Avenger the Human Cavalier entering Trilogy no-reload challenge...
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), Imoen (dualed to mage at level 5 thief, currently level 4)
People can no doubt notice a theme for my party. We intend to avenge Zetan's death against Boromir and recruit the real Hexxat and try to keep her until the end. If a paladin gets chunked anybody can join to replace them.
We are currently level 5. It has been pretty smooth so far (as expected), with the only hiccup was a carrion crawler at the Gnoll Fortress bypassed all the Paladins who were immune to hold and managed to hold and kill Imoen. Annoying as the paladins moved back rather than attack, dorky AI movements.
We have done a lot of big experience areas like basilisks, sirines (both maps), and ankhegs. Still a few areas to check out. Party is well equipped. We took a bit of damage against Kirian's party - Avenger and Imoen even got held and Serena confused yet somehow the other 3 paladins were able to prevail (though barely, Sarah got nicked to a sliver of life).
Trio 71 Session 4 (links to session 123)
Tar (Gate70)
Omen (Grond0)
Coreheal VII (Corey_Russell)
We'd had a 2 week break so no excuses about fatigue to fall back on. We left the bodies of Jardak and his butler where they lay, and tracked down Degrodel. His guardians fell quickly, as did he. We rested at the bridge outside the city, near the body of Quayle, and returned to kill a group of petrified adventurers in the centre of town
While picking up the cloak of Balduran from Quenash Tar laid a few snares. More on that later
Sunin the mage failed to summon his attackers, and while Omen mauled him Tar nipped in for a hefty backstab. Onwards to the Iron Throne HQ. Coreheal summoned skeletons while Tar laid a snare and two special traps. Omen refused any potions and duly became confused - but was burly enough to shrug off half the damage and all enemies were dead by the time he recovered - Gardush and Zhalimar both foolishly trying to slug it out with him
It was time to return to Candlekeep. Coreheal de-trapped everything in the catacombs and we fought our way past all comers. Prat and his gang were slowed by a special trap as was a greater doppelganger, and skeletons joined in several fights so it was a relaxing jaunt to freedom
Back in the city we argued about the strength tome until Tar insisted Omen used it before we lost it. Slythe and Krystin attacked us and both found snares laid much earlier. Slythe survived this but not an axe onslaught while Krystin fell straight to the traps
We grabbed their invites to the coronation and waved them at the guards. Yes two invites but three of us. We're shorties, only 2 regular persons worth...
Doppelganger assassins at the coronation found an unbuffed Omen far too much to handle after a few snares slowed them and skeletons blocked their movements. Sarevok put up a fight then left, and we were teleported to the thieves guild after him. Down into the thieves maze we went, making short work of that too
Coreheal and Omen both had taken their final level of BG, while Tar was unlikely to reach hers. Still, we eliminated Rahvin and his gang in an attempt to breach the gap (snares, skeletons and 90% fire resistant dwarven defender). A one sided encounter, so we followed up by clearing a quintet of skeleton warriors. Still not enough XP so Tar shrugged and we entered the temple nearby
A brace of traps were replaced with several of our own, then we stepped outside and rested. Omen tried to drag Sarevok out, but then a concealed Tar convinced him fully. Semaj teleported in and promptly fell to our snares. Tar and Coreheal had the same idea, laying more snares as an already slowed Sarevok staggered towards Omen who was shooting elemental arrows at him
Sarevok made it to Omen, picking up more snares and some skeletons. We redoubled our efforts but a skeletal summon beat us to the final blow and Sarevok was counted out
BGII-EE
We still had time on the clock - 33 minutes, so imported our party to BGII
Tar grabbed a staff meaning Coreheal was left with a non-proficient weapon. After making our way to a table with some of "our" gear we found a long sword and a dagger (Longtooth). Not much good, but as Tar had an unused to date dagger proficiency he took the dagger and handed the staff to Coreheal. Omen meanwhile had picked up axes from goblins so was merrily making a bloodied path around the dungeon
After a mere 29 minutes we exited the first area of the dungeon. No danger at all (Tar said, skimming over the intense damage she took when testing her 30% trap removal ability, and reminding her to leave the technical stuff to Coreheal)
This left about 4 minutes to go. Just enough to fend off mephit portals, an escaped clone, and a salt mephit. This seems like a lovely place to rest for a week before seeing what lay beyond the trapped path over there.
Coreheal managed 3 kills. Tar 11. Meanwhile Omen had his own calculation 4(C+T)+1. Yes 57 kills, 1 more than 4 times our combined effort. He did attempt to console us by mentioning the several minutes Coreheal had squandered bashing the jailkeep golem. Yes rub it in why don't you
Avenger the Human Cavalier Update 2
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), Imoen (dualed to mage at level 5 thief, currently level 8)
The paladins did not have much trouble at the Cloakwood Mines, city of Baldur's Gate, Candlekeep Crypts, Slythe or Duchal Palace all went smoothly. Imoen has been doing great thief work. She is dualed with 100% in traps and 60% in locks just enough that a single thieving potion can put her to 100% locks like in the crypts this been working well.
The thieve's maze was no trouble and I let Imoen solo the Iron Throne Undercity party with web, stinking cloud and lots of fireballs. We also used a protection from undead scroll for the nearby skeletal warriors which put Imoen to level 8. I nearly had a misstep as ghouls managed to hold Avenger (because the AI was off) but once I turned on AI the party defended him successfully. Close one.
As for the fight with Sarevok, the fight was a bit anti-climatic. We had successfully dispelled his haste, then he was fighting summons in the center area while we ranged attacked. Imoen did refresh the summons once (with a monster summoning wand), and ranged fire did in fact carry the day - a very safe encounter all in all. Poor Semaj faced off against 4 true sights going off at once, so without mirrors he defintely went down quick.
Hang on Zetan, your revenge will come soon! Boromir, you are marked...
Avenger the Human Cavalier Update 3
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), real Hexxat
The party has made it out of the dungeon with Yoshimo's and Imoen's help. Circus problem solved, Hendak freed and Lilacor obtained. The party then recruited "Hexxat" and worked her quest and went into Boromir's tomb.
The key encounter was Boromir - with 5 paladins, all immune to charm and all using +2 weapons, the deck was heavily stacked against Boromir and sure enough he was killed with his only accomplishment is fair damage to Serena - Zetan has been avenged.
The real Hexxat was recruited and now the party will resume their normal adventures.
Avenger the Human Cavalier FINAL Update!
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), real Hexxat
So L, Hexxat's employer had a job for us to do. We had to go into the crypts to get a sceptre and there was no returning unless we successfully got the sceptre. This quest is ridiculously hard. For one thing, we had to face off against mind flayers and of course no one but Avenger could save vs the stun so everyone died except Avenger and Hexxat.
Then we faced off against a host of undead and only survived because of massive healing potion consumption. However, it was all for naught as Shua Long (or whoever) fought us and stunned and killed Avenger - RIP Avenger.
Conclusion:
While the bag of holding is a nice item if you recruit the real Hexxat, the issue is the resulting quests are so hard that in end I would say Hexxat is not worth it at all. I almost certainly will not recruit her again.
Cronan the Paladin and his party of brunette paladins entering Trilogy No-Reload Challenge...
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
I have rolle d a new lamb to the slaughter. No recruiting the new NPCs, this time. The 6th slot will be thief, although if a paladin gets chunked anyone can join us. Here are the brunette paladins:
We have made it FAI and will be working our way to Nashkel shortly.
Started the three Drow's playthrough. Using Subraces mod for Drow race, and BaeBG2 mod to get Baeloth in BG2. LoB, SCS and Ascension for difficulty. Meet Xun, the Drow Blackguard. Being a Drow we get +1 INT, +1 CHA, +50MR, and +1 save vs. Spell. At daylight we suffer -1 Thac0 and -1 save penalties (learned in Chapter 3 it's actually blind status that also reduces vision which is more annoying), and get only 90% of xp.
weidu.log
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~EEUITWEAKS/EEUITWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Faydark's Abilities Auto-Roller/GrimLefourbe's BG2 UI: 4.0.6
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v17
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3015 // Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7150 // Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: 35.21
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single-Classes: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-Class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2350 // Alter Multi-Class Restrictions -> Allow humans to multi-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2390 // Alter Paladin Spell Progression Table -> Paladins Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Alter Ranger Spell Progression Table -> Rangers Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~SUBRACE/SUBRACE.TP2~ #1 #200 // Subrace mod for Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (BG1, BG:SoD, BG2, EET) -> No change subrace colors (Hair and Skin): 0.3.1
Candlekeep 250xp (-10%)
Marl 900xp
Killed Algernon for his Cloak
Noober 400xp
Hentold Dagger 900xp
Albert 1000xp lv2
Rep 6->10
Charmed Jemby with Algernon's cloak, and being in view she stops Drizzt fighting gnolls. Got the Scimitars +3 although being Blackguard we can only use Icingdeath.
Nashkel and Beregost Invis potions
Tenya's bowl 2000xp lv3
Bought Shield Amulet and went to mines. Invis potion to Mulahey, he was charmed third try, and Kobbos killed him. Had to use the last two Invis potions because Kobbo's blocked right click looting.
Joseph's Ring 800xp
Mulahey Symbol 1000xp
Charmed Minsc tried to kill Nimbul, but he agroed and killed both Minsc and Rasaad. Had to kite about 10 minutes 5 soldiers hacking him.
Scroll Case 300xp
Charmed Marl KO'd Tranzig 975xp
Tried killing Neera with Magic Missile, but she talked to me and the fight started. Neera was unkillable, so we killed the Thayans 375xp. But I missed the Gem Bag which is annoying.
Brage 1000xp
Drienne's Cat 200xp
Samuel 500xp lv4
Spent all of my 16k gold to buy Sandthief Ring
Killed Dushai for rep penalty and Ring of Free action
Used 2 Sandthief charges to get Brun's Son 1500xp 10rep
We now had over 10k xp so we could get Baeloth to join us. Luring Gibberlings away from the tower I actually figured out why I failed Nimbul and Neera. Because at day I'm "blinded" and my field of vision is slightly smaller, so they see me first. Quite interesting. Then picked Viconia killing the guard, which required using Stone Giant potion. Our party was now complete.
Raiken escorted us to bandit camp and Skellingtons killed Charmed Taurgosz for his Full Plate. Used two Sandthief charges and Viconia picked the documents with Sanctuary. Molkar Waylay happened but we managed to escape. Got gold for 34 Stone to Flesh scrolls. Waited night for perfect vision, charmed Lesser Basilisk with 2 Invis scrolls and started the xp loop. But we only managed 11 loops with an hour, should've bought the 24 hour green PfP ones. Our Basilisk got killed and we had to waste the Greater Basilisk with Magic Missiles. Basilisks now seem to also go melee more easily which is annoying. Anyway everyone got a lv up.
Xun lv5
Viconia lv6 with lv3 spells
Baeloth lv7 PfP, Knock and Invisibility 10'
Three buffed skelis killed Gnarl and Hairtooth. Baeloth got the DEX gloves for 14->18. Looted CHA tome which got our charm to natural 20. Invis 10' and Viconia looted CON tome with Sanctuary. Invis 10' through Cloakwood, got Scimitar +2, Tiber body 800xp, Lamalha waylay. Charmed Drasus killed his party only Genthore fighting back. Guards then killed Drasus, got boots of speed among other things, Xun lv6. Charmed Davaeorn's guard, who then lured the two Battle Horrors away, and casually hacked Davaeorn, 6000xp. 2000xp for leaving the mines and we are now at Chapter 5.
Nice to hear from you @histamiini . Looks like you've made good progress so far.
Likewise, seems that you are still going with these too. Had quite a long break from BG, but decided to hunt my last Steam achievements and got the bug to play again. Interestingly the last one was.
Cronan the Paladin and his party of brunette paladins - Update 2
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
The party has made it through the Cloakwood without too much trouble - we had lots of antidotes on hand which made it OK.
Most of the quests in the Great City went well. We did have a few snafus though.
In our fight with the Mountain Maulers 4 of the 6 party members failed their save vs. horror. Amazingly with only two party members fighting we still won the fight without deaths. We are very vulnerable to horror at the moment, though in BG 2 once we are level 9 this will be mitigated somewhat by the level 1 spell resist fear - but until then, horror has been our achilles heel.
Against Degrodel I accidentally mis-clicked and chose the "We want to die." option - this is a very tough party though and we managed to survive. Cronan was pinned in with several powerful enemies nearby he was gulping loads of blue potions but everyone managed to keep together. This is the first time I have survived using that option. Lots of experience I guess...
Cronan the Paladin and his party of brunette paladins - Update 3
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
Well the party made it through BG 1 - but barely. Everyone died (but Cronan) because Imoen managed to pull all the enemies - Cronan had to kill Angelo then sling Sarevok dead - this took a long time but eventually the big bro did go down. Due to save issues Una also appeared dead when imported to BG 2 so had to resurrect her after getting out of the dungeon, which puts her significantly behind the other party members in experience - oh well. Circus is next.
Trio 71 Session 5 (links to session 1234)
Tar (Gate70)
Omen (Grond0)
Coreheal VII (Corey_Russell)
Last time we were left peering across a bridge. Coreheal opens by removing traps and we remove some more with the wand keys. The rooms beyond are cleared, including the vampire who may have had time to escape but was slowed sufficiently by a snare for us to cut her down. So we are out of the dungeon and into our second city of the playthrough
The circus is a bust, with our magical weapons helping a lot
The Copper Coronet is under new management - Tar sternly suggesting that Omen not interfere and kill Hendak AGAIN
We do a bit of looting at the graveyard before dealing with Suna Seni and her ambush
This opens the way to Watchers Keep and an early purchase of the potion container to go with gem bag and scroll case
Back to the city and rescue Renfeld from a fate worse than death
Um
After saving Renfeld we left and only realised a short while later he was not with us
Omen quickly worked out that Coreheal had cast silence, preventing Renfeld from talking his way into our backpacks
So we headed to the Bridge district where Tar confirmed he still couldn't deal with traps. Coreheal got caught by the same trap and briefly thought it was a repeating trap until Tar mentioned he'd tried to detrap (which can trigger it without removing it thus allowing a second use)
After solving the skinner murders mystery Tar bravely said we'd return later for the Rune Assassins downstairs
We'd waited a reasonable time to relieve Officer Dirth of his burdensome armour at the docks
Then started Mae'Vars quests which allowed Coreheal to loot the thieves guild
That gave us enough money to pay Gaelan Bayle, and return to introduce Lassal to enough snares for him to run
Aran Linvail wanted us to deal with traitors but at this time of night we felt the temple of Talos should be raided
With the temple cleared we headed into the sewers, helped Roger and cleared out the rakshasa at the centre
How do you eat an elephant a dwarf? In more than one bite
On our way out Tar decided to cut Tarnor down to size. He knew this was risky, particularly as we had no skeletons left
Things worked well for a few moments but Omen was under massive assault, and we took too long to convince him to retreat
He got held, and there was nothing we could do so he died. Hindsight: Tar should have given him potions of strength + speed
Tar turned to run but Coreheal was up for splitting the enemies up
Tar returned but his hiding in the shadows gave him up, or a true sight was running
We exited the sewers but Zorl, Tarnor and an invisible stalker followed
Coreheal fell to a flamestrike, while Tar ran through two temples with the stalker chasing. He left for the Government district
The temple there revived both Omen and Coreheal, and we decided to return to the Temple district and the stalker
As expected, it was ready for us on our return but we bashed it down even with two unequipped party members
Then we retrieved Coreheals loot and used another entrance into the sewers
(bearing in mind prophets and commoners were combative and hostile respectively)
Coreheal had killed one prophet
We scouted around, allowing Omen to retrieve his equipment while we engaged Gaius. Once Omen joined, that battle was over
We headed outside where we were unable to hide after an initial attack due to many angry commoners milling about
Omen used the cloak of sewers mustard jelly form until Zorl, Tarnor and a prophet were down
Time-up
That was an exciting if foolhardy exercise, and we have some of their loot to sell next session
Tar is level 12, 48 kills
Omen is level 9, 113 kills
Coreheal is level 11, 19 kills
Cronan the Paladin and his party of brunette paladins - Update 4
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Yoshimo
The party has been doing well. We've finished up our work for Chapter Two and have been just sent to Brynnlaw. Here are some highlights:
We were able to defeat Mencar, though we had confused party members, which in turn got Yoshimo killed though not chunked.
In a similar fashion, Rayic Gethras was defeated despite the fact that half the party was running in fear in that encounter (we still didn't have access to resist fear yet due to slow paladin leveling).
We managed to clear out the planar prison though people did die at times. We had one character die when we first entered the sphere, then party got his with chaos and a confused party member killed a confused Yoshimo - there wasn't much to be done as the rest of the party was dealing with enemies. We do have two RoR though so it was easy enough to put Yoshimo back together.
I decided to try out the planar sphere. The party did well there, and surprisingly well against the halfling mages even. I was a little worried about Tolgerias, as the party doesn't have access to high level cleric spells, so we can't get protections like free action or chaotic commands. I eventually decided paladins would all sanctuary, Yoshimo go invisi via ring, and then party positioned themselves next to Tolgerias and straight attacked - he was killed before he could do any real damage which gave us victory. The rest of the sphere was completed without incident.
We were feeling pretty confident to decided to go after Firkraag.
We were successful here with no deaths or chunkings which was nice. The Carsomyr will no doubt prove useful.
We felt like pushing our luck so tried taking on the Shadow Dragon as well - as it turned out, the dragon hurt Serena bad but that was all it could do before being killed.
We then headed to Brynnlaw. What is interesting is the vampires managed to charm Yoshimo - we attempted to dispel magic from Carsomyr with it's ability but that failed. So then we tried the "painful" way to dispelling Yoshimo by smacking him with the Carsomyr - this did dispel his charm! Though also knocked 50% of his HP in a single hit. Good know we have options I guess....will keep at it.
Chapter 5. Tremains son 5000xp. Ragefast was charmed, wasted spells and his summons killed him, same for Ramazith 6000xp. Summons killed Seven Suns 7100xp. Lothander charmed then stopped leaving and killed, got second pair of boots of speed, and 5500xp. Marek was tough but couldn't survive our gang 10650xp.
Bassilus pretty easily killed 1975xp. Kirinhale 4000xp, then charmed Riggolo killed Ghost 3750xp. Viconia got her Wisdom to 17 and we got 4th Skeleton. Buffed Skelis easily killed the Basilisks in the Tower 22400xp. Viconia lv7 with improved Animate Dead. Hasted Skelis easily cleared the Ghasts 10400xp. In the basement Ghast 650xp, 2x Skeleton Warriors 4000xp, 2x Mustard Jellys 2000xp, Phase spider 1400xp, 2x Flesh Golems 200xp, Wraith Spider 1400xp, 3x Greater Doppelgangers 4000xp, 3x Riddle 2000xp. Baeloth got lv8 with Emotion Hope. Left the last Warden alone for now. Skelis killed Desreta and Vaya 3400xp. Xun lv7 and Viconia got strength from 10 to 18/00.
Denak's party burned afar with WoF 2400xp. Charmed another Lesser Basilisk and killed Kirian's party 3000xp and then had another, successful go for XP-loop.
Emotion Hope, Emotion Courage, Recitation and Hasted Skelis quite easily killed Love. The lower level we picked up Durlag's Goblet, Kiel's Helmet and some loot without fighting anybody. Battle Horror's died the way out 8000xp. Iron Throne took 3 rests but Skelis wiped them out. Spent 3 Invisibility potions to escape the Ogre Mage waylay at Candlekeep.
Chapter 6. Skelis couldn't handle Iron Throne leaders and we needed WoMS to help out. Cleared Catacombs and Viconia got 18 WIS and 4th lv4 spell slot. Sakuls gang got Skelied. Slythe and Krystin were longer battle than necessary as we accidentally activated them when Charming Quenash, and had to use WoMS instead Skelis to deplete them. Xun now got 75MR.
At this point we decided to do Durlag's Tower, because I wanted Viconia to use the Cleric amulet which would give us the second best Skelis for SoD. For this we needed Helm of Opposite Alignement. 2nd level was easily passed with Invisibility 10' and Protection from Fire and Lightning. WoMS killed the homing Ghasts. 3rd level, 10x WoMS for Bear. Fission Slime was hacked to near death by Skelis and we finished it with Ring of Energy. Except it didn't die and just multiplied. Then I remembered Ring of Energy isn't fire. Well Skelis still had just enough power to handle two Fission Slimes, and then one WoMS and WoF finished them. Skelis and WoMS then handled Air Aspect, and Phoenix Guards didn't survive them a long either.
Almost died in Chessboard because enemies found us casting PfE, and had to drink from Durlag's Goblet. Then used Potion of Absorption to pass the board. But they revealed us and followed to the next level, so we had to drink our last two invis potions. Xun lv8. Skelis killed Grael. Demon Knight was killed by his mirror image, WoMS helping to distract other enemies. Baeloth did almost die with 4 hp left, but Invisibility saved him.
Now with Helm of Opposite Alignment we could equip Twinkle too, which cost 12k to buy back. Palace Ambush was done with Bloodraged Skelis, and although the mage dispelled everybody once it wasn't really close one. For Sarevok we used WoF and OGL from afar. Once Semaj was dead we used two PfUs and continued bombing. Sarevok died without seeing us.
Cronan the Paladin and his party of brunette paladins - FINAL Update!
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
The party had did well up till the end, including clearing out Kua-Toa and Beholder lairs. However, I felt that dealing with the illithids would just be be too dangerous for a group of mostly low INT paladins. It would appear my concerns were well founded, as Cronan (with his 9 INT) was killed in the Phaere ambush, almost certainly by illithids. The irony is Imoen's death spell generated a moment later and killed my killers. If I had invested in the Robe of Vecna and brought that with me (I had a ton of money) then Imoen's death spell would have generated in time. Also, if I had used pause on enemy sighted that would have probably guaranteed Imoen got the death spell in time or even turn off AI and use an invis potion (we had quite a few by this point). Oo
ps.
What's next:
Thinking of partly MP party of a berserker, dwarven/fighter cleric (myself), a wild mage, and other 3 slots filled by Yoshimo/Imoen, Minc/Mazzy and Jaheira.
@Corey_Russell Unfortunate, but good going on the (previous) successful run!
Dwarven fighter/clerics are awesome protagonists: They're basically the epitome of passive defenses. Good HP, good all-around saves, good AC. Very useful traits if you don't want to spend a lot of time buffing to keep protag safe...
One time I had a solo dwarven fighter/cleric get to the Underdark. He was on his way to rescue Phaere and he was so confident with his saves being negative that he didn't bother to buff before facing the party you have to deal with on way to rescue Phaere - problem though? Maze doesn't offer a save, doh1 Even sillier I could have buffed with chaotic commands and as long as I didn't get dispelled would have been OK.
Shame about the paladins @Corey_Russell but I'm sure you'll bounce back. I'm doing a wild mage run at the moment and have managed not to lose all my money from a surge yet - see if you can be as lucky .
@Grond0 Grats on your luck. I think I'll probably do something similar to what you did, which is not sell and put in my "bank" high value items and only sell when there are items to get. It gets a bit tricky once I leave for Brynnlaw though as I don't yet have a bag of holding. Guess we'll see. As for my paladins, I should have remembered Murphy's Law - if something can go wrong (like multiple mind flayers targeting my character), then it can.
While under a bout of the lurgy I finished a run with a randomised character, a N Half-Orc Conjurer called Vlarn of moderate brightness but definite charm. He and his party of...
Dave the Talos cleric,
Gavin the Lathander Cleric (he and Dave had a complicated relationship, and Gavin was a constant source of frustration as his too holy turning would often annihilate useful undead quest givers & stores!),
Ophysia the Champion of Mystra,
Eldoth the Archer, and...
Skie the Ninja (yes! A fun class that I'll try sometime...)
...ran through BG1 with several early game near deaths, once Eldoth healed Vlarn a split second before a potentially fatal arrow arrived...
I was interested to try some untried mods such as Loretakers, Black Pits in BG1, Blackhearts, and Jarl's Adventure Pack, and indeed they made for an interesting, if somewhat dangerous run. About three beholders and some mind flayers already dealt with... I also use the monster randomiser mod which made many of the game's encounters rather unpredictable and a little more dangerous.
However... after we disposed of Slythe and Krysten Skie and Eldoth decided to part company with us... taking much valuable equipment with them. This led to some head scratching but eventually Vynd the Stalker and Imoen the Rake were pressed into service. Vlarn practically buried Sarevok and his minions under a wave of slimes... with the assistance of Illasera.
Originally I had been thinking to go through SoD but Skie's defection and some keenness to try more of Acifer's new mods in future means that I'll probably pick up Vlarn in BG2 sometime.
Hey all! I haven't done this in a few years, but I felt like trying my hand at another no-reload run after a long hiatus from the game. I might do it minimal-reload if I'm having fun and it goes sour, or I might seal the run after the first death; I haven't decided.
We're running the game on Insane mode with bonus damage disabled, and I'm going to be abstaining from a handful of things to make each encounter tough enough to require thought. So, we're not kiting Shoal, recharging wands, or stealing the Ring of Free Action or Algernon's Cloak, nor are we entering Mutamin's Garden until after the Cloakwood Mines. I want to fight with more modest tools.
The modlist for this run is long. Aside from Tweaks, SCS, Ascension, and the Expanded Classes mod, we're running several large-scale quest mods to give me some new challenges: Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, Loretakers, Dark Side of the Sword Coast, and Shades of the Sword Coast.
I haven't played any of these quest mods before, so I'm going in completely blind, like I did for my no-reload SoD run.
I'm running some new kits and some new portraits. For the first time in a long time, I have no party members named Poppy, Snowy Tae, or Frisky Bits! Meet Bolithaw, the Sniper ranger:
The Sniper kit is oriented around ranged attacks from stealth, which it can use to backstab from afar. Picture an Archer crossed with a Stalker. Its attacks are weaker than either class, but has a lot of flexibility in how to line up backstabs. The full description is here:
SNIPER: Quiet, careful, and deadly, the Sniper excels at striking from the shadows at range. By scouting out the perfect spot and angle to strike, a Sniper can slay their targets in a single blow without ever being seen.
CLASS FEATURES:
Advantages:
- Deals +50% bonus damage when attacking with ranged weapons if the Sniper has been invisible for at least 1 second before attacking. Increases by an additional +25% at levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18, to a maximum of +200% (i.e., three times the base damage).
- Gets +1 to hit and damage rolls with ranged weapons. Gets an additional +1 every 5 levels, to a maximum of +5 at level 20.
- Ranged attacks get a +1 to critical hit rolls at levels 3, 7, and 11.
- May cast Dimension Door once per day at level 8. Gains an additional casting at level 14.
- At level 16, the Sniper's critical hits cast Dispel Magic on the target on a failed save vs. spell.
- May achieve Mastery (3 slots) in shortbows and crossbows.
- May achieve Specialization (2 slots) in slings and darts.
Disadvantages:
- May only wear leather, studded leather, and hide armor.
- May only become Proficient (one slot) with melee weapons.
- Only gains 1d8 Hit Points per level.
High-Level Abilities:
- Blink
- Pierce Armor
- Power Attack
- Hardiness
- From the Shadows
- Through the Heart
- Anti-Magic Strike
- Astral Shot
- Pinpoint Accuracy
I'll also be playtesting the Force Wizard kit. Say hi to Iffle, our scrunkly critter.
Note the 19 Strength; Iffle gets a +1 bonus to Strength from her kit. A Force Wizard is a melee-oriented mage who trades spell slots, caster level, and spell duration for the ability to deal solid damage with fists. It also gets some stronger versions of spells like Ghoul Touch. The full description is here:
Force Wizards use the Weave to amplify their own strength, shield themselves from harm, and fight hand-to-hand with magic behind every strike. Where most wizards focus on their studies and expanding their knowledge, Force Wizards rely on brute force of magic, and are known for their enhanced physical prowess.
ADVANTAGES:
- Gets +2 to hit rolls and damage when attacking with fists. Gets another +1 to hit for each level after 1st, and another +1 to damage per 2 levels.
- Base Armor Class starts at 7 at level 1 and goes down by 1 for every 2 levels after, down to base Armor Class 0 at level 15.
- Gets +10% resistance to physical damage at levels 3, 9, and 15.
- Gets +2 to movement rate.
- May use Mystic Fist at will.
- May cast Grapple once per day.
- May cast stronger variants of certain spells from their spellbook:
Shocking Grasp
Chill Touch
Ghoul Touch
Strength
Barkskin
Flaming Fists
Vampiric Touch
Stoneskin
Ironskin
Tenser's Transformation
Bigby's Clenched Fist
Bigby's Crushing Hand
GRAPPLE: The Force Wizard extends a telekinetic grasp to hold down a single creature. If the victim fails a save vs. breath, it cannot move for 2 rounds and suffers a -3 penalty to hit and Armor Class.
MYSTIC FIST: The Force Wizard can focus their magic directly into their bare fists, allowing them to harm enemies immune to normal weapons and negating the attack and damage bonuses that enemies would otherwise get against an unarmed Force Wizard (attacks against unarmed creatures get +4 to hit and damage). In addition, the damage dealt by the Force Wizard's fists is no longer nonlethal, and can kill instead of knocking the victim unconscious.
For as long as Mystic Fist is active, the Force Wizard deals 1d4 crushing damage with their fists, which strike as a +1 weapons. Every 5 levels until level 20, the damage dice increases and the enchantment bonus goes up by 1. Thus, a level 10 Force Wizard's fists will deal 1d8 base crushing damage and strike as +3 weapons.
The Force Wizard can dispel this effect at any time if they wish to deal nonlethal damage or to harm creatures immune to magical weapons.
DISADVANTAGES:
- Cannot cast Enchantment spells.
- Can memorize 1 fewer spell per spell level compared to a generalist mage (a Force Wizard cannot cast spells until level 2)
Next is our Sky Dancer, Vosper. She is a monk who gets triple the normal attacks, but only deals 1/5 of her regular damage per hit, so overall damage output is 60% of a regular monk's. Rather than Stunning Blow, she gets a passive 1-second stun on hit.
She will also be able to fire very low-damage lightning bolts with a kit-made bow. The bolts only deal 1d4 damage at first (max 1d10+3 at level 16), and a failed attack roll means no damage. Full description here:
Part magician and part artist, a Sky Dancer is a monk who uses telekinetic powers to influence their movements in combat. A Sky Dancer's powers come less from muscle and more from magic, allowing them to strike more often at the cost of reducing the force of each blow. Sky Dancers are more fragile than other monks and rely on the speed of their fists to disrupt and disable their opponents.
CLASS FEATURES:
Advantages:
- Makes two additional attack rolls with each attack.
- Gains the Disrupting Strike passive ability.
- May cast Windwalk once per day at level 1, with another casting every 5 levels after.
- May cast Chain Lightning once per day for every 9 levels of the caster.
- 5% electricity resistance per level.
- May conjure a Sky Bow and use it to fire minor lightning bolts.
- +1 Dexterity
DISRUPTING STRIKE: Whenever the monk strikes a target with their bare fists, the victim must make a save vs. spell or be sent reeling. There is a 50% chance that the victim is stunned for 1 second and a 50% chance that the victim instead has all of its actions delayed by 1 second. The delay bypasses immunity to stun effects, but does not disrupt spells or give guaranteed hits to the victim's attackers. Multiple hits within the same second do not extend the duration; the monk must find a later opportunity to land a hit.
SKY BOW: A Sky Bow is a quasi-magical weapon that the Sky Dancer may use to focus their energy. While the bow cannot deal physical damage, it has the power to fire a bolt of energy at the Sky Dancer's opponents, similar to a Lightning Bolt spell. The bolt may bounce off of walls and other barriers, shocking any creature caught in the area of effect, but the bolt can miss and can also be blocked by magic resistance and spells such as Globe of Invulnerability. The Sky Dancer may replace the bow with stronger versions at higher levels:
Level 1-5: 1d4 electricity damage and +1 to hit. Strikes as a +1 weapon and a level 1 spell.
Level 6-10: 1d6+1 electricity damage and +2 to hit. Strikes as a +2 weapon and a level 2 spell.
Level 11-15: 1d8+2 electricity damage and +3 to hit. Strikes as a +3 weapon and a level 3 spell.
Level 16 and up: 1d10+3 electricity damage and +4 to hit. Strikes as a +4 weapon and a level 4 spell.
WINDWALK: The Sky Dancer calls upon the force of the wind to transport them to another location, instantly teleporting them to any spot within range.
Disadvantages:
- All physical damage is reduced to 1/5 of its normal value (all attacks deal 80% less damage per hit).
- May not use Stunning Blow, Lay on Hands, or Quivering Palm.
- Only gains 2% magic resistance per level after level 14 instead of 3%.
High-Level Abilities:
Hardiness
Critical Strike
Thunder Strike
Wind Form
Improved Wind Form
Summon Prince of Air
- Hit Die: d6
Last, we have one of my weirder and more elaborate kits, the Primordial Witch Doctor. Ours is Dardaseen.
Dardaseen has no ability to cast or learn normal spells, has Wizard Slayer item restrictions, and a whole spellbook of prehistoric-themed spells, from summoning monkeys to slinging waterfalls and healing spells. The spells are pretty low-power, but Dardaseen will get extra spell slots to cast them. Here's the description:
PRIMORDIAL WITCH DOCTOR: Before Myth Drannor, before Netheril, before the Crown Wars and the First Sundering, early humanoids lived in small tribes in the wilderness. Without modern magic or technology, these peoples survived on their own wits and muscle, braving the elements and the beasts of an untamed world. People were small then, and were prey as often as they were predators.
In these early ages, humanoids developed their own subtle magic to contend with the larger beasts who ruled that world. In primordial times, Witch Doctors cured diseases, tricked wild animals and enemy clans, and called down the rain itself to feed their people.
Little is known of these days, but isolated communities in the corners of the world and the most talented of diviners have preserved some traces of this primordial magic. Uthgardt shamans in Icewind Dale, priests of Ubtao in Chult, and scholars from Calimshan to Candlekeep all work to piece together humankind's most ancient knowledge. Adventurers and scholars still travel the world in search of those secrets.
Primordial Witch Doctors are practitioners of this early magic. Modern magic is alien to them, both the Weave and the magic of the gods, but a talented Witch Doctor can still call down the rain as they did thousands of years ago.
CLASS FEATURES:
- May not use magical items except for weapons and armor.
- May not wear armor heavier than studded leather, but may cast spells while wearing armor.
- May not use scrolls or wands.
- May not learn or cast conventional mage spells.
- May achieve Mastery (3 slots) in spears, axes, daggers, clubs, staffs, shortbows, and slings. A Witch Doctor may use other weapons, but cannot gain proficiency with them.
- A Witch Doctor's Tribal Song reduces the fatigue of all party members by 1 point each round and grants a +1 bonus to saves vs. death and movement rate. At level 14, it also increases resistance to elemental damage by 10%.
- Gets +1 to saves vs. death at levels 5, 11, 18, and 26.
- Gains immunity to poison and disease at level 8.
- Gains an additional spell slot per spell level, and more slots as the Witch Doctor gains levels (a level 1 slot at level 6, a level 2 slot at level 9, and level 3/4/5/6 slots at levels 12/15/18/21).
- May learn ancient spells as they gain experience and cast them from their spellbook, drawing on a combination of divine, druidic, and arcane magic:
High-Level Abilities:
- Enhanced Tribal Song
- Ancestral Intervention
- Flute Totem
- Beast Form
- Set Spear Trap
- Meteor Shower
- Mass Raise Dead
- Ancient Memories
- Deeper Memories
- Primordial Memories
- Ancestral Harmonizing
- Hit Die: d8
It's a bard kit that can do absolutely none of the things a regular bard does.
That's it!
It's time to put our new abilities to the test. I'm not going to kite Shoal or farm basilisks, so we're going to be at level 1 for a little while. Vosper tries out her new lightning bolt-firing bow on a gibberling!
But the speed factor isn't as fast as a regular bow, and only has one base attack per round. Sky Dancer's extra attacks fire in quick bursts instead of spread across a full round, so it takes a little too long to shoot the bow and she gets killed on the spot.
We pay 100 gold to save her, which is a heavy cost for our early-game party. We're not selling the Ring of Wizardry for fast money, which means we're going to have to fight for our finances as well as our lives.
This is exactly what I wanted for this run. Scary encounters, with a lower-level party, that take micromanagement to survive.
Let's go headfirst into fighting Tarnesh, despite the fact that we have no one to cast Remove Fear. Iffle, our Force Wizard and our best damage dealer, fails to land a hit before his opening Sleep spell knocks her out. But careful positioning lets our newly-resurrected Sky Dancer, Vosper, dodge the spell and slip in a hit. She lands a stun!
Which only lasts for 1 second. A Sky Dancer is a disrupter and a Mirror Image and Stoneskin eater, but she will never be able to stun-lock anyone bare-handed.
Tarnesh follows up with his classic Horror spell, thankfully aiming for Imoen. We send her running to make sure the rest of the party doesn't panic.
Bolithaw, our main character and Sniper, hangs back by default, hiding around the corner. My Charnames are usually at the back of the line. I could have made any of these characters our Bhaalspawn, but all three of my front-liners will be forever helm-less--very prone to sudden deaths.
Once Horror has hit Imoen and no one else, Bolithaw lands her first backstab! Unlike normal backstabs, it bypasses backstab immunity and can be done from any angle.
But the damage is a lot less. Bolithaw has immense flexibility in landing her pseudo-backstabs, but she will not be one-shotting mages. It takes a few more hits to finally put Tarnesh down.
I'm going to try to pick quest order organically, tackling fights even if I haven't gathered all my typical silver bullets for each one. I want to give the enemies a shot at winning, and beat them down through micromanagement and improvisation rather than proper planning and resource gathering.
Along the way, we get a list of portals to new mod-introduced locations I've never been before.
I have no idea what we're going to be facing in this run.
I've set up a new installation. Now that I no longer need to chase the remaining Hall of Heroes slots, its time for some experimental setups. My interest is mostly focused on BG1 right now, and for the time being I will propably only play a little bit until the end of the month (after that, I will have to take another break). So, to spice things up, my original plan was to reconfigure a setup I used in the pre-EE daye, which resulted in some nearly impossible to complete but still very fun runs. It involved the mods Hard Times, Item Randomizer and SCS (and those were my first experiences with that mod), playing on insane difficulty with a randomized party. However, quite a few things will have to change to capture that experience again: The extra damage for insane difficulty will be gone, as I don't enjoy playing with that any longer, and I will be playing with BioWare NPCs instead of a random party. SCS is no longer super fresh and challenging for me, now that I have a few successful runs with that mod under my belt - so, after getting the recommendation from @Trouveur , I'm switching it up by installing the Tactics Remix instead. Finally, Hard Times doesn't work in the EE. I originally planned to go for a "build your own Hard Times"-setup with three different mods to recreate some components of the original, but with two of these, I ran into a variety of installation errors and technical difficulties - so increased vendor prices and a low magic setting with fewer and weaker magical items and spells are not in the cards. The only relevant component I have is from Tweaks Anthology, introducing breakable Iron Non-Magical Shields, Helms and Armor to increase the effect of the iron crisis in gameplay terms. Could be quite dangerous in melee combat early on.
My Tactics Remix installation is basically a full one. I know next to nothing about the mod, and I want to be surprised, so I only skimmed the readme. The one component I didn't install was the final one, which would have been a blanket increase in enemy hitpoints - my LoB run has taught me that this is not a form of increased difficulty that I enjoy playing with. Tactics Remix is advertised to be tougher than SCS, so this should be quite a challenge by itself (especially with me not knowing where the most important changes are to be found - though I did notice during the installation that some classic early game big ticket areas such as the basilisks and the gnoll fortress are improved, so I will propably avoid these for a while). Since I was already installing ATweaks, I also got the component that's supposed to move NPC companions to more convenient locations, but I don't know which ones and where they are moved to, so I will need to do some exploring early on.
Introducing, Xindra, a half-elven totemic druid
I'm going back to my favorite kit for this, let's see how it will hold up with tactics. Here's a screenshot upon reaching Beregost:
Okay, first things first: We do the Candlekeep sidequests and get to Gorion's body with Imoen, Xzar and Montaron at our side. The belt is still here, so I guess Item Randomizer will not move any EE items (later confirmed, as we also found the Stupefier at its usual place). However, the freebies such as a diamond, the RoP +1, Ring of Wizardry and the like found in early game hiding spots have apparently all been moved, which is nice (because this is something Hard Times did as well, as far as I can recall). Our first Item Randomizer drop comes courtesy of the belt ogre, who granted us what I assume to be a studded leather armor +1:
I'm keeping some extra helmets around in case of the iron crisis breaking something, but nothing of the sort has happened so far. We quickly move to Beregost just to recruit Kagain before moving to Peldvale in an attempt to get Viconia, but she's not at her usual spot. I assume she has been moved by ATweaks, though she was already in a convenient location, so I'm not quite sure why that would be. Instead, we take Ajantis with us, as he's nearby as well and starts at level 2. After taking down the hobgoblins at FAI and returning Joia's ring, we plan to take on Tarnesh. Prepared for our potential first Tactics-improved wizard, we first give Montaron a shot with a backstab - and what a shot it was! I've had him backstab Tarnesh quite a few times for many years now, and this is propably the best hit I've seen him get:
As a reward, Montaron and Xzar get to retire for now, and we replace them with Khalid and Jaheira. Xindra turns in Unshey's Belt (which Item randomizer makes a non-magical one, in order to moves Elve's Bane I would presume), pick up some antidotes and move to Beregost, where we calm Marl, help Firebead and pick up some quests before checking out the shops. It seems like most of the merchants magical gear has been moved, only some low-power items still remain there, but I am able to find and pick up a sling +1, which is nice. When picking up quests, we run into Karlat. He opens by drinking a potion of invulnerability, which improves his AC, already very good, especially against missle weapons. Okay, something like that could've happened in SCS as well. We kite for a bit, though he does get in a few hits as we swap out potential fighters for a distraction. Khalid eventually is panicked, but a few lucky rolls allow us to end the battle:
And now, we finally get to our first real Tactics wizard, since Tarnesh never got to show us what he could do. SCS mostly leaves EE-specfic encounter untouched, but this doesn't seem to be the case for the tactics remix. We purposefully run into Neera (for her gem bag), with a spirit serpent at the ready. However, this pre-buff list is incredibly intimidating:
The only thing he's lacking is something to improve his AC, like armor, shield or ghost armor. The big problem here is protection from normal missles. Luckily, Neera is unusually helpful by casting sleep, which works against the allies and summoned monsters that join the mage. Still, the only way for us to hurt our foe is to just hit him in the face, and he still has a few protections against that. He also immediately casts flame arrow on Jaheira, who falls down instead of dying. As it turns out, Tactics Remix includes a component that turns fallen party members unconscious instead of killing them outright, though they do die if combat doesn't end after one ingame minute. This component will have to go in future runs, I just installed it because I was in "install everything"-mode:
The mage follows up by trying to sleep the spirit serpent (though sleep is heavily nerfed in tactics: Attacks instantly wake up slept targets, as we found out when shooting down the foes Neera had hit with her spell) and casting acid arrow on Khalid, though he got a bad damage roll:
The serpent actually got a good hit against the mage, but he didn't get poisoned. We now have to decide: Run away (and leave Jaheira to her fate) or charge in and try to hit the guy - he should have relatively poor AC, so we decide to go for a direct attack, though Khalid stays back - the second tick of acid arrow isn't enough to kill him, luckily, and the wizard uses his next spell, magic missle, on the spirit serpent. Xindra casts bless to increase the chances of our level 1 party actually hitting anything, and, to my surprise, the run doesn't end right here and now as both Ajantis and Imoen land good hits, winning us this rather difficult fight:
The unintended knockdown component saves us 100 gold we would otherwise spend to revive Jaheira. We rest up, take on Landrin's spiders (Ajantis has to drink two antidotes) and I decide to see if tactics will actually let Silke get full prebuffs as well - current SCS versions exclude her from pre-buffing (presumably because a spellcaster of her level with full prebuffs would feel quite ouf of place so early into the game). As it turns out, Tactics does not. Now, you might notice that the amount of prebuffs here seems simply ludicrous (though, notably, once again there is no blanket armor improving buff, and she could even have gone for spirit armor at her level):
Partially, a component in "Smarter Mages" that gives wizards extra spellslots (which is active in this installation) might be responsible, because otherwise, she just shouldn't have the slots to do all that and still go for offensive spells as well. Well, there is no way we can punch through stoneskins and MI before she is able to kill at least some of us, and once again Protection from Normal Missles is up, so my only reasonable choices is to run away. For some reason, Silke, already under improved invisibility, opens up her round by casting improved invisibility on herself again (maybe she revealed herself by auto-attacking the spirit snake? she does so again immediately after that, so the AI does seem to have some weaknesses), which gives us the time to run and leave the map:
Needless to say, we will have to be very, very careful when we return to Beregost. At this point, the power level of these spellcasters seems so high that I'm not sure that we will get very far (I've also noticed during random exploration that even regular bandits can take quite a beating with tactics compared to the vanilla game). Still, I will try to see as much of the game as I can - having now explored the FAI, Beregost and the area inbetween, we will move southwards to Nashkel.
With Tarnesh down, we go head-to-head with the hobgoblins up north for Joia, earning a reputation point and a tiny chunk of XP. Unlike my normal runs, we are not donating money to raise our reputation early on, so we'll need to do more quests to get 20/20 economy.
Vosper has learned her lesson from the gibberling that killed her. When we head south and run into ogrillons, we choose our spacing more cautiously, and we zap them without dying.
We follow up with some other ranged attacks, and Bolithaw finishes it with a critical hit. We actually have pretty modest ranged attacks: Bolithaw uses crossbows instead of bows; Iffle doesn't attack at range; Dardaseen doesn't even have pips in anything aside from spears; and Vosper's lightning bolts risk hurting a party member. Only Imoen uses a proper bow.
We miss a lot of attack rolls on the way south to Nashkel; we're still level 1. Our best attacker is our Force Wizard, the only one who has somewhat decent THAC0.
And while she has more HP than a regular wizard, her lack of a helmet and her poor AC make her a glass cannon. With a Force Wizard's low spell slots, she cannot cast Shield until level 2!
On the road, we run into a friendly xvart--apparently my quest mods add some minor encounters as well as brand-new areas! He gives us a pair of socks for being nice to him.
It gives 10% resistance to fire and cold! Not bad, but it won't be a game changer. Just what I'm looking for in new mod items.
We tackle Neira despite our lack of any spell slots. It proves a lot tougher than I thought. Neira only paralyzes one of us, our Witch Doctor Dardaseen, but given her armor, and her shield, and our low levels... and our Sky Dancer Vosper's damage penalties...
...our damage output leaves a lot to be desired. Iffle can't hit even with a 15. And Neira has a lot of HP.
Especially when she does this.
Iffle is dead now, and an attack roll of 19 confirms that even Bolithaw, our Sniper, needs to roll a critical hit just to damage Neira at all.
We are really struggling right now. Neira is attacking us with a scary mace and we are constantly maneuvering, trying to move her target out of the way before her attack roll comes up, using a mace's poor speed factor to rob her of her attack rolls.
We dodge for so long that the Hold Person on Dardaseen runs out, and she rejoins the fight. Finally, we land the critical hits we need, and Neira goes down.
It's becoming clear that we have a serious THAC0 problem. We can't cast Sleep or Command with our current party. We really need our first level up.
In Nashkel, we run into a mod-introduced little girl, and we have this incredibly wholesome exchange. I love seeing sweet things in media.
The dialog is both realistic and the options are age-appropriate and supportive. It feels very real.
You might notice that our max HP is suddenly higher--but we have not gained a level. We got a 5-point temporary boost to max HP from an expensive night at the inn, courtesy of a new SCS component. I figured we might need it because we're going to be fighting Oopah in the carnival.
But we play it cautious, and Oopah doesn't have Neira's crazy-low AC. We pin down the ogre without suffering a single hit.
I head west of the carnival, hoping for some easy XP from the Revenant and the dagger quest, if not the loot behind the scarier ghoul and ghasts.
We run into something new. One of my mods has replaced the default skeleton spawns in the area with Giant Snakes! We don't have any Antidotes, but I figure we can handle one snake.
Then I see more.
This is not something we're equipped for. We have to flee outright. The Revenant will have to wait.
One of my mods also adds some side quest random encounters. While traveling, we run into a man named... Man, who needs helping finding his hatchet. The tab key comes to our rescue, and we find it immediately. We even get a reputation point!
I don't know if I'm ready to face Caldo and Krum, but finding the little girl's dead cat in the waterfall seems safe to me.
We find something else, too.
It's a suit of cursed plate mail. None of us can wear it, or identify it, but it looks interesting. I haven't seen a suit of black plate mail since I played Icewind Dale.
We head back up to Beregost to get some XP off of Coquetle and Marianne. It's not enough; we need more.
By now, the limitations of our party at level 1 are pretty clear. We can do modest damage, but we have no actual tools to deal with more complex problems. Even a pack of kobolds is very dangerous for us. We need a wand or a new party member.
I replace Imoen with Aura, an artificer/thief whom I've never played before.
She can craft some modestly useful and modestly pricey potions, and she has a few custom items much like Jan. She can cast Identify three times per day, she has a multipurpose bow that can hit 2.5 APR instead of 2 (still crummy THAC0, of course), and she apparently has immunity to gaze attacks, which would make her great for Mutamin's Garden if we were actually going there. We burn a few hundred gold on her custom-made sleep and feeblemind grenades.
But her true power lies in something none of us can do: cast Sleep! It's time to go ankheg hunting!
Her Sleep spell fails; the bug makes its save against the odds. Luckily, we have a backup: Aura's sleep grenades.
Which do work.
But are not party-friendly.
It's pretty scary, but we don't get killed while we're asleep, and the sleep wears off quickly. We can deal damage, but we really need this to be fast. Our Sky Dancer Vosper cannot stun-lock by herself.
Aura fires off a second Sleep spell, and this one connects. We bring it down safely.
Finally, we get a level up. Dardaseen advances to level 2 and gets two level 1 spell slots!
She won't be casting Sleep or Blindness, since Primordial Witch Doctors can only use their own special spells. And those spells are not remotely as strong as Aura's, but Dardaseen can do two things no one else can.
First, we can cast Feast, giving the whole party +5 to max HP for 8 hours. Modest at high levels, but a very good buffer for a level 1 party.
Second, we can summon a theropod, a small raptor! It's just a recolored pheasant with 8 HP and 4 AC, but it can soak up a hit that could be fatal to a party member. Here it is, bravely attacking another sleeping ankheg.
By the time we return to Farmer Brun, we have enough XP to level up Vosper. Our Sky Dancer now has 16 max HP, or 21 with Feast. Not too shabby, though her AC is still fragile.
More importantly, we have one of the classic silver bullets of BG1: a Wand of Fire. We won't be recharging wands or the Greenstone Amulet, so we have to be very careful about where we use this one. We won't get another unless we're going to Ulcaster or beating Davaeorn.
But when we visit a mod-introduced area and run into a Hobgoblin Elite, we have no choice but to burn a charge on it.
Poisoned arrows are very scary right now. We have Antidotes, but not much healing power, or HP to spare. A wand charge is precious, but not as precious as life.
Up here on the coast, one of the locals wants us to deal with some critters that have been hassling fishermen. It's modded content, so it could well be a few tiny critters who die in one hit... or it could be some weird boss with special powers and chunky HP. Difficulty varies a lot in mods.
We do some scouting and spot a sirine and a fire salamander! Both are neutral, so we might have a shot at resolving this peacefully. There's a hostile carrion crawler, too, but Aura puts it to sleep and we pepper it with missiles. Our tiny summoned raptor helps, too.
The sirine doesn't attack us, but I also don't see a dialog option to play nice. Instead, I check out the fire salamander guarding a cave entrance.
He sees us and slithers over at an alarming speed. He has high movement rate--which means he's impossible to kite, as well as immune to our Wand of Fire. We do NOT pick a fight with him.
I do some exploring and run into another Hobgoblin Elite. Bolithaw lands a critical hit from stealth, killing it instantly and sparing us a Wand of Fire charge.
But it's not alone. Others are coming. And a single fireball isn't enough to clear the field.
We have to burn two whole charges to take them down, but not before they shoot down Iffle. It gets us just enough XP to level up Bolithaw! All she gets is +1 THAC0 and some HP, but boy do we need both of those things. Iffle just missed out on some XP, and levels up slower as a mage, but once we get her to level 2, we'll be in business--our main tank will have 20 base HP and finally be able to cast Shield.
We flee the scene. The fishermen will have to wait. Hobgoblin Elites are dangerous enough, but a sirine and a hasty fire salamander are well beyond us.
The run is going well. No reloads yet, but plenty of quick deaths, and every fight requires some thought. I like it.
@semiticgoddess Great to have you back, it's been a while! Looking forward to following your run (as far as I can manage, with all of the new kits and quest/content mods )
Comments
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), Imoen (dualed to mage at level 5 thief, currently level 4)
People can no doubt notice a theme for my party. We intend to avenge Zetan's death against Boromir and recruit the real Hexxat and try to keep her until the end. If a paladin gets chunked anybody can join to replace them.
We are currently level 5. It has been pretty smooth so far (as expected), with the only hiccup was a carrion crawler at the Gnoll Fortress bypassed all the Paladins who were immune to hold and managed to hold and kill Imoen. Annoying as the paladins moved back rather than attack, dorky AI movements.
We have done a lot of big experience areas like basilisks, sirines (both maps), and ankhegs. Still a few areas to check out. Party is well equipped. We took a bit of damage against Kirian's party - Avenger and Imoen even got held and Serena confused yet somehow the other 3 paladins were able to prevail (though barely, Sarah got nicked to a sliver of life).
Tar (Gate70)
Omen (Grond0)
Coreheal VII (Corey_Russell)
We'd had a 2 week break so no excuses about fatigue to fall back on. We left the bodies of Jardak and his butler where they lay, and tracked down Degrodel. His guardians fell quickly, as did he. We rested at the bridge outside the city, near the body of Quayle, and returned to kill a group of petrified adventurers in the centre of town
While picking up the cloak of Balduran from Quenash Tar laid a few snares. More on that later
Sunin the mage failed to summon his attackers, and while Omen mauled him Tar nipped in for a hefty backstab. Onwards to the Iron Throne HQ. Coreheal summoned skeletons while Tar laid a snare and two special traps. Omen refused any potions and duly became confused - but was burly enough to shrug off half the damage and all enemies were dead by the time he recovered - Gardush and Zhalimar both foolishly trying to slug it out with him
It was time to return to Candlekeep. Coreheal de-trapped everything in the catacombs and we fought our way past all comers. Prat and his gang were slowed by a special trap as was a greater doppelganger, and skeletons joined in several fights so it was a relaxing jaunt to freedom
Back in the city we argued about the strength tome until Tar insisted Omen used it before we lost it. Slythe and Krystin attacked us and both found snares laid much earlier. Slythe survived this but not an axe onslaught while Krystin fell straight to the traps
We grabbed their invites to the coronation and waved them at the guards. Yes two invites but three of us. We're shorties, only 2 regular persons worth...
Doppelganger assassins at the coronation found an unbuffed Omen far too much to handle after a few snares slowed them and skeletons blocked their movements. Sarevok put up a fight then left, and we were teleported to the thieves guild after him. Down into the thieves maze we went, making short work of that too
Coreheal and Omen both had taken their final level of BG, while Tar was unlikely to reach hers. Still, we eliminated Rahvin and his gang in an attempt to breach the gap (snares, skeletons and 90% fire resistant dwarven defender). A one sided encounter, so we followed up by clearing a quintet of skeleton warriors. Still not enough XP so Tar shrugged and we entered the temple nearby
A brace of traps were replaced with several of our own, then we stepped outside and rested. Omen tried to drag Sarevok out, but then a concealed Tar convinced him fully. Semaj teleported in and promptly fell to our snares. Tar and Coreheal had the same idea, laying more snares as an already slowed Sarevok staggered towards Omen who was shooting elemental arrows at him
Sarevok made it to Omen, picking up more snares and some skeletons. We redoubled our efforts but a skeletal summon beat us to the final blow and Sarevok was counted out
BGII-EE
We still had time on the clock - 33 minutes, so imported our party to BGII
Tar grabbed a staff meaning Coreheal was left with a non-proficient weapon. After making our way to a table with some of "our" gear we found a long sword and a dagger (Longtooth). Not much good, but as Tar had an unused to date dagger proficiency he took the dagger and handed the staff to Coreheal. Omen meanwhile had picked up axes from goblins so was merrily making a bloodied path around the dungeon
After a mere 29 minutes we exited the first area of the dungeon. No danger at all (Tar said, skimming over the intense damage she took when testing her 30% trap removal ability, and reminding her to leave the technical stuff to Coreheal)
This left about 4 minutes to go. Just enough to fend off mephit portals, an escaped clone, and a salt mephit. This seems like a lovely place to rest for a week before seeing what lay beyond the trapped path over there.
Coreheal managed 3 kills. Tar 11. Meanwhile Omen had his own calculation 4(C+T)+1. Yes 57 kills, 1 more than 4 times our combined effort. He did attempt to console us by mentioning the several minutes Coreheal had squandered bashing the jailkeep golem. Yes rub it in why don't you
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), Imoen (dualed to mage at level 5 thief, currently level 8)
The paladins did not have much trouble at the Cloakwood Mines, city of Baldur's Gate, Candlekeep Crypts, Slythe or Duchal Palace all went smoothly. Imoen has been doing great thief work. She is dualed with 100% in traps and 60% in locks just enough that a single thieving potion can put her to 100% locks like in the crypts this been working well.
The thieve's maze was no trouble and I let Imoen solo the Iron Throne Undercity party with web, stinking cloud and lots of fireballs. We also used a protection from undead scroll for the nearby skeletal warriors which put Imoen to level 8. I nearly had a misstep as ghouls managed to hold Avenger (because the AI was off) but once I turned on AI the party defended him successfully. Close one.
As for the fight with Sarevok, the fight was a bit anti-climatic. We had successfully dispelled his haste, then he was fighting summons in the center area while we ranged attacked. Imoen did refresh the summons once (with a monster summoning wand), and ranged fire did in fact carry the day - a very safe encounter all in all. Poor Semaj faced off against 4 true sights going off at once, so without mirrors he defintely went down quick.
Hang on Zetan, your revenge will come soon! Boromir, you are marked...
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), real Hexxat
The party has made it out of the dungeon with Yoshimo's and Imoen's help. Circus problem solved, Hendak freed and Lilacor obtained. The party then recruited "Hexxat" and worked her quest and went into Boromir's tomb.
The key encounter was Boromir - with 5 paladins, all immune to charm and all using +2 weapons, the deck was heavily stacked against Boromir and sure enough he was killed with his only accomplishment is fair damage to Serena - Zetan has been avenged.
The real Hexxat was recruited and now the party will resume their normal adventures.
Traveling with: Serena (inquisitor), Sarah (inquisitor), April (inquisitor), Garbrielle (inquistor), real Hexxat
So L, Hexxat's employer had a job for us to do. We had to go into the crypts to get a sceptre and there was no returning unless we successfully got the sceptre. This quest is ridiculously hard. For one thing, we had to face off against mind flayers and of course no one but Avenger could save vs the stun so everyone died except Avenger and Hexxat.
Then we faced off against a host of undead and only survived because of massive healing potion consumption. However, it was all for naught as Shua Long (or whoever) fought us and stunned and killed Avenger - RIP Avenger.
Conclusion:
While the bag of holding is a nice item if you recruit the real Hexxat, the issue is the resulting quests are so hard that in end I would say Hexxat is not worth it at all. I almost certainly will not recruit her again.
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
I have rolle d a new lamb to the slaughter. No recruiting the new NPCs, this time. The 6th slot will be thief, although if a paladin gets chunked anyone can join us. Here are the brunette paladins:
We have made it FAI and will be working our way to Nashkel shortly.
weidu.log
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~EEUITWEAKS/EEUITWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Faydark's Abilities Auto-Roller/GrimLefourbe's BG2 UI: 4.0.6
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited ammo stacking: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited potion stacking: v17
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1500 // Include arcane spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1510 // Include divine spells from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1520 // Include bard songs from Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // Core Stratagems spell-system changes (installed by default by any AI component): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2500 // Add 9 new arcane spells: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2510 // Add 6 new divine spells (some borrowed from Divine Remix): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3015 // Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3505 // Wider selection of random scrolls: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // More Appropriate-Speed Bears: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4250 // Make spell sequencers and contingencies into innate abilities: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6100 // Potions for NPCs: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly smarter carrion crawlers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Improved kobolds: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity assassins: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7150 // Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: 35.21
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: 35.21
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2360 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Single-Classes: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2380 // Remove Racial Restrictions for Kits: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2371 // Alter Dual-Class Restrictions -> Allow non-humans to dual-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2350 // Alter Multi-Class Restrictions -> Allow humans to multi-class: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2390 // Alter Paladin Spell Progression Table -> Paladins Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2400 // Alter Ranger Spell Progression Table -> Rangers Use Icewind Dale-Heart of Winter Spell Tables [grogerson]: v17
~SUBRACE/SUBRACE.TP2~ #1 #200 // Subrace mod for Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (BG1, BG:SoD, BG2, EET) -> No change subrace colors (Hair and Skin): 0.3.1
Candlekeep 250xp (-10%)
Marl 900xp
Killed Algernon for his Cloak
Noober 400xp
Hentold Dagger 900xp
Albert 1000xp lv2
Rep 6->10
Charmed Jemby with Algernon's cloak, and being in view she stops Drizzt fighting gnolls. Got the Scimitars +3 although being Blackguard we can only use Icingdeath.
Nashkel and Beregost Invis potions
Tenya's bowl 2000xp lv3
Bought Shield Amulet and went to mines. Invis potion to Mulahey, he was charmed third try, and Kobbos killed him. Had to use the last two Invis potions because Kobbo's blocked right click looting.
Joseph's Ring 800xp
Mulahey Symbol 1000xp
Charmed Minsc tried to kill Nimbul, but he agroed and killed both Minsc and Rasaad. Had to kite about 10 minutes 5 soldiers hacking him.
Scroll Case 300xp
Charmed Marl KO'd Tranzig 975xp
Tried killing Neera with Magic Missile, but she talked to me and the fight started. Neera was unkillable, so we killed the Thayans 375xp. But I missed the Gem Bag which is annoying.
Brage 1000xp
Drienne's Cat 200xp
Samuel 500xp lv4
Spent all of my 16k gold to buy Sandthief Ring
Killed Dushai for rep penalty and Ring of Free action
Used 2 Sandthief charges to get Brun's Son 1500xp 10rep
We now had over 10k xp so we could get Baeloth to join us. Luring Gibberlings away from the tower I actually figured out why I failed Nimbul and Neera. Because at day I'm "blinded" and my field of vision is slightly smaller, so they see me first. Quite interesting. Then picked Viconia killing the guard, which required using Stone Giant potion. Our party was now complete.
Raiken escorted us to bandit camp and Skellingtons killed Charmed Taurgosz for his Full Plate. Used two Sandthief charges and Viconia picked the documents with Sanctuary. Molkar Waylay happened but we managed to escape. Got gold for 34 Stone to Flesh scrolls. Waited night for perfect vision, charmed Lesser Basilisk with 2 Invis scrolls and started the xp loop. But we only managed 11 loops with an hour, should've bought the 24 hour green PfP ones. Our Basilisk got killed and we had to waste the Greater Basilisk with Magic Missiles. Basilisks now seem to also go melee more easily which is annoying. Anyway everyone got a lv up.
Xun lv5
Viconia lv6 with lv3 spells
Baeloth lv7 PfP, Knock and Invisibility 10'
Three buffed skelis killed Gnarl and Hairtooth. Baeloth got the DEX gloves for 14->18. Looted CHA tome which got our charm to natural 20. Invis 10' and Viconia looted CON tome with Sanctuary. Invis 10' through Cloakwood, got Scimitar +2, Tiber body 800xp, Lamalha waylay. Charmed Drasus killed his party only Genthore fighting back. Guards then killed Drasus, got boots of speed among other things, Xun lv6. Charmed Davaeorn's guard, who then lured the two Battle Horrors away, and casually hacked Davaeorn, 6000xp. 2000xp for leaving the mines and we are now at Chapter 5.
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
The party has made it through the Cloakwood without too much trouble - we had lots of antidotes on hand which made it OK.
Most of the quests in the Great City went well. We did have a few snafus though.
In our fight with the Mountain Maulers 4 of the 6 party members failed their save vs. horror. Amazingly with only two party members fighting we still won the fight without deaths. We are very vulnerable to horror at the moment, though in BG 2 once we are level 9 this will be mitigated somewhat by the level 1 spell resist fear - but until then, horror has been our achilles heel.
Against Degrodel I accidentally mis-clicked and chose the "We want to die." option - this is a very tough party though and we managed to survive. Cronan was pinned in with several powerful enemies nearby he was gulping loads of blue potions but everyone managed to keep together. This is the first time I have survived using that option. Lots of experience I guess...
Will keep at it.
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
Well the party made it through BG 1 - but barely. Everyone died (but Cronan) because Imoen managed to pull all the enemies - Cronan had to kill Angelo then sling Sarevok dead - this took a long time but eventually the big bro did go down. Due to save issues Una also appeared dead when imported to BG 2 so had to resurrect her after getting out of the dungeon, which puts her significantly behind the other party members in experience - oh well. Circus is next.
Tar (Gate70)
Omen (Grond0)
Coreheal VII (Corey_Russell)
Last time we were left peering across a bridge. Coreheal opens by removing traps and we remove some more with the wand keys. The rooms beyond are cleared, including the vampire who may have had time to escape but was slowed sufficiently by a snare for us to cut her down. So we are out of the dungeon and into our second city of the playthrough
The circus is a bust, with our magical weapons helping a lot
The Copper Coronet is under new management - Tar sternly suggesting that Omen not interfere and kill Hendak AGAIN
We do a bit of looting at the graveyard before dealing with Suna Seni and her ambush
This opens the way to Watchers Keep and an early purchase of the potion container to go with gem bag and scroll case
Back to the city and rescue Renfeld from a fate worse than death
Um
After saving Renfeld we left and only realised a short while later he was not with us
Omen quickly worked out that Coreheal had cast silence, preventing Renfeld from talking his way into our backpacks
So we headed to the Bridge district where Tar confirmed he still couldn't deal with traps. Coreheal got caught by the same trap and briefly thought it was a repeating trap until Tar mentioned he'd tried to detrap (which can trigger it without removing it thus allowing a second use)
After solving the skinner murders mystery Tar bravely said we'd return later for the Rune Assassins downstairs
We'd waited a reasonable time to relieve Officer Dirth of his burdensome armour at the docks
Then started Mae'Vars quests which allowed Coreheal to loot the thieves guild
That gave us enough money to pay Gaelan Bayle, and return to introduce Lassal to enough snares for him to run
Aran Linvail wanted us to deal with traitors but at this time of night we felt the temple of Talos should be raided
With the temple cleared we headed into the sewers, helped Roger and cleared out the rakshasa at the centre
How do you eat an elephant a dwarf? In more than one bite
On our way out Tar decided to cut Tarnor down to size. He knew this was risky, particularly as we had no skeletons left
Things worked well for a few moments but Omen was under massive assault, and we took too long to convince him to retreat
He got held, and there was nothing we could do so he died. Hindsight: Tar should have given him potions of strength + speed
Tar turned to run but Coreheal was up for splitting the enemies up
Tar returned but his hiding in the shadows gave him up, or a true sight was running
We exited the sewers but Zorl, Tarnor and an invisible stalker followed
Coreheal fell to a flamestrike, while Tar ran through two temples with the stalker chasing. He left for the Government district
The temple there revived both Omen and Coreheal, and we decided to return to the Temple district and the stalker
As expected, it was ready for us on our return but we bashed it down even with two unequipped party members
Then we retrieved Coreheals loot and used another entrance into the sewers
(bearing in mind prophets and commoners were combative and hostile respectively)
Coreheal had killed one prophet
We scouted around, allowing Omen to retrieve his equipment while we engaged Gaius. Once Omen joined, that battle was over
We headed outside where we were unable to hide after an initial attack due to many angry commoners milling about
Omen used the cloak of sewers mustard jelly form until Zorl, Tarnor and a prophet were down
Time-up
That was an exciting if foolhardy exercise, and we have some of their loot to sell next session
Tar is level 12, 48 kills
Omen is level 9, 113 kills
Coreheal is level 11, 19 kills
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Yoshimo
The party has been doing well. We've finished up our work for Chapter Two and have been just sent to Brynnlaw. Here are some highlights:
We were able to defeat Mencar, though we had confused party members, which in turn got Yoshimo killed though not chunked.
In a similar fashion, Rayic Gethras was defeated despite the fact that half the party was running in fear in that encounter (we still didn't have access to resist fear yet due to slow paladin leveling).
We managed to clear out the planar prison though people did die at times. We had one character die when we first entered the sphere, then party got his with chaos and a confused party member killed a confused Yoshimo - there wasn't much to be done as the rest of the party was dealing with enemies. We do have two RoR though so it was easy enough to put Yoshimo back together.
I decided to try out the planar sphere. The party did well there, and surprisingly well against the halfling mages even. I was a little worried about Tolgerias, as the party doesn't have access to high level cleric spells, so we can't get protections like free action or chaotic commands. I eventually decided paladins would all sanctuary, Yoshimo go invisi via ring, and then party positioned themselves next to Tolgerias and straight attacked - he was killed before he could do any real damage which gave us victory. The rest of the sphere was completed without incident.
We were feeling pretty confident to decided to go after Firkraag.
We were successful here with no deaths or chunkings which was nice. The Carsomyr will no doubt prove useful.
We felt like pushing our luck so tried taking on the Shadow Dragon as well - as it turned out, the dragon hurt Serena bad but that was all it could do before being killed.
We then headed to Brynnlaw. What is interesting is the vampires managed to charm Yoshimo - we attempted to dispel magic from Carsomyr with it's ability but that failed. So then we tried the "painful" way to dispelling Yoshimo by smacking him with the Carsomyr - this did dispel his charm! Though also knocked 50% of his HP in a single hit. Good know we have options I guess....will keep at it.
Chapter 5. Tremains son 5000xp. Ragefast was charmed, wasted spells and his summons killed him, same for Ramazith 6000xp. Summons killed Seven Suns 7100xp. Lothander charmed then stopped leaving and killed, got second pair of boots of speed, and 5500xp. Marek was tough but couldn't survive our gang 10650xp.
Bassilus pretty easily killed 1975xp. Kirinhale 4000xp, then charmed Riggolo killed Ghost 3750xp. Viconia got her Wisdom to 17 and we got 4th Skeleton. Buffed Skelis easily killed the Basilisks in the Tower 22400xp. Viconia lv7 with improved Animate Dead. Hasted Skelis easily cleared the Ghasts 10400xp. In the basement Ghast 650xp, 2x Skeleton Warriors 4000xp, 2x Mustard Jellys 2000xp, Phase spider 1400xp, 2x Flesh Golems 200xp, Wraith Spider 1400xp, 3x Greater Doppelgangers 4000xp, 3x Riddle 2000xp. Baeloth got lv8 with Emotion Hope. Left the last Warden alone for now. Skelis killed Desreta and Vaya 3400xp. Xun lv7 and Viconia got strength from 10 to 18/00.
Denak's party burned afar with WoF 2400xp. Charmed another Lesser Basilisk and killed Kirian's party 3000xp and then had another, successful go for XP-loop.
Viconia lv8 with 5 Skeletons
Baeloth lv9 Blur, Skull Trap, Emotion Courage
Emotion Hope, Emotion Courage, Recitation and Hasted Skelis quite easily killed Love. The lower level we picked up Durlag's Goblet, Kiel's Helmet and some loot without fighting anybody. Battle Horror's died the way out 8000xp. Iron Throne took 3 rests but Skelis wiped them out. Spent 3 Invisibility potions to escape the Ogre Mage waylay at Candlekeep.
Chapter 6. Skelis couldn't handle Iron Throne leaders and we needed WoMS to help out. Cleared Catacombs and Viconia got 18 WIS and 4th lv4 spell slot. Sakuls gang got Skelied. Slythe and Krystin were longer battle than necessary as we accidentally activated them when Charming Quenash, and had to use WoMS instead Skelis to deplete them. Xun now got 75MR.
At this point we decided to do Durlag's Tower, because I wanted Viconia to use the Cleric amulet which would give us the second best Skelis for SoD. For this we needed Helm of Opposite Alignement. 2nd level was easily passed with Invisibility 10' and Protection from Fire and Lightning. WoMS killed the homing Ghasts. 3rd level, 10x WoMS for Bear. Fission Slime was hacked to near death by Skelis and we finished it with Ring of Energy. Except it didn't die and just multiplied. Then I remembered Ring of Energy isn't fire. Well Skelis still had just enough power to handle two Fission Slimes, and then one WoMS and WoF finished them. Skelis and WoMS then handled Air Aspect, and Phoenix Guards didn't survive them a long either.
Almost died in Chessboard because enemies found us casting PfE, and had to drink from Durlag's Goblet. Then used Potion of Absorption to pass the board. But they revealed us and followed to the next level, so we had to drink our last two invis potions. Xun lv8. Skelis killed Grael. Demon Knight was killed by his mirror image, WoMS helping to distract other enemies. Baeloth did almost die with 4 hp left, but Invisibility saved him.
Now with Helm of Opposite Alignment we could equip Twinkle too, which cost 12k to buy back. Palace Ambush was done with Bloodraged Skelis, and although the mage dispelled everybody once it wasn't really close one. For Sarevok we used WoF and OGL from afar. Once Semaj was dead we used two PfUs and continued bombing. Sarevok died without seeing us.
Traveling with: Serena (Paladin), Paja (Undead Hunter), Una (Paladin), Alena (Paladin), Imoen
The party had did well up till the end, including clearing out Kua-Toa and Beholder lairs. However, I felt that dealing with the illithids would just be be too dangerous for a group of mostly low INT paladins. It would appear my concerns were well founded, as Cronan (with his 9 INT) was killed in the Phaere ambush, almost certainly by illithids. The irony is Imoen's death spell generated a moment later and killed my killers. If I had invested in the Robe of Vecna and brought that with me (I had a ton of money) then Imoen's death spell would have generated in time. Also, if I had used pause on enemy sighted that would have probably guaranteed Imoen got the death spell in time or even turn off AI and use an invis potion (we had quite a few by this point). Oo
ps.
What's next:
Thinking of partly MP party of a berserker, dwarven/fighter cleric (myself), a wild mage, and other 3 slots filled by Yoshimo/Imoen, Minc/Mazzy and Jaheira.
Will re-roll new characters once more...
Dwarven fighter/clerics are awesome protagonists: They're basically the epitome of passive defenses. Good HP, good all-around saves, good AC. Very useful traits if you don't want to spend a lot of time buffing to keep protag safe...
Traveling with: Tcos (dwarven berserker), Wewa (human wild mage), Khalid, Minsc, Imoen
The party is about level 5. We are doing well in Chapter three, will keep at it. Here are the MP characters:
Nice to see a chaotic evil wild mage. No doubt she'll have a good chuckle as yet another fireball surge rips through a crowded inn ...
While under a bout of the lurgy I finished a run with a randomised character, a N Half-Orc Conjurer called Vlarn of moderate brightness but definite charm. He and his party of...
Dave the Talos cleric,
Gavin the Lathander Cleric (he and Dave had a complicated relationship, and Gavin was a constant source of frustration as his too holy turning would often annihilate useful undead quest givers & stores!),
Ophysia the Champion of Mystra,
Eldoth the Archer, and...
Skie the Ninja (yes! A fun class that I'll try sometime...)
...ran through BG1 with several early game near deaths, once Eldoth healed Vlarn a split second before a potentially fatal arrow arrived...
I was interested to try some untried mods such as Loretakers, Black Pits in BG1, Blackhearts, and Jarl's Adventure Pack, and indeed they made for an interesting, if somewhat dangerous run. About three beholders and some mind flayers already dealt with... I also use the monster randomiser mod which made many of the game's encounters rather unpredictable and a little more dangerous.
However... after we disposed of Slythe and Krysten Skie and Eldoth decided to part company with us... taking much valuable equipment with them. This led to some head scratching but eventually Vynd the Stalker and Imoen the Rake were pressed into service. Vlarn practically buried Sarevok and his minions under a wave of slimes... with the assistance of Illasera.
Originally I had been thinking to go through SoD but Skie's defection and some keenness to try more of Acifer's new mods in future means that I'll probably pick up Vlarn in BG2 sometime.
Probably the next time I'm under the weather
Glad to see you're keeping at it.
Hey all! I haven't done this in a few years, but I felt like trying my hand at another no-reload run after a long hiatus from the game. I might do it minimal-reload if I'm having fun and it goes sour, or I might seal the run after the first death; I haven't decided.
We're running the game on Insane mode with bonus damage disabled, and I'm going to be abstaining from a handful of things to make each encounter tough enough to require thought. So, we're not kiting Shoal, recharging wands, or stealing the Ring of Free Action or Algernon's Cloak, nor are we entering Mutamin's Garden until after the Cloakwood Mines. I want to fight with more modest tools.
The modlist for this run is long. Aside from Tweaks, SCS, Ascension, and the Expanded Classes mod, we're running several large-scale quest mods to give me some new challenges: Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, Loretakers, Dark Side of the Sword Coast, and Shades of the Sword Coast.
I haven't played any of these quest mods before, so I'm going in completely blind, like I did for my no-reload SoD run.
I'm running some new kits and some new portraits. For the first time in a long time, I have no party members named Poppy, Snowy Tae, or Frisky Bits! Meet Bolithaw, the Sniper ranger:
CLASS FEATURES:
Advantages:
- Deals +50% bonus damage when attacking with ranged weapons if the Sniper has been invisible for at least 1 second before attacking. Increases by an additional +25% at levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18, to a maximum of +200% (i.e., three times the base damage).
- Gets +1 to hit and damage rolls with ranged weapons. Gets an additional +1 every 5 levels, to a maximum of +5 at level 20.
- Ranged attacks get a +1 to critical hit rolls at levels 3, 7, and 11.
- May cast Dimension Door once per day at level 8. Gains an additional casting at level 14.
- At level 16, the Sniper's critical hits cast Dispel Magic on the target on a failed save vs. spell.
- May achieve Mastery (3 slots) in shortbows and crossbows.
- May achieve Specialization (2 slots) in slings and darts.
Disadvantages:
- May only wear leather, studded leather, and hide armor.
- May only become Proficient (one slot) with melee weapons.
- Only gains 1d8 Hit Points per level.
High-Level Abilities:
- Blink
- Pierce Armor
- Power Attack
- Hardiness
- From the Shadows
- Through the Heart
- Anti-Magic Strike
- Astral Shot
- Pinpoint Accuracy
ADVANTAGES:
- Gets +2 to hit rolls and damage when attacking with fists. Gets another +1 to hit for each level after 1st, and another +1 to damage per 2 levels.
- Base Armor Class starts at 7 at level 1 and goes down by 1 for every 2 levels after, down to base Armor Class 0 at level 15.
- Gets +10% resistance to physical damage at levels 3, 9, and 15.
- Gets +2 to movement rate.
- May use Mystic Fist at will.
- May cast Grapple once per day.
- May cast stronger variants of certain spells from their spellbook:
Shocking Grasp
Chill Touch
Ghoul Touch
Strength
Barkskin
Flaming Fists
Vampiric Touch
Stoneskin
Ironskin
Tenser's Transformation
Bigby's Clenched Fist
Bigby's Crushing Hand
GRAPPLE: The Force Wizard extends a telekinetic grasp to hold down a single creature. If the victim fails a save vs. breath, it cannot move for 2 rounds and suffers a -3 penalty to hit and Armor Class.
MYSTIC FIST: The Force Wizard can focus their magic directly into their bare fists, allowing them to harm enemies immune to normal weapons and negating the attack and damage bonuses that enemies would otherwise get against an unarmed Force Wizard (attacks against unarmed creatures get +4 to hit and damage). In addition, the damage dealt by the Force Wizard's fists is no longer nonlethal, and can kill instead of knocking the victim unconscious.
For as long as Mystic Fist is active, the Force Wizard deals 1d4 crushing damage with their fists, which strike as a +1 weapons. Every 5 levels until level 20, the damage dice increases and the enchantment bonus goes up by 1. Thus, a level 10 Force Wizard's fists will deal 1d8 base crushing damage and strike as +3 weapons.
The Force Wizard can dispel this effect at any time if they wish to deal nonlethal damage or to harm creatures immune to magical weapons.
DISADVANTAGES:
- Cannot cast Enchantment spells.
- Can memorize 1 fewer spell per spell level compared to a generalist mage (a Force Wizard cannot cast spells until level 2)
High-Level Abilities:
Hardiness
Power Attack
Critical Strike
Whirlwind Attack
Shatter Skull
-
- Hit Die: d8
CLASS FEATURES:
Advantages:
- Makes two additional attack rolls with each attack.
- Gains the Disrupting Strike passive ability.
- May cast Windwalk once per day at level 1, with another casting every 5 levels after.
- May cast Chain Lightning once per day for every 9 levels of the caster.
- 5% electricity resistance per level.
- May conjure a Sky Bow and use it to fire minor lightning bolts.
- +1 Dexterity
DISRUPTING STRIKE: Whenever the monk strikes a target with their bare fists, the victim must make a save vs. spell or be sent reeling. There is a 50% chance that the victim is stunned for 1 second and a 50% chance that the victim instead has all of its actions delayed by 1 second. The delay bypasses immunity to stun effects, but does not disrupt spells or give guaranteed hits to the victim's attackers. Multiple hits within the same second do not extend the duration; the monk must find a later opportunity to land a hit.
SKY BOW: A Sky Bow is a quasi-magical weapon that the Sky Dancer may use to focus their energy. While the bow cannot deal physical damage, it has the power to fire a bolt of energy at the Sky Dancer's opponents, similar to a Lightning Bolt spell. The bolt may bounce off of walls and other barriers, shocking any creature caught in the area of effect, but the bolt can miss and can also be blocked by magic resistance and spells such as Globe of Invulnerability. The Sky Dancer may replace the bow with stronger versions at higher levels:
Level 1-5: 1d4 electricity damage and +1 to hit. Strikes as a +1 weapon and a level 1 spell.
Level 6-10: 1d6+1 electricity damage and +2 to hit. Strikes as a +2 weapon and a level 2 spell.
Level 11-15: 1d8+2 electricity damage and +3 to hit. Strikes as a +3 weapon and a level 3 spell.
Level 16 and up: 1d10+3 electricity damage and +4 to hit. Strikes as a +4 weapon and a level 4 spell.
WINDWALK: The Sky Dancer calls upon the force of the wind to transport them to another location, instantly teleporting them to any spot within range.
Disadvantages:
- All physical damage is reduced to 1/5 of its normal value (all attacks deal 80% less damage per hit).
- May not use Stunning Blow, Lay on Hands, or Quivering Palm.
- Only gains 2% magic resistance per level after level 14 instead of 3%.
High-Level Abilities:
Hardiness
Critical Strike
Thunder Strike
Wind Form
Improved Wind Form
Summon Prince of Air
- Hit Die: d6
In these early ages, humanoids developed their own subtle magic to contend with the larger beasts who ruled that world. In primordial times, Witch Doctors cured diseases, tricked wild animals and enemy clans, and called down the rain itself to feed their people.
Little is known of these days, but isolated communities in the corners of the world and the most talented of diviners have preserved some traces of this primordial magic. Uthgardt shamans in Icewind Dale, priests of Ubtao in Chult, and scholars from Calimshan to Candlekeep all work to piece together humankind's most ancient knowledge. Adventurers and scholars still travel the world in search of those secrets.
Primordial Witch Doctors are practitioners of this early magic. Modern magic is alien to them, both the Weave and the magic of the gods, but a talented Witch Doctor can still call down the rain as they did thousands of years ago.
CLASS FEATURES:
- May not use magical items except for weapons and armor.
- May not wear armor heavier than studded leather, but may cast spells while wearing armor.
- May not use scrolls or wands.
- May not learn or cast conventional mage spells.
- May achieve Mastery (3 slots) in spears, axes, daggers, clubs, staffs, shortbows, and slings. A Witch Doctor may use other weapons, but cannot gain proficiency with them.
- A Witch Doctor's Tribal Song reduces the fatigue of all party members by 1 point each round and grants a +1 bonus to saves vs. death and movement rate. At level 14, it also increases resistance to elemental damage by 10%.
- Gets +1 to saves vs. death at levels 5, 11, 18, and 26.
- Gains immunity to poison and disease at level 8.
- Gains an additional spell slot per spell level, and more slots as the Witch Doctor gains levels (a level 1 slot at level 6, a level 2 slot at level 9, and level 3/4/5/6 slots at levels 12/15/18/21).
- May learn ancient spells as they gain experience and cast them from their spellbook, drawing on a combination of divine, druidic, and arcane magic:
Level 1:
- Remedy, Enchanted Snare, Hunter's Sight, Smolder, Feast, Slow Poison, Reveal Prey, Summon Minor Theropod
Level 2:
- Tree's Blessing, Cure Disease, Locust Swarm, Light Slumber, Hunter's Approach, Lightning Bolt, Healing Balm, Summon Monkey
Level 3:
- Windwalk, Paralytic Snare, Poisoned Arrows, Deflect Blades, Resist Elements, Thunderstrike, Steady Healing, Summon Viper
Level 4:
- Force of Nature, Herd Instinct, Negative Energy Wave, Awakening, Dawn's Blessing, Farsight, Healing Surge, Summon Pterosaur
Level 5:
- Curse of Withering, Hypnosis, Locust Plague, Tremor, Diminishing Barrier, Raise Dead, Summon Smilodon
Level 6:
- Remove Name, Deep Winter, Petrification, Tribal Unity, Crashing Waterfall, Summon Giant Sloth
High-Level Abilities:
- Enhanced Tribal Song
- Ancestral Intervention
- Flute Totem
- Beast Form
- Set Spear Trap
- Meteor Shower
- Mass Raise Dead
- Ancient Memories
- Deeper Memories
- Primordial Memories
- Ancestral Harmonizing
- Hit Die: d8
That's it!
It's time to put our new abilities to the test. I'm not going to kite Shoal or farm basilisks, so we're going to be at level 1 for a little while. Vosper tries out her new lightning bolt-firing bow on a gibberling!
But the speed factor isn't as fast as a regular bow, and only has one base attack per round. Sky Dancer's extra attacks fire in quick bursts instead of spread across a full round, so it takes a little too long to shoot the bow and she gets killed on the spot.
This is exactly what I wanted for this run. Scary encounters, with a lower-level party, that take micromanagement to survive.
Let's go headfirst into fighting Tarnesh, despite the fact that we have no one to cast Remove Fear. Iffle, our Force Wizard and our best damage dealer, fails to land a hit before his opening Sleep spell knocks her out. But careful positioning lets our newly-resurrected Sky Dancer, Vosper, dodge the spell and slip in a hit. She lands a stun!
Tarnesh follows up with his classic Horror spell, thankfully aiming for Imoen. We send her running to make sure the rest of the party doesn't panic.
Once Horror has hit Imoen and no one else, Bolithaw lands her first backstab! Unlike normal backstabs, it bypasses backstab immunity and can be done from any angle.
I'm going to try to pick quest order organically, tackling fights even if I haven't gathered all my typical silver bullets for each one. I want to give the enemies a shot at winning, and beat them down through micromanagement and improvisation rather than proper planning and resource gathering.
Along the way, we get a list of portals to new mod-introduced locations I've never been before.
And I like that very much.
I've set up a new installation. Now that I no longer need to chase the remaining Hall of Heroes slots, its time for some experimental setups. My interest is mostly focused on BG1 right now, and for the time being I will propably only play a little bit until the end of the month (after that, I will have to take another break). So, to spice things up, my original plan was to reconfigure a setup I used in the pre-EE daye, which resulted in some nearly impossible to complete but still very fun runs. It involved the mods Hard Times, Item Randomizer and SCS (and those were my first experiences with that mod), playing on insane difficulty with a randomized party. However, quite a few things will have to change to capture that experience again: The extra damage for insane difficulty will be gone, as I don't enjoy playing with that any longer, and I will be playing with BioWare NPCs instead of a random party. SCS is no longer super fresh and challenging for me, now that I have a few successful runs with that mod under my belt - so, after getting the recommendation from @Trouveur , I'm switching it up by installing the Tactics Remix instead. Finally, Hard Times doesn't work in the EE. I originally planned to go for a "build your own Hard Times"-setup with three different mods to recreate some components of the original, but with two of these, I ran into a variety of installation errors and technical difficulties - so increased vendor prices and a low magic setting with fewer and weaker magical items and spells are not in the cards. The only relevant component I have is from Tweaks Anthology, introducing breakable Iron Non-Magical Shields, Helms and Armor to increase the effect of the iron crisis in gameplay terms. Could be quite dangerous in melee combat early on.
My Tactics Remix installation is basically a full one. I know next to nothing about the mod, and I want to be surprised, so I only skimmed the readme. The one component I didn't install was the final one, which would have been a blanket increase in enemy hitpoints - my LoB run has taught me that this is not a form of increased difficulty that I enjoy playing with. Tactics Remix is advertised to be tougher than SCS, so this should be quite a challenge by itself (especially with me not knowing where the most important changes are to be found - though I did notice during the installation that some classic early game big ticket areas such as the basilisks and the gnoll fortress are improved, so I will propably avoid these for a while). Since I was already installing ATweaks, I also got the component that's supposed to move NPC companions to more convenient locations, but I don't know which ones and where they are moved to, so I will need to do some exploring early on.
Introducing, Xindra, a half-elven totemic druid
I'm going back to my favorite kit for this, let's see how it will hold up with tactics. Here's a screenshot upon reaching Beregost:
With Tarnesh down, we go head-to-head with the hobgoblins up north for Joia, earning a reputation point and a tiny chunk of XP. Unlike my normal runs, we are not donating money to raise our reputation early on, so we'll need to do more quests to get 20/20 economy.
Vosper has learned her lesson from the gibberling that killed her. When we head south and run into ogrillons, we choose our spacing more cautiously, and we zap them without dying.
We miss a lot of attack rolls on the way south to Nashkel; we're still level 1. Our best attacker is our Force Wizard, the only one who has somewhat decent THAC0.
On the road, we run into a friendly xvart--apparently my quest mods add some minor encounters as well as brand-new areas! He gives us a pair of socks for being nice to him.
We tackle Neira despite our lack of any spell slots. It proves a lot tougher than I thought. Neira only paralyzes one of us, our Witch Doctor Dardaseen, but given her armor, and her shield, and our low levels... and our Sky Dancer Vosper's damage penalties...
Especially when she does this.
We are really struggling right now. Neira is attacking us with a scary mace and we are constantly maneuvering, trying to move her target out of the way before her attack roll comes up, using a mace's poor speed factor to rob her of her attack rolls.
We dodge for so long that the Hold Person on Dardaseen runs out, and she rejoins the fight. Finally, we land the critical hits we need, and Neira goes down.
In Nashkel, we run into a mod-introduced little girl, and we have this incredibly wholesome exchange. I love seeing sweet things in media.
You might notice that our max HP is suddenly higher--but we have not gained a level. We got a 5-point temporary boost to max HP from an expensive night at the inn, courtesy of a new SCS component. I figured we might need it because we're going to be fighting Oopah in the carnival.
But we play it cautious, and Oopah doesn't have Neira's crazy-low AC. We pin down the ogre without suffering a single hit.
We run into something new. One of my mods has replaced the default skeleton spawns in the area with Giant Snakes! We don't have any Antidotes, but I figure we can handle one snake.
Then I see more.
One of my mods also adds some side quest random encounters. While traveling, we run into a man named... Man, who needs helping finding his hatchet. The tab key comes to our rescue, and we find it immediately. We even get a reputation point!
I don't know if I'm ready to face Caldo and Krum, but finding the little girl's dead cat in the waterfall seems safe to me.
We find something else, too.
We head back up to Beregost to get some XP off of Coquetle and Marianne. It's not enough; we need more.
By now, the limitations of our party at level 1 are pretty clear. We can do modest damage, but we have no actual tools to deal with more complex problems. Even a pack of kobolds is very dangerous for us. We need a wand or a new party member.
I replace Imoen with Aura, an artificer/thief whom I've never played before.
But her true power lies in something none of us can do: cast Sleep! It's time to go ankheg hunting!
Her Sleep spell fails; the bug makes its save against the odds. Luckily, we have a backup: Aura's sleep grenades.
Which do work.
But are not party-friendly.
She won't be casting Sleep or Blindness, since Primordial Witch Doctors can only use their own special spells. And those spells are not remotely as strong as Aura's, but Dardaseen can do two things no one else can.
First, we can cast Feast, giving the whole party +5 to max HP for 8 hours. Modest at high levels, but a very good buffer for a level 1 party.
Second, we can summon a theropod, a small raptor! It's just a recolored pheasant with 8 HP and 4 AC, but it can soak up a hit that could be fatal to a party member. Here it is, bravely attacking another sleeping ankheg.
More importantly, we have one of the classic silver bullets of BG1: a Wand of Fire. We won't be recharging wands or the Greenstone Amulet, so we have to be very careful about where we use this one. We won't get another unless we're going to Ulcaster or beating Davaeorn.
But when we visit a mod-introduced area and run into a Hobgoblin Elite, we have no choice but to burn a charge on it.
Up here on the coast, one of the locals wants us to deal with some critters that have been hassling fishermen. It's modded content, so it could well be a few tiny critters who die in one hit... or it could be some weird boss with special powers and chunky HP. Difficulty varies a lot in mods.
We do some scouting and spot a sirine and a fire salamander! Both are neutral, so we might have a shot at resolving this peacefully. There's a hostile carrion crawler, too, but Aura puts it to sleep and we pepper it with missiles. Our tiny summoned raptor helps, too.
He sees us and slithers over at an alarming speed. He has high movement rate--which means he's impossible to kite, as well as immune to our Wand of Fire. We do NOT pick a fight with him.
But it's not alone. Others are coming. And a single fireball isn't enough to clear the field.
We flee the scene. The fishermen will have to wait. Hobgoblin Elites are dangerous enough, but a sirine and a hasty fire salamander are well beyond us.
The run is going well. No reloads yet, but plenty of quick deaths, and every fight requires some thought. I like it.