Starting: In BG1EE.
Mods: Full SCS 35.21.
Difficulty: Insane with no difficulty-dependent damage increase.
Protagonist: Necromancer the Necromancer.
Special rules: Random party run, as dictated by the spoiler.
Randomly generate a full party as follows:
1. Generate three Necromancers with INT 18; pick one as protagonist.
2. Generate fifteen additional characters; pick five as the remaining party.
For each character, three stat sets are rolled, along with three sets of initial proficiencies,
three sets of starting Thief skill points, Ranger racial enemies and initial spells (where applicable):
For each character I then select the combination I prefer.
This rule-of-three is used for all choices during level-ups as well:
Hitpoints, proficiencies, Thief skill points, spontaneous caster spell choices and
(eventually) HLA selection is done by randomly selecting three possibilities, from which I may pick one.
In addition, no temporary INT-buffs may be used to aid scroll scribing, only permanent ones
(INT tome from Ramazith's Tower in Baldur's Gate, +1 INT from Machine of Lum The Mad in Watcher's Keep).
Hence why Necromancer forces his INT to be 18; a small allowance towards a less crappy protagonist.
This allows for some cherry-picking, both towards a Necromancer with an actual CON bonus, as well as a much less atrocious party, both in terms of class choices but also stats and proficiencies, while still keeping a fair bit of randomness.
The result:
Protagonist
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Necromancer
Alignment: Lawful Good
Stats:
STR 9 DEX 9 CON 16 INT 18 WIS 16 CHA 11
Proficiencies:
Dart *
Starting spells:
Chill Touch, Find Familiar, Protection from Petrification
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Sorcerer
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Stats:
STR 14 DEX 15 CON 17 INT 12 WIS 13 CHA 10
Proficiencies:
Dart *
Starting spells:
Charm Person, Shield
Gender: Female
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Cleric / Thief
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Stats:
STR 16 DEX 15 CON 15 INT 9 WIS 16 CHA 8
Proficiencies:
Sling * Sword and Shield Style *
Thieving skills:
Open Locks 10 Find Traps 5 Set Traps 10 Hide in Shadows 5 Pick Pockets 10
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Barbarian
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:
STR 18/25 DEX 17 CON 8 INT 15 WIS 10 CHA 8
Proficiencies:
Axe ** Bastard Sword **
Gender: Male
Race: Gnome
Class: Cleric / Illusionist
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Stats:
STR 9 DEX 16 CON 12 INT 18 WIS 10 CHA 12
Proficiencies:
Flail / Morning Star * Sling *
Starting spells:
Blindness, Protection from Petrification, Sleep
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Fighter / Cleric
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:
STR 9 DEX 14 CON 19 INT 8 WIS 13 CHA 13
Proficiencies:
Sling * Quarterstaff ** Two-Weapon Style *
Two very powerful frontliners (granted, the Fighter/Cleric will be equipment reliant) are really all we need, but there's also clerical spell slots in spades, and two primary arcanists; hopefully we'll roll some decent picks on the Sorcerer.
I'll condense the BG1 part of the run into a single post and just cover the highlights.
Let's get on with it.
No-Frills Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 1
Alright, we're off. Plan's the same as always: Some easy experience from the Ankheg Farm first (three Clerics so plenty of Commands), then the areas to the south and west of Beregost.
This all goes without a hitch, but there's a spot of trouble when triggering Dorn's ambush: Necromancer gets cocky and stays in arrow range to cast a LMD, scarcely avoiding an untimely demise.
Rule-of-three for HP saved our bacon there; fully random HP and it'd probably have been back to the drawing board.
We clear the Mine exterior, then head west. Bracers of Dexterity are a must for Fighter/Cleric, after all.
Beyond having to return to Nashkel to raise Cleric/Thief and Cleric/Illusionist (who both ate a Lance of Disruption by an ambushing Ogre Mage), we clear the easy areas to the west of Nashkel without incident.
The CHA tome goes to Cleric/Illusionist, since he can get to 20 CHA (infact 21 CHA) then with Friends and Algernon's Cloak.
We're fairly high-level now so comfortably clear Mutamin's Garden, then advance the plot.
Neither Bounty Hunter ambush is a threat, and once Venkt fails his save against Web, the Bandit Camp Bandits have no recourse; beyond a few stray Arrows of Ice that connect with Barbarian, they do nothing of note.
We go after the western seaboard: Dealing with Droth is no issue, but we have another potentially close call when trying to entice the local Sirines to show themselves.
The situation was actually worse than it looked. That part of the beach is a dead end, so the only way out was by getting past (the Dire Charmed) Barbarian and Fighter/Cleric. As you can see, Cleric/Illusionist also inadvertently pulled some Carrion Crawlers into the mess, and there were three Sirines to the south. Thankfully, we managed to get some Skeleton Warriors up, and in combination with Web, very careful movement, and the fact that Dire Charm only lasts 5 (I think?) rounds, we pulled through.
The rest of the western seaboard is uneventful. Fighter/Cleric gets the CON tome, activating regeneration: Perhaps it would've been better on Cleric/Thief for a small HP gain, but in the very, very long term Fighter/Cleric will gain a handful of HP when his CON gets boosted to 21 in Watcher's Keep. Assuming we make it that far...
We clear up what few areas remain; all that's left is the Red Wizards and TotSC stuff, so we go into the Cloakwood.
Occasionally the triple Giant Spider ambushes cause us worries, what with the Web Tangles, but nobody dies... until we take on Drasus.
Drasus himself drops to ranged fire pretty early on, and we manage to land a Wand of Paralyzation charge on Rezdan (who only had MGoI as spell defenses), but not before the latter lands a Chaos on Cleric/Illusionist... who proceeds to wander halfway across the motte, straight into a bundle of summons and Kysus.
With predictable results.
A few emergency Wand of Monster Summoning charges and some healing potions later, Barbarian does pull through, but Cleric/Illusionist bites the dust, so we trek on back to the FAI and raise him.
There's another dumb episode in the mines proper, where we attempt to engange Hareishan in a more fair manner by attacking from the jail cells to the south, rather than by the secret passage to the east.
We eat a few Enchantment disablers, but ultimately masses of Web sees us through.
Natasha on the other hand is just mobbed to death by summons in un-spectacular fashion.
As for Davaeorn, the whole thing actually goes very smoothly.
Barbarian and Fighter/Cleric chew through the five waves of guards (and the Battle Horrors beforehand) in no time flat, and D himself is summon-mobbed into oblivion.
Onto Baldur's Gate.
In the city itself, Necromancer of course gets the INT tome.
The WIS tome goes to Cleric/Thief, since she gets the most out of it, being the only one with a noticable WIS bonus to begin with.
We annihilate Lothander for his boots, and now both frontliners are zippin' around at warp speed, nice.
The only real close call here is against Sunin, but even then he only manages to seriously injure Cleric/Illusionist (by fair the squishiest party member right now, though that'll change once he begins to properly defend himself with MI/Blur/II).
And that's the city cleared, excepting the Iron Throne itself; we'll come back in a bit, but it's time for some TotSC content first.
Though not before dealing with the Red Wizards. Wands of Paralyzation work spectacularly here, though they do require use of our freshly (successfully) scribed Spell Thrusts beforehand.
We also nip into Firewine to take out Lendarn for his Cloudkill scroll, which Cleric/Illusionist successfully scribes (Necromancer also successfully scribed the one found in a rock to the south of Nashkel).
Double Cloudkill will be supremely useful for early BG2.
While in the area, we also tackle Kahrk.
His haste seems un-dispellable; we wait around for a long time, sending garbage summons at him, but he never slows down, and even a dual Slow (which he fails to save against) has no apparent effect.
Not that it saves him, though the loot is unremarkable since we have no Katana user.
Alright, let's head to Durlag's.
Heading upstairs, the WIS tome does go to Cleric/Thief, just as in Baldur's Gate.
We clear the above-ground levels very quickly, and begin our descent.
Necromancer having (almost) no defenses continues to be a challenge, as Avarice gets a backstab in, though fortunately only dealing 20 damage.
Other than that mishap, we clear the Warders rapidly, and press on.
We have our second truly close call on the chessboard: Necromancer drops to 7 HP!
Two rapid ranged hits from the enemy Rooks for 22 and 24 HP came perilously close to ending things, but we just about manage to scrape by without Necromancer going down.
I should really just have such a vulnerable protagonist quaff a Potion of Invisibility beforehand...
In contrast, the final level poses no real obstacle, and we teleport out courtesy of Islanne without tackling the Demon Knight.
Durlag's, done.
There's not much left to do, but Stoneskin would be a good insurance for the final few battles, and so we take off for Ice Island.
Exercising the utmost caution, this time around nothing untoward occurs, and Necromancer successfully scribes the scroll.
We ascend the Iron Throne next, and actually have our (ultra-buffed) Skeleton Warriors take out Zhalimar first: He alone accounts for about 60% of the enemy combat power here, and so this effectively neuters the opposition.
Sadly, Necromancer fails to scribe Minor Sequencer, but Stoneskin was more important at this stage anyway.
We survive the Candlekeep ambush by Necromancer quaffing a Potion of Invisibility, and descend into the crypts.
Barbarian gets a bump to 19 STR, Cleric/Thief improves her WIS to 19, and Prat gets cut down to size.
We do some final shopping: Magical ammunition for everyone and high-grade potions.
Even so, we've got 100k+ gold remaining, and a fairly significant stash of items at the FAI: I tend to stash them here since they depreciate in sales value, then end up never selling them.
Typically, if we were being optimal about it, I'd go for Balduran's Isle here since the Chain Mail +3 would be nice for Barbarian early on... but I can't be bothered, we're steamrolling BG1 completely and it's time to move on, so we return to the Gate.
Krystin is a real nuisance as always, summoning a bunch of elementals and inexplicably going invisible at random intervals, but down she goes all the same, as does Cythandria.
At the palace, Skeleton Warriors hold the line while we swiftly dismantle the key Dopplegangers: The Assassin is the first to go, the Mage gets a Spell Thrust and is then kept interrupted by Melf's Acid Arrows, and the Shaman just casts some fairly pointless buffs before succumbing.
Both dukes survive, with Liia completely untouched and Belt at Badly Wounded. Off to the maze.
The maze itself is no problem, but we run into a rare issue when dealing with Rahvin and friends (I know, I should've just snuck past them).
Yeah, I forgot Shaldrissa actually has L6 spells... and Barbarian (our invisible scout at the time) is level 8, so doesn't get to save against Death Spell.
A long trek back later, we return with a vengeance, wiping out the enemy party remnants.
We talk Tamoko out of fighting, and prepare for the fight ahead.
This time, we don't go for PfM-warriors doing all the heavy lifting: Instead, we distribute Potions of Magic Shielding and emergency Potions of Magic Blocking to everyone, apply some buffs (potions on frontliners, Bless/Chant/Recitation/PfE/Haste on the entire party), then just do an all-out assault with Skeleton Warriors leading the way.
Barbarian immediately lands an Arrow of Dispelling on Sarevok.
Lacking any real defenses, Tazok and Diarmid are both downed in relatively short order.
We spend some time hacking through Angelo's defenses, but with careful potion application, he can't really hurt us, and so down he goes as well.
Semaj is the last one standing, but eventually fails his save against a Chromatic Orb and is held.
Sarevok is kept busy, as usual, by Wands of Monster Summoning, and ultimately fails to do anything of note.
BG1, cleared.
It was a lot smoother than usual, with two fairly brutal frontliners (yep, melee works just fine in BG1, though it's arguably less efficient than ranged) plowing through most enemies. Fighter/Cleric had a Strength spell on him basically constantly once we got access to L2 arcane spells, and that, in combination with Strength of Stone + DUHM, meant we had 22 (Barbarian Rage) and 23-24 STR... not much in BG1 can withstand that for more than a round.
We end at the experience cap of 161k.
Our luck was fairly mediocre with Thief skill points, reasonable with proficiencies, and arguably quite good both with HP and Sorcerer spell picks; see the spoiler for details on what we ended up with.
Necromancer, L9
Proficiencies:
Dart * Sling *
53 HP
Sorcerer, L9
Proficiencies:
Dart * Sling *
54 HP
L1 spells:
Charm Person, Chromatic Orb, Friends, Shield, Stonefist
L2 spells:
Detect Invisibility, Melf's Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Web
L3 spells:
Invisibility 10' Radius, Monster Summoning I, Remove Magic
L4 spells:
Secret Word, Stoneskin
Cleric/Thief, L7/8
Proficiencies:
Mace * Sling * Sword and Shield Style *
53 HP
Thieving skills:
Open Locks 45 Find Traps 55 Pick Pockets 45 Move Silently 25 Hide in Shadows 10 Detect Illusions 40 Set Traps 40
Barbarian, L8
89 HP
Proficiencies:
Axe ** Bastard Sword ** Scimitar / Wakizashi / Ninjato * Shortbow *
Cleric/Illusionist, L7/7
39 HP
Proficiencies:
Flail / Morning Star * Sling * Sword and Shield Style *
Fighter / Cleric, L7/7
94 HP
Proficiencies:
War Hammer ** Sling * Quarterstaff ** Two-Weapon Style *
@aldain Looks promising - definitely a pretty strong setup for a mostly random party, and with the various stat bonus items in SoA the potential weaknesses can mostly be removed or at least mitigated.
I'm starting another run to keep busy, trying to get the diviner kit out of the way and into the hall, which is, understandably, not that popular. There are no relevant divination spells that require a saving throw, so you really only get the extra spellslots and lose access to a pretty big and powerful school of spells in conjuration. As the kit isn't that interesting, we're going for another unmodded core rules run; To speed things up, we're starting solo until we get to 32k experience, picking up an NPC party after that. This is our Bhaalspawn:
With no strength bonus on damage for our pitiful attacks, the beginning is a bit painful. Starting with sleep, shield and identify, we mostly use sleep to finish a few early quests and get some crucial early bits of gear, such as Elve's Bane:
With level 1 sleep only lasting for 5 rounds, we often needed to renew the spell, kite, or only take out specific enemies out of a group. Since we're planning to pick up a party later I don't want to sell any gear, and it does take a bit to get the money for the green PfP scroll from the carnival - or at least that's what I thought at the time. Misremembering the price by quite a bit, I did these minor quests using the sleep spell until I had around 2000 gold and 6000 xp - turns out I really only needed about 900 gold for the scroll (and 5k extra xp would have been enough to get to 32k). Well, now we travel east, to the basilisks, in order to meet our new best friend Corax, who is crucial to our progress here as slinging down the basilisks would take pretty much forever without him - he gets the paralyze on Mutamin, the most important part of this approach (and always a pretty big risk, but restarting this early isn't very painful):
Honestly, things do get a bit close here - two greater basilisks switch to melee attacks pretty much right away and put Corax to near death - but our ghoul buddy survives in the end:
And here we are after clearing out the basilisks:
About 1k experience beyond our target (due to the prolonged early questing), but that's just fine. No we go recruiting - we free Branwen, and use her remove fear to help out with Tarnesh:
This allows us to get Jaheira and Khalid, and we also take along Ajantis. Now we just need a thief, and since Imoen is, as per usual in this type of run without any NPC related mods, stuck at level 1, we need to take on Safana, and so we also pick up some arrows/bullets +1 from Beregost (for the flesh golem cave) before moving to the coast. We use Branwen's skeletons to tank the siren dire charms and secure Safana for the party:
Now it's time to go on a big wilderness area questing spree. This party can use all kinds of items, though we focus on getting some good weapons first:
When we face a spellcaster, we throw silence at them and use our arrows of biting in case it doesn't work:
And with Safana getting to level 7 relatively early (which maxes out her find traps/open locks), we can even enter the dungeons relatively early on:
Out final wilderness area is the red wizard forest - at this point Branwen is level 7 and has access to her powerful upgraded skeletons:
At this point we still had Durlag's upper levels to clear out (we're skipping all other TOTSC and SOD content, as per usual in these types of quicker runs), though first we finally got Almira some new spells, going for a big scroll learning session to expand her spellbook - this was needed anyway to get access to PfP for the basilisks at Durlag's. However, at the second level of the tower we got into our first spot of trouble when Safana, due to poor pathfinding, decided to split from the party and take another way forward (or rather backwards) through one of the narrow paths, and ran into some ghasts - she got paralyzed on the very first hit and I didn't notice the situation in time, and with her being so far away from the party, we had no way of saving her life:
Since we needed her to disarm some further traps here, we had to move to the FAI, resurrect her and return. Another bit of trouble happened when facing the ghost on the next level - I was unable to interrupt its initial Chaos spell, and it hit quite a few party members:
Branwen turned on Safana (both confused) - but this time I was able to save our fragile thief with a quick invisibility spell:
And the chaos effect ran out without any deaths:
Well, the tower was certainly not very well played. Aside from that, it's been smooth sailing, despite Almira taking a ton of risks during her early solo time - any bandit ambush or two stray hobgoblin arrow hits would have propably killed her, but we didn't encounter any bandits, and the few hobgoblins who were able to shoot at her never hit. We've left out Kahrk, but otherwise we're done with wilderness areas, so the Nashkel Mines and further main quests are up next.
We may be a little bit overleved for the Nashkel Mines at this point
As a consequence, Mulahey doesn't really get to do anything:
Next, we go on to invade the bandit camp - as long as we're outside, call lightning is always a good time against powerful enemies:
We invade the tent and take out the wizard before he's able to do anything:
Cloakwood, however, doesn't go quite as well. The first two levels are just fine, and we use a protection from poison scroll for the spider/ettercap area. However, the shadow archdruid manages to finish his insect plague cast despite our best attempts. I should have fled downstairs - well, luckily insect plague by itself isn't powerful enough to actually kill the party, and our physical attacks were strong enough to take him down immediately after that:
Almira does have greater malison as one of her very few 4th level spells (all of which are from Ulgoth's Beard at this point). This works really well to improve the already amazing saving throw penalties of silence - Drasus and his guys get absolutely demolished:
However, at the second level, I heavily misjudge the position of the lightning bolt trap near Hareishan - a strange mistake for me to make given how many times I've dealt with that one without any issues. Safana, despite wearing the boots of grounding, dies immediately due to unfortunate bounces:
Once again, we're forced to return to FAI and resurrect her.
Upon our return, we almost get into big trouble once again as Hareishan notices us early and we're not in the position to stop her invisibility/lightning bolt opening. This bolt, luckily, doesn't bounce directly through our party multiple times, getting stuck near the stairs instead, and we're able to take down the wizard and her guards:
That was some pretty dodgy play by me. I should have worked a lot more with my own magical tools and tried to dictate the terms of battle instead of just reacting. Next up is Natasha - for her, we mostly just send 3 skeletons in the room to draw out her most dangerous spells before going in:
Like all ogre mages, the next foe can be hit by command, so he's really no trouble at all. However, we're low and spells and hitpoints - our attempt to rest here gets interrupted by a huge troup of guards, whom we take down with malison + emotion:
I decide to try and rest downstairs instead - here, we only get interrupted by two guards, and the next attempt finally works. Now Safana goes invisible and disarms the traps - we scout Davaeorn and use the detect illusion spell at range to get rid of his MI:
Instead of using a PfM scroll I decide to send in our skeletons first, to see if they can do the job by themselves - they can:
We enter the city, and before we quit, Almira goes for another big scroll learning session.
Questing in the city went a lot better compared to the sloppy play in Cloakwood. No major issues here. Playing things safe, we made sure to lured dangerous enemies such as these ogre magi outside whenever possible:
Fireball did a decent job down in the sewers:
And after being done with about half of the city, we went back outside for some pickpocketing and selling, also taking down Kahrk in the process:
We now have access to all the buffs we will need and can easily continue to push for the lategame. Call lightning gets one last good used out of it before we sadly have to unlearn it due to a lack of upcoming outside battles:
And for our final quest around the city, we take down Degrodel, using some wand charges (heavens, frost) to assist our buffed-up fighters:
As for the Iron Throne HQ, we throw 6 fireballs (3 of them via potions of explosion) and run in to finish the remaining enemies:
Back in Candlekeep, we swiftly move through the library into the crypts, get our hands on some tomes and, for Barg's party, use invisibility purge to avoid getting hit by a potential confusion spell (since silence didn't do the job for once):
Back in the city, we use Spider's Bane and our two free action rings to move against the iron throne mercs and their Hold Person spam:
Cythandria and the two assassins easily fall, and we've already started buffing up with some giant strength and agility potions during those battles. Add in heroism and our buffs, and we're more than ready to take on the ducal palace. The doppelgangers die before our malison + chaos combo is even done:
Time to enter the Undercity. For once we don't firebomb or double-web the hostile party down there, instead buffing with full fire immunity and using chaos to confuse a few of our foes:
Not the best idea because we are, in the end, unable to stop a remove magic from hitting some of the party, but this is the last spell our enemies get to cast:
A quick rest after Tamoko and full buffs, including all useful potions, and Ajantis opens up on Sarevok with a dispelling arrow:
Angelo has spotted his approach and casts remove magic on our paladin. Ajantis separates from the party to take the hit. Luckily, Angelo doesn't follow him, so we only have to deal with Semaj, who teleports in and uses his malison tattoo:
We can't let him cast a follow-up chaos (though we do have magic shielding and magic blocking at the ready if it comes to that), and our dispelling arrows to the trick - without defenses, he doesn't get another cast:
Now we just have to pull Sarevok towards the party - he hasn't followed Ajantis - and victory is soon ours:
And we actually stayed below the BG1 experience cap for once, due to playing with a full party and skipping Durlag's lower levels + Balduran's Island.
After picking up Jaheira, Minsc and Imoen, we leave the opening dungeon, making use of our various magical abilities. With our relatively low experience level, we aren't exactly very strong in the SoA early game, and so I rush to pick up two more party members - Anomen and Jan. In the government district, since we're pretty bad at direct combat right now, we make use of forest beings and Jan's ammo to get in some hold effects:
However, upon our return to the promenade we get hit with a very early Suna Seni ambush, something I wasn't very prepared for (Jan doesn't even have stoneskins at the start of combat due to the lack of funds for a magic license, though I guess I should have entered a building to cast it). However, we do have chaos memorized, which is a bit of a one-spell-wonder for these early battles against humanoids with poor saving throws - and it affects literally every single opponent:
There's some good equipment here for us. We do the circus quest (Jan's detect illusions gets rid of the werewolves) and meet Mencar's party, opening up from invisibility 10' radius, also making use of greater malison + forest being spells - Jan gets a nice opening backstab:
Mencar himself is held, Anomen takes some damage from the berserker and things get a bit dicey for him when the thief hits him with a backstab - though Anomen is able to retreat and survive:
Now we buy ourselves a magic liecense and move to the Copper Coronet, where we free Hendak before entering the sewers. At this point we have kitted out Jaheira to be a pretty decent tank, with full plate, RoP +1, a shield and ironskins. Minsc and Anomen are the most vulnerable party members, and direct combat is still quite dangerous, so we continue to make use of spells like chaos and slow (sometimes combined with malison) - Anomen's holy smite works very well too. We manage to confuse the first big group of slavers:
And we recast invisibility 10' radius and a few buffs for the second group - Jan gets another great backstab here. We had insect plague at the ready, but it turned out not to be needed:
We're done now with the promenade, government district and slums, so the other non-stronghold Athkatla quests will be next. After those Jaheira should hopefully have access to fire elementals, and at that point we want to travel to Imnesvale and pick up Mazzy as our final party member. Minsc has also gained a proficiency point, which I've decided to put in axes; I want to make use of his bonus against vampires and use Azuredge for that this time around.
Comments
Mods: Full SCS 35.21.
Difficulty: Insane with no difficulty-dependent damage increase.
Protagonist: Necromancer the Necromancer.
Special rules: Random party run, as dictated by the spoiler.
1. Generate three Necromancers with INT 18; pick one as protagonist.
2. Generate fifteen additional characters; pick five as the remaining party.
For each character, three stat sets are rolled, along with three sets of initial proficiencies,
three sets of starting Thief skill points, Ranger racial enemies and initial spells (where applicable):
For each character I then select the combination I prefer.
This rule-of-three is used for all choices during level-ups as well:
Hitpoints, proficiencies, Thief skill points, spontaneous caster spell choices and
(eventually) HLA selection is done by randomly selecting three possibilities, from which I may pick one.
In addition, no temporary INT-buffs may be used to aid scroll scribing, only permanent ones
(INT tome from Ramazith's Tower in Baldur's Gate, +1 INT from Machine of Lum The Mad in Watcher's Keep).
Hence why Necromancer forces his INT to be 18; a small allowance towards a less crappy protagonist.
This allows for some cherry-picking, both towards a Necromancer with an actual CON bonus, as well as a much less atrocious party, both in terms of class choices but also stats and proficiencies, while still keeping a fair bit of randomness.
The result:
Protagonist
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Necromancer
Alignment: Lawful Good
Stats:
STR 9 DEX 9 CON 16 INT 18 WIS 16 CHA 11
Proficiencies:
Dart *
Starting spells:
Chill Touch, Find Familiar, Protection from Petrification
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Sorcerer
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Stats:
STR 14 DEX 15 CON 17 INT 12 WIS 13 CHA 10
Proficiencies:
Dart *
Starting spells:
Charm Person, Shield
Gender: Female
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Cleric / Thief
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Stats:
STR 16 DEX 15 CON 15 INT 9 WIS 16 CHA 8
Proficiencies:
Sling * Sword and Shield Style *
Thieving skills:
Open Locks 10 Find Traps 5 Set Traps 10 Hide in Shadows 5 Pick Pockets 10
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Barbarian
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:
STR 18/25 DEX 17 CON 8 INT 15 WIS 10 CHA 8
Proficiencies:
Axe ** Bastard Sword **
Gender: Male
Race: Gnome
Class: Cleric / Illusionist
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Stats:
STR 9 DEX 16 CON 12 INT 18 WIS 10 CHA 12
Proficiencies:
Flail / Morning Star * Sling *
Starting spells:
Blindness, Protection from Petrification, Sleep
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Fighter / Cleric
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:
STR 9 DEX 14 CON 19 INT 8 WIS 13 CHA 13
Proficiencies:
Sling * Quarterstaff ** Two-Weapon Style *
Two very powerful frontliners (granted, the Fighter/Cleric will be equipment reliant) are really all we need, but there's also clerical spell slots in spades, and two primary arcanists; hopefully we'll roll some decent picks on the Sorcerer.
I'll condense the BG1 part of the run into a single post and just cover the highlights.
Let's get on with it.
No-Frills Necromancer: A Random Run, Part 1
This all goes without a hitch, but there's a spot of trouble when triggering Dorn's ambush: Necromancer gets cocky and stays in arrow range to cast a LMD, scarcely avoiding an untimely demise.
Rule-of-three for HP saved our bacon there; fully random HP and it'd probably have been back to the drawing board.
We clear the Mine exterior, then head west. Bracers of Dexterity are a must for Fighter/Cleric, after all.
Beyond having to return to Nashkel to raise Cleric/Thief and Cleric/Illusionist (who both ate a Lance of Disruption by an ambushing Ogre Mage), we clear the easy areas to the west of Nashkel without incident.
The CHA tome goes to Cleric/Illusionist, since he can get to 20 CHA (infact 21 CHA) then with Friends and Algernon's Cloak.
We're fairly high-level now so comfortably clear Mutamin's Garden, then advance the plot.
Neither Bounty Hunter ambush is a threat, and once Venkt fails his save against Web, the Bandit Camp Bandits have no recourse; beyond a few stray Arrows of Ice that connect with Barbarian, they do nothing of note.
We go after the western seaboard: Dealing with Droth is no issue, but we have another potentially close call when trying to entice the local Sirines to show themselves.
The situation was actually worse than it looked. That part of the beach is a dead end, so the only way out was by getting past (the Dire Charmed) Barbarian and Fighter/Cleric. As you can see, Cleric/Illusionist also inadvertently pulled some Carrion Crawlers into the mess, and there were three Sirines to the south. Thankfully, we managed to get some Skeleton Warriors up, and in combination with Web, very careful movement, and the fact that Dire Charm only lasts 5 (I think?) rounds, we pulled through.
The rest of the western seaboard is uneventful. Fighter/Cleric gets the CON tome, activating regeneration: Perhaps it would've been better on Cleric/Thief for a small HP gain, but in the very, very long term Fighter/Cleric will gain a handful of HP when his CON gets boosted to 21 in Watcher's Keep. Assuming we make it that far...
We clear up what few areas remain; all that's left is the Red Wizards and TotSC stuff, so we go into the Cloakwood.
Occasionally the triple Giant Spider ambushes cause us worries, what with the Web Tangles, but nobody dies... until we take on Drasus.
Drasus himself drops to ranged fire pretty early on, and we manage to land a Wand of Paralyzation charge on Rezdan (who only had MGoI as spell defenses), but not before the latter lands a Chaos on Cleric/Illusionist... who proceeds to wander halfway across the motte, straight into a bundle of summons and Kysus.
With predictable results.
A few emergency Wand of Monster Summoning charges and some healing potions later, Barbarian does pull through, but Cleric/Illusionist bites the dust, so we trek on back to the FAI and raise him.
There's another dumb episode in the mines proper, where we attempt to engange Hareishan in a more fair manner by attacking from the jail cells to the south, rather than by the secret passage to the east.
We eat a few Enchantment disablers, but ultimately masses of Web sees us through.
Natasha on the other hand is just mobbed to death by summons in un-spectacular fashion.
As for Davaeorn, the whole thing actually goes very smoothly.
Barbarian and Fighter/Cleric chew through the five waves of guards (and the Battle Horrors beforehand) in no time flat, and D himself is summon-mobbed into oblivion.
Onto Baldur's Gate.
In the city itself, Necromancer of course gets the INT tome.
The WIS tome goes to Cleric/Thief, since she gets the most out of it, being the only one with a noticable WIS bonus to begin with.
We annihilate Lothander for his boots, and now both frontliners are zippin' around at warp speed, nice.
The only real close call here is against Sunin, but even then he only manages to seriously injure Cleric/Illusionist (by fair the squishiest party member right now, though that'll change once he begins to properly defend himself with MI/Blur/II).
And that's the city cleared, excepting the Iron Throne itself; we'll come back in a bit, but it's time for some TotSC content first.
Though not before dealing with the Red Wizards. Wands of Paralyzation work spectacularly here, though they do require use of our freshly (successfully) scribed Spell Thrusts beforehand.
We also nip into Firewine to take out Lendarn for his Cloudkill scroll, which Cleric/Illusionist successfully scribes (Necromancer also successfully scribed the one found in a rock to the south of Nashkel).
Double Cloudkill will be supremely useful for early BG2.
While in the area, we also tackle Kahrk.
His haste seems un-dispellable; we wait around for a long time, sending garbage summons at him, but he never slows down, and even a dual Slow (which he fails to save against) has no apparent effect.
Not that it saves him, though the loot is unremarkable since we have no Katana user.
Alright, let's head to Durlag's.
Heading upstairs, the WIS tome does go to Cleric/Thief, just as in Baldur's Gate.
We clear the above-ground levels very quickly, and begin our descent.
Necromancer having (almost) no defenses continues to be a challenge, as Avarice gets a backstab in, though fortunately only dealing 20 damage.
Other than that mishap, we clear the Warders rapidly, and press on.
We have our second truly close call on the chessboard: Necromancer drops to 7 HP!
Two rapid ranged hits from the enemy Rooks for 22 and 24 HP came perilously close to ending things, but we just about manage to scrape by without Necromancer going down.
I should really just have such a vulnerable protagonist quaff a Potion of Invisibility beforehand...
In contrast, the final level poses no real obstacle, and we teleport out courtesy of Islanne without tackling the Demon Knight.
Durlag's, done.
There's not much left to do, but Stoneskin would be a good insurance for the final few battles, and so we take off for Ice Island.
Exercising the utmost caution, this time around nothing untoward occurs, and Necromancer successfully scribes the scroll.
We ascend the Iron Throne next, and actually have our (ultra-buffed) Skeleton Warriors take out Zhalimar first: He alone accounts for about 60% of the enemy combat power here, and so this effectively neuters the opposition.
Sadly, Necromancer fails to scribe Minor Sequencer, but Stoneskin was more important at this stage anyway.
We survive the Candlekeep ambush by Necromancer quaffing a Potion of Invisibility, and descend into the crypts.
Barbarian gets a bump to 19 STR, Cleric/Thief improves her WIS to 19, and Prat gets cut down to size.
We do some final shopping: Magical ammunition for everyone and high-grade potions.
Even so, we've got 100k+ gold remaining, and a fairly significant stash of items at the FAI: I tend to stash them here since they depreciate in sales value, then end up never selling them.
Typically, if we were being optimal about it, I'd go for Balduran's Isle here since the Chain Mail +3 would be nice for Barbarian early on... but I can't be bothered, we're steamrolling BG1 completely and it's time to move on, so we return to the Gate.
Krystin is a real nuisance as always, summoning a bunch of elementals and inexplicably going invisible at random intervals, but down she goes all the same, as does Cythandria.
At the palace, Skeleton Warriors hold the line while we swiftly dismantle the key Dopplegangers: The Assassin is the first to go, the Mage gets a Spell Thrust and is then kept interrupted by Melf's Acid Arrows, and the Shaman just casts some fairly pointless buffs before succumbing.
Both dukes survive, with Liia completely untouched and Belt at Badly Wounded. Off to the maze.
The maze itself is no problem, but we run into a rare issue when dealing with Rahvin and friends (I know, I should've just snuck past them).
Yeah, I forgot Shaldrissa actually has L6 spells... and Barbarian (our invisible scout at the time) is level 8, so doesn't get to save against Death Spell.
A long trek back later, we return with a vengeance, wiping out the enemy party remnants.
We talk Tamoko out of fighting, and prepare for the fight ahead.
This time, we don't go for PfM-warriors doing all the heavy lifting: Instead, we distribute Potions of Magic Shielding and emergency Potions of Magic Blocking to everyone, apply some buffs (potions on frontliners, Bless/Chant/Recitation/PfE/Haste on the entire party), then just do an all-out assault with Skeleton Warriors leading the way.
Barbarian immediately lands an Arrow of Dispelling on Sarevok.
Lacking any real defenses, Tazok and Diarmid are both downed in relatively short order.
We spend some time hacking through Angelo's defenses, but with careful potion application, he can't really hurt us, and so down he goes as well.
Semaj is the last one standing, but eventually fails his save against a Chromatic Orb and is held.
Sarevok is kept busy, as usual, by Wands of Monster Summoning, and ultimately fails to do anything of note.
BG1, cleared.
It was a lot smoother than usual, with two fairly brutal frontliners (yep, melee works just fine in BG1, though it's arguably less efficient than ranged) plowing through most enemies. Fighter/Cleric had a Strength spell on him basically constantly once we got access to L2 arcane spells, and that, in combination with Strength of Stone + DUHM, meant we had 22 (Barbarian Rage) and 23-24 STR... not much in BG1 can withstand that for more than a round.
We end at the experience cap of 161k.
Our luck was fairly mediocre with Thief skill points, reasonable with proficiencies, and arguably quite good both with HP and Sorcerer spell picks; see the spoiler for details on what we ended up with.
Necromancer, L9
Proficiencies:
Dart * Sling *
53 HP
Sorcerer, L9
Proficiencies:
Dart * Sling *
54 HP
L1 spells:
Charm Person, Chromatic Orb, Friends, Shield, Stonefist
L2 spells:
Detect Invisibility, Melf's Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Web
L3 spells:
Invisibility 10' Radius, Monster Summoning I, Remove Magic
L4 spells:
Secret Word, Stoneskin
Cleric/Thief, L7/8
Proficiencies:
Mace * Sling * Sword and Shield Style *
53 HP
Thieving skills:
Open Locks 45 Find Traps 55 Pick Pockets 45 Move Silently 25 Hide in Shadows 10 Detect Illusions 40 Set Traps 40
Barbarian, L8
89 HP
Proficiencies:
Axe ** Bastard Sword ** Scimitar / Wakizashi / Ninjato * Shortbow *
Cleric/Illusionist, L7/7
39 HP
Proficiencies:
Flail / Morning Star * Sling * Sword and Shield Style *
Fighter / Cleric, L7/7
94 HP
Proficiencies:
War Hammer ** Sling * Quarterstaff ** Two-Weapon Style *
BG2 awaits.
I'm starting another run to keep busy, trying to get the diviner kit out of the way and into the hall, which is, understandably, not that popular. There are no relevant divination spells that require a saving throw, so you really only get the extra spellslots and lose access to a pretty big and powerful school of spells in conjuration. As the kit isn't that interesting, we're going for another unmodded core rules run; To speed things up, we're starting solo until we get to 32k experience, picking up an NPC party after that. This is our Bhaalspawn:
We may be a little bit overleved for the Nashkel Mines at this point
Upon our return, we almost get into big trouble once again as Hareishan notices us early and we're not in the position to stop her invisibility/lightning bolt opening. This bolt, luckily, doesn't bounce directly through our party multiple times, getting stuck near the stairs instead, and we're able to take down the wizard and her guards:
Questing in the city went a lot better compared to the sloppy play in Cloakwood. No major issues here. Playing things safe, we made sure to lured dangerous enemies such as these ogre magi outside whenever possible:
Time to enter the Undercity. For once we don't firebomb or double-web the hostile party down there, instead buffing with full fire immunity and using chaos to confuse a few of our foes:
After picking up Jaheira, Minsc and Imoen, we leave the opening dungeon, making use of our various magical abilities. With our relatively low experience level, we aren't exactly very strong in the SoA early game, and so I rush to pick up two more party members - Anomen and Jan. In the government district, since we're pretty bad at direct combat right now, we make use of forest beings and Jan's ammo to get in some hold effects: