At the Cloakwood Mine, Biff pulled Drasus away from his companions and touched him up. The same happened to Genthore and then the mages were both paralysed in immediate succession - saving Biff from the need to use the retreat prepared in a nearby building.
Inside the mine, beating up a pair of battle horrors and a mustard jelly provided Biff with his 9th level - +5 HPs. That enabled him to use improved invisibility on Davaeorn to make that a simple fight.
Biff ran through the major encounters in the City with no trouble, picking up the 3 tomes available in the process. One significant difference from the previous run is that I took a trip to Ice Island to get the stoneskin scroll available there. After sorting out the Iron Throne Biff reviewed his inventory before leaving for Candlekeep and realised he only had a single belt. A quick trip added the Golden Girdle and Elves' Bane to his collection.
At Candlekeep he looted the tombs and used improved invisibility to deal with Prat's party on the way out.
Bacj in Baldur's Gate, Slythe was paralysed on the way to the palace. After a pretty clean run so far, I thought this might be the end but once more Biff got lucky with 3 of the dopplegangers choosing to attack him. A couple of successful paralysations as well allowed Biff to save both dukes this time.
In the old temple, Sarevok was activated while invisible and left on his own for a while. A PfM scroll prevented Semaj's spells from doing anything and, when Angelo annoyed the others with exploding arrows, Tazok took revenge on him. Once the others were dead Biff buffed up for Sarevok. He tried to just stay in melee combat using mirrors and stoneskins, but couldn't quite manage that safely - losing his last stoneskin when still requiring a single hit to finish Sarevok off (that was done while invisible).
Biff transferred to SoD with 276k XP, allowing him to take his 10th level (+4 HPs) immediately. He had no trouble getting through the opening dungeon, although Korlasz did manage to just survive this time after she surrendered.
Sorcerer L10, 59 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 265 kills
As usual in SoD, I did pretty much the minimum required content. The first real fighting occurred in the Forest of Wyrms where Ziatar was paralysed by a sneak attack. The Neothelid failed to make any impact on a pair of absorption potions - and Akanna's aerial servants had the same problem. That encounter took Biff to level 11.
At Boareskyr, Biff surrendered the fort before taking on the mage on the bridge. This time Biff missed with his first 3 attacks, allowing the mage to open a fire portal. However, only a single lot of mephits came through and Biff was able to paralyse those before they did much damage to the barrels. The salamanders and various sorts of fire elementals that came through until the portal closed posed no real threat, failing to get through even a single set of stoneskins.
At the Underground River Biff killed the cyclops before going to place the Bwoosh and poison invisibly.
Back at the Coalition Camp, Biff's buffs held up well against the orcs and trolls while the archers shot those down. One change Biff made in his spells this time was to take spell shield rather than shadow door and that was used prior to the encounter with the mages. However, 2 breaches in quick succession still managed to get rid of his buffs before he could recast spell shield. A potion of magic protection gave him a brief defensive boost, but that was soon dispelled as well and Biff retreated for a bit while the wizard slayers cleared up the field. The war mages did most of the work against the third invasion force, with Biff once more mainly just trying to occupy the attackers. A couple more potions of magic protection were used among other buffs for the final conflict - and this time Biff did do much of the killing himself.
At Dragonspear, Ashatiel once more saved against initial attempts to paralyse him and Biff had to spend a while gradually beating down his protections. He got through to the Hellevator without mishap and buffed up for that. With strength 25 from using the violet potion, he made short work of the attacking devils. As previously signalled, Biff allowed Caelar to join him for the fight with Belhifet. Without buffs or directions, she didn't last long before being chunked - but just long enough to see off the original devils spawning with Belhifet.
In the early rounds, Biff could hit with a 17 and used his weapon speed advantage while running and fighting. Once Belhifet reached injured status and started spamming improved invisibility I thought Biff was going to need a critical, but realised I'd forgotten to make use of a potion of power originally - so Biff could still hit with a 17. There was thus a bit more running around until Belhifet became badly injured and started gating in supporters. Biff used invisibility to break off and added fire fire shield (blue) to overcome Belhifet's regeneration, while using mirror images and stoneskins to protect himself in close combat. He still made the odd attack, before disappearing again with potions of invisibility. The fire shield was making enough progress that I decided not to bother with Otilukes and I still had plenty of resources when Belhifet was on the point of death. Rather than let him kill himself, Biff disengaged and finished him off using staff attacks.
Biff imported to BG2EE with 672k, so not quite enough to take a level immediately. He had almost got the XP for that when he took on the escaped clone after the mephit portals and came within a whisker of death. He attacked using ghoul touch, not appreciating that was capable of bouncing back on him as a result of spell turning. The clone took him down to 3 HPs, but then appeared to be out of magic missiles and spent nearly 2 rounds casting 2 lots of mirror images before Biff recovered. After punishing the clone for her carelessness, Biff took his 12th level. There were no more problems getting out, though he failed to kill Ulvaryl before she finished her drink and flew away.
After making a few donations on entry to Athkatla, Biff visited the local circus. Next up for a change of management was the Copper Coronet. That gave Biff just enough cash to pay Gaelan Bayle and he did that to get level drain protection. He'd taken mislead at the last level and was able to use that to trivialise a couple of encounters - like the Suna Seni ambush.
However, using that tactic again led to his downfall against the old adversary of Rayic Gethras. I used mislead downstairs to attack him, but misjudged how long that would last (I suspect because it confers improved invisibility I was thinking of that as its duration, but it's actually 3 rounds shorter). Rayic responded with a PW stun, which immediately looked like bad news. Biff was badly handicapped by his HPs being rerolled for BG2EE as 58, rather than the 60 he'd had in SoD - that meant the stun duration was 2d4 rounds, rather than 1d4. Rayic tried a couple of save or die spells first before summoning help so Biff lasted more than 5 rounds, which left open the possibility he would revive - but he didn't.
I started a 50th attempt soon after the loss of the previous run. However, I wasn't giving the game my full attention and paid the price for that when travelling at the wrong time of day early on and dying to a hail of bandit arrows.
Trying once more I managed to get past Sarevok even without being as cautious as in the 49th attempt.
I transferred to SoD with 254k, so just enough to take an immediate level on arrival in the dungeon.
The mage at Boareskyr Bridge once more opened a fire portal. My previous experience of that was that you had very little chance of success thereafter, but once more Biff succeeded.
In 3 of his runs where the portal has opened only 4 lots of fire mephits have spawned in total, whereas those used to be common - so I suspect that there may have been some rebalancing done in the last update in order to avoid death by mephits.
I made it through to Belhifet and once more managed to see him off. One difference this time is that he gated in an Erinyes, which can see through invisible. That not only attacked me directly, but also seemed to be able to show other devils where I was. With most of them gathering round me I didn't risk trying to attack Belhifet towards the end and just let him kill himself on Biff's fire shield.
Experience obviously tells as, without ever feeling quite as in control this run as the last, I've once more got the chance to try my luck in BG2EE. I'll see if I can be a bit more careful this time there and perhaps get far enough to test out some of the higher level melee options - like using the Shapechange spell that seems interesting, but that I've never really got around to using ...
Biff escaped from Jon's dungeons without problems, though his melee was once more not good enough to prevent Ulvaryl from finishing her dirty work and escaping. He achieved his 12th level on exiting.
He got a gentle introduction to Athkatla by sorting out the circus. Still at the Promenade he went in search of Mencar & co - paralysing Brennan as a priority there to prevent him running away. Last time I left myself with a casting handicap in the City by not dealing with the Cowled Wizards. This run I decided to spend the time to sort them out up front. Biff had no chance fighting them himself of course, but used invisibility to summon the wizards in the sight of Amnian Soldiers - who could gradually chew through them, though that took a while and a few escaped after killing guards with fireballs.
Selling the loot gave Biff enough money to pay Gaelan Bayle immediately, rather than wait around to get a bargain price. It was currently night-time, so Biff went directly to knock some sense into Lassal's head. On the way to sort out the Guild Contact, invisibility and mislead allowed him a free hand to attack Suna Seni. The Contact was successfully paralysed - I always like to see him disabled to prevent him drinking potions (even when I can't actually use them). Back outside the inn, Salia was talking to a couple of Shadow Thieves. Killing them provided Biff with a find familiar scroll. After the previous run failed for want of a few HPs, he made immediate use of that this time.
Next up he helped Hendak take control of the Copper Coronet. He was then on the way to the Graveyard in search of some more bonus HPs when he came across Renfeld and again used mislead to quickly deal with his attackers. Renfeld was returned and Prebek & Sanasha paralysed to allow Biff to loot the Harper building. Taking the bird to Xzar got Biff another level and he gained a bonus by successfully paralysing Lucette before she could make her escape.
At the Graveyard the upper tombs were soon cleared with the help of Mislead and Biff's new Tenser's Transformation. Biff descended into the depths to confront Pai'Na and get a further boost to HPs from the pale green ioun stone.
I'd put off doing the slaver ship after the Copper Coronet partly because I had no means of killing the trolls there. However, Biff took polymorph self at his last level and the flind form from that did the job.
With inventory space getting more and more restricted, the next destination was Watcher's Keep to pick up the potion and ammo cases. The flind form also came in handy there to kill the big golems. Biff could beat those unconscious with his fists, but as that damage is not lethal he needed a +3 weapon to finish them off. Beating up the first pair of statues got him to level 14.
Now that trolls posed less of a problem, Biff made his way to the de'Arnise keep. There was one moment of slight concern when I hadn't realised a clay golem had gone through stoneskins and it hit Biff for a 52 HP critical - but a replacement stoneskin went up before it could attack again. TorGal was then duly finished off and reporting back to Nalia took Biff to level 15.
Thus far progress has seemed pretty easy in BG2EE this time - though I've not yet been back to see Rayic Gethras ...
Sorcerer L15, 77 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar, 7 from ioun stone), 368 kills (+309 in BGEE / SoD)
In the Temple sewers, Biff used mislead to kill the rakshasa for its cloak. He buffed up for a fight with Mekrath, but the mage was paralysed by his initial strike. Biff made a first use of PfMW to avoid any concern when attacking a group of umber hulks in that area. In preparing for that fight I noted that his changes in shape had resulted in all his equipment no longer providing bonuses. Re-equipping them solves that, but can be dangerous in the meantime - and re-equipping (or at least de-equipping) is easier said than done with the Claw.
A PfU scroll was used to kill the Shade Lich, Elemental Lich and City Gates Lich. I wasn't sure if I would be able to kill Kangaxx, but just in case splashed out some of the 107k earned so far to buy the Staff of Rhynn. Initially, Biff tried attacking Kangaxx using chill touch as I thought it possible that his physical resistance would not apply to that non-lethal damage. Trying it showed that resistance did apply, however, so Biff switched to the Staff of Rhynn. With 2 APR and using Tenser's Transformation he was able to slightly outpace regeneration and 2 oils of speed and 4 Tenser's later the Ring of Gaxx was his. A visit to the temple allowed him to remove the Claw and use Gaxx instead.
While in the area he cleared out a nest of pirates from the local hostelry and then did Mae'Var's tasks. That involved a requirement to take revenge on Rayic Gethras. Protective buffing and level skipping were used while draining Rayic of his true sight spells - allowing Biff to use mislead and come in for the finish. Reporting back to Edwin took Biff to level 16 before Mae'Var was duly deposed from his guild.
Thinking it was about time he improved his reputation, Biff intended to do the skinner quest next. However, Rose had disappeared, which I think means the quest can't be completed - I suspect she went through the unopenable door nearby when Biff was fighting some vampires. Instead, Biff did the fallen paladins and then hunted down Neb. Before handing his head in though I couldn't resist looting his house, even though Biff already had over 130k gold - more cash than he was likely to spend. I didn't use protection from acid, or even mirror images, when opening the acid blob trap although I have seen damages of more than Biff's 78 HPs in the past - and as it happened I've now seen one more .
That was a bit of a shame when Biff seemed to be making pretty easy progress that time in BG2EE. Always easy to find a way to die though of course ...
No pause + no-reload = no chance?
Caesar, dwarf berserker {9} (update 1) Previous run
Rather than continue an existing run, I once again started a new attempt at an old challenge. My rules on pausing for this challenge are:
1) Autopause of any sort not allowed.
2) Pausing using the space bar / clockwork button is not allowed at any time (game ending offence).
3) Pausing to look at inventory / record screen / options is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (including outside visual range).
4) Pausing for dialogue is allowed, but only for normal conversation.
5) Pausing for map screen is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (exception: travel can be initiated when running away from enemies, but once map screen is open then travel is required rather than going back to the same area).
As in all my runs, AI is disabled to prevent auto-targeting using that.
In the update for the previous attempt at this challenge I noted that I was finding it significantly easier to avoid pausing than when I first tried this, even though I was then picking it up after a gap of over 2 years. This new attempt is well over 3 years further on, but so far the same seems true - mashing the pause button is a far weaker reflex than when I first started playing no-reload many years ago. That might partly be due to having played quite a bit of MP, where pausing is a relative rarity.
Even if this doesn't seem as difficult as I might have expected, it would still be all too simple to hit the pause button. However, thus far I've managed to resist that temptation, while making decent progress:
- a few tasks around Beregost got me to level 2 (+9 HPs)
- picked up ankheg armor before going to find Shoal and get to level 4 (+23 HPs)
- a series of minor quests pushed up reputation and eventually led to level 5 (+15 HPs) after the death of Caldo &
Krumm
- a potion of clarity was used against sirines at the Lighthouse before rage on the golems in the cave got Caesar to level 6 (+12 HPs)
- bought the potion case after killing more golems at High Hedge. Shot Neera for the gem bag
- I felt under pressure for the first time while following Korax round the basilisk area, as without pause there was a risk that his charm might elapse before all the basilisks were dealt with. However, all went well and Caesar got to level 7 (+10 HPs) with the death of Mutamin. After pulling Baerin away and killing him, Caesar nearly got into trouble when sighting Peter next. He intended to use rage to combat rigid thinking, but was too slow to activate that - but fortunately he'd got just out of sight in time and could wait out the effect safely and duly finished off Kirian's crew.
Up to this point Caesar had been handicapped by using non-proficient magical weapons (he'd bought 3 long swords in Candlekeep, but they all broke there as well). With proficient swords from Lindin and Kirian though he was happy to take on Meilum and then Greywolf to get an upgraded version.
A few more tasks included chewing through the ankheg nest before Caesar headed for Durlag's Tower. The battle horrors there were no problem and killing various ghasts under rage meant Caesar could get his 8th and final level (+15 HPs) by helping out Kirinhale. Before leaving he also used a PfP scroll to kill the basilisks on the roof.
Berserker L8, 99 HPs, 159 kills
Edit / Epilogue
I made a mistake by starting to play again when I was already nodding off a bit. There were no problems in the Nashkel Mine, but outside I tried attacking the amazons and was too slow when trying to activate rage and Caesar fell under the influence of rigid thinking. While that was active the clerics did not try and use further spells, but Caesar spent nearly all the spell duration trying to run rather than attacking. There was a brief window available when Caesar recovered his senses and I should really have had a shortcut key available to cast rage for that type of situation, but I didn't - and I was still a bit too dozy to beat the incoming hold person spells (though probably I would have had more of a chance if I hadn't also reflexively been trying to take a screenshot ...)
Legacy Issues {3} - unmodded LoB party run (update 1) Previous run
Looking through old notes I saw I did a couple of attempts at a LoB run with a custom made party about 6 years ago. I have no memory of that, but found I still had the starting save and thought I would give it a go.
With levels being rather harder to come by in party LoB runs it would have made sense to seek out particularly worthwhile targets early on. However, I started off by attempting to get plate mail from the Flaming Fist south of Beregost. Two of those were blinded, but the third had to be run around and it took many hundreds of missiles to kill him (it would probably have actually been cheaper to just buy the armor). To avoid hard work of that extent, the next target was Algernon to get his cloak. There was also a quick trip to the FAI to get the Ring of Wizardry for Endowment, giving him more blindness spells. In addition to most targets then staying still, blindness reduces AC - potentially making them easier to hit, though many LoB enemies will still require criticals from a low level party.
The next target was in the Lake area and worth rather more. The gnolls did a certain amount of damage to Drizzt and a charmed Zekar then ran him around for a fair while before eventually dying when Drizzt still had 121 HPs. Will used an oil of speed to kite him then while the others kept shooting and luck was with the party when Drizzt's intended dispel magic was interrupted. It was a somewhat ticklish business to keep close enough to Drizzt to avoid him switching attacks to the others and the oil of speed also ran out with Drizzt down to a dozen HPs or so. However, Will managed to keep away from him long enough for the job to be completed. Drizzt's armor is useful for Bequest as it allows thieving skills to be used, while Will will need to make use of his scimitar to boost AC if he ever hopes to go in for tanking most enemies. Two of the party had the XP to level up after that, but my standard party rules mean they have to wait until everyone can take a level at the same time.
After blinding and killing Zekar's companions, the party moved down to Nashkel. I'd forgotten to review their reputation though and the Amnian soldiers attacked them on arrival and they had to hurry on to the Carnival to escape them. They then spent a while charming the soldiers so they would kill each other - with Rasaad finishing off the last of them. At the Lighthouse area they helped Ardrouine and then Will tried seven or eight times to charm one of the sirines (using rage to protect himself against charm), until he finally got a success. That sirine was then pulled away and Endowment tried to blind it - but it saved 4 times. I then tried to wear it down against a worg, but that got a critical with its final attack and killed it - so a lot of time invested there with the aim of getting its XP was wasted. Undeterred, Will tried again and charmed the next sirine at the first attempt. That saved against 3 blindness spells, but then failed and was shot down. The final sirine of that group was out of charms and poison arrows by this time and was also shot down. That was still not enough for Endowment to get a level. However, once one of Sil's companions was charmed, it acted as a tank (despite being feeble-minded) and gave Endowment the opportunity to blind the other companion. The party tried to shoot the charmed one once it was near death, but Sil still continued attacking and got the kill. She was out of sight while the party shot the other one down though, allowing everyone to level up. With much higher HPs, Will was then far more confident about exposing himself to Sil's poison arrows and she was quickly blinded in any case.
After a few more minor encounters the party spent a little while dragging sirines out of Beregost temple to be blinded and shot down. Next, they headed for the basilisk area. They dragged Korax down to the south before recruiting him and he made pretty short work of the basilisks there - allowing everyone to take another level. The party's high level of damage allowed them plenty of time to go up and kill Mutamin and his pets, despite having to deal with some gnolls and gibberlings on the way. Kirian's mob were then all charmed, led away and blinded for easy disposal.
Progress continued, albeit slowly, as Legacy sought out new victims. Blindness was still comfortably the most used tactic, but they got a few easy victims with hold person. Will was increasingly tanking and beating up Bjornin's half-ogres gained him a magic shield to boost his defences a bit more. Those were put to the test in the ankheg nest and the party had to make a number of trips back and forth there to heal from critical hits, but were never in danger. Helping Farmer Brun with a cashflow problem got everyone another level.
After clearing the rest of the ankheg area they bought some magical ammunition and went to kill the golems at High Hedge. The improved AC and HPs in LoB made that a relatively expensive exercise, but they had a decent amount of cash available by now.
At Durlag's Tower, they tried blinding and meleeing a battle horror. However, even when blinded none of Lagacy's party could hit the battle horror without a critical and I didn't continue with that tactic after killing the first one (with the help of a rest in the area). Instead the party did the main encounters in the Cloud Peaks. They came across a few winter wolves while doing that and gratefully accepted the free XP from them (using Gorion's belt to give immunity to cold damage).
A few more areas cleared included the Valley of the Tombs where the amazons were blinded and shot down. The first death of the run occurred soon after that though when I went in search of the Revenant. A couple of ankhegs appeared near his tomb, but I dealt with those easily enough. There were then 4 skeleton archers just outside the tomb which took a little while to sort out and I was heading for a rest when a new pair of ankhegs appeared on the same encounter spot. That felt a bit much and I didn't have the patience to take full care against them - and Bequest paid the price for that.
After a temple visit, the Revenant was beaten up in his tomb. Narcillicus was separated from his jellies and failed to complete any offensive spells, while the ghasts were pulled outside, blinded and shot down.
The initial aim was to kill the Doomsayer without resting. However, even swapping equipment round to allow the party to tank him one at a time was not sufficient to do that. After Will had healed up he tried tanking again and lasted just long enough for Legacy to be able to finish off the contest with his breath weapon.
They fancied another level before starting the main quest, but there wasn't much left that looked attractive on the map. Therefore they returned to Durlag's Tower and worked through the other battle horror on the path - all dual wielding since they needed criticals anyway. This time they were just able to kill it without resting. After clearing the walls, they dealt with all the ghasts in the upper tower using blindness and/or rage. Legacy made a first use of invisibility there when Will was paralysed after rage ran out though the ghast died a moment later anyway so the invisibility was not crucial.
Riggilo and Kirinhale added some more XP, but they were still some way short of a level - so went to buy the PfP scroll at the Carnival. That sorted out the basilisks on the roof and the party duly levelled up.
We moved straight through the Cloakwood Mine on the way to find Davaeorn. A bit of fancy footwork from Ash allowed him to see a battle horror there, that could not see him in turn. After it was blinded, fireballs followed to kill it. The other battle horror was then pulled back to us for disposal. A nymph sent in ahead of us persuaded Davaeorn to bounce around a bit before being stopped in his tracks.
Arriving in the City we were mindful that 2 runs recently have ended at the hands of the mages living above Sorcerous Sundries. This time Ash was careful to throw in a web and then fireballs from out of their sight. An early encounter that was more troublesome was persuading Jardak to give Russell his Helm of Glory - he was eventually cut down, but Russell drank a number of healing potions in the process. The Mountain Maulers was generally an easier fight, with a couple of nymphs doing a good job of holding the opposition. Wolfie missed out on most of the action though, thanks to running around in terror.
During the poison quest, Wolfie annoyed Jalantha by casting insects on her. Ash then threw a web into the action. That could have been portrayed as a sneaky way to make use of Spider's Bane - though Russell had his bow equipped initially, he saved and quickly swapped to the sword - but Ash admitted he'd selected the wrong spell. Web was though intentional in the next encounter to frustrate Vay-ya after the death of her companion. Lothander was blocked in by nymphs, who had carefully prepared cause wounds spells - but didn't get the chance to use them thanks to Wolfie finding a critical hit. Larze was targeted with stunning darts by Ash and Wolfie. They had 10 of those each and for a while it looked like Larze would shrug them all off, but eventually he froze in place. Marek's initial spell was interrupted and he didn't get the chance to try another.
With most of the intended work done in the City, a review of inventory showed there were still a few outstanding errands elsewhere - like reviving Melicamp with the help of a skull that had been rattling around in Wolfie's backpack for most of the game to date. The major task undone though was at Durlag's Tower. His companions had been reminding Wolfie regularly not to forget the wisdom tome there. In fact the number of reminders suggested they did not have full confidence in his memory. A passing thought crossed his mind as to whether this indicated that he had forgotten this type of thing in the past - but he couldn't remember doing so . In any case blindness incapacitated battle horrors and made finishing them off easy enough. Riggilo was also blinded, while PfP made the basilisks on the roof a simple source of XP.
Aldain, Human Necromancer, Update 2
Previous update found here
So, Cloakwood was next on the agenda, though we'll take several detours first: Having neither Mirror Image nor Invisibility, we will shore up Aldain's defenses with Stoneskin, meaning Ice Island. We do the Cloakwood preparations first, however, as I'd forget it otherwise: Potions of Freedom and Magic Blocking from Thalantyr, as well as the Sandthief's Ring from Ulgoth's Beard (recall we've got no natural access to Invisibility, since Imoen is a pure Thief this run). For some reason we talked Seniyaad down before heading for Ice Island (basically clearing the first Cloakwood Forest), but eh.
For some other reason, I decided to try and spell-tank with Kagain rather than use a scroll of PfM.
Huh. It actually worked, though a bit of luck was involved. Kagain doesn't really have the saves nor the HP at this point to pull it off, but he successfully lead the initial trio of mages around a bit in the dungeon, and eventually came out on top. Bit of a close shave, though: He was down to ~20ish HP at one point. I'd definitely just splurge on a PfM scroll if doing it again.
So, the dumb-assery doesn't stop here. We take on Garan with nothing but Protection from Fear running: After absorbing several fireballs with our faces, we triumph.
Yeah, we're not really at the levels where we can just brute-force L9+ mages. Cuchol on the other hand drops easily enough, only managing to stun Kagain with a wand. Tellan is a nuisance as always, but here we take the safe route and just chop him down using Skeleton Warriors. Finally, Dezkiel yields the Stoneskin scroll. Phew. Upon our return to the Coast, we buy some nice L4 scrolls from Ulgoth's Beard, and do a scribing session under Potions of Genius: Aldain now has the most barebones of physical defenses, at least.
There's not many areas left, but we haven't dealt with the Red Wizards yet. Denak is the real threat here, and we spend no small amount of effort tearing down his protections: In the end, he drops within a few rounds, at which point it's just cleanup (painful cleanup, but we're no longer in any real danger of loosing).
In the hunt for things we've not yet done, we swing by Firewine Bridge. Imoen gulps a few potions and swipes Bentan's PfM scroll, Meilum is as hopeless as ever, and we slowly grind our way through the dungeon. We may return for Kahrk last thing we do in BGEE, but leave him alone for now. Again, there is only one real threat down here, Lendarn. He's actually not connected to his Ogrillon bodyguard nor the Ogre Mage, so we successfully separate them, and on his own, Lendarn simply can't handle Skeleton Warriors.
We swing by Gullykin, availing ourselves of minor loot. A few potions and a Dire Charm lets Imoen swipe Dushai's ring (Dushai somehow turned hostile after I tried using Charm Person to move her out of other villager's sight...): Fortunately, the entire village didn't go red in the process.
OK, that's about it. Cloakwood ho! Kagain and Khalid, both under Freedom of Action, are sufficient to deal with Centeol's lair, with a little incendiary assistance from Aldain.
Clearing the Shadow Druids is uneventful, though as is customary, we leave the Archdruid alone for now. Jaheira could in theory use the club, but she has a Quarterstaff +3 already. Drasus awaits.
We proceed as always: Skeleton Warriors x3 and a Nymph. Unfortunately, our Nymph (along with Branwen) gets Confused early on and ends up not doing much beyond Holding Genthore. With Skeleton Warriors distracting the enemy mages, we're able to clobber Drasus and Genthore fairly quickly, though.
But the mages really do not want to go down. We manage to grind Rezdan down after he finishes summoning a small army:
We can't just ignore the massive wall of summons bearing down on us, so have to split our focus a bit, meaning Kysus basically has free rein to dispense damaging spells as we work to dispel/punch through his multiple layers of defenses. After a fairly intense fight, we manage to take Kysus down.
Jeez. Doing that fight straight up (no charming, no bombing from out of sight etc.) is taxing. But still, everyone survived. We descend into the mines, intent on confronting Hareishan. I'm not sure how this situation came about: I followed my standard playbook of charming the Cook (she basically always dies in the fight no matter what, and this way you don't lose reputation by accidentally frying her) and having her killed by the guards. This time, however, the guards went on the hunt afterwards, found us, and dragged Hareishan into the fight.
They do love their Enchantment spells, these mages. Fortunately the Chaos only tags Branwen. We're able to deal with Hareishan using Kagain to tank while under significant ranged pressure owing to the plethora of guards: Though initially scary, a L9-10 caster drops drastically in power once they've burned their L5 and L4 slots. Unless they memorized Lightning Bolt, of course...
OK, onwards to Natasha. We lure out her attendant Hobgoblin Elites (send in someone stealthed, and they'll start wandering: They're not connected to Natasha and she won't respond to their calls for help), then blunt Natasha's edge with some summons. She's freakin' scary regardless, but we muddle through.
The Ogre Mage on this level is a joke; Command works fine on him. At this stage we retreat and rest, then go after Davaeorn. The SCS timer for his reinforcements starts the moment anyone enters his field of view, so we send stealthed Imoen in. The Battle Horrors move to engage, but seem to still not be connected to Davaeorn. After swiftly dismantling the Horrors, the entire party turns towards the entrance. Five waves later, no more guards are coming.
On his own, Davaeorn can't compete. We stash the party in the little sideroom (which I guess is the now deceased guard's bedroom?), and start sending summons in. Davaeorn gleefully wastes his entire spellbook, and then suffers an inglorious end at the hands of an Orc Archer. Heh.
Easy as pie. Baldur's Gate is now available. We buy everything we want from outside the city (including a Robe of the Good Archmagi for Aldain), and enter the city. The mages above the Sorcerous Sundries kill each other a little bit, but can't do much against us.
There are oodles of sidequests here, and we do them all, so I'll just give the highlights. Desreta and Vay-ya go very smoothly: Seems Desreta isn't connected to Vay-ya, so we just lead the former deeper into the ship before tackling her. Vay-ya on her own isn't that threatening.
We of course pick up the Tomes here (dexterity and wisdom), both for Aldain. Lothander is boxed in, yielding a set of boots for Khalid (Kagain is wearing Drasus' set). We're now confident enough to just punch our way through Marek's meager defenses.
Around here we run into a spot of trouble, with Reputation reaching 18. Easily fixed: Get caught stealing in Beregost and try to bribe the Flaming Fist. We end up having to do this four times, but Kagain is worth the effort.
Sunin is a real pain, but as long as you spread out initially (I've never seen him go for anything but Remove Magic as his first spell), you'll keep the edge by preserving your buffs.
The Mountain Maulers could probably do with a few more levels: They almost never manage to do anything.
Ramazith is undone by undead. Perfectly acceptable.
And that's everything, barring the Iron Throne (as I said, just the highlights). OK, so how to do this? Usually I have the entire party sneak invisibly into the backroom and attack from there: This is still an option since we can just use Potions of Invisibility. However, this "tactic" always seems to lead to a Benny Hill-esque battle where nothing goes to plan, so let's fight smarter, not harder.
We ascend the Iron Throne, careful not to pick any fights, since I don't want red-circled innocent Merchants following us up the tower. Imoen stealths and heads upstairs, followed by Branwen under Sanctuary: Branwen puts up a single Skeleton Warrior and a few animal summons, then baits out the first stealthed rogue using an animal. Great success: We repeat for the second rogue, albeit taking a bit more damage this time around. These two should really not start hostile, or at the very least turn everyone else hostile too when they spot the party.
Alright. Branwen's animals are sent north, Branwen herself has a brief chat with Cloudwulfe, and the game is afoot. The animals last all of 3 seconds, which is just enough time for Branwen to retreat into the southern room. The entire enemy party comes pouring south, spot the Skeleton Warrior, and bash it. But where is Branwen? Why, invisible, of course; needless to say, she also has the Cloak of Non-Detection equipped.
And that spells the end of the Iron Throne party. Their only real advantage is their initial deployment where they can freely target our entire party while dipping in and out behind pillars: Now robbed of that, they're not overly threatening. Our own party languidly ascends the final staircase, buffs and summons, then rapidly dismantles the enemy.
Baldur's Gate city, cleared. We return to the Elfsong Tavern, identify some items, and rest.
Our journey through BGEE is nearing its end: We will do some TotSC content (recall we did not progress past the Warder level of Durlag's Tower, nor have we voyaged to Balduran's Isle yet), and of course finish the main game, but there should be no issues to speak of... beyond finding the time to play.
@aldain Congrats on doing Ice Island relatively early on without a PfM scroll - seems very risky, but access to stoneskin will hopefully keep your Bhaalspawn safe from here on through the remainder of BG1.
Introducing Cria the Bounty Hunter, a critical path only challenge
Hey, I'm back with another run. I've decided to give the critical path only challenge another go - my previous attempt (with a shapeshifter bhaalspawn) ended with the Sarevok battle at the end of BG1.
The idea of the challenge is to only follow the main quest. You don't have to take additional shortcuts (the main quest tells you to FAI before going to Nashkel, and you can do so, despite that not being actually required to complete the critical path - same is true for the Iron Throne HQ party battle, the additional quests from Scar or the additional evidence against Sarevok), and you're allowed to visit merchants and inns, though gold is very scarce. Merchants that require you to go out of your way to access them are off limits (High Hedge and the Beregost temple are fine, so is Ulgoth's Beard (you unlock it once you get to the big city), but no Gullykin or Durlag's Tower merchants - also no need to visit the merchant where you first meet Marek&Lothander, he doesn't have anything special and that would kind of force you into a big additional sidequest).
Sidequests/additional encounters are only allowed if you stumble upon their solution while following the critical path - examples are the Neera encounter (which you can find when going to the Beregost blacksmith), Mirianne's letter/the familiy amulet, Kylee's dagger/Joseph's ring, Joia's ring (when unlocking Peldvale - you can also get the ring of wizardry there), Perdue's sword (when visiting High Hedge), Fergus' ring, ankheg armor (if you happen to encounter ankhegs upon your way to the big city) and that should be pretty much it. Also, you're allowed to explore dungeons that the main questline sends you towards (such as the iron mines or the candlekeep crypts). If I make it past Sarevok, I'm skipping SoD, and we're playing on unmodded core rules.
To increase my chances of a success I've decided to go with a custom party this time, one that's supposed to still be strong without very high levels or too much great equipment.
Cria, neutral good halfling bounty hunter, 17/19/18/12/2/18, *Shortbow, *Shortsword
Cavria, lawful good human cavalier, 18,06/18/18/9/13/17, **Long Sword, **Axe
Iridias, lawful good human inquisitor, 18,28/18/18/11/13/16, **Two-Handed Sword, **Longbow
Fara, lawful good dwarven fighter/cleric, 18,91/17/19/11/18/1, **Flail/Morning Star, **Sling
Talis, true neutral half-elven totemic druid, 8/18/18/11/18/15, *Quarterstaff, *Sling
Shirin, true neutral elven sorcerer, 18/19/17/18/3/10, *Sling - starting with Sleep and Shield
The idea behind the two paladins is to get some innate immunities and abilities that would be hard to get otherwise due to the lack of available items. The sorcerer allows access to all spells without having to find rare spellscrolls (and allows us to make more money because we can sell most scrolls), the totemic druid is great with low levels, especially in SoA; The fighter/cleric being a multiclass may seem strange, but I don't really need any high level cleric spells, so additional fighting power seems more valuable. Profiencies are kind of arranged around the limited availability of weapons (Iridias won't be able to find any magical two-handed swords in BG1, though, and needs to stick to bows for the most part until SoA).
Okay, here we go: We spend our gold at the Candlekeep inn (though it's not enough to get everyone armor) and talk to Gorion, get Imoen's equipment and move along the road (which allows us to get the diamond) to FAI - Tarnesh is commanded by Fara and shot down with our ranged weapons; We talk to Jaheira and Khalid, take their stuff and move south to Beregost. The Neera encounter is dealt with via sleep:
We buy a sling +1 from the blacksmith and move further south, obtain Mirianne's letter and the family amulet (as both are directly on the road) before moving to Nashkel - We take down Neira as we prepare to rest. Time for the mines. Cavria, who has a large shield, tries to take kobold fire while Iridias shoots down the enemies at the bridge, as Cria has to disarm traps and can't afford to get hit (two hits would be game over). For the two big kobold groups at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth level we use Shirin's sleep spells (Shirin also has armor from a scroll going).
Mulahey spawns in his kobolds and skeletons, and while we can sleep the kobolds, the skeletons are a problem - as the fighters and our spirit snake concentrate on Mulahey, Cria suffers a hit, being saved by level 1 protection, but now at 1 HP. Talis gets hit as well. Cria tries to evade the skeletons as much as possible in the very cramped space - they do get some attacks in, despite her best attempts, but they all fail - the fighers take down Mulahey in time to save the bhaalspawn:
This was already super close and the run could've ended with another unlucky roll here pretty much right away. My positioning was awful, though. Our first level up is obtained (only for Cria, though).
Well, we kill Nimbul (true sight helps greatly against mirror images) and move back to Beregost to meet Tranzig. A scary bandit encounter happens on the road, but we survive without any deaths:
As Marl force-talks to us we allow ourselves to calm him down. Tranzig dies to spirit snake poison, and we move to Peldvale (we get the ring of wizardry as we have to move east to unlock the area), where we convince Raiken to take us in. We only do the main tent battle at the bandit camp. Everyone except Cria is still at level 1. We do have a glitterdust scroll, which happens to affect Hakt - super helpful:
We're able to take down the enemy mage without him being able to finish another spell thanks to true sight and command down the gnoll:
Cleanup is fairly easy after that, glitterdust blindness lasts long enough so Hakt doesn't start shooting at us. We get some nice experience but also some great items (the bow + gloves will turn Iridias into a powerful ranged damge dealer). Because I don't know how/when the bandit camp turns hostile if you infiltrate it, I leave right away without taking anything from the outside or from other tents.
We now have a little gold and visit High Hedge (allowing us to deliver Perdue's sword and kill Karlat), where we buy the potion bag, a PfM scroll (for Davaeorn) and 3 potions of explosion. Most cloakwood areas are quite skippable, our only significant encounter is against the ettercaps in the spider area since we need to exit the area to the north - having a poison-immune cavalier is helpful. Also, ettercaps grant us a lot of experience points, and everyone gets to level up (Cria is maxing out detect traps first, for the Davaeorn encounter). Drasus is our next big challenge - we lure the two fighters towards us first and are able to command and kill them, though it takes two attempts for the other guy:
Level 3 for Talis! We use that to summon a spirit snake, and with that and true sight, we're able to carefully take down both wizards from a safe distance:
The iron mines await. Hareishan is the first big challenge, and the reason we got those potions of explosion - we throw two of them into the packed room, the mage survives (barely) and we're able to shoot her down before she's able to cast her lightning bolt:
We summon the spirit snake and activate true sight in the next level (sleep takes care of most regular guards) to take down Natasha:
The ogre mage does get to cast his confusion spell before we're able to command and kill it, but since we made sure to stay far away, only Cavria is affected:
Now for Davaeorn - his guard is taken down by casting hold person from a scroll, and Cria disarms every trap. Iridas activate the PfM scroll and goes after the wizard. However, while Davaeorn can only hurt him with his staff, he gets a few hits in and Iridias' non-magical two-handed sword shatters thanks to the iron crisis. Iridias has to resort to magical arrows to eventually win the battle:
We gained a good amount of experience, leading to levels 3 or 4 among the party. On the way to the big city, we encounter two ankhegs, allowing us to obtain some decent armor, and we are now ready to help out Scar.
Cria the Bounty Hunter, a critical path only challenge, Update 1
Access to Sorcerous Sundries means that we get some powerful wands: 2 wands of the heavens, and one each of fire, frost, paralyzation and monster summoning. We wait to spend further gold until we're done with Scar's quests.
Clearing out the Seven Suns is easy enough - the ogre mage in the sewers is a bit more tricky, and our spirit lion barely survives for long enough to shoot down this foe before we are in danger of getting swarmed by carrion crawlers:
With the money gained, I invest in the +1 axe and +2 flail from Sorcerous Sundries, a PfU scroll for later, 3 each of greater malison + chaos scrolls, and from the Beregost blacksmith a shortbow +1, shadow master armor and the full plate.
At the Iron Throne HQ, we don't want to take any risks, so we carefully lure our opponents down the stairs and spam the wand of paralyzation at them:
Most of them come one by one, we only get one duo of enemies through this approach. In Candlekeep, we move on the the crypts right away and grab the two tomes (we also have the dexterity tome as we're allowed to visit Black Lily; that's it for tomes though). The Candlekeep party turns out to be a real challenge: As I approach them with the intention of using the malison + chaos combo, they pretty much instantly kill our spirit lion and one of them hits Cavria with darts of stunning:
The exposed cavalier dies quickly as we try to finish our chaos spell and spam wands to deal damage and interrupt enemies:
Chaos affects every foe, which eventually grants us victory - at great cost:
We use the green PfP scroll to clear out the basilisks and leave the crypt:
At least this grants us a lot of experiences and we get level ups pretty much all around (Cavria's is a bit delayed, obviously). We travel to the Beregost temple to raise our fallen ally before moving back to the big city.
Here, we carefully move around to the Flaming Fist HQ, use the ring of freedom against hold person attempts and the silence spell to prevent further spellcasting. After rescuing the sick duke, we go back to the Iron Throne. As the two ogres attack us, we make the mistake of casting a web spell to close to our party - multiple party members get affected, but the ogres don't (Shirin has picked up identify, magic missle, web and invisibility as her spell choices):
This is a highly dangerous situation, but we're able to escape it by using the wand of paralyzation and the command spell:
Sarevok's girlfriend is simply silenced via the cleric spell. We use some spirit animals and a wand of monster summoning charge plus true sight to deal with the assassins:
Time to enter the ducal palace. We upgrade our buffs with a haste scroll. With spirit animals and wand of monster summoning, we also use greater malison + chaos to our advantage - the battle is a bit close, as Liia dies and Belt does get slightly injured before our chaos hits:
Now, we can spend our remaining cash. Pretty much all of it on potions and some magical ammunition, as those things are more valuable for the few remaining battles than individual items. This includes more oils of speed, cloud giant strength/heroism/invulnerability, more potions of explosion and, most importantly, magis shielding/magic blocking to potentially counter Semaj's deadly spells (which ended my previous attempt at this challenge).
Our fighters use some of our giant strength potions to clear the way to the undercity, helped by some wand charges. For the undercity party, we throw down potions of explosion:
Tamoko has a nice piece of armor and a great shield for us, so we take her down as well. Now, time for the big battle. We use our potions and buffs, we have a total of 10 dispelling arrows (couldn't afford any more), which should be enough. Cria is at 32k XP at this point:
I was at 31k in my previous run, so that seems to be in line with what you could expect at this point. Oils of speed are used, Iridias carefully moves forward and pulls Sarevok to us with an arrow of dispelling. Semaj teleports in - this is what we've waited for. True sight, arrows of dispelling. Semaj dies without using one of his dreaded tattoos of power, and his contingencies don't end up triggering, as he's already dead when they would fire up:
I had a potion of clarity, 4 magic shielding and 7 magic blocking ready in case of successfull spells such as chaos, so I felt relatively confident this time around anyway. Now, we only have to kite&kill Sarevok, which is easy enough:
Victory! Now, we get our biggest experience boost yet, as the party is transported to SoA, automatically getting to 89k experience points each (the SoA starting XP).
My rules for SoA, which I thought about for a while, are as follows - As you need to get 15k gold in Chapter 2, there is a clear need to do some sidequests. The most natural path is the stronghold quest for your class as Brus points you in that direction directly. That one (provided you don't accept the stronghold, which would be a bad idea considering how little time you will spend in Amn), should always get you 10500 gold in cash. However, you need 15k, and I don't want to enforce keeping all potential gold from the opening dungeon (one could want to spend some at the promenade in Chapter 1, as you don't know yet that you're going to need a ton of gold soon). Since there are a few stronghold quests where you might not obtain enough sellable gems and the like to get to 15k (such as the druid stronghold, where you might want to use the few extra items you obtain), I will additionally allow one sidequest, that being the first part of the Copper Coronet quests (freeing Hendak - going further is not allowed). This is (aside from the circus tent, which doesn't grant you much in terms of gold) one of the most common and natural first sidequests in the game, and once again Brus will point you towards the Copper Coronet, so it's also pointed out to you by the game - with the gold, gems and scrolls from Lethinan and looting the back rooms, you get pretty much exactly the remaining gold you need to pay Gaelan/Bodhi, plus you gain access to Bernards new merchant inventory, which is quite helpful.
After that, it's just Spellhold, directly using the portal to the Underdark and going through the Ust'Natha main quest line (if you're forced into getting Quile's brain or into killing the slime cultists, you can do that) plus one of the caverns - most likely the kuo-toa caves. There are faster ways out of the Underdark, but I don't think making them required is reasonable), Bodhi (getting the allies is allowed), and the elven city.
Once again visiting merchants is allowed, but you obviously can't to the Trademeet quests to unlock the merchants there (unless you are a druid, maybe). Watcher's Keep for the merchant there is fine (though I'm not making use of that one, at least not early on). You are allowed to bring Renfeld to the harpers if you encounter him, though there shouldn't be many other sidequests similiar to Mirianne's letter where you kind of forcidbly acquire the solution on the road.
Cria the Bounty Hunter, a critical path only challenge, Update 2
The experience boost we get in the opening dungeon gets Shirin access to haste, and, very soon, stoneskin as well. With spirit animals at our side, there's little danger here for us, though Shirin almost dies when a duergar walks backwards in the trapped wand room and triggers a fireball:
We leave the dungeon, buy gem bags/scroll cases and move towards our stronghold quest towards the docks. We can loot the shadow thieves HQ, Mae'var's guild and the Temple of Talos for some extra cash. Rayic Gethras is our first challenge. Shirin has minor sequencer, and while Rayic is protected by stonekins pre-combat, we deal significant damage with fast, hasted attacks and the magic missles to him before his full protections activate. He survives near death, though, and we move downstairs - not needed, because our next move, a wand of the heavens charge (found in the Temple of Talos for the first Mae'var quest) kills the mage:
Two further quick quests, and we are allowed to take down Mae'var. True sight helps us to avoid any backstabs, and we use insect plague during the final fight:
So far, so good. We decline the stronghold in favor of gold and a +3 short sword, now moving on to the other side quest we are allowed, rescuing Hendak. The job is done within a few minutes and we sell our stuff - we have more than enough to pay Gaelan. Additional cash allows us to buy Stonefire +3, Azuredge and The Sleeper +2. Azuredge plus the Amulet of Power on Cavria is used against Lassal, and we meet Suna Seni when travelling to face the guild traitors:
On the way back from the bridge district (where we use spirit lions to help with combat) we encounter Renfeld and turn him over to his friends. Bodhi is next, a fire elemental helps us with the grim warders as Cavria drinks an oil of speed + potion of frost giant strength for some vampire solo killing action (immunity to charim is innate to her kit). However, Tanova is not so easily taken down - I try for a hopeful instant kill, but she makes her saving throw, activates her simulacrum and casts a symbol: stun on the unprotected Cavria despite her running away very quickly. Tanova, despite being far away, follows the Cavalier, which means we must intervene to save her life. By now, Shirin has learned breach as her first 5th level spell, so we breach the original Tanova and try to deal damage. However, we get hit by two chain lightnings, which heavily damage our party
We take one of the Tanovas down, the other one is able to follow up with a lightning bolt spell, which could easily kill some party members depending on how it jumps - in the end, Talis survives on just four hit points:
That was close. We summon forest beings to heal up the party and Carvia recovers from the stun effect. She moves on with her solo mission, we move downstairs (where we call in a second fire elemental) and our cavalier takes down Lassal:
Cria has maxed out "set traps" by now, so Bodhi can't really put up much of a fight:
We check our gold supply after selling everything we don't absolutely need and it turns out we're able to buy two more critical items: A PfU scroll (for the undead group in spellhold, though we won't get a lich spawn with our super low experience levels) and the Robe of Vecna, which will be very helpful for Shirin. We move to Brynnlaw, where we're stationed right now at 446k experience points:
Cria the Bounty Hunter, a critical path only challenge, Update 3
In Brynnlaw, we could kill Perth right away, but the game does tell you to meet Sanik/Golin first. I decide to buy the belt against crushing damage and the scrolls of acid protection and PfU from the nearby temple. After we talk to Golin, Perth is attacked from invisibility 10' radius for a quick victory:
Inside the Asylum, Cria has to kite Bhaal for quite a long time, as her shortbow deals pitiful damage:
We make full use of the power of our summons, and per our rules we are allowed to explore the Asylum, which grants us some decent items and experience - we can actually use stuff like this +3 plate mail that we usually wouldn't even bother looking at:
Some traps at level 2 to quickly take down the mind flayer and beholder encounters at the book:
The undead group is so weak that I needn't have bothered with the PfU scroll, a single fire elemental would've taken care of them:
We quickly take down Dace and move on to the third level:
Here, I make sure to send a weak spirit animal towards Bodhi so Cria doesn't suffer any vampire hits before her slayer transformation:
As we use the monster pictures, our traps help with the ulitharid - we also spread out to avoid multiple stun effects on the party:
Taking down 3 clay golems is a bit rough, but we've gathered some magical blunt weapons by now, and the fire elementals do most of the work. No use for Gesen's or most other forgeable items; I think we can make the Silver Sword eventually, but propably nothing else. Well, we move on to judgement (I decide to skip the gauth encounter on this level) and face Jon after bribing Lonk - a buffed up party rushes up to deal enough damage to get him to retreat right away:
True sight helps against the assassins, and we use the portal to the underdark. We can clear the main level and the kuo-toa caverns (no beholder/illithid levels, no elemental portal sidequest, no Ust'Natha sidequests unless they're forced on us such as Quile's brain and maybe the slime cultists). First things first, there are 3 mind flayers - we only have 3 chaotic command casts available (and that is after getting rid of ironskins and insect plague on our druid), so we have to be very careful and once again make use of bounty hunter traps to help:
Cavrias also has a potion of genius going to survive an additional hit. Now, we summon our fire elementals and spirit animals. The drow groups are significantly weaker compared to my usual runs - I didn't know they scaled with our experience level as well, but they clearly do. However, their equipment is very welcome, and we can make good use of most of it. We also clear out the kuo-toans here for later (they are quite weak to our summons). In the meantime, Shirin gets access to our first 6th level spell, improved haste, which we use, in addition to chaotic commands, traps and our usual buffs to take on the balor:
I also buy a scroll of death spell from the deep gnome merchant, which we hope to use for the Phaere ambush. Next time, I plan to explore the kuo-toa caverns - I will need to do so anyway for the drow main questline later on, so no need to delay that as we're already in the area.
Burke still has the basilisk area and the Nashkel Mines to enter.
I was delighted to find a most suitable portrait for the protagonist of this run. Burke is a dwarven berserker who started off with ** in daggers and ** in dual-wielding. Subsequently all proficiency points will go to improving his skill in using daggers.
In Candlekeep I did my best to adhere to my moral standards. True I am no paladin but I don’t go around deliberately killing the innocent. Thus when I was caught breaking into a chest, I paid the fine when I could quite easily have killed the guard. I had not the slightest qualm about killing those assassins who attacked me.
I was put in a quandary when Imoen turned up after the death of Gorion. I could hardly abandon her in such a dangerous area! I therefore escorted her to Beregost and left her there after supplying her with leather armour and a long sword.
The letter which I had found on Gorion’s body suggested that I head for the Friendly Arms Inn. However those who ambushed us could well have perused it, so I therefore headed in the opposite direction, that is: towards Nashkel.
On the way I calmed down Marl, which wasn’t too difficult with my reasonably high charisma. I was surprised to meet Firebead again and took a tome to him much to his delight.
Mirianne was equally delighted when I delivered good news to her about her husband.
Our journey to Nashkel was interrupted by being attacked by ogrillon and hobgoblins, however my skill in daggers enabled us to prevail.
Upon arrival in Nashkel I was delighted to come across some ankheg shell armour and a pearl.
I had a rather boring chat with Noober before meeting with Oublek. I turned down a reward that he offered me because I had not earned it.
A visit to the Carnival gave me a chance to rest after which I was attacked by the hostile Zordral. My ability to go berserk enabled me to defeat him. Bentha rewarded me for enabling her preservation.
I rested before heading to the south-east where Lena implored me to take Samuel, her lover, to the Friendly Arms Inn for healing. I surmised that if there was anybody lying in wait for me, they would long since have departed, nevertheless I played it safe and didn’t enter the inn after dropping Samuel off.
Joia asked me to recover her ring which I willingly agreed to do.
I killed the hobgoblins that had purloined it, and heading north killed some evil fishermen who had killed Tenya’s mother. I executed justice for her, much to her satisfaction. I also killed a nearby ankheg.
Upon returning to Beregost I tried to help Melicamp but was unsuccessful.
Realising that I had left a trail which others might follow, I headed west where I killed Droth and Shoal. Shoal attacked me first and injured me so badly that I was forced to flee. After resting I returned and this time I prevailed, Shoal ceding the battle to me. Droth then attacked me and I again prevailed and afterwards killed Shoal also.
I then returned the ring of Mad Arcand to him.
To the south I also killed some Sirine.
I then headed back east where I was attacked by Bassilus. He didn’t survive the encounter!
Heading East I helped Charleston Nib before heading north where I killed more Sirine and three flesh golems.
I then helped Brage to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel and going yet further south helped reunite Albert and Rufie.
Vax and Zal then attacked me and died.
After helping a dryad to the west I killed Ingot before heading yet more westward where there was a plethora of loot.
Upon returning to the Nashkel area I killed Greywolf and took some emeralds to Oublek. To the north-east of Nashkel I killed a group of bandits as well as some half-ogres. Bjornin was delighted!
I am currently level 7 with a reputation of 20. In view of how dangerous the enemies are, I believe that perhaps recruiting some allies might be in order. Playing Core Rules. I'm no expert!!
Burke is now trying to decide on companions.
Cria the Bounty Hunter, a critical path only challenge, Update 4
Inside the kuo-toa caverns, I decided to skip the beholder room and used my summons to take care of most foes, with the party mostly assisting from range or by poisoning the remaining monsters:
I thought a bit about whether or not I should tackle the demon knights, but in the end, the rewards seemed worth the risk. I buffed my 3 fighter-types with protection from fire, death ward, chaotic commands and remove fear, which should protect against everything these guys do in the vanilla game - I knew that they also cast remove magic, though, so I didn't feel very safe. With the aid of my remaining summons and some traps, we started the encounter - luckily, it seems like the demon knights are considered to be level 1 spellcasters, so their remove magic did nothing, and we were able to stay safe:
Now, if only my inquisitor would be a blackguard, I could actually use that two-handed sword...
Since we still had some decent buffs going, we also took care of the underdark entrance guards:
Time to enter Ust'Natha - though before we did that, we rested and placed a bunch of traps at the spawning location of the underdark party, which only left the enemy thief alive (dealt with via true sight). We buffed up again to rescue Phaere, spread out the party and used our death spell scroll:
Back in the city, we bought 3 potions of magic shielding and storm giant strength each, and the Firetooth +3 throwing dagger. Not enough cash to afford anything else. Btw, I wrote in an earlier post that I might forge the silver sword, but at this point I realized that that requires sailing with Saemon, so that's not an option. In any case, we rested and killed the beholder for the second drow quest via traps:
I was able to avoid getting spoken to by the aboleth duergar while leaving and returning for the next quest, spared Solaufein and turned in the kuo-toa blood. Since I hadn't triggered either the Quile nor the slime cult quests so far, I decided to avoid them entirely and moved around the city invisibly while obtaining three types of eggs and tricking the matron mother and Phaere. I ran back to Adalon, cleared out the underdark exit with the help of some fire elementals and sadly had to replace the very useful drow equipment with my regular stuff.
Outside, I took a quick trip to the Watcher's Keep vendor where I bought the Firetooth crossbow (for Cria, to be used with kuo-toa bolts) and a potion bag. Of note, we used the limited wish scroll from spellhold with a wisdom potion to obtain a +2 full plate, so the armor situation is looking decent for the fighter-types. Being still extremely short on cash, I had to pick very carefully what to buy in Athkatla - I decided to go with the belt of hill giant strength, helm of charm protection (from the temple of lathander), more scrolls of acid protection and one more PfU, the helm of brilliance and the war blade +4 (I felt like Iridias shouldn't stick with the Flame of the North all the way to the fire giant temple - that might have been the wrong choice, I'm not sure). After recruiting allies for Bodhi and skipping her ambush by leaving the area and returning at daytime, Cavria was buffed with improved haste and equipped Azuredge + AoP in order to hunt down some vampires:
While helping out Drizzt, she added a PfU scroll into the mix for the big vampire group in the central room:
She took down the warden and obtained a new pair of gloves. Downstairs, we buffed up for Bodhi - making sure to get everyone charm immunity - spirit lions have that as well, so we added them into the mix (fire elementals would be too likely to get dominated, and we don't have enough spell slots to protect them with CC). Cavria used the holy water and helm of brilliance sunray to great effect:
Defeating Bodhi was easy from there:
The additional cash from this quest was enough to afford the Defender of Easthaven, a crucial upgrade for our fighter/cleric. I also decided to kill Renal - he's in an area we already have explored, so I didn't feel too bad about it. The only reason I'm doing this is, since we lack the boots of speed from the planar prison, we'd have one character constantly being slower than the remaining party once we get the various boots of speed and grandmaster armor in early ToB (I am allowing access to Lazarus, he's too crucial a merchant and the quest is so short that there's no good reason to block him for this challenge), so this is just for convenience - it's not much extra experience at all, and no other items of note. As we turn in the Lanthorne and enter the elven city, we're at 1.330.151 experience points:
Shirin adds improved invisibility, protection from acid and protection from magical energy to her spellbook, and I'm kind of dreading the upcoming dragon encounter with this very underleveled party (I could give him all my money instead - which isn't a lot - but that still feels very bad, and I kind of want to have at least one dragon battle before potentially facing Draconis later on).
Cria the Bounty Hunter, a critical path only challenge, Update 5
It seems like a lot of the spawns in the elven city are scaled to our level - no adamantite golems here, only iron golems:
Raamilat and his Nabassu started fighting each other, so I just waited until the dangerous mage was dead:
I buffed up for the rakshasa trio in Demin's house:
And now, it was time to face the dragon. I prepared with some safety traps near the entrance, summons and buffs - but while I made sure to keep my spellcasters and Cria herself at a distance, I foolishly ran in with all 3 melee fighters right away - the black dragon unleashed remove magic in melee range, which left me no opportunity to dodge the spell, and all three fighters got dispelled, heavily weakening them. A wing buffet followed, and I re-applied remove fear and some improved haste spells. I was able to keep my spellcasters out of the insect plague radius, but the improved entangle effect hit the fighters and prevented them from running from the dragon, who now started powerful melee attacks. At this point, the dragon would've propably been dead if I still had my buffs, but without them, we were struggeling to actually get any hits in, due to low levels and poor equipment resulting in underwhelming thac0.
While we did our best to damage the fiend and drank as many healing potions as possible, Iridias eventually died:
Fara was the next target. It was a battle for her survival - who would die faster, her or the dragon? We did some extra damage with 2 wand of the heavens charges and a minor magic missle sequencer:
The party, luckily, ended up winning the race - that was a tough one, as expected:
Fara was able to raise Iridias, and we rested before moving towards the temple - the rakshasa group here was much smaller and had some orogs in it compared to my usual runs:
We completed the ritual and picked up a new staff for Talis before returning to Athkatla one last time - with my final bit of cash I bought the Rod of Resurrection, Vhailor's Helm and the Sensate Amulet (propably not worth it, maybe I should've gotten something else). We moved on to the tree, where four traps (now dealing extra fire damage) and some melee hits were enough to take down Jon:
With our buffs still going, we acquired Blackrazor - we can't afford to go for all-good trials here, we will take whatever option is the most convenient, and Cavria can use the blade quite well:
So, Cria dismissed her party so she only had to sacrifice a random peasant without losing any stats, re-recruited them, chose the "good" option during the fear trial as she has zero use for more constitution (but just picked up the tear with remove fear - no reason to fight the beholders), spared the dragon (too much of a risk) and gave into her wrath against Sarevok (while not actually turning into the slayer, which is not needed for the +2 strength).
Our final XP tally at the end of SoA: 1.467.865 - far below the original SoA cap of 2.950.000.
We had already started laying down some traps near the entrance, with the placement intended to help with the balors - they hit the glabrezus instead, only bringing them (and Jon, who got hit by some as well) to near death. The party, assisted by the usual 5 summons and a simulacrum thanks to our new helm, started taking down the demons while using true sight and breach against the slayer:
With Jon breached, he died seconds later - on to ToB.
ToB is the most similiar to a regular run for us, as there isn't as much optional content - we will mostly only miss out on the Kiser & Vongoethe quests in the two cities and, of course, the entirety of Watcher's Keep - the rest are only very minor encounters (especially since I will allow, for vendor access, Lazarus' quest and helping out the smugglers against the monks). First things first, we get catapulted to 2.500.000 XP, the starting experience if you start a game from ToB:
That gets our regular and special snares to their maximum power level, which is nice - also, Shirin gets ADHW, Sequencer, Mordenkainen's Swords and more, and Talis can cast Nature's Beauty now. However, what I didn't expect is that the game apparently treats runs that transfer to ToB from below the regular ToB starting experience like new ToB runs in terms of equipment as well - I found myself with a bunch of new items in my inventory:
Of course, I had no intention of using any of that, as it didn't seem to be in the spirit of the challenge. I didn't notice at first that some of the gear was directly equipped to Cria, so it took me a few battles in Saradush to remove the amulet of magic resistance, the bracers of blinding strike and the ring of regeneration (though I'm confident that they all made zero difference).
Anyway, Ilasera died to traps:
The only thing we can forge at Cespenar's right now is the elven chain, but we don't have the money for that. The first pocket plane challenge is quickly completed, as we only face commoners, elves and paladins due to our low level. After the Saradush ambush, we get the spellbook for Lazarus, buy a ring of fire resistance, some superior healing potions, 2 pairs of boots of speed and 2 +3 slings and a +3 composite longbow (as we have still normal slings and a normal longbow for the respective characters), plus some +4 bullets. Our way to Gromnir is through the prison, where Cavria gets to use Azuredge and PfU again:
We rest downstairs, buff up again and take on the soldiers - Cria gets a backstab in against the mage:
Under invisibility 10' radius, the group before Gromnir is taken down, and we rest again to prepare for the big battle - we now finally have chaotic commands and death wards for everyone, which is very helpful. Once again we enter under invisibility 10' radius, allowing us to take down both wizards right away:
Cria is too close to Gromnir and moves away - we focus our attention on the barbarian and achieve a quick victory:
As we leave the city and take care of some more soldiers, we use Gromnir's helm + Armor of Faith + Defender of Easthaven + a fire protection spell to have Fara tank some fire giant hits:
With the next area unlocked, we sell all the loot we have obtained and forge the Aslyferund Elven Chain for Cria, and we also buy another Rod of Resurrection. Currently, we've just reached the temple. I think that, aside from useful scroll purchases, we actually won't have much money trouble in ToB - there isn't that much to buy and tons of generic magical gear to sell, and without Watcher's Keep, a lot of the gear forging, which is a major gold sink, simply won't be possible.
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Previous updates:
At the Cloakwood Mine, Biff pulled Drasus away from his companions and touched him up. The same happened to Genthore and then the mages were both paralysed in immediate succession - saving Biff from the need to use the retreat prepared in a nearby building.
Inside the mine, beating up a pair of battle horrors and a mustard jelly provided Biff with his 9th level - +5 HPs. That enabled him to use improved invisibility on Davaeorn to make that a simple fight.
Biff ran through the major encounters in the City with no trouble, picking up the 3 tomes available in the process. One significant difference from the previous run is that I took a trip to Ice Island to get the stoneskin scroll available there. After sorting out the Iron Throne Biff reviewed his inventory before leaving for Candlekeep and realised he only had a single belt. A quick trip added the Golden Girdle and Elves' Bane to his collection.
At Candlekeep he looted the tombs and used improved invisibility to deal with Prat's party on the way out.
Bacj in Baldur's Gate, Slythe was paralysed on the way to the palace. After a pretty clean run so far, I thought this might be the end but once more Biff got lucky with 3 of the dopplegangers choosing to attack him. A couple of successful paralysations as well allowed Biff to save both dukes this time.
In the old temple, Sarevok was activated while invisible and left on his own for a while. A PfM scroll prevented Semaj's spells from doing anything and, when Angelo annoyed the others with exploding arrows, Tazok took revenge on him. Once the others were dead Biff buffed up for Sarevok. He tried to just stay in melee combat using mirrors and stoneskins, but couldn't quite manage that safely - losing his last stoneskin when still requiring a single hit to finish Sarevok off (that was done while invisible).
Biff transferred to SoD with 276k XP, allowing him to take his 10th level (+4 HPs) immediately. He had no trouble getting through the opening dungeon, although Korlasz did manage to just survive this time after she surrendered.
Sorcerer L10, 59 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 265 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208492/#Comment_1208492
As usual in SoD, I did pretty much the minimum required content. The first real fighting occurred in the Forest of Wyrms where Ziatar was paralysed by a sneak attack. The Neothelid failed to make any impact on a pair of absorption potions - and Akanna's aerial servants had the same problem. That encounter took Biff to level 11.
At Boareskyr, Biff surrendered the fort before taking on the mage on the bridge. This time Biff missed with his first 3 attacks, allowing the mage to open a fire portal. However, only a single lot of mephits came through and Biff was able to paralyse those before they did much damage to the barrels. The salamanders and various sorts of fire elementals that came through until the portal closed posed no real threat, failing to get through even a single set of stoneskins.
At the Underground River Biff killed the cyclops before going to place the Bwoosh and poison invisibly.
Back at the Coalition Camp, Biff's buffs held up well against the orcs and trolls while the archers shot those down. One change Biff made in his spells this time was to take spell shield rather than shadow door and that was used prior to the encounter with the mages. However, 2 breaches in quick succession still managed to get rid of his buffs before he could recast spell shield. A potion of magic protection gave him a brief defensive boost, but that was soon dispelled as well and Biff retreated for a bit while the wizard slayers cleared up the field. The war mages did most of the work against the third invasion force, with Biff once more mainly just trying to occupy the attackers. A couple more potions of magic protection were used among other buffs for the final conflict - and this time Biff did do much of the killing himself.
At Dragonspear, Ashatiel once more saved against initial attempts to paralyse him and Biff had to spend a while gradually beating down his protections. He got through to the Hellevator without mishap and buffed up for that. With strength 25 from using the violet potion, he made short work of the attacking devils. As previously signalled, Biff allowed Caelar to join him for the fight with Belhifet. Without buffs or directions, she didn't last long before being chunked - but just long enough to see off the original devils spawning with Belhifet.
In the early rounds, Biff could hit with a 17 and used his weapon speed advantage while running and fighting. Once Belhifet reached injured status and started spamming improved invisibility I thought Biff was going to need a critical, but realised I'd forgotten to make use of a potion of power originally - so Biff could still hit with a 17. There was thus a bit more running around until Belhifet became badly injured and started gating in supporters. Biff used invisibility to break off and added fire fire shield (blue) to overcome Belhifet's regeneration, while using mirror images and stoneskins to protect himself in close combat. He still made the odd attack, before disappearing again with potions of invisibility. The fire shield was making enough progress that I decided not to bother with Otilukes and I still had plenty of resources when Belhifet was on the point of death. Rather than let him kill himself, Biff disengaged and finished him off using staff attacks.
Biff imported to BG2EE with 672k, so not quite enough to take a level immediately. He had almost got the XP for that when he took on the escaped clone after the mephit portals and came within a whisker of death. He attacked using ghoul touch, not appreciating that was capable of bouncing back on him as a result of spell turning. The clone took him down to 3 HPs, but then appeared to be out of magic missiles and spent nearly 2 rounds casting 2 lots of mirror images before Biff recovered. After punishing the clone for her carelessness, Biff took his 12th level. There were no more problems getting out, though he failed to kill Ulvaryl before she finished her drink and flew away.
Sorcerer L12, 58 HPs, 89 kills (+346 in BGEE / SoD)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208492/#Comment_1208492
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208494/#Comment_1208494
After making a few donations on entry to Athkatla, Biff visited the local circus. Next up for a change of management was the Copper Coronet. That gave Biff just enough cash to pay Gaelan Bayle and he did that to get level drain protection. He'd taken mislead at the last level and was able to use that to trivialise a couple of encounters - like the Suna Seni ambush.
However, using that tactic again led to his downfall against the old adversary of Rayic Gethras. I used mislead downstairs to attack him, but misjudged how long that would last (I suspect because it confers improved invisibility I was thinking of that as its duration, but it's actually 3 rounds shorter). Rayic responded with a PW stun, which immediately looked like bad news. Biff was badly handicapped by his HPs being rerolled for BG2EE as 58, rather than the 60 he'd had in SoD - that meant the stun duration was 2d4 rounds, rather than 1d4. Rayic tried a couple of save or die spells first before summoning help so Biff lasted more than 5 rounds, which left open the possibility he would revive - but he didn't.
I started a 50th attempt soon after the loss of the previous run. However, I wasn't giving the game my full attention and paid the price for that when travelling at the wrong time of day early on and dying to a hail of bandit arrows.
Trying once more I managed to get past Sarevok even without being as cautious as in the 49th attempt.
The mage at Boareskyr Bridge once more opened a fire portal. My previous experience of that was that you had very little chance of success thereafter, but once more Biff succeeded.
I made it through to Belhifet and once more managed to see him off. One difference this time is that he gated in an Erinyes, which can see through invisible. That not only attacked me directly, but also seemed to be able to show other devils where I was. With most of them gathering round me I didn't risk trying to attack Belhifet towards the end and just let him kill himself on Biff's fire shield.
Experience obviously tells as, without ever feeling quite as in control this run as the last, I've once more got the chance to try my luck in BG2EE. I'll see if I can be a bit more careful this time there and perhaps get far enough to test out some of the higher level melee options - like using the Shapechange spell that seems interesting, but that I've never really got around to using ...
Sorcerer L11, 54 HPs, 0 kills (+309 in BGEE / SoD)
Previous updates:
Biff escaped from Jon's dungeons without problems, though his melee was once more not good enough to prevent Ulvaryl from finishing her dirty work and escaping. He achieved his 12th level on exiting.
He got a gentle introduction to Athkatla by sorting out the circus. Still at the Promenade he went in search of Mencar & co - paralysing Brennan as a priority there to prevent him running away. Last time I left myself with a casting handicap in the City by not dealing with the Cowled Wizards. This run I decided to spend the time to sort them out up front. Biff had no chance fighting them himself of course, but used invisibility to summon the wizards in the sight of Amnian Soldiers - who could gradually chew through them, though that took a while and a few escaped after killing guards with fireballs.
Selling the loot gave Biff enough money to pay Gaelan Bayle immediately, rather than wait around to get a bargain price. It was currently night-time, so Biff went directly to knock some sense into Lassal's head. On the way to sort out the Guild Contact, invisibility and mislead allowed him a free hand to attack Suna Seni. The Contact was successfully paralysed - I always like to see him disabled to prevent him drinking potions (even when I can't actually use them). Back outside the inn, Salia was talking to a couple of Shadow Thieves. Killing them provided Biff with a find familiar scroll. After the previous run failed for want of a few HPs, he made immediate use of that this time.
Next up he helped Hendak take control of the Copper Coronet. He was then on the way to the Graveyard in search of some more bonus HPs when he came across Renfeld and again used mislead to quickly deal with his attackers. Renfeld was returned and Prebek & Sanasha paralysed to allow Biff to loot the Harper building. Taking the bird to Xzar got Biff another level and he gained a bonus by successfully paralysing Lucette before she could make her escape.
At the Graveyard the upper tombs were soon cleared with the help of Mislead and Biff's new Tenser's Transformation. Biff descended into the depths to confront Pai'Na and get a further boost to HPs from the pale green ioun stone.
I'd put off doing the slaver ship after the Copper Coronet partly because I had no means of killing the trolls there. However, Biff took polymorph self at his last level and the flind form from that did the job.
With inventory space getting more and more restricted, the next destination was Watcher's Keep to pick up the potion and ammo cases. The flind form also came in handy there to kill the big golems. Biff could beat those unconscious with his fists, but as that damage is not lethal he needed a +3 weapon to finish them off. Beating up the first pair of statues got him to level 14.
Now that trolls posed less of a problem, Biff made his way to the de'Arnise keep. There was one moment of slight concern when I hadn't realised a clay golem had gone through stoneskins and it hit Biff for a 52 HP critical - but a replacement stoneskin went up before it could attack again. TorGal was then duly finished off and reporting back to Nalia took Biff to level 15.
Thus far progress has seemed pretty easy in BG2EE this time - though I've not yet been back to see Rayic Gethras ...
Sorcerer L15, 77 HPs (incl. 12 from familiar, 7 from ioun stone), 368 kills (+309 in BGEE / SoD)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208547/#Comment_1208547
In the Temple sewers, Biff used mislead to kill the rakshasa for its cloak. He buffed up for a fight with Mekrath, but the mage was paralysed by his initial strike. Biff made a first use of PfMW to avoid any concern when attacking a group of umber hulks in that area. In preparing for that fight I noted that his changes in shape had resulted in all his equipment no longer providing bonuses. Re-equipping them solves that, but can be dangerous in the meantime - and re-equipping (or at least de-equipping) is easier said than done with the Claw.
A PfU scroll was used to kill the Shade Lich, Elemental Lich and City Gates Lich. I wasn't sure if I would be able to kill Kangaxx, but just in case splashed out some of the 107k earned so far to buy the Staff of Rhynn. Initially, Biff tried attacking Kangaxx using chill touch as I thought it possible that his physical resistance would not apply to that non-lethal damage. Trying it showed that resistance did apply, however, so Biff switched to the Staff of Rhynn. With 2 APR and using Tenser's Transformation he was able to slightly outpace regeneration and 2 oils of speed and 4 Tenser's later the Ring of Gaxx was his. A visit to the temple allowed him to remove the Claw and use Gaxx instead.
While in the area he cleared out a nest of pirates from the local hostelry and then did Mae'Var's tasks. That involved a requirement to take revenge on Rayic Gethras. Protective buffing and level skipping were used while draining Rayic of his true sight spells - allowing Biff to use mislead and come in for the finish. Reporting back to Edwin took Biff to level 16 before Mae'Var was duly deposed from his guild.
Thinking it was about time he improved his reputation, Biff intended to do the skinner quest next. However, Rose had disappeared, which I think means the quest can't be completed - I suspect she went through the unopenable door nearby when Biff was fighting some vampires. Instead, Biff did the fallen paladins and then hunted down Neb. Before handing his head in though I couldn't resist looting his house, even though Biff already had over 130k gold - more cash than he was likely to spend. I didn't use protection from acid, or even mirror images, when opening the acid blob trap although I have seen damages of more than Biff's 78 HPs in the past - and as it happened I've now seen one more
That was a bit of a shame when Biff seemed to be making pretty easy progress that time in BG2EE. Always easy to find a way to die though of course ...
Caesar, dwarf berserker {9} (update 1)
Previous run
Rather than continue an existing run, I once again started a new attempt at an old challenge. My rules on pausing for this challenge are:
1) Autopause of any sort not allowed.
2) Pausing using the space bar / clockwork button is not allowed at any time (game ending offence).
3) Pausing to look at inventory / record screen / options is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (including outside visual range).
4) Pausing for dialogue is allowed, but only for normal conversation.
5) Pausing for map screen is allowed outside combat, but not if any enemies are active (exception: travel can be initiated when running away from enemies, but once map screen is open then travel is required rather than going back to the same area).
As in all my runs, AI is disabled to prevent auto-targeting using that.
In the update for the previous attempt at this challenge I noted that I was finding it significantly easier to avoid pausing than when I first tried this, even though I was then picking it up after a gap of over 2 years. This new attempt is well over 3 years further on, but so far the same seems true - mashing the pause button is a far weaker reflex than when I first started playing no-reload many years ago. That might partly be due to having played quite a bit of MP, where pausing is a relative rarity.
Even if this doesn't seem as difficult as I might have expected, it would still be all too simple to hit the pause button. However, thus far I've managed to resist that temptation, while making decent progress:
- a few tasks around Beregost got me to level 2 (+9 HPs)
- I felt under pressure for the first time while following Korax round the basilisk area, as without pause there was a risk that his charm might elapse before all the basilisks were dealt with. However, all went well and Caesar got to level 7 (+10 HPs) with the death of Mutamin. After pulling Baerin away and killing him, Caesar nearly got into trouble when sighting Peter next. He intended to use rage to combat rigid thinking, but was too slow to activate that - but fortunately he'd got just out of sight in time and could wait out the effect safely and duly finished off Kirian's crew.
Up to this point Caesar had been handicapped by using non-proficient magical weapons (he'd bought 3 long swords in Candlekeep, but they all broke there as well). With proficient swords from Lindin and Kirian though he was happy to take on Meilum and then Greywolf to get an upgraded version.
A few more tasks included chewing through the ankheg nest before Caesar headed for Durlag's Tower. The battle horrors there were no problem and killing various ghasts under rage meant Caesar could get his 8th and final level (+15 HPs) by helping out Kirinhale. Before leaving he also used a PfP scroll to kill the basilisks on the roof.
Berserker L8, 99 HPs, 159 kills
Edit / Epilogue
I made a mistake by starting to play again when I was already nodding off a bit. There were no problems in the Nashkel Mine, but outside I tried attacking the amazons and was too slow when trying to activate rage and Caesar fell under the influence of rigid thinking. While that was active the clerics did not try and use further spells, but Caesar spent nearly all the spell duration trying to run rather than attacking. There was a brief window available when Caesar recovered his senses and I should really have had a shortcut key available to cast rage for that type of situation, but I didn't - and I was still a bit too dozy to beat the incoming hold person spells (though probably I would have had more of a chance if I hadn't also reflexively been trying to take a screenshot ...)
When it happens regularly it's pretty clear which of luck or intelligence is to blame
Previous run
Looking through old notes I saw I did a couple of attempts at a LoB run with a custom made party about 6 years ago. I have no memory of that, but found I still had the starting save and thought I would give it a go.
With levels being rather harder to come by in party LoB runs it would have made sense to seek out particularly worthwhile targets early on. However, I started off by attempting to get plate mail from the Flaming Fist south of Beregost. Two of those were blinded, but the third had to be run around and it took many hundreds of missiles to kill him (it would probably have actually been cheaper to just buy the armor). To avoid hard work of that extent, the next target was Algernon to get his cloak. There was also a quick trip to the FAI to get the Ring of Wizardry for Endowment, giving him more blindness spells. In addition to most targets then staying still, blindness reduces AC - potentially making them easier to hit, though many LoB enemies will still require criticals from a low level party.
The next target was in the Lake area and worth rather more. The gnolls did a certain amount of damage to Drizzt and a charmed Zekar then ran him around for a fair while before eventually dying when Drizzt still had 121 HPs. Will used an oil of speed to kite him then while the others kept shooting and luck was with the party when Drizzt's intended dispel magic was interrupted. It was a somewhat ticklish business to keep close enough to Drizzt to avoid him switching attacks to the others and the oil of speed also ran out with Drizzt down to a dozen HPs or so. However, Will managed to keep away from him long enough for the job to be completed. Drizzt's armor is useful for Bequest as it allows thieving skills to be used, while Will will need to make use of his scimitar to boost AC if he ever hopes to go in for tanking most enemies. Two of the party had the XP to level up after that, but my standard party rules mean they have to wait until everyone can take a level at the same time.
After blinding and killing Zekar's companions, the party moved down to Nashkel. I'd forgotten to review their reputation though and the Amnian soldiers attacked them on arrival and they had to hurry on to the Carnival to escape them. They then spent a while charming the soldiers so they would kill each other - with Rasaad finishing off the last of them. At the Lighthouse area they helped Ardrouine and then Will tried seven or eight times to charm one of the sirines (using rage to protect himself against charm), until he finally got a success. That sirine was then pulled away and Endowment tried to blind it - but it saved 4 times. I then tried to wear it down against a worg, but that got a critical with its final attack and killed it - so a lot of time invested there with the aim of getting its XP was wasted. Undeterred, Will tried again and charmed the next sirine at the first attempt. That saved against 3 blindness spells, but then failed and was shot down. The final sirine of that group was out of charms and poison arrows by this time and was also shot down. That was still not enough for Endowment to get a level. However, once one of Sil's companions was charmed, it acted as a tank (despite being feeble-minded) and gave Endowment the opportunity to blind the other companion. The party tried to shoot the charmed one once it was near death, but Sil still continued attacking and got the kill. She was out of sight while the party shot the other one down though, allowing everyone to level up. With much higher HPs, Will was then far more confident about exposing himself to Sil's poison arrows and she was quickly blinded in any case.
After a few more minor encounters the party spent a little while dragging sirines out of Beregost temple to be blinded and shot down. Next, they headed for the basilisk area. They dragged Korax down to the south before recruiting him and he made pretty short work of the basilisks there - allowing everyone to take another level. The party's high level of damage allowed them plenty of time to go up and kill Mutamin and his pets, despite having to deal with some gnolls and gibberlings on the way. Kirian's mob were then all charmed, led away and blinded for easy disposal.
Will, Berserker L4, 52 HPs, 25 kills, 0 deaths
Heritage, Dwarven Defender L4, 55 HPs, 15 kills, 0 deaths
Bequest, Fighter L3 / Thief L3, 32 HPs, 10 kills, 0 deaths
Legacy, Dragon Disciple L3, 20 HPs, 4 kills
Endowment, Fighter L3 / Illusionist L2, 26 HPs, 22 kills, 0 deaths
Testament, Fighter L3 / Cleric L3, 35 HPs, 10 kills, 0 deaths
Details here:
https://tavernrpg.com/threads/icewind-dale.425/page-3#post-8876
Previous updates:
Progress continued, albeit slowly, as Legacy sought out new victims. Blindness was still comfortably the most used tactic, but they got a few easy victims with hold person. Will was increasingly tanking and beating up Bjornin's half-ogres gained him a magic shield to boost his defences a bit more. Those were put to the test in the ankheg nest and the party had to make a number of trips back and forth there to heal from critical hits, but were never in danger. Helping Farmer Brun with a cashflow problem got everyone another level.
After clearing the rest of the ankheg area they bought some magical ammunition and went to kill the golems at High Hedge. The improved AC and HPs in LoB made that a relatively expensive exercise, but they had a decent amount of cash available by now.
At Durlag's Tower, they tried blinding and meleeing a battle horror. However, even when blinded none of Lagacy's party could hit the battle horror without a critical and I didn't continue with that tactic after killing the first one (with the help of a rest in the area). Instead the party did the main encounters in the Cloud Peaks. They came across a few winter wolves while doing that and gratefully accepted the free XP from them (using Gorion's belt to give immunity to cold damage).
A few more areas cleared included the Valley of the Tombs where the amazons were blinded and shot down. The first death of the run occurred soon after that though when I went in search of the Revenant. A couple of ankhegs appeared near his tomb, but I dealt with those easily enough. There were then 4 skeleton archers just outside the tomb which took a little while to sort out and I was heading for a rest when a new pair of ankhegs appeared on the same encounter spot. That felt a bit much and I didn't have the patience to take full care against them - and Bequest paid the price for that.
After a temple visit, the Revenant was beaten up in his tomb. Narcillicus was separated from his jellies and failed to complete any offensive spells, while the ghasts were pulled outside, blinded and shot down.
The initial aim was to kill the Doomsayer without resting. However, even swapping equipment round to allow the party to tank him one at a time was not sufficient to do that. After Will had healed up he tried tanking again and lasted just long enough for Legacy to be able to finish off the contest with his breath weapon.
They fancied another level before starting the main quest, but there wasn't much left that looked attractive on the map. Therefore they returned to Durlag's Tower and worked through the other battle horror on the path - all dual wielding since they needed criticals anyway. This time they were just able to kill it without resting. After clearing the walls, they dealt with all the ghasts in the upper tower using blindness and/or rage. Legacy made a first use of invisibility there when Will was paralysed after rage ran out though the ghast died a moment later anyway so the invisibility was not crucial.
Riggilo and Kirinhale added some more XP, but they were still some way short of a level - so went to buy the PfP scroll at the Carnival. That sorted out the basilisks on the roof and the party duly levelled up.
Next up they'll be heading for the Nashkel Mine.
Will, Berserker L6, 72 HPs, 105 kills, 0 deaths
Heritage, Dwarven Defender L6, 82 HPs, 49 kills, 0 deaths
Bequest, Fighter L5 / Thief L5, 51 HPs, 24 kills, 1 death
Legacy, Dragon Disciple L5, 33 HPs, 16 kills
Endowment, Fighter L5 / Illusionist L4, 45 HPs, 64 kills, 0 deaths
Testament, Fighter L5 / Cleric L5, 56 HPs, 35 kills, 0 deaths
Wolfie - half-elf shapeshifter (Grond0)
Ash - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
Russell XXXVI - human paladin (Corey_Russell)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208471/#Comment_1208471
We moved straight through the Cloakwood Mine on the way to find Davaeorn. A bit of fancy footwork from Ash allowed him to see a battle horror there, that could not see him in turn. After it was blinded, fireballs followed to kill it. The other battle horror was then pulled back to us for disposal. A nymph sent in ahead of us persuaded Davaeorn to bounce around a bit before being stopped in his tracks.
Arriving in the City we were mindful that 2 runs recently have ended at the hands of the mages living above Sorcerous Sundries. This time Ash was careful to throw in a web and then fireballs from out of their sight. An early encounter that was more troublesome was persuading Jardak to give Russell his Helm of Glory - he was eventually cut down, but Russell drank a number of healing potions in the process. The Mountain Maulers was generally an easier fight, with a couple of nymphs doing a good job of holding the opposition. Wolfie missed out on most of the action though, thanks to running around in terror.
During the poison quest, Wolfie annoyed Jalantha by casting insects on her. Ash then threw a web into the action. That could have been portrayed as a sneaky way to make use of Spider's Bane - though Russell had his bow equipped initially, he saved and quickly swapped to the sword - but Ash admitted he'd selected the wrong spell. Web was though intentional in the next encounter to frustrate Vay-ya after the death of her companion. Lothander was blocked in by nymphs, who had carefully prepared cause wounds spells - but didn't get the chance to use them thanks to Wolfie finding a critical hit. Larze was targeted with stunning darts by Ash and Wolfie. They had 10 of those each and for a while it looked like Larze would shrug them all off, but eventually he froze in place. Marek's initial spell was interrupted and he didn't get the chance to try another.
With most of the intended work done in the City, a review of inventory showed there were still a few outstanding errands elsewhere - like reviving Melicamp with the help of a skull that had been rattling around in Wolfie's backpack for most of the game to date. The major task undone though was at Durlag's Tower. His companions had been reminding Wolfie regularly not to forget the wisdom tome there. In fact the number of reminders suggested they did not have full confidence in his memory. A passing thought crossed his mind as to whether this indicated that he had forgotten this type of thing in the past - but he couldn't remember doing so
Shapeshifter 9, 82 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 236 kills
Dragon disciple 8, 52 HPs, 79 kills, 0 deaths
Paladin 7, 82 HPs, 144 kills, 0 deaths
Aldain, Human Necromancer, Update 2
Previous update found here
For some other reason, I decided to try and spell-tank with Kagain rather than use a scroll of PfM.
Huh. It actually worked, though a bit of luck was involved. Kagain doesn't really have the saves nor the HP at this point to pull it off, but he successfully lead the initial trio of mages around a bit in the dungeon, and eventually came out on top. Bit of a close shave, though: He was down to ~20ish HP at one point. I'd definitely just splurge on a PfM scroll if doing it again.
So, the dumb-assery doesn't stop here. We take on Garan with nothing but Protection from Fear running: After absorbing several fireballs with our faces, we triumph.
Yeah, we're not really at the levels where we can just brute-force L9+ mages. Cuchol on the other hand drops easily enough, only managing to stun Kagain with a wand. Tellan is a nuisance as always, but here we take the safe route and just chop him down using Skeleton Warriors. Finally, Dezkiel yields the Stoneskin scroll. Phew. Upon our return to the Coast, we buy some nice L4 scrolls from Ulgoth's Beard, and do a scribing session under Potions of Genius: Aldain now has the most barebones of physical defenses, at least.
There's not many areas left, but we haven't dealt with the Red Wizards yet. Denak is the real threat here, and we spend no small amount of effort tearing down his protections: In the end, he drops within a few rounds, at which point it's just cleanup (painful cleanup, but we're no longer in any real danger of loosing).
In the hunt for things we've not yet done, we swing by Firewine Bridge. Imoen gulps a few potions and swipes Bentan's PfM scroll, Meilum is as hopeless as ever, and we slowly grind our way through the dungeon. We may return for Kahrk last thing we do in BGEE, but leave him alone for now. Again, there is only one real threat down here, Lendarn. He's actually not connected to his Ogrillon bodyguard nor the Ogre Mage, so we successfully separate them, and on his own, Lendarn simply can't handle Skeleton Warriors.
We swing by Gullykin, availing ourselves of minor loot. A few potions and a Dire Charm lets Imoen swipe Dushai's ring (Dushai somehow turned hostile after I tried using Charm Person to move her out of other villager's sight...): Fortunately, the entire village didn't go red in the process.
OK, that's about it. Cloakwood ho! Kagain and Khalid, both under Freedom of Action, are sufficient to deal with Centeol's lair, with a little incendiary assistance from Aldain.
Clearing the Shadow Druids is uneventful, though as is customary, we leave the Archdruid alone for now. Jaheira could in theory use the club, but she has a Quarterstaff +3 already. Drasus awaits.
We proceed as always: Skeleton Warriors x3 and a Nymph. Unfortunately, our Nymph (along with Branwen) gets Confused early on and ends up not doing much beyond Holding Genthore. With Skeleton Warriors distracting the enemy mages, we're able to clobber Drasus and Genthore fairly quickly, though.
But the mages really do not want to go down. We manage to grind Rezdan down after he finishes summoning a small army:
We can't just ignore the massive wall of summons bearing down on us, so have to split our focus a bit, meaning Kysus basically has free rein to dispense damaging spells as we work to dispel/punch through his multiple layers of defenses. After a fairly intense fight, we manage to take Kysus down.
Jeez. Doing that fight straight up (no charming, no bombing from out of sight etc.) is taxing. But still, everyone survived. We descend into the mines, intent on confronting Hareishan. I'm not sure how this situation came about: I followed my standard playbook of charming the Cook (she basically always dies in the fight no matter what, and this way you don't lose reputation by accidentally frying her) and having her killed by the guards. This time, however, the guards went on the hunt afterwards, found us, and dragged Hareishan into the fight.
They do love their Enchantment spells, these mages. Fortunately the Chaos only tags Branwen. We're able to deal with Hareishan using Kagain to tank while under significant ranged pressure owing to the plethora of guards: Though initially scary, a L9-10 caster drops drastically in power once they've burned their L5 and L4 slots. Unless they memorized Lightning Bolt, of course...
OK, onwards to Natasha. We lure out her attendant Hobgoblin Elites (send in someone stealthed, and they'll start wandering: They're not connected to Natasha and she won't respond to their calls for help), then blunt Natasha's edge with some summons. She's freakin' scary regardless, but we muddle through.
The Ogre Mage on this level is a joke; Command works fine on him. At this stage we retreat and rest, then go after Davaeorn. The SCS timer for his reinforcements starts the moment anyone enters his field of view, so we send stealthed Imoen in. The Battle Horrors move to engage, but seem to still not be connected to Davaeorn. After swiftly dismantling the Horrors, the entire party turns towards the entrance. Five waves later, no more guards are coming.
On his own, Davaeorn can't compete. We stash the party in the little sideroom (which I guess is the now deceased guard's bedroom?), and start sending summons in. Davaeorn gleefully wastes his entire spellbook, and then suffers an inglorious end at the hands of an Orc Archer. Heh.
Easy as pie. Baldur's Gate is now available. We buy everything we want from outside the city (including a Robe of the Good Archmagi for Aldain), and enter the city. The mages above the Sorcerous Sundries kill each other a little bit, but can't do much against us.
There are oodles of sidequests here, and we do them all, so I'll just give the highlights. Desreta and Vay-ya go very smoothly: Seems Desreta isn't connected to Vay-ya, so we just lead the former deeper into the ship before tackling her. Vay-ya on her own isn't that threatening.
We of course pick up the Tomes here (dexterity and wisdom), both for Aldain. Lothander is boxed in, yielding a set of boots for Khalid (Kagain is wearing Drasus' set). We're now confident enough to just punch our way through Marek's meager defenses.
Around here we run into a spot of trouble, with Reputation reaching 18. Easily fixed: Get caught stealing in Beregost and try to bribe the Flaming Fist. We end up having to do this four times, but Kagain is worth the effort.
Sunin is a real pain, but as long as you spread out initially (I've never seen him go for anything but Remove Magic as his first spell), you'll keep the edge by preserving your buffs.
The Mountain Maulers could probably do with a few more levels: They almost never manage to do anything.
Ramazith is undone by undead. Perfectly acceptable.
And that's everything, barring the Iron Throne (as I said, just the highlights). OK, so how to do this? Usually I have the entire party sneak invisibly into the backroom and attack from there: This is still an option since we can just use Potions of Invisibility. However, this "tactic" always seems to lead to a Benny Hill-esque battle where nothing goes to plan, so let's fight smarter, not harder.
We ascend the Iron Throne, careful not to pick any fights, since I don't want red-circled innocent Merchants following us up the tower. Imoen stealths and heads upstairs, followed by Branwen under Sanctuary: Branwen puts up a single Skeleton Warrior and a few animal summons, then baits out the first stealthed rogue using an animal. Great success: We repeat for the second rogue, albeit taking a bit more damage this time around. These two should really not start hostile, or at the very least turn everyone else hostile too when they spot the party.
Alright. Branwen's animals are sent north, Branwen herself has a brief chat with Cloudwulfe, and the game is afoot. The animals last all of 3 seconds, which is just enough time for Branwen to retreat into the southern room. The entire enemy party comes pouring south, spot the Skeleton Warrior, and bash it. But where is Branwen? Why, invisible, of course; needless to say, she also has the Cloak of Non-Detection equipped.
And that spells the end of the Iron Throne party. Their only real advantage is their initial deployment where they can freely target our entire party while dipping in and out behind pillars: Now robbed of that, they're not overly threatening. Our own party languidly ascends the final staircase, buffs and summons, then rapidly dismantles the enemy.
Baldur's Gate city, cleared. We return to the Elfsong Tavern, identify some items, and rest.
Our journey through BGEE is nearing its end: We will do some TotSC content (recall we did not progress past the Warder level of Durlag's Tower, nor have we voyaged to Balduran's Isle yet), and of course finish the main game, but there should be no issues to speak of... beyond finding the time to play.
Aldain is now a level 8 Human Necromancer.
Notable Mods: SCS v35.10, Ascension v2.0.28
Difficulty: Legacy of Bhaal
Special: Solo run, v2.6.6.0 update
BG1 part 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1207911/#Comment_1207911
BG1 part 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1207930/#Comment_1207930
SoD: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1207992/#Comment_1207992
BG2 part 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208098/#Comment_1208098
BG2 part 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208225/#Comment_1208225
ToB part 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208256/#Comment_1208256
ToB part 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208292/#Comment_1208292
ToB part 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208412/#Comment_1208412
ToB part 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208673/#Comment_1208673
I really need to post an update too, last weeks were busy.
I actually rolled him as a companion for another character, but with such a good roll thought that he deserves a run all by himself.
Hey, I'm back with another run. I've decided to give the critical path only challenge another go - my previous attempt (with a shapeshifter bhaalspawn) ended with the Sarevok battle at the end of BG1.
The idea of the challenge is to only follow the main quest. You don't have to take additional shortcuts (the main quest tells you to FAI before going to Nashkel, and you can do so, despite that not being actually required to complete the critical path - same is true for the Iron Throne HQ party battle, the additional quests from Scar or the additional evidence against Sarevok), and you're allowed to visit merchants and inns, though gold is very scarce. Merchants that require you to go out of your way to access them are off limits (High Hedge and the Beregost temple are fine, so is Ulgoth's Beard (you unlock it once you get to the big city), but no Gullykin or Durlag's Tower merchants - also no need to visit the merchant where you first meet Marek&Lothander, he doesn't have anything special and that would kind of force you into a big additional sidequest).
Sidequests/additional encounters are only allowed if you stumble upon their solution while following the critical path - examples are the Neera encounter (which you can find when going to the Beregost blacksmith), Mirianne's letter/the familiy amulet, Kylee's dagger/Joseph's ring, Joia's ring (when unlocking Peldvale - you can also get the ring of wizardry there), Perdue's sword (when visiting High Hedge), Fergus' ring, ankheg armor (if you happen to encounter ankhegs upon your way to the big city) and that should be pretty much it. Also, you're allowed to explore dungeons that the main questline sends you towards (such as the iron mines or the candlekeep crypts). If I make it past Sarevok, I'm skipping SoD, and we're playing on unmodded core rules.
To increase my chances of a success I've decided to go with a custom party this time, one that's supposed to still be strong without very high levels or too much great equipment.
Cria, neutral good halfling bounty hunter, 17/19/18/12/2/18, *Shortbow, *Shortsword
Cavria, lawful good human cavalier, 18,06/18/18/9/13/17, **Long Sword, **Axe
Iridias, lawful good human inquisitor, 18,28/18/18/11/13/16, **Two-Handed Sword, **Longbow
Fara, lawful good dwarven fighter/cleric, 18,91/17/19/11/18/1, **Flail/Morning Star, **Sling
Talis, true neutral half-elven totemic druid, 8/18/18/11/18/15, *Quarterstaff, *Sling
Shirin, true neutral elven sorcerer, 18/19/17/18/3/10, *Sling - starting with Sleep and Shield
The idea behind the two paladins is to get some innate immunities and abilities that would be hard to get otherwise due to the lack of available items. The sorcerer allows access to all spells without having to find rare spellscrolls (and allows us to make more money because we can sell most scrolls), the totemic druid is great with low levels, especially in SoA; The fighter/cleric being a multiclass may seem strange, but I don't really need any high level cleric spells, so additional fighting power seems more valuable. Profiencies are kind of arranged around the limited availability of weapons (Iridias won't be able to find any magical two-handed swords in BG1, though, and needs to stick to bows for the most part until SoA).
Okay, here we go: We spend our gold at the Candlekeep inn (though it's not enough to get everyone armor) and talk to Gorion, get Imoen's equipment and move along the road (which allows us to get the diamond) to FAI - Tarnesh is commanded by Fara and shot down with our ranged weapons; We talk to Jaheira and Khalid, take their stuff and move south to Beregost. The Neera encounter is dealt with via sleep:
Mulahey spawns in his kobolds and skeletons, and while we can sleep the kobolds, the skeletons are a problem - as the fighters and our spirit snake concentrate on Mulahey, Cria suffers a hit, being saved by level 1 protection, but now at 1 HP. Talis gets hit as well. Cria tries to evade the skeletons as much as possible in the very cramped space - they do get some attacks in, despite her best attempts, but they all fail - the fighers take down Mulahey in time to save the bhaalspawn:
Well, we kill Nimbul (true sight helps greatly against mirror images) and move back to Beregost to meet Tranzig. A scary bandit encounter happens on the road, but we survive without any deaths:
We now have a little gold and visit High Hedge (allowing us to deliver Perdue's sword and kill Karlat), where we buy the potion bag, a PfM scroll (for Davaeorn) and 3 potions of explosion. Most cloakwood areas are quite skippable, our only significant encounter is against the ettercaps in the spider area since we need to exit the area to the north - having a poison-immune cavalier is helpful. Also, ettercaps grant us a lot of experience points, and everyone gets to level up (Cria is maxing out detect traps first, for the Davaeorn encounter). Drasus is our next big challenge - we lure the two fighters towards us first and are able to command and kill them, though it takes two attempts for the other guy:
Access to Sorcerous Sundries means that we get some powerful wands: 2 wands of the heavens, and one each of fire, frost, paralyzation and monster summoning. We wait to spend further gold until we're done with Scar's quests.
Clearing out the Seven Suns is easy enough - the ogre mage in the sewers is a bit more tricky, and our spirit lion barely survives for long enough to shoot down this foe before we are in danger of getting swarmed by carrion crawlers:
At the Iron Throne HQ, we don't want to take any risks, so we carefully lure our opponents down the stairs and spam the wand of paralyzation at them:
Here, we carefully move around to the Flaming Fist HQ, use the ring of freedom against hold person attempts and the silence spell to prevent further spellcasting. After rescuing the sick duke, we go back to the Iron Throne. As the two ogres attack us, we make the mistake of casting a web spell to close to our party - multiple party members get affected, but the ogres don't (Shirin has picked up identify, magic missle, web and invisibility as her spell choices):
Our fighters use some of our giant strength potions to clear the way to the undercity, helped by some wand charges. For the undercity party, we throw down potions of explosion:
My rules for SoA, which I thought about for a while, are as follows - As you need to get 15k gold in Chapter 2, there is a clear need to do some sidequests. The most natural path is the stronghold quest for your class as Brus points you in that direction directly. That one (provided you don't accept the stronghold, which would be a bad idea considering how little time you will spend in Amn), should always get you 10500 gold in cash. However, you need 15k, and I don't want to enforce keeping all potential gold from the opening dungeon (one could want to spend some at the promenade in Chapter 1, as you don't know yet that you're going to need a ton of gold soon). Since there are a few stronghold quests where you might not obtain enough sellable gems and the like to get to 15k (such as the druid stronghold, where you might want to use the few extra items you obtain), I will additionally allow one sidequest, that being the first part of the Copper Coronet quests (freeing Hendak - going further is not allowed). This is (aside from the circus tent, which doesn't grant you much in terms of gold) one of the most common and natural first sidequests in the game, and once again Brus will point you towards the Copper Coronet, so it's also pointed out to you by the game - with the gold, gems and scrolls from Lethinan and looting the back rooms, you get pretty much exactly the remaining gold you need to pay Gaelan/Bodhi, plus you gain access to Bernards new merchant inventory, which is quite helpful.
After that, it's just Spellhold, directly using the portal to the Underdark and going through the Ust'Natha main quest line (if you're forced into getting Quile's brain or into killing the slime cultists, you can do that) plus one of the caverns - most likely the kuo-toa caves. There are faster ways out of the Underdark, but I don't think making them required is reasonable), Bodhi (getting the allies is allowed), and the elven city.
Once again visiting merchants is allowed, but you obviously can't to the Trademeet quests to unlock the merchants there (unless you are a druid, maybe). Watcher's Keep for the merchant there is fine (though I'm not making use of that one, at least not early on). You are allowed to bring Renfeld to the harpers if you encounter him, though there shouldn't be many other sidequests similiar to Mirianne's letter where you kind of forcidbly acquire the solution on the road.
The experience boost we get in the opening dungeon gets Shirin access to haste, and, very soon, stoneskin as well. With spirit animals at our side, there's little danger here for us, though Shirin almost dies when a duergar walks backwards in the trapped wand room and triggers a fireball:
Shirin's spell choices:
Level 1: Shield, Sleep, Identify, Magic Missle, PfP
Level 2: Web, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Blur, Resist Fear
Level 3: Haste, MMM, Invisibility 10' Radius, Skull Trap
Level 4: Stoneskin, Minor Sequencer, Spirit Armor
Level 5: Breach, Spell Immunity
In Brynnlaw, we could kill Perth right away, but the game does tell you to meet Sanik/Golin first. I decide to buy the belt against crushing damage and the scrolls of acid protection and PfU from the nearby temple. After we talk to Golin, Perth is attacked from invisibility 10' radius for a quick victory:
I was delighted to find a most suitable portrait for the protagonist of this run. Burke is a dwarven berserker who started off with ** in daggers and ** in dual-wielding. Subsequently all proficiency points will go to improving his skill in using daggers.
In Candlekeep I did my best to adhere to my moral standards. True I am no paladin but I don’t go around deliberately killing the innocent. Thus when I was caught breaking into a chest, I paid the fine when I could quite easily have killed the guard. I had not the slightest qualm about killing those assassins who attacked me.
I was put in a quandary when Imoen turned up after the death of Gorion. I could hardly abandon her in such a dangerous area! I therefore escorted her to Beregost and left her there after supplying her with leather armour and a long sword.
The letter which I had found on Gorion’s body suggested that I head for the Friendly Arms Inn. However those who ambushed us could well have perused it, so I therefore headed in the opposite direction, that is: towards Nashkel.
On the way I calmed down Marl, which wasn’t too difficult with my reasonably high charisma. I was surprised to meet Firebead again and took a tome to him much to his delight.
Mirianne was equally delighted when I delivered good news to her about her husband.
Our journey to Nashkel was interrupted by being attacked by ogrillon and hobgoblins, however my skill in daggers enabled us to prevail.
Upon arrival in Nashkel I was delighted to come across some ankheg shell armour and a pearl.
I had a rather boring chat with Noober before meeting with Oublek. I turned down a reward that he offered me because I had not earned it.
A visit to the Carnival gave me a chance to rest after which I was attacked by the hostile Zordral. My ability to go berserk enabled me to defeat him. Bentha rewarded me for enabling her preservation.
I rested before heading to the south-east where Lena implored me to take Samuel, her lover, to the Friendly Arms Inn for healing. I surmised that if there was anybody lying in wait for me, they would long since have departed, nevertheless I played it safe and didn’t enter the inn after dropping Samuel off.
Joia asked me to recover her ring which I willingly agreed to do.
I killed the hobgoblins that had purloined it, and heading north killed some evil fishermen who had killed Tenya’s mother. I executed justice for her, much to her satisfaction. I also killed a nearby ankheg.
Upon returning to Beregost I tried to help Melicamp but was unsuccessful.
Realising that I had left a trail which others might follow, I headed west where I killed Droth and Shoal. Shoal attacked me first and injured me so badly that I was forced to flee. After resting I returned and this time I prevailed, Shoal ceding the battle to me. Droth then attacked me and I again prevailed and afterwards killed Shoal also.
I then returned the ring of Mad Arcand to him.
To the south I also killed some Sirine.
I then headed back east where I was attacked by Bassilus. He didn’t survive the encounter!
Heading East I helped Charleston Nib before heading north where I killed more Sirine and three flesh golems.
I then helped Brage to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel and going yet further south helped reunite Albert and Rufie.
Vax and Zal then attacked me and died.
After helping a dryad to the west I killed Ingot before heading yet more westward where there was a plethora of loot.
Upon returning to the Nashkel area I killed Greywolf and took some emeralds to Oublek. To the north-east of Nashkel I killed a group of bandits as well as some half-ogres. Bjornin was delighted!
I am currently level 7 with a reputation of 20. In view of how dangerous the enemies are, I believe that perhaps recruiting some allies might be in order. Playing Core Rules. I'm no expert!!
Burke is now trying to decide on companions.
Inside the kuo-toa caverns, I decided to skip the beholder room and used my summons to take care of most foes, with the party mostly assisting from range or by poisoning the remaining monsters:
Since we still had some decent buffs going, we also took care of the underdark entrance guards:
Outside, I took a quick trip to the Watcher's Keep vendor where I bought the Firetooth crossbow (for Cria, to be used with kuo-toa bolts) and a potion bag. Of note, we used the limited wish scroll from spellhold with a wisdom potion to obtain a +2 full plate, so the armor situation is looking decent for the fighter-types. Being still extremely short on cash, I had to pick very carefully what to buy in Athkatla - I decided to go with the belt of hill giant strength, helm of charm protection (from the temple of lathander), more scrolls of acid protection and one more PfU, the helm of brilliance and the war blade +4 (I felt like Iridias shouldn't stick with the Flame of the North all the way to the fire giant temple - that might have been the wrong choice, I'm not sure). After recruiting allies for Bodhi and skipping her ambush by leaving the area and returning at daytime, Cavria was buffed with improved haste and equipped Azuredge + AoP in order to hunt down some vampires:
It seems like a lot of the spawns in the elven city are scaled to our level - no adamantite golems here, only iron golems:
While we did our best to damage the fiend and drank as many healing potions as possible, Iridias eventually died:
Our final XP tally at the end of SoA: 1.467.865 - far below the original SoA cap of 2.950.000.
ToB is the most similiar to a regular run for us, as there isn't as much optional content - we will mostly only miss out on the Kiser & Vongoethe quests in the two cities and, of course, the entirety of Watcher's Keep - the rest are only very minor encounters (especially since I will allow, for vendor access, Lazarus' quest and helping out the smugglers against the monks). First things first, we get catapulted to 2.500.000 XP, the starting experience if you start a game from ToB:
Anyway, Ilasera died to traps: