Made my way through the planar sphere, using invisibility to get openings on hostile spellcasters and breach to dispel protections - I didn't even need insect plague, now that Jan has Robe of Vecna, AoP and breach:
Still didn't feel comfortable fighting adamantite golems, so I took them out at range - I used invulnerability pots to improve my saving throws before facing the demons outside, as I didn't want to rest to learn chaotic commands. Next up, I invaded Bodhi's Lair, where I had Jaheira equip the AoP, oil of speed, frost giant strength potion and let her solo most of the place. Briana helped with sunray against Tanova, and Bodhi fell to a quick assault with summons and buffs:
Finally, I completed the De'Arnise Stronghold quests before travelling to Brynnlaw, where I'll begin my next session. Before that, though I bought an improved haste scroll from the bridge district cutpurse.
Super short update here: Quickly made my way through Brynnlaw, killing Galvena's mage from invisibility and backstabbing Perth:
Tried to get thrown into Spellhold, not enough charisma though, instead I used the wardstone and fought my way there, gave Bhaal a point of wisdom. Next time, the Asylum.
I made my way through spellhold without resting, mostly making use of superior levels, combat abilities and sometimes stealth or great saving throws - plus traps for the two mind flayer encounters. Here's a nice way to get rid of a yuan-ti mage without letting it build up protections:
Sometimes, improved haste on Jaheira was used to speed things up, PFU to deal with the lich, swapping around the AoP for vampires, and rings of regeneration to avoid having to rest. Since I was confident in my damage for the Irenicus encounter, I didn't even bother with defensive buffs, only going for improved haste - as predicted, he ran away as soon as his opening spell script was completed:
This victory gave Jan and Jaheira their first HLA (UAI, greater elemental summoning) - we made it back to Brynnlaw, and I'll deal with the city of caverns next time.
Tiny update: Made my way back through Brynnlaw and the City of Caverns. No notable incidents, though I got my first monk HLA (WW) and Jan got an extra 6th level spell. The outer Underdark areas are next.
Our journey through the Underdark went quite well - to provide important protections, Jaheira cleared her level 4 and 5 spellslots to learn death wards and chaotic commands. Her having only 3 level 5 spellslots is luckily okay with our tiny party. After clearing the main area with the help of some fire elementals, I quickly buffed with PfP and spell shield before taking down the elder eye and beholder in the southern tunnels:
I didn't investigate any further because I wanted the belt of frost giant strength first - instead, I took down the balor, also buffing fire protection:
After a short rest and rebuffing again, once again fire protection (and negative plane protection) was used for the demon knights:
The kuo-toas were cleared out via elementals and monk action before Jaheira cleared the beholder tunnels, letting an elemental prince (or two, in this case) help her for the second elder eye:
Next up, illithid city - with chaotic commands and very low armor classes all around, not much of a problem. Since Jaheira is the only one who needs improved haste, she's almost always buffed with that. For larger groups, we lured a few of them in the next room. No scary situations here:
Entering the drow city, I used a death spell scroll (which Jan can use via UAI) for the illlithid ambush:
Deirex fell to a series of quick attacks before his buffs fired and a sunray after they did:
Having a few fighter HLAs and improved haste made it relatively easy to clear out the hostile drow houses, and we left the Underdark without any serious trouble.
With fighter HLAs now available, the remainder of SoA was fairly straightforward - first, the remaining chapter 2/3 stuff - sewer illithids, dragons, liches, guarded compound, twisted rune, Kangaxx - some scattered screenshots here. Every run, I learn some new technique - this time around, it was using limited wish for mass negative plane protection (repeatable wish - I wish to be protected from undead) - so much better than buffing everyone indifvidually with a divine spell with super low duration - just use the limited wish as the very last part of your pre-buffing and rush in. I used it basically everywhere that I'd meet vampires, or against the shadow dragon, or against demon knights etc. Some scattered screenshots of the remaining fights:
My final goal before visiting Bohdi: WK II - fairly simple with the resistance spells and items at my disposal, and as the ice golem was very nearly deadly during my last run, I used frost protection scrolls this time around:
Jan's regular snares still had bonus fire damage at this point, so I used those + flamestrike from wand of the heavens for the chromatic demon:
After that, double sunray from items helped in clearing out Bodhi's lair:
Jan cast improved haste on Drizzt, who killed Bodhi by himself before I was able to take the final hit and kill experience:
After that, at the elven city, I changed up my anti-Rakshasa strategies with no planetars or ADHWs available - Jan instead used incendiary clouds (combined with Jaheira's fire protection) to great effect:
Though this propably won't work as well with SCS. The dragon, however, was a tougher foe - he knocked out Briana via wing buffet, hit Jaheira with insect plague (Jan was protected via SI) and forced Jaheira to retreat to our "safety traps", which finally killed the near death dragon:
Tree-Irenicus was dealt with via traps, and we dealt with the Sarevok hell trial the evil way (for the +2 strength - we don't need wisdom or charisma, and this allows us to skip wearing a strength belt for now, with natural 21 str) - the others the good way for rewards I considered to be better for us at this point. We got rid of Jon's demons first and chased him down south, quickly breaching the slayer:
Very quickly, this was it:
I've also started playing some ToB at least, learning all the spellscrolls, taking down Gromnir starting from invisibility, with a fire immune party and incendiary clouds for the wizards, fighter HLAs for the barbarian himself:
I'm not too far away from "unlocking" Jan and Jaheira - ie getting to 6 million experience, which will get Jaheira the precious druid level 15 and Jan the ability to use 9th level spells (and thus, wizard HLAs). This is going to be an important power boost. I also plan to do a full run of ToB here, including the lower levels of Watcher's Keep, because the items could be extremely useful for this party and I don't have to spend too much time buffing with just 3 party members, so it's less tedious to do these types of battles.
Our best ways to fight fire giants: Nature's Beauty (AoE blind with no save) or letting them hit Mordenkainen's Swords:
Keeping up fire immunity allowed for a relatively straightforward clear of the fire temple, though I always had to watch Briana's hitpoints when engaging the giants. Yaga-Shura himself, though, died within a single round:
We made it through the Oasis and into Amkehtran, where we killed Vongoethe via traps:
A planetar helped out with the drow groups and hive mothers at Sendai's Enclave, while a Deva took care of Odamaron. Ogremoch was actually a bit scary due to his insane damage output and our limited ability to hurt him:
However, most of the place was fairly straightforward. We had, at this point, unlocked the 6 million experience needed for Jan and Jaheira's important power spikes. For Sendai, we usually first took down the help while breaching/decting illusions against her mage clones - her final form was hit with ruby ray + breach and quickly taken down, though she did get to use her onyx ring twice:
Since Draconis is propably the most dangerous foe in vanilla ToB (the Ravager and the slayer shadow version of Amelyssan might be in the same league), this was our time to finish Watcher's Keep. No trouble in the teleport maze, we still do very well in dead magic zones with great innate immunities and saving throws (except for Jan, but he was kept out of trouble). It took some breaches and fighter HLAs to take down the demonic wraith:
And, for the first time in many, many runs (it's propably been years), I've actually managed to win the Spectral Brand:
Perfect - Jaheira can really make good use of that. Now, I cleared out illithids and gith, with the demi-lich dying to PFM and Saladrex pointlessly chasing after a Jan-simulacrum:
Finishing level 4 allowed us to get to 103 magic resistance on our protagonist (with the Amulet of the Seldarine as the only item to boost it). Very nice. We also hit the experience cap in level 5 - perfect. Taking down another dragon was trivial at this point, the spirit warrior maze was completed in the most careful fashion (not taking on the ghost, not opening the poisoned drawer). Finally, we started with the Aurumach Rilmani, who's timestop was interrupted by Jaheira's smite:
Azamantes died to traps:
And, for the final seal, the succubus was killed via traps while our fighters rushed down everyone else with the help of high level summons and simmys:
I read the scroll for Demogorgon and left WK behind me, with some great new items equipped.
With the SotM spell trap for Jan, SotA for Jaheira and 103 magic resistance for Briana, we aren't really all that bothered when it comes to spellcasters. Jaheira can tank mostly anything in melee, and we have a lot of hardinesses in case her ironskons go down or Briana is a target. Still, there is one foe who might be able to seriously challenge us: Draconis in dragon form tends to sometimes dispel magic and breath weapon right after, not allowing for a renewal of acid resistance buffs, and only Jan has SI:A available. Jaheira can wear the shadow dragon armor, but Briana herself only has her hitpoints as protection if her buffs go - and Draconis' breath is infamous for his damage. I'm relatively confident and well-prepared for this battle, but let's see how it goes.
I made sure to approach Draconis with the required respect. Getting his human form low was easy - more importantly, my party spread out when he got low, in order to avoid getting trapped in his selection circles and to give everyone a chance to avoid the dispel magic he uses in dragon form:
As he turned into a dragon, I was able to actually avoid remove magic - he targeted Jan, who had SI:A going, so Jaheira and Briana ran in the other direction and kept their buffs - great! I breached him, activated true sight, started dealing damage:
Jan was casting timestop, but right as it went off Draconis went invisible - unlucky. I was unable to make any use of timestop, and it seems like either my lower resistance or ruby ray was too slow hit hit the dragon once he showed up again and Jan activated IA - despite me stepping backwards after each cast to give them travel time before unleashing my damage spells. Still, Draconis was unable to withstand Jaheira and Briana once they activated their HLAs:
He died in the same round - despite the failed timestop, this went very well. Clearing Abzigal's Lair wasn't too difficult, though Briana once got stuck in the selection circle of this vigilant:
I REALLY, REALLY wish that this bug would finally get fixed. It's so annoying. This time around, I couldn't even target the vigilant, so I had to use ctrl + J to continue the run.
Now, it turns out I would get my harrowing and difficult fight - though it was Abazigal this time around. I made a few mistakes here: First, and most obvious, I forgot that Abazigal is immune to timestop (I just remembered Ravager, Balthazar and Amelyssan). Second, I didn't realize that Abazigal will use his dispel magic relatively frequently, so Jan had only one SI:A memorized. Getting him into dragon form wasn't a problem:
However, after that, Jan started the timestop, and the trouble started. This could've been the end of my run via self-sabotage, but luckily, the dragon still had a planetar + Sunnis to go through. Similiar to Draconis, my attempts at dispelling the dragons buffs, lowering his MR and nuking him during timestop failed completely, and I'm not sure why (had to be travel time, despite stepping back a bunch once again). Jan eventually ventured into melee, well protected (or so I thought) to provide a new target for Abazigal as the timestop finally ended, and I had him cast PFMW for additional safety. Indeed, the dragon went after the gnome, but in the second after timestop ended, I failed to notice that Jan got dispelled. SI:A wasn't active anymore at this point. Jan died before I even noticed that anything was wrong:
Jaheira had also lost her improved haste, cutting her damage in half. Since spell damage wouldn't do the trick, I needed her - Briana used the RoR on Jan:
Jan equipped the anti-electriciy cloak from spellhold and renewed Jaheira's improved haste, as Briana and Jaheira were doing their best with healing potions and fighter HLAs - I got Abazigal to waste a lot of time on a Jan simmy with stoneskins, which gave the newly buffed Jaheira the time to finally finish the battle:
That was tough - our first character death, actually. The timestop was incredibly stupid, and I made a point to look up the exact immunities and resistances of Balthazar and The Ravager before engaging them to avoid anything similiar. Balthazar still didn't stand much of a chance - he had to use his second wind after one round of fighter HLAs and died shortly after the second one:
Back in the pocket plane, I completed the remaining challenges - the Ravager being the big one, though with Jan in my party, I just laid down 7 spike traps and hit him a few times with HLAs as he usually goes to near death from the traps alone.
All right, the throne - well, since I'm using spike traps this run, it's really only 1 Amelyssan battle and clearing out the three pools. I have not only 13 spike traps and a few normal traps, but multiple simmy spells on Jan (though only 4 spike traps per mel-fight are needed). My buffs: Storm giant strength, heroism, invulnerability, speed, improved haste on Jaheira, blur + MI, SI:A, protection from fire, AoF, cc + death ward, remove fear, stoneskins (including for Briana from gargoyle boots) - no spell protections, because they might prevent me from re-buffing if I get unlucky. Upon entering the throne, Jan summoned a planetar and everyone charged with fighter HLAs - Jan joining into the fray this time with Answerer + scarlet ninja-to. His spells won't do much good against Mel. Two rounds of fighter HLAs, and Mel retreated:
with our buffs still fully active, everyone drank a potion of absorption and cleared the first pool - note that we have immunity to level drain on everyone via items - AoP on Jan, Spectral Brand on Jaheira, Angurvidal on Briana:
Laying down 4 spike traps does the trick for the next Mel encounter:
Using frost protections scrolls and potions to gain full immunity here, summoning an elemental prince as a distraction:
We are extra careful because we have extra traps - to counter possibly bad RNG, 5 spike traps and 2 normal traps make sure the next incarnation of Mel dies instantly - we move a bit to the north, renew a few buffs and Jan prepares some scrolls I have gathered over the course of the game - he also tries one of his two wishes to see if we get anything powerful for the fallen solar battle - and he gets the option for double length timestop + IA right away. He doesn't have improved haste yet, and can't buff it on himself during timestop, sadly - but still, I take the option and he moves in. He starts with a few hits with the answerer before I decide to use a scroll of shapechange I have in my scroll case - I continue to cast timestop scrolls while trying out iron golem form (they can be cast while shapechanged):
The iron golem does less damage than I expected, Answerer was actually better - however, the fallen solar still dies and I have 3 timestop scrolls (down from 5, I think that's all of them in the game). I change into the illithid form, use another scorll - now that's more like it!
Never have I killed these mariliths this fast before. Cool! Of course, I've experimented with mind flayer + timestop in the past, but it's always been a little bit too much setup for my taste. Well - that should seal our victory. We put down our final 4 spike traps and 3 regular traps, rebuff improved haste on Jaheira just to be safe, summon a deva and another elemental prince - but they're not needed, the traps to their job:
Well, that's it. Aside from the Abazigal fight and some early game risks in BG1 (ankheg cave, 1 hp escape etc.) this went rather well, and it was a lot more fun to play with only 3 characters in the lategame - usually I dread ToB combat, but it didn't bother me this time around with only 3 characters to buff (and them being able to do very well even with very few buffs thanks to great saves, magic resistance, item-based immunities etc.) - I'm not too surprised this run succeeded, as I mentioned a few times that I've done this exact trio before (with an unkitted monk) - that was 12 years ago, and with much more no-reload experience and game knowledge, I should be expected to do better this time (and I did - last time, Jan got chunked and replaced by Sarevok, I struggled a LOT with Draconis and had to recruit three more fighters for Mel).
Not sure when I'll start my next run, but it will certainly be with SCS installed this time around.
@Arvia Here we go again Dark Moon Monk can also be removed from the list of missing kits! Now, I really need some help with removing all these wizard kits. I don't particularily like playing single class wizards in SCS, and there are a lot of them left. Would love to see some more activity in that direction!
I REALLY, REALLY wish that this bug would finally get fixed. It's so annoying. This time around, I couldn't even target the vigilant, so I had to use ctrl + J to continue the run.
Any form of group travel should also do it. Have someone click on a travel pool, or have the protagonist use the pocket plane ability. Because it always feels better to fix the problem without console commands.
Here's a belated report of us in the late stages of BGEE. The session started with us poised to attack the Iron Throne. The initial preparations went well and, with summons active and grease and emotion affecting the oppositionm things looked like being straightforward. However, Robthem was a bit closer than he might have been (in order to throw poisonous darts) and got affected by a confusion. Yodahl was not quick enough to get out of his line of sight and was poisoned before she could nip into the nearby room. With several of the enemies also poisoned, however, most of the opponents were dead before we were both back in action. There was still time for Yodahl to take a nasty critical hit when trying to target Zhalimar, but she took her revenge with a successful blind to effectively end the fight.
There were no problems in looting the tombs at Candlekeep. Against Prat's gang, Robthem got a bit worried that Prat was wandering around invisibly somewhere - before Yodahl pointed out that he was in fact already dead.
We hadn't previously done Durlag's Tower, so nipped over there to pick up some quick XP and the wisdom tome (though that's no real help to us).
Back in Baldur's Gate we headed for Slythe and shot him down under cover of summons. The latter were then used to provide targets for Krystin - despite a bit of difficulty in getting the summons to move where desired, her cloudkill reached just far enough to finish off Quenash and get us the Cloak of Balduran. Krystin herself was more of a problem, as she shrugged off hits from Robthem to cast a bouncing lightning bolt that did quite a bit of damage - but a follow-up attack finished her off before she could cast again.
At the palace a group of hasted summons helped take down the dopplegangers quickly. That was needed though as they were having a good go at the dukes - Belt ending at near death and Liia at badly wounded.
We passed through the maze and dealt with the Undercity party on the way to Sarevok. He was lured out with a dispelling arrow and more of those accounted for Semaj. Sarevok himself came to an unusual end when greater malison left him susceptible to being blinded.
@Arvia Here we go again Dark Moon Monk can also be removed from the list of missing kits! Now, I really need some help with removing all these wizard kits. I don't particularily like playing single class wizards in SCS, and there are a lot of them left. Would love to see some more activity in that direction!
Added, congrats!
From now on I'm going to take bets on the time it takes @Enuhal to eliminate classes and kits from the list and if someone else will at least remove one more, too!
Here's a post to dispel any notion that all my recent runs are successful: After installing SCS, I tried to go for a quick 32k experience opening to recruit a leveled party in BG1. However, unlike my usual approach, I didn't want to kill Shoal (I thought I might want to get the helmet of defense later on) - so I killed the basilisks with the help of Corax, no problem, and on a whim, decided to get the remaining 5k experience that I'd need via bombing the wolf pack at the eastern temple area, which includes 2 vampires wolves (2k xp each) - however, one of the vampire wolves caught up to me, and a single hit was enough to apply the hold effect and end the run:
Interestingly enough, I even survived a bandit ambush at level 1 earlier on with this character:
I only take risks like these in the very early game, and I lost less than 20 minutes of playtime, so this it will be easy to get back to a similiar point and try again (this time without vampire wolves, propably instead a few Beregost sidequests).
@Arvia Here we go again Dark Moon Monk can also be removed from the list of missing kits! Now, I really need some help with removing all these wizard kits. I don't particularily like playing single class wizards in SCS, and there are a lot of them left. Would love to see some more activity in that direction!
Varuca, half elf shapeshifter update 6 (previous one here : https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1187741#Comment_1187741)
So after Vohglin's permadeath, I recruted again Minsc and did the Fort Borarskyr quests, surrendered the fort and recruted Khalid instead of Minsc.
I did all I could in the coalition camp, then went to Bloodbark Grove, clean the vampire cave, and then... A small army of bombardier and boring beetles appeared right in the middle of my party ! I always thought than spawning points work only when we walk in them, not when we are already on them for some times !
It was over really fast with hold on Varuca and some others members, and even with the automatic pause I was too surprised to react quickly enough. (I play with 60 FPS).
Once again dragons and illihids are not the main threat, but ordinary foes, when caution is a little low...
I'm not really in the mood for doing again unmodded BG1 with a shapeshifter, so I will probably try again SoD at the start by using my final save from BG1.
Meanwhile, I did an EET install with new versions of mods to test, and so decided to try a no reload run with it.
Okay, my previously failed bard early game as been done again (this time with more care), and we've assembled a party -
Introducing Dorian II, half-elven lawful neutral bard
SCS on tactical difficulty, only with bioware NPCs this time around. Corax does it again:
With SCS, Corax is of course not guaranteed to beat Mutamin, but he did this time around (it helped that Mutamin used his slow on my fairly useless main character instead of the more powerful ghoul) - the extra 5k experience to 32k were gained by doing the Beregost sidequests (except for Silke and Neera, no need to fight mages yet) - I had a wand of sleep and necklace of missles at my disposal (gold for everything gained, of course, by selling Evermemory):
The half-ogres were, sadly, assisted by a bunch of skeletons who are immune to sleep, so I burned one of my necklace charges:
I had fire protection due to the ring, as I also had returned Samuel's body (my bard was created with 16 strength, so he was able to carry that one). Now, as I had my 32k experience points, I recruited Imoen, but soon realized that with SCS, I had the customizable NPC mod settings, which don't work like the vanilla game - i.e., companions will start near/around my level, will also level up if I leave the area and return at a higher level, but they won't start at exactly 32k experience just because I have that much - so I decided to make it to level 7 first to get everyone a bit higher still - 40k experience in total are needed, and I knew exactly where to get 8k experience - I picked up the wand of frost from the Nashkel mines, returned to High Hedge to identify it, and burned 3 charges each for the battle horrors at the start, each worth 4k experience. After that, I recruited Imoem again (at a higher level now), Ajantis, Branwen and Minsc, made my way to the gnoll fortress, and fought my way through hordes of enemies using the wand of sleep to help out:
Some hold person, command, PfE and horror spells were used as well, and we recruited Dynaheir, got the charisma tome before leaving and made our way to rest at FAI - though first, Tarnesh had to die, and he did so to initial arrowfire before he was able to pre-buff:
This is Dorian right now:
This run will obviously be played at a much slower pace, as I won't solo BG1 (which would be way faster, but I don't feel comfortable soloing SCS), won't skip TOTSC content or SoD and propably won't have as much time to play. I plan to take my time, play one or two areas at a time and enjoy the SCS experience
Skaraxe Whitebeard, a nasty piece of work but with a great charisma has managed to reach the Cloakwood mines along with his companions Thorin, Xzar, Baeloth, Corin and Tenya. There has been interesting banter between them. Tiax was my thief but he went hostile. I have therefore avoided reputation further increases.
We beat Drasus and co easily. However we had no summons spells left to get rid of some left over traps. We therefore slept in order to be able to summon monsters to set off the traps. Guards arrived on the scene right on top of the traps which meant that we had no need to summon monsters.
It couldn't have worked better as we got more experience out of it.
I don’t post here often, but I regret to report that Adzy, the mighty Berserker/Mage, perished in the illithid lair.
She was a mighty combatant. Unfortunately, her 19 INT, boosted to 25 with some potions, still wasn’t enough to withstand the illithids.
Oh well, it was a fun run on insane difficulty, one that lasted quite a long time (for me anyway).
I think my next run will feature a sorcerer, surrounded by as many tanks as possible, whom I’ll just revive if they get their brains sucked out.
At what level did you dual to mage? With a low intelligence my berserker couldnn't dual to mage, but with a wisdom of 18 could certainly dual to cleric. Not sure whether dualling is a good idea though.
Any advice welcome. Having reached the Cloakwood mines, SoA is looking a possibility.
Good levels to dual are usually 7 (for the extra half attack per round), 9 (maximum hit dice, first possible level for grandmastery) and 13 (maximum attacks per round). Certainly, berserker/cleric is extremely strong throughout the game, but single class berserkers are great as well (though the dual class is certainly more flexible). Just make sure you don't dual at a point in the game were you need the full power of your main character, because it takes a while to re-gain the berserker levels, especially if you dual at 13. The timing can generally be tricky.
So, here is my new current run :
Gwydion, elven Hawkeye of Solonor (custom ranger / cleric kit from Deities of Faerun, which can put 3 proficiency points in bow, and it gains some special shots abilities while leveling up).
It's an EET install, here are the quests mod for BG1 (I will talk about BG2 quests if I get there...) :
- Balduran's Seatower
- Shades of the Sword Coast
- Ascalon's questspack
- BG1 NPC Project
For the main tweaks :
- Deities of Faerun for cleric kits (without the sphere system)
- The Artisan's kitpack for Rashemi Berserker for Minsc, vanilla fighter overhaul for Khalid, Trickster for Imoen, and ranger overhaul
- Bardic Wonders
- houserules tweaks pack from The Artisan
- IWDification for arcane and divine spells, and faster spells progression for paladins and rangers
- EET Tweaks for XP reduce to 50%, no XP for disarm traps or scribe scrolls
And SCS with all components, with difficulty slider sets to tactical.
The main objective of this run is to play the cannon party, but with Imoen 4 ever in SoD and SoA, Khalid BG2 from Lava instead of Jaheira in SoA, and Cernd as a replacement for Jaheira and Aerie as a replacement for Dynaheir, with the Wings mod too.
But first BG1 !
Thanks to the new early quests, I could level up relatively fast albeit the reduce XP.
Of course all party members beside Gwydion and Imoen died at least two times.
I'm currently in chapter 5, doing the city quests. All wilderness areas are done, except the ogre mage from Firewine and the beholder from the basiliks cave from SotSC. I also did almost all NPC quests, to the exception of Rasaad and Tiax.
What was the main events ?
When doing Shoal, the PnP elemental component from aTweak made it far more difficult : she charmed Minsc, summoned a powerful water elemental, and killed Minsc with a drowned kiss. She didn't offer to raise him when hurted, so after dealing with the ogre mage (and killing Shoal out of anger), I tried to went back to the Temple of Beregost, but on the way I was ambushed by Molkar and his bounty hunters. Gwydion's silence spell was too slow to catch the gnome spellcaster, but thanks to the summoning wand from Dynaheir, Imoen's blindness from her trickster mimicry ability, Jaheira's sunscorch, and after that some backstabs with Imoen's trickery ability, the fight was over easily even without Minsc.
Then we decided to go back to the shores, and this time it's the amazons which ambushed us !
With Minsc alive again, they couldn't do much against our party, between hold person, silence, web, summon monsters and backstabs.
The bandits camp was also a close run : after successfully infiltrated their ranks, I went into Tazok's tent and all went fine with silence and potions of explosions, except Dynaheir's death to arrows.
All my strategy for dealing with the surrounding bandits went exiting the tent (component from SCS) was based on Dynaheir.
So this fight was very difficult, I managed to hold and blind Taurgosz, but sleep didn't work well against Blacktalon elites, and I no longer had access to web, wand of fireballs, wand of summoning and I exhausted all my potions of explosion in the tent...
Luckily I remembered just in time than my ranger / cleric could use the wand of fear, and with the aid of almost all my healing potions, I prevailed.
Cloackwood was easier than I feared, even the dread Shadow Druids couldn't handle silence and web combined.
In the mine, the party was surrounded in the narrow passage with Hareishan approaching. Fearing a Lightning spell, I throw a potion of explosion and killed her in one shot.
Davaeorn somehow react to invisible Imoen, and while Dynaheir with webs and fireballs contained the enforcements, the others played a cat and mouse game with Davaeorn, which ended up teleporting in a spike growth from Jaheira...
Pirates cave was also hard to reach, with three Nereids with the same powers than Shoal on the way. Minsc and Khalid were killed, so I had to retreat and came back.
When doing Garrick's quest, I could see than Myr'Cutio was boosted by Bardic Wonders and its improved blade kit. He could faced on one on one Khalid !
In Baldur's Gate, Vay-Ya was silenced, but she still could use her wand of fireballs, almost killing Gwydion ine one use !
Gwydion is now ranger level 5 / cleric level 6. He's a little behind in terms of XP because of the tree of Shades from SotSC. Imoen is also behind, because she have a 10% XP penalty from her Trickster kit.
Dynaheir really benefits from some of the mods installed, with bonus spells slots from intelligence, and sone nice items from SotSC and Bardic Wonders.
Jaheira is using dagger and shield, Khalid longsword and shield (with houserules tweaks pack sword and shield style is fr more useful), Minsc two hand sword, Imoen the crossbow of speed, and Gwydion just found a shortbow +2 on Marek's body...
Dorian II, half-elven lawful neutral bard, second update
A short session today - I completed all the minor encounters and sidequests from FAI to the north to the Nashkel Mines + Carnival to the south on the road. This included three encounters against SCS spellcasters, though those in Beregost ware made a lot easier when Neera's would-be ambushers and Silke failed saving throws against Dorian's horror spell:
The mage at the carnival was simply shot down with arrows and melee attacks, and we were able to interrupt his opening mirror image (the party was hasted, Dynaheir started with that one in her spellbook). We also made sure to gather some early magical weapons for the party, getting the +1 two-hander from the half-ogres, +1 bastard sword from the blacksmith, +1 club from the dryad (my Imoen has chosen to go for clubs, for some reason) and Greywolf's sword, which was obtained via hold person:
Still much to do in regards to equipment and gold. Lots of wilderness areas to explore, but this should be quite easy with our levels - especially with Dynaheir and her invoker-webs available to us.
The mines were straightforward. We didn't even need to rest, though we were low on spells by the time that we reachedd Davaeorn. Hareishan fell quickly once webbed.
We cast a summonned monster who attacked Davaeorn. After teleporting a few times Davaeorn charmed it. Shortly after the charm wore off the summoning spell expired. Tenya then summoned a couple of skeletons who were immune to Davaeorn's spells. They would probably have survived without further help, but our help hastened the end.
At the FAI some overly righteous attacked us and as a result our armour became a little better.
We sold exraneous equipment and bought some wands, probably the wrong ones.
At the gate we beat Imanel Silversword and his pet wolves.
We dropped Thorin for Dorn and finished his quest.
Replaced Dorn with Thorin again.
Now in the Gate with a few trivial quests. Level 7.
Arkion wouldn't give me his quest. He thinks that I'm a goody goody just because my rep is 18. Coran tried to pick-pocket and was unsuccessful. Had to kill him.
Comments
Made my way through the planar sphere, using invisibility to get openings on hostile spellcasters and breach to dispel protections - I didn't even need insect plague, now that Jan has Robe of Vecna, AoP and breach:
Super short update here: Quickly made my way through Brynnlaw, killing Galvena's mage from invisibility and backstabbing Perth:
After completing Candlekeep, we have plunged into the depths of Durlag's Tower and have defeated the 4 warders.
Didn't quite leave enough traps to kill the warders, but they were all near death and died quickly.
Now going out with Street Angels so no more play today and won't be up early tomorrow.
I made my way through spellhold without resting, mostly making use of superior levels, combat abilities and sometimes stealth or great saving throws - plus traps for the two mind flayer encounters. Here's a nice way to get rid of a yuan-ti mage without letting it build up protections:
Tiny update: Made my way back through Brynnlaw and the City of Caverns. No notable incidents, though I got my first monk HLA (WW) and Jan got an extra 6th level spell. The outer Underdark areas are next.
Last Entry
Finished Durlag's Tower and went with Drizzt to the nine hells. (Drizzt Saga)
Sadly Marilith killed me and nearly killed Drizzt.
That is where my runs usually end. If I beat her I usually finish the saga.
I don't usually play evil.
Our journey through the Underdark went quite well - to provide important protections, Jaheira cleared her level 4 and 5 spellslots to learn death wards and chaotic commands. Her having only 3 level 5 spellslots is luckily okay with our tiny party. After clearing the main area with the help of some fire elementals, I quickly buffed with PfP and spell shield before taking down the elder eye and beholder in the southern tunnels:
With fighter HLAs now available, the remainder of SoA was fairly straightforward - first, the remaining chapter 2/3 stuff - sewer illithids, dragons, liches, guarded compound, twisted rune, Kangaxx - some scattered screenshots here. Every run, I learn some new technique - this time around, it was using limited wish for mass negative plane protection (repeatable wish - I wish to be protected from undead) - so much better than buffing everyone indifvidually with a divine spell with super low duration - just use the limited wish as the very last part of your pre-buffing and rush in. I used it basically everywhere that I'd meet vampires, or against the shadow dragon, or against demon knights etc. Some scattered screenshots of the remaining fights:
Our best ways to fight fire giants: Nature's Beauty (AoE blind with no save) or letting them hit Mordenkainen's Swords:
With the SotM spell trap for Jan, SotA for Jaheira and 103 magic resistance for Briana, we aren't really all that bothered when it comes to spellcasters. Jaheira can tank mostly anything in melee, and we have a lot of hardinesses in case her ironskons go down or Briana is a target. Still, there is one foe who might be able to seriously challenge us: Draconis in dragon form tends to sometimes dispel magic and breath weapon right after, not allowing for a renewal of acid resistance buffs, and only Jan has SI:A available. Jaheira can wear the shadow dragon armor, but Briana herself only has her hitpoints as protection if her buffs go - and Draconis' breath is infamous for his damage. I'm relatively confident and well-prepared for this battle, but let's see how it goes.
I made sure to approach Draconis with the required respect. Getting his human form low was easy - more importantly, my party spread out when he got low, in order to avoid getting trapped in his selection circles and to give everyone a chance to avoid the dispel magic he uses in dragon form:
Now, it turns out I would get my harrowing and difficult fight - though it was Abazigal this time around. I made a few mistakes here: First, and most obvious, I forgot that Abazigal is immune to timestop (I just remembered Ravager, Balthazar and Amelyssan). Second, I didn't realize that Abazigal will use his dispel magic relatively frequently, so Jan had only one SI:A memorized. Getting him into dragon form wasn't a problem:
I'm preparing for Amelyssan right now.
All right, the throne - well, since I'm using spike traps this run, it's really only 1 Amelyssan battle and clearing out the three pools. I have not only 13 spike traps and a few normal traps, but multiple simmy spells on Jan (though only 4 spike traps per mel-fight are needed). My buffs: Storm giant strength, heroism, invulnerability, speed, improved haste on Jaheira, blur + MI, SI:A, protection from fire, AoF, cc + death ward, remove fear, stoneskins (including for Briana from gargoyle boots) - no spell protections, because they might prevent me from re-buffing if I get unlucky. Upon entering the throne, Jan summoned a planetar and everyone charged with fighter HLAs - Jan joining into the fray this time with Answerer + scarlet ninja-to. His spells won't do much good against Mel. Two rounds of fighter HLAs, and Mel retreated:
Not sure when I'll start my next run, but it will certainly be with SCS installed this time around.
Briana, the Dark Moon Monk: @Enuhal
Notable Mods: None
Difficulty: Core Rules
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1187747/#Comment_1187747
End: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1188034/#Comment_1188034
Any form of group travel should also do it. Have someone click on a travel pool, or have the protagonist use the pocket plane ability. Because it always feels better to fix the problem without console commands.
Robthem (male elf archer, Grond0); Yodahl (female elf enchanter, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1187473/#Comment_1187473
We hadn't previously done Durlag's Tower, so nipped over there to pick up some quick XP and the wisdom tome (though that's no real help to us).
Back in Baldur's Gate we headed for Slythe and shot him down under cover of summons. The latter were then used to provide targets for Krystin - despite a bit of difficulty in getting the summons to move where desired, her cloudkill reached just far enough to finish off Quenash and get us the Cloak of Balduran. Krystin herself was more of a problem, as she shrugged off hits from Robthem to cast a bouncing lightning bolt that did quite a bit of damage - but a follow-up attack finished her off before she could cast again.
Enchanter 9, 41 HPs, 78 kills, 0 deaths
Added, congrats!
From now on I'm going to take bets on the time it takes @Enuhal to eliminate classes and kits from the list and if someone else will at least remove one more, too!
So after Vohglin's permadeath, I recruted again Minsc and did the Fort Borarskyr quests, surrendered the fort and recruted Khalid instead of Minsc.
I did all I could in the coalition camp, then went to Bloodbark Grove, clean the vampire cave, and then... A small army of bombardier and boring beetles appeared right in the middle of my party ! I always thought than spawning points work only when we walk in them, not when we are already on them for some times !
It was over really fast with hold on Varuca and some others members, and even with the automatic pause I was too surprised to react quickly enough. (I play with 60 FPS).
Once again dragons and illihids are not the main threat, but ordinary foes, when caution is a little low...
I'm not really in the mood for doing again unmodded BG1 with a shapeshifter, so I will probably try again SoD at the start by using my final save from BG1.
Meanwhile, I did an EET install with new versions of mods to test, and so decided to try a no reload run with it.
Introducing Dorian II, half-elven lawful neutral bard
SCS on tactical difficulty, only with bioware NPCs this time around. Corax does it again:
This run will obviously be played at a much slower pace, as I won't solo BG1 (which would be way faster, but I don't feel comfortable soloing SCS), won't skip TOTSC content or SoD and propably won't have as much time to play. I plan to take my time, play one or two areas at a time and enjoy the SCS experience
We beat Drasus and co easily. However we had no summons spells left to get rid of some left over traps. We therefore slept in order to be able to summon monsters to set off the traps. Guards arrived on the scene right on top of the traps which meant that we had no need to summon monsters.
It couldn't have worked better as we got more experience out of it.
She was a mighty combatant. Unfortunately, her 19 INT, boosted to 25 with some potions, still wasn’t enough to withstand the illithids.
Oh well, it was a fun run on insane difficulty, one that lasted quite a long time (for me anyway).
I think my next run will feature a sorcerer, surrounded by as many tanks as possible, whom I’ll just revive if they get their brains sucked out.
At what level did you dual to mage? With a low intelligence my berserker couldnn't dual to mage, but with a wisdom of 18 could certainly dual to cleric. Not sure whether dualling is a good idea though.
Any advice welcome. Having reached the Cloakwood mines, SoA is looking a possibility.
Gwydion, elven Hawkeye of Solonor (custom ranger / cleric kit from Deities of Faerun, which can put 3 proficiency points in bow, and it gains some special shots abilities while leveling up).
It's an EET install, here are the quests mod for BG1 (I will talk about BG2 quests if I get there...) :
- Balduran's Seatower
- Shades of the Sword Coast
- Ascalon's questspack
- BG1 NPC Project
For the main tweaks :
- Deities of Faerun for cleric kits (without the sphere system)
- The Artisan's kitpack for Rashemi Berserker for Minsc, vanilla fighter overhaul for Khalid, Trickster for Imoen, and ranger overhaul
- Bardic Wonders
- houserules tweaks pack from The Artisan
- IWDification for arcane and divine spells, and faster spells progression for paladins and rangers
- EET Tweaks for XP reduce to 50%, no XP for disarm traps or scribe scrolls
And SCS with all components, with difficulty slider sets to tactical.
The main objective of this run is to play the cannon party, but with Imoen 4 ever in SoD and SoA, Khalid BG2 from Lava instead of Jaheira in SoA, and Cernd as a replacement for Jaheira and Aerie as a replacement for Dynaheir, with the Wings mod too.
But first BG1 !
Thanks to the new early quests, I could level up relatively fast albeit the reduce XP.
Of course all party members beside Gwydion and Imoen died at least two times.
I'm currently in chapter 5, doing the city quests. All wilderness areas are done, except the ogre mage from Firewine and the beholder from the basiliks cave from SotSC. I also did almost all NPC quests, to the exception of Rasaad and Tiax.
What was the main events ?
When doing Shoal, the PnP elemental component from aTweak made it far more difficult : she charmed Minsc, summoned a powerful water elemental, and killed Minsc with a drowned kiss. She didn't offer to raise him when hurted, so after dealing with the ogre mage (and killing Shoal out of anger), I tried to went back to the Temple of Beregost, but on the way I was ambushed by Molkar and his bounty hunters. Gwydion's silence spell was too slow to catch the gnome spellcaster, but thanks to the summoning wand from Dynaheir, Imoen's blindness from her trickster mimicry ability, Jaheira's sunscorch, and after that some backstabs with Imoen's trickery ability, the fight was over easily even without Minsc.
With Minsc alive again, they couldn't do much against our party, between hold person, silence, web, summon monsters and backstabs.
The bandits camp was also a close run : after successfully infiltrated their ranks, I went into Tazok's tent and all went fine with silence and potions of explosions, except Dynaheir's death to arrows.
All my strategy for dealing with the surrounding bandits went exiting the tent (component from SCS) was based on Dynaheir.
So this fight was very difficult, I managed to hold and blind Taurgosz, but sleep didn't work well against Blacktalon elites, and I no longer had access to web, wand of fireballs, wand of summoning and I exhausted all my potions of explosion in the tent...
Luckily I remembered just in time than my ranger / cleric could use the wand of fear, and with the aid of almost all my healing potions, I prevailed.
Cloackwood was easier than I feared, even the dread Shadow Druids couldn't handle silence and web combined.
In the mine, the party was surrounded in the narrow passage with Hareishan approaching. Fearing a Lightning spell, I throw a potion of explosion and killed her in one shot.
Davaeorn somehow react to invisible Imoen, and while Dynaheir with webs and fireballs contained the enforcements, the others played a cat and mouse game with Davaeorn, which ended up teleporting in a spike growth from Jaheira...
Pirates cave was also hard to reach, with three Nereids with the same powers than Shoal on the way. Minsc and Khalid were killed, so I had to retreat and came back.
When doing Garrick's quest, I could see than Myr'Cutio was boosted by Bardic Wonders and its improved blade kit. He could faced on one on one Khalid !
In Baldur's Gate, Vay-Ya was silenced, but she still could use her wand of fireballs, almost killing Gwydion ine one use !
Gwydion is now ranger level 5 / cleric level 6. He's a little behind in terms of XP because of the tree of Shades from SotSC. Imoen is also behind, because she have a 10% XP penalty from her Trickster kit.
Dynaheir really benefits from some of the mods installed, with bonus spells slots from intelligence, and sone nice items from SotSC and Bardic Wonders.
Jaheira is using dagger and shield, Khalid longsword and shield (with houserules tweaks pack sword and shield style is fr more useful), Minsc two hand sword, Imoen the crossbow of speed, and Gwydion just found a shortbow +2 on Marek's body...
A short session today - I completed all the minor encounters and sidequests from FAI to the north to the Nashkel Mines + Carnival to the south on the road. This included three encounters against SCS spellcasters, though those in Beregost ware made a lot easier when Neera's would-be ambushers and Silke failed saving throws against Dorian's horror spell:
The mines were straightforward. We didn't even need to rest, though we were low on spells by the time that we reachedd Davaeorn. Hareishan fell quickly once webbed.
We cast a summonned monster who attacked Davaeorn. After teleporting a few times Davaeorn charmed it. Shortly after the charm wore off the summoning spell expired. Tenya then summoned a couple of skeletons who were immune to Davaeorn's spells. They would probably have survived without further help, but our help hastened the end.
At the FAI some overly righteous attacked us and as a result our armour became a little better.
We sold exraneous equipment and bought some wands, probably the wrong ones.
At the gate we beat Imanel Silversword and his pet wolves.
We dropped Thorin for Dorn and finished his quest.
Replaced Dorn with Thorin again.
Now in the Gate with a few trivial quests. Level 7.
Arkion wouldn't give me his quest. He thinks that I'm a goody goody just because my rep is 18. Coran tried to pick-pocket and was unsuccessful. Had to kill him.