A few more tasks in the City culminated with an assault on the Iron Throne. Zhalimar had to hope that restealth failed to interrupt the flow of backstabs. That did eventually happen, though not until only the doppleganger was left to support Zhalimar - and that was never going to be enough.
At Candlekeep I was able to deal with the traps without help, though used a potion to boost lock-picking skills to get the strength tome. Prat was the latest to see his companions crumble in front of him. I didn't use protection against the basilisks, but they failed to get an attack in and I racked up a new best backstab against the second of those.
Before starting the final encounters I reviewed my inventory. Thinking ahead to SoD, that resulted in going to pick up the red and violet potions and the Ring of Energy. Then it was on to find Slythe - he was unceremoniously backstabbed. The palace is a much more dangerous fight due to my lack of APR. To help mitigate that problem I charmed some of the soldiers using the nymph cloak before the combat. However, there's always a risk that the dopplegangers just concentrate on the dukes and to be safe I would really need to have charmed some of the noblemen before they turn into dopplegangers. I paid for not doing that when the dopplegangers got a succession of quick hits and the dukes collapsed almost together.
Thanks @Aerakar. Now I've retired I've been spending my time wisely by playing rather more . Following the shadowdancer I just had a wild mage attempt fail in SoA when an attempt to knock a container in a small tomb resulted in a surged lightning bolt bouncing back and forth through my crispy body. Time for another go ...
The typical quick start saw me up to level 3 thanks to Shoal. After going down to Nashkel and learning Bhaal CLW, I decided to reduce reputation to get evil powers next. The chosen target for that was Bentan at Firewine Bridge, to get his PfM scroll. On the way though I had a nasty surprise waiting in ambush - fortunately the basilisk didn't get around to gazing before I'd retreated out of sight.
Bentan was then shot down using stealth, taking reputation down to 7 (meaning I need to take care not to lose any more, which would cause me to fall ).
While in the area, I also shot down Meilum for his bracers, getting to level 4 in the process.
The southern basilisks soon provided another level and Mutamin and his pets got me to level 6.
With good stealth I also dealt with Kirian using stealth shots, retreating out of sight before she could react.
After a trip to the FAI to get the pantaloons, I decided to head early to the Nashkel Mine. Sneaking through there I initially started shooting Mulahey without letting him close enough to talk, but out of habit went into stealth - which prompted him to call for reinforcements. With those all around me I was dangerously exposed and used an invisibility potion to get some space before shooting down the opposition.
There were no similar problems with the amazons, who were all taken down with stealth shots.
After dealing with Nimbul and Tranzig, it was on to the Bandit Camp. After clearing the exterior I pulled enemies out of Tazok's tent to pick off separately, before a poisoned dart made it hard for Venkt to respond to a final attack.
After avoiding most enemies in the Cloakwood, the guards on the mine were treated to more stealth attacks - Drasus failing to find an answer to stealth attacks around the corner of a building.
I picked up level 7 killing a few guards on the way through the mine.
The battle horrors died to stealth attacks and Davaeorn lost his spells to stealth before being shot down.
I'd forgotten to upgrade my standard club though, so had to just decoy the mustard jelly away from the treasure it was guarding rather than killing it.
A bad mistake meant another session lasted all of a couple of minutes this morning. Before going on to Baldur's Gate, I decided to go and deal with some sirines and get the constitution tome. This character has died to the first group of sirines before when sneaking towards them - giving them the chance to split up and make use of their poison arrows. I guess I was too pre-occupied in remembering not to sneak in this time - and the clarity potion in my quick slot, stayed in my quick slot ...
Randomly choosing a new class came up with a necromancer - another new class for this challenge. One of my sub-objectives for the challenge is to complete a class at the first attempt and with the majority of classes already having been tried, I'm starting to run a bit short on options for that. Let's see if I can maintain concentration with this attempt ...
I sometimes try to avoid damage for as long as possible with mage classes, but the necromancer is poorly suited to that due to its inability to learn invisibility. Given that, I wasn't paying much attention to the weather and took damage earlier than usual when lightning struck soon after Shoal was nibbled by my familiar.
Travelling around, I got levels by:
- shooting down Meilum
- sleeping Zargal and his buddies
- magic missiles taking down the battle horrors at Durlag's Tower
- more magic missiles inside the Tower cleaning out the ghasts
- I'd found PfP and ghoul touch scrolls on my travels, allowing an appropriate way for a necromancer to deal with the basilisks on the roof
I was still relying on scrolls found, rather than buying anything. The only 3rd level spell I had to date was hold person, but that came up trumps against Kirian with a bit of help from the monster summoning wand.
In the Nashkel Mine Mulahey ate magic missiles without being given the chance to talk.
Web learnt there was used on the amazons, though without area damage the web had evaporated before I finished the last of them off.
Finishing off a couple of reputation quests got me my final BGEE level, with the ability to cast 5th level spells. I put that to immediate use to get the Ring of Energy from the Red Wizards.
I'll be moving on to the Bandit Camp next.
Necromancer 9, 55 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 234 kills
Playing too much caught up with me this morning as this run was thrown away in the Cloakwood Mine. After killing the battle horrors near Davaeorn I tried resting on the level above to cure trap damage. The advantage of resting there is that there is a much better chance of success than on the bottom level, but the downside is that when interrupted it's by a lot of guards. When almost healed my rest was interrupted, but I ran round the corner to try and rest again. If successful that would mean the first lot of guards would disappear, but instead loads more guards arrived - blocking my potential exit. I did have a couple of invisibility potions I could have used, but tried casting cloudkill instead. However, my spell was interrupted and I was finished off before I could do anything else.
@Grond0
Hard luck.
I wish you intelligence on your next run.
After a few days spent with my grandchildren, I returned to where I left Viconia, recruited her and returned to Durlag's Tower.
The problem is that she is not as experienced as Tenya was and that she too has a low constitution.
Despite that we were able to beat the Demonknight with the help of buffed summons. Prior to that we did a lot of sleeping.
We have now been asked to aid Drizzt.
One thing that disappointed me is that there was no helm of opposite alignment. I don't know why.
Dorn was killed by the slayers in the Nine Hells after we had started the Drizzt Saga. Then we were wiped out by Marilith. She wasn't even hurt!! I have no idea why. Perhaps I should run that bit again for future reference.
The end
The problem was globe of invulnerability and I found a way to defeat it. My first thought was Cloudkill but her magical resistance was too high.
Meanwhile in stark contrast I have started another game which is totally unmodded apart from giving Gorion a bag of holding.
Imoen joined me as far as Beregost where she did a lot of lock picking which provided me with a decent mace +1 as well as some jewels.
I headed south picking up a letter for Mirianne and the Colquetle amulet on the way.
I found some ankheg armour at Nashkel and to the south was attacked by Greywolf. The battle did not go to plan. The idea was to lure him towards the mine guards and once he was badly wounded lead him away, cast command and kill him. However when he was badly injured two guards got lucky and killed him. I suppose that it could have been worse.
After delivering the letter and the Colquetle amulet, I helped Melicamp before heading North to the FAI.
I helped Joia and Tenya before killing an ankheg with grat difficulty. I then gained some belts by killing an ogre before heading south and gaing some boots by killing a hobgoblin. Cleared the road to the south. Then helped Rufie and a dryad before helping the archaeologist and Brage.
Thn went to deal with Bassilus. Got him nearly dead and then he held me and subsequently killed me.
Dorn was killed by the slayers in the Nine Hells after we had started the Drizzt Saga. Then we were wiped out by Marilith. She wasn't even hurt!! I have no idea why. Perhaps I should run that bit again for future reference.
The end
The problem was globe of invulnerability and I found a way to defeat it. My first thought was Cloudkill but her magical resistance was too high.
The standard demon immunity item includes immunity to poison. Which would certainly negate Cloudkill. No idea if the mod gives that immunity to this particular enemy, but if it does ...
Dorn was killed by the slayers in the Nine Hells after we had started the Drizzt Saga. Then we were wiped out by Marilith. She wasn't even hurt!! I have no idea why. Perhaps I should run that bit again for future reference.
The end
The problem was globe of invulnerability and I found a way to defeat it. My first thought was Cloudkill but her magical resistance was too high.
The standard demon immunity item includes immunity to poison. Which would certainly negate Cloudkill. No idea if the mod gives that immunity to this particular enemy, but if it does ...
Cloudkill was my only level 5 spell that MIGHT have been effective, therefore other tactics needed. Magic wasn't the answer!!
Another heavily modded game with a lawful good priest of Helm called Helma.
Journal of Helma.
After the death of Gorion Imoen accompanied me to Beregost where she did some thieving to help me get better equipped.
After killing some ogrillon Mirianne gave me a +1 ring of protection for delivering a letter to her.
I then proceeded south on my own to the town of Nashkel where I found some ankheg armour, Lord Foreshadow having given me a charisma boosting ring on the way. Going south and east I found a ring of fire protection before meeting Lena who persuaded me to take Samuel to the FAI for treatment. Heading north, I killed the evil Sonner gaining a flail +1 as I did so. Nearby killing some undead got me into Leila's good books.
I returned to High Hedge where I helped Melicamp get back into shape.
I then had a pleasant encounter with him.
I then helped Tonder.
South of Beregost I delivered a rabbit to Ugh before setting off to the Nashkel mines.
Zargos Flintblade assaulted me, however a guard protected me by killing him.
Greywolf was similarly aggressive but after "Holding" him, I slew him.
I then took the emeralds from Prism's piece of artwork to Oublek.
I reunited Rufie with his owner before being assaulted by Vax who hurt me badly.
Killing Zal required me to use three potions of healing.
To the west I helped a dryad.
I took Drienne's cat to her and killed Ingot.
I reached level 5 and have a reputation of 20, so an opportunity to go shopping, but I had little in the way of gold. I therefore went after Bassilus. I summoned two skeleton warriors nbefore buffing the three of us with chant and bless. The warriors were sent against Bassilus whilst I cast silence. Bassilus saved, but I didn't save against his hold spell. The skeletons kept him occupied long enough so he didn't kill me, though I was badly hurt. I therefore fled, slept and returned. This time I held him! As a result he died and my coffers became much fuller.
The gold didn't go very far, but I was now better equipped to take on ankhegs. A few shells and I will be able to buy even better equipment.
The previous session ended with us having kicked in the door to Kangaxx's tomb. However, a quick rummage in our scroll case showed we were lacking in PfU scrolls - and didn't have the money to buy any more. Looting the harpers seemed like a good solution for that and an assault on Prebek's house was successful - though we had to survive a bouncing lightning bolt there.
The assault on Kangaxx quickly took his lich form to near death and prompted his standard outburst.
Unfortunately though we didn't retreat quickly enough after that and a further strike got through on him before his transformation to demi-lich form was complete. That tends to cause a bug, resulting in the lich form sticking around and becoming unkillable. We tried leaving and returning later, but had no joy and gave up on the Ring of Gaxx.
We hung around in the Docks area for a bit while doing the thief guild tasks. Rayic Gethras was handicapped by being poisoned with an arrow of biting before his buffs fired. He did eventually manage to take down the berserk warrior with a Finger of Death, but by then his PfMW had expired and shortly after that so did he.
Mae'Var and his thief associates put up very little struggle.
Paying off Gaelan Bayle gave Corefighter slightly more protection, thanks to the +2 ring of protection. Flydian then wanted to get into the act with an armor upgrade from Mencar. That was successful, though Brennan managed to run away at near death.
Burdock's turn was next, as we went to the Graveyard in search of a ioun stone for him. While clearing the upper tombs, Burdock found the Crypt King's horror was quicker than expected and started running in terror round the small tomb. That didn't look promising, but the others quickly entered to take the heat and a Daystar sunray did its job.
Downstairs, Corefighter's saves allowed him to laugh off attempts to poison him. Burdock and Flydian were not so well protected, but an efreeti fireball quickly burnt through the mass of spiders guarding the ioun stone.
Moving on to the de'Arnise Hold, we made quick progress downstairs. Moving up though, Corefighter got into trouble against the 2 small trolls that emerge out of a larger one's corpse. They duly died, but one of them lasted a split-second too long and clawed Corefighter down with it.
That was his first death and came with some pretty nasty consequences as a search of his body showed that the Helm of Balduran (along with a shield) had evaporated.
We went back to Athkatla to get Corefighter raised. On arrival there we saw Hareishan hassling some thieves and Flydian took pity on them. His shield provided protection against potential domination, but not against level drain - so fighting was potentially quite risky. However, a sunray once more proved efficacious.
With everyone restored there was just enough time left in the session to finish off the de'Arnise Hold. Burdock survived a lightning trap and sneaked in to see Glaicus and direct Kitthix to throw a web-tangle on him - the 2 round duration of that was sufficient to finish Glaicus off.
Downstairs, we worked our way through to find TorGal. Burdock pulled him out alone and he had no luck getting through Flydian's defenses.
There was a final moment of anxiety against one of TorGal's giant trolls, when Corefighter stood on top of it - meaning the others were unable to target it. Summoning the efreeti next to him failed to bump Corefighter off the troll, but he survived long enough to transform himself into a mustard jelly using the Cloak of the Sewers, which did the trick.
Wizard slayer 10, 113 HPs, 126 kills (+185 in BGEE)
Fighter 10, 99 HPs, 101 kills (+202 in BGEE), 1 death
Dark moon monk 10, 84 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 101 kills (+106 in BGEE), 1 death
I thought that I had posted more of my run than I have. I'll look through my screenshots later and post here.
Meanwhile, I now have a party consisting of myself, Sirene, Ajantis, Coran, Dynaheir and Tenya.
I am engaged to Ajantis and we have had quite a chaste courtship. Coran has done a lot of flirting but unsuccessgully.
We have killed many an ankheg, basilisk, medusa sirine and wyvern and even a dragon albeit a small one. We therefore deemed it time to take on the demons in the Nashkel mines.
The mines were no problem. In dangerous areas we summoned skeletond as they don't appear to be bothered by poison and the like and they also seem to be fairly immune to Dyanaheir's webs.
In Nashkel Oubliek was killed by an assassin. We therefore regained the emeralds. He had been protected by fear which was necessary. Rashed sadly killed the assassin so didn't get the experience. Now at Beregost after visiting the bandit camp and killing Deke et al. Visited and killed Tranzig next before clearing the Bandit Camp which was straightforward.
At the Cloakwood Mines, web followed by area effect spells followed by skeleton warriors was sufficient to deal with Drasus and his cronies, only Corwin getting hurt.
To fight Davaeorn, again skeleton warriors were sent in. Davaeorn wasted his spells on them and they also killed Davaeorn's summoned monsters.
All that was needed after that was to defeat him in melee.
We are now mopping up in Cloakwood before heading for the Gate.
At the start of the session we noted reputation was already 20 and decided to head for Ulgoth's Beard for a bit of shopping. On the way we stopped off at the ankheg nest, but found the creatures there much more resistant than expected to being slept. I think normally sleep has a 65% chance of working on them and, theoretically, that should be increased to 75% with an enchanter due to the -2 penalty to saves vs enchantment school spells. Our success rate was far lower and, while we may just have been very unlucky, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some bug operating in relation to that penalty. In the end we retreated after taking severe damage on the way to loot the place.
After shopping we considered picking up some more quick XP from Durlag's Tower, but decided to embark on the main quest. There were no problems dealing with the kobolds in the Nashkel Mine. Mulahey was bombed from distance and then calmed down in speech before Yodahl attacked again with a scorcher. Mulahey just had time to release a rigid thinking before he died, which affected Yodahl. However, she retreated rather than attacking and Robthem cleaned up the support troops.
Outside the mine area damage was effective against the amazons, though Maneira did manage to poison Robthem with one of her darts.
Nimbul survived an initial attack and managed to release a horror spell to send Robthem running. At the same moment though a LMD from Yodahl sent him running and she followed him to finish him off.
Tranzig did his usual trick of making a bold statement of what a fight he was going to put up - just as he expired.
At the Bandit Camp we worked through a number of bandits to get at Taurgosz. He successfully shrugged off an attempt to blind him, but was shot down anyway.
Inside Tazok's tent Hakt was blinded before Yodahl unloaded a skull trap and the enemies didn't last long after that.
In the Cloakwood we usually skip nearly all of the encounters. This time, Robthem decided to make use of his elven heritage and shot down the hamadryad while resisting an attempt to charm him. At the mine, Yodahl opened proceedings with a skull trap. That made the enemies cluster together, so Yodahl gave them another.
Both mages survived, but were badly hurt and blinded by glitterdust - so easy for Robthem to finish off. He then went after Genthore and shot him down in a missile duel. In the meantime though, Yodahl was struggling to stay ahead of a chasing Drasus and acquiring more followers on the way - she resorted to a potion of invisibility to get out of that.
Once Robthem caught up, a bit more area damage saw Drasus at near death and he was shot down before he could get into melee range.
Inside the mine we sneaked down to the bottom level. The plan was to activate the battle horrors there and use skull traps to kill them. The first battle horror saw Yodahl though and came out to fight, but was blinded and finished off with stealth attacks.
Area damage killed the other one and a quick peek showed that Davaeon was at near death - providing Robthem with a target too tempting to ignore.
Moving on to Baldur's Gate, Yodahl increased her collection of known spells before we did a few chores in the City like picking up the Helm of Balduran and releasing a captive nymph.
The poison quest gave Yodahl a chance to get her own boots of speed and she stymied Lothander's attempt to run away with both grease and summoned monsters.
There was just enough time left in the session to go after Marek. Putting improved invisibility on the character talking to Marek baffles his AI, so there was no danger there as Yodahl picked up enough XP for an 8th level.
I first did the EE NPC quests. Dorn's was easy, only cautious thing about Neera's was killing Ekandor fast enough so he didn't use his stoneskin scroll (which happened in my blade playthrough).
Rasaad's was straightforward, but it was frustrating to see Gamaz, supposedly weaker than Rasaad, perfectly able to beat Varuca in one on one, so I had to retreat her while the others deal with him. Shar seems to grant more power than Selune indeed.
After that recovering the cloak of Balduran, dealing with Degrodel and finishing exploring wild areas was done.
I skipped ice island and werewolves island and only did Durlag's Tower. The dwarves were easy to deal after some buffs, but the doom guards from Kiel's tomb almost kill me, my last resort was Durlag's goblet with Kiel's helmet.
For level 3, invisible Coran disarmed all the traps in the garden and skeletons area, invisible Branwen killed the skeletons with turn undead and Baeloth with stoneskin and mirror images tanked the three invisible creatures in the garden.
Chess was done the safest way : web, fireball, lost gift and oil of fiery burning ...
Demon Knight was tanked by buffed Ajantis while Coran and Kivan shooted him from afar, and was only joined by Varuca and Branwen when he was stunned.
I didn't bring back Soultaker to the dwarf and paid a visit to the Iron Throne.
My usual strategy here is to walk by the six guys while invisible so I can attack them from the back, but I foolishly use stealth for Kivan instead of a spell, and of course he failed his check just in front of the six !
Luckily I had a potion of invisibility ready, so the party still could go to the back. Then Baeloth webbed them, Branwen silenced them, and they discover that fire really burns...
Chapter six went smoothly.
Slythe and Krystin were easily slaughtered, and for Ducal Palace I put two nymphs near Sarevok, Coran and Kivan in the bottom, and cast slow on the doppelganger with Baeloth.
I managed to save the two dukes this time, and Baeloth tanked Sarevok with stoneskin and mirror images without damages.
I spend almost all my gold on charging items, buying stuff for a SoD party, and then went to the Undercity. The party there was webbed and silenced then fireballed.
For the final battle, invisible Coran triggered Semaj, which was greet with an arrow of dispelling from Kivan, and then badly hurt by the others. He managed to land a chaos spell on Kivan, but luckily not on the others.
Coran then backstabbed Sarevok, making Angelo and Tazok appear. Tazok went straight for the party near the entrance and was easily killed, whereas Coran use his last potion of invisibility then the Sand Thief ring to backstabbed Angelo and Sarevok.
He managed to kill Angelo, but between the arrow of explosion and Sarevok's sword he was badly hurt, so he retreated and all the party engaged a near death Sarevok. He was killed by a penetrating arrow from Kivan.
We'd done all the fighting at the de'Arnise Hold last time, so just had to report the outcome to Nalia. Flydian was offered the chance to take a stronghold there, but declined.
We'd only previously been to Trademeet to pick up the efreeti and the Shield of Harmony, so returned there to work our way through the Druid Grove. The druids proved a bit harder to handle then sometimes, with Burdock only retreating just in time here.
Flydian was in a bit of potential danger in the final combat when he was about to be blasted with lightning, but a well-timed web tangle from Kitthix forestalled that.
Before we could complete our work in Trademeet, we had to return to Athkatla to do the skinner quest. Both Rune Assassins missed their backstabs there, making for an easy victory.
Corefighter had been bare-headed up to this point, after seeing the Helm of Balduran evaporate last time, and he purchased a helm of charm protection from a temple.
The Fallen Paladins were finished off before Flydian thought about returning to Watcher's Keep. However, our lack of any protection from level drain meant the possible fight with vampiric wraiths would have been dodgy and he decided to try and remedy that by getting the improved mace of disruption. The first stage of that was sorting out Lassal with a Daystar sunray.
The Guild Contact then ate a stunning dart before he had a chance to drink his potions.
The vampire hideout proved more challenging with Flydian getting drained by a couple of opponents and deciding to withdraw once we'd got the MoD.
On the way to find Sir Sarles, Corefighter tried to rescue Sansuki, but was betrayed by his relatively poor AC and quickly drained to death. Flydian tried a sunray, but with 2 vampires left he didn't fancy the odds and ran for it.
A potion from Roger allowed us to kick in Neb's door and he handed over the illithium tamely after his intended use of an invisibility potion was interrupted by another Kitthix web.
After forging the iMoD we returned to try and finish off the vampires, but ran into trouble again against Tanova. Both her and her double used lightning at the same time and Corefighter was fried by multiple bounces.
Things looked dodgy for the others, but Flydian managed to activate a sunray an instant before disappearing into a maze and that was sufficient to make Tanova retreat.
The berserk warrior then fronted up for a few seconds while Burdock put his sling to good use to shoot down the final opponent. We'll have another attempt to deal with the remaining vampires next time.
Wizard slayer 11, 116 HPs, 174 kills (+185 in BGEE)
Fighter 11, 102 HPs, 147 kills (+202 in BGEE), 3 deaths
Dark moon monk 12, 89 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 125 kills (+106 in BGEE), 1 death
Varuca, half-elf shapeshifter update 5
SoD's prologue was tedious because of needing to play my least favorite game, inventory management, in order to prepare stuff for my future party. If only Imoen gave us a bag of holding as a reward for killing Sarevok...
Upstairs was easy with web and fireballs.
Downstairs required to be more careful, and Baeloth stole the show with his aoe spells.
Surprisingly, Korlasz survived longer than expecting, and gave the party a run for its money, even after killing her soldiers.
Chapter 8 was easy, but Korlasz again was a threat and managed to land a confusion spell and killed Minsc.
Chapter 9 was mainly about forming a balanced party, with Varuca, Minsc and Rasaad with Rieltar's Mistake at the frontline, and Corwin, Glint and Baeloth in the back.
I switched the dagger of venom for the buckler of the fist in Varuca's offhand for better AC, so she could tank and let Corwin do the killing.
The only challenge was the dwarves ruin, but some uses of protection from undeads helped to succeed without too many deaths (Minsc and Rasaad died once).
In chapter 10 I switched Rasaad for Volghin and made him scribe all the scrolls kept from BG1 for him.
I first visit the temple in order to free Khelem and gained access to the camp, so I could recruit Dorn instead of Minsc. I immediately put the Helm of Opposite alignment on him.
On they way I decided to kill the green dragon for its scales, and used protection from poison scrolls, protection from evil, but didn't have any haste spell left... I tried the throwing dagger trick but even with 19 dexterity, gauntlet of weapon expertise and Lon's amulet, Varuca managed to miss. She then transformed to werewolf and used Draw upon holy might, while Corwin shot an arrow of dispelling on the dragon. With the help of summons, the frontliners hold the wyverns and young green dragons and the backliner killed Morentherene.
After recruiting Dorn, I proceeded to clear all the areas, finishing by the remaining rooms in the temple. The Neothelid was killed with the help of some summons.
And then I took too much confidence and decided to try the Illithid party... My planned strategy was to shoot arrows of detonation with Corwin after using the Greenstone amulet on each character.
I forgot than Corwin was still blinded from a previous encounter with a cultist mage...
The next scene was a complete mess, with a chaos landed by Baeloth, an hold person spell on the archer thanks to Glint, and Corwin and Voghlin hunted by the kensai.
The Illithid was killed fast, but then I found out than Varuca wasn't in werewolf form! And then the enemy mage casted a teleport field and it was very chaotic.
Corwin was killed, and Voghlin chunked!
Unsurprisingly, Varuca in werewolf form was far better at killing, and so the remaining party managed to finish the last foes.
So now I must take back Minsc... At least Varuca will soon have a dragonscale shield for better tanking. She's also level 12 now.
Overconfidence is the worst enemy of a no reload run...
Screenshots when I'm back on my PC.
SoD is really a step up in difficulty compared to BG1, and without SCS an huge difference in how to manage battles.
Still looking good, don't let a chunking stop you I hope you can make it to (and through) SoA, which is generally quite easy for any type of druid thanks to insect plague, ironskins and fire elementals.
Last friday, I decided to listen to a very long (~5 hour) podcast and needed something to do while listening - so I thought that I propably could get a mostly-solo character through BG1 in that time by now, having gathered more experience with solo strats in unmodded runs by now. So, there she is:
Briana, Dark Moon Monk, BG I
Core rules, no mods. Not a strict solo run, though BG I was mostly played solo in order to speed things up by a lot.
Why the class and kit choice? Well, it's propably the weakest class still not in the Hall of Heroes, and since I plan to go back to SCS after this run (that is, if I succeed), I want to have that one out of the way, as I don't trust myself with a monk in SCS. Her stats:
In the beginning, it was mostly sling-kiting, sometimes using the innate blind ability from the kit. All thief profiency points are going into stealth. The usual start: Shoal + Basilisks (gaining gold by selling loot such as the Ring of Wizardry) - I got a early necklace of missles, and, though it cost Corax his life, this allowed me to also get the golden girdle right away:
I did a lot of belt swapping in general to compensate for weak defenses. After that, it was mostly doing lucrative wilderness quests/fights with the goal of getting experience, gold, reputation and the few items useful for a monk, such as gauntlets of weapon specialization, boots of stealth, the three AC belts, a ring of protection + fire resistance - I also quickly picked up Dorn for the +2 save against spells amulet. Most of the gear was easily acquired via shopping though: My two actual ways to win battles, wand of sleep and wand of the heavens, for protection the greenstone amulet + cloak of displacement, a few potions and scrolls - and of course the Claw of Kazharoth. Meanwhile, my wand of sleep turned out to be way too unreliable for dealing with Ankhegs, and this almost cost Briana her life - monks are terrible at fighting ankhegs face to face, and if both wand charges and blind failed, standing to fight resulted in tons of damage, and once I only was able to run away with a single hit point left:
Anyway, I also cleared the Durlag's Tower basilisks and got my first tome, the next one from gnoll fortress and ended my wilderness explorations with Bassilus (using greenstone amulet):
At level 7 and with all the required protective and aggressive gear, I felt confident to get through the main questline and started to stealth through most of the remaining game - first, the Nashkel mines, next, the bandit camp, where I just put on boots of grounding, took the letters from the chest and went invisible via Sandthief's Ring:
Next, I stealthed through the entirety of Cloakwood, killed Drasus via my remaining necklace of missles charges from off-screen and took down Davaeorn via PFM:
Entering Baldur's Gate, I just picked up the RoP +2, Cloak of Balduran (recruited Alora for that) and some free experience + all the tomes. Not much to comment on here, I skipped basically all quests except for Ramazith and the poison quest. In Candlekeep, I let myself get imprisoned and use the violet potion in order to pick up the remaining tomes after carefully taking down the phase spiders before going stealth and skipping the remaining dungeon. I was already easily at experience cap, no reason to risk anything. Now, back to Baldur's Gate - here is where I stopped solo play, because - since I don't like using Algernon's Cloak - I had to find a safe strategy for the ducal palace. I recruited Coran and Kivan, both for their ability to shoot arrows of dispelling at greater doppelgangers, removing their haste and blur effects, and Quayle, just to have someone who could read scrolls (greater malison + chaos) - still wasn't the easiest of battles, but an injured Belt survived:
I really didn't need Quayle anymore after that, but why kick him out now for the last few minutes? I used invisibility potions to get through the entire undercity directly into the temple were I buffed up with potions and some scrolls. A crucial piece of information here: I had an extra green scroll of poison protection in my scroll back which I used on a whim "just in case", thinking it to be a waste of time because I didn't think there would ever be any poison in the Sarevok battle - turns out this potentially saved Briana's life.
Well, the final battle was kind of rough. Monks are obviously quite terrible here, it was mostly down to the very underleved Coran and Kivan - using oils and boots of speed, they had to apply dispelling arrows on Sarevok and Semaj. As Coran tried to pull Sarevok to the party, he was the target of Semaj's initial barrage of spells and a couple of webs + stinking clouds, so he used a potion of magic blocking, with Kivan dispelling Sarevok's haste right after that:
Semaj was dispelled as well, though a wand of the heavens did next to nothing (well, here's a thing I never knew: vanilla Semaj has 80% fire resistance!):
We focused our damage on Semaj while Coran started kiting Sarevok. Now, here's where things started to go wrong: Semaj used two of his special abilities to cast two instant uninterruptable spells, one of them being chaos, which I was unprepared for: Kivan got affected, Quayle, who was a bit further away, was able to drink a clarity potion, Briana luckily made her saving throw - otherwise, this could've been the end:
His MI gave Semaj time to cast another spell before he finally died: Cloudkill. Quayle made his saving throw and was able to leave the radius. Kivan instantly died. Coran was out of range, luckily. Briana, being higher level, couldn't be instant-killed, and our throw-away green scroll of poison resistance protected her from any damage the cloud would do:
However, with Semaj dead and Sarevok no longer hasted, it was only a matter of Kivan + Briana kiting him around until he died - Quayle eventually took a hit and died, but that didn't matter - it was a bit of a chaotic fight thanks to Semaj's surprising resilience, but we emerged victorious:
Yesterday and today, I also played too shorter sessions:
I skipped SoD - not much to gain here for a Monk, and I don't have the knowledge to solo this with this class - a party run would be no problem as I have tons of experience with that, but it would take many hours for very little reward, not required in an unmodded game. For SoA, I decided on retreading a path I had tried in my second no-reload success and only previous monk run, where I played SoA with a trio of the Bhaalspawn, Jan and Jaheira - in that run, Jan ended up getting chunked in the Underdark, and I replaced him in ToB with Sarevok, dualled to Mage. This time, I hope I can keep everyone alive. Also, last time, I recruited a bunch of fighters for Amelyssan - maybe I can avoid doing that this time around.
After making it out of the dungeon, I picked up Jan and completed the circus tent before taking on Mencar, with a heavy reliance on three forest beings and insect plague on my part:
The two remaining fighters were quite tough, and I was lucky to land a blind spell on Mencar in the end:
After that, I just used bullets. Jan gained his level 5 spells, picking up chaos for the slavers in the slums:
And greater malison + insect plague did the job against the double mage group:
Once Jaheira gets fire elementals, SoA should be relatively straightforward. We are currently travelling under invisibility, waiting for our first ambush, exploring the Bridge District. I plan to pick up Neera to get the Amulet of Protection +2 and Rasaad for the monk gear from his quests at some point. Also need to visit the druid grove, Jaheira really needs a weapon. Not sure what I'll do first.
Ah, yes, grabbing a party for the palace fight. If it's the vanilla version, wands of Sleep are very useful there; the doppelgangers are technically level 1, so you can take out about one doppelganger per wand shot. Or more, if you apply Greater Malison first. There's something to be said for just grabbing all the bodies you can for that one; I even brought three level one party members (Imoen, Montaron, Xzar) there for my speedrun.
On the "finding a weapon for Jaheira" front, there's actually one in Rasaad's quest too. If you goad the leader of the Tears of Selune into attacking ("Are you all so eager to shed your brother's blood?"), then she drops "Hawksight", a +2 scimitar with an additional +1 Dex. It's no Belm or Blackblood, but it's better than anything you can pick up in Athkatla for her. Or if you don't fight her, you can pick Sixscar's pockets for it.
I remember using the wand of sleep there in pre-EE times - back in the day, it was kind of the standard "true" solo tactic for many non-spellcasters, though if I remember correctly, highly unreliable, before it got replaced by Algernon's Cloak shenanigans. I wasn't actually sure if this works in the current EE games, though at this point, I was a bit frustrated with my wand of sleep anyway and not using it anymore due to bad RNG and too many successful saving throws by enemies were I had relied on it.
Since I need to get to Trademeet to recruit Rasaad anyway, might as well clear the Druid Grove, since it's arguably the easiest stronghold quest anyway (could even just cast invisibility 10' radius and just pick up Belm). Thanks for the idea though, I don't really have full knowledge of the more obscure EE drops yet. I'm mainly looking for the mirror image ring, true sight gem and, of course, the monk gauntlets.
Briana, Dark Moon Monk, update 2
First, though, I started with the various Athkatla sidequests, and I ended up not skipping any of them - I started at the bridge with the tanner:
As usual if I don't play with SCS, one of my first things to do was stealing Daystar from the city gates, allowing me to have a powerful anti-undead ability. Once I was done with bridge district quests, I met up with Neera and entered her forest. I've never went through this area at a low level - I knew the trap positions (had made my very own screenshot with them, since a trap here once killed one of my characters), but the bigger trouble was wild magic when running into a large group of koblds, as their shaman and witch doctor kept using spells and producing random effects - none of them all that dangerous until they got some kind of horror effect on Jan and Jaheira:
This was a bit troublesome, as Jaheira ran into a fireball trap, and I had to kite around a bunch of wyverns. Didn't feel comfortable taking on a greater wyvern without access to spells - luckily, no one died before the horror ran out, and we made it past the bridge:
With no further interest of exploring here, I only picked up the quest for Mereth's necklace for the free AoP +2, which is super easy to get and definitely worth it. I also finally met Suna Seni, though at this point, with insect plague and chaos up, ambushes are very little trouble:
After the bridge, the graveyard was our next stop, as I wanted my first ioun stone for Briana:
I also did the temple district sidequests before finally making it to the docks, where Prebek actually managed to cast chaos shortly before his death - luckily, Briana already has very good saves thanks to being a monk, the AoP +2 and the Claw of Kazgaroth:
The harper quest resulted in a quick Galavery battle:
After encountering the final vampire group at night, I payed Gaelan (previous things I've bought: Belt of Hill Giant Strength, Firetooth +4, Bracers of AC3) to get the AoP and RoP +2 - also did the first 2 quests for Aran. Finally, as our last step before taking on stronghold quests, I cleared the sewers - even without insect plague ready, having 2 fire elementals, 3 forest beings, haste and invisibility 10' radius is enough to deal with most humanoid groups such as the sewer party (greater malison also really helped out those nymphs, and chaos was a nice touch):
I entered Trademeet, though before I could quit the game, I got ambushed by Reviane - so I had to deal with that first. I wasn't buffed for this battle, but Jan was able to land chaos on the enemy mage, turning this into a relatively easy battle:
Next, I plan to visit the druid grove. Briana is currently level 12, which means that she has her most important immunities, +2 fists, her final dark moon monk ability (mirror image) - still to get quivering palms and magic resistance + stronger fists.
Quick update for the druid grove - insect plague for the big druid group, fire elementals and buffs for the three rakshasa, opening from invisibility against the three final druids and Jaheira duels Faldorn via insect plague + forest beings:
After that, I completed the two new Tradmeet sidequests, bought the relevant gear from the merchant and recruited Rasaad - fought the battle for the mirror image ring:
I decided to go for the second part of the quest right away, seeking a peaceful solution with ambushers and twofold trust monks. Not many battles here initially, and the invisible stalkers are easy enough to deal with. However, the assault on the temple was really tough - there's tons going on, lots of enemies around our own level (~12) with multiple abilities, tons of blind spells flying around, two clerics and a mage, monks with strong saving throws, decent defenses and melee damage - I luckily did get in a quick malison + insect plague on the spellcasters, though in an attempt to get into a good position, Jan lost his stoneskins and nearly died before renewing them and running to safety:
I kept Briana safe in the back, Rasaad at the front as he's expendable, while Jaheira, usually my strongest fighter, got blinded - I decided to have her summon fire elementals intead after she took serious damage (I don't quite know from which source) - our front line was in trouble, so I called in statue summons. A successful chaos spell, helped by our previous greater malison, didn't prevent Rasaad from dying, as he seemingly got into a fight with my efreeti summon via bottle:
This happened extremely fast, so I wasn't quite sure how Rasaad died exactly - I wasn't even able to pause in time. It seems every time Rasaad took damage, he also tried to deal fire damage to the summon. He had greater sun active, and the efreet had fire shield: red - is it possible that both of these shields kept triggering each other, resulting in tons of instances of damage and almost instant death? That's what it seemed like, because Rasaad died within an instant, despite there not being a huge chunk of damage.
It might look like we were in trouble now, but Jan's second chaos made sure that every single enemy on the battlefield was confused, and with our remaining three party members staying at range, the dark moon monks turned on each other while Jaheira was sending two fire elementals into the fold - cleanup wasn't all that hard:
We resurrected Rasaad and sent him and Wilson on their way before returning to Athkatla, were I bought the Robe of Vecna for Jan.
I can confirm than two fire shields meeting each other means instant death for a character, I encountered this in my current modded playthrough with the guardians in Firkraag's lair.
It's a 2.6 bug. With dueling fireshields in 2.6, the damage reflects back and forth every tick until either one side is dead or the pair moves apart; this has to do with the new projectiles that fireshields use. Older game versions had the fireshields deal exactly one hit each way.
I've tried to fix this in my tweak mod, but the version that's currently out there doesn't work very well. When I get around to updating it again, I'll have a better version of the fix. This will also be in the EE fixpack when that gets released.
Oh wow - I had no idea this was really a thing, I thought my theory was incredibly unlikely and I propably just missed something obvious. That's very good to know for future no-reload play. Good thing I never bothered to use fireshields in my transmuter run.
Three short stronghold quests: Started at Imnesvale, I did the sidequests and entered temple ruins, letting fire elementals deal with most enemies and helping with bone golems. No lich spawns yet, my levels were still low enough. The Shade Lord fell to a few attacks + sunray from Daystar:
Next up, I killed Rayic Gethras by evading a few spells abusing the stairs until his PFMW ran out, killing him after that. Mae'Var was easily dealt with, and Terminsel approached me with Jaheira missing, forcing me to fight my way through Harper Hold again:
After that, I visited De'Arnise Keep. Jaheira, with -10 ac and ironskins, is right now perfectly capable of tanking pretty much any physical foes, so neither trolls nor golems stood any chance. The yuan-ti mage was attacked from stealth, surviving the inital assault, but I got through his stoneskins before he was able to finish a spell. I didn't take any screenshots here, but nothing of note really happened, and Tor'gal easily fell even without fire elementals at my side (had used them against golems, didn't want to rest here). Jan gained access to 6th level spells, but he doesn't have improved haste yet. Still, the party has hit their first power peak - Jaheira is a powerhouse, Briana finally has all of her abilities and deals decent damage (especially with the scarlet ninja-to in her offhand - oh, that reminds me - are there any monk experts here that have done the math regarding this weapon? Is it generally good to equip, or are pure fists better?), I have all the useful items money can buy, and Jan still provides great value, since greater malison helps many monk and druid abilities, and chaos still affects most enemies - plus, he's super tanky with defensive spells up. Sadly, due to Jaheira's and Jan's slow leveling, it will take quite a while until we hit another power spike.
I entered the Windspear dungeon as my next step, using sunray and a well-protected Jaheira with the AoP to deal with the vampire group:
Fire elementals helped with clearing out the remaining dungeon, and we eventually defeated Conster and Samia:
When returning to Trademeet for a quick rest, I ran into Dermin - Vhailor's Helmet allowed me to quickly summon another Jaheira and get our a double insect plague + greater malison:
My worst fight in SoA yet happened in Watcher's Keep level 1 - the vampiric wraiths refused to attack Jaheira (the one I gave the AoP to for this battle), dealt a lot of damage, kept healing themselves. A few healing potions and some focused damage were barely enough to survive:
Clearing out the statues (with lots of them not having spawned due to low levels) was much easier:
I left level 2 for after the Underdark, instead quickly visiting the temple sewers in order to free Haer'Dalis before quitting this session. Next up, Planar Prison.
All right, the data on the Scarlet Ninja-To for monks.
Level 7-8:
Main hand blade: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 2 APR, 5.5 average damage, 0 to hit.
Fists and blade: 3/1 APR, 5.5/7.5 average damage, -4/-5 to hit.
Level 9-11:
Main hand blade: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage, +1 to hit.
Fists and blade: 3.5/1 APR, 7.5/7.5 average damage, -3/-5 to hit.
Level 12:
Main hand blade: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 3 APR, 8.5 average damage, +2 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 8.5/7.5 average damage, -2/-5 to hit.
Level 13-14:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 3 APR, 8.5 average damage, +2 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 8.5/7.5 average damage, -2/-5 to hit.
Level 15-17:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 3.5 APR, 13.5 average damage, +3 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 13.5/7.5 average damage, -1/-5 to hit.
Level 18-24:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 4 APR, 13.5 average damage, +3 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 13.5/7.5 average damage, -1/-5 to hit.
Level 25+:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 4 APR, 14.5 average damage, +4 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 14.5/7.5 average damage, 0/-5 to hit.
The poison has a 100% chance, but only applies on a failed save. Most enemies use warrior save arrays, which have pretty good saves against poison, but you can expect a decent chance of that working on just about anything that isn't immune.
The above assumes proficiency in scimitars and no fist damage gauntlets. Strength and other accessories will boost your to-hit modifier and damage further.
Before level 12, you're better off with the sword in your main hand than you are with your fists, unless the enemies have certain resistances/immunities (skeletons, clay golems) or long reach is desired (stealth attacks). At exactly level 12, fist APR sneaks ahead of sword APR, though you still might want the sword main-hand when the poison is good. At level 13 or 14, the blade is probably better against enemies vulnerable to poison, with fists better against immune enemies. Unless you have one of the fist-boosting gauntlets, that is.
At level 15, fists get a massive damage boost and you're unlikely to ever put a melee weapon in your main hand again.
At level 18+, you have enough THAC0 that you can afford to give a few points away by putting a weapon in your off hand ... but there's not much reason for that to be the scarlet ninja-to. I prefer weapons with defensive passive abilities here, like the Sword of Balduran.
Whether the off-hand sword is worthwhile is highly dependent on how easily you're hitting the enemies. And that varies widely.
I'll run the numbers against a standard medium bruiser; an umber hulk. Base AC 2 with 18 Dex, for an effective -2. Saves versus death on an 11. Assume 19 strength, but no other to-hit buffs. Monk level 13, scimitar proficiency and single-weapon style known.
The sword's poison works half the time, so that's an effective +6 damage for its hits. Your base THAC0 is 8, so you need a modified roll of 10 to hit. That's 4 with the main-hand sword alone, 5 with fists alone, 9/12 with fists and sword. Damage for the sword is 20.5, or 35 on a crit. Damage for the fists is 15.5, or 31 on a crit.
Blade alone: hit on 4, crit on 19. Damage per round 56.6.
Fists alone: hit on 5, crit on 20. Damage per round 39.5.
Fists and blade: hit on 9/12, crit on 20. Damage per round 50.3.
So the combo beats out fists alone in this case, but the sword alone is best of all.
My overall feeling is that the off-hand sword is overrated ... but the main-hand sword is very good. At least until you get the level 15 fist upgrade.
@jmerry Thanks, that's very informative. I'm currently at lvl 16, so it's a bit too late for the mainhand sword, sadly - still, I get an extra one half of a mainhand attack by using the scarlet ninja-to instead of another off-hand weapon (from 3,5 to 5 apr, while I'd stay at 4,5 apr with another offhand - and the extra 0,5 should be an unarmed attack) - seems like it might be worth it over another offhand weapon unless it has some crucial immunites/resistances on it? Since I'm still fighting relatively weak enemies, being in chapters 2/3, using an off-hand weapon doesn't feel like it impacts my thac0 too much and I will keep using one as I get better thac0.
I entered the planar prison buffed and invisible, fought my way through the various groups, sometimes going stealth again, throwing down greater malison + quivering palm/chaos, immediately taking on the warden after destroying the orb while he was still busy dealing with the slave rebellion:
Next up: Unseeing Eye. PfU scroll for the ghoul town, where I had my first lich spawn:
Dealt with beholders with the Shield of Balduran and malison, chaos, insect plague for blind priests:
With the death of the Unseeing Eye to rift device + fire elemental hit, I left the sewers:
The planar sphere still remains. Oh, and I used that PfU scroll to take down the Shade Lich, Elemental Lich and City Gates Lich before quitting this session.
Comments
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1187120/#Comment_1187120
A few more tasks in the City culminated with an assault on the Iron Throne. Zhalimar had to hope that restealth failed to interrupt the flow of backstabs. That did eventually happen, though not until only the doppleganger was left to support Zhalimar - and that was never going to be enough.
At Candlekeep I was able to deal with the traps without help, though used a potion to boost lock-picking skills to get the strength tome. Prat was the latest to see his companions crumble in front of him. I didn't use protection against the basilisks, but they failed to get an attack in and I racked up a new best backstab against the second of those.
Before starting the final encounters I reviewed my inventory. Thinking ahead to SoD, that resulted in going to pick up the red and violet potions and the Ring of Energy. Then it was on to find Slythe - he was unceremoniously backstabbed. The palace is a much more dangerous fight due to my lack of APR. To help mitigate that problem I charmed some of the soldiers using the nymph cloak before the combat. However, there's always a risk that the dopplegangers just concentrate on the dukes and to be safe I would really need to have charmed some of the noblemen before they turn into dopplegangers. I paid for not doing that when the dopplegangers got a succession of quick hits and the dukes collapsed almost together.
'Long-life challenge' - Beast Master {13} (update 1)
The typical quick start saw me up to level 3 thanks to Shoal. After going down to Nashkel and learning Bhaal CLW, I decided to reduce reputation to get evil powers next. The chosen target for that was Bentan at Firewine Bridge, to get his PfM scroll. On the way though I had a nasty surprise waiting in ambush - fortunately the basilisk didn't get around to gazing before I'd retreated out of sight.
Beast Master L7, 85 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 147 kills
Previous updates
Randomly choosing a new class came up with a necromancer - another new class for this challenge. One of my sub-objectives for the challenge is to complete a class at the first attempt and with the majority of classes already having been tried, I'm starting to run a bit short on options for that. Let's see if I can maintain concentration with this attempt ...
I sometimes try to avoid damage for as long as possible with mage classes, but the necromancer is poorly suited to that due to its inability to learn invisibility. Given that, I wasn't paying much attention to the weather and took damage earlier than usual when lightning struck soon after Shoal was nibbled by my familiar.
- shooting down Meilum
Necromancer 9, 55 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 234 kills
Previous updates:
Hard luck.
I wish you intelligence on your next run.
After a few days spent with my grandchildren, I returned to where I left Viconia, recruited her and returned to Durlag's Tower.
The problem is that she is not as experienced as Tenya was and that she too has a low constitution.
Despite that we were able to beat the Demonknight with the help of buffed summons. Prior to that we did a lot of sleeping.
We have now been asked to aid Drizzt.
One thing that disappointed me is that there was no helm of opposite alignment. I don't know why.
Dorn was killed by the slayers in the Nine Hells after we had started the Drizzt Saga. Then we were wiped out by Marilith. She wasn't even hurt!! I have no idea why. Perhaps I should run that bit again for future reference.
The end
The problem was globe of invulnerability and I found a way to defeat it.
Meanwhile in stark contrast I have started another game which is totally unmodded apart from giving Gorion a bag of holding.
Imoen joined me as far as Beregost where she did a lot of lock picking which provided me with a decent mace +1 as well as some jewels.
I headed south picking up a letter for Mirianne and the Colquetle amulet on the way.
I found some ankheg armour at Nashkel and to the south was attacked by Greywolf. The battle did not go to plan. The idea was to lure him towards the mine guards and once he was badly wounded lead him away, cast command and kill him. However when he was badly injured two guards got lucky and killed him. I suppose that it could have been worse.
After delivering the letter and the Colquetle amulet, I helped Melicamp before heading North to the FAI.
I helped Joia and Tenya before killing an ankheg with grat difficulty. I then gained some belts by killing an ogre before heading south and gaing some boots by killing a hobgoblin. Cleared the road to the south. Then helped Rufie and a dryad before helping the archaeologist and Brage.
Thn went to deal with Bassilus. Got him nearly dead and then he held me and subsequently killed me.
THE END
Another heavily modded game, but this time with a lawful good priest of Helm.
Zal ended the run. Presumably immune to command as he saved three times!!
I've learned something.
The standard demon immunity item includes immunity to poison. Which would certainly negate Cloudkill. No idea if the mod gives that immunity to this particular enemy, but if it does ...
Cloudkill was my only level 5 spell that MIGHT have been effective, therefore other tactics needed. Magic wasn't the answer!!
Another heavily modded game with a lawful good priest of Helm called Helma.
Journal of Helma.
After the death of Gorion Imoen accompanied me to Beregost where she did some thieving to help me get better equipped.
After killing some ogrillon Mirianne gave me a +1 ring of protection for delivering a letter to her.
I then proceeded south on my own to the town of Nashkel where I found some ankheg armour, Lord Foreshadow having given me a charisma boosting ring on the way. Going south and east I found a ring of fire protection before meeting Lena who persuaded me to take Samuel to the FAI for treatment. Heading north, I killed the evil Sonner gaining a flail +1 as I did so. Nearby killing some undead got me into Leila's good books.
I returned to High Hedge where I helped Melicamp get back into shape.
I then had a pleasant encounter with him.
I then helped Tonder.
South of Beregost I delivered a rabbit to Ugh before setting off to the Nashkel mines.
Zargos Flintblade assaulted me, however a guard protected me by killing him.
Greywolf was similarly aggressive but after "Holding" him, I slew him.
I then took the emeralds from Prism's piece of artwork to Oublek.
I reunited Rufie with his owner before being assaulted by Vax who hurt me badly.
Killing Zal required me to use three potions of healing.
To the west I helped a dryad.
I took Drienne's cat to her and killed Ingot.
I reached level 5 and have a reputation of 20, so an opportunity to go shopping, but I had little in the way of gold. I therefore went after Bassilus. I summoned two skeleton warriors nbefore buffing the three of us with chant and bless. The warriors were sent against Bassilus whilst I cast silence. Bassilus saved, but I didn't save against his hold spell.
The gold didn't go very far, but I was now better equipped to take on ankhegs. A few shells and I will be able to buy even better equipment.
Upon returning to the FAI I killed Tarnesh.
Flydian - dwarf wizard slayer (Grond0)
Corefighter - dwarf fighter (Corey_Russell)
Burdock - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Previous updates
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We hung around in the Docks area for a bit while doing the thief guild tasks. Rayic Gethras was handicapped by being poisoned with an arrow of biting before his buffs fired. He did eventually manage to take down the berserk warrior with a Finger of Death, but by then his PfMW had expired and shortly after that so did he.
We went back to Athkatla to get Corefighter raised. On arrival there we saw Hareishan hassling some thieves and Flydian took pity on them. His shield provided protection against potential domination, but not against level drain - so fighting was potentially quite risky. However, a sunray once more proved efficacious.
Fighter 10, 99 HPs, 101 kills (+202 in BGEE), 1 death
Dark moon monk 10, 84 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 101 kills (+106 in BGEE), 1 death
I thought that I had posted more of my run than I have. I'll look through my screenshots later and post here.
Meanwhile, I now have a party consisting of myself, Sirene, Ajantis, Coran, Dynaheir and Tenya.
I am engaged to Ajantis and we have had quite a chaste courtship. Coran has done a lot of flirting but unsuccessgully.
We have killed many an ankheg, basilisk, medusa sirine and wyvern and even a dragon albeit a small one. We therefore deemed it time to take on the demons in the Nashkel mines.
The mines were no problem. In dangerous areas we summoned skeletond as they don't appear to be bothered by poison and the like and they also seem to be fairly immune to Dyanaheir's webs.
In Nashkel Oubliek was killed by an assassin. We therefore regained the emeralds. He had been protected by fear which was necessary. Rashed sadly killed the assassin so didn't get the experience. Now at Beregost after visiting the bandit camp and killing Deke et al. Visited and killed Tranzig next before clearing the Bandit Camp which was straightforward.
At the Cloakwood Mines, web followed by area effect spells followed by skeleton warriors was sufficient to deal with Drasus and his cronies, only Corwin getting hurt.
To fight Davaeorn, again skeleton warriors were sent in. Davaeorn wasted his spells on them and they also killed Davaeorn's summoned monsters.
All that was needed after that was to defeat him in melee.
We are now mopping up in Cloakwood before heading for the Gate.
Robthem (male elf archer, Grond0); Yodahl (female elf enchanter, Gate70)
Previous updates
Enchanter 8, 35 HPs, 50 kills, 0 deaths
I first did the EE NPC quests. Dorn's was easy, only cautious thing about Neera's was killing Ekandor fast enough so he didn't use his stoneskin scroll (which happened in my blade playthrough).
Rasaad's was straightforward, but it was frustrating to see Gamaz, supposedly weaker than Rasaad, perfectly able to beat Varuca in one on one, so I had to retreat her while the others deal with him. Shar seems to grant more power than Selune indeed.
After that recovering the cloak of Balduran, dealing with Degrodel and finishing exploring wild areas was done.
I skipped ice island and werewolves island and only did Durlag's Tower. The dwarves were easy to deal after some buffs, but the doom guards from Kiel's tomb almost kill me, my last resort was Durlag's goblet with Kiel's helmet.
For level 3, invisible Coran disarmed all the traps in the garden and skeletons area, invisible Branwen killed the skeletons with turn undead and Baeloth with stoneskin and mirror images tanked the three invisible creatures in the garden.
Chess was done the safest way : web, fireball, lost gift and oil of fiery burning ...
Demon Knight was tanked by buffed Ajantis while Coran and Kivan shooted him from afar, and was only joined by Varuca and Branwen when he was stunned.
I didn't bring back Soultaker to the dwarf and paid a visit to the Iron Throne.
My usual strategy here is to walk by the six guys while invisible so I can attack them from the back, but I foolishly use stealth for Kivan instead of a spell, and of course he failed his check just in front of the six !
Luckily I had a potion of invisibility ready, so the party still could go to the back. Then Baeloth webbed them, Branwen silenced them, and they discover that fire really burns...
Chapter six went smoothly.
Slythe and Krystin were easily slaughtered, and for Ducal Palace I put two nymphs near Sarevok, Coran and Kivan in the bottom, and cast slow on the doppelganger with Baeloth.
I managed to save the two dukes this time, and Baeloth tanked Sarevok with stoneskin and mirror images without damages.
I spend almost all my gold on charging items, buying stuff for a SoD party, and then went to the Undercity. The party there was webbed and silenced then fireballed.
For the final battle, invisible Coran triggered Semaj, which was greet with an arrow of dispelling from Kivan, and then badly hurt by the others. He managed to land a chaos spell on Kivan, but luckily not on the others.
Coran then backstabbed Sarevok, making Angelo and Tazok appear. Tazok went straight for the party near the entrance and was easily killed, whereas Coran use his last potion of invisibility then the Sand Thief ring to backstabbed Angelo and Sarevok.
He managed to kill Angelo, but between the arrow of explosion and Sarevok's sword he was badly hurt, so he retreated and all the party engaged a near death Sarevok. He was killed by a penetrating arrow from Kivan.
Now on my way to SoD.
Flydian - dwarf wizard slayer (Grond0)
Corefighter - dwarf fighter (Corey_Russell)
Burdock - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1186431/#Comment_1186431
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1186706/#Comment_1186706
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1186953/#Comment_1186953
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1187437/#Comment_1187437
We'd only previously been to Trademeet to pick up the efreeti and the Shield of Harmony, so returned there to work our way through the Druid Grove. The druids proved a bit harder to handle then sometimes, with Burdock only retreating just in time here.
The Fallen Paladins were finished off before Flydian thought about returning to Watcher's Keep. However, our lack of any protection from level drain meant the possible fight with vampiric wraiths would have been dodgy and he decided to try and remedy that by getting the improved mace of disruption. The first stage of that was sorting out Lassal with a Daystar sunray.
Wizard slayer 11, 116 HPs, 174 kills (+185 in BGEE)
Fighter 11, 102 HPs, 147 kills (+202 in BGEE), 3 deaths
Dark moon monk 12, 89 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 125 kills (+106 in BGEE), 1 death
SoD's prologue was tedious because of needing to play my least favorite game, inventory management, in order to prepare stuff for my future party. If only Imoen gave us a bag of holding as a reward for killing Sarevok...
Upstairs was easy with web and fireballs.
Downstairs required to be more careful, and Baeloth stole the show with his aoe spells.
Surprisingly, Korlasz survived longer than expecting, and gave the party a run for its money, even after killing her soldiers.
Chapter 8 was easy, but Korlasz again was a threat and managed to land a confusion spell and killed Minsc.
Chapter 9 was mainly about forming a balanced party, with Varuca, Minsc and Rasaad with Rieltar's Mistake at the frontline, and Corwin, Glint and Baeloth in the back.
I switched the dagger of venom for the buckler of the fist in Varuca's offhand for better AC, so she could tank and let Corwin do the killing.
The only challenge was the dwarves ruin, but some uses of protection from undeads helped to succeed without too many deaths (Minsc and Rasaad died once).
In chapter 10 I switched Rasaad for Volghin and made him scribe all the scrolls kept from BG1 for him.
I first visit the temple in order to free Khelem and gained access to the camp, so I could recruit Dorn instead of Minsc. I immediately put the Helm of Opposite alignment on him.
On they way I decided to kill the green dragon for its scales, and used protection from poison scrolls, protection from evil, but didn't have any haste spell left... I tried the throwing dagger trick but even with 19 dexterity, gauntlet of weapon expertise and Lon's amulet, Varuca managed to miss. She then transformed to werewolf and used Draw upon holy might, while Corwin shot an arrow of dispelling on the dragon. With the help of summons, the frontliners hold the wyverns and young green dragons and the backliner killed Morentherene.
After recruiting Dorn, I proceeded to clear all the areas, finishing by the remaining rooms in the temple. The Neothelid was killed with the help of some summons.
And then I took too much confidence and decided to try the Illithid party... My planned strategy was to shoot arrows of detonation with Corwin after using the Greenstone amulet on each character.
I forgot than Corwin was still blinded from a previous encounter with a cultist mage...
The next scene was a complete mess, with a chaos landed by Baeloth, an hold person spell on the archer thanks to Glint, and Corwin and Voghlin hunted by the kensai.
The Illithid was killed fast, but then I found out than Varuca wasn't in werewolf form! And then the enemy mage casted a teleport field and it was very chaotic.
Corwin was killed, and Voghlin chunked!
Unsurprisingly, Varuca in werewolf form was far better at killing, and so the remaining party managed to finish the last foes.
So now I must take back Minsc... At least Varuca will soon have a dragonscale shield for better tanking. She's also level 12 now.
Overconfidence is the worst enemy of a no reload run...
Screenshots when I'm back on my PC.
SoD is really a step up in difficulty compared to BG1, and without SCS an huge difference in how to manage battles.
Last friday, I decided to listen to a very long (~5 hour) podcast and needed something to do while listening - so I thought that I propably could get a mostly-solo character through BG1 in that time by now, having gathered more experience with solo strats in unmodded runs by now. So, there she is:
Briana, Dark Moon Monk, BG I
Core rules, no mods. Not a strict solo run, though BG I was mostly played solo in order to speed things up by a lot.
Why the class and kit choice? Well, it's propably the weakest class still not in the Hall of Heroes, and since I plan to go back to SCS after this run (that is, if I succeed), I want to have that one out of the way, as I don't trust myself with a monk in SCS. Her stats:
Well, the final battle was kind of rough. Monks are obviously quite terrible here, it was mostly down to the very underleved Coran and Kivan - using oils and boots of speed, they had to apply dispelling arrows on Sarevok and Semaj. As Coran tried to pull Sarevok to the party, he was the target of Semaj's initial barrage of spells and a couple of webs + stinking clouds, so he used a potion of magic blocking, with Kivan dispelling Sarevok's haste right after that:
Yesterday and today, I also played too shorter sessions:
I skipped SoD - not much to gain here for a Monk, and I don't have the knowledge to solo this with this class - a party run would be no problem as I have tons of experience with that, but it would take many hours for very little reward, not required in an unmodded game. For SoA, I decided on retreading a path I had tried in my second no-reload success and only previous monk run, where I played SoA with a trio of the Bhaalspawn, Jan and Jaheira - in that run, Jan ended up getting chunked in the Underdark, and I replaced him in ToB with Sarevok, dualled to Mage. This time, I hope I can keep everyone alive. Also, last time, I recruited a bunch of fighters for Amelyssan - maybe I can avoid doing that this time around.
After making it out of the dungeon, I picked up Jan and completed the circus tent before taking on Mencar, with a heavy reliance on three forest beings and insect plague on my part:
On the "finding a weapon for Jaheira" front, there's actually one in Rasaad's quest too. If you goad the leader of the Tears of Selune into attacking ("Are you all so eager to shed your brother's blood?"), then she drops "Hawksight", a +2 scimitar with an additional +1 Dex. It's no Belm or Blackblood, but it's better than anything you can pick up in Athkatla for her. Or if you don't fight her, you can pick Sixscar's pockets for it.
Since I need to get to Trademeet to recruit Rasaad anyway, might as well clear the Druid Grove, since it's arguably the easiest stronghold quest anyway (could even just cast invisibility 10' radius and just pick up Belm). Thanks for the idea though, I don't really have full knowledge of the more obscure EE drops yet. I'm mainly looking for the mirror image ring, true sight gem and, of course, the monk gauntlets.
Briana, Dark Moon Monk, update 2
First, though, I started with the various Athkatla sidequests, and I ended up not skipping any of them - I started at the bridge with the tanner:
Next, I plan to visit the druid grove. Briana is currently level 12, which means that she has her most important immunities, +2 fists, her final dark moon monk ability (mirror image) - still to get quivering palms and magic resistance + stronger fists.
Quick update for the druid grove - insect plague for the big druid group, fire elementals and buffs for the three rakshasa, opening from invisibility against the three final druids and Jaheira duels Faldorn via insect plague + forest beings:
It might look like we were in trouble now, but Jan's second chaos made sure that every single enemy on the battlefield was confused, and with our remaining three party members staying at range, the dark moon monks turned on each other while Jaheira was sending two fire elementals into the fold - cleanup wasn't all that hard:
I've tried to fix this in my tweak mod, but the version that's currently out there doesn't work very well. When I get around to updating it again, I'll have a better version of the fix. This will also be in the EE fixpack when that gets released.
Helma and party have now finished Candlekeep and arrived at Durlag's after doing a host of fetch and carry quests in the Gate.
Three short stronghold quests: Started at Imnesvale, I did the sidequests and entered temple ruins, letting fire elementals deal with most enemies and helping with bone golems. No lich spawns yet, my levels were still low enough. The Shade Lord fell to a few attacks + sunray from Daystar:
I entered the Windspear dungeon as my next step, using sunray and a well-protected Jaheira with the AoP to deal with the vampire group:
Main hand blade: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 2 APR, 5.5 average damage, 0 to hit.
Fists and blade: 3/1 APR, 5.5/7.5 average damage, -4/-5 to hit.
Level 9-11:
Main hand blade: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage, +1 to hit.
Fists and blade: 3.5/1 APR, 7.5/7.5 average damage, -3/-5 to hit.
Level 12:
Main hand blade: 2.5 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 3 APR, 8.5 average damage, +2 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 8.5/7.5 average damage, -2/-5 to hit.
Level 13-14:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 3 APR, 8.5 average damage, +2 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 8.5/7.5 average damage, -2/-5 to hit.
Level 15-17:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 3.5 APR, 13.5 average damage, +3 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 13.5/7.5 average damage, -1/-5 to hit.
Level 18-24:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 4 APR, 13.5 average damage, +3 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 13.5/7.5 average damage, -1/-5 to hit.
Level 25+:
Main hand blade: 3 APR, 7.5 average damage plus poison, +3 to hit.
Fists only: 4 APR, 14.5 average damage, +4 to hit.
Fists and blade: 4/1 APR, 14.5/7.5 average damage, 0/-5 to hit.
The poison has a 100% chance, but only applies on a failed save. Most enemies use warrior save arrays, which have pretty good saves against poison, but you can expect a decent chance of that working on just about anything that isn't immune.
The above assumes proficiency in scimitars and no fist damage gauntlets. Strength and other accessories will boost your to-hit modifier and damage further.
Before level 12, you're better off with the sword in your main hand than you are with your fists, unless the enemies have certain resistances/immunities (skeletons, clay golems) or long reach is desired (stealth attacks). At exactly level 12, fist APR sneaks ahead of sword APR, though you still might want the sword main-hand when the poison is good. At level 13 or 14, the blade is probably better against enemies vulnerable to poison, with fists better against immune enemies. Unless you have one of the fist-boosting gauntlets, that is.
At level 15, fists get a massive damage boost and you're unlikely to ever put a melee weapon in your main hand again.
At level 18+, you have enough THAC0 that you can afford to give a few points away by putting a weapon in your off hand ... but there's not much reason for that to be the scarlet ninja-to. I prefer weapons with defensive passive abilities here, like the Sword of Balduran.
Whether the off-hand sword is worthwhile is highly dependent on how easily you're hitting the enemies. And that varies widely.
I'll run the numbers against a standard medium bruiser; an umber hulk. Base AC 2 with 18 Dex, for an effective -2. Saves versus death on an 11. Assume 19 strength, but no other to-hit buffs. Monk level 13, scimitar proficiency and single-weapon style known.
The sword's poison works half the time, so that's an effective +6 damage for its hits. Your base THAC0 is 8, so you need a modified roll of 10 to hit. That's 4 with the main-hand sword alone, 5 with fists alone, 9/12 with fists and sword. Damage for the sword is 20.5, or 35 on a crit. Damage for the fists is 15.5, or 31 on a crit.
Blade alone: hit on 4, crit on 19. Damage per round 56.6.
Fists alone: hit on 5, crit on 20. Damage per round 39.5.
Fists and blade: hit on 9/12, crit on 20. Damage per round 50.3.
So the combo beats out fists alone in this case, but the sword alone is best of all.
My overall feeling is that the off-hand sword is overrated ... but the main-hand sword is very good. At least until you get the level 15 fist upgrade.
I entered the planar prison buffed and invisible, fought my way through the various groups, sometimes going stealth again, throwing down greater malison + quivering palm/chaos, immediately taking on the warden after destroying the orb while he was still busy dealing with the slave rebellion: