@Ygramul Good to hear from you again. Congratulations on the 1 million views everyone!
The Lightning Party, update 16
At Sendai's Enclave, our first goal is to kill the first hive mother before someone gets hit by anti-magic ray:
Inside, we take the opportunity of fighting against waves of weak enemies to make some more use of our lightning spells:
For Odamaron, we wait out his timestop (he spends it going after a summon), carefully remove the traps and move in:
Magical swords make tanking Ogremoch seem easy:
In the other room, some of the enemies are lured outside, but we have to go in for the priestess and the hive mother. Once again the goal is to kill the hive mother before we get hit by anti-magic ray. Our combined 58 APR (plus fallen deva) is enough to do the job:
Iseri uses energy blades to win her duel:
Sadly, the lightning damage component always gets resisted. We fight through the mind flayer ambush and re-buff for Sendai.
Staff of the magi dispels help with the wizard Sendai clones, as does true sight:
None of the Sendai's survive for long enough to pose any kind of threat, not even the final incarnation:
We complete the third pocket plane challenge and will move to Watcher's Keep next time.
The Elementals are currently sitting in Athkatla, but I decided I should make a start on one of the other parties I considered a little while ago. I've played a reasonable amount with minimum stat solo characters, but don't remember doing that with a party before. To avoid using racial minimums to bypass the minimum stats to some extent, I decided all characters had to be human. I chose character classes randomly though, which avoided the temptation to choose powerful classes, but that means some of kits get stat bonuses: Rue, the PC, is a Blackguard which means he has double figure stats in strength, constitution and charisma.
Crew and Drew are both Priests of Lathander and at minimum stats, i.e. 9 in their main characteristic (wisdom in this case) and 3 elsewhere.
Brew is an Enchanter, with an enhanced charisma of 16.
Grue is a Shadowdancer, with double figure stats in strength, dexterity and charisma.
Slew is a Bounty Hunter at minimum stats.
That's not exactly the best balanced party in the world, but it should be serviceable. It will require quite a lot of micro-management to be successful though due to the absence of any character that can act as a decent tank early on. Rue does though have enough strength and constitution to potentially do that. His dexterity of 3 means his AC is a massive 7 worse than for a character with dexterity of 18, but he could make use of the bracers of dexterity at some point to remedy that deficit.
The first hint of trouble came when they attempted to rest in the Beregost temple area. Some dogs appeared right next to them and Slew was slain before I could pause or exit the area.
After a few tasks around Beregost and a trip to Nashkel the Minimalists went in search of some basilisks. Brew used PfP there to allow everyone to laboriously shoot down the monsters in the southern group and the party was able to take their first level up. The XP from the remaining basilisks then soon allowed them to level up again. Slew actually got -1 HPs for that level, which is not supposed to be possible but on the plus side he now had 100% in set traps. Those were used to kill Kirian's party before heading north to trap an old man - allowing everyone to take yet another level.
At High Hedge, Rue used the +1 arrows taken from Baerin to shoot the golems. Despite his poor dexterity his fighter THAC0 and weapon specialization were enough to hit the unarmoured golems reasonably easily. He bought the potion case there, to help offset a bit the weight limit of 5 that 4 of the party struggle under. There was more use of traps to dent the party's reputation when they encountered Drizzt at the Lake area. The two points lost there were quickly regained though by helping out Mirianne and then Brage.
In the Nashkel Mine, Mulahey was silenced for easy disposal. Outside the mine, silence looked like making the amazons simple. Only 1 of 4 blindness attempts worked though, which allowed Lamalha just enough time to recover her voice - but she was then immediately held. Nimbul & Tranzig were both silenced and disposed of without difficulty.
At the Bandit Camp, sleep disabled most of the external bandits. Taurgosz was doomed and blinded. Inside Tazok's tent the clerics used sanctuary to go in and cast silence. That allowed the rest of the party to enter freely and blind Hakt & Raemon - the latter annoyed Britik who was then commanded to die. Venkt resisted 5 attempts to blind him, but a first attempted backstab of the game by Grue proved to be a critical and too much for the mage.
I forgot until just too late about the Elminster clone in Beregost, but trapped the one at the FAI to allow another level up session. The Minimalists then headed for the Cloakwood, but hit immediate trouble again with an Ettercap ambush. I got lazy there and moved the party as a group, which is asking for trouble in close quarters. Sure enough, Brew was momentarily balked and an Ettercap took advantage. The rest of the party cut their losses by just picking up his gear and running for the temple.
The vampires that greeted us in Brynnlaw managed to dominate Ash, but Russell's use of the iMod soon accounted for them and we went in search of Perth. Ash's use of Pixie Prick immediately put him down for the count and he was given no chance to recover. His book of Burning Hands was discarded.
Wolfie said a sad farewell to his Bhaal powers on entry to Spellhold and we started working through enemies there. Ash fancied his chances at solving a set of riddles to get a ring of regeneration and managed that with only 1 wrong answer - and his 100% fire resistance shrugged off the flame arrow response to that anyway. Meanwhile the others attacked a nearby pit fiend. Russell had cast remove fear there, but that appeared not to work on Wolfie and he ran away while Russell did the killing.
Russell had been able to destroy a number of undead with his turning ability, but there was no chance of that working on the local lich. Instead, Russell made use of a PfU scroll and waded in with the iMoD. The greater mummy's there took a little time to destroy, but the lich went down to the first kiss from the mace.
There was a nasty moment when Wolfie attacked Bodhi in wolf shape. The transfer from one shape to another often causes problems in the game, so it wasn't a great surprise that the AoP stopped working when Wolfie shifted to slayer form. However, the slayer should be naturally immune to level drain and it certainly was a surprise when that source of immunity also failed. Fortunately Bodhi chose to run away just in time - Wolfie was down to level 4 and Bodhi's hits drain 5 levels. Wolfie had a single restoration scroll and made use of that. Russell got a new level shortly afterwards and proudly proclaimed that he would be able to do any required restorations in the future as he could now cast level 4 spells.
Ash had also got a level in Spellhold and put that to good use by summoning a couple of mordy swords for a group of clay golems to attempt to smash in vain. Shortly afterwards we made use of a dispensing machine to get some new boots of speed for Wolfie and headed for the exit. That resulted in another moment of concern when Wolfie was confused by some myconids just before we were teleported on to a group of apparitions. I'm not sure what happens if you attack them, but there's a good chance that would permanently end the run - but Wolfie chose not to attack immediately and the others clustered round him until he'd regained his senses.
Jon caused no particular concerns and ran away when low on HPs. A group of murderers thought they saw an opportunity to sneak attack Ash, but he was wise to their game and just ran around for a few seconds until they had all had a chance to arrive - and then watched them evaporate in his death spell.
We took ship to Fish City and worked through the opponents there. Wolfie chose to work for the king initially, but then double-crossed him and attacked. The king went down quickly and Wolfie planned to then kill the prince, but he ran away while Wolfie was in his inventory. I thought that would be the last we saw of him, but fortunately he eventually turned up once more - just in time for his execution.
In the Underdark we were about to attack a group of drow when Corey's home town suffered a power cut. Without his character being actively controlled the drow lasted much longer than expected and Ash had some uncomfortable moments when being chased by a couple of Nishruu. However, the battle was eventually won and we saved the game there.
Shapeshifter 14, 87 HPs, 235 kills (+254 in BGEE)
Dragon disciple 16, 80 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 393 kills (+99 in BGEE), 1 death
Paladin 15, 124 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 407 kills (+194 in BGEE), 6 deaths
Russell got the vast majority of undead deaths in that session and took the lead. It seems doubtful that Ash will be able to fight back again, but our crafty sorcerer has produced surprises before and perhaps his new ADHW can be put to good use next time.
Watcher's Keep level 3 has, by now, become one of the areas I consider to be the toughest for no-reload purposes, at least for my style of play. The no-magic zones can be very deadly in various ways, especially if the party isn't super strong on saving throws or item-based immunities. Also, these demons get to cast their spells freely despite it being a no-magic zone. This resulted in the first very close call of the run, when, ironically, the 3 cornugon's in the first no-magic zone, throw around 3 lightning bolts, which bounce around the room dealing dangerous amounts to the party, which, for once, couldn't be protected from lightning damage. Our own strategies used against us - and they got pretty close to taking down Iseri (I should have switched the cloak of reflection to her immediately, but this all happened very fast and I didn't realize the danger in time):
Luckily, due to our alignment, we didn't get into a fight with the demons immediately following the zone:
Making it through the next no-magic zone was a bit easier, but still tricky:
And straight out of there, we have to rely on item-based charm immunities with the anti-magic effect still lingering and no time to buff with chaotic commands - luckily, we can protect everyone:
After this, things finally get easy again - we can fully buff and even make some use of our spell triggers to take down the rival demon:
Instead of returning right away, we move on to the exit first so we won't have to rebuff again. We carefully make sure to disarm traps when facing the demon wraith, and a planetar vorpal hit gets us an early kill:
All right - time for the next level. We start at the githyanki hideout:
We buff with fire resistance for the red dragon battle - magical swords are sent forward, Kamillio engages with SI:A in order to draw out remove magic:
It takes a while, but the dragon finally uses this most dangerous spell of his and the party can move in for the kill:
A PfM scroll is used for the demi-lich and the mind flayers get destroyed before we finish the level:
On to level 5. Another dragon battle here, and magical swords catch the remove:
We have full poison protection via green scrolls going, so we aren't afraid of the breath weapon at all - the dragon doesn't survive for long:
All right, the spirit warrior maze is done while avoiding the ghost and the drawer and we are ready for the three seals. Our initial plan to take down the aurumach rilmani before his timestop is cast fails, however:
This is not good - we're right in his face and he's free to unleash all kinds of madness on us - we have neglected frost and magical damage protections to reduce the time it would take to buff, and as a consequence we suffer our first character death (not counting Shoal) as our foe takes out the helpless Obram withing the timestop duration:
This is a serious foe that we have somewhat underestimated (previous runs have allowed for an instant takedown, but we had traps in those runs) - still, we do emerge victorious after taking some additional damage from cones of cold:
After a quick Rod of Resurrection charge Iseri is actually able to scare off Azamantes with her turn undead, making this a much easier encounter:
For the final seal, we want to take down the succubus + hive mother right away. A magical sword to the east should keep us safe from the cleric and fighter-types for now. This time, our strategy works as imagined:
We read the Scroll of Helm and move on to Abazigal's Lair.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 241, Core rules + unmodded (link to 240 end here
Human Stick (Gate70) and Elf Pic (Grond0)
Fresh from our previous failure we rolled up a new pairing and set off last weekend, our first session taking us to level 3 and a longer second session today collecting reputation, equipment, and ready to appear at the bandit camp. My lack of note-taking leads to summarisation via screenshot
Pic catches a trio of hobgoblins napping
Stick sends a charmed animal in to Bassilus so Pic can blind him
Neira issues a reminder why I never antagonise her, fortunately Stick moved away to get held before Pic stepped outside to get held. Neira congratulated herself by standing the other side of the door to Pic which allowed us to recover our composure and do th job properly
Pic thought the flesh golems in a cave were easily dealt with, to which Stick mentions how many potions he glugged - it all helps
Here's our equipment and any unsold loot at the end of session 2
I did some reading and I think that in EE you can release Yeslick and recruit him in the city.
I therefore plow on through Drasus who is so easy at this point... only the mages manage to confuse both Kagain and Shar-Teel, but after a darting and some arrows of biting the foes soon fall and control is regained over the entire party.
Next Shar-Teel does to the lightning bolt bounce in the tunnels leading me to retrace to the Friendly Arm Inn for a resurrection. I tell Yeslick to save himself and I am now stansing at the stairs down. Too much walking means not enough progress this time.
out of party
Montaron, Khalid 3 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
Jaheira, Xan 1 death
Kivan, Minsc, Xzar, Imoen, Garrick, Viconia, Coran 0 deaths
Edwin and Dynaheir dead
We prepare our acid protection spells for Draconis, spread out, send some summons and attack at range to get him to transform:
The party retreats upon transformation, giving us time to get some summons back into the battle:
The summons are able to draw out remove magic (and the first breath weapon):
Time to move in - Draconis avoids a quick death by going invisible and healing up, but eventually we get into a position where we can start dealing damage:
Luckily, with remove gone, we don't have to worry about the second breath weapon (which deals over 100 damage and kills our elemental prince straight away) - Draconis falls:
Time to venture into the lair:
Not too much trouble here, and we can create Hindo's Doom as an alternative weapon for Selwine for the few enemies that need +4 weapons/are immune to lightning damage.
On to Draconis. We take down the salamanders, helped by some protections against frost damage, and move in - he pushes us away upon his transformation and uses remove on the summons - great:
We move in and start using our HLAs. The dragon's lightning breath weapon does nothing to us:
However, Abazigal surprises me: He, unlike all other enemies we've faced so far, apparently has access to a second remove magic! He hits Selwine and Obram (Obram is not yet hit in this screenshot) - Selwine keeps most of her defensive buffs, but Obram loses all of his. We quickly make sure to renew the most crucial ones, especially remove fear:
We throw improved haste back on Obram and his enrage is activated, mimicking a lot of our immunity buffs - Selwine has also lost improved haste here, but our damage is still strong:
And Abazigal falls:
While the second remove surprised us, I am somewhat proud of, except for that one, having avoided every single remove magic in the vanilla game during this run (which has been something of a goal for this run after we nearly lost the last one to a remove when facing Draconis).
The fourth pocket plane challenge is quickly done, and we enter Amkethran. Here's a last hurray for our lightning bolts against the monestary guardians, where a single lightning bolt with two bounces takes out the enemy mages:
For Balthazar, we just buff up and use our fighter HLA's:
How fast can we take down The Ravager with our combined 58 APR? This is the result after one round:
Not bad - we need a second round of HLA activations, but that's fine:
Rather than return straight away to the Cloakwood, the Minimalists explored some other areas first. At the Cloud Peak Mountains they picked up the bracers of dexterity for Rue. With him now potentially doing a bit of tanking, they went to find Greywolf to get him a proficient melee weapon. His high HPs allowed him to survive being commanded to die, but he was soon finished off by missiles anyway. None of the party could move while carrying Samuel, but they used inventory transfers to get him to the FAI anyway.
Rue's tanking skills were tested out at Durlag's Tower where he took on a blinded battle horror. That needed critical hits and the 2 it got were not sufficient to save it. A second battle horror got 3 criticals, but a couple of CLW meant that still caused no concern. A bit of carelessness though cost further deaths against the battle horror on the wall. The clerics had penned the skeletons up there while Rue tanked the battle horror. I wanted to pull it away a bit to give Slew a chance to use traps on the skeletons, but Rue moved a fraction too far and the battle horror switched targets to Slew. He tried to run away, only to find the battle horror was standing on the exit to the lower level. In the distraction from that, I failed to react quick enough when a couple of the skeletons recovered from being turned and Crew was shot down as well. By that stage the battle horror had been blinded and Rue killed the remaining skeletons before going in search of a temple.
On their return they cleared the remainder of the walls before moving inside. Skeletons were used to distract ghasts while they worked through those. Slew borrowed the bracers of dexterity in order to disable the trap leading to the roof. Brew forgot to memorise PfP prior to that, so the clerics used skeletons there as well to deal with the basilisks. Riggilo was blinded after accepting Kirinhale's hair. Kirinhale herself survived a cluster of traps and teleported away. The ghost, however, has no missile resistance and did not survive its own bunch of traps.
Bassilus was silenced and shot down, but Melicamp failed to survive his transformation. Moving on to find Shoal, Rue presented himself for the kiss to ensure no-one would die. A couple of skeletons provided support while dealing with Ogre Droth and Shoal was then killed to pick up her high XP reward. A thrown trap and some skeletons made short work of the sirines in that area. Attempting to rest before travelling though cost Slew once more. The dire wolves that appeared next to her attacked instantly, but the first hit still left her with 1 HP. I was just a fraction slow reacting to their appearance though and a second hit came in as the party started to travel away - so they hastily reversed course in order to pick up her equipment.
After their temple visit they returned to the Lighthouse area in search of more sirines. Those also quickly fell, taking the Minimalists close to another level. Traps inside the golem cave then soon provided the remaining XP necessary. Slew finally got a good HP roll there - he'd only got 7 HPs from the previous 5 levels, but this time picked up the maximum 4 extra.
Finally it felt like time to have another go at penetrating the Cloakwood. In the second area the Minimalists had cleared most of the map, but done that primarily through micro-management of position rather than using traps and spells. I was getting a bit tired of that and a bit of sloppiness saw Slew being attacked by a giant spider. Despite her 50% increase in HPs at the previous level, she was still not up to resisting a critical hit and she went down for the 4th time. Back once more and they still had to clear Centeol's lair. Rue got poisoned at one point doing that and had to call for help from Drew to cure that. There were then a further problem when I tried to transfer the body via inventories back to Tiber. Some spiders apparently regenerated on the encounter spot near him and Brew was dead before I realised they were there. Another pocket full of gold was handed over to the temple as I mused that it's always the service providers in boom areas that get rich …
After that they ignored most of the encounters on the way to the mine. Traps did the bulk of the damage there, though Grue finished off Rezdan with a backstab. Inside the mine they avoided combat where possible, though they did have to walk into the ambush on the 2nd level - sleep did a good job against the guards there though. Rue was charmed by Davaeorn in his initial assault, but had ducked into a room and was able to wait that out there while skeleton occupied the mage. A couple of special traps then killed him.
On the way back from the Cloakwood I had 3 ambushes and once more couldn't bothered to move accurately for the last of those. That resulted in triggering a web trap, which was not good news. Rue used a strength potion in order to be able to wield Spider's Bane and tried to lead the ettercaps away - but was poisoned immediately. Rue had no green PfP scroll and, with everyone else held, no other way to cure the poison. He used a heroism potion to try and stay alive while the others were killed, so he could run away. That wasn't going to be quite enough so he took (I thought) a potion of power. However, as the last of his companions died, so did he and I think I must have moved Rue before the potion had taken effect …
I did quite some backtracking to all my npcs to get some kill Counts. I will add it to the bottom. I finished cloakwood without issues. The 3rd level was not too difficult with the party. The ogre mage was killed by many arrows and darts.
Then level 4 was detrapped and I drank some potions of absorption throughout the party and a potion of spell immunity below level 5 for Lucius and then faced Davaeorn. He cast some lightning bolts which got Kagain to low health in the end but Faldorn kept healing him and the party hit Davaeorn with arrows of frost/fire and darts of fire.
Next I cleared the mines and unplugged the key to save the miners. After some detours to sell items I let Faldorn go back to her forest. She had a total of 1 kill, being Drasus of 1400 XP. Interesting...
I joined Ajantis and we went into the city. There I beeline to Skie where I removed Safana. Then we got some gold with Eldoth and Skie in the Blade and Stars Inn. Not that I needed any, but that is their quest. I now plan to remove them for their honeymoon elopement, then I cycle back to Quayle and Alora (I think) and after that remove either Ajantis (after the sewers) for Yeslick and/or Tiax in-between... I will lack a magic user and a cleric now so I need Quayle in the least I think, and I lack a thief meaning Alora will stay too.
That makes Lucius kill 593 out of 1609 enemies (if counted correctly) for 36% of all game kills so far. Granted, a lot of bg1 is trash mobs and this is an archer with mild ranged damage bonuses but also quite some skeletons are missile resisting/immune and therefore those numbers are really good for a dart user. I will monitor how much he will get at the end of the game.
Other kills were made with bows from Kivan (61) and Imoen (133) and for melee Kagain (291) and Shar-Teel (223) are starting to catch up... maybe? The statistics might be different had I kept a few team members for longer but overall I swapped in npcs with similar proficiencies quite often. For sure damage per hit is higher in melee, but damage over multiple hits seems to count for something as well.
After buffing and drinking our remaining potions, we were ready to face Mel at the throne. The first incarnation was easy enough: All we needed to do was attack (we also threw a lower resistance in there before realizing that this was pointless as she's fully immune to lightning damage anyway), and she wasn't able to do anything of substance before having to retreat:
A magical sword is summoned to take on some of the guardians of the first pool, with Obram taking down the one vampiric wraith who slipped paast - after that the party moves in and deals the damage:
Our improved hastes are still going - we call a planetar and face Mel again, getting another quick victory:
Obram gets a protection from frost damage buff as our summons (now with a second magical sword added) move on towards the second pool - he helps clear out those enemies:
We have a total of 4 magical swords prepared, two on each side, while planning to run to the north immediately - the slayer shadows summoned during Mel's third and most dangerous incarnation tend to get stuck wanting to hit the magical swords, and we can take on Mel at the place she always teleports to. This plan works on the western flank - both slayer shadows there get stopped. In the east, one runs through, and we have to focus him down - can't have it running through our party level draining characters (not everyone here is protected against that). This gives Mel plenty of time to cast her timestop:
Now, how deadly exactly Mel is during her timestop varies a lot. This time, she's pretty brutal, but luckily Iseri is in the back, so it's Obram and Selwine who get to fear her wrath. Notably, she has a blade barrier going (the barrier doesn't hit during the timestop, but all the damage that it would do gets dealt after the duration ends) - she also casts multiple remove magic spells between attacks on Obram:
That is decidedly not good. We might be in very bad shape once the timestop ends. Here's the immediate consequences:
Selwine is at 16 hp. Obram is literally at 1 hp. Pretty incredible. Remove is flying at almost all party members - it turns out our archer and sorcerer are barely out of range (though I try to fast-cast an SI:A anyway). Iseri gets incredibly lucky and only loses her remove fear, while our druid and melee fighters get fully dispelled (not quite yet for our druid in this screenshot, as the remove has yet to hit) - the fighters try to stay alive by immediately drinking a potion and running to the east, with Iseri and our druid preparing to fully heal them up:
Our planetar is still alive and interfers with his own, faster, heal spell - I'll take it. Both fighters make it out alive, by some miracle. Since the timestop and dispels had cost us all improved hastes, I'm very happy that I got Franmar some GWWs - he takes down the second slayer shadow to the east, who has slipped past the swords, and the two bone fiends (already near death due to friendly fire from Mel's blade barrier) to give us more breathing room. Mel has no pressure on her at this point, being still at full hitpoints - luckily, she doesn't do anything dangerous to us right now:
Okay. Both fighters are healed up. Our berserker gets improved haste and activates enrage, which does make him ready for battle, while the socerer casts wish in hope of some advantage (ideally, improved haste on all party members). We activate more energy blades to get back into a position where we can deal damage. Luckily, our planetar and magical swords provide a great distraction:
All but Selwine are essentially back to dealing significant damage by now, though some protections are missing. Still, we don't dare wait - we want to pressure Mel as fast as possible, and finally her hp starts dropping:
Our wish genie arrives - one of the best list of choice I've ever gotten. Just look at these great options. In the end, seeing as Mel is actually dying pretty fast at this point, I decide to go for the rest option, thinking long-term - we're going to need full rebuffs, so getting all spells back for extra safety seems important - we can win this battle in the short-term without improved haste:
Mel has to flee just a few seconds later. That was a tough one. After the timestop ended, I was genuinely fearful that we could see an unfortunate end to this run at the very last moment. Luckily Mel had no significant followup once time returned to normal.
Okay, so with the wish rest, we fully rebuff. Great, we feel very optimistic now. No character really capable of killing the fallen solar within a timestop duration here, so we will fight him without that for once. We send in a magical sword to distract our enemies first:
Next, we call a planetar, and finall we move in ourselves. First, Selwine goes in first - she has Hindo's Doom with an undispellable death ward effect in case the fallen solar changes targets and manages to dispel her, keeping her safe from vorpal hits. He does indeed change targets, but she doesn't get dispelled. Once he sticks to her, the others move in to help with the damage - nice work, Selwine:
The final marilith gets breached - we're ready for the final battle:
First, some more wish spells - we hope for another advantage, but nothing useful is gained. Greater deathblows for everyone just won't cut it at this point. Still, I won't complain about wish this time around - the one good genie we got earlier on should be enough for us. Well... let's go. We're not messing around and activate our critical strikes right away to deal maximum damage. Okay, maybe we're messing around a little bit. Just because it's still left ready, Kamillio fires off his triple lightning bolt sequencer. This will end up taking down one bone fiend, but it's mostly just for fun:
Just as when we fought the ravager, one round of our combined 58 APR gets Mel to near death - a second round of HLAs is needed. Our druid calls in an elemental prince as Mel drops, tries to restore herself, but fails:
In the opening dungeon, Rime quickly reclaimed the Ashideena hammer for his weapon. That was the only permanent weapon they could use, but that was plenty when added to magically created weapons and spell damage. They didn't even bother summoning any of the fire elementals Lucid could now produce, but still successfully dealt with Ulvaryl on their way out.
They immediately went to find Mencar, but that encounter cost Rime a first death. He had taken a lot of damage from Smaeluv and decided to retreat rather than risk taking another hit - which could have been fatal. Smaeluv died anyway moments later, but the problem was that I hadn't allowed for the fact that Flash had already been casting a glyph for some time and Rime became a victim of 'friendly fire electricity".
They paid to raise Rime at the local temple, though I think in future I will allow Flash to cast raise dead in addition to using self-buffing spells.
There were no problems at the circus and they paid Gaelen Bayle before going to help Hendak take control of the Copper Coronet. That allowed them to purchase a sword of flame for Toxic and the Stonefire axe for Sting. Moving on to Watcher's Keep, Sting got a far more suitable weapon for him with the acquisition of Firetooth.
They didn't enter the Keep for now though, but headed for the de'Arnise Hold. That almost immediately provided Flash with the FoA. The trolls were no problem, but I paid the price for playing around with the iron golem - using enchant weapon there to allow everyone to attack. For some reason the poison cloud emitted by the golem was doing twice as much damage to Toxic as anyone else (no-one was hasted) and Flash's attempt to save him with his Bhaal ability failed. Flash duly used the exception of being allowed to raise dead on party members outside combat, rather than sticking to the general rule of no healing or buffing spells on others - so it wasn't long before the party was back together again. They went to upgrade the FoA, which I didn't expect to cause trouble. However, while I was quickly writing up the note of the previous death the party must have come across a troll and the few seconds away from the game had been sufficient for it to kill Lucid and nearly do the same for Blast - good job it hadn't picked on Flash I suppose, though with the plate armor he inherited from Glaicas he would probably have survived anyway. After another raise dead, they pressed on to find Tor'Gal. Lucid produced a fire elemental there and a critical backstab from Toxic put the troll down for the count.
They were en route to Trademeet next, but rescued Renfeld on the way and returned to Athkatla to deal with Prebek. After looting the harpers the Elementals taught Lucette about the perils of trying to use them - that encounter also raised the ire of the Cowled Wizards who warned about using any more arcane magic in the city. They picked up some extra XP as a result of Toxic using potions to loot the 2 thieves guilds and stealing a necklace from Flash's own temple allowed them to level up.
Berserker 10, 124 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 79 kills (+488 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death
Archer 10, 89 HPs, 34 kills (+357 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death
Priest of Talos 10, 74 HPs, 9 kills (+85 in BGEE/SoD)
Assassin 12, 73 HPs, 6 kills (+178 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths
Avenger 12, 86 HPs, 5 kills (+66 in BGEE/SoD), 3 deaths
Dragon Disciple 11, 59 HPs, 84 kills (+244 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths
Gate70 and I lost a MP run last week at the giant soul gem in the Underdark. Despite taking a generally cautious approach to this run, I felt a moral obligation to set the record straight there - and in the event everything went smoothly with the lich being quickly disrupted and the other caster troubled by insect bites.
The balor that had been troubling the svirfneblin managed to paralyse Wolfie, but he was standing well back and in no danger while our trusty paladin was on the job.
Next up we helped Vithal recover some items from the elemental planes. While he was doing that for the 3rd time, an illithid came to investigate the commotion. Ash was caught off guard and stunned and lost his brains before the others could intervene. Wolfie did still choose to attack Vithal though - insects successfully keeping him quiet.
Then it was on to the Western Tunnels. Ash found that area a bit annoying as his death spell caught relatively few victims and the kuo-toa were highly resistant to his ADHW. The prince's high regeneration rate was too great for Russell to beat down on his own and Wolfie had to give his inner self what's become a fairly rare appearance to help mordy swords and the odd spell deal the necessary damage. There was though a problem with the demon knights when Russell collapsed - his HPs having been beaten down just enough to make him susceptible to PW:kill. With melee abilities reduced so greatly, Ash did most of the work on the two remaining demon knights. His mordy swords did a good job of keeping them occupied while spells assaulted them - including a chaos that surprised Wolfie by successfully confusing one on them.
After talking to Adalon we moved into the drow city. It's a long time since I did any tasks there, but Corey was able to talk us through a couple of rough spots there - like how to talk down the aboleth without having to do his quest. Ash had provided Wolfie with a helmet that could cast death spell, but his own spell was far quicker to cast when rescuing Phaere from a group of illithid. A few tasks later and Matron Ardulace was incinerated by a demon - with Phaere following the same way a second or two later. Ash sauntered towards the exit, rather than using haste to keep up with the others but correctly identified the gates would remain open long enough for him to get there anyway. We didn't bother with the beholder or illithid areas, but just got Adalon to help deal with the drow at the exit - she made light work of them, using lower resistance to make them vulnerable to spells.
After escaping from the Underdark, we travelled back to Athkatla, disdaining an offer of help from Drizzt on the way. On arrival Wolfie handed over a sword piece to Kruin, though Russell complained that me might well have used the sword given that Carsomyr had disappeared into thin air in a previous session. The final action was an assault on the Twisted Rune, which did not go at all to plan. Wolfie originally proposed to use PfU to prevent Shangalar from attacking - he could then be finished off by missile attacks while out of sight of other enemies. However, he inadvertently applied PfU to himself as well as the others - preventing him from having the opening conversation with Shangalar. To get round that he used a PfM scroll on himself to dispel the PfU before reapplying it once Shangalar had done his talk. That left the lich vulnerable, but the PfM scroll prevented Wolfie from using true sight and Russell was keen to get a quick kill on him - so attacked with the iMoD. That moved him into sight of Vaxall, who quickly used anti-magic to dispel his buffs, allowing Shangalar the chance to re-enter the combat - and he duly used maze to temporarily take Russell out of action. We got lucky there though as Layene, who had also been activated by this point, threw in a meteor storm, who's only effect was to kill Shangalar and send Vaxall running when its morale broke. That took the beholder towards Layene and a pit fiend killed it. That just left Layene and we did at least manage to get her XP when a mordy sword chewed its way through her buffs.
A quick visit to Cromwell made up a couple of weapons, but highlighted that we had not yet done the Planar Sphere and hence couldn't forge Crom Faeyr. That will be the first thing on the agenda next time.
Shapeshifter 15, 89 HPs, 249 kills (+254 in BGEE)
Dragon disciple 17, 81 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 425 kills (+99 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Paladin 17, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 478 kills (+194 in BGEE), 7 deaths
Russell built his lead considerably in that session and Ash is likely to struggle to find enough trash mobs to keep in touch with him in the future.
In amongst the odd bits of party play recently I've been trying to give Bash another chance to wield his fearsome weapon - he's allowed to use a range of tactics, but can never be responsible for killing anything except through the use of the berserking sword. He's had a number of abortive attempts in the last week or so thanks to various minor errors, like getting positioning wrong before going berserk, forgetting to put armor back on after casting spells, forgetting to stop Korax attacking before killing a basilisk and absent-mindedly using LMD to kill a squirrel with the aim of speeding up healing. That may be partly because the greater precision required in solo play doesn't mix all that well with the more slapdash approach I tend to use with parties - but it's probably just me . It's unlikely that anyone is so eagle-eyed as to notice the number of attempts above has soared, but that's mainly a result of trying to learn Firebead's inventory scroll in Candlekeep and restarting if that is not successful. His low intelligence and specialist mage penalty means Bash has only a 30% chance of success with learning and it took an impressive 14 attempts to get that right on his previous run. This time though he succeeded first time, which I'll take as a good omen.
I'll try limiting any sessions with Bash to an hour to see if I can avoid the more obvious mistakes. At least this run he has managed to see out the first hour ...
After doing a few non-violent tasks in Candlekeep, Bash went to find Brage to pick up his sword, with just a brief stop to calm down Marl on the way. The mighty Noober became his first victim in Nashkel - a critical hit being severe overkill there. Back in Beregost his next target saw him swap reputation for Algernon's Cloak, meaning he got Bhaal LMD when resting. He also blinded Neera and cut her down from outside sight range to get her gem bag. His first berserking episode was against some spiders. He managed to retreat to a choke point before going berserk so they couldn't all attack at once and none of them hit him.
On the way to the FAI he killed a sleeping ogre for its belt, which got him to fighter level 2. On arrival he recovered a ring for Joia. Tarnesh was then blinded at the first attempt and Bash managed to get into proper position to attack him from outside sight range before he went berserk. Inside the inn Bash bought Buckley's Buckler which would potentially allow regeneration, though by the time he could free himself from his sword, he will probably have read a constitution tome anyway. Handing in Landrin's goods got him to illusionist level 2 and he picked up the pantaloons. He also charmed Jaheira - pulling her outside for disposal to pick up another invisibility potion to add to the ones stolen in Beregost and Nashkel (though his berserk tendencies means that invisibility potions are less useful than for most solo characters).
Some ogrillons had Mirianne's letter and some hobgoblins Zhurlong's boots, but both were unable to hang on to their prizes. Unlike one previous attempt, I remembered to charm Zhurlong and move him into a private position before killing him.
Back at the Nashkel Carnival, Vitiare was charmed and moved to a safe(ish) location and Bash recovered his senses after that quickly enough to avoid further bloodshed. Moving on into the Cloud Peak Mountains, Bash rescued Rufie and then killed Zal & Vax to get to fighter level 3. The plan for Caldo & Krumm was for Caldo to be charmed and used to distract Krumm before leading Bash away from the dryad if he was still berserk. As it happened Caldo died at the same moment as Krumm and Bash recovered his senses an instant too late to save the dryad - causing another reputation loss there. He did though get to illusionist level 3 immediately after that by killing a dire wolf.
After killing a blinded Ingot, Bash moved on to the Gnoll Stronghold and his final action of the session was to make use of the charisma tome there.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 241, Core rules + unmodded (link to writeup for session 1+2
Human Stick (Gate70) and Elf Pic (Grond0)
We were lost for, then our self-learning kicked in. It looked like Beregost and the journal said Tranzig was dead so clearly our destination should be the bandit camp. How far would we get today without any note-taking
Our arrival at the bandit camp was quickly followed by a bandit cull and blinding their leader. Epic
Inside the main tent Raemon spotted us, meaning we had to have a fairer fight than intended as our chance to cast blindness disappeared. Leading to no tales of glory though, merely our biopic
(a biography often with fictionalised scenes)
From there we headed in search of experience, although a gnomely mage refused to succumb to blindness and become myopic
(near sightedness)
(at this point I had a couple of RL distractions and Grond0 took full advantage to make my parting statement of why not blind Kirian too). Such a good topic
Back to our main quest we reverted, making our way to Cloakwood Mines and blinding the opposition (oh and accidentally also at Stick but he saved) before applying a skulltrap which landed like aspic
(in this context: A piece of ordnance carrying a 12 pound shot)
At the base of the mine we defeated a pair of battle horrors and Pic exclaimed that Stick had learnt something (level 7). Stick seemed a bit distracted, having hoped to reach this momentous occasion at a more fortune moment. Pic seemed perplexed about this while using a wand of fire on Davaeorn, until Stick forgot everything he knew and dropped his gear, dual-classing from Beastmaster to Cleric. Which seemed a bit ectopic
(Out of place; congenitally displaced)
Stick wanted to get to Baldur's Gate to pick up a sling and club, but Pic decided why wait - here are both a sling and club. Stick found this handy since his bow was of no use with his quarterstaff an unwieldy non-proficient matter now, and completely entropic
(to lose order)
Larze the ogre failed to crush us to goo when a first dart of stunning halted him in his tracks so we could liberally apply the dagger of venom while he was synocopic
(loss of consciousness and postural tone)
Marek and Lothander both paid "a" price for irritating us. Lothander paid a lesser price as Stick carefully encircled him with skeletons and Pic, only for Pic to move (multiplayer) so he escaped. Stick is happy to not have boots of speed though. Marek failed to cast a spell thanks to our attention to detail of anything microscopic
Jardak and his butler thought they had the upper hand, and realistically they should as our armour is minimal. However, their attraction to our skin proved to be less than pantropic
(Having an affinity for or indiscriminately affecting many kinds of tissue)
Ramazith had escaped up his tower with his life, but our diligent tracking brought us back to him. Stick landed a command and then stared as Pic cast sleep. This had to be questioned and Pic at first said he cast magic missile but it had not worked. That explains it (wrong spell hotkey). Ramazith cackled with delight, having had chance to stand up and come up with some unexpected response - only for the next missile to drop him. No chance for him to be atypic
(irregular)
Bash started the action by heading for Ulgoth's Beard. The ankheg in the way was dispatched in 2 attacks before it even got around to targeting him. It took a while, but he eventually charmed Dushai and took him away from the crowds for disposal.
With reputation down at 4, Bash did a bit of repair work by helping Ardrouine then going to hand in Mr Colquetle's amulet.
Next up he headed for the ankheg area. That was always going to be potentially tricky and, in retrospect, he really should have purchased the green PfP scroll before going there. Instead he tried to rely on Korax, which introduced the problem of getting him into position to attack basilisks without himself being subject to attack by Bash. With the very first basilisk encountered, Bash ordered Korax round to the back of it while he lost control of himself immediately and attacked from the front. The problem was that the basilisk didn't attack Korax, but immediately tried to retreat. With Bash rushing in from the direction the basilisk was heading and Korax's relatively slow movement from the other side, the basilisk was closest to Bash when it decided to stop retreating and gaze at the nearest enemy ...
Alright, we'll learn from the unfortunate end to Conjurer: Avoid the very high-level enemy Mages until we've been to the Underdark. But the basic structure of the run was good fun, so let's have at it with another.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Mods: Full SCS 35.18.
Difficulty: Insane with no difficulty-dependent damage increase.
Protagonist: Necromancer the Necromancer.
Special rules: Random party run, as dictated by the spoiler. TLDR:
Generate three random parties, pick one.
Each party member gets to choose from three full stat sets (no moving/increasing/decreasing stats); Necromancer cheats by forcing his INT to be 18, see below.
Spontaneous casters get to roll three spell picks for each new spell and pick one.
No temporary INT boosts may be used to aid scroll scribing: This is why Necromancer cheats, as otherwise he might well get stuck with never being able to use higher-level spells.
Independently generate three full parties comprised of six random characters,
where each such generated party obeys these rules:
1. At least one of the characters in each party must be a Necromancer (the protagonist).
2. At least one of the characters in each party must be some kind of Thief.
3. None of the characters in each party may be a Wild Mage.
4. No exact duplicate characters in each party.
For each such generated party, I may regenerate a single character once: If I choose to do so, I must use the newly
generated character. I then select the party I like best, and set to work!
For each character, three full sets of stats are rolled:
Stats may not be increased/decreased, and may not be moved around. I select the set of stats I like best.
There is one exception to this: Necromancer rerolls his three stat sets until each has 18 INT.
The reason for this is the rule at the end.
Proficiencies, Thief skill points and starting spells are also randomized, as is every choice made during level-up,
and naturally we're using random hitpoints.
Two additional rules.
First, no temporary INT-buffs may be used to aid scroll scribing, only permanent ones
(INT tome in BG1,+1 INT from Machine of Lum The Mad in ToB, and (the possible but unlikely) +1 INT from the Deck of Many things).
Hence why Necromancer forces his INT to be 18: I want to be sure the protagonist
always has access to his full array of class features (spells of any level).
Second, whenever spontaneous casters (Sorcerers, Dragon Disciples, Shaman) get to select a new spell,
they randomly roll a set of three which I may choose from. Technically they should just be forced to
stick with a random choice, but there are so many plain useless or bugged spells I found it becomes
untenable.
Our party:
Protagonist
Name: Necromancer
Lawful Good Male Human Necromancer
STR 17 DEX 12 CON 11 INT 18 WIS 17 CHA 18
Quarterstaff *
Chill Touch, Find Familiar, Larloch's Minor Drain
Name: Priest of Helm
Lawful Evil Male Dwarf Priest of Helm
STR 14 DEX 14 CON 15 INT 11 WIS 14 CHA 7
Sling *, Two-Handed Weapon Style *
Name: Dragon Disciple
Chaotic Neutral Male Elf Dragon Disciple
STR 10 DEX 19 CON 14 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 15
Sling *
Larloch's Minor Drain, Sleep
Name: Fighter / Thief
Chaotic Evil Male Halfling Fighter / Thief
STR 13 DEX 17 CON 17 INT 14 WIS 9 CHA 10
Axe *, Bastard Sword *, Dagger *, Quarterstaff *
Find traps +5, Open Locks +5, Hide in Shadows +10, Move Silently +10, Set Traps +5
Name: Blackguard
Neutral Evil Female Human Blackguard
STR 14 DEX 10 CON 17 INT 6 WIS 16 CHA 17
Club *, Dagger *, Two-Handed Sword *, War Hammer *
Name: Shaman
Neutral Evil Male Human Shaman
STR 11 DEX 11 CON 16 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 14
Axe *, Dart *
Doom, Entangle
So, in addition to Necromancer, we have a Blackguard with +3 CON modifier, a Fighter / Thief also with +3 CON modifier, a Priest of Helm, a Shaman, and a Dragon Disciple.
Eh... even with rule of three for spell picks, can we really swing it with two spontaneous casters on random spells?
Hopefully. Dragon Disciple can probably act as a desperate-times-tank at least, if he manages to get a few defensive spells, and the Shaman can always dance to contribute in a fight.
We're a bit light on fighting power too, but two warrior-types should be sufficient. We'll give it a whirl.
Nascent Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 1
Part 2 found here
Off we go. One advantage with a Shaman is that early on, at least for encounters with no enemy ranged combatants, it's quite viable to not kite: Minor Spirit Animals don't have much killing power, but they have a few hitpoints, and can easily soak up most enemy attacks at this stage. As the Belt Ogre finds out, we'll employ this tactic liberally until Blackguard gets enough levels to survive two hits in rapid succession.
With a Cleric available, and one with enough Wisdom to start with three L1 spell slots to boot, Tarnesh presents little obstacle.
With several Command prepared, we head north from the FAI on my customary initial tour: Do Tenya's quest as well as kill the Ankheg north of her hut, deliver Farmer Brun's dead son (snagged under Sanctuary along with the Ankheg's loot, including the Wand of Fire), and clear the local Zombie infestation in the northern farms.
Priest of Helm snags level 2 after these escapades, and with four Commands as well as a few Sleep from Dragon Disciple, we slowly but comparatively safely start clearing the randomly-spawning Ankhegs, delving into the Nest when we cannot find any outside. We call it quits for the moment when everyone has leveled up once; the intent was just to get everyone a few extra hitpoints as cushion.
South we go, as we're in want of the Ankheg armor sitting in a field in Nashkel. Passing by Beregost, we do the easy stuff: Karlat, Neera's ambush, (since we have Sleep) the local spider infestation, and Perdue's missing sword.
While at High Hedge, we invest in some scrolls of Identify and Sleep: Necromancer fubs the first batch but manages to scribe the second (and last...) one available there, so now we can both identify items and obliterate low-level enemies with dual Sleep casts.
Here we take a slight risk before proceeding south: Shaman managed to pick up Entangle at level 1.
It's a touch dangerous, but maybe the Wolf Pack can be brought down?
Indeed it can! Loading up a bunch of Entangle means the Vampiric Wolves never reach us, and we have plenty of Scorcher charges on our Wand of Fire. Unless I miss my count, that's about 1000 experience per character; not too shabby at this stage.
Little of import occurs as we head south to Nashkel, clearing various minor encounters on the way.
We want to head back north and finish the Ankheg nest, but we should be fine to swing by the areas immediately west of Beregost on our way; Jemby still can't resist Command, Zekar fails his save against Sleep, and Teyngan can't pick up the slack on his own.
In Bassilus' area, a double Sleep does in the local named Hobgoblins.
A rest later, Bassilus himself fares little better: An initial Wand of Fire Fireball clears most of his cronies and interrupts the Cleric himself, and a follow-up Silence seals the deal.
With a Lawful Good protagonist, we start with a 12 reputation, so can now afford to bribe reputation up to 17, which we promptly do, then set about handing in reputation quests. Beregost yields 2 points (Bjornin and Colquetle), but we're still on the hunt for the final one, which Joia at the FAI kindly contributes.
Good stuff. All we need now is someone with 20 CHA and we can shop.
For the moment though, we head north and clear the remaining Ankhegs (there weren't many left), give up a Ruby Ring and 100 gold to Farmer Brun, and that's it for the northernmost part of the coast.. for the moment.
Necromancer manages to scribe a Friends scroll, so we invest in some spell scrolls: The selection at High Hedge isn't great, but Cat's Grace and Strength are both useful picks. Fighter / Thief got a pip in Shortbow at Fighter level 3, so we grab the Masterwork one for sale in Beregost, as well as a Sling +1. Meager pickings, but they'll help a little.
Fighter / Thief also manages to pickpocket Algernon on the second try (just Charm him if you fail), so now we have 20 CHA available at will.
Alright, initial setup is nearly done. We're missing one key item though: The Bracers of Dexterity. And so we head west of Nashkel.
Xvart Village, Neville the Bandit, bridge-begotten Ogre Berserkers, Gibberling hordes, Gnolls en masse... we wade through them all.
Blackguard is now a decent tank, since she's had the good fortune to roll acceptably (though not spectacularly) for hitpoints.
We do the remaining two areas to the extreme south (Cloud Peaks and... I forget the name, Sendai and Vax+Zal's area).
While here, we also deal with the Doomsayer. I actually didn't know about this for a long time, but there's a small Gnoll clan near the northeastern edge of the map: They fall easily to mass Sleep, and usually yield some scrolls. This time, we get Protection from Fire: Nice to have an extra of those if we fub the first scribe attempt.
The Doomsayer is quickly brought low; we have Magic Missile on Necromancer, Strength buffs on our two warriors as well as Priest of Helm, and wands are available if things go bad (but they don't).
Brage is escorted back to the Temple of Helm, and that's the southwestern part of the coast done.
Next, we head towards the Nashkel mines. Dorn's ambush is easily foiled by now, Greywolf fails his save against Hold Person, and that friggin' Kobold Shaman makes a nuisance of itself as usual, even when we dedicate two Wand charges to frying it quickly.
We're actually lucky it went with Chromatic Orb and stunned Blackguard early, as a well-aimed Fireball could easily wreak havoc on us at these levels.
Again, I forgot Mulahey likes Mental Domination. However, our low levels work in our favor: Blackguard fails her save against our Sleep spell and quietly sits out the rest of the fight.
Back to Nashkel, and Oublek's fated encounter with Nimbul.
For there has always been an Oublek striding valiantly into battle with Nimbul, and there always shall be.
But will there ever be an Oublek that triumphs against Nimbul? Nay. Nay, there will not.
I chuckle a bit as Rasaad's eagerness to steal our kill XP leads to him getting fried accidentally by a Burning Hands.
Now if only Neera could Wild Surge herself into oblivion...
Heading north, Tranzig is tackled without incident (though I've seen him let loose with Lightning Bolts before, so should not be underestimated).
A quick rest later, we get the Amazon ambush upon transitioning, and things turn a little frantic.
One of the (initially invisible) Thieves actually opted to start shooting instead of moving in for a backstab; I've never seen them do that before. As a result, we had to shuffle around a bit, and the Clerics, as you can see, got off a few spells.
Fortunately, neither Thief had the damage output to finish Blackguard off before we could shut them down.
We really are getting a lot of mileage out of those two early wands of Fire and Frost.
En route to the Bandit Camp, I get a nasty surprise fighting Corsone (Osmadi failed his save against Silence so managed nothing).
Corsone finishes Call Lightning, which I saw coming so equipped Talos' Gift on Necromancer; it hurt a bit but it didn't get dangerous. However, even after we killed Corsone and moved well outside his corpse's sight range, the lightning bolts kept coming. I counted 5 hits on Necromancer, who quaffed our only Potion of Absorption after the third hit to be on the safe side.
That was unpleasant.
Still, we made it through, and arrive at the bandit camp. Now, Necromancer fubbed scribing the Web scroll from Mulahey's chest, but Fighter / Thief manages to crack the lock on the chest in the south-easternmost hut here, containing a Fireball and Web scroll.. and Necromancer successfully scribes the latter. Good. That'll make this much easier.
Much, MUCH easier it turns out: Taurgosz fails his save against Hold Person, and the rest of the camp succumbs to a hellish combination of Entangle, Web and Writhing Fog. We only have to pop a single Fireball charge; Writhing Fog isn't a big damage dealer, but when you're stuck in three instances of it for the full duration, it'll still hurt.
We clear the remainder of the Camp and head back towards Beregost, where we invest in the Shadow Armor, pushing Fighter / Thief into quite acceptable levels of sneaking ability, and also pick up some potions from High Hedge; we'll need a few Potions of Freedom to ensure safety during the Cloakwood, after all.
En route to said Cloakwood, we get Molkar's ambush. They should've been an opening act to the Amazons, honestly.
Alright, Cloakwood. First area is easy enough, as Druids do not do well under Silence.
Second area is trickier: Fighter / Thief has spent nearly all his points on Hide and Move silently, with a smattering of... well, nearly everything else except Find Traps.
As a result, he can't detect, much less disarm, the Web traps here: Hence, he moves ahead under stealth (recall we lack Invisibility...), and flees back at the first sight of an enemy, often tripping web traps, but making it outside enemy visual range before inevitably becoming webbed.
It's annoying, but reasonably safe. Soon, we're outside Centeol's lair: Blackguard under Protection from Fire (courtesy of Priest of Helm) and a Potion of Freedom charges in first.
Once the enemies are all clustered around her (and have wasted their initial single-target Webs), the rest of the party follows, dropping Fireballs into the center.
Yes, Necromancer managed to scribe the Fireball scroll from the bandit camp! Doesn't matter much since Skull Trap would probably be a better choice for him, but I'll go with Fireball anyway for style (for BG1, at least).
We clear the Shadow Druids (except the Arch Druid), purge the Wyvern Nest, then head back, since we're almost out of supplies and so can't rest many more times (SCS component).
Before we assault the Cloakwood mines, I'd like the WoMS as an emergency option, so we stop by the tombs east of Nashkel.
Narcillicus went with all physical defenses and no spell defenses.
Alright. We make our way back into the heart of Cloakwood.
Priest of Helm can manage three of the cruddiest Skeleton Warriors, so that'll be our initial lineup.
I haven't had Necromancer try to scribe the Spell Thrust scroll yet: It's an important scroll, so I want to wait with doing so until Necromancer gets the +1 INT from the tome in Baldur's Gate.
This means we have no way of dealing with spell protections on Kysus and Rezdan, beyond waiting them out.
So, that's the plan: Dismantle Drasus and Genthore, then weather the arcane storm until we can hit the wizards where it hurts.
At least we now have 2 True Sights per day, so their Illusions will avail them naught.
OK, here we go. Both wizards are all but guaranteed to put up MGoI, but Web and Entangle will still mess with their summons, so we pop some. Drasus turns out to be a massive headache, dealing serious damage while immune to disablers (since he leads with a Potion of Magic Shielding). We finally take him down, having to start using the WoMS to keep our flank clear of encroaching wizards.
Genthore is next. Disabled but with plenty of hitpoints, we invest some of our by now dwindling wand charges towards his demise.
Around here, we've apparently been fighting for over one turn: Kysus and Rezdan no longer have MGoI up!
Well then. Gentlemen (and lady): Fire!
Bwahaha! Satisfying. A little touch and go (Priest of Helm has rolled poorly for hitpoints and has bad AC to boot, so tends to take a beating in close fights), but as usual we pulled through. We heal up a bit and descend into the mines.
This time, I try a slightly different tack with Hareishan. Charming Cook and sending her through the door means all the guards bunch up around Hareishan, so we can sneak into the room to the south unnoticed. Next, we annoy the nearest guard, and of course, they all come running.. straight into our waiting barrage. And poor Hareishan didn't think MGoI was a good idea.
An additional Scorcher charge finishes her. Further into the mines, the Ogre Mage is just brutalized (he doesn't even put up Shield so a Magic Missile is all but guaranteed to interrupt him).
Here, I ran into interesting behavior from Natasha. She was all too happy to use Magic Missile and a single Lightning Bolt on the fairly weak WoMS monsters, but then started trying to kill them with her dagger. I know for a fact she has several L5 spell slots... not sure what happened here. Maybe she decided the monsters weren't worth such good spells?
Not a great choice, since albeit weak, if given the chance WoMS monsters can still eat through Stoneskins, which Fighter / Thief exploited.
Things are going quite well, I must say. We reach Davaeorn's sanctum, but retreat to rest before tackling the big bad himself.
On our return, things take a slightly dramatic turn. Dave still doesn't care about pitched battles down the hall, but we have such measly melee damage output that the first wave of guards arrive before we can finish off the second Battle Horror.
Yeah, Priest of Helm really should not have to tank Battle Horrors. It just won't end well.
We break out all the stops, including a few scrolls, and get control of the situation. Five waves of guards later, we're clear to engage Dave. Normally, I shift the entire party (through Invisibility) to the southern room.
This time, we don't have Invisibility available, and I don't want to waste our precious few potions of it, so we bank on Dave not teleporting into the anteroom; if he does, though, we'll stop being so miserly and just quaff some PoI's.
Fortunately, Dave is content to teleport around the southern part of his lair as he slowly wastes his spell book on unimportant summons. Eventually, his spell defenses time out, and that's all she wrote.
Alright! Fine work, to be certain.
We loot the place and abscond. Here, something truly fortuitious occurs.
On reaching level 6, Dragon Disciple rolls as his potential spell picks: Detect Illusion (No....), Protection from Normal Missiles (Nooo....), and Invisibility 10' Radius (Oh yes!).
That is some serious good luck; it'll make early BG2 MUCH easier. In fact, the early ambushes there are so brutal (when coming in at BG1 experience levels rather than SoD) that single spell might well end up saving our bacon. It's also a bit of a pick-me-up, as his other choices, while not exactly bad, have not been all optimal so far.
With Baldur's Gate open to us, the first priority is easily available tomes.
DEX tome goes to Fighter / Thief: 18 DEX maxes his AC bonus and gives a nice boost to thieving.
INT tome requires a little more work, and I forget that Ramazith may actually go looking for trouble if he kills your summon and sees no more enemies: I pondered popping PoI to save Priest of Helm and Blackguard here, but went with a Potion of Fire Breath, since I never end up using them. Quite handy for Mage assassinations, as it goes straight through spell protections (though by BG2 nearly all Mages will have PfF or FS:R running).
With 19 INT, Necromancer substantially expands his level 3 options; and yes, he managed to scribe the Spell Thrust scroll, as well as Melf's Minute Meteors. Very good indeed! We celebrate by clobbering the sewer-dwelling Ogre Mage.
This seems a fine place to stop. We've got all the essentials gathered, we're a decent level; things are just looking all-around good! The only fly in our ointment is that our principal tank, Blackguard, has failed to pick up a specialization yet.
Still, she has proficiency in several good weapons (War Hammer, Two-Handed Sword), so I'm hopeful.
Likewise, Fighter / Thief doesn't have any specializations, but at least he has proficiency in Short Bow.
For those so interested, full stats of our party may be found in the spoiler.
Protagonist
Name: Necromancer
Lawful Good Male Human Necromancer L6
STR 17 DEX 12 CON 11 INT 19 WIS 17 CHA 18
Quarterstaff *, Dagger *
29 HP (6 from familiar)
Name: Priest of Helm
Lawful Evil Male Dwarf Priest of Helm L6
STR 14 DEX 14 CON 15 INT 11 WIS 14 CHA 7
Sling *, Two-Handed Weapon Style *, Two-Weapon Style *
38 HP
Name: Dragon Disciple
Chaotic Neutral Male Elf Dragon Disciple L6
STR 10 DEX 19 CON 15 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 15
Sling *, Dart*
Burning Hands, Friends, Larloch's Minor Drain, Sleep
Mirror Image, Vocalize
Invisibility 10' Radius
40 HP
Name: Fighter / Thief
Chaotic Evil Male Halfling Fighter L5 / Thief L6
STR 13 DEX 18 CON 17 INT 14 WIS 9 CHA 10
Axe *, Bastard Sword *, Dagger *, Quarterstaff *, Shortbow *
Open Locks 55, Find traps 30, Pick Pockets 40, Move Silently 55, Hide in Shadows 70, Detect Illusion 25, Set Traps 30
47 HP
Name: Blackguard
Neutral Evil Female Human Blackguard L6
STR 14 DEX 10 CON 17 INT 6 WIS 16 CHA 18
Club *, Dagger *, Two-Handed Sword *, War Hammer *, Single-Weapon Style *, Spear *
61 HP
Name: Shaman
Neutral Evil Male Human Shaman L6
STR 11 DEX 11 CON 16 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 14
Axe *, Dart *, Two-Weapon Style *
Armor of Faith, Cure Light Wounds, Doom, Entangle, Spirit Ward
Charm Person or Mammal, Cure Moderate Wounds, Writhing Fog
Cure Disease, Spiritual Clarity
51 HP
Next time, we'll gallivant throughout the city, and cover a few wilderness areas we left untouched (notably, I want the CON tome, and we might as well pick up the Basilisk experience).
Then it's probably Durlag's Tower, Ice Island, Wolf Island, possibly not in that order, before returning to Candlekeep and advancing into BG2.
Lookin' forward.
A literally self-inflicted death brought a disappointing end to our run just before we could complete SoA.
We'd started by doing the Planar Sphere in order to collect a component for Crom Faeyr. That proved pretty straightforward with insects putting all the dangerous casters out of action. It felt like a bit of overkill when wiltings appeared during the fight with Tolgerias - but cast on our side rather than against us.
Everyone got levels during that.
We now had the components, but not the recipe card showing how to put them together, so went in search of Thaxy. The dragon wardstone was still in storage, but our higher levels made the fight pretty easy anyway despite Ash being unable to control the targeting of his new Wail of the Banshee spell.
Moving on to the Graveyard, Russell was able to kill many of the vampires with his turn undead, though he still liked to keep his hand in with the iMoD - now boosted by the extra strength given by Crom Faeyr. Bodhi lasted only moments when under attack by spells and Energy Blades as well as Russell's hard-hitting melee.
In Suldanesselar, Russell took quite a bit of damage from some of the golem groups, but there was no real danger. The only problem caused by Nizi was that the goblet she dropped appeared on the screenshot, but seemed to disappear before being picked up.
After a while searching we concluded that was a MP bug. While we would accept that for standard equipment, the goblet is the only way to summon Rillifane and open the entrance to the Tree of Life and we decided to console it in.
The fight on the Tree was another easy one, with Jon covered by insects before he could even complete his opening Time Stop.
In hell, Wolfie chose the good option for the Tests of Pride and Fear. For the Selfishness one though he preffered the evil award and Russell seemed happy enough to be cast as the victim there. Lack of recent experience with party play here proved our Achilles heel though, as none of us realised that the deaths meted out for being selfish are scripted to be permanent. With Russell gone it will thus be back to Candlekeep for us next time.
@Grond0 you know you could use the Trio 64 game and just continue with you and @Gate70 would have been a duo then. You guys are playing a duo too right? Trio 65 could be our usual slot on Sat.
Interesting idea @Corey_Russell, but I don't think I could go for it. Consoling in the goblet already felt dubious to me and this would be a stretch too far .
I was unable to sneak in some time but I am progressing again.
Lucius cleared most of Baldur's Gate outside areas as well as the sewers. The biggest thing that happened is that Kagain got held by Ratchild and was killed by the kobold arrows. Shar-Teel died with Gorpel Hinds fight against the other party.
I did not go into unnamed houses, but I did visit all the inns. The Seven Suns and the Ogre Mage for Scar are done. The Iron Throne is not visiter yet and neither are Marek and Ramazith and Ragefast. I got Quayle for Eldoth and Skie and I was hoping to get Alora but I keep missing her timing. In the meantime I joined Tiax instead. I wanted to bump him with set traps but I misclicked find traps instead which I found out quite a bit later and this is not what I wanted for him. I will remove Tiax for Alora after Marek and probably I will try to get Yeslick for Kagain if I can. Quayle is my last mage or I need to backtrack some; he's for now a keeper.
I clear the city of quests. I think only the ship in the docks is left which doesn't really matter. The poison quest was relatively easy going. The biggest trouble was Ramaziths tower where the kobold commandos killed Quayle and Tiax in a few hits.
The Iron Throne was bested with four potions of explosions, a wand of fear and a wand of summoning, and of course a lot of fighting.
I got the Balduran items and I did the Shandalar quest for the thieves guild. TotSC will be fun, but first I will go to Candlekeep and on the way out I will do the Ulgoths Beard.
Before the Iron Throne I swapped Tiax for Alora. Afterwards I swapped Kagain for Yeslick.
micro-update - Coredruid III - human totemic druid
Traveling with: April (bersker), Mazzy, Jaheira, Viconia, Yoshimo
permanently dead: (Aerie)
Well I started this run a little bit ago but wasn't sure he would survive being human but so far he has. Almost done with Chapter two, only setback has been the chunking by Aerie by vampires. She happened to be in the front when we exited the Inn at the gate district and there was no way to get her to safety. Mazzy replaced her and soon after dealing with Bodhi we'll go to Spellhold and replace Yoshimo with Imoen so then we'll have a mage again. I'll keep at it.
I have ran into a problem. During my fight with the imprisoned wizard (after he obtained the last of the treasures in the potrals) he imprisoned Viconia and Mazzy. I used a freedom scroll and both are now visible. Viconia was able to join but I cannot initiate a conversation with Mazzy (nothing happens). Is this a bug or by design? If by design then I have lost Mazzy. If this is a bug is there a way to get her to join the party even though I can't talk to her?
It definitely seems like a bug. There's always the control+q-command which force-adds the targeted creature to your party (debug mode needs to be active to use it), maybe you can get her back with that.
A dwarven cleric, gnome thief , and a halfling fighter thief walked into a bar. They wished they'd stayed there but instead they ventured as far as Zal and Vax (the gnome having already died twice)
Mr halberdy (Vax) fell to our tactics but our gnome was badly beaten by his companion and ran to a safe distance. This distance was declared unsafe by a kobold archer and a 3rd death ensued. As this point the cleric pushed his luck (he had been playing extremely fast and loose) and Zal used his melee weapon to kill our protagonist
The fighter / thief was left wondering why he'd chosen these two companions to venture forth with. Who knows
As for the bug I think Mazzy may have additional rejoin conditions for example she may expect to be found in certain places such as her family home. Anyway hows about this
Comments
The Lightning Party, update 16
At Sendai's Enclave, our first goal is to kill the first hive mother before someone gets hit by anti-magic ray:
Staff of the magi dispels help with the wizard Sendai clones, as does true sight:
The Elementals are currently sitting in Athkatla, but I decided I should make a start on one of the other parties I considered a little while ago. I've played a reasonable amount with minimum stat solo characters, but don't remember doing that with a party before. To avoid using racial minimums to bypass the minimum stats to some extent, I decided all characters had to be human. I chose character classes randomly though, which avoided the temptation to choose powerful classes, but that means some of kits get stat bonuses:
Rue, the PC, is a Blackguard which means he has double figure stats in strength, constitution and charisma.
Crew and Drew are both Priests of Lathander and at minimum stats, i.e. 9 in their main characteristic (wisdom in this case) and 3 elsewhere.
Brew is an Enchanter, with an enhanced charisma of 16.
Grue is a Shadowdancer, with double figure stats in strength, dexterity and charisma.
Slew is a Bounty Hunter at minimum stats.
That's not exactly the best balanced party in the world, but it should be serviceable. It will require quite a lot of micro-management to be successful though due to the absence of any character that can act as a decent tank early on. Rue does though have enough strength and constitution to potentially do that. His dexterity of 3 means his AC is a massive 7 worse than for a character with dexterity of 18, but he could make use of the bracers of dexterity at some point to remedy that deficit.
The first hint of trouble came when they attempted to rest in the Beregost temple area. Some dogs appeared right next to them and Slew was slain before I could pause or exit the area.
After a few tasks around Beregost and a trip to Nashkel the Minimalists went in search of some basilisks. Brew used PfP there to allow everyone to laboriously shoot down the monsters in the southern group and the party was able to take their first level up. The XP from the remaining basilisks then soon allowed them to level up again. Slew actually got -1 HPs for that level, which is not supposed to be possible but on the plus side he now had 100% in set traps. Those were used to kill Kirian's party before heading north to trap an old man - allowing everyone to take yet another level.
At High Hedge, Rue used the +1 arrows taken from Baerin to shoot the golems. Despite his poor dexterity his fighter THAC0 and weapon specialization were enough to hit the unarmoured golems reasonably easily. He bought the potion case there, to help offset a bit the weight limit of 5 that 4 of the party struggle under. There was more use of traps to dent the party's reputation when they encountered Drizzt at the Lake area. The two points lost there were quickly regained though by helping out Mirianne and then Brage.
In the Nashkel Mine, Mulahey was silenced for easy disposal. Outside the mine, silence looked like making the amazons simple. Only 1 of 4 blindness attempts worked though, which allowed Lamalha just enough time to recover her voice - but she was then immediately held. Nimbul & Tranzig were both silenced and disposed of without difficulty.
At the Bandit Camp, sleep disabled most of the external bandits. Taurgosz was doomed and blinded. Inside Tazok's tent the clerics used sanctuary to go in and cast silence. That allowed the rest of the party to enter freely and blind Hakt & Raemon - the latter annoyed Britik who was then commanded to die. Venkt resisted 5 attempts to blind him, but a first attempted backstab of the game by Grue proved to be a critical and too much for the mage.
I forgot until just too late about the Elminster clone in Beregost, but trapped the one at the FAI to allow another level up session. The Minimalists then headed for the Cloakwood, but hit immediate trouble again with an Ettercap ambush. I got lazy there and moved the party as a group, which is asking for trouble in close quarters. Sure enough, Brew was momentarily balked and an Ettercap took advantage. The rest of the party cut their losses by just picking up his gear and running for the temple.
Blackguard 5, 42 HPs, 78 kills
Priest of Lathander 5, 21 HPs, 18 kills, 0 deaths
Priest of Lathander 5, 19 HPs, 13 kills, 0 deaths
Enchanter 5, 8 HPs, 20 kills (+178 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death
Shadowdancer 6, 21 HPs, 27 kills, 0 deaths
Bounty Hunter 6, 8 HPs, 31 kills, 1 death
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208625/#Comment_1208625
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208890/#Comment_1208890
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208991/#Comment_1208991
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209094/#Comment_1209094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209253/#Comment_1209253
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209576/#Comment_1209576
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209882/#Comment_1209882
The vampires that greeted us in Brynnlaw managed to dominate Ash, but Russell's use of the iMod soon accounted for them and we went in search of Perth. Ash's use of Pixie Prick immediately put him down for the count and he was given no chance to recover. His book of Burning Hands was discarded.
Wolfie said a sad farewell to his Bhaal powers on entry to Spellhold and we started working through enemies there. Ash fancied his chances at solving a set of riddles to get a ring of regeneration and managed that with only 1 wrong answer - and his 100% fire resistance shrugged off the flame arrow response to that anyway. Meanwhile the others attacked a nearby pit fiend. Russell had cast remove fear there, but that appeared not to work on Wolfie and he ran away while Russell did the killing.
Russell had been able to destroy a number of undead with his turning ability, but there was no chance of that working on the local lich. Instead, Russell made use of a PfU scroll and waded in with the iMoD. The greater mummy's there took a little time to destroy, but the lich went down to the first kiss from the mace.
There was a nasty moment when Wolfie attacked Bodhi in wolf shape. The transfer from one shape to another often causes problems in the game, so it wasn't a great surprise that the AoP stopped working when Wolfie shifted to slayer form. However, the slayer should be naturally immune to level drain and it certainly was a surprise when that source of immunity also failed. Fortunately Bodhi chose to run away just in time - Wolfie was down to level 4 and Bodhi's hits drain 5 levels. Wolfie had a single restoration scroll and made use of that. Russell got a new level shortly afterwards and proudly proclaimed that he would be able to do any required restorations in the future as he could now cast level 4 spells.
Ash had also got a level in Spellhold and put that to good use by summoning a couple of mordy swords for a group of clay golems to attempt to smash in vain. Shortly afterwards we made use of a dispensing machine to get some new boots of speed for Wolfie and headed for the exit. That resulted in another moment of concern when Wolfie was confused by some myconids just before we were teleported on to a group of apparitions. I'm not sure what happens if you attack them, but there's a good chance that would permanently end the run - but Wolfie chose not to attack immediately and the others clustered round him until he'd regained his senses.
Jon caused no particular concerns and ran away when low on HPs. A group of murderers thought they saw an opportunity to sneak attack Ash, but he was wise to their game and just ran around for a few seconds until they had all had a chance to arrive - and then watched them evaporate in his death spell.
We took ship to Fish City and worked through the opponents there. Wolfie chose to work for the king initially, but then double-crossed him and attacked. The king went down quickly and Wolfie planned to then kill the prince, but he ran away while Wolfie was in his inventory. I thought that would be the last we saw of him, but fortunately he eventually turned up once more - just in time for his execution.
In the Underdark we were about to attack a group of drow when Corey's home town suffered a power cut. Without his character being actively controlled the drow lasted much longer than expected and Ash had some uncomfortable moments when being chased by a couple of Nishruu. However, the battle was eventually won and we saved the game there.
Shapeshifter 14, 87 HPs, 235 kills (+254 in BGEE)
Dragon disciple 16, 80 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 393 kills (+99 in BGEE), 1 death
Paladin 15, 124 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 407 kills (+194 in BGEE), 6 deaths
Russell got the vast majority of undead deaths in that session and took the lead. It seems doubtful that Ash will be able to fight back again, but our crafty sorcerer has produced surprises before and perhaps his new ADHW can be put to good use next time.
Watcher's Keep level 3 has, by now, become one of the areas I consider to be the toughest for no-reload purposes, at least for my style of play. The no-magic zones can be very deadly in various ways, especially if the party isn't super strong on saving throws or item-based immunities. Also, these demons get to cast their spells freely despite it being a no-magic zone. This resulted in the first very close call of the run, when, ironically, the 3 cornugon's in the first no-magic zone, throw around 3 lightning bolts, which bounce around the room dealing dangerous amounts to the party, which, for once, couldn't be protected from lightning damage. Our own strategies used against us - and they got pretty close to taking down Iseri (I should have switched the cloak of reflection to her immediately, but this all happened very fast and I didn't realize the danger in time):
Human Stick (Gate70) and Elf Pic (Grond0)
Fresh from our previous failure we rolled up a new pairing and set off last weekend, our first session taking us to level 3 and a longer second session today collecting reputation, equipment, and ready to appear at the bandit camp. My lack of note-taking leads to summarisation via screenshot
Pic catches a trio of hobgoblins napping
Stick sends a charmed animal in to Bassilus so Pic can blind him
I therefore plow on through Drasus who is so easy at this point... only the mages manage to confuse both Kagain and Shar-Teel, but after a darting and some arrows of biting the foes soon fall and control is regained over the entire party.
Next Shar-Teel does to the lightning bolt bounce in the tunnels leading me to retrace to the Friendly Arm Inn for a resurrection. I tell Yeslick to save himself and I am now stansing at the stairs down. Too much walking means not enough progress this time.
Lucius 0 deaths
Kagain 3 deaths
Shar-Teel 2 deaths
Eldoth, Safana, Faldorn 0 deaths
out of party
Montaron, Khalid 3 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
Jaheira, Xan 1 death
Kivan, Minsc, Xzar, Imoen, Garrick, Viconia, Coran 0 deaths
Edwin and Dynaheir dead
Pending recruitment
Alora, Quayle, Skie, Ajantis, Rasaad, Yeslick
Skipped, Baeloth.
We prepare our acid protection spells for Draconis, spread out, send some summons and attack at range to get him to transform:
On to Draconis. We take down the salamanders, helped by some protections against frost damage, and move in - he pushes us away upon his transformation and uses remove on the summons - great:
The fourth pocket plane challenge is quickly done, and we enter Amkethran. Here's a last hurray for our lightning bolts against the monestary guardians, where a single lightning bolt with two bounces takes out the enemy mages:
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1210027/#Comment_1210027
Rather than return straight away to the Cloakwood, the Minimalists explored some other areas first. At the Cloud Peak Mountains they picked up the bracers of dexterity for Rue. With him now potentially doing a bit of tanking, they went to find Greywolf to get him a proficient melee weapon. His high HPs allowed him to survive being commanded to die, but he was soon finished off by missiles anyway. None of the party could move while carrying Samuel, but they used inventory transfers to get him to the FAI anyway.
Rue's tanking skills were tested out at Durlag's Tower where he took on a blinded battle horror. That needed critical hits and the 2 it got were not sufficient to save it. A second battle horror got 3 criticals, but a couple of CLW meant that still caused no concern. A bit of carelessness though cost further deaths against the battle horror on the wall. The clerics had penned the skeletons up there while Rue tanked the battle horror. I wanted to pull it away a bit to give Slew a chance to use traps on the skeletons, but Rue moved a fraction too far and the battle horror switched targets to Slew. He tried to run away, only to find the battle horror was standing on the exit to the lower level. In the distraction from that, I failed to react quick enough when a couple of the skeletons recovered from being turned and Crew was shot down as well. By that stage the battle horror had been blinded and Rue killed the remaining skeletons before going in search of a temple.
On their return they cleared the remainder of the walls before moving inside. Skeletons were used to distract ghasts while they worked through those. Slew borrowed the bracers of dexterity in order to disable the trap leading to the roof. Brew forgot to memorise PfP prior to that, so the clerics used skeletons there as well to deal with the basilisks. Riggilo was blinded after accepting Kirinhale's hair. Kirinhale herself survived a cluster of traps and teleported away. The ghost, however, has no missile resistance and did not survive its own bunch of traps.
Bassilus was silenced and shot down, but Melicamp failed to survive his transformation. Moving on to find Shoal, Rue presented himself for the kiss to ensure no-one would die. A couple of skeletons provided support while dealing with Ogre Droth and Shoal was then killed to pick up her high XP reward. A thrown trap and some skeletons made short work of the sirines in that area. Attempting to rest before travelling though cost Slew once more. The dire wolves that appeared next to her attacked instantly, but the first hit still left her with 1 HP. I was just a fraction slow reacting to their appearance though and a second hit came in as the party started to travel away - so they hastily reversed course in order to pick up her equipment.
After their temple visit they returned to the Lighthouse area in search of more sirines. Those also quickly fell, taking the Minimalists close to another level. Traps inside the golem cave then soon provided the remaining XP necessary. Slew finally got a good HP roll there - he'd only got 7 HPs from the previous 5 levels, but this time picked up the maximum 4 extra.
Finally it felt like time to have another go at penetrating the Cloakwood. In the second area the Minimalists had cleared most of the map, but done that primarily through micro-management of position rather than using traps and spells. I was getting a bit tired of that and a bit of sloppiness saw Slew being attacked by a giant spider. Despite her 50% increase in HPs at the previous level, she was still not up to resisting a critical hit and she went down for the 4th time. Back once more and they still had to clear Centeol's lair. Rue got poisoned at one point doing that and had to call for help from Drew to cure that. There were then a further problem when I tried to transfer the body via inventories back to Tiber. Some spiders apparently regenerated on the encounter spot near him and Brew was dead before I realised they were there. Another pocket full of gold was handed over to the temple as I mused that it's always the service providers in boom areas that get rich …
After that they ignored most of the encounters on the way to the mine. Traps did the bulk of the damage there, though Grue finished off Rezdan with a backstab. Inside the mine they avoided combat where possible, though they did have to walk into the ambush on the 2nd level - sleep did a good job against the guards there though. Rue was charmed by Davaeorn in his initial assault, but had ducked into a room and was able to wait that out there while skeleton occupied the mage. A couple of special traps then killed him.
On the way back from the Cloakwood I had 3 ambushes and once more couldn't bothered to move accurately for the last of those. That resulted in triggering a web trap, which was not good news. Rue used a strength potion in order to be able to wield Spider's Bane and tried to lead the ettercaps away - but was poisoned immediately. Rue had no green PfP scroll and, with everyone else held, no other way to cure the poison. He used a heroism potion to try and stay alive while the others were killed, so he could run away. That wasn't going to be quite enough so he took (I thought) a potion of power. However, as the last of his companions died, so did he and I think I must have moved Rue before the potion had taken effect …
I did quite some backtracking to all my npcs to get some kill Counts. I will add it to the bottom. I finished cloakwood without issues. The 3rd level was not too difficult with the party. The ogre mage was killed by many arrows and darts.
Then level 4 was detrapped and I drank some potions of absorption throughout the party and a potion of spell immunity below level 5 for Lucius and then faced Davaeorn. He cast some lightning bolts which got Kagain to low health in the end but Faldorn kept healing him and the party hit Davaeorn with arrows of frost/fire and darts of fire.
Next I cleared the mines and unplugged the key to save the miners. After some detours to sell items I let Faldorn go back to her forest. She had a total of 1 kill, being Drasus of 1400 XP. Interesting...
I joined Ajantis and we went into the city. There I beeline to Skie where I removed Safana. Then we got some gold with Eldoth and Skie in the Blade and Stars Inn. Not that I needed any, but that is their quest. I now plan to remove them for their honeymoon elopement, then I cycle back to Quayle and Alora (I think) and after that remove either Ajantis (after the sewers) for Yeslick and/or Tiax in-between... I will lack a magic user and a cleric now so I need Quayle in the least I think, and I lack a thief meaning Alora will stay too.
Party now
Lucius 0 deaths, 593 kills
Kagain 3 deaths, 291 kills
Shar-Teel 2 deaths, 223 kills
Eldoth 0 deaths, 11 kills
Skie 0 deaths, 0 kills
Ajantis 0 deaths, 5 kills
Out of party
Montaron 3 deaths, 39 kills
Khalid 3 deaths, 48 kills
Branwen 2 deaths, 4 kills
Jaheira 1 death, 22 kills
Xan 1 death, 28 kills
Kivan 0 deaths, 61 kills
Minsc 0 deaths, 35 kills including Edwin
Xzar 0 deaths, 13 kills
Imoen 0 deaths, 133 kills
Garrick 0 deaths, 40 kills
Viconia 0 deaths, 19 kills
Coran 0 deaths, 9 kills
Edwin dead, 8 kills including Dynaheir
Dynaheir dead, 0 kills
Safana 0 deaths, 26 kills
Faldorn 0 deaths, 1 kill
Pending recruitment
Alora, Quayle, Rasaad, Yeslick, Tiax
Skipped, Baeloth.
That makes Lucius kill 593 out of 1609 enemies (if counted correctly) for 36% of all game kills so far. Granted, a lot of bg1 is trash mobs and this is an archer with mild ranged damage bonuses but also quite some skeletons are missile resisting/immune and therefore those numbers are really good for a dart user. I will monitor how much he will get at the end of the game.
Other kills were made with bows from Kivan (61) and Imoen (133) and for melee Kagain (291) and Shar-Teel (223) are starting to catch up... maybe? The statistics might be different had I kept a few team members for longer but overall I swapped in npcs with similar proficiencies quite often. For sure damage per hit is higher in melee, but damage over multiple hits seems to count for something as well.
After buffing and drinking our remaining potions, we were ready to face Mel at the throne. The first incarnation was easy enough: All we needed to do was attack (we also threw a lower resistance in there before realizing that this was pointless as she's fully immune to lightning damage anyway), and she wasn't able to do anything of substance before having to retreat:
Okay, so with the wish rest, we fully rebuff. Great, we feel very optimistic now. No character really capable of killing the fallen solar within a timestop duration here, so we will fight him without that for once. We send in a magical sword to distract our enemies first:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The new list of kits missing from the Hall of Heroes:
Stalker
Priest of Helm
Conjurer, Diviner, Necromancer
Indeed this time stop was frightening.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209938/#Comment_1209938
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209953/#Comment_1209953
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209978/#Comment_1209978
In the opening dungeon, Rime quickly reclaimed the Ashideena hammer for his weapon. That was the only permanent weapon they could use, but that was plenty when added to magically created weapons and spell damage. They didn't even bother summoning any of the fire elementals Lucid could now produce, but still successfully dealt with Ulvaryl on their way out.
They immediately went to find Mencar, but that encounter cost Rime a first death. He had taken a lot of damage from Smaeluv and decided to retreat rather than risk taking another hit - which could have been fatal. Smaeluv died anyway moments later, but the problem was that I hadn't allowed for the fact that Flash had already been casting a glyph for some time and Rime became a victim of 'friendly fire electricity".
There were no problems at the circus and they paid Gaelen Bayle before going to help Hendak take control of the Copper Coronet. That allowed them to purchase a sword of flame for Toxic and the Stonefire axe for Sting. Moving on to Watcher's Keep, Sting got a far more suitable weapon for him with the acquisition of Firetooth.
They didn't enter the Keep for now though, but headed for the de'Arnise Hold. That almost immediately provided Flash with the FoA. The trolls were no problem, but I paid the price for playing around with the iron golem - using enchant weapon there to allow everyone to attack. For some reason the poison cloud emitted by the golem was doing twice as much damage to Toxic as anyone else (no-one was hasted) and Flash's attempt to save him with his Bhaal ability failed. Flash duly used the exception of being allowed to raise dead on party members outside combat, rather than sticking to the general rule of no healing or buffing spells on others - so it wasn't long before the party was back together again. They went to upgrade the FoA, which I didn't expect to cause trouble. However, while I was quickly writing up the note of the previous death the party must have come across a troll and the few seconds away from the game had been sufficient for it to kill Lucid and nearly do the same for Blast - good job it hadn't picked on Flash I suppose, though with the plate armor he inherited from Glaicas he would probably have survived anyway. After another raise dead, they pressed on to find Tor'Gal. Lucid produced a fire elemental there and a critical backstab from Toxic put the troll down for the count.
They were en route to Trademeet next, but rescued Renfeld on the way and returned to Athkatla to deal with Prebek. After looting the harpers the Elementals taught Lucette about the perils of trying to use them - that encounter also raised the ire of the Cowled Wizards who warned about using any more arcane magic in the city. They picked up some extra XP as a result of Toxic using potions to loot the 2 thieves guilds and stealing a necklace from Flash's own temple allowed them to level up.
Berserker 10, 124 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 79 kills (+488 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death
Archer 10, 89 HPs, 34 kills (+357 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death
Priest of Talos 10, 74 HPs, 9 kills (+85 in BGEE/SoD)
Assassin 12, 73 HPs, 6 kills (+178 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths
Avenger 12, 86 HPs, 5 kills (+66 in BGEE/SoD), 3 deaths
Dragon Disciple 11, 59 HPs, 84 kills (+244 in BGEE/SoD), 2 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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208625/#Comment_1208625
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208890/#Comment_1208890
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208991/#Comment_1208991
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209094/#Comment_1209094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209253/#Comment_1209253
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209576/#Comment_1209576
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209882/#Comment_1209882
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1210045/#Comment_1210045
Gate70 and I lost a MP run last week at the giant soul gem in the Underdark. Despite taking a generally cautious approach to this run, I felt a moral obligation to set the record straight there - and in the event everything went smoothly with the lich being quickly disrupted and the other caster troubled by insect bites.
The balor that had been troubling the svirfneblin managed to paralyse Wolfie, but he was standing well back and in no danger while our trusty paladin was on the job.
Next up we helped Vithal recover some items from the elemental planes. While he was doing that for the 3rd time, an illithid came to investigate the commotion. Ash was caught off guard and stunned and lost his brains before the others could intervene. Wolfie did still choose to attack Vithal though - insects successfully keeping him quiet.
Then it was on to the Western Tunnels. Ash found that area a bit annoying as his death spell caught relatively few victims and the kuo-toa were highly resistant to his ADHW. The prince's high regeneration rate was too great for Russell to beat down on his own and Wolfie had to give his inner self what's become a fairly rare appearance to help mordy swords and the odd spell deal the necessary damage. There was though a problem with the demon knights when Russell collapsed - his HPs having been beaten down just enough to make him susceptible to PW:kill. With melee abilities reduced so greatly, Ash did most of the work on the two remaining demon knights. His mordy swords did a good job of keeping them occupied while spells assaulted them - including a chaos that surprised Wolfie by successfully confusing one on them.
After talking to Adalon we moved into the drow city. It's a long time since I did any tasks there, but Corey was able to talk us through a couple of rough spots there - like how to talk down the aboleth without having to do his quest. Ash had provided Wolfie with a helmet that could cast death spell, but his own spell was far quicker to cast when rescuing Phaere from a group of illithid. A few tasks later and Matron Ardulace was incinerated by a demon - with Phaere following the same way a second or two later. Ash sauntered towards the exit, rather than using haste to keep up with the others but correctly identified the gates would remain open long enough for him to get there anyway. We didn't bother with the beholder or illithid areas, but just got Adalon to help deal with the drow at the exit - she made light work of them, using lower resistance to make them vulnerable to spells.
After escaping from the Underdark, we travelled back to Athkatla, disdaining an offer of help from Drizzt on the way. On arrival Wolfie handed over a sword piece to Kruin, though Russell complained that me might well have used the sword given that Carsomyr had disappeared into thin air in a previous session. The final action was an assault on the Twisted Rune, which did not go at all to plan. Wolfie originally proposed to use PfU to prevent Shangalar from attacking - he could then be finished off by missile attacks while out of sight of other enemies. However, he inadvertently applied PfU to himself as well as the others - preventing him from having the opening conversation with Shangalar. To get round that he used a PfM scroll on himself to dispel the PfU before reapplying it once Shangalar had done his talk. That left the lich vulnerable, but the PfM scroll prevented Wolfie from using true sight and Russell was keen to get a quick kill on him - so attacked with the iMoD. That moved him into sight of Vaxall, who quickly used anti-magic to dispel his buffs, allowing Shangalar the chance to re-enter the combat - and he duly used maze to temporarily take Russell out of action. We got lucky there though as Layene, who had also been activated by this point, threw in a meteor storm, who's only effect was to kill Shangalar and send Vaxall running when its morale broke. That took the beholder towards Layene and a pit fiend killed it. That just left Layene and we did at least manage to get her XP when a mordy sword chewed its way through her buffs.
A quick visit to Cromwell made up a couple of weapons, but highlighted that we had not yet done the Planar Sphere and hence couldn't forge Crom Faeyr. That will be the first thing on the agenda next time.
Shapeshifter 15, 89 HPs, 249 kills (+254 in BGEE)
Dragon disciple 17, 81 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 425 kills (+99 in BGEE), 2 deaths
Paladin 17, 130 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 478 kills (+194 in BGEE), 7 deaths
Russell built his lead considerably in that session and Ash is likely to struggle to find enough trash mobs to keep in touch with him in the future.
Previous recorded run
In amongst the odd bits of party play recently I've been trying to give Bash another chance to wield his fearsome weapon - he's allowed to use a range of tactics, but can never be responsible for killing anything except through the use of the berserking sword. He's had a number of abortive attempts in the last week or so thanks to various minor errors, like getting positioning wrong before going berserk, forgetting to put armor back on after casting spells, forgetting to stop Korax attacking before killing a basilisk and absent-mindedly using LMD to kill a squirrel with the aim of speeding up healing. That may be partly because the greater precision required in solo play doesn't mix all that well with the more slapdash approach I tend to use with parties - but it's probably just me
I'll try limiting any sessions with Bash to an hour to see if I can avoid the more obvious mistakes. At least this run he has managed to see out the first hour ...
After doing a few non-violent tasks in Candlekeep, Bash went to find Brage to pick up his sword, with just a brief stop to calm down Marl on the way. The mighty Noober became his first victim in Nashkel - a critical hit being severe overkill there. Back in Beregost his next target saw him swap reputation for Algernon's Cloak, meaning he got Bhaal LMD when resting. He also blinded Neera and cut her down from outside sight range to get her gem bag. His first berserking episode was against some spiders. He managed to retreat to a choke point before going berserk so they couldn't all attack at once and none of them hit him.
On the way to the FAI he killed a sleeping ogre for its belt, which got him to fighter level 2. On arrival he recovered a ring for Joia. Tarnesh was then blinded at the first attempt and Bash managed to get into proper position to attack him from outside sight range before he went berserk. Inside the inn Bash bought Buckley's Buckler which would potentially allow regeneration, though by the time he could free himself from his sword, he will probably have read a constitution tome anyway. Handing in Landrin's goods got him to illusionist level 2 and he picked up the pantaloons. He also charmed Jaheira - pulling her outside for disposal to pick up another invisibility potion to add to the ones stolen in Beregost and Nashkel (though his berserk tendencies means that invisibility potions are less useful than for most solo characters).
Some ogrillons had Mirianne's letter and some hobgoblins Zhurlong's boots, but both were unable to hang on to their prizes. Unlike one previous attempt, I remembered to charm Zhurlong and move him into a private position before killing him.
Back at the Nashkel Carnival, Vitiare was charmed and moved to a safe(ish) location and Bash recovered his senses after that quickly enough to avoid further bloodshed. Moving on into the Cloud Peak Mountains, Bash rescued Rufie and then killed Zal & Vax to get to fighter level 3. The plan for Caldo & Krumm was for Caldo to be charmed and used to distract Krumm before leading Bash away from the dryad if he was still berserk. As it happened Caldo died at the same moment as Krumm and Bash recovered his senses an instant too late to save the dryad - causing another reputation loss there. He did though get to illusionist level 3 immediately after that by killing a dire wolf.
After killing a blinded Ingot, Bash moved on to the Gnoll Stronghold and his final action of the session was to make use of the charisma tome there.
Fighter 3 / Illusionist 3, 37 HPs (including 6 from familiar), 50 kills
We were lost for, then our self-learning kicked in. It looked like Beregost and the journal said Tranzig was dead so clearly our destination should be the bandit camp. How far would we get today without any note-taking
(a biography often with fictionalised scenes)
(near sightedness)
(in this context: A piece of ordnance carrying a 12 pound shot)
(Out of place; congenitally displaced)
(to lose order)
(loss of consciousness and postural tone)
(Having an affinity for or indiscriminately affecting many kinds of tissue)
(irregular)
Previous updates
Bash started the action by heading for Ulgoth's Beard. The ankheg in the way was dispatched in 2 attacks before it even got around to targeting him. It took a while, but he eventually charmed Dushai and took him away from the crowds for disposal.
With reputation down at 4, Bash did a bit of repair work by helping Ardrouine then going to hand in Mr Colquetle's amulet.
Next up he headed for the ankheg area. That was always going to be potentially tricky and, in retrospect, he really should have purchased the green PfP scroll before going there. Instead he tried to rely on Korax, which introduced the problem of getting him into position to attack basilisks without himself being subject to attack by Bash. With the very first basilisk encountered, Bash ordered Korax round to the back of it while he lost control of himself immediately and attacked from the front. The problem was that the basilisk didn't attack Korax, but immediately tried to retreat. With Bash rushing in from the direction the basilisk was heading and Korax's relatively slow movement from the other side, the basilisk was closest to Bash when it decided to stop retreating and gaze at the nearest enemy ...
Starting: In BG1EE.
Mods: Full SCS 35.18.
Difficulty: Insane with no difficulty-dependent damage increase.
Protagonist: Necromancer the Necromancer.
Special rules: Random party run, as dictated by the spoiler. TLDR:
Generate three random parties, pick one.
Each party member gets to choose from three full stat sets (no moving/increasing/decreasing stats); Necromancer cheats by forcing his INT to be 18, see below.
Spontaneous casters get to roll three spell picks for each new spell and pick one.
No temporary INT boosts may be used to aid scroll scribing: This is why Necromancer cheats, as otherwise he might well get stuck with never being able to use higher-level spells.
where each such generated party obeys these rules:
1. At least one of the characters in each party must be a Necromancer (the protagonist).
2. At least one of the characters in each party must be some kind of Thief.
3. None of the characters in each party may be a Wild Mage.
4. No exact duplicate characters in each party.
For each such generated party, I may regenerate a single character once: If I choose to do so, I must use the newly
generated character. I then select the party I like best, and set to work!
For each character, three full sets of stats are rolled:
Stats may not be increased/decreased, and may not be moved around. I select the set of stats I like best.
There is one exception to this: Necromancer rerolls his three stat sets until each has 18 INT.
The reason for this is the rule at the end.
Proficiencies, Thief skill points and starting spells are also randomized, as is every choice made during level-up,
and naturally we're using random hitpoints.
Two additional rules.
First, no temporary INT-buffs may be used to aid scroll scribing, only permanent ones
(INT tome in BG1,+1 INT from Machine of Lum The Mad in ToB, and (the possible but unlikely) +1 INT from the Deck of Many things).
Hence why Necromancer forces his INT to be 18: I want to be sure the protagonist
always has access to his full array of class features (spells of any level).
Second, whenever spontaneous casters (Sorcerers, Dragon Disciples, Shaman) get to select a new spell,
they randomly roll a set of three which I may choose from. Technically they should just be forced to
stick with a random choice, but there are so many plain useless or bugged spells I found it becomes
untenable.
Our party:
Protagonist
Name: Necromancer
Lawful Good Male Human Necromancer
STR 17 DEX 12 CON 11 INT 18 WIS 17 CHA 18
Quarterstaff *
Chill Touch, Find Familiar, Larloch's Minor Drain
Name: Priest of Helm
Lawful Evil Male Dwarf Priest of Helm
STR 14 DEX 14 CON 15 INT 11 WIS 14 CHA 7
Sling *, Two-Handed Weapon Style *
Name: Dragon Disciple
Chaotic Neutral Male Elf Dragon Disciple
STR 10 DEX 19 CON 14 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 15
Sling *
Larloch's Minor Drain, Sleep
Name: Fighter / Thief
Chaotic Evil Male Halfling Fighter / Thief
STR 13 DEX 17 CON 17 INT 14 WIS 9 CHA 10
Axe *, Bastard Sword *, Dagger *, Quarterstaff *
Find traps +5, Open Locks +5, Hide in Shadows +10, Move Silently +10, Set Traps +5
Name: Blackguard
Neutral Evil Female Human Blackguard
STR 14 DEX 10 CON 17 INT 6 WIS 16 CHA 17
Club *, Dagger *, Two-Handed Sword *, War Hammer *
Name: Shaman
Neutral Evil Male Human Shaman
STR 11 DEX 11 CON 16 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 14
Axe *, Dart *
Doom, Entangle
So, in addition to Necromancer, we have a Blackguard with +3 CON modifier, a Fighter / Thief also with +3 CON modifier, a Priest of Helm, a Shaman, and a Dragon Disciple.
Eh... even with rule of three for spell picks, can we really swing it with two spontaneous casters on random spells?
Hopefully. Dragon Disciple can probably act as a desperate-times-tank at least, if he manages to get a few defensive spells, and the Shaman can always dance to contribute in a fight.
We're a bit light on fighting power too, but two warrior-types should be sufficient. We'll give it a whirl.
Nascent Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 1
Part 2 found here
With a Cleric available, and one with enough Wisdom to start with three L1 spell slots to boot, Tarnesh presents little obstacle.
With several Command prepared, we head north from the FAI on my customary initial tour: Do Tenya's quest as well as kill the Ankheg north of her hut, deliver Farmer Brun's dead son (snagged under Sanctuary along with the Ankheg's loot, including the Wand of Fire), and clear the local Zombie infestation in the northern farms.
Priest of Helm snags level 2 after these escapades, and with four Commands as well as a few Sleep from Dragon Disciple, we slowly but comparatively safely start clearing the randomly-spawning Ankhegs, delving into the Nest when we cannot find any outside. We call it quits for the moment when everyone has leveled up once; the intent was just to get everyone a few extra hitpoints as cushion.
South we go, as we're in want of the Ankheg armor sitting in a field in Nashkel. Passing by Beregost, we do the easy stuff: Karlat, Neera's ambush, (since we have Sleep) the local spider infestation, and Perdue's missing sword.
While at High Hedge, we invest in some scrolls of Identify and Sleep: Necromancer fubs the first batch but manages to scribe the second (and last...) one available there, so now we can both identify items and obliterate low-level enemies with dual Sleep casts.
Here we take a slight risk before proceeding south: Shaman managed to pick up Entangle at level 1.
It's a touch dangerous, but maybe the Wolf Pack can be brought down?
Indeed it can! Loading up a bunch of Entangle means the Vampiric Wolves never reach us, and we have plenty of Scorcher charges on our Wand of Fire. Unless I miss my count, that's about 1000 experience per character; not too shabby at this stage.
Little of import occurs as we head south to Nashkel, clearing various minor encounters on the way.
We want to head back north and finish the Ankheg nest, but we should be fine to swing by the areas immediately west of Beregost on our way; Jemby still can't resist Command, Zekar fails his save against Sleep, and Teyngan can't pick up the slack on his own.
In Bassilus' area, a double Sleep does in the local named Hobgoblins.
A rest later, Bassilus himself fares little better: An initial Wand of Fire Fireball clears most of his cronies and interrupts the Cleric himself, and a follow-up Silence seals the deal.
With a Lawful Good protagonist, we start with a 12 reputation, so can now afford to bribe reputation up to 17, which we promptly do, then set about handing in reputation quests. Beregost yields 2 points (Bjornin and Colquetle), but we're still on the hunt for the final one, which Joia at the FAI kindly contributes.
Good stuff. All we need now is someone with 20 CHA and we can shop.
For the moment though, we head north and clear the remaining Ankhegs (there weren't many left), give up a Ruby Ring and 100 gold to Farmer Brun, and that's it for the northernmost part of the coast.. for the moment.
Necromancer manages to scribe a Friends scroll, so we invest in some spell scrolls: The selection at High Hedge isn't great, but Cat's Grace and Strength are both useful picks. Fighter / Thief got a pip in Shortbow at Fighter level 3, so we grab the Masterwork one for sale in Beregost, as well as a Sling +1. Meager pickings, but they'll help a little.
Fighter / Thief also manages to pickpocket Algernon on the second try (just Charm him if you fail), so now we have 20 CHA available at will.
Alright, initial setup is nearly done. We're missing one key item though: The Bracers of Dexterity. And so we head west of Nashkel.
Xvart Village, Neville the Bandit, bridge-begotten Ogre Berserkers, Gibberling hordes, Gnolls en masse... we wade through them all.
Blackguard is now a decent tank, since she's had the good fortune to roll acceptably (though not spectacularly) for hitpoints.
We do the remaining two areas to the extreme south (Cloud Peaks and... I forget the name, Sendai and Vax+Zal's area).
While here, we also deal with the Doomsayer. I actually didn't know about this for a long time, but there's a small Gnoll clan near the northeastern edge of the map: They fall easily to mass Sleep, and usually yield some scrolls. This time, we get Protection from Fire: Nice to have an extra of those if we fub the first scribe attempt.
The Doomsayer is quickly brought low; we have Magic Missile on Necromancer, Strength buffs on our two warriors as well as Priest of Helm, and wands are available if things go bad (but they don't).
Brage is escorted back to the Temple of Helm, and that's the southwestern part of the coast done.
Next, we head towards the Nashkel mines. Dorn's ambush is easily foiled by now, Greywolf fails his save against Hold Person, and that friggin' Kobold Shaman makes a nuisance of itself as usual, even when we dedicate two Wand charges to frying it quickly.
We're actually lucky it went with Chromatic Orb and stunned Blackguard early, as a well-aimed Fireball could easily wreak havoc on us at these levels.
Again, I forgot Mulahey likes Mental Domination. However, our low levels work in our favor: Blackguard fails her save against our Sleep spell and quietly sits out the rest of the fight.
Back to Nashkel, and Oublek's fated encounter with Nimbul.
For there has always been an Oublek striding valiantly into battle with Nimbul, and there always shall be.
But will there ever be an Oublek that triumphs against Nimbul? Nay. Nay, there will not.
I chuckle a bit as Rasaad's eagerness to steal our kill XP leads to him getting fried accidentally by a Burning Hands.
Now if only Neera could Wild Surge herself into oblivion...
Heading north, Tranzig is tackled without incident (though I've seen him let loose with Lightning Bolts before, so should not be underestimated).
A quick rest later, we get the Amazon ambush upon transitioning, and things turn a little frantic.
One of the (initially invisible) Thieves actually opted to start shooting instead of moving in for a backstab; I've never seen them do that before. As a result, we had to shuffle around a bit, and the Clerics, as you can see, got off a few spells.
Fortunately, neither Thief had the damage output to finish Blackguard off before we could shut them down.
We really are getting a lot of mileage out of those two early wands of Fire and Frost.
En route to the Bandit Camp, I get a nasty surprise fighting Corsone (Osmadi failed his save against Silence so managed nothing).
Corsone finishes Call Lightning, which I saw coming so equipped Talos' Gift on Necromancer; it hurt a bit but it didn't get dangerous. However, even after we killed Corsone and moved well outside his corpse's sight range, the lightning bolts kept coming. I counted 5 hits on Necromancer, who quaffed our only Potion of Absorption after the third hit to be on the safe side.
That was unpleasant.
Still, we made it through, and arrive at the bandit camp. Now, Necromancer fubbed scribing the Web scroll from Mulahey's chest, but Fighter / Thief manages to crack the lock on the chest in the south-easternmost hut here, containing a Fireball and Web scroll.. and Necromancer successfully scribes the latter. Good. That'll make this much easier.
Much, MUCH easier it turns out: Taurgosz fails his save against Hold Person, and the rest of the camp succumbs to a hellish combination of Entangle, Web and Writhing Fog. We only have to pop a single Fireball charge; Writhing Fog isn't a big damage dealer, but when you're stuck in three instances of it for the full duration, it'll still hurt.
We clear the remainder of the Camp and head back towards Beregost, where we invest in the Shadow Armor, pushing Fighter / Thief into quite acceptable levels of sneaking ability, and also pick up some potions from High Hedge; we'll need a few Potions of Freedom to ensure safety during the Cloakwood, after all.
En route to said Cloakwood, we get Molkar's ambush. They should've been an opening act to the Amazons, honestly.
Alright, Cloakwood. First area is easy enough, as Druids do not do well under Silence.
Second area is trickier: Fighter / Thief has spent nearly all his points on Hide and Move silently, with a smattering of... well, nearly everything else except Find Traps.
As a result, he can't detect, much less disarm, the Web traps here: Hence, he moves ahead under stealth (recall we lack Invisibility...), and flees back at the first sight of an enemy, often tripping web traps, but making it outside enemy visual range before inevitably becoming webbed.
It's annoying, but reasonably safe. Soon, we're outside Centeol's lair: Blackguard under Protection from Fire (courtesy of Priest of Helm) and a Potion of Freedom charges in first.
Once the enemies are all clustered around her (and have wasted their initial single-target Webs), the rest of the party follows, dropping Fireballs into the center.
Yes, Necromancer managed to scribe the Fireball scroll from the bandit camp! Doesn't matter much since Skull Trap would probably be a better choice for him, but I'll go with Fireball anyway for style (for BG1, at least).
We clear the Shadow Druids (except the Arch Druid), purge the Wyvern Nest, then head back, since we're almost out of supplies and so can't rest many more times (SCS component).
Before we assault the Cloakwood mines, I'd like the WoMS as an emergency option, so we stop by the tombs east of Nashkel.
Narcillicus went with all physical defenses and no spell defenses.
Alright. We make our way back into the heart of Cloakwood.
Priest of Helm can manage three of the cruddiest Skeleton Warriors, so that'll be our initial lineup.
I haven't had Necromancer try to scribe the Spell Thrust scroll yet: It's an important scroll, so I want to wait with doing so until Necromancer gets the +1 INT from the tome in Baldur's Gate.
This means we have no way of dealing with spell protections on Kysus and Rezdan, beyond waiting them out.
So, that's the plan: Dismantle Drasus and Genthore, then weather the arcane storm until we can hit the wizards where it hurts.
At least we now have 2 True Sights per day, so their Illusions will avail them naught.
OK, here we go. Both wizards are all but guaranteed to put up MGoI, but Web and Entangle will still mess with their summons, so we pop some. Drasus turns out to be a massive headache, dealing serious damage while immune to disablers (since he leads with a Potion of Magic Shielding). We finally take him down, having to start using the WoMS to keep our flank clear of encroaching wizards.
Genthore is next. Disabled but with plenty of hitpoints, we invest some of our by now dwindling wand charges towards his demise.
Around here, we've apparently been fighting for over one turn: Kysus and Rezdan no longer have MGoI up!
Well then. Gentlemen (and lady): Fire!
Bwahaha! Satisfying. A little touch and go (Priest of Helm has rolled poorly for hitpoints and has bad AC to boot, so tends to take a beating in close fights), but as usual we pulled through. We heal up a bit and descend into the mines.
This time, I try a slightly different tack with Hareishan. Charming Cook and sending her through the door means all the guards bunch up around Hareishan, so we can sneak into the room to the south unnoticed. Next, we annoy the nearest guard, and of course, they all come running.. straight into our waiting barrage. And poor Hareishan didn't think MGoI was a good idea.
An additional Scorcher charge finishes her. Further into the mines, the Ogre Mage is just brutalized (he doesn't even put up Shield so a Magic Missile is all but guaranteed to interrupt him).
Here, I ran into interesting behavior from Natasha. She was all too happy to use Magic Missile and a single Lightning Bolt on the fairly weak WoMS monsters, but then started trying to kill them with her dagger. I know for a fact she has several L5 spell slots... not sure what happened here. Maybe she decided the monsters weren't worth such good spells?
Not a great choice, since albeit weak, if given the chance WoMS monsters can still eat through Stoneskins, which Fighter / Thief exploited.
Things are going quite well, I must say. We reach Davaeorn's sanctum, but retreat to rest before tackling the big bad himself.
On our return, things take a slightly dramatic turn. Dave still doesn't care about pitched battles down the hall, but we have such measly melee damage output that the first wave of guards arrive before we can finish off the second Battle Horror.
Yeah, Priest of Helm really should not have to tank Battle Horrors. It just won't end well.
We break out all the stops, including a few scrolls, and get control of the situation. Five waves of guards later, we're clear to engage Dave. Normally, I shift the entire party (through Invisibility) to the southern room.
This time, we don't have Invisibility available, and I don't want to waste our precious few potions of it, so we bank on Dave not teleporting into the anteroom; if he does, though, we'll stop being so miserly and just quaff some PoI's.
Fortunately, Dave is content to teleport around the southern part of his lair as he slowly wastes his spell book on unimportant summons. Eventually, his spell defenses time out, and that's all she wrote.
Alright! Fine work, to be certain.
We loot the place and abscond. Here, something truly fortuitious occurs.
On reaching level 6, Dragon Disciple rolls as his potential spell picks: Detect Illusion (No....), Protection from Normal Missiles (Nooo....), and Invisibility 10' Radius (Oh yes!).
That is some serious good luck; it'll make early BG2 MUCH easier. In fact, the early ambushes there are so brutal (when coming in at BG1 experience levels rather than SoD) that single spell might well end up saving our bacon. It's also a bit of a pick-me-up, as his other choices, while not exactly bad, have not been all optimal so far.
With Baldur's Gate open to us, the first priority is easily available tomes.
DEX tome goes to Fighter / Thief: 18 DEX maxes his AC bonus and gives a nice boost to thieving.
INT tome requires a little more work, and I forget that Ramazith may actually go looking for trouble if he kills your summon and sees no more enemies: I pondered popping PoI to save Priest of Helm and Blackguard here, but went with a Potion of Fire Breath, since I never end up using them. Quite handy for Mage assassinations, as it goes straight through spell protections (though by BG2 nearly all Mages will have PfF or FS:R running).
With 19 INT, Necromancer substantially expands his level 3 options; and yes, he managed to scribe the Spell Thrust scroll, as well as Melf's Minute Meteors. Very good indeed! We celebrate by clobbering the sewer-dwelling Ogre Mage.
This seems a fine place to stop. We've got all the essentials gathered, we're a decent level; things are just looking all-around good! The only fly in our ointment is that our principal tank, Blackguard, has failed to pick up a specialization yet.
Still, she has proficiency in several good weapons (War Hammer, Two-Handed Sword), so I'm hopeful.
Likewise, Fighter / Thief doesn't have any specializations, but at least he has proficiency in Short Bow.
For those so interested, full stats of our party may be found in the spoiler.
Protagonist
Name: Necromancer
Lawful Good Male Human Necromancer L6
STR 17 DEX 12 CON 11 INT 19 WIS 17 CHA 18
Quarterstaff *, Dagger *
29 HP (6 from familiar)
Name: Priest of Helm
Lawful Evil Male Dwarf Priest of Helm L6
STR 14 DEX 14 CON 15 INT 11 WIS 14 CHA 7
Sling *, Two-Handed Weapon Style *, Two-Weapon Style *
38 HP
Name: Dragon Disciple
Chaotic Neutral Male Elf Dragon Disciple L6
STR 10 DEX 19 CON 15 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 15
Sling *, Dart*
Burning Hands, Friends, Larloch's Minor Drain, Sleep
Mirror Image, Vocalize
Invisibility 10' Radius
40 HP
Name: Fighter / Thief
Chaotic Evil Male Halfling Fighter L5 / Thief L6
STR 13 DEX 18 CON 17 INT 14 WIS 9 CHA 10
Axe *, Bastard Sword *, Dagger *, Quarterstaff *, Shortbow *
Open Locks 55, Find traps 30, Pick Pockets 40, Move Silently 55, Hide in Shadows 70, Detect Illusion 25, Set Traps 30
47 HP
Name: Blackguard
Neutral Evil Female Human Blackguard L6
STR 14 DEX 10 CON 17 INT 6 WIS 16 CHA 18
Club *, Dagger *, Two-Handed Sword *, War Hammer *, Single-Weapon Style *, Spear *
61 HP
Name: Shaman
Neutral Evil Male Human Shaman L6
STR 11 DEX 11 CON 16 INT 11 WIS 12 CHA 14
Axe *, Dart *, Two-Weapon Style *
Armor of Faith, Cure Light Wounds, Doom, Entangle, Spirit Ward
Charm Person or Mammal, Cure Moderate Wounds, Writhing Fog
Cure Disease, Spiritual Clarity
51 HP
Next time, we'll gallivant throughout the city, and cover a few wilderness areas we left untouched (notably, I want the CON tome, and we might as well pick up the Basilisk experience).
Then it's probably Durlag's Tower, Ice Island, Wolf Island, possibly not in that order, before returning to Candlekeep and advancing into BG2.
Lookin' forward.
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208625/#Comment_1208625
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208890/#Comment_1208890
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208991/#Comment_1208991
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209094/#Comment_1209094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209253/#Comment_1209253
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209576/#Comment_1209576
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209882/#Comment_1209882
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1210045/#Comment_1210045
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1210216/#Comment_1210216
A literally self-inflicted death brought a disappointing end to our run just before we could complete SoA.
We'd started by doing the Planar Sphere in order to collect a component for Crom Faeyr. That proved pretty straightforward with insects putting all the dangerous casters out of action. It felt like a bit of overkill when wiltings appeared during the fight with Tolgerias - but cast on our side rather than against us.
We now had the components, but not the recipe card showing how to put them together, so went in search of Thaxy. The dragon wardstone was still in storage, but our higher levels made the fight pretty easy anyway despite Ash being unable to control the targeting of his new Wail of the Banshee spell.
Moving on to the Graveyard, Russell was able to kill many of the vampires with his turn undead, though he still liked to keep his hand in with the iMoD - now boosted by the extra strength given by Crom Faeyr. Bodhi lasted only moments when under attack by spells and Energy Blades as well as Russell's hard-hitting melee.
In Suldanesselar, Russell took quite a bit of damage from some of the golem groups, but there was no real danger. The only problem caused by Nizi was that the goblet she dropped appeared on the screenshot, but seemed to disappear before being picked up.
The fight on the Tree was another easy one, with Jon covered by insects before he could even complete his opening Time Stop.
In hell, Wolfie chose the good option for the Tests of Pride and Fear. For the Selfishness one though he preffered the evil award and Russell seemed happy enough to be cast as the victim there. Lack of recent experience with party play here proved our Achilles heel though, as none of us realised that the deaths meted out for being selfish are scripted to be permanent. With Russell gone it will thus be back to Candlekeep for us next time.
Lucius cleared most of Baldur's Gate outside areas as well as the sewers. The biggest thing that happened is that Kagain got held by Ratchild and was killed by the kobold arrows. Shar-Teel died with Gorpel Hinds fight against the other party.
I did not go into unnamed houses, but I did visit all the inns. The Seven Suns and the Ogre Mage for Scar are done. The Iron Throne is not visiter yet and neither are Marek and Ramazith and Ragefast. I got Quayle for Eldoth and Skie and I was hoping to get Alora but I keep missing her timing. In the meantime I joined Tiax instead. I wanted to bump him with set traps but I misclicked find traps instead which I found out quite a bit later and this is not what I wanted for him. I will remove Tiax for Alora after Marek and probably I will try to get Yeslick for Kagain if I can. Quayle is my last mage or I need to backtrack some; he's for now a keeper.
Stats
Lucius 0 deaths, 610 kills
Kagain 4 deaths, 310 kills
Shar-Teel 3 deaths, 237 kills
Ajantis 0 deaths, 10 kills
Quayle 0 deaths, 1 kill
Tiax 0 deaths, 2 kills
Out of party
Montaron 3 deaths, 39 kills
Khalid 3 deaths, 48 kills
Branwen 2 deaths, 4 kills
Jaheira 1 death, 22 kills
Xan 1 death, 28 kills
Eldoth 0 deaths, 11 kills
Skie 0 deaths, 0 kills
Kivan 0 deaths, 61 kills
Minsc 0 deaths, 35 kills including Edwin
Xzar 0 deaths, 13 kills
Imoen 0 deaths, 133 kills
Garrick 0 deaths, 40 kills
Viconia 0 deaths, 19 kills
Coran 0 deaths, 9 kills
Safana 0 deaths, 26 kills
Faldorn 0 deaths, 1 kill
Edwin dead, 8 kills including Dynaheir
Dynaheir dead, 0 kills
Pending recruitment
Alora, Yeslick
Skipped, Baeloth, Rasaad.
The Iron Throne was bested with four potions of explosions, a wand of fear and a wand of summoning, and of course a lot of fighting.
I got the Balduran items and I did the Shandalar quest for the thieves guild. TotSC will be fun, but first I will go to Candlekeep and on the way out I will do the Ulgoths Beard.
Before the Iron Throne I swapped Tiax for Alora. Afterwards I swapped Kagain for Yeslick.
Party now
Lucius 0 deaths, 623 kills
Yeslick 0 deaths, 0 kills
Shar-Teel 3 deaths, 251 kills
Ajantis 0 deaths, 19 kills
Quayle 1 death, 1 kill
Alora 0 deaths, 6 kills
statistics
Kagain 4 deaths, 317 kills
Montaron 3 deaths, 39 kills
Khalid 3 deaths, 48 kills
Branwen 2 deaths, 4 kills
Tiax 1 death, 5 kills
Jaheira 1 death, 22 kills
Xan 1 death, 28 kills
Eldoth 0 deaths, 11 kills
Skie 0 deaths, 0 kills
Kivan 0 deaths, 61 kills
Minsc 0 deaths, 35 kills including Edwin
Xzar 0 deaths, 13 kills
Imoen 0 deaths, 133 kills
Garrick 0 deaths, 40 kills
Viconia 0 deaths, 19 kills
Coran 0 deaths, 9 kills
Safana 0 deaths, 26 kills
Faldorn 0 deaths, 1 kill
Edwin dead, 8 kills including Dynaheir
Dynaheir dead, 0 kills
Pending recruitment, none.
Skipped, Baeloth, Rasaad.
Traveling with: April (bersker), Mazzy, Jaheira, Viconia, Yoshimo
permanently dead: (Aerie)
Well I started this run a little bit ago but wasn't sure he would survive being human but so far he has. Almost done with Chapter two, only setback has been the chunking by Aerie by vampires. She happened to be in the front when we exited the Inn at the gate district and there was no way to get her to safety. Mazzy replaced her and soon after dealing with Bodhi we'll go to Spellhold and replace Yoshimo with Imoen so then we'll have a mage again. I'll keep at it.
I have ran into a problem. During my fight with the imprisoned wizard (after he obtained the last of the treasures in the potrals) he imprisoned Viconia and Mazzy. I used a freedom scroll and both are now visible. Viconia was able to join but I cannot initiate a conversation with Mazzy (nothing happens). Is this a bug or by design? If by design then I have lost Mazzy. If this is a bug is there a way to get her to join the party even though I can't talk to her?
A dwarven cleric, gnome thief , and a halfling fighter thief walked into a bar. They wished they'd stayed there but instead they ventured as far as Zal and Vax (the gnome having already died twice)
Mr halberdy (Vax) fell to our tactics but our gnome was badly beaten by his companion and ran to a safe distance. This distance was declared unsafe by a kobold archer and a 3rd death ensued. As this point the cleric pushed his luck (he had been playing extremely fast and loose) and Zal used his melee weapon to kill our protagonist
The fighter / thief was left wondering why he'd chosen these two companions to venture forth with. Who knows
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/71128/bug-mazzy-permanently-removed-from-party-after-imprisonment
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/baldurs-gate-2-help-freed-character-wont-talk-to-me.294017/
If you wanted the save inspected send me a copy