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.
I hadn't realised the drain is now permanent - I'll have to watch out for that in future. If I'd thought about the danger I would have been quickly nipping in and out trying to get a quick kill with Quivering Palm.
I agree there was no real benefit to fighting him, but I was tired and it was easier to just do everything (my typical approach in chapters 2 & 3) rather than think about which encounters to opt out of ...
Adventure in Underdark continues. Im not really into spending much time in the dark on this run. Xp cap is approaching and there is not much loot Im interested in there so I will mostly speedrun this part. Im going to do only main quests in drow city and completely skip mind flayer and beholder tunnels. Both of them are quite risky when doing solo and there is almost no reward. Maybe will do quick invisible dive into beholders nest for greenstone amulet.
To start I bought all useful scrolls from duergars both in human and drow forms. Then bought every useful scroll or potion from drow merchants. Very nice item that Im seeing here for the first time is Belt of the Skillful Blade. Should work perfectly with black blade.
While on my way to saving one feisty drow I have encountered hostile party. They couldnt do much against my spell armor nor could they endure Incediary Cloud.
Mind flayers were obliterated by Dragon's Breath.
I still had most of my buffs so I took quick detour and ambushed the Prince of Kuo-toan. It wasnt best idea because some of my buffs ran out and kuo-toan packs around were not only detecting my illusions but also pelting me with bolts on haste. Not taking any chances I casted Time Stop, slain the prince then looted blood and escaped their caves.
Had to clear doorways from vermin.
Funny thing was that some of kuo-toans followed me straight to tavern in Ust Natha.
Biggest surprise for me!
In my previous fight with lich my planetar ended imprisoned. When I casted Freedom I wasnt expecting at all to free mage named Vithal and start a quest! And what a quest that is! What useful scrolls he has!!
20 years of playing Baldurs Gate and this is first time I have discovered this quest and this mage :O
Scrolls of Time Stop and Simulacrum are a real catch for me. Time Stop in particular should be most helpful in ToB Final. I have ofc slain the wizard when I was done helping him. Fight opened with Ruby Ray from me, Secret Word from my simulacrum and Insect Plague from my planetar. He time stopped and imprisoned planetar but with insect alrdy on him it was too late.
Next was mission to slay beholder landing in the city. I never feel safe fighting improved beholders and tend to avoid them in no-reload. So to minimise risk with this one I buffed myself, hasted and used some offensive spells togetherwith my simulacrum and planetar to erase beholder before he can even target me.
With blood of Kuo-toan prince in my bag it was easy to finish Drow questline, return eggs to Adalon and get the hell out of Underdark. When returtning to Atkhatla I have recruited Drizzt to help me against Bodhi. Once again had quite a surprise because thanks to BGEET Drizzt recognised me instantly and almost jumped me!
I had to do some diplomacy to get him on my side. Its so sad that BGEET is bugged as hell and infuriating because there are many brilliant features I enjoy.
Once in Promenade of Waukeen I had encounter with Githyanki. I must admit it has to be first time in my Baldurs Gate history that I gave them the silver blade instead of slaughtering them.
Before going on a shopping spree I have visited Nashkel to abuse BGEET some and dump my entire hoard of treasure in BG1 shop which pays quite nicely. With bags full of gold I bought every 9th level spell and every useful potion from Adventurers Mart. With black blade, time stop and chain spell I should clear everything safely now.
First target is Ring of Gaxx. Elemental Lich from sewers died instantly after spawning. I shouldnt do this but couldnt stop myself.
With Shade Lich fight I decided on normal fight. My chain spell: Ruby Ray + 2x Khelbens Whip was nullified by his Spell Shield. The lich responded with Time Stop quickly followed by Alacrity and Dark Planetar. His faux pax was not recasting PfMW because as soon as his time stop ended I countered with my own Time Stop while he was busy with some other cast. With mirror images dispelled by True Sight it takes less than one round to break stoneskins.
On my way out I remembered about mind flayer base and Crom Fayer.
Alhoon encounter is one of toughest in my opinion. Not only he is high mage with quite solid spell armor, he uses all mind flayer racial attacks which makes him kind of fighter/mage. I have to remember to keep PfMW ready. Best prepare contingency:PfMW on sight. He has also some reinforcements with their own deadly attacks.
To minimise the risk of getting oneshot from nowhere I attacked with overhelming force. 2x Dragons Breath and Insect Plague as an opener.
After that I switched my focus to Alhoon and started throwing dispells his way. In the end his PfMW ended and he was sliced to pieces.
With hammer in my pocked I could finally return to Kangaxx fully prepared. His first form fell quickly to chain spell + breach.
Demilich form fell against Black Blade.
To prepare for final Tactics encounters I have cleared Guarded Compound and took Celestial Fury. Not equipping it yet.
Poor Sion tried defending himself from Black Blade by casting Improved Mantle.
And once again it is clear who is the strongest enemy of Baldurs Gate 2.
Next on my list is finishing the Crom Fayer. To do that I have to slay Demon Knights. I have left this encounter for last because I was not sure how improved by Tactics Remix they are. As it turns out they are as they were before. Easily killable.
Quick invisibible raid in beholders tunnel and I left with Greenstone Amulet.
With Crom Fayer forged, spells and contingencies prepared I have equipped Celestial Fury and rested for quite some time untill the collectioner approached me.
Immediatel fight started and my contingecies gave me Spell Deflection, Stoneskin, PfMW and Simulacrum. My simulacrum went instantly for Planetar Summon while I casted Alacrity. Planetar threw Insect Plague when she spawned.
On Alacrity I buffed myself with everything possible, casted tons of ruby rays/secret words/spell thrust/breach, used HLA like Toughness/CS and attacked.
Countered his contingency with Breach and finished the fight with 94 crit.
Next destination is Watchers Keep and two improved encounters there. First to greet me is Red/Poison Badge group.
Buffed to full on alacrity as soon as encounter triggered.
From what I remember most noticeable enemies were salamander with throwable spear which was stunning on hit. One drake who drained level and one who was immune for most of dmg except non-magical weapons. Im lugging around two non-magical scimitars just for this moment. Well this and Magic Golems. Thankfully on my level and with my gear they were quite easy.
The final Tactics Remix encounter I have left if The Ritual. To be honest Im not sure if I would be able to actually finish this quest solo on original Tactics yet alone one buffed up by m0rpheus. Enemy packs arent that powerful but the sheer number of them and number of enemies in single pack make it very difficult for a solo character, even on max lvl.
I could probably do this if I spent a lot of my scrolls. Scrolls which Im saving for ToB final and Im not willing to use at all here. That means after greedily taking the loot from Pontifex I return back to challenge him.
Again I remember that he liked to start the fight with Time Stop so to my usual armor of spell Im adding PfMW just before talking to him.
I think he has permanent Alacrity now.
Once Time Stop ended I started throwing abjuration spells at him. Suprisingly he managed to break through my stoneskin forcing me to retreat for a second.
Rewards are not as overpowered as they were in original but still nice. Boots from Pontifex and Robes from Kuroisan:
Time to kill Bodhi and her pets.
Bodhi was welcomed with brutal frontal assault supported by Dragons Breath and Firestorm. I have used PfMW to defend myself from blood drinking.
Foolish Rakshasha ambushed me on my way out while I was still buffed.
With my time in Amn coming to an end I went to Beregost this time to squeeze as much money as possible and ransacked entire Athkatla. Bought every possibly useful scroll left, every potion, every useful item that could help me in ToB. Reshuffled spells in items in my bags. Sold some useless thing Ive been carrying for half of the game and prepared everything I could for ToB before going to Suldanesselar.
Unfortunately here my bugged BGEET calls out and language bug appears again forcing me to switching back to Polish in game.
Not much interesting happened in the elven city. Golems were obliterated by Crom Fayer. Casters died during Time Stop.
I have almost killed myself on dragon. I forgot to cast Acid Protection which I noticed after getting doused in nice acid bath. To avoid any further injury I have casted Time Stop and pummeled the dragon into the ground.
Poor Joneleth was destroyed in a manner of seconds. Spell chain: 3x Ruby Ray followed by Breach and hes vulnerable as a baby.
During Hell Trials I picked evil path in every challenge I think.
Wraith Sarevok dying after 3 hits.
Hell Irenicus wasnt a worthy opponent. I would really love to see Improved Irenicus in Hell as next component in Tactics Remix.
And with that Shadows of Amn is done. Time to finally start ToB.
Just to check I started new ToB game and unfortunately language is bugged.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 237, Core rules + unmodded parts 3 and 4 (links to earlier episodes: 12)
Sorrarm the sorcerer and Laughalot the Jester
Sorrarm realises today that he did not journalise yesterdays adventures so has to do a double dose today.
We started cautiously, taking our squishy unarmoured jester and sorcerer into the ankheg nest. We had a healthy supply of blindness which took us a fair way into the nest, but with the odd save this left us with little to cast against the final occupant. Sorrarm was all for leaving but Laughalot suggested we try the wand of paralyzation and that allowed us to clear the entire nest in one go.
We continued carefully, heading into Cloakwood. At no time did we dice with webs, spiders and poison. No sir.
Flushed with success we cleared Centeol's lair (my choice rather than Grond0's but one outcome of this is that Laughalot subsequently is using the two handed Spiders Bane sword to prod blinded enemies from a distance or show a disdain for enemies that could hold him).
The rest of Cloakwood is fine, and on arrival at the camp we treat Drasus and his friends to a little malisoned skulltrapping while blinded in a stinking cloud. For science!
We make our way through Cloakwood mine with a bit of persuasion and judicious invisibility. Davaeorn survives the fireballs and skulltraps his minions do not, but malison and stinking cloud soften him up for our follow-up attacks.
On arrival at Baldur's Gate we make time to malison and chromatic orb stun a greater basilisk, prevent Lothander departing with his boots (wand of paralyzation was quicker than dart of stunning on the day) and stun Larze with a dart
Marek fell to some perfect timing - stand next to him, cast malison a short distance away and talk to him so he goes hostile and the malison affects him. After all that he still casts his spell and forces us both to save. Nice try Marek.
(and interestingly everbody including us appears to have lost their heads and body parts according to the screenshot)
Session 4
We start doing odds and ends around the city. Sorrarm decides to goad Degrodel's guardians and kills a couple with fireballs after positioning himself invisibly. Trying to do the same from another angle sees him pinned against a wall and unable to move. Laughalot moves in and uses a wand scorcher then a pair of wand of frost shots. This works well, killing one stalker but we then have to bash it as it remains dead but in place and impassable. Sorrarm gulps 3 blue potions to stay alive and after escaping we clear the area with no further challenge.
Ramazith's tower is next. This time we visit before encountering Ragefast so skulltrap fireball him - in the wrong order so the fireball kills him and the skulltrap blocks the stairs. Sorrarm is thinking he can cast mirror image to deal with it but Laughalot runs into it deliberately. We suspect mirrors would have been no use anyway.
The pair of mustard jellies upstairs take advantage of our unstrategy, with Sorrarm arriving too quickly after Laughalot so we are both targeted. Laughalot is poisoned and Sorrarm slowed so we limp downstairs and Sorrarm uses a special ability to deal with the poison.
A little higher we try scorching the ghasts - it works well but we agree it would be nice to have a special effect as we cross our scorcher streams (who you gonna call - ghastbusters).
A bit higher up the hobgoblins make a mess of Laughalot's spellcasting but we survive. Sorrarm prepares to heal Laughalot but the jester has gone higher as 10hp is more than plenty against the measly kobold commandos of death. Sorrarm races to help but 3 seconds is too late. I think he wanted a cremation - have a fireball.
After a temple revival we decide to rest in order to encounter Brielbara, Laughalot making for a tavern. Not so fast says Sorrarm I was just going to go invisible. Laughalot reluctantly agrees but says we will meet about 27 guards. Might as well see how the taxes are spent says Sorrarm and we rest. Laughalot concedes we only had to rest 24 times so he might have been a bit pessimistic.
On the way to retrieve her spellbook we deal with ennui for a blinded Desreta and a malison stinking cloudstruck Vay-ya.
With a bunch more quests done we decide to investigate the Iron Throne HQ. Three spellcasters are convinced not to see beyond their noses but Alai stubbornly saves (we expected it anyway) so is treated to our stinking cloud malison skulltrap fireball scorcher onslaught. The mortally wounded Zhalimar Cloudewulfe musters his fallen companions against us.
Party gear (Grond0 is carrying the body of Varci Roaringhorn's friend as a reminder not to kill the temple priestess before searching him out - I wish I could say the reminder would work but know Grond0 will do this again at some point)
'Long-life challenge' - Thief to dual to fighter {1} (update 1)
I'm feeling somewhat afflicted with restartitis at the moment. I've started runs with a Priest of Talos and a mage due to dual to a fighter, but don't feel enthused about continuing either of those for now. One of the aims of this challenge is to complete a successful run with at least one of the characters at the first attempt. I've not succeeded in that, at least as yet, and the number of classes not yet tried is steadily shrinking - so I need a spot of inspiration (or, more likely, larger quantities of perspiration ) to hit that target.
Deciding to roll a random selection until I got a new character, I actually managed that at the first attempt - a thief set to dual to fighter. The ability to hide during combat should be pretty useful for a fighter, so I've set the starting class as a shadowdancer. Given the relatively low XP requirements for thieves, I'll probably wait until at least level 13 to dual to maximise future backstab damage
Aiming to avoid any damage for as long as possible, I didn't go straight after Shoal due to the possibility of finding an ambush with an archer on that route. Instead I headed east and shot down an ogre - the piercing belt may help in case I get targeted with the odd missile at some point.
In Beregost, Neera was shot for her gem bag and I also picked up a scroll case and pacified Marl to get my first level up. On the way to Nashkel I recovered Zhurlong's boots and Mirianne's letter. On arrival, a protracted conversation with Noober provided another level before I rested to get Bhaal CLW.
Travelling during daytime to avoid bandit ambushes, I returned to Beregost and bought some +1 bullets. Those soon accounted for the golems at High Hedge to take me to level 4.
That gained me staff proficiency, which is helpful as backstabs will be used more in future as stealth becomes more reliable. Karlat did get backstabbed to death, though there was still a lot of swinging and missing there. While there I killed Algernon - partly for his cloak and partly to reduce reputation with the long term aim of getting Bhaal horror. The first charm victim was Silke who was put to work against the spiders. I intended to get her kill to gain her XP, but the poison tick was a bit quicker than I expected and beat my attempted wand magic missile. Returning Landrin's equipment was still good enough for level 5 though, meaning backstabs now do double damage.
Korax provided an easy source of further XP at the basilisk area and I was soon up to level 6 there. Korax was able to finish off Mutamin and the rest of the basilisks before Algernon's Cloak set Kirian's gang against each other. That left me just a whisker off another level and I hunted down a bear to gain that.
While I thought about it, I nipped over to the next area to get the Ring of Energy from the Red Wizards using a few stealth shots.
On the way to the Nashkel Mine I was ambushed by a bunch of hobgoblin archers. Fortunately I'd remembered not to be hiding when starting the area transition (to avoid being stuck in a stealth cool-down period) and was able to disappear before being targeted. Nearly all skill points to date have gone into stealth, but the traps in Nashkel Mine are easy to disarm to continue to avoid damage there. My backstab damage is still unimpressive, but 4 of those in a row was too much for Mulahey.
Outside the mine I decided not to take the time to stealth shot the amazons and just returned to Nashkel and reported into the mayor. A critical miss meant Nimbul survived the first attempted backstab, but the second was on target and took advantage of his failure to equip a melee weapon. At the inn I failed to hide after trying to backstab Neira and made use of shadowstep for the first time to avoid her retaliation.
There was another opening critical miss against Tranzig, but 3 successes after that did the job while he peered around in confusion trying to identify what that flickering at the corners of his eyes was.
The Bandit Camp is a tricky area to avoid damage due to the presence of lots of archers who can move around and appear unexpectedly. Arriving there by invitation is one way round that, but I didn't bother with that. I could also have just stealthed through to Tazok's tent, but that would mean not being able to run out during combat if necessary - and I also wanted to get Taurgosz's gear first. That was done by charming a succession of bandits to act as a shield as I moved through the area. Taurgosz himself was charmed, but soon threw off the effect after being asked to attack one of his men. When charmed for a second time the others had obviously had enough and a couple of critical hits made short work of him. Inside the tent, Hakt was charmed and died attacking the others. Stealth shots finished off Venkt and then Raemon, leaving Britik helpless. I wasted a potion of absorption there - taking that thinking my 25% trap skill was insufficient to deal with the lightning trap. In fact though I had no trouble disarming the chest. The bracers of weapon expertise found there will significantly improve my attacks.
Here's my character record, reflecting a good start with an impressive 95 total at character creation. That made achieving the 17 for strength, dexterity and charisma necessary to dual a shadowdancer child's play.
So, I've still got my Fighter/Mage waiting in the wings fresh out of the Underdark, but felt like playing a pure arcanist.
I also did not feel like slowly trudging through all of BG1 (since I am utterly confident in my ability to navigate it safely with a full party), so decided to just run it solo.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no level-based damage increase, max hitpoints on level-up enabled.
Mods: Full SCS 34.3, see spoiler for WeiDU.
Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 34.3
Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 34.3
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: 34.3
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: 34.3
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: 34.3
Wider selection of random scrolls: 34.3
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): 34.3
Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): 34.3
Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: 34.3
Faster Bears: 34.3
Improved shapeshifting: 34.3
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: 34.3
Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: 34.3
Ease-of-use party AI: 34.3
Improved textscreens in Tales of the Sword Coast: 34.3
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 34.3
Smarter general AI: 34.3
Better calls for help: 34.3
Smarter Mages: 34.3
Smarter Priests: 34.3
Potions for NPCs: 34.3
Improved Spiders: 34.3
Smarter sirines and dryads: 34.3
Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 34.3
Smarter basilisks: 34.3
Improved doppelgangers: 34.3
Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 34.3
Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 34.3
Improved kobolds: 34.3
Relocated bounty hunters: 34.3
Improved Ulcaster: 34.3
Improved Balduran's Isle: 34.3
Improved Durlag's Tower: 34.3
Improved Demon Cultists: 34.3
Improved Cloakwood Druids: 34.3
Improved Bassilus: 34.3
Improved Drasus party: 34.3
Improved Red Wizards: 34.3
Improved Undercity assassins: 34.3
Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 34.3
Tougher chapter-two end battle: 34.3
Tougher chapter-three end battle: 34.3
Tougher chapter-four end battle: 34.3
Tougher chapter-five end battle: 34.3
Improved final battle: 34.3
Improved minor encounters: 34.3
Protagonist: Aldain, Elven Sorcerer (seems I misplaced a picture of his initial stats, apologies).
Aldain will be cheating slightly: At levels 8, 12, 14, 16 and 18 he will have the spells Minor Sequencer, Contingency, Spell Sequencer, Spell Trigger and Chain Contingency added to his spellbook. No real reason beyond me disliking these spells being spells and not innate abilities (and having to pick them as a Sorcerer limits your already slightly lacklustre spellbook, at least in my view).
This cheat will not extend to any other arcane party members come SoD/BG2. I'll also go for easter eggs, though the only one that will really matter is the Ring of Wizardry at the Friendly Arm Inn.
Aldain starts with proficiency in Slings; for starting spells he has chosen Shield and Blindness.
Aldain, Elven Sorcerer: BG1EE Update 1
Candlekeep is navigated without incident (though stupidly I tackle Shanks and Carbos even though they can sometimes one-hit-kill you). Wouldn't be an issue restarting this early though.
Once out, I pick up Imoen, Xzar and Montoran. I know I said solo: I make a slight allowance to deal with Tarnesh, mainly to get access to Jaheira's Potion of Invisibility. Having gained entrance and looted said three as well as Khalid and Jaheira, the game is afoot! I clear out the local Hobgoblins and return a ring before resting.
Next, I head north to speak with the fishermen and then Tenya. North of her hut I manage to blind the Ankheg, though leave it alone for now since Ankhegs will burrow if they can't see you, and I don't want to risk nipping in and out of its vision to take it down.
Rather, with the Ankheg disabled, I can safely exit the bridge map to the north, opening up the farm.
I do so, but pick up Tenyas bowl from the fishermen first. Returning it to her nets Aldain level 2.
And we're off to the farm to the north. Zombies are just the best at this stage: They're slow melee combatants with dreadful AC and HP that don't even (at least not on this map) call for help. Aldain somewhat slowly picks off all 20 (for a total of 1300 experience), then reports his success for another 800 experience. 2500 + 1300 + 800 = 4600, which combined with what I already had from Candlekeep, Tarnesh and the Hobgoblins, is more than enough for level 3. For my third 1st level spell, I pick Identify: This is really just a convenience pick to make BG1EE a little less annoying, given my very bad lore. I find it doesn't matter much, since by BG2EE I'm usually just casting Magic Missile 90% of the time, interspersed with Shield and the very occasional Blindness. Of course, you could forego identifying things completely when you know what they are... maybe next go-around.
Next, Ulgoth's Beard. I invest some of my meager funds on +2 bullets: I want to take down Thalantyr's guardians before speaking to him. I loop back south, grabbing the Girdle of Piercing on the way; in Beregost I also invest in a Sling +1 (the first, best and last ranged weapon I'll be able to get in BG1EE...). The bullets work wonders: Thalantyr's Flesh Golems are easy targets, and the second kill nets us level 4. Now the game is basically won, unless I severely mess up: Our first level 2 spell pick is of course Invisibility.
From now on, I'll always travel invisibly. Heading down towards Nashkel, I clear out the two easy areas with Ogrillons/Hobgoblins. I take a small risk in triggering the Dorn ambush, but as expected the two bow-wielding bandits fail to scratch me owing to Shield and the Girdle of Piercing. Next, Greywolf falls, after about (no joke) 15 minutes of hide-and-seek: He roams incessantly when blinded. That wasn't great fun.
Anyway, that's another fair bit of experience. Returning to Beregost, I pick up the Potion Case and two scrolls of Strength from Thalantyr. Using one of them lets me bash open the chest containing The Stupefier +1 (which I of course immediately sell), and I also gain entrance to the local manor house while under its influence (though cannot bash anything inside). I also nip down into Bassilus' area, rescue Melicamp, and he actually survives his transformation. Huzzah, level 5! Now we're getting places. I pick Magic Missile and Mirror Image for 1st and 2nd level spells, and we now have both defensive and offensive options besides wands.
I celebrate by taking on the Red Wizards after Neira, in order to swipe her Gem Bag (I don't feel right shooting her down). I manage to interrupt the Mage before he does anything, and he drops with a second Magic Missile. Around here I do almost all of the Beregost quests as well, but leave Silke alone (not worth the risk for meager experience and treasure).
Instead, I nip off to Firewine Bridge: Given how much I'm relying on my sling, I'd like the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. Meilum is not-so-happy to oblige.
With solid (well..) equipment and mighty (well....) spellworks at my disposal, it's time for experience bonanza: Basilisk Garden!
And it goes rather well. The only real threat once you grab Korax is Mutamin, and he fails to make an impression; though I have to eat a Melf's Acid Arrow.
With the singular threat removed, the local basilisks yield a treasure trove of experience: Enough to easily carry Aldain to level six. Proficiency in Darts follows, and for Aldain's first 3rd level spell, I pick Melf's Minute Meteors. This becomes less and less impressive as you level, but it's typically quite useful against chaff, and it will make BG1EE less of a chore. There's still more experience to be had, though: I journey to Durlag's Tower and tackle the Battle Horrors and such outside. The second such creature propels Aldain to level seven (as you can tell, one of them got a good lick in). I pick Chromatic Orb, Blur and Skull Trap for 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spells.
I finish clearing the Battle Horrors on the ramparts, take a detour west of Nashkel to help out Charleston Nib, kill a Doomsayer and return Brage, then finally visit Thalantyr and purchase scrolls of Protection from Acid. Thus well-protected, I clear out in detail the Ankheg nest as well as any I manage to find outside. I take a single critical hit for my efforts, so probably the acid-immunity was overkill. Journeying north, taking out the Ankheg by Tenyas hut is just enough for level 8. Finally, relative safety: I pick Stoneskin as my first 4th level spell.
There's still experience to be had. I swing by the Tombs east of Nashkel and grab a Wand of Monster Summoning (killing the Revenant and assorted undead whilst there), then it's Ulgoth's Beard for the Greenstone Amulet: The latter is swiftly put to use dismantling the local Sirene infestation on the western coast. Naturally, the local Flesh Golems don't fare well against Melf's Minute Meteors either.
Running a little low on obvious targets, but there's Basilisks in that there tower! I pick up the free-of-charge Potion of Mirrored Eyes from Ulcaster's School, and go after them. And sure enough, our efforts pay off: The experience is more than sufficient to propel Aldain to his final BG1EE level, that of level 9.
I pick Melf's Acid Arrow, Spell Thrust and Spider Spawn for 2nd, 3rd and 4th level spells. Perhaps slightly unorthodox choices: Spell Thrust is useful right now for helping to deal with enemy mages. It's also good for early BG2EE, and later it's a cheap way to remove Spell Shield. Spider Spawn is more debatable, but I very much like having a decent summon available at every spell level when possible. Also, with the exception of Greater Malison and possibly Mordenkainen's Missiles, nothing else on spell level 4 is (that) impressive to me. As mentioned, Aldain also gets Minor Sequencer; very useful that (I enjoy 2x Melf's Acid Arrow as a follow-up to Spell Thrust, still great even in BG2EE).
I forget why exactly; probably I was low on gold (but also wanted the Charisma tome). But I head west of Nashkel for a short while, mess up slightly at the Gnoll Fortress and end up having to Skull Trap myself. There were a LOT of Gnolls boxing me in...
But with that bit of nastiness behind me, it's high time to get out of here (BG1EE that is). Mulahey succumbs to Phase Spider poison, Nimbul has no good answer to the spider menace either (netting me a scroll of Find Familiar and thus +6 HP); not even Tranzig finds a solution to the poison conumdrum. Amazons too feel the (spider) burn.
I see no reason to take on the Bandit Camp (or for that matter risk a close-quarters confrontation with Venkt), so simply quaff a Potion of Absorption, grab the letters, cast Invisibility, and bugger off (snickering slightly as Raemon gets fried by the lightning bolt). On the way back, Molkar and cronies ambush me, but have little response to a Spider onslaught: I had a moment of sheer terror when Halacan tagged Aldain with a Chromatic Orb, but realized that the latter is actually so low level his Chromatic Orb cannot stun.
Onto Cloakwood. I skip nearly all the encounters, though opt to defend Aldeth so I later have the option to help him in Baldur's Gate, should I be starved for gold. The advantage of being solo is it's very easy to wait out enemy buffs: I feed Drasus and friends a spider, then hang around invisibly until Drasus' Potion of Magic Shielding wears off, at which point I just pick them off one by one.
Inside the mines, Hareishan neglects MGoI in her prebuffs, and a single Skull Trap spells her end. Natasha and the Ogre Mage amazingly both fall to Phase Spider poison. At some point SCS Davaeorn starts fighting you the moment his dialogue triggers (and he notices you even if invisible), but he won't actually engage you if he can't see you: He will have guards arriving every few rounds until there's about two dozen of them though. I clear out the two Battle Horrors, then go invisible, head to the other side of Dave's abode, and wait a few turns. Once all guards have shown up (and clumped up around Dave), I let loose with a few Skull Trap. Unfortunately I end up taking Dave down along with all the guards... wasn't my intent, but eh (he should have MGoI up).
Alright, good stuff. We're getting close to the end: I just need to take down the Red Wizards in spider forest (with the help of some summons, of course), since I want to bring The Victor with me to SoD. They put up a seriously good fight, but it's mostly safe: I get blinded at one point and have to wait it out invisibly, and Denak manages to nail me with a Vitriolic Sphere. That might've turned bad, but I made my save and only took about 20 damage, and Denak was basically out of spells by that point.
Baldur's Gate! I do mostly only the bare necessities, beyond picking up the tomes of course. Closest shave consisted of me underestimating Ramazith by not applying a Greenstone Amulet charge before assaulting his tower: I had to save against a Confusion (successfully), and a 2x Horror Minor Sequencer (not successfully...). Thankfully he was almost dead by then, and my 2x Melf's Acid Arrow Minor Sequencer was able to finish him off.
Back to Candlekeep. I quaff an Invisibility Potion to save myself from the Ogre Magi, then promptly buff up, turn around and annihilate them for their gems. Rushing through the catacombs, I make sure to pick up the tomes, having saved a few scrolls of Knock. I ignore Prat and friends, but take down the Greater Basilisks on the way, strictly for the gems.
Back in Baldur's Gate, I shop a fair bit: Recharge The Victor and the Greenstone Amulet, buy 2x Wand of Monster Summoning, some scrolls (Greater Malison/Chaos to help with the palace fight, and Animate Dead... though a single 3HD Skeleton won't really matter, I'm sure) and potions to boot. Cythandria has no answer to excessive summons, and Slythe is swiftly burned down. Krystin as always is a pain, Confusing my summons, with predictable results.
I had to risk nipping in there to take my own summons down; which I managed, and then just ran off, leaving Krystin to simmer.
Alright, palace fight. With this character (I imagine most characters actually) the make-or-break point of the whole game. I buff up a little, mostly elemental immunities and an Oil of Speed, then engage. No summons really hamstrings me, and the Doppleganger Mage is an absolute pain: I manage to confuse three Greater Dopplegangers, but he dispels it! Seems he went heavy on Dispel/Remove Magic and protections though, as he fails to make much of an impression beyond just surviving the longest.
Sadly, Belt was already at Near Death, and Sarevok finishes the job in one swing. I have to risk getting close to occupy his attention, but manage to hang on long enough: Liia survives and teleports us off in pursuit.
I rush through the maze: Full resistance to Fire and Lighting along with Shield and Stoneskin ensures my safety. Tamoko is dismantled, I rest up, and it's time. Oil of Speed, full elemental protections (completely unnecessary and swiftly dispelled, as it will turn out), Dexterity at 25 (also dispelled...), and I forgot applying my two Potions of Power (I'm sure they'd get dispelled too though).
I send an initial wave of crud summons in, followed by a Chaos. And luck out: Semaj fails his save! Some dancing back and forth, and a few Melf's Acid Arrow, later, he falls without incident.
Yeah, apparently Angelo can target you with Remove Magic even if you go invisible mid-cast. I reapply basic buffs and set about returning the favor.
With no enemy magic users left, there's not really any threat, unless I get overconfident. I do not: The Skeleton Warriors are slowly but surely sling-shotted down, interspersed with me popping Wand of Fire Scorchers at Tazok (he has good resistance but he's not immune). Tazok drops, and while I run circles around Sarevok, Diarmid's scroll of Protection from Magic wears out: He fries in short order. With nothing but a few Skeleton Warrior cronies remaining, Sarevok stands no chance. A barrage of Magic Missile and sling bullets spell his end.
Good show! Aldain successfully navigates BG1EE solo! I take a minute to import him into SoD and edit his starting inventory slightly (basically removing almost everything except the stuff I'll import into BG2EE, a literal handful of starting consumables/bullets, and some of the gear he has equipped). Aldain finishes BG1EE as a level 9 Elven Sorcerer. His known spells are, in order picked:
L1: Blindness, Shield, Identify, Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb
L2: Invisibility, Mirror Image, Blur, Melf's Acid Arrow
L3: Melf's Minute Meteors, Skull Trap, Spell Thrust
L4: Stoneskin, Spider Spawn
And here he is, in all his post-tome glory:
Aldain will return in SoD (when I have the time to play next...).
After resting to get Bhaal horror, I set off through the Cloakwood. I couldn't find the web traps, so pulled the ettercap guardians away and backstabbed those individually. At the mine, Kysus was charmed and pulled away. He targeted himself with a Melf's acid arrow before a fatal backstab landed. Rezdan survived a similar combination, but had already summoned some monsters and was finished off by them. Genthore was charmed and killed by Drasus - his own charm had quickly disappeared, but with no-one else in sight Drasus continued pummeling him even after he was no longer on my side. Drasus himself was nearly killed by a Black Talon and finished off with LMD.
Inside the mine, I avoided combat on the way downstairs - though I did speak to Rill. A potion of magic blocking allowed me to trigger the traps without damage. I then spent quite a while backstabbing the battle horrors, though stealth never failed during that. Davaeorn was next and he was finished off with a nice critical to get me to level 8. I'd charmed the guard at the entrance and kept him back until now in order to allow him to act as a target for the mustard jelly. I rested to get a second Bhaal horror before flooding the mine and getting a reputation boost from the escaped slave.
Further reputation gains from Officer Vai, Mr Colquetle and Oublek only required a bit of running around. Hulrik admired the sling work on the xvarts attacking his cow, while Greywolf was subjected to the more normal backstab attacks. Samuel got a lift back to the FAI, where Joia was waiting to collect her ring. On the way to collect the charisma tome, Caldo & Krumm were forcibly persuaded to leave a tree alone and Drienne was reunited with her stray cat. That pushed reputation to 19 before the last increase was awarded by Farmer Brun after I'd sneaked into the ankheg nest to loot that. The ankhegs there are reasonably easy to backstab, but I decided I had enough XP and didn't need to take even a slight risk of taking damage there.
A bit of shopping followed before I went to Durlag's Tower and tried out my new staff on the battle horrors. Three potions of perception allowed me to deal with some traps, while the tome was recovered using the Greenstone Amulet. Riggilo was backstabbed after taking the lock of hair. The basilisks were stealth shot with stunning darts. The first of the greater ones got me to level 9, increasing my backstab damage to x3 against the second. The third couldn't be shot from the edge of sight range and there was therefore the possibility of showing myself if stealth failed - that did indeed happen, so I had to hastily use a potion of mirror eyes. It still took a while after that to put the basilisk out of action, but eventually that was done without the need to get out a second potion.
On leaving Durlag's Tower I forgot to come out of stealth before travelling. That resulted in a first use of an invisibility potion to ensure I protected my undamaged status from the ambushing hobgoblins.
While thinking about locations of tomes I decided to head for the Lighthouse area to pick up the constitution tome before I forget about that again. On the way I paid a belated visit to Shoal. I decided to bypass the sirines rather than risk being caught out by the way they move around. The golems in the cave can also be difficult as a result of their movement and their immunity to backstabs meant a number of attacks each were needed - but eventually the job was done and I'm ready to move on to work in Baldur's Gate itself.
In the City I was fairly restrained in the amount of encounters done. Ramazith was backstabbed to get his ring and I sneaked up the tower to take the intelligence tome. I also grabbed another book there and trading that in to the local bard got me my final BGEE level.
I picked up the Helm of Balduran, as I would want that as a fighter in BG2 (I hadn't got the Claw or Horn, so I think it should transfer by default anyway, but just to make sure ...). I just sneaked in to Degrodel on the way to collect a matching cloak from Quenash - a stunned Larze taking 6 backstabs to finish off on the way. Killing Ragefast was done to get me yet another cloak.
The poison quest saw Lothander make a successful getaway, but Marek stuck around to supply me with a decent shortbow. I also picked up a wisdom tome along the way - though that's in the category of nice to have rather than actually being useful.
At the Iron Throne I was originally planning to just sneak through. However, I decided I wanted Alai's ring of free action and took that from under the group's noses.
The Seven Suns saw 5 attacks resulting in 5 dead dopplegangers. That allowed me to report to Duke Eltan for duty in Candlekeep. My basic detect traps skill was now up to 90, so the traps there were no trouble. I used a potion of master thievery to be able to loot the tombs, though even with that still needed to add DUHM to get the strength tome. The only fighting on the way out was against the basilisks - I thought I might as well use up one of the PfP green scrolls I'd acquired. The first of the basilisks gave me easily my best backstab to date - hitting 3 figures. The second survived 2 backstabs, but the third of those was another century!
After resting to get another DUHM I was about to go in search of Slythe, but briefly stopped off first to see what valuables Sunin might be carrying. Slythe himself survived 4 hits from stunning darts and I eventually decided to revert to basic backstabs.
The palace is a potentially dangerous encounter, both from the point of view of the dukes being vulnerable and the possibility of me taking damage. As a result I resorted to more underhanded tactics than usual and charmed a couple of the dopplegangers before initiating the combat (without considering the dangers of using tactics you're not used to - see below ). I waited for a moment after that and saw that all the remaining 4 dopplegangers seemed to be focusing on the dukes - but as soon as I started casting Bhaal horror one of them changed direction and headed for me. Rather than complete the spell I retreated into a side room and hid before coming back to help Belt. Even with only 4 of them, they still managed to get Belt down to badly wounded, as well as killing Liia. There was then a long wait for the dopplegangers to appear - but only 1 of them did so. Investigating, I found a suspicious body on the floor where I'd left one of the charmed nobles. It's a long time since I've used this tactic, so I guess something has changed in the game such that the Flaming Fist may now be able to sense the underlying nature of the nobles even if they don't change shape - or perhaps it's just one of those glitches which can make completing the game a problem .
Belt of course was not satisfied that the palace had been cleared of trouble, so I had to abandon the game there.
That's a shame as things had gone well to avoid damage in the run up to then ...
@aldain Nice! I enjoy reading about heavy SCS playthroughs.
Regarding Greywolf I feel you, the absolute worst is when you land Blind on him after he chugs oil of speed. Meilum is the same. He doesnt have oil of speed but he can wander off into kobolds pack and they in turn can land nasty 35dmg crit
Area of effect spells like Dispel Magic or Horrid Wilting can be unforutnately casted on you if the mage targeted you before turning invisible.
-10 rep from summons always hurts but nothing like ending your run in palace fight because of chaosed Hobgoblin
Also you can safely skip ankheg north of Tenya house. His speed factor is crap and he wont have time to land attack on you if you just run north to world map travel.
At higher levels no-reloads (without metagaming) is close to a non-sense. There could be a something like demi-lich, suddenly appearing and casting Imprisonment (with no saving throws). U just can't be constantly ready to all instant death spells etc. 😎
All this no-reloading idea is a huge BS. On the contrary, use your defeats as an experience to improve your tactics, without reloading the whole game. 😎
After the disappointing ending of the previous run I felt I had something to prove and immediately generated another new class - again randomly selected from those not yet attempted. This is a multi-class cleric mage, though I've set it up as a gnome to get the shorty bonuses - so the mage class is actually illusionist.
Trying once more to avoid any damage in BGEE, I practised safe travel in the first few maps before the basilisks got me up to level 5/4. Kirian's party were totally helpless against abilities including blindness, silence, hold person, stinking cloud and skeletons.
I moved on to High Hedge to purchase invisibility, killing the golems on arrival there. That was helped by using the spell Shillelagh and dual wielding a morning star with that - it's generally possible to dual wield without suffering the normal penalties when magical weapons are created.
With invisibility allowing safe travel (assuming I always remember to cast it), I could do a quick tour of the Sword Coast, concentrating on reputation quests. With so many spells available there was no point in manipulating reputation to get Bhaal LMD or horror, so it didn't take long to hit the maximum 20 by returning Brage to Nashkel - though I did have a glitch during that with Drienne when I forgot that this character doesn't have the same charisma as the last one .
I got another illusionist level from the relatively small XP earned for those reputation quests. Then I went to the Lighthouse in search of something a bit more worth my time. The first group of sirines quickly fell before skeletons in a stinking cloud, while the second group suffered in silence - that got me a 6th cleric level. Inside the cave I used a PfM scroll to trigger all the traps before killing the golems in the same way as at High Hedge.
In Beregost I killed some sleeping spiders and then returned various goods to Landrin while I was picking up the pantaloons. Then it was on to Durlag's Tower where killing a couple of blinded battle horrors was enough for a 6th mage level. I used MSD to get the tome and go past the trap on the roof without damage where skeletons sorted out the basilisks. That gave me a 7th cleric level and access to even stronger skeletons.
I sneaked through the Nashkel Mine, using mirror images to avoid damage from the traps. One of the lesser known effects of the luck spell is that it affects the chances of hits being on mirrors rather than you - and any positive luck ensures that any hits will always target your mirrors. Mulahey was silenced and commanded to die.
Outside the mine, the amazons were put to the (skeleton) sword gaining me a 7th illusionist level (the last level available in BGEE). I reported in at Nashkel and silenced Nimbul for easy disposal. Tranzig gave away the location of the Bandit Camp despite being another silent victim.
The exterior of the Bandit Camp was much easier for this character, thanks to the use of skeletons. I used DUHM to break open a chest with a fireball scroll to provide a bit more offensive punch to my mage spell selection. There was no need for fireball inside Tazok's tent though - blindness and stinking cloud making things ridiculously easy for the skeletons anyway. I used my own protection from lightning spell against the trap.
Before moving on to the Cloakwood I robbed the ankheg nest and did a bit more shopping at Ulgoth's Beard. Invisibility then took me through to the mine, where blindness, stinking cloud and skeletons made the usual short work of Drasus. I sneaked through the mine and used a magic blocking potion and sanctuary to clear the traps at the bottom. Three malisoned fireballs killed one of the battle horrors. Davaeorn was then silenced before the other battle horror was finished off. The mage failed to recover his speech before skeletons helped take him down.
With plenty of cash by this stage I splurged on a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi before heading for Baldur's Gate. The usual suspects there included grabbing the tomes, +2 ring, Helm & Cloak of Balduran. With so many spells now available multiple encounters could be done without resting, even without using items. Thus for instance the poison quest saw Jalantha blinded, Lothander surrounded by skeletons, Larze blinded and overcome by malisoned emotion and Marek disabled by stinking cloud and silence before being blinded. I avoided conflict at the Iron Throne and let skeletons do the hard work at the Seven Suns before returning to Candlekeep.
Looting the tombs was safely done with mirrors/luck stopping the spike trap, MSD for magic missile and lightning & fire protection for the elemental damage. There was an interesting feature with the phase spiders where 3 of the 4 were disabled by emotion - but that still didn't prevent them teleporting around while unconscious. I left the dopplegangers and Prat's gang undisturbed and just killed the basilisks on the way out.
Back in Baldur's Gate I bought a last few spells before going to find Slythe. He and Krystin lost out to skeletons.
At the palace a typical cleric would be able to summon 5 skeletons. Being a gnome, with reduced wisdom, I could only do 4 - and that required replacing my +2 ring with Mulahey's ring. I didn't bother summoning an animal or monster as well, but just released chaos (from scroll) once the dopplegangers had changed form. That broke up the attack and both Belt and Liia survived.
I remembered to use protection against the traps in the maze and bypassed the Undercity party. I did stop off though with the aim of killing the skeleton warriors while a PfU scroll was still active. That nearly proved costly though when I minimised, but didn't pause the game, during a RL interruption. That took longer than expected and I came back to the game to find a skeleton warrior shooting at me - I suspect the Shield of Falling Stars saved me from damage there and I used an invisibility potion to make sure the skeleton warrior got no more chances.
Inside the temple I used the lightning trap to kill Semaj, Tazok and Angelo. Sarevok was then invited out to play, but he was already badly hurt and quickly finished off by skeletons.
I needed a bit of luck at the end there, but that's BGEE out of the way without taking any damage. I'm much less practised at doing that in SoD, but I'll see how far I can go undamaged in that as well.
Cleric 7 / Illusionist 7, 52 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar, 5 from helm), 146 kills
Yigor, to be fair, the noreload thread is about the only regularly updating thread on the whole forum.
That is because people still find a challenge in doing them and sharing their experiences. Normal play... I sadly do not think people come to share their experiences much for those runs 10 years after the EE releases and almost 25 years after the originals.
I really appreciate the planning that comes to mind when doing a noreload, especially on the high level difficulties where one mistake may indeed kill the run.
I am still planning my bg2 run, thinking about the path I can confidently take.
Mind you, I reload when certain seeming bugs end the run for inexplicable reasons and I prevent the conditions in which they seem to happen.
Yigor, to be fair, the noreload thread is about the only regularly updating thread on the whole forum.
That is because people still find a challenge in doing them and sharing their experiences. Normal play... I sadly do not think people come to share their experiences much for those runs 10 years after the EE releases and almost 25 years after the originals.
I really appreciate the planning that comes to mind when doing a noreload, especially on the high level difficulties where one mistake may indeed kill the run.
I am still planning my bg2 run, thinking about the path I can confidently take.
Mind you, I reload when certain seeming bugs end the run for inexplicable reasons and I prevent the conditions in which they seem to happen.
@Yigor No-reload is something that completely ressurected my interest in Baldurs Gate after completing it many, many times with various mods, difficulties, handicaps and strategies. If I remember, my two last long runs I did were looking very close to no-reload anyway with 1-2 deaths for whole playthrough. In both of them I got bored and abandonded them somewhere around Yaga-Shura in ToB. Tough fights with lots of prebuffing and planning made me quit most of time in ToB. Now in no-reload ToB is what Im most eager for.
About being constantly immune to instant-death effect the answer is: yes you can. There are few demiliches in the game and someone who tries no-reload on maximum difficulties should know exact location of them and how to protects himself. Game is rather fair towards players. Even with things like SCS or Ascension you wont suddenly get obliterated out of nowhere just because. Unless ofcourse you are playing some crazy mod like Improved Anvil or old Tactics which had ridiculous fights with ridiculous effects or could spawn group of deadly bounty hunters around you just after happily walking out of shop.
You want imprisonment without save rolls? Fine, I cast Spell Immunity: Abjuration. Its castable whenever you want and with both amulet of power and robes of vecna its instant. Spell turning/Spell Deflection/Spell Trap should also work. I forgot there are no saves for this so probably my spell armor made them neglect trying imprisonment at all.
It can get tedious or boring for some, having to prepare and buff yourself constantly. At some point in game you have to do full prebuff before every major fight which happens one after another. Because as Iroumen have said, you forget one spell and you are dead.
Im not sure what do you exactly mean about metagaming in this case. If its about class/items choice then I agree. I dont think its possible to complete the game with maximum difficulty and mods without having access to arcane spells. Or truly abusing the shit out of game.
I transferred from BGEE with 320k XP, so was immediately able to level up to cleric 8 / illusionist 9. I don't know the traps in the starting dungeon as well as the original games, but a combination of MGoI, mirrors, luck, protection from fire and lightning fended off everything on the way to Korlasz - though the final dispel trap got rid of all my initial buffs and I had to rest following that. It was only when I started in the dungeon that I realised I'd forgotten the Ring of Energy, which is my standard method against Korlasz. However, a frost wand provided an adequate replacement and a couple of blasts from that led Korlasz to surrender.
In Baldur's Gate I stripped the bodies of a few NPCs to supplement the 40k worth of items brought through from BGEE in my containers. The only real quest done was to get the Battle Tankard helmet, which protects against fatigue. While doing that I stayed out of the way and just let skeletons hunt down Korlasz. I purchased lots more scrolls to learn, including stoneskin which could potentially be helpful in preventing the odd bit of damage.
Arriving at the Coast Way Crossing I went straight to the bridge, under sanctuary, to talk with Caelar. Then it was on to the Forest of Wyrms via the Troll Claw Woods. I sneaked into the cave where stoneskin protected my tender parts from a spike trap. Protection from fire was used to go past the trap near Ziatar, though the Cloak of Balduran deflected that blast anyway. Repeated wand blasts from out of sight then killed Ziatar.
I buffed saving throws into negative territory with 3 stone form potions and used protection from poison before running past the Neothelid. Protection from fire was also applied once more against a trap in the corridor there. A couple of scorchers and MMM made short work of Akanna and I grabbed the wardstone and ran before the Neothelid could arrive to block the entrance. Generally I do tackle Morentherene, even with clerics, but decided this time to let sleeping dragons lie. On the way to Boareskyr Bridge though another dragon was calling for help. I tried to kill it as it ran away, but it survived by the skin of its teeth.
At Boareskyr Bridge skeletons killed Vichand before he had time to call for help. I waited for daytime to avoid a Greater Feyr appearing on the roof, then reported to Khalid and repaired the magical defenses of the fort. The voidstone shards were made into bullets. I surrendered the fort, to leave just the mage on the bridge as an opponent. I was concerned about that encounter as I normally use the Ring of Energy to disrupt the mage's spells. Buffing with potions of mind focusing and power and the extra APR from hasted MMMs proved enough to get through initially, but the mage managed to survive that assault and launch a lightning bolt. Unfortunately I hadn't buffed against that and my aura was clouded because I hadn't noticed that the cut scene when surrendering the fort had deleted my stoneskin - and I had to re-establish that when the guards finished off my skeletons and turned on me. Fortunately though the Cloak of Balduran kicked in again and I resisted the spell - and just as fortunately the lightning bolt didn't bounce back and destroy the barrels on the bridge. A second later and one more hit on the mage finished him and dealing with the others was then no problem.
On the way to the Coalition Camp I came across some orcs and trolls fighting. I just used sanctuary there to nip in to the cave and pick up the Firefly sling, rather than fighting anything. At the Camp I used the Spectacles of Spectacle to summon Nazramu. He not only has some nice items to sell himself, but also buys at better prices than other shops.
After picking up the Bwoosh and poison I left the Camp again. I travelled first invisible to Dragonspear, where Skie was saved. Then it was on to the Underground River. Various buffs were used to defend against the traps that litter the area, while skeletons saw off some myconids and spiders. The wand of paralyzation set up the cyclops for a quick kill and I used a potion of invisibility to nip past the guards to get to the underground entrance. I also got the XP for cleric level 9 there.
Inside, my low charisma meant I had to shoot down the Ettin Ghost in order to place the Bwoosh. I got into the Warrens by putting a potion of firebreath into the firepit as a distraction. Sanctuary allowed me to poison the food and water before I showed myself to get Hephernaan to reopen the lift. Then I just ran away invisibly.
Back at the Coalition Camp I prepared for the enemy invasion. On the way one of the enemy fireballs hit me and my skeleton army - but all of us had already been protected against fire. Scorchers did the hard work against the orcs and trolls, but all my skeletons perished during that. I didn't have time to get them back before the mage invasion - they were mainly dealt with by the wizard slayers, though I lobbed a few fireballs from a distance and helped shoot the last few. That also got me to the XP cap and a 10th illusionist level. Scorchers were again the main event for the next group, though once more my skeletons paid for my progress with their (un)lives. That meant I asked Dosia for rejuvenation for the second time, putting an end to her trials of life.
The final group proved too much for my defenses. When playing I thought I'd been hit with an acid arrow spell, but checking the screenshot shows it was actually an acid arrow fired by Lannac that caused my first damage of the run. A long-lasting insect plague type effect subsequently got me for lots of damage and I used 3 potions of power and one of regeneration to stay alive before some summoned monsters eventually allowed me to triumph.
At the siege of Dragonspear Ashatiel suggested single combat, but appeared to be rather less prepared for that than I was - and fell victim to a single shot of the paralyzation wand. Inside Hell I was no longer worried about avoiding damage and just ran around shooting various devils until Thrix allowed me to progress onwards. Longer lasting buffs were used before the ride up the Hellevator, along with skeletons to deal with the groups of enemies. Five Champion Strength scrolls were used just before the top, so they were still active when the combat with Belhifet began. Caelar was kept going with restoration scrolls, while the Battle Tankard protected me from fatigue. That allowed my sling to do decent damage to Belhifet and he fell reasonably early in the contest.
The epilogue was safely negotiated, allowing me to move on to Amn. It was a bit disappointing to take damage during that, but I wasn't really expecting success (and I'd already had a big piece of luck when resisting a lightning bolt earlier). Maybe next time I'll do better (but probably not ).
Cleric 9 / Illusionist 10, 65 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar, 5 from helm), 237 kills
@Rayga I think that no-reload is not my style. 😎 I'm just too lazy to constantly buff myself in advance. 😜
Also, I usually play on HoF or LoB and it gives enough challenge even with tons of reloads. ⚔️
@Yigor everyone's different of course - I think your taste for LoB is not typical. I quite like it myself though . If you ever find that it needs freshening up, it's amazing how creative you can be to find ways round LoB even playing no-reload - this thread is a challenge about completing the game playing solo, no-reload. There's a lot of information there, including plenty of possible strategies which you might be interested in whether playing no-reload or not and in a party or solo.
Just had a mage/thief run where I was killed by doppelgangers in the basement at Durlag's. It was highly entertaining as my tactics had to change drastically. Web combined with area affect spells was the go to tactic once I had pickpocketted the ring to protect from hold. All the basilisks and ankheg had been killed, sleep being quite effective in the early stages. For some reason later on the ankheg were much less likely to sleep and other tactics were needed. I think that I will now try another run without trying the lower reaches of Durlags until later.
Just had a mage/thief run where I was killed by doppelgangers in the basement at Durlag's. It was highly entertaining as my tactics had to change drastically. Web combined with area affect spells was the go to tactic once I had pickpocketted the ring to protect from hold. All the basilisks and ankheg had been killed, sleep being quite effective in the early stages. For some reason later on the ankheg were much less likely to sleep and other tactics were needed. I think that I will now try another run without trying the lower reaches of Durlags until later.
Durlag's Tower is tough for low-leveled chars. Long time ago, I somehow finished it from scratch, going there directly from the Candlekeep (with tons of reloads). ⚔️
I'm back, and I've re-installed SCS, with a full installation on tactical difficulty / core rules. There's one multiclass not yet in the hall - one that should've gotten there a long time ago, back when ranger/clerics got access to druid spells pre-EE, making them quite powerful, especially in terms of their defensive abilities. Nowadays, they are pretty much just worse fighter/clerics, so I can understand why they don't see much play anymore. Back in the BGT days, I did play a solo ranger/cleric, but I failed the run at some point - I can't remember when, exactly.
This time around, I'm playing with a custom party of 5 (now that I've done a duo run, a trio, a solo with my FMT, and many full party runs, I'm also looking to do no-reload runs with all possible party sizes - 5 and 4 still to go). Our protagonist is Gardi:
Despite totemic druid being my favorite class, I've not used them much in SCS runs due to the druid nerfs (specifically the insect plague nerf) introduced by that mod - but SCS mages don't all use fire shield anymore in modern versions, and insect plague is obviously not all druids are good for. Usually, I only have one "full" caster in my custom groups, and at least three fighter-types, so this group is a bit caster heavy - however, that does give us access to a bunch of powerful save-or-else spells early on, and with a total of four spellcasters able to use these right away (command, 2*blindness, sunscorch), I felt no fear when challenging potentially dangerous SCS spellcasters right away. After all, if they fail one of these 4 saving throws, they're basically done.
Pietro's access to spirit animals is incredibly powerful until at least mid to late SoA. Case in point, we face Tarnesh right away, and, wouldn't you know it, he fails to save against spirit serpent poison:
Seems a bit mad to go for Silke at level 1 with SCS installed, but I've noticed that she doesn't seem to pre-buff anymore in modern SCS versions (though I'm not 100% sure about that) - still, I gambled that she would fail at least one of four possible saving throws, and she did:
All I had to do now was stay away from her and shoot.
Instead of going for some quick experience scheme like basilisk or ankheg hunting, taking down sirens of flesh golems, I decided to just play standard and safely took down level-appropriate quests and encounters one by one. Not so level-appropriate was an early attack on Bassilus, because I wanted his hammer. He does have sixth level spells, and he summoned an Aerial servant at the start of combat, which I didn't notice (due them starting invisible and me not checking the very crowded combat log). While Bassilus himself got blinded, his aerial servant could've killed any of our characters with a single hit - he ended up taking down our summoned spirit snake, which was incredibly luckily, because the hit was for about 60 damage and propably would've chunked any of my characters. Now, with the aerial servant visible, it was easy to kite him around while taking down Bassilus from a safe range before leaving the area:
At around level 4, we experienced our first character death, as a careless Andi got too close to an ogre, who took him out with a single hit:
Andi fell again when facing the gibberling horde in the west, helping Laurel, due to an unfortunate crit while already low on hit points:
After a quick resurrection at the temple, we had now explored all western areas except for the two at the coast, plus some of the easier ones to the west, and felt ready for the Nashkel mines (though being ready for them is less about the mines themselves, and more about being ready to face the ambushing bounty hunters that can spawn after that while travelling). Gardi did well here, silencing the kobold shaman:
And hitting Mulahey with hold person:
Nimbul, our first enemy with access to stoneskin, was poisoned by another spirit snake before his pre-buffs fired up - just like Tarnesh did:
After taking care of the mines, we bought a few spellscrolls for Illuminata. Now, with double webs at our disposal, taking out enemy adventuring groups was rather easy, and we had the required PFP spells to challenge the basilisks:
With some wands at my disposal by now, I also gathered some experience at the outer and upper levels of Durlag's tower, though I left the ghost for later. Right now, I don't have the tools to hurt him, especially not while staying alive. Durlag's takes us to cleric level 5 on Gardi, which in turn allows us to sumon skeletons for an easy time with enemy sirens:
After clearing the flesh golem cave with some magical ammo, we got our first bounty hunter ambush:
At this point, I was just looking for some extra scraps of experience in the wilderness areas, even taking on the red wizards (webbing them from the fog of war after scouting with invisibility):
On the way to Gullykin, we got our second bounty hunter ambush - we were prepared for this, with Andi casting haste, allowing our vulnerable characters to run around in large circles while Pietro got busy casting detect invisibility, thus taking away the chance of getting chunked via backstabs:
The Firewine Ruins were surprisingly not that annoying this time around:
However, improved Icharyd certainly was. Because he is able to change the time of day, pre-buffing is kind of pointless, and he and his weather effect lightning strikes hit really hard - Hans passed out after we won the battle due to his enrage timer ending:
The Wolf of Ulcaster was much less of a threat, because I was able to fully buff before challenging it:
With that, we had only Kahrk left in the wilderness. I wanted cleric level 7 to deal with him (for better skeleton warriors), so I entered the Bandit Camp instead. Our forest beings did a great job here, actually holding the enemy wizard, which I didn't even notice until I went further into the camp when most of the fighting was over. I only used one necklace of missles charge for a huge group of bandits - all in all, it was a one-sided slaughter:
At the entrance of the Cloakwood Mines, I used my webs again to get the boots of speed:
Making my way down the mines, a few summons and wand charges helped with the dangerous spellcasters down there, and I prepared for Davaeorn. However, I misclicked, accidentally using the PfM scroll I wanted for Hansi with Pietro. Still, he ran towards the wizard and used his wand of the heavens to deal with the battle horrors. With the others remaining near the entrance, I waited for some of D's buffs to run out, took down a few incoming guards and when the wizard teleported to the entrance of his lair, he was killed in an all-out assault, with a wand of fire getting the last damage in despite his high fire resistance:
Before entering Baldur's Gate, I quickly did two of the EE companion quests - first Neera's: Silenced red wizards aren't very scary.
Next, Dorn's (had to lower my reputation by getting caught stealing in Beregost a few times) - didn't even lose a hit point:
Now, a bunch of easy city quests, finally getting a +2 axe for Hansi as well. Nothing interesting happened here. We eventually climbed the Iron Throne, threw down five fireballs and an insect plague and achieved a relatively quick victory:
All the city questing (and eventually, Rasaad's quest) got us to our seventh cleric level. With improved skeleton warriors, we felt capable of challenging two enemies we left for later - the Durlag's ghost first:
Kahrk next. Now, here is how I did the fight: Start with two spirit animals and three skeletons, everyone fully buffed. Hansi, protected with enrage, starts the fight, everyone else remains hidden by fog of war. We wait for Kahrk to start casting a spell, move in while his aura is clouded, throw down double spell thrust, move away again (all hasted, of course). Now, both of his spell protections are gone. We wait for him to cast again (he has taken down 2 summons at this point), move in while his aura is clouded, and hit him with wands of the heavens/frost/fire and the like. Do this two times - meanwhile, the summons have also taken down his physical protections, and Hansi joins the fray to finish the battle:
A shiny new Katana, which Illuminata will use once she gets another profiency point at thief level 8. Now, to Candlekeep - we immediately drink five invisibility potions to stop the ogre mage ambush, move north, summon and buff up, and crush the ogre mages:
With one rest in the catacombs, the areas below Candlekeep are quickly cleared. Back in the city, when entering the Iron Throne HQ, we see why I made everyone of my characters true neutral - except for Gardi herself, because as a ranger, she has to be good:
You can see that I've already started to protect her with chaotic commands, something I usually wouldn't do yet. Ironskin and insect plague are very powerful - but with wisdom 21 from all three tomes, Pietro gets another fifth level spell, and so we also have a cc for our main character.
Slythe tries to hide really hard, but detect invisibility gets her:
At this point, the ducal palace is rather easy with Liia protecting herself with a bunch of wizard spells including PFMW. Insect plague is helpful, but not required:
I decide to clear the maze all the way to the Temple of Bhaal before going for TOTSC content. However, we fail our initial assault on the undercity party - unable to hit them all with webs, we retreat, and I don't realize that an invisibly aerial servant is following us - bringing us very close to the end of the run when he attacks Gardi:
Luckily, we are able to take him out with a few wand charges while Gardi runs away. Finally, we start doing some real damage to the undercity party after their spell protections run out and we can interrupt them with some MLD spells while taking down their dangerous archer:
Yes, I did use one of my level 1 slots on my sorcerer for Larloch's minor drain. Why would I do that? Well, because it has a very low cast time, no travel time and can't be stopped by shield. Many enemy spellcasters here have shield in their pre-buffs, so magic missle isn't that good for spell disruption purposes - of course, it's still a far better spell, and LMD was our final first level spell pick, but you can't deny that two interrupts against a high level wizard like this - while our physical attacks were stopped by stoneskins - are valuable:
Finally, victory in this prolonged battle:
Oh, and we took out Tamoko - which was rather easy, because she failed to save against silence.
Balduran's Island - here we start using some of our giant strength potions when invading the shipwreck. We don't have anyone proficient with bastard swords or daggers, so we have to hit greater wolfweres or loup garous with wand of paralyzation charges to give us the required time to take them down:
We're rather well prepared for Durlag's Tower and take our time to get through safely, buffing up and using summons if required, taking two rests in total (when I usually try to go through with 0 or 1). For the chess board, we used five absorption potions and a bunch of webs + wand of fire charges:
Andi has by now picked up protection from fire as one of his third level spells, and the group is well prepared to deal with the demon knight - protected from fire, and Gardi + Hansi even protected against stun effects:
We buy a few potions (to get enough magic shielding for everyone) before travelling back to the Beard, where we immediately drink five invisibility potions to avoid the ambush, giving us a chance to summon and buff up. We fight our way to the compound, luring both wizards outside:
We enter with our vulnerable characters invisible, and Pietro casting detect invisibility, to take down the last cult assassin. After a quick rest, we buff up, using magic shielding, mirrored eyes, and potions like heroism, cloud giant strenght, invulnerability and defense. The fight is quick and easy after we avoid the initial dispel magic by quickly travelling upstairs again:
Now, only Sarevok and his allies are left. Full buffs again, this time storm giant strength and mind focusing added into the mix (though no magic shielding). While dispelling arrows are removed from stores, we still found some at Durlag's and in one cupboard in the big city. These allow us to get rid of Sarevok's haste.
Now, the allies spawn in. Diarmid is the first to go - he has no protections and is an easy target. Our summons go for Tazok, he is equally unprotected. Meanwhile, Semaj casts his dispel magic on Hansi - everyone moves away from our Berserker so the spell won't spread - and, strangely enough, Sarevok actually gets feared by Pietro's insect plague:
Angelo had teleported in with two spell protections, but we took down both of them with spell thrusts, allowing us to interrupt, and, once his physical protections are gone, utterly destroy him. Meanwhile, Semaj is affected by insect plague, and he's having a bad time trying to flee from our party:
Propably my cleanest SCS Sarevok kill so far:
This is where the run is currently resting - at the start of SoD. Future updates will be coming, and they will be current.
I took a little break before starting ToB and started new run with Shadowdancer. Human because I was going to dual to mage in SoA.
Ridiculous class for BG1, game is not prepared for that. Against all reason I have somehow started this run on BGEET. Because of that Sandthief Ring works as in BG2 meaning I had 1 invi per day. I could backstab someone, use ring and backstab again, go into stealth and backstab for third time. Enemies cant even react. With staff +3 and pumping every point into hide in shadow/move silently my thief rushed through Sword Coast easily.
After oneshotting Davaeorn with backstab I decided on this brilliant idea to plunder his treasure hoard. Including these chests guarded by mustad jelly. Now jellies are kinda like beholders in BG2. Unless im playing some variant of fighter I tend to avoid them completely. Especially while playing character without crit protection.
I should have run when jelly was still alive after 3 attacks from stealth. But the jelly was near death and it would take only single hit...
In the end I was right. It took only single hit, for the jelly that is. 104 dmg crit ended my poor shadowdancer
My scroll of acid protection and potion of absorption in the bag were crying.
Comments
I hadn't realised the drain is now permanent - I'll have to watch out for that in future. If I'd thought about the danger I would have been quickly nipping in and out trying to get a quick kill with Quivering Palm.
I agree there was no real benefit to fighting him, but I was tired and it was easier to just do everything (my typical approach in chapters 2 & 3) rather than think about which encounters to opt out of ...
Adventure in Underdark continues. Im not really into spending much time in the dark on this run. Xp cap is approaching and there is not much loot Im interested in there so I will mostly speedrun this part. Im going to do only main quests in drow city and completely skip mind flayer and beholder tunnels. Both of them are quite risky when doing solo and there is almost no reward. Maybe will do quick invisible dive into beholders nest for greenstone amulet.
To start I bought all useful scrolls from duergars both in human and drow forms. Then bought every useful scroll or potion from drow merchants. Very nice item that Im seeing here for the first time is Belt of the Skillful Blade. Should work perfectly with black blade.
While on my way to saving one feisty drow I have encountered hostile party. They couldnt do much against my spell armor nor could they endure Incediary Cloud.
Mind flayers were obliterated by Dragon's Breath.
I still had most of my buffs so I took quick detour and ambushed the Prince of Kuo-toan. It wasnt best idea because some of my buffs ran out and kuo-toan packs around were not only detecting my illusions but also pelting me with bolts on haste. Not taking any chances I casted Time Stop, slain the prince then looted blood and escaped their caves.
Had to clear doorways from vermin.
Funny thing was that some of kuo-toans followed me straight to tavern in Ust Natha.
Biggest surprise for me!
In my previous fight with lich my planetar ended imprisoned. When I casted Freedom I wasnt expecting at all to free mage named Vithal and start a quest! And what a quest that is! What useful scrolls he has!!
20 years of playing Baldurs Gate and this is first time I have discovered this quest and this mage :O
Scrolls of Time Stop and Simulacrum are a real catch for me. Time Stop in particular should be most helpful in ToB Final. I have ofc slain the wizard when I was done helping him. Fight opened with Ruby Ray from me, Secret Word from my simulacrum and Insect Plague from my planetar. He time stopped and imprisoned planetar but with insect alrdy on him it was too late.
Next was mission to slay beholder landing in the city. I never feel safe fighting improved beholders and tend to avoid them in no-reload. So to minimise risk with this one I buffed myself, hasted and used some offensive spells togetherwith my simulacrum and planetar to erase beholder before he can even target me.
With blood of Kuo-toan prince in my bag it was easy to finish Drow questline, return eggs to Adalon and get the hell out of Underdark. When returtning to Atkhatla I have recruited Drizzt to help me against Bodhi. Once again had quite a surprise because thanks to BGEET Drizzt recognised me instantly and almost jumped me!
I had to do some diplomacy to get him on my side. Its so sad that BGEET is bugged as hell and infuriating because there are many brilliant features I enjoy.
Once in Promenade of Waukeen I had encounter with Githyanki. I must admit it has to be first time in my Baldurs Gate history that I gave them the silver blade instead of slaughtering them.
Before going on a shopping spree I have visited Nashkel to abuse BGEET some and dump my entire hoard of treasure in BG1 shop which pays quite nicely. With bags full of gold I bought every 9th level spell and every useful potion from Adventurers Mart. With black blade, time stop and chain spell I should clear everything safely now.
First target is Ring of Gaxx. Elemental Lich from sewers died instantly after spawning. I shouldnt do this but couldnt stop myself.
With Shade Lich fight I decided on normal fight. My chain spell: Ruby Ray + 2x Khelbens Whip was nullified by his Spell Shield. The lich responded with Time Stop quickly followed by Alacrity and Dark Planetar. His faux pax was not recasting PfMW because as soon as his time stop ended I countered with my own Time Stop while he was busy with some other cast. With mirror images dispelled by True Sight it takes less than one round to break stoneskins.
On my way out I remembered about mind flayer base and Crom Fayer.
Alhoon encounter is one of toughest in my opinion. Not only he is high mage with quite solid spell armor, he uses all mind flayer racial attacks which makes him kind of fighter/mage. I have to remember to keep PfMW ready. Best prepare contingency:PfMW on sight. He has also some reinforcements with their own deadly attacks.
To minimise the risk of getting oneshot from nowhere I attacked with overhelming force. 2x Dragons Breath and Insect Plague as an opener.
After that I switched my focus to Alhoon and started throwing dispells his way. In the end his PfMW ended and he was sliced to pieces.
With hammer in my pocked I could finally return to Kangaxx fully prepared. His first form fell quickly to chain spell + breach.
Demilich form fell against Black Blade.
To prepare for final Tactics encounters I have cleared Guarded Compound and took Celestial Fury. Not equipping it yet.
Poor Sion tried defending himself from Black Blade by casting Improved Mantle.
And once again it is clear who is the strongest enemy of Baldurs Gate 2.
Next on my list is finishing the Crom Fayer. To do that I have to slay Demon Knights. I have left this encounter for last because I was not sure how improved by Tactics Remix they are. As it turns out they are as they were before. Easily killable.
Quick invisibible raid in beholders tunnel and I left with Greenstone Amulet.
With Crom Fayer forged, spells and contingencies prepared I have equipped Celestial Fury and rested for quite some time untill the collectioner approached me.
Immediatel fight started and my contingecies gave me Spell Deflection, Stoneskin, PfMW and Simulacrum. My simulacrum went instantly for Planetar Summon while I casted Alacrity. Planetar threw Insect Plague when she spawned.
On Alacrity I buffed myself with everything possible, casted tons of ruby rays/secret words/spell thrust/breach, used HLA like Toughness/CS and attacked.
Countered his contingency with Breach and finished the fight with 94 crit.
Next destination is Watchers Keep and two improved encounters there. First to greet me is Red/Poison Badge group.
Buffed to full on alacrity as soon as encounter triggered.
From what I remember most noticeable enemies were salamander with throwable spear which was stunning on hit. One drake who drained level and one who was immune for most of dmg except non-magical weapons. Im lugging around two non-magical scimitars just for this moment. Well this and Magic Golems. Thankfully on my level and with my gear they were quite easy.
The final Tactics Remix encounter I have left if The Ritual. To be honest Im not sure if I would be able to actually finish this quest solo on original Tactics yet alone one buffed up by m0rpheus. Enemy packs arent that powerful but the sheer number of them and number of enemies in single pack make it very difficult for a solo character, even on max lvl.
I could probably do this if I spent a lot of my scrolls. Scrolls which Im saving for ToB final and Im not willing to use at all here. That means after greedily taking the loot from Pontifex I return back to challenge him.
Again I remember that he liked to start the fight with Time Stop so to my usual armor of spell Im adding PfMW just before talking to him.
I think he has permanent Alacrity now.
Once Time Stop ended I started throwing abjuration spells at him. Suprisingly he managed to break through my stoneskin forcing me to retreat for a second.
Rewards are not as overpowered as they were in original but still nice. Boots from Pontifex and Robes from Kuroisan:
Time to kill Bodhi and her pets.
Bodhi was welcomed with brutal frontal assault supported by Dragons Breath and Firestorm. I have used PfMW to defend myself from blood drinking.
Foolish Rakshasha ambushed me on my way out while I was still buffed.
With my time in Amn coming to an end I went to Beregost this time to squeeze as much money as possible and ransacked entire Athkatla. Bought every possibly useful scroll left, every potion, every useful item that could help me in ToB. Reshuffled spells in items in my bags. Sold some useless thing Ive been carrying for half of the game and prepared everything I could for ToB before going to Suldanesselar.
Unfortunately here my bugged BGEET calls out and language bug appears again forcing me to switching back to Polish in game.
Not much interesting happened in the elven city. Golems were obliterated by Crom Fayer. Casters died during Time Stop.
I have almost killed myself on dragon. I forgot to cast Acid Protection which I noticed after getting doused in nice acid bath. To avoid any further injury I have casted Time Stop and pummeled the dragon into the ground.
Poor Joneleth was destroyed in a manner of seconds. Spell chain: 3x Ruby Ray followed by Breach and hes vulnerable as a baby.
During Hell Trials I picked evil path in every challenge I think.
Wraith Sarevok dying after 3 hits.
Hell Irenicus wasnt a worthy opponent. I would really love to see Improved Irenicus in Hell as next component in Tactics Remix.
And with that Shadows of Amn is done. Time to finally start ToB.
Just to check I started new ToB game and unfortunately language is bugged.
Sorrarm the sorcerer and Laughalot the Jester
Sorrarm realises today that he did not journalise yesterdays adventures so has to do a double dose today.
We started cautiously, taking our squishy unarmoured jester and sorcerer into the ankheg nest. We had a healthy supply of blindness which took us a fair way into the nest, but with the odd save this left us with little to cast against the final occupant. Sorrarm was all for leaving but Laughalot suggested we try the wand of paralyzation and that allowed us to clear the entire nest in one go.
The rest of Cloakwood is fine, and on arrival at the camp we treat Drasus and his friends to a little malisoned skulltrapping while blinded in a stinking cloud. For science!
(and interestingly everbody including us appears to have lost their heads and body parts according to the screenshot)
We start doing odds and ends around the city. Sorrarm decides to goad Degrodel's guardians and kills a couple with fireballs after positioning himself invisibly. Trying to do the same from another angle sees him pinned against a wall and unable to move. Laughalot moves in and uses a wand scorcher then a pair of wand of frost shots. This works well, killing one stalker but we then have to bash it as it remains dead but in place and impassable. Sorrarm gulps 3 blue potions to stay alive and after escaping we clear the area with no further challenge.
The pair of mustard jellies upstairs take advantage of our unstrategy, with Sorrarm arriving too quickly after Laughalot so we are both targeted. Laughalot is poisoned and Sorrarm slowed so we limp downstairs and Sorrarm uses a special ability to deal with the poison.
I'm feeling somewhat afflicted with restartitis at the moment. I've started runs with a Priest of Talos and a mage due to dual to a fighter, but don't feel enthused about continuing either of those for now. One of the aims of this challenge is to complete a successful run with at least one of the characters at the first attempt. I've not succeeded in that, at least as yet, and the number of classes not yet tried is steadily shrinking - so I need a spot of inspiration (or, more likely, larger quantities of perspiration
Deciding to roll a random selection until I got a new character, I actually managed that at the first attempt - a thief set to dual to fighter. The ability to hide during combat should be pretty useful for a fighter, so I've set the starting class as a shadowdancer. Given the relatively low XP requirements for thieves, I'll probably wait until at least level 13 to dual to maximise future backstab damage
Aiming to avoid any damage for as long as possible, I didn't go straight after Shoal due to the possibility of finding an ambush with an archer on that route. Instead I headed east and shot down an ogre - the piercing belt may help in case I get targeted with the odd missile at some point.
In Beregost, Neera was shot for her gem bag and I also picked up a scroll case and pacified Marl to get my first level up. On the way to Nashkel I recovered Zhurlong's boots and Mirianne's letter. On arrival, a protracted conversation with Noober provided another level before I rested to get Bhaal CLW.
I also did not feel like slowly trudging through all of BG1 (since I am utterly confident in my ability to navigate it safely with a full party), so decided to just run it solo.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no level-based damage increase, max hitpoints on level-up enabled.
Mods: Full SCS 34.3, see spoiler for WeiDU.
Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 34.3
Replace +1 arrows and other projectiles with nonmagical "fine" ones: 34.3
Replace many +1 magic weapons with nonmagical "fine" ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: 34.3
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: 34.3
Wider selection of random scrolls: 34.3
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): 34.3
Increase the power of Cure Wounds and Cause Wounds spells to the level found in 3rd Edition D&D -> Spells heal or inflict a random amount of damage (1d8 per level of the spell, plus 1 point per caster level, to a maximum of 5 points per spell level): 34.3
Restoration and Lesser Restoration spells heal ability-score damage: 34.3
Faster Bears: 34.3
Improved shapeshifting: 34.3
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: 34.3
Thieves assign skill points in multiples of five: 34.3
Ease-of-use party AI: 34.3
Improved textscreens in Tales of the Sword Coast: 34.3
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 34.3
Smarter general AI: 34.3
Better calls for help: 34.3
Smarter Mages: 34.3
Smarter Priests: 34.3
Potions for NPCs: 34.3
Improved Spiders: 34.3
Smarter sirines and dryads: 34.3
Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 34.3
Smarter basilisks: 34.3
Improved doppelgangers: 34.3
Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 34.3
Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 34.3
Improved kobolds: 34.3
Relocated bounty hunters: 34.3
Improved Ulcaster: 34.3
Improved Balduran's Isle: 34.3
Improved Durlag's Tower: 34.3
Improved Demon Cultists: 34.3
Improved Cloakwood Druids: 34.3
Improved Bassilus: 34.3
Improved Drasus party: 34.3
Improved Red Wizards: 34.3
Improved Undercity assassins: 34.3
Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 34.3
Tougher chapter-two end battle: 34.3
Tougher chapter-three end battle: 34.3
Tougher chapter-four end battle: 34.3
Tougher chapter-five end battle: 34.3
Improved final battle: 34.3
Improved minor encounters: 34.3
Protagonist: Aldain, Elven Sorcerer (seems I misplaced a picture of his initial stats, apologies).
Aldain will be cheating slightly: At levels 8, 12, 14, 16 and 18 he will have the spells Minor Sequencer, Contingency, Spell Sequencer, Spell Trigger and Chain Contingency added to his spellbook. No real reason beyond me disliking these spells being spells and not innate abilities (and having to pick them as a Sorcerer limits your already slightly lacklustre spellbook, at least in my view).
This cheat will not extend to any other arcane party members come SoD/BG2. I'll also go for easter eggs, though the only one that will really matter is the Ring of Wizardry at the Friendly Arm Inn.
Aldain starts with proficiency in Slings; for starting spells he has chosen Shield and Blindness.
Aldain, Elven Sorcerer: BG1EE Update 1
Once out, I pick up Imoen, Xzar and Montoran. I know I said solo: I make a slight allowance to deal with Tarnesh, mainly to get access to Jaheira's Potion of Invisibility. Having gained entrance and looted said three as well as Khalid and Jaheira, the game is afoot! I clear out the local Hobgoblins and return a ring before resting.
Next, I head north to speak with the fishermen and then Tenya. North of her hut I manage to blind the Ankheg, though leave it alone for now since Ankhegs will burrow if they can't see you, and I don't want to risk nipping in and out of its vision to take it down.
Rather, with the Ankheg disabled, I can safely exit the bridge map to the north, opening up the farm.
I do so, but pick up Tenyas bowl from the fishermen first. Returning it to her nets Aldain level 2.
And we're off to the farm to the north. Zombies are just the best at this stage: They're slow melee combatants with dreadful AC and HP that don't even (at least not on this map) call for help. Aldain somewhat slowly picks off all 20 (for a total of 1300 experience), then reports his success for another 800 experience. 2500 + 1300 + 800 = 4600, which combined with what I already had from Candlekeep, Tarnesh and the Hobgoblins, is more than enough for level 3. For my third 1st level spell, I pick Identify: This is really just a convenience pick to make BG1EE a little less annoying, given my very bad lore. I find it doesn't matter much, since by BG2EE I'm usually just casting Magic Missile 90% of the time, interspersed with Shield and the very occasional Blindness. Of course, you could forego identifying things completely when you know what they are... maybe next go-around.
Next, Ulgoth's Beard. I invest some of my meager funds on +2 bullets: I want to take down Thalantyr's guardians before speaking to him. I loop back south, grabbing the Girdle of Piercing on the way; in Beregost I also invest in a Sling +1 (the first, best and last ranged weapon I'll be able to get in BG1EE...). The bullets work wonders: Thalantyr's Flesh Golems are easy targets, and the second kill nets us level 4. Now the game is basically won, unless I severely mess up: Our first level 2 spell pick is of course Invisibility.
From now on, I'll always travel invisibly. Heading down towards Nashkel, I clear out the two easy areas with Ogrillons/Hobgoblins. I take a small risk in triggering the Dorn ambush, but as expected the two bow-wielding bandits fail to scratch me owing to Shield and the Girdle of Piercing. Next, Greywolf falls, after about (no joke) 15 minutes of hide-and-seek: He roams incessantly when blinded. That wasn't great fun.
Anyway, that's another fair bit of experience. Returning to Beregost, I pick up the Potion Case and two scrolls of Strength from Thalantyr. Using one of them lets me bash open the chest containing The Stupefier +1 (which I of course immediately sell), and I also gain entrance to the local manor house while under its influence (though cannot bash anything inside). I also nip down into Bassilus' area, rescue Melicamp, and he actually survives his transformation. Huzzah, level 5! Now we're getting places. I pick Magic Missile and Mirror Image for 1st and 2nd level spells, and we now have both defensive and offensive options besides wands.
I celebrate by taking on the Red Wizards after Neira, in order to swipe her Gem Bag (I don't feel right shooting her down). I manage to interrupt the Mage before he does anything, and he drops with a second Magic Missile. Around here I do almost all of the Beregost quests as well, but leave Silke alone (not worth the risk for meager experience and treasure).
Instead, I nip off to Firewine Bridge: Given how much I'm relying on my sling, I'd like the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. Meilum is not-so-happy to oblige.
With solid (well..) equipment and mighty (well....) spellworks at my disposal, it's time for experience bonanza: Basilisk Garden!
And it goes rather well. The only real threat once you grab Korax is Mutamin, and he fails to make an impression; though I have to eat a Melf's Acid Arrow.
With the singular threat removed, the local basilisks yield a treasure trove of experience: Enough to easily carry Aldain to level six. Proficiency in Darts follows, and for Aldain's first 3rd level spell, I pick Melf's Minute Meteors. This becomes less and less impressive as you level, but it's typically quite useful against chaff, and it will make BG1EE less of a chore. There's still more experience to be had, though: I journey to Durlag's Tower and tackle the Battle Horrors and such outside. The second such creature propels Aldain to level seven (as you can tell, one of them got a good lick in). I pick Chromatic Orb, Blur and Skull Trap for 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spells.
I finish clearing the Battle Horrors on the ramparts, take a detour west of Nashkel to help out Charleston Nib, kill a Doomsayer and return Brage, then finally visit Thalantyr and purchase scrolls of Protection from Acid. Thus well-protected, I clear out in detail the Ankheg nest as well as any I manage to find outside. I take a single critical hit for my efforts, so probably the acid-immunity was overkill. Journeying north, taking out the Ankheg by Tenyas hut is just enough for level 8. Finally, relative safety: I pick Stoneskin as my first 4th level spell.
There's still experience to be had. I swing by the Tombs east of Nashkel and grab a Wand of Monster Summoning (killing the Revenant and assorted undead whilst there), then it's Ulgoth's Beard for the Greenstone Amulet: The latter is swiftly put to use dismantling the local Sirene infestation on the western coast. Naturally, the local Flesh Golems don't fare well against Melf's Minute Meteors either.
Running a little low on obvious targets, but there's Basilisks in that there tower! I pick up the free-of-charge Potion of Mirrored Eyes from Ulcaster's School, and go after them. And sure enough, our efforts pay off: The experience is more than sufficient to propel Aldain to his final BG1EE level, that of level 9.
I pick Melf's Acid Arrow, Spell Thrust and Spider Spawn for 2nd, 3rd and 4th level spells. Perhaps slightly unorthodox choices: Spell Thrust is useful right now for helping to deal with enemy mages. It's also good for early BG2EE, and later it's a cheap way to remove Spell Shield. Spider Spawn is more debatable, but I very much like having a decent summon available at every spell level when possible. Also, with the exception of Greater Malison and possibly Mordenkainen's Missiles, nothing else on spell level 4 is (that) impressive to me. As mentioned, Aldain also gets Minor Sequencer; very useful that (I enjoy 2x Melf's Acid Arrow as a follow-up to Spell Thrust, still great even in BG2EE).
I forget why exactly; probably I was low on gold (but also wanted the Charisma tome). But I head west of Nashkel for a short while, mess up slightly at the Gnoll Fortress and end up having to Skull Trap myself. There were a LOT of Gnolls boxing me in...
But with that bit of nastiness behind me, it's high time to get out of here (BG1EE that is). Mulahey succumbs to Phase Spider poison, Nimbul has no good answer to the spider menace either (netting me a scroll of Find Familiar and thus +6 HP); not even Tranzig finds a solution to the poison conumdrum. Amazons too feel the (spider) burn.
I see no reason to take on the Bandit Camp (or for that matter risk a close-quarters confrontation with Venkt), so simply quaff a Potion of Absorption, grab the letters, cast Invisibility, and bugger off (snickering slightly as Raemon gets fried by the lightning bolt). On the way back, Molkar and cronies ambush me, but have little response to a Spider onslaught: I had a moment of sheer terror when Halacan tagged Aldain with a Chromatic Orb, but realized that the latter is actually so low level his Chromatic Orb cannot stun.
Onto Cloakwood. I skip nearly all the encounters, though opt to defend Aldeth so I later have the option to help him in Baldur's Gate, should I be starved for gold. The advantage of being solo is it's very easy to wait out enemy buffs: I feed Drasus and friends a spider, then hang around invisibly until Drasus' Potion of Magic Shielding wears off, at which point I just pick them off one by one.
Inside the mines, Hareishan neglects MGoI in her prebuffs, and a single Skull Trap spells her end. Natasha and the Ogre Mage amazingly both fall to Phase Spider poison. At some point SCS Davaeorn starts fighting you the moment his dialogue triggers (and he notices you even if invisible), but he won't actually engage you if he can't see you: He will have guards arriving every few rounds until there's about two dozen of them though. I clear out the two Battle Horrors, then go invisible, head to the other side of Dave's abode, and wait a few turns. Once all guards have shown up (and clumped up around Dave), I let loose with a few Skull Trap. Unfortunately I end up taking Dave down along with all the guards... wasn't my intent, but eh (he should have MGoI up).
Alright, good stuff. We're getting close to the end: I just need to take down the Red Wizards in spider forest (with the help of some summons, of course), since I want to bring The Victor with me to SoD. They put up a seriously good fight, but it's mostly safe: I get blinded at one point and have to wait it out invisibly, and Denak manages to nail me with a Vitriolic Sphere. That might've turned bad, but I made my save and only took about 20 damage, and Denak was basically out of spells by that point.
Baldur's Gate! I do mostly only the bare necessities, beyond picking up the tomes of course. Closest shave consisted of me underestimating Ramazith by not applying a Greenstone Amulet charge before assaulting his tower: I had to save against a Confusion (successfully), and a 2x Horror Minor Sequencer (not successfully...). Thankfully he was almost dead by then, and my 2x Melf's Acid Arrow Minor Sequencer was able to finish him off.
Back to Candlekeep. I quaff an Invisibility Potion to save myself from the Ogre Magi, then promptly buff up, turn around and annihilate them for their gems. Rushing through the catacombs, I make sure to pick up the tomes, having saved a few scrolls of Knock. I ignore Prat and friends, but take down the Greater Basilisks on the way, strictly for the gems.
Back in Baldur's Gate, I shop a fair bit: Recharge The Victor and the Greenstone Amulet, buy 2x Wand of Monster Summoning, some scrolls (Greater Malison/Chaos to help with the palace fight, and Animate Dead... though a single 3HD Skeleton won't really matter, I'm sure) and potions to boot. Cythandria has no answer to excessive summons, and Slythe is swiftly burned down. Krystin as always is a pain, Confusing my summons, with predictable results.
I had to risk nipping in there to take my own summons down; which I managed, and then just ran off, leaving Krystin to simmer.
Alright, palace fight. With this character (I imagine most characters actually) the make-or-break point of the whole game. I buff up a little, mostly elemental immunities and an Oil of Speed, then engage. No summons really hamstrings me, and the Doppleganger Mage is an absolute pain: I manage to confuse three Greater Dopplegangers, but he dispels it! Seems he went heavy on Dispel/Remove Magic and protections though, as he fails to make much of an impression beyond just surviving the longest.
Sadly, Belt was already at Near Death, and Sarevok finishes the job in one swing. I have to risk getting close to occupy his attention, but manage to hang on long enough: Liia survives and teleports us off in pursuit.
I rush through the maze: Full resistance to Fire and Lighting along with Shield and Stoneskin ensures my safety. Tamoko is dismantled, I rest up, and it's time. Oil of Speed, full elemental protections (completely unnecessary and swiftly dispelled, as it will turn out), Dexterity at 25 (also dispelled...), and I forgot applying my two Potions of Power (I'm sure they'd get dispelled too though).
I send an initial wave of crud summons in, followed by a Chaos. And luck out: Semaj fails his save! Some dancing back and forth, and a few Melf's Acid Arrow, later, he falls without incident.
Yeah, apparently Angelo can target you with Remove Magic even if you go invisible mid-cast. I reapply basic buffs and set about returning the favor.
With no enemy magic users left, there's not really any threat, unless I get overconfident. I do not: The Skeleton Warriors are slowly but surely sling-shotted down, interspersed with me popping Wand of Fire Scorchers at Tazok (he has good resistance but he's not immune). Tazok drops, and while I run circles around Sarevok, Diarmid's scroll of Protection from Magic wears out: He fries in short order. With nothing but a few Skeleton Warrior cronies remaining, Sarevok stands no chance. A barrage of Magic Missile and sling bullets spell his end.
Good show! Aldain successfully navigates BG1EE solo! I take a minute to import him into SoD and edit his starting inventory slightly (basically removing almost everything except the stuff I'll import into BG2EE, a literal handful of starting consumables/bullets, and some of the gear he has equipped). Aldain finishes BG1EE as a level 9 Elven Sorcerer. His known spells are, in order picked:
L1: Blindness, Shield, Identify, Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb
L2: Invisibility, Mirror Image, Blur, Melf's Acid Arrow
L3: Melf's Minute Meteors, Skull Trap, Spell Thrust
L4: Stoneskin, Spider Spawn
And here he is, in all his post-tome glory:
Aldain will return in SoD (when I have the time to play next...).
Previous updates:
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1193838/#Comment_1193838
I picked up the Helm of Balduran, as I would want that as a fighter in BG2 (I hadn't got the Claw or Horn, so I think it should transfer by default anyway, but just to make sure ...). I just sneaked in to Degrodel on the way to collect a matching cloak from Quenash - a stunned Larze taking 6 backstabs to finish off on the way. Killing Ragefast was done to get me yet another cloak.
The poison quest saw Lothander make a successful getaway, but Marek stuck around to supply me with a decent shortbow. I also picked up a wisdom tome along the way - though that's in the category of nice to have rather than actually being useful.
At the Iron Throne I was originally planning to just sneak through. However, I decided I wanted Alai's ring of free action and took that from under the group's noses.
The Seven Suns saw 5 attacks resulting in 5 dead dopplegangers. That allowed me to report to Duke Eltan for duty in Candlekeep. My basic detect traps skill was now up to 90, so the traps there were no trouble. I used a potion of master thievery to be able to loot the tombs, though even with that still needed to add DUHM to get the strength tome. The only fighting on the way out was against the basilisks - I thought I might as well use up one of the PfP green scrolls I'd acquired. The first of the basilisks gave me easily my best backstab to date - hitting 3 figures. The second survived 2 backstabs, but the third of those was another century!
After resting to get another DUHM I was about to go in search of Slythe, but briefly stopped off first to see what valuables Sunin might be carrying. Slythe himself survived 4 hits from stunning darts and I eventually decided to revert to basic backstabs.
The palace is a potentially dangerous encounter, both from the point of view of the dukes being vulnerable and the possibility of me taking damage. As a result I resorted to more underhanded tactics than usual and charmed a couple of the dopplegangers before initiating the combat (without considering the dangers of using tactics you're not used to - see below
Belt of course was not satisfied that the palace had been cleared of trouble, so I had to abandon the game there.
Regarding Greywolf I feel you, the absolute worst is when you land Blind on him after he chugs oil of speed. Meilum is the same. He doesnt have oil of speed but he can wander off into kobolds pack and they in turn can land nasty 35dmg crit
Area of effect spells like Dispel Magic or Horrid Wilting can be unforutnately casted on you if the mage targeted you before turning invisible.
-10 rep from summons always hurts but nothing like ending your run in palace fight because of chaosed Hobgoblin
Also you can safely skip ankheg north of Tenya house. His speed factor is crap and he wont have time to land attack on you if you just run north to world map travel.
After the disappointing ending of the previous run I felt I had something to prove and immediately generated another new class - again randomly selected from those not yet attempted. This is a multi-class cleric mage, though I've set it up as a gnome to get the shorty bonuses - so the mage class is actually illusionist.
Trying once more to avoid any damage in BGEE, I practised safe travel in the first few maps before the basilisks got me up to level 5/4. Kirian's party were totally helpless against abilities including blindness, silence, hold person, stinking cloud and skeletons.
Cleric 7 / Illusionist 7, 52 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar, 5 from helm), 146 kills
That is because people still find a challenge in doing them and sharing their experiences. Normal play... I sadly do not think people come to share their experiences much for those runs 10 years after the EE releases and almost 25 years after the originals.
I really appreciate the planning that comes to mind when doing a noreload, especially on the high level difficulties where one mistake may indeed kill the run.
I am still planning my bg2 run, thinking about the path I can confidently take.
Mind you, I reload when certain seeming bugs end the run for inexplicable reasons and I prevent the conditions in which they seem to happen.
All right, your argument is clear. 😎
About being constantly immune to instant-death effect the answer is: yes you can. There are few demiliches in the game and someone who tries no-reload on maximum difficulties should know exact location of them and how to protects himself. Game is rather fair towards players. Even with things like SCS or Ascension you wont suddenly get obliterated out of nowhere just because. Unless ofcourse you are playing some crazy mod like Improved Anvil or old Tactics which had ridiculous fights with ridiculous effects or could spawn group of deadly bounty hunters around you just after happily walking out of shop.
You want imprisonment without save rolls? Fine, I cast Spell Immunity: Abjuration. Its castable whenever you want and with both amulet of power and robes of vecna its instant. Spell turning/Spell Deflection/Spell Trap should also work. I forgot there are no saves for this so probably my spell armor made them neglect trying imprisonment at all.
It can get tedious or boring for some, having to prepare and buff yourself constantly. At some point in game you have to do full prebuff before every major fight which happens one after another. Because as Iroumen have said, you forget one spell and you are dead.
Im not sure what do you exactly mean about metagaming in this case. If its about class/items choice then I agree. I dont think its possible to complete the game with maximum difficulty and mods without having access to arcane spells. Or truly abusing the shit out of game.
Also, I usually play on HoF or LoB and it gives enough challenge even with tons of reloads. ⚔️
I cannot bring myself to finish LoB, although I will try at some point.
Anyway, I should get started soon.
It makes sense buffing yourself constantly, drinking potions, scouting and travelling on invisibility, resting before big fights.
You need all the advantages when death is permanent. Quite realistic.
Previous updates:
After picking up the Bwoosh and poison I left the Camp again. I travelled first invisible to Dragonspear, where Skie was saved. Then it was on to the Underground River. Various buffs were used to defend against the traps that litter the area, while skeletons saw off some myconids and spiders. The wand of paralyzation set up the cyclops for a quick kill and I used a potion of invisibility to nip past the guards to get to the underground entrance. I also got the XP for cleric level 9 there.
Cleric 9 / Illusionist 10, 65 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar, 5 from helm), 237 kills
@Yigor everyone's different of course - I think your taste for LoB is not typical. I quite like it myself though
Durlag's Tower is tough for low-leveled chars. Long time ago, I somehow finished it from scratch, going there directly from the Candlekeep (with tons of reloads). ⚔️
Great! On HoF/LoB it's often more difficult to start than to finish! 😜
I'm back, and I've re-installed SCS, with a full installation on tactical difficulty / core rules. There's one multiclass not yet in the hall - one that should've gotten there a long time ago, back when ranger/clerics got access to druid spells pre-EE, making them quite powerful, especially in terms of their defensive abilities. Nowadays, they are pretty much just worse fighter/clerics, so I can understand why they don't see much play anymore. Back in the BGT days, I did play a solo ranger/cleric, but I failed the run at some point - I can't remember when, exactly.
This time around, I'm playing with a custom party of 5 (now that I've done a duo run, a trio, a solo with my FMT, and many full party runs, I'm also looking to do no-reload runs with all possible party sizes - 5 and 4 still to go). Our protagonist is Gardi:
Gardi, half-elven ranger/cleric
18,61/18/18/18/18/3 - **War Hammer, **Sling (and **Two Weapon Style via ranger class)
Hans, dwarven berserker
18,89/17/19/18/8/1 - **Axe, **Two Weapon Style
Andi, elven sorcerer
18/19/17/18/5/9 - *Sling
Illuminata, gnomish illusionist/thief - *Quarterstaff, *Shortbow
18/18/18/19/10/3
Pietro, half-elven totemic druid - *Sling, *Club
10/18/16/11/18/18
Despite totemic druid being my favorite class, I've not used them much in SCS runs due to the druid nerfs (specifically the insect plague nerf) introduced by that mod - but SCS mages don't all use fire shield anymore in modern versions, and insect plague is obviously not all druids are good for. Usually, I only have one "full" caster in my custom groups, and at least three fighter-types, so this group is a bit caster heavy - however, that does give us access to a bunch of powerful save-or-else spells early on, and with a total of four spellcasters able to use these right away (command, 2*blindness, sunscorch), I felt no fear when challenging potentially dangerous SCS spellcasters right away. After all, if they fail one of these 4 saving throws, they're basically done.
Pietro's access to spirit animals is incredibly powerful until at least mid to late SoA. Case in point, we face Tarnesh right away, and, wouldn't you know it, he fails to save against spirit serpent poison:
Instead of going for some quick experience scheme like basilisk or ankheg hunting, taking down sirens of flesh golems, I decided to just play standard and safely took down level-appropriate quests and encounters one by one. Not so level-appropriate was an early attack on Bassilus, because I wanted his hammer. He does have sixth level spells, and he summoned an Aerial servant at the start of combat, which I didn't notice (due them starting invisible and me not checking the very crowded combat log). While Bassilus himself got blinded, his aerial servant could've killed any of our characters with a single hit - he ended up taking down our summoned spirit snake, which was incredibly luckily, because the hit was for about 60 damage and propably would've chunked any of my characters. Now, with the aerial servant visible, it was easy to kite him around while taking down Bassilus from a safe range before leaving the area:
After taking care of the mines, we bought a few spellscrolls for Illuminata. Now, with double webs at our disposal, taking out enemy adventuring groups was rather easy, and we had the required PFP spells to challenge the basilisks:
Before entering Baldur's Gate, I quickly did two of the EE companion quests - first Neera's: Silenced red wizards aren't very scary.
Slythe tries to hide really hard, but detect invisibility gets her:
Next up: TOTSC content.
The ice island - a Hansi solo show with PFM:
This is where the run is currently resting - at the start of SoD. Future updates will be coming, and they will be current.
Ridiculous class for BG1, game is not prepared for that. Against all reason I have somehow started this run on BGEET. Because of that Sandthief Ring works as in BG2 meaning I had 1 invi per day. I could backstab someone, use ring and backstab again, go into stealth and backstab for third time. Enemies cant even react. With staff +3 and pumping every point into hide in shadow/move silently my thief rushed through Sword Coast easily.
After oneshotting Davaeorn with backstab I decided on this brilliant idea to plunder his treasure hoard. Including these chests guarded by mustad jelly. Now jellies are kinda like beholders in BG2. Unless im playing some variant of fighter I tend to avoid them completely. Especially while playing character without crit protection.
I should have run when jelly was still alive after 3 attacks from stealth. But the jelly was near death and it would take only single hit...
In the end I was right. It took only single hit, for the jelly that is. 104 dmg crit ended my poor shadowdancer
My scroll of acid protection and potion of absorption in the bag were crying.