At Sendais enclave I buffed to full including few potions and started with slaughtering the drow captain. Unfortunately I was too fast because after running towards the entrance there was no cutscene and no visible gates. Had to go back kill one of guards and wait for cutscene before drinking invi potion and going in.
Once again with help of invi potion I have skipped half of base going straight to that named drow guard with key and imp haste amulet. Sneaked in invisible before anyone could notice I already whacked him few times with FoA +5 and dropped Comet on his head.
Took the loot and ran out drinking another invi potion on my way. Avoided any combat till Odamaron.
Before his chambers I decided a quick cleanup was required, which wasnt the best idea, because as soon as the fight started some of my buffs started dropping. As if it wasnt bad, I pulled few additional packs which I have skipped before, and had a big party while not fully prepared. First had to cast PfMW and SI:A, while moving at the same time to not let them swarm me.
There was A LOT of them. FoA +5 and my saves protected me against some disabling spells from Yochlol. Finally managed to summon Planetar and together with him and GWW killed them all. Rested, rebuffed, set contingencies and entered Odamaron's chambers.
This time Im going to use Runehammer +5 instead of casting black blade. Chain spell: Simulacrum>summoned planetar inside and together we attacked the nearest enemy. Every lich inside protected themselfs with PfMW so we wait two rounds at least without casting anything.
Our summons play targets role when we wait for perfect timing and cast Time Stop right as they PfMW should be dropping. Then its Hammer Time! Apprentice first hit - destroyed. Odamaron first hit - destroyed. Lich first hit - blocked by fading PfMW, second hit - destroyed.
Grab the loot, check the stashes and walk out like a champ while time is still frozen. I chugged invi potion again and sneaked through enemies untill I stood before earth elemental prince.
Black Blade + PfMW + 2x breach and hes dead.
Ive rushed too fast towards high priestess room and completely forgot about her little adventuring party. Immedialte I had duck back behind doors, and start casting Time Stop to deal with them unprepared. Cambion and Tanar'ri even cut out my escape by teleporting around me. They died first after jumping right into my spell.
One stop was enough to slaughter entire team and Diaytha.
Illithids in next zone were easily dealt with by simulactrum and planetar. They tried to swarm me with astral travel but at this point in game ~20 APR with FoA +5 and critical srikes is just too much for them to survive longer than 1-2 seconds. Still I havent underestimated them and kept PfMW up.
Buffed up to full, prepared spells and sequencers, drunk full set of potions and ran into Sendai's room.
As soon as contingencies trigger simulacrum summons planetar and everyone attacks first sendai cleric who dies in 2 seconds.
Planetar casts True Sight while me and my clone kill warrior Sendai in another 2 seconds. Next were mage and cleric/mage Sendai. Both heavy buffed, one summoned planetar who died in blink of an eye.
I used spell trigger:3x pierce magic on mage one while my simulactrum and planetar were killing drow reinforcements and at that moment I made a big mistake.
I wasnt checking buffs and havent noticed Si:A dropping. Mage Sendai cleaned me with one Remove Magic. I casted PfMW and equipped DoE, Shield of Reflection and some AC boosting items.
Tried alacrity and full rebuff next but cleric/mage Sendai casted Time Stop and followed with Dragon Breath on me. Thankfully it was the only dangerous spell she fired so I countered with instant SI:Evocation and ran to the other end of the room. Meanwhile mage Sendai's PfMW dropped and she was slain by clone and planetar.
I still couldnt cast spell when archer Sendai appeared and cleric/mage teleported right next to me. Archer was killed quickly by planetar and simulacrum while I had to reposition again because thief Sendai became hostile next to me.
Sent clone quickly to her while planetar casted insect plague and managed to catch entire room with it including cleric/mage Sendai.
Thief died and I could finally cast alacrity being far from combat. Rebuffed some crucial buffs and casted Time Stop.
Went to finish cleric/mage but she had contingency:PfMW so I switched to two non magical flails which I had in my bag since SoA and finished her.
Real Sendai appeared and destroyed my simulacrum and planetar, good thing I was protected against ADHW. I casted another Time Stop and summoned another planetar and simulactrum. Casted True Sight also and moved far away from Sendai leaving her to my summons.
She still had Time Stop which she used but she didnt cast anything dangerous. Planetar casted insects on her and together with simulacrum on GWW finished her with melee.
At this point I remembered about pocket plane trials. Fight with Evil Me was easy. Fully buffed, with simulactrum and planetar already summoned and buffed as well we devoured Evil Vael in 2 seconds.
Planetar casted insect plague on Tamoko which spread so well that it won fight by itself. Semaj even couldnt cast a single spell. Unfortunately I forgot that dialogue options with Solar decide what powers we receive so no op regeneration for me. Luckily I have chosen evil option with 4th trial which gave me hand of murder.
After that went to Amkethran and prepared for Balthazar. Before starting final confrontation with the monk I have visited few shops, recharged some items and tidied my containers a bit. Once I got inside monastery it was time for buffs. Summoned simulacrum and planetar inside and started fight that ended after 3 seconds.
Ravager was dispatched similarily. Between 9APR black blade and 8APR FoA +5 he died rather quickly.
All that is left now is final fight in Throne of Bhaal. To be honest its been ages since I managed to get to ToB final without burning out or getting bored mid-ToB. Not only that but I have never been so far on Enhanced Edition. I barely remember how the fight looks like. Fortunately this forum exists. No idea what strategy I will be using yet but it will be brute force most likely.
Since SoA I have been stockpiling every helpful scroll/item. Currently I have a whooping 7x Time Stop, 3x Spell Strike, 3x Chain Spell, 2x Spell Trap, 3x Black Blade. I can cast my full spell armor at least four times with scrolls alone. 17x Spell Immunity: Abjuration and 16x PfMW. Lots of Breach, Secret Word, Remove Magic, Ruby Ray scrolls. 6x Wand of Spell Striking and Rod of Reversal should be enough even without single rest. I will have to be careful with HLA usage and probably abuse contingency casting if that still works. I wonder if I should use scroll of PfM on Abazigal?
The party has made more progress. The druid grove went smoothly. Enuhal's capabilities (summons and plague of insects) were very useful here. And the mages could throw in chaos and glitterdust too, if needed. Thus the druid grove problem was solved pretty easily.
We did a task for a noble and cleared out some undead, though we returned the mantle to the leader of the town for the reputation boost.
We also tried to find Montaron, but found an assassin for Xzar instead. Oh well, thanks for the bracers Xzar! We did find a charm helmet for Grond0 during this process as well. Speaking of Grond0, he took down the two mages (Sansha and Prebek I think) protected by improved invisibility. The mages just stood there while the barbarian put the beat down on them, very convenient!
We went to the temple sewers and Grond0 went invisible and directed our summons to assassinate Gaius and the summons succeeded! While the summons were distracting Tarnor's gang, we then hit them with chaos and plague of insects. After that, ranged fire all the way - success! Most equipment we couldn't use so just sold the junk for some more gold. The mages have bought quite a few spells while they had some potions of genius active to make the best use of the potions, so the mages know quite a few spells now.
We again used the summons + plague of insects vs Mencar's group, this worked great, though Alesia took a bit of damage. We even succeeded in taking down the thief, who tried to escape. For some reason melf's acid arrows and flame arrow took him down. we of course didn't let ourselves be hurt by the trap on a chest.
@Grond0 my Grond0 is level 9 and 135 HP - isn't that good for a barbarian?
Sure. I can't remember if you gave him the tome - if not then he's at the theoretical maximum! My point though was not that high scores are not seen, but that lower scores seem more prevalent than expected. In the EE it's very unusual for a character at higher levels to have less than the mean HPs that would be expected if using just 1 die for level ups, but my impression is that's less unusual for a barbarian ...
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist Throne of Bhaal Part 3
All that is left now is final fight in Throne of Bhaal. To be honest it's been ages since I managed to get to ToB final without burning out or getting bored mid-ToB. Not only that but I have never been so far on Enhanced Edition. I barely remember how the fight looks like. Fortunately this forum exists. No idea what strategy I will be using yet but it will be brute force most likely....I wonder if I should use scroll of PfM on Abazigal?
Best of luck at the Throne, Rayga!
A number of players have made effective use of PfM on Abazigal, both in the No Reload Challenge and in the Ascension Solo Challenge from the old, old BioWare forums. I, personally, have always restricted use of PfM on hostiles so I'm not prepared to comment on the tactical advantages. @Enuhal recently used PfM on Sendai and Abazigal and has presumably done the fight both with and without. He may be better positioned to comment.
If you'd like to have a pre-battle brainstorm session, I and others would be happy to discuss with you over in the Adventurer's Lounge. In any case, you've got this, Rayga! Good hunting! The Hall awaits!
Deciding it was about time we sought out Shoal, the first stop in the session was the seaside. Playing solo, I normally just kill her, but this time I wanted the helm - so Corey was nominated to receive her kiss and slumped down unconscious.
A single arrow from Grond0 (the others not shooting at her) persuaded her to talk and summon Ogre Droth. Grond0 moved into melee and raged, while Enuhal pulled up a spirit snake in support. Droth saved against Grim Face's blindness and his buffs fired as he sent sleep at Alesia. She ran out of harm's way of the others and saved against the effect, while Corey woke up and moved slightly farther away before dispelling the ogre. Grond0 took a couple of melee hits and ran away again, while Droth saved against blindness from both Grim Face and Enuhal's sunscorch. The spirit snake tagged Droth with poison before the battle suddenly ended when Grond0 made a first attack with stunning darts (looted from both the ankhegs and Durlag's Tower) count.
We should have just killed Shoal for her XP, but tried to get the quest reward first - she then disappeared instantly before we could attack (an SCS behavior I only remembered belatedly).
After resting up, we explored the rest of the area. A group of ogre-kin was shot down in a running fight and we returned a ring to Mad Arcand. Web and stinking cloud did a decent job of keeping the sirines under control as they were shot down.
The surgeon was not called on to do any healing, but did hand over a potion of magic protection.
Back at the Carnival I decided to clear the area. The kobold hordes that can spawn there can be pretty dangerous if you're not expecting them, but sleep is a good way to reduce that danger.
For Zordral, Grim Face hid behind some bookshelves while trying to silence him - succeeding at the 6th attempt. I thought he might have vocalize - but he didn't!
Moving swiftly on to the Cloud Peak Mountains, we cleared some more areas. In the first I had forgotten that SCS archers would try to move out of webs cast at them (even while neutral) - but Alexander and Delgod both got stuck before they could get out of danger and were mercilessly shot down.
As I normally do, I pulled Vax away from Zal and shot him down without the chance to talk. That left Zal still neutral for me to do whatever I wanted to him. In this case I let Enuhal try out his lightning - Zal survived that, but not the follow-up attacks.
In the next area Caldo was just shot down and Krumm commanded, while Drienne got her cat back without the need to spend the last of her allowance. I killed Ingot for his halberd (just to sell), but he also had a knock scroll that Grim Face managed to learn.
At the Gnoll Stronghold, Corey took the bracers of dexterity to bolster his defenses. He also grabbed the tome to boost charisma to 18. Those prizes helped compensate him for being left to tank on his own there, with very little spell support. He was slightly worse for wear by the time the area was cleared, but still seemed game for more.
To the north a polar bear was blinded and shot down to encourage a merchant to hand over some furry boots. A couple of groups of gibberlings were slept, though we left Laurel to her fate while dealing with other infestations. At the nearby bridge the 2 ogre berserkers were blinded and though the hobgoblin elites got a few arrows in they were duly cut down as well. Neville emerged from a stinking cloud, but found none of his hobgoblin allies did the same and he didn't last long.
On the way back to Nashkel an ogre mage sprang an ambush. His dire charm bounced off Grond0's rage, while he went down under Grim Face's command.
I expected dispel magic to cause him to spring up again almost immediately, but it didn't affect him. By the end of his unconscious round he was near death, despite his mirrors, and suffering (brief) morale failure. He had a slow scroll on him, but Grim Face failed to learn that.
I spent a bit of time sorting out inventory, belatedly remembering that with SCS the shopkeeper in Nashkel takes only 1 winter wolf pelt (the other 4 had to be sold for less at High Hedge). Then it was off to maximise reputation before buying a few things. At the Mine area Greywolf offered an easy upgrade opportunity: despite being blinded he looked like seeing off a spirit lion - until he was commanded.
I also picked up a frost wand there for emergency use. The final upgrade came from Samuel - Grond0 raging a couple of times to drag him back to the FAI temple.
Alesia used friends to reduce prices to the minimum possible while buying goodies from Ulgoth's Beard. While in that region we also helped a farmer deal with a zombie plague. We couldn't initially get the +1 cloak there, but I managed to remember that we now had access to the Cat's Grace spell to boost Alesia's thieving skills. On the way back south we also fully explored the ankheg area - my earlier fears being apparently groundless as we only came across a couple of lone ankhegs even at our current higher levels.
The next area to be cleared was Beregost Temple. It would have been more efficient to use spells there, but I just relied on my more normal run and shoot tactics - switching to magical ammunition for the vampiric wolves.
For something more interesting I went next to find Bassilus. The initial exploration of the area demonstrated conclusively that Zargal was not "the strongest one there is" as he failed to break the hold of a web.
That could provide Alesia with her initially favoured short sword, though she is currently wielding Greywolf's sword after also gaining proficiency in long swords. Bassilus found his initial spell interrupted by a spike growth. He saved against silence, blindness and summon insects before succumbing to a second blind before he could finish off the spirit bear. His buffs were protecting him from standard and magic missiles, but, slightly surprisingly, he just stayed where he was rather than running round after being blinded and the continuing damage from the spike growth eventually finished him off.
Grim Face took his hammer as a slight upgrade to the Stupifier mace. Melicamp failed to survive his transformation, but we got a bit more reward for reporting Bassilus's demise to the local temple.
With Alesia now getting close to allowing everyone to level up again, we moved on to the Lake area. I decided not to kill Drizzt, but just helped him clean up a gnoll infestation. I was not so charitable to a group of half-ogres though and Alesia hit her mark there.
After levelling up, we finished clearing the area by attacking Teyngan's group. He managed to break free of a web just in time to give his speech - which at that point seemed absurdly optimistic about the prospects for the fight .
@Grond0 I find it interesting that both you and Enuhal gave my character the gauntlets, but I gave mine to the Grond0 character - the Corey character compensated for that somewhat by using a large shield +1 and full plate.
@Alesia_BH thanks! If I fail, it's usually in ToB, typically Draconis, Ravager or Melissan. It's rare I die in BG 2 chapter 3. But I am a front-line character this party so maybe it could happen. Will try to continue to be careful...
@Grond0 I find it interesting that both you and Enuhal gave my character the gauntlets, but I gave mine to the Grond0 character - the Corey character compensated for that somewhat by using a large shield +1 and full plate.
As barbarians can't wear plate, my character is never going to be as good at tanking as yours (at least in BGEE), so I would have had you as the main tank in any case. Given my relatively low HPs and status as the protagonist, that's an even clearer decision for me. In your case things are a bit less clear-cut as you might reasonably want to stay out of the front line as the protagonist ...
We have arrived at D'Arnise Keep. We let Nalia join us so she could see us do the job. The lower level went well, we were careful to pull as few enemies as possible.
Once upstairs, Corey was buffed with protection from lightning and he of course he did true sight and was able to beat down the mage, although actually the mage killed itself with its own lightning bolt.
We soon battled Glaicas - he was hitting Corey hard, but got held so that was that.
We destroyed all golems except Iron Golem easily enough. The Iron Golem was quite hard, as we had no +3 ranged weapon. I had thought that Nalia could kill it safely with her flind form (which works in vanilla BG 2) but Nalia was getting hit hard so that wasn't going to work. The only person with +3 weapons is Grond0, but he would have to gulp 2 dozen potions and that's a no go. So Nalia, Enhual, Alesia and Grim Face unleashed all the magic and summons they could - but the Iron Golem was still standing.
So we rest after memorizing lower magic resistance x3. After lowering the iron golem magic resistance, now the magic spells work to get its health down, and some summons were able to finish it off. Whew.
For the Umber Hulks, Corey was pulling them one by one since he was immune with his Shield of Harmony. Then Alesia put Grond0 invisible so that he could put the meat into the cell, then we finished off the Umber Hulks.
For the finale, we used web, stinking cloud, cloudkill, and fireballs from a fireball we had picked up somewhere. This took a while, but this take out Torgal and his buddies without any casualties.
Nalia was quite pleased. After getting paid, we kicked her out of the party. We will sell next session.
Daelat entered Nashkel mines under invisibility and managed to sneak his way into Mulahey's inner sanctum in the cave undetected. He healed up the trap damage, buffed with Shield, ProFear, ProEvil, MIs, MMMs and laid down a Skull Trap to the northern section of the cave where the summons would appear.
Using II, Daelat positioned himself behind Mulahey and opened the battle with another Skull Trap. Meanwhile, the initial trap explodes, killing the majority of his cannon fodder. Shortly thereafter, Mulahey was shot down by our meteors.
Being short on ProUndead scrolls, I didn't feel like exploring the tombs on the surface and thus we returned straight to Nashkel, only stopping briefly to pick up the scroll from Hafiz and the Ring of Fire Resistance from the southeastern area.
For Nimbul, Daelat added Greenstone Amulet into his meagre buff routine and this immediately proved to be the right call when Nimbul opened with Emotion: Hopelessness. Despite the promising start on his end, the battle came to an abrupt end when Nimbul failed his save against one of our Chromatic Orbs (once his MSD had collapsed). Either way, his boots might come in handy and Daelat also uses the Find Familiar scroll to get hiself a rabbit friend.
Afterwards, Daelat took the opportunity to do some pub crawling and deal with Neira at Nashkel Inn, Tranzig at Feldepost's Inn and Karlat at the Red Sheaf. At this stage, our Improved Invisibility gave us the upper hand in encounters such as these, however Silke tends to be a bit more dangerous - she likes to cast Chaos and our only bulletproof defense against that was Potion of Magic Blocking. Keeping the potion at the ready, we decided to try and pin her down with Darts of Stunning. Four darts was all it took in the end and, by way of a reward, Garrick helped us to pickpocket the three "thugs" for their Potions of Defense.
We still felt like lingering around the Sword Coast for a bit longer before heading for the Bandit Camp. Always travelling under invisibility due to the risk of ambush by the bounty hunters, Daelat first proceeded to confront Bassilus. Despite pre-casting an impressive set of divine buffs (in BG1 context), the evil cleric couldn't hold against the barrage of Skull Traps, meteors and Chromatic Orbs for too long and we managed to bring him down before he could call in aerial servant.
We avoided Mencar's group altogether when ambushed by them and travelled to the lighthouse area. II, Skull Traps and MMMs provided us with the sufficient means for safe disposal of the sirines. Daelat then used his Greenstone Amulet to counter the traps in the cave, while shooting down the flesh golems with more meteors.
The last encounter prior to the Bandit Camp were Lamalha and her amazons, whom caught up with us en route from FAI to Peldvale. Did I mention that we travel exclusively under Invisibility? Well of course I heedlessly omitted to do it in this particular instance and thus Daelat got ambushed for real. Luckily, we had our collection of potions to rectify that mistake and Daelat quaffed a PoI the moment we saw them.
With our defensive buffs on (notice how Telka and Maneira attack with -21 and -22 penalty, respectively, though this is mainly thanks to our gear) and offensive spells, we could make quick work of the quartet.
Edit: In terms of gear, we now have the Claw of Kazgaroth (used in tandem with the Ring of Wizardry), Meilum's gauntlets of weapon expertise, Cloak of Displacement, Boots of Avoidance, Greenstone Amulet/Necklace of Missiles, Girdle of Piercing/Girdle of Bluntness, Traveller's Robe (probably from Neera) and a decent selection of situational potions and scrolls. Daelat is eying the archmagi robe, but we still need to raise more funds for that.
Just a quick update on the Bandit Camp where we got escorted from Peldvale by Raiken.
Our target here was the main tent only. Daelat prepared with Potion of Defense, Oil of Speed, Shield, Resist Fear, ProEvil, MIs, MMMs and II and positioned himself at the back of the tent where Raemon (evidently the only bandit smart enough to recognize an actual intruder) would not spot him, proving us with an ideal setting for the opening Skull Trap.
Seeing that Venkt survived the initial strike, Daelat moves behind the table while throwing couple of meteors. With his aura clear, he launches the second Skull Trap against which Venkt's MIs provide no protection. It still wasn't enough.
We run away from Britik to the other side of the tent only to end up in a sort of primitive proto-mage-fencing situation. With the benefit of II and Resist Fear, Daelat was not really required to use his aura against Venkt reactively - the only possible threat could come from a dispel and even so, the chances of being shot down by the archers in a single round were not really high (with Cloak of Kazgaroth, Cloak of Displacement, Boots of Avoidance and Girdle of Piercing). Therefore, as soon as his aura was clear, Daelat started casting another Skull Trap to finish off Venkt whom, simultaneously, started an abjuration incantation (indicating that Remove Magic was on its way). And the result? Venkt died and Daelat got dispelled, which I suppose you could still call 1:0 for us.
Nevertheless, the dispel created a potentially dangerous situation and we wanted to get our buffs back as soon as possible. Waiting for the right opportunity window, Daelat went for the budget option of casting the Invisibility spell rather than quaffing a PoI.
We reapplied Shield, ProEvil, MIs, MMMs and II, blasted the remaining bandits at range with meteors and Magic Missiles/Chromatic Orbs and were outta there.
Spirit lions, starting at level 3, have free action, so they're deadly in combination with web. We use webs, magical ammo and our summons to kill the vampire wolf pack at the north-eastern part of the temple area:
Next is the hostile party in the basilisk area - we web and shoot them. We now also have strength and cat's grace available to boost our fighters non-optimized stats for longer durations:
As Corey gets a new belt, we also make a trip to Ulgoth's Beard to buy the Cloak of Displacement for Alesia and the Wand of the Heavens for Enuhal. After that, we travel to Larswood, where we use sleep against Teven's bandits, get some gear from Baeloth and as we except that the spell Osmadi is casting might be call lightning - which could outright take down a character - we use a wand of paralyzation charge on him. He, like Corsone, starts with ironskins, and I've had issues with uninterruptable spells from these guys before:
Grond0 levels up as we move to Peldvale and take down Raiken, once again sleeping his allies. We are relatively close to Enuhal getting to level 7, which would be the penultimate upgrade for his spirit animals, so we make a short detour to Durlag's Tower, the outside area only - we use wand of frost, of the heavens and of magic missle charges to take down the four battle horrors available here:
This is enough to get the level up (and summon forest being). Moving to the bandit camp, we enter from the east - however, we encounter a bandit way earlier than expected, with the party still unbuffed - so we have to move quickly. While trying to cast cat's grace on Grond0, Grim Face, only protected by shield, gets hit by multiple arrows from black talon elites, so he has to retreat for a bit. Enuhal summons his spirit lions, Alesia casts strength. Grim Face is able to return to the edge of combat, because we 100% need his two web spells. As Enuhal starts casting call lightning on Ardenor Crush, Alesia uses one of her wand of fire charges, joined by Grond0's necklace of missles:
Most approaching foes get trapped in webs - we clean up the remaining bandits with a second wand of fire charge in anticipation of the tent defenders, as Corey levels up:
The webs capture everyone except for the wizard, Venkt, who is the most dangerous foe here anyway - however, his mirror images are countered by true sight, and while he damages Grond0 with a magic missle, we are able to equip magical ammo to counter his PFNM and shoot him down before he can do anything else:
Our summoned nymph heals up the party as we take down the remaining - mostly webbed - bandits:
We get a ton of loot, including new gauntlets + longbow for Grond0, armor for Corey and many potions. We sell a few items in Beregost. None of the two bounty hunter ambushes has triggered yet, so I'm expecting these at any point now.
From what I understand, SCS in BG 1 is manage-able and probably you can role-play them, but can you actually RP SCS encounters in BG 2? I can just see you approaching a mage, not expecting trouble and thus per RP unbuffed, but they do do a buff sequencer and you're like "Uh, oh!".
Thanks for the feedback! By RP I mean narrativize. It needn't have any impact on game play, except where I'd like it too for dramatic purposes.
@Alesia_BH The roleplaying is atmospheric and makes for a fun read, though it is a lot of work - I would propably give up after ~5 posts, but if you have the stamina to continue, feel free to do so
That's the challenge! I have attempted this before and, yes, I have run out of steam. With my bounty hunter, Alesia, on the old, old BioWare forums, I made it to mid SoA. With Alastria I made it to mid SoA, too, although the quality did fall off. More recent attempts were the first Avatars and my dark moon monk, Alikae Dominica. I gave up on both of those in BG1.
Narrativizing an entire run with some semblance of literary merit (albeit at an amateurish level) is my ultimate BG goal. That's the one thing that feels undone to me in my BG career. I would like to make that happen someday.
Upon reflection, the Avatars aren't an ideal choice for that. Narrativizing would slow me down and I don’t want to fall too, too far behind everyone else.
I'm leaning towards a middle ground where I do conventional reports for most updates and add narrative interludes at the end of each chapter. That makes sense to me. I'll get some practice writing for an upcoming full narrativization run, and I'll be semi-capable of keeping up with everyone. That's the plan going forward.
I'm leaning towards a middle ground where I do conventional reports for most updates and add narrative interludes at the end of each chapter. That makes sense to me. I'll get some practice writing for an upcoming full narrativization run, and I'll be semi-capable of keeping up with everyone. That's the plan going forward.
Sounds good - I'm looking forward to reading about it.
Continuing with a programme of area clearances we worked through the remaining southern maps. At the xvart village area the main potential problem was Borda. Enuhal tried to summon a spirit animal to confront him, but I failed to keep him selected and lost the summons (easy to do if you're not fully concentrating). Corey used true sight to dispel mirrors, but Borda has reasonable AC in addition to his MR, so could be expected to get an attacking spell off. He had almost finished casting something at Alesia - possibly a dangerous lightning bolt - when Grond0 brought a sudden end to the proceedings with a vicious critical.
Near the archaeological dig we pulled Brage away a bit before talking him into coming back to Nashkel. Doing that meant that Laryssa remained there - to be shot down for her magical shield.
The Doomsayer has no distance capability or magic resistance, so was pretty much doomed even before being blinded by a sunscorch.
At the Lighthouse area I gave Arkushule a chance by not just attacking her directly - but her pre-cast shield still proved inadequate to deal with the torrent of missiles when she turned hostile.
There were lots of hobgoblins around and Grim Face used slow poison for the first time to stop Corey from being whittled down by a poison arrow. For the sirines I summoned a full complement for the first time, rather than using area effects. Grond0 fended off a charm cast at him with a quick rage, but otherwise the the first group of sirines failed to target anyone.
Sil did manage to cast a charm at Grim Face, but he saved and she went down a second or so later.
Inside the pirate cave Grim Face and Enuhal did an invisible blocking job, while the archers shot the golems.
Grond0 took the tome - as Enuhal noted that not only helps his relatively low HPs, but gives an extra +1 to the shorty saving throw bonuses.
We rendered the road between Nashkel and Beregost safe - including dealing with a group of overbearing Flaming Fist.
Then it was on to Ulcaster. Clearing the exterior is fiddly due to lots of missile-using enemies that move around and respawn, but eventually that was done. I was short of real time here and should really have just saved the game, but decided to try and take Icharyd on first - not a good idea against a strong opponent that I only half-remembered. Particular issues were the need to use magical weapons to hit (meaning our summons were ineffective) and his apparent 100% MR - I'd remembered he had MR, but wasn't sure if that was only partial.
His first incarnation handed out a fair amount of damage (which I know wouldn't have been much of a problem if I were allowing healing potions), but was manageable.
The second incarnation, however, proved fatal for Corey. I had been hoping that a potion of absorption would allow Grond0 to tank, but Icharyd was still hitting him easily - and only needed to hit 3 times to kill him.
That meant Corey taking over tanking duties once more despite already being low on HPs. He also used absorption, which saved him from call lightning - but a critical hit killed him anyway a second or two after that.
The others grabbed the items on the ground and ran for it - straight into a basilisk ambush. Fortunately that didn't gaze immediately and we just ran away rather than investing a potion into killing it.
Once the party was back together again I decided to leave Icharyd for now and do something easier - like Kahrk. Only kidding - we headed for the Nashkel mine . I'm used to tacking the kobold hordes there with solo characters, which can be quite challenging. However, with the firepower of a party and the occasional use of sleep it actually didn't take very long to work through there.
The shaman was shot down by a general attack, while the chieftain was held by a first use of a nymph.
Inside Mulahey's cave, we had intended to rest, but were caught out by Mulahey moving from his original position to investigate noises even while neutral.
We left without fighting and came back when invisible. Most of the enemies filtered down to Mulahey when we entered and Grim Face encouraged some laggard skeletons to move by using turn undead.
A couple of webs then set up a nice feast for the spirit lions. Grim Face added the Ring of Sune to the one of Wizardry to further enhance his spell selection.
Outside the mine, we set about clearing the tombs area. I remembered that the Revenant had some sort of hold attack from a distance, so Grond0 raged and tried to pull it out of its tomb. It wasn't willing to play that game though, so everyone piled in and attacked directly - killing it quickly.
With the rest of the area cleared, we turned our attention to Narcillicus. His mirrors and stoneskins were dispelled and spirit lions finished him off before he could cause any trouble.
The lions couldn't hurt the mustard jellies, but provided a useful distraction as they were dealt with.
Back in Nashkel I didn't feel like giving Nimbul a fair chance. He shrugged off 2 silences, but got caught in a web and found his boots helpless to fend off the following missiles.
Tranzig did get the opportunity to use his pre-buffs, but was blinded by a sunscorch and failed to cast another spell.
Tranzig's ring of protection went to Alesia - meaning everyone now had a protection item. She also got an upgrade at High Hedge with the Robe of the Good Archmagi, while other purchases there included the Claw for Enuhal. That still left enough money to buy the Necklace of Missiles and Shield Amulet at the Carnival.
I couldn't remember exactly what the trigger conditions for the SCS bounty hunter ambushes were, but suspected they were now due. As a result Alesia and Grim Face were travelling invisibly (which they wouldn't normally do) when Molkar blocked the path. Alesia used a wand scorcher as she ran away from the others, while Drakar resisted a blindness and Halacan's mirrors fended off missile attacks on him. Drakar's unholy Blight didn't hurt too much - certainly not as much as the scorcher that Halacan tried (and failed) to run through. A couple of commands finished off Drakar, leaving an easy task to shoot down the remaining pair.
A bit more travelling and it was the Amazons turn to try their luck. Corey opened with true sight, to try and avoid potential backstab chunking, Grond0 raged, Grim Face tried to blind Zeela, Alesia tried an ice lance on Lamalha and Enuhal pulled up a spirit lion. With the 2 invisible enemies back in sight, Grond0 and Corey went into melee to reduce the danger from their magical missile attacks. The ice lance disrupted Lamalha's spell, but Zeela saved against blindness and silenced Alesia and Grim Face. That prompted Alesia to unlimber her wand again and both enemy casters perished as a result - the others were no longer a threat now they were visible and using melee weapons.
@Alesia_BH That sounds like a great compromise! @Corey_Russell@Grond0 Once again, great work - SCS Icharyd is really tough, I'm not looking forward to dealing with him. Good thing you decided to run and live to fight another day
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update V
This is going to be a bit of a rough update. Things did not go according to plan in Cloakwood - I really struggled dealing with the druids here.
After getting the tasloi cloak, we moved to Aldeth's cabin, summoned some help and buffed up. While I could really use Aldeth's bastard sword right now (due to +1 weapons being replaced by fine non-magical ones in my installation, both of my fighters are lacking magical weapons), I decided to side with him for now to get more experience later. However, Seniyad is no joke. Not only does he start with ironskins, he has access to insect plague. While we manage to deal some damage to him right away through our own spells, we get quite unlucky here: Seniyad gets an uninterruptable spell. It is, of course, the aforementioned insect plague:
This is quite devastating to our low level party. We are lucky buffed with remove fear, but the damage itself is pretty much deadly. The other bad news: Since Seniyad is so dangerous, I barely paid any attention to his two low level allies - and one of them was able to cast charm person or mammal and affect Alesia with it - not before she gets hit by the insect plague, though. Realizing that these guys aren't as harmless as we tought, we quickly take them out (easy enough, they don't have ironskins):
Seniyad's ironskins are gone as well, he doesn't get to cast another spell. The danger hasn't passed after the druids death, though - mercilessly, the insect plague deals one point of damage at a time. We can do nothing to help the charmed Alesia, being unable to cast healing spells due to the stinging insects. Grim Face eventually drinks a healing potion to ensure his survival. In the end, literally the last tick of damage takes down our charmed companion - Grim Face would have survived with 1 hp:
That's quite a frustrating way to die. We are forced to return to FAI, resurrect Alesia, rest and return to the woods once more. Maybe I had an opportunity stop Seniyad here - I opened with a hold person on him, which he, of course, saved against. I originally wanted to start with silence, which would've hit his allies as well and propably saved Alesia's life, but I decided against it because I didn't want to wait until the end of the spell duration in order to talk to Aldeth again. Terrible priorities on my part.
Well, in the spider area, Alesia disarmed some traps and leveled up in both classes. As we entered the south-western part of the map after picking up the +2 scimitar, she cast invisibility on herself in order to avoid any phase spider attention, which propably saved her life when she accidentally triggered one of the web traps:
For phase spider encounters, I equipped Grim Face with the ankheg plate, and Alesia never left invisibility. As we made it to the central nest, Grond0 lured spiders and ettercaps outside, into the arms of the waiting and well-prepared party:
I had Corey drink a potion of hill giant strength to carry Chalek's body. Sider's Bane will come in very handy, not only as the first magical weapon for our fighters (which they are now both specialized in), but also as a counter to web tangle - as such, the sword was immediately made useful:
After clearing our some more phase spiders in the north-west, we moved on to the shadow druid area. Killing Peter was easy enough, but I certainly met my match when facing the shadow arch druid, Amarande. With my settings,this guy is a high level avenger, with access to level 6 spells - which I didn't know before this encounter. I also completely forgot that avengers get access to a bunch of arcane magic, which turned out to be a crucial mistake ony my part. After my trouble with Seniyad, I was determined not to make the same mistake twice and immediately hit Amarande with duoble icelance - he resised both stun effects, but we did get the interrupt on his first cast:
Further spells such as magic missles and alicorn lance deal significant damage to him, however, my fighters fail to get past his ironskins for now. He transforms between a variety of avenger forms using SCS improved shapeshifting, and a powerful healing potion brings him back to almost full hitpoints. One of his allies (he gets two lower level druids, just like Seniyad) has hit Enuhal with doom, so I decide to take them down first before they can maybe charm him. They are easy enough to kill, and as I see that Amarande is only casting an enchantment spell, I make no active effort to interrupt him - druids don't get powerful enchantment spells at this level, right? Only charm person or mammal comes to mind, and with the attached saving throw bonus, I don't feel very threatened.
Well, avengers do get a powerful enchantment spell. Chaos:
I didn't even use barbarian rage because I assumed this was just a single target spell targetting Enuhal. The chaos hits Corey and Grond0, and it spreads to Alesia as well. Grim Face, and, ironically, the doomed Enuhal, are the only ones to make their saving throws. I'm looking for ways to turn this around. First, I have to hope that my fighters don't start attacking my non-confused party members. Luckily, they just stand around at first. Enuhal summons spirit lions - we somehow need the damage to take down the shadow archdruid. Grim Face tries to go for hold person. It has to work one of these times, right? It doesn't. This spell is cursed. He also tries blind. Doesn't work. Meanwhile, Amarande casts an evocation spell. Which one could this possibly be? Turns out it's chain lightning, another avenger spell:
Alesia, who has been hurt by one of the druids and their flameblades, dies immediately. Grim Face is at exactly 1 hp. Enuhal is still fine, in part due to wearing Mulahey's boots. Grim Face moves downstairs, to safety. Enuhal oversees the remaining battle, as the spirit lions finally tear down Amarande's ironskins, attacked by Corey and Grond0, but still victorious:
That was a messy battle. Once again, we are forced to return to FAI. We raise Alesia, encountering an ettercap ambush on the way. Still no bounty hunters, huh? This is getting suspicious.
I should've used my wands more, I guess. Gone all out, with every possible source of damage that I had at my disposal. I could've easily dodged the chaos, but I had no idea this spell was coming my way. Well, I hope I can learn from this experience. At least our next encounter with a hostile spellcaster was no trouble - our spirit lions easily take down the hamadryad:
We lure the wyvners out of their cave:
Drasus' party can be quite tough, especially on insane SCS. We hit them with double web before engaging - spirit lions and Grond0, using Spider's Bane, wade inside, in order to take down the wizards. However, before we can kill one of them, he makes both of his saves and activates his prebuffs - which include MGOI. Corey counters his true sight, Grond0 counters his enchantment spell by activating his rage:
The other wizard makes his saving throws as well and puts up an impressive number of pre-buffs - Grond0 and lions focus on the wounded one first, the others start shooting at Drasus, but he is able to double-save and drink a potion of freedom:
Seriously, are my opponents saving throws somehow buffed in this installation? I've never seen this lack of success with my crowd control spells. Well, at least we get Drasus with one of our icelances and stun him:
The other wizard is luckily out of sight of our remaining party, and he can only hurt, but not disable Grond0 - eventually, the barbarian and our summons take him down:
Genthore is the last to die:
We get the boots of speed, and an actual magical morningstar (not a fine one), so we finally have magical weapons for everyone. With the amount of trouble we've gotten into here, I decided not to tackle the iron mines yet. We return to civilization, but on the way back, we finally get our first bounty hunter ambush - Molkar's crew. However, this time, we finally crush a group of foes with ease: The cleric gets taken down immediately before doing anything with icelance and a quick hit from a raging Grond0:
True sight counters the wizard's MI, and he dies to a few spirit lion + fighter attacks:
The others are easy enough to take down. My plan now is to get a little bit more experience and items from some of the eastern wilderness areas that I haven't visited yet.
By selling the excess loot from the Bandit Camp we could now afford to buy the Robe of Neutral Archmagi before heading off to Cloakwood.
Apart from collecting the Cloak of Non-Detection there was of not much interest to us in the first Cloakwood area and so we pushed onwards to the spider forest. Our goal here was the 135k XP mark for level 9 and we prepared accordingly with the green ProPoison scroll and Potion of Freedom. The ettercaps got eliminated with Skull Trap and MMMs (which we typically pre-cast before resting), while for the individual spiders we relied on Darts of Stunning, Magic Missiles and Wand of Frost. Running II, Daelat then entered the spider lair and launched another Skull Trap before retreating back outside, where he finished the incoming spiders with Wand of Fire.
By levelling up we're able to secure Stoneskin as our second L4 spell pick. Even through there are plenty other good options to choose from, we felt that this will bring us the piece (sic!) of mind that we might just need to safely navigate through the rest of BG1.
And that also applied to Drasus' party at the mines' entrance. I often get uneasy with this encounter and good number of my early runs ended here. I find it legitimate to avoid this party altogether, although for me the Boots of Speed are too much of draw too pass, so I mostly focus on killing Drasus and then tend to run away from the rest of his crew.
It's been some time since I last used the Cloudkill scroll from the Cloud Peak Mountains in my runs and it felt as a decent option for opening the battle. But first, we prepared with MMMs, Stoneskin, Shield, Resist Fear, Potion of Absorption, ProEvil, Mis, II and laid down a Skull Trap between Daelat and Drasus. Here we go.
As expected, following the initial damage tick from Cloudkill the entire party started moving towards our position. Drasus triggered the Skull Trap, though unfortunately this only happened after he had quaffed a Potion of Magic Shielding and thus significantly mitigating the damage.
Daelat retreated to the bridge and launched another Skull Trap, which (rather amusingly) interrupted Drasus' Enrage cast. Good, that's less HPs to be worried about.
At this stage we were moving back towards the northern end of the area, while keeping Drasus's at our heels and the mages far behind. For cases of emergency, we had Oil of Speed, PoIs and Potion of Magic Blocking at the ready and only used our aura when we were sufficiently confident that is was safe to do so (our primary concerns being Chaos and Remove Magic). Using Magic Missiles, Wand of Fire and an occasional meteor, we slowly gnawed away Drasus' remaining hitpoints. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize I could have attempted to dispel his Potion of Magic Shielding with Remove Magic to make the going faster, but we prevailed nevertheless.
Rocking his new boots, Daelat casts Invisibility and rushes into the mines. Avoiding all the enemies, he stops for a brief chat with Ril, reapplies Invisibility and proceeds to Davaeorn' chambers. After killing the lone guard at the lobby we find a safe spot to hide and allow ourselves a short rest.
For Davaeorn, we buffed with Stoneskin, Resist Fear, Oil of Speed, Potion of Defense, Potion of Fire Resistance, Shield, ProEvil, MIs and II - given how chaotic this fight can get sometimes, we didn't want to take any chances despite expecting to get dispelled very early in the battle. Daelat approached invisible from the side corridor to the north and launched a Wand of Fire (fireball)/Skull Trap combo into the room to dilute the enemy forces a bit.
Interestingly, Davaeorn's pre-casting protections did not fire up immediately the moment we saw each other and, injured as he was, he got shot down with a single meteor.
Oh well, I'm not proud at all of this one - next time I will try to face him more directly and hopefully also do it with more style. Anyway, we're off to Baldur's Gate.
@Alesia_BH Thank you and I'm already quite excited about your current run with the Avatars. As much as I have always enjoyed reading your write-ups focusing on the tactical elements, there's definitely a nice spin to it with the accompanying narrative as well. But in the end it should be about whatever works best for you - I'm sure we'll all appreciate and enjoy your presence here either way .
The Bandit Camp is another area that can be a significant obstacle for some solo characters. With that in mind I was a bit cautious on the first visit and decided to retreat rather than risk an all-out fight after taking a fair amount of damage from arrows. On coming back, there were fewer enemies and web worked well to reduce the remaining pressure. Once Venkt got stuck and shot down, finishing the rest was easy enough.
Corey took the full plate armor, though the weight of that does somewhat limit the weight of loot he can carry. Grond0 was pleased to acquire a major upgrade to his bow courtesy of Hakt. We spent a while exploring and looting the remainder of the area before moving on. One disappointment was that Grim Face and Alesia managed to fluff learning every single one of the new spell scrolls found there. On the upside Grond0 now has slow poison as a Bhaal ability to further reduce the danger of poison for the party.
The first Cloakwood area offered no real difficulties. Seniyad completed his spell despite being taken to near death by numerous hits, but didn't do too much damage. I think the other druids all targeted Alesia - taking her down to single figures. However, a couple of CLW had her feeling more comfortable as the druids were finished off.
After going to offer Gurke his old cloak, we moved on to the second Cloakwood area - Corey tanking an ettercap ambush on the way. A bit more care was needed here due to the traps and the danger from poison. The SCS giant spiders with their web tangles can also be deadly and Enuhal unlimbered his wand of the heavens here when Alesia was stuck.
The spider nest saw a general fiery attack used for the first time. That was sufficient to reduce the opposition to manageable proportions - which was a good job given that the 3 frontliners all got webbed.
Elsewhere, command proved pretty successful at dealing with various phase spiders. Although they now transport instantly, they still seem a bit slow to attack after movement - so as long as you pay attention it's easy enough to get out of their attack range to avoid their deadly poison.
In the 3rd area the druids wandering around only managed a single Alicorn Lance between them. I'd already read @Enuhal's encounter with Amarande, but was well aware of the danger there anyway - even my poor memory was able to recall the potential risk (as the result of several fatal encounters with him by my solo characters ). Grond0 skipped up and down the stairs a few times there until Amarande followed him down. The others hit him with a general attack, taking him to near death and forcing him to take an extra-healing potion, but with ironskins now all used up he was shot down within a second or two anyway.
His companions had stayed upstairs and were no problem to deal with.
On the way to the 4th area some giant spiders tried an interception. Surprisingly, one of them tried a web tangle on Grond0, even though he had Spider's Bane equipped. Grim Face saved and a bit of wand use rescued Corey when he was stuck. Grond0 cured Corey's poison, despite being poisoned himself. It's a relatively weak variety though and did little damage before Enuhal cured him in turn.
On arrival the hamadryad tried its luck, but that has little offensive capability and is no problem for a party. At the wyvern cave I have in the past used invisible blockers on the stairs with a party. However, you need several of those and with only 5 in the party I decided to take the fight outside and shoot the wyverns there. That nearly caused a problem as a result of having taken the whole party inside - Enuhal was a bit slow to get back out and got trapped by the emerging wyverns. The blocker was quickly killed, but Enuhal was poisoned in the process - fortunately Grond0's Bhaal power was available to help out, as the wyvern poison is pretty deadly.
Grond0 used rage to carry the wyvern heads back to Beregost for disposal.
The remaining area was cleared without incident and we headed for the mine. With such limited carrying capacity, the further wyvern heads from an ambush on the way were left to rot. At the mine we cleared the surrounding area before setting up for Drasus. Initial webs were followed up with area damage, while Grond0 threw poison darts at the mages from behind. That all resulted in a nice clean kill.
Corey took the boots of speed to help get into position more quickly for his tanking duties.
As usual with areas we fully explored the mine. With a number of potential trouble spots I thought setting up invisible attacks would be useful. Bearing in mind the danger of ambushes, Grim Face used his 3 invisibility slots and topped up with sanctuary on himself, while Alesia used stealth - making resting much easier while in the process of getting everyone invisible. For Hareishan, web and spike growth were used as crowd control, while Grond0 and Corey acted as invisible blockers in the corridor to prevent the bulk of the guards getting into the action. I hadn't appreciated though that Hareishan's stoneskins would block the spike growth damage and the attack could have disintegrated if Alesia had not managed to use an arrow of cold to disrupt Hareishan's opening spell - she didn't get another chance.
Grim Face inched forwards too much at one point and got hit by a guard, but otherwise the encounter went well.
On the next level down, invisibility helped make the initial ambush simple. Rather than re-establish that, Alesia just used stealth to monitor what was happening with Natasha as her hobgoblin guards exited the room to be shot down. A bit surprisingly Natasha just ignored the noises from the corridor, so Alesia threw in a web. As soon as the mage got stuck everyone piled in to finish her off.
The ogre mage was the final opponent on that level. It refused to take action against a spirit lion going in alone, so Corey went in to prompt its appearance. Once it had cast a magic missile at him, everyone else piled in, shooting magical ammunition to bypass the ogre mage's protections. That killed it pretty quickly, though it did just have time to get another magic missile off against Alesia.
Invisible once more, we went down to the final level. I forgot to get Alesia to disarm the first trap there and Grim Face took some damage from magic missiles . After that though Alesia went into sight range of Davaeorn to prompt his conversation and start a procession of guards arriving while we waited in a side room.
Once the party was all gathered, Grond0 showed himself from behind a screen of invisible blockers and spent a while using his 2-handed sword to cut down the guard and battle horrors (needing a 19 to hit the latter).
Then it was Enuhal's turn to get some easy kills. A single spike growth killed numerous guards and the XP from that enabled everyone to level up once more (Grond0 getting a good roll and Corey a bad one to suddenly be on the same HPs). I thought more spells might be required, but in fact Davaeorn went down just before the spike growth ended.
We left Stephan alone, but killed the mustard jelly and looted everywhere before flooding the mine.
On arrival at Baldur's Gate I thought I should do some shopping for spells before I forgot. In particular, Alesia tried once more to learn invisibility - and got it at her 4th attempt. With so many learning failures, that was an expensive business but we still had enough cash to buy most potentially useful potions at Sorcerous Sundries as well.
I wasn't sure who would get the most benefit from the dexterity tome, so ultimately Grond0 claimed it as the Bhaalspawn. Action in the City will have to wait for next time though.
Journal of Tusker the Half-orc Blackguard final entry.
I reached the 161,000 Level Cap OK and was a Hero, but sadly lost interest in the game as I often do with a Blackguard. I am therefore switching to a new game with a starting party of half-orcs who are wary of other races.
Comments
The battle with the Revenant was touch and go. It necessitated sleep afterwards at the Carnival.
Mrs Blackwood had no interest in me babysitting her children: a bit of a shame as they looked quite tasty.
I killed an ogre afterwards near the FAI.
Killing Zargal proved to be quite easy, as did helpingg Charleston Nib.
Fighting Sirines on the other hand proved to be quite dangerous!
I rescued Ardrouine's son next which boosted my reputation and the rescued Corianna from petrification.
North of the Lighthouse area I killed Shoal and more Sirine.
I have surprisingly become a hero before entering the Nashkel Mines!
My reputation may well reach 20 without giving gold to the temple.
Lol. Deny it if you must, but I continue to believe that you learned a thing or two over the past six years.
At Sendais enclave I buffed to full including few potions and started with slaughtering the drow captain. Unfortunately I was too fast because after running towards the entrance there was no cutscene and no visible gates. Had to go back kill one of guards and wait for cutscene before drinking invi potion and going in.
Once again with help of invi potion I have skipped half of base going straight to that named drow guard with key and imp haste amulet. Sneaked in invisible before anyone could notice I already whacked him few times with FoA +5 and dropped Comet on his head.
Took the loot and ran out drinking another invi potion on my way. Avoided any combat till Odamaron.
Before his chambers I decided a quick cleanup was required, which wasnt the best idea, because as soon as the fight started some of my buffs started dropping. As if it wasnt bad, I pulled few additional packs which I have skipped before, and had a big party while not fully prepared. First had to cast PfMW and SI:A, while moving at the same time to not let them swarm me.
There was A LOT of them. FoA +5 and my saves protected me against some disabling spells from Yochlol. Finally managed to summon Planetar and together with him and GWW killed them all. Rested, rebuffed, set contingencies and entered Odamaron's chambers.
This time Im going to use Runehammer +5 instead of casting black blade. Chain spell: Simulacrum>summoned planetar inside and together we attacked the nearest enemy. Every lich inside protected themselfs with PfMW so we wait two rounds at least without casting anything.
Our summons play targets role when we wait for perfect timing and cast Time Stop right as they PfMW should be dropping. Then its Hammer Time! Apprentice first hit - destroyed. Odamaron first hit - destroyed. Lich first hit - blocked by fading PfMW, second hit - destroyed.
Grab the loot, check the stashes and walk out like a champ while time is still frozen. I chugged invi potion again and sneaked through enemies untill I stood before earth elemental prince.
Black Blade + PfMW + 2x breach and hes dead.
Ive rushed too fast towards high priestess room and completely forgot about her little adventuring party. Immedialte I had duck back behind doors, and start casting Time Stop to deal with them unprepared. Cambion and Tanar'ri even cut out my escape by teleporting around me. They died first after jumping right into my spell.
One stop was enough to slaughter entire team and Diaytha.
Illithids in next zone were easily dealt with by simulactrum and planetar. They tried to swarm me with astral travel but at this point in game ~20 APR with FoA +5 and critical srikes is just too much for them to survive longer than 1-2 seconds. Still I havent underestimated them and kept PfMW up.
Buffed up to full, prepared spells and sequencers, drunk full set of potions and ran into Sendai's room.
As soon as contingencies trigger simulacrum summons planetar and everyone attacks first sendai cleric who dies in 2 seconds.
Planetar casts True Sight while me and my clone kill warrior Sendai in another 2 seconds. Next were mage and cleric/mage Sendai. Both heavy buffed, one summoned planetar who died in blink of an eye.
I used spell trigger:3x pierce magic on mage one while my simulactrum and planetar were killing drow reinforcements and at that moment I made a big mistake.
I wasnt checking buffs and havent noticed Si:A dropping. Mage Sendai cleaned me with one Remove Magic. I casted PfMW and equipped DoE, Shield of Reflection and some AC boosting items.
Tried alacrity and full rebuff next but cleric/mage Sendai casted Time Stop and followed with Dragon Breath on me. Thankfully it was the only dangerous spell she fired so I countered with instant SI:Evocation and ran to the other end of the room. Meanwhile mage Sendai's PfMW dropped and she was slain by clone and planetar.
I still couldnt cast spell when archer Sendai appeared and cleric/mage teleported right next to me. Archer was killed quickly by planetar and simulacrum while I had to reposition again because thief Sendai became hostile next to me.
Sent clone quickly to her while planetar casted insect plague and managed to catch entire room with it including cleric/mage Sendai.
Thief died and I could finally cast alacrity being far from combat. Rebuffed some crucial buffs and casted Time Stop.
Went to finish cleric/mage but she had contingency:PfMW so I switched to two non magical flails which I had in my bag since SoA and finished her.
Real Sendai appeared and destroyed my simulacrum and planetar, good thing I was protected against ADHW. I casted another Time Stop and summoned another planetar and simulactrum. Casted True Sight also and moved far away from Sendai leaving her to my summons.
She still had Time Stop which she used but she didnt cast anything dangerous. Planetar casted insects on her and together with simulacrum on GWW finished her with melee.
At this point I remembered about pocket plane trials. Fight with Evil Me was easy. Fully buffed, with simulactrum and planetar already summoned and buffed as well we devoured Evil Vael in 2 seconds.
Planetar casted insect plague on Tamoko which spread so well that it won fight by itself. Semaj even couldnt cast a single spell. Unfortunately I forgot that dialogue options with Solar decide what powers we receive so no op regeneration for me. Luckily I have chosen evil option with 4th trial which gave me hand of murder.
After that went to Amkethran and prepared for Balthazar. Before starting final confrontation with the monk I have visited few shops, recharged some items and tidied my containers a bit. Once I got inside monastery it was time for buffs. Summoned simulacrum and planetar inside and started fight that ended after 3 seconds.
Ravager was dispatched similarily. Between 9APR black blade and 8APR FoA +5 he died rather quickly.
All that is left now is final fight in Throne of Bhaal. To be honest its been ages since I managed to get to ToB final without burning out or getting bored mid-ToB. Not only that but I have never been so far on Enhanced Edition. I barely remember how the fight looks like. Fortunately this forum exists. No idea what strategy I will be using yet but it will be brute force most likely.
Since SoA I have been stockpiling every helpful scroll/item. Currently I have a whooping 7x Time Stop, 3x Spell Strike, 3x Chain Spell, 2x Spell Trap, 3x Black Blade. I can cast my full spell armor at least four times with scrolls alone. 17x Spell Immunity: Abjuration and 16x PfMW. Lots of Breach, Secret Word, Remove Magic, Ruby Ray scrolls. 6x Wand of Spell Striking and Rod of Reversal should be enough even without single rest. I will have to be careful with HLA usage and probably abuse contingency casting if that still works. I wonder if I should use scroll of PfM on Abazigal?
The party has made more progress. The druid grove went smoothly. Enuhal's capabilities (summons and plague of insects) were very useful here. And the mages could throw in chaos and glitterdust too, if needed. Thus the druid grove problem was solved pretty easily.
We did a task for a noble and cleared out some undead, though we returned the mantle to the leader of the town for the reputation boost.
We also tried to find Montaron, but found an assassin for Xzar instead. Oh well, thanks for the bracers Xzar! We did find a charm helmet for Grond0 during this process as well. Speaking of Grond0, he took down the two mages (Sansha and Prebek I think) protected by improved invisibility. The mages just stood there while the barbarian put the beat down on them, very convenient!
We went to the temple sewers and Grond0 went invisible and directed our summons to assassinate Gaius and the summons succeeded! While the summons were distracting Tarnor's gang, we then hit them with chaos and plague of insects. After that, ranged fire all the way - success! Most equipment we couldn't use so just sold the junk for some more gold. The mages have bought quite a few spells while they had some potions of genius active to make the best use of the potions, so the mages know quite a few spells now.
We again used the summons + plague of insects vs Mencar's group, this worked great, though Alesia took a bit of damage. We even succeeded in taking down the thief, who tried to escape. For some reason melf's acid arrows and flame arrow took him down. we of course didn't let ourselves be hurt by the trap on a chest.
Looks like D'Arnise Keep will be our next target!
Best of luck at the Throne, Rayga!
A number of players have made effective use of PfM on Abazigal, both in the No Reload Challenge and in the Ascension Solo Challenge from the old, old BioWare forums. I, personally, have always restricted use of PfM on hostiles so I'm not prepared to comment on the tactical advantages. @Enuhal recently used PfM on Sendai and Abazigal and has presumably done the fight both with and without. He may be better positioned to comment.
If you'd like to have a pre-battle brainstorm session, I and others would be happy to discuss with you over in the Adventurer's Lounge. In any case, you've got this, Rayga! Good hunting! The Hall awaits!
Best,
A.
most SCS options installed; playing on hardcore
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194919/#Comment_1194919
Back at the Carnival I decided to clear the area. The kobold hordes that can spawn there can be pretty dangerous if you're not expecting them, but sleep is a good way to reduce that danger.
At the Gnoll Stronghold, Corey took the bracers of dexterity to bolster his defenses. He also grabbed the tome to boost charisma to 18. Those prizes helped compensate him for being left to tank on his own there, with very little spell support. He was slightly worse for wear by the time the area was cleared, but still seemed game for more.
I spent a bit of time sorting out inventory, belatedly remembering that with SCS the shopkeeper in Nashkel takes only 1 winter wolf pelt (the other 4 had to be sold for less at High Hedge). Then it was off to maximise reputation before buying a few things. At the Mine area Greywolf offered an easy upgrade opportunity: despite being blinded he looked like seeing off a spirit lion - until he was commanded.
Alesia used friends to reduce prices to the minimum possible while buying goodies from Ulgoth's Beard. While in that region we also helped a farmer deal with a zombie plague. We couldn't initially get the +1 cloak there, but I managed to remember that we now had access to the Cat's Grace spell to boost Alesia's thieving skills. On the way back south we also fully explored the ankheg area - my earlier fears being apparently groundless as we only came across a couple of lone ankhegs even at our current higher levels.
The next area to be cleared was Beregost Temple. It would have been more efficient to use spells there, but I just relied on my more normal run and shoot tactics - switching to magical ammunition for the vampiric wolves.
With Alesia now getting close to allowing everyone to level up again, we moved on to the Lake area. I decided not to kill Drizzt, but just helped him clean up a gnoll infestation. I was not so charitable to a group of half-ogres though and Alesia hit her mark there.
Corey - inquisitor L6, 70 HPs, 189 kills, 0 deaths
Grim Face - cleric/illusionist L5/5, 33 HPs, 55 kills, 0 deaths
Alesia - mage/thief L5/6, 31 HPs, 63 kills, 0 deaths
Enuhal - totemic druid L7, 39 HPs, 76 kills, 1 death
@Alesia_BH thanks! If I fail, it's usually in ToB, typically Draconis, Ravager or Melissan. It's rare I die in BG 2 chapter 3. But I am a front-line character this party so maybe it could happen. Will try to continue to be careful...
We have arrived at D'Arnise Keep. We let Nalia join us so she could see us do the job. The lower level went well, we were careful to pull as few enemies as possible.
Once upstairs, Corey was buffed with protection from lightning and he of course he did true sight and was able to beat down the mage, although actually the mage killed itself with its own lightning bolt.
We soon battled Glaicas - he was hitting Corey hard, but got held so that was that.
We destroyed all golems except Iron Golem easily enough. The Iron Golem was quite hard, as we had no +3 ranged weapon. I had thought that Nalia could kill it safely with her flind form (which works in vanilla BG 2) but Nalia was getting hit hard so that wasn't going to work. The only person with +3 weapons is Grond0, but he would have to gulp 2 dozen potions and that's a no go. So Nalia, Enhual, Alesia and Grim Face unleashed all the magic and summons they could - but the Iron Golem was still standing.
So we rest after memorizing lower magic resistance x3. After lowering the iron golem magic resistance, now the magic spells work to get its health down, and some summons were able to finish it off. Whew.
For the Umber Hulks, Corey was pulling them one by one since he was immune with his Shield of Harmony. Then Alesia put Grond0 invisible so that he could put the meat into the cell, then we finished off the Umber Hulks.
For the finale, we used web, stinking cloud, cloudkill, and fireballs from a fireball we had picked up somewhere. This took a while, but this take out Torgal and his buddies without any casualties.
Nalia was quite pleased. After getting paid, we kicked her out of the party. We will sell next session.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1
Daelat entered Nashkel mines under invisibility and managed to sneak his way into Mulahey's inner sanctum in the cave undetected. He healed up the trap damage, buffed with Shield, ProFear, ProEvil, MIs, MMMs and laid down a Skull Trap to the northern section of the cave where the summons would appear.
Using II, Daelat positioned himself behind Mulahey and opened the battle with another Skull Trap. Meanwhile, the initial trap explodes, killing the majority of his cannon fodder. Shortly thereafter, Mulahey was shot down by our meteors.
Being short on ProUndead scrolls, I didn't feel like exploring the tombs on the surface and thus we returned straight to Nashkel, only stopping briefly to pick up the scroll from Hafiz and the Ring of Fire Resistance from the southeastern area.
For Nimbul, Daelat added Greenstone Amulet into his meagre buff routine and this immediately proved to be the right call when Nimbul opened with Emotion: Hopelessness. Despite the promising start on his end, the battle came to an abrupt end when Nimbul failed his save against one of our Chromatic Orbs (once his MSD had collapsed). Either way, his boots might come in handy and Daelat also uses the Find Familiar scroll to get hiself a rabbit friend.
Afterwards, Daelat took the opportunity to do some pub crawling and deal with Neira at Nashkel Inn, Tranzig at Feldepost's Inn and Karlat at the Red Sheaf. At this stage, our Improved Invisibility gave us the upper hand in encounters such as these, however Silke tends to be a bit more dangerous - she likes to cast Chaos and our only bulletproof defense against that was Potion of Magic Blocking. Keeping the potion at the ready, we decided to try and pin her down with Darts of Stunning. Four darts was all it took in the end and, by way of a reward, Garrick helped us to pickpocket the three "thugs" for their Potions of Defense.
We still felt like lingering around the Sword Coast for a bit longer before heading for the Bandit Camp. Always travelling under invisibility due to the risk of ambush by the bounty hunters, Daelat first proceeded to confront Bassilus. Despite pre-casting an impressive set of divine buffs (in BG1 context), the evil cleric couldn't hold against the barrage of Skull Traps, meteors and Chromatic Orbs for too long and we managed to bring him down before he could call in aerial servant.
We avoided Mencar's group altogether when ambushed by them and travelled to the lighthouse area. II, Skull Traps and MMMs provided us with the sufficient means for safe disposal of the sirines. Daelat then used his Greenstone Amulet to counter the traps in the cave, while shooting down the flesh golems with more meteors.
The last encounter prior to the Bandit Camp were Lamalha and her amazons, whom caught up with us en route from FAI to Peldvale. Did I mention that we travel exclusively under Invisibility? Well of course I heedlessly omitted to do it in this particular instance and thus Daelat got ambushed for real. Luckily, we had our collection of potions to rectify that mistake and Daelat quaffed a PoI the moment we saw them.
With our defensive buffs on (notice how Telka and Maneira attack with -21 and -22 penalty, respectively, though this is mainly thanks to our gear) and offensive spells, we could make quick work of the quartet.
Edit: In terms of gear, we now have the Claw of Kazgaroth (used in tandem with the Ring of Wizardry), Meilum's gauntlets of weapon expertise, Cloak of Displacement, Boots of Avoidance, Greenstone Amulet/Necklace of Missiles, Girdle of Piercing/Girdle of Bluntness, Traveller's Robe (probably from Neera) and a decent selection of situational potions and scrolls. Daelat is eying the archmagi robe, but we still need to raise more funds for that.
Regards,
B.
***
Spellbook (level 8):
L1 - Blindness, Shield, Magic Missile, ProEvil, Chromatic Orb
L2 - Invisibility, MIs, Resist Fear
L3 - Skull Trap, MMM
L4 - II
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2
Just a quick update on the Bandit Camp where we got escorted from Peldvale by Raiken.
Our target here was the main tent only. Daelat prepared with Potion of Defense, Oil of Speed, Shield, Resist Fear, ProEvil, MIs, MMMs and II and positioned himself at the back of the tent where Raemon (evidently the only bandit smart enough to recognize an actual intruder) would not spot him, proving us with an ideal setting for the opening Skull Trap.
Seeing that Venkt survived the initial strike, Daelat moves behind the table while throwing couple of meteors. With his aura clear, he launches the second Skull Trap against which Venkt's MIs provide no protection. It still wasn't enough.
We run away from Britik to the other side of the tent only to end up in a sort of primitive proto-mage-fencing situation. With the benefit of II and Resist Fear, Daelat was not really required to use his aura against Venkt reactively - the only possible threat could come from a dispel and even so, the chances of being shot down by the archers in a single round were not really high (with Cloak of Kazgaroth, Cloak of Displacement, Boots of Avoidance and Girdle of Piercing). Therefore, as soon as his aura was clear, Daelat started casting another Skull Trap to finish off Venkt whom, simultaneously, started an abjuration incantation (indicating that Remove Magic was on its way). And the result? Venkt died and Daelat got dispelled, which I suppose you could still call 1:0 for us.
Nevertheless, the dispel created a potentially dangerous situation and we wanted to get our buffs back as soon as possible. Waiting for the right opportunity window, Daelat went for the budget option of casting the Invisibility spell rather than quaffing a PoI.
We reapplied Shield, ProEvil, MIs, MMMs and II, blasted the remaining bandits at range with meteors and Magic Missiles/Chromatic Orbs and were outta there.
Regards,
B.
***
Spellbook (level 8):
L1 - Blindness, Shield, Magic Missile, ProEvil, Chromatic Orb
L2 - Invisibility, MIs, Resist Fear
L3 - Skull Trap, MMM
L4 - II
Spirit lions, starting at level 3, have free action, so they're deadly in combination with web. We use webs, magical ammo and our summons to kill the vampire wolf pack at the north-eastern part of the temple area:
Agreed! Excellent start, Borco!
Thanks for the feedback! By RP I mean narrativize. It needn't have any impact on game play, except where I'd like it too for dramatic purposes.
That's the challenge! I have attempted this before and, yes, I have run out of steam. With my bounty hunter, Alesia, on the old, old BioWare forums, I made it to mid SoA. With Alastria I made it to mid SoA, too, although the quality did fall off. More recent attempts were the first Avatars and my dark moon monk, Alikae Dominica. I gave up on both of those in BG1.
Narrativizing an entire run with some semblance of literary merit (albeit at an amateurish level) is my ultimate BG goal. That's the one thing that feels undone to me in my BG career. I would like to make that happen someday.
Upon reflection, the Avatars aren't an ideal choice for that. Narrativizing would slow me down and I don’t want to fall too, too far behind everyone else.
I'm leaning towards a middle ground where I do conventional reports for most updates and add narrative interludes at the end of each chapter. That makes sense to me. I'll get some practice writing for an upcoming full narrativization run, and I'll be semi-capable of keeping up with everyone. That's the plan going forward.
Best,
A.
Sounds good - I'm looking forward to reading about it.
most SCS options installed; playing on hardcore
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194919/#Comment_1194919
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194948/#Comment_1194948
We rendered the road between Nashkel and Beregost safe - including dealing with a group of overbearing Flaming Fist.
His first incarnation handed out a fair amount of damage (which I know wouldn't have been much of a problem if I were allowing healing potions), but was manageable.
Back in Nashkel I didn't feel like giving Nimbul a fair chance. He shrugged off 2 silences, but got caught in a web and found his boots helpless to fend off the following missiles.
I couldn't remember exactly what the trigger conditions for the SCS bounty hunter ambushes were, but suspected they were now due. As a result Alesia and Grim Face were travelling invisibly (which they wouldn't normally do) when Molkar blocked the path. Alesia used a wand scorcher as she ran away from the others, while Drakar resisted a blindness and Halacan's mirrors fended off missile attacks on him. Drakar's unholy Blight didn't hurt too much - certainly not as much as the scorcher that Halacan tried (and failed) to run through. A couple of commands finished off Drakar, leaving an easy task to shoot down the remaining pair.
Grond0 - barbarian L6, 60 HPs, 469 kills
Corey - inquisitor L6, 70 HPs, 326 kills, 1 death
Grim Face - cleric/illusionist L5/5, 33 HPs, 97 kills, 0 deaths
Alesia - mage/thief L5/6, 31 HPs, 103 kills, 0 deaths
Enuhal - totemic druid L7, 39 HPs, 117 kills, 1 death
@Corey_Russell @Grond0 Once again, great work - SCS Icharyd is really tough, I'm not looking forward to dealing with him. Good thing you decided to run and live to fight another day
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update V
This is going to be a bit of a rough update. Things did not go according to plan in Cloakwood - I really struggled dealing with the druids here.
After getting the tasloi cloak, we moved to Aldeth's cabin, summoned some help and buffed up. While I could really use Aldeth's bastard sword right now (due to +1 weapons being replaced by fine non-magical ones in my installation, both of my fighters are lacking magical weapons), I decided to side with him for now to get more experience later. However, Seniyad is no joke. Not only does he start with ironskins, he has access to insect plague. While we manage to deal some damage to him right away through our own spells, we get quite unlucky here: Seniyad gets an uninterruptable spell. It is, of course, the aforementioned insect plague:
Well, in the spider area, Alesia disarmed some traps and leveled up in both classes. As we entered the south-western part of the map after picking up the +2 scimitar, she cast invisibility on herself in order to avoid any phase spider attention, which propably saved her life when she accidentally triggered one of the web traps:
Well, avengers do get a powerful enchantment spell. Chaos:
I should've used my wands more, I guess. Gone all out, with every possible source of damage that I had at my disposal. I could've easily dodged the chaos, but I had no idea this spell was coming my way. Well, I hope I can learn from this experience. At least our next encounter with a hostile spellcaster was no trouble - our spirit lions easily take down the hamadryad:
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3
By selling the excess loot from the Bandit Camp we could now afford to buy the Robe of Neutral Archmagi before heading off to Cloakwood.
Apart from collecting the Cloak of Non-Detection there was of not much interest to us in the first Cloakwood area and so we pushed onwards to the spider forest. Our goal here was the 135k XP mark for level 9 and we prepared accordingly with the green ProPoison scroll and Potion of Freedom. The ettercaps got eliminated with Skull Trap and MMMs (which we typically pre-cast before resting), while for the individual spiders we relied on Darts of Stunning, Magic Missiles and Wand of Frost. Running II, Daelat then entered the spider lair and launched another Skull Trap before retreating back outside, where he finished the incoming spiders with Wand of Fire.
By levelling up we're able to secure Stoneskin as our second L4 spell pick. Even through there are plenty other good options to choose from, we felt that this will bring us the piece (sic!) of mind that we might just need to safely navigate through the rest of BG1.
And that also applied to Drasus' party at the mines' entrance. I often get uneasy with this encounter and good number of my early runs ended here. I find it legitimate to avoid this party altogether, although for me the Boots of Speed are too much of draw too pass, so I mostly focus on killing Drasus and then tend to run away from the rest of his crew.
It's been some time since I last used the Cloudkill scroll from the Cloud Peak Mountains in my runs and it felt as a decent option for opening the battle. But first, we prepared with MMMs, Stoneskin, Shield, Resist Fear, Potion of Absorption, ProEvil, Mis, II and laid down a Skull Trap between Daelat and Drasus. Here we go.
As expected, following the initial damage tick from Cloudkill the entire party started moving towards our position. Drasus triggered the Skull Trap, though unfortunately this only happened after he had quaffed a Potion of Magic Shielding and thus significantly mitigating the damage.
Daelat retreated to the bridge and launched another Skull Trap, which (rather amusingly) interrupted Drasus' Enrage cast. Good, that's less HPs to be worried about.
At this stage we were moving back towards the northern end of the area, while keeping Drasus's at our heels and the mages far behind. For cases of emergency, we had Oil of Speed, PoIs and Potion of Magic Blocking at the ready and only used our aura when we were sufficiently confident that is was safe to do so (our primary concerns being Chaos and Remove Magic). Using Magic Missiles, Wand of Fire and an occasional meteor, we slowly gnawed away Drasus' remaining hitpoints. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize I could have attempted to dispel his Potion of Magic Shielding with Remove Magic to make the going faster, but we prevailed nevertheless.
Rocking his new boots, Daelat casts Invisibility and rushes into the mines. Avoiding all the enemies, he stops for a brief chat with Ril, reapplies Invisibility and proceeds to Davaeorn' chambers. After killing the lone guard at the lobby we find a safe spot to hide and allow ourselves a short rest.
For Davaeorn, we buffed with Stoneskin, Resist Fear, Oil of Speed, Potion of Defense, Potion of Fire Resistance, Shield, ProEvil, MIs and II - given how chaotic this fight can get sometimes, we didn't want to take any chances despite expecting to get dispelled very early in the battle. Daelat approached invisible from the side corridor to the north and launched a Wand of Fire (fireball)/Skull Trap combo into the room to dilute the enemy forces a bit.
Interestingly, Davaeorn's pre-casting protections did not fire up immediately the moment we saw each other and, injured as he was, he got shot down with a single meteor.
Oh well, I'm not proud at all of this one - next time I will try to face him more directly and hopefully also do it with more style. Anyway, we're off to Baldur's Gate.
Regards,
B.
***
Spellbook (level 9):
L1 - Blindness, Shield, Magic Missile, ProEvil, Chromatic Orb
L2 - Invisibility, MIs, Resist Fear, MAA
L3 - Skull Trap, MMM, Remove Magic
L4 - II, Stoneskin
@Alesia_BH Thank you and I'm already quite excited about your current run with the Avatars. As much as I have always enjoyed reading your write-ups focusing on the tactical elements, there's definitely a nice spin to it with the accompanying narrative as well. But in the end it should be about whatever works best for you - I'm sure we'll all appreciate and enjoy your presence here either way
@Grond0 @Corey_Russell @Enuhal Great progress, all of you!
Been there, done that - I recall that my own Avenger had perished by Amarande's hand in a very similar manner. I'm glad you made it, yay!
Enuhal the Ever-Weary?
(And to be clear, it's totally understandable. Carrying 5 parties through BG1must be exhausting, lol.)
@Enuhal The last update was a little ouchie for yours truly, lol. Well done, nonetheless!
most SCS options installed; playing on hardcore
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194919/#Comment_1194919
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194948/#Comment_1194948
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1194981/#Comment_1194981
The first Cloakwood area offered no real difficulties. Seniyad completed his spell despite being taken to near death by numerous hits, but didn't do too much damage. I think the other druids all targeted Alesia - taking her down to single figures. However, a couple of CLW had her feeling more comfortable as the druids were finished off.
On the way to the 4th area some giant spiders tried an interception. Surprisingly, one of them tried a web tangle on Grond0, even though he had Spider's Bane equipped. Grim Face saved and a bit of wand use rescued Corey when he was stuck. Grond0 cured Corey's poison, despite being poisoned himself. It's a relatively weak variety though and did little damage before Enuhal cured him in turn.
The remaining area was cleared without incident and we headed for the mine. With such limited carrying capacity, the further wyvern heads from an ambush on the way were left to rot. At the mine we cleared the surrounding area before setting up for Drasus. Initial webs were followed up with area damage, while Grond0 threw poison darts at the mages from behind. That all resulted in a nice clean kill.
As usual with areas we fully explored the mine. With a number of potential trouble spots I thought setting up invisible attacks would be useful. Bearing in mind the danger of ambushes, Grim Face used his 3 invisibility slots and topped up with sanctuary on himself, while Alesia used stealth - making resting much easier while in the process of getting everyone invisible. For Hareishan, web and spike growth were used as crowd control, while Grond0 and Corey acted as invisible blockers in the corridor to prevent the bulk of the guards getting into the action. I hadn't appreciated though that Hareishan's stoneskins would block the spike growth damage and the attack could have disintegrated if Alesia had not managed to use an arrow of cold to disrupt Hareishan's opening spell - she didn't get another chance.
On the next level down, invisibility helped make the initial ambush simple. Rather than re-establish that, Alesia just used stealth to monitor what was happening with Natasha as her hobgoblin guards exited the room to be shot down. A bit surprisingly Natasha just ignored the noises from the corridor, so Alesia threw in a web. As soon as the mage got stuck everyone piled in to finish her off.
On arrival at Baldur's Gate I thought I should do some shopping for spells before I forgot. In particular, Alesia tried once more to learn invisibility - and got it at her 4th attempt. With so many learning failures, that was an expensive business but we still had enough cash to buy most potentially useful potions at Sorcerous Sundries as well.
I wasn't sure who would get the most benefit from the dexterity tome, so ultimately Grond0 claimed it as the Bhaalspawn. Action in the City will have to wait for next time though.
Grond0 - barbarian L7, 75 HPs, 599 kills
Corey - inquisitor L7, 75 HPs, 406 kills, 1 death
Grim Face - cleric/illusionist L6/6, 39 HPs, 135 kills, 0 deaths
Alesia - mage/thief L6/7, 38 HPs, 136 kills, 0 deaths
Enuhal - totemic druid L8, 46 HPs, 164 kills, 1 death
I reached the 161,000 Level Cap OK and was a Hero, but sadly lost interest in the game as I often do with a Blackguard. I am therefore switching to a new game with a starting party of half-orcs who are wary of other races.
This has been a masterful BG1 run