I know - utter utter "balls-up" since I forgot to set the traps before hand to insta-kill the Yuan-ti spawns, then Catriona got charmed and wasted Agatha, then Ingrid got charmed as well and it was all over.
There wasn't anything directly left to do at the City Gates district, but the quest for Trademeet starts there, so I went there next. By this stage I was greatly over-levelled and had powerful equipment available. Typically I don't make use of things like the Staff of the Magi in SoA, but have allowed that this time to try and make up for a couple of recent disappointments. The various druids were taken down without mercy and Cernd allowed to breakfast on Faldorn.
That provided me with another pair of levels before returning to town. A few seconds saw the local tomb cleared of undead and it didn't take much longer to reunite Tiris with his girlfriend.
Back in Athkatla, I decided to return to the Temple District to see what remained to be found there. Most of that was in the sewers where I:
- beat up a troll for Roger.
- shot down some kobolds from stealth before backstabbing their master.
- watched Tarnor's men burn in a Fire Storm.
- beat up various beholders using the Shield of Balduran and used the Rift Device on their leader.
- did a few tasks for Talos, culminating in an assault on Lathander's temple.
- pulled the occupants of the Guarded Compound downstairs into an ambush.
There was still a locked door in the sewers though, so I journeyed to Windspear Hills in search of a key. It didn't take too long to get that and the remainder of the dungeon was cleared at the same time, with Firkraag another to find himself trapped in an awkward situation.
Going to find the illithid in the sewers, I was unable to turn Alhoon, but his undead nature made him an easy victim for the iMoD during a time trap.
Looking on the map, I saw I'd not yet done the de'Arnise Hold, so went there next. Dealing with that was no problem and TorGal duly died in a Fire Storm.
The only thing left I wanted to do before going to Spellhold was a bit of work at Watcher's Keep. The statues on the first level were largely dealt with using traps.
On the second level I just explored enough to pick up the poison flail head and the wand of spell striking.
Cleric 24 / thief 26, 121 HPs (incl. 5 from helm, 5 from amulet, 12 from familiar), 1000 kills (+477 in BGEE/SoD)
In Brynnlaw, Perth was backstabbed. His book immediately produced spell turning and I left it there - though it's not actually something I would ever use.
Spellhold proved pretty quick with turn undead speeding up undead encounters. Irenicus was assaulted by the FoA under buffs including Gaxx haste. I only realised when I was there that I didn't have boots of speed (so must have forgotten to pick those up in the Planar Prison). I therefore used Grophinent's machine to make a pair.
In Fish City I finally hit the XP cap before double-crossing both the King and the Prince and picking up the Cloak of Mirroring. That left me at cleric 25 / thief 28. One of the big benefits of this class is that the low XP requirements for both enable you to get significantly higher levels than with many multiclasses. A fighter/mage for instance would get to 24/20. The thief levels also provide real benefits from HLAs - that overcomes the fact that clerical HLAs are virtually useless after the first few.
In the Underdark:
- Fire Storm killed some drow.
- traps killed a balor.
- the same fate befell Vithal after he had looted the elemental planes.
- beat up the kuo-toa in the Western Tunnels and trapped their prince (his high magical resistance meant that, for once, my standard traps were more effective than spike traps).
- killed the demon knights, though I didn't substitute the Amulet of Power for the Sensate Amulet and got level drained there when finishing off the last of them after traps did some initial work.
- in the beholder hive I just ran past the elder orb to go and get the Greenstone amulet.
- I didn't bother with the illithid at all.
- after making a few purchases from the drow I trapped Adalon before leaving the Underdark and returning to Athkatla.
I gave Kruin the Silver Sword rather than bother fighting him. I then picked up stored items and got Cromwell to make a few items. In doing that I realized I didn't have the scroll for Crom Faeyr, but fortunately that's treated by the game as a required item and hence it was still on the floor where Thaxy was killed.
The final bit of equipment wanted was the Flesh Armor. Only one of the mages died there to pre-laid traps, but a time trap allowed another couple to be struck down. The only way the final mage would be a danger was using maze and when he moved forward towards me, another trap triggered. The armor not only improved MR and saves directly, but also opened up a ring slot to make use of my holy symbol. It also meant that bracers AC3 were no longer relevant and going to the Graveyard I exploded various undead on the way to grabbing some bracers of weapon expertise to replace them. Bodhi couldn't be turned, but traps put her on the verge of death. However, I missed several attacks and got drained 10 levels as a result and had to resort to the Staff of the Magi to escape before a time trap allowed me to finish her off.
In Suldanesselar I did basically only the minimum fighting needed (though I did trap Nizi, rather than fiddling around giving her anything). Unfortunately though even small mistakes can be fatal and I got caught out in the same way as I've done at least twice before there. After placing the items on the altar I tried to retreat a bit so that all the enemies would be in sight of the Avatar when it arrived. The area transition there seems a bit more sensitive than most though and I apparently moved too far - and popped out of the door. That breaks the script for the encounter so that the Avatar of Rillifane does not appear, but killing the guards yourself also provides no way to continue.
After the gluttony of our second session could we be a little more parsimonious / frugal in our third.
We could see the entrance to Nashkel Mine so made our way inside and used Silence to deal with a half-orc named Mulahey. A group of Amazons were waiting outside for us. They didn't have long to wish they hadn't waited.
An assassin called Nimbul suffered a silent death, then Tranzig inspected a snare before he died in combat. We found evidence of a bandit camp on his body so made that our next destination.
Jack made short work of the bandits outside the camp and Daiyn helped out inside the largest tent. There wasn't a lot left to mop up after a backstab one-shotted Venkt and snares downed Raemon. Hakt put up a brief resistance and Britik took his usual last stand.
A search of the tent revealed a secret mine deep in Cloakwood, so that would be our next stop. Drasus and his gang thought they had matters in hand but a fatal backstab on Rezdan allowed his companions to all go hostile together and take snare damage. Kysus was next to fall, with Drasus and then Genthore following.
We quickly made our way down to the base of Cloakwood Mine where Davaeorn awaited us. Jack tagged him with a Silence though so we chased him around as he teleported between chambers. Daiyn craftily laid a snare but Jack grabbed the kill a moment or two before Davaeorn would have teleported back to the snare.
With the city of Baldur's Gate re-opened for business we headed there and sold a bunch of loot. This gave us plenty of room in our backpacks to top up with more loot. Degrodel once more found his guardians drawn outside to their demise.
Having stuck our noses into many matters within the city we felt it was time to lie low for a while. The best way to achieve this apparently is to deal with the Iron Throne.
Our reward for this was a holiday in Candlekeep - as intrepid busmen we found a way to turn this into another little adventure and had soon looted the under-levels of anything we wanted.
Making our escape was relatively straightforward, and then we returned to the city for debate with Slythe and Krystin. These two assassins won't be killing anyone else, other than the courtesans who wander into cloudkill.
Slythe had a pair of invites to the Coronation so we decided to gatecrash the event and play our own little tune. Jack had all sorts of buffs to hand while Daiyn decided to use arrows of dispelling. We were having so much fun that the speed of doppelganger assassin deaths almost caught us unaware and Belt managed to talk without us fully dragging him to a sideroom.
He was never in any real danger from Sarevok but we felt obliged to intervene and Jack took a couple of hefty blows.
Sarevok fled, and Belt ordered us to give chase. Whee whaa off we go (after a quick detour to Sorcerous Sundries for regeneration potions - the sort of healing potions that Jack is not allergic to). The thieves maze seemed to disappear in double-quick time as we were still hasted and buffed, and enemies melted from melee and backstabs.
This meant we reached the undercity with plenty of our buffs still active, and Daiyn felt obliged to test our her arrows of detonation against Rahvin's party. Yep, all looks good although Jack seems determined to rid himself of any excess hit points at every opportunity - you've got a bit extra left Jack...
We rest, choose some different spells, and head inside the Temple of Bhaal. A few potions later we're ready and Daiyn uses an arrow to dispel Sarevok. He sends Semaj out and we have a few rounds of fun against the enemy mage. Jack has 3 turns of guaranteed saves thanks to a magical potion while Daiyn is relying mainly on saving throws but also has an hour of clarity from a potion.
Semaj takes a while to cut down despite being dispelled twice and targeted with a barrage of missiles and a trio of buffed skeletons. We'd like to give him top marks for effort such as this lightning bolt to which we are both hit-while-immune but ultimately he died so nil points.
Daiyn hides in the shadows and draws Sarevok out. He's a tough nut and when Daiyn carelessly drags out a Battle Horror she can see this being a drawn-out fight until the web sticks on the battle horror. Our attacks soon have it defeated and we can focus back onto Sarevok. He also snags himself in the web and we're wise enough to make sure he dies before breaking free.
Here we are at the start of SoD with all the gear and no idea.
(don't ask why Jack has full plate armour + neutral archmagi robes but is wearing neither - I have no idea. Also he has the magic potion still so might not have had 3 turns of guaranteed saves)
After infiltrating the bandit camp, we killed Deke and others before recruiting Branwen. She was delighted to be able to kill Tranzig herself.
We dropped her off at the FAI with her promising to rejoin the party if we wanted her to.
Ice island proved to be challenging. We killed some mages who attacked us, but before their deaths two of us were confused and in that state we set off traps.
The rest however was straightforward.
At the Beard we proved that we weren't the goody goodies that some thought us to be, for we killed Dushai for no other reason than that we wanted his ring.
Our reputation took another hit when we tried to bribe a guard after we were caught in the act of burglary in Beregost.
Shortly afterwards we helped Neera who then joined us for a while.
She was killed when we fought the bandits at their camp.
After resting I gained the ability to cast horror.
We took Neera to Nashkel where we raised her and spent some gold on raising our reputation by 2.
Near Nashkel we killed some bandits.
We then went to Amoy's Enclave to try and help Neera control her magic.
We did as much as we could for her before leaving her at the Friendly Arms Inn because she is clearly too fragile for our lifestyle.
We went to the lighthouse and rescued a boy from worgs.
After safana joined us we cleared the area of sirine and looted a cave.
We then rescued Dynaheir, picked up Minsc and saved Annabelle.
Killing a party of gnolls nearby furnished Minsc with a +1 Two handed sword.
Dorn was killed when he interrupted an ambush.
We have now left Beregost having taken a tome to Firebead. We now have a reputation of 15 and have recovered Gurke's Cloak and helped Aldeth against the druids.
We then took on Centeol. We won but Dynaheir was killed (spiders attacked her rather than nearer party members.) so we returned to the FAI to raise her. She is now back to full health.
Drasus et al were killed easily with web, fireballs, skull traps and the like.
As we descended one mage was killed eassily.
Similarly an ogre/mage.
However a lightning bolt from Natasha was deadly for her and us.
Two of us were also confused but despite that we finished off our enemies and NOT each other.
Time to go and raise the fallen.
Whilst we were powerful enough to defeat Davaeorn by ourselves, Dynaheir needed experience to level up. So we raised her and Safana and the heroic adventurers have now entered Baldur's Gate. Yes, their reputation is now back at 17 shortly to get even higher.
EDIT
Yes, reputation now 20 after doing some trivial tasks. However we are now impoverished after doing a minor amount of shopping. It looks like more ankheg hunting is the order of the day, though we could perhaps do a few more quests first.
I would have liked to have had a completely neutral party, but Branwen can't be taken through SoD and neither can Quayle. The devs made a mistake there in my opinion. Having been set free from petrification, it is perfectly believable that she would have continued to help the protagonist wherever he/she went, perhaps even entering into a romance. Quayle I must admit is not a very believable character at all.
(don't ask why Jack has full plate armour + neutral archmagi robes but is wearing neither - I have no idea. Also he has the magic potion still so might not have had 3 turns of guaranteed saves)
I think perhaps Jack had also bought one of those potions in the thieves guild - in any event he was protected. As to why he wasn't wearing any armor though, that's a little trickier .
Giving the fighter party another try. Instead of charname going wis slayer -> thief, he's going to stay wis slayer all the way.
Took two tries to get through BG1. First attempt perished at the bandit camp when the bandit mage hit most of the party with a horror. I'm not sure why I was so caught off guard by that spell - I suppose because I normally have an arcane or a cleric for resist fear, but in this case did not. Anyway, we did not survive 3/4 of the party getting feared (including charname).
Tried again and made it through. Built Shar-teel as a quarterstaff backstabber this time, which I really liked. If she level squats at thief 3, she can have mastery in QS once she unlocks fighter levels at Thief 7. Then high mastery at thief 8. With the specialization gauntlets, bless, 2HWS, and the +3 QS from Ulgoth's Beard, she is a very spicy backstabber. Particularly if she is targeting someone with a bow. It's a shame there aren't more invis pots in BG1. She had a glorious performance during the first iron throne fight, in which she put out about 150 crushing damage in 2 rounds (2 APR backstabs w/ starting stealth + invis pot in round one; one APR backstab with a second invis pot in round 2). Crunch!
I think she could actually get Thief 9 for x4 if the party did enough questing, although I normally rush through BG1 too quickly for that. Could also potentially get the striking staff from Durlag's for truly fearsome backstabs, and even level squat at thief 7 to unlock grandmastery at thief 9. As it was, she was frequently hitting for ~60.
Charname is a halfling dart-thrower. This mix is kind of synergistic as the halfling doesn't get 19 strength in BG1, which is much of what makes throwing daggers normally so appealing vs. darts. It's... actually been a totally reasonable build so far. High master / grand master darts hurt.
The rest of the BG1 party was Yeslick, Jaheira & Khalid, and Coran. Kagain was briefly used during the bandit camp encounter. Nothing too clever in late game or final fight. The two dispel arrows from Durlag's were used against Sarevok and Angelo. Diarmid was backstabbed. Angelo was firebreathed. Semaj was detonated. Tazok was pincushioned. We did not have a monster summon wand user, so jaheira had to kite sarevok.
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Subsequently in BG2, did some early questing with just charname and Jaheira, trying to get up to 500k exp before recruiting Korgan, Anomen and Mazzy. I was planning on doing it solo, but Jaheira complains if you remove her from the party past a certain point, so decided to do it as a duo. If I were doing it over I would probably have removed her in chapter 1.
Having said that, the duo gameplay was great fun, trying to figure out what early fights we could handle together. Jaheira was pretty terrifying outdoors if she could unload her spellbook behind her screening partner. Adjantis and co, the smugglers, the fallen paladins, various ambushers, miscellaneous athkatla bullies - all fell to seemingly endless call lightning. Zapppp! Her pixie dust was also essential for safe traveling on the world map.
Had a minor scare when the bandit "home invader" cleric in windspear summoned an aerial servant. Normally this party is roadkill by the time I meet them, so I was a bit surprised to get hit by a spell of that level. Fortunately, nothing worse happened (like greater command), and we took control of the fight after a brief retreat outdoors to give Jahiera time to potion buff.
Planning on finishing up the various chapter 2/3 quests before trying our luck in spellhold and the underdark.
Jon is a fairly scary fight for this party imo, as he is difficult to interrupt reliably with no arcane. Anomen has to choose between either hitting him with holy word, or trying to hit him with firestorm. Either way risks some casts getting through. Although, Jon frequently doesn't use fireshield, which gives jaheira a good chance to hit him with insect plague. The party is likely to be toast though if he manages to cast any HLAs though.
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I'm enjoying how... exquisitely poorly thought out the wis slayer kit is. I honestly think he is worse at killing mages than an unkitted fighter. An unkitted fighter can drink magic shielding and blocking potions, as well as invisibility, clarity, invulnerability, etc. That's generally way more useful than the spell failure ability. As others have pointed out, if the enemy mage can be hit by weapons, they are probably disabled/dead anyway, so why bother with spell failure?
The wearable equipment restrictions are atrocious and make it much harder to support saves and resistances.
But, late game - that is, 7.5mm exp & cleared pocket plane late game - he should be able to have 100mr and 85% physical damage resistance, so that will at least be something to enjoy for like 2 fights before the game is over. If we manage to get that far.
Incidentally, I think human leather armor would be a great item for a wis slayer. He can't get particularly good AC anyway, and the 20 MR and -4 to saves gives him much better anti-magic coverage mid game. But I just can't bring myself to kill Adalon for it, and anyway this iteration of the character is neutral good.
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Last fighter party run, 6 months ago or so, perished to Qilue of all people, so hopefully we will at least get farther than that.
Looking forward, without charname dualing to thief, we will not be able to scroll cast freedom at any point in SoA. So successful imprisonment is a death sentence for NPCs. Not sure how we will deal with late game liches & the rune party. May have to skip. Will also be forced to miss Vithal in the underdark.
In ToB, I'm undecided on whether to make Sarevok a thief or a mage, but I will probably make him a thief to maintain the no-arcane dynamic. Very late ToB, he will at least be able to scroll cast.
A party of all fighters against Irenicus in Spellhold? Just attack - you start very close to him. My no-spellcasting party faced him twice due to a crash. Both times, they did enough damage to win the fight before his prebuffs even fired. Wielding nonmagical weapons, because I wanted to render the clones mostly harmless (Enhanced Bard Song grants normal weapon protection).
My run wasn't exactly the same as your restriction - you're allowing multiclass priests, I allowed any class as long as they don't actually cast anything from the spellcasting button. As such, the details are different. I had inquisitor dispels to take down combat defenses, and wands of spell striking to eliminate abjuration immunity if I needed to.
I do think you'd be better off with a multiclass fighter/thief as protagonist, like I used. Full access to thief tricks, scrolls and wands at high levels, and you can play as a heavily armored fighter 95% of the time.
Sure, I'm playing wis slayer because I think it's interesting - not trying to create the strongest PC or anything. I am planning on using a F/T someday when I get around to an evil run, but not this run .
I try to avoid attacking enemy mages before their buffs trigger, so that unfortunately won't be an option here. I also don't have my equipment, because I use the "remove inventory in spellhold" component of the SCS mod.
But overall I agree with you that it isn't THAT difficult a fight. It's more that I feel like its risky, because it could get out of control quickly.
In my install Jon starts with an improved mantle, so the party won't have any weapons that can damage him. So theoretically he could cast time stop the first round, and if I don't interrupt him with a spell, he could cast dragon breath and summon planetar during the timestop. That would put me in a very tough position.
Having said that, in previous runs he has had a tendency to waste his early few rounds casting defensive buffs, and then get tagged by a dispel arrow once I. Mantle wears off.
I'm not sure how often he has fire shield or death spell to kill insects, but he frequently doesn't have that either.
But I'm pretty sure eventually Jon is going to end a run, it just hasn't happened yet.
I started again, with a different band - a collection of evil reprobates:
Human Icepriestess of Auril (Modded-kit from A Frosty Journey: The IWDEE Kitpack)
Half-elf Wizard Slayer (mostly ranged)
Halfling Bounty Hunter
Half-orc Berserker (dual hammers)
Human Sorcerer
Human Bard
It's similar to the last lot, Bounty hunter and Bard are still in; but Berserker instead of Dwarven Defender, Dragon Disciple swapped for a Sorcerer and fighter/cleric for a single-class cleric, and while kensai are cool, the wizard slayer can actually wear armor...
And overall a much greater focus on ranged over melee. Its proving to be easier, cleared the whole of Vale of Shadows without resting and part way into floor 1 of Kresseleck's tomb. Like early BG1 range weapons have a lot of advantages here.
[I would have liked to have had a completely neutral party, but Branwen can't be taken through SoD and neither can Quayle. The devs made a mistake there in my opinion. Having been set free from petrification, it is perfectly believable that she would have continued to help the protagonist wherever he/she went, perhaps even entering into a romance. Quayle I must admit is not a very believable character at all.
BG1 NPC Project adds a Branwen Romance.
I agree, SoD lacks some characters : an evil thief, a neutral cleric and an evil fighter for the first part.
Wilkim the shaman minimal / no reload Tactical SCS EET Run part IV
Ice Island was not the challenge I feared, and Durlag's Tower went smoothly, minus three go back to Gullikyn for raising Neera, then Branwen, then another one I forgot. All killed by Greater ghasts.
On the contrary, neither the second floor dwarves, nor the Demon Knight were up to the task. Animate Dead is really a great spell !
As for the chess game, a minor sequencer with two webs, with fireballs, then cloudkill, whereas my shaman was hiding invisible worked great.
The only surprise came from an invisible queen I thought dead, which summoned many monsters in the middle of the party.
Werewolves Island was a breeze compared to Durlag's Tower, an use of the wand of summoning, firststriking the mage, then killing the other wolfweres, and at last concentrate on Karoug was a successful strategy.
I also had the bright idea to replace Sirene's Ankheg Plate Mail by a Full Plate Mail before sailing...
I let you guess who had to fight Karoug armorless ?
Even on hollidays, Iron Crisis can hurt hard !
There is only three things to do :
- Ducal Palace Heist
- bring back the Souldagger at Ulgoth's Beard
- exploring Undercity
We have spent some time ion the Gate and have fulfilled nearly all the quests that we have been asked to do. Sadly we didn't return a dead boy from the Temple of Umberlee quickly enough so it was impossible to raise him. AS a result we missed oput on a good shield as well as experience. We would have missed out on reputation but it was already at the maximum.
We filled up my spell book as well as Dynaheir's and we stocked up on potions to the extent that we are poor once more despite killing many ankheg.
EDIT
After re-entering Candlekeep we had no difficulties apart from the fact that we were caught pilfering and so didn't get all the equipment that we wanted.
Also Prat sent a lightning bolt at a summoned skeleton that had almost killed him. I thought that our positioning was safe but it turned out not to be. Nevertheless we survived.
Wilkim the shaman minimal / no reload Tactical SCS EET Run part V
The cultists of Ulgoth's Beard were tough, but allowed Wilkim to unleash Nature's fury : Call Lightning, Sunscorch, Alicorn Lance, Summon Insects, and even Static Charge.
The final fight with the few cultists left and Ael'Letec went very smoothly, thanks to Neera's suggestion to charm three cultists and send them against Aec'Letec, but the game was hit by the SCS / 2.6 bug making the demon unkillable. I had to step back and use the console to spawn the final Ael'Letec, and killed it.
After looting the Palace Treasury and allowing Dynaheir to meet Winski Perorate (and Ajantis to kill another demon), I at last went in the Undercity.
The mercenary group didn't last long against three Web, Spike Growth, Withering Fog, Cloudkill, Fireballs and Spirit Fire.
The fight against Sarevok was another story...
I didn't expect Semaj's Death spell to kill undeads from Animate Dead spell, and soon the battlefield was a chaotic mess.
When only Ajantis, Coran and Wilkim were still standing, they drank potions of invisibility to retreat and rethink their strategy.
Tazok was dead, Semaj seemed to have exhausted his spells and was unprotected, Darmid and Angelo were severly wounded...
We tried an assault and succeed in killing Semaj, and more importantly recovering the potions bag from Branwen's corpse. Sadly Coran died in the process, but Angelo followed him soon.
After a second retreat thanks to potion of invisibility again, Wilkim and Ajantis drank potions of haste and potions of regeneration, and Ajantis a potion of invulnerabilty and a potion of cloud giant strenght.
Wilkim launched a Spirit Fire, killing Darmid, and then they focus on the Squeletal Warriors, and then on Sarevok himself. Wilkim hit him with Alicorn Lance, Static Charge, Summon Insect, and finished him with a dagger thrown in the eye.
We did it ! Ajantis used almost all the charges from Durlag's Cup. A perfect accessory for a cavalier. ;-)
Now it's time for SoD... Fortunately, all our compagnons were raised a the begining of it.
My character finished BG1 with 200,000 XP, almost all the quests done, BG1 NPC Project quests included (minus Jaheira's and Xzar's ones) and Balduran's Sea Tower ones (I just forgot to open the pentagram door). I play with XP reduce to 75%.
Trio 33 - FINAL Update!
Riekan - dwarven fighter/thief, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Jiddle - halfling priest of Tempus (Gate70)
Grene - elven wild mage (Grond0)
In my excitement to play, forgot to take screenshots - doh!
Anyways we did quite a bit at first:
* Worked on the slavers in the moored ship. All sorts of things were used: backstabs, webs, skull traps, skeletons, etc. Riekan did a lot of thief work here - success!
* Tried to go to Trademeet, but had to deal with Remfeld first. While we were at it, also did our "task" the Harpers asked us to do. By this point, Riekan and Jiddle were badly wounded, but Grene said skip resting - sunfires should do the trick! And well she was right - they did! Then we looted the harpers' HQ blind and Xzar of course did not survive his assassin...
* Finally made it to Trademeet. We used traps on the outside genie, and Jiddle had the sense to put skeletons inside the tent to draw out any petrification spells - this worked - whew! Jiddle appreciated the shield of harmony upgrade.
* We worked our way through the druid grove. Jiddle did a lot of tanking, and grene did throw the odd spell, but most of the damage was inflicted by Riekan - Riekan also took down most of the trolls with arrows, though Grene took down a few with spells. At the end, Cernd once again asserted his dominance over Faldhorn.
We did have one scare against the 5 druids. They were dead, but a final insect plague was headed to Grene. Grond0 doesn't use heal potions, what do do? Riekan tried resting but that doesn't work. Grene and the party get hit with the insects - Grene is down to 10 HP! Oh, no! But wait a rest by Riekan works this time and Grene is good to go! (heal on rest enabled). Dodged a bullet on that one...
* Worked our way on Umar Hills quests - pretty much by the numbers this go around.
* Worked our way through the old Amaunator Temple. Jiddle wanted to try out his turn undead, but it was largely ineffective, as it mostly made his party members chase undead everywhere. We had made it just before the shadow dragon entrance.
Little did I know I was going to lose Riekan soon! This is one of the last shots of the party:
So the question was - fight the shadow dragon or not? Jiddle suggested skipping for now. As Corey_Russell recently lost a character here, he also wanted to skip. But wait, Grond0 says traps should kill him! His party members foolishly trusted Grond0 and laid down 7 snares and some skeletons and some buffs - ok here goes nothing!
Grene is incredulous, as the shadow dragon is only 1/2 injured. The skeletons die quickly and Riekan's mirror images don't last long and he tries to flee to the alcove. The dragon can't reach Riekan in melee, but his breath attack can. Grene tries to throw skull traps at the dragon, but the dragon's MR keeps him intact. Riekan does one last shout, the dragon breath is going to kill me, kill the dragon quick! And he was spot on, as in less than 2 rounds, Riekan did die to the dragon's breath attack - RIP Riekan.
So Quinton is almost done with chapter 2. He's going to do the guarded compound and the Illithid hideout after Windspear Hills, which Anomen insists the party deal with now. Anyways, after playing this game for two decades now, I learned something new - mainly, what the heck is this key for!
By accident, I discovered that I couldn't access Samia unless I had this key, as her door cannot be picked. I always wondered what this key was for and when I could drop it but always figured I could drop it once I left Firkraag's lair. Now I know - I can drop it almost immediately. Although, how did Samia herself get past the door if she was missing the key?
Almost done with Chapter Two. Did some dragon hunting, including getting some revenge on Thaxxy who took out Riekan recently! What's odd is only laid down 4 normal snares and had summons attack - the snares plus surprise attacks from the summons killed Thaxxy immediately!
Upon going to Durlag's Tower I was able to fulfil Kirinhale's quest before killing her.
We took pity on Riggilo and killed him too.
We cleared all the upper tower but cannot go any lower bacause Love was killed by Ice Storm and all his possessions disappeared.
I would have thought being a quest item the wardstone at least would not have been destroyed.
Since even Safana has 130,000 experience it is perhaps time to head for Baldur's Gate to deal with Sarevok.
We have over 30,000 gold pieces so we'll spend that on useful items first and we have some ankheg armour that should be awaiting us at Beregost. We have Durlag's Armour so if anything we will have more armour than we need.
Well, the Wis Slayer didn't make it. Dead to the spider pack in the druid grove of all things. It turns out if you are inattentive enough, you can get webbed by a giant spider, fail your save vs. breath (no help from shorty saves here!), and then get killed in a single round or so by the 2 sword spiders that are next to you. Whoops.
I didn't really like the wizard slayer, but might try again in an evil run where I can head for the human leather armor. Imo the kit just doesn't have any interesting abilities without that armor. You can't tangle with mages, because you can't use potions or critical equipment to protect yourself. Because my party cannot cast protection from petrification, any mage that can plausibly cast flesh to stone is a lethal threat and unchallengeable. An unkitted fighter could keep a potion of magic shielding or invulnerability in the back pocket. But wizard slayer - no. Ugh. I think the wis slayer might be worse than a monk.
But I think with shorty saves and the human leather armor, the combined -9 to spell save in mid-SoA kind of makes the kit slightly manageable. The +20% MR would be very, very nice as well to get MR to something useful at least by end of SoA. Without drinking potions or wearing rings/amulets, it's actually quite difficult to get your MR up to something useful, much less up to 100. The monk in contrast has a much easier time.
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New SCS Insane fighter party. Charname is Human Kenthief. Did a quick run through BG1. Some highlights:
- Messed up the Davaeorn fight. Tried to skimp on magic blocking potions to deal with the opening web/stinking cloud by having jaheira cast clean air and have Coran wield the spider sword. Except, I forgot that means he is still vulnerable to normal evocation magic. He died early, leaving me unable to put pressure on Davaeorn. The backline also had a little bit of trouble with the guard spawns, as I did not bother to ID my fear wand and so couldn't disable them easily. However, eventually Jaheira cleared the Battle Horrors with her wand of the heavens and red-facedly splurging on magic blocking kept Davaeorn under control in the interim. Guards were cleared with a fireball potion and then physical combat.
- Khalid got chunked by Zhalimar in the Iron Throne. 29 damage strike with his halberd. Ouch!
- Coran got perma-zapped by Krysten in the Undercellar. He got backstabbed to -2, and then somehow lightning bolted despite I thought being invisible. Maybe I accidentally broke invis or he was dispelled and I didn't notice somehow. I also lazily got 4/6 of the party confused by Krysten's chaos, but was not overly punished for it.
- Prior to his death, I build Khalid with *** in axes, just to try something new. It was awful, so bad that it was generally better to use a longbow with *. I had a plan to get the ogre gauntlets and the +2 throwing axe, but he didn't make it that far. Not a good build. That's probably why no one does it.
- Shar-teel did her normal stabbing build, this time with longsword/varscona and single weapon style. One thing I appreciated a little more this playthrough is the ability to backstab multiple times in a round if the thief has more than 1 APR. This substantially accelerates their DPS and makes it easier to get the final stab before the enemy can heal (at the cost of an invis pot, however)
- Charname threw daggers. Out of all the tedious BG1 dagger throwers, I think Kensai might be my favorite. Can't beat that +2/+2. I thought about doing a half orc single-class kensai, but the prospect of no thief and no scroll casting in SoA dissuaded me.
- No deaths on the final fight, although I did have to resort to kiting Sarevok. Kagain missed both dispel arrows on the big guy, although to be fair, he had no proficiency in longbow or shortbow. Yeslick finally shined in melee: +2/+1 warhammers with 25 strength and 3 APR via haste really crushes skeleton warriors. Sharteel got a few stabs in on Diarmid, then used detonation arrows to keep Semaj under control. Tazok was killed mostly with throwing daggers. Angelo got roasted by firebreath.
I have come to the conclusion that ALL fighters need some proficiency in a ranged weapon with poisoning ability. This is because you never know which ones will be taken out of the game albeit temporarily.
Short bow, long bow or crossbow will do, just so long as they can interrupt the spells of mages.
And always ensure that you have both poison arrows AND dispelling ones in the packs of ALL warriors as soon as you can afford it.
Wise_Grimwald said...
I would have thought being a quest item the wardstone at least would not have been destroyed.
@Wise_Grimwald if the wardstone was on the ground, I agree it probably would have stuck around. But as you noticed, that doesn't apply to a person with quest item loot. While ice damage does "chunk" enemies, from what I understand that chunking doesn't happen if gore is turned off. So either not use ice damage next time, or turn off the gore option would be your best bets.
Quinton the dwarven fighter/cleric - FINAL Update!
Just letting you guys know my run is over. I did not realize that mage that you free will time stop and imprison you if you try to take his spells. Guess the safest way to handle him was with traps, but of course I didn't have any traps. Back to the drawing board!
Wise_Grimwald said...
I would have thought being a quest item the wardstone at least would not have been destroyed.
@Wise_Grimwald if the wardstone was on the ground, I agree it probably would have stuck around. But as you noticed, that doesn't apply to a person with quest item loot. While ice damage does "chunk" enemies, from what I understand that chunking doesn't happen if gore is turned off. So either not use ice damage next time, or turn off the gore option would be your best bets.
You live and learn and in this game it's no big deal as party was strong enough for the Ducal Palace being almost at the level cap, and there isn't that much loot of note after the warders.
Journal of Xan
Sarevok beaten at the palace though liia was killed due to carelessness/tiredness.
Entered the maze with 225gp.
May have to go and earn some more before SoD. We'll see.
Now in the Undercity preparing for the battle with Sarevok. Preparation included killing the bats so that they didn't trigger the traps ahead of time. I'm not sure if I've got them all. We'll see. If they are near Sarevok I'll just have to hope that they don't mess up my plans. Three battle horrors have been eliminated.
However Safana needs a little more experience so we'll deal with that and then fight.
EDIT
Sarevok is beaten but game froze on entry to SoD. It was the fact that PC is called Xan. Using Keeper to change script name and character name was sufficient to start playing SoD. I then renamed him back to Xan and discovered that I needed to change his script back to Xan too. I hope that it doesn't cause problems in the future, but if it does at least I know the cause. I've always wanted to play Xan as charname and I am finding it fun.
In the battle Angelo was the biggest problem as my tactics allowed him to participate in the battle. I will change them back to my usual tactics next time.
Life is so futile. I defeat Sarevok but immediately new problems arise.
After buying some scrolls and potions my wealth amounts to a mere 7gp.
I clearly should have brought a bit more gold down here as the healer still has several useful potions and there is no store to sell surplus goods down here.
EDIT 2
At the end of the prologue I had to change script name and character name again and then change them back afterwards. Now doing trivia in Baldur's Gate and picking up party members.
@Corey_Russell An interesting example of vanilla being tougher than SCS. SCS mages will never imprison charname (unless you make an obscure variable edit).
@Corey_Russell An interesting example of vanilla being tougher than SCS. SCS mages will never imprison charname (unless you make an obscure variable edit).
@Jabberwock what's also interesting is that Balors in the Melissan fight in vanilla have a 15% chance of vorpaling a character, no save offered. In SCS, that is changed and a save is offered from the vorpal effect.
<sigh> - my thieves never seem to be able to survive. I have so many thief runs (and so many deaths lol), and another one is added to the list. So I was in Pelvale and stumbled onto some black talon elites who took Boromir down to 1/2 life in no time. So I tell him to move AWAY from the black talons, and send fire balls from other characters to whittle those enemies down. What does my character do? Move TOWARDS all the enemy archers and gets quickly mowed down for his efforts.
Once more with feeling, back to the drawing board!
Ah, the importance of scouting. If you know where they are and the Blacktalons don't see you, you can easily set up and crush them. If they see you first, you're in for some pain.
Heading toward them as a thief isn't always a bad idea; as archers, they're very susceptible to backstabs. Then once you're in their midst, they either switch to melee or try to make some distance, and you get a break from the arrows. But that only works if you're in stealth, and you back it up with the party before they can regroup.
Comments
some progress has been made
Thats all folks!
I know - utter utter "balls-up" since I forgot to set the traps before hand to insta-kill the Yuan-ti spawns, then Catriona got charmed and wasted Agatha, then Ingrid got charmed as well and it was all over.
here's me getting my revenge:
But its too late for The Spring Company
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166330/#Comment_1166330
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166392/#Comment_1166392
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166415/#Comment_1166415
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166500/#Comment_1166500
There wasn't anything directly left to do at the City Gates district, but the quest for Trademeet starts there, so I went there next. By this stage I was greatly over-levelled and had powerful equipment available. Typically I don't make use of things like the Staff of the Magi in SoA, but have allowed that this time to try and make up for a couple of recent disappointments. The various druids were taken down without mercy and Cernd allowed to breakfast on Faldorn.
Back in Athkatla, I decided to return to the Temple District to see what remained to be found there. Most of that was in the sewers where I:
- beat up a troll for Roger.
- shot down some kobolds from stealth before backstabbing their master.
There was still a locked door in the sewers though, so I journeyed to Windspear Hills in search of a key. It didn't take too long to get that and the remainder of the dungeon was cleared at the same time, with Firkraag another to find himself trapped in an awkward situation.
Looking on the map, I saw I'd not yet done the de'Arnise Hold, so went there next. Dealing with that was no problem and TorGal duly died in a Fire Storm.
The only thing left I wanted to do before going to Spellhold was a bit of work at Watcher's Keep. The statues on the first level were largely dealt with using traps.
Cleric 24 / thief 26, 121 HPs (incl. 5 from helm, 5 from amulet, 12 from familiar), 1000 kills (+477 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166330/#Comment_1166330
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166392/#Comment_1166392
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166415/#Comment_1166415
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166500/#Comment_1166500
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1166597/#Comment_1166597
In Brynnlaw, Perth was backstabbed. His book immediately produced spell turning and I left it there - though it's not actually something I would ever use.
Spellhold proved pretty quick with turn undead speeding up undead encounters. Irenicus was assaulted by the FoA under buffs including Gaxx haste. I only realised when I was there that I didn't have boots of speed (so must have forgotten to pick those up in the Planar Prison). I therefore used Grophinent's machine to make a pair.
In Fish City I finally hit the XP cap before double-crossing both the King and the Prince and picking up the Cloak of Mirroring. That left me at cleric 25 / thief 28. One of the big benefits of this class is that the low XP requirements for both enable you to get significantly higher levels than with many multiclasses. A fighter/mage for instance would get to 24/20. The thief levels also provide real benefits from HLAs - that overcomes the fact that clerical HLAs are virtually useless after the first few.
In the Underdark:
- Fire Storm killed some drow.
- traps killed a balor.
- the same fate befell Vithal after he had looted the elemental planes.
- beat up the kuo-toa in the Western Tunnels and trapped their prince (his high magical resistance meant that, for once, my standard traps were more effective than spike traps).
- killed the demon knights, though I didn't substitute the Amulet of Power for the Sensate Amulet and got level drained there when finishing off the last of them after traps did some initial work.
- in the beholder hive I just ran past the elder orb to go and get the Greenstone amulet.
- I didn't bother with the illithid at all.
- after making a few purchases from the drow I trapped Adalon before leaving the Underdark and returning to Athkatla.
I gave Kruin the Silver Sword rather than bother fighting him. I then picked up stored items and got Cromwell to make a few items. In doing that I realized I didn't have the scroll for Crom Faeyr, but fortunately that's treated by the game as a required item and hence it was still on the floor where Thaxy was killed.
The final bit of equipment wanted was the Flesh Armor. Only one of the mages died there to pre-laid traps, but a time trap allowed another couple to be struck down. The only way the final mage would be a danger was using maze and when he moved forward towards me, another trap triggered. The armor not only improved MR and saves directly, but also opened up a ring slot to make use of my holy symbol. It also meant that bracers AC3 were no longer relevant and going to the Graveyard I exploded various undead on the way to grabbing some bracers of weapon expertise to replace them. Bodhi couldn't be turned, but traps put her on the verge of death. However, I missed several attacks and got drained 10 levels as a result and had to resort to the Staff of the Magi to escape before a time trap allowed me to finish her off.
In Suldanesselar I did basically only the minimum fighting needed (though I did trap Nizi, rather than fiddling around giving her anything). Unfortunately though even small mistakes can be fatal and I got caught out in the same way as I've done at least twice before there. After placing the items on the altar I tried to retreat a bit so that all the enemies would be in sight of the Avatar when it arrived. The area transition there seems a bit more sensitive than most though and I apparently moved too far - and popped out of the door. That breaks the script for the encounter so that the Avatar of Rillifane does not appear, but killing the guards yourself also provides no way to continue.
Daiyn (female dwarf bounty hunter, Gate70); Jack (male half elf fighter / mage / cleric, Grond0)
After the gluttony of our second session could we be a little more parsimonious / frugal in our third.
We could see the entrance to Nashkel Mine so made our way inside and used Silence to deal with a half-orc named Mulahey. A group of Amazons were waiting outside for us. They didn't have long to wish they hadn't waited.
Jack made short work of the bandits outside the camp and Daiyn helped out inside the largest tent. There wasn't a lot left to mop up after a backstab one-shotted Venkt and snares downed Raemon. Hakt put up a brief resistance and Britik took his usual last stand.
We quickly made our way down to the base of Cloakwood Mine where Davaeorn awaited us. Jack tagged him with a Silence though so we chased him around as he teleported between chambers. Daiyn craftily laid a snare but Jack grabbed the kill a moment or two before Davaeorn would have teleported back to the snare.
Making our escape was relatively straightforward, and then we returned to the city for debate with Slythe and Krystin. These two assassins won't be killing anyone else, other than the courtesans who wander into cloudkill.
This meant we reached the undercity with plenty of our buffs still active, and Daiyn felt obliged to test our her arrows of detonation against Rahvin's party. Yep, all looks good although Jack seems determined to rid himself of any excess hit points at every opportunity - you've got a bit extra left Jack...
Semaj takes a while to cut down despite being dispelled twice and targeted with a barrage of missiles and a trio of buffed skeletons. We'd like to give him top marks for effort such as this lightning bolt to which we are both hit-while-immune but ultimately he died so nil points.
After infiltrating the bandit camp, we killed Deke and others before recruiting Branwen. She was delighted to be able to kill Tranzig herself.
We dropped her off at the FAI with her promising to rejoin the party if we wanted her to.
Ice island proved to be challenging. We killed some mages who attacked us, but before their deaths two of us were confused and in that state we set off traps.
The rest however was straightforward.
At the Beard we proved that we weren't the goody goodies that some thought us to be, for we killed Dushai for no other reason than that we wanted his ring.
Our reputation took another hit when we tried to bribe a guard after we were caught in the act of burglary in Beregost.
Shortly afterwards we helped Neera who then joined us for a while.
She was killed when we fought the bandits at their camp.
After resting I gained the ability to cast horror.
We took Neera to Nashkel where we raised her and spent some gold on raising our reputation by 2.
Near Nashkel we killed some bandits.
We then went to Amoy's Enclave to try and help Neera control her magic.
We did as much as we could for her before leaving her at the Friendly Arms Inn because she is clearly too fragile for our lifestyle.
We went to the lighthouse and rescued a boy from worgs.
After safana joined us we cleared the area of sirine and looted a cave.
We then rescued Dynaheir, picked up Minsc and saved Annabelle.
Killing a party of gnolls nearby furnished Minsc with a +1 Two handed sword.
Dorn was killed when he interrupted an ambush.
We have now left Beregost having taken a tome to Firebead. We now have a reputation of 15 and have recovered Gurke's Cloak and helped Aldeth against the druids.
We then took on Centeol. We won but Dynaheir was killed (spiders attacked her rather than nearer party members.)
Drasus et al were killed easily with web, fireballs, skull traps and the like.
As we descended one mage was killed eassily.
Similarly an ogre/mage.
However a lightning bolt from Natasha was deadly for her and us.
Two of us were also confused but despite that we finished off our enemies and NOT each other.
Time to go and raise the fallen.
Whilst we were powerful enough to defeat Davaeorn by ourselves, Dynaheir needed experience to level up. So we raised her and Safana and the heroic adventurers have now entered Baldur's Gate. Yes, their reputation is now back at 17 shortly to get even higher.
EDIT
Yes, reputation now 20 after doing some trivial tasks. However we are now impoverished after doing a minor amount of shopping. It looks like more ankheg hunting is the order of the day, though we could perhaps do a few more quests first.
I would have liked to have had a completely neutral party, but Branwen can't be taken through SoD and neither can Quayle. The devs made a mistake there in my opinion. Having been set free from petrification, it is perfectly believable that she would have continued to help the protagonist wherever he/she went, perhaps even entering into a romance. Quayle I must admit is not a very believable character at all.
I think perhaps Jack had also bought one of those potions in the thieves guild - in any event he was protected. As to why he wasn't wearing any armor though, that's a little trickier
Took two tries to get through BG1. First attempt perished at the bandit camp when the bandit mage hit most of the party with a horror. I'm not sure why I was so caught off guard by that spell - I suppose because I normally have an arcane or a cleric for resist fear, but in this case did not. Anyway, we did not survive 3/4 of the party getting feared (including charname).
Tried again and made it through. Built Shar-teel as a quarterstaff backstabber this time, which I really liked. If she level squats at thief 3, she can have mastery in QS once she unlocks fighter levels at Thief 7. Then high mastery at thief 8. With the specialization gauntlets, bless, 2HWS, and the +3 QS from Ulgoth's Beard, she is a very spicy backstabber. Particularly if she is targeting someone with a bow. It's a shame there aren't more invis pots in BG1. She had a glorious performance during the first iron throne fight, in which she put out about 150 crushing damage in 2 rounds (2 APR backstabs w/ starting stealth + invis pot in round one; one APR backstab with a second invis pot in round 2). Crunch!
I think she could actually get Thief 9 for x4 if the party did enough questing, although I normally rush through BG1 too quickly for that. Could also potentially get the striking staff from Durlag's for truly fearsome backstabs, and even level squat at thief 7 to unlock grandmastery at thief 9. As it was, she was frequently hitting for ~60.
Charname is a halfling dart-thrower. This mix is kind of synergistic as the halfling doesn't get 19 strength in BG1, which is much of what makes throwing daggers normally so appealing vs. darts. It's... actually been a totally reasonable build so far. High master / grand master darts hurt.
The rest of the BG1 party was Yeslick, Jaheira & Khalid, and Coran. Kagain was briefly used during the bandit camp encounter. Nothing too clever in late game or final fight. The two dispel arrows from Durlag's were used against Sarevok and Angelo. Diarmid was backstabbed. Angelo was firebreathed. Semaj was detonated. Tazok was pincushioned. We did not have a monster summon wand user, so jaheira had to kite sarevok.
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Subsequently in BG2, did some early questing with just charname and Jaheira, trying to get up to 500k exp before recruiting Korgan, Anomen and Mazzy. I was planning on doing it solo, but Jaheira complains if you remove her from the party past a certain point, so decided to do it as a duo. If I were doing it over I would probably have removed her in chapter 1.
Having said that, the duo gameplay was great fun, trying to figure out what early fights we could handle together. Jaheira was pretty terrifying outdoors if she could unload her spellbook behind her screening partner. Adjantis and co, the smugglers, the fallen paladins, various ambushers, miscellaneous athkatla bullies - all fell to seemingly endless call lightning. Zapppp! Her pixie dust was also essential for safe traveling on the world map.
Had a minor scare when the bandit "home invader" cleric in windspear summoned an aerial servant. Normally this party is roadkill by the time I meet them, so I was a bit surprised to get hit by a spell of that level. Fortunately, nothing worse happened (like greater command), and we took control of the fight after a brief retreat outdoors to give Jahiera time to potion buff.
Planning on finishing up the various chapter 2/3 quests before trying our luck in spellhold and the underdark.
Jon is a fairly scary fight for this party imo, as he is difficult to interrupt reliably with no arcane. Anomen has to choose between either hitting him with holy word, or trying to hit him with firestorm. Either way risks some casts getting through. Although, Jon frequently doesn't use fireshield, which gives jaheira a good chance to hit him with insect plague. The party is likely to be toast though if he manages to cast any HLAs though.
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I'm enjoying how... exquisitely poorly thought out the wis slayer kit is. I honestly think he is worse at killing mages than an unkitted fighter. An unkitted fighter can drink magic shielding and blocking potions, as well as invisibility, clarity, invulnerability, etc. That's generally way more useful than the spell failure ability. As others have pointed out, if the enemy mage can be hit by weapons, they are probably disabled/dead anyway, so why bother with spell failure?
The wearable equipment restrictions are atrocious and make it much harder to support saves and resistances.
But, late game - that is, 7.5mm exp & cleared pocket plane late game - he should be able to have 100mr and 85% physical damage resistance, so that will at least be something to enjoy for like 2 fights before the game is over. If we manage to get that far.
Incidentally, I think human leather armor would be a great item for a wis slayer. He can't get particularly good AC anyway, and the 20 MR and -4 to saves gives him much better anti-magic coverage mid game. But I just can't bring myself to kill Adalon for it, and anyway this iteration of the character is neutral good.
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Last fighter party run, 6 months ago or so, perished to Qilue of all people, so hopefully we will at least get farther than that.
Looking forward, without charname dualing to thief, we will not be able to scroll cast freedom at any point in SoA. So successful imprisonment is a death sentence for NPCs. Not sure how we will deal with late game liches & the rune party. May have to skip. Will also be forced to miss Vithal in the underdark.
In ToB, I'm undecided on whether to make Sarevok a thief or a mage, but I will probably make him a thief to maintain the no-arcane dynamic. Very late ToB, he will at least be able to scroll cast.
My run wasn't exactly the same as your restriction - you're allowing multiclass priests, I allowed any class as long as they don't actually cast anything from the spellcasting button. As such, the details are different. I had inquisitor dispels to take down combat defenses, and wands of spell striking to eliminate abjuration immunity if I needed to.
I do think you'd be better off with a multiclass fighter/thief as protagonist, like I used. Full access to thief tricks, scrolls and wands at high levels, and you can play as a heavily armored fighter 95% of the time.
I try to avoid attacking enemy mages before their buffs trigger, so that unfortunately won't be an option here. I also don't have my equipment, because I use the "remove inventory in spellhold" component of the SCS mod.
But overall I agree with you that it isn't THAT difficult a fight. It's more that I feel like its risky, because it could get out of control quickly.
In my install Jon starts with an improved mantle, so the party won't have any weapons that can damage him. So theoretically he could cast time stop the first round, and if I don't interrupt him with a spell, he could cast dragon breath and summon planetar during the timestop. That would put me in a very tough position.
Having said that, in previous runs he has had a tendency to waste his early few rounds casting defensive buffs, and then get tagged by a dispel arrow once I. Mantle wears off.
I'm not sure how often he has fire shield or death spell to kill insects, but he frequently doesn't have that either.
But I'm pretty sure eventually Jon is going to end a run, it just hasn't happened yet.
I started again, with a different band - a collection of evil reprobates:
Human Icepriestess of Auril (Modded-kit from A Frosty Journey: The IWDEE Kitpack)
Half-elf Wizard Slayer (mostly ranged)
Halfling Bounty Hunter
Half-orc Berserker (dual hammers)
Human Sorcerer
Human Bard
It's similar to the last lot, Bounty hunter and Bard are still in; but Berserker instead of Dwarven Defender, Dragon Disciple swapped for a Sorcerer and fighter/cleric for a single-class cleric, and while kensai are cool, the wizard slayer can actually wear armor...
And overall a much greater focus on ranged over melee. Its proving to be easier, cleared the whole of Vale of Shadows without resting and part way into floor 1 of Kresseleck's tomb. Like early BG1 range weapons have a lot of advantages here.
I'm playing narrativly so I went and made a thread elsewhere so I don't clog this one up with poor quality prose: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/81804/icewind-dale-narrative-play-through-the-chosen-of-auril
I agree, SoD lacks some characters : an evil thief, a neutral cleric and an evil fighter for the first part.
Ice Island was not the challenge I feared, and Durlag's Tower went smoothly, minus three go back to Gullikyn for raising Neera, then Branwen, then another one I forgot. All killed by Greater ghasts.
On the contrary, neither the second floor dwarves, nor the Demon Knight were up to the task. Animate Dead is really a great spell !
As for the chess game, a minor sequencer with two webs, with fireballs, then cloudkill, whereas my shaman was hiding invisible worked great.
The only surprise came from an invisible queen I thought dead, which summoned many monsters in the middle of the party.
Werewolves Island was a breeze compared to Durlag's Tower, an use of the wand of summoning, firststriking the mage, then killing the other wolfweres, and at last concentrate on Karoug was a successful strategy.
I also had the bright idea to replace Sirene's Ankheg Plate Mail by a Full Plate Mail before sailing...
I let you guess who had to fight Karoug armorless ?
There is only three things to do :
- Ducal Palace Heist
- bring back the Souldagger at Ulgoth's Beard
- exploring Undercity
Caution is saying to skip the dagger...
We have spent some time ion the Gate and have fulfilled nearly all the quests that we have been asked to do. Sadly we didn't return a dead boy from the Temple of Umberlee quickly enough so it was impossible to raise him. AS a result we missed oput on a good shield as well as experience. We would have missed out on reputation but it was already at the maximum.
We filled up my spell book as well as Dynaheir's and we stocked up on potions to the extent that we are poor once more despite killing many ankheg.
EDIT
After re-entering Candlekeep we had no difficulties apart from the fact that we were caught pilfering and so didn't get all the equipment that we wanted.
Also Prat sent a lightning bolt at a summoned skeleton that had almost killed him. I thought that our positioning was safe but it turned out not to be. Nevertheless we survived.
I killed Diarmid with traps.
The cultists of Ulgoth's Beard were tough, but allowed Wilkim to unleash Nature's fury : Call Lightning, Sunscorch, Alicorn Lance, Summon Insects, and even Static Charge.
The final fight with the few cultists left and Ael'Letec went very smoothly, thanks to Neera's suggestion to charm three cultists and send them against Aec'Letec, but the game was hit by the SCS / 2.6 bug making the demon unkillable. I had to step back and use the console to spawn the final Ael'Letec, and killed it.
After looting the Palace Treasury and allowing Dynaheir to meet Winski Perorate (and Ajantis to kill another demon), I at last went in the Undercity.
The mercenary group didn't last long against three Web, Spike Growth, Withering Fog, Cloudkill, Fireballs and Spirit Fire.
The fight against Sarevok was another story...
I didn't expect Semaj's Death spell to kill undeads from Animate Dead spell, and soon the battlefield was a chaotic mess.
When only Ajantis, Coran and Wilkim were still standing, they drank potions of invisibility to retreat and rethink their strategy.
Tazok was dead, Semaj seemed to have exhausted his spells and was unprotected, Darmid and Angelo were severly wounded...
We tried an assault and succeed in killing Semaj, and more importantly recovering the potions bag from Branwen's corpse. Sadly Coran died in the process, but Angelo followed him soon.
After a second retreat thanks to potion of invisibility again, Wilkim and Ajantis drank potions of haste and potions of regeneration, and Ajantis a potion of invulnerabilty and a potion of cloud giant strenght.
Wilkim launched a Spirit Fire, killing Darmid, and then they focus on the Squeletal Warriors, and then on Sarevok himself. Wilkim hit him with Alicorn Lance, Static Charge, Summon Insect, and finished him with a dagger thrown in the eye.
We did it ! Ajantis used almost all the charges from Durlag's Cup. A perfect accessory for a cavalier. ;-)
Now it's time for SoD... Fortunately, all our compagnons were raised a the begining of it.
My character finished BG1 with 200,000 XP, almost all the quests done, BG1 NPC Project quests included (minus Jaheira's and Xzar's ones) and Balduran's Sea Tower ones (I just forgot to open the pentagram door). I play with XP reduce to 75%.
Riekan - dwarven fighter/thief, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Jiddle - halfling priest of Tempus (Gate70)
Grene - elven wild mage (Grond0)
In my excitement to play, forgot to take screenshots - doh!
Anyways we did quite a bit at first:
* Worked on the slavers in the moored ship. All sorts of things were used: backstabs, webs, skull traps, skeletons, etc. Riekan did a lot of thief work here - success!
* Tried to go to Trademeet, but had to deal with Remfeld first. While we were at it, also did our "task" the Harpers asked us to do. By this point, Riekan and Jiddle were badly wounded, but Grene said skip resting - sunfires should do the trick! And well she was right - they did! Then we looted the harpers' HQ blind and Xzar of course did not survive his assassin...
* Finally made it to Trademeet. We used traps on the outside genie, and Jiddle had the sense to put skeletons inside the tent to draw out any petrification spells - this worked - whew! Jiddle appreciated the shield of harmony upgrade.
* We worked our way through the druid grove. Jiddle did a lot of tanking, and grene did throw the odd spell, but most of the damage was inflicted by Riekan - Riekan also took down most of the trolls with arrows, though Grene took down a few with spells. At the end, Cernd once again asserted his dominance over Faldhorn.
We did have one scare against the 5 druids. They were dead, but a final insect plague was headed to Grene. Grond0 doesn't use heal potions, what do do? Riekan tried resting but that doesn't work. Grene and the party get hit with the insects - Grene is down to 10 HP! Oh, no! But wait a rest by Riekan works this time and Grene is good to go! (heal on rest enabled). Dodged a bullet on that one...
* Worked our way on Umar Hills quests - pretty much by the numbers this go around.
* Worked our way through the old Amaunator Temple. Jiddle wanted to try out his turn undead, but it was largely ineffective, as it mostly made his party members chase undead everywhere. We had made it just before the shadow dragon entrance.
Little did I know I was going to lose Riekan soon! This is one of the last shots of the party:
So the question was - fight the shadow dragon or not? Jiddle suggested skipping for now. As Corey_Russell recently lost a character here, he also wanted to skip. But wait, Grond0 says traps should kill him! His party members foolishly trusted Grond0 and laid down 7 snares and some skeletons and some buffs - ok here goes nothing!
Grene is incredulous, as the shadow dragon is only 1/2 injured. The skeletons die quickly and Riekan's mirror images don't last long and he tries to flee to the alcove. The dragon can't reach Riekan in melee, but his breath attack can. Grene tries to throw skull traps at the dragon, but the dragon's MR keeps him intact. Riekan does one last shout, the dragon breath is going to kill me, kill the dragon quick! And he was spot on, as in less than 2 rounds, Riekan did die to the dragon's breath attack - RIP Riekan.
Back to the drawing board next week!
Traveling with: Jaheira, Valygar, Viconia, Anomen, Yoshimo
So Quinton is almost done with chapter 2. He's going to do the guarded compound and the Illithid hideout after Windspear Hills, which Anomen insists the party deal with now. Anyways, after playing this game for two decades now, I learned something new - mainly, what the heck is this key for!
By accident, I discovered that I couldn't access Samia unless I had this key, as her door cannot be picked. I always wondered what this key was for and when I could drop it but always figured I could drop it once I left Firkraag's lair. Now I know - I can drop it almost immediately. Although, how did Samia herself get past the door if she was missing the key?
Traveling with: Jaheira, Valygar, Viconia, Anomen, Yoshimo
Almost done with Chapter Two. Did some dragon hunting, including getting some revenge on Thaxxy who took out Riekan recently! What's odd is only laid down 4 normal snares and had summons attack - the snares plus surprise attacks from the summons killed Thaxxy immediately!
Upon going to Durlag's Tower I was able to fulfil Kirinhale's quest before killing her.
We took pity on Riggilo and killed him too.
We cleared all the upper tower but cannot go any lower bacause Love was killed by Ice Storm and all his possessions disappeared.
I would have thought being a quest item the wardstone at least would not have been destroyed.
Since even Safana has 130,000 experience it is perhaps time to head for Baldur's Gate to deal with Sarevok.
We have over 30,000 gold pieces so we'll spend that on useful items first and we have some ankheg armour that should be awaiting us at Beregost.
I didn't really like the wizard slayer, but might try again in an evil run where I can head for the human leather armor. Imo the kit just doesn't have any interesting abilities without that armor. You can't tangle with mages, because you can't use potions or critical equipment to protect yourself. Because my party cannot cast protection from petrification, any mage that can plausibly cast flesh to stone is a lethal threat and unchallengeable. An unkitted fighter could keep a potion of magic shielding or invulnerability in the back pocket. But wizard slayer - no. Ugh. I think the wis slayer might be worse than a monk.
But I think with shorty saves and the human leather armor, the combined -9 to spell save in mid-SoA kind of makes the kit slightly manageable. The +20% MR would be very, very nice as well to get MR to something useful at least by end of SoA. Without drinking potions or wearing rings/amulets, it's actually quite difficult to get your MR up to something useful, much less up to 100. The monk in contrast has a much easier time.
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New SCS Insane fighter party. Charname is Human Kenthief. Did a quick run through BG1. Some highlights:
- Messed up the Davaeorn fight. Tried to skimp on magic blocking potions to deal with the opening web/stinking cloud by having jaheira cast clean air and have Coran wield the spider sword. Except, I forgot that means he is still vulnerable to normal evocation magic. He died early, leaving me unable to put pressure on Davaeorn. The backline also had a little bit of trouble with the guard spawns, as I did not bother to ID my fear wand and so couldn't disable them easily. However, eventually Jaheira cleared the Battle Horrors with her wand of the heavens and red-facedly splurging on magic blocking kept Davaeorn under control in the interim. Guards were cleared with a fireball potion and then physical combat.
- Khalid got chunked by Zhalimar in the Iron Throne. 29 damage strike with his halberd. Ouch!
- Coran got perma-zapped by Krysten in the Undercellar. He got backstabbed to -2, and then somehow lightning bolted despite I thought being invisible. Maybe I accidentally broke invis or he was dispelled and I didn't notice somehow. I also lazily got 4/6 of the party confused by Krysten's chaos, but was not overly punished for it.
- Prior to his death, I build Khalid with *** in axes, just to try something new. It was awful, so bad that it was generally better to use a longbow with *. I had a plan to get the ogre gauntlets and the +2 throwing axe, but he didn't make it that far. Not a good build. That's probably why no one does it.
- Shar-teel did her normal stabbing build, this time with longsword/varscona and single weapon style. One thing I appreciated a little more this playthrough is the ability to backstab multiple times in a round if the thief has more than 1 APR. This substantially accelerates their DPS and makes it easier to get the final stab before the enemy can heal (at the cost of an invis pot, however)
- Charname threw daggers. Out of all the tedious BG1 dagger throwers, I think Kensai might be my favorite. Can't beat that +2/+2. I thought about doing a half orc single-class kensai, but the prospect of no thief and no scroll casting in SoA dissuaded me.
- No deaths on the final fight, although I did have to resort to kiting Sarevok. Kagain missed both dispel arrows on the big guy, although to be fair, he had no proficiency in longbow or shortbow. Yeslick finally shined in melee: +2/+1 warhammers with 25 strength and 3 APR via haste really crushes skeleton warriors. Sharteel got a few stabs in on Diarmid, then used detonation arrows to keep Semaj under control. Tazok was killed mostly with throwing daggers. Angelo got roasted by firebreath.
Sorry about that.
I have come to the conclusion that ALL fighters need some proficiency in a ranged weapon with poisoning ability. This is because you never know which ones will be taken out of the game albeit temporarily.
Short bow, long bow or crossbow will do, just so long as they can interrupt the spells of mages.
And always ensure that you have both poison arrows AND dispelling ones in the packs of ALL warriors as soon as you can afford it.
@Wise_Grimwald if the wardstone was on the ground, I agree it probably would have stuck around. But as you noticed, that doesn't apply to a person with quest item loot. While ice damage does "chunk" enemies, from what I understand that chunking doesn't happen if gore is turned off. So either not use ice damage next time, or turn off the gore option would be your best bets.
Just letting you guys know my run is over. I did not realize that mage that you free will time stop and imprison you if you try to take his spells. Guess the safest way to handle him was with traps, but of course I didn't have any traps. Back to the drawing board!
You live and learn and in this game it's no big deal as party was strong enough for the Ducal Palace being almost at the level cap, and there isn't that much loot of note after the warders.
Journal of Xan
Sarevok beaten at the palace though liia was killed due to carelessness/tiredness.
Entered the maze with 225gp.
May have to go and earn some more before SoD. We'll see.
Now in the Undercity preparing for the battle with Sarevok. Preparation included killing the bats so that they didn't trigger the traps ahead of time. I'm not sure if I've got them all. We'll see. If they are near Sarevok I'll just have to hope that they don't mess up my plans. Three battle horrors have been eliminated.
However Safana needs a little more experience so we'll deal with that and then fight.
EDIT
Sarevok is beaten but game froze on entry to SoD. It was the fact that PC is called Xan. Using Keeper to change script name and character name was sufficient to start playing SoD. I then renamed him back to Xan and discovered that I needed to change his script back to Xan too. I hope that it doesn't cause problems in the future, but if it does at least I know the cause. I've always wanted to play Xan as charname and I am finding it fun.
In the battle Angelo was the biggest problem as my tactics allowed him to participate in the battle. I will change them back to my usual tactics next time.
Life is so futile. I defeat Sarevok but immediately new problems arise.
After buying some scrolls and potions my wealth amounts to a mere 7gp.
I clearly should have brought a bit more gold down here as the healer still has several useful potions and there is no store to sell surplus goods down here.
EDIT 2
At the end of the prologue I had to change script name and character name again and then change them back afterwards. Now doing trivia in Baldur's Gate and picking up party members.
@Jabberwock what's also interesting is that Balors in the Melissan fight in vanilla have a 15% chance of vorpaling a character, no save offered. In SCS, that is changed and a save is offered from the vorpal effect.
<sigh> - my thieves never seem to be able to survive. I have so many thief runs (and so many deaths lol), and another one is added to the list. So I was in Pelvale and stumbled onto some black talon elites who took Boromir down to 1/2 life in no time. So I tell him to move AWAY from the black talons, and send fire balls from other characters to whittle those enemies down. What does my character do? Move TOWARDS all the enemy archers and gets quickly mowed down for his efforts.
Once more with feeling, back to the drawing board!
Heading toward them as a thief isn't always a bad idea; as archers, they're very susceptible to backstabs. Then once you're in their midst, they either switch to melee or try to make some distance, and you get a break from the arrows. But that only works if you're in stealth, and you back it up with the party before they can regroup.