I again tried to use Xan's charm spell, this time on Drasus. The spell didn't last long enough for Drasus to get into combat with his cohorts. However we were able to separate him from them which made killing him much easier.
Dynaheir then used two web spells and three fireball spells.
They killed the mages and all but killed Genthore.
Since Genthore was webbed, Minsc finished him off easily.
In the mine Gnomus was killed. Since we need a thief we returned to the FAI, raised him and went for the rewards for bandit scalps and wyvern tails.
Congrats @Enuhal ! Your mastery of BG spells is impressive, which is why I often favor melee-heavy parties. Unfortunately, melee parties are really hard to do unless I have an inquisitor or two because dispelling arrows no longer trigger on Melissan in EE (they did in vanilla).
Wilkim, half elf avenger update 2 :
Since I used Endless BG1, I had times to prepare before the transition.
I recharged wands, Durlag's Goblet, Greenstone Amulet, bought some dispel, detonation and acid arrows.
I stocked some items in my chest in the ducal palace.
SoD start in BG was mainly an errand, I did all the subquests, sold some gems and items, bought some things, and then onward to chapter 8 !
One of griefs with it is the lack of frontline NPC.
My party was initially composed of Minsc and Dynaheir (I had saved some scrolls for her since she wasn't in my BG party), Corwin, Glint and Viconia with the Helm of opposite alignment.
I was surprised to see than the spiders AI in vanilla SoD insane was on part with SCS, and they ignored my frontliners protected with free action (with one ring stolen to Ushai before ending BG) to web Dynaheir and killed her despite stoneskin.
The exploration of the two zones went fine beside that, and we started the repository of undeath dungeon.
My protection against undeads scrolls wore off before fully cleaning the area, and so the end was a little chaotic.
The lich was easy to kill thanks to the truth revealed.
Chapter 9 was a good time to replace Viconia by Jaheira to have a far better tank.
We cleaned all the areas. The spiders cave was burned to the ground with Dynaheir and some potions of explosion.
The green dragon fight was a little tricky since I didn't enough protection from poison scrolls. Corwin drank some potions to increase her HP to help her compensate a bit just in case. Of course Glint casted remove fear before entering.
The dragon in insane is immediately helps by two young green dragons ans some greater wyverns, and also targeted Corwin for its breath. Luckily she wasn't too wounded, and counterstroke with an arrow of dispelling to remove its stoneskin.
Meanwhile, Wilkim and Glint used some wands of heaven, Dynaheir casted magic missile, and finally the dragon fell.
Some summoned monsters held the wyverns and young dragons, and they were slayed soon after the dragon.
The half dragon and the neothelid was no match against poison immune characters. I skipped the shadow aspect, too risky and useless for my team, but defeated the mind flayer party with greenstone amulet, haste and potion of explosion and arrows of detonation.
We then recruited Neera instead of Dynaheir, Voghlin instead of Minsc, did all the Bridgefort quests,and then recruited Khalid instead of Voghlin before launching an assault against the crusaders (sadly, to recruit Khalid you need to assault the crusaders without asking for Fist support).
I was busy trying to save the Bridgefort defenders, so didn't thought about screenshots.
Suffice to say, chaos, slow, chain lightning, call lightning and Corwin arrows stole the show and assured the victory.
On the bridge, the mage was hit by dispel arrow then poisoned arrow.
Time for chapter 10 !
After doing all we can in the coalition camp, we explored the areas.
Neera was killed because she forgot to cast stoneskin...
Other than that, all went fine and I could start the exploring of the underground river, main dungeon area in SoD, and with many dangerous encounters. Albinos young dragons was killed with protection from acid scrolls, the dark druid grove (in which one of my previous runs ended) was cautiously prepared with summons and traps, and chaos and insect plague finished the job.
Kanadrym was cleansed by Corwin alone with dispel arrows, arrows of detonation, poisoned arrows...
The lich was destroyed thanks to the truth revealed.
the last perilous thing to do was to poison food and water. I did it with all the party invisible,but found out than the exit is blocked until we speak with Hephernaan and the patrol coming. Corwin broke the invisibility by firing arrows of detonation against him, and the party could then flew to the barrels.
I put invisibility again,but discovered than the hostile group barring the exit in the underground river have a mage casting detect illusion, then oracle, and a cleric casting true seeing !
Wilkim was revealed,and hit by a fear spell just AFTER luckily drinking another invisibility potion. The cleric ventured outside and was killed by the rest of my party, and so we could again use invisibility to exit the river.
The coalition camp battle was easy, trolls fell to Neera's three fireballs sequencer, the mages to the chaos and insect plague, and the last stand to slow and confusion.
Assault on Dragonspear castle went smooth thanks to the baril of woosh, the poison and the ogres, but sadly Mizhena was charmed by the crusaders, and I couldn't counter it in time before she was killed by the Fist.
I agreed to Ashashiel's challenge. First I use the ankhegs amulet to summon some of them, then I launch insect plague and call lightning. Darts of stunning and wounding didn't worked against her, but chromatic orbs and Bitter did.
After that it was easy to go to Avernus, drinking all the potions saved during all the playthrough,notably clarity ones, and casting protection from evil.
Final fight was not that hard, but a little annoying, because Beliphet's dispel magic hit Khalid and Wilkim. I had to do cat and mouse while slowly drinking again potions of clarity and potions of fire resistance. Glint uses a protection from fire scroll on Caelar, and then a scroll of restoration just in time.
Meanwhile, Corwin shot Beliphet with arrows of void, Jaheira hit him with the root of the problem, and Khalid finished him with Acid Tongue.
End of SoD !
I put all the SoD transferable items on Wilkim, choose to also transfer golden pantaloons, Arla's Dragonbane, Falorain's Plate and Helm of Balduran, and now it's SoA time !
Well done @Enuhal. Are you sure you're not whittling away that list too quickly though - what will you do with yourself in a year's time when there's no-one left?
@Grond0 Then I will finally get to play whatever classes I want
Also, my next run isn't starting for a while (at least not in the next 5 weeks, propably longer), as I have some RL obgliations that prevent me from currently playing.
@Trouveur Good work throughout SoD! I'm sure you will do well in SoA - especially with all the extra levels from SoD a druid bhaalspawn is just so strong in early to mid SoA.
We killed several ankhegs and used the proceeds to fill up our spell books at Sorcerous Sundries..
However, our gold ran out so we will have to go ankheg hunting again.
It's a while since I documented any of my long-life attempts in this thread - checking back the last time I recorded a wizard slayer run was December 2020. I haven't played that much for a while, but have had a number of fairly recent attempts with the wizard slayer. Several of those have ended rather unfortunately as a result of bugs or oddities of one sort or another and I'm hoping that describing the run this time will bring better luck - as well as helping keep concentration up . Most solo characters have a high chance of success if played well, but the wizard slayer is rather more vulnerable to bad luck - particularly in SoD. I'll try to play carefully in order to minimise the need for luck ...
After leaving Candlekeep, I went to find Shoal to grab a couple of easy levels. With fighter HPs there's no real danger from a travel ambush on the way and Shoal offers no threat if you don't talk to her.
I gained a very healthy 27 HPs for that and took a third pip in darts.
In Beregost I picked up the scroll case and shot Neera from distance for the gem bag. I then bought some +1 darts and went to kill the golems at High Hedge - so long as you do that before talking to Thalantyr he doesn't go hostile.
The level for that brought me down to earth with a paltry 7 HPs. I bought the potion case to complete my collection of containers for the moment.
Next up I headed for Nashkel, avoiding any fighting on the way. After picking up the ankheg armor I took a trip to the basilisk area in search of more quick XP. Most of the time there Korax can successfully deal with all the basilisks, but he is vulnerable to greater basilisks switching to melee and this time died against the first of those - prompting a quick retreat from me before it decided to switch back to a gaze attack.
At Firewine Bridge I ran Meilum round while throwing darts at him. I can't use his bracers, but his magic sword gave me a proficient weapon. While there I also shot Bentan - partly to reduce reputation and partly for his PfM scroll.
On the way to the FAI I killed the belt ogre. As I can't use magic belts I went to hand that in - gaining a 5th level and 10 more HPs on the way by shooting down Tarnesh before he could try anything nasty.
Buying Buckley's Buckler there enabled me to regenerate, which is pretty useful given I don't allow the use of healing potions.
A trip to the Nashkel Mine was next. There were no problems getting through to Mulahey and I avoided any risk against him by running him round the pond, until his morale broke, to prevent him getting into talking range while I shot him up.
After dragging Nimbul into the local shop to avoid his horror, I returned to Beregost to exterminate some spiders and shoot Tranzig. I dropped off Landrin's goods at the FAI before taking on a bunch of ankhegs. None of them managed a hit and that got me to level 6, gaining 15 more HPs and a third pip in long swords.
At the Bandit Camp there's no chance of rest ambushes, so I could afford to take on Taurgosz in melee - and a couple of criticals quickly saw the back of him.
I used the darts of wounding taken from the ankheg's nest to try and poison Venkt on entering Tazok's tent. That was successful and allowed me to stay in the tent to take down the others.
Before going to the Cloakwood I returned to the Valley of the Tombs to clear that out. The major reason for doing that was to get more darts of wounding from the amazons. I was careful there to take them on individually. Both the clerics have standard cleric AI, which doesn't chase after enemies out of sight. That means you can allow them to use rigid thinking or hold, so long as you move away before those are launched.
After killing Narcillicus' jellies, he was panicked by Bhaal horror to ensure he couldn't defend himself. Shooting him down took me to level 7, with 10 more HPs. While in that region, I introduced Greywolf to my darts in order to get a sword upgrade.
Then it was on to the Cloakwood. The only action there was in the second area, where I carefully skirted a web trap guarding a group of ettercaps. The wizard slayer has no ability to do damage beyond sight range, so can't activate the last of the ettercaps without going through or past the trap - fortunately there's just enough space to do that, as shown on this screenshot (where I've highlighted the trap location).
I don't always pick up Spiders Bane for this character, but decided to do so this time - pulling various spider-kin back towards the edge of the map to ensure I could retreat if necessary.
Moving on to the mine, Genthore was attacked from range and pulled away to be chopped up. The same then was done to Drasus. After one failure and a rest, Bhaal horror sent Rezdan running. He didn't come close enough to attack, but I decided to go after Kysus while he was out of action. He was immediately poisoned by a dart and both of them were finished off before the 4 round duration of the horror wore off. Inside the mine, I took no damage while working my way downstairs. However, the first of the battle horrors took me down to 50% HPs. As the chances of ambush are extremely high on the bottom level, I went back upstairs to try and rest and regenerate. The potential difficulty there is the large numbers of guards that can appear, so placement is critical to ensure that a line of escape remains. Resting that time was successful, but I was ambushed after killing the second battle horror - here the guards appear on the right, allowing escape to the left.
Standing just a fraction further right though and guards would block escape routes, which could well be fatal. The chances of shutting down Davaeorn's spells (which requires 4 hits) before he can do anything nasty are quite good, so I risked just going in for a direct attack rather than using up a PfM scroll. Unfortunately, on this occasion I'd only hit him three times when he attempted a dire charm and he beat the 75% spell failure - and I failed to make my 65% chance of saving. It seems Lady Luck still has a grudge against this wizard slayer ...
After Trio 62 ends with the protagonist foolishly following the berserker into a room of ghasts, we roll another set of lambs to the slaughter.
Candlkeep went fine except Corecleric bought a sling but forgot to get some bullets. Fortunately Boor had some extra bullets. Xzar and Montaron once again go down, including Montaron to Whisper's first backstab. The party once again takes down Shoal and even has CHA to get the potion from Arcand the Mad.
Not much is done in Beregost at first, Corecleric makes a beeline to Nashkel to get some ankheg armor. Then some ogrillions are slept so that Corecleric can get a +1 shield from Bjornin. A few more Beregost fights/done like spiders, Silke (blinded) and Karlat. Then the party picks up the +1 ring North of Nashkel and belt of piercing for Boor. Once at FAI, the ring of wizardry went to Boor. Joia happy she got her ring. Tarnest not as happy about the backstab he got from Whisper (which killed Tarnesh). After getting our rewards from Landarin we then headed south and helped a boy get his dog as well as blind Zax and Val to get their bracers.
The party then works their way to the gnoll fortress without incident, which was needed as Corecleric needed the gauntlets of dexterity. Boor was throwing a lot of sleeps around and as such was often running to the front. Once area cleared we then tried to take a bear which was north of the fortress. Boor was running the bear around and his party was shooting it, but unfortunately this can be tricky sometimes because of MP lag and sure enough the bear swiped and killed Boor. The bear was commanded twice and eventually slain.
We picked up Boor's stuff and then went to Nashkel to raise Boor - problem? No ring of evermemory! Doh!
But the adventure must continue. Boor took out his frustration on Neira and despite having only 1 HP he managed to kill her. Corecleric then needed a magical hammer so picked up Melicamp and then successfully held Bassilus - +2 hammer is now for Corecleric. Melicamp was successfully restored and then Corecleric bought a protection from acid scroll.
Ankhegs were our next target. Corecleric has good AC (-6) and lots of sleeps he only got hit twice but with his protection from acid he did fine. Near the end we fought two ankhegs at once and Boor was out of sleeps by this point but Coercleric used some commands to help speed up the kills. We then returned a bowl to a priestess of Umberlee then went to Beregost to sell our ankheg shells. But out of time so saved here.
It's been a few years since I had a go with Biff, so thought it was about time to give him another outing. I've played him with various restrictions, but for this run he can use a variety of tactics to disable opponents. However, he is not permitted to kill them except using his own melee attacks.
An initial attempt got off to a slow start as a result of taking starting spells of find familiar and chill touch (I think those were chosen for a previous run where he was not allowed to cast any spells on opponents and thus not well suited to this run, but I didn't bother changing them). Biff had to spend a lot of time and effort killing Xzar and Montaron - running away from them several times to rest before finally getting kills. That effort proved wasted thanks to a skeleton archer ambush on the first area transition ...
Starting again, he had no problems with Xzar or Montaron this time and made his way to find Shoal without any ambush. She was no trouble, but once more the run ended early after blinding Neera in Beregost. I had wrongly remembered her HPs as 6 and didn't double-check that. That meant she might have survived a hit with Biff's staff, so I tried using a magic missile to reduce HPs - only to find that killed her ...
Starting again and Biff was soon back at the coast where Shoal was worn down by missile attacks before a single blow finished her.
Biff picked up a maximum 12 HPs for the 2 levels and learnt blindness. The slow weapon speed of the gnolls at High Hedge made them easy victims on the way to Beregost. This time Neera was blinded and struck down by Biff's staff.
The ability of a staff to hit from beyond sight range of a blinded enemy was put to more good use to take down Silke - gaining a staff upgrade for Biff there.
More uses of blindness around Beregost took Biff close to another level and that was gained against Oopah's 3rd incarnation - Biff getting 3 HPs and taking invisibility.
That not only allows safe travel and enables Biff to sneak up on more dangerous opponents, but also potential use of his cat familiar as an invisible blocker.
Meilum was helpless once blinded and his bracers were a useful addition. Biff then aimed to improve his reputation. That sequence started poorly when I clicked on the wrong conversation option with Prism and missed out on the chance to deal with Greywolf. However, there were no mistakes with reputation gains from Samuel, Joia, Mr Colquetle, Brage, Oublek, Tamah and Farmer Brun - none of those needed any fighting. Relatively easy combats gained rewards from Ardrouine and Bjornin to push reputation to 20 - he also got to level 5 there, gaining 4 HPs and ghoul touch.
Biff didn't yet have any bonus from charisma, but still decided to splash out on the dagger of venom and +3 staff. The dagger was put to use immediately in the basilisk area, to help finish off basilisks quickly after those were paralyzed by Korax. That took him to level 6, with 6 more HPs and slow as a new spell.
Kirian's companions were pre-blinded before Biff attacked using ghoul touch for the first time. That immediately tagged Kirian and, although an interfering gnoll allowed her to recover, she failed to cast a spell.
The others could then be safely beaten up with Biff's staff.
Up to this point Biff hadn't acquired the potion case, so went to High Hedge to get that. First though he killed the golems, wearing them down with +1 darts before finishing off with invisible attacks - while Thalantyr looked on benignly.
There was more quick XP on offer at Durlag's Tower. Once they were blinded and slowed, Biff could hit the battle horrors relatively easily with his staff. The first couple of those were enough for level 7 - 6 HPs and learnt friends, mirror image and haste.
A PfP scroll and ghoul touch were used against the basilisks and that was enough for level 8 - 6 more HPs and stoneskin.
Riggilo briefly acquired a toupee before being blinded and beaten up.
Sorcerer L8, 49 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 69 kills
With stone skin now available, nothing offered any real threat on the way to get the charisma tome. Ghoul touch proved pretty efficient during that journey, with even polar bear HPs quickly disappearing under its assault. The doomsayer couldn't be attacked like that, but blind and slow were enough for the standard staff to make pretty short work of him. After Bassilus was blinded, he was another victim of ghoul touch.
Next up were the ankhegs. They're easy enough to paralyze, but the fact that attacks using that are non-lethal meant only 1 of them could normally be killed per casting, so a couple of invisible rests were needed to clear the nest. After that I went to Ulgoth's Beard to buy a couple more things, but was surprised to find that friends only pushed my charisma up to 19. I had definitely picked up the tome for that and double-checked I hadn't accidentally sold it. Possibly it got dropped somewhere when a conversation added an item to a full inventory? Anyway cash shouldn't be a big deal.
Back in the lighthouse area, Biff took on some sirines. After splitting the first group up by approaching invisibly he attacked them individually using ghoul touch. Their saving throws are pretty good, so he had to be on his toes to use invisibility to avoid being targeted with charm a couple of times, but did that successfully. Sil's group can't be split up so easily, but one of her companions can be blinded while neutral and Biff was able to paralyse the other and dodge Sil's spells before finishing them off. That provided his final BGEE level, with 6 more HPs and blur, protection from fire and improved invisibility added to his spell repertoire. The golems in the cave were no problem with stoneskin and mirror images protecting against their attacks.
The last wilderness encounter was the Red Wizards. Two of Denak's companions were blinded before Biff attacked the others - improved invisibility preventing them using any attacking spells.
Biff cruised through the Nashkel Mine before taking on Mulahey. He shrugged off an initial paralysing attack and called for help, but they were all slowed and made little progress through Biff's defences while Mulahey was being finished off. Outside the mine the amazons had no answer to improved invisibility and nor did Nimbul.
Back in Beregost, Biff beat up some spiders before going to find Tranzig. I was careless there when his ghost armor allowed him to last out attacks under improved invisibility and Biff got tagged by an acid arrow before reapplying invisibility and finishing the job.
On the way to the Bandit Camp, Biff stopped off at the FAI to deliver Landrin's goods and pick up the pantaloons. He was slightly surprised to find Tarnesh still untouched there, but a quick improved invisibility sorted him out. That also reminded me Biff had not got the belt of piercing, so that was done next. Finally at the Camp, Biff drew Taurgosz away from the bandits and slowed, blinded and paralysed him to get his equipment. Then he sneaked into Tazok's tent where Hakt, Britik and Venkt were all blinded before Raemon suffered a ghoulish touch.
After invisibly bypassing the Cloakwood, Biff blinded Drasus' companions at the mine before buffing up. That wasn't really needed though as Drasus himself also went blind and it didn't take long to finish things off. After sneaking through the mine, the battle horrors near Davaeorn were drawn away and blinded before the mage became the latest to struggle with improved invisibility. He resisted a number of hits from ghoul touch, but his saving throws could not prevent him from being beaten unconscious.
Sorcerer L9, 55 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 188 kills
Arriving in the City I realised I was moving more slowly than expected and discovered I'd apparently forgotten to pick up the boots of speed from Drasus - I don't seem to be doing too well with inventory management this run! The first encounter in the City was with the ogre mage in the sewers. The nearby carrion crawlers were blinded before the ogre mage was disabled with a first use of stunning darts. Then Biff started the poison quest with the aim of getting Lothander's boots. Killing him would not be difficult per se, but ensuring Biff got the killing blow was more problematic. Biff used ghoul touch to try and get automatic hits and swiftly both paralysed and rendered Lothander unconscious. However, he couldn't kill him with that non-lethal attack, so cast chill touch. The base damage from that's also a non-lethal attack, but with potential additional cold damage. Lothander saved 5 times against that and I was distinctly worried that he would disappear despite being unconscious - but a 6th hit on him finally did the business. Larze's saving throws were also in good form and he resisted 5 blindness and 5 stunning darts before a dart eventually tagged him. Marek was then another to stand doing nothing in the face of improved invisibility.
Ramazith was blinded and slowed and Biff killed the mustard jellies above him - though didn't bother with the other enemies in the tower. The dopplegangers at the Seven Suns were quickly crushed before Biff moved on to the Iron Throne. The clerics there were blinded while neutral, Gardush was stunned by a dart and Zhalimar was touched up while the mages tried in vain to see where their attacker was.
I only remembered at the last moment to get knock spells before returning to Candlekeep. The tombs there were looted, with the aid of an absorption potion to protect against the lightning traps. For once, I didn't bother with Prat and his gang, though Biff did touch up the basilisks on the way out.
Back in Baldur's Gate, Biff bought up a few potions and scrolls before going to find Slythe. He was quickly paralysed, but Krystin was left alone long enough to kill Quenash with a cloudkill (as a quick way to get the Cloak of Balduran).
Using summons at the palace seemed risky given as, with so much going on, a summoned monster might get an unintended kill. To avoid that Biff used a chaos scroll to disrupt initial attacks and followed up with a malison scroll to help his stunning dart attacks. Liia still died in the initial attack, but Belt still had half his HPs with his attackers all running or stunned and there were no more alarms while the dopplegangers were being finished off.
After going through the maze, Biff left Rahvin's gang alone and headed into the old temple. I thought it would be fun to set Sarevok against Semaj, so used summons to try and make that happen. Sarevok seemed to be in a good mood and didn't turn on him, but a bouncing bolt did upset Angelo and he soon shot down the mage. Malison then made Sarevok's saving throws vulnerable and a single use of a wand of paralysation was too much for him.
Despite not bothering with some of my usual encounters, Biff still transferred to SoD with 358k XP and immediately took his 10th level with 6 HPs and hold monster as a new spell.
Sorcerer L10, 61 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 254 kills
This run has been relatively successful, but there's been a fair amount of mistakes / lack of thought. One major error I realised too late is that I was too focused on dealing with Sarevok and didn't consider how I might deal with Belhifet until after that. In particular I should have picked up the wand of polymorphing in Baldur's Gate. Still, later events showed that wasn't really a problem after all .
In the SoD dungeon, Porios was convinced to surrender. Biff bypassed other encounters invisibly on the way to find Korlasz. After activating her Biff waited invisibly until she stopped running around and then dropped a dart next to her - using that as a target for hold monster. That got her at the second attempt and a few rounds of buffing were followed up with attacking her using chill touch. With her dead, Biff didn't bother with the rest and just reported in to Imoen.
Biff had carried quite a few valuables through from BGEE and selling those netted him about 50k. Killing a few NPCs for their equipment added to that to ensure he could buy whatever he wanted. The XP bonus for leaving the City gave Biff his final SoD level, gaining him 1 HP and learning web, PfCold, malison and lower resistance.
At the Coast Way Crossing, Biff blinded Teleria and struck her down to get the Stone Ally - though that probably won't be used anyway. He used invisibility to avoid the potential fight at the bridge.
Bypassing Troll Claw Woods, Biff moved on to the Forest of Wyrms. He ignored various enemies there while moving in to the old temple. Ziatar's guards were killed there before attacking the half-dragon, though that precaution wasn't really needed given that Ziatar was stunned by the first dart thrown at him. Biff buffed to get negative saving throws for the Neothelid and added a potion of absorption and protection from poison before engaging. Akanna was then rendered helpless by web. Biff didn't bother with the rest of the temple, but did throw some daggers at Morentherene on the way out - the 15th of those penetrating to her heart.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge, Biff came across another green dragon. That managed to survive a pair of attacking hill giants, but regrettably died of its injuries before it could leave. At the Bridge, Biff avoided fighting Vichand by intimidating him into giving up the scroll. After surrendering the fort, that still left the mage on the bridge to deal with. I pre-cast webs there, but wasn't sure whether Biff could just kill the mage without him talking. Left alone, he eventually broke free and his buffs fired, included MGoI so the webs could no longer hold him. The Ring of Energy disrupted his initial cast though and Biff used that twice more while attacking the other guards. That took the mage to near death, so he could no longer use that to disrupt spells - but fortunately the MGoI ended at this time and the mage got stuck in the web. He briefly broke free and tagged Biff with an acid arrow, but getting stuck again proved fatal.
Biff came across some orcs and trolls on the way to the Coalition Camp. He had no means of killing the trolls and no need of XP, so he just nipped into the cave invisibly to grab the Firefly sling just in case that was wanted at some point. After a brief stop at the Camp to collect the Bwoosh and poison, Biff went invisibly to Dragonspear Castle and rescued Skie.
At the Underground River, Biff beat up some myconids to get their bloom-sac. Web and malison kept most of the guards busy while Biff relieved the cyclops of its Seal of Caelar and he ran on inside the tunnel entrance. After placing the Bwoosh he blagged his way past Turin into the Warrens. After poisoning the food and water invisibly Biff showed himself to Hephernaan to reopen the lift and ran away.
Back at the Camp an invasion was pending. Without being able to freely use area damage that was a potential problem. For the 1st wave of ogres and trolls, Biff summoned a myconid for the enemies to focus on while he moved up to them. A web and malison then held most enemies and the allied archers dealt with them quickly. For the second wave of mages, Biff again pre-summoned myconids. Malison, followed up with hold monster and stunning darts helped, but the bulk of the work was done by the wizard slayers. Unfortunately a moment's inattention proved costly against the final wizard. With him at injured status I moved the myconids away to ensure they didn't get the kill, but didn't stop Biff from throwing darts until a second later. A couple of wizard slayers got hits in the meantime, resulting in Biff's final dart proving fatal ...
Wrecking Crew {27} - dwarf fighters (update 1) Previous run
I've been revisiting a number of my old challenges recently, so thought I would try this one next - although it's actually only 6 months since my last attempt at this group of 6 dwarven true-class fighters. Typically I've played this as a completionist challenge and required Al to face the same risks as the rest of the party. This time I'm minded to play it more like a standard no-reload challenge and see if I can keep the run going deep into the game.
After leaving Candlekeep the Crew went to find Shoal. Unlike my solo characters, they had a use for the Helm of Defense, so Vito puckered up for a kiss - and died as a result. After Shoal was intimidated into raising Vito, Droth was engaged with missiles. He managed to complete a sleep spell, but only Bugsy was caught by that and Droth died soon afterwards. Rather than accept a small reward from Shoal, she was shot down as well.
In Beregost, in addition to the normal activities, the Crew also shot down Algernon to get his cloak. To the south they killed some aggressive Flaming Fist soldiers to get their plate armor. After buying a small quantity of magic ammunition they killed the golems at High Hedge, getting to level 2 there.
At Firewine Bridge reputation took another hit for Bentan's killing before Meilum was shot down for his bracers. With reputation down at a slightly dodgy 4 the next target was Greywolf to get a boost there. Samuel was then delivered to the FAI and a few more encounters had taken reputation back up to 10 by the time everyone was ready for level 3.
There were richer XP pickings on offer in the basilisk area where Korax provided a shield for the others to shoot behind. It only took a couple of minutes or so to kill all the basilisks and get everyone to level 4. Kirian's group were then shot down to complete work in the area.
A few more odds and sods were done on the way down to the Cloud Peak Mountains. The Crew had no healing capability, but by now had bought Buckley's Buckler, which could be equipped by any of them to activate regeneration. By the time I reached the Lake area, reputation was up at 13. I should really have gone there before, in order to reduce the reputation drop for killing Drizzt, but never mind. Running him around in a circle while the rest of the party shot at him it didn't take too long to get the kill. Seeing Brage back to Nashkel gained a bit of reputation back and forestalling Neira's ambush in the inn there was then enough for their next level.
The Crew's first genuine melee encounter was against the Doomsayer. Vito equipped the ankheg armor, Drizzt's scimitar and the golden girdle to make himself difficult to hit and wasn't required to retreat. Moving on to the coast, none of the 6 sirines there even managed to complete casting improved invisibility. The golems were then shot down without managing an attack between them.
Bassilus was shot to get a proficient melee weapon for Bugsy. To avoid anyone being left out, the Crew quickly went to Arghain to get Al a 2-handed sword from, before Mad Dog went to the extent of purchasing an axe in Beregost.
After splashing out some more cash on a PfP scroll, the next target was Durlag's Tower. In addition to ghasts and Riggilo, I also attacked the ghost - using a bit of level skipping to deal with that. The basilisks on the roof were then enough to get everyone to level 6.
The ankheg area proved quick and easy and the Crew took only 1 minor hit there. Everyone has very high exceptional strength and that allowed them to walk away with the shells from all the 17 ankhegs found to boost their bank balance.
As this is not a completionist run, it didn't take long to go through the Nashkel mine to find Mulahey - who died from a single volley of missiles.
Moving swiftly on they soon found themselves ransacking the Bandit Camp. Taurgosz presented them with a second-hand suit of armor (one slightly less than careful owner). None of the enemeies in Tazok's tent managed to touch them.
They didn't do a lot of work in the Cloakwood, but did pick up Spider's Bane (for once staying inside Centeol's nest to fight) and cleared out the wyvern cave. At the mine a general attack found Drasus and his companions the latest group to fail to inflict any injury. Inside the mine the Crew again avoided most encounters on the way down to Davaeorn. He managed to complete a lightning bolt spell, that badly hurt Vito, but died before he could produce a follow-up fireball.
Arriving in the City the Crew's first encounter was with a group of mages in Sorcerous Sundries. I was careless there in not spreading the party out and nearly paid for that when everyone was affected by horror. By that time though 2 of the mages were already dead and the remaining two didn't manage to kill anyone. I was more careful after that as the Crew worked through most of the City encounters. They successfully trapped Lothander to get a second pair of boots of speed. The Mountain Maulers provided not only an axe upgrade for Mad Dog, but took everyone to level 7.
Jardak was cut down and his Helm of Glory gave Vito 20 charisma. With reputation also up to 20, that enabled them to get some bargains on a quick shopping tour. Then it was back to Baldur's Gate for a few more tasks, including evicting some dopplegangers and picking up the Cloak of Balduran, before they moved on to the Iron Throne. By this time the Crew had 4 fully charged Necklaces of Missiles as well as multiple potion fireballs and arrows of explosion. Rather than give Zhalimar & co a fiery death though, they just lured them down into ambush on the previous floor.
Before reporting for duty in Candlekeep, the Crew visited one more wilderness area - quickly retrieving the Ring of Energy from the Red Wizards.
I probably won't do any more of the TotSC content, so it shouldn't take much longer for the Crew to finish BGEE now.
The Trio got a lot done today. This group is proving to be very capable with a lot of ways to deal with problems. So first order of business was to sell loads of ankhegs. Next was to turn in the Bassilus symbol and also unlock the basilisks' area. Whisper found some trouble but Corecleric came to his rescue. We belatedly noticed that Boor is still missing his sling (he had died last session) so we went to the halfling village to pick one up for him, as well as silence/web Molkar's gang. Melium was also taken down although not before Whisper nearly dying to some skeleton archers.
Finally we arrive in Nashkel Carnival as get the green PfP scroll as Boor doesn't know the arcane PfP. We head back back to the basilisks area. Most basilisks were killed with Corecleric tanking and Whisper coming in for backstabs with Boor wisely staying his distance. So then it was time to take down the basilisks near Mutamutin. This can be done safely as long as everyone stays at maximum distance in the upper right corner relative to Mutamutin. For reasons that are unclear, Boor moved down and activated both Mutamutin and a 2nd basilisk!
Corecleric attempted a command but it failed, Even so somehow Boor ran away and the basilisk who switched to Corecleric who is protected by the green PfP scroll. Rather than cast horror, Mutamutin foolishly chases Boor and he gets hit with MM from Boor, MM wand from Corecleric (who is still keeping the basiliks occupied with his sling) and Whisper pouring in arrows - success! Mutamutin goes down! The basilisk chasing Boor also goes down and the greater basilisk goes down to Corecleric melee. Whew, close one!
Time for Kirian's party. Boor managed to blind most of the enemies and put in a lot of webs too, simple ranged fire was plenty to wipe out the enemy party. We then paid a quick stop by Ulgoth's Beard to get the usual goodies of greenstone amulet, martial staff and the cloak.
Corecleric put the greenstone amulet to use immediately by headed to the pirate cave area and tanked the sirines. He tanked well. A potion of absorption was once again very effective against the flesh golems. Whisper thief skills managed to be up to the task of clearing out the traps here.
Corecleric then went in search of a large number of ogre types who were heavily dosed with webs, they couldn't do much. Sirines once again tanked by Corecleric with the help of the greenstone amulet. We finally have some good money so purchased robe of neutral arch magi for Grond0 and also shadowthief armor for Whisper.
We paid a quick stop with Prism saving him from Greywolf and also getting a nearby ring of fire resistance and saving Samuel. Finally was time to venture in to the Nashkel Mines. With our good AC and thac0, the kobolds weren't going to stand a chance (and they didn't). Greenstone amulet once again made short work of Mulahey, though Boor was tempted to web Corecleric.
Now we cleared out the three crypts area. Amazons once again fell to more blinds and webs was simple fight. This time Corecleric pulled out the 3 ghasts to the party could stay at range (our last run died here) - despite Corecleric's precaution Boor still managed to get held, though his party and skeleton assistants were able to keep him save all the same. We tried to get out of the area and massive lightning strikes were repeatedly hitting the party, Corecleric frantically tried to rest to save his party from the natural lightning which worked but just barely.
After selling at Thalantry party then worked on clearing out the bandit camp. The surface went pretty smooth, with Khosahnn getting stunned by the paralyzation wand. Everyone then went invisible into Tazok's tent but it seems Boor got seen before the party could prepare. Corecleric tried a silence, Boor a web and Corecleirc did a command on Raemon and helped kill Raemon quickly to save Boor. MM wand also used on Venkt and Boor used MM on Venkt and Whisper pooring in poisonous arrows - success! Whew.
A little bit of time left we cleared out the surface area at Durlag's Tower. One snafu was Whisper and Corecleric got hit by Boor's agnazer's scorcher but we all survived. We had just enough time to free Kirinhale and kill Rigilio and get the wisdom tome and saved our session here.
So then it was time to take down the basilisks near Mutamutin. This can be done safely as long as everyone stays at maximum distance in the upper right corner relative to Mutamutin. For reasons that are unclear, Boor moved down and activated both Mutamutin and a 2nd basilisk!
That was confusion with my single player games. I always kill the basilisks elsewhere in the area before dealing with Mutamin and his pet greater basilisk. It was only when Gate70 paused the game that I remembered that we hadn't yet killed the basilisk to the right of Mutamin ...
Back at Candlekeep the Iron Throne leaders didn't last long. To avoid potential danger from lightning affecting multiple characters Al used a Necklace for the first time to kill the phase spiders. Prat's first spell was interrupted and he and his companions quickly went down.
Once more in Baldur's Gate and the Crew did a bit of work I don't normally bother with playing solo - like rescuing Duke Eltan and shooting down Cythandria. With their high damage output they didn't bother buffing up while dealing with Slythe and the coronation - both dukes survived there.
Before going into the maze I had a look at Black Lily's equipment and noticed that seemed rather expensive. Investigating I found reputation was now only 10, so I must have killed an innocent somewhere. The spiders in Candlekeep was the only time area damage was used, so I suspect that I probably killed someone at the Iron Throne who was red-circled, but still rated as innocent .
In the Undercity I fancied getting Rahvin's 2 exploding arrows, so made use of a full round of fireballs for the first time. At the temple Al opened proceedings by hitting Sarevok with a dispelling arrow. Semaj was also dispelled when he teleported out and quickly shot down. Rather than just finish Sarevok off, Vito encouraged the others to join in the fun in order to get more exploding arrows from Angelo. Unfortunately he survived an initial round of attacks by the skin of his teeth and shot one of his arrows - killing himself in the process. As XP is so low by my normal standards, I flushed a few battle horrors out of hiding and killed them before turning to finish Sarevok.
In the dungeon the Crew shot their way through, topping up HPs using the Flaming Fist healer's spells. Korlasz attempted to surrender, but missiles already mid-air killed her anyway. Cleaning up a few more things after that took everyone to level 8. In Baldur's Gate they did some looting, but didn't bother with most of the minor quests - though they did use the Spectacles to practice their attacks on an angry fire elemental.
After a bit of inventory management they moved on to the Coast Way Forest. After agreeing to help Tsolak Al used a dispelling arrow to eliminate Ikros' buffs and a round of missiles killed him - Isabella didn't last much longer.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, Takos was feeling too mean to offer them a decent reward for collecting his items - so they decided to take a further reputation hit in reminding him to be nicer next time. They explored the area and shot Teleria down from distance - but didn't go into the dwarven diggings. At the bridge a round of fireballs left just a few follow-up attacks required to deal with the enemies there.
They cleared Troll Claw Woods on the way to find some more interesting enemies at the Forest of Wyrms. First though they had to deal with an ambush area containing orcs and trolls. There was a moment's concern there when Vito was paralyzed by a carrion crawler, but the enemies died before they could take advantage of that. At the Forest of Wyrms they cleared the external area and a cave filled with spiders and beetles. Then they moved on to the old temple. They cleared some bugbears in the entrance, topping up HPs using the regeneration ioun stone, then dealt with Ziatar's guards. Ziatar herself died from a concentrated attack before she could do much. Next up was the Neothelid. While that's pretty dangerous for a solo character, it didn't last long against a group attack. Akanna's greater command could have been a problem, but only put one of the Drew to sleep and the others beat down her aerial servants before they put anyone in danger. The Shadow Aspect got one backstab in and sent Baby Face running in horror before being shot down. A single volley of exploding arrows from everyone killed all Darskhelin's companions and the Crew switched to more normal ammunition to finish the illithid off. Al picked up some daggers in the temple and casually threw a few of those on the way out to bag a dragon.
So far, so good in SoD and the Crew should be well set up to make further progress ...
I felt like doing a bit of SP rather than continuing just with the Crew and thought I might have another go with Biff. I mentioned at the start of the previous recorded run that I thought the initial spells selected had been intended for use in a purely melee run, i.e. not allowing any missiles, summons or offensive spell use on anything other than himself. Allowing more general use of spells felt a bit too easy, so I thought I would try a purely melee approach again. One attempt at that failed quickly when I intended to attack Silke early and failed to realise she was casting a lightning bolt from out of Biff's sight range. A second attempt didn't get too much further with a bandit ambush cutting Biff down at level 3.
Trying once more, Biff picked up XP from:
Candlekeep quests - 345
Calming Marl - 900
Book for Firebead - 300
Talk to Noober - 400
Mr Colquetle - 250
Brage - 1000 (L2 - +4 HPs)
Tenya's bowl - 1542
Joia's ring - 435 (L3 - +6 HPs)
Up to this point there's very little danger as long as you're careful about movement and travel times, but getting to L4 means taking slightly more risk. I decided to do that by taking PfP at level 3 and visiting the basilisk area. Attacking from full 2-handed range gives you a moment to retreat if the basilisks switch to melee and Biff cleared up all the lesser basilisks (L4 - +6 HPs) as well as reviving Tamah. After resting, Biff took on the first of the greater basilisks. Their faster weapon speed makes them more difficult to avoid and it got one hit in, though a very mild one. Finishing that one off took Biff to L5 - +6 HPs. Biff couldn't annoy the other greater basilisk from a distance, without exposing himself to Mutamin. He thus did that and used invisibility to disappear again before dragging the basilisk away for disposal.
While on a basilisk roll, Biff went to Durlag's Tower, using invisibility to get onto the roof. His kills there took him to L6 - +6 HPs. He got a further XP boost before leaving by handing over a toupee to Riggilo.
Invisibility made returning Samuel to the FAI and handing his son's body to Farmer Brun easy. At the coast, killing some dire wolves should have put Ardrouine's mind at ease, but she refused to accept that (possibly because one of them was chunked by cold damage from chill touch). Tracking down Rufie was enough for L7 - +6 HPs. Biff also learnt ghoul touch and haste there and used those to take down Caldo & Krumm. Handing over Drienne's cat then pushed reputation to 20.
Grabbing the charisma tome allowed 20 charisma using friends and Biff bought the dagger of venom, +3 staff, Claw of Kazgaroth and Greenstone Amulet. The staff was used to murder Neera for her gem bag and inventory management was further helped by using invisible attacks on the golems at High Hedge before buying the potion case.
Meilum saved successfully against 3 hits by ghoul touch, but the 4th proved fatal and his bracers provided a further melee upgrade. Back at the coast, the first group of sirines were separated before being attacked. The first was immediately paralysed, but the second saved against initial hits. Even though the chances of being charmed are very low for Biff (due to 90% elven resistance) he still used a Greenstone charge to protect against charm while finishing it off. The third of that group was another paralysis victim. An attack on Sil's group saw the first sirine paralysed by a first attack and the second also paralysed by a second attack. With dual wielding and haste giving 3 APR I thought Biff had also impressively managed to paralyse Sil, while still in the first round, before she could disappear. However, although the paralysis splash showed, on checking the text MR had saved Sil and Biff quickly activated a Greenstone charge. A couple of rounds later, while ghoul touch was still active, Sil was duly paralysed. After cleaning up the golems, Biff used the constitution tome to reverse the HP loss caused by the Claw.
The Doomsayer was fairly well protected and without the use of advantages like slow and blind, Biff needed a 14 to hit even when attacking invisibly. That meant he needed several rests during the fight, but eventually got the job done and was rewarded with L8 - +5 HPs. Bassilus was helpless against Biff's new improved invisibility spell and the gains from that fight allowed him to purchase a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi.
Next up will be an assault on the Nashkel Mine.
Sorcerer L8, 51 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 73 kills
After going invisibly through the mine, Biff drew Mulahey over to the cave entrance so that he had an avenue to retreat if necessary. In the event though, Mulahey was quickly paralysed and his followers posed no problems. Outside the mine, improved invisibility did its job of preventing spells while ghoul touch disabled the amazons. While in the area, invisible attacks killed the ghasts and revenant, while Narcillicus failed to see through II.
Nimbul, Neira and Tranzig all stood around waiting to be paralysed. While in Beregost Biff also attacked the spiders, quickly disabling all of them. Landrin then got his goods back on Biff's way to the Bandit Camp. The basic bandits were all no trouble, but Taurgosz survived repeated attacks and Biff was about to have to retreat for the day when a final ghoul touch blow proved fatal. Inside Tazok's tent, Biff was able to paralyse Venkt's companions, while the mage was baffled by II until it was his turn for the chop.
There was no real action in the Cloakwood on the way to the mine. Drasus and Genthore were led away and dodged using invisibility, allowing Biff to kill the mages using II. Genthore was next to be paralysed and then Drasus went the same way. Just after that Biff got his 9th and final BG1 level - +5 HPs. After sneaking down to Davaeorn's level he killed the guard and attacked one of the battle horrors for a while. However, that looked like being too much work and he just abandoned those before going to beat up Davaeorn.
In the City, Biff drew some carrion crawlers away before returning to deal with their ogre mage leader. A strength scroll let him in to deal with Arkion and Nemphre and pick up some stone to flesh scrolls from Degrodel. Jalantha was paralysed, as were Lothander and Larze, on the way to find Marek - he was helpless against II. The paralysis plague continued to move across the City, reaching even into the Seven Suns, before culminating in a decimation of the Iron Throne building.
Back in Candlekeep Biff used a couple of knock scrolls to loot the tomes. He already had more money than he could spend and was way above the XP limit, so there was no particular need to tackle Prat's party - but he did it anyway . He had an automatic save against stunning darts there, so started by paralysing Tam before working round the others.
Before returning to the City Biff realised it would be useful to enhance his belt collection. After that, Slythe was paralysed and Krystin helped out by gaining him Balduran's Cloak. At the palace Biff used potions of mind focusing, defense, speed and power and topped those up with stoneskin, blur, mirror image, haste, improved invisibility and ghoul touch. He used improved invisibility on Belt early on to disrupt attacks and give him a bit more staying power. That worked well and Biff also successfully paralysed 3 of the dopplegangers during the 5 round duration of ghoul touch, making the fight easier than I had expected.
After passing through the maze, Biff left Rahvin's party alone, but used PfU to kill some skeleton warriors. Moving into the temple, Biff activated Sarevok before disappearing. Annoyingly though, Semaj's invisibility was not affected by his Tatoo of Power trigger and he refused to put in an appearance while Biff was II. A second lot of trigger spells included chaos and I realised too late that Biff's spell save of -1 might not be enough - and it wasn't . I was lucky though that Semaj apparently used dimension door to get out of sight range before Biff became fully visible. Once Biff recovered he went to find Semaj and waited for him to cast 3 lightning bolts. That caused Biff no damage, but the 3rd of them hit Sarevok and Angelo on the rebound. Biff disappeared into invisibility and watched as Angelo took his revenge. An attack on Angelo successfully paralysed him and Biff retreated to try and pull away Sarevok and Tazok before returning invisibly to finish the job. Tazok in fact stuck around (or more probably just kept following him while invisible), but couldn't prevent Angelo's demise. Biff hit Tazok quite a few times, but failed to paralyze him and lost his buffs in the process. Using run and hit tactics, to try and make use of better weapon speed, allowed Biff to get several more blows in. However, when Tazok did eventually manage an attack, it was a vicious critical. A regeneration potion was used to recover from that, but while running round Biff activated a couple of battle horrors - that didn't though prevent him from finishing Tazok off.
Biff's last invisibility spell allowed him to dump the battle horrors and go in search of Sarevok. He only had a marginal weapon speed advantage there, so his basic tactics were to run for a bit until a new round started and then try to attack - but if he didn't get a good initiative roll (allowing an immediate speed 0 attack), he would start running again before Sarevok could attack. That was hard work, but allowed him to get far more attacks in than Sarevok. Biff only hit 25% of the time though and it took several hours of game time to finally wear Sarevok down.
He transferred to SoD with 351k XP and immediately levelled up there (L10 - +5 HPs).
Sorcerer L10, 61 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 247 kills
In the SoD dungeon, Biff persuaded Porios to surrender before going invisibly to find Korlasz. She saved against a first ghoul touch hit, but not a second. Biff let her recover, so that she would surrender all the other enemies rather than him having to fight them - that gave him his final SoD level!
In the City Biff just killed some NPCs and sold their equipment to finance some shopping before setting off for the wilderness. At the Coast Way Forest Biff agreed to help Tsolak and attacked Ikros. A clash of fire shields there led to the immediate demise of the opposing mage, but Biff survived due to having pre-cast protection from fire. Isabella was tough to hit, but eventually fire shield damage and the odd critical did the job.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, Takos got his items back before Biff approached the bridge invisibly to avoid any fight there. He then ran through Troll Claw Woods and soon arrived at the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms. Ziatar there has pretty indifferent saving throws and failed to resist an initial ghoul touch. Biff used multiple stone form potions to ensure he resisted the Neothelid's spells and managed to kill that pretty quickly. That was partly due to greater than expected fire shield damage - I suspect as a result of standing on poisoned ground, even though Biff was immune to that. Akanna was then paralysed and her aerial servants soon joined her in death. I didn't fancy Biff's chances against Morentherene, so she was left alone for once.
At Boareskyr Bridge, Biff avoided combat until he intimidated Vichand into giving up the scroll. After surrendering the fort, Biff buffed up to take on the mage on the bridge. Unfortunately, he was initially out of luck here and missed with several opening attacks - allowing the mage to open a fire portal. Ghoul touch allowed him to paralyse mephits appearing pretty quickly, but Biff couldn't kill them in time to stop their automatic flame jet attacks on the barrels. He dealt with 2 lots of mephit summons, but 2 of the barrels were at near death so he knew another lot of mephits would destroy them - but luck was back on his side and only more elementals appeared which were no danger to Biff. Whew - I have beaten off attacks from a fire portal before, but didn't expect Biff to be able to manage that ...
At the Coalition Camp Biff picked up the Bwoosh and poison. Then it was on to Dragonspear to rescue Skie before heading for the Underground River. A cyclops there was paralysed and taken to near death before Biff went invisible to wait for his ghoul touch casting to wear off. He then grabbed the Seal of Caelar and went invisible again to go underground. After placing the Bwoosh he entered the Warrens and poisoned the food or water invisibly before showing himself briefly to reopen the elevator.
Back at the Camp Biff prepared for an invasion. The lack of area damage or summons available here was potentially a major problem and he had to try to get as many opponents as possible to focus on him. That was successfully done with the first group and all the archers did a good job of shooting the enemies - they all went down just as they got through Biff's initial stoneskin. The second wave was difficult because all the dispel magic's flying about meant Biff could not keep buffs up, but he made it through almost unscathed. He was again at the centre of things for the third wave, meaning he set up some nice targets for hold person spells from his supporting mages.
By now he was out of most spells, but Dosia used her rejuvenation ability to replace those before he went after the final wave with support from some local spies. Two potions of magic protection were used for spell protection, while stoneskins and mirror images fended off physical attacks. Biff was out of those by the end, but with only Grimgor left he had a clear weapon speed advantage to finish things off.
After resting up, Biff returned to Dragonspear for the final series of battles. Ashatiel appeared to be immune to ghoul touch, so the fight with him took far longer than I'm used to and Biff had to use a regeneration potion at one stage as well as 2 potions of magic protection. On to hell where clarity and free action saw him through the first area. In the second area he killed the Lemures before going invisible and activating Thrix. He then ran back to the previous area and rested (after a couple of ambushes) and then reported back to Thrix.
I thought that should open the final portal and indeed the door did open - but an area transition was still not allowed. Trying to investigate that, Biff got trapped against the door with only stoneskin protecting against damage. His attempt to replace that when it was worn away was interrupted and he died before he could do anything further .
Checking the autosave the open door does indeed allow progression, but doing it this way round there appears to be a significant delay before it does so. Anyway I was a bit surprised that Biff got so far this run and maybe it's a good idea to still leave room for improvement next time ...
@histamiini maybe. It was a mistake I guess in doing something I don't normally do. I normally just kill the enemies spawned and that fight would have been easy enough if I'd been ready for it - I was just a bit too eager to get straight on with the main event against Belhifet ...
After being Biffed out of the way for a while, the Crew were once more under way. Their first action was on the way to Boareskyr Bridge, where a young green dragon was under assault from a pair of hill giants. That dragon has a reasonable chance of escaping my solo characters, but never stood much hope against the Crew after it pointed to the location of a treasure hoard .
At Boareskyr Bridge, a melee attack on Vichand killed him before his buffs could fire. Other fights were pretty routine except that Vito was level drained by a wight - something the local cleric could unfortunately not cure. After the Crew surrendered the fort they attacked the mage still holding the bridge. A dispelling arrow immediately tagged him and gave him no chance to survive a hail of missiles.
On the way to the Coalition Camp they encountered another ambush area - this time sorting out a bunch of myconids underground. At the Camp they did a bit of shopping, Nazramu's generous prices gaining them nearly 200k XP from items found thus far. They didn't bother with most of the quests though.
Working their way through Dead Man's Pass, things looked bad when 3 of them were held by a Mimic's glue and a general attack on Mad Dog left the remaining Crew unable to save him. Back at the Camp he was raised, only to die again immediately when I equipped the Claw of Kazgaroth on him. After sorting that out they set off back to Dead Man's Pass, but had an encounter with a Shadowy Figure on the way - a round of fireballs negated his stealth nicely. They cleared the rest of the area without further problems, including getting the Ring of the Tiny Fiend after using the Spectacles for the last time.
At the Underground River, the cyclops was stunned by a dart and died within moments. It didn't take long to shoot down the rest of the guards before turning to Riga to get his +3 2-handed sword - a sneak attack took down his mage companion before she could react and he was stunned immediately afterwards. That encounter also got everyone to level 9. Underground, they ignored most of the encounters on the way to place the Bwoosh. Inside the Warrens they quaffed some potions before taking the elevator. That power boost and the use of some premium ammunition allowed them to clear the initial guards without taking any damage and the mages that arrived in support proved no more effective. They chose to fight rather than just run out quickly though and took a bit of damage as a result of that.
Back at the Camp, the Crew used a single round of exploding arrows on the first invasion wave. That killed all except the trolls, but it appeared that I should have moved forward to take them until they realised they were supposed to fall over as the supporting guards panicked. That prompted the Crew to use more potions, which I hadn't originally planned here. However, the invaders still came more spaced out than I was anticipating and were easily picked off in turn.
At Dragonspear, Al agreed to a duel with Ashatiel. However, I was once more caught unawares when Ashatiel saved against a stunning dart and then teleported away for no particular reason. A couple of the Crew were confused by a nearby mage and Baby Face was first backstabbed and then killed by a trap. Shortly after that though Ashatiel was apparently killed by the blast from an exploding arrow and the enemies ran away. Inside the castle, Baby Face was raised and re-equipped ready for the journey into hell.
They quickly smacked down the devils in the first area, after using clarity potions to protect against charm. After adding oils of speed they made equally short work of the second area. Thrix handed over a long sword upgrade as a reward. Before taking the Hellevator they all used long-term buffs to protect against fire, electricity and poison and boost dexterity. Once the enemies were cleared they added speed, invulnerabilty and power. Four of the Crew had proficient +3 weapons and were hitting Belhifet pretty easily, so it was no surprise when he went down just after managing to gate in some supporters for the first time.
There were no problems with the epilogue and the Crew have arrived in Irenicus' dungeon. They transferred to BG2EE with 370k, still well below the 500k XP limit for SoD, but they should find it easy enough to make that up.
Al (PC) - L9, 105 HPs, 0 kills (+305 in BGEE/SoD), **** 2-handed sword / *** longbow
Baby Face - L9, 111 HPs, 0 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L9, 105 HPs, 0 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L9, 115 HPs, 0 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L9, 125 HPs, 0 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L9, 108 HPs, 0 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** scimitar / *** darts
With high HPs and no risk when resting to heal up, there were no difficulties in slaughtering all the occupants of Jon's dungeon.
On arrival in Athkatla they went straight after Mencar. The initial attack was on Brennan to ensure he didn't run away. Pooky's confusion affected 2 of them, so they couldn't immediately run away. Pooky then charmed the already confused Carlo, but died a moment later. Amon was next, but it looked like Mencar might finish off Vito - but his morale broke just in time. Smaeluv was berserkly attacking Al and, with everyone back to their senses, he was easy to pick off. That gave the last of them a helmet (and the first of them full plate armor).
After resting up, they visited the local temple and donations pushed reputation from 8 to 14. A trip to the circus then provided some easy XP. They checked in with Gaelan Bayle next and bought some Glasses, which will save them many thousands over time on the cost of identifications. They rested in the Graveyard while identifying items acquired to date and then set off for the Docks - making short work of Suna Seni's ambush on the way. They got a second set of full plate there from Officer Dirth, before sorting out a local pirate nest. They also went to find Mae'Var and bought a nymph cloak there at great expense, so I don't forget to get that later.
Back in the Slums they oversaw a transfer of control at the Copper Coronet. For once I indulged in an early spending spree and bought various magical weapons from Bernard. Dipping into the sewers, they found Lilarcor which will make Al's life a bit safer. They overwhelmed Captain Haegan and took the slaver ship. Al went through the poison trap first, so that he could use slow poison safely on the more badly wounded of the Crew. After resting, reporting in to Hendak allowed the Crew to level up.
They were intending to go to Trademeet next, but were delayed by rescuing Renfeld. That in turn led to sorting out Prebek & Sanasha and looting the harper building. They picked up a bonus by avenging Xzar's death.
After beating up an orog ambush, they arrived at the City Gates to find Hareishan - they intended to kill her, but annoyingly she made her escape without even attempting to kill the last of the Shadow Thieves she'd been attacking. At Trademeet they cut down Taquee before he had a chance to try and petrify anything. The efreeti then soaked up the petrification attempts from the genies inside.
At the Druid Grove Mad Dog padded his kill count by using Stonefire to finish off a bunch of trolls. Some druids were hampered by a stinking cloud from the efreeti before the Crew watched in awe as Cernd snacked on Faldorn. While in the vicinity, they sorted out an undead uprising in a local tomb.
In search of a final reputation point, they returned to Athkatla and visited the Bridge District. They picked up the berserk warrior and dragged Dracandros & co out of their house and into an ambush. Then they solved the skinner murders and disposed of a couple of Rune Assassins.
After spending all their money again, they moved on to the Graveyard. The top area was cleared without problems. The Crypt King could potentially have caused trouble if he got lucky with his horror, but Azuredge tagged him before he even realised he was under attack. Underground, Pai'Na provided another summoning option. Following up on the kidnappers, the Crew got some silver pantaloons, but at the cost of a couple of points of reputation. One of those was regained by helping out Tiris at Trademeet and the other by ensuring the Fallen Paladins would not rise again.
Looking to finish off work in the Bridge District, the Crew planned prepared to attack Captain Dennis. Both the mage types died without buffing, making the battle pretty easy. That also gave them 3 more suits of full plate. Eager to get the last one of those required, they headed for the Temple sewers. An invisibility ring was used to draw out Gaius' true sights before commencing an attack as soon as he slumped under the effect of stinking cloud. With Gaius down the others lost heart and were easy victims.
With their training and equipment coming along nicely, they've just arrived at Watchers' Keep where they've acquired the potion case and Firetooth crossbow.
Al (PC) - L10, 113 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 69 kills (+305 in BGEE/SoD), **** 2-handed sword / *** longbow
Baby Face - L10, 114 HPs, 64 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L10, 108 HPs, 69 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L10, 118 HPs, 74 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L10, 128 HPs, 154 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L10, 111 HPs, 62 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** scimitar / *** darts
Inside the Keep vampiric wraiths were waiting, but Kitthix, the warrior and efreeti kept them occupied long enough for Azuredge to do its job. Baby Face took a risk trying to open the cabinet with the FoD trap, but that didn't come off. There were no problems with clearing the rest of the level and they got a level while doing that.
Next up was the de'Arnise Hold. That provided the FoA for Carlo to add to their troll-killing weapons. I didn't normally bother to disengage when trolls were nearly dead and TorGal took advantage of that to do quite a bit of damage before realising he needed a good lie down, but there was never any danger in that - or any other combat there. Al agreed to take control of the place, though I suspect he will be an absent landlord.
After selling the loot, a few more purchases included the Sling of Easthaven - that means all characters now have missile options that don't require ammunition. They still had enough cash to pay Gaelan Bayle and went to talk to Aran Linvail. A couple of little tasks for him were enough to take everyone to level 12.
Soon after that though there was another death thanks to a totally ridiculous bouncing lightning bolt. While clearing most of the top level of the vampire nest I'd had Vito take the lead - his helm of charm protection preventing domination. However, a moment's inattention and the shorter range of throwing axes meant Mad Dog had got in front when they saw the vampire near Tanova - and he'd been dominated. That didn't seem like a problem as he was out of sight of Tanova and the others just withdrew round a corner. Meanwhile though the berserk warrior had gone to occupy Tanova and she cast a lightning bolt at it. That carried on round the corner and hit Mad Dog - but that seemed no problem given he still had his full 134 HPs up to then, so damage of 14 seemed of no account. However, the lightning described a quick figure of 8 bounce around the doorframe and quickly came back to hit Mad Dog again for a further 12 - but still no problem right. The lightning then disappeared back towards Tanova, but somewhat surprisingly reappeared again a moment later and once more described the same bouncing path - doing 15 damage on the way to Mad Dog and a further 8 on the way back, after its figure of 8 bounce. Just to clarify, the lightning was bouncing along the corridor, so this was not the situation you sometimes get where lightning bounces multiple times in rapid succession across the width of a corridor and I thought the lightning must have dissipated now - but no, back it came from Tanova for a 3rd time, doing 14 and 15 damage respectively this time. Crying "you cannot be serious" the rest of the Crew looked on as the lightning reappeared once more and did 13 and 10 more damage on its round trip. Remembering that the expected duration of the lightning would be one set of bounces up and down the corridor, or 2 at the absolute outside, there was real concern now. After all if there could be 4 lots of bounces, why not 5? Why not indeed and back it came once more. Mad Dog survived one more hit, but the usual figure of 8 took it back through him again and this time he couldn't handle the strain. The silver lining I suppose is that he wasn't chunked - that really would have been an annoying way to end the run.
With the party back together, they threw a few summons at Tanova - and the efreeti duly dealt with her. Shortly afterwards Bodhi was sent running and the Crew went to report back to Aran Linvail. They did the temple quests to get some illithium and forged the iMoD to give them a source of level drain protection. Up to this point they've been very dependent on resting to heal damage - Al's single CLW doesn't make much impact if they've taken significant damage and only he can regenerate naturally. Hence it seemed like time to go after the Ring of Gaxx. No protection was used against the Shade Lich and Bugsy had to survive a Wail of the Banshee before it was shot down. The Elemental Lich managed a meteor storm before Azuredge got it. The City Gates lich didn't manage to buff before dying. I thought taking on the demi-lich without protection was too risky, so Baby Face used a PfM scroll on Kangaxx while the iMoD did its work.
While in the Docks area they did Mae'Var's tasks and finished up by destroying his guild.
Al (PC) - L12, 119 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 89 kills (+305 in BGEE/SoD), **** 2-handed sword / *** longbow
Baby Face - L12, 120 HPs, 110 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, **** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L12, 114 HPs, 88 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L12, 124 HPs, 99 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L12, 134 HPs, 201 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 3 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L12, 117 HPs, 88 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** scimitar / *** darts
I decided to go insane difficulty, with a self made party of 4. Dwarf defender (this is now my favorite class), dragon disciple, half orc cleric/thief and a human berserker who will dual to mage.
BG1 was a piece of cake. No close calls, a total breeze.
SoD was another story. The opening dungeon was so freaking hard.
The sorcerer was the first to fall. Then, the berserker, who was a level 3 mage at this point, got chunked. The half orc was killed as well.
This was all in that secret room with the purple torch.
The thing was, I was considering restarting without the berserker/mage character, because the less party to manage, the better I play. That choice was made for me.
The worst part of the whole thing was that the flaming fist party decided to help out, and they all got killed, including the healer.
I eventually made it through the rest of the dungeon, but there isn’t a healer in baldurs gate, so I can’t even resurrect the rest of the party until the next chapter.
It isn’t the end of the world, but it is frustrating.
I’m considering reevaluating insane difficulty.
I haven’t even beaten this (without reloading) on regular difficulty. IDK what I am thinking. I’m just frustrated right now. I’m not sure if I should push on and try or just restart with a dwarf defender and do the whole game over.
I guess what’s bugging me also is I dipped 2 tomes (STR/INT) into the berserker, and now she’s gone. I would have really loved that 19 STR on the dwarven defender, plus it feels weird not having dialogue.
Comments
I'm on holiday currently, but will try to post an update from my Avenger, which has made great progress.
Cloakwood was straightforward.
We are now at the mines.
I again tried to use Xan's charm spell, this time on Drasus. The spell didn't last long enough for Drasus to get into combat with his cohorts. However we were able to separate him from them which made killing him much easier.
Dynaheir then used two web spells and three fireball spells.
They killed the mages and all but killed Genthore.
Since Genthore was webbed, Minsc finished him off easily.
In the mine Gnomus was killed. Since we need a thief we returned to the FAI, raised him and went for the rewards for bandit scalps and wyvern tails.
Time for bed.
Since I used Endless BG1, I had times to prepare before the transition.
I recharged wands, Durlag's Goblet, Greenstone Amulet, bought some dispel, detonation and acid arrows.
I stocked some items in my chest in the ducal palace.
SoD start in BG was mainly an errand, I did all the subquests, sold some gems and items, bought some things, and then onward to chapter 8 !
One of griefs with it is the lack of frontline NPC.
My party was initially composed of Minsc and Dynaheir (I had saved some scrolls for her since she wasn't in my BG party), Corwin, Glint and Viconia with the Helm of opposite alignment.
I was surprised to see than the spiders AI in vanilla SoD insane was on part with SCS, and they ignored my frontliners protected with free action (with one ring stolen to Ushai before ending BG) to web Dynaheir and killed her despite stoneskin.
My protection against undeads scrolls wore off before fully cleaning the area, and so the end was a little chaotic.
Chapter 9 was a good time to replace Viconia by Jaheira to have a far better tank.
We cleaned all the areas. The spiders cave was burned to the ground with Dynaheir and some potions of explosion.
The green dragon fight was a little tricky since I didn't enough protection from poison scrolls. Corwin drank some potions to increase her HP to help her compensate a bit just in case. Of course Glint casted remove fear before entering.
The dragon in insane is immediately helps by two young green dragons ans some greater wyverns, and also targeted Corwin for its breath. Luckily she wasn't too wounded, and counterstroke with an arrow of dispelling to remove its stoneskin.
Meanwhile, Wilkim and Glint used some wands of heaven, Dynaheir casted magic missile, and finally the dragon fell.
Some summoned monsters held the wyverns and young dragons, and they were slayed soon after the dragon.
I was busy trying to save the Bridgefort defenders, so didn't thought about screenshots.
Suffice to say, chaos, slow, chain lightning, call lightning and Corwin arrows stole the show and assured the victory.
On the bridge, the mage was hit by dispel arrow then poisoned arrow.
Time for chapter 10 !
After doing all we can in the coalition camp, we explored the areas.
Neera was killed because she forgot to cast stoneskin...
Kanadrym was cleansed by Corwin alone with dispel arrows, arrows of detonation, poisoned arrows...
The lich was destroyed thanks to the truth revealed.
the last perilous thing to do was to poison food and water. I did it with all the party invisible,but found out than the exit is blocked until we speak with Hephernaan and the patrol coming. Corwin broke the invisibility by firing arrows of detonation against him, and the party could then flew to the barrels.
Wilkim was revealed,and hit by a fear spell just AFTER luckily drinking another invisibility potion. The cleric ventured outside and was killed by the rest of my party, and so we could again use invisibility to exit the river.
The coalition camp battle was easy, trolls fell to Neera's three fireballs sequencer, the mages to the chaos and insect plague, and the last stand to slow and confusion.
I agreed to Ashashiel's challenge. First I use the ankhegs amulet to summon some of them, then I launch insect plague and call lightning. Darts of stunning and wounding didn't worked against her, but chromatic orbs and Bitter did.
Final fight was not that hard, but a little annoying, because Beliphet's dispel magic hit Khalid and Wilkim. I had to do cat and mouse while slowly drinking again potions of clarity and potions of fire resistance. Glint uses a protection from fire scroll on Caelar, and then a scroll of restoration just in time.
Meanwhile, Corwin shot Beliphet with arrows of void, Jaheira hit him with the root of the problem, and Khalid finished him with Acid Tongue.
I put all the SoD transferable items on Wilkim, choose to also transfer golden pantaloons, Arla's Dragonbane, Falorain's Plate and Helm of Balduran, and now it's SoA time !
Also, my next run isn't starting for a while (at least not in the next 5 weeks, propably longer), as I have some RL obgliations that prevent me from currently playing.
@Trouveur Good work throughout SoD! I'm sure you will do well in SoA - especially with all the extra levels from SoD a druid bhaalspawn is just so strong in early to mid SoA.
We killed several ankhegs and used the proceeds to fill up our spell books at Sorcerous Sundries..
However, our gold ran out so we will have to go ankheg hunting again.
It's a while since I documented any of my long-life attempts in this thread - checking back the last time I recorded a wizard slayer run was December 2020. I haven't played that much for a while, but have had a number of fairly recent attempts with the wizard slayer. Several of those have ended rather unfortunately as a result of bugs or oddities of one sort or another and I'm hoping that describing the run this time will bring better luck - as well as helping keep concentration up
After leaving Candlekeep, I went to find Shoal to grab a couple of easy levels. With fighter HPs there's no real danger from a travel ambush on the way and Shoal offers no threat if you don't talk to her.
In Beregost I picked up the scroll case and shot Neera from distance for the gem bag. I then bought some +1 darts and went to kill the golems at High Hedge - so long as you do that before talking to Thalantyr he doesn't go hostile.
Next up I headed for Nashkel, avoiding any fighting on the way. After picking up the ankheg armor I took a trip to the basilisk area in search of more quick XP. Most of the time there Korax can successfully deal with all the basilisks, but he is vulnerable to greater basilisks switching to melee and this time died against the first of those - prompting a quick retreat from me before it decided to switch back to a gaze attack.
On the way to the FAI I killed the belt ogre. As I can't use magic belts I went to hand that in - gaining a 5th level and 10 more HPs on the way by shooting down Tarnesh before he could try anything nasty.
A trip to the Nashkel Mine was next. There were no problems getting through to Mulahey and I avoided any risk against him by running him round the pond, until his morale broke, to prevent him getting into talking range while I shot him up.
Wizard Slayer L8, 74 HPs, 111 kills
Previous updates:
Then it was on to the Cloakwood. The only action there was in the second area, where I carefully skirted a web trap guarding a group of ettercaps. The wizard slayer has no ability to do damage beyond sight range, so can't activate the last of the ettercaps without going through or past the trap - fortunately there's just enough space to do that, as shown on this screenshot (where I've highlighted the trap location).
Moving on to the mine, Genthore was attacked from range and pulled away to be chopped up. The same then was done to Drasus. After one failure and a rest, Bhaal horror sent Rezdan running. He didn't come close enough to attack, but I decided to go after Kysus while he was out of action. He was immediately poisoned by a dart and both of them were finished off before the 4 round duration of the horror wore off. Inside the mine, I took no damage while working my way downstairs. However, the first of the battle horrors took me down to 50% HPs. As the chances of ambush are extremely high on the bottom level, I went back upstairs to try and rest and regenerate. The potential difficulty there is the large numbers of guards that can appear, so placement is critical to ensure that a line of escape remains. Resting that time was successful, but I was ambushed after killing the second battle horror - here the guards appear on the right, allowing escape to the left.
Corecleric XIX - dwarven fighter/cleric, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Boor - elven sorcerer (Grond0)
Whisper - halfling assassin (Gate70)
After Trio 62 ends with the protagonist foolishly following the berserker into a room of ghasts, we roll another set of lambs to the slaughter.
Candlkeep went fine except Corecleric bought a sling but forgot to get some bullets. Fortunately Boor had some extra bullets. Xzar and Montaron once again go down, including Montaron to Whisper's first backstab. The party once again takes down Shoal and even has CHA to get the potion from Arcand the Mad.
Not much is done in Beregost at first, Corecleric makes a beeline to Nashkel to get some ankheg armor. Then some ogrillions are slept so that Corecleric can get a +1 shield from Bjornin. A few more Beregost fights/done like spiders, Silke (blinded) and Karlat. Then the party picks up the +1 ring North of Nashkel and belt of piercing for Boor. Once at FAI, the ring of wizardry went to Boor. Joia happy she got her ring. Tarnest not as happy about the backstab he got from Whisper (which killed Tarnesh). After getting our rewards from Landarin we then headed south and helped a boy get his dog as well as blind Zax and Val to get their bracers.
The party then works their way to the gnoll fortress without incident, which was needed as Corecleric needed the gauntlets of dexterity. Boor was throwing a lot of sleeps around and as such was often running to the front. Once area cleared we then tried to take a bear which was north of the fortress. Boor was running the bear around and his party was shooting it, but unfortunately this can be tricky sometimes because of MP lag and sure enough the bear swiped and killed Boor. The bear was commanded twice and eventually slain.
We picked up Boor's stuff and then went to Nashkel to raise Boor - problem? No ring of evermemory! Doh!
But the adventure must continue. Boor took out his frustration on Neira and despite having only 1 HP he managed to kill her. Corecleric then needed a magical hammer so picked up Melicamp and then successfully held Bassilus - +2 hammer is now for Corecleric. Melicamp was successfully restored and then Corecleric bought a protection from acid scroll.
Ankhegs were our next target. Corecleric has good AC (-6) and lots of sleeps he only got hit twice but with his protection from acid he did fine. Near the end we fought two ankhegs at once and Boor was out of sleeps by this point but Coercleric used some commands to help speed up the kills. We then returned a bowl to a priestess of Umberlee then went to Beregost to sell our ankheg shells. But out of time so saved here.
Previous recorded run
It's been a few years since I had a go with Biff, so thought it was about time to give him another outing. I've played him with various restrictions, but for this run he can use a variety of tactics to disable opponents. However, he is not permitted to kill them except using his own melee attacks.
An initial attempt got off to a slow start as a result of taking starting spells of find familiar and chill touch (I think those were chosen for a previous run where he was not allowed to cast any spells on opponents and thus not well suited to this run, but I didn't bother changing them). Biff had to spend a lot of time and effort killing Xzar and Montaron - running away from them several times to rest before finally getting kills. That effort proved wasted thanks to a skeleton archer ambush on the first area transition ...
Starting again, he had no problems with Xzar or Montaron this time and made his way to find Shoal without any ambush. She was no trouble, but once more the run ended early after blinding Neera in Beregost. I had wrongly remembered her HPs as 6 and didn't double-check that. That meant she might have survived a hit with Biff's staff, so I tried using a magic missile to reduce HPs - only to find that killed her ...
Meilum was helpless once blinded and his bracers were a useful addition. Biff then aimed to improve his reputation. That sequence started poorly when I clicked on the wrong conversation option with Prism and missed out on the chance to deal with Greywolf. However, there were no mistakes with reputation gains from Samuel, Joia, Mr Colquetle, Brage, Oublek, Tamah and Farmer Brun - none of those needed any fighting. Relatively easy combats gained rewards from Ardrouine and Bjornin to push reputation to 20 - he also got to level 5 there, gaining 4 HPs and ghoul touch.
Up to this point Biff hadn't acquired the potion case, so went to High Hedge to get that. First though he killed the golems, wearing them down with +1 darts before finishing off with invisible attacks - while Thalantyr looked on benignly.
Sorcerer L8, 49 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 69 kills
Previous updates:
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208112/#Comment_1208112
Sorcerer L10, 61 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 254 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208112/#Comment_1208112
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208124/#Comment_1208124
In the SoD dungeon, Porios was convinced to surrender. Biff bypassed other encounters invisibly on the way to find Korlasz. After activating her Biff waited invisibly until she stopped running around and then dropped a dart next to her - using that as a target for hold monster. That got her at the second attempt and a few rounds of buffing were followed up with attacking her using chill touch. With her dead, Biff didn't bother with the rest and just reported in to Imoen.
At the Coast Way Crossing, Biff blinded Teleria and struck her down to get the Stone Ally - though that probably won't be used anyway. He used invisibility to avoid the potential fight at the bridge.
At the Underground River, Biff beat up some myconids to get their bloom-sac. Web and malison kept most of the guards busy while Biff relieved the cyclops of its Seal of Caelar and he ran on inside the tunnel entrance. After placing the Bwoosh he blagged his way past Turin into the Warrens. After poisoning the food and water invisibly Biff showed himself to Hephernaan to reopen the lift and ran away.
Previous run
I've been revisiting a number of my old challenges recently, so thought I would try this one next - although it's actually only 6 months since my last attempt at this group of 6 dwarven true-class fighters. Typically I've played this as a completionist challenge and required Al to face the same risks as the rest of the party. This time I'm minded to play it more like a standard no-reload challenge and see if I can keep the run going deep into the game.
After leaving Candlekeep the Crew went to find Shoal. Unlike my solo characters, they had a use for the Helm of Defense, so Vito puckered up for a kiss - and died as a result. After Shoal was intimidated into raising Vito, Droth was engaged with missiles. He managed to complete a sleep spell, but only Bugsy was caught by that and Droth died soon afterwards. Rather than accept a small reward from Shoal, she was shot down as well.
After splashing out some more cash on a PfP scroll, the next target was Durlag's Tower. In addition to ghasts and Riggilo, I also attacked the ghost - using a bit of level skipping to deal with that. The basilisks on the roof were then enough to get everyone to level 6.
Baby Face - L6, 76 HPs, 70 kills, 0 deaths, *** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L6, 68 HPs, 75 kills, 0 deaths, *** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L6, 81 HPs, 73 kills, 0 deaths, *** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L6, 86 HPs, 56 kills, 0 deaths, **** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L6, 76 HPs, 52 kills, 1 death, *** scimitar / *** darts
Previous updates:
As this is not a completionist run, it didn't take long to go through the Nashkel mine to find Mulahey - who died from a single volley of missiles.
Al (PC) - L7, 89 HPs, 176 kills, *** 2-handed sword / *** longbow
Baby Face - L7, 94 HPs (Helm increasing by 5), 137 kills, 0 deaths, *** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L7, 83 HPs, 120 kills, 0 deaths, *** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L7, 94 HPs, 133 kills, 0 deaths, *** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L7, 84 HPs (Claw reducing by 14), 121 kills, 0 deaths, **** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L7, 89 HPs, 120 kills, 1 death, *** scimitar / *** darts
Corecleric XIX - dwarven fighter/cleric, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Boor - elven sorcerer (Grond0)
Whisper - halfling assassin (Gate70)
The Trio got a lot done today. This group is proving to be very capable with a lot of ways to deal with problems. So first order of business was to sell loads of ankhegs. Next was to turn in the Bassilus symbol and also unlock the basilisks' area. Whisper found some trouble but Corecleric came to his rescue. We belatedly noticed that Boor is still missing his sling (he had died last session) so we went to the halfling village to pick one up for him, as well as silence/web Molkar's gang. Melium was also taken down although not before Whisper nearly dying to some skeleton archers.
Finally we arrive in Nashkel Carnival as get the green PfP scroll as Boor doesn't know the arcane PfP. We head back back to the basilisks area. Most basilisks were killed with Corecleric tanking and Whisper coming in for backstabs with Boor wisely staying his distance. So then it was time to take down the basilisks near Mutamutin. This can be done safely as long as everyone stays at maximum distance in the upper right corner relative to Mutamutin. For reasons that are unclear, Boor moved down and activated both Mutamutin and a 2nd basilisk!
Corecleric attempted a command but it failed, Even so somehow Boor ran away and the basilisk who switched to Corecleric who is protected by the green PfP scroll. Rather than cast horror, Mutamutin foolishly chases Boor and he gets hit with MM from Boor, MM wand from Corecleric (who is still keeping the basiliks occupied with his sling) and Whisper pouring in arrows - success! Mutamutin goes down! The basilisk chasing Boor also goes down and the greater basilisk goes down to Corecleric melee. Whew, close one!
Time for Kirian's party. Boor managed to blind most of the enemies and put in a lot of webs too, simple ranged fire was plenty to wipe out the enemy party. We then paid a quick stop by Ulgoth's Beard to get the usual goodies of greenstone amulet, martial staff and the cloak.
Corecleric put the greenstone amulet to use immediately by headed to the pirate cave area and tanked the sirines. He tanked well. A potion of absorption was once again very effective against the flesh golems. Whisper thief skills managed to be up to the task of clearing out the traps here.
Corecleric then went in search of a large number of ogre types who were heavily dosed with webs, they couldn't do much. Sirines once again tanked by Corecleric with the help of the greenstone amulet. We finally have some good money so purchased robe of neutral arch magi for Grond0 and also shadowthief armor for Whisper.
We paid a quick stop with Prism saving him from Greywolf and also getting a nearby ring of fire resistance and saving Samuel. Finally was time to venture in to the Nashkel Mines. With our good AC and thac0, the kobolds weren't going to stand a chance (and they didn't). Greenstone amulet once again made short work of Mulahey, though Boor was tempted to web Corecleric.
Now we cleared out the three crypts area. Amazons once again fell to more blinds and webs was simple fight. This time Corecleric pulled out the 3 ghasts to the party could stay at range (our last run died here) - despite Corecleric's precaution Boor still managed to get held, though his party and skeleton assistants were able to keep him save all the same. We tried to get out of the area and massive lightning strikes were repeatedly hitting the party, Corecleric frantically tried to rest to save his party from the natural lightning which worked but just barely.
After selling at Thalantry party then worked on clearing out the bandit camp. The surface went pretty smooth, with Khosahnn getting stunned by the paralyzation wand. Everyone then went invisible into Tazok's tent but it seems Boor got seen before the party could prepare. Corecleric tried a silence, Boor a web and Corecleirc did a command on Raemon and helped kill Raemon quickly to save Boor. MM wand also used on Venkt and Boor used MM on Venkt and Whisper pooring in poisonous arrows - success! Whew.
A little bit of time left we cleared out the surface area at Durlag's Tower. One snafu was Whisper and Corecleric got hit by Boor's agnazer's scorcher but we all survived. We had just enough time to free Kirinhale and kill Rigilio and get the wisdom tome and saved our session here.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208151/#Comment_1208151
In the Undercity I fancied getting Rahvin's 2 exploding arrows, so made use of a full round of fireballs for the first time. At the temple Al opened proceedings by hitting Sarevok with a dispelling arrow. Semaj was also dispelled when he teleported out and quickly shot down. Rather than just finish Sarevok off, Vito encouraged the others to join in the fun in order to get more exploding arrows from Angelo. Unfortunately he survived an initial round of attacks by the skin of his teeth and shot one of his arrows - killing himself in the process. As XP is so low by my normal standards, I flushed a few battle horrors out of hiding and killed them before turning to finish Sarevok.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, Takos was feeling too mean to offer them a decent reward for collecting his items - so they decided to take a further reputation hit in reminding him to be nicer next time. They explored the area and shot Teleria down from distance - but didn't go into the dwarven diggings. At the bridge a round of fireballs left just a few follow-up attacks required to deal with the enemies there.
Al (PC) - L8, 101 HPs, 236 kills, *** 2-handed sword / *** longbow
Baby Face - L8, 230 HPs (Helm increasing by 5), 137 kills, 0 deaths, *** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L8, 91 HPs, 194 kills, 0 deaths, *** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L8, 105 HPs, 216 kills, 0 deaths, *** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L8, 96 HPs (Claw reducing by 16), 191 kills, 0 deaths, **** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L8, 96 HPs, 215 kills, 1 death, *** scimitar / *** darts
Previous recorded run
I felt like doing a bit of SP rather than continuing just with the Crew and thought I might have another go with Biff. I mentioned at the start of the previous recorded run that I thought the initial spells selected had been intended for use in a purely melee run, i.e. not allowing any missiles, summons or offensive spell use on anything other than himself. Allowing more general use of spells felt a bit too easy, so I thought I would try a purely melee approach again. One attempt at that failed quickly when I intended to attack Silke early and failed to realise she was casting a lightning bolt from out of Biff's sight range. A second attempt didn't get too much further with a bandit ambush cutting Biff down at level 3.
Trying once more, Biff picked up XP from:
Candlekeep quests - 345
Calming Marl - 900
Book for Firebead - 300
Talk to Noober - 400
Mr Colquetle - 250
Brage - 1000 (L2 - +4 HPs)
Tenya's bowl - 1542
Joia's ring - 435 (L3 - +6 HPs)
Up to this point there's very little danger as long as you're careful about movement and travel times, but getting to L4 means taking slightly more risk. I decided to do that by taking PfP at level 3 and visiting the basilisk area. Attacking from full 2-handed range gives you a moment to retreat if the basilisks switch to melee and Biff cleared up all the lesser basilisks (L4 - +6 HPs) as well as reviving Tamah. After resting, Biff took on the first of the greater basilisks. Their faster weapon speed makes them more difficult to avoid and it got one hit in, though a very mild one. Finishing that one off took Biff to L5 - +6 HPs. Biff couldn't annoy the other greater basilisk from a distance, without exposing himself to Mutamin. He thus did that and used invisibility to disappear again before dragging the basilisk away for disposal.
Sorcerer L8, 51 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 73 kills
Previous updates:
Sorcerer L10, 61 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 247 kills
Details to be found here: https://tavernrpg.com/threads/icewind-dale.425/page-2#post-8678
No doubt I will be back here soon. Not posting here as Icewind Dale isn't a Beamdog game I think.
No doubt the Halma will then be continued as it was going fine. I just needed a change.
Icewind Dale has an Enhanced Edition from Beamdog, though Icewind Dale II does not (as a result of losing the original source code for the game).
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208246/#Comment_1208246
In the City Biff just killed some NPCs and sold their equipment to finance some shopping before setting off for the wilderness. At the Coast Way Forest Biff agreed to help Tsolak and attacked Ikros. A clash of fire shields there led to the immediate demise of the opposing mage, but Biff survived due to having pre-cast protection from fire. Isabella was tough to hit, but eventually fire shield damage and the odd critical did the job.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing, Takos got his items back before Biff approached the bridge invisibly to avoid any fight there. He then ran through Troll Claw Woods and soon arrived at the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms. Ziatar there has pretty indifferent saving throws and failed to resist an initial ghoul touch. Biff used multiple stone form potions to ensure he resisted the Neothelid's spells and managed to kill that pretty quickly. That was partly due to greater than expected fire shield damage - I suspect as a result of standing on poisoned ground, even though Biff was immune to that. Akanna was then paralysed and her aerial servants soon joined her in death. I didn't fancy Biff's chances against Morentherene, so she was left alone for once.
At Boareskyr Bridge, Biff avoided combat until he intimidated Vichand into giving up the scroll. After surrendering the fort, Biff buffed up to take on the mage on the bridge. Unfortunately, he was initially out of luck here and missed with several opening attacks - allowing the mage to open a fire portal. Ghoul touch allowed him to paralyse mephits appearing pretty quickly, but Biff couldn't kill them in time to stop their automatic flame jet attacks on the barrels. He dealt with 2 lots of mephit summons, but 2 of the barrels were at near death so he knew another lot of mephits would destroy them - but luck was back on his side and only more elementals appeared which were no danger to Biff. Whew - I have beaten off attacks from a fire portal before, but didn't expect Biff to be able to manage that ...
Back at the Camp Biff prepared for an invasion. The lack of area damage or summons available here was potentially a major problem and he had to try to get as many opponents as possible to focus on him. That was successfully done with the first group and all the archers did a good job of shooting the enemies - they all went down just as they got through Biff's initial stoneskin. The second wave was difficult because all the dispel magic's flying about meant Biff could not keep buffs up, but he made it through almost unscathed. He was again at the centre of things for the third wave, meaning he set up some nice targets for hold person spells from his supporting mages.
After resting up, Biff returned to Dragonspear for the final series of battles. Ashatiel appeared to be immune to ghoul touch, so the fight with him took far longer than I'm used to and Biff had to use a regeneration potion at one stage as well as 2 potions of magic protection. On to hell where clarity and free action saw him through the first area. In the second area he killed the Lemures before going invisible and activating Thrix. He then ran back to the previous area and rested (after a couple of ambushes) and then reported back to Thrix.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208151/#Comment_1208151
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208190/#Comment_1208190
Working their way through Dead Man's Pass, things looked bad when 3 of them were held by a Mimic's glue and a general attack on Mad Dog left the remaining Crew unable to save him. Back at the Camp he was raised, only to die again immediately when I equipped the Claw of Kazgaroth on him. After sorting that out they set off back to Dead Man's Pass, but had an encounter with a Shadowy Figure on the way - a round of fireballs negated his stealth nicely. They cleared the rest of the area without further problems, including getting the Ring of the Tiny Fiend after using the Spectacles for the last time.
Al (PC) - L9, 105 HPs, 0 kills (+305 in BGEE/SoD), **** 2-handed sword / *** longbow
Baby Face - L9, 111 HPs, 0 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L9, 105 HPs, 0 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L9, 115 HPs, 0 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L9, 125 HPs, 0 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L9, 108 HPs, 0 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** scimitar / *** darts
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208151/#Comment_1208151
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208190/#Comment_1208190
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208288/#Comment_1208288
Al (PC) - L10, 113 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 69 kills (+305 in BGEE/SoD), **** 2-handed sword / *** longbow
Baby Face - L10, 114 HPs, 64 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L10, 108 HPs, 69 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L10, 118 HPs, 74 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L10, 128 HPs, 154 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L10, 111 HPs, 62 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** scimitar / *** darts
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208151/#Comment_1208151
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208190/#Comment_1208190
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208288/#Comment_1208288
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208297/#Comment_1208297
With the party back together, they threw a few summons at Tanova - and the efreeti duly dealt with her. Shortly afterwards Bodhi was sent running and the Crew went to report back to Aran Linvail. They did the temple quests to get some illithium and forged the iMoD to give them a source of level drain protection. Up to this point they've been very dependent on resting to heal damage - Al's single CLW doesn't make much impact if they've taken significant damage and only he can regenerate naturally. Hence it seemed like time to go after the Ring of Gaxx. No protection was used against the Shade Lich and Bugsy had to survive a Wail of the Banshee before it was shot down. The Elemental Lich managed a meteor storm before Azuredge got it. The City Gates lich didn't manage to buff before dying. I thought taking on the demi-lich without protection was too risky, so Baby Face used a PfM scroll on Kangaxx while the iMoD did its work.
Baby Face - L12, 120 HPs, 110 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, **** long sword / *** crossbow
Bugsy - L12, 114 HPs, 88 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** hammer / *** shortbow
Carlo - L12, 124 HPs, 99 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, **** flail / *** sling
Mad Dog - L12, 134 HPs, 201 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 3 deaths, ***** axe / ** dual wielding
Vito - L12, 117 HPs, 88 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, **** scimitar / *** darts
I decided to go insane difficulty, with a self made party of 4. Dwarf defender (this is now my favorite class), dragon disciple, half orc cleric/thief and a human berserker who will dual to mage.
BG1 was a piece of cake. No close calls, a total breeze.
SoD was another story. The opening dungeon was so freaking hard.
The sorcerer was the first to fall. Then, the berserker, who was a level 3 mage at this point, got chunked. The half orc was killed as well.
This was all in that secret room with the purple torch.
The thing was, I was considering restarting without the berserker/mage character, because the less party to manage, the better I play. That choice was made for me.
The worst part of the whole thing was that the flaming fist party decided to help out, and they all got killed, including the healer.
I eventually made it through the rest of the dungeon, but there isn’t a healer in baldurs gate, so I can’t even resurrect the rest of the party until the next chapter.
It isn’t the end of the world, but it is frustrating.
I’m considering reevaluating insane difficulty.
I haven’t even beaten this (without reloading) on regular difficulty. IDK what I am thinking. I’m just frustrated right now. I’m not sure if I should push on and try or just restart with a dwarf defender and do the whole game over.
I guess what’s bugging me also is I dipped 2 tomes (STR/INT) into the berserker, and now she’s gone. I would have really loved that 19 STR on the dwarven defender, plus it feels weird not having dialogue.
I’ll rest on it, the parents are visiting today.