I find that in SoD enemies are generally stronger on offense than defense. That means that making progress is quite easy, but it's also easy to die if you don't take care. I've of course had plenty of experiences of not taking care . As a result I tend to be more minimalist in this game than the others and that was particularly so this run.
In the dungeon I stealthed through to Porios and convinced him to surrender. Downstairs, a PfU scroll gave the undead no chance. A dispelling arrow got rid of Korlasz's fire protection and a potion of firebreath killed her despite her attempt to surrender.
I remembered to buy scrolls of greater restoration before leaving.
In Baldur's Gate I killed a few NPCs for their equipment and picked up the Spectactles of Spectacle and the Battle Tankard - along with an ammo belt and bag of holding to complete my collection of containers.
I didn't bother with the Coast Way Forest and just stealthed to the bridge to avoid conflict before the discussion with Caelar. I ran through the Troll Claw Woods as well to get to the Forest of Wyrms. Inside the old temple I used a necklace of missiles to kill Ziatar from out of sight.
I buffed saves before running past the Neothelid and going straight to backstab Akanna before leaving with the wardstone.
On the way out my 3rd thrown dagger proved deadly accurate against Morentherene.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge a young green dragon called for help. Typically it will win a battle against 2 hill giants, but this time they got lucky and killed it despite my attacking them. At the camp, Vichand failed to survive a backstab, so the 2 pre-laid traps were unnecessary there.
I had Morentherene's scales made into a shield, though that didn't get much use. After handing over Vichand's scroll I got some sling bullets from the voidstone residues - the ability to get strength bonuses from hitting with those makes them a good alternative for many characters against Belhifet, though Drizzt's scimitars are a better bet for this run. I didn't bother waiting for daytime, which meant a Greater Feyr appeared when I spoke to Elandro. I paid for that when the Feyr killed Thirrim, meaning his potions were unavailable - but I have plenty of those anyway.
I surrendered the fort, so was just left with the mage on the bridge. The ring of energy interrupted both her attempts to create a fire portal, but proved less effective overall than usual. She successfully shrugged off damage twice to complete lightning bolts, as well as hitting me with a Melf's Acid Arrow when I was a bit slow to respond to her spell starting. It's quite easy for bouncing lightning to destroy barrels there and end the game, but this time I got lucky.
I found some orcs and trolls battling on the way to the Coalition Camp. As I wanted a sling just in case I sneaked past them and into the cave to pick up Firefly without doing any fighting. At the Camp I summoned Nazramu using the Spectacles and purchased a few items before reporting in to the camp leaders and picking up the Bwoosh and poison.
I ignored all the trouble stacked up in Dead Man's Pass and had a brief stop at the castle to rescue Skie before moving on to the Underground River. I belatedly noticed that a couple of pre-laid traps had gained me my final SoD thief level there.
At the River I used a potion of clarity to ensure I wasn't embarrassed by some myconids. I had the ring of free action ready in case of need against a gargantuan spider, but it died before commencing an attack.
The cyclops died before the mages appeared to defend the entrance.
That allowed me to quickly withdraw and use stealth to return and get inside the tunnels. An ettin ghost refused to surrender and was shot down before I placed the Bwoosh. Then I threw a firebreath potion on the fire to distract the door guard (with good charisma you can talk him down anyway, but then you miss out on a bit of XP). Inside, the priest sells a few more restoration scrolls and I collected those before taking the elevator. The poison was administered invisibly before a crusader cleric cast true seeing to save me the trouble of showing myself to prompt Hephernaan's conversation and re-activate the elevator.
I then just ran away under stealth before the alarm spread.
Back at the Camp exploding arrows made short work of the various invading forces. I hit the XP cap and got my final level during that.
On once more to the Castle, where I went immediately to find Ashatiel for a bit of single combat. For such an important character, he's surprisingly susceptible to stunning darts. This time he did better than usual, resisting 4 hits before succumbing to the 5th.
Inside the Castle I followed Caelar as she chased Hephernaan into hell. I bypassed the first area before hacking down attackers in the second to make my way through to Thrix. He summons more devils, including a Hamatula, so I took the precaution of stunning that to protect against not noticing how much damage I might take from its fire-shield like spiked defenses.
The remaining enemies were soon dealt with and Thrix handed over a +3 sword before I moved on after Caelar.
After resting, I buffed up for a final time, including putting on full plate for the first time in this game. The groups on the Hellevator were hugely outclassed and I soon arrived at the top. I persuaded Caelar to do what she'd been saying she would for months and fight against Belhifet, though as always she operated independently without any orders from me. I used the Battle Helmet in order to be able to use Greater Restoration scrolls on Caelar without getting fatigued. In fact keeping her going wasn't really necessary with this character, who's quite capable of beating up Belhifet independently. That's ultimately what I did, though I did take 3 potions of power while doing that (which I occasionally use as my nearest equivalent of healing potions).
I remembered to take the pantaloons out of my bag of holding and there were no other mistakes in the epilogue. I transferred to BG2EE with 725k - not enough for any immediate levelling there.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 237, Core rules + unmodded (links to earlier episodes: 1)
Sorrarm the sorcerer and Laughalot the Jester
As so often happens we started this session by wondering what we had intended to do. A quick check of the journal and inventory didn't help so I sneaked a look at the previous notes. They weren't even notes, so not much of a clue.
With this in mind we decided Durlags Tower would be a good place to ply our blinded magic missile trade. All went smoothly, and within a few rests we had dealt with doom guards, battle horrors and basilisks.
We picked up Meilum's bracers at some point (think it was here) so Laughalot felt better equipped.
Sorrarm felt it was time to do Nashkel mine since anything else required him to use his imagination. We killed a few kobolds, went invisible for a few more and magic missiled the remainder. Laughalot commented on the use of this spell and Sorrarm remembered he'd recently learnt fireball. Mulahey the half-orc can't vouch for this as he was mostly unconscious in a stinking cloud.
The amazons outside took advantage of Sorrarm blinding Telka - sending Maneira hostile and she duly out-shot Laughalot for our first party death of the session.
Sorrarm paid to have Laughalot revived at a temple and we returned to wipe the floor with our enemy. Almost - they put up a good fight.
Nimbul donated a Find Familiar scroll to our cause, finding no need for it himself.
With our reputation soaring we headed to the coast, blinding and killing Caldo and Krumm on the way and doing the same with a polar bear on our return.
Our reputation was nearing 20, so we declined a job offer to off Charleston Nib, saying we would have no part in it. Until this point Sorrarm had been accurate with his fireballs, not so here and we rapidly became despised after losing 13 points of reputation.
So back we went, picking up more quests for reputation - Bjornin refusing to play along after we killed two of his half ogres with one spell leaving him one short on his tallying them up.
Bassilus failed to save against blind.
Laughalot had by now learnt fireball and he too had a minor wayward moment. Fortunately for us we only ended up with an undercooked chicken and charm person allowed us to pretend it had never happened.
Our final act of the session was to stinking cloud two groups of sirenes and attempt to intrude into the cave occupied by a trio of flesh golems. The first one fell, and and invisible Sorrarm had blocked the other two so Laughalot could shoot them but multiplayer lines of sight hoved into view and Laughalot brushed past Sorrarm on my screen but not Grond0's so the two golems could thump the bow-wielder into the ground.
Another temple visit and we should at least try to return next time for some cold revenge. Sorrarm had to pick and choose what equipment to take from the cave floor so we lost about a dozen items. Mostly low value but some nicer items like a +1 halberd that would have made a pretty penny at a store.
Could be Trials of the Luremaster for EE. Sorry. Can't be sure. Argent might know. If I'm wrong he probably won't. It is quite challenging until you learn how to deal with it as its AI is quite good. By BG2 standards it is quite weak, but it is not in BG2!
In the dungeon even my pretty pathetic find traps skill (25 before DUHM) was sufficient to deal with a number of the traps, though some of them were primed to spring on attempts by novice thieves to disarm them.
What's slightly odd about that is that the trap itself is not set off, so even a non-repeating trap can keep attacking you until you use the old-fashioned approach of blundering through it - which I've got plenty of experience of . There are two encounters I regard as most likely to be real threats in the dungeon. The steam mephit in the elemental plane is dangerous if you get stunned where his friends can attack, so I didn't risk a backstab there, but just used shots from a distance with back-up traps.
There's a similar sort of situation with the radiant mephit, so I destroyed the first 3 mephit portals from distance before successfully backstabbing the last of them.
The salt mephit can also stun you, but that doesn't last long, so there's no danger if you don't get within reach of its goblin allies.
A backstab on Ulvaryl only took her to badly wounded, so rather than use the firebreath potion I nipped back round the corner to allow a second attempt.
I decided to treat myself to a giant helping of cheese when arriving in Athkatla. The loot from the dungeon formed seed money to buy new goods and selling and stealing back those soon turned me into a millionaire - so that I don't have to bother picking up treasure during the rest of the game. A bit of using thief abilities while doing that also got me to thief level 12.
Restoring the circus tent took only a few more seconds and gave me a fighter level. The Suna Seni ambush then provided me some practice at using corners to hide and backstab and netted me Arbane for protection against hold.
That was on the way to Watcher's Keep, though that trip was further delayed when Renfeld called for help. I took him back to the harpers and then sorted out Prebek and Sanasha.
I got caught out after that when I tried to buy a couple of heroism potions from Ikert, but my hand was obviously still used to pressing the stealing button and he went hostile - hope that his presence doesn't cause problems later.
At Watcher's Keep I bought Firetooth to make best use of my crossbow proficiency. I cleared the rooms on the left side before laying traps in case of vampiric wraiths. They did indeed appear, but only 2 or 3 of the 7 traps did anything and I ran away.
Back in Athkatla I worked on upgrading my power. First up was opening up various liches in order to get the Ring of Gaxx. A rakshasa encountered some traps during that to give me a new cloak to wear.
A single PfU scroll was then enough to account for 3 liches. I took Daystar from the last of those and put that to good use against Kangaxx. His morale didn't actually fail this time, but it can sometimes be a pain when it does. I had the ring of energy I could have used to finish him off quickly anyway if necessary, but I'd also bought the Short Sword of Mask at Watcher's Keep and it was rather amusing to see the mighty lich trussed up like a chicken for the slaughter. That took me to thief level 13, enabling me to get find traps up to a base 80 making future mishaps much less likely.
With money no longer an issue, I paid off Gaelan Bayle and went to collect my goodies from Aran Linvail. The +2 ring of protection pushed my spell save down to -1, removing a number of potential threats from status effects. Thus, while that opening session wasn't as clean as it might have been, I should still be well set to make progress from here.
F10/T13, 105 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 171 kills (+445 in BGEE/SoD)
Well, so much for a risk-free run. I was playing when much too tired and got pretty predictable results .
Things started reasonably enough by annoying the Cowled Wizards with the Ring of Air Control. Group after group teleported in to chastise me, but found poisonous traps waiting for them. Even the highest members of the order found their wrath was insufficient.
Moving on to the Bridge District I found Sansuki calling for help and used a sunray in support of him despite having no protection against level drain. Those vampires missed and so did Parisa after I had done the skinner quest - getting relatively low on HPs there when opting to melee the bone golem rather than run it round while shooting. A few more rests while setting traps for Captain Dennis saw Tanova appear. She and one of her acolytes survived a sunray and she did hit me - but I got lucky and saved against a follow-up domination. Briefly remembering I was supposed to be playing safe, I used a scroll of PfU to finish them off before turning to Captain Dennis.
His group suffered from a couple of backstabs and traps and soon only the Captain remained - and he was at near death. Assuming finishing him off would be easy I attacked in melee, but his full plate proved much more resistant than my studded leather and several hits later I ran round the corner and hid. Rather than try more fighting, I decided to finish him off by setting a trap far enough round the corner to affect him. However, I wasn't precise enough with the placement and my icon moved into his sight and I took another immediate hit - meaning one more hit would kill me. The stairs were close though, with more traps waiting at the bottom of them to finish Dennis off, and I was pretty sure I could get there before he attacked again. I did indeed reach the stairs in time - but didn't transition. I'm not sure whether I slightly mis-clicked the location or if my icon just hung, but I then failed to react to still being upstairs before Dennis lined up his crossbow once more ...
Meanwhile Marin had a rather easy time of it in the Cloakwood Mines. The mages were all quite helpful. Some of them even killed their allies. :'D Davaeorn was killed by one spell of summoned monsters! We didn't need to fight at all.
Last session ended in Windspear dungeon just before Samia's fight. With 15 level of Fighter I can finally start abusing Flail of Ages against casters and everything that is slowable. Best weapon in game in my opinion. Next goal is to get to 16 level of mage then 6m total xp for 18 level. In this part I focused on more powerful enemies and farmed tons of experience from higher level zones.
Samia and her team were roasted by Sunfire and Efreeti. Only their mage Kaol escaped initial carnage but once I got to him his PfMW's had ran out and he was vulnerable to FoA.
Used girdle of bluntness and kneecaper +1, +4 vs golems
Tazok was fried as well.
Conster hadnt resisted dispel magic and fell down shortly.
Ghasts once again drop best scrolls.
Greater wolfweres were slaughtered using improved haste + critical strikes.
With everything except red dragon cleared I moved to restock some potions/scrolls and returned Mekraths gem to Raelis Shai. Prepared my spells and started Planar Prison quest. Boots of speed and gauntlets of weapon skill are nice and important upgrades. Warden is the first high mage I will face in this run. He is easier than liches thus my first choice. Sequencer: 3x secret word should do wonders against him.
Fully buffed and invisible Ive appeared between enemies. As usual my first target is spellcaster then roasting.
I have no idea how ppl can say that critical strikes are useless and weak HLA. With improved invi, improved haste and critical strikes your fighter becomes an assasin.
Yuan-ti packs were killed with wand of cloudkill.
Cleaning up.
Master of thralls wasn't a challenge. Equipped item with hold protection.
For Warden I have summoned efreeti and flesh golem. Then lured him alone back to entrance "room". Send efreeti to frontline as a decoy. Landed Ruby Ray on Warden, soon followed by sequencer: 3x secret word and then Breach. He tried another PfMW's but I just countered it with another Breach. Another level up.
I decided to stay in planes and went to Planar Sphere next. Killed valygar and restored my reputation with saved circus tent reward. Murderous halflings were first on my way. For good start assassinated Entu with CS then brute-forced Mogadish and dispelled Kayardi.
Now that I started fighting high mages regularily Ive expanded my spell armor adding protection from evil, spell shield, true sight, protection from acid/electricity and also upgraded spell deflection and spell turning to its higher versions.
Instead of assassinating Lavok with CS again, this time I decided on proper duel after reavealing myself in front of him. He turned out to be rather good and casted proper spells. He started with Time Stop during which he summoned Dark Planetar and landed Ruby Ray and Khelbens Warding Whip on me. I think his Planetar also casted True Sight.
As is my usual strategy against high mages I tried to take down Planetar first while throwing few abjurations like Ruby Ray at Lavok. Improved haste and critical strikes usually took care of them but this time with maximum HP they are tougher than ever. Its impossible to kill them now in one round without black blade. After tanking ludicorous amount of damage Planetar healed herself to full. That was perfect moment for me to change targets. Not only Lavok was busy casting some spell so he would lost his cast but also his PfMW has fallen off.
Once I got him slowed and his casting interruped I spared moment for PfMW's just in case. Fallen Planetar healed herself again and this time I decided to use Smite which I have picked more for testing because Ive always avoided this HLA. And boy was it mistake. I just discovered how infinitely useful this HLA is. Planetar was quickly stunned and killed.
Afterwards farmed every possible demon for XP. Thanks to that I leveled up and unlocked 8th level spells. Finally I have access to simulacrum. I havent even bought Vhailor's helmet. I have restricted myself to only Robes of Vecna from OP items for now.
Tolgerias was next high mage I had to face before getting back to Athkatla. Ive slaughtered his mage companion before she could do anything. Tolgerias meanwhile finished his Time Stop and summoned some help. Still with simulacrum and both of us using CS I struck down planetar pretty fast and pummeled old mage once his PfMW ran out.
Protection from cold/fire and ice storm/incediary cloud took care of elemental rooms. Then I almost died because of my laziness. I havent rested nor recasted anything before going down to fix the spehere. I knew there were some golems but I wasnt expecting so many. They quickly overwhelmed me and got me down to 57hp before I casted invisibility. Unfortunately this resulted with me surrounded by golems without any way out.
I have used stoneskin and improved haste scrolls. Casted improved mantle, equipped girdle of bluntness and hoped it would be enough. Which was thanks the gods.
Finally done with the sphere I could claim my sweet(bloody) reward.
'Long-life challenge' - Dark Moon Monk {3} (hour 1)
The next randomly chosen character for this challenge was a dark moon monk. I've tried that a couple of times before with notable lack of success, but in general I find monks reasonably easy to play so let's see if I can do better this time. To give myself an improved chance I'll try and avoid playing when tired and limit play to 1 hour a day - that sort of approach has sometimes helped me maintain focus in past runs. I'll also aim to reduce somewhat the amount of extraneous content I do, particularly in BG2.
The opening session saw no problems:
- Shoal saved against blind, but was soon shot down anyway to give me 2 levels with a maximum +20 HPs. My 18 charisma allowed me to return Mad Arcand's ring immediately for another level and 8 more HPs.
- in Beregost Neera was blinded to get her gem bag safely and Firebead provided another container.
- a few purchased +1 bullets allowed me to take down Thalantyr's golems before completing my container collection for now.
- Meilum was a first blind victim, allowing me to melee him from outside his sight range to get another level (just the 5 HPs this time) and his bracers.
- Greywolf was also blinded and this time I remembered to activate frozen fist for some bonus damage.
- a bunch of basilisks were soon paralyzed and finished off to provide a 6th level (again, just the 5 HPs). Mutamin and his pet were both paralyzed as well, but Korax quickly died in attacking Kirian and I ran away.
- at Durlag's Tower, the first 2 battle horrors were blinded for easy disposal. The 3rd found itself up against the wall, but I was finding it hard to hit and did eventually blind that as well to speed things up. The doom guard followed me inside where I could easily hide and rest - once it was blinded it didn't last long and I took my 7th level with 8 more HPs.
- I'd treated myself to the green PfP scroll from the carnival, so the basilisks on the roof were easy meat. That just left Riggilo who lost his sight after gaining a dodgy hairpiece. He reacts by moving towards opponents when hit in melee, so was finished off by sling rather than fists. I didn't have any charm protection yet, so left the tome for now.
- back at Beregost I used blur for the first time while meleeing some spiders. I got an ogre's belt on the way to return Landrin's goods at the FAI. With time almost up there I used Imoen's magic missile wand to finish off Tarnesh rather than bother with stealth or running in and out of the temple.
Aproaching the coveted 6m XP on my char I continued hunting stronger enemies and clearing dungeons which I left unfinished earlier in the game. My spell armor is almost full and lacks only Spell Trap meaning that unless my enemies are liches or some really advanced caster they wont be able to hurt me as long as I keep my stoneskins, PfMW and SI:A.
I decided to start this session with bit more risk. Its first time Im playing remixed version of tactics and m0rpheus was adamant that its much more difficult than original. So far I havent encountered any modification from Tactics Remix. They are all restricted to single zones with encounter and unlike original there are no componenets who block your main progress nor is there any enemy who will ambush you out of nowhere. Not yet that is. If he was so sure about challenge then these few components that ara available must be something. Im really curious about them though I should wait for after spellhold. Mage HLAs and powerful 9th spells should carry me through unknown.
My curiosity overpowering, I decided to try them anyway with maybe some sneak peek at encounter on another game.
To start with something easier I went to grave district and started with Crypt King first. Unfortunately I didnt see much of the fight. He died instantly becasue of infinite reflection dmg between fire shields. I hate this.
Lich in docks is something completely different. Even in original she was pretty strong. Although she wasnt using HLA if I remember. Not knowing what to expect I decided to check the fight in some old save of mine with pure sorcerer. Thanks the god I checked because that would be awfully stupid end of run.
Big changes to Lich on docks. She has now team of skeletal warriors and bone golems which spawns periodically and quickly overwhelms you. Most of summoned skeletal warriors are archers with frost arrows. In few moments there is a legion of them. Lich herself has strong spell armor requiring ruby ray+khelbens warding whip. What I really like amongst the changes is that m0rpheus made this lich more similar to Improved Anvil liches. Meaning she is also not bad warrior who will attack me between her casts and on Time Stop especially. Time Stop is another big change. She has unlimited amount of Time Stops or 5 casts minimum. Same with PfMW and Invisibility. She opens fight with few Times Stops in a row.
Other crucial changes are blocked exit after fight starts. Protection from Undead is forbidden. Same with hiding in corner of the house or just hiding out of her sight. It will both result in Lich teleporting me to her and instantly dispelling all of my combat protection. War of attrition is not an option against her so I will use good ole brute force and try to overwhelm her before she can do the same to me.
Full buffs, few potions, boots of avoidance, cloak of displacement, belt 3 AC missile, reflection shield just in case.
I start the fight with Ruby Ray instantly after entering the house. Then using boots of speed I run up right to her to avoid legions of skeletons spawning and blocking my way. I got lucky because skeletal archers blocked passage for warriors and I had to worry only about arrows from them.
Lich started with 3x Time Stop in the row. She casted few abjurations like Ruby Ray against me and attacked me in melee between casts. The only wasted action by her were summoning simulacrum and project image which both did absolutely nothing.
I have used PfMW between first two Time Stops then continued with Khelbens Warding Whip and would finish with Breach but her PfMW ended and allowed me to start breaking her stoneskins. Waiting with breach was right move because she recasted PfMW in a moment when first hit landed on her. I countered instantly with Breach and the fight was mine.
I like the changes done to this encounter. It was definitely more challenging. Magical items dropped are sadly worse for my class than cloak of balduran but scroll of Time Stop rewarded me enough.
And that wasnt the end of encounter because army of undead was still there and still spawning! And all of them give experience!
I have shamelessly farmed them as long as my spell protections allowed. With stoneskins, PfMW and mantles I have farmed at least 100k xp.
Next on my list was gnome Fighter/Illusionist in Valygar's house. Like Crypt King he wasn't too strong in original and in remix compared to docks lich he isnt anything special as well. I think that his two familiars are improved and casted proper spells and sequencers but it was easy to kill both of them fast. Once they were dead Valtor followed them moments later.
Reward in scrolls is once agains very sufficient. 4x PfMW will serve me well in final battle of ToB.
I had to take a break from high mages so I went dragon hunting instead. With my spell armor Firkraag shouldnt be able to do much harm. I have to watch my stoneskins and cast PfMW if needed. Other than that I must observe his casts and counter stoneskin with breach.
I havent recasted any of my protections and that resulted in me being slashed for 72 dmg. I wonder if he could take remaining 84 in single hit and finish me.
Old red dragon was kind enough to heal me to full with his breath just before dying.
Back to spellcaters. Two liches blocking me from finishing Umar quest are next.
Finding myself at the FAI at the start of the session, I picked up the pantaloons. Then I worked on reputation for a bit, getting boosts from Melicamp (I seem to be on a good run with him with a number of successes in a row), Bjornin and Samuel. A bit too much haste while doing the latter led to a mis-click with Hafiz and he disappeared in a huff without handing over a PfM scroll . The Dryad of the Cloudpeaks and a nearby little girl both proved grateful and I picked up the charisma tome before repatriating Brage to push reputation to 20.
With prices more reasonable I bought a few items at Ulgoth's Beard, including the Greenstone Amulet. That was used to melee the sirines at the Lighthouse, getting me 5 HPs for my final BGEE level.
The golems were shot to get me the constitution tome.
Moving on to the main quest, I sneaked through the Nashkel mine to find Mulahey and shot him down without letting him talk.
Outside, another use of the amulet allowed me to get up close and personal with the amazons.
Back at Nashkel, Nimbul just survived a sneak attack, but his morale was shattered and he was hunted down while running.
Some poor attack rolls allowed Tranzig to put up a bit more of a fight than usual, but he still went down safely - my HPs were boosted a bit at the start of that encounter through the use of vampiric touch. The casting length of that can be a significant problem, but not of course when the targets are not actively hostile!
At the Bandit Camp most of the archers had been killed by the time Taurgosz tried to catch me, but he only found he'd lost his way.
Inside Tazok's tent I tried 3 times to blind Hakt (resting in between), but failed and gave up on that. Instead, I pulled the enemies outside and picked them off one by one - once more using an amulet charge to ensure Venkt's horror would not end horrifically.
After selling loot I headed for the Cloakwood. I didn't have free action, so carefully pulled the ettercaps away from their web traps one by one. That took several minutes before I ran through the untenanted traps - of course then saving each time! I picked up the invulnerability potion from Laskal, but otherwise avoided any other action on the way to the mine. I used stealth shots there to kill the mages before a single stunning dart each was enough to set Drasus and Genthore up for the kill - a satisfying way to end the session.
I sneaked through the Cloakwood mine down to the bottom level. The battle horrors died from a first application of wands of heavens/magic missiles.
A couple of Davaeorn's spells bounced off an amulet charge before he died in melee.
In Baldur's Gate I picked up the tomes, with Ramazith and Jalantha being taken down for their items, while Marek was exposed by the use of stealth.
There wasn't much fighting elsewhere - I couldn't resist stunning the basilisk from stealth, some statues crumbled on the way to get the Cloak of Balduran and Sunin was killed for his ring (he did well to get an acid arrow off after already being poisoned 3 times by darts, but that didn't help him).
The dopplegangers were of course cleared from the Seven Suns, but I left the Iron Throne party unscathed when reporting to Duke Eltan for duty.
I didn't kill anything during the return to Candlekeep. The tomes were looted with a cloud giant strength potion, topped up with DUHM, while absorption meant I had no trouble from the lightning traps.
Before starting the final battles I went to get the ring of energy - to speed things up I made use of the necklace from the Carnival there before coming in to finish off Denak.
There were still only a few minutes left in the session though so, rather than seek out Slythe, I just did a bit of inventory management. That included going to purchase the Claw of Kazgaroth.
With so close to 6m XP there are only few fights between me and my HLA. I have to remember to always wait for mages to summon their dark planetars. Thats 20k XP more from the fight.
I decided to start this session with finishing Umar quest. On my way to slaying Shade Lord stand two Liches and Shadow Dragon.
First Lich had his Planetar summoned by the time I entered his room and started casting Time Stop. Ignoring him for the moment, together with my simulacrum I struck at planetar and almost took him down but the Lich finished his cast. He didnt do much during stop but planetar healed herself. That was my signal to switch targets and attack Lich. His PfMW ran out during time stop, he already wasted his contingency for Spell Shield and was casting something, meaning he could do absolutely nothing if I interrupted him. FoA of course interrupted him instantly and even landed slow on first hit. Few seconds later he was dead. That allowed me to reposition into doorway and slay Planetar there after landing stun on him.
Second Lich wasted his first cast on my simulacrum and before he could Time Stop or summon planetar, he already received ruby ray and warding whip. I waited for his PfMW recast and then casted Breach. During fight I have even used Smite and enemies around me went flying in all directions like tomatos.
Shadow Dragon was slain with brute force: simulacrum, GWW, CS. Breach against stonesking.
Shade Lord turned out to be much weaker than I remembered and one Incediary Cloud was enough against him.
Daystar Lich to my surprise decided on duel of abjuration with me. Who dispell the other first. Unfortunately for the lich I had more spell protections than him. He also wasted Spellstrike as first cast. As soon as I landed final breach he was dead,
Had to answer cowled wizards summon to my Planar Sphere. Cleared ambush with single Incediary Cloud. Sadly that idiot Teos came back and stepped right into it getting damaged and turning hostile...
While in sewers I forced beholders spawn and exterminated them with cloudkill.
Next went to grave district for vampire hunt.
And its here. 18th level of mage which happened together with fighters. Picked Summon Planetar and Improved Alacrity. Thanks to Lich in Docks I have two casts of Time Stop. Now I can go to Spellhold but before that I would like to get staff of magi.
With Rogue Stone I have sneaked into Twisted Rune headquarters. There I have buffed and summoned my own team of casters. While trying to trigger encounter Ive sent incediary cloud and fire storm from planetar.
As soon as Shangalar spawned Ive sent another fire storm together with incediary cloud. When enemies spawned my Efreeti added their own fireballs to already existing fire cataclysm. My fire spells proved effective, by the time Shangalar's first PfMW ended the entire room was dead.
In the end I caught him in Time Stop and murdered there.
Finally I boarded the ship with sleazy, sneaky sea slug of captain and sailed towards Imoen's rescue.
In Brynlaw slaughtered welcoming party.
Then with potion of insight and Friends I got myself fast and easy ticket to Spellhold.
Slythe survived a couple of stunning dart hits, but couldn't manage a 3rd.
At the palace I failed to reduce the risks by making use of charms and just buffed up and moved to protect Belt. One interesting point to note is that the frozen fist ability stacks, so I had both of those active during the fight for extra bonus damage. That was helpful, but without the ability to use haste my solo damage was still somewhat limited and the battle was very much touch and go - Belt eventually surviving with 8 HPs remaining.
I fought through the maze and used PfU to kill a few extra skeleton warriors, but left the Undercity party alone. In the temple I used a PfM scroll before annoying Sarevok with a long-distance sling shot. Semaj came out to scout, but teleported away before I could finish him off - alerting Tazok and Angelo to join the fight. That resulted in me using an invisibility potion to avoid Angelo's exploding arrows before using a couple of potions of perception and stealth shots to deal with him.
Tazok was no trouble and Sarevok was then taken down with stealth melee attacks, though my hiding ability still wasn't great and it took a while to grind him down.
He also got one attack in himself, leaving me very vulnerable if hit again. I suppose I should have used a potion of regeneration, but it seemed fairer to just rely on avoiding attacks .
I transferred to SoD with 250k XP, so immediately took my ninth level, with another 8 HPs. There were no problems in the dungeon with Korlasz surrendering after a couple of hits through his stoneskin by triple frozen fists.
Time ran out while I was looting NPCs in Baldur's Gate, so I'll crack on with the main part of SoD tomorrow (and see if I can manage to persuade myself to get back to a lower risk approach than used today ).
Spellhold at last. My entire gameplay so far was focused on getting enough XP just for this moment. No armor, no weapons - nothing. Enemies to defeat: Yuan-ti mages, Ruhk, Lich + planetar and Irenicus.
Im going to fill my spellbook with bigger number of summoning spells and Phantom Blade. Fire elementals, Efreeti, Simulacrum and planetar are going to be my bodyguards.
During first encounter my fire elementals slay clay golem.
My planetar bullies some snakes.
I was counting on my celestial ally slaughtering my enemies but she proved herself useless already during fight with Ruhk. His PfMW and magic resistance neutralised her completely. I did a big mistake in forgetting SI:A and got myself dispelled by him. By the time I recasted some protections and got my first Ruby ray on Ruhk, my planetar expired forcing me to retreat.
Casted Improved Haste + Phantom Blade and took care of him myself.
Summons took care of mind flayer, beholder, pit fiend and rest of small fights.
Fully buffed myself, summoned simulacrum and planetar, then opened the fight with Ruby Ray on Lich. He responded with Time Stop.
Fortunately for me the layout of our battlefield allowed me to quickly duck behind the corner and out of his sight. The Lich casted Improved Alacrity, summoned his planetar and tried imprisoning my planetar but that somehow failed?
As soon as Time Stop ended I attacked and killed planetar together with my simulacrum, both of us wielding Phantom Blades and using GWW or CS. My own planetar helped us after casting True Sight.
With planetar killed and PfMW of Lich surely down I casted Time Stop of my own.
Finishing undead guards was enough for me to reach 21st Fighter level. That allowed me to put second + in War Hammers and pick Dragon's Breath.
My summons helped me with clearup.
First fight with Irenicus needs some SCS improvements. When he starts casting his cloning spell he doesnt have any protections on him. Its possible to just nuke him down in first few seconds. Like with Lavok I had to stop myself this time to play out this fight normally.
Not only that but SCS makes the team of mages helping me tip the scale of battle even more. They bombarded poor Jon with swarm of dispell magic. At least he hit back and obliterated them with Dragons Breath. Before I hacked him down he managed to summon planetar and that freakin celestial was almost the end of me.
This planetar of his was taking tons of damage from me and his health bar was not moving! It was like he had some super regeneration or was getting healed from dmg. Even when I stunned him I couldnt get him lower than Injured. His health bar was growing back on my eyes! If that wasnt enough then this little shit blocked me from moving away!
With my Phantom Blade ending I had no hope of killing him. I moved back and around in that tiny space and then casted Time Stop. That allowed me to kill one murderer unbothered and thankfully unblocked my escape.
Went to retrieve my items and get out. Note for future, leave all containers in Brynlaw before going to Spellhold. Bugged shit.
I took Saemon's offer and was soon ambushed by githyanki and murderous fish. That scoundrel Saemon Havarian actually got himself trapped in Psionic Maze LMAO! It was so good that I roared with laughter at my screen.
In shark city I equipped Reflection Shield to avoid getting stunned by random kuo-tan bolt. Ive done this part very quickly and on invisibility. Only important things there are to get cloak of reflection and cloak of protection +2. Before doing Imp Puzzle I buffed myself with spell turning, spell deflection, blur, imp invi and SI:C. My first ever no-reload run ended right there after triggering maze trap.
As for cloak of reflection Im not sure if I will start using it before ToB.
With king slain I descended to Underdark.
Didnt have to wait long to meet my first drow raid party.
Then i wanted to free poor dwarf's kid from his prison. Naturally I unleashed great evil Lich by accident. Battle of Time Stops ensued.
My last enemy for now was Balor and with his death Ust Natha is open to me.
Progress in SoD was quick, with me again doing pretty much just the essentials.
After leaving the City I hid at the bridge in the Coast Way Crossing before talking to Caelar. I then bypassed enemies on the way to the temple in the Forest of Wyrms. Ziatar was burnt down from out of sight. Then, rather than using separate buffs, I just ran past the Neothelid using the Greenstone Amulet and Protection from Poison. One of the aerial servants hit me though, after I fireballed Akanna once, so I had to retreat and heal up using a regeneration potion before coming back again to use a firebreath potion on Akanna. I'd looted 20 daggers from the temple and those proved more than enough to take out Morentherene at the exit.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge a younger green dragon called for help. This time it survived the battle with the hill giants, but only just and it failed to make good its escape from me. On arrival, multiple frozen fists helped put a quick end to Vichand before he could alert the camp. I made some armor from the dragon scales, though I can't use either that or the alternative shield. I can though use the sling bullets made from the voidstone shards after restoring the fort's defences. This time I made sure it was daytime before going to find Thirrim and buying yet more potions from him. Then I surrendered the fort and went to find the mage on the bridge - the ring of energy doing a good job of disruption this time.
On the way to the Coalition Camp I came across some orcs and trolls. I used the infravision ring there to get access to the lower cave and pick up the Firefly sling. At the camp I bought a few things from Nazramu and Waizahb and picked up the Bwoosh and poison.
Briefly moving on to Dragonspear I rescued Skie before heading on to the Underground River. I used the Greenstone Amulet again there against the myconids - and a good job I did so or they would have been attacking a feebleminded target! The ring of free action from Nazramu protected against web from the Gargantuan Spider. The cyclops was stunned and would have been rapidly finished off, but 2 of the surrounding guards got immediate criticals on me and I used an invisibility potion and withdrew. It took several minutes to run the guards and mages around (using a potion of magic blocking during that) before I got another chance to finish off the cyclops. I noted I was just over time at that point, so just used another invisibility potion to go underground and saved the game there.
Trio 50 ([Links to earlier sessions 1234)
Betsof - human male dark moon monk Gate70
Disco - elf female diviner @Grond0
CoreThief XXXI - dwarf male Fighter / Thief @Corey_Russell
Session 5 ends with a bang, Betsoff issues a minor tut as Disco and Corethief perform a brief post-mortem.
69 hit points, critical backstab for 70 screen capture attached
A few screenshots from the more successful hour prior to this where we'd opened up most of the city.
Trio 51 Update 1
Corecleric XX - protagonist, halfling priest of Lothander (Corey_Russell)
Betson - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Swazi - human mage (Grond0) to be dualled later
Not a lot done today, as most of the time went to the other turn which unfortunately ended to a nasty backstab. But in any case we did the Candlekeep chores, took down Shoal, picked up the +1 ring in the ogre area, took down the same ogre a little later for a belt for Swazi, got a Wizard's ring for Swazi, took down Tarnesh with command for starters.
We didn't have the charisma for the Mad Arcand. We did some of the Beregost quests, like retrieving Merrianne's ring, taking down the assassin in the Red Sheaf's inn, also returned some boots - but for some reason Grond0 immediately killed the guy that Grond0 just did a favor for?! We managed to blind Silke which got us some more levels.
Not a lot of time left, managed to get some ankheg armor for Corecleric XX and then got the PfP green scroll and we rested in the basilisk area that will be our next target.
In the Underground River I placed the Bwoosh before moving into the Warrens. After purchasing more restoration scrolls I took the elevator and poisoned the food and water while invisible. I briefly showed myself to reopen the elevator before running out under stealth.
I ignored a yawning pit on the way back to the Coalition Camp and used some potions to buff there. The invading forces were basically dealt with running around using firebreath.
I got another level on arrival at Dragonspear, where a single dart was sufficient to stop Ashatiel in his tracks.
It took a bit longer to deal with Thrix's forces, but that was duly done as well and I got a +3 longsword as reward.
After resting I buffed up and brushed aside the hellevator enemies.
I used scrolls of Champion's Strength just before reaching the top of that, so they would be active for Belhifet. I realised I'd forgotten to bring along another +3 weapon, but the acid longsword hit Belhifet easily before fatigue mounted up too much from restoring Caelar. I lost concentration though at the end of the fight, with Belhifet nearly dead, when I used a restoration scroll on myself rather than Caelar. That could easily have led to her dying and I might not then have been able to overcome Belhifet's regeneration. As it happened though, after some nervous moments another scroll healed up Caelar just an instant before Belhifet hit her with what would have been a killing blow - and I then got a critical hit with my +3 bullets a few seconds later anyway to finish him off .
By the time I'd run through the epilogue the session was nearly over and I saved the game after importing to BG2EE.
Dark moon monk 10, 69 HPs, 0 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
I made my way carefully through Jon's dungeon, using stealth where necessary. I picked up an 11th level by striking down an otyugh - that provided me with mirror image as an addition to my defences. The radiant mephit did manage to disable me, but its portal was already dead - as were its companions. The enemies there are generally weak and easy to hit, so I accepted the dual-wielding penalty for putting a sword in my off-hand to push APR up to 3.5. I used up the firebreath potion to finish off Ulvaryl.
In the Promenade I bought 5 points of reputation, as well as gem and scroll containers. A few moments were spent restoring the circus before I moved on to report to Gaelan Bayle. The Copper Coronet took only slightly longer and I gained my 12th level there.
Suna Seni's attempted ambush found me in stealth and I picked off the hapless opponents one by one. That was on the way to Watcher's Keep where I bought the potion case and cleared the undead in the left-side room. Time ran out at that point, so I'll have to consider whether to investigate the main room tomorrow.
Dark moon monk 12, 73 HPs, 141 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
I ignored my original intentions by playing last night when I knew I was too tired. That led to a pretty dreadful session, but luck allowed me to survive, though regrettably not to prosper.
At the start of the session I found that there were no vampiric wraiths present at Watcher's Keep and started clearing the top level. I forgot though that wearing the Claw made me vulnerable to stinking cloud and collapsed next to a green slime for a couple of rounds. I can't remember if their disease can be cured by a priest, so rushed outside just in case that would help, but I think I just managed to avoid infection in the first place.
Carrying on, I almost immediately made a further mistake when failing to pick up the slippers before disturbing a lich!
I made a run for it, but had to save against a Finger of Death before escaping. Back in Athkatla, though I don't normally buy anything significant until reputation has been maximised, I decided to invest in some protection. That included the Ring of Air Control, which was a decent purchase. However, I also bought the AC3 bracers - despite having hit that same base AC at my last monk level .
Deciding I still needed improved defenses, I went in search of more liches. On the way a rakshasa got short shrift.
I killed the Elemental and Shade liches without trouble, but then found I didn't have DUHM available to get access to the City Gates lich and Kangaxx. That meant resting and using another PfU scroll. Against Kangaxx I was careful to stop attacking him after low HPs should have triggered his transformation to a demi-lich - but the script bugged anyway. That's normally that, but I did try coming back again and letting his buffs fire to see if his script would kick back in - there was nothing doing though.
I spent the last part of the session killing some undead at the Graveyard while my scroll protection persisted. That took me to level 13.
Without the Ring of Gaxx this run is probably doomed to failure (even if I play better), but I'll keep going for now.
Dark moon monk 13, 75 HPs, 224 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
After yesterday's poor session, things were much smoother today. I started off back at the Graveyard in search of a ioun stone - secure in the knowledge that monk immunity to poison meant the spiders were no real threat. Pai'Na was dying of damage anyway when my new quivering palm ability hit her, but there was no doubt that the palm claimed a victim among some more spiders outside.
The palm was soon at work again, ensuring that Brennan Riesling didn't recover from being webbed by Kitthix.
After finishing that group off I went to Trademeet in search of another summons. Taquee was blinded, while Kitthix acted as a petrification absorber inside the tent.
Moving on to the Grove, the palm shared troll victims with the efreeti. I noticed I'd picked up another level in the Troll Mound before the palm ensured that Kyland Lind would not call a retreat. Cernd made short work of Faldorn.
I still had time to go back to Trademeet, where I saved a philosopher from a potentially fatal argument - though he didn't seem very grateful. The final action was clearing the local tomb.
Dark moon monk 14, 84 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 320 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
Another smooth session started by rescuing Renfeld and taking him back to the Docks. Improved invisibility would have allowed me to slaughter Prebek and Sanasha at my leisure, but they both died to single hits anyway.
After looting the harpers I reported to Xzar and tried to kill Lucette as soon as she'd finished her assassination work. She saved against a first attack, but stupidly continued with her conversation - giving me time to get a second (and fatal) attack in.
I had plenty of cash by this time, so went to pay Gaelan Bayle. In addition to a +2 ring, that gave me a 15th level.
While in the area I agreed to do a few jobs for Mae'Var. That didn't take long, with Rayic falling purely to frozen fist damage through his stoneskins before he could complete a spell.
I picked up level 16 during the fight with Mae'Var.
I'd been carrying around a bit of red material for quite a while now and decided to go to the Bridge District to sort out the kidnappers.
I didn't immediately release their victim though, trading in a couple of reputation points for the silver pantaloons.
Sir Sarles' quest was next, with Neb being crushed by a vicious critical before he could go invisible.
His head got one reputation point back and the other was soon gained by completing the fall of Anarg and his cronies.
There was still another reputation point available at the Bridge, from the skinner quest. Kitthix and the efreeti acted as targets to soak up backstabs when the Rune Assassins were dragged upstairs and they and the other enemies were then no trouble.
Reporting in to Lt Aegisfield was enough for yet another level, in addition to the reputation gain.
The last few minutes of the session were spent running Parisa around. Monk immunity meant domination was not a threat, but level drain certainly could be, so I used a sling to kill her - though the damage from that only slowly overcame her regeneration.
Dark moon monk 17, 91 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone), 386 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
After a break, I decided to try again an unmodded no reload run. (with mods I always become bored at some point with so many contents).
So here is Radagast, a half elf avenger ! I play insane without double damage.
BGEE run was almost totally smooth, with this party :
- Ajantis
- Branwen then Yeslick
- Imoen then Coran
- Minsc
- Dynaheir
I did all of BGEE minus Balduran's Island and I didn't bring back Souldagger to Ulgoth's Beard.
I was in trouble :
- in Durlag Tower Coran missed a trap but without consequences, the Demon Knight succeed at stunning Yeslick and killed him. Rest of the tower was easy.
- in Candlekeep Catacombs, Coran missed two traps and was almost killed by lightning,
- more importantly, when at low levels, I made the bad decision to try to kill the amazons just after the mines, in order to gain the leather armor +2 for my avenger. At first I thought it would be easy when landing silence and web, but at the time my only archer was Imoen and Dynaheir didn't have access to fireball. The amazon archer killed four members with her fire arrows, and Imoen and Radagast hastily fled, then came back from the other side to kill the two remaining amazons with a wand of magic missiles... I really passed near the total wipe here.
All other groups were killed thanks to call lightning, fireballs, Coran as an archer instead of Imoen, and of course webs and silence.
Radagast was level 7 in Cloakwood, and spider form really helped to deliver damages
Final fight was done fast, with first Semaj killed (he did succeed to charm Ajantis and confuse Minsc, but Dynaheir held them with a wand), then Coran backstabbed Sarevok, Dynaheir casted web and cloudkill, and while Tazok and Angelo were webbed, Sarevok alone couldn't resist my party, with the help of two nymphs which succeed at holding him with Hold Person...
I forgot to steal the ring of free action from Ushey.
Chapter 7 and 8 in SoD have been done with :
- Minsc
- Dynaheir
- Glint
- Corwin
- Viconia (with the help of the Helm of Opposite Alignment)
I used protections from undead scrolls in the Repository of Undeads.
Currently in chapter 9, just cleared the trolls cave.
The session started by returning to Trademeet, now that I'd done the skinner quest, to help Tiris out.
That took reputation to 19 and I returned to the Copper Coronet in search of the last point - the slaver ship soon provided that.
More purchases followed, including the Ninjato of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Dual-wielding that takes my APR to 5 - though doing that reminded me that I must have forgotten to pick up Belm when in the Druid Grove. The Sensate Amulet is a useful defense in its own right and also boosted charisma to 20+ to get the minimum possible shop prices.
I took on the de-Arnise Hold next, getting a level there for punching out an otyugh.
With my base stealth now over 100, I put the skill points from the level into detect illusion - just to make use of that special capacity of the DMM. Carrying on, there was plenty of work for the palm against trolls. I couldn't remember whether it could successfully shake golems apart, but it appears it can.
The mighty TorGal failed to withstand a single blow.
I'm highly unlikely to return there, but for the hell of it said I would help run the place. A grateful Nalia handed over more XP to push me up to level 19.
With a few minutes remaining, I returned to the Druid Grove to pick up Belm. I also bought a stock of Adratha's potions before killing her - I had intended to kill the other rakshasas as well, but she died too quickly to summon them .
With the remaining loot from this session I bought most of the desirable equipment in Trademeet, though the Belt of the Intertial Barrier will have to wait for more earnings next time.
Dark moon monk 19, 100 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone, 5 from amulet), 476 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
Another session where I was a bit dozy and this time that proved fatal. At Umar Hills things seemed easy enough on the way to find Thaxy, with a couple of liches largely taken down by Daystar sunrays. Against the dragon I knew of course in theory about the danger of his level draining breath, but it's relatively unusual to have a character that is susceptible to that and I woke up too late to the danger. An initial attempt to use my Quivering Palm on him failed and I retreated back through the pillars where the dragon couldn't get at me directly. I did note that I'd been level drained, but was thinking initially (as far as I was thinking anything) that effect would disappear on the same timescale as the blindness effect. That error was just starting to percolate through my brain at the end, but I hadn't actually even started to try and run when the final blast arrived.
Yeah, the level drain from that breath is permanent in 2.6 (One turn duration in 2.5). Four levels guaranteed, two you can save against. As a dark moon monk, your only reasonable means of level drain protection is to use Slayer form. Which would probably let you win in a straight up brawl, at least.
Then again, why were you fighting him anyway? You can't wear the scale armor, and you can't wield Crom Faeyr either. 45K XP and some gold and gems isn't that much of a reward. Just use the wardstone to walk by and eliminate the Shade Lord.
Comments
@Wise_Grimwald what mod is this?
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193280/#Comment_1193280
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193306/#Comment_1193306
I find that in SoD enemies are generally stronger on offense than defense. That means that making progress is quite easy, but it's also easy to die if you don't take care. I've of course had plenty of experiences of not taking care
In the dungeon I stealthed through to Porios and convinced him to surrender. Downstairs, a PfU scroll gave the undead no chance. A dispelling arrow got rid of Korlasz's fire protection and a potion of firebreath killed her despite her attempt to surrender.
In Baldur's Gate I killed a few NPCs for their equipment and picked up the Spectactles of Spectacle and the Battle Tankard - along with an ammo belt and bag of holding to complete my collection of containers.
I didn't bother with the Coast Way Forest and just stealthed to the bridge to avoid conflict before the discussion with Caelar. I ran through the Troll Claw Woods as well to get to the Forest of Wyrms. Inside the old temple I used a necklace of missiles to kill Ziatar from out of sight.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge a young green dragon called for help. Typically it will win a battle against 2 hill giants, but this time they got lucky and killed it despite my attacking them. At the camp, Vichand failed to survive a backstab, so the 2 pre-laid traps were unnecessary there.
I ignored all the trouble stacked up in Dead Man's Pass and had a brief stop at the castle to rescue Skie before moving on to the Underground River. I belatedly noticed that a couple of pre-laid traps had gained me my final SoD thief level there.
Back at the Camp exploding arrows made short work of the various invading forces. I hit the XP cap and got my final level during that.
After resting, I buffed up for a final time, including putting on full plate for the first time in this game. The groups on the Hellevator were hugely outclassed and I soon arrived at the top. I persuaded Caelar to do what she'd been saying she would for months and fight against Belhifet, though as always she operated independently without any orders from me. I used the Battle Helmet in order to be able to use Greater Restoration scrolls on Caelar without getting fatigued. In fact keeping her going wasn't really necessary with this character, who's quite capable of beating up Belhifet independently. That's ultimately what I did, though I did take 3 potions of power while doing that (which I occasionally use as my nearest equivalent of healing potions).
F9/T11, 97 HPs, 0 kills (+445 in BGEE/SoD)
Can you target her with ring through that?
Sorrarm the sorcerer and Laughalot the Jester
As so often happens we started this session by wondering what we had intended to do. A quick check of the journal and inventory didn't help so I sneaked a look at the previous notes. They weren't even notes, so not much of a clue.
With this in mind we decided Durlags Tower would be a good place to ply our blinded magic missile trade. All went smoothly, and within a few rests we had dealt with doom guards, battle horrors and basilisks.
Sorrarm felt it was time to do Nashkel mine since anything else required him to use his imagination. We killed a few kobolds, went invisible for a few more and magic missiled the remainder. Laughalot commented on the use of this spell and Sorrarm remembered he'd recently learnt fireball. Mulahey the half-orc can't vouch for this as he was mostly unconscious in a stinking cloud.
Sorrarm paid to have Laughalot revived at a temple and we returned to wipe the floor with our enemy. Almost - they put up a good fight.
Bassilus failed to save against blind.
Party gear:
Could be Trials of the Luremaster for EE. Sorry. Can't be sure. Argent might know. If I'm wrong he probably won't. It is quite challenging until you learn how to deal with it as its AI is quite good. By BG2 standards it is quite weak, but it is not in BG2!
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193280/#Comment_1193280
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193306/#Comment_1193306
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193342/#Comment_1193342
Restoring the circus tent took only a few more seconds and gave me a fighter level. The Suna Seni ambush then provided me some practice at using corners to hide and backstab and netted me Arbane for protection against hold.
F10/T13, 105 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 171 kills (+445 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193280/#Comment_1193280
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193306/#Comment_1193306
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193342/#Comment_1193342
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193358/#Comment_1193358
Things started reasonably enough by annoying the Cowled Wizards with the Ring of Air Control. Group after group teleported in to chastise me, but found poisonous traps waiting for them. Even the highest members of the order found their wrath was insufficient.
Moving on to the Bridge District I found Sansuki calling for help and used a sunray in support of him despite having no protection against level drain. Those vampires missed and so did Parisa after I had done the skinner quest - getting relatively low on HPs there when opting to melee the bone golem rather than run it round while shooting. A few more rests while setting traps for Captain Dennis saw Tanova appear. She and one of her acolytes survived a sunray and she did hit me - but I got lucky and saved against a follow-up domination. Briefly remembering I was supposed to be playing safe, I used a scroll of PfU to finish them off before turning to Captain Dennis.
His group suffered from a couple of backstabs and traps and soon only the Captain remained - and he was at near death. Assuming finishing him off would be easy I attacked in melee, but his full plate proved much more resistant than my studded leather and several hits later I ran round the corner and hid. Rather than try more fighting, I decided to finish him off by setting a trap far enough round the corner to affect him. However, I wasn't precise enough with the placement and my icon moved into his sight and I took another immediate hit - meaning one more hit would kill me. The stairs were close though, with more traps waiting at the bottom of them to finish Dennis off, and I was pretty sure I could get there before he attacked again. I did indeed reach the stairs in time - but didn't transition. I'm not sure whether I slightly mis-clicked the location or if my icon just hung, but I then failed to react to still being upstairs before Dennis lined up his crossbow once more ...
EDIT
Meanwhile Marin had a rather easy time of it in the Cloakwood Mines. The mages were all quite helpful.
Last session ended in Windspear dungeon just before Samia's fight. With 15 level of Fighter I can finally start abusing Flail of Ages against casters and everything that is slowable. Best weapon in game in my opinion. Next goal is to get to 16 level of mage then 6m total xp for 18 level. In this part I focused on more powerful enemies and farmed tons of experience from higher level zones.
Samia and her team were roasted by Sunfire and Efreeti. Only their mage Kaol escaped initial carnage but once I got to him his PfMW's had ran out and he was vulnerable to FoA.
Used girdle of bluntness and kneecaper +1, +4 vs golems
Tazok was fried as well.
Conster hadnt resisted dispel magic and fell down shortly.
Ghasts once again drop best scrolls.
Greater wolfweres were slaughtered using improved haste + critical strikes.
With everything except red dragon cleared I moved to restock some potions/scrolls and returned Mekraths gem to Raelis Shai. Prepared my spells and started Planar Prison quest. Boots of speed and gauntlets of weapon skill are nice and important upgrades. Warden is the first high mage I will face in this run. He is easier than liches thus my first choice. Sequencer: 3x secret word should do wonders against him.
Fully buffed and invisible Ive appeared between enemies. As usual my first target is spellcaster then roasting.
I have no idea how ppl can say that critical strikes are useless and weak HLA. With improved invi, improved haste and critical strikes your fighter becomes an assasin.
Yuan-ti packs were killed with wand of cloudkill.
Cleaning up.
Master of thralls wasn't a challenge. Equipped item with hold protection.
For Warden I have summoned efreeti and flesh golem. Then lured him alone back to entrance "room". Send efreeti to frontline as a decoy. Landed Ruby Ray on Warden, soon followed by sequencer: 3x secret word and then Breach. He tried another PfMW's but I just countered it with another Breach. Another level up.
I decided to stay in planes and went to Planar Sphere next. Killed valygar and restored my reputation with saved circus tent reward. Murderous halflings were first on my way. For good start assassinated Entu with CS then brute-forced Mogadish and dispelled Kayardi.
Now that I started fighting high mages regularily Ive expanded my spell armor adding protection from evil, spell shield, true sight, protection from acid/electricity and also upgraded spell deflection and spell turning to its higher versions.
Instead of assassinating Lavok with CS again, this time I decided on proper duel after reavealing myself in front of him. He turned out to be rather good and casted proper spells. He started with Time Stop during which he summoned Dark Planetar and landed Ruby Ray and Khelbens Warding Whip on me. I think his Planetar also casted True Sight.
As is my usual strategy against high mages I tried to take down Planetar first while throwing few abjurations like Ruby Ray at Lavok. Improved haste and critical strikes usually took care of them but this time with maximum HP they are tougher than ever. Its impossible to kill them now in one round without black blade. After tanking ludicorous amount of damage Planetar healed herself to full. That was perfect moment for me to change targets. Not only Lavok was busy casting some spell so he would lost his cast but also his PfMW has fallen off.
Once I got him slowed and his casting interruped I spared moment for PfMW's just in case. Fallen Planetar healed herself again and this time I decided to use Smite which I have picked more for testing because Ive always avoided this HLA. And boy was it mistake. I just discovered how infinitely useful this HLA is. Planetar was quickly stunned and killed.
Afterwards farmed every possible demon for XP. Thanks to that I leveled up and unlocked 8th level spells. Finally I have access to simulacrum. I havent even bought Vhailor's helmet. I have restricted myself to only Robes of Vecna from OP items for now.
Tolgerias was next high mage I had to face before getting back to Athkatla. Ive slaughtered his mage companion before she could do anything. Tolgerias meanwhile finished his Time Stop and summoned some help. Still with simulacrum and both of us using CS I struck down planetar pretty fast and pummeled old mage once his PfMW ran out.
Protection from cold/fire and ice storm/incediary cloud took care of elemental rooms. Then I almost died because of my laziness. I havent rested nor recasted anything before going down to fix the spehere. I knew there were some golems but I wasnt expecting so many. They quickly overwhelmed me and got me down to 57hp before I casted invisibility. Unfortunately this resulted with me surrounded by golems without any way out.
I have used stoneskin and improved haste scrolls. Casted improved mantle, equipped girdle of bluntness and hoped it would be enough. Which was thanks the gods.
Finally done with the sphere I could claim my sweet(bloody) reward.
The next randomly chosen character for this challenge was a dark moon monk. I've tried that a couple of times before with notable lack of success, but in general I find monks reasonably easy to play so let's see if I can do better this time. To give myself an improved chance I'll try and avoid playing when tired and limit play to 1 hour a day - that sort of approach has sometimes helped me maintain focus in past runs. I'll also aim to reduce somewhat the amount of extraneous content I do, particularly in BG2.
The opening session saw no problems:
- Shoal saved against blind, but was soon shot down anyway to give me 2 levels with a maximum +20 HPs. My 18 charisma allowed me to return Mad Arcand's ring immediately for another level and 8 more HPs.
- a few purchased +1 bullets allowed me to take down Thalantyr's golems before completing my container collection for now.
Aproaching the coveted 6m XP on my char I continued hunting stronger enemies and clearing dungeons which I left unfinished earlier in the game. My spell armor is almost full and lacks only Spell Trap meaning that unless my enemies are liches or some really advanced caster they wont be able to hurt me as long as I keep my stoneskins, PfMW and SI:A.
I decided to start this session with bit more risk. Its first time Im playing remixed version of tactics and m0rpheus was adamant that its much more difficult than original. So far I havent encountered any modification from Tactics Remix. They are all restricted to single zones with encounter and unlike original there are no componenets who block your main progress nor is there any enemy who will ambush you out of nowhere. Not yet that is. If he was so sure about challenge then these few components that ara available must be something. Im really curious about them though I should wait for after spellhold. Mage HLAs and powerful 9th spells should carry me through unknown.
My curiosity overpowering, I decided to try them anyway with maybe some sneak peek at encounter on another game.
To start with something easier I went to grave district and started with Crypt King first. Unfortunately I didnt see much of the fight. He died instantly becasue of infinite reflection dmg between fire shields. I hate this.
Lich in docks is something completely different. Even in original she was pretty strong. Although she wasnt using HLA if I remember. Not knowing what to expect I decided to check the fight in some old save of mine with pure sorcerer. Thanks the god I checked because that would be awfully stupid end of run.
Big changes to Lich on docks. She has now team of skeletal warriors and bone golems which spawns periodically and quickly overwhelms you. Most of summoned skeletal warriors are archers with frost arrows. In few moments there is a legion of them. Lich herself has strong spell armor requiring ruby ray+khelbens warding whip. What I really like amongst the changes is that m0rpheus made this lich more similar to Improved Anvil liches. Meaning she is also not bad warrior who will attack me between her casts and on Time Stop especially. Time Stop is another big change. She has unlimited amount of Time Stops or 5 casts minimum. Same with PfMW and Invisibility. She opens fight with few Times Stops in a row.
Other crucial changes are blocked exit after fight starts. Protection from Undead is forbidden. Same with hiding in corner of the house or just hiding out of her sight. It will both result in Lich teleporting me to her and instantly dispelling all of my combat protection. War of attrition is not an option against her so I will use good ole brute force and try to overwhelm her before she can do the same to me.
Full buffs, few potions, boots of avoidance, cloak of displacement, belt 3 AC missile, reflection shield just in case.
I start the fight with Ruby Ray instantly after entering the house. Then using boots of speed I run up right to her to avoid legions of skeletons spawning and blocking my way. I got lucky because skeletal archers blocked passage for warriors and I had to worry only about arrows from them.
Lich started with 3x Time Stop in the row. She casted few abjurations like Ruby Ray against me and attacked me in melee between casts. The only wasted action by her were summoning simulacrum and project image which both did absolutely nothing.
I have used PfMW between first two Time Stops then continued with Khelbens Warding Whip and would finish with Breach but her PfMW ended and allowed me to start breaking her stoneskins. Waiting with breach was right move because she recasted PfMW in a moment when first hit landed on her. I countered instantly with Breach and the fight was mine.
I like the changes done to this encounter. It was definitely more challenging. Magical items dropped are sadly worse for my class than cloak of balduran but scroll of Time Stop rewarded me enough.
And that wasnt the end of encounter because army of undead was still there and still spawning! And all of them give experience!
I have shamelessly farmed them as long as my spell protections allowed. With stoneskins, PfMW and mantles I have farmed at least 100k xp.
Next on my list was gnome Fighter/Illusionist in Valygar's house. Like Crypt King he wasn't too strong in original and in remix compared to docks lich he isnt anything special as well. I think that his two familiars are improved and casted proper spells and sequencers but it was easy to kill both of them fast. Once they were dead Valtor followed them moments later.
Reward in scrolls is once agains very sufficient. 4x PfMW will serve me well in final battle of ToB.
I had to take a break from high mages so I went dragon hunting instead. With my spell armor Firkraag shouldnt be able to do much harm. I have to watch my stoneskins and cast PfMW if needed. Other than that I must observe his casts and counter stoneskin with breach.
I havent recasted any of my protections and that resulted in me being slashed for 72 dmg. I wonder if he could take remaining 84 in single hit and finish me.
Old red dragon was kind enough to heal me to full with his breath just before dying.
Back to spellcaters. Two liches blocking me from finishing Umar quest are next.
Previous updates:
With prices more reasonable I bought a few items at Ulgoth's Beard, including the Greenstone Amulet. That was used to melee the sirines at the Lighthouse, getting me 5 HPs for my final BGEE level.
Moving on to the main quest, I sneaked through the Nashkel mine to find Mulahey and shot him down without letting him talk.
Previous updates:
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I didn't kill anything during the return to Candlekeep. The tomes were looted with a cloud giant strength potion, topped up with DUHM, while absorption meant I had no trouble from the lightning traps.
Before starting the final battles I went to get the ring of energy - to speed things up I made use of the necklace from the Carnival there before coming in to finish off Denak.
Dark moon monk 8, 61 HPs, 164 kills
With so close to 6m XP there are only few fights between me and my HLA. I have to remember to always wait for mages to summon their dark planetars. Thats 20k XP more from the fight.
I decided to start this session with finishing Umar quest. On my way to slaying Shade Lord stand two Liches and Shadow Dragon.
First Lich had his Planetar summoned by the time I entered his room and started casting Time Stop. Ignoring him for the moment, together with my simulacrum I struck at planetar and almost took him down but the Lich finished his cast. He didnt do much during stop but planetar healed herself. That was my signal to switch targets and attack Lich. His PfMW ran out during time stop, he already wasted his contingency for Spell Shield and was casting something, meaning he could do absolutely nothing if I interrupted him. FoA of course interrupted him instantly and even landed slow on first hit. Few seconds later he was dead. That allowed me to reposition into doorway and slay Planetar there after landing stun on him.
Second Lich wasted his first cast on my simulacrum and before he could Time Stop or summon planetar, he already received ruby ray and warding whip. I waited for his PfMW recast and then casted Breach. During fight I have even used Smite and enemies around me went flying in all directions like tomatos.
Shadow Dragon was slain with brute force: simulacrum, GWW, CS. Breach against stonesking.
Shade Lord turned out to be much weaker than I remembered and one Incediary Cloud was enough against him.
Daystar Lich to my surprise decided on duel of abjuration with me. Who dispell the other first. Unfortunately for the lich I had more spell protections than him. He also wasted Spellstrike as first cast. As soon as I landed final breach he was dead,
Had to answer cowled wizards summon to my Planar Sphere. Cleared ambush with single Incediary Cloud. Sadly that idiot Teos came back and stepped right into it getting damaged and turning hostile...
While in sewers I forced beholders spawn and exterminated them with cloudkill.
Next went to grave district for vampire hunt.
And its here. 18th level of mage which happened together with fighters. Picked Summon Planetar and Improved Alacrity. Thanks to Lich in Docks I have two casts of Time Stop. Now I can go to Spellhold but before that I would like to get staff of magi.
With Rogue Stone I have sneaked into Twisted Rune headquarters. There I have buffed and summoned my own team of casters. While trying to trigger encounter Ive sent incediary cloud and fire storm from planetar.
As soon as Shangalar spawned Ive sent another fire storm together with incediary cloud. When enemies spawned my Efreeti added their own fireballs to already existing fire cataclysm. My fire spells proved effective, by the time Shangalar's first PfMW ended the entire room was dead.
In the end I caught him in Time Stop and murdered there.
Finally I boarded the ship with sleazy, sneaky sea slug of captain and sailed towards Imoen's rescue.
In Brynlaw slaughtered welcoming party.
Then with potion of insight and Friends I got myself fast and easy ticket to Spellhold.
Previous updates:
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I transferred to SoD with 250k XP, so immediately took my ninth level, with another 8 HPs. There were no problems in the dungeon with Korlasz surrendering after a couple of hits through his stoneskin by triple frozen fists.
Dark moon monk 9, 69 HPs, 230 kills
Spellhold at last. My entire gameplay so far was focused on getting enough XP just for this moment. No armor, no weapons - nothing. Enemies to defeat: Yuan-ti mages, Ruhk, Lich + planetar and Irenicus.
Im going to fill my spellbook with bigger number of summoning spells and Phantom Blade. Fire elementals, Efreeti, Simulacrum and planetar are going to be my bodyguards.
During first encounter my fire elementals slay clay golem.
My planetar bullies some snakes.
I was counting on my celestial ally slaughtering my enemies but she proved herself useless already during fight with Ruhk. His PfMW and magic resistance neutralised her completely. I did a big mistake in forgetting SI:A and got myself dispelled by him. By the time I recasted some protections and got my first Ruby ray on Ruhk, my planetar expired forcing me to retreat.
Casted Improved Haste + Phantom Blade and took care of him myself.
Summons took care of mind flayer, beholder, pit fiend and rest of small fights.
Fully buffed myself, summoned simulacrum and planetar, then opened the fight with Ruby Ray on Lich. He responded with Time Stop.
Fortunately for me the layout of our battlefield allowed me to quickly duck behind the corner and out of his sight. The Lich casted Improved Alacrity, summoned his planetar and tried imprisoning my planetar but that somehow failed?
As soon as Time Stop ended I attacked and killed planetar together with my simulacrum, both of us wielding Phantom Blades and using GWW or CS. My own planetar helped us after casting True Sight.
With planetar killed and PfMW of Lich surely down I casted Time Stop of my own.
Finishing undead guards was enough for me to reach 21st Fighter level. That allowed me to put second + in War Hammers and pick Dragon's Breath.
My summons helped me with clearup.
First fight with Irenicus needs some SCS improvements. When he starts casting his cloning spell he doesnt have any protections on him. Its possible to just nuke him down in first few seconds. Like with Lavok I had to stop myself this time to play out this fight normally.
Not only that but SCS makes the team of mages helping me tip the scale of battle even more. They bombarded poor Jon with swarm of dispell magic. At least he hit back and obliterated them with Dragons Breath. Before I hacked him down he managed to summon planetar and that freakin celestial was almost the end of me.
This planetar of his was taking tons of damage from me and his health bar was not moving! It was like he had some super regeneration or was getting healed from dmg. Even when I stunned him I couldnt get him lower than Injured. His health bar was growing back on my eyes! If that wasnt enough then this little shit blocked me from moving away!
With my Phantom Blade ending I had no hope of killing him. I moved back and around in that tiny space and then casted Time Stop. That allowed me to kill one murderer unbothered and thankfully unblocked my escape.
Went to retrieve my items and get out. Note for future, leave all containers in Brynlaw before going to Spellhold. Bugged shit.
I took Saemon's offer and was soon ambushed by githyanki and murderous fish. That scoundrel Saemon Havarian actually got himself trapped in Psionic Maze LMAO! It was so good that I roared with laughter at my screen.
In shark city I equipped Reflection Shield to avoid getting stunned by random kuo-tan bolt. Ive done this part very quickly and on invisibility. Only important things there are to get cloak of reflection and cloak of protection +2. Before doing Imp Puzzle I buffed myself with spell turning, spell deflection, blur, imp invi and SI:C. My first ever no-reload run ended right there after triggering maze trap.
As for cloak of reflection Im not sure if I will start using it before ToB.
With king slain I descended to Underdark.
Didnt have to wait long to meet my first drow raid party.
Then i wanted to free poor dwarf's kid from his prison. Naturally I unleashed great evil Lich by accident. Battle of Time Stops ensued.
My last enemy for now was Balor and with his death Ust Natha is open to me.
Previous updates:
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After leaving the City I hid at the bridge in the Coast Way Crossing before talking to Caelar. I then bypassed enemies on the way to the temple in the Forest of Wyrms. Ziatar was burnt down from out of sight. Then, rather than using separate buffs, I just ran past the Neothelid using the Greenstone Amulet and Protection from Poison. One of the aerial servants hit me though, after I fireballed Akanna once, so I had to retreat and heal up using a regeneration potion before coming back again to use a firebreath potion on Akanna. I'd looted 20 daggers from the temple and those proved more than enough to take out Morentherene at the exit.
Briefly moving on to Dragonspear I rescued Skie before heading on to the Underground River. I used the Greenstone Amulet again there against the myconids - and a good job I did so or they would have been attacking a feebleminded target! The ring of free action from Nazramu protected against web from the Gargantuan Spider. The cyclops was stunned and would have been rapidly finished off, but 2 of the surrounding guards got immediate criticals on me and I used an invisibility potion and withdrew. It took several minutes to run the guards and mages around (using a potion of magic blocking during that) before I got another chance to finish off the cyclops. I noted I was just over time at that point, so just used another invisibility potion to go underground and saved the game there.
Betsof - human male dark moon monk Gate70
Disco - elf female diviner @Grond0
CoreThief XXXI - dwarf male Fighter / Thief @Corey_Russell
Session 5 ends with a bang, Betsoff issues a minor tut as Disco and Corethief perform a brief post-mortem.
69 hit points, critical backstab for 70 screen capture attached
A few screenshots from the more successful hour prior to this where we'd opened up most of the city.
Corecleric XX - protagonist, halfling priest of Lothander (Corey_Russell)
Betson - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Swazi - human mage (Grond0) to be dualled later
Not a lot done today, as most of the time went to the other turn which unfortunately ended to a nasty backstab. But in any case we did the Candlekeep chores, took down Shoal, picked up the +1 ring in the ogre area, took down the same ogre a little later for a belt for Swazi, got a Wizard's ring for Swazi, took down Tarnesh with command for starters.
We didn't have the charisma for the Mad Arcand. We did some of the Beregost quests, like retrieving Merrianne's ring, taking down the assassin in the Red Sheaf's inn, also returned some boots - but for some reason Grond0 immediately killed the guy that Grond0 just did a favor for?! We managed to blind Silke which got us some more levels.
Not a lot of time left, managed to get some ankheg armor for Corecleric XX and then got the PfP green scroll and we rested in the basilisk area that will be our next target.
Previous updates:
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193502/#Comment_1193502
I ignored a yawning pit on the way back to the Coalition Camp and used some potions to buff there. The invading forces were basically dealt with running around using firebreath.
Dark moon monk 10, 69 HPs, 0 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates:
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193545/#Comment_1193545
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193502/#Comment_1193502
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193545/#Comment_1193545
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193569/#Comment_1193569
At the start of the session I found that there were no vampiric wraiths present at Watcher's Keep and started clearing the top level. I forgot though that wearing the Claw made me vulnerable to stinking cloud and collapsed next to a green slime for a couple of rounds. I can't remember if their disease can be cured by a priest, so rushed outside just in case that would help, but I think I just managed to avoid infection in the first place.
Carrying on, I almost immediately made a further mistake when failing to pick up the slippers before disturbing a lich!
Deciding I still needed improved defenses, I went in search of more liches. On the way a rakshasa got short shrift.
Dark moon monk 13, 75 HPs, 224 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates:
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193445/#Comment_1193445
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193597/#Comment_1193597
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193502/#Comment_1193502
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193545/#Comment_1193545
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193569/#Comment_1193569
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193597/#Comment_1193597
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193632/#Comment_1193632
Sir Sarles' quest was next, with Neb being crushed by a vicious critical before he could go invisible.
So here is Radagast, a half elf avenger ! I play insane without double damage.
BGEE run was almost totally smooth, with this party :
- Ajantis
- Branwen then Yeslick
- Imoen then Coran
- Minsc
- Dynaheir
I did all of BGEE minus Balduran's Island and I didn't bring back Souldagger to Ulgoth's Beard.
I was in trouble :
- in Durlag Tower Coran missed a trap but without consequences, the Demon Knight succeed at stunning Yeslick and killed him. Rest of the tower was easy.
- in Candlekeep Catacombs, Coran missed two traps and was almost killed by lightning,
- more importantly, when at low levels, I made the bad decision to try to kill the amazons just after the mines, in order to gain the leather armor +2 for my avenger. At first I thought it would be easy when landing silence and web, but at the time my only archer was Imoen and Dynaheir didn't have access to fireball. The amazon archer killed four members with her fire arrows, and Imoen and Radagast hastily fled, then came back from the other side to kill the two remaining amazons with a wand of magic missiles... I really passed near the total wipe here.
All other groups were killed thanks to call lightning, fireballs, Coran as an archer instead of Imoen, and of course webs and silence.
Radagast was level 7 in Cloakwood, and spider form really helped to deliver damages
Final fight was done fast, with first Semaj killed (he did succeed to charm Ajantis and confuse Minsc, but Dynaheir held them with a wand), then Coran backstabbed Sarevok, Dynaheir casted web and cloudkill, and while Tazok and Angelo were webbed, Sarevok alone couldn't resist my party, with the help of two nymphs which succeed at holding him with Hold Person...
I forgot to steal the ring of free action from Ushey.
Chapter 7 and 8 in SoD have been done with :
- Minsc
- Dynaheir
- Glint
- Corwin
- Viconia (with the help of the Helm of Opposite Alignment)
I used protections from undead scrolls in the Repository of Undeads.
Currently in chapter 9, just cleared the trolls cave.
Previous updates:
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193569/#Comment_1193569
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193597/#Comment_1193597
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193632/#Comment_1193632
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193656/#Comment_1193656
I took on the de-Arnise Hold next, getting a level there for punching out an otyugh.
Dark moon monk 19, 100 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone, 5 from amulet), 476 kills (+335 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates:
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193472/#Comment_1193472
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193502/#Comment_1193502
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193569/#Comment_1193569
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193597/#Comment_1193597
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193632/#Comment_1193632
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193656/#Comment_1193656
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193688/#Comment_1193688
Then again, why were you fighting him anyway? You can't wear the scale armor, and you can't wield Crom Faeyr either. 45K XP and some gold and gems isn't that much of a reward. Just use the wardstone to walk by and eliminate the Shade Lord.