32K XP is the last threshold for boosting recruited party members in BGEE; any farther than that, and they'll fall behind you.
You had at least 18K before hunting basilisks. The fixed enemies in that area (basilisks, Mutamin, adventurers) are worth more than 28K.
Yes, it's time to recruit a party. They'll already be at least 15K experience behind you until the cap comes into play.
32K XP is the last threshold for boosting recruited party members in BGEE; any farther than that, and they'll fall behind you.
You had at least 18K before hunting basilisks. The fixed enemies in that area (basilisks, Mutamin, adventurers) are worth more than 28K.
Yes, it's time to recruit a party. They'll already be at least 15K experience behind you until the cap comes into play.
Baeloth is the exception. He's only recruitable once the main character has reached level 5 (at 10k XP for a Thief or Bard), and will always be level 6 (40k XP) when you recruit him.
Also if you're playing with SCS Improved NPC customisation and management, NPCs will join at level zero, can then be customised in terms of class/kit, and will level up until they reach about the same amount of XP as the main character, with no maximum amount of joining XP. And if you kick an NPC out and re-recruit them, they will again start levelling up to about your character's level. I thought this might be worth noting since many players in this thread play with full SCS installs.
Personally I play without this component (and use EEKeeper if I want to customise an NPC), because having to deal with lower level NPCs if you make late changes to the party is part of the game to me.
Yeah, I'm playing with a full SCS install, including the improved NPC customization, though I haven't made extensive use of its full possibilities in previous runs. Until now, I didn't even know that I could change classes/kits with this option (just checked the readme to figure out how that actually works). Not sure how much use I'll make of this, though the possibility of swapping party members without heavy XP penalities could result in a more dynamic playthrough with a more flexible party setup. Also turns NPCs you only can get later on into much more attractive options in BG1.
This does mean that I don't have to worry about the 32k cap, though (I'm at 50k right now) - so it's mostly a matter of what content I feel comfortable enough with to solo. I'll propably be a bit more cautious and try to avoid anything that could hit me with crowd control spells (unless I'm relatively sure a single 2*backstab would be enough to kill it) or hit me at range for high damage. Could get the Greenstone Amulet and use a bunch of charges, but the short duration can still make things a bit dangerous, and I'm not that experienced with solo play, especially not with SCS.
I decided to try and go for level 7 in solo mode. There were still a few quests and fights around the map that felt fairly safe to do. I started with some very easy stuff, such as the zombie farm:
Constinued with some similiar quests, such as the lighthouse and the excavation and some specific groups of named hobgoblins, gnolls and the like before going after another adventuring party in the Drizzt area - Jemby did seem low HP enough to go for a relatively safe backstab:
Once again, I got hit by a poisoned arrow but resisted the poison effect. My melee thac0 is good enough now to go for some direct assaults from time to time instead of always re-stealthing:
Next, I travelled to the xvart village, kiting around some xvarts and bears - no trouble here:
However, leaving the area got me into some deep trouble, almost ending my run, when I ran into an ogre mage ambush - the mage started with an immediate chromatic orb, with the stun effect getting Amel instantly (only way to avoid this would have been to pause right away and drink my invisibility pot, but I didn't react in time):
The ogre mage started attacking, also casting a vampire touch between his hits. The chromatic orb stun only lasts for 3 rounds, but this can be an eternity in solo play. I was sure this run would end, but there was always a slight chance of survival - and the stun affect faded with Amel at 10 HP:
One more hit, and that would have been the end. Now, as I paused, I faced a decision - drink a healing potion and try to run, or use my only invisibility potion to be safe? In the end, I decided the risk of another hit + spell combo (another chromatic orb, or magic missle) was too high, and went for the invisibility potion:
Well, that was close. I moved to the north-east of Nashkel after resting, cleared the ogre camp (had to use my only elixir of health here due to getting hit by a poisoned hobgoblin-elite arrow), Arghain and the bandit party:
The early game solo stalker gameplay is quite fun - great stealth levels, great chac0, great damage. Relatively weak defenses, though.
Next up, I ventured to High Hedge to buy some elixirs of health. I also looked for an invisbility potion, didn't find one and decided to get one indirectly by buying a PfU scroll, which would allow me to deal with the three undead caves in the mine exit area:
Thalantyr also sold me a wand of sleep, and I got a protection from acid scroll - both for some potential ankheg hunting (though in the end, I decided not to go for that). Also made my way to the gnoll fortress again, leading Dynaheir back to Nashkel (though removing her from my party there - just want her to be easier to access if I want to take her into the party later on):
Next up, I entered the western Cloud Peak Mountains, where I helped the dryad and got the cat back (foolish thing to do, because with 10 chrisma I didn't get the PfU scroll - should've waited until I had a party). The eastern Cloud Peak Mountains were a bit more interesting. I was able to kill Zal in one backstab:
But his partner Vax popped an oil of speed - so no way to kite him, and I felt trying to melee him was way too risky, so I donned my shield and ran:
I left the area, running to the mines - which ended up triggering the Dorn ambush, which, luckily, was no trouble. However, I got a nice little treat here - the three bandits Dorn kills in the cutscene have lootable potions in their inventory, propably thanks to SCS - and I got 3 (yes, three!) free invisibility potions this way. Awesome (though this propably should get fixed). Back in the Cloud Peak mountains, with the oil of speed now having run out, I was able to snipe Vax:
The final important battle to fight here was against Sendai and her minions. I started by backstabbing her archers - hit one, run away, hit the other, kite Sendai - the usual again these smaller groups:
This brought me to level 7. I ran around a bit more, killing some wandering monsters, hoping to meet a winter wolf, but no luck. I ended up with 78k XP, and I think it's now time for me to recruit a party in order to complete the remaining wilderness battles and procceed with the main storyline.
I haven't played much recently, but what I have done has been even less successful than usual . However, with work starting to wind down for Christmas I thought I might have a better chance of maintaining concentration for this next run. I posted in another thread recently about the fighting capabilities of the shapeshifter, so thought I'd try that again this time rather than randomly selecting.
The 19 strength of the werewolf shape was quickly put to use in Candlekeep by robbing the nobleman upstairs (beating him unconscious with fists first, before shifting shape to break open his treasure chest).
A quick stop in Beregost allowed me to pick up gem and scroll containers, use werewolf strength to steal an invisibility potion from the manor and savage Algernon to get his (now rather tattered) cloak. I then headed for the basilisk area to super-charge XP courtesy of Korax. Several of the basilisks switched to melee and Korax was taken to near death, but survived in order to complete his work by paralyzing Mutamin.
That allowed me to leap from level 1 to level 6 in one go - gaining a pretty decent 41 HPs. A single caress with a paw then finished Korax off.
To the south, Baerin and Lindin were charmed using druid spells and drawn away from the others to meet their dooms against a 3 APR werewolf before they realized what was happening. The same happened to Peter, though I played safe by wasting his dangerous spells first. A charmed tasloi then acted as a distraction while I used call lightning on Kirian.
After a few more tasks around Beregost, I went to the Lake District and watched from afar while some gnolls killed Drizzt.
I practised my melee skills on the gnolls while avenging him (the enemies that had dealt with the mighty drow proving unable to land a single blow on me). On then to Nashkel where a few more odds and sods included dodging Neira's spells on the way to a 7th level and 10 more HPs - as well as picking up LMD as a Bhaal power.
In the Nashkel Mines the werewolf slashed his way through all the opponents except a couple of ghouls (which were shot). A first appearance from a pair of nymphs then helped deal with Mulahey.
Outside the mine Lamahla's companions fell victim to more charming antics before she went down to a couple of call lightnings.
Nimbul managed to send his nymph running in terror, but that was little comfort when the lightning hammered down.
After resting for another LMD I noted that most of my inventory was full of potions and went to High Hedge to get a case for them. More nymphs allowed me a few seconds to freely attack the golems - which was enough to deal with them.
Tranzig and some spiders were slaughtered in Beregost before I headed to the FAI to pick up the pantaloons. I didn't bother with summons against Tarnesh as I thought he would be lucky to cast a spell against the fast weapon speed of the shapeshifter (and he wasn't lucky).
At the Bandit Camp the archers made little progress against defending boots and belt. I considered a straight melee fight with Taurgosz, but why have a dognymph and bark yourself .
Nymphs were then stationed outside Tazok's tent to ambush those exiting it.
They seem to have fixed the trapped chest there in v2.6, but this game is still v2.5 and I could open it without taking precautions by approaching from the right angle - picking up a 25 gold bonus for killing Ender Sai with the lightning.
After resting to get Bhaal horror I pushed on through the Cloakwood. There was minimal fighting there, but drawing a few ettercaps away from their web traps was enough for level 8 and 9 more HPs.
At the mine an assault from distance was immediately followed by a round of nymph confusions, which successfully affected everyone - they were then duly finished off long before the confusion would have ended.
Moving down through the mine was no trouble, but the first of the battle horrors at the bottom, showed up the poorer THAC0 and defenses of the shapeshifter for the first time - though nipping upstairs to do a bit of healing allowed me to triumph in the end without resorting to other means of attack.
After resting, a second battle horror was badly injured by insect bites and only needed a couple of swipes to finish it off. Three nymphs then did well to inflict 2 cause wound spells through Davaeorn's mirrors.
However, one of them died in a fireball and the others followed when I unfortunately dragged a late-triggering lightning glyph trap too near them. That meant I took Davaeorn back to the entrance to have the option of running from his spells if necessary - it wasn't.
After resting to get a second Bhaal horror I then eventually flooded the mine - after realizing I hadn't picked up the key and finding that all Davaeorn's valuable equipment had evaporated in the meantime . As that was the first obvious mistake of the session, it seemed a good moment to save before things degenerated further ...
With 4 evil Bhaal powers in the locker, I was now free to raise reputation and hence did some questing aimed at doing that. The opening salvo there was checking out whether Greywolf was as strong as battle horrors in melee - regrettably for him, he wasn't. That was enough for level 9 and the good HPs continued with 9 more.
Though that meant ironskins were now potentially available, I didn't bother with that while plenty of further opponents were slashed to pieces in straight melee. One exception to that was Bassilus where nymphs were used and they appeared again against the sirines at the Lighthouse area. A round of confusions affected two of the sirines and, while nymphs attacked the remaining one in melee, I went after the other two. I did have in mind the possibility that they could cast charm even while confused, but ignored that - and paid the price for not using chaotic commands .
Re-reading my last update on a wizard slayer attempt a few months ago, I was fairly optimistic about the chances of making progress then and decided to have a 40th go at that. Shoal and then basilisks provided some quick and easy XP, but I came a cropper attacking Kirian's party when Peter cast rigid thinking on me from out of sight (something I've noted a few times before, so should have been wary of).
Starting again immediately, things progressed well with me reaching my final BG1 level at Durlag's Tower, with a pretty impressive 106 HPs. However, on the way from there to High Hedge I was ambushed by a basilisk. There should have been plenty of time to run away from that, but unfortunately my concentration had dropped and I'd gone into the map screen immediately on the assumption I would have arrived at High Hedge and would use that to quickly set a travel point to find Thalantyr. I then only just got out of the map screen in time to see me being petrified ...
That made 3 runs ended this morning before breakfast . There was still time to try and add more to that though, so I restarted the wizard slayer once more. The half hour left before breakfast saw a more minimalist approach with me not bothering with minor XP or treasures. Encounters completed then included:
- Shoal shot (+23 HPs)
- Drizzt dragooned
- Noober nobbled (+9 HPs)
- ankhegs angered (+15 HPs)
With a bit more time available before work I continued making progress with:
- basilisks baffled (+12 HPs)
- jellies jeopardized (+9 HPs)
- Mulahey mullered
- bandits battered
- Spider's Bane bagged
- Davaeorn dazzled (+12 HPs)
Looks like fun doing such fast runs. I should do a speed run again for bgee and sod during the holidays. I will think of a concept for it, maybe record it.
I'm still in the midst of my noreload improved anvil with real careful progress but I will only update after I succeed or die because it takes so long to progress.
Starting again, I did a couple of quick chores in the City (poison quest and picking up Balduran's helm) before heading for the Lighthouse area. Using exploding arrows on the sirines makes the encounter with them easy - before they can try casting charm they've been hit 4 times (those arrows don't require a to hit roll) for automatic spell failure. The tome there provided regeneration to make up for the fact that I didn't take Bhaal CLW.
The intelligence tome, wisdom tome and a large shield upgrade were acquired without difficulty before investigating the Iron Throne. Moving between floors there allowed me to dodge spells and finish the enemies off pretty comfortably.
Back at Candlekeep, I had no way of getting the tomes, though DUHM was sufficient to kick open the tomb with a further scroll of PFM. Just for once I left Prat alone before using a scroll of PfP to get past the basilisks near the exit.
In Baldur's Gate I used DUHM to get another PfM scroll from Ramazith's Tower and remembered to speak twice to Tamoko before going in search of Prat. He was hit by a dispelling arrow before being beaten up in melee. At the palace two horrors only affected one of the dopplegangers and all of the others attacked the dukes rather than me. That was always likely to be a real problem, even with dispelling arrows helping slow their attacks down. At least for this 4th failure of the day, I wasn't to blame .
No pause + no-reload = no chance?
Caesar, dwarf berserker {8} (update 1)
I actually racked up a 5th loss yesterday on the 'short-life' challenge, before deciding perhaps I should really be trying something different. It seemed appropriate, given my lack of patience, to have a go at no pause - and it's well over 2 years since I had a go at that, so it's about time to try again. My rules for the challenge are:
1) Autopause of any sort not allowed.
2) Pausing using the space bar / clockwork button is not allowed at any time (game ending offence).
3) Pausing to look at inventory / record screen / options is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (including outside visual range).
4) Pausing for dialogue is allowed, but only for normal conversation.
5) Pausing for map screen is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (exception: travel can be initiated when running away from enemies, but once map screen is open then travel is required rather than going back to the same area).
As in all my runs, AI is disabled to prevent auto-targeting using that.
The notes below record yesterday's progress, which actually seemed pretty decent. When I first started playing it, I found it extremely difficult to avoid pausing by reflex, but even after a long gap it still seemed relatively easy to get back into the swing of things.
A couple of guards got annoyed at Caesar stealing in Candlekeep, but I managed to stay in front of them while finishing all the tasks.
From Beregost Caesar went to the basilisk area. Relying on Korax without pausing introduces a new element of danger - but I briefly tried it anyway. However, the first greater basilisk switched to melee immediately and quickly killed Korax - I was able to run away before it switched back to a gaze attack, but that meant I only picked up a single level there (though getting a maximum 15 HPs).
Helping Mirianne was good for another level (and a ring of protection), with 12 more HPs. Then it was on to Nashkel to grab the ankheg armor to further improve defenses. Looking for easy XP led Caesar to help Brage get home, locate Rufie and return a bowl to Tenya (level 4 and 13 more HPs). He broke his only long sword fighting the nearby ankheg (I'd hoped to get a magic one at the basilisk area, so hadn't stocked up on those).
I thought it was still too risky to take on Greywolf to get his sword, so bought 3 longswords and went to investigate the ankheg nest - and quickly retreated from there after breaking 2 of them against the first ankheg. After restocking, more ankhegs brought up level 5 (9 HPs).
The sirines at the Lighthouse area now seemed attractive. Rather than rely on rage and potentially get caught out if that expired, Caesar used the potion of clarity to allow those to be meleed. That was easy enough and produced another level and 14 more HPs. He didn't immediately move on to the golems though, as retreating from those could be dodgy.
A few more reputation quests included successfully saving Arabelle - it's easy there, without pause, to miss an attack click and move into sight of a number of the xvarts, but I did well with the targeting this time. That led on to Firewine Bridge, where I decided Caesar should have a go at Meilum. That would have been a potentially tricky fight anyway, but Caesar broke another sword right at the start of it which made things worse - and he was lucky to get the final blow just in time.
Having gained both a magical sword and some nice bracers, Greywolf now looked eminently manageable - and that proved to be so.
With weapon breakage no longer an issue, and with boosts to both attack and defense, most encounters now seemed pretty simple. I therefore decided Caesar was ready for golems. He tried out the two at High Hedge first and disposed of those easily enough. Back at the pirate cave it appeared I failed to click properly on rage for the final golem, but it still went down with a reasonable amount left in hand.
The tome activated regeneration to help HP management a bit.
Reputation was up at 19 when Caesar tried his luck out with Melicamp - after disposing of the nearby Bassilus.
That was no good, but there were plenty of other alternatives and helping the dryad of the Cloudpeaks did the job. Grabbing the charisma tome helped reduce prices a touch more when purchasing a few potions.
At the Valley of the Tombs, the Revenant and some ghasts stood no chance against rage. Without pause, pulling mustard jellies away from Narcillicus without fully activating him looked difficult - but Caesar did that successfully. The first of those gave me level 7 and 13 more HPs. In the same area I managed to draw away Telka and then Maneira from the other Amazons before raging to finish off the clerics.
Caesar wasted a bit of money by selling the Harrower long sword, before I realized that should be used to replace his basic +1 version.
Deciding I should get the pantaloons before I forgot those, Caesar killed the spiders in Beregost to help out Landrin at the same time.
Battle horrors were now no real threat and dispatching the ones at Durlag's Tower provided a quick XP boost. Riggilo added more before Caesar ventured onto the roof, planning on using the protection of a couple of mirror eye potions to deal with the basilisks there. Ten rounds per potion would be plenty of time if using pause - Caesar would potentially have been able to kill all the basilisks with a single potion if fully buffed. However, a significant amount of time could be wasted with slight delays in movement, so I wanted to minimize the amount of time between using the potion and attacking the first basilisk. Doing that though carries its own risks and I didn't check that my click on the potion had properly activated before going through the door ...
'Long-life challenge' - wizard slayer {43} (1st and final update)
Despite the no-pause loss, I still thought this was a new day and, hey, anything could happen. Hence I started the wizard slayer again. There was a slightly odd start when I unaccountably bought a quiver of arrows rather than bolts in Candlekeep, but after that things proceeded nicely for a while:
- Shoal provided 28 HPs for 2 levels.
- shooting down an exploding ogre was enough for another level and 13 HPs.
- a series of minor quests and encounters included escorting Brage back to Nashkel to trigger another level and a nice 15 HPs.
- successfully restoring Melicamp took reputation to 20, though I realized just too late that I'd not killed the golems at High Hedge before talking to Thalantyr. I bought full plate, large shield +1, Buckley's Buckler and the Dagger of Venom.
- moving on to the basilisk area, Korax got badly mauled by the first greater basilisk, but survived to get me another level and 9 more HPs. He kept going to finish off the basilisks, paralyze Mutamin and do the same to Baerin to let me kill him. Lindin was then shot down on the move before I went back to find Kirian. She successfully completed a lightning bolt spell, but I was able to dodge that. Unfortunately though there was no escaping an acid arrow spell - that was the first damage taken in the run.
- clearing the Cloudpeaks was followed by a bit of work in the Valley of the Tombs to bring up level 7 with 11 HPs.
- in the Nashkel Mine, Mulahey was shot down without talking to him.
- dodging Venkt's spells made for an easy victory at the Bandit Camp.
- Davaeorn looked like being another easy victory, until he somehow finished a hold person spell (having appeared to be hit at least 4 times in the previous 5 rounds).
On his own he wouldn't have been able to kill me before that wore off, but he added death to injury by immediately successfully summoning an ogre berserker ...
Looking at Dave's script ... that Hold Person and Monster Summoning III use a "SpellNoDec" command rather than a simple "Spell". He doesn't even have an instance of MS3 memorized. I wonder if that command cheats the spell failure chance as well as memorization?
Spellnodec is subject to interruption but does not require memorization.
Forcespell is the one that is uninterruptable and does not require memorization.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 216, Core rules + unmodded (2nd and final update) Flexi (male human monk, Grond0); Marea (female human totemic druid, Gate70)
Previous updates
Oh dear - it appears it's not just single player runs at risk at the moment (probably a good job I'm not the protagonist for the Trio run continuing this afternoon ).
The session ran very smoothly for most of its length - but not quite all. We started off by dealing with Greywolf and cleared the Cloud Peak mountains with just the odd use of stuns or spells - summons were used for the first time on a polar bear troubling a local merchant.
The Nashkel Mine offered little resistance on our way through to find Mulahey. He was immediately stunned and subsequently dominated before being put out of his misery.
Back in Nashkel, we made the mistake of seeking out Nimbul when a cohort of Amnian soldiers were patrolling nearby - and one of those grabbed his XP.
At the Bandit Camp Taurgosz was held by a nymph to break the back of the external resistance. Marea nipped into Tazok's tent and summoned a nymph, then ran outside again before Venkt could try his horror. That allowed us to beat up Britik and Raemon when they followed. Back inside, Venkt spent his spells on the nymph to make our assault easy.
The bracers of weapon expertise were a reminder that we hadn't been to Meilum yet. Marea summoned a spirit for the first time in the session there, but that proved unnecessary when he was stunned by Flexi (and about to be shocked by Marea).
There was a moment of concern in the Cloakwood when Marea activated the first web trap accidentally and trapped us both. However, only a single huge spider was in sight and their poison was too weak to do much damage before we were both free.
The final moment of concern came in the mine area. A trio of nymphs were on hand, but they were not able to prevent Kysus getting a confusion spell off, which caught Flexi as he was trying to sneak in to land a stunning blow. Marea's lightning put a stop to further trouble from Kysus, but Drasus latched on to Flexi who now lacked the sense to retreat. Marea started forward to try and get his attention, but was caught by a horror spell and was helpless to intervene as Flexi determinedly stood his ground until the end.
At the risk of royally screwing up once I proceed, I'll start posting about my current run, or at least one of my current runs haha. I like it when runs are still in progress, like @Enuhal's, the suspense factor no doubt.
Wannabe Warriors (1)
The idea of this playthrough is to go through the saga with a war party without actual warriors. So no fighters, paladins, rangers or monks. Instead I'll use the six most martial kits out of the non-warrior classes.
Also, no dual- or multi-classes of any type are allowed. My standard installation has several features, mainly from Tweaks Anthology, that make single-classes more appealing when compared to duals and especially multis without overshadowing the latter: true grandmastery (extra 1/2 APR compared to EE grandmastery), un-nerfed Thac0 progression for non-warrior classes, p&p/un-nerfed spell progression for casters, and I skip the SCS modification that makes caster HLAs once/day abilities.
Charname is a Priestess of Helm. With its Seeking Sword disabling spell-casting, I consider this kit to be the most warriorlike priest kit. The other kits to be included are:
- Blade,
- Swashbuckler,
- Shapeshifter,
- Transmuter,
- Avenger.
Blade, Swashbuckler and Shapeshifter speak for themselves I think. The Transmuter specialisation isn't inherently martial, but it relies quite a bit on physical combat because Transmuters often have no other choice. The Avenger was the final kit I added, because of druidic shapeshifting. I also considered Dragon Disciple as an arcane tank, but I found the Avenger druid a better and more interesting fit.
I considered going with a custom party but decided to edit existing NPCs. You'll meet them soon enough, but let's first introduce the protagonist, Irmgard, a dwarven Watcher of Helm.
Apparently, non-humans often follow deities of the human pantheon if they grow up in human settelements, so lore-wise we're good. Lawful evil isn't really an RP choice, it's more that I want to be able to have her cast Destruction (SCS/IWD addition) if she ever gets level 7 spells. I'll just pretend she's a bit too zealous at times. Irmgard starts out proficient in flail/morningstar and sling.
Even though I'm playing with SCS on Insane difficulty with double damage, the early game feels incredibly smooth and easy, which must have everything to do with me having played mostly LoB in recent weeks. Irmgard does all the early quests, including battles such as the rogue ogre and Landrin's spiders that I tend to avoid on LoB. Single enemies can be taken down fairly easily by casting repeated Commands and landing guaranteed hits. Brun (Sanctuary) and Tenya (Magical Stone) and a surviving Melicamp give her some very good early XP boosts.
At level 4 she takes a pip in single-weapon style to make the most out of her Seeking Sword: even with no pips in TWF the weapon can be dual-wielded without any Thac0 penalties, and the AC and crit bonuses from single-weapon style continue to apply when the Seeking Sword is dual-wielded with an off-hand weapon. A +4 weapon that gives two extra APR, a +4 Thac0 bonus, a +1 AC bonus (+2 if another pip in single-weapon style is taken) and a +5% crit chance should remain pretty spectacular in the hands of a cleric even at higher levels. Its 2d4 damage isn't great but with Holy Power, DUHM and Righteous Magic Irmgard should hit hard and often with it.
Bassilus brings her to level 5 even though he requires several rests before Irmgard manages to properly time her Hold Person, cast from out of sight, and to see it affect her enemy. If cast too early, his Armor of Faith prebuff will keep firing, making him immune to all damage.
He also tends to summon an aerial servant so that's another reason to take it slow.
A very close shave she has with Krumm and Caldo, whom we underestimate. They strike down two skeletons without effort (that's where LoB is easier of course). Caldo especially, with his cursed katana, surprises us, and when he lasts long enough for a Hold Person to expire on Krumm, Irmgard has to retreat.
Her second attempt is successful though.
Irmgard is pondering what to do with Shoal the Nereid under Sanctuary, when the creature simply addresses and kisses her, ignoring the Sanctuary. Irmgard doesn't make her save and drops to the ground with a single HP, but Shoal doesn't take any further action, allowing Irmgard to get up and heal while the Sanctuary is still in place. She hits the nereid who then calls Droth to her side, but with two skeleton warriors and several Commands, she manages to defeat Droth before finishing off Shoal.
Ingot, Meilum, Vax and Zal, and the like are handled with Commands, Holds and skellies. The Seeking sword comes out once enemies are disabled, so they can be taken down more swiftly.
At 32k XP Irmgard still hasn't visited Nashkel nor has she cleared any of the big XP areas (basilisks, ankhegs, sirines), when she starts her recruitment tour. First she slips past Tarnesh under Sanctuary to pick up Shapeshifter Khalid and Avenger Jaheira. I like the idea that they are a druid couple. They both take two-handed weapon proficiency to be more efficient with their (two-handed) shapeshift tokens, and I swap their stats around giving them a WIS boost and bringing them in line with PnP requirements (Khalid: 10-15-16-9-17-15, Jaheira: 14-17-15-10-17-15) before they wipe the floor with Tarnesh.
Swashbuckler Alora joins the party in Gullykin before we try to recruit Garrick. With skeleton warriors and Silence we have no trouble with Silke. But when Alora messes up a couple of pickpocket attempts with Feldepost's men who then turn hostile, our prospective Blade Garrick refuses to join the party and walks off.
We don't actually kill Feldepost's men; we charm them and let Karlat take care of them.
Eldoth joins as our Blade in the area north of Beregost before we briefly recruit Kivan for the +2 returning throwing dagger, a weapon made for Alora (** daggers).
We then finally travel to Nashkel where Edwin becomes the party's Transmuter. Unfortunately I initially forget to change his stats (Transmuters have a minimum of 15 DEX, so that's where his CON points should be) but when I remember this I decide to keep him the way he is because it doesn't feel right to suddenly edit him when he's already traveled and fought with the party. With 10 DEX Edwin will be less effective with ranged attacks and a bit vulnerable as Eldoth is wearing the gauntlets of dexterity to be a more effective archer, but the extra HPs are nice of course.
Alora pickpockets Shandalar and Dushai in Ulgoth's Beard, so that Edwin can learn a lot of new spells. We then clear the entire basilisk area, including Kirian's party, with the help of skeleton warriors, and a Silence spell that neutralizes both Kirian and Peter.
At Durlag's Tower, wand scorchers deal with battle horrors, skeletons with basilisks, and Khalid (no longer a lesser werewolf at level 7) wrecks several ghasts thanks to Dushai's ring, as well as Kirinhale.
We notice that respawning Doppelgangers on the path to Durlag's Tower tend to drop level 3 mage scrolls, in our case Detect Illusion, Spell Thrust, and Wraithform. The latter is nice for Edwin to have at this stage of the game. It's also good to know that there is a good chance that Invisibility 10' Radius can be acquired with some luck, especially for LoB runs where I consider this spell almost indispensable for parties.
Sirines and golems fall thanks to skeleton warriors and Khalid the werewolf. And ankhegs are taken down with overwhelming force, but when they do hit they hit very hard (double damage). Alora goes from 42 HPs (full health) to 4 HPs in one hit for example.
The only battle that doesn't quite go the way we'd like it to, is that with the Wolf of Ulcaster. With @Skitia's Recorder NPC mod, that area changes a bit. In the room next to where the Wolf of Ulcaster is, we have to battle either a good rogue or an evil wizard. We take on the evil wizard and manage to paralyze him with a wand. But we're surrounded by dread wolves and the Wolf of Ulcaster, no doubt alarmed by all the noise, decides to come and take a look. Edwin Blinds it, and Irmgard casts Remove Fear, as Khalid engages the mighty wolf.
We do pretty well but we take long in finishing the alpha wolf off, mostly because ranged attacks aren't possible what with other wolves and later ghouls attacking us in melee range. The Wolf dispels our Remove Fear, Malisons us, and panics most of us, including Edwin as he's in the middle of wand-scorching the Wolf. Edwin kills equally panicked Jaheira with his wand before Eldoth can activate his song. (In fact I had clicked on thew bard song icon, but I didn't notice immediately that Eldoth kept attacking with his bow.) Thankfully more harm is avoided and the party leave the ruins at around 60k XP per member.
Trio 29, Core rules, unmodded (Part 1234 in BG:EE and 5678910 11 in BGII:EE)
Loury - male, human undead hunter (Gate70)
Swish - male, dwarf swashbuckler (Grond0)
Corecleric - male, halfling priest of Lathander (Corey_Russell)
Loury had the merest of glances at last weeks session, and this was enough to remind him we should play with beholders. Could be fun.
That's how it unfolds. We burn our way around the lair, Loury having used Carsomyr to dispel the buffs used by the initial Elder Orb. We then use a bit of divide and conquer to quickly clear most of the area.
Loury has ensconced himself in the lower right area against a final group of beholders and Corecleric briefly finds the flaw in his Firestorm plan - having to retreat as he beings to frazzle at the edges.
The second Elder Orb is kept to ranged distance so it doesn't cast Imprisonment, until Corecleric loses patience and room so we swarm it to prevent the spell from being cast.
Having cleared the beholder area in less than five minutes we discuss the nearby illithid. There is no reason for us to venture inside other than a) we can and b) Corecleric bought a bunch of potions of genius. So in we go, and with all three of us having save vs spell of -1 we motor around that area too. Loury is careful to either engage with arrows or to keep a very careful eye on his image (having an intelligence of 6 while meleeing brain devourers is a dangerous matter).
We escape without anybody perishing, and Corecleric managed to Firestorm the Elder Brain and it's guardians too. Simyaz and his githyanki find a few traps and a deva too much to handle.
With two areas complete we head into the kuo-toa breeding ground and eliminate everything that moves within. Loury made sure to make himself target so any shots at him rebounded off his reflection shield and we could mop up melee attackers with ease. Carsomyr was used against any buffed arcane casters and we eventually defeated the insanely-regenerating kuo-toa prince before adding the infected tadpoles to the breeding pool.
Traps and summons melted the five demon knights sufficiently for us to slice any remaining resistance apart and then we killed a drow patrol guarding a bridge near Adalon's lair. Once she had disguised us as Drow we entered the city of Ust Natha and quickly rescued Phaere (helmet with Death Spell used against them after a bit of a battle for Loury to work out how to use it).
Following that we peacefully retrieved a swirf patrol leader's helmet, killed a beholder, pretended to kill Solaufein, retrieved the dragon eggs for ourselves and palmed a fake set to Phaere. A summoned Demon Lord killed both the Matron Mother and Phaere so we left before our deceit was uncovered and without completing the job of dealing with Ghaunadians.
Adalon may well have been pleased with our progress but a greater whirlwind and whirlwind plus snares made a dent in her enthusiasm and a spike trap was enough for her to die before our whirlwinds got a second chance each.
We would usually make a hasty escape from the Underdark but Loury felt obliged to kill a few more drow and Corecleric added some divine intervention to our cause.
After returning to the surface (closing doors behind us so no drow followed us out to anger Elhan) we dealt with Kruin and his gith, then got Cromwell to forge some items.
Loury has the Silver sword (25% chance of vorpal), staff of earth (kills earth elementals), staff of fire (kills fire elementals), the Wave halberd (kills fire elementals, efreet and salamanders).
Swish has the human flesh armour (+4 to saves, 20% magic resistance), staff of air (kills air elementals) and a bunch of other stuff that use any item allows him to manipulate for our cause.
Corecleric has Crom Faeyr (25 strength, kills stone and clay golems, and trolls) plus the rod of smiting (any golems must save vs death or be destroyed). Loury has handed him back his drow armour which can be seen in a screenshot below:
The only negative of the session was when swapping girdles we fumbled the Hill Giant girdle and it disappeared in a puff of multiplayerfu. Swish suggests we have two more strength girdles to find and the first will be nearby in Suldanessellar.
I've changed opening proficiencies on this character once or twice before and decided to do that again to give the feel of a fresh start. I still kept long sword with a view to making best use of Spellbreaker in SoD, but reverted to short bow rather than daggers.
That means opening work takes a bit longer, but you get the benefit of increased THAC0 with special ammunition later on. I stayed patient in the game and did well to avoid taking any damage while maximising reputation and getting up to level 7.
I'd been running short of encounters which were relatively easy to avoid damage on, so to get my final level did something I don't normally do and shot down the battle horrors at Durlag's Tower. Although they're immune to missile damage, they do take added damage - such as from elemental arrows.
That's normally too expensive for my taste (the 14k XP for 3 battle horrors and the doom guard cost 61 of the acid arrows I'd bought). However, wizard slayers have so little to buy that's less of a constraint than usual.
Inside the Tower, I foisted Kirinhale's hair on Riggilo before putting him out of his misery for another 5k. Still with the aim of avoiding taking damage I used a scroll of PfM, followed up by PfP intending to:
- loot the tome
- kill the ghost
- negate the trap to the roof; and
- kill the basilisks
I couldn't though resist looting some containers as well, including a couple near the ghost that I rarely touch - and I'd forgotten that one of those was a non-magical trap.
However, with an unmodded non-arcane solo character there's no way to avoid trap damage in the Nashkel Mine, so I wouldn't have been able to progress untouched much further anyway.
That put me close to L8 and a quick trip to the Valley of the Tombs provided that final level - the 11 HPs taking me to a decent total of 105.
My bow skill made the trip through the Nashkel Mine a formality and Mulahey was duly shot down without incident.
The Amazons were picked off individually, while Nimbul's horror was dodged before he suffered a dose of spell failure. Before resting, I shot down Bentan for his scroll and got caught stealing in Beregost in order to get LMD as a second Bhaal power. Tranzig then failed to complete a spell.
At the bandit camp the bandit archers didn't make much impression. Inside Tazok's tent, Venkt died to 3 acid arrows before the others were meleed.
In the Cloakwood I successfully collected Spider's Bane. Unlike most runs, this time I've not aimed to get grand mastery of a weapon in SoD, but instead got 3 pips in both melee and missile weapons - so that the THAC0 benefit from that is available in either form. That meant I've switched attack forms more than usual.
At the Cloakwood Mine, Genthore was pulled away for disposal first before horror was used to ensure the others caused no trouble. Inside, it was straightforward to get down to the battle horrors. I thought I might need to rest after each of those, but was in fact able to do both before healing up with the help of Buckley's Buckler.
I had a scroll of PfM available, but chose to rely on WS abilities against Davaeorn despite the problems last time. This time though things went according to plan and he failed to complete a spell (apart from his scripted dimension doors).
A quick round of reputation quests pushed that up to 20 again, before I turned to other tasks in the City. The poison quest was desirable for the Eagle Bow (as well as a slight shield upgrade and a wisdom tome). In the previous run I got a bonus doing that when successfully tagging Lothander with a stunning dart before he could get away. Doing that though not only requires a hit with a non-proficient weapon and for him to fail his save, but also to get a good initiative roll in the first place. This time I failed to do that and he had nipped downstairs before I could even launch an attack.
Other than that everything went very smoothly. None of the opponents even managed an attack at the Iron Throne. Zhalimar might have been an exception to that, but I decided to spring for the use of stunning darts to follow up a Bhaal horror for him.
In Candlekeep I robbed the one tomb I could open, killed a few dopplegangers and ran past Prat (without him noticing me) before using up a PfP scroll on the basilisks.
In Baldur's Gate once more I talked to Tamoko before making some final ammunition purchases. Those included dispelling arrows and one of those ensured that Slythe would offer no real contest. The Palace was potentially a far trickier fight. A first Bhaal horror sent one of the dopplegangers briefly running - but unfortunately that one was attacking me anyway and the horror just managed to send it to attack Belt instead after a moment or two. On the plus side one of the other dopplegangers also attacked me, taking a bit of the potential pressure off the dukes. Things would still have been touch or go, but a second horror was really successful - panicking 3 of the dopplegangers, just as Liia kicked the bucket. Another had suffered morale failure and one was attacking me, leaving only 1 on Belt. The panic effect doesn't prevent attacking, but does normally reduce that substantially and I was able to kill all the dopplegangers while Belt remained at just badly injured.
In the Undercity I made a rare use of LMD to disrupt Tamoko's spell while finishing her off to get her armor.
I then decided to try and get a couple more exploding arrows from Rahvin - attacking the party from behind to turn him hostile and then using horror and stunning darts to prevent him shooting.
While Sarevok would have been easy and safe to kill using a PfM scroll to defend against traps and Semaj, I was greedy for more exploding arrows from Angelo - so once again cheesed the combat with the help of a PfE scroll.
Our next session suffered an opening mishap as Spiky was bumped out of character generation and back to the lobby at the character naming so had to be booted out and rejoin... which lost the generated character. On recreation of Spiky Grond0 forgot to create her as a bounty hunter and instead ended up with an unkitted thief. We only realised this when laying a snare for Shoal the nereid and a brief conversation resulted in us giving her the chance to prove her mettle without a restart.
We quickly reached out to connect with Greywolf, who proved adept at killing our spirit summons. After about a dozen (OK, 20) had perished under his sword Crow relented and shot him down.
While Crow could be accused of being a slow learner she did find Unshey's ogre and the polar bear near the Gnoll fortress were less able to kill the spirits, but Spiky had grown bored and decided not to wait out the summons when facing Tarnesh the assassin.
We worked our reputation up to 19, and then debated whether we were up to retrieving Farmer Brun's son from the ankheg nest. On the way Crow realised we could just pick up Joia's ring for some easier reputation and then we only had to deal with one ankheg on the way to Ulgoth's Beard.
I was undecided on what we should do next but Grondo felt basilisks or sirenes would be suitable targets. So we picked up a pair of scrolls and set about the basilisks. With Crow protected from petrification she went into melee and this allowed Spiky to land decisive blows from the shadows.
At one point I had to close a rl door to prevent sunlight on my monitor, and just got back in time to pause the game having realised Grond0 hadn't remembered the greater basilisk near Mutamin would go hostile.
We downed that enemy and then had a bit of a debate as to how Mutamin reacted when Crow cast a Writhing Fog near him. Crow felt she was out of sight range, while Spiky felt she was hidden. Regardless of whichever of us he reacted to, Mutamin mirrored up and cast horror at us. Spiky ran south as Crow ran north, and Spiky saved against the horror but Crow was just too close still and began to panic. Fortunately for us she only activated a group of gibberlings so once the panic wore off we could finish Mutamin off with a backstab. Crow is in the trees to the right in this image:
Kirian and her gang took another Writhing Fog, and Spiky snared herself before killing Kirian. Crow made the mistake of showing herself to Peter but saved against his rigid thinking. She Doomed Baerin as Spiky finished off Peter and returned to backstab Baerin, then we tracked down Lindin and he fell to a backstab.
With this area done we moved on to the sirines where a combination of Writhing Fog and backstabs mostly worked. Spiky was dominated twice but Crow led her safely away the first time and on the second time she stood near Sil and killed her once she recovered. At one point Spiky moved on in search of another victim while Crow double-checked that a backstab of 100 had been achieved.
That left the flesh golem cave. Crow equipped the +1 arrows looted from Baerin and told Spiky to use her staff from the shadows. The first golem fell victim to this approach but a second golem fought back and we had another discussion when we realised I was seeing one thing (near-dead thief) and Grond0 another (unresponsive golem). Then I realised Grond0 had dropped from the game after his attack, so I moved Spiky out of reach as I shot the golem down.
A quick check confirmed Spiky had lost about 8000xp (effectively everything on the map as we'd not saved since entering the area and that's a consequence of a client dropping from the game) so I consoled that back as Grond0 rejoined and we continued as though nothing had happened.
The sirenes and golems defeated, we decided it was time to deal with Nashkel Mine. A quick jaunt through there wasn't any real danger although Mulahey survived a Writhing Fog and snare. Crow finished him off as Spiky killed a few of his summons and then we mopped up before leaving.
Lamahla and her amazons played a dirty trick in spotting Spiky (who emerged from the shadows without warning. Spiky ran and immediately went back into the shadows which meant the amazons all huddled together in the Writhing Fog.
Despite two of them exiting the fog in panic they both returned to die from the cold and Lamahla would surely have succumbed too if Spiky's patience hadn't run out.
PfU for the undead and a few exploding arrows made the opening dungeon in SoD pretty easy. Korlasz had her initial buffs dispelled by an arrow before another exploding one convinced her to surrender.
The main target in the City was to kill Minsc for his helm - providing immunity to the fear aura of various demons.
At the Coast Way Crossing I just went straight to the bridge and was able to get behind the tent sufficiently quickly to prevent any of the enemies from reacting first.
There was nothing of interest in Troll Claw Woods, so I ran through there. In doing so, however, a hobgoblin got a critical hit with an arrow which led me to a nasty discovery. Although I'd written down earlier that I'd collected the constitution tome, I'd not in fact done so - and moreover I'd sold Buckley's Buckler in the belief that I had done so. Hence I only had regeneration available with the help of DUHM - that's slightly limiting given that constitution regeneration is more important for a wizard slayer than any other class.
However, there was nothing to be done about that now, so I moved on to the Forest of Wyrms and fought my way into the old temple complex - using horror against the bugbear shamans. In the temple proper I killed various guards before buffing with PfM, PfP and PfF against Ziatar. It took a while to stun him, but that ended the contest.
The buffs were less for Ziatar than the really dangerous Neothelid - and Akanna. Exploding arrows let me kill her pretty quickly with the aim of escaping out of her room before the Neothelid arrived - and I did that successfully. On the way out a single thrown dagger was too much for Morentherene.
With one of the worst pinch points out of the way I moved on to Boareskyr Bridge - getting my final SoD level there as a reward for freeing Kharm. Rather than risk trying to kill Vichand quickly, I just intimidated him into giving up his scroll. After watching the smith make a dragon scale shield and some void arrows, I surrendered the fort. That still left a dangerous encounter though with the mage on the bridge. He needs to be shot twice pretty quickly to damage him before he can complete a fire portal - and he has good AC against missiles, which is largely the reason for taking mastery in short bows this run. In the event my first dispelling arrow shot was a good one, dispelling his buffs and making him far easier to hit with a follow-up shot. That made the remaining battle a simple one.
I briefly checked in at the Coalition Camp before hitting the road again. Despite being a 0 hour transition, the journey to Dead Mans Pass was interrupted by an ambush area. The big hole in the ground here is pretty important for a wizard slayer as it includes Spellbreaker in it - a +2 long sword giving a +4 bonus to spell saves. The dragon shield bonus against death meant the myconid spores down there couldn't affect me, so it was no problem dealing with them.
There was actually something I wanted in Dead Man's Pass - a bearskin for making Helvdar's boots. Those give a valuable +3 to saving throws for dwarves. After rescuing Skie I moved on to the Underground River, where I realized I'd hit the XP cap and could take another level. The gargantuan spider there was keen to web me, but Spider's Bane foiled that from a distance (needed because I had no defense to its melee stun). Quite a bit of running and shooting (for melee types) and close attack (for archers) then disposed of the guards on the underground entrance without having to rest.
Inside, I placed the Bwoosh and bought some more scrolls. However, though I have placed the poison in the past with a wizard slayer, without haste or invisibility that's felt pretty dangerous and I decided against attempting it this time. When I got back to the Coalition Camp though they told me firmly to get back there. I used myconid distractions while placing one lot of poison and then just tried to survive until the mages eventually arrived to reopen the lift. The alarm was raised before I could get to the exit, but one more myconid provided enough distraction to allow me to get across the bridge and away.
This time I was allowed to report in properly. I quickly recharged my myconid summons before being faced with invaders to the camp. While some solo classes can find these a bit of a struggle, it was no problem for a wizard slayer with lots of exploding arrows and a few minutes later the road to Dragonspear was clear.
At the castle, I went straight to find Ashatiel and challenged him to a dual - he saved against a first dart of stunning, but failed against a second. Inside the castle, I rested to heal up and then followed Caelar into hell. The bearskin boots and Spellbreaker allowed me to run through the first area without danger - or so I thought when I was writing my note of events slightly in advance of what actually happened .
I loaded the autosave to check it was charm person from Illaruel that got me and that that forced a save vs spell. It seems odd that her charm has a penalty of the -4 or greater required to give a chance of overcoming the -2 save vs spell I had, but perhaps she's coded as a succubus and I've just not noted her as a great danger because I'll typically have taken a potion of magic shielding. Oh well, back to the drawing board ...
After beating the dopplegangers in the ducal palace we enlisted Neera and took her to find Adoy who gave her a belt. We then went shopping and rapidly ran out of gold as she was in need of a robe of the neutral archmage. We are therefore hunting ankhegs to boost our gold supply. Safana is nearly at the experience cap but Neera still hasn't got much experience. When Safana reaches the cap we will probably seek out Sarevok.
Ankhegs don't hurt us since I have kept Neera invisible and cast Spirit Armour on Safana. The armour injures her but to a trivial extent.
Neera died three times getting to the final battle, but by going up a level she now has stoneskin, a big bonus.
We have sold all surplus equipment in order to buy decent ammunition both for the final battle against Sarevok and for beyond. Now only a few gold pieces left.
We recruited our party for now: Minsc and Dynaheir, Branwen, Ajantis and Imoen (dualed to mage at level 6). The SCS feature for improved customization is really powerful for arcane spellcasters, as the game now adds some automatic spells to your spellbook for each level - not a lot, but enough, and some powerful ones at that, meaning that both Dynaheir and Imoen had access to Haste and Stoneskin right away. I didn't make use of the option to change kits or classes - the party is already powerful enough as is.
Now, we felt prepared to take on some more powerful spellcasters. Bassilus, to get Branwen a weapon, was first - he started with the sixth-level entropy shield pre-cast (among other things). However, the physical attacks of our hasted party plus skeletons were enough to take him down:
We easily defeated the mage at the carinval:
Got revenge on another ogre mage - so much easier with a party. This one used his opening chromatic orb on Dynaheir, but she made her save, and that was the only thing he got to do:
Even with the SCS difficulty slider on insane, Silke apparently doesn't use pre-buffs. Goot to know:
Imoen and Dynaheir used her webs to trap the vampire wolf group in the eastern temple area, allowing us to take them down with some store-bought magical arrows:
I also cleared Laurel's area (too many hobgoblin archers for my solo-play taste, so I had left this one alone), including protecting her from gibberling hordes:
Finally, I made my way to the ankheg cave, with Ajantis stacking armor class and tanking the beasts. Used some wand of sleep charges for the groups outside to make things easier:
I also returned the bowl to Tenya and comissioned the ankheg armor. More areas to explore next time, such as the Sword Coast and the eastern regions.
The SCS feature for improved customization is really powerful for arcane spellcasters, as the game now adds some automatic spells to your spellbook for each level - not a lot, but enough, and some powerful ones at that, meaning that both Dynaheir and Imoen had access to Haste and Stoneskin right away.
In unmodded BGEE, arcane casters get free spells known with their joining triggers, up to the maximum level they can cast (so, 3rd level at most). It sounds like the SCS component refines this to apply at even higher levels and for characters that aren't always mages.
Journal of Michaerla the Mighty and friends
Inside the Temple of Bhaal Semaj teleported himself to the location of some skull traps where in addition web and cloudkill awaited. He died easily enough. I had lured Sarevok to the wall on the left before consuming a potion of invisibility.
Tazok was then lured with some monsters and was on the point of death when Angelo joined the fray. Neera moved towards them under her own volition. That ruined my tactics which were to keep well clear of them. She was shot with arrows of explosion which killed her and badly injured the rest of the party who made a rapid retreat.
We then consumed a large number of potions of healing. When we returned Angelo was dead, whether as a result of blows from the summoned monsters or from his own arrows I don't know. There were still two monsters alive.
Only having Sarevok to defeat I and Maxine buffed ourselves and she summoned some monsters. Whilst we did get hurt, we had no further casualties and it was I who landed the final blow.
That was satisfying!
Neera was raised and we were then healed whereupon Imoen asked us for help.
Having Neera in the party was definitley NOT an asset, possibly because she joined too late.
EDIT
We killed Korlasz and her cohorts, Neera going up a level in the process. Just returning the staff and getting the moss and the prologue is finished.
We have now headed North to deal with Caelar and have done a few minor quests. We have been given the secret revealed but there is still plenty to do in that area. We seem to be using a lot of consumables so it is as well that I bought plenty in Baldur's Gate before fighting Sarevok.
Well-equipped and relatively experienced at over 60k XP, the Wannabe Warriors start the main adventure. Near the Nashkel Mines Greywolf is belatedly blinded and hacked down by Khalid who, as a Shapeshifter, proves to be the party's biggest melee menace. Thanks to our high levels and no LoB-difficulty, the party needs no Invisibility inside the mine. Instead we just fight and fireball our way toward Mulahey's lair. The kobold shaman and chieftain are both held by Irmgard. Inside said lair we prebuff (radial PfE, Emotion Courage/Hope by Edwin) and Irmgard summons some skeletons just in case, but Mulahey and his minions go down quite fast.
Still buffed up, we confront Narcillicus outside. He is immediately targeted with the wand of the heavens and dies to a single charge of it, while his two mustard jellies are overwhelmed with physical attacks. Testing Shapeshifter Khalid a bit further, this time against the Revenant, we learn there are limits to the kit's physical prowess in BG1. Irmgard has to step in to heal her druidic friend.
Outside we play around with some of the druidic damage spells to deal with three ankhegs.
It looks pretty and is quite effective. It's nice for me to have two full druids in the party since I rarely play those, and that includes NPCs Faldorn and Cernd (whom I've never used beyond the duel in the grove).
Nimbul is somewhat cravenly Held by Irmgard from out of sight before we finish him off, and Tranzig succumbs to a 30 damage critical from Khalid so he doesn't even get to beg for mercy. We deal with the Larswood druids with Hold and Silence spells, before we get waylaid near Peldvale by the party of Molkar. Eldoth stuns the warrior with the wand of paralyzation, while Irmgard's wand of fear affects Drakar. Some monsters summoned by Edwin provide Morvin and Halacan with a bit of distraction while the party deals with them. Edwin suffers some damage from Halacan's Melf's Acid Arrow, and Irmgard, Khalid and Eldoth (whom I forgot to switch to ranged attacking) incur some physical damage during the melee brawl, but I think we prevail pretty compellingly.
We infiltrate and loot the bandit camp, and clean the tent up with some fireballs. Sloppy targeting though leads to a second death: it's again Jaheira, and again due to friendly fire...
(Should have had her in fire salamander form at the start of combat.) Khalid quickly dispatches Venkt, and Hakt requires a single ranged hit, and all enemies are down. Irmgard reads one of her two scrolls of Raise Dead to get Jaheira back on her feet. We heal her, loot the place, talk to Ender Sai, and go outside to clear the remainder of the camp with initially lots of fire and later physical attacks. Both Jaheira and Edwin suffer some serious damage from a couple of stray enemy archers (and due to me playing with double damage enabled).
Eldoth and Alora reach level 8 which sees Alora pick a second pip in TWF, so she can now dual-wield daggers, the weapon she has specialized in.
In Cloakwood we get Lamalha's ambush. Still without radial invisibility, we'll have to be prepared for some backstabs. Maneira and Telka both choose Alora, and she only survives thanks to a healing potion and to double damage backstabs as opposed to LoB's quintuple damage backstabs.
The above screenshot also shows that (1) Zeela was the first to fall, to focused attacks, and (2) the battle is made easier by the fact that Lamalha stays neautral far longer than she should. Jaheira engages Maneira in spider form, Telka is stunned, and Lamalha, once she does go hostile, is no match for the party on her own.
With Jaheira in the party and the BG1 NPC Project installed there is a rather difficult quest around the Seniyad-Aldeth encounter. That encounter can be resolved peacefully by helping Seniyad. He wants us to free two druids, one of them apparently an ex of Jaheira that she's embarrassed to talk about. I've had them wreak havoc with their Chaos spells and Chromatic Orbs in previous playthroughs, have even permanently lost Jaheira once as she was petrified by a Chromatic Orb and her statue shattered. Not this time though, as a single Silence from Irmgard makes all the difference.
Another Silence spell trivializes also the final encounter of this quest, with an otherwise powerful druid named Andarthe.
During a spider ambush we learn that Jaheira can still get webbed by giant spiders' targeted webs, an oversight I assume. Thankfully, we can dispatch them before they harm her any further.
At the Cloakwood mine, we buff and summon some skeletons, a nymph and a few beetles, and approach cautiously, revealing only Drasus and Genthore. Interestingly the wizards cast a Teleport Field in front of themselves and stay back too, focusing mainly on our summons. The party attacks the warriors with missiles and spells. Khalid finishes off Genthore with a Call Lightning for an impressive 55 damage and Alora gets the killing throw on Drasus with her dagger. By then the wizards have already wasted some of their more dangerous spells, such as Chaos, and Irmgard manages to take out Rezdan with a charge of the wand of the heavens for 40 damage. Kysus manages to slow Eldoth and Alora, but a Dispel Magic from the former, a True Sight from Irmgard, and a barrage of ranged attacks spell his doom.
We continue our exploration without relying on stealth much, but we do use it to deal with Hareishan when we discover she has no MGoI pre-buff. Irmgard (wand of the heavens) and Edwin (wand of fire) feed her to the flames before she can cast her nasty enchantment spells or Polymorph Other.
More fireworks, a fire resistant Jaheira in salamander form, and melee dispatchment of single enemies by Eldoth and Khalid secure our victory, though both Edwin and Alora have to retreat after getting hit.
On the lext level, Natasha follows us all the way into the armory where she finishes Edwin off with a Vitriolic Sphere that deals exactly his full amount of 42 HPs.
True Sight from Irmgard and a Dispel Magic (glad we took on Neville) from Eldoth expose the wizard and our druids quickly finish her off.
Raising Edwin costs us our last Raise Dead scroll, but on the flipside, Jaheira should get Harper's Call in BG1 as a single class Avenger. Down in Davaeorn's den, we extinguish the battle horrors with fire and we hold the door, dispatching each group of two guards and two black talons before the next enters.
Meanwhile our skeleton warriors prove so strong that they can take on Davaeorn on their own (shrugging off much of his magic).
The party travels to Baldur's Gate where most quests are taken on. There are no incidents, no screw-ups. The worst we've done is lose Nester's dagger which we wanted to bring to Quinn. Highlights include killing Ramazith with fire after he goes hostile but before he teleports away (my install uses CDTweaks' fast teleportation animation), standing our ground against Degrodel's minions unbuffed, prevailing over Sunin and his men (thanks to an arrow of dispelling from Eldoth), and soundly defeating Simmeon and his aides in Dorn's quest.
We also travel to the Cloudpeaks without Eldoth, but with Rasaad to get our Swashbuckler Alora a strength upgrade (and a mental downgrade), and to enjoy his quest frankly.
We've had a lot of fun but the time to deal with the Iron Throne and Sarevok draws nigh. Each party member now has over 110k XP so we ought to be ready for it.
Comments
You had at least 18K before hunting basilisks. The fixed enemies in that area (basilisks, Mutamin, adventurers) are worth more than 28K.
Yes, it's time to recruit a party. They'll already be at least 15K experience behind you until the cap comes into play.
Baeloth is the exception. He's only recruitable once the main character has reached level 5 (at 10k XP for a Thief or Bard), and will always be level 6 (40k XP) when you recruit him.
Also if you're playing with SCS Improved NPC customisation and management, NPCs will join at level zero, can then be customised in terms of class/kit, and will level up until they reach about the same amount of XP as the main character, with no maximum amount of joining XP. And if you kick an NPC out and re-recruit them, they will again start levelling up to about your character's level. I thought this might be worth noting since many players in this thread play with full SCS installs.
Personally I play without this component (and use EEKeeper if I want to customise an NPC), because having to deal with lower level NPCs if you make late changes to the party is part of the game to me.
This does mean that I don't have to worry about the 32k cap, though (I'm at 50k right now) - so it's mostly a matter of what content I feel comfortable enough with to solo. I'll propably be a bit more cautious and try to avoid anything that could hit me with crowd control spells (unless I'm relatively sure a single 2*backstab would be enough to kill it) or hit me at range for high damage. Could get the Greenstone Amulet and use a bunch of charges, but the short duration can still make things a bit dangerous, and I'm not that experienced with solo play, especially not with SCS.
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1157381/#Comment_1157381
I decided to try and go for level 7 in solo mode. There were still a few quests and fights around the map that felt fairly safe to do. I started with some very easy stuff, such as the zombie farm:
Next up, I ventured to High Hedge to buy some elixirs of health. I also looked for an invisbility potion, didn't find one and decided to get one indirectly by buying a PfU scroll, which would allow me to deal with the three undead caves in the mine exit area:
I haven't played much recently, but what I have done has been even less successful than usual
The 19 strength of the werewolf shape was quickly put to use in Candlekeep by robbing the nobleman upstairs (beating him unconscious with fists first, before shifting shape to break open his treasure chest).
A quick stop in Beregost allowed me to pick up gem and scroll containers, use werewolf strength to steal an invisibility potion from the manor and savage Algernon to get his (now rather tattered) cloak. I then headed for the basilisk area to super-charge XP courtesy of Korax. Several of the basilisks switched to melee and Korax was taken to near death, but survived in order to complete his work by paralyzing Mutamin.
To the south, Baerin and Lindin were charmed using druid spells and drawn away from the others to meet their dooms against a 3 APR werewolf before they realized what was happening. The same happened to Peter, though I played safe by wasting his dangerous spells first. A charmed tasloi then acted as a distraction while I used call lightning on Kirian.
After a few more tasks around Beregost, I went to the Lake District and watched from afar while some gnolls killed Drizzt.
In the Nashkel Mines the werewolf slashed his way through all the opponents except a couple of ghouls (which were shot). A first appearance from a pair of nymphs then helped deal with Mulahey.
After resting for another LMD I noted that most of my inventory was full of potions and went to High Hedge to get a case for them. More nymphs allowed me a few seconds to freely attack the golems - which was enough to deal with them.
Tranzig and some spiders were slaughtered in Beregost before I headed to the FAI to pick up the pantaloons. I didn't bother with summons against Tarnesh as I thought he would be lucky to cast a spell against the fast weapon speed of the shapeshifter (and he wasn't lucky).
At the Bandit Camp the archers made little progress against defending boots and belt. I considered a straight melee fight with Taurgosz, but why have a dognymph and bark yourself
After resting to get Bhaal horror I pushed on through the Cloakwood. There was minimal fighting there, but drawing a few ettercaps away from their web traps was enough for level 8 and 9 more HPs.
Moving down through the mine was no trouble, but the first of the battle horrors at the bottom, showed up the poorer THAC0 and defenses of the shapeshifter for the first time - though nipping upstairs to do a bit of healing allowed me to triumph in the end without resorting to other means of attack.
Shapeshifter 8, 70 HPs, kills 182
Previous updates:
With 4 evil Bhaal powers in the locker, I was now free to raise reputation and hence did some questing aimed at doing that. The opening salvo there was checking out whether Greywolf was as strong as battle horrors in melee - regrettably for him, he wasn't. That was enough for level 9 and the good HPs continued with 9 more.
Though that meant ironskins were now potentially available, I didn't bother with that while plenty of further opponents were slashed to pieces in straight melee. One exception to that was Bassilus where nymphs were used and they appeared again against the sirines at the Lighthouse area. A round of confusions affected two of the sirines and, while nymphs attacked the remaining one in melee, I went after the other two. I did have in mind the possibility that they could cast charm even while confused, but ignored that - and paid the price for not using chaotic commands
Previous documented run:
Re-reading my last update on a wizard slayer attempt a few months ago, I was fairly optimistic about the chances of making progress then and decided to have a 40th go at that. Shoal and then basilisks provided some quick and easy XP, but I came a cropper attacking Kirian's party when Peter cast rigid thinking on me from out of sight (something I've noted a few times before, so should have been wary of).
Starting again immediately, things progressed well with me reaching my final BG1 level at Durlag's Tower, with a pretty impressive 106 HPs. However, on the way from there to High Hedge I was ambushed by a basilisk. There should have been plenty of time to run away from that, but unfortunately my concentration had dropped and I'd gone into the map screen immediately on the assumption I would have arrived at High Hedge and would use that to quickly set a travel point to find Thalantyr. I then only just got out of the map screen in time to see me being petrified ...
That made 3 runs ended this morning before breakfast
- Shoal shot (+23 HPs)
- Drizzt dragooned
- Noober nobbled (+9 HPs)
- ankhegs angered (+15 HPs)
With a bit more time available before work I continued making progress with:
- basilisks baffled (+12 HPs)
- jellies jeopardized (+9 HPs)
- Mulahey mullered
- bandits battered
- Spider's Bane bagged
- Davaeorn dazzled (+12 HPs)
- bargains bought
I'll aim to finish off BGEE a bit later.
Wizard Slayer L8, 95 HPs, 178 kills
I'm still in the midst of my noreload improved anvil with real careful progress but I will only update after I succeed or die because it takes so long to progress.
Previous updates:
Starting again, I did a couple of quick chores in the City (poison quest and picking up Balduran's helm) before heading for the Lighthouse area. Using exploding arrows on the sirines makes the encounter with them easy - before they can try casting charm they've been hit 4 times (those arrows don't require a to hit roll) for automatic spell failure. The tome there provided regeneration to make up for the fact that I didn't take Bhaal CLW.
The intelligence tome, wisdom tome and a large shield upgrade were acquired without difficulty before investigating the Iron Throne. Moving between floors there allowed me to dodge spells and finish the enemies off pretty comfortably.
Back at Candlekeep, I had no way of getting the tomes, though DUHM was sufficient to kick open the tomb with a further scroll of PFM. Just for once I left Prat alone before using a scroll of PfP to get past the basilisks near the exit.
In Baldur's Gate I used DUHM to get another PfM scroll from Ramazith's Tower and remembered to speak twice to Tamoko before going in search of Prat. He was hit by a dispelling arrow before being beaten up in melee. At the palace two horrors only affected one of the dopplegangers and all of the others attacked the dukes rather than me. That was always likely to be a real problem, even with dispelling arrows helping slow their attacks down. At least for this 4th failure of the day, I wasn't to blame
Caesar, dwarf berserker {8} (update 1)
I actually racked up a 5th loss yesterday on the 'short-life' challenge, before deciding perhaps I should really be trying something different. It seemed appropriate, given my lack of patience, to have a go at no pause - and it's well over 2 years since I had a go at that, so it's about time to try again. My rules for the challenge are:
1) Autopause of any sort not allowed.
2) Pausing using the space bar / clockwork button is not allowed at any time (game ending offence).
3) Pausing to look at inventory / record screen / options is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (including outside visual range).
4) Pausing for dialogue is allowed, but only for normal conversation.
5) Pausing for map screen is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (exception: travel can be initiated when running away from enemies, but once map screen is open then travel is required rather than going back to the same area).
As in all my runs, AI is disabled to prevent auto-targeting using that.
The notes below record yesterday's progress, which actually seemed pretty decent. When I first started playing it, I found it extremely difficult to avoid pausing by reflex, but even after a long gap it still seemed relatively easy to get back into the swing of things.
A couple of guards got annoyed at Caesar stealing in Candlekeep, but I managed to stay in front of them while finishing all the tasks.
From Beregost Caesar went to the basilisk area. Relying on Korax without pausing introduces a new element of danger - but I briefly tried it anyway. However, the first greater basilisk switched to melee immediately and quickly killed Korax - I was able to run away before it switched back to a gaze attack, but that meant I only picked up a single level there (though getting a maximum 15 HPs).
Helping Mirianne was good for another level (and a ring of protection), with 12 more HPs. Then it was on to Nashkel to grab the ankheg armor to further improve defenses. Looking for easy XP led Caesar to help Brage get home, locate Rufie and return a bowl to Tenya (level 4 and 13 more HPs). He broke his only long sword fighting the nearby ankheg (I'd hoped to get a magic one at the basilisk area, so hadn't stocked up on those).
I thought it was still too risky to take on Greywolf to get his sword, so bought 3 longswords and went to investigate the ankheg nest - and quickly retreated from there after breaking 2 of them against the first ankheg. After restocking, more ankhegs brought up level 5 (9 HPs).
The sirines at the Lighthouse area now seemed attractive. Rather than rely on rage and potentially get caught out if that expired, Caesar used the potion of clarity to allow those to be meleed. That was easy enough and produced another level and 14 more HPs. He didn't immediately move on to the golems though, as retreating from those could be dodgy.
A few more reputation quests included successfully saving Arabelle - it's easy there, without pause, to miss an attack click and move into sight of a number of the xvarts, but I did well with the targeting this time. That led on to Firewine Bridge, where I decided Caesar should have a go at Meilum. That would have been a potentially tricky fight anyway, but Caesar broke another sword right at the start of it which made things worse - and he was lucky to get the final blow just in time.
With weapon breakage no longer an issue, and with boosts to both attack and defense, most encounters now seemed pretty simple. I therefore decided Caesar was ready for golems. He tried out the two at High Hedge first and disposed of those easily enough. Back at the pirate cave it appeared I failed to click properly on rage for the final golem, but it still went down with a reasonable amount left in hand.
Reputation was up at 19 when Caesar tried his luck out with Melicamp - after disposing of the nearby Bassilus.
Berserker L6, 78 HPs, 92 kills
Caesar, dwarf berserker {8} (2nd and final update)
Previous updates
At the Valley of the Tombs, the Revenant and some ghasts stood no chance against rage. Without pause, pulling mustard jellies away from Narcillicus without fully activating him looked difficult - but Caesar did that successfully. The first of those gave me level 7 and 13 more HPs. In the same area I managed to draw away Telka and then Maneira from the other Amazons before raging to finish off the clerics.
Caesar wasted a bit of money by selling the Harrower long sword, before I realized that should be used to replace his basic +1 version.
Deciding I should get the pantaloons before I forgot those, Caesar killed the spiders in Beregost to help out Landrin at the same time.
Battle horrors were now no real threat and dispatching the ones at Durlag's Tower provided a quick XP boost. Riggilo added more before Caesar ventured onto the roof, planning on using the protection of a couple of mirror eye potions to deal with the basilisks there. Ten rounds per potion would be plenty of time if using pause - Caesar would potentially have been able to kill all the basilisks with a single potion if fully buffed. However, a significant amount of time could be wasted with slight delays in movement, so I wanted to minimize the amount of time between using the potion and attacking the first basilisk. Doing that though carries its own risks and I didn't check that my click on the potion had properly activated before going through the door ...
Despite the no-pause loss, I still thought this was a new day and, hey, anything could happen. Hence I started the wizard slayer again. There was a slightly odd start when I unaccountably bought a quiver of arrows rather than bolts in Candlekeep, but after that things proceeded nicely for a while:
- Shoal provided 28 HPs for 2 levels.
- shooting down an exploding ogre was enough for another level and 13 HPs.
- a series of minor quests and encounters included escorting Brage back to Nashkel to trigger another level and a nice 15 HPs.
- successfully restoring Melicamp took reputation to 20, though I realized just too late that I'd not killed the golems at High Hedge before talking to Thalantyr. I bought full plate, large shield +1, Buckley's Buckler and the Dagger of Venom.
- moving on to the basilisk area, Korax got badly mauled by the first greater basilisk, but survived to get me another level and 9 more HPs. He kept going to finish off the basilisks, paralyze Mutamin and do the same to Baerin to let me kill him. Lindin was then shot down on the move before I went back to find Kirian. She successfully completed a lightning bolt spell, but I was able to dodge that. Unfortunately though there was no escaping an acid arrow spell - that was the first damage taken in the run.
- in the Nashkel Mine, Mulahey was shot down without talking to him.
- dodging Venkt's spells made for an easy victory at the Bandit Camp.
- Davaeorn looked like being another easy victory, until he somehow finished a hold person spell (having appeared to be hit at least 4 times in the previous 5 rounds).
So, it doesn't look like a new day is helping
Forcespell is the one that is uninterruptable and does not require memorization.
Flexi (male human monk, Grond0); Marea (female human totemic druid, Gate70)
Previous updates
Oh dear - it appears it's not just single player runs at risk at the moment (probably a good job I'm not the protagonist for the Trio run continuing this afternoon
The session ran very smoothly for most of its length - but not quite all. We started off by dealing with Greywolf and cleared the Cloud Peak mountains with just the odd use of stuns or spells - summons were used for the first time on a polar bear troubling a local merchant.
The Nashkel Mine offered little resistance on our way through to find Mulahey. He was immediately stunned and subsequently dominated before being put out of his misery.
Back in Nashkel, we made the mistake of seeking out Nimbul when a cohort of Amnian soldiers were patrolling nearby - and one of those grabbed his XP.
At the Bandit Camp Taurgosz was held by a nymph to break the back of the external resistance. Marea nipped into Tazok's tent and summoned a nymph, then ran outside again before Venkt could try his horror. That allowed us to beat up Britik and Raemon when they followed. Back inside, Venkt spent his spells on the nymph to make our assault easy.
The bracers of weapon expertise were a reminder that we hadn't been to Meilum yet. Marea summoned a spirit for the first time in the session there, but that proved unnecessary when he was stunned by Flexi (and about to be shocked by Marea).
There was a moment of concern in the Cloakwood when Marea activated the first web trap accidentally and trapped us both. However, only a single huge spider was in sight and their poison was too weak to do much damage before we were both free.
The final moment of concern came in the mine area. A trio of nymphs were on hand, but they were not able to prevent Kysus getting a confusion spell off, which caught Flexi as he was trying to sneak in to land a stunning blow. Marea's lightning put a stop to further trouble from Kysus, but Drasus latched on to Flexi who now lacked the sense to retreat. Marea started forward to try and get his attention, but was caught by a horror spell and was helpless to intervene as Flexi determinedly stood his ground until the end.
Wannabe Warriors (1)
The idea of this playthrough is to go through the saga with a war party without actual warriors. So no fighters, paladins, rangers or monks. Instead I'll use the six most martial kits out of the non-warrior classes.
Also, no dual- or multi-classes of any type are allowed. My standard installation has several features, mainly from Tweaks Anthology, that make single-classes more appealing when compared to duals and especially multis without overshadowing the latter: true grandmastery (extra 1/2 APR compared to EE grandmastery), un-nerfed Thac0 progression for non-warrior classes, p&p/un-nerfed spell progression for casters, and I skip the SCS modification that makes caster HLAs once/day abilities.
Charname is a Priestess of Helm. With its Seeking Sword disabling spell-casting, I consider this kit to be the most warriorlike priest kit. The other kits to be included are:
- Blade,
- Swashbuckler,
- Shapeshifter,
- Transmuter,
- Avenger.
Blade, Swashbuckler and Shapeshifter speak for themselves I think. The Transmuter specialisation isn't inherently martial, but it relies quite a bit on physical combat because Transmuters often have no other choice. The Avenger was the final kit I added, because of druidic shapeshifting. I also considered Dragon Disciple as an arcane tank, but I found the Avenger druid a better and more interesting fit.
I considered going with a custom party but decided to edit existing NPCs. You'll meet them soon enough, but let's first introduce the protagonist, Irmgard, a dwarven Watcher of Helm.
Even though I'm playing with SCS on Insane difficulty with double damage, the early game feels incredibly smooth and easy, which must have everything to do with me having played mostly LoB in recent weeks. Irmgard does all the early quests, including battles such as the rogue ogre and Landrin's spiders that I tend to avoid on LoB. Single enemies can be taken down fairly easily by casting repeated Commands and landing guaranteed hits. Brun (Sanctuary) and Tenya (Magical Stone) and a surviving Melicamp give her some very good early XP boosts.
At level 4 she takes a pip in single-weapon style to make the most out of her Seeking Sword: even with no pips in TWF the weapon can be dual-wielded without any Thac0 penalties, and the AC and crit bonuses from single-weapon style continue to apply when the Seeking Sword is dual-wielded with an off-hand weapon. A +4 weapon that gives two extra APR, a +4 Thac0 bonus, a +1 AC bonus (+2 if another pip in single-weapon style is taken) and a +5% crit chance should remain pretty spectacular in the hands of a cleric even at higher levels. Its 2d4 damage isn't great but with Holy Power, DUHM and Righteous Magic Irmgard should hit hard and often with it.
Bassilus brings her to level 5 even though he requires several rests before Irmgard manages to properly time her Hold Person, cast from out of sight, and to see it affect her enemy. If cast too early, his Armor of Faith prebuff will keep firing, making him immune to all damage.
A very close shave she has with Krumm and Caldo, whom we underestimate. They strike down two skeletons without effort (that's where LoB is easier of course). Caldo especially, with his cursed katana, surprises us, and when he lasts long enough for a Hold Person to expire on Krumm, Irmgard has to retreat.
Irmgard is pondering what to do with Shoal the Nereid under Sanctuary, when the creature simply addresses and kisses her, ignoring the Sanctuary. Irmgard doesn't make her save and drops to the ground with a single HP, but Shoal doesn't take any further action, allowing Irmgard to get up and heal while the Sanctuary is still in place. She hits the nereid who then calls Droth to her side, but with two skeleton warriors and several Commands, she manages to defeat Droth before finishing off Shoal.
Ingot, Meilum, Vax and Zal, and the like are handled with Commands, Holds and skellies. The Seeking sword comes out once enemies are disabled, so they can be taken down more swiftly.
At 32k XP Irmgard still hasn't visited Nashkel nor has she cleared any of the big XP areas (basilisks, ankhegs, sirines), when she starts her recruitment tour. First she slips past Tarnesh under Sanctuary to pick up Shapeshifter Khalid and Avenger Jaheira. I like the idea that they are a druid couple. They both take two-handed weapon proficiency to be more efficient with their (two-handed) shapeshift tokens, and I swap their stats around giving them a WIS boost and bringing them in line with PnP requirements (Khalid: 10-15-16-9-17-15, Jaheira: 14-17-15-10-17-15) before they wipe the floor with Tarnesh.
Swashbuckler Alora joins the party in Gullykin before we try to recruit Garrick. With skeleton warriors and Silence we have no trouble with Silke. But when Alora messes up a couple of pickpocket attempts with Feldepost's men who then turn hostile, our prospective Blade Garrick refuses to join the party and walks off.
Eldoth joins as our Blade in the area north of Beregost before we briefly recruit Kivan for the +2 returning throwing dagger, a weapon made for Alora (** daggers).
Alora pickpockets Shandalar and Dushai in Ulgoth's Beard, so that Edwin can learn a lot of new spells. We then clear the entire basilisk area, including Kirian's party, with the help of skeleton warriors, and a Silence spell that neutralizes both Kirian and Peter.
At Durlag's Tower, wand scorchers deal with battle horrors, skeletons with basilisks, and Khalid (no longer a lesser werewolf at level 7) wrecks several ghasts thanks to Dushai's ring, as well as Kirinhale.
Sirines and golems fall thanks to skeleton warriors and Khalid the werewolf. And ankhegs are taken down with overwhelming force, but when they do hit they hit very hard (double damage). Alora goes from 42 HPs (full health) to 4 HPs in one hit for example.
The only battle that doesn't quite go the way we'd like it to, is that with the Wolf of Ulcaster. With @Skitia's Recorder NPC mod, that area changes a bit. In the room next to where the Wolf of Ulcaster is, we have to battle either a good rogue or an evil wizard. We take on the evil wizard and manage to paralyze him with a wand. But we're surrounded by dread wolves and the Wolf of Ulcaster, no doubt alarmed by all the noise, decides to come and take a look. Edwin Blinds it, and Irmgard casts Remove Fear, as Khalid engages the mighty wolf.
Loury - male, human undead hunter (Gate70)
Swish - male, dwarf swashbuckler (Grond0)
Corecleric - male, halfling priest of Lathander (Corey_Russell)
Loury had the merest of glances at last weeks session, and this was enough to remind him we should play with beholders. Could be fun.
That's how it unfolds. We burn our way around the lair, Loury having used Carsomyr to dispel the buffs used by the initial Elder Orb. We then use a bit of divide and conquer to quickly clear most of the area.
We escape without anybody perishing, and Corecleric managed to Firestorm the Elder Brain and it's guardians too. Simyaz and his githyanki find a few traps and a deva too much to handle.
Traps and summons melted the five demon knights sufficiently for us to slice any remaining resistance apart and then we killed a drow patrol guarding a bridge near Adalon's lair. Once she had disguised us as Drow we entered the city of Ust Natha and quickly rescued Phaere (helmet with Death Spell used against them after a bit of a battle for Loury to work out how to use it).
Following that we peacefully retrieved a swirf patrol leader's helmet, killed a beholder, pretended to kill Solaufein, retrieved the dragon eggs for ourselves and palmed a fake set to Phaere. A summoned Demon Lord killed both the Matron Mother and Phaere so we left before our deceit was uncovered and without completing the job of dealing with Ghaunadians.
Adalon may well have been pleased with our progress but a greater whirlwind and whirlwind plus snares made a dent in her enthusiasm and a spike trap was enough for her to die before our whirlwinds got a second chance each.
Loury has the Silver sword (25% chance of vorpal), staff of earth (kills earth elementals), staff of fire (kills fire elementals), the Wave halberd (kills fire elementals, efreet and salamanders).
Swish has the human flesh armour (+4 to saves, 20% magic resistance), staff of air (kills air elementals) and a bunch of other stuff that use any item allows him to manipulate for our cause.
Corecleric has Crom Faeyr (25 strength, kills stone and clay golems, and trolls) plus the rod of smiting (any golems must save vs death or be destroyed). Loury has handed him back his drow armour which can be seen in a screenshot below:
I've changed opening proficiencies on this character once or twice before and decided to do that again to give the feel of a fresh start. I still kept long sword with a view to making best use of Spellbreaker in SoD, but reverted to short bow rather than daggers.
That means opening work takes a bit longer, but you get the benefit of increased THAC0 with special ammunition later on. I stayed patient in the game and did well to avoid taking any damage while maximising reputation and getting up to level 7.
I'd been running short of encounters which were relatively easy to avoid damage on, so to get my final level did something I don't normally do and shot down the battle horrors at Durlag's Tower. Although they're immune to missile damage, they do take added damage - such as from elemental arrows.
Inside the Tower, I foisted Kirinhale's hair on Riggilo before putting him out of his misery for another 5k. Still with the aim of avoiding taking damage I used a scroll of PfM, followed up by PfP intending to:
- loot the tome
- kill the ghost
- negate the trap to the roof; and
- kill the basilisks
I couldn't though resist looting some containers as well, including a couple near the ghost that I rarely touch - and I'd forgotten that one of those was a non-magical trap.
That put me close to L8 and a quick trip to the Valley of the Tombs provided that final level - the 11 HPs taking me to a decent total of 105.
Wizard Slayer L8, 105 HPs, 164 kills
Previous updates:
My bow skill made the trip through the Nashkel Mine a formality and Mulahey was duly shot down without incident.
The Amazons were picked off individually, while Nimbul's horror was dodged before he suffered a dose of spell failure. Before resting, I shot down Bentan for his scroll and got caught stealing in Beregost in order to get LMD as a second Bhaal power. Tranzig then failed to complete a spell.
At the bandit camp the bandit archers didn't make much impression. Inside Tazok's tent, Venkt died to 3 acid arrows before the others were meleed.
In the Cloakwood I successfully collected Spider's Bane. Unlike most runs, this time I've not aimed to get grand mastery of a weapon in SoD, but instead got 3 pips in both melee and missile weapons - so that the THAC0 benefit from that is available in either form. That meant I've switched attack forms more than usual.
At the Cloakwood Mine, Genthore was pulled away for disposal first before horror was used to ensure the others caused no trouble. Inside, it was straightforward to get down to the battle horrors. I thought I might need to rest after each of those, but was in fact able to do both before healing up with the help of Buckley's Buckler.
A quick round of reputation quests pushed that up to 20 again, before I turned to other tasks in the City. The poison quest was desirable for the Eagle Bow (as well as a slight shield upgrade and a wisdom tome). In the previous run I got a bonus doing that when successfully tagging Lothander with a stunning dart before he could get away. Doing that though not only requires a hit with a non-proficient weapon and for him to fail his save, but also to get a good initiative roll in the first place. This time I failed to do that and he had nipped downstairs before I could even launch an attack.
Other than that everything went very smoothly. None of the opponents even managed an attack at the Iron Throne. Zhalimar might have been an exception to that, but I decided to spring for the use of stunning darts to follow up a Bhaal horror for him.
In Candlekeep I robbed the one tomb I could open, killed a few dopplegangers and ran past Prat (without him noticing me) before using up a PfP scroll on the basilisks.
In Baldur's Gate once more I talked to Tamoko before making some final ammunition purchases. Those included dispelling arrows and one of those ensured that Slythe would offer no real contest. The Palace was potentially a far trickier fight. A first Bhaal horror sent one of the dopplegangers briefly running - but unfortunately that one was attacking me anyway and the horror just managed to send it to attack Belt instead after a moment or two. On the plus side one of the other dopplegangers also attacked me, taking a bit of the potential pressure off the dukes. Things would still have been touch or go, but a second horror was really successful - panicking 3 of the dopplegangers, just as Liia kicked the bucket. Another had suffered morale failure and one was attacking me, leaving only 1 on Belt. The panic effect doesn't prevent attacking, but does normally reduce that substantially and I was able to kill all the dopplegangers while Belt remained at just badly injured.
In the Undercity I made a rare use of LMD to disrupt Tamoko's spell while finishing her off to get her armor.
While Sarevok would have been easy and safe to kill using a PfM scroll to defend against traps and Semaj, I was greedy for more exploding arrows from Angelo - so once again cheesed the combat with the help of a PfE scroll.
Wizard Slayer L8, 110 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 391 kills
Crow (female half-orc shaman, Gate70); Spiky (female gnome thief, Grond0)
Our next session suffered an opening mishap as Spiky was bumped out of character generation and back to the lobby at the character naming so had to be booted out and rejoin... which lost the generated character. On recreation of Spiky Grond0 forgot to create her as a bounty hunter and instead ended up with an unkitted thief. We only realised this when laying a snare for Shoal the nereid and a brief conversation resulted in us giving her the chance to prove her mettle without a restart.
We quickly reached out to connect with Greywolf, who proved adept at killing our spirit summons. After about a dozen (OK, 20) had perished under his sword Crow relented and shot him down.
With this area done we moved on to the sirines where a combination of Writhing Fog and backstabs mostly worked. Spiky was dominated twice but Crow led her safely away the first time and on the second time she stood near Sil and killed her once she recovered. At one point Spiky moved on in search of another victim while Crow double-checked that a backstab of 100 had been achieved.
Lamahla and her amazons played a dirty trick in spotting Spiky (who emerged from the shadows without warning. Spiky ran and immediately went back into the shadows which meant the amazons all huddled together in the Writhing Fog.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1157740/#Comment_1157740
PfU for the undead and a few exploding arrows made the opening dungeon in SoD pretty easy. Korlasz had her initial buffs dispelled by an arrow before another exploding one convinced her to surrender.
The main target in the City was to kill Minsc for his helm - providing immunity to the fear aura of various demons.
At the Coast Way Crossing I just went straight to the bridge and was able to get behind the tent sufficiently quickly to prevent any of the enemies from reacting first.
There was nothing of interest in Troll Claw Woods, so I ran through there. In doing so, however, a hobgoblin got a critical hit with an arrow which led me to a nasty discovery. Although I'd written down earlier that I'd collected the constitution tome, I'd not in fact done so - and moreover I'd sold Buckley's Buckler in the belief that I had done so. Hence I only had regeneration available with the help of DUHM - that's slightly limiting given that constitution regeneration is more important for a wizard slayer than any other class.
However, there was nothing to be done about that now, so I moved on to the Forest of Wyrms and fought my way into the old temple complex - using horror against the bugbear shamans. In the temple proper I killed various guards before buffing with PfM, PfP and PfF against Ziatar. It took a while to stun him, but that ended the contest.
The buffs were less for Ziatar than the really dangerous Neothelid - and Akanna. Exploding arrows let me kill her pretty quickly with the aim of escaping out of her room before the Neothelid arrived - and I did that successfully. On the way out a single thrown dagger was too much for Morentherene.
With one of the worst pinch points out of the way I moved on to Boareskyr Bridge - getting my final SoD level there as a reward for freeing Kharm. Rather than risk trying to kill Vichand quickly, I just intimidated him into giving up his scroll. After watching the smith make a dragon scale shield and some void arrows, I surrendered the fort. That still left a dangerous encounter though with the mage on the bridge. He needs to be shot twice pretty quickly to damage him before he can complete a fire portal - and he has good AC against missiles, which is largely the reason for taking mastery in short bows this run. In the event my first dispelling arrow shot was a good one, dispelling his buffs and making him far easier to hit with a follow-up shot. That made the remaining battle a simple one.
I briefly checked in at the Coalition Camp before hitting the road again. Despite being a 0 hour transition, the journey to Dead Mans Pass was interrupted by an ambush area. The big hole in the ground here is pretty important for a wizard slayer as it includes Spellbreaker in it - a +2 long sword giving a +4 bonus to spell saves. The dragon shield bonus against death meant the myconid spores down there couldn't affect me, so it was no problem dealing with them.
There was actually something I wanted in Dead Man's Pass - a bearskin for making Helvdar's boots. Those give a valuable +3 to saving throws for dwarves. After rescuing Skie I moved on to the Underground River, where I realized I'd hit the XP cap and could take another level. The gargantuan spider there was keen to web me, but Spider's Bane foiled that from a distance (needed because I had no defense to its melee stun). Quite a bit of running and shooting (for melee types) and close attack (for archers) then disposed of the guards on the underground entrance without having to rest.
Inside, I placed the Bwoosh and bought some more scrolls. However, though I have placed the poison in the past with a wizard slayer, without haste or invisibility that's felt pretty dangerous and I decided against attempting it this time. When I got back to the Coalition Camp though they told me firmly to get back there. I used myconid distractions while placing one lot of poison and then just tried to survive until the mages eventually arrived to reopen the lift. The alarm was raised before I could get to the exit, but one more myconid provided enough distraction to allow me to get across the bridge and away.
This time I was allowed to report in properly. I quickly recharged my myconid summons before being faced with invaders to the camp. While some solo classes can find these a bit of a struggle, it was no problem for a wizard slayer with lots of exploding arrows and a few minutes later the road to Dragonspear was clear.
At the castle, I went straight to find Ashatiel and challenged him to a dual - he saved against a first dart of stunning, but failed against a second. Inside the castle, I rested to heal up and then followed Caelar into hell. The bearskin boots and Spellbreaker allowed me to run through the first area without danger - or so I thought when I was writing my note of events slightly in advance of what actually happened
After beating the dopplegangers in the ducal palace we enlisted Neera and took her to find Adoy who gave her a belt. We then went shopping and rapidly ran out of gold as she was in need of a robe of the neutral archmage. We are therefore hunting ankhegs to boost our gold supply. Safana is nearly at the experience cap but Neera still hasn't got much experience. When Safana reaches the cap we will probably seek out Sarevok.
Ankhegs don't hurt us since I have kept Neera invisible and cast Spirit Armour on Safana. The armour injures her but to a trivial extent.
Neera died three times getting to the final battle, but by going up a level she now has stoneskin, a big bonus.
We have sold all surplus equipment in order to buy decent ammunition both for the final battle against Sarevok and for beyond. Now only a few gold pieces left.
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1157381/#Comment_1157381
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1157462/#Comment_1157462
We recruited our party for now: Minsc and Dynaheir, Branwen, Ajantis and Imoen (dualed to mage at level 6). The SCS feature for improved customization is really powerful for arcane spellcasters, as the game now adds some automatic spells to your spellbook for each level - not a lot, but enough, and some powerful ones at that, meaning that both Dynaheir and Imoen had access to Haste and Stoneskin right away. I didn't make use of the option to change kits or classes - the party is already powerful enough as is.
Now, we felt prepared to take on some more powerful spellcasters. Bassilus, to get Branwen a weapon, was first - he started with the sixth-level entropy shield pre-cast (among other things). However, the physical attacks of our hasted party plus skeletons were enough to take him down:
In unmodded BGEE, arcane casters get free spells known with their joining triggers, up to the maximum level they can cast (so, 3rd level at most). It sounds like the SCS component refines this to apply at even higher levels and for characters that aren't always mages.
Inside the Temple of Bhaal Semaj teleported himself to the location of some skull traps where in addition web and cloudkill awaited. He died easily enough. I had lured Sarevok to the wall on the left before consuming a potion of invisibility.
Tazok was then lured with some monsters and was on the point of death when Angelo joined the fray. Neera moved towards them under her own volition. That ruined my tactics which were to keep well clear of them. She was shot with arrows of explosion which killed her and badly injured the rest of the party who made a rapid retreat.
We then consumed a large number of potions of healing. When we returned Angelo was dead, whether as a result of blows from the summoned monsters or from his own arrows I don't know. There were still two monsters alive.
Only having Sarevok to defeat I and Maxine buffed ourselves and she summoned some monsters. Whilst we did get hurt, we had no further casualties and it was I who landed the final blow.
That was satisfying!
Neera was raised and we were then healed whereupon Imoen asked us for help.
Having Neera in the party was definitley NOT an asset, possibly because she joined too late.
EDIT
We killed Korlasz and her cohorts, Neera going up a level in the process. Just returning the staff and getting the moss and the prologue is finished.
We have now headed North to deal with Caelar and have done a few minor quests. We have been given the secret revealed but there is still plenty to do in that area. We seem to be using a lot of consumables so it is as well that I bought plenty in Baldur's Gate before fighting Sarevok.
Wannabe Warriors (2)
Previous instalments:
- BG1: 1
Well-equipped and relatively experienced at over 60k XP, the Wannabe Warriors start the main adventure. Near the Nashkel Mines Greywolf is belatedly blinded and hacked down by Khalid who, as a Shapeshifter, proves to be the party's biggest melee menace. Thanks to our high levels and no LoB-difficulty, the party needs no Invisibility inside the mine. Instead we just fight and fireball our way toward Mulahey's lair. The kobold shaman and chieftain are both held by Irmgard. Inside said lair we prebuff (radial PfE, Emotion Courage/Hope by Edwin) and Irmgard summons some skeletons just in case, but Mulahey and his minions go down quite fast.
Still buffed up, we confront Narcillicus outside. He is immediately targeted with the wand of the heavens and dies to a single charge of it, while his two mustard jellies are overwhelmed with physical attacks. Testing Shapeshifter Khalid a bit further, this time against the Revenant, we learn there are limits to the kit's physical prowess in BG1. Irmgard has to step in to heal her druidic friend.
Nimbul is somewhat cravenly Held by Irmgard from out of sight before we finish him off, and Tranzig succumbs to a 30 damage critical from Khalid so he doesn't even get to beg for mercy. We deal with the Larswood druids with Hold and Silence spells, before we get waylaid near Peldvale by the party of Molkar. Eldoth stuns the warrior with the wand of paralyzation, while Irmgard's wand of fear affects Drakar. Some monsters summoned by Edwin provide Morvin and Halacan with a bit of distraction while the party deals with them. Edwin suffers some damage from Halacan's Melf's Acid Arrow, and Irmgard, Khalid and Eldoth (whom I forgot to switch to ranged attacking) incur some physical damage during the melee brawl, but I think we prevail pretty compellingly.
In Cloakwood we get Lamalha's ambush. Still without radial invisibility, we'll have to be prepared for some backstabs. Maneira and Telka both choose Alora, and she only survives thanks to a healing potion and to double damage backstabs as opposed to LoB's quintuple damage backstabs.
With Jaheira in the party and the BG1 NPC Project installed there is a rather difficult quest around the Seniyad-Aldeth encounter. That encounter can be resolved peacefully by helping Seniyad. He wants us to free two druids, one of them apparently an ex of Jaheira that she's embarrassed to talk about. I've had them wreak havoc with their Chaos spells and Chromatic Orbs in previous playthroughs, have even permanently lost Jaheira once as she was petrified by a Chromatic Orb and her statue shattered. Not this time though, as a single Silence from Irmgard makes all the difference.
During a spider ambush we learn that Jaheira can still get webbed by giant spiders' targeted webs, an oversight I assume. Thankfully, we can dispatch them before they harm her any further.
At the Cloakwood mine, we buff and summon some skeletons, a nymph and a few beetles, and approach cautiously, revealing only Drasus and Genthore. Interestingly the wizards cast a Teleport Field in front of themselves and stay back too, focusing mainly on our summons. The party attacks the warriors with missiles and spells. Khalid finishes off Genthore with a Call Lightning for an impressive 55 damage and Alora gets the killing throw on Drasus with her dagger. By then the wizards have already wasted some of their more dangerous spells, such as Chaos, and Irmgard manages to take out Rezdan with a charge of the wand of the heavens for 40 damage. Kysus manages to slow Eldoth and Alora, but a Dispel Magic from the former, a True Sight from Irmgard, and a barrage of ranged attacks spell his doom.
We continue our exploration without relying on stealth much, but we do use it to deal with Hareishan when we discover she has no MGoI pre-buff. Irmgard (wand of the heavens) and Edwin (wand of fire) feed her to the flames before she can cast her nasty enchantment spells or Polymorph Other.
Raising Edwin costs us our last Raise Dead scroll, but on the flipside, Jaheira should get Harper's Call in BG1 as a single class Avenger. Down in Davaeorn's den, we extinguish the battle horrors with fire and we hold the door, dispatching each group of two guards and two black talons before the next enters.
The party travels to Baldur's Gate where most quests are taken on. There are no incidents, no screw-ups. The worst we've done is lose Nester's dagger which we wanted to bring to Quinn. Highlights include killing Ramazith with fire after he goes hostile but before he teleports away (my install uses CDTweaks' fast teleportation animation), standing our ground against Degrodel's minions unbuffed, prevailing over Sunin and his men (thanks to an arrow of dispelling from Eldoth), and soundly defeating Simmeon and his aides in Dorn's quest.
We've had a lot of fun but the time to deal with the Iron Throne and Sarevok draws nigh. Each party member now has over 110k XP so we ought to be ready for it.