour-clad and clinking Cavalier managed to get downstairs without being noticed.
Norgh used his amazing recollection skills to make absolutely positively sure that we picked up the key to the mine plug at this point. Stef may or may not have gasped in astonishment, or even relief, as this meant we would not have to trudge back to Davaeorn's severed remains in a couple of minutes time.
We proceed to flood the mine and make our escape. Then we head into Baldur's Gate and find a tome of dexterity for Norgh. A short while later we've been poisoned, and killed Jalantha Mistmyr but Lothander is nowhere to be found at the Blade and Stars inn. A short discussion ensues whereby we realised we have metagamed and failed to talk to the diviner followed by talking to Lothander a second time. Off we go.
The diviner tells us we need to speak to Jalantha Mistmyr. Fine, but she's dead...
Lothander tells us to hurry, and clears off...
We head back to the Blade and Stars. Lothander is so pleased to see us, and our skeleton warriors which are encircling him. We take his antidote and stab him to the ground. His boots fit Norgh perfectly and our neutral evil cleric can now keep pace with the fleet-footed Stef.
Larze the ogre is the first to find out what trouble two speed-booted characters can cause. He survives two Commands before Norgh slaps his head and casts Doom. He survives a third and final Command so we resort to playing catch with him. He fails to catch us but our thrown daggers and bullets eventually catch up with him.
a) doesn't realise
b) doesn't care
c) inadvertently moves
d) some of the above
e) all of the above
The net result is that Vay-va is silenced but Desreta is closing in to speak. After a brief discussion, Norgh draws Desreta away while Stef sets about Vay-Ya. Norgh joins in only for Desreta to get angry and a bit frustrated.
CSI: Baldur's Gate later concludes that Desreta for whatever unknown reason attacked a harmless bypasser before returning to us. We have no idea why and ultimately it made little difference but it wasn't something I've seen her do before.
After a few more quests around town we hit the Iron Throne. Stef protects Norgh from fear in case anything goes awry, then Norgh Sanctuaries in and adds a trio of Chanted skeleton warriors. Two Silences later Stef arrives and we hack everything down mercilessly. Stef and Norgh emerge unscathed again, the same cannot be said for Zhalimar Cloudewulfe and his ex-companions.
Party gear:
I've got a mage planning to dual to fighter on the go in this challenge late in BGEE, but am not enthused by that and haven't played for a few days. Seeing a recent comment on the Forums that a single class druid couldn't complete this challenge, gave me a good excuse to start a new run to have a go at that. I do agree that druids will have a more difficult time against Melissan compared to any other class and they are indeed the only class I have any doubts about completing in principle (practice of course is a different story). However, in the unmodded game at least, I'm fairly sure it's only more difficult rather than impossible.
First things first though - it's a long way to TipperaryMel.
- a lion ate Shoal to get me to level 3.
- with bounty hunters likely to appear in civilized areas, I went to help out Charleston Nib and kill the Doomsayer with the help of lions. Brage and Oublek added further boosts to make me merely disliked.
- with inventory a problem, a lion killed Neera to get her gem bag, then Firebead offered a good trade for a scroll case. Before speaking with Thalantyr to get his potion case I used lions as distractions for his golem guards - taking me to level 7.
- as yet I had no way to kill the basilisks on the roof at Durlag's, but could manage another decent source of XP at the coast. Lions made short work of the sirines and golems there. After picking up the constitution tome I bought Buckley's Buckler to activate constitution regeneration.
- clearing out the ankheg nest would probably have been easy enough on my own, but with the help of lions the task became pretty trivial - but still enough to get me to level 10 and maximise the power of spirit summons.
- I skipped through the Cloakwood invisibly before using insect plague for the first time to slaughter Drasus and his friends.
- Moving on to Baldur's Gate, I quickly ran through the encounters to grab desired equipment, including tomes, helm & cloak of Balduran and a nymph cloak (to push charisma to 20).
- there were still a number of things undone around the realms, so I did a quick tour. The charisma tome, ring of energy, crushing girdle and fire resistance ring were grabbed, while several more reputation points maximised that.
- with 120k gold to spend (not including about 40k already stored in bags to make available in SoD) and minimum prices, I had plenty of money to buy up pretty much everything potentially worth having before returning to the City.
- for the Iron Throne I snuck in, but rather than just talk to Faldorn and leave peacefully I sent in spirits to attack (including a first use of a spirit wolf with their paralysing bite). They got spell support from nymphs as well as my insect plagues, making for an easy victory.
- after resting to get a second DUHM back in Baldur's Gate, I went to find Slythe. With so much resource to spare, I used darts of stunning on him (he would probably have lost out to lions anyway) without bothering with Krystin.
- in the old temple, I decided not to cheese Sarevok with traps. Instead, a LMD from distance annoyed him and going back towards him invisibly persuaded him to advance a bit and send Semaj teleoporting out.
Here's my character record and inventory on transfer to SoD.
Druid 10, 83 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 170 kills
That equates to just over an average of 8 on the d10 dice rolls, so a pretty good base of HPs to work from.
Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
With the Fine Weapons component installed, the only option for a two-handed sword that won't break (and is reachable at this stage...) is Spider's Bane, so the Nashkel Mines were next on the agenda in order to advance the plot. The mines themselves were of little concern, although Aldain got slightly singed by his own Fireball at one point.
However, upon our return to Nashkel, Nimbul proved a handful, unleashing a 2x Chromatic Orb sequencer which stunned Minsc, taking Dynaheir out of the action with an Emotion: Hopelessness, and finally hitting Aldain with an Icelance (against which he saved), a Chromatic Orb (which stunned him) and several Magic Missiles. Fortunately, Jaheira had a few healing spells memorized, or things could've easily ended here. Eventually Nimbul ran out of spells and succumbed, a mere guard stealing the killing blow.
We plowed on towards the Bandit Camp, killing Tranzig and buying a few scrolls on the way. Both ambushes (Amazons and Molkar & co) happened and were duly dealt with, after which we arrived at the camp without major incidents. And wouldn't you know it, clearing the camp was supremely uneventful: Khalid got caught in our own Web at one point and took a single Arrow of Ice, but that's the grand total of damage we sustained.
The path to Cloakwood opened, we rushed through, obtaining Spider's Bane as well as clearing the Druids (Jaheira's presence allowing a peaceful resolution to Seniyaad, not so much for the Shadow Druids) and the Wyvern Cave. We left the actual mines alone for the moment, returning to Beregost for the 2000 gold bounty, as well as clearing the local wolf pack around the temple.
The party is currently preparing to clear the remainder of the wilderness areas. Thereafter we'll return to the Cloakwood, rush through Baldur's Gate, and do Durlag's to ensure we finish at the XP cap (I will probably not bother with the Ice Dungeon this time around, as there are Stoneskin scrolls aplenty available first thing in SoD and said dungeon really has nothing else going for it).
Aldain is now a level 4/3/4 Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Cleric.
Previous updates at:
In the SoD prologue I took an immediate level before:
- going invisibly to Porios and making him surrender.
- going invisibly to find the doorkeepers and persuade them to run away.
- going invisibly to approach Korlasz. An attack by summons included a cause wound spell from a nymph that prompted Korlasz to surrender, but she failed to get away anyway.
- completing Fanegonorom's quest was enough for level 12 (hitting my level cap for SoD already).
- in the City I killed some NPCs for their gear. Adding the items transferred from BGEE gave me more than enough cash to buy anything I wanted. I also picked up the Spectacles of Spectacle and did the quest for the Battle Tankard in case I want to get immunity to fatigue.
- on arrival at the Coast Way Crossing I didn't bother going to the Coast Way Forest, but just headed straight for the bridge. There's just time to get behind the tent before enemies react to you even if you're visible - but arriving invisibly gives you plenty of room for error.
- I bypassed the Troll Claw Woods invisibly, but came across some orcs and trolls on the way to the Forest of Wyrms. Rather than killing anything there I just nipped into the cave and picked up the Firefly sling just in case I find a use for that.
- after sneaking into the temple I killed Ziatar with fireballs from out of his sight. Typically I use a potion of magic shielding for the Neothelid, but in this case I went with chaotic commands and free action ring, along with ironskins and protection from poison. A couple of lions ensured that combat didn't last long. Akanna was almost killed by the lions and a first appearance of a fire elemental, but disappeared into sanctuary - but I wasn't letting her play that game. On the way out a single thrown dagger was perfectly aimed.
- at Boareskyr Bridge a couple of nymphs called down lightning on Vichand, though my blast was sufficient on its own. I used the dragon scales to make a shield - one of the oddities about that is that druids are normally able to only use bucklers, but can make use of this (presumably using similar thinking to allowing the use of the ankheg armor. After handing over the scroll and killing a wraith, I used the voidstone shards to make some bullets. On the roof I bought some potions from Thirrim, though I had to use up a potion of clarity to defend against the Greater Feyr that appeared first. On the bridge I normally use the ring of energy to interrupt the mage's casting, but insects seemed more suitable for a druid and he didn't last long against spirits.
- at the Coalition Camp I used the Spectacles to make Nazramu available as a vendor. He didn't have much useful to me, but offers good prices when buying things from you. I didn't bother with any of the quests though before accepting the Bwoosh and poison and leaving.
- there was nothing of interest to me at Dead Man's Pass, so I skipped through there on the way to Dragonspear to rescue Skie.
- moving on to the Underground River area I sneaked through there to find a couple of druids and killed Jamven to get the Root of the Problem Club (that will allow me to dual-wield weapons that can hit Belhifet). After retreating invisibly, summons chewed through some myconids and spiders before a cyclops lasted only a few seconds against them. With the Seal in hand, I went invisible and slipped past the guards into the underground entrance. I placed the Bwoosh before convincing Turin that knowledge was a dangerous thing to get into the Warrens. Going up in the lift invisibly I poisoned the food and water before waiting for Hephernaan's conversation in order to reopen the lift and running away.
- back at the Camp I prepared for an invasion by pre-summoning a fire elemental. That helped group the first lot of enemies into a convenient clump to use firebreath potions and a couple of those saw the elemental still unscratched. The mages in the second group are also vulnerable to those potions and went down quickly to a couple more potions - though I lost my buffs to a dispel from the wizard slayers. The third group has rather more HPs, but 3 potions and a few attacks saw them off without any hassle. The final group was partly disabled by the elemental dragging in some insects before more potions left just Grimgor to be slashed to pieces.
- at the Castle, I took a few potions before going to find Ashatiel. The first stunning dart that hit him effectively ended that contest.
- inside the Castle, I followed Caelar through the portal. I skipped any action in the first area, before bringing out summons for the second. The elemental proved to be a scaredy cat, but the real cats made short work of the first opposition group. I'd taken a potion of magic shielding to protect me before that fight and, given it took only a few rounds, assumed that was still active. However, the cut scene with Thrix must be scripted to take far longer than the actual time consumed (I've noticed before that's a nasty feature of SoD, meaning for instance that it's often necessary to rest again as cutscenes playing during the rest result in 24 hours passing, so that invisibility runs out). As I was aware of that potential problem, I should have checked my stats before the new enemies appeared, but didn't do so and paid a heavy price by being held almost immediately. I had though already thrown a stunning dart that stopped the hamatula in its tracks and the 3 spirit lions would have easily been able to kill the other demons given a bit of time. Unfortunately, all the demons were scripted to attack me and not the lions and a bit of time was thus not available. They killed 3 of the 5 actively attacking me and the 4th died immediately after me, but 'twas all in vain ...
Previous posts (BG1): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Previous posts (SoA): 8, 9
Regards,
B.
Sad to hear of the demise, but glad to find out about that damage which I knew nothing about. Rarely do I use the slayer form.
Previous run
Starting again, I took a relatively cautious approach in BGEE. As with the previous totemic attempt, early levels were gained from Shoal, Drizzt and the basilisks to make travelling safe (with a potion of mirror eyes just in case of a basilisk ambush). Further high XP encounters, like at Durlag's Tower and the Lighthouse, got me to level 10 to maximise the power of the spirit summons. They made the main quest straightforward and I soon had access to Baldur's Gate.
I intended to manipulate reputation to get the evil options of LMD and horror before raising it to get DUHM and allow cheap shopping. I did though forget to rest before flooding the mine and talking to the slave and decided to accept a slow poison rather than fiddle around further.
There were no particular problems in the City and Sarevok once more came to a grinding halt when he was targeted by nymphs.
Hit points are a bit down on last time, but still perfectly serviceable. After 2 failures in a row in SoD, I'll try to be more careful there in this run.
Druid 10, 77 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 132 kills
Previous updates at:
There was the usual quick trip through SoD, with not much done other than the required encounters. I made sure this time though to renew buffs where necessary and with quality summons available there was no question about the ability to kill opponents if they couldn't disable me.
Although this time I did have the Battle Tankard, I chose not to try and keep Caelar alive, but just concentrate on attacking Belhifet. It only took 8 or 9 rounds to finish him off while dual-wielding scimitar and club - the 6 Champion's Strength scrolls used meant I was hitting him pretty much all the time.
For the epilogue I took off Balduran's Helm with the aim of getting the Claw of Kazgaroth to transfer instead - I think that's probably more useful in the early stages of BG2, although the THAC0 bonus will potentially be missed in ToB.
Druid 12, 76 HPs, 201 kills
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133244/#Comment_1133244
I already had the XP to take level 13 at the start of BG2EE, so was extremely overpowered for the dungeon. Essentially I just used 1 spirit lion at a time, but brought out a full set of summons to successfully prevent Ulvaryl from running away.
Level 14 was a cool 750k XP away, but the circus provided a nice easy start on that. The Copper Coronet was no more difficult, with me staying safely out of trouble while a lion roamed the premises. Another lion sorted out Suna Seni's attempted ambush while I was travelling invisibly to Watcher's Keep to get the potion case. On arrival there I had a very nasty discovery - I didn't have the pantaloons in my inventory. I had them in SoD, but I guess I must have been so busy thinking about taking the Claw out of my bag to make it import that I forgot to do the same with the pantaloons. I suspect that will mean the fight with Mel will go from extremely difficult to impossible, unless anyone has any bright ideas about what to try
In the meantime I'll press on to see what happens ...
Druid 13, 78 HPs, 15 kills (+210 in BGEE/SoD)
(Druids can't use crossbows, so the rest of the stuff is completely useless.)
I was thinking primarily of the Big Metal Rod (which any character class can use) rather than the Big Metal Unit. The latter may also be useful to reduce incoming damage, but there's something of a trade-off in the final battle between better AC and ease of movement, so it's not always easy to tell whether it's helpful or not. It's true that the Rod uses crossbow proficiency and hence I would suffer a penalty of 3 to THAC0. However, using it grants a bonus of 10, so it's still by far the most likely weapon a druid can use to hit Mel. In addition the base APR of 5 is much higher than any other weapon and the damage from the pulse ammunition goes through stoneskins, which cuts down the number of spells she can cast. Without that ability I suspect a strategy of run and shoot is doomed to failure (and melee would be no better). I could imagine summons and a simmy helping to overcome 1 of Mel's incarnations - maybe even 2 if you got really lucky - but to win the entire contest I think will need something more.
As for spells: Nature's Beauty could be promising, particularly paired with the Magic Resistance spell - though the chance of completing both spells is likely to be minimal. I'm not sure about Harm - I suspect she is immune to that, though don't remember for sure. Insects might do a bit of damage, as could cause wounds spells and Bolt of Glory, Physical Mirror could potentially be used to make her hurt herself (but it only lasts 9 rounds). Gate could provide a distraction, while Symbol: Stun could leave her pretty helpless if you can get past her MR.
I still think more will be needed though to provide any realistic chance. What items do druids have access to that might be of significant help?
The closest substitute to the pulse ammo (1d4+1 magic damage, 5 APR, +7 attack) I can think of is the Crimson Dart (1d3+3 physical damage, 3 APR, +3 attack). Of note, insects are very good at eating through stoneskins - if you can get that going, physical damage will get through.
Other weapons can deal more damage, but you'd have to enter melee and dual-wield with heavy penalties to get more than 1 base APR.
Looking at her... I don't see any Harm immunity. There's immunity to instant kill effects, but nothing about that "set HP" effect. You would have to land the melee attack, but it might well be an instant win.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133244/#Comment_1133244
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133315/#Comment_1133315
Inside the Keep summons made short work of the top floor. Defensive buffs used to pick up treasure included negative plane protection and death ward - spells which I don't normally use. However, using wondrous recall can be a good way to effectively change your spell selection during the day, without needing to rest.
After rescuing Renfeld, insect plague was used on Prebek. After looting the Harper building, completing the quest and then killing some nearby pirates was enough for level 14.
The 1.5m for the next level required quite a lot of work, but it didn't take long to tick off the Skinner quest, Dracandros, Captain Dennis and freeing a kidnap victim. More reputation upgrades were gained from the Fallen Paladins and returning Neb's head before I went to Trademeet. Faldorn was eaten by insects there before another similar challenge saw me appointed the Great Druid (gaining a handy +2 ring of protection for that). Helping Tiris and clearing the tomb provided a couple more reputation points.
Clearing the slaver ship pushed reputation to 20 and prompted a bit of shopping. I also belatedly remembered at that point to get an ankheg shell from the Bridge warehouse and make armor out of that. Mae'Var's tasks provided a decent XP haul before I headed for the Temple sewers. After clearing those I moved on to the Unseeing Eye. The lich on the way killed a lot of summons, but did eventually run out of spells and was crushed by a bear. That got me quite close to level 14 and sending lions in to deal with the beholders soon provided the remaining requirement - gaining not just an HLA, but 1 level 4, 3 level 5, 4 level 6 and 5 level 7 spells.
After the long wait for level 14, druid levels again come thick and fast with only 150k XP needed - and level 15 was gained by killing the Eye. Having a bit absent-mindedly done that using the Rift Device I wondered if that had been a good idea - I could instead have tried to smuggle it out and use it on Mel. I've never done that, but might give that a go in future if it looks like a druid needs a bit more help against her.
Druid 16, 84 HPs, 154 kills (+210 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133244/#Comment_1133244
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133315/#Comment_1133315
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133354/#Comment_1133354
I sneaked into the Planar Prison and produced some summons to sort out the Bounty Hunters. More summons, including a first use of a deva, then cleared the rest of the area.
The Cowled Wizards attempt to suppress adventurers using the RoAC proved disastrous for them when groups were assaulted by a Deva leading in an insect plague with a firestorm landing immediately afterwards.
Another benefit of level 15 was that DUHM had given me the ability to kick open some new doors. Those included the door to Kangaxx's tomb and I was soon using the Ring of Energy on Kangaxx to become the proud new owner of the Ring of Gaxx. I also briefly returned to Watcher's Keep to get the Crimson Dart.
Venturing further afield I cleared the de'Arnise Hold, though didn't bother picking up most of the treasure there as there's not much left to buy anyway.
I was up at level 21 by now and decided to take a well-deserved rest in the Druid Grove. That led to an encounter with a troll shamaness and then saving Loren to get Joolon the lion - adding to my choice of cat summons.
Next up was Umar Hills. I noted in doing the quests in the village that the Shield of the Lost provided by Madulf is, surprisingly, usable by a druid. In the temple area, Thaxy was overcome by summons, including a first use of Greater Elemental Summoning. For the Shade Lord, where summoning in advance was not possible, I took advantage of the fact that spirit summons do not cloud your aura to produce a pack of wolves in short order to chew him up.
Back in Athkatla the last of the vampire ambushes finally triggered. I'd been wearing the Helm of Charm Protection for a while, so the vampires were not much danger anyway. However, that encounter suggested it was about time I went to pay Gaelan Bayle. Running through Aran's tasks, I got to level 25 (completing my collection of HLAs) by sending Bodhi packing.
Druid 25, 102 HPs, 252 kills (+210 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133244/#Comment_1133244
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133315/#Comment_1133315
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133354/#Comment_1133354
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133427/#Comment_1133427
The Planar Sphere didn't take long to deal with. Tolgerias was eaten by wolves there before he could buff and left behind the Ring of the Ram - another potential way to damage Mel a little bit. The Staff of Fire and Helm of Defense are other items that could potentially be of some use.
The last of the external areas I planned to tackle was Windspear Hills. Firkraag killed my druid dualled to fighter there recently after he was Harmed, but I failed to finish him off. This time MR protected him from Harm and he successfully fought off the various summons sent in against him. Rather than risk another defeat, I resorted to leading him upstairs where he was trapped behind a table and could only use a breath weapon that was easily defended against.
The final bits of conflict saw Shangalar failing to see through a PfU scroll before the rest of the Twisted Rune fell to a single deva. I kept chaotic commands up, while dealing with the illithid hideout in the sewers. That provided me with the Wand of Wonder - that's an extremely powerful item as it has a chance of a no-save petrification that ignores magic resistance (unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that Mel is immune to that effect). At the Guarded Compound the enemies were dragged downstairs into summons one or two at a time.
Taking ship to Brynnlaw, I went straight to find Perth and killed him with a firestorm from the shadows. I took a quick look at his book before dumping the burning hands that resulted. There were no problems in Spellhold and a first use of Energy Blades saw Irenicus quickly running away.
In Fish City I grabbed the Cloak of Mirroring, but forgot to get the orb before going to find the prince - so just killed him.
In the Underdark, summons killed the balor. I cleared a route to the exit in the Western Tunnels and went on to defeat the prince to get his bracers. With no need for XP, I just sneaked into the beholder hive to get the Greenstone Amulet and left the illithid alone. I just did a quick bit of shopping in the drow city before retreating and going to kill Adalon to open the exit.
Back in Athkatla I had nothing to forge, so I've just picked up surplus items from storage and am heading for a final confrontation with Bodhi.
Druid 30, 112 HPs, 473 kills (+210 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133244/#Comment_1133244
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133315/#Comment_1133315
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133354/#Comment_1133354
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133427/#Comment_1133427
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1133440/#Comment_1133440
Bodhi was summarily dismissed, to take me to the XP cap at level 31. At Suldanesselar, Nizi beat off an initial attack, but I retreated and came back armed with 2 Firestorms instead of 1. In the temple I was paralyzed by the glabrezu - but not before summoning Rillifane to kill all the enemies.
On the tree Jon failed to hold off a pride of lions to open a route to hell. In the trials there I obtained +20% elemental resistance, immunity to +1 weapons, -2 to AC, -2 to required saving throws and +2 strength. The slayer went through a lot of summons, but once its spells were gone and I could join in the fight it went down quickly enough.
In ToB, summons dealt with the first pocket plane challenge. For Gromnir the mages died in a firestorm, while the others were run round using Firetooth. A PfU scroll made getting in to see Nyalee at the Temple of Mir risk free. At the Fire Temple I attempted to just use fire protection to grab the wardstones, but should have used haste as well and got caught in one of the small rooms by a whole bunch of giants. A spirit bear to shake them up and an invisibility potion let me get out without fighting though. Other than a single bone fiend that blocked the stairs there was no fighting either while grabbing a pair of hearts and running. For Yaga-Shura I went invisible after damaging him and then led him to the edge of the map when he reappeared - it then seemed fitting to beat him up while in earth elemental shape.
There were no weapons of interest to me at the Oasis, so I just ran through there to get to Amkethran. The only purchase made there was some gargoyle boots as I moved on to Sendai's Enclave. Summons did the bulk of the work in killing the drow captain to gain entrance there. Energy blades cut down Thelyn'yss while spirit bears provided a distraction and I moved on invisibly to drop a couple of fire storms onto Odamaron. Ogremoch hits pretty hard and managed to dispel my stoneskins - but only an instant before Firetooth (being used in melee due to it being +3 to hit) pierced him for the final time. Diaytha was occupied by summons and finished off by fire storms.
Moving on to find Sendai, I started off taking my time dealing with the first few statues, but paid for a spot of carelessness. The way the statues went I twice got involved with killing the next one before having dealt with the drow that appeared. I could have avoided that easily enough using invisibility, but I was thinking it would still be possible to inch into sight of the drow and deal with them piecemeal. However, in fact all 6 of them attacked as a group as soon as I appeared to one of them. There wasn't enough space to hide from them and true sights prevented me from staying invisible. I thought I would still get away with it by taking rat form for the first time, but came just into sight of the next Sendai statue with my aura clouded - and a symbol: stun exposed my relatively poor saving throws.
It's actually possible to return to rest in the pocket plane between statues, so it wasn't necessary to conserve spell resources there in the way I started off. Oh well, there's always next time ...
Maybe just me..
Norgh- Dwarven male cleric .Lawful evil.
Stef - Human female Cavalier. Lawful good. ( @Grond0 )
Our fourth session starts with us standing outside Sorcerous Sundries. A quick check confirms we need to pick up invitations to the Coronation. Those of Slythe and his partner will do.
At the Coronation we defeat the greater doppelgangers before they can kill Belt or Liia, and are sent into the Thieves Maze. Norgh casts protection from electricity at one point and we make our way through the maze and into the Undercity area.
A bout of Silence causes problems for Rahvin and his gang, with our skeleton warriors attacking while we join in from a safe distance.
Stef uses poison immunity to brave numerous traps, and at one point we gleefully test two magical blunt weapons against the jailkeep golem and destroy it within 2-3 rounds.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1131402/#Comment_1131402
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1132635/#Comment_1132635
The session began well enough with the death of Thaxy. He was badly wounded by traps before making the mistake of chasing Soygib into a corner - allowing Corethief to line up some uninterrupted shots to her rear.
After picking up Valygar's body, we returned to Athkatla to enter the Planar Sphere. There were immediate signs there could be trouble ahead when Corethief was mazed - though that was actually a blessing in disguise as it allowed the halflings to be pelted with area damage.
Not learning from that mistake, we went to find Lavok. Vince was a bit surprised that he was activated and failed to get quite enough distance from Corethief when Lavok unleashed a vicious wilting ...
Trillon - half-elf, fighter/mage, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Oggzy - half-orc, fighter/thief (Gate70)
Terry - dwarf, priest of Tyr (Grond0)
We hadn't done much - beat up Melium and Greywolf, got a two-hand sword from Arghain, saved Samuel. Grond0 mentioned should be be easy to get a magical staff for Oggzy (rather than you know, just buy it cheap from Thunderhammer Smithy) from Silke. It didn't start off well, as Silke saved vs both silence and blind. Just as bad, the backstab from Oggzy was rather weak, as it only dropped Silke to half-life. Silke got off a vicious lightning bolt that killed Oggzy, herself, ... and Trillon. THE END.
Back to the drawing board, lol.
It's a long time since I attempted a one-day challenge. Partly that reflects that competing against the clock is a bit more stressful than I generally like these days, but it's also just the difficulty of getting a relatively uninterrupted day to make the attempt. I thought though I'd have a go at that today. I haven't told my wife that yet, but as it's my birthday I think I've got a sporting chance of getting away with it
After experimenting with various characters, the detailed preparation I did before was for a fighter/thief (see here). I did include a berserker in the early trials, but felt that would be a bit slower to make progress. However, I think it doesn't require as much thought and I suspect the less of that required the better my chances at the moment
I'll be playing under my standard rules for my long-life challenge, so that I can tick off another character there in the unlikely event I do make it through. I've already had one attempt with a berserker in that challenge (losing that run to a bug in Suldanesselar) - the starting character specializes in daggers and 2-handed swords. I don't have a detailed script to work from, but I'm pretty familiar with the game, so hopefully won't waste too much time with mistakes.
It's now 1.53 am and, since I'm aiming to finish before midnight, I'd better get on with it ...
The party has been doing well all of Throne of Bhaal - until it met Sendai - Anomen, Mazzy and Nalia were all CHUNKED! I ended up recruiting Keldorn, Korgan and Jan. However, the under-leveled party could not defeat Draconis and we were slaughtered - RIP Cordan.