@Grond0 Nice to see ya, old (easy) habbits die hard.
My Cavalier Sorcerer combo has been on pause in Athkatla, because I wanted to try another solo Kensai run. And I died exactly the same way than previously, on the Irenicus Dungeon mandatory poison trap, being Hasted. Kensai is probably the worst char to take there in LoB SCS because no armor and the homing Duergar hit almost constantly. Anyway I did device a tactic in the end for even for Kensai. Managed to pick up the first the Speed potion in the library, then the stone for the Golem who opened the doors. I entered from Smoke Mephit corridor picking up another Speed potion in the circular room. There's just about enough Extra Healing potions on the way to make it work. But what about the poison trap? Being Hasted it's impossible to cure, and Speed potion is definitely needed in the level. So in the end I got enough distance from the Duergar so I could sleep after the poison hit to cure it. Then using the other Speed potion I lured the four Mephits to previous room before hacking the pits. There's another Mephit that actually Stunned me in the next corridor, but it didn't do enough damage, before I was able to escape.
Oh well, the Kensai40->Thief41 dual (from Selfishness trick) needs to wait.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no level-dependent damage increase; maximum HP on level-up enabled.
Mods: Full SCS 35.10.
Protagonist: Aldain, Human Necromancer.
Aldain starts with + in Sling, and has selected Find Familiar, Sleep and Larloch's Minor Drain for his starting spells. An absolutely epic roll demands an equally epic run, so let's see what we can manage.
We'll do an almost completionist run of BG1, so a proper party will be assembled: Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen as a pure Thief, Branwen and Kagain.
Kagain is kind of the odd man out alignment-wise, but he's just oh so good at soaking up stupid amounts of damage, and since we're running the 1/4 reputation gain component, it shouldn't be a problem keeping him around: Most of the time I end up not ever hitting even 18 reputation. Plus, he can reach Mastery in a blunt weapon, though that's not too important for BG1. Another plus is that this entire party is available almost straight out of Candlekeep.
Well then.
Aldain, Human Necromancer, Update 1
Next update found here
We hit the ground running by successfully memorizing the Armor scroll in Winthrop's dresser.
Carbos and Shanks are duly dispatched with the aid of our familiar, Sir Twiddlebottom.
Off into the wild!
Imoen, Xzar and Montaron are immediately recruited, and we grab the diamond/Ring of Protection +1/Ring of Wizardry en route to the FAI, where Xzar and Montaron (unfortunately?) survive a round of fisticuffs with Tarnesh. We reward them for their bravery with a permanent position at the table closest to the door-less portcullis, and instead pick up Khalid and Jaheira.
Alright, two party members to go. We clear the easiest of easy stuff en route to Beregost (FAI Hobgoblins, Belted Ogre)
and also run into a strangely affluent Gibberling.
Yeah, that's an Arrow of Dispelling. Anyway, Aldain successfully scribes that Identify scroll, so we now have a surprisingly well-rounded spell book. Hooray! We celebrate by recruiting Kagain and identifying the Ring of Wizardry, ensuring we'll always have plenty of Sleep on hand (not that it remains relevant for long). One NPC to go.
The road areas south of Beregost are cleared, and the Flaming Fist actually get their comeuppance (they all fail their save against Sleep) since we will soon be up to four heavy armor users. Our first close call is a solitary Hobgoblin landing a good hit.
We dust ourselves off, apply a Cure Light Wounds and keep on truckin'. Branwen is rescued, Noober and Neira dealt with and free Ankheg Plate Mail picked up (this is actually really good since all our frontliners have such measly strength).
We handily survive the Dorn ambush: Aldain simply moves south immediately, leading to the bandits never getting a shot off.
Greywolf saves against everything but is eventually worn down with Kagain kiting (thankfully Greywolf didn't get an Oil of Speed).
With the simple things around Nashkel cleared, we move back towards Beregost, dealing with Marl, a spider infestation (Sleep!), Silke (brute force), and Neira's assailants (the wizard is vulnerable to Command): We momentarily let the latter into the party, swipe her staff/robe/Gem Bag, then kick her to the curb.
Heading back north, we finish Joia's and Landrin's tasks, then it's further north still.
We're too low level (2-3 all around) to tackle the Ankhegs yet, but Branwen under Sanctuary goes undercover and snags the Wand of Fire from their nest for us.
I really like this little trick: That wand is supremely useful this early. We help Tenya, and clear the Ankheg north of her hut (turning its shell into another suit of Ankheg Plate Mail): We can't fight a protracted battle against many Ankhegs, but a single one can just be Commanded down.
While heading back towards the Fishermen for the bowl, we do take a small risk in that we utilize our plentiful Sleep against some respawning Ankhegs. This works wonders: We're able to clear several of them, and Aldain scores a MAA scroll.
After finishing Tenya's task, we clear the zombies at the farm, swipe the Cloak of Protection +1 from the house, and return to Beregost.
We're feeling confident, so let's clear the areas immediately west of Beregost. Teyngan and his merry murderers have no real answer to Sleep, as Jemby wastes her only action before succumbing to Command with a Power Word: Sleep of her own.
Zargal and cronies are taken down using a single Sleep, and Bassilus fails his save against Silence (and was already interrupted by the Wand of Fire anyway). We're kind of on a roll here.
There are lots of almost risk-free areas left. West of Nashkel is next on the chopping block: Xvarts, Neville and friends, Ogre Berserkers (Wand of Frost from the Nashkel Mine tree as well as Wand of Fire Scorcher), Gibberlings... and another really nice scroll drop from an unremarkable Ogre.
Yes, that's Monster Summoning I. Usually, by the time you get that, it's pointless in that you either have Animate Dead in spades, or already access to Monster Summoning II / Spider Spawn. SCS Monster Summoning gives you lots of weak fodder, which is fantastic against enemy spellcasters that gleefully waste spells on single-digit hitpoint Goblins, Orcs and Hobgoblins. This will be very useful.
We of course move on to the Gnoll Fortress and clear it without incident: Kagain is such a beastly tank even now that we barely need any crowd control, he can just stand up front all day without breaking a sweat.
The Cloud Peak Mountains hold no dangers for us by now. Sendai, Vax and Zal are easily dispatched, and we're back in Nashkel. Off to the east to Arghain's area, and yet another fairly rare (though pointless since there's one for sale at the High Hedge) scroll as a random drop off a common Ogre: Protection from Cold.
Hopefully this good scroll fortune carries over into BG2 where it may prove decisive. We deal with Ioin's gang, move on to Samuel's area and give him a ride to the FAI. Somewhere around here Kagain hit level 4 and now boasts a healthy 60 hitpoints, enough for us to go Ankheg hunting. Which we do with gusto, earning a level here and there in the process.
There is still a little experience to be had: We visit the High Hedge and snipe down the two Flesh Golems before speaking to Thalantyr, though unfortunately Melicamp does not survive.
Alright, we're more than beefy enough: Let's clear the mines, but not advance the plot (i.e.: Mulahey gets to live... for now).
... suddenly I'm glad we waited until we had some fodder available. Not sure what happened here as that Shaman usually just casts a Horror and Mirror Image, but now he's got a full component of third level spells all of a sudden. Thankfully Kagain tanks well enough that we can grind the Shaman down: Branwen sneaks in under Sanctuary and loots Mulahey's chest, netting us a lovely Web scroll.
High time for our second close call, where I was absolutely certain the run was about to end. We decide to take on Zordral, since I reckon we're unlikely to all fail our saves against his Sleep. Zordral agrees with this tactical assessment, and opts for a different approach.
Yeah, Monster Summoning I followed by a Chromatic Orb. That's our Necromancer protagonist, with no Stoneskins owing to his low level, stunned at 27 hitpoints and in melee range of four monsters.
But amazingly, all but one of the monsters immediately swap targets? I guess it's SCS not prioritizing finishing off incapacitated foes, but really, if they had just focused on Aldain for a single round he'd have been toast. One of the archers gets a single shot off bringing us down to 18 hitpoints, but in the end we come out on top.
That was just stupidly lucky (and goes to show how scary crowd control is). Somewhat rattled, we proceed towards our third close call, but not before clearing the Beregost Temple wolf pack, which thankfully unfolds without incident owing to Web being available.
Anyway, we're high enough level that we need not fear the bounty hunter ambushes, so opt to advance the plot. Mulahey stands no chance, of course: His northern reinforcements fall to a single Wand of Fire Fireball, and the half-orc himself is just beaten down.
Brave brave sir Oublek (under the influence of Algernon's Cloak which we filched earlier... I'll allow pickpocketing for only a handful of critical items) once again comes just short of besting Nimbul, but we manage to avenge him. The 4000ish gold you no doubt would've wanted us to have will be put to good use, Oublek!
Tranzig can't handle Skeleton Warriors, and so is tackled risk-free. En route to the bandit camp we get the Amazons ambush, but we came prepared: Aldain has a Detect Invisibility which undoes the imminent risk of chunking by the two thieves, and some shuffling about later, victory is easily snatched.
We clear the two areas before the camp proper without incident; Osmadi and Corsone fall to Silence and MAA respectively.
Even the camp is relatively uneventful, as dual Web and some Fireballing almost always works (about 1/20 times Venkt rolls an unlikely number of saves and proceeds to do something moderately dangerous, but not today).
We clear the Gnolls in the cave, loot everything, and get Molkar and friends on our case on the way back to the FAI.
They actually put up a reasonable fight, managing to Hold Imoen which forces Khalid to melee for a bit, but their only arcane caster is woefully underleveled and therefore susceptible to Command, so the outcome here is pretty much never in doubt as long as the protagonist isn't the one failing a save against Hold Person by Drakar.
OK, time for that promised third close call.
We venture into the Ulcaster ruins and safely arrive at the lair of the resident Wolf of Ulcaster.
Now, in my previous SCS version, the Wolf didn't respond to calls for help, so it was safe to clear the Dread Wolves just outside its lair before tackling it. Not so this time, as it turns out.
That initial Howl affected all three frontliners. If Branwen had been affected as well, or if we'd been a little slower with the Remove Fear (it wasn't running since, again, I expected to clear the Dread Wolves in peace before attacking the Wolf proper), this could've turned quite disastrous. The Wolf successfully dispels the Remove Fear, and we re-apply it (our last cast!), but thankfully it then chooses a Greater Malison rather than yet another dispel+Howl combo. This gives us just enough time to take it down.
That battle was quite frantic, especially with the Ghouls spawning in the middle of our party. Good thing Kagain didn't get Held by the Wolf...
Anyway, that bit of nastiness done with, it's off to the western seaboard. Shoal is rescued (Droth is still vulnerable to Command), the local Ogre clan is eradicated, and we tackle some Sirines who only manage to Dire Charm Imoen (not our biggest bruiser).
Of course, fighting the Sirines to the south is done properly, with Web, Skeleton Warriors and Detect Invisibility. Not much to report; the Flesh Golems of Black Alaric's Cave also got a good whoppin'.
We finish the Doomsayer's area as well (nothing difficult, just use Magic Missiles or a wand thereof), and hitch a ride with Brage back to Nashkel. BG1 is so massive, we're still nowhere near done. East of Nashkel the Revenant gets a pounding, and Narcillicus isn't high enough level to turn himself nigh-invulnerable.
So far we've held off on the greatest XP trove of all: Mutamin's Garden. Well, no more. Have at thee, Gnome!
We clear the rest of the area without incident, a single Web dealing with the local adventuring party.
Next, Durlag's Tower... or at least the upper floors and the Warder level.
The upper floors are mostly uneventful: We make good use of Monster Summoning I though, as the Ghost is all too happy to waste even fairly potent spells on our hapless level 1 monster fodder. Khalid ends up eating a Mordenkainen's Force Missiles, but other than that it went swimmingly.
A Potion of Heroism and Oil of Speed for Khalid and a Greenstone Amulet charge lets him deal with Kirinhale on his own.
The Warder level turns a little dicey when improved calls for help means Kagain has to tank two Skeleton Warriors at once: Some chained healing is necessary, but we power through. With the local low hanging fruit thoroughly picked (and some nice scrolls for Aldain scored, including a random Minor Lightning Bolt), we depart for Beregost.
And this is where the party can currently be found, relaxing at the Red Sheaf Inn. There's not a lot of wilderness left: Gullykin and Firewine Bridge (I left the latter until after Durlag's, since I wanted enough Potions of Master Thievery to have Imoen pickpocket the Scroll of Protection from Magic off of Bentan), as well as the Red Wizards area... and that's it. Then it's more TotSC areas or advancing the plot (we'll advance the plot).
This was a long update, but it has borne fruit: Aldain is now a level 6 Human Necromancer, not far off level 7.
The playthrough has been much like that of any specialist: We haven't really been hurt by lacking Illusion yet.
We'll need to be properly prepared for the Cloakwood, of course, given the chance of ambush by web-spitting spiders, but we still have all of the Invisibility potions we've picked up so far, so we should be fine.
Great start @aldain ! Our runs are somwhat comparable, with them being full party + SCS (though yours is obviously more difficult, being on insane instead of tactical and using official companions insead of custom ones). The chromatic orb stun looked quite dangerous, but you've made it at least past the part where random archers can just kill your bhaalspawn with one lucky crit
I wonder if you're planning to get access to an early stoneskin scroll by either picking up Neera for her quest or going for an ice island clear with the help of PfM to make up for the lacking illusion defenses, or if you're just going to rely on ghost/spirit armor (I guess polymorph: self can be used as a short-term defense as well).
@Enuhal Thank you! Honestly, I'm all but certain I could wing it through the entirety of BG1 without Stoneskin, since careful positioning is usually enough. That said, I'll probably err on the side of caution and go for Ice Island: I find this, along with Davaeorn, the best uses for the PfM scrolls (and there's really not much else I can see myself popping them on).
Okay, let's explore Baldur's Gate. Having access to haste now, we can often accumulate enough APR to just punch through enemy stoneskins before the wizards can do something of note - though some don't even have the time to receive their pre-buffs:
Getting the gauntlets of ogre strength is very useful for Agrippina, our one low-strength character:
We're experimenting with the new and improved polymorph self here for a bit - Octavia tries out all the forms. Certainly quite a bit of utility in just one spell, with access to barbarian rage, web tangle and the hellhound firebreath/fire resistance - of course there's the old mustard jelly. However, we mostly stay in ogre mage form as that one allows us to still cast spells, though there's some hellhound action as well:
I can't really overstate how good greater malison is at this point - we have so many powerful save or else spells. The three forest being confusions pretty much always work if malison is provided first, which is great against large groups of strong foes or high level wizards (as neither minor spell deflection nor MGOI works against malison + confusion):
With most of the city clear, we explore the sewers and deal with the poisoning quest:
A short intermission in the report - during these sidequests, I tested the various new spells with minor sequencer. I've decided that I don't like ice knife, it's just not reliable against moving targets due to its slow projectile speed. Combustion just doesn't seem to work at all (when putting it in a sequencer and using it, I simply got the message "one of your spells has failed" - twice). Minor lightning bolt is fine in a sequencer and by itself. The spell is not super powerful, but at least better than Melf's for immediate direct damage at the level. I also tested "turn pebble to boulder" - decently powerful as the knockout doesn't offer a saving throw, but the attacking itself has been very janky and slow for me. Over all, I'm not too impressed with the new spells so far. Looking forward to the high level ones. The resting bonus, as expected, is very useful in the city. Not a big deal, but nice.
Okay, back to the city - Degrodel's house. Malison + Slow - now THAT is a satisfying slow spell:
And we return to finish the job:
Up to the Iron Throne. This battle is dangerous even in an unmodded run, and I've decided to challenge myself by not luring any opponents downstairs, which makes everything much easier here. To start, Agrippina summons spirit lions, Octavia uses greater malison, Kriemhild slightly delays her cast of slow (so the malison will hit first), Ung rages and attacks, an invisible Livia looks for backstabbing opportunities and Nibel starts with holy smites - the slow works pretty damn well:
We're also able to initially interrupt the enemy spellcasters, following up with a second holy smite and a great backstab - we're up to 4*damage now:
Our lions destroy the first spellcaster, two fighters are taken down, the cleric is under heavy pressure and one of the thieves gets grilled by static charge, with the archer and second arcane spellcaster retreating, chased down by Ung:
However, I missed one crucial thing - the battle has been raging for a while now, but the second enemy thief still hasn't revealed themselves (propably because they were slowed by our opening spells while stealthed). They do so with a devastating 66 damage critical backstab on Livia herself, bringing us close to death:
She drinks an invisibility potion right away and moves to the side. The others take down the thief, and while the archer gets a few hits on Kriemhild, we eventually emerge victorious - that critical was scary!
Now, to Candlekeep. We foil the ogre mage trap with 6 invisibility potions before buffing up, summoning and counter-attacking:
The big battle in the catacombs is quickly won by malison + confusion + insect plague:
Some things we left for later: Kahrk, who now has to deal with level 10 spirit animals and level 7 skeletons:
Same thing for the ghost at Durlag's:
A quick return to the city. We enter flaming fist HQ with full buffs. These clerics spam unholy blight, which does nothing against our neutral party. SCS is smart, but apparently not that smart. Spirit lions and magical projectiles take down Cythandria and her stone golems:
The two assassins in the undercellar are in big trouble, because with the third wisdom tome, Agrippina now has 3 level 5 spell slots, so in addition to ironskin and insect plague, she now has true sight, neutralizing much of what they could do. On to the coronation. We summon our army and start with greater malison, insect plague, 3*confusion, and slow - which now directly cancels haste effects:
Not too bad - though Liia is so capable of self defense in SCS that there's little danger here:
Okay, a "quick" visit to the ice island. Ung gets PfM. I know from experience that SCS expects that, giving the wizards here a bunch of summoning spells to still be able to function - mostly monster summoning (easy to deal with) and lesser elemental summonings (more dangerous, especially since all elementals have been changed now) - Ung has his returning +2 throwing axe now, though, which allows him to kite and kill these elementals fairly easily:
PSA: Stonefist works through PfM.
This all takes a while, as these wizards run around, re-buff themselves with new defenses, some even go invisible, forcing Livia to step in with detect illusions. Close to the end I realize that I should just cast invisibility on Livia and have her detect illusions next to Ung the entire time, so she can prevent mirror images and invisibility shenanigans - for duration reasons I have to use a second PfM scroll, but once Livia joins in, things go much faster and we're able to clear out the place:
Finally, we move to Balduran's Island. Wolfweres are easy to shoot down with magical ammo and a good tank. We buff up for the shipwreck - all fighters take stone giant strength potions, Ung even heroism, Livia the important potion of defense. Octavia has fifth level spells, which, at this point in the game, mostly means chaos - works even against the greater wolfwere upstairs:
Since we have zero characters with points in bastard swords or daggers, the goal here is to use the wand of paralyzation, helped by greater malison, so the anti-lycanthrope weapons always hit:
We do the same thing back in Ulgoth's Beard:
Though not before a loup garou gets a crit + hit on Livia, once again scaring me quite a bit, but the wand stun hits and she ends up safe.
I haven't played for a little while, but seeing some high quality party runs going on at the moment I decided to have another go at this poverty run. I've used various additional rules and set-ups for this, but this run is just an unmodded, core difficulty run using my standard rules. The specific poverty angle means:
1) You can never buy or sell any items (including any items required for quests).
2) You can never use or equip any items (but can pick things up for quests).
3) You may pay for quests (such as Gaelan Bayle), but not anything else (temples, inns etc).
A favourite early tactic is to use command to disable opponents and beat them unconscious before Hardup dances up a spirit to deliver the kill - that resulted in the first kill in Candlekeep.
After clearing the crossroads area, the Opera headed for the basilisk area in search of some real XP. Korax is usually pretty effective there, but the greater basilisks can be dangerous if they switch quickly to melee. The first of those did so and resisted a command and blindness - but a second attempt at blinding it was successful.
All the lesser basilisks were then killed, but Korax took further damage in the process and was eventually killed by a gibberling before getting to Mutamin.
However, by that stage everyone had the XP to level up and 2 levels for Washout allowed him to maximise his skill at setting traps. Three of his special traps killed Mutamin and spirits then provided distractions allowing Skint to blind the basilisk at the 3rd attempt - spirits could then attack it from outside its sight range.
Traps laid from behind a pillar of rock then accounted for Kirian's party.
That gave everyone except Pauper the XP to level up again. However, as usual I'm requiring everyone to level up at once, so a bit more XP was needed. That came from the wolf pack at Beregost temple, whose members were pulled away individually into waiting spirits.
The sorcerers still needed another level to allow the party to travel invisibly, so went in search of an old man north of Beregost. Washout used stealth to obstruct him and allow a spirit lion to get an attack in to trigger pre-laid traps.
The cool 26k XP from that was enough to give everyone except Pauper the ability to level up.
Travelling during the day along the road is pretty safe and various relatively minor tasks were done on the way to find Drizzt. He was lured into traps and the 12k from that was sufficient for everyone to level up again.
The sorcerers both took invisibility, which will allow the party to travel invisibly on more dangerous routes.
I'm not requiring all content to be completed in this run, but the Opera will probably fully explore the standard wilderness areas.
They started off doing that as they made their way to Nashkel and then through the Cloud Peak Mountains. The most common method for disposing of enemies remained to disable them and beat them unconscious - for instance Greywolf was blinded and then held.
Pauper got the odd bit of exercise with his seeking sword, such as against Krumm. Hardup was usually dancing, but did sometimes run around in a Writhing Fog, like at the Gnoll Stronghold when a spirit lion got tired and disappeared part way through a job.
Clearing those areas involves plenty of work for relatively little reward, but there were slightly better pickings at the minesite where the Doomsayer ran into volleys of magic missiles.
After delivering Brage back to the Nashkel Temple, I had a look at inventories to chuck out various items acquired on the journey. That disclosed the festering corpse of Samuel, who must have expired long since ...
Now with access to the seaside, the Opera went in search of some sirines. The last of the first trio took quite a bit of chasing before Pauper found it with his Seeking Sword. Sil died in traps and her companions went down quickly under Pauper's attack. That combination also took care of the golems in the cave, gaining enough XP in the process for the party to level up once more.
The Valley of the Tombs was next. That saw a first use of web which, in conjunction with the free action of a spirit lion, made short work of Lamalha's companions. I was careless though in assuming she would go the same way and nearly paid for that when she managed to break free and cast a glyph at Aspire that could easily have killed him.
Seeking Sword came in handy again to deal with Narcillicus's jellies before the mage himself gasped his last in a Writhing Fog. That area also saw a first use of Call Lightning to help sort out a few ghasts.
North of the Carnival I clicked on the wrong conversation option with Ioin and his archers. He disappeared at near death with more magic missiles in mid-air. However, given this is a poverty run, the loss of all the party's gold is rather fitting .
At Firewine Bridge I killed Bentan and Poe (even though their equipment was of no use, I wanted to reduce reputation in order to get the evil Bhaal powers for Beggar). Meilum was blinded, then held before going in search of Kahrk. Traps were set for him, but a kobold appeared at the wrong moment to spring those. However, skeletons and spirits got rid of his spells before the sorcerers got to work with magic missiles.
I decided I should bite the bullet and do the ruins as well. Washout detrapped those invisibly and summons helped clear out the kobold hordes before Lendarn was lost in a Fog. Jenkal then paid the price for his treachery to the other halflings.
Moving through the ruins at Ulcaster is much less of a pain than at Firewine and some traps made a quick end of the wolf.
The only area south of Beregost not yet cleared included Bassilus and he was next for the chop.
With that lot done I think the Opera will start the main quest next.
In Dularg's tower, we try to use as little spells as possible so we can have full buffs and summons for the dwarven warders at the ready. As is by now tradition, Livia gets hit by a backstab, but we easily despose of all our foes by letting an enraged Ung deal with Love by himself (immune to most of what he'd do) while the others stay far away to shoot down the other warders:
We still have our second haste spell, which we use near the end of level 2 for the dwarven doom guards:
The party has to rest at the start of level 3, fighting off some greater ghouls who try to interrupt us twice. Now, we move through the three paths, using a PfU scroll for the middle one and some careful step-by-step movement for the invisible backstabers in the garden, making sure they only see Ung when they attack while still using Livia to get rid of any traps. We buff up for the chess board and include full immunity to lightning and fire (potions of absorption and fire protection + green scrolls) in our buffs. We throw down fireballs via wands and necklaces:
Two more fireballs and the remaining foes are cleared out in regular combat:
Down to level 4, where our rings of freedom help us deal with most foes. We're up against the demon knight, buff with fire protection once again (only potions this time) and send in our summons. The demon knight has a VERY powerful fireball, but it only grills our spirit lions:
The party separates in case of a dispel and Ung moves in, buffed by his rage - the demon knight quickly falls:
Time for the cult back a Ulgoth's Beard. We enter and immediately drink 6 invisibility potions, move to the north, summon, buff up and go on them with malison, chaos, slow and the like:
Our crowd control abilities and true sight (for the assassins) do the job, and while our buffs are still active we take on the second group before luring the third one outside of their building. A rest is in order before we face Aec'Letec. A lot of potion buffs, including heroism, cloud giant strength and, most importantly, magic shielding (they're rare, but they neutralize everything Aec'Letec does) - we first go after the cultists:
And finally after the demon:
You may notice some open level ups in these screenshots. They're here because I removed the XP cap for this run - the reason for that is due to the way overspill experience is handled in the games - experience above the cap fully imports into SoD, but only if the session where you hit the XP cap (which would've been the start of Durlag's tower) is continued right into SoD. If you save and load inbetween, only the overspill experience starting from that save game is imported. This means that, to optimize experience gain, if I do a full run, I usually have to play Durlag's + the endgame in one big mammoth session - which needs some scheduling. To give me more flexibility in playing shorter sessions, I simply removed the cap for BG1 and SoD (where the same thing is true) - but I don't want to become more powerful than the games usually allow, so I'm not using these level ups until they'd be possible without that modification.
Now, we move to the Undercity. Some more malison + 3*confusion for the party down there:
We prepare for Sarevok with some more cloud giant strength, heroism, invulnerability, mind focusing, oils of speed and the usual buffs. A quick dispelling arrow (they don't sell them in stores in my installation, but there are some available from the skeletons in Durlag's level 3 and a few more from a random container in a store in the city) to take care of Sarevoks haste opens things up, as we start with a spread out party in case of an immediate dispel magic:
After that, the fighters focus on Tazok first because he has no protections. Meanwhile, we cast malison, insect plague and 3*confusion. Semaj is revealed by true sight, the other enemies just teleport in as Tazok falls:
The insects hit Semaj, which will be a great help. As we take down the first skeleton, Angelo goes for a dispel in Kriemhild. I notice it in time, equip her with boots of speed and have her run far away:
Semaj, thanks to greater malison, is actually not only feared by insect plague but also confused by the forest being spells. The nymphs target Angelo next, with hold monster (meanwhile, Octavia is busy using her two spell thrusts on Angelo and Diarmid, which gets rid of their MGOIs) - Diarmid retreats off screen behind a pillar, Kriemhild gets dispelled at a safe distance, and Angelo gets held, sealing his fate:
We kill Angelo, the confused/feared Semaj and track down Diarmid, who now has no spell protections - he gets hit by hold person and, for good measure, summon insects:
Now we just have to take down Diarmid and the remaining skeletons before turning on Sarevok, who quickly falls to arrow fire and sling bullets:
Korlasz's tomb holds little dangers with the tools we have at our disposal now. We take the level ups we had stored up, buy some stuff from the flaming fist healer, firebomb the first group and use PfU on Ung to clear out most of the map:
To speed things up, he's using some type of giant strength potion and an oil of speed as well. We use a summoned beetle to reveal the invisible wraith with the shadow group before moving towards the second to last group of Korlasz's followers, which we firebomb again. Korlasz herself and her final followers get the fully buffed assault with malison, slow, chaos, insect plague, holy smite etc. thrown at them, which leads to a quick victory:
Back in the city, we spend most of our time with inventory management (because we saved up a bunch of items to sell in SoD to compensate for our loss of gold) before doing the few sidequests and learning a bunch of new spellscrolls. We're now ready to start SoD proper at the Coast Way Crossing.
A note for SoD: A sub-challenge for this run is that I won't allow recharging items at merchants (which is why I carry around a ton of wands with not a lot of charges on them). This is just for my own curiosity, mainly to see how low we go on specific consumables (notably necklaces of missles), so we will have to rely less on firebombing (which will have to be targeted at specific groups), and more on buffed combat and mass crowd control (which should result in more rests and a longer playtime, but I don't see it turning into an actual gameplay problem).
Hey all. Just a note that I picked up one of my successful BG runs - a Cavalier named Jelia- and she has made it through the Underdark (with the usual near death experience for me there- on this occasion a mod added fight caught me off guard). It’s not a completely strict run as I had to reload & edit a bit to deal with bugs and some mod interactions but I’m having fun with it. It’s sometimes irritating but interesting to play a LG character who won’t do the Thieves’ quest or infiltrate the Harpers for Xzar . I’m out of practice and make many silly mistakes so it’s quite likely that she’ll perish at some point but I’m just glad that I can still find pleasure in the game after all this time. Wasn’t sure if I would and there’s still IWD w/SCS and PoE to come when that happens.
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Rewritten Final Chapter of Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.0.28
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v16
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v16
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v16
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited scroll stacking: v16
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: 35.10
Irenicus Dungeon was trivial with Sorcerer on board as Skellingtons cleared the whole place. Arriving Athkatla the first thing was to get casting rights. Not by the conventional method but summoning cowled wizards by casting Invisibility onself, and letting the neutral guards kill all of them. Well not all of them, as they teleport away on like 3 hour mark. Once Zallanora was dead they would never bother us again. We got nice loot from the get go, 4x Laear Tear Necklaces, Pierce Shield, Improved Mantle, 2x Invisibility potions and other things.
Skelis cleared the docks before we bought reputation to 15, Nymph Cloak and looted Maevar's Guild Hall. Cavalier used two PfF potions and repeated the Fireball trap to kill Rayic. Maevar was pre-charmed with the Cloak before giving the proof to Reynal and he was then killed by his own assassins.
Picked up Potion case and Paladin Bracers from WK, before buffed Skellis solved the Bridge District murders. We then looted De'Arnise where Glaicus was charmed with the Cloak, and built FoA+3. In Trademeet Treya was killed by Skelis for the off-hand Thac0 cloak, and Rasaad accompanied us to the City District so we could get map update to the Amphitheatre. Then picked up Belm+2 from Druid Grove and Cavalier was set for a long time weapons wise. Accompanied Neera to Hidden Refuge where we did the easy fetch quest for Amulet+2. Crypt King was ganged on by summons, but he still got Vanderley to 64hp. We did the quest for Silver Pantaloons, but rather than talking to Walther we charmed him and Bregg killed him. This way we could complete the quest by freeing Lady Egea without reputation penalty.
Buffed Skelis freed the slaves in Copper Coronet. Beastmaster doesn't even aggro if he isn't talked to. Captain Haegan's party killed by repeating Cloudkill trap. Neb and Kalah both got 8 apr FoA'ed, using True Sight to dispel illusions. We now had 80k gold and 20/20 economy, so we bought Vhailor's Helm and Robe of Vecna among other stuff. All was going so well at this point that we managed to take Prebek and Sanasha too lightly. We all got confused and Jin died (3). Thankfully Cavalier was strong enough to kill Prebek even being Confused. We took Jaheira to our group to activate her quest. And then we got ambushed in the Harper headquarters. 3x Invisibility potions to escape and Skelis then hunted the two mages down, after which we were able to attack with the help of WoMS. Got the Reaching Ring for Jin, and we let Jaheira go. Mekrath killed my Skelis with Death spell, but he couldn't handle the never ending WoMS.
Some new things we have noticed this run. Rod of Resurrection doesn't heal anymore, permanent Shapechange trick from Limited Wish doesn't work anymore and SCS component Sequencers and Contingencies as Innate abilities doesn't apply anymore to Sorcerers, which kind of makes sense. So we do need to invest some spell slots for them. In WK we got our second scare fighting the Trolls as Vanderley got to 16 hp. Cavalier lv12, Sorcerer lv13. In Temple sewers Undead were Skeletoned, and we looted the place. Happy to see that Roger the Fence could still smuggle the Rift device out of there for us.
Chapter 3. Once we got Mace of Distruption improved the Vampiric Wraiths in WK could be tackled with. Skelis then cleared the first level. Cavalier lv13 with 9 apr and Prayer to buff Skelis even more. We tried the first Statues and managed to kill two of them, but we weren't strong enough to take the Cleric statues, as their Aerial Servants easily smashed our Skelis. So we left them be for now. We attacked the Monks in Amphitheater and this got our biggest scare yet as we got to low as 6hp. Rest and other Skeli attack was enough for them. The other party was easily killed by Skelis and then we did the easy quest in Heretic Temple. This netter Mirror Image ring and Truth Seeing Gem for Cavalier. Firkraag dungeon was mostly passed being Invisible, but we tackled the Samia's gang with summons, and were able to kill all except Samia herself who escaped to safety between Orog's and Greater Werewolves which we couldn't fight just yet. Tazok easily smacked, and Conster didn't even survive 4 WoMS. Didn't tackle Firgraak either but more importantly we got the sewer key.
Attacking Tarnor's mob Jin got killed again (4), but Skelis and Clone could kill all but Tarnor and Gallchobhair. We then used the last of our WoMS to kill Gallchobhair, and used Improved Haste on both of our last two Skelis and got Tarnor too. Picked up the Wand of Wonder from Mind Flayer dungeon, buffing against Magic, Intelligence and Psionic attacks. But in the end they couldn't target Sanctuaried Cavalier. Now we could start the Firkraag XP-loop. Some notes how to do this, remove all casting time buffs and cancel all the voiced spells from WoW, nothing else will aggro Firkraag. Then you can just turn him back and forth stone and flesh. But in SCS there's a bug that makes him kill himself with Melf's Acid Arrow when turned back from Stone. So to avoid this it's needed to take his first spell attack which is just lower resistance etc., and escape the room. And then rest which resets Firkraag. First wand got us 10 hits or 640k xp, then 5 and 6. Both got lv16, Cavalier got 4th lv spells and Jin got Spell Trigger and top of the line Skellies.
In the Nashkel Mine Hardup gained lots of kills by using Fogs on groups of kobolds. Mulahey failed to escape from webs.
Tranzig was then just beaten up in melee, with 3 of the party attacking using Shillelaghs.
At the Bandit Camp, sleep and summons did most of the work in forcing a way through to Tazok's tent. Rather than sneak in, the Opera did a frontal assault - though Washout did start things off by throwing in a special trap. Hardup took a critical hit and had to run outside briefly, but otherwise things went smoothly. Pauper finished off Hakt by laying another trap from behind the central pillar.
In the first Cloakwood area summons helped overwhelm the druids hassling Aldeth.
After invisibly disarming the traps in the second area, Centeol's guards were dragged outside in bits and pieces before he was bludgeoned into jelly.
In the third area the Opera did a straight attack on the cave and nearly paid for that when Beggar was poisoned, but Slow Poison arrived in time to save him.
None of the druids in that area managed to complete a spell, with Amarande being tagged by a bunch of insects.
I've sometimes got into trouble in the 4th area when attempting to use invisible blockers to deal with the wyvern cave. The width of the stairway in some places there makes that tricky and use of summons tends to break the block as a result of jostling in the confined spaces. However, I set things up carefully this time and had no problems - three Writhing Fogs did almost all of the necessary damage there.
At the Cloakwood Mine, Drasus and his companions found themselves fighting hopelessly in the dark.
Inside, Hareishan perished in Fogs.
Beggar took advantage of the ability to stay invisible while summoning his spirits to spring the ambush on the second level - everyone was also able to level up there.
Natasha died in traps and the ogre mage to magic missiles. Hardup's spirits gain a huge upgrade at level 6 and those soon took down the guard on the bottom floor. Spirits also killed a couple of blinded battle horrors before a first use of skull traps accounted for Davaeorn.
Resting before flooding the mine gained Beggar a second Bhaal horror ability.
Starting a new programme of area clearance, the Opera moved through High Hedge, successfully reviving Melicamp there. At the coast, Washout saved against Shoal's kiss and the party disappeared as Droth arrived - making him an easy target.
Rather than just get the small reward for reporting success to Shoal, she was then killed as well. Webs dealt with the sirines, though the last of those did manage to get a shot off.
The Beregost temple area was cleared on the way to find the Red Wizards of Thay. The traps in that area can be dangerous, but once again invisibility negated those and the Wizards were quickly dealt with thanks to web.
At Larswood and Peldvale the Black Talon Elites can do a lot of damage quickly and their ability to appear on encounter spots already bypassed and wander around means it can be sometimes be hard to avoid attacks. As a result the Opera stayed invisible most of the time and let summons do the bulk of the hard work. The sorcerers did help with the odd sleep before disappearing once more.
Sleep was also used extensively in the ankheg area to allow summons to clear the monsters out.
With all the original wilderness areas cleared the Opera will be moving into the City shortly. First though they completed a couple of outstanding quests and boosted their XP by trapping the Elminster incarnation in Beregost.
I think I accidentally ran into the incarnation at FAI previously, so that was not available (and the one in Baldur's Gate can't be killed like that, so that's it for Elminster bonuses).
We start out at Coast Way Forest with some quick exploration and some light buffs plus a single spirit lion for Teleria, whose stoneskins are quickly broken through before she's able to cast anything dangerous:
We firebomb the crusaders at the bridge - the only fight in this chapter where we use some fireball charges:
We help out the dwarves, with the first area being cleared by the whole party, while PfU is used on Ung for the Repository of Undeath (and some summons to lure out invisible wraiths):
Coldhearth dies to The Secret Revealed, we make our way to Coast Way Forest. Luckily, it's right before midnight, great time to go vampire hunting (I think this is literally the first time I didn't have to rest or travel multiple times to get to the right time period for this quest). We buff up and take down our foe:
On the way back, we get to the random encounter map for this chapter - interestingly enough, it seems like the game assumes a travel time of zero here, because we still had some short-lasting buffs going, allowing us to just storm into the place, rebuffing only prayer, recitation and haste before the final room of trolls, slimes and the like - fire arrows help with finishing off the trolls:
Next time, we plan to explore the Troll Claw Woods. We're currently using some type of strength potion on at least Ung, sometimes other fighters, pretty much at all times - we have tons of them left from BG1, because I didn't need gold to recharge items, so I bought out all merchants who sell potions for everything that I could possibly think about using at some point.
We start exploring Troll Claw Woods - using our first round of buffs for the troll cave. With Biter +2 we have a reliable option to finish off all the trolls in the area. Firebombing is not needed here, we sparingly use our summons as additional assistance from time to time and use our second round of buffs, plus the malison mass crowd control combos for the ogre group to the south:
On the way to the forest of wyrms, we deal with the first ambush site. A round of freedom potions and a protection from poison scrolls on Ung is taken for the spider cave once we make it deeper into the woods:
The problem with the freedom potions is that we can't use haste now for the dragon battle, but we get poison protection for the other 5 party members and our full round of buffs, with some heroism and invulnerability added into the mix. The dragon is surprisingly fragile - even without haste she doesn't do much except for a wing buffet and 2 defensive spells before we take her down:
We fight through the bugbear caves, using some detect invisibility spells for the backstabbing thieves. Ziatar is our next target, as we still have protection from poison buffs going for her breath attack:
The neothelid quickly falls, despite being able to hold Octavia:
Now things get interesting. Usually, SCS doesn't intervene much in SoD, but it certainly did when I was facing my first aerial servants - the nearby cleric, Akanna, has two of them with her. First of all, I didn't know that aerial servants would be classified as air elemental for the changes to elementals introduced by v35. They certainly seem to be, as they are surrounded by whirlwind effects that really messed up my party. Now, according to the readme: "Air elementals are surrounded by a whirlwind effect which inflicts slashing damage dependent on their HD (2d8/rd at 8HD, 3d8/rd at 12HD, 4d8/rd at 16+HD) with additional damage to mist creatures, disperses clouds, and gives a 50% spell failure chance." However, what these whirlwinds did was not only deal a lot of damage - they, in fact, STUNNED pretty much everything that they hit. There seems to have been some kind of saving throw against breath weapons available, but I'm not finding anything in the readme that suggests that any type of stun effect should be happening here. In any case, that stun effect completely took me by surprise and almost killed my party - Ung had to fight the very powerful aerial servants basically by himself and almost died when doing so:
This is the kind of ugly surprised I feared I might run into when trying out the heavily changed new SCS version. BG2 has more air elementals, so... that could be interesting. And using my own ones could be as well.
Still, I didn't want to rest in here, using forest beings' mass heal and some lesser healing potions instead. The only firebombing I did in this chapter was next up, against the group with the mind flayer:
True sight wasn't even needed for the shadow aspect:
On to the bridge. We deal with a couple of sidequests and run into the greater feyr, which is somewhat rare for me (I think I've only seen it once before):
Once we were done with sidequests, it's time to assault the crusaders with the help of the flaming fist. While we buff up (including 6 oils of speed) and summon in spirit lions, we start throwing down some AoE crowd control - before we even use our malison, the Barghest gets slowed - unlucky for him:
Time to systematically take down both wizards - we start with stuff that goes through MGOI, that is greater malison and chaos, which hits one of them (off screen in that screenshot) and a ton of the other crusaders:
Next up we shoot down the MGOIs with spell thrust and cast some of our damage spells such as icelance or minor lightning bolt while our spirit lions attack:
Soon, the crusader forces are destroyed, and we save the bridge with the help of one of our arrows of dispelling:
Before we end the session, we also do some talking/minor sidequests at the coalition camp and bloodbark grove. Since this section uses only the charisma of your bhaalspawn, we equip our charisma items and use a potion to boost it to 11, which is not enough for a few of the dialogues, but with careful choices we can at least finish all of the quests. During travels to and from the grove we also do our first bit of firebombing in this chapter - the Mae'var ambush is quite dangerous otherwise:
@Enuhal That... really seems an unreasonable power level for Air Elementals. It's basically a once-per-round point-blank Symbol: Stun with a save vs breath? I can't imagine that's intentional. Thanks for the headsup at any rate.
@aldain I think I now know the exact effect that caused my problems with the aerial servants - from the readme:
"More powerful elementals (16+ HD) receive innate powers usable once per 10 rounds: Whirlwind for air elementals, Spike Stones for earth elementals, Shroud of Flame for fire elementals, Smashing Wave for water elementals."
So, first of all, aerial servants have indeed 16 HD, so they have this whirlwind bonus ability. Notably, this is NOT the whirlwind ability that vanilla air elemental already have, which mostly deals some additional AoE damage. This is the level 6 divine spellcaster invocation spell "whirlwind", added by SCS via IWD spells - its, for anything in its path, 2d8 crushing, 2d8 slashing and a save vs breath weapon or stun for 2 rounds (creatures with 2 or fewer hit dice just die) - hits a maximum of 8 targets. So, these aerial servants, in addition to their other abilities, seem to use/spam another level 6 spell. For air elementals, it depends on their hit dice, so it's kind of random if they get this rather powerful ability or not. The earth elemental spike stones (level 5 druid spell) can slow by 50% on a failed save vs. spell (in addition to minor damage), the shroud of flame is propably the arcane level 5 spell that can deal additional fire damage and spread to nearby creatures. The smashing wave for water seems to be the level 4 druid spell which can stun or even knock unconscious, but with a lower chance. Air seems to be the most dangerous of these.
@Enuhal Ugh. I get wanting elementals to be more than just another minor speed bump, but with abilities like these...
As I recall, Whirlwind moves about randomly, so there's really no good way to avoid it, especially in an enclosed space. You'd need Chaotic Commands on everyone. Then you'd need some kind of Free Action in case it's Earth Elementals being summoned (and you just have to soak up the Spike Stones damage for all characters without Stoneskin/Iron Skins since it's physical). Protection from Fire for everyone for the Fire Elementals, then more blunt damage (and remember you still need Chaotic Commands here) from Water Elementals.
I'd have preferred we'd move away from a single character buffed to be immune to everything handling every encounter, not towards.
The Opera moved through the City, taking on all significant encounters. The first problem came in working up through Ramazith's Tower when I thought a ghast, already at near death, had been killed by a spirit. Actually though it had gone downstairs where it had found Beggar. I realised that when he suddenly showed up as held and Washout had to quickly nip behind the stairs in order to throw in a saving trap - though looking at the screenshot, Pauper had already knocked the ghast unconscious.
I was hunting XP, which was bad news for some characters, like Lothander.
I did make a mistake though in forgetting that doing the thieving tasks for Narlen would result in him 'saving' me from Resar's sneak attack - and grabbing the XP for himself.
Everyone was low on resources after dealing with Degrodel's guards, but I gave the mage a chance by attacking anyway - he managed to scare a couple of the Opera, but didn't manage any further spells.
I went the other way with the Mountain Maulers and prepared with a full complement of summons - but those were pretty much wasted thanks to Washout's traps.
Another potentially hazardous battle could have been the ogre magi at the Docks. In an attempt to avoid that the Opera sneaked inside and produced summons to soak up the spell attacks. Their positioning was supposed to avoid spells hitting the party, but they still managed to get targeted with a lightning bolt. Fortunately that had obviously already done some bouncing as it disappeared after entering the room - any bouncing around inside would have probably resulted in casualties.
They rested after that encounter - as usual doing so on the streets. Most of the times they did that they settled down pretty quickly, but this time they had to endure the scrutiny of 75 nosy guards before they finally dropped off to sleep.
Their final task in the City for now was investigating the Iron Throne. Alai was blinded (to negate his free action) before webs were thrown in. Three skull traps softened up the targets before a couple of spirit lions got to work. Gardush survived the webs, but could not beat off the lions.
Pauper got the XP for another level there, but the party didn't level up - that's Pauper's last BGEE level, so he'll delay taking it for a while to allow the others to get higher levels.
Edit: there was a disappointing finish on arrival in Candlekeep. I'd decided to kill the Iron Throne leaders and, for a change, tried to make use of Hardup's charm person to set them fighting each other. I misrembered Brunos as being the one in the group that initiated conversation and that resulted in Hardup being spotted when he started his spell. He probably should have tried to run back towards the others, who could have made him invisible again, but chose to run the other way. That kept him out of trouble from the mage, but Kestor the thief was using darts of stunning and, once Hardup was tagged by those, the end came quickly - before help could arrive.
Bash {30} - berserk melee run (update 1)
Previous run
After what felt like a premature end to my poverty run, I decided to pick up another old challenge. In this one, Bash is only ever allowed to kill anything using the cursed berserking sword.
The first thing to do was to go and find Brage to obtain his sword. After Noober became Bash's first victim, he rested to get Bhaal CLW then returned to Beregost. Reputation took a hit there from hacking down Algernon for his cloak. I took a slight risk by going after Neera to get her gem bag. She does not go hostile when blinded, so that allowed Bash to edge into 2-handed range and strike her down.
Travelling up to the FAI, Bash picked up a +1 ring and a Ring of Wizardry. He would have liked to increase his ring collection with a Ring of Free Action, but didn't yet fancy the encounters on the way to Ulgoth's Beard. Instead he went looking for a bit more XP. The ogre to the south of the FAI was slept from out of sight and yielded a nice belt. Sleep also took out a couple of ogrillons and a group of hobgoblins south of Beregost. Completing the quests associated with those gave Bash a second fighter level.
He took his first damage against Bjornin's half-ogres, but they were enough to get a second mage level.
Zargal's archer companions were blinded (retreating before they went hostile). Zargal was then pulled away before Bash returned for the archers. The next encounter was with Samuel, who was luckily able to be delivered back to the FAI without any intervening ambushes.
With safe(ish) encounters getting thin on the ground, Bash headed north again. Killing a fisherman and returning a stolen bowl gave him fighter level 3.
The nearby ankheg got one critical hit in, but couldn't manage another and that gave a third mage level.
He'd picked up a PfP scroll from a gnoll at one point and that persuaded him to head to the basilisk area next. He managed to take on the 3 lesser basilisks to the south one at a time. The greater basilisk there quickly switched to melee, which was slightly worrying, but Bash proved up to the task and gained a 4th level in each class as a result.
Four more lesser basilisks were killed to the north, but Bash steered clear of Mutamin for the time being.
Bash wanted to buy some spells at High Hedge, but was feeling compelled to kill the flesh golems before doing that. That nearly resulted in him dying to the first one - the golem missing a potential killing shot before Bash got his in.
After resting up, he used some potions to improve his chances against the second golem and won that contest with a little bit more in hand.
The dribs and drabs of experience from learning a few spells took Bash to fighter level 5.
Back in Beregost, Karlat was pulled out of sight of others and hacked down.
Perdue got his sword back.
Heading to the Cloud Peak Mountains, Bash blinded Sendai's companions before taking her on - now using mirror image for extra protection. Zal and Vax were separated and cut down in the same area. Caldo & Krumm are a potential problem because of their proximity to the Dryad of the Cloud Peaks. I considered using Algernon's Cloak for the first time to solve that, but decided to just risk it - and Bash managed to shrug off his berserk fit before attacking her.
The Gnoll Stronghold then yielded up a first tome for Bash.
Deciding it was time to get the Ring of Free Action, the next destination was Ulgoth's Beard. Algernon's Cloak was used here to ensure that Dushai was the only victim.
Despite his low intelligence, Bash successfully learned Dushai's web scroll, which should also come in handy.
With reputation already low, Bash decided he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and went to kill Bentan at Firewine Bridge. While there, he successfully disproved Meilum's claim to be the best swordfighter on the Sword Coast.
Returning to the minesite area, Bash struck down Laryssa to get to mage level 5.
I tried to use Algernon's Cloak to get Charleston Nib out of the potential firing line, but that only resulted in him being killed by his diggers.
Once they were dead in turn, web was used for the first time to make the Doomsayer an easy target.
At the lighthouse area, 3 webs were used on the first group of sirines. One of them did manage to break free long enough to try a charm, but MSD protected against that.
None of the second group even managed that much. The golems in the cave didn't really threaten like their previous relatives at High Hedge.
Even with reputation still down at 5, using friends to boost charisma to 21 allowed Bash to get the best reward for turning in a dead cat to Drienne. That also gained him a 6th fighter level.
A book for Firebead and successfully reviving Melicamp gave further reputation boosts.
Mutamin now seemed a safe enough target, so Bash returned there to beat him up. Resist fear and MSD should have provided adequate protection against him while Bash dealt with the two remaining basilisks, but Korax got involved as well to make the combat even simpler.
Rather surprisingly, Korax was then killed by a flind on the way to find Kirian's party. On this own, Bash blinded Baerin and Lindin, but Peter resisted blind. He intended to throw a web in, but got a fraction too close and lost control after getting brief glimpse of Lindin. That made the contest much more equal than it should have been, but Bash managed to prevail.
Next up he went to the Nashkel Mines area. Before diving into those though he looked up Prism - using the Cloak to move him away from the potential harm after Greywolf was cut down. That took Bash to illusionist level 6.
Trio 60 FINAL Update
Corefighter X - dwarven fighter, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Gloriana - human blackguard (Gate70)
Steel - human illusionist (Grond0)
The party worked on the bridge district quests, such as dealing with Reijek, getting horn of valhalla, and dealing with the guys burying people alive.
Then we worked on trademeet battles. The battles were going well except we got undone at the first group of druids. Corefight said, "Dont' we need resist fear here?". Gloriana says, " I am immune to fear". The the battle began -problem though? Glroiana was NOT immune to hold and died despite his friends' best efforts. We needed to loot then raised Gloriana in Trademeet. But we discovered a huge number of items were missing, in particular Lilacor and the charm helmet. This became important later.
We were able get a magical sword for Gloriana from a skeletal warrior in the crypt in Trademeet. We tried to do the 2nd temple quest to find Travin. But we ran into a nasty ambush of 3 vampires. Things turned out disastrously as both Corefighter and Gloriana were charmed!!! Steel wisely ran away. The charm eventually wore off and Gloriana tried a turn undead. This caused the vampires to spread out all the over the map. This ended up being disastrous as Corefighter was level drained and so was going to the nearby temple to get fixed. His party though was near the entrance. Corefighter ran into a powerful vampire who did a quick two hits and level drained Corefighter to nothing - RIP Corefighter.
With nearly half the session available, we had time to make a bit of progress with a new party. As usual, character creation was done independently and we were surprised to find we'd ended up with such an arcane-heavy grouping. However, Merlin's class was randomly selected and he will be due to dual to a fighter at some point, which should improve the balance and make this a pretty formidable party if we can make it far enough in the game.
With a bit of competition for scrolls in the group, Merlin kept hold of the identify scroll in Candlekeep before leading the way to the coast. All 3 magi had blind available, so Shoal had little chance of avoiding that and her luck was indeed not in.
Moving on to Beregost, Silke was blinded at the first attempt and quickly shot down. Neera shrugged off attempts from Coremage and Merlin, but Hotstuff blinded her to make sure she would not start a conversation while being shot down.
Merlin could have levelled up before travelling down to Nashkel, but chose to put that off until he could jump to level 3 - deciding he would be safer from ambushes relying on L1 protection than gaining a few extra HPs. At Nashkel, Noober was allowed to talk for a while before being shut up permanently, while Oopah became the latest blind victim.
Both Hotstuff and Coremage had taken PfP during character creation, so Merlin decided to visit the basilisk area next. Due to our limited HPs, the monsters were mainly attacked with missile weapons and taking down the greater basilisk to the south allowed Merlin to get to level 3.
Things continued to seem straightforward as the remaining lesser basilisks were killed and it looked like we just had time to kill the greater basilisk next to Mutamin before saving the session. However, at that point Coremage ran out of ammunition and moved forward automatically just far enough to activate Mutamin. He cast a horror that could potentially have affected all of us, but Coremage bravely ran towards the enemies so that only he was affected. That gave Merlin and Hotstuff the opportunity to break contact, but Hotstuff wanted to end the session with a flourish and attempted to finish off the near-death basilisk. However, he was the only one not protected against petrification at that time and was duly stoned before he could get the kill.
Shortly after that Coremage expired from spell damage, leaving Merlin alone. Rather than running immediately he used Imoen's magic missile wand to kill the basilisk and then picked up Coremage's equipment.
With a bit of luck he will be able to revive the other 2 at the start of the next session ...
Sad to see the end of your poverty run @Grond0 - I had some memory trouble in this session as well - luckily, the consequences, while bad, weren't as dire.
We start by clearing Dead Man's Pass, which is easy enough - with potions of freedom for the cave and full buffs for the shadow cellar, we're well prepared for all the potential dangers around there. A quick visit to the outside of the underground river gives us access to the Seal of Caelar (after we use our malison + cc combos against the crusader guardians and win the support of the ogre tribe with some boots of speed kiting) - which we use to complete all crusader courtyard quest, once again pushing charisma with item swaps and a potion of persuasiveness.
Time to explore deeper into the underground river - low charisma means that we're forced to fight a dangerous group of named shadows - which I expected, so I went in heavily buffed. While victory was achieved relatively easily, we did get hit by dispel magic, so most of our long-term buffs were lost in the process - this will become relevant later:
As per usual, we activate a round of green acid protection scrolls for the blind albino wyrmlings:
Livia gets to use her staff of striking to backstab Strunk:
And we move to the southern caves. Here, everyone drinks a potion of clarity to counter the various forest beings and their potential charm abilities. After taking down the druid, we explore Kanaglym, using PfU for the undead group and quite a few summons and buff for our assault on the wizards - true sight, malison + chaos, spell thrust and our summons help us to achieve a quick victory, and we use our glasses on Zhadroth before killing the lich via The Secret Revealed:
Now, this is where things start getting troublesome: I misremembered details of the missing drow teenager quest. Being low on charisma doesn't allow you to turn in the insignia and convince the drow to leave - they won't believe you and attack (I should have put on charisma items and drank one of my potions). I remembered this happening to me once, but thought it was a matter of wrong dialogue choices instead of charisma. So, the drow turned hostile. Next thing I though: The crusaders aren't technically evil, right? At least I don't think holy smite usually works very well against them. So, when my (exhausted, low on spells, with a lot of buffs gone due to the earlier dispel and short term buffs from Kanaglym already expired) party had to fight the group of drow, I had Nibel cast holy smite to speed up the fight. However, there was a hobgoblin amongst the crusaders who, apparently, is actually evil and got hit, which turned the crusaders hostile as well - and now I had to face two groups of enemies, united in their hatred of my party, with two powerful and well-protected wizards (and at least one cleric, possibly 2) at their side while I had very little left in the tank. I also had trouble actually getting to the enemy spellcasters. As a consequence, Kriemhild was soon held by a cleric in the back, and I had to try and save her life by nuking down any enemies attacking her with all my remaining power:
I was drinking potions on my fighters, in order to re-establish buffs and keep their health up as they were getting attacked from multiple directions. Ung was sent after the cleric, his rage protecting him, and managed to kill him while taking tons of damage. I was unable to get past the wizards defenses with Kriemhild held and Octavia low on spells, so I used my attacks to reduce the threat from all the surrounding fighters first while waiting for some buffs to expire and keeping up my health via potions. I was able to counter a hold person on Livia herself with some running away and a potion, but Agrippina got affected. A darkness spell by the drow wizard made hitting things inside the small cave very difficult, and soon that wizard turned to lightning bolts, which did tons of damage to my party as I was still unable to interrupt them. Livia moved forward to detect illusions, which finally allowed Nibel, who was doing okay in terms of hp, to take out the crusader wizard:
Finally, the drow wizard's MGOI ran out, and octavia was able to hit them with a wand of paralyzation charge, stunning them and ending the battle - with almost everyone on our side near death, two of them crowd controlled, and only Livia still in the green zone in terms of HP:
Well, that was an unexpected and almost deadly challenge. Needless to say, I had to rest after that.
We continued deeper into the dragonspear castle basement. Full potion buffs, we had enough of them to stay buffed for the rest of the game (I should have used more of them after getting dispelled earlier on, but I was simply too lazy because I had just activated them and didn't want to do so all over again). Some targeted spell thrusts, breaches and the like to take down enemy spellcasters as they arrived to support Hephernaan:
Since we didn't get dispelled here, the enemies didn't really stand a chance:
However, I made my second big bistake of the session - I straight up forgot to poison the water and food supplies (despite having ample time to do so, with Hephernaan gone). That's a decent amount of experience and an battle advantage gone. I also got called out by the ogres when returning upstairs (that's low charisma for you in SoD, it's really not fun that you can't use a face character for these checks) and had to fight my way out of the area:
For the coalition camp defense, I used my last necklace of missles charges, substituting potions of explosion when they ran out - the party was also heavily potion-buffed and immune to fire:
We rested up and started the siege, with Livia and Kriemhild using their bows to fire the detonation arrows I had saved up for to this point - helped by oils of speed. Missing the poisoning quests didn't seem to have too much of an effect:
As you can see, we declined the duel (not Livia's strength, especially when going invisible isn't allowed) and shot down that group with detonation arrows as well, and we continued to rescue Mizhena's dad for the +3 morning star:
Still had around 50 of these arrows left
Okay, time to enter Avernus. We started by casting chaotic commands from scrolls on everybody in addition to the usual potion buffs to clear the groups of devils towards the elevator:
A quick rest after getting the +3 longsword, and some spell adjustments (mostly: enchant weapon for Ung, because there are no +3 versions for any weapon type he usually uses). Huge amounts of potion/green scroll buffs, granting myself immunity against basically everything that Belhifet and his devils can do (except for physical damage, of course). Kriemhild and Livia equip void-tipped arrows, the others have +3 weapons (bullets for Octavia, the club from the druids for Agrippina, enchant weapon for Ung, the +3 morning star for Nibel). We start by taking down Hephernaan and the devils, which is easy enough. Belhifet is focused on Caelar before he teleports away and goes invisible. We use true sight to reveal him and start dealing huge amounts of damage:
He gates in more devils, but as he's already heavily wounded and we have true sight running, we just tunnel in on our primary foe and take him down:
No one even takes any damage. That's the difference between being well-prepared and not prepared at all (see the drow/crusader fight in the underground river). I make sure to put all importable items into Livia's inventory and will start SoA soon (same ruleset - full SCS installation with all options active, when choices are given always picking the first one - even losing items in spellhold this time around - but no Ascension for this run).
Sad to see the end of your poverty run @Grond0 - I had some memory trouble in this session as well - luckily, the consequences, while bad, weren't as dire.
Thanks @Enuhal. Sounds like you got a good dose of adrenalin from that drow fight - keep it going . I had another little glitch with my berserk run - I think more of a keyboard error than a memory one this time ...
Bash {30} - berserk melee run (2nd and final update)
Previous updates
There were no problems in the Nashkel Mine and Bash used web to prevent Mulahey from calling for help. Outside, a similar fate befell the Amazons. I was confident that Nimbul could be one-shotted before he went hostile - thus avoiding the chance of killing innocents in a berserk rage (and that did indeed happen).
In Beregost, Bash killed some spiders before going to deal with Tranzig. Silke was then charmed and taken to a quiet spot for disposal.
At the FAI I forgot to cast resist fear before dragging Tarnesh behind the temple and blinding him - but he was one-shotted anyway.
Before going to the Bandit Camp, Bash cleared out the ankheg nest - getting hit just once in the process. At the Camp, I was slightly careless in allowing an enraged Bash to be dragged by a chain of opponents into combat with Taurgosz without any buffs. However, a critical hit soon put paid to him. I was tempted to just do a frontal assault on Tazok's tent, but in the end played it safe by going in invisibly and using web - none of the enemies broke free.
After resting to get Bhaal horror, Bash finished off a few quests to boost reputation before heading for the Cloakwood. He was lucky in the second area in being able to drag individual ettercaps away from the group before going berserk and he got his 7th illusionist level during those combats. In the next area transition though he got ambushed by a pair of wyverns. I intended to use ctrl+M to check their HPs to consider if I should try to make a first use of a wand to reduce HPs before going berserk, but somehow managed to key ctrl+Y instead and exterminated one of them. That was rather disappointing, so I thought about it for a while to see if I could find a way to justify carrying on the run, but that wouldn't feel right - so Bash will have to go back on ice for now.
Considering it's easy to flee theses wyverns ambushes and ctrl Y doesn't awards XP, I think it's not that big of a deal. But of course the decision is yours.
After reading than shapeshifter no longer was missing from the Hall of Heroes, I put my current run on hold and try again an avenger (last try was ended in final ToB battle).
Wilkim, half elf avenger first entry.
So here we go, with Wilkim the half elf avenger !
Mods : some UI (Infinity UI, Bubbles spells menu, Pecca's improved icons), and some SoD story ones : Another Fine Hell, Road to Discovery, Borarskyr Bridge. And Endless BG1. All without the optional items or stat bonus.
Difficulty : insane without double damage.
I choose to recruit Imoen (then Coran), Kivan, Branwen (then Yeslick), Neera (a bold choice !) and Ajantis.
I use Neera only for identify and wands mainly,fearing wild surges.
I did my usual run, finishing chapter 2 after first doing Gnolls fortress, saving Brage, helping Albert, Mirianne, Firebead, calming Marl...
I speed up chapter 3 to recruit Coran sooner, and then did some side areas in order to improve his disarm traps skill.
In Cloakwoods, Branwen had a little accident with wyverns...
Drassus crew fell to web.
As always, Hareishan is a threat.
I tried backstab against Natasha.
Davaeorn couldn't do much against Coran and a potion of magic shielding.
Vai-Va in BG resisted both silence spell and backstab and gave me some shivers.
Helm and Cloak fight was easy thanks to web (this spell alone is worth taking an avenger in BGEE).
After doing most city side quests, I finished exploring wild areas.
Time for Durlag's Tower next.
On the way my avenger experimented his power.
The wardens were not much of a threat.
On level 3, Kivan was backstabbed by the annoying invisible guys.
The fusion slime was the occasion to try fire salamander form.
Chess game was easy with web and fireball wand.
The tower was so easy in fact that I wasn't enough careful...
The Death Knight power word killed Yeslick, fireballed to death Kivan, and slained a stunned Ajantis before I could dispel the stun.
Second try was the right.
I decided to not return the dagger to Ulgoth's Beard, and to not travel to Balduran's Island. Instead I went back in the city.
Web saved the day again.
For chapter 5 final battle, I stroked from behind thanks to invisibility, and webbed them to death.
In Chapter 6, I really thought the end was there when Prat succeed at launching a lightning bolt.
What is worse than a lightning bolt ? A second one in a small cave !
I only had 4 potions of isolation, but Wilkim already had 70% lightning resistance, so only Ajantis had to take a risk. Yeslick and Kivan took a strike before drinking the potion.
Back in the city, Neera's confusion worked great against the assassins.
Cythandria was no match and didn't surrender.
Ducal Palace is always tricky because without SCS the dukes are fragile.
I summoned some monsters and launched slow, confusion, insect plague. I also used potions of haste.
Final battle was easy thanks to haste,dispel arrows and summons.
Having installed Endless BG1, Sarevok's death didn't end the game.
I then did Ice Island for a second stoneskin croll.
Then Korlaz's tomb, but forgot to take a screenshot.
Next update will be SoD time !
What to say about this avenger run ? Wilkim mainly was a support guy (healing, summon woodland beings), with crowd control thanks to web, and a little offensive damage with chromatic orb, call lightning, and darts.
Kivan and Coran stole the show, and Neera's wands helped a lot. But web alone made Wilkim an essential part of the team.
Fun fact, she had exactly one wild surge in all the entire run,and it was in the ducal palace while casting chaos shield ! I feared the cow or demon summoning which would have end the run by probably killing the dukes, but luckily she only changed colours.
I did try the avenger's forms a little, but in a no reload run it's too risky since you can't cast again ironskins after the first ones expired while shapeshifted. The shapeshifter can do it thanks to many werewolf form abilities available at higher levels.
Nice to see an avenger attempt @Trouveur - Good luck in SoD!
I would like to update my run, but when I try to upload images, I tend to get a "the file failed to upload" message (some rare images seem to work, but most don't) - maybe the forum isn't 100% back yet? How did you manage it/did you have this problem?
Nice to see an avenger attempt @Trouveur - Good luck in SoD!
I would like to update my run, but when I try to upload images, I tend to get a "the file failed to upload" message (some rare images seem to work, but most don't) - maybe the forum isn't 100% back yet? How did you manage it/did you have this problem?
Thank you. 🙂.
I had this message with one of my screenshots, which was over 1mb. After reducing it to less than 1mb I could post it.
Comments
My Cavalier Sorcerer combo has been on pause in Athkatla, because I wanted to try another solo Kensai run. And I died exactly the same way than previously, on the Irenicus Dungeon mandatory poison trap, being Hasted.
Oh well, the Kensai40->Thief41 dual (from Selfishness trick) needs to wait.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Insane with no level-dependent damage increase; maximum HP on level-up enabled.
Mods: Full SCS 35.10.
Protagonist: Aldain, Human Necromancer.
Aldain starts with + in Sling, and has selected Find Familiar, Sleep and Larloch's Minor Drain for his starting spells. An absolutely epic roll demands an equally epic run, so let's see what we can manage.
We'll do an almost completionist run of BG1, so a proper party will be assembled: Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen as a pure Thief, Branwen and Kagain.
Kagain is kind of the odd man out alignment-wise, but he's just oh so good at soaking up stupid amounts of damage, and since we're running the 1/4 reputation gain component, it shouldn't be a problem keeping him around: Most of the time I end up not ever hitting even 18 reputation. Plus, he can reach Mastery in a blunt weapon, though that's not too important for BG1. Another plus is that this entire party is available almost straight out of Candlekeep.
Well then.
Aldain, Human Necromancer, Update 1
Next update found here
Carbos and Shanks are duly dispatched with the aid of our familiar, Sir Twiddlebottom.
Off into the wild!
Imoen, Xzar and Montaron are immediately recruited, and we grab the diamond/Ring of Protection +1/Ring of Wizardry en route to the FAI, where Xzar and Montaron (unfortunately?) survive a round of fisticuffs with Tarnesh. We reward them for their bravery with a permanent position at the table closest to the door-less portcullis, and instead pick up Khalid and Jaheira.
Alright, two party members to go. We clear the easiest of easy stuff en route to Beregost (FAI Hobgoblins, Belted Ogre)
and also run into a strangely affluent Gibberling.
Yeah, that's an Arrow of Dispelling. Anyway, Aldain successfully scribes that Identify scroll, so we now have a surprisingly well-rounded spell book. Hooray! We celebrate by recruiting Kagain and identifying the Ring of Wizardry, ensuring we'll always have plenty of Sleep on hand (not that it remains relevant for long). One NPC to go.
The road areas south of Beregost are cleared, and the Flaming Fist actually get their comeuppance (they all fail their save against Sleep) since we will soon be up to four heavy armor users. Our first close call is a solitary Hobgoblin landing a good hit.
We dust ourselves off, apply a Cure Light Wounds and keep on truckin'. Branwen is rescued, Noober and Neira dealt with and free Ankheg Plate Mail picked up (this is actually really good since all our frontliners have such measly strength).
We handily survive the Dorn ambush: Aldain simply moves south immediately, leading to the bandits never getting a shot off.
Greywolf saves against everything but is eventually worn down with Kagain kiting (thankfully Greywolf didn't get an Oil of Speed).
With the simple things around Nashkel cleared, we move back towards Beregost, dealing with Marl, a spider infestation (Sleep!), Silke (brute force), and Neira's assailants (the wizard is vulnerable to Command): We momentarily let the latter into the party, swipe her staff/robe/Gem Bag, then kick her to the curb.
Heading back north, we finish Joia's and Landrin's tasks, then it's further north still.
We're too low level (2-3 all around) to tackle the Ankhegs yet, but Branwen under Sanctuary goes undercover and snags the Wand of Fire from their nest for us.
I really like this little trick: That wand is supremely useful this early. We help Tenya, and clear the Ankheg north of her hut (turning its shell into another suit of Ankheg Plate Mail): We can't fight a protracted battle against many Ankhegs, but a single one can just be Commanded down.
While heading back towards the Fishermen for the bowl, we do take a small risk in that we utilize our plentiful Sleep against some respawning Ankhegs. This works wonders: We're able to clear several of them, and Aldain scores a MAA scroll.
After finishing Tenya's task, we clear the zombies at the farm, swipe the Cloak of Protection +1 from the house, and return to Beregost.
We're feeling confident, so let's clear the areas immediately west of Beregost. Teyngan and his merry murderers have no real answer to Sleep, as Jemby wastes her only action before succumbing to Command with a Power Word: Sleep of her own.
Zargal and cronies are taken down using a single Sleep, and Bassilus fails his save against Silence (and was already interrupted by the Wand of Fire anyway). We're kind of on a roll here.
There are lots of almost risk-free areas left. West of Nashkel is next on the chopping block: Xvarts, Neville and friends, Ogre Berserkers (Wand of Frost from the Nashkel Mine tree as well as Wand of Fire Scorcher), Gibberlings... and another really nice scroll drop from an unremarkable Ogre.
Yes, that's Monster Summoning I. Usually, by the time you get that, it's pointless in that you either have Animate Dead in spades, or already access to Monster Summoning II / Spider Spawn. SCS Monster Summoning gives you lots of weak fodder, which is fantastic against enemy spellcasters that gleefully waste spells on single-digit hitpoint Goblins, Orcs and Hobgoblins. This will be very useful.
We of course move on to the Gnoll Fortress and clear it without incident: Kagain is such a beastly tank even now that we barely need any crowd control, he can just stand up front all day without breaking a sweat.
The Cloud Peak Mountains hold no dangers for us by now. Sendai, Vax and Zal are easily dispatched, and we're back in Nashkel. Off to the east to Arghain's area, and yet another fairly rare (though pointless since there's one for sale at the High Hedge) scroll as a random drop off a common Ogre: Protection from Cold.
Hopefully this good scroll fortune carries over into BG2 where it may prove decisive. We deal with Ioin's gang, move on to Samuel's area and give him a ride to the FAI. Somewhere around here Kagain hit level 4 and now boasts a healthy 60 hitpoints, enough for us to go Ankheg hunting. Which we do with gusto, earning a level here and there in the process.
There is still a little experience to be had: We visit the High Hedge and snipe down the two Flesh Golems before speaking to Thalantyr, though unfortunately Melicamp does not survive.
Alright, we're more than beefy enough: Let's clear the mines, but not advance the plot (i.e.: Mulahey gets to live... for now).
... suddenly I'm glad we waited until we had some fodder available. Not sure what happened here as that Shaman usually just casts a Horror and Mirror Image, but now he's got a full component of third level spells all of a sudden. Thankfully Kagain tanks well enough that we can grind the Shaman down: Branwen sneaks in under Sanctuary and loots Mulahey's chest, netting us a lovely Web scroll.
High time for our second close call, where I was absolutely certain the run was about to end. We decide to take on Zordral, since I reckon we're unlikely to all fail our saves against his Sleep. Zordral agrees with this tactical assessment, and opts for a different approach.
Yeah, Monster Summoning I followed by a Chromatic Orb. That's our Necromancer protagonist, with no Stoneskins owing to his low level, stunned at 27 hitpoints and in melee range of four monsters.
But amazingly, all but one of the monsters immediately swap targets? I guess it's SCS not prioritizing finishing off incapacitated foes, but really, if they had just focused on Aldain for a single round he'd have been toast. One of the archers gets a single shot off bringing us down to 18 hitpoints, but in the end we come out on top.
That was just stupidly lucky (and goes to show how scary crowd control is). Somewhat rattled, we proceed towards our third close call, but not before clearing the Beregost Temple wolf pack, which thankfully unfolds without incident owing to Web being available.
Anyway, we're high enough level that we need not fear the bounty hunter ambushes, so opt to advance the plot. Mulahey stands no chance, of course: His northern reinforcements fall to a single Wand of Fire Fireball, and the half-orc himself is just beaten down.
Brave brave sir Oublek (under the influence of Algernon's Cloak which we filched earlier... I'll allow pickpocketing for only a handful of critical items) once again comes just short of besting Nimbul, but we manage to avenge him. The 4000ish gold you no doubt would've wanted us to have will be put to good use, Oublek!
Tranzig can't handle Skeleton Warriors, and so is tackled risk-free. En route to the bandit camp we get the Amazons ambush, but we came prepared: Aldain has a Detect Invisibility which undoes the imminent risk of chunking by the two thieves, and some shuffling about later, victory is easily snatched.
We clear the two areas before the camp proper without incident; Osmadi and Corsone fall to Silence and MAA respectively.
Even the camp is relatively uneventful, as dual Web and some Fireballing almost always works (about 1/20 times Venkt rolls an unlikely number of saves and proceeds to do something moderately dangerous, but not today).
We clear the Gnolls in the cave, loot everything, and get Molkar and friends on our case on the way back to the FAI.
They actually put up a reasonable fight, managing to Hold Imoen which forces Khalid to melee for a bit, but their only arcane caster is woefully underleveled and therefore susceptible to Command, so the outcome here is pretty much never in doubt as long as the protagonist isn't the one failing a save against Hold Person by Drakar.
OK, time for that promised third close call.
We venture into the Ulcaster ruins and safely arrive at the lair of the resident Wolf of Ulcaster.
Now, in my previous SCS version, the Wolf didn't respond to calls for help, so it was safe to clear the Dread Wolves just outside its lair before tackling it. Not so this time, as it turns out.
That initial Howl affected all three frontliners. If Branwen had been affected as well, or if we'd been a little slower with the Remove Fear (it wasn't running since, again, I expected to clear the Dread Wolves in peace before attacking the Wolf proper), this could've turned quite disastrous. The Wolf successfully dispels the Remove Fear, and we re-apply it (our last cast!), but thankfully it then chooses a Greater Malison rather than yet another dispel+Howl combo. This gives us just enough time to take it down.
That battle was quite frantic, especially with the Ghouls spawning in the middle of our party. Good thing Kagain didn't get Held by the Wolf...
Anyway, that bit of nastiness done with, it's off to the western seaboard. Shoal is rescued (Droth is still vulnerable to Command), the local Ogre clan is eradicated, and we tackle some Sirines who only manage to Dire Charm Imoen (not our biggest bruiser).
Of course, fighting the Sirines to the south is done properly, with Web, Skeleton Warriors and Detect Invisibility. Not much to report; the Flesh Golems of Black Alaric's Cave also got a good whoppin'.
We finish the Doomsayer's area as well (nothing difficult, just use Magic Missiles or a wand thereof), and hitch a ride with Brage back to Nashkel. BG1 is so massive, we're still nowhere near done. East of Nashkel the Revenant gets a pounding, and Narcillicus isn't high enough level to turn himself nigh-invulnerable.
So far we've held off on the greatest XP trove of all: Mutamin's Garden. Well, no more. Have at thee, Gnome!
We clear the rest of the area without incident, a single Web dealing with the local adventuring party.
Next, Durlag's Tower... or at least the upper floors and the Warder level.
The upper floors are mostly uneventful: We make good use of Monster Summoning I though, as the Ghost is all too happy to waste even fairly potent spells on our hapless level 1 monster fodder. Khalid ends up eating a Mordenkainen's Force Missiles, but other than that it went swimmingly.
A Potion of Heroism and Oil of Speed for Khalid and a Greenstone Amulet charge lets him deal with Kirinhale on his own.
The Warder level turns a little dicey when improved calls for help means Kagain has to tank two Skeleton Warriors at once: Some chained healing is necessary, but we power through. With the local low hanging fruit thoroughly picked (and some nice scrolls for Aldain scored, including a random Minor Lightning Bolt), we depart for Beregost.
And this is where the party can currently be found, relaxing at the Red Sheaf Inn. There's not a lot of wilderness left: Gullykin and Firewine Bridge (I left the latter until after Durlag's, since I wanted enough Potions of Master Thievery to have Imoen pickpocket the Scroll of Protection from Magic off of Bentan), as well as the Red Wizards area... and that's it. Then it's more TotSC areas or advancing the plot (we'll advance the plot).
This was a long update, but it has borne fruit: Aldain is now a level 6 Human Necromancer, not far off level 7.
The playthrough has been much like that of any specialist: We haven't really been hurt by lacking Illusion yet.
We'll need to be properly prepared for the Cloakwood, of course, given the chance of ambush by web-spitting spiders, but we still have all of the Invisibility potions we've picked up so far, so we should be fine.
I wonder if you're planning to get access to an early stoneskin scroll by either picking up Neera for her quest or going for an ice island clear with the help of PfM to make up for the lacking illusion defenses, or if you're just going to rely on ghost/spirit armor (I guess polymorph: self can be used as a short-term defense as well).
Okay, let's explore Baldur's Gate. Having access to haste now, we can often accumulate enough APR to just punch through enemy stoneskins before the wizards can do something of note - though some don't even have the time to receive their pre-buffs:
Okay, back to the city - Degrodel's house. Malison + Slow - now THAT is a satisfying slow spell:
Next time, we will venture into Durlag's Tower.
I haven't played for a little while, but seeing some high quality party runs going on at the moment I decided to have another go at this poverty run. I've used various additional rules and set-ups for this, but this run is just an unmodded, core difficulty run using my standard rules. The specific poverty angle means:
1) You can never buy or sell any items (including any items required for quests).
2) You can never use or equip any items (but can pick things up for quests).
3) You may pay for quests (such as Gaelan Bayle), but not anything else (temples, inns etc).
A favourite early tactic is to use command to disable opponents and beat them unconscious before Hardup dances up a spirit to deliver the kill - that resulted in the first kill in Candlekeep.
Travelling during the day along the road is pretty safe and various relatively minor tasks were done on the way to find Drizzt. He was lured into traps and the 12k from that was sufficient for everyone to level up again.
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L5, 43 HPs, 0 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L5, 48 HPs, 3 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L4, 38 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L5, 37 HPs, 17 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L4, 22 HPs, 5 kill, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L4, 21 HPs, 1 kill, 0 deaths
Started again with three dwarves, two of them much the same.
All brothers, a Cleric of Helm, a Thief and a Berserker.
We have made it as far as Beregost and Doug the dagger is about to discover how many of the chests in town he can open up.
Previous updates
They started off doing that as they made their way to Nashkel and then through the Cloud Peak Mountains. The most common method for disposing of enemies remained to disable them and beat them unconscious - for instance Greywolf was blinded and then held.
Now with access to the seaside, the Opera went in search of some sirines. The last of the first trio took quite a bit of chasing before Pauper found it with his Seeking Sword. Sil died in traps and her companions went down quickly under Pauper's attack. That combination also took care of the golems in the cave, gaining enough XP in the process for the party to level up once more.
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L6, 50 HPs, 11 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L6, 56 HPs, 41 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L5, 46 HPs, 56 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L6, 45 HPs, 60 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L5, 26 HPs, 52 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L5, 27 HPs, 32 kills, 0 deaths
Livia, halfling thief - exploring SCS v35, update 4
In Dularg's tower, we try to use as little spells as possible so we can have full buffs and summons for the dwarven warders at the ready. As is by now tradition, Livia gets hit by a backstab, but we easily despose of all our foes by letting an enraged Ung deal with Love by himself (immune to most of what he'd do) while the others stay far away to shoot down the other warders:
Now, we move to the Undercity. Some more malison + 3*confusion for the party down there:
Korlasz's tomb holds little dangers with the tools we have at our disposal now. We take the level ups we had stored up, buy some stuff from the flaming fist healer, firebomb the first group and use PfU on Ung to clear out most of the map:
A note for SoD: A sub-challenge for this run is that I won't allow recharging items at merchants (which is why I carry around a ton of wands with not a lot of charges on them). This is just for my own curiosity, mainly to see how low we go on specific consumables (notably necklaces of missles), so we will have to rely less on firebombing (which will have to be targeted at specific groups), and more on buffed combat and mass crowd control (which should result in more rests and a longer playtime, but I don't see it turning into an actual gameplay problem).
Journal of Halma the Helmite
We took Imoen to Beregost where we gave her a sword and leather armour to keep her safe.
Now investigating the town.
weidu.log
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #10 // Balthazar can be redeemed: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #20 // Improved Sarevok-Player Interactions: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #30 // Improved Imoen-Player Interactions in Throne of Bhaal: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #40 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #50 // Improved Slayer Transformation: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Tougher Abazigal: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Tougher Balthazar: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1200 // Tougher Demogorgon: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1300 // Tougher Gromnir: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1400 // Tougher Illasera: 2.0.28
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 2.0.28
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v16
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v16
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v16
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited scroll stacking: v16
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4240 // Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends and celestials: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6550 // Smarter beholders: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6560 // Smarter mind flayers: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai use SCS abilities and AI: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Ascension demons use SCS abilities and AI: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8040 // Tie difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings to the difficulty slider: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix"): 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8080 // Improved Bodhi: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8085 // Ascension version of Bodhi uses Improved-Bodhi abilities: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Rebalanced troll regeneration: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Improved Drow: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Improved Watcher's Keep: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Improved Sendai's Enclave: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: 35.10
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: 35.10
Irenicus Dungeon was trivial with Sorcerer on board as Skellingtons cleared the whole place. Arriving Athkatla the first thing was to get casting rights. Not by the conventional method but summoning cowled wizards by casting Invisibility onself, and letting the neutral guards kill all of them. Well not all of them, as they teleport away on like 3 hour mark. Once Zallanora was dead they would never bother us again. We got nice loot from the get go, 4x Laear Tear Necklaces, Pierce Shield, Improved Mantle, 2x Invisibility potions and other things.
Skelis cleared the docks before we bought reputation to 15, Nymph Cloak and looted Maevar's Guild Hall. Cavalier used two PfF potions and repeated the Fireball trap to kill Rayic. Maevar was pre-charmed with the Cloak before giving the proof to Reynal and he was then killed by his own assassins.
Picked up Potion case and Paladin Bracers from WK, before buffed Skellis solved the Bridge District murders. We then looted De'Arnise where Glaicus was charmed with the Cloak, and built FoA+3. In Trademeet Treya was killed by Skelis for the off-hand Thac0 cloak, and Rasaad accompanied us to the City District so we could get map update to the Amphitheatre. Then picked up Belm+2 from Druid Grove and Cavalier was set for a long time weapons wise. Accompanied Neera to Hidden Refuge where we did the easy fetch quest for Amulet+2. Crypt King was ganged on by summons, but he still got Vanderley to 64hp. We did the quest for Silver Pantaloons, but rather than talking to Walther we charmed him and Bregg killed him. This way we could complete the quest by freeing Lady Egea without reputation penalty.
Buffed Skelis freed the slaves in Copper Coronet. Beastmaster doesn't even aggro if he isn't talked to. Captain Haegan's party killed by repeating Cloudkill trap. Neb and Kalah both got 8 apr FoA'ed, using True Sight to dispel illusions. We now had 80k gold and 20/20 economy, so we bought Vhailor's Helm and Robe of Vecna among other stuff. All was going so well at this point that we managed to take Prebek and Sanasha too lightly. We all got confused and Jin died (3). Thankfully Cavalier was strong enough to kill Prebek even being Confused. We took Jaheira to our group to activate her quest. And then we got ambushed in the Harper headquarters. 3x Invisibility potions to escape and Skelis then hunted the two mages down, after which we were able to attack with the help of WoMS. Got the Reaching Ring for Jin, and we let Jaheira go. Mekrath killed my Skelis with Death spell, but he couldn't handle the never ending WoMS.
Some new things we have noticed this run. Rod of Resurrection doesn't heal anymore, permanent Shapechange trick from Limited Wish doesn't work anymore and SCS component Sequencers and Contingencies as Innate abilities doesn't apply anymore to Sorcerers, which kind of makes sense. So we do need to invest some spell slots for them. In WK we got our second scare fighting the Trolls as Vanderley got to 16 hp. Cavalier lv12, Sorcerer lv13. In Temple sewers Undead were Skeletoned, and we looted the place. Happy to see that Roger the Fence could still smuggle the Rift device out of there for us.
Chapter 3. Once we got Mace of Distruption improved the Vampiric Wraiths in WK could be tackled with. Skelis then cleared the first level. Cavalier lv13 with 9 apr and Prayer to buff Skelis even more. We tried the first Statues and managed to kill two of them, but we weren't strong enough to take the Cleric statues, as their Aerial Servants easily smashed our Skelis. So we left them be for now. We attacked the Monks in Amphitheater and this got our biggest scare yet as we got to low as 6hp. Rest and other Skeli attack was enough for them. The other party was easily killed by Skelis and then we did the easy quest in Heretic Temple. This netter Mirror Image ring and Truth Seeing Gem for Cavalier. Firkraag dungeon was mostly passed being Invisible, but we tackled the Samia's gang with summons, and were able to kill all except Samia herself who escaped to safety between Orog's and Greater Werewolves which we couldn't fight just yet. Tazok easily smacked, and Conster didn't even survive 4 WoMS. Didn't tackle Firgraak either but more importantly we got the sewer key.
Attacking Tarnor's mob Jin got killed again (4), but Skelis and Clone could kill all but Tarnor and Gallchobhair. We then used the last of our WoMS to kill Gallchobhair, and used Improved Haste on both of our last two Skelis and got Tarnor too. Picked up the Wand of Wonder from Mind Flayer dungeon, buffing against Magic, Intelligence and Psionic attacks. But in the end they couldn't target Sanctuaried Cavalier. Now we could start the Firkraag XP-loop. Some notes how to do this, remove all casting time buffs and cancel all the voiced spells from WoW, nothing else will aggro Firkraag. Then you can just turn him back and forth stone and flesh. But in SCS there's a bug that makes him kill himself with Melf's Acid Arrow when turned back from Stone. So to avoid this it's needed to take his first spell attack which is just lower resistance etc., and escape the room. And then rest which resets Firkraag. First wand got us 10 hits or 640k xp, then 5 and 6. Both got lv16, Cavalier got 4th lv spells and Jin got Spell Trigger and top of the line Skellies.
I think we'll tackle the undead next.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1207508/#Comment_1207508
At the Bandit Camp, sleep and summons did most of the work in forcing a way through to Tazok's tent. Rather than sneak in, the Opera did a frontal assault - though Washout did start things off by throwing in a special trap. Hardup took a critical hit and had to run outside briefly, but otherwise things went smoothly. Pauper finished off Hakt by laying another trap from behind the central pillar.
Starting a new programme of area clearance, the Opera moved through High Hedge, successfully reviving Melicamp there. At the coast, Washout saved against Shoal's kiss and the party disappeared as Droth arrived - making him an easy target.
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L7, 54 HPs, 23 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L7, 62 HPs, 63 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L6, 53 HPs, 121 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L7, 51 HPs, 83 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L6, 32 HPs, 90 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L6, 33 HPs, 62 kills, 0 deaths
We start out at Coast Way Forest with some quick exploration and some light buffs plus a single spirit lion for Teleria, whose stoneskins are quickly broken through before she's able to cast anything dangerous:
We start exploring Troll Claw Woods - using our first round of buffs for the troll cave. With Biter +2 we have a reliable option to finish off all the trolls in the area. Firebombing is not needed here, we sparingly use our summons as additional assistance from time to time and use our second round of buffs, plus the malison mass crowd control combos for the ogre group to the south:
Still, I didn't want to rest in here, using forest beings' mass heal and some lesser healing potions instead. The only firebombing I did in this chapter was next up, against the group with the mind flayer:
"More powerful elementals (16+ HD) receive innate powers usable once per 10 rounds: Whirlwind for air elementals, Spike Stones for earth elementals, Shroud of Flame for fire elementals, Smashing Wave for water elementals."
So, first of all, aerial servants have indeed 16 HD, so they have this whirlwind bonus ability. Notably, this is NOT the whirlwind ability that vanilla air elemental already have, which mostly deals some additional AoE damage. This is the level 6 divine spellcaster invocation spell "whirlwind", added by SCS via IWD spells - its, for anything in its path, 2d8 crushing, 2d8 slashing and a save vs breath weapon or stun for 2 rounds (creatures with 2 or fewer hit dice just die) - hits a maximum of 8 targets. So, these aerial servants, in addition to their other abilities, seem to use/spam another level 6 spell. For air elementals, it depends on their hit dice, so it's kind of random if they get this rather powerful ability or not. The earth elemental spike stones (level 5 druid spell) can slow by 50% on a failed save vs. spell (in addition to minor damage), the shroud of flame is propably the arcane level 5 spell that can deal additional fire damage and spread to nearby creatures. The smashing wave for water seems to be the level 4 druid spell which can stun or even knock unconscious, but with a lower chance. Air seems to be the most dangerous of these.
As I recall, Whirlwind moves about randomly, so there's really no good way to avoid it, especially in an enclosed space. You'd need Chaotic Commands on everyone. Then you'd need some kind of Free Action in case it's Earth Elementals being summoned (and you just have to soak up the Spike Stones damage for all characters without Stoneskin/Iron Skins since it's physical). Protection from Fire for everyone for the Fire Elementals, then more blunt damage (and remember you still need Chaotic Commands here) from Water Elementals.
I'd have preferred we'd move away from a single character buffed to be immune to everything handling every encounter, not towards.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1207508/#Comment_1207508
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1207530/#Comment_1207530
Next up will be a return to Candlekeep.
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L7, 54 HPs, 26 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L7, 62 HPs, 74 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L6, 53 HPs, 126 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L7, 51 HPs, 97 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L6, 32 HPs, 101 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L6, 33 HPs, 72 kills, 0 deaths
Edit: there was a disappointing finish on arrival in Candlekeep. I'd decided to kill the Iron Throne leaders and, for a change, tried to make use of Hardup's charm person to set them fighting each other. I misrembered Brunos as being the one in the group that initiated conversation and that resulted in Hardup being spotted when he started his spell. He probably should have tried to run back towards the others, who could have made him invisible again, but chose to run the other way. That kept him out of trouble from the mage, but Kestor the thief was using darts of stunning and, once Hardup was tagged by those, the end came quickly - before help could arrive.
Previous run
After what felt like a premature end to my poverty run, I decided to pick up another old challenge. In this one, Bash is only ever allowed to kill anything using the cursed berserking sword.
The first thing to do was to go and find Brage to obtain his sword. After Noober became Bash's first victim, he rested to get Bhaal CLW then returned to Beregost. Reputation took a hit there from hacking down Algernon for his cloak. I took a slight risk by going after Neera to get her gem bag. She does not go hostile when blinded, so that allowed Bash to edge into 2-handed range and strike her down.
With safe(ish) encounters getting thin on the ground, Bash headed north again. Killing a fisherman and returning a stolen bowl gave him fighter level 3.
He'd picked up a PfP scroll from a gnoll at one point and that persuaded him to head to the basilisk area next. He managed to take on the 3 lesser basilisks to the south one at a time. The greater basilisk there quickly switched to melee, which was slightly worrying, but Bash proved up to the task and gained a 4th level in each class as a result.
Bash wanted to buy some spells at High Hedge, but was feeling compelled to kill the flesh golems before doing that. That nearly resulted in him dying to the first one - the golem missing a potential killing shot before Bash got his in.
Back in Beregost, Karlat was pulled out of sight of others and hacked down.
Heading to the Cloud Peak Mountains, Bash blinded Sendai's companions before taking her on - now using mirror image for extra protection. Zal and Vax were separated and cut down in the same area. Caldo & Krumm are a potential problem because of their proximity to the Dryad of the Cloud Peaks. I considered using Algernon's Cloak for the first time to solve that, but decided to just risk it - and Bash managed to shrug off his berserk fit before attacking her.
Deciding it was time to get the Ring of Free Action, the next destination was Ulgoth's Beard. Algernon's Cloak was used here to ensure that Dushai was the only victim.
With reputation already low, Bash decided he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and went to kill Bentan at Firewine Bridge. While there, he successfully disproved Meilum's claim to be the best swordfighter on the Sword Coast.
Mutamin now seemed a safe enough target, so Bash returned there to beat him up. Resist fear and MSD should have provided adequate protection against him while Bash dealt with the two remaining basilisks, but Korax got involved as well to make the combat even simpler.
Corefighter X - dwarven fighter, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Gloriana - human blackguard (Gate70)
Steel - human illusionist (Grond0)
The party worked on the bridge district quests, such as dealing with Reijek, getting horn of valhalla, and dealing with the guys burying people alive.
Then we worked on trademeet battles. The battles were going well except we got undone at the first group of druids. Corefight said, "Dont' we need resist fear here?". Gloriana says, " I am immune to fear". The the battle began -problem though? Glroiana was NOT immune to hold and died despite his friends' best efforts. We needed to loot then raised Gloriana in Trademeet. But we discovered a huge number of items were missing, in particular Lilacor and the charm helmet. This became important later.
We were able get a magical sword for Gloriana from a skeletal warrior in the crypt in Trademeet. We tried to do the 2nd temple quest to find Travin. But we ran into a nasty ambush of 3 vampires. Things turned out disastrously as both Corefighter and Gloriana were charmed!!! Steel wisely ran away. The charm eventually wore off and Gloriana tried a turn undead. This caused the vampires to spread out all the over the map. This ended up being disastrous as Corefighter was level drained and so was going to the nearby temple to get fixed. His party though was near the entrance. Corefighter ran into a powerful vampire who did a quick two hits and level drained Corefighter to nothing - RIP Corefighter.
Merlin - human illusionist (Grond0)
Hotstuff - elf dragon disciple (Gate70)
Coremage XXVI - half-elf fighter mage (Corey_Russell)
Previous run
With nearly half the session available, we had time to make a bit of progress with a new party. As usual, character creation was done independently and we were surprised to find we'd ended up with such an arcane-heavy grouping. However, Merlin's class was randomly selected and he will be due to dual to a fighter at some point, which should improve the balance and make this a pretty formidable party if we can make it far enough in the game.
With a bit of competition for scrolls in the group, Merlin kept hold of the identify scroll in Candlekeep before leading the way to the coast. All 3 magi had blind available, so Shoal had little chance of avoiding that and her luck was indeed not in.
Merlin could have levelled up before travelling down to Nashkel, but chose to put that off until he could jump to level 3 - deciding he would be safer from ambushes relying on L1 protection than gaining a few extra HPs. At Nashkel, Noober was allowed to talk for a while before being shut up permanently, while Oopah became the latest blind victim.
Illusionist 3, 15 HPs, 16 kills
Dragon disciple 2, 13 HPs, 5 kills, 1 death
Fighter 3 / mage 2, 24 HPs, 17 kills, 1 death
Livia, halfling thief - exploring SCS v35, update 7
We start by clearing Dead Man's Pass, which is easy enough - with potions of freedom for the cave and full buffs for the shadow cellar, we're well prepared for all the potential dangers around there. A quick visit to the outside of the underground river gives us access to the Seal of Caelar (after we use our malison + cc combos against the crusader guardians and win the support of the ogre tribe with some boots of speed kiting) - which we use to complete all crusader courtyard quest, once again pushing charisma with item swaps and a potion of persuasiveness.
Time to explore deeper into the underground river - low charisma means that we're forced to fight a dangerous group of named shadows - which I expected, so I went in heavily buffed. While victory was achieved relatively easily, we did get hit by dispel magic, so most of our long-term buffs were lost in the process - this will become relevant later:
We continued deeper into the dragonspear castle basement. Full potion buffs, we had enough of them to stay buffed for the rest of the game (I should have used more of them after getting dispelled earlier on, but I was simply too lazy because I had just activated them and didn't want to do so all over again). Some targeted spell thrusts, breaches and the like to take down enemy spellcasters as they arrived to support Hephernaan:
Okay, time to enter Avernus. We started by casting chaotic commands from scrolls on everybody in addition to the usual potion buffs to clear the groups of devils towards the elevator:
I'm myself currently in SoD with an avenger,I will post more after forums maintenance.
Thanks @Enuhal. Sounds like you got a good dose of adrenalin from that drow fight - keep it going
Bash {30} - berserk melee run (2nd and final update)
Previous updates
In Beregost, Bash killed some spiders before going to deal with Tranzig. Silke was then charmed and taken to a quiet spot for disposal.
At the FAI I forgot to cast resist fear before dragging Tarnesh behind the temple and blinding him - but he was one-shotted anyway.
Before going to the Bandit Camp, Bash cleared out the ankheg nest - getting hit just once in the process. At the Camp, I was slightly careless in allowing an enraged Bash to be dragged by a chain of opponents into combat with Taurgosz without any buffs. However, a critical hit soon put paid to him. I was tempted to just do a frontal assault on Tazok's tent, but in the end played it safe by going in invisibly and using web - none of the enemies broke free.
After resting to get Bhaal horror, Bash finished off a few quests to boost reputation before heading for the Cloakwood. He was lucky in the second area in being able to drag individual ettercaps away from the group before going berserk and he got his 7th illusionist level during those combats. In the next area transition though he got ambushed by a pair of wyverns. I intended to use ctrl+M to check their HPs to consider if I should try to make a first use of a wand to reduce HPs before going berserk, but somehow managed to key ctrl+Y instead and exterminated one of them. That was rather disappointing, so I thought about it for a while to see if I could find a way to justify carrying on the run, but that wouldn't feel right - so Bash will have to go back on ice for now.
Wilkim, half elf avenger first entry.
So here we go, with Wilkim the half elf avenger !
Mods : some UI (Infinity UI, Bubbles spells menu, Pecca's improved icons), and some SoD story ones : Another Fine Hell, Road to Discovery, Borarskyr Bridge. And Endless BG1. All without the optional items or stat bonus.
Difficulty : insane without double damage.
I choose to recruit Imoen (then Coran), Kivan, Branwen (then Yeslick), Neera (a bold choice !) and Ajantis.
I use Neera only for identify and wands mainly,fearing wild surges.
I did my usual run, finishing chapter 2 after first doing Gnolls fortress, saving Brage, helping Albert, Mirianne, Firebead, calming Marl...
On the way my avenger experimented his power.
The Death Knight power word killed Yeslick, fireballed to death Kivan, and slained a stunned Ajantis before I could dispel the stun.
For chapter 5 final battle, I stroked from behind thanks to invisibility, and webbed them to death.
Back in the city, Neera's confusion worked great against the assassins.
I summoned some monsters and launched slow, confusion, insect plague. I also used potions of haste.
I then did Ice Island for a second stoneskin croll.
Next update will be SoD time !
What to say about this avenger run ? Wilkim mainly was a support guy (healing, summon woodland beings), with crowd control thanks to web, and a little offensive damage with chromatic orb, call lightning, and darts.
Kivan and Coran stole the show, and Neera's wands helped a lot. But web alone made Wilkim an essential part of the team.
Fun fact, she had exactly one wild surge in all the entire run,and it was in the ducal palace while casting chaos shield ! I feared the cow or demon summoning which would have end the run by probably killing the dukes, but luckily she only changed colours.
I did try the avenger's forms a little, but in a no reload run it's too risky since you can't cast again ironskins after the first ones expired while shapeshifted. The shapeshifter can do it thanks to many werewolf form abilities available at higher levels.
I would like to update my run, but when I try to upload images, I tend to get a "the file failed to upload" message (some rare images seem to work, but most don't) - maybe the forum isn't 100% back yet? How did you manage it/did you have this problem?
I had this message with one of my screenshots, which was over 1mb. After reducing it to less than 1mb I could post it.