So Corethief XXX and gang (Korgan, Mazzy, Sarevok, Imoen, and Aerie) just beat Gromnir. In a change of tactics from usual, I tried out a slow/skull trap/fireball sequencer for Aerie - her sequencer killed the mages instantly! It made the Gromnir fight much easier. No wonder why people say arcane is so powerful. I don't use this spell much even though I know it's powerful. Partly because my groups are often all melee, but also sometimes I would use it but just don't have the gold needed to buy these overpriced spells. Nevertheless, with spells like this, It's easier to see how a solo fighter/mage can make good progress, even in ToB.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 11 - Cleaning Up
Anastasia bought a potion of fire protection and the ring of air-control and set off into Kalah's tent. She prepped with potion of fire protection, Blur, Mirror Image, DUHM and Improved Invisibility and got a lucky Quivering palm, killing him in one hit. This got her to reputation 20 and she sold all her loot and bought the sensate amulet for protection from evil (-2AC vs evil), cha 21 and +5HP and some restoration scrolls.
In the bridge district she completed the man-in-a-grave quest, and bought more potions from Mrs Cragmoon, and Talos Gift from the Temple of Lathander for the 50%LR and then left for Trademeet.
Cernd was sent ahead to the grove and the Djinn were avoided. She arrived at the grove at night and used stealth to pick her battles (no spirit trolls!), killing the first batch of spiders, the earth elemental + ettercap and troll, the Shambing Mounds and the bears, then bought up some potion stock from Adratha (10 stone form, 5 regeneration, 5 invisibility and 2 heroism)
Stone form, blur, mirror image, DUHM, Improved invisibility then quivering palm to kill Dalok + 2 druids and get Burning Earth +1, her upgraded troll-slayer. She drank another stone form (-3 save bonus stacks) for sub-zero saves in everything and cleared out the spore colonies around Cernd and on the bridge, as well as the trolls by the tower and collected Belm. with her saves, MI and DUHM none of this proved to be difficult. Finally Cernd killed Faldorn and Anastasia returned to Trademeet.
That brought level 16, and another save reduction. Saves with current gear are 5/3/2/5/2 and MR is 48%. Also finally got to put a pip in Long Swords.
Rasaad was recruited for the momentary trip to the City Gates, unlocking the ruined ampitheater then booted. No combat.
She killed Geld, the Dire Wolves, the Bears, the Moose, talked into the Monks, then prepped for the adventurer party. Fire resistance, heroism, stone form + the usual. Collected all the loot including the 3x mirror image ring, killed the monks by splitting them up via kiting back to the entrance and then moved on the the hidden temple. The gauntlets of Aln Zekk were the main prize, but the Gem of Seeing is good too, until Detect Illusion comes into its own. She collected what she could and left for the Athkatla Docks.
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Scarlet Ninjato's +1 attack is going to be obsolete with fists soon (4APR fists) so I am wondering about offhand weapons. it's Still super nice as is with its poison effect, but I'm thinking maybe blackrazor for ToB. it's weather there is anything interesting intermediate between the two. I suppose Celestial Fury is the obvious with its stun (It'll be level 20 before Anastasia can put a pip in Katanas though - I messed up and put one in slings at some point...)
Final Offhand Candidates: Blackrazor, Celestial Fury, Hindo's Doom (maybe too much effort for +10%MR?), Angurvadal (level drain immunity), maybe something I've missed.
Corethief XXX the halfling thief Update 7 - BG 2 EE, no mods, core rules
Traveling with:Dorn, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok (both chunked by fire giants)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
Giants give me a lot of trouble - and this run is no exception, as two more characters have been chunked. I think the fire giants chunk more characters than any other enemy, aside from dragons maybe. RIP Korgan and Sarevok!
Only tanks left? Keldorn and Dorn! I hope they are up to the challenge...
Haer'Dalis uses short swords, but so does Mazzy. There aren't enough high end short swords to go around - would need 4 +4 short swords don't have that many. He might use long swords but Corethief XXX uses long swords and not many high end long swords either. Haer'Dalis is not a good fit.
Priests of Helm can be (lawful) evil. They might not approve of Dorn's demonic pact or appetite for indiscriminate destruction, but they can certainly work with him.
Just a gimmicky little aside while I rest Anastasia for a while before attempting the SCS De'Arnise Keep
Matilde the Half-orc Lawful Good Kensai
I wanted to see how kensai compared to monks since neither can wear armor or helms. None of the utility of the monk, but 5 extra HP/level, half-orc strength and kai. I never would have put the monk against doom guards edit: battle horrors (whoops) or Greywolf, but Matilde here has only a little problem with them, helped by some healing potions.
I took her to level 7 and reputation 20 doing the usual stuff - whats left outside BG is the Mulahey -> Bandits -> Davaeorn part, and thinking of some way to get the Constitution tome without a wipe. I think I might just bite the bullet and have her buy the sandthief ring. Will need it for Davaeorn anyway.
self portrait (w/o cloak):
This might be a little too similar to the monk so maybe I will try a specialist mage run - transmuter on core perhaps.
Do you think that would be impossible? If so, I could wait until I have the Deities of Faerûn mod that allows Eyes of Gruumsh installed and revert back to my initial plan of running a Lawful Good Cleric of Helm. (Clerics of Gruumsh have true sight like Clerics of Helm)
I wouldn't have thought that having a Lawful Evil Cleric of Helm was right, but it seems that it is. I was going to make my Blackguard lawful evil too [Magic of Shadowkeeper] but discovered that Rancor doesn't work if I do that. I have added an orcish illusionist/thief as well. [Made a thief and used Shadowkeeper to make her an illusionist/thief] I was surprised that I was able to make her look like a mage. Since there are a lot of orcish mages around on the web, I don't think that is a problem as mods allow you to do that.
This was my proposed starting line-up.
I was surprised that if I create a neutral evil Dorn that has sufficient stats, that Rancor actually works correctly for him and that the Dorn that is supposed to appear in the FAI and south of Nashkel doesn't. So perhaps I should just leave Dorn out of the starting line-up and recruit him as per normal.
That is what I have decided to do as the scripts will work better.
I was thinking that with the smaller party that buying a katana was out of the question, forgetting that with a thief, a stone worth 1000gp was available. The party has therefore left Candlekeep with no gold, but well equipped.
I and my close friend the berserker both have a charisma of 18 so we should together be able to keep the rest of the party in line. My cleric may be a bit morer law abiding than I am, but what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. I'll therefore ensure that he doesn't see us commit crimes just like I did in Candlekeep .
He isn't aware of the gems, gold, and potion that I stole.
Corethief XXX the halfling thief Update 8 - BG 2 EE, no mods, core rules
Traveling with: Viconia, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
We are still working through Yaga's Temple. But the chunkings continue! We needed to sell, and on the way we are ambushed by fire giants. We try to heal Dorn with a RoR heal, but it doesn't get to him in time and he is chunked!
His replacement is Viconia - the LAST character left who can wear full plate. I may have to go to Haer'Dalis at this rate! We are on the 2nd 1/2 of Yaga's Temple, hopefully we can stay intact...
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 12 - Trollgibber
Now in the docks, Anastasisa flogged everything she didn't need and joined the Shadow Thieves, with a degree of irony since she was planning on joining the vampires later. She did the various tasks for Mae'var, the only difficult one being the mage. Here she rested inbetween floors. The mephits can target improved invisible enemies, which is ok, I guess because they are attacks not spells. No matter, a potion of fire resistance + buffs sees Anastasia through. Golems punched while buffed and Rayic chunked before he could do anything (Air control ring is very nice). She completed the other parts and prepared to eliminate Mae'var.
Moments before gibbing, with the minor globe of invulnerability belt in action:
Ana gets level 17 at this point. HLAs are starting to feel within sight.
Thieves have pretty awful thac0 so the main danger here is backstabs, which mirror images should take care of. Prep was the usual except with girdle of piercing and she also fired off gem of seeing for 1 turn true sight for the initial wave.
For Mae'var himself, a potion of stoneform (just in case), Improved invisibility and then quivering palm which was nice enough to proc. Nothing quite like it. gem of seeing for cleaning up the assassins. With stone form's sub-zero saves Xzar's apprentices chunked and that questline finished up without further combat. Welcome to Level 18 and 4APR with fists alone.
Then, ever seeking more experience, Anastasia traveled to the D'Arnise keep to go troll hunting. I haven't done the calculations with SCS trolls as to weather fists + burning earth offhand is better than burning earth + scarlet ninjato offhand. Anastasia swapped between them as whim took her. Really it didn't matter as every troll she found was turned to troll salsa in 1 round/troll and the spirit trolls barely made 2 rounds. The Spirit Trolls seem to insist on casting unholy blight which, being (lawful) evil Anastasia is immune to. Save of 1 vs spell with blur also rendered her immune to pretty much everything else.
She didn't manage to charm Glaicus with the ring of human influence, his death instead got her level 19 and something she had very eagerly been waiting for, a 2 point reduction in every save. Saves with gear are now 3/1/0/1/0 and MR@57%. It doesn't do to get complacent though, Greater Malison and things with penalties to saves like Chaos are still a big threat, as are no save effects (power-words) and things that bypass MR (dispels).
Anastasia finished off by killing the golems one by one, only... the clay golem managed to curse her - preventing healing so she had to schlep back to a temple to get that fixed. Returning, she lured the umber hulks with the dog-meat then killed them and forged the flail of ages, to be offloaded at her local merchant, and claimed the ring of earth control (-1AC, stacks with Cloak of protection +1), to be added to her collection of magical rings. Deciding that discretion trumps foolhardiness she left Tor'gal's room and its high level Yuan-ti mages securely closed and left, returning to Athkatla.
80,000XP to Level 20 and immunity to non-magical weapons. That's going to be fun!
Corethief XXX the halfling thief Update 9 - BG 2 EE, no mods, core rules
Traveling with: Viconia, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
I am pleased to report we made it through Yaga's Temple without any more chunkings! This new party is doing quite well, we made it fairly easily through the Oasis. It took a lot of rests, but we cleanly made it through Sendai's lair as well as beating Sendai herself. I often get at least one chunking against Sendai, but a planetar kept the drow fry busy while we destroyed Sendai - Keldorn was particularly vicious to her with his true sights and dispels.
We then did the pocket plane #3 - easy victory, we had a lot of summons trap the Slayer and it had no chance, while Corethief XXX just ran away. We then battled Draconis - while Viconia and Keldorn died, Draconis eventually stumbled into our traps and died.
At this point I ran into a serious bug: While Keldorn was showing alive, his character could not be found any
where. Also his figurine is missing in his inventory screen - how do I fix this? I can't go anywhere because I need to bring my party together.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 13 - To Cheese a Lich
Anastasia Returned to waukeen's promenade and bought 3x PfU and a potion of frost giant strength, then to the slums for the Sling of Everand (15,750GP... ouch), then to the temple district for 6 more PfU, and a few more restoration scrolls. I think anyone can see where this is going.
She negotiated access with the Unseeing Eye cultists, read scroll number one and punched out the Lich before it could do anything. She then ran to the Bridge district where she did the same, but paranoid she used a second scroll and her brand new sling instead of risking a remove magic. Golden Parts secured she left for the Docks, via the temple of Helm in the Bridge district for more PfU scrolls.
Another restoration scroll to deal with another level drain trap, then Kangaxx part 1: Potion of Frost Giant, Potion of Heroism, PfU, stand in corner and sling. Easy. Cheap. Then onto Kangaxx part 2.
Anastasia only has 2APR with the sling, and big K has 90% damage resistance. So Ana needs to consistently do waht I think is over 10 damage per hit (not so sure how damage resistance rounds figures) to do an actual 4 to Kangaxx per round, which, considering his 2hp/round regeneration, means 2hp/round damage. She can't do melee because he will just start summoning fallen planetars and dropping dragons breaths and ADHW on himself - slinging away it was to be.
How it went down: DuHM as he arrives then sling away, wishing she had archers eyes. When he got down to badly injured his morale broke, but fortunately he did not stat running around all that much and Anastasia carried on slinging - until he started running around that was. Disaster - every round without damage is another extra 2 rounds total to kill, and no haste makes chasing him round a nightmare.
Fortunately Burning Earth +1 is +4 against undead, including the demilich form, and while he is morale broken he will not summon or attack. So some benny hill style running and he was killed (4APR burning earth with Scarlet Ninjato offhand, which cannot hit him, so 3APR really - each hit with burning earth did 4 damage after resistance). Timer was 7:07 since PfU read.
Not proud of this, but it is done with minimal risk, and the idea of dark planetar's vorpal weapons, other level 10 spells and imprisonment is not my kinda risk on a no-reload! And now the RIng of Gaxx is Anastasia's, as is level 20.
That means immunity to normal weapons, a pip in katanas, 70%MR with Ring of Gaxx, and its -2 save bonus, -2AC and HP regen too. Hooray. Been thinking about it and Sword of Balduran might be a good offhand with its +10%MR.
Corethief XXX the halfling thief Update 10 - BG 2 EE, no mods, core rules
Traveling with: Cernd, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants), Viconia (chunked by Balthsazar)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
A friend helped me fix my issue with Keldorn, I am back in action, thanks Gate70! Well I am pleased to say we were able to defeat Abazigal without any chunkings.
We were unable to do the same against Balthsazar - Viconia gets chunked! Balthsazar nearly killed the entire party, but fortunately Corethief XXX prepared for this and led Balthsazar to some pre-laid traps.
Only Ravager and Melissan left! Getting near the end!
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 14 - Cleaning up (2)
figured out if I changed the renderer it would allow me to take screenshots in fullscreen mode!
Anastasia, flush with her new ring went to buy the Sword of Balduran she had been eyeing up. it glows green and now she has 80%MR - It'll do, but for now she has a date with some Trolls and some Rakshasa - She travelled back to the Druid Grove.
Trolls, including spirit trolls casually hacked with flaming sword - turns out they do have magic claws since one hit Ana. Looking forward to finding what things surprisingly hit as non-magical. At this point, with her AC, things are seriously struggling to hit her, and she rarely has to refresh Mirror Image, of which she can use 5. Mirror Image is good pseudo-crit protection with high AC, since crits often just bounce of the images. It's unfortunate that as far as I know there is no way for the monk to increase luck in BG2 which would mean Ana was never hit through MI.
Not as risky as it looks:
For Ihtafeer Anastasia had a few things in the bag - poison immunity, the broach of vagrant blades, detect illusion, 80%MR, quivering palm, sub-zero saves and invisibility + improved invisibility. She is a bona-fide mage-slayer at this point. They threw a lot of chromatic orbs which had no chance of doing anything, and cloudkills which Ana is immune to. The one thing she was not prepared for was ice-storms, but she moved out of them as it only has a 4-round duration.
Anastasia Magebane:
I've found that the mid-level spellcasters I have encountered do not react well to Anastasia, and some will refuse to cast anything since they seem to "sense" that she has a save vs spell below what they can deal with and they just stand there - not even switching to melee (not that it would help). Others like the Rakshasa spam chromatic orb *shrug* For most of them there is nothing they can actually do.
Anyway, back to trademeet for our reward, some selling of items, purchasing of the belt of internal barrier and finishing up the tanner quest + dueling families for Level 21.
Then it was to watcher's keep - I am extremely wary of this - the level 1 guardians have timestop casting mages and HLA using fighters. But I figured clear out everything else and save the rest until after the underdark, if only because Anastasia is running out of inventory space to store stuff.
She found her first proper win for immunity to normal weapons - vampire wraiths - who'd have known, but these things can't do diddly against her except cast larloch's minor drain, for which she is awarded 9k xp a piece.
I started getting quite ansy because this place is filled with traps and the idea of losing to a save or die, or some maze trap I didn't know about would probably the worst possible way to go.
She took a very cautious approach to the first four statues, since the fighters still use HLAs - running away from a critical strike seems the best thing to do, but in the end there was not much they could do against her. She sold foebane then left, not wanting to risk death. I will have to decide which HLA to go with, since 22 is the first post 3mil level for the monk. We made it!
Statue time.
She stashed the wardstone and golem manual then had a think about what to do next.
Corethief XXX the halfling thief FINAL UPDATE!- BG 2 EE, no mods, core rules
Traveling with: Cernd, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants), Viconia (chunked by Balthsazar)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
Corethief XXX and party made it past Ravager but it was a hard fight as usual.
Melissan 1st fight was hard, but we got through it. The first pool battle wasn't too bad.
However, the 2nd battle with the Slayer Shadows was deadly. Traps got Melissan down to badly wounded but our team just couldn't finish her off. RIP Corethief XXX.
NEXT UP: Working on solo fighter/mage. We'll see how it goes.
In the catacombs, the tomes were retrieved without trouble. Russell was initially minded to pass the strength tome on to Nance to help her backstabs, but, on being reminded she was a halfling with strength of just 17, grabbed it before it could be wasted on Gleam.
Prat's gang were quickly destroyed by webs, traps and area damage.
However, there was a nasty moment while clearing out some nearby spiders. Russell waded into them wielding Spiders' Bane while the others sniped from outside the web trap. When the phase spider teleported over to Gleam, he ran to get a bit of space before attempting to kill it with a sling shot - just as it teleported back to Russell. Though aware of that possibility, Gleam was too slow to prevent auto-targeting putting him into the web and got stuck. Meanwhile the spider was being mean - arriving at Russell's side, only to immediately teleport back to Gleam. That meant it could auto-hit the helpless Gleam (who, despite knowing stoneskin, as usual didn't have it active). With only a second or two to act, Nance targeted the near dead spider with her bow - and got stuck in the web as well as she tried to edge round a corner to get a clear shot. That left everything to Russell. He briefly flirted with the idea of shooting as well, but had no other protection against the web than his sword. The wraith spider had drained his strength so he dropped a bit of inventory to get rid of encumbrance before lurching a few steps over to the spider. Fortunately he hit and killed it with his initial blow, but Gleam still had to save once against what would have been a fatal poisoning.
Back in the City, Nance used a couple of special traps before backstabbing Slythe. That only took him to near death though and he retaliated vigorously - forcing the others to get involved to finish him off.
At the palace, Gleam used a wand to bring out summons for the first time and added in an area haste for good measure. That meant the dopplegangers were going to die quickly. However, all of them targeted the dukes and they were in a pretty feisty mood, which made the fight closer than expected - taking both dukes to near death in the little time they had.
The maze was detrapped by Nance and the Undercity party went the same way as Prat's gang. Russell used a PfU scroll to deal with a group of skeleton warriors near there, which got everyone to the XP cap and allowed Nance to take her final BGEE level.
Inside the old temple, Russell sneaked up on Sarevok and successfully hit him with a dispelling arrow. However, he'd got just too close in the process. That meant that not only did Semaj teleport out - to immediately die in traps - but Angelo and Tazok followed. Angelo was immediately targeted before he could start using exploding arrows, but the others were too much for Russell in melee and he withdrew. Nance took over the duty, running them around inside a series of webs while safe from their effect himself thanks to a potion of magic shielding. Tazok was the first to go, but it took Sarevok a surprisingly long time to get stuck. When he finally did so though, it was the work of but a moment for acid arrows and MMMs to drive down his HPs and allow Nance to collect the glory with a backstab.
There was sufficient time left in the session to make a meaningful start in BG2EE. The dungeon proved no problem and Nance got a level at the end of that. The circus provided only a brief distraction with Russell seeing right through some illusionary werewolves. He and Nance were just able to finish off a pair of shadows before MMMs led to Kalah's collapse.
Nance's higher level allowed her to demonstrate the holding power of her improved special traps on Cohrvale and Bregg.
The Copper Coronet was put under new management before the session ended with a dive into the sewers below that. There were more traps on show there, but those were not much good against mustard jellies. The first of those put up a decent struggle, with Russell being hampered by Otyugh disease and Nance by jelly slowness. That led to Gleam taking over tanking duties for the second jelly - his dagger making no impression, but stoneskins providing him with protection while the others did the hard work.
The rest of the sewers were cleared, allowing Russell to grab Lilarcor and Captain Haegan will be first on the list next time.
Our grand plans for world domination started off OK as we used invisibility 10' to find and free Skie - Stan risking all in a web as Imaginome figured his wizard slayer would save just fine.
Almost immediately after this Imaginome made a poor decision, finding an acorn in his backpack and reckoning we should return to plant it in an underground tree. A group of myconid followed our invisibility and when Stan attacked Imaginome joined in - and got immediately confused.
A Crusader joined in the fight but we were victorious and no horde of crusaders descended onto us. So we went to plant the acorn, and Imaginome got himself blocked in and then foolishly tried to cast invisibility instead of gulping one of his 8 invisibility potions. He was duly interrupted and not given time for his aura to clear before he died.
Nobody knows what happened to Stan the Wizard Slayer, he may have gone on to derring deeds himself or he could be propping up a bar near you.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 15 - Mind Flayer Slayer
Anastasia took deathblow as her first HLA, collected the dryads acorns, purchased the rod of resurrection and traveled to the windspear hills. None of the paladin-monsters were susceptible to deathblow, but they were to being punched. She delivered the acorns and entered Firkraag's lair.
The enemies here are a funny mix of utter trash and really tough. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins etc clutter up between ancient and elder vampires, juggernaut, clay and stone golems- a strange mix. Of note is that she accidentally chunked the Ruhk Transmuter with cold damage, destroying the ring of fire protection. Not a big loss but still annoying!
Insult to injury it turns out that she couln't smash open the side doors in the orc ambush (with str25) to get to them, so in a fit of irritation she went back to Ribald to buy a stack of throwing daggers and deathblowed them away.
With no negative plane protection, Anastasia wisely used a scroll of protection from undead against the collection of Elder and Ancient Vampires. Gaining Level 23 and taking Greater Deathblow. We made a mistake here though, resting thinking all the vampires were dead, only to find that one ancient vampire had been hanging around invisible - Anastasia was level drained but otherwise managed to kill it.
Anastasia then skipped Semia's tomb for now, and the mob of golems on the air elemental bridge resulted in another cursed wound, cue a trip to trademeet to get cured.
For the adamantine golem it was a matter of fists, deathblows for the wolfweres, greater deathblow for the greater air elemental and casual mode on Tazok for the sewer key and level 24, taking Power Attack. Geared MR is now 92% and saves before buffs are 1/-1/-2/-4/-2 (Breath 1 if an AC belt being worn rather than internal barrier)
Improved invisibility and power attack took care of Conster - poor mages and a save penalty of 4 vs death. Firkraag left until later and back to Athkatla - temple sewers.
Greater deathblow took care of most of Tarnor the Hatchetman's party - 4 of them were level 12 or lower. Sold their gear and bought 3 mind focusing from Roger to go with the ones she already had.
The idea here is that sub zero saves across the board protect against nasty spells, low AC and Mirror Image prevent hits, Buffed int provides a brain buffer and Greater Deathblow for clearing out, that just leaves the really tough stuff to be 1v1 punching.
Opened Door and hit stealth, entered room and Greater Deathblowed the only Mindflayer, followed by Umberhulk and everything else. Only the Cleric and Mage didn't fall to the greater Deathblow. The Cleric was stunned with horn of blasting, killed and then Ana waited out the mage's fireshield (blue) under stealth then used frozen fists.
Room 2
Equipped Girdle of Bluntness. Buffed with 2x Potion of Mind Focusing, Invulnerability Potion, Blur, MI, DuHM, Improved Invisibility.
Opened door and hit stealth - turns out the Ulitharids can see through it apparently. Greater Deathblowed the Mind Flayers and the Umber Hulk then kited the Ulitharids. managed to get 1 with power attack and was drained to Int 7 - realised hadn't swapped back to Ring of Gaxx, doh. Ran away and waited for int to recover then killed the last one. Made it to level 25 and took whirlwind attack.
broken screenshot unfortunately... I'm blaming "paint" but I'm putting it up anyway:
Room 3 - Final Room
Rested, Buffed with 1x mind focusing, 1x genius, Scroll of Protection from Undead, Heroism, Invulnerability, Blur, MI, DuHM, Improved Invisibility. Potion of Mind Focusing has a 12 hour duration which means the previous 2 are still up after a single rest giving 24int.
AC -15, -19 vs Crushing
Greater Deathblow again against the Mind Flayers and Umber Hunks. Power attack and then whirlwind on the Ulitharids which managed to stun one and then chunk the second shortly after. Int drained only one tick, to 19.
There's nothing the Alhoon can do due to PfU, but interestingly it seems to be immune to quivering palm - maybe because it is an undead lich mind flayer thing (difficult to find info on enemies immune to slay). Anastasia collected the main prize, the Wand of Wonder plus a whole bunch of nice potions, and then shoved the hammer of thunderbolts in the bag to sell.
edit: Reading this through again I realised what I had forgotten, a potion of absorption for that extra protection.
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Keeping track of Deathblow, Greater Deathblow and Monk's Immunity Normal Weapons:
Things that died to Deathblow:
Ankhegs
Clay Golems
Greater Wraith
Wolfweres
Things that died to Greater Deathblow:
Greater Wolfweres
Greater Air Elemental
Mind Flayers
Umber Hulks
Various Mind Flayer Thralls
Dangerous things that cannot hit Anastasia:
Vampiric Mist
Vampire Wraith
Rakshasa melee (? - they drop an unenchanted sword and refuse to attack in melee)
Coremage V the solo half-elf fighter/mage - Update 1
So am entering the no-reload challenge with this character:
He is doing very well, no close calls. But am also playing very careful, as well as maximizing his strengths. The key items have been fireball wands, especially the scorcher aspects of them, as well as the greenstone amulet. He has a lot of ways to deal with problems: melee, ranged, wands, web/fireballs, etc. He often never gets hit and though not buying healing potions have a ton of them. Drassus was defeated with stinking cloud/web and fireballs and ranged fire. Will keep at it! Maybe this one can go far, here's hoping...
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 16 - Anastasia in the Eye of the Beholder
Anastasia quickly finished the fallen paladin quest, selling up for 66,387GP. Now, onwards to kill some beholders, monk style. As she is now level 25 she now has +4 fists, her final upgrade. Her movement speed is already pretty ridiculous without boots of speed, to the point where I'm not sure they are going to be necessary.
She descended to the old temple beneath the temple sewers for the rift device, and had her first encouter with Beholders and Gauths. The shadows got her level 26 and now 98%MR and saves of 1 or lower lead to this:
Occasionally they still hit with a "cause serious wounds" which gives no save. But apart from that they do nothing. And heres the kicker - they are susceptible to deathblow, not greater deathblow but plain ol' regular deathblow. I checked and yeah, SCS is still turned up to max, and SCS + Ascension are the only mods have installed.
rip beholders:
Anastasia's MR is now at max innate of 78%, 98% with current gear and on the way to 100%. She avoided the Lich in the pit for now, and killed all the beholders in the beholder nest with deathblow and greater deathblow, making level 27. We claimed the rift device, but lets hang on to it for now.
When they say mages make the best tanks:
The amulet of 5% Magical Resistance gets us to >100%MR, and essential mage immunity. I need to do a bit of research to find out what can bypass MR, since there are going to be some things.
Anastasia hung onto the rift device, but not having any real use for it, nor desire to go to the effort of smuggling it out she fired it off against Gael, a sort of revenge for making her go down in that gross beholder pit.
With her MR she returned to kill the lich, kiting around its Glabrezu summon until it went back to wherever it came from. And finally returned the expended Rift Device. And there we have it, Level 28. I think it's time for Anastasia to think about rescuing Imoen.
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Keeping track of Deathblow, Greater Deathblow and Monk's Immunity Normal Weapons:
Things that died to Deathblow:
Ankhegs
Clay Golems
Greater Wraith
Wolfweres
Gauths
Beholders (...yeah!)
Otyugh
Blind Priests
Things that died to Greater Deathblow:
Greater Wolfweres
Greater Air Elemental
Mind Flayers
Umber Hulks
Various Mind Flayer Thralls
The fallen paladins
Dangerous things that cannot hit Anastasia:
Vampiric Mist
Vampire Wraith
Rakshasa melee (? - they drop an unenchanted sword and refuse to attack in melee)
Wandering Horror
Mummies
We did a quick hunting trip for spider legs and dragon scales then returned to sort the bridge issue out. my precise placement of fireballs is a point of pride so I am disgusted with myself for this ending
Coremage V the solo half-elf fighter/mage - Update 2
Since Coremage V was at his level cap, he skipped quite a few fights with invisibility. Coremage V fought the mountain maulers and did well as you can see.
Duchal palace was managed with some summons, slow and emotion and a few potion buffs. Skipped the maze. Time to face his half-brother!
The key was greater malison and 2 webs - then ranged power (magic missiles and arrows) was enough to beat Sarevok.
Coremage V the solo half-elf fighter/mage - microupdate
Well the run continues. Got some things done such as freeing Hendak, doing the Lilacor quest for a useless sword, freeing slaves in a moored ship, lots of ambushes, returning Remfeld, defeating the genies in Trademeet, and finally solved the problem in the druid grove.
However, the druid grove was nearly my death - twice. A phase spider managed to poison me but I had no antidotes - doh! I gulped a crazy amount of heal potions and nearly bit it right there (I did try to slow poison twice but of course the poison was too fast acting and interrupted me). Also, despite being heavily buffed, the large trolls in the troll mound also nearly did me in as well. My potion stocks depleted massively from these two encounters.
Also got hit with horror in ambush - only the fact the sole enemy by that point didn't have a ranged weapon kept me alive. Gotta avoid these close ones...
Really annoyed with myself. My half-orc party were doing so well. We had defeated Davaeorn. Our temporary party member Edwin was chunked by Hareishan's lightning bolt, but that didn't worry me as I was considering switching to Baeloth anyway.
In Baeloth's area, we attempted sleep and were attacked by a horde of bandits. Cast web followed by fireball. Job done, or so I thought. I got caught in the web and then Black Talon Elite arrived from behind. Their powerful arrows finished me off.
This is my first evil party that have got this far. Usually I give up before getting this far through losing interest.
It is also the first time that I have played a shaman. If my PC had been the Berserker the game wouldn't have been over as he would have been tougher and also wouldn't have been held.
Now going to the opposite extreme. Instead of an evil party, I am running a previously rolled Inquisitor. My favourites are Inquisitors and Clerics of Helm.
I am certainly more comfortable playing a good guy.
His name Jerubbaal, means "Let Baal contend," very apt for one who is trying to remove every trace of power from him.
Felt a bit cheap, leveling up so much before attacking the shadow thieves, but what you gonna do. Anastasia is now safely in Brynnlaw, preparing to kill Perth for his book of spells and readying herself for the SCS "lose all items in spellhold" component.
Comments
Anastasia bought a potion of fire protection and the ring of air-control and set off into Kalah's tent. She prepped with potion of fire protection, Blur, Mirror Image, DUHM and Improved Invisibility and got a lucky Quivering palm, killing him in one hit. This got her to reputation 20 and she sold all her loot and bought the sensate amulet for protection from evil (-2AC vs evil), cha 21 and +5HP and some restoration scrolls.
In the bridge district she completed the man-in-a-grave quest, and bought more potions from Mrs Cragmoon, and Talos Gift from the Temple of Lathander for the 50%LR and then left for Trademeet.
Cernd was sent ahead to the grove and the Djinn were avoided. She arrived at the grove at night and used stealth to pick her battles (no spirit trolls!), killing the first batch of spiders, the earth elemental + ettercap and troll, the Shambing Mounds and the bears, then bought up some potion stock from Adratha (10 stone form, 5 regeneration, 5 invisibility and 2 heroism)
Stone form, blur, mirror image, DUHM, Improved invisibility then quivering palm to kill Dalok + 2 druids and get Burning Earth +1, her upgraded troll-slayer. She drank another stone form (-3 save bonus stacks) for sub-zero saves in everything and cleared out the spore colonies around Cernd and on the bridge, as well as the trolls by the tower and collected Belm. with her saves, MI and DUHM none of this proved to be difficult. Finally Cernd killed Faldorn and Anastasia returned to Trademeet.
That brought level 16, and another save reduction. Saves with current gear are 5/3/2/5/2 and MR is 48%. Also finally got to put a pip in Long Swords.
Rasaad was recruited for the momentary trip to the City Gates, unlocking the ruined ampitheater then booted. No combat.
She killed Geld, the Dire Wolves, the Bears, the Moose, talked into the Monks, then prepped for the adventurer party. Fire resistance, heroism, stone form + the usual. Collected all the loot including the 3x mirror image ring, killed the monks by splitting them up via kiting back to the entrance and then moved on the the hidden temple. The gauntlets of Aln Zekk were the main prize, but the Gem of Seeing is good too, until Detect Illusion comes into its own. She collected what she could and left for the Athkatla Docks.
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Scarlet Ninjato's +1 attack is going to be obsolete with fists soon (4APR fists) so I am wondering about offhand weapons. it's Still super nice as is with its poison effect, but I'm thinking maybe blackrazor for ToB. it's weather there is anything interesting intermediate between the two. I suppose Celestial Fury is the obvious with its stun (It'll be level 20 before Anastasia can put a pip in Katanas though - I messed up and put one in slings at some point...)
Final Offhand Candidates: Blackrazor, Celestial Fury, Hindo's Doom (maybe too much effort for +10%MR?), Angurvadal (level drain immunity), maybe something I've missed.
Traveling with:Dorn, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok (both chunked by fire giants)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
Giants give me a lot of trouble - and this run is no exception, as two more characters have been chunked. I think the fire giants chunk more characters than any other enemy, aside from dragons maybe. RIP Korgan and Sarevok!
Only tanks left? Keldorn and Dorn! I hope they are up to the challenge...
Interior of Yaga's temple is next! Yikes!
Priests of Helm can be (lawful) evil. They might not approve of Dorn's demonic pact or appetite for indiscriminate destruction, but they can certainly work with him.
Matilde the Half-orc Lawful Good Kensai
I wanted to see how kensai compared to monks since neither can wear armor or helms. None of the utility of the monk, but 5 extra HP/level, half-orc strength and kai. I never would have put the monk against doom guards edit: battle horrors (whoops) or Greywolf, but Matilde here has only a little problem with them, helped by some healing potions.
I took her to level 7 and reputation 20 doing the usual stuff - whats left outside BG is the Mulahey -> Bandits -> Davaeorn part, and thinking of some way to get the Constitution tome without a wipe. I think I might just bite the bullet and have her buy the sandthief ring. Will need it for Davaeorn anyway.
This might be a little too similar to the monk so maybe I will try a specialist mage run - transmuter on core perhaps.
An EVIL priest of Helm!!!
Do you think that would be impossible? If so, I could wait until I have the Deities of Faerûn mod that allows Eyes of Gruumsh installed and revert back to my initial plan of running a Lawful Good Cleric of Helm. (Clerics of Gruumsh have true sight like Clerics of Helm)
I wouldn't have thought that having a Lawful Evil Cleric of Helm was right, but it seems that it is. I was going to make my Blackguard lawful evil too [Magic of Shadowkeeper] but discovered that Rancor doesn't work if I do that. I have added an orcish illusionist/thief as well. [Made a thief and used Shadowkeeper to make her an illusionist/thief] I was surprised that I was able to make her look like a mage. Since there are a lot of orcish mages around on the web, I don't think that is a problem as mods allow you to do that.
This was my proposed starting line-up.
I was surprised that if I create a neutral evil Dorn that has sufficient stats, that Rancor actually works correctly for him and that the Dorn that is supposed to appear in the FAI and south of Nashkel doesn't. So perhaps I should just leave Dorn out of the starting line-up and recruit him as per normal.
That is what I have decided to do as the scripts will work better.
I was thinking that with the smaller party that buying a katana was out of the question, forgetting that with a thief, a stone worth 1000gp was available. The party has therefore left Candlekeep with no gold, but well equipped.
I and my close friend the berserker both have a charisma of 18 so we should together be able to keep the rest of the party in line. My cleric may be a bit morer law abiding than I am, but what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. I'll therefore ensure that he doesn't see us commit crimes just like I did in Candlekeep
He isn't aware of the gems, gold, and potion that I stole.
Traveling with: Viconia, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
We are still working through Yaga's Temple. But the chunkings continue! We needed to sell, and on the way we are ambushed by fire giants. We try to heal Dorn with a RoR heal, but it doesn't get to him in time and he is chunked!
His replacement is Viconia - the LAST character left who can wear full plate. I may have to go to Haer'Dalis at this rate! We are on the 2nd 1/2 of Yaga's Temple, hopefully we can stay intact...
Now in the docks, Anastasisa flogged everything she didn't need and joined the Shadow Thieves, with a degree of irony since she was planning on joining the vampires later. She did the various tasks for Mae'var, the only difficult one being the mage. Here she rested inbetween floors. The mephits can target improved invisible enemies, which is ok, I guess because they are attacks not spells. No matter, a potion of fire resistance + buffs sees Anastasia through. Golems punched while buffed and Rayic chunked before he could do anything (Air control ring is very nice). She completed the other parts and prepared to eliminate Mae'var.
Moments before gibbing, with the minor globe of invulnerability belt in action:
Ana gets level 17 at this point. HLAs are starting to feel within sight.
Thieves have pretty awful thac0 so the main danger here is backstabs, which mirror images should take care of. Prep was the usual except with girdle of piercing and she also fired off gem of seeing for 1 turn true sight for the initial wave.
For Mae'var himself, a potion of stoneform (just in case), Improved invisibility and then quivering palm which was nice enough to proc. Nothing quite like it. gem of seeing for cleaning up the assassins. With stone form's sub-zero saves Xzar's apprentices chunked and that questline finished up without further combat. Welcome to Level 18 and 4APR with fists alone.
Then, ever seeking more experience, Anastasia traveled to the D'Arnise keep to go troll hunting. I haven't done the calculations with SCS trolls as to weather fists + burning earth offhand is better than burning earth + scarlet ninjato offhand. Anastasia swapped between them as whim took her. Really it didn't matter as every troll she found was turned to troll salsa in 1 round/troll and the spirit trolls barely made 2 rounds. The Spirit Trolls seem to insist on casting unholy blight which, being (lawful) evil Anastasia is immune to. Save of 1 vs spell with blur also rendered her immune to pretty much everything else.
She didn't manage to charm Glaicus with the ring of human influence, his death instead got her level 19 and something she had very eagerly been waiting for, a 2 point reduction in every save. Saves with gear are now 3/1/0/1/0 and MR@57%. It doesn't do to get complacent though, Greater Malison and things with penalties to saves like Chaos are still a big threat, as are no save effects (power-words) and things that bypass MR (dispels).
Anastasia finished off by killing the golems one by one, only... the clay golem managed to curse her - preventing healing so she had to schlep back to a temple to get that fixed. Returning, she lured the umber hulks with the dog-meat then killed them and forged the flail of ages, to be offloaded at her local merchant, and claimed the ring of earth control (-1AC, stacks with Cloak of protection +1), to be added to her collection of magical rings. Deciding that discretion trumps foolhardiness she left Tor'gal's room and its high level Yuan-ti mages securely closed and left, returning to Athkatla.
80,000XP to Level 20 and immunity to non-magical weapons. That's going to be fun!
Traveling with: Viconia, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
I am pleased to report we made it through Yaga's Temple without any more chunkings! This new party is doing quite well, we made it fairly easily through the Oasis. It took a lot of rests, but we cleanly made it through Sendai's lair as well as beating Sendai herself. I often get at least one chunking against Sendai, but a planetar kept the drow fry busy while we destroyed Sendai - Keldorn was particularly vicious to her with his true sights and dispels.
We then did the pocket plane #3 - easy victory, we had a lot of summons trap the Slayer and it had no chance, while Corethief XXX just ran away. We then battled Draconis - while Viconia and Keldorn died, Draconis eventually stumbled into our traps and died.
At this point I ran into a serious bug: While Keldorn was showing alive, his character could not be found any
where. Also his figurine is missing in his inventory screen - how do I fix this? I can't go anywhere because I need to bring my party together.
Anastasia Returned to waukeen's promenade and bought 3x PfU and a potion of frost giant strength, then to the slums for the Sling of Everand (15,750GP... ouch), then to the temple district for 6 more PfU, and a few more restoration scrolls. I think anyone can see where this is going.
She negotiated access with the Unseeing Eye cultists, read scroll number one and punched out the Lich before it could do anything. She then ran to the Bridge district where she did the same, but paranoid she used a second scroll and her brand new sling instead of risking a remove magic. Golden Parts secured she left for the Docks, via the temple of Helm in the Bridge district for more PfU scrolls.
Another restoration scroll to deal with another level drain trap, then Kangaxx part 1: Potion of Frost Giant, Potion of Heroism, PfU, stand in corner and sling. Easy. Cheap. Then onto Kangaxx part 2.
Anastasia only has 2APR with the sling, and big K has 90% damage resistance. So Ana needs to consistently do waht I think is over 10 damage per hit (not so sure how damage resistance rounds figures) to do an actual 4 to Kangaxx per round, which, considering his 2hp/round regeneration, means 2hp/round damage. She can't do melee because he will just start summoning fallen planetars and dropping dragons breaths and ADHW on himself - slinging away it was to be.
How it went down: DuHM as he arrives then sling away, wishing she had archers eyes. When he got down to badly injured his morale broke, but fortunately he did not stat running around all that much and Anastasia carried on slinging - until he started running around that was. Disaster - every round without damage is another extra 2 rounds total to kill, and no haste makes chasing him round a nightmare.
Fortunately Burning Earth +1 is +4 against undead, including the demilich form, and while he is morale broken he will not summon or attack. So some benny hill style running and he was killed (4APR burning earth with Scarlet Ninjato offhand, which cannot hit him, so 3APR really - each hit with burning earth did 4 damage after resistance). Timer was 7:07 since PfU read.
Not proud of this, but it is done with minimal risk, and the idea of dark planetar's vorpal weapons, other level 10 spells and imprisonment is not my kinda risk on a no-reload! And now the RIng of Gaxx is Anastasia's, as is level 20.
That means immunity to normal weapons, a pip in katanas, 70%MR with Ring of Gaxx, and its -2 save bonus, -2AC and HP regen too. Hooray. Been thinking about it and Sword of Balduran might be a good offhand with its +10%MR.
Traveling with: Cernd, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants), Viconia (chunked by Balthsazar)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
A friend helped me fix my issue with Keldorn, I am back in action, thanks Gate70! Well I am pleased to say we were able to defeat Abazigal without any chunkings.
We were unable to do the same against Balthsazar - Viconia gets chunked! Balthsazar nearly killed the entire party, but fortunately Corethief XXX prepared for this and led Balthsazar to some pre-laid traps.
Only Ravager and Melissan left! Getting near the end!
figured out if I changed the renderer it would allow me to take screenshots in fullscreen mode!
Anastasia, flush with her new ring went to buy the Sword of Balduran she had been eyeing up. it glows green and now she has 80%MR - It'll do, but for now she has a date with some Trolls and some Rakshasa - She travelled back to the Druid Grove.
Trolls, including spirit trolls casually hacked with flaming sword - turns out they do have magic claws since one hit Ana. Looking forward to finding what things surprisingly hit as non-magical. At this point, with her AC, things are seriously struggling to hit her, and she rarely has to refresh Mirror Image, of which she can use 5. Mirror Image is good pseudo-crit protection with high AC, since crits often just bounce of the images. It's unfortunate that as far as I know there is no way for the monk to increase luck in BG2 which would mean Ana was never hit through MI.
Not as risky as it looks:
For Ihtafeer Anastasia had a few things in the bag - poison immunity, the broach of vagrant blades, detect illusion, 80%MR, quivering palm, sub-zero saves and invisibility + improved invisibility. She is a bona-fide mage-slayer at this point. They threw a lot of chromatic orbs which had no chance of doing anything, and cloudkills which Ana is immune to. The one thing she was not prepared for was ice-storms, but she moved out of them as it only has a 4-round duration.
Anastasia Magebane:
I've found that the mid-level spellcasters I have encountered do not react well to Anastasia, and some will refuse to cast anything since they seem to "sense" that she has a save vs spell below what they can deal with and they just stand there - not even switching to melee (not that it would help). Others like the Rakshasa spam chromatic orb *shrug* For most of them there is nothing they can actually do.
Anyway, back to trademeet for our reward, some selling of items, purchasing of the belt of internal barrier and finishing up the tanner quest + dueling families for Level 21.
Then it was to watcher's keep - I am extremely wary of this - the level 1 guardians have timestop casting mages and HLA using fighters. But I figured clear out everything else and save the rest until after the underdark, if only because Anastasia is running out of inventory space to store stuff.
She found her first proper win for immunity to normal weapons - vampire wraiths - who'd have known, but these things can't do diddly against her except cast larloch's minor drain, for which she is awarded 9k xp a piece.
I started getting quite ansy because this place is filled with traps and the idea of losing to a save or die, or some maze trap I didn't know about would probably the worst possible way to go.
She took a very cautious approach to the first four statues, since the fighters still use HLAs - running away from a critical strike seems the best thing to do, but in the end there was not much they could do against her. She sold foebane then left, not wanting to risk death. I will have to decide which HLA to go with, since 22 is the first post 3mil level for the monk. We made it!
Statue time.
She stashed the wardstone and golem manual then had a think about what to do next.
Traveling with: Cernd, Mazzy, Keldorn, Iomen, Aerie
Chunked: Anomen (chunked by vampires), Minsc, Nalia (both killed by Firkraag), Jaheira (chunked by Nizi), Korgan, Sarevok, Dorn (all chunked by fire giants), Viconia (chunked by Balthsazar)
Permanently dead: Valygar (used his body to open planar sphere)
Corethief XXX and party made it past Ravager but it was a hard fight as usual.
Melissan 1st fight was hard, but we got through it. The first pool battle wasn't too bad.
However, the 2nd battle with the Slayer Shadows was deadly. Traps got Melissan down to badly wounded but our team just couldn't finish her off. RIP Corethief XXX.
NEXT UP: Working on solo fighter/mage. We'll see how it goes.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1163663/#Comment_1163663
In the catacombs, the tomes were retrieved without trouble. Russell was initially minded to pass the strength tome on to Nance to help her backstabs, but, on being reminded she was a halfling with strength of just 17, grabbed it before it could be wasted on Gleam.
Prat's gang were quickly destroyed by webs, traps and area damage.
Back in the City, Nance used a couple of special traps before backstabbing Slythe. That only took him to near death though and he retaliated vigorously - forcing the others to get involved to finish him off.
At the palace, Gleam used a wand to bring out summons for the first time and added in an area haste for good measure. That meant the dopplegangers were going to die quickly. However, all of them targeted the dukes and they were in a pretty feisty mood, which made the fight closer than expected - taking both dukes to near death in the little time they had.
The maze was detrapped by Nance and the Undercity party went the same way as Prat's gang. Russell used a PfU scroll to deal with a group of skeleton warriors near there, which got everyone to the XP cap and allowed Nance to take her final BGEE level.
Inside the old temple, Russell sneaked up on Sarevok and successfully hit him with a dispelling arrow. However, he'd got just too close in the process. That meant that not only did Semaj teleport out - to immediately die in traps - but Angelo and Tazok followed. Angelo was immediately targeted before he could start using exploding arrows, but the others were too much for Russell in melee and he withdrew. Nance took over the duty, running them around inside a series of webs while safe from their effect himself thanks to a potion of magic shielding. Tazok was the first to go, but it took Sarevok a surprisingly long time to get stuck. When he finally did so though, it was the work of but a moment for acid arrows and MMMs to drive down his HPs and allow Nance to collect the glory with a backstab.
There was sufficient time left in the session to make a meaningful start in BG2EE. The dungeon proved no problem and Nance got a level at the end of that. The circus provided only a brief distraction with Russell seeing right through some illusionary werewolves. He and Nance were just able to finish off a pair of shadows before MMMs led to Kalah's collapse.
Nance's higher level allowed her to demonstrate the holding power of her improved special traps on Cohrvale and Bregg.
The Copper Coronet was put under new management before the session ended with a dive into the sewers below that. There were more traps on show there, but those were not much good against mustard jellies. The first of those put up a decent struggle, with Russell being hampered by Otyugh disease and Nance by jelly slowness. That led to Gleam taking over tanking duties for the second jelly - his dagger making no impression, but stoneskins providing him with protection while the others did the hard work.
Sorcerer - L10, 56 HPs, 68 kills (+68 in BGEE)
Bounty Hunter - L11, 69 HPs, 38 kills (+122 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Inquisitor - L9, 114 HPs, 55 kills (+294 in BGEE), 0 deaths
Imaginome (male gnome illusionist, Gate70); Stan (male dwarf wizard slayer, Grond0)
Our grand plans for world domination started off OK as we used invisibility 10' to find and free Skie - Stan risking all in a web as Imaginome figured his wizard slayer would save just fine.
Anastasia took deathblow as her first HLA, collected the dryads acorns, purchased the rod of resurrection and traveled to the windspear hills. None of the paladin-monsters were susceptible to deathblow, but they were to being punched. She delivered the acorns and entered Firkraag's lair.
The enemies here are a funny mix of utter trash and really tough. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins etc clutter up between ancient and elder vampires, juggernaut, clay and stone golems- a strange mix. Of note is that she accidentally chunked the Ruhk Transmuter with cold damage, destroying the ring of fire protection. Not a big loss but still annoying!
Insult to injury it turns out that she couln't smash open the side doors in the orc ambush (with str25) to get to them, so in a fit of irritation she went back to Ribald to buy a stack of throwing daggers and deathblowed them away.
With no negative plane protection, Anastasia wisely used a scroll of protection from undead against the collection of Elder and Ancient Vampires. Gaining Level 23 and taking Greater Deathblow. We made a mistake here though, resting thinking all the vampires were dead, only to find that one ancient vampire had been hanging around invisible - Anastasia was level drained but otherwise managed to kill it.
Anastasia then skipped Semia's tomb for now, and the mob of golems on the air elemental bridge resulted in another cursed wound, cue a trip to trademeet to get cured.
For the adamantine golem it was a matter of fists, deathblows for the wolfweres, greater deathblow for the greater air elemental and casual mode on Tazok for the sewer key and level 24, taking Power Attack. Geared MR is now 92% and saves before buffs are 1/-1/-2/-4/-2 (Breath 1 if an AC belt being worn rather than internal barrier)
Improved invisibility and power attack took care of Conster - poor mages and a save penalty of 4 vs death. Firkraag left until later and back to Athkatla - temple sewers.
Greater deathblow took care of most of Tarnor the Hatchetman's party - 4 of them were level 12 or lower. Sold their gear and bought 3 mind focusing from Roger to go with the ones she already had.
The idea here is that sub zero saves across the board protect against nasty spells, low AC and Mirror Image prevent hits, Buffed int provides a brain buffer and Greater Deathblow for clearing out, that just leaves the really tough stuff to be 1v1 punching.
Room 1
Buffed with: Blur, MI, DuHM, Improved Invisibility.
Opened Door and hit stealth, entered room and Greater Deathblowed the only Mindflayer, followed by Umberhulk and everything else. Only the Cleric and Mage didn't fall to the greater Deathblow. The Cleric was stunned with horn of blasting, killed and then Ana waited out the mage's fireshield (blue) under stealth then used frozen fists.
Room 2
Equipped Girdle of Bluntness. Buffed with 2x Potion of Mind Focusing, Invulnerability Potion, Blur, MI, DuHM, Improved Invisibility.
Opened door and hit stealth - turns out the Ulitharids can see through it apparently. Greater Deathblowed the Mind Flayers and the Umber Hulk then kited the Ulitharids. managed to get 1 with power attack and was drained to Int 7 - realised hadn't swapped back to Ring of Gaxx, doh. Ran away and waited for int to recover then killed the last one. Made it to level 25 and took whirlwind attack.
broken screenshot unfortunately... I'm blaming "paint" but I'm putting it up anyway:
Room 3 - Final Room
Rested, Buffed with 1x mind focusing, 1x genius, Scroll of Protection from Undead, Heroism, Invulnerability, Blur, MI, DuHM, Improved Invisibility. Potion of Mind Focusing has a 12 hour duration which means the previous 2 are still up after a single rest giving 24int.
AC -15, -19 vs Crushing
Greater Deathblow again against the Mind Flayers and Umber Hunks. Power attack and then whirlwind on the Ulitharids which managed to stun one and then chunk the second shortly after. Int drained only one tick, to 19.
There's nothing the Alhoon can do due to PfU, but interestingly it seems to be immune to quivering palm - maybe because it is an undead lich mind flayer thing (difficult to find info on enemies immune to slay). Anastasia collected the main prize, the Wand of Wonder plus a whole bunch of nice potions, and then shoved the hammer of thunderbolts in the bag to sell.
edit: Reading this through again I realised what I had forgotten, a potion of absorption for that extra protection.
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Keeping track of Deathblow, Greater Deathblow and Monk's Immunity Normal Weapons:
Ankhegs
Clay Golems
Greater Wraith
Wolfweres
Things that died to Greater Deathblow:
Greater Wolfweres
Greater Air Elemental
Mind Flayers
Umber Hulks
Various Mind Flayer Thralls
Dangerous things that cannot hit Anastasia:
Vampiric Mist
Vampire Wraith
Rakshasa melee (? - they drop an unenchanted sword and refuse to attack in melee)
So am entering the no-reload challenge with this character:
He is doing very well, no close calls. But am also playing very careful, as well as maximizing his strengths. The key items have been fireball wands, especially the scorcher aspects of them, as well as the greenstone amulet. He has a lot of ways to deal with problems: melee, ranged, wands, web/fireballs, etc. He often never gets hit and though not buying healing potions have a ton of them. Drassus was defeated with stinking cloud/web and fireballs and ranged fire. Will keep at it! Maybe this one can go far, here's hoping...
Anastasia quickly finished the fallen paladin quest, selling up for 66,387GP. Now, onwards to kill some beholders, monk style. As she is now level 25 she now has +4 fists, her final upgrade. Her movement speed is already pretty ridiculous without boots of speed, to the point where I'm not sure they are going to be necessary.
She descended to the old temple beneath the temple sewers for the rift device, and had her first encouter with Beholders and Gauths. The shadows got her level 26 and now 98%MR and saves of 1 or lower lead to this:
Occasionally they still hit with a "cause serious wounds" which gives no save. But apart from that they do nothing. And heres the kicker - they are susceptible to deathblow, not greater deathblow but plain ol' regular deathblow. I checked and yeah, SCS is still turned up to max, and SCS + Ascension are the only mods have installed.
rip beholders:
Anastasia's MR is now at max innate of 78%, 98% with current gear and on the way to 100%. She avoided the Lich in the pit for now, and killed all the beholders in the beholder nest with deathblow and greater deathblow, making level 27. We claimed the rift device, but lets hang on to it for now.
When they say mages make the best tanks:
The amulet of 5% Magical Resistance gets us to >100%MR, and essential mage immunity. I need to do a bit of research to find out what can bypass MR, since there are going to be some things.
Anastasia hung onto the rift device, but not having any real use for it, nor desire to go to the effort of smuggling it out she fired it off against Gael, a sort of revenge for making her go down in that gross beholder pit.
With her MR she returned to kill the lich, kiting around its Glabrezu summon until it went back to wherever it came from. And finally returned the expended Rift Device. And there we have it, Level 28. I think it's time for Anastasia to think about rescuing Imoen.
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Keeping track of Deathblow, Greater Deathblow and Monk's Immunity Normal Weapons:
Ankhegs
Clay Golems
Greater Wraith
Wolfweres
Gauths
Beholders (...yeah!)
Otyugh
Blind Priests
Things that died to Greater Deathblow:
Greater Wolfweres
Greater Air Elemental
Mind Flayers
Umber Hulks
Various Mind Flayer Thralls
The fallen paladins
Dangerous things that cannot hit Anastasia:
Vampiric Mist
Vampire Wraith
Rakshasa melee (? - they drop an unenchanted sword and refuse to attack in melee)
Wandering Horror
Mummies
We did a quick hunting trip for spider legs and dragon scales then returned to sort the bridge issue out. my precise placement of fireballs is a point of pride so I am disgusted with myself for this ending
Since Coremage V was at his level cap, he skipped quite a few fights with invisibility. Coremage V fought the mountain maulers and did well as you can see.
Duchal palace was managed with some summons, slow and emotion and a few potion buffs. Skipped the maze. Time to face his half-brother!
The key was greater malison and 2 webs - then ranged power (magic missiles and arrows) was enough to beat Sarevok.
On to Amn!
Well the run continues. Got some things done such as freeing Hendak, doing the Lilacor quest for a useless sword, freeing slaves in a moored ship, lots of ambushes, returning Remfeld, defeating the genies in Trademeet, and finally solved the problem in the druid grove.
However, the druid grove was nearly my death - twice. A phase spider managed to poison me but I had no antidotes - doh! I gulped a crazy amount of heal potions and nearly bit it right there (I did try to slow poison twice but of course the poison was too fast acting and interrupted me). Also, despite being heavily buffed, the large trolls in the troll mound also nearly did me in as well. My potion stocks depleted massively from these two encounters.
Also got hit with horror in ambush - only the fact the sole enemy by that point didn't have a ranged weapon kept me alive. Gotta avoid these close ones...
Nevertheless, am still kicking. Will keep at it.
In Baeloth's area, we attempted sleep and were attacked by a horde of bandits. Cast web followed by fireball. Job done, or so I thought. I got caught in the web and then Black Talon Elite arrived from behind. Their powerful arrows finished me off.
This is my first evil party that have got this far. Usually I give up before getting this far through losing interest.
It is also the first time that I have played a shaman. If my PC had been the Berserker the game wouldn't have been over as he would have been tougher and also wouldn't have been held.
Now going to the opposite extreme. Instead of an evil party, I am running a previously rolled Inquisitor. My favourites are Inquisitors and Clerics of Helm.
I am certainly more comfortable playing a good guy.
His name Jerubbaal, means "Let Baal contend," very apt for one who is trying to remove every trace of power from him.
Felt a bit cheap, leveling up so much before attacking the shadow thieves, but what you gonna do. Anastasia is now safely in Brynnlaw, preparing to kill Perth for his book of spells and readying herself for the SCS "lose all items in spellhold" component.