I got into some trouble in spellhold when facing Bodhi, during the slayer transformation sequence - I neglected to put on the AoP and got drained all the way down to level 4 before Bodhi retreated - this could've easily spelled the end for Kybele, and I was lucky to survive:
All other encounters were easy enough to deal with, and we made our way to Jon:
I usually help the prince at the City of Caverns, but I decided to side with the king this time around because there's this unique reward:
For some strange reason, the damage part of these gauntlets works on the shapeshifter werewolf forms, but the thac0 part does not. Still, a very decent damage boost.
Now, in the Underdark, our buffs become ever more important - CC, death ward, remove fear for everyone at all times. If we keep those up, our physical fighting prowess is enough to deal with any encounters at this point, so we just have to make sure not to get dispelled. The balor stands no chance:
We're even able to take down the elder orb at the beholder tunnels before it's able to use anti-magic ray:
Demon knights or kuo-toa didn't pose any threat either. Mind flayers have a tough time against Kybele's great AC as a greater werewolf, though we always have to make sure to retreat any fighters once they lose 5 int:
In Ust'Natha, we focus on the main questline, later on taking down Quile. Deirex is the first lich we have to fight. He actually dispels a lot of our buffs right away before we can do much, but we're able to counter his successful aggression with double sunrays and an immediate kill:
A timestop after getting dispelled could've been very dangerous here, luckily we were able to avoid that.
House Jae'llat is, aside from golems and dragons, one of the more significant challenges in SoA when it comes to enemies with very high physical damage. We use a magical sword and a simulacrum to tank most of the enemies here:
After that, we betray the drow leaders and leave the Underdark. Time for the dragons, liches, mind flayers and high level wizards still alive in Amn.
The upper reaches of Durlag's Tower were easy enough apart from two things. Lack of gold meant that we had no potions of mirrored eyes. We therefore deemed it too dangerous to take on the basilisks. Later perhaps. Secondly Safana had little to no proficiency in pick-pocketting. We therefore did not even try to pickpocket Kirinhale. We should perhaps have tried when Montaron was in the party. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! Sadly we don't get it until it is too late. However, disappointed that I didn't get the staff/spear.
I used the tome of understanding which has improved my spell casting ability. We have gone through the hidden door. We did not try to finish the next level down. Not being brave, The Practical Defence was more than enough and it has boosted Minsc somewhat. As somebody once said: I'll be back.
Arrived at Gullykin where web/fireball killed a party of adventurers. Needed to use wand of fire twice to kill them off safely.
I decided to gain more gold and buy better equipment before going to the Nashkel mines.
Dynaheir now has a robe of the Good Archmage and we have the potions to go after the basilisks at Durlag's.
Minsc, the nearest to the basilisks used the potions, but the second basilisk attacked me and I...
After the death of Stan I decided to play another Cleric called Tal, his character is completely different being Chaotic Neutral. I am not expecting to progress far as the class is not familiar to me. A steep learning curve! I quite like the portraits that I have knocked together from other images on the web. Because the portrait is wielding a hammer, I gave Tal a proficiency point in hammers, otherwise it would have been flails. Quite pleased that his shield looks like it might have been in the original image. I intend role-playing this as that is a lot more fun.
Journal of Tal the Talossian Priest.
In Candlekeep, I gave what I could to the temple and did the quests. I saw that the watchers had much better armour than my splint mail so I attacked one of them so that in future I will be better protected. My reputation took quite a hit which is unfortunate.
I don't know how the news got out as nobody saw me do it! Perhaps one of those cursed diviners got involved.
I made my way south to the Carnival picking up Mirianne's letter, the Colquetle Amulet, and the Ankheg Armour on the way.
Then found Joia's ring, killed Sonner and co with a lightning bolt before heading north to give Tenya her bowl. I tried to kill the nearby ankheg and was forced to flee, however after resting, I returned and killed it.
I will sell the shell, boost reputation, and then do reputation boosting quests.
In the process of all this, all proceeds apart from the gold spent on buying a sling +1 went to the temples.
The armour gained at Candlekeep was not worth the reputation loss, but I felt that Tal would have gone for it.
Very annoying. I cast lightning bollt at Silke and severely injured her and killed the three that she wanted me to kill. Cast command and brought her to "near death." She then saved against another command spell before casting a lightning bolt against ME. My shield had worn off and i d....
Only thing that I did wrongly was the timing of the spells. I think that next time it will be no contest!
Priest of Helm again I think. I thought that a re-run of Harrier could be interesting.[/b][/i]
The guards were very helpful against Tarnesh. Two of them sacrificed their lives trying to kill him when I cast Sanctuary.
By the time I entered the fray, one command spell was sufficient to dispose of him.
I had to be more patient against the hobgoblins.
Killing Sonner was straightforward and gave me a +1 flail.
I gave the bowl to Tenya and fought the nearby ankheg. The battle was tough but I emerged unscathed.
Being lawful, I didn't attack the watchers in Candlekeep.
I helped Melicamp, calmed Marl, took a tome to Firebead and delivered a letter to Mirianne.
Trio56 part 3 (Link to part 1/2)
Dubbel Dagnamit - Bounty Hunter (Gate70)
Coreranger XX- Ranger (Corey_Russell)
Slite - Transmuter (Grond0)
Session 2 had our reminder about a green scroll. We were at the carnival so it was but a short walk to pick up the scroll and open up the basilisk map. Coreranger led with Dubbel nipping on for the odd backstab and Slite using spells and slings. Mutamin took spell damage and was badly wounded so a backstab was enough to drop him.
We had an early temple visit when Coreranger and Slite decided Neira's time as an assassin was nigh.
(I hate this encounter if not suitably prepared so skip it more than 99.999% of the time but it will be fine)
Sure enough, Neira played a fine game of inside-outside with Slite who failed to blind her but got held. Neira was under ranged attack but Dubbel stepped away to throw a bounty hunter snare (it failed) and Coreranger stayed at range. Dubbel came back to shoot arrows but Neira got a last gasp hit in and our reward was a 800gp contribution to the temple roof.
Kirian's gang were blinded, while she was able to see they were all webbed so another quick victory. Bassilus and Mulahey had bad cleric days while Tranzig was given no mercy, since he'd started talking after dying we decided not to let him go.
The bandit camp proved difficult to find, Dubbel disheartening his companions first as he tried to find it from the south of the Friendly Arm Inn then second as he tried to find it from the Friendly Arm Inn. Head north.
Once there it was generally a one-sided affair with snares and spells quickly clearing the main tent. So off to Cloakwood.
We had a nice stroll through the woods until Slite put a sling into the mouth of a bear. No death though so we moved on to the wyvern cave. Coreranger gulped three antidotes and was looking worse for wear but his healthy genetic hit points were enough to pull through.
At Cloakwood Mine entrance a blind snare web combo gave us a rapid victory, and we carefully made our way to the bottom of the mine. Davaeorn was patiently saving against web while Dubbel and Coreranger patiently waited for the web to end. Meanwhile Slite was less patient, getting webbed and looking in serious danger until a scorcher (hers) finished Davaeorn off.
Baldur's Gate was open...
(we checked this was the case by sharpening Dubbel's quarterstaff on Quayle's any-direction back - down he went)
...so Dubbel read a tome of dexterity and sold his bracers of dexterity. We got ourselves poisoned early after finishing off an ogre mage in the sewers - Coreranger expecting to die here but Dubbel tossed him a potion of magic thingumy that guaranteed 3 turns of successful saving throws. This helped him make short work of all comers, ogre and carrion crawlers.
A bit of brief "shopping" saw us equip the helm of Balduran and partake in roast chicken (Slite giving clear warning of a fireball and Dubbel making an effort to join her in the conflagration). About 20 rabid chickens were harmed in the making of this mess.
Varci gave us a shield in return for his friend, and Slite used Friends to avoid 500gp charge for a wisdomic tome. Generally a successful session with one or two spicy moments for Slite.
Our save for session 3 has a reminder that we have been poisoned by Marek and Lothander, and this has been gently ticking away as we rested a few times to get some identifies done.
Oh and for some reason my screenshots didn't show up initially so here they are. Generally mediocre as challenging to get a good shot with three of us moving around but the penultimate one does show the extraordinary Davaeorn kill quite nicely.
Continuing in the same vein took me to level 6. I can now summon three skeletons, buff with barkskin on myself and chant on the party, followed by DUMH. After that my party is ready for anything other than magical assaults.
Reputation now 18. Isn't it great to be loved and adored despite being evil!
I headed west from the Nashkel nines, helping Albert and a dryad in the process.
I raided a cave near the Gnoll Stronghold and returned to the vicinity of Candlekeep where Xzar and Montaron joined me. Montaron did some useful pickpocketting both ar Beregost and the Beard. We are currently hunting ankhegs.
Baeloth joined us after which Xzat became superfluous so we left him there. His skull traps should keep him safe from marauding gibberlings.
We too0k on Zargaland defeated his party easily. By contrast Bassilus cast rigid thinking on Dorn who then hurt Baeloth badly. However, we got our revenge when we sent in summoned skeletons that were immune to his magic.
Most of the upcoming battles center around avoiding a massive "remove magic" and its consequences - the shadow dragon didn't get to it:
Firkraag was able to use the spell, but with us being spread out enough, it was easy to isolate the target, Kybele:
Next was the sewer mind flayers - no screenshots here, but no trouble after we already dealt with the mind flayer city in the Underdark. An aggressive approach for the guarded compound granted us another quick victory:
Some lich-hunting was done via sunrays or just moving away quickly for timestop/PFMW durations - Kangaxx died to PfM:
Finally, the Twisted Rune: An aggressive approach against Vaxall allowed Kybele to get hit by anti-magic ray, but we did kill the beholder before any dangerous follow-up:
Layene started casting timestop, and were we able to move off-screen:
Now we just had to return and take her out.
At the elven city, we're doing quite well against the golems. The most threatening encounter here is the dragon, but our damage output, especially Mazzy's, is good enough now that, with a little help from Nalia's breach spells, we're able to kill it before remove magic is cast:
It's been a while since I had a real fight against Irenicus at the tree - despite traps being banned even last time around, I randomly took him down before his buffs fired up just with a few lucky melee hits. This time around, though, he got to use his protections and timestop:
However, Irenicus didn't take the time to cast remove magic, so most non-damaging spells in his arsenal did nothing to us. He did some serious damage with a horrid wilting, especially to Nalia - and he needed to be breached multiple times as he had some backup protections - but still, the battle was relatively short:
We chose the good paths in hell, and this time around, I didn't make any misklicks. Some skeleton warriors and a planetar were summoned to help out with beholders:
Once we have the tears, we rest, prepare some summons, send them away from the entrance so they won't get flattened by the opening sequence of the cutscene, buff up and immediately take down the 4 demons:
A simple true sight and breach, and we're already here:
Well, that was quick. Usuallly he at least gets to teleport around once or twice.
ToB: We take down Illasera and complete the first pocket plane challenge. In Saradush, we do all the sidequests and make sure to acquire a few boots of speed. Since I forgot to take out the shadow thief leader, I'm missing one pair of boots of speed, so I want the grandmaster armor for Valygar as well - we're going after Gromnir anyway. Kybele, Mazzy, and Nalia (mostly using breach) take on the barbarian and his 2 wizards, the others deal with the remaining allies. Keldor gets quite low in hitpoints, but we're very quick with our damage as well:
Keldorn moves away, Anomen takes the remaining hits and there we are, victory achieved:
I'll also add taking down the Master Wraith with sunrays into this post:
Next up: Marching Mountains, Yaga-Shura and Amkethran.
Since Kybele is a high level druid with multiple level 7 spellslots, we spend some time outside our werewolf form at the marching mountains in order to cast nature's beauty on groups of fire giants after herding them into a group via magical sword:
Once most giants are done, we buff key fighters with fire resistance, making it much easier to clear the siderooms, before we move to the inner sanctum, where we take down Berenn, using our remaining high level spells/summons:
Going after Yaga-Shura (after returning the hearts), we get surprised and jumped by the lieutenant mage, whom we don't notice in time - so she gets to use her timestop:
However, our party is protected against each of her spells, so this doesn't end up mattering too much. We take out some of the other lieutenants and breach+kill the wizard:
Yaga Shura must have spawned somewhere out of sight, but we eventually track him down and use fighter HLAs to quickly defeat the giant:
A quick oasis fight and a visit to the pocket plane for the second challenge:
We're at Amkethran, so we start with the various sidequests. Vongoethe is the only challenge here, and last time, he actually managed to dispel us. This time around, he isn't able to do so:
I have completed the raid on the cave yet Safana is complaining that I haven't. I am concerned that she might leave the party.
Any suggestions?
While awaiting an answer I have just started a run with four goblins. They are characters that I rolled as humans and half-elves, changing their race and appearance in EE Keeper.
If we have a goblin in Dragonspear, why not on the sword coast?
So far, still in Candlekeep.
Are there any other changes that I should make, lowering reputation perhaps?
Have you tried going to the cave anyway, leading her to the place where you usually get the treasure, in case it's just an area-based trigger? Otherwise, none.
Have you tried going to the cave anyway, leading her to the place where you usually get the treasure, in case it's just an area-based trigger? Otherwise, none.
Yes. Tied that. It didn't work. I will try and discover what will happen if I move OUT of the area. I am wondering if it could be because Sil's script didn't trigger due to the way I played it. Attacking her with skeletons.
When we arrived at Candlekeep we found ourselves being given the cold shoulder by nearly everyone, even the Helmites and followers of Tempus. Only those who followed Talos were at all welcoming, so that is whom we follow for better or worse.
The script for the cave (unmodded) contains this block:
IF
!InPartyAllowDead("Safana") // Safana
GlobalLT("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",2)
!Contains("book03","Container 1") // Manual of Bodily Health
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetGlobal("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",2)
END
Then Safana's script has this section:
IF
GlobalTimerExpired("Safana","GLOBAL")
InParty(Myself)
Global("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",0)
!PartyHasItem("BOOK03") // Manual of Bodily Health
Detect([PC])
THEN
RESPONSE #100
ActionOverride("Safana",Dialogue([PC]))
END
IF
GlobalTimerExpired("SafanaBook","GLOBAL")
InParty(Myself)
Global("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",1)
!PartyHasItem("BOOK03") // Manual of Bodily Health
Detect([PC])
THEN
RESPONSE #100
ActionOverride("Safana",Dialogue([PC]))
END
IF
InParty(Myself)
GlobalLT("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",2)
PartyHasItem("BOOK03") // Manual of Bodily Health
Detect([PC])
THEN
RESPONSE #100
ActionOverride("Safana",Dialogue([PC]))
END
And Safana's dialogue does the rest.
Setting the global "PirateTreasure" variable to 2 should do it. Presuming that you looted and used the tome, which is the treasure she cares about. My guess is that something in your mod install messed up the area script for the cave, and that block never got executed.
I noticed that the Diviner was not yet included in a run, and I have always toyed with some ideas to make the game more interesting for myself. In my experience I always end up doing the same things and gravitate towards certain items and NPCs.
This time I will roleplay that as player I know what is coming; the divining part of the protagonist; yet the Diviner does not always get all the questions answered. Instead I let the dice decide. I only have a 1d6 at home since I cannot find my 1d4,1d8,1d10,1d20 for some reason.... but I will make it work.
Some rules.
The following die rolls will take place.
Even = Yes. Odd = No.
- Do I keep this NPC?
- Do I find this treasure?
- Do I stick to the physical road?
- When it is night, do I sleep?
Cardinal directions is a bit tougher. For now
Odd+Odd = West
Odd+Even = East
Even+Odd = North
Even+Even = South
I will try not to forget that I will not steal in towns from people's homes. Wilderness may get exceptions if in dire need. We do a bit of a neutral run, no automatic good or evil path.
Mods: All of Lava's BGEE mods. Nothing else.
Journal of Ambrosia and Silvanus.
I have two kids Amber and Silvijn. Time to guide them through the Forgotten Realms.
Ambrosia: 13-17-12-18-16-12
A Diviner mage who will mostly do divining tasks. I aim to make the spells mostly for investigation, meaning all divination spells, some of the enchantment spells, and some transmutation will likely be used. I expect very little damaging spells.
Silvanus: 17-18-16-18-11-15
A Blade who will focus on darts. The fun part with darts is that with offensive spin you get to do the maximum of 1d3 plus 2 bonus damage giving early game a damage of 5 per hit or potentially 15 per round. Not too bad for now.
I got some high rolls, best of 20, because I want the kids to have a decent chance to succeed an be a bit of all-rounders. Amber got 88, a bit on the high side of normal luck, but high 80s is something I regularly see in 20 rolls.
Silvanus got 95, this really is an outlier though, that was a magnificent roll I could not skip.
Off we go. I do all introduction quests because we are at home. With the Friends spell I get a better reward only from Fuller. A dagger +1. I actually did not expect to get it, but okay, I will take it.
Ambush site
After the ambush.
- Roll for Imoen - 5. No. We take her immediately back to Candlekeep and leave her at the gate.
- Roll to investigate Gorion - 6. Yes. Roll for through the woods - 1 (stick to the road). Road it is.
- I meet the hermit and get information that Xzar and Montaron are not the NPCs we are looking for (Khalid, Jaheira were mentioned by Gorion). Talk to Xzar and Montaron - 1. No.
- Do I spot the diamond in the tree - 5. No.
- Gorion is visited. We fight a wolf and Silvanus gets some good dart damage off while Ambrosia runs for now. Ambrosia is tired, but it is not night yet. We cannot go to Candlekeep, thus automatically we should follow the road East. Should we ignore the rest of the area? - 4. Yes. Thus we go to the Coast Way.
Coast Way
- Night. Sleep or press on? - 4. Yes, we sleep.
- Our first gibberlings are met at the crossroad. We want to roll for which direction we go. FAI is even or a 5, Beregost is odd 1 or 3 (since we should actually go to the FAI I put more weight on that but our Diviner does not know how far each of them is so I gave a chance for Beregost). - 3. Beregost it is.
Beregost
- In Beregost we talk to Golin Vend and we roll for response. The options I forget, but we roll 2. A luxury inn which means he points us to Feldepost in the West side. Very well.
- I see Miji and Pontag (from SotSC mod). We engage and after some die rolling through the dialogue Pontag leaves and Miji tells us he is behind the Feldepost in. Roll for finding him there - 4. Yes. We go in search for him
- Some talks by Pontag on beetles. He disappears for 24 hours. The question is do we meet him again after a day? Roll 4. Yes, meaning we need to spend time in Beregost. The first easy one is the Feldepost inn which was our destination anyhow. We move inside
- Marl engages. Do we talk to him after his joust? Roll 1. No, we ignore him.
- Unfortunately he does not ignore us, and with some more running by Ambrosia and darts from Silvanus, Marl is no more.
- We go upstairs and I meet Algernon. Roll to notice he has a nice cloak. Roll 1. No, we do not spot that now and ignore him further.
- We need something to do and we roll Odd-Even to go to the East of town.
- Garrick is on the road. Roll to engage - 1. No.
- Not much happening with NPCs, right?
Anyhow. With all the documentation the progress is slower than normal, but it is catching my interest and it certainly is different than normal. In the East of Town I go into the Smithy and buy a chain mail for Silvanus. After that I am at the doorstep and I intend to scry for some new adventure... within the town, since I still need to get back to Pontag for the rest of his quest.
Addendum. You know, I think offensive spin gives another apr meaning a potential of max(1d3+2) x4=20 damage per round by normal darts. Too bad no strength bonus is added.
We cleared the basilisk area with ease, first dealing with the adventurers with web/fireballs, then after resting Dorn used the green scroll and we cleared the basilisks. Then web plus fireballs almost killed Mutamin. Magic missiles stopped him casting while other missiles killed him.
We cleared the Nashkel mines Mulahey being neutralised with web.
The same happened to Lamalha et al.
We took Xan with us to Nashkel due to his proficiency with charm. He charmed Oublek who helped in the fight against Nimbul. I cast remove fear upon him with the result that he fought bravely and died a hero. Sadly, it was a guard who killed Nimbul as I would have liked the experience. Rasaad was also killed. I'm thinking that his boots are now worthless.
We left Xan in the safety of the carnival before heading off to Beregost.
We returned to Nashkel to pick up the scalps that we left there and raided some caves to the east.
Then off to the bandit camp, picking up Viconia on the way.
We killed Deke's party on our way to Beregost where we killed Tranzig.
We paid a short visitto Durlag's which was cut short when Baeloth was poisoned twice in quick succession by a spider.
Nevertheless, we completed the quests of three of the warders, so the visit was worthwhile.
We raised Baeloth and are doing a little shopping before doing something to make us a little less popular. Reputation is now 10, a mite too high.
Killing a sleeping man in Beregost reduced reputation by 4. We are not so popular now!
Now time to return to the bandit camp and cause havoc!
However, we first helped Landrin.
We defeated the bandits with a certain amount of difficulty and afterwards I gained the horror spell. Reputation now 6 as you might expect from an evil party. However being devious I could well become more popular as that might suit my purposes!
Going through Cloakwood and the Cloakwood mines was straightforward. However we haven't flooded the mines yet.
We wiped out Simmeon's Party and entered Baldur's Gate.
There I was attacked on my way to the seven suns and my reputation dropped another two points.
However helping Scar enhanced it three points.
I am thinking that after this run, I will revert to playing a good character or characters. I am a lot more comfortable with that.
At Sendai's, we first have to deal with the woodcutter's ambushes - the hive mother does quite a bit of damage to Nalia:
However, any other foes here can't easily get past our defenses, and we start venturing into the enclave, clearing out both tunnels, killing the guard captain and making our way to Odamaron. Here, we let a summoned deva have some fun:
A magical sword helps tanking the prince of earth before we move into Diaytha's room - another hive mother, but this one doesn't get to do very much:
Kybele wins the duel and we take down the nearby mind flayers before entering Sendai's room, where we split the party into an entrance team and a statue team:
With Keldorn's inquisitor powers and Nalia's instant breaches, even wizard Sendais fall pretty much immediately, and we soon face the original - she doesn't fare much better:
Next up, we return to Watcher's Keep - level 3 this time around. Without a randomized maze, we know what and when to prepare, making these battles a lot easier compared to an SCS run:
We take a bit of a risk when aggressively going after the demon wraith (which triggers a prismatic spray trap - one that could have deadly consequences for those in the party with suboptimal saving throws), but we don't get punished:
We do manage to win the spectral brand, but not the wish scroll. Moving on to level 4:
Our fire protection spells do the job against Saladrex:
And the second and last PfM scroll is used for the demi-lich:
After dealing with Lum's machine, we move on to the final level - another dragon battle, this time we use green poison protection scrolls:
After a few riddles, an orc army and the spirit warrior maze (where we avoid the ghost and don't take any risk with the poisoned drawer), we get to the seal guardians - sadly, we're unable to kill the aurumach rilmani before their timestop, which results in Valygar's death:
Our revenge is swift, and the Rod of Resurrection is at the ready. Azamantes is next:
A few summons and a 3*ADHW CC help us to quickly take down the final seal guardians, going after the most dangerous ones first:
And now, we just read the Scroll of Helm. Draconis awaits.
I have now completed a few of the quests in Baldur's Gate including the assassination attempt. Have killed Marek flooded the mine and recruited Eldoth.
Have got a few thousand gp in blackmail. This is all new to me as I have never had Eldoth and Skie in the party before. It is good to have tried them but they won't normally be recruited.
Kagain has joined me and we are about to re-enter Candlekeep.
We prepare for Draconis, equipping acid protection gear and letting Nalia use the same wizard spell. As Draconis casts timestop, we move away and mass heal to counter the damage from his ADHW:
We send a planetar after our foe as his timestop is gone, deal some damage and spread out as he gets to near death:
He changes into dragon form, and we try to deal as much damage as possible:
PFMW gets instantly countered by our breach, and the dragon dies without even using his breath weapon or remove magic:
That went well. Fighting our way through the lair is easy enough (we use the cloak of mirrorring for the eyes), though our fighters do take some serious damage from the water elementals:
Soon, we face Abazigal and buff with lightning resistance. Moving around the room, we take down the salamanders while kiting our bhaalspawn foe. When all the adds are gone, we destroy his humanoid form as he pointlessly tries to kill a magical sword:
Before the transformation, we move our summons away and activate hardiness - now, it's mainly a physical fight:
We breach once and don't even have to start activating our fighter HLAs:
The next pocket plane challenge is kind of free (with gargoyle boots as additional safety) and we move on to Amkethran, where a 3*ADHW CC takes care of the monks in front of the monestary:
We maximize our damage output for Balthazar and kill him within one round:
Now we have to deal with the Ravager. It's a straight up damage race for us, with multiple rounds of HLA activations for our fighters - we just try to kill him before he can kill one of us:
We buff up for the Throne and enter. Nalia opens immediately with a 3*lower resistance spell trigger, which hits before her 3*ADHW CC goes off. This helps putting a very, very quick end to Melissan's first appearance:
After clearing the first pool, we call in a few summons and go for the second Mel battle. Our foe is able to cast remove magic, hitting Kybele herself (who's at the back, using energy blades, because greater werewolf claws only hit as +2 weapons and I don't want to memorize enchant weapon) - we immediately start renewing her most crucial buffs - the others have kept CC/Deathward, only losing a few minor buffs (mostly potions and improved haste).
We unleash our first round of fighter HLAs and send Melissan back to gather more essence:
A round of frost resistance potions/green scolls are activated for the second pool:
Time for the most dangerous Mel battle - during the third fight, she teleports away, far to the north, and gates in a bunch of quite dangerous slayer shadows with level draining attacks. I've found it easiest to just distract the slayer shadows - send some summons (magical swords are the best for this) to both sides of the map while the party immediately runs north while Mel is still busy casting the teleport spell - the slayer shadows will get stuck fighting the summons:
They didn't bother us during the entire fight, and we could just activate 2 rounds of fighter HLAs and send Mel back again.
Time for Nalia's big moment - clearing the final pool (most importantly, the fallen solar) under multiple timestops via scrolls/limited wish - dual-wielding with improved haste to deal the required damage:
We still have a decent amount of resources for the final Mel battle, even as I once again fail to get a wish rest. We summon a planetar and elemental prince, activate energy blades, use our final few improved haste spells and potions and engage. She gets off another remove magic, mostly affecting Mazzy (also getting Valygar's improved haste). However, at this point, she was already badly wounded, and Keldorn's GWWs plus Anomen's still improved hasted attacks were enough to defeat her in next to no time:
All right - now, for the part that interested me most about this run - how does a shapeshifter in greater werewolf form stack up against true fighters in the lategame?
Well, Kybele got only 11% of kills in chapter 9, but 20% in the entirety of the game.
Mazzy had 35% chapter / 25% game
Valygar 16% chapter / 15% game
Keldorn 14% chapter / 17% game
Anomen (doesn't gain fighter levels, but still does great) 14% chapter / 14% game
During SoA, Kybele was actually slightly ahead of Mazzy in total. During ToB, she fell way behind. During BG1, she was the clear leader, with only Khalid even being within a 10% range of her. As you can see, Kybele also fell behind the other fighter types during the Enclaves/WK, but did decently outside of these late game scenarions.
However, this comparison isn't entirely fair: Kybele got the best Items I could give her, and her and Mazzy got the most improved haste spells cast on them by far. The other fighters would've done much better with more improved hastes and/or better gear. In the end, it seems apt to say that shapeshifters start out strong in BG1, have to adjust to some weaknesses in early SoA (which they can compensate with their spellcasting, which is at its strongest at this point with forest beings, insect plague and fire elementals being so powerful early on), get a huge boost in the early/midgame with greater werewolf form and stay very strong until late SoA. In ToB, they will slowly start falling off more and more, until they just can't hold a candle to true fighters once these have multiple uses of their HLAs and get a ton of overpowered gear.
I have been carefully nuturing Dorn, intending to use him in Dragonspear. However, having read up on him, I have decided to discontinue this run and instead make up for the lack of NPCs in Dragonspear by making my own. I am therefore running a Helmite party consisting of a Lawful Good Priest of Helm, an Inquisitor, and a Lawful Evil Blackguard.
Core rules no mods other than a few alterations that I made myself which are: better weapons for asssassins in Candlekeep and a bag of holding on Gorion's body.
Those assassins are far too weak IMO. The bag is for convenience.
Journal of Rowan the Righteous
In Candlekeep I was attacked by assassins which we killed. On their corpses they had a decent staff and a couple of scimitars none of which are much use to me as not one of us has any skill in using them. There was however some armour and a bag of holding both of which were worth fighting for.
We were ambushed outside Candlekeep, Gorion being outmatched by the foe. Afterwards Imoen joined us.
Due to her being less than law-abiding, we weren't too keen on her joining us, but because she was a friend we deemed it right to take her to a place of safety. She might have stayed with us longer, but in Beregost she continued to burgle houses so we bade her farewell.
Trio56 part 4 (Link to part 1/23)
Dubbel Dagnamit - Bounty Hunter (Gate70)
Coreranger XX- Ranger (Corey_Russell)
Slite - Transmuter (Grond0)
We took a few risks at the start of session 4. Slite ran out of ranged skulltraps against a greater basilisk in a warehouse, and before she could swap to web Dubbel nipped in for a hefty backstab. He felt congratulations were in order but his companions were asking what would have happened if he'd missed. He'd have been fine, with his earlier bounty hunter spell slowing the beast. Probably.
Desreta came over all blind, allowing Dubble to snare around Vay-ya. Nothing too fatal, meaning we had to shoot her down and disrupt her spells.
Ramazith survived a sidestab and teleported upstairs. Coreranger meleed two mustard jellies on the 2nd floor for a bit until Slite reminded him to switch from a piercing shortsword to something that could damage the jellies. He made up for this on the third floor against ghasts and then we reached the 4th floor.
A key part of multiplayer is whether you do something party-unfriendly. Like say one person casting a skulltrap at isolated enemies, as a second person decides the same enemies need to be melee'd. Fortunately we caught this one in time and allowed the spell to complete while safely retreating.
Slite was admiring Ramazith's situational awareness, which meant a front-stab ensued - and sufficed.
Coreranger was very keen to reduce some of our excessive gold hoard on a robe of the good magi, for Slite. Dubbel headed that way and we moved on to visit several known but unvisited areas of the world map. Coreranger wanted to deal with a party south of Gullykin but Dubble decided they were too much effort for no rewards of interest.
Instead we headed to Durlag's Tower, Coreranger commenting that we required potions of mirrored eyes. This was like a red rag to the Dubbel-bull who thought he could use snares and backstabs. Slite saved him from some of this folly.
We returned to the city having "multiplayer butterfingered" a second wisdom tome. That's 2 of 2 lost this playthrough. The Iron Throne HQ seemed like a good place to forget all about that, and we did OK there other than Slite getting a line of sight failure (looked fine to all 3 of us) and tangled up in her own web. Never mind, our preparation earlier was enough to keep her alive.
Duke Eltan sent us back to Candlekeep where we managed to use the third wisdom tome. Success!
Less successful was clearing the four spiders near the strength tome crypt. More line of sight woe saw a spider jump to Slite only for a backstab to stop any nonsense. Moments later more line of sight misery saw more arrivals and this time Slite was immediately poisoned. We had potions aplenty but her nil-by-mouth philosophy and magely hit points would be worth dying for. Fortunately Dubbel was right next to her, had a free aura, and had two slow poison special abilities. Once more our luck was in.
Prat and his gang were easy prey but Dubbel mis-stepped and invited more spiders in. Nothing dangerous again but his strength was reduced from 18 to 13 by the wraith spider.
Slite used a looted green scroll to protect Coreranger against the final pair of greater basilisks and we made our escape. Coreranger and Slite raced off with the still-weakened Dubbel lagging behind (he was not encumbered just lacking speedy boots his companions had, and his dwarven hearing heard Coreranger utter something he'd not heard since booting Imoen from the party at the start of the adventure "come along slowpoke". The cheek of it.
Slythe got his just desserts (three snares and a beatdown), while Krystin was allowed to obtain the cloak of Balduran for us before we killed her. On to the Coronation.
Buffs. Summons. Snares. We've got the lot.
Both dukes survived, meaning we were sent after Sarevok into the Thieves Maze. This is where our session ends, having cleared the maze and resting before entering the Undercity.
Nothing untoward happened in the maze. With a thief extraordinaire why should it. Mere traps are nothing to us.
(although Dubbel is not 100% proficient with traps this smacks more of stepping too quickly and carelessly)
Anyway none of us died today, another time perhaps.
Doing really well until absolutely everything went wrong against the Sirines. Walked into my own fireball and got charmed . That was just the beginning!
At least I had a plan of what to do next!
A group of characters led by a priest of Helm, three in number.
One a Priest of Helm, another a Berserker that I intend to dual to a druid, and an Inquisitor.
Everything going swimmingly apart from one thing. When we met Shoal, she killed Ingvild. Shoal then said that she would raise her, but instead had the temerity to die! That meant that Droth didn't turn up with the resultant loss of experience and his helmet!
We didn't want to face the sirines without Ingvild in the party and therefore went to raise her prior to killing the sirines.
In the lighthouse area we had to leave before addressing the second sirine party.
After killing numerous ankhegs we had Xzar and Montaron join us. Xzar identified numerous artifacts for us, but sadly Montaron's thieving tendencies got the better of him and in order to please Helm we bade the two of them farewell in Ulgoth's Beard.
I had an idea today and wondered if anyone else had thought of it and tried it.
I rolled a cleric/illusionist and after acquiring the three healing potions and doing all six quests, I attacked Fuller. I had already consumed the Oil of Speed in the training room to make the task easier. I then attacked Fuller and made sure that the Watcher with him also went hostile. I lured them both outside where I had sufficient room to run away if necessary. I then charmed Fuller whereupon the Watcher attacked him reducing Fuller to near death. However the charm spell expired so I had to charm him again. This time he got killed and I got free plate mail without loss of reputation! Needless to say, my character was most definitely evil!
I wonder what would happen when there is a further encounter upon returning to Candlekeep. A job for Bif the Understudy?
I don't know what effect it had, but before casting the first charm spell, I cast Doom on Fuller.
Comments
I got into some trouble in spellhold when facing Bodhi, during the slayer transformation sequence - I neglected to put on the AoP and got drained all the way down to level 4 before Bodhi retreated - this could've easily spelled the end for Kybele, and I was lucky to survive:
Now, in the Underdark, our buffs become ever more important - CC, death ward, remove fear for everyone at all times. If we keep those up, our physical fighting prowess is enough to deal with any encounters at this point, so we just have to make sure not to get dispelled. The balor stands no chance:
House Jae'llat is, aside from golems and dragons, one of the more significant challenges in SoA when it comes to enemies with very high physical damage. We use a magical sword and a simulacrum to tank most of the enemies here:
Last entry
The upper reaches of Durlag's Tower were easy enough apart from two things. Lack of gold meant that we had no potions of mirrored eyes. We therefore deemed it too dangerous to take on the basilisks.
I used the tome of understanding which has improved my spell casting ability. We have gone through the hidden door. We did not try to finish the next level down. Not being brave, The Practical Defence was more than enough and it has boosted Minsc somewhat. As somebody once said: I'll be back.
Arrived at Gullykin where web/fireball killed a party of adventurers. Needed to use wand of fire twice to kill them off safely.
I decided to gain more gold and buy better equipment before going to the Nashkel mines.
Dynaheir now has a robe of the Good Archmage and we have the potions to go after the basilisks at Durlag's.
Minsc, the nearest to the basilisks used the potions, but the second basilisk attacked me and I...
A disappointing end to the run!
Journal of Tal the Talossian Priest.
In Candlekeep, I gave what I could to the temple and did the quests. I saw that the watchers had much better armour than my splint mail so I attacked one of them so that in future I will be better protected. My reputation took quite a hit which is unfortunate.
I don't know how the news got out as nobody saw me do it! Perhaps one of those cursed diviners got involved.
I made my way south to the Carnival picking up Mirianne's letter, the Colquetle Amulet, and the Ankheg Armour on the way.
Then found Joia's ring, killed Sonner and co with a lightning bolt before heading north to give Tenya her bowl. I tried to kill the nearby ankheg and was forced to flee, however after resting, I returned and killed it.
I will sell the shell, boost reputation, and then do reputation boosting quests.
In the process of all this, all proceeds apart from the gold spent on buying a sling +1 went to the temples.
The armour gained at Candlekeep was not worth the reputation loss, but I felt that Tal would have gone for it.
Very annoying. I cast lightning bollt at Silke and severely injured her and killed the three that she wanted me to kill. Cast command and brought her to "near death." She then saved against another command spell before casting a lightning bolt against ME. My shield had worn off and i d....
Only thing that I did wrongly was the timing of the spells. I think that next time it will be no contest!
The guards were very helpful against Tarnesh. Two of them sacrificed their lives trying to kill him when I cast Sanctuary.
By the time I entered the fray, one command spell was sufficient to dispose of him.
I had to be more patient against the hobgoblins.
Killing Sonner was straightforward and gave me a +1 flail.
I gave the bowl to Tenya and fought the nearby ankheg. The battle was tough but I emerged unscathed.
Being lawful, I didn't attack the watchers in Candlekeep.
I helped Melicamp, calmed Marl, took a tome to Firebead and delivered a letter to Mirianne.
As Zebedee used to say, it's time for bed.
Heading south tomorrow.
True.
Journal of Harrier the Helmite
I killed Greywolf with a little help from the mine guards and a LOT of help from the Hold spell.
Then helped Samuel, returned the Colquetle Amulrt, killed the belt carrying ogre,and started taking on the ankhegs.
At first I had to rest after each ankheg, but now I am at level five that is no longer the case.
Dubbel Dagnamit - Bounty Hunter (Gate70)
Coreranger XX- Ranger (Corey_Russell)
Slite - Transmuter (Grond0)
Session 2 had our reminder about a green scroll. We were at the carnival so it was but a short walk to pick up the scroll and open up the basilisk map. Coreranger led with Dubbel nipping on for the odd backstab and Slite using spells and slings. Mutamin took spell damage and was badly wounded so a backstab was enough to drop him.
We had an early temple visit when Coreranger and Slite decided Neira's time as an assassin was nigh.
(I hate this encounter if not suitably prepared so skip it more than 99.999% of the time but it will be fine)
Sure enough, Neira played a fine game of inside-outside with Slite who failed to blind her but got held. Neira was under ranged attack but Dubbel stepped away to throw a bounty hunter snare (it failed) and Coreranger stayed at range. Dubbel came back to shoot arrows but Neira got a last gasp hit in and our reward was a 800gp contribution to the temple roof.
Kirian's gang were blinded, while she was able to see they were all webbed so another quick victory. Bassilus and Mulahey had bad cleric days while Tranzig was given no mercy, since he'd started talking after dying we decided not to let him go.
The bandit camp proved difficult to find, Dubbel disheartening his companions first as he tried to find it from the south of the Friendly Arm Inn then second as he tried to find it from the Friendly Arm Inn. Head north.
Once there it was generally a one-sided affair with snares and spells quickly clearing the main tent. So off to Cloakwood.
We had a nice stroll through the woods until Slite put a sling into the mouth of a bear. No death though so we moved on to the wyvern cave. Coreranger gulped three antidotes and was looking worse for wear but his healthy genetic hit points were enough to pull through.
At Cloakwood Mine entrance a blind snare web combo gave us a rapid victory, and we carefully made our way to the bottom of the mine. Davaeorn was patiently saving against web while Dubbel and Coreranger patiently waited for the web to end. Meanwhile Slite was less patient, getting webbed and looking in serious danger until a scorcher (hers) finished Davaeorn off.
Baldur's Gate was open...
(we checked this was the case by sharpening Dubbel's quarterstaff on Quayle's any-direction back - down he went)
...so Dubbel read a tome of dexterity and sold his bracers of dexterity. We got ourselves poisoned early after finishing off an ogre mage in the sewers - Coreranger expecting to die here but Dubbel tossed him a potion of magic thingumy that guaranteed 3 turns of successful saving throws. This helped him make short work of all comers, ogre and carrion crawlers.
A bit of brief "shopping" saw us equip the helm of Balduran and partake in roast chicken (Slite giving clear warning of a fireball and Dubbel making an effort to join her in the conflagration). About 20 rabid chickens were harmed in the making of this mess.
Varci gave us a shield in return for his friend, and Slite used Friends to avoid 500gp charge for a wisdomic tome. Generally a successful session with one or two spicy moments for Slite.
Our save for session 3 has a reminder that we have been poisoned by Marek and Lothander, and this has been gently ticking away as we rested a few times to get some identifies done.
Continuing in the same vein took me to level 6. I can now summon three skeletons, buff with barkskin on myself and chant on the party, followed by DUMH. After that my party is ready for anything other than magical assaults.
Reputation now 18.
I headed west from the Nashkel nines, helping Albert and a dryad in the process.
I raided a cave near the Gnoll Stronghold and returned to the vicinity of Candlekeep where Xzar and Montaron joined me. Montaron did some useful pickpocketting both ar Beregost and the Beard. We are currently hunting ankhegs.
Baeloth joined us after which Xzat became superfluous so we left him there. His skull traps should keep him safe from marauding gibberlings.
We too0k on Zargaland defeated his party easily. By contrast Bassilus cast rigid thinking on Dorn who then hurt Baeloth badly.
Brage was helped next.
Most of the upcoming battles center around avoiding a massive "remove magic" and its consequences - the shadow dragon didn't get to it:
At the elven city, we're doing quite well against the golems. The most threatening encounter here is the dragon, but our damage output, especially Mazzy's, is good enough now that, with a little help from Nalia's breach spells, we're able to kill it before remove magic is cast:
We chose the good paths in hell, and this time around, I didn't make any misklicks. Some skeleton warriors and a planetar were summoned to help out with beholders:
ToB: We take down Illasera and complete the first pocket plane challenge. In Saradush, we do all the sidequests and make sure to acquire a few boots of speed. Since I forgot to take out the shadow thief leader, I'm missing one pair of boots of speed, so I want the grandmaster armor for Valygar as well - we're going after Gromnir anyway. Kybele, Mazzy, and Nalia (mostly using breach) take on the barbarian and his 2 wizards, the others deal with the remaining allies. Keldor gets quite low in hitpoints, but we're very quick with our damage as well:
Since Kybele is a high level druid with multiple level 7 spellslots, we spend some time outside our werewolf form at the marching mountains in order to cast nature's beauty on groups of fire giants after herding them into a group via magical sword:
I have a problem with Harrier's Run.
I have completed the raid on the cave yet Safana is complaining that I haven't. I am concerned that she might leave the party.
Any suggestions?
While awaiting an answer I have just started a run with four goblins. They are characters that I rolled as humans and half-elves, changing their race and appearance in EE Keeper.
If we have a goblin in Dragonspear, why not on the sword coast?
So far, still in Candlekeep.
Are there any other changes that I should make, lowering reputation perhaps?
Yes. Tied that. It didn't work. I will try and discover what will happen if I move OUT of the area. I am wondering if it could be because Sil's script didn't trigger due to the way I played it. Attacking her with skeletons.
When we arrived at Candlekeep we found ourselves being given the cold shoulder by nearly everyone, even the Helmites and followers of Tempus. Only those who followed Talos were at all welcoming, so that is whom we follow for better or worse.
(see spoiler)
IF !InPartyAllowDead("Safana") // Safana GlobalLT("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",2) !Contains("book03","Container 1") // Manual of Bodily Health THEN RESPONSE #100 SetGlobal("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",2) ENDThen Safana's script has this section:
IF GlobalTimerExpired("Safana","GLOBAL") InParty(Myself) Global("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",0) !PartyHasItem("BOOK03") // Manual of Bodily Health Detect([PC]) THEN RESPONSE #100 ActionOverride("Safana",Dialogue([PC])) END IF GlobalTimerExpired("SafanaBook","GLOBAL") InParty(Myself) Global("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",1) !PartyHasItem("BOOK03") // Manual of Bodily Health Detect([PC]) THEN RESPONSE #100 ActionOverride("Safana",Dialogue([PC])) END IF InParty(Myself) GlobalLT("PirateTreasure","GLOBAL",2) PartyHasItem("BOOK03") // Manual of Bodily Health Detect([PC]) THEN RESPONSE #100 ActionOverride("Safana",Dialogue([PC])) ENDAnd Safana's dialogue does the rest.
Setting the global "PirateTreasure" variable to 2 should do it. Presuming that you looted and used the tome, which is the treasure she cares about. My guess is that something in your mod install messed up the area script for the cave, and that block never got executed.
That explains it!
I used the tome before asking her to join me!
Thanks.
It looks like the goblins may have to wait in Candlekeep. Roleplaying them could be interesting!
To solve the problem I created the book. She is now happy, so to avoid cheating I left the book behind.
That's the problem with computer games. If you don't do things exactly as expected, they throw wobblies!
In a previous game I had the book in my inventory due to not having a mage and she was happy.
This time I will roleplay that as player I know what is coming; the divining part of the protagonist; yet the Diviner does not always get all the questions answered. Instead I let the dice decide. I only have a 1d6 at home since I cannot find my 1d4,1d8,1d10,1d20 for some reason.... but I will make it work.
Some rules.
The following die rolls will take place.
Even = Yes. Odd = No.
- Do I keep this NPC?
- Do I find this treasure?
- Do I stick to the physical road?
- When it is night, do I sleep?
Cardinal directions is a bit tougher. For now
Odd+Odd = West
Odd+Even = East
Even+Odd = North
Even+Even = South
I will try not to forget that I will not steal in towns from people's homes. Wilderness may get exceptions if in dire need. We do a bit of a neutral run, no automatic good or evil path.
Mods: All of Lava's BGEE mods. Nothing else.
Journal of Ambrosia and Silvanus.
I have two kids Amber and Silvijn. Time to guide them through the Forgotten Realms.
Ambrosia: 13-17-12-18-16-12
A Diviner mage who will mostly do divining tasks. I aim to make the spells mostly for investigation, meaning all divination spells, some of the enchantment spells, and some transmutation will likely be used. I expect very little damaging spells.
Silvanus: 17-18-16-18-11-15
A Blade who will focus on darts. The fun part with darts is that with offensive spin you get to do the maximum of 1d3 plus 2 bonus damage giving early game a damage of 5 per hit or potentially 15 per round. Not too bad for now.
I got some high rolls, best of 20, because I want the kids to have a decent chance to succeed an be a bit of all-rounders. Amber got 88, a bit on the high side of normal luck, but high 80s is something I regularly see in 20 rolls.
Silvanus got 95, this really is an outlier though, that was a magnificent roll I could not skip.
Off we go. I do all introduction quests because we are at home. With the Friends spell I get a better reward only from Fuller. A dagger +1. I actually did not expect to get it, but okay, I will take it.
Ambush site
After the ambush.
- Roll for Imoen - 5. No. We take her immediately back to Candlekeep and leave her at the gate.
- Roll to investigate Gorion - 6. Yes. Roll for through the woods - 1 (stick to the road). Road it is.
- I meet the hermit and get information that Xzar and Montaron are not the NPCs we are looking for (Khalid, Jaheira were mentioned by Gorion). Talk to Xzar and Montaron - 1. No.
- Do I spot the diamond in the tree - 5. No.
- Gorion is visited. We fight a wolf and Silvanus gets some good dart damage off while Ambrosia runs for now. Ambrosia is tired, but it is not night yet. We cannot go to Candlekeep, thus automatically we should follow the road East. Should we ignore the rest of the area? - 4. Yes. Thus we go to the Coast Way.
Coast Way
- Night. Sleep or press on? - 4. Yes, we sleep.
- Our first gibberlings are met at the crossroad. We want to roll for which direction we go. FAI is even or a 5, Beregost is odd 1 or 3 (since we should actually go to the FAI I put more weight on that but our Diviner does not know how far each of them is so I gave a chance for Beregost). - 3. Beregost it is.
Beregost
- In Beregost we talk to Golin Vend and we roll for response. The options I forget, but we roll 2. A luxury inn which means he points us to Feldepost in the West side. Very well.
- I see Miji and Pontag (from SotSC mod). We engage and after some die rolling through the dialogue Pontag leaves and Miji tells us he is behind the Feldepost in. Roll for finding him there - 4. Yes. We go in search for him
- Some talks by Pontag on beetles. He disappears for 24 hours. The question is do we meet him again after a day? Roll 4. Yes, meaning we need to spend time in Beregost. The first easy one is the Feldepost inn which was our destination anyhow. We move inside
- Marl engages. Do we talk to him after his joust? Roll 1. No, we ignore him.
- Unfortunately he does not ignore us, and with some more running by Ambrosia and darts from Silvanus, Marl is no more.
- We go upstairs and I meet Algernon. Roll to notice he has a nice cloak. Roll 1. No, we do not spot that now and ignore him further.
- We need something to do and we roll Odd-Even to go to the East of town.
- Garrick is on the road. Roll to engage - 1. No.
- Not much happening with NPCs, right?
Anyhow. With all the documentation the progress is slower than normal, but it is catching my interest and it certainly is different than normal. In the East of Town I go into the Smithy and buy a chain mail for Silvanus. After that I am at the doorstep and I intend to scry for some new adventure... within the town, since I still need to get back to Pontag for the rest of his quest.
We cleared the basilisk area with ease, first dealing with the adventurers with web/fireballs, then after resting Dorn used the green scroll and we cleared the basilisks. Then web plus fireballs almost killed Mutamin. Magic missiles stopped him casting while other missiles killed him.
We cleared the Nashkel mines Mulahey being neutralised with web.
The same happened to Lamalha et al.
We took Xan with us to Nashkel due to his proficiency with charm. He charmed Oublek who helped in the fight against Nimbul. I cast remove fear upon him with the result that he fought bravely and died a hero. Sadly, it was a guard who killed Nimbul as I would have liked the experience. Rasaad was also killed. I'm thinking that his boots are now worthless.
We left Xan in the safety of the carnival before heading off to Beregost.
We returned to Nashkel to pick up the scalps that we left there and raided some caves to the east.
Then off to the bandit camp, picking up Viconia on the way.
We killed Deke's party on our way to Beregost where we killed Tranzig.
We paid a short visitto Durlag's which was cut short when Baeloth was poisoned twice in quick succession by a spider.
Nevertheless, we completed the quests of three of the warders, so the visit was worthwhile.
We raised Baeloth and are doing a little shopping before doing something to make us a little less popular. Reputation is now 10, a mite too high.
Killing a sleeping man in Beregost reduced reputation by 4. We are not so popular now!
Now time to return to the bandit camp and cause havoc!
However, we first helped Landrin.
We defeated the bandits with a certain amount of difficulty and afterwards I gained the horror spell. Reputation now 6 as you might expect from an evil party. However being devious I could well become more popular as that might suit my purposes!
Going through Cloakwood and the Cloakwood mines was straightforward. However we haven't flooded the mines yet.
We wiped out Simmeon's Party and entered Baldur's Gate.
There I was attacked on my way to the seven suns and my reputation dropped another two points.
However helping Scar enhanced it three points.
I am thinking that after this run, I will revert to playing a good character or characters. I am a lot more comfortable with that.
At Sendai's, we first have to deal with the woodcutter's ambushes - the hive mother does quite a bit of damage to Nalia:
Next up, we return to Watcher's Keep - level 3 this time around. Without a randomized maze, we know what and when to prepare, making these battles a lot easier compared to an SCS run:
I have now completed a few of the quests in Baldur's Gate including the assassination attempt. Have killed Marek flooded the mine and recruited Eldoth.
Have got a few thousand gp in blackmail. This is all new to me as I have never had Eldoth and Skie in the party before. It is good to have tried them but they won't normally be recruited.
Kagain has joined me and we are about to re-enter Candlekeep.
We prepare for Draconis, equipping acid protection gear and letting Nalia use the same wizard spell. As Draconis casts timestop, we move away and mass heal to counter the damage from his ADHW:
We buff up for the Throne and enter. Nalia opens immediately with a 3*lower resistance spell trigger, which hits before her 3*ADHW CC goes off. This helps putting a very, very quick end to Melissan's first appearance:
Time for Nalia's big moment - clearing the final pool (most importantly, the fallen solar) under multiple timestops via scrolls/limited wish - dual-wielding with improved haste to deal the required damage:
All right - now, for the part that interested me most about this run - how does a shapeshifter in greater werewolf form stack up against true fighters in the lategame?
Well, Kybele got only 11% of kills in chapter 9, but 20% in the entirety of the game.
Mazzy had 35% chapter / 25% game
Valygar 16% chapter / 15% game
Keldorn 14% chapter / 17% game
Anomen (doesn't gain fighter levels, but still does great) 14% chapter / 14% game
During SoA, Kybele was actually slightly ahead of Mazzy in total. During ToB, she fell way behind. During BG1, she was the clear leader, with only Khalid even being within a 10% range of her. As you can see, Kybele also fell behind the other fighter types during the Enclaves/WK, but did decently outside of these late game scenarions.
However, this comparison isn't entirely fair: Kybele got the best Items I could give her, and her and Mazzy got the most improved haste spells cast on them by far. The other fighters would've done much better with more improved hastes and/or better gear. In the end, it seems apt to say that shapeshifters start out strong in BG1, have to adjust to some weaknesses in early SoA (which they can compensate with their spellcasting, which is at its strongest at this point with forest beings, insect plague and fire elementals being so powerful early on), get a huge boost in the early/midgame with greater werewolf form and stay very strong until late SoA. In ToB, they will slowly start falling off more and more, until they just can't hold a candle to true fighters once these have multiple uses of their HLAs and get a ton of overpowered gear.
Kybele, the Shapeshifter: @Enuhal
Notable Mods: None
Difficulty: Core Rules
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1204505/#Comment_1204505
Finish: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1205063/#Comment_1205063
If you can find the time, my Invoker run (and the removal of the kit from the missing ones) also hasn't been added yet:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1202928#Comment_1202928
I have been carefully nuturing Dorn, intending to use him in Dragonspear. However, having read up on him, I have decided to discontinue this run and instead make up for the lack of NPCs in Dragonspear by making my own. I am therefore running a Helmite party consisting of a Lawful Good Priest of Helm, an Inquisitor, and a Lawful Evil Blackguard.
Core rules no mods other than a few alterations that I made myself which are: better weapons for asssassins in Candlekeep and a bag of holding on Gorion's body.
Those assassins are far too weak IMO. The bag is for convenience.
Journal of Rowan the Righteous
In Candlekeep I was attacked by assassins which we killed. On their corpses they had a decent staff and a couple of scimitars none of which are much use to me as not one of us has any skill in using them. There was however some armour and a bag of holding both of which were worth fighting for.
We were ambushed outside Candlekeep, Gorion being outmatched by the foe. Afterwards Imoen joined us.
Due to her being less than law-abiding, we weren't too keen on her joining us, but because she was a friend we deemed it right to take her to a place of safety. She might have stayed with us longer, but in Beregost she continued to burgle houses so we bade her farewell.
Dubbel Dagnamit - Bounty Hunter (Gate70)
Coreranger XX- Ranger (Corey_Russell)
Slite - Transmuter (Grond0)
We took a few risks at the start of session 4. Slite ran out of ranged skulltraps against a greater basilisk in a warehouse, and before she could swap to web Dubbel nipped in for a hefty backstab. He felt congratulations were in order but his companions were asking what would have happened if he'd missed. He'd have been fine, with his earlier bounty hunter spell slowing the beast. Probably.
Desreta came over all blind, allowing Dubble to snare around Vay-ya. Nothing too fatal, meaning we had to shoot her down and disrupt her spells.
Ramazith survived a sidestab and teleported upstairs. Coreranger meleed two mustard jellies on the 2nd floor for a bit until Slite reminded him to switch from a piercing shortsword to something that could damage the jellies. He made up for this on the third floor against ghasts and then we reached the 4th floor.
A key part of multiplayer is whether you do something party-unfriendly. Like say one person casting a skulltrap at isolated enemies, as a second person decides the same enemies need to be melee'd. Fortunately we caught this one in time and allowed the spell to complete while safely retreating.
Instead we headed to Durlag's Tower, Coreranger commenting that we required potions of mirrored eyes. This was like a red rag to the Dubbel-bull who thought he could use snares and backstabs. Slite saved him from some of this folly.
Less successful was clearing the four spiders near the strength tome crypt. More line of sight woe saw a spider jump to Slite only for a backstab to stop any nonsense. Moments later more line of sight misery saw more arrivals and this time Slite was immediately poisoned. We had potions aplenty but her nil-by-mouth philosophy and magely hit points would be worth dying for. Fortunately Dubbel was right next to her, had a free aura, and had two slow poison special abilities. Once more our luck was in.
Slythe got his just desserts (three snares and a beatdown), while Krystin was allowed to obtain the cloak of Balduran for us before we killed her. On to the Coronation.
Buffs. Summons. Snares. We've got the lot.
Nothing untoward happened in the maze. With a thief extraordinaire why should it. Mere traps are nothing to us.
(although Dubbel is not 100% proficient with traps this smacks more of stepping too quickly and carelessly)
Doing really well until absolutely everything went wrong against the Sirines. Walked into my own fireball and got charmed . That was just the beginning!
At least I had a plan of what to do next!
A group of characters led by a priest of Helm, three in number.
One a Priest of Helm, another a Berserker that I intend to dual to a druid, and an Inquisitor.
Everything going swimmingly apart from one thing. When we met Shoal, she killed Ingvild. Shoal then said that she would raise her, but instead had the temerity to die! That meant that Droth didn't turn up with the resultant loss of experience and his helmet!
We didn't want to face the sirines without Ingvild in the party and therefore went to raise her prior to killing the sirines.
In the lighthouse area we had to leave before addressing the second sirine party.
After killing numerous ankhegs we had Xzar and Montaron join us. Xzar identified numerous artifacts for us, but sadly Montaron's thieving tendencies got the better of him and in order to please Helm we bade the two of them farewell in Ulgoth's Beard.
I rolled a cleric/illusionist and after acquiring the three healing potions and doing all six quests, I attacked Fuller. I had already consumed the Oil of Speed in the training room to make the task easier. I then attacked Fuller and made sure that the Watcher with him also went hostile. I lured them both outside where I had sufficient room to run away if necessary. I then charmed Fuller whereupon the Watcher attacked him reducing Fuller to near death. However the charm spell expired so I had to charm him again. This time he got killed and I got free plate mail without loss of reputation! Needless to say, my character was most definitely evil!
I wonder what would happen when there is a further encounter upon returning to Candlekeep. A job for Bif the Understudy?
I don't know what effect it had, but before casting the first charm spell, I cast Doom on Fuller.