The conquest of Durlag's Tower is over and I won't do any more of TotSC. Progress with the party was generally easy enough, with the only difficult fight being against Love & co who killed a couple of them. You need to be patient in the Tower to allow time for a thief to discover traps, but that's still much quicker than the last party I took down there of pure fighters .
After using virtually no potion buffs throughout the game, I had intended to splurge with those against the demonknight. However, I'd forgotten until too late that in vanilla a scroll of PfM prevents any use of magic - including potions. However, the party was far too strong for him just attacking with their basic stats anyway.
Everyone had well over 140k XP by the end and were all entitled to level up, though I hadn't actually done so since Sarevok. I did take a final save after the demonknight though and will use that to import to BG2 (if I get that far ).
Next up will be vanilla IWD. I've completed BG1 hundreds of times and that knowledge base meant the odds were good while doing that. I've only been through IWD a handful of times though and not at all recently, so this may be a bit more of a challenge ...
Tobet - gnome F/I (18(46),18,18,19,2,18) used charisma and strength Small sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-166, TotSC-36
Indie - half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25
Brutan - dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23
Nipal - dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56
Chila - elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34
Hapan - gnome F/T (18(00),18,19,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23
A solid roll of 83 began the journey of Resilience. He is a dwarven Wizard Slayer with humble beginnings but rich ambitions! A quick start consisted of killing Shoal with a bow and arrows scavenged from the body of Imoen, grabbing a couple of rings from vicinities of Friendly Arm Inn, talking down a drunk in Feldpost Inn, killing Neera after helping her defend against wizards (after all, all wizards must die) and helping Firebead find his evening reading. A quick visit to Thalanthyr in High Hedge completed the set of inventory containers. Resilience set out to Nashkel, where he killed a misguided clerlic in a local inn, dug out an ankheg shell, which oddly suited him as a piece of armor to finally move on to Nashkel Mines.
My short session ended there.
Here is Resilience before submersion into darkness of Nashkel mines.
And here is his inventory.
My last Wizard Slayer died in the Duchal Palace. Dukes once again dying, this time I feel due to bad horror RNG. I really wish there was something I could do in this fight to make it more consistent. Fingers crossed it goes well for Resilience.
Arthurian Medley BG2 Update 2: Of Slavers and Skinners, told by Armok.
Ach, well, I guess ye do be wanting to know what happened after we left that cursed mage's dungeon. Well, turns out Imoen got herself abducted for casting spells at the mage bugger and we discovered we were in a city named Athkatla, which Morgana had been to with Knell before but Nimue, Caelynn, and meself had never seen. We sold off our junk from the dungeon to a great store called the Adventurer's Mart and then I decided to check out the circus in the hopes of some entertainment. Alas, no entertainment was to be found and we slew many illusions and werewolves (though I do think that not all the werewolves were real) as well as dread shades. Eventually, we came to a bugger named Kalah who was in charge of it all, and slew him and took his ring of Human Influence.
On our way out of the tent, we were given a supposedly magical lamp that Kalah had used to gain his powers, but thought little of it at the time. We headed next to the Den of the Seven Veils inn to make some investigations there and when Morgana went upstairs she saw some buggers wearing her former hat (the Wizzard Hat) as well as carrying me old sword, the Sword of Rage! We prepared with spells and fought valiantly against the deadly buggers up there, and though a perilous thief slew Caelynn with a backstab we were victorious and reclaimed our items. (Out of Character Note: Mencar and Co. are buffed substantially by SCS, and I ended up buffing them further by replacing Smaulev's cursed sword with an uncursed variant of the sword of Berserking and giving Sorcerous Amon an item from SOD that gives -1 casting time. My run nearly ended here after Nimue was hit with Emotion: Hopelessness, but thankfully the party was able to chew through the enemy before they could chew through her Ironskins
We resurrected our cleric, and moved onto the Slums, and after being accosted by some bugger about recovering Imoen we met two buggers who wore my old girdle and Morgana's old cloak. OOC note: I buffed Bregg and Cohrvale in addition to giving them the items that I pseudo-transferred, and Cohrvale did manage to backstab Morgana for around 30 damage (eek) after the Improved Cloak of Non-Detection blocked my detect invisibility and Bregg did some significant damage to Caelynn and lasted much longer thanks to the 1 hp/round regeneration as well as the +1 Strength from the Girdle of Bravery.
We then went into the Copper Coronet where some bugger challenged Nimue to a fight and died soon enough. We then talked to the owner about spending some coin and headed to the backrooms where we met someone engaging in a dalliance! I informed his wife (who was in the Coronet proper) and she proceeded to slay the girl who was with the man.
We proceeded further into the Coronet and found out that the whole thing was a front for a slaving ring after I charmed a courtesan (Ok, mebbe I didn't so much charm her as just talk to her, I've never been able to charm even a rat). We rushed to the back and slew some daft buggers who thought that their puny magery could stand against Knell's weave-cleaving blades. Nimue summoned some Elementals o' Fire (those things give me the creeps, especially bein that they tend to burn things just like Magma) and I spoke to a man named Hendak who I agreed to free. We ran to the Beastmaster and with the aid of the Elementals as well as Nimue's newly-acquired mastery of her Werewolf Form, we were victorious.
We freed Hendak and slew the rest of the corrupted guards and then witnessed Hendak's vengeance against Lehtinan (once we pointed him in the right direction and unlocked some doors). Hendak slew Lehtinan, and thanked us for our assistance (which resulted in Caelynn becoming more powerful). We also agreed to take down some other slavers in the slums.
On our way out of the slums, some mad bugger by the name of Habib chucked 5 scimitars at my head before running away. I swear, some people these days.
En Route to the Promenade to spend some of our gains on better armor, we were attacked by a band of thugs which we slew through force of arms as well as a Holy Smite from Caelynn before she tried to silence the mage and silenced herself and was then paralyzed. We saved her from most o' the backstabs thanks to Morgana detecting their illusions before they could strike.
We headed back to the Slums after buying some better gear for us all after Morgana fleeced multiple fences of all their cash (OOC Note: I only allow sell-stealing if the sell-stealer has 25 Charisma at the time of selling/stealing because in my mind only someone who is insanely persuasive would be able to convince someone to accept goods they'd previously been sold that had then disappeared), and found only the best sword EVER for meself! It talks ta me an also chops foes up a treat. We blew up some Kobolds, Hobgoblins, an slimes (technically didn't blow up the slimes what with them bein immune to most magic) and then headed into the Slaver Ship. Haegan fell to Holy Smites from Caelynn as well as Static Charges from Nimue, and supposedly Morgana went on ahead invisible and destroyed two mages via backstabs. (I say supposedly because I wasn't invited to the mage slaying party until after the mages were dead (on account of me footsteps bein a wee bit clanky), but they sure looked like they'd been backstabbed).
After clearing the slaver ship, we went to the Graveyard and slew many spiders, remembering with chills in our hearts the Cloakwood and its deadly arachnids. We met the leader of the spiders, and she was not a twisted and helpless person like poor Centeol but instead a druid like Nimue who summoned spiders from corpses! I slew her with a mighty blow after Morgana gave everyone but herself and Caelynn a bath o'flames. I still think that it be a wee bit unfair how Nimue and Knell can resist the blasts but I have to take it full on. Ah well, tis the lot of a war hulk.
We headed further into the tomb in the graveyard and met a truly terrifying creature that drained our lives with its very touch (apparently something called a Vampyre) and we retreated in fear after slaying it as quickly as possible. The Nymph that Nimue summoned cured us of our physical ills but couldn't restore Caelynn and Morgana's life energy (which we paid a priest to do).
We headed to the Temple District and after slaying a rival band of highwaymen after Morgana backstabbed their mage (Recovering my Helm of Dumathoin from their fighter) we met a rakshasa wearing a weird cloak that we slew even though Morgana got held by a mage.
Finally, we headed to the Bridge District, where Morgana solved the case of a serial murderer and we then broke into his basement seeking to capture or kill him. Unfortunately, he got away and left a mage (who died quickly to Knell) and multiple Rune Assassins (which hurt like the dickens to get backstabbed by, according to Knell (Who they backstabbed around 3 times, so I guess mebbe he knows what he's talking about)).
If people like the journal entry style I can continue to do it, but if you don't enjoy it feel free to let me know.
@Dracoqwerty A lot of contributers use that style and it is the style that I prefer.
The Journal of the Good, the bad, and the Ugly
We followed Gorion's final advice and made our way to the Friendly Arms Inn killing antything and everything that attacked us as we did so. We found two rings only one of which was useable. At the entrance to the inn itself we were attacked by yet another assassin who died as a result.
It was clear that our plans were known so we didn't hang around but headed north, killing hobgoblins on the way.
On the way we met Sonner who asked us to kill a priestess for them. At first we agreed, but fortunately I had the sense to check their alignment and upon finding them to be evil, I thought that sufficient grounds to kill them. Blackheart also deemed it best to kill them but on the grounds that we could get their magical weapon more easily by killing them. Ugo however had a better idea. "I know that I'm not great at pickpocketting, but we could try that first and if it doesn't, we can still kill them." This we did and we did indeed have to kill them.
The priestess was delighted to get her bowl back and promised a reward in due time.
Nearby we killed a strang beast before carrying on to an area infested with zombies which were quite easy to kill. We then returned Joia's ring before heading for High hedge where we were able to help Mellicamp. My two handed sword broke and I had to replace it in an inn at Beregost. In the same inn I calmed Marl down and bought a tome for Firebead.
After a request by Bjornin we headed south and ended up giving Mirianne some good news.
Returning to the same area we were attacked by some Flaming Fist mercenaries who furnished us all with plate armour.
We ended up at Nashkel where I found a suit of evn better armour.
After that we tried to save Bentha but failed.
Further south we aided Prism against a bounty hunter. The battle was tough but we prevaailed and became heroes in the process.
Being proficient in long swords, Blackheart took Greywolf's sword.
EDIT
I can't believe what happened. I was fighting a greater basilisk with a +1 sword wearing ankheg armour, a ring of protection +1, protected from petrification and it beat me in melee! That has never happened to me before, or even close to it. I brought in the rest of the party but too late! End of game. Time to start again with the same team I think.
Perhaps the basilisk was stronger because I was playing with a party. Certainly that has made a difference elsewhere.
I had cleared all the ankheg, killed Bassilus, Zargal et al previously.
Not having much time, but suffering from a mild tooth ache, which prevent currently is preventing me from going to sleep peacefully, I have decided to squeze in a short visit to Sword Coast.
Quick breeze through the Nashkel mines enriched Resilience with a some loot, which bound to sell for good money. In the Valley of Tombs he also killed a nearby Revenant. I decided to tackle the Baerin's party and it went south, when Baerin killed Korax and one of the priests managed to rigid thinking Resilience, but even with his bow equipped he managed to shoot down Lindin, before Lindin cut down Resilience.
Priests are the bane of wizard slayers. No other class is as annoying as them. I can't wait for the later Wizard levels, when magic resist will kick in hard. Also SoD has a nice long sword for WS with +4 to spell saves.
Resilience convinced Teven to recruit him into the bandits, but the resolute dwarf had no true intentions of joining. Fight in the main tent of the bandit camp was quick - first four arrows shot towards the mage, who died before he could cast a single spell and the rest fell easily in melee. This time I managed to kill Sendai with a lightning trap!
Resilience lured by a glinting armor of Taurgosz aambushed him with an acid arrow and soon torn off the armor of yet warm bandit's body.
I ran through Cloakwood, grabbing the Spider Sword on the way. I usually take the scenic route around the southern parts of the cliffs to go to Centeol's lair to avoid the traps. This time I had done similarly and additionally took a detour the southern edge of the cliffs and found a scimitar + 2 and a cursed ring. Funny, never knew it was there.
Centeol fight is usually pretty easy at this point of the run, couple of arrows her way, melee the first sword spider, one horror and then just grab the sword and ignore the rest of the vermin.
This time around, I wanted Resilience to avoid fightning the female mage on the second level of the mines. I led him towards an entrance to the secret passageway, but my retardance in going down the stair at the exit of the level let the wizard aggro anyway. I kited her towards the secret passagaway and she soon fell to arrows. Battle Horrors were tough this time around, since I decided to melee them to save some time running around the table. Resilience had to take a break in the middle of the fight, but after a short rest Battle Horrors ate dirt. Davaeorn is a tricky fight for a singular reason - he casts Dire Charm. In my previous runs I used a scroll of PfM to avoid it, but after some experimenting with a character there, I found out I could dodge the Dire Charm just changing locations. And here is the line of demarkation, which divides liffe from death. If you a character goes any further, they cannot in time got out of the dungeon (assuming usage of speed footwear).
Resilience currently resides at an Inn in BG after discovering a helmet hidden behind a painting in the Helm and Cloak Inn.
Before trying a re-run with the Good the Bad and the Ugly which I really enjoyed, I thought I would try a run with an Ugly Berserker, Kratz the Half-orc who also has a portrait that I have just found. Bing seems to find these portraits better than Google! ** in katanas, ** in dual wield.
After fleeing from the ambush, I followed Gorion's suggestions to head for the Friendly Arms Inn.
However, on the way, I was accosted by bandits!
They didn't have time to regret their foolishness.
At the FAI I was attacked by yet another assassin. This time I had the aid of the FAI guards who slew him.
Fearing further assassins inside, I headed northwards killing hobgoblins on the way.
I came to a hamlet where I was offered a magical weapon as a reward for killing a priestess of Umberlee.
However deeming it easier to kill them rather than her to get the aforesaid weapon, I proceeded to do just that.
Upon attempting to hide in Baldur's Gate, I was denied entrance by the guard.
I returned the Priestess's bowl and was promised a reward in due time.
After killing a nearbu ankheg, I cleared an area of zombies.
Since I couldn't get into baldur's Gate, I thought that perhaps Amn might be the second best option and hence travelled south calling in at Beregost where I calmed Marl and took a tome from an inn to Firebead. In another inn Bjornin asked me to deal with some half ogres to the south-west and Gurke complained about his cloak being stolen.
Mirianne was pleased when I took news of her husband to her and Mellicamp was delighted to regain his human form.
I went west for a while and came across Shoal who claimed that her behaviour was caused by Droth. In the fight with Droth I believe that rigid thinking or confusion must have been cast as I was unable to do anything of my own volition. I nevertheless beat Droth and after sleeping killed his mate as well.
This supplied me with a second katana.
Nearby I returned Arcand's ring to him and following the coast south came across three sirine which I killed.
I continued my journey to Nashkel and gained some ankheg armour before chatting to Noober and turning down an undeserved reward from Oublek.
Having two katanas meant that the battle against Greywolf was quite easy.
I took Samuel to the FAI and whilst there gave Joia her ring. That made me a hero. I like being a hero as it usually means that when sleeping in a town, I don't have to sleep alone.
I went a little further north and went hunting ankhegs. While doing so I sadly found the body of the son of Farmer Brun.
My reputation is now 20 so time for shopping.
Some of the shopping was at the Carnival and whilst there I helped Bentha.
Heading west, I reunited Albert and Rufie and killed Vax and Zal.
Caldo and Krumm followed by Ingot were killed next.
I then killed a couple of polar bears.
I was rewarded with some snow boots for the latter.
Neville was then killed and I then helped Charleston Nib and Brage.
Arthurian Medley: BG2 Update 3: Nimue's Journal (switching perspectives) Trademet and Trolls
After dealing with that nasty skinner business, we decided to head to the Promenade to see if we could further improve our armor situation so that Caelynn and Knell would stop getting backstabbed. On the way, we were accosted by a violently angry (though not violent, thankfully) man who seemed to hate elves.
We ignored him, found that Caelynn is too weak to wear most armor heavier than splint mail at the moment, Knell can't further protect himself thanks to his Wizard Slayer training, and headed to the CIty Gates, where we agreed to help a city called Trademeet with the problems they were having with animal attacks (I was horrified to hear that animals were being slaughtered so needlessly). We also headed upstairs in the Crooked Crane and seriously injured a Rakshasa who had given Kalah his powers which led to him giving us the codeword for the flask. On the way out of Athkatla, we heard about Black Lotus (obviously a new drug) being smuggled through corrupt guards, but couldn't elicit any useful information or any confession from the crooked law enforcement.
As we arrived, we found animals embroiled in conflict with guards. We tried to stay out of the conflict but one of the spiders webbed Caelynn so we had to intervene on behalf of the guards. After, Morgana drank several potions of Master Thievery and relieved the Djinn guarding the tent of his Efreeti Bottle, and we learned from the High Merchant as well as a fellow lycanthrope named Cernd of the efforts of Faldorn, a druid we'd previously met in the Cloakwood. We also agreed to slay Ihtafeer for
We continued to the Druid Grove, where we slew multiple trolls and Spectral trolls with little to no difficulty. Morgana cast Clairvoyance via a scroll to give us a better view of the area OOC Note: One of my friends recently taught me the value of Clairvoyance in areas like the Druid Grove and I've started actually using that spell now. We killed trolls and then arrived at the troll mound where we met many dangerous trolls including two Giant Trolls and a Spirit troll as well as assorted lesser varieties. The spirit troll managed to wound Caelynn with an Unholy Blight spell and then snuck up behind her and began to drain her Strength with its perilous claws. She managed to escape, but while she was doing so Knell became heavily injured by the giant trolls.
Thankfully, Knell was able to slug a potion of extra healing and we managed to slay the trolls. After that unpleasant encounter, Morgana roasted some spiders with the Wand of Fire and we prepared for the Troll Mound itself. After I summoned an elemental of Fire and Caelynn protected everyone with Protection from Evil 10' radius we entered the mound and while Morgana roasted the trolls with period blasts from the Wand of Fire Caelynn unleashed Holy Smites. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to kill any trolls myself, as my claws (though formidable) are not fortified with fire or acid.
We continued further into the grove and met a greater earth elemental OOC Note: eek! This thing isn't in Vanilla and is added by SCS and Knell slew it after I weathered its assaults using Ironskin. I wasn't expecting to see such evidence of druidic power in this grove.
Moving further in, we aided some druids against trolls but Morgana's assistance via the Wand of Fireball enraged them (Her argument was that she hit more enemies than friendlies that time) and we were forced to slay everyone in the area.
We walked into Adratha's cottage and noticed that she was immune to Caelynn's Detect Evil (which we found highly suspicious). We cast various spells on ourselves and summoned an Efreeti, an Aerial Servant, and a Fire Elemental because we suspected she might be a Rakshasa. We were proven right, and we slew her and her compatriots, though Saadat took the longest to die because he managed to protect himself from magical weapons and Knell wasn't able to shatter his spellcasting until that wore off.
We moved further through the grove, acquired the Scimitar of Speed, Belm, for me to wield in my other hand while transformed, slew some more corrupted shadow druids without much difficulty after Morgana interrupted their spellcasting with the Wand of Fire. We entered the Druid Grove and I challenged Faldorn to a duel. We were both stripped of our equipment, but thanks to my lycanthropy I don't need equipment to kill. I clawed down her ironskins and while she summoned a Nymph to try to slay me I countered by drawing upon the powers of natural electricity and zapping her to death with a powerful static shock. I then claimed the Druid Grove as my first stronghold.
After that, we headed back to Trademeet and turned in Ihtafeer's head to the Djinni after informing Lord Logan of the Grove's purification. We were hailed as heroes of Trademeet, and Caelynn became more powerful.
Character Levels
Nimue: Level 13 Shapeshifter
Armok: Level 12 War Hulk
Knell: Level 12 Wizard Slayer
Caelynn: Level 13 Priest of Lathander (Death Count: 1)
Morgana: Level 11/12 Mage/Thief
Journal of Kratz, Berserker
Upon leaving the temple of Helm where I left Brage, I took the opportunity to give Prism's emeralds to Oublek before heading off to face many basilisks as well as other dangerous enemies.
Being short of gold, I then went hunting ankhegs.
Next, it was the sirines' turn to be hunted. I survived... just.
Rescuing a boy from worgs by contrast was easy.
I then recieved a decent shield when Bjornin heard of my exploits against the half-ogres. By this time I had gained some allies.
We then rescued Dynaheir, left her with Minsc, and picked up Edwin.
After Dorn joined us, I deemed that we were strong enough to deal with the yipping demons in the Nashkel Mines. We were! They turned out to be nothing more than a few kobold who were easily defeated. I rescued Xan and left him at the Carnival before continuing north where Viconia joined us.
Further south we dropped off Kagain and picked up Baeloth. We then joined the bandits at their camp, killed those led by Deke, and killed Tranzig. We have now returned to the bandit camp.
I quickly ran through Iron Throne killing everything in sight on the last floor using a couple of detonation arrows. The same goes with Candlekeep. I do not bother fighting with the leadership of the Iron Throne, I talk with Koveras and kill a suspicious looking scholar, who turned out to be a doppelganger. I discovered there is a scroll of protection from petrification in one of the shelves on the top floor. Resilience rushed to it and then got caught by the nearby watcher. This scroll is a godsend, because Resilience used it in the catacombs to get past the two greater basilisks completely safe.
I finished BG1 in style. This time I got a very fortunate fight in the Duchal Palace. A very good horror RNG and I tweaked my position in this fight to aggro more doppelgangers on Resilience.
The Maze recently ended one of my runs, so I prepared this time with a scroll of protection from lightning and Icingdeath + 3 in hands of the dwarf. Thus, the brave wizard slayer managed to run through the mazed relatively healthy.
Resilience avoided the fight in the Undercity and entered the temple after a short rest in its courtyard.
Fight with Sarevok lacked any excitement. I buffed my character with scrolls of PfMagic, PfPosion and PfFire ensuring mages were non issue and Angelo's arrows are not deadly. I managed to split the fight in two - first fighting the goons of Sarevok and the man, the legend himself. I used arrows of detontation for the goons and then couple of dispelling arrows on Sarevok and finished him with arrows + 2 running around like crazy.
Onto SoD. I missed the Shield of Egons + 2, sadly. The Fanguy did not spawn? I think I broke his script by opening the sarcophagus and then immediately running downstairs. Resilience had already killed Korlasz by the time he was back at the sarcophagus. Well, that is a shame, I hope there is another shield + 2 in the addon.
By the way - I think I experienced excellent health rolls on this character - 118 hps at level 9, which translates to 73 health from rolls, which is a little bit over 8hps per level. Is that correct?
In the city, I rushed through the quests. Killed one othe brawling parties in the Kegs Inn. I had been hoarding loot in my gem, potions and scrolls containers to sell it in SoD, so I ended up with close to 30k gold, which allowed me to buy decent supplies. Detonation arrows are scarce. That is very disappointing. I bought the buckler with immunity to hold person. Hopefully it will make my life easier with clerics.
I explored the first area a little bit. Talked I thought with everyone etc. Wizard Slayers cannot use the spectacles so no gauth this time XD I have seen the fight near the bridge in one of Youtube videos about SoD, so I knew I just need to hide for a couple of rounds, so I did that. Unfortunately my run ended in the underground, when two umber hulks confused Resilience. I ran as far as I could, but they caught up anyway. Is there a confusion immunity anywhere to grab in SoD before those Hulks come?
EDIT: I have researched the confusion immunity and it seems there is a helmet in the Korlash tomb - helm of unwavering purpose but it is in a locked chest, which I am pretty sure I could not badge open even with 25 strength. So basically a solo fighter cannot get it. Unless I level high enough to increase the DUHM strength modifier given the chest can be opened with 26 strength, but not 25.
I took another look at the map of this location and it seems the fight with Hulks is not mandatory to finish the quests. I also skimmed through the rewards from completing quests in the Dwarven Dig Site and the Reliquary and came to the conclusion I will skip them as a Wizard Slayer. Only pop in for the magic resist boots in the Crammus sarcophagus and then leave. It is a usual story with a Wizard Slayer. It is better to just skip content then to risk ending the run. Item rewards are just there to sell them and experience I am sure I will hit the cap anyway, so no reason to push it. Supposedly there is another lich in the game, but I wonder if it is mandatory. If not I will skip the first lich as well.
By the way - I think I experienced excellent health rolls on this character - 118 hps at level 9, which translates to 73 health from rolls, which is a little bit over 8hps per level. Is that correct?
The average fighter die roll in vanilla BG was 5.5, but in BGEE the roll taken is the best of 2 rolls. That pushes the average up to 7.13 (I knew from experience it was about 7, but your post prompted me to actually get around to calculating it ). In your case you rolled 63 from 8 level ups (you always start with 10 for the first level), which is just under 8 - so, yes, you did a bit better than the average of 112.
For IWD I used Dalekeeper to recreate the starting characters with their original stats from BG1. To try and be consistent as possible throughout the series of games I decided to treat Tobet as the PC, i.e. him getting killed would have ended the run in the same way as in BG.
Progress was good early on, but I hit a problem at Dragon's Eye when opening a door triggered a fight with the Eldathyn when I wasn't expecting that. With large numbers of enemies crowding the corridors and poisoning my characters (who, as always, are not permitted to use antidotes or healing potions) I was only able to save 2 of them - and had to sell some decent equipment to get the others back.
There was only a single casualty at Dragon's Eye, when the icon of one of my characters got hung up on an opponent and he got trapped. Unfortunately that was during the fight against Yxunomei, meaning he fell almost 10k behind the others in XP (annoying, as I was using my normal rules for party play that all characters have to level up at the same time - so that delayed everyone's levelling).
The Severed Hand was reasonably straightforward, except that I resorted to consulting a walkthrough to find which crate I'd overlooked to get the final piece of machinery to fix the astrolabe. There were no casualties there.
There was an early casualty in Dorn's Deep though when Chila was poisoned by a phase spider. I didn't expect slow poison to stop that in IWD, but it didn't even appear to have any slowing effect and he quickly died. As an elf he also couldn't be raised and cost double the normal amount to resurrect. First though, I had to get back to Kuldahar and, annoyed by Chila's death I set off blindly using the map to move towards the exit - without considering that Dorn's Deep is the one area in the game where respawns occur. That resulted in suffering another casualty after the party ran into the middle of 5 or 6 different groups of ambushers. I already had a couple of scrolls that could be used to raise Indie, so that wasn't a big deal in itself. What was a huge deal though was that I was so busy writing up a note bemoaning the deaths that I forgot to pick up Indie's equipment. Hoping against hopereality, I dashed straight back from Kuldahar, but the joke was clearly on me with only the Jester's bag of holding and some Razorvine Extract remaining of the hoard. Indie was the tank and had the pick of equipment to boost AC - that meant the best available helm, talisman, rings, boots, shield and armor gone, as well as a complete set of full containers and some decent miscellaneous magic items. Prior to that she had an unbuffed AC of -11, meaning most enemies required a critical to hit. Following that, even after pinching the odd bit of equipment from other people, the best she could do at that time was -4 - meaning I needed to monitor her performance in future fights much more closely.
There's lots of XP on offer at Dorn's Deep and Brutan soon gained the ability to raise anyone except Chila. It got a bit wearisome carving through opponents there though and there were a number of further deaths to provide opportunities for Brutan to try out his skills. However, eventually the job was done and, with around 560k XP in each of their classes, the party were able to return to a devastated Easthaven to face Belhifet. I wasn't very well prepared for that in terms of equipment carried and things looked a bit dicey when everyone lost their buffs almost at the start of the contest. I didn't immediately deal with a pair of iron golems and that proved costly soon afterwards when one of them killed Chila. However, vague memories from years ago resurfaced sufficiently for me to keep the others away from the traps while shooting down the golems, before massing in melee on Belhifet. Brutan was close to death and the others injured to varying degrees, but overall there was still a bit in hand when the devil keeled over. The game didn't allow a screenshot directly of that, so this is the best I could do taken through Windows.
The party has been imported into a HoW game, but before they start in on that they've got a date with Irenicus' dungeon ...
Kills to date:
Tobet - M CN gnome F/I (18(46),18,18,19,2,18) used charisma and strength Small sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-166, TotSC-36, IWD1-305
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232
The start of the session saw Thwaka immediately testing his trap skills out - and being found wanting.
He gamely kept at it though and his 40% was enough for the odd success.
Meanwhile, Siri had discovered the Claw lodged in her backpack by Thwaka at the end of the previous session and donned that - diving down to 27 HPs in the process. That was made rather more respectable though by summoning a familiar to get back 12 of the lost HPs. Other than the traps progress was easy enough and we scored a success against Ulvaryl. I was worried when a backstab took her to near death and a Melf's Acid Arrow was insufficient to finish her off. However, haste allowed Thwaka to attack again just before she could flit away.
Moving quickly on, the circus provided a gentle introduction to Athkatla. I was surprised there that the werewolf illusions could be affected by both emotion and chaos.
After reporting in to Gaelan Bayle, Kencore put in a request for an upgrade to his 2-handed sword. The beastmaster duly fell to prompt a change of control at the Copper Coronet.
Fighting through some sewers resulted in more damage taken from some jellies and Siri tried to rest to heal up. When some kobolds appeared and successfully held Thwaka, Siri put in a skull trap to kill them - landing it just far enough away to avoid killing Kencore as well.
We picked up the sword before tackling the slaver ship.
Captain Haegan fell quickly there to a kensai assault, before Thwaka took his life in his hands when trying his luck against an acid blob trap. If that had triggered on him it would very likely have killed him and even had a good chance of chunking him - but he successfully disarmed it. The resident wizards then failed to enjoy a couple of skull traps.
Up to this point Kencore had taken a lot of damage and he put in a request for Siri to learn Spirit Armor to boost his defenses. Siri initially denied knowing the spell, but, after checking, sheepishly admitted he really was an enchanter (and not an illusionist in disguise) and did in fact already know the spell .
Trying our luck further afield saw Suna Seni's ambush fail when we arrived invisibly. Thwaka inherited Arbane there, but disdained to use it against a Mad Cleric and had to depend on Kencore to bail him out after being held.
Nearby, some pirates got a first taste of an 'armored' kensai. They still hit him pretty hard with their daggers, but not sufficiently to save them.
Outside, Hareishan showed herself in an attack on some thieves. Siri instinctively countered by throwing a blind at her, but was shouted at by a Cowled Wizard busy-body.
Ignoring that warning, Siri sent in a second blind and this time was successful - but only an instant before Azuredge struck to end the contest. The others were skeptical for some reason about Siri's ability to avoid future involvement by the pesky mages and he was bullied into going to buy a magic license.
The Graveyard saw plenty more exercise for Azuredge, though one of the tomb residents there did manage to fight back. The Crypt King shrugged off an early backstab and took advantage of Siri's lack of damaging spells to take Thwaka down to 2 HPs. Kencore abandoned his throwing from range and rushed in to save the assassin - only to find his spirit armor was of no use against critical hits. Siri used up the fire wand from the dungeon, but that wasn't quite enough to finish things off and Thwaka had to bounce in and out a couple of times before finding another backstab.
After going to the temple to get Kencore raised, Siri looked at the 5 HPs his companions had between them and decided to use up some invisibilities to ensure a safe trip back to pick up Kencore's gear.
The final action saw us making a start on Mae'Var's quests. Rayic Gethras survived a backstab and then did his best to beat off an assault by a skeleton warrior - but his best wasn't good enough.
By this time Thwaka had boosted his trap finding skills up to 55%, but that still wasn't enough to even find another of those acid blob traps - Kencore stepping forward there to take his punishment like a true manhalf-orc.
Enchanter - L11, 44 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 72 kills (98 in BGEE)
Assassin - L12, 67 HPs, 46 kills (187 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Kensai - L9, 103 HPs, 94 kills (199 in BGEE), 1 death
Kencore made good use of Azuredge, particularly in the Graveyard, and established what is likely to be a winning position in the BG2 kills count./i]
There was a series of lessons today about self-inflicted perils .
There wasn't much of a hint about the carnage to come as we breezed through the Circus.
Moving on to the Slums, things were under control up to the point we killed the Beastmaster. He died in webs and, with nothing else visible, Ill did a bit of fiddling in his inventory - emerging from that just in time to prevent a minotaur from completing the job of sawing his head off.
Ill only had a single Bhaal CLW, so healing the significant amount of damage taken was taking a while and he suggested stealing Ribald's ring of regeneration. Hubris buffed his pickpocketing skill over 200 to minimise the risk of that, but I don't think you can entirely eliminate it (though I'd need to double-check if positive luck can do that). However, we avoided a critical failure anyway.
Buoyed by that success, Ill suggested raising the stakes a bit more. He was too stingy to want to pay the Cowled Wizards, so planned to stop their threats a different way. For an arcane caster killing that lot is pretty easy using webs and cloudkills so long as you're both patient and accurate in your play - unfortunately that's not a terribly good description of our MP style . The first lot of wizards died, though one of them did manage to escape from the webs and had to be shot down. I think the second lot went to plan, but three of the mages in the third group got free and were looking dangerous. Hubris decided to try and occupy their attention and circled round them - only to be hit by a series of spells and ending up stunned, while sitting in webs and cloudkills. Ill killed one of his attackers with his final fireball, but there was to be no escape for Hubris.
After a temple trip, Hubris came back and used skull trap from out of sight to finish off his killers. The fourth group then passed by peacefully (at least for us), before we started on the penultimate mob. Once more three of the group moved out of the cloudkills and one of them got a good enough sight of us to start a chase. That included targeting Ill with a disintegrate, but fortunately Hubris was close enough to throw him a magic ring, bringing his save down to 1 to ensure survival.
That though meant the Cowled Wizard turned his attention to Hubris and several damaging spells killed him before Ill could finish the mage off. After another temple trip Ill suggested testing whether further spell use would now result in another group spawning. It did, but we moved out of their sight quickly enough to leave them alone in the tunnel (away from any innocents) and were able to successfully deal with the final two from the earlier group. Pretty much out of spells, we had a rest before attempting to deal with the last of the Cowled Wizards. Things seemed to be going to plan when webs, malison, cloudkills, skull traps and fireballs resulted in casualties.
With only Zallanora left, Ill waited for the battle text to report that the mage was stuck and then moved forward to finish him off with MMMs. However, even going forward a small distance resulted in both him and Hubris getting stuck in webs which were closer than expected. That could easily have been fatal, but fortunately Zallanora expired himself within seconds from the continuing cloudkill damage.
There was another element of fortune as Ill once more looked into his inventory, while Hubris moved towards the bodies - only to find that the webs were not the only thing which was closer than expected and he died when running into 3 unexploded minesskull traps.
After that excitement there was a brief return to normality as we used invisibility to make the fight with Suna Seni a doddle - Hubris gaining a level there.
On arrival at the Docks we couldn't resist relieving Officer Dirth of his armor - even though neither of us could use it. We also attacked the pirates there and quickly killed the regular variety while out of sight of the mage. Hubris couldn't resist throwing a skull trap towards him, even though he's 100% MR, but didn't quite get enough range. However, thinking it was only a single skull trap this time (and how much harm could that be?), he moved forward and found out .
After enquiring at the temple about their multi-buy offers we came back and the pirate mage failed to stand up to MMMs.
Renfeld was rescued and we were tasked with dealing with yet another pair of mages. Hubris sneaked in to Prebek's house and was lining up another skull trap special, but Ill sneaked in first and exploded a sunfire to clear the room.
That just left a minute or two to go and get an amulet for Mae-Var.
Illusionist 11, 75 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 92 kills (+170 in BGEE)
Blade 12, 70 HPs, 81 kills (+219 in BGEE), 5 deaths
I'm in the middle of original SoA with my infinity run party, but I was getting a bit tired of party play this morning so decided to do some soloing. I perhaps should have gone back to the bard run I've got going, but was tempted to start a shaman again. Even though I haven't had much success with that class I decided to add an additional restriction to my normal ones (at least for BGEE) and only allow the use of shaman spirits to kill things, i.e. the only time I'm allowed to get XP for creatures deaths is if those are caused by spirits. I've toyed with that a number of times before, so should theoretically know enough to give myself a decent chance of making progress.
In Candlekeep, I was lucky in getting a summoned spirit at the first attempt (there's a theoretical 37% chance per round at first level) against Carbos. Shank was easy though as I could nip behind the central fireplace before he reacted and pre-summon creatures. By disabling dance, moving and re-enabling it before the next once-a-round check, I could attract Shank's attention to come and play with the spirits.
I'd bought some darts to be able to attack Imoen without killing her and then trapped her against the edge of the map before starting to dance.
Montaron was attacked from distance and I retreated before he reacted - allowing me to pre-summon my spirits before showing myself again.
The spirits available at 1st level have poor THAC0 and a low maximum damage of either 2 or 3 - so fighting most enemies is pretty slow even if the enemies are not strong enough to quickly kill the spirits. I thus wanted to be able to get as quickly as possible to level 6 when the first upgrades are available. Shoal provided an easy boost, as her lack of a melee weapon hugely increases the effectiveness of the spirits - I got a good start there with 17 HPs for 2 levels.
A nearby carrion crawler took much longer, but the spirits can't be held and the crawler's low melee damage allowed them to wear it down.
In Beregost I couldn't attack Neera from range without the risk of killing her and didn't want to fight her enemies. However, I could punch Algernon unconscious. Doing that once didn't turn him hostile, but, once he finally regained his wits and I did it again, he saw red and was spirited.
Using the cloak I was then able to draw Neera away and punch her as well. My first attack missed and she got a bit of consolation from hitting me before snuffing it.
I looted a potion of invisibility from the manor house in case of emergencies.
To the south, darts wore down a pair of ogrillons to make it easier for spirits to finish them off and grab a letter for Mirianne. A hobgoblin also added to the victim list to allow me to temporarily return some boots to Zhurlong. After charming Silke I wasted her spells and then got her to near death before leading the spiders off to be ground down by a succession of spirits.
Punching Silke unconscious for easy disposal then got me to level 4 (5 HPs) - providing access to level 2 spells.
The particular spell I had in mind was Writhing Fog. Pre-casting that allowed me to dance up some summons before slightly shifting a charmed sirine into the Fog to annoy it, but close enough to spirits to attack them in melee rather than use arrows on them.
The spirits could do a decent amount of damage while the sirine tried to charm them (it attempts that before switching weapons), so it didn't take too long to deal with that lot - though I didn't quite get the timing right with one of them and it fired off all its arrows before going down.
Next up it was Korax time. He paralysed the basilisks and withdrew once they were nearly dead to allow spirits to finish them off.
That took a bit more time than usual and the delay was greatly increased when I failed to summon a spirit for about 10 rounds in a row, while Korax paralysed a basilisk, took it to near death and withdrew out of sight. I then had to also withdraw, summon from just out of sight and bring Korax back and run him round as a distraction until the spirits could kill the basilisk (spirits are not immune to petrification). The delays meant there wasn't quite time to deal with Mutamin or his pets before Korax went hostile and I ran for it, taking my 5th level (10 HPs) though still 5k short of level 6.
After learning Bhaal LMD in Nashkel, I went to find Meilum. He killed the charmed Poe and Bentan, but got taken down to 3 HPs in the process. However, it then took a long time to finish him off. The plan was to run him round to gain a bit of distance before trying to dance, then, when a summons appeared and he focused on it, to run out of sight. Two summons could then be produced and have a go at him, allowing me the opportunity to run out of sight again when the second of those was about to be killed. It took 7 or 8 failures to get a summons initially (and most times I tried dancing I didn't even have time to fail before Meilum was ready to attack) and then several attempts with the dual summons before a snake eventually tagged him as I was starting to run once more.
For Greywolf I was able to just run round the big rock until he lost track and I was free to produce summons - making that a much quicker contest.
Heading towards the FAI I found an ogre. Checking its HPs it had a nice round 30. While wearing Meilum's bracers I could do that with a critical bullet, so took those off for an initial shot with my sling before switching to darts and finally dancing.
At the FAI a guard killed Tarnesh before a spirit could finish him off, but I got some more XP for returning Landrin's things.
North again, I killed some fishermen and returning Tenya's bowl finally got me to level 6.
I was pleased to get another nice 10 HPs, but perhaps made a mistake by taking call lightning immediately there - that's my standard opening pick, but there are very few situations in BG1 where using that would not be in danger of giving me a kill. The better spirits available then made short work of a nearby ankheg, before the final action saw Dushai being persuaded to hand over her ring.
The improved spirits made short work of a couple of golems at High Hedge. I bought a potion case there before returning to Beregost to get a scroll case from Firebead (now that I'm not expecting to kill any more innocents for a while).
The next high value encounters were in the Valley of the Tombs. I dragged the Revenant out of its tomb, but without much time to spare between dancing checks it had the opportunity to land a couple of blows when I paused outside the cave before moving on to leave it to the pre-summoned spirits. Next, I inched into view of Narcillicus and persuaded him to summon a pair of mustard jellies before retreating without giving the mage a chance to focus on me. Bear and panther spirits are capable of hitting the jellies and a single bear killed both of them. As I knew where Narcillicus was I could stop just out of eyesight and summon a spirit in sight of him. They wouldn't actually attack while I was that far away, but forced him to use up spells. He still managed to go through spirits sufficiently quickly to hit me with a scorcher and magic missiles, but was eventually helpless against new arrivals. More spirits then waited outside a ghast hideout to ambush the emerging undead.
That got me close to level 7 and I was thinking that reviving Melicamp would probably be the trigger. However, after dealing with Zargal's goons a wolf provided sufficient XP (with a 3rd maximum 10 HPs in a row). On returning to High Hedge Melicamp successfully recovered to provide a little boost towards the next level.
Going to Durlag's Tower I dragged the battle horrors on the path inside, where I could play games with the stairs to set spirits in ambush for them. Initially I tried letting the spirits attack unaided, but the battle horrors tend to kill them much faster than they're replaced and I thought that was taking too long - hence I ran them around inside Fogs to get them near death before setting the spirits loose. The battle horror trapped on the wall of course had no way to avoid the constant stream of summons. The doom guard wasn't quite as proficient at killing the spirits and a stream of summons did well to kill it without any aid.
The ghasts in the upper Tower were all killed without trouble and I also got some XP for trapping Riggilo for Kirinhale - that was enough for level 8 to get nymphs. I had no protection against basilisks, so left them for now. Riggilo was put out of his misery though.
In the Cloud Peak Mountains I did the main encounters. That included putting Zal into a Fog to annoy him, but I miscalculated there when he took more damage than expected by spirits while the Fog was still active - I had to hurriedly unsummon the spirits and move away to drag him out of the Fog with just 3 HPs left before a new summons completed the job properly. There were no more problems on the way to get the charisma tome.
With plenty of HPs, there were no problems shrugging off the minor bits of damage done on the way through the Nashkel Mine. For Mulahey the main danger was if I were targeted with rigid thinking - so I made sure to get Mulahey to talk when pre-summoned spirits were next to him. That worked well and the spirits easily disposed of the cleric and his support crew.
Back at Nashkel I attempted to sneak up close enough to Nimbul that, while I couldn't see him, dancing would produce spirits that could. Unfortunately, just because I couldn't see him, didn't mean he couldn't see me. I was aware of that possibility, but took the risk anyway as I had enough HPs to survive a few rounds of magic missiles if I was affected by horror - which I was and I did. A few healing spells later and I dragged spirits over to deal with Nimbul.
Moving on to the Bandit Camp I took the odd arrow while dragging spirits through. Taurgosz chased me until a Fog slowed him down and I got out of sight to summon a full team of spirits. He did pretty well to kill a long stream of those until eventually a spirit bear stunned him and his remaining HPs drained away. For Tazok's tent I summoned some nymphs for the first time to jump on enemies chasing me out of the tent. Using standard summons is always a bit of a risk, but because nymphs AI is strongly geared to spells they're safer than most and helped set up the enemies for the kill.
At the Cloakwood Mine, the nymphs were at it again, holding three of the enemies and charming Drasus. A moment's inattention proved costly there though. I noticed Genthore still had lots of HPs and sent Drasus to attack him to help wear him down quickly, so that the spirits could move on to the mages before they recovered. Drasus got hung up on another icon for a second or two though and that small delay allowed Genthore's HPs to fall too low (helped by having a missile weapon equipped) - so that Drasus' first blow was a killing one ...
By your rules, you said the run fails if you get experience for a kill: you don't normally get experience for a kill from a Dominated character, do you? Or am I thinking of Gated creatures?
That would be gated demons and devils - as they are not under your control. For things that are under your control (like summons and charmed creatures), you do get XP added to the party. XP and kills by those things are not counted under an individual's personal statistics though, so if someone was trying a 'pacifist' run with the objective of just avoiding getting personal credit for any kills it's pretty straightforward to do.
One other thing you don't get XP for: lingering spell effects cast by allies that are no longer present. If, say, your mage's Project Image clone casts an Incendiary cloud and then gets popped, the cloud sticks around to do damage, but anything it kills doesn't grant XP.
While the clone is around, enything it kills is good for party XP but not personal credit.
Are high level spirits enough to deal with enemies in SoA and ToB?
Generally summons are pretty good at dealing with melee enemies, but the shaman is vulnerable to spells and missiles while dancing. Getting summons in position to deal with those sorts of enemies, without exposing the shaman, isn't easy as a solo character (I have no experience of a shaman in a party).
Journal of Kratz.
I had finished most of the Baldur's gate Quests so went to Werewolf Island and was thwarted at the ship by the last of the werewolves there. When it was clear that I was losing the battle cast haste in the hope of outrunning it. Too late. Perhaps an invisibility potion would have been better. Back to being a good guy in my next run. Much more comfortable with that! Paladin of some sort or a lawful good cleric I think,
I ran an inquisitor who defeated Greywolf but Zordral caused her to panic and that was game over.
Now running a Helmite trio led by Cassandra the Good.
You may be wondering how a thief came to be a Helmite. It is because she has seen how vicious vigilantes can be when a thief is caught and she therefore prefers the rule of law. She would rather pay the fine for her unlawful activities than be killed by the mob.
I've had 15 or so exits over the summer. These are the 12 I recall and there will be a couple more for Blaggerd that I can't remember any detail about.
Blaggerd, Blackguard. Full party, including all TotSC areas
- Underestimated Orc Bowmasters (SoD)
- Underground River entrance, can't remember detail (SoD)
- Avernus, immobilised by Thrix (SoD)
Daorem, Dark Moon Monk. Solo
- Prat and gang (BGEE)
- Carbos, had sling equipped for bonus level 1 damage (BGEE failed to get out of Candlekeep)
- Failed to save the dukes at the Coronation (BGEE)
Wiven, Half-orc Assassin. Solo
- Running from family of Wyverns and charmed by Hamadryad (BGEE)
Wiven, Halfling Bounty Hunter. Solo, skipped SoD
- Held in Iron Throne HQ after killing 3 casters (BGEE)
- Self-snared at level 1 (BGEE)
- Level drained by Hareishan in the docks (BGIIEE)
Bobo, Dwarf Bounty Hunter. Solo, skipped SoD
- Killed while away from keyboard unpaused (BGEE)
- Mazed by Tanova (BGIIEE)
After the death count rose sharply in the previous session, we were able to complete this one relatively unscathed.
That didn't look so likely early on when Ill noticed Sansuki looking for help and was inclined to tell him to stuff it - but Hubris was feeling compassionate. The first vampire died quickly to spell damage and the other basic one was blinded. However, our spell damage was insufficient to deal with Del as well and she stuck grimly to Hubris' heels and sucked most of his blood before Ill said 'tag' and took over as the target. Fortunately, Del did not seem interested in using vampire domination and Hubris found a critical to finish her off pretty quickly.
This encounter was at the Docks, on our way to give Mae'Var a necklace - which he apparently didn't want in the first place.
We went back to the Temple district to find another little trinket, though it might be as well if we don't show our faces again in the Lathanderian temple ...
Continuing on with Mae'Var's tasks we went to investigate Rayic's house. His mephits couldn't get through Ill's MGoI - allowing him to cloudkill them.
Upstairs, we successfully carried out the plan to disrupt Rayic's true sight with MMMs. Ill then tried to stay closer to him, relying on improved invisibility to ensure he wasn't directly targeted by spells. Rayic still managed to do some damage with a sunfire, but that was about it before he choked to death.
Mae'Var's guild was well-populated with thieves and the ones upstairs put up a decent fight. However, Mae'Var himself was no problem.
On leaving the area the orog ambush provided Ill with a good opportunity to try out his own sunfire.
That was on the way to the Bridge District where we had a date with a pair of Rune Assassins. With our stoneskin protection, the danger there was in fact more from the ghasts and Hubris had a cunning plan to deal with them - skull-trapping himself. That strategy didn't work well in the previous session, but this time he survived what was still pretty impressive damage of 55HPs on himself and we were able to clean up without further problem.
That encounter got Hubris a level, allowing him access to 5th level spells. Ill was slightly taken aback at that, given he was a specialist mage and could still only cast 5th level spells himself - but it wasn't long before he got his 12th level and use of 6th level ones.
Moving on to the Graveyard, Hubris made a rare use of the bard song to protect against fear in the Crypt King's tomb, before Ill joined him to target the King with volleys of magic missiles.
There were a couple of hiccups in the encounters there. First, a mummy managed to touch up Hubris in one tomb. The disease caused by that is pretty damaging and Hubris had to withdraw hastily to avoid a second hit - which would have been fatal.
Second, Hubris attacked a shadow fiend while protected by stoneskins, mirrors and wielding Arbane. Ill tried to help out, but couldn't see well past all the mirrors and only realized the fiend had switched targets when he was held. However, his own stoneskins provided plenty of protection while Hubris did the required damage (the mummy in the background of the screenshot was blinded).
Hubris had been trying out Wraith Form on a range of enemies. That gives protection against non-magical weapons and had in fact meant that the shadow fiend in the Graveyard couldn't hit him - but also meant he couldn't cast spells at it. At Watcher's Keep another casting meant most of the undead there couldn't hurt him - but Wraith Form doesn't protect against wraiths . That saw Hubris being drained again until Ill was able to blind those opponents to stop them chasing.
It seemed highly likely that Wraith Form would be useless against vampiric wraiths, but none of those appeared anyway, so we were able to clear the top level easily enough. One of the main benefits from doing that was to get a +4 weapon for Hubris to make good use of his scimitar proficiency. The fight with the last 4 statues there was easier than expected. The archer and the one with the sword were both blinded, meaning Hubris could run the gnoll around and shoot it up, while Ill stuck the the overgrown statue in a doorway to provide target practice. It didn't then take long to finish off the blinded ones.
Next, we fumigated the rooms at a local inn. Brennan broke free of webs early on, meaning he would normally have found it easy to run away when damaged. Even though there's little chance we would ever make use of his invisibility ring, it was a point of honor not to allow him to escape - and that was achieved when Brennan lay down on the floor sobbing hopelessly.
The final action saw us ambushed by Tanova. Invisibility allowed us to separate the vampires and her companions were duly killed - but she herself apparently wasn't willing to play hide and seek (or played it too well) and we couldn't find her. Instead we decided we'd had enough of those pesky vampires and went to pay Gaelan Bayle to side with the thieves.
Illusionist 12, 76 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 149 kills (+170 in BGEE)
Blade 14, 74 HPs, 116 kills (+219 in BGEE), 5 deaths
It seemed highly likely that Wraith Form would be useless against vampiric wraiths, but none of those appeared anyway, so we were able to clear the top level easily enough.
Wraithform would work against vampiric wraiths - all of the enemies with "mist" graphics have non-magical weapons. They would still have their spells, but only their spells.
Now, when you're higher level ... Enhanced Bard Song has what it takes to really humiliate a pack of mists.
This looks like a very well rounded party. I like it so much I might steal the concept with a cavalier instead of inquisitor.
A good idea as you don't need the True Sight for the paladin if you have the Cleric of Helm.
Journal of Cassandra
After being ambushed we fled southward to Beregost where we calmed Marl down and took a tome to Firebead before continuing on our way.
To the south we killed a couple of ogrillon before returning to Beregost with the letter one of them was carrying.
Further south still we killed three overly officious Flaming Fist who refused to believe our innocence. This provided us with more than enough plate mail.
We rested for healing, but Sinnara foolishly forgot to cast armour again with this result when a bandit archer brought her omission to light.
We returned to Beregost for healing before finally getting round to Gorion's instruction to visit the FAI where we were attacked by a mage assassin. He came to regret his foolishness, but not for long.
Upon our return southwards, Mellicamp was helped and an ogre killed.
We eventually reached Nashkel where I found some ankheg plate before chatting to Noober, refusing an undeserved reward from Oublek and killing Zordral in a Carnival tent.
True sight, Doom and Spook followed by Command rendered him harmless.
Further south a similar spell combination worked against Greywolf though Hal did get badly hurt when he got too close.
We went to collect our reward, but then Cassandra was killed while we were in transit. Raising her was expensive and took a third of our reserves.
We returned to Beregost to deliver the Colquetle amulet and whilst there got mixed up in an altercation with Silke. We got the last word.
Minutes later karlat was also killed.
We then found Perue's sword for him. EDIT
Having been asked to deal with Bassilus, we went in search of him and dealt with him "permanently."
In response to Bjornin's request we sought out the half-ogres who had hurt him, and after killing then we were given a shield +1 which I gave to Hal. A bi=product was that Sinnatra became a better thief and illusionist.
A sleep spell from Droth disabled the entire party.
Today's session started by doing a couple some tasks for Aran Linvail. That included going to sort out the vampire HQ, where we hit a couple of bits of trouble. First Ill tried to occupy a vampire for Hubris to attack, but without considering the ghast coming along behind. Once held, prospects didn't look good - particularly as he had improved invisibility active, which meant Hubris could not use invisibility to save him. However, a quick spin managed to deal with the attackers just in time.
Downstairs, it was the turn of Hubris to need rescuing when he was dominated, but continued to be attacked by several grimwarders. Ill couldn't safely use area damage, but a web kept the attackers enough at bay to pull off a surprising escape.
After that excitement Bodhi was a piece of cake.
The Sir Sarles quest was completed and the iMoD forged before we picked up the pantaloons. Checking reputation at this point showed that down at 8 and some donations at a temple quickly pushed it back to 15.
Deciding to have a go at getting the Ring of Gaxx, we prepared the way by opening up the sewers - gaining a new cloak there.
The Shade, Elemental and City Gates liches were then dealt with using PfU scrolls. Our expectation was that Hubris' scroll wouldn't continue to work for Kangaxx, but rather than go to get a new one we decided to try and kill the initial lich form, before running upstairs. Ill could then have rested and used spell immunity to tank Kangaxx while Hubris killed him. That plan looked to be on track when we survived Kangaxx's attacks long enough for his PfMW to expire and he was quickly taken to near death.
However, trouble was apparent when Kangaxx took 2 hits from Daystar, as well as at least one missile hit in the middle - but despite suffering well over 50 damage while at near death he showed no inclination to change form, even after Hubris broke off the attack to give his script a chance to fire.
Kangaxx continued dishing out spells and a FoD saw Hubris collapse.
Ill continued attacking for a bit, but a summoned efreeti wouldn't leave him alone even when he was invisible and he ran out to the temple to get Hubris raised. By the time he got back the efreeti had disappeared, but so had his bonus HPs from Tenser's Transformation - and that allowed Kangaxx to take him to near death using low level spells. That put Hubris in the firing line once more - and he didn't have the protection of the unbuffed spell saving throw of -1 that Ill had. It was thus no great surprise that a polymorph other spell turned him into a squirrel .
That was countered though by using the Cloak of the Sewers mustard jelly shape, to both get HPs back up and provide magic resistance against further spells.
When Kangaxx's change script fails to fire like that, he may be rendered permanently unkillable, but we kept the attack going anyway just in case. It caught us a bit by surprise though when the lich form did in fact disappear and Hubris was left well away from the exit with the knowledge that a demilich howl would soon be on the way.
He tried using a spin, which in human form should have increased his speed enough to get away. However, the spin couldn't overcome the slow base movement of the jelly and Kangaxx's howl was matched by one from Ill as he saw his companion disappear into a prison underground.
While in principle Ill could rescue him, that would not be possible for a long time and he accepted defeat ...
The random rollerator threw out this pair yesterday and they promptly left Candlekeep before discarding Imoen. We catch them up today for their first main session and cross our fingers that they don't die in the first couple of minutes.
Grond0 doesn't know it but I keep getting part of two tunes running through my head. Every time I select my character I hear "let's get ready to rumble" (sadly the PJ and Duncan version rather than anything special) and when I observe Indy it's a switch to "Fireball" (Pitbull?)
Anyway, here they are making a start today.
Indy went to sift through the remnants of Gorion's body while Rumbal shot down Xzar and got hit then chased by Montaron far enough for a pair of wolves to join in. After three or four minutes we get our act together and close the combat down.
Although we are badly injured there's little point in resting outdoors (1hp / rest) so we press on and get a level each by talking to Marl + Firebead. Indy "displaces" Neera to become Beregost's arcane caster although he mentions that Silke could be considered competition in that regard. We'll deal with her later.
We head south to pick up a letter from ogrillions and boots from a hobgoblin.
Even further south Runbal picks up some buried ankheg plate before we teach Noober not to ask silly questions.
Rumbal doesn't bother to mention where he is heading and Indy is happy to tag along without asking. Our wanderings take us to kill Greywolf, rescue Arabelle the cow, pick up Samuel, shoot down a girdled ogre, retrieve a ring for Joia, shoot down Tarnesh and descend into an ankheg pit - this last act being the first time Rumbal switches from studded leather armour to the aforementioned ankheg plate.
Indy is still non-committal on what to do next but Rumbal has tired of his non-magical Ninjato so we whip out our map and look to see what we can find. X marks the spot.
This is an outrage so Rumbal asks Indy to use his stupendous magical abilities to avenge the fallen drow. Indy duly obliges although his webs demonstrate he needs to be aware of his less than stupendous saving throws.
Rumbal soon has the Twinkle and Icingdeath scimitars equipped and Indy asks if he really wants the +4 mithral chain since it is less effective than ankheg plate. Rumbal prefers to be able to stealth though so is happy to use the chain mail rather than remain in studded leather. To save on inventory space both the leather and plate armour are sold.
Indy purchases a scroll of protection from petrification so we make a quick round of the basilisks (Rumbal commenting that it is indeed very quick, and Indy confirming dual-wielding +3 scimitars make a huge difference). So it is that we face down Mutamin with an attack from the shadows followed by Magic Missile and melee.
Indy says he had just enough time left to deal with Kirian and that he has no need to rest either. Kirian is quickly killed off as the sole sighted member of her party, leaving us to deal with the three blind mice men.
Rumbal heads into town to sell loot, while Indy has assumed our session is at a close and is intently reading up on something we mentioned earlier (nobody here but us bats in the cave near Caldo + Krumm > nobody here but us chickens > Louis Jordan apparently). So it is that in the next ambush Indy takes a nasty hit but escapes with his life. The luck has certainly been with us today.
Comments
Previous updates:
The conquest of Durlag's Tower is over and I won't do any more of TotSC. Progress with the party was generally easy enough, with the only difficult fight being against Love & co who killed a couple of them. You need to be patient in the Tower to allow time for a thief to discover traps, but that's still much quicker than the last party I took down there of pure fighters
After using virtually no potion buffs throughout the game, I had intended to splurge with those against the demonknight. However, I'd forgotten until too late that in vanilla a scroll of PfM prevents any use of magic - including potions. However, the party was far too strong for him just attacking with their basic stats anyway.
Everyone had well over 140k XP by the end and were all entitled to level up, though I hadn't actually done so since Sarevok. I did take a final save after the demonknight though and will use that to import to BG2 (if I get that far
Next up will be vanilla IWD. I've completed BG1 hundreds of times and that knowledge base meant the odds were good while doing that. I've only been through IWD a handful of times though and not at all recently, so this may be a bit more of a challenge ...
Tobet - gnome F/I (18(46),18,18,19,2,18) used charisma and strength Small sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-166, TotSC-36
Indie - half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25
Brutan - dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23
Nipal - dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56
Chila - elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34
Hapan - gnome F/T (18(00),18,19,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23
A solid roll of 83 began the journey of Resilience. He is a dwarven Wizard Slayer with humble beginnings but rich ambitions! A quick start consisted of killing Shoal with a bow and arrows scavenged from the body of Imoen, grabbing a couple of rings from vicinities of Friendly Arm Inn, talking down a drunk in Feldpost Inn, killing Neera after helping her defend against wizards (after all, all wizards must die) and helping Firebead find his evening reading. A quick visit to Thalanthyr in High Hedge completed the set of inventory containers. Resilience set out to Nashkel, where he killed a misguided clerlic in a local inn, dug out an ankheg shell, which oddly suited him as a piece of armor to finally move on to Nashkel Mines.
My short session ended there.
Here is Resilience before submersion into darkness of Nashkel mines.
And here is his inventory.
My last Wizard Slayer died in the Duchal Palace. Dukes once again dying, this time I feel due to bad horror RNG. I really wish there was something I could do in this fight to make it more consistent. Fingers crossed it goes well for Resilience.
Ach, well, I guess ye do be wanting to know what happened after we left that cursed mage's dungeon. Well, turns out Imoen got herself abducted for casting spells at the mage bugger and we discovered we were in a city named Athkatla, which Morgana had been to with Knell before but Nimue, Caelynn, and meself had never seen. We sold off our junk from the dungeon to a great store called the Adventurer's Mart and then I decided to check out the circus in the hopes of some entertainment. Alas, no entertainment was to be found and we slew many illusions and werewolves (though I do think that not all the werewolves were real) as well as dread shades. Eventually, we came to a bugger named Kalah who was in charge of it all, and slew him and took his ring of Human Influence.
The Journal of the Good, the bad, and the Ugly
We followed Gorion's final advice and made our way to the Friendly Arms Inn killing antything and everything that attacked us as we did so. We found two rings only one of which was useable. At the entrance to the inn itself we were attacked by yet another assassin who died as a result.
It was clear that our plans were known so we didn't hang around but headed north, killing hobgoblins on the way.
On the way we met Sonner who asked us to kill a priestess for them. At first we agreed, but fortunately I had the sense to check their alignment and upon finding them to be evil, I thought that sufficient grounds to kill them. Blackheart also deemed it best to kill them but on the grounds that we could get their magical weapon more easily by killing them. Ugo however had a better idea. "I know that I'm not great at pickpocketting, but we could try that first and if it doesn't, we can still kill them." This we did and we did indeed have to kill them.
The priestess was delighted to get her bowl back and promised a reward in due time.
Nearby we killed a strang beast before carrying on to an area infested with zombies which were quite easy to kill. We then returned Joia's ring before heading for High hedge where we were able to help Mellicamp. My two handed sword broke and I had to replace it in an inn at Beregost. In the same inn I calmed Marl down and bought a tome for Firebead.
After a request by Bjornin we headed south and ended up giving Mirianne some good news.
Returning to the same area we were attacked by some Flaming Fist mercenaries who furnished us all with plate armour.
We ended up at Nashkel where I found a suit of evn better armour.
After that we tried to save Bentha but failed.
Further south we aided Prism against a bounty hunter. The battle was tough but we prevaailed and became heroes in the process.
Being proficient in long swords, Blackheart took Greywolf's sword.
EDIT
I can't believe what happened. I was fighting a greater basilisk with a +1 sword wearing ankheg armour, a ring of protection +1, protected from petrification and it beat me in melee! That has never happened to me before, or even close to it. I brought in the rest of the party but too late! End of game. Time to start again with the same team I think.
Perhaps the basilisk was stronger because I was playing with a party. Certainly that has made a difference elsewhere.
I had cleared all the ankheg, killed Bassilus, Zargal et al previously.
Not having much time, but suffering from a mild tooth ache, which prevent currently is preventing me from going to sleep peacefully, I have decided to squeze in a short visit to Sword Coast.
Quick breeze through the Nashkel mines enriched Resilience with a some loot, which bound to sell for good money. In the Valley of Tombs he also killed a nearby Revenant. I decided to tackle the Baerin's party and it went south, when Baerin killed Korax and one of the priests managed to rigid thinking Resilience, but even with his bow equipped he managed to shoot down Lindin, before Lindin cut down Resilience.
Priests are the bane of wizard slayers. No other class is as annoying as them. I can't wait for the later Wizard levels, when magic resist will kick in hard. Also SoD has a nice long sword for WS with +4 to spell saves.
Resilience convinced Teven to recruit him into the bandits, but the resolute dwarf had no true intentions of joining. Fight in the main tent of the bandit camp was quick - first four arrows shot towards the mage, who died before he could cast a single spell and the rest fell easily in melee. This time I managed to kill Sendai with a lightning trap!
I ran through Cloakwood, grabbing the Spider Sword on the way. I usually take the scenic route around the southern parts of the cliffs to go to Centeol's lair to avoid the traps. This time I had done similarly and additionally took a detour the southern edge of the cliffs and found a scimitar + 2 and a cursed ring. Funny, never knew it was there.
Centeol fight is usually pretty easy at this point of the run, couple of arrows her way, melee the first sword spider, one horror and then just grab the sword and ignore the rest of the vermin.
This time around, I wanted Resilience to avoid fightning the female mage on the second level of the mines. I led him towards an entrance to the secret passageway, but my retardance in going down the stair at the exit of the level let the wizard aggro anyway. I kited her towards the secret passagaway and she soon fell to arrows. Battle Horrors were tough this time around, since I decided to melee them to save some time running around the table. Resilience had to take a break in the middle of the fight, but after a short rest Battle Horrors ate dirt. Davaeorn is a tricky fight for a singular reason - he casts Dire Charm. In my previous runs I used a scroll of PfM to avoid it, but after some experimenting with a character there, I found out I could dodge the Dire Charm just changing locations. And here is the line of demarkation, which divides liffe from death. If you a character goes any further, they cannot in time got out of the dungeon (assuming usage of speed footwear).
Resilience currently resides at an Inn in BG after discovering a helmet hidden behind a painting in the Helm and Cloak Inn.
Resilience:
His inventory:
After fleeing from the ambush, I followed Gorion's suggestions to head for the Friendly Arms Inn.
However, on the way, I was accosted by bandits!
At the FAI I was attacked by yet another assassin. This time I had the aid of the FAI guards who slew him.
I came to a hamlet where I was offered a magical weapon as a reward for killing a priestess of Umberlee.
However deeming it easier to kill them rather than her to get the aforesaid weapon, I proceeded to do just that.
Upon attempting to hide in Baldur's Gate, I was denied entrance by the guard.
Mirianne was pleased when I took news of her husband to her and Mellicamp was delighted to regain his human form.
I went west for a while and came across Shoal who claimed that her behaviour was caused by Droth. In the fight with Droth I believe that rigid thinking or confusion must have been cast as I was unable to do anything of my own volition. I nevertheless beat Droth and after sleeping killed his mate as well.
This supplied me with a second katana.
Having two katanas meant that the battle against Greywolf was quite easy.
I went a little further north and went hunting ankhegs. While doing so I sadly found the body of the son of Farmer Brun.
Neville was then killed and I then helped Charleston Nib and Brage.
After dealing with that nasty skinner business, we decided to head to the Promenade to see if we could further improve our armor situation so that Caelynn and Knell would stop getting backstabbed. On the way, we were accosted by a violently angry (though not violent, thankfully) man who seemed to hate elves.
Nimue: Level 13 Shapeshifter
Armok: Level 12 War Hulk
Knell: Level 12 Wizard Slayer
Caelynn: Level 13 Priest of Lathander (Death Count: 1)
Morgana: Level 11/12 Mage/Thief
Upon leaving the temple of Helm where I left Brage, I took the opportunity to give Prism's emeralds to Oublek before heading off to face many basilisks as well as other dangerous enemies.
After Dorn joined us, I deemed that we were strong enough to deal with the yipping demons in the Nashkel Mines. We were! They turned out to be nothing more than a few kobold who were easily defeated. I rescued Xan and left him at the Carnival before continuing north where Viconia joined us.
Further south we dropped off Kagain and picked up Baeloth. We then joined the bandits at their camp, killed those led by Deke, and killed Tranzig. We have now returned to the bandit camp.
I quickly ran through Iron Throne killing everything in sight on the last floor using a couple of detonation arrows. The same goes with Candlekeep. I do not bother fighting with the leadership of the Iron Throne, I talk with Koveras and kill a suspicious looking scholar, who turned out to be a doppelganger. I discovered there is a scroll of protection from petrification in one of the shelves on the top floor. Resilience rushed to it and then got caught by the nearby watcher. This scroll is a godsend, because Resilience used it in the catacombs to get past the two greater basilisks completely safe.
I finished BG1 in style. This time I got a very fortunate fight in the Duchal Palace. A very good horror RNG and I tweaked my position in this fight to aggro more doppelgangers on Resilience.
The Maze recently ended one of my runs, so I prepared this time with a scroll of protection from lightning and Icingdeath + 3 in hands of the dwarf. Thus, the brave wizard slayer managed to run through the mazed relatively healthy.
Fight with Sarevok lacked any excitement. I buffed my character with scrolls of PfMagic, PfPosion and PfFire ensuring mages were non issue and Angelo's arrows are not deadly. I managed to split the fight in two - first fighting the goons of Sarevok and the man, the legend himself. I used arrows of detontation for the goons and then couple of dispelling arrows on Sarevok and finished him with arrows + 2 running around like crazy.
Onto SoD. I missed the Shield of Egons + 2, sadly. The Fanguy did not spawn? I think I broke his script by opening the sarcophagus and then immediately running downstairs. Resilience had already killed Korlasz by the time he was back at the sarcophagus. Well, that is a shame, I hope there is another shield + 2 in the addon.
By the way - I think I experienced excellent health rolls on this character - 118 hps at level 9, which translates to 73 health from rolls, which is a little bit over 8hps per level. Is that correct?
In the city, I rushed through the quests. Killed one othe brawling parties in the Kegs Inn. I had been hoarding loot in my gem, potions and scrolls containers to sell it in SoD, so I ended up with close to 30k gold, which allowed me to buy decent supplies. Detonation arrows are scarce. That is very disappointing. I bought the buckler with immunity to hold person. Hopefully it will make my life easier with clerics.
I explored the first area a little bit. Talked I thought with everyone etc. Wizard Slayers cannot use the spectacles so no gauth this time XD I have seen the fight near the bridge in one of Youtube videos about SoD, so I knew I just need to hide for a couple of rounds, so I did that. Unfortunately my run ended in the underground, when two umber hulks confused Resilience. I ran as far as I could, but they caught up anyway. Is there a confusion immunity anywhere to grab in SoD before those Hulks come?
EDIT: I have researched the confusion immunity and it seems there is a helmet in the Korlash tomb - helm of unwavering purpose but it is in a locked chest, which I am pretty sure I could not badge open even with 25 strength. So basically a solo fighter cannot get it. Unless I level high enough to increase the DUHM strength modifier given the chest can be opened with 26 strength, but not 25.
I took another look at the map of this location and it seems the fight with Hulks is not mandatory to finish the quests. I also skimmed through the rewards from completing quests in the Dwarven Dig Site and the Reliquary and came to the conclusion I will skip them as a Wizard Slayer. Only pop in for the magic resist boots in the Crammus sarcophagus and then leave. It is a usual story with a Wizard Slayer. It is better to just skip content then to risk ending the run. Item rewards are just there to sell them and experience I am sure I will hit the cap anyway, so no reason to push it. Supposedly there is another lich in the game, but I wonder if it is mandatory. If not I will skip the first lich as well.
The average fighter die roll in vanilla BG was 5.5, but in BGEE the roll taken is the best of 2 rolls. That pushes the average up to 7.13 (I knew from experience it was about 7, but your post prompted me to actually get around to calculating it
The bandit camp was no problem. Now just entered Cloakwood.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143755/#Comment_1143755
For IWD I used Dalekeeper to recreate the starting characters with their original stats from BG1. To try and be consistent as possible throughout the series of games I decided to treat Tobet as the PC, i.e. him getting killed would have ended the run in the same way as in BG.
Progress was good early on, but I hit a problem at Dragon's Eye when opening a door triggered a fight with the Eldathyn when I wasn't expecting that. With large numbers of enemies crowding the corridors and poisoning my characters (who, as always, are not permitted to use antidotes or healing potions) I was only able to save 2 of them - and had to sell some decent equipment to get the others back.
There was only a single casualty at Dragon's Eye, when the icon of one of my characters got hung up on an opponent and he got trapped. Unfortunately that was during the fight against Yxunomei, meaning he fell almost 10k behind the others in XP (annoying, as I was using my normal rules for party play that all characters have to level up at the same time - so that delayed everyone's levelling).
The Severed Hand was reasonably straightforward, except that I resorted to consulting a walkthrough to find which crate I'd overlooked to get the final piece of machinery to fix the astrolabe. There were no casualties there.
There was an early casualty in Dorn's Deep though when Chila was poisoned by a phase spider. I didn't expect slow poison to stop that in IWD, but it didn't even appear to have any slowing effect and he quickly died. As an elf he also couldn't be raised and cost double the normal amount to resurrect. First though, I had to get back to Kuldahar and, annoyed by Chila's death I set off blindly using the map to move towards the exit - without considering that Dorn's Deep is the one area in the game where respawns occur. That resulted in suffering another casualty after the party ran into the middle of 5 or 6 different groups of ambushers. I already had a couple of scrolls that could be used to raise Indie, so that wasn't a big deal in itself. What was a huge deal though was that I was so busy writing up a note bemoaning the deaths that I forgot to pick up Indie's equipment. Hoping against hopereality, I dashed straight back from Kuldahar, but the joke was clearly on me with only the Jester's bag of holding and some Razorvine Extract remaining of the hoard. Indie was the tank and had the pick of equipment to boost AC - that meant the best available helm, talisman, rings, boots, shield and armor gone, as well as a complete set of full containers and some decent miscellaneous magic items. Prior to that she had an unbuffed AC of -11, meaning most enemies required a critical to hit. Following that, even after pinching the odd bit of equipment from other people, the best she could do at that time was -4 - meaning I needed to monitor her performance in future fights much more closely.
There's lots of XP on offer at Dorn's Deep and Brutan soon gained the ability to raise anyone except Chila. It got a bit wearisome carving through opponents there though and there were a number of further deaths to provide opportunities for Brutan to try out his skills. However, eventually the job was done and, with around 560k XP in each of their classes, the party were able to return to a devastated Easthaven to face Belhifet. I wasn't very well prepared for that in terms of equipment carried and things looked a bit dicey when everyone lost their buffs almost at the start of the contest. I didn't immediately deal with a pair of iron golems and that proved costly soon afterwards when one of them killed Chila. However, vague memories from years ago resurfaced sufficiently for me to keep the others away from the traps while shooting down the golems, before massing in melee on Belhifet. Brutan was close to death and the others injured to varying degrees, but overall there was still a bit in hand when the devil keeled over. The game didn't allow a screenshot directly of that, so this is the best I could do taken through Windows.
The party has been imported into a HoW game, but before they start in on that they've got a date with Irenicus' dungeon ...
Kills to date:
Indie - F TN half-elf F/D (18(94),18,18,8,18,15) used intelligence and wisdom Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-140, TotSC-25, IWD1-377
Brutan - M CN dwarf F/Cl (18(00),17,19,10,18,2) used constitution Blunt weapons, missile weapons Kills: BG1-193, TotSC-23, IWD1-393
Nipal - M CG dwarf F/T (18(00),17,19,11,3,10) used dexterity Blunt weapons, bow Kills: BG1-285, TotSC-56, IWD1-384
Chila - M CG elf F/M (18(00),19,17,18,3,9) Axe, bow Kills: BG1-208, TotSC-34, IWD1-409
Hapan - M CE gnome F/T (18(00),18,18,11,2,8) Large sword, missile weapons Kills: BG1-161, TotSC-23, IWD1-232
Siri - male, elf enchanter (Grond0)
Kencore - male, half-orc kensai (Corey_Russell)
Thwaka - female, half-orc assassin (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1141650/#Comment_1141650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142638/#Comment_1142638
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143640/#Comment_1143640
The start of the session saw Thwaka immediately testing his trap skills out - and being found wanting.
Moving quickly on, the circus provided a gentle introduction to Athkatla. I was surprised there that the werewolf illusions could be affected by both emotion and chaos.
After reporting in to Gaelan Bayle, Kencore put in a request for an upgrade to his 2-handed sword. The beastmaster duly fell to prompt a change of control at the Copper Coronet.
We picked up the sword before tackling the slaver ship.
Up to this point Kencore had taken a lot of damage and he put in a request for Siri to learn Spirit Armor to boost his defenses. Siri initially denied knowing the spell, but, after checking, sheepishly admitted he really was an enchanter (and not an illusionist in disguise) and did in fact already know the spell
Trying our luck further afield saw Suna Seni's ambush fail when we arrived invisibly. Thwaka inherited Arbane there, but disdained to use it against a Mad Cleric and had to depend on Kencore to bail him out after being held.
Outside, Hareishan showed herself in an attack on some thieves. Siri instinctively countered by throwing a blind at her, but was shouted at by a Cowled Wizard busy-body.
The Graveyard saw plenty more exercise for Azuredge, though one of the tomb residents there did manage to fight back. The Crypt King shrugged off an early backstab and took advantage of Siri's lack of damaging spells to take Thwaka down to 2 HPs. Kencore abandoned his throwing from range and rushed in to save the assassin - only to find his spirit armor was of no use against critical hits. Siri used up the fire wand from the dungeon, but that wasn't quite enough to finish things off and Thwaka had to bounce in and out a couple of times before finding another backstab.
The final action saw us making a start on Mae'Var's quests. Rayic Gethras survived a backstab and then did his best to beat off an assault by a skeleton warrior - but his best wasn't good enough.
Enchanter - L11, 44 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 72 kills (98 in BGEE)
Assassin - L12, 67 HPs, 46 kills (187 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Kensai - L9, 103 HPs, 94 kills (199 in BGEE), 1 death
Kencore made good use of Azuredge, particularly in the Graveyard, and established what is likely to be a winning position in the BG2 kills count./i]
Ill (male gnome illusionist, Grond0); Hubris (male half-elf blade, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1141774/#Comment_1141774
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142998/#Comment_1142998
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143740/#Comment_1143740
There was a series of lessons today about self-inflicted perils
There wasn't much of a hint about the carnage to come as we breezed through the Circus.
Ill only had a single Bhaal CLW, so healing the significant amount of damage taken was taking a while and he suggested stealing Ribald's ring of regeneration. Hubris buffed his pickpocketing skill over 200 to minimise the risk of that, but I don't think you can entirely eliminate it (though I'd need to double-check if positive luck can do that). However, we avoided a critical failure anyway.
Buoyed by that success, Ill suggested raising the stakes a bit more. He was too stingy to want to pay the Cowled Wizards, so planned to stop their threats a different way. For an arcane caster killing that lot is pretty easy using webs and cloudkills so long as you're both patient and accurate in your play - unfortunately that's not a terribly good description of our MP style
After that excitement there was a brief return to normality as we used invisibility to make the fight with Suna Seni a doddle - Hubris gaining a level there.
Renfeld was rescued and we were tasked with dealing with yet another pair of mages. Hubris sneaked in to Prebek's house and was lining up another skull trap special, but Ill sneaked in first and exploded a sunfire to clear the room.
Illusionist 11, 75 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 92 kills (+170 in BGEE)
Blade 12, 70 HPs, 81 kills (+219 in BGEE), 5 deaths
I'm in the middle of original SoA with my infinity run party, but I was getting a bit tired of party play this morning so decided to do some soloing. I perhaps should have gone back to the bard run I've got going, but was tempted to start a shaman again. Even though I haven't had much success with that class I decided to add an additional restriction to my normal ones (at least for BGEE) and only allow the use of shaman spirits to kill things, i.e. the only time I'm allowed to get XP for creatures deaths is if those are caused by spirits. I've toyed with that a number of times before, so should theoretically know enough to give myself a decent chance of making progress.
In Candlekeep, I was lucky in getting a summoned spirit at the first attempt (there's a theoretical 37% chance per round at first level) against Carbos. Shank was easy though as I could nip behind the central fireplace before he reacted and pre-summon creatures. By disabling dance, moving and re-enabling it before the next once-a-round check, I could attract Shank's attention to come and play with the spirits.
I'd bought some darts to be able to attack Imoen without killing her and then trapped her against the edge of the map before starting to dance.
The spirits available at 1st level have poor THAC0 and a low maximum damage of either 2 or 3 - so fighting most enemies is pretty slow even if the enemies are not strong enough to quickly kill the spirits. I thus wanted to be able to get as quickly as possible to level 6 when the first upgrades are available. Shoal provided an easy boost, as her lack of a melee weapon hugely increases the effectiveness of the spirits - I got a good start there with 17 HPs for 2 levels.
In Beregost I couldn't attack Neera from range without the risk of killing her and didn't want to fight her enemies. However, I could punch Algernon unconscious. Doing that once didn't turn him hostile, but, once he finally regained his wits and I did it again, he saw red and was spirited.
To the south, darts wore down a pair of ogrillons to make it easier for spirits to finish them off and grab a letter for Mirianne. A hobgoblin also added to the victim list to allow me to temporarily return some boots to Zhurlong. After charming Silke I wasted her spells and then got her to near death before leading the spiders off to be ground down by a succession of spirits.
The particular spell I had in mind was Writhing Fog. Pre-casting that allowed me to dance up some summons before slightly shifting a charmed sirine into the Fog to annoy it, but close enough to spirits to attack them in melee rather than use arrows on them.
Next up it was Korax time. He paralysed the basilisks and withdrew once they were nearly dead to allow spirits to finish them off.
After learning Bhaal LMD in Nashkel, I went to find Meilum. He killed the charmed Poe and Bentan, but got taken down to 3 HPs in the process. However, it then took a long time to finish him off. The plan was to run him round to gain a bit of distance before trying to dance, then, when a summons appeared and he focused on it, to run out of sight. Two summons could then be produced and have a go at him, allowing me the opportunity to run out of sight again when the second of those was about to be killed. It took 7 or 8 failures to get a summons initially (and most times I tried dancing I didn't even have time to fail before Meilum was ready to attack) and then several attempts with the dual summons before a snake eventually tagged him as I was starting to run once more.
For Greywolf I was able to just run round the big rock until he lost track and I was free to produce summons - making that a much quicker contest.
Heading towards the FAI I found an ogre. Checking its HPs it had a nice round 30. While wearing Meilum's bracers I could do that with a critical bullet, so took those off for an initial shot with my sling before switching to darts and finally dancing.
North again, I killed some fishermen and returning Tenya's bowl finally got me to level 6.
Shaman 6, 52 HPs, 0 kills
Previous updates at:
The improved spirits made short work of a couple of golems at High Hedge. I bought a potion case there before returning to Beregost to get a scroll case from Firebead (now that I'm not expecting to kill any more innocents for a while).
The next high value encounters were in the Valley of the Tombs. I dragged the Revenant out of its tomb, but without much time to spare between dancing checks it had the opportunity to land a couple of blows when I paused outside the cave before moving on to leave it to the pre-summoned spirits. Next, I inched into view of Narcillicus and persuaded him to summon a pair of mustard jellies before retreating without giving the mage a chance to focus on me. Bear and panther spirits are capable of hitting the jellies and a single bear killed both of them. As I knew where Narcillicus was I could stop just out of eyesight and summon a spirit in sight of him. They wouldn't actually attack while I was that far away, but forced him to use up spells. He still managed to go through spirits sufficiently quickly to hit me with a scorcher and magic missiles, but was eventually helpless against new arrivals. More spirits then waited outside a ghast hideout to ambush the emerging undead.
That got me close to level 7 and I was thinking that reviving Melicamp would probably be the trigger. However, after dealing with Zargal's goons a wolf provided sufficient XP (with a 3rd maximum 10 HPs in a row). On returning to High Hedge Melicamp successfully recovered to provide a little boost towards the next level.
Going to Durlag's Tower I dragged the battle horrors on the path inside, where I could play games with the stairs to set spirits in ambush for them. Initially I tried letting the spirits attack unaided, but the battle horrors tend to kill them much faster than they're replaced and I thought that was taking too long - hence I ran them around inside Fogs to get them near death before setting the spirits loose. The battle horror trapped on the wall of course had no way to avoid the constant stream of summons. The doom guard wasn't quite as proficient at killing the spirits and a stream of summons did well to kill it without any aid.
The ghasts in the upper Tower were all killed without trouble and I also got some XP for trapping Riggilo for Kirinhale - that was enough for level 8 to get nymphs. I had no protection against basilisks, so left them for now. Riggilo was put out of his misery though.
In the Cloud Peak Mountains I did the main encounters. That included putting Zal into a Fog to annoy him, but I miscalculated there when he took more damage than expected by spirits while the Fog was still active - I had to hurriedly unsummon the spirits and move away to drag him out of the Fog with just 3 HPs left before a new summons completed the job properly. There were no more problems on the way to get the charisma tome.
With plenty of HPs, there were no problems shrugging off the minor bits of damage done on the way through the Nashkel Mine. For Mulahey the main danger was if I were targeted with rigid thinking - so I made sure to get Mulahey to talk when pre-summoned spirits were next to him. That worked well and the spirits easily disposed of the cleric and his support crew.
Back at Nashkel I attempted to sneak up close enough to Nimbul that, while I couldn't see him, dancing would produce spirits that could. Unfortunately, just because I couldn't see him, didn't mean he couldn't see me. I was aware of that possibility, but took the risk anyway as I had enough HPs to survive a few rounds of magic missiles if I was affected by horror - which I was and I did. A few healing spells later and I dragged spirits over to deal with Nimbul.
Moving on to the Bandit Camp I took the odd arrow while dragging spirits through. Taurgosz chased me until a Fog slowed him down and I got out of sight to summon a full team of spirits. He did pretty well to kill a long stream of those until eventually a spirit bear stunned him and his remaining HPs drained away. For Tazok's tent I summoned some nymphs for the first time to jump on enemies chasing me out of the tent. Using standard summons is always a bit of a risk, but because nymphs AI is strongly geared to spells they're safer than most and helped set up the enemies for the kill.
At the Cloakwood Mine, the nymphs were at it again, holding three of the enemies and charming Drasus. A moment's inattention proved costly there though. I noticed Genthore still had lots of HPs and sent Drasus to attack him to help wear him down quickly, so that the spirits could move on to the mages before they recovered. Drasus got hung up on another icon for a second or two though and that small delay allowed Genthore's HPs to fall too low (helped by having a missile weapon equipped) - so that Drasus' first blow was a killing one ...
While the clone is around, enything it kills is good for party XP but not personal credit.
Generally summons are pretty good at dealing with melee enemies, but the shaman is vulnerable to spells and missiles while dancing. Getting summons in position to deal with those sorts of enemies, without exposing the shaman, isn't easy as a solo character (I have no experience of a shaman in a party).
I had finished most of the Baldur's gate Quests so went to Werewolf Island and was thwarted at the ship by the last of the werewolves there. When it was clear that I was losing the battle cast haste in the hope of outrunning it. Too late.
I ran an inquisitor who defeated Greywolf but Zordral caused her to panic and that was game over.
Now running a Helmite trio led by Cassandra the Good.
You may be wondering how a thief came to be a Helmite. It is because she has seen how vicious vigilantes can be when a thief is caught and she therefore prefers the rule of law. She would rather pay the fine for her unlawful activities than be killed by the mob.
Blaggerd, Blackguard. Full party, including all TotSC areas
- Underestimated Orc Bowmasters (SoD)
- Underground River entrance, can't remember detail (SoD)
- Avernus, immobilised by Thrix (SoD)
Daorem, Dark Moon Monk. Solo
- Prat and gang (BGEE)
- Carbos, had sling equipped for bonus level 1 damage (BGEE failed to get out of Candlekeep)
- Failed to save the dukes at the Coronation (BGEE)
Wiven, Half-orc Assassin. Solo
- Running from family of Wyverns and charmed by Hamadryad (BGEE)
Wiven, Halfling Bounty Hunter. Solo, skipped SoD
- Held in Iron Throne HQ after killing 3 casters (BGEE)
- Self-snared at level 1 (BGEE)
- Level drained by Hareishan in the docks (BGIIEE)
Bobo, Dwarf Bounty Hunter. Solo, skipped SoD
- Killed while away from keyboard unpaused (BGEE)
- Mazed by Tanova (BGIIEE)
Ill (male gnome illusionist, Grond0); Hubris (male half-elf blade, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1141774/#Comment_1141774
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142998/#Comment_1142998
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143740/#Comment_1143740
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144455/#Comment_1144455
After the death count rose sharply in the previous session, we were able to complete this one relatively unscathed.
That didn't look so likely early on when Ill noticed Sansuki looking for help and was inclined to tell him to stuff it - but Hubris was feeling compassionate. The first vampire died quickly to spell damage and the other basic one was blinded. However, our spell damage was insufficient to deal with Del as well and she stuck grimly to Hubris' heels and sucked most of his blood before Ill said 'tag' and took over as the target. Fortunately, Del did not seem interested in using vampire domination and Hubris found a critical to finish her off pretty quickly.
This encounter was at the Docks, on our way to give Mae'Var a necklace - which he apparently didn't want in the first place.
Continuing on with Mae'Var's tasks we went to investigate Rayic's house. His mephits couldn't get through Ill's MGoI - allowing him to cloudkill them.
On leaving the area the orog ambush provided Ill with a good opportunity to try out his own sunfire.
That encounter got Hubris a level, allowing him access to 5th level spells. Ill was slightly taken aback at that, given he was a specialist mage and could still only cast 5th level spells himself - but it wasn't long before he got his 12th level and use of 6th level ones.
Moving on to the Graveyard, Hubris made a rare use of the bard song to protect against fear in the Crypt King's tomb, before Ill joined him to target the King with volleys of magic missiles.
Hubris had been trying out Wraith Form on a range of enemies. That gives protection against non-magical weapons and had in fact meant that the shadow fiend in the Graveyard couldn't hit him - but also meant he couldn't cast spells at it. At Watcher's Keep another casting meant most of the undead there couldn't hurt him - but Wraith Form doesn't protect against wraiths
Next, we fumigated the rooms at a local inn. Brennan broke free of webs early on, meaning he would normally have found it easy to run away when damaged. Even though there's little chance we would ever make use of his invisibility ring, it was a point of honor not to allow him to escape - and that was achieved when Brennan lay down on the floor sobbing hopelessly.
The final action saw us ambushed by Tanova. Invisibility allowed us to separate the vampires and her companions were duly killed - but she herself apparently wasn't willing to play hide and seek (or played it too well) and we couldn't find her. Instead we decided we'd had enough of those pesky vampires and went to pay Gaelan Bayle to side with the thieves.
Illusionist 12, 76 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar), 149 kills (+170 in BGEE)
Blade 14, 74 HPs, 116 kills (+219 in BGEE), 5 deaths
Wraithform would work against vampiric wraiths - all of the enemies with "mist" graphics have non-magical weapons. They would still have their spells, but only their spells.
Now, when you're higher level ... Enhanced Bard Song has what it takes to really humiliate a pack of mists.
A good idea as you don't need the True Sight for the paladin if you have the Cleric of Helm.
Journal of Cassandra
After being ambushed we fled southward to Beregost where we calmed Marl down and took a tome to Firebead before continuing on our way.
To the south we killed a couple of ogrillon before returning to Beregost with the letter one of them was carrying.
Further south still we killed three overly officious Flaming Fist who refused to believe our innocence. This provided us with more than enough plate mail.
We rested for healing, but Sinnara foolishly forgot to cast armour again with this result when a bandit archer brought her omission to light.
We returned to Beregost for healing before finally getting round to Gorion's instruction to visit the FAI where we were attacked by a mage assassin. He came to regret his foolishness, but not for long.
Upon our return southwards, Mellicamp was helped and an ogre killed.
We eventually reached Nashkel where I found some ankheg plate before chatting to Noober, refusing an undeserved reward from Oublek and killing Zordral in a Carnival tent.
True sight, Doom and Spook followed by Command rendered him harmless.
Further south a similar spell combination worked against Greywolf though Hal did get badly hurt when he got too close.
We went to collect our reward, but then Cassandra was killed while we were in transit. Raising her was expensive and took a third of our reserves.
We then found Perue's sword for him.
EDIT
Having been asked to deal with Bassilus, we went in search of him and dealt with him "permanently."
In response to Bjornin's request we sought out the half-ogres who had hurt him, and after killing then we were given a shield +1 which I gave to Hal. A bi=product was that Sinnatra became a better thief and illusionist.
A sleep spell from Droth disabled the entire party.
Game over.
Ill (male gnome illusionist, Grond0); Hubris (male half-elf blade, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1141774/#Comment_1141774
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1142998/#Comment_1142998
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1143740/#Comment_1143740
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1144455/#Comment_1144455
Today's session started by doing a couple some tasks for Aran Linvail. That included going to sort out the vampire HQ, where we hit a couple of bits of trouble. First Ill tried to occupy a vampire for Hubris to attack, but without considering the ghast coming along behind. Once held, prospects didn't look good - particularly as he had improved invisibility active, which meant Hubris could not use invisibility to save him. However, a quick spin managed to deal with the attackers just in time.
The Sir Sarles quest was completed and the iMoD forged before we picked up the pantaloons. Checking reputation at this point showed that down at 8 and some donations at a temple quickly pushed it back to 15.
Deciding to have a go at getting the Ring of Gaxx, we prepared the way by opening up the sewers - gaining a new cloak there.
Kangaxx continued dishing out spells and a FoD saw Hubris collapse.
When Kangaxx's change script fails to fire like that, he may be rendered permanently unkillable, but we kept the attack going anyway just in case. It caught us a bit by surprise though when the lich form did in fact disappear and Hubris was left well away from the exit with the knowledge that a demilich howl would soon be on the way.
Rumbal (male elf ranger, Gate70); Indy (male elf dragon disciple, Grond0)
The random rollerator threw out this pair yesterday and they promptly left Candlekeep before discarding Imoen. We catch them up today for their first main session and cross our fingers that they don't die in the first couple of minutes.
Grond0 doesn't know it but I keep getting part of two tunes running through my head. Every time I select my character I hear "let's get ready to rumble" (sadly the PJ and Duncan version rather than anything special) and when I observe Indy it's a switch to "Fireball" (Pitbull?)
Anyway, here they are making a start today.
Indy went to sift through the remnants of Gorion's body while Rumbal shot down Xzar and got hit then chased by Montaron far enough for a pair of wolves to join in. After three or four minutes we get our act together and close the combat down.
We head south to pick up a letter from ogrillions and boots from a hobgoblin.
Indy purchases a scroll of protection from petrification so we make a quick round of the basilisks (Rumbal commenting that it is indeed very quick, and Indy confirming dual-wielding +3 scimitars make a huge difference). So it is that we face down Mutamin with an attack from the shadows followed by Magic Missile and melee.
Equipment at the end of the session.