How far can I get if I only ever follow the critical path - aka the main storyline?
There are some very specific rules for this. I'm basically walking in a straight line from primary objective to primary objective, but I'm not going for the shortest possible approach ... I'm basically following primary quest dialogue and journal entries in regards to what is part of the "critical path", so I will go to FAI, fully explore the Iron Throne HQ etc..
An interesting challenge. I've done a BG1-only challenge with a somewhat similar objective of minimum in-game time. That one's more restricted in its path: no backtracking so shopping is very limited, and not even any sleep after leaving Candlekeep.
That run beat Sarevok in the early morning of day 13. I wonder what you'll be at?
Comparing status ... your druid earned level 4 (7500 XP) killing Dave. My mostly solo illusionist/thief earned level 3/4 (10000 XP) with that same kill. Your party is clearly far better at fighting - but then, I chose the I/T because they're the best at not fighting.
I did visit one area your party didn't: High Hedge. Because going through there on the way to Beregost is just as fast as going through the crossroads, and Thalantyr sells scrolls of invisibility that I absolutely need.
One of my favorite bits of that run is the bandit camp solution: just use invisibility to run past everything, disarm and loot the key chest, re-up invisibility, and leave without any fighting. You see, the party in the tent only goes hostile when one particular member talks to you, and he doesn't have a clear sightline on the space in front of the chest. No non-hostile entry, though; it's fastest to reach the camp through the east edge of the ankheg farm map, so that's what I did after learning the location from Deke.
@jmerry Interesting. Yeah, trying this with a solo character would be very different - there are a bunch of level 1 solo runs around youtube that just don't level up at all, but I think they make use of some more merchants/goodies around the map. A lot of speedrun tactics might be useful here as well, but I kept things as conventional as possible, as the intent is to see if the game is designed in such a way that not concerning yourself with any sidecontent is feasable at all for an average player, considering that at least 90% of BG1 is side content.
Critical Path Challenge - Conclusion
So, we enter the Gate and we get the opportunity to shop at Sorcerous Sundries - all our money is gone right away, as we get a few key potions, scrolls and wands. I decided to do Scar's first two quests - they are arguably part of the main questline, even though they can be skipped. No trouble at Seven Suns, and we silenced the sewer ogre mage:
Now, time to get the most out of our money: We spend gold on potions of explosion and oils of fiery burning, because we need mass fireballs to beat the Iron Throne HQ party. We had already bought a wand of fire upon entering the city and 2 wands of the heavens for Viconia and Lada - it's a big fiery battle with some stair-kiting, potion-throwing, wand-throwing and very little conventional combat, as these enemies would easily outclass our party. I'll just let a bunch of screenshots speak for themselves:
That's level 5 for our party, and a very nice victory.
We make it to Candlekeep, explore the catacombs for a bit and make use of wands of monster summoning, of the heavens and of fire to deal with Prat&co - plus silence, of course:
Xan, importantly, reaches level 5 down there as well, which means that we can use spells such as haste and slow for the few remaining battles.
With chant, bless and haste plus everyone having at least a +1 weapon, our fighting abilities are actually adequate for this state of the game now - we annihilate the guards at the Flaming Fist HQ upon our return, for example:
After defeating Sarevok's girlfriend, we encounter Larze and deal with the undercellar assassins:
With so few battles to actually do, we don't have to concern ourselves with wand charges at all and can just use them whenever they seem useful. However, we are still low on gold - Crucially, we can not get all the potions I actually want to have. I'm lacking in magic shielding and magic blocking, as I decided to spend more on wands/scrolls, and, most importantly, a LOT of money (everything we had left) on as many dispelling arrows as possible instead. A chaos scroll from Xan is our ticket for a successful ducal palace battle:
We have one protection from undead scroll, and we use it for the skeletons in the labyrinth:
At the Undercity, there's another dangerous party to face. We start with silence from off-screen, buff Khalid with a strength potion and fire resistance, turn him invisible and send in Viconia's (rather weak) skeletons with Khalid. The goal is to remove any chance of getting hit with detonation arrows, as the party waits off screen - and it works out rather well:
In the end, our party is at levels 5/6, with Lada, having the advantage of quick druid level progression in the early stages, at level 6. We're at 31 562 XP, to be exact. Certainly underleveled, but not a level that I'd feel would make the Sarevok battle impossible.
We buff with all the potions we have remaining, Khalid speedily approaches, using a dispelling arrow to engage Sarevok:
However, something goes wrong. Maybe I didn't have Khalid move away fast enough - usually, when I do this, I only get Sarevok and Semaj, while the others stay behind. This time, Tazok and Angelo join in as well. However, they take a while to arrive - things look good at first - Semaj teleports in, we pelt him with dispelling arrows:
However, here is were the trouble begins - I didn't think much of Semaj's chances to achieve anything, expecting to just shoot him down with ease, as he was without protections. The thing is, our damage output, APR and thac0 is not great despite all of the potions (this is where low levels do come into play), and he completely catches me off guard with a tattoo of power: chaos (which is basically like a spell trigger - an instant chaos spell on the party). I didn't see it in time, much of the party was affected by greater malison earlier, and I wouldn't have had enough potions to protect the party anyway (though enough to maybe survive). Well, everyone but Xan got affected (with Jaheira dire charmed from a previous spell) - Semaj was simply alive for too long. Angelo had joined in at this point and started shooting detonation arrows at the party, and we could do nothing anymore to prevent our demise:
I'm not too familiar with all of Semaj's special abilities (though I did read up on him on the wiki afterwards), so that propably didn't help. Usually, I'm just able to kill him before he does anything too dangerous. He was alive for too long - one or two more hits and we propably would have made it, as the others wouldn't have been too much of a challenge.
Well, it was a fun and quick challenge (propably around 4-5 hours of real playtime - ingame time is 27 days 6 hours, obviously with no resting restrictions). This at least saves me the headache of deciding what would actually be part of the critical path in BG2, as to get the 15k gold, at least SOME side content is neccessary - I'd guess it would be the "natural" class stronghold of the main character, and then off to Brynnlaw? And then you get to choose which type of blood to obtain in the Underdark, I guess. It does sound quite challenging, but I imagine it would certainly be possible with the right party, even in a no-reload setting.
As mentioned in the lounge, I've also played another type of run in the meantime - more updates to come.
This at least saves me the headache of deciding what would actually be part of the critical path in BG2, as to get the 15k gold, at least SOME side content is necessary - I'd guess it would be the "natural" class stronghold of the main character, and then off to Brynnlaw?
I'm in the minority here, but I've always felt that this is the best way to play SoA. You get variation between runs and the balancing works out nicely. The main storyline fights are suitably epic and you feel like an underdog in most of them. In contrast, when you take a completionist approach most of the storyline encounters feel perfunctory, on account of the excess XP and loot acquired from side quests.
In my early days as a player I'd allow myself one chapter 2 stronghold quest, one Underdark elder, and no more than two of the optional challenge foes (ie-Firkraag, Thaxxy, Guarded Compound, Twisted Rune, Kangaxx). Watcher's Keep was completely off limits until ToB since it offers too much XP and loot.
My first successful Trilogy no reload, the second in the challenge's history and the first with Ascension, was played this way, more or less. My PC, a sorcerer named Alanis, traveling in a party of 5, didn't get HLAs until Grominir. She fought Melissan at level 23. To this day that remains my most satisfying play through.
I've been nudged into a more completionist approach by the influence of peers, and have tacked towards solo play, since it tends to resonate with readers, for some reason, but I've long sought to return to my original style of play. It makes sense to me and it feels right.
In any case, all this is to say, Enuhal, that I support your endeavor and applaud the initiative. I feel inspired to try a party run structured like Alanis's. I think it would be fun. I'd be very interested in seeing a BGII run from you with a similar structure.
Cheers,
A.
Btw, as an fyi, Alanis didn't have much in the way of routing restrictions in BG1. My approach wasn't to impose arbitrary limits, but to more or less follow the logic of the story and the game design. BG1 is designed for open exploration and the story doesn't cultivate a sense of urgency until after the return to Candlekeep. In SoA, in contrast, there is an implicit sense of urgency associated with the rescue of Imoen. Additionally, the game strongly encourages you to face Irenicus ASAP after Spellhold, via the Ellesime dream sequence.
Balance wise, I've always felt BG1 is fine, with or without side questing, more or less. I wish the original BG1 cap applied up until Sarevok, and that the ToSC content could be completed after Sarevok, with the ToSC cap, but aside from that I feel BG1 is ok. SoA, however, is kind of ruined by the ToB cap, and extensive side-questing exacerbates the problem.
I'm in the minority here, but I've always felt that this is the best way to play SoA. You get variation between runs and the balancing works out nicely. The main storyline fights are suitably epic and you feel like an underdog in most of them. In contrast, when you take a completionist approach most of the storyline encounters feel perfunctory, on account of the excess XP and loot acquired from side quests.
My instincts for the game have always been quite different - I was a child when I first played Baldur's Gate II (truthfully, I first watched my older brother play it before ever touching it myself, as I wasn't allowed too much time on our home computer yet), and I was always incredibly impressed by the cutscene upon leaving the opening dungeon - I thought that Irenicus was incredibly powerful, almost invicible and capable of destroying every foe with a single spell, as I had no idea that these were only "cutscene powers" - We never made it to Spellhold in our first few runs, always restarting with new classes and party combinations, and in our mind, we needed every single bit of experience available to even try and stand a chance against such a powerful wizard (it didn't help that we didn't even know about the existence of quite a few quests and battles) - cowled wizards (which we did know due to fighting Rayic Gethras or accidentally battling them due to casting too many spells) already seemed incredibly powerful, but someone who could take them out that easily? Almost unbeatable. We did feel sorry for Imoen, but we thought that any rescue attempt would end in immediate death without us being at our most powerful.
Nowadays I'm a completionist to my core and can only play runs such as this one by placing strict restrictions on myself, otherwise I would find excuses to propably do almost all of the content, because it pains me to leave a quest unfinished - goes against a strong sense of order in the back of my mind, which is why it's unlikely that I will return to such a challenge very soon. The only thing I generally feel fine skipping is SoD (because of it being a latecomer and the gameplay not always being very fun) and TotSC content (which I generally only skip in non-SCS runs - mostly because I can easily self-restrict by placing an entire addon in the "no"-pile, as it feels more like its own thing).
I thought that Irenicus was incredibly powerful, almost invicible and capable of destroying every foe with a single spell, as I had no idea that these were only "cutscene powers"...We did feel sorry for Imoen, but we thought that any rescue attempt would end in immediate death without us being at our most powerful.
Interesting. I can imagine thinking that as a first time player, particularly as a child, but surely by now you know that's not the case. Similarly, surely by now you know that a party with maxed out experience can beat Irenicus with ease, both at the Tree and in Hell.
The ToB cap distorts and trivializes much of SoA. That's a given. The question is what should be done about it. Restore the SoA cap? Play with an across the board XP nerf, say 50% for parties and 70% for solo runs? Restrict side questing, targeting the first HLA to arrive around Gromnir? They're all reasonable solutions. More reasonable than simply ignoring the problem.
I, personally, would love to see one or all of those solutions employed more widely in the player community. SoA is a great chapter and it deserves sensible balancing.
In any case, it's a worthy discussion, but one better suited to the lounge. I'd be happy to continue there, if you like.
Interesting. I can imagine thinking that as a first time player, particularly as a child, but surely by now you know that's not the case. Similarly, surely by now you know that a party with maxed out experience can beat Irenicus with ease, both at the Tree and in Hell.
Yes, of course, but these early experiences have propably influenced my completionist tendencies to some degree. Nowadays, I would argue that all 3 incarnations of Irenicus are propably the major SoA encounters most in need off stronger buffs via SCS.
The Halflings, Introduction
A long time ago, during the BGT/Tutu days, I tried my hand at playing a party of 4 halflings, covering the 4 basic classes available to the race at that point (fighter, barbarian (which wasn't a fighter kit at the time), cleric and thief). I stopped these runs at some point, mostly due to a lack of motivation, but have returned to this type of party in recent times.
This party was played over the course of a rather long time - I started them before even playing the Avatar run, stopped, picked them up again after that (and sometimes during if I felt like playing on less challenging settings), stopped again while doing the critical path challenge and returned to them after that. This was not meant to be a particularily challenging run - in fact, I was looking for something with a good likelyhood of success, because this is me returning to the project of getting the remaining classes/kits into the Hall of Heroes. With that goal in mind, this was an unmodded core rules runt. By now, I am getting a bit sick of powering through the game with cookie cutter parties on unmodded core rules - so, to spice things up at least a little bit, themed parties are needed - I have quite a few concepts in the back of my mind which I will try my hand at eventually, but the halfing party, due to already having been an earlier project, was the first to be attempted.
I'm doubling down on having no arcane spellcaster by not allowing myself to use spellscrolls via UAI. The lack of arcane support should be no trouble at all in BG1 and SoA and might only become a noticable obstacle in ToB, but I'm not too worried about it. The plus side is: We don't have to spend as much time buffing the party! Great!
Since we don't have improved haste, I'm going for two-handed weapons on my barbarian and fighter, as they're going to go for GWWs anyway. I decided to improve our combat abilities by turning the fighter into a berserker and the thief into a swashbuckler.
The party is led by our cleric, Narescha, chosen as the Bhaalspawn because unkitted clerics are (for good reason) very rarely played and not that likely to make it into the Hall otherwise:
Here's our barbarian, Garam, who will mostly use halberds throughout the game:
The berserker, Nerix, mostly wielding two-handed swords:
And our swashbuckler, Jorna, using scimitars most of the time:
Now, due to the fact that a lot of this was played quite a while ago and the early game is very unremarkable with a party such as this in on our standard settings, I won't be going into much detail about our approach unless something interesting happens. We had no trouble using aggressive command spells to take down most enemies in the early game, visisted the basilisks for some good early experience and started adding hold person and silence into the mix - with these spells at our disposal, there was very little in the wilderness areas to stop us from obtaining some very powerful weapons for our party:
At this point, clearing the Nashkel mine was mostly trivial:
With only 4 party members and a single-class cleric, access to skeletons was quickly gained and allowed us to gather even more experience from foes such as the sirens or even the red wizards:
Soon after that, we finished clearing all wilderness areas and invaded the bandit camp:
I misclicked in Cloakwood when talking to Tiber and failed to obtain his quest. Oh well. While in the area, Narescha reached cleric level 7, which means a huge upgrade for our skeletons - allowing us to take down the ghost at Durlag's and Kahrk himself:
We already have most of our typical buffs available now: PfE 10' radius, remove fear, bless and chant. Basically, in SoA we will add death ward and chaotic commands (and eventually mostly skip bless and chant because I'm lazy), and that will be it for most battles. That's a rather quick routine.
In the previous run, we had to silence enemies such as Drasus' mages from off-screen. No need for that in this much more powerful party, but silence is still great:
Fireballs from a necklace, berserker rage and skeletons respectively allowed us to quickly deal with the various wizards down in the mines:
Here we are at the grand finale of BG1, starting with Slythe and Krystin.
Sorsha had two alternative battle plans - either go all-in on buffs with green ProMagic scroll, Violet Potion, Potion of Agility, Potion of Fortitude, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense and Oil of Speed, or use the jelly form via Polymorph: Self (for 100% piercing and magic resistances). Confident with the more straightforward approach, she opted for the first option.
At the cost of one Potion of Firebreath, Slythe fell without landing a single hit.
Sorsha collected the documents and headed straight to the palace. She quaffed Potion of Power, equipped Arrows of Dispelling and engaged with the dukes.
Our aim was to dispel as many doppelgangers as possible early on and then quickly overwhelm them with Aule's. We had a good start, although one of the assassin managed to land a backstab on Sorsha, forcing her to quaff a Potion of Regeneration.
Then came the much feared Chaos move by the doppelganger mage. Fortunately, none of the confused Flaming Fists went after Sarevok.
Sorsha had enough space to start clearing up the field, assisted by her Wand of Monster Summoning.
The good news was that we reached the XP cap and level 10, the bad news was that we lost Belt.
Liia did a good job staying out of danger and Sorsha was able to take out the mage with dispel and acid arrows.
By using one additional charge of Wand of Monster Summoning and tanking Sarevok ourselves, we were able to keep Liia safe until Sarevok's departure.
With our buffs intact, Sorsha quaffed a PoI and rushed through the maze and the Undercity and finally confronted Sarevok in the temple.
We opened with a dispel on Sarevok.
Afterwards, we employed some rather cheap tactics with our Arrows of Detonation.
Potion of Firebreath on Diarmid. Two down.
Back to Arrows of Detonation. Three down.
And a goodbye kiss for Tazok by Aule's. Four down.
Once on his own, Sarevok failed his save against Wand of Paralyzation (note his position - for once, we wanted to have him right in the middle of the circle to coincide with the final animation).
Final offensive push with Aule's and summons.
Retrospectively, I wish we'd employed more interesting tactics during the final fight (I'm looking at you Malison + Captive Audience), but the important thing is that we prevailed, despite the dangerous moments during the Ducal Palace fight.
I'm looking forward to start posting on Sorsha's progress in SoA soon.
Trio 51 - Hell, Illsaera, Saradush, Forest of MIr, Nyalee's area, Marching Mountains
Corecleric XX - halfling priest of Lothander, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Mirazi - human mage (Grond0)
Betson - dark moon monk (Gate70)
So when we arrive in hell on our load, MIrazi has to equip everything, as she had died at the Tree of Life. We then do the good routes for the first 4 challenges, going counter-clockwise direction starting with the dragon challenge. Corecleric then uses the 4 tears and then confronts Sarevok. Sarevok's weapon can't hurt Coecleric now, so it's an easy if slow fight.
Corecleric does some summons for the main even and a few buffs. Mirazi didn't have any mirror images available and we didn't bother resting. This proved costly as demons immediately killed her. Betson and Corecleric were able to kill the demons - Corecleric resurrected and healed Mirazi then we resumed our battles vs Irenicus. We didn't have too much trouble though Betson took a bit of damage.
Time for Illsaera! Well sort of - Corey_Russell's game locked up so we had to reload and reconnect. Illsaera died quick - the true seeing of Corecleric plus Mirazi's horrid wilting were too much. Mirazi has been using horrid wilting to very good effect this session.
We then deal with the first pocket plane challenge - this went well, with only real enemies arriving at the end. Betson got level drained but was nothing Corecleric couldn't fix. Time for Saradush! This battle was hard, as our pre-invisibility trick didn't work. Party took a ton of damage but we did win the fight. We did some of the basic quests here, like doing the spell book quest, resurrecting the boy's father, rescuing the countess son and so on.
We then worked our way to Gromnir. Fighting to Gromnir went pretty smooth. This time pre-invisibility worked which allowed up to set up some ambushes. One of the mages failed to die to Mirazi's spells and then they did a time stop and symbol stun on Mirazi - however Mirazi saved and horrid wiltings, deva and storm of vengeance once again win the day. Well sort of. After talking to Melissan, a thief came out of nowhere and backstabbed Betson - they came late to the party but it didn't help them.
We proceeded to the Forest of Mir. The battles here went OK, although Betson took huge damage from a fire giant, but Corecleric and Mirazi were able to save him. As for the undead at Nyalee's grove, well turn undead killed them all except a vampiric mist and the "boss". Surprisingly a sunray killed the boss, the mist died shortly after.
Time to go to Marching Mountains. For the mass of giants at the entrance, we decided to go invisible and throw in a mordy sword as a distraction then Mirazi and Corecleric threw in a ton of spells - success!
We got a reality check in the next batch of fire giants, I think someone died here not sure, but we did win. More re-equipping and resting and for the next batch of trolls Mirazi tried a surprise - a sequencer with 3 horrid wilitings. It did not work well at all, however. Corecleric got to single digit health. He had to go invis, heal, buff then re-engage. He was able to kill the trolls but not before both Mirazi and Betson bit it. But we got strange bug where Corecleric couldn't raise dead. Corecleric tried to go to the pocket plane but game locked up! So finally we reload but now e find duplicate equipment. What's even stranger, is equipment we did NOT have like the cloak +2 (we forgot to loot it in the Shark City) suddenly appeared! Mirazi scooped that up.
This was all very strange but eventually we rested in our plane, saved our session and wonder what will be in store next week?
I will rejoin Wanda and her exploits later, but first and introduction to two Neutral Clerics who are as different as chalk and cheese.
Firstly Hilda is Lawful, a Holy Redeemer and of course Lawful as all Holy Redeemers are. Tempo is the opposite, Male. Chaotic and a follower of Tempus. For those unfamiliar with the Holy Redeemer kit, it makes the cleric into a slightly better fighter with the drawbacks of not being able to raise the undead or to resurrect the dead. IMO that makes it a fairly balanced kit.
Journal of Hilda and Tempo
If we hadn't been raised together, Tempo's occasional acts of illegality would probably have been sufficient to break up our friendship. However, we care for each other and the fact that we are both neutrally aligned does help.
Everyone can tell that we both have some divine ancestry, but from which god, or gods?
We started off relatively wealthy.
We killed the improved assassins in Candlekeep. Tempo when accused of theft killed the watcher. Not surprising since he is a follower of Tempus. He really likes a good fight! As well as experience, we acquired decent armour from this conflict!
The downside was that we lost reputation, and as I said to Alec, I really want to become a hero.
I had a decidedly raunchy time with a guard. I won't be any more explicit than that.
After the death of Gorion we helped Melicamp, calmed Marl, took a tome to Firebead and headed south to Nashkel.
Picked up some armour there and turned down a reward from Oublek. Killed Zargos Flintblade and took the Colquetle amulet to the family.
Headed north where we killed an ogre and thence to the FAI. Helped Joia, killed Zordral and Sonner before killing all the ankheg that we could find.
I've not thought much about the completionist XP problem. I'm always super anxious about Sarevok, Belhifet, to some extent Irenicus, and especially Melissan, and so I hate to pass up on even the most situational pieces of loot, or hit the next level just a single fight later. Seeing my Sniper die at the Throne partially because I failed to bring the Shield of Reflection kinda reinforces that for me.
But I have noticed the game becoming less fun at certain stages of the saga. Late BG1 often feels like a treasure hunt for raw gold, mid-SoA feels like a treasure hunt for key items, late SoA ends up being super reliant on top-tier spells and items, and then ToB ends up being a nervous rush through a handful of mandatory fights. The most fun parts of the game, in retrospect, are when I use a variety of lower-level tools with a weaker party, rather than a narrow number of "silver bullets."
I'm in mid-SoA with a solo cleric/illusionist who just broke 3 million XP today, and I expect the gameplay to get less complex as a result.
But then, the most fun scenarios I can think of, the lower-level party runs with different abilities and no silver bullets, are an imposing ask for a no-reload run. I only have so much patience for failed runs and slow game progression these days. A BG1 run that takes more than a couple days feels like a slog; a death after the Cloakwood feels like a lot of lost time.
Maybe it's time I tried a party of custom characters, like I used to do years ago. Build up a weird gimmick and see how it plays out, and speed up gameplay by skipping side quests instead of fussing over seconds saved with CTRL-J.
The most fun parts of the game, in retrospect, are when I use a variety of lower-level tools with a weaker party, rather than a narrow number of "silver bullets."
Interesting thought, Semiticgoddess. I agree.
Let's continue this discussion over in the Lounge.
I didn't think that reading about so many runs at once seemed of much interest so I stopped keeping notes of progress in SoA. I've not been playing a lot, but had managed to get 5 of the 6 remaining characters through to my next intended break-point (arrival at Brynnlaw after doing all the chapter 2 and 3 quests). However, bad habits surfaced with the fighter/druid to bring a premature close to that run ...
Fighter/thief 21/24, 139 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1046 kills (+436 in BGEE/SoD)
With reputation only up at 19, I've bought almost nothing to date (and haven't indulged in any stealing). However, with shorty saving throws, decent HPs and thief abilities a high level F/T doesn't really need top-line equipment.
Fighter/mage/cleric 17/16/18, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 847 kills (+451 in BGEE/SoD)
With intelligence of only 10, I didn't bother trying to learn any more mage spells until just before leaving for Brynnlaw. However, with the help of genius potions I do now have a good selection of those and should be well placed to make further progress.
Fighter/druid dominated by a nymph at level 11/13 while attacking Kyland Lind and his druids in the Grove.
That was the last of the 6 characters remaining at that stage to be played and I just got careless. I only used the efreeti as a summons to take on Kyland Lind and didn't have any buffs, but initially that didn't seem like a problem. The penultimate druid though managed to beat my call lightning with an insect plague and then summoned a nymph just as I finished him off with the Crimson Dart. I tried to shoot the nymph down in turn, but again didn't quite make it before it released a hold spell - and I didn't equip the Shield of Harmony or use a potion to defend against that. With me now helpless, the nymph took full advantage with a domination.
Fighter 32, 174 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1,117 kills (+535 in BGEE/SoD)
One problem with this run is that Kangaxx's change to demi-lich form bugged out, meaning no Ring of Gaxx. Shorty saving throws and fighter HPs mean that's less serious for this character than it would be for some others though and I should still have a realistic shot at completing the run.
Wizard slayer died at level 9 to hobgoblin command approaching the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms.
Enchanter 27, 89 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone; 12 from familiar), 656 kills (+405 in BGEE/SoD)
As is pretty typical for my runs, I bought almost nothing until reputation hit 20 - which took quite a while. That and the specialist class restriction meant I had relatively few spells available at higher levels and I made a lot of use of air elementals and efreeti in the earlier stages of this session. I'm better prepared for the future now, but class restrictions (like the lack of sequencers) may become an issue in ToB.
Fighter dualling to cleric 13/30, 174 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 842 kills (+588 in BGEE/SoD)
Clerical summons were used a lot at low levels, but once I got berserker levels back I acted more as a fighter - with occasional boosts from clerical buffs. Saving throws are a weakness for this character though and I'll have to be careful if I want to avoid a similar fate to that of the fighter/druid.
Barely an hour into a "minimalist" run and we died to a critical hit from a kobold at level 1! Courtesy of the "no bonus damage" bug, no less. We were in the Nashkel Mines and had some kobold commandos to deal with, and when I tried to order our many archers to attack the next one in the back, our main character picked a bad angle and got too close. She died in a single second.
Our mage was a Plasma Wizard, which notably doesn't get any spell slots until level 2. Without Sleep, or a metagame decision to buy the Wand of Sleep from High Hedge, we were facing the enemy head on.
I think a low-level run is probably more fun once you hit level 2. I'm having flashbacks to my earliest experiences with BG1, when there was no metagame cushion against one-hit kills.
@semiticgoddess I'm glad to hear you're attempting a low meta, limited side quest run. I hope you'll post on any future attempts.
I'm currently running a solo priest of Talos over at TavernRPG. She's on her way to the Marching Mountains now. Once that run ends, I'd be happy to undertake a low meta, limited side quest party run, too. Maybe we can run in parallel? I wouldn't mind cross posting.
After examining the stats of the goblins in the game and have discovered this:
Maximum Strength: 17
Maximum Dexterity: 17
Maximum Constitution: 17
Maximum Intelligence: 14
Maximum Wisdom: 17
Maximum Charisma: 15
So creating a goblin with those stats is certainly legal if I come up with a roll of 97.
Such a roll is extremely rare!
It looks to me as if high intelligence and charisma would be inappropriate.
The roll in the game that I am currently playing was 91.
When I looked at their resistances. It gave me a clue as to which race they were created from.
I would suspect human because there are goblin shamans and wizards and that appears to be the case. Their resistances are not high like dwarves. So when I roll a goblin, I will just use a human roll and avoid high intelligence and charisma.
A shame about the resistances.
I thought of running a goblin burial defender but EE Keeper doesn't recognise Burial Defender or Ancient Wrath so using Keeper to edit the appearance of a Burial Defender is impossible.
And here he is:
I reduced the initial reputation by 2 since M'Khiin in the party has that effect.
The low strength meant that most chests couldn't be opened.
Hull was killed for his plate armour!
I used EE Keeper for appearance as per below.
I intend to only use axes to help with imersion as the appearance doesn't change with change in weaponry.
After a lot of waffling and a couple of false starts, I am doing my second attempt at a Sniper run. This one, however, will be a low-meta, minimalist run with a party. Say hi to i eated a lemon!
The portrait is a silly drawing of Neko Arc enjoying a lemon, a joke character from a video game I've never played. I only saw her because she pops up in memes. But I've gotten attached to the character design because she's a furry little gremlin and I have an outfit that looks just like her. Big source of gender euphoria, actually.
We have two other custom NPCs for this run. Meet boykisser, our Barbarian!
Another meme portrait that the furry part of my brain wants to look like. I'm not sure what our party composition will look like in ToB, so I thought I'd play it safe and add a Barbarian, since it can tank some disablers in BG1 and dragons in ToB.
Last is an old character of mine, Poppy! Normally she's a druid or a sorcerer, but here, she's an illusionist.
My mods remove racial restrictions for classes, but I still feel compelled to obey them most of the time, since I'm so fond of gnomes and their save bonuses are so valuable, and a gnome sorcerer or druid would feel overpowered.
While I don't plan on going out of our way to snatch up key items or big sources of XP, I'm still willing to use metagame knowledge to snatch up items that are close to the main questline. That means we get a Star Sapphire from the Candlekeep inn, since boykisser's rage bonuses can crack open the container! We then pick up Imoen, Xzar, and Montaron as meat shields.
Poppy is vitally important for the early game. In fact, the main reason I even created her in the first place is because I was sure we'd need Sleep to stay safe in the Nashkel Mines. To my delight, Tarnesh is vulnerable to Sleep!
Inside, I abruptly drop Xzar and Montaron for Khalid and Jaheira, since I want better tanks. We kill the belted ogre with a flurry of ranged attacks on the way to Beregost, where we drop Imoen for Tiax! Tiax is one of my favorite characters for strictly mechanical reasons, and I figure his ghast summoning spell will only be more important for a lower-level run with lower-end gear.
Poppy's Sleep spell proves invaluable, knocking out the Beregost Spiders as well as the plate mail-wearing Flaming Fist folks on the road to Nashkel. After grabbing the Coquetle amulet, the note to Mirianne, and Landrin's items, we head back up north to collect some badly-needed XP and talk to Dorn.
I decide to take on Silke, reasoning that an opening Blindness+Command+Sunscorch combo from our casters, with a ghast's paralyzing attack on top, should give us a solid chance against her. Tiax manages to set a trap without killing himself before the fight, which disrupts Silke's opening Mirror Image.
A flurry of attacks brings her down before she can fry anyone with a Lightning Bolt.
We are on Tactical difficulty, which appears to limit enemy pre-buffing by a lot. I'm accustomed to Insane and Hardcore pre-buffs, but knowing that the only way to avoid a level 1 one-shot kill was to disable the "no bonus damage from difficulty" setting meant that it was unsafe to play on the higher difficulties. I might bump up the difficulty setting to Hardcore and disable bonus damage once we're out of level 1 territory.
Since we're in Beregost and i eated a lemon is a thieving gremlin, I snatch up a Potion of Invisibility and a Wand of Lightning from the Beregost mansion. I've always been sketchy about using Wands of Lightning, since the potential for killing a party member is so high, but being able to zap someone for 6d6 damage could save our lives someday.
On the way back down south, we finally trigger the Dorn ambush! I immediately draw i eated a lemon down south to keep her safe, then apply pressure on the enemy with Blindness, Sunscorch, and a ghast, followed by Command when Tiax's aura is clear. A quick burst of disablers makes a huge difference when enemies can kill a party member on the first round of combat.
i eated a lemon is now level 2! A huge milestone, though part of me wonders if I should have left her at level 1 so we'd have the immunity to a one-hit kill. I send Dorn back up to the Friendly Arm Inn.
The mines are next, but I have second thoughts about foregoing Dorn. It's probably wise to drop Khalid and Jaheira in favor of Dorn and Kagain. I feel like we're going to be under constant pressure to stay competitive with the enemy in this run.
Sadly, I'll have to decline for now. I'm currently playing only very casually and infrequently while listening to podcasts and other audio, so I'm currently more interested in the far easier themed vanilla completionist runs meant to fill the Hall of Heroes, rather than another more challenging run (especially one that goes against my hardwired completionist tendencies - it was hard enough to overcome these for a single run).
The Halflings, Update 1
We explore Baldur's Gate City quickly and efficiently. Difficult opponents are lured outside of their houses into waiting skeleton warriors and additionally attacked via wand of the heavens charges, turning even the ogre mage bounty hunters or the Degrodel's minions into easy pickings:
Necklaces of missles and explosive potions are used at the Iron Throne HQ - the enraged barbarian and berserker clean up the remaining foes:
Fighting through Candlekeep is easy enough at this point. We evade capture back in Baldur's Gate and assault the Flaming Fist HQ with a very successful silence spell:
Since we will skip TOTSC content and SoD (having a party of 4 grants us enough of a bonus to stay at comparable levels to a full party even when skipping all that in SoA after a while, or so we hope), we have enough potions to use them for basically every remaining encounter. Still, the ducal palace fight is not a safe thing with the unmodded Liia and no arcane spellpower on our side, so no easy options to chaos-confuse or malison/slow the doppelgangers. We have to buff up with strength potions + oils of speed and try to deal as much quick damage as possible while using arrows of dispelling to get rid of haste effects. This ends up barely working out, making this the only somewhat close call so far: Liia dies, and Belt does get injured a bit before we achieve victory:
Actually, we end up encountering an interesting bug/feature here: During the battle, Sarevok ends up trapped in the northern corner of the room - the timer is up, but he doesn't start his dialogue (nor does he attack anymore):
It seems like he needs to be closer to the center of the room to actually start his dialogue, which I figured out when I moved my skeletons away (took me a solid minute to think of this - before that, I thought that I might just be stuck):
We move to the undercity party. I planned to buff everyone with the green scroll and potion of fire protection, but it seems like I forgot to actually drink the potions, so when I started to firebomb the opposing party, we only had 50% fire resistance going and took some damage from opposing arrows of detonation - still a victory, though:
This time around, I didn't mess up my Sarevok pull - I moved back immediately and Semaj was the only one to appear - with higher levels, better gear and a bunch of skeleton warriors at my side, I was able to nuke him down before he used any tattoo of power (and I did have potions of magic shielding ready for everyone, just in case):
Sarevok turned up but was easily kited around and shot down:
Well, that went well enough - No character deaths in BG1, and no close calls except for the ducal palace. The halflings move on to SoA.
In my opinion, arcane spellcasting isn't really all that important in unmodded SoA. The spells I'm most likely to miss are haste, improved haste and breach. The lack of breach might force me to wait around a bit more until certain opposing caster buffs expire (easily done, just takes a bit of patience), the lack of haste means we deal less damage and will value oils of speed very highly, the lack of improved haste will hopefully eventually be offset by picking a lot of greater whirlwind HLAs on our fighters. On the plus side, our saving throws are already very good and will quickly go into fairly safe regions with a few extra levels and items (plus, we have cleric buffs).
One of the places SCS does something nice for you. Base game Tarnesh is level 5, but doesn't have any level 3 spells memorized; his memorization matches a level 4 generalist.
Looking at this, SCS chooses to make him level 4 properly. He gets a specialization as well because all SCS mages do, and adds a couple extra spell slots from that, but his top-line level still goes down.
You mentioned the Wand of Lightning - one thing to keep in mind is that lightning bolt targeting was changed in patch 2.6. In 2.5, the original target could dodge the bolt outright with lateral movement. In 2.6, the original target is always hit. But on the flip side, I think the initial bolt now can't hit anyone before reaching its target; my quick testing had no effect when my guinea pig tried to stand in the path, except when he was right up in melee range with the target.
Once the bolt hits its first target, the old familiar lightning bolt targeting is in play, hitting everything in a line and bouncing off walls. So it still very much matters what sort of space you use it in.
(P.S.: My favorite spot for the wand of lightning in BGEE is in Durlag's Tower, against the Dwarven Doom Guards. You can line things up to bounce back and forth along the length of a particular corridor segment and really fry them, while there's just enough time for your lonely wand user to bug out before the bounces get going. Not relevant for a critical path run, of course - you're never going to Durlag's Tower.)
Best of luck with your goblin, Wise. That's an interesting character idea.
A quick question. Is there any information anywhere as to what a goblin's resistancess SHOULD be?
I would have expected them to be higher than human if not quite as high as other shorties.
EDIT
I have discovered this page that indicates that stats should be the same as human with +2 bonus for dexterity, other bonuses small and depend on the type of goblin. I should not therefore have limited the Strength, Dex and Con values the way that I have and should probably have actually boosted dexterity values.
My idea that they should be evil was clearly incorrect!. However I investigated the goblins in the game and discovered that they do not follow the DnD guidelines. They are ALL evil and they are made from gibberlings or hobgoblins!!!
EDIT According to Volo's guide they should be evil. Clearly disagreement there!
Their origin being gibberlings must come from the fact that they were deliberately made weak. I believe that most come from mods, so I am not blaming the EE developers.
The portrait of the character that I have looks evil, so he will stay evil
However, that information is from ONE page.
More information is required.
Input from others is welcome.
In view of the above, I probably ought to reroll and boost dex by at least one.
EDIT
The wolf attacking Melicamp brought the game to a premature end.
The page you've found, with a +2 dex bonus ... probably a different edition. 2nd edition stat bonuses for playable races are small; none of the races you can normally take in the BG series has more than +1 in anything, and none of them have a net positive balance across all stats.
Alignment ... goblin societies are evil, exceptional individual goblins like those that become adventurers can be anything. M'Khiin is neutral.
Other bonuses: Infravision is a definite yes; M'Khiin has it. Shorty save bonuses - no. And you couldn't implement those automatically anyway without giving your character a dwarf/gnome/halfling race - it's out of reach of ordinary modding. Thieving skills would probably be a +85 total like the other short races (SKILLRAC.2DA), but that doesn't matter if you're a fighter that doesn't have any of those skills. Giants have penalties to hit shorties; this is done with EFFs on the giant creature (GIANT1,GIANT2,GIANT3), and you'd need to clone a new EFF to extend that to goblins then assign that new EFF to every such creature - a lot easier with automation like a WeiDU mod.
...
On a completely different topic, I had a thought on how to handle early SoA in the critical path challenge: companion loyalty quests. Whoever you pick up, they're likely to have a quest they really want to do. Jaheira interjects in the conversation with Flydian and says the druid attack is definitely something to investigate, in addition to her personal quests. Minsc is the first to talk to Delon, and will bug you if you don't go to the Umar Hills. Yoshimo will direct you to Renal Bloodscalp the moment you set foot in the docks. Nalia will outright leave if you don't save her keep in a timely manner.
Basically, whoever you pick up, do the quests they're invested in.
Basically, whoever you pick up, do the quests they're invested in.
I'd play that the opposite way, in keeping with the spirit of the playthrough.
The concept is to stay focused on the main quest line: to rescue Imoen more-or-less ASAP and pursue Irenicus upon emerging from the Underdark, as Ellesime implores. This will have the desirable effect of limiting XP and item acquisition, rebalancing BG-II and restoring challenge to the late SoA encounters with Bodhi and Irenicus, as well as the early ToB battles with Illasera and Gromnir.
If an NPC insists on doing a major side quest, they are welcome to leave. Sorry. We're not going that way. Best of luck.
Likewise, I'd advise skipping SoD, since that, too, unbalances SoA. If I did feel compelled to do SoD, I'd at least observe the SoA level cap, refraining from leveling up if I reached 3 million XP in SoA.
@semiticgoddess Attempting another sniper run is an interesting choice. Did you fix the backstab immunity bypass, following jmerry's procedure?
The page you've found, with a +2 dex bonus ... probably a different edition. 2nd edition stat bonuses for playable races are small; none of the races you can normally take in the BG series has more than +1 in anything, and none of them have a net positive balance across all stats.
In second edition goblins have -1 penalties to strength and charisma. They have no bonus to dex. They also have a -1 penalty to attacks when in bright sunlight. The source I consulted made no mention of save bonuses or resistances.
They may be fighters, clerics, shaman, witch doctors or thieves. They can multi-class.
They tend towards lawful evil, but they may be any alignment, often lawful neutral
@Alesia_BH: I don't plan on making backstab immunity work against the Sniper's pseudo-backstabs, even if implementing it was easy. It makes a little sense for golems and oozes and stuff to be immune to backstabs, but a Sniper being able to deal extra damage to a dragon or Melissan with a well-placed arrow makes conceptual sense, and those are the situations where the damage bonus would be truly meaningful. Besides, Snipers don't get Spike Traps or GWW, and missile damage is already the weakest physical damage type.
More importantly, it's more fun this way. A lot of games will arbitrarily make backstabs/stealth/invisibility/magic/fire/diplomacy weak or even useless in the endgame, and it's never fun. ToB is especially guilty of this, nerfing or outright crippling essentially everything that's not melee damage.
I would enjoy ToB so much more if the game wasn't so melee-centric. I love spellcasters and thieves, but it takes five times as much work to make them half as effective as fighters in ToB.
What I would nerf about the Sniper kit is slings. The pseudo-backstab amplifies a sling's Strength bonuses to damage, and so rock-lobbing is unintentionally stronger than a bow or crossbow, which is a bit ill-fitting for the concept. But that would require a lot of work and finagling to implement.
I've never been a fan of immunities in general. They're a lazy and unbalanced way to empower a boss or empower the player. There's nothing quite as frustrating as realizing your party of mages is useless against Belhifet in IWD. There's nothing quite as unfulfilling as killing a field of basilisks because you cast the one spell that made them powerless.
How much more interesting would Baldur's Gate be if something like the Greenstone Amulet reduced the duration of a Chaos spell to one round, instead of blocking it outright? How much more fun would it be to land a half-damage backstab against a dragon, instead of just shooting it with a shortbow while the fighters do the real work?
Tools don't need to be strong, but they do need to work.
Noted. It is, of course, your game, and you should feel free to play as you desire. I was just seeking clarification on how the kit will work in this run.
As for the comparative balancing of melee fighters, ranged fighters and mages in ToB, I never had a problem with it.
Melee fighters can deal more damage than ranged fighters, but they're also far more vulnerable to attacks. Ranged fighters should be nerfed in a manner commensurate with the inherent defensive advantage they enjoy.
Even with the nerfs, ranged fighting is often the superior tactical approach in ToB, at least for non-arcane soloists.
As for mages, they're masters of a highly refined skill set that grants them an unrivaled power ceiling. Unlocking their potential should require more time and effort.
I do think there is an argument in favor of nerfing warrior damage resistance back to where it was in the original game. That's why I don't allow my characters to access the evil path damage resistance offered by Ascension. The Defender is suspect as well, as are all the bonus merchant items (They were originally added to the game as a sales gimmick, tempting players with powerful goodies).
As for IWD, I can't comment on it, since I've never played it.
In any case, best of luck with your run! And have fun with your sniper!
Best,
A.
Btw, when it comes to kits, I'll freely acknowledge that I lean towards the purist end of the spectrum. The only mod added kits that I'm comfortable with are the feralan and justifier both, last minute cuts from the original game. All others are passes for me, including the EE kits.
What I would nerf about the Sniper kit is slings. The pseudo-backstab amplifies a sling's Strength bonuses to damage, and so rock-lobbing is unintentionally stronger than a bow or crossbow, which is a bit ill-fitting for the concept. But that would require a lot of work and finagling to implement.
It multiplies the strength damage bonus offered by slings? Maybe @jmerry can come up with a solution there.
In the alternative, maybe you can just restrict the kit to bows and crossbows.
Comments
An interesting challenge. I've done a BG1-only challenge with a somewhat similar objective of minimum in-game time. That one's more restricted in its path: no backtracking so shopping is very limited, and not even any sleep after leaving Candlekeep.
That run beat Sarevok in the early morning of day 13. I wonder what you'll be at?
Comparing status ... your druid earned level 4 (7500 XP) killing Dave. My mostly solo illusionist/thief earned level 3/4 (10000 XP) with that same kill. Your party is clearly far better at fighting - but then, I chose the I/T because they're the best at not fighting.
I did visit one area your party didn't: High Hedge. Because going through there on the way to Beregost is just as fast as going through the crossroads, and Thalantyr sells scrolls of invisibility that I absolutely need.
One of my favorite bits of that run is the bandit camp solution: just use invisibility to run past everything, disarm and loot the key chest, re-up invisibility, and leave without any fighting. You see, the party in the tent only goes hostile when one particular member talks to you, and he doesn't have a clear sightline on the space in front of the chest. No non-hostile entry, though; it's fastest to reach the camp through the east edge of the ankheg farm map, so that's what I did after learning the location from Deke.
Critical Path Challenge - Conclusion
So, we enter the Gate and we get the opportunity to shop at Sorcerous Sundries - all our money is gone right away, as we get a few key potions, scrolls and wands. I decided to do Scar's first two quests - they are arguably part of the main questline, even though they can be skipped. No trouble at Seven Suns, and we silenced the sewer ogre mage:
We make it to Candlekeep, explore the catacombs for a bit and make use of wands of monster summoning, of the heavens and of fire to deal with Prat&co - plus silence, of course:
With chant, bless and haste plus everyone having at least a +1 weapon, our fighting abilities are actually adequate for this state of the game now - we annihilate the guards at the Flaming Fist HQ upon our return, for example:
We buff with all the potions we have remaining, Khalid speedily approaches, using a dispelling arrow to engage Sarevok:
Well, it was a fun and quick challenge (propably around 4-5 hours of real playtime - ingame time is 27 days 6 hours, obviously with no resting restrictions). This at least saves me the headache of deciding what would actually be part of the critical path in BG2, as to get the 15k gold, at least SOME side content is neccessary - I'd guess it would be the "natural" class stronghold of the main character, and then off to Brynnlaw? And then you get to choose which type of blood to obtain in the Underdark, I guess. It does sound quite challenging, but I imagine it would certainly be possible with the right party, even in a no-reload setting.
As mentioned in the lounge, I've also played another type of run in the meantime - more updates to come.
I'm in the minority here, but I've always felt that this is the best way to play SoA. You get variation between runs and the balancing works out nicely. The main storyline fights are suitably epic and you feel like an underdog in most of them. In contrast, when you take a completionist approach most of the storyline encounters feel perfunctory, on account of the excess XP and loot acquired from side quests.
In my early days as a player I'd allow myself one chapter 2 stronghold quest, one Underdark elder, and no more than two of the optional challenge foes (ie-Firkraag, Thaxxy, Guarded Compound, Twisted Rune, Kangaxx). Watcher's Keep was completely off limits until ToB since it offers too much XP and loot.
My first successful Trilogy no reload, the second in the challenge's history and the first with Ascension, was played this way, more or less. My PC, a sorcerer named Alanis, traveling in a party of 5, didn't get HLAs until Grominir. She fought Melissan at level 23. To this day that remains my most satisfying play through.
I've been nudged into a more completionist approach by the influence of peers, and have tacked towards solo play, since it tends to resonate with readers, for some reason, but I've long sought to return to my original style of play. It makes sense to me and it feels right.
In any case, all this is to say, Enuhal, that I support your endeavor and applaud the initiative. I feel inspired to try a party run structured like Alanis's. I think it would be fun. I'd be very interested in seeing a BGII run from you with a similar structure.
Cheers,
A.
Btw, as an fyi, Alanis didn't have much in the way of routing restrictions in BG1. My approach wasn't to impose arbitrary limits, but to more or less follow the logic of the story and the game design. BG1 is designed for open exploration and the story doesn't cultivate a sense of urgency until after the return to Candlekeep. In SoA, in contrast, there is an implicit sense of urgency associated with the rescue of Imoen. Additionally, the game strongly encourages you to face Irenicus ASAP after Spellhold, via the Ellesime dream sequence.
Balance wise, I've always felt BG1 is fine, with or without side questing, more or less. I wish the original BG1 cap applied up until Sarevok, and that the ToSC content could be completed after Sarevok, with the ToSC cap, but aside from that I feel BG1 is ok. SoA, however, is kind of ruined by the ToB cap, and extensive side-questing exacerbates the problem.
My instincts for the game have always been quite different - I was a child when I first played Baldur's Gate II (truthfully, I first watched my older brother play it before ever touching it myself, as I wasn't allowed too much time on our home computer yet), and I was always incredibly impressed by the cutscene upon leaving the opening dungeon - I thought that Irenicus was incredibly powerful, almost invicible and capable of destroying every foe with a single spell, as I had no idea that these were only "cutscene powers" - We never made it to Spellhold in our first few runs, always restarting with new classes and party combinations, and in our mind, we needed every single bit of experience available to even try and stand a chance against such a powerful wizard (it didn't help that we didn't even know about the existence of quite a few quests and battles) - cowled wizards (which we did know due to fighting Rayic Gethras or accidentally battling them due to casting too many spells) already seemed incredibly powerful, but someone who could take them out that easily? Almost unbeatable. We did feel sorry for Imoen, but we thought that any rescue attempt would end in immediate death without us being at our most powerful.
Nowadays I'm a completionist to my core and can only play runs such as this one by placing strict restrictions on myself, otherwise I would find excuses to propably do almost all of the content, because it pains me to leave a quest unfinished - goes against a strong sense of order in the back of my mind, which is why it's unlikely that I will return to such a challenge very soon. The only thing I generally feel fine skipping is SoD (because of it being a latecomer and the gameplay not always being very fun) and TotSC content (which I generally only skip in non-SCS runs - mostly because I can easily self-restrict by placing an entire addon in the "no"-pile, as it feels more like its own thing).
Interesting. I can imagine thinking that as a first time player, particularly as a child, but surely by now you know that's not the case. Similarly, surely by now you know that a party with maxed out experience can beat Irenicus with ease, both at the Tree and in Hell.
The ToB cap distorts and trivializes much of SoA. That's a given. The question is what should be done about it. Restore the SoA cap? Play with an across the board XP nerf, say 50% for parties and 70% for solo runs? Restrict side questing, targeting the first HLA to arrive around Gromnir? They're all reasonable solutions. More reasonable than simply ignoring the problem.
I, personally, would love to see one or all of those solutions employed more widely in the player community. SoA is a great chapter and it deserves sensible balancing.
In any case, it's a worthy discussion, but one better suited to the lounge. I'd be happy to continue there, if you like.
Best,
A.
Yes, of course, but these early experiences have propably influenced my completionist tendencies to some degree. Nowadays, I would argue that all 3 incarnations of Irenicus are propably the major SoA encounters most in need off stronger buffs via SCS.
The Halflings, Introduction
A long time ago, during the BGT/Tutu days, I tried my hand at playing a party of 4 halflings, covering the 4 basic classes available to the race at that point (fighter, barbarian (which wasn't a fighter kit at the time), cleric and thief). I stopped these runs at some point, mostly due to a lack of motivation, but have returned to this type of party in recent times.
This party was played over the course of a rather long time - I started them before even playing the Avatar run, stopped, picked them up again after that (and sometimes during if I felt like playing on less challenging settings), stopped again while doing the critical path challenge and returned to them after that. This was not meant to be a particularily challenging run - in fact, I was looking for something with a good likelyhood of success, because this is me returning to the project of getting the remaining classes/kits into the Hall of Heroes. With that goal in mind, this was an unmodded core rules runt. By now, I am getting a bit sick of powering through the game with cookie cutter parties on unmodded core rules - so, to spice things up at least a little bit, themed parties are needed - I have quite a few concepts in the back of my mind which I will try my hand at eventually, but the halfing party, due to already having been an earlier project, was the first to be attempted.
I'm doubling down on having no arcane spellcaster by not allowing myself to use spellscrolls via UAI. The lack of arcane support should be no trouble at all in BG1 and SoA and might only become a noticable obstacle in ToB, but I'm not too worried about it. The plus side is: We don't have to spend as much time buffing the party! Great!
Since we don't have improved haste, I'm going for two-handed weapons on my barbarian and fighter, as they're going to go for GWWs anyway. I decided to improve our combat abilities by turning the fighter into a berserker and the thief into a swashbuckler.
The party is led by our cleric, Narescha, chosen as the Bhaalspawn because unkitted clerics are (for good reason) very rarely played and not that likely to make it into the Hall otherwise:
Now, due to the fact that a lot of this was played quite a while ago and the early game is very unremarkable with a party such as this in on our standard settings, I won't be going into much detail about our approach unless something interesting happens. We had no trouble using aggressive command spells to take down most enemies in the early game, visisted the basilisks for some good early experience and started adding hold person and silence into the mix - with these spells at our disposal, there was very little in the wilderness areas to stop us from obtaining some very powerful weapons for our party:
In the previous run, we had to silence enemies such as Drasus' mages from off-screen. No need for that in this much more powerful party, but silence is still great:
Previous posts: Introduction, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Here we are at the grand finale of BG1, starting with Slythe and Krystin.
Sorsha had two alternative battle plans - either go all-in on buffs with green ProMagic scroll, Violet Potion, Potion of Agility, Potion of Fortitude, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense and Oil of Speed, or use the jelly form via Polymorph: Self (for 100% piercing and magic resistances). Confident with the more straightforward approach, she opted for the first option.
At the cost of one Potion of Firebreath, Slythe fell without landing a single hit.
Sorsha collected the documents and headed straight to the palace. She quaffed Potion of Power, equipped Arrows of Dispelling and engaged with the dukes.
Our aim was to dispel as many doppelgangers as possible early on and then quickly overwhelm them with Aule's. We had a good start, although one of the assassin managed to land a backstab on Sorsha, forcing her to quaff a Potion of Regeneration.
Then came the much feared Chaos move by the doppelganger mage. Fortunately, none of the confused Flaming Fists went after Sarevok.
Sorsha had enough space to start clearing up the field, assisted by her Wand of Monster Summoning.
The good news was that we reached the XP cap and level 10, the bad news was that we lost Belt.
Liia did a good job staying out of danger and Sorsha was able to take out the mage with dispel and acid arrows.
By using one additional charge of Wand of Monster Summoning and tanking Sarevok ourselves, we were able to keep Liia safe until Sarevok's departure.
With our buffs intact, Sorsha quaffed a PoI and rushed through the maze and the Undercity and finally confronted Sarevok in the temple.
We opened with a dispel on Sarevok.
Afterwards, we employed some rather cheap tactics with our Arrows of Detonation.
Potion of Firebreath on Diarmid. Two down.
Back to Arrows of Detonation. Three down.
And a goodbye kiss for Tazok by Aule's. Four down.
Once on his own, Sarevok failed his save against Wand of Paralyzation (note his position - for once, we wanted to have him right in the middle of the circle to coincide with the final animation).
Final offensive push with Aule's and summons.
Retrospectively, I wish we'd employed more interesting tactics during the final fight (I'm looking at you Malison + Captive Audience), but the important thing is that we prevailed, despite the dangerous moments during the Ducal Palace fight.
I'm looking forward to start posting on Sorsha's progress in SoA soon.
Regards,
B.
Best,
A.
Corecleric XX - halfling priest of Lothander, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Mirazi - human mage (Grond0)
Betson - dark moon monk (Gate70)
So when we arrive in hell on our load, MIrazi has to equip everything, as she had died at the Tree of Life. We then do the good routes for the first 4 challenges, going counter-clockwise direction starting with the dragon challenge. Corecleric then uses the 4 tears and then confronts Sarevok. Sarevok's weapon can't hurt Coecleric now, so it's an easy if slow fight.
Corecleric does some summons for the main even and a few buffs. Mirazi didn't have any mirror images available and we didn't bother resting. This proved costly as demons immediately killed her. Betson and Corecleric were able to kill the demons - Corecleric resurrected and healed Mirazi then we resumed our battles vs Irenicus. We didn't have too much trouble though Betson took a bit of damage.
Time for Illsaera! Well sort of - Corey_Russell's game locked up so we had to reload and reconnect. Illsaera died quick - the true seeing of Corecleric plus Mirazi's horrid wilting were too much. Mirazi has been using horrid wilting to very good effect this session.
We then deal with the first pocket plane challenge - this went well, with only real enemies arriving at the end. Betson got level drained but was nothing Corecleric couldn't fix. Time for Saradush! This battle was hard, as our pre-invisibility trick didn't work. Party took a ton of damage but we did win the fight. We did some of the basic quests here, like doing the spell book quest, resurrecting the boy's father, rescuing the countess son and so on.
We then worked our way to Gromnir. Fighting to Gromnir went pretty smooth. This time pre-invisibility worked which allowed up to set up some ambushes. One of the mages failed to die to Mirazi's spells and then they did a time stop and symbol stun on Mirazi - however Mirazi saved and horrid wiltings, deva and storm of vengeance once again win the day. Well sort of. After talking to Melissan, a thief came out of nowhere and backstabbed Betson - they came late to the party but it didn't help them.
We proceeded to the Forest of Mir. The battles here went OK, although Betson took huge damage from a fire giant, but Corecleric and Mirazi were able to save him. As for the undead at Nyalee's grove, well turn undead killed them all except a vampiric mist and the "boss". Surprisingly a sunray killed the boss, the mist died shortly after.
Time to go to Marching Mountains. For the mass of giants at the entrance, we decided to go invisible and throw in a mordy sword as a distraction then Mirazi and Corecleric threw in a ton of spells - success!
We got a reality check in the next batch of fire giants, I think someone died here not sure, but we did win. More re-equipping and resting and for the next batch of trolls Mirazi tried a surprise - a sequencer with 3 horrid wilitings. It did not work well at all, however. Corecleric got to single digit health. He had to go invis, heal, buff then re-engage. He was able to kill the trolls but not before both Mirazi and Betson bit it. But we got strange bug where Corecleric couldn't raise dead. Corecleric tried to go to the pocket plane but game locked up! So finally we reload but now e find duplicate equipment. What's even stranger, is equipment we did NOT have like the cloak +2 (we forgot to loot it in the Shark City) suddenly appeared! Mirazi scooped that up.
This was all very strange but eventually we rested in our plane, saved our session and wonder what will be in store next week?
Firstly Hilda is Lawful, a Holy Redeemer and of course Lawful as all Holy Redeemers are. Tempo is the opposite, Male. Chaotic and a follower of Tempus. For those unfamiliar with the Holy Redeemer kit, it makes the cleric into a slightly better fighter with the drawbacks of not being able to raise the undead or to resurrect the dead. IMO that makes it a fairly balanced kit.
Journal of Hilda and Tempo
If we hadn't been raised together, Tempo's occasional acts of illegality would probably have been sufficient to break up our friendship. However, we care for each other and the fact that we are both neutrally aligned does help.
Everyone can tell that we both have some divine ancestry, but from which god, or gods?
We started off relatively wealthy.
We killed the improved assassins in Candlekeep. Tempo when accused of theft killed the watcher. Not surprising since he is a follower of Tempus. He really likes a good fight! As well as experience, we acquired decent armour from this conflict!
The downside was that we lost reputation, and as I said to Alec, I really want to become a hero.
I had a decidedly raunchy time with a guard. I won't be any more explicit than that.
After the death of Gorion we helped Melicamp, calmed Marl, took a tome to Firebead and headed south to Nashkel.
Picked up some armour there and turned down a reward from Oublek. Killed Zargos Flintblade and took the Colquetle amulet to the family.
Headed north where we killed an ogre and thence to the FAI. Helped Joia, killed Zordral and Sonner before killing all the ankheg that we could find.
But I have noticed the game becoming less fun at certain stages of the saga. Late BG1 often feels like a treasure hunt for raw gold, mid-SoA feels like a treasure hunt for key items, late SoA ends up being super reliant on top-tier spells and items, and then ToB ends up being a nervous rush through a handful of mandatory fights. The most fun parts of the game, in retrospect, are when I use a variety of lower-level tools with a weaker party, rather than a narrow number of "silver bullets."
I'm in mid-SoA with a solo cleric/illusionist who just broke 3 million XP today, and I expect the gameplay to get less complex as a result.
But then, the most fun scenarios I can think of, the lower-level party runs with different abilities and no silver bullets, are an imposing ask for a no-reload run. I only have so much patience for failed runs and slow game progression these days. A BG1 run that takes more than a couple days feels like a slog; a death after the Cloakwood feels like a lot of lost time.
Maybe it's time I tried a party of custom characters, like I used to do years ago. Build up a weird gimmick and see how it plays out, and speed up gameplay by skipping side quests instead of fussing over seconds saved with CTRL-J.
Interesting thought, Semiticgoddess. I agree.
Let's continue this discussion over in the Lounge.
Best,
A.
Well, Coremage got killed almost instantly in Umar Hills - he got held and died real quick. Whoops. Hmm, back to the drawing board.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1196696/#Comment_1196696
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1196830/#Comment_1196830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1196973/#Comment_1196973
Fighter/thief 21/24, 139 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1046 kills (+436 in BGEE/SoD)
With reputation only up at 19, I've bought almost nothing to date (and haven't indulged in any stealing). However, with shorty saving throws, decent HPs and thief abilities a high level F/T doesn't really need top-line equipment.
Fighter/mage/cleric 17/16/18, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 847 kills (+451 in BGEE/SoD)
With intelligence of only 10, I didn't bother trying to learn any more mage spells until just before leaving for Brynnlaw. However, with the help of genius potions I do now have a good selection of those and should be well placed to make further progress.
Fighter/druid dominated by a nymph at level 11/13 while attacking Kyland Lind and his druids in the Grove.
Fighter 32, 174 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1,117 kills (+535 in BGEE/SoD)
One problem with this run is that Kangaxx's change to demi-lich form bugged out, meaning no Ring of Gaxx. Shorty saving throws and fighter HPs mean that's less serious for this character than it would be for some others though and I should still have a realistic shot at completing the run.
Wizard slayer died at level 9 to hobgoblin command approaching the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms.
Enchanter 27, 89 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone; 12 from familiar), 656 kills (+405 in BGEE/SoD)
As is pretty typical for my runs, I bought almost nothing until reputation hit 20 - which took quite a while. That and the specialist class restriction meant I had relatively few spells available at higher levels and I made a lot of use of air elementals and efreeti in the earlier stages of this session. I'm better prepared for the future now, but class restrictions (like the lack of sequencers) may become an issue in ToB.
Fighter dualling to cleric 13/30, 174 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 842 kills (+588 in BGEE/SoD)
Clerical summons were used a lot at low levels, but once I got berserker levels back I acted more as a fighter - with occasional boosts from clerical buffs. Saving throws are a weakness for this character though and I'll have to be careful if I want to avoid a similar fate to that of the fighter/druid.
Our mage was a Plasma Wizard, which notably doesn't get any spell slots until level 2. Without Sleep, or a metagame decision to buy the Wand of Sleep from High Hedge, we were facing the enemy head on.
I think a low-level run is probably more fun once you hit level 2. I'm having flashbacks to my earliest experiences with BG1, when there was no metagame cushion against one-hit kills.
I'm currently running a solo priest of Talos over at TavernRPG. She's on her way to the Marching Mountains now. Once that run ends, I'd be happy to undertake a low meta, limited side quest party run, too. Maybe we can run in parallel? I wouldn't mind cross posting.
Can we interest you, @Enuhal ?
Maximum Strength: 17
Maximum Dexterity: 17
Maximum Constitution: 17
Maximum Intelligence: 14
Maximum Wisdom: 17
Maximum Charisma: 15
So creating a goblin with those stats is certainly legal if I come up with a roll of 97.
Such a roll is extremely rare!
It looks to me as if high intelligence and charisma would be inappropriate.
The roll in the game that I am currently playing was 91.
When I looked at their resistances. It gave me a clue as to which race they were created from.
I would suspect human because there are goblin shamans and wizards and that appears to be the case. Their resistances are not high like dwarves. So when I roll a goblin, I will just use a human roll and avoid high intelligence and charisma.
A shame about the resistances.
I thought of running a goblin burial defender but EE Keeper doesn't recognise Burial Defender or Ancient Wrath so using Keeper to edit the appearance of a Burial Defender is impossible.
And here he is:
I reduced the initial reputation by 2 since M'Khiin in the party has that effect.
The low strength meant that most chests couldn't be opened.
Hull was killed for his plate armour!
I used EE Keeper for appearance as per below.
I intend to only use axes to help with imersion as the appearance doesn't change with change in weaponry.
Just entered the High Hedge area.
After a lot of waffling and a couple of false starts, I am doing my second attempt at a Sniper run. This one, however, will be a low-meta, minimalist run with a party. Say hi to i eated a lemon!
We have two other custom NPCs for this run. Meet boykisser, our Barbarian!
Last is an old character of mine, Poppy! Normally she's a druid or a sorcerer, but here, she's an illusionist.
While I don't plan on going out of our way to snatch up key items or big sources of XP, I'm still willing to use metagame knowledge to snatch up items that are close to the main questline. That means we get a Star Sapphire from the Candlekeep inn, since boykisser's rage bonuses can crack open the container! We then pick up Imoen, Xzar, and Montaron as meat shields.
Poppy is vitally important for the early game. In fact, the main reason I even created her in the first place is because I was sure we'd need Sleep to stay safe in the Nashkel Mines. To my delight, Tarnesh is vulnerable to Sleep!
Poppy's Sleep spell proves invaluable, knocking out the Beregost Spiders as well as the plate mail-wearing Flaming Fist folks on the road to Nashkel. After grabbing the Coquetle amulet, the note to Mirianne, and Landrin's items, we head back up north to collect some badly-needed XP and talk to Dorn.
I decide to take on Silke, reasoning that an opening Blindness+Command+Sunscorch combo from our casters, with a ghast's paralyzing attack on top, should give us a solid chance against her. Tiax manages to set a trap without killing himself before the fight, which disrupts Silke's opening Mirror Image.
We are on Tactical difficulty, which appears to limit enemy pre-buffing by a lot. I'm accustomed to Insane and Hardcore pre-buffs, but knowing that the only way to avoid a level 1 one-shot kill was to disable the "no bonus damage from difficulty" setting meant that it was unsafe to play on the higher difficulties. I might bump up the difficulty setting to Hardcore and disable bonus damage once we're out of level 1 territory.
Since we're in Beregost and i eated a lemon is a thieving gremlin, I snatch up a Potion of Invisibility and a Wand of Lightning from the Beregost mansion. I've always been sketchy about using Wands of Lightning, since the potential for killing a party member is so high, but being able to zap someone for 6d6 damage could save our lives someday.
On the way back down south, we finally trigger the Dorn ambush! I immediately draw i eated a lemon down south to keep her safe, then apply pressure on the enemy with Blindness, Sunscorch, and a ghast, followed by Command when Tiax's aura is clear. A quick burst of disablers makes a huge difference when enemies can kill a party member on the first round of combat.
The mines are next, but I have second thoughts about foregoing Dorn. It's probably wise to drop Khalid and Jaheira in favor of Dorn and Kagain. I feel like we're going to be under constant pressure to stay competitive with the enemy in this run.
Sadly, I'll have to decline for now. I'm currently playing only very casually and infrequently while listening to podcasts and other audio, so I'm currently more interested in the far easier themed vanilla completionist runs meant to fill the Hall of Heroes, rather than another more challenging run (especially one that goes against my hardwired completionist tendencies - it was hard enough to overcome these for a single run).
The Halflings, Update 1
We explore Baldur's Gate City quickly and efficiently. Difficult opponents are lured outside of their houses into waiting skeleton warriors and additionally attacked via wand of the heavens charges, turning even the ogre mage bounty hunters or the Degrodel's minions into easy pickings:
In my opinion, arcane spellcasting isn't really all that important in unmodded SoA. The spells I'm most likely to miss are haste, improved haste and breach. The lack of breach might force me to wait around a bit more until certain opposing caster buffs expire (easily done, just takes a bit of patience), the lack of haste means we deal less damage and will value oils of speed very highly, the lack of improved haste will hopefully eventually be offset by picking a lot of greater whirlwind HLAs on our fighters. On the plus side, our saving throws are already very good and will quickly go into fairly safe regions with a few extra levels and items (plus, we have cleric buffs).
Looking at this, SCS chooses to make him level 4 properly. He gets a specialization as well because all SCS mages do, and adds a couple extra spell slots from that, but his top-line level still goes down.
You mentioned the Wand of Lightning - one thing to keep in mind is that lightning bolt targeting was changed in patch 2.6. In 2.5, the original target could dodge the bolt outright with lateral movement. In 2.6, the original target is always hit. But on the flip side, I think the initial bolt now can't hit anyone before reaching its target; my quick testing had no effect when my guinea pig tried to stand in the path, except when he was right up in melee range with the target.
Once the bolt hits its first target, the old familiar lightning bolt targeting is in play, hitting everything in a line and bouncing off walls. So it still very much matters what sort of space you use it in.
(P.S.: My favorite spot for the wand of lightning in BGEE is in Durlag's Tower, against the Dwarven Doom Guards. You can line things up to bounce back and forth along the length of a particular corridor segment and really fry them, while there's just enough time for your lonely wand user to bug out before the bounces get going. Not relevant for a critical path run, of course - you're never going to Durlag's Tower.)
A quick question. Is there any information anywhere as to what a goblin's resistancess SHOULD be?
I would have expected them to be higher than human if not quite as high as other shorties.
EDIT
I have discovered this page that indicates that stats should be the same as human with +2 bonus for dexterity, other bonuses small and depend on the type of goblin. I should not therefore have limited the Strength, Dex and Con values the way that I have and should probably have actually boosted dexterity values.
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/goblin
My idea that they should be evil was clearly incorrect!. However I investigated the goblins in the game and discovered that they do not follow the DnD guidelines. They are ALL evil and they are made from gibberlings or hobgoblins!!!
EDIT According to Volo's guide they should be evil. Clearly disagreement there!
Their origin being gibberlings must come from the fact that they were deliberately made weak. I believe that most come from mods, so I am not blaming the EE developers.
The portrait of the character that I have looks evil, so he will stay evil
However, that information is from ONE page.
More information is required.
Input from others is welcome.
In view of the above, I probably ought to reroll and boost dex by at least one.
EDIT
The wolf attacking Melicamp brought the game to a premature end.
Alignment ... goblin societies are evil, exceptional individual goblins like those that become adventurers can be anything. M'Khiin is neutral.
Other bonuses: Infravision is a definite yes; M'Khiin has it. Shorty save bonuses - no. And you couldn't implement those automatically anyway without giving your character a dwarf/gnome/halfling race - it's out of reach of ordinary modding. Thieving skills would probably be a +85 total like the other short races (SKILLRAC.2DA), but that doesn't matter if you're a fighter that doesn't have any of those skills. Giants have penalties to hit shorties; this is done with EFFs on the giant creature (GIANT1,GIANT2,GIANT3), and you'd need to clone a new EFF to extend that to goblins then assign that new EFF to every such creature - a lot easier with automation like a WeiDU mod.
...
On a completely different topic, I had a thought on how to handle early SoA in the critical path challenge: companion loyalty quests. Whoever you pick up, they're likely to have a quest they really want to do. Jaheira interjects in the conversation with Flydian and says the druid attack is definitely something to investigate, in addition to her personal quests. Minsc is the first to talk to Delon, and will bug you if you don't go to the Umar Hills. Yoshimo will direct you to Renal Bloodscalp the moment you set foot in the docks. Nalia will outright leave if you don't save her keep in a timely manner.
Basically, whoever you pick up, do the quests they're invested in.
I'd play that the opposite way, in keeping with the spirit of the playthrough.
The concept is to stay focused on the main quest line: to rescue Imoen more-or-less ASAP and pursue Irenicus upon emerging from the Underdark, as Ellesime implores. This will have the desirable effect of limiting XP and item acquisition, rebalancing BG-II and restoring challenge to the late SoA encounters with Bodhi and Irenicus, as well as the early ToB battles with Illasera and Gromnir.
If an NPC insists on doing a major side quest, they are welcome to leave. Sorry. We're not going that way. Best of luck.
Likewise, I'd advise skipping SoD, since that, too, unbalances SoA. If I did feel compelled to do SoD, I'd at least observe the SoA level cap, refraining from leveling up if I reached 3 million XP in SoA.
@semiticgoddess Attempting another sniper run is an interesting choice. Did you fix the backstab immunity bypass, following jmerry's procedure?
In second edition goblins have -1 penalties to strength and charisma. They have no bonus to dex. They also have a -1 penalty to attacks when in bright sunlight. The source I consulted made no mention of save bonuses or resistances.
They may be fighters, clerics, shaman, witch doctors or thieves. They can multi-class.
They tend towards lawful evil, but they may be any alignment, often lawful neutral
Source: The Complete Book of Humanoids
More importantly, it's more fun this way. A lot of games will arbitrarily make backstabs/stealth/invisibility/magic/fire/diplomacy weak or even useless in the endgame, and it's never fun. ToB is especially guilty of this, nerfing or outright crippling essentially everything that's not melee damage.
I would enjoy ToB so much more if the game wasn't so melee-centric. I love spellcasters and thieves, but it takes five times as much work to make them half as effective as fighters in ToB.
What I would nerf about the Sniper kit is slings. The pseudo-backstab amplifies a sling's Strength bonuses to damage, and so rock-lobbing is unintentionally stronger than a bow or crossbow, which is a bit ill-fitting for the concept. But that would require a lot of work and finagling to implement.
How much more interesting would Baldur's Gate be if something like the Greenstone Amulet reduced the duration of a Chaos spell to one round, instead of blocking it outright? How much more fun would it be to land a half-damage backstab against a dragon, instead of just shooting it with a shortbow while the fighters do the real work?
Tools don't need to be strong, but they do need to work.
As for the comparative balancing of melee fighters, ranged fighters and mages in ToB, I never had a problem with it.
Melee fighters can deal more damage than ranged fighters, but they're also far more vulnerable to attacks. Ranged fighters should be nerfed in a manner commensurate with the inherent defensive advantage they enjoy.
Even with the nerfs, ranged fighting is often the superior tactical approach in ToB, at least for non-arcane soloists.
As for mages, they're masters of a highly refined skill set that grants them an unrivaled power ceiling. Unlocking their potential should require more time and effort.
I do think there is an argument in favor of nerfing warrior damage resistance back to where it was in the original game. That's why I don't allow my characters to access the evil path damage resistance offered by Ascension. The Defender is suspect as well, as are all the bonus merchant items (They were originally added to the game as a sales gimmick, tempting players with powerful goodies).
As for IWD, I can't comment on it, since I've never played it.
In any case, best of luck with your run! And have fun with your sniper!
Best,
A.
Btw, when it comes to kits, I'll freely acknowledge that I lean towards the purist end of the spectrum. The only mod added kits that I'm comfortable with are the feralan and justifier both, last minute cuts from the original game. All others are passes for me, including the EE kits.
It multiplies the strength damage bonus offered by slings? Maybe @jmerry can come up with a solution there.
In the alternative, maybe you can just restrict the kit to bows and crossbows.