@Pteran , condolences on your loss, but you taught me something important. I had no idea that the Helm of Charm Protection did not protect against critical hits! One thing I love about these posted runs is that there's so much to learn from the experiences of others.
removes the Critical Hit protection from all helmets, and instead only grants it to certain pieces of gear. Instead, they all provide an AC bonus at the very least. This means that not every roustabout you run across is going to be immune to critical hits, but it also leaves your party members exposed.
Yup, playing with Item Revisions and Spell Revisions changes a lot of things. I'd say it's for the better. For whatever reason, I think Jaheira had my helmet that protected from crits at the time.
An interesting thing that Spell Revisions has done is change (and improve) healing spells. For example, Cure Medium Wounds used to be a third level spell that did what...14 points of healing? I can't recall the exact amount but it was pitiful. It is now a second level spell and heals 2d8+1HP/lvl (max of 2d8+10). Instead of 14 points of healing, you can get 26, which is just one point shy of the Potion of Extra Healing.
Additionally as I've discovered with Jaheira, Druid healing becomes more of a Heal over Time deal. I'm at work and can't double check the exact amount right now, but instead of Cure Medium Wounds she has Regenerate Medium Wounds. You regenerate 2 HP/round for like 3 turns, regenerating 60HP.
EDIT: Didn't want to double post. I may be mistaken, but I think they might be cumulative. If I cast Regenerate Light Wounds (1hp/round) and Regenerate Medium Wounds (2hp/round), I think they stack for 3hp/round. It could all be in my head though...I know for sure that you can't stack the same spell, so no doubling up on Regenerate Medium Wounds for example. They're actually really handy for maintenance during fights though. If you know you're going into a big battle, slap them on your front liners to lessen the amount of large heals needed during the battle.
I should probably spoiler tag my whole posts about my sod run right? I'll get around to it this week. The first start was quite a challenge in a blind run.... Not to mention that charname and party start with only 45k xp each. I rushed a bit through bgee hahaha. I think I will catch up well enough.
@semiticgod if I had written longer posts you would have known that. Because Ethos ran into that problem too, you get a +2 dagger (Grave binder or something) when you have daggers and katanas chosen and that one couldnt reach the portals, sry mate.
My Ethos has cleared up the sewers, the paladin quest and gotten the bag of holding from Dragomir. Some more random encounters too. Now it might be time for my second (or is it third, memory is kind of sketchy right now) night at an inn since Jaheira can summon 2 fire elementals (!) and the spells more or less has run out. The mage in the sewers fell to a magic missile which was kind of fun, the rest died to a combination of web, chaos, entangle, slow. The Rakshasa was surprisingly easy, he had trouble hitting the -10 AC of Ethos and detect illusion at 90 sure helps a lot vs mirror image and all the invisibility shenanigans he does.
Playing is scarce and posting even scarcer, was up the entire night yesterday trying to help my wife giving birth to our second son. We didn't need a reload there either, everything went brilliantly.
Nice work @Pteran, I'm going to try Item/Kit/Spell Revisions on one of my next playthroughs. @Lurith, keep this up, I'm rooting for Alano to defeat Sarevok and make it into Siege of Dragonspear. @semiticgod, tbh your experiences make me less enthusiastic about LoB mode. I started a new game in BGEE but if that part of the game is successfully handled, I might scale back in SoD/BG2EE to Insane. What I would really like is an 'LoB Lite' mode, which gives enemies the extra levels, damage and APR of LoB but not the extra HPs, or maybe only a reduced amount of extra HPs, proportionate to creature type/level. I'd play that even without an XP bonus. BTW your loss made me smile, not because I like seeing you fail, but because daggers being too short also ended one of my runs once... @bengoshi, nice to see you here again. I might continue Shade's run with (EEKeepered) Kivan as the party's Archer, to continue my experimentation. @Otherguy, that's awesome man, congratulations! Wishing you and your wife and children all the best!
Even before my run with Shade was put on hold by Bassilus' Skeleton Warrior that killed her companion Gizi, I had started a new run in LoB mode. This time with the double XP option enabled rather than the double XP + 1,000 per kill option of my previous run. Setup is BGEE v2.1 without Siege of Dragonspear (thanks @Pteran!) for fewer messed up strings, modded with BG1 NPC Project, SCS (almost everything, including full enemy pre-buffs), p&p dual-wielding for Thieves and Bards, Free Action protects against Stun, and a number of BG2Tweaks that will probably only become relevant in BG2.
Melody, Halfling Shadowdancer
The protagonist is Melody, possibly a go-to Thief from now on. I have an active run in BGEE where she's an Assassin (in v1.3, meaning her poison still stacks and allows no save), and I've also rolled her as a Bounty Hunter but haven't played her as such yet.
Here's Melody the Shadowdancer:
The main reason I consider making her my staple Thief character for future runs is that I love the portrait, beautiful artwork that sparks my imagination. Melody looks sweet and wily at the same time to me, and that's exactly how I like to imagine her personality. Her Chaotic Neutral alignment matches this ambiguous nature. She can be as sweet, cheerful, and helpful as she can be cold, capricious and selfish. I do feel the good side is slightly stronger in her than the dark side, at least in the early game, thanks to her upbringing.
Melody sees herself as an artist more than anything, a ballerina whose dance is not to music but to the play of light and shadow. She only discovered her innate connection to the Plane of Shadow a year or two before the events that marked the beginning of her adventure. In Winthrop's inn, a nobleman whose coffer she had just emptied entered his room before she could leave. She had nowhere to hide, she thought, but a supreme effort of will saw her enter a different world, familiar yet alien: a dusky, hazy image of the room she was in. The walls, the doorway, the bed, the strongbox, even the nobleman, everything was there. But the outlines were blurry and moved constantly, like rippling reflections on water. Colors were pale and greyish, and the excitement she had felt while pulling the heist made way for an equanimous state. The nobleman shouted and stomped his feet, but the sounds were muffled and distant. He looked around, then walked into the hall, but he completely ignored her. He never saw her. She had become one with the shadows in the dimly lit room. Melody was lucky to have disappeared precisely when the nobleman would have noticed her. Because of this she suffered no repercussions for the theft nor was her ability found out. The realization that her skill was a supernatural one, one that went well beyond that of ordinary hiding and sneaking, was a revelation. Melody could not immediately explain her ability but in the library she learned from a tome on the Planes that she had a Shadowdancer's connection to the Plane of Shadow. Melody was grateful for having found her art and dedicated herself to refining it with discipline. She kept her ability secret from even her closest of friends (Deder and Imoen) though, well aware that the ability was condemned, feared and misunderstood more often than not. The Halfling would only display her skill to folks she would either trust or kill, and then exclusively when necessary. Showing off her talent would only draw undue attention and judgment, and remove the surprise element of her ability. This meant she had little occasion to practise and develop her skill. Reevor's cats, astute masters of both concealment and observation themselves, were her sparring partners. Because cats don't talk.
Melody's tale started one morning with a monk urging her to prepare herself as quickly as she could for a journey with her foster father Gorion. After some shopping (studded leather armor, long swords, short bow and quiver), and after her liquidation of a mysterious bounty hunter (Carbos) who had wanted her dead, she was indeed on the road. On their first night the two were accosted by a war party led by an immense swordsman, with two archers, two ogres, and a battle priestess. The warrior demanded Gorion to hand her over to him, but Gorion urged Melody to get away, which she would probably have done anyway. The warrior slew Gorion, leaving her on her own in the wilderness. The event made a huge impact on Melody. Not only had she just lost her foster father, there were people who wanted her hide for some reason. During the first tendays that followed the event, the Halfling kept a very low profile. She ignored Gorion's instruction to seek out friends of his at the FAI, for that had been the message in a letter on his body. Surely his killer had read it. Instead the Halfling traveled the Sword Coast quite extensively, acquainting herself with the rugged, lawless land but avoiding hostilities and often even contact with its denizens. Long-drawn-out battles with four Spiders in Beregost and with a Hobgoblin that dropped a pair of Boots of Stealth south of that town taught her to shun conflict when possible. In any case, the tools of her trade were always going to be subterfuge, intelligence, and diplomacy, not brute force.
So Melody pretty much fetched and chatted her way to some degree of fame and glory, relying on stealth and on her charisma and wit rather than her blade or her arrows.
Working alone, she felled two ogrillons that had killed a fellow Halfling. One of them had carried a letter from one Roe she delivered to his wife Mirianne in Beregost. She calmed Marl the drunkard when he held her responsible for his adventuring son's premature death. She tracked down lost captain Captain Brage and escorted him to Nashkel, and babbled for a while with a tedious fellow named Noober in that same border town. In Beregost she returned a family heirloom, a necklace, to Mr Coquetle whose wife and children had been killed by Hobgoblin raiders. Up north, Melody brought Nathan's dead body from an ankheg nest to farmer Brun, the father. Like cats, ankhegs don't talk, so she allowed herself the luxury of hiding in plain sight when her picking up the corpse alerted an ankheg.
She retrieved a bowl for Tenya, a young priestess of Umberlee, from three fishermen who had murdered her mother.
Her work experience, and her long days alone in the wilds, saw Melody make considerable progress in her self-study of the art of Shadowdancing. A new ability she learned to master was the Shadowstep, which allowed her to briefly step into the Shadow Plan and walk around while others were frozen in time. It helped her survive a Hobgoblin ambush. It was an amazing feeling for the Halfling to simply walk away from an arrow that would certainly have struck true but was now suspended in mid-air.
Down south Melody received a PfMagic scroll from Hafiz, found a ring of fire resistance and a star sapphire, and met injured Samuel whom she would bring to Gellana Mirrorshade at the temple of Garl Glittergold next to the Friendly Arm Inn. Near the inn she dispatched a Hobgoblin that had stolen a ring from retired adventurer Joia, and returned the ring to the woman. She decided not to enter the inn when she discerned a mean-looking Necromancer at the entrance, which to her confirmed her suspicions that "the enemy" (whoever they were) expected her there.
On the North Coast Melody retrieved a ring for gnomish wizard Celvan. And in the Cloudpeak Mountains she dueled Ludrug the gnoll and reunited two children, or to be more precise one child named Drienne and a fiend masquerading as a kid named Albert, with their respective pets. She also battled two Winter Wolves there and slew them thanks to being protected by Gorion's belt. East of Beregost Melody depetrified Tamah and was warned of Basilisks on the loose in the vicinity. A PfUndead scroll that Drienne had rewarded her with, lasted barely long enough for Melody to slay one ghoul and one out of three ghasts in the Valley of the Tombs south-east of Nashkel.
Melody's difficulty with taking down relatively simple creatures like said ghasts added to the fact that she had accepted a number of commissions that were likely to involve violence, such as capturing a dangerous priest called Bassilus the Murderer and investigating killings and contaminated iron ore in the Nashkel Mines as a possible source of the iron crisis, made the Halfling long for competent comrades. She decided to form a troupe, and thankfully she didn't take long in finding suitable companions. Her first recruit was a Sun Soul Monk named Rasaad. His devotion to the light of Selune the Moonmaiden seemed at odds with Melody's dedication to the Shadow Plane. But their commitment and discipline was at the same time a uniting factor. They were both adroit in body and mind, and focused on their tasks. And Rasaad had trained himself at keeping to the shadows. His skill at hiding didn't come close to hers, but his mere trying was something that Melody greatly appreciated. A second companion was Kivan, an Elven Archer the two met near the High Hedge. He seemed to lack the composure of Melody and Rasaad, vindictive as he was, and wounded (emotionally), because of the loss of his mate Deheriana.
I wanted to tie up a few loose ends before going to BG for the final part of the game. I was avoiding the new content (werewolf island, I only looted the upper levels of Durlag Tower) because they were too dangerous. I made the mistake of listening to a mage that wanted his cloak back in Ulgoth's beard. I knew that having the main character deal with traps in a no-reload run would cost me the game, but it didn't make a lot of sense a trap expert who could set traps but not find them so... (Alano was at full health; the bolt ricocheted like crazy).
RIP Alano. I will finish the game as a minimal reload with him and start a new charname that, I hope, will at least make it to SoD.
I'm officially putting the Wobbler run on hold. It just isn't that interesting now. I'll probably finish it eventually like I did with my Party of Spiders run.
I do have some ideas for the next run, but I'm having trouble deciding. All are based on exploiting specialization save penalties (SSP), which I used in the Wobbler run but got overshadowed by the Wand of Lightning. First is a poverty run with the following group:
Notice the lack of any sorcerers. I thought a poverty run without monks or sorcerers might be more interesting. And yes, that Wild Mage won't get any spell scrolls to learn new spells; only the starting level 1-4 spells and HLAs plus Improved Chaos Shield. Next is a weapon-less run, in which none of the characters can ever attack or bring out summons to attack from them (all damage has to come from spells):
Finally, we have a no physical damage run, in which the party may never ever deal physical damage, even from spells like Blade Barrier and Flame Arrow. Summons are also banned, except perhaps for Nishruus because they can't deal physical damage.
@TheMetaphysician: I just tried to install SR and IR and it broke my game once again. You might not know this, but I had a huge problem a while ago with SR and IR, two mods which I absolutely love, but which have a habit of destroying my game for unknown reasons (I've never heard of anybody else experiencing this; just me). I thought I might be able to get past it, but apparently the problem is still there... some wacky voodoo curse afflicting my machine.
I've recovered my install after a couple hours of fiddling, but this pretty much cements it: I'm not ever going to be able to install anything besides SCS on my BG2:EE install, unless somebody literally sends me all of their files on their own modded install so I can just transplant their whole install onto my computer, and I'm not sure even that would truly be enough. SR and IR broke the thing again somehow, and even the fix from @subtledoctor that @Lord_Tansheron directed me to could not solve the problem--even though that hotfix was the only reason I could get my current install fixed up (the invalid strings I have in my game is a separate problem due to the 2.1 update).
I had to use Steam to restore the game to a previous state. It's a good thing I made a backup.
I even got two new messages from BG2:EE when I tried to reinstall SCS without SR and IR:
I have no idea what that was--I've never even seen that before--but the Steam restore function fixed it.
Anyway, this is the message I get now when I try to install the AI components from SCS:
If anybody has any idea what this means or how to fix it, it might put me on the path to fixing whatever bizarre curse has been cast on my install, and finally let me install SR without breaking SCS.
I can only speculate that it has something to do with Steam. But since I don't use that I have no idea what. It does seem very strange to have this unique constellation with hitherto unknown problems. Have you incurred the wrath of any mystical old lady or something?
@lurith , Condolences on your loss. I've also had no-reload runs end in that damnable maze, including a no-reload Order of the Stick run that I was really into before Roy got stunned and then eaten by an ankheg. Ice Island is now on my "too dangerous" list for no-reloading.
I've come across this dialogue between Blackraven and Alesia on the bioware forum from a little less than year ago, and decided to share it with everyone here:
Blackraven: "I'm definitely not the most rigorous no-reloader, that honor would go to someone like Grond0, but I do find I apply a stricter no-reload criterion than other no-reloaders at the Beamdog forums, like semiticgod or bengoshi. I say this without meaning to discredit their efforts. That forum's no-reload challenge hasn't really taken off yet. The main reason I'm still posting there is convenience (being able to upload images directly from my screenshots map rather than having Photobucket as a middle man). "
Alesia: "I've noticed the differences in standards across forums. That's why I backed away from the unification idea. There has been some great content and great play there, nonetheless. It was on its way, but it seems to have stalled a bit, yes. I think it's good that you still post there. Their thread may come back: it may take off yet. Not too long ago, this thread was virtually dead, you know. Just before the Avatars runs we had gone three weeks without a single post. Grond0, Gate, Corey, USSNorway, Serg, and Potty1 got it going again with a little nudge from me. If it weren't for them, this thread wouldn't be active now, I'm sure. Maybe you can play a similar role at Beamdog."
Blackraven: "I understand. This challenge has brought together a group of really nice people. The longevity despite setbacks is impressive. Not sure if I could play a similar role at Beamdog. Maybe if I pulled off a really impressive run with some kind of challenging restriction or 'weak' class/kit,to make people wonder each time 'will he make it?' "
Alesia: "I don't think putting on a show is that important, actually. I'll acknowledge that daring solos and such garner attention, but that type of attention fades. You put you finger on why this challenge is still here: good, kind, and welcoming people, with a commitment to the game. If you keep posting, hopefully people will join you and stay around."
So, @Blackraven and @Alesia_BH , looking back one can say a big thank you! It just shows that the no-reload challenge will always proceed while BG games are still around.
It's a different scene at the Bioware forums. Much older thread, many more runs, some remarkably impressive runs, especially @Alesia_BH's, mostly in the original BG2. The rules are a little looser here (I think much of that is me) and we're basically always on EE, unlike at Bioware. We also post IWD runs here. We don't have as many major runs over here. @Gotural remains the only one to complete a full trilogy run, with @bengoshi and @Blackraven coming close, and @Blackraven is one of our few regular solo players. I've still never posted a playthrough of BG1. This thread is also more dense in text and light on images and diverges more often into theoretical discussions, which is one of the reasons I like it here. More RP stuff, too.
Either way, we have great people and a friendly atmosphere on both threads, and that's what's most important. I think maintaining separate threads is fine, though it's probably worth bringing up the fact that there's another thread on the Bioware forums in case people over here aren't already checking it out.
I would disagree a bit about the daring solos and such. Those are always lots of fun, and they tend to encourage more in-depth discussion of playstyle since there's only one party member to discuss. It's also a lot easier to keep track of a solo character when you're reading somebody else's run. I normally create entire parties from scratch, and I'm sure people often get confused about who Valos and Poppy and Marilyn Blueapple are supposed to be when I'm writing up the reports.
I love this thread. I have gained so much experience from reading about the runs of more experienced players. Even though I play with my own personal restrictions I can't really expect other people to agree with my views on.. well, anything really. I am just happy to have found people who also play no-reload games. I have always done it, in pretty much every game I've ever played. So thank you all for making this thread what it is!
Brief update on Ethos the FMT. He is now ready to leave the big city for the first time! He is at day 2 and already at 20 reputation and has bought a lot of vital gear like the str belt, fortress shield, reflection shield, rod of res/heal, quite a few scrolls etc etc, none of it at 20 rep though..
No really close calls as of now, the assassins with Mae'var hit surprisingly hard though, scoring a 58 (!) dmg backstab on mainchar, didn't hit a lot due to -15 ish AC vs piercing/slashing which is kinda lucky with those numbers. Went there without the usual F/M buffs blur/MI/stoneskin etc due to resting restriction, aka I had a spell or two left and no chars were fatigued.
I did something I've not done before which I feel kind of bad about. I bought back the wand of cloudkill since I really hate trolls (spirit trolls in particular) and figured it would make both Trademeet and the Keep a lot less infuriating. I especially loathe the spirit trolls that turn invisible upon falling. Still not decided if this means I should reload, but with the amount of playing time I have right now I think I will let it slide this once. Strength drain is just so evil! At least when you need to save the important buffs for the "big" fights. And yes I know I can just go invis and run past them, but the completionist in me would NEVER allow that.
@lolien, always good for a laugh, thanks for sharing! @lurith, I concur with @BelgarathMTH, it's a dangerous place. One or two of my recent solo Mages (other solo classes have no business there) used a green scroll of PfMagic there and simply triggered all the traps while invisible. Your Bouny Hunter could have disarmed the traps of course, but it's easy to miss one. I'm sorry about Alano. As I said, I really liked him.
@bengoshi, and @semiticgod, views on what's fair in a no-reload run differ and I'm fine with that. My discussion with Alesia took place in the aftermath of my solo Dwarven Fighter/Thief Glorydd's death, which occurred due to me unknowingly misclicking or double-clicking the spacebar during the Irenicus Spellhold battle, right before I went away from my computer. When I came back I encountered not my game paused as expected, but the 'your main character has been killed' screen. At the Bioware forums people expressed their sympathies and congratulated me on a good effort. Here people encouraged me to reload, because Glorydd's death really had nothing to do with me failing as a player. Both views have their merits. I only hope that no-reloaders choose to be transparent in what they do. I know semiticgod doesn't shy away from informing us and stating his (defensible) reasons when he reloads, and hat's how it should be imo. Btw the honor of being the first succesful trilogy no-reloader on these forums is @CharlestonianTemplar's. His run was documented not here but in a separate thread. @Gotural's is the first (and so far) only achiever in this thread. @semiticgod would have had a trilogy success or two to his name by now if he could be bothered with BG1. @bengoshi also definitely has it in him. And I somehow always find a way to screw up
@Otherguy, I have often recharged Irenicus' wands and never felt bad about it. Maybe things would be dfferent if they came with more than one charge. All I can say is, onward, go and fumigate them ugly Trolls!
@Blackraven: I've considered taking Sil the Cleric of Lathander(11)->Mage through BG1 and retroactively completing the game. But it's too late now, since I use EE (my old BG2 game doesn't work anymore) and the spider gnome trick on which the Party of Spiders was based is unfortunately no longer possible in EE as of 2.1. I could also take the Fire Seed party back to BG1, but then I'd have no real thief to disarm traps (my Assassin/Fighter didn't put any points into traps or locks, since my Wizard Slayer/Thief was there to handle that).
I suppose I could try it out next time. I just started a new run, but I'm only in Chateau Irenicus.
I started a new run in Baldur's Gate, the original. I restarted all over, twice, when my familiar got killed, once by a critical hit from a Xvart (12 damage total, which is a 1/120 chance per round with those things) and twice when the FAI assassin, what's-his-face, hit her with Horror and two Magic Missiles. I deemed it wise to start over rather than proceed with a 4-HP Bhaalspawn. Currently we have Eldoth, Imoen, a Shaman, an Enchanter, an Invoker, and a Sorcerer.
@Blackraven, where do you normally go for early game XP? The only side quests before Nashkel I know of are the ogre with the Girdle of Piercing and Bassilus. I've heard that some people hunt Sirines or Basilisks but I don't know where to find either and I'm not sure where to get a Potion of Clarity.
But the main problem is probably that I'm not allowing any of my characters to use weapons, and my Shaman's spirit critters and my Enchanter's kitty cat are the only sources of physical damage.
And the kitty just now got killed by a spider. Failed a save vs. death, and our Shaman was a fraction of a second too slow to cast Cure Light Wounds. He could have saved it, too, since a Huge Spider's poison only does 15 damage over 30 seconds.
These days I am bit busy, but while I finish BG1 with Alano, I decided to start a new No Reload run. Bounty hunters are really cheesy, but Alano didn't feel epic like a fighter that can I will go toe-to-toe with Sarevok and fulfill his destiny. I also wanted to experiment with a second custom character in the party.
In my head, the canon main char has always been a human holy warrior (Fighter-Cleric, or maybe Paladin) but for some reason I have never made it with one to the end of BG1. A powerful fighter crossing swords with Sarevok with just a hint of divine power and no idea (at first) where it comes from seems just right to me. By BG2/ToB he will have either embraced the essence of Bhaal or tamed it and turned it against evil.
A lot of rambling to present my new character, Savras. An unkited cleric, initially, that will dual to plain fighter very early in the game. Weird combo, but it's for roleplaying reasons. When (if) I get to BG2, I will turn him into a paladin. The kit (Inquisitor/Cavalier/Undead Hunter/?Blackguard?) I will choose based on what makes most roleplaying sense given his experience in BG1.
Savras
has a good heart, but he can be a self righteous, holier-than-thou bastard at times. Although Gorion had good reasons to keep him isolated, growing in the keep and learning about the world only from books made Savras see the world in black and white, no gray or complexities. He believes in the existence of true evil and has a somewhat irrational confidence in his ability to spot it. He protects the innocent and does good for its own sake, but he believes in neither mercy nor redemption when dealing with criminals or monsters.
@semiticgod South of Beregost you will find an amulet and a letter that give some nice XP and rewards when returned to their owners in Beregost. The chicken-quest (same map as Bassilus) gives a ton of XP almost without fighting.
@Blackraven, where do you normally go for early game XP? The only side quests before Nashkel I know of are the ogre with the Girdle of Piercing and Bassilus. I've heard that some people hunt Sirines or Basilisks but I don't know where to find either and I'm not sure where to get a Potion of Clarity.
Nice to see you take on BG1. You're playing the original gme you say, as in non-EE? Any mods? Or are you using EE, LoB ? I guess and hope not, because you won't have enough non-physical damage or summons to kill enemies, unless the Shaman's constant summons work wonders. SCS? You could really use a Cleric btw, for their Skeletons.
Easy XP is not going to be much now that you're running a full party.
Sources of XP that require no fighting:
- Marl in Feldepost's Inn and Firebead Elvenhair (opposite the same inn) in Beregost - Coquetle family necklace (found two areas south of Beregost, deliver it in Beregost), mentioned by @lurith - Noober in Nashkel - Tenya and Fishermen north of the FAI (don't kill Tenya, you only need to hit her a few times, and then agree to work for her) - Brun (requires you to retrieve a corpse from an ankheg nest, only an option early on with invisibility, excellent stealth and/or Sanctuary) - Albert and Drienne in the two Cloudpeaks areas west of Nashkel (both involve fetching in areas with hostile creatures, leave this to a single character that can scout while keeping the others away) - Guard captain on the South Coast - Crazy Celvan on the North Coast
The Sirines are in the area between the two I last mentioned, the Lighthouse area, which can be reached by going north from the south coast area. The Basilisks you can find by going east from the Temple area (which is east of Beregost). I can't see how you're going to kill the sirines or the basilsisks without weapons though.
Note that the letter-quest and the chicken-quest mentioned by lurith, involve killing two ogrillons, and one wolf plus a skeleton respectively.
I actually started a new run and just slew Mulahey. For a while, I've been wondering what it would be like to combine all of the kits into one, and I'm currently playing BG:EE (using the SCS install from our multiplayer run) with a character who has all the advantages and all of the disadvantages of all kits in the game, with some exceptions here and there due to engine limitations and the fact that some kits are mutually exclusive when it comes to what they do.
Later on I'll go into better detail on what this character is, but for the sake of context, she has 50% of the entire party's kills and is our primary tank.
I think this was a better idea. The kit is going to be overpowered in BG1 but less so in BG2, where items and spells play a bigger role, and that fits me rather well considering how much more unfamiliar BG1 is to me compared to BG2. Trying a no-weapon run was too ambitious for BG1. I'm better off trying something easier first.
Known for his loyalty, his skill in the use of axes and his hatred of evil spellcasters, Hadhod adventures through the Sword Coast alone after his foster father Gorion was slain.
Currently sitting at level 6 (**** Axe ** S&S) he completed a fair number of quests around the Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost, Nashkel and explored the wilderness in his path of vengeance, killing bandits on his way while being hunted by a lot of assassins and bounty hunters.
Right now he accepted a new quest, to discover what's happening in the mines south of Nashkel...
-Solo No-Reload Insane difficulty -SCS with full prebuffing -BG2Tweaks/ATweaks -Item Randomizer -Dark Horizons (and I cannot pick up any items that this mod adds) -Wizard Slayer rebalancing -Other stuff (IWDification, RR, BG1NPC, UB, etc) which won't affect this run much.
Comments
The Helm of Charm Protection does protect against critical hits. @Pteran uses the Item Revisions mod, which
An interesting thing that Spell Revisions has done is change (and improve) healing spells. For example, Cure Medium Wounds used to be a third level spell that did what...14 points of healing? I can't recall the exact amount but it was pitiful. It is now a second level spell and heals 2d8+1HP/lvl (max of 2d8+10). Instead of 14 points of healing, you can get 26, which is just one point shy of the Potion of Extra Healing.
Additionally as I've discovered with Jaheira, Druid healing becomes more of a Heal over Time deal. I'm at work and can't double check the exact amount right now, but instead of Cure Medium Wounds she has Regenerate Medium Wounds. You regenerate 2 HP/round for like 3 turns, regenerating 60HP.
EDIT: Didn't want to double post. I may be mistaken, but I think they might be cumulative. If I cast Regenerate Light Wounds (1hp/round) and Regenerate Medium Wounds (2hp/round), I think they stack for 3hp/round. It could all be in my head though...I know for sure that you can't stack the same spell, so no doubling up on Regenerate Medium Wounds for example. They're actually really handy for maintenance during fights though. If you know you're going into a big battle, slap them on your front liners to lessen the amount of large heals needed during the battle.
I struggled so hard to get through Chateau Irenicus, and then I find myself stuck for no good reason. Absolutely infuriating.
That sucks that you can't poke the stupid mephits with daggers. I'm kind of surprised at that honestly.
My Ethos has cleared up the sewers, the paladin quest and gotten the bag of holding from Dragomir. Some more random encounters too. Now it might be time for my second (or is it third, memory is kind of sketchy right now) night at an inn since Jaheira can summon 2 fire elementals (!) and the spells more or less has run out. The mage in the sewers fell to a magic missile which was kind of fun, the rest died to a combination of web, chaos, entangle, slow. The Rakshasa was surprisingly easy, he had trouble hitting the -10 AC of Ethos and detect illusion at 90 sure helps a lot vs mirror image and all the invisibility shenanigans he does.
Playing is scarce and posting even scarcer, was up the entire night yesterday trying to help my wife giving birth to our second son. We didn't need a reload there either, everything went brilliantly.
So Ethos will take it slow.
@Lurith, keep this up, I'm rooting for Alano to defeat Sarevok and make it into Siege of Dragonspear.
@semiticgod, tbh your experiences make me less enthusiastic about LoB mode. I started a new game in BGEE but if that part of the game is successfully handled, I might scale back in SoD/BG2EE to Insane. What I would really like is an 'LoB Lite' mode, which gives enemies the extra levels, damage and APR of LoB but not the extra HPs, or maybe only a reduced amount of extra HPs, proportionate to creature type/level. I'd play that even without an XP bonus.
BTW your loss made me smile, not because I like seeing you fail, but because daggers being too short also ended one of my runs once...
@bengoshi, nice to see you here again. I might continue Shade's run with (EEKeepered) Kivan as the party's Archer, to continue my experimentation.
@Otherguy, that's awesome man, congratulations! Wishing you and your wife and children all the best!
Melody, Halfling Shadowdancer
The protagonist is Melody, possibly a go-to Thief from now on. I have an active run in BGEE where she's an Assassin (in v1.3, meaning her poison still stacks and allows no save), and I've also rolled her as a Bounty Hunter but haven't played her as such yet.
Here's Melody the Shadowdancer:
Melody sees herself as an artist more than anything, a ballerina whose dance is not to music but to the play of light and shadow.
She only discovered her innate connection to the Plane of Shadow a year or two before the events that marked the beginning of her adventure. In Winthrop's inn, a nobleman whose coffer she had just emptied entered his room before she could leave. She had nowhere to hide, she thought, but a supreme effort of will saw her enter a different world, familiar yet alien: a dusky, hazy image of the room she was in. The walls, the doorway, the bed, the strongbox, even the nobleman, everything was there. But the outlines were blurry and moved constantly, like rippling reflections on water. Colors were pale and greyish, and the excitement she had felt while pulling the heist made way for an equanimous state. The nobleman shouted and stomped his feet, but the sounds were muffled and distant. He looked around, then walked into the hall, but he completely ignored her. He never saw her. She had become one with the shadows in the dimly lit room.
Melody was lucky to have disappeared precisely when the nobleman would have noticed her. Because of this she suffered no repercussions for the theft nor was her ability found out. The realization that her skill was a supernatural one, one that went well beyond that of ordinary hiding and sneaking, was a revelation. Melody could not immediately explain her ability but in the library she learned from a tome on the Planes that she had a Shadowdancer's connection to the Plane of Shadow.
Melody was grateful for having found her art and dedicated herself to refining it with discipline. She kept her ability secret from even her closest of friends (Deder and Imoen) though, well aware that the ability was condemned, feared and misunderstood more often than not. The Halfling would only display her skill to folks she would either trust or kill, and then exclusively when necessary. Showing off her talent would only draw undue attention and judgment, and remove the surprise element of her ability. This meant she had little occasion to practise and develop her skill. Reevor's cats, astute masters of both concealment and observation themselves, were her sparring partners. Because cats don't talk.
Melody's tale started one morning with a monk urging her to prepare herself as quickly as she could for a journey with her foster father Gorion. After some shopping (studded leather armor, long swords, short bow and quiver), and after her liquidation of a mysterious bounty hunter (Carbos) who had wanted her dead, she was indeed on the road. On their first night the two were accosted by a war party led by an immense swordsman, with two archers, two ogres, and a battle priestess. The warrior demanded Gorion to hand her over to him, but Gorion urged Melody to get away, which she would probably have done anyway. The warrior slew Gorion, leaving her on her own in the wilderness.
The event made a huge impact on Melody. Not only had she just lost her foster father, there were people who wanted her hide for some reason. During the first tendays that followed the event, the Halfling kept a very low profile. She ignored Gorion's instruction to seek out friends of his at the FAI, for that had been the message in a letter on his body. Surely his killer had read it. Instead the Halfling traveled the Sword Coast quite extensively, acquainting herself with the rugged, lawless land but avoiding hostilities and often even contact with its denizens. Long-drawn-out battles with four Spiders in Beregost and with a Hobgoblin that dropped a pair of Boots of Stealth south of that town taught her to shun conflict when possible. In any case, the tools of her trade were always going to be subterfuge, intelligence, and diplomacy, not brute force.
So Melody pretty much fetched and chatted her way to some degree of fame and glory, relying on stealth and on her charisma and wit rather than her blade or her arrows.
Working alone, she felled two ogrillons that had killed a fellow Halfling. One of them had carried a letter from one Roe she delivered to his wife Mirianne in Beregost. She calmed Marl the drunkard when he held her responsible for his adventuring son's premature death. She tracked down lost captain Captain Brage and escorted him to Nashkel, and babbled for a while with a tedious fellow named Noober in that same border town. In Beregost she returned a family heirloom, a necklace, to Mr Coquetle whose wife and children had been killed by Hobgoblin raiders. Up north, Melody brought Nathan's dead body from an ankheg nest to farmer Brun, the father. Like cats, ankhegs don't talk, so she allowed herself the luxury of hiding in plain sight when her picking up the corpse alerted an ankheg.
Her work experience, and her long days alone in the wilds, saw Melody make considerable progress in her self-study of the art of Shadowdancing. A new ability she learned to master was the Shadowstep, which allowed her to briefly step into the Shadow Plan and walk around while others were frozen in time. It helped her survive a Hobgoblin ambush. It was an amazing feeling for the Halfling to simply walk away from an arrow that would certainly have struck true but was now suspended in mid-air.
On the North Coast Melody retrieved a ring for gnomish wizard Celvan. And in the Cloudpeak Mountains she dueled Ludrug the gnoll and reunited two children, or to be more precise one child named Drienne and a fiend masquerading as a kid named Albert, with their respective pets. She also battled two Winter Wolves there and slew them thanks to being protected by Gorion's belt.
East of Beregost Melody depetrified Tamah and was warned of Basilisks on the loose in the vicinity. A PfUndead scroll that Drienne had rewarded her with, lasted barely long enough for Melody to slay one ghoul and one out of three ghasts in the Valley of the Tombs south-east of Nashkel.
Melody's difficulty with taking down relatively simple creatures like said ghasts added to the fact that she had accepted a number of commissions that were likely to involve violence, such as capturing a dangerous priest called Bassilus the Murderer and investigating killings and contaminated iron ore in the Nashkel Mines as a possible source of the iron crisis, made the Halfling long for competent comrades. She decided to form a troupe, and thankfully she didn't take long in finding suitable companions.
Her first recruit was a Sun Soul Monk named Rasaad. His devotion to the light of Selune the Moonmaiden seemed at odds with Melody's dedication to the Shadow Plane. But their commitment and discipline was at the same time a uniting factor. They were both adroit in body and mind, and focused on their tasks. And Rasaad had trained himself at keeping to the shadows. His skill at hiding didn't come close to hers, but his mere trying was something that Melody greatly appreciated.
A second companion was Kivan, an Elven Archer the two met near the High Hedge. He seemed to lack the composure of Melody and Rasaad, vindictive as he was, and wounded (emotionally), because of the loss of his mate Deheriana.
I wanted to tie up a few loose ends before going to BG for the final part of the game. I was avoiding the new content (werewolf island, I only looted the upper levels of Durlag Tower) because they were too dangerous. I made the mistake of listening to a mage that wanted his cloak back in Ulgoth's beard. I knew that having the main character deal with traps in a no-reload run would cost me the game, but it didn't make a lot of sense a trap expert who could set traps but not find them so... (Alano was at full health; the bolt ricocheted like crazy).
RIP Alano. I will finish the game as a minimal reload with him and start a new charname that, I hope, will at least make it to SoD.
I do have some ideas for the next run, but I'm having trouble deciding. All are based on exploiting specialization save penalties (SSP), which I used in the Wobbler run but got overshadowed by the Wand of Lightning. First is a poverty run with the following group:
Fighter/Druid
Invoker(10)->Cleric
Shaman
Transmuter(8)->Thief
Wild Mage
Blade
Notice the lack of any sorcerers. I thought a poverty run without monks or sorcerers might be more interesting. And yes, that Wild Mage won't get any spell scrolls to learn new spells; only the starting level 1-4 spells and HLAs plus Improved Chaos Shield. Next is a weapon-less run, in which none of the characters can ever attack or bring out summons to attack from them (all damage has to come from spells):
Enchanter(9)->Cleric
Invoker(10)->Cleric
Transmuter
Illusionist/Thief
Conjurer
Necromancer
Finally, we have a no physical damage run, in which the party may never ever deal physical damage, even from spells like Blade Barrier and Flame Arrow. Summons are also banned, except perhaps for Nishruus because they can't deal physical damage.
Enchanter/Cleric
Invoker/Cleric
Transmuter/Cleric
Illusionist/Cleric
Conjurer/Cleric
Necromancer/Cleric
These are all illegally kitted multi-classes except for the illusionist/cleric, since I want to avoid dual-classing.
Which sounds most interesting? The poverty run without sorcerers or monks, the weapon-less and summon-less run, or the no physical damage run?
I've recovered my install after a couple hours of fiddling, but this pretty much cements it: I'm not ever going to be able to install anything besides SCS on my BG2:EE install, unless somebody literally sends me all of their files on their own modded install so I can just transplant their whole install onto my computer, and I'm not sure even that would truly be enough. SR and IR broke the thing again somehow, and even the fix from @subtledoctor that @Lord_Tansheron directed me to could not solve the problem--even though that hotfix was the only reason I could get my current install fixed up (the invalid strings I have in my game is a separate problem due to the 2.1 update).
I had to use Steam to restore the game to a previous state. It's a good thing I made a backup.
I even got two new messages from BG2:EE when I tried to reinstall SCS without SR and IR:
I have no idea what that was--I've never even seen that before--but the Steam restore function fixed it.
Anyway, this is the message I get now when I try to install the AI components from SCS:
If anybody has any idea what this means or how to fix it, it might put me on the path to fixing whatever bizarre curse has been cast on my install, and finally let me install SR without breaking SCS.
North i met with a weird men. Don't know how he fit into his chicken-costume, but lead me to hedge-wizard tower.
Chick-men was amusing, so i agreed to fetch them a skull. Had to run in circles for hours: no walking bones when you needone.
Hedge wizard blowed up chicken-men, so it worthed the hassle at the end. After i silenced the magic-men, he has no chance against me and my skeletons.
With caution i hunt down the dead-hedge-men fleshy pets. Time to seek a new plaything. I can feel the power growing in my veins!
I like Swordcoast. It's full with madness and blood. Found a men who killed family and friends. Admireable. I let him live.
I went with the killer-men to Naskel. The mayor mentioned some troubles. I smell power from this.
Blackraven: "I'm definitely not the most rigorous no-reloader, that honor would go to someone like Grond0, but I do find I apply a stricter no-reload criterion than other no-reloaders at the Beamdog forums, like semiticgod or bengoshi. I say this without meaning to discredit their efforts.
That forum's no-reload challenge hasn't really taken off yet. The main reason I'm still posting there is convenience (being able to upload images directly from my screenshots map rather than having Photobucket as a middle man). "
Alesia: "I've noticed the differences in standards across forums. That's why I backed away from the unification idea. There has been some great content and great play there, nonetheless.
It was on its way, but it seems to have stalled a bit, yes. I think it's good that you still post there. Their thread may come back: it may take off yet. Not too long ago, this thread was virtually dead, you know. Just before the Avatars runs we had gone three weeks without a single post. Grond0, Gate, Corey, USSNorway, Serg, and Potty1 got it going again with a little nudge from me. If it weren't for them, this thread wouldn't be active now, I'm sure. Maybe you can play a similar role at Beamdog."
Blackraven: "I understand. This challenge has brought together a group of really nice people. The longevity despite setbacks is impressive.
Not sure if I could play a similar role at Beamdog. Maybe if I pulled off a really impressive run with some kind of challenging restriction or 'weak' class/kit,to make people wonder each time 'will he make it?' "
Alesia: "I don't think putting on a show is that important, actually. I'll acknowledge that daring solos and such garner attention, but that type of attention fades. You put you finger on why this challenge is still here: good, kind, and welcoming people, with a commitment to the game. If you keep posting, hopefully people will join you and stay around."
So, @Blackraven and @Alesia_BH , looking back one can say a big thank you! It just shows that the no-reload challenge will always proceed while BG games are still around.
Also, you two had an interesting discussion about an approach to no-reload rules. This is a link:
http://forum.bioware.com/topic/124277-baldurs-gate-2-no-reload-challenge/page-514
Maybe this discussion can be continued here, because it's still relevant.
Either way, we have great people and a friendly atmosphere on both threads, and that's what's most important. I think maintaining separate threads is fine, though it's probably worth bringing up the fact that there's another thread on the Bioware forums in case people over here aren't already checking it out.
I would disagree a bit about the daring solos and such. Those are always lots of fun, and they tend to encourage more in-depth discussion of playstyle since there's only one party member to discuss. It's also a lot easier to keep track of a solo character when you're reading somebody else's run. I normally create entire parties from scratch, and I'm sure people often get confused about who Valos and Poppy and Marilyn Blueapple are supposed to be when I'm writing up the reports.
Brief update on Ethos the FMT. He is now ready to leave the big city for the first time! He is at day 2 and already at 20 reputation and has bought a lot of vital gear like the str belt, fortress shield, reflection shield, rod of res/heal, quite a few scrolls etc etc, none of it at 20 rep though..
No really close calls as of now, the assassins with Mae'var hit surprisingly hard though, scoring a 58 (!) dmg backstab on mainchar, didn't hit a lot due to -15 ish AC vs piercing/slashing which is kinda lucky with those numbers. Went there without the usual F/M buffs blur/MI/stoneskin etc due to resting restriction, aka I had a spell or two left and no chars were fatigued.
I did something I've not done before which I feel kind of bad about. I bought back the wand of cloudkill since I really hate trolls (spirit trolls in particular) and figured it would make both Trademeet and the Keep a lot less infuriating. I especially loathe the spirit trolls that turn invisible upon falling. Still not decided if this means I should reload, but with the amount of playing time I have right now I think I will let it slide this once. Strength drain is just so evil! At least when you need to save the important buffs for the "big" fights. And yes I know I can just go invis and run past them, but the completionist in me would NEVER allow that.
@lurith, I concur with @BelgarathMTH, it's a dangerous place. One or two of my recent solo Mages (other solo classes have no business there) used a green scroll of PfMagic there and simply triggered all the traps while invisible. Your Bouny Hunter could have disarmed the traps of course, but it's easy to miss one. I'm sorry about Alano. As I said, I really liked him.
@bengoshi, and @semiticgod, views on what's fair in a no-reload run differ and I'm fine with that. My discussion with Alesia took place in the aftermath of my solo Dwarven Fighter/Thief Glorydd's death, which occurred due to me unknowingly misclicking or double-clicking the spacebar during the Irenicus Spellhold battle, right before I went away from my computer. When I came back I encountered not my game paused as expected, but the 'your main character has been killed' screen. At the Bioware forums people expressed their sympathies and congratulated me on a good effort. Here people encouraged me to reload, because Glorydd's death really had nothing to do with me failing as a player. Both views have their merits. I only hope that no-reloaders choose to be transparent in what they do. I know semiticgod doesn't shy away from informing us and stating his (defensible) reasons when he reloads, and hat's how it should be imo.
Btw the honor of being the first succesful trilogy no-reloader on these forums is @CharlestonianTemplar's. His run was documented not here but in a separate thread. @Gotural's is the first (and so far) only achiever in this thread. @semiticgod would have had a trilogy success or two to his name by now if he could be bothered with BG1. @bengoshi also definitely has it in him. And I somehow always find a way to screw up
@Otherguy, I have often recharged Irenicus' wands and never felt bad about it. Maybe things would be dfferent if they came with more than one charge. All I can say is, onward, go and fumigate them ugly Trolls!
I suppose I could try it out next time. I just started a new run, but I'm only in Chateau Irenicus.
@Blackraven, where do you normally go for early game XP? The only side quests before Nashkel I know of are the ogre with the Girdle of Piercing and Bassilus. I've heard that some people hunt Sirines or Basilisks but I don't know where to find either and I'm not sure where to get a Potion of Clarity.
But the main problem is probably that I'm not allowing any of my characters to use weapons, and my Shaman's spirit critters and my Enchanter's kitty cat are the only sources of physical damage.
In my head, the canon main char has always been a human holy warrior (Fighter-Cleric, or maybe Paladin) but for some reason I have never made it with one to the end of BG1. A powerful fighter crossing swords with Sarevok with just a hint of divine power and no idea (at first) where it comes from seems just right to me. By BG2/ToB he will have either embraced the essence of Bhaal or tamed it and turned it against evil.
A lot of rambling to present my new character, Savras. An unkited cleric, initially, that will dual to plain fighter very early in the game. Weird combo, but it's for roleplaying reasons. When (if) I get to BG2, I will turn him into a paladin. The kit (Inquisitor/Cavalier/Undead Hunter/?Blackguard?) I will choose based on what makes most roleplaying sense given his experience in BG1.
Savras
has a good heart, but he can be a self righteous, holier-than-thou bastard at times. Although Gorion had good reasons to keep him isolated, growing in the keep and learning about the world only from books made Savras see the world in black and white, no gray or complexities. He believes in the existence of true evil and has a somewhat irrational confidence in his ability to spot it. He protects the innocent and does good for its own sake, but he believes in neither mercy nor redemption when dealing with criminals or monsters.
@semiticgod South of Beregost you will find an amulet and a letter that give some nice XP and rewards when returned to their owners in Beregost. The chicken-quest (same map as Bassilus) gives a ton of XP almost without fighting.
Easy XP is not going to be much now that you're running a full party.
Sources of XP that require no fighting:
- Marl in Feldepost's Inn and Firebead Elvenhair (opposite the same inn) in Beregost
- Coquetle family necklace (found two areas south of Beregost, deliver it in Beregost), mentioned by @lurith
- Noober in Nashkel
- Tenya and Fishermen north of the FAI (don't kill Tenya, you only need to hit her a few times, and then agree to work for her)
- Brun (requires you to retrieve a corpse from an ankheg nest, only an option early on with invisibility, excellent stealth and/or Sanctuary)
- Albert and Drienne in the two Cloudpeaks areas west of Nashkel (both involve fetching in areas with hostile creatures, leave this to a single character that can scout while keeping the others away)
- Guard captain on the South Coast
- Crazy Celvan on the North Coast
The Sirines are in the area between the two I last mentioned, the Lighthouse area, which can be reached by going north from the south coast area. The Basilisks you can find by going east from the Temple area (which is east of Beregost). I can't see how you're going to kill the sirines or the basilsisks without weapons though.
Note that the letter-quest and the chicken-quest mentioned by lurith, involve killing two ogrillons, and one wolf plus a skeleton respectively.
I actually started a new run and just slew Mulahey. For a while, I've been wondering what it would be like to combine all of the kits into one, and I'm currently playing BG:EE (using the SCS install from our multiplayer run) with a character who has all the advantages and all of the disadvantages of all kits in the game, with some exceptions here and there due to engine limitations and the fact that some kits are mutually exclusive when it comes to what they do.
Later on I'll go into better detail on what this character is, but for the sake of context, she has 50% of the entire party's kills and is our primary tank.
I think this was a better idea. The kit is going to be overpowered in BG1 but less so in BG2, where items and spells play a bigger role, and that fits me rather well considering how much more unfamiliar BG1 is to me compared to BG2. Trying a no-weapon run was too ambitious for BG1. I'm better off trying something easier first.
Strength 17
Dexterity 15
Constitution 19
Intelligence 11
Wisdom 16
Charisma 9
Known for his loyalty, his skill in the use of axes and his hatred of evil spellcasters, Hadhod adventures through the Sword Coast alone after his foster father Gorion was slain.
Currently sitting at level 6 (**** Axe ** S&S) he completed a fair number of quests around the Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost, Nashkel and explored the wilderness in his path of vengeance, killing bandits on his way while being hunted by a lot of assassins and bounty hunters.
Right now he accepted a new quest, to discover what's happening in the mines south of Nashkel...
-Solo No-Reload Insane difficulty
-SCS with full prebuffing
-BG2Tweaks/ATweaks
-Item Randomizer
-Dark Horizons (and I cannot pick up any items that this mod adds)
-Wizard Slayer rebalancing
-Other stuff (IWDification, RR, BG1NPC, UB, etc) which won't affect this run much.