@Gate70 best of luck with Wyrme in ToB, bounty hunters are awesome! @Corey_Russell, congratulations on yet another success story!
After many gameless months I've been thoroughly enjoying BG3 Early Access with a Gold Dwarf Priestess of Moradin, which made me feel like returning to that other priest of mine: Eyulf the LE Priest of Helm, who totally believes himself to be a paragon of duty and justice and good, but whose questionable judgment and rigidity make him more of an evil tyrant.
Good to see you back. My brother got the BG3 Early Access to and has been enjoying it much. I was gonna download it but I'll be stuck in these write-ups from the Lord Angmar saga for a while.
I hate when I get done because I have to go back and gather my notes, sort my images, etc., to start the write-up phase.
Wyrme is the mistress of her own pocket plane. All she has to do is defeat some good-aligned characters. They keep coming but Wyrme is untroubled and cuts them down one after another. Eventually Ellisime, Aran Linvail and Duke Eltan turn up and various summoned ogres and hobgoblins accompany them.
Wyrme switches from standing melee to running melee as the three aforementioned heroes arrive, and since the hobgoblins are shooting arrows she equips the shield of reflection. This reduces her melee capability so she happily runs rings around everyone until Duke Eltan gets a blow in.
A plague of insects eventually catch up with Wyrme and force her to gulp a couple of healing potions so she adds an oil of speed, potion of heroism (and at a later stage adds an invulnerability potion and as her ranged attacks seem to be struggling a potion of mind focusing).
The insects had almost overwhelmed Wyrme and she had visions of sinking into ignomy at an embarrasingly early stage of this campaign but by the second screenshot she's shaken herself out of this mindset and knuckled down.
Ellisime had to date proved the most annoying and as a caster she might be more vulnerable than Aran and Eltan so Wyrme throws the Firetooth dagger in her direction. Several minor hits later the magely defences are breached and another dagger or two proves to be fatal.
Wyrme tries shooting Aran and Eltan. Aran is only taking 1-2 damage per hit so she focuses on Eltan not paying attention to whether each throw lands - she is too busy running.
After a few rounds Wyrme sees Eltan is uninjured but doesn't check why and assumes he is either immune to +3 weapons or ranged weapons. Back to Aran Linvail and his defences which also fail eventually and the dagger cuts him down.
Wyrme only has Duke Eltan left and leads him into some snares - to no effect. OK, time for plan D (a being melee, b ranged, c snares). Plan D is the same as plan A, just with nobody else around. Wyrme nips in and confirms Celestial Fury +3 is able to injure him.
This is going to be fun. Wyrme moves away, uses a Gaxx haste and switches from the shield of reflection to offhand the ninjato +3 for 3 APR. She takes an immediate hit but lands one herself before realising she is taking hits at an unprecedented rate, faster than the insect bites arrived. Something is not right.
At this point I must apologise to @Corey_Russell for pausing the game here because he'd love to see me die a second time for this reason
Wyrme surmised that Duke Eltan must have a permanent physical mirror active and all the thrown daggers she has tossed against him are bouncing between the two combatents as are possibly the snare missiles. Wyrme hopes the maze snare isn't also bouncing around, and equips the reflection shield again. She winces as the game is unpaused, but takes no further damage.
With the shield equipped Wyrme is safe and keeps her distance until her health recovers somewhat. Then she summons the efreeti, followed by Kitthix.
The efreeti has landed some damage, but Kitthix lands a web. Wyrme takes advantage of this but even with Improved Haste she is unable to kill Eltan.
Kitthix fails with a second web but Eltan has had enough.
With combat over Wyrme cautiously removes her reflection shield and all is well.
Wyrme eyed the exit of her pocket plane and quickly worked out how to get out - to Saradush.
There were a few minor jobs to do before paying 20gp to a vampiric courtesan for obtaining entry into the dungeon and jail below the castle. From there it was straightforward to obtain an audience with Gromnir - who proved to be less than negotiable.
Wyrme used a brace of special snares to maze Gromnir's entire party, and laid a brace of spike traps for their return. They returned mostly one at a time until Berena and Gromnir paired up - Wyrme killed her before dragging Gromnir into two snares and then killing him with her sword.
The bounty hunter combination of maze + spike + snare, with mainhanded Celestial Fury stuns and offhand katana poisoning proved to be a deadly combination for her enemies. It's a bit tricky showing this in screenshots but backstab > lay snare > hide went very smoothlyl
Making her way outside Saradush Wyrme continued with the same strategy and it works so well that she pushes her luck to melee a fire giant twice albeit being one hit away from having to run with the second one.
Back in the saddle with another rangers/thieves run after losing my 5th attempt at a fighters run in July. To Qilue of all people, ugh. Hopefully this one will make it all the way!
Run rules are SCS Insane, with most of the optional difficulty increases (e.g., skip the gold/rep changes). Also a few low-cheese conducts (no stealing from shops, no PI/mislead cheese, no recharging, try to avoid AI abuse, reasonable RP, etc.).
Charname is a halfling swash.
Party comp rule is all members must have at least one level of thief or ranger (including kits) at all times. In practice, this means very limited divine casting throughout the trilogy.
In previous runs, I did not do BG1 with the rangers/thieves party - so I'm looking forward to that! Looks like we will be using Kivan, Imoen, Coran, Safana, and Tiax. Alora is a backup if anyone gets chunked, as is Shar-teel.
I am thinking about whether to dual Safana to mage. I think I probably will, but will still run her as a backstabber. She will give up 4x backstab at level 9, which is painful as she doesn't have the weapon proficiency bonuses that Shar-teel has, but I think that the ability to cast invisibility and mirror image are probably worth it and it seems fun.
May run Coran as a backstabber as well, even though I think he is probably better kept as a traditional bowman.
Someday I hope to do a thieves only run as an assassin. I suppose on that run I can keep Safana as a pure thief and also run Alora as a stabber, with Imoen playing the T->M stabbing roll. Backstabs for everyone!
*Teeth emoji*. Without checking the shaman's level, I'm not totally convinced the potion went off in time and the unresisted lightning bolt damage was 40. But that's what the log would suggest...
The SCS kobold shaman is a level 6 mage (with more HP than a mage of that level should have). That's a 6d6 bolt, so 20 damage is a normal result with 0 resistance and 40 damage is impossible unless you're playing with double damage on.
The resistance bonus comes before the cosmetic effects of the potion, so the only other thing I can think of is that maybe the stat changes don't actually apply until the next tick - and the lightning bolt arrived before that.
(Edited to add qualifiers for more accuracy - I'm speculating here)
The SCS kobold shaman is a level 6 mage (with more HP than a mage of that level should have). That's a 6d6 bolt, so 20 damage is a normal result with 0 resistance and 40 damage is impossible unless you're playing with double damage on.
The resistance bonus comes before the cosmetic effects of the potion, so the only thing I can think of is that the stat changes don't actually apply until the next tick - and the lightning bolt arrived before that.
The game is on insane though, so double damage may well apply. The fact that no additional or reduced damage is shown in the text would be consistent with a potion of insulation having been gulped just in time to counteract the standard double damage.
I think jmerry has a good guess, and is probably right. It wasn't shown in the screenshot, but I drank the potion when the lightning bolt was extremely close to me. If I had been smarter, I could have drank it faster - I knew the shaman has a tendency to cast lightning but didn't react quickly enough. So I was probably one tick too late and one tick before getting hit. Very interesting!
---
An SCS Insane Trilogy run of Rangers & Thieves
The party is now heading off to tackle the bandit camp.
I had a little trouble early, kobold issues aside. I did early basilisks solo with the ghoul (returning later with a potion of eyes as I realized I had missed one), but I really wanted 32k xp before recruiting the rest of the party and had a tough time getting it (being at roughly 23k post basilisks).
I decided to go after the 2x3 sirens on the lighthouse map, but I kept getting chased away by the pack of elite hobgoblins that are closer to the map edge. Too many poison bows for a pc with no shield and studded leather.
I ultimately came back with the shield amulet and fireball amulet, and was able to clear them. A fireball was not effective against the sirens (~65% resistance), but it turned out that two of them were level 4 and were vulnerable to the sleep wand. The second set of 3, with Sil, proved to be too tough solo (all at least level 5), but were manageable later on with Kivan. I had already used the clarity potion by that point, but Kivan as an elf is 90% charm immune and he managed to avoid all the charm effects.
A hasted Imoen snuck around the pirate cave to get Safana's book and finish her quest.
I had planned to dual Safana to mage, but I now think that isn't going to work. She's already at level 6 (recruited at 32k xp) and will shortly have enough xp to be level 7. The required intelligence tome isn't available for several chapters until the party can access BG.
So, if she duals at 7 she will need 90k to get her thief levels back, which won't happen before the run is over. If she squats at 6 for the tome, she still needs 60k and *maybe* gets her thief levels back right near the end, missing about 2.5 chapters. If I had had the foresight to squat her at level 5 (recruiting at 16k xp), would only need 40k xp to hit mage 6, which - if durlags is saved - is manageable in one chapter.
But, finally running the numbers has kind of soured me on making her a mage; the mage part will be fine, but she spends very little of the game as a T->M unless the party does TotSC content, which we mostly aren't planning to. So the party would have to want a second mage late game at the expense of a backstabber. Leaning towards skipping, but TBD.
I also realized my plan to have Imoen be my utility thief was stupid, as she's about to become a mage and lose her thief abilities for the rest of the game. So we have to cobble together what we still can from Safana and Coran, which also makes it a bit tougher to dual Safana.
Inspection of the world map saw Wyrme head to the Forest of Mir and then to the Marching Mountains.
At the Forest of Mir she used a few Maze traps.
At the Marching Mountains Wyrme snared a few fire giants and burning men but some of the local Bhaalspawn escaped her attentions - two dying but the rest escaping.
A rest before entering the Fire Giant temple gives Wyrme 32 snares to play with. After half an hour or so she has used them all up but still has more to do. A second rest sees another set of snares used and after the third rest she clears the area.
She ascends the large staircase to the inner part of the temple and is merrily snaring away when she realises Berenn has walked into a maze trap with physical mirror active - the realisation being when a maze animation starts to close in on her.
Wyrme rapidly considers her options but is unable to prevent the sole death directly caused by her own maze traps.
Time for a break (despite me wanting to see how ToB dragons and Mel's first confrontation would be handled by a solo thief).
She ascends the large staircase to the inner part of the temple and is merrily snaring away when she realises Berenn has walked into a maze trap with physical mirror active - the realisation being when a maze animation starts to close in on her.
Wyrme rapidly considers her options but is unable to prevent the sole death directly caused by her own maze traps.
Grrr. It is a pain the way thief traps can be reflected back like that. I can't say I ever do it, but using the long term spell trap function from the Staff of the Magi can be useful against this sort of chicanery. That also prevents my typical need for a mad dash to read a scroll of PfM to dispel the maze effect before it sends you into oblivion ...
We did indeed kill ankhegs, sirine, Shoal and Droth. We then decided to plumb the depths of Durlag's Tower. I now have the Helm of Opposite Alignment so if I wish I can play SoD as a CHAOTIC gOOD BLACKGUARD... If I get that far. Now that could be interesting.
All party members haave now reached the level cap.
No point in wandering away from the script now.
I have a 50 charge wand of fire and a 100 charge wand of monster summoning.
Reputation currently 14. I'm happy with that.
What I was pleased about was that I used a new tactic just before the chessboard that made one of the rooms trivial whereas before it had always been tough.
@Jabberwock How were you planning to dual Safana? Increase her intelligence and dual her to a mage?
A query. What would happen if you end SoD wearing the helm of opposite alignment. You can't take it off, so do you become good? Or does the magic of programming just remove it to make you evil again?
Another question.
Is soultaker actually useful as a weapon?
The DestroyAllEquipment() action applied to all characters at the beginning of BG2 removes cursed items along with everyone else. You would import as a character with base evil alignment and the helm, and then the helm would be removed to make you evil again.
As a weapon, Soultaker is indistinguishable from a "Quality" dagger. No breakage chance, 1d4 damage, speed 2, nonmagical.
However, I unfortunately got killed in the bandit camp encounter. Kivan apparently has a scripted encounter/fight with Tazok, which sets the entire camp hostile after Tazok reaches a certain hp threshold.
That wasn't actually too big a deal, as the party is close to the edge of the camp and can reposition.
What was a bigger deal was that Kivan got a morale check on low hp while tanking Tazok and panicked. He was wearing all my anti missile equipment, plus the fireball amulet. 3 thieves in studded leather just weren't up to taking on the entire camp without help.
I tried to salvage the situation by following Kivan around, hoping that he would hit the edge of the map and we could retreat. I didn't get the timing right and ultimately he was killed. The party could have then retreated, but for RP reasons I would have considered that a perma-death for Kivan and I wanted to try to save him. The travel time to the camp is also lengthy enough that his equipment may have been lost (not sure).
In any case, I delayed retreat to see if a shield-amulet buffed charname could tank, supported by Imoen using wands (now a level 1 mage). Made some progress but not enough, and charname took a few too many arrows when we finally pulled the trigger on retreat.
On the plus side, I can now try squatting Safana at Thief 5 and may go back to my original plan to dual her to mage. Worst case, anyone with any mage levels in BG1 (and therefore wand access) is probably stronger than any thief so it's not like the dual will cripple the party. But, the dual may not be able to spend much time with both classes up and running, and gives up a few more thief levels than would be ideal.
I can also do a much cleaner job with the very early game, wasting much less gold and time.
Will give it another try probably this weekend...
*Shakes fist at Kivan*
*Reminds self that the morale mechanics are actually fairly lethal if the party can't cast remove/resist fear*
Tethtoril, possibly the most powerful of Candlekeep's officials and certainly the most reasonable of them, helped us avoid the death sentence that was hanging over our heads. He also handed me a letter from Gorion stating I was a spwan of Bhaal, the dead God of murder. I wasn't sure what to make of this, if it even meant anything with regard to my character. It was my conviction that my character was shaped by my faithful service to the Vigilant One. What I did know is that it explained some minor powers of mine that weren't bestowed upon me by Helm, and that there were more Bhaalspawn. The Iron Throne's last local leader, Sarevok, was one of them.
To get away from Candlekeep we had to battle several doppelgangers that had apparently been preparing for a hostile takeover of the citadel (if only that ungrateful Ulraunt knew), as well as two basilisks, and a party of adventurers allied with Sarevok. Two of them were wizards but Imoen's and Khalid's arrows of dispelling laid their vulnerabilities bare for our party to take advantage of.
We survived the encounter without any serious injuries on our side.
But all was not well. We were wanted criminals all over the Sword Coast, so we had to look over our shoulders wherever we went. We decided to take a side trip through Spider Wood to Durlag's Tower, the most unlikely place for the law to find us, we reckoned. It was a decision that one of us would pay the ultimate price for.
The tower was as full of riches as it was of monsters. Doppelgangers, undead, and spiders we could handle without breaking much of a sweat, but some of the dwarven constructs there were another matter. One of them, a manifestation of Durlag's Pride knocked out Brage and nearly Imoen and myself as well before Helm's seeking sword struck the thing down.
We temporarily lost Branwen in a fight against two phoenix guards, before we had to battle sixteen more constructs as chess pieces on an electrically charged chess board. Protected from electrical damage, we extinguished most of them with fire before we could take out their king.
Our efforts yielded us two extra suits of full plate armor (one of which was donned by Branwen), more gold than we needed and some equipmemt that seemed tailor-made for me: the enchanted mace Krotan's Skullcrusher, the highly enchanted sling Arla's Dragonbane and Pellan's Shield, a greatshield with protective enchantments. Branwen put on Kiel's Helmet and Brage took the Worl'd Edge, a blade as mighty as the cursed one he once wielded but without the actual curse, as well as the protective Cloak of the Shield.
On the lowest level of the tower, deep under the ground, we encountered a Demon Knight who claimed to be Durlag's Tower's new keeper. He let slip that he had been working on setting the tower up as a base for his demonic patron before he attacked us. An intense battle ensued in which the dark knight targeted us with Dispels and Power Word spells as well as his hard-hitting blade. The creature cut through our summons as if they were made of butter, and beat us up almost as easily. Both Imoen and even heavily armored Branwen had to retreat at one point as they simply couldn't handle the tremendous warrior. Rather than focusing on Brage, Jaheira and me, our foe then dropped a fireball more devastating than any fireball I'd ever seen (and I'd seen many) on Branwen and Imoen. Branwen got knocked so we'd be able to patch her up, but Imoen wasn't so lucky. My best friend, whom I'd known for most of my life and whom I saw almost as my little sister, the girl who had left the safety of Candlekeep to accompany me and look after me on my perilous adventure, was gone. And I meant completely gone. Her gear somehow remained, but her body was gone.
i didn't notice it initially, caught up as I was in the battle against the Demon Knight. But when we managed to strike the creature down,
and Imoen turned out to be gone, the grief and the realization that I'd failed her, Helm and myself as a protector of the innocent, hit me harder than that damned fiend's blows ever did.
I donned a helm that I found on the body of the demonknight and immediately I felt a loathing for Dorn such that I wanted him out of my party. I did however have the sense to take possession of all his goods other than those he had when he joined me. I didn't want him thinking that I had robbed him!
As he was willing to rejoin my party my treatment of him ust have been satisfactory as far as he was concerned.
We then proceeded to Nashkel where I joined up with Minsc and Jaheira before heading northward where we killed Bassilus and Zargal as well as coutless undead. On the way we were attacked by a basilisk in transit. I killed it.
Then off to where we had killed Mutamin as I remembered seeing somebody who had been petrified. Upon it becoming human again I became a hero much to the delight of my party.
We then cleared the Ulcaster Ruins before heading to Gullykin and from thence to the Firewine Brige where we killed Melium and Khark before heading off to tthe ankheg fields.
I was eventually able to reach a reputation of 18 so I went shopping, buying an archmage cloak for Dynaheir and recharging many wands. Finance was an issue, so I couldn't recharge them all. 36 gold pieces left after the shopping spree.
Here is my status just before heading to Candlekeep.
EDIT
In Candlekeep there were no major problems. Dynaheir took on Prat and co. single handed. Mirror image, improved invisibility, two webs, fireballs, ice storm, and cloudkill were sufficient.
I took on the basilisks myself.
Safana rescued Duke Eltan and we then killed Cythandria.
In the battle against Slythe and Kirsten an inocent got killed. Reputation down to 9.
The battle at the Ducal Palace was won without too many problems though we did have to use wands more than I would have wanted. We are now going after Sarevok.
We got badly hurt by a trap and returned to an inn in order to recover. We spent a full 24 hours there!
However, when we returned the skeletons hurt us badly again. Fortunately they have now been destroyed.
Eventually we battled our way through to Sarevok. Safana talked to him and immediately took a potion of invisibility. Sarevok ran to where she was standing at the left side of the building whilst she made her way back to the entrance. Meanwhile Semaj was webbed and eventually killed with missile weapons and magic missiles.
Evntually we won though Minsc, Safana and Dynaheir temporarily lost their lives.
Pearl, Ruva, Valos, Rila Lira, Poppy, and Yi Grovana in IWD2:EE
Part 2
The orcs at Shaengarne have much better attack bonuses than goblins in IWD2, making it much harder to avoid hits with AC alone, and since orcs in EE are barbarians and EE rage gives several immunities to disablers, we can't just knock them out with a casting of Sleep. We have to use Entangle to hold off enemy orcs, and Rainstorm to help clear the field more quickly. Rainstorm is much stronger in EE, dealing electricity damage 100% of the time instead of 50% and also imposing a -5 weakness to cold and electricity, making the spell pretty dangerous for party members and enemies alike. It doesn't stop the enemy shamans from getting Hold Person spells off the ground, though.
Our cleric has a special cloak that grants immunity to Hold Person, so we can quickly cure it with Remove Paralysis.
After two or three bouts with the local orcs, we finally hit level 4! Ruva takes her 4th rank in Toughness, cranking her HP all the way up to 124. Valos, our deep gnome, relies on AC to avoid attacks, and that just isn't very practical on Insane mode. Ruva is actually much more sturdy despite her far inferior AC.
Much of Shaengarne is about carefully managing our limited HP and dispensing lots of healing spells from our cleric. We do get to use some specialized tricks, like busting out Snilloc's Snowball Swarm (another wizard spell that druids can now cast in EE) to take advantage of the elemental damage weaknesses of the cave zombies and slimes.
I was considering recruiting Vrek Vileclaw, an intelligent troll that is now a recruitable NPC in EE (!), but unfortunately I didn't speak with Emma and did not get the right dialog option to try to convince him to join us. This being a no-reload run, we have to slay him with Sunscorch spells. Trolls in EE are no longer unkillable without fire or acid, but they do take HUGE damage from fire and acid, with very high regeneration and HP to compensate.
We hit level 5! Notice that while our spellcasters are all single-classed, giving us access to level 3 cleric and druid spells, our deep gnome and fighter are dipping into multiple classes to snatch up various benefits.
There are lots of different character builds in EE, and we'll be dipping into various classes even late into the game.
We're very close to the Shaengarne Bridge fight, one of the tough bottlenecks of the early game. Even before then, we still have some tough battles: the Malarites in EE are no longer just melee fighters with healing spells; they also summon lots of animal allies as well as throwing out Entangle and Hold Person spells. The final area before the bridge is very dense with enemies. Fortunately, we have some powerful new tools: the ever-deadly Call Lightning spell, Animal Empathy to charm enemy animals, and the Moonblade from Vrek, which we're keeping in lieu of returning it to Emma.
The Moonblade is a very solid weapon. Although it has no attack bonus, it does deal hard-to-resist magic damage and imposes 50% spell failure for 1 round with every hit!
Valos finally hits level 5, taking her first level as an Illusionist and therefore gaining a new feat: Expertise, which lets her use a toggleable ability to get up to +5 AC at the cost of -5 to hit rolls. Better still, we have a special pair of bracers that doubles the bonuses. She can crank her AC past 30, and now that I've learned to buff her with Ilmater's Endurance instead of our cleric, she'll have a comfortable HP buffer for when the enemies do roll high.
But the Shaengarne Bridge fight is still no cakewalk, and Ilmater's Endurance, our cleric's special ability, also imposes a -3 weakness to physical damage. When our little deep gnome Valos gets hit, she really does suffer for it.
We'd need an AC of 37 in order to guarantee that that bugbear couldn't land a hit. That kind of AC just really hard to reach, even for a deep gnome.
Xuki, the enemy mage, is very scary, packing a Shout spell that can stun for 2 rounds on a failed save. Immunity to stun is very hard to come by. Before EE, only enemies ever got any immunity to stun effects, and even in EE, only Barbarian Rage, the short-lasting Spell Shield spell, and certain shapeshifts (all of the forms after druid level 10) grant immunity to stun, and Seven Eyes only blocks one instance of it.
But Valos has Weapon Finesse, which means she can apply her crazy DEX bonus (+7 when fully buffed!) when she's fighting with small blades and touch weapons like the Moonblade. Xuki has to cast in spite of spell failure, and she doesn't get lucky.
Xuki still manages to her her Shout spell off the ground, but thanks to good positioning, only Valos gets caught by its narrow AoE, and she easily makes her save thanks to the +10 Fortitude bonus she gets from Ilmater's Endurance (and she already has excellent Fortitude saves thanks to her several warrior levels). We manage to break through Xuki's Stoneskin and Mirror Image pre-buffs and take her down.
Notice Ruva, flashing in yellow, wrestling with the bugbear to the west. IWD2EE has some really intense melee pressure in it, and being able to counter threats from multiple directions is really key to keeping spellcasters healthy. Mirror Image doesn't last as long in EE, making it much less useful as a pre-buff, and our druid's only shapeshift is wolf form, which is lousy for tanking because it only has a ranged attack (which means Expertise is unusable).
We've managed to save a lot of our spells for the large horde to the west. We throw out Web, Entangle, and Rainstorm spells to hold off the enemies and thin the herd. With a little early pressure, we can take down the enemy mages' Mirror Images, allowing Rainstorm to strike right at the heart.
These mages aren't as high-level as Xuki, but they still throw out Ice Dagger and Aganazzar's Scorcher spells (which are indeed spelled differently in IWD2), and when we fail to bring down the next mage, our druid gets roasted.
We have to burn a lot of healing options on her, but we keep her afloat until the mages croak.
We finally hit level 6! Ruva takes her final rank in Toughness, getting a ludicrous 172 maximum HP (pre-EE, almost no character could break 90 at this point!). Our druid can now take the Natural Spell feat, allowing her to cast spells even while shapeshifted. Our cleric now has the Extended Spell feat, which means her level 1 and 2 spells get double duration, enough to make Ox's Fortitude and its +4 to CON last even after resting. Finally, our sorcerer can cast Lance of Disruption, and thanks to the Safe Spell feat, she now casts party-friendly Web spells.
Second try after an earlier death in the bandit camp.
Had a little early luck when one of Mutamin's basilisks dropped a 3k tear necklace. Killed basilisks and sirens for early xp. Recruited Safana at 16k xp to leave her at T-5 in preparation for a late game dual to Mage. Used HiS to rob the pirate cave. Recruited Kivan and Imoen at 32k and then headed off to Nashkel.
A fireball from the lost amulet cleared Mulahey's skeletons, and he personally fell to concentrated attacks. Robbed the tombs after he was finished, gaining a wand of monster summoning and a +2 dagger.
Geared up for the bandit camp with more healing potions, fire resist potions and the fire resist ring from east of Nashkel mines. Also had the para wand from the pirate cave, the cold wand from Nashkel mines, and the fire wand from the farm.
At the camp, Kivan engaged Tazok and then the rest of the camp went hostile. Kivan used fire resist, freedom and absorption potions, while Imoen scroll cast web from the backline. Fireballs from the party cleared most enemies quickly. Successful revenge!
The party did a little more gearing, getting the firewine gauntlets, the three +Def belts, and the charisma book.
Coran was recruited in Cloakwood, and the party quickly did his quest to turn his timer off.
The fight outside the Cloakwood mines got quite dangerous. BG1 isn't too hard to reload, but when you're out of practice it's tough because it's hard to remember which fights are the actually dangerous ones and why!
The plan for the party of 4 outside of the mines (a powerful ranged fighter, a strong melee fighter, and two mages) was to use oil of speed to haste charname, who would run around obliterating everyone with a firebreath potion. Kivan would tank per usual, and could use a fire resistance potion to put his rFire up to 90. Coran could shoot, Safana would try to sneak in a backstab, and Imoen would use wands.
Unfortunately, I forgot why this fight was dangerous. The mages can cast Chaos! Which they both did. I should have immediately used the greenstone amulet on charname, but I didn't. Charname saved against the first cast, but failed to the second.
Fortunately, by putting Kivan right up next to the melee fighter he was able to break aggro, and charname eventually ran off to the side and escaped with 16 hp. The fighters had extremely high wand saves, and one of them was making paralyze saves vs. wand at 2. Yikes.
Kivan got hit for 24 damage by the last fighter, Drasus, and died. So now the party needs to spend a week walking back to the temple, ugh. Anyway, we'll be back shortly for Davaeorn. Planning on wands for doom guards, and magic blocking + firebreath for davaeron. If he has fire resistance, will have to shoot him down with acid arrows. Coran will probably use a potion of power in that case.
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A few thoughts on the run so far. Rangers and thieves are not good in early BG1. The equipment restrictions and low hp lead to a vulnerable party that has trouble dealing damage. The only decent character is Kivan, except he's needed to tank, so generating DPS is a little tough.
Safana is a very substantially worse backstabber than shar-teel, with critically low hp (19 in my run), no damage bonus from proficiency, low strength, etc. She has a tendency to miss as well as a tendency to be single shot by crits. She still hits pretty hard against archers though. I'm hoping she's better now that the party has speed boots, and mirror image should fix much of the hp issue later game. We'll see.
Imoen is a good wand slinger once she duals to mage, but prior to that she has crummy DPS and defenses.
Swashbucklers are bad in BG1 (no secret being revealed here). Huge equipment restrictions vs. a fighter, plus loss of most proficiency bonuses as well as fighter APR bonus and thac0, in return for tiny swash bonuses. Not good. However, ** in daggers allows a swash to sneak specialization in a ranged weapon which helps a bit. A dwarf would also be able to start with substantial strength bonuses to ranged dagger damage (this charname is a halfling, however). Melee combat is generally a non-starter with thief hp and no helmet.
Coran is still a beast, but he isn't available until mid-game.
That all said, the party is looking forward to rounding itself out with Tiax next chapter (will have to reduce reputation first).
I haven't played much of this challenge recently and decided it was time to try another run. Normally I choose classes randomly, but this time went with my own choice. Some recent runs with the shaman have had additional restrictions, but I'll just use my standard rules this time and try and get deep into the game. This being my 43rd attempt at it might suggest the character's hard to make progress with, but I don't think that's the case and it's about time I produced some evidence for that .
The first hour of the run saw rapid progress:
- Shoal was eaten by spirits to get me an excellent 19 HPs for moving to level 3.
- reputation took a hammering due to the deaths of Algernon and Dushai.
- at the basilisk area Korax led the way. The basilisks were switching to melee more than usual and Korax did well to retain a few HPs while gaining me two further levels and two more lots of maximum 10 HPs. He managed a final service, before being pensioned off with a bullet, by dealing with Mutamin.
After a rest Baerin was charmed and drawn away to his death, before Kirian & co died in Writhing Fogs.
- Baerin's +1 arrows were used to shoot down the High Hedge golems to get to level 6, with a relatively disappointing 7 HPs.
- upgraded spirit summons and call lightning now offered alternative tactics, but there was some more use of Writhing Fog first to claim further easy XP from battle horrors at Durlag's Tower. I didn't currently have protection against the charm trap protecting the tome or against basilisks, but there was just enough time left in the session for a ghast to offer up its unlife to get me to level 7, with 10 more HPs rounding off a promising start.
While I am pleased to have beaten BG1 for the first time as a Blackguard, it hasn't been my most enjoyable game so I am not even going to continue into SoD.
I'll revert to being a lawful good Cavalier backed up by a lawful good Cleric of Helm. I did enjoy having Safana in the team for an extended period which I suppose outs me as being a randy old goat. My wife would agree with that, not that she's objecting.
Journal of Wyrmbane
My eyes tell everyone that I have at least SOME divine blood in my veins, but which god? Perhaps time will tell.
We had opened up the bottom third of Baldur's Gate but not much else. It wasn't long before we realised there was no sign of Lothander and perhaps we should get ourselves poisoned. On the way we raided Ramazith's tower and picked up the Helm of Glory from Jardak after killing his butler.
Then we returned Nester's dagger to his friend and waited as Swish retrieved the Helm of Balduran. On our way out we met and fought the maulers of undermountain. A summon or two and a couple of hold spells meant they were wiped out without too much difficulty.
Jalantha Mistmyr failed to stop us taking our 50gp back (with interest of a body and a piece of paper taken too).
Ragefast briefly lived to see a nymph freed and then we killed him. Loury then stepped inside to fight Degrodel's guardians, and stepped outside so his companions could join in - one of the invisible stalkers deciding to surprise Swish instead but we handled matters.
Next we killed Vail and his 1hp wonders-adventuring party, and surrounded Lothander with skeletons so we could grab his boots for Corecleric.
Larze the ogre proved troublesome - Swish getting targeted so Loury stepped in and took a pulping before also running. Corecleric casually used his wand of the heavens a few times to stop us from becoming floor-coverings.
We then decided to investigate the Iron Throne HQ. Corecleric used Sanctuary > skeletons > silence and this allowed us to safely deal with Zhalimar Cloudewulfe and his mercenaries with little reprisal.
We then whipped around Candlekeep, Corecleric taking the +2 cloak to reach -9AC. Swish proved adept at dealing with the traps here. We won't mention him walking into the first one as he went to de-trap it and we absolutely didn't have this conversation:
Corey_Russell: Are your trap scores high enough for this
Grond0: 100 should be enough
(walks onto trap 45 seconds later)
Against the spiders near the strength potion crypt there was a brief talk of tactics before Loury meleed them - and had to gulp a potion as he took one poisoned hit.
Swish cautiously walked around a fire trap that claimed Grond0's last duo character and we continued.
Corecleric placed summons into the middle of Prat's gang and we threw caution to the wind by killing them without too much more of a strategy.
Anyway, we escaped and went straight to Durlags Tower - making our way around there in about 5 minutes to grab a tome and clear the exterior.
We made our way back to the city and met Tamoko then Slythe without selling items. Slythe took a dispelling arrow from Swish and down he went.
From there we handled the Coronation problems neatly, with Swish using a potion of power - and Corecleric thinking it was a heroism icon (confusing him as to how Swish had used it).
With Belt and Liia both saved we followed Sarevok into the Thieves Maze and then into the Undercity. Corecleric started casting summons to deal with Rahving and his gang as Loury fished in his bag for a few potions. Swish grew bored of our 17 second delay and destroyed the enemies with arrows of detonation.
On to Sarevok - Swish fished and fished, and after 2-3 minutes Sarevok finally reacted enough to send Semaj out onto a snare surrounded by skeletons. We still had time to shoot missiles at Semaj though and he perished before he could cast much at us.
Sarevok then attacked our skeletons and Loury. The undead hunter thought he'd be able to face Sarevok for the entire combat but turned and ran about 2 seconds before a skeleton killed Sarevok.
We closed the session here as with a bit less than 10 minutes remaining we wouldn't get much further than importing our save and I said I'd sort that out for next time.
BGII:EE
I imported the three characters and gave them some initial items - Corecleric getting a warhammer but Swish (no scimitar yet) and Loury (no bastard sword yet) having to settle for non-proficient blades.
The halfling swashbuckler Alec has just arrived in Jon's dungeon, after bareeeeely surviving the final showdown with Sarevok.
The below is the point at which I thought "huh, fight not going as well as I had hoped, Diarmid *still* isn't down, and we have one death already as well as Kivan in major trouble and reduced to kiting only.
This is the point at which I thought "well, looks like I probably threw this run. F. Tazok and Semaj are still alive, as well as two skellies, half my party is dead, and Imoen is about to have to roll a 10 spell save vs. chaos. Not good.
And then I realized that both charname and coran still had pfm up, and with oil of speed / cheetah boots were faster than everything else.
So unfortunately, we had to benny hill Sarevok to death, but at least it worked.
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So what did I learn from that run.
(i)
Sarevok is really, really, really hard to tank. He has 2.5 apr (3 hasted), and an effective thac0 (I think) of -6 (-4 if you dispel his strength buff). He hits for 20-25 damage, and crits on both 19 and 20.
So basically, if you immediately shoot him with a dispel arrow, then you need -23 AC vs. slashing in order to only be hit on 19/20. At which point the tanking character would take 2.5 * ~20 * 1/10 = 5 per round, which would be easily tankable.
Defense potion = 0 AC
21 Dex from focus and gloves = -5
Full plate + belt vs. slashing = -11
Ring/Cloak +2 = -13
Shield +1 = -15
II (dispelled) = -19
PfE (didn't have/ didn't cast) = -21
Helm o' Balduran (didn't have) = -22
Claw of Kaz (didn't use) = -23
Unfortunately, I forgot to shoot with a dispel early, and I also didn't have AC nearly that good due to missing a few items and getting dispelled by (I think) Semaj.
If your AC vs. slashing is -15 or worse (particularly if Sarevok still has his buffs up), don't even bother to try to tank, you have to kite. Otherwise you will take 25+ damage a round and rapidly run through your extra healing and then die.
Although just thinking about it now, I wonder whether it is possible to debuff sarevok with GM. I assume he is immune to stun and confuse, but perhaps not blind?
(ii)
Safana is... not good. Dualing her to mage at least lets her use wands, but makes her hp, thac0 and backstab worse.
In contrast, Shar-teel with F6/T7 is awesome, and caused me to overestimate how good backstabbing thieves were in BG1. So trying to run Shar-teel game with Safana (or Alora) didn't really work. Safana ended my run with 19 health, which meant she would die if anyone breathed on her, and Alora was at 32, which wasn't much better.
Thing's shar-teel can do that single class thieves can't:
Get an average of 14 extra hp from her fighter levels
WEAR A HELMET
Get high mastery, for +3/+4 thac0/damage
Use fighter instead of thief thac0 (+1-2)
Have a base 18/** strength bonus
Safana was... basically bad the entire game. She spent much of the game as a level 5 thief with 19 hp that had a tendency to get single shot after backstabbing. Then she was a wand slinger, but hp continued to be a problem. She finally got her thief levels back at the palace in chapter 7. And because she was T5/M6, she actually died to cloudkill in the final battle vs. Sarevok.
Fortitude potions helped for critical fights, but this was a weak character. Maybe just pushing for T9 would have been better (also possible that giving up wands makes it worse).
I had imagined her running MI + invisible to safely chain high damage backstabs. This... did not work. Not least because at M6 it turns out she only has two level 2 cast slots.
(iii)
Alora was OK. Her rabbit foot (+2 AC, luck, and saves) is quite strong. Her backstabs were decent, but unless you do a lot more questing than I did she caps at 3x multiplier due to her late recruitment in chapter 5. 32 hp is still low. In the final fight with sarevok, she was very slightly injured (28/32 hp), and diamid turned after a backstab and rolled a... 28 damage crit.
She needed more hp, thac0 and damage (x4 comes at 110k xp) to be competitive with the better NPCs.
(iv)
Kivan and Coran were great as always. Koran wound up "sword and board" tanking with bassilus' hammer, which was fine, although if the party had someone else who could tank it would have been nice to keep him as an archer because his base 18/** strength means he can use a compound bow.
I had imagined using Coran as a backstabber, but after running the numbers it became apparent that just keeping him as an archer is much better.
(v) Imoen was good. The bonus hp from her con is really valuable, and she's a good thief and then a good mage.
(vi)
I think I completed the run in about 10 hours. I'd like to get down to 5-7 for BG1 runs. Need to get better at cutting out everything but the absolutely necessary
Need to get better an knowing the minimum resources needed for each fight and then getting through them + preparing for the next more quickly.
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Anyway. Will try not to immediately lose the run in BG2. Rangers & thieves is tough in BG2 because there is chaos and stun everywhere and the party can't cast chaotic commands (or death ward, for that matter).
But it does have strong arcane from Nalia and Jan (later, Imoen) and has decent melee support from Minsc and Valygar.
If we make it to ToB, will have to consider whether to replace someone with an F->T sarevok.
Although just thinking about it now, I wonder whether it is possible to debuff sarevok with GM. I assume he is immune to stun and confuse, but perhaps not blind?
Sarevok can be malisoned (and doomed) and made vulnerable to a range of spells - like hold for instance. I rather like webs as a tactic against him - even without any outside assistance he has a chance of being held in those thanks to the saving throw penalty, so a character able to run around inside webs can occupy him and then turn on him with deadly effect when he gets stuck ...
Very interesting. My party could not cast doom, as we did not ultimately wind up taking tiax. But we could cast malison and web. Next time I will come loaded for bear and see what works..
In BG2, just running through the early athkatla quests trying to hit 250k before picking up jan and valygar. I wonder if it's ever worth trying to recruit some of the chp 2/3 npcs at even higher xp levels.
Early BG2 is always fun. Here's me realizing that I can probably cheese lots of early enemies with mustard jelly. Which I did not know, despite 100s of hours in the game.
Although just thinking about it now, I wonder whether it is possible to debuff sarevok with GM. I assume he is immune to stun and confuse, but perhaps not blind?
Sarevok can be malisoned (and doomed) and made vulnerable to a range of spells - like hold for instance. I rather like webs as a tactic against him - even without any outside assistance he has a chance of being held in those thanks to the saving throw penalty, so a character able to run around inside webs can occupy him and then turn on him with deadly effect when he gets stuck ...
It was web that enabled me to win in the Blackguard run that I have just finished. (That plus freedom of action spells and items meant that my party members didn't get held.
This session concentrated on travelling around improving reputation. There was a fair amount of use of spirits, though that sometimes took a painfully long time to set up .
Lightning was the most common tactic, with most enemies failing to get a hit in to disrupt that. Greywolf did manage to interrupt one attempt and was already badly wounded by sling shots when a second struck home.
The Doomsayer was one enemy that had the capability to chew through spirits quickly and was immune to lightning as well - it was sorted out by taking advantage of its inability to know where a Writhing Fog came from.
Tarnesh hoped that his mirrors would protect against call lightning, but should really have known better ...
By the end of the session, reputation was up to 20 and I'd also recovered the charisma tome. I failed to get a level in the session, but only need a few hundred more XP now - that will open up nymphs as another available tactic. Meilum's bracers and a new belt provided the main equipment upgrades.
I did squeeze in a visit to the lake area, but picking up the gnoll's leavings is only a source of a bit of extra cash for this character.
I saved the game outside the spider house, to remind me to get the pantaloons next time.
The one encounter I was careless in was against Neira, where I failed to dodge rigid thinking at the start of the combat. She had taken a dose of insects in return, but fortunately didn't die of those while doing minimal damage to me (thus incidentally protecting the innocents in the inn) until I'd recovered.
After killing Tarnesh at the Friendly Arms, we headed north killing hobgoblins and the evil Sonner as we went.
We returned the bowl to Tenya before taking on a nearby ankheg.
Our success against the ankheg encouraged us to take on another one, but the damage thus incurred caused us to doubt the wisdom of investigating the nest further at this time.
Since we were unable to enter Baldur's Gate, we headed back south where we were pleased to be able to calm Marl down before heading south once more where we defeated some ogrillon with ease. The same could not be said for a battle with some Flaming Fist who refused to accept that we were not bandits despite our demeanour.
I was badly hurt but at least we now both had plate armour plus one spare suit.
We returned to Beregost to deliver a letter and whilst there got into a fight with Silke. Hal's silence spell allowed us to prevail.
Upon heading south once more we defeated hobgoblins, picked up an amulet and some ankheg armour and defeated Greywolf after first turning down a substantial reward that was undeserved.
We got into conflict with Zordral and it was only my resistance to fear spells that allowed me to prevail, hal being pretty useless.
We found a wand and a useful ring before taking Samuel to the Friendly Arms Inn.
Being a little stronger we deemed ourselves capable of taking on the ankheg nest. We were right.
After helping Farmer Brun out with a little gold our reputation is now 19.
It's amazing how easy it is to become a hero in these parts, a mere eighteen days.
Upon killing the last of the ankhegs, Hal became a level 5 cleric. We returned to Beregost to sell our ankheg shells and found that I had sufficient gold to buy an unbreakable axe for myself and a large shield +1 for Hal. Breaking weapons have been a problem so it is good to have one that won't break. At the temple we were asked to deal with an insane cleric called Bassilus, so we sought him out and killed him. Once again Hal's silence spell was invaluable and we killed him with little trouble apart from the fact that my off hand axe broke whilst in combat.
When we returned to Beregost I therefore bought a number of spare axes and paid for a suit of ankheg armour.
After leaving Candlekeep Shoal resisted a couple of attempts to blind her, but fell over regularly against commands and didn't last long.
A few chores in Beregost then briefly detained us on the way to the basilisk area. Totally not to my surprise, Voka had started life knowing PfP - making dealing with the basilisks pretty easy. The low XP requirements for cleric/thieves kept Wacky busy responding to the level up button during our tour of the area. Mutamin was silenced from afar, making it safe to attack in melee.
Voka then learned his stinking cloud spell and sent 3 of those down on top of Kirian & co. Her attempted blinds had all failed, but with stinking cloud being one of her specialist spells that was sufficient to keep the opponents quiet Baerin, Peter & Kirian were shot down.
Lindin out-lasted those spells, but collapsed under a series of commands and failed to trouble us.
After exploring Nashkel and pocketing some green armor (which Wacky could in principle use, but probably won't do so in practice), we set off for Firewine Bridge. A stop on the way saw a farmer grateful that Arabelle survived a stinking cloud only slightly scathed.
A basilisk then attempted to stop further progress. Wacky had a couple of invisibility potions, but Voka suggested just running and that proved to be enough to escape.
At the bridge, Meilum was silenced to keep him standing still while Voka blinded him for easy disposal.
Looking for some reputation upgrades we went to find Greywolf. He managed one slash on Wacky before she got enough distance to go into sanctuary. That allowed Voka to stink the place up again and Greywolf was another who failed to survive that treatment.
After picking Samuel up we headed for the FAI. Wacky finally got around to a first backstab there, though Tarnesh had already had his fangs drawn by silence.
Pushing on to the north, Voka enquired whether Wacky was planning to use commands on the ankhegs or had another plan - she did indeed have another plan, which was to come back later . That our prospects against multiple ankhegs were dubious was highlighted when a bit further to the north we tried our luck against a single ankheg. That was taken quickly to near death, but Wacky was then out of commands and it had a good run of saving against stinking cloud. Wacky retreated after being hit once, but Voka was convinced the ankheg couldn't ignore her favorite spell much longer. Her life flashed before her eyes once when the ankheg rolled a critical - but it proved to be a pretty low damage one. Still though she refused to retreat and still the ankheg refused to lie down - and when its next attack hit, Voka required the services of the local temple.
Back in Beregost, Voka continued her efforts to blind Silke. She'd tried on a couple of previous occasions, but the bard had stoutly resisted 6 spells - but on the 7th her number was finally up.
Wacky noted that she only needed a few hundred more XP for a 5th cleric level and the chance to summon skeletons. Melicamp offered the prospect of those, but slumped to the ground after his immune system proved to be not up to the job of looking after a human. Instead, Wacky pushed on south a bit to target Bjornin's half-ogres.
Skeletons offered some insurance against Bassilus, though he failed to stand up in his stinking cloud anyway.
The mixture of skeletons and stinking cloud then made a few sirines at the Lighthouse easy prey. That wasn't the case for the golems in the cave though - options there were limited given we had no magical ammunition, the skeletons had mundane swords and neither of us were proficient with our magical melee weapons. However, we pressed forwards anyway and a few cleric buffs helped kill the first golem while the skeletons were distracting it. For the second, Wacky forgot for a moment that she was a thief as well as a cleric and got stuck in the hold trap while under sanctuary. The skeletons were successfully deployed to keep the golem out of sight while she recovered.
After another rest we managed to deal with that golem and then continued on for the last. Voka was keen to just grab the treasure and run, but Wacky couldn't resist pushing her luck a bit further. In fact arguably she was pushing Voka's luck - the mage doing a good job of acting as tank while Wacky got the final necessary hit.
A trip through the Cloud Peak Mountains saw reputation maximized, while Voka picked up a charisma tome to raise that to 16 and get a small discount on purchases. She would have liked to boost charisma further, but found friends, an enchantment spell, to be unintelligible.
The final stop for the session was at Durlag's Tower. A mixture of direct damage spells, skeletons, blindness and backstabs worked through the battle horrors outside. During that though there was another problem when Wacky attempted to rest to refresh spells and got some gnolls instead. They were beaten up, but more replaced them and more again ... and yet more. Tiring of this game, Wacky went inside the Tower to rest there - and was ambushed by a bunch of ghouls. Not to worry though, we had time to run to the stairs and head up - or at least we would have done if Wacky's passage through the doorway had not convinced Voka's pathfinding to send her running back into the ghouls' arms. The situation looked pretty hopeless, but seeing one chance Wacky activated turn undead and headed back to the room. Two of the ghouls immediately started running away, but I think the other 2 were still sheltered by the door frame and continued attacking Voka. A few seconds later they started running as well, but that delay was a fraction too late for their victim.
After returning from the temple the basilisks on the roof were summarily dealt with.
Riggilo was then given a harsh reminder of why his mother always told him not to accept gifts from strangers.
After claiming our reward for killing Bassilus we returned to the site of our victory and scoured the area until we came across more bandits led by Zargal.
We slew them with no compunction whatsoever after which we went to the lighthouse area where we killed a number of sirine before heading south where we killed Ba'ruk and several kobolds.
At the archaeological site we killed Gallor and the diggers that attacked us.
We then took Brage to the Temple of Helm after which we rescued Bentha from Zordral.
A couple of Dark Moon Monk runs. Solo, Core, no Mods.
The first was a promising start. Most of the Sword Coast had been cleared, and I was on my way to the Bandit Camp. I made the mistake of stretching my arms during an area transition and was ambushed by a greater basilisk. I had a Potion of Mirrored Eyes for just such an occasion, but I don't play with auto-pause on enemies sighted, so by the time I got my hands down to the keyboard, I was already petrified.
Frustrated with that ending, I immediately started over. A bit on tilt, all I did in Candlekeep was purchase a sling and bullets. Shoal was my first target, bringing me to level 3. Mar Arcand and Marl brought me to level 4. From there I headed south, triggering Drizzt. I had pip in Slings, Daggers, and Single Weapon Style. If I messed up the gnolls, my final pip would be Short Swords instead of Scimitars. Fortunately Drizzt fell without any issues.
I stealthed through the Nashkel Mines and ran Mulahey around the lake. Tranzing fell to blind, and I stealthed in and out of the Bandit Camp. I'm not exactly sure when I hit level 5. Around this time I started selling loot and accumulating some key items. The Greenstone Amulet, a Wand of the Heavens, The One Gift Lost, a couple Potions of Magic Blocking, a couple Potions of Freedom, and a Potion of Invisibility.
The Cloakwood Forest was stealthed through, using a Potion of Freedom on the second area. Drasus and party were bombed from off screen using The One Gift Lost. I hit level 6 on a ghast in the mines. The Davaeorn fight was pretty typical. I used the Potion of Invisibility and then Detect Traps/Illusions to break his mirror images. I drank a Potion of Magic Blocking and started the fight. He was near dead but managed to get another mirror image cast and a couple of summons. I had to drink my second Potion of Magic Blocking, which I only reluctantly purchased. In the end, I prevailed.
I did some stuff in Baldur's Gate (manuals, Nymph Cloak, Greater Basilisk got me to level 7 etc...) and headed to Candlekeep. The One Gift Lost was used to clear the parties. Once through there I charmed some noblemen and did the coronation. Not sure when I hit level 8, but I hit the experience cap in the coronation. It was at this point I went and did the stuff I usually do earlier, like Mutamin's Garden, upper Durlag's, sirines, etc...
I used the lightning trap to kill Sarevok and started SoD at level 9. The start of SoD was non-eventful, and I hit level 10 clearing the lich's area. I wasn't looking forward to the Temple of Cyric, so I tried something new. I charmed the gate guards at Boareskyr Bridge and fed them to some hobgoblins. That caused the camp to go hostile. Eventually the Flaming Fist showed up, and they didn't do to well. I did eventually kill everyone, but it required a lot of leaving the area and coming back. Unfortunately, the mage on the bridge summoned a portal, and I was eventually overwhelmed.
Comments
Good to see you back. My brother got the BG3 Early Access to and has been enjoying it much. I was gonna download it but I'll be stuck in these write-ups from the Lord Angmar saga for a while.
I hate when I get done because I have to go back and gather my notes, sort my images, etc., to start the write-up phase.
Good Luck in BG3.
Thank you brother Grimwald!
Wyrme switches from standing melee to running melee as the three aforementioned heroes arrive, and since the hobgoblins are shooting arrows she equips the shield of reflection. This reduces her melee capability so she happily runs rings around everyone until Duke Eltan gets a blow in.
A plague of insects eventually catch up with Wyrme and force her to gulp a couple of healing potions so she adds an oil of speed, potion of heroism (and at a later stage adds an invulnerability potion and as her ranged attacks seem to be struggling a potion of mind focusing).
The insects had almost overwhelmed Wyrme and she had visions of sinking into ignomy at an embarrasingly early stage of this campaign but by the second screenshot she's shaken herself out of this mindset and knuckled down.
After a few rounds Wyrme sees Eltan is uninjured but doesn't check why and assumes he is either immune to +3 weapons or ranged weapons. Back to Aran Linvail and his defences which also fail eventually and the dagger cuts him down.
This is going to be fun. Wyrme moves away, uses a Gaxx haste and switches from the shield of reflection to offhand the ninjato +3 for 3 APR. She takes an immediate hit but lands one herself before realising she is taking hits at an unprecedented rate, faster than the insect bites arrived. Something is not right.
At this point I must apologise to @Corey_Russell for pausing the game here because he'd love to see me die a second time for this reason
Wyrme surmised that Duke Eltan must have a permanent physical mirror active and all the thrown daggers she has tossed against him are bouncing between the two combatents as are possibly the snare missiles. Wyrme hopes the maze snare isn't also bouncing around, and equips the reflection shield again. She winces as the game is unpaused, but takes no further damage.
The efreeti has landed some damage, but Kitthix lands a web. Wyrme takes advantage of this but even with Improved Haste she is unable to kill Eltan.
There were a few minor jobs to do before paying 20gp to a vampiric courtesan for obtaining entry into the dungeon and jail below the castle. From there it was straightforward to obtain an audience with Gromnir - who proved to be less than negotiable.
Wyrme used a brace of special snares to maze Gromnir's entire party, and laid a brace of spike traps for their return. They returned mostly one at a time until Berena and Gromnir paired up - Wyrme killed her before dragging Gromnir into two snares and then killing him with her sword.
The bounty hunter combination of maze + spike + snare, with mainhanded Celestial Fury stuns and offhand katana poisoning proved to be a deadly combination for her enemies.
It's a bit tricky showing this in screenshots but backstab > lay snare > hide went very smoothlyl
Back in the saddle with another rangers/thieves run after losing my 5th attempt at a fighters run in July. To Qilue of all people, ugh. Hopefully this one will make it all the way!
Run rules are SCS Insane, with most of the optional difficulty increases (e.g., skip the gold/rep changes). Also a few low-cheese conducts (no stealing from shops, no PI/mislead cheese, no recharging, try to avoid AI abuse, reasonable RP, etc.).
Charname is a halfling swash.
Party comp rule is all members must have at least one level of thief or ranger (including kits) at all times. In practice, this means very limited divine casting throughout the trilogy.
In previous runs, I did not do BG1 with the rangers/thieves party - so I'm looking forward to that! Looks like we will be using Kivan, Imoen, Coran, Safana, and Tiax. Alora is a backup if anyone gets chunked, as is Shar-teel.
I am thinking about whether to dual Safana to mage. I think I probably will, but will still run her as a backstabber. She will give up 4x backstab at level 9, which is painful as she doesn't have the weapon proficiency bonuses that Shar-teel has, but I think that the ability to cast invisibility and mirror image are probably worth it and it seems fun.
May run Coran as a backstabber as well, even though I think he is probably better kept as a traditional bowman.
Someday I hope to do a thieves only run as an assassin. I suppose on that run I can keep Safana as a pure thief and also run Alora as a stabber, with Imoen playing the T->M stabbing roll. Backstabs for everyone!
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The resistance bonus comes before the cosmetic effects of the potion, so the only other thing I can think of is that maybe the stat changes don't actually apply until the next tick - and the lightning bolt arrived before that.
(Edited to add qualifiers for more accuracy - I'm speculating here)
The game is on insane though, so double damage may well apply. The fact that no additional or reduced damage is shown in the text would be consistent with a potion of insulation having been gulped just in time to counteract the standard double damage.
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An SCS Insane Trilogy run of Rangers & Thieves
The party is now heading off to tackle the bandit camp.
I had a little trouble early, kobold issues aside. I did early basilisks solo with the ghoul (returning later with a potion of eyes as I realized I had missed one), but I really wanted 32k xp before recruiting the rest of the party and had a tough time getting it (being at roughly 23k post basilisks).
I decided to go after the 2x3 sirens on the lighthouse map, but I kept getting chased away by the pack of elite hobgoblins that are closer to the map edge. Too many poison bows for a pc with no shield and studded leather.
I ultimately came back with the shield amulet and fireball amulet, and was able to clear them. A fireball was not effective against the sirens (~65% resistance), but it turned out that two of them were level 4 and were vulnerable to the sleep wand. The second set of 3, with Sil, proved to be too tough solo (all at least level 5), but were manageable later on with Kivan. I had already used the clarity potion by that point, but Kivan as an elf is 90% charm immune and he managed to avoid all the charm effects.
A hasted Imoen snuck around the pirate cave to get Safana's book and finish her quest.
I had planned to dual Safana to mage, but I now think that isn't going to work. She's already at level 6 (recruited at 32k xp) and will shortly have enough xp to be level 7. The required intelligence tome isn't available for several chapters until the party can access BG.
So, if she duals at 7 she will need 90k to get her thief levels back, which won't happen before the run is over. If she squats at 6 for the tome, she still needs 60k and *maybe* gets her thief levels back right near the end, missing about 2.5 chapters. If I had had the foresight to squat her at level 5 (recruiting at 16k xp), would only need 40k xp to hit mage 6, which - if durlags is saved - is manageable in one chapter.
But, finally running the numbers has kind of soured me on making her a mage; the mage part will be fine, but she spends very little of the game as a T->M unless the party does TotSC content, which we mostly aren't planning to. So the party would have to want a second mage late game at the expense of a backstabber. Leaning towards skipping, but TBD.
I also realized my plan to have Imoen be my utility thief was stupid, as she's about to become a mage and lose her thief abilities for the rest of the game. So we have to cobble together what we still can from Safana and Coran, which also makes it a bit tougher to dual Safana.
At the Forest of Mir she used a few Maze traps.
A rest before entering the Fire Giant temple gives Wyrme 32 snares to play with. After half an hour or so she has used them all up but still has more to do. A second rest sees another set of snares used and after the third rest she clears the area.
She ascends the large staircase to the inner part of the temple and is merrily snaring away when she realises Berenn has walked into a maze trap with physical mirror active - the realisation being when a maze animation starts to close in on her.
Wyrme rapidly considers her options but is unable to prevent the sole death directly caused by her own maze traps.
Grrr. It is a pain the way thief traps can be reflected back like that. I can't say I ever do it, but using the long term spell trap function from the Staff of the Magi can be useful against this sort of chicanery. That also prevents my typical need for a mad dash to read a scroll of PfM to dispel the maze effect before it sends you into oblivion ...
We did indeed kill ankhegs, sirine, Shoal and Droth. We then decided to plumb the depths of Durlag's Tower. I now have the Helm of Opposite Alignment so if I wish I can play SoD as a CHAOTIC gOOD BLACKGUARD... If I get that far. Now that could be interesting.
All party members haave now reached the level cap.
No point in wandering away from the script now.
I have a 50 charge wand of fire and a 100 charge wand of monster summoning.
Reputation currently 14. I'm happy with that.
What I was pleased about was that I used a new tactic just before the chessboard that made one of the rooms trivial whereas before it had always been tough.
@Jabberwock How were you planning to dual Safana? Increase her intelligence and dual her to a mage?
A query. What would happen if you end SoD wearing the helm of opposite alignment. You can't take it off, so do you become good? Or does the magic of programming just remove it to make you evil again?
Another question.
Is soultaker actually useful as a weapon?
As a weapon, Soultaker is indistinguishable from a "Quality" dagger. No breakage chance, 1d4 damage, speed 2, nonmagical.
However, I unfortunately got killed in the bandit camp encounter. Kivan apparently has a scripted encounter/fight with Tazok, which sets the entire camp hostile after Tazok reaches a certain hp threshold.
That wasn't actually too big a deal, as the party is close to the edge of the camp and can reposition.
What was a bigger deal was that Kivan got a morale check on low hp while tanking Tazok and panicked. He was wearing all my anti missile equipment, plus the fireball amulet. 3 thieves in studded leather just weren't up to taking on the entire camp without help.
I tried to salvage the situation by following Kivan around, hoping that he would hit the edge of the map and we could retreat. I didn't get the timing right and ultimately he was killed. The party could have then retreated, but for RP reasons I would have considered that a perma-death for Kivan and I wanted to try to save him. The travel time to the camp is also lengthy enough that his equipment may have been lost (not sure).
In any case, I delayed retreat to see if a shield-amulet buffed charname could tank, supported by Imoen using wands (now a level 1 mage). Made some progress but not enough, and charname took a few too many arrows when we finally pulled the trigger on retreat.
On the plus side, I can now try squatting Safana at Thief 5 and may go back to my original plan to dual her to mage. Worst case, anyone with any mage levels in BG1 (and therefore wand access) is probably stronger than any thief so it's not like the dual will cripple the party. But, the dual may not be able to spend much time with both classes up and running, and gives up a few more thief levels than would be ideal.
I can also do a much cleaner job with the very early game, wasting much less gold and time.
Will give it another try probably this weekend...
*Shakes fist at Kivan*
*Reminds self that the morale mechanics are actually fairly lethal if the party can't cast remove/resist fear*
BG1: 1, 2, 3
Tethtoril, possibly the most powerful of Candlekeep's officials and certainly the most reasonable of them, helped us avoid the death sentence that was hanging over our heads. He also handed me a letter from Gorion stating I was a spwan of Bhaal, the dead God of murder. I wasn't sure what to make of this, if it even meant anything with regard to my character. It was my conviction that my character was shaped by my faithful service to the Vigilant One. What I did know is that it explained some minor powers of mine that weren't bestowed upon me by Helm, and that there were more Bhaalspawn. The Iron Throne's last local leader, Sarevok, was one of them.
To get away from Candlekeep we had to battle several doppelgangers that had apparently been preparing for a hostile takeover of the citadel (if only that ungrateful Ulraunt knew), as well as two basilisks, and a party of adventurers allied with Sarevok. Two of them were wizards but Imoen's and Khalid's arrows of dispelling laid their vulnerabilities bare for our party to take advantage of.
But all was not well. We were wanted criminals all over the Sword Coast, so we had to look over our shoulders wherever we went. We decided to take a side trip through Spider Wood to Durlag's Tower, the most unlikely place for the law to find us, we reckoned. It was a decision that one of us would pay the ultimate price for.
The tower was as full of riches as it was of monsters. Doppelgangers, undead, and spiders we could handle without breaking much of a sweat, but some of the dwarven constructs there were another matter. One of them, a manifestation of Durlag's Pride knocked out Brage and nearly Imoen and myself as well before Helm's seeking sword struck the thing down.
On the lowest level of the tower, deep under the ground, we encountered a Demon Knight who claimed to be Durlag's Tower's new keeper. He let slip that he had been working on setting the tower up as a base for his demonic patron before he attacked us. An intense battle ensued in which the dark knight targeted us with Dispels and Power Word spells as well as his hard-hitting blade. The creature cut through our summons as if they were made of butter, and beat us up almost as easily. Both Imoen and even heavily armored Branwen had to retreat at one point as they simply couldn't handle the tremendous warrior. Rather than focusing on Brage, Jaheira and me, our foe then dropped a fireball more devastating than any fireball I'd ever seen (and I'd seen many) on Branwen and Imoen. Branwen got knocked so we'd be able to patch her up, but Imoen wasn't so lucky. My best friend, whom I'd known for most of my life and whom I saw almost as my little sister, the girl who had left the safety of Candlekeep to accompany me and look after me on my perilous adventure, was gone. And I meant completely gone. Her gear somehow remained, but her body was gone.
I donned a helm that I found on the body of the demonknight and immediately I felt a loathing for Dorn such that I wanted him out of my party. I did however have the sense to take possession of all his goods other than those he had when he joined me. I didn't want him thinking that I had robbed him!
As he was willing to rejoin my party my treatment of him ust have been satisfactory as far as he was concerned.
We then proceeded to Nashkel where I joined up with Minsc and Jaheira before heading northward where we killed Bassilus and Zargal as well as coutless undead. On the way we were attacked by a basilisk in transit. I killed it.
Then off to where we had killed Mutamin as I remembered seeing somebody who had been petrified. Upon it becoming human again I became a hero much to the delight of my party.
We then cleared the Ulcaster Ruins before heading to Gullykin and from thence to the Firewine Brige where we killed Melium and Khark before heading off to tthe ankheg fields.
I was eventually able to reach a reputation of 18 so I went shopping, buying an archmage cloak for Dynaheir and recharging many wands. Finance was an issue, so I couldn't recharge them all. 36 gold pieces left after the shopping spree.
Here is my status just before heading to Candlekeep.
EDIT
In Candlekeep there were no major problems. Dynaheir took on Prat and co. single handed. Mirror image, improved invisibility, two webs, fireballs, ice storm, and cloudkill were sufficient.
I took on the basilisks myself.
Safana rescued Duke Eltan and we then killed Cythandria.
In the battle against Slythe and Kirsten an inocent got killed. Reputation down to 9.
The battle at the Ducal Palace was won without too many problems though we did have to use wands more than I would have wanted. We are now going after Sarevok.
We got badly hurt by a trap and returned to an inn in order to recover. We spent a full 24 hours there!
However, when we returned the skeletons hurt us badly again. Fortunately they have now been destroyed.
Eventually we battled our way through to Sarevok. Safana talked to him and immediately took a potion of invisibility. Sarevok ran to where she was standing at the left side of the building whilst she made her way back to the entrance. Meanwhile Semaj was webbed and eventually killed with missile weapons and magic missiles.
Evntually we won though Minsc, Safana and Dynaheir temporarily lost their lives.
Part 2
The orcs at Shaengarne have much better attack bonuses than goblins in IWD2, making it much harder to avoid hits with AC alone, and since orcs in EE are barbarians and EE rage gives several immunities to disablers, we can't just knock them out with a casting of Sleep. We have to use Entangle to hold off enemy orcs, and Rainstorm to help clear the field more quickly. Rainstorm is much stronger in EE, dealing electricity damage 100% of the time instead of 50% and also imposing a -5 weakness to cold and electricity, making the spell pretty dangerous for party members and enemies alike. It doesn't stop the enemy shamans from getting Hold Person spells off the ground, though.
After two or three bouts with the local orcs, we finally hit level 4! Ruva takes her 4th rank in Toughness, cranking her HP all the way up to 124. Valos, our deep gnome, relies on AC to avoid attacks, and that just isn't very practical on Insane mode. Ruva is actually much more sturdy despite her far inferior AC.
We hit level 5! Notice that while our spellcasters are all single-classed, giving us access to level 3 cleric and druid spells, our deep gnome and fighter are dipping into multiple classes to snatch up various benefits.
We're very close to the Shaengarne Bridge fight, one of the tough bottlenecks of the early game. Even before then, we still have some tough battles: the Malarites in EE are no longer just melee fighters with healing spells; they also summon lots of animal allies as well as throwing out Entangle and Hold Person spells. The final area before the bridge is very dense with enemies. Fortunately, we have some powerful new tools: the ever-deadly Call Lightning spell, Animal Empathy to charm enemy animals, and the Moonblade from Vrek, which we're keeping in lieu of returning it to Emma.
Valos finally hits level 5, taking her first level as an Illusionist and therefore gaining a new feat: Expertise, which lets her use a toggleable ability to get up to +5 AC at the cost of -5 to hit rolls. Better still, we have a special pair of bracers that doubles the bonuses. She can crank her AC past 30, and now that I've learned to buff her with Ilmater's Endurance instead of our cleric, she'll have a comfortable HP buffer for when the enemies do roll high.
But the Shaengarne Bridge fight is still no cakewalk, and Ilmater's Endurance, our cleric's special ability, also imposes a -3 weakness to physical damage. When our little deep gnome Valos gets hit, she really does suffer for it.
Xuki, the enemy mage, is very scary, packing a Shout spell that can stun for 2 rounds on a failed save. Immunity to stun is very hard to come by. Before EE, only enemies ever got any immunity to stun effects, and even in EE, only Barbarian Rage, the short-lasting Spell Shield spell, and certain shapeshifts (all of the forms after druid level 10) grant immunity to stun, and Seven Eyes only blocks one instance of it.
But Valos has Weapon Finesse, which means she can apply her crazy DEX bonus (+7 when fully buffed!) when she's fighting with small blades and touch weapons like the Moonblade. Xuki has to cast in spite of spell failure, and she doesn't get lucky.
We've managed to save a lot of our spells for the large horde to the west. We throw out Web, Entangle, and Rainstorm spells to hold off the enemies and thin the herd. With a little early pressure, we can take down the enemy mages' Mirror Images, allowing Rainstorm to strike right at the heart.
We finally hit level 6! Ruva takes her final rank in Toughness, getting a ludicrous 172 maximum HP (pre-EE, almost no character could break 90 at this point!). Our druid can now take the Natural Spell feat, allowing her to cast spells even while shapeshifted. Our cleric now has the Extended Spell feat, which means her level 1 and 2 spells get double duration, enough to make Ox's Fortitude and its +4 to CON last even after resting. Finally, our sorcerer can cast Lance of Disruption, and thanks to the Safe Spell feat, she now casts party-friendly Web spells.
EE feats are cool.
Second try after an earlier death in the bandit camp.
Had a little early luck when one of Mutamin's basilisks dropped a 3k tear necklace. Killed basilisks and sirens for early xp. Recruited Safana at 16k xp to leave her at T-5 in preparation for a late game dual to Mage. Used HiS to rob the pirate cave. Recruited Kivan and Imoen at 32k and then headed off to Nashkel.
A fireball from the lost amulet cleared Mulahey's skeletons, and he personally fell to concentrated attacks. Robbed the tombs after he was finished, gaining a wand of monster summoning and a +2 dagger.
Geared up for the bandit camp with more healing potions, fire resist potions and the fire resist ring from east of Nashkel mines. Also had the para wand from the pirate cave, the cold wand from Nashkel mines, and the fire wand from the farm.
At the camp, Kivan engaged Tazok and then the rest of the camp went hostile. Kivan used fire resist, freedom and absorption potions, while Imoen scroll cast web from the backline. Fireballs from the party cleared most enemies quickly. Successful revenge!
The party did a little more gearing, getting the firewine gauntlets, the three +Def belts, and the charisma book.
Coran was recruited in Cloakwood, and the party quickly did his quest to turn his timer off.
The fight outside the Cloakwood mines got quite dangerous. BG1 isn't too hard to reload, but when you're out of practice it's tough because it's hard to remember which fights are the actually dangerous ones and why!
The plan for the party of 4 outside of the mines (a powerful ranged fighter, a strong melee fighter, and two mages) was to use oil of speed to haste charname, who would run around obliterating everyone with a firebreath potion. Kivan would tank per usual, and could use a fire resistance potion to put his rFire up to 90. Coran could shoot, Safana would try to sneak in a backstab, and Imoen would use wands.
Unfortunately, I forgot why this fight was dangerous. The mages can cast Chaos! Which they both did. I should have immediately used the greenstone amulet on charname, but I didn't. Charname saved against the first cast, but failed to the second.
Fortunately, by putting Kivan right up next to the melee fighter he was able to break aggro, and charname eventually ran off to the side and escaped with 16 hp. The fighters had extremely high wand saves, and one of them was making paralyze saves vs. wand at 2. Yikes.
Kivan got hit for 24 damage by the last fighter, Drasus, and died. So now the party needs to spend a week walking back to the temple, ugh. Anyway, we'll be back shortly for Davaeorn. Planning on wands for doom guards, and magic blocking + firebreath for davaeron. If he has fire resistance, will have to shoot him down with acid arrows. Coran will probably use a potion of power in that case.
----
A few thoughts on the run so far. Rangers and thieves are not good in early BG1. The equipment restrictions and low hp lead to a vulnerable party that has trouble dealing damage. The only decent character is Kivan, except he's needed to tank, so generating DPS is a little tough.
Safana is a very substantially worse backstabber than shar-teel, with critically low hp (19 in my run), no damage bonus from proficiency, low strength, etc. She has a tendency to miss as well as a tendency to be single shot by crits. She still hits pretty hard against archers though. I'm hoping she's better now that the party has speed boots, and mirror image should fix much of the hp issue later game. We'll see.
Imoen is a good wand slinger once she duals to mage, but prior to that she has crummy DPS and defenses.
Swashbucklers are bad in BG1 (no secret being revealed here). Huge equipment restrictions vs. a fighter, plus loss of most proficiency bonuses as well as fighter APR bonus and thac0, in return for tiny swash bonuses. Not good. However, ** in daggers allows a swash to sneak specialization in a ranged weapon which helps a bit. A dwarf would also be able to start with substantial strength bonuses to ranged dagger damage (this charname is a halfling, however). Melee combat is generally a non-starter with thief hp and no helmet.
Coran is still a beast, but he isn't available until mid-game.
That all said, the party is looking forward to rounding itself out with Tiax next chapter (will have to reduce reputation first).
I haven't played much of this challenge recently and decided it was time to try another run. Normally I choose classes randomly, but this time went with my own choice. Some recent runs with the shaman have had additional restrictions, but I'll just use my standard rules this time and try and get deep into the game. This being my 43rd attempt at it might suggest the character's hard to make progress with, but I don't think that's the case and it's about time I produced some evidence for that
The first hour of the run saw rapid progress:
- Shoal was eaten by spirits to get me an excellent 19 HPs for moving to level 3.
- at the basilisk area Korax led the way. The basilisks were switching to melee more than usual and Korax did well to retain a few HPs while gaining me two further levels and two more lots of maximum 10 HPs. He managed a final service, before being pensioned off with a bullet, by dealing with Mutamin.
Shaman 7, 66 HPs, 36 kills
While I am pleased to have beaten BG1 for the first time as a Blackguard, it hasn't been my most enjoyable game so I am not even going to continue into SoD.
I'll revert to being a lawful good Cavalier backed up by a lawful good Cleric of Helm. I did enjoy having Safana in the team for an extended period which I suppose outs me as being a randy old goat.
Journal of Wyrmbane
My eyes tell everyone that I have at least SOME divine blood in my veins, but which god? Perhaps time will tell.
Loury - male, human undead hunter (Gate70)
Swish - male, dwarf swashbuckler (Grond0)
Corecleric - male, halfling priest of Lathander (Corey_Russell)
We had opened up the bottom third of Baldur's Gate but not much else. It wasn't long before we realised there was no sign of Lothander and perhaps we should get ourselves poisoned. On the way we raided Ramazith's tower and picked up the Helm of Glory from Jardak after killing his butler.
Then we returned Nester's dagger to his friend and waited as Swish retrieved the Helm of Balduran. On our way out we met and fought the maulers of undermountain. A summon or two and a couple of hold spells meant they were wiped out without too much difficulty.
Ragefast briefly lived to see a nymph freed and then we killed him. Loury then stepped inside to fight Degrodel's guardians, and stepped outside so his companions could join in - one of the invisible stalkers deciding to surprise Swish instead but we handled matters.
Larze the ogre proved troublesome - Swish getting targeted so Loury stepped in and took a pulping before also running. Corecleric casually used his wand of the heavens a few times to stop us from becoming floor-coverings.
We then whipped around Candlekeep, Corecleric taking the +2 cloak to reach -9AC. Swish proved adept at dealing with the traps here. We won't mention him walking into the first one as he went to de-trap it and we absolutely didn't have this conversation:
Corey_Russell: Are your trap scores high enough for this
Grond0: 100 should be enough
(walks onto trap 45 seconds later)
Against the spiders near the strength potion crypt there was a brief talk of tactics before Loury meleed them - and had to gulp a potion as he took one poisoned hit.
Swish cautiously walked around a fire trap that claimed Grond0's last duo character and we continued.
Corecleric placed summons into the middle of Prat's gang and we threw caution to the wind by killing them without too much more of a strategy.
Anyway, we escaped and went straight to Durlags Tower - making our way around there in about 5 minutes to grab a tome and clear the exterior.
We made our way back to the city and met Tamoko then Slythe without selling items. Slythe took a dispelling arrow from Swish and down he went.
With Belt and Liia both saved we followed Sarevok into the Thieves Maze and then into the Undercity. Corecleric started casting summons to deal with Rahving and his gang as Loury fished in his bag for a few potions. Swish grew bored of our 17 second delay and destroyed the enemies with arrows of detonation.
Sarevok then attacked our skeletons and Loury. The undead hunter thought he'd be able to face Sarevok for the entire combat but turned and ran about 2 seconds before a skeleton killed Sarevok.
We closed the session here as with a bit less than 10 minutes remaining we wouldn't get much further than importing our save and I said I'd sort that out for next time.
BGII:EE
I imported the three characters and gave them some initial items - Corecleric getting a warhammer but Swish (no scimitar yet) and Loury (no bastard sword yet) having to settle for non-proficient blades.
Now with more Baldur's Gate II..!
(Overly long post incoming)
The halfling swashbuckler Alec has just arrived in Jon's dungeon, after bareeeeely surviving the final showdown with Sarevok.
The below is the point at which I thought "huh, fight not going as well as I had hoped, Diarmid *still* isn't down, and we have one death already as well as Kivan in major trouble and reduced to kiting only.
This is the point at which I thought "well, looks like I probably threw this run. F. Tazok and Semaj are still alive, as well as two skellies, half my party is dead, and Imoen is about to have to roll a 10 spell save vs. chaos. Not good.
And then I realized that both charname and coran still had pfm up, and with oil of speed / cheetah boots were faster than everything else.
So unfortunately, we had to benny hill Sarevok to death, but at least it worked.
----
So what did I learn from that run.
(i)
Sarevok is really, really, really hard to tank. He has 2.5 apr (3 hasted), and an effective thac0 (I think) of -6 (-4 if you dispel his strength buff). He hits for 20-25 damage, and crits on both 19 and 20.
So basically, if you immediately shoot him with a dispel arrow, then you need -23 AC vs. slashing in order to only be hit on 19/20. At which point the tanking character would take 2.5 * ~20 * 1/10 = 5 per round, which would be easily tankable.
Defense potion = 0 AC
21 Dex from focus and gloves = -5
Full plate + belt vs. slashing = -11
Ring/Cloak +2 = -13
Shield +1 = -15
II (dispelled) = -19
PfE (didn't have/ didn't cast) = -21
Helm o' Balduran (didn't have) = -22
Claw of Kaz (didn't use) = -23
Unfortunately, I forgot to shoot with a dispel early, and I also didn't have AC nearly that good due to missing a few items and getting dispelled by (I think) Semaj.
If your AC vs. slashing is -15 or worse (particularly if Sarevok still has his buffs up), don't even bother to try to tank, you have to kite. Otherwise you will take 25+ damage a round and rapidly run through your extra healing and then die.
Although just thinking about it now, I wonder whether it is possible to debuff sarevok with GM. I assume he is immune to stun and confuse, but perhaps not blind?
(ii)
Safana is... not good. Dualing her to mage at least lets her use wands, but makes her hp, thac0 and backstab worse.
In contrast, Shar-teel with F6/T7 is awesome, and caused me to overestimate how good backstabbing thieves were in BG1. So trying to run Shar-teel game with Safana (or Alora) didn't really work. Safana ended my run with 19 health, which meant she would die if anyone breathed on her, and Alora was at 32, which wasn't much better.
Thing's shar-teel can do that single class thieves can't:
Get an average of 14 extra hp from her fighter levels
WEAR A HELMET
Get high mastery, for +3/+4 thac0/damage
Use fighter instead of thief thac0 (+1-2)
Have a base 18/** strength bonus
Safana was... basically bad the entire game. She spent much of the game as a level 5 thief with 19 hp that had a tendency to get single shot after backstabbing. Then she was a wand slinger, but hp continued to be a problem. She finally got her thief levels back at the palace in chapter 7. And because she was T5/M6, she actually died to cloudkill in the final battle vs. Sarevok.
Fortitude potions helped for critical fights, but this was a weak character. Maybe just pushing for T9 would have been better (also possible that giving up wands makes it worse).
I had imagined her running MI + invisible to safely chain high damage backstabs. This... did not work. Not least because at M6 it turns out she only has two level 2 cast slots.
(iii)
Alora was OK. Her rabbit foot (+2 AC, luck, and saves) is quite strong. Her backstabs were decent, but unless you do a lot more questing than I did she caps at 3x multiplier due to her late recruitment in chapter 5. 32 hp is still low. In the final fight with sarevok, she was very slightly injured (28/32 hp), and diamid turned after a backstab and rolled a... 28 damage crit.
She needed more hp, thac0 and damage (x4 comes at 110k xp) to be competitive with the better NPCs.
(iv)
Kivan and Coran were great as always. Koran wound up "sword and board" tanking with bassilus' hammer, which was fine, although if the party had someone else who could tank it would have been nice to keep him as an archer because his base 18/** strength means he can use a compound bow.
I had imagined using Coran as a backstabber, but after running the numbers it became apparent that just keeping him as an archer is much better.
(v) Imoen was good. The bonus hp from her con is really valuable, and she's a good thief and then a good mage.
(vi)
I think I completed the run in about 10 hours. I'd like to get down to 5-7 for BG1 runs. Need to get better at cutting out everything but the absolutely necessary
E.g.:
Early XP & Items = 1 hr
Nashkel = 0.5 hrs
Bandits = 0.5 hrs
Cloakwood = 1 hrs
More gearing = 1 hrs
Chp5 essential fights (throne, sewer ogre, seven suns) = 1 hrs
Candlekeep = 1 hrs
Chp 7 essential fights (throne, undercellar, keep, palace) 1 hrs
final fight 0.5 hrs.
(totals 7.5 hrs)
Need to get better an knowing the minimum resources needed for each fight and then getting through them + preparing for the next more quickly.
---
Anyway. Will try not to immediately lose the run in BG2. Rangers & thieves is tough in BG2 because there is chaos and stun everywhere and the party can't cast chaotic commands (or death ward, for that matter).
But it does have strong arcane from Nalia and Jan (later, Imoen) and has decent melee support from Minsc and Valygar.
If we make it to ToB, will have to consider whether to replace someone with an F->T sarevok.
Sarevok can be malisoned (and doomed) and made vulnerable to a range of spells - like hold for instance. I rather like webs as a tactic against him - even without any outside assistance he has a chance of being held in those thanks to the saving throw penalty, so a character able to run around inside webs can occupy him and then turn on him with deadly effect when he gets stuck ...
In BG2, just running through the early athkatla quests trying to hit 250k before picking up jan and valygar. I wonder if it's ever worth trying to recruit some of the chp 2/3 npcs at even higher xp levels.
Early BG2 is always fun. Here's me realizing that I can probably cheese lots of early enemies with mustard jelly. Which I did not know, despite 100s of hours in the game.
It was web that enabled me to win in the Blackguard run that I have just finished. (That plus freedom of action spells and items meant that my party members didn't get held.
Previous updates at:
This session concentrated on travelling around improving reputation. There was a fair amount of use of spirits, though that sometimes took a painfully long time to set up
By the end of the session, reputation was up to 20 and I'd also recovered the charisma tome. I failed to get a level in the session, but only need a few hundred more XP now - that will open up nymphs as another available tactic. Meilum's bracers and a new belt provided the main equipment upgrades.
The one encounter I was careless in was against Neira, where I failed to dodge rigid thinking at the start of the combat. She had taken a dose of insects in return, but fortunately didn't die of those while doing minimal damage to me (thus incidentally protecting the innocents in the inn) until I'd recovered.
Shaman 7, 66 HPs, 109 kills
After killing Tarnesh at the Friendly Arms, we headed north killing hobgoblins and the evil Sonner as we went.
We returned the bowl to Tenya before taking on a nearby ankheg.
Our success against the ankheg encouraged us to take on another one, but the damage thus incurred caused us to doubt the wisdom of investigating the nest further at this time.
Since we were unable to enter Baldur's Gate, we headed back south where we were pleased to be able to calm Marl down before heading south once more where we defeated some ogrillon with ease. The same could not be said for a battle with some Flaming Fist who refused to accept that we were not bandits despite our demeanour.
I was badly hurt but at least we now both had plate armour plus one spare suit.
We returned to Beregost to deliver a letter and whilst there got into a fight with Silke. Hal's silence spell allowed us to prevail.
Upon heading south once more we defeated hobgoblins, picked up an amulet and some ankheg armour and defeated Greywolf after first turning down a substantial reward that was undeserved.
We got into conflict with Zordral and it was only my resistance to fear spells that allowed me to prevail, hal being pretty useless.
We found a wand and a useful ring before taking Samuel to the Friendly Arms Inn.
Being a little stronger we deemed ourselves capable of taking on the ankheg nest. We were right.
After helping Farmer Brun out with a little gold our reputation is now 19.
It's amazing how easy it is to become a hero in these parts, a mere eighteen days.
Upon killing the last of the ankhegs, Hal became a level 5 cleric. We returned to Beregost to sell our ankheg shells and found that I had sufficient gold to buy an unbreakable axe for myself and a large shield +1 for Hal. Breaking weapons have been a problem so it is good to have one that won't break.
When we returned to Beregost I therefore bought a number of spare axes and paid for a suit of ankheg armour.
Wacky (female half-orc cleric/thief, Grond0); Voka (female human invoker, Gate70)
Previous run
After leaving Candlekeep Shoal resisted a couple of attempts to blind her, but fell over regularly against commands and didn't last long.
After exploring Nashkel and pocketing some green armor (which Wacky could in principle use, but probably won't do so in practice), we set off for Firewine Bridge. A stop on the way saw a farmer grateful that Arabelle survived a stinking cloud only slightly scathed.
Looking for some reputation upgrades we went to find Greywolf. He managed one slash on Wacky before she got enough distance to go into sanctuary. That allowed Voka to stink the place up again and Greywolf was another who failed to survive that treatment.
After picking Samuel up we headed for the FAI. Wacky finally got around to a first backstab there, though Tarnesh had already had his fangs drawn by silence.
Back in Beregost, Voka continued her efforts to blind Silke. She'd tried on a couple of previous occasions, but the bard had stoutly resisted 6 spells - but on the 7th her number was finally up.
Wacky noted that she only needed a few hundred more XP for a 5th cleric level and the chance to summon skeletons. Melicamp offered the prospect of those, but slumped to the ground after his immune system proved to be not up to the job of looking after a human. Instead, Wacky pushed on south a bit to target Bjornin's half-ogres.
Skeletons offered some insurance against Bassilus, though he failed to stand up in his stinking cloud anyway.
A trip through the Cloud Peak Mountains saw reputation maximized, while Voka picked up a charisma tome to raise that to 16 and get a small discount on purchases. She would have liked to boost charisma further, but found friends, an enchantment spell, to be unintelligible.
The final stop for the session was at Durlag's Tower. A mixture of direct damage spells, skeletons, blindness and backstabs worked through the battle horrors outside. During that though there was another problem when Wacky attempted to rest to refresh spells and got some gnolls instead. They were beaten up, but more replaced them and more again ... and yet more. Tiring of this game, Wacky went inside the Tower to rest there - and was ambushed by a bunch of ghouls. Not to worry though, we had time to run to the stairs and head up - or at least we would have done if Wacky's passage through the doorway had not convinced Voka's pathfinding to send her running back into the ghouls' arms. The situation looked pretty hopeless, but seeing one chance Wacky activated turn undead and headed back to the room. Two of the ghouls immediately started running away, but I think the other 2 were still sheltered by the door frame and continued attacking Voka. A few seconds later they started running as well, but that delay was a fraction too late for their victim.
After returning from the temple the basilisks on the roof were summarily dealt with.
Cleric 6 / thief 6, 45 HPs, 101 kills
Invoker 7, 34 HPs, 57 kills, 2 deaths
After claiming our reward for killing Bassilus we returned to the site of our victory and scoured the area until we came across more bandits led by Zargal.
We slew them with no compunction whatsoever after which we went to the lighthouse area where we killed a number of sirine before heading south where we killed Ba'ruk and several kobolds.
At the archaeological site we killed Gallor and the diggers that attacked us.
We then took Brage to the Temple of Helm after which we rescued Bentha from Zordral.
The first was a promising start. Most of the Sword Coast had been cleared, and I was on my way to the Bandit Camp. I made the mistake of stretching my arms during an area transition and was ambushed by a greater basilisk. I had a Potion of Mirrored Eyes for just such an occasion, but I don't play with auto-pause on enemies sighted, so by the time I got my hands down to the keyboard, I was already petrified.
Frustrated with that ending, I immediately started over. A bit on tilt, all I did in Candlekeep was purchase a sling and bullets. Shoal was my first target, bringing me to level 3. Mar Arcand and Marl brought me to level 4. From there I headed south, triggering Drizzt. I had pip in Slings, Daggers, and Single Weapon Style. If I messed up the gnolls, my final pip would be Short Swords instead of Scimitars. Fortunately Drizzt fell without any issues.
I stealthed through the Nashkel Mines and ran Mulahey around the lake. Tranzing fell to blind, and I stealthed in and out of the Bandit Camp. I'm not exactly sure when I hit level 5. Around this time I started selling loot and accumulating some key items. The Greenstone Amulet, a Wand of the Heavens, The One Gift Lost, a couple Potions of Magic Blocking, a couple Potions of Freedom, and a Potion of Invisibility.
The Cloakwood Forest was stealthed through, using a Potion of Freedom on the second area. Drasus and party were bombed from off screen using The One Gift Lost. I hit level 6 on a ghast in the mines. The Davaeorn fight was pretty typical. I used the Potion of Invisibility and then Detect Traps/Illusions to break his mirror images. I drank a Potion of Magic Blocking and started the fight. He was near dead but managed to get another mirror image cast and a couple of summons. I had to drink my second Potion of Magic Blocking, which I only reluctantly purchased. In the end, I prevailed.
I did some stuff in Baldur's Gate (manuals, Nymph Cloak, Greater Basilisk got me to level 7 etc...) and headed to Candlekeep. The One Gift Lost was used to clear the parties. Once through there I charmed some noblemen and did the coronation. Not sure when I hit level 8, but I hit the experience cap in the coronation. It was at this point I went and did the stuff I usually do earlier, like Mutamin's Garden, upper Durlag's, sirines, etc...
I used the lightning trap to kill Sarevok and started SoD at level 9. The start of SoD was non-eventful, and I hit level 10 clearing the lich's area. I wasn't looking forward to the Temple of Cyric, so I tried something new. I charmed the gate guards at Boareskyr Bridge and fed them to some hobgoblins. That caused the camp to go hostile. Eventually the Flaming Fist showed up, and they didn't do to well. I did eventually kill everyone, but it required a lot of leaving the area and coming back. Unfortunately, the mage on the bridge summoned a portal, and I was eventually overwhelmed.
At this point I did some testing and came up with a fairly reliable way to complete Boareskyr Bridge. I've posted more about that in the Adventurer's Lounger. https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1151407/#Comment_1151407