@Alesia_BH sorry to see Ayla cut down in her prime. As Serg mentioned I think the same thing has happened to me in the past and I agree it's not a fair mechanic.
It's janky, lol. It should either work as a key and disappear upon use or be required to cross the bridge, at penalty of death. It shouldn't do both.
How does Perth get in and out? Does he get a new stone every time?
EDIT: Although Irenicus did get to Perth, right? Maybe the wardstone entry method is a setup, a trap laid by Irenicus. In any case, I don't have a problem with the mechanic, on second thought.
I’m glad to hear some people were enjoying Ayla. I wasn’t sure how she was being received, what with the low difficulty setting and the munchkiny tactics. On my end her run seemed almost criminally simple, and I imagined others saw it the same.
As for continuing her, that’s a hard no, although I appreciate the thought, and the spirit in which it was suggested. Whether it’s fair or not is irrelevant; whether I like it or not is irrelevant. It is how the game works and how it was intended to work. And even it wasn’t how it was intended to work- even if it were a “bug” in some sense- it’s a sufficiently well known mechanic as to not qualify for a reload, as per the standards we’ve embraced over the years. Ayla the First is dead. But long live Ayla the Second? Possibly. We’ll see. I need to do my taxes first, lol.
Thanks, though I wouldn't go that far, as can be seen in the next update:
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XXVII
Entering ToB, I didn't set up all my traps for Illasera in the correct location - some of them targeted the fighter to her right instead, so she survived the initial ambush, allowing her to use her anti-magic arrows on Alesia - though I was able to take her down a few seconds after that anyway, triggering the Black Reavers's retreat:
The first pocket plane challenge is quite a seriout threat on insane SCS - or rather, it is once Sarevok, Jon and Bodhi show up. I made sure to separate my fighters for the initial expected remove magic, with Corey keeping Sarevok busy, Grond0 using his iMoD to challenge Bodhi (helped out by Sunnis) and the others dealing with Jon - the dispel did go out, but only affected Corey:
Grond0 started activating critical strikes to take down Bodhi as quickly as possible. Ruby rays started to tear down Jon's defenses, I also had Grim Face cast storm of vengeance, which, in retrospect, should definitely have been Enuhal's job while Grim Face should have used his own ruby ray - Bodhi went down, with Corey suffering some heavy damage from Sarevok even with Hardiness active:
However, Jon had enough time to finish his timestop before losing his defenses - he didn't hesitate to go for IA + Dragon's Breath + Comet on the vulnerable Corey, but we wasted no time handing him our fire resistance gear after the timestop ended, so he ended up taking no damage at all as the party ran away - and everyone else was still immune to fire damage anyway:
Jon was able to renew a bunch of defenses with a spell trigger before we could hit him, but he was unable to handle another ruby ray + breach and finally died - due to trying to use a wand of frost charge on Enuhal while within 5 feet of him, activating his aura of flaming death. That's a first for a spellcaster!
Clearing up Sarevok was easy enough after that. We had Cespenar forge a few items and entered Saradush, going for a big scroll learning session. No gold for 9th level spells yet, though. After doing most sidequests, the most interesting one was certainly Kiser's betrayal - and while most of the fighting was incredibly simple, we did suffer a bit of a (non-permanent) setback here, experiencing our first character "death" since mid-BG1 due to some very interesting NPC behaviour:
The mage helping out Kiser here had a really strong array of pre-buffs going, with spell shield and SI:A, multiple spell protections including spell trap etc. - a really strong setup for a random unnamed wizard. Since he was protected with PFMW, not improved mantle, I tried hacking through his stoneskins with non-magical weapons, but I realized I wouldn't be able to do so in time as he was casting an abjuration spell - I expected remove magic, so I ran upstairs instead, dodging the spell via area transition. The wizard followed us, starting to cast another abjuration spell - I was a bit surprised because 2 remove magic spells in a row are actually relatively rare to see, but then again, not impossible, or it could've been just breach or something similiar - so I thought. Well, I decided to dodge this spell as well and just wait out the PFMW. As the mage followed me after the area transition, though, he just kept casting! I have seen this before in very rare scenarios, where an area transition does not break spellcasting from some opponents. Seems to only happen if the spell is cast in melee range, but I don't know the specifics.
Well, with no way to stop the spell now (I left the area again and the very same thing happened), I just had to let it go through - PFMW would be gone any second now anyway. Turns out it was a very different abjuration spell - Imprisonment, targeting Corey. Well, we're not going to use a PfM scroll for that. A scroll vendor is right around the corner - but still was sad to see Corey getting imprisoned with nothing we could do to help him:
PFMW did run out and we killed the mage:
No issue just buying a freedom scroll and returning Corey to our side, but this encounter was a stark reminder that in ToB, any random unnamed spellcaster is capable of casting devastating, game ending abilities, and any slip up can result in immediate death.
As a consequence, I avoided any risks with the mages in the sewers, with Alesia returning to her backstabby ways:
Grond0 solo-cleared the prison using the IMoD and the party entered the castle basement. Here, Alesia was unable to backstab the wizard - I don't remember if it was because there was no room behind them or because they already had stoneskins when Alesia approached in stealth. Instead, Alesia showed herself, went invisible again and ran away. We set up our position near the entrace to allow for a quick retreat, taking down the various fighters and thieves. The wizard had started with timestop, but Alesia was already far away - they only reached the party's vision again as the timestop ended. As a bonus, their physical protection was already nearly gone due to the extended walk they had to take to get to us, allowing for an easy takedown:
Just below Gromnir's throneroom, it was once again up to Alesia to deal with the wizard as the party entered under mass invisibility:
We rested and prepared for Gromnir. Karun and his fellow wizard are not easily backstabbed - they are too close to the wall for Alesia to get behind them. Entering under mass invisibility still provided a huge advantage and allowed us to take down the unnamed mage right away as we split up our party between the two, though Karun, while taking a hit, was able to get his pre-buffs up:
Because of the scroll learning session and our rest, we now had sequencers and spell triggers with 3*secret words. Throwing these at Karun quickly whittled down his defenses, but we still needed to get to cast Ruby Ray for his spell trap - which gave him time for his timestop - meanwhile, Enuhal activated storm of vengeance and the fighters dealt with the other threats in the room. However, Karun's timestop was mostly used for defensive purposes, renewing a bunch of spell protections and going invisible. Our party was also still improved invisible - and he hadn't cast true sight yet, which he only did shortly after the timestop. However, at this point, we were able to ruby ray him and threw down another bunch of secret word sequencers, finally fully dispelling the guy - meanwhile, Alesia had been hit with an anti magic effect, costing her most of her buffs - I'm not sure what exactly hit her, maybe something the improved Gromnir does, but I was able to keep her safe nonetheless.
Now, all we had to do was breach + kill:
Gromnir himself hadn't really been a factor in the battle and was left for last:
Very well. We're back to full strength and ready to go deeper into ToB, though I sadly won't have time to play this weekend.
Trio 51 - Maevar and Unseeing Eye
Corecleric XX - halfling priest of lothander, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Mirazi - human mage (Grond0)
Betson - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Well, the party did make it through another session, though we did have a close call. More on that in a bit. But first, we started the session and Betson said he was still carrying the amulet for Maevar. Doing Maevar's quest would also get some useful boots for Betson, so we worked on that by turning in the necklace.
Then we had to get into a Cowled Wizard's place. Downstairs was guarded by a bunch of mephits, but haste and MMM's make short work of those. With the haste still active, Corecleric rushed upstairs, boosted with DUHM and the golems went down quick. Coreclieric gave some anti-mage buffs to Betson, but then realized he didn't have death ward available. So instead lended Betson Corecleric's RoAC so Betson could protect himself with improved invisibility. Betson went upstairs - and his teammates waited a little bit and moved up to assist. Strangely Rayic just stood there and took a pounding. Corecleric then buffed with resist fire for one trap and took some pain with a blob trap but he was Ok.
However, when going outside 3 vampires were waiting for us. Corecleric tried turn undead, which made two vamps run but Tanova was having none of it. Corecleric had to remind his party that Tanova needs +3 weapons. We didn't quite have enough of those to go around, but eventually she died. The other two vamps were easy to mop up. We reported our success to Edwin.
Now the next few quests went very rapidly since we all spread out, Grond0 at the inn to deal with the thief and Marcus, Betson at Maevar, and Corecleric with Edwin. Once positioned, we quickly got the documents, "killed" the thief (got his dagger), and got the evidence on Maevar. Before leaving, Corecleric cast three skeleton warriors as distractions for the enemies at ground level then reported our news to Bloodscalp. Of course we had to do his dirty work and kill Maevar and his allies. This all went pretty smooth, though Betson did take a nice amount of damage. The +3 short sword might be useful for Betson, so he will use that for now.
Next up, Corecleric wanted to do the Unseeing eye quest. The initial undead were easy as Corecleric can just pop them. He had to fight the vampiric mists but since he's protected by the AoP not too much trouble. We got the key to the ex-followers of the Unseeing Eye and went to that area. Corecleric protected himself from lightning, tripped the trap and took down the undead.
We then made it to next area. We ended up fighting quite a few respawning enemies as we were trying to loot the container at the top of the area, but eventually got the goodies. Corecleric used death ward before tripping the spray trap. He was using the shield of balduran anytime we had to mess with Beholders. Mirazi got hurt pretty bad on the first group, but we did eventually take them all down. Corecleric used his RoAC improved invisibility to get his saves to -1 which means the petrification trap couldn't get him.
Next had to get to the feeding pit. The first batch of undead were easy enough. But we had a mess on our hands when Corecleric's sanctuary wore off and his renewed sanctuary got interrupted. He ran for his life. His party was trying to help him, but everyone was taking damage. In a move of pure desperation, Betson summoned the genie from the lamp and the initial fireball dropped Corecleric to very low life (like 10%). Nevertheless, by gulping loads of heal potions, Corecleric was staying intact. He was able to get two summons up and with those distractions the party was finally able to whittle all the undead down - whew!
The beholder lair went much more smoothly. The blind priests got triggered prematurely, but two silences made them much easier to deal with. Since Corecleric was protected by the Shield of Balduran, he soloed most of the area, but with his cleric APR (1/round) it went slowly. Unseeing Eye went quickly as at the right moment Corecleric removed all of its protections and then it went down quickly.
Gaal and his buddies were also taken down. Oh we also dealt with the mage with the cloudkill wand and RoR. This went pretty smoothly, other than Mirazi using a sunfire on Corecleric who luckily survived. We reported our success with Unseeing Eye and Corecleric got the ring of holiness which was a nice item to get.
We still had a little bit of time left so did the Sir Sarles quest and took down Neb to get the illithium. Sir Sarles was mad about our alloy but the church liked it. We had a lot of money by this point so we got the Robe of Vecna for Mirazi. We rested in the graveyard and ended our session here.
As expected, Betson has a large lead in kills. Seems unlikely the others will ever pass him, as with more levels he'll become even more powerful.
I have just had a very interesting but relatively short run with a tomb defender and in the process have learnt quite a lot about the kit.
Basically it is a barbarian that can use better armour, the downside being that he/she can go berserk and attack anyone when enraged.
I managed to ensure that he didn't attack any good guys by positioning the battles carefully.
For instance againsat Greywolf I walked away from Prism beforee using Ancient Wrath.
I only lost control of her when fighting against Kryll, but had no objection to that happening.
After Kry'll death she attacked and killed Dorn.
I expected charisma to return to 20 upon Dorn's death but it didn't. It stayed at 18.
I was expecting that Bassilus would be unable to hold when she was enraged. I was wrong. She was held and as a result died.
I have learned quite a lot about the kit in the process and will probaby try another run later.
The game was quite interesting if short. She reached level before she died.
Various strategies would have worked against Bassilus ranging from use of a green potion to moving out of sight pf Bassilus when hold was cast. This run was purely to discover more about the kit. I didn't expect to succeed.
In BGEE, Dorn's reputation penalty is handled a little different from Viconia's. You don't get the reputation back from Dorn until he talks to you after leaving. If he's removed from the party in a less conventional way, that never comes up.
In BGEE, Dorn's reputation penalty is handled a little different from Viconia's. You don't get the reputation back from Dorn until he talks to you after leaving. If he's removed from the party in a less conventional way, that never comes up.
Thanks for the information. It was no problem as I got one point back by returning Samuel and others were accessible.
Hi, all! I just thought I 'd let you know that in off thread play, after her run had ended, Ayla successfully executed the poetic justice kill on Firkraag, Wisdom draining him to death via Kachiko's Wakizashi.
While Kachiko's Wisdom drain effect, -2 for two rounds, offers a save v death, this approach is viable due to Firkraag's exceptionally low Wisdom score of 3. Playing on Hardcore, with improved staying power for dragons, Ayla ended him in a handful of rounds, having only done 70hp worth of damage. There are more efficient ways of killing Firkraag, of course, but this one is uniquely fitting, in my opinion. I'm glad Ayla was able to make it work.
I've been playing with this party at odd moments in the last week or so with the aim of avoiding taking any damage at all. That's an approach I've taken reasonably regularly with solo runs, but not generally with parties. Without any armor this party is particularly vulnerable, but I thought it should still be possible to go a long way with the mix of abilities they have.
However, thus far I've struggled to avoid mistakes, with runs ending including the following:
- failing to kick an ambushing flind unconscious during a command, or move away before it got up.
- being hit by hobgoblin archers when I travelled back from the basilisk area during the night.
- running from another flind ambush, into another hobgoblin ambush!
- Washout hurt himself when failing to set a trap at level 6. I'd managed to leave him at 95% in set traps (I often do that with thieves who will read the dexterity tome later, but it's not as though that's even an option in this poverty run ).
- Washout hurting himself again, when trying to lay a trap at level 1 rather than waiting until he'd levelled up.
- Washout attempting a backstab on a ghast down to its last HP and failing to retreat in time.
I'm probably about at the end of this series of attempts, but it's not been a good sequence and I'd like to end on a better note - so I'm trying one last time to see if I can get a half-decent run together ...
After leaving Candlekeep they avoided the potential ambush on the way to High Hedge and moved on to Beregost. Various tasks were done around there, including delivering Mirianne's letter and Zhurlong's boots. Silke was blinded, but shrugged off the attempted commands - but a combination of a spirit snake and magic missiles was too much for her.
Karlat was blinded and successfully commanded (twice), while a bunch of spiders was slept as they chased Beggar out of their house.
Then it was off to the basilisk area, to follow Korax round. He did his usual good job on them, along with Mutamin.
The Opera were entitled to level up (all of them being eligible for at least one level) after dealing with about half the basilisks, but didn't actually take their level until those were all dead. The rationale for that was so that Beggar and Pauper would leap straight to level 3 and be able to use second level spells. That allowed Beggar to charm Baerin, Peter and then Lindin and take them away for disposal. Kirian was then silenced and blinded.
Now that Washout could use traps safely, the next target was Elminster. There was a major mistake there though when he talked to Beggar from further away than I expected, just before being attacked by a spirit lion - and attacking him after his talk did not make him hostile, so the stack of traps under his feet were not triggered.
While in the area, a sleeping ogre was killed for its belt. That was safely delivered to Unshey after Tarnesh was trapped. Landrin also got his goods back and Joia her ring.
South now and the party stopped off at the Lake area to introduce Drizzt to some traps. He just survived the first stack of traps with 2 HPs left, but a couple more traps overcame his cure medium wounds.
A few minor encounters followed at Nashkel, including silencing Zordral for easy disposal.
Beggar also rested there to get LMD.
Without invisibility, there were a limited number of areas where it was possible to travel safely, so the Opera returned to the Lake area. Blindness and traps dealt with Teyngan's group, while sleep accounted for Bjornin's half-ogres. At High Hedge traps killed one golem and injured the other - Pauper using his Seeking Sword to finish that off under cover of spirits. That was just enough to allow everyone to level up and for the sorcerers to learn invisibility.
They tried to return Perdue's sword, but found they didn't have it (one of the perils of my poverty runs is forgetting to pick up quest items). However, a quick return to High Hedge soon found it and the Opera moved on Durlag's Tower - waving invisibly at some hobgoblin archers on the way. Invisible blockers made it easy there to kill battle horrors with magic missiles. Skeletons that might have interfered were turned by an invisible Pauper to keep them out of the way. The ghasts had the same sort of problems in getting to grips with the party and they palmed off a dodgy hairpiece onto Riggilo before blinding him. Kirinhale didn't escape scot free though - finding it wasn't a good idea to allow a thief to crawl around your legs.
Washout's 65% remove traps skill was sufficient to get them past the trap onto the roof. Skint now had PfP to make it easy to blind the basilisks - allowing a spirit snake to do most of the damage by attacking from out of sight range.
The Opera are now close to another level and should be able to make considerable further progress - if they take due care of course. HPs are very nice so far, though that's not really a consideration this run given the aim to avoid any damage at all ...
@Alesia_BH sorry to hear the end of your run. Hope you had fun! @Grond0 - good luck in your run. I can't even imagine doing a poverty run myself. You have truly mastered the concept in BG of doing more with less. Hope your party has a long life.
Thanks @Corey_Russell, but the party's over for now. I still think the concept is a good one, but the need to pay such detailed attention seems to be a bit too much for me at the moment .
Beggar's Opera {48} - poverty run (2nd and final update)
Previous updates
The ankheg area offered the chance for more quick XP with the help of sleep and command and the Opera were soon able to take another level there. On trying to rest after that though I found I had not rested at the end of the previous session and had no invisibility available. Fortunately there was no ambush and the Opera were able to rest in peace before continuing their decimation of the ankheg population.
To the north, Tenya got her bowl back. I laid traps around her with the aim of those killing her while she was teleporting away. However, a good series of attacks by the party killed her before any traps could trigger anyway.
Spirit lions then snacked on a series of zombies to help out a local farmer.
Deciding it was time to go into the Nashkel Mine, the Opera headed south. They intended to help Prism, but a mis-click on the conversation with him sent him hostile - more XP down the drain. There were no problems sneaking through the mine itself though, where Mulahey died in webs.
Webs combined with spirit lions is a vicious combination and that made short work of the amazons. The rest of the area was cleared as well, with more invisible blocking in the tombs, webs for Narcillicus and Seeking Sword for his mustard jellies. Back in Nashkel, silence allowed Beggar plenty of time for a first use of call lightning on Nimbul.
I didn't use invisibility when travelling up to Beregost during the day and that resulted in the need for some careful play to avoid being attacked during a gibberling ambush - that was done successfully though.
On arrival, Tranzig failed to save against silence and was quickly cut down.
I decided to do more exploring before continuing to the Bandit Camp, so headed down to the Cloud Peak Mountains. Web and spirit lions, along with the odd trap and the old faithfuls of sleep, command and blind made progress generally pretty easy there, though the XP on offer is low.
Even if gameplay seems easy though, it's also always easy for things to go wrong and I got into trouble in one of the xvart caves when I accidentally deselected Aspire as he was about to kill a xvart with a magic missile. That potentially gave the xvart an opportunity to attack, but Hardup broke invisibility and managed to forestall that with a punch that knocked it cold.
I didn't heed that warning though and took damage soon after that. I'd just helped Laurel against some gibberlings and was in the process of clearing the nearby bridge. Hardup sighted a hobgoblin while invisible and Aspire moved up to cast web just in front of it. I did a quick double pause-unpause before doing that to double-check that the hobgoblin couldn't see him and everything seemed fine. Neither Aspire or the hobgoblin appeared to move as the spell was being cast, but the sight range clicked a further pixel or two anyway and the sneaky beastie suddenly attacked to deliver an arrow to Aspire's gut ...
I'm trying a very similar run this time. Here are the details of the tomb defender. Having looked at them morer carefully I noticed that as well as the chance of berserking, that there are a few other differences compared to the barbarian, lack of immunity to hold being only one of them.
The character must be lawful good, neutral good or true neutral.
Everyone in Candlekeep apart from those who have the ability to know alignment seems to think that because of my fiery eyes, I must be the spawn of some malevolent god. Those who can see into my heart know differently though they are aware that I do have a constant struggle to do the right thing. Indeed, even in Candlekeep I took possessions that were not mine out of locked chests and had to take the consequences, in one case the confiscation of all my money and in the other a severe whipping from a guard. Mind you, that was not all bad. My speed allowed me to steal a healing potion without being caught. One thing is certain. I could never be a paladin!
I helped Melicamp, calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead thus gaining mastery in large swords. Now heading southwards. Since my enemies seem to be aware of my planned movements I am not going to the FAI at present.
EDIT
I reached level 6 with no problem.
I thought of dual classing to cleric and that is probably what I will do in my next run. The dewback is that with clerical weapons mastery is unavailable. Not only that, dual-classing is unavailable.
Tomb defender ia certainly an interesting kit at low levels, not so much later on. One thing that I dislike is how long fatigue lasts after enrage. Half the time would be preferable.
The interesting fighhts so far have been against the sirines. I beat them despite being confused and having my intelligence reduced to 3. In all the battles against them, I had a long wait doing nothing until the spells wore off. I previously bought a helm of charm protection as enrage doesn't appear to protect from charm or hold.
I am thinking that it is now about time to assemble a party. I may wait for a while to ensure that all the party members join at a fairly high level.
My current proficiencies are : large sword ***, missile weapons *, two handed weapons **. Large swords and two handed weapons cannot be improved further. I chose missiles rather than other proficiencies due to the fact that slings do more damage with increased strength.
Dorn joined at level 5. He nearly reached level 6 after we killed Kryll. When I told him to leave he went to the FAI.
Xzar and Montaron joined long enough to do some useful pick-pocketting. I left them at Ulgoth's Beard.
Sirene and Ajantis joined at level 5, but levelled up very soon afterwards after killing some ankheg.
Tenya joined at level 6.
Our reputation is 20 and I can get my charisma up to 21, so as soon as I sell the shells it seems an appropriate time to go shopping. I have some other items to sell as well.
After Nimbul, Neira was another person to have a bad day at the office, as she was taken down under our residual buffs from the previous fight (while Sorsha's RoFA eliminated the Hold Person threat). Interestingly, I had noted this behaviour alredy in the past, when one's summons sometimes transit between the areas, you can no longer control them, but they will still follow and assist.
Here's Sorsha inventory at the time for the record.
There was one important item missing from our collection ahead of the Bandit Camp - the Claw. We had the funds, but we first needed the CON tome from Black Alaric's Cave to mitigate the Claw's impact on our HP. Sorsha approached the cave under Invisibility, used MSD to foil the traps and shot down the golems with +1 arrows.
Back in Beregost, Tarnesh got eliminated with the help of our brand new Wand of Paralyzation. Despite mages' strong saves vs. wands, the wand's -4 penalty still make them viable targets. (Note the lack of Resist Fear on Sorsha - that's clearly a mistake on my end. Sorry for that, girl.).
Silke was pummeled down with Aule's while Sorsha was sitting safely behind her buffs, including the Greenstone Amulet.
Who's the thespian extraordinaire now? With their assailant gone, we concluded that Faltis and the crew will no longer be needing those Potions of Defense they're each carrying.
We're off to the camp with Raiken - I'll cover the battle in the next post shortly.
Interestingly, I had noted this behaviour alredy in the past, when one's summons sometimes transit between the areas, you can no longer control them, but they will still follow and assist.
@Borco when that happens, you may well find that exiting and re-entering the location restores your control of the summons.
For the Bandit Camp we prepared with Potion of Master Thievery, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense, Shield Amulet, Resist Fear (via item), Strength and Oil of Speed. The initial part of the plan involved pickpocketing Taurgosz for his potions...
He yields Potion of Firebreath and Potion of Fortitude, although no Oil of Speed (which was the main threat we're looking to eliminate). Sorsha then goes invisible (via Invisibility scroll) and enters the main tent. Once in position, she completes her buffs with ProEvil (scroll), MI and Greenstone Amulet and checks that she's wearing the right equipement - with the Claw, Cloak of Displacement, Boots of Avoidance and Girdle of Piercing, Sorsha was now only exposed to critical hits.
To utilize the Potion of Master Thievery, we also relieve Britik of his Potion of Stone Giant Strength (along with MAA scroll) ahead of the battle.
Sorsha then opens with Skull Trap.
Unfortunately, the impact is not significant and Venkt manages to manouver away from the spell's radius. Aule time!
Britik is dominated via the Captive Audience to create a distraction - he plays his role well and we might give him a call in the future in case we end up doing auditions at the Five Flagons theather.
At that point, we're a bit concerned about the number of critical hits seen in the log and the diminishing number of our MIs. As noted in Sorsha's introduction, the +1 luck modifier granted by her personal item guarantees that she doesn't get hit as long as any images remain. Even without MIs, we could still rely on Sorsha's low effective AC, though it wouldn't be without risks.
Anyway, the priority was to remove Venkt from the picture. With his aura clouded, Sorsha moves in with Wand of Paralyzation. Success.
More clean-up work with Aule.
You may note that Britik's turned hostile once again, which allowed Hakt to turn his attention back to Sorsha. Just as we're about to start working on Venkt, Sorsha gets crit-hit by Raemon, suffering 19 points of damage. She immediately counters with Potion of Regerenation.
Unfortunately, both Hakt and the last surviving Blacktalon land back-to-back critical hits as well, dealing additional 34 damage in a quick succession.
This was not good. Not good at all. With Sorsha's aura still clouded from the potion quaff and poisoned (note: for some reason the "poisoned" portratit icon is not showing in my current install, not sure why), two more crits could mean death. Our only option was to quaff an emergency PoI as soon as possible, although we knew that some of the archers will still manage to fire during those long 3-4 seconds before our aura clears. We could close in on Hakt in melee, though I was too concerned about Britik there, despite his slow weapon.
Luckily, Hakt fails to strike another crit and Sorsha makes it to her PoI on time.
What now? We had to heal up and cleanse the poison before re-engaging, but we're also conscious of Venkt's stun duration, meaning that we could not linger for too long. Considering the options, Sorsha opted for Potion of Health -> MIs, leaving the rest of the healing to the active Potion of Regeneration.
These guys are on the roll indeed! Luckily, our refreshed MIs will take care of the threat for now.
Sorsha manages to finish Venkt before the Wand of Paralyzation effect expires.
Next!
That's for all the trouble, Raemon!
Same for you, Hakt!
For sake of the fun factor, Britik is finished by equipping Boots of AvoidanceGrounding, quaffing Potion of Insulation and triggering the lightning trap at the chest.
Fully buffed and angry, we're not ready to let the bandits get away with taking us this close to dying. We knew that there'd be more archers waiting for us outside the tent. And what is the best armor against archers? Full plate, of course. We cannot wear one, but we know someone who can do it for us…
With Taurgosz joining team Sorsha, the odds were now even. Shortly after the game kicked off, the score became 2:0 in our favour.
Nevertheless, the opposing team pushes hard and scores as well. 2:1.
Sorsha strikes six points via Necklace of Missiles. 8:1.
Many have arrived. Good.
Wand of Fire scorcher + Oil of Speed combo is a classic.
We've lost count by the time our last mirror image disappeared. Sorsha hunts down the remaining cannon fodder and our job here is done.
@Alesia_BH One should say it's Firkraag's arrogance that killed him. Thank you for showing us the importance of good judgement (especially so if your opponent is carrying Kachiko's).
@Alesia_BH One should say it's Firkraag's arrogance that killed him. Thank you for showing us the importance of good judgement (especially so if your opponent is carrying Kachiko's).
Lol. Thanks, Borco.
Btw, I'm really enjoying your runs. They remind me of how I used to play before my break. Sorhsa has been wonderful so far. You have an excellent command of the class. Keep it up!
The run isn't over quite yet, but we've suffered a terrible setback. I regret that have to inform you that Grond0 (the character, not the player, obviously) is no more - he suffered an unexpected fiery death/chunking in the Fire Giant Temple. Let's see how we got to that point:
Things started off well enough - we used Grond0's great physical damage resistance to clear out the fire giants at the wilderness outside of Saradush and travelled to the Temple of Bhaal, where we activated triple sunrays to deal with the master wraith and its allies:
When challenging the skeleton wizard, I noticed a glaring lack of SI:A in its pre-buffs, so we just used inquisitor dispel to take it down:
After clearing out the remaining undead and preparing some traps for Nyalee, we moved on to the Marching Mountains. Fire resistance, hardiness, improved haste on Grond0 for smaller fire giant battles - helping out with nature's beauty and ranged attacks for larger ones:
Grim Face suffered an elite fire giant hit here due to a GWW making it through his last stoneskin. Some magical swords upstairs for the other big fire giant group:
For the various side areas, I used a few of Alesia's traps for faster and cleaner kills:
The only challenge here was the fire lich - the noble efreeti were inquisitor dispelled and killed. The lich, however, managed to dispel Grond0 - we retreated for safety because our buffs against spellcasters were a bit lacking, sending in a deva after drawing out 2 PFMWs with quick ventures near the creature - its AI was unable to make good use of a timestop with everyone out of range, and eventually, the deva got the kill with the last PFMW gone:
Before leaving to the pocket plane to re-buff, I wanted to move upstairs and use my last few HLAs to deal with the welcoming comittee of fire giants - Alesia almost died here when a GWW got through her stoneskins and I was barely able to move her away in time:
After returning from the pocket plane after a quick rest, we buffed up again and prepared for the big battle against Berenn, Brimstone and a bunch of fire giants. We set up on the left of the map, reveal ourselves to a fire giant and summon in magical swords, and, as the enemies start to approach, a deva, nature's beauty on a well-placed position and some more buffs:
Now, here's something I noticed in this screenshot, but didn't notice when playing. Grond0 here, just like everyone else, is buffed with protection from fire (he definitely is, I didn't forget it - he has no natural fire resistance at all on his gear, so he wouldn't even have the fire resistance icon). Why is he taking fire damage, and even taking bonus fire damage at that?
Well, Enuhal did most of the work here casting two well-placed nature's beauty spells - hitting all of the giants, even Berenn with the second one. The only one in a bit of trouble was Corey, who took some damage from a few GWW hits but got healed shortly after that:
Berenn is out of the fight, and no one has lost any of their buffs. Brimstone is basically the only real enemy remaining, all the blinded foes just stand around. We're starting to clear up these foes quickly, leaving Brimstone for a bit because he keeps retreating - and then, suddenly, a red dragon's breath hits Grond0 and deals a ridiculous amount of damage, instantly chunking him:
I was shocked. I had no idea how that even could've happened. Before I could process all that and think about what might've been the cause of that insane amount of damage and what to do now, I had to finish the fight, though - that was easy enough - summoning in elemental princes to help out Corey here:
And, to clear out the area, our inquisitor equipped "The Wave" to one-shot the prince of fire and burning men in the next room:
We quit the game at the pocket plane, leaving Nyalee and Yaga-Shura for later, as we need a new fighter. I start googling how Grond0 could've died. I'm quite certain that he kept his buffs, so his fire resistance must have been significantly lowered. I remember that Abzigal can lower electrical resistance, so my first thought is that the dragon is responsible - this is what I find: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Lower_Fire_Resistance
While a possibily, it's unlikely to have been that. First of all, Grond0 couldn't even fail those saving throws with the buffs he had going. Second of all, that's an AoE effect, and everyone else never took a single point of fire damage. Third of all, it only lasts 6 rounds, and to get that amount of bonus damage it would have to be applied 4 times! Unlikely.
However, further googling got me to the solution, and it turns out that Grond0's death is entirely due to a gap in my SCS knowledge. What killed him were the unassuming Fell Cats that I had mostly ignored due to their pitiful damage output - two of them hitting Grond0 for basically the entire fight. Here's an excerpt from the wiki entry for Fell Cats:
"SCS changes the creatures attack weapon by adding one extra ability that affects anyone hit by the claw attack, reducing Fire Resistance by -25% for each strike (cumulative and additive). This penalty cannot be dispelled, and there is no defense (other than not to get hit). It has a duration of 90 seconds (15 rounds). If the claw successfully strikes, a message on the combat screen will display " Fire Resistance Lowered"."
I did not know that. I also don't recall seeing that combat log message, but I could easily have overlooked it. Quite frustrating, because I have greater deathblow, and it would've taken no work at all to kill these Fell Cats pretty much instantly, had I known how devastating the side effects of their attacks are in SCS.
The run is on hold. According to the rules/traditions of the Avatar run, as far as I know from participants of round 1, it is customary to replace a chunked character with a new Avatar from a non-participating forum member. I don't know the exact mechanics here - how is the new Avatar added into the game? At what experience level do they start?
Grond0 was a barbarian, one of only two fighter-types in the party. I would definitely need a fighter-type as a replacement, should the run still have any remote chance of success. They also shouldn't use a modded kit, as I don't want to change my setup in the midst of the run.
So @Borco@semiticgoddess@jmerry or anyone else currently active here and not already represented in the Avatar run, does one of you want to give me stats/abilities/a portrait for some kind of fighter-type Avatar of yours?
Sorry to hear that @Enuhal - though that does seem exactly the sort of death I would expect for Grond0 . I hope the rest of the Avatars can provide a fitting memorial at the Throne.
So after lurking on this forum in general and specifically this thread for years i've finally decided to toss my hat into the ring. I've no noteworthy experience with no reloading challenges so far apart from an undocumented and surprisingly successful "shorty" party run several years ago that was cut short when both Alora and Quayle got chunked by some Doppelgangers at Sarevok's coronation.
I've "prepared" myself (you know, mindset is everything) yesterday with another undocumented run where my Dark Moon Monk was petrified by some basilisks. Turns out 1 turn duration for Potion of Mirror Eyes is quite short when you try to murder several of these creatures with throwing darts.
So, without further ado, enter...
Cedric the Jester
I'm running SCS on Tactical with prebuffing disabled (seemed somewhat overwhelming to me for my first "serious" try), RR (the -1 to saves is from Jester's Luck which also gets you -1 to AC), TweaksAnthology and possibly some minor custom tweaks. That's why i'm rocking a gnome bard.
The prologue doesn't bode well. I forget you had to speak to Firebead exactly 30 times and therefore miss the 300 gold. I then forget to turn in several quest items so i had to do an annoying amount of backtracking to turn in all fetch quests. At least Fuller rewards my charming Jester with a Dagger +1, I also get my hands on a light crossbow before my journey begins in earnest.
Some gibberling and bear hunting on my way to the Friendly Arm Inn goes surprisingly well thanks to the +2 AC penalty (as well as +2 THAC0 penalty but I'm not mad enough to go toe to toe with anything but rats) provided by the RR jester's song "distracted" effect, though enemies can save with a +4 bonus to their saving throw vs spells. I guess that's more of a nerf than rebalancing of the original jester's song but I care more for the flavour RR provides. Also, I've always found bards to pretty capable in BGEE regardless of their singing anyway.
I continue to kite somewhat sluggish Hobgoblins for Joia's ring and and the constant (abrupt) ending of the battle theme followed by it's immediate restart is probably what pushes Cedric from the brink of madness to full blown insanity. This will have consequences...
I'm desperate to gain at least one level before my confrontation with Tarnesh so I decide to continue my merry monster hunt for the moment. That's when I run into my first boss fight...
I foolishly (quite fitting) decide to take on the wolf instead of running for my life and it turns out kiting a wolf is significantly harder then, say, a gibberling. He hits me for 12 (!!!) HP and thereby ends the journey of Cedric the Fool. I thought there was some coding preventing enemies from one-hitting level 1 characters, but either i'm mistaken (quite likely) or my modded setup changes something I wasn't aware of.
Anyway, I realy liked this little fella so here comes...
Cedric the Second of His Name
I even manage to roll a 90 for his stats, what a lucky start!
This time I also remember to pester old Firebead exactly thirty times and invest my newly gained riches in a shiny chainmail...
Until I realize that wearing chainmail makes it slightly difficult to move when you only got 9 strength and want to carry some other stuff as well. Duh...
Shit hits the fan when Shank almost skewers me with a critical hit.
Traumatized, I beg for a free Potion of Healing and force myself to quaff it in the f*****g tutorial before confronting some rats (can the actually hit and damage you?) and finally Carbos who feels like some kind of mini boss at this stage.
Fast foward, I actually manage to get to level 2 this time and, after applying an oil of speed for good measure, interrupt Tarnesh's casting of Mirror Image with a nicely timed Larloch's Minor Drain. Two guards join the fight and together we whittle him down to near death pretty fast until I fail to interrupt his sleep.
I hide around the corner but - as expected - fail my save. Still, I'm hopeful. Two guards will surely mange to hit an unprotected wizard at least once before he reaches me.
They turn up late...
Knowing that Tarnesh will only outlive him for mere seconds, Cedric the Second of His Name will - hopefully - rest in peace.
That's it for now, at least from Cedric and me. I guess these are somewhat pathetic first tries but... humble beginnings. I'm willing to hold on for now but haven't made up my mind yet if I give Cedric another try (as I quite like the idea of a mad gnome jester) or maybe start with a different character.
Welcome @TheGreatGrumbledook. I look forward to great things from Cedric (or his successor) .
Beggar's Opera {52} - poverty run (1st and final update)
Everyone playing video games must be familiar with the idea of "just one more". I've been suffering with that and lost 3 more runs, still aiming to avoid any damage, through various errors. In the latest I felt I'd done reasonably well to once more get to the same area where one of my sorcerers was shot in my last update. I dare say I was thinking ahead to ensuring the same didn't happen this time, rather than paying full attention to the current situation . As a result I didn't look at the response Laurel gave to my offer to join her hunting gibberlings, but just assumed she would be convinced to accept by Beggar's 18 charisma - unfortunately, that encounter is unusual in being determined solely by reputation (and the Opera's rep of 7 was just too low to keep Laurel cooperative). It would have been simple to kill Laurel - and I would have been perfectly happy to do that - but she had already hit Beggar before I realised what was happening.
So @Borco@semiticgoddess@jmerry or anyone else currently active here and not already represented in the Avatar run, does one of you want to give me stats/abilities/a portrait for some kind of fighter-type Avatar of yours?
Tricky. My style of play focuses on full themed parties, which doesn't translate well to a run like this with the rest of the party already set. I end up playing a lot of different things based on the theme.
But if I do have a favored character type, it's fighter/thieves of various sorts. I've done two full runs in the playthrough forum with fighter/thieves - a human kensai 13->thief that specialized in werewolf claws (exploiting a loophole in the SCS "Improved Shapeshifting" component) and a halfling fighter/thief for my no-spellcasting run. I'm feeling the latter here; a halfling F/T built for tactical flexibility. Wears heavy armor most of the time, takes it off when they need to use their skills out of combat, takes it off and puts it back on when they want to start a battle under stealth. Weapon selection includes both ranged (daggers in the original) and dual-wielding melee options, plus I wouldn't say no to a shield when the situation calls for it.
As for a portrait, my forum avatar doesn't represent anything other than a mathematical object. I do have a strong association with it; I first drew it (with compass and straightedge) more than 20 years ago, and I've been using it in various forums as my avatar for around two thirds of that time. The version I use here is a tiny .png file I "drew" for a programming course; larger versions are available here (Public domain) if you want to do something with it.
I thought there was some coding preventing enemies from one-hitting level 1 characters, but either i'm mistaken (quite likely) or my modded setup changes something I wasn't aware of.
Using the "no difficulty-based bonus damage" option turns off the level 1 protection.
Key stats for a basic wolf:
Level 3, 24 HP, AC 7. Physical stats 18/9/9. THAC0 17 including strength bonus, damage 1d4+2 (piercing) including strength bonus, weapon speed zero, weapon reach 2.
So a wolf can attack you from as far away as a staff-wielder, with no delay. There's basically no way to hit a wolf in melee without the possibility of retaliation. Given a typical level 1 character's resources, the wolf usually attacks first. If you're trying to kite it and it catches up to a character with a ranged weapon equipped, that's +4 to hit and damage on its attack, making things a lot scarier.
For a hit of exactly 12 damage ... either you switched to melee and that was a crit, or your song has some effects on enemy damage. Given that otherwise impossible 6-damage crit from Shank in the other run, I figure it's the latter. (Shank's weapon deals 1d2-1 damage)
As soon as you mentioned an unexpected chunking in the Fire Giant Temple I immediately thought of the fell cats. They're fast. They're hard to avoid, and their on hit effect is super-dangerous in conjunction with the various fire damage threats in the temple. You're not the only one who has been blindsided but that danger. I didn't lose a character to it, but I almost did, and in subsequent runs I've made a point of separating them and dealing with them first. I'm always on edge when they're on the field. They're scary.
@Enuhal Can you handle the final battle with four or do you want a replacement?
In the first Avatar run we had one replacement, Corey subbed for USSNorway's character, Cassia, in Serg's team. That substitution happened much earlier, in the Underdark.
The tradition doesn't require that you take a sub. You are more than welcome to do so if you wish, though. As for the characters XP, IIRC, we added Corey's character at the same XP level as the rest of the party. That was partly because the event that caused Cassia's death was very nearly eligible for a bug reload. It was the closest and most difficult call that I can remember. We weren't 100% comfortable with allowing a bug reload, but we also wanted to make Serg's team as whole as possible, hence the accommodation.
Comments
It's janky, lol. It should either work as a key and disappear upon use or be required to cross the bridge, at penalty of death. It shouldn't do both.
How does Perth get in and out? Does he get a new stone every time?
EDIT: Although Irenicus did get to Perth, right? Maybe the wardstone entry method is a setup, a trap laid by Irenicus. In any case, I don't have a problem with the mechanic, on second thought.
I’m glad to hear some people were enjoying Ayla. I wasn’t sure how she was being received, what with the low difficulty setting and the munchkiny tactics. On my end her run seemed almost criminally simple, and I imagined others saw it the same.
As for continuing her, that’s a hard no, although I appreciate the thought, and the spirit in which it was suggested. Whether it’s fair or not is irrelevant; whether I like it or not is irrelevant. It is how the game works and how it was intended to work. And even it wasn’t how it was intended to work- even if it were a “bug” in some sense- it’s a sufficiently well known mechanic as to not qualify for a reload, as per the standards we’ve embraced over the years. Ayla the First is dead. But long live Ayla the Second? Possibly. We’ll see. I need to do my taxes first, lol.
Thanks again for you support!
Best,
A.
Thanks, though I wouldn't go that far, as can be seen in the next update:
The Avatars (Enuhal's version) - Update XXVII
Entering ToB, I didn't set up all my traps for Illasera in the correct location - some of them targeted the fighter to her right instead, so she survived the initial ambush, allowing her to use her anti-magic arrows on Alesia - though I was able to take her down a few seconds after that anyway, triggering the Black Reavers's retreat:
The mage helping out Kiser here had a really strong array of pre-buffs going, with spell shield and SI:A, multiple spell protections including spell trap etc. - a really strong setup for a random unnamed wizard. Since he was protected with PFMW, not improved mantle, I tried hacking through his stoneskins with non-magical weapons, but I realized I wouldn't be able to do so in time as he was casting an abjuration spell - I expected remove magic, so I ran upstairs instead, dodging the spell via area transition. The wizard followed us, starting to cast another abjuration spell - I was a bit surprised because 2 remove magic spells in a row are actually relatively rare to see, but then again, not impossible, or it could've been just breach or something similiar - so I thought. Well, I decided to dodge this spell as well and just wait out the PFMW. As the mage followed me after the area transition, though, he just kept casting! I have seen this before in very rare scenarios, where an area transition does not break spellcasting from some opponents. Seems to only happen if the spell is cast in melee range, but I don't know the specifics.
Well, with no way to stop the spell now (I left the area again and the very same thing happened), I just had to let it go through - PFMW would be gone any second now anyway. Turns out it was a very different abjuration spell - Imprisonment, targeting Corey. Well, we're not going to use a PfM scroll for that. A scroll vendor is right around the corner - but still was sad to see Corey getting imprisoned with nothing we could do to help him:
As a consequence, I avoided any risks with the mages in the sewers, with Alesia returning to her backstabby ways:
Corecleric XX - halfling priest of lothander, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Mirazi - human mage (Grond0)
Betson - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Well, the party did make it through another session, though we did have a close call. More on that in a bit. But first, we started the session and Betson said he was still carrying the amulet for Maevar. Doing Maevar's quest would also get some useful boots for Betson, so we worked on that by turning in the necklace.
Then we had to get into a Cowled Wizard's place. Downstairs was guarded by a bunch of mephits, but haste and MMM's make short work of those. With the haste still active, Corecleric rushed upstairs, boosted with DUHM and the golems went down quick. Coreclieric gave some anti-mage buffs to Betson, but then realized he didn't have death ward available. So instead lended Betson Corecleric's RoAC so Betson could protect himself with improved invisibility. Betson went upstairs - and his teammates waited a little bit and moved up to assist. Strangely Rayic just stood there and took a pounding. Corecleric then buffed with resist fire for one trap and took some pain with a blob trap but he was Ok.
However, when going outside 3 vampires were waiting for us. Corecleric tried turn undead, which made two vamps run but Tanova was having none of it. Corecleric had to remind his party that Tanova needs +3 weapons. We didn't quite have enough of those to go around, but eventually she died. The other two vamps were easy to mop up. We reported our success to Edwin.
Now the next few quests went very rapidly since we all spread out, Grond0 at the inn to deal with the thief and Marcus, Betson at Maevar, and Corecleric with Edwin. Once positioned, we quickly got the documents, "killed" the thief (got his dagger), and got the evidence on Maevar. Before leaving, Corecleric cast three skeleton warriors as distractions for the enemies at ground level then reported our news to Bloodscalp. Of course we had to do his dirty work and kill Maevar and his allies. This all went pretty smooth, though Betson did take a nice amount of damage. The +3 short sword might be useful for Betson, so he will use that for now.
Next up, Corecleric wanted to do the Unseeing eye quest. The initial undead were easy as Corecleric can just pop them. He had to fight the vampiric mists but since he's protected by the AoP not too much trouble. We got the key to the ex-followers of the Unseeing Eye and went to that area. Corecleric protected himself from lightning, tripped the trap and took down the undead.
We then made it to next area. We ended up fighting quite a few respawning enemies as we were trying to loot the container at the top of the area, but eventually got the goodies. Corecleric used death ward before tripping the spray trap. He was using the shield of balduran anytime we had to mess with Beholders. Mirazi got hurt pretty bad on the first group, but we did eventually take them all down. Corecleric used his RoAC improved invisibility to get his saves to -1 which means the petrification trap couldn't get him.
Next had to get to the feeding pit. The first batch of undead were easy enough. But we had a mess on our hands when Corecleric's sanctuary wore off and his renewed sanctuary got interrupted. He ran for his life. His party was trying to help him, but everyone was taking damage. In a move of pure desperation, Betson summoned the genie from the lamp and the initial fireball dropped Corecleric to very low life (like 10%). Nevertheless, by gulping loads of heal potions, Corecleric was staying intact. He was able to get two summons up and with those distractions the party was finally able to whittle all the undead down - whew!
The beholder lair went much more smoothly. The blind priests got triggered prematurely, but two silences made them much easier to deal with. Since Corecleric was protected by the Shield of Balduran, he soloed most of the area, but with his cleric APR (1/round) it went slowly. Unseeing Eye went quickly as at the right moment Corecleric removed all of its protections and then it went down quickly.
Gaal and his buddies were also taken down. Oh we also dealt with the mage with the cloudkill wand and RoR. This went pretty smoothly, other than Mirazi using a sunfire on Corecleric who luckily survived. We reported our success with Unseeing Eye and Corecleric got the ring of holiness which was a nice item to get.
We still had a little bit of time left so did the Sir Sarles quest and took down Neb to get the illithium. Sir Sarles was mad about our alloy but the church liked it. We had a lot of money by this point so we got the Robe of Vecna for Mirazi. We rested in the graveyard and ended our session here.
As expected, Betson has a large lead in kills. Seems unlikely the others will ever pass him, as with more levels he'll become even more powerful.
Basically it is a barbarian that can use better armour, the downside being that he/she can go berserk and attack anyone when enraged.
I managed to ensure that he didn't attack any good guys by positioning the battles carefully.
For instance againsat Greywolf I walked away from Prism beforee using Ancient Wrath.
I only lost control of her when fighting against Kryll, but had no objection to that happening.
After Kry'll death she attacked and killed Dorn.
I expected charisma to return to 20 upon Dorn's death but it didn't. It stayed at 18.
I was expecting that Bassilus would be unable to hold when she was enraged. I was wrong. She was held and as a result died.
I have learned quite a lot about the kit in the process and will probaby try another run later.
The game was quite interesting if short. She reached level before she died.
Various strategies would have worked against Bassilus ranging from use of a green potion to moving out of sight pf Bassilus when hold was cast. This run was purely to discover more about the kit. I didn't expect to succeed.
next run will be a Gnomish Cavalier.
Thanks for the information.
Hi, all! I just thought I 'd let you know that in off thread play, after her run had ended, Ayla successfully executed the poetic justice kill on Firkraag, Wisdom draining him to death via Kachiko's Wakizashi.
While Kachiko's Wisdom drain effect, -2 for two rounds, offers a save v death, this approach is viable due to Firkraag's exceptionally low Wisdom score of 3. Playing on Hardcore, with improved staying power for dragons, Ayla ended him in a handful of rounds, having only done 70hp worth of damage. There are more efficient ways of killing Firkraag, of course, but this one is uniquely fitting, in my opinion. I'm glad Ayla was able to make it work.
Best,
A.
I've been playing with this party at odd moments in the last week or so with the aim of avoiding taking any damage at all. That's an approach I've taken reasonably regularly with solo runs, but not generally with parties. Without any armor this party is particularly vulnerable, but I thought it should still be possible to go a long way with the mix of abilities they have.
However, thus far I've struggled to avoid mistakes, with runs ending including the following:
- failing to kick an ambushing flind unconscious during a command, or move away before it got up.
- being hit by hobgoblin archers when I travelled back from the basilisk area during the night.
- running from another flind ambush, into another hobgoblin ambush!
- Washout hurt himself when failing to set a trap at level 6. I'd managed to leave him at 95% in set traps (I often do that with thieves who will read the dexterity tome later, but it's not as though that's even an option in this poverty run
- Washout hurting himself again, when trying to lay a trap at level 1 rather than waiting until he'd levelled up.
- Washout attempting a backstab on a ghast down to its last HP and failing to retreat in time.
I'm probably about at the end of this series of attempts, but it's not been a good sequence and I'd like to end on a better note - so I'm trying one last time to see if I can get a half-decent run together ...
After leaving Candlekeep they avoided the potential ambush on the way to High Hedge and moved on to Beregost. Various tasks were done around there, including delivering Mirianne's letter and Zhurlong's boots. Silke was blinded, but shrugged off the attempted commands - but a combination of a spirit snake and magic missiles was too much for her.
Then it was off to the basilisk area, to follow Korax round. He did his usual good job on them, along with Mutamin.
South now and the party stopped off at the Lake area to introduce Drizzt to some traps. He just survived the first stack of traps with 2 HPs left, but a couple more traps overcame his cure medium wounds.
Without invisibility, there were a limited number of areas where it was possible to travel safely, so the Opera returned to the Lake area. Blindness and traps dealt with Teyngan's group, while sleep accounted for Bjornin's half-ogres. At High Hedge traps killed one golem and injured the other - Pauper using his Seeking Sword to finish that off under cover of spirits. That was just enough to allow everyone to level up and for the sorcerers to learn invisibility.
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L4, 35 HPs, 0 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L4, 36 HPs, 5 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L4, 37 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L5, 34 HPs, 13 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L4, 21 HPs, 18 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L4, 24 HPs, 14 kills, 0 deaths
@Grond0 - good luck in your run. I can't even imagine doing a poverty run myself. You have truly mastered the concept in BG of doing more with less. Hope your party has a long life.
Beggar's Opera {48} - poverty run (2nd and final update)
Previous updates
To the north, Tenya got her bowl back. I laid traps around her with the aim of those killing her while she was teleporting away. However, a good series of attacks by the party killed her before any traps could trigger anyway.
Deciding it was time to go into the Nashkel Mine, the Opera headed south. They intended to help Prism, but a mis-click on the conversation with him sent him hostile - more XP down the drain. There were no problems sneaking through the mine itself though, where Mulahey died in webs.
Webs combined with spirit lions is a vicious combination and that made short work of the amazons. The rest of the area was cleared as well, with more invisible blocking in the tombs, webs for Narcillicus and Seeking Sword for his mustard jellies. Back in Nashkel, silence allowed Beggar plenty of time for a first use of call lightning on Nimbul.
I didn't use invisibility when travelling up to Beregost during the day and that resulted in the need for some careful play to avoid being attacked during a gibberling ambush - that was done successfully though.
I decided to do more exploring before continuing to the Bandit Camp, so headed down to the Cloud Peak Mountains. Web and spirit lions, along with the odd trap and the old faithfuls of sleep, command and blind made progress generally pretty easy there, though the XP on offer is low.
Even if gameplay seems easy though, it's also always easy for things to go wrong and I got into trouble in one of the xvart caves when I accidentally deselected Aspire as he was about to kill a xvart with a magic missile. That potentially gave the xvart an opportunity to attack, but Hardup broke invisibility and managed to forestall that with a punch that knocked it cold.
The character must be lawful good, neutral good or true neutral.
Everyone in Candlekeep apart from those who have the ability to know alignment seems to think that because of my fiery eyes, I must be the spawn of some malevolent god. Those who can see into my heart know differently though they are aware that I do have a constant struggle to do the right thing. Indeed, even in Candlekeep I took possessions that were not mine out of locked chests and had to take the consequences, in one case the confiscation of all my money and in the other a severe whipping from a guard. Mind you, that was not all bad. My speed allowed me to steal a healing potion without being caught. One thing is certain. I could never be a paladin!
I helped Melicamp, calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead thus gaining mastery in large swords. Now heading southwards. Since my enemies seem to be aware of my planned movements I am not going to the FAI at present.
EDIT
I reached level 6 with no problem.
I thought of dual classing to cleric and that is probably what I will do in my next run. The dewback is that with clerical weapons mastery is unavailable.
Tomb defender ia certainly an interesting kit at low levels, not so much later on. One thing that I dislike is how long fatigue lasts after enrage. Half the time would be preferable.
The interesting fighhts so far have been against the sirines. I beat them despite being confused and having my intelligence reduced to 3. In all the battles against them, I had a long wait doing nothing until the spells wore off.
I am thinking that it is now about time to assemble a party. I may wait for a while to ensure that all the party members join at a fairly high level.
My current proficiencies are : large sword ***, missile weapons *, two handed weapons **. Large swords and two handed weapons cannot be improved further.
Dorn joined at level 5. He nearly reached level 6 after we killed Kryll. When I told him to leave he went to the FAI.
Xzar and Montaron joined long enough to do some useful pick-pocketting. I left them at Ulgoth's Beard.
Sirene and Ajantis joined at level 5, but levelled up very soon afterwards after killing some ankheg.
Tenya joined at level 6.
Our reputation is 20 and I can get my charisma up to 21, so as soon as I sell the shells it seems an appropriate time to go shopping. I have some other items to sell as well.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
After Nimbul, Neira was another person to have a bad day at the office, as she was taken down under our residual buffs from the previous fight (while Sorsha's RoFA eliminated the Hold Person threat). Interestingly, I had noted this behaviour alredy in the past, when one's summons sometimes transit between the areas, you can no longer control them, but they will still follow and assist.
Here's Sorsha inventory at the time for the record.
There was one important item missing from our collection ahead of the Bandit Camp - the Claw. We had the funds, but we first needed the CON tome from Black Alaric's Cave to mitigate the Claw's impact on our HP. Sorsha approached the cave under Invisibility, used MSD to foil the traps and shot down the golems with +1 arrows.
Back in Beregost, Tarnesh got eliminated with the help of our brand new Wand of Paralyzation. Despite mages' strong saves vs. wands, the wand's -4 penalty still make them viable targets. (Note the lack of Resist Fear on Sorsha - that's clearly a mistake on my end. Sorry for that, girl.).
Silke was pummeled down with Aule's while Sorsha was sitting safely behind her buffs, including the Greenstone Amulet.
Who's the thespian extraordinaire now? With their assailant gone, we concluded that Faltis and the crew will no longer be needing those Potions of Defense they're each carrying.
We're off to the camp with Raiken - I'll cover the battle in the next post shortly.
Regards,
B.
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
For the Bandit Camp we prepared with Potion of Master Thievery, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense, Shield Amulet, Resist Fear (via item), Strength and Oil of Speed. The initial part of the plan involved pickpocketing Taurgosz for his potions...
He yields Potion of Firebreath and Potion of Fortitude, although no Oil of Speed (which was the main threat we're looking to eliminate). Sorsha then goes invisible (via Invisibility scroll) and enters the main tent. Once in position, she completes her buffs with ProEvil (scroll), MI and Greenstone Amulet and checks that she's wearing the right equipement - with the Claw, Cloak of Displacement, Boots of Avoidance and Girdle of Piercing, Sorsha was now only exposed to critical hits.
To utilize the Potion of Master Thievery, we also relieve Britik of his Potion of Stone Giant Strength (along with MAA scroll) ahead of the battle.
Sorsha then opens with Skull Trap.
Unfortunately, the impact is not significant and Venkt manages to manouver away from the spell's radius. Aule time!
Britik is dominated via the Captive Audience to create a distraction - he plays his role well and we might give him a call in the future in case we end up doing auditions at the Five Flagons theather.
At that point, we're a bit concerned about the number of critical hits seen in the log and the diminishing number of our MIs. As noted in Sorsha's introduction, the +1 luck modifier granted by her personal item guarantees that she doesn't get hit as long as any images remain. Even without MIs, we could still rely on Sorsha's low effective AC, though it wouldn't be without risks.
Anyway, the priority was to remove Venkt from the picture. With his aura clouded, Sorsha moves in with Wand of Paralyzation. Success.
More clean-up work with Aule.
You may note that Britik's turned hostile once again, which allowed Hakt to turn his attention back to Sorsha. Just as we're about to start working on Venkt, Sorsha gets crit-hit by Raemon, suffering 19 points of damage. She immediately counters with Potion of Regerenation.
Unfortunately, both Hakt and the last surviving Blacktalon land back-to-back critical hits as well, dealing additional 34 damage in a quick succession.
This was not good. Not good at all. With Sorsha's aura still clouded from the potion quaff and poisoned (note: for some reason the "poisoned" portratit icon is not showing in my current install, not sure why), two more crits could mean death. Our only option was to quaff an emergency PoI as soon as possible, although we knew that some of the archers will still manage to fire during those long 3-4 seconds before our aura clears. We could close in on Hakt in melee, though I was too concerned about Britik there, despite his slow weapon.
Luckily, Hakt fails to strike another crit and Sorsha makes it to her PoI on time.
What now? We had to heal up and cleanse the poison before re-engaging, but we're also conscious of Venkt's stun duration, meaning that we could not linger for too long. Considering the options, Sorsha opted for Potion of Health -> MIs, leaving the rest of the healing to the active Potion of Regeneration.
These guys are on the roll indeed! Luckily, our refreshed MIs will take care of the threat for now.
Sorsha manages to finish Venkt before the Wand of Paralyzation effect expires.
Next!
That's for all the trouble, Raemon!
Same for you, Hakt!
For sake of the fun factor, Britik is finished by equipping Boots of AvoidanceGrounding, quaffing Potion of Insulation and triggering the lightning trap at the chest.
Fully buffed and angry, we're not ready to let the bandits get away with taking us this close to dying. We knew that there'd be more archers waiting for us outside the tent. And what is the best armor against archers? Full plate, of course. We cannot wear one, but we know someone who can do it for us…
With Taurgosz joining team Sorsha, the odds were now even. Shortly after the game kicked off, the score became 2:0 in our favour.
Nevertheless, the opposing team pushes hard and scores as well. 2:1.
Sorsha strikes six points via Necklace of Missiles. 8:1.
Many have arrived. Good.
Wand of Fire scorcher + Oil of Speed combo is a classic.
We've lost count by the time our last mirror image disappeared. Sorsha hunts down the remaining cannon fodder and our job here is done.
We're now at level 9 and ready to hit Cloakwood.
Regards,
B.
@Alesia_BH One should say it's Firkraag's arrogance that killed him. Thank you for showing us the importance of good judgement (especially so if your opponent is carrying Kachiko's).
Lol. Thanks, Borco.
Btw, I'm really enjoying your runs. They remind me of how I used to play before my break. Sorhsa has been wonderful so far. You have an excellent command of the class. Keep it up!
Cheers,
A.
The run isn't over quite yet, but we've suffered a terrible setback. I regret that have to inform you that Grond0 (the character, not the player, obviously) is no more - he suffered an unexpected fiery death/chunking in the Fire Giant Temple. Let's see how we got to that point:
Things started off well enough - we used Grond0's great physical damage resistance to clear out the fire giants at the wilderness outside of Saradush and travelled to the Temple of Bhaal, where we activated triple sunrays to deal with the master wraith and its allies:
Well, Enuhal did most of the work here casting two well-placed nature's beauty spells - hitting all of the giants, even Berenn with the second one. The only one in a bit of trouble was Corey, who took some damage from a few GWW hits but got healed shortly after that:
https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Lower_Fire_Resistance
While a possibily, it's unlikely to have been that. First of all, Grond0 couldn't even fail those saving throws with the buffs he had going. Second of all, that's an AoE effect, and everyone else never took a single point of fire damage. Third of all, it only lasts 6 rounds, and to get that amount of bonus damage it would have to be applied 4 times! Unlikely.
However, further googling got me to the solution, and it turns out that Grond0's death is entirely due to a gap in my SCS knowledge. What killed him were the unassuming Fell Cats that I had mostly ignored due to their pitiful damage output - two of them hitting Grond0 for basically the entire fight. Here's an excerpt from the wiki entry for Fell Cats:
"SCS changes the creatures attack weapon by adding one extra ability that affects anyone hit by the claw attack, reducing Fire Resistance by -25% for each strike (cumulative and additive). This penalty cannot be dispelled, and there is no defense (other than not to get hit). It has a duration of 90 seconds (15 rounds). If the claw successfully strikes, a message on the combat screen will display " Fire Resistance Lowered"."
I did not know that. I also don't recall seeing that combat log message, but I could easily have overlooked it. Quite frustrating, because I have greater deathblow, and it would've taken no work at all to kill these Fell Cats pretty much instantly, had I known how devastating the side effects of their attacks are in SCS.
The run is on hold. According to the rules/traditions of the Avatar run, as far as I know from participants of round 1, it is customary to replace a chunked character with a new Avatar from a non-participating forum member. I don't know the exact mechanics here - how is the new Avatar added into the game? At what experience level do they start?
Grond0 was a barbarian, one of only two fighter-types in the party. I would definitely need a fighter-type as a replacement, should the run still have any remote chance of success. They also shouldn't use a modded kit, as I don't want to change my setup in the midst of the run.
So @Borco @semiticgoddess @jmerry or anyone else currently active here and not already represented in the Avatar run, does one of you want to give me stats/abilities/a portrait for some kind of fighter-type Avatar of yours?
So after lurking on this forum in general and specifically this thread for years i've finally decided to toss my hat into the ring. I've no noteworthy experience with no reloading challenges so far apart from an undocumented and surprisingly successful "shorty" party run several years ago that was cut short when both Alora and Quayle got chunked by some Doppelgangers at Sarevok's coronation.
I've "prepared" myself (you know, mindset is everything) yesterday with another undocumented run where my Dark Moon Monk was petrified by some basilisks. Turns out 1 turn duration for Potion of Mirror Eyes is quite short when you try to murder several of these creatures with throwing darts.
So, without further ado, enter...
Cedric the Jester
I'm running SCS on Tactical with prebuffing disabled (seemed somewhat overwhelming to me for my first "serious" try), RR (the -1 to saves is from Jester's Luck which also gets you -1 to AC), TweaksAnthology and possibly some minor custom tweaks. That's why i'm rocking a gnome bard.
The prologue doesn't bode well. I forget you had to speak to Firebead exactly 30 times and therefore miss the 300 gold. I then forget to turn in several quest items so i had to do an annoying amount of backtracking to turn in all fetch quests. At least Fuller rewards my charming Jester with a Dagger +1, I also get my hands on a light crossbow before my journey begins in earnest.
Some gibberling and bear hunting on my way to the Friendly Arm Inn goes surprisingly well thanks to the +2 AC penalty (as well as +2 THAC0 penalty but I'm not mad enough to go toe to toe with anything but rats) provided by the RR jester's song "distracted" effect, though enemies can save with a +4 bonus to their saving throw vs spells. I guess that's more of a nerf than rebalancing of the original jester's song but I care more for the flavour RR provides. Also, I've always found bards to pretty capable in BGEE regardless of their singing anyway.
I continue to kite somewhat sluggish Hobgoblins for Joia's ring and and the constant (abrupt) ending of the battle theme followed by it's immediate restart is probably what pushes Cedric from the brink of madness to full blown insanity. This will have consequences...
I'm desperate to gain at least one level before my confrontation with Tarnesh so I decide to continue my merry monster hunt for the moment. That's when I run into my first boss fight...
I foolishly (quite fitting) decide to take on the wolf instead of running for my life and it turns out kiting a wolf is significantly harder then, say, a gibberling. He hits me for 12 (!!!) HP and thereby ends the journey of Cedric the Fool. I thought there was some coding preventing enemies from one-hitting level 1 characters, but either i'm mistaken (quite likely) or my modded setup changes something I wasn't aware of.
Anyway, I realy liked this little fella so here comes...
Cedric the Second of His Name
I even manage to roll a 90 for his stats, what a lucky start!
This time I also remember to pester old Firebead exactly thirty times and invest my newly gained riches in a shiny chainmail...
Until I realize that wearing chainmail makes it slightly difficult to move when you only got 9 strength and want to carry some other stuff as well. Duh...
Shit hits the fan when Shank almost skewers me with a critical hit.
Traumatized, I beg for a free Potion of Healing and force myself to quaff it in the f*****g tutorial before confronting some rats (can the actually hit and damage you?) and finally Carbos who feels like some kind of mini boss at this stage.
Fast foward, I actually manage to get to level 2 this time and, after applying an oil of speed for good measure, interrupt Tarnesh's casting of Mirror Image with a nicely timed Larloch's Minor Drain. Two guards join the fight and together we whittle him down to near death pretty fast until I fail to interrupt his sleep.
I hide around the corner but - as expected - fail my save. Still, I'm hopeful. Two guards will surely mange to hit an unprotected wizard at least once before he reaches me.
They turn up late...
Knowing that Tarnesh will only outlive him for mere seconds, Cedric the Second of His Name will - hopefully - rest in peace.
That's it for now, at least from Cedric and me. I guess these are somewhat pathetic first tries but... humble beginnings. I'm willing to hold on for now but haven't made up my mind yet if I give Cedric another try (as I quite like the idea of a mad gnome jester) or maybe start with a different character.
Beggar's Opera {52} - poverty run (1st and final update)
Everyone playing video games must be familiar with the idea of "just one more". I've been suffering with that and lost 3 more runs, still aiming to avoid any damage, through various errors. In the latest I felt I'd done reasonably well to once more get to the same area where one of my sorcerers was shot in my last update. I dare say I was thinking ahead to ensuring the same didn't happen this time, rather than paying full attention to the current situation
Tricky. My style of play focuses on full themed parties, which doesn't translate well to a run like this with the rest of the party already set. I end up playing a lot of different things based on the theme.
But if I do have a favored character type, it's fighter/thieves of various sorts. I've done two full runs in the playthrough forum with fighter/thieves - a human kensai 13->thief that specialized in werewolf claws (exploiting a loophole in the SCS "Improved Shapeshifting" component) and a halfling fighter/thief for my no-spellcasting run. I'm feeling the latter here; a halfling F/T built for tactical flexibility. Wears heavy armor most of the time, takes it off when they need to use their skills out of combat, takes it off and puts it back on when they want to start a battle under stealth. Weapon selection includes both ranged (daggers in the original) and dual-wielding melee options, plus I wouldn't say no to a shield when the situation calls for it.
As for a portrait, my forum avatar doesn't represent anything other than a mathematical object. I do have a strong association with it; I first drew it (with compass and straightedge) more than 20 years ago, and I've been using it in various forums as my avatar for around two thirds of that time. The version I use here is a tiny .png file I "drew" for a programming course; larger versions are available here (Public domain) if you want to do something with it.
Cheers,
A.
Key stats for a basic wolf:
Level 3, 24 HP, AC 7. Physical stats 18/9/9. THAC0 17 including strength bonus, damage 1d4+2 (piercing) including strength bonus, weapon speed zero, weapon reach 2.
So a wolf can attack you from as far away as a staff-wielder, with no delay. There's basically no way to hit a wolf in melee without the possibility of retaliation. Given a typical level 1 character's resources, the wolf usually attacks first. If you're trying to kite it and it catches up to a character with a ranged weapon equipped, that's +4 to hit and damage on its attack, making things a lot scarier.
For a hit of exactly 12 damage ... either you switched to melee and that was a crit, or your song has some effects on enemy damage. Given that otherwise impossible 6-damage crit from Shank in the other run, I figure it's the latter. (Shank's weapon deals 1d2-1 damage)
Dead Grond0, four portraits: A sad sight indeed
As soon as you mentioned an unexpected chunking in the Fire Giant Temple I immediately thought of the fell cats. They're fast. They're hard to avoid, and their on hit effect is super-dangerous in conjunction with the various fire damage threats in the temple. You're not the only one who has been blindsided but that danger. I didn't lose a character to it, but I almost did, and in subsequent runs I've made a point of separating them and dealing with them first. I'm always on edge when they're on the field. They're scary.
@Enuhal Can you handle the final battle with four or do you want a replacement?
In the first Avatar run we had one replacement, Corey subbed for USSNorway's character, Cassia, in Serg's team. That substitution happened much earlier, in the Underdark.
The tradition doesn't require that you take a sub. You are more than welcome to do so if you wish, though. As for the characters XP, IIRC, we added Corey's character at the same XP level as the rest of the party. That was partly because the event that caused Cassia's death was very nearly eligible for a bug reload. It was the closest and most difficult call that I can remember. We weren't 100% comfortable with allowing a bug reload, but we also wanted to make Serg's team as whole as possible, hence the accommodation.