Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar) @Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier @Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
The 9 word plan: Get out of Saradush and find Yaga Shura (hopefully)
Wirblefop's determined preparation included identifying everything in party inventory and meant a couple of rests between the weekly adventures continued. If Talisman and Peel felt strangely refreshed, this is why.
We stepped out of the Pocket Plane and back into Saradush. Peel bought himself a bag of holding and we made our way to the prison via an undead infested area. Wirblefop tried to sort out the vampires within but between Talisman turning them and Peel destroying them with weapons all he could do was pick up the pieces.
In the prison area we killed off many attackers - Talisman being keen to take the lead and picking up plenty of wounds for his trouble but Peel quickly overtaking him in the pain stakes. Wirblefop swaps from his Firetooth crossbow to pair of clubs and helps out, not that his companions really required any assistance.
Three groups of orogs fail to prevent us entering the castle from the prison. A group of defenders within wilt before us and then we make our way to face Gromnir Il Khan. We haven't discussed strategy and as the fight kicks off we have two divergent plans.
Grond0 and I want to eliminate the casters first, but Corey_Russell wants to kill Gromnir. After a bit of debate Corey_Russell sticks to his plan, I switch to Berenna and Grond0 well I don't know what he did - possibly taking aim at one of the two casters.
The fight proceeds. Wirblefop sees a timestop, and then a Wilt. He's safely away but Talisman crumples to the ground. Wirblefop and Peel soon have matters under control and get Talisman raised via the Paladins bracers.
With Gromnir down we are free to escape outside Saradush from our Pocket Plane. A welcoming committee awaits us, but we kill them and the nearby fire giants. Flushed with success we try to rest at the Pocket Plane but find ourselves in a broken cutscene.
(forced to load the last save, this is an autosave from before arriving at this area. So we get to clear the area a second time, quicksave and once more get the cutscene issue. We reload the quicksave, travel to the marshy swamp and Pocket Plane successfully from there)
Before getting to Nyalee we have to deal with a Master Wraith. Wirblefop predicts it will target him and that he should be OK if he sticks close to Talisman and his Turning. Our plan sort of works, but Wirblefop gets confused and level drained while the Master Wraith is unaffected by Turning. With his minions down the Master Wraith might not be too troublesome but Peel has been badly wounded and gulped a healing potion just as Wirblefop crazily asks about a Carsomyr Dispel. After a few moments more Wirblefop comes to his senses (not sure if Peel managed a Dispel) and as he runs the Master Wraith is brought to a halt. Talisman wonders why he is taking damage still until Wirblefop apologises for his confused Blackblood and Gnasher club ongoing effects.
The skeletal undead party are next, Talisman thinning them down with Sanctuaried Turning before Peel introduces the survivors to his weaponry.
Then to Nyalee, a brief conversation with her and we discover the need to obtain Yaga Shura's extracted heart. A quick check of our map and we are able to make our way to the Marching Mountains.
Groups of Fire Giants are encountered there and we take hefty wounds before six or eight of them are on the ground before us. A group of animal Bhaalspawn are next on our list and although two of them escape we are able to kill the remainder - Wirblefop having summoned a pair of Winter Wolves which pinged away with ranged cold damage most effectively.
Another fire giant and a pair of burning men are cleared, and then we save pocket plane rest before entering the temple sancturied or shadowed. After finding a quiet corner Talisman uses Blade Barrier, collects a group of fire giants and sanctuaries to injure them in safety.
Once his blades de-barrier we wage a running war against the fire giants. This is something Talisman is comfortable doing, being a Grond0 type of game. Wirblefop has less armour and is less likely to do this sort of approach but keeps himself safe and only taking damage when trying to finish off commanded enemies. Peel is less used to this sort of approach but has gotten used to it, however the hard-hitting fire giants give no quarter and it's not long before Peel is bashed to the floor.
Wirblefop finds a safe spot and uses the rod of resurrection on Peel. Meanwhile Talisman has run a long way north and returned. The two of us tag-team the remaining giants as Peel regains some of his equipment and rejoins the fray to take his revenge on them.
Another group of fire giants in the northeast of the area are defeated with the assistance of skeleton warriors and then Wirblefop uses summons as we face off against a group of golems. The summons fail to defeat a magic golem so Peel uses an unenchanted club to bash it apart.
There are trolls and salamanders on the other side, so Wirblefop asks Talisman if he has Crom Faeyr equipped to oneshot the trolls. Yes he does. Hence an easy victory with Wirblefop doing a lap of victory down and up the stairs (to avoid a harassing troll).
Wirblefop disables one shimmering barrier as Talisman and Peel disable a second. Then we remove the enemies in the two central areas to obtain a pair of wardstones. A few of these enemies are fire elementals and Wirblefop has the staff of fire at hand - claiming several oneshot kills.
Using the wardstones on a large device removes a third shimmering barrier and we are able to ascend into the inner temple. Talisman once more uses sanctuaried blade barriers and gets a few choice bites from the pair of fell cats which can see through his sanctuary.
The blades are tougher than the cats. Once the blades expire Talisman pulls the fire giants to an archway and they line up one after another to be shot down.
Peel gets himself mazed (in hindsight Wirblefop wonders if Talisman had Chaotic Commands available) and Wirblefop questions if Talisman has Remove Fear memorised. No says Talisman and promptly runs through a trap and panics. Wirblefop tries a whirlwind with his fire staff against Imix and finds it can hit. Just as Talisman recovers Wirblefop panics. He runs around a lot until he eventually stops - right on a fire pit. I regain control and move Wirblefop off the fire pit as Talisman distracts Imix.
Peel eventually re-appears and equips the Wave halberd. Imix takes a few hits and is then defeated. We grab two hearts, those of Yaga Shura and Nyalee and save pocket plane.
Back to Nyalee with the hearts. She does what is required and then summons assistance to attack us. Wirblefop eliminates a nymph and Nyalee before switching to a shambling mound. Peel has taken a lot of damage but the three of us are too much for them to handle.
We believe Yaga Shura has lost his invulnerability to move to the siege camp and while Peel and Talisman prepare for battle Wirblefop nips in and applies a little damage. Yaga Shura notices his wounds and retreats, while Wirblefop meets his party back at the bridge. We press on and find Yaga Shura has re-appeared. Wirblefop wastes no time in re-engaging but even so Yaga Shura is nearly dead by the time he engages - one or both Talisman and Peel had been very quick. Regardless, Wirblefop claims the kill.
We return to the Pocket Plane and with 5 minutes of our two hour session remaining Wirblefop decides it is time for an early night instead of investigating the next assignment. Party gear at session end.
Wirblefop is gamely bringing up the rear in terms of kills, while Talisman is gradually opening up a distance from him (turn undead, blade barrier, energy blades and smites are making their mark). Peel retains a healthy lead and is unlikely to be caught.
& I now have a 4k monitor downscaled to 2560x1440 (for various reasons not related to BG) as opposed to 1920x1080 of previous monitor, so was lucky the game and screen capture worked OK as ToB Multiplayer no reload isn't a great place to run into gameplay issues.
We decided to hang around the city for a while longer and partnered with Korgan for the Book of Kaza enterprise. Inside the crypts, Korgan helped us to defeat Pai'Na.
In return, we assisted him against Shagbag and his tomb raiders, after which we parted our ways and left Athkatla for Trademeet.
Looking forward to get our hands on the Shield of Harmony as soon as possible, Anomandra took care of the genies. It only seemed fitting to deploy our newly acquired Efreeti Bottle (which can be used without breaking Sanctuary) against Khan Zahraa himself.
Moving on to the Druid Grove, we used Sanctuary to avoid combat and to loot the troll mound. Anomandra then summoned her aerial servant to assist with the shambling mounds at the bridge and the bears.
Ahead of the fight with Dalok, we buffed the aerial servant with ProElectricity and summoned some skeletons to act as additional fodder. Running Storm Shield and RoAC II, among other buffs, our plan was to fry everyone with Lightning Bolts as quickly as possible. It worked out quite to our satisfaction.
Anomandra then teamed up with Cernd whom challenged Faldorn. The druid duel turned out rather disastrous for our side - even with the unfair help of items passed by Anomandra (most notably RoAC and Efreeti Bottle), Cernd was hard pressed by Faldorn's sheer power and intelligent strategy. Seeing that Cernd's Iron Skins ran out (with his summons already dead), I returned all the items to Anomandra, expecting his inevitable demise. The exception was Wand of Heavens - Faldon was heavily injured and Cernd could pull off one last shot...
Despite the duel ending in a draw, Master Verthan was pleased and so Cernd's sacrifice was not for naught as Trademeet's business was now restored. We shopped some potions from Adria and returned to the town to collect our reward. Anomandra then purchased Cloak of Displacement and the Belt of Inertial Barrier and assisted Tiris and Raissa. She's now level 12 (no L7 spells yet, but DuHM stat bonuses are now increased to 4).
Difficulty: SCS/Ascension Insane (no additional damage)
Additional mods: Adalon drops silver scales, Waukeen's Promenade Fletcher sells arrows of dispelling in stacks of 5 instead of 40
Additional rules: no xp loop, no area hopping to avoid incoming magic spells (escaping ambushes is allowed though), no Vhailor's Helm before TOB
Game version: 2.5
Weidu log BG2:
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Rewritten Final Chapter of Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #60 // Expanded Epilogues for Bioware NPCs -> David Gaider's expanded epilogues for Bioware NPCs: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Full-body portrait for Bodhi: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Alternate Balthazar portrait, by Cuv: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Extended Epilogues for additional Beamdog NPCs, by shawne: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Sharper portraits of Abazigal and Gromnir for the Enhanced Edition, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Slightly improved cutscenes, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3550 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4100 // Improved NPC customisation and management: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4115 // Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4150 // Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4215 // Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4218 // Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game -> Remove all ammo from random containers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8090 // Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v33.4
After entering the Elven city, Glolin immediately went to work on clearing it out. The golems he met were no match for him, he easily instakilled clay golems with the Deathblow+Dwarven Thrower combo and stone golems with Crom Faeyr. The larger golems were whirlwinded with Crom Faeyr.
The rakshasas and the like were kited until their protection from magical weapons was down before being cut down. Glolin with his 100% MR was invulnerable to their spells, so he had nothing to fear from them while kiting.
The Nabassu was taken on ranged with the sling of Everard, and posed no threat.
Glolin used summons to make Raamilat the Drow mage waste some of his spells. Armed with the Sling of Everard, Glolin shot him down... or so he thought, as he only killed a projection of the mage.
The real Raamilat was able to lower Glolin's MR, posing a big threat. Luckily Glolin was able to apply spell failure to his casting by attacking him ranged with the sling. He then switched to crom faeyr and went in for the killing blow.
Nizidramanii'yt, the black dragon, proved to be more resilient than first thought. Glolin went straight for him armed with Soul Reaver, and got some good hits in lowering it's THAC0 and applying spell failure at the same time. The dragon summoned some insects and Glolin was slowly taking damage. He decided to retreat a bit and use a RoR charge to heal. Reengaging the dragon with Soul Reaver and whirlwinds it soon lay dead at his feet.
Glolin had now collected the Goblet, the Amulet and the moonblade and placed it on the alter in the temple of Rillifane.
The avatar of Rillifane was summoned and helped Glolin clear the rest of the city.
First battle with Irenicus
Glolin reached the tree of live and started to remove the parasites. Before removing the last parasite he summoned some elementals and placed them near Irenicus.
Once the last parasite was killed, a fight with Irenicus broke out. The summoned elementals allowed Glolin to temporary retreat and wait out all of Irenicus's summons.
Glolin went back to engage the mage, but had to retreat again after he summoned a Dark Planetar.
He waited the Dark Planetar out, and then send in an elemental to probe Irenicus's defenses.
The mage was now defenseless. Glolin attacked whirlwinded with arrows+1, applying spell failure while also hurting the mage.
Two whirlwinds later, it was over.
The Nine Hells
Glolin was dragged down into hell together with Irenicus. But before the final battle with him, he first had to collect 5 tears of Bhaal. He chose the following tears:
Pride (good path): +20% fire, cold and electrity resistance
Fear (evil path): CON +2
Selfishness (evil path): AC+2,
Greed (good path): Saving throws -2. Before giving the sword Glolin charmed the genie with the staff of command. After recieving the good tear, Glolin instakilled it with the Wave halberd, allowing him to also keep Blackrazor.
Wrath (evil path): STR+2
The time had come for the final Battle with Irenicus. Glolin prepared himself thoroughly: he placed elemental summons near the gate, buffed with fireshield and hardness, equipped the shield of harmony (to protect against the Balor's Implosion) and Helm of Brilliance (to boost his fire resistance to 100%+).
Glolin opened the gate, Irenicus reappeared. It was clear that combat would determine their faiths. Irenicus summoned forth 2 balors and 2 Glabrezu's to aid him in the battle. The final battle had begun.
Glolin immediately retreated south, while his summons were keeping Irenicus and the 4 demons busy. The summons did not last long.
Glolin decided to use a divide and conquer technique, he would use summons to lure the demons to the edges of the map. This would leave Irenicus without any support. The first Balor was lured to the east.
The second Balor to the west.
Irenicus only had the 2 Glabrezu's left as support.
Glolin used another elemental to lure one of the Glabrezu's to him. It was easily killed, it did however confuse the earth elementals Glolin had summoned. The was a problem, as they started to wonder off in all directions.
One of the Balor's saw one of the earth elementals. Lucky enough it immediately used it's domination ability, and did not teleport to its location. Glolin could now safely continue and send other elementals as probes forward.
He was able to isolate another Glabrezu this way. A whirlwind later it lay dead at his feet.
With Irenicus isolated it was now time to focus on him. Elementals were send forward to make him waste his protection from magical weapons spells.
The time had now come for Glolin to take Irenicus on. He buffed with hardness, fireshield, mirror image and greater whirlwind and rushed at him with Soul Reaver in hand.
Getting hit in after hit, Irenicus got massive THAC0 penalties and spell failure applied. 3 whirlwinds later the mage could take no more.
Glolin got his soul back and was honored by all as a hero!
I used the green scroll and cleared the Basilisk area of the Adventurers, Basilisks, Medusae, and Mutamin.
From there went through Gullykin to Firewine to find and kill Lethe. We were successful but Lethe killed Connie and badly injured everyone except me. I was wearing a belt to protect myself from cold.
It cost 800gp for Aerie to raise Connie. However she did identify our equipment free.
Now it was time to look for Neera, do her quest, and then join up with Kagain.
That went without a hitch.
We then sold a lot of surplus equipment and bought decent axes for myself and Kagain a Travel Cloak and a wand of Sleep.
Before going to the mines we decided to visit the lighthouse area and raid the cave there, after which we took Brage to the temple.
We arrived to Imensvale after a brief stop in Athkatla, where we had paid Gaelan his 15k to get RoP +2 and the Amulet of Power from Aran. Anomandra first used her summons to destroy Madulf, obtain the mimic blood and to kill the golem threatening Collete's father.
The Shadow Temple was made easier by the fact that our Turn Undead was now capable of destroying all the shadows on spot, so the respawning enemies here were not really an issue (unlike in my other runs). These powers did not extend to higher level undead like mummies/greater mummies and skeleton warriors, whereas bone golems are not treated as undead at all. When we had to fight, we used mainly Flame Strikes (combined with Wonderous Recall for multiple castings) for the mummies, summoned skeleton warriors against enemy skeleton warriors and the Sling of Seeking for the bone golems. We also picked most of the fights outside the temple for more kiting space.
Anomandra released Mazzy, collected the relevant quest items and completed the Amaunator ritual, reaching cleric level 13 in the process, which earned her -2 THAC0 bonus and -1 saving throws reduction.
With RoP +2, the Claw and the Cloak of Displacement, her unbuffed saves were now sitting at: -1 (death)/-3 (wand)/3 (polymorph)/4 (breath)/0 (spell). In terms of available boosters, at that time we had spells (Bless/Chant/Aid/Barkskin; though we're almost exclusively using Aid and only for major fights), the Belt of Inertial Barrier for save vs. breath, RoAC II, and couple of Potions of Stone Form (no Potions of Magic Shielding yet, but we're hoping to be able to visit Roger the Fence soon). From our spells, there's also ProEvil (+2 bonus against evil sourced attacks), but because it's not a flat bonus I tend to disregard it and keep it as a sort of an extra safety stop.
Having defeated countless undead already, it felt exhausting to engage in further fights and so Anomandra rushed through the rest of the dungeon under Sanctuary rather than facing another two bone golems and even more skeleton warriors. We rested before the entrance to the shadow dragon cavern and started our preparations for the Shade Lord.
Our buffs were: Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear, ProEvil 10', Death Ward, Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration, Armor of Faith, Aid, Holy Power, Storm Shield, Blade Barrier and True Seeing. Anomandra was carrying Harmony (mainly against hold/paralysis) and also equipped the Belt of Inertial Barrier. After finishing the buff routine we rushed through the cavern to the altar. Note: The SCS Improved Share Lord component is not installed.
We started with Shadow Patrick, using Ashideena and Blade Barrier to take him down as soon as possible, while keeping our aura clear to counter the Shade Lord's actions.
He opened with Symbol: Stun. A quick look at our character sheet confirmed that our save vs. spell is -1. Given that the save is made at - 4 penalty, the situation warranted a Potion of Stone Form quaff (-3 reduction). Unless the Shade Lord's a conjurer (in which case we could still fail to make the save on roll 1), we should be safe.
Anomandra safely rolled 9 and redirected her offense at the Shadow Altar. Using a time window after the Shade Lord's Chromatic Orb, she activated RoAC II to avoid direct damage spells. Once the Shade Lord switched to melee, we brought in the efreeti.
The Shade Lord was hitting really hard, but in the end our damage output outperformed that of his and we prevailed.
We reported to the mayor and got to level 14. Anomandra now has access to one L7 divine spell a day and, with Shields of the Archons at hand, we're now feeling a bit more relaxed in terms of our no-reloading efforts.
@jaypee Congratulations on finishing SoA and thanks for the report! I'll make sure to check out some of the videos, as I've never really understood how players manage to overcome the wizard slayer class limitations at various stages of the game.
@jaypee Congratulations on finishing SoA and thanks for the report! I'll make sure to check out some of the videos, as I've never really understood how players manage to overcome the wizard slayer class limitations at various stages of the game.
Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions. A youtube recording without commentary might not always be transparant enough.
As promised, here's a quick update on Mae'var and his (in the end rather unsuccessful) thieving enterprise. Before enlisting with Mr Bloodscalp, Anomandra used her Umar Hills money to buy the Sensate Amulet - becasue as the late Tamika had learned the hard way, there's merit in having access to undispelable ProEvil when playing with demons.
While visiting the Temple District to steal the Talos necklace from mistress Ada (which for RP purposes we justified mainly by the fact that if Ada can't protect it, she's not worth of having it in the first place) we were also instructed to procure the services of a certain sculptor for the greater glory of Talos. I'm planning to make a dedicated post mapping Anomandra's relationship with the church, so I'll cover the entire Sir Sarles quest there separately. Whilst in the district, we also visited the Radiant Heart to pick-up the Fallen Paladins quest and assisted Roger the Fence with his troll issue down in the sewers.
We're however mainly interested in doing business with Roger and Anomandra left for the surface with a reinforced potion case (adding Potions of Firebreath and Potions of Magic Shielding into her collection). Moving on to the Bridge District to check upon the fallen paladins, the strangest of things ocurred - after the battle with the smugglers, Reynald got hacked to pieces by one of his mates without any interference whatsoever from our end. Well, so much helping out the Order.
So back to the thieves. For Rayic Gethras' manor we prepared with our usual divine buffs. After killing the pesky mephits (thank you, Storm Shield) on the ground floor, Anomandra applied True Seeing, Sanctuary and Harm (which under the default SCS settings deals a flat 150 points of magic damage, down to 1 HP). Our plan was to instakill Rayic with Harm + Potion of Firebreath combo. In the end it worked, though for some reason he only died on the second tick of our Firebreath, even though the log clearly showed his initial protections (MIs, Shadow Door and MGoI) kicking in only after both the magic damage and the fire damage had been applied.
After completing the other minor chores we've finally tasked to get rid of Mae'Var. Exactly as Renal said, a good thief, but we never liked him.
Like a true herald of destruction (albeit coming though the back entrance for a little surprise effect), Anomandra called upon a balor via Gate spell for the event.
The unintentional funny twist was that the balor became stuck in the entrance corridor. But it still managed to cause much chaos, which ended up with the fearsome Mae'Var running around the room in horror. What a sight that was!
During the battle, Anomandra was running True Seeing among others to fend off backstabbing rogues. She also managed to dominate the Priest of Cyric (bah!) whom joined our cause.
We're also starting to see a decrease in the number of successful dispel attempts on Anomandra via Remove Magic during combat, thanks to her increasing relative caster level (and for dual classers like Mae'Var the chances get lower still).
And here's the anticlimatic finale of Mae'Var's career:
This was fun and we didn't want to leave just yet - there were plenty of criminals to be smashed, including that fat barkeep Gorch.
Anomandra refreshed her short duration buffs including Armor of Faith, Aid, Storm Shield, True Seeing, the Holy Trinity (i.e. Holy Power + Righteous Magic + DuHM), summoned her Blade Barrier and headed upstairs. The carnage that followed was like some scene from a Blade movie - limbs, flesh and intestines flew all around the hall. And surprisingly, more and more thieves kept coming still. At some point we stopped counting, but the number of potions we collected after the battle gave a rough indication of how many have perished. A lot!
We reported the good news to Renal and the reward he gave us was used to fund the Sling of Everard. Anomandra is currently level 15, which means she's reached another thresholds for Armor of Faith (for 20% resistance) and DuHM (4 points stat increase) and she's also got access to the most powerful versions of the Animate Dead skeletons.
This is to provide an update on de'Arnise Keep where we faced the SCS spell casting Spirit Trolls (Flame Strike, Unholy Blight and Greater Command) and improved Torgal, among others. I'm also using the Rebalanced Troll Regeneration SCS component.
After discussing the situation with Nalia, we decided to employ a stealthy approach. Entering through the secret tunnel, Anomandra used Sanctuary to make her way to the second floor unnoticed. For the first group of trolls near the library we used skeleton warriors (they make good troll tanks thanks to their piercing and magic resists), aerial servant and Flame Strike/Flame Blade.
Moving on to the yuan-ti mage, Anomandra used Flame Strike to go above his MGoI and Sling of Everard with normal bullets to go below his initial PfMW.
While waiting for his PfMW to expire, we also got hit by an unsuccessful Remove Magic. As mentioned earlier, dispels these days are rarely a threat to Anomandra's own protections and buffs, given the relative caster level advantage over enemy arcane casters. Remove Magic still hurts when we're running potions or other item buffs (e.g. RoAC II), but generally isn't capable of disrupting our core defenses on the whole. This advantage of ours will only become more and more pronounced as Anomandra's cleric levels progress.
What is more problematic however, are Breach-type of spells capable of directly removing our key protections such as Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear, Death Ward, ProEvil or elemental protections (e.g. Storm Shield). In order to safeguard her defenses, Anomandra is running her Shield of the Archons (SotA) whenever possible, even though currently we only have the benefit of one L7 spell slot.
By casting True Seeking, we were able to quickly finish the yuan-ti as soon as his PfMW ran out.
After collecting the keep key we went on to dispel Glacius' domination and collected the flail head from the golem room (in the current version of SCS, the fail heads are located as per the original game, i.e. none of these are with Torgal), using Sanctuary to avoid all enemies. We then returned downstairs to forge the Flail of Ages (FotA).
With our new weapon, we're now ready to face the trolls on the ground floor with less support from our summons. In the courtyard we defeated the otyugh with Lightning Bolts and Wand of Magic Missiles and proceeded to open the gate.
Reaching level 16 earned us increased THAC0 and saving throws, as well as an additional Lightning Bolt a day (4x in total). The Barkskin AC bonus threshold is not really relevant to us. Our weapon proficiencies are now hammers, slings, flails, two-weapon style, staves and two-handed weapon style. The staves are there mainly for the Staff of Fire/Air/Earth and the Rod of Smiting. So far we omitted maces, as we're not planning on forging the iMoD for role playing reasons (i.e. completing the Sir Sarles quest).
We rested and then it was time to face Torgal. This is a scary fight and I'm never really very confident here, no matter how strong a character I have at the time.
Anomandra took lengthy preparations with 3x Animate Dead, Aerial Servant, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Shield Amulet (just collected from the trapped chest in the cellar and identified with the Glasses of Identification), ProEvil 10', Remove Fear, Gate (our L7 choice for the day), Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration, Armor of Faith, Aid, Holy Power, Righteous Magic and Storm Shield. She was wearing the Girdle of Piercing, equipped with FotA and Harmony.
Here they come! Anomandra -> Blade Barrier.
We tried to focus our offense on Torgal initially, adding Flame Strike to slow down his regeneration rate.
Our damage output wasn't as good as we had hoped and then we saw this game changer...
Seeing that our front line with the balor wasn't going to hold any longer, we decided to retreat a bit, making space for Anomandra to cast Dispel Magic to counter the mass haste.
Leaving the summons in the front to give ourselves a bit of a breathing space, Anomandra moved to block the other doorway and called in the efreeti.
While regularly checking the amount of STR drain inflicted by the spirit trolls, to ensure we're safe on that front, we fought a larger group with Blade Barrier and FoTA in meele. The good news was that Anomandra was also able to pull off True Seeing.
In the meantime, Mr Efreeti bombarded their rear and, with the help of the last surviving skeleton warrior, he managed to put Torgal down. He was still alive though.
With two dispels by the yuan-ti mages coming our way, we retreated once again, waited for both projectiles to land and then immediately quaffed an Oil of Speed to renew our haste.
As may be seen from the screenshots, the only buffs dispelled had been those granted by potions / items (Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration and Shield Amulet), with our divine spells remaining intact. Once again hasted, Anomandra rushed back into the room to finish the unconscious Torgal with FotA.
Now it was two yuan-ti mages against the two of us with Mr Efreeti. Breach was undoubtedly the right call from their end, however it came a bit too late in the fight to make a real difference.
It took us some time to peel through their defences while reactivating those of our own, but in the end Anomandra prevailed.
Phew, that was a grand battle indeed. Time to get some rest.
Gorion waved charname away. "Go, go", he said. "I'll only slow you down on the way to your inevitable death". Charname hesitated and said "what?" "It's a long story" replied Gorion.
Charname 4
Fret, Priest of Lathander. Gorion's warning about charnames 1 to 3 rang in his ears. No matter how strong they were, how brave they were, three earlier charnames had succumbed. What was it Gorion had said. They chose... poorly?
Well, Fret would delay his poorly choice. He even ventured in almost unbuffed to fight Hareishan and her cohort of archers. All he had was protection from lightning and fire, and as Hareishan launched one lightning bolt Fret retreated to drag a second into the fray.
With Hareishan and most of her companions down the remnants didn't fare so well. Davaeorn thought he'd do better but Helmite True Sight with a couple of skeleton warriors and a Seeking Sword was more than adequate.
Returning to Candlekeep saw more protection from lightning deployed behind a group of skeletons. Fret was finding himself quite happy not being the centre of attention.
After making his way back to Baldur's Gate all Fret had to do was get to the Coronation, and he succeeded in that. Five skeleton warriors were buffed while Fret buffed himself a bit more, and Sarevok's plans for Sword Coast domination were in tatters.
Ravhin and his gang tried to slow Fret down but a steady stream of skeleton warriors kept them occupied long enough for Shaldrissa to Cloudkill her party. Fret heard her die as they turned on her, but realised no further infighting was taking place so he sent another skeleton and then two dogs forward. Gorf emerged to be shot down, while Wudei and either Carston or Rahvin remained to be meleed from near-death to their demise.
Sarevok felt his luck was in but Angelo and Tazok declined to support him. Semaj's mirror images evaporated under True Sight leaving him at the tender mercies of skeletons. He managed to produce a cloudkill before perishing, meaning a doomed Sarevok got to fight the skeletons in the midst of it. Fret hardly needed to help out further but with plenty of his 80 purchased +2 bullets remaining he may as well do so.
Gorion would be proud of your actions
Fret opted for the shortcut to Amn rather than investigate Dragonspear. The penalty for this was to wake up as a dungeonee rather than a dungeoneer. He wasted no time in letting Imoen free him, then recruited Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo. The five of them sealed their escape, with Imoen immediately being captured by Cowled Wizards for unsanctioned use of magic.
Aerie was recruited while sorting out an illusionary circus - True Sight dispelling wolfwere's and Turn Undead helping destroy shadows. A wrong choice at the Copper Coronet saw Nalia worm her way into the party but Fret had other ideas - dumping her and Aerie to recruit Korgan instead.
Fret wanted to waste no time in completing Korgan's likely quest, but got drawn into a pit fight with Amalas. He emerged victorious but badly wounded, and then we headed to the Graveyard - only to get ambushed by Suna Seni. We fought the ambushers off but picked up more wounds as a consequence. Fret didn't want to hang around resting though so we pressed on into the graveyard and down into the underground area. Spiders and ettercaps took advantage of our cheap looted armour and weapons meaning we were bashed about more and Korgan got a dose of poison.
Never mind, let's press on. We think we're ready for the southern tombs. We fight off the initial group of enemies but forget about a vampire nearby and it gets a few hits in before we can finish it off. Then Yoshimo clears traps as we eliminate mummies. Korgan exclaims we have been beaten to the book of Kaza, does Fret look bothered. No, he looks almost beyond caring.
We follow Korgan's lead, to the Temple district - paying 750gp x2 for Fret and Jaheira to be undrained. Once more we are too late so Fret uses his initiative to predict we should look above the Copper Coronet. No rest for the wicked thinks Fret, but at least we don't run into any vampires on our way (we do take another ambush and return Rylock starting Xzar's quest though).
Finally we have the book of Kaza and a while later Korgan says he will stay with the party so long as we speak to a contact outside the Council of Six building at the government district. Doing that gets us inside to agree to help Tolgerias. We immediately head to Umar so Minsc knows we will help the mayor there. Possibly.
Having secured Korgan and Minsc, Fret is now free to think about who else should be permanent party members and who will be relegated to visitor.
It is my sad duty to report on Anomandra's demise at the hands of rakshasa Maharajas. It's my laziness that killed her. The rakshasas were the last group of enemies to be dealt with in the streets in Suldanessellar. Anomandra cleared the rest of the area already and decided to pick up this battle without resting. We're already long into the fight, which required repeated casting of SotA, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Storm Shield and Wonderous Recalls among others, and only two of the cats remained. Unfortunately, I wanted to be faster on offense than on defence - with no SotA left, Anomandra got stripped of her protections at one point by Breach only to become mazed immediately thereafter.
Still, it had been a greatly enjoyable run and I'm sure I'll give the challenge a try sometimes in the future again.
Sorry to hear that @Borco the words sad duty plus laziness can be used below, preceded by getting carried away once more and not paying attention.
Fret had made a couple of changes to his party, swapping out Yoshimo and recruiting Jan. A decision to pick up better armour for Korgan saw Jaheira run into Baron Ployer so we hunted him down and removed the curse he'd bestowed upon her.
Studiously ignoring quests outside the city gates led to us doing all the jobs at the docks, bridge district and temple district (other than the guarded compound). Fret completed his Priest stronghold tasks. In his post-mortem it was noted that he'd travelled to Umar (this time to ensure Korgan was happy with progress on hunting down Valygar - but we released him once he'd opened the Planar Sphere).
With the Unseeing Eye and Planar Prison completed we returned to the Planar Sphere where rapid progress was made against the halflings inside. Fret casually barged into another room and we killed a pair of stone golems but a clay golem and iron golem were tougher. Keldorn and Minsc took turns getting poisoned while Korgan and Fret took turns being bashed by the clay.
Eventually Fret runs, as does Minsc. With poison ticking away at him Minsc is unable to distance himself from the iron golem and he is chunked. Fret growls in anger and tries to put a mirrored and stoneskinned Jan between the clay golem and himself. The golem is having none of it and kills Fret. Taking a rest before the encounter or equipping Korgan's shield instead of the Kundane sword would have greatly simplified matters.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar) @Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier @Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Pre-game strategy;
Wirblefop had no plan. While you could call it laziness this is Throne of Bhaal, and his only two options are the open Pocket Plane challenge facing his alter-ego, or Jamis Tombelthen at the Oasis. Either way it will be painful.
On to the game. Wirblefop decided to head to the Oasis and from there into Amkethran. We rapidly did a few tasks helping a priest being attacked by a monk, fending off two mercenaries after Saemon Havarian suggested they pick on us and rescuing the mayors daughter from two more mercenaries. Wirblefop sold a few items at the tavern to make room in his bags, and then Peel suggested buying the K'logarath throwing axe.
A good idea, however Wirblefop combined his poor armour class and poor saving throws to give a monk a suitable Quivering Palm victim and the run was over at unlucky session 13.
& from the screen capture, to confirm there was a Quivering Palm
Unfortunately our promising Trio in Trio 38 came to a quick end, so time to roll new lambs for the slaughter. I fancied a human as well, as I thought I might need to dual to thief and sure enough that will help when we get to BG 2. It's good thing, as my group-mates were not thieves. Unfortunately they also don't wear any armor, so I need to be in the front lines as well. Here are our characters if there's any interest:
We got a lot done.
* Candlekeep chores completed without incident.
* Xzar and Montaron met an untimely end. The arcane members of the group wanted Xzar's spells you see.
* We proceeded to kill Shoal from a distance and Saga got the first level. Despite have CHA of 17, Saga was not able to convince Arcand the Mad to take the ring he wants.
* Meedan decided he wanted some rings that are above Beregost, in a rock and in the ground by a tree. But we got ambushed and Scamp was killed pretty much instantly. After collecting his gear we headed to Beregost Temple to bring him back. He lost his shield somehow.
* After collecting a +1 ring for Meedan, we decided to take down an Ogre in the area for his belt(s). A Meedan axe found the mark and it was a short fight. We then headed to FAI and collected a nice wizard ring for Scamp. We also recovered Joai's ring for her while we were here.
* We headed to Beregost and collcted a gem bag from Neira and Firebead gave us a scroll case.
* In Nashkel collected some Ankheg armor for Meedan. His groupmates, despite being able to use armor, elected not to wear any armor, which means Meedan needs to be in the front most of the time, whether he likes it or not. The only exception to that is his friends sometimes run in circles in fear while Meedan with his good Thac0 picks off enemies to save his friends.
* Some ogrillions messing with a dryad's tree were dealt with. A girl got her dead cat back. A gnoll in the area was slaughtered for his magical halberd for Saga.
* Gnoll fortress went pretty smooth - mostly here for potions, CHA tome and some spells for the arcane members of the group. Well, there was one problem, Meedan was carrying too many potions and also his axes kept breaking, so a potion bag and magical axe were obtained shortly.
* A powerful bear was peppered with spells and missile weapons, which in resulted in some frost boots from a nearby panicked nobleman.
* After getting what we needed from High Hedge and Beregost, we decided we would take on the basilisks, though not before returning some items for Landarin and defreating Tarnesh at the FAI. Scamp has PfP spell to protect Meedan as he waded in to melee with the dangerous basilisks. However, on the way there we got ambushed by the dreaded basilisk ambush1 Scamp protected Meedan and we killed it for the great experience.
* Once we finally arrived in basilisk area and killed a few, we needed to refresh our spells to do the next batch. We had to kill a crazy amount of gnolls (we kept getting ambushed) before we got a successful rest. Mutamutin's basilisk was killed, then Meedan enraged and charged said mage, who did not survive.
* After disposing of the last couple of basilisks we did a rest and dealt with Kirian's group. Scamp managed to blind everyone but Kirian. And Saga threw in a stinking cloud and Scamp also silenced them. As if all this weren't enough, Saga had some fun with chromatic orbs. Meedan on the other had was doing his simple but still effective throwing his axes. All of this was to good effect as you can see by the screenshot below.
We were running out of time, so we sold our junk at High Hedge and saved our session there.
When I and my half-brothers were told by Gorion to furnish ourselves in preparation for leaving Candlekeep, little did I realise how important the special ability of my twin brother Barax would be. His rage enabled him to break open every chest in Candlekeep including those which Acer, the thief in our party couldn’t. This was because Acer had concentrated on developing his pickpocketing skills. Barax had wanted to be trained as an Inquisitor, but even Gorion was only able to get one of us trained as a paladin.
Normally I would discourage thieving, but our lives are at stake, so I felt that our actions were justified. Whilst plate armour is available, we would have had to commit murder to acquire it. That I was not prepared to do! I am therefore wearing the splint armour that I will give to Barax as soon as I have plate for myself.
We had to flee Candlekeep whereupon Gorion was killed and Imoen joined us. We took Imoen to the safety of Feldpost’s where we left her due to the fact that she was far too light-fingered. Whilst we appreciate having Algernon’s Cloak, she could have got us into serious trouble.
We visited the temple to the East whereupon we were asked to take a tome to Candlekeep. That is where we will therefore head next.
EDIT
Killed with one blow from Greywolf whilst still at level 1.
Magpie the bounty hunter failed to follow in Fret's footsteps. After collecting Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Kagain and Viconia she eased her way down to Davaeorn in the Cloakwood mine. Perhaps not a bright idea to stand in a narrow corridor with Imoen and Montaron to see their traps just fail to kill the enemy. A volley of missiles missed, Kagain failed to close in quickly enough and Magpie retreated to try throwing another snare but Davaeorn fired a lightning bolt down the corridor.
Swot the bard reached level 4 and promptly retired undefeated (and uninterested).
Awry the fighter / druid assembled a team of neutrals, including Xan, only for Branwen to activate Mulahey before we had prepared. With most of the party incapacitated it was left to Xan to use a Colour Spray and a few Larloch's Minor Drains but Mulahey and his summons still managed to kill Awry.
Folgren the fighter / druid decided to travel on his own and died when confused. A few days later his faulty memory saw him continue on and only realise his mistake after another few levels and on returning to the basilisk map when his deja-vu kicked in so he retired defeated.
Tujo the halfling bounty hunter was next up. A brief write-up will no doubt result in her soon perishing but let's give it a go. After getting some reputation and equipment she wandered around Mutamin's rock garden trying out backstabs and occasionally staying for follow-on hits.
A trapping experiment on Kirian and her gang was almost successful - Lindin requiring a follow-up arrow.
After clearing the basilisks, Tujo continued on to eliminate sirines. She elected not to use any buffs (potion of clarity and greenstone amulet remained available as contingencies) and there was only one point where the sirines could have used a charm - but Tujo slipped into the shadows and hunted the dispersing sirines down for more backstabs. Only one backstab missed, and the sirine used Improved Invisibility which wore out after a while.
Nashel Mine saw Mulahey run scared but with a full complement of minions. Tujo bashed two kobolds down and moved to the chamber containing Xan. By hugging the wall she managed to hide before the minions closed in again. Mulahey took a backstab and collapsed, meaning Tujo could be more leisurely in disposing the minions.
Lamalha and her amazons found themselves victims of another snarefest experiment. A few thrown special snares and then sneak in to add a normal snare - all four enemies going hostile at the same time to their chagrin.
Backstabs cleared the bandit camp, and then another snareshoot cleared the main tent in one.
Tujo scooted through Cloakwood and used more snares against Drasus' team which only claimed Kysus. Genthore took an additional backstab, as did Rezdan and Drasus chased Tujo into a stable and a newly laid snare. Tujo returned to civilisation to sell off the loot - including a pair of wyvern heads picked up from a cave.
It was some weeks since our last outing, but eventually we found the correct save game and ran through the SoD epilogue without taking any risks.
Jon's dungeon was easy enough, with skeleton warriors providing extra oomph where necessary and Trile buffing Mist with spirit armor and improved invisibility on the odd occasion where disablers were flying around. Trile cunningly held back a magic missile to finish off Ulvaryl before she could flap away.
Inquisitorial true sight made restoring the circus to normality even easier than usual.
There was some beastly business at the Copper Coronet, before Hendak finally remembered the way to the bar to chop down Lehtinan.
Mist headed for Watcher's Keep in search of the potion case, but was delayed when Suna Seni sprang an ambush - realizing too late that she had bitten off more than she could chew.
At Watcher's Keep Mist took an uncharacteristically cautious approach by leaving that for later with the feeble excuse that we had no level drain protection against potential vampiric wraiths.
On the way to de'Arnise Hold another ambush saw Renfeld saved. That resulted in a detour to return him and loot the harpers - and for Mist to pick up some Dirthy armor.
Eventually though we got to the intended destination. With time in the session running out, Mist went more directly than usual to find the root cause of trouble in the Hold. There was a bit of delay taking on an iron golem on the way when Mist was badly damaged by getting poisoned by the cloud while hasted and he stood back and watched while Trile finished the job with MMMs. Then there was just time to nip downstairs and sort out TorGal before saving the session.
Inquisitor 10, 120 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 97 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 12, 54 HPs, 56 kills (+152 in BG1), 0 deaths
Tujo the Bounty Hunter realises on her escape from Candlekeep that she forgot to loot the catacombs, meaning no third tome of wisdom and no tome of strength. Careless.
At the Coronation Tujo lays seven snares - thrown through side doors too. She buffs heavily and introduces herself, running into siderooms to throw two more snares in. A few hits with her staff and Sarevok's plans are in disarray. He flees, and Belt sends Tujo in lukewarm pursuit.
Rahvin and his gang of mercenaries have four special snares behind them and three in front. Some of their party survive so two more snares are thrown in and the ogre is still coming (very slowly) so Tujo bashes him down with her staff.
Sarevok takes an arrow of dispelling and calls forth a single magely support - right onto seven snares.
Sarevok then. Having been dispelled he blundered into two freshly laid snares and two freshly laid special snares. This slowed him down, and Tujo gave him some arrows of ice before finishing off with backstabs.
Tujo looked around. In one direction lay Dragonspear, in another Amn. The latter looks to be a bountiful place for Tujo.
The group got a lot done this session. Fresh off our victories in the basilisks area, the Trio wondered where to go next. Meedan decided they'd take a stab on clearing the sirines as his enrage made that pretty simple. Enrage also made the traps in the golem cave to be no problem. The golems didn't last long.
Next, we decided Melium needed a lesson. Unsurprisingly, with all the spells cast his way as well as Meedan's strong melee, Melium didn't stand a chance. Meedan quickly took the gauntlets before any of the others could laid claim. For good measure, we took out Molkar's party. Though 1st Grond0 lost connection so we waited for him to return. With enrage protecting melium and the many spells our group has, Molkar's group couldn't put up much of a fight.
Samuel was rescued as well, though wasn't needed as our reputation is already at 20. We did get a few potions though...We decided we take care of the Nashkel Mines. This went pretty smooth, until we arrived in Nashkel, except we couldn't get the reward as no one had Mulahey's symbol! Doh! So we rushed back into the mine, the LONG way. But when we got to Mulahey's cave, it was no where to be found. We could at least get the next chapter, so we can continue.
Next the Ankheg's were cleared out. Meedan's -6 AC protected him well, he only got hit once. Meedan noticed the party was level 6 - we can take on Durlag's tower. We cleared various doom guards and battle horrors, plus some basilisks. And as is our custom, we freed the succubus and trapped then killed the thief.
Not a lot of time left. We had just enough time to clear out the surface of the bandit camp. Tazok's tent will be our next target next session.
New run with Magreb the Mighty, Barbarian Dwarf
Same set-up as other recent runs. Journal of Magreb the Mighty
Mendas was the only assassin in Candlekeep to put up much resistance.
Barbarian rage was sufficient to subdue Tarnesh without him wounding me.
The ring was then returned to Joia.
An ambush by a ghast gave a useful boost to experience.
I was then able to help Mellicamp, another boost to experience.
A letter to Mirianne was then delivered and I picked up the Colquetle amulet.
The Geywolf reward was turned down.
Killing Zordal wasn't easy despite rage.
Neither was Zorgas Flintblade. It was necessary to flee to the Carnival before returning and avoiding melee combat.
Samuel was the taken to the FAI, the Dudley necklace was given to Annie, and the Colqauetle amulet was given to the family.
Xzar an Montaron joined me. Montaron was doing way too much pickpocketing so I dropped him off. Then Xzar started attacking caravan guards. he will have to go too if he doesn't change his ways.
He was useful when we were ambushed. A blast from the wand of fire was invaluable. After killing Krill I bade farewell to both him and Dorn.
Greywolf attacked me and didn't have time to regret his action.
I joined up with the Inquisitor Ajantis. I feel that his company will be far more amenable than evil characters.
We then rescued Dynaheir and upon goitng to Ulgoth'd Beard Thorin joined us.
Killed Droth, Shoal and some sirine and got a reward for finding a ring.
I managed to release Aaron's fiancee from undeath by giving her Aaron's ring.
Tactically speaking, perhaps I should have waited before returning it since a ring of protection +1 is always useful.
(An evil character would have kept it permanently)
EDIT
We then went hunting sirines, basilisks, medusae, Mutamin after which we sold surplus goods and spent the money on a better sling and robe for Dynaheir plus some recharged wands.
Tujo the Bounty Hunter has a blast through parts of Amn. She collects a party in short order, gets herself a thieves guild and takes on a few tasks around the city. This is them on the way to the Unseeing Eye.
The harpers thought they would have a good go at us, and fair play to them they caught us a couple of times. Each time we defeated them - albeit with Haer'Dalis and Aerie dying at one point and Minsc subsequently going berserk.
As can be seen we'd got the better of them and only had to lick our wounds now. Tujo, Jaheira and Aerie all had cure light wounds available and while that was used a slight mishap arose. Tujo lay on the ground, thinking perhaps she'd ordered Minsc to force-attack her and then not notice as the focus was on casting spells (and the bottom of the screen with sound off, so not paying attention to the main window or combat log). Somewhat embarrassing.
New run with Magreb the Mighty, Barbarian Dwarf
Same set-up as other recent runs. Journal of Magreb the Mighty
Mendas was the only assassin in Candlekeep to put up much resistance.
Barbarian rage was sufficient to subdue Tarnesh without him wounding me.
The ring was then returned to Joia.
An ambush by a ghast gave a useful boost to experience.
I was then able to help Mellicamp, another boost to experience.
A letter to Mirianne was then delivered and I picked up the Colquetle amulet.
The Geywolf reward was turned down.
Killing Zordal wasn't easy despite rage.
Neither was Zorgas Flintblade. It was necessary to flee to the Carnival before returning and avoiding melee combat.
Samuel was the taken to the FAI, the Dudley necklace was given to Annie, and the Colqauetle amulet was given to the family.
Xzar an Montaron joined me. Montaron was doing way too much pickpocketing so I dropped him off. Then Xzar started attacking caravan guards. he will have to go too if he doesn't change his ways.
He was useful when we were ambushed. A blast from the wand of fire was invaluable. After killing Krill I bade farewell to both him and Dorn.
Greywolf attacked me and didn't have time to regret his action.
I joined up with the Inquisitor Ajantis. I feel that his company will be far more amenable than evil characters.
We then rescued Dynaheir and upon goitng to Ulgoth'd Beard Thorin joined us.
Killed Droth, Shoal and some sirine and got a reward for finding a ring.
I managed to release Aaron's fiancee from undeath by giving her Aaron's ring.
Tactically speaking, perhaps I should have waited before returning it since a ring of protection +1 is always useful.
(An evil character would have kept it permanently)
EDIT
We then went hunting sirines, basilisks, medusae, Mutamin after which we sold surplus goods and spent the money on a better sling and robe for Dynaheir plus some recharged wands.
Trio 39 - Final Update!
Meedan - Human berserker (probably dual to thief in BG 2) protagonist (Corey_Russell, 1 death)
Scamp - gnomish illusionist/cleric (@Gate70, 1 death)
Saga - half-elf skald (@Grond0, 1 deaths)
While I could talk about how we breezed through Tazok's tent, or how the Cloakwood was no problem, or how we got through the Cloakwood Mines and destroyed Davaeorn, but all that really matters is our fateful encounter with Jardak. Despite Meedan's full plate and -6 AC he was getting hit quite often and had to retreat down the stairs. However he was blocked and couldn't move. Soon, his groupmate Sage was killed by Jardak. Jardak himself was killed by a Scamp scorcher. However remember that attempted move I tried at first? Now that the way was "clear" my character tried to move, right into Scamp's scorcher. The fire resistance ring did not save Meedan, RIP.
Despite no thief, the Nashkel mines were no problem.
Neither were the Amazons.
We took Xan to Nashkel where we left him.
We then picked up Coran and went wyvern hunting. On the way we picked up a sword when we fought Centeol. In the same area we killed a smallish dragon and received a +2 ring of protection as a reward. Upon returning to the temple for our reward for nealing with the wyverns we headed north to kill Malious et al.
We cleared the bandit camp and set off to visit Durlag's Tower.
On the way we were ambushed by basilisks.
I went into my bookbag and found a couple of scrolls to protect from petrification. The game crashed so we decided to head north and get some potions of mirrored sight.
When we arrived at the gate to the FAI we were attackedf by a party of deceived good guys.
We immediately left for the ankheg fields and approached the FAI from the North.
We rested since our cleric's spells wouldn't have been effective against a good party.
Defeating them was then easy. Their possessions were not particularly good, but they will be useful.
We then bought the potions that we went for but didn't need them.
Tenya was particularly badly hurt by the battle horror but she recovered OK upon resting.
Trio 40 - First and final update Snap - gnome cleric/illusionist (Grond0)
Aleena - human druid (Corey_Russell)
Jackdaw - halfling bounty hunter (Gate70)
With plenty of time left in the session , we thought we might as well get another run (or two) underway. With a pretty lightweight party, Snap decided to head straight for the basilisks in search of some quick levels. On arrival though we soon found damaging them was not that easy with our relatively poor missile attacks. The first two lesser basilisks to the south were not too bad, but the greater basilisk was a pain in its insistence on quickly switching from gaze to melee attack each time Snap reset it by running out of sight. Part of the problem with that tactic was that Snap was the only one protected from petrification and hence the others were getting fewer shots than would be desirable. Snap should have paid more attention to the ticking clock, but was determined to try and finish off the greater basilisk before resting - and paid the price.
Gorion waved charname away. "Go, go", he said. "I'll only slow you down on the way to your inevitable death". Charname hesitated and said "what?" "It's a long story" replied Gorion.
So Vargo the half-elf Fighter / Druid trots out of Candlekeep and works his way around the Sword Coast before settling down to sort out Nashkel Mine. No trouble there, nor with the glamazons outside - but before he can get too glib the skies open and Vargo gets a painful shock.
At the rock garden all the basilisks are eliminated before a charmed black bear takes horror and a Melf's Acid Arrow. It moves away but has distracted Mutamin sufficiently to make him an easy victim.
Kirian and her gang take a necklace of missiles after Lindin has lightning called down onto his suit of armour.
The bandit camp is cleared with melee, and a greenstone amulet charge allows Vargo to do more of the same inside the main tent.
Cloakwood is safely negotiated, using a potion of freedom to kick over traps while fighting ettercaps. Drasus and his gang are guarding Cloakwood Mine, and an necklace of missile opening kills Kysus while drawing Genthore out. After staffing him to the ground Rezdan is next and Drasus fails to make any further impression.
Vargo strolls through Cloakwood Mine, finishing the final guard and two battle horrors before using woodland beings to soak up Davaeorn's spells. Vargo moves in to finish matters and open up the city of Baldur's Gate.
Marek finds himself unable to handle a pair of woodland beings in addition to Vargo.
Vargo racks up more tasks in the city, returns to Candlekeep and successfully loots the tomes from within and makes his return to the city in time for a coronation at the Duchal palace.
De-charmed woodland beings help secure the life of Belt, and Sarevok departs. Vargo follows, clearing the thieves maze and Rahvin's gang also. Vargo has a final rest before entering the temple of Bhaal.
Semaj teleports to help Sarevok, and lasts a fair while against summons and bullets from Vargo when chance allows but eventually down he goes.
Vargo looks in good shape to face up to Sarevok, albeit light on magical bullets.
(the only enemy I typically use magical projectiles against in BG:EE).
As Sarevok falls his body points to Vargo's next destination. It looks like Amn, and not Dragonspear.
Shadows of Amn
Vargo recruits Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo during his jailbreak, and after Imoen is forcibly removed by Cowled Wizards he adds Aerie leaving the sixth slot open for guests and their quests.
Baron Ployer thinks his luck is in - the talky talky dialogue cancelling two sets of insect plague and one set of slow - and leaving three casters with clouded auras and slightly emptied spellbooks. Vargo prepares to graft hard, but Minsc switches from Ployer to one-shot a first caster and helps with a second. By this time Aerie gets a Remove Magic cast and helps Yoshimo pepper the third caster with missiles. The near-dead Ployer is all alone for a brief moment but Minsc finishes him off.
Rayic Gethras has Remove Magic cast against him but Vargo is taking no chances nor prisoners, and uses Grond0esque fists to bypass the remaining protection from magic weapons.
After doing the Sir Sarles quest we have a spare 250lb of Illithium so head down into the graveyard catacombs to pick up a mace. While there we empty the vampire nest - taking a bit of damage in the process.
(Vargo was protected and stood the other side of Tanova but the bolt bounced back to the party...)
Upgrading the mace with alloy proves to be a little difficult as we walk into a vampire attack - and Jaheira is killed before we can organise ourselves. Vargo's chaotic commands wear out and he is dominated - leaving Aerie to run around as Minsc throws non-proficient Azuredge axes at the remaining vampire and Vargo melees him.
Once a rested Aerie can raise Jaheira we head out to Trademeet and a druid grove. Vargo plays along thinking his low level will prevent an early fight with Faldorn and realises too late that he has committed himself. Fortunately for him he gets a pair of woodland beings summoned before he is covered in insects. Faldorn fails to save against hold persons and a relieved Vargo batters her down before she can recover.
We collect our reward from Umar, finish off the skin dancers and hand in a disputed heirloom to the mayor before departing.
Everything seems to be going well, but Yoshimo's 100% in locks and a slight lack of patience sees us assume a trap has been removed previously. It has not, and Yoshimo pays the ultimate price. Vargo has a think and cannot decide whether to recruit Nalia or Jan.
Vargo doing things a lot quicker than Magreb, but then I'm a completionist.
Well done.
Thanks, I find BG:EE solo is very quick and a party much longer. SoA I often find a party quicker.
Vargo has recruited Nalia to half replace Yoshimo. Jan is a better thief but Nalia can manage most traps. This was last night's update:
As Nalia was at her keep we headed there and disposed of Tor'Gal the troll.
Vargo did a bit more of his stronghold quest, dealing with Chaos and now impatiently waiting for sufficient levels to challenge for leadership of the druid grove.
While he waits, we clear out a stink in the sewers.
Then on (back) to Umar and a fanciful chancer opportunity against the shadow dragon. Vargo held his ground while Minsc retreated to use arrows a couple of times. Aerie, Jaheira and Nalia all cast spells with the odd missile accompaniment and although Vargo's ironskins eventually peeled away he managed to retaliate sufficiently to claim victory.
Buffs were still active so we added one or two more without resting and exited. The Shade Lord found Jaheira's Sunstone bullet eliminated his shadow altar, and as Nalia closed in to try a Daystar Sunray this became superfluous as Minsc used Azuredge to finalise matters.
On our return to Umar Hills our quiet rest outside turned into another fight (part of Jaheira's romance).
With this done we return to a city and the guarded compound for a lesson. The summons downstairs are nicely dealt with but the group upstairs look trickier.
We cast one set of spells as Nalia removes one trap, and then see if we can drag anyone downstairs with us. Ketta duly obliges and finds herself backstabbing mountain bears which remained from the previous combat.
After she fails to defeat our overwhelming odds, we return upstairs. Sion is already covered in insects and a greater command keeps him out of action - even with him turning invisible mid battle. Vargo suspects a spell trigger for this, and a doomed Maferan is insta-killed from a chromatic orb. Koshi and his Celestial Fury katana bore the initial attacks and once he is dead we can sweep up the remnants.
Here's a belated write-up of our session last Sunday.
We'd defeated TorGal at the end of the previous session, but still had some cleaning up to do at the de'Arnise Hold. The first part of that was taking down Glaicas, who was hiding behind a trapped door. As usual, Mist didn't bother defending against the trap and took some quite nasty bouncing lightning damage. However, Trile probably came closer to death as a result of not having retreated far enough away from the wandering lightning bolt.
Raising the drawbridge provided no XP or enemy spawns - presumably because TorGal was already dead, but we did get a bit of XP for making some dog stew despite the lack of umber hulks to feed it to.
Trile was becoming a bit restive under the Cowled Wizard restrictions. Mist enquired about the availability of cloudkill, with the thought of killing the various mage groups, but Trile didn't yet know that and Mist decided to cough up for a license instead. While in a spendthrift mood he also paid Gaelan Bayle in order to be able to pick up a couple of goodies from Aran Linvail.
Now with protection against level drain, Mist returned to Watcher's Keep to see if some vampiric wraiths were hiding there. They were, but one of them decided to pick on Trile rather than Mist in order to evade protection. That resulted in Mist throwing Trile the amulet mid-fight, so that he could stand still long enough for some skeletons to finish off the wraith.
We didn't do all the statues on the top floor, but Mist was keen to activate a couple of them in order to pick up Foebane, as his main proficiency was in bastard swords.
Shop prices still looked a bit intimidating, so Mist led the way back to the slums to explore the area under the Copper Coronet - a couple of reputation points were on offer there for dealing with the slavers.
We picked up the teddy bear from the Coronet and handed that in at the Graveyard. While there we cleared the tombs and most of the underground area. Trile, knowing Mist's fondness for taking elemental damage, decided to give him a fiery present with the excuse that he was just dealing efficiently with Pai'Na's spiders.
Back on the reputation trail, the next stop was to solve the skinner murders. By this time Trile had stoneskin, so was in no danger from potential backstabs by Rune Assassins.
Mist was still taking quite a bit of damage in fights - quite apart from traps - so Trile suggested going to the sewers to find a cloak of regeneration.
While there we took on Tarnor - Mist using his inquisitor dispel to ensure Gaius didn't have time to do much.
We then just had time to get access to the local lich. Mist decided to end the session as it began by bathing himself in lightning. Even by his standards though that proved a bit chancy. The lightning was bouncing back and forth in the corridor and the stutter caused by being hit by that meant Mist was not moving out of the way. Eventually (probably less than 2 seconds, but seemed longer at the time ) a pause and a redirected movement command allowed him to edge out of the way just in time - after being taken down to his penultimate hit point.
Inquisitor 12, 136 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 231 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 13, 55 HPs, 114 kills (+152 in BG1), 0 deaths
Comments
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar)
@Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier
@Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
The 9 word plan: Get out of Saradush and find Yaga Shura (hopefully)
Wirblefop's determined preparation included identifying everything in party inventory and meant a couple of rests between the weekly adventures continued. If Talisman and Peel felt strangely refreshed, this is why.
We stepped out of the Pocket Plane and back into Saradush. Peel bought himself a bag of holding and we made our way to the prison via an undead infested area. Wirblefop tried to sort out the vampires within but between Talisman turning them and Peel destroying them with weapons all he could do was pick up the pieces.
In the prison area we killed off many attackers - Talisman being keen to take the lead and picking up plenty of wounds for his trouble but Peel quickly overtaking him in the pain stakes. Wirblefop swaps from his Firetooth crossbow to pair of clubs and helps out, not that his companions really required any assistance.
Grond0 and I want to eliminate the casters first, but Corey_Russell wants to kill Gromnir. After a bit of debate Corey_Russell sticks to his plan, I switch to Berenna and Grond0 well I don't know what he did - possibly taking aim at one of the two casters.
The fight proceeds. Wirblefop sees a timestop, and then a Wilt. He's safely away but Talisman crumples to the ground. Wirblefop and Peel soon have matters under control and get Talisman raised via the Paladins bracers.
(forced to load the last save, this is an autosave from before arriving at this area. So we get to clear the area a second time, quicksave and once more get the cutscene issue. We reload the quicksave, travel to the marshy swamp and Pocket Plane successfully from there)
Then to Nyalee, a brief conversation with her and we discover the need to obtain Yaga Shura's extracted heart. A quick check of our map and we are able to make our way to the Marching Mountains.
Groups of Fire Giants are encountered there and we take hefty wounds before six or eight of them are on the ground before us. A group of animal Bhaalspawn are next on our list and although two of them escape we are able to kill the remainder - Wirblefop having summoned a pair of Winter Wolves which pinged away with ranged cold damage most effectively.
Another fire giant and a pair of burning men are cleared, and then we save pocket plane rest before entering the temple sancturied or shadowed. After finding a quiet corner Talisman uses Blade Barrier, collects a group of fire giants and sanctuaries to injure them in safety.
Wirblefop disables one shimmering barrier as Talisman and Peel disable a second. Then we remove the enemies in the two central areas to obtain a pair of wardstones. A few of these enemies are fire elementals and Wirblefop has the staff of fire at hand - claiming several oneshot kills.
Peel eventually re-appears and equips the Wave halberd. Imix takes a few hits and is then defeated. We grab two hearts, those of Yaga Shura and Nyalee and save pocket plane.
Back to Nyalee with the hearts. She does what is required and then summons assistance to attack us. Wirblefop eliminates a nymph and Nyalee before switching to a shambling mound. Peel has taken a lot of damage but the three of us are too much for them to handle.
Wirblefop is gamely bringing up the rear in terms of kills, while Talisman is gradually opening up a distance from him (turn undead, blade barrier, energy blades and smites are making their mark). Peel retains a healthy lead and is unlikely to be caught.
& I now have a 4k monitor downscaled to 2560x1440 (for various reasons not related to BG) as opposed to 1920x1080 of previous monitor, so was lucky the game and screen capture worked OK as ToB Multiplayer no reload isn't a great place to run into gameplay issues.
Previous posts (BG1): 1, 2, 3
Previous posts (SoA): 4, 5, 6, 7
We decided to hang around the city for a while longer and partnered with Korgan for the Book of Kaza enterprise. Inside the crypts, Korgan helped us to defeat Pai'Na.
Imnesvale and Umar Hills await!
Regards,
B.
Difficulty: SCS/Ascension Insane (no additional damage)
Additional mods: Adalon drops silver scales, Waukeen's Promenade Fletcher sells arrows of dispelling in stacks of 5 instead of 40
Additional rules: no xp loop, no area hopping to avoid incoming magic spells (escaping ambushes is allowed though), no Vhailor's Helm before TOB
Game version: 2.5
Weidu log BG2:
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Rewritten Final Chapter of Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #60 // Expanded Epilogues for Bioware NPCs -> David Gaider's expanded epilogues for Bioware NPCs: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Full-body portrait for Bodhi: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Alternate Balthazar portrait, by Cuv: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2200 // Extended Epilogues for additional Beamdog NPCs, by shawne: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2300 // Sharper portraits of Abazigal and Gromnir for the Enhanced Edition, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Slightly improved cutscenes, by DavidW: 2.0.13
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3550 // Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3580 // Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4100 // Improved NPC customisation and management: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4115 // Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4150 // Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4215 // Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4218 // Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game -> Remove all ammo from random containers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8090 // Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v33.4
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v33.4
Playthrough recording: youtube
Suldenesslar
The rakshasas and the like were kited until their protection from magical weapons was down before being cut down. Glolin with his 100% MR was invulnerable to their spells, so he had nothing to fear from them while kiting.
The Nabassu was taken on ranged with the sling of Everard, and posed no threat.
Glolin used summons to make Raamilat the Drow mage waste some of his spells. Armed with the Sling of Everard, Glolin shot him down... or so he thought, as he only killed a projection of the mage.
The real Raamilat was able to lower Glolin's MR, posing a big threat. Luckily Glolin was able to apply spell failure to his casting by attacking him ranged with the sling. He then switched to crom faeyr and went in for the killing blow.
Nizidramanii'yt, the black dragon, proved to be more resilient than first thought. Glolin went straight for him armed with Soul Reaver, and got some good hits in lowering it's THAC0 and applying spell failure at the same time. The dragon summoned some insects and Glolin was slowly taking damage. He decided to retreat a bit and use a RoR charge to heal. Reengaging the dragon with Soul Reaver and whirlwinds it soon lay dead at his feet.
Glolin had now collected the Goblet, the Amulet and the moonblade and placed it on the alter in the temple of Rillifane.
The avatar of Rillifane was summoned and helped Glolin clear the rest of the city.
First battle with Irenicus
Once the last parasite was killed, a fight with Irenicus broke out. The summoned elementals allowed Glolin to temporary retreat and wait out all of Irenicus's summons.
Glolin went back to engage the mage, but had to retreat again after he summoned a Dark Planetar.
He waited the Dark Planetar out, and then send in an elemental to probe Irenicus's defenses.
The mage was now defenseless. Glolin attacked whirlwinded with arrows+1, applying spell failure while also hurting the mage.
Two whirlwinds later, it was over.
The Nine Hells
Pride (good path): +20% fire, cold and electrity resistance
Fear (evil path): CON +2
Selfishness (evil path): AC+2,
Greed (good path): Saving throws -2. Before giving the sword Glolin charmed the genie with the staff of command. After recieving the good tear, Glolin instakilled it with the Wave halberd, allowing him to also keep Blackrazor.
Wrath (evil path): STR+2
The time had come for the final Battle with Irenicus. Glolin prepared himself thoroughly: he placed elemental summons near the gate, buffed with fireshield and hardness, equipped the shield of harmony (to protect against the Balor's Implosion) and Helm of Brilliance (to boost his fire resistance to 100%+).
Glolin opened the gate, Irenicus reappeared. It was clear that combat would determine their faiths. Irenicus summoned forth 2 balors and 2 Glabrezu's to aid him in the battle. The final battle had begun.
Glolin immediately retreated south, while his summons were keeping Irenicus and the 4 demons busy. The summons did not last long.
Glolin decided to use a divide and conquer technique, he would use summons to lure the demons to the edges of the map. This would leave Irenicus without any support. The first Balor was lured to the east.
The second Balor to the west.
Irenicus only had the 2 Glabrezu's left as support.
Glolin used another elemental to lure one of the Glabrezu's to him. It was easily killed, it did however confuse the earth elementals Glolin had summoned. The was a problem, as they started to wonder off in all directions.
One of the Balor's saw one of the earth elementals. Lucky enough it immediately used it's domination ability, and did not teleport to its location. Glolin could now safely continue and send other elementals as probes forward.
He was able to isolate another Glabrezu this way. A whirlwind later it lay dead at his feet.
With Irenicus isolated it was now time to focus on him. Elementals were send forward to make him waste his protection from magical weapons spells.
The time had now come for Glolin to take Irenicus on. He buffed with hardness, fireshield, mirror image and greater whirlwind and rushed at him with Soul Reaver in hand.
Getting hit in after hit, Irenicus got massive THAC0 penalties and spell failure applied. 3 whirlwinds later the mage could take no more.
Glolin got his soul back and was honored by all as a hero!
The Throne of Bhaal was now awaiting...
I used the green scroll and cleared the Basilisk area of the Adventurers, Basilisks, Medusae, and Mutamin.
From there went through Gullykin to Firewine to find and kill Lethe. We were successful but Lethe killed Connie and badly injured everyone except me. I was wearing a belt to protect myself from cold.
It cost 800gp for Aerie to raise Connie.
Now it was time to look for Neera, do her quest, and then join up with Kagain.
That went without a hitch.
We then sold a lot of surplus equipment and bought decent axes for myself and Kagain a Travel Cloak and a wand of Sleep.
Before going to the mines we decided to visit the lighthouse area and raid the cave there, after which we took Brage to the temple.
Previous posts (BG1): 1, 2, 3
Previous posts (SoA): 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
We arrived to Imensvale after a brief stop in Athkatla, where we had paid Gaelan his 15k to get RoP +2 and the Amulet of Power from Aran. Anomandra first used her summons to destroy Madulf, obtain the mimic blood and to kill the golem threatening Collete's father.
The Shadow Temple was made easier by the fact that our Turn Undead was now capable of destroying all the shadows on spot, so the respawning enemies here were not really an issue (unlike in my other runs). These powers did not extend to higher level undead like mummies/greater mummies and skeleton warriors, whereas bone golems are not treated as undead at all. When we had to fight, we used mainly Flame Strikes (combined with Wonderous Recall for multiple castings) for the mummies, summoned skeleton warriors against enemy skeleton warriors and the Sling of Seeking for the bone golems. We also picked most of the fights outside the temple for more kiting space.
With RoP +2, the Claw and the Cloak of Displacement, her unbuffed saves were now sitting at: -1 (death)/-3 (wand)/3 (polymorph)/4 (breath)/0 (spell). In terms of available boosters, at that time we had spells (Bless/Chant/Aid/Barkskin; though we're almost exclusively using Aid and only for major fights), the Belt of Inertial Barrier for save vs. breath, RoAC II, and couple of Potions of Stone Form (no Potions of Magic Shielding yet, but we're hoping to be able to visit Roger the Fence soon). From our spells, there's also ProEvil (+2 bonus against evil sourced attacks), but because it's not a flat bonus I tend to disregard it and keep it as a sort of an extra safety stop.
Having defeated countless undead already, it felt exhausting to engage in further fights and so Anomandra rushed through the rest of the dungeon under Sanctuary rather than facing another two bone golems and even more skeleton warriors. We rested before the entrance to the shadow dragon cavern and started our preparations for the Shade Lord.
Our buffs were: Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear, ProEvil 10', Death Ward, Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration, Armor of Faith, Aid, Holy Power, Storm Shield, Blade Barrier and True Seeing. Anomandra was carrying Harmony (mainly against hold/paralysis) and also equipped the Belt of Inertial Barrier. After finishing the buff routine we rushed through the cavern to the altar. Note: The SCS Improved Share Lord component is not installed.
We started with Shadow Patrick, using Ashideena and Blade Barrier to take him down as soon as possible, while keeping our aura clear to counter the Shade Lord's actions.
We reported to the mayor and got to level 14. Anomandra now has access to one L7 divine spell a day and, with Shields of the Archons at hand, we're now feeling a bit more relaxed in terms of our no-reloading efforts.
I'll post on Mae'var next.
Regards,
B.
Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions. A youtube recording without commentary might not always be transparant enough.
Previous posts (BG1): 1, 2, 3
Previous posts (SoA): 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
As promised, here's a quick update on Mae'var and his (in the end rather unsuccessful) thieving enterprise. Before enlisting with Mr Bloodscalp, Anomandra used her Umar Hills money to buy the Sensate Amulet - becasue as the late Tamika had learned the hard way, there's merit in having access to undispelable ProEvil when playing with demons.
While visiting the Temple District to steal the Talos necklace from mistress Ada (which for RP purposes we justified mainly by the fact that if Ada can't protect it, she's not worth of having it in the first place) we were also instructed to procure the services of a certain sculptor for the greater glory of Talos. I'm planning to make a dedicated post mapping Anomandra's relationship with the church, so I'll cover the entire Sir Sarles quest there separately. Whilst in the district, we also visited the Radiant Heart to pick-up the Fallen Paladins quest and assisted Roger the Fence with his troll issue down in the sewers.
Like a true herald of destruction (albeit coming though the back entrance for a little surprise effect), Anomandra called upon a balor via Gate spell for the event.
During the battle, Anomandra was running True Seeing among others to fend off backstabbing rogues. She also managed to dominate the Priest of Cyric (bah!) whom joined our cause.
Anomandra refreshed her short duration buffs including Armor of Faith, Aid, Storm Shield, True Seeing, the Holy Trinity (i.e. Holy Power + Righteous Magic + DuHM), summoned her Blade Barrier and headed upstairs. The carnage that followed was like some scene from a Blade movie - limbs, flesh and intestines flew all around the hall. And surprisingly, more and more thieves kept coming still. At some point we stopped counting, but the number of potions we collected after the battle gave a rough indication of how many have perished. A lot!
We're headed to de'Arnise Hold next.
Regards,
B.
Previous posts (BG1): 1, 2, 3
Previous posts (SoA): 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
This is to provide an update on de'Arnise Keep where we faced the SCS spell casting Spirit Trolls (Flame Strike, Unholy Blight and Greater Command) and improved Torgal, among others. I'm also using the Rebalanced Troll Regeneration SCS component.
After discussing the situation with Nalia, we decided to employ a stealthy approach. Entering through the secret tunnel, Anomandra used Sanctuary to make her way to the second floor unnoticed. For the first group of trolls near the library we used skeleton warriors (they make good troll tanks thanks to their piercing and magic resists), aerial servant and Flame Strike/Flame Blade.
What is more problematic however, are Breach-type of spells capable of directly removing our key protections such as Chaotic Commands, Remove Fear, Death Ward, ProEvil or elemental protections (e.g. Storm Shield). In order to safeguard her defenses, Anomandra is running her Shield of the Archons (SotA) whenever possible, even though currently we only have the benefit of one L7 spell slot.
By casting True Seeking, we were able to quickly finish the yuan-ti as soon as his PfMW ran out.
We rested and then it was time to face Torgal. This is a scary fight and I'm never really very confident here, no matter how strong a character I have at the time.
Anomandra took lengthy preparations with 3x Animate Dead, Aerial Servant, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Shield Amulet (just collected from the trapped chest in the cellar and identified with the Glasses of Identification), ProEvil 10', Remove Fear, Gate (our L7 choice for the day), Oil of Speed, Potion of Regeneration, Armor of Faith, Aid, Holy Power, Righteous Magic and Storm Shield. She was wearing the Girdle of Piercing, equipped with FotA and Harmony.
Regards,
B.
Gorion waved charname away. "Go, go", he said. "I'll only slow you down on the way to your inevitable death". Charname hesitated and said "what?" "It's a long story" replied Gorion.
Charname 4
Fret, Priest of Lathander. Gorion's warning about charnames 1 to 3 rang in his ears. No matter how strong they were, how brave they were, three earlier charnames had succumbed. What was it Gorion had said. They chose... poorly?
Well, Fret would delay his poorly choice. He even ventured in almost unbuffed to fight Hareishan and her cohort of archers. All he had was protection from lightning and fire, and as Hareishan launched one lightning bolt Fret retreated to drag a second into the fray.
Returning to Candlekeep saw more protection from lightning deployed behind a group of skeletons. Fret was finding himself quite happy not being the centre of attention.
Ravhin and his gang tried to slow Fret down but a steady stream of skeleton warriors kept them occupied long enough for Shaldrissa to Cloudkill her party. Fret heard her die as they turned on her, but realised no further infighting was taking place so he sent another skeleton and then two dogs forward. Gorf emerged to be shot down, while Wudei and either Carston or Rahvin remained to be meleed from near-death to their demise.
Sarevok felt his luck was in but Angelo and Tazok declined to support him. Semaj's mirror images evaporated under True Sight leaving him at the tender mercies of skeletons. He managed to produce a cloudkill before perishing, meaning a doomed Sarevok got to fight the skeletons in the midst of it. Fret hardly needed to help out further but with plenty of his 80 purchased +2 bullets remaining he may as well do so.
Fret opted for the shortcut to Amn rather than investigate Dragonspear. The penalty for this was to wake up as a dungeonee rather than a dungeoneer. He wasted no time in letting Imoen free him, then recruited Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo. The five of them sealed their escape, with Imoen immediately being captured by Cowled Wizards for unsanctioned use of magic.
Aerie was recruited while sorting out an illusionary circus - True Sight dispelling wolfwere's and Turn Undead helping destroy shadows. A wrong choice at the Copper Coronet saw Nalia worm her way into the party but Fret had other ideas - dumping her and Aerie to recruit Korgan instead.
Fret wanted to waste no time in completing Korgan's likely quest, but got drawn into a pit fight with Amalas. He emerged victorious but badly wounded, and then we headed to the Graveyard - only to get ambushed by Suna Seni. We fought the ambushers off but picked up more wounds as a consequence. Fret didn't want to hang around resting though so we pressed on into the graveyard and down into the underground area. Spiders and ettercaps took advantage of our cheap looted armour and weapons meaning we were bashed about more and Korgan got a dose of poison.
Never mind, let's press on. We think we're ready for the southern tombs. We fight off the initial group of enemies but forget about a vampire nearby and it gets a few hits in before we can finish it off. Then Yoshimo clears traps as we eliminate mummies. Korgan exclaims we have been beaten to the book of Kaza, does Fret look bothered. No, he looks almost beyond caring.
Finally we have the book of Kaza and a while later Korgan says he will stay with the party so long as we speak to a contact outside the Council of Six building at the government district. Doing that gets us inside to agree to help Tolgerias. We immediately head to Umar so Minsc knows we will help the mayor there. Possibly.
Having secured Korgan and Minsc, Fret is now free to think about who else should be permanent party members and who will be relegated to visitor.
Previous posts (BG1): 1, 2, 3
Previous posts (SoA): 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
It is my sad duty to report on Anomandra's demise at the hands of rakshasa Maharajas. It's my laziness that killed her. The rakshasas were the last group of enemies to be dealt with in the streets in Suldanessellar. Anomandra cleared the rest of the area already and decided to pick up this battle without resting. We're already long into the fight, which required repeated casting of SotA, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Storm Shield and Wonderous Recalls among others, and only two of the cats remained. Unfortunately, I wanted to be faster on offense than on defence - with no SotA left, Anomandra got stripped of her protections at one point by Breach only to become mazed immediately thereafter.
Still, it had been a greatly enjoyable run and I'm sure I'll give the challenge a try sometimes in the future again.
Regards,
B.
Fret had made a couple of changes to his party, swapping out Yoshimo and recruiting Jan. A decision to pick up better armour for Korgan saw Jaheira run into Baron Ployer so we hunted him down and removed the curse he'd bestowed upon her.
Studiously ignoring quests outside the city gates led to us doing all the jobs at the docks, bridge district and temple district (other than the guarded compound). Fret completed his Priest stronghold tasks. In his post-mortem it was noted that he'd travelled to Umar (this time to ensure Korgan was happy with progress on hunting down Valygar - but we released him once he'd opened the Planar Sphere).
With the Unseeing Eye and Planar Prison completed we returned to the Planar Sphere where rapid progress was made against the halflings inside. Fret casually barged into another room and we killed a pair of stone golems but a clay golem and iron golem were tougher. Keldorn and Minsc took turns getting poisoned while Korgan and Fret took turns being bashed by the clay.
Eventually Fret runs, as does Minsc. With poison ticking away at him Minsc is unable to distance himself from the iron golem and he is chunked. Fret growls in anger and tries to put a mirrored and stoneskinned Jan between the clay golem and himself. The golem is having none of it and kills Fret. Taking a rest before the encounter or equipping Korgan's shield instead of the Kundane sword would have greatly simplified matters.
Gate70 : Wirblefop, human male Beastmaster (plus LN fairy dragon familiar)
@Corey_Russell : Peel, human male Cavalier
@Grond0 : Talisman, dwarf male random - Priest of Talos
Pre-game strategy;
Wirblefop had no plan. While you could call it laziness this is Throne of Bhaal, and his only two options are the open Pocket Plane challenge facing his alter-ego, or Jamis Tombelthen at the Oasis. Either way it will be painful.
On to the game. Wirblefop decided to head to the Oasis and from there into Amkethran. We rapidly did a few tasks helping a priest being attacked by a monk, fending off two mercenaries after Saemon Havarian suggested they pick on us and rescuing the mayors daughter from two more mercenaries. Wirblefop sold a few items at the tavern to make room in his bags, and then Peel suggested buying the K'logarath throwing axe.
A good idea, however Wirblefop combined his poor armour class and poor saving throws to give a monk a suitable Quivering Palm victim and the run was over at unlucky session 13.
Meedan - Human berserker (probably dual to thief in BG 2) protagonist (Corey_Russell) - 66 kills
Scamp - gnomish illusionist/cleric (@Gate70, 1 death) - 15 kills
Saga - half-elf skald (@Grond0, 0 deaths) - 23 kills
Unfortunately our promising Trio in Trio 38 came to a quick end, so time to roll new lambs for the slaughter. I fancied a human as well, as I thought I might need to dual to thief and sure enough that will help when we get to BG 2. It's good thing, as my group-mates were not thieves. Unfortunately they also don't wear any armor, so I need to be in the front lines as well. Here are our characters if there's any interest:
We got a lot done.
* Candlekeep chores completed without incident.
* Xzar and Montaron met an untimely end. The arcane members of the group wanted Xzar's spells you see.
* We proceeded to kill Shoal from a distance and Saga got the first level. Despite have CHA of 17, Saga was not able to convince Arcand the Mad to take the ring he wants.
* Meedan decided he wanted some rings that are above Beregost, in a rock and in the ground by a tree. But we got ambushed and Scamp was killed pretty much instantly. After collecting his gear we headed to Beregost Temple to bring him back. He lost his shield somehow.
* After collecting a +1 ring for Meedan, we decided to take down an Ogre in the area for his belt(s). A Meedan axe found the mark and it was a short fight. We then headed to FAI and collected a nice wizard ring for Scamp. We also recovered Joai's ring for her while we were here.
* We headed to Beregost and collcted a gem bag from Neira and Firebead gave us a scroll case.
* In Nashkel collected some Ankheg armor for Meedan. His groupmates, despite being able to use armor, elected not to wear any armor, which means Meedan needs to be in the front most of the time, whether he likes it or not. The only exception to that is his friends sometimes run in circles in fear while Meedan with his good Thac0 picks off enemies to save his friends.
* Some ogrillions messing with a dryad's tree were dealt with. A girl got her dead cat back. A gnoll in the area was slaughtered for his magical halberd for Saga.
* Gnoll fortress went pretty smooth - mostly here for potions, CHA tome and some spells for the arcane members of the group. Well, there was one problem, Meedan was carrying too many potions and also his axes kept breaking, so a potion bag and magical axe were obtained shortly.
* A powerful bear was peppered with spells and missile weapons, which in resulted in some frost boots from a nearby panicked nobleman.
* After getting what we needed from High Hedge and Beregost, we decided we would take on the basilisks, though not before returning some items for Landarin and defreating Tarnesh at the FAI. Scamp has PfP spell to protect Meedan as he waded in to melee with the dangerous basilisks. However, on the way there we got ambushed by the dreaded basilisk ambush1 Scamp protected Meedan and we killed it for the great experience.
* Once we finally arrived in basilisk area and killed a few, we needed to refresh our spells to do the next batch. We had to kill a crazy amount of gnolls (we kept getting ambushed) before we got a successful rest. Mutamutin's basilisk was killed, then Meedan enraged and charged said mage, who did not survive.
* After disposing of the last couple of basilisks we did a rest and dealt with Kirian's group. Scamp managed to blind everyone but Kirian. And Saga threw in a stinking cloud and Scamp also silenced them. As if all this weren't enough, Saga had some fun with chromatic orbs. Meedan on the other had was doing his simple but still effective throwing his axes. All of this was to good effect as you can see by the screenshot below.
We were running out of time, so we sold our junk at High Hedge and saved our session there.
The Nashkel mines were easy and we joined up with Xan. (Somehow the items from Xan's New Groove have gone missing.
Just discovered that Xan's New Groove never got installed.
Upon exiting the mine we killed the Amazons and cleared the caves before killing Narcillicus.
We then went to the Carnival wheree we left Xan with Aerie before heading for the FAI where we met up with Dorn before allowing him to join us later.
We did a few quests in the south not finishing those that would have boosted reputation.
Now heading for the bandit camp.
When I and my half-brothers were told by Gorion to furnish ourselves in preparation for leaving Candlekeep, little did I realise how important the special ability of my twin brother Barax would be. His rage enabled him to break open every chest in Candlekeep including those which Acer, the thief in our party couldn’t. This was because Acer had concentrated on developing his pickpocketing skills. Barax had wanted to be trained as an Inquisitor, but even Gorion was only able to get one of us trained as a paladin.
Normally I would discourage thieving, but our lives are at stake, so I felt that our actions were justified. Whilst plate armour is available, we would have had to commit murder to acquire it. That I was not prepared to do! I am therefore wearing the splint armour that I will give to Barax as soon as I have plate for myself.
We had to flee Candlekeep whereupon Gorion was killed and Imoen joined us. We took Imoen to the safety of Feldpost’s where we left her due to the fact that she was far too light-fingered. Whilst we appreciate having Algernon’s Cloak, she could have got us into serious trouble.
We visited the temple to the East whereupon we were asked to take a tome to Candlekeep. That is where we will therefore head next.
EDIT
Killed with one blow from Greywolf whilst still at level 1.
Swot the bard reached level 4 and promptly retired undefeated (and uninterested).
Awry the fighter / druid assembled a team of neutrals, including Xan, only for Branwen to activate Mulahey before we had prepared. With most of the party incapacitated it was left to Xan to use a Colour Spray and a few Larloch's Minor Drains but Mulahey and his summons still managed to kill Awry.
Folgren the fighter / druid decided to travel on his own and died when confused. A few days later his faulty memory saw him continue on and only realise his mistake after another few levels and on returning to the basilisk map when his deja-vu kicked in so he retired defeated.
Tujo the halfling bounty hunter was next up. A brief write-up will no doubt result in her soon perishing but let's give it a go. After getting some reputation and equipment she wandered around Mutamin's rock garden trying out backstabs and occasionally staying for follow-on hits.
Lamalha and her amazons found themselves victims of another snarefest experiment. A few thrown special snares and then sneak in to add a normal snare - all four enemies going hostile at the same time to their chagrin.
Record and inventory after 2 or 3 sessions.
Mist (female human inquisitor, Grond0); Trile (female elf mage, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1182126/#Comment_1182126
It was some weeks since our last outing, but eventually we found the correct save game and ran through the SoD epilogue without taking any risks.
Jon's dungeon was easy enough, with skeleton warriors providing extra oomph where necessary and Trile buffing Mist with spirit armor and improved invisibility on the odd occasion where disablers were flying around. Trile cunningly held back a magic missile to finish off Ulvaryl before she could flap away.
Inquisitorial true sight made restoring the circus to normality even easier than usual.
There was some beastly business at the Copper Coronet, before Hendak finally remembered the way to the bar to chop down Lehtinan.
Mist headed for Watcher's Keep in search of the potion case, but was delayed when Suna Seni sprang an ambush - realizing too late that she had bitten off more than she could chew.
On the way to de'Arnise Hold another ambush saw Renfeld saved. That resulted in a detour to return him and loot the harpers - and for Mist to pick up some Dirthy armor.
Inquisitor 10, 120 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 97 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 12, 54 HPs, 56 kills (+152 in BG1), 0 deaths
At the Coronation Tujo lays seven snares - thrown through side doors too. She buffs heavily and introduces herself, running into siderooms to throw two more snares in. A few hits with her staff and Sarevok's plans are in disarray. He flees, and Belt sends Tujo in lukewarm pursuit.
Meedan - Human berserker (probably dual to thief in BG 2) protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Scamp - gnomish illusionist/cleric (@Gate70, 1 death)
Saga - half-elf skald (@Grond0, 0 deaths)
The group got a lot done this session. Fresh off our victories in the basilisks area, the Trio wondered where to go next. Meedan decided they'd take a stab on clearing the sirines as his enrage made that pretty simple. Enrage also made the traps in the golem cave to be no problem. The golems didn't last long.
Next, we decided Melium needed a lesson. Unsurprisingly, with all the spells cast his way as well as Meedan's strong melee, Melium didn't stand a chance. Meedan quickly took the gauntlets before any of the others could laid claim. For good measure, we took out Molkar's party. Though 1st Grond0 lost connection so we waited for him to return. With enrage protecting melium and the many spells our group has, Molkar's group couldn't put up much of a fight.
Samuel was rescued as well, though wasn't needed as our reputation is already at 20. We did get a few potions though...We decided we take care of the Nashkel Mines. This went pretty smooth, until we arrived in Nashkel, except we couldn't get the reward as no one had Mulahey's symbol! Doh! So we rushed back into the mine, the LONG way. But when we got to Mulahey's cave, it was no where to be found. We could at least get the next chapter, so we can continue.
Next the Ankheg's were cleared out. Meedan's -6 AC protected him well, he only got hit once. Meedan noticed the party was level 6 - we can take on Durlag's tower. We cleared various doom guards and battle horrors, plus some basilisks. And as is our custom, we freed the succubus and trapped then killed the thief.
Not a lot of time left. We had just enough time to clear out the surface of the bandit camp. Tazok's tent will be our next target next session.
Same set-up as other recent runs.
Journal of Magreb the Mighty
The ring was then returned to Joia.
An ambush by a ghast gave a useful boost to experience.
We then rescued Dynaheir and upon goitng to Ulgoth'd Beard Thorin joined us.
Killed Droth, Shoal and some sirine and got a reward for finding a ring.
I managed to release Aaron's fiancee from undeath by giving her Aaron's ring.
Tactically speaking, perhaps I should have waited before returning it since a ring of protection +1 is always useful.
(An evil character would have kept it permanently)
EDIT
We then went hunting sirines, basilisks, medusae, Mutamin after which we sold surplus goods and spent the money on a better sling and robe for Dynaheir plus some recharged wands.
Meedan - Human berserker (probably dual to thief in BG 2) protagonist (Corey_Russell, 1 death)
Scamp - gnomish illusionist/cleric (@Gate70, 1 death)
Saga - half-elf skald (@Grond0, 1 deaths)
While I could talk about how we breezed through Tazok's tent, or how the Cloakwood was no problem, or how we got through the Cloakwood Mines and destroyed Davaeorn, but all that really matters is our fateful encounter with Jardak. Despite Meedan's full plate and -6 AC he was getting hit quite often and had to retreat down the stairs. However he was blocked and couldn't move. Soon, his groupmate Sage was killed by Jardak. Jardak himself was killed by a Scamp scorcher. However remember that attempted move I tried at first? Now that the way was "clear" my character tried to move, right into Scamp's scorcher. The fire resistance ring did not save Meedan, RIP.
Sorry for your loss.
Journal of Magreb the Mighty
Despite no thief, the Nashkel mines were no problem.
Neither were the Amazons.
We took Xan to Nashkel where we left him.
We then picked up Coran and went wyvern hunting. On the way we picked up a sword when we fought Centeol. In the same area we killed a smallish dragon and received a +2 ring of protection as a reward. Upon returning to the temple for our reward for nealing with the wyverns we headed north to kill Malious et al.
We cleared the bandit camp and set off to visit Durlag's Tower.
On the way we were ambushed by basilisks.
I went into my bookbag and found a couple of scrolls to protect from petrification. The game crashed so we decided to head north and get some potions of mirrored sight.
When we arrived at the gate to the FAI we were attackedf by a party of deceived good guys.
We immediately left for the ankheg fields and approached the FAI from the North.
We rested since our cleric's spells wouldn't have been effective against a good party.
Defeating them was then easy. Their possessions were not particularly good, but they will be useful.
We then bought the potions that we went for but didn't need them.
Tenya was particularly badly hurt by the battle horror but she recovered OK upon resting.
Snap - gnome cleric/illusionist (Grond0)
Aleena - human druid (Corey_Russell)
Jackdaw - halfling bounty hunter (Gate70)
With plenty of time left in the session , we thought we might as well get another run (or two) underway. With a pretty lightweight party, Snap decided to head straight for the basilisks in search of some quick levels. On arrival though we soon found damaging them was not that easy with our relatively poor missile attacks. The first two lesser basilisks to the south were not too bad, but the greater basilisk was a pain in its insistence on quickly switching from gaze to melee attack each time Snap reset it by running out of sight. Part of the problem with that tactic was that Snap was the only one protected from petrification and hence the others were getting fewer shots than would be desirable. Snap should have paid more attention to the ticking clock, but was determined to try and finish off the greater basilisk before resting - and paid the price.
So Vargo the half-elf Fighter / Druid trots out of Candlekeep and works his way around the Sword Coast before settling down to sort out Nashkel Mine. No trouble there, nor with the glamazons outside - but before he can get too glib the skies open and Vargo gets a painful shock.
Cloakwood is safely negotiated, using a potion of freedom to kick over traps while fighting ettercaps. Drasus and his gang are guarding Cloakwood Mine, and an necklace of missile opening kills Kysus while drawing Genthore out. After staffing him to the ground Rezdan is next and Drasus fails to make any further impression.
Vargo strolls through Cloakwood Mine, finishing the final guard and two battle horrors before using woodland beings to soak up Davaeorn's spells. Vargo moves in to finish matters and open up the city of Baldur's Gate.
Marek finds himself unable to handle a pair of woodland beings in addition to Vargo.
De-charmed woodland beings help secure the life of Belt, and Sarevok departs. Vargo follows, clearing the thieves maze and Rahvin's gang also. Vargo has a final rest before entering the temple of Bhaal.
Semaj teleports to help Sarevok, and lasts a fair while against summons and bullets from Vargo when chance allows but eventually down he goes.
(the only enemy I typically use magical projectiles against in BG:EE).
Shadows of Amn
Vargo recruits Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo during his jailbreak, and after Imoen is forcibly removed by Cowled Wizards he adds Aerie leaving the sixth slot open for guests and their quests.
Baron Ployer thinks his luck is in - the talky talky dialogue cancelling two sets of insect plague and one set of slow - and leaving three casters with clouded auras and slightly emptied spellbooks. Vargo prepares to graft hard, but Minsc switches from Ployer to one-shot a first caster and helps with a second. By this time Aerie gets a Remove Magic cast and helps Yoshimo pepper the third caster with missiles. The near-dead Ployer is all alone for a brief moment but Minsc finishes him off.
Rayic Gethras has Remove Magic cast against him but Vargo is taking no chances nor prisoners, and uses Grond0esque fists to bypass the remaining protection from magic weapons.
(Vargo was protected and stood the other side of Tanova but the bolt bounced back to the party...)
Well done.
I have just rolled the best dwarven cleric that I have ever had. I won't be playing him just yet as I am still playing Magreb the Mighty, a barbarian.
Here is the roll for Helmuth the Hammer.
Vargo has recruited Nalia to half replace Yoshimo. Jan is a better thief but Nalia can manage most traps. This was last night's update:
As Nalia was at her keep we headed there and disposed of Tor'Gal the troll.
Vargo did a bit more of his stronghold quest, dealing with Chaos and now impatiently waiting for sufficient levels to challenge for leadership of the druid grove.
We cast one set of spells as Nalia removes one trap, and then see if we can drag anyone downstairs with us. Ketta duly obliges and finds herself backstabbing mountain bears which remained from the previous combat.
After she fails to defeat our overwhelming odds, we return upstairs. Sion is already covered in insects and a greater command keeps him out of action - even with him turning invisible mid battle. Vargo suspects a spell trigger for this, and a doomed Maferan is insta-killed from a chromatic orb. Koshi and his Celestial Fury katana bore the initial attacks and once he is dead we can sweep up the remnants.
Mist (female human inquisitor, Grond0); Trile (female elf mage, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1182126/#Comment_1182126
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1183183/#Comment_1183183
Here's a belated write-up of our session last Sunday.
We'd defeated TorGal at the end of the previous session, but still had some cleaning up to do at the de'Arnise Hold. The first part of that was taking down Glaicas, who was hiding behind a trapped door. As usual, Mist didn't bother defending against the trap and took some quite nasty bouncing lightning damage. However, Trile probably came closer to death as a result of not having retreated far enough away from the wandering lightning bolt.
Trile was becoming a bit restive under the Cowled Wizard restrictions. Mist enquired about the availability of cloudkill, with the thought of killing the various mage groups, but Trile didn't yet know that and Mist decided to cough up for a license instead. While in a spendthrift mood he also paid Gaelan Bayle in order to be able to pick up a couple of goodies from Aran Linvail.
Now with protection against level drain, Mist returned to Watcher's Keep to see if some vampiric wraiths were hiding there. They were, but one of them decided to pick on Trile rather than Mist in order to evade protection. That resulted in Mist throwing Trile the amulet mid-fight, so that he could stand still long enough for some skeletons to finish off the wraith.
Shop prices still looked a bit intimidating, so Mist led the way back to the slums to explore the area under the Copper Coronet - a couple of reputation points were on offer there for dealing with the slavers.
Back on the reputation trail, the next stop was to solve the skinner murders. By this time Trile had stoneskin, so was in no danger from potential backstabs by Rune Assassins.
Mist was still taking quite a bit of damage in fights - quite apart from traps - so Trile suggested going to the sewers to find a cloak of regeneration.
Inquisitor 12, 136 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 231 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 13, 55 HPs, 114 kills (+152 in BG1), 0 deaths