At the risk of giving away the Sniper run's progress before I post an update, my experience with some of the fights has made me suspect that a low-meta, minimal-quest run isn't quite perfect for ensuring complex and challenging gameplay. While a lack of cheap XP is really punishing in early BG1, the main quest is very generous with XP once you get out of the bandit camp, and this run doesn't have a rule against Arrows of Detonation, which are legitimately game-breaking if hoarded for key endgame fights.
Which raises the question, do I simply forbid Arrows of Detonation and similarly-OP items? Because depending on where you draw the line at power level, the avenues to victory get very narrow. Self-imposed difficulty, after all, has no ceiling.
I've thought about making a list of "OP tools," a list of spells and items that tend to break the difficulty of key fights and make combat simple. Like, picking out the strongest arrow (Arrows of Detonation), the strongest flail (FoA or DoE?), the strongest level 3 mage spell (Haste/Slow/Spell Thrust/Skull Trap?) and abstaining from them. With a few exceptions, though, like allowing mages to cast Spell Immunity (easily the best level 5 mage spell) and clerics to cast Chaotic Commands (easily the best level 5 cleric spell).
I've also considered making a general tweaks mod to impose mild nerfs on the most game-breaking tools (and also add some modest buffs to the weakest spells and items). Nothing so game-changing or well-balanced as Item Revisions or Spell Revisions; just something that would dampen the impact of the best options while still preserving the basic nature of SCS no-reload gameplay.
That kind of tweaks mod might include:
1. A significant drop in XP rewards from basilisks, maybe with a smaller reduction in XP from stuff like sword spiders and battle horrors. Maybe also a modest buff to XP from kobolds and hobgoblins, to reflect the real threat they pose.
2. Nerfing Arrows of Detonation to 2d6 damage, giving them a THAC0 boost but requiring a successful attack roll for them to work, and/or making them limit APR to 1. This would come with a drop in their price so they'd still be worth buying.
3. Nerfing Potions of Magic Shielding to give +5 to ST and +25% to resistances, with similar nerfs to other major potions.
4. Making Sleep less likely to affect lower-level creatures and giving it a small chance to affect higher-level creatures.
The basic idea is to prevent top-tier tools from completely breaking the difficulty of major fights, while still allowing them to play some role in the game. Greater freedom without sacrificing challenge.
Here's the WeiDU log for i eated a lemon's run! @Alesia_BH, I was mistaken; it is not an SCS component that moves Tiax. It's a component of the Tweaks mod.
That ghast is definitely a game-changer early in the game. In most of my runs, the ghast is overshadowed by higher character levels, but with the group at level 1, it's a major boon.
He indeed would be. He is in Beregost in my set-up. I don't tend to use him though as most of my runs are for good characters who all too quickly reach a reputation of 20. If however I play an evil character he would indeed make quite a difference.
That same mod also moves Alora and I tend to use her, indeed I am using her. Quayle at the Carnival would also be quite useful as a cleric/illusionist. I haven't used him yet though.
And if three flaming idiots on the main road is too tough a fight, there's always the one that's hassling Viconia. She'll even cast Command on him so you can get in some free hits. Peldvale is a fairly dangerous area in general, but it's not too bad if you go there from the Friendly Arm and hug the western edge of the map.
I hadn't thought of doing that as I don''t usually go there until after the mines by which point the armour is no longer needed.
I find it strange that you don't lose rep killing the flaming fist, but then it's them that do the attacking.
In my Bella run
Tenya has now joined up with me at level 7. Higher than expected. Dynaheir joined at level 5 and Alora at level 6. Currently sirine hunting for the experience. Three killed so far. Shoal and her companion proved not to be a problem.
In doing Tenya's quest both Dynaheir and Alora were killed by Lethe and her elementals. Lethe is TOUGH!
There wasn't enough gold to raise either of them. I therefore had to sell a lot of surplus equipment which was enough to raise them AND to buy shadow thieves' armour for Alora.
I found that I could afford a small bow +1 for Alora, then shortly afterwards got one free!
There isn't much to write about the Throne. You might have noticed that my swashbuckler isn't using a ton of HLAs - that's because she has taken 12 uses of spike trap in order to skip all but the first Amelyssan battles. Yes, it is lame, but I was just looking for a quick victory to get another kit into the hall, so I'm not too interested in exploring innovative new strategies anyway.
The first battle we do actually have to fight in the usual way. Starting with energy blades and GWWs/WWs is enough to get us a quick victory in 2 rounds:
Now it's just about clearing the pools without making any massive mistakes. The only one where danger is present is the last one - other than that, 4 spike traps and 2-3 normal traps each easily do the job for Mel. We prepare some item-based spell protections and charge the fallen solar, quickly going all out with GWWs. No successful dispelling arrow hits against us, so we never had the chance of suffering vorpal hits thanks to death ward.
We use the wand of spell striking to speed up killing the mariliths:
A few more traps, and that's it:
Some final stats:
Well, that's about it for this run. Not very spectacular, with only some minor incidents regarding freezing effects and the Egeissag duel mess up plus the leather of thorns - but I did what I set out to do - advance my overarching goal of getting every class/kit into the hall.
Now, the list of missing kits looks like this:
Ranger, Stalker
Priest of Helm, Priest of Talos
Shapeshifter, Avenger
Abjurer, Conjurer, Diviner, Invoker, Necromancer
Thief, Bounty Hunter
PS: I didn't know that there weren't any priests of Talos in the Hall. I'm currently running a solo priest of Talos over at TavernRPG. She's at the end of ToB, post Balthazar, in an Insane SCS/Ascension setup. She's been doing great so far, but I don't like her odds in the final fight, sadly.
Also added the Totemic Druid from the avatar run (had seen the the notification on mobile, where editing is dangerous, and then forgot to add it later, sorry!)
PS: I didn't know that there weren't any priests of Talos in the Hall. I'm currently running a solo priest of Talos over at TavernRPG. She's at the end of ToB, post Balthazar, in an Insane SCS/Ascension setup. She's been doing great so far, but I don't like her odds in the final fight, sadly.
But the whole tavern is rooting for Astrid, fingers, paws or tentacles crossed!
It is a LONG time since I have played an unmodded game and my current one makes me realise how much I have forgotten! In the unmodded version Candlekeep seems so empty, I have just remembered that I will not have Lord Foreshadows Ring, I won't have the banter, and many of the quests that boost reputation will be absent.
On the other hand many dangerous enemies will be missing.
The game will be very different. I'll definitly miss the NPC Project and the BG1 romance mod.
I'll also miss not having so many NPCs to choose from and Quests and Encounters.
Also the convenience tweaks.
I like her portraits. I only changed her nose to make it more gnomish and her eyes to make her look more evil.
Magnia has left Candlekeep having bought splint armour, helmet, sling and bullets. Her reputation was raised by 2 due to donations to the temple and she still has 20gp left.
Journal of Magnia
It is certainly dangerous out here on the Sword Coast. Twice I haave been ambushed by skeleton archers and once by bandits! On one of those occasions I had forgotten to don my armour after removing it for casting spells. I was lucky that no arrows struck me. On the way to the FAI I found a ring of protection and I found another ring outside the FAI that has beeen quite useful. Another two donations raised my reputation more. My donations have only cost 1,100gp in total.
I killed Tarnesh with the help of two Command Spells.
I found Joia's ring and returned it, and Tenya's bowl to her. (Sad that in this game she can't join me)
Now safely in Beregost.
Despite having a reputation of 14, the sling +1 still cost 150gp. I had to scratch around in the barrels in order to buy it!
Now down to 1gp. I am now a level 2 cleric.
After killing the ogrillons with some difficulty I spent my last gold piece at the inn.
(It feels right that everything is pricey. She has a nasty personality and that has resulted in low charisma. I went to a cave near Lathander's Temple where I could boost Charisma somewhat only to find that the cave didn't exist! It must come from a mod.)
The version of Yaga-Shura you face in the Five battle isn't actually immune to fire. Instead, he's highly resistant to everything (initially 99%), and those resistances decay over time.
I just did a test in Ascension v2 and Yaga is vulnerable to fire. That seems contrary to my experience in v1.4. He used to cast Fire Storm on himself when he reached near death, as in this case from my F/M Arcadia's run. It's possible that had been dubious scripting, but I believe it healed him. If he did used to have +100% resistance to fire, like other fire giants, I wonder if the v2 behavior is a bug.
Btw, @jmerry. I checked the Ascension 2.0.21Read Me and Yaga is supposed to have 127% resistance to fire, as in prior versions of Ascension. The current behavior is unintended and warrants a fix.
From the Ascension 2.0.21 Read Me:
Yaga-Shura begins with 127% resistance to fire, 50% resistance to cold, and 99% resistance to all other forms of damage. If Nyalee's ritual has been performed, he loses these resistances (except fire) at a rate of 2% per round, until he has lost a total of 30% (so that he has 20% resistance to cold, 127% resistance to fire, and 70% resistance to everything else). In Chapter 10, he retains this behaviour on HARD difficulty or higher. On CORE, NORMAL or EASY, he begins at his 'final' resistance.
And the run I was recalling that from was played on Insane (with SCS).
And checking the SCS component that modifies Ascension ...
DEFINE_ACTION_FUNCTION yaga_shura_finale BEGIN
LAF include STR_VAR file=ascension_shared.tpa END
LAF update_vanilla_ascension END
LAF ascension_to_scs END
LAF define_difficulty STR_VAR type=ascension RET difficulty_variable END
MAKE_PATCH
resist_fire=>60
resist_acid=>60
resist_electricity=>60
resist_cold=>20
resist_slashing=>60
resist_piercing=>60
resist_crushing=>60
resist_missile=>60
END
LAF edit_creature STR_VAR creature=finyaga edits=patch_data END
LAF ssl_to_bcs STR_VAR script=finyaga location=~ssl~ END
END
SCS reduces the finale version of Yaga-Shura to 60% base fire resistance. Then he gets another +20% from his armor (Shurrupak's Plate) for 80%.
Also, if Yaga-Shura is ever close someone that's vulnerable to fire, he casts Aura of Flaming Death (up to once per ten rounds), setting his base fire resistance to 90% while active - which puts him at 110% overall. Naturally, the fire-themed run had a party that was fully immune so that didn't come into play.
And ... actually, I think that negates the whole "weakening" mechanic. Finale Yaga-Shura with SCS is already fully weakened, except that he still has 99% magic damage resistance because he's cloned from a creature that had that.
And the run I was recalling that from was played on Insane (with SCS).
Yes. I was running with SCS on Insane too when I noticed the issue.
We know that there´s something to that effect in the code, given the behavior. The question is whether it is intentional or unintentional.
It would be very unlike David to intentionally reduce resistances like that- especially in a manner inconsistent with the nature of the creature. The re-coding of Ascension, and integration of SCS into Ascension, was a long and arduous process. Mistakes were made. We've already noticed some egregious ones, like the fallen solar script error. This is likely another mistake.
My hypothesis is that the fire resistance entry is erroneous, and, additionally, that we're witnessing the behavior intended for Core, Normal and Easy on Insane and Hard.
The SCS Read Me section on the Yaga component makes no mention of resistance reductions, only AI upgrades. It would be exceedingly strange for David to intentionally lower resistances in the manner we've observed. It's implausible that he'd do so without a note in the Read Me.
This component changes the AI of the Ascension version of Yaga-Shura (and his flunkies) to match the SCS norm. Hopefully this makes them more rather than less dangerous (although Ascension AI is pretty good, so I'd welcome feedback). Both the original and the finale versions are affected.
The ankheg proved to be difficult.
I therefore went to Ulgoth's Beard to find out what the staff +3 would cost. Way over 6000gp.
I therefore bought a protection from lightning scroll and went to see Silke in the hope of getting a +1 staff.
Silke saved against command and used her electrical magic which ddn't effect me but did affect those that I was trying to save.
I cast silence to stop her casting further spells but she then moved so that she wasn't affected but I was!
Her next spell was fatal!
Perhaps I should have used my wand, or maybe been more persistant against the ankheg.
If all you wanted was the +1 staff, you could have just bought it at the smithy. Base price 500, less than a tenth as much as the +3 staff (5500). Much less risky than a low-level fight against Silke.
Trio 52 - update 2 Stellar - half-elf druid (Grond0)
Corethief XXXVI - human berserker due to dual to thief in BG2EE (Corey_Russell)
Betsdown - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Previous updates
Our session started with Mutamin waiting patiently for us to show ourselves. With Corethief raging, his horror was no danger and a couple of Melf's were not enough to fend us off.
To the south Stellar charmed and pulled a couple of Kirian's comrades away for disposal, making finishing that party off easy.
Stellar was thinking about taking on the ankhegs next, but Corethief wanted a better shield before doing that - Bjornin's quest soon supplied that. The ankhegs then were expected to be easy enough, but in fact proved a bit of a problem. That was mainly the result of Stellar breaking the only spear he had and resorting to attacking with his fists. He did manage to pummel one ankheg unconscious, but the danger of attacking with fists is the need to get so close in and thus prompt the ankheg to switch targets. The next ankheg did that and Stellar retreated briefly rather than allowing it to attack him, causing it to attack Betsdown instead. He could have retreated himself, but chose to stay in place to make sure the ankheg did not switch back to Stellar, but paid dearly for that decision.
After a temple visit and finishing off the rest of the ankhegs, Stellar decided to get himself a sturdier spear. Poe at Firewine Bridge was a known carrier for one of those and he was charmed and sent to fight some kobolds to ensure the spear was made available without any damage to reputation.
Next up, Corethief fancied pitting his rage against some sirines. However, that only lasts 10 rounds and one of the first group of sirines at the Lighthouse survived that long. Corethief saw it was almost dead and tried to finish it off rather than retreat, but it managed to get one more blow in - inflicting feeblemind.
However, in v2.6 that's only a temporary condition and we just needed to wait a while before going to deal with Sil and her companions. We didn't rest before moving inside the pirate cave, so Corethief had no rage available to block the hold trap. Rather than show himself to the golem behind the trap, Betsdown decided to trigger the trap under stealth. That resulted in him getting held in a dangerous situation as, once you move into sight range of the golems (whether invisible or not), they start moving around. It would probably have been sensible to go and find the golem immediately, but we waited too long and it came to find Betsdown instead. With his life measured in scant seconds, Stellar moved in as close and possible to the golem and attacked. He did successfully get it to switch attacks, but after getting hit once he had to retreat. Corethief tried to get close himself, but was unable to do that in the close quarters and the golem duly finished off poor Betsdown.
We finished off the golems before looting, then headed once more for the temple. Corethief was keen to demonstrate that practice makes perfect by taking on the sirines further up the coast. That fight was won, though there was an indication that we need a bit more practice, with Corethief taking two hits from poison arrows and losing most of his HPs before the sirines were dealt with.
Bassilus had no answer to rage and we collected Melicamp, but got no reward for that when he failed to survive his transformation. Then it was on to the Nashkel Mine and an appointment with Mulahey. Corethief could undoubtedly have dealt with him unaided, but Stellar threw in a few insects to help out on principle.
Outside the mine, 2 of the amazons were charmed and pulled away for disposal and a third struck down by call lightning, leaving Lamalha facing hopeless odds.
Nimbul's mirrors provided no protection against call lightning, but we didn't immediately go to find Tranzig. Instead we killed a few spiders in Beregost before taking some bits and pieces to the FAI and picking up the pantaloons there. The last few minutes of the session saw us sweeping through the Cloud Peaks and collecting the charisma tome.
If all you wanted was the +1 staff, you could have just bought it at the smithy. Base price 500, less than a tenth as much as the +3 staff (5500). Much less risky than a low-level fight against Silke.
True, but I wasn't that low a level and in this game even 500gp seemed a lot. In my next game I'll have to get the 1000gp gem down south. It will change things a lot.
Journal of Magnia
This time a big bonus. I was able to help Melicamp.
I tried to follow the advice of @jmerry and found that the staff was 750gp. Way out of my price range at present. I'll try and boost reputation and gold supply and then see what I can do. I couldn't even afford is a +1 sling even if I sold my jewellery.
I then went to the FAI where with some help from the guards there I killed Tarnesh. I sadly missed out on the experience as a guard delivered the final blow. Whilst I was able to scrbe the magic missile scroll, I failed with the other. So far I have been able to scribe the more important spells, the others being Identify and armour.
I returned the bowl to Tenya but was just beaten my the nearby ankheg. I'm pretty sure that I could beat it in a re-match.
Journal of Magnia Third Run
Again I helped Joia. Again the guards killed Tarnesh. Upon trying to help Melicamp, I was forced to flee.
Scribed Armour and Friends. No Identify scroll this time. I have bought a sling +1. Now poor again. Reputation now 12.
Upon my return to help Melicamp I was successful. However, even after casting Friends, I still cannot afford to buy the staff +1.
I am therefore heading southwards to Nashkel having delivered a letter to Mirianne.
A blindness spell proved to be invaluable when fighting Greywolf. I bought the shield amulet and then picked up some goodies near to Samuel before taking im to the FAI.
I took a trinket to Mr Colquetle and then went to Ulgoth's Beard for a Protection from Lightning spell.
That and the shield amulet proved invaluable when fighting Silke as I was immune to her dangerous spells. She was not immune to blindness and that proved to be her downfall.
(I need to memorise this for the times when I am playing solo. She isn't too dangerous against a party. A bonus was that two of those that I was helping were killed by her! Potions of defence + jewels! )
Playing this class is definitely challenging! Now time to hunt ankheg, do shopping and then pick up an evil party, though perhaps I should use good guys for the mines first since I am a hero at present.
I have just found a dead body in the ankheg nest. I can now kill two ankheg between rests so I should be able to clear the nest. My experience is going up rapidly. When I sell the shells I will buy some of the more useful level 2 spells and the necklace of missiles.
Aldain, Human Conjurer, Update 3
Previous update here
Next update here
Had to jog my memory by looking at the previous post... that's right! We're at Ulgoth's Beard, but were intending to head for Baldur's Gate next. And so we do.
Of course, with four fighter-types and ~85k experience a head, we can just power straight through nearly every encounter. Niemain alleviates the steam-rolling by frying his own allies (he's very happy to use that Wand of Fire he's carrying).
Also, though I feel slightly dirty, we take down Lothander before he can escape. Yeah, the boots are kind of moot: We don't need them, or any other loot by now, for that matter (but of course we still loot...). Haste/Chant/Bless/Recitation is enough to carry us through almost any encounter, and when they're not, Animate Dead bridges the gap. For giggles, one can add Emotion: Hope/Emotion: Courage for truly ridiculous THAC0 boosts. Degrodel's guardians still pack a bit of a punch, though.
There's a handful of enemy mages that can prove troublesome, but since literally none of them have PfMW, we just push through their (quite few in number) Stoneskins and Mirror Images. Ramazith proves that it's really not safe treating mages this way: Branwen has to pop a charge from Wand of the Heavens to keep us from eating a Chaos (though we would've probably been fine even had it landed... probably).
And that's it for the city! Let's move on with the plot. We ascend the Iron Throne headquarters, lure out the (initially hostile) thieves on the top floor by sending a summon to drag them to the southern room, and then execute a cunning pla-
So it seems I am cursed. No matter what I do, this fight never goes the way I want it to. I've no idea how they turned hostile or were able to track us down, but them's the shakes. Alright, nobody panic.
... Maybe it's ok to panic a little.
So, Gardush and Zhalimar pack quite a wallop once you get close (especially since Zhalimar usually has a very good strength potion he quaffs first thing). Khalid found this out to his detriment, as he literally dropped in less than a round, though that was largely because he was already pretty beaten up from Zhalimar using him as ranged target practice. Fortunately, the Confusion aimed at Aldain only managed to affect Branwen, or we might've been in serious hot water here.
Jaheira manages to get a Nymph up and running, and we bust out the wands. Gardush is taken down pretty quickly, and fortunately Zhalimar can't decide if he wants to melee or shoot: He keeps ducking out through the door to go ranged, but this causes him to loose line of sight, repeatedly buying us time when he's not trying to kill us. Ultimately, through some very careful positioning (why am I never this careful BEFORE this battle starts?) we pull through: Zhalimar drops to a fairly vicious backstab courtesy of Amarande, at which point the enemy simply doesn't have any killing power left. Mainly since we ended up tanking their spells with our faces, but eh. I think this might be the first death we suffered this run?
Anyway, we pick up the pieces previously known as Khalid, shuffle off to the Temple of Helm, raise him, and all is well.
That's the city done for now, so off to Ice Island for a Stoneskin scroll (which really is kind of pointless; it's not necessary for BG1 and it's available almost immediately in SoD). To start with, Andris' two flunkies Marcellus and Beyn are seriously low level, enough so that they're not really a threat, and Andris will teleport off fairly early on if you attack him.
So, simply take down the flunkies first. Andris teleports out, and you have a little while before he comes back. Put a single buff on the protagonist (say, Remove Fear), and wait. Andris buffs up, teleports back in on top of the protagonist, and pretty much always goes for Remove Magic first thing. While he's wasting his round doing that, counter with a Spell Thrust, then swarm him: If he lives long enough to start a second cast, just pop a Wand of the Heavens, Melf's Acid Arrow sequencer, or (as in this case) say a Wand of Paralyzation, and he's done for.
We gleefully chop down the other minor wizards (Garann and Cuchol). Tellan is a bit of a problem: To my knowledge, one of only four BG1EE mages with access to L6 spells, the others being the Ghost in Durlag's Tower, Karhk and Krystin. No need to fight him fairly though; nigh infinite summons will blunt even Tellan's edge. Unless he casts a badly bouncing Lightning Bolt, but that's just so unli-
... I should've just burned a PfM scroll and had Amarande clear the place out.
I end up burning a Potion of Absorption for each party member, which was the right call, since that single Lightning Bolt bounced very badly: It might've wiped half the party, and owing to a bad case of inventory congestion, that would've meant abandoning a lot of gear here. We quit playing around, bust out the five Skeleton Warriors, and eventually do bring Tellan down. But man, it takes a while to chew through all those protections.
I'm actually surprised I so seldom lose runs in BG1, it seems there's always some close calls. Anyway, we clear Dezkiel with little difficulty and teleport back to the mainland.
We're still a ways from the experience cap, so delve into Durlag's next. Not much to report here: With full buffs, we clear the four Warders easily, and the following two levels go smoothly. In fact, the only slightly touch-and-go situation is when we have to fight 3x Greater Dopplegangers starting as Islanne turning into 3x Durlag whereupon Khalid takes a beating.
We head into the lowest level: The chessboard is as usual handled via Protection from Lightning on everybody (we have enough priest slots to cover it for almost the entire party, potions making up the difference) and mass firebombing. Though at this stage we would've been fine just hacking our way through.
We use some magical damage spells (Magic Missile, Skull Trap) to speed up clearing the oodles of Greater Ghouls down here, hunt down Grael, and loot the place. And... that's Durlag's. No need to bother with the Demon Knight, so we just teleport out.
So, in case anyone was wondering: In Baldur's Gate, you can steal from Maltz's weapon shop, Lucky Aello's Discount Store, all of the unnamed stores (tagged as Store/General Store on the maps), and the potion merchant. This massive raid resulted in a handful of Arrows of Piercing, a Girdle of Bluntness, and some good but not great potions. Meh. You of course cannot steal from good stores (Sorcerous Sundries, Black Lily, Shop of Silence).
OK! That's far enough, I'd say. Let's conclude our BG1 shenanigans. We head for Candlekeep, foil the Ogre Magi ambush via mass Potions of Invisibility, then turn around and pummel 'em. We leave Rieltar and friends alive (we don't need the experience and they've got no loot of consequence), get framed, and escape via the catacombs. Wisdom tome goes to Aldain, who will now be able to cast Limited Wish with great success before the Hell Wisdom boost. Yeah, it really doesn't matter... Anyway, Amarande gets the Strength tome, which actually does matter a fair bit. In a funny twist of fate, a Doppleganger actually yields a second Melf's Minute Meteors scroll, much to Amarande's delight.
Prat and friends are very easily done in by Skeleton Warriors assisted by vicious repeat backstabs by Amarande, and we're in the clear. We return to the Gate, free Eltan, take down Cythandria (who manages to flee before we can kill her, misclick in dialogue...) and tackle Slythe and Krystin. Aside from frying a number of bystanders with a Lightning Bolt, Krystin doesn't really do much this time around; Slythe as usual just gets pummeled by buffed Skeleton Warriors.
We're off to the coronation: Full complement of Skeleton Warriors and a ton of buffs means all Dopplegangers of consequence (Mage -> Shaman -> Assassin in that order) drop within a few rounds. Whereupon I am actually forced to reload: I got the bug where Sarevok won't acknowledge defeat. Winski shows up, but won't teleport Sarevok out, so invincible Sarevok just kills all the Flaming Fist and both Dukes on his own. I'm alright with this reload, since it's clearly a bug, though other's opinion may differ. Second time around sees Sarevok's dialogue trigger, and we're off in pursuit.
The Undercity party is really just a speed-bump at this stage: Basic beetle summons by Jaheira and a Haste is all it takes to bring them down, swiftly and with style (bonus points for the reference!). This time I remember to have Aldain do the talking with Tamoko, and we're able to convince her to back down. Alright, time for the end.
I've been even more stingy than usual this time around: We have stupid amounts of potions and 6x Protection from Magic scrolls (didn't even realize there are that many in the game...). Well, the plan is simple then: Aldain and Branwen, after providing some Skeleton Warriors to serve as initial distractions, each boost their Lightning resistance to 100%, then quaff a Potion of Invisibility each. Our four fighter-types apply a PfM scroll and then get potions of Storm Giant Strength, Invulnerability, Heroism, Power and Speed.
This somewhat breaks the fight, since Semaj is too scared to actually do anything besides a pointless summon, so we have to bait him out of his Invisibility by Aldain going visible. Still, once we have a bead on him, Semaj drops even quicker than his fighter compatriots, and that's it. The entire fight basically came down to avoiding a (dispelled via Arrow of Dispelling from Coran) Sarevok getting too many hits in: As always, Sarevok can do absolutely nothing on his own. Goodbye, Sarevok.
BG1EE complete. We comfortably reached the experience cap, so Aldain finishes as a level 9 Human Conjurer, with Amarande clocking in as a level 6/6/7 Half-elven Fighter/Mage/Thief. SoD will be next.
I rolled a staggering 94 on an elven Diviner and was feeling super hopeful about the run. It's one of the best rolls I've ever gotten without the autoroller.
She just died straight out of Candlekeep. A random kobold wandered onto the road, which I've never seen before in the place it showed up, and it immediately landed a critical hit, killing our character at 6 HP.
I'm not even sure that's supposed to be possible. I thought level 1 characters with less than 14 HP couldn't be killed with a single hit.
It's not supposed to be possible! In your shoes I would run the same character again from the start.
I went along the southern end of the Sword Coast until I came to a cave near the gnoll stronghold. Boosted my charisma slightly though it is still poor.
My reputation has reached the height of 20 so I will be going shopping after I leave the mines Mulahey and his cohorts are dead but they did give cause for concern my health being down to 12 before I automatically healed myself. Fortunately I was able to rest undisturbed so my healiing potion stack continues to rise.
Stinking Cloud, Sleep and Command were enough to neutralise Lamalha et al. I had Xan to help as I intend to take him to the safety of Nashkel before bidding him farewell.
Nimbul was too strong. Realised afterwards that if I had used the shield amulet, I would easily have survived, similarly if Sanctuary had been memorised.
New game, First and last post!! Unlike my old set-up in this unmodded game 16, not 17 is the maximum starting charisma.
Journal of Desto the Destroyer
After Gorion was killed I made my way to the FAI and on to Tenya, killing hobgoblins etc on the way.
I returned her bowl before heading to High Hedge where I helped Melicamp prior to going to Beregost.
There I calmed Marl, took a tome to Firebead and bought a +1 sling.
To the south I killed an ogrillon before running out of spells. I rested upon returning to Beregost. I headed south to kill the other ogrillon. Mirianne gave me a +1 ring of protection in return for delivering a letter to her. I cannot use it though. I found the Colquetle amulet on the way to Nashkel where somebody had buried some ankheg armour. I acquired it and once furnished with it I felt much safer. It enabled me to take on and kill Greywolf. After taking the emeralds to Oublek I took Samuel to the FAI where a lucky blow killed Tarnesh.
I was not so lucky fighting ankheg. I fought one too many ankheg innthe nest. Impatience! Luck runs out!
I am considering having Branwen in the party. I think that she is a Cleric of Tempus. Confirmation would be great.
How do Talos and Tempus get on with each other?
I've tried to Google it without success.
I have discovered that Branwen won't stay in SoD. Would she stay if I made her exportable and/or changed her name with Keeper?
I have discovered that Branwen won't stay in SoD. Would she stay if I made her exportable and/or changed her name with Keeper? [/i]
NPCs leaving in SoD is done through the area script for the first area after the starting dungeon, and is based on their script names - not the name you'd be changing.
What you can do? You can summon her back after she leaves, with a MoveGlobal() command. In the cheat/debug console, once that opening scene in the palace is done, you can enter the following:
C: MoveGlobal(area,"branwen",coordinates)
That's the area code you want to summon her to in quotes, such as "bd0101" for the area out in front of the palace, and coordinates [x,y] for a location in square brackets; typing "x" without the console active will tell you the coordinates for your cursor.
I have discovered that Branwen won't stay in SoD. Would she stay if I made her exportable and/or changed her name with Keeper? [/i]
NPCs leaving in SoD is done through the area script for the first area after the starting dungeon, and is based on their script names - not the name you'd be changing.
What you can do? You can summon her back after she leaves, with a MoveGlobal() command. In the cheat/debug console, once that opening scene in the palace is done, you can enter the following:
C: MoveGlobal(area,"branwen",coordinates)
That's the area code you want to summon her to in quotes, such as "bd0101" for the area out in front of the palace, and coordinates [x,y] for a location in square brackets; typing "x" without the console active will tell you the coordinates for your cursor.
I have just killed an ogre and Bassilus with him. Is that better. I suppose that I could now pick a fight with Marl and get experience twice over. I'll do that when I want a lower reputation.
That is very helpful. Thanks. There have been many times when I didn't want to say farewell to a character and that is the ideal way of doing it.
At Candlekeep I did most of the quests as usual but decided to kill Hull for his armour. This resulted in a loss of reputation.
After the death of Gorion I was able to help Melicamp.
At Beregost I calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead before delivering a letter to Mirianne.
I went to Nashkel, donned the ankheg armour and killed Greywolf. I had to use sanctuary, sleep and have a second bite of the cherry in order to defeat him.
I headed for the FAI and returned Joia's ring.
I then killed Bassilus before returning to the FAI to kill Tarnesh. I had bought a potion of freedom and the shiels amulet first to make the battles easier. Against Bassilus I also needed two bites of the cherry.
I returned Samuel to the FAI.
I went to Tenya who gave me a quest before going hostile.
I departed and went to see Sonner. He gave me the bowl but Tenya wouldn't allow me to give it to her, I therefore killed her and collected the flail from Sonner.
I killed Algernon for his cloak and helped Charleston Nib.
I then took Brage to the temple of Helm.
After doing a few minor quests I took on the Nashkel mines. Fairly straightforward. Xan and Branwen then joined me. I bought Xan the robe of the neutral archmage but then had no gold for spells.
Upon realising that I didn't need Branwen in the party, I bade her farewell. We then killed Droth, Shoal and some sirines before returning to Beregost where we killed some spiders, enough for Xan to level up.
I made a mistake in putting a pip in slings for Xan. Staves would have been better.
When Xan tried to memorise web, he realised that it is impossible, so I am currently hunting ankhegs in the hope of earning enough for him to buy spells at High Hedge. The ankhegs have dropped some useful scrolls nothing great.
The lack of web means that I will have to use different tactics. It will need some thought.
With no trio today Berry and Rouse set out instead. Try as we might (not very much) Imoen refused to accompany us through the Korlasz family tomb. Rouse antagonised a group of guards while Berry was not paying attention and we were both subjected to horror - but Berry saved. He nocked an arrow of dispelling and at the second attempt landed a dispel into the rear of his companion.
Rouse took umbrage at this and fortunately for Berry took it out on the guards which meant the entry level of the tomb was soon clear. We descended and used two of our three protection from undead scrolls to clear out most of the undead. Spirit fire and fireballs dealt with mercenaries in the rope chamber before Korlasz was shown no mercy.
We rested up in the ducal palace and set out the next morning. After doing a few minor quests we headed to the nearest bridge under cover of invisibility only to find the lookout there used extra sensory perception to detect our presence. We remained invisible beside a tent as the bridge was destroyed, and then left to look for another bridge.
After a while we stumbled across a group of wyverns and Berry made a good job of attacking them right up until they fought back. He failed to slow poison and would have been in serious trouble if Rouse had not had the sense to do the same.
We found the old temple of Bhaal and used potions to guarantee saving throws for three turns. The neothelid inside didn't get anywhere near lasting that long.
A half-dragon thought it was safe under sanctuary but three fireballs and what looked suspiciously like a wand of the heavens strike proved a suitable counter.
Shallen out-lived his companions only to get caught between a cloudkill and an angry half-orc shaman.
On our way out we downed a green dragon, and then had a random encounter with a juvenile green dragon. We helped that one although Rouse found himself attacking it after the event and gloomily surmised he would not be able to kill it.
I had not expected this encounter as we had not had the troll / orc encounter. Grond0 said they could appear in a random order and he's obviously right. He experiences this reasonably often whereas I never have so can only assume that progressing rapidly through the game allows it to happen and if you take time on each area you are more likely to encounter them in a given order.
Once we'd done this we travelled around to get the aforementioned troll and orc encounter. It duly appeared and many trolls died then flagged as unconscious in spirit fire and cloudkill.
For the final part of that, diving into the pool, we had a brief discussion about whether wraithform would protect Berry against trolls. Sadly not, which mean mucho runno ensued.
We left it there, having survived to fight another day.
We had another randomish encounter, goblins falling to cloudkill and spirit fire leaving relatively few to mop up.
Inside the nearby cave Berry made use of wraithform so despite being confused twice and feebleminded once he survived while Rouse tidied up after him.
After surrendering Bridgefort we dealt with the mage on the bridge and finally got a crossing intact.
We fudged around the next few areas and only later did we realise that I had forgotten to pick up vorpal shards from Bridgefort and neither they nor Jegg were available to forge a +3 weapon for Rouse. This meant the few +3 bullets from the underground river became more precious to us - not that they would have been used elsewhere but more that we made certain to pick them up.
We ploughed on but my lack of planning (I find this difficult to do in multiplayer) was catching up on us. We buffed to defend the siege camp against 3 waves of attack only to realise we'd not gone to parlay. Berry added another stoneskin (recently learnt) intending to rest but Rouse said the travel to parlay was immediate. The downside to this is that Berry had no follow-on stoneskin to cast and his minute of mirror images was ticking down.
We arrived at the parlay, said our few words, and returned to camp. All three waves of attackers were repelled but Berry had lost his stoneskin by this time. He spoke to the priest, and Rouse assumed this was to have a quick rest but Berry only intended to have a few items identified so his bulging eyes could savour the loot picked so far.
On we went then without a rest to deal with Grimgor - he fell relatively easy but Berry got sucked into over-confidence and carelessness, and range of arrows. Outch. Ouch. Retreat.
Rouse shouted something about there being imminent danger (while paused). Righto said Berry (and unpaused to continue his retreat). Swift Rabbit immediately proved to be the imminent danger and Berry slumped to the ground.
With all the characters reaching their XP caps well before the end of SoA, I did much less optional content than in the earlier stages of the game. That meant progress was quick once I got around to continuing with these runs a few days ago. I was getting a bit careless with the last couple of characters played, including getting the fighter dualled to cleric held by beholders in the underdark - I think an anti-magic ray released him there before anything nasty happened - but the 5 remaining characters all managed to make it through to ToB.
Fighter/thief 24/28, 161 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1,354 kills (+436 in BGEE/SoD)
The F/T continued to make easy progress and should really be able to do the same in ToB.
Fighter/mage/cleric 18/17/19, 133 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1,105 kills (+451 in BGEE/SoD)
The loss of L9 spells meant this was played similar to a F/C most of the time. I haven't tried out clerical spells in sequencers, but might do a bit of experimentation along those lines in ToB.
Fighter/druid dominated by a nymph at level 11/13 while attacking Kyland Lind and his druids in the Grove.
Fighter 40, 198 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1,442 kills (+535 in BGEE/SoD)
The loss of the Ring of Gaxx had a knock-on effect in this session. Normally I would have just taken Blackrazor, as the character has grandmastery in longswords and that sword is particularly useful to me (for its healing ability as much as hurting the opposition). With saving throws not quite as good as I wanted I took the good route in that hell challenge to get +2 to saving throws and then tried to kill the efreeti before it disappeared - but was not quite quick enough.
Wizard slayer died at level 9 to hobgoblin command approaching the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms.
Enchanter 31, 93 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone; 12 from familiar), 802 kills (+405 in BGEE/SoD)
As the most vulnerable of these characters, the enchanter continued to stay out of sight quite a bit while making use of area damage and summons.
Fighter dualling to cleric 13/38, 190 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1,110 kills (+588 in BGEE/SoD)
The high cleric levels made for quick progress through undead - though that will be no longer possible in future due to turning evil in the hell trials. There was a reasonable amount of use of summons, including use of a deva, to help with some fights.
Comments
Which raises the question, do I simply forbid Arrows of Detonation and similarly-OP items? Because depending on where you draw the line at power level, the avenues to victory get very narrow. Self-imposed difficulty, after all, has no ceiling.
I've thought about making a list of "OP tools," a list of spells and items that tend to break the difficulty of key fights and make combat simple. Like, picking out the strongest arrow (Arrows of Detonation), the strongest flail (FoA or DoE?), the strongest level 3 mage spell (Haste/Slow/Spell Thrust/Skull Trap?) and abstaining from them. With a few exceptions, though, like allowing mages to cast Spell Immunity (easily the best level 5 mage spell) and clerics to cast Chaotic Commands (easily the best level 5 cleric spell).
I've also considered making a general tweaks mod to impose mild nerfs on the most game-breaking tools (and also add some modest buffs to the weakest spells and items). Nothing so game-changing or well-balanced as Item Revisions or Spell Revisions; just something that would dampen the impact of the best options while still preserving the basic nature of SCS no-reload gameplay.
That kind of tweaks mod might include:
1. A significant drop in XP rewards from basilisks, maybe with a smaller reduction in XP from stuff like sword spiders and battle horrors. Maybe also a modest buff to XP from kobolds and hobgoblins, to reflect the real threat they pose.
2. Nerfing Arrows of Detonation to 2d6 damage, giving them a THAC0 boost but requiring a successful attack roll for them to work, and/or making them limit APR to 1. This would come with a drop in their price so they'd still be worth buying.
3. Nerfing Potions of Magic Shielding to give +5 to ST and +25% to resistances, with similar nerfs to other major potions.
4. Making Sleep less likely to affect lower-level creatures and giving it a small chance to affect higher-level creatures.
The basic idea is to prevent top-tier tools from completely breaking the difficulty of major fights, while still allowing them to play some role in the game. Greater freedom without sacrificing challenge.
Let's continue this in the Lounge.
Cheers,
A.
He indeed would be. He is in Beregost in my set-up. I don't tend to use him though as most of my runs are for good characters who all too quickly reach a reputation of 20. If however I play an evil character he would indeed make quite a difference.
That same mod also moves Alora and I tend to use her, indeed I am using her. Quayle at the Carnival would also be quite useful as a cleric/illusionist. I haven't used him yet though.
I hadn't thought of doing that as I don''t usually go there until after the mines by which point the armour is no longer needed.
I find it strange that you don't lose rep killing the flaming fist, but then it's them that do the attacking.
In my Bella run
Tenya has now joined up with me at level 7. Higher than expected. Dynaheir joined at level 5 and Alora at level 6. Currently sirine hunting for the experience. Three killed so far. Shoal and her companion proved not to be a problem.
In doing Tenya's quest both Dynaheir and Alora were killed by Lethe and her elementals. Lethe is TOUGH!
There wasn't enough gold to raise either of them. I therefore had to sell a lot of surplus equipment which was enough to raise them AND to buy shadow thieves' armour for Alora.
I found that I could afford a small bow +1 for Alora, then shortly afterwards got one free!
There isn't much to write about the Throne. You might have noticed that my swashbuckler isn't using a ton of HLAs - that's because she has taken 12 uses of spike trap in order to skip all but the first Amelyssan battles. Yes, it is lame, but I was just looking for a quick victory to get another kit into the hall, so I'm not too interested in exploring innovative new strategies anyway.
The first battle we do actually have to fight in the usual way. Starting with energy blades and GWWs/WWs is enough to get us a quick victory in 2 rounds:
Well, that's about it for this run. Not very spectacular, with only some minor incidents regarding freezing effects and the Egeissag duel mess up plus the leather of thorns - but I did what I set out to do - advance my overarching goal of getting every class/kit into the hall.
Now, the list of missing kits looks like this:
Ranger, Stalker
Priest of Helm, Priest of Talos
Shapeshifter, Avenger
Abjurer, Conjurer, Diviner, Invoker, Necromancer
Thief, Bounty Hunter
Let's get them in there!
Narescha, the Cleric: @Enuhal
Notable Mods: None
Difficulty: Core Rules
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1198029/#Comment_1198029
Finish: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1198385/#Comment_1198385
Cheers,
A.
PS: I didn't know that there weren't any priests of Talos in the Hall. I'm currently running a solo priest of Talos over at TavernRPG. She's at the end of ToB, post Balthazar, in an Insane SCS/Ascension setup. She's been doing great so far, but I don't like her odds in the final fight, sadly.
Done, congrats!
Also added the Totemic Druid from the avatar run (had seen the the notification on mobile, where editing is dangerous, and then forgot to add it later, sorry!)
But the whole tavern is rooting for Astrid, fingers, paws or tentacles crossed!
On the other hand many dangerous enemies will be missing.
The game will be very different. I'll definitly miss the NPC Project and the BG1 romance mod.
I'll also miss not having so many NPCs to choose from and Quests and Encounters.
Also the convenience tweaks.
I like her portraits. I only changed her nose to make it more gnomish and her eyes to make her look more evil.
Magnia has left Candlekeep having bought splint armour, helmet, sling and bullets. Her reputation was raised by 2 due to donations to the temple and she still has 20gp left.
Journal of Magnia
It is certainly dangerous out here on the Sword Coast. Twice I haave been ambushed by skeleton archers and once by bandits! On one of those occasions I had forgotten to don my armour after removing it for casting spells. I was lucky that no arrows struck me. On the way to the FAI I found a ring of protection and I found another ring outside the FAI that has beeen quite useful. Another two donations raised my reputation more. My donations have only cost 1,100gp in total.
I killed Tarnesh with the help of two Command Spells.
I found Joia's ring and returned it, and Tenya's bowl to her. (Sad that in this game she can't join me)
Now safely in Beregost.
Despite having a reputation of 14, the sling +1 still cost 150gp. I had to scratch around in the barrels in order to buy it!
Now down to 1gp. I am now a level 2 cleric.
After killing the ogrillons with some difficulty I spent my last gold piece at the inn.
(It feels right that everything is pricey. She has a nasty personality and that has resulted in low charisma. I went to a cave near Lathander's Temple where I could boost Charisma somewhat only to find that the cave didn't exist!
You've had some excellent ideas of late.
Btw, @jmerry. I checked the Ascension 2.0.21Read Me and Yaga is supposed to have 127% resistance to fire, as in prior versions of Ascension. The current behavior is unintended and warrants a fix.
From the Ascension 2.0.21 Read Me:
Yaga-Shura begins with 127% resistance to fire, 50% resistance to cold, and 99% resistance to all other forms of damage. If Nyalee's ritual has been performed, he loses these resistances (except fire) at a rate of 2% per round, until he has lost a total of 30% (so that he has 20% resistance to cold, 127% resistance to fire, and 70% resistance to everything else). In Chapter 10, he retains this behaviour on HARD difficulty or higher. On CORE, NORMAL or EASY, he begins at his 'final' resistance.
And checking the SCS component that modifies Ascension ...
DEFINE_ACTION_FUNCTION yaga_shura_finale BEGIN LAF include STR_VAR file=ascension_shared.tpa END LAF update_vanilla_ascension END LAF ascension_to_scs END LAF define_difficulty STR_VAR type=ascension RET difficulty_variable END MAKE_PATCH resist_fire=>60 resist_acid=>60 resist_electricity=>60 resist_cold=>20 resist_slashing=>60 resist_piercing=>60 resist_crushing=>60 resist_missile=>60 END LAF edit_creature STR_VAR creature=finyaga edits=patch_data END LAF ssl_to_bcs STR_VAR script=finyaga location=~ssl~ END ENDAlso, if Yaga-Shura is ever close someone that's vulnerable to fire, he casts Aura of Flaming Death (up to once per ten rounds), setting his base fire resistance to 90% while active - which puts him at 110% overall. Naturally, the fire-themed run had a party that was fully immune so that didn't come into play.
And ... actually, I think that negates the whole "weakening" mechanic. Finale Yaga-Shura with SCS is already fully weakened, except that he still has 99% magic damage resistance because he's cloned from a creature that had that.
Yes. I was running with SCS on Insane too when I noticed the issue.
We know that there´s something to that effect in the code, given the behavior. The question is whether it is intentional or unintentional.
It would be very unlike David to intentionally reduce resistances like that- especially in a manner inconsistent with the nature of the creature. The re-coding of Ascension, and integration of SCS into Ascension, was a long and arduous process. Mistakes were made. We've already noticed some egregious ones, like the fallen solar script error. This is likely another mistake.
My hypothesis is that the fire resistance entry is erroneous, and, additionally, that we're witnessing the behavior intended for Core, Normal and Easy on Insane and Hard.
The SCS Read Me section on the Yaga component makes no mention of resistance reductions, only AI upgrades. It would be exceedingly strange for David to intentionally lower resistances in the manner we've observed. It's implausible that he'd do so without a note in the Read Me.
Smarter Yaga-Shura (BG2, BG2EE, BGT, EET - requires Ascension)
This component changes the AI of the Ascension version of Yaga-Shura (and his flunkies) to match the SCS norm. Hopefully this makes them more rather than less dangerous (although Ascension AI is pretty good, so I'd welcome feedback). Both the original and the finale versions are affected.
The ankheg proved to be difficult.
I therefore went to Ulgoth's Beard to find out what the staff +3 would cost. Way over 6000gp.
I therefore bought a protection from lightning scroll and went to see Silke in the hope of getting a +1 staff.
Silke saved against command and used her electrical magic which ddn't effect me but did affect those that I was trying to save.
I cast silence to stop her casting further spells but she then moved so that she wasn't affected but I was!
Her next spell was fatal!
Perhaps I should have used my wand, or maybe been more persistant against the ankheg.
Sadly a very short run.
Stellar - half-elf druid (Grond0)
Corethief XXXVI - human berserker due to dual to thief in BG2EE (Corey_Russell)
Betsdown - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Previous updates
Stellar was thinking about taking on the ankhegs next, but Corethief wanted a better shield before doing that - Bjornin's quest soon supplied that. The ankhegs then were expected to be easy enough, but in fact proved a bit of a problem. That was mainly the result of Stellar breaking the only spear he had and resorting to attacking with his fists. He did manage to pummel one ankheg unconscious, but the danger of attacking with fists is the need to get so close in and thus prompt the ankheg to switch targets. The next ankheg did that and Stellar retreated briefly rather than allowing it to attack him, causing it to attack Betsdown instead. He could have retreated himself, but chose to stay in place to make sure the ankheg did not switch back to Stellar, but paid dearly for that decision.
Druid 7, 57 HPs, 37 kills
Berserker 6, 77 HPs, 112 kills, 0 deaths
Dark moon monk 6, 53 HPs, 86 kills, 2 deaths
True, but I wasn't that low a level and in this game even 500gp seemed a lot. In my next game I'll have to get the 1000gp gem down south. It will change things a lot.
Journal of Magnia
This time a big bonus. I was able to help Melicamp.
I tried to follow the advice of @jmerry and found that the staff was 750gp.
I then went to the FAI where with some help from the guards there I killed Tarnesh. I sadly missed out on the experience as a guard delivered the final blow. Whilst I was able to scrbe the magic missile scroll, I failed with the other. So far I have been able to scribe the more important spells, the others being Identify and armour.
I returned the bowl to Tenya but was just beaten my the nearby ankheg. I'm pretty sure that I could beat it in a re-match.
Journal of Magnia Third Run
Again I helped Joia. Again the guards killed Tarnesh. Upon trying to help Melicamp, I was forced to flee.
Scribed Armour and Friends. No Identify scroll this time.
Upon my return to help Melicamp I was successful. However, even after casting Friends, I still cannot afford to buy the staff +1.
I am therefore heading southwards to Nashkel having delivered a letter to Mirianne.
A blindness spell proved to be invaluable when fighting Greywolf. I bought the shield amulet and then picked up some goodies near to Samuel before taking im to the FAI.
I took a trinket to Mr Colquetle and then went to Ulgoth's Beard for a Protection from Lightning spell.
That and the shield amulet proved invaluable when fighting Silke as I was immune to her dangerous spells. She was not immune to blindness and that proved to be her downfall.
(I need to memorise this for the times when I am playing solo. She isn't too dangerous against a party. A bonus was that two of those that I was helping were killed by her! Potions of defence + jewels! )
Playing this class is definitely challenging! Now time to hunt ankheg, do shopping and then pick up an evil party, though perhaps I should use good guys for the mines first since I am a hero at present.
I have just found a dead body in the ankheg nest. I can now kill two ankheg between rests so I should be able to clear the nest. My experience is going up rapidly.
I now feel that I MIGHT finish BG1.
Previous update here
Next update here
Of course, with four fighter-types and ~85k experience a head, we can just power straight through nearly every encounter. Niemain alleviates the steam-rolling by frying his own allies (he's very happy to use that Wand of Fire he's carrying).
Also, though I feel slightly dirty, we take down Lothander before he can escape. Yeah, the boots are kind of moot: We don't need them, or any other loot by now, for that matter (but of course we still loot...). Haste/Chant/Bless/Recitation is enough to carry us through almost any encounter, and when they're not, Animate Dead bridges the gap. For giggles, one can add Emotion: Hope/Emotion: Courage for truly ridiculous THAC0 boosts. Degrodel's guardians still pack a bit of a punch, though.
There's a handful of enemy mages that can prove troublesome, but since literally none of them have PfMW, we just push through their (quite few in number) Stoneskins and Mirror Images. Ramazith proves that it's really not safe treating mages this way: Branwen has to pop a charge from Wand of the Heavens to keep us from eating a Chaos (though we would've probably been fine even had it landed... probably).
And that's it for the city! Let's move on with the plot. We ascend the Iron Throne headquarters, lure out the (initially hostile) thieves on the top floor by sending a summon to drag them to the southern room, and then execute a cunning pla-
So it seems I am cursed. No matter what I do, this fight never goes the way I want it to. I've no idea how they turned hostile or were able to track us down, but them's the shakes. Alright, nobody panic.
... Maybe it's ok to panic a little.
So, Gardush and Zhalimar pack quite a wallop once you get close (especially since Zhalimar usually has a very good strength potion he quaffs first thing). Khalid found this out to his detriment, as he literally dropped in less than a round, though that was largely because he was already pretty beaten up from Zhalimar using him as ranged target practice. Fortunately, the Confusion aimed at Aldain only managed to affect Branwen, or we might've been in serious hot water here.
Jaheira manages to get a Nymph up and running, and we bust out the wands. Gardush is taken down pretty quickly, and fortunately Zhalimar can't decide if he wants to melee or shoot: He keeps ducking out through the door to go ranged, but this causes him to loose line of sight, repeatedly buying us time when he's not trying to kill us. Ultimately, through some very careful positioning (why am I never this careful BEFORE this battle starts?) we pull through: Zhalimar drops to a fairly vicious backstab courtesy of Amarande, at which point the enemy simply doesn't have any killing power left. Mainly since we ended up tanking their spells with our faces, but eh. I think this might be the first death we suffered this run?
Anyway, we pick up the pieces previously known as Khalid, shuffle off to the Temple of Helm, raise him, and all is well.
That's the city done for now, so off to Ice Island for a Stoneskin scroll (which really is kind of pointless; it's not necessary for BG1 and it's available almost immediately in SoD). To start with, Andris' two flunkies Marcellus and Beyn are seriously low level, enough so that they're not really a threat, and Andris will teleport off fairly early on if you attack him.
So, simply take down the flunkies first. Andris teleports out, and you have a little while before he comes back. Put a single buff on the protagonist (say, Remove Fear), and wait. Andris buffs up, teleports back in on top of the protagonist, and pretty much always goes for Remove Magic first thing. While he's wasting his round doing that, counter with a Spell Thrust, then swarm him: If he lives long enough to start a second cast, just pop a Wand of the Heavens, Melf's Acid Arrow sequencer, or (as in this case) say a Wand of Paralyzation, and he's done for.
We gleefully chop down the other minor wizards (Garann and Cuchol). Tellan is a bit of a problem: To my knowledge, one of only four BG1EE mages with access to L6 spells, the others being the Ghost in Durlag's Tower, Karhk and Krystin. No need to fight him fairly though; nigh infinite summons will blunt even Tellan's edge. Unless he casts a badly bouncing Lightning Bolt, but that's just so unli-
... I should've just burned a PfM scroll and had Amarande clear the place out.
I end up burning a Potion of Absorption for each party member, which was the right call, since that single Lightning Bolt bounced very badly: It might've wiped half the party, and owing to a bad case of inventory congestion, that would've meant abandoning a lot of gear here. We quit playing around, bust out the five Skeleton Warriors, and eventually do bring Tellan down. But man, it takes a while to chew through all those protections.
I'm actually surprised I so seldom lose runs in BG1, it seems there's always some close calls. Anyway, we clear Dezkiel with little difficulty and teleport back to the mainland.
We're still a ways from the experience cap, so delve into Durlag's next. Not much to report here: With full buffs, we clear the four Warders easily, and the following two levels go smoothly. In fact, the only slightly touch-and-go situation is when we have to fight 3x Greater Dopplegangers starting as Islanne turning into 3x Durlag whereupon Khalid takes a beating.
We head into the lowest level: The chessboard is as usual handled via Protection from Lightning on everybody (we have enough priest slots to cover it for almost the entire party, potions making up the difference) and mass firebombing. Though at this stage we would've been fine just hacking our way through.
We use some magical damage spells (Magic Missile, Skull Trap) to speed up clearing the oodles of Greater Ghouls down here, hunt down Grael, and loot the place. And... that's Durlag's. No need to bother with the Demon Knight, so we just teleport out.
So, in case anyone was wondering: In Baldur's Gate, you can steal from Maltz's weapon shop, Lucky Aello's Discount Store, all of the unnamed stores (tagged as Store/General Store on the maps), and the potion merchant. This massive raid resulted in a handful of Arrows of Piercing, a Girdle of Bluntness, and some good but not great potions. Meh. You of course cannot steal from good stores (Sorcerous Sundries, Black Lily, Shop of Silence).
OK! That's far enough, I'd say. Let's conclude our BG1 shenanigans. We head for Candlekeep, foil the Ogre Magi ambush via mass Potions of Invisibility, then turn around and pummel 'em. We leave Rieltar and friends alive (we don't need the experience and they've got no loot of consequence), get framed, and escape via the catacombs. Wisdom tome goes to Aldain, who will now be able to cast Limited Wish with great success before the Hell Wisdom boost. Yeah, it really doesn't matter... Anyway, Amarande gets the Strength tome, which actually does matter a fair bit. In a funny twist of fate, a Doppleganger actually yields a second Melf's Minute Meteors scroll, much to Amarande's delight.
Prat and friends are very easily done in by Skeleton Warriors assisted by vicious repeat backstabs by Amarande, and we're in the clear. We return to the Gate, free Eltan, take down Cythandria (who manages to flee before we can kill her, misclick in dialogue...) and tackle Slythe and Krystin. Aside from frying a number of bystanders with a Lightning Bolt, Krystin doesn't really do much this time around; Slythe as usual just gets pummeled by buffed Skeleton Warriors.
We're off to the coronation: Full complement of Skeleton Warriors and a ton of buffs means all Dopplegangers of consequence (Mage -> Shaman -> Assassin in that order) drop within a few rounds. Whereupon I am actually forced to reload: I got the bug where Sarevok won't acknowledge defeat. Winski shows up, but won't teleport Sarevok out, so invincible Sarevok just kills all the Flaming Fist and both Dukes on his own. I'm alright with this reload, since it's clearly a bug, though other's opinion may differ. Second time around sees Sarevok's dialogue trigger, and we're off in pursuit.
The Undercity party is really just a speed-bump at this stage: Basic beetle summons by Jaheira and a Haste is all it takes to bring them down, swiftly and with style (bonus points for the reference!). This time I remember to have Aldain do the talking with Tamoko, and we're able to convince her to back down. Alright, time for the end.
I've been even more stingy than usual this time around: We have stupid amounts of potions and 6x Protection from Magic scrolls (didn't even realize there are that many in the game...). Well, the plan is simple then: Aldain and Branwen, after providing some Skeleton Warriors to serve as initial distractions, each boost their Lightning resistance to 100%, then quaff a Potion of Invisibility each. Our four fighter-types apply a PfM scroll and then get potions of Storm Giant Strength, Invulnerability, Heroism, Power and Speed.
This somewhat breaks the fight, since Semaj is too scared to actually do anything besides a pointless summon, so we have to bait him out of his Invisibility by Aldain going visible. Still, once we have a bead on him, Semaj drops even quicker than his fighter compatriots, and that's it. The entire fight basically came down to avoiding a (dispelled via Arrow of Dispelling from Coran) Sarevok getting too many hits in: As always, Sarevok can do absolutely nothing on his own. Goodbye, Sarevok.
BG1EE complete. We comfortably reached the experience cap, so Aldain finishes as a level 9 Human Conjurer, with Amarande clocking in as a level 6/6/7 Half-elven Fighter/Mage/Thief. SoD will be next.
It's not supposed to be possible! In your shoes I would run the same character again from the start.
Agreed!
I went along the southern end of the Sword Coast until I came to a cave near the gnoll stronghold. Boosted my charisma slightly though it is still poor.
My reputation has reached the height of 20 so I will be going shopping after I leave the mines Mulahey and his cohorts are dead but they did give cause for concern my health being down to 12 before I automatically healed myself. Fortunately I was able to rest undisturbed so my healiing potion stack continues to rise.
Stinking Cloud, Sleep and Command were enough to neutralise Lamalha et al. I had Xan to help as I intend to take him to the safety of Nashkel before bidding him farewell.
Nimbul was too strong. Realised afterwards that if I had used the shield amulet, I would easily have survived, similarly if Sanctuary had been memorised.
An enjoyable game nevertheless.
New game, First and last post!! Unlike my old set-up in this unmodded game 16, not 17 is the maximum starting charisma.
Journal of Desto the Destroyer
After Gorion was killed I made my way to the FAI and on to Tenya, killing hobgoblins etc on the way.
I returned her bowl before heading to High Hedge where I helped Melicamp prior to going to Beregost.
There I calmed Marl, took a tome to Firebead and bought a +1 sling.
To the south I killed an ogrillon before running out of spells. I rested upon returning to Beregost. I headed south to kill the other ogrillon. Mirianne gave me a +1 ring of protection in return for delivering a letter to her. I cannot use it though. I found the Colquetle amulet on the way to Nashkel where somebody had buried some ankheg armour. I acquired it and once furnished with it I felt much safer. It enabled me to take on and kill Greywolf. After taking the emeralds to Oublek I took Samuel to the FAI where a lucky blow killed Tarnesh.
I was not so lucky fighting ankheg. I fought one too many ankheg innthe nest. Impatience!
I am considering having Branwen in the party. I think that she is a Cleric of Tempus. Confirmation would be great.
How do Talos and Tempus get on with each other?
I've tried to Google it without success.
I have discovered that Branwen won't stay in SoD. Would she stay if I made her exportable and/or changed her name with Keeper?
NPCs leaving in SoD is done through the area script for the first area after the starting dungeon, and is based on their script names - not the name you'd be changing.
What you can do? You can summon her back after she leaves, with a MoveGlobal() command. In the cheat/debug console, once that opening scene in the palace is done, you can enter the following:
C: MoveGlobal(area,"branwen",coordinates)
That's the area code you want to summon her to in quotes, such as "bd0101" for the area out in front of the palace, and coordinates [x,y] for a location in square brackets; typing "x" without the console active will tell you the coordinates for your cursor.
I have just killed an ogre and Bassilus with him. Is that better.
That is very helpful. Thanks. There have been many times when I didn't want to say farewell to a character and that is the ideal way of doing it.
At Candlekeep I did most of the quests as usual but decided to kill Hull for his armour. This resulted in a loss of reputation.
After the death of Gorion I was able to help Melicamp.
At Beregost I calmed Marl and took a tome to Firebead before delivering a letter to Mirianne.
I went to Nashkel, donned the ankheg armour and killed Greywolf. I had to use sanctuary, sleep and have a second bite of the cherry in order to defeat him.
I headed for the FAI and returned Joia's ring.
I then killed Bassilus before returning to the FAI to kill Tarnesh. I had bought a potion of freedom and the shiels amulet first to make the battles easier. Against Bassilus I also needed two bites of the cherry.
I returned Samuel to the FAI.
I went to Tenya who gave me a quest before going hostile.
I departed and went to see Sonner. He gave me the bowl but Tenya wouldn't allow me to give it to her, I therefore killed her and collected the flail from Sonner.
I killed Algernon for his cloak and helped Charleston Nib.
I then took Brage to the temple of Helm.
After doing a few minor quests I took on the Nashkel mines. Fairly straightforward. Xan and Branwen then joined me. I bought Xan the robe of the neutral archmage but then had no gold for spells.
Upon realising that I didn't need Branwen in the party, I bade her farewell. We then killed Droth, Shoal and some sirines before returning to Beregost where we killed some spiders, enough for Xan to level up.
I made a mistake in putting a pip in slings for Xan. Staves would have been better.
When Xan tried to memorise web, he realised that it is impossible, so I am currently hunting ankhegs in the hope of earning enough for him to buy spells at High Hedge. The ankhegs have dropped some useful scrolls nothing great.
The lack of web means that I will have to use different tactics. It will need some thought.
Berry (male elf fighter/mage, Gate70); Rouse (male half-orc, Grond0)
With no trio today Berry and Rouse set out instead. Try as we might (not very much) Imoen refused to accompany us through the Korlasz family tomb. Rouse antagonised a group of guards while Berry was not paying attention and we were both subjected to horror - but Berry saved. He nocked an arrow of dispelling and at the second attempt landed a dispel into the rear of his companion.
Rouse took umbrage at this and fortunately for Berry took it out on the guards which meant the entry level of the tomb was soon clear. We descended and used two of our three protection from undead scrolls to clear out most of the undead. Spirit fire and fireballs dealt with mercenaries in the rope chamber before Korlasz was shown no mercy.
We rested up in the ducal palace and set out the next morning. After doing a few minor quests we headed to the nearest bridge under cover of invisibility only to find the lookout there used extra sensory perception to detect our presence. We remained invisible beside a tent as the bridge was destroyed, and then left to look for another bridge.
After a while we stumbled across a group of wyverns and Berry made a good job of attacking them right up until they fought back. He failed to slow poison and would have been in serious trouble if Rouse had not had the sense to do the same.
Shallen out-lived his companions only to get caught between a cloudkill and an angry half-orc shaman.
On our way out we downed a green dragon, and then had a random encounter with a juvenile green dragon. We helped that one although Rouse found himself attacking it after the event and gloomily surmised he would not be able to kill it.
I had not expected this encounter as we had not had the troll / orc encounter. Grond0 said they could appear in a random order and he's obviously right. He experiences this reasonably often whereas I never have so can only assume that progressing rapidly through the game allows it to happen and if you take time on each area you are more likely to encounter them in a given order.
Once we'd done this we travelled around to get the aforementioned troll and orc encounter. It duly appeared and many trolls died then flagged as unconscious in spirit fire and cloudkill.
We left it there, having survived to fight another day.
Berry (male elf fighter/mage, Gate70); Rouse (male half-orc, Grond0)
We had another randomish encounter, goblins falling to cloudkill and spirit fire leaving relatively few to mop up.
After surrendering Bridgefort we dealt with the mage on the bridge and finally got a crossing intact.
We ploughed on but my lack of planning (I find this difficult to do in multiplayer) was catching up on us. We buffed to defend the siege camp against 3 waves of attack only to realise we'd not gone to parlay. Berry added another stoneskin (recently learnt) intending to rest but Rouse said the travel to parlay was immediate. The downside to this is that Berry had no follow-on stoneskin to cast and his minute of mirror images was ticking down.
We arrived at the parlay, said our few words, and returned to camp. All three waves of attackers were repelled but Berry had lost his stoneskin by this time. He spoke to the priest, and Rouse assumed this was to have a quick rest but Berry only intended to have a few items identified so his bulging eyes could savour the loot picked so far.
On we went then without a rest to deal with Grimgor - he fell relatively easy but Berry got sucked into over-confidence and carelessness, and range of arrows. Outch. Ouch. Retreat.
Rouse shouted something about there being imminent danger (while paused). Righto said Berry (and unpaused to continue his retreat). Swift Rabbit immediately proved to be the imminent danger and Berry slumped to the ground.
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Fighter/thief 24/28, 161 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1,354 kills (+436 in BGEE/SoD)
The F/T continued to make easy progress and should really be able to do the same in ToB.
Fighter/mage/cleric 18/17/19, 133 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1,105 kills (+451 in BGEE/SoD)
The loss of L9 spells meant this was played similar to a F/C most of the time. I haven't tried out clerical spells in sequencers, but might do a bit of experimentation along those lines in ToB.
Fighter/druid dominated by a nymph at level 11/13 while attacking Kyland Lind and his druids in the Grove.
Fighter 40, 198 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 1,442 kills (+535 in BGEE/SoD)
The loss of the Ring of Gaxx had a knock-on effect in this session. Normally I would have just taken Blackrazor, as the character has grandmastery in longswords and that sword is particularly useful to me (for its healing ability as much as hurting the opposition). With saving throws not quite as good as I wanted I took the good route in that hell challenge to get +2 to saving throws and then tried to kill the efreeti before it disappeared - but was not quite quick enough.
Wizard slayer died at level 9 to hobgoblin command approaching the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms.
Enchanter 31, 93 HPs (incl. 8 from ioun stone; 12 from familiar), 802 kills (+405 in BGEE/SoD)
As the most vulnerable of these characters, the enchanter continued to stay out of sight quite a bit while making use of area damage and summons.
Fighter dualling to cleric 13/38, 190 HPs (incl. 5 from helm; 12 from familiar), 1,110 kills (+588 in BGEE/SoD)
The high cleric levels made for quick progress through undead - though that will be no longer possible in future due to turning evil in the hell trials. There was a reasonable amount of use of summons, including use of a deva, to help with some fights.