Durlag's was fairly straightforward though the shapeshifters did considerable damage. We didn't give the wine to Love. The lower reaches of Durlag's can wait. We put the wine in a barrel and will pick it up later. Dynaheir reached level 8. Only Coran is on the verge of levelling up.
Realised that the tombs near Nashkel hadn't been raided. Did so.
EDIT
Now at Baldur's Gate after clearing the Cloakwood Mines which were so easy.
After killing off their protagonists in trios 39 and 40 it's time for a Dark Moon Monk to have the tables turned. We'd rolled characters last week so could get an early start to this session - and chance to see if we get an early exit too.
Domino soon realised he'd got a couple of excellent meatshields to stand behind. We picked off Shoal the nereid and moved on to Beregost where Neera excelled herself - for some reason my game not noticing her death so she managed to call in some more enemies. Dopple was all for engaging them too until Domino suggested that we didn't know what Ekandor would do (or if he was invincible and perhaps a trio wasn't the best game to find out - a missed opportunity in retrospect).
We made our way around - picking up two pairs of bracers from Meilum and Zal to go with a two handed sword from Arghain and a bastard sword from Beregost's locked smithy chest.
Domino had a free +1 dagger from Candlekeep thanks to CoreTrue's charisma but decided to upgrade to +2 at the expense of the revenant. Coretrue and Dopple were keen to clear out the enemies here - although Domino thinks he managed to kill Narcillicus (haven't watched the screen capture to confirm so could have been a missile from his meatshields).
We had no difficulty at all with the sirines, apart from us all guessing an unprotected Dopple would get himself charmed. Not a problem for Domino or Dopple but CoreTrue felt the blade of his sword.
We moved on from there to deal with ankhegs (CoreTrue 'tanking' over from Dopple as the former took injury. Look at my shield said CoreTrue - and he managed to do the second half of the nest without taking any injury. Then we headed to the basilisks and did a quick loop around there - the only downside being when Dopple got himself spotted by Kirian and dismissed her party with a poor dialogue selection. Peter remained to be killed, thanks to us having recruited Korax a minute or two earlier when repositioning against a pair of basilisks.
Domino has a level to take at the start of next session and is far ahead in the kills count (not: he's in the 20's while CoreTrue is in the 50's and Dopple is in the 80's)
edit: Screenshots of the party, after Domino has taken his level and gained 8hp
Journal of Magreb the Mighty
We have been asked to do some quests north of Ulgoth's Beard.
Upon going there we met with stiff opposition. The mages and shamans had very good AI with the result that time and again we were badly hurt. Thankfully no deaths, but no finished quests either.
On the Northern Coast Dynaheir was killed by Fire Salamanders, It cost us 800gp to resurrect her!
We returned and completing the quests was straightforward. There are other areas to explore nearby but they can wait until later.
Now back at the Gate, ready to explore the city.
Vargo and crew were halfway down the corridor to see Aran Linvail, then Vargo stopped. Sure, we could head on in to the next chapter of his journal but having ditched a potential romance with Aerie there was little sign of any progress with Jaheira. Vargo wasn't born yesterday and duly noted that perhaps we should camp outdoors for an hour or two (real time). Imoen would be fine with this, he thought.
Sure enough, after only 15 minutes Jaheira talks. Vargo reckons this could be a long wait for the next talk. And it is. Vargo had better hope Jaheira doesn't quiz him on these conversations as he's hardly listening and trying to come up with the least aggrevating response each time.
Jaheira and I have developed a strange approach to romance, involving us stood outside Watchers Keep with the occasional stoneskin / ironskin > rest to see if any chat occurs. A mere weekend later and eventually Vargo's muted responses were adequate even if his strategy against Dermin saw the party badly wounded.
It was finally time to head off in search of Imoen, a venture that would start off in Brynnlaw and would take in the technical delights of 3 devices (so hoping screenshots are in order).
At Brynnlaw we fought off a trio of vampires, killed Perth the Adept (keeping his magical spell book open at the summon wyvern page) and make our way into Spellhold. Irenicus duly removed Vargo's special abilities and re-introduced him to Imoen. We made our way through the maze, Vargo found a new special ability of slayer form to scare Bodhi off again and we continued on our way.
Lonk the Sane took rapid damage thanks to a remove magic, and Irenicus manages to keep Vargo close to him (or Kitthix got in the way) and unable to retreat - so Vargo lays into him and forces the mage to retreat instead.
With Irenicus gone we obtained the help of Saemon Havarian to procure a ship which ultimately proved unseaworthy after two boardings and subsequent fighting. We ended up in a city of caverns and helped end both a sahuagin monarchy and their all too brief replacement.
With the city empty we descended into the Underdark where we cleared out a the kuo-toa domain beholder lair using the shield of Balduran and cloak of Mirroring. Then we moved on to the illithid lair and set about them.
With all three elder items (brain, blood and orb) we could hand these in to the Matron Mother of Ust Natha but Vargo fancied using this time to raid Deirex's Tower. He orchestrated our buffs but foolishly didn't bother buffing against fire damage or giving everybody death ward. With Deirex having plenty of time to cast spells we'd probably have suffered a couple of deaths anyway, and Vargo should really have tried a bit harder to plan.
Anyway here's the general scheme of events.
Note Minsc goes berserk as Aerie dies, and Deirex turns invisible so Minsc looks for another target. He ignores Vargo and goes for a wounded and stunned Jaheira who has no chance of survival until Imoen grabs the robe of Vecna and amulet of Power to cast Improved Invisibility. Minsc then turns his attention to a more robust target and Vargo summons Joolon for the first time as Minsc takes the chance to finally despatch Deirex.
Vargo looked at his hourglass - not sure when we'd be due back at the Matron Mother. With Aerie and Nalia dead could we afford to rest. No fear says Jaheira, memorising two Harper Calls and casting Wondrous Recall. She then raised Aerie and Vargo was most impressed.
Jaheira then raised Nalia and Vargo was more than most impressed until he noticed Jaheira had died. It only took a moment for him to remember something about Harper's Call reduced stats for a few rounds but a fatal dose of 10 damage to Jaheira could easily have been safe by mildly healing her.
Before we can rest we are collared to deal with the Ghaunadians. Great thought Vargo, a combat easy to under-estimate. This time, however, the planning and buffing were suitably competent even without Jaheira's help.
The rest of the underdark was easy, swapping some eggs, watching the Matron Mother and Phaere be killed by a demon lord, returning the eggs to Adalon and invisibly running through the last area of combat up to the surface.
Once outside we convince Elhan (elf) that we are no danger and should work with (for) him. Our first task of course is to forge items with Cromwell and allow Minsc to brandish the Silver Sword. Let's hope he doesn't go berserk again.
It's been many months since I tried this, but this party is once again an attempt to succeed in current SCS with the difficulty slider set to insane (though without extra damage). We are playing with a full SCS + Ascension installation, all options active, and if there were multiple installation choices, I always picked the first one available. The party is heavily optimized and mostly meant to get me past the points where I have failed in the past.
In previous SCS-Insane runs, I've always gotten through BG1 and SoD without too much trouble and failed relatively early on in SoA - usually as soon as I encountered some higher level spellcasters with access to lvl 7+ spells. I haven't changed my approach to BG1 or SoD much, and I consider them, for these specific settings, to be just an introduction to BG2, which will certainly be more challenging for me, so there won't be extensive report on the early game - I have just arrived in early SoA, which is why I'm now starting to write things down. So, here's the party (all of them are true neutral, to avoid holy smites/unholy blights, and all of them are female just for the better saving throws against succubus charm spells).
Luriana, halfling Priest of Tempus
17/19/18/13/17/3 - *Mace, *Sling (later *War Hammer *Club as well) - would go on to use the three wisdom tomes.
Yasmina, elven Sorcerer (with spell picks as of this post)
18/19/17/11/3/18 - *Sling (later *Quarterstaff, *Dagger) - would go on to use the charisma tome
I: Shield, Sleep, PfP, Blind, Magic Missle
II: Web, Invisibility, Blur, MI, Resist Fear
III: Haste, Spell Thrust, MMM, Flame Arrow
IV: Stoneskin, E:Hope, II
V: SI, Breach
VI: Improved Haste
Cadri, dwarven Berserker
18'96/17/19/18/11/1, **Axe, **Two-Weapon Style (later ***** Axe) - would go on to use the strength tome.
Tria, human Berserker 9/ Wizard 11 (dual)
18'86/18/18/18/6/3, **Bastard Sword, **Two-Weapon Style (later ***** Bastard Sword, *Quarterstaff, *Sling)
- would go on to use the constitution and intelligence tomes.
Chadia, dwarven Fighter/Thief
18'87/17/19/18/7/1, **Longbow, **Quarterstaff (later **Two-Handed Weapon Style, *Longsword) - would go on to use the dexterity tome.
With both dual classes dualing at 9, they did so in early SoD, regaining their berserker powers in late SoD or early SoA - which is ideal, because SoD doesn't really get buffed by SCS, so there wasn't much of an issue with their temporary weakness. Obviously, having three berserkers made BG1 relatively easy, as enemy spellcasters can't really deal with the immunities provided by berserking and don't have the defenses yet to survive their onslaught, especially if buffed by mage and cleric spells. A combination of bless, chant, prayer, recitation, haste, emotion: hope and some relevant immunities would always give the party a huge advantage, especially with skeleton summons on their side. If needed, I made extensive use of my wands of the heavens/of fire/of frost, neckacles of missles and the like, using spell thrust to make enemy mages vulnerable to these. For the very early game, I had sleep, and for the early mid game, I took down tougher enemies by webbing them from off screen, having scouted in invisibility or stealth.
I will only show a few notable battles here - the first one being Kahrk, whom I decided to try because he has been turned into a quest boss by the current SCS version, and I was interested to see the new reward. I waited until getting to cleric lvl 7, for the powerful skeleton summons, buffing them with all the things listed above, and having them, and later on the three berserkers, join the fray. Predictably, he started to dispel my buffs, but as he was busy casting, I approached with my sorcerer for a quick spell thrust:
This was much needed, because Kahrk kept PFMW up, so my skeletons did very little, and the berserkers had to switch to excellent weapons - now, I was able to add wand damage. Ayla had to retreat due to low HP, the other berserkers started raging as Kahrk was casting a chaos spell. We were making decent process, and a successful wand of paralyzation hit ended things in our favour:
So, this is the new reward:
Quite a powerful weapon, but I had no one to use it.
The next battle I will feature here is the Iron Throne battle, because, unlike I usually do, I decided not to lure these guys downstairs, instead fighting them on the upper level. I started with a barrage of fireballs:
With thieves backstabbing Chadia, I had to cast invisibility on her. Ayla got hit with enfeeblement, so I was lacking damage, having to rely on fire wands:
To make sure I wouldn't lose control over Luriana, she drank a potion of clarity, and Yasmina destroyed the final spellcaster with a scorcher charge. The remaining battle was easily won by the two non-affected berserkers:
Still, not a good choice to fight here, and one of the harder battles of the run. The reason I stormed upstairs was that I had managed to turn every single merchant downstairs hostile, so I couldn't really use AoE spells without losing reputation. In the future, I will try to avoid that.
The next fight to talk about is the ogre magi ambush at Candlekeep, because it's the only time so far I've come close to a character death in this run - oh, by the way, critical miss with the arrow of slaying here:
The problem here is that Yasmina was hit by a chromatic orb with the stun effect and failed her save very early in combat, with the only things she was able to do before that being a stoneskin cast. The ogres, sensing her weakness, decided to focus their casts on her:
As they were starting to run out of spells, they tried to hit Yasmina in melee - she's the one with defensive invisibility spells at her disposal, so my only way to help her was to kill the enemy faster - I was just praying for her stoneskins to hold. Luriana also used her Bhaalspawn CLW-spells:
And - yes, we made it. Stoneskins still intact:
Something like this actually happened to me before at this point of the game. Might be worth it do drink an invisibility potion immediately with your weakest party member at the start of this encounter.
Big jump here: To maximize experience in SoD and due to how carry-over XP works, I did all of TOTSC in one long session. No trouble here, just wanted to show you the end of Aec'Letec:
Finally, Sarevok - here we go. First step: Dispel his haste, otherwise he will be very annoying:
We stormed forward, using one dispelling arrow on the other spellcasters. Key here now: Not getting our buffs completely dispelled. I made sure to spot the remove magic from Semaj, made sure to have boots of speed on the affected person and ran away from the others - all the while, the berserkers were taking down Angelo:
As I was unable to hit Semaj with the dispelling arrow for some reason, I instead went with dispel illusions (thief skill) and spell thrust, with the fighters moving on to Sarevok's other minions and the spawning skeletons:
Semaj was now vulnerable to wands, spelling his doom:
And that's it - Sarevok wasn't much trouble without his helpers:
Not much to say about SoD, as I went with my usual firebombing approach. One thing I did that I don't often do was attacking from the fort at the Bridgefort battle, but it didn't turn out to be much of a hassle:
One note here, because I'm playing with a low charisma protagonist: SoD often doesn't consider the charisma of party members, only of the Bhaalspawn, and some quests are highly charisma-based. Luckily, I already knew this from a previous solo run, so I was able to stack charisma on Luriana with all available items and the SoD potion for the relevant parts (mostly relevant for some quests in the Coalition Camp).
For Belhifet, the key on insane is of course not to get dispelled at the beginning - easily achieveable with SI:A on my mages - in this case, Tria, who had just gotten her berserker levels back. The others are spreading out, the immune person runs up to Big B:
I had enchant weapon via scroll on Cadri and +3 ammo on the others, so only Tria couldn't hurt Belhifet. Clearing up the demons left us with Caelar still alive:
With Tria clearing up the second batch of demons, the others went to hunt down Belhifet after he teleported away, with Luriana having true sight up:
He didn't last long:
Now, on to BG2. Again, we played SoD, starting with the underground river, in a single prolonged session, so we are starting with a little bit more XP (around 649k). Hopefully, this will give me an advantage.
SoA - I've been looking forward to trying this again. Hopefully we will make it much further this time around. Our first spellcasting opponent, the ogre mage, failed to include any protections against spells in his opening buffs, allowing us to hit him with command, of all things:
No trouble with the duergar, and we used our first round of buffs to deal with the mephits on the air elemental plane:
In general, spread out over my party, I have each of the crucial combat buffs memorized twice, mostly based around the fact that haste can be used once without fatigue, so we usually can do two big difficult battles with full buffs each time we rest. Our one rest for the dungeon was used before engaging the mephit portals. No trouble on the second level, and Ayla regained her berserker levels at the end of the dungeon.
The circus tent was made much easier with maxed out detect illusions on Chadia, and after buying some gem bags and scroll cases, I entered the slums. Amalas fell to command against a buffed Luriana:
We buffed up in order to free Hendak, rested and summoned skeletons (now the level 11 version, quite powerful at this stage) to clear the sewers (buying Stonefire Axe, The Sleeper and Sling of Seeking). With a full round of buffs (which will now include both emotion spells and CC on Luriana for safety, just in case), a successful blind spell helped in taking down Captain Haegan and his crew:
When fighting the two wizards, I protected Luriana's buffs with entropy shield. Both of them only have level 5 spells, wo without PFMW, it was easy to just rush them down in melee combat:
This also gave me the +1 Bastard Sword, so now I have magical weapons on my three main fighters.
We buffed with invisibility 10' radius at the copper coronet (which I usually do for the first couple of ambushes), but didn't get hit by anything while traveling to the graveyard. We turned in the teddy bear and started clearing minor tombs, getting the important +2 axe and taking down the crypt king with some buffs (including our very first improved haste on Cadri):
On my way to obtain Kithixx, some skeletons helped with the spider groups, and a fireball took down the main hive:
With these buffs still going, we ran to the lower crypt, where Luriana stupidly got hit (though only once) by the vampyr:
Having cleared the crypt and done the minor GY quests, I buffed with invisibility and left - this time, I got my ambush. Sadly, I didn't take advantage of invisibility - I wasn't hasted, and couldn't decide whether to run or attack, so I got revealed by the enemy mage before doing anything, which meant that my only advantage from being invisible was having wasted his first spell. I started with berserking, spell thrust, chaos, haste and recitation. However, I got quite lucky - The Sleeper has this +4 save-or-sleep effect on hit (and it seems this works through stoneskins), and Ayla landed it on the slaver wizard right away, neutralizing most of the danger here:
Chaos affected most of the remaining enemies, so this battle wasn't nearly as hard as I expected. Next up, I got ambushed again right away by the poisoned man's attackers. This time, the wizard had fewer protections - in fact, he didn't have shield, so he died to magic missles. While delivering the poisoned man to the harpers, The Sleeper's special effect took down the mad cleric. I usually never use this weapon, and a +4 save isn't very good, but I won't lie - it has been useful so far in early SoA. After that, I helped Jan and Viconia at the government district and bought my magic license (for 10k in this installation) - this is where we are now. I will propably do minor quests at the bridge or the docks next time.
Having done most of the quests in Baldur's Gate prior to entering the Iron Throne, we ended up fighting against bandits who had taken over the Friendly Arms Inn. Coran was killed and raised in the process and my party has now entered the Inn.
My experience is now 160, 000 and my stats are pretty good. I believe that there are only two tomes left to improve my stats. One to improve strength, and one wisdom. Time will tell. We discvered that Wind Horrors were immune to Cloudkill but not fireball. One of our fireball wands was virtually exhausted in the process, but we were able to buy another that had 50 charges.
Just a few sidequests for today - started at the docks for Xzar's quest. Prebek's friend died before her protections went up, Prebek himself got hit by The Sleeper - unlucky:
Oh, and here's the pirate wizard. I'm starting to think this weapon is actually fairly decent in early SoA:
I plundered Mae'Vaers hideout, the shadow thief HQ, Harper Hold and some random houses before travelling to the bridge district - another ambush. Very good start from me: I was able to hit the enemy mage with an arrow of biting before his buffs went up, so he couldn't do much spellcasting. At the same time, we buffed with recitation, prayer, haste, rage and an opening chaos - making for a relatively easy victory:
At the bridge, I got my hand at the berserker's horn, cleared Saerk's estate, stole what I could find and prepared for the rune assassins at the end of the skinner murder quest - as they can backstab and see through invisibility, I rested (having lost some hp against the muggers and ogre dockworkers upstairs) and buffed, including a potion of defense on Chadia, who otherwise has a poor AC and no other defenses. The amount of buffs might have been overkill, but an added true sight provided us with an easy victory:
That's all for now - we are moving on to the temple district.
Edit: Oh, and I made very sure to skip the house with the random adventuring party in it for now. That's where my previous attempt at insane SCS ended. I do plan to return to it and have my revenge eventually, though.
Sion & Ketta's house of lessons or another group (Captain Denis's quest group, or the ones with Smaeluv. Oh, or the group in the Bridge district - lots of choice)? I find them tricky enough in the standard game and I haven't even had the pleasure of SCS.
Vargo's update from last night (W10 laptop).
With a bit of XP required to reach level 14 of druidery we decided to investigate the Planar Prison. With plenty of Chaotic Command's available, and several Remove Magic and Detect Invisibility none of this caused the party any trouble and we soon exited with the place looted.
After the Planar Prison we had time to fit in the Planar Sphere. There was a minor challenge in the engine room when Minsc had to gulp a brace of healing potions and retreat while Aerie's stoneskins failed and she also had to retreat.
Vargo was able to hold his ground though and we decided why settle for one demon heart when three are available. A couple of party members were briefly incapacitated but with Minsc and Vargo loose there was never any danger.
Vargo got his previous level while still in the sphere so had something else to look forward to on our return.
Tolgerias and his mage failed to overcome a Remove Magic.
To close the session we returned to the druid grove to get a Great.
Starting a new game. Igon the Invincible, the Dwarven Inquisitor
If it hadn't been for the pressure exerted by Gorion, I would never have made it as a paladin. He told me that he had used all his negotiating skills because my name means rise, and that was enough for him. I didn't understand the significance when he told me.
Thanks to the installed mods, I was just able to afford a katana.
@Gate70 I was talking about the random storehouse in the bridge district (the hostile party being Dracandros, Falahar, Pitre, Valeria - had to look up the names). Most likely I'll deal with them after having done one or two stronghold quests. The Guarded Compound, however, is something I'll avoid like the plague until very late, as the mage there will have HLAs in my installation as far as I know.
Luriana, Priest of Tempus - Third Update
Time for the temple district side quests. After picking them up and visiting the ore merchant, I took the opportunity to deal with Mencar's party. Starting with mostly full buffs and invisibility 10' radius, I was able to kill both the mage and his familiar before their defenses were up, turning this one into a piece of cake:
I also bought the bracers of ac3.
Next up, we rested, spoke to Jerlia again, visited the slums (after defeating a random group of would-be ambushers) and made our way to the bridge district, where we helped the fallen paladins and took down Neb thanks to some quick illusion detecting:
At the government, we spoke to Sarles again, turned in Neb's head, returned to the temple to pick up the next temple quest, got the goblet and returned to the bridge for the fallen paladin fight - not much trouble with the help of some summons:
A quick visit to the slums and true sight against the muggers allowed us to return the ring of the morninglord. We turned in both quests and are now preparing to leave Athkatla for the first time. So far, so good.
Journal of Igon the Invincible, the Dwarven Inquisitor
After being ambushed Gorion was killed and Imoen and I headed for the FAI.
I left Imoen with Joia whilst I went in search of Joia's ring.
After reeturning it I headed for High Hedge and then Beregost where I calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead.
Returning to High Hedge, I ended up helping Mellicamp and then Tonder.
I he3aded to Nashkel, picking up an amulet and a letter on the way.
In Nashkel I found ankheg armour, chatted to Noober and turned down a reward from Oublek.
Going south I killed Zargos before taking Samuel to the Friendly Arms where Tarnesh attacked. A guard killed him.
Returning to Beregost, I gave the amulet to Colquetle before fighting Silke.
During the battle she killed four people whose bodies I then looted.
I then killed Karlat and helped Eltoth.
My reputation can now go no higher.
After returning to the Nashkel mines, I killed Greywolf, then accompanied by Isra, I also slew Zordral.
I then bade Isra farewell for the moment.
The Guarded Compound, however, is something I'll avoid like the plague until very late, as the mage there will have HLAs in my installation as far as I know.
SCS gives Sion a level boost - from 18 to 22. It doesn't give him the HLA marker item, so he'll only use HLAs at LoB difficulty. The cleric Stalman does get the marker item, but he doesn't have enough levels to get any.
I thought for a while about where to go first upon leaving the city and ended up going for De'Arnise Keep minus Tor'Gal. Tor'Gal himself, while tough, is certainly beatable for me, but I'm scared of his yuan-ti mages, who have ended my latest SCS insane attempt in a rather brutal fashion. However, even without Tor'Gal, there is some good experience and especially amazing loot to be had - our second +3 Axe and, of course, the Flail of the Ages, which is going to be Ayla's primary weapon.
We are dealing with fully powered spirit trolls here, so I kept chaotic commands up on Luriana at all times to counter greater command. Berserker rages are of course very helpful here as well, if I am able to activate them in time. One of the reasons our entire party is true neutral: Their unholy blight will do absolutely nothing. All in all, despite chosing improved haste instead of death spell on my sorcerer, they should be killable. Just can't have anyone get nuked by flamestrikes.
First, I got ambushed by the orog slavers, though - detect illusions + the stonefire damage going through stoneskins allowed us to deal with the wizard, plus our usual opening of prayer, recitation, some rages and chaos:
Inside the keep, our first encounter with spirit trolls was an easy one, with Cadri blocking the door in order to protect vulnerable characters:
Not many problems with the other groups around here. Ayla got hit by greater command once, because I let her open with a cleric spell instead of activating rage right away - flame strikes only hit high-hp targets or those protected with entropy shields. Cadri with Stonefire and improved haste is a capable troll killer. The crucial encounter here was the one yuan-ti mage we still had to face, but this one starts out neutral - so it's totally possible to get an opening backstab, which Chadia did with the staff of striking to great success:
I was ready for anything in case the backstab failed, but my precautions weren't needed. After a quick rest, our clerics summoned three aerial servants to help with the golems in order to obtain some important loot:
I also made a quick trip downstairs to feed and kill the umber hulks before making my way to the forge. However, at that time, the big troll group in the central room had spawned, forcing me into another combat while my berserkers were still winded:
This allowed a spirit troll to hit Ayla with greater command, but we had enough damage output and spells left to save her and take the victory:
I quickly returned to Athkatla in order to sell, buy some stuff from Ribald (Ring of Air Control, The Victor, The Reflex and Belt of Hill Giant Strength, Bracers of AC4), forge an ankheg plate and travel to Imnesvale. Not sure when I'll return to kill Tor'Gal - might be a while.
It's been a hot minute for a run for me as well - after a bit of fiddling around with a few very short error-filled runs, settled on this -
Atheo, Half-elf Cleric/Ranger, more or less to try to take it off the incomplete list. I'll be honest - I don't really like Clerics in general and I rarely find myself casting any Cleric spell above 5th level. I will not have Druid spells from this combo, as I agree that that was more of an oversight and less intended. Picture by me as a kind of a practice.
Mods: SCS and BG1NPC.
Clerics in low level are good, though: Hold Person and Silence gets me to 6/6 with much less kiting or item charges than I would normally have to use:
I've yet to solo through SoD, and so I tend to collect useful items in BG1 - to also add safety, I start adding party members. After the Sirenes I get Safana and pickpocket one of the most important items in BG1 IMO:
Oh, something odd happened after Mulahey - I had dual-classed Imoen, and for some reason or another turned AI back on. This triggered the experience script again, and she got enough experience to complete her dual significantly faster than she should've been able to. I've no idea why it worked the way it did, but... Sure.
Imoen and Safana both died once during the ambushes - Safana to a backstab and Imoen was run down by the Hasted assassins. We have a lot of gold from random loot anyhow, so 1600 gold isn't all that much. Inventory management is more irritating than anything else...
Bandit camp: Imoen uses the scroll of Cloudkill west of Nashkel. Fun story - I think only Targosz is over level 6 in the camp, and he might've just made his saves. Easy clear. In the Cloakwood, a Web trigger I missed gets Safana and we have to do a quick trek back. Further in, we recruit Faldorn, mostly due to having never really used her than anything else.
Cloakwood mine - Stinking Cloud, Spike Growth, Fireball via wand, and Safana's traps, and concentrated missile fire vs the mages with elemental ammo for spell disrupts means that we take almost no damage. We pick up Yeslick after this. Davaeorn - plan is same as normal, one warrior (Atheo in this case) fights with Pro. from Magic, everyone else fights at the chokepoint. Davaeorn decides to derp out and Dimension Doors into our position - before he can get another spell off he falls.
We recruit Kivan all the way back from High Hedge, do the top levels of Durlag's Tower for a lot of levels, and continue onwards.
Baldur's Gate - high experience and gold quests are prioritized. Basilisk, Low Lantern Inn, Ogre Mage, Ramazith, the one with the Shield of Falling Stars, and Marek and Lothandar... The main gear we want here is Baldur's helmet, the aforementioned Shield, the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, the other Ring of Free Action, and the tomes. Imoen takes the INT tome, Atheo takes the DEX and WIS tomes from Marek and Lothandar. For the Iron Throne, we take a very similar approach to the one above - prebuff with Pro. Fire, and then an opening salvo of one arrow of Detonation, one charge of the wand of fire, a potions of explosion, a Holy Smite and Spike Growth just for good measure. The rest are low enough health to kill via concentrated range weapon fire, though... Imoen, I think? Faldorn maybe? goes very low due to a single backstab.
We don't fight the Iron Throne leaders in Candlekeep, and do a quick clear of the catacombs. There was an irritating moment because my party was split and Phase Spiders can TP to literally anyone - I had to run antidotes and healing potions to Safana who of course got poisoned by them teleporting on her. Pratt is also killed by mass AoE spells from off-screen, and it's back to Baldur's Gate.
We rescue the duke via Pixie Dust, and take out Slythe and Krystin. Slythe runs into a bunch of traps and summons, and Krystin... has 6th level spells. We summon skeletons one by one and throw them at her until she runs out of spells and we mop her up. Because we want the Full Plate +1, we fight Cythandra, and watch in fascination and awe as a Lightning Bolt cast from offscreen at our summons utterly wrecks our NPCs.
I have Potions of Insulation and Absorption. I also could've moved them from that one corner. Or I can just let them all die.
Well, after a quick resurrection, we go to the Ducal Palace - full summons, Haste, DuHM, Bless, Prayer against the non-spellcasting Greater Doppelgangers. It's not even close.
Undercity party - Stinking Cloud and mass AoE spells again wrecks them. Their archer can't even fire off his two Arrows of Detonation which we gladly claim for further use in SoD. After spamming rests because I thought that Atheo didn't have his last Bhaal power (he did), we go into the temple. Plan's similar to how I normally do this: A character with a sling (Atheo this time) has the Shield of Falling Stars, boots of speed, Cloak of Displacement, and Elves' Bane and casts a PfM scroll on himself, and drinks a few potions (Regen, STR, oil of speed). Everyone else stays invisible at the bottom of the screen. Neither of the mages can bypass PfM, and only Angelo has a ranged weapon, and he only hits on a crit. After a very long kite going in a circle, Angelo falls. Pre-summoned Skeletons had already convinced the mages and Tazok to break their invisibility, and Atheo takes them out as well. Atheo finally gets his final level here:
You may notice the cluster in the bottom right - Sarevok followed Atheo as he tried to get behind a wall of invisible NPCs... and didn't manage to get out at the same time... After finishing the final mage and skeleton warrior, Atheo laughs and shoots a bunch of rocks at Sarevok until he falls as well.
In SoD, we've just cleared the first dungeon by having Atheo stealth to the door, have Kivan follow with a potion of invisibility, and after an Arrow of Dispelling -> Detonation combo, we're back in Baldur's Gate.
@Neverused Looking good. I have found that my game is too similar to other recent ones so I am switching to an evil Priest of Helm. I put an image from the web onto a photo of my own as a background for the portrait.
Journal of Lyssan
Most people have no idea that I am evil due the fact that I am law abiding. If I have a dirty job to do, I get somebody else to do it for me, whether it be theft or assassination.
First things first, some updates regarding proficiencies and spell picks:
Cadri is now putting points into scimitars, Tria is going for short swords, Ayla will try her hand at maces. This is mostly for off-hand or alternative weapons. Meanwhile, our sorcerer has gained new spells: Spirit Armor (this was a mistake - I wanted to get secret word, but forgot about it in the moment), spell shield and death fog.
I didn't do much in Imnesvale, only the sidequests around the area. I also returned the acorns to the dryads before going to my next big target, the druid grove - since I've already shown to myself that I can deal with spirit trolls, this should be relatively easy, and so it was. First, I was ambushed, facing two of the first enemy mages capable of using sixth level spells, and a bunch of backstabbing thieves going after Tria, who was able to activate stoneskins before a second round of backstabs would hit her:
With our rages protecting the berserkers, Chadia was able to detect illusions, with both of my wizards dispelling spell protections - that way, victory was achieved without much further damage to the party:
Most of the druid grove was, indeed, much the same as De'Arnise keep. The first group of shadow druids presented the challenge of multiple opponents using insect-plague-type spells at once, so I had to struggle to interrupt as many of them as possible through their ironskins - I was fairly successful, as only one of these spells went through as the battlefield was cleared:
I rushed down the spore colonies with haste, acquired Belm and rested before challenging the Rakshasa group. Aided by some traps, Cadri was able to take one of them down with improved haste, while Ihtafeer herself was sadly well protected with spell protections plus PFMW. Tria used secret word, but our sorcerer was unable to follow up with breach, because I had neglected buffing SI:A (for some strange reason), so her protectioins got removed and she had to flee outside due to physical damage before recasting her stoneskins. Luckily, the Rakshasa were mostly busy trying to dispel our buffs or recasting their own, not doing too much damage with offensive spells in the process, so in the end, it was simply a waiting game, as they didn't recast their PFMW, and as soon as they were vulnerable, they fell pretty quickly:
Now, I only had to rush down the final group of druids, which wasn't much of a problem:
Cernd challenged Faldorn, and we returned to Trademeet, quickly finishing the two now opened up sidequests before visiting a merchant to buy the belt of inertial barrier, cloak of displacement and blackblood (mostly for Luriana herself). We've been getting quite unlucky with reputation gains, so that was enough to basically turn us broke again. Next up, I plan to visit the Temple Ruins, where we will have to find some way to deal with two liches.
The Temple Ruins - Lich Battle I:
I rushed in with full buffs, protected by entropy shield and SI:A. My plan was to run in and out quickly luring out the undead while casting death fog near the room, which in theory would damage and interrupt a lich. However, looking at this prebuffs, it seems like these liches know about this trick and protect themselves against acid damage:
The list of pre-buffs continues here, and an immediate contingency + chain contingency was added, including Symbol Death, Finger of Death and Horrid Wilting, targetting Ayla. She has great saving throws thanks to her own buffs, as does the entire party, so every single saving throw is successfully made, but the Horrid Wilting does hurt us quite a bit:
Sadly, I have nothing to get rid of spell turning, so retreat is the best option for now. The other undead follow, the lich doesn't want to leave his chamber quite yet, which grants us some time to clear his allies out:
We started sending in summoned skeleton warriors towards the lich in order to draw out some spells. First, the lich continues to re-cast PFMW every time a new challenger approaches - good, he will eventually run out of those. For two skeletons at once, he uses death spell, seemingly his only one. Chasing skeletons brings him into the pool of fire, though he is immune to fire damage:
We send in more skeletons, he uses lower level spells to try and damage them, but their high magic resistance does make this rather impossible. A hasted Cadri, checking up on our summons, sees that he's starting a timestop and moves out of sight:
His third (I think?) PFMW has to be gone now, so Cadri re-approaches. Yep. no more PFMW. With improved haste, it's easy enough to get through the stoneskins, as they have already been weakened by our skeletons. One lich down, one to go:
The Temple Ruins - Lich Battle II:
I expected this lich to use a similiar list of pre-buffs, so I didn't even bother with some death fog attempts, instead trying to lure out his chain contingency with Luriana, who has not only the best protections in the party but also the belt of inertial barrier. The horrid wilting did next to nothing, as the others were out of its radius. This lich used his timestop far earlier, so I retreated quickly in order to outrange him - he didn't even attempt to follow the party, so when we returned and his PFMW was gone, Cadri and Ayla tried to make him cast another one - but he didn't - at least not in time. Maybe his aura was clouded, (I can't quite remember, played that fight yesterday evening) - in any case, he didn't use another protection spell in time and fell to our weapons:
The Temple Ruins - Shade Lord:
After resting and buffing up again, this fight turned out to be fairly easy - the Shade Lord doesn't have the most extensive list of pre-buffs - once I used detect illusions + secret word, a breach spell was enough to make him vulnerable. Cadri and Ayla had their rage going to protect against level drain, and we achieved a quick and convincing victory:
Back in Athkatla, we also finished the thief stronghold quest, first challenging Rayic Gethras, who was secret worded and breached, just like the shade lord:
Storming Mae'Vars hideout, we used true sight and buffed our most vulnerable party member (Chadia) with spirit armor to deal with the backstabbing thieves. Mae'Var, in what was a pattern for this session, was defeated via detect illusions, secret word, breach and a few attacks by our berserkers:
All in all, these quests gave me the required money to pay Gaelan (40k/30k in my installation), getting us the AoP and RoP +2. Our berserkers defeated Lassal:
We also dealt with the guild contact. Not sure what I'll do next. Luriana just got her first seventh level spell (mostly going to be impervious sanctity of mind I think), so her protections grow ever stronger. However, the way these lich battles went showed me that I lack a lot of knowledge for this installation - otherwise my sorcerer would definitely have secret word by now (so far, Tria is the one to always cast it), and I wouldn't have picked death fog.
@Enuhal Good to see things are going well for you. Not so for Lyssan
Journal of Lyssan
Imoen and I safely restored Joia's ring to her and we then took on Tarnesh. I killed him but not before he killed Imoen. Thankfully it was only 100gp to raise her.
In Beregost she pickpocketted Algernon's Cloak after which I bade her farewell. She is far too much of a goody-goody for my liking.
I calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead thus becoming level 2. Helping Mellicamp brought me to level 3. I then tried to restore Tonder, but the antidote given to me didn't work and the werewolf was too powerful for m....
Perhaps I should have cast my sword of Helm spell before entering, but it probably would have made no difference.
Would you believe it? I rolled a good dwarven barbarian, gave him good equipment, and Mendas in Candlekeep killed him despite his barbarian rage.
Yet another run. This one is going OK. A Blackguard who is in Beregost after helping Mellicamp, calming Marl, and taking a tome to Firebead. Not far off level 3.
Starting Stats:
Journal of Inyx
I levelled up upon helping Mellicamp.
North of Beregost I killed an ogre.
After killing some ogrillon I levelled up again.
I then took the letter to Mirianne before going to the FAI where I killed Tarnesh.
Kessey's rabbit was then returned to her.
I turned down a reward from Oublek before taking on Zordral in the Carnival.
Some battles were only just won!
The battle against Zargos Flintblade went well.
Greywolf on the other hand broke Isra's sword and the battle was much closer.
My gold is barely enough to buy enough healing potions never mind upgrade weapons and armour.
At least I now have a better sword and my reputation has reached 15..
I decided to travel to WK level 1, mostly to pick up Foebane. Tria has grandmastery in bastard swords, but only Kondar +1 to use with a non-magical offhand, so an upgrade is definetly needed, as we are encountering more and more creatures that require +3 weapons to hit them, and I don't want to use enchant weapon in my precious 4th level spellslots. Clearing out the level was easy enough - rage and true sight helps with vampiric wraiths, spirit trolls aren't a big deal by now. The second group of statues is the hard one, with two high level arcane spellcasters - but luckily, Foebane is dropped by the first one, and they only have two fighters and two clerics. After extensive pre-buffing, the battle was relatively easy, and I left WKI with my prize without engaging the second statue group:
Since I had some time left, I also visited the temple sewers in order to take on Tarnor's group - starting with invisibility 10' radius gave me the edge here, as the enemy wizard will start off with true sight while still neutral, which allowed us to hit and kill him before his buffs went up - and he wasn't the only one to fall pretty much right away:
As I still had a decent amount of buffs going, I rushed south to kill the rakshasa (this one didn't have any spell protections, so I just breached and killed him). Thanks to our settings, I suddenly got confronted by a beholder and two gauths teleporting in in the southwest - luckily, we were still hasted and able to rush them down before they were able to really unleash their eye beams:
Again, not sure where I'll go next. Maybe going to do some NPC quests?
Oh, we got our first seventh level spell on our sorcerer. I picked Ruby Ray in preparation for higher level spellcasters and because I don't have secret word.
I decided, as my next step, to do some companion quests, starting with the bioware companions. To that effect, during the game so far, I've been using my thief to set traps here and there where I'll know that combat will take place later on, for example Deril's estate, the room with the Githyanki for Jan's quest and the location of the Nether Scroll. I started with Anomen and Keldorn (no combat), followed up with Korgan (no trouble here), and faced a lich when helping Edwin - but this one isn't a real lich, his pre-buffs or his spellbok aren't nearly as advanced. He didn't even have a spell protection going - I only needed to breach + kill:
The red wizard trying to kill Edwin later on also died to traps. Cernd was next, and Deril didn't survive the trap assault + a single arrow by Chadia:
Traps also helped with Jan, nothing much was needed for Mazzy. I realized that I would have to kill Tor'Gal in order to get Nalia's quests - so I finally returned to De'Arnise keep for my revenge against the yuan-ti mages who've ended one of my previous SCS insane attempts. A full round of buffs, most importantly including protections for my buffs, such as SI:A, ISOM and entropy shield. I opened combat on the umberhulk elder while casting Death Fog with Yasmina, which should force the Yuan-Ti mages to either move or get their spellcasting disrupted, unless they'd prebuff with protection from acid, which they didn't:
This delayed their initial onslaught of spells, granting me time to take down some giant trolls and spirit trolls:
I was almost done with the trolls when the yuan-ti mages finally started going on the offensive - their first spell, remove magic, did very little, as only Chadia and Cadri were vulnerable to it. To that end, Yasmina immediately renewed Cadri's Improved Haste. I put Chadia in a little bit of danger in order to get a successful detect illusions while starting ruby rays and secret words - meanwhile, Tor'Gal fell to the berserkers:
Because Yasmina has no secret words, removing spell protections took quite a bit of time, as the yuan-ti mages were refreshing them. A teleport field hindered my fighters a bit, but not enough - as soon as PFMW finally wore off, the first yuan-ti mage fell:
The second one followed pretty much right away:
Great! Now, I feel much better.
Well, I realized soon that you can only do Nalia's quest if you recruit her for the Tor'Gal kill. Too bad. In any case, finishing this stronghold quest spawned Deidre (due to delayed merchant spawns via SCS), though she has no Robe of Vecna - I was able to buy the Sensate Amulet though. Now, we only had Jaheira left. Galavery and his goons fell to a quick assault:
A long rest, a few travels and some battles later, and I faced Dermin, who, despite having the advantage of facing me mostly unbuffed, didn't have PFMW, which sealed his fate, though I did have to chase down some of his fleeing allies for quite a while:
Next up, I will propably try my hand at one of the EE companion quests.
Starting with Dorn's quest, we slaughtered everyone in the order hall before accepting the second quest. The clerics there aren't too much trouble, but because I didn't pay attention to the huge mass of paladins, I got fairly close to my first character death (crazy that I'm still at zero): I considered Yasmina's protections via stoneskins, blur and MI to be enough, but the sheer number of enemies converging on her (some of them using oils of speed) got through her protections, and I had to have her drink an invisibility potion to save her:
The third quest involves very little combat - I decided to fight Azothet, for the helm reward. Forgot to take a screenshot, though nothing much happened with rages and chaotic command to protect against the demon's stun effects. At this point, Tria gained her first 7th level spell, so I bought a limited wish scroll in order to get some of the one-time wishes, including fighting some golems for experience:
After finishing the gong quest, I recruited Hexxat. The mind flayers during her second quest didn't stand much of a chance:
With a few buffs going, I took on the tomb party. These guys just aren't well-protected enough, not enough PFMW or Mantle spells - iHasted fighters get through their defenses in a very quick fashion:
Same thing for the mages in the third tomb:
After obtaining the Shroud of the Unproved, I removed Hexxat and went to a temple to buy up my reputation to 18, also buying the Plate of Balduran after that. Next up, I plan to take Rasaad along for his quests.
Vargo couldn't quite remember where he'd got to last. After thinking about it for a few minutes he decided he'd not done the Twisted Rune so had better comment that one up.
Minsc used Daystar, Aerie the Improved Mace of Disruption and the rest of the party joined in against Shangalar with +4 weapons where available. Down went the lich so Minsc swapped to the Flail of Ages +3 and took out Vaxall (beholder). Revanek and Shyressa (vampire) attacked him but the rest of the party cleared them and finally Layene was briefly alone.
Maybe Vargo did some other bits here, but if so he couldn't remember. What he can remember is going into Watchers Keep and clearing the entry level. From there the second level presented no problems.
After defeating the Chromatic Demon we stepped into the third level and healed Yaman the elf. We moved on, but at one point Aerie panicked and died as she blundered through repeating traps and across the ranged weapons of velithuu.
Vargo decided to retreat and get her raised, but chose the wrong exit several times resulting in more combats and finally reached a Demon Wraith. He and Minsc seemed OK in melee but his focus on ensuring Minsc was safe from level drain meant he paid insufficient attention to his own health.
In retrospect I am unsure if Vargo died from melee attacks or from cold damage. Regardless, Watchers Keep claims another inattentive Bhaalspawn.
(& five days later I'm still not rolling up a character so might be indicative of a longer break)
Well, I've finally experienced my first character death - and a permanent one at that. However, it's not as bad as it sounds. More on that later.
I helped Rasaad at the amphitheater and took on the southern adventuring party with a couple of buffs in order to get my hands on the 3*MI ring:
After that, I made it to the heretic temple, made sure to free Wilson, complete the various challenges (not much of a problem, and we get the valuable gem of true sight for our trouble) and help the monks with their defense - over all, it was a short and easy fight:
Neera's quest is by far the hardest and most annoying, so I was dreading this for a while. After clearing the wild forest and doing the wild mage sidequests (which does at least get me a nice AoP +2) we had to assault the Thayan Enclave. I decided to go for the direct approach, with full buffs on my party (including Neera herself with chaos shield + improved chaos shield), an opening backstab and some well-placed fighters:
An incoming thayan wizard activated PFMW right away, but my fighters simply switched to nonmagical weapons and punched through his stoneskins. Other mages weren't as well protected, so our usual weapons, Neera's (lvl 15) remove magic and Chadia's detect illusion was enough to take them and their mercenaries down, though there were a few lightning bolts flying around, hurting our party a little:
We have tons of healing potions at this point, so everyone drank one and we moved an, rebuffing improved haste in the process. Lanneth herself relies on invisibility a lot, so we just kept Chadia, detecting illusions, in her proximity, which allowed the others to take her down quickly, as she had no PFMW or Mantle going:
In the final room, we had one mage left who did use PFMW, so we started with warding whip to get his two spell protections and breached him before taking him down. Everything seemed fine, until I had Neera open the door to Lanneth's quarters - well, this door is protected by a disintegration trap (which I didn't remember at all and had no time to react to), and she failed her saving throw. Bye bye, Neera:
While Neera's quest is seemingly done, this did turn out to be a bit of a problem: Without her in the party, everyone back at the Hidden Refuge is invisible or simply gone - no way to turn in the quest at all, so we're missing out on the final experience and item rewards - the first setback in our run. Oh well... will have to do without. I'm not sure, but it's quite possible that this will also mean that we can't do Neera's ToB quest, which would be kind of bad - there are some pretty nice items available from the merchants there.
I should mention that I bought some more gear in this run, such as the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi, Wand of Spell Striking, Rynn's Staff +4, Rod of Resurrection and a Blunting Belt at the Temple of Talos.
I decided to clear Firkraag's dungeon next - the Ruhk Transmuter is fairly dangerous, and I've lost a character due to a triple flame arrow sequencer by this guy before, so I decided to cast protection from fire on my most vulnerable characters and protected my buffs with SI:A, Spell Shield, ISOM and Entropy Shield. I had no way to get rid of his spell defenses, as he's immune to seventh level spells, so I just waited out his PFMW while he tried to get rid of my buffs, but failed to do so - as soon as PFMW dropped, he died:
Our first big golem fights turned out to be a bit annoying - I had to rest after two in my party got hit by clay golems, as I didn't have any way to get rid of cursed wounds. Dealing with ancient/elder vampires was a bit easier, as my three well-buffed berserkers with their rage took down these enemies rather quickly:
I made full use of my improved hastes in order to get rid of werewolves and had to rebuff with my last two sixth level spells for the adamantite golem:
I once again made sure to protect my buffs for Conster, though he simply died to the second round of poison damage via Chadia's traps:
Protection from fire allowed Cadri to deal with the various guardians before we challenged Samia and her group. Last time, we got new sorcerer spells (which I forgot to mention) - Cloudkill, Protection from Magical Energy, Mass Invisibility - and I used mass invisibility to open combat, with allowed us to both backstab Samia and instantly kill the enemy wizard, turning this into an easy victory:
Some great experience here. Since we've had no trouble with the vampires, my next stop will be Bodhi's Lair.
We took Neera to Adoy's Enclave so that she could learn to control her magic. In this we failed so we dropped her.
We did more ankheg hunting so that we could buy better equipment for Xzar and Edwin. We should perhaps have killed more, but that would not have been very interesting.
EDIT
I came across a helm for protecting from charm.
After buying it we decided to wipe out the Sirine. Dorn wore it and went out ahead of us whilst Xzar and Edwin cast web and Tenya cast silence. Xzar then cast skull traps whilst Edwin cast fireballs. Whenever a sirene got free of web, we all concentrated our fire on her. Using this tactic we killed them all without injury.
Afterwards I was badly hurt by lightning. I clearly need some sort of protection but haven't the gold to buy a scroll. Perhaps that will change after looting the cave.
Cleared the Nashkel Mines with ease since disabling Mulahey was easy with the current party.
The Amazons and cave dwellers were no problem either.
At Nashkel we charmed Oublek and got him to attack Nimbul after first protecting him from fear. He had to be charmed a second time. While he attacked Nimbul we withdrew until Oublek was dead. We then attacked and slew Nimbul.
We rested in the bandit camp before going in search of Deke et al.
However I got a surprise when Nicardian and his group spotted us.
Xzar immediately cast web whilst Tenya cast silence. Between them they diabled them and a combination of skull traps, fireballs and magic missiles was suffficient to wipe out Nicardian's party without injury to uorselves.
Deke's party was similarly dealt with, but with far less danger to ourselves.
In Bereegost we killed Tranzig and sold a lot of bandit scalps.
At Bodhi's Lair, we buffed up, rushed in, and took down most vampires with a quick assault. Tanova was our major challenge here - we had to start out with detect illusions (twice), warding whip, ruby ray - after that, I tried to breach her, but it didn't work. As far as I can tell, all her spell protections were removed. As Tanova tried to remove my protections, I was luckily prepared with the usual SI:A, Spell Shield, Entropy Shield, ISOM etc. As I was unable to breach her, I had to wait for her PFMW to wear out - when it did, my improved haste was gone, and she had thrown down a triple icestorm in the area, forcing me to leave. As she followed me, I started renewing improved haste, and Luriana was able to cast her first sunray, dealing enough damage for our fighters to finish the job:
We cleared the basement and rested before Cadri, buffed with improved haste, took down Lassal. Fully buffing for Bodhi was a bit of a waste, as she didn't get to do much before having to retreat:
We forged the iMoD +2. As this was a rather short session, I decided to add on one fight I had been saving for a while: The bridge district house which ended my previous run. This time, I was very much at a higher level and well prepared. With full buffs, including mass invisibility, this ended up not being much of a contest, as no one in my party even took a single point of damage:
Comments
A mite lucky.
Journal of Magreb the Mighty
Durlag's was fairly straightforward though the shapeshifters did considerable damage. We didn't give the wine to Love. The lower reaches of Durlag's can wait. We put the wine in a barrel and will pick it up later. Dynaheir reached level 8.
Realised that the tombs near Nashkel hadn't been raided. Did so.
EDIT
Now at Baldur's Gate after clearing the Cloakwood Mines which were so easy.
Domino, Dark Moon Monk
Coretrue, Inquisitor: @Corey_Russell
Dopple, Berserker: @Grond0
After killing off their protagonists in trios 39 and 40 it's time for a Dark Moon Monk to have the tables turned. We'd rolled characters last week so could get an early start to this session - and chance to see if we get an early exit too.
Domino soon realised he'd got a couple of excellent meatshields to stand behind. We picked off Shoal the nereid and moved on to Beregost where Neera excelled herself - for some reason my game not noticing her death so she managed to call in some more enemies. Dopple was all for engaging them too until Domino suggested that we didn't know what Ekandor would do (or if he was invincible and perhaps a trio wasn't the best game to find out - a missed opportunity in retrospect).
Domino has a level to take at the start of next session and is far ahead in the kills count (not: he's in the 20's while CoreTrue is in the 50's and Dopple is in the 80's)
edit: Screenshots of the party, after Domino has taken his level and gained 8hp
We have been asked to do some quests north of Ulgoth's Beard.
Upon going there we met with stiff opposition. The mages and shamans had very good AI with the result that time and again we were badly hurt. Thankfully no deaths, but no finished quests either.
We returned and completing the quests was straightforward. There are other areas to explore nearby but they can wait until later.
Now back at the Gate, ready to explore the city.
Vargo and crew were halfway down the corridor to see Aran Linvail, then Vargo stopped. Sure, we could head on in to the next chapter of his journal but having ditched a potential romance with Aerie there was little sign of any progress with Jaheira. Vargo wasn't born yesterday and duly noted that perhaps we should camp outdoors for an hour or two (real time). Imoen would be fine with this, he thought.
Sure enough, after only 15 minutes Jaheira talks. Vargo reckons this could be a long wait for the next talk. And it is. Vargo had better hope Jaheira doesn't quiz him on these conversations as he's hardly listening and trying to come up with the least aggrevating response each time.
Jaheira and I have developed a strange approach to romance, involving us stood outside Watchers Keep with the occasional stoneskin / ironskin > rest to see if any chat occurs. A mere weekend later and eventually Vargo's muted responses were adequate even if his strategy against Dermin saw the party badly wounded.
At Brynnlaw we fought off a trio of vampires, killed Perth the Adept (keeping his magical spell book open at the summon wyvern page) and make our way into Spellhold. Irenicus duly removed Vargo's special abilities and re-introduced him to Imoen. We made our way through the maze, Vargo found a new special ability of slayer form to scare Bodhi off again and we continued on our way.
Anyway here's the general scheme of events.
Vargo looked at his hourglass - not sure when we'd be due back at the Matron Mother. With Aerie and Nalia dead could we afford to rest. No fear says Jaheira, memorising two Harper Calls and casting Wondrous Recall. She then raised Aerie and Vargo was most impressed.
Jaheira then raised Nalia and Vargo was more than most impressed until he noticed Jaheira had died. It only took a moment for him to remember something about Harper's Call reduced stats for a few rounds but a fatal dose of 10 damage to Jaheira could easily have been safe by mildly healing her.
Once outside we convince Elhan (elf) that we are no danger and should work with (for) him. Our first task of course is to forge items with Cromwell and allow Minsc to brandish the Silver Sword. Let's hope he doesn't go berserk again.
It's been many months since I tried this, but this party is once again an attempt to succeed in current SCS with the difficulty slider set to insane (though without extra damage). We are playing with a full SCS + Ascension installation, all options active, and if there were multiple installation choices, I always picked the first one available. The party is heavily optimized and mostly meant to get me past the points where I have failed in the past.
In previous SCS-Insane runs, I've always gotten through BG1 and SoD without too much trouble and failed relatively early on in SoA - usually as soon as I encountered some higher level spellcasters with access to lvl 7+ spells. I haven't changed my approach to BG1 or SoD much, and I consider them, for these specific settings, to be just an introduction to BG2, which will certainly be more challenging for me, so there won't be extensive report on the early game - I have just arrived in early SoA, which is why I'm now starting to write things down. So, here's the party (all of them are true neutral, to avoid holy smites/unholy blights, and all of them are female just for the better saving throws against succubus charm spells).
Luriana, halfling Priest of Tempus
17/19/18/13/17/3 - *Mace, *Sling (later *War Hammer *Club as well) - would go on to use the three wisdom tomes.
Yasmina, elven Sorcerer (with spell picks as of this post)
18/19/17/11/3/18 - *Sling (later *Quarterstaff, *Dagger) - would go on to use the charisma tome
I: Shield, Sleep, PfP, Blind, Magic Missle
II: Web, Invisibility, Blur, MI, Resist Fear
III: Haste, Spell Thrust, MMM, Flame Arrow
IV: Stoneskin, E:Hope, II
V: SI, Breach
VI: Improved Haste
Cadri, dwarven Berserker
18'96/17/19/18/11/1, **Axe, **Two-Weapon Style (later ***** Axe) - would go on to use the strength tome.
Ayla, human Berserker 9 / Cleric 10 (dual)
18'86/18/18/11/18/3, **Flail, **Two-Weapon Style (later ***** Flails, *War Hammer, *Mace, *Quarterstaff, *Sling)
Tria, human Berserker 9/ Wizard 11 (dual)
18'86/18/18/18/6/3, **Bastard Sword, **Two-Weapon Style (later ***** Bastard Sword, *Quarterstaff, *Sling)
- would go on to use the constitution and intelligence tomes.
Chadia, dwarven Fighter/Thief
18'87/17/19/18/7/1, **Longbow, **Quarterstaff (later **Two-Handed Weapon Style, *Longsword) - would go on to use the dexterity tome.
With both dual classes dualing at 9, they did so in early SoD, regaining their berserker powers in late SoD or early SoA - which is ideal, because SoD doesn't really get buffed by SCS, so there wasn't much of an issue with their temporary weakness. Obviously, having three berserkers made BG1 relatively easy, as enemy spellcasters can't really deal with the immunities provided by berserking and don't have the defenses yet to survive their onslaught, especially if buffed by mage and cleric spells. A combination of bless, chant, prayer, recitation, haste, emotion: hope and some relevant immunities would always give the party a huge advantage, especially with skeleton summons on their side. If needed, I made extensive use of my wands of the heavens/of fire/of frost, neckacles of missles and the like, using spell thrust to make enemy mages vulnerable to these. For the very early game, I had sleep, and for the early mid game, I took down tougher enemies by webbing them from off screen, having scouted in invisibility or stealth.
I will only show a few notable battles here - the first one being Kahrk, whom I decided to try because he has been turned into a quest boss by the current SCS version, and I was interested to see the new reward. I waited until getting to cleric lvl 7, for the powerful skeleton summons, buffing them with all the things listed above, and having them, and later on the three berserkers, join the fray. Predictably, he started to dispel my buffs, but as he was busy casting, I approached with my sorcerer for a quick spell thrust:
The next battle I will feature here is the Iron Throne battle, because, unlike I usually do, I decided not to lure these guys downstairs, instead fighting them on the upper level. I started with a barrage of fireballs:
The next fight to talk about is the ogre magi ambush at Candlekeep, because it's the only time so far I've come close to a character death in this run - oh, by the way, critical miss with the arrow of slaying here:
Big jump here: To maximize experience in SoD and due to how carry-over XP works, I did all of TOTSC in one long session. No trouble here, just wanted to show you the end of Aec'Letec:
Not much to say about SoD, as I went with my usual firebombing approach. One thing I did that I don't often do was attacking from the fort at the Bridgefort battle, but it didn't turn out to be much of a hassle:
For Belhifet, the key on insane is of course not to get dispelled at the beginning - easily achieveable with SI:A on my mages - in this case, Tria, who had just gotten her berserker levels back. The others are spreading out, the immune person runs up to Big B:
Now, on to BG2. Again, we played SoD, starting with the underground river, in a single prolonged session, so we are starting with a little bit more XP (around 649k). Hopefully, this will give me an advantage.
SoA - I've been looking forward to trying this again. Hopefully we will make it much further this time around. Our first spellcasting opponent, the ogre mage, failed to include any protections against spells in his opening buffs, allowing us to hit him with command, of all things:
The circus tent was made much easier with maxed out detect illusions on Chadia, and after buying some gem bags and scroll cases, I entered the slums. Amalas fell to command against a buffed Luriana:
We buffed with invisibility 10' radius at the copper coronet (which I usually do for the first couple of ambushes), but didn't get hit by anything while traveling to the graveyard. We turned in the teddy bear and started clearing minor tombs, getting the important +2 axe and taking down the crypt king with some buffs (including our very first improved haste on Cadri):
Having done most of the quests in Baldur's Gate prior to entering the Iron Throne, we ended up fighting against bandits who had taken over the Friendly Arms Inn. Coran was killed and raised in the process and my party has now entered the Inn.
My experience is now 160, 000 and my stats are pretty good. I believe that there are only two tomes left to improve my stats. One to improve strength, and one wisdom. Time will tell. We discvered that Wind Horrors were immune to Cloudkill but not fireball. One of our fireball wands was virtually exhausted in the process, but we were able to buy another that had 50 charges.
Just a few sidequests for today - started at the docks for Xzar's quest. Prebek's friend died before her protections went up, Prebek himself got hit by The Sleeper - unlucky:
Edit: Oh, and I made very sure to skip the house with the random adventuring party in it for now. That's where my previous attempt at insane SCS ended. I do plan to return to it and have my revenge eventually, though.
Vargo's update from last night (W10 laptop).
With a bit of XP required to reach level 14 of druidery we decided to investigate the Planar Prison. With plenty of Chaotic Command's available, and several Remove Magic and Detect Invisibility none of this caused the party any trouble and we soon exited with the place looted.
Vargo was able to hold his ground though and we decided why settle for one demon heart when three are available. A couple of party members were briefly incapacitated but with Minsc and Vargo loose there was never any danger.
We ALMOST survived. Only one enemy left and she was on the verge of dying, but one enemy too many.
If it hadn't been for the pressure exerted by Gorion, I would never have made it as a paladin. He told me that he had used all his negotiating skills because my name means rise, and that was enough for him. I didn't understand the significance when he told me.
Thanks to the installed mods, I was just able to afford a katana.
That will help no end.
Luriana, Priest of Tempus - Third Update
Time for the temple district side quests. After picking them up and visiting the ore merchant, I took the opportunity to deal with Mencar's party. Starting with mostly full buffs and invisibility 10' radius, I was able to kill both the mage and his familiar before their defenses were up, turning this one into a piece of cake:
Next up, we rested, spoke to Jerlia again, visited the slums (after defeating a random group of would-be ambushers) and made our way to the bridge district, where we helped the fallen paladins and took down Neb thanks to some quick illusion detecting:
After being ambushed Gorion was killed and Imoen and I headed for the FAI.
I left Imoen with Joia whilst I went in search of Joia's ring.
After reeturning it I headed for High Hedge and then Beregost where I calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead.
In Nashkel I found ankheg armour, chatted to Noober and turned down a reward from Oublek.
Going south I killed Zargos before taking Samuel to the Friendly Arms where Tarnesh attacked. A guard killed him.
During the battle she killed four people whose bodies I then looted.
I then bade Isra farewell for the moment.
SCS gives Sion a level boost - from 18 to 22. It doesn't give him the HLA marker item, so he'll only use HLAs at LoB difficulty. The cleric Stalman does get the marker item, but he doesn't have enough levels to get any.
Luriana, Priest of Tempus - Fourth Update
I thought for a while about where to go first upon leaving the city and ended up going for De'Arnise Keep minus Tor'Gal. Tor'Gal himself, while tough, is certainly beatable for me, but I'm scared of his yuan-ti mages, who have ended my latest SCS insane attempt in a rather brutal fashion. However, even without Tor'Gal, there is some good experience and especially amazing loot to be had - our second +3 Axe and, of course, the Flail of the Ages, which is going to be Ayla's primary weapon.
We are dealing with fully powered spirit trolls here, so I kept chaotic commands up on Luriana at all times to counter greater command. Berserker rages are of course very helpful here as well, if I am able to activate them in time. One of the reasons our entire party is true neutral: Their unholy blight will do absolutely nothing. All in all, despite chosing improved haste instead of death spell on my sorcerer, they should be killable. Just can't have anyone get nuked by flamestrikes.
First, I got ambushed by the orog slavers, though - detect illusions + the stonefire damage going through stoneskins allowed us to deal with the wizard, plus our usual opening of prayer, recitation, some rages and chaos:
Mods: SCS and BG1NPC.
Clerics in low level are good, though: Hold Person and Silence gets me to 6/6 with much less kiting or item charges than I would normally have to use:
I've yet to solo through SoD, and so I tend to collect useful items in BG1 - to also add safety, I start adding party members. After the Sirenes I get Safana and pickpocket one of the most important items in BG1 IMO:
Oh, something odd happened after Mulahey - I had dual-classed Imoen, and for some reason or another turned AI back on. This triggered the experience script again, and she got enough experience to complete her dual significantly faster than she should've been able to. I've no idea why it worked the way it did, but... Sure.
Imoen and Safana both died once during the ambushes - Safana to a backstab and Imoen was run down by the Hasted assassins. We have a lot of gold from random loot anyhow, so 1600 gold isn't all that much. Inventory management is more irritating than anything else...
Bandit camp: Imoen uses the scroll of Cloudkill west of Nashkel. Fun story - I think only Targosz is over level 6 in the camp, and he might've just made his saves. Easy clear. In the Cloakwood, a Web trigger I missed gets Safana and we have to do a quick trek back. Further in, we recruit Faldorn, mostly due to having never really used her than anything else.
Cloakwood mine - Stinking Cloud, Spike Growth, Fireball via wand, and Safana's traps, and concentrated missile fire vs the mages with elemental ammo for spell disrupts means that we take almost no damage. We pick up Yeslick after this. Davaeorn - plan is same as normal, one warrior (Atheo in this case) fights with Pro. from Magic, everyone else fights at the chokepoint. Davaeorn decides to derp out and Dimension Doors into our position - before he can get another spell off he falls.
Baldur's Gate - high experience and gold quests are prioritized. Basilisk, Low Lantern Inn, Ogre Mage, Ramazith, the one with the Shield of Falling Stars, and Marek and Lothandar... The main gear we want here is Baldur's helmet, the aforementioned Shield, the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, the other Ring of Free Action, and the tomes. Imoen takes the INT tome, Atheo takes the DEX and WIS tomes from Marek and Lothandar. For the Iron Throne, we take a very similar approach to the one above - prebuff with Pro. Fire, and then an opening salvo of one arrow of Detonation, one charge of the wand of fire, a potions of explosion, a Holy Smite and Spike Growth just for good measure. The rest are low enough health to kill via concentrated range weapon fire, though... Imoen, I think? Faldorn maybe? goes very low due to a single backstab.
We don't fight the Iron Throne leaders in Candlekeep, and do a quick clear of the catacombs. There was an irritating moment because my party was split and Phase Spiders can TP to literally anyone - I had to run antidotes and healing potions to Safana who of course got poisoned by them teleporting on her. Pratt is also killed by mass AoE spells from off-screen, and it's back to Baldur's Gate.
We rescue the duke via Pixie Dust, and take out Slythe and Krystin. Slythe runs into a bunch of traps and summons, and Krystin... has 6th level spells. We summon skeletons one by one and throw them at her until she runs out of spells and we mop her up. Because we want the Full Plate +1, we fight Cythandra, and watch in fascination and awe as a Lightning Bolt cast from offscreen at our summons utterly wrecks our NPCs.
Well, after a quick resurrection, we go to the Ducal Palace - full summons, Haste, DuHM, Bless, Prayer against the non-spellcasting Greater Doppelgangers. It's not even close.
Undercity party - Stinking Cloud and mass AoE spells again wrecks them. Their archer can't even fire off his two Arrows of Detonation which we gladly claim for further use in SoD. After spamming rests because I thought that Atheo didn't have his last Bhaal power (he did), we go into the temple. Plan's similar to how I normally do this: A character with a sling (Atheo this time) has the Shield of Falling Stars, boots of speed, Cloak of Displacement, and Elves' Bane and casts a PfM scroll on himself, and drinks a few potions (Regen, STR, oil of speed). Everyone else stays invisible at the bottom of the screen. Neither of the mages can bypass PfM, and only Angelo has a ranged weapon, and he only hits on a crit. After a very long kite going in a circle, Angelo falls. Pre-summoned Skeletons had already convinced the mages and Tazok to break their invisibility, and Atheo takes them out as well. Atheo finally gets his final level here:
You may notice the cluster in the bottom right - Sarevok followed Atheo as he tried to get behind a wall of invisible NPCs... and didn't manage to get out at the same time... After finishing the final mage and skeleton warrior, Atheo laughs and shoots a bunch of rocks at Sarevok until he falls as well.
In SoD, we've just cleared the first dungeon by having Atheo stealth to the door, have Kivan follow with a potion of invisibility, and after an Arrow of Dispelling -> Detonation combo, we're back in Baldur's Gate.
Journal of Lyssan
Most people have no idea that I am evil due the fact that I am law abiding. If I have a dirty job to do, I get somebody else to do it for me, whether it be theft or assassination.
First things first, some updates regarding proficiencies and spell picks:
Cadri is now putting points into scimitars, Tria is going for short swords, Ayla will try her hand at maces. This is mostly for off-hand or alternative weapons. Meanwhile, our sorcerer has gained new spells: Spirit Armor (this was a mistake - I wanted to get secret word, but forgot about it in the moment), spell shield and death fog.
I didn't do much in Imnesvale, only the sidequests around the area. I also returned the acorns to the dryads before going to my next big target, the druid grove - since I've already shown to myself that I can deal with spirit trolls, this should be relatively easy, and so it was. First, I was ambushed, facing two of the first enemy mages capable of using sixth level spells, and a bunch of backstabbing thieves going after Tria, who was able to activate stoneskins before a second round of backstabs would hit her:
The Temple Ruins - Lich Battle I:
I rushed in with full buffs, protected by entropy shield and SI:A. My plan was to run in and out quickly luring out the undead while casting death fog near the room, which in theory would damage and interrupt a lich. However, looking at this prebuffs, it seems like these liches know about this trick and protect themselves against acid damage:
The Temple Ruins - Lich Battle II:
I expected this lich to use a similiar list of pre-buffs, so I didn't even bother with some death fog attempts, instead trying to lure out his chain contingency with Luriana, who has not only the best protections in the party but also the belt of inertial barrier. The horrid wilting did next to nothing, as the others were out of its radius. This lich used his timestop far earlier, so I retreated quickly in order to outrange him - he didn't even attempt to follow the party, so when we returned and his PFMW was gone, Cadri and Ayla tried to make him cast another one - but he didn't - at least not in time. Maybe his aura was clouded, (I can't quite remember, played that fight yesterday evening) - in any case, he didn't use another protection spell in time and fell to our weapons:
The Temple Ruins - Shade Lord:
After resting and buffing up again, this fight turned out to be fairly easy - the Shade Lord doesn't have the most extensive list of pre-buffs - once I used detect illusions + secret word, a breach spell was enough to make him vulnerable. Cadri and Ayla had their rage going to protect against level drain, and we achieved a quick and convincing victory:
Back in Athkatla, we also finished the thief stronghold quest, first challenging Rayic Gethras, who was secret worded and breached, just like the shade lord:
Journal of Lyssan
Imoen and I safely restored Joia's ring to her and we then took on Tarnesh. I killed him but not before he killed Imoen. Thankfully it was only 100gp to raise her.
In Beregost she pickpocketted Algernon's Cloak after which I bade her farewell. She is far too much of a goody-goody for my liking.
I calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead thus becoming level 2. Helping Mellicamp brought me to level 3. I then tried to restore Tonder, but the antidote given to me didn't work and the werewolf was too powerful for m....
Perhaps I should have cast my sword of Helm spell before entering, but it probably would have made no difference.
Would you believe it? I rolled a good dwarven barbarian, gave him good equipment, and Mendas in Candlekeep killed him despite his barbarian rage.
Yet another run. This one is going OK. A Blackguard who is in Beregost after helping Mellicamp, calming Marl, and taking a tome to Firebead. Not far off level 3.
Starting Stats:
Journal of Inyx
I levelled up upon helping Mellicamp.
North of Beregost I killed an ogre.
The battle against Zargos Flintblade went well.
At least I now have a better sword and my reputation has reached 15..
I decided to travel to WK level 1, mostly to pick up Foebane. Tria has grandmastery in bastard swords, but only Kondar +1 to use with a non-magical offhand, so an upgrade is definetly needed, as we are encountering more and more creatures that require +3 weapons to hit them, and I don't want to use enchant weapon in my precious 4th level spellslots. Clearing out the level was easy enough - rage and true sight helps with vampiric wraiths, spirit trolls aren't a big deal by now. The second group of statues is the hard one, with two high level arcane spellcasters - but luckily, Foebane is dropped by the first one, and they only have two fighters and two clerics. After extensive pre-buffing, the battle was relatively easy, and I left WKI with my prize without engaging the second statue group:
Oh, we got our first seventh level spell on our sorcerer. I picked Ruby Ray in preparation for higher level spellcasters and because I don't have secret word.
Heading westward, I reunitedd Rufie with his owner before killing Vax and Zal.
I then helped the dryad and Drienne before killing Ingot and a winter wolf.
On the bridge that leads to the gnoll stronghold I killed Gnarl, Hairtooth and Garett and then looted a cave.
I afterwards went to the FAI where I was given some potions to cure poison before spending the night most pleasantly with Quentin.
Khalid and Jaheira joined me and we talked to Dorn before heading to Nashkel where Khalid and Jaheira were left near Oublek.
I then picked up Xzar and Montaron before heading for the Nashkel Mines. We were ambushed and during the ambush Dorn joined us.
We then returned to Beregost where Neera joined us. We then went hunting ankheg as we need gold for equipment.
Neera sheltered in Sonner's house while we hunted.
I decided, as my next step, to do some companion quests, starting with the bioware companions. To that effect, during the game so far, I've been using my thief to set traps here and there where I'll know that combat will take place later on, for example Deril's estate, the room with the Githyanki for Jan's quest and the location of the Nether Scroll. I started with Anomen and Keldorn (no combat), followed up with Korgan (no trouble here), and faced a lich when helping Edwin - but this one isn't a real lich, his pre-buffs or his spellbok aren't nearly as advanced. He didn't even have a spell protection going - I only needed to breach + kill:
Well, I realized soon that you can only do Nalia's quest if you recruit her for the Tor'Gal kill. Too bad. In any case, finishing this stronghold quest spawned Deidre (due to delayed merchant spawns via SCS), though she has no Robe of Vecna - I was able to buy the Sensate Amulet though. Now, we only had Jaheira left. Galavery and his goons fell to a quick assault:
Starting with Dorn's quest, we slaughtered everyone in the order hall before accepting the second quest. The clerics there aren't too much trouble, but because I didn't pay attention to the huge mass of paladins, I got fairly close to my first character death (crazy that I'm still at zero): I considered Yasmina's protections via stoneskins, blur and MI to be enough, but the sheer number of enemies converging on her (some of them using oils of speed) got through her protections, and I had to have her drink an invisibility potion to save her:
Minsc used Daystar, Aerie the Improved Mace of Disruption and the rest of the party joined in against Shangalar with +4 weapons where available. Down went the lich so Minsc swapped to the Flail of Ages +3 and took out Vaxall (beholder). Revanek and Shyressa (vampire) attacked him but the rest of the party cleared them and finally Layene was briefly alone.
Maybe Vargo did some other bits here, but if so he couldn't remember. What he can remember is going into Watchers Keep and clearing the entry level. From there the second level presented no problems.
Vargo decided to retreat and get her raised, but chose the wrong exit several times resulting in more combats and finally reached a Demon Wraith. He and Minsc seemed OK in melee but his focus on ensuring Minsc was safe from level drain meant he paid insufficient attention to his own health.
In retrospect I am unsure if Vargo died from melee attacks or from cold damage. Regardless, Watchers Keep claims another inattentive Bhaalspawn.
Well, I've finally experienced my first character death - and a permanent one at that. However, it's not as bad as it sounds. More on that later.
I helped Rasaad at the amphitheater and took on the southern adventuring party with a couple of buffs in order to get my hands on the 3*MI ring:
Neera's quest is by far the hardest and most annoying, so I was dreading this for a while. After clearing the wild forest and doing the wild mage sidequests (which does at least get me a nice AoP +2) we had to assault the Thayan Enclave. I decided to go for the direct approach, with full buffs on my party (including Neera herself with chaos shield + improved chaos shield), an opening backstab and some well-placed fighters:
I should mention that I bought some more gear in this run, such as the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi, Wand of Spell Striking, Rynn's Staff +4, Rod of Resurrection and a Blunting Belt at the Temple of Talos.
I decided to clear Firkraag's dungeon next - the Ruhk Transmuter is fairly dangerous, and I've lost a character due to a triple flame arrow sequencer by this guy before, so I decided to cast protection from fire on my most vulnerable characters and protected my buffs with SI:A, Spell Shield, ISOM and Entropy Shield. I had no way to get rid of his spell defenses, as he's immune to seventh level spells, so I just waited out his PFMW while he tried to get rid of my buffs, but failed to do so - as soon as PFMW dropped, he died:
Some great experience here. Since we've had no trouble with the vampires, my next stop will be Bodhi's Lair.
We took Neera to Adoy's Enclave so that she could learn to control her magic. In this we failed so we dropped her.
We did more ankheg hunting so that we could buy better equipment for Xzar and Edwin. We should perhaps have killed more, but that would not have been very interesting.
EDIT
I came across a helm for protecting from charm.
After buying it we decided to wipe out the Sirine. Dorn wore it and went out ahead of us whilst Xzar and Edwin cast web and Tenya cast silence. Xzar then cast skull traps whilst Edwin cast fireballs. Whenever a sirene got free of web, we all concentrated our fire on her. Using this tactic we killed them all without injury.
Afterwards I was badly hurt by lightning. I clearly need some sort of protection but haven't the gold to buy a scroll. Perhaps that will change after looting the cave.
Cleared the Nashkel Mines with ease since disabling Mulahey was easy with the current party.
The Amazons and cave dwellers were no problem either.
At Nashkel we charmed Oublek and got him to attack Nimbul after first protecting him from fear. He had to be charmed a second time. While he attacked Nimbul we withdrew until Oublek was dead. We then attacked and slew Nimbul.
We rested in the bandit camp before going in search of Deke et al.
However I got a surprise when Nicardian and his group spotted us.
Xzar immediately cast web whilst Tenya cast silence. Between them they diabled them and a combination of skull traps, fireballs and magic missiles was suffficient to wipe out Nicardian's party without injury to uorselves.
Deke's party was similarly dealt with, but with far less danger to ourselves.
In Bereegost we killed Tranzig and sold a lot of bandit scalps.
Time to return to the bandit camp.
At Bodhi's Lair, we buffed up, rushed in, and took down most vampires with a quick assault. Tanova was our major challenge here - we had to start out with detect illusions (twice), warding whip, ruby ray - after that, I tried to breach her, but it didn't work. As far as I can tell, all her spell protections were removed. As Tanova tried to remove my protections, I was luckily prepared with the usual SI:A, Spell Shield, Entropy Shield, ISOM etc. As I was unable to breach her, I had to wait for her PFMW to wear out - when it did, my improved haste was gone, and she had thrown down a triple icestorm in the area, forcing me to leave. As she followed me, I started renewing improved haste, and Luriana was able to cast her first sunray, dealing enough damage for our fighters to finish the job: