Meanwhile I Cavora, and my party have been killing sirines in the west apart from Sil who was friendly. We also killed Droth and Shoal. Nothing was difficult. It looks like Nashkel Mines are beckoning.
Rasha, neutral evil elven fighter/thief multiclass, first report
Hello everyone. Good to see that the thread is still going! Good luck to everyone playing at the moment. I didn't have much time for Baldur's Gate these last few months, and I still don't - but I decided that I should at least try and put one more class/kit in the Hall of Heroes this year. With limited time and me having gotten a bit tired of completionist full party runs, I decided to try my hand at a quick mostly-solo playthrough without SCS (or any other mods). My first plan was to play a shapeshifter. I did some mechanical tests for the kit, started playing after I learned about how weapon styles etc. affect shapeshifters in the unmodded game - and promply died to Tarnesh while trying to dodge magic missles running in and out of the Temple of Wisdom.
So much for that. After that quick failure, I decided to go with propably the most powerful solo class still left outside of the hall: A Fighter/Thief multi called Rasha:
Why did I make her neutral evil? Well, there's a reason, though it is a bad one. I wanted her to play mostly with two-handed weapons (quarterstaff for backstabs, two-handed sword for other combat, and longbow for BG1) and since I had already planned to skip a lot of endgame content, as this was supposed to be a quick run (including Watcher's Keep), I thought about weapon options and decided that Soul Reaver might be nice - which a good character can't wear. However, I completely forgot that Rasha could wear it anyway thanks to UAI - so, in the end, the alignment choice was pointless.
A quick point here: This is not, strictly speaking, a solo run. I will mostly play solo because its a lot faster, but whenever I feel unsafe, I might add other party members to help out.
To get a quick start, I opened by kiting Shoal, getting revenge on Tarnesh via backstab, selling Evermemory and buying a wand of sleep, a green PfP scroll and a Necklace of Missles while picking up quest items on the way to Nashkel:
With sleep and fireball at my disposal, I gathered more experience dealing with the basilisks, with Korax being his usual helpful self:
I even used Korax and the Necklace of Missles plus some ranged attacks to deal with the adventuring party out here - 2 fireball charges and a lucky paralyze on the enemy mage with my ghoul buddy were enough:
Now at levels 5/5, I felt comfortable roaming around, gathering important items and solving some easy quests for reputation and gold. I kited Meilum, finished all Beregost quests, helped Samuel, saved Melicamp, dealt with Brage, returned Drienne's cat, visited the dig site and the lighthouse, took down Zargal and Teyngan with backstabs and decided to finally go shopping with my reputation now at 20 and a charisma tome from the Gnoll Fortress at the ready - I mostly bought the Shadow Armor, the Greenstone Amulet, the Cloak of Displacement and the +3 Quarterstaff. The Sandthief's Ring had to wait until I had a bit more gold in my posession - to that end, the Greenstone Amulet now allowed me to safely engange Bassilus:
Sneaking through the mines, I dealt with Mulahey, once again using a greenstone charge, before entering the bandit camp, avoiding outside battles for now - a quick backstab + hit on their mage did the trick - the others stood little chance against Rasha's fighting abilities, which I ended up boosting with an oil of speed:
In the end, I did decide to take out the other bandits, mainly to get the full plate armor:
Now, I really wanted to get my hands on the boots of speed. On enemies that aren't easily kitable with arrows, I'm mostly playing a backstab&run&backstab again playstyle, which is so much easier with a movement speed advantage. To defeat Drasus, I blasted his two mages from off-screen with fireballs from the necklace:
I knew that I was going to easily get past the experience cap even with minimal combat at this point, so I stealthed through the entire Iron Mines without engaging anyone until I met Davaeorn, where a PfM scroll did the job:
Now, I was able to a) buy the Sandthief's Ring (a valuable source of true invisibility, as I can't disarm traps during stealth) and b) enter the city to gather tomes, the Helm&Cloak of Balduran, and I also pickpocketed Dushai's ring and Algernon's Cloak.
We'll stop for now after a small excursion back outside: Sneaking past sirens, plundering the tome from the golem cave (without combat), killing the basilisks at Durlag's Tower (easy source of experience, no risk involved, and Rasha wasn't at her cap yet) and using a greenstone charge to get the wisdom tome.
Thanks for the encouragement @Aerakar@Borco ! Looking forward to Borco's new run
Rasha, neutral evil elven fighter/thief multiclass, second report
Back in the city, I helped Nadine to get another Necklace of Missles for more charges and completed the Marek&Lothander questchain in order to obtain the wisdom tome. Marek fell to our first over 100 damage backstab crit:
Still had to get the int tome, so Ramazith and Ragefast fell to a similiar fate:
I did the first two Scar quests for some additional gold and experience (fighting the doppelgangers, backstabbing the ogre mage) before sneaking past the iron throne party in order to get to Candlekeep without any risk. There, a similiar approach got me past the entire place without a single fight - I only took some time to plunder the crypt tombs in order to obtain the two tomes. Back in the city, I saved Eltar, met Tamoko two times and took down Slythe, luring him away from Krysten - she never revealed herself from invisibility, even after I walked back to the middle in order to check on her. I totally forgot about Cythandria, but for progress, dealing with her isn't needed.
Now, for the Ducal Palace - this is where I decided to pick up a party member for the first time. Garrick, in this case, though it could've been any arcane spellcaster - I bought scrolls of Greater Malison and Chaos in order for him to read them and confuse the doppelgangers. In retrospect, I should've recruited some more folks, simply to get more bodies in between the dukes and their would-be assassins, or another mage so I could read the scrolls at the same time.
The battle was incredibly close. I've never seen the doppelgangers SO focused on killing the dukes outright - not a single one was interested in Rasha or Garrick at all, they brought Belt to injured before the greater malison even hit. Even buffed with heroism, speed and storm giant strength, Rasha wasn't dealing close to enough damage:
A second later, Lia was killed pretty much instantly by three assassins surrounding her. Rasha was able to deal with two of them, but the other three brought Belt to near death as, FINALLY, Garrick's chaos hit, affecting all foes. If they had continued to attack Belt, as is totally possible under confusion, the run would've been over - at this point, I was praying for them to change targets or just stand around - and, luckily, they did, saving this run from a premature end:
Garrick tried to cast invisibility via scroll on Belt, but he kept attacking, revealing himself again - still, the doppelgangers didn't go after him, and Rasha was able to finish the job:
Following that, she tanked most of Sarevok's attacks, so that he wouldn't hit the near-death Belt. Garrick was dismissed - I won't be needing him again.
That was close. Now, we activated the Sandthief's Ring to make our way through the maze, past the undercity party and to Tamoko, who we backstabbed in order to sell her gear in early SoD for some additional money. Time to face Sarevok. Buffing with storm giant strength, heroism, invulnerability, speed and mind focusing, I carefully lured Sarevok away from his party, opening with a dispelling arrow to dispel his haste:
After that, Semaj entered the fight, teleporting to the middle and hitting us with his instant greater malison. Even with invulnerability, I didn't trust my saves at this point, and as Semaj started slinging spells, I decided to use potions of magic blocking. This reduced our damage, as these potions sadly dispel other buffs, but without his haste, we still could kite Sarevok while working on Semaj's defenses:
It took me quite a while to kill Semaj this way - in total, i had to use 3 magic blocking potions before finally dealing with the mage:
Since I had bought all of the oils of speed from the House of Wonder cleric, I popped another one to make kiting Sarevok and shooting him a bit faster:
Like you I am usually a completionist so I am unlikely to ever finish BG1 so quickly. I even have mods installed to make BG1 last even longer.
I also like to have the interaction between Charname and other party members. Diary of Cavora
Tenya killed Lethe, now has Ebbe a halberd useable by clerics, and knows how to use the bowl.
We collected some more ankheg shells but cannot get any gold for them.
At least we got experience. We sold a lot of surplus equipment and bought equipment that we needed.
Unfortunately since we didn't get the gold for the shells, there wasn't enough to get the archmage robe for Dynaheir or the shadow armour for Corwin.
We have now entered the Nashkel Mines.
I am enjoying not knowing what comes next due to the mods. On balance I don't think that they are making the game easier or harder at the moment. I like that. The equipment is better, but at present this is compensated for with the dangerous ambushes.
When I know the mods, I will probably return to the unmodded game.
EDIT
Sadly my current game was somehow overwitten and my previous save is too long ago, so I am starting another game with a lawful good half-orc barbarian. I think that this is my first barbarian. I certainly haven't played them much.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar) @Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier @Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Wirblefop once again had two weeks to concoct a session 10 plan but opted for a final-hour effort so even sketchier than usual. The two hour plan is to return to Spellhold and from there reach the City of Caverns and the Underdark. No need to let on to his companions that he'd spent five tokens bagging up boots of the north and thrown the 21st token away.
So out we go and almost immediately we get to battle a trio of trolls.
It didn't take us long to get back, and only a few moments more to defeat Lonk the Sane. With his jailor dead there was nothing between us and Irenicus. Even with his clones there was little he could do other than depart before we could attempt to finish him off.
A few undead outside Spellhold are brushed aside and we depart from Brynnlaw with Saemon Havarian. A couple of acts of piracy follow and we are forced to leave our sinking ship and make our way to the city of caverns. After killing a sahuagin king we kill their prince too and depart into the underdark.
Our first act in this realm is to pick on a trio of mindflayers. Wirblefop is duly stunned from a psionic blast and feebly whispers to Peel and Talisman. Talisman wonders why Wirblefop is voicing his concern as there is plenty of distance between Wirblefop and the ongoing combat. Wirblefop mentions that he doesn't want the combat to make it's way to him... what a wuss.
Once Wirblefop gets mobile again we clear out some drow casters and myconids before agreeing to deal with a Balor for the nearby Swirf village.
After doing this we headed into the western tunnels and hunted down the remaining Kuo Toa, their prince, and a quintet of Demon Knights. Peel upgraded his combat ability by equipping a strength girdle. Wirblefop assumed he had another strength girdle to give to Talisman but it appears not - Peel must have a natural strength of 19.
A couple of Kuo Toa groups in the main area are picked apart - Wirblefop staying nicely back and using his bow. He gives Talisman the recently acquired Cloak of Mirroring and promises to stay hidden so his is not targeted or held. Promise.
Desipte this minor blip we continue, and soon have the lair cleared.
The beholder lair went so well that Wirblefop decides to investigate the illithid lair. Talisman tries to cast chaotic commands onto him but Wirblefop is having none of it and says he will be careful. Oh dear.
The illithid soon realise two of their umber hulks are missing, but not in time to save the Elder Brain from our weapons.
On our escape Peel and Talisman are ready to fight Simyaz but all Wirblefop can think of is where did they find that gazebo?
Peel reckons we have cash aplenty for his next spending spree. Wirblefop is not so sure (it'll be fine)
We avoid exposing our disguise given by Adalon, and start on the drow city quests in Ust Natha.
A new run with a Lawful Good Orc Barbarian.
With very little experience with barbarians I don't expect to get too far despite the good roll. I do like the portrait.
In Candlekeep I started with 180gp.
I said goodbye to Alec with a relatively chaste kiss.
My dealings with a guard were much raunchier.
Hull gave me his sword as a goodbye present.
Sorting out Sir Trun's love life gained me a point of reputation.
I broke an axe fighting the rats.
After leaving Candlekeep with Gorion, we were ambushed and he was killed.
After picking up his gear which included a container, Imoen and I headed south where we were able to help Mellicamp.
Imoen and I both levelled up after calming Marl down. Imoen improved her pickpocketting ability as much as she could which was sufficient to pickpocket Algernon at the second attempt. He became angry immediately after Imoen was successful, so we made a quick exit.
I left Imoen near the forge and proceeded southwards where I killed a couple of ogrillon with some Bruel's Retort axes bought at the forge.
I then headed south having rested. On the way to Nashkel I killed a number of hobgoblins and kobolds and picked up the Colquetle amulet.
In Nashkel I picked up some ankheg armour, but sadly I am unable to use it.
To the south Zargos Flinblade attacked and was killed. He had in his possession a +1 battle axe which I will now use in preference to the breakable variety. He hurt mr badly, but a rest sufficed for my recovery though it did take 6 days and 16 hours.
I found a wand of frost in a tree before heading east where I found a ring of fire protection. Nearby a lady asked me to take Samuel to the FAI which I did. I then returned Joia's ring which resulted in me becoming a fully fledged hero.
We delivered some of the numerous missives that we have been given to deliver.
We spoke to Dorn in the FAI wherewupon he joined us near Nashkel. We killed some of those who betrayed him before bidding Dorn farewell in Nashkel.
We've not had much success getting through SoD in recent runs, so took a low risk route there this time - sticking to encounters and tactics we know well.
The initial action was at Boareskyr Bridge where we fought our way past goblins and worgs to get to the teleporter. Inside, Mist wanted to talk to Jegg, but couldn't see him. Trile pointed out where he was and went to talk to him - asking him to make a shield out of some dragon scales. Unfortunately the fact that Mist still couldn't see him appeared to mean the following cutscene couldn't be resolved and we had to restart from the autosave. It didn't take long though to rerun the action and this time Jegg was fully on view.
Trile already had some boots of speed, but commissioned another pair using the materials gathered from the vampire's cave last session - being unsure whether they would be identical to the ones he already had (which they were). Mist then surrendered the fort and went to investigate a mage holding out on the bridge. He can be hard to hit, but true sight stripped much of his protection and Trile's MMMs disrupted the mage's attempts to construct a portal.
At the Coalition Camp we bought a few nice items from Nazramu, but didn't bother with any of the little quests on offer there. Instead, we used invisibility to bypass Dead Mans Pass and go to rescue Skie from Dragonspear. Then it was on to the Underground River where we killed a cyclops for his badge. At that point we could have gone into invisibility again, but Mist decided to finish off the group of guards there. A bit like ToB though, even bog-standard guards in SoD can pose a problem and Mist had to kite the last couple of guards after taking several painful spear thrusts.
Moving underground, we ignored all the potential side-quests and just went to place the Bwoosh before lacing food and water supplies with poison. That was done invisibly, which meant the lift was not operational - so Mist showed himself and fired a single shot for honor to allow escape.
On the back back to the Camp we were ambushed. Although there was no particular gain to be had, Mist did decide to use up some of his large collection of exploding arrows. Those did claim the Shadowy Figure as a victim, though he managed to get right up next to Trile before one final blast wave proved too much for him.
At the Camp, waves of invaders proved helpless as more exploding arrows poured in. The final wave was led by Grimgor who tried to use sanctuary to hide himself - but true sight mercilessly exposed him to a quick finish.
After the fight Trile wanted to rest to identify items, but Mist misunderstood and transitioned to Dragonspear while Trile had only identifies memorized for L1 spells. Not to worry though, there was no more fighting to be done there after Ashatiel's buffs all proved ineffective against a single stunning dart.
Inside Dragonspear, Trile explored a couple of chests that have some nice mage items and scrolls. I'm pretty sure that one of those can be fatal in SP, but that might be because of something like maze. We didn't get the chance to be reminded of the trap effects this time as Trile's MR shrugged off the potential harm.
Moving on, we entered the nether regions, running through the first area rather than getting involved in conflict there. Mist used a potion of invulnerability to make his saves safe against status effects while beating up enemies in the second area. The invisible attackers there can often be a bit of a pain, but true sight proved pretty effective against them.
After resting and buffing up, we took a trip on the Hellevator to find Belhifet. There was an amusing moment fairly early in that fight when he translocated for the first time. Mist asked loudly where he was and a chorus of children replied "he's behind you".
Mist had forgotten to buy any regeneration potions, so used the odd potion of heroism instead to top up his HPs. Most of the attacks though were made against Caelar and Mist used a couple of restoration scrolls to keep her in the fight (relying on the Battle Tankard to avoid fatigue). Trile manage to do a bit of spell damage thanks to using lower resistance on Belhifet, but the bulk of damage done was physical and Caelar eventually got the killing blow.
Rasha, neutral evil elven fighter/thief multiclass, third report
Starting in SoD, I used a PfU scroll, oil of speed an cloud giant strength in order to quickly clear Korlasz's tomb. For the non-undead, a hit and run approach with re-stealthing and backstabs was employed. Finally, after buffing with an additional potion of clarity, I threw two necklace-fireballs into Korlasz's room before dispelling her defenses with arrows of dispelling, which allowed me to get her to surrender:
I had to fight her a second time back in the city, once again using my dispelling arrows:
A quick and easy backstab of the drow mage in sorcerous sundries allowed me to go shopping, buying some more detonation arrows and potions:
After thinking for a while, I decided to play SoD solo - the sheer amount of potion protections and already pretty good saves were enough for me to risk it for additional speed.
At the Coast Way Crossing, I started off in stealth, interrupted the one spellcaster trying to reveal Rasha and used an invisibility potion, staying invisible until the timed end of this battle. I snuck around the area, disarming traps and clearing monsters, bought the golem and went for a quick vampire hunt, with another potion of clarity used for protection:
I still had enough PfU scrolls to clear the Repository of Undeath the same way I did with Korlasz's tomb, for some additional experience. Heroism, cloud giant strength and speed were used in order to defeat the non-undead bronze sentry:
The lich fell to The Secret Revealed and a few hits:
Having recruited the dwarves and gained enough experience to ensure that I would hit the cap no matter what, I was able to skip a lot of battles in the upcoming chapters. I only did what needed to be done for progression or for significant item upgrades. No battles at all in Troll Claw Woods or the Forest of Wyrms. I one-shot the dragon with a throwing knife, though:
Sneaking through the bugbear caves, the next enemy I had to kill was Ziatar - the usual potion buffs, plus clarity, invulnerability and a protection from poison scroll, an opening backstab and a few wand of magic missle charges (which can get through sanctuary) were enough:
Next up, the Neothelid - no way for him to get past my saves or clarity protections:
Now, I only had to obtain the teleportation stone from the priestess - easily done with an opening backstab and another hit:
I sprinted out of there, not wanting to get into a fight with her two aerial servants. Before surrendering Bridgefort, I made sure to backstab Vichand in order to gain access to the Void-Tipped Arrows for big B:
After the negotiations, I shot dispelling arrows at the mage trying to blow up the bridge, buffed with an oil of speed amongst other things, allowing me to interrupt and kill them:
At the Coalition Camp, I made sure to do the "free" camp quests and to use my spectacles on the genie in order to obtain some useful item upgrades. With a quick visit to the Dragonspear Courtyard and the Dead Man's Pass, I was able to complete my equipment:
Fulll plate armor (or studded leather/shadow armor when stealthing) and a Ring of Protection +2
Helm and Cloak of Balduran
Medal of Valor (sometimes Greenstone Amulet or Necklace of Missles)
Ring of the Crusade (sometimes Ring of the Tiny Fiend or fire protection rings)
Cloverleaf (before that, I used the various armor belts)
Legacy of the Masters
And for weapons: Corinth's Bow (before that, I used the Dead Shot or the +1 Composite Bow) and the +3 Quarterstaff.
I'll leave it here for now - next up: The Underground River.
Ahoy! It's been some time since I last set foot in Faerûn.
I happen to be a very unsuccessful no-rolader and, when thinking about the character concept for a new run, I tried to recall my track record with various classes. As it turned out, I had the most success (in terms of getting as far as possible in the game in a relatively consistent manner, though never really getting even close to completing the challenge) with divine casters, followed by various warrior classes. My attempts with arcane casters and rogues on the other hand had been significantly less competent, while multi-class runs had been more or less a disaster (I've never tried dual-classing).
That said, a Priest of Helm seemed like a fairly balanced choice, being a cleric with a bit of an extra fighting edge.
Tamika, as some of my other characters, is named after a certain hero in HoMAM III. She's a halfling, because halflings rock, and she's lawful neutral not because she's the Spanish inquisition but because it's the embodiment of a regular person trying to get by (despite its rather uninviting in-game description). And getting by is exactly how this challenge feels sometimes .
In order to make things slightly more interesting, I've decided to give her a custom made personal item via NearInfinity. Even though its properties are arguably very relevant, the intention was not distort the overall game balance but rather to add little flavor to the character. And of course, what personal item would make sense for a Priest of Helm to possess other than a helm? Originally I even thought naming it the Helm of Helm, but that clearly was pushing it too far .
Game version: BGEE 2.6.6.0 (no SoD) Difficulty: Hardcore Mods: SCS (v34.3) with all tactical and AI components; personal item (NearInfinity) Modified SCS components: Giant Spiders (Tactical)
I'll come back shortly with an update on the first part of BG1.
We depart from Candlekeep with a handful of sling ammunition and a war hammer, each corresponding to Tamika's weapon proficiencies. Our goal will be to reach level 7 before proceeding with the main plotline. Given that for a cleric it only requires 55k exp, it should prove to be relatively straightforward with a solo character.
It terms of gear, we've primarily looking at completing the full set of protective items including a sturdy armor, magical +1 shield, RoP+1, Claw of Kazgaroth, Greenstone Amulet, Shield Amulet, Cloak of Displacement, belts and a well stocked potion case. And that required a lot of adventuring.
One of our first notable exploits involved the belt ogre. Tamika then used Sanctuary to get past Tarnesh into FAI, where she collected a PoI from Jaheira and exchanged the Easter egg diamond and other minor loot for a plate mail from Bentley (I do not seem to recall him ever selling that in previous version of the game).
After dealing with Joia's hobgoblins our next stop was High Hedge. The Ring of Wizardry bought us some fine stuff at Thalantyr's, including a Wand of Sleep, a set of panic button potions (Potion of Magic Blocking, Potions of Freedom, Potion of Mirrored Eyes) and couple of +1 sling bullets.
Tamika then recovered Perdue's sword and headed east to Beregost. By visiting Marl at Feldepost's Inn and clearing Landrin's house from the spiders we reached levels 2 and 3, respectively. As a general rule I do use randomly generated HP gain on level-up in BG1 (I am not sure about the underlying math, but the HPs numbers tend to be in the higher end of the spectrum), however I do allow my characters to get the max HP gain for level 2.
A quick encounter with Shoal brought us to level 4 - these clerics do progress fast for sure! That gives Tamika a much needed +2 THAC0 bonus and reduced saving throws. The additional weapon proficiency goes to flails (I was considering committing to staves, including one pip in two-handed weapon style at level 8, but eventually decided to abandon the idea).
At this stage, we're starting to get meaningful duration out of our Seeking Sword (1 round/level) and ProEvil (3 rounds/level). Some other spells like Aid (1 round + 1 round/level) or Armor of Faith will need to wait before they see some use.
As I'm never sure how the various priest bonuses and spells interact with each other (partly because of my lagging memory and partly because of game version changes or possible mod interference) , I went on to do some testing. It turns out that, unlike Aid, Chant is not cumulative with Tamika's personal helm which grants the Bless (non-cumulative) (130) status effect. I had not tested this with the actual Bless priest spell, but I'm assuming that the result should be the same. This means that Tamika is not going to be using Chart on a regular basis, as it is ill fitted to be utilized as a combat de-buff in a solo play.
Another important thing was to confirm which spells break Sanctuary so as to avoid a potentially game ending mistake, as some of these cases may be somewhat counter-intuitive. The key takeaways for now are that Free Action (!), Chant and the Priest of Helm's True Sight (I believe it uses the arcane version of the spell) all break the invisibility and Resist Fear (!) breaks the invisibility unless it is targeted directly at the caster. Seeking Sword and Strength of One, on the other hand, can be safely pre-cast under Sanctuary.
Here's an example of Tamika's approach to early fights when not kiting with sling. She pre-buffs with ProEvil, DuHM and Seeking Sword, having four rounds of 3 APR at 12 THAC0.
Regarding Seeking Sword just a final note before wrapping up this report - it is known that magically created weapons (at least in the Enhanced Editions), when paired with an off-hand weapon, are not treated as dual-wielding and do not impose any penalties (not even the -2 off-hand penalty applicable to full *** in the two-weapon fighting style), making it a somewhat broken/overpowered mechanic. I was weighing on this before starting the run and decided to embrace the bug in our favor with the rationale that the Seeking Sword, after all, should seek and strike its targets of its own volition and therefore the character can fully concentrate on using its other weapon. However, the same would not apply to Shillelaghs, Flame Swords and Spiritual Hammers for sake of balance.
My first task at the Undeground River, recruiting the ogres, was a failure - starting the convseration while invisible seems to preclude the option. With the Seal of Caelar (pickpocketed from Malden Col), I safely entered the underground area, ignoring the caves and the southern part - the only thing on this map I wanted to do was backstab Strunk:
I'm trying to make the siege as easy as possible. Next up, planting the barrel, entering the warrens and going downstairs. Under oil of speed + stealth, all I wanted to was poison the water + food supplies. Hephernaan teleported in while I was doing so, and as an enemy spellcaster had true sight running, I used invisibility potions between true sight ticks to take as little damage as possible and break any attempts at casting harmful spells. All in all, this worked out nicely:
I still had tons of invisibility potions - you kind of get bombarded with them in SoD compared to BG1, where they are quite precious. Anyway, I ran away back to camp, avoiding any combat, and prepared to defend against the various waves. Important buffs here: Fire protection scroll + potion, invulnerability, speed. I equipped my arrows of detonation, which I had saved for this point in the game. Shooting down the waves with constant fireballs was easy enough, and I since I still had a bunch of arrows of dispelling left, I used a few of these against the final party, allowing me to quickly get past any defenses:
For the siege, my approach was the same - speed, invulnerability, fire immunity and our remaining detonation arrows, dispelling arrows for any mages with active MGOI. That way, I quickly cleared the courtyard:
With a PfM scroll for safety, the duel against Ashatiel was easily won:
After a quick rest, I entered Avernus, preparing with clarity, speed and invisibility. I skipped the first map and started killing devils on the second while already drinking potions and activating scrolls for big B - poison immunity, fire immunity, cold immunity, lightning immunity, heroism, power, clarity, speed, storm giant strength, mind focusing, invulnerability. With my saves at 0 or better (and even better against demons and devils thanks to the Ring of the Crusade), I was prepared for anything to come my way. I recruited Caelar as a tank, trying to keep her alive with potions while starting to shoot void-tipped arrows at big B:
Since I was ignoring the devils, they eventually overwhelmed and killed Caelar. While kiting, I sometimes drank invisibility potions when they were starting to surround me - otherwise, all I had to do was avoid attacks, shoot void-tipped arrows and sometimes melee with my quarterstaff when big B got too close - until he finally went down:
While in Beregost, Tamika finished the minor quests for Zhurlong, Mirianne and Perdue, having to deal in the process with Karlat by a combination of Doom and Hold Person.
Next up was Melicamp and Zargal's hobgoblins that succumbed to our Wand of Sleep. In her proudest moment up to date, Tamika did a major service to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel by bringing the former captain of the guard to justice. As a matter of due respect, she also donated the entire reward back to the church. For the glory of Helm!
Afterwards we had a good time celebrating at the carnival with our brand new Ankegh Plate. Once at level 5, which meant immunity to Sleep (save vs. spell against Command only comes at level 6) and access to L3 spells, we returned to Beregost for Sling +1 (forgot to get it earlier) and Neera's gem bag.
From there we travelled east to hunt some basilisks together with Korax for more XP. Fighting Kirian's troupe from Waterdeep was out of limits on roleplaying grounds, so no Golden Girdle for Tamika, but we still managed to get to level 6 (most notably from now on DuHM raises each of the relevant attributes by 2 instead of 1).
Considering that Meilum's bracers would also not be available without breaking the character, we decided not spend any more time in the eastern areas and proceeded north to Ulgoth's Beard instead, hunting a few ankeghs on the way. Tamika also had to fend off aggressive Tenya whom even forced us to gulp a Potion of Freedom.
From the Ulgoth's Beard inn we purchased the Greenstone Amulet, the Cloak of Displacement and a Wand of Heavens. Soon thereafter we put the wand to a good use at Durlag's Tower exterior against the Battle Horrors and the Doom Guards. The Greenstone Amulet in turn allowed Tamika to retrieve the Tome of Wisdom from inside the tower.
At this stage we've reached level 7, thus obtaining a further +2 THAC0 and saving throw bonus, as well as access to L4 spells. Here's Tamika's character record before reading the Tome of Wisdom.
Now the only things missing were a proper melee weapon and the Claw of Kazgaroth (combined with the Manual of Bodily Health). The solution was clear, though not easy - Bassilus. With his L6 cleric spells and rather damaging Unholy Blights, he is able to put up quite a fight. Tamika came prepared with a summoned dire wolf via Animal Summoning I and buffed with Resist Fear (in case Bassilus would be using Cloak of Fear), Free Action, ProEvil and Chant. Girdle of Bluntness was a no brainer. When the fight began, Bassilus had precast Blade Barrier (that's 8d8 damage right there; potentially more than our total HP pool), Armor of Faith, Free Action (no Hold Person for us) and DuHM.
Sending her dire wolf as bait, Tamika opened with a successful Silence while Bassilus was busy with his Chant. Noting that priests have no access to any sort of Vocalize effect, this was a very promising start, especially knowing that our Silence will eventually outlast his Blade Barrier.
Keeping her distance, Tamika kited with slingshorts while slowly starting to work on her offensive buffs - Strength of One and DuHM. When the Blade Barrier fell away it was the moment to strike - she summoned her Seeking Sword and finished him in melee (it didn't help poor Bassilus that he's wearing a chain mail instead of a plate).
Ashideena is a great addition to our arsenal and with the kingly reward from the Lathander temple we're finally able to buy ourselves the Claw of Kazgaroth. Tamika also makes a side trip to the lighthouse area to obtain the CON tome, using Sanctuary to avoid all enemies and Greenstone Amulet to counter the traps inside the cave. Boosting our base CON 18 ensures thre's no HP penalty for wearing the Claw and also maximizes Tamika's shorty saving throw bonuses. Unfortunately, the reduced saving throws will not become available until the next level-up (I should have gotten the CON tome before level 7, but nevermind).
Here's our inventory before heading to the Nashkel mines for the record:
One final note regarding our spell preferences - being a Priest of Helm, it did not seem appropriate for Tamika to be using Animate Dead and therefore our L3 spell slots are mostly dedicated to Strength of One and Cure Medium Wounds. We will be adding Holy Smites later on, with a situational ProFire. There's more to pick from at L4, but for now we'll mostly focus on Animal Summoning, ProEvil 10' and Holy Power (though it's duration of 1 round/level is currently holding it a bit back).
@Enuhal Congratulations for getting all the way to Amn already! I'm not very familiar with SoD content, so I cannot fully appreciate what's happening in these parts of your run, but it sure seems like a tough challenge.
As a general rule I do use randomly generated HP gain on level-up in BG1 (I am not sure about the underlying math, but the HPs numbers tend to be in the higher end of the spectrum), however I do allow my characters to get the max HP gain for level 2.
The underlying math is "roll twice, take the higher number". There's some debate over how intentional it is; not all versions of the game have worked that way. But as the SoA NPCs seem to have been built with that rule, I'm comfortable using it as-is.
Expected value for various possible hit dice:
d12: 8.49
d10: 7.15
d8: 5.81
d6: 4.47
d4: 3.13
d10/2: 3.36
d8/2: 2.70
d6/2: 2.06
d4/2: 1.44
The "half" dice come into play with multiclasses - take the roll, divide by 2, round down with minimum 1.
When we killed Greywolf, Isra joined us after which we joined up with Montaron and Xzar. Xzxar was dumped in Joia''s room whilst we went ankheg hunting.
Whilst ankheg hunting all of us except Isra reached level 5. Montaron is now a good pick-pocket, perhaps the time to head for Ulgoth's Beard is now, particularly since Isra's sword broke.
After Montaron did a lot of pick-pocketting at Ulgoth's Beard we left him there for a rest whilst the rest of us headed back south to pick up Sirene from the temple.
Ajantis joined us. We fought three flaming fist south of Beregost in order to equip him with plate as buying it is not yet an option.
We then went to clear a few more ankheg. Doing that and dealing with Bassilus made shopping a priority.
My axes were upgraded.
After that the basilisks, medusae and Mutamin were dealt with easily by usinng the scroll of protection.
In Gullykin we returnedd the Precious to Smeagol and some assassins.
We then killed the mage responsible for tthe death of Tenya's mother. This resulted in Tenya getting a better weapon and her learning how to use the bowl.
After crisscrossing the Sword Coast we're finally ready to proceed with the investigation of the local troubles in Nashkel. Tamika made her way through the mines under Sanctuary, reaching Mulahey's sanctum undetected. She prepared for the battle with ProEvil, Strength of One, DuHM, Greenstone Amulet and Seeking Sword. Revealing herself to Mulahey, she blasted his minions with two charges of Necklace of Missiles and pummeled him in melee.
For the time being, the Ring of Holiness will be replacing Tamika's Ring if Protection until we can get our hands on RoP+2 in Baldur's Gate.
We proceeded to recover couple of potions from the tombs back at the surface under Sanctuary. Afterwards, we collected the ProMagic scroll from Hafiz (as well as the Ring of Fire Resistance from the same area) and returned to Nashkel to report to Mr Ghastkill.
For Nimbul we used Animal Summoning I (2x), Resist Fear, ProEvil, Armor of Faith, Strength of One, DuHM and Seeking Sword, while skipping the Greenstone Amulet. Nimbul opened with MIs on top of his prebuffs (Stoneskin, Shield, MSD), which Tamika immediately countered with True Sight.
Seeing a gap in our defences, Nimbul opted for Emotion: Hopelessness. A smart move, were it not for our clear aura and a Potion of Magic Blocking.
With 5 rounds of effective spell immunity, Tamika then refreshed her dispelled True Sight to prevent further MIs and Invisibility casts. With the Seeking Sword duration expired, and knowing that Nimbul's MFD will not stop our Hold Person (probably due to its small area effect), we made an attempt for a winning move. Success!
Thereafter we proceeded swiftly to Peldwale, only stopping at FAI to purchase Extra Healings and Potions of Mind Focusing at the Temple of Wisdom. In what is probably going to be a major dent on his corporate record, Raiken takes Tamika on board and brings us all the way to their secret camp. Don't worry Tazok, we'll take it from here.
The plan was to first deal with the bandits in the main tent and then deal with the rest of them outside. Tamika buffed with Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Strength, Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration, ProEvil 10', Resist Fear, Armor of Faith, True Sight, Holy Power, DuHM and Seeking Sword. She kept her shield instead of dual-wielding, but in hindsight I should have replaced it with Ashideena for more oomph, given that the Claw + Cloak of Displacement + Boots of Avoidance would have been sufficient to still require the archers to roll 20 in order to hit.
With 4 APR at THAC0 4, it was a fairly straightforward business, especially since Venkt had been the first to fall.
Tamika uses the Boots of Grounding to mitigate the chest trap damage and collects the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. Afterwards we heal up and refresh our Holy Power + DuHM before leaving the tent.
Once outside, it had seemed that full-plated Taurgosz is about to put up a good fight by instantly quaffing an Oil of Speed. Instinctively reaching for her Potion of Absorption at first, Tamika quickly changed her mind and decided to try Hold Person before more bandits show up. A failed save meant a premature end for Taurgosz - well sometimes even your best is not enough.
At that stage we could just collect the full plate and run, but that would mean missing out on the fun. The final bill for roughly 30 dead bandits was 2x Potion of Explosion, 2x Holy Smite, 1x Hold Person and 21 bullets (hammer swings were for free).
The underlying math is "roll twice, take the higher number". There's some debate over how intentional it is; not all versions of the game have worked that way. But as the SoA NPCs seem to have been built with that rule, I'm comfortable using it as-is.
Starting with the opening dungeon, we got our hands on the Staff Spear +2 as the extra EE-weapon placed in the golem room's chest - quite good for backstabbing this duergar mage, for example:
The only enemies I skipped around here were the big group of mephits at the plane of air - too many risks involved, and stealth provides us with an easy way around them:
However, upon entering the second level of the dungeon, my run almost ended when engaging with another group of mephits - at the portals, I wasn't able to get a backstab on the radiant mephit, and it hit me with its improved color spray, knocking Rasha down:
This has happened to me before in a solo run - and that time, the color spray ran out when the PC was just barely alive, allowing me to salvage the situation. This time, I didn't have much hope, as my hitpoints were dropping quickly, but, luckily, I ended up getting the same result: With 28 hitpoints left, color spray ran out:
I was able to kill the radiant mephit and its portal before he tried to use another color spray. Certainly the closest encounter of this run since the ducal palace. After backstabbing another duergar mage and plundering all the treasures of the dungeon, I made my way out:
With ** in Two-Handed Swords at the ready since late BG1 already, I now started using the Sword of Chaos +2 when I wasn't backstabbing - for example, in my first city encounter, when fighting Khala:
However, the weapon I really wanted for early-mid SoA was, of course, Lirlarcor, with its amazing protections and +3 enchantment. Thus, I made my way to the Copper Coronet, took down the kennel master (while stealthing past the magic-wielding mercenaries) and entered the sewers. I skipped hobgoblin encounters and myconids, killed the slimes and backstabbed the kobold shaman:
Having taken the ring and shooting down the carrion crawler, Lirlarcor was ours. For the slavers, I went back to the front of their building. After disarming the web trap, I backstabbed the gnome mage and retreated right away:
Even without any haste effects, I was able to get away before the human mage was able to cast any dangerous spells on me. I took down some more guards before returning for the second backstab:
Fighting the non-spellcasting slavers was fairly easy, and I only needed to stealth one more time to take down the priest of cyric:
Captain Heigan was the last to fall:
Having now already quite a bit of gold at my hands, I payed Gaelan right away to get my hands on the RoP +2. On the way to meet Mook, I achieved my biggest backstab yet when taking down the pirate lair:
I also took down Xzar's disciples before making it to the harbour. There, I encountered a bit of a problem: Having met with Aran so early on, I was now faced with a vampire encounter. I thought that Rasha's fighting ability and the charm protection via Lirlarcor would be enough to take down a vampire, but I was completely wrong - and vampires are very fast, so running away is not easy. In the end, after getting level drained twice, I was forced to use my only invisibility potion in order to escape (I made sure to get a few additional ones after that). After visiting the temple, I rested in order to get rid of the vampire threat:
However, wanting to get my revenge on the vampires, I did procceed with the Mook quest after another rest - having finally maxed out my set traps skill, Lassal only needed another Lirlarcor hit in order to give up:
Having already rested a few times, I expected the Suna Seni ambush upon leaving the map, so I left while in stealth - I was correct, and the reward was the important opportunity to backstab the enemy wizard:
I travelled to the Bridge District after a short visit to the Graveyard, helped the man who was buried alive and solved the skinner murders while dealing with Aran's second quest. I have no screenshots here, though there wasn't too much trouble - I did have to use a few healing potions dealing with a rune assassin, but I already have a lot of those. After stealing Daystar at the gates, I returned to the graveyard to clear the minor tombs (except for the crypt king) - during this, I also encountered our second ambush, once again while under stealth (fearing for vampire encounters, I was basically stealthed all of the time when walking around at night):
I completed the harper quest and decided that I really needed the ammo belt for inventory space, so I travelled to WK, killed the first golem and used Daystar for the only other fight I had to complete:
All I did was stealth to the belt and take it before leaving again:
Next up, I entered the temple district (also buying a staff of striking) where I made sure to completed the Sir Sarles quest (using Daystar against Neb's spirits) in order to get access to the iMoD +2 soon. I also did the follow-up Lathander quest and the Fallen Paladins, who are actually quite tough opponents and forced me to kite them quite a bit and even use a few potions.
Not to forget, I took down Mencar's party thanks to some traps, a backstab and some running down the stairs to separate them:
Rounding out my early game equipment, I also defeated the Rakshasa in the sewers:
With the berserker horn (which I took on my first visist to the bridge district) proving to be invaluable, I now planned to get my hands on Kitthix. This, however, didn't go very well, at least at first. Rasha is a decent fighter, but not the strongest, and with no poison immunity available yet, I had to use antidotes when dealing with spiders. Each spider group took quite a few hitpoints from me. After taking down the first few, I made a quick sidetrip under invisibility (via potion) in order to get the MoD +1, which I would upgrade soon:
With the spiders being so annoying, I stealthed past all remaining groups to get to the center. However, when trying to backstab Pai'Na, I got a critical miss:
With no opportunity to re-stealth and no invisibility potion in my inventory (I had to use another one when stupidly cornering myself against the fallen paladins), I decided to run after destroying the minor spiders with an oil of fiery burning I had bought at the sewers - of course, I had to run past all of the spider groups I had left alive. The escape was a rough one. Mabye I should've used an oil of speed for safety:
After my escape, I rested and returned, this time with a successful backstab - luckily followed by another hit, as the backstab wasn't enough (the staff of striking was down to 1 charge, so I used the staff mace I had just found):
Kitthix was finally mine. With most minor sidequests in Athkatla done, I recharged my staff of striking and prepared for the stronghold quests - which I will report on next time.
Rayic Gethras is protected with an initial stoneskin, but that won't help him agains poisonous traps when getting lured downstairs:
I stopped short of killing Mae'var, because I didn't want to deal with the thieve's stronghold for now, instead making my way to the druid grove next. Easy to stealth past all encounters, though I decided to fight the final three druids for their loot. Cernd took down Faldorn, we completed the Trademeet sidequests - not much to see here. I did buy some new gear from the vendors, though.
After delivering the acorns and finishing the Imnesvale sidequests (getting access to MI via Ilbratha), I went back to town in order to buy a bunch of PfU scrolls - though with the iMoD +2 in my posession, I didn't really need those. Still, they turned the Temple Ruins into a no-brainer. Still had to fight a bone golem, though:
Daystar helped to speed up combat against the Shade Lord:
Returning to the graveyard, I used another PfU scroll for Bodhi. With iMoD in hand, taking down the vampires was quick and easy now - MI for Lassal's room, some traps for Bodhi, and we were done with her:
We were also starting to get our first HLAs now. Obviously, I started with UAI, got avoid death and evasion/greater evasion for safety, later on a few spike traps, GWWs and one or two time traps.
Travelling to De'Arnise Hold, we backstabbed the one yuan-ti mage, the biggest threat in the area:
Ras served as a useful blocker for the iron golem:
Tor'Gal, when knocked down, just wouldn't die to fire arrows - I ended up running away for a bit, separating his two giant trolls from him, taking them down first. I knocked out Tor'Gal again, and this time, the arrows did their work. I gained access to my personal stronghold, taking a break from travelling in order to rest for a couple of weeks, finishing all the stronghold quests:
That being done, I finally killed Mae'Var:
I destroyed the bridge district lich via traps before making preparations for the astral prison. I killed Mekrath with some statue summons and a bit of patience, and I stealthed past the yuan-ti mages to get his gem. The astral prison is a bit more difficult - but if I can finish it, I will have the precious boots of speed, which will make everything much, much easier - so I used a few of the potions I had prepared, such as heroism, fire giant strength, invulnerability, speed, and invisibility. The idea for the opening: Backstab one spellcaster, and GWW down the other before his spell trigger is able to fire (since he's busy casting true sight first):
I had arrows of dispelling with me in case I wouldn't be fast enough, but didn't end up needing them. Instead, I continued my backstabbing spree:
With an invulnerability potion active, I felt that my saving throws were good enough to face the Master of Thralls:
The key to killing the Warden for me was moving there fast - he doesn't activate his defenses, at least in the unmodded game, until he has killed all of the rebels around him. Since he was completely unprotected, I was able to just kill him via backstabbing:
The boots of speed were mine - finally!
Before moving on to the Unseeing Eye, I had to take down the sewer party - an easy feat by now:
I made another detour, though - once I reached the lich, I killed it with traps and returned outside, bought the Shield of Balduran, moved to Kangaxx, where I killed his lich form via traps and used PfM + iMoD +2 for the demi-lich:
Since PfM would last for a while, I also decided to go after the guarded compound. This one required me to use a bit more of my few fighter HLAs, a bit of kiting, drinking healing potions - but in the end, with PfM active, there weren't any real threats:
Back down in the sewers, I used PfU for ghoul town, the Shield of Balduran for the beholders (skipping the blind priests) and traps for the Unseeing Eye. No screenhots here, nor are there any for the Windspear Hills - there, I used PfU again for the vampires, and Everard's Sling for adamantite golems (no pips in slings, so it took a while). Firkraag was killed via traps, and Carsomyr was mine - it would go on to be my main non-backstabbing weapon. I kind of forgot that I could just use it with UAI - in its un-nerfed state, the dispel on hit is obviously amazing and trivializes lots of spellcaster battles.
With Firkaag down, I also went after the Shadow Dragon - well, backstabbing doesn't seem to work:
But luring him into traps does:
Finally, the planar sphere. Any spellcasters fell to backstabs or getting their buffs dispelled via Carsomyr. Tolgerias always seems to survive his first backstab, but he couldn't deal with our paladin sword. To get the demon heart, I didn't quite trust my saves to be good enough, so I used an invulnerability potion:
I played that one by ear, but for the mind flayer lair, I looked up their abilities to check on any saving throw penalties - turns out there is a 2 point penalty when dealing with their domination. My unmodified save vs. spell is at 0 exactly, so I was fine with psionic blasts, but to deal with domination, I switched back to my trusted Lirlarcor. I also drank a few potions of genius for safety:
The final content I wanted to do before moving on to Brynnlaw was, of course, the Twisted Rune. Invisibility on demand from the SOTM is obvioulsy amazing. We made our plan with six traps for the lich, including a time trap, which I used to quickly WW down the beholder. I was able to lure back the vampire and the fighter, which left us only with the mage - he had a bunch of protections up, but after waiting for a short time, it was easy to dispel all remaining ones with a Carsomyr hit:
Next up, we will move on to Spellhold. We've reached the peak of our strength now, having access to UAI and some of the most broken items of the game with the Ring of Gaxx, SotM and Carsomyr, plus deadly traps and GWWs.
@Enuhal Good work - Rasha seems unstoppable! Best of luck in Spellhold.
Just a technical question relating to Rayic Gethras encounter - does poison damage pass Stoneskin? In my install it does not (unlike all the other types of elemental damage/magic damage), though I'm not sure if that's supposed to be the intended behaviour.
In Cloakwood, we retrieved the Cloak of Non-Detection and cleared the spider area for XP with green ProPoison scroll and a Potion of Freedom. Other than that, we did not bother with the holiday-making businessmen from the Gate, the shadow druids, wyvern hunters or any other distractions and proceeded straight to the mines.
Under Sanctuary, we avoided Drausus and descended deep into the underground. Tamika used her ProLighting to counter the lightning trap guarding the entrace to the dining hall with Hareishan (by the way this contraption would surely not pass any applicable electrical safety regulations).
We liaised with Ril regarding the evacuation and ventured deeper into Davaeorn's lair. By way of preparation, we applied ProMagic scroll, Potion of Mind Focusing, Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration and True Sight. Davaeorn stood little chance.
With the ProMagic and Oil of Speed still running, we flooded the mine and confronted Drasus and his party at the entrance. As a safety precaution, Tamika equipped the Girdle of Bluntness and quaffed Potion of Absorption to counter Drasus' blunt weapon. With that and with the two mages limited to either summoning meager monsters or flinging harmless meteors, we were able to beat the entire party one by one in melee even without our STR/THAC0 boosting spells, using our aura to speed up the process with charges from the Necklace of Missiles and our Wand of Heavens.
This brought Tamika to level 8 and that meant receiving the final CON-based adjustment to our saving throws and a weapon proficiency pip in maces. Nevertheless, it's still a bit unfair that (unlike druids and mages) clerics do not get access to L5 spells in BG1.
Before leaving the area we used Strength of One + DuHM to bash the chest inside the barracks for the Potion of Magic Shielding. Speaking of potions, I realized that we're missing in our collection the Violet Potion, so we had to retrace our steps all the way back to the Nashkel carnival before continuing to Baldur's Gate. This side trip triggered one of the delayed assassin ambushes, however Tamika (or rather her Boots of Speed) simply ran away, as there was not much to be gained from such a petty squabble.
Exciting as it was to be finally in Baldur's Gate, we had pressing matters to attend to and not much time for sightseeing. After the initial shopping spree in Sorcerous Sundries (where we literally spent all our money on potions), we embarked on the search for Marek's antidote. That eventually led us to the second Tome of Wisdom for Tamika – I was inclined at first to return the book to Jalantha on a role playing basis, but then again our feud with the Umberlee priests had been running deep since the conflict with Tenya and after learning what they had done to that Casson boy, it was possible to justify the confrontational approach.
For the fight Marek we took Potion of Magic Shielding, Oil of Speed, and applied our regular priest buffs and True Sight.
In order to get the most out of the valuable potions, Tamika also paid a visit to Ramazith in his tower to obtain the RoP+2, which is going to replace our Ring of Holiness.
We completed our final gear by obtaining the Shield of the Stars and the Helm of Balduran. With both the INT and DEX tomes collected, we then proceeded to investigate the Iron Throne HQ, using Sanctuary to avoid any contact with the employees. Upon reporting back to Eltan we're off to Candlekeep where Tamika had to quaff a Potion of Magic Blocking to counter the ogre mage ambush.
In the catacombs, we used our precious Violet Potion to get our hands on the STR and WIS tomes. To avoid the traps we applied the Shield Amulet, 100% fire and lightning resistance and Free Action, adding a Potion of Fortitude for extra safety (to mitigate the CON penalty from the Violet Potion).
All the remaming enemies in the catacombs and the tunnels were avoided with Sanctuary. We're now back in the Gate, resting at Blade & Stars to trigger Tamika's Bhallspawn dreams and getting ready to face Slythe.
The first of the final three challenges awaited us in the Undercellar. Tamika prepared with ProMagic scroll, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Strength and Oil of Speed. The plan was to carry these buffs all the way to the final battle in the Temple of Bhaal which, among others, meant that Tamika was prevented from spell casting and would have to rely solely on her special abilities and items.
We did not use our True Sight against Slythe (which should bypass his Non-Detection provided by SCS) in order to save these for the upcoming battles, particularly for Sarevok's party. Apart from occasional backstabs, for which we were keeping Potions of Extra Healing at the ready (as well as Elixirs of Health should Tamika fail her save vs. death against his Poison Weapon), Slythe could only hit Tamika on roll 20 so he was not much of a threat, really. Kristyn went invisible and, seeing there's little she could contribute in the fight, never even revealed herself again.
Collecting the invitations, we headed straight for the palace. Tamika quaffed Potion of Regeneration and buffed with DuHM and Seeking Sword (dualed with our main weapon).
Confident behind her protections, and seeing that Liia brought up her PfMW, Tamika felt comfortable on handling the battle without spending one of her two True Sight casts. With 5 APR and Wand of Heavens charges, she was able to clear all the doppelgangers, including the mage, in under 8 rounds.
After getting teleported to the Thieves' Guild, we used PoI to pass through the maze and the Undercity undetected. With our key buffs still running, we entered the temple and confronted Sarevok.
Having no means of dispelling Sarevok's haste, we had to spend most of the time kiting around with our sling. Our first target was Diarmid, against whom Tamika used a greed ProAcid scroll. There was also a funny moment when Tazok first quaffed a Potion of Freedom only to follow with an Oil of Speed – half-ogres, what a laugh!
Using Oils of Fiery Burning in between our slingshots, invisible Angelo was eventually the first one to fall.
We refreshed our Oil of Speed and Potion of Regeneration and continued working on the other goons.
After killing Diarmid, Tamika applied her ProUndead scroll to avoid being harassed by the risen skeleton warriors (which by the way cannot be turned via Turn Undead). She also added True Sight to finally reveal Semaj. There you are you sneaky mage!
Next up was Tazok the unhasted simpleton.
At that stage, for SoA import purposes, we replaced our Helm of Balduran with Tamika's personal helmet and optimized our spellbook for Irenicus' dungeon. Here's the final inventory for the record:
Finally for Sarevok it was hit and run. And it was fun!
@Borco Congratulations on making it to Amn - expertly done so far!
Regarding stoneskins and poison damage - I'm not sure about their interactions either. I might imagine that poison damage from weapons might not work through stoneskins, but what I used in this encounter are the thief traps you get from lvl 11-15, which deal initial missle damage (which didn't harm Rayic), and, after that, 2d6 poison damage per round for the next 3 rounds. As you can see in the screenshot, the poison damage is what killed him, and I didn't do anything else to harm the mage except for luring him into the traps - so either this type of later-applied poison damage works (might behave more like a spell instead of a weapon hit), or with the amount of traps and applications of damage, Rayic's stoneskins were simply gone by this point. Not sure.
Spellhold didn't take long. We travelled to Brynnlaw, backstabbed Perth, entered the asylum, invisibly ran past yuan-ti mages while killing everything else (once again using PfU against the undead around here), made sure to use avoid death when getting the paintings, got our second pair of boots of speed (I plan to recruit a party in ToB, so I'm gathering some additional gear) and GWW'd down Jon before he was able to finish is initial cloning spell:
I was pretty close to the experience cap at this point, so I started skipping more encounters, similiar to late SoD. I only got the Cloak of Mirroring and The Wave blade in the City of Caverns before leaving, and in the Underdark, I skipped fighting the drow groups or freeing any prisoners - instead, I took down the Kuo-Toa (as they can see through invisibility), and activated my second and last PfM scroll in order to safely kill the Elder Eye:
Next up, while my scroll was still going, I laid some traps for the demon knights, equipped my AoP and took those that survived the initial damage down with Carsomyr:
After defeating the Sauaghin Prince as well, I rested at the deep gnome village, trapped the Balor and paid a visit to Vithal, whom I helped before betraying him:
Entering Ust'Natha, I skipped all sidequests, only focusing on quickly being done with the main storyline. Reading a death spell-scroll helped me in saving Phaere:
Except for a single beholder, no other combat had to be done, as I stayed invisible while walking around Ust'Natha. I fled the Underdark, turned in the Silver Blade, forged some items at Cromwell's (no Equalizer, because I didn't want to bother with the mind flayer city). At this point, I forgot to kill Renal for another pair of Boots of Speed.
This time, I didn't bother with PfU for Bodhi - our anti-vampire gear is powerful enough to easily destroy any undead threat:
The daystar from sunray was enough to almost kill Bodhi by itself. I skipped any and all of the new forest areas and rushed through the elven city, avoiding almost every battle. I had to kill the nabassu (using an invulnerability potion for safety, as I didn't know about any potential saving throw penalties), because he was able to see through invisibility. The black dragon was lured into an array of traps:
After summoning the avatar, I made short work of the parasites and trapped Jon to death. In hell, I made use of my evil alignment for optimal results in terms of powergaming - except for handing in Blackrazor and not fighting the dragon, I took the bad route for every trial.
Traps don't work against Jon in this final battle - they get activaed, but he starts with full health anyway. What can be done, however, is thinning out his demons with careful positioning - traps have to placed at both sides. Since I already had some practice with that, the two balors died instantly, and it was easy to finish the glabrezus. I had prepared with oil of speed, invulnerability potion and spell trap (from SotM), by the way:
Good thing I used the spell trap, because Jon was actually able to cast a Maze spell on Rasha while under PFMW, which could've ended the run:
The true sight effect is from a scroll, needed because Jon went invisible a couple of times. With this final option of escape gone for our foe, he fell to a couple of Carsomyr hits:
A quick foray into ToB: After killing Ilasera with traps, I decided on my party.
Why a party for ToB? Well, this isn't a solo run anyways (remember, I recruited Garrick for the ducal palace, which turned out to be crucial), and ToB is where solo characters kind of stagnate in power. Draconis, Abazigal, Balthazar and Amelyssan are all battles where soloing can be a bit dangerous given a few mistakes, even with a powerful character. A fighter-heavy party is much safer when dealing with these types of threats - but without at least HLA levels, new characters aren't that useful at this point, so I have to build them up for a bit. Recruiting them at the start of ToB is certainly enough to give them enough power to make an impact. My plan here: Get Haer'Dalis for improved bard song (powerful undispellable protections for safety), get Edwin (most powerful arcane spellcaster), Anomen (don't want a single class divine spellcaster, as they lose a lot of their power later on without SCS spells available) and a few powerful fighters - Korgan plus Sarevok should be the best.
However, as it turns out, if you recruit a fresh Anomen in ToB, he isn't knighted, so his stats aren't great:
So instead, I went with Aerie, who should be a great supporting spellcaster due to her flexibility. Next up, let's see how we do in early ToB with this new party at our side.
We started in Saradush with the various sidequests, only skipping the barracks and the sewers. However, when fighting Kiser, I was forced to change my plans for the party. I delayed buying and learning spellscrolls for my new party, and since Haer'Dalis doesn't start with stoneskin in his spellbook, he was unprotected against a brutal 96 damage backstab crit, which was enough to chunk him right away:
I immediately replaced him with Mazzy. Not much lost, as there wasn't much experience wasted on him yet, though this will mean we can't make use of improved bard song.
While other party members might be vulnerable, Rasha is much harder to deal with, and so she used her iMoD to clear the prison by herself, went downstairs into the dungeons, backstabbed some mages and joined the party for a quick battle against il-khan soldiers. As we entered Gromnirs room under mass invisibility, his mages opened with true sight instead of their protections spells, which allowed us to overwhelm them:
Edwin (who is wearing the Robe of Vecna) had to use a breach spell against a PFMW contingency, but other then that, Carsomyrs automatic dispel was enough. With the mages gone, Gromnir and his goons were easy prey.
Leaving Saradush, we used PfU scrolls for the Master Wraith, who fell to Sarevok's Deathbringer's Assault:
For the fire giant temple, we obscured our lack of fighter HLAs by having summon Edwin some magical swords, which served as invulnerable tanks against the powerful giants:
We entered under invisibility in order to get into a good position. Some traps helped with clearing the remaining area, and we soon faced Berenn, who was overwhelmed by Rasha before he could do much:
Using The Wave against any fire elementals and some traps against the forest nymphs, we were able to finally challenge Yaga Shura himself. After buffing up, we wounded him, encountered him again and had Edwin cast timestop. With the sheer power of our various fighters, Yaga Shura was already near death as Edwin finished his timestop:
And here is the aftermath:
Everyone has a few HLAs now, so having a full party is starting to pay off.
After clearing the Oasis, we entered Amkethran, though we decided to skip Vongoethe (the rewards aren't worth the risk). By the way, we are also skipping Watcher's Keep completely (we only went there once in early SoA to get the ammunition belt). We also didn't bother with the drow ambushes at Sendai's, instead killing the captain right away with a few traps. Fighting our way through the enclave, we still had PfU scrolls left to safely deal with Odamaron:
The prince of earth had trouble dealing any damage to a magical sword:
And Diaytha's party fell to a single fallen planetar, who got a lucky vorpal hit on the hive mother:
After winning the duel, the fighters, who either had chaotic commands or good enough saving throws, dealt with the two groups of mind flayers:
Sendai was fairly easy to deal with, as Carsomyr would dispel everything her spellcaster forms could try in terms of defenses, and with Aerie running true sight, there was little for Sendai to achieve. With the help of a fallen planetar, the summoned drow fighters/mages also quickly fell, though Sendai's final form was actually able to hurt and disable Rasha for a second there, thanks to the implosion HLA:
At this point, Edwin used his timestop+IA combo for the second pocket plane challenge:
Now, for Draconis. I have often called him the most dangeorus enemy in the unmodded game, and I stand by that. He once again proved why he earned this title, though I could've avoided most of the problems I encountered with a bit of preparation. I activated a bunch of green acid resistance scrolls, and after getting rid of his defenses, the party surrounded him to get him into dragon form. However, this triggered the annoying EE-bug - getting party members stuck in a bigger creature's selection circle. This time, every single party member was stuck:
As you can see, I was trying to burst him down as quickly as possible, with a quick breach and a bunch of Fighter HLAs. However, at near death, he was able to cast remove magic, following up with his acid breath immediately - for some reason, Draconis' breath weapon hits twice, and so he was able to chunk both Edwin and Aerie immediately. Now, this could've been avoided if I had simply taken the time to buff them with SI:A, but I didn't think much about protecting non-Rasha partymembers throughout this run:
The four fighters remained, drinking a potion each and activating another round of fighter HLAs to finally kill the wyrm:
That's certainly annoying - losing our HLA-capable spellcasters. Still, most of the battles where they would be exceptionally useful are already done. Still, I replaced them with Nalia and Viconia, who won't get to HLA levels, but will have access to some lower level support spells.
Fighting through Abazigal's Lair, we used the Cloak of Mirroring for the eyes and protection from lightning spells from Viconia for the big boss himself. Buffed with oils of speed, our fighters engaged, trying to protect themselves with hardiness. This was mostly a physical fight, and we had enough fighter HLAs at our disposal to take a convincing victory:
For Balthazar, Viconia buffed the entire party with death ward and chaotic commands, and the monk fell in just a couple of rounds to our superior fighting power. Preparing a few traps for the Ravager, this penultimate foe also didn't last for long:
Next time, we will see how Rasha will fare at the Throne of Bhaal.
Comments
Meanwhile I Cavora, and my party have been killing sirines in the west apart from Sil who was friendly. We also killed Droth and Shoal. Nothing was difficult. It looks like Nashkel Mines are beckoning.
Hello everyone. Good to see that the thread is still going! Good luck to everyone playing at the moment. I didn't have much time for Baldur's Gate these last few months, and I still don't - but I decided that I should at least try and put one more class/kit in the Hall of Heroes this year. With limited time and me having gotten a bit tired of completionist full party runs, I decided to try my hand at a quick mostly-solo playthrough without SCS (or any other mods). My first plan was to play a shapeshifter. I did some mechanical tests for the kit, started playing after I learned about how weapon styles etc. affect shapeshifters in the unmodded game - and promply died to Tarnesh while trying to dodge magic missles running in and out of the Temple of Wisdom.
So much for that. After that quick failure, I decided to go with propably the most powerful solo class still left outside of the hall: A Fighter/Thief multi called Rasha:
A quick point here: This is not, strictly speaking, a solo run. I will mostly play solo because its a lot faster, but whenever I feel unsafe, I might add other party members to help out.
To get a quick start, I opened by kiting Shoal, getting revenge on Tarnesh via backstab, selling Evermemory and buying a wand of sleep, a green PfP scroll and a Necklace of Missles while picking up quest items on the way to Nashkel:
We'll stop for now after a small excursion back outside: Sneaking past sirens, plundering the tome from the golem cave (without combat), killing the basilisks at Durlag's Tower (easy source of experience, no risk involved, and Rasha wasn't at her cap yet) and using a greenstone charge to get the wisdom tome.
Rasha, neutral evil elven fighter/thief multiclass, second report
Back in the city, I helped Nadine to get another Necklace of Missles for more charges and completed the Marek&Lothander questchain in order to obtain the wisdom tome. Marek fell to our first over 100 damage backstab crit:
Now, for the Ducal Palace - this is where I decided to pick up a party member for the first time. Garrick, in this case, though it could've been any arcane spellcaster - I bought scrolls of Greater Malison and Chaos in order for him to read them and confuse the doppelgangers. In retrospect, I should've recruited some more folks, simply to get more bodies in between the dukes and their would-be assassins, or another mage so I could read the scrolls at the same time.
The battle was incredibly close. I've never seen the doppelgangers SO focused on killing the dukes outright - not a single one was interested in Rasha or Garrick at all, they brought Belt to injured before the greater malison even hit. Even buffed with heroism, speed and storm giant strength, Rasha wasn't dealing close to enough damage:
That was close. Now, we activated the Sandthief's Ring to make our way through the maze, past the undercity party and to Tamoko, who we backstabbed in order to sell her gear in early SoD for some additional money. Time to face Sarevok. Buffing with storm giant strength, heroism, invulnerability, speed and mind focusing, I carefully lured Sarevok away from his party, opening with a dispelling arrow to dispel his haste:
Like you I am usually a completionist so I am unlikely to ever finish BG1 so quickly. I even have mods installed to make BG1 last even longer.
I also like to have the interaction between Charname and other party members.
Diary of Cavora
Tenya killed Lethe, now has Ebbe a halberd useable by clerics, and knows how to use the bowl.
We collected some more ankheg shells but cannot get any gold for them.
At least we got experience. We sold a lot of surplus equipment and bought equipment that we needed.
Unfortunately since we didn't get the gold for the shells, there wasn't enough to get the archmage robe for Dynaheir or the shadow armour for Corwin.
We have now entered the Nashkel Mines.
I am enjoying not knowing what comes next due to the mods. On balance I don't think that they are making the game easier or harder at the moment. I like that. The equipment is better, but at present this is compensated for with the dangerous ambushes.
When I know the mods, I will probably return to the unmodded game.
EDIT
Sadly my current game was somehow overwitten and my previous save is too long ago, so I am starting another game with a lawful good half-orc barbarian. I think that this is my first barbarian. I certainly haven't played them much.
Trio 38 (part 1 2 3 4-7 8 9 10)
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar)
@Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier
@Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Wirblefop once again had two weeks to concoct a session 10 plan but opted for a final-hour effort so even sketchier than usual. The two hour plan is to return to Spellhold and from there reach the City of Caverns and the Underdark. No need to let on to his companions that he'd spent five tokens bagging up boots of the north and thrown the 21st token away.
So out we go and almost immediately we get to battle a trio of trolls.
A couple of Kuo Toa groups in the main area are picked apart - Wirblefop staying nicely back and using his bow. He gives Talisman the recently acquired Cloak of Mirroring and promises to stay hidden so his is not targeted or held. Promise.
The illithid soon realise two of their umber hulks are missing, but not in time to save the Elder Brain from our weapons.
We avoid exposing our disguise given by Adalon, and start on the drow city quests in Ust Natha.
With very little experience with barbarians I don't expect to get too far despite the good roll. I do like the portrait.
In Candlekeep I started with 180gp.
I said goodbye to Alec with a relatively chaste kiss.
My dealings with a guard were much raunchier.
Hull gave me his sword as a goodbye present.
Sorting out Sir Trun's love life gained me a point of reputation.
I broke an axe fighting the rats.
After leaving Candlekeep with Gorion, we were ambushed and he was killed.
After picking up his gear which included a container, Imoen and I headed south where we were able to help Mellicamp.
Imoen and I both levelled up after calming Marl down. Imoen improved her pickpocketting ability as much as she could which was sufficient to pickpocket Algernon at the second attempt. He became angry immediately after Imoen was successful, so we made a quick exit.
I left Imoen near the forge and proceeded southwards where I killed a couple of ogrillon with some Bruel's Retort axes bought at the forge.
I then headed south having rested. On the way to Nashkel I killed a number of hobgoblins and kobolds and picked up the Colquetle amulet.
In Nashkel I picked up some ankheg armour, but sadly I am unable to use it.
To the south Zargos Flinblade attacked and was killed. He had in his possession a +1 battle axe which I will now use in preference to the breakable variety. He hurt mr badly, but a rest sufficed for my recovery though it did take 6 days and 16 hours.
I found a wand of frost in a tree before heading east where I found a ring of fire protection. Nearby a lady asked me to take Samuel to the FAI which I did. I then returned Joia's ring which resulted in me becoming a fully fledged hero.
We delivered some of the numerous missives that we have been given to deliver.
We spoke to Dorn in the FAI wherewupon he joined us near Nashkel. We killed some of those who betrayed him before bidding Dorn farewell in Nashkel.
Mist (female human inquisitor, Grond0); Trile (female elf mage, Gate70)
Previous updates
We've not had much success getting through SoD in recent runs, so took a low risk route there this time - sticking to encounters and tactics we know well.
The initial action was at Boareskyr Bridge where we fought our way past goblins and worgs to get to the teleporter. Inside, Mist wanted to talk to Jegg, but couldn't see him. Trile pointed out where he was and went to talk to him - asking him to make a shield out of some dragon scales. Unfortunately the fact that Mist still couldn't see him appeared to mean the following cutscene couldn't be resolved and we had to restart from the autosave. It didn't take long though to rerun the action and this time Jegg was fully on view.
Trile already had some boots of speed, but commissioned another pair using the materials gathered from the vampire's cave last session - being unsure whether they would be identical to the ones he already had (which they were). Mist then surrendered the fort and went to investigate a mage holding out on the bridge. He can be hard to hit, but true sight stripped much of his protection and Trile's MMMs disrupted the mage's attempts to construct a portal.
At the Coalition Camp we bought a few nice items from Nazramu, but didn't bother with any of the little quests on offer there. Instead, we used invisibility to bypass Dead Mans Pass and go to rescue Skie from Dragonspear. Then it was on to the Underground River where we killed a cyclops for his badge. At that point we could have gone into invisibility again, but Mist decided to finish off the group of guards there. A bit like ToB though, even bog-standard guards in SoD can pose a problem and Mist had to kite the last couple of guards after taking several painful spear thrusts.
Moving underground, we ignored all the potential side-quests and just went to place the Bwoosh before lacing food and water supplies with poison. That was done invisibly, which meant the lift was not operational - so Mist showed himself and fired a single shot for honor to allow escape.
On the back back to the Camp we were ambushed. Although there was no particular gain to be had, Mist did decide to use up some of his large collection of exploding arrows. Those did claim the Shadowy Figure as a victim, though he managed to get right up next to Trile before one final blast wave proved too much for him.
At the Camp, waves of invaders proved helpless as more exploding arrows poured in. The final wave was led by Grimgor who tried to use sanctuary to hide himself - but true sight mercilessly exposed him to a quick finish.
After the fight Trile wanted to rest to identify items, but Mist misunderstood and transitioned to Dragonspear while Trile had only identifies memorized for L1 spells. Not to worry though, there was no more fighting to be done there after Ashatiel's buffs all proved ineffective against a single stunning dart.
Inside Dragonspear, Trile explored a couple of chests that have some nice mage items and scrolls. I'm pretty sure that one of those can be fatal in SP, but that might be because of something like maze. We didn't get the chance to be reminded of the trap effects this time as Trile's MR shrugged off the potential harm.
Moving on, we entered the nether regions, running through the first area rather than getting involved in conflict there. Mist used a potion of invulnerability to make his saves safe against status effects while beating up enemies in the second area. The invisible attackers there can often be a bit of a pain, but true sight proved pretty effective against them.
After resting and buffing up, we took a trip on the Hellevator to find Belhifet. There was an amusing moment fairly early in that fight when he translocated for the first time. Mist asked loudly where he was and a chorus of children replied "he's behind you".
Inquisitor 9, 127 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 575 kills
Mage 11, 53 HPs, 152 kills, 0 deaths
Starting in SoD, I used a PfU scroll, oil of speed an cloud giant strength in order to quickly clear Korlasz's tomb. For the non-undead, a hit and run approach with re-stealthing and backstabs was employed. Finally, after buffing with an additional potion of clarity, I threw two necklace-fireballs into Korlasz's room before dispelling her defenses with arrows of dispelling, which allowed me to get her to surrender:
At the Coast Way Crossing, I started off in stealth, interrupted the one spellcaster trying to reveal Rasha and used an invisibility potion, staying invisible until the timed end of this battle. I snuck around the area, disarming traps and clearing monsters, bought the golem and went for a quick vampire hunt, with another potion of clarity used for protection:
At the Coalition Camp, I made sure to do the "free" camp quests and to use my spectacles on the genie in order to obtain some useful item upgrades. With a quick visit to the Dragonspear Courtyard and the Dead Man's Pass, I was able to complete my equipment:
Fulll plate armor (or studded leather/shadow armor when stealthing) and a Ring of Protection +2
Helm and Cloak of Balduran
Medal of Valor (sometimes Greenstone Amulet or Necklace of Missles)
Ring of the Crusade (sometimes Ring of the Tiny Fiend or fire protection rings)
Cloverleaf (before that, I used the various armor belts)
Legacy of the Masters
And for weapons: Corinth's Bow (before that, I used the Dead Shot or the +1 Composite Bow) and the +3 Quarterstaff.
I'll leave it here for now - next up: The Underground River.
Ahoy! It's been some time since I last set foot in Faerûn.
I happen to be a very unsuccessful no-rolader and, when thinking about the character concept for a new run, I tried to recall my track record with various classes. As it turned out, I had the most success (in terms of getting as far as possible in the game in a relatively consistent manner, though never really getting even close to completing the challenge) with divine casters, followed by various warrior classes. My attempts with arcane casters and rogues on the other hand had been significantly less competent, while multi-class runs had been more or less a disaster (I've never tried dual-classing).
That said, a Priest of Helm seemed like a fairly balanced choice, being a cleric with a bit of an extra fighting edge.
Tamika, as some of my other characters, is named after a certain hero in HoMAM III. She's a halfling, because halflings rock, and she's lawful neutral not because she's the Spanish inquisition but because it's the embodiment of a regular person trying to get by (despite its rather uninviting in-game description). And getting by is exactly how this challenge feels sometimes
In order to make things slightly more interesting, I've decided to give her a custom made personal item via NearInfinity. Even though its properties are arguably very relevant, the intention was not distort the overall game balance but rather to add little flavor to the character. And of course, what personal item would make sense for a Priest of Helm to possess other than a helm? Originally I even thought naming it the Helm of Helm, but that clearly was pushing it too far
Difficulty: Hardcore
Mods: SCS (v34.3) with all tactical and AI components; personal item (NearInfinity)
Modified SCS components: Giant Spiders (Tactical)
I'll come back shortly with an update on the first part of BG1.
Regards,
B.
Previous posts: Introduction
We depart from Candlekeep with a handful of sling ammunition and a war hammer, each corresponding to Tamika's weapon proficiencies. Our goal will be to reach level 7 before proceeding with the main plotline. Given that for a cleric it only requires 55k exp, it should prove to be relatively straightforward with a solo character.
It terms of gear, we've primarily looking at completing the full set of protective items including a sturdy armor, magical +1 shield, RoP+1, Claw of Kazgaroth, Greenstone Amulet, Shield Amulet, Cloak of Displacement, belts and a well stocked potion case. And that required a lot of adventuring.
One of our first notable exploits involved the belt ogre. Tamika then used Sanctuary to get past Tarnesh into FAI, where she collected a PoI from Jaheira and exchanged the Easter egg diamond and other minor loot for a plate mail from Bentley (I do not seem to recall him ever selling that in previous version of the game).
Tamika then recovered Perdue's sword and headed east to Beregost. By visiting Marl at Feldepost's Inn and clearing Landrin's house from the spiders we reached levels 2 and 3, respectively. As a general rule I do use randomly generated HP gain on level-up in BG1 (I am not sure about the underlying math, but the HPs numbers tend to be in the higher end of the spectrum), however I do allow my characters to get the max HP gain for level 2.
As I'm never sure how the various priest bonuses and spells interact with each other (partly because of my lagging memory and partly because of game version changes or possible mod interference) , I went on to do some testing. It turns out that, unlike Aid, Chant is not cumulative with Tamika's personal helm which grants the Bless (non-cumulative) (130) status effect. I had not tested this with the actual Bless priest spell, but I'm assuming that the result should be the same. This means that Tamika is not going to be using Chart on a regular basis, as it is ill fitted to be utilized as a combat de-buff in a solo play.
Another important thing was to confirm which spells break Sanctuary so as to avoid a potentially game ending mistake, as some of these cases may be somewhat counter-intuitive. The key takeaways for now are that Free Action (!), Chant and the Priest of Helm's True Sight (I believe it uses the arcane version of the spell) all break the invisibility and Resist Fear (!) breaks the invisibility unless it is targeted directly at the caster. Seeking Sword and Strength of One, on the other hand, can be safely pre-cast under Sanctuary.
Here's an example of Tamika's approach to early fights when not kiting with sling. She pre-buffs with ProEvil, DuHM and Seeking Sword, having four rounds of 3 APR at 12 THAC0.
Regards,
B.
Rasha, neutral evil elven fighter/thief multiclass, fourth report
My first task at the Undeground River, recruiting the ogres, was a failure - starting the convseration while invisible seems to preclude the option. With the Seal of Caelar (pickpocketed from Malden Col), I safely entered the underground area, ignoring the caves and the southern part - the only thing on this map I wanted to do was backstab Strunk:
There we go - SoD is done. Time for SoA!
Previous posts: Introduction, 1
While in Beregost, Tamika finished the minor quests for Zhurlong, Mirianne and Perdue, having to deal in the process with Karlat by a combination of Doom and Hold Person.
Here's our inventory before heading to the Nashkel mines for the record:
One final note regarding our spell preferences - being a Priest of Helm, it did not seem appropriate for Tamika to be using Animate Dead and therefore our L3 spell slots are mostly dedicated to Strength of One and Cure Medium Wounds. We will be adding Holy Smites later on, with a situational ProFire. There's more to pick from at L4, but for now we'll mostly focus on Animal Summoning, ProEvil 10' and Holy Power (though it's duration of 1 round/level is currently holding it a bit back).
Regards,
B.
The underlying math is "roll twice, take the higher number". There's some debate over how intentional it is; not all versions of the game have worked that way. But as the SoA NPCs seem to have been built with that rule, I'm comfortable using it as-is.
Expected value for various possible hit dice:
d12: 8.49
d10: 7.15
d8: 5.81
d6: 4.47
d4: 3.13
d10/2: 3.36
d8/2: 2.70
d6/2: 2.06
d4/2: 1.44
The "half" dice come into play with multiclasses - take the roll, divide by 2, round down with minimum 1.
Diary of Barbie the Good
When we killed Greywolf, Isra joined us after which we joined up with Montaron and Xzar. Xzxar was dumped in Joia''s room whilst we went ankheg hunting.
Whilst ankheg hunting all of us except Isra reached level 5. Montaron is now a good pick-pocket, perhaps the time to head for Ulgoth's Beard is now, particularly since Isra's sword broke.
After Montaron did a lot of pick-pocketting at Ulgoth's Beard we left him there for a rest whilst the rest of us headed back south to pick up Sirene from the temple.
Ajantis joined us. We fought three flaming fist south of Beregost in order to equip him with plate as buying it is not yet an option.
We then went to clear a few more ankheg. Doing that and dealing with Bassilus made shopping a priority.
My axes were upgraded.
After that the basilisks, medusae and Mutamin were dealt with easily by usinng the scroll of protection.
In Gullykin we returnedd the Precious to Smeagol and some assassins.
We then killed the mage responsible for tthe death of Tenya's mother. This resulted in Tenya getting a better weapon and her learning how to use the bowl.
Our reputation is now 20.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2
After crisscrossing the Sword Coast we're finally ready to proceed with the investigation of the local troubles in Nashkel. Tamika made her way through the mines under Sanctuary, reaching Mulahey's sanctum undetected. She prepared for the battle with ProEvil, Strength of One, DuHM, Greenstone Amulet and Seeking Sword. Revealing herself to Mulahey, she blasted his minions with two charges of Necklace of Missiles and pummeled him in melee.
We proceeded to recover couple of potions from the tombs back at the surface under Sanctuary. Afterwards, we collected the ProMagic scroll from Hafiz (as well as the Ring of Fire Resistance from the same area) and returned to Nashkel to report to Mr Ghastkill.
For Nimbul we used Animal Summoning I (2x), Resist Fear, ProEvil, Armor of Faith, Strength of One, DuHM and Seeking Sword, while skipping the Greenstone Amulet. Nimbul opened with MIs on top of his prebuffs (Stoneskin, Shield, MSD), which Tamika immediately countered with True Sight.
The plan was to first deal with the bandits in the main tent and then deal with the rest of them outside. Tamika buffed with Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Strength, Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration, ProEvil 10', Resist Fear, Armor of Faith, True Sight, Holy Power, DuHM and Seeking Sword. She kept her shield instead of dual-wielding, but in hindsight I should have replaced it with Ashideena for more oomph, given that the Claw + Cloak of Displacement + Boots of Avoidance would have been sufficient to still require the archers to roll 20 in order to hit.
Once outside, it had seemed that full-plated Taurgosz is about to put up a good fight by instantly quaffing an Oil of Speed. Instinctively reaching for her Potion of Absorption at first, Tamika quickly changed her mind and decided to try Hold Person before more bandits show up. A failed save meant a premature end for Taurgosz - well sometimes even your best is not enough.
Regards,
B.
Duly noted, thanks!
Starting with the opening dungeon, we got our hands on the Staff Spear +2 as the extra EE-weapon placed in the golem room's chest - quite good for backstabbing this duergar mage, for example:
Rasha, neutral evil elven fighter/thief multiclass, sixth report
Rayic Gethras is protected with an initial stoneskin, but that won't help him agains poisonous traps when getting lured downstairs:
After delivering the acorns and finishing the Imnesvale sidequests (getting access to MI via Ilbratha), I went back to town in order to buy a bunch of PfU scrolls - though with the iMoD +2 in my posession, I didn't really need those. Still, they turned the Temple Ruins into a no-brainer. Still had to fight a bone golem, though:
Travelling to De'Arnise Hold, we backstabbed the one yuan-ti mage, the biggest threat in the area:
Before moving on to the Unseeing Eye, I had to take down the sewer party - an easy feat by now:
With Firkaag down, I also went after the Shadow Dragon - well, backstabbing doesn't seem to work:
Just a technical question relating to Rayic Gethras encounter - does poison damage pass Stoneskin? In my install it does not (unlike all the other types of elemental damage/magic damage), though I'm not sure if that's supposed to be the intended behaviour.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3
In Cloakwood, we retrieved the Cloak of Non-Detection and cleared the spider area for XP with green ProPoison scroll and a Potion of Freedom. Other than that, we did not bother with the holiday-making businessmen from the Gate, the shadow druids, wyvern hunters or any other distractions and proceeded straight to the mines.
Before leaving the area we used Strength of One + DuHM to bash the chest inside the barracks for the Potion of Magic Shielding. Speaking of potions, I realized that we're missing in our collection the Violet Potion, so we had to retrace our steps all the way back to the Nashkel carnival before continuing to Baldur's Gate. This side trip triggered one of the delayed assassin ambushes, however Tamika (or rather her Boots of Speed) simply ran away, as there was not much to be gained from such a petty squabble.
Regards,
B.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3, 4
Exciting as it was to be finally in Baldur's Gate, we had pressing matters to attend to and not much time for sightseeing. After the initial shopping spree in Sorcerous Sundries (where we literally spent all our money on potions), we embarked on the search for Marek's antidote. That eventually led us to the second Tome of Wisdom for Tamika – I was inclined at first to return the book to Jalantha on a role playing basis, but then again our feud with the Umberlee priests had been running deep since the conflict with Tenya and after learning what they had done to that Casson boy, it was possible to justify the confrontational approach.
Regards,
B.
For some reason the trigger for burying Rielsa isn't working.
It worked fine in the unmodded game.
Any ideas anyone?
Use EEkeeper to change a variable perhaps?
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3, 4 , 5
The first of the final three challenges awaited us in the Undercellar. Tamika prepared with ProMagic scroll, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Strength and Oil of Speed. The plan was to carry these buffs all the way to the final battle in the Temple of Bhaal which, among others, meant that Tamika was prevented from spell casting and would have to rely solely on her special abilities and items.
Having no means of dispelling Sarevok's haste, we had to spend most of the time kiting around with our sling. Our first target was Diarmid, against whom Tamika used a greed ProAcid scroll. There was also a funny moment when Tazok first quaffed a Potion of Freedom only to follow with an Oil of Speed – half-ogres, what a laugh!
Regards,
B.
Regarding stoneskins and poison damage - I'm not sure about their interactions either. I might imagine that poison damage from weapons might not work through stoneskins, but what I used in this encounter are the thief traps you get from lvl 11-15, which deal initial missle damage (which didn't harm Rayic), and, after that, 2d6 poison damage per round for the next 3 rounds. As you can see in the screenshot, the poison damage is what killed him, and I didn't do anything else to harm the mage except for luring him into the traps - so either this type of later-applied poison damage works (might behave more like a spell instead of a weapon hit), or with the amount of traps and applications of damage, Rayic's stoneskins were simply gone by this point. Not sure.
Rasha, neutral evil elven fighter/thief multiclass, seventh report
Spellhold didn't take long. We travelled to Brynnlaw, backstabbed Perth, entered the asylum, invisibly ran past yuan-ti mages while killing everything else (once again using PfU against the undead around here), made sure to use avoid death when getting the paintings, got our second pair of boots of speed (I plan to recruit a party in ToB, so I'm gathering some additional gear) and GWW'd down Jon before he was able to finish is initial cloning spell:
This time, I didn't bother with PfU for Bodhi - our anti-vampire gear is powerful enough to easily destroy any undead threat:
Traps don't work against Jon in this final battle - they get activaed, but he starts with full health anyway. What can be done, however, is thinning out his demons with careful positioning - traps have to placed at both sides. Since I already had some practice with that, the two balors died instantly, and it was easy to finish the glabrezus. I had prepared with oil of speed, invulnerability potion and spell trap (from SotM), by the way:
A quick foray into ToB: After killing Ilasera with traps, I decided on my party.
Why a party for ToB? Well, this isn't a solo run anyways (remember, I recruited Garrick for the ducal palace, which turned out to be crucial), and ToB is where solo characters kind of stagnate in power. Draconis, Abazigal, Balthazar and Amelyssan are all battles where soloing can be a bit dangerous given a few mistakes, even with a powerful character. A fighter-heavy party is much safer when dealing with these types of threats - but without at least HLA levels, new characters aren't that useful at this point, so I have to build them up for a bit. Recruiting them at the start of ToB is certainly enough to give them enough power to make an impact. My plan here: Get Haer'Dalis for improved bard song (powerful undispellable protections for safety), get Edwin (most powerful arcane spellcaster), Anomen (don't want a single class divine spellcaster, as they lose a lot of their power later on without SCS spells available) and a few powerful fighters - Korgan plus Sarevok should be the best.
However, as it turns out, if you recruit a fresh Anomen in ToB, he isn't knighted, so his stats aren't great:
We started in Saradush with the various sidequests, only skipping the barracks and the sewers. However, when fighting Kiser, I was forced to change my plans for the party. I delayed buying and learning spellscrolls for my new party, and since Haer'Dalis doesn't start with stoneskin in his spellbook, he was unprotected against a brutal 96 damage backstab crit, which was enough to chunk him right away:
While other party members might be vulnerable, Rasha is much harder to deal with, and so she used her iMoD to clear the prison by herself, went downstairs into the dungeons, backstabbed some mages and joined the party for a quick battle against il-khan soldiers. As we entered Gromnirs room under mass invisibility, his mages opened with true sight instead of their protections spells, which allowed us to overwhelm them:
Leaving Saradush, we used PfU scrolls for the Master Wraith, who fell to Sarevok's Deathbringer's Assault:
After clearing the Oasis, we entered Amkethran, though we decided to skip Vongoethe (the rewards aren't worth the risk). By the way, we are also skipping Watcher's Keep completely (we only went there once in early SoA to get the ammunition belt). We also didn't bother with the drow ambushes at Sendai's, instead killing the captain right away with a few traps. Fighting our way through the enclave, we still had PfU scrolls left to safely deal with Odamaron:
Now, for Draconis. I have often called him the most dangeorus enemy in the unmodded game, and I stand by that. He once again proved why he earned this title, though I could've avoided most of the problems I encountered with a bit of preparation. I activated a bunch of green acid resistance scrolls, and after getting rid of his defenses, the party surrounded him to get him into dragon form. However, this triggered the annoying EE-bug - getting party members stuck in a bigger creature's selection circle. This time, every single party member was stuck:
Fighting through Abazigal's Lair, we used the Cloak of Mirroring for the eyes and protection from lightning spells from Viconia for the big boss himself. Buffed with oils of speed, our fighters engaged, trying to protect themselves with hardiness. This was mostly a physical fight, and we had enough fighter HLAs at our disposal to take a convincing victory: