@semiticgod I only have SCS installed, I wanted to experience 'vanilla ToB' once before playing with Ascension (and also because it's probably far easier without Ascension I think). I am really slow in my reports, soon enough you will complete the saga again before I do!
@Mirage Thank you very much! I hope you will share your adventures with us on this thread.
Due to my decision to not avoid any difficult fights, I have to fight Kangaxx. We're well suited to handling his lich form, as we have Wizard Slayer Fire Seeds. But his demi-lich form is another matter entirely.
In SCS, Kangaxx and other spellcasters will not imprison the main character. And thanks to SCS, it's possible to save vs. death to avoid imprisonment, but the save comes at a severe penalty, and even if it's successful, the victim still gets level drained. On top of that, Kangaxx can cast a full range of mage spells, including Summon Fallen Planetar. Finally, Kangaxx has all of his normal immunities aside from immunity to debuffers, plus 100 magic resistance and immunity to the elements. Also, I have found SCS Kangaxx to see through Protection from Undead in his demi-lich form, even if he were not able to simply dispel it.
The outcome is pretty clear. Ruva will frustrate his spellcasting for a moment with Fire Seeds, but spell failure does not apply to Trap the Soul, and he will resist the fire damage. Ruva as a Wizard Slayer cannot drink potions beyond healing potions, and therefore cannot get a low enough save vs. death to prevent Kangaxx from imprisoning her. Eventually, Ruva will be gone, we will be unable to inflict spell failure (Kangaxx's spell level immunities will block Holy Word), he will dispel our save bonuses and spell protections, and eventually everyone but Viora will be imprisoned.
Then Kangaxx will slay her with spell damage or a Fallen Planetar.
We could use a trump card. Protection from Magic would shut down Kangaxx's spellcasting and give us more than enough time to kill him. This would cost us one of the most useful items in the game, an ideal trump card for various situations. But there's another problem on top of that.
We don't have the scroll. Nor does Ribald. It has vanished from our scroll case.
I go back through our old save files. We did in fact purchase the scroll. One of them was on Azelos for some reason; the other was in the scroll case. Since Azelos never got chunked and containers get transported to Charname's inventory if the person holding it gets removed from the party, it should not have been possible for us to lose either of the scrolls.
I've noticed containers eating items before, but I don't know what causes it. And I don't like the idea of consoling in the scrolls, even though we've clearly lost dozens of other scrolls thanks to a bug.
Finally, I come up with a solution. It comes at a heavy cost, but does not require the console. First, we have to bring down Kangaxx's lich form.
To simplify things, I lay a bunch of traps. But because Ruva is only level 15, thanks to her previous chunking in the Planar Sphere, her traps are level 11 rather than level 16 traps, and deal lingering poison damage rather than instantaneous fire damage. They're much stronger against most enemies, but much weaker against liches. They aren't enough to destroy Kangaxx's lich form.
As usual, we have Ruva and her clone lined up with the full 12 Fire Seeds Laosha can summon at level 14 with the Staff of Arundel, and the Flesh Golem right next to Kangaxx. Viora hits Kangaxx with Holy Word.
50% spell failure for 1 turn and no way to stop it. Kangaxx's Chain Contingency fires, a standard setup for SCS. The Flesh Golem, as always, is immune.
Fire Seeds disrupt Kangaxx's next spell.
This is due to the fire damage, not the spell failure. But once we've hit him twice with Fire Seeds, we know his spell failure is at 100%, and we can save our Fire Seeds.
As with other liches, I keep Azelos attacking with the Quiver of Plenty to check when Kangaxx becomes vulnerable to magical weapons. When I see Azelos land a hit, I know Ruva can land a hit with the Crimson Dart.
But after a short delay, Kangaxx's PFMW Contingency finally fires.
Normally the firing is instantaneous.
Later, Kangaxx tries his hand at another spell. Another Fire Seed stops him. His defenses are running low.
He lands a double Magic Missile Minor Sequencer on Ruva, dealing minor damage that dispels her clone.
It's functioning like a Project Image clone, which vanishes if the caster is hurt, but I thought I saw Ruva take damage in other fights without her clone going away.
Kangaxx holds onto PFMW for a while longer.
I consider using the Wand of Spell Striking to hasten the process, but Pierce Magic can't take down Spell Trap. Kangaxx, unable to get a spell off the ground, resorts to melee attacks. Yorin Zovai takes the hit; she can't cast Stoneskins reliably thanks to the spell failure from the Fire Seeds. Notice that he needs a critical hit to harm her, so the paralyze effect liches apply on melee attacks has little chance of disabling her.
I've kept her close to Kangaxx in anticipation of the second half of the fight. An SI: Abjuration spell should keep Kangaxx busy for a moment--if only a moment--at the start of the fight. Her Spell Trap from the Staff of the Magi and the Minor Spell Turning from the Ring of Spell Turning should also help.
Ruva is alone and is running a little low on Fire Seeds. I decide we need a little extra help with spell failure. Viora hurries in to assure our safety. It works.
The Flesh Golem is in very poor shape thanks to Kangaxx's Fire Shields. The Flesh Golem is immune to cold damage and magic, but red Fire Shields bypass both of those things, and I've been neglecting to keep it from attacking Kangaxx. We break out our only healing spell to keep it alive.
We lose our Flesh Golem despite our efforts to keep it around. Ruva's Fire Seeds will be much less reliable.
Yorin Zovai breaks out the Wand of Monster Summoning to get an easier target for Ruva.
Belatedly I realize Kangaxx's PFMW has run out. Ruva switches to the Crimson Dart. Soon, Kangaxx transforms. Yorin Zovai brings out SI: Abjuration despite the spell failure from the Fire Seed a moment before.
Kangaxx the Demi-Lich appears. We're low on Fire Seeds and out of Holy Word spells, but we have a trump card.
A Control Circlet.
I actually did this before in a vanilla run, and slew Kangaxx with his own Power Word: Kill spell, as he had no MR in that version and spells cast on self ignore spell level immunities. I check through his spell selection.
No Power Word: Kill, unfortunately. This will take a bit longer to work out. Yorin Zovai's animal critters are attacking Ruva because she hit them with a Fire Seed. I hide her so I don't have to worry about her.
I start wasting his spells.
The Protection from Magical Energy spell he cast on Viora helps her trigger a couple of Skull Traps.
We use up his last important spell.
This will let us dispel Kangaxx's Stoneskins. Maybe we could even get a vorpal strike on him. But it seems Planetars can't hurt demi-liches.
That's not the end of it. Not only does the Planetar prove unable to hurt Kangaxx, Kangaxx's Fire Shield actually turns the Planetar hostile.
But the Planetar keeps on attacking Kangaxx, ignoring the rest of the party.
I don't let anyone move, for fear that the Planetar might change targets and chunk somebody.
Finally, the Planetar vanishes.
We're safe, and thankfully Kangaxx himself has remained friendly in the meantime.
Ruva equips Usuno's Blade, Azelos equips the Short Bow of Gesen, and Zulfer equips the Mace of Disruption. After everyone is hasted, we attack.
First, Yaga-Shura. Anselm and his party dealt with his army before seeing him off to the west of the bridge.
The fight was pretty straightforward as Yaga-Shura can be poisoned, so he fell quickly to the assault of Anselm and Dorn. The rest of his army fled as soon as he died.
Then it was time for the second Pocket Plane Trial, Anselm faced himself and Sarevok's previous group.
Edwin blasted everyone while Hexxat backstabbed the survivors with Mislead.
Next, they travelled to Amkethran but were ambushed on the road by some Crusaders and a Planetar. They pretty much used every spells they have because I didn't know what was coming next.
After their death, Dorn thinked it would be a GREAT idea to invade the Heavens, right now. Well ... I don't really have the choice. Let's do this.
Anselm managed to convince a Planetar he was the nephew of Keldorn.
Then they get to Naiman Alore, the man who is keeping the Scroll of Retribution. Once again, Anselm managed to trick them into thinking they were some emissary of Tyr or something like that, but Dorn lost his temper at some point ...
Thank you Dorn, really.
Naiman is a high-level Mage, with TWO uses of Improved Alacrity and he opened the fight with Time Stop before using Remove Magic and Death Spell to get rid of the Skeletons Warriors. Anselm held the frontline while the rest of the party was summoning new Skeletons and a Golem, Sarevok also threw an ADHW spell in there.
Hexxat was afflicted by a Feeblemind spell from one of the many Planetars.
I don't know why but at some point Edwin's Fallen Planetar became hostile and attacked Hexxat who was defenseless. Dorn used two charges of the Rod of Resurrection to keep her alive but the Heal effect didn't remove the Feeblemind. Anselm had no other choice but to slay the Fallen Planetar while Viconia summoned three Greater Elementals (one of them was a Prince).
Finally Anselm finished Naiman with Poison Weapon through the Fireshields and took some damage in the process.
But at least the quest was over.
Or not.
Dorn saw a tree protected by Crusaders and specials Planetars and thought it would a good idea to corrupt it. Of course Dorn, do you also need me to slay two Silver Dragons while you're at it? The whole party was already low on spells since the beginning of the invasion but now they were mostly relying on Potions and Scrolls to continue to fight.
I was afraid of resting here as Hexxat was complaining about the light and was taking fire damage regularly. But hey, this time it was over.
I was wrong.
I was sooooo wrong.
As soon as the fight started, everyone drank an Oil of Speed and walked upstairs, the Dragons couldn't follow them there. Then Edwin casted Protection from Energy on Anselm to protect him from the Dragons' Breath while he used a Potion of Power to increase his HP (just in case). He went downstairs with his longbow and a lot of Arrows of Piercing and used Poison Weapon.
Hopefully the Dragons were contained in the small circle and couldn't reach Anselm in melee; the Blackguard kept his distance and attacked the remaining Dragon from range until a Planetar came to his rescue, the Dragon casted Heal on itself and Anselm was out of Poison Weapon.
Finally Dorn went downstairs aswell, he had a few Poison Weapon left and together they slew the last reptile.
They looted two Silver Dragon Scales, it was worth it honestly. The Silver Dragon Armor is very powerful.
Then they left the plane of Lumia and lived happily after.
Unless of course an army of Devas lead by a Planetar blocked their path.
After this battle, I was condering who were the three non-hostiles Petitioners next to the exit, so I decided to attack one of them. I should have think about that a bit more.
Anselm and his party decided to flee with Oils of Speed, but the Petitioner followed them with his Fallen Planetar and a Dimension Door spell.
Even more Devas and Planetars joined the fight until Anselm and his party decided to leave the area once and for all. Sarevok used his last Haste spell to replace the Oils which were dispelled and they managed to escape the Heavens.
It was by far one on my favorite (if not my favorite) area of the game!
Finally they arrived in Amkethran and Chapter 9 started.
In Amkethran, Hexxat's quest started. There aren't any big fights for once apart from a Lich, so I won't spoil anything here. It was very interesting nevertheless!
The party fought Vongoethe, the Lich in Amkethran, and kept the soul gem for themselves. Then they headed toward Abazigal's Lair and faced Draconis near the entrance.
Against his Human form, Anselm went alone with 4 Skeletons Warriors and a Fallen Planetar and waited patiently for his buffs to wear out while the rest of the party was in the southeast corner in safety.
He summoned a Fallen Planetar aswell which was killed promptly by the Blackguard, then when he started to cast an Alteration spell, Anselm retreated in the corner.
It was a Time Stop spell, Draconis tried to kill Edwin's Fallen Planetar but to no avail, his weapons were not strong enough to harm it. When the spell ended, Anselm was able to kill him in melee.
Then he turned into his Dragon form which was pretty straightforward, he struggled a lot to hit Anselm in melee thanks to his amazing AC, and only hit him for 3 damage each time thanks to DoE + Hardiness + Armor of Faith. So he tried to hide, but Hexxat was near with Detect Illusion on, then Dorn attacked aswell to speed up the process a bit and he fell.
With the Silver Armor Dragon which heals the wearer for 2 HP each time he get hit and the Ring of Gaxx's regeneration, Anselm is nearly invincible from now on.
Then they faced Anadramatis the Yellow Dragon, and things didn't go as planned. According to the site I'm consulting when I'm playing, I should have encountered 2 Bone Fiends instead of the Dragon. I figured out that it is SCS which replaces the regular encounter by the Dragon whose Breath Weapon deals physical damage. It is really funny because you can tell Anadramatis that you were expecting the two Bone Fiends in the dialogue before fighting him.
The problem is that the entrance is locked during the fight, and the area is really small. His breath weapon hit everyone but Edwin; the first time it was alright, everyone used a few healing potions to keep up.
The second time however ... He annihilated Viconia with 135 damage, chunking her in the process.
Anselm lost his loved one ... And it was irreversible. The Dragon even tried to surrender when he was low on health, but Anselm had no mercy.
Back in the previous room, a group of fiends teleported to attack the group. Protected with the Cloak of Mirroring, Anselm dealt with them alone.
The Kuo-Toa area was cleaned thanks to Edwin and his ADHW spells.
After they saved the monk, the needed some rope to explore the others pools, so they came back to Amkethran and bought it to an Innkeeper before heading back to Abazigal's Lair where they encountered 2 Black Dragons. They immediately flee to the corner with some Oils of Speed, then Anselm tanked both Dragons with Hardiness while the rest of the party was buffing.
Edwin used Time Stop, summoned his Fallen Planetar and casted Protection from Energy on Anselm because he didn't have time to use Armor of Faith to protect him from their breath weapons.
Sarevok casted Time Stop aswell and slew the first Dragon during the duration of the spell. Finally, everyone rushed the second Dragon and he fell soon after.
Two others Dragons came to fight Anselm and his party, but the Blackguard was really to resilient for them.
Before facing Abazigal himself, they needed to kill Fll'Yissetat, another Dragon. Dorn, Anselm and a few summons tackled him : they dealt so much damage so fast, that the Dragon suffered from Morale Failure, fled, managed to heal itself back to full and suffered Morale Failure again when both Warriors used GWW.
They also looted the Bronze Pantalettes in another room filled with Beholders and forged the Big Metal Unit for Dorn beforehand.
And finally for today's report Abazigal himself, as usual Dorn, Anselm and a few summons shredded his Human form with GWW, then he turned into a Dragon, knocking everyone away in the process. Then the two warriors came back, used GWW again and forced him to cast Heal. When he used his Breath Weapon on Anselm, Hexxat and Sarevok rushed him with Improved Haste and he fell.
As soon as the deed was done, Anselm was teleported in his hellish Pocket Plane where he learned about the prophecy from himself. Something he said was true, especially about Viconia.
The third Pocket Plane challenge is very simple, you must simply fight an incarnation of the Slayer who does nothing else than attacking you in melee, and he isn't really strong if you use some GWW/Improved Haste/Hardiness and so forth.
After the trial, Anselm and his party went to explore the second level of Watcher's Keep. They dispatched every foes on their path, found the last head of the Flail of Ages and upgraded it immediately. Anselm often switch to the Answerer +4 when Sarevok, Hexxat or Edwin cast Improved Haste on him before switching back to the FoA +5.
The Answerer is a terribly good weapon, I never understood the people saying it was bad, it improves your party's damage by so much! Especially when you use summons, like Skeletons Warriors with Haste. And I didn't even know it lowered the enemy MR by 15% per hit, this is huuuuuuge. You can drop someone MR to zero in less than a round with enough APR. This will definitely change how I see the game. Now I will never take Lower Resistance on a Mage or Sorcerer if I'm playing a full party.
At the end of the level, they tackled the Chromatic Demon. It was a bit long but easy enough, the FoA+5 was dealing consistent damage to every forms it took, and when it turned into its Ice form, Sarevok and Edwin both casted Dragon's Breath to speed up the process.
Next was the Maze Level. This level isn't hard if you play an evil aligned party, because the first group of fiends won't attack on sight but instead, they will propose you to slay the second group and to retreive the heart of a demon. This is a huge advantage because the room before the first group is a Dead Magic Zone, which means you cannot prebuff at all and the spellcasting failure will persist for a round or two during the fight which could be enough for the teleporting fiends to kill outright your fragile characters, in my case Edwin. While the room before the second group is a regular room, so you can buff yourself.
But this level is a dangerous place, because of the Wild Magic Zones; if you are, very, very, very, extremely unlucky, you can be killed instantly by a simple Magic Missile. If it rolls 24 (roll twice more), 46 (open all doors, if there are no doors, roll twice more) or 63 (roll 4 more times) then it rolls 72 (Flesh to Stone on the target) AND 60 (no saving throw allowed!) at the same time, you're toasted. Except if you have some MR. The probabilities are a bit higher than 3/100 * 2/100 * 1/100 = 6/1000000 = 0.0006% because I didn't count the fact that you can roll the same thing multiple times (technically you can roll every effect an infinite number of times if you roll 24, 46 or 63 an infinite number of times).
But apart from a sex change, Anselm is alright!
They reached Aesgareth the Cambion and gambled with him. I found something very interesting here.
The Cloak of Mirroring makes you immune to his Vitality Drain, so you can freely play with him as much as you want without worrying about losing HP (I think it is a permanent lose if you do).
Then the fight occured, Edwin stopped time, blasted everything to kingdom come while Sarevok and Anselm finished the wounded in melee.
Next, the Machine of Lum the Mad.
Here, Anselm soloed everything for safety sake.
Including Saladrex,
and the Demilich. It was a funny fight because at some point, the Demilich stopped doing anything for two or three rounds, it couldn't harm Anselm in any way considering his saves and resistances so it kinda gave up. Anselm drank a Potion of Fire Resistance just before a Dragon's Breath hit him for 10 damage, and he ignored the Comet with his MR.
Afterward, they freed Carston, killed him and used the Machine of Lum the Mad the gain various bonuses for Anselm and they reached the Seal Level.
There Anselm also soloed everything, once again before it was easier and far more practical, except the last fight because I read that the Huntress has the Called Shot ability which could reduce Anselm's saves by 1 every time she hit him. So Edwin blasted everything and Hexxat used a Time Stop scroll to finish off the remaining foes with Assassination.
And finally, to conclude this report, Demogorgon!
To earn the maximum amount of XP, Anselm and his party read the Ritual Scroll, talked to the Prince of Demons, lured the Helmites in its lair, accepted the Helm Scroll, killed Demogorgon, left the place, dropped the scroll to prevent it from disapearing, then they read it.
As for the fight itself, it was a bit disappointing to be honest. The party buffed heavily, really heavily. Hexxat, Sarevok and Edwin all had Spell Shield + Spell Immunity : Abjuration + Divination + Stoneskin + Mirror Image + Blur + Spirit Armor + Improved Haste + Protection from the Elements + Mislead + Mass Invisibility + Spell Turning + Spell Deflection. Dorn and Anselm were protected by Armor of Faith + Protection from the Elements and were also buffed with Improved Haste and DUHM.
But the fight ended in two rounds. Edwin didn't do anything. As you can see in the first screenshot, Demogorgon doesn't prebuff itself, he only has his Contingency + Chain Contingency with a PFMW and a Spell Turning defense wise. So in the first round, Hexxat used her Wand of Spell Striking to cast Pierce Shield to remove its Spell Turning while Sarevok casted Breach to dispell its PFMW. The timing was perfect because Sarevok took just a bit more time than Hexxat as he was casting instead of using an item.
Then in the second round, everyone rushed Demogorgon and it died in a round, the end.
I wonder if this is a bug or not, I recall reading somewhere in the SCS readme an 'improved' version of Demogorgon who could instantly cast Time Stop once per fight or something like that but it was disabled because it was too hard but one could use the cluaconsole to enable it.
Anyway, Demogorgon is dead. Next step, Sendai's Enclave!
Fantastic work, @Gotural! I envy your mage... my party is ages away from getting any mage HLAs.
Have you considered bringing in a new character to take Viconia's place? Haer'dalis isn't evil but he would make a great song buff once he hits epic levels.
@semiticgod Thank you! I really like the added spell slots and Dragon's Breath which bypasses MR. It's sad that Yoren was chunked twice in your run, it will delay your progression significantly.
I thought about Haer'dalis, unfortunately I'm playing with Rogue Rebalancing and its Bards HLA revision, which removes the Epic Bard Song for Blades. So I'm going to try to finish the game with 5 party members!
I heard about an encounter in the Bridge District that I don't remember ever dealing with. I decide to pay it a visit, while we're still looking for new sources of XP.
Dracandros is a mage, apparently, with a cleric and some fighters at his side. But at this stage of the game, our APR is high enough to crush the whole group, and Zulfer's poison on nonmagical darts shuts down our biggest threat.
There's almost nothing left to do before Bodhi. Our next target is Adalon.
I seldom really take much interest in getting the Human Flesh +5, because it comes too late in the game for me to give it much thought. But I have a thief in the party without mage levels, so for once I have somebody to give it to. Also, if I turn Viora evil in the Hell trials, we can add those save bonuses and MR to the one who most needs it.
We run into a problem on the way there.
At first, I think I'm screwed, because when I console in two Sun Gems, both of the gems I could find in Near Infinity, I get the same message. Then I go back and pick up the gem I left outside the Underdark--it's actually called a Light Gem. I lay on all of the buffs I can find, including Chaotic Commands across the board to block Adalon's Silver Dragon Paralyzation thingy and Resist Fire/Cold to guard against her cold breath.
If we had a mage instead of a sorcerer we could have buffed the entire party with Protection from Cold and made them immune to Adalon's breath weapon entirely without drinking up scarce potions.
The game crashes. I reload and the next time, she's not even there. I console her in. She delivers her normal dialogue for when you first meet her, but she doesn't turn us into drow and we get no message about the Ust Natha questline beginning.
Maybe she's not supposed to be available to kill if you help her get her eggs back, so you have to choose between the XP from the quest or the blood for the Human Flesh +5. Whatever. I'm willing to tolerate the cheat; I want to fight another dragon.
Adalon starts out with Remove Magic, something of a standard for SCS spellcasters. Only Zulfer escapes the effect.
This means our Archer, Azelos, as well as Ruva, our Wizard Slayer/Thief, will be vulnerable to Adalon's breath weapon. We proceed with Poison Weapon and normal attacks. Laosha, Viora, and Yorin Zovai hang back, hiding to the northwest, since they are not needed.
Adalon nearly slays our Archer with her breath weapon. Azelos pulls through with a save vs. breath, and we proceed with our normal routine.
Ruva takes a beating from Adalon's physical attacks in the process, but with so much poison damage from Zulfer, Adalon's 762 HP just isn't enough.
@semiticgod I love that encounter in the bridge district, though it's more fun if you do it early on in my opinion, heh. I like things challenging.
I've actually only fought Adalon once and it was years and years ago so the only thing I remember is that it's very difficult...kudos to you for getting out unscathed!
We get in trouble back at the Umar Hills. We get the Human Flesh +5 but have to deal with a trio of mages. Since we can't use Fire Seeds without risking killing one of the local merchants, we have to divide our attention between the three of them very carefully. Zulfer actually almost got close to being chunked when a Horrid Wilting spell dropped him to 2 HP, but an Acidic Backlash that got reflected back onto him (the backlash strikes as a level 2 spell and is affected by spell protections) dealt the remaining two and ensured that he didn't get chunked.
We barely scraped by, but the screenshots aren't very interesting. Basically it just involved managing a lot of shifting priorities as we had to decide which mage to attack with how much of our strength.
On to the graveyard to face Bodhi. I've got the Tactics version with SCS scripting, so this is very bad news. Bodhi gets some really nasty spells, plus a pair of vampire mages named Manasseh and Hazamazarmavazarath or something. On reaching the Graveyard District, we get the standard vampire ambush. But entering the place while still invisible means we're safe. Yorin Zovai hastes the party to get us away quicker, with the Staff of the Magi to maintain her invisibility, only to see Viora resolve the problem in a single round.
She does much the same to the vampires inside Bodhi's lair.
The only one she can't explode is Tanova. Tanova can't see through Viora's invisibility, so she brings in a friend who can.
But Tanova apparently never memorized Protection from Evil.
I prefer posting screenshots alongside the narrative, but I am once again finding it impossible to post them together. So I'm dumping them in an archive again and narrating via text.
Bodhi was a nightmare. An absolute nightmare.
We begin with our standard buffs, and a re-organized spellbook. We've got Holy Word spells instead of Sunrays for Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer, False Dawn and Firestorm instead of Aerial Servant and Nature's Beauty, and a couple of extra Negative Plane Protection spells for both Laosha and Viora. We bring out five Skeleton Warriors and Viora runs in, under Invisibility, to explode all of the minor vampires with Turn Undead.
Against my will, the Skeleton Warriors follow after Viora. I decide not to stop them, as it would be too bothersome. Bodhi can see through invisibility, so she speaks with Viora the moment Viora steps into view. Bodhi spawns in Mannaseh and Hazzerbazzer, who fail to reveal Viora with Oracle. Bodhi throws out Cloud of Bats against Viora, but a Potion of Magic Shielding fails to block it--I thought a save vs. death at -10 would block it, and a Potion of Magic Shielding would put her saves at around -20.
Since Bodhi is chasing Viora out of the room and the Skeleton Warriors are already engaging the vampires, I decide to bring the rest of the party into the chamber. Bodhi removes all but one of our Skeleton Warriors with Touch of Death. Now nothing stands in between the party and the enemy, but thankfully most of the vampires have already been chunked with Turn Undead.
I want to take Manasseh out of the picture--any mage is a big wildcard in SCS. I notice she has no SI: Abjuration or spell turning/deflection/trap spells, so I remove her PFMW spell with a charge from the Wand of Spell Striking. But Manasseh is hard to kill--apparently her AC is very low, and it gives her enough time to blind Azelos, our Archer, with PW: Blind (SCS spellcasters seem to like using that spell against ranged attackers) and nearly kill Zulfer with a triple Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer. Azelos switches to the Silver Sword and engages Manasseh in melee.
And Bodhi? I've been staying away from her, escaping her reach thanks to the slow effect from pouring holy water into the blood pools, and so she's been paying most of her attention to Drizzt. She does, however, pay enough attention to us to blind everyone in the party besides Viora with one of her special area-effect Tactics spells.
Then she runs up and catches us by surprise, draining Ruva of 5 levels right before Azelos slays Manasseh with a lucky vorpal strike.
Where is Hazzerbazzer, the other vampire mage? I didn't even notice his absence. I wouldn't find him until much later on.
Ruva uses a Restoration scroll on herself--apparently Wizard Slayers can use Restoration scrolls, if no others--to cure the level drain, only to die to a Horrid Wilting-type of spell from Bodhi.
I give the Mace of Disruption to Zulfer, who equips it in his off hand and attacks Bodhi with Sanchuudoku. This way, he attacks with his best weapon while avoiding level drain. When Bodhi goes after some other party members instead, I use a Haste spell to get the away from Bodhi, lest they get level drained.
Soon the only enemy around is Bodhi. It's time to bring her down. Laosha throws out all three of his Spirit Animals, choosing Spirit Lions for the better damage output, only to see them instantly killed with another of Bodhi's unique spells.
We continue with Zulfer as our tank, and Azelos attacking with Firetooth because the Quiver of Plenty wasn't affecting Bodhi. Ruva is still dead, and our other party members don't have particularly strong missile weapons, so I don't bother. Viora uses the Wand of the Heavens, while Yorin Zovai reduces Bodhi's MR with the Wand of Spell Striking.
Bodhi turns into a bat. But there's a weird problem with the bat form SCS gives to vampires: the lack of a circle on the bats means you can't target them, but they can still attack you, though the vampires do not drain levels in bat form.
This we can't attack her. But she can attack us. And she's regenerating the whole time.
And round after round after round, she does not revert to her normal form. She stays in bat form, untouchable, and will not leave.
Finally, I escape her reach and come back many rounds later, at which point she finally takes on her normal form and becomes targetable. We make excellent progress on her, and then Zulfer dies to Constitution drain.
SCS Vampires have a Drain Blood attack that lets them drain their target's Constitution score by 3 points for 50 rounds. It is therefore actually more dangerous than a Mind Flayer's stat drain, as the effect takes longer to dissipate and the vampires have better THAC0. The only way to block the effect is to cast PFMW, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity. It was designed to make vampires a little scarier even with Negative Plane Protection active, but the net result is that it favors arcane spellcasters, while other classes are helpless against it. It's very unbalanced and inconvenient for a party like this.
I bring Zulfer back with the Rod of Resurrection and have him drink a Potion of Invulnerability since he can't put his armor back on during the fight. We start making progress again.
Bodhi switches to bat form again. I try to kill her with area-effect spell damage this time, using Skull Traps and the Wand of Fire (I had to cast Cure Disease on Yorin Zovai to cure her blindness in order for this to work). I even use the Efreeti Bottle and the Prismatic Spray ability of the Helm of Brilliance, though the latter fails to trigger since the Skeleton Warrior I was using as a target resists it. My efforts fail; Bodhi's regeneration is too strong.
I leave again, wait a while, and come back. She adopts her normal form once more, but that non-targetable bat form let her regenerate from Near Death all the way back to Barely Injured. We have to start all over.
Zulfer gets down to 3 CON before I pull him away from Bodhi and have Ruva engage Bodhi instead, with Zulfer attacking from afar with the Crimson Dart. When Ruva also gets her CON drain to 3, I bring Azelos, our Archer, to the fore.
Bodhi turns into a bat a third time. It's possible to keep attacking Bodhi if you were attacking her before she shapeshifted into bat form, but if she ever escapes your line of sight, your attack is canceled and she is again impossible to target. Bodhi escapes Azelos' line of sight, and we are left, once again, with the prospect of fighting an enemy we cannot target, because it has no circle.
Then I turn on Party AI and let our fighters target Bodhi automatically. It turns out party AI can target critters without circles, even though you cannot.
After a few more rounds of attacking Bodhi's bat form, she finally casts her Heal spell, starting the second half of the fight. She returns to normal form, drains 5 levels from Laosha, blasts us with another Horrid Wilting-type spell, and when she gets hurt enough, she turns into a bat again.
Then Hazzerbazzer enters the battle. He had been gone for nearly the entire fight, because he had run off into the room with Bodhi's coffin, to the northeast, and never came out until one of us wandered into the doorway.
Like Tanova, Viora can turn Hazzerbazzer, but he keeps attacking anyway, his AI apparently overriding the successful turn attempt. He slays Ruva with a surprise hit using CON drain before attacking Yorin Zovai. Meanwhile, Bodhi is still in bat form.
Another interesting thing about bat form is that it lets the bat and the bat's own attacker hit each other from a distance even when using melee weapons. Bodhi can hit us from across the room, and so can we, even with katanas and axes.
After debuffing Hazzerbazzer with the Wand of Spell Striking, Zulfer conjures a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm and we bring down the second vampire mage in short order.
Bodhi still refuses to come out of bat form. With party AI on, we keep attacking her, round after round, until finally she just up and dies. It was a profoundly unsatisfying end to a long and profoundly tedious fight.
I hated this fight. It was endlessly frustrating, dragged on for ages, took a tremendous amount of resources, and most importantly, it was not fun. The worst part is that the solution to the problem was nonsensical--there is no reason I should not be able to target a fully visible critter, especially when party AI can target it.
By now we've established a pretty standard formula for dealing with mages. Raamilat's defenses don't work well against poisoned Fire Seeds.
For some reason we're unable to dispel his invisibility.
Maybe because he's using Mislead instead of another spell. I use a Skeleton Warrior as a target for our Fire Seeds, with Raamilat's FIre Shield as a guide to where he is.
Repeated use of the Staff of the Magi shows that the Rakshasas here have an infinite number of True Seeing spells. I click the Staff of the Magi as fast as I can, and the Rakshasas do nothing but cast True Seeing.
Using the Staff of the Magi does drain their buffs, however, which means Zulfer can poison them to death when their PFMW spells run out.
We set up the standard buffs for dragons and mob Nizidramanii'yt.
I see sickly green text in the dialog box all the time, which I assume means the poison is working, but as I later realized, Nizidramanii'yt is immune to poison damage, if not the poison opcode.
Our scroll case ate our Protection from Acid scrolls--we had at least three left after Cookies--so Ruva goes out with her normal buffs only. Predictably, she suffers against Nizidramanii'yt breath weapon.
And because I forgot to cast Regeneration on her beforehand, Ruva fails to escape.
Despite not having lowered his MR, Yorin Zovai manages to land a Greater Malison spell on Nizidramanii'yt.
Why didn't we lower his MR? We forgot to recharge the Wand of Spell Striking, so arrived here without Pierce Magic charges, and because Yorin Zovai is a sorcerer and not a mage, she cannot memorize Lower Resistance for the times she needs it.
About now I realize Poison Weapon hasn't actually done anything.
But after Azelos hits Nizidramanii'yt with Called Shot a few times, luck turns in our favor.
The yellow glow means Yorin Zovai's Feeblemind spell worked. He's already at Near Death, but I thought this was neat.
Suneer at the temple of Rillifane uses invisibility to avoid getting targeted, but his clones are a convenient target for Zulfer's Fire Seeds.
There's not much left to tell in the fight. The Rakshasa came with no PFMW pre-buff, but since Suneer was the more important target, Ruva applied her spell failure on Suneer. Azelos removed the Glabrezu that was pestering our party, and gradually the enemy fell apart.
After clearing out the North Forest, I decide to ignore the EE quests in SoA and deal with Watcher's Keep in ToB. We finally head to Irenicus at the Tree of Life, despite being short of HLAs.
Had none of my characters gotten chunked, almost everyone would have had HLAs by this point. I would have really appreciated that. Come to think of it, I really shouldn't have accepted the previous chunkings--they're not supposed to be possible in my install.
Anyway, Ruva's traps fail to kill Irenicus. I prefer it this way, since the traps make an impact while still allowing other things to play a role in the fight.
Fire Seeds prevent a Time Stop that would have proved ruinous for the group.
I thought Irenicus was vulnerable to disablers, since I've seen him get knocked out by Comet spells in the past. At first I'm elated when I see him fail a save against some Fire Seeds boosted by Power Attack, but it turns out only his clones are vulnerable. The real Irenicus scurries away.
Detect Illusions again proves unable to reveal our target. I'm reasonably certain this is due to Mislead. Also, our Flesh Golem turns hostile for some reason (it never did before), which means we can't make it stick close to Irenicus and serve as our target for our Fire Seeds. But Zulfer's poison from the previous few attacks is enough to thwart Irenicus' spellcasting long enough for his PFMW to wear out.
Notice the Hobgoblins on the screen. I summoned them to serve as new Fire Seed targets, but when Jon-bon's PFMW wore off, we could switch to nonmagical darts.
He tries to escape using illusion spells, but this time, he can't stay invisible.
In the Hell Trials, Viora slays the dragon and takes the Cloak of Bravery, but otherwise chooses the good options. I thought the 200,000 XP could get her another HLA (it didn't) and the extra CON would be more useful than the immunity to +1 and nonmagical weapons that came with the good reward. At 7 CON, Viora gains no extra HP from the CON bonus, but it will make it harder for vampires to kill her with CON drain, and allow her to get 15 CON with DUHM, or 16 after the Machine of Lum the Mad.
I lay 7 traps and summon a single Skeleton Warrior, expecting it to be killed by a Death Spell early on. Before I open the door, I turn everyone invisible. Irenicus can't see through invisibility, though his friends, can, which means we can deal with the demons before Irenicus himself.
I get our first piece of bad news. Shield of the Archons blocks the +1 bonus to Wisdom and Charisma from the last Tear of Bhaal.
Then comes more bad news. The whole party turns visible during the cut scene, and the party is positioned so every one of them is right next to a demon, preventing us from using our tanks as tanks.
And then more bad news. Remove Magic takes down most of our buffs.
I thought we'd at least be able to run away a bit to minimize our exposure to Remove Magic, but everybody gets hit, though not everyone gets debuffed.
The Balors in this battle don't apparently have instant death effects on hit, but since I didn't know that at the time, I have Zulfer and Azelos down a couple of Potions of Invulnerability, while Yorin Zovai braces for the Necromancy spell Irenicus is casting.
Laosha and Viora are both in bad positions. Laosha has no Ironskins thanks to Remove Magic, while Viora is always in need of more safety. We down two Oils of Speed so they can run away faster.
We attack one of the Glabrezus first, since they have Power Word: Stun spells that could prove fatal to us. Meanwhile, Irenicus debuffs Ruva.
Why Ruva? Ruva's buffs were mostly still intact, unlike Azelos' and Zulfer's. This is because Ruva's buffs came from our level 22 cleric, Viora, while the rest of the party got buffed by our level 15 druid, Laosha.
The Glabrezu goes down, but it took quite some time.
Laosha brings in a friend. We're trying to conserve resources, so I don't use Elemental Summoning just yet.
Our fighters have trouble bringing down the second Glabrezu. Those Mirror Image spells really slow us down, even with Detect Illusions to remove them. Irenicus' Horrid Wilting spells build up over time. Ruva is perfectly open to a Power Word: Stun spell, but her 12 MR saves her life.
I have tried to remove Irenicus' Spell Deflection with a Pierce Magic charge from the Wand of Spell Striking, but it fails, somehow. Irenicus responds with a Planetar.
Yorin Zovai drinks an Oil of Speed to help her run away. Now we have to deal with vorpal strikes.
Our fighters get debuffed at a very bad time. Right when Irenicus is casting yet another necromancy spell and a Planetar with vorpal strikes is right on top of them, a Glabrezu fires off another Remove Magic spell.
The party gets crushed by Horrid Wilting. Our Cloak of Mirroring is wasted on Viora, who wasn't even in the area of effect, and with Girdles of Piercing instead of the Belt of Inertial Barrier, only the party's MR and saving throws can keep them safe.
Azelos is making a last-ditch attempt to get rid of the Planetar, but it's too late. Our last tank falls, leaving Azelos alone.
Azelos tries to stun the Planetar with Power Attack, using our last 8 Arrows +3 to hit it.
Viora gets Azelos buffed with Death Ward to block the Planetar's vorpal strikes, only to see Azelos get Breached an instant later.
We have to run, lest the Balors slay our spellcasters. Azelos also flees, as she is low on HP. Meanwhile, Yorin Zovai is to the north, trying to bring down Irenicus' Spell Deflection buff.
It doesn't work. I still have no idea why; he never had Spell Shield active.
Irenicus begins casting a Time Stop spell. Viora hides, since Irenicus can't target invisible critters, and so he turns his attention on Azelos.
Azelos sees her HP reduced to single digits, and Viora is debuffed within the round. The best that Azelos can hope to do before she dies is land a lucky vorpal strike on the Planetar.
She lands a hit, but the vorpal strike of the Silver Sword only has a 25% chance of triggering.
The Planetar rewards her bravery with a vorpal strike. Azelos fails a save.
We have only slain two enemies so far. We have lost three of our own, and one of them is never coming back.
We lose another 3 million XP to chunking that's not even supposed to be possible in my install.
Laosha brings out a pair of Air Elementals via Elemental Summoning to occupy the enemy. Our last three party members stay on the run. We need time.
Notice Viora has gotten debuffed again. The enemy has been very diligent in removing our defenses.
We bring back Zulfer with the Rod of Resurrection, using the quick loot feature to grab his equipment without having to run over to it. Viora restores her buffs, only to get debuffed once more.
We need some stuff from Azelos' body as well, so we run over to where she fell. In the process, we expose ourselves to the Planetar.
Notice the Ring of Gaxx is on the ground. Thing is, the Ring of Gaxx is already on Viora.
Now I know for sure that there is a bug going on. I already noticed our Potions of Absorption go from 7 to 6, I've seen scrolls of Protection from Acid and Protection from Magic vanish without explanation, I've seen dozens of other scrolls vanish as well, and now we have two copies of a unique item. There is something really screwy going on. And because I don't keep track of every item we have, I'm sure we must have lost a lot of stuff over time. It can't be due to the chunking, since the Ring of Gaxx wasn't even on Azelos, and it can't just be containers, because the Ring of Gaxx wasn't in one. Nor can it be the result of my switching our save file from the single player to multiplayer folder, since this duplication occurred in the middle of a fight.
Zulfer can't equip his armor in the thick of combat, so we improvise with another Potion of Invulnerability.
SCS is packed with these potions. They're really strong and really expensive, so they can make a very big difference if you remember to drink them (I usually don't).
The Planetar comes for Yorin Zovai. She drinks another Oil of Speed so she can escape; her previous haste effect got dispelled.
I have Zulfer equip the Helm of the Rock, the Dragonscale Shield, and the Ring of Fire Control for 100% fire resistance, and then try to start a feedback loop against the nearest Balor's Aura of Flaming Death. Irenicus and the Slayer try to disable him, but I really only need him to make one hit.
Zulfer fails to start the feedback loop. The Balor escapes his grasp in favor of pursuing a much more vulnerable target.
We keep running until the enemy pays attention to Zulfer. He starts the feedback loop!
But the loop moves slowly, and it only deals 1 damage per hit. Zulfer manages to bring down the Balor, but the other enemies put more pressure on Zulfer than he can bear.
But that's not all. Zulfer's Acidic Backlash also brings down the Planetar, just barely, right after he dies.
The other Balor got distracted by our elementals from before, and is hanging out to the northwest, out of combat. Irenicus is therefore alone. I need to run away and get enough space to safely resurrect Zulfer, but Laosha has no Potions of Invisibility, nor does Yorin Zovai, and Viora is too far away to throw him one. Yorin Zovai tries to turn him invisible, but his Shield of the Archons pre-buff stops the spell.
Irenicus goes after Laosha. Since this means Viora will be off Irenicus' radar for a bit, I go ahead and bring back Zulfer. I tweak my auto-pause settings to gain a little closer control of the situation.
Then I see an alteration spell. Time Stop.
I have to get everyone invisible. In the process, I find a strange flail on the ground.
I recognize that flail. It's the attack weapon for SCS Balors, but apparently it's erroneously tagged as droppable.
Before Irenicus can finish his spell, I make sure everyone has a Potion of Invisibility, besides Yorin Zovai, who has the Staff of the Magi. Even Viora drinks one, since I'm fairly certain her stealth would wear off during the Time Stop.
Irenicus' Time Stop is largely a waste.
I want to buff Zulfer, but he's invisible. I have him use the Ring of Fire Control's Charm Fire Elemental ability on Ruva, just to turn him visible.
We have a little time to prepare, but it isn't long before Irenicus teleports in to attack us. Irenicus casts three spells at once, but they don't make sense.
Mantle is a bad choice here, and it can't even be put into a Spell Trigger or Spell Sequencer. This would have to be a Chain Contingency to be legal, but there was no message indicating that. The choice of Minute Meteors is also odd, as the Slayer is already a potent melee fighter.
We get moving again; I want to face him with a clear aura.
Shortly, I send Zulfer back out to fight Irenicus. Mantle is no match for Sanchuudoku.
When Irenicus starts throwing out low-level spells, I know he's wearing thin.
But even without spells, Irenicus is a terribly strong fighter, and regenerates 6 HP per second, or 36 per round. That's a lot to overcome.
We get a Greater Malison in, though I'm not sure how useful it will actually be.
Notice the Shambling Mounds entering the fight. Those are Laosha's, summoned via the Staff of the Woodlands, which you get from Rillifane shortly before fighting Irenicus at the Tree of Life.
For safety's sake, I add on some more buffs.
To see if that Greater Malison spell will do us any good, I have Zulfer activate Power Attack, his first and only HLA, and attack with Celestial Fury at the same time.
Two saves in a row isn't surprising, as Irenicus' base saves should all be at 2, or 6 with Greater Malison active. But when I see him fail his save vs. spell, I know he's immune to stun.
Irenicus throws out a new Spell Trigger. It's all offensive-oriented.
Yorin Zovai takes a moment to help out Zulfer.
The rest of the party has been having little impact. Ruva has been using Darts +5 to break through Irenicus' Mantle spell, but she only landed two hits early on, and then nothing. Viora also tried to hit Irenicus with Holy Word for a little more spell failure, but his MR blocked it.
Irenicus hits very hard, and Zulfer has trouble surviving under the pressure. I never got a chance to put his armor on, and I never remembered to have him drink another Potion of Invulnerability, since his previous one got disabled after he died again. His potions aren't enough, so Viora keeps him afloat with the Rod of Resurrection. Laosha follows up with a helpful buff.
Irenicus should have fallen by now. He's been at Near Death for many rounds.
I decide to roll with it and just replenish our supply of Shambling Mounds.
Suddenly, Zulfer is nearly dead himself. Apparently, until now, Irenicus was focusing much of his attention on the Shambling Mounds, allowing Zulfer to survive. Now he's in trouble.
I bring him out of the fray, lest I lose him once more. Finally, I remember Viora has an HLA, which she gained midway through the fight.
Zulfer is in dire need of assistance. Ruva uses the Rod of Resurrection on him--apparently Wizard Slayers can use it.
Only now do I notice that Zulfer's AC is too high. After having him down a Potion of Invulnerability, I send him back. Viora adds a little, since she has nothing better to do.
It just goes on and on. Irenicus won't die.
It's no trouble for us to keep going, however. All it does is cost us a handful of potions. It also gives Viora time to collect the rest of the equipment we left on the ground, just in case SCS fails to bring it over to ToB. But eventually I get impatient and pull the party away from Irenicus. Once I've given him a moment to breathe, I attack him again.
Finally, I get the message I'm looking for.
Irenicus has fallen. Shadows of Amn is over. And we get a ridiculously high XP reward on entering ToB.
@Caeria: Thanks. I'm glad the group pulled through.
As for the future of the run... I have mixed feelings about continuing the run into Throne of Bhaal.
This party has been great. It's handled a lot of tough encounters, and in many cases it completely wrecked extremely challenging enemies with barely any resistance. Even in the handful of times in which things went wrong, the party adapted quite well. I'll review the party's tactics in another post, but suffice to say this party has been highly functional and very fun.
That said, I am awfully tired of chunking. Now that we're in ToB, a newly created character would be at 2.5 million XP instead of 89,000, but we've still lost about 3 million XP due to all of the permanent deaths we've suffered, and more than half of that is concentrated on the one character who benefits most from XP: our Sorcerer, Yorin Zovai, previously Yoren Zovai, previously Yorun Zovai. Losing 15-20% of our XP is bad enough, but when most of that is taken from our Sorcerer... it just feels wrong. It's disappointing.
I've been looking forward to using HLAs. And I had big expectations for this party, and was really looking forward to all of the things it could do once we hit 3 million XP. Having a party fight enter ToB at less than full capacity sounds sad. And the worst part?
We'd be better off killing Yorin Zovai and replacing her with a newly-created character. Yorin Zovai has less than 800,000 XP. A new Sorcerer would have more than triple that, at 2,500,000 XP. I don't like the idea of spending all of SoA gathering XP, only to kick out our Sorcerer because a ToB-created character would be far, far more powerful.
This party is really strong, but there's something unsatisfying about being perpetually underleveled. I worked hard getting this far, and much of that was taken away, when chunking wasn't supposed to be possible.
I have a new idea for a run, but that would involve starting from scratch. I'm not sure I'd like to do that, either, particularly since it's been so long since I did anything in ToB.
Whatever the future of the run, our progress has been very enlightening for me and very entertaining. I particularly like that we did so well despite the fact that we only had one arcane spellcaster.
Viora the Shadowdancer/Cleric: Viora's benefits to the party were generally passive and subtle. As a cleric, she had access to a lot of the powerful, long-lasting anti-disabler buffs that are always helpful in no-reload runs. Her Shadowdancer levels did not mesh particularly well with her cleric levels, as clerics have slow-casting spells and cannot equip the Robe of Vecna. This means casting offensive spells and vanishing immediately after was not possible.
Hide in Plain Sight did, however, let Viora stay remarkably safe. She barely ever came close to death, and when it did happen, it was always due to spell damage. She was practically untouchable. Shadowdancer levels are a marvelous way to ensure the safety of a no-reload Charname.
Yorun Zovai/Yoren Zovai/Yorin Zovai the Sorcerer: Yorun Zovai had little opportunity to shine. Robbed of 1.7 million XP due to being chunked twice in the run, she never got past level 14, and only for a brief period was she able to cast Improved Haste. A sorcerer's power comes from XP more than anything else. And with such huge setbacks to her level progression, Yorun Zovai only occasionally made the difference.
Azelos the Archer: Azelos, too, had little opportunity to shine. Although she was never chunked and remained at full XP for the entire game, her abilities mostly went unnoticed. Called Shot can do some very crazy things, guaranteeing failed saves for crippling disablers or instant death effects, slaying enemies with STR drain, or just shutting down a powerful enemy's attack power by imposing heavy THAC0 penalties. But our last three party members had such a strong impact on things that her Called Shot ability rarely was necessary, and for most of the game, I forgot to even use the ability. Azelos was mostly just there for dealing damage.
Laosha the Totemic Druid: Laosha played a much more prominent role. His Spirit Animals were impossible to disable thanks to their various immunities, and by throwing out weaker summons first, he also could protect them from the Death Spell. They proved very helpful in dealing with all kinds of enemies, as they could poison, paralyze, or deal damage through Stoneskin, on top of being solid fighters on their own. A lot of enemies were completely defenseless, as the Spirit Animals were immune to nonmagical weapons. He also contributed to the party's defenses, especially when Viora was recovering her Shadowdancer levels, by bringing Chaotic Commands to the party.
Most importantly, however, he gave us Fire Seeds, the single most important item of this run. These things vastly empowered Ruva and Zulfer, and with Fire Seeds their hands, the strongest enemies of BG2 crumpled before us.
Ruva the Wizard Slayer/Thief: Unlike most Wizard Slayer/Thieves, Ruva was never supposed to become a tank. She dualed as early as possible and only took pips in two-handed weapons as an afterthought, instead concentrating on axes and darts. Use Any Item was not why she had the Wizard Slayer kit.
Ruva was there to inflict arcane spell failure via Fire Seeds. At 25% spell failure per hit, she could render any mage, even Kangaxx, completely unable to cast spells, simply by conjuring a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm and attacking a high-AC summons (almost always the Flesh Golem) with Fire Seeds while hasted. Although it took some preparation and micromanagement, it was the only reason we were able to take down Kangaxx and the other liches with such ease. She was able to shut down any mage's spellcasting until it had run out of PFMW, at which point she could simple switch to the Crimson Dart and keep the mage disabled indefinitely. Mages are easily the most dangerous enemies in SCS, and with Laosha's Fire Seeds, Ruva crushed the biggest threats we ever faced. The hardest fights in the game became painfully easy with her assistance.
Zulfer the Assassin/Fighter: Zulfer, unlike some Assassin/Fighters, was never meant to be a backstabber. The only reason I picked this class was to get someone with Poison Weapon and strong THAC0--and because I wasn't too interested in creating a Blackguard. Zulfer had much the same role as Ruva: he was meant to combine his on-hit effects, in his case poison, with Fire Seeds to disable spellcasting despite weapon immunities and spell protections.
His role differed from Ruva's, however, because many enemies are immune to poison, while almost none are immune to spell failure. Liches and Lavok were both beyond his grasp--he could do nothing to them, compared to Ruva. But for most encounters, against living mages and other targets, Zulfer was the much stronger option, as his poison had a 100% chance of blocking spellcasting with even one hit, although it did not last quite as long. Zulfer therefore took the lead role in a lot more fights, as he could more reliably stop mages and kill them than Ruva could. For ordinary mages, Zulfer was our most valuable character. For the absolute strongest mages, Ruva took his place.
Zulfer also served as our standard tank. Although Ruva and Azelos had far more HP, Zulfer had much better THAC0 than Ruva and Azelos was better off using missile weapons. He attained grandmastery in katanas for reasons I don't remember, which meant he had fantastic damage output once we got a hold of Sanchuudoku. In between his Acidic Backlash, his Poison Weapon, and his physical damage itself, he was able to defeat many enemy fighters that the rest of the party, save Azelos, would have struggled against.
I had multiple plans for this run, but some of them faded in significance as time went on. With the exception of lich fights, in which Ruva played by far the most important role, Zulfer usually dealt with enemies on his own. He was enough, and so our other strategies saw less and less use over the course of the run. Spirit Animals and Wizard Slayer spell failure are excellent, but most of the time, Poison Weapon and Sanchuudoku could handle the problem.
We did struggle with mages whom we failed to disable. When we deemed a mage a low priority and focused on other targets, we often found ourselves debuffed with Remove Magic and at the mercy of some powerful threats, including Fallen Planetars. This particular problem was exclusively due to negligence on my part, but in other ways, our lack of arcane spell power proved to be an issue. Yorun Zovai was our only source of mage spells, and because she was a sorcerer rather than a mage, she often could not provide situational spells that could have helped us. As in the past, I noticed that her lack of versatility robbed us of some very valuable tools. Her being chunked twice was only part of the problem.
Despite these issues, the party came out ahead, and most of the time, the game wasn't even all that difficult. We had such a powerful stranglehold on enemy mages that most of the game was a cakewalk. Fire Seeds, bolstered by Poison Weapon or Wizard Slayer spell failure, are a tremendous game-changer.
@Musigny: In EEKeeper, all my characters have an effect that supposedly prevents permanent death. I don't know what it specifically does, but it sounds like it would stop large amounts of damage from chunking characters.
I don't think SCS has any impact on chunking deaths from Fallen Planetar strikes. I wish their vorpal strikes would just kill their target instead of chunking them.
Great work Gotural, the finish line is in sight! Congrats @semiticgod! Are you continuing into ToB, or have you already come up with something new?
Gerland of Candlekeep, NG Half-Elf Skald, 1st SoA report
Since pausing the game in BG2EE doesn't result in dates and times being displayed as is the case in BGEE, my screenshots aren't really helpful for keeping Gerland's diary (1st person narrative). For that reason I'll take a 3rd person perspective for the narration of Gerland's exploits in SoA. As usual with my party runs, I intend to roleplay Charname and his companions and to avoid extensive metagaming. However, due to time constraints with my write-ups I'm unsure how much of that will be reflected in my reports.
Irenicus' Dungeon
Shortly after they had saved the Sword Coast and prevented war with Amn, Gerland and his friends set out on the road to Rashemen, not least because Gerland's fame and his sinister heritage would sooner or later draw the attention of equally sinister people. Unfortunately this happened sooner much rather than later. Very close to the place where Gorion had given his life for Gerland three seasons before, it was his love Dynaheir who did the same for the Skald, much against his own will.
What happened next remained a mystery to the Half-Elf. All that's known is that he awoke many moons later, imprisoned in a dungeon below Athkatla where he was subjected to all kinds of magical 'experiments' by a powerful mage named Irenicus. One day his fellow inmate, and childhood friend and traveling companion, Imoen released him from his cell. Curiously, old acquaintances Minsc, the Berserker Ranger from Rashemen, and Jaheira, Fighter/Totemic Druid, were there too, captured as Gerland had been. Apparently both had followed Gerland and his entourage: Minsc to catch up with Dynaheir, and Khalid and Jaheira to watch over Gerland.
During their escape the four slew dozens of Duergar (including a Mage that cast all manner of mind-affecting spells at Minsc and Gerland),
stunning Mephits thanks to a Cloudkill by Imoen,
and even a Cambion. Gerland found some of his old belongings (Claw of Kazgaroth, Metaspell Influence Amulet, Ashideena), but most of his equipment was gone. The party promised three Dryad slaves to bring their acorns to the Windspear Hills so as to release them from captivity, and they escaped the dungeon with a temporary fifth member, a Bounty Hunter named Yoshimo. This is Gerland's character record by the way, shortly after Yoshimo joined the party.
Upon reaching the surface, the company was relieved that their lot hadn't been as terrible as that of some of the creatures they had encountered.
Circus Tent
At Waukeen's Promenade, Gerland saw Cowled Wizards arrest Irenicus and Imoen for illegal use of magic. The remaining four sold some goods, and then split up. Gerland proceeded to explore the city with only Jaheira by his side. The two first rested. The following day Gerland cast Find Familiar as his Pseudo Dragon had disappeared in Irenicus' Dungeon. With Jaheira, he investigated recent disappearances at the city's circus. Shadows and Werewolves drained and injured Jaheira,
before the duo managed to defeat the culprit, a Gnomish Illusionist named Kalah.
One of Kalah's victims that survived the chaos, was an Elven Cleric/Mage and wingless Avariel named Aerie. She joined Gerland and Jaheira and had an impressive amount of starting XP, between 400k and 500k more than Gerland. Outside the circus tent a young girl who worked with the circus gave Gerland one Jafir's lamp, that could supposedly be used to summon a Genie. The Skald cast Stoneskin on himself not much later, earning himself a first and final warning from the Cowled Wizards. He learned that he would have to procure a license in order to freely cast spells wthin the city.
His first expense would be such a license.
A rogue named Gaelan Bayle offered Gerland help in tracking down Irenicus and Imoen, but asked no less than 20k GP for that service, not an amount of gold that Gerland was carrying around at that time.
Skinner Murders, part 1
The three companions discovered that street crime was rampant in Athkatla, for example in the Bridge District,
where they tried to solve a murder mystery involving a tanner and his accomplices who skinned their victims, mostly beggars. However, there were dangerous traps at the Tanner Shop, so the party decided to temporarily abort their investigations.
Slavery at the Copper Coronet
In the city's slums, the party visited the infamous Copper Coronet inn, where Helmite warrior priest Anomen Delryn joined their ranks. Like Aerie, he too came a lot more experienced than Gerland and Jaheira for some reason. In a pit Gerland battled a fellow named Amalas, who had repeatedly taunted the young Skald. A combination or physical might and arcane skill decided the battle in Gerland's favor.
Anomen was a champion of righteousness and proposed that the party did something about the reprehensible activities that took place at the inn, especially the trafficking of slaves and their abuse for enterntainment purposes such as pit fighting. There was a large number of guards (including wizards) that objected against the liberation of the slaves, but they were eliminated with the help of Jaheira's Insect Plague.
A Beast Master who owned a key to the slaves' cells suffered the same fate in a more physical battle.
With the slaves they released Gerland and his friends dealt with the remaining guards and with the inn's evil exploiter Lethinan. Slave rebel Hendak took on the vacant role of manager of the inn. He thanked the party and begged them to strike at the heart of the city's slavers, their base in the slums. Gerland agreed to that task, but the party first left the city for the Umar Hills upon the request of a young boy according to whom his village Imnesvale had seen some strange killings and disappearances as of late.
Slaver ambush
On their way there, they got ambushed in the wilderness by a ruffian named Eldarin and his band, slavers out for revenge. This was very unexpected. I never had the Suna Seni/Eldarin ambush in the wilds. The battle that ensued, went horribly wrong for the party, literally. First of all their invisibilities had expired. (I must have rested before traveling, at the end of one gaming session.) Gerland and Aerie got Slowed early on, which made uninterrupted spell-casting all the harder. Both pulled off a Stoneskin, but Gerland saw himself Dominated before he could do anything else. In the meantime Anomen and Jaheira, both blinded by Glitterdust were battling some of the enemies. Jaheira summoned a Spirit Snake in hopes of poisoning the enemy wizard. The two priests and the Spirit Snake were effectively neutralized for some time by a Horror. Slowed Aerie saw her Stoneskins rapidly peeled by the slaver archers, and fell before her companions came to their senses again.
Anomen and Jaheira were severely injured when the Horror effect wore off, and it was with great difficulty that the remaining companions defeated all the slavers. Anomen cast a Holy Smite, and Gerland some Magic Missiles and a well-placed Skull Trap. Apart from that, Anomen's flail, Jaheira's club, and Gerland's song and hammer did the job.
The companions looted their fallen foes' bodies, and reached Imnesvale without further incident. The first thing Jaheira did there was raising Aerie.
Umar Hills, part 1
The companions carried out a number of simple tasks for some of the locals, and they traced the source of the dark, shadowy evil that had befallen Imnesvale and the Umar Hills to a nearby ruined temple. Gerland and Anomen became good friends appreciative as they were of each other's past feats, guided by knightly principles such as honor, loyalty, and virtue, and open about their past.
As they approached the Temple Ruins, the companions faced more and more shadow creatures. Anomen destroyed most of them with his anti-undead aura.
Inside the ruins the Helmite's powers were much weaker, possibly due to the presence of a grave evil they all sensed. Shadows no longer exploded upon appraching the priest, and he even got Held by a Shadow Fiend. My solo characters tend to use of PfUndead scrolls. Shadow Fiends' Hold ability came as a surprise to me. Aerie reached Anomen just in time to render him invisible.
Gerland too got Held, in attempt to distract the many Shadows that had gone after Aerie, for whom he had started to develop feelings beyond mere friendly attachment. The Avariel once more saved the day as she managed to cast Improved Invisibility on Gerland without getting caught herself.
Somewhat shaken by these events, the party managed to safely escape from the temple, and returned to Athkatla to look for reinforcements in the form of companions and/or useful items.
Gerland of Candlekeep, NG Half-Elf Skald, 2nd SoA report
Back in Athkatla the first reinforcement to the party was a Gnomish racketeer named Jan Jansen. He wasn't exactly the type that upright folk like Gerland, Aerie, or Anomen would normally associate with, but what thief was? Most importantly, the party needed a competent handler of locks and traps, and the Gnome's skills as an Illusionist were a welcome addition to the magic of Aerie and Gerland. Jan also had a knack for incoherent meanderings that amused Gerland more than a little but drove his companions crazy. Soon enough however, Jan would become a valued member of the company.
Poisoned Renfeld
On their way to the Bridge District, the companions ran into another ambush, a group of ruffians with an injured man upon the ground. The ruffians attacked but stood no chance against Anomen's blinding Holy Smite, Jaheira's Insect Plague, and Jan's Chaos.
They brought the injured man, Renfeld, to a large estate in the Docks District, apparently a Harper hold, where a man named Rylock took care of him.
Skinner Murders, part 2
With the help of Jan's trap disarmament skills, the party managed to safely navigate the Tanner Shop. They they found the tanner, Rejiek Hidesman, in a basement with a small dock. Unfortunately he escaped.
Dangerous creatures lunged forward to attack Gerland, Aerie, and Jaheira, but their Stone-/Ironskins and a swift retreat meant they'd only have to deal with a Bone Golem. This they did with the help of an Aerial Servant summoned by Anomen,
before they reported their findings to Lt. Aegisfield of the city guard.
Excursion to Graveyard District; Death of Anomen's Sister
The party of five visited the Graveyard District, and spoke with a man that had been buried alive. (The party would later slay the perpetrators of this and similar crimes, acting in self-defense.) The companions also defeated several types of Spiders in the crypts, albeit with some difficulty,
and brought Hivemistress Pai'Na the remains of Spiders' Bane. A Pale Geen Ioun Stone and a Spider Figurine that could be used once a day to summon Kitty the Spider, were among Gerland's rewards. When their dealings at the Graveyard District were done, a man named Terl brought Anomen dire tidings. His sister Moira had been murdered. Anomen's foul-mouthed father suspected Saerk, a rival of his, and expected Anomen to avenge his sister's death by assassinating Saerk. Anomen had mixed feelings about the way to go, and Gerland fully understood his friend. The Skald eventually conviced the priest not to exact revenge on Saerk, even after the city's authorities refused to prosecute the man due to a lack of evidence.
Umar Hills, part 2
With Jan in their midst and with Azuredge, a war axe that could instantly kill undead upon hit, in Gerland's possession the party decided to try once more to eliminate the evil that plagued the Umar Hills. Azuredge and Anomen's castings of Free Action certainly helped a lot against the Shadows and Skeleton Warriors that inhabited the Temple Ruins.
Soon enough the party had slain all of them, and solved a number of riddles to obtain access to a Shadow Dragon's lair. A special wardstone given to them by the spirit of Amauna, allowed the companions to slip past the slumbring dragon unnoticed, to a shadow altar outside. There they found the orchestrator of the killings and disappearances of people, a Shade Lord.
Note: I did the fight against the Shade Lord twice, allowing myself a reload when hitting him before he had completed his talk turned out to make him unkillable. The combat log would say he had taken damage, for example from Jaheira's sunstone bullets, but his status would say he remained uninjured.
A heavily buffed Anomen (agility potion, HP+DUHM+RM, Skald song for optimal ranged Thac0), hit the Shade Lord with a Sol's Searing Orb. The creature failed its save, meaning it got blinded for twelve rounds, in addition to suffering fire damage. Meanwhile Aerie slew the Shadow spawning altar with a sunstone bullet.
Several ranged attacks later the Shade Lord was no more.
With it fell another creature of the shadows, and then darkness made way for light. The party carried out one last inspection of the ruins before heading back to Imnesvale. When they opened a cell door they found a Halfling Truesword of Arvoreen, Mazzy, whose companions had sadly perished in their attempt at stopping the Shade Lord. Mazzy joined the party.
Slaver Stockade
Back in Athkatla the party undertook a number of simpler missions (such as some work for the Shadow Thieves, though nothing dishonorable, an attempt to persuade sculptor Sarles to work for the Temple of Helm, and exposing Neb the child killer). Their first larger mission was to deal with the slavers as they had promised Hendak they would. They found a secret entrance to the compound via the sewers. In the room they entered, Anomen's clerical buffs enabled him to occupy a priest of Cyric and several slavers on his own while most of the other companions focused on their captain when they noticed he was injuring Mazzy with his throwing axes.
When Haegan was down, the remaining slavers didn't last long against the party.
The party proceeded to defeat two Trolls, two Yuan-Ti warriors, and - thanks to an Insect Plague from Jaheira - more slavers.
The sextet brought Hendak the good news, dealt with some brigands in the slums (Bregg, Cohrvale, Gorf the Squisher), and rested to prepare for their next adventure.
Watcher's Keep, 1st level, part 1
A call from a group of servants of Helm led the company to Watcher's Keep, a massive hold said to contain some extremely powerful evil somewhere that had to be sealed away for good. The companions only explored the first level, and soon found themselves discouraged by level-draining Vampiric Wraiths.
They looted the place, then rested outside until a messenger informed Mazzy that her sister in Trademeet had fallen ill. The party left the Keep, knowing that if they ever wanted to proceed to the lower levels they'd have to activate several statues through a ritual at an altar, and traveled to Trademeet.
Personal problems for Gerland's companions
Upon arrival in Trademeet, the party found the town under attack by wild animals. This was something they would have to investigate. Also, another messenger accosted the party. This time it was Sir Ryan Trawl, asking Anomen to return to Athkatla for his knighthood test. The companions first helped Mazzy's sister who, as it turned out, had been poisoned by drinking a potion concocted by a priest of Talona. The antidote they found on the priest's corpse.
Mazzy stayed in Trademeet to look after her sister; the others returned to Athkatla for Anomen's test. In Athkatla, messenger number 3 appeared, a cousin of Jan's, informing the Gnome that his former love and her diseased child were at the Jansen home. The party witnessed the knighting of Sir Anomen,
and carried on to the Slums to visit the Jansens. The daughter of Jan's muse had fallen ill with an affliction of the mind. In return for the assassination of two Githyankis,
a Mind Flayer guising as a human healed the child. Unfortunately for Jan, this didn't bring him any closer to his lost love. The poor Gnome also barely survived an attack by Ruffians in his own home no less.
Jaheira too, faced some serious personal problems. She was cursed by an old rival, Baron Ployer. The Druid's Insect Plague, and the interference of Kitthix ensured victory against the Baron and his three Mage lackeys.
Thus ended Jaheira's curse.
Trademeet & Druid Grove
Trademeet had two problems. Trade had been monopolized by the Dao Djinns, and the earlier witnessed animal attacks had not ceased. The party, with Mazzy once more in it, solved the first problem with little difficulty. Jan set a couple of snares in and around their tent, and when the Dao refused to leave those traps and the party's attacks ensured the departure of the Dao.
The companions were rewarded with an Efreeti bottle, dropped by one of the Dao, and a copious amount of gold and gems as well as the Shield of Harmony from Guildmistress Busya. The animal attacks turned out to be the work of Shadow Druids that operated from a nearby Grove. In the forest the party battled Spiders, several Trolls (including the dreaded Spirit variants) that Mazzy would slay with fire arrows, an Elder Earth Elemental,
a host of Spore Colonies and Myconids, Shambling Mounds, and Grizzly Bears. There were also hostile encounters with Shadow Druids. These encounters were decided in the party's favor thanks to Jaheira's Insect Plagues and the party's summons.
In the Shadow Druid stronghold, Jaheira challenged grove leader Faldorn to a duel. Kitty intervened on Jaheira's behalf and ensured that the fight was over before it had actually started.
The companions were hailed as the heroes of Trademeet, and handsomely rewarded for the intervention. (Later these rewards seemed even more handsome to Gerland than he remembered. He suspected that Jan Jansen had had a deft hand in that, but questioning the Gnome would somehow only serve to remind the trickster of lost turnips or tragic family members.) The party finally dealt with Rejiek Hidesman and one of his accomplices, and procured the Temple of Waukeen for mayor Logan Coprith before they left Trademeet for Athkatla.
Gerland of Candlekeep, NG Half-Elf Skald, 3rd SoA report
In Athkatla again, the party paid Cromwell the Dwarf 15k GP to forge the Gnasher and Blackblood clubs, two weapons they had brought from Trademeet, into the Pitchwife +5 for Jaheira.
They had a dust-up at the Den of the Seven Vales, which was basically decided without spells after Sir Anomen and Jaheira took down Amon of the Purple Brotherhood and his familiar Pooky early on.
They also battled Vampires alongside a group of Shadow Thieves,
dispatched a band of Fallen Paladins, and disposed of a Cowled Wizard named Rayic Gethras for the Shadow Thieves. Again, while the likes of Sir Anomen, Mazzy, Aerie and Gerland didn't necessarily enjoy working for the Shadow Thieves, they had no qualms about dispatching a Cowled Wizard, especially after Mazzy identified him as evil. Sir Anomen, buffed with protections from fire and with holy combat powers, slew six Mephits on his own and with Jaheira, two Golems.
Rayic himself postponed his fate for a bit when he activated PfMW, but he fell soon after one arrow of dispelling from Mazzy struck true.
Two more jobs for the Shadow Thieves involved no violence.
Meddling with Harpers
Xzar, an old acquaintance of Gerland's, begged the party to break into the Harper estate to free Montaron who was said to be held there. Before the companions were allowed in, they had to agree to a task: stop Conjurer wizards Prebek and Sanasha and destroy their summoned creatures. This proved easier said than done. Sir Anomen flirted with death as he became the sole target of the enemy's attacks. Fortunately his temporarily increased health kept him going.
At the Harper hold the party found a note suggesting that Montaron had been turned into a bird. They took a very tame bird to Xzar only to see it transform itself into a Harper assassin and kill Xzar. Sir Anomen and Mazzy made the assassin pay for her betrayal with her life.
An another Harper then appeared and summoned Jaheira back to the Harper estate. The companions did a job for the Temple of Lathander, retrieving a Dawn Ring that Talassans had stolen from them, and saw Jaheira return the next day. They paid Gaelan Bayle 15k GP for the help of the Shadow Thieves in finding Imoen and Irenicus, and revisited the Harper hold to witness one Galvarey ask Gerland all manner of loaded questions and interpret the Skald's answers in the most unpleasant ways. Things got ugly when Galvarey threatened to Imprison Gerland, as per the spell. Jaheira chose Gerland's side, and proved a valuable member once more with an Insect Plague cast at the enemy while they were busy casting their Remove Magics at the party. This pretty much the decided the battle for Gerland and his friends.
Jaheira was very upset about these events, and feared for her future as a Harper.
d'Arnise Keep
It seemed a good moment for Jaheira to be away from the city again for a while, so it was decided that the companions would try to claim the Arnise Keep, which had been occupied by Trolls and Yuan-Tis. By that time Sir Anomen, Jaheira, and Mazzy had become a well-oiled attacking machine. Besides their elemental weapons, i.e. Sir Anomen's Flail of the Ages forged at the keep, Jaheira's club, and Mazzy's elemental arrows were too much even for packs of Trolls. Gerland contributed mainly with his song, and Jan with his lockpicking and trap-detection skills. Aerie simply stood ready for emergency situations.
Overwhelming physical force kept a Yuan-Ti Mage from causing trouble,
and Gerland's Skald Song rendered Umber Hulks' confusing gazes harmless.
Note that I thought I was playing a vanilla Skald until I found that Gerland's spell-casting was slightly slower than that of his companions and I read the Rogue Rebalancing Skald kit description in-game. I actually uninstalled that mod's Revised Bard kits component, only to discover that the vanilla Skald song did nothing. So I ended up re-installing the Rogue Rebalanced Skald kit.
It differs from the vanilla kit in that it imposes a 1 point penalty to spellcasting speed and alters the Skald song as follows: 1st level: gives allies +2 to hit, +2 to damage, -2 to AC and immunity to Fear 9th level: gives allies +3 to hit, +3 to damage, -3 to AC, immunity to Fear and Confusion 18th level: gives allies +4 to hit, +4 to damage, -4 to AC, immunity to Fear, Stun and Confusion.
Troll leader TorGal was spirited away from his dangerous entourage and beaten down by Sir Anomen, Jaheira, and Mazzy while Gerland's song and Mazzy's Invoke Courage ability kept them safe from the effects of the Troll's Cloak of Fear.
As said before, TorGal's minions were a dangerous lot: an Elder Umber Hulk, two Yuan-Ti Mages, and several Spirit and Giant Trolls. Sir Anomen, Jaheira, and Mazzy slew the Elder Umber Hulk in melee combat, but then the three had to focus on different enemies, and the help of Gerland, Jan, and Aerie was needed as well. Sir Anomen and Jaheira occupied most of the Trolls, while Gerland (Remove Magic) and Mazzy (arrows of dispelling) tried to remove the Yuan-Ti Mages' protections.
The Yuan-Ti Mages managed to Haste the Trolls and to Slow Aerie and Mazzy, an effect that Jan neutralized with a Haste out of his spellbook and Sir Anomen with his Flail of Ages. Sir Anomen and Gerland slew the Yuan-Ti Mages so that Nalia and her betrothed (whom she didn't really want to be with) could inhabit the keep again.
Comments
I am really slow in my reports, soon enough you will complete the saga again before I do!
@Mirage Thank you very much! I hope you will share your adventures with us on this thread.
Due to my decision to not avoid any difficult fights, I have to fight Kangaxx. We're well suited to handling his lich form, as we have Wizard Slayer Fire Seeds. But his demi-lich form is another matter entirely.
In SCS, Kangaxx and other spellcasters will not imprison the main character. And thanks to SCS, it's possible to save vs. death to avoid imprisonment, but the save comes at a severe penalty, and even if it's successful, the victim still gets level drained. On top of that, Kangaxx can cast a full range of mage spells, including Summon Fallen Planetar. Finally, Kangaxx has all of his normal immunities aside from immunity to debuffers, plus 100 magic resistance and immunity to the elements. Also, I have found SCS Kangaxx to see through Protection from Undead in his demi-lich form, even if he were not able to simply dispel it.
The outcome is pretty clear. Ruva will frustrate his spellcasting for a moment with Fire Seeds, but spell failure does not apply to Trap the Soul, and he will resist the fire damage. Ruva as a Wizard Slayer cannot drink potions beyond healing potions, and therefore cannot get a low enough save vs. death to prevent Kangaxx from imprisoning her. Eventually, Ruva will be gone, we will be unable to inflict spell failure (Kangaxx's spell level immunities will block Holy Word), he will dispel our save bonuses and spell protections, and eventually everyone but Viora will be imprisoned.
Then Kangaxx will slay her with spell damage or a Fallen Planetar.
We could use a trump card. Protection from Magic would shut down Kangaxx's spellcasting and give us more than enough time to kill him. This would cost us one of the most useful items in the game, an ideal trump card for various situations. But there's another problem on top of that.
We don't have the scroll. Nor does Ribald. It has vanished from our scroll case.
I go back through our old save files. We did in fact purchase the scroll. One of them was on Azelos for some reason; the other was in the scroll case. Since Azelos never got chunked and containers get transported to Charname's inventory if the person holding it gets removed from the party, it should not have been possible for us to lose either of the scrolls.
I've noticed containers eating items before, but I don't know what causes it. And I don't like the idea of consoling in the scrolls, even though we've clearly lost dozens of other scrolls thanks to a bug.
Finally, I come up with a solution. It comes at a heavy cost, but does not require the console. First, we have to bring down Kangaxx's lich form.
To simplify things, I lay a bunch of traps. But because Ruva is only level 15, thanks to her previous chunking in the Planar Sphere, her traps are level 11 rather than level 16 traps, and deal lingering poison damage rather than instantaneous fire damage. They're much stronger against most enemies, but much weaker against liches. They aren't enough to destroy Kangaxx's lich form.
As usual, we have Ruva and her clone lined up with the full 12 Fire Seeds Laosha can summon at level 14 with the Staff of Arundel, and the Flesh Golem right next to Kangaxx. Viora hits Kangaxx with Holy Word.
50% spell failure for 1 turn and no way to stop it. Kangaxx's Chain Contingency fires, a standard setup for SCS. The Flesh Golem, as always, is immune.
Fire Seeds disrupt Kangaxx's next spell.
This is due to the fire damage, not the spell failure. But once we've hit him twice with Fire Seeds, we know his spell failure is at 100%, and we can save our Fire Seeds.
As with other liches, I keep Azelos attacking with the Quiver of Plenty to check when Kangaxx becomes vulnerable to magical weapons. When I see Azelos land a hit, I know Ruva can land a hit with the Crimson Dart.
But after a short delay, Kangaxx's PFMW Contingency finally fires.
Normally the firing is instantaneous.
Later, Kangaxx tries his hand at another spell. Another Fire Seed stops him. His defenses are running low.
He lands a double Magic Missile Minor Sequencer on Ruva, dealing minor damage that dispels her clone.
It's functioning like a Project Image clone, which vanishes if the caster is hurt, but I thought I saw Ruva take damage in other fights without her clone going away.
Kangaxx holds onto PFMW for a while longer.
I consider using the Wand of Spell Striking to hasten the process, but Pierce Magic can't take down Spell Trap. Kangaxx, unable to get a spell off the ground, resorts to melee attacks. Yorin Zovai takes the hit; she can't cast Stoneskins reliably thanks to the spell failure from the Fire Seeds. Notice that he needs a critical hit to harm her, so the paralyze effect liches apply on melee attacks has little chance of disabling her.
I've kept her close to Kangaxx in anticipation of the second half of the fight. An SI: Abjuration spell should keep Kangaxx busy for a moment--if only a moment--at the start of the fight. Her Spell Trap from the Staff of the Magi and the Minor Spell Turning from the Ring of Spell Turning should also help.
Ruva is alone and is running a little low on Fire Seeds. I decide we need a little extra help with spell failure. Viora hurries in to assure our safety. It works.
The Flesh Golem is in very poor shape thanks to Kangaxx's Fire Shields. The Flesh Golem is immune to cold damage and magic, but red Fire Shields bypass both of those things, and I've been neglecting to keep it from attacking Kangaxx. We break out our only healing spell to keep it alive.
Yorin Zovai keeps getting hit. It's nothing a potion can't fix.
We lose our Flesh Golem despite our efforts to keep it around. Ruva's Fire Seeds will be much less reliable.
Yorin Zovai breaks out the Wand of Monster Summoning to get an easier target for Ruva.
Belatedly I realize Kangaxx's PFMW has run out. Ruva switches to the Crimson Dart. Soon, Kangaxx transforms. Yorin Zovai brings out SI: Abjuration despite the spell failure from the Fire Seed a moment before.
Kangaxx the Demi-Lich appears. We're low on Fire Seeds and out of Holy Word spells, but we have a trump card.
A Control Circlet.
I actually did this before in a vanilla run, and slew Kangaxx with his own Power Word: Kill spell, as he had no MR in that version and spells cast on self ignore spell level immunities. I check through his spell selection.
No Power Word: Kill, unfortunately. This will take a bit longer to work out. Yorin Zovai's animal critters are attacking Ruva because she hit them with a Fire Seed. I hide her so I don't have to worry about her.
I start wasting his spells.
The Protection from Magical Energy spell he cast on Viora helps her trigger a couple of Skull Traps.
We use up his last important spell.
This will let us dispel Kangaxx's Stoneskins. Maybe we could even get a vorpal strike on him. But it seems Planetars can't hurt demi-liches.
That's not the end of it. Not only does the Planetar prove unable to hurt Kangaxx, Kangaxx's Fire Shield actually turns the Planetar hostile.
But the Planetar keeps on attacking Kangaxx, ignoring the rest of the party.
I don't let anyone move, for fear that the Planetar might change targets and chunk somebody.
Finally, the Planetar vanishes.
We're safe, and thankfully Kangaxx himself has remained friendly in the meantime.
Ruva equips Usuno's Blade, Azelos equips the Short Bow of Gesen, and Zulfer equips the Mace of Disruption. After everyone is hasted, we attack.
Kangaxx falls moments later.
The Ring of Gaxx is ours.
First, Yaga-Shura. Anselm and his party dealt with his army before seeing him off to the west of the bridge.
The fight was pretty straightforward as Yaga-Shura can be poisoned, so he fell quickly to the assault of Anselm and Dorn. The rest of his army fled as soon as he died.
Then it was time for the second Pocket Plane Trial, Anselm faced himself and Sarevok's previous group.
Edwin blasted everyone while Hexxat backstabbed the survivors with Mislead.
Next, they travelled to Amkethran but were ambushed on the road by some Crusaders and a Planetar.
They pretty much used every spells they have because I didn't know what was coming next.
After their death, Dorn thinked it would be a GREAT idea to invade the Heavens, right now.
Well ... I don't really have the choice. Let's do this.
Anselm managed to convince a Planetar he was the nephew of Keldorn.
Then they get to Naiman Alore, the man who is keeping the Scroll of Retribution. Once again, Anselm managed to trick them into thinking they were some emissary of Tyr or something like that, but Dorn lost his temper at some point ...
Thank you Dorn, really.
Naiman is a high-level Mage, with TWO uses of Improved Alacrity and he opened the fight with Time Stop before using Remove Magic and Death Spell to get rid of the Skeletons Warriors.
Anselm held the frontline while the rest of the party was summoning new Skeletons and a Golem, Sarevok also threw an ADHW spell in there.
Hexxat was afflicted by a Feeblemind spell from one of the many Planetars.
I don't know why but at some point Edwin's Fallen Planetar became hostile and attacked Hexxat who was defenseless. Dorn used two charges of the Rod of Resurrection to keep her alive but the Heal effect didn't remove the Feeblemind. Anselm had no other choice but to slay the Fallen Planetar while Viconia summoned three Greater Elementals (one of them was a Prince).
Finally Anselm finished Naiman with Poison Weapon through the Fireshields and took some damage in the process.
But at least the quest was over.
Or not.
Dorn saw a tree protected by Crusaders and specials Planetars and thought it would a good idea to corrupt it. Of course Dorn, do you also need me to slay two Silver Dragons while you're at it?
The whole party was already low on spells since the beginning of the invasion but now they were mostly relying on Potions and Scrolls to continue to fight.
I was afraid of resting here as Hexxat was complaining about the light and was taking fire damage regularly. But hey, this time it was over.
I was wrong.
I was sooooo wrong.
As soon as the fight started, everyone drank an Oil of Speed and walked upstairs, the Dragons couldn't follow them there. Then Edwin casted Protection from Energy on Anselm to protect him from the Dragons' Breath while he used a Potion of Power to increase his HP (just in case).
He went downstairs with his longbow and a lot of Arrows of Piercing and used Poison Weapon.
Hopefully the Dragons were contained in the small circle and couldn't reach Anselm in melee; the Blackguard kept his distance and attacked the remaining Dragon from range until a Planetar came to his rescue, the Dragon casted Heal on itself and Anselm was out of Poison Weapon.
Finally Dorn went downstairs aswell, he had a few Poison Weapon left and together they slew the last reptile.
They looted two Silver Dragon Scales, it was worth it honestly. The Silver Dragon Armor is very powerful.
Then they left the plane of Lumia and lived happily after.
Unless of course an army of Devas lead by a Planetar blocked their path.
After this battle, I was condering who were the three non-hostiles Petitioners next to the exit, so I decided to attack one of them.
I should have think about that a bit more.
Anselm and his party decided to flee with Oils of Speed, but the Petitioner followed them with his Fallen Planetar and a Dimension Door spell.
Even more Devas and Planetars joined the fight until Anselm and his party decided to leave the area once and for all. Sarevok used his last Haste spell to replace the Oils which were dispelled and they managed to escape the Heavens.
It was by far one on my favorite (if not my favorite) area of the game!
Finally they arrived in Amkethran and Chapter 9 started.
In Amkethran, Hexxat's quest started. There aren't any big fights for once apart from a Lich, so I won't spoil anything here. It was very interesting nevertheless!
The party fought Vongoethe, the Lich in Amkethran, and kept the soul gem for themselves.
Then they headed toward Abazigal's Lair and faced Draconis near the entrance.
Against his Human form, Anselm went alone with 4 Skeletons Warriors and a Fallen Planetar and waited patiently for his buffs to wear out while the rest of the party was in the southeast corner in safety.
He summoned a Fallen Planetar aswell which was killed promptly by the Blackguard, then when he started to cast an Alteration spell, Anselm retreated in the corner.
It was a Time Stop spell, Draconis tried to kill Edwin's Fallen Planetar but to no avail, his weapons were not strong enough to harm it. When the spell ended, Anselm was able to kill him in melee.
Then he turned into his Dragon form which was pretty straightforward, he struggled a lot to hit Anselm in melee thanks to his amazing AC, and only hit him for 3 damage each time thanks to DoE + Hardiness + Armor of Faith.
So he tried to hide, but Hexxat was near with Detect Illusion on, then Dorn attacked aswell to speed up the process a bit and he fell.
With the Silver Armor Dragon which heals the wearer for 2 HP each time he get hit and the Ring of Gaxx's regeneration, Anselm is nearly invincible from now on.
Then they faced Anadramatis the Yellow Dragon, and things didn't go as planned.
According to the site I'm consulting when I'm playing, I should have encountered 2 Bone Fiends instead of the Dragon. I figured out that it is SCS which replaces the regular encounter by the Dragon whose Breath Weapon deals physical damage. It is really funny because you can tell Anadramatis that you were expecting the two Bone Fiends in the dialogue before fighting him.
The problem is that the entrance is locked during the fight, and the area is really small.
His breath weapon hit everyone but Edwin; the first time it was alright, everyone used a few healing potions to keep up.
The second time however ... He annihilated Viconia with 135 damage, chunking her in the process.
Anselm lost his loved one ... And it was irreversible. The Dragon even tried to surrender when he was low on health, but Anselm had no mercy.
Back in the previous room, a group of fiends teleported to attack the group. Protected with the Cloak of Mirroring, Anselm dealt with them alone.
The Kuo-Toa area was cleaned thanks to Edwin and his ADHW spells.
After they saved the monk, the needed some rope to explore the others pools, so they came back to Amkethran and bought it to an Innkeeper before heading back to Abazigal's Lair where they encountered 2 Black Dragons. They immediately flee to the corner with some Oils of Speed, then Anselm tanked both Dragons with Hardiness while the rest of the party was buffing.
Edwin used Time Stop, summoned his Fallen Planetar and casted Protection from Energy on Anselm because he didn't have time to use Armor of Faith to protect him from their breath weapons.
Sarevok casted Time Stop aswell and slew the first Dragon during the duration of the spell.
Finally, everyone rushed the second Dragon and he fell soon after.
Two others Dragons came to fight Anselm and his party, but the Blackguard was really to resilient for them.
Before facing Abazigal himself, they needed to kill Fll'Yissetat, another Dragon. Dorn, Anselm and a few summons tackled him : they dealt so much damage so fast, that the Dragon suffered from Morale Failure, fled, managed to heal itself back to full and suffered Morale Failure again when both Warriors used GWW.
They also looted the Bronze Pantalettes in another room filled with Beholders and forged the Big Metal Unit for Dorn beforehand.
And finally for today's report Abazigal himself, as usual Dorn, Anselm and a few summons shredded his Human form with GWW, then he turned into a Dragon, knocking everyone away in the process. Then the two warriors came back, used GWW again and forced him to cast Heal.
When he used his Breath Weapon on Anselm, Hexxat and Sarevok rushed him with Improved Haste and he fell.
As soon as the deed was done, Anselm was teleported in his hellish Pocket Plane where he learned about the prophecy from himself. Something he said was true, especially about Viconia.
'You bring murder to all you touch'
The third Pocket Plane challenge is very simple, you must simply fight an incarnation of the Slayer who does nothing else than attacking you in melee, and he isn't really strong if you use some GWW/Improved Haste/Hardiness and so forth.
After the trial, Anselm and his party went to explore the second level of Watcher's Keep.
They dispatched every foes on their path, found the last head of the Flail of Ages and upgraded it immediately. Anselm often switch to the Answerer +4 when Sarevok, Hexxat or Edwin cast Improved Haste on him before switching back to the FoA +5.
The Answerer is a terribly good weapon, I never understood the people saying it was bad, it improves your party's damage by so much! Especially when you use summons, like Skeletons Warriors with Haste.
And I didn't even know it lowered the enemy MR by 15% per hit, this is huuuuuuge. You can drop someone MR to zero in less than a round with enough APR. This will definitely change how I see the game.
Now I will never take Lower Resistance on a Mage or Sorcerer if I'm playing a full party.
At the end of the level, they tackled the Chromatic Demon. It was a bit long but easy enough, the FoA+5 was dealing consistent damage to every forms it took, and when it turned into its Ice form, Sarevok and Edwin both casted Dragon's Breath to speed up the process.
Next was the Maze Level. This level isn't hard if you play an evil aligned party, because the first group of fiends won't attack on sight but instead, they will propose you to slay the second group and to retreive the heart of a demon.
This is a huge advantage because the room before the first group is a Dead Magic Zone, which means you cannot prebuff at all and the spellcasting failure will persist for a round or two during the fight which could be enough for the teleporting fiends to kill outright your fragile characters, in my case Edwin.
While the room before the second group is a regular room, so you can buff yourself.
But this level is a dangerous place, because of the Wild Magic Zones; if you are, very, very, very, extremely unlucky, you can be killed instantly by a simple Magic Missile.
If it rolls 24 (roll twice more), 46 (open all doors, if there are no doors, roll twice more) or 63 (roll 4 more times) then it rolls 72 (Flesh to Stone on the target) AND 60 (no saving throw allowed!) at the same time, you're toasted. Except if you have some MR.
The probabilities are a bit higher than 3/100 * 2/100 * 1/100 = 6/1000000 = 0.0006% because I didn't count the fact that you can roll the same thing multiple times (technically you can roll every effect an infinite number of times if you roll 24, 46 or 63 an infinite number of times).
But apart from a sex change, Anselm is alright!
They reached Aesgareth the Cambion and gambled with him. I found something very interesting here.
The Cloak of Mirroring makes you immune to his Vitality Drain, so you can freely play with him as much as you want without worrying about losing HP (I think it is a permanent lose if you do).
Then the fight occured, Edwin stopped time, blasted everything to kingdom come while Sarevok and Anselm finished the wounded in melee.
Next, the Machine of Lum the Mad.
Here, Anselm soloed everything for safety sake.
Including Saladrex,
and the Demilich.
It was a funny fight because at some point, the Demilich stopped doing anything for two or three rounds, it couldn't harm Anselm in any way considering his saves and resistances so it kinda gave up. Anselm drank a Potion of Fire Resistance just before a Dragon's Breath hit him for 10 damage, and he ignored the Comet with his MR.
Afterward, they freed Carston, killed him and used the Machine of Lum the Mad the gain various bonuses for Anselm and they reached the Seal Level.
There Anselm also soloed everything, once again before it was easier and far more practical, except the last fight because I read that the Huntress has the Called Shot ability which could reduce Anselm's saves by 1 every time she hit him.
So Edwin blasted everything and Hexxat used a Time Stop scroll to finish off the remaining foes with Assassination.
And finally, to conclude this report, Demogorgon!
To earn the maximum amount of XP, Anselm and his party read the Ritual Scroll, talked to the Prince of Demons, lured the Helmites in its lair, accepted the Helm Scroll, killed Demogorgon, left the place, dropped the scroll to prevent it from disapearing, then they read it.
As for the fight itself, it was a bit disappointing to be honest. The party buffed heavily, really heavily.
Hexxat, Sarevok and Edwin all had Spell Shield + Spell Immunity : Abjuration + Divination + Stoneskin + Mirror Image + Blur + Spirit Armor + Improved Haste + Protection from the Elements + Mislead + Mass Invisibility + Spell Turning + Spell Deflection.
Dorn and Anselm were protected by Armor of Faith + Protection from the Elements and were also buffed with Improved Haste and DUHM.
But the fight ended in two rounds. Edwin didn't do anything.
As you can see in the first screenshot, Demogorgon doesn't prebuff itself, he only has his Contingency + Chain Contingency with a PFMW and a Spell Turning defense wise.
So in the first round, Hexxat used her Wand of Spell Striking to cast Pierce Shield to remove its Spell Turning while Sarevok casted Breach to dispell its PFMW. The timing was perfect because Sarevok took just a bit more time than Hexxat as he was casting instead of using an item.
Then in the second round, everyone rushed Demogorgon and it died in a round, the end.
I wonder if this is a bug or not, I recall reading somewhere in the SCS readme an 'improved' version of Demogorgon who could instantly cast Time Stop once per fight or something like that but it was disabled because it was too hard but one could use the cluaconsole to enable it.
Anyway, Demogorgon is dead. Next step, Sendai's Enclave!
Have you considered bringing in a new character to take Viconia's place? Haer'dalis isn't evil but he would make a great song buff once he hits epic levels.
It's sad that Yoren was chunked twice in your run, it will delay your progression significantly.
I thought about Haer'dalis, unfortunately I'm playing with Rogue Rebalancing and its Bards HLA revision, which removes the Epic Bard Song for Blades. So I'm going to try to finish the game with 5 party members!
Dracandros is a mage, apparently, with a cleric and some fighters at his side. But at this stage of the game, our APR is high enough to crush the whole group, and Zulfer's poison on nonmagical darts shuts down our biggest threat.
There's almost nothing left to do before Bodhi. Our next target is Adalon.
I seldom really take much interest in getting the Human Flesh +5, because it comes too late in the game for me to give it much thought. But I have a thief in the party without mage levels, so for once I have somebody to give it to. Also, if I turn Viora evil in the Hell trials, we can add those save bonuses and MR to the one who most needs it.
We run into a problem on the way there.
At first, I think I'm screwed, because when I console in two Sun Gems, both of the gems I could find in Near Infinity, I get the same message. Then I go back and pick up the gem I left outside the Underdark--it's actually called a Light Gem. I lay on all of the buffs I can find, including Chaotic Commands across the board to block Adalon's Silver Dragon Paralyzation thingy and Resist Fire/Cold to guard against her cold breath.
If we had a mage instead of a sorcerer we could have buffed the entire party with Protection from Cold and made them immune to Adalon's breath weapon entirely without drinking up scarce potions.
The game crashes. I reload and the next time, she's not even there. I console her in. She delivers her normal dialogue for when you first meet her, but she doesn't turn us into drow and we get no message about the Ust Natha questline beginning.
Maybe she's not supposed to be available to kill if you help her get her eggs back, so you have to choose between the XP from the quest or the blood for the Human Flesh +5. Whatever. I'm willing to tolerate the cheat; I want to fight another dragon.
Adalon starts out with Remove Magic, something of a standard for SCS spellcasters. Only Zulfer escapes the effect.
This means our Archer, Azelos, as well as Ruva, our Wizard Slayer/Thief, will be vulnerable to Adalon's breath weapon. We proceed with Poison Weapon and normal attacks. Laosha, Viora, and Yorin Zovai hang back, hiding to the northwest, since they are not needed.
Adalon nearly slays our Archer with her breath weapon. Azelos pulls through with a save vs. breath, and we proceed with our normal routine.
Ruva takes a beating from Adalon's physical attacks in the process, but with so much poison damage from Zulfer, Adalon's 762 HP just isn't enough.
Back to the Umar Hills to get the Human Flesh +5.
I've actually only fought Adalon once and it was years and years ago so the only thing I remember is that it's very difficult...kudos to you for getting out unscathed!
We barely scraped by, but the screenshots aren't very interesting. Basically it just involved managing a lot of shifting priorities as we had to decide which mage to attack with how much of our strength.
On to the graveyard to face Bodhi. I've got the Tactics version with SCS scripting, so this is very bad news. Bodhi gets some really nasty spells, plus a pair of vampire mages named Manasseh and Hazamazarmavazarath or something. On reaching the Graveyard District, we get the standard vampire ambush. But entering the place while still invisible means we're safe. Yorin Zovai hastes the party to get us away quicker, with the Staff of the Magi to maintain her invisibility, only to see Viora resolve the problem in a single round.
She does much the same to the vampires inside Bodhi's lair.
The only one she can't explode is Tanova. Tanova can't see through Viora's invisibility, so she brings in a friend who can.
But Tanova apparently never memorized Protection from Evil.
Our Sunray spells go unused. Bodhi awaits.
Bodhi was a nightmare. An absolute nightmare.
We begin with our standard buffs, and a re-organized spellbook. We've got Holy Word spells instead of Sunrays for Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer, False Dawn and Firestorm instead of Aerial Servant and Nature's Beauty, and a couple of extra Negative Plane Protection spells for both Laosha and Viora. We bring out five Skeleton Warriors and Viora runs in, under Invisibility, to explode all of the minor vampires with Turn Undead.
Against my will, the Skeleton Warriors follow after Viora. I decide not to stop them, as it would be too bothersome. Bodhi can see through invisibility, so she speaks with Viora the moment Viora steps into view. Bodhi spawns in Mannaseh and Hazzerbazzer, who fail to reveal Viora with Oracle. Bodhi throws out Cloud of Bats against Viora, but a Potion of Magic Shielding fails to block it--I thought a save vs. death at -10 would block it, and a Potion of Magic Shielding would put her saves at around -20.
Since Bodhi is chasing Viora out of the room and the Skeleton Warriors are already engaging the vampires, I decide to bring the rest of the party into the chamber. Bodhi removes all but one of our Skeleton Warriors with Touch of Death. Now nothing stands in between the party and the enemy, but thankfully most of the vampires have already been chunked with Turn Undead.
I want to take Manasseh out of the picture--any mage is a big wildcard in SCS. I notice she has no SI: Abjuration or spell turning/deflection/trap spells, so I remove her PFMW spell with a charge from the Wand of Spell Striking. But Manasseh is hard to kill--apparently her AC is very low, and it gives her enough time to blind Azelos, our Archer, with PW: Blind (SCS spellcasters seem to like using that spell against ranged attackers) and nearly kill Zulfer with a triple Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer. Azelos switches to the Silver Sword and engages Manasseh in melee.
And Bodhi? I've been staying away from her, escaping her reach thanks to the slow effect from pouring holy water into the blood pools, and so she's been paying most of her attention to Drizzt. She does, however, pay enough attention to us to blind everyone in the party besides Viora with one of her special area-effect Tactics spells.
Then she runs up and catches us by surprise, draining Ruva of 5 levels right before Azelos slays Manasseh with a lucky vorpal strike.
Where is Hazzerbazzer, the other vampire mage? I didn't even notice his absence. I wouldn't find him until much later on.
Ruva uses a Restoration scroll on herself--apparently Wizard Slayers can use Restoration scrolls, if no others--to cure the level drain, only to die to a Horrid Wilting-type of spell from Bodhi.
I give the Mace of Disruption to Zulfer, who equips it in his off hand and attacks Bodhi with Sanchuudoku. This way, he attacks with his best weapon while avoiding level drain. When Bodhi goes after some other party members instead, I use a Haste spell to get the away from Bodhi, lest they get level drained.
Soon the only enemy around is Bodhi. It's time to bring her down. Laosha throws out all three of his Spirit Animals, choosing Spirit Lions for the better damage output, only to see them instantly killed with another of Bodhi's unique spells.
We continue with Zulfer as our tank, and Azelos attacking with Firetooth because the Quiver of Plenty wasn't affecting Bodhi. Ruva is still dead, and our other party members don't have particularly strong missile weapons, so I don't bother. Viora uses the Wand of the Heavens, while Yorin Zovai reduces Bodhi's MR with the Wand of Spell Striking.
Bodhi turns into a bat. But there's a weird problem with the bat form SCS gives to vampires: the lack of a circle on the bats means you can't target them, but they can still attack you, though the vampires do not drain levels in bat form.
This we can't attack her. But she can attack us. And she's regenerating the whole time.
And round after round after round, she does not revert to her normal form. She stays in bat form, untouchable, and will not leave.
Finally, I escape her reach and come back many rounds later, at which point she finally takes on her normal form and becomes targetable. We make excellent progress on her, and then Zulfer dies to Constitution drain.
SCS Vampires have a Drain Blood attack that lets them drain their target's Constitution score by 3 points for 50 rounds. It is therefore actually more dangerous than a Mind Flayer's stat drain, as the effect takes longer to dissipate and the vampires have better THAC0. The only way to block the effect is to cast PFMW, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity. It was designed to make vampires a little scarier even with Negative Plane Protection active, but the net result is that it favors arcane spellcasters, while other classes are helpless against it. It's very unbalanced and inconvenient for a party like this.
I bring Zulfer back with the Rod of Resurrection and have him drink a Potion of Invulnerability since he can't put his armor back on during the fight. We start making progress again.
Bodhi switches to bat form again. I try to kill her with area-effect spell damage this time, using Skull Traps and the Wand of Fire (I had to cast Cure Disease on Yorin Zovai to cure her blindness in order for this to work). I even use the Efreeti Bottle and the Prismatic Spray ability of the Helm of Brilliance, though the latter fails to trigger since the Skeleton Warrior I was using as a target resists it. My efforts fail; Bodhi's regeneration is too strong.
I leave again, wait a while, and come back. She adopts her normal form once more, but that non-targetable bat form let her regenerate from Near Death all the way back to Barely Injured. We have to start all over.
Zulfer gets down to 3 CON before I pull him away from Bodhi and have Ruva engage Bodhi instead, with Zulfer attacking from afar with the Crimson Dart. When Ruva also gets her CON drain to 3, I bring Azelos, our Archer, to the fore.
Bodhi turns into a bat a third time. It's possible to keep attacking Bodhi if you were attacking her before she shapeshifted into bat form, but if she ever escapes your line of sight, your attack is canceled and she is again impossible to target. Bodhi escapes Azelos' line of sight, and we are left, once again, with the prospect of fighting an enemy we cannot target, because it has no circle.
Then I turn on Party AI and let our fighters target Bodhi automatically. It turns out party AI can target critters without circles, even though you cannot.
After a few more rounds of attacking Bodhi's bat form, she finally casts her Heal spell, starting the second half of the fight. She returns to normal form, drains 5 levels from Laosha, blasts us with another Horrid Wilting-type spell, and when she gets hurt enough, she turns into a bat again.
Then Hazzerbazzer enters the battle. He had been gone for nearly the entire fight, because he had run off into the room with Bodhi's coffin, to the northeast, and never came out until one of us wandered into the doorway.
Like Tanova, Viora can turn Hazzerbazzer, but he keeps attacking anyway, his AI apparently overriding the successful turn attempt. He slays Ruva with a surprise hit using CON drain before attacking Yorin Zovai. Meanwhile, Bodhi is still in bat form.
Another interesting thing about bat form is that it lets the bat and the bat's own attacker hit each other from a distance even when using melee weapons. Bodhi can hit us from across the room, and so can we, even with katanas and axes.
After debuffing Hazzerbazzer with the Wand of Spell Striking, Zulfer conjures a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm and we bring down the second vampire mage in short order.
Bodhi still refuses to come out of bat form. With party AI on, we keep attacking her, round after round, until finally she just up and dies. It was a profoundly unsatisfying end to a long and profoundly tedious fight.
I hated this fight. It was endlessly frustrating, dragged on for ages, took a tremendous amount of resources, and most importantly, it was not fun. The worst part is that the solution to the problem was nonsensical--there is no reason I should not be able to target a fully visible critter, especially when party AI can target it.
So sorry to see the beloved one of Anselm chunked. It just confirmes ToB fights are immense.
@semiticgod That was one of the most elegant ways of dealing with Kangaxx I can imagine.
By now we've established a pretty standard formula for dealing with mages. Raamilat's defenses don't work well against poisoned Fire Seeds.
For some reason we're unable to dispel his invisibility.
Maybe because he's using Mislead instead of another spell. I use a Skeleton Warrior as a target for our Fire Seeds, with Raamilat's FIre Shield as a guide to where he is.
Repeated use of the Staff of the Magi shows that the Rakshasas here have an infinite number of True Seeing spells. I click the Staff of the Magi as fast as I can, and the Rakshasas do nothing but cast True Seeing.
Using the Staff of the Magi does drain their buffs, however, which means Zulfer can poison them to death when their PFMW spells run out.
We set up the standard buffs for dragons and mob Nizidramanii'yt.
I see sickly green text in the dialog box all the time, which I assume means the poison is working, but as I later realized, Nizidramanii'yt is immune to poison damage, if not the poison opcode.
Our scroll case ate our Protection from Acid scrolls--we had at least three left after Cookies--so Ruva goes out with her normal buffs only. Predictably, she suffers against Nizidramanii'yt breath weapon.
And because I forgot to cast Regeneration on her beforehand, Ruva fails to escape.
Despite not having lowered his MR, Yorin Zovai manages to land a Greater Malison spell on Nizidramanii'yt.
Why didn't we lower his MR? We forgot to recharge the Wand of Spell Striking, so arrived here without Pierce Magic charges, and because Yorin Zovai is a sorcerer and not a mage, she cannot memorize Lower Resistance for the times she needs it.
About now I realize Poison Weapon hasn't actually done anything.
But after Azelos hits Nizidramanii'yt with Called Shot a few times, luck turns in our favor.
The yellow glow means Yorin Zovai's Feeblemind spell worked. He's already at Near Death, but I thought this was neat.
Suneer at the temple of Rillifane uses invisibility to avoid getting targeted, but his clones are a convenient target for Zulfer's Fire Seeds.
There's not much left to tell in the fight. The Rakshasa came with no PFMW pre-buff, but since Suneer was the more important target, Ruva applied her spell failure on Suneer. Azelos removed the Glabrezu that was pestering our party, and gradually the enemy fell apart.
Suldannessellar complete.
Had none of my characters gotten chunked, almost everyone would have had HLAs by this point. I would have really appreciated that. Come to think of it, I really shouldn't have accepted the previous chunkings--they're not supposed to be possible in my install.
Anyway, Ruva's traps fail to kill Irenicus. I prefer it this way, since the traps make an impact while still allowing other things to play a role in the fight.
Fire Seeds prevent a Time Stop that would have proved ruinous for the group.
I thought Irenicus was vulnerable to disablers, since I've seen him get knocked out by Comet spells in the past. At first I'm elated when I see him fail a save against some Fire Seeds boosted by Power Attack, but it turns out only his clones are vulnerable. The real Irenicus scurries away.
Detect Illusions again proves unable to reveal our target. I'm reasonably certain this is due to Mislead. Also, our Flesh Golem turns hostile for some reason (it never did before), which means we can't make it stick close to Irenicus and serve as our target for our Fire Seeds. But Zulfer's poison from the previous few attacks is enough to thwart Irenicus' spellcasting long enough for his PFMW to wear out.
Notice the Hobgoblins on the screen. I summoned them to serve as new Fire Seed targets, but when Jon-bon's PFMW wore off, we could switch to nonmagical darts.
He tries to escape using illusion spells, but this time, he can't stay invisible.
He succumbs to poison, and drags us into Hell.
I lay 7 traps and summon a single Skeleton Warrior, expecting it to be killed by a Death Spell early on. Before I open the door, I turn everyone invisible. Irenicus can't see through invisibility, though his friends, can, which means we can deal with the demons before Irenicus himself.
I get our first piece of bad news. Shield of the Archons blocks the +1 bonus to Wisdom and Charisma from the last Tear of Bhaal.
Then comes more bad news. The whole party turns visible during the cut scene, and the party is positioned so every one of them is right next to a demon, preventing us from using our tanks as tanks.
And then more bad news. Remove Magic takes down most of our buffs.
I thought we'd at least be able to run away a bit to minimize our exposure to Remove Magic, but everybody gets hit, though not everyone gets debuffed.
The Balors in this battle don't apparently have instant death effects on hit, but since I didn't know that at the time, I have Zulfer and Azelos down a couple of Potions of Invulnerability, while Yorin Zovai braces for the Necromancy spell Irenicus is casting.
Laosha and Viora are both in bad positions. Laosha has no Ironskins thanks to Remove Magic, while Viora is always in need of more safety. We down two Oils of Speed so they can run away faster.
We attack one of the Glabrezus first, since they have Power Word: Stun spells that could prove fatal to us. Meanwhile, Irenicus debuffs Ruva.
Why Ruva? Ruva's buffs were mostly still intact, unlike Azelos' and Zulfer's. This is because Ruva's buffs came from our level 22 cleric, Viora, while the rest of the party got buffed by our level 15 druid, Laosha.
The Glabrezu goes down, but it took quite some time.
Laosha brings in a friend. We're trying to conserve resources, so I don't use Elemental Summoning just yet.
Our fighters have trouble bringing down the second Glabrezu. Those Mirror Image spells really slow us down, even with Detect Illusions to remove them. Irenicus' Horrid Wilting spells build up over time. Ruva is perfectly open to a Power Word: Stun spell, but her 12 MR saves her life.
I have tried to remove Irenicus' Spell Deflection with a Pierce Magic charge from the Wand of Spell Striking, but it fails, somehow. Irenicus responds with a Planetar.
Yorin Zovai drinks an Oil of Speed to help her run away. Now we have to deal with vorpal strikes.
Our fighters get debuffed at a very bad time. Right when Irenicus is casting yet another necromancy spell and a Planetar with vorpal strikes is right on top of them, a Glabrezu fires off another Remove Magic spell.
The party gets crushed by Horrid Wilting. Our Cloak of Mirroring is wasted on Viora, who wasn't even in the area of effect, and with Girdles of Piercing instead of the Belt of Inertial Barrier, only the party's MR and saving throws can keep them safe.
Azelos is making a last-ditch attempt to get rid of the Planetar, but it's too late. Our last tank falls, leaving Azelos alone.
This is going far worse than I expected.
Viora gets Azelos buffed with Death Ward to block the Planetar's vorpal strikes, only to see Azelos get Breached an instant later.
We have to run, lest the Balors slay our spellcasters. Azelos also flees, as she is low on HP. Meanwhile, Yorin Zovai is to the north, trying to bring down Irenicus' Spell Deflection buff.
It doesn't work. I still have no idea why; he never had Spell Shield active.
Irenicus begins casting a Time Stop spell. Viora hides, since Irenicus can't target invisible critters, and so he turns his attention on Azelos.
Azelos sees her HP reduced to single digits, and Viora is debuffed within the round. The best that Azelos can hope to do before she dies is land a lucky vorpal strike on the Planetar.
She lands a hit, but the vorpal strike of the Silver Sword only has a 25% chance of triggering.
The Planetar rewards her bravery with a vorpal strike. Azelos fails a save.
We have only slain two enemies so far. We have lost three of our own, and one of them is never coming back.
We lose another 3 million XP to chunking that's not even supposed to be possible in my install.
Notice Viora has gotten debuffed again. The enemy has been very diligent in removing our defenses.
We bring back Zulfer with the Rod of Resurrection, using the quick loot feature to grab his equipment without having to run over to it. Viora restores her buffs, only to get debuffed once more.
We need some stuff from Azelos' body as well, so we run over to where she fell. In the process, we expose ourselves to the Planetar.
Notice the Ring of Gaxx is on the ground. Thing is, the Ring of Gaxx is already on Viora.
Now I know for sure that there is a bug going on. I already noticed our Potions of Absorption go from 7 to 6, I've seen scrolls of Protection from Acid and Protection from Magic vanish without explanation, I've seen dozens of other scrolls vanish as well, and now we have two copies of a unique item. There is something really screwy going on. And because I don't keep track of every item we have, I'm sure we must have lost a lot of stuff over time. It can't be due to the chunking, since the Ring of Gaxx wasn't even on Azelos, and it can't just be containers, because the Ring of Gaxx wasn't in one. Nor can it be the result of my switching our save file from the single player to multiplayer folder, since this duplication occurred in the middle of a fight.
Zulfer can't equip his armor in the thick of combat, so we improvise with another Potion of Invulnerability.
SCS is packed with these potions. They're really strong and really expensive, so they can make a very big difference if you remember to drink them (I usually don't).
The Planetar comes for Yorin Zovai. She drinks another Oil of Speed so she can escape; her previous haste effect got dispelled.
I have Zulfer equip the Helm of the Rock, the Dragonscale Shield, and the Ring of Fire Control for 100% fire resistance, and then try to start a feedback loop against the nearest Balor's Aura of Flaming Death. Irenicus and the Slayer try to disable him, but I really only need him to make one hit.
Zulfer fails to start the feedback loop. The Balor escapes his grasp in favor of pursuing a much more vulnerable target.
We keep running until the enemy pays attention to Zulfer. He starts the feedback loop!
But the loop moves slowly, and it only deals 1 damage per hit. Zulfer manages to bring down the Balor, but the other enemies put more pressure on Zulfer than he can bear.
But that's not all. Zulfer's Acidic Backlash also brings down the Planetar, just barely, right after he dies.
We're in bad shape, but we're making progress.
Irenicus goes after Laosha. Since this means Viora will be off Irenicus' radar for a bit, I go ahead and bring back Zulfer. I tweak my auto-pause settings to gain a little closer control of the situation.
Then I see an alteration spell. Time Stop.
I have to get everyone invisible. In the process, I find a strange flail on the ground.
I recognize that flail. It's the attack weapon for SCS Balors, but apparently it's erroneously tagged as droppable.
Before Irenicus can finish his spell, I make sure everyone has a Potion of Invisibility, besides Yorin Zovai, who has the Staff of the Magi. Even Viora drinks one, since I'm fairly certain her stealth would wear off during the Time Stop.
Irenicus' Time Stop is largely a waste.
I want to buff Zulfer, but he's invisible. I have him use the Ring of Fire Control's Charm Fire Elemental ability on Ruva, just to turn him visible.
We have a little time to prepare, but it isn't long before Irenicus teleports in to attack us. Irenicus casts three spells at once, but they don't make sense.
Mantle is a bad choice here, and it can't even be put into a Spell Trigger or Spell Sequencer. This would have to be a Chain Contingency to be legal, but there was no message indicating that. The choice of Minute Meteors is also odd, as the Slayer is already a potent melee fighter.
We get moving again; I want to face him with a clear aura.
Shortly, I send Zulfer back out to fight Irenicus. Mantle is no match for Sanchuudoku.
Irenicus is vulnerable.
But even without spells, Irenicus is a terribly strong fighter, and regenerates 6 HP per second, or 36 per round. That's a lot to overcome.
We get a Greater Malison in, though I'm not sure how useful it will actually be.
Notice the Shambling Mounds entering the fight. Those are Laosha's, summoned via the Staff of the Woodlands, which you get from Rillifane shortly before fighting Irenicus at the Tree of Life.
For safety's sake, I add on some more buffs.
To see if that Greater Malison spell will do us any good, I have Zulfer activate Power Attack, his first and only HLA, and attack with Celestial Fury at the same time.
Two saves in a row isn't surprising, as Irenicus' base saves should all be at 2, or 6 with Greater Malison active. But when I see him fail his save vs. spell, I know he's immune to stun.
Irenicus throws out a new Spell Trigger. It's all offensive-oriented.
Yorin Zovai takes a moment to help out Zulfer.
The rest of the party has been having little impact. Ruva has been using Darts +5 to break through Irenicus' Mantle spell, but she only landed two hits early on, and then nothing. Viora also tried to hit Irenicus with Holy Word for a little more spell failure, but his MR blocked it.
Irenicus hits very hard, and Zulfer has trouble surviving under the pressure. I never got a chance to put his armor on, and I never remembered to have him drink another Potion of Invulnerability, since his previous one got disabled after he died again. His potions aren't enough, so Viora keeps him afloat with the Rod of Resurrection. Laosha follows up with a helpful buff.
Irenicus should have fallen by now. He's been at Near Death for many rounds.
I decide to roll with it and just replenish our supply of Shambling Mounds.
Suddenly, Zulfer is nearly dead himself. Apparently, until now, Irenicus was focusing much of his attention on the Shambling Mounds, allowing Zulfer to survive. Now he's in trouble.
I bring him out of the fray, lest I lose him once more. Finally, I remember Viora has an HLA, which she gained midway through the fight.
Zulfer is in dire need of assistance. Ruva uses the Rod of Resurrection on him--apparently Wizard Slayers can use it.
Only now do I notice that Zulfer's AC is too high. After having him down a Potion of Invulnerability, I send him back. Viora adds a little, since she has nothing better to do.
It just goes on and on. Irenicus won't die.
It's no trouble for us to keep going, however. All it does is cost us a handful of potions. It also gives Viora time to collect the rest of the equipment we left on the ground, just in case SCS fails to bring it over to ToB. But eventually I get impatient and pull the party away from Irenicus. Once I've given him a moment to breathe, I attack him again.
Finally, I get the message I'm looking for.
Irenicus has fallen. Shadows of Amn is over. And we get a ridiculously high XP reward on entering ToB.
Ruva gains 4 levels in one shot.
As for the future of the run... I have mixed feelings about continuing the run into Throne of Bhaal.
This party has been great. It's handled a lot of tough encounters, and in many cases it completely wrecked extremely challenging enemies with barely any resistance. Even in the handful of times in which things went wrong, the party adapted quite well. I'll review the party's tactics in another post, but suffice to say this party has been highly functional and very fun.
That said, I am awfully tired of chunking. Now that we're in ToB, a newly created character would be at 2.5 million XP instead of 89,000, but we've still lost about 3 million XP due to all of the permanent deaths we've suffered, and more than half of that is concentrated on the one character who benefits most from XP: our Sorcerer, Yorin Zovai, previously Yoren Zovai, previously Yorun Zovai. Losing 15-20% of our XP is bad enough, but when most of that is taken from our Sorcerer... it just feels wrong. It's disappointing.
I've been looking forward to using HLAs. And I had big expectations for this party, and was really looking forward to all of the things it could do once we hit 3 million XP. Having a party fight enter ToB at less than full capacity sounds sad. And the worst part?
We'd be better off killing Yorin Zovai and replacing her with a newly-created character. Yorin Zovai has less than 800,000 XP. A new Sorcerer would have more than triple that, at 2,500,000 XP. I don't like the idea of spending all of SoA gathering XP, only to kick out our Sorcerer because a ToB-created character would be far, far more powerful.
This party is really strong, but there's something unsatisfying about being perpetually underleveled. I worked hard getting this far, and much of that was taken away, when chunking wasn't supposed to be possible.
I have a new idea for a run, but that would involve starting from scratch. I'm not sure I'd like to do that, either, particularly since it's been so long since I did anything in ToB.
Viora the Shadowdancer/Cleric:
Viora's benefits to the party were generally passive and subtle. As a cleric, she had access to a lot of the powerful, long-lasting anti-disabler buffs that are always helpful in no-reload runs. Her Shadowdancer levels did not mesh particularly well with her cleric levels, as clerics have slow-casting spells and cannot equip the Robe of Vecna. This means casting offensive spells and vanishing immediately after was not possible.
Hide in Plain Sight did, however, let Viora stay remarkably safe. She barely ever came close to death, and when it did happen, it was always due to spell damage. She was practically untouchable. Shadowdancer levels are a marvelous way to ensure the safety of a no-reload Charname.
Yorun Zovai/Yoren Zovai/Yorin Zovai the Sorcerer:
Yorun Zovai had little opportunity to shine. Robbed of 1.7 million XP due to being chunked twice in the run, she never got past level 14, and only for a brief period was she able to cast Improved Haste. A sorcerer's power comes from XP more than anything else. And with such huge setbacks to her level progression, Yorun Zovai only occasionally made the difference.
Azelos the Archer:
Azelos, too, had little opportunity to shine. Although she was never chunked and remained at full XP for the entire game, her abilities mostly went unnoticed. Called Shot can do some very crazy things, guaranteeing failed saves for crippling disablers or instant death effects, slaying enemies with STR drain, or just shutting down a powerful enemy's attack power by imposing heavy THAC0 penalties. But our last three party members had such a strong impact on things that her Called Shot ability rarely was necessary, and for most of the game, I forgot to even use the ability. Azelos was mostly just there for dealing damage.
Laosha the Totemic Druid:
Laosha played a much more prominent role. His Spirit Animals were impossible to disable thanks to their various immunities, and by throwing out weaker summons first, he also could protect them from the Death Spell. They proved very helpful in dealing with all kinds of enemies, as they could poison, paralyze, or deal damage through Stoneskin, on top of being solid fighters on their own. A lot of enemies were completely defenseless, as the Spirit Animals were immune to nonmagical weapons. He also contributed to the party's defenses, especially when Viora was recovering her Shadowdancer levels, by bringing Chaotic Commands to the party.
Most importantly, however, he gave us Fire Seeds, the single most important item of this run. These things vastly empowered Ruva and Zulfer, and with Fire Seeds their hands, the strongest enemies of BG2 crumpled before us.
Ruva the Wizard Slayer/Thief:
Unlike most Wizard Slayer/Thieves, Ruva was never supposed to become a tank. She dualed as early as possible and only took pips in two-handed weapons as an afterthought, instead concentrating on axes and darts. Use Any Item was not why she had the Wizard Slayer kit.
Ruva was there to inflict arcane spell failure via Fire Seeds. At 25% spell failure per hit, she could render any mage, even Kangaxx, completely unable to cast spells, simply by conjuring a simulacrum via Vhailor's Helm and attacking a high-AC summons (almost always the Flesh Golem) with Fire Seeds while hasted. Although it took some preparation and micromanagement, it was the only reason we were able to take down Kangaxx and the other liches with such ease. She was able to shut down any mage's spellcasting until it had run out of PFMW, at which point she could simple switch to the Crimson Dart and keep the mage disabled indefinitely. Mages are easily the most dangerous enemies in SCS, and with Laosha's Fire Seeds, Ruva crushed the biggest threats we ever faced. The hardest fights in the game became painfully easy with her assistance.
Zulfer the Assassin/Fighter:
Zulfer, unlike some Assassin/Fighters, was never meant to be a backstabber. The only reason I picked this class was to get someone with Poison Weapon and strong THAC0--and because I wasn't too interested in creating a Blackguard. Zulfer had much the same role as Ruva: he was meant to combine his on-hit effects, in his case poison, with Fire Seeds to disable spellcasting despite weapon immunities and spell protections.
His role differed from Ruva's, however, because many enemies are immune to poison, while almost none are immune to spell failure. Liches and Lavok were both beyond his grasp--he could do nothing to them, compared to Ruva. But for most encounters, against living mages and other targets, Zulfer was the much stronger option, as his poison had a 100% chance of blocking spellcasting with even one hit, although it did not last quite as long. Zulfer therefore took the lead role in a lot more fights, as he could more reliably stop mages and kill them than Ruva could. For ordinary mages, Zulfer was our most valuable character. For the absolute strongest mages, Ruva took his place.
Zulfer also served as our standard tank. Although Ruva and Azelos had far more HP, Zulfer had much better THAC0 than Ruva and Azelos was better off using missile weapons. He attained grandmastery in katanas for reasons I don't remember, which meant he had fantastic damage output once we got a hold of Sanchuudoku. In between his Acidic Backlash, his Poison Weapon, and his physical damage itself, he was able to defeat many enemy fighters that the rest of the party, save Azelos, would have struggled against.
I had multiple plans for this run, but some of them faded in significance as time went on. With the exception of lich fights, in which Ruva played by far the most important role, Zulfer usually dealt with enemies on his own. He was enough, and so our other strategies saw less and less use over the course of the run. Spirit Animals and Wizard Slayer spell failure are excellent, but most of the time, Poison Weapon and Sanchuudoku could handle the problem.
We did struggle with mages whom we failed to disable. When we deemed a mage a low priority and focused on other targets, we often found ourselves debuffed with Remove Magic and at the mercy of some powerful threats, including Fallen Planetars. This particular problem was exclusively due to negligence on my part, but in other ways, our lack of arcane spell power proved to be an issue. Yorun Zovai was our only source of mage spells, and because she was a sorcerer rather than a mage, she often could not provide situational spells that could have helped us. As in the past, I noticed that her lack of versatility robbed us of some very valuable tools. Her being chunked twice was only part of the problem.
Despite these issues, the party came out ahead, and most of the time, the game wasn't even all that difficult. We had such a powerful stranglehold on enemy mages that most of the game was a cakewalk. Fire Seeds, bolstered by Poison Weapon or Wizard Slayer spell failure, are a tremendous game-changer.
I don't think SCS has any impact on chunking deaths from Fallen Planetar strikes. I wish their vorpal strikes would just kill their target instead of chunking them.
Congrats @semiticgod! Are you continuing into ToB, or have you already come up with something new?
Gerland of Candlekeep, NG Half-Elf Skald, 1st SoA report
Since pausing the game in BG2EE doesn't result in dates and times being displayed as is the case in BGEE, my screenshots aren't really helpful for keeping Gerland's diary (1st person narrative). For that reason I'll take a 3rd person perspective for the narration of Gerland's exploits in SoA. As usual with my party runs, I intend to roleplay Charname and his companions and to avoid extensive metagaming. However, due to time constraints with my write-ups I'm unsure how much of that will be reflected in my reports.
Irenicus' Dungeon
Shortly after they had saved the Sword Coast and prevented war with Amn, Gerland and his friends set out on the road to Rashemen, not least because Gerland's fame and his sinister heritage would sooner or later draw the attention of equally sinister people. Unfortunately this happened sooner much rather than later. Very close to the place where Gorion had given his life for Gerland three seasons before, it was his love Dynaheir who did the same for the Skald, much against his own will.
During their escape the four slew dozens of Duergar (including a Mage that cast all manner of mind-affecting spells at Minsc and Gerland),
Gerland found some of his old belongings (Claw of Kazgaroth, Metaspell Influence Amulet, Ashideena), but most of his equipment was gone. The party promised three Dryad slaves to bring their acorns to the Windspear Hills so as to release them from captivity, and they escaped the dungeon with a temporary fifth member, a Bounty Hunter named Yoshimo. This is Gerland's character record by the way, shortly after Yoshimo joined the party.
Circus Tent
At Waukeen's Promenade, Gerland saw Cowled Wizards arrest Irenicus and Imoen for illegal use of magic. The remaining four sold some goods, and then split up. Gerland proceeded to explore the city with only Jaheira by his side. The two first rested. The following day Gerland cast Find Familiar as his Pseudo Dragon had disappeared in Irenicus' Dungeon. With Jaheira, he investigated recent disappearances at the city's circus. Shadows and Werewolves drained and injured Jaheira,
Outside the circus tent a young girl who worked with the circus gave Gerland one Jafir's lamp, that could supposedly be used to summon a Genie. The Skald cast Stoneskin on himself not much later, earning himself a first and final warning from the Cowled Wizards. He learned that he would have to procure a license in order to freely cast spells wthin the city.
A rogue named Gaelan Bayle offered Gerland help in tracking down Irenicus and Imoen, but asked no less than 20k GP for that service, not an amount of gold that Gerland was carrying around at that time.
Skinner Murders, part 1
The three companions discovered that street crime was rampant in Athkatla, for example in the Bridge District,
Slavery at the Copper Coronet
In the city's slums, the party visited the infamous Copper Coronet inn, where Helmite warrior priest Anomen Delryn joined their ranks. Like Aerie, he too came a lot more experienced than Gerland and Jaheira for some reason. In a pit Gerland battled a fellow named Amalas, who had repeatedly taunted the young Skald. A combination or physical might and arcane skill decided the battle in Gerland's favor.
Slaver ambush
On their way there, they got ambushed in the wilderness by a ruffian named Eldarin and his band, slavers out for revenge. This was very unexpected. I never had the Suna Seni/Eldarin ambush in the wilds. The battle that ensued, went horribly wrong for the party, literally. First of all their invisibilities had expired. (I must have rested before traveling, at the end of one gaming session.) Gerland and Aerie got Slowed early on, which made uninterrupted spell-casting all the harder. Both pulled off a Stoneskin, but Gerland saw himself Dominated before he could do anything else. In the meantime Anomen and Jaheira, both blinded by Glitterdust were battling some of the enemies. Jaheira summoned a Spirit Snake in hopes of poisoning the enemy wizard. The two priests and the Spirit Snake were effectively neutralized for some time by a Horror. Slowed Aerie saw her Stoneskins rapidly peeled by the slaver archers, and fell before her companions came to their senses again.
Umar Hills, part 1
The companions carried out a number of simple tasks for some of the locals, and they traced the source of the dark, shadowy evil that had befallen Imnesvale and the Umar Hills to a nearby ruined temple. Gerland and Anomen became good friends appreciative as they were of each other's past feats, guided by knightly principles such as honor, loyalty, and virtue, and open about their past.
Back in Athkatla the first reinforcement to the party was a Gnomish racketeer named Jan Jansen. He wasn't exactly the type that upright folk like Gerland, Aerie, or Anomen would normally associate with, but what thief was? Most importantly, the party needed a competent handler of locks and traps, and the Gnome's skills as an Illusionist were a welcome addition to the magic of Aerie and Gerland. Jan also had a knack for incoherent meanderings that amused Gerland more than a little but drove his companions crazy. Soon enough however, Jan would become a valued member of the company.
Poisoned Renfeld
On their way to the Bridge District, the companions ran into another ambush, a group of ruffians with an injured man upon the ground. The ruffians attacked but stood no chance against Anomen's blinding Holy Smite, Jaheira's Insect Plague, and Jan's Chaos.
Skinner Murders, part 2
With the help of Jan's trap disarmament skills, the party managed to safely navigate the Tanner Shop. They they found the tanner, Rejiek Hidesman, in a basement with a small dock. Unfortunately he escaped.
Excursion to Graveyard District; Death of Anomen's Sister
The party of five visited the Graveyard District, and spoke with a man that had been buried alive. (The party would later slay the perpetrators of this and similar crimes, acting in self-defense.) The companions also defeated several types of Spiders in the crypts, albeit with some difficulty,
When their dealings at the Graveyard District were done, a man named Terl brought Anomen dire tidings. His sister Moira had been murdered. Anomen's foul-mouthed father suspected Saerk, a rival of his, and expected Anomen to avenge his sister's death by assassinating Saerk. Anomen had mixed feelings about the way to go, and Gerland fully understood his friend. The Skald eventually conviced the priest not to exact revenge on Saerk, even after the city's authorities refused to prosecute the man due to a lack of evidence.
Umar Hills, part 2
With Jan in their midst and with Azuredge, a war axe that could instantly kill undead upon hit, in Gerland's possession the party decided to try once more to eliminate the evil that plagued the Umar Hills. Azuredge and Anomen's castings of Free Action certainly helped a lot against the Shadows and Skeleton Warriors that inhabited the Temple Ruins.
Note: I did the fight against the Shade Lord twice, allowing myself a reload when hitting him before he had completed his talk turned out to make him unkillable. The combat log would say he had taken damage, for example from Jaheira's sunstone bullets, but his status would say he remained uninjured.
A heavily buffed Anomen (agility potion, HP+DUHM+RM, Skald song for optimal ranged Thac0), hit the Shade Lord with a Sol's Searing Orb. The creature failed its save, meaning it got blinded for twelve rounds, in addition to suffering fire damage. Meanwhile Aerie slew the Shadow spawning altar with a sunstone bullet.
The party carried out one last inspection of the ruins before heading back to Imnesvale. When they opened a cell door they found a Halfling Truesword of Arvoreen, Mazzy, whose companions had sadly perished in their attempt at stopping the Shade Lord. Mazzy joined the party.
Slaver Stockade
Back in Athkatla the party undertook a number of simpler missions (such as some work for the Shadow Thieves, though nothing dishonorable, an attempt to persuade sculptor Sarles to work for the Temple of Helm, and exposing Neb the child killer). Their first larger mission was to deal with the slavers as they had promised Hendak they would. They found a secret entrance to the compound via the sewers. In the room they entered, Anomen's clerical buffs enabled him to occupy a priest of Cyric and several slavers on his own while most of the other companions focused on their captain when they noticed he was injuring Mazzy with his throwing axes.
Watcher's Keep, 1st level, part 1
A call from a group of servants of Helm led the company to Watcher's Keep, a massive hold said to contain some extremely powerful evil somewhere that had to be sealed away for good. The companions only explored the first level, and soon found themselves discouraged by level-draining Vampiric Wraiths.
Personal problems for Gerland's companions
Upon arrival in Trademeet, the party found the town under attack by wild animals. This was something they would have to investigate. Also, another messenger accosted the party. This time it was Sir Ryan Trawl, asking Anomen to return to Athkatla for his knighthood test. The companions first helped Mazzy's sister who, as it turned out, had been poisoned by drinking a potion concocted by a priest of Talona. The antidote they found on the priest's corpse.
In Athkatla, messenger number 3 appeared, a cousin of Jan's, informing the Gnome that his former love and her diseased child were at the Jansen home. The party witnessed the knighting of Sir Anomen,
Trademeet & Druid Grove
Trademeet had two problems. Trade had been monopolized by the Dao Djinns, and the earlier witnessed animal attacks had not ceased. The party, with Mazzy once more in it, solved the first problem with little difficulty. Jan set a couple of snares in and around their tent, and when the Dao refused to leave those traps and the party's attacks ensured the departure of the Dao.
The animal attacks turned out to be the work of Shadow Druids that operated from a nearby Grove. In the forest the party battled Spiders, several Trolls (including the dreaded Spirit variants) that Mazzy would slay with fire arrows, an Elder Earth Elemental,
The party finally dealt with Rejiek Hidesman and one of his accomplices, and procured the Temple of Waukeen for mayor Logan Coprith before they left Trademeet for Athkatla.
In Athkatla again, the party paid Cromwell the Dwarf 15k GP to forge the Gnasher and Blackblood clubs, two weapons they had brought from Trademeet, into the Pitchwife +5 for Jaheira.
Meddling with Harpers
Xzar, an old acquaintance of Gerland's, begged the party to break into the Harper estate to free Montaron who was said to be held there. Before the companions were allowed in, they had to agree to a task: stop Conjurer wizards Prebek and Sanasha and destroy their summoned creatures. This proved easier said than done. Sir Anomen flirted with death as he became the sole target of the enemy's attacks. Fortunately his temporarily increased health kept him going.
The companions did a job for the Temple of Lathander, retrieving a Dawn Ring that Talassans had stolen from them, and saw Jaheira return the next day. They paid Gaelan Bayle 15k GP for the help of the Shadow Thieves in finding Imoen and Irenicus, and revisited the Harper hold to witness one Galvarey ask Gerland all manner of loaded questions and interpret the Skald's answers in the most unpleasant ways. Things got ugly when Galvarey threatened to Imprison Gerland, as per the spell. Jaheira chose Gerland's side, and proved a valuable member once more with an Insect Plague cast at the enemy while they were busy casting their Remove Magics at the party. This pretty much the decided the battle for Gerland and his friends.
d'Arnise Keep
It seemed a good moment for Jaheira to be away from the city again for a while, so it was decided that the companions would try to claim the Arnise Keep, which had been occupied by Trolls and Yuan-Tis. By that time Sir Anomen, Jaheira, and Mazzy had become a well-oiled attacking machine. Besides their elemental weapons, i.e. Sir Anomen's Flail of the Ages forged at the keep, Jaheira's club, and Mazzy's elemental arrows were too much even for packs of Trolls. Gerland contributed mainly with his song, and Jan with his lockpicking and trap-detection skills. Aerie simply stood ready for emergency situations.
1st level: gives allies +2 to hit, +2 to damage, -2 to AC and immunity to Fear
9th level: gives allies +3 to hit, +3 to damage, -3 to AC, immunity to Fear and Confusion
18th level: gives allies +4 to hit, +4 to damage, -4 to AC, immunity to Fear, Stun and Confusion.