I thought the FixPack made the Ring of Free Action protect against Stun and that the FixPack was incorporated into EE. Is that not true?
Free Action Protects Against stun is a non-core Fixpack component filed under Optional But Cool. EE did not integrate the Optional But Cool components.
If you want Free Action to protect against stun in an EE install, you need to add the Fixpack. You can skip the core components, since they're already present: skip right to the Optional But Cool stuff. Another option is the PnP Free Action mod available at Spellhold Studios. Be advised that PnP Free Action will also allow Free Action to be used in conjunction with movement rate bonuses. It will also add extraneous immunities to Arbane. My preferred option is the Fixpack's Free Action Protects Against Stun.
Free Action Protects Against stun is a non-core Fixpack component filed under Optional But Cool. EE did not integrate the Optional But Cool components.
If you want Free Action to protect against stun in an EE install, you need to add the Fixpack. You can skip the core components, since they're already present: skip right to the Optional But Cool stuff. Another option is the PnP Free Action mod available at Spellhold Studios. Be advised that PnP Free Action will also allow Free Action to be used in conjunction with movement rate bonuses. It will also add extraneous immunities to Arbane. My preferred option is the Fixpack's Free Action Protects Against Stun.
At the risk of being an idiot: I remember actually trying to load FixPack with EE+SCS+Tweaks and failing once. Is FixPack actually compatible with EE? (Someone once said no, I think. -- Also, I use a Mac.)
Related note: In EEKeeper, I checked, there are multiple Rings of Free Action. Do any of them reliably give Prot from Stun?
How about EEKeepering both the "correct" ring and the "correct" Priest spell Free Action to protect from Stun? Would that work? (I think it the default setup is fair in that Stun is an all too easy game ender.)
I've been thinking about a weird new kit idea and finally decided to implement it. Basically, it's a cleric that uses mage spells instead of cleric spells. It still has cleric item restrictions and HLAs and whatnot, but all of its cleric spells are removed and replaced with mage spells that have been converted to priest type. Poppy is once again at the helm.
I don't know how to make new kits in EE yet, so I just replaced the Cleric of Lathander kit. She doesn't have Boon of Lathander.
I designed a unique spell, which the overwritten Cleric of Lathander CLAB file applies at every level, 2 seconds after leveling up. This means the cleric's inventory gets completely wiped clean.
I used the same thing to remove certain spells from my Bog Witch and Sun Druid kits. I then add in all of the spells via EEKeeper, since it's faster than designing a custom spell to do the same thing. There are a lot more than I gave to the Bog Witch or Sun Druid.
Aside from Spell Immunity and I think Fire Shield, none of them will trigger the Cowled Wizards' attention.
This is a solo run, because why not. Wraith form and Dimension Door are at my disposal in this run, and the former is an excellent tanking spell.
But with abysmal THAC0 and damage output, Poppy can't do much to the Duergar. The spell runs out, and the Duergar's little bits of damage build up, nearly slaying her by the end.
She's almost out of spells already, and it's only the second fight (we told Aataqah to buzz off, as usual). I know I can rest more than once, but I understand SCS is supposed to only permit one rest period, and I want to follow that rule.
Poppy's cat familiar steals the Sewage Golem Key, but can't fight off the Mineral Mephit. I have to tuck the cat into my pack. We try a Spook spell when we can't kill the Mephit, but the Mephit doesn't stop attacking, even though it goes yellow. A Horror spell, however, gives us the room to cast Polymorph Self. Now the battle is a cinch.
Despite the spell description, ogre form in EE still does 4d6 damage, and it comes with haste, making it a fantastic backstabbing tool for thieves, and a powerful asset to clerics and Blades with Righteous Magic or Offensive Spin, both of which maximize the 4d6 damage and bump it up from 14 base damage to 24.
Haste comes with certain drawbacks, however. It speeds up poison effects, which means even perfect timing with Slow Poison isn't enough to cure a poison trap. She has to return to natural form to get rid of the haste and therefore cast Slow Poison without being disrupted. All that poison damage takes its toll.
Notice the Protection from Normal Missiles cylinder. That's because we have no Stoneskin and the Duergar are very dangerous with their crossbows. We ditched Stoneskin in favor of memorizing Polymorph Self, for the combat abilities, and Improved Invisibility, to let us nab the Girdle of Bluntness without the Duergar Mage charming us.
But midway through the fight with the Duergar past the Otyugh room, Polymorph Self runs out. And when I check my innates, I see something odd.
I have access to spider form. Even though Polymorph Self ran out.
I return to normal form to use a spell, and get badly hurt by the end. I notice another oddity when I check the inventory screen, which explains why I took so much damage from the Duergar.
Apparently, if you switch from one shapeshift to another, and only then return to natural form, all of your equipment gets effectively unequipped. Poppy had her armor on, but the AC bonuses didn't apply. This doesn't happen if you go directly from a shapeshift to natural form, but going from ogre to spider form does cost you your active effects. This can be fixed by simply re-equipping your stuff while shapeshifted, but you can't do this with armor or robes mid-combat.
Now we have permanent access to spider form, and I want to know why. I remember that I was trying to shapeshift during that last fight, but then the "Shapeshift Natural Form" spell, which you automatically cast at the end of the Polymorph Self spell, took effect. Somehow, shapeshifting as the spell ended allowed one of the forms to persist.
To test this out, I rest again, re-cast Polymorph, and then count the rounds. I quick-save before the spell runs out, and then time my next shapeshift so it occurs just as the spell is ending. It works.
Now she has permanent access to Flind form. But her spider shapeshift vanished.
I check the spell file. Apparently, there's a Remove Spell opcode at the end of the Polymorph Self spell, but using a shapeshift uses the Give Innate Ability opcode to let you re-cast the shapeshift. If you get the Give Innate Ability opcode to trigger after the Remove Spell opcode, you get to keep the spell. You can do this by shapeshifting at the last possible moment, but there's only about a 0.6-second period in which this works.
I tweak Shapechange and Polymorph Self so they end in 7 seconds, and confirm that the trick works for both spells. But you can only get one shapeshift from each spell.
Poppy is interesting, but I want to explore this thing further. I decide to create a new character.
@semiticgod That is a known problem with polymorph self and shapechange. If you polymorph right before it forces you to polymorph into a humanoid again you will gain near-permanent access to that one shape you polymorphed to(until polymorph self/shapechange is cast again). But only that one shape.
Another such problem is dispelling the slayer weapon or tanking it with mirror image which gives permanent access to slayer, one could kill the charname but keeps the immunities while the other loses the immunities but keeps everything else.
As the companions stepped through the entrance, they could see that this tomb was indeed far more grand than any of the others in the Vale. There weren't any defenders within the entrance chamber, but through a door was a much larger room guarded by many skeletal undead.
Two passages led off from the large room, as well as two locked doors and a large double door that led deeper into the tomb. Gudrun decided to clear the lesser passages before moving on. The party fell into their familiar routine, with Darien scouting for traps and enemies and Gudrun leading them into combat.
They collected enough loot that Gudrun needed to use one of the tombs as a cache.
Don't you just love the inventory management minigame? Neither do I. I want my bag of holding.
Next they tackled the doorways. The door to the East was locked, but the key was behind the door to the West, guarded by a wight.
Dum dum duuuuuuum...
The party now moved to the huge doors at the back of the large chamber. Gudrun used a symbol of Myrkul found in one of the tombs as a key. Behind the doors, a creature calling itself Mytos, a bonedancer of Myrkul ordered the party to leave, but Gudrun was adamant about investigating the tomb. Mytos retreated and sent temple guardians to attack the group.
Once these had been beaten, Darien scouted forward to find Mytos. He remained hidden while the others moved up and attacked. Mytos was able to cast a spell but it only affected Darien, and because he was hidden, the monster didn't even know he was there. Once Mytos was dead, Gudrun stood guard over Darien until the spell wore off.
The group now had three passageways to explore, they picked the left one first. Down the left corridor was an area that just screamed "trap!" They dealt with the skeleton archer guards from a distance. Then after a heated discussion, it was decided that Darien would search the chamber at the end of the hallway while the others waited beyond the last of the obvious alcove doors. Gudrun had wanted to go, but Darien had argued that he was the most likely to avoid a trap and that she was better able to affect a rescue.
Darien didn't find any obvious triggers, but the instant he touched the sarcophagus, the alcoves sprung open to reveal more skeletons. He quickly downed his potion of invisibility, just as the more insidious feature of the trap activated. A sleep spell blanketed the chamber and Darien fell unconsious. The mindless guardians walked right by him as they converged on Gudrun. She and the others smashed them one by one, destroying the last one as Darien woke up.
Back in the central room, the party explored the center passage, where they found a shrine to Myrkul guarded by a shadowy undead and a few skeletons.
With their spells used up and their inventories full, the companions called it a day and went back to town to rest and replenish.
Identification time
They rested a full day so Dunathain could identify all their treasure. Gudrun donned gauntlets of weapons skill. Darien equipped a longsword +1, short bow +1 and a ring of shadows. They sold off a magic warhammer and another magic shortbow, replenished their potions and headed back to the tomb.
The right passageway was a narrow switchback guarded by traps and skeleton archers.
In a secret chamber, they killed their first mummy.
The final door was guarded by two temple guardians. With those taken care of, the group cached their treasure in the mummy's tomb and prepared to enter the second level of the complex.
Want: Bag of Holding: 10,200GP at Orrick's
Significant gear: Gudrun: Mace +1 Darien: Leather +1, Shortbow +1, Longsword +1, Ring of shadows Celebrian: Sling +1 Dunathain: Robe of cold resistance
Gudrun - Undead Hunter lv 4 - 40 hp - 1 death Darien - Swashbuckler lv 5 - 35 hp Celebrian - Avenger lv 5 - 35 hp sp 5/5/2 Dunathain - Wild Mage lv 4 - 22 hp sp 4/3 - 1 death
I want early access to Shapechange. It's a Chapter 6 scroll or 3 million XP sorcerer spell, or, we can use Limited Wish. But we've only got one shot at using Limited Wish to cast Shapechange. I'd have to use my phone to time the spell precisely. It lasts 300 seconds, and I have to shapeshift at the very last one.
But since I'd just restart the game and try again if I failed, even though it'd take 5 slow minutes of waiting each time I made the attempt, I tweak the Shapechange spell so I can just click the right shapeshift right afterward.
To gain access to Limited Wish and therefore Shapechange without Use Any Item, I need mage levels or bard levels. After considering a Fighter/Mage multi-class, a Skald, and a Blade, I decide against them. A Fighter/Mage is already very conventionally powerful, and I'd be too tempted to use bard song stacking at epic levels. Also, bards will have poor THAC0 when shapeshifted, and have difficulty hitting certain critters in ToB.
A mage dualed to fighter, however, has excellent THAC0 and fighter HLAs later on. I roll a huge stat total and bring back an old portrait, along with Alora's delightfully obnoxious voice set. It's Molly, a recurring but relatively rare name for me.
Early troubles give us grief.
But very careful management lets us slip past most of the obstacles. A Flame Arrow scroll even helps us bring down the Ellesime clone, though we're not strong enough to take on Ilyich without another rest period. Fully buffed, we're safe enough to grab the Girdle of Bluntness without the mage destroying us, but ogre form renders the mage a moot point.
Outside Chateau Irenicus, Molly sells off all excess equipment and, with the Ring of Human Influence and a Friends spell, can barely afford a Limited Wish scroll. We choose the Shapechange often and Molly uses the EE shapeshifting trick to gain access to both spider form and Iron Golem form.
Why these two? In a word, they compensate for the other one's weaknesses.
Iron Golem form has base 1 APR with 4d10 base damage and 24 STR. It has immunity to all elements, 100 magic resistance, and 20% physical damage resistance. It has a huge circle and therefore can't fit in most places. It's a fantastic anti-mage tank thanks to its MR, but its AC is only 3, and its DEX only 9. This means, ironically enough, this massive iron titan would easily get chopped up by a gang of enemy fighters, even in the early game.
The spider is much better equipped to handle fighters. Its AC is well below zero. It only does 1d4 damage with 16 STR, but it has 4 APR plus haste and deals 1 poison damage per 2 seconds for 6 rounds. There is no save. This means 18 damage per hit, disrupting spells for 6 rounds, just like the vanilla Insect Plague. It's totally unreasonable and I love it.
Molly dual-classes to fighter after level 9, just in case I need Spell Immunity at some point. She struggles at first due to her awful THAC0, but gains levels quickly. I make a point of buying the Nymph Cloak early on. I've taken a shine to the cloak, as it easily grants 20 CHA, the maximum possible for store discounts, and its charm ability is very powerful, lasting 12 hours and demanding a save vs. breath instead of a save vs. spell, making it excellent against mages. It has terrible range, however, so only the Ring of Human Influence can charm the Beshaban fanatic before triggering the timer for Viconia's burning. I like turning enemy spells back against them.
We pay a visit to the Umar Hills, using Iron Golem form to deal with the Killer Mimic. Unlike in vanilla SCS, EE SCS apparently no longer grants immunity to hold effects to characters in spider form. It gives them immunity only to the web projectile, which means Mimic Glue and other hold effects can still disable Molly. Iron Golem form might not block the glue, but it will block the Mimic Acid, which is enough to keep Molly alive.
While visiting Trademeet, we were given a sharp warning by a Wild Tiger.
The same casting time of 1 that makes the shapeshifting trick possible also exposes it to disruption. It only restores itself after the spell is cast, so having it disrupted means we have to rest to get it back. We need the Amulet of Power or Robe of Vecna to hold on to our shapeshifting. The Wild Tiger's low attack roll, at a mere 5, also shows the Iron Golem's poor AC.
I ventured to Watcher's Keep, only to be informed that the quest had already been completed.
How nice. I decide to ignore the bug, since that's my normal ending and I can still enter Watcher's Keep. I can't deal with level drain, even with 100 MR, so most of the first level has to wait. I just bop a golem on the noggin and leave.
The Iron Golem attack strikes a +4 weapon, while the spider's is only +1, and I believe Stone Golems are immune to +1 weapons and below. Also, goelms are immune to the spider's poison.
With Iron Golem form, I no longer have to fuss with stuff like the Ring of Air Control or Minor Spell Deflection. 100 MR simplifies a no-reload run dramatically. But it does make some encounters look rather unfair.
I particularly enjoy turning an unfriendly trap against the enemy.
The Iron Golem form can't fit in many places, but the collision detection in this game will teleport you a few feet away if you can't fit. I can slip through a doorway sometimes like this, but it's very situational.
Iron Golem form is quite cumbersome. Positioning can have a major impact on gameplay, and Iron Golem form turns you into an unmoving wall.
The Iron Golem form might struggle against fighters, but thieves are very poor against it.
The Iron Golem form, interestingly, is not immune to all spells.
Another, more important weakness is that shapeshifting into the Iron Golem consistently creates a very small invisible block which cannot be crossed. You can see where that block lies, between Molly and her target.
The Nymph Cloak is hardly necessary, since the enemy is basically toothless. But it's quite fun anyway. Sanasha is my traditional target, but Prebek is closer this time.
We see a strength of the Iron Golem form soon after. The Iron Golem's wide circle helps it box in its targets.
I consider taking on Pai'Na, but I don't have a way of getting rid of those spiders. I decide to go get the Efreeti Bottle from Trademeet, and get rid of the other djinn while I'm at it. I can't interrupt a genie's spells in SCS, but Iron Golem form is not necessary to block Flesh to Stone. Now that Molly has recovered her mage levels, she can cast Protection from Petrification. This means we can slay the djinn right through their Stoneskins.
I move on to the Druid Grove, but find to my surprise that the Trolls are immune to poison once they fall down. Poison damage can no longer take the place of acid or fire damage. I have to fight them in natural form, with a new weapon (for some reason I don't consider using the Efreeti Bottle). The Flail of Ages is next.
A Troll surprises me at the entrance. Aside from casting both Protection from Fire (!) and Protection from Lightning (?) at the start of battle, he nails me with Flame Strike.
But the Troll, and whoever gave him that Protection from Fire spell, apparently didn't realize that buffs don't carry on after a Troll falls down. A Flame Arrow puts the Troll down, despite its Protection from Fire pre-buff.
I don't want to fight any more Trolls here. I just want to get the Flail of Ages, or at least a version that can deal acid or fire damage. This means I either steal from the golems or kill Glaicas. But unfortunately, I need the Keep Key to get to either of those places, and the key is right next to a Yuan-ti Mage.
The solution is a simple Potion of Invisibility, right after grabbing the key turns Molly visible.
BP apparently adds an extra Iron Golem to the De'Arnise Hold, but you can still attack them individually.
I only grab the flail head and war hammer. I consider fighting Glaicas, but Trolls block the way to his room.
I'd have to break my invisibility and suffer a torrent of Trolls if I was to get to Glaicas, retrieve the last flail head, and forge the full flail. Instead, I stick with the +2 version.
I spot two oddities on the way out. For one thing, the Yuan-ti don't attack the humans even after delivering their battle cries. They just sit there, waiting for me to appear.
Also, the humans turn hostile, forcing me to drink another potion to escape. The De'Arnise fighters turn against their captain.
I don't usually bother to correct bugs unless they prevent something important from happening. Molly's infinite spider and golem shapeshifting probably indicates I'm not too bothered by realism, so Captain Cernick fighting his own men doesn't much trouble me.
With the Flail of Ages in hand, or at least 2/3 or 2/5 of it, I can slay Trolls in the Druid Grove without summoning the Efreeti every time. Then I decide to just walk past all of the Trolls, because I don't feel like fighting them.
I only fuss with Dalok. Since the spider shapeshift from Polymorph Self poisons without a saving throw, even druids can't escape it. Dalok is powerless. When I get boxed in, I use Horror to decrease the enemy pressure.
I only wanted Gnasher, so I run away after Dalok goes down. Cernd kills Faldorn, I get another lump of money from Trademeet, and I buy the Robe of Vecna for Molly. Next up, the Unseeing Eye quest, or at least part of it.
Turns out Gauths can see through invisibility. Somehow.
It doesn't follow me, so at least there's that.
Out of curiosity, I check the trigger that spawns in Vampiric Mists near Gaal. Turns out there's a spot you can walk around, and avoid the whole thing. This is why I like CTRL-R.
Then I walk over a trap and die.
My buffs were useless; it was Prismatic Spray. Iron Golem form can let you survive traps, but it's too big to actually walk over many of them.
I decide to reload. I'm not yet tired of exploiting this trick. This time, I drink two Potions of Invulnerability to give Molly negative saves.
Notice that it forces a save vs. wands, not a save vs. spell. Certain solo runs could fail due to this difference.
The Potion of Invulnerability also let Molly survive the next Gauth that sees her, plus the petrification trap nearby. Note that you can walk around the petrification trap by edging around the north side. There are a lot of triggers and traps in BG2 that you can walk around.
There's actually only one reason I came here. I reduced Molly's DEX to 7 so I could use Limited Wish for Shapechange without drinking a Potion of Insight, but it's very bad for my AC when I'm trying to use spells. I grab the Gauntlets of Dexterity and slip away.
I'm about ready to side with Bodhi, but I want to finish the Mae'Var questline first. This means I have to kill Rayic Gethras. I pounce on him in spider form and poison him twice before his buffs trigger.
I spend the next few rounds trying to break through his Stoneskins in Iron Golem form, to keep myself safe from his Fire Shield, but the poison ends up killing him.
Despite our equipment, Molly gets badly torn up by Mae'Var's goons, losing several potions in the process.
But they can't backstab her in Iron Golem form, so Molly can just chunk them one by one. Finally, Mae'Var's defenses run out, and Molly charms him with the Nymph Cloak. Things are looking bad for Mae'Var.
He Breaches himself and then is chunked in a single blow.
Next, I go to the Windspear Hills. Molly's THAC0 appears too low to hit the Ruhk Transmuter reliably, even in Iron Golem form with its 24 STR. Meanwhile, the rakshasa easily hits Molly.
I realize I have no chance against the rakshasa. Even with immunity to its many spells, I can't go toe to toe with it and survive. Besides, I don't actually need the Ring of Fire Resistance in the first place, since Iron Golem form has a base 125%.
I trigger the spawn point for the undead room and decide to leave when I see it.
I know Daystar can take down a whole pack of vampires, but to get Daystar in my installs, you have to fight a Lich, and with a base save vs. spell of 1, it shouldn't be possible for a Lich to die to Daystar itself. I can tank its spells okay, but not its summons, and last I checked, I couldn't leave the Daystar Lich's room until the Lich was dead.
@GemHound: I wasn't aware people had heard of the trick. It was news to me. I only heard of the pre-EE trick where you prolonged the shapeshifts by killing the character. I did a similar stress test using a solo Fighter/Mage/Cleric in Iron Golem form in vanilla.
I'd prefer it remain in the game. Little tricks like this don't feel as legitimate or okay to use if they get fixed. If I knew there was already an update that prevented this from happening, I might not have started this run, which I'm so far enjoying, because it would seem like I'm breaking a rule rather than exploiting something.
"Cheese" feels okay for me to use, but it feels weird for me to use a "cheat."
So the first thing we did was go to the Friendly arm Inn and pick up Jahiera, Tarnesh fell easily due to command.
Then the party went to Beregost where a wild mage appeared and brought a group of red wizards after her... she died in the ensuing conflict, and Jaheira did as well. Imoen decided to return to the Friendly Arm Inn and raise Jaheira, and then go North and pick up Ajantis.
We returned to Beregost and killed Silke
We then went South to Nashkel, picked up Edwin then Branwen, and then killed Zordral.
Then I sat around stupidly for a few moments and was playing around with the tombstones in front of the temple of Helm in Nashkel. The ensuing fight took lots of kiting and raising with Nashkel guards doing most of the killing and dieing due to the phoenix guards... the party won in the end, only for some strange reason, Daer'Ragh didn't drop a ring of fire resistance. Always thought he did.
Yes. That IS Edwin dealing 22 damage. I also think Daer'Ragh's XP should be higher, since he is a level 9 mage accompanied by umpteen phoenix guards that are also only worth 100xp.
The Planar Sphere brought Molly her second death and ended the run. She made effective use of the Iron Golem form against Necre, Taibela, Mogadish, and Kayardi, but in the end a Fallen Planetar spelled her doom.
She didn't get hit by a vorpal strike; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that, in order to avoid a vorpal strike, she had to leave Iron Golem form. Otherwise she would have gotten boxed in sooner or later, and would have been forced to revert to natural form or spider form. She chose natural form, to make sure she maintained her Robe of Vecna bonus.
She hasted herself and ran out the door, but since the Fallen Planetar didn't follow us out, I decided to go back inside and face them. I drank a Potion of Magic Shielding to block an Insect Plague spell, but by fleeing the Fallen Planetar's attacks, I avoided getting hit by the Insect Plague's very slow projectile. This gave Lavok enough time to cast Remove Magic, taking away our guaranteed saves, right before an Insect Plague spell hit.
Molly failed her save vs. breath and panicked. With an Oil of Speed she drank earlier, she was able to outrun the Planetar and avoid a vorpal strike, but she had no defense against Comet.
The EE shapeshifting trick isn't sufficient by itself to guarantee success in a no-reload SCS run, but it comes fairly close. One of the problems with basing runs or character builds on special tricks is that you sometimes neglect to compensate for the trick's limitations. In this case, the large circle of Iron Golem form meant that it was impossible to maintain both immunity to magic and a healthy distance from the Fallen Planetar's vorpal strikes. Iron Golems are bad at running, so anything that can bypass MR can potentially doom an Iron Golem.
I think I saw what I needed to see regarding the shapeshifting trick. There wasn't that much to explore, which is fine. It was a simple build with pretty clear strengths and weaknesses.
Also, it seems that shapeshifting ability scores in EE can be overridden by items, unlike in vanilla. For instance, I managed to get Molly to 18 DEX in Iron Golem form by re-equipping the Gauntlets of Dexterity. It was also possible to increase her spider form's STR to 18/00 using the Gauntlets of Ogre Power. This means the Iron Golem could be a much more effective melee tank than I previously suspected.
Ipapos - Cleric/Illusionist There is still the odd Phoenix Guard roaming around Nashkel now, but the party decided to leave Nashkel, to avoid further explosions. The first person we encountered was a swordsman named Greywolf, who was put to sleep and commanded to unconciousness while Ajantis and Jaheira smashed his imobile form.
Then the party moved into the Cloudpeaks, and had a few difficult fights, the most difficult was Zal, since he always hit his target... always. sleep and command was used liberally in this engagement. We also killed Sendai's hunting squads, and gave Rufie back to the devil Albert.
We then returned to Nashkel, and then went back further into the Cloudpeaks. We ran into some Gnolls, who challenged Ajantis to a fight, Ajantis easily killed their leader and the others fled. Then we saved a dryad's tree from two lumberjacks, and retrieved a child's cat from the bottom of a waterfall. Then another gnoll ran up to the party and we killed it as well, only it had a decent halberd.
The next thing the party did was go to the destination, the Gnoll Stronghold. We killed the hill giants on the bridge, and then Ajantis threw on the hill giant's gloves. Ajantis proceeded to wade through the Xvarts to the South of the Stronghold and then we turned North and assaulted the stronghold itself. Edwin fell before the real fighting began, and Branwen fell near the end.
I remember actually trying to load FixPack with EE+SCS+Tweaks and failing once. Is FixPack actually compatible with EE? (Someone once said no, I think. -- Also, I use a Mac.)
I have successfully installed Free Action Protects Against Stun in EE on a Mac. I can't comment on other components.
I've also used PnP Free Action from Spellhold Studies in EE on a Mac. If you can't get Free Action Protects Against stun working, you may want to try that approach. Consider reverting Arbane if you install PnP Free Action.
Presumably it's possible to revert to the pre-Fixpack files, although I haven't tried that. It could provide a simple, easily implemented, though less consistent solution.
I just discovered that which probably was obvious to all the experts here: they are game breakingly powerful.
Below are screenshots from Twisted Rune: - In Summary: Aerie's Deva single handedly (i) instakills the Ubervampire; (ii) kills the fighter Revanek during Layenne's Time Stop just standing there with Globe of Blades active; (iii) kills the Elder Orb by beating it over the head (with some spell-peel-off help from the party). Layenne got beat up by a Zaaman Rul (Flamestrike can hit through his Globe of Invulnerability). The Lich got peeled off and beaten by the rest of the party (wherein I discover the almighty TIME STOP + Improved Alacrity combo for myself).
Imoen was close to death, but her contingency->Imp. Inv. kept her alive as she was running around Feared like a headless chicken.
** I am beginning to see why SCS makes changes to these encounters. (My install only employs AI improvements, but does not upgrade the opponents.)
After kicking righteous the booty with the Twisted Rune, I have decided NOT to use HLAs in the rest of SoA. Even the Dragons (Fire & Shadow) were no match with some (obviously justified) preparation without HLAs. Even Irenicus (first form).
Irenicus as Slayer is different story altogether, which I shall post when I have the time...
OK, I guess I have to introduce this run properly. I've always been a fan of the Avatar Cartoon Network series, and I started thinking about creating a run centered around the idea. To those not familiar, there are people in the Avatar universe called Benders. There are four types, each of which control its own element and nothing more besides the Avatar himself. The elements are the classical set of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air; I'm setting this up as four sorcerers, each attempting to match the anime portrayal as best as I can.
I'll just copy and paste my ramblings from the Bioware forums about my criteria for selecting spells. [Spoiler]Anyhow, that's the theme of this run. Four sorcerers, each with one of the four classic elements, with one non-bender, a Monk, thrown in for good measure. All spell picks will attempt to stay consistent with the themes of the benders portrayed in the show. Air: Good for maneuverability, and not getting hit via miss chances. Offensively not that great, though, so very few, if any, direct damage spells. The Invisibility spells, most Illusion spells, and buffs like Haste and Teleport Field fit quite well with air benders. Several Abjurations also work, though nothing that gives armor, generally. I might bend this (pun semi-intended) and give my Airbender Shield just so he has something resembling defense. Water: Waterbenders are shown primarily in two fashions, one I can't replicate with a sorcerer since it involves healing. The other one tends to turn the opponent's strength against them, or even breaking it down. So I'm relegating Water mostly to destroying defenses as well as things that work thematically like Spell Turning and Ice Storm and Slow. There's a subtype of water benders called Bloodbenders, generally evil that can control other people's blood (!) and make them do whatever they want. Domination-type spells are thus also going to be added to the allowances for water. Earth: Defense, invulnerability, and terrain control. These are the guys that can weather any type of attack with relative impunity, not by dodging it but by just taking it head on and blocking it. I have no idea, really, how to pull this off in 2e. I'm thinking battle-field control, since they can also do that by messing with the terrain. Lower-levels, at least, will probably see Web and Grease as two of the more potent spells. Interestingly enough, the fact that Earth exists as its own element means that no other of the sorcerers will be even allowed to take Stoneskin. Fire: Offensive spells, finally. Damage via Fire and Lightning will be the norm for this guy, with few if any protective buffs besides Pro. Fire to stop him from incinerating everything and everything including himself. I'll be rolling her as a Dragon Disciple for even more flame fun. If anything has Fire immunity though, she'll be cowering helplessly in the corner, unable to do anything. At least Trolls shouldn't be a problem.
I'll figure out which spells belong solely to which benders when I get to each spell level: I know Sequencers and Contingencies are going to be allowed for all, but nothing beyond that.[/spoiler]
Mods are again full SCS including all tactical encounters, Rogue Rebalancing, and BG2Tweaks. Benders in Baldur's Gate, Introduction I decided on making my PC the Earthbender, because he's the only one going to be allowed Stoneskin. I thought I might as well attempt to survive backstabs, so here we are. Tarvol, the Earthbender [Spoiler][/spoiler] Picture created (?) by darcprinces of the Soliaonline forums, third post on this page.
Lana, the Airbender [Spoiler][/spoiler] Probably my favorite picture of the bunch, created by c-dra of Deviantart and found here Jun, the Waterbender [Spoiler][/spoiler] Water took me the longest to find; I think I spent around 90 minutes before I found this here by SolKorra, of Deviantart and was satisfied. Flare, the Firebender [Spoiler][/spoiler] This one was a no-brainer. Meet Shu, by Yamino, again from Deviantart. Rigor, the... Monk. For reasons, one non-bender/caster has to be included here. Monk fits the theme entirely too well. [Spoiler][/Spoiler] Picture, I think, from either gaiaonline or Heroes' United. Or something called Ragnarok. I really can't figure out the source of this bugger.
So, divvying up the level 1 spells (first two are the ones currently known.) If a spell can thematically go to two or more, I'll allow multiple sorcerers access to them. Earth: Armor, Grease. Pro. Petrification, Chromatic Orb, Shield. Water: Charm person, Chill Touch, Grease, Identify, Magic Missile. Fire: Shocking Grasp, Burning Hands, Spook, Pro. Evil, Magic Missile. Air: ... I somehow have Blind as one of my picks here. It makes 0 sense thematically, so I'll be swapping it out via EEKeeper. Color Spray, Reflected Image. (... most useless spells in BG2 ever...) Shield, Friends, Magic Missile.
If I hit level 4, I'll post again on divvying up the level 2 spells; Air gets a few bones here (Blur! Invisibility! Mirror Image!)
Descending the stairs to the next level of the tomb, the party found themselves in a grand entrance hall. Darien checked carefully for traps, but the defenses were far more devious than just simple trip wires. Once he and Gudrun had gone a third of the way into the hall, tattered skeletons came out of the walls to attack. The pair were quick enough to retreat to the antechamber, where Gudrun blocked the door while the others joined the fight with missile weapons.
Once the last of the skeletons had fallen, Darien scouted forward. He first encountered skeleton archers on the stairway then, after those were dealt with, he found three spellcasting undead guarding a large central chamber. Gudrun eased cautiously forward and launched a fire arrow at a skeleton mage. She missed and the creature cast a stinking cloud at her. She nearly succumbed to the stench, actually falling momentarily unconscious. Luckily she was able to leave the cloud before the undead could follow up. As the group waited for the air to clear, they could hear the monster chanting spells on the other side.
Gudrun was soon able to move forward again, she attacked with fire arrows to get the skeleton mage to chase her back to the rest of the party, but found that the monster was more fragile than she'd thought.
Now they concentrated on the two imbued wights, Gudrun was able to disrupt the first one's casting, but the second hit her with magic missiles. The result was still the same.
Gudrun levels up
Darien could now scout the large chamber fully. He found tattered skeletons and temple guardians along the walls and several regular skeletons milling about in the back of the room. Gudrun got down to the business of defeating the enemy in detail.
After clearing the tattered skeletons from the left and right of the room, Celebrian was out of healing spells and they were getting low on potions. With their packs full of the enemy's weapons, they went back to town to rest and replenish.
Returning the next day, the companions continued to pile up the bones of the undead guardians, finally clearing the entire central chamber and gaining the treasure in the sarcophagus, which included a mage dagger, a wand and several scrolls and potions.
It's sad when I'm more excited about a place to stash my loot than I am about the loot I find in that place.
The group now cleared the two open chambers leading off the main room.
In the North was traps and treasure. Another wand, a magic morningstar, and more scrolls and potions.
In the South was tattered skeletons and an imbued wight.
The party moved on to the two closed doors, behind the South door, they found:
Skeletons
More skeletons
And a door they couldn't open
They also found a magic katana that Darien eyed longingly. He hoped it wasn't cursed. On to the North door:
More skeletons
Zombie chunkin'
Darien found the key to the Southern door. Returning there, he found and disarmed three traps set right in front of the door. Then Gudrun led the way into the room. It was heavily guarded by a group of temple guardians and a pair of ghasts.
Three cheers for UH immunities
Hip hip hooray
Level ups
In the chamber beyond the guards, they found a magic talisman with the same wolf-paw design as at the tomb's entrance. With this in hand, Gudrun unlocked the doors at the back of the central room.
It was tempting to continue on, but spells were empty and inventories were full, time to head back to town.
Identification time
Dunathain took the sling +1, Darien replaced his magic longsword with the katana +1, and Gudrun donned the black wolf talisman. They sold the morningstar, mage dagger, Darien's longsword and the two wands, gaining enough money for this:
Woo hoo
One last rest to regain spells, a few more potions, and then it's off to the next level of the tomb.
Want: Bag of Holding: 10,200GP at Orrick's Got it! Magic two-handed sword
Significant gear: Gudrun: Mace +1, Black wolf talisman, Gauntlets of weapon skill, RoP +1 Darien: Leather +1, Shortbow +1, Katana +1, Ring of shadows Celebrian: Sling +1 Dunathain: Sling +1, Bracers AC 8, Robe of cold resistance
Gudrun - Undead Hunter lv 5 - 60 hp - 1 death Darien - Swashbuckler lv 6 - 42 hp Celebrian - Avenger lv 6 - 42 hp sp 5/5/3 Dunathain - Wild Mage lv 4 - 22 hp sp 4/3 - 1 death
I have big plans for this one, and to my surprise, she's actually doing quite well. She's at 2 million XP right now and we haven't had a single close call. I suppose it's because cleric/mages are fantastic tanks, and the class I'm most familiar with.
As a Lawful Evil character, she gets an Imp, which can cast Polymorph Self. I hadn't thought about this, but it's very convenient. Although it nearly dies in the first battle to the lightning bolt that summons the first Mephit.
Her strategy for the Duergar is quite safe. Summons and the Imp familiar, in spider form for the AC bonus, hold the fort while Meidao stands back and throws out disablers, while Protection from Normal Missiles wards off any stray bolts.
I've decided that a character who can maintain invisibility during rest periods should be able to rest multiple times in Chateau Irenicus, so we don't have to ration spells, an art I've fine-tuned for this dungeon but do not actually like.
The Duergar Mage is a potential problem, as I do not have Minor Spell Deflection to block a Charm Person Minor Sequencer. But he can't cast more than 1 spell every 6 seconds, so I send in a Skeleton Warrior to bait his first spell.
Now that his aura is fogged, I can rush in and nail him. The Imp strikes once, sealing his doom.
We find a scroll of Symbol Fear as well as a Potion of Mind Focusing, and the resulting 22 INT gives us a 98% chance of successful scribing. But BG2 has never been good at probabilities.
We let Hareishan well alone and slip past the Assassins, as Meidao has no Stoneskin to block a backstab, only AC and Mirror Image. The Imp poisons Kalah. Meidao messes with Kalah as her fellow gnome clings to life.
With the loot we've gathered, we buy some Potions of Genius and scrolls to fill up Meidao's spellbook. We also pick up the Shield of Reflection.
Against the early game enemies, Meidao maintains a reliable set of defenses. Remove Fear, Chaotic Commands, Mirror Image, Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Protection from Fire, and Minor Spell Deflection. I notice after one fight that Meidao has a -8 bonus to all her saving throws. Apparently EE actually fixed Improved Invisibility to grant the +4 to saving throws that it was supposed to grant. This is a massive boost for any solo build, and allows Meidao to get guaranteed saves very early in the game.
Meidao uses Minute Meteors for select enemies, relying on her summons to deal with ordinary grunts. Disablers have a huge impact. Even with 9 WIS, she has enough Hold Person spells to consistently immobilize many of Athkatla's early threats.
I'm quite pleased with how we handled Pai'Na. I want summons as a buffer against Pai'Na's spells and her spider form's poison, but I need to clear up her spiders as well, and Fireball would hurt my Skeleton Warriors and animal buddies. The solution? Greater Command.
Pai'Na brings out a heavy hitter, a Cave Bear. It could destroy my summons in a few rounds if left alone. We pick a reliable but short duration fix.
I hit Pai'Na with Lower Resistance, but under sustained pressure from my summons, Pai'Na doesn't survive long enough to see another spell come her way.
I try a new strategy for the slaver compound. I go up the stairs, using a potion to recover after hitting the acid trap, and attack the Priest of Cyric from the doorway. I can duck away if he casts a spell that I can't stop, and Protection from Normal Weapons will negate the presence of the other guards.
But being so far north means the enemy mages hear the fight and join in. Remove Magic renders Meidao utterly defenseless and surrounded.
Meidao got a Spell Immunity scroll from Pai'Na's lair, but she didn't scribe it, preferring to wait until she got some other scrolls so she could drink a couple Potions of Genius and scribe them all at once.
A Potion of Invisibility rescues her and lets her restore her defenses. Meidao preps with Minor Spell Deflection, waits for the enemy's MGOI spells to wear off, and throws out Stinking Cloud. Mages have poor saves vs. death, so Stinking Cloud works very well against them.
Meidao then turns to the melee enemies surrounding her.
The enemy mages are low on spells and can't handle the pressure. Meidao bashes in their big brainy skulls.
I didn't know this at the time, but apparently Meidao was benefiting from a curious APR boost. In EE, if you run out of Minute Meteors, you'll still have 5 APR with your next weapon. It's only worked with melee weapons so far; slings have never gotten the APR boost.
At first, after I realized this was happening, I restricted Meidao from making more than one attack per round. But eventually I decided to just go with it, and eventually Meidao came to rely on melee weapons. A lack of APR, after all, is a cleric/mage's one big weakness, and this trick eliminates it entirely.
It turns out that there's another way to make Polymorph Self outlast its normal duration. But it only works on your familiar. You just put your Imp in your pack after it shapeshifts, and then rest. When it comes out, it'll be stuck in that form forever.
Notice that its spells are grayed out. Being in spider form means that the Imp can't re-cast Polymorph Self, which means it will never be able to return to natural form. Casting Polymorph Other on the familiar and then dispelling it might cure the condition, but otherwise it seems any familiar that does this will be stuck forever.
We move on to the last fight in the Copper Coronet. Protection from Normal Weapons holds off the animals, but is largely unnecessary, with Greater Malison and Stinking Cloud subduing most everything.
Notice she doesn't have Chaotic Commands. Her saves alone are strong enough to keep her awake despite the cloud.
Hey everybody! Great to see you're still going strong, despite the many Bhaalspawn that you have now lost to the perils of Baldur's Gate
My own RP-orientated run for BG1EE is concluded, and we're moving onto BG2EE soon enough. Hope you enjoy it if you are inclined to check in on the thread.
I've been meaning to make better use of the Fire Shield spell. It has remarkable damage output if properly used, dealing 1d6+2 damage per enemy attack or spell, or 2d6+4 with both Fire Shield types. You just need poor AC and a means of avoiding damage. This could be Mirror Image, Stoneskin, weapon immunity spells, regeneration, rat form via the Cloak of the Sewers, and/or another source of physical damage resistance.
Meidao goes to the Temple Ruins and uses Protection from Normal Weapons with Fire Shield.
Thanks to SCS, even Skeleton Warriors attack with nonmagical weapons. The enemies burn themselves to death while Meidao watches.
Meidao has no magical weapons, but she can cast Spiritual Hammer, and cleric buffs allow her to do lots of damage every hit.
And thanks to the Minute Meteor trick, she has 5 APR at very low THAC0 and high damage per hit if she pre-buffs with Holy Power or DUHM.
Only the Bone Golems can break through Protection from Normal Weapons, and they go down pretty quickly with the right buffs. Meidao sails through the dungeon with ease.
What about the Shade Lord? Protection from Undead isn't supposed to work in the Shade Lord's clearing, and we have no defense against level drain. But another trick is just as effective. We found a Cacofiend scroll in the dungeon! It's not as powerful as a Summon Fiend scroll, but it's more than sufficient. A Sunstone Bullet takes down the altar; then Meidao turns invisible, buffs with Protection from Evil, and summons the demon from out of sight. The Nabassu tears down Shadow Patrick and the Shade Lord unopposed.
Demons don't give you XP for their kills, but half the XP in this game comes from quests anyway, and demons are crazy powerful. I think they might be worth the XP cost.
One odd thing is that summoned Glabrezus, at least in SCS, are actually a little bit tougher than summoned Pit Fiends. They have almost the exact same stats, but Glabrezus have higher STR and can cast Mirror Image and PW: Stun, while the Pit Fiends can cast Fireball, Improved Invisibility, and Firestorm. The Pit Fiends would be more useful for clearing up large groups of enemies, but the Glabrezus would be much harder to kill. Nabassus, meanwhile, cast Death Gaze (paralysis on a save vs. death, nonmagical) and Vampiric Touch, and are marginally weaker than Glabrezus and Pit Fiends in terms of THAC0 and STR.
I don't want to rely on Spiritual Weapon for every fight that requires magical weapons. It's time to upgrade. On to the De'Arnise Hold to grab the Flail of Ages.
One flail head is unguarded. Another is with the golems. The last one is in Glaicas' hands. But the last time I did a solo no-reload and tried to grab that last flail head quickly, I got swarmed by over 20 respawned Trolls. Meidao can't handle that many. But she can turn invisible and cast Teleport Field, which should let her slip away if things get hectic.
On the way, Meidao finds a group of Trolls on the roof and gets ready to tear them down. Then an unexpected enemy appears out of nowhere.
Yuan-ti Mages are one of my less favorite enemies in SCS. They take forever to kill and come with lots of disablers. Meidao turns invisible and tries her luck with a less well-guarded mage downstairs, whom she can see before combat. This lets us land the first strike.
It doesn't put up much of a fight, for some reason. Its demise is actually kind of pitiful.
Back to the mage on the roof. Trolls are blocking the way to the mage, so Meidao lures some away and vanishes before they can reach her.
This opens up the way to the mage. Meidao sneaks over and prepares to take it down in one shot.
I've been looking forward to this. Harm in my install does 150 points of damage, and a cleric/mage with the right buffs could get a near-automatic hit at the beginning of combat, and vanish instantly with the Robe of Vecna.
The result is disappointing.
The mage isn't even at Barely Injured. Stoneskin apparently blocks ALL of the damage from Harm. That mage didn't even have Mirror Image; Stoneskin alone was sufficient.
That's pathetic. Harm only works when a mage is already debuffed. I thought an attack roll would be a sufficient limitation on the power of the spell, but apparently not.
We try Slay Living instead. Meidao rolls a critical miss. We try again.
But it turns out there were more mages out here. Ugh.
It takes multiples tries, but eventually I bring them down with Slay Living. Magic resistance, saves vs. death, and attack rolls can all foil the attempt, but Meidao can always turn invisible and flee.
It's a boring way to fight, and I don't think I'll bother with it again, but I really wanted to get an instant kill on them.
We spot some more mages near the wheel that opens the drawbridge. Meidao remains invisible until she can attack the enemies downstairs. But the mages catch up to her. She slips away. We've not willing to tackle those mages unprepared.
I break invisibility to pick off some of the weaker enemies, though. The mages find us again, but the Robe of Vecna ensures us a quick escape.
I like it better when my characters are the ones abusing invisibility spells. Not Draconis.
Meidao turns out to be pretty tough. Spiritual Weapon and Flame Blade tear apart the Trolls. When a Spirit Troll turns invisible after falling down, her mage spells finish it off.
It goes so well that I decide to go chase down those mages. With their buffs worn out, there's little resistance, and what little there is, Meidao can quickly cut through.
Meidao has recently hit mage level 12 and can now cast Improved Haste. Yes, she attacks 10 times per round now, fully buffed.
We've stalled long enough. It's time to get Glaicas. Some Trolls are blocking the way to his room, but breaking invisibility and restoring it is enough to get them out of the way.
Apparently you can force doors open without breaking Sanctuary. We see Glaicas is not alone this time, however.
I think I only installed the Ascension part of BP, but it seems to have impacted some other things as well. One curious thing about this enemy part is that the thief can lay his own non-disarmable traps.
CTRL-4 doesn't show the trap trigger. This is an invisible critter casting a spell, it seems.
The snare deals poison damage, like a normal 11th-level thief trap, but it's not a problem for Meidao. At 10 APR and 22 STR, she only needs a few seconds to destroy Glaicas. Unwilling to take the time to fuss with his comrades, we make our escape.
I don't know if his buddies would have been challenging or if they would have great loot, but they weren't the problem. I was worried about the local Trolls invading the room and trapping us.
We ignore most of the Trolls on the second level and leave most of the area's loot unlooted. I want to maintain a low profile among the Trolls here, and none of the loot besides the Flail of Ages, now finally complete, is particularly important. We head downstairs and buff up for TorGal.
Apparently the guy has a ranged attack. And he throws some pretty impressive boulders.
Somehow, those boulders break down Meidao's Minor Spell Deflection, as if they were spells. Apparently they have a wing buffet effect as well.
The boulders deal 2d6 missile damage, plus STR bonuses, and have a 20% chance of knocking the target back and stunning them or knocking them out for one round on a failed save vs. breath at -4. They strike as level 4 spells, so spell protections can absorb or reflect the on-hit effects, and Globe of Invulnerability could block the effects entirely.
TorGal goes down easily. With all her buffs active, Meidao can deal over 200 damage per round. When the Flail of Ages can't finish him off even after he falls down, Sunfire speeds up the process.
I don't know how long I'll use the Minute Meteor trick. It's very silly, but I really like seeing a tiny gnomish spellcaster dish out fighter-quality damage. My only problem with it is that it's very easy to discover and to use. The other tricks I've experimented with either required a lot of thought or a lot of luck to discover, and a fair amount of preparation and management to actually use. This one seems a little too easy.
Now that I know I can handle Trolls, I can deal with the Trademeet quest. After trouncing the genies and reporting my success, I get accosted on the way out by an obviously evil little man. Meidao tells him off, though the phrasing is rather weird.
That guy only appears if you're evil. It's some alternate means of solving the Trademeet quest by poisoning the grove. I've never done it before.
With the Flail of Ages, the druids are helpless to defend themselves against Meidao. Ironskins is not good enough to hold off that elemental damage.
Brute force and lots of buffs win every fight on the map. We barely even needed any other spells. Cernd kills Faldorn and we take Trademeet's gold.
Next, the Windspear Hills. We get lucky with a Chromatic Orb early on.
The Ruhk Transmuter is an issue. Meidao drains his spells with Animate Dead and plenty of cardio.
When the rakshasa finds her and tries to debuff her, her aura is clear enough to put a stop to it.
When she finally engages the rakshasa, its PFMW spells are long gone, and with 10 APR and elemental damage, the rakshasa doesn't have the space to cast PFMW or Stoneskin.
We return to Athkatla to do inventory stuff. Meidao is at 2 million XP.
Most Valuable Item: Robe of Vecna Most Valuable Spell: Invisibility As strong as Meidao is offensively, she'd be having a very rough time without fast escape options.
I've decided to stop using the Minute Meteor trick. I have other tricks by now anyway.
For one thing, Meidao just hit cleric level 14. Now she can cast Gate, and with the Sensate Amulet, she has undispellable invisibility to her own Pit Fiends. One of the nice things about Pit Fiends is their fire magic.
We don't get the XP for the kills, but it's a very safe way of dealing with enemies, as they don't seem to have the AI to fight back.
Meidao breezes through the Shadow Thief hideout. With Pit Fiends, Sunfire, and Skeleton Warriors at her disposal, she has excellent offensive power, and as a cleric/mage, she can make herself invulnerable to anything. She also has lots of escape options and can repeatedly retreat from battle to waste enemy prebuffs and restore her own. When she emerges from invisibility, the enemy is partially debuffed, while Meidao's defenses are at their peak.
Now that Meidao has the Amulet of Power, we can return to Firkraag's lair to deal with some vampires we left behind. Before, we snuck past most of the enemies; now we can take down everybody.
Meidao hits 3 million XP and chooses Summon Fallen Deva as her first HLA. We now have a powerful summons with high MR and three castings of Globe of Blades and a level 25 Dispel Magic with an instant casting time. Plus, it can stun enemies on hit, disrupt undead, and see through invisibility. Enemy mages will now be much easier to debuff and undead will become a non-issue.
I pay a visit to Watcher's Keep and slay the Vampiric Wraiths I had been avoiding up until now. I fight everything except for the statues and the lich. On the way out, I level up Meidao and encounter a familiar bug right afterwards.
For some reason, the game thinks I completed Watcher's Keep. I can no longer reach Demogorgon. But the ending is the one I normally pick.
I decide to move on with the main quest. I've already hit the milestone I wanted, and now Meidao can cast Cacofiend as well. Turns out those Nabassus are very effective against mages.
That Death Gaze bypass spell protections and holds the target on a save vs. death. Mages aren't very good at making those saves, and their spell protections won't help them.
In Spellhold, we get surprised by a lich. I haven't seen that guy in a while.
I wait out its PFMW spell and bring out the Deva.
A Deva instantly kills Dace, while a Nabassu disables the Rakshasa in the other area.
I bring out a couple of Nabassus to deal with a Greater Wolfwere, but they don't work very well together.
Summoned demons bypass the summoning cap, but unfortunately they won't fight in concert. Not unless you cast Protection from Evil on each one. But they're plenty good on their own. Taking down an epic-level mage or a rakshasa is pretty nice for a level 7 spell.
During the fight with Irenicus, Meidao summons a Nabassu early on. I know it'll attack the other inmates, but I want to see how it goes. Irenicus, as usual, starts casting Time Stop early on. I bring up Sanctuary when I hear the incantation.
It keeps Irenicus off my back, but the other inmates are pretty much screwed.
Then the Fallen Planetar comes after me. Sanctuary is no defense against Planetars. But Meidao has a solution to its vorpal strikes.
Cleric/Mages are very hard to kill.
The Planetar gets distracted and leaves the screen. Meidao hides out in a new Sanctuary spell. Irenicus, seeing no Bhaalspawn to attack, decides to screw with his own summons.
Meidao's clone gets to work. I left her alone and now she's turning our tactics against us.
Irenicus decides his Planetar has suffered enough, and decides to try killing himself instead.
Not sure what's going on his mind, but whatever. I wait out Meidao's clone's Cacofiend spell. For some reason, enemy mages summon Bone Fiends with Cacofiend instead of Nabassus.
Irenicus gets increasingly frustrated with his failed suicide attempts. He tries even harder this time.
He doesn't last long after that.
Irenicus in Spellhold has always had great difficulty handling invisible characters. When his divination spells are exhausted, he doesn't really know how to function.
The only enemy left is Meidao's clone. Energy Blades shut down her spellcasting, Gate increases the pressure, and a Fallen Planetar debuffs the clone's re-cast Stoneskin.
Meidao gets a new HLA, Implosion. It holds the target with no save, and deals enough damage to chain it with Power Word: Stun. With the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power, it's sort of an instant kill combination against any critter without spell protections or immunity to hold effects.
We're in City Sushi now, and nobody there is in a position to challenge us. Meidao is immune to their deadly bolts by virtue of the Shield of Reflection, and also the Ring of Free Action, and also Chaotic Commands.
Comments
At the risk of being an idiot: I remember actually trying to load FixPack with EE+SCS+Tweaks and failing once. Is FixPack actually compatible with EE? (Someone once said no, I think. -- Also, I use a Mac.)
Related note: In EEKeeper, I checked, there are multiple Rings of Free Action. Do any of them reliably give Prot from Stun?
How about EEKeepering both the "correct" ring and the "correct" Priest spell Free Action to protect from Stun? Would that work?
(I think it the default setup is fair in that Stun is an all too easy game ender.)
I don't know how to make new kits in EE yet, so I just replaced the Cleric of Lathander kit. She doesn't have Boon of Lathander.
I designed a unique spell, which the overwritten Cleric of Lathander CLAB file applies at every level, 2 seconds after leveling up. This means the cleric's inventory gets completely wiped clean.
I used the same thing to remove certain spells from my Bog Witch and Sun Druid kits. I then add in all of the spells via EEKeeper, since it's faster than designing a custom spell to do the same thing. There are a lot more than I gave to the Bog Witch or Sun Druid.
Aside from Spell Immunity and I think Fire Shield, none of them will trigger the Cowled Wizards' attention.
This is a solo run, because why not. Wraith form and Dimension Door are at my disposal in this run, and the former is an excellent tanking spell.
But with abysmal THAC0 and damage output, Poppy can't do much to the Duergar. The spell runs out, and the Duergar's little bits of damage build up, nearly slaying her by the end.
She's almost out of spells already, and it's only the second fight (we told Aataqah to buzz off, as usual). I know I can rest more than once, but I understand SCS is supposed to only permit one rest period, and I want to follow that rule.
Poppy's cat familiar steals the Sewage Golem Key, but can't fight off the Mineral Mephit. I have to tuck the cat into my pack. We try a Spook spell when we can't kill the Mephit, but the Mephit doesn't stop attacking, even though it goes yellow. A Horror spell, however, gives us the room to cast Polymorph Self. Now the battle is a cinch.
Despite the spell description, ogre form in EE still does 4d6 damage, and it comes with haste, making it a fantastic backstabbing tool for thieves, and a powerful asset to clerics and Blades with Righteous Magic or Offensive Spin, both of which maximize the 4d6 damage and bump it up from 14 base damage to 24.
Haste comes with certain drawbacks, however. It speeds up poison effects, which means even perfect timing with Slow Poison isn't enough to cure a poison trap. She has to return to natural form to get rid of the haste and therefore cast Slow Poison without being disrupted. All that poison damage takes its toll.
Notice the Protection from Normal Missiles cylinder. That's because we have no Stoneskin and the Duergar are very dangerous with their crossbows. We ditched Stoneskin in favor of memorizing Polymorph Self, for the combat abilities, and Improved Invisibility, to let us nab the Girdle of Bluntness without the Duergar Mage charming us.
But midway through the fight with the Duergar past the Otyugh room, Polymorph Self runs out. And when I check my innates, I see something odd.
I have access to spider form. Even though Polymorph Self ran out.
I return to normal form to use a spell, and get badly hurt by the end. I notice another oddity when I check the inventory screen, which explains why I took so much damage from the Duergar.
Apparently, if you switch from one shapeshift to another, and only then return to natural form, all of your equipment gets effectively unequipped. Poppy had her armor on, but the AC bonuses didn't apply. This doesn't happen if you go directly from a shapeshift to natural form, but going from ogre to spider form does cost you your active effects. This can be fixed by simply re-equipping your stuff while shapeshifted, but you can't do this with armor or robes mid-combat.
Now we have permanent access to spider form, and I want to know why. I remember that I was trying to shapeshift during that last fight, but then the "Shapeshift Natural Form" spell, which you automatically cast at the end of the Polymorph Self spell, took effect. Somehow, shapeshifting as the spell ended allowed one of the forms to persist.
To test this out, I rest again, re-cast Polymorph, and then count the rounds. I quick-save before the spell runs out, and then time my next shapeshift so it occurs just as the spell is ending. It works.
Now she has permanent access to Flind form. But her spider shapeshift vanished.
I check the spell file. Apparently, there's a Remove Spell opcode at the end of the Polymorph Self spell, but using a shapeshift uses the Give Innate Ability opcode to let you re-cast the shapeshift. If you get the Give Innate Ability opcode to trigger after the Remove Spell opcode, you get to keep the spell. You can do this by shapeshifting at the last possible moment, but there's only about a 0.6-second period in which this works.
I tweak Shapechange and Polymorph Self so they end in 7 seconds, and confirm that the trick works for both spells. But you can only get one shapeshift from each spell.
Poppy is interesting, but I want to explore this thing further. I decide to create a new character.
Another such problem is dispelling the slayer weapon or tanking it with mirror image which gives permanent access to slayer, one could kill the charname but keeps the immunities while the other loses the immunities but keeps everything else.
The Alliance
A no-reload 4-character modded IWD run
Kresselack's Tomb part 1
As the companions stepped through the entrance, they could see that this tomb was indeed far more grand than any of the others in the Vale. There weren't any defenders within the entrance chamber, but through a door was a much larger room guarded by many skeletal undead.Two passages led off from the large room, as well as two locked doors and a large double door that led deeper into the tomb. Gudrun decided to clear the lesser passages before moving on. The party fell into their familiar routine, with Darien scouting for traps and enemies and Gudrun leading them into combat.
They collected enough loot that Gudrun needed to use one of the tombs as a cache.
Don't you just love the inventory management minigame?
Neither do I.
I want my bag of holding.
Next they tackled the doorways. The door to the East was locked, but the key was behind the door to the West, guarded by a wight.
Dum dum duuuuuuum...
The party now moved to the huge doors at the back of the large chamber. Gudrun used a symbol of Myrkul found in one of the tombs as a key. Behind the doors, a creature calling itself Mytos, a bonedancer of Myrkul ordered the party to leave, but Gudrun was adamant about investigating the tomb. Mytos retreated and sent temple guardians to attack the group.
Once these had been beaten, Darien scouted forward to find Mytos. He remained hidden while the others moved up and attacked. Mytos was able to cast a spell but it only affected Darien, and because he was hidden, the monster didn't even know he was there. Once Mytos was dead, Gudrun stood guard over Darien until the spell wore off.
The group now had three passageways to explore, they picked the left one first. Down the left corridor was an area that just screamed "trap!" They dealt with the skeleton archer guards from a distance. Then after a heated discussion, it was decided that Darien would search the chamber at the end of the hallway while the others waited beyond the last of the obvious alcove doors. Gudrun had wanted to go, but Darien had argued that he was the most likely to avoid a trap and that she was better able to affect a rescue.
Darien didn't find any obvious triggers, but the instant he touched the sarcophagus, the alcoves sprung open to reveal more skeletons. He quickly downed his potion of invisibility, just as the more insidious feature of the trap activated. A sleep spell blanketed the chamber and Darien fell unconsious. The mindless guardians walked right by him as they converged on Gudrun. She and the others smashed them one by one, destroying the last one as Darien woke up.
Back in the central room, the party explored the center passage, where they found a shrine to Myrkul guarded by a shadowy undead and a few skeletons.
With their spells used up and their inventories full, the companions called it a day and went back to town to rest and replenish.
Identification time
They rested a full day so Dunathain could identify all their treasure. Gudrun donned gauntlets of weapons skill. Darien equipped a longsword +1, short bow +1 and a ring of shadows. They sold off a magic warhammer and another magic shortbow, replenished their potions and headed back to the tomb.
The right passageway was a narrow switchback guarded by traps and skeleton archers.
In a secret chamber, they killed their first mummy.
The final door was guarded by two temple guardians. With those taken care of, the group cached their treasure in the mummy's tomb and prepared to enter the second level of the complex.
But since I'd just restart the game and try again if I failed, even though it'd take 5 slow minutes of waiting each time I made the attempt, I tweak the Shapechange spell so I can just click the right shapeshift right afterward.
To gain access to Limited Wish and therefore Shapechange without Use Any Item, I need mage levels or bard levels. After considering a Fighter/Mage multi-class, a Skald, and a Blade, I decide against them. A Fighter/Mage is already very conventionally powerful, and I'd be too tempted to use bard song stacking at epic levels. Also, bards will have poor THAC0 when shapeshifted, and have difficulty hitting certain critters in ToB.
A mage dualed to fighter, however, has excellent THAC0 and fighter HLAs later on. I roll a huge stat total and bring back an old portrait, along with Alora's delightfully obnoxious voice set. It's Molly, a recurring but relatively rare name for me.
Early troubles give us grief.
But very careful management lets us slip past most of the obstacles. A Flame Arrow scroll even helps us bring down the Ellesime clone, though we're not strong enough to take on Ilyich without another rest period. Fully buffed, we're safe enough to grab the Girdle of Bluntness without the mage destroying us, but ogre form renders the mage a moot point.
Outside Chateau Irenicus, Molly sells off all excess equipment and, with the Ring of Human Influence and a Friends spell, can barely afford a Limited Wish scroll. We choose the Shapechange often and Molly uses the EE shapeshifting trick to gain access to both spider form and Iron Golem form.
Why these two? In a word, they compensate for the other one's weaknesses.
Iron Golem form has base 1 APR with 4d10 base damage and 24 STR. It has immunity to all elements, 100 magic resistance, and 20% physical damage resistance. It has a huge circle and therefore can't fit in most places. It's a fantastic anti-mage tank thanks to its MR, but its AC is only 3, and its DEX only 9. This means, ironically enough, this massive iron titan would easily get chopped up by a gang of enemy fighters, even in the early game.
The spider is much better equipped to handle fighters. Its AC is well below zero. It only does 1d4 damage with 16 STR, but it has 4 APR plus haste and deals 1 poison damage per 2 seconds for 6 rounds. There is no save. This means 18 damage per hit, disrupting spells for 6 rounds, just like the vanilla Insect Plague. It's totally unreasonable and I love it.
Molly dual-classes to fighter after level 9, just in case I need Spell Immunity at some point. She struggles at first due to her awful THAC0, but gains levels quickly. I make a point of buying the Nymph Cloak early on. I've taken a shine to the cloak, as it easily grants 20 CHA, the maximum possible for store discounts, and its charm ability is very powerful, lasting 12 hours and demanding a save vs. breath instead of a save vs. spell, making it excellent against mages. It has terrible range, however, so only the Ring of Human Influence can charm the Beshaban fanatic before triggering the timer for Viconia's burning. I like turning enemy spells back against them.
We pay a visit to the Umar Hills, using Iron Golem form to deal with the Killer Mimic. Unlike in vanilla SCS, EE SCS apparently no longer grants immunity to hold effects to characters in spider form. It gives them immunity only to the web projectile, which means Mimic Glue and other hold effects can still disable Molly. Iron Golem form might not block the glue, but it will block the Mimic Acid, which is enough to keep Molly alive.
While visiting Trademeet, we were given a sharp warning by a Wild Tiger.
The same casting time of 1 that makes the shapeshifting trick possible also exposes it to disruption. It only restores itself after the spell is cast, so having it disrupted means we have to rest to get it back. We need the Amulet of Power or Robe of Vecna to hold on to our shapeshifting. The Wild Tiger's low attack roll, at a mere 5, also shows the Iron Golem's poor AC.
I ventured to Watcher's Keep, only to be informed that the quest had already been completed.
How nice. I decide to ignore the bug, since that's my normal ending and I can still enter Watcher's Keep. I can't deal with level drain, even with 100 MR, so most of the first level has to wait. I just bop a golem on the noggin and leave.
The Iron Golem attack strikes a +4 weapon, while the spider's is only +1, and I believe Stone Golems are immune to +1 weapons and below. Also, goelms are immune to the spider's poison.
With Iron Golem form, I no longer have to fuss with stuff like the Ring of Air Control or Minor Spell Deflection. 100 MR simplifies a no-reload run dramatically. But it does make some encounters look rather unfair.
I particularly enjoy turning an unfriendly trap against the enemy.
The Iron Golem form can't fit in many places, but the collision detection in this game will teleport you a few feet away if you can't fit. I can slip through a doorway sometimes like this, but it's very situational.
Iron Golem form is quite cumbersome. Positioning can have a major impact on gameplay, and Iron Golem form turns you into an unmoving wall.
The Iron Golem form, interestingly, is not immune to all spells.
Another, more important weakness is that shapeshifting into the Iron Golem consistently creates a very small invisible block which cannot be crossed. You can see where that block lies, between Molly and her target.
The Nymph Cloak is hardly necessary, since the enemy is basically toothless. But it's quite fun anyway. Sanasha is my traditional target, but Prebek is closer this time.
We see a strength of the Iron Golem form soon after. The Iron Golem's wide circle helps it box in its targets.
I consider taking on Pai'Na, but I don't have a way of getting rid of those spiders. I decide to go get the Efreeti Bottle from Trademeet, and get rid of the other djinn while I'm at it. I can't interrupt a genie's spells in SCS, but Iron Golem form is not necessary to block Flesh to Stone. Now that Molly has recovered her mage levels, she can cast Protection from Petrification. This means we can slay the djinn right through their Stoneskins.
I move on to the Druid Grove, but find to my surprise that the Trolls are immune to poison once they fall down. Poison damage can no longer take the place of acid or fire damage. I have to fight them in natural form, with a new weapon (for some reason I don't consider using the Efreeti Bottle). The Flail of Ages is next.
A Troll surprises me at the entrance. Aside from casting both Protection from Fire (!) and Protection from Lightning (?) at the start of battle, he nails me with Flame Strike.
But the Troll, and whoever gave him that Protection from Fire spell, apparently didn't realize that buffs don't carry on after a Troll falls down. A Flame Arrow puts the Troll down, despite its Protection from Fire pre-buff.
I don't want to fight any more Trolls here. I just want to get the Flail of Ages, or at least a version that can deal acid or fire damage. This means I either steal from the golems or kill Glaicas. But unfortunately, I need the Keep Key to get to either of those places, and the key is right next to a Yuan-ti Mage.
The solution is a simple Potion of Invisibility, right after grabbing the key turns Molly visible.
BP apparently adds an extra Iron Golem to the De'Arnise Hold, but you can still attack them individually.
I only grab the flail head and war hammer. I consider fighting Glaicas, but Trolls block the way to his room.
I'd have to break my invisibility and suffer a torrent of Trolls if I was to get to Glaicas, retrieve the last flail head, and forge the full flail. Instead, I stick with the +2 version.
I spot two oddities on the way out. For one thing, the Yuan-ti don't attack the humans even after delivering their battle cries. They just sit there, waiting for me to appear.
Also, the humans turn hostile, forcing me to drink another potion to escape. The De'Arnise fighters turn against their captain.
I don't usually bother to correct bugs unless they prevent something important from happening. Molly's infinite spider and golem shapeshifting probably indicates I'm not too bothered by realism, so Captain Cernick fighting his own men doesn't much trouble me.
I only fuss with Dalok. Since the spider shapeshift from Polymorph Self poisons without a saving throw, even druids can't escape it. Dalok is powerless. When I get boxed in, I use Horror to decrease the enemy pressure.
I only wanted Gnasher, so I run away after Dalok goes down. Cernd kills Faldorn, I get another lump of money from Trademeet, and I buy the Robe of Vecna for Molly. Next up, the Unseeing Eye quest, or at least part of it.
Turns out Gauths can see through invisibility. Somehow.
It doesn't follow me, so at least there's that.
Out of curiosity, I check the trigger that spawns in Vampiric Mists near Gaal. Turns out there's a spot you can walk around, and avoid the whole thing. This is why I like CTRL-R.
Then I walk over a trap and die.
My buffs were useless; it was Prismatic Spray. Iron Golem form can let you survive traps, but it's too big to actually walk over many of them.
I decide to reload. I'm not yet tired of exploiting this trick. This time, I drink two Potions of Invulnerability to give Molly negative saves.
Notice that it forces a save vs. wands, not a save vs. spell. Certain solo runs could fail due to this difference.
The Potion of Invulnerability also let Molly survive the next Gauth that sees her, plus the petrification trap nearby. Note that you can walk around the petrification trap by edging around the north side. There are a lot of triggers and traps in BG2 that you can walk around.
There's actually only one reason I came here. I reduced Molly's DEX to 7 so I could use Limited Wish for Shapechange without drinking a Potion of Insight, but it's very bad for my AC when I'm trying to use spells. I grab the Gauntlets of Dexterity and slip away.
I'm about ready to side with Bodhi, but I want to finish the Mae'Var questline first. This means I have to kill Rayic Gethras. I pounce on him in spider form and poison him twice before his buffs trigger.
I spend the next few rounds trying to break through his Stoneskins in Iron Golem form, to keep myself safe from his Fire Shield, but the poison ends up killing him.
Despite our equipment, Molly gets badly torn up by Mae'Var's goons, losing several potions in the process.
But they can't backstab her in Iron Golem form, so Molly can just chunk them one by one. Finally, Mae'Var's defenses run out, and Molly charms him with the Nymph Cloak. Things are looking bad for Mae'Var.
He Breaches himself and then is chunked in a single blow.
Next, I go to the Windspear Hills. Molly's THAC0 appears too low to hit the Ruhk Transmuter reliably, even in Iron Golem form with its 24 STR. Meanwhile, the rakshasa easily hits Molly.
I realize I have no chance against the rakshasa. Even with immunity to its many spells, I can't go toe to toe with it and survive. Besides, I don't actually need the Ring of Fire Resistance in the first place, since Iron Golem form has a base 125%.
I trigger the spawn point for the undead room and decide to leave when I see it.
I know Daystar can take down a whole pack of vampires, but to get Daystar in my installs, you have to fight a Lich, and with a base save vs. spell of 1, it shouldn't be possible for a Lich to die to Daystar itself. I can tank its spells okay, but not its summons, and last I checked, I couldn't leave the Daystar Lich's room until the Lich was dead.
2 - Male
0 - Pick - Elf
0 - Multiclass
5 - Cleric/Illusionist
6 - Chaotic Neutral
0 - NO Rerolls, I can only modify what it gives me at the start.
1 - Male1(I'll just do whatever fits)
Name: Ipapos
Party(1d29):
4 - Branwen
13 - Jahiera
8 - Edwin
1 - Ajantis
12 - Imoen
Lucked out on the first roll:
Str 10
Dex 16 - apparently 16 is the minimum?
Con 11
Int 18
Wis 17
Cha 10
Total 82 points
"Cheese" feels okay for me to use, but it feels weird for me to use a "cheat."
So the first thing we did was go to the Friendly arm Inn and pick up Jahiera, Tarnesh fell easily due to command.
Then the party went to Beregost where a wild mage appeared and brought a group of red wizards after her... she died in the ensuing conflict, and Jaheira did as well. Imoen decided to return to the Friendly Arm Inn and raise Jaheira, and then go North and pick up Ajantis.
We returned to Beregost and killed Silke
We then went South to Nashkel, picked up Edwin then Branwen, and then killed Zordral.
Then I sat around stupidly for a few moments and was playing around with the tombstones in front of the temple of Helm in Nashkel. The ensuing fight took lots of kiting and raising with Nashkel guards doing most of the killing and dieing due to the phoenix guards... the party won in the end, only for some strange reason, Daer'Ragh didn't drop a ring of fire resistance. Always thought he did.
Character - Level
Ipapos - 1,1
Ajantis - 2
Jaheira - 2,2
Imoen - 2
Branwen - 2
Edwin - 1
She didn't get hit by a vorpal strike; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that, in order to avoid a vorpal strike, she had to leave Iron Golem form. Otherwise she would have gotten boxed in sooner or later, and would have been forced to revert to natural form or spider form. She chose natural form, to make sure she maintained her Robe of Vecna bonus.
She hasted herself and ran out the door, but since the Fallen Planetar didn't follow us out, I decided to go back inside and face them. I drank a Potion of Magic Shielding to block an Insect Plague spell, but by fleeing the Fallen Planetar's attacks, I avoided getting hit by the Insect Plague's very slow projectile. This gave Lavok enough time to cast Remove Magic, taking away our guaranteed saves, right before an Insect Plague spell hit.
Molly failed her save vs. breath and panicked. With an Oil of Speed she drank earlier, she was able to outrun the Planetar and avoid a vorpal strike, but she had no defense against Comet.
The EE shapeshifting trick isn't sufficient by itself to guarantee success in a no-reload SCS run, but it comes fairly close. One of the problems with basing runs or character builds on special tricks is that you sometimes neglect to compensate for the trick's limitations. In this case, the large circle of Iron Golem form meant that it was impossible to maintain both immunity to magic and a healthy distance from the Fallen Planetar's vorpal strikes. Iron Golems are bad at running, so anything that can bypass MR can potentially doom an Iron Golem.
I think I saw what I needed to see regarding the shapeshifting trick. There wasn't that much to explore, which is fine. It was a simple build with pretty clear strengths and weaknesses.
Also, it seems that shapeshifting ability scores in EE can be overridden by items, unlike in vanilla. For instance, I managed to get Molly to 18 DEX in Iron Golem form by re-equipping the Gauntlets of Dexterity. It was also possible to increase her spider form's STR to 18/00 using the Gauntlets of Ogre Power. This means the Iron Golem could be a much more effective melee tank than I previously suspected.
I think it is actually powerful enough to solo BG1.
If only I could send it back in time to prevent Sarevok from killing Gorion in the first place.
Wait!!
What if Sarevok *WAS* my Simulacrum -- perhaps I have caused a temporal loop of inescapable consequences in my arrogance.
Oh, why wouldn't I listen to my future self warning me about that!
There is still the odd Phoenix Guard roaming around Nashkel now, but the party decided to leave Nashkel, to avoid further explosions. The first person we encountered was a swordsman named Greywolf, who was put to sleep and commanded to unconciousness while Ajantis and Jaheira smashed his imobile form.
Then the party moved into the Cloudpeaks, and had a few difficult fights, the most difficult was Zal, since he always hit his target... always. sleep and command was used liberally in this engagement. We also killed Sendai's hunting squads, and gave Rufie back to the devil Albert.
We then returned to Nashkel, and then went back further into the Cloudpeaks. We ran into some Gnolls, who challenged Ajantis to a fight, Ajantis easily killed their leader and the others fled. Then we saved a dryad's tree from two lumberjacks, and retrieved a child's cat from the bottom of a waterfall. Then another gnoll ran up to the party and we killed it as well, only it had a decent halberd.
The next thing the party did was go to the destination, the Gnoll Stronghold. We killed the hill giants on the bridge, and then Ajantis threw on the hill giant's gloves. Ajantis proceeded to wade through the Xvarts to the South of the Stronghold and then we turned North and assaulted the stronghold itself. Edwin fell before the real fighting began, and Branwen fell near the end.
Character - Level
Ajantis - 3
Jaheira - 2,2
Imoen - 4
Branwen - 3
Ipapos - 2,2
Edwina - 2
I've also used PnP Free Action from Spellhold Studies in EE on a Mac. If you can't get Free Action Protects Against stun working, you may want to try that approach. Consider reverting Arbane if you install PnP Free Action.
Presumably it's possible to revert to the pre-Fixpack files, although I haven't tried that. It could provide a simple, easily implemented, though less consistent solution.
Good hunting!
Best,
A.
I just discovered that which probably was obvious to all the experts here: they are game breakingly powerful.
Below are screenshots from Twisted Rune:
- In Summary: Aerie's Deva single handedly (i) instakills the Ubervampire; (ii) kills the fighter Revanek during Layenne's Time Stop just standing there with Globe of Blades active; (iii) kills the Elder Orb by beating it over the head (with some spell-peel-off help from the party).
Layenne got beat up by a Zaaman Rul (Flamestrike can hit through his Globe of Invulnerability).
The Lich got peeled off and beaten by the rest of the party (wherein I discover the almighty TIME STOP + Improved Alacrity combo for myself).
Imoen was close to death, but her contingency->Imp. Inv. kept her alive as she was running around Feared like a headless chicken.
** I am beginning to see why SCS makes changes to these encounters. (My install only employs AI improvements, but does not upgrade the opponents.)
After kicking righteous the booty with the Twisted Rune, I have decided NOT to use HLAs in the rest of SoA. Even the Dragons (Fire & Shadow) were no match with some (obviously justified) preparation without HLAs.
Even Irenicus (first form).
Irenicus as Slayer is different story altogether, which I shall post when I have the time...
I'll just copy and paste my ramblings from the Bioware forums about my criteria for selecting spells.
[Spoiler]Anyhow, that's the theme of this run. Four sorcerers, each with one of the four classic elements, with one non-bender, a Monk, thrown in for good measure. All spell picks will attempt to stay consistent with the themes of the benders portrayed in the show.
Air: Good for maneuverability, and not getting hit via miss chances. Offensively not that great, though, so very few, if any, direct damage spells. The Invisibility spells, most Illusion spells, and buffs like Haste and Teleport Field fit quite well with air benders. Several Abjurations also work, though nothing that gives armor, generally. I might bend this (pun semi-intended) and give my Airbender Shield just so he has something resembling defense.
Water: Waterbenders are shown primarily in two fashions, one I can't replicate with a sorcerer since it involves healing. The other one tends to turn the opponent's strength against them, or even breaking it down. So I'm relegating Water mostly to destroying defenses as well as things that work thematically like Spell Turning and Ice Storm and Slow. There's a subtype of water benders called Bloodbenders, generally evil that can control other people's blood (!) and make them do whatever they want. Domination-type spells are thus also going to be added to the allowances for water.
Earth: Defense, invulnerability, and terrain control. These are the guys that can weather any type of attack with relative impunity, not by dodging it but by just taking it head on and blocking it. I have no idea, really, how to pull this off in 2e. I'm thinking battle-field control, since they can also do that by messing with the terrain. Lower-levels, at least, will probably see Web and Grease as two of the more potent spells. Interestingly enough, the fact that Earth exists as its own element means that no other of the sorcerers will be even allowed to take Stoneskin.
Fire: Offensive spells, finally. Damage via Fire and Lightning will be the norm for this guy, with few if any protective buffs besides Pro. Fire to stop him from incinerating everything and everything including himself. I'll be rolling her as a Dragon Disciple for even more flame fun. If anything has Fire immunity though, she'll be cowering helplessly in the corner, unable to do anything. At least Trolls shouldn't be a problem.
I'll figure out which spells belong solely to which benders when I get to each spell level: I know Sequencers and Contingencies are going to be allowed for all, but nothing beyond that.[/spoiler]
Mods are again full SCS including all tactical encounters, Rogue Rebalancing, and BG2Tweaks.
Benders in Baldur's Gate, Introduction
I decided on making my PC the Earthbender, because he's the only one going to be allowed Stoneskin. I thought I might as well attempt to survive backstabs, so here we are.
Tarvol, the Earthbender
[Spoiler]
Picture created (?) by darcprinces of the Soliaonline forums, third post on this page.
Lana, the Airbender
[Spoiler]
Probably my favorite picture of the bunch, created by c-dra of Deviantart and found here
Jun, the Waterbender
[Spoiler]
Water took me the longest to find; I think I spent around 90 minutes before I found this here by SolKorra, of Deviantart and was satisfied.
Flare, the Firebender
[Spoiler]
This one was a no-brainer. Meet Shu, by Yamino, again from Deviantart.
Rigor, the... Monk.
For reasons, one non-bender/caster has to be included here. Monk fits the theme entirely too well.
[Spoiler]
Picture, I think, from either gaiaonline or Heroes' United. Or something called Ragnarok. I really can't figure out the source of this bugger.
So, divvying up the level 1 spells (first two are the ones currently known.) If a spell can thematically go to two or more, I'll allow multiple sorcerers access to them.
Earth: Armor, Grease. Pro. Petrification, Chromatic Orb, Shield.
Water: Charm person, Chill Touch, Grease, Identify, Magic Missile.
Fire: Shocking Grasp, Burning Hands, Spook, Pro. Evil, Magic Missile.
Air: ... I somehow have Blind as one of my picks here. It makes 0 sense thematically, so I'll be swapping it out via EEKeeper. Color Spray, Reflected Image. (... most useless spells in BG2 ever...) Shield, Friends, Magic Missile.
If I hit level 4, I'll post again on divvying up the level 2 spells; Air gets a few bones here (Blur! Invisibility! Mirror Image!)
The Alliance
A no-reload 4-character modded IWD run
Kresselack's Tomb part 2
Descending the stairs to the next level of the tomb, the party found themselves in a grand entrance hall. Darien checked carefully for traps, but the defenses were far more devious than just simple trip wires. Once he and Gudrun had gone a third of the way into the hall, tattered skeletons came out of the walls to attack. The pair were quick enough to retreat to the antechamber, where Gudrun blocked the door while the others joined the fight with missile weapons.Dem bones, dem bones...
Once the last of the skeletons had fallen, Darien scouted forward. He first encountered skeleton archers on the stairway then, after those were dealt with, he found three spellcasting undead guarding a large central chamber. Gudrun eased cautiously forward and launched a fire arrow at a skeleton mage. She missed and the creature cast a stinking cloud at her. She nearly succumbed to the stench, actually falling momentarily unconscious. Luckily she was able to leave the cloud before the undead could follow up. As the group waited for the air to clear, they could hear the monster chanting spells on the other side.
Gudrun was soon able to move forward again, she attacked with fire arrows to get the skeleton mage to chase her back to the rest of the party, but found that the monster was more fragile than she'd thought.
Now they concentrated on the two imbued wights, Gudrun was able to disrupt the first one's casting, but the second hit her with magic missiles. The result was still the same.
Gudrun levels up
Darien could now scout the large chamber fully. He found tattered skeletons and temple guardians along the walls and several regular skeletons milling about in the back of the room. Gudrun got down to the business of defeating the enemy in detail.
After clearing the tattered skeletons from the left and right of the room, Celebrian was out of healing spells and they were getting low on potions. With their packs full of the enemy's weapons, they went back to town to rest and replenish.
Returning the next day, the companions continued to pile up the bones of the undead guardians, finally clearing the entire central chamber and gaining the treasure in the sarcophagus, which included a mage dagger, a wand and several scrolls and potions.
It's sad when I'm more excited about a place to stash my loot than I am about the loot I find in that place.
The group now cleared the two open chambers leading off the main room.
In the North was traps and treasure. Another wand, a magic morningstar, and more scrolls and potions.
In the South was tattered skeletons and an imbued wight.
The party moved on to the two closed doors, behind the South door, they found:
Skeletons
More skeletons
And a door they couldn't open
They also found a magic katana that Darien eyed longingly. He hoped it wasn't cursed. On to the North door:
More skeletons
Zombie chunkin'
Darien found the key to the Southern door. Returning there, he found and disarmed three traps set right in front of the door. Then Gudrun led the way into the room. It was heavily guarded by a group of temple guardians and a pair of ghasts.
Three cheers for UH immunities
Hip hip hooray
Level ups
In the chamber beyond the guards, they found a magic talisman with the same wolf-paw design as at the tomb's entrance. With this in hand, Gudrun unlocked the doors at the back of the central room.
It was tempting to continue on, but spells were empty and inventories were full, time to head back to town.
Identification time
Dunathain took the sling +1, Darien replaced his magic longsword with the katana +1, and Gudrun donned the black wolf talisman. They sold the morningstar, mage dagger, Darien's longsword and the two wands, gaining enough money for this:
Woo hoo
One last rest to regain spells, a few more potions, and then it's off to the next level of the tomb. To be continued...
I have big plans for this one, and to my surprise, she's actually doing quite well. She's at 2 million XP right now and we haven't had a single close call. I suppose it's because cleric/mages are fantastic tanks, and the class I'm most familiar with.
As a Lawful Evil character, she gets an Imp, which can cast Polymorph Self. I hadn't thought about this, but it's very convenient. Although it nearly dies in the first battle to the lightning bolt that summons the first Mephit.
Her strategy for the Duergar is quite safe. Summons and the Imp familiar, in spider form for the AC bonus, hold the fort while Meidao stands back and throws out disablers, while Protection from Normal Missiles wards off any stray bolts.
I've decided that a character who can maintain invisibility during rest periods should be able to rest multiple times in Chateau Irenicus, so we don't have to ration spells, an art I've fine-tuned for this dungeon but do not actually like.
The Duergar Mage is a potential problem, as I do not have Minor Spell Deflection to block a Charm Person Minor Sequencer. But he can't cast more than 1 spell every 6 seconds, so I send in a Skeleton Warrior to bait his first spell.
Now that his aura is fogged, I can rush in and nail him. The Imp strikes once, sealing his doom.
We find a scroll of Symbol Fear as well as a Potion of Mind Focusing, and the resulting 22 INT gives us a 98% chance of successful scribing. But BG2 has never been good at probabilities.
We let Hareishan well alone and slip past the Assassins, as Meidao has no Stoneskin to block a backstab, only AC and Mirror Image. The Imp poisons Kalah. Meidao messes with Kalah as her fellow gnome clings to life.
With the loot we've gathered, we buy some Potions of Genius and scrolls to fill up Meidao's spellbook. We also pick up the Shield of Reflection.
Against the early game enemies, Meidao maintains a reliable set of defenses. Remove Fear, Chaotic Commands, Mirror Image, Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Protection from Fire, and Minor Spell Deflection. I notice after one fight that Meidao has a -8 bonus to all her saving throws. Apparently EE actually fixed Improved Invisibility to grant the +4 to saving throws that it was supposed to grant. This is a massive boost for any solo build, and allows Meidao to get guaranteed saves very early in the game.
Meidao uses Minute Meteors for select enemies, relying on her summons to deal with ordinary grunts. Disablers have a huge impact. Even with 9 WIS, she has enough Hold Person spells to consistently immobilize many of Athkatla's early threats.
I'm quite pleased with how we handled Pai'Na. I want summons as a buffer against Pai'Na's spells and her spider form's poison, but I need to clear up her spiders as well, and Fireball would hurt my Skeleton Warriors and animal buddies. The solution? Greater Command.
Pai'Na brings out a heavy hitter, a Cave Bear. It could destroy my summons in a few rounds if left alone. We pick a reliable but short duration fix.
I hit Pai'Na with Lower Resistance, but under sustained pressure from my summons, Pai'Na doesn't survive long enough to see another spell come her way.
I try a new strategy for the slaver compound. I go up the stairs, using a potion to recover after hitting the acid trap, and attack the Priest of Cyric from the doorway. I can duck away if he casts a spell that I can't stop, and Protection from Normal Weapons will negate the presence of the other guards.
But being so far north means the enemy mages hear the fight and join in. Remove Magic renders Meidao utterly defenseless and surrounded.
Meidao got a Spell Immunity scroll from Pai'Na's lair, but she didn't scribe it, preferring to wait until she got some other scrolls so she could drink a couple Potions of Genius and scribe them all at once.
A Potion of Invisibility rescues her and lets her restore her defenses. Meidao preps with Minor Spell Deflection, waits for the enemy's MGOI spells to wear off, and throws out Stinking Cloud. Mages have poor saves vs. death, so Stinking Cloud works very well against them.
Meidao then turns to the melee enemies surrounding her.
The enemy mages are low on spells and can't handle the pressure. Meidao bashes in their big brainy skulls.
I didn't know this at the time, but apparently Meidao was benefiting from a curious APR boost. In EE, if you run out of Minute Meteors, you'll still have 5 APR with your next weapon. It's only worked with melee weapons so far; slings have never gotten the APR boost.
At first, after I realized this was happening, I restricted Meidao from making more than one attack per round. But eventually I decided to just go with it, and eventually Meidao came to rely on melee weapons. A lack of APR, after all, is a cleric/mage's one big weakness, and this trick eliminates it entirely.
It turns out that there's another way to make Polymorph Self outlast its normal duration. But it only works on your familiar. You just put your Imp in your pack after it shapeshifts, and then rest. When it comes out, it'll be stuck in that form forever.
Notice that its spells are grayed out. Being in spider form means that the Imp can't re-cast Polymorph Self, which means it will never be able to return to natural form. Casting Polymorph Other on the familiar and then dispelling it might cure the condition, but otherwise it seems any familiar that does this will be stuck forever.
We move on to the last fight in the Copper Coronet. Protection from Normal Weapons holds off the animals, but is largely unnecessary, with Greater Malison and Stinking Cloud subduing most everything.
Notice she doesn't have Chaotic Commands. Her saves alone are strong enough to keep her awake despite the cloud.
My own RP-orientated run for BG1EE is concluded, and we're moving onto BG2EE soon enough. Hope you enjoy it if you are inclined to check in on the thread.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/44302/maliel-the-bhaalspawn-recklessheart#latest
Meidao goes to the Temple Ruins and uses Protection from Normal Weapons with Fire Shield.
Thanks to SCS, even Skeleton Warriors attack with nonmagical weapons. The enemies burn themselves to death while Meidao watches.
Meidao has no magical weapons, but she can cast Spiritual Hammer, and cleric buffs allow her to do lots of damage every hit.
And thanks to the Minute Meteor trick, she has 5 APR at very low THAC0 and high damage per hit if she pre-buffs with Holy Power or DUHM.
Only the Bone Golems can break through Protection from Normal Weapons, and they go down pretty quickly with the right buffs. Meidao sails through the dungeon with ease.
What about the Shade Lord? Protection from Undead isn't supposed to work in the Shade Lord's clearing, and we have no defense against level drain. But another trick is just as effective. We found a Cacofiend scroll in the dungeon! It's not as powerful as a Summon Fiend scroll, but it's more than sufficient. A Sunstone Bullet takes down the altar; then Meidao turns invisible, buffs with Protection from Evil, and summons the demon from out of sight. The Nabassu tears down Shadow Patrick and the Shade Lord unopposed.
Demons don't give you XP for their kills, but half the XP in this game comes from quests anyway, and demons are crazy powerful. I think they might be worth the XP cost.
One odd thing is that summoned Glabrezus, at least in SCS, are actually a little bit tougher than summoned Pit Fiends. They have almost the exact same stats, but Glabrezus have higher STR and can cast Mirror Image and PW: Stun, while the Pit Fiends can cast Fireball, Improved Invisibility, and Firestorm. The Pit Fiends would be more useful for clearing up large groups of enemies, but the Glabrezus would be much harder to kill. Nabassus, meanwhile, cast Death Gaze (paralysis on a save vs. death, nonmagical) and Vampiric Touch, and are marginally weaker than Glabrezus and Pit Fiends in terms of THAC0 and STR.
One flail head is unguarded. Another is with the golems. The last one is in Glaicas' hands. But the last time I did a solo no-reload and tried to grab that last flail head quickly, I got swarmed by over 20 respawned Trolls. Meidao can't handle that many. But she can turn invisible and cast Teleport Field, which should let her slip away if things get hectic.
On the way, Meidao finds a group of Trolls on the roof and gets ready to tear them down. Then an unexpected enemy appears out of nowhere.
Yuan-ti Mages are one of my less favorite enemies in SCS. They take forever to kill and come with lots of disablers. Meidao turns invisible and tries her luck with a less well-guarded mage downstairs, whom she can see before combat. This lets us land the first strike.
It doesn't put up much of a fight, for some reason. Its demise is actually kind of pitiful.
Back to the mage on the roof. Trolls are blocking the way to the mage, so Meidao lures some away and vanishes before they can reach her.
This opens up the way to the mage. Meidao sneaks over and prepares to take it down in one shot.
I've been looking forward to this. Harm in my install does 150 points of damage, and a cleric/mage with the right buffs could get a near-automatic hit at the beginning of combat, and vanish instantly with the Robe of Vecna.
The result is disappointing.
The mage isn't even at Barely Injured. Stoneskin apparently blocks ALL of the damage from Harm. That mage didn't even have Mirror Image; Stoneskin alone was sufficient.
That's pathetic. Harm only works when a mage is already debuffed. I thought an attack roll would be a sufficient limitation on the power of the spell, but apparently not.
We try Slay Living instead. Meidao rolls a critical miss. We try again.
But it turns out there were more mages out here. Ugh.
It takes multiples tries, but eventually I bring them down with Slay Living. Magic resistance, saves vs. death, and attack rolls can all foil the attempt, but Meidao can always turn invisible and flee.
It's a boring way to fight, and I don't think I'll bother with it again, but I really wanted to get an instant kill on them.
We spot some more mages near the wheel that opens the drawbridge. Meidao remains invisible until she can attack the enemies downstairs. But the mages catch up to her. She slips away. We've not willing to tackle those mages unprepared.
I break invisibility to pick off some of the weaker enemies, though. The mages find us again, but the Robe of Vecna ensures us a quick escape.
I like it better when my characters are the ones abusing invisibility spells. Not Draconis.
Meidao turns out to be pretty tough. Spiritual Weapon and Flame Blade tear apart the Trolls. When a Spirit Troll turns invisible after falling down, her mage spells finish it off.
It goes so well that I decide to go chase down those mages. With their buffs worn out, there's little resistance, and what little there is, Meidao can quickly cut through.
Meidao has recently hit mage level 12 and can now cast Improved Haste. Yes, she attacks 10 times per round now, fully buffed.
We've stalled long enough. It's time to get Glaicas. Some Trolls are blocking the way to his room, but breaking invisibility and restoring it is enough to get them out of the way.
Apparently you can force doors open without breaking Sanctuary. We see Glaicas is not alone this time, however.
I think I only installed the Ascension part of BP, but it seems to have impacted some other things as well. One curious thing about this enemy part is that the thief can lay his own non-disarmable traps.
CTRL-4 doesn't show the trap trigger. This is an invisible critter casting a spell, it seems.
The snare deals poison damage, like a normal 11th-level thief trap, but it's not a problem for Meidao. At 10 APR and 22 STR, she only needs a few seconds to destroy Glaicas. Unwilling to take the time to fuss with his comrades, we make our escape.
I don't know if his buddies would have been challenging or if they would have great loot, but they weren't the problem. I was worried about the local Trolls invading the room and trapping us.
We ignore most of the Trolls on the second level and leave most of the area's loot unlooted. I want to maintain a low profile among the Trolls here, and none of the loot besides the Flail of Ages, now finally complete, is particularly important. We head downstairs and buff up for TorGal.
Apparently the guy has a ranged attack. And he throws some pretty impressive boulders.
Somehow, those boulders break down Meidao's Minor Spell Deflection, as if they were spells. Apparently they have a wing buffet effect as well.
The boulders deal 2d6 missile damage, plus STR bonuses, and have a 20% chance of knocking the target back and stunning them or knocking them out for one round on a failed save vs. breath at -4. They strike as level 4 spells, so spell protections can absorb or reflect the on-hit effects, and Globe of Invulnerability could block the effects entirely.
TorGal goes down easily. With all her buffs active, Meidao can deal over 200 damage per round. When the Flail of Ages can't finish him off even after he falls down, Sunfire speeds up the process.
I don't know how long I'll use the Minute Meteor trick. It's very silly, but I really like seeing a tiny gnomish spellcaster dish out fighter-quality damage. My only problem with it is that it's very easy to discover and to use. The other tricks I've experimented with either required a lot of thought or a lot of luck to discover, and a fair amount of preparation and management to actually use. This one seems a little too easy.
That guy only appears if you're evil. It's some alternate means of solving the Trademeet quest by poisoning the grove. I've never done it before.
With the Flail of Ages, the druids are helpless to defend themselves against Meidao. Ironskins is not good enough to hold off that elemental damage.
Brute force and lots of buffs win every fight on the map. We barely even needed any other spells. Cernd kills Faldorn and we take Trademeet's gold.
Next, the Windspear Hills. We get lucky with a Chromatic Orb early on.
The Ruhk Transmuter is an issue. Meidao drains his spells with Animate Dead and plenty of cardio.
When the rakshasa finds her and tries to debuff her, her aura is clear enough to put a stop to it.
When she finally engages the rakshasa, its PFMW spells are long gone, and with 10 APR and elemental damage, the rakshasa doesn't have the space to cast PFMW or Stoneskin.
We return to Athkatla to do inventory stuff. Meidao is at 2 million XP.
Most Valuable Item: Robe of Vecna
Most Valuable Spell: Invisibility
As strong as Meidao is offensively, she'd be having a very rough time without fast escape options.
As for the MM "thick", it is a bug that happened after the last BG2EE patch, check https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/37859/11061-melfs-minute-meteors-and-energy-blades-apr
For one thing, Meidao just hit cleric level 14. Now she can cast Gate, and with the Sensate Amulet, she has undispellable invisibility to her own Pit Fiends. One of the nice things about Pit Fiends is their fire magic.
We don't get the XP for the kills, but it's a very safe way of dealing with enemies, as they don't seem to have the AI to fight back.
Meidao breezes through the Shadow Thief hideout. With Pit Fiends, Sunfire, and Skeleton Warriors at her disposal, she has excellent offensive power, and as a cleric/mage, she can make herself invulnerable to anything. She also has lots of escape options and can repeatedly retreat from battle to waste enemy prebuffs and restore her own. When she emerges from invisibility, the enemy is partially debuffed, while Meidao's defenses are at their peak.
Now that Meidao has the Amulet of Power, we can return to Firkraag's lair to deal with some vampires we left behind. Before, we snuck past most of the enemies; now we can take down everybody.
Meidao hits 3 million XP and chooses Summon Fallen Deva as her first HLA. We now have a powerful summons with high MR and three castings of Globe of Blades and a level 25 Dispel Magic with an instant casting time. Plus, it can stun enemies on hit, disrupt undead, and see through invisibility. Enemy mages will now be much easier to debuff and undead will become a non-issue.
I pay a visit to Watcher's Keep and slay the Vampiric Wraiths I had been avoiding up until now. I fight everything except for the statues and the lich. On the way out, I level up Meidao and encounter a familiar bug right afterwards.
For some reason, the game thinks I completed Watcher's Keep. I can no longer reach Demogorgon. But the ending is the one I normally pick.
Most Valuable Spell: Gate
That Death Gaze bypass spell protections and holds the target on a save vs. death. Mages aren't very good at making those saves, and their spell protections won't help them.
In Spellhold, we get surprised by a lich. I haven't seen that guy in a while.
I wait out its PFMW spell and bring out the Deva.
A Deva instantly kills Dace, while a Nabassu disables the Rakshasa in the other area.
I bring out a couple of Nabassus to deal with a Greater Wolfwere, but they don't work very well together.
Summoned demons bypass the summoning cap, but unfortunately they won't fight in concert. Not unless you cast Protection from Evil on each one. But they're plenty good on their own. Taking down an epic-level mage or a rakshasa is pretty nice for a level 7 spell.
During the fight with Irenicus, Meidao summons a Nabassu early on. I know it'll attack the other inmates, but I want to see how it goes. Irenicus, as usual, starts casting Time Stop early on. I bring up Sanctuary when I hear the incantation.
It keeps Irenicus off my back, but the other inmates are pretty much screwed.
Then the Fallen Planetar comes after me. Sanctuary is no defense against Planetars. But Meidao has a solution to its vorpal strikes.
Cleric/Mages are very hard to kill.
The Planetar gets distracted and leaves the screen. Meidao hides out in a new Sanctuary spell. Irenicus, seeing no Bhaalspawn to attack, decides to screw with his own summons.
Meidao's clone gets to work. I left her alone and now she's turning our tactics against us.
Irenicus decides his Planetar has suffered enough, and decides to try killing himself instead.
Not sure what's going on his mind, but whatever. I wait out Meidao's clone's Cacofiend spell. For some reason, enemy mages summon Bone Fiends with Cacofiend instead of Nabassus.
Irenicus gets increasingly frustrated with his failed suicide attempts. He tries even harder this time.
He doesn't last long after that.
Irenicus in Spellhold has always had great difficulty handling invisible characters. When his divination spells are exhausted, he doesn't really know how to function.
The only enemy left is Meidao's clone. Energy Blades shut down her spellcasting, Gate increases the pressure, and a Fallen Planetar debuffs the clone's re-cast Stoneskin.
Meidao gets a new HLA, Implosion. It holds the target with no save, and deals enough damage to chain it with Power Word: Stun. With the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power, it's sort of an instant kill combination against any critter without spell protections or immunity to hold effects.
We're in City Sushi now, and nobody there is in a position to challenge us. Meidao is immune to their deadly bolts by virtue of the Shield of Reflection, and also the Ring of Free Action, and also Chaotic Commands.
Most Valuable Spell: Sanctuary.