Hi
This does not appear to be level / party dependent. I have attached screen capture of it happening where I use the same quick save repeatedly.
When you enter the keep one of two things happens
The screen fades to black before control is returned inside. This happens most of the time.
The screen fades to black, an inside view is shown, fades to black a second time and control is returned. Opening the door after this has the additional creatures. See the second and last instances on the recording
Grond0 will probably be able to use this to determine if they are present or not in future games by seeing if the game fades to black twice - I tend to forget to look for these kind of shows.
The spawned creatures are both HGMIS01, Vampiric Wraith. I'm rusty with NearInfinity and I can't see immediately how they are spawned. Looking at their resources and tracking back some appear with Yaga Shura or the Gorion Wraith in the swamp, but these look to be SPAWNGRP.2DA under RDMIST3 as they appear with a poison mist and a wandering horror with a difficulty of 180.
Edit: save attached in case anyone wanted to dig further
Thanks to you and @jmerry for the further information. That clarifies that sometimes seeing both spawns is a bug (I think carried forward from the original game). While certainly of interest, the chances of me remembering what might happen and paying attention in the way Gate70 suggests above are probably rather limited ...
Another session done and this pair are becoming significantly more formidable and less squishy.
We started off with a trip to Watcher's Keep. At this early stage in the session spells were still fairly limited, but a combination of blind and magic missile made short work of some battle horrors.
More quick XP from the basilisks on the roof got a level for Voka.
Inside we picked up the tome before blinding Riggilo to ensure he raised no protest at being lumped with a dodgy gift.
With the high value areas complete, it seemed like time to go to the Nashkel Mines. After the highs of getting 7,000 XP for a kill, the 7 XP on offer for kobolds was not too attractive and we went through most of the mine invisible. Inside Mulahey's cave, he was disabled by a stinking cloud and hurt badly before he managed to stagger to his feet. His morale broke before he could come to talk to us and he was finished off without summoning any help.
At this point there was a slight problem when I forgot our invisible entrance to the cave had meant there were kobold archers still waiting outside. They managed some good initial shots on Janus, but Voka was on the case to limit the damage.
Outside the cave, blindness and stinking cloud left the amazons with no real chance to respond to our attack. A strength spell allowed us to return Joseph's ring before Nimbul also choked his last in a cloud, while Tranzig was just beaten up face to face.
At the Bandit Camp the bandit archers got a few good shots in, forcing a withdrawal and rest to heal before we came back for more. Taurgosz tried to stop our progress and managed to save against a couple of blinding attempts, but it was 3rd time unlucky for him.
Inside Tazok's tent we faced a real danger of death for the only time in the session. Things started well with Hakt and Venkt being blinded before a stinking cloud appeared with the aim of disabling the others. However, Voka got caught out by the short casting range of an Aganazzar's Scorcher and slumped down inside the cloud just in time to be attacked by Raemon. With his companion's remaining life looking brief Janus switched to stunning darts and tried to stop Raemon finishing her off. In the session I thought he'd been successful in that, but looking at the screenshot Raemon was actually affected by the stinking cloud just before the dart hit. Britik was also stunned a few seconds later to ensure Voka had the chance to recover.
Invisibility was used to negate the Cloakwood web traps on the way to the mine. At the entrance to that, blind worked its magic on 3 companions before stinking cloud allowed Drasus to be treated similarly to effectively end that contest.
Another invisible ramble through the mine took us to the lowest level where Janus actually made use of the dominating harp (bought at Ulgoth's Beard) to charm the guard. He lasted long enough to take the second battle horror down to near death.
Janus charged Davaeorn and used offensive spin while shooting acid arrows at him to quickly take him to near death. Improved invisibility made him hard to target and I don't think Davaeorn actually tried any spells (beyond mirror images and dimension door). It was Voka though that got the glory for that encounter with a couple of magic missiles getting rid of mirrors before his trusty staff claimed the kill.
Moving on to Baldur's Gate, we had an early encounter with an ogre mage in the sewers. He saved quite a few times against stinking cloud ticks, but once he finally slumped down the end came swiftly.
Janus picked up a body there and tried to return that to a local mage, but was refused a hearing on the grounds of being clearly too proper to be involved in body snatching. The much less charismatic Voka was able to complete that transaction though.
While engaged on the poison quest, Janus could not resist popping in to a warehouse holding another basilisk. For once Voka didn't have a PfP spell memorized, but that was no problem - stinking cloud and blindness doing its usual sterling job.
Then it was back to the poison quest, with the aim of getting some boots of speed for Voka. We decided to tackle Lothander using grease, which seemed more esthetically pleasing than surrounding him with summons to prevent his escape. That decision proved poor though when Lothander moved more quickly than expected to the exit, dodging 4 darts of stunning sent his way in the meantime.
In retrospect I think we have previously noted that the latest update of the game fixed grease so that a character wearing boots of speed still benefits from the doubling of base speed those provide (albeit the doubling is of a much lower base).
I haven't killed the ankhegs outside the nest yet. Now that I have gone up a level, they should be straightforward. In the nest they hurt me badly.
@Wise_Grimwald If you are solo, remember the protection from acid from Thalantyr is a good investment as that will confer 50% protection from the ankheg's acid attacks. Also, another way to minimize damage from ankhegs is maximizing missile defense: good armor, large shield, belt of piercing, boots of avoidance, cloak of displacement, etc. Finally, to resist their melee, for a fighter girdle of bluntness helps a lot, but if non-fighter and you get into melee, then you may want to use a potion of absorption.
I have found them to be very susceptible to Command. I have ankheg armour, Bassilus's hammer plus a mace +1. After using Chant and DUHM I found that a single ankheg was no problem. If I sleep inside the nest only one ankheg spawns. If outside, more than one, so I used tactics to avoid fighting more than one. I became rich enough to buy another hammer, partly through ankheg shells, partly by selling equipment that I cannot use. I usually pick-pocket the good hammer at Ulgoth's Beard. That wasn't available without a thief. Animate dead was also useful.
There is good armour in a cave near Lathander's Temple. I now feel strong enough to tackle it.
Killing the ankheg rapidly boosted my experience so that I can now kill them without buffing.
EDIT
I was right. Animate dead gave me tanks that could take on the dread wolves while I joined the melee later. Command was sufficient for the sword spider and the skellies gave protection from the wraith spider. I wasn't foolish enough to take on the rather powerful bear in there, The armour gives some protection from acid so is a little better compared to the ankheg. It also gives +1 charisma boost which will be 19 after identifying the tome in there, Now to get the last charisma tome at the gnoll stronghold.
My reputation plummeted to 10 after killing Algernon but it has returned to 18 after some judicious giving and by helping a few people. Hopefully it will soon return to 18.
Went with decent roll of 18/93 str and ~90 stats. Wisdom suffered quite a lot but I rarely use Wish and there are potions for that if they still work that is. Charisma wasn't too high too but with both algernon's cloak + friends it reaches 20 so I decided to go with that roll. Weapon profs were chosen with entire trilogy in mind, character lawful good. 2 pips in scimitars and 1 pip in short swords.
Insane, double dmg, all SCS difficulty/improved fights components at max, op items + watchers keep + op arrows stay in game. This time I have also added "Items are taken from the party in Spellhold" and maximum HP for everybody from Tweaks(this could already be installed, Im not sure). Another big change was adding Tactics Remix. I still am sure that Remix version has nothing on the original Tactics. Some encounter from original were just plain crazy and ofc doable but extremely difficult to do no-reload. At least for me. Remix version shouldnt interfere that much with no-reload. In worst case I will have to go to watchers keep a bit earlier to avoid poison badge and delay crypt king.
Sadly slacked a lot with screenshots till late game. Language still has to be nonenglish for most of the game because bugged af BGEET doesnt allow me any other. My own english is pretty bad and point of narration changes a lot because of writing it in a long span of time with many breaks. Also I have been using this as an instruction for old friend of mine. Appeareance in game changes because I cant stand being gnome for too long. So I apologise in advance.
BG1 starts as always. We will be abusing blindness quite a lot. First get all hidden stashes and potions from compnanions while on the way to Shoal. Kite her to death and grab few fast lvls. Slay blinded ogre for his op belt before going to FAI. Get OP wizard ring, kill hobgoblins with quest ring and head north towards Ulgoth's beard.
Start Tenya's quest hug the river and avoid all ankhegs. On bridge use Wand of Missiles to dmg Tenya, return to slay leader of farmers only and get flail+1, then finish the quest and get best possible 2500xp. Go to Ulgoth's and slay the peasant with Ring of Freedom + Web. That ring helps immensely in solo runs. After that its Mirriane's quest. Follow the road south of Beregost and blind ogrillions for easy ring of $ and buy few points of reputation back. Then kill Algernon for his cloak and again buy reputation back to 12 this time. After this blind Melicamps wolf and go straight for Brage. Get him to Nashkel and farm reputation in near areas: Samuel, Dryad, dead cat, refuse greywolf's bounty, kill greywolf and help prism. Sell Ankheg plate and buy amulet of shield, necklace of fireballs, protection from petrification.
With 2nd level spells we can abuse invisibility and web+ring of freedom combo. Scout zone while invisible, locate enemies(for immersion purpose) and throw them 2-3 webs. Then snipe them with bow or slash them apart while ring is equipped. Sendai and her team dies in this way, as well as Vax with his best dart thrower and Zargal's hobgoblin group. Then slay blinded gnoll with +2 halberd and challenge the other one to fight cuz Im poor, killed him by accident depraving myself of 500xp. Help the wood nymph and get tasty golden girdle. Blind+web are our main offensive spells. After that get fire prot ring and deliver Samuel to FAI. Next is quick blind and slaughter of Meilum. From there go back to ankheg's nest and sack it while invisible. Get very useful wand of fire and complete farmers quest.
Save Basillus for later cuz he can get messy. His buffs changed from blade barrier and some other useless shit to missile reflecting spell and freedom. It would be completely normal if he was switching strategy like that from beginning. Similar to SCS liches who change strats, spells and have different builds like invoker,conjurer, etc. But he did it for the first time after like 30 kills lol. I actually died to him on one of my runs cuz went to there with arrows+web only and on low lvl expecting easy starting cash but he completely countered me. The more I play BGEET the stranger it gets. Somehow better calls for help component wasnt working at the start. I had to reinstall SCS for it to work.
Get Greenstone Amulet, Displacement Cloak, few potions of mirrored eyes and go for basilisks. With green petrification prot scroll and 1st lvl spell Korax isn't even needed there. I tend to save him for Mutamin or Kirian alone. After slaughtering all basilisks and leveling up we buff up, use greenstone amulet and attack Mutamin together with Korax. Im sending Korax ahead while staying out of screen and show myself when the ghul is close to the mage. Mutamin will rush to cast anything on me and Korax is free to land paralysis on him. After that it went smoothly. Against Kirian we open fight with web and blinds. As soon as someone breaks hold we use wand of fire on them together with biting arrows.
From there we move to Durlags tower for Scimitar +2, few potions, wands and easy xp. Battle horrors are kited and taken down with multiple magic missiles. They can also be stopped with invisible familiar blocking their way in chokepoint(actually dropped Find Familiar scroll from some hobgoblin bandit). In durlag's tower we avoid some traps while tanking others using greenstone amulet. We get the tome and kill Succubus for easy 3k xp plus some gold. On the roof we use petrification protection spell again and eat up that tasty xp together with weapon +2.
With quite high level its time to get BG1 breaking spell. For this we go to Ulgoths beard again and agree to do the quest for mage. On the island we cast invi and skip entire prison(remember about lightning protection + shield). We stop before final enemy and clear wolfs in room next to his. From there we throw 3x web. Once he is held we fire few arrows of biting and poison him, he dies we get scroll of Stoneskin and exit happily.
After that its just easy cleanup and goldfarming. Get enough gold for some scrolls, potions and robe of good archmagi. Slay sirines using greenstone amulet, high blunt/missile ac and some fireballs. Arrows +1 for flesh golems and greenstone amulet for traps inside cave.
Back to main questline. Skip entire Nashkel mines on invisibility. Slay mulahey with either web or good old blunt force. Shooting him with arrows of biting and blind works too. If you dont have many tools, walking to him invisible, we can always land a bit hit on him and then talking him into believing that we are sent by Tazok makes him not hostile which allows us to land another free big hit on him. In Bandit's camp we go full pyro again. As soon as we get in with help of Teven, buff up, drink few pots inlcuding oil of speed and then start throwing fireballs everywhere. Group them up nicely for more aoe dmg. When boss tent party joins just use greenstone amulet and continue with fire-kite. Best to stay out of mage's range. Cant remember if he had dispell but probably yeah.
Next is Cloakwood. After doing it so many times I started skipping it like Nashkel mines. Only stops are for some potions and items like spider's bane. Blow up spiders with fireballs while buffed with stoneskin, images, prot from fire and freedom. Safer option use 2x invisibiliy. Also slay one wivern for 2000gp reward. Buff up and drink oil of speed for Drasus party. Summon meatshields with wand and move them back. Start fight with casual fireball toss. Once Drasus showsup pull him away from group and kill him quickly. With 4 APR and stoneskin it should be easy. When done with him, send meatshields ahead to tank some spells from mages. Either dispel magic offscreen or finish with fireballs/summoned monsters. Sometimes I skip rest of the party after getting boots. Mines skipped on invisibility entirely. Davaeorn done the same way as always. Drink strength potion, heroism and oil of speed. Get invisible and just run to him. Buff up other protections if you are scared of traps. When you move next to him, the horrors should move away from evil mage and go back towards the entrance. If they dont it doesnt rly matter. With 4 APR we can land two strong hits on him before he can teleport or activate his buffs (he REALLY needs that stoneskin on him as soon as players enter last level of mines). Loot everything, flood the mines and get to Baldur's Gate after quick detour to steal Baeloth's robe of evil archmagi.
In Baldur's Gate there are few things to be done asap. First go for dex tome and buy potions/arrows from shadow tiefs. Next spells,potions and dispell arrows from Sorcerous Sundries. Also get ogre-slaying arrow. Go to sewers while invisible nad oneshot ogre mage. Get all the loot including scimitar +1 for offhand. Next is baldurans helmet in Helm and Cloak and his cape in cellars. For that use algernon/nymph cloak to charm courtesan and attack guards. Then go and slay Ramazith. One single hit is enough to kill him. Just to be sure we will drink fire giant strength potion and heroism. After looting amulet and ring we should still make use of the buffs and continue farm rampage. Jardak and Drelik are close. Greenstone amulet and arrows of dispell do the work with Drelik. Jardak falls to stoneskin. This is perhaps the only moment in my run where using that +100 cold res belt is advised. Drelik likes to use cone of cold.
Fight in Cloak and Helm was won with one chaos cast from scroll. Help Varci and buy all oil of speed from house of wonders. Slay Sunin with arrows of dispell and biting. Most of time in Baldurs Gate is spent running around and farming gold, potions and scrolls. Im not selling any gems at all from the start of game. Same goes for all magical jewellery. We will try to keep as many of them possible in gem bag and sell them all in Siege of Dragonspear after we lose our money. Its possible to save quite a sum. Done with farming its time to quickly finish Scar's quests and go to candlekeep.
Iron Throne fight either skipped on invi or if Im in mood just blow them up with detonation arrows or slash them apart after using one scroll of chaos. If they manage to cast remove magic its best to dish some cheese and use the stairs. Ogre mage ambush at candlekeep is skipped after using invi potion or greenstone amulet, auto-pause helps a lot there for forgetful people like me.
After getting teleported to candlekeep dungeons we buff up with shield, fire prot, potion of absorption. Prepare Knock and equip ring of freedom. Get all juicy loot while laughing at traps. Skip entire thing on invisibility. Use starting room for rest. Back to Baldurs Gate ran all the way to Eltan on invibility and killed his healer. That crazy chick of sarevok inside iron throne bulding can be taken down with 4APR from invisibility. If not enough dmg is done then have to use arrows of dispell on her. Possible to cheese dispell magic with stairs. Drink absorption potion for her golems if scared or without buffs like stoneskin+mirror image.
Versus Slythe we summon few meatshields from wand and park them at the entrance. Buffed up and on haste we lure Slythe away and kill him quickly. Minions are just in case he goes invisible or if Kristine joins the fight. With stoneskin/detect illusion it should be safe fight. Palace fight should go smoothly on max SCS because duchess will buff herself considerably and that leaves a lot of time to deal with enemies. Most important thing do NOT summon anything in the palace. Best way to end the run. Chaos works well there, confusion as well. Otherwise shot them with arrows of dispell and hack apart on potions of heroism+speed+strength+focus. Last runs I also started allowing them to slaughter Belt for his ring of invisibility. Noticed it towards the end but BGEET changes BG1 invi ring to work like BG2 version and we can get one invi per day from it. Technically two if you use it and rest.
Once done with ducal palace fight, start final preparations for SoD. First get some potions and go to Drizzt zone. There buff up, drink potions and cast DuHM. Once we get lower than -1 THAC0 it should be doable. If somehow he kills all the gnolls before we finish him, be ready to cast imp invi to avoid dispell magic. Greenstone amulet may be needed too. Loot scimitars and go to Durlag's Tower again. Buy back reputation to 17-18 and get last few points with planned quests left. Save kid from worgs, stone to flesh lady in basilisk area and one quest in Baldurs Gate. Cure that one guy who murdered succesfull priest and was cursed for example.
There we protect ourselfs with spells, potions and scrolls against fire, lightning, magical dmg, hold. Only things of interest in tower are Durlags Goblet and Kiels Helmet. Both of them will be used in SoD. With buffs like stoneskins,blur and mirror image four guardians arent problem at all. Just smash them hasted and recast stoneskin/mirror image if Pride hits us enough times. Rememeber about -3 slashing AC vs Pride and all dopplers.
Next level once again spell protections. Minor globe of invulnerability helps a lot with traps and greater doppler spells. For easier kills sometimes Im using dispell arrows on greater dopplers when they are hasted, blurred and with images. Get the needed loot and return to Baldurs Gate. Buy last needed things.
Check potions/scrolls/arrows. Try to exchange as much of gold as possible for gems and jewellery. Buff up with immunities and run through maze on invisibilty. Skip fight with Iron Throne group and spare Tamoko. Sarevok's fight done with cheese. Wait till Diarmin buffs drop and bombard them with fireballs/wand/necklace. Kill Sarevok 1v1 and start Siege of Dragonspear.
Siege of Dragonspear start is rather bloody and brutal. First pack of mercenaries gets fireball spammed. I wanted to test F/I here, so no Protection from Undead this time. Key enemies are Skeleton Mages and Shadowed Souls. Usually if I want to fight pack of undeads head on its imperative to either run to these two with boots of speed+haste or sneak up to them on invisibility. Oil of speed has to be on all the time here as well as against most of undead packs in SoD, if we want to fight them that is. Other than haste we also need Shield permanently. Too many undeads capable of casting magic missile. Stoneskins and Mirror Images required as always. Best to have one Mirror Image saved for whenever Shadowed Soul is around. Other than that against big undead packs Im not going to save on usables.
Wand of fire was used heavily in these dungeons and later in dwarfen caves. We should have at least 100 charges after BG1. If I cant kill Soul immediately its best to line of sight her and kite entire group so she cant bombard us freely. Imp invisibility works on them too I think. Cant let them surround us, esp if they are hasted. I was overwhelmed 1-2 times and had to retreat to previous dungeon level. Once even got swarmed and barely hacked way through the siege ring of undead. After that kept my distance. Ofc if we have enough of this rather brutal start Protection of Undead scroll is the way.
Inventory after BG1
Using noble Flaming Fist as sacrifical decoys
What happens when you leave Shadowed Sould in backline
Invisibility works also if we can move quickly past all of the rabble and strike at wizards. With Friends on I have convinced first wizard to give up. Gotta make sure to use his cloak as often as possible. One caster level is perfect for prebuffing and casting some spells. Korlasz is very easy after getting hit with Arrow of Dispelling. Few hits from summons and she is ready to give up. In this dungeon we get our first lvl up which allows us to cast one of my favourite spells in game: Sunfire. With this we wreck most of packs easily. Not much later we will get shield with one more Sunfire cast.
In Baldurs Gate the focus is farming gold, gathering magical items and buying items/consumables. Amulet granting perma Bless is an absolute must. There is also a nice collcetion of scrolls with 4th and 5th lvl spells we surely miss, we will also buy a lot of potions. Because of the amount of potions we have accumulated through BG1 and abundance of them in SoD, it is advised to use tons of potions on every major encounter. Stealing gear from NPC's is heavily advised too. Spectacles of Spectacle also are a must. Not only genie merchant but also lich in later parts of the game have some very interesting loot. Before getting out of Ducal Palace remember to talk with Entar for extra money from Ring of Protection +2.
I must admit to skipping a lot of fights after that. Almost all outdoor fights were passed by on invisibilty. Did only encounters for loot. Ancient menhirs is worth mentioning, used Friends for that. Xp cap was attained very fast so there was no need for smacking some trolls or orogs. We head for Dwarves of Dumathoin next. Having my own share of undead delight this time we use scroll of prot from undead immediately and rush through dungeon. With that we are free to skip most of the dungeons. Dont forget about Crommus's grave, boots with MR are going to be equipped for more than half of the game. With prot from undead its easy to get journal, exchange it for lich-crippling gem and slay dwarf-lich .
After finishing the quest its once again lots of running around invisible, some loot gathering and avoiding not needed fights. We skipp till Isabella and Ikros. One more cast of Sunfire is really nice so we buff up and prepare for vampire. Summoned two lesser elementals and monsters from wand to act as meat-shield. Employed hit and run strategy to avoid level-drain. Unforutnately he still managed to land one hit and I had to go back to cleric for restoration. Confrontation with Caelar on bridge is next. With buffs, hasted and wand of fire reloaded we kill soldiers for loot. Watchout for remove magic from mages, Im always trying to stop it with aoe spell or dispell arrow them if there is time for that. Entire troll claw forest and waylay zone get skipped on invisibility, nothing interesting there for us.
Forest of Wyrms is where SoD gets more interesting. Ive skipped outdoors and ran all the way to dragons cave. Buffed and drank potions outside safely hidden. Im not saving anything now so almost full set of potions. With that dragon dies in 4-5 hits. Used dispelling arrows against her stoneskin cuz I forgot to memorise Breach. No waiting around Ive immediately run to next zone and brushed past all pests till their boss appeared. With AC -16 and -10 missile modificator they cant do much. Waited few second for all of them to group up and casted 3x Sunfire plus few Wand of Fire charges to clean them nicely and move to next level.
Still fully buffed drank invi potion and rushed through entire base to Ziatar. Tried confusion on her mages but sadly didnt work. Had to fire one detonation arrow for spell interruption on them. Half-dragon lady died in few 24 str hits. Making use of buffs and potions once again Ive rushed through the base and challenged Neothelid. Used greenstone amulet and ran around the room avoiding magic swords and waiting for the worm to show up. Short cat and mouse game then death after few hits.
Pack of major enemies dead I decided to rest on invisibility before buffing to full again and drinking few potions once more. Summoned meatshields from wand and opened doors to Shadow Aspect. Normally would wait for him to Mislead and instantly counter him with oracled/detect illusion. But I completely forgot any divination spell. Back to brute force then. The strat was to kill mislead asap and finish shadow aspect before recast. When too many enemies spawned cleared them with sunfire. After few images slain finally managed to get to Shadow Aspect and finish it with 50dmg crit.
Not wasting buffs, summoned fresh monsters, used greenstone amulet and ran to mind flayer party. Sent mobs ahead and threw them welcoming fireball. Once enemies swarmed my trash Ive moved inside and started hacking illithid. Used sunfire shield charge there and added few fireballs from wand. In the end there was mage and 3 injured fighters. One dispell arrow followe by two swings of Twinkle and only warriors were left to meet with blades. Maybe should have rested and rebuffed here but I ran to Cyric priestess and attacked her from behind after getting that divine reward 200gp from her. She was dead quickly but my stoneskin dropped and I received mighty 68 dmg blow from aerial servant. Drank invi potion and left the temple.
Inside bridgefort did all the quests giving any solid reward while dismissing the rest. Bought some items and consumables. After quickly helping with that meteor/catapult missile stone I went back to Flaming Fist and ordered a siege of siege camp. I was expecting an easy fight but unlike my two previous runs this was hella more difficult. Previosuly siege camp was split with one side easily cleared by flaming fist and second side containing officers being stuck at bridgefort gates. This time though they all attacked flaming fist forces together. Even with me throwing chaos and fireballs we were quickly overwhelmed. I had to be especially careful around their mages. There was atleast 5 of them and each could dispell me fully with one spell which would end badly. For every mage used arrows of dispell. If he was hiding behind wall of enemies then biting arrows, if not then hack him down.
Most of my forces died and fresh enemies were coming again so stopped holding back and used arrows of detonation + sunfires. Two named mages were immune to fire dmg so I had two switch to dispell arrows again and rush them asap. Sadly despite dispell and melee attack landing one of named mages managed to dispell me. I had to retreat and summon mobs from wand cuz no stoneskins or any other buffs left. Fortunately that was the last mage and only few fighters survived rain of fire. Picked them up one by one. Their general stood at the gates of camp and watched the slaughter.
After cleaning them it was time for the most difficult encounter in SoD. The mage opening gate to plane of fire. If I dont interrupt her quickly its game over. She buffs herself with imp inv, mirror images, stoneskin, globe of invul and she even has PfMW which she hadn't cast when I was there with my Berserker7/Druid . Cant even breach her and there is a big chance remove magic wont work because she is pure mage. Cloudkill probably would work the best but I havent memorised it. Dispell arrows are the safest way for me. There is still risk of none of them landing. Summoned mobs from wand and hasted them. Before moving there myself I position mobs around the mage spawn and then move. When fight starts she is already surrounded by my summons. First dispell arrow landed luckily and we saved the world. Chaos on the rest to be safe and finish them one by one.
I have dealt with the problems in the Nashkel Mines and have just sorted out the Basilisks, Medusae and Mutamin. Skeletons made that area quite easy. Now at Durlag's Tower.
My reputation is now back up to twenty and have bought some good equipment after selling a lot of loot that I cannot use.
I think that the Drizzt Saga is not on if I am soloing.
True to my word, this session started with a barrage of skull traps aimed at a pair of battle horrors - resulting in an early surge, though with no ill effects.
The basilisks on the roof also got skull traps, with some stinking cloud action as well - and that took me to level 8, with 4 more HPs.
There were a couple more surges during that, including one that vanished gold - fortunately the recent purchases had used most of my previous hoard already.
Minor spell deflection allowed me to acquire the tome safely before Riggilo was blinded (relying there on him not going hostile to unsuccessful blinding attempts, so that being surge-held in sight of him would not have been a problem).
Moving on to the main quest, I went through the Nashkel mine mainly invisible. Stinking clouds meant that Mulahey was not conscious of the skull traps that ended his life.
Stinking clouds, blind and skull traps also made short work of the amazons. Back in Nashkel, Nimbul was another to die choking. Tranzig managed to survive both skull traps and a stinking cloud, but his spells bounced off my minor spell deflection until a bullet struck home.
At the Bandit Camp I wanted Taurgosz's valuable equipment, so fought through bandits to reach him. A stinking cloud allowed some damage before I took him on a hike from which he didn't return.
Inside Tazok's tent it took 4 attempts to blind Hakt (one spoiled by a surge), but Venkt and Britik both failed immediately. I've had quite a few surges this session, which have generally been pretty neutral. This one though was arguably useful as a stinking cloud was replaced by some summoned monsters, who dealt with Venkt and Britik before disappearing.
I tried to kill Raemon with skull traps, but the 3rd of those was mis-targeted by yet another surge.
My 4th and final memorized one proved sufficient though.
Rather than sell the various valuable equipment gained, I put that into storage to protect against more gold disappearing in a surge. Invisibility allowed me to avoid any combat in the Cloakwood on the way to the mine. Drasus' companions were blinded and I also laid a grease field before stinking cloud to provide some protection if Drasus was activated. As it happened though he died in skull traps without moving.
I avoided combat in the mine until arriving at the bottom level. Three skull traps were too much for a pair of battle horrors - gaining me a final BGEE level and 6 more HPs. A 4th also finished off Davaeorn.
I also beat up the mustard jelly with my non-proficient staff there (making a rare use of an absorption potion) to get access to a bit more treasure before leaving.
Arriving at Baldur's Gate I converted some spare equipment into cash and bought up more spell scrolls, along with genius potions to ensure those were learnt. An ogre mage was the immediate victim of my new cloudkill spell.
Improved invisibility is another spell that BGEE mages can't handle and that trivialised a few encounters. In conjunction with spirit armor (taking my current spell save down to 1) and chaos shield it can also reduce the danger from surges to a very low level. Another new option was the use of summoning spells and that helped ensure that Lothander paid for his involvement in the poison quest.
There were still a couple of further upgrades available. First was the +2 ring from Ramazith - a skeleton warrior ensured he failed to teleport out of a cloudkill.
I used invisibility after that to avoid the hassle of battling up the tower to get the intelligence tome. I also bypassed Degrodel's guards before going to collect Balduran's Cloak.
The Iron Throne awaits, but I'll take a little detour to the seaside before that in search of the constitution tome.
I totally forgot to take screenshots for most of the adventuring though Baldur's gate. The party goes through it methodically and does all small quests in the neighbourhood. First east, then to the center, north, north-east without the trap, north-west, west, south-east, south, ending with south-west.
I have some challenge in Ramaziths place with the ghasts holding Shar-teel and Xan, but other than that there is not much special going on. Using for the tougher fight inside the Iron Throne some potions of clarity, and a generous amount of necklace of missiles + potion of explosions + exploding potions, the top level fight is beaten before it has properly begun.
After all areas are cleared I pop into the sewers and find a new area where a lich-like priest/mage of bhaal is hidden (added by Shades of the Sword Coast), and although that seems scary, the fight is too easy at this level. It is so close to the party that it gets no spell off before being hacked to pieces (no mantle-like spells means it dies just too fast). I can see it being a problem for slightly lower level parties, but since I cleared the whole sword coast and Durlags already, each character is at an XP level of around 100k. There is actually a mention to the location made along the main storyline in one of the added information scrolls from SotSC, and the lich drops some Bhaal inspired items. Quite nice.
There are some more quests from SotSC in the city. One in the docks with a pirate ship, but the quests asks to find some skeletons of the captains sons, but since I went all over the coast already I decide not to go find those (if I ever even could).
There is also a quest (starting point north of the city near the dragons gate) about a new cult starting between Candlekeep and the Lighthouse area. Another nice area added where you fight some cultists and when you delve deeper, also a bone golem (here called Tanarri) which is just across a bridge. Since I know not what to find on that side I sent Kagain there at AC-12 together with a trap searching Aura. The golem is tough, but easily bested by Kagain at this point. It would be a challenge if I had sent the full party, because it cast some horror-like ability or a gaze I think, yet Kagain has great saves and Aura is immune to gaze from her equipment. Kagain also hits hard because I use by default in all fights a potion of heroism and if needed a potion of some giant strength. At the end of the quest we combat an earth elemental of sorts, and Reynaert (although being shaman) can hit really well at this point and has a nice club in hand.
Next up is the poison quest followed by turning in the sea charts and going on a boat trip. Here, the greater werewolf is bested by Shar-teel with burning earth (Kagain has the bastard sword vs shapeshifting, Reynaert has the silver dagger) aided by another lucky (?) hold from Xan's use of the wand of overpoweredness.
Return to candlekeep is easily overcome by the one gift lost.
Another fast forward and Slythe and Kristin are down from pure melee though we failed detect invisibility.
Duchal is beaten by summons from the shadows + dispel from Xan + melee power from the rest.
Tamoko is met 3 times (also in the undercity) since Aura has interjections with her, but hmm... she still dies. Maybe my reputation at ~10 is too average to talk her out of fighting. (Small note is that SotSC puts a beholder in the undercity, but it does not do any of the dangerous BG2 instaspells, so maybe that is not coded into it or I killed it too fast).
The Sembia crew was killed by Auras traps (I lured them into it with a few arrows of detonation to the face.
Finally, we combat Sarevok. I buff all fighters with potions of heroism, some giant strength, invulerability, and Xan casts haste. Then Kagain goes to Sarevok.
Semaj teleports, Aura hits him with arrows of dispelling and Shar-Teel, Dorn and Reynaert kill him in a round.
Angelo engages Kagain, but it quickly killed by him (he uses the fire resist ring and the helm of defense).
Tazok and Sarevok come to the party and while one wand of summons occupies Sarevok, we overcome Tazok with our speedy hits.
Being the last standing Sarevok is left to face the party. We try to stick some spells on him, but they pretty much all fail. Then with melee power we get him to near death and I back off the party to let Reynaert get the last hit, but Dorn gets it by casting his blood drain through party AI. Whoops. But we got him!
Reynaert got through BG1. Up next is BG2. I will skip SoD because I dislike the hooded man and my XP is 161k now anyhow, good enough to start BG2.
Some stats below.
Total game time 178 das 8 hours is really a long time, but I cleared pretty much the whole game which did get me to travel through long stretches at a time, so maybe this is not amazingly long.
Reynaert cast cure light wounds the most. Simply BG1 does not lend itself to magic if you have enough melee power. Especially the shaman selection is rather situational. I started with battle axe early, but later I graduated to using clubs more. I think it is closer to 50-50 there. I got a lot of kills going into melee. 20% of the game at a number of 501 is nothing to sniff about. Kagain as main tank got only a few more (540).
Kagain did alright, but since he was mostly a slowly regenerating tank, there was not much emphasis on letting him hit much. He did his best, sometimes aided by a strength potion and a dexterity potion (until the gauntlets) but he still needed a lot of healing.
Shar-Teel was really the loup garou killer and the Demon Knight getting a lot of XP for her notches. Her dual-wield really raked in the number of kills (706!).
Dorn was added late and was starting to catch up to Kagain. He was half as long in the party but still got 207 kills, so not bad at all.
Xan shows to use throwing weapons a lot, but at least 50% of the time he went into melee with his moonblade. I really liked buffing him with mirror image, stone skin, blur, strength and some armor spell and letting him go at it. He hit a lot, but did not kill as much as I thought he was doing. Still, 133 for a mostly melee mage is not bad. I rarely cast a lot of spells with him. Mostly wands were a gimmick.
Finch had 80 kills and only 5% of the party value. Her quest and her personality were the most enjoyable but she added near to nothing else except healing and some mild buffing once in a while.
Aura was a pleasant surprise. She got a lot of nice skills and abilities and her bow usage is accurate. 327 kills for a thief is very respectable compared to the rest.
Reynaert will start BG at 161k XP with stats 20 - 19 - 20 - 14 - 15 - 10. I will have all Lava's quest mods installed as well as Improved Anvil. I will see how far I get, but if Reynaert falls I will continue to play few-reload at that point.
At the Lighthouse area several webs detained groups of sirines while cloudkill did its job.
Summons and MMM made short work of the golems.
The tome pushed constitution to 18 and I decided to replace the Ring of Wizardry with the Claw.
My final target outside the City was the Red Wizards. I didn't bother with web there and that cost me a potion of clarity when 2 of them escaped from a cloudkill.
Back in Baldur's Gate I sneaked into the Iron Throne. Alai was blinded before webs disabled the enemies while skull traps and cloudkills did their job.
Before reporting for duty in Candlekeep I treated myself to wands of fire and monster summoning to use up most of my growing cash pile.
In Candlekeep I used minor globe to protect against lightning traps while looting the tombs. The wisdom tome pushed that to 18 - the aim there being primarily to benefit from improved wishes in ToB. I killed the greater dopplegangers, but left the ordinary ones as not worth bothering with. I did though web Prat's gang before using PfP to get a bit more XP from the basilisks guarding the exit.
After resting to get my final Bhaal power I went in search of Slythe. A first use of the wand of paralyzation immediately decided that battle.
At the palace the main danger was that chaos would surge. Once that cast correctly though my summons had a pretty easy job to finish things off, though I did lose half my hit points when a doppleganger hit me with a painful critical despite being on the run from morale failure.
I was very lucky to escape the maze after setting off through a group of traps without checking that my minor globe had cast properly . I woke up to the danger with 5 HPs left after being hit 3 times by lightning and with a fireball rapidly approaching. A potion of magic blocking used there would have prevented any damage from both the fireball and the danger from the still-bouncing lightning. However, it would also dispell the PfU scroll I had already used and probably lead to death when the skeleton warriors targeted me. Instead, I chose to put on a ring of fire resistance and use a fire resistance potion. As it happened MR from the Cloak of Balduran stopped any damage from the fireball. A lightning bounce did come uncomfortably close to finishing me off, but I just got away with it.
Webs helped a pair of skeleton warriors take down the Undercity party on the way to find Sarevok. Rather than kill him just with traps I took a pot-shot at Sarevok from range before going invisible and coming back into sight of him to prompt his conversation. Semaj teleported out, but died from a pair of cloudkills cast from out of sight.
Webs cast at Sarevok allowed him to be attacked with MMM, but I forgot to malison him which meant he escaped the web attacks a bit more lightly than I had hoped. As this was the final fight of BGEE it seemed appropriate to risk casting spells in direct combat. Four magic missiles successfully cast left him on the verge of death - and then a 5th slammed into him as Sarevok drew back his sword to try and get at least one blow in.
When transferring to SoD from within the game, all XP earned since the last time the game was loaded is carried across - even if that is above the standard XP cap. That meant I had 317k XP on entrance to the SoD starting dungeon and was immediately able to take my 10th level - though just getting 3 more HPs there.
@lroumen
Enjoying your write ups. I really must install Shades.
Rowena was doing well until she died.
Buffed skeletons dealt with th enemies outside Tazok's tent. I rested so as to have them at full strength waiting outside.
Potion of Firebreath killed two of those inside. I then lured Venkt and Hakt outside where they were hacked by the skeletons.
Quite easy.
Then dealt with Deke and the other bandits and after that Tranzig.
At the FAI I was attacked by some deceived good guys.
Then at Ulgoth's I did some shopping after which I killed Dushai for his ring. Feeling rather guilty I gave Lathander's temple a lot of gold which made me a hero again.
Since the sword is of no interest, I used sanctuary to get through Cloakwood though did take on the wyverns with the help of skeletons.
At the mines I did use a few consumables to defeat Drasus et all. At one stage I was a bit concerned as the generals were injuring my skeletons badly. However I needn't have worried. They gave as good as they got.
Tytus and the others however were too powerful. His high constitution made my attacks insufficient. In future I will lay a skeleton ambush outside for him or maybe just use sanctuary.
I ddi not know that Siege imported all excessive XP. that is interesting. I think I will run two noreload from here. See how far I get in siege and see how I fare in bg2 by skipping siege.
Shades is a really nice mod if you play as completionist. You would miss out on content if you go through areas too fast.
Some areas need to be revisited, there are many item upgrades and some quests with wait timers. A lot of the interesting quests go across the entire sword coast and there are some new areas far out of the way from the main storyline at the edges of the map.
I really really like how areas get to sparkle more, but the mod takes time to get through.
Since I aimed to experience everything afresh in a yearly run, I took the time for it. I will go play bg2 similarly.
Minor note, I see in your run Venkt outside the tent. Can you lure enemies out of areas in the EEs? I never tried that before o.o
How are you guys able to get summons in ducal palace?
Each time I tried that they got chaosed or confused, attacked guards and ended my run with insta-death
Reynaert will start BG at 161k XP with stats 20 - 19 - 20 - 14 - 15 - 10. I will have all Lava's quest mods installed as well as Improved Anvil. I will see how far I get, but if Reynaert falls I will continue to play few-reload at that point.
Minor note, I see in your run Venkt outside the tent. Can you lure enemies out of areas in the EEs? I never tried that before o.o
Yes you can. I don't know if that is the result of mods though. That is what I should have done at the Cloakwood mines. Overconfidence was my downfall. The reasaon for a lot of failures in no reloads games.
New game with Dwarven Berserker. This is a re-run of an old character.
How are you guys able to get summons in ducal palace?
Each time I tried that they got chaosed or confused, attacked guards and ended my run with insta-death
this is why I have dispel ready.
I first park the summons in the middle of the nobles, not between nobles and the dukes since then they will hit them immediately if confused.
Since my party is hasted, I run between dukes and nobles to trigger the fight, and I have one dispel from behind the doppelganger ready for casting if chaos goes off. Also works well to get rid of all the mirror images. The shaman also has a spell to cure confusion by my lack of chaotic commands in this run.
It is a bit fiddly, but it works for me. The alternative is to park skeletons instead of normal summons but I did not have those available either.
Setting traps on the right entrance is also a nice benefit.
There is still chance though that it wont reach all of them, esp if they are hasted and we have bad luck with direction roll. Dispell arrows could help pickup any strays in case of fighter/mage but multiclass have tons worse dispell in BG1.
Feels a bit too risky for me but maybe I just like to play it safe at this moment of game.
About SoD transfering chars with exp overcap, is it intentional or a bug?
I was reseting it back to 161k with cheat console. If this is planned by devs then clearing entire BG1 content may be better than avoiding and evading everything after getting xp cap to reduce risk of death.
There is still chance though that it wont reach all of them, esp if they are hasted and we have bad luck with direction roll. Dispell arrows could help pickup any strays in case of fighter/mage but multiclass have tons worse dispell in BG1.
Feels a bit too risky for me but maybe I just like to play it safe at this moment of game.
About SoD transfering chars with exp overcap, is it intentional or a bug?
I was reseting it back to 161k with cheat console. If this is planned by devs then clearing entire BG1 content may be better than avoiding and evading everything after getting xp cap to reduce risk of death.
I haven't seen any specific comment. However, the enhanced edition does eliminate a lot of exploits available at one time. The fact they haven't taken action on this one suggests that it was either intentional or wasn't seen as a priority.
Remember that any excess XP is eliminated when you load the game - so you would need to play a reasonably long session in order to benefit from all the XP available in the game.
How strange. I think I do not even have SoD installed right now, or alternatively I have no clue on how to start it anymore. I do not find any button to click to swap to SoD and the final battle with Sarevok did not take me into the start of SoD either, so I guess it is not there.
Importing the same party into a SoD reinstall will not work due to mods, so maybe I will import only my final save character, or just recreate Reynaert if I decide to do SoD in parallel to BG2.
So for now I will just plan BG2 right away (after some install session of the mods I want).
How strange. I think I do not even have SoD installed right now, or alternatively I have no clue on how to start it anymore. I do not find any button to click to swap to SoD and the final battle with Sarevok did not take me into the start of SoD either, so I guess it is not there.
Importing the same party into a SoD reinstall will not work due to mods, so maybe I will import only my final save character, or just recreate Reynaert if I decide to do SoD in parallel to BG2.
So for now I will just plan BG2 right away (after some install session of the mods I want).
On XP past the cap coming through ...
In BGEE, the experience cap is enforced when you load a save, bringing everyone in the party down to the cap if they're past it. During gameplay, excess experience is tracked but can't be used to level up.
In BG2EE, excess experience is always tracked and retained, but can't be used to level up. Loading a save doesn't reset anybody down.
I suspect this is one of the switches in the engine; if you use the hidden option to swap between BGEE mode and BG2EE mode, you'll switch how the XP cap is enforced.
While you can have the game sleep overnight and stretch out a single session arbitrarily, there is a crash bug that inevitably affects sufficiently long sessions: Too many objects
I've tried ironman runs from late chapter 5 to the end, going through Candlekeep, Durlag's Tower, Werewolf Island, and the chapter 7 plot without loading a save. It never works. That's just too much stuff, and the black screen death will catch up to the party before the end. Two sessions are needed.
Then I have some other bug associated with BGEET mod or just installing through modsetup came back to bite me.
In my gameplay it looks like this: in first SoD playtrough without trilogy mod I had normal cap in BG1 but when imported to SoD my char received ~120k experience in starting dungeon out of nowhere and leveled up.
On my current BGEET run it looks like my xp cap was completely removed from all games. I had to reset back to 161k for SoD and back to 500k for BG2. I didnt install xp cap removal tho so I suppose modsetup pranked me?
Coalition Camp is treated like Baldurs Gate. Quick farm of gold via magical items and shopping.
From Waizahb I bought arrows of dispell and detonation; all useful potions, belt of 10% slashing dmg, wizards hat, belt of luck, ring of purity. Recharging wands wont hurt too. Stacked to the brim with artifacts I went to Dragonspear. Waylaid zone with that sneaky shadowdancer gets skipped. I dont fancy 120+ dmg backstab so I drank invi potion and with boots of speed and ac boosting items brushed past ambush.
Casted Friends and negotiated entrance to castle. Once inside I finish two quests offering useful loot. The trial for best bow and understanding the crusade for the ring. I skipped bloodbark grove entirely and went straight to undeground river. There I took part in choosing new ogre chieftain and grabbed myconid boom-sac. Talked my way into next zone and ventured inside invisible. Spent most of my time there under invisibility appearing only for short moments. Turned that evil druid against crusade and took ankheg summoning amulet from him.
Bought useful potions from vendor, dropped barrel of explosive and moved past ghost dragon to Kanaglym. I sneaked past everybody and attacked leader of mages from the shadow. When enemies buffed I started raining fire from wand and bow on the mages. Fight slightly went to hell when this fricking dragon appeared and started attacking me. I wasnt aware that can happen, I should have killed her before going there. I had to maintain distance from dragon while firing few dispell arrows. My buffs, saves and interruption via detonation allows protected me from their spells. With only two mages left I dispelled them with arrow and finished with sword, with angry dragon on my back. Useless lizard turned friendly only after I killed everybody. I only let her leave because she was alrdy dead .It was time to equip spectacles and confront the lich. Used lich-crippling gem on him and finished poor lad. Robes with sequencer are mine!
Casted Friends and once again convinced enemies to help me with getting into next zone. In warrens buffed and used potions in preparation for big fight. Memorised 1 knock and got another from scroll. Last time I was there I had started the fight right at the entrance and had to plow through entire sea of enemies before being forced to retreat after gettin dispelled. This time run around on haste and invisibility poisoning supplies and drinking potion after potion. NPC's started wandering and when I ran to boss room with treasure I passed evil priest with his mages on my way. I had all the time in the world to steal scrolls and crown of lies.
Reapplied invisibility and left the room. Still nobody attacking or detecting me. I noticed Hephernaan standing next to the exit, I still dont know if he has to be engaged to progress wiith main plot so I dealt him few blows from invisibility. He ran away immediately and I left army stationed there before they could attack me. Learned powerful spells while still on potions of focus.
Coalition camp defense which was supposed to be easy actually turned wild. First wave was easily dealt by our newest robes of sequencer. Triple fireball left only 2-3 enemies standing. Took rest after that and set sequencer for mages 3x dispell magic. Dispells with few detonating arrows were enough. Sruviving one were met with dispell arrows if they still had buffs and finished with blades. Next wave was were problems started. I decided to save rest for last wave and didnt even rebuff. As soon as enemies spawned I casted chaos and threw few fireballs to them. Fight was already won when two clerics casted sanctuary and started healing themselfs. I waited patiently for them only to receive message that we are getting overwhelmed and have to move back.
WTF??? I did a quick scan and noticed that while I was waiting for clerics, one chaosed dwarf got lost in camp and wandered pass the front line triggering next event! That little shit almost killed me. I wasnt ready, buffs dropped mostly and I havent rested. I wasnt even done with clerics from 3rd wave when they started descending on me. Immediately pulled out the big guns and rained arrow of detonation on them. I should have casted chaos on them but dont know why I decided on emotion:hopeless which I forgot is rather bad in nonanvil games. It almost didnt affect anybody. I was too focused on this surprising development and hadnt noticed my stoneskin dropped together with blur and images. I got hacked down to 37HP before I reacted and ran away hiding behind some coalition leftovers. Used Durlag's Goblet for the first time since starting dungeon. Luckily stupid npc's focused on my allied forces and allowed me to recast stoneskin at least. Attacked them from the blindspot and arrows of detonation did the rest. Finished few enemies in melee. Funny thing that only enemy that my emotion:hopeless worked on was their general lol. He laid there on the grass for entire fight napping.
Done with the camp it was time to push enemy back to Dragonspear Castle. Ofc rested before that. After arriving and watching our forces blow up the walls I started recasting and used oil of speed. Got only few spells like stoneskin, ghost armor back before joining my forces. Because of me skipping lots of content and quests there were many crusaders to slay. Used mainly arrows of detonation, chaos, wand of fire. I have reavealed myself too much and received dispell magic which forced me to once more retreat behind my forces and use arrows from distance. Quick 1v1 with winged elf and I was already chasing Caelar after good nights rest.
Surprisingly first fight in Avernus was quite dangerous. That female demon was annoyingly casting invi each time I attacked her and it was probably her who was detecting my illusions instantly. Had to recast stoneskin twice and do a bit of hit and run. Encounter with Planescape Torment devil was done without any surprises. Fully buffed, with crusaders ring and belt -3AC against slashing the devils cant hit me really well.
Finished with them I walked inside, rested and prepared myself. Sequencers for the final fight were minor: mirror image+blur, bigger: stoneskin, blur, mirror image. Used scroll of protection from poison and full set of potions inluding few I rarely use: freedom, magic shielding, regeneration, power, clarity and all the other normal ones. I used spells remembered thanks to Crown of Lies: prot from fire, prot from missiles, ghost armor, stoneskin, SI:A and changed back to Baldurans helmet, same thing with metamagic amulet and casting mirror image before swapping to Bless amulet, also switched sequencer robes to good archmagi. Main hand is Fractal Blade while offhand holds Twinkle, I will be switching them during fight. Fight starts with belt of luck which I will change to -3 slashing AC once Im surrounded by devils. In bag I have wizards hat and cloak giving +1 spellcaster level which I will equip each time I want to recast stoneskin or mirror image. Durlags Goblet + Kiels Helmet also are waiting in bag. 6x Mirror Image Scroll, 1x Stoneskin Scroll, 1x Imp Invisibility scroll, 5x Blur Scroll wait in bag as well. My previous run with Berserker7/Druid ended here after getting surprised with dispell magic from Belhifet and not keeping buffs right way after that. My mighty gnome will counter that with simple Spell Immunity: Abjuration.
I buffed too early and lost few buffs while waiting in the lift. By the time Belhifet was done with turning Caelar blur, mirror image, imp invi, SI:A already dropped. Thankfully I have foreseen this mistake and used spells granted to me by items that I took off. It would be awkward if he dispelled me now lol. So I moved few steps back and casted minor sequencer:mirror image+blur and SI:A once again. Rushed Belhifet without wasting time and Fractal Blade dispelled his imp invisibility with first blow. Visually the fight wasnt exciting. I stood with him almost on the spawn point, surrounded by devil hordes, and hacked each other. Equipped AC boosting belt and focused on observing buffs dropping. Recasted Stoneskin two times, Mirror Images four times and used one Potion of Clarity just to be safe. Whenever Belhifet casted Imp Invi I switched Fractal Blade to main hand and switched back to Twinkle after dispelling it. Took 22 dmg at last 5 seconds of the fight, Im not sure from what. With preventive recasts stoneskin didnt even drop once whole fight. With the devil dead its time to finally move towards SoA where the challenge continues.
To start with, everything has gone perfectly. I have reached Level 3, *** in Blunt weapons, and reputation is increasing nicely.
After going to Nashkel and back to Beregost doing some minor quests, My reputation is now 20 and I have found a +1 mace.
Now north of the FAI having killed the ankheg near Tenya and many more in their nest. Now level 7. **** in blunt weapons.
Xzar and Montaron joined with me for a while. I left Xzar with Algernon after Montaron "borrowed" his cloak.
He "borrowed" a lot of scrolls and the like at Ulgoth's Beard too. I left him with Therella. Hopefully they will get on well together. I'm not sure that they will.
Trio 50 ([Links to earlier sessions 1)
Betsof - human male dark moon monk Gate70
DIsco - elf female diviner @Grond0
CoreThief XXXI - dwarf male Fighter / Thief @Corey_Russell
Betsoff started OK today and steadily got sloppier as the session carried on (perhaps to do with his monk speed arriving at trouble first and my reducing wait for the party to catch up.
We raced around the rock gnome garden at breakneck speed - Corethief leading and showing he knew the route. Mutamin was our eventual target and didn't last too long against us.
Kirian's party were all blind so unable to help her get out of a stinking cloud.
We made time to deal with sirines and flesh golems next, Corethief using a tome to bump his constitution up into a regenerative level of 20.
After that we moved on to Durlags Tower where a rash of blindness helped against battle horrors and doom guards.
Then we dealt with Mulahey inside Nashkel Mine - stinking cloud.
The amazons outside were blind x 3 and debilitated by more stinking cloud.
Tranzig had a good go at Betsoff who had attacked on his own, failed to hide, and blocked himself inside the room when his companions arrived.
Still, we made it safely to the bandit camp where once more Betsoff arrived at any arrows ahead of his party. Not a great problem for us though and the exterior of the camp looks a bit worse for wear.
Betsoff sneaked inside the main tent - or did he. He did not. He did, however, manage to hide before Raemon could admonish him.
Corethief backstabbed Venkt and the day was ours.
Meanwhile Disco has added to her blindness and stinking cloud with well-timed sleeps. One day she'll get another chance to learn magic missile.
At the end of the session we had sold our loot and stand outside the Friendly Arm inn ready to explore the second level of Cloakwood.
Bassilus was killed with the aid of enrage as was Zargos and one of his cohorts. I then headed west and killed Sil along with other sirines. After looting the cave I helped Charleston Nib and took Brage to the Temple of Helm.
Afterwards we took on Droth and Shoal. Shoal had reduced me to 1HP, so I fled to High Hedge where I slept for over three days in order to recover. Upon returning, Droth was no match for me. Neither was Shoal.
I went on to find a ring and kill some more sirine before returning to the temple of Lathander.
I tend to do fewer quests in SoD than BGEE and breezed quickly through the dungeon. Porios was persuaded to surrender himself, undead baffled by PfU and Korlasz trapped in webs.
Note the Flaming Fist healer in the dungeon sells scrolls of greater restoration and using those is my typical strategy in the fight with Belhifet, so I always like to have a bit of cash available for those.
Arriving at the palace I tried to put on spirit armor before fighting the assassins attacking Imoen, but only got a burst surge.
That sunfire type effect is a good way to kill innocents and ruin your reputation, so I was fortunate no-one was around this time. As I've normally got so much XP, the only quests I tend to do in the City are picking up the Spectacles of Spectacle and getting the helm that prevents tiredness. The latter is no good to me in this run though, so I didn't bother with that. I did stock up on spells and use potions of genius for a 3rd session in the run of learning. I also killed a few NPCs for their equipment - supplementing the 65k gold earned from items carried forward from BGEE in my bags.
On arrival at the Coast Way Crossing I travelled immediately to the Coast Way Forest. I decided to help the vampire there in order to get a regeneration ioun stone. I was lucky to get a top-tier summoned skeleton warrior (actual spell level varies by 5 up or down from your own level, so at 10th level I got my first chance to get the L15 version). However, that was still struggling to see off Isabella, so I resorted to a bit of spell damage to help out.
On my return journey I came across some battling orcs and trolls. Rather than just sneak into the cave to get the Firefly sling, I chose to fight. The congestion downstairs meant using spells felt too risky, so wand of fire scorchers were used there. At some point during that fight I picked up my 11th level (final one in SoD).
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, I handed Takos his items but didn't do anything else - I bypassed the fight at the bridge by arriving there invisibly. I also just sneaked through the Troll Claw Woods on the way to the Forest of Wyrms - ignoring the yawning pit seen during the journey. I sneaked through the dragon cave and past various hobgoblins - a first use of stoneskin negating the spike trap there. I killed a few groups of guards using webs before turning to Ziatar. Webs allowed her to be quickly taken to near death and I tried to finish her off with a skull trap, as she briefly activated - only to find about 40k of gold disappearing. Ziatar was almost immediately held again though and MMMs did the rest.
I've probably died more times to the Neothelid than anything else in SoD. Its frequent use of multiple status effects, including non-magical ones, mean you really need bullet-proof saving throws or wide-ranging immunities there. I went for the former, by using several potions of stone form. A potion of absorption to make hitting difficult and protection from poison completed my defences, while a couple of skeletons helped occupy the summoned swords while beating the Neothelid up.
Scorchers then did much of the damage to Akanna and the aerial servants.
I didn't bother with the remaining encounters inside the old temple, though I did throw daggers at a sleeping dragon on the way out. Needing a critical, the first 20 daggers missed. To improve the odds with my remaining 20 I used a potion of power and got a hit with a 19 a few throws later.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge I came across another green dragon asking for help. This one was apparently a bit too young to choose its helpers well and followed the hill giants attacking it into oblivion.
On arrival, Vichand was just webbed and killed to get his scroll. I used the voidstone shards to make some +3 bullets for use on Belhifet before surrendering the fort. That still left though the mage on the bridge itself. For a solo player this is another dangerous encounter, complicated by the difficulties of using area effects due to the vulnerable barrels lying around. Death is also highly likely if the mage successfully opens a fire portal, but fortunately the ring of energy is a great way to bypass his magical defences and disrupt his spells. With summons initially occupying the guards the battle for me was easy enough and took me to the 500k XP cap.
I've just arrived at the Coalition Camp and will aim to finish SoD in the next session.
Finally my brave and strong gnome has arrived to Athkatla where the real challenge starts. There are few changes and priorities at this stage.
I noticed immediately after waking up in Irenicus dungeon that in BGEET reputation stays the same between games. That means our reputation is 20 from beginning, I can start buying stuff without wasting gold on church. One of the first items Im going to buy is Nymphs Cloak from Maevars guild shop.
I tried switching to English ingame and so far it works good and I havent spotted any "Invalid Number 23048" error.
Another important change in BGEET is actually quite harmful to me. Scribing scroll gives no xp! Or rather it gives 100x less xp than it should. I guess thats because BGEET treats scribing in BG2 as if it happened in BG1? Its bad news because in this run I would like to get mages HLA before going for spellhold. I was counting on scrolls taking care of large portion of XP needed. Because of component "items are taken in spellhold" I would prefer to go there with planetar unlocked just for that exact situation. Clay golem is a joke, what isnt a joke are Rukh and Lich with his fallen planetar who I will meet in spellhold without items. Thats why I would like if planetar helped carry my weight there.
Without xp from scribing it will be a lot harder to get 6m XP before spellhold. It is possible tho if I eliminate every enemy and do every quest before leaving. Doing every quest and enemy is risky in no-reload before spellhold and I would prefer to skip at least 1-2 enemies. It still should be possible if I kill most of the enemies and added ones through the mods. I hope Tactics Remix will cover missing xp.
Other priority is going to be weapons. Starting SoA I have ++ in Scimitars, ++ in Short swords and +++ in dual-wield. Scimitars and short swords served me well during BG1 and SoD. In SoA these weapons are going to be main focus after getting out of Irenicus' clutches: Belm, sword of Arabane and short sword of Mask. Each one of them is easily accessible and will hold for a long time.
Irenicus chateau is easier than ever. With additionall xp from SoD I have access to 5th lvl spells. That means I will be summoning minor earth elementals to act as my bodyguards and protect me in case some mephit landed stun on me. Most of the time my elementals will rush inside first and tank. There is no Improved Illyich so no problems should arise. These little duergars are weaklings too compared to Mother Russia Duergars.
Access to Sunfire is very helpful against packs. I will try to grab as many valuable items as I can carry and get the hell out of here. With buffs, minor elementals and 5th lvl spells entire complex is easily cleared. For traps likewise used buffs like blur, mirror image, imp invisibility but also for more deadly traps casted luck.
In Athkatla I go to den of seven ales and rest enough times to identify loot. Bought only gem and scroll bag for now. Money is almost 9000gp. Leaving quests for later I went to Slums, talked with Gaelan and prepared myself with buffs.
Shield, stoneskin, spirit armor, blur, mirror image, protect from fire, protect from fear, imp invisibility, haste, holy might, SI:A, minor spell deflection. These are starting buffs that I will have to bring to almost every fight. Will be adding more while leveling-up.
Once done with buffs I travel between districts to force Suna Seni encounter and bombard her party with sunfire. Two casts and everyone is almost dead. Few swings from my non-magical scimitar and I have acquired my main weapon for most of the game.
I head immediately towards city gates, talk with peasant from Trademeet and with my map actualised travel there. Unfortunately I was ambushed by enemies and had Renfield encounter. I don't know why I forgot to travel invisible.
Used that invisibility cast to hide from ambush, rebuff in corner and come back to slaughter them. After killing them I had to move back to docks to finish Renfield quest. On my way I met cyric priest which I killed but once again I got overconfident and killed him without any buffs. Normally I wouldn't need any buff for such enemy but "Maximum HP for everybody" seriously boosted every enemy. Mages who were dying in two hits now need 4-5 at least.
This allowed priest to actually finish casting very lethatl spell Dire Charm on me. My big gnome saving rolls won luckily. Finishing harpers and Xar quests and getting one from shadow thieves I went to Mae'Var for next quest and bought very important Nymph's cloak.
On my way out opened doors to Kangaxx with knock and slain minotaurs for easy xp. While already in the city I decided to visit Government district to buy spellcasting license. Inside governing district saved Jan Janses skin, got quest from Tolgerias and headed for Viconia. Once again I messed up and went to fight without any spells. I had only stoneskin on me and one memorised. Without spirit armor my AC was 2. I have underestimated Max HP again as well and wasnt expecting these canon fodder to be so tough. This allowed them to burn through my two stoneskins quite fast and left me running with 7hp left.
It would be sooo embarassing if I died here. I saved myself with some HP potions and ran out of their sight. I have even used scroll of monster summon to have some decoys but it was not needed. Fanatics rampaging in governing district pulled attention of guards and one amnian guard descended on them. He proved to be the best decoy target for them and allowed me to finish both. Or not allowed because he stole my both kills, depraving me of 2000xp!
With delays out of they way I could finally go to Trademeet. Before getting there though I had another ambush where my invisibility cast was interrupted this time by double melf's acid arrow from sequencer. I started running and received only flame strike on my head.
Even if I didnt make the save for that I would survive thankfully. I almost had a heart attack tho when these melfs acid arrows brought me down to 3HP during travel... Why the hell Im not using invisibility for travelling again?
Quick word exchange with Cernd after which I ventured into forest hasted and invisible. Ran past every enemy and sneaked into Ogre's Tower.
Snatched Belm, casted invisibility and returned back to Trademeet.
Ambushed once again. Used oil of speed to get out.
Outside of Dao's tent guard was charmed by Nymph's Cloak and followed me inside using attack myself trick. Once inside I buffed, went invisibile and ordered my genie to attack Dao's leader. In this moment I have to be careful to not kill the leader with charmed genie but to reduce his HP considerably.
When the ifreeti bottle drops on the ground its time to sneak behind wounded Dao and kill him with two swings solving Trademeet's genie problem. Crude way but effective. SCS rakshasha are quite strong and well buffed so it would be later in the game when I would return for them. In this way I can get ~10000gp and Shield of Harmony which will be my life saver in various tough situations like after getting dispelled. I went back to Slums cleared copper coronet out of slavers with ease and bought shadow thieves help thanks to gold from Trademeet.
I decided on helping Mook and with lots of buffs + shield of harmony ready fought off Lassal.
Ifreeti summoning bottle is going to be a major help. Imp genies and infreeti component makes them quite capable casters with 0 casting time and spells like fireball or flame strike. After shadow thieves my money is almost 5000gp. Things I will be buying next are going to be robes of vecna, short sword of mask, vhailor's helmet and tons of scrolls. Had to take a break at this time because I was sure I would die very soon if I continued with so many close death situations.
Comments
Thanks to you and @jmerry for the further information. That clarifies that sometimes seeing both spawns is a bug (I think carried forward from the original game). While certainly of interest, the chances of me remembering what might happen and paying attention in the way Gate70 suggests above are probably rather limited ...
Janus (male half-elf blade, Grond0); Voka (female human invoker, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1192727/#Comment_1192727
We started off with a trip to Watcher's Keep. At this early stage in the session spells were still fairly limited, but a combination of blind and magic missile made short work of some battle horrors.
With the high value areas complete, it seemed like time to go to the Nashkel Mines. After the highs of getting 7,000 XP for a kill, the 7 XP on offer for kobolds was not too attractive and we went through most of the mine invisible. Inside Mulahey's cave, he was disabled by a stinking cloud and hurt badly before he managed to stagger to his feet. His morale broke before he could come to talk to us and he was finished off without summoning any help.
At the Bandit Camp the bandit archers got a few good shots in, forcing a withdrawal and rest to heal before we came back for more. Taurgosz tried to stop our progress and managed to save against a couple of blinding attempts, but it was 3rd time unlucky for him.
While engaged on the poison quest, Janus could not resist popping in to a warehouse holding another basilisk. For once Voka didn't have a PfP spell memorized, but that was no problem - stinking cloud and blindness doing its usual sterling job.
Blade 8, 62 HPs, 150 kills
Invoker 8, 37 HPs, 91 kills, 1 death
I have found them to be very susceptible to Command. I have ankheg armour, Bassilus's hammer plus a mace +1. After using Chant and DUHM I found that a single ankheg was no problem. If I sleep inside the nest only one ankheg spawns. If outside, more than one, so I used tactics to avoid fighting more than one. I became rich enough to buy another hammer, partly through ankheg shells, partly by selling equipment that I cannot use. I usually pick-pocket the good hammer at Ulgoth's Beard. That wasn't available without a thief. Animate dead was also useful.
There is good armour in a cave near Lathander's Temple. I now feel strong enough to tackle it.
Killing the ankheg rapidly boosted my experience so that I can now kill them without buffing.
EDIT
I was right. Animate dead gave me tanks that could take on the dread wolves while I joined the melee later. Command was sufficient for the sword spider and the skellies gave protection from the wraith spider. I wasn't foolish enough to take on the rather powerful bear in there, The armour gives some protection from acid so is a little better compared to the ankheg. It also gives +1 charisma boost which will be 19 after identifying the tome in there,
My reputation plummeted to 10 after killing Algernon but it has returned to 18 after some judicious giving and by helping a few people. Hopefully it will soon return to 18.
Went with decent roll of 18/93 str and ~90 stats. Wisdom suffered quite a lot but I rarely use Wish and there are potions for that if they still work that is. Charisma wasn't too high too but with both algernon's cloak + friends it reaches 20 so I decided to go with that roll. Weapon profs were chosen with entire trilogy in mind, character lawful good. 2 pips in scimitars and 1 pip in short swords.
Insane, double dmg, all SCS difficulty/improved fights components at max, op items + watchers keep + op arrows stay in game. This time I have also added "Items are taken from the party in Spellhold" and maximum HP for everybody from Tweaks(this could already be installed, Im not sure). Another big change was adding Tactics Remix. I still am sure that Remix version has nothing on the original Tactics. Some encounter from original were just plain crazy and ofc doable but extremely difficult to do no-reload. At least for me. Remix version shouldnt interfere that much with no-reload. In worst case I will have to go to watchers keep a bit earlier to avoid poison badge and delay crypt king.
Sadly slacked a lot with screenshots till late game. Language still has to be nonenglish for most of the game because bugged af BGEET doesnt allow me any other. My own english is pretty bad and point of narration changes a lot because of writing it in a long span of time with many breaks. Also I have been using this as an instruction for old friend of mine. Appeareance in game changes because I cant stand being gnome for too long. So I apologise in advance.
BG1 starts as always. We will be abusing blindness quite a lot. First get all hidden stashes and potions from compnanions while on the way to Shoal. Kite her to death and grab few fast lvls. Slay blinded ogre for his op belt before going to FAI. Get OP wizard ring, kill hobgoblins with quest ring and head north towards Ulgoth's beard.
Start Tenya's quest hug the river and avoid all ankhegs. On bridge use Wand of Missiles to dmg Tenya, return to slay leader of farmers only and get flail+1, then finish the quest and get best possible 2500xp. Go to Ulgoth's and slay the peasant with Ring of Freedom + Web. That ring helps immensely in solo runs. After that its Mirriane's quest. Follow the road south of Beregost and blind ogrillions for easy ring of $ and buy few points of reputation back. Then kill Algernon for his cloak and again buy reputation back to 12 this time. After this blind Melicamps wolf and go straight for Brage. Get him to Nashkel and farm reputation in near areas: Samuel, Dryad, dead cat, refuse greywolf's bounty, kill greywolf and help prism. Sell Ankheg plate and buy amulet of shield, necklace of fireballs, protection from petrification.
With 2nd level spells we can abuse invisibility and web+ring of freedom combo. Scout zone while invisible, locate enemies(for immersion purpose) and throw them 2-3 webs. Then snipe them with bow or slash them apart while ring is equipped. Sendai and her team dies in this way, as well as Vax with his best dart thrower and Zargal's hobgoblin group. Then slay blinded gnoll with +2 halberd and challenge the other one to fight cuz Im poor, killed him by accident depraving myself of 500xp. Help the wood nymph and get tasty golden girdle. Blind+web are our main offensive spells. After that get fire prot ring and deliver Samuel to FAI. Next is quick blind and slaughter of Meilum. From there go back to ankheg's nest and sack it while invisible. Get very useful wand of fire and complete farmers quest.
Save Basillus for later cuz he can get messy. His buffs changed from blade barrier and some other useless shit to missile reflecting spell and freedom. It would be completely normal if he was switching strategy like that from beginning. Similar to SCS liches who change strats, spells and have different builds like invoker,conjurer, etc. But he did it for the first time after like 30 kills lol. I actually died to him on one of my runs cuz went to there with arrows+web only and on low lvl expecting easy starting cash but he completely countered me. The more I play BGEET the stranger it gets. Somehow better calls for help component wasnt working at the start. I had to reinstall SCS for it to work.
Get Greenstone Amulet, Displacement Cloak, few potions of mirrored eyes and go for basilisks. With green petrification prot scroll and 1st lvl spell Korax isn't even needed there. I tend to save him for Mutamin or Kirian alone. After slaughtering all basilisks and leveling up we buff up, use greenstone amulet and attack Mutamin together with Korax. Im sending Korax ahead while staying out of screen and show myself when the ghul is close to the mage. Mutamin will rush to cast anything on me and Korax is free to land paralysis on him. After that it went smoothly. Against Kirian we open fight with web and blinds. As soon as someone breaks hold we use wand of fire on them together with biting arrows.
From there we move to Durlags tower for Scimitar +2, few potions, wands and easy xp. Battle horrors are kited and taken down with multiple magic missiles. They can also be stopped with invisible familiar blocking their way in chokepoint(actually dropped Find Familiar scroll from some hobgoblin bandit). In durlag's tower we avoid some traps while tanking others using greenstone amulet. We get the tome and kill Succubus for easy 3k xp plus some gold. On the roof we use petrification protection spell again and eat up that tasty xp together with weapon +2.
With quite high level its time to get BG1 breaking spell. For this we go to Ulgoths beard again and agree to do the quest for mage. On the island we cast invi and skip entire prison(remember about lightning protection + shield). We stop before final enemy and clear wolfs in room next to his. From there we throw 3x web. Once he is held we fire few arrows of biting and poison him, he dies we get scroll of Stoneskin and exit happily.
After that its just easy cleanup and goldfarming. Get enough gold for some scrolls, potions and robe of good archmagi. Slay sirines using greenstone amulet, high blunt/missile ac and some fireballs. Arrows +1 for flesh golems and greenstone amulet for traps inside cave.
Back to main questline. Skip entire Nashkel mines on invisibility. Slay mulahey with either web or good old blunt force. Shooting him with arrows of biting and blind works too. If you dont have many tools, walking to him invisible, we can always land a bit hit on him and then talking him into believing that we are sent by Tazok makes him not hostile which allows us to land another free big hit on him. In Bandit's camp we go full pyro again. As soon as we get in with help of Teven, buff up, drink few pots inlcuding oil of speed and then start throwing fireballs everywhere. Group them up nicely for more aoe dmg. When boss tent party joins just use greenstone amulet and continue with fire-kite. Best to stay out of mage's range. Cant remember if he had dispell but probably yeah.
Next is Cloakwood. After doing it so many times I started skipping it like Nashkel mines. Only stops are for some potions and items like spider's bane. Blow up spiders with fireballs while buffed with stoneskin, images, prot from fire and freedom. Safer option use 2x invisibiliy. Also slay one wivern for 2000gp reward. Buff up and drink oil of speed for Drasus party. Summon meatshields with wand and move them back. Start fight with casual fireball toss. Once Drasus showsup pull him away from group and kill him quickly. With 4 APR and stoneskin it should be easy. When done with him, send meatshields ahead to tank some spells from mages. Either dispel magic offscreen or finish with fireballs/summoned monsters. Sometimes I skip rest of the party after getting boots. Mines skipped on invisibility entirely. Davaeorn done the same way as always. Drink strength potion, heroism and oil of speed. Get invisible and just run to him. Buff up other protections if you are scared of traps. When you move next to him, the horrors should move away from evil mage and go back towards the entrance. If they dont it doesnt rly matter. With 4 APR we can land two strong hits on him before he can teleport or activate his buffs (he REALLY needs that stoneskin on him as soon as players enter last level of mines). Loot everything, flood the mines and get to Baldur's Gate after quick detour to steal Baeloth's robe of evil archmagi.
In Baldur's Gate there are few things to be done asap. First go for dex tome and buy potions/arrows from shadow tiefs. Next spells,potions and dispell arrows from Sorcerous Sundries. Also get ogre-slaying arrow. Go to sewers while invisible nad oneshot ogre mage. Get all the loot including scimitar +1 for offhand. Next is baldurans helmet in Helm and Cloak and his cape in cellars. For that use algernon/nymph cloak to charm courtesan and attack guards. Then go and slay Ramazith. One single hit is enough to kill him. Just to be sure we will drink fire giant strength potion and heroism. After looting amulet and ring we should still make use of the buffs and continue farm rampage. Jardak and Drelik are close. Greenstone amulet and arrows of dispell do the work with Drelik. Jardak falls to stoneskin. This is perhaps the only moment in my run where using that +100 cold res belt is advised. Drelik likes to use cone of cold.
Fight in Cloak and Helm was won with one chaos cast from scroll. Help Varci and buy all oil of speed from house of wonders. Slay Sunin with arrows of dispell and biting. Most of time in Baldurs Gate is spent running around and farming gold, potions and scrolls. Im not selling any gems at all from the start of game. Same goes for all magical jewellery. We will try to keep as many of them possible in gem bag and sell them all in Siege of Dragonspear after we lose our money. Its possible to save quite a sum. Done with farming its time to quickly finish Scar's quests and go to candlekeep.
Iron Throne fight either skipped on invi or if Im in mood just blow them up with detonation arrows or slash them apart after using one scroll of chaos. If they manage to cast remove magic its best to dish some cheese and use the stairs. Ogre mage ambush at candlekeep is skipped after using invi potion or greenstone amulet, auto-pause helps a lot there for forgetful people like me.
After getting teleported to candlekeep dungeons we buff up with shield, fire prot, potion of absorption. Prepare Knock and equip ring of freedom. Get all juicy loot while laughing at traps. Skip entire thing on invisibility. Use starting room for rest. Back to Baldurs Gate ran all the way to Eltan on invibility and killed his healer. That crazy chick of sarevok inside iron throne bulding can be taken down with 4APR from invisibility. If not enough dmg is done then have to use arrows of dispell on her. Possible to cheese dispell magic with stairs. Drink absorption potion for her golems if scared or without buffs like stoneskin+mirror image.
Versus Slythe we summon few meatshields from wand and park them at the entrance. Buffed up and on haste we lure Slythe away and kill him quickly. Minions are just in case he goes invisible or if Kristine joins the fight. With stoneskin/detect illusion it should be safe fight. Palace fight should go smoothly on max SCS because duchess will buff herself considerably and that leaves a lot of time to deal with enemies. Most important thing do NOT summon anything in the palace. Best way to end the run. Chaos works well there, confusion as well. Otherwise shot them with arrows of dispell and hack apart on potions of heroism+speed+strength+focus. Last runs I also started allowing them to slaughter Belt for his ring of invisibility. Noticed it towards the end but BGEET changes BG1 invi ring to work like BG2 version and we can get one invi per day from it. Technically two if you use it and rest.
Once done with ducal palace fight, start final preparations for SoD. First get some potions and go to Drizzt zone. There buff up, drink potions and cast DuHM. Once we get lower than -1 THAC0 it should be doable. If somehow he kills all the gnolls before we finish him, be ready to cast imp invi to avoid dispell magic. Greenstone amulet may be needed too. Loot scimitars and go to Durlag's Tower again. Buy back reputation to 17-18 and get last few points with planned quests left. Save kid from worgs, stone to flesh lady in basilisk area and one quest in Baldurs Gate. Cure that one guy who murdered succesfull priest and was cursed for example.
There we protect ourselfs with spells, potions and scrolls against fire, lightning, magical dmg, hold. Only things of interest in tower are Durlags Goblet and Kiels Helmet. Both of them will be used in SoD. With buffs like stoneskins,blur and mirror image four guardians arent problem at all. Just smash them hasted and recast stoneskin/mirror image if Pride hits us enough times. Rememeber about -3 slashing AC vs Pride and all dopplers.
Next level once again spell protections. Minor globe of invulnerability helps a lot with traps and greater doppler spells. For easier kills sometimes Im using dispell arrows on greater dopplers when they are hasted, blurred and with images. Get the needed loot and return to Baldurs Gate. Buy last needed things.
Check potions/scrolls/arrows. Try to exchange as much of gold as possible for gems and jewellery. Buff up with immunities and run through maze on invisibilty. Skip fight with Iron Throne group and spare Tamoko. Sarevok's fight done with cheese. Wait till Diarmin buffs drop and bombard them with fireballs/wand/necklace. Kill Sarevok 1v1 and start Siege of Dragonspear.
Siege of Dragonspear start is rather bloody and brutal. First pack of mercenaries gets fireball spammed. I wanted to test F/I here, so no Protection from Undead this time. Key enemies are Skeleton Mages and Shadowed Souls. Usually if I want to fight pack of undeads head on its imperative to either run to these two with boots of speed+haste or sneak up to them on invisibility. Oil of speed has to be on all the time here as well as against most of undead packs in SoD, if we want to fight them that is. Other than haste we also need Shield permanently. Too many undeads capable of casting magic missile. Stoneskins and Mirror Images required as always. Best to have one Mirror Image saved for whenever Shadowed Soul is around. Other than that against big undead packs Im not going to save on usables.
Wand of fire was used heavily in these dungeons and later in dwarfen caves. We should have at least 100 charges after BG1. If I cant kill Soul immediately its best to line of sight her and kite entire group so she cant bombard us freely. Imp invisibility works on them too I think. Cant let them surround us, esp if they are hasted. I was overwhelmed 1-2 times and had to retreat to previous dungeon level. Once even got swarmed and barely hacked way through the siege ring of undead. After that kept my distance. Ofc if we have enough of this rather brutal start Protection of Undead scroll is the way.
Inventory after BG1
Using noble Flaming Fist as sacrifical decoys
What happens when you leave Shadowed Sould in backline
Invisibility works also if we can move quickly past all of the rabble and strike at wizards. With Friends on I have convinced first wizard to give up. Gotta make sure to use his cloak as often as possible. One caster level is perfect for prebuffing and casting some spells. Korlasz is very easy after getting hit with Arrow of Dispelling. Few hits from summons and she is ready to give up. In this dungeon we get our first lvl up which allows us to cast one of my favourite spells in game: Sunfire. With this we wreck most of packs easily. Not much later we will get shield with one more Sunfire cast.
In Baldurs Gate the focus is farming gold, gathering magical items and buying items/consumables. Amulet granting perma Bless is an absolute must. There is also a nice collcetion of scrolls with 4th and 5th lvl spells we surely miss, we will also buy a lot of potions. Because of the amount of potions we have accumulated through BG1 and abundance of them in SoD, it is advised to use tons of potions on every major encounter. Stealing gear from NPC's is heavily advised too. Spectacles of Spectacle also are a must. Not only genie merchant but also lich in later parts of the game have some very interesting loot. Before getting out of Ducal Palace remember to talk with Entar for extra money from Ring of Protection +2.
I must admit to skipping a lot of fights after that. Almost all outdoor fights were passed by on invisibilty. Did only encounters for loot. Ancient menhirs is worth mentioning, used Friends for that. Xp cap was attained very fast so there was no need for smacking some trolls or orogs. We head for Dwarves of Dumathoin next. Having my own share of undead delight this time we use scroll of prot from undead immediately and rush through dungeon. With that we are free to skip most of the dungeons. Dont forget about Crommus's grave, boots with MR are going to be equipped for more than half of the game. With prot from undead its easy to get journal, exchange it for lich-crippling gem and slay dwarf-lich .
After finishing the quest its once again lots of running around invisible, some loot gathering and avoiding not needed fights. We skipp till Isabella and Ikros. One more cast of Sunfire is really nice so we buff up and prepare for vampire. Summoned two lesser elementals and monsters from wand to act as meat-shield. Employed hit and run strategy to avoid level-drain. Unforutnately he still managed to land one hit and I had to go back to cleric for restoration. Confrontation with Caelar on bridge is next. With buffs, hasted and wand of fire reloaded we kill soldiers for loot. Watchout for remove magic from mages, Im always trying to stop it with aoe spell or dispell arrow them if there is time for that. Entire troll claw forest and waylay zone get skipped on invisibility, nothing interesting there for us.
Forest of Wyrms is where SoD gets more interesting. Ive skipped outdoors and ran all the way to dragons cave. Buffed and drank potions outside safely hidden. Im not saving anything now so almost full set of potions. With that dragon dies in 4-5 hits. Used dispelling arrows against her stoneskin cuz I forgot to memorise Breach. No waiting around Ive immediately run to next zone and brushed past all pests till their boss appeared. With AC -16 and -10 missile modificator they cant do much. Waited few second for all of them to group up and casted 3x Sunfire plus few Wand of Fire charges to clean them nicely and move to next level.
Still fully buffed drank invi potion and rushed through entire base to Ziatar. Tried confusion on her mages but sadly didnt work. Had to fire one detonation arrow for spell interruption on them. Half-dragon lady died in few 24 str hits. Making use of buffs and potions once again Ive rushed through the base and challenged Neothelid. Used greenstone amulet and ran around the room avoiding magic swords and waiting for the worm to show up. Short cat and mouse game then death after few hits.
Pack of major enemies dead I decided to rest on invisibility before buffing to full again and drinking few potions once more. Summoned meatshields from wand and opened doors to Shadow Aspect. Normally would wait for him to Mislead and instantly counter him with oracled/detect illusion. But I completely forgot any divination spell. Back to brute force then. The strat was to kill mislead asap and finish shadow aspect before recast. When too many enemies spawned cleared them with sunfire. After few images slain finally managed to get to Shadow Aspect and finish it with 50dmg crit.
Not wasting buffs, summoned fresh monsters, used greenstone amulet and ran to mind flayer party. Sent mobs ahead and threw them welcoming fireball. Once enemies swarmed my trash Ive moved inside and started hacking illithid. Used sunfire shield charge there and added few fireballs from wand. In the end there was mage and 3 injured fighters. One dispell arrow followe by two swings of Twinkle and only warriors were left to meet with blades. Maybe should have rested and rebuffed here but I ran to Cyric priestess and attacked her from behind after getting that divine reward 200gp from her. She was dead quickly but my stoneskin dropped and I received mighty 68 dmg blow from aerial servant. Drank invi potion and left the temple.
Inside bridgefort did all the quests giving any solid reward while dismissing the rest. Bought some items and consumables. After quickly helping with that meteor/catapult missile stone I went back to Flaming Fist and ordered a siege of siege camp. I was expecting an easy fight but unlike my two previous runs this was hella more difficult. Previosuly siege camp was split with one side easily cleared by flaming fist and second side containing officers being stuck at bridgefort gates. This time though they all attacked flaming fist forces together. Even with me throwing chaos and fireballs we were quickly overwhelmed. I had to be especially careful around their mages. There was atleast 5 of them and each could dispell me fully with one spell which would end badly. For every mage used arrows of dispell. If he was hiding behind wall of enemies then biting arrows, if not then hack him down.
Most of my forces died and fresh enemies were coming again so stopped holding back and used arrows of detonation + sunfires. Two named mages were immune to fire dmg so I had two switch to dispell arrows again and rush them asap. Sadly despite dispell and melee attack landing one of named mages managed to dispell me. I had to retreat and summon mobs from wand cuz no stoneskins or any other buffs left. Fortunately that was the last mage and only few fighters survived rain of fire. Picked them up one by one. Their general stood at the gates of camp and watched the slaughter.
After cleaning them it was time for the most difficult encounter in SoD. The mage opening gate to plane of fire. If I dont interrupt her quickly its game over. She buffs herself with imp inv, mirror images, stoneskin, globe of invul and she even has PfMW which she hadn't cast when I was there with my Berserker7/Druid
I have dealt with the problems in the Nashkel Mines and have just sorted out the Basilisks, Medusae and Mutamin. Skeletons made that area quite easy.
My reputation is now back up to twenty and have bought some good equipment after selling a lot of loot that I cannot use.
I think that the Drizzt Saga is not on if I am soloing.
Previous updates:
True to my word, this session started with a barrage of skull traps aimed at a pair of battle horrors - resulting in an early surge, though with no ill effects.
Moving on to the main quest, I went through the Nashkel mine mainly invisible. Stinking clouds meant that Mulahey was not conscious of the skull traps that ended his life.
Rather than sell the various valuable equipment gained, I put that into storage to protect against more gold disappearing in a surge. Invisibility allowed me to avoid any combat in the Cloakwood on the way to the mine. Drasus' companions were blinded and I also laid a grease field before stinking cloud to provide some protection if Drasus was activated. As it happened though he died in skull traps without moving.
Arriving at Baldur's Gate I converted some spare equipment into cash and bought up more spell scrolls, along with genius potions to ensure those were learnt. An ogre mage was the immediate victim of my new cloudkill spell.
The Iron Throne awaits, but I'll take a little detour to the seaside before that in search of the constitution tome.
Wild mage L9, 52 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 178 kills
Looking good so far.
I really want to try wild mage now
I totally forgot to take screenshots for most of the adventuring though Baldur's gate. The party goes through it methodically and does all small quests in the neighbourhood. First east, then to the center, north, north-east without the trap, north-west, west, south-east, south, ending with south-west.
I have some challenge in Ramaziths place with the ghasts holding Shar-teel and Xan, but other than that there is not much special going on. Using for the tougher fight inside the Iron Throne some potions of clarity, and a generous amount of necklace of missiles + potion of explosions + exploding potions, the top level fight is beaten before it has properly begun.
After all areas are cleared I pop into the sewers and find a new area where a lich-like priest/mage of bhaal is hidden (added by Shades of the Sword Coast), and although that seems scary, the fight is too easy at this level. It is so close to the party that it gets no spell off before being hacked to pieces (no mantle-like spells means it dies just too fast). I can see it being a problem for slightly lower level parties, but since I cleared the whole sword coast and Durlags already, each character is at an XP level of around 100k. There is actually a mention to the location made along the main storyline in one of the added information scrolls from SotSC, and the lich drops some Bhaal inspired items. Quite nice.
There is also a quest (starting point north of the city near the dragons gate) about a new cult starting between Candlekeep and the Lighthouse area. Another nice area added where you fight some cultists and when you delve deeper, also a bone golem (here called Tanarri) which is just across a bridge. Since I know not what to find on that side I sent Kagain there at AC-12 together with a trap searching Aura. The golem is tough, but easily bested by Kagain at this point. It would be a challenge if I had sent the full party, because it cast some horror-like ability or a gaze I think, yet Kagain has great saves and Aura is immune to gaze from her equipment. Kagain also hits hard because I use by default in all fights a potion of heroism and if needed a potion of some giant strength. At the end of the quest we combat an earth elemental of sorts, and Reynaert (although being shaman) can hit really well at this point and has a nice club in hand.
Another fast forward and Slythe and Kristin are down from pure melee though we failed detect invisibility.
Duchal is beaten by summons from the shadows + dispel from Xan + melee power from the rest.
Tamoko is met 3 times (also in the undercity) since Aura has interjections with her, but hmm... she still dies. Maybe my reputation at ~10 is too average to talk her out of fighting. (Small note is that SotSC puts a beholder in the undercity, but it does not do any of the dangerous BG2 instaspells, so maybe that is not coded into it or I killed it too fast).
The Sembia crew was killed by Auras traps (I lured them into it with a few arrows of detonation to the face.
Finally, we combat Sarevok. I buff all fighters with potions of heroism, some giant strength, invulerability, and Xan casts haste. Then Kagain goes to Sarevok.
Semaj teleports, Aura hits him with arrows of dispelling and Shar-Teel, Dorn and Reynaert kill him in a round.
Angelo engages Kagain, but it quickly killed by him (he uses the fire resist ring and the helm of defense).
Tazok and Sarevok come to the party and while one wand of summons occupies Sarevok, we overcome Tazok with our speedy hits.
Being the last standing Sarevok is left to face the party. We try to stick some spells on him, but they pretty much all fail. Then with melee power we get him to near death and I back off the party to let Reynaert get the last hit, but Dorn gets it by casting his blood drain through party AI. Whoops. But we got him!
Reynaert got through BG1. Up next is BG2. I will skip SoD because I dislike the hooded man and my XP is 161k now anyhow, good enough to start BG2.
Some stats below.
Reynaert cast cure light wounds the most. Simply BG1 does not lend itself to magic if you have enough melee power. Especially the shaman selection is rather situational. I started with battle axe early, but later I graduated to using clubs more. I think it is closer to 50-50 there. I got a lot of kills going into melee. 20% of the game at a number of 501 is nothing to sniff about. Kagain as main tank got only a few more (540).
Kagain did alright, but since he was mostly a slowly regenerating tank, there was not much emphasis on letting him hit much. He did his best, sometimes aided by a strength potion and a dexterity potion (until the gauntlets) but he still needed a lot of healing.
Shar-Teel was really the loup garou killer and the Demon Knight getting a lot of XP for her notches. Her dual-wield really raked in the number of kills (706!).
Dorn was added late and was starting to catch up to Kagain. He was half as long in the party but still got 207 kills, so not bad at all.
Xan shows to use throwing weapons a lot, but at least 50% of the time he went into melee with his moonblade. I really liked buffing him with mirror image, stone skin, blur, strength and some armor spell and letting him go at it. He hit a lot, but did not kill as much as I thought he was doing. Still, 133 for a mostly melee mage is not bad. I rarely cast a lot of spells with him. Mostly wands were a gimmick.
Finch had 80 kills and only 5% of the party value. Her quest and her personality were the most enjoyable but she added near to nothing else except healing and some mild buffing once in a while.
Aura was a pleasant surprise. She got a lot of nice skills and abilities and her bow usage is accurate. 327 kills for a thief is very respectable compared to the rest.
Reynaert will start BG at 161k XP with stats 20 - 19 - 20 - 14 - 15 - 10. I will have all Lava's quest mods installed as well as Improved Anvil. I will see how far I get, but if Reynaert falls I will continue to play few-reload at that point.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1192944/#Comment_1192944
At the Lighthouse area several webs detained groups of sirines while cloudkill did its job.
My final target outside the City was the Red Wizards. I didn't bother with web there and that cost me a potion of clarity when 2 of them escaped from a cloudkill.
In Candlekeep I used minor globe to protect against lightning traps while looting the tombs. The wisdom tome pushed that to 18 - the aim there being primarily to benefit from improved wishes in ToB. I killed the greater dopplegangers, but left the ordinary ones as not worth bothering with. I did though web Prat's gang before using PfP to get a bit more XP from the basilisks guarding the exit.
Wild mage L10, 55 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 241 kills
Enjoying your write ups. I really must install Shades.
Rowena was doing well until she died.
Buffed skeletons dealt with th enemies outside Tazok's tent. I rested so as to have them at full strength waiting outside.
Potion of Firebreath killed two of those inside. I then lured Venkt and Hakt outside where they were hacked by the skeletons.
Quite easy.
Then dealt with Deke and the other bandits and after that Tranzig.
At the FAI I was attacked by some deceived good guys.
Then at Ulgoth's I did some shopping after which I killed Dushai for his ring. Feeling rather guilty I gave Lathander's temple a lot of gold which made me a hero again.
Since the sword is of no interest, I used sanctuary to get through Cloakwood though did take on the wyverns with the help of skeletons.
At the mines I did use a few consumables to defeat Drasus et all. At one stage I was a bit concerned as the generals were injuring my skeletons badly. However I needn't have worried. They gave as good as they got.
Tytus and the others however were too powerful. His high constitution made my attacks insufficient. In future I will lay a skeleton ambush outside for him or maybe just use sanctuary.
End of run.
Shades is a really nice mod if you play as completionist. You would miss out on content if you go through areas too fast.
Some areas need to be revisited, there are many item upgrades and some quests with wait timers. A lot of the interesting quests go across the entire sword coast and there are some new areas far out of the way from the main storyline at the edges of the map.
I really really like how areas get to sparkle more, but the mod takes time to get through.
Since I aimed to experience everything afresh in a yearly run, I took the time for it. I will go play bg2 similarly.
Minor note, I see in your run Venkt outside the tent. Can you lure enemies out of areas in the EEs? I never tried that before o.o
Each time I tried that they got chaosed or confused, attacked guards and ended my run with insta-death
Yes please.
Yes you can. I don't know if that is the result of mods though. That is what I should have done at the Cloakwood mines. Overconfidence was my downfall. The reasaon for a lot of failures in no reloads games.
New game with Dwarven Berserker. This is a re-run of an old character.
I first park the summons in the middle of the nobles, not between nobles and the dukes since then they will hit them immediately if confused.
Since my party is hasted, I run between dukes and nobles to trigger the fight, and I have one dispel from behind the doppelganger ready for casting if chaos goes off. Also works well to get rid of all the mirror images. The shaman also has a spell to cure confusion by my lack of chaotic commands in this run.
It is a bit fiddly, but it works for me. The alternative is to park skeletons instead of normal summons but I did not have those available either.
Setting traps on the right entrance is also a nice benefit.
There is still chance though that it wont reach all of them, esp if they are hasted and we have bad luck with direction roll. Dispell arrows could help pickup any strays in case of fighter/mage but multiclass have tons worse dispell in BG1.
Feels a bit too risky for me but maybe I just like to play it safe at this moment of game.
About SoD transfering chars with exp overcap, is it intentional or a bug?
I was reseting it back to 161k with cheat console. If this is planned by devs then clearing entire BG1 content may be better than avoiding and evading everything after getting xp cap to reduce risk of death.
I haven't seen any specific comment. However, the enhanced edition does eliminate a lot of exploits available at one time. The fact they haven't taken action on this one suggests that it was either intentional or wasn't seen as a priority.
Remember that any excess XP is eliminated when you load the game - so you would need to play a reasonably long session in order to benefit from all the XP available in the game.
Importing the same party into a SoD reinstall will not work due to mods, so maybe I will import only my final save character, or just recreate Reynaert if I decide to do SoD in parallel to BG2.
So for now I will just plan BG2 right away (after some install session of the mods I want).
That IS strange.
In BGEE, the experience cap is enforced when you load a save, bringing everyone in the party down to the cap if they're past it. During gameplay, excess experience is tracked but can't be used to level up.
In BG2EE, excess experience is always tracked and retained, but can't be used to level up. Loading a save doesn't reset anybody down.
I suspect this is one of the switches in the engine; if you use the hidden option to swap between BGEE mode and BG2EE mode, you'll switch how the XP cap is enforced.
While you can have the game sleep overnight and stretch out a single session arbitrarily, there is a crash bug that inevitably affects sufficiently long sessions: Too many objects
I've tried ironman runs from late chapter 5 to the end, going through Candlekeep, Durlag's Tower, Werewolf Island, and the chapter 7 plot without loading a save. It never works. That's just too much stuff, and the black screen death will catch up to the party before the end. Two sessions are needed.
Interesting.
In my gameplay it looks like this: in first SoD playtrough without trilogy mod I had normal cap in BG1 but when imported to SoD my char received ~120k experience in starting dungeon out of nowhere and leveled up.
On my current BGEET run it looks like my xp cap was completely removed from all games. I had to reset back to 161k for SoD and back to 500k for BG2. I didnt install xp cap removal tho so I suppose modsetup pranked me?
Coalition Camp is treated like Baldurs Gate. Quick farm of gold via magical items and shopping.
From Waizahb I bought arrows of dispell and detonation; all useful potions, belt of 10% slashing dmg, wizards hat, belt of luck, ring of purity. Recharging wands wont hurt too. Stacked to the brim with artifacts I went to Dragonspear. Waylaid zone with that sneaky shadowdancer gets skipped. I dont fancy 120+ dmg backstab so I drank invi potion and with boots of speed and ac boosting items brushed past ambush.
Casted Friends and negotiated entrance to castle. Once inside I finish two quests offering useful loot. The trial for best bow and understanding the crusade for the ring. I skipped bloodbark grove entirely and went straight to undeground river. There I took part in choosing new ogre chieftain and grabbed myconid boom-sac. Talked my way into next zone and ventured inside invisible. Spent most of my time there under invisibility appearing only for short moments. Turned that evil druid against crusade and took ankheg summoning amulet from him.
Bought useful potions from vendor, dropped barrel of explosive and moved past ghost dragon to Kanaglym. I sneaked past everybody and attacked leader of mages from the shadow. When enemies buffed I started raining fire from wand and bow on the mages. Fight slightly went to hell when this fricking dragon appeared and started attacking me. I wasnt aware that can happen, I should have killed her before going there. I had to maintain distance from dragon while firing few dispell arrows. My buffs, saves and interruption via detonation allows protected me from their spells. With only two mages left I dispelled them with arrow and finished with sword, with angry dragon on my back. Useless lizard turned friendly only after I killed everybody. I only let her leave because she was alrdy dead .It was time to equip spectacles and confront the lich. Used lich-crippling gem on him and finished poor lad. Robes with sequencer are mine!
Casted Friends and once again convinced enemies to help me with getting into next zone. In warrens buffed and used potions in preparation for big fight. Memorised 1 knock and got another from scroll. Last time I was there I had started the fight right at the entrance and had to plow through entire sea of enemies before being forced to retreat after gettin dispelled. This time run around on haste and invisibility poisoning supplies and drinking potion after potion. NPC's started wandering and when I ran to boss room with treasure I passed evil priest with his mages on my way. I had all the time in the world to steal scrolls and crown of lies.
Reapplied invisibility and left the room. Still nobody attacking or detecting me. I noticed Hephernaan standing next to the exit, I still dont know if he has to be engaged to progress wiith main plot so I dealt him few blows from invisibility. He ran away immediately and I left army stationed there before they could attack me. Learned powerful spells while still on potions of focus.
Coalition camp defense which was supposed to be easy actually turned wild. First wave was easily dealt by our newest robes of sequencer. Triple fireball left only 2-3 enemies standing. Took rest after that and set sequencer for mages 3x dispell magic. Dispells with few detonating arrows were enough. Sruviving one were met with dispell arrows if they still had buffs and finished with blades. Next wave was were problems started. I decided to save rest for last wave and didnt even rebuff. As soon as enemies spawned I casted chaos and threw few fireballs to them. Fight was already won when two clerics casted sanctuary and started healing themselfs. I waited patiently for them only to receive message that we are getting overwhelmed and have to move back.
WTF??? I did a quick scan and noticed that while I was waiting for clerics, one chaosed dwarf got lost in camp and wandered pass the front line triggering next event! That little shit almost killed me. I wasnt ready, buffs dropped mostly and I havent rested. I wasnt even done with clerics from 3rd wave when they started descending on me. Immediately pulled out the big guns and rained arrow of detonation on them. I should have casted chaos on them but dont know why I decided on emotion:hopeless which I forgot is rather bad in nonanvil games. It almost didnt affect anybody. I was too focused on this surprising development and hadnt noticed my stoneskin dropped together with blur and images. I got hacked down to 37HP before I reacted and ran away hiding behind some coalition leftovers. Used Durlag's Goblet for the first time since starting dungeon. Luckily stupid npc's focused on my allied forces and allowed me to recast stoneskin at least. Attacked them from the blindspot and arrows of detonation did the rest. Finished few enemies in melee. Funny thing that only enemy that my emotion:hopeless worked on was their general lol. He laid there on the grass for entire fight napping.
Done with the camp it was time to push enemy back to Dragonspear Castle. Ofc rested before that. After arriving and watching our forces blow up the walls I started recasting and used oil of speed. Got only few spells like stoneskin, ghost armor back before joining my forces. Because of me skipping lots of content and quests there were many crusaders to slay. Used mainly arrows of detonation, chaos, wand of fire. I have reavealed myself too much and received dispell magic which forced me to once more retreat behind my forces and use arrows from distance. Quick 1v1 with winged elf and I was already chasing Caelar after good nights rest.
Surprisingly first fight in Avernus was quite dangerous. That female demon was annoyingly casting invi each time I attacked her and it was probably her who was detecting my illusions instantly. Had to recast stoneskin twice and do a bit of hit and run. Encounter with Planescape Torment devil was done without any surprises. Fully buffed, with crusaders ring and belt -3AC against slashing the devils cant hit me really well.
Finished with them I walked inside, rested and prepared myself. Sequencers for the final fight were minor: mirror image+blur, bigger: stoneskin, blur, mirror image. Used scroll of protection from poison and full set of potions inluding few I rarely use: freedom, magic shielding, regeneration, power, clarity and all the other normal ones. I used spells remembered thanks to Crown of Lies: prot from fire, prot from missiles, ghost armor, stoneskin, SI:A and changed back to Baldurans helmet, same thing with metamagic amulet and casting mirror image before swapping to Bless amulet, also switched sequencer robes to good archmagi. Main hand is Fractal Blade while offhand holds Twinkle, I will be switching them during fight. Fight starts with belt of luck which I will change to -3 slashing AC once Im surrounded by devils. In bag I have wizards hat and cloak giving +1 spellcaster level which I will equip each time I want to recast stoneskin or mirror image. Durlags Goblet + Kiels Helmet also are waiting in bag. 6x Mirror Image Scroll, 1x Stoneskin Scroll, 1x Imp Invisibility scroll, 5x Blur Scroll wait in bag as well. My previous run with Berserker7/Druid ended here after getting surprised with dispell magic from Belhifet and not keeping buffs right way after that. My mighty gnome will counter that with simple Spell Immunity: Abjuration.
I buffed too early and lost few buffs while waiting in the lift. By the time Belhifet was done with turning Caelar blur, mirror image, imp invi, SI:A already dropped. Thankfully I have foreseen this mistake and used spells granted to me by items that I took off. It would be awkward if he dispelled me now lol. So I moved few steps back and casted minor sequencer:mirror image+blur and SI:A once again. Rushed Belhifet without wasting time and Fractal Blade dispelled his imp invisibility with first blow. Visually the fight wasnt exciting. I stood with him almost on the spawn point, surrounded by devil hordes, and hacked each other. Equipped AC boosting belt and focused on observing buffs dropping. Recasted Stoneskin two times, Mirror Images four times and used one Potion of Clarity just to be safe. Whenever Belhifet casted Imp Invi I switched Fractal Blade to main hand and switched back to Twinkle after dispelling it. Took 22 dmg at last 5 seconds of the fight, Im not sure from what. With preventive recasts stoneskin didnt even drop once whole fight. With the devil dead its time to finally move towards SoA where the challenge continues.
Started again with a Mace carrying berserker
To start with, everything has gone perfectly. I have reached Level 3, *** in Blunt weapons, and reputation is increasing nicely.
After going to Nashkel and back to Beregost doing some minor quests, My reputation is now 20 and I have found a +1 mace.
Now north of the FAI having killed the ankheg near Tenya and many more in their nest. Now level 7.
Xzar and Montaron joined with me for a while. I left Xzar with Algernon after Montaron "borrowed" his cloak.
He "borrowed" a lot of scrolls and the like at Ulgoth's Beard too. I left him with Therella. Hopefully they will get on well together. I'm not sure that they will.
Betsof - human male dark moon monk Gate70
DIsco - elf female diviner @Grond0
CoreThief XXXI - dwarf male Fighter / Thief @Corey_Russell
Betsoff started OK today and steadily got sloppier as the session carried on (perhaps to do with his monk speed arriving at trouble first and my reducing wait for the party to catch up.
We raced around the rock gnome garden at breakneck speed - Corethief leading and showing he knew the route. Mutamin was our eventual target and didn't last too long against us.
After that we moved on to Durlags Tower where a rash of blindness helped against battle horrors and doom guards.
Still, we made it safely to the bandit camp where once more Betsoff arrived at any arrows ahead of his party. Not a great problem for us though and the exterior of the camp looks a bit worse for wear.
At the end of the session we had sold our loot and stand outside the Friendly Arm inn ready to explore the second level of Cloakwood.
Bassilus was killed with the aid of enrage as was Zargos and one of his cohorts. I then headed west and killed Sil along with other sirines. After looting the cave I helped Charleston Nib and took Brage to the Temple of Helm.
Afterwards we took on Droth and Shoal. Shoal had reduced me to 1HP, so I fled to High Hedge where I slept for over three days in order to recover. Upon returning, Droth was no match for me. Neither was Shoal.
I went on to find a ring and kill some more sirine before returning to the temple of Lathander.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1192944/#Comment_1192944
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1192955/#Comment_1192955
Arriving at the palace I tried to put on spirit armor before fighting the assassins attacking Imoen, but only got a burst surge.
On arrival at the Coast Way Crossing I travelled immediately to the Coast Way Forest. I decided to help the vampire there in order to get a regeneration ioun stone. I was lucky to get a top-tier summoned skeleton warrior (actual spell level varies by 5 up or down from your own level, so at 10th level I got my first chance to get the L15 version). However, that was still struggling to see off Isabella, so I resorted to a bit of spell damage to help out.
Wild mage L11, 56 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 365 kills
Finally my brave and strong gnome has arrived to Athkatla where the real challenge starts. There are few changes and priorities at this stage.
I noticed immediately after waking up in Irenicus dungeon that in BGEET reputation stays the same between games. That means our reputation is 20 from beginning, I can start buying stuff without wasting gold on church. One of the first items Im going to buy is Nymphs Cloak from Maevars guild shop.
I tried switching to English ingame and so far it works good and I havent spotted any "Invalid Number 23048" error.
Another important change in BGEET is actually quite harmful to me. Scribing scroll gives no xp! Or rather it gives 100x less xp than it should. I guess thats because BGEET treats scribing in BG2 as if it happened in BG1? Its bad news because in this run I would like to get mages HLA before going for spellhold. I was counting on scrolls taking care of large portion of XP needed. Because of component "items are taken in spellhold" I would prefer to go there with planetar unlocked just for that exact situation. Clay golem is a joke, what isnt a joke are Rukh and Lich with his fallen planetar who I will meet in spellhold without items. Thats why I would like if planetar helped carry my weight there.
Without xp from scribing it will be a lot harder to get 6m XP before spellhold. It is possible tho if I eliminate every enemy and do every quest before leaving. Doing every quest and enemy is risky in no-reload before spellhold and I would prefer to skip at least 1-2 enemies. It still should be possible if I kill most of the enemies and added ones through the mods. I hope Tactics Remix will cover missing xp.
Other priority is going to be weapons. Starting SoA I have ++ in Scimitars, ++ in Short swords and +++ in dual-wield. Scimitars and short swords served me well during BG1 and SoD. In SoA these weapons are going to be main focus after getting out of Irenicus' clutches: Belm, sword of Arabane and short sword of Mask. Each one of them is easily accessible and will hold for a long time.
Irenicus chateau is easier than ever. With additionall xp from SoD I have access to 5th lvl spells. That means I will be summoning minor earth elementals to act as my bodyguards and protect me in case some mephit landed stun on me. Most of the time my elementals will rush inside first and tank. There is no Improved Illyich so no problems should arise. These little duergars are weaklings too compared to Mother Russia Duergars.
Access to Sunfire is very helpful against packs. I will try to grab as many valuable items as I can carry and get the hell out of here. With buffs, minor elementals and 5th lvl spells entire complex is easily cleared. For traps likewise used buffs like blur, mirror image, imp invisibility but also for more deadly traps casted luck.
In Athkatla I go to den of seven ales and rest enough times to identify loot. Bought only gem and scroll bag for now. Money is almost 9000gp. Leaving quests for later I went to Slums, talked with Gaelan and prepared myself with buffs.
Shield, stoneskin, spirit armor, blur, mirror image, protect from fire, protect from fear, imp invisibility, haste, holy might, SI:A, minor spell deflection. These are starting buffs that I will have to bring to almost every fight. Will be adding more while leveling-up.
Once done with buffs I travel between districts to force Suna Seni encounter and bombard her party with sunfire. Two casts and everyone is almost dead. Few swings from my non-magical scimitar and I have acquired my main weapon for most of the game.
I head immediately towards city gates, talk with peasant from Trademeet and with my map actualised travel there. Unfortunately I was ambushed by enemies and had Renfield encounter. I don't know why I forgot to travel invisible.
Used that invisibility cast to hide from ambush, rebuff in corner and come back to slaughter them. After killing them I had to move back to docks to finish Renfield quest. On my way I met cyric priest which I killed but once again I got overconfident and killed him without any buffs. Normally I wouldn't need any buff for such enemy but "Maximum HP for everybody" seriously boosted every enemy. Mages who were dying in two hits now need 4-5 at least.
This allowed priest to actually finish casting very lethatl spell Dire Charm on me. My big gnome saving rolls won luckily. Finishing harpers and Xar quests and getting one from shadow thieves I went to Mae'Var for next quest and bought very important Nymph's cloak.
On my way out opened doors to Kangaxx with knock and slain minotaurs for easy xp. While already in the city I decided to visit Government district to buy spellcasting license. Inside governing district saved Jan Janses skin, got quest from Tolgerias and headed for Viconia. Once again I messed up and went to fight without any spells. I had only stoneskin on me and one memorised. Without spirit armor my AC was 2. I have underestimated Max HP again as well and wasnt expecting these canon fodder to be so tough. This allowed them to burn through my two stoneskins quite fast and left me running with 7hp left.
It would be sooo embarassing if I died here. I saved myself with some HP potions and ran out of their sight. I have even used scroll of monster summon to have some decoys but it was not needed. Fanatics rampaging in governing district pulled attention of guards and one amnian guard descended on them. He proved to be the best decoy target for them and allowed me to finish both. Or not allowed because he stole my both kills, depraving me of 2000xp!
With delays out of they way I could finally go to Trademeet. Before getting there though I had another ambush where my invisibility cast was interrupted this time by double melf's acid arrow from sequencer. I started running and received only flame strike on my head.
Even if I didnt make the save for that I would survive thankfully. I almost had a heart attack tho when these melfs acid arrows brought me down to 3HP during travel... Why the hell Im not using invisibility for travelling again?
Quick word exchange with Cernd after which I ventured into forest hasted and invisible. Ran past every enemy and sneaked into Ogre's Tower.
Snatched Belm, casted invisibility and returned back to Trademeet.
Ambushed once again. Used oil of speed to get out.
Outside of Dao's tent guard was charmed by Nymph's Cloak and followed me inside using attack myself trick. Once inside I buffed, went invisibile and ordered my genie to attack Dao's leader. In this moment I have to be careful to not kill the leader with charmed genie but to reduce his HP considerably.
When the ifreeti bottle drops on the ground its time to sneak behind wounded Dao and kill him with two swings solving Trademeet's genie problem. Crude way but effective. SCS rakshasha are quite strong and well buffed so it would be later in the game when I would return for them. In this way I can get ~10000gp and Shield of Harmony which will be my life saver in various tough situations like after getting dispelled. I went back to Slums cleared copper coronet out of slavers with ease and bought shadow thieves help thanks to gold from Trademeet.
I decided on helping Mook and with lots of buffs + shield of harmony ready fought off Lassal.
Ifreeti summoning bottle is going to be a major help. Imp genies and infreeti component makes them quite capable casters with 0 casting time and spells like fireball or flame strike. After shadow thieves my money is almost 5000gp. Things I will be buying next are going to be robes of vecna, short sword of mask, vhailor's helmet and tons of scrolls. Had to take a break at this time because I was sure I would die very soon if I continued with so many close death situations.