Getting to Balthazar is easy enough - we use mass invisibility to visit Saemon and have the triple ADHW and triple Telekinetic Storm CCs to instantly take down the group in front of the monestary, except for the initially neutral monk:
Now we face the final bhaalspawn - who isn't improved too much without Ascension present, just like Abazigal, so this battle is super quick - aside from our buffs, the only thing we do is call a planetar, cast dragon's breath and activate critical strike. Before the first round of combat is over, the monk falls:
I have a simple plan for The Ravager: Lower his magic resistance before our powerful chain contingencies hit the boss, as they are always on a slight delay - since we already have two triple pierce magic spell triggers, we just use these, and, once again, 3*ADHW, 3*Telekinetic Storm impact our foe. This does the trick:
For the Throne, in addition to the usual buffs, we add full protection against all elements except for acid. We also add PFME, heroism, invulnerability and cloud giant strength, plus some minor misc buffs. Our plan for the first encounter with Amelyssan, the only one we won't be able to solve with our massive amount of available spike traps (courtesy of having Jan and Haer'Dalis, who really have barely anything else useful to spend all their HLA points onto for most of the game until Jan gets level 9 wizard spells), is simple enough - the same plan we went with for the Ravager.
I actually manage to pause before dialogue starts, so we throw two 3*pierce magic spell triggers at Mel, and Haer'Dalis can even place a single spike trap. The others just get attack commands, and Mel actually retreats before our chain contingencies even fire at her:
The first pool has vampiric wraiths, so we leave Jan and Orima, both without any items to gain level drain immunity, behind. The others rush in and clear out the air creatures:
We place 4 spike traps and Nalia's single normal trap (for good luck), activate the pool, and Amelyssan immediately has to retreat:
As our protections against ice damage are still active, we rush to the second pool, take down the golem and his allies without taking a single point of damage (having everyone with active stoneskins thanks to gargoyle boots certainly helps) and place 5 more spike traps. Once again, Mel appears and immediately retreats.
Now Haer'Dalis gets to have his moment - he (having already drunk a potion of insight) uses limited wish for timestop and moves to the fallen solar:
Periodically, Haer'Dalis calls in more timestops from the total of 4 scrolls we have gathered over the course of the game, taking down everything except for the two marilith's who already have PFMW going:
The party moves in, using wands of spellstriking to breach the PFMWs:
Anomen casts zone of sweet air and we heal up, placing our remaining 5 spike traps and 2 normal traps. Just to make sure (though I know Mel always dies to 4 spike traps) we call in a planetar and have Nalia cast a few wish spells, getting us new improved hastes and a free rest:
However, as expected, as soon as we activate the pool, our traps take down Amelyssan once and for all:
Orima stays mortal, and we've finally gotten a stalker into the hall of heroes.
The list of missing kits now looks like this, with only 4 of them left:
Priest of Helm
Conjurer
Diviner
Necromancer
Also, a first for me - a successful SCS run with only official companions. I'm not sure when I will start my next run - there might be an extended break, or might be back in 1-2 weeks. In any case, good luck to everyone else!
Agreed, good show @Enuhal
Next step up is official companions without the SCS component for NPC customization, where you're stuck with initial proficiencies (hello Jaheira with single pips in EVERYTHING apart from Clubs...)
Corepally and his band of paladins - FINAL Update!
Corepally and his band of paladins made it out of the Underdark. Problem though? The githyanki at Waukeen's Promenade killed Corepally not sure how he died quick - RIP Corepally. Back to the drawing board....
So the party found themselves at the entrance to the Iron Throne. Coreranger asked if we needed anything and Impish suggested we might want to kill the 5th floor baddies for the Free Action Ring (which we did end up using in the CC crypts). So Coreranger buffed with protection from magic and a few buffs then attacked. Party then assisted and it was a slaughter. The enemies could only slightly damage Coreranger in all of that. Next up was Degrodel's minions and Degrodel - no problem.
Then we headed to Candlekeep but Solstice complained about inventory so party waited until Solstice finished selling. But then later Solstice talked to the Warden instead of letting Coreranger talk to the Warden and the game crashed so we had to do Candlekeep again. Apparently the game caused Soltice to be thrown outside so he could cause no more trouble and finally we were sent to the crypts. Coreranger used a protection from magic for traps and Solstice used knock for containers. No problem looting the tomes or making it to Prat. With insect plague and summons and web enemies couldn't do much. Since Coreranger was protected by free action ring and protection from poison he cleared out the spiders while his companions were getting themselves stuck in webs though no one died. Finally protection from petrification allowed taking down basilisks.
Slythe didn't do well and with summons and haste Duchal Palace went well. Thieves' Maze went well, protections enabled Coreranger to trip traps and trash the skeleton warriors with his dual-wielding. For the Iron Throne party Coreranger scouted then massive webs and insect plague guaranteed the enemies were not going to be able to do much though they did get a few arrow shows on Coreranger.
Coreranger pulled Sarevok. Semaj came but was dispelled (by arrows) then quickly killed. Sarevok attacked summons and was malisoned and stuck in massive number of webs. Impish was proud of his insects but Coreranger's acid arrows got the kill shot on Sarevok.
On to Irenicus Dungeon. While we didn't have a thief, we did have access to knock, stone skins and cure poison so we were able to loot here without trouble. The party defeated the enemies in the dungeons pretty well. We stopped and saved our session and will battle Ulvaryl next time.
I had rolled Corecleric XVII a dwarven fighter/cleric and he had made it to Amn, but got killed by Captain Dennis trying to do Neera's quest. Will roll up a solo fighter/illusionist.
The party made it out of dungeon without problem. The circus was easy enough as well. We then worked on freeing Hendak -- once again divide and conquer carried the day. We ran into a problem as Impish attacked Hendak and made him hostile. So Impish charmed Hendak and we worked on the Lilacor quest. With plenty of summons, this quest worked out well. Then we headed into the moored ship -- we were invisible so we were able to set up our attacks. The casters kept getting their spells interrupted but Coreranger's dual-wielding steadily wore the enemies down.
With summons moving in, we were able to defeat the wizards and buddies. We then headed back to the Copper Coronet, charmed Hendak and got our reward for dealing with the slavers. We finally obtained the potion bag from Watcher's Keep.
There were a number of miscellaneous tasks done:
1) Sir Sarles quest was started though not finished.
2) Reijek was exposed and we got a very easy Rune Assassins spawns, only one assassin for some reason and no bone golem.
2) Ankheg shell obtained from a warehouse and ankheg armork forged for Impish. While we were spending money (which we had a lot of) we also got the magic license to make sure that didn't end our run. Since we still had lots of money, Solstice suggested paying off Galen Bayle but Coreranger declined as he's heard many adventurers in the past have died to the vampires.
3) Maevar's quests started and we had just killed Rayic Gethras and saved our session here.
I have decided to do a run where in general, my party consists of despised races. Explanation below.
We have progressed as far as the Cloakwoon mines where Timor was killed by Sirene a Tiefling Inquisitor who is a member of my party. Natasha had confused both Sirene and Timor so there was little that I could do. Sirene was unable to remove magic and my arcane users were unable to cast the spell.
We returned to the FAI to raise her and after doing so have only 13gp left!
The mine was then completed with ease, Davaeorn having his spells neutralised by a single skeleton.
We exchanged Sirine for Dorn and completed Dorn's quest. Afterwards we bade Dorn farewell.
We arrived safely in Baldur's Gate after which we picked up Sirene again.
In the Iron Throne "Silence and Web" made the battle trivial.
EDIT
We went to Candlekeep where Prat killed himself with his lightning bolt.
Being now done with another game I've played in the meantime, I needed something to distract myself while listening to history podcasts again, so I uninstalled SCS and set up a straightforward vanilla run. With only 4 kits still missing from the Hall of Heroes, I picked up the final non-wizard kit, a Priestess of Helm, creating a female halfling named Louise, with a custom party of 4.
Here's our Bhaalspawn:
Her first ally is Cadrax, a dwarven berserker:
She's also by aided by Tenobol, an elven fighter/thief:
And finally, the elven sorceress Drya:
A very straightforward, easy to manage group. Drya starts with early protection from petrification, to allow for a quick visit to the basilisk area. Tenobol enjoys going for some early game backstabs:
Once we reach Beregost, we immediately head to the east and pick up Corax the Ghoul for our upcoming basilisk battles:
With all that early experience, clearing out wilderness areas gets rather easy - we make sure to pick up any useful equipment first. On our return in Beregost, Neera desperately tries to kill us with her color spray and knocks out half the party, though we are too high level to die to that:
This would go on to be the only crowd control effect anyone of us would suffer in the entirety of BG1, funnily enough (I'm currently in early SoA, so I need to catch up a bit on reporting) - the BG1 part of the run has been devoid of any major mistakes, which is certainly a rarity for me. Bassilus gets held, Greywolf will suffer the same fate, soon we have our +2 weapons:
The vampiric wolf pack gets webbed, the same fate befalls numerous hostile adventuring parties/bounty hunters:
We pay an early visit to Durlag's upper levels (though we will skip all other TOTSC content) and even take down the ghost with some wand charges:
Having cleared almost all wilderness areas already, the Nashkel mines are fairly trivial:
Nimbul doesn't survive Tenobol's backstab:
And with level 7 and the ring of holyness on Louise, she can summon enough mid-level skeletons to even take down Kahrk pre bandit camp, which is something I wouldn't usually attempt, but such is the power of single class clerics in unmodded BG1:
Bandit Camp - hold person on named NPCs, everyone else is shot down or killed by skeletons:
We enter Cloakwood, fight our way through the forest and web the bounty hunters:
A bit of an aggressive approach for Hareishan, using wands to make sure she doesn't get to cast any spells:
We can easily afford to do so - with a sorcerer as our only arcane spellcaster, we have no need for scrolls, which results in us having tons of gold to spare.
Natasha and the ogre mage fall as well:
I don't bother with a PfM scroll for Davaeorn, using skeletons instead:
And there we go, we've made it to the big city. Tomorrow, a write-up of the second half of BG1.
We make it to the big city. With 5 skeletons, the buff combo of bless/chant/pfe 10'radius/remove fear/haste/defensive wizard buffs and our wands available, we quickly make a lot of progress - the ogre magi at the docks are able to hit us with a fireball, but it barely does any damage:
However, we do suffer some minor setbacks here - due to wrong dialogue choices, I miss out on the gloves from Larze. Aldeth bugs out and doesn't enter the merchant league building, for some reason. And once we make it to Degrodel, we forget to turn in the helm for the extra quest experience before killing him - though his minions still provide us with a decent amount:
Still, those are minor things. We make it to the Iron Throne HQ, luring down our opponents to the previous level - I didn't take any screenshots for a while here, but Candlekeep went well, with no significant issues, and we return to BG and infiltrate the Iron Throne HQ:
We get our hands on some ducal palace invitations:
Once we're there, we use some potion buffs (such as giant strength/heroism) and our fully buffed skeleton army to try and save the dukes - both of them survive:
With our buffs still going we add PfU and enter the maze before delving into the Undercity. Full protection from fire via scrolls/potions and we take down the Iron Throne party, throwing around some fireballs of our own:
After a quick rest we use all available potion buffs before Sarevok. Tenobol pulls the enemy with a dispelling arrow, Semaj teleports in. Tenobol actually doesn't get affected by Semaj's dispel, which is nice (and the lightning bolt here does very little as everyone has a potion of absorption going):
Semaj is isolated and surrounded, and we take him down before he does anything:
I end up getting a bit greedy - since Sarevok hasn't joined us yet, I decide to get the little bit of extrap XP by taking down Tazok and Angelo as well. That requires me to delve into a stinking cloud, which has a tiny chance to affect some of us (seems I was wrong in my previous post - we do suffer another crowd control effect in BG1 - Tenobol fails a saving throw here):
Tenobol quickly makes his save again and we move back to finally take down Sarevok himself:
So the party found themselves in the middle of the Maevar quest. We had just taken down Gethras last session. Almost immediately we got hit with bad news the Sansuki vampire ambush. But Impish reminded us that we hadn't yet paid off Bayle so we can just say it's none of our business - so we did that and missed a bullet there. Next was getting documents from Marcus and getting the dagger from the thief traitor. Finally it was time to wipe out Maevar's guild. With fireballs it was easy - a bit too easy, though as a prisoner was killed by a fireball and Coreranger became FALLEN! We reported our success.
While Coreranger was willing to continue even if he had to be fallen, his groupmates said if we do the ranger quest Coreranger can be restored. However a few miscellaneous quests done first:
1) Just a ton of ambushes this session though we weathered them OK. One ambush was a bit dicey as entire party running in horror except Solstice and Coreranger got zapped by a Solstice aganazzer's scorcher but we prevailed all the same.
2) Temple given illithium alloy and they were happy.
3) A Dawn's ring was recovered for the temple.
4) A boy's teddy bear returned, as well as wiping out some tomb robbers nearby (that's our job.)
5) Finally we make it to Umar Hills. The basic quests here were done no problem. The issue then became of getting the control of the cabin. First we had to go to Amauntator's temple and clear the undead out here (except Thaxxy). As we got low level spawns and also Coreranger protected bvy Arbane so he couldn't be held this went smoothly. The shade lord died almost immediately and we didn't even have Azuredge.
6) Ranger quests begun. We had to rest a lot but eventually the nymph gave us our first quest. This one is easy, just kill a few undead, recover some items and talk to the nobleman. First quest done. Second quest was to deal with the Witch Umar and we had no trouble doing that. It took us a bit to get the ogres attacking the village but we defeated those ogres all the same. Coreranger is now no longer a fallen ranger.
7) There wasn't a lot of time left but we decided to pay off Galen Bayle and get our goodies from Linvail. We also did the quests in the graveyard and killed the undead that were in the tombs.
8) We had just enough time to make our way to D'Arnise Keep, albeit weathering yet more ambushes. We saved our session here.
We start our Athkatla journey in the promenade, taking down the circus tent and Mencar's group right away:
And we continue on through the city with all of the non-stronghold quests, starting at the Copper Coronet:
There aren't that many new tools in our toolbox yet. Chaotic command is available now but not that important yet, the same is true for breach. We take some of the more dangerous combat encounters, such as the bridge district party and the sewer party:
And after we're done with the Athkatla areas, we cap things of with a visit to WK I minus the statues. Sadly we do encounter the vampiric wraiths here, so we have to be quite careful, as these are a huge threat - they focus their attention on Louise, who has to drink 2 healing potions and run around hasted to escape death:
Eventually the party is able to take down these foes, and we rest and move on. Our first stronghold quest target is the druid grove, mainly so we can buy the dwarven thrower:
Not too difficult at this point, and we let Cernd kill Faldorn for us. After doing the Trademeet sidequests, we are now caught up with our gameplay, and will start at Umar Hills the next time I will find time to play.
At the FAI we dropped off Viconia and Baeloth and picked up Jet 'Laya.
We sought out and killed her sister who had become a Banshee.
We were told of a dragon near Nashkel. We picked up the Cavalier Conchobhair Strongblade and the Halfling thief Bardo Furfoot.
The dragon chunked Bardo and killed Conchobhair.
We survived by the skin of our teeth and returned to Nashkel to raise Conchobhair.
We then returned to the cave to plunder it.
We continue to the Umar Hills. Everything goes well, I didn't even take a screenshot. An aerial servant and some skeletons help us with the various enemies in here, and Daystar does a good job in helping out our damage - sometimes we switch to ranged weapons, and we buff up for the final battle before moving on to De'Arnise Keep.
Tenobol uses his bow to shoot down any dying trolls with fire/acid arrows, otherwise this is fairly smooth sailing. A backstab + hasted move-in deals with the yuan-ti mage:
The aerial servant is summoned once again for the golems - when needed, Drya, our sorcerer, takes over tanking duty:
We go through the entire area without a rest, which is a bit of an unneeded risk, but Tor'Gal dies anyway:
Now we return to the city to deal with Mae'Var's guild, using breach on Rayic as the only significant battle (as true sight makes dealing with the thieves rather easy):
The four easy stronghold quests are done, the four more difficult ones await.
This time, we start with the planar prison, going in under invisibility to take out the enemy spellcasters before they can do anything:
The next wizards fall to backstab:
And after a few more battles, we aggressively go after the guardian:
A short break to pay Gaelan, and we clear out Bodhi's Lair. This is mostly done by Cadrax, our berserker, with his rage protections:
Having the iMoD +2 helps with the undead for the Unseeing Eye quest, the next one on our list. Fairly easy at this point as we have the Shield of Balduran. We use the rift device and take down the beholder:
Now, we complete the various cleric stronghold quests for the helmite temple. Honestly, this might be the least inspired/interesting stronghold questline. Very little to do, no kind of unique reward. Well, the Windpsear Hills are next, and we have the anti-undead tools to deal with the vampires - Daystar sunray does most of the work. The adamantite golem is shot down at range, and Conster gets breached:
On the way out, we take down Samia, using protection from fire spells. Once again we do the entire dungeon without resting. Finally, we have the Planar Sphere. Drya gets to tank the golems, skeletons take down Lavok, and breaches help with Tolgerias and his ally:
We have to be a bit careful near the end as the golems in the core spawn almost right on our top, one of them running directly at Louise - however, we are able to keep her safe:
Yesterday night I found myself with need for a distraction and played on for a bit, going to Brynnlaw and through the Asylum. There, we meet our first lich - we basically wait out his PFMW while getting busy with other enemies on that level and charge back in with decent protections:
By now, Louise easily has enough spells to keep the whole party safe with chaotic commands, death ward and remove fear (though in that case Cadrax had to rely on rage, as his protections got dispelled by the book-summoned beholder in the northern part of the level). After freeing the inmates, we take down Jon while he casts his clone spell and move on to the City of Caverns, where we currently are.
Getting through the City of Caverns and into the Underdark is easy enough - we buff up and clear the outside area; When I don't have access to fire elementals, I seem to consistently underestimate the first kuo-toans that I meet - Tenobol almost dies here:
We go after the kuo-toa prince and the demon knights first, after taking down the balor. With fire protection, death ward, CC and remove fear, nothing can really hurt us here unless we get dispelled, but without SCS there is no chance of that during these encounters. PfP is added for the first beholder cave battle, the rest is done via Shield of Balduran/skeletons:
Finally we deal with the illithid city, using oils of speed to move faster through the entire thing (mostly so we don't have to rest and rebuff). Now we enter Ust'Natha, freeing Phaere with a death spell:
After going further into the questline, we take down Deirex with double sunray:
House Jae'llat is a bit troublesome and requires a few healing potions, otherwise the Underdark works out just fine for us - we breeze through the whole thing, leave, forge some items in Athkatla and go for a bit of a dragon hunt:
Drya, using SI:A, has the honor of staying near the dragons initially to absorb their dispel magic.
Now, back to the city, to hunt some liches, do the guarded compound (where the backstabs gave Tenobol some trouble, but he survived), the twisted rune (where we went for an aggressive approach to take down the beholder immediately, while the lich died to traps) and Kangaxx (PfM):
Next up, we finish up WKI (the statues) and clear WKII:
For the chromatic demon, we wait for his ice form and use fire damage bonus traps:
Now we go after Bodhi, using our various anti-undead tools, including the weapons, sunray and high-level turn undead:
As we enter the elven city, we use a magical sword to tank the adamantite golems. Cadrax does most of the damage here, we buff with protection from acid for the black dragon and absorb the dispel magic - however, as we move in Tenobol, who is consistently our most vulnerable melee fighter, takes a ton of damage, though he does escape with his life:
We make it to the tree - traps kill Jon:
The hell trials are all done the good-aligned way, using a planetar and skeletons for the elder orbs. Potions are added in for the final battle, traps help with the various demons, which we take down first. After we manage to breach the slayer, the battle is over within seconds:
After Ilasera dies to traps, we enter Saradush. Tenobol's backstabs take care of the various wizards:
We rush down Gromnir's wizards before their defensive buffs are activated:
After that, it's easy enough to take down the barbarian and his allies. At the temple, we breach and destroy the master wraith:
At the Marching Mountains, we use Mordenkainen's Swords to tank big groups of fire giants for us:
A planetar and some aggressive spells help out for the big battle against Berenn:
And Cadrax equips The Wave (he even got a pip in halberds) to take down the prince of fire:
Now we move to Yaga-Shura himself, who doesn't even last a round:
We fight our way through the Oasis and onto Amkethran. Vongoethe dies to traps, and the other sidequests are dealt with as well. Now we move to Sendai's Enclave, dealing with the outside ambushes first before moving in - we just need to keep our buffs active, cast improved haste from time to time and drink healing potions. Odamaron dies to a deva summon:
Where as we use a magical sword to tank Ogremoch:
In Diaytha's room, things get a bit close for Tenobol with the Hive Mother, but we are able to clear the room without any actual difficulties:
Louise uses energy blades to win her duel, and we take down the mind flayers. A short rest at the Pocket Plane, and we buff up for Sendai. We make sure to always focus on the incoming drow first, and with true sight, SotM and a planetar, the battle is quick and easy:
Things are still going very well so far - only big chunks of physical damage have been any danger for the group for now, we still haven't suffered any significant crowd control effects or gotten into trouble with missing buffs/resistances to magic (we've also successfully avoided any dispels). Let's see what Watcher's Keep brings.
We enter Watcher's Keep again, taking care not to get into melee range with the balor in the first room due to its vorpal attack:
The one danger of vanilla WKIII for us is the first demon room after the initial no magic zone - do we pause the game fast enough so we can activate "Return to Pocket Plane" before combat starts, to we can buff up for the otherwise pretty difficult fight? The answer is yes this time around. Now everything is fairly easy - we buff up again after the second no-magic zone and fight our way to the end. Tenobol makes sure to disarm all the traps near the demon wraith before we move forward:
We lose every single bet against the cambion and move down to level 4. Here, we start with the illithids and move on to the githyanki, where we actually suffer our first dispels of the run. Having to rest and rebuff, we take down Saladrex:
Cadrax activates PfM for the demi-lich and we free Lum. Downstairs, we include some lighting and poison protections into our buffs and take on the orcs, followed by the green dragon:
After the colored orb riddle, we go for the spirit maze, where our warrior takes an unusually high number of hits, but luckily still makes it out alive with our limited risk route. My first significant mistake of the run occurs next: I usually look up which seal spawns which groups of enemies, but I was confident I knew it by heart at this point - and immediately got it wrong. My traps, planned for the aurumach rilmani, instead did relatively little against the succubus of the final seal warder mixed group - the result of being unprepared for these guys was getting hit by a creeping doom and taking a decent amount of damage from the hive mother before taking her down:
Still, we were strong enough to get out of that unfortunate situation without any major difficulties:
Though we did have to rest after that. Now, the real enemies we wanted to fight, and our normal traps do what they're supposed to:
Spike traps for the lich:
And we read the Scroll of Helm - WK, done.
Time for Draconis. I've gotten much more comfortable with this fight by now. Protect everyone from acid, spread out, send in a planetar, attack at range:
Absorb remove magic with a summon or our wizard (protected by SI:A), cast true sight:
Breach and move in, spam fighter HLAs:
Easy enough. We fight our way through Abazigal's Lair, with nothing significant happening throughout. There's not much to threaten us, though not much to gain as well except for some experience points. Lightning and cold protection help with the salamanders and the dragon's breath of the boss around here. Improved hastes and fighter HLAs, and a full-on offensive:
We also do the fourth pocket plane challenge and return to Amkethran. A 3*ADHW CC helps with the monestary guardians, and we go full attack on Balthazar:
With our buffs still going, we renew improved hastes, place down some spike traps and take down The Ravager:
With the considerable amount of powerful spells at our command, such as death spell, sunfire, call lightning, and insect plague, plus the many summons and the powerful melee power of Coreranger, the party was able to make steady progress today without any disasters (e.g. no almost no deaths or chunkings).
Our first priority was clearing out D'Arnise Keep. Coreranger had planned ahead and was using sword of flame main hand to deal the finishing blow to the trolls. We often had summons assisting so had no trouble fighting our way to Torgal. We ran into a slight issue when Solstice used a death spell on the umber hulks so we couldn't get the experience from the dog stew. Oh well. We also were unable to get any summons up even after resting. Impish predicted that Torgal wouldn't last long against Solstice's spells and actually Torgal did last a while but heal potions kept Coreranger alive long enough to deal the killing blow to Torgal.
We did some selling and Impish lamented he was still carrying a red cloth so we went ahead and dealt with the graveyard killers easily enough. We then went to Watcher's Keep to get the Crimson Dart for Impish. We then put up some summons and peeked into the main hall - just weak mephits so in that case we went ahead and cleared the level except for the statues. Impish was about to trigger the FoD trap - Coreranger said why not rest outside put up death ward then trigger it. But Impish said no - who then duly died to the trap and we had to resurrect him and come back and equip his things. We did get the ammo belt.
We had come back to Waukeen's Promenade and had some summons attack Mencar. We got seen sooner than we wanted, but it is becoming very clear that the ranger summon is actually quite powerful and was an easy victory.
Next up was Trademeet. As usual, we protected ourselves with PfP and sure enough the genies were killed without much trouble. We then headed to Druid's Grove. Coreranger once again using Flaming Blade main hand to finish off trolls. Mirror image from ilbratha enabled tanking in the Troll Mound. The first group of druids got hit with plague of insects so they weren't to do much. And the ranger summon (moondog) gave a lot of trouble to the second group of druids and victory there as well. The Myconids dealt with death spell. Some summons distracted the last group of druids. We didn't talk to Cernd and this was apparently a mistake as we had trouble getting Impish to challenge Faldhorn but eventually the challenge was underway and Impish didn't disappoint and got the victory.
We dealt a final blow to Reikek and cleared out a tomb of undead. We need reputation so returned the artifact from the tomb to the High Merchant.
We still had a little bit of time left so tried to deal with Tarnor's Gang. We got seen sooner than we wanted but the summons were able kill Gaius. For this fight, Coreranger was in leather and as such could scout and spot for the summons. Also he was using the cloak of non-detection so the enemies did not spot him. As expected plague of insects made the fight much safer and the moondog was proving quite tough, the party then assisted with spells and ranged fire - victory!
We still had some summons up, so the few summons we had distracted the Rakshaksha while the party assisted. As expected, victory. We had just enough time to sell and save our session here.
Among our preparations we include protection from cold and our remaining potions. We also have a spell trigger with 3*lower resistance and a CC with 3*ADHW for the first Amelyssan battle at the ready:
The CC and a few of our attacks get our enemy to flee. Our battle for the first pool is a bit messy as I charge in a bit too recklessly, which could've been avoided - still, we have tons of potions and healing spells, so no harm done:
Now Tenobol gets to use all those HLA spike traps he has used his points on - four for Mel's second incarnation, and we clear the frost pool. This one's easy enough, as we are immune to frost damage. Four more spike traps, and Mel 3 has to flee. Now Tenobol, making sure he has a fresh improved haste, grabs our timestop scrolls, casts timestop (renewing it once in a while) and takes down the fallen solar and everything but the PFMW'd mariliths at the third pool:
We lure the mariliths towards the party, use our wands of spell striking to breach them and take them down. As Drya casts a few wish spells to see if we get anything interesting, Tenobol places down his last spike traps - Mel appears and has to surrender:
That was a very smooth run - no deaths at all, no major (though quite a few minor) mistakes except for pressing the wrong seal in WK level 5 once. Sadly I didn't really use Seeking Sword at all except for once in BG1, but losing access to cleric spells was rarely a price worth paying. True sight was predictably quite useful, though.
Now there are only specialist mages left on the list of kits without a place in the Hall of Heroes, specifically:
You've basically ticked off nearly all the outstanding kits yourself @Enuhal, good job.
The random necromancer run is still active; I'm getting an hour to play here and there, so should at least be moving on to BG2 within the week. Of the two remaining kits Conjurer seems like the real powerhouse, with literally no weaknesses as long as another party member can cover True Sight...
Nascent Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 3 (final update)
Part 2 found here
Alright, so we were about to delve into the lower reaches of Durlag's Tower, past the four Warders.
Since Fighter / Thief has been a bit unlucky with his thieving skills (he's only got 40 Find Traps), we're completely reliant on Potions of Perception, so stock up on the five carried by Erdane. Off we go...
The doppleganger-infested level goes well, as we by and large manage to avoid the Islanne versions.
The Dwarven Doomguards are handled by stacking Writhing Fog (there's not much other use for L2 Shaman slots...) with a cold- and slow-immune Blackguard keeping them occupied.
Next level also poses no real issue. Blackguard takes a serious beating in the maze part of the map, where Improved calls for help result in us having to take on some six Greater Ghouls at once, but everyone survives.
The chessboard is as always bombed into oblivion, with everyone having lightning immunity, since there's always a few pieces that survive and we may have to move around a bit as a result.
Similarly, the final level goes smoothly: It's basically just Greater Ghouls and their cronies, and while they get a few hits in, it never becomes dangerous. We leave the Demon Knight alone and teleport outside, taking down Kirinhale at the top of the tower before exiting. That's about it for Durlag's!
There's a few areas we haven't explored yet, and a handful of encounters outstanding.
Turns out that if you kill his golems after talking to him, it turns Thalantyr hostile... good thing we bought out what we needed from him beforehand.
We also trek deep into the Cloakwood and clobber Amarande (the Shadow Archdruid) for a mighty 120 XP. Whoop whoop.
Denak and his fellow Red Wizards get a taste of Dragon Disciple's newest fourth level spell pick, Ice Storm: In conjunction with Cloudkill from Necromancer and oodles of Skeleton Warriors from Priest of Helm, it's quite brutal on enemy casters without GoI.
Some other minor stuff including Ulcaster is handled, but that's about it... time to advance the plot.
We ascend the Iron Throne and bait out the two initially hostile (yet not connected to the rest of the enemies here) thieves: They oblige beautifully.
The bulk of the enemies are treated to (fully buffed and hasted) Skeleton Warriors, Ice Storms, Cloud Kill and even some Spike Growths. Only Naaman and Zhalimar survive the onslaught; Naaman Dimension Door's into the party and is promptly dispatched, while Zhalimar gets a few good licks in at Blackguard before we can take him down.
Here I make a first and quite possibly last use (ever) of Contagion to effectively neuter Zhalimar.
Necromancer of course fubs scribing the Minor Sequencer scroll, but eh.
Off to Candlekeep: The ambushing Ogre Magi are countered by Necromancer quaffing a Potion of Invisibility and Priest of Helm just dropping Remove Fear at the start.
The catacombs are thoroughly detrapped by Potion of Perception-buffed Fighter / Thief, Prat and his gang have no answer to fully buffed Skeleton Warriors, and we're out.
We opt for Ice Island even though we're almost at the experience cap already; hopefully Necromancer won't fail to scribe the Stoneskin scroll found there.
Andris triggers his Contingency immediately since a few Bombardier Beetles injured him with their point-blank acid area-of-effect attack; once he teleports back in, he's easy pickings.
We make our way westward, easily dispatching Garan, and reach Cuchol.
Alright, so what happened? Figuring Cuchol is a real pushover (usually, he is!) I moved the entire party in after Blackguard absorbed Cuchol's first attack, a Wand of Paralyzation charge.
Alas, Cuchol had precast Melf's Minute Meteors, and apparently has a fairly impressive strength score... so impressive that two MMM hits on Necromancer puts him in serious danger. Fortunately, Sunscorch from Shaman blinds Cuchol, so Necromancer can run for his (remaining sliver of) life.
... Really? Death by FREAKIN' CUCHOL?!
So, in retrospect: The blindness effect of Sunscorch only lasts one round. I thought I had moved Necromancer out of Cuchol's line of sight by shuffling the former into the eastern corridor, but apparently Cuchol still had a clear shot... which he made the absolute most of. Another second and Cuchol would've dropped before Necromancer did.
This is absolutely the first time I've ever lost a run to Cuchol. Hell, I'm all but convinved it's the first time I've even had ANY death at all to Cuchol. But the poor hitpoints of Necromancer, owing almost entirely to him having no CON modifier, in conjunction with no DEX modifier (so easy to hit) and neither defensive Illusions nor even, as yet, Stoneskin... all of these things conspired together in the worst possible way to end us.
You sure have to be cautious with a Necromancer. Guess I'll take a moment and think about what to run next.
@aldain That is an unfortunate death. Yeah, the lack of defenses, especially in early to mid BG1, definitely seems like a big weakness of the kit (though I would guess you would usually have easily gotten past this encounter - underestimating an encounter that one previously never had trouble with is, after all, one of the more common causes of death).
BTW, it seems like Cuchol, while only having str 11, is a level 8/8 fighter/mage, so these fighter levels might make him a more effective MMM thrower.
@Enuhal Yep, you have nothing to shield you through almost all BG1EE apart from AC (which again, with no DEX modifier will always be atrocious) and HP (you're a Mage kit, so this will be crap by default.. and Necromancer didn't even have a CON bonus).
I can't take defeat at the measly, whiny hands of Cuchol lying down. I'm rolling up another Necromancer with a random party...
A rare outing for this MP run yesterday saw us past Sarevok into SoD.
The session started with us just having appeared in Baldur's Gate and we quickly set about conquering various challenges in the City. The first of those was when Brog encouraged Cria to pad her kill count with a roomful of chickens and a wand fireball duly turned them into several buckets of hot wings.
Partly because of that distraction though, we didn't talk to Lothander in that map before heading to the temple for a fatal encounter with Jalantha Mistmyr.
That meant a temple priest had no interest in providing us with a wisdom tome. Given Brog's clerical status that would have been a significant loss, but he was able to avoid that, without even any loss of reputation, by using a couple of potions to allow him to pickpocket the book.
We had intended to get some boots of speed from Lothander to allow both of us to zip around, but he was able to squeeze through a narrow gap in our encirclement and make his escape. Marek though was not so lucky, as Brog proved himself capable of one-shotting opponents even without the need for a backstab.
Most of the rest of the City was cleared without trouble, culminating with use of webs at the Iron Throne to cut most of the opponents there down to size.
However, there was still time for Brog to die when he failed to hide after several attempts and eventually dropped in on Sunin while still visible. The mage had a pair of capable archers with him and they were able to take advantage of his light armor to shoot Brog down. Cria used a potion of invisibility to make his escape and the local temple revived Brog with enough HPs to deal with the archers and teach Sunin a lesson.
The return to Candlekeep went well, with Brog able to disarm traps and open locks to get a couple more tomes from the tombs. Webs disabled Prat's gang while they were shot down. He himself did pretty well in saving against the webs, but unfortunately for him he had failed to save against Brog's silence and was able to take no action.
Back in Baldur's Gate, Slythe was concentrating on his skeleton attackers and failed to notice the stunning dart which incapacitated him. We hadn't previously got the Cloak of Balduran and intended to acquire that by persuading Krystin to cast a cloudkill on her. A skeleton tasked with that job moved away just too far as the spell was being cast, but Cria provided the necessary adjustment by dominating Quenash and walking her into the cloud.
At the palace the dopplegangers made short work of Liia. However, by the time she died all the dopplegangers had been confused by a chaos scroll and they made no impression on Belt.
Navigating the maze was done without incident, but the fight with the Undercity party proved harder than expected when Cria was spotted by Rahvin while casting a web. That led to Brog taking a dangerous amount of damage before the last of the opponents was halted in his tracks by the wand of paralyzation.
The fight with Sarevok went more smoothly, with the big man being dispelled by an arrow at the start of the fight. Semaj teleported out in support, but didn't last long against the surrounding skeletons and Sarevok failed to work his way through those before being shot down.
Well we had a number of things to work on this session.
We first took down a sewer troll for Roger then got the RoR from Mekrath. A death spell made short work of the umber hulks. Coreranger bashed some chests though let Impish do the looting as Impish was protected from lightning.
Next, Coreranger wanted to get level drain protection. But to do that we needed ilithium and the MoD. First getting illithium which was easy from Neb. Then we helped Mook. We belatedly realized that Xzar was still waiting for us, so Solstice wiped out Prebek and friends with a sunfire. We looted the Harper's Hold then failed to avenge Xzar's death as his assassin made their escape. Oh well.
We then headed to Bridge District to deal with the two thief traitors. We then headed to Graveyard crypts. We had realized we hadn't yet obtained Kithix so we did that with a fireball making short work of the small spiders. Then we carefully made our way and obtained the MoD. Coreranger belatedly realized he hadn't a blunt weapon however he then remembered this is why he has shilleaugh memorized and did fine. The IMOD was then forged.
Ok next get the Shield of Balduran and then go into sewers and work on Unseeing Eye quest. For the first group of undead with the web trap, Impish tried the idea of tripping the trap then shooting the shadows who were webbed. Coreranger and Impish often got trapped in the webs themselves yet somehow this strategy worked. Wtih Coreranger leading the way with IMoD, this quest was pretty smooth sailing. We had a slight hiccup when Coreranger AI auto-attacked the demon protecting Amaunator shadow - but more heals were enough to kill the demon. When fighting the beholders, Coreranger first cleared the beholders with the shield of balduran protecting him,, then his party attacked the priests this went well. The Unseeing Eye didn't last long and we did remember to return the rod. Some summons finished off Gaal with party assisting with ranged fire.
This quest took a lot of time, we had some time to work on some reputation quests. We obtained the pantaloons, then raised our reputation by turning in Neb's head to authorities and also will work on Fallen Paladins quest. We ran out of time so will work on that next session.
So the party worked on the Fallen Paladins. Call lightning and glitterdust plus strong melee power of Coreranger made for an easy victory.
Next up was Windspear Hills. A lot of easy fights with orcs and goblins with things like death spell from Solstice. Coreranger goes through the enemies pretty fast too. An undead scroll enabled Coreranger to take down the undead but his impatient party members couldn't wait and got Solstice level drained. But a restoration scroll got Solstice back in business. We battled Samia's group - we had a few summons but insect plague from Impish and horror from Cerebus disabled Samia's group to make for an easy victory. We had to fight a lot of orogs and golems but the party did fine. the Crimson Dart made short work of the admantite golems. Tazok and his buddies couldn't make much a dent on us. Summons and death ward made for an simple victory over Conster. Coreranger decided to pass on Firkraag as we didn't need anything from Firkraag just yet, we can take him on when we get back from the Underdark.
Next up, we decided to get Azuredge and Everaad's Sling so that all party members can damage golems if needed. We decided to venture into Planar Sphere. Solstice has many powerful spells, Impish has some very useful spells and summons and with Coreranger's strong melee power, we made great progress here. We have a bit of inventory issue with Coreranger's containers and weapons and equipment. We really need bag of holding but we'll have to get that later. Impish spells help with things like FoD traps. Coreranger donned his leather to hide from Lavok while summons forced him to give up. The party very carefully worked their way to the demon, and Coreranger's saves kept him safe.
Tolgerias was next. Using leather and cloak of non-detection, Coreranger sneaked past Tolgerias. Some summons were brought up while we attacked with ranged. This took a while but victory achieved. Impish was stunned, so the other party members used prtection from fire to take on the fire room enemies and this worked fine. We took some damage against the golems but were able to get victory. After fixing the engine we were out of time and saved our session here.
So the party had a few odds and ends before we head out to Brynnlaw. First thing first we reported to Lavok our success. Then we headed out of the sphere. We almost immediately ran into a disaster as we got hit by a vampire ambush. Normally this should be no problem with two party members having level drain protection and Coreranger with two anti-undead weapons. However, somehow the Efreeti bottle was triggered which duly cast a fireball and made Coreranger FALLEN! Coreranger has already done the ranger stronghold quests so can't undo this. He is now a somewhat inferior fighter and no more Cerebus either. But the quest must go on. The vampires were of course defeated.
Coreranger's teammates keep mentioning Kangaxx so the party got 4 undead scrolls and then headed to sewers. First though we stopped at the hidden hideout. With Coreranger's 25 INT leading the way (potions of genius) this went smoothly. Coreranger used a protection from undead and killed the nearby lich. Time to head to Bridge district and get the other lich. Then we stopped by the Gate district to defeat that lich and get the Daystar. After a rest we then headed to Kangaxx. With the party protected by undead scrolls this went smoothly with Coreranger killing Kangaxx with his IMoD.
One thing we hadn't yet done was Planar Prison. We were protected by death ward so no problems first fight. With chaotic commands on Coreranger no problems with the demon either. For the warden we had a lot of decent summons take down with a few spells assisting. Coreranger's party decided to move right which spawned a bunch of Yaun-tis. Solstice failed his save vs chaos and was duly killed. Impish and Coreranger did prevail. The RoR duly saw Solstice come back to life. A few items did poof this session, including the bracers of archery. We left the prison.
Coreranger decided to take on a nearby party in a warehouse. As expected, insect plague made this a pretty simple fight.
Time for the main quest, take on Bodhi's lair. With all our summons and Coreranger's strong melee power, this went pretty smoothly. Bodhi did not last long and couldn't do much though our five summons distractions certainly didn't hurt.
On to Brynnlaw! We help Gina and Ason then immediately took down Perth the Adept. We then made our way to Spellhold. As expected, Coreranger had no trouble meleeing Bhaal and Coreranger got to use his DUHM one last time before he loses his last set of spells (Bhaal powers). Clearing the first level of enemies in Spellhold went by the numbers, nothing remarkable happened. As we were almost about to move on to level two we ran out of time and saved our session here.
Comments
Getting to Balthazar is easy enough - we use mass invisibility to visit Saemon and have the triple ADHW and triple Telekinetic Storm CCs to instantly take down the group in front of the monestary, except for the initially neutral monk:
For the Throne, in addition to the usual buffs, we add full protection against all elements except for acid. We also add PFME, heroism, invulnerability and cloud giant strength, plus some minor misc buffs. Our plan for the first encounter with Amelyssan, the only one we won't be able to solve with our massive amount of available spike traps (courtesy of having Jan and Haer'Dalis, who really have barely anything else useful to spend all their HLA points onto for most of the game until Jan gets level 9 wizard spells), is simple enough - the same plan we went with for the Ravager.
I actually manage to pause before dialogue starts, so we throw two 3*pierce magic spell triggers at Mel, and Haer'Dalis can even place a single spike trap. The others just get attack commands, and Mel actually retreats before our chain contingencies even fire at her:
Now Haer'Dalis gets to have his moment - he (having already drunk a potion of insight) uses limited wish for timestop and moves to the fallen solar:
The list of missing kits now looks like this, with only 4 of them left:
Priest of Helm
Conjurer
Diviner
Necromancer
Also, a first for me - a successful SCS run with only official companions. I'm not sure when I will start my next run - there might be an extended break, or might be back in 1-2 weeks. In any case, good luck to everyone else!
Next step up is official companions without the SCS component for NPC customization, where you're stuck with initial proficiencies (hello Jaheira with single pips in EVERYTHING apart from Clubs...)
Corepally and his band of paladins made it out of the Underdark. Problem though? The githyanki at Waukeen's Promenade killed Corepally not sure how he died quick - RIP Corepally. Back to the drawing board....
Coreranger XXV - half-elf ranger (Corey_Russell)
Impish- elven totemic druid (Grond0)
Solstice - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
So the party found themselves at the entrance to the Iron Throne. Coreranger asked if we needed anything and Impish suggested we might want to kill the 5th floor baddies for the Free Action Ring (which we did end up using in the CC crypts). So Coreranger buffed with protection from magic and a few buffs then attacked. Party then assisted and it was a slaughter. The enemies could only slightly damage Coreranger in all of that. Next up was Degrodel's minions and Degrodel - no problem.
Then we headed to Candlekeep but Solstice complained about inventory so party waited until Solstice finished selling. But then later Solstice talked to the Warden instead of letting Coreranger talk to the Warden and the game crashed so we had to do Candlekeep again. Apparently the game caused Soltice to be thrown outside so he could cause no more trouble and finally we were sent to the crypts. Coreranger used a protection from magic for traps and Solstice used knock for containers. No problem looting the tomes or making it to Prat. With insect plague and summons and web enemies couldn't do much. Since Coreranger was protected by free action ring and protection from poison he cleared out the spiders while his companions were getting themselves stuck in webs though no one died. Finally protection from petrification allowed taking down basilisks.
Slythe didn't do well and with summons and haste Duchal Palace went well. Thieves' Maze went well, protections enabled Coreranger to trip traps and trash the skeleton warriors with his dual-wielding. For the Iron Throne party Coreranger scouted then massive webs and insect plague guaranteed the enemies were not going to be able to do much though they did get a few arrow shows on Coreranger.
Coreranger pulled Sarevok. Semaj came but was dispelled (by arrows) then quickly killed. Sarevok attacked summons and was malisoned and stuck in massive number of webs. Impish was proud of his insects but Coreranger's acid arrows got the kill shot on Sarevok.
On to Irenicus Dungeon. While we didn't have a thief, we did have access to knock, stone skins and cure poison so we were able to loot here without trouble. The party defeated the enemies in the dungeons pretty well. We stopped and saved our session and will battle Ulvaryl next time.
Coreranger XXV - half-elf ranger (Corey_Russell)
Impish- elven totemic druid (Grond0)
Solstice - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
The party made it out of dungeon without problem. The circus was easy enough as well. We then worked on freeing Hendak -- once again divide and conquer carried the day. We ran into a problem as Impish attacked Hendak and made him hostile. So Impish charmed Hendak and we worked on the Lilacor quest. With plenty of summons, this quest worked out well. Then we headed into the moored ship -- we were invisible so we were able to set up our attacks. The casters kept getting their spells interrupted but Coreranger's dual-wielding steadily wore the enemies down.
With summons moving in, we were able to defeat the wizards and buddies. We then headed back to the Copper Coronet, charmed Hendak and got our reward for dealing with the slavers. We finally obtained the potion bag from Watcher's Keep.
There were a number of miscellaneous tasks done:
1) Sir Sarles quest was started though not finished.
2) Reijek was exposed and we got a very easy Rune Assassins spawns, only one assassin for some reason and no bone golem.
2) Ankheg shell obtained from a warehouse and ankheg armork forged for Impish. While we were spending money (which we had a lot of) we also got the magic license to make sure that didn't end our run. Since we still had lots of money, Solstice suggested paying off Galen Bayle but Coreranger declined as he's heard many adventurers in the past have died to the vampires.
3) Maevar's quests started and we had just killed Rayic Gethras and saved our session here.
We have progressed as far as the Cloakwoon mines where Timor was killed by Sirene a Tiefling Inquisitor who is a member of my party. Natasha had confused both Sirene and Timor so there was little that I could do. Sirene was unable to remove magic and my arcane users were unable to cast the spell.
We returned to the FAI to raise her and after doing so have only 13gp left!
The mine was then completed with ease, Davaeorn having his spells neutralised by a single skeleton.
We exchanged Sirine for Dorn and completed Dorn's quest. Afterwards we bade Dorn farewell.
We arrived safely in Baldur's Gate after which we picked up Sirene again.
In the Iron Throne "Silence and Web" made the battle trivial.
EDIT
We went to Candlekeep where Prat killed himself with his lightning bolt.
Now at FAI
Being now done with another game I've played in the meantime, I needed something to distract myself while listening to history podcasts again, so I uninstalled SCS and set up a straightforward vanilla run. With only 4 kits still missing from the Hall of Heroes, I picked up the final non-wizard kit, a Priestess of Helm, creating a female halfling named Louise, with a custom party of 4.
Here's our Bhaalspawn:
Her first ally is Cadrax, a dwarven berserker:
She's also by aided by Tenobol, an elven fighter/thief:
And finally, the elven sorceress Drya:
A very straightforward, easy to manage group. Drya starts with early protection from petrification, to allow for a quick visit to the basilisk area. Tenobol enjoys going for some early game backstabs:
Natasha and the ogre mage fall as well:
We make it to the big city. With 5 skeletons, the buff combo of bless/chant/pfe 10'radius/remove fear/haste/defensive wizard buffs and our wands available, we quickly make a lot of progress - the ogre magi at the docks are able to hit us with a fireball, but it barely does any damage:
Still, those are minor things. We make it to the Iron Throne HQ, luring down our opponents to the previous level - I didn't take any screenshots for a while here, but Candlekeep went well, with no significant issues, and we return to BG and infiltrate the Iron Throne HQ:
Coreranger XV - half-elf ranger (Corey_Russell)
Impish- elven totemic druid (Grond0)
Solstice - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
So the party found themselves in the middle of the Maevar quest. We had just taken down Gethras last session. Almost immediately we got hit with bad news the Sansuki vampire ambush. But Impish reminded us that we hadn't yet paid off Bayle so we can just say it's none of our business - so we did that and missed a bullet there. Next was getting documents from Marcus and getting the dagger from the thief traitor. Finally it was time to wipe out Maevar's guild. With fireballs it was easy - a bit too easy, though as a prisoner was killed by a fireball and Coreranger became FALLEN! We reported our success.
While Coreranger was willing to continue even if he had to be fallen, his groupmates said if we do the ranger quest Coreranger can be restored. However a few miscellaneous quests done first:
1) Just a ton of ambushes this session though we weathered them OK. One ambush was a bit dicey as entire party running in horror except Solstice and Coreranger got zapped by a Solstice aganazzer's scorcher but we prevailed all the same.
2) Temple given illithium alloy and they were happy.
3) A Dawn's ring was recovered for the temple.
4) A boy's teddy bear returned, as well as wiping out some tomb robbers nearby (that's our job.)
5) Finally we make it to Umar Hills. The basic quests here were done no problem. The issue then became of getting the control of the cabin. First we had to go to Amauntator's temple and clear the undead out here (except Thaxxy). As we got low level spawns and also Coreranger protected bvy Arbane so he couldn't be held this went smoothly. The shade lord died almost immediately and we didn't even have Azuredge.
6) Ranger quests begun. We had to rest a lot but eventually the nymph gave us our first quest. This one is easy, just kill a few undead, recover some items and talk to the nobleman. First quest done. Second quest was to deal with the Witch Umar and we had no trouble doing that. It took us a bit to get the ogres attacking the village but we defeated those ogres all the same. Coreranger is now no longer a fallen ranger.
7) There wasn't a lot of time left but we decided to pay off Galen Bayle and get our goodies from Linvail. We also did the quests in the graveyard and killed the undead that were in the tombs.
8) We had just enough time to make our way to D'Arnise Keep, albeit weathering yet more ambushes. We saved our session here.
Some impressions from Irenicus' dungeon:
At the FAI we dropped off Viconia and Baeloth and picked up Jet 'Laya.
We sought out and killed her sister who had become a Banshee.
We were told of a dragon near Nashkel. We picked up the Cavalier Conchobhair Strongblade and the Halfling thief Bardo Furfoot.
The dragon chunked Bardo and killed Conchobhair.
We survived by the skin of our teeth and returned to Nashkel to raise Conchobhair.
We then returned to the cave to plunder it.
We continue to the Umar Hills. Everything goes well, I didn't even take a screenshot. An aerial servant and some skeletons help us with the various enemies in here, and Daystar does a good job in helping out our damage - sometimes we switch to ranged weapons, and we buff up for the final battle before moving on to De'Arnise Keep.
Tenobol uses his bow to shoot down any dying trolls with fire/acid arrows, otherwise this is fairly smooth sailing. A backstab + hasted move-in deals with the yuan-ti mage:
This time, we start with the planar prison, going in under invisibility to take out the enemy spellcasters before they can do anything:
Yesterday night I found myself with need for a distraction and played on for a bit, going to Brynnlaw and through the Asylum. There, we meet our first lich - we basically wait out his PFMW while getting busy with other enemies on that level and charge back in with decent protections:
Getting through the City of Caverns and into the Underdark is easy enough - we buff up and clear the outside area; When I don't have access to fire elementals, I seem to consistently underestimate the first kuo-toans that I meet - Tenobol almost dies here:
Now, back to the city, to hunt some liches, do the guarded compound (where the backstabs gave Tenobol some trouble, but he survived), the twisted rune (where we went for an aggressive approach to take down the beholder immediately, while the lich died to traps) and Kangaxx (PfM):
After Ilasera dies to traps, we enter Saradush. Tenobol's backstabs take care of the various wizards:
We enter Watcher's Keep again, taking care not to get into melee range with the balor in the first room due to its vorpal attack:
Time for Draconis. I've gotten much more comfortable with this fight by now. Protect everyone from acid, spread out, send in a planetar, attack at range:
Coreranger XV - half-elf ranger (Corey_Russell)
Impish- elven totemic druid (Grond0)
Solstice - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
With the considerable amount of powerful spells at our command, such as death spell, sunfire, call lightning, and insect plague, plus the many summons and the powerful melee power of Coreranger, the party was able to make steady progress today without any disasters (e.g. no almost no deaths or chunkings).
Our first priority was clearing out D'Arnise Keep. Coreranger had planned ahead and was using sword of flame main hand to deal the finishing blow to the trolls. We often had summons assisting so had no trouble fighting our way to Torgal. We ran into a slight issue when Solstice used a death spell on the umber hulks so we couldn't get the experience from the dog stew. Oh well. We also were unable to get any summons up even after resting. Impish predicted that Torgal wouldn't last long against Solstice's spells and actually Torgal did last a while but heal potions kept Coreranger alive long enough to deal the killing blow to Torgal.
We did some selling and Impish lamented he was still carrying a red cloth so we went ahead and dealt with the graveyard killers easily enough. We then went to Watcher's Keep to get the Crimson Dart for Impish. We then put up some summons and peeked into the main hall - just weak mephits so in that case we went ahead and cleared the level except for the statues. Impish was about to trigger the FoD trap - Coreranger said why not rest outside put up death ward then trigger it. But Impish said no - who then duly died to the trap and we had to resurrect him and come back and equip his things. We did get the ammo belt.
We had come back to Waukeen's Promenade and had some summons attack Mencar. We got seen sooner than we wanted, but it is becoming very clear that the ranger summon is actually quite powerful and was an easy victory.
Next up was Trademeet. As usual, we protected ourselves with PfP and sure enough the genies were killed without much trouble. We then headed to Druid's Grove. Coreranger once again using Flaming Blade main hand to finish off trolls. Mirror image from ilbratha enabled tanking in the Troll Mound. The first group of druids got hit with plague of insects so they weren't to do much. And the ranger summon (moondog) gave a lot of trouble to the second group of druids and victory there as well. The Myconids dealt with death spell. Some summons distracted the last group of druids. We didn't talk to Cernd and this was apparently a mistake as we had trouble getting Impish to challenge Faldhorn but eventually the challenge was underway and Impish didn't disappoint and got the victory.
We dealt a final blow to Reikek and cleared out a tomb of undead. We need reputation so returned the artifact from the tomb to the High Merchant.
We still had a little bit of time left so tried to deal with Tarnor's Gang. We got seen sooner than we wanted but the summons were able kill Gaius. For this fight, Coreranger was in leather and as such could scout and spot for the summons. Also he was using the cloak of non-detection so the enemies did not spot him. As expected plague of insects made the fight much safer and the moondog was proving quite tough, the party then assisted with spells and ranged fire - victory!
We still had some summons up, so the few summons we had distracted the Rakshaksha while the party assisted. As expected, victory. We had just enough time to sell and save our session here.
Among our preparations we include protection from cold and our remaining potions. We also have a spell trigger with 3*lower resistance and a CC with 3*ADHW for the first Amelyssan battle at the ready:
Now there are only specialist mages left on the list of kits without a place in the Hall of Heroes, specifically:
Conjurer
Diviner
Necromancer
Good luck to all of you!
The random necromancer run is still active; I'm getting an hour to play here and there, so should at least be moving on to BG2 within the week. Of the two remaining kits Conjurer seems like the real powerhouse, with literally no weaknesses as long as another party member can cover True Sight...
Part 2 found here
Since Fighter / Thief has been a bit unlucky with his thieving skills (he's only got 40 Find Traps), we're completely reliant on Potions of Perception, so stock up on the five carried by Erdane. Off we go...
The doppleganger-infested level goes well, as we by and large manage to avoid the Islanne versions.
The Dwarven Doomguards are handled by stacking Writhing Fog (there's not much other use for L2 Shaman slots...) with a cold- and slow-immune Blackguard keeping them occupied.
Next level also poses no real issue. Blackguard takes a serious beating in the maze part of the map, where Improved calls for help result in us having to take on some six Greater Ghouls at once, but everyone survives.
The chessboard is as always bombed into oblivion, with everyone having lightning immunity, since there's always a few pieces that survive and we may have to move around a bit as a result.
Similarly, the final level goes smoothly: It's basically just Greater Ghouls and their cronies, and while they get a few hits in, it never becomes dangerous. We leave the Demon Knight alone and teleport outside, taking down Kirinhale at the top of the tower before exiting. That's about it for Durlag's!
There's a few areas we haven't explored yet, and a handful of encounters outstanding.
Turns out that if you kill his golems after talking to him, it turns Thalantyr hostile... good thing we bought out what we needed from him beforehand.
We also trek deep into the Cloakwood and clobber Amarande (the Shadow Archdruid) for a mighty 120 XP. Whoop whoop.
Denak and his fellow Red Wizards get a taste of Dragon Disciple's newest fourth level spell pick, Ice Storm: In conjunction with Cloudkill from Necromancer and oodles of Skeleton Warriors from Priest of Helm, it's quite brutal on enemy casters without GoI.
Some other minor stuff including Ulcaster is handled, but that's about it... time to advance the plot.
We ascend the Iron Throne and bait out the two initially hostile (yet not connected to the rest of the enemies here) thieves: They oblige beautifully.
The bulk of the enemies are treated to (fully buffed and hasted) Skeleton Warriors, Ice Storms, Cloud Kill and even some Spike Growths. Only Naaman and Zhalimar survive the onslaught; Naaman Dimension Door's into the party and is promptly dispatched, while Zhalimar gets a few good licks in at Blackguard before we can take him down.
Here I make a first and quite possibly last use (ever) of Contagion to effectively neuter Zhalimar.
Necromancer of course fubs scribing the Minor Sequencer scroll, but eh.
Off to Candlekeep: The ambushing Ogre Magi are countered by Necromancer quaffing a Potion of Invisibility and Priest of Helm just dropping Remove Fear at the start.
The catacombs are thoroughly detrapped by Potion of Perception-buffed Fighter / Thief, Prat and his gang have no answer to fully buffed Skeleton Warriors, and we're out.
We opt for Ice Island even though we're almost at the experience cap already; hopefully Necromancer won't fail to scribe the Stoneskin scroll found there.
Andris triggers his Contingency immediately since a few Bombardier Beetles injured him with their point-blank acid area-of-effect attack; once he teleports back in, he's easy pickings.
We make our way westward, easily dispatching Garan, and reach Cuchol.
Alright, so what happened? Figuring Cuchol is a real pushover (usually, he is!) I moved the entire party in after Blackguard absorbed Cuchol's first attack, a Wand of Paralyzation charge.
Alas, Cuchol had precast Melf's Minute Meteors, and apparently has a fairly impressive strength score... so impressive that two MMM hits on Necromancer puts him in serious danger. Fortunately, Sunscorch from Shaman blinds Cuchol, so Necromancer can run for his (remaining sliver of) life.
... Really? Death by FREAKIN' CUCHOL?!
So, in retrospect: The blindness effect of Sunscorch only lasts one round. I thought I had moved Necromancer out of Cuchol's line of sight by shuffling the former into the eastern corridor, but apparently Cuchol still had a clear shot... which he made the absolute most of. Another second and Cuchol would've dropped before Necromancer did.
This is absolutely the first time I've ever lost a run to Cuchol. Hell, I'm all but convinved it's the first time I've even had ANY death at all to Cuchol. But the poor hitpoints of Necromancer, owing almost entirely to him having no CON modifier, in conjunction with no DEX modifier (so easy to hit) and neither defensive Illusions nor even, as yet, Stoneskin... all of these things conspired together in the worst possible way to end us.
You sure have to be cautious with a Necromancer. Guess I'll take a moment and think about what to run next.
BTW, it seems like Cuchol, while only having str 11, is a level 8/8 fighter/mage, so these fighter levels might make him a more effective MMM thrower.
I can't take defeat at the measly, whiny hands of Cuchol lying down. I'm rolling up another Necromancer with a random party...
Cria (female half-elf bard, Grond0); Brog (male half-orc cleric/thief, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1212127/#Comment_1212127
A rare outing for this MP run yesterday saw us past Sarevok into SoD.
The session started with us just having appeared in Baldur's Gate and we quickly set about conquering various challenges in the City. The first of those was when Brog encouraged Cria to pad her kill count with a roomful of chickens and a wand fireball duly turned them into several buckets of hot wings.
Cleric 7 / thief 8, 69 HPs, 212 kills, 2 deaths
Coreranger XV - half-elf ranger (Corey_Russell)
Impish- elven totemic druid (Grond0)
Solstice - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
Well we had a number of things to work on this session.
We first took down a sewer troll for Roger then got the RoR from Mekrath. A death spell made short work of the umber hulks. Coreranger bashed some chests though let Impish do the looting as Impish was protected from lightning.
Next, Coreranger wanted to get level drain protection. But to do that we needed ilithium and the MoD. First getting illithium which was easy from Neb. Then we helped Mook. We belatedly realized that Xzar was still waiting for us, so Solstice wiped out Prebek and friends with a sunfire. We looted the Harper's Hold then failed to avenge Xzar's death as his assassin made their escape. Oh well.
We then headed to Bridge District to deal with the two thief traitors. We then headed to Graveyard crypts. We had realized we hadn't yet obtained Kithix so we did that with a fireball making short work of the small spiders. Then we carefully made our way and obtained the MoD. Coreranger belatedly realized he hadn't a blunt weapon however he then remembered this is why he has shilleaugh memorized and did fine. The IMOD was then forged.
Ok next get the Shield of Balduran and then go into sewers and work on Unseeing Eye quest. For the first group of undead with the web trap, Impish tried the idea of tripping the trap then shooting the shadows who were webbed. Coreranger and Impish often got trapped in the webs themselves yet somehow this strategy worked. Wtih Coreranger leading the way with IMoD, this quest was pretty smooth sailing. We had a slight hiccup when Coreranger AI auto-attacked the demon protecting Amaunator shadow - but more heals were enough to kill the demon. When fighting the beholders, Coreranger first cleared the beholders with the shield of balduran protecting him,, then his party attacked the priests this went well. The Unseeing Eye didn't last long and we did remember to return the rod. Some summons finished off Gaal with party assisting with ranged fire.
This quest took a lot of time, we had some time to work on some reputation quests. We obtained the pantaloons, then raised our reputation by turning in Neb's head to authorities and also will work on Fallen Paladins quest. We ran out of time so will work on that next session.
Coreranger XV - half-elf ranger (Corey_Russell)
Impish- elven totemic druid (Grond0)
Solstice - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
So the party worked on the Fallen Paladins. Call lightning and glitterdust plus strong melee power of Coreranger made for an easy victory.
Next up was Windspear Hills. A lot of easy fights with orcs and goblins with things like death spell from Solstice. Coreranger goes through the enemies pretty fast too. An undead scroll enabled Coreranger to take down the undead but his impatient party members couldn't wait and got Solstice level drained. But a restoration scroll got Solstice back in business. We battled Samia's group - we had a few summons but insect plague from Impish and horror from Cerebus disabled Samia's group to make for an easy victory. We had to fight a lot of orogs and golems but the party did fine. the Crimson Dart made short work of the admantite golems. Tazok and his buddies couldn't make much a dent on us. Summons and death ward made for an simple victory over Conster. Coreranger decided to pass on Firkraag as we didn't need anything from Firkraag just yet, we can take him on when we get back from the Underdark.
Next up, we decided to get Azuredge and Everaad's Sling so that all party members can damage golems if needed. We decided to venture into Planar Sphere. Solstice has many powerful spells, Impish has some very useful spells and summons and with Coreranger's strong melee power, we made great progress here. We have a bit of inventory issue with Coreranger's containers and weapons and equipment. We really need bag of holding but we'll have to get that later. Impish spells help with things like FoD traps. Coreranger donned his leather to hide from Lavok while summons forced him to give up. The party very carefully worked their way to the demon, and Coreranger's saves kept him safe.
Tolgerias was next. Using leather and cloak of non-detection, Coreranger sneaked past Tolgerias. Some summons were brought up while we attacked with ranged. This took a while but victory achieved. Impish was stunned, so the other party members used prtection from fire to take on the fire room enemies and this worked fine. We took some damage against the golems but were able to get victory. After fixing the engine we were out of time and saved our session here.
Coreranger XV - half-elf ranger - FALLEN (Corey_Russell)
Impish- elven totemic druid (Grond0)
Solstice - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
So the party had a few odds and ends before we head out to Brynnlaw. First thing first we reported to Lavok our success. Then we headed out of the sphere. We almost immediately ran into a disaster as we got hit by a vampire ambush. Normally this should be no problem with two party members having level drain protection and Coreranger with two anti-undead weapons. However, somehow the Efreeti bottle was triggered which duly cast a fireball and made Coreranger FALLEN! Coreranger has already done the ranger stronghold quests so can't undo this. He is now a somewhat inferior fighter and no more Cerebus either. But the quest must go on. The vampires were of course defeated.
Coreranger's teammates keep mentioning Kangaxx so the party got 4 undead scrolls and then headed to sewers. First though we stopped at the hidden hideout. With Coreranger's 25 INT leading the way (potions of genius) this went smoothly. Coreranger used a protection from undead and killed the nearby lich. Time to head to Bridge district and get the other lich. Then we stopped by the Gate district to defeat that lich and get the Daystar. After a rest we then headed to Kangaxx. With the party protected by undead scrolls this went smoothly with Coreranger killing Kangaxx with his IMoD.
One thing we hadn't yet done was Planar Prison. We were protected by death ward so no problems first fight. With chaotic commands on Coreranger no problems with the demon either. For the warden we had a lot of decent summons take down with a few spells assisting. Coreranger's party decided to move right which spawned a bunch of Yaun-tis. Solstice failed his save vs chaos and was duly killed. Impish and Coreranger did prevail. The RoR duly saw Solstice come back to life. A few items did poof this session, including the bracers of archery. We left the prison.
Coreranger decided to take on a nearby party in a warehouse. As expected, insect plague made this a pretty simple fight.
Time for the main quest, take on Bodhi's lair. With all our summons and Coreranger's strong melee power, this went pretty smoothly. Bodhi did not last long and couldn't do much though our five summons distractions certainly didn't hurt.
On to Brynnlaw! We help Gina and Ason then immediately took down Perth the Adept. We then made our way to Spellhold. As expected, Coreranger had no trouble meleeing Bhaal and Coreranger got to use his DUHM one last time before he loses his last set of spells (Bhaal powers). Clearing the first level of enemies in Spellhold went by the numbers, nothing remarkable happened. As we were almost about to move on to level two we ran out of time and saved our session here.