Difficulty: SCS-Insane (no double damage), max HP rolls
Style: solo
Roll: 90 - 18/18/17/10/9/18
Cleared candlekeep then went RoP + 1, Ring of Wizardry (id in FAI temple), Marl and Firebeard, Sell loot, Brage, Nashkel, Noober, Strength potion reward from Brage to open Joseph's House and Manor (and steal invisibility potion), Fayre for PfPetrification, East to the tombs to return the undead's dagger, south to collect PfM, Balista's and then return samuel to FAI (collect colquette amulet on the way, return it and buy stone to flesh at FAI temple). PfP and Korax to clear out Mutamin basilisks and Mutamin himself to reach Level 6, restore Tamah.
bacl to South Nashkel to kill the ogrillons for the letter and Hobgoblins for Worn Whispers + the 5 health potions in the cave. Turn in Letter quest and do Joia's Flamedance ring. Kill Sonner for the bowl, stealth the ankheg nest for Brun's son and turn in both quests + give gold to Brun. Back to W of Nashkel to do Drienne's Cat and the Dryad. Resort to Wand of Missiles against Krumm with his belt of -3 crushing and unexpectedly high thac0. Punch Gnarl and Hairtooth with blind, frozen fist and blur abilities, Grab the charisma tome and punch some xvarts. High Hedge to ID tome, then to the lighthouse to kill Worgs. Dark Moon abilities + some hit and run to punch them down.
Return to Nashkel Fayre to buy One Gift Lost and stealth down to Mulahey, doing dagger quest and picking up joseph's Ring. Kill the kobolds in Xan's room, trigger Mulahey, stealth and hit with two fireballs which broke his morale and killed all his minions, then finish with punching. Claim Shortsword +1 and other loot then cash in quests in Nashkel.
Travel to Ulgoth's Beard for Greenstone Amulet, potion of mirrored eyes and Wand of Heavens then stealth into the Pirate Cave. Greenstone to neutralise the dire charm traps and hit and run stealth to kill flesh golems with shortsword +1. Claim loot. Back to high hedge to ID charisma tome and collect Kazgaroth's Claw.
Visit Durlag's for Kirihale and Pride golem XP, then kill Shoal. Get Raiken to take to Bandit Camp, stealth into the main tent with potion of absorption, loot chest and pop invisibility potion, in and out.
Buy 3 potions of freedom at High Hedge and stealth through Cloakwood 1-4, avoiding all foes. Stealth past Drasus and down to Davaeorn. Trigger dialogue, stealth and hit him for the stealthy pseudo-backstab, then run and wait for all the SCS guards to gather while stealthed, hit them with some fireballs and then punch through stoneskin with 2x frozen fist and greenstones protections. Flood the mine and leave, using potions of freedom to avoid spider ambush mini-webs.
Go to Baldur's Gate and buy the 2nd Protection from petrification and kill the basilisks at the top of Durlag's, use mirrored eyes and wand of heavens to kill the basilisk in the docks, complete Tremain's son and that brings Anastasia to level 8. (edit: whoops wrote 10 here initially for some reason - probs because I am concurrently playign a thief char!)
Pips in: Dagger, Short Sword, Long Sword, Single-weapon Style.
Points all in Hide in Shadows and Move Silently
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Left to do are: Drasus Fight, Spider woods Red Wizards, Durlag's Level 1 for access to the goblet, Slythe, Dukes, and Sarevok, plus the associated prep. I will see if Anastasia manages to do it all in 1 take.
Anastasia killed Ramazith for his RoP +2, attacking from stealth, then using 2x frozen fists through his protections, she also abused going in and out the door because she realised she had forgotten to buy some magic protection potions. Rectifying her error she went shopping and bought 3x invisibility potion, 3x potion of fire protection and 2x potion of absorption from sorcerous sundries before heading back to Durlags.
On the way she fireballed Denek and squad for the Victor, and using 2x fire protection and absorption + greenstone she assembled the remaining parts of the golem puzzle, mostly stealthing around the skeleton warriors and flesh golems, and grabbing the most valuable items. She lowered her AC as far as possible and activated Love, luring them towards the "death passage" so they were nicely positioned, drank an invisibility potion and triggered the fireball and lightning trap repeatedly to kill the Golems, except for avarice who was hiding somewhere. On the 2nd floor, she took the champions strength scroll, kiels helm to sell, and dulags goblet, stealth-ing and re-stealthing all the way, hitting the correct trigger to reopen the exit and waiting out the cloudkill and stinking cloud, then fleeing the tower with her loot.
Back in Baldur's Gate she sold the loot, and went to see Ragefast, where unfortunately she apparently clicked on the wrong dialogue options, hostiling the wizard. Ducking outside to activate greenstone she then hit him a few times with the victor, fortunately passing a save or die wand of paralysis shot in the process. She left with the Nymph Cloak
She messed around, killing some dopplegangers for Scar and making sure she had what she needed, including a fully charged shield amulet, before Duke Eltan teleported her to candlekeep. She almost died again to the ogre ambush before fleeing inside. Grabbed the potion of clarity from the inn, the prot from petrification scroll from the top floor. She took the tomes and other valuables from the crypts using cloud giant and draw upon holy might, potion of absorption, shield and some fire protection, though she forgot to drink a potion of fire protection and due to failing some saves took a lot of fire damage. She then stealthed to the basilisks, PfPetrificationed and punched them out, attaining the max 161k XP.
She went back to BG via High Hedge boosting her Strength to 19 with the tome, doing some shopping for PfM and PfU scrolls, charging 3x One gift Lost, Wand of Heavens and the Victor, using most of her gold. She got the cloak of balduran and sold the helm, killed the ogre for elves bane, then decided to kill Slythe, charming Larze, and 5 guards downstairs, hitting him with Wand of Heavens. Everything went badly wrong, with the guards getting chunked very quickly, Anastasia getting backstabbed for 2/3HP with Slythe's last invisibility potion and Krystin appearing upstairs when Ana fled towards Larze, fortunatly Larze bought enough time to kill Slythe with Wand of Heavens, and the EE quickloot bar allowed his items to be snagged out of sight of Krystin before Anastasia fled with her brand new Shortsword +3 and the evidence+invitation for the Dukes ambush.
She returned to the Cloakwood mine, buffed with potions of perception for the stealth boost then abused stealth timers to fire a few fireballs at Drasus squad before Drasus and Genthore managed to close ground, which was enough to kill the two mages. Confused by stealth, Drasus ran off and she used Wand of Heavens to kill Genthore before hunting all round the map for Drasus. Once found he was lured to the mine entrance where Anastasia circled the building to allow out of line of sight stealth, followed by hitting him with the victor. He fell unconscious when his enrage expired and she killed him claiming the boots of speed as her prize.
Anastasia did some final shopping, then went for the Dukes Ambush. She pre-prepped with Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Storm Giant Strength, Potion of Heroism, Potion of Clarity, Potion of Invulnerability, Potion of Power, 5x Potion of Regeneration, Innate Blur and 2x Frozen Fist. Triggered the ambush and began punching the doppleganger mage as soon as it transformed, getting in a good hit as it triggered its protections then punching through stoneskin with frozen fists cold damage disrupting every cast attempt. It took a few moments to die, followed by the assassin and shaman and mopping up. Belt and Liia both survived, as did all the flaming fists.
With protection still active, Anastasia went through the theives maze, adding absorption and shield for the traps. She bypassed all the fights until the Temple of Bhaal, triggering Sarevok and drinking a potion of magical protection before running around until Angelo, Tazok Diarmid and Semaj were all spawned. She lured them into the corner, getting hit with a dispel magic, then popped an invisibility potion and waited out Darmids 2h Protection from Magic scroll. She hit the cluster with fireballs killing Sarevok's Squad and used a protection from undead to neutralise the skeleton warriors.
She drank 2x Mind Focusing and 3x Perception potions to bring stealth up to 100/100 + a potion of defense, and went to lure Sarevok. At this point she realized that he was boxed in by his own skeleton warriors and unable to move. She contemplated finishing it like this with her Wand of Heavens but instead attacked the skeletons to shift them, then "honorably" kited Sarevok around with stealth, the Victor and Wand of Heavens until dead.
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Baldurs Gate 1 - Solo No Reload SCS-Insane Dark Moon Monk completed using every trick in the big book of "its ok because its no reload"
Anastasia stealth-ed the first part of Korlasz tomb, using her superior charisma to get the Sarevok faithful to lay down their weapons, then, deciding to hang on to her remaining 3 PfU scrolls "for later" she ran past the 2nd level undead to open up the final door, then hit Korlasz with 2x victor to get her to surrender. She reunited a broken staff and collected the most valuable items in the tomb. The tomb and the XP carry-over from BG1 netted her level 9 - an extra 1/2 attack per round, +1 fists and a heavy 1d12 + 1 base damage for her fists (with another +7 for 19str)
She spent all her remaining gold on 2x PfF, PfE, PfA, PfC and PfP, plus potions of perception, mind focusing and 5x scrolls of protection from evil 10', 5x greater restoration, 5x chaotic commands, 5x free action (she never picked up Edventar's Gift in BG1 not want to risk the Iron Throne top floor fight and not wanting to drop rep for Dushai) and anything else that looked useful, before returning to Baldur's Gate.
Back in Baldur's Gate she foiled an assassination attempt by blowing up Imoen with 2x OGL fireballs, taking her 80 oils of speed to sell at sorcerous sundries for 20,000 Gold. She bought some monk slippers for later, 5 invisibility, 5 heroism, 5 mind focusing, 2 regeneration, 2 clarity, 2 absorption, then returned for a second potion-case to cater to her addictions, picking up the spectacles of spectacle and claiming some small XP rewards and Lon's amulet for perma-bless effect. She contemplated the Bracers of Perseverance, but in the end decided to save her gold and stick with Legacy of the Masters. She then killed Korlasz with 2x frozen fists and greenstone protections. With all that she still had 35,000GP in inventory with plenty of items in the stash that could be liquidated later. Returning to her room to find Imoen magically resurrected after her fiery death Anastasia set out for Dragonspear.
She saved the dwarfs and semahl (who then died after the dialogue... disease perhaps), getting level drained in the process, popping a greater restoration scroll and resting up back at camp.
With 2 of her 3 remaining PfU scrolls and some strength + heroism potions she became immune to the inhabitants of the repository of undeath and proceeded to punch everything she could find bringing her XP up to 410,000. Destroying the Lich with secret revealed brought 436,000 and Anastasia nearly being cooked by fire mephits. Victorious she returned to the dwarfs to recruit them for the future then turned in for the night.
The next day she did some small quests around the camp, killing a vampire with her shortsword +3, a stake and an antidote + greater restoration scroll to negate the poison-level drain trap, skipping the "troll vs orc" ambush, gathering three lost items and hanging on to the identifying mirror. All of this netted her 450,000XP and level 10, putting 10 points into detect illusion for the first time.
---
Level cap reached, hopefully going to be able to skip most of the rest of the content via stealth, bar collecting essential items.
Anastasia went to find the source of the missing refugees, finding a transmuter mage had turned them to stone. Thinking to the future, she bought the golem from the mage, then in the few moments before she left punched her to chunks with DUHM and 3x frozen fist, claiming the stone ally statuette as well.
Greedily wanting more items to sell, she used her high charisma to sing to the menhirs, then snuck back inside the dig site, realising she had not killed the undead around the stash with her PfU, she stealthed through them, triggering the skulltrap... trap, grabbed the items and fled under an invisibility potion.
She then confronted the crusaders, hiding behind the tent and stealthing to avoid the battle, and had a "chat" with Caelar. Back in camp she decided to consolidate her resources before moving on, realizing that cloud/storm giant strength potions were going to be her biggest issue until she could find another source. Apart from that she considered herself to be pretty "set".
In the troll claw woods she picked up glimmer of hope +2 using the not breaking stealth inventory trick, then punched some half orcs and avoided everything else, on her way to the Forest of Wyrms. Coming across a crater blown in the ground she took a risk and went to retrive the easily accessible loot, using the same pick up trick as with glimmer of hope. She moves between areas to spawn the baby green dragon encounter and punched its attackers to pieces, collecting the blood red loun stone, which could be combined with the monk slippers and duhm to give an extra -3AC.
Stealth and speed boots saw her inside Morentherene's cave, and a dagger saw her dead. Stealth through the bugbears, absorbing a painful spear-trap and into the Temple of Bhaal. Deciding that caution beats valor every day, and thinking of the difficulty resting so deep in a dungeon she weathered the hold trap with save vs spell of 2 and the fireball trap with saves + fire resistance, then shot Ziatar and her mages with fireballs from her collection of fireball necklaces, though she noticed that she seemed to have misplaced one of them somewhere. Ziatar refused to fail her saves so she burned 11 fireballs before stealthing in for the coup de grace.
She freed the prisoners, including her father's priestess and set about preparing for the Neothelid. She swapped out her boots of speed for sidestep slippers and donned the girdle of crushing then, after a binge of mind focusing, storm, freedom, adsorption, heroism, invulnerability and clarity she cast blur, draw upon holy might, and activated the greenstone amulet and entered the neothelid room, using frozen fists while waiting for it to appear, kiting the swords with her slower than usual speed and then punched the neothelid into chunks in a single appearance, with a stated AC vs crushing of -28, far beyond what she thought was the max AC limit. With her protections still up she triggered Akanna and fought her aerial servants in the doorway, minimising the risk of getting clobbered with 2x crits. Critical hits really are the bane of the monk. Crits were not on the menu and she killed the two in turn, then refreshing greenstone, 3-shotting akanna.
She opened up the shadow aspect room, using her last protection from undead. Unfortunatly her 20points total detect illusion was not sufficient to take out the aspect and instead she smashed open the case and claimed fractal-blade +3, a part of her Behlefit strategy. Seeing no use for Archer's Eyes, and a lot of risk she skipped the illithid fight, traveling to Boarskyr Bridge.
the lady is nuts
ok we made sure to buy some important items before heading out for what became a undead hunt; vamp + lich and various peons proved little trouble for my cleric gf but some nameless construct almost did the party in
in other news we picked up a goblin and executed her wouldbe kidnapper for trying to make her battle a rabbit... or it could have been a chicken?
Moving into the Cloakwood, Russell immediately set off in search of Aldeth with the stated intention of getting his bastard sword. Gleam naturally interpreted that as meaning he wanted to open the additional quest in Baldur's Gate up, to get the sword there. However, Russell was apparently eager for the goodies and not happy when Gleam sided with Aldeth rather than taking the opportunity to get the sword then and there (along with some wonderful aloe vera balm).
There was a moment of danger in the second area while assaulting Centeol's nest. Russell was acting as the tank there as usual, while Nance was nipping in and out looking to stealth and backstab. However, a late-arriving sword spider came into view when Nance was the closest enemy and targeted her - following her outside. Gleam hit him with a couple of acid arrows, but was then out of spells and tried using his sling as the spider chased Nance around. The spider was at near death, but it's extra speed allowed it to get the odd attack in on Nance and took her down to single figure HPs. At that point Gleam decided to resort to using one of his wands and a freezing blast froze the spider in its tracks.
Russell now had the option of using either his bastard sword or Spider's Bane. One advantage of the latter is it allowed Gleam the luxury of not needing to target web spells so precisely.
Moving on to the mine, the mages with Drasus were both blinded before Gleam tried to do the same with Genthore, but got too close to Drasus and initiated the fight. Genthore chased Gleam, but was stranded using invisibility, allowing Gleam to circle back and blind Drasus - who was already under heavy pressure from Russell anyway.
In the mine we avoided most combats on the way down to Davaeorn. Nance disarmed the traps before Gleam threw in 3 skull traps to take the mage to near death. Nance laid a couple of traps at his expected arrival point after teleporting, but Melf's Acid Arrow finished him off before he could even get there.
For once we remembered to pick up the key and were able to flood the mine without any detours.
Most of the main fights in Baldur's Gate were done without any particular problems. By this time Gleam had improved invisibility available to render mages even more vulnerable than they would be normally against a party equipped with True Seeing and throwable traps. One mage did create a slight concern when Nance failed to finish Vay-ya off with a backstab, while Russell and Gleam were occupied with Desreta. That resulted in Nance getting confused, just before she finished off the mage, but Russell arrived nearby in time to spare any innocents being targeted.
Doing the poison quest, Gleam annoyed Jalantha with a blind to allow Russell to attack her. Out from under their mistress' eagle eye, the acolytes in Umberlee's temple just wandered round chanting gently under their breath while their leader was being cut down.
Gleam then picked up his own pair of boots of speed after Grease chopped the lightning bit out of Lothander's normal greased lightning escape.
The last bit of real action saw an assault on the Iron Throne. Gleam threw in a few webs before blinding Alai to prevent his ring of free action playing a part in the combat. Skull traps and missiles pretty well finished off the opposition before the webs evaporated.
Our second run through the temple of Cyric manages to complete without our games crashing -Ziatar getting stunned, Akanna being separated from her aerial servants and the neothelid failing to worry Stan.
=
At Boareskyr Bridge Imaginome fails twice to loot a container and for his successful third attempt he casually dips into the chest as the webbed crusader fails to intervene. That's magic!
After we surrender the fort there is danger of a second bridge being destroyed. We find a way to prevent this with detect invisibility, darts, a Melf's Acid Arrow and some good old fashioned in-your-face melee.
The next few areas are dealt with relatively successfully, Stan using boots to fight in the middle of webs and we kill a few creatures that we don't need to.
We clear the outside of the Underground River - Stan dart-running a few greater wyverns around cloudkill and fireballs before a succession of targeted spells help eliminate them.
Inside the Underground River cave we keep matters calm until darting a mage - at which point we end up aggroing many crusaders and have to kill them. Once they are dead we poison the water and food supplies before strolling back past the remaining crusaders at the entrance.
We were trying to help the Dwarves of Dumathoin when Dynaheir was level drained without a cleric to restore her, and not enough gold to pay Mizhena to do it. We therefore sold a couple of long swords +1 which was sufficient for the job.
[I had been considering throwing in the towel until I realised that I will shortly have Jaheira who I think has restoration spells. The difficulties in this game have been highly educational!! Some mistakes won't be repeated. Pucity of NPCs in SoD can be solved by starting with a party in BG1, a party of 3 should be sufficient. soD seems designed for an evil party. A cleric, a mage and a sorcerer are evil and a thief is neutral. Next game I will have a good cleric and thief with perhaps a cavalier as well. I'm considering adding a berserker and an inquisitor to that, though having such a large party would be a bit unwieldy.]
We know that Coldearth is a lich and have been given an item to defeat him. There are still numerous enemies to defeat however before taking him on. They are however mortal. No they're not, but they ARE defeatable!
[I will have to investigate NPC mods for SoD, but I want to defeat SoD without mods first]
Anastasia, always one to take the easiest, sneakiest route, used stealth to get inside the Bridgefort and set about preparing its surrender, using her intimidating presence to solve the problem of the negative-plane-poisonous-boulder-thing, crafting its remains into a nasty longsword and Moretherene's scales into some armor, which she promptly sold. Figuring now was time to liquidates her assets for "cash in hand" she sold here collection of loot to bring her cash hoard to 73,000GP.
WIth her cash she went shopping with Thirrim, buying 6x heroism, 6x Regeneration, 1x Cloudgiant, 2x fire giant, 20x invisibility, 5x absorption, 2x clarity, 1x agility, 1x fortitude and 1x fire breath, dropping her cash back down to 57k - then surrendered the fort, grabbing Olneiros's gear as she did.
Prepping with fire giant and clarity in case things whent bad and she had to use durlag's goblet, plus blur and duhm, she disrupted the bridge-mage with the victor + stealthing behind the gates and lured the other into the flaming fists before fists and the fractal blade won the day. She looted the camp, especially for Dorn's equipment then crossed the bridge, receiving a vision off her father's death at the hands of Cyric. Vowing to Shar that she would claim his power for herself she made the long journey to the coalition camp.
Selling more loot for another 9K, she bought cloverleaf and the bracers of the shuttered lid from Nazramu and headband of focus from Waizhab, intending to exploit a minor offhand-thac0 bug for what little fighting she had to do. She finished off her shopping with 5 potions of heroism, 2 of power, 1 of mirrored eyes and 10 of invisibility from belegarm and another 30 invisibility potions from Waizhab. bags groaning she trained some recruits, solved the malden col quest and did some other inconsequential things before stealthing to Dragonspear Castle.
She talked her way in, acquiring the Seal of Caelar and picked up the ring of the crusade, corinth's bow to sell, and the potion reward from shackling the troll. She also saved Skie for good measure. Then to Bloodbark Grove for the miscellaneous loot and cure for the sick soldiers, picking up martyrs morning star for more gold.
Then to the underground river, She skipped everything above-ground, presenting the seal to gain entry. Once underground she made a bee-line for getting the cloak of the gargoyle, feeling a lot more secure once she was immune to critical hits - the loss of 25%MR wasn't all that big a deal since it was far too risky to rely on that for protection, the loss of 1 to both saves and ac hits harder - fortunately she could swap on the fly. She bought another 10 heroism, 4 fire resistance, 1 cloud giant, 2 clarity and 1 power potion from bellowgulp and the concocter, charging her two remaining one gift lost necklaces as well.
Umber hulks accidentally made it into the crusader camp and she wisely drank a invisibility potion rather than chancing the saves and claimed the cloak. She went to kill Ferrusk, making a mistake outside the circle getting hit with a save vs death effect which fortunately she passed - that would have been the sorry end. The Ferrusk battle itself almost led to disaster as it took 5 attacks to kill him, meaning his swarm were summoned and throwing web tangles, but she passed two saves as a well, vowing to drink a potion of invulnerability next time this was a risk. She made off with his gear, including the ankheg amulet.
Feeling particularly foolhardy she killed her second lich, Zahdroth, making sure to use the secret revealed before the spectacles to (almost) guarantee safety, then after as well to dispel protections, before commencing buffed punching from the south to make sure it didn't trigger the mages south of there - only... it didn't go as planned, as she had forgotten that she needed either wis or int above a certain level to even attack it... haha. instead she freed the lich, collected the ring reward, and drank invisibility, running away in shame, avoiding the endless watcher.
Noticing she was making too many mistakes and had passed 3 save or die effects in the past 10 minutes (and freed a lich) she returned to the relative safety of the crusaders in the southeast and decided to call it quits before something fatal occurred.
@Wise_Grimwald for SoD, you can get back Imoen fairly quickly with Jastey mod "Imoen forever" (the sod component). It felt natural and in character. Imoen can cover thief and mage. You can add Sirene NPC mod who is a paladin (special kit, quite nice) and is quite popular from what I have seen.
@Wise_Grimwald for SoD, you can get back Imoen fairly quickly with Jastey mod "Imoen forever" (the sod component). It felt natural and in character. Imoen can cover thief and mage. You can add Sirene NPC mod who is a paladin (special kit, quite nice) and is quite popular from what I have seen.
I am currently trying to complete without mods. After that I'll start modding. In current game I am playing a fighter/thief so it is good clerics that I am short of.
I have now killed Coldearth and finished the menhir quest.
NOW I've got a restoration scroll!
Just about to approach the bridge.
@alice_ashpool I know exactly what you mean, a screenshot just before activating the last menhir.
Now THAT is what I call cutting it fine!
I wouldn't normally have used the wand on a mere spider, but needs must.
Wasted a Wand of the Heavens charge as well, but hey-ho, we're alive.
I've noticed a distinct shortage of decent axes in the vanilla game so if I want M'Khiin in the party, I'll have to avoid putting proficiency points in axes.
[In my old set-up there were a number of strong axes so the above will not be relevant once I start modding.]
EDIT
I have picked up Jaheira and I DO have a restoration scroll.
Things are looking a bit brighter.
However it wasn't too bright for M'Khiim a short while later.
W"ith Jaheira in the party, at least his death was short-lived, less than a day, then another sleep before he was fully recuperated.
...until I realised that I will shortly have Jaheira who I think has restoration spells.
Restoration is cleric only. Jaheira doesn't have it in her spellbook.
On the other hand - are scrolls of (lesser) restoration available in SoD? Because in BG2, they're considerably cheaper than the temple service of restoration. And anyone can use them.
imo if she ever uses her axe then you are playing M'Khiin wrong but as far as good weapons go in vanilla there is Two handed sword, short sword, scimitar and staff from bg1 which have a +3 enchantment... most the SoD weapons are +2 or have weird exceptions
@jmerry yes Sod has scrolls of restoration and raise dead which can be cast by any Druid, Ranger, Cleric or Sharman with enough intelligence i.e, not Boo ... this is why I make sure to grab the 10 raise dead scrolls before leaving the gate mate
I been having a good look around for extra party members and even managed some flirt but the good folk are unhappy about having a goblin share 'their' camp so I executed it for moral
troll hunting
to be honest we don't need a pally necklace so I should have skipped it but the practice is sort of the reason I go here
the bridgeport fight
I scouted the area to make sure my new companion hadn't bugged out and then realized my standard head on and let the defenders die wouldn't please someone in my party
new plan Edwin opens the way and our entire party (hasted and invisible) make a V-line for the defenders area. Edwin because he can cast without breaking stealth and hasted because the crusader cleric is between us and where we need to be. This plan worked well (mostly) with only J getting killed because I accidentally walked her into my own web like a moron @jmerry I forgot Monks mate
now of course there is some new big emergency that nobody but me could possibly be sacrificed called on to handle... Guys its poker night so hold the fort here and I'll be back to clear out the exploding barrels for you in a day or two
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 7 – Devilsbane
Anastasia placed the barrel, poisoned the water and supplies then returned to the coalition camp, spamming invisibility potions to avoid everything.
After the parley she prepared for the first wave before triggering any dialogue:
2x Mind Focusing
2x Absorption
1x Cloud Giant Strength
3x Fire Resistance
6x Heroism
1x Invulnerability
1x Clarity
Then triggered the dialogues and drank a potion of power and DUHM for good measure.
Wave 1 – Trolls
Anastasia took the Dwarfs, opened with a One Gift Lost fireball then gained Aggro from the trolls, with fractal blade in her main hand. Cloak of the Gargoyle protected against crits, Legacy of the Masters instead of Shuttered Lid because blind enemies wander and cause wipes at this stage. Sidestep Slippers for the extra -1AC, and Durlag’s Goblet if required. General strategy was that she dropped fireballs on her head until the trolls were dead, swinging with fractal blade inbetween. Suffice to say it worked perfectly, and with the healing effect of the fireballs and -11AC (-31 vs crushing) Anastasia only dropped 30HP in the whole fight.
Wave 2 – Mages
Anastasia swapped back to cloak of Balduran and boots of speed then, choosing the wizard slayers, moved as far away as she could from anyone else then firebombed the site, killing both mages and the non-ranged wizard-slayers in the process, but avoiding having her buffs dispelled.
Wave 3 – Footsoldiers + Priests
Anastasia swapped back to cloak of the gargoyle then drank another potion of clarity and invulnerability (just in case) and potion of power + DUHM then used the same tactic as with the trolls, gathering aggro and dropping fireballs. This one was very touch and go since one of the enemies was feared, and Anastasia had to chase him around, praying that he didn’t run south. The final War-priests were hit through sanctuary with Wand of the Heavens.
(sorry, too nerve-wracking to remember to take screenshots)
Wave 4 – Final Fight
An additional Blur, potion of power and final DUHM (from headband of focus), then racing ahead to fire some pre-emptive fireballs into the fog of war then melee and fireballs to take out the casters and the others, with ranged support from the coalition forces. Amazing AC vs crushing meant that Grimgor was left ‘til last, flailing around ineffectually then punched to pieces.
All in all the whole 4 waves took 23 fireballs and a whole bunch of potions, but the only worry was the feared crusader on wave 3. It might have been good to have some pre-emptive summons or something here just in case, or perhaps the archers would have been better with my tanky-fireball approach. Didn’t even have to use Durlag’s Goblet once.
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Onwards into Hell
Anastasia waited during the final assault for a few more potions of power to drop to replenish her stock then drank the usual strength + heroism (x3) + clarity + invulnerability + power and challenged Ashatiel. Frozen Fists flew but it was a harder fight than anticipated, perhaps some timing errors and Anastasia had to drink from Durlag’s once to replenish.
As soon as she was transported to the Hells she drank Clarity, Invulnerability and Invisibility, speeding to Thrix, only to get trapped by the first group of devils on the bridge and be forced to punch her way out while drinking potions. Instead of glitching the conversation to get the doors to open she pre-buffed with fire giant, 10x Regeneration and Power, punching out some devils with her 20HP/round regeneration, claiming tongue of acid +3, the other part of her Behlifet Strategy.
Before getting on the lift Anastasia did a little bit of prebuffing:
1x Protection from Magic
3x Protection from Cold
3x Protection from Lightning
3x Protection from Acid
3x protection from Fire
1x Protection from Poison
2x potion of Mind Focusing
1x Potion of Cloud Giant Strength
2x Potion of Absorption
5x Potion of Heroism
1x Potion of Invulnerability
1x Potion of Clarity
1x Potion of Power
She then activated the lift, drinking potions of heroism constantly (16 more on top of the earlier 5) while fighting the first two waves. Once she got to the last wave she left one of the Abishai’s alive and did some more buffing:
1x Potion of Invulnerability
1x Potion of Clarity
11x Scrolls of Champions Strength
1x Potion of Storm Giant Strength
1x Potion of Power
All this gave a dual wield Acid tongue + Fractal blade offhand Thac0 of -25/-23. She killed the final Abishai and drank potions of regeneration and heroism until she reached the top, with a single goblet drink to overcome residual effects of potion of a power wearing off.
Caelar was recruited then left immobile in-party to die in about 15 seconds, Bel went down in just over a minute and Hephernaan lasted another 10 seconds. Three drinks from Durlag’s required.
@alice_ashpool Impressive work. Hope to see you succeed in SoA+ToB - you certainly have the patience, knowledge and willingness to go all out on consumables to do so Also, the Dark Moon Monk is one of the kits still missing in the Hall of Heroes, so I'd be especially happy to see a successful run here!
@alice_ashpool Impressive work. Hope to see you succeed in SoA+ToB - you certainly have the patience, knowledge and willingness to go all out on consumables to do so Also, the Dark Moon Monk is one of the kits still missing in the Hall of Heroes, so I'd be especially happy to see a successful run here!
Thanks, Anastasia representing for Baldur's Gate's very maligned Monks.
Looking forward, finally, to the uncapped power-level increase of the Dark Moon Monk.
Corethief XXX the halfling thief Update - BG 2 EE, no mods, core rules
Traveling with: Korgan, Mazzy, Sarevok, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
We made some good progress!
For one, we got out of the Underdark safely and took out Bodhi once and for all.
Also, we cleared out Suldanesslar. Ran into bit of a problem with Nizi, though. Despite Mazzy using invoke courage on the entire party, Jaheira somehow still ran in fear. She duly ran into claw range of Nizi and was duly chunked - RIP Jaheira. She probably didn't want to live anyways, as she resigned from from the Harper's recently - what with her dead husband, and me choosing Aerie for romance, her outlook wasn't that great. It does open a spot for Sarevok, I was wondering who I was going to kick out - now I know!
Melee/ranged wasn't working so we went to our fall back plan - lead Nizi to some traps! That worked...
Tree of Life Irenicus wasn't a fight at all as traps made Irenicus immediately give up.
Corethief XXX did the good routes in Hell. We had an epic final fight, but ran into the "unkillable" Irenicus bug. At the end he didn't fight back - somehow he failed to give his I can't believe I lost speech. Was forced to reload the fight - which I won without the bug this time.
Illsaera died to traps. We recruited Sarevok and Pocket Plane Challenge #1 will be our next task...
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 8 - Escape from the Duengeon of Irenicus, with overly long commentary
This is my favorite dungeon, decided to do this no rest - SCS does not seem to put the rest limit on for solo, so you can rest as much as you like, but where's the fun in that?
Little update on Anastasia the Monk, level 10: Ungeared Monk AC at level 10 is 0, -1 with single weapon style (does not apply to fists). Fist thac0 is 7 (str 19), and HP is a "pathetic" cleric's 92. Saves are 5/9/8/11/8 without any gear - I'm worried about that 11 breath with all the mephits. She is immune to Disease and Slow, but not yet to poison, and has her nice monk speed increese even though she no longer has boots of speed.
Started the game with 556,000XP due to carry-over from SoD - not as much as I thought but then I had been avoiding many fights. needed 675,000 for Level 11. Booted Imoen and punched the jailkeep golem (+1 fists!). Killed the mephit to the north then ignored the lightning machine for now, killing the three groups of duergar which would not summon Illych, mostly using stealth hit and run to avoid taking too much damage. Activated the sewer golem and used 1 of 2 DUHMs to kill the two Lesser Clay Golems, taking considerable damage which was healed with 2x Cure Light Wounds and the potions of Extra Healing.
The Duergar are not dangerous with the speed factor of the monk's fists, their superior movement speed and stealth. Except for the crossbow ones - missile adjustment is -3, but they are always worth taking out first since unlike the melee only ones, they can shoot at you instead of chasing you ineffectually, so will get crits and hits. A monk can get in 2 attacks on the duergar before they can strike back (or swap from ranged to melee) - which is often enough to chunk them, and the -4 thac0 from attacking from stealth, combined with the bonus for hitting a ranged weapon holder in melee, mean lots of dead duergar.
Collected Longtooth +2 which the game decided to give me due to 1 point in daggers. It'll do. Killed the sewer-thing with hit and run. Monk is immune to disease and slow but not poison until level 11 so I had no desire for risk. Got into Irenicus's room and collected Claw of Kazgaroth and Air statuette. Ouch with the traps though - there's a lot of unavoidable damage in this dungeon. Fought the Duergar here too with stealth.
Agreed to help the Nymphs, then collected the portal key, equalizer gem and bracers to sell with more horrible trap damage (39 from the spear trap, 12 + 1 from the poison trap, 12 from the magic missile trap).
Traveled through the portal and eventually managed to trap 3 of 4 mephits closing the door and separating them from their portal. I hate these things. With few health potions left she just destroyed the portals. Taking a calculated risk the salt mephit was saved against with the Claw of kazagoth (8 vs breath, the stun doesn't last that long... which are famous last words perhaps), the duergar killed (unfortunate crit from one of them), and another unavoidable trap (steam for 23 damage). Hadn't collected any wand-keys so just walked round the outside of the wand room for RoP +1.
Killed the Duergar in the forge room, luring and melee-kiting brought out all but the mage, the talky one and a regular ranged one, which was ideal. All punched except one who fled into the cloudkill trap. Mage 1-shotted from stealth. Girlde of Bluntness collected, along with some health pots and return to Dungeon Level 1. Did the mephits in the jar room and the Duergar around and in the Library, replenishing health pots from the shelves. Illych and a couple of Duergar moved into the library and were taken down, followed by the mage (who remained n the original room) from stealth - collecting 20x throwing daggers. Hit and run on the cambion which left the most dangerous part, the Mephit group in the Plane of Air. Fortunately Anastasia had some luck luring with throwing daggers and some lucky stealth rolls too and the group could be taken down in two parts. She still lost >20HP in the process though. With that and some cross-map trekking the djinn was freed and the acorns reported.
Anastasia then farmed the mephits from the lightning machine with DUHM before turning it off, which still only got her to 652,930XP, well shy of level 11.
Finally she went back to level 2 and the doppleganger room, using her Blur for and extra -1 to saves she opened the chests, then used all 3 frozen fists, the residual blur and stealth on the doppleganger, picked up some final loot, then popped back to get metaspell amulet with new elixirs of heath then stealthed out of the dungeon.
Overall Anastasia skipped the ogre mage summon (scs ogre mages), assassins at the exit (backstabs), the Clone (magic), the vampire (vampires) and farming the mephit portals (too risky). Killed everything else. She picked up what she thought were the most valuable items. A fun added challenge.
In game time: 16 Hours
Total XP: 655930 (enough to get level 11 after the cutscene)
Inventory and Time:
(can't remember if that protection scroll is legit or cursed... took it anyway. Also monk gets nothing rom those bracers of defense but can wear them freeing up inventory space for... something.)
Having killed a dragon, we are now in a temple. I sadly wasted a number of protection scrolls when fighting the dragon. However trying to conquer the temple while tired is a recipe for disaster, so left that until the next day. That turned out to be wise as it was hard enough whilst alert.
EDIT
The temple has been conquered despite near disaster, temporary deaths of party members, having abilities temporarily reduced and more besides.
We have now entered the crusader camp and freed Dorn. He is now with the Coalition Army. We then helped as much as we could at Bridgeport. In the process we all got level drained and as we were short of gold we recruited Glint in order to get our levels back on the cheap.
We are just about ready to attempt the relief of Bridgeport.
Just beginnning to get the hang of how to use the shaman.
I have not yet worked out the best stategy for the temple but nevertheless came out of it victorious. One more cave to enter before leaving the area.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 9 - Athkatla Leveling
Emmerging from Irenicus Dungeon, Anastasia obtained Level 11 and the highly desired Mirror Image innate ability and poison immunity. She donated five time to the temple of illmater, bringing rep to 14, stashed some bits and bobs in Cernd's House, bought a gem bag and moved on to the Slums, 210,000XP from level 12.
Brus was used to bypass Corvale fight for now, and the bar-side entrance used to enter the Copper Coronet and rest up. Blur, Mirror Image, Frozen Fist x2 and DUHM to kill Amalas. Unfortunately he did not drop a potion of invulnerability so plan B was in action.
Raised the hundred or so additional gold needed to have enough for the ID glasses and returned to Galen Bayle to buy them, killing Corvale and Bregg on the way. Sold everything and then completed the rest of the Sewers + Liilacor (except Myconid room), freed Hendak (Avoided spawning the 2x mages by stealth-attacking the guard who challenges you, missing out on XP for safety, and blinding the beastmaster before fighting in the doorway) killed Llynis for the bear and an invisi potion, bought a scroll case from Bernard, and moved to the Bridge District with 12,792GP and 90,000XP to go.
Solved the tanner murders without going down into the basement and spawned the Neera cutscene. Then visited Mrs Cragmoon for Plan B, some Potions of Stone Form with their Life-saving -3 to saves, which will put Anastasia at a Save vs Spell of 1, with an option of blur for a further -1 to saves. Bought 3, then left to the temple district, getting Neera's 2nd cutscene.
Started the Sir Sarles Quest and had a quick nap in the sewers. Now, the next transition "should" be the suna sei one, so Anastasia prepped with Blur, Mirror Image, Frozen Fist and DuHM, waited 6 seconds then left for the Government District. Only It wasn't.
So Anastasia instead freed Virconia, rescued Jan from the law, did the next part of the Sir Sarles quest and open up Umar. She snuck in an open air rest then prepped again for the Suna Sei ambush, setting off for Waukeen's Promenade.
This time it triggered. She immediately drank potion of stone form and killed the most dangerous one, the cleric. Low saves vs spell neutralises the mage entirely so she was left until last. Cleric, Suna Sei, Thief, Archer, Eldarin, Mage, and then the prize was her's: Arbane's Sword +2. She can't make use of the haste, but the hold-immunity is the main draw, that and it looks cool. She gathered the rest of the loot and, realising she had almost hit Level 12 made a detour to the Graveyard.
Risa, Wellyn and the man in the grave brought Level 12, fists +2, thac0 of 4 and 3 attacks per round. Things were looking up. Noticing she had two invisibility potions Anastasia took a calculated risk and stealthed in to Pai'Na, stealing the loun stone and invisi-potioning out. With its thac0 -1 and HP +10% its the poor monks Helm of Balduran and I think it will see use long into the future.
Not forgetting to prep before leaving the Graveyard went for Waukeen's Promenade again, getting the Renfeld Ambush. Same as before, drank a potion of stone form. Mage, Cleric, Fighter, Thief, then taking the body to the docks, selling some loot also.
With both important ambushes out of the way, Anastasia then decided to leave the city, unlocking trademeet and then going first to watchers keep for the potion case, then to Umar where she did the Mimic quest using Arbane's hold immunity, the chicken gem, Maduff and the Ranger's Cabin, meaning Illbratha's extra Mirror Image. Everything surplus was sold and she returned to Ankatha to complete the Sir Sarles Quest.
Needing just a few thousand more XP to reach level 13 she killed the sewer-thing, some shadows and ettercaps in the Unseeing-eye Sewers, gaining another -1 thac0, -1 to all saves, and of course, Quivering Palm.
225,000XP to go until Level 14 and an instant 42%MR. 26,000GP in the bank and Reputation 16.
Noticing she had two invisibility potions Anastasia took a calculated risk and stealthed in to Pai'Na, stealing the loun stone and invisi-potioning out.
You can actually take the stone without breaking stealth at all if you're careful - stand on top of the container and pick it up from the inventory. This works for many other containers as well, but it's particularly easy for floor containers that don't block pathing like this.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 10 - Fists of Cheese
In which we become powerful as all hell with almost zero risk
Anastasia returned to the slums where she bought Sword of Flame +1 and went through the sewers to clear out the rest of the Slavers. With Blur, 2 mirror images, her AC + AC bonus against missile, DUHM and stealth she is practically invulnerable in these fights now. She took out the Priest of Cyric then tanked away against the others, followed by the two trolls, one of which succumbed to quivering palm the other to fists + Sword of Flame. Prepping for the two mages she used her last stone form potion then the usual buffs, and attacked from stealth, killing one then dragging the rest back towards the first room. Easy Peasy. The poison trap on the way out? - Monk's poison immunity. Report back to Hendak and reputation 18 achieved.
Anastasia sold her loot and bought The Scarlet brotherhood Ninjato, now we really are gaining power. This grants 5 (5!) attacks if its in the offhand and fists on the main hand, which for much of the time is totally worth it even though Anastasia takes a huge -4/-8 penalty. Plus its +3 which is important for hitting certain things. She buys two protection from Undead scrolls from the priest of Illmater and off we go to the Umar Temple, running away from a generic ambush in the process.
Activating the mirror does not break stealth while the shadows are destroyed, then inside, the usual innate buffs are enough to punch through the shadows and skeleton warriors, free Mazzy and secure the first pieces of the symbol + gem. Got lucky with a dropped Laerel's Tear necklace too.
Next up, the "challenging bit". Anastasia rested up by the outside crystal then fought the shadows + shade wolves on the bridge. Unfortunately this did not lure the first Lich's guardians so she had to read her 1st scroll of PfU and play chicken.
SCS lichs will know you are there and cast remove magic on self, and AOE effect stuff centered on themselves or their minions. If you are not careful they will dispel your PfU! Also bone golems are constructs not undead so they will still attack you.
The lich cast Horrid Wilting a couple of times, some remove magics and a comet on the skeleton warriors around it, meanwhile the Bone Golems from the second lich found Anastasia and she had to beat them to dust. At this point Ana thought she was free to kill the Lich so did so with the Ninjato +3 at 3APR, followed by all the assorted undead around it. Greater Mummies also require a 3+ weapon so it was slow hacking. Everything else succumbed quickly to 5APR. The second lich went the way of the first, though due to combat-protections expiring while PfU is still up, Anastasia had to go toe-to-toe with a bone golem, taking significant damage. Otherwise the rest of the undead were casually punched and/or sliced.
"Legit Playstyle:"
Anastasia read her second PfU scroll and farmed SCS's infinity spawning shadows from the Shadow Altar for a few minutes (only 420XP per shadow, quite tedious) before destroying the altar and the Shade Lord, gaining Level 15 in the process. She returned to the Umar Hills for her reward.
Anastasia then returned to Waukeen's Promenade, stashed the shadowdragon wardstone, arla's dragonsbane and the cloak of the stars, selling everything else and plotting her next move.
180,000XP to level 16, Reputation 19 and 27,488GP
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At level 15 Anastasia has: Fists +3, thac0 -1 (str 19 and pale green Ioun stone) with 3.5APR or 3 mainhand 7 offhand with 5APR with Scarlet Ninjato offhand. Also MR 45% and very good saves. Damage per punch/kick at 19str is 1d20 +3 +7. Max damage at 5APR without DUHM or frozen fists is currently 4d20 + 40 + 1d8 + 10 if all attacks connect. Ninjato poison an extra.
DUHM is of note at level 15 since it will raise str by 5 points to 24, which gives thac0 of 0/4 which means all 5 attacks will be connecting almost every time, except against special foes. DUHM and 2 frozen fists will do another 41 damage per round with 5 hits.
Mmy elven fighter thief tried and failed to relieve Dragonspear. [Bad tactics, not enough buffing, plus not bringing the right equipment from BG1]
So now a nasty group of half-orcs have left Candlekeep and have arrived at the FAI where they for some obscure reason they have returned Joia's ring.
Journal of Skarig and his war host such as it is.
Having bought a katana, we didn't have enough gold to buy bows, but we found a short bow near Gorion's body which I will probably use a lot to keep myself out of harm's way.
We tried and failed to help Mellicamp, took a tome to Firebead, and after killing some ogrillon and some officious Flaming Fist we now have deent armour.
Comments
Difficulty: SCS-Insane (no double damage), max HP rolls
Style: solo
Roll: 90 - 18/18/17/10/9/18
Cleared candlekeep then went RoP + 1, Ring of Wizardry (id in FAI temple), Marl and Firebeard, Sell loot, Brage, Nashkel, Noober, Strength potion reward from Brage to open Joseph's House and Manor (and steal invisibility potion), Fayre for PfPetrification, East to the tombs to return the undead's dagger, south to collect PfM, Balista's and then return samuel to FAI (collect colquette amulet on the way, return it and buy stone to flesh at FAI temple). PfP and Korax to clear out Mutamin basilisks and Mutamin himself to reach Level 6, restore Tamah.
bacl to South Nashkel to kill the ogrillons for the letter and Hobgoblins for Worn Whispers + the 5 health potions in the cave. Turn in Letter quest and do Joia's Flamedance ring. Kill Sonner for the bowl, stealth the ankheg nest for Brun's son and turn in both quests + give gold to Brun. Back to W of Nashkel to do Drienne's Cat and the Dryad. Resort to Wand of Missiles against Krumm with his belt of -3 crushing and unexpectedly high thac0. Punch Gnarl and Hairtooth with blind, frozen fist and blur abilities, Grab the charisma tome and punch some xvarts. High Hedge to ID tome, then to the lighthouse to kill Worgs. Dark Moon abilities + some hit and run to punch them down.
Return to Nashkel Fayre to buy One Gift Lost and stealth down to Mulahey, doing dagger quest and picking up joseph's Ring. Kill the kobolds in Xan's room, trigger Mulahey, stealth and hit with two fireballs which broke his morale and killed all his minions, then finish with punching. Claim Shortsword +1 and other loot then cash in quests in Nashkel.
Travel to Ulgoth's Beard for Greenstone Amulet, potion of mirrored eyes and Wand of Heavens then stealth into the Pirate Cave. Greenstone to neutralise the dire charm traps and hit and run stealth to kill flesh golems with shortsword +1. Claim loot. Back to high hedge to ID charisma tome and collect Kazgaroth's Claw.
Visit Durlag's for Kirihale and Pride golem XP, then kill Shoal. Get Raiken to take to Bandit Camp, stealth into the main tent with potion of absorption, loot chest and pop invisibility potion, in and out.
Buy 3 potions of freedom at High Hedge and stealth through Cloakwood 1-4, avoiding all foes. Stealth past Drasus and down to Davaeorn. Trigger dialogue, stealth and hit him for the stealthy pseudo-backstab, then run and wait for all the SCS guards to gather while stealthed, hit them with some fireballs and then punch through stoneskin with 2x frozen fist and greenstones protections. Flood the mine and leave, using potions of freedom to avoid spider ambush mini-webs.
Go to Baldur's Gate and buy the 2nd Protection from petrification and kill the basilisks at the top of Durlag's, use mirrored eyes and wand of heavens to kill the basilisk in the docks, complete Tremain's son and that brings Anastasia to level 8. (edit: whoops wrote 10 here initially for some reason - probs because I am concurrently playign a thief char!)
Pips in: Dagger, Short Sword, Long Sword, Single-weapon Style.
Points all in Hide in Shadows and Move Silently
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Left to do are: Drasus Fight, Spider woods Red Wizards, Durlag's Level 1 for access to the goblet, Slythe, Dukes, and Sarevok, plus the associated prep. I will see if Anastasia manages to do it all in 1 take.
Anastasia killed Ramazith for his RoP +2, attacking from stealth, then using 2x frozen fists through his protections, she also abused going in and out the door because she realised she had forgotten to buy some magic protection potions. Rectifying her error she went shopping and bought 3x invisibility potion, 3x potion of fire protection and 2x potion of absorption from sorcerous sundries before heading back to Durlags.
On the way she fireballed Denek and squad for the Victor, and using 2x fire protection and absorption + greenstone she assembled the remaining parts of the golem puzzle, mostly stealthing around the skeleton warriors and flesh golems, and grabbing the most valuable items. She lowered her AC as far as possible and activated Love, luring them towards the "death passage" so they were nicely positioned, drank an invisibility potion and triggered the fireball and lightning trap repeatedly to kill the Golems, except for avarice who was hiding somewhere. On the 2nd floor, she took the champions strength scroll, kiels helm to sell, and dulags goblet, stealth-ing and re-stealthing all the way, hitting the correct trigger to reopen the exit and waiting out the cloudkill and stinking cloud, then fleeing the tower with her loot.
Back in Baldur's Gate she sold the loot, and went to see Ragefast, where unfortunately she apparently clicked on the wrong dialogue options, hostiling the wizard. Ducking outside to activate greenstone she then hit him a few times with the victor, fortunately passing a save or die wand of paralysis shot in the process. She left with the Nymph Cloak
She messed around, killing some dopplegangers for Scar and making sure she had what she needed, including a fully charged shield amulet, before Duke Eltan teleported her to candlekeep. She almost died again to the ogre ambush before fleeing inside. Grabbed the potion of clarity from the inn, the prot from petrification scroll from the top floor. She took the tomes and other valuables from the crypts using cloud giant and draw upon holy might, potion of absorption, shield and some fire protection, though she forgot to drink a potion of fire protection and due to failing some saves took a lot of fire damage. She then stealthed to the basilisks, PfPetrificationed and punched them out, attaining the max 161k XP.
She went back to BG via High Hedge boosting her Strength to 19 with the tome, doing some shopping for PfM and PfU scrolls, charging 3x One gift Lost, Wand of Heavens and the Victor, using most of her gold. She got the cloak of balduran and sold the helm, killed the ogre for elves bane, then decided to kill Slythe, charming Larze, and 5 guards downstairs, hitting him with Wand of Heavens. Everything went badly wrong, with the guards getting chunked very quickly, Anastasia getting backstabbed for 2/3HP with Slythe's last invisibility potion and Krystin appearing upstairs when Ana fled towards Larze, fortunatly Larze bought enough time to kill Slythe with Wand of Heavens, and the EE quickloot bar allowed his items to be snagged out of sight of Krystin before Anastasia fled with her brand new Shortsword +3 and the evidence+invitation for the Dukes ambush.
She returned to the Cloakwood mine, buffed with potions of perception for the stealth boost then abused stealth timers to fire a few fireballs at Drasus squad before Drasus and Genthore managed to close ground, which was enough to kill the two mages. Confused by stealth, Drasus ran off and she used Wand of Heavens to kill Genthore before hunting all round the map for Drasus. Once found he was lured to the mine entrance where Anastasia circled the building to allow out of line of sight stealth, followed by hitting him with the victor. He fell unconscious when his enrage expired and she killed him claiming the boots of speed as her prize.
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Just Dukes and Sarevok to go now.
Anastasia did some final shopping, then went for the Dukes Ambush. She pre-prepped with Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Storm Giant Strength, Potion of Heroism, Potion of Clarity, Potion of Invulnerability, Potion of Power, 5x Potion of Regeneration, Innate Blur and 2x Frozen Fist. Triggered the ambush and began punching the doppleganger mage as soon as it transformed, getting in a good hit as it triggered its protections then punching through stoneskin with frozen fists cold damage disrupting every cast attempt. It took a few moments to die, followed by the assassin and shaman and mopping up. Belt and Liia both survived, as did all the flaming fists.
With protection still active, Anastasia went through the theives maze, adding absorption and shield for the traps. She bypassed all the fights until the Temple of Bhaal, triggering Sarevok and drinking a potion of magical protection before running around until Angelo, Tazok Diarmid and Semaj were all spawned. She lured them into the corner, getting hit with a dispel magic, then popped an invisibility potion and waited out Darmids 2h Protection from Magic scroll. She hit the cluster with fireballs killing Sarevok's Squad and used a protection from undead to neutralise the skeleton warriors.
She drank 2x Mind Focusing and 3x Perception potions to bring stealth up to 100/100 + a potion of defense, and went to lure Sarevok. At this point she realized that he was boxed in by his own skeleton warriors and unable to move. She contemplated finishing it like this with her Wand of Heavens but instead attacked the skeletons to shift them, then "honorably" kited Sarevok around with stealth, the Victor and Wand of Heavens until dead.
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Baldurs Gate 1 - Solo No Reload SCS-Insane Dark Moon Monk completed using every trick in the big book of "its ok because its no reload"
Anastasia stealth-ed the first part of Korlasz tomb, using her superior charisma to get the Sarevok faithful to lay down their weapons, then, deciding to hang on to her remaining 3 PfU scrolls "for later" she ran past the 2nd level undead to open up the final door, then hit Korlasz with 2x victor to get her to surrender. She reunited a broken staff and collected the most valuable items in the tomb. The tomb and the XP carry-over from BG1 netted her level 9 - an extra 1/2 attack per round, +1 fists and a heavy 1d12 + 1 base damage for her fists (with another +7 for 19str)
She spent all her remaining gold on 2x PfF, PfE, PfA, PfC and PfP, plus potions of perception, mind focusing and 5x scrolls of protection from evil 10', 5x greater restoration, 5x chaotic commands, 5x free action (she never picked up Edventar's Gift in BG1 not want to risk the Iron Throne top floor fight and not wanting to drop rep for Dushai) and anything else that looked useful, before returning to Baldur's Gate.
Back in Baldur's Gate she foiled an assassination attempt by blowing up Imoen with 2x OGL fireballs, taking her 80 oils of speed to sell at sorcerous sundries for 20,000 Gold. She bought some monk slippers for later, 5 invisibility, 5 heroism, 5 mind focusing, 2 regeneration, 2 clarity, 2 absorption, then returned for a second potion-case to cater to her addictions, picking up the spectacles of spectacle and claiming some small XP rewards and Lon's amulet for perma-bless effect. She contemplated the Bracers of Perseverance, but in the end decided to save her gold and stick with Legacy of the Masters. She then killed Korlasz with 2x frozen fists and greenstone protections. With all that she still had 35,000GP in inventory with plenty of items in the stash that could be liquidated later. Returning to her room to find Imoen magically resurrected after her fiery death Anastasia set out for Dragonspear.
She saved the dwarfs and semahl (who then died after the dialogue... disease perhaps), getting level drained in the process, popping a greater restoration scroll and resting up back at camp.
With 2 of her 3 remaining PfU scrolls and some strength + heroism potions she became immune to the inhabitants of the repository of undeath and proceeded to punch everything she could find bringing her XP up to 410,000. Destroying the Lich with secret revealed brought 436,000 and Anastasia nearly being cooked by fire mephits. Victorious she returned to the dwarfs to recruit them for the future then turned in for the night.
The next day she did some small quests around the camp, killing a vampire with her shortsword +3, a stake and an antidote + greater restoration scroll to negate the poison-level drain trap, skipping the "troll vs orc" ambush, gathering three lost items and hanging on to the identifying mirror. All of this netted her 450,000XP and level 10, putting 10 points into detect illusion for the first time.
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Level cap reached, hopefully going to be able to skip most of the rest of the content via stealth, bar collecting essential items.
the lady of darkness herself:
Anastasia went to find the source of the missing refugees, finding a transmuter mage had turned them to stone. Thinking to the future, she bought the golem from the mage, then in the few moments before she left punched her to chunks with DUHM and 3x frozen fist, claiming the stone ally statuette as well.
Greedily wanting more items to sell, she used her high charisma to sing to the menhirs, then snuck back inside the dig site, realising she had not killed the undead around the stash with her PfU, she stealthed through them, triggering the skulltrap... trap, grabbed the items and fled under an invisibility potion.
She then confronted the crusaders, hiding behind the tent and stealthing to avoid the battle, and had a "chat" with Caelar. Back in camp she decided to consolidate her resources before moving on, realizing that cloud/storm giant strength potions were going to be her biggest issue until she could find another source. Apart from that she considered herself to be pretty "set".
In the troll claw woods she picked up glimmer of hope +2 using the not breaking stealth inventory trick, then punched some half orcs and avoided everything else, on her way to the Forest of Wyrms. Coming across a crater blown in the ground she took a risk and went to retrive the easily accessible loot, using the same pick up trick as with glimmer of hope. She moves between areas to spawn the baby green dragon encounter and punched its attackers to pieces, collecting the blood red loun stone, which could be combined with the monk slippers and duhm to give an extra -3AC.
Stealth and speed boots saw her inside Morentherene's cave, and a dagger saw her dead. Stealth through the bugbears, absorbing a painful spear-trap and into the Temple of Bhaal. Deciding that caution beats valor every day, and thinking of the difficulty resting so deep in a dungeon she weathered the hold trap with save vs spell of 2 and the fireball trap with saves + fire resistance, then shot Ziatar and her mages with fireballs from her collection of fireball necklaces, though she noticed that she seemed to have misplaced one of them somewhere. Ziatar refused to fail her saves so she burned 11 fireballs before stealthing in for the coup de grace.
She freed the prisoners, including her father's priestess and set about preparing for the Neothelid. She swapped out her boots of speed for sidestep slippers and donned the girdle of crushing then, after a binge of mind focusing, storm, freedom, adsorption, heroism, invulnerability and clarity she cast blur, draw upon holy might, and activated the greenstone amulet and entered the neothelid room, using frozen fists while waiting for it to appear, kiting the swords with her slower than usual speed and then punched the neothelid into chunks in a single appearance, with a stated AC vs crushing of -28, far beyond what she thought was the max AC limit. With her protections still up she triggered Akanna and fought her aerial servants in the doorway, minimising the risk of getting clobbered with 2x crits. Critical hits really are the bane of the monk. Crits were not on the menu and she killed the two in turn, then refreshing greenstone, 3-shotting akanna.
She opened up the shadow aspect room, using her last protection from undead. Unfortunatly her 20points total detect illusion was not sufficient to take out the aspect and instead she smashed open the case and claimed fractal-blade +3, a part of her Behlefit strategy. Seeing no use for Archer's Eyes, and a lot of risk she skipped the illithid fight, traveling to Boarskyr Bridge.
The limit only applies to basic AC. Adjustments against specific armor types are unlimited
ok we made sure to buy some important items before heading out for what became a undead hunt; vamp + lich and various peons proved little trouble for my cleric gf but some nameless construct almost did the party in
in other news we picked up a goblin and executed her wouldbe kidnapper for trying to make her battle a rabbit... or it could have been a chicken?
Gleam - male, elf sorcerer (Grond0)
Russell XII - male, human inquisitor (Corey_Russell)
Nance - female, halfling bounty hunter (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1163521/#Comment_1163521
Moving into the Cloakwood, Russell immediately set off in search of Aldeth with the stated intention of getting his bastard sword. Gleam naturally interpreted that as meaning he wanted to open the additional quest in Baldur's Gate up, to get the sword there. However, Russell was apparently eager for the goodies and not happy when Gleam sided with Aldeth rather than taking the opportunity to get the sword then and there (along with some wonderful aloe vera balm).
There was a moment of danger in the second area while assaulting Centeol's nest. Russell was acting as the tank there as usual, while Nance was nipping in and out looking to stealth and backstab. However, a late-arriving sword spider came into view when Nance was the closest enemy and targeted her - following her outside. Gleam hit him with a couple of acid arrows, but was then out of spells and tried using his sling as the spider chased Nance around. The spider was at near death, but it's extra speed allowed it to get the odd attack in on Nance and took her down to single figure HPs. At that point Gleam decided to resort to using one of his wands and a freezing blast froze the spider in its tracks.
Russell now had the option of using either his bastard sword or Spider's Bane. One advantage of the latter is it allowed Gleam the luxury of not needing to target web spells so precisely.
Moving on to the mine, the mages with Drasus were both blinded before Gleam tried to do the same with Genthore, but got too close to Drasus and initiated the fight. Genthore chased Gleam, but was stranded using invisibility, allowing Gleam to circle back and blind Drasus - who was already under heavy pressure from Russell anyway.
In the mine we avoided most combats on the way down to Davaeorn. Nance disarmed the traps before Gleam threw in 3 skull traps to take the mage to near death. Nance laid a couple of traps at his expected arrival point after teleporting, but Melf's Acid Arrow finished him off before he could even get there.
Most of the main fights in Baldur's Gate were done without any particular problems. By this time Gleam had improved invisibility available to render mages even more vulnerable than they would be normally against a party equipped with True Seeing and throwable traps. One mage did create a slight concern when Nance failed to finish Vay-ya off with a backstab, while Russell and Gleam were occupied with Desreta. That resulted in Nance getting confused, just before she finished off the mage, but Russell arrived nearby in time to spare any innocents being targeted.
Doing the poison quest, Gleam annoyed Jalantha with a blind to allow Russell to attack her. Out from under their mistress' eagle eye, the acolytes in Umberlee's temple just wandered round chanting gently under their breath while their leader was being cut down.
The last bit of real action saw an assault on the Iron Throne. Gleam threw in a few webs before blinding Alai to prevent his ring of free action playing a part in the combat. Skull traps and missiles pretty well finished off the opposition before the webs evaporated.
Sorcerer - L8, 444 HPs, 159 kills
Bounty Hunter - L9, 59 HPs, 115 kills, 0 deaths
Inquisitor - L7, 86 HPs, 253 kills, 0 deaths
Imaginome (male gnome illusionist, Gate70); Stan (male dwarf wizard slayer, Grond0)
Our second run through the temple of Cyric manages to complete without our games crashing -Ziatar getting stunned, Akanna being separated from her aerial servants and the neothelid failing to worry Stan.
=
We were trying to help the Dwarves of Dumathoin when Dynaheir was level drained without a cleric to restore her, and not enough gold to pay Mizhena to do it. We therefore sold a couple of long swords +1 which was sufficient for the job.
[I had been considering throwing in the towel until I realised that I will shortly have Jaheira who I think has restoration spells. The difficulties in this game have been highly educational!! Some mistakes won't be repeated. Pucity of NPCs in SoD can be solved by starting with a party in BG1, a party of 3 should be sufficient. soD seems designed for an evil party. A cleric, a mage and a sorcerer are evil and a thief is neutral. Next game I will have a good cleric and thief with perhaps a cavalier as well. I'm considering adding a berserker and an inquisitor to that, though having such a large party would be a bit unwieldy.]
We know that Coldearth is a lich and have been given an item to defeat him. There are still numerous enemies to defeat however before taking him on. They are however mortal. No they're not, but they ARE defeatable!
[I will have to investigate NPC mods for SoD, but I want to defeat SoD without mods first]
Anastasia, always one to take the easiest, sneakiest route, used stealth to get inside the Bridgefort and set about preparing its surrender, using her intimidating presence to solve the problem of the negative-plane-poisonous-boulder-thing, crafting its remains into a nasty longsword and Moretherene's scales into some armor, which she promptly sold. Figuring now was time to liquidates her assets for "cash in hand" she sold here collection of loot to bring her cash hoard to 73,000GP.
WIth her cash she went shopping with Thirrim, buying 6x heroism, 6x Regeneration, 1x Cloudgiant, 2x fire giant, 20x invisibility, 5x absorption, 2x clarity, 1x agility, 1x fortitude and 1x fire breath, dropping her cash back down to 57k - then surrendered the fort, grabbing Olneiros's gear as she did.
Prepping with fire giant and clarity in case things whent bad and she had to use durlag's goblet, plus blur and duhm, she disrupted the bridge-mage with the victor + stealthing behind the gates and lured the other into the flaming fists before fists and the fractal blade won the day. She looted the camp, especially for Dorn's equipment then crossed the bridge, receiving a vision off her father's death at the hands of Cyric. Vowing to Shar that she would claim his power for herself she made the long journey to the coalition camp.
Selling more loot for another 9K, she bought cloverleaf and the bracers of the shuttered lid from Nazramu and headband of focus from Waizhab, intending to exploit a minor offhand-thac0 bug for what little fighting she had to do. She finished off her shopping with 5 potions of heroism, 2 of power, 1 of mirrored eyes and 10 of invisibility from belegarm and another 30 invisibility potions from Waizhab. bags groaning she trained some recruits, solved the malden col quest and did some other inconsequential things before stealthing to Dragonspear Castle.
She talked her way in, acquiring the Seal of Caelar and picked up the ring of the crusade, corinth's bow to sell, and the potion reward from shackling the troll. She also saved Skie for good measure. Then to Bloodbark Grove for the miscellaneous loot and cure for the sick soldiers, picking up martyrs morning star for more gold.
Then to the underground river, She skipped everything above-ground, presenting the seal to gain entry. Once underground she made a bee-line for getting the cloak of the gargoyle, feeling a lot more secure once she was immune to critical hits - the loss of 25%MR wasn't all that big a deal since it was far too risky to rely on that for protection, the loss of 1 to both saves and ac hits harder - fortunately she could swap on the fly. She bought another 10 heroism, 4 fire resistance, 1 cloud giant, 2 clarity and 1 power potion from bellowgulp and the concocter, charging her two remaining one gift lost necklaces as well.
Umber hulks accidentally made it into the crusader camp and she wisely drank a invisibility potion rather than chancing the saves and claimed the cloak. She went to kill Ferrusk, making a mistake outside the circle getting hit with a save vs death effect which fortunately she passed - that would have been the sorry end. The Ferrusk battle itself almost led to disaster as it took 5 attacks to kill him, meaning his swarm were summoned and throwing web tangles, but she passed two saves as a well, vowing to drink a potion of invulnerability next time this was a risk. She made off with his gear, including the ankheg amulet.
Feeling particularly foolhardy she killed her second lich, Zahdroth, making sure to use the secret revealed before the spectacles to (almost) guarantee safety, then after as well to dispel protections, before commencing buffed punching from the south to make sure it didn't trigger the mages south of there - only... it didn't go as planned, as she had forgotten that she needed either wis or int above a certain level to even attack it... haha. instead she freed the lich, collected the ring reward, and drank invisibility, running away in shame, avoiding the endless watcher.
Noticing she was making too many mistakes and had passed 3 save or die effects in the past 10 minutes (and freed a lich) she returned to the relative safety of the crusaders in the southeast and decided to call it quits before something fatal occurred.
I am currently trying to complete without mods. After that I'll start modding. In current game I am playing a fighter/thief so it is good clerics that I am short of.
I have now killed Coldearth and finished the menhir quest.
NOW I've got a restoration scroll!
Just about to approach the bridge.
@alice_ashpool I know exactly what you mean, a screenshot just before activating the last menhir.
Now THAT is what I call cutting it fine!
I wouldn't normally have used the wand on a mere spider, but needs must.
Wasted a Wand of the Heavens charge as well, but hey-ho, we're alive.
I've noticed a distinct shortage of decent axes in the vanilla game so if I want M'Khiin in the party, I'll have to avoid putting proficiency points in axes.
[In my old set-up there were a number of strong axes so the above will not be relevant once I start modding.]
EDIT
I have picked up Jaheira and I DO have a restoration scroll.
Things are looking a bit brighter.
However it wasn't too bright for M'Khiim a short while later.
W"ith Jaheira in the party, at least his death was short-lived, less than a day, then another sleep before he was fully recuperated.
Restoration is cleric only. Jaheira doesn't have it in her spellbook.
On the other hand - are scrolls of (lesser) restoration available in SoD? Because in BG2, they're considerably cheaper than the temple service of restoration. And anyone can use them.
Now finally, in the final stretch to Belhifet she can indulge her potion habit to the utmost.
@jmerry yes Sod has scrolls of restoration and raise dead which can be cast by any Druid, Ranger, Cleric or Sharman with enough intelligence i.e, not Boo ... this is why I make sure to grab the 10 raise dead scrolls before leaving the gate mate
I been having a good look around for extra party members and even managed some flirt but the good folk are unhappy about having a goblin share 'their' camp so I executed it for moral
to be honest we don't need a pally necklace so I should have skipped it but the practice is sort of the reason I go here
the bridgeport fight
I scouted the area to make sure my new companion hadn't bugged out and then realized my standard head on and let the defenders die wouldn't please someone in my party
new plan
Edwin opens the way and our entire party (hasted and invisible) make a V-line for the defenders area. Edwin because he can cast without breaking stealth and hasted because the crusader cleric is between us and where we need to be. This plan worked well (mostly) with only J getting killed because I accidentally walked her into my own web like a moron
@jmerry I forgot Monks mate
now of course there is some new big emergency that nobody but me could possibly be sacrificed called on to handle... Guys its poker night so hold the fort here and I'll be back to clear out the exploding barrels for you in a day or two
Anastasia placed the barrel, poisoned the water and supplies then returned to the coalition camp, spamming invisibility potions to avoid everything.
After the parley she prepared for the first wave before triggering any dialogue:
2x Absorption
1x Cloud Giant Strength
3x Fire Resistance
6x Heroism
1x Invulnerability
1x Clarity
Then triggered the dialogues and drank a potion of power and DUHM for good measure.
Wave 1 – Trolls
Anastasia took the Dwarfs, opened with a One Gift Lost fireball then gained Aggro from the trolls, with fractal blade in her main hand. Cloak of the Gargoyle protected against crits, Legacy of the Masters instead of Shuttered Lid because blind enemies wander and cause wipes at this stage. Sidestep Slippers for the extra -1AC, and Durlag’s Goblet if required. General strategy was that she dropped fireballs on her head until the trolls were dead, swinging with fractal blade inbetween. Suffice to say it worked perfectly, and with the healing effect of the fireballs and -11AC (-31 vs crushing) Anastasia only dropped 30HP in the whole fight.
Wave 2 – Mages
Anastasia swapped back to cloak of Balduran and boots of speed then, choosing the wizard slayers, moved as far away as she could from anyone else then firebombed the site, killing both mages and the non-ranged wizard-slayers in the process, but avoiding having her buffs dispelled.
Wave 3 – Footsoldiers + Priests
Anastasia swapped back to cloak of the gargoyle then drank another potion of clarity and invulnerability (just in case) and potion of power + DUHM then used the same tactic as with the trolls, gathering aggro and dropping fireballs. This one was very touch and go since one of the enemies was feared, and Anastasia had to chase him around, praying that he didn’t run south. The final War-priests were hit through sanctuary with Wand of the Heavens.
(sorry, too nerve-wracking to remember to take screenshots)
Wave 4 – Final Fight
An additional Blur, potion of power and final DUHM (from headband of focus), then racing ahead to fire some pre-emptive fireballs into the fog of war then melee and fireballs to take out the casters and the others, with ranged support from the coalition forces. Amazing AC vs crushing meant that Grimgor was left ‘til last, flailing around ineffectually then punched to pieces.
All in all the whole 4 waves took 23 fireballs and a whole bunch of potions, but the only worry was the feared crusader on wave 3. It might have been good to have some pre-emptive summons or something here just in case, or perhaps the archers would have been better with my tanky-fireball approach. Didn’t even have to use Durlag’s Goblet once.
---
Onwards into Hell
Anastasia waited during the final assault for a few more potions of power to drop to replenish her stock then drank the usual strength + heroism (x3) + clarity + invulnerability + power and challenged Ashatiel. Frozen Fists flew but it was a harder fight than anticipated, perhaps some timing errors and Anastasia had to drink from Durlag’s once to replenish.
As soon as she was transported to the Hells she drank Clarity, Invulnerability and Invisibility, speeding to Thrix, only to get trapped by the first group of devils on the bridge and be forced to punch her way out while drinking potions. Instead of glitching the conversation to get the doors to open she pre-buffed with fire giant, 10x Regeneration and Power, punching out some devils with her 20HP/round regeneration, claiming tongue of acid +3, the other part of her Behlifet Strategy.
Before getting on the lift Anastasia did a little bit of prebuffing:
3x Protection from Cold
3x Protection from Lightning
3x Protection from Acid
3x protection from Fire
1x Protection from Poison
2x potion of Mind Focusing
1x Potion of Cloud Giant Strength
2x Potion of Absorption
5x Potion of Heroism
1x Potion of Invulnerability
1x Potion of Clarity
1x Potion of Power
She then activated the lift, drinking potions of heroism constantly (16 more on top of the earlier 5) while fighting the first two waves. Once she got to the last wave she left one of the Abishai’s alive and did some more buffing:
1x Potion of Clarity
11x Scrolls of Champions Strength
1x Potion of Storm Giant Strength
1x Potion of Power
All this gave a dual wield Acid tongue + Fractal blade offhand Thac0 of -25/-23. She killed the final Abishai and drank potions of regeneration and heroism until she reached the top, with a single goblet drink to overcome residual effects of potion of a power wearing off.
Caelar was recruited then left immobile in-party to die in about 15 seconds, Bel went down in just over a minute and Hephernaan lasted another 10 seconds. Three drinks from Durlag’s required.
Fight in progress screenshots:
---
And that, as they say, was that.
Looking forward, finally, to the uncapped power-level increase of the Dark Moon Monk.
Traveling with: Korgan, Mazzy, Sarevok, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
We made some good progress!
For one, we got out of the Underdark safely and took out Bodhi once and for all.
Also, we cleared out Suldanesslar. Ran into bit of a problem with Nizi, though. Despite Mazzy using invoke courage on the entire party, Jaheira somehow still ran in fear. She duly ran into claw range of Nizi and was duly chunked - RIP Jaheira. She probably didn't want to live anyways, as she resigned from from the Harper's recently - what with her dead husband, and me choosing Aerie for romance, her outlook wasn't that great. It does open a spot for Sarevok, I was wondering who I was going to kick out - now I know!
Melee/ranged wasn't working so we went to our fall back plan - lead Nizi to some traps! That worked...
Tree of Life Irenicus wasn't a fight at all as traps made Irenicus immediately give up.
Corethief XXX did the good routes in Hell. We had an epic final fight, but ran into the "unkillable" Irenicus bug. At the end he didn't fight back - somehow he failed to give his I can't believe I lost speech. Was forced to reload the fight - which I won without the bug this time.
Illsaera died to traps. We recruited Sarevok and Pocket Plane Challenge #1 will be our next task...
This is my favorite dungeon, decided to do this no rest - SCS does not seem to put the rest limit on for solo, so you can rest as much as you like, but where's the fun in that?
Little update on Anastasia the Monk, level 10: Ungeared Monk AC at level 10 is 0, -1 with single weapon style (does not apply to fists). Fist thac0 is 7 (str 19), and HP is a "pathetic" cleric's 92. Saves are 5/9/8/11/8 without any gear - I'm worried about that 11 breath with all the mephits. She is immune to Disease and Slow, but not yet to poison, and has her nice monk speed increese even though she no longer has boots of speed.
Started the game with 556,000XP due to carry-over from SoD - not as much as I thought but then I had been avoiding many fights. needed 675,000 for Level 11. Booted Imoen and punched the jailkeep golem (+1 fists!). Killed the mephit to the north then ignored the lightning machine for now, killing the three groups of duergar which would not summon Illych, mostly using stealth hit and run to avoid taking too much damage. Activated the sewer golem and used 1 of 2 DUHMs to kill the two Lesser Clay Golems, taking considerable damage which was healed with 2x Cure Light Wounds and the potions of Extra Healing.
The Duergar are not dangerous with the speed factor of the monk's fists, their superior movement speed and stealth. Except for the crossbow ones - missile adjustment is -3, but they are always worth taking out first since unlike the melee only ones, they can shoot at you instead of chasing you ineffectually, so will get crits and hits. A monk can get in 2 attacks on the duergar before they can strike back (or swap from ranged to melee) - which is often enough to chunk them, and the -4 thac0 from attacking from stealth, combined with the bonus for hitting a ranged weapon holder in melee, mean lots of dead duergar.
Collected Longtooth +2 which the game decided to give me due to 1 point in daggers. It'll do. Killed the sewer-thing with hit and run. Monk is immune to disease and slow but not poison until level 11 so I had no desire for risk. Got into Irenicus's room and collected Claw of Kazgaroth and Air statuette. Ouch with the traps though - there's a lot of unavoidable damage in this dungeon. Fought the Duergar here too with stealth.
Agreed to help the Nymphs, then collected the portal key, equalizer gem and bracers to sell with more horrible trap damage (39 from the spear trap, 12 + 1 from the poison trap, 12 from the magic missile trap).
Traveled through the portal and eventually managed to trap 3 of 4 mephits closing the door and separating them from their portal. I hate these things. With few health potions left she just destroyed the portals. Taking a calculated risk the salt mephit was saved against with the Claw of kazagoth (8 vs breath, the stun doesn't last that long... which are famous last words perhaps), the duergar killed (unfortunate crit from one of them), and another unavoidable trap (steam for 23 damage). Hadn't collected any wand-keys so just walked round the outside of the wand room for RoP +1.
Killed the Duergar in the forge room, luring and melee-kiting brought out all but the mage, the talky one and a regular ranged one, which was ideal. All punched except one who fled into the cloudkill trap. Mage 1-shotted from stealth. Girlde of Bluntness collected, along with some health pots and return to Dungeon Level 1. Did the mephits in the jar room and the Duergar around and in the Library, replenishing health pots from the shelves. Illych and a couple of Duergar moved into the library and were taken down, followed by the mage (who remained n the original room) from stealth - collecting 20x throwing daggers. Hit and run on the cambion which left the most dangerous part, the Mephit group in the Plane of Air. Fortunately Anastasia had some luck luring with throwing daggers and some lucky stealth rolls too and the group could be taken down in two parts. She still lost >20HP in the process though. With that and some cross-map trekking the djinn was freed and the acorns reported.
Anastasia then farmed the mephits from the lightning machine with DUHM before turning it off, which still only got her to 652,930XP, well shy of level 11.
Finally she went back to level 2 and the doppleganger room, using her Blur for and extra -1 to saves she opened the chests, then used all 3 frozen fists, the residual blur and stealth on the doppleganger, picked up some final loot, then popped back to get metaspell amulet with new elixirs of heath then stealthed out of the dungeon.
Overall Anastasia skipped the ogre mage summon (scs ogre mages), assassins at the exit (backstabs), the Clone (magic), the vampire (vampires) and farming the mephit portals (too risky). Killed everything else. She picked up what she thought were the most valuable items. A fun added challenge.
In game time: 16 Hours
Total XP: 655930 (enough to get level 11 after the cutscene)
Inventory and Time:
(can't remember if that protection scroll is legit or cursed... took it anyway. Also monk gets nothing rom those bracers of defense but can wear them freeing up inventory space for... something.)
Having killed a dragon, we are now in a temple. I sadly wasted a number of protection scrolls when fighting the dragon. However trying to conquer the temple while tired is a recipe for disaster, so left that until the next day. That turned out to be wise as it was hard enough whilst alert.
EDIT
The temple has been conquered despite near disaster, temporary deaths of party members, having abilities temporarily reduced and more besides.
We have now entered the crusader camp and freed Dorn. He is now with the Coalition Army. We then helped as much as we could at Bridgeport. In the process we all got level drained and as we were short of gold we recruited Glint in order to get our levels back on the cheap.
We are just about ready to attempt the relief of Bridgeport.
Just beginnning to get the hang of how to use the shaman.
I have not yet worked out the best stategy for the temple but nevertheless came out of it victorious. One more cave to enter before leaving the area.
Emmerging from Irenicus Dungeon, Anastasia obtained Level 11 and the highly desired Mirror Image innate ability and poison immunity. She donated five time to the temple of illmater, bringing rep to 14, stashed some bits and bobs in Cernd's House, bought a gem bag and moved on to the Slums, 210,000XP from level 12.
Brus was used to bypass Corvale fight for now, and the bar-side entrance used to enter the Copper Coronet and rest up. Blur, Mirror Image, Frozen Fist x2 and DUHM to kill Amalas. Unfortunately he did not drop a potion of invulnerability so plan B was in action.
Raised the hundred or so additional gold needed to have enough for the ID glasses and returned to Galen Bayle to buy them, killing Corvale and Bregg on the way. Sold everything and then completed the rest of the Sewers + Liilacor (except Myconid room), freed Hendak (Avoided spawning the 2x mages by stealth-attacking the guard who challenges you, missing out on XP for safety, and blinding the beastmaster before fighting in the doorway) killed Llynis for the bear and an invisi potion, bought a scroll case from Bernard, and moved to the Bridge District with 12,792GP and 90,000XP to go.
Solved the tanner murders without going down into the basement and spawned the Neera cutscene. Then visited Mrs Cragmoon for Plan B, some Potions of Stone Form with their Life-saving -3 to saves, which will put Anastasia at a Save vs Spell of 1, with an option of blur for a further -1 to saves. Bought 3, then left to the temple district, getting Neera's 2nd cutscene.
Started the Sir Sarles Quest and had a quick nap in the sewers. Now, the next transition "should" be the suna sei one, so Anastasia prepped with Blur, Mirror Image, Frozen Fist and DuHM, waited 6 seconds then left for the Government District. Only It wasn't.
So Anastasia instead freed Virconia, rescued Jan from the law, did the next part of the Sir Sarles quest and open up Umar. She snuck in an open air rest then prepped again for the Suna Sei ambush, setting off for Waukeen's Promenade.
This time it triggered. She immediately drank potion of stone form and killed the most dangerous one, the cleric. Low saves vs spell neutralises the mage entirely so she was left until last. Cleric, Suna Sei, Thief, Archer, Eldarin, Mage, and then the prize was her's: Arbane's Sword +2. She can't make use of the haste, but the hold-immunity is the main draw, that and it looks cool. She gathered the rest of the loot and, realising she had almost hit Level 12 made a detour to the Graveyard.
Risa, Wellyn and the man in the grave brought Level 12, fists +2, thac0 of 4 and 3 attacks per round. Things were looking up. Noticing she had two invisibility potions Anastasia took a calculated risk and stealthed in to Pai'Na, stealing the loun stone and invisi-potioning out. With its thac0 -1 and HP +10% its the poor monks Helm of Balduran and I think it will see use long into the future.
Not forgetting to prep before leaving the Graveyard went for Waukeen's Promenade again, getting the Renfeld Ambush. Same as before, drank a potion of stone form. Mage, Cleric, Fighter, Thief, then taking the body to the docks, selling some loot also.
With both important ambushes out of the way, Anastasia then decided to leave the city, unlocking trademeet and then going first to watchers keep for the potion case, then to Umar where she did the Mimic quest using Arbane's hold immunity, the chicken gem, Maduff and the Ranger's Cabin, meaning Illbratha's extra Mirror Image. Everything surplus was sold and she returned to Ankatha to complete the Sir Sarles Quest.
Needing just a few thousand more XP to reach level 13 she killed the sewer-thing, some shadows and ettercaps in the Unseeing-eye Sewers, gaining another -1 thac0, -1 to all saves, and of course, Quivering Palm.
225,000XP to go until Level 14 and an instant 42%MR. 26,000GP in the bank and Reputation 16.
You can actually take the stone without breaking stealth at all if you're careful - stand on top of the container and pick it up from the inventory. This works for many other containers as well, but it's particularly easy for floor containers that don't block pathing like this.
In which we become powerful as all hell with almost zero risk
Anastasia returned to the slums where she bought Sword of Flame +1 and went through the sewers to clear out the rest of the Slavers. With Blur, 2 mirror images, her AC + AC bonus against missile, DUHM and stealth she is practically invulnerable in these fights now. She took out the Priest of Cyric then tanked away against the others, followed by the two trolls, one of which succumbed to quivering palm the other to fists + Sword of Flame. Prepping for the two mages she used her last stone form potion then the usual buffs, and attacked from stealth, killing one then dragging the rest back towards the first room. Easy Peasy. The poison trap on the way out? - Monk's poison immunity. Report back to Hendak and reputation 18 achieved.
Anastasia sold her loot and bought The Scarlet brotherhood Ninjato, now we really are gaining power. This grants 5 (5!) attacks if its in the offhand and fists on the main hand, which for much of the time is totally worth it even though Anastasia takes a huge -4/-8 penalty. Plus its +3 which is important for hitting certain things. She buys two protection from Undead scrolls from the priest of Illmater and off we go to the Umar Temple, running away from a generic ambush in the process.
Activating the mirror does not break stealth while the shadows are destroyed, then inside, the usual innate buffs are enough to punch through the shadows and skeleton warriors, free Mazzy and secure the first pieces of the symbol + gem. Got lucky with a dropped Laerel's Tear necklace too.
Next up, the "challenging bit". Anastasia rested up by the outside crystal then fought the shadows + shade wolves on the bridge. Unfortunately this did not lure the first Lich's guardians so she had to read her 1st scroll of PfU and play chicken.
SCS lichs will know you are there and cast remove magic on self, and AOE effect stuff centered on themselves or their minions. If you are not careful they will dispel your PfU! Also bone golems are constructs not undead so they will still attack you.
The lich cast Horrid Wilting a couple of times, some remove magics and a comet on the skeleton warriors around it, meanwhile the Bone Golems from the second lich found Anastasia and she had to beat them to dust. At this point Ana thought she was free to kill the Lich so did so with the Ninjato +3 at 3APR, followed by all the assorted undead around it. Greater Mummies also require a 3+ weapon so it was slow hacking. Everything else succumbed quickly to 5APR. The second lich went the way of the first, though due to combat-protections expiring while PfU is still up, Anastasia had to go toe-to-toe with a bone golem, taking significant damage. Otherwise the rest of the undead were casually punched and/or sliced.
"Legit Playstyle:"
Anastasia read her second PfU scroll and farmed SCS's infinity spawning shadows from the Shadow Altar for a few minutes (only 420XP per shadow, quite tedious) before destroying the altar and the Shade Lord, gaining Level 15 in the process. She returned to the Umar Hills for her reward.
Anastasia then returned to Waukeen's Promenade, stashed the shadowdragon wardstone, arla's dragonsbane and the cloak of the stars, selling everything else and plotting her next move.
180,000XP to level 16, Reputation 19 and 27,488GP
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At level 15 Anastasia has: Fists +3, thac0 -1 (str 19 and pale green Ioun stone) with 3.5APR or 3 mainhand 7 offhand with 5APR with Scarlet Ninjato offhand. Also MR 45% and very good saves. Damage per punch/kick at 19str is 1d20 +3 +7. Max damage at 5APR without DUHM or frozen fists is currently 4d20 + 40 + 1d8 + 10 if all attacks connect. Ninjato poison an extra.
DUHM is of note at level 15 since it will raise str by 5 points to 24, which gives thac0 of 0/4 which means all 5 attacks will be connecting almost every time, except against special foes. DUHM and 2 frozen fists will do another 41 damage per round with 5 hits.
In short the monk is an absolute solo monster.
So now a nasty group of half-orcs have left Candlekeep and have arrived at the FAI where they for some obscure reason they have returned Joia's ring.
Journal of Skarig and his war host such as it is.
Having bought a katana, we didn't have enough gold to buy bows, but we found a short bow near Gorion's body which I will probably use a lot to keep myself out of harm's way.
We tried and failed to help Mellicamp, took a tome to Firebead, and after killing some ogrillon and some officious Flaming Fist we now have deent armour.
[Dorn has got Rancor]