Continuing the game on page 416 (Last post March 10th). Haller will have to wait for a while in the SoD Prologue. I wish that I had realised that it was a good idea to have gold down there. Perhaps I can accumulate some gold down there to buy potions before returning to the surface. Haller had a reputation of 7 upon defeating Sarevok.
In contrast Jerubbaal has a reputation of 20 and has just exchanged Glint for Safana. Safana's morals obviously leave a lot to be desired, though she was quite useful beneath the temple. Glint's skill with stealth is not good so he will have to rely on Dynaheir's Improved Invisibility spells. He is however quite good with locks and traps, but not great.
We went into the forest to meet Telaria and saw somebody who had been petrified. Upon releasing him Telaria got angry and started making threats in a looped conversation. By killing her we broke the loop. Clearly a bug! In prior games we talked to her before using the green scroll and this bug did not arise.
We headed east, talked to Skie and killed a vampire. We were well rewarded.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 25 - Saradush and Gromnir
Ascension Illasera could do nothing against Anastasia's -37AC vs Missiles. I know right.
Anastasia did the first pocket plane challenge - immunity to +1 weapons made this an auto-attack party, then on to Saradush where she killed the Il'khan soldiers. Anastasia then did some major inventory clearing, gutting her bag of holding of all sorts of useless yet valuable trash and cleared out everything of use from the merchants. I had forgotten quite how bleak ToB is - there is no optimism here. Did the side quests, including the kidnapped son one.
She also removed the Claw of Kazagoth - big turning point. With >100%MR the +4 penalty vs death outweighs the -3 bonus to the others imo, especially with lots of enemies starting to use HLAs like power attack. This will allow swapping things like fire resist ring and lightning resist cloak around for specific resistances. Saves are -4/0/-1/-3/-1, which with the >100%MR I believe is enough. We will see, there's always potions of invulnerability which are everywhere. I'm not sure but I believe Planetar vorpal hits are at -4 like an SCS balor? So Ana's saves should make her immune.
Regular specing is now boots of frost, ring of fire control and belt of internal barrier giving 70%FR, 70%CR, 20%LR, 100%PR, 103%MR, and 50% magical damage resist un-dispellable before scrolls/potions. With the monk's speed boots of speed are only required for special circumstances. A bit of gear swapping trades a 50%FR reduction for 120%LR with no loss of AC or saves.
Next Anastasia went vampire hunting. Compared to Bhodi's lair these are easy.
One thing I have noticed is that getting level drained even 1 level absolutely kills Ana's saves. Looking at the save tables the last save reduction was at level 18, but perhaps there is some hidden save drain effect that takes place during level drain? Something to watch out for since 1/5/4/7/4 is a death sentence with all these HLAs flying around. It is almost like it removes all the save modifiers as well when getting level drained (nothing in parentheses after the saves) see here:
I have no idea if this is intended game behavior or not or something to do with SCS. Anyway, back to get restored then down to Gromnir's dungeon - a lot of the fighters here only have +1 weapons, and the thieves have bad thac0 when compared to Ana's -16AC (-19AC with Blur) so with Mirror Image there is little challenge. Deathblow and Greater Deathblow are useful for rapidly clearing out the conjurer mage's near endless summons.
Gromnir - 2nd of the Five + 1
Floor 1: the usual tanking and hacking away, lots of summons from the mage. Looking at the dropped weapons there was only 1 that Ana was not immune to.
Floor 2: The big man himself. Key things here were, I thought: kiting, fire resistance, cold resistance and a source of non-crushing damage for Gromnir (Blackrazor and firetooth ranged) + the obvious MR.
Prebuffed with Mirror Image and Blur only since I was not sure if the mages would just dispel immediately, then took down Eler Had with crit strike in 1 round while waiting for the mages to do their thing and the Medusa + Minotaur war-priest to show up.
Mage got off a timestop, but since Anas was far over to the right they wasted it. Anastasia then kited and got in single blows against the priest and the medusa, trying to get everyone to use up their HLAs. I didn't like the look of those flesh to stones from the medusa so took her down asap with crit strike and went back to kiting.
I swapped boots - i know, mid combat boot swapping - for boots of speed when Grom put out whirlwinds. Like this she is faster than him, even hasted + whirlwinded. She can even let off her own WW for quicksilver tier speed. Next she took out Ramazith and the remaining generic soldiers and the Minotaur down to morale break. Leaving Gromnir and the red-haired one.
Put the boots of cold back on, hit hardiness, and drank a potion of cold resistance for 120%CR. Hit crit strike and went to town on the red haired one - got her down to badly injured and morale broken. Unfortunately a mage wandered over with a dispel. CR back to 70%. Went back to kiting with 119HP. It seemed that morale break did not actually affect the red one. Refreshed MI from ring of duplication and took her down.
That just left Gromnir for physical damage. Refreshed cold resistance back to 120% - and at this point Karun the Black finally decided to enter the battle. The war-mage then decided to dispel again... all this person does is dispel... Anway, enough was enough, time for the big guns - the GWW firetooth machine gun.
This move is like a super-addictive crutch and I wish I had more GWWs. Finished off the Minotaur in one hit, then went to finish the mages. At this point Mellisan showed up and did the dialogue... Anyway, back to killing. Karun the Black fiiiianly summoned his Dark Planetar, which promply chose to do nothing and Ana hid in the corner waiting for it's timer to expire.
She then killed the battlemage ranged, which seemed to trigger the Planetar to chase her round, letting off 3 (3!) fire storms. She drank a potion of FR for 120%FR and kited it round, while being chased by Karun's remove magic spell trigger. When the planetar unsummoned she waited out the fire storms then killed Karun.
Two bhaalspawn battles down, four to go.
Did not need the cold resistance in the end, or any melee with Gromnir. Next up, fire temple and all those fire giants and elite fire giants, Imix, Red Dragon, Fire Lich, the whole fiery works.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 26 - Anastasia and the Temple of Fire
Left Saradush. Bought Yamato for the -1AC offhand - an unexpected contender for final game monk offhand weapon. Probably not going to use it since I like blackrazor too much but I couldn't leave it behind.
Everyone in the wilderness outside saradush seems to have normal weapons and is surceptable to deathblow - just trash to make you feel powerful I guess. Bought the third rod of resurrection from the trader + his stock of resistance potions and left for Nyalee in the forest of Myr, but not before I was reminded of this ludicrous bit of environmental design:
Shade Gorion
None of his wraith/mist companions can hit Ana, so she waited out its PfMW and machine gunned it down. Or so she thought, since something did manage to level drain her. it seems that "Devil shades" hit at > +1.
Skeleton Squad
Lure, divide and punch. Avoid the mage's planetar by running away and using hide in shadows, something I very often forget is in Ana's arsenal. That and >30 invisibility potions. The main danger turned out to be the skeleton warriors which had good thac0, enough to get in some heavy hits.
Fire Temple
Outside Anastasia just used firetooth + GWW to avoid all close combat. Now for the tough stuff.
Floor 1
The aim here was to kite the initial pack of Giants + Elite Giants to burn through their HLAs - Elite Giant crit strike is lethal, and so are the others tbh. They are prone to morale break at badly injured so chipping away with fists is effective, along with GWW + firetooth. Took out the Elites first, then used hardiness and smite on the remaining ones - smite is really useful here because its stun without save and it doesn't knock giants back. Quivering palm took the last one.
For the fire salamanders + fire trolls a potion of FR for 120% and greater deathblow on the trolls. Though one of the salamanders got an incredible crit for 42HP (forgot hardiness). For the second set of Fire giants + elites Ana had a lot more room to work with so was primarily concerned with not getting pinched in a narrow set of stairs. She used firetooth + gww, smite, and hardiness + mirror image tanking to take them all down gradually. The Golems: greater deathblow for the clay, hardiness + gww for the adamantium and a plain katana for the magic one.
Ana then unlocked the final two challenge rooms of floor 1. Firetooth + GWW for the Noble Efreeti, then found a fire lich in the corner. Hmmm. Had no greater deathblow do dealing with the summoned swords was problematic. Ran away and parked them then came back and smashed him. There were also some greater fire elementals and burning mans, neither of which were an issue. Then some more fire salamanders, fell cats, bonefiends etc etc, and floor 1 was all done.
Floor 2
Another nice bit of design is that the fire giants can't fit through the fire-tunnels, so Anastasia just firetoothed them to bits, including the cleric one.
For Brimstone the dragon, 120%FR, MI and hardiness, then GWW for stoneskin and crit strike afterwards were enough to kill it very quickly.
For Imix, prince of fire: the same >100%FR and crit strike. Interesting he has a dispel effect that could bump FR down to its base 70% - no issue though, Anastasia powered through.
And that's that for the temple of fire, stay tuned for the next update, Anastasia, Queen of Hearts
One thing I have noticed is that getting level drained even 1 level absolutely kills Ana's saves. Looking at the save tables the last save reduction was at level 18, but perhaps there is some hidden save drain effect that takes place during level drain? Something to watch out for since 1/5/4/7/4 is a death sentence with all these HLAs flying around. It is almost like it removes all the save modifiers as well when getting level drained (nothing in parentheses after the saves) see here:
Yes, that's exactly what it does. Level drain is absolutely vicious to a warrior that's relying on passive save boosts. And there's no source of NPP a monk can use until super-late (the upgraded forms of Spectral Brand and Angurvadal with Sendai's lair).
Fortunately, there aren't that many level-draining monsters left to face. There are a few mixed in with Sendai's lair, but that's also when you can upgrade Spectral Brand and actually protect yourself.
I was going suggest the Amulet of Power, but it seems the Enhanced Editions have removed the Monks ability to wear it. That's pretty brutal - I relied on that one quite heavily ~11-12 years ago when I did my only Monk no-reload run.
Druidpower II entering trilogy no-reload challenge...
Druidpower II - half-elf druid
Alena - half-elf totemic druid
Sarah - half-elf fighter/druid
April - half-elf fighter/druid
Paja - gnomish cleric/thief
Jaheira - half-elf fighter/druid
Well the party has just made it past Daveourn and are just about to enter the great city of Baldur's Gate. With 5 druids (2 of them high level) and a cleric in the party, we have loads of options/weapons we can use against enemies. It's a pretty powerful group. At the SAME TIME, however, we have to very carefully watch if we get exposed to enemy spells, as this groups' saving throws are bad. Thus, we are also a very vulnerable group as well. Will keep at it. Here's a couple screenies of the adventure so far.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 27 - Anastasia, Queen of Hearts
Nyalee battle
I like this one - Is she the only high level druid? The Shambling mounds are pretty lethal with their crushing resistance and the mirror image - so cool.
Pre-buffs: Blur, MI and Hardiness.
Step 1 was to run away to separate Anastasia clone. She has all the same HLAs and of course a monks hyperspeed. But, having played Anastasia from level 1, I know that there is one thing she is vulnerable to more than anything else - crits. Cue critical strike. Easy peasy. The shambing mounds are harder. Anastasia swapped blackrazor to her mainhand and then used GWW for 10 attacks per round to beat two down. With single weapon style doubled crit range there were a few going off.
Next, Nyalee's fire elemental summons, including Chlimbia, prince of fire. Sorry to say I actually killed them with firetooth... killing an elemental prince of fire with a fire enchanted dagger... Then there were more shambling mounds, earth elementals and mountain bears. Mostly killed with improved deathblow because apparently this works too. Then Nyalee herself with frozen fists. I noticed that Call Lightning is negated with magic resistance, I felt this was a bit cheap imo as I was ready with the cloak of reflection but I guess this is just how it is coded.
Yaga Shura in the cheapest possible manner
Preparation: none.
Stage 1: walk in and start killing - target the fire giants and kill a lot. Only the yagashura elites and the fire giants could hit Ana due to her weapon immunities - they got the firetooth treatment. Used no HLAs. I was curious if there was a limit to the low level spawns before you activate Yaga shura but eventually got bored and worried about fatigue kicking in so went and activated him.
Stage 2: activate Yaga-shura and hit him with firetooth to send him running. Get to killing again. At this point Ana wiped out almost everything that was left.
Stage 3: Yaga sura returns with his lieutenants. Hit Gem of Seeing and detect illusion to try and flush out the assassin. With Ana's fire resistance Yaga's fireballs are barely enough to keep up with her regeneration, and if she positions herself right he will nuke his lieutenants, nice. Ring of Gaxx and Blackrazor seem to stack, judging from the irregular regeneration ticks, so that's 1HP/3 secs and 1HP/5 secs, or 1HP/2 secs I think. The other thing that is really useful here was hide in shadows. Yaga can see through it but no-one else can, and with the large map theres plenty of opportunities to lose LoS.
Anyway, Ana kited, not really knowing what she was doing, hoping to get everyone to use up everything they had, she hid out the planetar as usual - melee-ing these is just not worth it most of the time.
Now as it turns out, the Yaga Shura fight does something I haven't had a chance to abuse since back in BG1 - clumping. All the enemies clump around the boss if you go invisible. Now if I had a necklace of missiles it would have been game over for all his minions a la Davaeorn, through OoLoS nuking, but even funnier is that if you position yourself close to the clump while invisible Yaga will hit you with his fireball, killing his minions ^-^
At this point I got bored and started GWW + firetoothing Yaga, only to get hit for "septuple damage" by the assassin who I had forgotten about.... which only did 56 damage without hardiness. I don't know If I was very lucky or if they just have very low base damage. Anyway, they became the priority and duly died. The rest of the GWWs unloaded and then 6x frozen fist and hardiness to punch Yaga Shura into actual chunks.
One thing that is interesting for the monk in ToB is that "received wisdom" is that "ranged is good in BG1 but trails off later" which you see said constantly, but the monk makes a very effective ranged weapon fighter in ToB, with their speed increase, especially when using GWW. Almost half of Ana's combat in ToB has been ranged.
I can only imagine the hell an archer kit could unleash with firetooth crossbow with grandmastery... or even with the dagger since the str bonus from 22 strength should more than make up for only having 1 pip. And of course access to that super long Improved haste from amulet of cheetah speed that poor Anastasia is denied.
after last run I made a V-line for the bridge and removed any fireball option... mistakes were made, I wasted arrows of ice and had to raise Viccy because I failed to notice the damage she was taking is fire based
On the way back to the crossing we came across some orcs and trolls outside a cave. They were easily dealt with but we realised that if there were trolls outside there would probably be more inside. We therefore slept, memorising fire spells as we did so. Our wisdom in doing so was rewarded as we emerged relatively unscathed.
Web was quite effective in disabling them whilst we attacked. We helped some dwarves and Semaj against a lich called Coldearth.
Then M'Khiin joined us and we discovered the secret of the menhirs just before the Coast Way Bridge was destroyed.
We will now have to find another crossing.
We thought of keeping the halfling treasure but as an inquisitor I couldn't bring myself to do it. However we did persuade Takos to give us the shield.
Well the party is doing pretty well. We've defeated Mountain Maulers, Iron Throne party (5th floor), and the Duchal Palace fight pretty easily. The battle with Sarevok, on the other hand was rough. Everyone died but Druidpower II and he just picked up some potions to heal himself but was encumbered! And here comes Sarevok barreling towards Druidpower II..I wasn't sure his aura was clear to gulp a strength potion so he could move but turned out to be unnecessary - Semaj's cloudkill killed Sarevok for me!!
What was interesting we used farsight and managed to get Sarevok to near death right out of the opening. However, we had a heck of a time hurting him afterwords when the summons died...
Starting SoD, there was a harder fight early on than expected when Dragonbane tried to get Porios to surrender. However, the conversation path used depends on high strength - and Dragonbane is a wimp .
Scrolls of PfU made progress through most of the dungeon easy and Korlasz duly surrendered.
In the City we only did a couple of quests. That included getting the Battle Tankard, finishing Korlasz off properly this time on the way.
We did also though pick up the Spectacles and Kiel's Helm (prying the latter out of Minsc's cold, dead hand).
We helped a vampire out at the Coast Way Forest in order to get the regeneration ioun stone. Coming back from that we found the orc and troll ambush area and had a pretty tough fight in the lower cave. Stumpy acted as a focus for attackers there while Dragonbane withdrew and sent in insects. Those take a while to act though and Stumpy had to use several healing potions to stay healthy while gradually whittling down the opposition.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, we shot down the short-sighted Teleria from a distance.
Pixie Dust then allowed us to safely hide from enemies at the bridge, while waiting for Caelar to arrive.
That troll encounter would actually have been a perfect place to use totemic spirits - which are far better at attacking in melee than either of us. Spirit lions did get their chance though at the Forest of Wyrms when they helped make short work of Snorgash and his bugbear friends.
They also had an appearance against Ziatar, though that proved unnecessary after a nymph managed to hold the half-dragon .
The Neothelid also proved easier than expected. After it surfaced, it stayed for only a couple of seconds on my screen and I thought we might be in for a hard time. However, others could still see to attack it and some good hits from skeleton warriors made short work of the job.
We left the Shadow Aspect, but did tackle the optional combat with Darskhelin. Dragonbane is generally much more effective with the returning acid dart got from Takos than in melee and was able to shoot down the mindflayer while its companions were hampered by insects.
A tactical withdrawal then allowed the remaining enemies to be split up for easy disposal before we went on to Akanna. Her death was rather amusing - both of us had thought that she died from an insect infestation, although if we'd kept a closer eye on the text that would have shown that she'd just disappeared into sanctuary and then started healing herself. She chose though to try and restart combat at exactly the wrong moment - getting into the line of fire as Stumpy used his Storm Shield ability to kick open a lightning trap ...
On the way out, Dragonbane lived up to his name for the first time when it didn't take him long in the shooting galley to find the perfect angle to send a dagger through Morentherene's heart.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge we came across another dragon. After killing its attackers, Dragonbane tried to finish the dragon off as well - but failed to inform Stumpy of his intentions and the dragon survived the single wand blast that hit it. On arrival, there was plenty of time available to set up an attack on Vichand and Dragonbane led that with Call Lightning. A couple of nymphs had their own lightning targeted on the mage as well, but he failed to survive the initial vicious strike.
We took the easy route and surrendered the fort, meaning we only had to overcome the mage on the bridge. Interrupting his spells can be a problem if you only have physical attacks - but not when insects are on standby.
We checked in at the Coalition Camp, but didn't bother with any of the bits of work there and will progress with the main quest next session.
Totemic druid 12, 84 HPs, 295 kills
Priest of Talos 9, 74 HPs, 205 kills, 1 death
Meanwhile Nigel the Knifethrower, a Conjurer is resting at the Carnival.
He had good rolls at the start.
He went with Imoen to the FAI where she was killed by tarnesh whilst tarnesh was killed by the guards.
He then headed north killing hobgoblins on the way and after killing Sonner gave the bowl to Tenya.
Upon heading south he was able to help Mellicamp.
When fighting Greywolf he mistimed his bolt from the wand of freezing. This caused him to be badly hurt and to lose the experience for killing Greywolf as a guard killed him.
He took Samuel to the FAI and then killed an ogre before heading to the Carnival.
We had a shorter session than usual, but the Trio still got a lot done.
* poison quest completed without incident
* Deserta and Vaya taught a lesson
* Basilisk defeated - a skeleton warrior was a distraction, while the trio trashed it.
* Razamith slain in the street - his tower was then duly looted
* Larze was blinded and peppered with lots of missiles
* Jardak faced the unpleasant combo of Riekan backstabbing him while wearing full plate, then Riekan's melee was too much for Jardak.
* Mountain Maulers discovered that the Trio was much more than they could handle
* Degrodel's minions defeated. Degrodel allowed himself to be silenced which then made him easy pickings
* Ragefast encountered an unpleasant backstab and then missiled by Jiddle.
* A boy's body returned to his father to be raised.
* Dopplegangers stood no chance against the party at the Seven Suns
Looks like it was time for the main event. The party snuck past the Iron Throne party, then from the other room, Jiddle did things like skeletons, silences, and Grene did web 2x and a stinking cloud - ranged fire then wiped out the enemies. While looting we discovered Alai was still alive, but he was badly wounded and an acid arrow from Riekan put him out of his misery.
We then handled to Candlekeep. Jiddle took no chances and summoned some skeletons to help against the "Shistal" doppleganger. Even so, we still needed some magic missiles from Grene to kill Shistal quickly enough.
In the crypts Riekan did great thief work (with the help of a thieving potion). When fighting the greater doppleganger, Jiddle got pretty hurt. We were fighting off some basic dopplegangers when Grene got a fireball surge and turned Jiddle nice and crispy. Jiddle was badly injured, but still alive. For Prat's gang, silences, webs, and a few summons and ranged fire were plenty for victory.
With the help of protection from poison scroll and freedom potion, Riekan then cleared out the spiders. The others, who didn't have immunity to web, decided to play with the basilisks with the help of some skeleton distractions. This worked out well, and this part of the crypt was cleared in record time.
We had just enough time to sell and get some dispelling arrows, then we saved our session here.
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 28 - The drow rule supreme?
Wow. Things are getting very tough for Anastasia. This is a loooog update.
Pocket Plane Battle 2
First, out power-hungry monk completed another "pocket plane challenge," facing off against herself, and some old friends. Small arena battles fill me with anxiety, but this one was ok.
She did the usual blur, MI, Frozen fists (x3) and hardiness, then took down herself with GWW. Angelo uses range attacks so he was ignored, and Ana moved on to tamoko, killing her with GWW at the very moment Semaj summoned his Dark Planetar. Anastasia was forced to kill it using crit strike which is very effective against them. With the planetar dead the battle was essentially over and Anastasia used GWW firetooth to kill Angelo, then Semaj. She gained a powerful Regeneration ability for the trouble.
Reasoning that she was going to be the goddess of murder, not pointless slaughter she killed Jamis Tombelthen for the Answerer, then went invisible and avoided the oasis filler, moving to Amkethran, where she bought the Gargoyle Boots for backstab immunity - phew.
Sendai's Enclave Outside: Anastasia buffed and attacked the squirrel group outside the entrance, then the woodcutter. With gargoyle boots + detect illusion and all the HLAs there was no issue here. She rested up and entered the Enclave.
room 1: Nothing much the myconinds and umber hulks could do though it sure looks chaotic. She used her new regeneration power with the Drow turning overkill into over-overkill.
Room 2 - the barracks room: lots of nasty drow - fortunately they are vulnerable to greater deathblow. Ana rested in the pocket plane then buffed with the usual + protection from evil and greater deathblow-ed away, then killed Thelynn'ss and the Balor with GWW + firetooth. She then mopped up and grabbed the key, taking another pocket plane rest.
Room 3 (Spider Room route) - Anastasia chose the spider route over the Derro due to her MR, +1 weapon immunity and poison immunity - no issues here, interestingly its the little mutated spiders which seem to have >+1 weapons while everything else has "weapon ineffective". She could have just gone invisible through but she doesn't like not having a clear run back to the entrance.
Room 4 - Crossroads: Some Spiders easily dispatched, then a large group of drow + demons. Detect Illusion + GWW is very quick to take down the Glabrezu. The pit fiend is neutered with Protection from Evil and the lesser drow killed with greater deathblow. At this point it's just mopping up + a smallgroup of umber hulks.
Room 5 - Odameron the Lich: Figured I would do this the easy way, but things went sour pretty quickly in this fight with Ana's protection from undead being dispelled. Undeterred she put up protection from evil and crit strike-ed the planetar down. Then her PfEvil was also dispelled so she killed the summoned demons. In the end she had to kill 4 cornugons, 1 pit fiend and 1 dark planetar. Despite the PfU being dispelled, the lich's seemed to still not want to target her so it was just a matter of getting through their protections. She picked up what she needed, then rested up and crafted spectral brand +5 for negative plane protection.
Back to Room 4 - Crossroads: Another Drow horde. Unfortunatly a bit of poor planning meant her deathblow expired just before she hit the second beholder and it dispelled her protection from evil, meaning both Pit Fiends targeted her. But in the end these are only very minor speed bumps.
Room 6 - Daiytha & Ogremoch: This is where it gets actually difficult: Ogremoch. Anastasia prebuffed with Stoneskin, Blur, MI, Hardiness and 4x Frozen fist with spectral brand offhand. She then killed his greater Earth Elemental bodyguard with little difficulty and went to town with GWW + fists on the prince. idk if it has infinite stoneskins of just lots and lots, but combined with the dispel on hit this is a seriously tough battle. Fortunately, as an earth elemental prince it does have one fatal weakness... it can't open doors, so Ana could retreat to re-buff in the middle of the battle... hmmm.
Daiytha is much easier in comparison, especially since she doesn't seem to have a weapon? What I hadn't realized is that one of her minions has some sort of magic drain effect which sapped charges from Ana's wand of resurrection. How annoying, but not enough to stop then dying.
Room 7 - Spectator: Did the geas and single combat. I never figured if this battle intentionally very easy?
Room 8 - Mind Flayers: Rested up then drank a bunch of mind focusing potions and did the usual buffs. -21AC and +1 weapon immunity means Anastasia can sit in melee in one of the Vampiric illithid rooms and throw daggers at the Flayers over the heads of the umber hulks, dealing with the occasional one which tel ports in with her.
Sendai and Her Statues The big one. Not going to lie, I have been preparing heavily for this one so Anastasia knew exactly what she was going to do here to, hopefully, guarantee a win in the hardest battle so far.
The major problem with this battle is not the statues, but the melee Drow that rapidly teleport into the room with you. Afaik these are very high level kensai. They all use whirlwind and do absolutely absurd damage. The other dangerous things are the assassin statue (hello gargoyle boots), a planetar maybe, and a couple of melee focused statues. But really its the 10 or so kensai.
Here's what Anastasia did.
First she buffed with stoneskin, blur, MI and hardiness and then swapped to the boots of speed and blackrazor offhand.
Then, on entering the room she ran straight to get behind the mage statue in the bottom right position. Already it went terribly wrong. The statues come alive in a random order, and it just so happened that the mage statue came online asap, summoning its 2x djinn right where Ana needed to be standing. Trying to stay calm, she swapped to gargoyle boots and detect illusion + GWW'd down both asap and moved into position, wedging herself between the back wall and the mage.
Now the kensai start appearing and she starts to take them down with firetooth, while protected with a buffer of trash summons like air elementals, salamanders and earth elementals, all meaning the kensai can't get to her.
This takes time as the kensai all have good health pots and she is hesitant to burn through all her HLAs, but she is also conscious that if one of the low level mages casts teleport field on her she will die. All this time she has "pause on being hit" active, but to her benefit it's a regular air elemental and fire elemental, rather than one of the greater elementals, that is next to her so they struggle to get through her protections.
She manages to take out all the kensai and start working on the Sendais before the elementals up against her start doing some serious damage.
She hits an invisibility potion to re-up everything. She heals and re-applies stoneskin and MI, before going back to work. Except the spear Sendai manages to get close and starts hitting Ana. She drinks another invisibility pot and plans her next move, having foolishly used up all her GWWs. She re-ups everything and hits the sendai with regular WW, only then remebering this is the teleporting one and the statue blinks away. She finishes the cleric sendai and assassin sendai then kills off the elementals, freeing herself. And that's it, the battle is basically won. She clears the last few statues, including the usually nasty cleric/mage one and the archer-spear one, and the low level drow mages none of which can do anything against >100%MR.
She then triggers Sendai herself, who is just a long slog of ineffective summons followed by an even longer slog of magical protections. I put to-hit rolls back on at this point, having had them disabled for a while now due to the shear barrage of numbers in the log. But I wanted to see the hits ^-^
I had thought with traps, insects, 5 powerful summons, and high levels, we should have been able to defeat Thaxxy. This however, only got Thaxxy to 1/2 injured - he proved he was more than a match for a party of druids.
Daiytha is much easier in comparison, especially since she doesn't seem to have a weapon? What I hadn't realized is that one of her minions has some sort of magic drain effect which sapped charges from Ana's wand of resurrection. How annoying, but not enough to stop then dying.
That would be the Hive Mother's antimagic ray. In addition to dispelling everything and removing spell protections, it acts like a nishruu's hit and drains item charges and wizard spells.
Also, checking the script ...
Each time one of Sendai's statues activates, two drow spawn in. Either two kensai (level 12 without SCS, level 22 with) or one kensai and one mage (level 12). That level change is actually in the general AI component, not the specific component for Sendai.
Also, the statues' order is fixed. Cleric, Mage, Kensai/Thief, Berserker, Cleric/Mage, Fighter with bow, Assassin. SCS only changes how fast they spawn, not their order.
Also, the statues' order is fixed. Cleric, Mage, Kensai/Thief, Berserker, Cleric/Mage, Fighter with bow, Assassin. SCS only changes how fast they spawn, not their order.
I don't understand how it spawned so fast then, there should have been ample time to get behind. Maybe Anastasia was just unlucky, or I lost sometime somewhere in running down there. In the end it was ok though, thankfully.
In my run I had 2 mages, maybe 3, which would mean 11-12 kensai... ouch, but I wasn't counting.
Anyway, on to Draconis and then those ridiculous lizard men with HLAs, a load of dragons and big A.
We headed for the Forest of Wyrms where Wyrms killed both Minsc and M'Khiin. We had to leave behind some of the cheaper amunition as we were unable to carry it all when we retraced our steps to get Minsc and M'Khiin raised.
In the Forest of Wyrms M'Khinn was held by a spider's web and he was killed before we could kill the spiders attacking him.
After raising M'Khinn we returned to the same cave. After resting Dynaheir rather stupidly forgot to to cast Stoneskin and so was killed after being poisoned. We did however clear that cave and returned to the Coalition Camp to raise her.
@Wise_Grimwald the ironic part of her dying to poison is Dynaheir can cure poison. Not sure on the cast time, however, so not sure if that was viable for her or not.
I've pretty much been limiting myself to multiplayer recently, but had started a shapeshifter called Voxil in October 2020. I'd done a bit here and there but picked it up again last week only to realise I couldn't remember what I had done.
I thought I'd continue anyway, and then found a few screenshots.
On 11 November Voxil must have dealt with Nashkel mine as he'd got a full party lined up against the Amazons.
The party format is for Khalid to tank, with Voxil either off-tanking or ranged. The rest of the party (Jaheira, Imoen, Neera, Garrick) all use ranged weapons unless pressed into melee.
A few days later (15 November) Voxil and co had made it into the fine city of Baldur's Gate where they survived a Horror attempt by Sunin. This may or may not confirm to Grond0 that I am somewhat careless when dealing with this ringed mage.
On 10 January Prat and his gang suffered the misfortune of our arrival. With both Voxil and Khalid confused there was plenty of opportunity for mishap but they decided not to kill one another.
13 January saw us go for a winter break on the Ice Island. The locals were warm but not welcoming, and a spot of carelessness on my part saw Imoen killed by an ankheg. I don't particularly like completing this area with a dead thief but at least 50% of the time I only have myself to blame about having to do so. This was another of those times and once the rest of the party returned to civilisation we paid to have our thief restored.
(n.b. it's usually trying to de-trap too fast that does for my thieves here rather than any enemies)
Voxil then took an extended break until 27 March when we found ourselves trying to visit Jardak and his butler despite the attentions of the local Flaming Fist (what with us being unjustly wanted for escaping Candlekeep). Neera took matters into her own hands and cast Sleep Surge Burst and our reputation went up in flames as did a local commoner. At least her caster level was decreased as otherwise party members may have joined the commoner.
So we headed into Durlags Tower on 28 March, and by the 29th were happily fighting Dwarven Doom Guards. They are a rare occasion where everybody equips magical ammo, only the second or third occasion to date. Take that you varmits.
Khalid was doing a grand job against most enemies, only requiring support against Greater Wyverns where we used a few statue heroes to soak up some of their poison. A bit of careful planning when dealing with Ashirukuru saw us only pick up Bala's axe and not face more than one of them.
Khalid was glad to have had both a potion to resist cold (50%) and protection from fire and cold (50%) when he got held by Kaldran. Voxil wasn't expecting that, but with Khalid immune to ranged cold attacks we were able to proceed without any deaths as Voxil first tanked and then kited and then darted Kaldran once Neera had blinded the bear.
After webbing and fireballing our way out of a chessboard Voxil made certain to dust Khalid down and get him back into action. Things had been progressing well until Voxil foolishly ignored regular protocol and gathered everybody around a statue to answer questions incorrectly. Neera and Garrick were toast, so we returned to a temple.
(cue annoyance at having deleted this screenshot without uploading it. Also a bit more annoyance about naming Kiel as the youngest son instead of Fuernebol - it pays to read the answers and not spam an answer)
Voxil was fairly sure he could get back to Durlags Tower once his party were re-united, and so it proved. A careful exploration of the greater ghoul area was followed by a bit of planning on how to face the Demon Knight. Some holds and some fire, reckoned Voxil. Easy peasy.
Ah, yes, not the Ring of Free Action type of Hold. Should have been the Greenstone Amulet. Never mind, even though we can't prevent the held Khalid from perishing we can avenge him and even raise him.
edit:
Erm Neera - what does that text say. Gold Vanishes? Drat and double drat
The last couple of runs in this challenge have been with new classes and in both cases good progress was ended by taking one risk too many - the swashbuckler got through all but the last incarnation of Melissan, while the cleric/ranger was permanently held by gauths in the Underdark.
For the third time in a row the dice have produced a new class - this time a cleric/thief. One of my sub-objectives for the challenge is to complete a run with a character class at the first attempt, so I thought I'd post on this one to provide a bit more incentive to play safely. I'm sort of on holiday this week, so should be able to make quick progress.
The opening session saw early levels being racked up from Shoal.
In Beregost, a silenced Silke was persuaded to hand over her staff. That was used to backstab Karlat before I switched to fist and club to finish him off after he was commanded to die.
Also in that area, Algernon found he had no more need for a cloak to keep him warm.
As backstabbing will be a regular feature, it made sense to go and get some stealthy boots. With reputation damaged and charisma not great though, I decided not to try and hand those back to Zhurlong for the moment.
Next up was the XP bonanza for following Korax on a tour of the basilisk area and, by the time Mutamin was paralysed, I was up to level 5/5.
Korax suffered a fatal accident at that point, but traps laid from behind a handy rock made short work of Kirian's party.
Back in Beregost, a few spiders got me a 6th thief level. With the extra trap per day I decided to have a go at Elminster. Seven standard thief traps are not guaranteed to kill him - but on this occasion they did to hand me a cool 26k XP.
While reputation was already low, I headed on up to Ulgoth's Beard to grab Dushai's ring of free action.
That took reputation to 3, bringing the danger of attempted reprisals from Flaming Fist groups. Hence, I took a trip to the seaside to help out Ardrouine, then got a lift to Nashkel from Brage - where I learned LMD as a Bhaal power.
With my inventory being rather clogged with potions, I thought it was time to pay a visit to Thalantyr. A first use of skeletons helped distract the golem guards there while I took them down before talking to the mage. Finding a good book for Firebead then allowed me to round out my current collection of containers.
Deciding it was time for the Nashkel Mine, I sneaked through most of that - though couldn't resist the odd spider and ghoul to help pick up a 7th thief level.
In his cave, Mulahey may have whimpered a little as skeletons bore down on him, though I didn't hear anything.
Similar tactics outside the mine, with the addition of the odd command, saw off the amazons.
Nimbul saved against silence, but was quickly beaten down by skeletons anyway. The same fate then befell Tranzig to open up a route to the Bandit Camp. Skeletons also did most of the outside work there, though Taurgosz was taken down by a first (at least first successful) use of hold person.
I didn't bother with skeletons inside Tazok's tent, though traps helped unbalance the odds after Venkt fell to a backstab and LMD.
I've put no points into disarm traps, so relied on just dodging the lightning trap on the treasure chest (playing in v2.5 - the v2.6 beta doesn't allow you to get away with that).
@Wise_Grimwald the ironic part of her dying to poison is Dynaheir can cure poison. Not sure on the cast time, however, so not sure if that was viable for her or not.
The poison interrupts the spell. She took two potions of elexir of health, but as fast as she took them she was repoisoned. It was a waste of potions!! We had four scrolls of protection from poison but saving those for the times when the end result might be in doubt. It was always clear that the battle was ours.
What was stupid was that I had forgotten that M'Khinn could now raise her. A waste of 800gp. I won't forget again.
End of run
Defeated everything including the mind flayers, but then took on the Shadow Aspect. It completely owned us.
Minsc had a permadeath even before the end of the game. He asked me to look after Boo for him, but I have a shrewd suspicion that Boo died too.
I wouldn't mind having some advice as to how to kill it. It was tough! Reducing our strengths one by one was really tough, an it blinded M'Khiin too.
I'm thinking that a few lesser restoration spells might have helped, but perhaps not.
Perhaps we should have just left it there without fighting it.
After thinking about it I have decided that summons are probably the answer. I'll try it out.
I wouldn't mind having some advice as to how to kill it.t
The cheapest way would be protection from undead + true sight, with a single character while everyone else chills out somewhere else. Though I have never done it with a party.
I wouldn't mind having some advice as to how to kill it.t
The cheapest way would be protection from undead + true sight, with a single character while everyone else chills out somewhere else. Though I have never done it with a party.
I didn't even realise that it was undead!! Charname was an inquisitor so it would probably have worked. I'll try it for next time.
The summons didn't work.
Forgot to mention that Minsc had a permadeath even before the end of the game. He asked me to look after Boo for him, but I have a shrewd suspicion that Boo died too.
Thanks for the advice. Easy Peasy when you know how!! He didn't even get wounded!1
So, back to my Blackguard game. End of page 417.
Stats at the beginning of Dragonspear. Every member of party at the level cap.
Charisma without items is 19.
Only weakness is lack of intelligence.
Since my last run was an Inquisitor and this one a Blackguard, I think that next time neutral will make a change.
Quinton the "solo" dwarven fighter/cleric - update 1
Good news! My new character soloed BG 1 and made it through. He's NOT going to be solo in BG 2. I was just solo so I could get through quickly. As a fighter and cleric, he had many options to deal with enemies, such as silences, hold persons, summons, buffed up fighter style and so on. Not sure on party in Amn yet, we'll see how it goes!
Anastasia the Dark Moon Monk - part 28 - Dragon Ender's Game, part 1
Anastasia returned to her pocket realm to complete challenge 3 - an easy fight versus a Slayer avatar - a simple buff + GWWs was enough, then she recharged her rod of resurrection before moving on to Abazigal's Lair.
If I'm counting right there are 8 dragons to fight here, 7 of them to the death... great.
Draconis
Draconis is acid type, the first of 3 - Ana has no acid resistance and due to oversights days ago only has 2 protection from acid scrolls. So she is taking this rather cautiously.
First she fights his human form down, killing the dark planetar in the most ham-fisted way possible. Often these things can be killed with a single critical strike but this one kept hitting, kept healing. She had to use up 3 critical strikes so instead of carrying on she ran away to the village to heal and refresh before returning. An inauspicious start.
We restart the Draconis fight, getting him down to near death. Ana buffs only to have her images dispelled with true sight. Great. So she waits out the true sight, rebuffs including with one of her protection from acids then triggers his second form. He immediately casts PfMW so that's 4 rounds she has to kite around with nothing she can do. When it expires he uses a spell sequencer with haste and stoneskin. She attacks with GWW and gets him down to going invisible and full healing (she needed 1 rod of resurrection charge due to some nasty damage). He does the invisible + health thing again (not a full heal thankfully), then she manages to get him down to near death, causing him to cast stoneskin. With no more WWs there's nothing she can do but keep hitting away.
However, at this point all his buffs seem to have worn off and at least 1 set of blackrazor's level drains have gone off, so he's missing on 17s now. She takes it easy and puts him down.
Pretty iffy at the beginning but it all came up good with little consumable use.
The HLA Lizardmen
As dangerous as Draconis... For the first set, smite was very useful to keep throwing them across the room, but it only lasts 2 rounds and she had to retreat outside to heal. Each lizard only has 2 Whirlwinds so once they're used up its fine, but considering how tight this area is its super dangerous. She rested up in the pocket plane.
For the second set, she went invisible to skip them. Much easier.
Anadramatis
This one is much less dangerous than Draconis, though it's breath attack does piercing damage so you can't just stack protection scrolls to defend against it. The usual pre-buffs were applied then Anastasia was super nice, agreeing to fight the dragon for the breath potion.
It has Improved Haste and PfMW pre-buffs so some kiting was first, followed by GWW punching. It did not seem to put up stoneskin so Ana's punches landed hard. What it did do was cast lower resistance, one of the very few enemies I have seen that do. Its not a big deal because he surrendered moments later. Very simple.
Ana took a quick PP rest then snuck back through the lizardmen and the now newly arriving demons. No way in hell I'm doing that fight.
Ana killed the Koa-toa trash mobs, met the monk, got Hindo's hand, forged Hindo's doom and headed out to get some rope, before returning for the Quad-Dragon fight, which she was determined to do in a single sitting.
Zirimanat'ryl and Olinissimous
For these two weaker acid-type dragons, Anastasia used used her last PfA scroll, hit all her buffs and triggered the dual dragon fight. This fight can be super buggy triggering the dialogue part, but it worked fine. She then used something from the book of cheese, running straight down after the dialog so only Zirimanat'ryl would chase her. It had its revenge by instantly dispelling her PfA though. Fortunately these two dragons thac0 isn't great so she killed it only using 1 HLA and a couple of Greater Healing Potions.
She healed up, refreshed MI and moved on to Olinissimous, a lucky level drain or two and it was missing on 16s, she bcegan to casually punch it down - except just as it was almost dead Olinissimous got a run of really high rolls, meaning Ana needed the rod of Resurrection twice in 2 rounds before finishing it.
Ithy'nassendra
This is a poison type green dragon very similar to the one in Watchers Keep, with the same 2x full heals. When it spawned Ana ran to the right, giving her time to re-buff before returning.
After it takes some damage it applies the Stoneskin + haste sequencer we have seen before. Ana burns through GWWs until its first heal is triggered. She also uses her 2nd hardiness of 3. She gets it down to near death before realizing that she probably interrupted the 2nd heal, or else perhaps level drain messed with it. Her regular whirlwind is enough to finish it.
Carnifex
A very very dangerous red dragon. Anastasia applies another MI, a PfF scroll and her regeneration power, but is running out of protective buffs at this point. Carnifex has PfMW + Improved Haste so she kites for a while, then tries to smash through his stoneskin with GWW, triggering a new stoneskin contingency. Fortunately it has not dispelled her PfF which puts her to 120%FR so his dragonbreath heals her... very pleasant.
Only he starts doing some serious damage and her Hardiness wears off. She has to use rod of resurrection twice and uses her third and last hardiness. She is hesitant to use any HLAs because that would mean a round where she could not heal. At this point she has used 4 or 5 charges and it is still at barely injured, so we take the easy way out and turn into the ravager. This is all because she has no way to dispel its Improved haste or reduce its thac0.
It's not quite a cake walk since Carnifex does seem to have a stack of PfMWs too, but the ravager's dispel effect means Carnifex's improved haste is gone so we relax and return to human form and kill him. And that was was that, 4 dragons killed back to back.
Just the eyeball caverns, then Tamah and Abazigal, which may well spell the end of Anastasia.
These final game fights really show up a major disadvantage of the monk over other fighter-type classes/kits in the late game is the weapon restrictions. No Soul Reaver for destroying enemy thac0, no flail of ages for no-save slowing, no Carsomyr or Bala's Axe for messing with casters. That's on top of the already punishing no helmet restriction.
Not to worry though, the DMMs advantages are huge too.
Comments
Continuing the game on page 416 (Last post March 10th). Haller will have to wait for a while in the SoD Prologue. I wish that I had realised that it was a good idea to have gold down there. Perhaps I can accumulate some gold down there to buy potions before returning to the surface. Haller had a reputation of 7 upon defeating Sarevok.
In contrast Jerubbaal has a reputation of 20 and has just exchanged Glint for Safana. Safana's morals obviously leave a lot to be desired, though she was quite useful beneath the temple. Glint's skill with stealth is not good so he will have to rely on Dynaheir's Improved Invisibility spells. He is however quite good with locks and traps, but not great.
We went into the forest to meet Telaria and saw somebody who had been petrified. Upon releasing him Telaria got angry and started making threats in a looped conversation. By killing her we broke the loop. Clearly a bug! In prior games we talked to her before using the green scroll and this bug did not arise.
We headed east, talked to Skie and killed a vampire. We were well rewarded.
Ascension Illasera could do nothing against Anastasia's -37AC vs Missiles. I know right.
Anastasia did the first pocket plane challenge - immunity to +1 weapons made this an auto-attack party, then on to Saradush where she killed the Il'khan soldiers. Anastasia then did some major inventory clearing, gutting her bag of holding of all sorts of useless yet valuable trash and cleared out everything of use from the merchants. I had forgotten quite how bleak ToB is - there is no optimism here. Did the side quests, including the kidnapped son one.
She also removed the Claw of Kazagoth - big turning point. With >100%MR the +4 penalty vs death outweighs the -3 bonus to the others imo, especially with lots of enemies starting to use HLAs like power attack. This will allow swapping things like fire resist ring and lightning resist cloak around for specific resistances. Saves are -4/0/-1/-3/-1, which with the >100%MR I believe is enough. We will see, there's always potions of invulnerability which are everywhere. I'm not sure but I believe Planetar vorpal hits are at -4 like an SCS balor? So Ana's saves should make her immune.
Regular specing is now boots of frost, ring of fire control and belt of internal barrier giving 70%FR, 70%CR, 20%LR, 100%PR, 103%MR, and 50% magical damage resist un-dispellable before scrolls/potions. With the monk's speed boots of speed are only required for special circumstances. A bit of gear swapping trades a 50%FR reduction for 120%LR with no loss of AC or saves.
Next Anastasia went vampire hunting. Compared to Bhodi's lair these are easy.
One thing I have noticed is that getting level drained even 1 level absolutely kills Ana's saves. Looking at the save tables the last save reduction was at level 18, but perhaps there is some hidden save drain effect that takes place during level drain? Something to watch out for since 1/5/4/7/4 is a death sentence with all these HLAs flying around. It is almost like it removes all the save modifiers as well when getting level drained (nothing in parentheses after the saves) see here:
I have no idea if this is intended game behavior or not or something to do with SCS. Anyway, back to get restored then down to Gromnir's dungeon - a lot of the fighters here only have +1 weapons, and the thieves have bad thac0 when compared to Ana's -16AC (-19AC with Blur) so with Mirror Image there is little challenge. Deathblow and Greater Deathblow are useful for rapidly clearing out the conjurer mage's near endless summons.
Gromnir - 2nd of the Five + 1
Floor 1: the usual tanking and hacking away, lots of summons from the mage. Looking at the dropped weapons there was only 1 that Ana was not immune to.
Floor 2: The big man himself. Key things here were, I thought: kiting, fire resistance, cold resistance and a source of non-crushing damage for Gromnir (Blackrazor and firetooth ranged) + the obvious MR.
Prebuffed with Mirror Image and Blur only since I was not sure if the mages would just dispel immediately, then took down Eler Had with crit strike in 1 round while waiting for the mages to do their thing and the Medusa + Minotaur war-priest to show up.
Mage got off a timestop, but since Anas was far over to the right they wasted it. Anastasia then kited and got in single blows against the priest and the medusa, trying to get everyone to use up their HLAs. I didn't like the look of those flesh to stones from the medusa so took her down asap with crit strike and went back to kiting.
I swapped boots - i know, mid combat boot swapping - for boots of speed when Grom put out whirlwinds. Like this she is faster than him, even hasted + whirlwinded. She can even let off her own WW for quicksilver tier speed. Next she took out Ramazith and the remaining generic soldiers and the Minotaur down to morale break. Leaving Gromnir and the red-haired one.
Put the boots of cold back on, hit hardiness, and drank a potion of cold resistance for 120%CR. Hit crit strike and went to town on the red haired one - got her down to badly injured and morale broken. Unfortunately a mage wandered over with a dispel. CR back to 70%. Went back to kiting with 119HP. It seemed that morale break did not actually affect the red one. Refreshed MI from ring of duplication and took her down.
That just left Gromnir for physical damage. Refreshed cold resistance back to 120% - and at this point Karun the Black finally decided to enter the battle. The war-mage then decided to dispel again... all this person does is dispel... Anway, enough was enough, time for the big guns - the GWW firetooth machine gun.
This move is like a super-addictive crutch and I wish I had more GWWs. Finished off the Minotaur in one hit, then went to finish the mages. At this point Mellisan showed up and did the dialogue... Anyway, back to killing. Karun the Black fiiiianly summoned his Dark Planetar, which promply chose to do nothing and Ana hid in the corner waiting for it's timer to expire.
She then killed the battlemage ranged, which seemed to trigger the Planetar to chase her round, letting off 3 (3!) fire storms. She drank a potion of FR for 120%FR and kited it round, while being chased by Karun's remove magic spell trigger. When the planetar unsummoned she waited out the fire storms then killed Karun.
Two bhaalspawn battles down, four to go.
Did not need the cold resistance in the end, or any melee with Gromnir. Next up, fire temple and all those fire giants and elite fire giants, Imix, Red Dragon, Fire Lich, the whole fiery works.
Left Saradush. Bought Yamato for the -1AC offhand - an unexpected contender for final game monk offhand weapon. Probably not going to use it since I like blackrazor too much but I couldn't leave it behind.
Everyone in the wilderness outside saradush seems to have normal weapons and is surceptable to deathblow - just trash to make you feel powerful I guess. Bought the third rod of resurrection from the trader + his stock of resistance potions and left for Nyalee in the forest of Myr, but not before I was reminded of this ludicrous bit of environmental design:
Shade Gorion
None of his wraith/mist companions can hit Ana, so she waited out its PfMW and machine gunned it down. Or so she thought, since something did manage to level drain her. it seems that "Devil shades" hit at > +1.
Skeleton Squad
Lure, divide and punch. Avoid the mage's planetar by running away and using hide in shadows, something I very often forget is in Ana's arsenal. That and >30 invisibility potions. The main danger turned out to be the skeleton warriors which had good thac0, enough to get in some heavy hits.
Fire Temple
Outside Anastasia just used firetooth + GWW to avoid all close combat. Now for the tough stuff.
Floor 1
The aim here was to kite the initial pack of Giants + Elite Giants to burn through their HLAs - Elite Giant crit strike is lethal, and so are the others tbh. They are prone to morale break at badly injured so chipping away with fists is effective, along with GWW + firetooth. Took out the Elites first, then used hardiness and smite on the remaining ones - smite is really useful here because its stun without save and it doesn't knock giants back. Quivering palm took the last one.
For the fire salamanders + fire trolls a potion of FR for 120% and greater deathblow on the trolls. Though one of the salamanders got an incredible crit for 42HP (forgot hardiness). For the second set of Fire giants + elites Ana had a lot more room to work with so was primarily concerned with not getting pinched in a narrow set of stairs. She used firetooth + gww, smite, and hardiness + mirror image tanking to take them all down gradually. The Golems: greater deathblow for the clay, hardiness + gww for the adamantium and a plain katana for the magic one.
Ana then unlocked the final two challenge rooms of floor 1. Firetooth + GWW for the Noble Efreeti, then found a fire lich in the corner. Hmmm. Had no greater deathblow do dealing with the summoned swords was problematic. Ran away and parked them then came back and smashed him. There were also some greater fire elementals and burning mans, neither of which were an issue. Then some more fire salamanders, fell cats, bonefiends etc etc, and floor 1 was all done.
Floor 2
Another nice bit of design is that the fire giants can't fit through the fire-tunnels, so Anastasia just firetoothed them to bits, including the cleric one.
For Brimstone the dragon, 120%FR, MI and hardiness, then GWW for stoneskin and crit strike afterwards were enough to kill it very quickly.
For Imix, prince of fire: the same >100%FR and crit strike. Interesting he has a dispel effect that could bump FR down to its base 70% - no issue though, Anastasia powered through.
And that's that for the temple of fire, stay tuned for the next update, Anastasia, Queen of Hearts
Yes, that's exactly what it does. Level drain is absolutely vicious to a warrior that's relying on passive save boosts. And there's no source of NPP a monk can use until super-late (the upgraded forms of Spectral Brand and Angurvadal with Sendai's lair).
Fortunately, there aren't that many level-draining monsters left to face. There are a few mixed in with Sendai's lair, but that's also when you can upgrade Spectral Brand and actually protect yourself.
Druidpower II - half-elf druid
Alena - half-elf totemic druid
Sarah - half-elf fighter/druid
April - half-elf fighter/druid
Paja - gnomish cleric/thief
Jaheira - half-elf fighter/druid
Well the party has just made it past Daveourn and are just about to enter the great city of Baldur's Gate. With 5 druids (2 of them high level) and a cleric in the party, we have loads of options/weapons we can use against enemies. It's a pretty powerful group. At the SAME TIME, however, we have to very carefully watch if we get exposed to enemy spells, as this groups' saving throws are bad. Thus, we are also a very vulnerable group as well. Will keep at it. Here's a couple screenies of the adventure so far.
Nyalee battle
I like this one - Is she the only high level druid? The Shambling mounds are pretty lethal with their crushing resistance and the mirror image - so cool.
Pre-buffs: Blur, MI and Hardiness.
Step 1 was to run away to separate Anastasia clone. She has all the same HLAs and of course a monks hyperspeed. But, having played Anastasia from level 1, I know that there is one thing she is vulnerable to more than anything else - crits. Cue critical strike. Easy peasy. The shambing mounds are harder. Anastasia swapped blackrazor to her mainhand and then used GWW for 10 attacks per round to beat two down. With single weapon style doubled crit range there were a few going off.
Next, Nyalee's fire elemental summons, including Chlimbia, prince of fire. Sorry to say I actually killed them with firetooth... killing an elemental prince of fire with a fire enchanted dagger... Then there were more shambling mounds, earth elementals and mountain bears. Mostly killed with improved deathblow because apparently this works too. Then Nyalee herself with frozen fists. I noticed that Call Lightning is negated with magic resistance, I felt this was a bit cheap imo as I was ready with the cloak of reflection but I guess this is just how it is coded.
Yaga Shura in the cheapest possible manner
Preparation: none.
Stage 1: walk in and start killing - target the fire giants and kill a lot. Only the yagashura elites and the fire giants could hit Ana due to her weapon immunities - they got the firetooth treatment. Used no HLAs. I was curious if there was a limit to the low level spawns before you activate Yaga shura but eventually got bored and worried about fatigue kicking in so went and activated him.
Stage 2: activate Yaga-shura and hit him with firetooth to send him running. Get to killing again. At this point Ana wiped out almost everything that was left.
Stage 3: Yaga sura returns with his lieutenants. Hit Gem of Seeing and detect illusion to try and flush out the assassin. With Ana's fire resistance Yaga's fireballs are barely enough to keep up with her regeneration, and if she positions herself right he will nuke his lieutenants, nice. Ring of Gaxx and Blackrazor seem to stack, judging from the irregular regeneration ticks, so that's 1HP/3 secs and 1HP/5 secs, or 1HP/2 secs I think. The other thing that is really useful here was hide in shadows. Yaga can see through it but no-one else can, and with the large map theres plenty of opportunities to lose LoS.
Anyway, Ana kited, not really knowing what she was doing, hoping to get everyone to use up everything they had, she hid out the planetar as usual - melee-ing these is just not worth it most of the time.
Now as it turns out, the Yaga Shura fight does something I haven't had a chance to abuse since back in BG1 - clumping. All the enemies clump around the boss if you go invisible. Now if I had a necklace of missiles it would have been game over for all his minions a la Davaeorn, through OoLoS nuking, but even funnier is that if you position yourself close to the clump while invisible Yaga will hit you with his fireball, killing his minions ^-^
At this point I got bored and started GWW + firetoothing Yaga, only to get hit for "septuple damage" by the assassin who I had forgotten about.... which only did 56 damage without hardiness. I don't know If I was very lucky or if they just have very low base damage. Anyway, they became the priority and duly died. The rest of the GWWs unloaded and then 6x frozen fist and hardiness to punch Yaga Shura into actual chunks.
Three out of six. Sendai next.
I can only imagine the hell an archer kit could unleash with firetooth crossbow with grandmastery... or even with the dagger since the str bonus from 22 strength should more than make up for only having 1 pip. And of course access to that super long Improved haste from amulet of cheetah speed that poor Anastasia is denied.
after last run I made a V-line for the bridge and removed any fireball option... mistakes were made, I wasted arrows of ice and had to raise Viccy because I failed to notice the damage she was taking is fire based
On the way back to the crossing we came across some orcs and trolls outside a cave. They were easily dealt with but we realised that if there were trolls outside there would probably be more inside. We therefore slept, memorising fire spells as we did so. Our wisdom in doing so was rewarded as we emerged relatively unscathed.
Web was quite effective in disabling them whilst we attacked. We helped some dwarves and Semaj against a lich called Coldearth.
Then M'Khiin joined us and we discovered the secret of the menhirs just before the Coast Way Bridge was destroyed.
We will now have to find another crossing.
We thought of keeping the halfling treasure but as an inquisitor I couldn't bring myself to do it. However we did persuade Takos to give us the shield.
Well the party is doing pretty well. We've defeated Mountain Maulers, Iron Throne party (5th floor), and the Duchal Palace fight pretty easily. The battle with Sarevok, on the other hand was rough. Everyone died but Druidpower II and he just picked up some potions to heal himself but was encumbered! And here comes Sarevok barreling towards Druidpower II..I wasn't sure his aura was clear to gulp a strength potion so he could move but turned out to be unnecessary - Semaj's cloudkill killed Sarevok for me!!
What was interesting we used farsight and managed to get Sarevok to near death right out of the opening. However, we had a heck of a time hurting him afterwords when the summons died...
Pictures of my adventure:
Dragonbane (male half-elf totemic druid, Grond0); Stumpy (male dwarf priest of Talos, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1165414/#Comment_1165414
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1165759/#Comment_1165759
Starting SoD, there was a harder fight early on than expected when Dragonbane tried to get Porios to surrender. However, the conversation path used depends on high strength - and Dragonbane is a wimp
Scrolls of PfU made progress through most of the dungeon easy and Korlasz duly surrendered.
In the City we only did a couple of quests. That included getting the Battle Tankard, finishing Korlasz off properly this time on the way.
We helped a vampire out at the Coast Way Forest in order to get the regeneration ioun stone. Coming back from that we found the orc and troll ambush area and had a pretty tough fight in the lower cave. Stumpy acted as a focus for attackers there while Dragonbane withdrew and sent in insects. Those take a while to act though and Stumpy had to use several healing potions to stay healthy while gradually whittling down the opposition.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, we shot down the short-sighted Teleria from a distance.
That troll encounter would actually have been a perfect place to use totemic spirits - which are far better at attacking in melee than either of us. Spirit lions did get their chance though at the Forest of Wyrms when they helped make short work of Snorgash and his bugbear friends.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge we came across another dragon. After killing its attackers, Dragonbane tried to finish the dragon off as well - but failed to inform Stumpy of his intentions and the dragon survived the single wand blast that hit it. On arrival, there was plenty of time available to set up an attack on Vichand and Dragonbane led that with Call Lightning. A couple of nymphs had their own lightning targeted on the mage as well, but he failed to survive the initial vicious strike.
We checked in at the Coalition Camp, but didn't bother with any of the bits of work there and will progress with the main quest next session.
Totemic druid 12, 84 HPs, 295 kills
Priest of Talos 9, 74 HPs, 205 kills, 1 death
He had good rolls at the start.
He went with Imoen to the FAI where she was killed by tarnesh whilst tarnesh was killed by the guards.
He then headed north killing hobgoblins on the way and after killing Sonner gave the bowl to Tenya.
Upon heading south he was able to help Mellicamp.
When fighting Greywolf he mistimed his bolt from the wand of freezing. This caused him to be badly hurt and to lose the experience for killing Greywolf as a guard killed him.
He took Samuel to the FAI and then killed an ogre before heading to the Carnival.
Riekan - dwarven fighter/thief, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Jiddle - halfling priest of Tempus (Gate70)
Grene - half-elf wild mage (Grond0)
We had a shorter session than usual, but the Trio still got a lot done.
* poison quest completed without incident
* Deserta and Vaya taught a lesson
* Basilisk defeated - a skeleton warrior was a distraction, while the trio trashed it.
* Razamith slain in the street - his tower was then duly looted
* Larze was blinded and peppered with lots of missiles
* Jardak faced the unpleasant combo of Riekan backstabbing him while wearing full plate, then Riekan's melee was too much for Jardak.
* Mountain Maulers discovered that the Trio was much more than they could handle
* Degrodel's minions defeated. Degrodel allowed himself to be silenced which then made him easy pickings
* Ragefast encountered an unpleasant backstab and then missiled by Jiddle.
* A boy's body returned to his father to be raised.
* Dopplegangers stood no chance against the party at the Seven Suns
Looks like it was time for the main event. The party snuck past the Iron Throne party, then from the other room, Jiddle did things like skeletons, silences, and Grene did web 2x and a stinking cloud - ranged fire then wiped out the enemies. While looting we discovered Alai was still alive, but he was badly wounded and an acid arrow from Riekan put him out of his misery.
We then handled to Candlekeep. Jiddle took no chances and summoned some skeletons to help against the "Shistal" doppleganger. Even so, we still needed some magic missiles from Grene to kill Shistal quickly enough.
In the crypts Riekan did great thief work (with the help of a thieving potion). When fighting the greater doppleganger, Jiddle got pretty hurt. We were fighting off some basic dopplegangers when Grene got a fireball surge and turned Jiddle nice and crispy. Jiddle was badly injured, but still alive. For Prat's gang, silences, webs, and a few summons and ranged fire were plenty for victory.
With the help of protection from poison scroll and freedom potion, Riekan then cleared out the spiders. The others, who didn't have immunity to web, decided to play with the basilisks with the help of some skeleton distractions. This worked out well, and this part of the crypt was cleared in record time.
We had just enough time to sell and get some dispelling arrows, then we saved our session here.
Wow. Things are getting very tough for Anastasia. This is a loooog update.
Pocket Plane Battle 2
First, out power-hungry monk completed another "pocket plane challenge," facing off against herself, and some old friends. Small arena battles fill me with anxiety, but this one was ok.
She did the usual blur, MI, Frozen fists (x3) and hardiness, then took down herself with GWW. Angelo uses range attacks so he was ignored, and Ana moved on to tamoko, killing her with GWW at the very moment Semaj summoned his Dark Planetar. Anastasia was forced to kill it using crit strike which is very effective against them. With the planetar dead the battle was essentially over and Anastasia used GWW firetooth to kill Angelo, then Semaj. She gained a powerful Regeneration ability for the trouble.
Reasoning that she was going to be the goddess of murder, not pointless slaughter she killed Jamis Tombelthen for the Answerer, then went invisible and avoided the oasis filler, moving to Amkethran, where she bought the Gargoyle Boots for backstab immunity - phew.
Sendai's Enclave
Outside: Anastasia buffed and attacked the squirrel group outside the entrance, then the woodcutter. With gargoyle boots + detect illusion and all the HLAs there was no issue here. She rested up and entered the Enclave.
room 1: Nothing much the myconinds and umber hulks could do though it sure looks chaotic. She used her new regeneration power with the Drow turning overkill into over-overkill.
Room 2 - the barracks room: lots of nasty drow - fortunately they are vulnerable to greater deathblow. Ana rested in the pocket plane then buffed with the usual + protection from evil and greater deathblow-ed away, then killed Thelynn'ss and the Balor with GWW + firetooth. She then mopped up and grabbed the key, taking another pocket plane rest.
Room 3 (Spider Room route) - Anastasia chose the spider route over the Derro due to her MR, +1 weapon immunity and poison immunity - no issues here, interestingly its the little mutated spiders which seem to have >+1 weapons while everything else has "weapon ineffective". She could have just gone invisible through but she doesn't like not having a clear run back to the entrance.
Room 4 - Crossroads: Some Spiders easily dispatched, then a large group of drow + demons. Detect Illusion + GWW is very quick to take down the Glabrezu. The pit fiend is neutered with Protection from Evil and the lesser drow killed with greater deathblow. At this point it's just mopping up + a smallgroup of umber hulks.
Room 5 - Odameron the Lich: Figured I would do this the easy way, but things went sour pretty quickly in this fight with Ana's protection from undead being dispelled. Undeterred she put up protection from evil and crit strike-ed the planetar down. Then her PfEvil was also dispelled so she killed the summoned demons. In the end she had to kill 4 cornugons, 1 pit fiend and 1 dark planetar. Despite the PfU being dispelled, the lich's seemed to still not want to target her so it was just a matter of getting through their protections. She picked up what she needed, then rested up and crafted spectral brand +5 for negative plane protection.
Back to Room 4 - Crossroads: Another Drow horde. Unfortunatly a bit of poor planning meant her deathblow expired just before she hit the second beholder and it dispelled her protection from evil, meaning both Pit Fiends targeted her. But in the end these are only very minor speed bumps.
Room 6 - Daiytha & Ogremoch: This is where it gets actually difficult: Ogremoch. Anastasia prebuffed with Stoneskin, Blur, MI, Hardiness and 4x Frozen fist with spectral brand offhand. She then killed his greater Earth Elemental bodyguard with little difficulty and went to town with GWW + fists on the prince. idk if it has infinite stoneskins of just lots and lots, but combined with the dispel on hit this is a seriously tough battle. Fortunately, as an earth elemental prince it does have one fatal weakness... it can't open doors, so Ana could retreat to re-buff in the middle of the battle... hmmm.
Daiytha is much easier in comparison, especially since she doesn't seem to have a weapon? What I hadn't realized is that one of her minions has some sort of magic drain effect which sapped charges from Ana's wand of resurrection. How annoying, but not enough to stop then dying.
Room 7 - Spectator: Did the geas and single combat. I never figured if this battle intentionally very easy?
Room 8 - Mind Flayers: Rested up then drank a bunch of mind focusing potions and did the usual buffs. -21AC and +1 weapon immunity means Anastasia can sit in melee in one of the Vampiric illithid rooms and throw daggers at the Flayers over the heads of the umber hulks, dealing with the occasional one which tel ports in with her.
Sendai and Her Statues
The big one. Not going to lie, I have been preparing heavily for this one so Anastasia knew exactly what she was going to do here to, hopefully, guarantee a win in the hardest battle so far.
The major problem with this battle is not the statues, but the melee Drow that rapidly teleport into the room with you. Afaik these are very high level kensai. They all use whirlwind and do absolutely absurd damage. The other dangerous things are the assassin statue (hello gargoyle boots), a planetar maybe, and a couple of melee focused statues. But really its the 10 or so kensai.
Here's what Anastasia did.
First she buffed with stoneskin, blur, MI and hardiness and then swapped to the boots of speed and blackrazor offhand.
Then, on entering the room she ran straight to get behind the mage statue in the bottom right position. Already it went terribly wrong. The statues come alive in a random order, and it just so happened that the mage statue came online asap, summoning its 2x djinn right where Ana needed to be standing. Trying to stay calm, she swapped to gargoyle boots and detect illusion + GWW'd down both asap and moved into position, wedging herself between the back wall and the mage.
Now the kensai start appearing and she starts to take them down with firetooth, while protected with a buffer of trash summons like air elementals, salamanders and earth elementals, all meaning the kensai can't get to her.
This takes time as the kensai all have good health pots and she is hesitant to burn through all her HLAs, but she is also conscious that if one of the low level mages casts teleport field on her she will die. All this time she has "pause on being hit" active, but to her benefit it's a regular air elemental and fire elemental, rather than one of the greater elementals, that is next to her so they struggle to get through her protections.
She manages to take out all the kensai and start working on the Sendais before the elementals up against her start doing some serious damage.
She hits an invisibility potion to re-up everything. She heals and re-applies stoneskin and MI, before going back to work. Except the spear Sendai manages to get close and starts hitting Ana. She drinks another invisibility pot and plans her next move, having foolishly used up all her GWWs. She re-ups everything and hits the sendai with regular WW, only then remebering this is the teleporting one and the statue blinks away. She finishes the cleric sendai and assassin sendai then kills off the elementals, freeing herself. And that's it, the battle is basically won. She clears the last few statues, including the usually nasty cleric/mage one and the archer-spear one, and the low level drow mages none of which can do anything against >100%MR.
She then triggers Sendai herself, who is just a long slog of ineffective summons followed by an even longer slog of magical protections. I put to-hit rolls back on at this point, having had them disabled for a while now due to the shear barrage of numbers in the log. But I wanted to see the hits ^-^
Anastasia rules supreme.
I had thought with traps, insects, 5 powerful summons, and high levels, we should have been able to defeat Thaxxy. This however, only got Thaxxy to 1/2 injured - he proved he was more than a match for a party of druids.
Back to the drawing board!
That would be the Hive Mother's antimagic ray. In addition to dispelling everything and removing spell protections, it acts like a nishruu's hit and drains item charges and wizard spells.
Also, checking the script ...
Each time one of Sendai's statues activates, two drow spawn in. Either two kensai (level 12 without SCS, level 22 with) or one kensai and one mage (level 12). That level change is actually in the general AI component, not the specific component for Sendai.
Also, the statues' order is fixed. Cleric, Mage, Kensai/Thief, Berserker, Cleric/Mage, Fighter with bow, Assassin. SCS only changes how fast they spawn, not their order.
In my run I had 2 mages, maybe 3, which would mean 11-12 kensai... ouch, but I wasn't counting.
Anyway, on to Draconis and then those ridiculous lizard men with HLAs, a load of dragons and big A.
We headed for the Forest of Wyrms where Wyrms killed both Minsc and M'Khiin. We had to leave behind some of the cheaper amunition as we were unable to carry it all when we retraced our steps to get Minsc and M'Khiin raised.
In the Forest of Wyrms M'Khinn was held by a spider's web and he was killed before we could kill the spiders attacking him.
After raising M'Khinn we returned to the same cave. After resting Dynaheir rather stupidly forgot to to cast Stoneskin and so was killed after being poisoned. We did however clear that cave and returned to the Coalition Camp to raise her.
Minsc killed a dragon with a throwing knife.
I thought I'd continue anyway, and then found a few screenshots.
On 11 November Voxil must have dealt with Nashkel mine as he'd got a full party lined up against the Amazons.
A few days later (15 November) Voxil and co had made it into the fine city of Baldur's Gate where they survived a Horror attempt by Sunin. This may or may not confirm to Grond0 that I am somewhat careless when dealing with this ringed mage.
Voxil then took an extended break until 27 March when we found ourselves trying to visit Jardak and his butler despite the attentions of the local Flaming Fist (what with us being unjustly wanted for escaping Candlekeep). Neera took matters into her own hands and cast Sleep Surge Burst and our reputation went up in flames as did a local commoner. At least her caster level was decreased as otherwise party members may have joined the commoner.
Khalid was glad to have had both a potion to resist cold (50%) and protection from fire and cold (50%) when he got held by Kaldran. Voxil wasn't expecting that, but with Khalid immune to ranged cold attacks we were able to proceed without any deaths as Voxil first tanked and then kited and then darted Kaldran once Neera had blinded the bear.
(cue annoyance at having deleted this screenshot without uploading it. Also a bit more annoyance about naming Kiel as the youngest son instead of Fuernebol - it pays to read the answers and not spam an answer)
Voxil was fairly sure he could get back to Durlags Tower once his party were re-united, and so it proved. A careful exploration of the greater ghoul area was followed by a bit of planning on how to face the Demon Knight. Some holds and some fire, reckoned Voxil. Easy peasy.
Ah, yes, not the Ring of Free Action type of Hold. Should have been the Greenstone Amulet. Never mind, even though we can't prevent the held Khalid from perishing we can avenge him and even raise him.
edit:
Erm Neera - what does that text say. Gold Vanishes? Drat and double drat
The last couple of runs in this challenge have been with new classes and in both cases good progress was ended by taking one risk too many - the swashbuckler got through all but the last incarnation of Melissan, while the cleric/ranger was permanently held by gauths in the Underdark.
For the third time in a row the dice have produced a new class - this time a cleric/thief. One of my sub-objectives for the challenge is to complete a run with a character class at the first attempt, so I thought I'd post on this one to provide a bit more incentive to play safely. I'm sort of on holiday this week, so should be able to make quick progress.
The opening session saw early levels being racked up from Shoal.
As backstabbing will be a regular feature, it made sense to go and get some stealthy boots. With reputation damaged and charisma not great though, I decided not to try and hand those back to Zhurlong for the moment.
Next up was the XP bonanza for following Korax on a tour of the basilisk area and, by the time Mutamin was paralysed, I was up to level 5/5.
Back in Beregost, a few spiders got me a 6th thief level. With the extra trap per day I decided to have a go at Elminster. Seven standard thief traps are not guaranteed to kill him - but on this occasion they did to hand me a cool 26k XP.
While reputation was already low, I headed on up to Ulgoth's Beard to grab Dushai's ring of free action.
With my inventory being rather clogged with potions, I thought it was time to pay a visit to Thalantyr. A first use of skeletons helped distract the golem guards there while I took them down before talking to the mage. Finding a good book for Firebead then allowed me to round out my current collection of containers.
Deciding it was time for the Nashkel Mine, I sneaked through most of that - though couldn't resist the odd spider and ghoul to help pick up a 7th thief level.
Nimbul saved against silence, but was quickly beaten down by skeletons anyway. The same fate then befell Tranzig to open up a route to the Bandit Camp. Skeletons also did most of the outside work there, though Taurgosz was taken down by a first (at least first successful) use of hold person.
Here's my current character record.
Cleric 6 / thief 7, 47 HPs, 100 kills
The poison interrupts the spell.
What was stupid was that I had forgotten that M'Khinn could now raise her. A waste of 800gp. I won't forget again.
End of run
Defeated everything including the mind flayers, but then took on the Shadow Aspect. It completely owned us.
Minsc had a permadeath even before the end of the game. He asked me to look after Boo for him, but I have a shrewd suspicion that Boo died too.
I wouldn't mind having some advice as to how to kill it. It was tough! Reducing our strengths one by one was really tough, an it blinded M'Khiin too.
I'm thinking that a few lesser restoration spells might have helped, but perhaps not.
Perhaps we should have just left it there without fighting it.
After thinking about it I have decided that summons are probably the answer. I'll try it out.
The cheapest way would be protection from undead + true sight, with a single character while everyone else chills out somewhere else. Though I have never done it with a party.
I didn't even realise that it was undead!! Charname was an inquisitor so it would probably have worked. I'll try it for next time.
The summons didn't work.
Forgot to mention that Minsc had a permadeath even before the end of the game. He asked me to look after Boo for him, but I have a shrewd suspicion that Boo died too.
Thanks for the advice. Easy Peasy when you know how!! He didn't even get wounded!1
So, back to my Blackguard game. End of page 417.
Stats at the beginning of Dragonspear. Every member of party at the level cap.
Charisma without items is 19.
Only weakness is lack of intelligence.
Since my last run was an Inquisitor and this one a Blackguard, I think that next time neutral will make a change.
Good news! My new character soloed BG 1 and made it through. He's NOT going to be solo in BG 2. I was just solo so I could get through quickly. As a fighter and cleric, he had many options to deal with enemies, such as silences, hold persons, summons, buffed up fighter style and so on. Not sure on party in Amn yet, we'll see how it goes!
Anastasia returned to her pocket realm to complete challenge 3 - an easy fight versus a Slayer avatar - a simple buff + GWWs was enough, then she recharged her rod of resurrection before moving on to Abazigal's Lair.
If I'm counting right there are 8 dragons to fight here, 7 of them to the death... great.
Draconis
Draconis is acid type, the first of 3 - Ana has no acid resistance and due to oversights days ago only has 2 protection from acid scrolls. So she is taking this rather cautiously.
First she fights his human form down, killing the dark planetar in the most ham-fisted way possible. Often these things can be killed with a single critical strike but this one kept hitting, kept healing. She had to use up 3 critical strikes so instead of carrying on she ran away to the village to heal and refresh before returning. An inauspicious start.
We restart the Draconis fight, getting him down to near death. Ana buffs only to have her images dispelled with true sight. Great. So she waits out the true sight, rebuffs including with one of her protection from acids then triggers his second form. He immediately casts PfMW so that's 4 rounds she has to kite around with nothing she can do. When it expires he uses a spell sequencer with haste and stoneskin. She attacks with GWW and gets him down to going invisible and full healing (she needed 1 rod of resurrection charge due to some nasty damage). He does the invisible + health thing again (not a full heal thankfully), then she manages to get him down to near death, causing him to cast stoneskin. With no more WWs there's nothing she can do but keep hitting away.
However, at this point all his buffs seem to have worn off and at least 1 set of blackrazor's level drains have gone off, so he's missing on 17s now. She takes it easy and puts him down.
Pretty iffy at the beginning but it all came up good with little consumable use.
The HLA Lizardmen
As dangerous as Draconis... For the first set, smite was very useful to keep throwing them across the room, but it only lasts 2 rounds and she had to retreat outside to heal. Each lizard only has 2 Whirlwinds so once they're used up its fine, but considering how tight this area is its super dangerous. She rested up in the pocket plane.
For the second set, she went invisible to skip them. Much easier.
Anadramatis
This one is much less dangerous than Draconis, though it's breath attack does piercing damage so you can't just stack protection scrolls to defend against it. The usual pre-buffs were applied then Anastasia was super nice, agreeing to fight the dragon for the breath potion.
It has Improved Haste and PfMW pre-buffs so some kiting was first, followed by GWW punching. It did not seem to put up stoneskin so Ana's punches landed hard. What it did do was cast lower resistance, one of the very few enemies I have seen that do. Its not a big deal because he surrendered moments later. Very simple.
Ana took a quick PP rest then snuck back through the lizardmen and the now newly arriving demons. No way in hell I'm doing that fight.
Ana killed the Koa-toa trash mobs, met the monk, got Hindo's hand, forged Hindo's doom and headed out to get some rope, before returning for the Quad-Dragon fight, which she was determined to do in a single sitting.
Zirimanat'ryl and Olinissimous
For these two weaker acid-type dragons, Anastasia used used her last PfA scroll, hit all her buffs and triggered the dual dragon fight. This fight can be super buggy triggering the dialogue part, but it worked fine. She then used something from the book of cheese, running straight down after the dialog so only Zirimanat'ryl would chase her. It had its revenge by instantly dispelling her PfA though. Fortunately these two dragons thac0 isn't great so she killed it only using 1 HLA and a couple of Greater Healing Potions.
She healed up, refreshed MI and moved on to Olinissimous, a lucky level drain or two and it was missing on 16s, she bcegan to casually punch it down - except just as it was almost dead Olinissimous got a run of really high rolls, meaning Ana needed the rod of Resurrection twice in 2 rounds before finishing it.
Ithy'nassendra
This is a poison type green dragon very similar to the one in Watchers Keep, with the same 2x full heals. When it spawned Ana ran to the right, giving her time to re-buff before returning.
After it takes some damage it applies the Stoneskin + haste sequencer we have seen before. Ana burns through GWWs until its first heal is triggered. She also uses her 2nd hardiness of 3. She gets it down to near death before realizing that she probably interrupted the 2nd heal, or else perhaps level drain messed with it. Her regular whirlwind is enough to finish it.
Carnifex
A very very dangerous red dragon. Anastasia applies another MI, a PfF scroll and her regeneration power, but is running out of protective buffs at this point. Carnifex has PfMW + Improved Haste so she kites for a while, then tries to smash through his stoneskin with GWW, triggering a new stoneskin contingency. Fortunately it has not dispelled her PfF which puts her to 120%FR so his dragonbreath heals her... very pleasant.
Only he starts doing some serious damage and her Hardiness wears off. She has to use rod of resurrection twice and uses her third and last hardiness. She is hesitant to use any HLAs because that would mean a round where she could not heal. At this point she has used 4 or 5 charges and it is still at barely injured, so we take the easy way out and turn into the ravager. This is all because she has no way to dispel its Improved haste or reduce its thac0.
It's not quite a cake walk since Carnifex does seem to have a stack of PfMWs too, but the ravager's dispel effect means Carnifex's improved haste is gone so we relax and return to human form and kill him. And that was was that, 4 dragons killed back to back.
Just the eyeball caverns, then Tamah and Abazigal, which may well spell the end of Anastasia.
Not to worry though, the DMMs advantages are huge too.