This time we started the session by correctly divining that standing outside the Guarded Compound meant we intended to go inside - impressive eh . The downstairs element of that combat was soon complete and Mist suggested dragging the upstairs enemies down - but they stubbornly refused to follow. No matter, we rested to put on fresh buffs and attacked. Trile was immediately targeted with a remove magic, but he resisted that while Mist dodged out of the way. Mist then dispelled Sion, but the mage managed to get PfMW up at near death to give himself a reprieve. Meanwhile, one of the enemies had decided the best way to handle Trile was to stand on her - allowing Koshi free rein to attempt a stun with Celestial Fury. Mist went back to help a planetar free Trile before returning to get the mage - but Trile got in first with a wilting that pretty much ended the contest.
Mist had in mind that the Twisted Rune was the last encounter left before leaving for Spellhold, so we headed there next. After a brief chat with Shangalar, both Mist and Trile used PfU scrolls to make killing him simple. A planetar then went in search of Vaxall, but managed to drag him forward into sight range of Trile. That was likely to be painful quickly, so Mist used her one GWW to get a quick kill and Trile survived with just anti-magic and cause wounds used on her. Mist dispelled Layene from out of sight, while the planetar went on the attack. That prompted Layene to use a meteor storm - killing herself in the process.
Mist thought it was all over, but Trile gently reminded her that their chapter 2 and 3 work was not in fact quite complete :
- OK, we'll do the Sir Sarles quest then.
- And, if you insist, we'll add another quest for the temple (incidentally there was a mage helping out Borinall in that encounter - I don't normally see that, presumably because it's a quest I typically do much earlier).
- What do you mean, we've not even started Aran's tasks. Alright, it won't take a minute to avenge Mook and sort out a Guild Contact.
- Well, I suppose since we're back in the Bridge District we could clear out the gangs of Dracandros and Captain Dennis. By the time of the latter, Trile was out of wiltings, but she was always perfectly happy to step down to something less party-friendly .
- While in the mood for gang warfare, there's also of course Mencar still available.
- Underneath the Graveyard, Trile loaned Mist her amulet to provide level drain protection against vampires. The ones upstairs received short shrift and the ones downstairs even shorter - simultaneous detonations from Daystar and an ADHW was a bit of overkill there and Bodhi was down to near death in seconds (though it took her a few more to remember she had the option of running from the fight).
I wouldn't like to be totally sure now, but I think we just need to upgrade the MoD before taking ship to Spellhold ...
Inquisitor 19, 157 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 719 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 19, 61 HPs, 218 kills (+152 in BG1), 2 deaths
If I was playing and that happened? I'd take it as divine judgment.
Talos says no. No Dorn this run, in vengeance for killing his priest Dorotea.
I agree totally. At least Obsidian gets a +1 two handed sword even if she doesn't get the bonuses. IMO she should. Both Obsidian and Radiant are in agreement that Permadeath is correct!
I am wondering what would happen regarding Dorn in SoA. Anyone know?
Also wondering why Quayle's spell slots decrease upon levelling up.
BG2EE is a separate game. That sort of thing isn't even tracked, unless maybe you're unifying the games by playing EET.
In the hands of anyone but Dorn, that sword is a plain +1. There's complicated trickery involved, but the THAC0-improving effect only works if Dorn wields it. And if Dorn wields it, it goes away as soon as you try to use another weapon. Dorn can get that extra +1 to hit, but only if he sticks with the weapon instead of switching to other options like a bow or crossbow.
BG2EE is a separate game. That sort of thing isn't even tracked, unless maybe you're unifying the games by playing EET.
In the hands of anyone but Dorn, that sword is a plain +1. There's complicated trickery involved, but the THAC0-improving effect only works if Dorn wields it. And if Dorn wields it, it goes away as soon as you try to use another weapon. Dorn can get that extra +1 to hit, but only if he sticks with the weapon instead of switching to other options like a bow or crossbow.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. Of course I an playing EET which could be why I have noticed no problem with it. The description actually states that the bonuses are only for Dorn, so can't really complain.
Journal of Obsidian
We killed Sonner for his flail and recruited Tenya. Quayle was killed in a bandit ambush. After raising him for the princely sum of 100gp, we left him at the temple as he is far too fragile. We might re-recruit him when we have better protections.
I picked up Dorn, though I first had to lower my reputation via slayer change. For the ambush, I made sure to only engage the planetar with characters protected by death ward, though my ADHW CCs did most of the work:
I choise deceit on my way through Lunia and made the changes to the scroll, adding the names of Sendai and Abzigal. I also prepared some traps for the silver dragons on my way. During my escape, a planetar with a bunch of paladins teleported next to my party, and here I came the closest so far to the end of this run - Luriana, for some reason, had her fists equipped, one of the paladins activated a GWW, and I didn't notice for a while because I was focusing my attention on the planetar - luckily, she escaped in time, possibly only two hits away from death. The dragons, in contrast, didn't provide much of a challenge:
Next up, we picked up Rasaad for the final EE companion quest we have access too, once again dealing with am ambush. Most of the combat here is fairly easy with true sight for the Sharran Asssassins and a few combat buffs. We went into the fortress through a back door, freed the dwarves and made our way back downstairs after dealing with Algoroth's lieutenants (only two mages were able to prepare protections in time, both were destroyed with a simple spellstrike + breach). We used dragon's breath to clear the sharrans near the portal (Luriana once again dropped to low hitpoints here from physical damage - my contentration seemed to be lacking today) and entered, following Algoroth, dealing significant damage to she shadow dragon before it went invisible - detect illusions => more attacks = victory:
We used some of our fire giant strength, invulnerability and heroism potions here, as we have a lot of them. Not sure where I'll go next - either Sendai's Enclave or Watcher's Keep.
Back from a longer break from Baldur’s Gate, I’ve struggled with restartitis and character deaths, but I’ve decided to post about one of two new playthroughs I’ve been enjoying so far. The difficulty is SCS Insane with double damage enabled and lots of mods with additional content, tweaks etc. (The other playthrough has progressed a bit more, but is also slower due to me playing on LoB difficulty.)
Charname is a Half-Orc priestess of Helm named Anuk.
I like the idea of having a Half-Orc for this kit. Their potential for tremendous natural strength (20 after BG1, 22-24 with Lum the Mad, Hell trials, and Holy Symbol) makes them slightly less reliant on physical buffs when wielding the Seeking Sword – her innate kit ability which is intended to be a focal point of this playthrough. I’ve played several priests of Helm (including an undocumented dwarf who fell to LoB Belhifet after I’d spread potions of Heroism/Power too thinly amongst the party members), but none have started out as effective as Anuk.
Her starting proficiencies were Maces/Morningstars (as per Tweaks Anthology) and Slings, and at level 3 she added single-weapon style to that. For some reason the Seeking Sword can be dual-wielded with an off-hand weapon with no penalty to proficiency <i>and</i> with bonuses from weapon styles. So a pip in single-weapon style gives Anuk a small AC bonus and it allows her to crit on to hit rolls of 19 as well as 20, with both the main hand and the off-hand.
She started out with 160 GP, did her Candlekeep chores, and traveled straight to the Fisherman’s Lake area, to see if Drizzt dies to Gnolls in non-LoB the way he does in LoB. He did. (I think he shouldn’t in version 2.6, but I’m still playing 2.5, because 2.6 messes up LoB saves, to which there’s no fix unlike for the 2.5 saves bug.) She started out solo, doing mostly fetch quests, including Brun (thanks to Sanctuary) and Tenya. Anuk had wisely refrained from leveling up before fighting Tenya because her enemy’s cause wounds spells would have taken her out had she been level 2.
Anuk appeased the child cleric with a crit.
There were two more flirts with death, one on purpose, when she was kissed by Shoal the Nereid while Sanctuaried, and failed her save.
Once recovered, she Blinded Droth with a Holy Smite, Silenced him, and took him down in melee.
Shoal was finished with sling bullets. Anuk’s second flirt with death gave her a much bigger scare: failing to make an impact with her sling against Krum and Caldo, she decided to cast a Sanctuary to allow her to disengage. But with her sling still equipped, Krumm managed to land a hit right before her Sanctuary materialized. She was once again reduced to a single hit point.
She healed up, and went the melee route to deal with her foes, with success.
Greywolf went down after being Held, and Meilum was dispatched with ranged attacks because the entire Firewine Ruins area has become a wild magic zone in my install. Buffing didn’t seem wise. A potion of absorption for the AC boost against crushing attacks, DUHM, AoF, Bless, Aid, Prayer and Seeking Sword enabled Anuk to defeat both of Thalantyr’s Flesh Golems in one go.
Melicamp survived, thankfully, opening up one my quest mods (The Calling by CamDawg), which is to be covered later.
The Polar Bear north of the Gnoll Stronghold, Neville, the rogue Ogre south of the FAI, and Corsone were other notable foes she felled. When I felt inclined to keep Anuk as a solo character, she charmed Algernon with Lord Foreshadow’s Ring of Human Influencing to have him help fight Karlat, and drop his cloak. It allowed her the purchase of a suit of full plate mail at the biggest discount. A somewhat cheesy action made superfluous by the formation of a party. Baeloth was recruited first, then Garrick (Silke got Webbed and Blinded by a DUHM, and taken down from afar), followed by Alora, Shar-Teel, and Quayle. I’m playing with the Stratagems’ (somewhat buggy) NPC customization component, I haven’t changed any classes/kits. I did choose a few different weapon proficiencies I liked (Alora scimitars for Twinkle, and Shar-Teel scimitars as well for Frostbrand, and long bows).
The party has managed to restore a reputation of 20 without Shar-Teel or Baeloth taking issue, thanks to the happy patch, but it took the last possible reputation quests available (Archaelogical site, Bjornin) after a few unlucky quests resolutions without rep gains (thanks to SCS’s slowed down rep progression).
Even in a party Anuk continued to shine, as she single-handedly dealt with Vax and Zal, and Gnarl and Hairtooth. Her most impressive performance so far was against two Charmed Pirates (part of the Lure of the Sirine’s Call mod) and three Sirines. With Garrick playing the Ballad of Three Heroes, Quayle adding Chant and Bless, and Anuk self-buffed by DUHM, the Greenstone Amulet, an oil of speed, AoF, Aid, Prayer and her Seeking Sword, she one-shotted the Sirines with three crits, the highest for 50 damage, and defeated the Charmed Pirates without taking any damage herself.
Those hits look monstrous, and there is still room for improvement thanks to higher attainable STR (currently 21), the Luck spell (which lasts one turn in my install), the Emotion Spells from IWD (Hope and Courage) and, after BG1, Righteous Magic. I hope to see Anuk impress with her Seeking Sword throughout SoA and who knows ToB. Right now it seems APR isn’t her weakness but low HPs. She’ll have some items and spells (Aid, Holy Power, Righteous Magic) to boost HPs but I expect that Damage Resistance will be very important to her too (AoF, DoE, Belt of Inertial Barrier), especially with double damage enabled, more so than for less melee-oriented Clerics thanks to the Divine Protection spells that she can’t cast while wielding her Seeking Sword.
The Flesh Golems inside the treasure cave suffered the same fate. Currently the companions are sitting on 44k XP each. They still have a number of high XP areas they can clear (Mutamin’s garden, Ankheg nest, Durlag’s Tower upper levels).
I decided to go for Sendai's Enclave. Randomized WKIII can be tough, an I dread the summoning glabrezu battle - while I won't get any relevant gear at Sendai's, some extra experience might still be helpful. No trouble with the outside area, as we charged down the hive mother and had traps prepared for the woodcutter:
As most opponents can't get rid of our buffs now without some elobrate dispelling (they can get Cadri and maybe Chadia, but Cadri has rage, great saves, and is easily rebuffed), we were able to go through a lot of the enclave in one go. The drow guard captain was our first target - the only mage here being spellstriked + breached:
We travelled through both the slave and spider tunnels:
Challenging the first big drow group in front of Odamaron's Lair, they gated in demons, including a balor, which can't be taken lightly. Cadri had her buffs dispelled once at this point, but while rebuffing, I forgot to give her protection from fire again, so she took quite a bit of damage from the demon while taking him down:
I carefully watched my death wards to avoid any chance of getting vorpaled. Once again, another mage was killed via spellstrike + breach. Entering the lich's lair, this encounter turned out to be a fast one: As we charged at Odamaron, he died right as the SCS animation where he summons in his new allies triggered - and his apprentice triggered one of the traps in the room, got himself silenced, and died to our very high level turn undead right after that:
We fought our way past another drow group with a balor, buffs still going, and challenged the prince of earth:
I decided to send in a planetar into Diaytha's room, but the only thing he managed to kill was one of the demons - the ancient vampire ventured outside, but was quickly slain. Tria activated timestop in order to go in, cast a dragon's breath and kill the demon knight with physical damage - she went out before the timestop ended, and I decided to send in a second planetar for the hive mother, assisted by Cadri:
Luriana won her duel via energy blades, and we finally returned to the pocket plane to rest to prepare for the mind flayer ambushes. I prepared everyone in the party with protection from magical energy this time around. Had to spellstrike and breach a few wizards - luckily, they did nothing in terms of successful aggression. With our combat buffs + PFME, the mind flayers were essentially helpless - they didn't get in a single hit, and only Chadia took some damage:
We rested again, preparing for Sendai. This time, I included both PFME and fire protection, and, in addition to the usual "full buff" list, potions of cloud giant strength, heroism, invulnerability and oils of speed. We are aided in this battle by a planetar of justice, added by Dorn's quest. SCS Sendai spawns new statues and drow in very quick succession, so the key is taking down everything as fast as possible, otherwise you will be overwhelmed. The first Sendai died immediately, but the second one is a mage clone - I was unable to get rid of her protections before she cast timestop - one spellstrike was in, but breach was not, and she renewed her protecions right away. During her timestop, she mostly added to her protections and tried to weaken mine - she did activate IA, but only once the timestop was over - during that time, I summoned in my own planetar (the one added by Dorn's quest doesn't count towards the limit), took down the thief Sendai and started working on the warrior one while casting spellstrike yet again:
Following up the spellstrike with an immediate breach via wand allowed us to finally kill the mage, thankfully catching up in new spawns, as a cleric/mage clone spawned to the north:
Chadia detected illusions and we started another spellstrike, but this Sendai was able to timestop as well. Removing fire and magical damage from the table really hurts these high level mages - the best she could come up with was an acid storm, following up with a useless incendiary cloud, which, I think, she didn't even finish (or maybe it was targeted at someone with spell protections) - I remember her casting it, but there's no cloud in the screenshots to see and I can't remember it being there. Meanwhile, half of my group was chasing the archer Sendai around - and finally, I got the opportunity to spellstrike + breach:
The archer was the last to fall, and the real Sendai spawned in. We still had our two planetars and tons of buffs left - she was immeditely brought to very low hitpoints before all of her pre-buffs fired up. The ADHW included in her CC did nothing, and she teleported to the north while I was casting a pierce shield on Tria (to get rid of a spell shield effect) and spellstrike (started a little bit later for the remaining buffs). This was followed up by another quick breach, while Sendai summoned a fairly pointless earth elemental. She was made vulnerable and was unable to activate any further protections in time:
This might've been the quickest Sendai battle I've ever had.
Finally, I also completed the fairly easy third pocket plane challenge:
Next time, we are going to Watcher's Keep level 3. This can be extremely difficult if we get unlucky with the randomized maze, and even if we don't, no-magic zones and the glabrezu room are quite deadly in any case.
Incidentally, there is a bit of a work-round to allow you to do some moving while dancing. While it's true summons will disappear if you move while the dance is in progress, the game only checks once a round whether you are actually dancing - and in the meantime your existing spirits will remain whether you're dancing or not. That means you can:
- have text active, which shows when the dancing check is made
- as soon as a check is made pause the game (not necessary, but will make it easier for you)
- turn dancing off before you move
- you can then move around for several seconds before stopping and re-establishing the dance before the next check is made.
While that may seem cumbersome, with a bit of practice you might be surprised just how much ability to move while spirits are active you actually have .
This has helped me immensely, thank you! Particularly with the hound spirits that cause panic. The foes run out of visual range and the spirits follow, which unsummons them, so being able to reposition myself has helped a ton
Unga-Bunga tell Hrothgar ready join caravan, begin journey to Kuldahar. Caravan passing through valley when avalanche hits. Unga-Bunga run forward to escape valley while others run backward, get buried in snow. No saving the others sadly.
Unga-Bunga reach Kuldahar pass, meet old hermit who point way to Kuldahar, say pass teaming with goblins. Unga-Bunga raise spirits, call lightning on goblins and scorch them. Unga-Bunga like battling outdoors, want to battle 'sky-clad' but frozen north cause too much shrinkage.
Unga-Bunga find strange ogre in ruined tower complaining about headache, leave him be. Unga-Bunga also save poor kid in mill from goblins before reaching Kuldahar. In Kuldahar, Unga-Bunga do many things:
Speak to Archdruid Arundel, learn about Great Oak tree and tree haters wanting to kill it, promise Arundel to explore Vale of Shadows to search for tree haters. Unga-Bunga also get headache remedy from Arundel for Ogre Ghereg in Pass
Meet Wizard Orrick and barter. Unga-Bunga really want Bag of Holding, back getting sore dragging things through snow
Meet fellow Shaman Hjollder, listen to Hjollder's vision. Unga-Bunga compliment Hjollder on power of his peyote and admit to being jealous. Hjollder ask Unga-Bunga to meet with his chieftain, but Unga-Bunga tell Hjollder he made promise to Arundel first, will meet up again later
Meet Half-Man Aldwin in town inn, remember what barmaid say about him. Unga-Bunga go searching through rooms upstairs, find old owner's ring gifting inn to town and confront Half-Man, make him confess to town.
Meet Smithy Conlan whose son one of townspeople gone missing, tell Conlan will keep eye out while in Vale
See two tundra yeti chasing townsperson into town from Vale and slay them (the yeti, not townsperson). Townsman Mirek say his brother killed by huge yeti and want family necklace back. Unga-Bunga say will look for yeti chieftain
Unga-Bunga return to Ogre Gherig with headache treatment, but Gherig not understand (No dialogue option to share it, must be a bug?). Unga-Bunga decide to cure Gherig's headache old fashioned way...
Unga-Bunga travel eastward into Vale of Shadows, find many yeti on snow paths and many tombs filled with undead, tombs seem similar, maybe all made for same purpose. Unga-Bunga clear out tombs.
Further into Vale, Unga-Bunga find narrow path leading down to large cave set into rockface, find Chieftain Yeti and other yeti outside cave, slay them. Unga-Bunga find necklace clutched in Yeti Chieftain hand, take necklace for Mirek.
Unga-Bunga cautiously enter cave, find rest of Yeti tribe. Unga-Bunga flee back up path with Yeti chasing just behind. Unga-Bunga summon beetles and lightning, slay them but close call:
Unga-Bunga clear out four tombs before approach massive tomb in northeast of Vale. Unga-Bunga enter and find undead hosts, clear room by room and slowly make progress further down into tomb before coming to large door. Unga-Bunga use Black Wolf talisman to open door and enter, finding dead warrior Kresselack the Black Wolf.
Unga-Bunga parley with Kresselack. Kresselack surprisingly mellow after Unga-Bunga slay all his guardians. Kresselack want Unga-Bunga to slay priestess of Auril who want to destroy Kresselack's tomb. Unga-Bunga tell Kresselack he will consider it if he find her. Kresselack tell Unga-Bunga priestess is somewhere in Vale.
Unga-Bunga tell Kresselack he search Vale up and down, then remember Yeti cave with crates of potions and scrolls. Unga-Bunga return to cave, use Pixie Dust to vanish, then step inside, find more yeti and barmaid from Kuldahar, the icy one.
Unga-Bunga step back outside cave, summon beetles and Fire Giants at top of path leading to cave to ambush priestess and yeti as they chase Unga-Bunga, in case they attack. Unga-Bunga go back into cave and confront priestess.
Priestess Lysan say she won't back down from destroying Kresselack's tomb. Unga-Bunga get frustrated, not know who to side with until Lysan say she want to slay Great Oak too. Unga-Bunga thank Priestess Lysan for making choice for him, attack her with axe.
Unga-Bunga flee cave and run up path with priestess and yeti just behind. Unga-Bunga order minions to block path after he reaches top and calls down lightning. Priestess Lysan and yeti scorched:
Unga-Bunga beat chest some, then return to Kresselack. Kresselack promise Unga-Bunga that tree haters not in Vale but doesn't know where they are. Unga-Bunga get angry. Kresselack offer his old warrior things to make peace. Unga-Bunga sniff around casket, see black helm and agree to peace.
Unga-Bunga return to Archdruid Arundel, tell what happened. Arundel say next place to search is a temple to a long, forgotten god. Unga-Bunga sigh, rest a bit, then hike to temple.
Unga-Bunga meet Verbeeg Red-Toe outside temple. Red-Toe say temple raided by thieves before run off. Unga-Bunga enter temple, attacked by remaining verbeeg and priests, slay them before descending further into temple.
Unga-Bunga descend further into temple, battle many verbeeg and priests guarding sacred chamber, slay all:
Unga-Bunga enter sacred chamber, see Heartstone Gem already stolen by temple thieves. Unga-Bunga find vial on dead Talonite priest, bring back to Arundel.
Arundel tell Unga-Bunga vial full of snake venom, only place close enough for snakes is caves of Dragon's Eye. Unga-Bunga shake head, rest some more, then hike through mountains to Dragon's Eye...
Chapter 2 commencing...
Current Spell Picks:
Armor of Faith, Cure Light Wounds, Entangle, Protection from Evil, Sunscorch
Barkskin, Charm Person or Mammal, Find Traps, Flame Blade, Goodberry
Call Lightning, Protection from Fire, Spike Growth, Storm Shell
Call Woodland Beings, Giant Insect, Protection from Lightning, Static Charge
Insect Plague, Iron Skins, Pixie Dust
Conjure Fire Elemental, Entropy Shield
Definitely getting harder to choose spells as I'm getting to the higher levels. Flame Blade was mostly taken for Troll slaying (not many good Level 2 choices). Call Woodland Beings chosen for the crowd control spells the nymphs have (Hold Person, Confusion, Hold Monster, Dominate), and because having a number of nymphs attending to a Half-Orc Shaman is funny .
I got out my pencil and paper to map the randomized WKIII maze. Our first choice took us to the pit fiend room, where our prepared CCs did their job:
This is a no-magic zone - we travelled always to the eastern portal for now, and the next one was another no-magic zone: The Purifier room - there's a Balor here and no way to buff, so I sorted some items around to get good enough saves vs. death and some fire resistance on some of my fighters:
Next up, we encountered the dreaded glabrezu room, which is buffed to a ridiculous decree by SCS (possibly my least-favorite SCS fight - the sheer number of spell effects and summons on the screen made the game almost unplayable on my old PC, and even now, it's hard to tell what's going on). Since you can see the pillar in the middle right from the entrance and magic is usable here, I was able to buff up a little before engaging the glabrezus and their ludicrous summoned army. Sadly, I didn't remember which room the pillar would signify - I though it might've been the 4 death knights. Otherwise, I would've buffed up a lot more. Soon, we got into all kinds of trouble - the screen full of enemies, it was hard to move around and focus on the important opponents - these demons also use PFMW, so you have to breach them one by one. One we breached and killed, and after that, I had Tria and Yasmina cast 3*ADHW CCs to clear out some of the summons, following up with timestops. Luriana was in constant trouble as one of the glabrezus had teleported to her, drinking a healing potion and having to follow up with greater divine protections as summons were chasing her around. Chadia was in similiar trouble:
Tria got her timestop interrupted, Yasmina was able to finish hers. The chain contingencies triggered, taking down most summons for a few short seconds, though high magic resistance on the part of the glabrezus led most of them to survive this. Yasmina followed up with a planetar and more horrid wiltings under improved alacrity - this left a lot of the glabrezu at low health, and by now, their PFMWs had run out, allowing my fighters to take them down one by one before finishing off the summons they had called again in the meantime:
This battle is always dangerous and somewhat close - plus, the first time I actually had to use one of my damage immunity spells on Luriana. Glad it's over. Next up was the succubus room, no trouble here, but our next portal brought us back to the entrance, so we'll have to try other directions. I went immediately up north and encountered the demon wraith - having not encountered any no-magic zones after the first two, my party was now lightly buffed and protected, which was crucial. As I tried to find traps with Chadia, Cadri and her simulacrum attacked the wraith while my mages tried to dispel his buffs. For some reason, this didn't work out as intended - I don't know how, but I seemed to be unable to get through his spellshield. In any case, as soon as his PFMW ran out naturally, he immediately died to a lucky vorpal hit by our planetar, so no need to worry:
Next up, we ran into the tieflings, followed by the demon knights:
After that, I got to the end of the maze, played the cambion in an attempt to get spectral brand and lost every game. We had to get back, as we had not encountered any of the scepter stone demons yet. We were able to discover Kara'shur, whom we made a deal with, and the quasit room - it took quite a while to actually find the other demon (and good thing I was drawing a map, otherwise this would've been very frustrating), but we eventually got there - without buffs, as we had to cross the no-magic zones a few times. Having no chaotic commands meant that Yasmina was vulnerable to PW:Stun, and she got hit immediately:
Cadri and Chadia went after a glabrezu each as Tria was casting timestop and Luriana, having cast remove fear, switched to remove paralysis on Yasmina. Ayla's globe of blades was interrupted, and so she joined melee combat - meanwhile, Tria was luckily able to finish a crucial timestop, which allowed her to summon a planetar, improved haste herself and weave in melee hits, taking care of a glabrezu and a succubus:
Remove paralysis worked out, we took down the third glabrezu, the yochlol and the maurezhi:
I sent my fighters aggressively against Tahazzar, taking him down while suffering some serious damage:
Thus, we made it to level 4. We had lots of spells left, so we buffed up, cleared the main area and went to the illithids, though not before adding PFME for everyone. With hardiness, improved haste and PFME plus our combat buffs, the illithid hideout was a breeze, and we soon faced the gith, who didn't pose much of a threat:
Time to return to the pocket plane, forge Angurvidal, Motolio's Cloak (both for Chadia) and return with new buffs. For the demi-lich, I decided to leave out Luriana (though she would've been quite safe) and Chadia (no adequate imprisonment protections unless I'd use one of the precious rare SI:A scrolls). The others entered well-buffed - the demi lich had a spell shield + spell trap prepared:
Double ruby ray took care of his buffs, but in the meantime, he got to use timestop - he summoned a planetar and used IA, followed by skull trap, cloudkill, some kind of pierce magic effect on Ayla (though with no followup, and this only got rid of her ISOM - she still had SotA and Entropy Shield) - and after that, he basically only had summon in his repertoire. We took down the fallen planetar, meanwhile the demi-lich renewed his spell deflection, which we got with spellstrike:
Tria followed up with breach, and finally, our foe was vulnerable:
We still had our buffs going, so we immediately went after Saladrex:
With full fire immunity, there was little he could do but attack, and that just wasn't enough. Finally, we took down the minotaur guardians:
Another visit to Cespenar, forging a few things - most importantly, the Axe of the Unyielding +5 for Cadri. Next time: Level 5. I really, really hope that I don't die in the spirit warrior labyrinth.
@Enuhal Ugh, yeah... some ToB SCS encounters are less on the amusing, more on the dreadful side (I've a pet peeve with no-magic zones myself, basically destroying the ability of several core classes to contribute in a meaningful fashion). Good to see you got through it in one piece.
Warning: Shameless abuse of spike traps will follow. Avert your eyes if you don't like that sort of thing.
Okay, so before we get to the traps, we have to clear the orc room (nothing special here), solve a riddle, take down a few golems and slay another dragon. This one has a poison breath, but I didn't bother picking up the green scrolls - every party member should be able to survive a single breath weapon by now, and with our combat buffs plus 4 improved hastes and 2 energy blades, our damage output is high enough - he did get to cast one breath weapon, one wing-buffet and his heal spell, but didn't survive for long after that:
I took the very safe approach for the spirit warrior maze - avoiding the ghost and not opening the desk with the chance to take poison damage - with full hit points on the spirit warrior, the mummy only hit me twice for a total of 21 damage, so no real danger here:
I once got unlucky here with bad RNG in the ghost battle and getting poisoned and lost a very promising stalker playthrough, so I'm quite paranoid about this whole affair.
Oh, we also did the colored orbs thing, forgot to mention that. Now, for the seal guardians. I looked up a youtube video of someone doing this to get the exact spawn positions of each opponent to make the best use of my seven spike traps. Azamantes was our first target - we still buffed up, in case the traps somehow wouldn't to their job, and of course had fire protection and some magic damage protection (though not full immunity on everyone) for the flaming skulls - no trouble, though, the traps did the trick:
The Robe of Vecna is ours!
Next up, the Aurumach Rilmani. Well, it turns out, after carefully preparing my traps and ADHW CCs, this guy is completely immune to magical damage:
However, I also had him surrounded with a bunch of buffed up fighters, and I was able to just take him down in melee combat before he did anything dangerous:
I also swapped fire protection for ice protection for this battle, but it didn't come into play.
Now, we have the final group of seal guardians. I placed three traps near the nymph and four traps near the hive mother, but all traps went after the nymph, so we only got this one initial kill. I also had a planetar with me this time around. The party immediately took down the hive mother:
As the enemy cleric gated in a fallen deva, we defeated that after taking down the fighter (wanted to get rid of her quickly as she had a whirlwind attack going). While our mages dispelled the cleric's buffs, Cadri went after the archer, and soon, the battlefield was ours:
Finally, we rested again and put 7 spike traps next to demogorgon, which is enough to kill him even with SCS. Didn't take a screenshot, but it's not very interesting anyway. Some nice experience points here all in all! Next up, our only remaining choice is to go to Abazigal's Lair.
Next up, we encountered the dreaded glabrezu room, which is buffed to a ridiculous decree by SCS (possibly my least-favorite SCS fight - the sheer number of spell effects and summons on the screen made the game almost unplayable on my old PC, and even now, it's hard to tell what's going on).
It's actually a very simple difficulty buff. One summoner per color unmodded, three per color with SCS. The summoning speed is the same, the limit on total number per summoner is the same.
When it comes to threat levels, note that the blue summons don't have magical weapons. Some of my runs, particularly those that included a bard (Enhanced Bard Song for party-wide normal weapon immunity), have been able to take advantage of this extremely well.
... we have to clear the orc room (nothing special here), ...
You literally don't have to kill anything in that room. It's a strict timer - don't die for ten rounds, and you win. The enemies respawn as fast as you kill them, so the only reason to do it is for the XP or a "how many can I kill" challenge. I managed 74 in my "Kill It With Fire" run. With SCS, so the mages buffed with PFMW and Shadow Door to make them harder to kill fast. No protection against incendiary clouds, though.
I used green acid protection scrolls and swapped in my two shadow dragon armor pieces + the shield with 10 acid resistance in preparation vor Draconis. He didn't pre-buff with spellshield, so I was able to quickly spellstrike + breach his human form, allowing me to get him into dragon form quite early - I also made sure to spread my characters as he got low in hitpoints to avoid the "getting stuck in a characters selection circle" bug, which I've encountered here in EE numerous times:
His dragon form had spell deflection + PFMW - once again, a quick spellstrike and breach (via wand for better speed), and he was vulnerable:
All in all, this may have been the fastest I've ever taken down Draconis:
I placed a bunch of spike traps to ease the quadruple dragon ambush for later and entered the lair, taking down the first group of lizardmen before entering combat with the second one - these guys are quite dangerous. The two shamans are high-level spellcasters, the lizardmen themselves all use GWWs and have very high hitpoints. Sadly, my improved hastes were running out at this very moment, so my own damage output was heavily limited - I made sure to keep hardiness/aof active while trying to lower enemy hitpoints by using dragon's breath and meteor on both of my wizards:
I had to rotate my fighters in and out of combat, heal them via cleric spells or potions, as the lizardmen simply did too much physical damage, until our four HLAs were through and most of the opponents were gone - this left a few in the party with not a lot of hitpoints, and still the lizardmen shaman to fight:
And right at this moment, one of them got to use his timestop:
this resulted in a creeping doom, aimed at Tria, and a horrid wilting, aimed at Chadia - I gave her the belt of inertial barrier and had her move away from the party, but Cadri got hit as well, down to a very dangerous 14 hitpoints:
Luckily, right after that, Luriana, who had already been casting heal at Cadri, finished her spell, saving her life, as a second horrid wilting was aimed at Ayla - I swapped the belt to her just in time, and she barely survived as well. With a warding whip + spellstrike, breach via wand (followed by a pfmw contingency and another breach via wand), we were able to take down the first shaman:
And the second one fell in similiar fashion:
One of the tougher battles so far, got quite close two at least two deaths. In comparison, the yellow dragon was quite easy to beat - spellstrike, breach, hit:
We ventured to the water elemental lair and had Cadri and a planetar deal with the prince:
Next up, we went to Amkethran to buy rope before returning to the lair after a rest, watching our spike traps take down one of four dragons:
After buffing up again, the battle turned out to be quite simple, as never had to face more than 1 dragon at a time. We were only fully protected against the red breath weapon, but these dragons don't put up elaborate defenses, and our four fighters are more than a match for them in physical combat, especially if assisted by mass heals from the back - spellstrike + breach if needed, otherwise just simple attacks, maybe retreating with one character if they get to low hp:
With that out of the way, we took the aggressive approach against a bunch of death tyrants and tyrant golems:
Our saves are good enough to do that by now, with only Tria not having great ones (but she has tons of other protections). After getting the scroll of reversal, we went to Cespenar one last time and entered Abazigal's area after another rest, learning lightning protection spells for the entire party in the process. I could've added frost, but forgot about that. I don't have screenshots from the early battle, but it went a little bit like this: Running around taking down smaller dragons/salamanders while trying to avoid Abazigals GWWs, dealing damage to Tamah before she disappears with etherealness + SI:D, clearing the battlefield and finally focusing on Abazigal, spreading out before he turns into a dragon. Abazigal himself is more of a physical threat compared to other dragons, so I had to juggle around who gets hit by him sometimes in order to heal up. Spellstrike + breach once again, and we start to do a tiny bit of damage before Tamah appears again - a breath weapon hits us, and we focus on her while having Luriana retreat, as she has lost a few hitpoints:
Luriana heals herself, we take down Tamah, and Tria goes for another breach as Abazigal has a PFMW contingency:
Once he's vulnerable, we take him down in one go:
We make sure to equip boots of the gargoyle and the crit immunity plate for Luriana and challenge the chosen of cyric:
Back in Amkethran, we go mass invisible and kill Balthazar's guardians with our ADHW CCs:
After some dialogue, Balthazar is convinced to join us after shaming him for the actions of his monks. We have the wisdom (and the charisma ring) to even convince him if we were evil, but I wasn't 100% sure about the correct dialogue path, which is why I did the hell trials only the good way. Now, though we can give Solar some power-hungry answers before facing the Ravager for that juicy 25% physical damage resistance, which is so much better compared to a measly resurrection ability. The Ravager is mostly killed by spike traps and a few hits:
Well, time to prepare for the Ascension battle. It all comes down to this - Not sure if I'll do it tomorrow, maybe I will first buy a bunch of scrolls in Amkethran and read about the details of the fight on these settings. My last Ascension battle on tactical went fairly well, but this should be quite a bit more challenging.
Alright, I couldn't resist - I had to play the Ascension battle now. I read a few things about the details of the battle, especially pertaining to insane difficulty and bought a bunch of scrolls (mostly defensive scrolls for Chadia, plus more timestops). Let's preface this by saying that this is going to be a long post, much longer than it needed to be, because I missed a crucial line when reading the additional notes to the mod.
I prepared with my usual buffs, + additional stoneskins from gargoyle boots and scrolls, full frost / lightning /poison immunity (from green scrolls and potions), and potions of heroism, invulnerability and cloud giant strength. Chadia also got to use spell shield and SI:A scrolls for this one. Finally, shortly before moving to the throne, everyone gets fire shield: red via staff charges.
Jon + Bodhi + Imoen + 2 fallen solars:
Our opening ADHW CCs do very little, only slightly hurting one of the fallen solars. The mages start working on Jon's buffs, everyone else takes down the first solar:
Luriana casts true sight, the first solar falls, Balthazar starts focusing on Bodhi, the others go after the other solar. Tria prepares another chain contingency:
There seem to be some hidden buffs that Jon's list didn't show, as we need more spells to get through his protections - meanwhile, Bodhi dies, thanks to Balthazar and her constantly attacking into fire shields. The second solar, near death, teleports to the north-west:
Chadia follows and kills the solar, Tria's CC takes down the magical swords. Note that Cadri, being the only one without the ability to protect her buffs, has now lost basically all of them:
Jon casts dragon's breath, we swap a fire resistance ring to Cadri, the others are immune. Meanwhile, we finally dispel + breach him:
With that, he soon dies, and so does Imoen.
The three essence pools:
We only take a few seconds to heal before activating the first pool. Cadri gets a new fire protectionspell , death ward and cc, we take down the demons with relative ease as our buffs are still going strong:
When facing mariliths, we just breach them via wand - having used green scrolls of poison protection comes in handy at the second pool, which we face after rebuffing a few crucial spells (such as combat buffs and buff protections):
We take some damage at the third pool, but no trouble all in all - we can use both restoration and the IWD spell to remove fatigue for the one level drain we got hit with:
It's time to lay down my timetraps (Chadia has 3) and start wishing. We have 7 wishes - 6 via spells, 1 via scroll. Our goal is to wish-rest. We wish for hardiness and improved haste, but wish after wish goes by without a rest option - finally, with our very last wish - the scroll - we get it:
Now, we can be quite liberal with renewing all crucial buffs, laying down three more time traps and finally starting the true final battle. Note that I only rebuffed buffs that were missing at this point, and didn't rebuff stuff that was still active. That turned out to be a big mistake, mainly in regard to improved haste, which wasn't going to last much longer.
Ascension:
For most of the beginning, it's the Chadia show - with 6 timetraps and 5 timestop scrolls at our disposal, we should be able to do whatever we want - well, I made a few crucial mistakes here - first, I forgot about 3 timestop scrolls hidden in a scroll case, so I only had 2. To make matters worse, Chadia's improved haste ran out right before the time traps activated (should've manually renewed it...), so she had to run around unhasted for her timestops. Still, she got illasera, Gromnir, Sendai to near death, used the two PFM scrolls we got from Ribald ages ago on Abazigal and Sendai to shut down their spellcasting, did some damage to Abazigal - could've been better, but still a gigantic advantage.
With the timestops over, Ilasera went ethereal, Luriana used a mind control necklace on Sarevok, and the party focused their attention on Abazigal, the only one (besides Yaga-Shura) not at near death. I obviously wasn't paying enough attention, because I killed him quite early and spawned Amelyssan:
Yasmina started chain-casting wishes. I hoped for an improved haste wish, thinking it might be faster compared to individual rebuffs. Should've used IA at this point, but forgot to do so. The party had to go after vulnerable bhaalspawn in order to keep Melissan weakened and unable to unleash her power. Ilsaera is chosen as our next target, but stays alive for a little bit too long. We are summoning simulacrums to improve our damage, Yasmina is able to wish for hardiness:
Luriana is mainly kept out of combat - I am keeping her aura clear in case she needs to use her focus ability to counter a timestop.
Ilasera falls, so does Gromnir - we take this time to use mass heal with Luriana - Melissan can't timestop right now:
As we focus our attention on Sendai and Yaga-Shura, our next wish gets us the crucial improved haste option, greatly increasing our damage output:
Amelyssan uses her special gate to summon fallen solars. Not good. I finally realize that Yasmina should cast IA, and she starts the spell. Amelyssan casts spellstrike on... Sendai? Propbaly to remove the PFM scroll?
It doesn't matter, though - at this exact moment, Sendai's stoneskins falter and she dies pretty much immediately to the melee assault:
Yaga-Shura is fairly vulnerable by now and the next to fall - the improved haste wish really turned up our killing speed - all this is happening within a round:
I think a solar might have shot at Yasmina at this point, because she got interrupted and lost her wisdom potion buff - I had her drink another wisdom potion and start wishes again, while the party took down their first fallen solar - Chadia got very low in hitpoints and had to retreat for a second there:
The second fallen solar goes down with our party still in decent shape. In theory, this should be relatively simple now - I just have to make sure not to miss a timestop, ruby ray and breach on Amelyssan, critical strikes and maximum damage, right?
Next up, we are even able to wish for restoration:
We successfully breach Mel and start dealing damage:
Most of our short-duration buffs and a few crucial defenses are gone by now. Stil, with ihaste and hardiness from our wishes, we should be fine for the most part. Melissan teleports to use divine cleansing:
And here we seem to have her, near death, surrounded:
She teleports to the middle, talks about gathering more essence - at this point, I, as someone who also plays a lot of non-Ascension/non-SCS BG, thinks that she's using her heal spell, and we just have to deal enough damage - we even get to wish for a rest again and get the wish to take our attributes to 25, finally under IA:
What happens next is unexpected: We deal tons of damage to her, but she doesn't die and goes to full hitpoints again. I didn't remember reading about this. Come to think of it, she doesn't even have the heal spell in Ascension - astute observers might've already solved that mystery, but I was still clueless at this point. We follow her around, more of our buffs start to fade - still, we take her to near death a second time:
However, she heals to full hitpoints right away, again. Finally, thanks to Balthazar, who starts dialogue telling us that she somehow is able to get more and more essence, I realize what must be going on. Sarevok is still alive - of course, he's basically permanently mindcontrolled, but nevertheless. Now, this is what I missed when reading the additional notes - I thought only the five (or Gromnir instead of Balthazar) had to be dead in order for Melissan to become mortal - that's not true, though. Sarevok has to be dead as well. So I turned on my mind controlled ally and took him down - finally, Melissan even makes a comment about now being mortal:
Following that, our foe summons a trockload of demons and teleports away. Cadri is actually trapped within the demon ball, and I start losing my focus - annoyed at having missed that Sarevok has to die - the battle should've been over twice now. Stupidly, while wishing for another restoration, I decide to split my damage between demons and Mel instead of just finishing our primary foe:
Despite having been on the lookout for it for most of the battle, I even miss her first timestop. This could have been the end of the run, had she gone for Luriana - maybe AoF + Hardiness could've kept her alive, not sure. However, Melissan didn't wander to the north, instead going for the extremely vulnerable Yasmina right next to her, easily taking her down:
This is so annoying - I had focus, I had lunar stance, I had the sound up to hear the start of any alteration cast - I think there was nothing to hear, but I propably missed it. We are in serious trouble as the timestop ends - Luriana casts mass raise dead (at least there can't be another timestop for a while), Yasmina picks herself up. Cadri gets out of the demon prison, but is heavily wounded. Just as I decide to stop screwing around with the demons and go after Melissan with everyone, she takes down Chadia:
Now Ayla uses her mass raise dead, we pick up Chadia. We try to get our planetar to hold off the demons, finally starting to deal some damage to Mel, thanks mostly to Cadri and Balthazar:
To get our last required bit of burst damage, we cast energy blades on Yasmina and Luriana, and they start attacking as well. This is very much needed, because Chadia and Tria are now too hurt to engage anyone:
Melissan is at near death, but so are three of our party members. Cadri and Balthazar hold the line, Tria gets to 4 hitpoints and runs, hoping to cast PFMW soon, but her aura is of course clouded:
I don't want to stop throwing energy blades as our planetar makes his last stand and finally dies, having given us crucial time. Melissan walks up to the completely unbuffed Yasmina and chunks her with two quick hits:
Tria dies while starting her PFMW cast. Luriana starts getting attacked by demons, still throwing energy blades. Chadia is as good as dead, Cadri has been weak for ages but is still going. Balthazar and Ayla are the only ones doing well - Mel has been near death for a while, but we are about to fall ourselves:
However, a fraction of a second after this screenshot, another attack hits - might've been Cadri, might've been Ayla or Balthazar, might've been another energy blade - and this is it. Melissan is finally done:
Incredibly close finish here. It didn't need to be - had I known about the Sarevok death requirement, I guess this battle wouldn't have been as dramatic. My heart is racing. When Tria died, during my last pause in the game, I thought it might be over - Luriana was about to get swarmed by demons, I was expecting Mel to just put up another divine protection and take down our remaining party. Still, we got there. What a finale. Quite difficult, obviously, but I made it harder than it should've been. Knowledge about these mods really is crucial in order to beat them no-reload - once you know how to beat high level spellcasters reliably, this is what it comes down to - knowing exactly how some of these new mechanics work. Glad I made it, though barely. I might write a concluding post later on or tomorrow.
@Arvia Here is the required information for the hall of heroes - Priest of Tempus can also be removed from the list of classes/kits not yet in the hall of heroes.
Well Trio 41 got taken down by Gauis. So we are at it again in Trio 42! For those who want to see our character sheets, click the spoiler below...
The group did the Candlekeep chores with our usual efficiency. By the time we got out, Coremage XXV had 3 "powerful" spells he can cast - armor, identify and infravision. Coremage daggers took down Montaron and Xzar and that got him LMD, which was an improvement. We headed to Shoal and she quickly succumbed to the group's ranged power. We tried to help Arcand the mad and Gate70 got chased by a carrion crawler but a Coremage XXV dagger took it down quickly. But we don't have the CHA/reputation yet for Arcand the mad to want the ring yet, so we went to the edge of the map and saved here.
Domino, Dark Moon Monk
Coretrue, Inquisitor: @Corey_Russell
Dopple, Berserker: @Grond0
Domino sneaks a peak at the party equipment a few hours before the session commences. That includes identifying much of their equipment and a few rests (one kobold ambush)
- Perhaps we could do with the ring of Gaxx
- Littleman the stuffed bear can be taken to the graveyard
- Dopple could squeeze himself into better armour
- There are many useful quest items we can pick up, including a rod of resurrection for inevitable mishaps
Anyway, more on that later. For now we are stood outside the sewer entrance to the slaver ship and need to make our acquaintance with "Captain" Haegan. It's a bit of a bumpy start to our session and if you think we're a bit roughed up after killing him just wait and see what a de-berserk and an acid blob trap add.
We safely deal with the rest of the slavers, and collect a reward from Hendak. Domino then settles on opening up the lich areas. He is particularly cautious with one pair of traps - getting caught several times despite CoreTrue using Dispel Magic to release him once.
We moved on after accessing the temple sewer lich, without activating it yet. At the Bridge district CoreTrue took an extended Maze break while Dopple and Domino dealt with Rejiek Hidesman and his traps. We waited for CoreTrue to arrive before we descended to the final area, and True Sight plus hold immunity gave us an easy victory therein. CoreTrue muttered that Domino had shot upstairs before his companions could spring an area trap - too right.
We (CoreTrue) cleared three liches - the last of which managed to see past his protection from undead scroll but failed to survive a thrown Azuredge axe. Kangaxx took damage from all of us, and in his demi-lich form found Domino and Daystar were too much for him.
We then cleared out the graveyard.
Domino continued with his plan and we soon had a rod of resurrection. This was the end of Domino's plan and we still had about 30 minutes of our 2 hours remaining. Domino suggested Gaius and co looked susceptible.
Through the session Domino had been saying he wasn't born yesterday, well Gaius had been born a little before that and managed to ignore the proximity of Dopple and CoreTrue to stun Domino. A brief suggestion for CoreTrue to use Dispel on Domino was made and he duly obliged - the casting making it's way to Domino at about the same time as a Finger of Death from Gaius. The Dispel might have worked, the Finger of Death absolutely worked.
Hey Enuhal, I read your earlier post and wanted to wish you good luck, but you've already made it. Amazing finale, very dramatic haha. Glad you pulled through, congratulations!!
First, why did this one succeed when my previous attempts on insane SCS failed relatively early in SoA?
I think there are mostly 3 reason:
a) A lot of it is about patience. If you truly spend 5-10 minutes before every significant encounter (which includes any encounters against spellcasters) to buff your party against everything a SCS wizard is likely to throw at you, your chances of survival WILL dramatically increase. It's all about gettin the right buffs, protecting these buffs and knowing how to make enemy casters vulnerable as quickly as possible. This can get quite boring and annoying, and in the past, I have skipped buffs to speed things up and avoid resting, which has often cost me dearly. The best way to get myself to do this is to only play one area per day. This also prevents fatigue and a lot of stupid decisions - if you only play a few minutes at once, your full focus is on the game for every single one.
b) My party composition was obviously heavily optimized for this. I won't say it was the absolute 100% perfect powergaming party, but still, one of the more powerful groups I've ever built. Arguably, Luriana herself had the weakest kit at her disposal, but single class halfling/dwarf clerics are incredibly survivable for no-reload purposes (and I also wanted to play a kit missing in the hall). I also misused Chadia to a certain extent - I should've invested into dual wielding profiencies way earlier instead of going mostly for backstabbing power. This really hurt her until late ToB - I'm just not very good with making the best use out of any kind of thief.
c) Knowledge about enemies and mod details. I've read quite a bit for this run, about enemy abilities, checking the SCS and Ascension readmes, reading old forum posts about certain SCS encounters, making sure which spells exactly can counter which types of attacks. I was aware of the basics, but I rarely used to doublecheck things. I made sure to be prepared for most things (I didn't bother with cold and acid protections most of the time, and I did encounter a few acid storms and cone of colds, but no triple vitriolic sphere spell trigger like I did in an earlier run), and I watched a few youtube videos of people playing on similiar settings, learning from how they deal with high-level encounters.
Additional thoughts:
I propably won't return to insane SCS any time soon, because the need to buff for minutes at a time does get on my nerves with a full party. While this was a fun experience, the preparation and knowledge required for the Ascension battle remains a little bit over the top, and so do the challenges in places like Abazigal's Lair (yes, you have the player power to match them, but still - I already think that vanilla ToB is way over the top). I also dislike some of the difficulty spikes, such as some early SoA caster encounters (which ended my earlier runs - this time, I just skipped anything capable of casting level 7+ spells for a very long time, as well as yuan-ti mages) or the WKIII glabrezu room. I do really enjoy the new cleric spells, though there's clearly still a lack of offensive options - still, in terms of defense, I couldn't be happier. I also love low-level combat with SCS, though starting with sixth level spells, wizard power levels already start to get annoying - it is a bit unfair that, unless you rush down the wizard before his buffs fire up, they pretty much always get to be the last man standing as you need to cast at least 2, often 3 spells (+ detect illusions or true sight) to do anything to them. Honestly, give some fighter-types (for example wizard slayers and monks, both of which are certainly underpowered) an ability like Balthazar's Dragon Fist to even the playing field a little. Casters have received even more power since the addition of IWD spells, the same is certainly not true for non-casters.
I will propably take a break for some time, not sure when I'll start my next run and what kind of run it will be. I hope to see some successes in the meantime Good luck to everyone!
@Arvia Here is the required information for the hall of heroes - Priest of Tempus can also be removed from the list of classes/kits not yet in the hall of heroes.
Added, congratulations!
I had a feeling you'd bring this run to a successful end, but wow, that was so close. SCS/Insane/Ascension Melissan deserves her fame... but so do you! Impressive!
More progress for this pair started with the forging of the improved mace of disruption, so that we wouldn't need to bother sharing the amulet of power around in future. With well over 200k in gold available Trile consented to invest in the Robe of Vecna before we took ship for Brynnlaw.
Perth was an obstacle in the way of moving to Spellhold, so Trile took him on - using the Staff of the Magi to attack repeatedly from ambush. Mist arrived on the scene as Perth was near dead and tried to steal the kill, but Trile was having none of that.
Trile ignored the opportunity for true sight from the book, on the grounds Mist had that covered. She also passed over PfE on the grounds Mist definitely had that covered , before sticking with spell turning - which Mist will no doubt carry for the rest of the run without ever using ...
Arriving at Spellhold MLKMist gave up some of her wisdom before a dream turned into a nightmare for Bhaal.
We didn't take long to move through there. Mist's saving throws meant she could safely attack the beholder - Trile was not necessarily so safe (but joined in anyway), while the lich was too late buffing and died to a first stroke from the iMoD.
After receiving judgment, Trile fancied taking on Lonk for a change rather than talking him down. Mist noticed some mage debuffers being used in that fight, so concluded that Trile had probably been looking for an excuse to use those.
The first fight with Jon was pretty much over within seconds when Mist treated him to a GWW with the FoA. Trile made a comment about her forthcoming Wilting that there's "Not a lot of point, but I'll do it anyway" and was rewarded by seeing Mist (or at least her doppleganger) collapse.
A stop off at Fish City was mainly to pick up the Cloak of Mirroring - the previous owner of that calling for help far too late. The king and his men inflicted more damage on Mist than expected, but the prince went down quickly and easily.
A brief session in the Underdark saw Vithal released from prison and helped to recover some items. While finding Vithal's book, we also stuffed a balor back into its hole.
One disappointment was that Trile had acquired a ring of regeneration while in Spellhold. That's much more efficient than the pearly white ioun stone, so Mist sold that in Fish City - only for the ring to evaporate as soon as we got to the Underdark. Oh well, easy come, easy go ...
Inquisitor 22, 164 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm; 10 from bracers), 856 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 21, 63 HPs, 258 kills (+152 in BG1), 2 deaths
Unga-Bunga trek for days through mountains to Dragon's Eye volcano following Archdruid Arundel's path on map. Unga-Bunga about turn back when finally see opening in rockface. Unga-Bunga so excited to find Dragon's Eye not notice Ice Trolls hIding to ambush...
Unga-Bunga summon Iron Skins and Fire Elemental to save him from close call.
Once Ice Trolls killed, Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust in air and disappear, creep into cave, see Lizardman tribe. Unga-Bunga call Fire Elementals and Beetles, slay lizards:
Unga-Bunga go further into caves, find Lizard King Lisspen and followers. Lizard King Lisspen say lizardmen eat Kuldahar villagers. Unga-Bunga say Lizard King Lisspen soon be Dead Lizard King Lisspen:
Unga-Bunga proven right, find villagers from Kuldahar further into caves and say they free. Villagers leave but Unga-Bunga go further into caves, battle Spiders, Trolls and Evil Beetles (not Unga-Bunga's beetles):
Further south in caves, Unga-Bunga find kids hiding from creatures, one Smithy Conlan's son, Sheemish. Sheemish ask Unga-Bunga if he'll 'beat the stuffin' out of 'monsters'. Unga-Bunga say he will and ask where monsters are. Unga-Bunga toss more Pixie Dust and sneak south, find large chamber with Talonite priests and Trolls. Unga-Bunga sneak back to narrow passage leading to large chamber, summon Fire Elementals to block passage then sneak ahead again, fire slingstone into Talonite priest forehead.
Talonites and Trolls angry, Unga-Bunga run back to narrow passage, hide behind elementals. When priests and trolls enter passage, Unga-Bunga summon spikes to grow from stone beneath:
Unga-Bunga beat chest some when foes die, then send elementals into large chamber and slay rest of enemies, find lady imprisoned in stone circle, rescue her:
Lady say name Mother Egenia, Ilmater Priestess from town. Mother Egenia say she like pain. Unga-Bunga wonder how much she like pain but doesn't ask, frees more townsfolk in caves further south, then take rest with Mother Egenia. Egenia say caverns leading lower underground to east. Unga-Bunga slay more spiders, beetles and trolls, find downward passage. Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, then descend.
Unga-Bunga find skeleton and wights not far into cavern. Skeleton look funny, like want to say something to Unga-Bunga, so Unga-Bunga cast Iron Skins for protection and summon elementals behind for backup. Unga-Bunga sneak up to Skeleton, summon elemental between Skeleton and Wights, then talk to Skeleton just as elemental appear.
Skeleton not talk, though. Someone talk through skeleton, probably Necro Mage. Skeletons and Wights attack...
Unga-Bunga smart, though, know this will happen. Unga-Bunga know Iron Skins will protect Unga-Bunga while he toss Pixie Dust in air, let elementals kill dead things. Unga-Bunga not smart enough to know that cold Wight hands too cold for Iron Skins to protect, though, so no Pixie Dust...
Unga-Bunga tell elementals to attack, but dumb elementals too bunched up in cavern opening to move. Elementals block retreat.
Unga-Bunga in trouble:
Unga-Bunga think fast, cast Sunscorch on wight to blind it, then able to toss Pixie Dust, just as elemental holding off Wights dies. Unga-Bunga crushed between stuck Elementals and swarming Wights. Unga-Bunga hide in plain-not-plain-sight and hope elementals win battle:
Elementals battle good, Unga-Bunga dance to summon Fire Spirits to slay last wights:
Unga-Bunga find more skeletons and wights in cavern, speak to Necro Mage through skeletons. Unga-Bunga angry, want to make Necro Mage dead like skeletons. Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, find wooden bridge over waters and stone structure beyond. Unga-Bunga spy Necro Mage with Poison Zombies, Imbued Wights in structure, along with Human Warrior. Unga-Bunga scout around structure, find more wights and another wizard to north. Unga-Bunga sneak back to bridge, make plan...
Unga-Bunga summon Fire Elementals on narrow bridge, use Pixie Dust to sneak up to structure, summon Beetles at Necro Mage's feet. Unga-Bunga chuckle as Beetles spit acid on Necro Mage, leave Beetles to harass Necro Mage, cast more Beetles at other wizard's feet, then sneak back to bridge.
When dead things come, Unga-Bunga tell Elementals to guard bridge, summon stone spikes under undead army:
Not many foes left after stone spikes stop spiking. Elementals finish off Necro Mage and last minions:
Unga-Bunga claim dead mages' treasures before returning to Egenia to rest and beat chest some. Afterward, Unga-Bunga return to lower chamber and approach archway leading down further into caverns...
Unga-Bunga go down further into caves, ready for battle. Instead, Unga-Bunga meet priest of Eldath, god of peace. Priest Albion tell Unga-Bunga that Eldathyn make peaceful home in caves while surrounded by enemies. Unga-Bunga suggest to kill undead and lizards, make home even more peaceful, but Albion say Eldathyn too peaceful to make more peaceful. Unga-Bunga confused, think priests up to something, ask Albion if can rest and look around. Albion say okay but not to go past common areas in commune.
Unga-Bunga meet Librarian Geelo, look through books in library, ask Geelo if any for sale. Geelo show Unga-Bunga magic scrolls, good for tinder and clean-up, but nasty in wizard hands. Unga-Bunga ask Geelo why need magic scrolls if peaceful people, Geelo not give good answer. Unga-Bunga feel pit in stomach, not sure if hungry or something else.
Unga-Bunga walk around more, meet more Eldathyn, find carp carpet, look strange to Unga-Bunga. Unga-Bunga think good he ready for battle after all. Unga-Bunga summon elementals around corner in chamber where not seen by Eldathyn, just in case...
Unga-Bunga go to confront Albion, remember Geelo in library, not like leaving Geelo not watched while talking to Albion. Unga-Bunga go to Geelo, tell Geelo that Albion want scroll. Geelo go to Albion, Unga-Bunga follow, confront Albion and Geelo.
Priest Albion say they not Eldathyn, say instead they Yuan-ti snake people. Unga-Bunga tell Priest Albion will kill them all so can have really peaceful commune, order some elementals attack Geelo and Albion, rest to block hallway into commune. Yuanti-Fake Eldathyn storm down hall and attack:
Unga-Bunga summon spikes to grow, watch snake people wriggle and die:
Unga-Bunga hear chanting further into commune from east, know chanting is summoning magic, hurry to stop summoning. Unga-Bunga and elementals find three snake mages, slay them but they not ones summoning:
Unga-Bunga rush to summoner but have to battle trolls coming down hallway. Unga-Bunga so focused on battle, forget to make mind pictures to tell story. Unga-Bunga finally find High Summoner chamber full of trolls, lizardfolk and priests. Unga-Bunga order elementals to attack, but elementals too big to go through door, so Unga-Bunga summon beetles. Unga-Bunga watch as High Summoner call lightning onto beetle and blow it to bits (183 damage Static Charge). Unga-Bunga's Protection from Lightning worn off, no more casts today. Unga-Bunga decide to fight another day, tell Beetles to fight to end, and toss Pixie Dust to run away.
Some trolls and yuan-ti follow Unga-Bunga out of commune back up to dead necro mages' home, even though Unga-Bunga under Pixie Dust. Unga-Bunga run to passage leading up further, leave others behind. Unga-Bunga return to Mother Egenia, take rest, then return under more Pixie Dust. Unga-Bunga ignore enemies near dead mages' home for now, try to return to High Summoner to kill him before more summons.
Unga-Bunga reach High Summoner's chamber, cast Insect Plague and Elementals into chamber, killing High Summoner, Priests, and Trolls. Unga-Bunga beat chest some, then explore more of commune, find High Ritualist and Yuan-ti eating Kuldahar villagers. Unga-Bunga get angry, summon Insect Plagues and Elementals on them, too:
While making sure no more Yuan-ti in commune, Unga-Bunga find adventurers captured by Yuan-ti. Unga-Bunga say Yuan-ti dead, not prisoners anymore. Adventurers promise to look over Unga-Bunga while resting. Unga-Bunga return to dead mages' home, slay enemies that followed him there, then return and rest. Unga-Bunga wake up and explore commune more, find passage going down even further into caves.
Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, then go into passage, summon Elementals to lead way. Unga-Bunga see little girl standing all alone in passageway:
Unga-Bunga try talk to girl, but girl say strange things. Unga-Bunga ask if will share her peyote, but girl disappear too fast. Elementals find Yuan-ti, Unga-Bunga summon beetles and battle them down:
Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, scout further ahead, find room with many Yuan-ti. Unga-Bunga listen to Yuan-ti hissing, learn one called High Archer. Unga-Bunga decide to remember which one High Archer, then return to adventurers to rest, make plans.
But Unga-Bunga make big mistake. Unga-Bunga used to resting alone, toss Pixie Dust before resting. Pixie Dust lasts full day and night cycle, but Unga-Bunga Half-Orc of Action, not sleep that long, so able to scout while still under Pixie Dust. But Unga-Bunga forget have to wipe off Pixie Dust to talk to people, wake up thinking still under Pixie Dust but not...
Unga-Bunga walk into High Archer chamber, take two in the chest, flee to exit passionately. But Unga-Bunga lucky. Lesser Yuan-ti ordered to follow Unga-Bunga, but High Archer and other Elite Yuan-ti stay in archer room to guard it. Unga-Bunga run around corner, toss Pixie Dust, then summon Elementals to slay Yuan-ti:
Once dead, Unga-Bunga and Elementals return to Archer Room, make room No Archer Room:
Unga-Bunga beat chest, make note to say this was part of Unga-Bunga plan all along when telling story, so when bards sing Unga-Bunga's name, they don't sing about forgetting Pixie Dust part.
Unga-Bunga go further into Yuan-ti stronghold, slay many Yuan-ti, including High Torturer:
Under more Pixie Dust, Unga-Bunga come to room with fountain and pool, see High Baptist giving dark blessings to more Kuldahar townspeople:
Unga-Bunga get angry but not want to hurt townsfolk, think about how to kill only High Baptist. Unga-Bunga decide to summon just one Elemental right next to High Baptist and fling fancy new throwing axe at High Baptist's head just as Elemental appears:
High Baptist order villagers to attack Unga-Bunga and Elemental. Unga-Bunga figure Elemental strong, can take hits from villagers. Unga-Bunga move about and throw axe, try to avoid villagers and Iron Skins protect from hits. Once High Baptist killed, villagers stop attacking. Unga-Bunga tell villagers they free, beat chest after villagers leave.
Unga-Bunga slay more Yuan-ti until come to large doorway, see traps all around with help from thief spirits whispering in ear. Unga-Bunga nervous, return to adventurers to rest, then return. Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, then avoid traps and cautiously try door. Door opens:
Unga-Bunga see same little girl from before and lots of Yuan-ti. Unga-Bunga not know who little girl is but know little girl not little girl. Unga-Bunga see this last chamber in Yuan-ti stronghold, feel pit in stomach again, wonder what to do...
Then Unga-Bunga remember Shaman Hjollder in Kuldahar asked for Unga-Bunga to go with him. Unga-Bunga not afraid of little girl, of course, but wonder if now good time to help Shaman Hjollder. Unga-Bunga leave chamber, return to adventurers, have lots of thinking to do, peyote to take...
Comments
We took too long levelling up Dorn and healing him.
The result was that he was killed with a lightning bolt.
Talos says no. No Dorn this run, in vengeance for killing his priest Dorotea.
Mist (female human inquisitor, Grond0); Trile (female elf mage, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1182126/#Comment_1182126
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1183183/#Comment_1183183
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1183542/#Comment_1183542
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184320/#Comment_1184320
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184421/#Comment_1184421
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184654/#Comment_1184654
This time we started the session by correctly divining that standing outside the Guarded Compound meant we intended to go inside - impressive eh
- OK, we'll do the Sir Sarles quest then.
- And, if you insist, we'll add another quest for the temple (incidentally there was a mage helping out Borinall in that encounter - I don't normally see that, presumably because it's a quest I typically do much earlier).
- What do you mean, we've not even started Aran's tasks. Alright, it won't take a minute to avenge Mook and sort out a Guild Contact.
- Well, I suppose since we're back in the Bridge District we could clear out the gangs of Dracandros and Captain Dennis. By the time of the latter, Trile was out of wiltings, but she was always perfectly happy to step down to something less party-friendly
Inquisitor 19, 157 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm), 719 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 19, 61 HPs, 218 kills (+152 in BG1), 2 deaths
I agree totally. At least Obsidian gets a +1 two handed sword even if she doesn't get the bonuses. IMO she should. Both Obsidian and Radiant are in agreement that Permadeath is correct!
I am wondering what would happen regarding Dorn in SoA. Anyone know?
Also wondering why Quayle's spell slots decrease upon levelling up.
In the hands of anyone but Dorn, that sword is a plain +1. There's complicated trickery involved, but the THAC0-improving effect only works if Dorn wields it. And if Dorn wields it, it goes away as soon as you try to use another weapon. Dorn can get that extra +1 to hit, but only if he sticks with the weapon instead of switching to other options like a bow or crossbow.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. Of course I an playing EET which could be why I have noticed no problem with it. The description actually states that the bonuses are only for Dorn, so can't really complain.
Journal of Obsidian
We killed Sonner for his flail and recruited Tenya. Quayle was killed in a bandit ambush. After raising him for the princely sum of 100gp, we left him at the temple as he is far too fragile. We might re-recruit him when we have better protections.
I picked up Dorn, though I first had to lower my reputation via slayer change. For the ambush, I made sure to only engage the planetar with characters protected by death ward, though my ADHW CCs did most of the work:
Back from a longer break from Baldur’s Gate, I’ve struggled with restartitis and character deaths, but I’ve decided to post about one of two new playthroughs I’ve been enjoying so far. The difficulty is SCS Insane with double damage enabled and lots of mods with additional content, tweaks etc. (The other playthrough has progressed a bit more, but is also slower due to me playing on LoB difficulty.)
Charname is a Half-Orc priestess of Helm named Anuk.
Her starting proficiencies were Maces/Morningstars (as per Tweaks Anthology) and Slings, and at level 3 she added single-weapon style to that. For some reason the Seeking Sword can be dual-wielded with an off-hand weapon with no penalty to proficiency <i>and</i> with bonuses from weapon styles. So a pip in single-weapon style gives Anuk a small AC bonus and it allows her to crit on to hit rolls of 19 as well as 20, with both the main hand and the off-hand.
She started out with 160 GP, did her Candlekeep chores, and traveled straight to the Fisherman’s Lake area, to see if Drizzt dies to Gnolls in non-LoB the way he does in LoB. He did. (I think he shouldn’t in version 2.6, but I’m still playing 2.5, because 2.6 messes up LoB saves, to which there’s no fix unlike for the 2.5 saves bug.) She started out solo, doing mostly fetch quests, including Brun (thanks to Sanctuary) and Tenya. Anuk had wisely refrained from leveling up before fighting Tenya because her enemy’s cause wounds spells would have taken her out had she been level 2.
There were two more flirts with death, one on purpose, when she was kissed by Shoal the Nereid while Sanctuaried, and failed her save.
The Polar Bear north of the Gnoll Stronghold, Neville, the rogue Ogre south of the FAI, and Corsone were other notable foes she felled. When I felt inclined to keep Anuk as a solo character, she charmed Algernon with Lord Foreshadow’s Ring of Human Influencing to have him help fight Karlat, and drop his cloak. It allowed her the purchase of a suit of full plate mail at the biggest discount. A somewhat cheesy action made superfluous by the formation of a party. Baeloth was recruited first, then Garrick (Silke got Webbed and Blinded by a DUHM, and taken down from afar), followed by Alora, Shar-Teel, and Quayle. I’m playing with the Stratagems’ (somewhat buggy) NPC customization component, I haven’t changed any classes/kits. I did choose a few different weapon proficiencies I liked (Alora scimitars for Twinkle, and Shar-Teel scimitars as well for Frostbrand, and long bows).
The party has managed to restore a reputation of 20 without Shar-Teel or Baeloth taking issue, thanks to the happy patch, but it took the last possible reputation quests available (Archaelogical site, Bjornin) after a few unlucky quests resolutions without rep gains (thanks to SCS’s slowed down rep progression).
Even in a party Anuk continued to shine, as she single-handedly dealt with Vax and Zal, and Gnarl and Hairtooth. Her most impressive performance so far was against two Charmed Pirates (part of the Lure of the Sirine’s Call mod) and three Sirines. With Garrick playing the Ballad of Three Heroes, Quayle adding Chant and Bless, and Anuk self-buffed by DUHM, the Greenstone Amulet, an oil of speed, AoF, Aid, Prayer and her Seeking Sword, she one-shotted the Sirines with three crits, the highest for 50 damage, and defeated the Charmed Pirates without taking any damage herself.
The Flesh Golems inside the treasure cave suffered the same fate. Currently the companions are sitting on 44k XP each. They still have a number of high XP areas they can clear (Mutamin’s garden, Ankheg nest, Durlag’s Tower upper levels).
Luriana, Priest of Tempus - Thirtyfourth Update
I decided to go for Sendai's Enclave. Randomized WKIII can be tough, an I dread the summoning glabrezu battle - while I won't get any relevant gear at Sendai's, some extra experience might still be helpful. No trouble with the outside area, as we charged down the hive mother and had traps prepared for the woodcutter:
Finally, I also completed the fairly easy third pocket plane challenge:
This has helped me immensely, thank you! Particularly with the hound spirits that cause panic. The foes run out of visual range and the spirits follow, which unsummons them, so being able to reposition myself has helped a ton
Previous updates:
Unga-Bunga tell Hrothgar ready join caravan, begin journey to Kuldahar. Caravan passing through valley when avalanche hits. Unga-Bunga run forward to escape valley while others run backward, get buried in snow. No saving the others sadly.
Unga-Bunga reach Kuldahar pass, meet old hermit who point way to Kuldahar, say pass teaming with goblins. Unga-Bunga raise spirits, call lightning on goblins and scorch them. Unga-Bunga like battling outdoors, want to battle 'sky-clad' but frozen north cause too much shrinkage.
Unga-Bunga find strange ogre in ruined tower complaining about headache, leave him be. Unga-Bunga also save poor kid in mill from goblins before reaching Kuldahar. In Kuldahar, Unga-Bunga do many things:
Unga-Bunga return to Ogre Gherig with headache treatment, but Gherig not understand (No dialogue option to share it, must be a bug?). Unga-Bunga decide to cure Gherig's headache old fashioned way...
Unga-Bunga travel eastward into Vale of Shadows, find many yeti on snow paths and many tombs filled with undead, tombs seem similar, maybe all made for same purpose. Unga-Bunga clear out tombs.
Further into Vale, Unga-Bunga find narrow path leading down to large cave set into rockface, find Chieftain Yeti and other yeti outside cave, slay them. Unga-Bunga find necklace clutched in Yeti Chieftain hand, take necklace for Mirek.
Unga-Bunga cautiously enter cave, find rest of Yeti tribe. Unga-Bunga flee back up path with Yeti chasing just behind. Unga-Bunga summon beetles and lightning, slay them but close call:
Unga-Bunga clear out four tombs before approach massive tomb in northeast of Vale. Unga-Bunga enter and find undead hosts, clear room by room and slowly make progress further down into tomb before coming to large door. Unga-Bunga use Black Wolf talisman to open door and enter, finding dead warrior Kresselack the Black Wolf.
Unga-Bunga parley with Kresselack. Kresselack surprisingly mellow after Unga-Bunga slay all his guardians. Kresselack want Unga-Bunga to slay priestess of Auril who want to destroy Kresselack's tomb. Unga-Bunga tell Kresselack he will consider it if he find her. Kresselack tell Unga-Bunga priestess is somewhere in Vale.
Unga-Bunga tell Kresselack he search Vale up and down, then remember Yeti cave with crates of potions and scrolls. Unga-Bunga return to cave, use Pixie Dust to vanish, then step inside, find more yeti and barmaid from Kuldahar, the icy one.
Unga-Bunga step back outside cave, summon beetles and Fire Giants at top of path leading to cave to ambush priestess and yeti as they chase Unga-Bunga, in case they attack. Unga-Bunga go back into cave and confront priestess.
Priestess Lysan say she won't back down from destroying Kresselack's tomb. Unga-Bunga get frustrated, not know who to side with until Lysan say she want to slay Great Oak too. Unga-Bunga thank Priestess Lysan for making choice for him, attack her with axe.
Unga-Bunga flee cave and run up path with priestess and yeti just behind. Unga-Bunga order minions to block path after he reaches top and calls down lightning. Priestess Lysan and yeti scorched:
Unga-Bunga beat chest some, then return to Kresselack. Kresselack promise Unga-Bunga that tree haters not in Vale but doesn't know where they are. Unga-Bunga get angry. Kresselack offer his old warrior things to make peace. Unga-Bunga sniff around casket, see black helm and agree to peace.
Unga-Bunga return to Archdruid Arundel, tell what happened. Arundel say next place to search is a temple to a long, forgotten god. Unga-Bunga sigh, rest a bit, then hike to temple.
Unga-Bunga meet Verbeeg Red-Toe outside temple. Red-Toe say temple raided by thieves before run off. Unga-Bunga enter temple, attacked by remaining verbeeg and priests, slay them before descending further into temple.
Unga-Bunga descend further into temple, battle many verbeeg and priests guarding sacred chamber, slay all:
Unga-Bunga enter sacred chamber, see Heartstone Gem already stolen by temple thieves. Unga-Bunga find vial on dead Talonite priest, bring back to Arundel.
Arundel tell Unga-Bunga vial full of snake venom, only place close enough for snakes is caves of Dragon's Eye. Unga-Bunga shake head, rest some more, then hike through mountains to Dragon's Eye...
Chapter 2 commencing...
Current Spell Picks:
Definitely getting harder to choose spells as I'm getting to the higher levels. Flame Blade was mostly taken for Troll slaying (not many good Level 2 choices). Call Woodland Beings chosen for the crowd control spells the nymphs have (Hold Person, Confusion, Hold Monster, Dominate), and because having a number of nymphs attending to a Half-Orc Shaman is funny
Will do, thanks
I got out my pencil and paper to map the randomized WKIII maze. Our first choice took us to the pit fiend room, where our prepared CCs did their job:
@Ariakus Consider posting it in the Adventurer's Lounge.
EDIT
Ankheg hunting brought the party up to level 7
We boosted reputation before going on a shopping spree.
We cleared the basilisks and Medusae before picking up Coran and going Wyvern hunting.
Covid drastically cutting playing time at present.
Warning: Shameless abuse of spike traps will follow. Avert your eyes if you don't like that sort of thing.
Okay, so before we get to the traps, we have to clear the orc room (nothing special here), solve a riddle, take down a few golems and slay another dragon. This one has a poison breath, but I didn't bother picking up the green scrolls - every party member should be able to survive a single breath weapon by now, and with our combat buffs plus 4 improved hastes and 2 energy blades, our damage output is high enough - he did get to cast one breath weapon, one wing-buffet and his heal spell, but didn't survive for long after that:
Oh, we also did the colored orbs thing, forgot to mention that. Now, for the seal guardians. I looked up a youtube video of someone doing this to get the exact spawn positions of each opponent to make the best use of my seven spike traps. Azamantes was our first target - we still buffed up, in case the traps somehow wouldn't to their job, and of course had fire protection and some magic damage protection (though not full immunity on everyone) for the flaming skulls - no trouble, though, the traps did the trick:
Next up, the Aurumach Rilmani. Well, it turns out, after carefully preparing my traps and ADHW CCs, this guy is completely immune to magical damage:
Now, we have the final group of seal guardians. I placed three traps near the nymph and four traps near the hive mother, but all traps went after the nymph, so we only got this one initial kill. I also had a planetar with me this time around. The party immediately took down the hive mother:
When it comes to threat levels, note that the blue summons don't have magical weapons. Some of my runs, particularly those that included a bard (Enhanced Bard Song for party-wide normal weapon immunity), have been able to take advantage of this extremely well.
You literally don't have to kill anything in that room. It's a strict timer - don't die for ten rounds, and you win. The enemies respawn as fast as you kill them, so the only reason to do it is for the XP or a "how many can I kill" challenge. I managed 74 in my "Kill It With Fire" run. With SCS, so the mages buffed with PFMW and Shadow Door to make them harder to kill fast. No protection against incendiary clouds, though.
I used green acid protection scrolls and swapped in my two shadow dragon armor pieces + the shield with 10 acid resistance in preparation vor Draconis. He didn't pre-buff with spellshield, so I was able to quickly spellstrike + breach his human form, allowing me to get him into dragon form quite early - I also made sure to spread my characters as he got low in hitpoints to avoid the "getting stuck in a characters selection circle" bug, which I've encountered here in EE numerous times:
Alright, I couldn't resist - I had to play the Ascension battle now. I read a few things about the details of the battle, especially pertaining to insane difficulty and bought a bunch of scrolls (mostly defensive scrolls for Chadia, plus more timestops). Let's preface this by saying that this is going to be a long post, much longer than it needed to be, because I missed a crucial line when reading the additional notes to the mod.
I prepared with my usual buffs, + additional stoneskins from gargoyle boots and scrolls, full frost / lightning /poison immunity (from green scrolls and potions), and potions of heroism, invulnerability and cloud giant strength. Chadia also got to use spell shield and SI:A scrolls for this one. Finally, shortly before moving to the throne, everyone gets fire shield: red via staff charges.
Jon + Bodhi + Imoen + 2 fallen solars:
Our opening ADHW CCs do very little, only slightly hurting one of the fallen solars. The mages start working on Jon's buffs, everyone else takes down the first solar:
The three essence pools:
We only take a few seconds to heal before activating the first pool. Cadri gets a new fire protectionspell , death ward and cc, we take down the demons with relative ease as our buffs are still going strong:
Ascension:
For most of the beginning, it's the Chadia show - with 6 timetraps and 5 timestop scrolls at our disposal, we should be able to do whatever we want - well, I made a few crucial mistakes here - first, I forgot about 3 timestop scrolls hidden in a scroll case, so I only had 2. To make matters worse, Chadia's improved haste ran out right before the time traps activated (should've manually renewed it...), so she had to run around unhasted for her timestops. Still, she got illasera, Gromnir, Sendai to near death, used the two PFM scrolls we got from Ribald ages ago on Abazigal and Sendai to shut down their spellcasting, did some damage to Abazigal - could've been better, but still a gigantic advantage.
With the timestops over, Ilasera went ethereal, Luriana used a mind control necklace on Sarevok, and the party focused their attention on Abazigal, the only one (besides Yaga-Shura) not at near death. I obviously wasn't paying enough attention, because I killed him quite early and spawned Amelyssan:
Ilasera falls, so does Gromnir - we take this time to use mass heal with Luriana - Melissan can't timestop right now:
Luriana, the Priestess of Tempus: @Enuhal
Notable Mods: SCS (insane difficulty), Ascension
Difficulty: Insane (without extra damage)
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1183670/#Comment_1183670
End: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1185079/#Comment_1185079
Trio 42 - Update 1
Coremage XXV - half-elf fighter/mage (Corey_Russell, protagonist)
Egg - human undead hunter (@Gate70)
Saile - half-elf avenger (@Grond0)
Well Trio 41 got taken down by Gauis. So we are at it again in Trio 42! For those who want to see our character sheets, click the spoiler below...
The group did the Candlekeep chores with our usual efficiency. By the time we got out, Coremage XXV had 3 "powerful" spells he can cast - armor, identify and infravision.
Until next week...
BGEE part 1 2 3
SoA part 4 5
Domino, Dark Moon Monk
Coretrue, Inquisitor: @Corey_Russell
Dopple, Berserker: @Grond0
Domino sneaks a peak at the party equipment a few hours before the session commences. That includes identifying much of their equipment and a few rests (one kobold ambush)
- Perhaps we could do with the ring of Gaxx
- Littleman the stuffed bear can be taken to the graveyard
- Dopple could squeeze himself into better armour
- There are many useful quest items we can pick up, including a rod of resurrection for inevitable mishaps
Anyway, more on that later. For now we are stood outside the sewer entrance to the slaver ship and need to make our acquaintance with "Captain" Haegan. It's a bit of a bumpy start to our session and if you think we're a bit roughed up after killing him just wait and see what a de-berserk and an acid blob trap add.
We then cleared out the graveyard.
Through the session Domino had been saying he wasn't born yesterday, well Gaius had been born a little before that and managed to ignore the proximity of Dopple and CoreTrue to stun Domino. A brief suggestion for CoreTrue to use Dispel on Domino was made and he duly obliged - the casting making it's way to Domino at about the same time as a Finger of Death from Gaius. The Dispel might have worked, the Finger of Death absolutely worked.
First, why did this one succeed when my previous attempts on insane SCS failed relatively early in SoA?
I think there are mostly 3 reason:
a) A lot of it is about patience. If you truly spend 5-10 minutes before every significant encounter (which includes any encounters against spellcasters) to buff your party against everything a SCS wizard is likely to throw at you, your chances of survival WILL dramatically increase. It's all about gettin the right buffs, protecting these buffs and knowing how to make enemy casters vulnerable as quickly as possible. This can get quite boring and annoying, and in the past, I have skipped buffs to speed things up and avoid resting, which has often cost me dearly. The best way to get myself to do this is to only play one area per day. This also prevents fatigue and a lot of stupid decisions - if you only play a few minutes at once, your full focus is on the game for every single one.
b) My party composition was obviously heavily optimized for this. I won't say it was the absolute 100% perfect powergaming party, but still, one of the more powerful groups I've ever built. Arguably, Luriana herself had the weakest kit at her disposal, but single class halfling/dwarf clerics are incredibly survivable for no-reload purposes (and I also wanted to play a kit missing in the hall). I also misused Chadia to a certain extent - I should've invested into dual wielding profiencies way earlier instead of going mostly for backstabbing power. This really hurt her until late ToB - I'm just not very good with making the best use out of any kind of thief.
c) Knowledge about enemies and mod details. I've read quite a bit for this run, about enemy abilities, checking the SCS and Ascension readmes, reading old forum posts about certain SCS encounters, making sure which spells exactly can counter which types of attacks. I was aware of the basics, but I rarely used to doublecheck things. I made sure to be prepared for most things (I didn't bother with cold and acid protections most of the time, and I did encounter a few acid storms and cone of colds, but no triple vitriolic sphere spell trigger like I did in an earlier run), and I watched a few youtube videos of people playing on similiar settings, learning from how they deal with high-level encounters.
Additional thoughts:
I propably won't return to insane SCS any time soon, because the need to buff for minutes at a time does get on my nerves with a full party. While this was a fun experience, the preparation and knowledge required for the Ascension battle remains a little bit over the top, and so do the challenges in places like Abazigal's Lair (yes, you have the player power to match them, but still - I already think that vanilla ToB is way over the top). I also dislike some of the difficulty spikes, such as some early SoA caster encounters (which ended my earlier runs - this time, I just skipped anything capable of casting level 7+ spells for a very long time, as well as yuan-ti mages) or the WKIII glabrezu room. I do really enjoy the new cleric spells, though there's clearly still a lack of offensive options - still, in terms of defense, I couldn't be happier. I also love low-level combat with SCS, though starting with sixth level spells, wizard power levels already start to get annoying - it is a bit unfair that, unless you rush down the wizard before his buffs fire up, they pretty much always get to be the last man standing as you need to cast at least 2, often 3 spells (+ detect illusions or true sight) to do anything to them. Honestly, give some fighter-types (for example wizard slayers and monks, both of which are certainly underpowered) an ability like Balthazar's Dragon Fist to even the playing field a little. Casters have received even more power since the addition of IWD spells, the same is certainly not true for non-casters.
I will propably take a break for some time, not sure when I'll start my next run and what kind of run it will be. I hope to see some successes in the meantime
Added, congratulations!
I had a feeling you'd bring this run to a successful end, but wow, that was so close. SCS/Insane/Ascension Melissan deserves her fame... but so do you! Impressive!
Mist (female human inquisitor, Grond0); Trile (female elf mage, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1182126/#Comment_1182126
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1183183/#Comment_1183183
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1183542/#Comment_1183542
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184320/#Comment_1184320
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184421/#Comment_1184421
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184654/#Comment_1184654
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184911/#Comment_1184911
Perth was an obstacle in the way of moving to Spellhold, so Trile took him on - using the Staff of the Magi to attack repeatedly from ambush. Mist arrived on the scene as Perth was near dead and tried to steal the kill, but Trile was having none of that.
Arriving at Spellhold MLKMist gave up some of her wisdom before a dream turned into a nightmare for Bhaal.
Inquisitor 22, 164 HPs (inc. 5 from Helm; 10 from bracers), 856 kills (+575 in BG1)
Mage 21, 63 HPs, 258 kills (+152 in BG1), 2 deaths
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184998#Comment_1184998
Unga-Bunga trek for days through mountains to Dragon's Eye volcano following Archdruid Arundel's path on map. Unga-Bunga about turn back when finally see opening in rockface. Unga-Bunga so excited to find Dragon's Eye not notice Ice Trolls hIding to ambush...
Unga-Bunga summon Iron Skins and Fire Elemental to save him from close call.
Once Ice Trolls killed, Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust in air and disappear, creep into cave, see Lizardman tribe. Unga-Bunga call Fire Elementals and Beetles, slay lizards:
Unga-Bunga go further into caves, find Lizard King Lisspen and followers. Lizard King Lisspen say lizardmen eat Kuldahar villagers. Unga-Bunga say Lizard King Lisspen soon be Dead Lizard King Lisspen:
Unga-Bunga proven right, find villagers from Kuldahar further into caves and say they free. Villagers leave but Unga-Bunga go further into caves, battle Spiders, Trolls and Evil Beetles (not Unga-Bunga's beetles):
Further south in caves, Unga-Bunga find kids hiding from creatures, one Smithy Conlan's son, Sheemish. Sheemish ask Unga-Bunga if he'll 'beat the stuffin' out of 'monsters'. Unga-Bunga say he will and ask where monsters are. Unga-Bunga toss more Pixie Dust and sneak south, find large chamber with Talonite priests and Trolls. Unga-Bunga sneak back to narrow passage leading to large chamber, summon Fire Elementals to block passage then sneak ahead again, fire slingstone into Talonite priest forehead.
Talonites and Trolls angry, Unga-Bunga run back to narrow passage, hide behind elementals. When priests and trolls enter passage, Unga-Bunga summon spikes to grow from stone beneath:
Unga-Bunga beat chest some when foes die, then send elementals into large chamber and slay rest of enemies, find lady imprisoned in stone circle, rescue her:
Lady say name Mother Egenia, Ilmater Priestess from town. Mother Egenia say she like pain. Unga-Bunga wonder how much she like pain but doesn't ask, frees more townsfolk in caves further south, then take rest with Mother Egenia. Egenia say caverns leading lower underground to east. Unga-Bunga slay more spiders, beetles and trolls, find downward passage. Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, then descend.
Unga-Bunga find skeleton and wights not far into cavern. Skeleton look funny, like want to say something to Unga-Bunga, so Unga-Bunga cast Iron Skins for protection and summon elementals behind for backup. Unga-Bunga sneak up to Skeleton, summon elemental between Skeleton and Wights, then talk to Skeleton just as elemental appear.
Skeleton not talk, though. Someone talk through skeleton, probably Necro Mage. Skeletons and Wights attack...
Unga-Bunga smart, though, know this will happen. Unga-Bunga know Iron Skins will protect Unga-Bunga while he toss Pixie Dust in air, let elementals kill dead things. Unga-Bunga not smart enough to know that cold Wight hands too cold for Iron Skins to protect, though, so no Pixie Dust...
Unga-Bunga tell elementals to attack, but dumb elementals too bunched up in cavern opening to move. Elementals block retreat.
Unga-Bunga in trouble:
Unga-Bunga think fast, cast Sunscorch on wight to blind it, then able to toss Pixie Dust, just as elemental holding off Wights dies. Unga-Bunga crushed between stuck Elementals and swarming Wights. Unga-Bunga hide in plain-not-plain-sight and hope elementals win battle:
Elementals battle good, Unga-Bunga dance to summon Fire Spirits to slay last wights:
Unga-Bunga find more skeletons and wights in cavern, speak to Necro Mage through skeletons. Unga-Bunga angry, want to make Necro Mage dead like skeletons. Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, find wooden bridge over waters and stone structure beyond. Unga-Bunga spy Necro Mage with Poison Zombies, Imbued Wights in structure, along with Human Warrior. Unga-Bunga scout around structure, find more wights and another wizard to north. Unga-Bunga sneak back to bridge, make plan...
Unga-Bunga summon Fire Elementals on narrow bridge, use Pixie Dust to sneak up to structure, summon Beetles at Necro Mage's feet. Unga-Bunga chuckle as Beetles spit acid on Necro Mage, leave Beetles to harass Necro Mage, cast more Beetles at other wizard's feet, then sneak back to bridge.
When dead things come, Unga-Bunga tell Elementals to guard bridge, summon stone spikes under undead army:
Not many foes left after stone spikes stop spiking. Elementals finish off Necro Mage and last minions:
Unga-Bunga claim dead mages' treasures before returning to Egenia to rest and beat chest some. Afterward, Unga-Bunga return to lower chamber and approach archway leading down further into caverns...
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1184998#Comment_1184998
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1185119#Comment_1185119
Unga-Bunga go down further into caves, ready for battle. Instead, Unga-Bunga meet priest of Eldath, god of peace. Priest Albion tell Unga-Bunga that Eldathyn make peaceful home in caves while surrounded by enemies. Unga-Bunga suggest to kill undead and lizards, make home even more peaceful, but Albion say Eldathyn too peaceful to make more peaceful. Unga-Bunga confused, think priests up to something, ask Albion if can rest and look around. Albion say okay but not to go past common areas in commune.
Unga-Bunga meet Librarian Geelo, look through books in library, ask Geelo if any for sale. Geelo show Unga-Bunga magic scrolls, good for tinder and clean-up, but nasty in wizard hands. Unga-Bunga ask Geelo why need magic scrolls if peaceful people, Geelo not give good answer. Unga-Bunga feel pit in stomach, not sure if hungry or something else.
Unga-Bunga walk around more, meet more Eldathyn, find carp carpet, look strange to Unga-Bunga. Unga-Bunga think good he ready for battle after all. Unga-Bunga summon elementals around corner in chamber where not seen by Eldathyn, just in case...
Unga-Bunga go to confront Albion, remember Geelo in library, not like leaving Geelo not watched while talking to Albion. Unga-Bunga go to Geelo, tell Geelo that Albion want scroll. Geelo go to Albion, Unga-Bunga follow, confront Albion and Geelo.
Priest Albion say they not Eldathyn, say instead they Yuan-ti snake people. Unga-Bunga tell Priest Albion will kill them all so can have really peaceful commune, order some elementals attack Geelo and Albion, rest to block hallway into commune. Yuanti-Fake Eldathyn storm down hall and attack:
Unga-Bunga summon spikes to grow, watch snake people wriggle and die:
Unga-Bunga hear chanting further into commune from east, know chanting is summoning magic, hurry to stop summoning. Unga-Bunga and elementals find three snake mages, slay them but they not ones summoning:
Unga-Bunga rush to summoner but have to battle trolls coming down hallway. Unga-Bunga so focused on battle, forget to make mind pictures to tell story. Unga-Bunga finally find High Summoner chamber full of trolls, lizardfolk and priests. Unga-Bunga order elementals to attack, but elementals too big to go through door, so Unga-Bunga summon beetles. Unga-Bunga watch as High Summoner call lightning onto beetle and blow it to bits (183 damage Static Charge). Unga-Bunga's Protection from Lightning worn off, no more casts today. Unga-Bunga decide to fight another day, tell Beetles to fight to end, and toss Pixie Dust to run away.
Some trolls and yuan-ti follow Unga-Bunga out of commune back up to dead necro mages' home, even though Unga-Bunga under Pixie Dust. Unga-Bunga run to passage leading up further, leave others behind. Unga-Bunga return to Mother Egenia, take rest, then return under more Pixie Dust. Unga-Bunga ignore enemies near dead mages' home for now, try to return to High Summoner to kill him before more summons.
Unga-Bunga reach High Summoner's chamber, cast Insect Plague and Elementals into chamber, killing High Summoner, Priests, and Trolls. Unga-Bunga beat chest some, then explore more of commune, find High Ritualist and Yuan-ti eating Kuldahar villagers. Unga-Bunga get angry, summon Insect Plagues and Elementals on them, too:
While making sure no more Yuan-ti in commune, Unga-Bunga find adventurers captured by Yuan-ti. Unga-Bunga say Yuan-ti dead, not prisoners anymore. Adventurers promise to look over Unga-Bunga while resting. Unga-Bunga return to dead mages' home, slay enemies that followed him there, then return and rest. Unga-Bunga wake up and explore commune more, find passage going down even further into caves.
Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, then go into passage, summon Elementals to lead way. Unga-Bunga see little girl standing all alone in passageway:
Unga-Bunga try talk to girl, but girl say strange things. Unga-Bunga ask if will share her peyote, but girl disappear too fast. Elementals find Yuan-ti, Unga-Bunga summon beetles and battle them down:
Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, scout further ahead, find room with many Yuan-ti. Unga-Bunga listen to Yuan-ti hissing, learn one called High Archer. Unga-Bunga decide to remember which one High Archer, then return to adventurers to rest, make plans.
But Unga-Bunga make big mistake. Unga-Bunga used to resting alone, toss Pixie Dust before resting. Pixie Dust lasts full day and night cycle, but Unga-Bunga Half-Orc of Action, not sleep that long, so able to scout while still under Pixie Dust. But Unga-Bunga forget have to wipe off Pixie Dust to talk to people, wake up thinking still under Pixie Dust but not...
Unga-Bunga walk into High Archer chamber, take two in the chest, flee to exit passionately. But Unga-Bunga lucky. Lesser Yuan-ti ordered to follow Unga-Bunga, but High Archer and other Elite Yuan-ti stay in archer room to guard it. Unga-Bunga run around corner, toss Pixie Dust, then summon Elementals to slay Yuan-ti:
Once dead, Unga-Bunga and Elementals return to Archer Room, make room No Archer Room:
Unga-Bunga beat chest, make note to say this was part of Unga-Bunga plan all along when telling story, so when bards sing Unga-Bunga's name, they don't sing about forgetting Pixie Dust part.
Unga-Bunga go further into Yuan-ti stronghold, slay many Yuan-ti, including High Torturer:
Under more Pixie Dust, Unga-Bunga come to room with fountain and pool, see High Baptist giving dark blessings to more Kuldahar townspeople:
Unga-Bunga get angry but not want to hurt townsfolk, think about how to kill only High Baptist. Unga-Bunga decide to summon just one Elemental right next to High Baptist and fling fancy new throwing axe at High Baptist's head just as Elemental appears:
High Baptist order villagers to attack Unga-Bunga and Elemental. Unga-Bunga figure Elemental strong, can take hits from villagers. Unga-Bunga move about and throw axe, try to avoid villagers and Iron Skins protect from hits. Once High Baptist killed, villagers stop attacking. Unga-Bunga tell villagers they free, beat chest after villagers leave.
Unga-Bunga slay more Yuan-ti until come to large doorway, see traps all around with help from thief spirits whispering in ear. Unga-Bunga nervous, return to adventurers to rest, then return. Unga-Bunga toss Pixie Dust, then avoid traps and cautiously try door. Door opens:
Unga-Bunga see same little girl from before and lots of Yuan-ti. Unga-Bunga not know who little girl is but know little girl not little girl. Unga-Bunga see this last chamber in Yuan-ti stronghold, feel pit in stomach again, wonder what to do...
Then Unga-Bunga remember Shaman Hjollder in Kuldahar asked for Unga-Bunga to go with him. Unga-Bunga not afraid of little girl, of course, but wonder if now good time to help Shaman Hjollder. Unga-Bunga leave chamber, return to adventurers, have lots of thinking to do, peyote to take...