@semiticgod Hehe, sex scenes, did y'all read that? Hehe. I understand your point re: the crippling weaknesses. As to what to play, I don't know what to recommend, but I'm giving it one try: Cleric/Thief. One of my favorite combos. They're multiclass but they're the combination of the fastest leveling classes, so they don't feel that slow in that respect. You can play them in many different ways using Thief skills to enhance the Cleric and vice versa Cleric spells to enhance the Thief. Think of stealth, detect illusions skill freeing up level 5 spell slots (Chaotic Commands, Righteous Magic, Champion's Strength on summons), sanctuary, decoy summons, spell-enhanced backstabs, etc. You'll also be casting arcane spells from scrolls with UAI, and if you kit your character as a Swashbuckler to dualwield e.g. Flails (or WW staves or 2h swords), you'll end up with charname that combines melee, thieving, arcane and divine, with loads of options. And at the same time it's not one of those typical powerclasses like Thief/Mage, Fighter/Mage or Sorcerer. At the same time I'd also be interested to see how you'd fare with a less versatile character, like @bengoshi's Totemic Druid, or my Bounty Hunter. Maybe it could be a nice challenge for you to make the most out of your character's limited possibilities.
@blackraven you're powering through. Did you find item upgrades unbalanced it last time or you just like to mix things up for the sake of keeping it interesting and different?
Hey @Arnaeus, yes my current and probably last playthrough for a while is a limited one in terms of role-playing. I do try to make Scintilla stay true to her alignment (which hasn't kept her from becoming a heroine), but at the same time I metagame freely for lucrative quest rewards. I haven't been very succesful at combining true role-playing and no-reloading, and I'd like this to be a satisfactory run - hence the compromising on the role-playing. As to the item upgrades, I don't consider using one or two of Thalantyr's upgrades to be game-breaking (using all of them could be another matter, though I never tried that). It's more to keep things interesting and different as you say. I'd like Scintilla to not be a copy of Kathlen.
I just figured out a way to get a versatile, functional party without doing what everybody else has already done. It's a party of dual-classes. All of the dual-classable classes, going both ways.
1: Shapeshifter/Fighter, for bonuses to MR and APR. 2: Berserker/Druid, for immunities. 3: Cleric of Lathander/Ranger, for extra APR and saves. 4: Beastmaster/Cleric, because everybody else starts with a kit. 5: Bounty Hunter/Mage, because Special Snares cast at the mage's level instead of the thief's level. 6: Conjurer/Thief, because we've already got a mage for divination stuffs.
The Shapeshifter duals at level 10 for two castings of Stoneskins, since dualing at level 13 for Greater Werewolf form costs 2.25 million XP to recover druid levels. The Berserker duals at 9 for grandmastery. The Cleric of Lathander duals at 11 for an extra casting of Boon of Lathander (I don't really care about the level 6 spells, so no level 12). The Beastmaster duals at level 7, for the sake of the early game, or level 10, so it can summon snakes. The Bounty Hunter duals at 11 for an extra Special Snare. And the Conjurer duals at level 10 or 11 for lots of level 5 spells, like Dispelling Screen.
This will let me use all of SR's new spells and items (discounting stuff like Carsomyr, at least before UAI), without having a group of boring single-classes. Now all I've got to decide is who is going to be our Charname.
But which classes? I'm weary of sorcerors, I've played too many Archers, I'm tired of multiclasses' slow spell progression, I don't like thieves or bards, druids will get stuck at that irritating level 13/14/15 XP gap, single-classed clerics seem kind of boring, fighters won't get to use the new SR spells, mages won't get to use the new IR weapons, Fighter/Mages seem too easy, Kensais can't use the new IR armors... I've thought of using some illegal combinations, like a Monk/Sorceror, but the coolest combinations tend to be multiclasses, and I've been at low levels for far too long.
I've even considered a solo Fighter/Ranger/Paladin/Thief/Bard/Monk/Mage/Sorceror/Cleric/Druid, or a character with all of the kits, but the former will be stuck with low-level spells, and the latter won't get to use any armor, any magic items, and the only weapon it could use would be a club, since Beastmasters can't use metal stuff, Monks can't use two-handed weapons, and Cavaliers can't use slings.
I've also considered just creating whichever party seems most powerful in IR and SR, and blasting through the game. But I'm not a big fan of Inquisitors or Berserker/Clerics or Kensai/Mages or Sorcerors or Assassin/Mages... they seem overdone, even reductive. But I've already gone to the opposite extreme--using pathetically weak randomized characters--and all they do is struggle through the little battles and die in the big ones.
Actually, these 3 paragraphs epitomize the feelings of a player who's been through the game too many times.
This is why I've actually always admired @Blackraven who seemed to find a new inspiration each time.
@semiticgod if you want to spice things up a bit you may want to try out Kit Revisions too considering you'are already using IR and SR (btw, update to latest SR build if you start a new game, it's worth it). It doesn't cover many classes ("only" fighters, monk, paladins and rangers) but rogues will be out soon, maybe for your next run.
Regarding Wand of Lightning, it's actually easy to tweak the number of bolts, do you need the technical explanation to tweak it yourself? On a side note, I wanted to make Flame Arrow spell work similarly (aka letting you pick the target of each arrow) but it would have not worked for the AI.
Scintilla continued her exploration of the Sword Coast and her search for clues as to why there was a price on her head in some of the less obvious regions (but then, the most obvious place to look, Baldur's Gate, had been locked up). She had Gale disarm a number of traps in a pirate cave on the coast in order for her to loot its treasure, used Skeletons to deal with Basilisks (and their master),
stole a Tome of Understanding from Durlag's Tower (where more Basilisks fell; MSD allowed her to go through a trapped hallway that led outside at no risk), witnessed her Skeletons defeat a big-mouthed but Blinded fighter near the Firewine Bridge,
and used many Sleep spells to eradicate an Ankheg plague.
In Ulgoth's Beard Scintilla bought a variety of higher level spell scrolls, an investment for the future, as well as a Cloak of Deflection, and near Durlag's Tower she purchased a Wand of Fire from a fence. She used that wand to purge the Nashkel Mines.
The lands surrounding a secret mine exit also received a cleansing from Scintilla. Protected by Free Action she rid those lands of its undead denizens,
except of course her own Skeletons (gotta remain pragmatic), who were instrumental in the elimination of an evil wizard and his summoned Mustard Jellies.
Back in Nashkel, she was thanked and rewarded by the mayor, but attacked by an assassin. The Gnome retreated and asked the Amnish guards to help her out, which they did. At one point the assassin panicked, which Scintilla took as a sign to appear to finish off her foe, but her appearance seemed to help him overcome his panic. He went invisible and cast MI, but Scintilla, more or less aware of his whereabouts, fried him with a Fireball (from wand).
A letter on the assassin's corpse led her to a contact of his, residing at Feldepost's in Beregost. The contact was more interested in killing her than in revealing any information. She Scorched him (wand), he then Enfeebled her, and she in turn countered with a Strength of One, allowing her to finish him off with her hammer.
More correspondence made it clear to her that the ones who were after her, were also the ones that had set up the Iron Crisis and the bandit plague. She still needed a name though.
Somehow those people knew that she knew, it seemed, as the number of ambushes by bounty hunters and assassins increased. Even remote areas such as the Cloudpeaks or a Gnoll Stronghold became unsafe for Scintilla.
(This was funny: Lamalha & co spawned at a point where they couldn't reach Scintilla. They only managed to summon Skeletons on the bridge, while Scintilla threw Fireballs at her opponents.) On the North Coast she had violent dealings with an evil Ogre Mage and its lying accomplice, a Nereid. Scintilla successfully cast Emotion on the Ogre to finish it off with her Skeletons with no trouble.
Instead of looking for a place to hide, the Gnome eventually decided to seek out her enemy. It meant first locating their Bandit Camp in the Wood of Sharp Teeth. She thought to foist herself into their ranks via a bandit named Teven she met in Larswood, but this Teven and especially his superior, a Half-Ogrish brute named Tazok, turned out not to trust her. (This was a nice surprise. Normally I tell Teven in Larswood that I like the killing or Raiken in Peldvale that I know which way the wind is blowing. This time I didn't get the option to tell Teven that I like the killing, and I was taken aback by the fact that Tazok would not be sweet-talked with Charname's usual lines.
I actually stressed a bit here, because in my BGT install Tazok can insta-kill the PC from a distance, without actually hitting them.) Tazok applied an oil of speed and attacked (the others didn't, yet). Scintilla also applied an oilf of speed so as to keep her pursuer at a distance. She saw her attempt at paralyzing the warrior with her wand fail due to her foe's well-timed quaffing of a potion of freedom, so she decided to go invisible as soon as she could. She snuck into one of the tents and found it heavily guarded. She buffed with two potions of fire protection, and various spells (MI, Shield, MSD and Remove Fear), and then paralyzed a wizard. A couple of Fireballs later,
Scintilla and an elven prisoner were the only ones standing. She released the Elf and he gave the name she wanted to know: the Iron Throne, with a hidden base in Cloakwood.
In the vast Cloakwood Scintilla had run-ins with Spiders and their mistress Centeol (I did this to get the Wand of Frost from Centeol, which would become an important tool not much later),
and with Amarande the Shadow Archdruid. The latter wasted various spells on her in his treehouse where she would descend the stairs and eventually leave the premises in order to avoid his magics. Her buffed Skeletons (PfE 10' Radius, Strength of One, Defensive Harmony) meant the end of Amarande. (Again, this encounter was chosen for an item Amarande drops: the Root of the Problem +1, +3 vs unnatural creatures, +1 acid damage; good against Doppelgangers.)
When she finally found the Iron Throne base, a hard battle awaited her. She approached four guards under the cover of Invisibility and Sanctuary in hopes of making her way past them and surprising them from the back. But an Oracle cast by one of two wizards dispelled both the Invisibility and the Sanctuary (I repeat that I don't think Sanctuary should be vulnerable to detection spells, but soit). The four immediately went after the unbuffed Gnome, one of them at an extraordinary pace. Scintilla applied an oil of speed; her foes buffed themselves as well. The warriors both drank potions of magic shielding, the wizards spell-buffed with Shields, PfNMs, MIs, Stoneskins, MGoIs, Haste (Kysus) and IIs or Shadow Doors. Scintilla managed to go Invisible right in front of her foes,
but saw that effect removed almost right away.
She applied a second oil of speed to get away from her attackers. A Chaos coming her way she thwarted with a potion of magic shielding. Invisibly, she started to look for her foes and found them in pairs (the mages together and the warriors together) looking for her in different places. Away from all of them, Scintilla summoned Skeletons and buffed them as well as herself (PfE 10' Radius, Strength of One, Defensive Harmony), and she further buffed herself (MSD, Remove Fear, II). The Skeletons did little more than absorbing the wizards' spells before they fell, but an Emotion put one of the wizards to rest.
Two well-placed (wand) Scorchers did the other wizard in; the former was slain with the Ashideena.
The hasted warrior was Scorched as well (and relieved of his Boots of Speed of course), and the other warrior was Held before Scintilla smacked him down.
In the Iron Throne base, a mine, Scintilla met lots of slaves. She decided to try and release them (even though she knew that would cost her a couple of Invisibilities). To do so the Gnome had to free the slaves' spokesman from a prison. She had difficulty getting to that prison under the effect of Sanctuary because more and more guards came after her. When their numbers began to look dangerous, a triggered lightning trap somewhat assuaged her plight,
but the Gnome nevertheless had to go a long way round to access the prison and release the inmates, and confer with them on an escape plan. On the final level of the mine, Scintilla faced the Iron Throne executive, a wizard called Davaeorn and his two Battle Horror minions. She was buffed with PfFire, an oil of speed, MSD, and a potion of defense among other things, but Davaeorn removed those protections.
Scintilla considered casting PfMagic on herself from a green scroll but decided to suffice with another MSD. She then used a couple of charges from her Wand of Frost to finish off the Battle Horrors and to injure Davaeorn.
Slaying the wizard with that wand would be a waste of his loot, so she summoned two Skeletons and dispatched him with old-fashioned fistycuffs.
Scintilla looted Daveorn's coffers, and with the help of one of the slaves she flooded the Cloakwood mine. She then traveled to Baldur's Gate, the seat of the Iron Throne's local headquarters, and was pleased to see the city gates opened.
@Demivrgvs: I've checked out Kit Revisions, but decided against it. It's balanced and everything, but it's not as exciting as IR and SR. The changes look more mild, and I tend to place more value on weirdness and novelty than balance or realism--all that roleplaying nonsense (what is this, an RPG?).
I know how to tweak the number of bolts in DLTCEP, but I haven't been able to get DLTCEP to edit anything since I "upgraded" from Windows XP. I'm afraid Windows Vista, 7, and 8 have all been completely incapable of ever using DLTCEP outside of read-only mode, thanks to the infamous UAC bug... which last I heard was still unfixed. It renders folders and programs incapable of ever being edited, and the UAC that implements that will automatically turn itself on if you manually disable it. It doesn't apply to everything on my computer, and it's not as big a problem as it used to be, but DLTCEP has never worked properly.
I've tried using Near Infinity instead, but I couldn't figure out how to manage it. How do you add multiple targets to a wand or spell?
Could you do it with a weapon? Because firing multiple arrows in different directions would be very crazy.
@semiticgod with NI open the ability header (in this case it's the 'magical' one), the row under icon is target assignment, the one after if is the # of selectable targets. I don't know why but I never tried using it for melee or ranged header, if you do, let me know.
Regarding Kit Revisions, I didn't expected its changes could be considered "too mild", I was afraid of the opposite! It's cool though, it means I've been able to blend the huge changes really well.
@Demivrgvs: Maybe I've gotten used to utterly game-breaking changes, on account of the randomization thing. The new Wizard Slayer kit isn't immune to buffing spells? Totally overpowered. The new Kensai kit can't one-shot Firkraag? Laaaaame.
I successfully created several copies of Wands of Lightning that fire up to 10 separate bolts. I had to take an extra step, though: I had to right-click on "Target Type" and choose a different method of inputting the number of targets, because I couldn't just select it from the list. I typed in a decimal, "001 010," which codes for 10 targets.
You can also type in a binary value or hex value, but that's more complicated. I tested it out and found the Wand of Lightning trick was then able to summon ten copies of Kitty.
I think I will test out this multiple target thing. Maybe it'll work with area-effect spells, or something like Dimension Door.
Scintilla, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist (third and final BG1 update)
In the city Scintilla procured a number of magical items for the Shadow Thieves and a Haalruan mage associated with them. The mage betrayed her, but unfortunately (for him), he hadn't noticed the Gnome's Wand of Fire before he attacked. He dropped a scroll of Fireshield: Blue.
She also defeated a fighter in the Low Lantern inn with Magic Missiles and Wand Scorchers, which earned her a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power.
She convinced the wizard Ragefast to release his Nymph, before she had spoken with his rival Ramazith, meaning she would never meet and slay the latter for his goodies. Two Iron Throne lackeys, Marek and Lathander poisoned her, but thankfully a cure and a Tome of Wisdom were found on time.
A Knock spell she bought at the Sorcerous Sundries and memorized four times, made a visit to the Silvershield estate a lucrative affair, and a number of commissions for the Flaming Fist (cleaning out the Seven Suns, dealing with a sewer-dwelling Ogre Mage) were equally profitable. At the Iron Throne she dispatched a number of guards (relying heavily on Fireballs again, though Diyab and Aasim were dealt with in single combat, Cloudwulfe was brought to near death by Confused Gardush, and the latter was Held before Scintilla felled him), but learnt that the actual Throne leaders were in Candlekeep.
(I then made the mistake of having Scintilla rest to ID a number of items after she had informed Duke Eltan. It meant that Chapter 7 had started, and she got a redundant DUHM where I wanted a Divine Wrath Bhaalpower. Reputation management did see her acquire the Divine Wrath power in Chapter 8.)
The Flaming Fist sent Scintilla back to Candlekeep to seek out the Iron Throne leaders. She soon found herself arrested and falsely accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders. Tethtoril helped her escape, via catacombs below Candlekeep that were plundered with anti-trap buffs and Knocks. Back in Baldur's Gate, wand summons and scorchers allowed Scintilla to dispatch two assassins, Krystin and Slythe.
On the latter's corpse she found an invitation to Sarevok's coronation as Grand Duke. This Sarevok, she now understood, had used the Iron Throne for personal motives. She also knew that he was the one who had wanted her dead all along. She rested at the Blushing Mermaid inn and went with the invitation and an incirminating letter to the Ducal Palace for the ceremony. There she summoned four Skeletons, cast PfEvil 10' Radius, Strength of One, buffed with violet potion, agility, fortitude, mind focusing, defense, magic protection, and power, cast Haste and Defensive Harmony, and confronted Sarevok and his Greater Doppelganger cronies. Most of the shapeshifting creatures were Slowed.
Very soon after all Greater Doppelgangers lay dead on the ground, allowing Scintilla to present the evidence against Sarevok.
Sarevok enraged but was spirited away by a wizard. Belt showed Scintilla the way. Invisibly she sped through a maze below the Thieves Guild, past an adventuring party she didn't want to deal with, into a Temple of Bhaal, Sarevok's hiding place. There she took out Tazok with her sling,
Angelo in melee combat with her Ashideena and with the help of plenty of wand summons,
Diarmid with her sling again,
Semaj with wand scorchers,
and Sarevok himself with a combination of sling bullets and scorchers.
She notified Belt, who sent her to Amn to secure peace between Baldur's Gate and Amn. (Scintilla leveled up in Baldur's Gate to 8/9 Cleric/Illusionist, quaffed a Potion of Magic Blocking to cancel the effect of the violet potion, and rested so that she would have all her spells memorized at the beginning of SoA.)
Scintilla woke up in the dungeon of one Irenicus she would learn. Imoen released her from her cell, and the Gnome in turn released to other prisoners, Minsc and Jaheira. None of the three would accompany her though during her escape from the dungeon. She cast Shadow Door once to enter a room containing a ward stone, so that Duergar wouldn't harrass her. A second Shadow Door saw her safely reach a room with a Golem that needed the wardstone to open a number of doors. In that room she slew a Radiant Mephit,
and cast invisibility on herself before she followed the Golem to the chamber that had been locked. In it she saw an Otyugh, but she left it in peace. A corridor guarded by Duergar was cleared with the help of Skeletons and a Hold Person.
In two heavily trapped rooms her Stoneskins and an MGoI protected her against a couple of snares she triggered while grabbing a number of useful items: Metaspell Influence Amulet, Claw of Kazgaroth, Bracers of AC8, and a portal key. She used said key to acces a second level of the dungeon. Scintilla entered invisibly and rested in a corner away from a door behind which she sensed danger. (This was necessary because once Yoshimo speaks to the party, the Mephits in my setup will open the door and attack.) When she woke, she summoned four Skeletons, cast Ghost Armor, PfE 10' Radius, Resist Fire/Cold, and Haste. She met a Bounty Hunter named Yoshimo who wanted to join her, but she politely refused. In the next room the Gnome and her Skeletons destroyed four Mephit Portals and the Mephits they spawned.
The Skeltons also helped Scintilla slay hostile Shadow Thieves, and more Duergar and Mephits.
A Cloudkill finished a Vampire and her Shadow Thief opponents, and a Sanctuary allowed the Gnome to steal a Girdle of Bluntness from a band of Duergar. They surrounded her so she went invisible and cast Shield, Holy Power, DUHM, and MSD which meant she'd have little to fear from the Duergar when she became visible again. With Magic Missiles and her hammer he took out the one Duergar that was blocking her path. She escaped, went invisible, forgot to convenrt three keys she had collected into wands (Cloudkill, Fire, Monster Summoning), and escaped.
On the surface she witnessed Irenicus' power and his and Imoen's arrest by Cowled Wizards for casting spells. The Gnome discovered she was in Athkatla, Amn, where magic was prohibited. After selling some loot, restoring peace at a Circus in turmoil,
and exposing a skinner/murderer in the Bridge District for Lietenant Aegusfield, she bought a Reflection Shield +1 at an Adventurer Mart and a Spell Casting license in the Government District. These are her current Character Record and Inventory Screen:
The party came back to the Friendly Arm Inn after their last travel. Once again, some bounty hunters were waiting for them but they dispatched them with brutality. They decided to rest for two days to recover, sharpen their spells and weapons before going to the Bandit Camp.
Once they were totally ready, with some new equipments, the death squad travelled to the East.
After less than a day, they saw the fires of the camp and they proceed to attack it from the South. Their formation was simple, Kagain and Anselm would go into the melee, Viconia and Edwin would pelt them from afar with their magic support while Dorn and Vynd would protect the backline and finish wandering foes with their ranged weapons.
A huge battle occured, many arrows of frost pierced Anselm's armor, injuring him and forcing him to drink a few healing potions. Edwin would control the crowd with Sleep and Horror spells before destroying them with some well placed Fireballs.
After they finished off the last bandits and looted the place, including documents about the Cloakwood Mines, there was a quarrel between Dorn and Anselm.
Finally, the Human Blackguard decided to punish Dorn by using his newly discovered power, Cause Affliction which lowered the Half-Orc Strenght and Constitution while also poisoning him. Weakened, Dorn decided to not strike back.
Afterward, they wandered to the West. Slaying monsters, adventurers and innocents on their bloody path. They even encountered a famous hero of the Realms ... Kagain held him in melee while the others poisoned him to death.
@Gotural: Nice use of Dorn as a ranger attacker (I like to equip him with the Army Scythe), and good job showing him who's the boss Your playthrough makes me want to go truly evil as well...
@Blackraven I put his proficiency points at level 3 and 6 in Crossbows and since level 7 he has 3 APR with the Army Scythe, he is indeed very good (he has 16 Dex if I remember correctly) at range. About 1/3rd of my playthroughs are evil, and when I do I love playing evil. I think that Baldur's Gate is such a great game because you only need to change your Charname to change the way you play and experience the game, but going evil goes even further than that. It is definitely something different and I would recommend to everyone who never tried.
Especially in no-reload, the feeling of beeing hunted gives some adrenaline !
@Arnaeus Thank you ! To be honest he is easier now since the patch, he still has his infamous AC, THAC0 and Magic Resistance, but he longer deals 30+ damages per hit. He now hits for about 15-20 damage from my experience, and with a Potion of Regeneration and Kagain's Defensive Stance, along some healing potions, he did a great job at tanking him.
Still looking for new places to explore and ravage, the group of villains found an escavation. They murdered everyone and stole a statuette of an ancient god. When they left the place, a Doomsayer attacked them but it was dispatched quickly.
They continued to the West, once more, and ended up on the coast, fighting Sirens and many Hobgoblins. They found a cave with great treasure, including a Tome of Constitution which increased Anselm's Constitution from 18 to 19.
Afterward, the Blackguard decided it would be a good time to discover Ulcaster Ruins so they headed East. They went through Nashkel, a town they previously conquered. Nothing changed since last time, a few bounty hunters were killed and everyone was still scared.
When they arrived to Ulcaster, they were assaulted by a powerful Skeleton Warrior named Icharyd who was able to bend time itself to its advantage. The group needed to defeat it twice, the second time he was empowered by his god's strength and was able to cast some Call Lightning spells instantly.
In the ruins, they founded some items, guarded by not one, but two Wolves of Ulcaster (maybe a bug, a or a change in v30 of SCS). Viconia casted a Remove Fear spell at the start of the fight to protect the group from their Howl of Terror abilities, but Kagain, fast as lightning with his boots, went out of the spell area of effect before it was over. And he fell to the first howl.
The first Wolf of Ulcaster went down fast, then some Dread Wolves and Ghasts joined the fight, which required some much needed repositioning as they spawned in the backline. A single hit on Edwin or Vynd could lead them to their demise, so the remaining melee fighters tried to protect them by attacking the minions and using an Aura of Despair ability.
However, the last Wolf of Ulcaster proceeded to cast a Remove Magic spell and a Greater Malison spell during this time. As soon as the Greater Malison fired, Anselm knew the Wolf's next spell would be a devastating Howl of Terror therefore they focused on it to kill it before it could happen.
The magical creature dead, they finished the remaining foes.
With this encounter defeated, the party thought good to look in the Arcane Sanctum. A very difficult dungeon under Ulcaster Ruins. They fought some very powerful Skeleton Warriors and Skeleton Archers with Arrows of Detonation but prevailed for a time.
But a bit later, things started to go wrong as they fought a powerful spellcaster with a permanent Improved Alacrity, who started to pelt Anselm with Magic Missile at phenomenal speed. He protected himself from them with the Horn of Kazgaroth and blocked most of the damage. Then the Mage attacked him with a powerful Lightning Bolt, leaving him with 22 HP and he was already casting another spell of the same sort (red casting animation, casting time 3, either Lightning Bolt or Fireball) toward him.
Anselm fled as fast as possible from him with his Boots of Haste to gain some time to recover his action of the round, the spell fired, it was a Fireball spell. It took some times to travel to him, during the process of which Anselm switched his equipment to increase his Fire Resistance, he also had the time to drink a Critical Healing Potion (30hp) just before the impact. The Fireball did 14 damage thanks to the reduction, so he could have survived even without the potion but still, he decided to send Vynd to kill him from afar with Poison Weapon and his natural Magic Resistance.
It went very nicely.
Afterward, they triggered a trap which casted a Dire Charm spell on Anselm. The Blackguard tried to cut down Vynd for more or less 20 seconds, but he survived.
This place was pretty much a nightmare, even for them. They decided it would be better to leave for now, and to come back later with some more experience, and more importantly, more Potions of Magic Shielding / Potions of Magic Resistance.
Back to the surface, the party was ambushed by three Red Wizards of Thay, who wanted to have their magical items. Anselm's party wanted the same thing to be honest, so a battle occured. The problem was that Kagain and Anselm were far further the rest of the group because of their respective boots, so the party was splitted at first.
They had no other choice but to send Kagain to his doom to buy enough time for the rest of the group to catch them. The three spellcasters, all under permanent Improved Alacrity, literally melted Kagain under a barrage of Magic Missiles, killing him in about 5 seconds.
But they made good use of this time, killing one of the Mages aswell. Dorn went into melee, Vynd also started to throw some poisoned attacks. A second Mage fell, the last one was about to go down, but just before he died, he instakilled Vynd with a Chromatic Orb spell which went through his Magic Resistance and his saves.
Anselm knew he could have been the target of this spell.
They went back to the Beregost Temple, raised their deads and were assaulted by the Flaming Fist and the Morninglord Guards as soon as they entered the city, but prevailed in the end.
So, I'm starting up here. I created a party of all single-class rogues (only bards and thieves), except for cleric/thieves, because I need healers. So here's the party.
This is my Bhaalspawn, Yelsew. He's a jester, very impulsive, has alignment swings, and is generally Chaotic Neutral. Male Fighter 5 voiceset, for those who want to understand his character better.
This is Grynda, my melee healer. Not much to say about her. Going to try to keep her on defensive and healing spells mostly, and group buffs. Studded leather can only protect you so much.
This is Quinn. If any of you have heard the Male Bard soundset for IWD2, that's Quinn. Pretty self-centered. I'm going to try and make him my DPS, as is appropriate for a Swashbuckler. He also is my utility thief, with maxed out Open Locks and Find Traps.
This is Evebil. He's with the first thief soundset for IWD. I'm going to keep him as a backup melee, even though his backstabbing will be outrageous, eventually. Until then...shortbow.
This is Bartholomew. He is also a Cleric/Thief. He pickpockets and detects illusions. He will be a bit more offensive and summon-y than Grynda.
This is my other bard, Jane. Whereas Yelsew is more of a fighter/bard, Jane is more of a mage/bard. She will be our main spellcaster until Yelsew gets some Elven Chain.
The party's working through Château Irenicus slowly, partially from having all odds stacked against them, partially from a lot of micromanaging. I think I installed a BP-Tactics option that replaces the goblins with duergar, but that could be from somewhere else.
They are harder than goblins. Luckily, luck is on the side of the rogue. We shall see if I can even make it out of the starting dungeon. Lack of equipment doesn't help much.
I only cheated once - I used EEKeeper to give everyone 161000, and gave Yelsew the Golden Pantaloons. Honestly, I feel like the game should start that way anyhow, but that's none of my buisness.
Hey @dockaboomski! As a rogue fan, I cannot but applaud you for going all Thieves and Bards. Best of luck! Btw SCS also offers a component that replaces the Goblins with Duergar.
Her first explorations of the city, Scintilla carried out invisibly. That proved wise when she walked into an ambush in a dead end street. Rather than getting away, the Gnome decided to confront the (five) villains. Out of their sight she summoned five Skeletons, buffed with PfE 10' Radius, Ghost Armor, and Haste, and cast a Cloudkill at the ambushers, followed by a Chaos. This was enough to take down three of her foes, the remaining two were dealt with in melee combat.
She left the city at the behest of a boy named Delon she had met near the Council of Six building in the Gov District, to visit the village of Imnesvale in the Umar Hills and investigate the recent killings and disappearances of townspeople.
She found the village without difficulty, and discovered that the source of its troubles was to be found in the nearby Temple Ruins. Before heading there however she rested, and for a local Cowled Wizard she went looking for a Killer Mimic in some of the caves on the edge of town. In front of a chest that she suspected contained such a creature, she was indeed held by one while she was in the process of summoning Skeletons to deal with it. She had only summoned one at that time, but thankfully it lasted long enough to keep the Mimic from killing Scintilla before the Hold effect wore off.
She retreated, healed, and summoned more Skeletons at a safe distance to deal with the dangerous creature.
(Lesson learned: the Killer Mimic does not wait for you to open the chest before it attacks.) Scintilla rested a second time, and summoned more Skeletons in the Cowled Wizard's home, where something went wrong with the activation of a Stone Golem, causing it to become hostile. Unlike others of its kind, the Golem was vulnerable to normal weapons, so its destruction wasn't difficult to bring about.
The Temple Ruins were inhabited by Skeletons and Shadows (no Greater Mummies, Bone Golems or Liches yet), against which Scintilla potected herself with one of three PfUndead scrolls she possessed. She freed a Halfling lass named Mazzy, solved a number of riddles that earned her a wardstone that guaranteed her safe passage past a dormant Shadow Dragon and various keys that gave her access to a ritual site where the leader of the Shadows was to be found, a Shade Lord. She rested in the Dragon's lair and prepared two Lower Resistances, a Greater Malison, and lots of fire spells (Sunfires, Fireballs, Flamestrikes, Aganazzar's Scorchers) and Holy Smites. Scintilla cast another PfUndead on herself and with the fire spells and Holy Smites she killed the Shade Lord after his MR and saves had been lowered, as well as many Shadows. A Shadow Altar that kept producing Shadows was highly resistant to magic / magical fire, and immune to her normal weapons, so Scintilla had to destroy it with her Spiritual Hammer.
She was hailed by the Imnesvale mayor and the townspeople as a heroine, and thanked with a suit of highly enchanted leather armor she promptly sold.
Scintilla returned to Athkatla where she bought the Robe of Vecna, and left the city soon after, to help another troubled town, Trademeet. It had two problems: incessant animal attacks likely caused by vindictive Druids, and a number of Dao Djinns that had crippled all trade in Trademeet. She first sought out the Shadow Druids. Invisibly, she traversed the wilderness in which the Druids had set up their base (making sure to pick up a pair of Bracers of Archery and an enchanted scimitar on the way). Right in front of the Shadow Druid stronghold she had her Skeletons kill a guard. He dropped a number of enchanted weapons, including a Club, Gnasher +2.
She entered the stronghold invisibly with a Druid of a different, less aggressive order. This man, Cernd, defeated the Shadow Archdruid in a duel, with an Insect Plague, Fire Elementals and Mountain Bears.
Scintilla also solved Trademeet's second problem: the Dao Djinns. One of them she Breached and Slowed, allowing her Skeletons to slay it.
It dropped an Efreeti summoning bottle. Two more Djinns faced a heavily buffed Scintilla (Stoneskin, Blur, MSD, PfE 10' Radius, II). Their leader Khan Zahraa fell to a Cloudkill and a series of Magic Missiles.
As in Imnesvale, Scintilla became a heroine to the people she had helped. The rewards she received were much larger though, a Shield of Harmony and thousands of gold. Part of the gold she spent on a Belt of Inertial Barrier, the Blackblood Club +3, and a handful of scrolls. Before she left for Athkatla, she ran into and slew Rejiek the skinner, and she dispatched a number of Skeletons including two Warrior variants, with Sunfires and divine buffs (Holy Power, DUHM), securing the Mantle of Waukeen which she left with Trademeet's High Merchant.
Back in Athkatla, Scintilla visited the Copper Coronet, and discovered that its owner, Lethinan, exploited slaves. The Gnome Slowed a beast master who was in on the slavery, and slew him with Aganazzar's Scorchers and sling bullets for a prison key. (His pets were Cloudkilled.) Next she released the prisoners and with them, she dispatched Lethinan and his guards.
For Hendak, the leader of the (now ex-)slaves, Scintilla went looking for an entrance to the Slaver Stockade via the sewers below the Coronet. With her summoned Efreeti she dispatched a band of Hobgoblins and an Otyugh,
and with a Skeleton she dealt with two Jellies. A number of Kobolds (interestingly already hostile, and coming toward her rather than waiting for her in their usual place) died to a Cloudkill, and so did a second group of Hobgoblins (Scintilla lured them into a Cloudkill trap). With a number of curiosities and the solving of a riddle she became the owner of Lilarcor before she entered the Stockade extremely well-buffed (Stoneskin, Remove Fear, PfE, MGoI, Fireshields Red & Blue, PfNW, and Haste). Two Sunfires, a Divine Wrath and foes hurting themselves on Scintilla's Fireshields soon saw most of the Slavers killed.
Their captain remained remarkably impassive (did he know that she was immune to his normal weapons, and that his Fireshields or Reflection Shield would hurt him?). Scintilla's Skeletons finished him off, and they also helped her slay two Trolls (though those creatures slew most of the Skeletons before that). The Gnome's Find Traps spell showed her a way past a trap,
to an area with more slavers and slaves. Scintilla released two children, quaffed a potion of Stone Form for improved saves and injured two Yuan-Ti by exposing them to the Prismatic Spray effect of another trap,
She injured and blinded a number of guards with a Holy Smite, and her Efreeti helped her deal with the Yuan-Ti and with some of the slavers as well.
When two slaver wizards lay dead,
her Efreeti left the prime material plane and Scintilla was getting low on spells, the Gnome decided to call it a day and report back to Hendak. She cast Sanctuary on herself, left any guards that followed her to the City guards, and was rewarded by Hendak with some of Lethinan's wealth.
A woman named Valen wanted Scintilla to meet her mistress at the Graveyard District. Scintilla first went to the Adventurer Mart where she bought Vhailor's Helm, and then went to see Valen's mistress, Bodhi. She offered the Gnome a means to get to Irenicus and Imoen, at 15k GP (which was cheaper than another offer she had received from a rogue in the Slums). However most of that sum she had just spent on Vhailor's Helm, so Bodhi would have to wait. Also at the Graveyard District, Scintilla dug up a man named Tirdir, who had been buried alive, and she ran into the restless spirit of a young boy that wanted its teddy bear. The Gnome humored the spirit by retrieving the bear from a Dwarf in the Copper Coronet, and she went looking for Tirdir's buriers in the Bridge District. On her way however she was ambushed by three thugs that had just poisoned a man. Scintilla cast a Holy Smite, and then retreated in order to safely Sunfire the thugs without hurting the poisoned man. Soon the thugs were all dead, allowing Scintilla to take their victim to the Docks District for medical care as fast as possible, although a mad Priest of Cyric held her up for a while. PfNW, Stoneskins, and Fireshields meant there was little the Cleric could do against her, but he had three potions of superior healing that kept him going for quite a while.
When she finally made it to the Bridge District, Scintilla didn't take long in finding the kidnappers and buriers of people. She was low on spells thanks to the thugs and the mad cleric, but her Skeletons and her Efreeti helped her out when Tirdir's kidnappers went hostile,
Scintilla sought to contract Sir Sarles the sculptor (whose voiceset is terrific imo) to make a sculpture for the Temple of Helm. The artist only wished to work with true illithium however, and not with the lump of fake illithium that Scintilla offered him. The alloy did please the Helmites though. Scintilla reached Cleric level 11 here, which opened up access to lvl 6 spells). She obtained 200 lbs of real illithium, from a thief named Neb and with the help of her Aerial Servant,
but when she went to see Sir Sarles, he had already left town.
Below the Graveyard District Scintilla encountered a spiders' den. She slew the Spiders with the help of her Efreeti's and her own fire magics.
Inside the den she agreed to fetch Spiders' Bane for the Pai'Na the Hivemaster Druid, a service for which she would be rewarded with Kitthix, a Spider servant that could be summoned from a figurine once per day.
In Waukeen's Promenade, she saved a rogue named Sansuki from three attacking vampires. Her Holy Smites and, again, her Aerial Servant were very convincing even though the summons suffered repeated level drains.
After the fight, Sansuki divulged more to her than he seemed to realize when he said to her he was glad to see an ally of the Shadow Thieves stand up for him. It confirmed her suspicions that the organization that had first offered her a way to get to Imoen and Irenicus, had been the Shadow Thieves.
She decided to go to the Docks District to see if anyone at the Shadow Thieves Guildhouse had anything of interest to say to her, but was accosted by Xzar, a wizard that asked him to help his captive friend Montaron escape from a Harper compound where he was held captive. Before she was allowed entry into the Harper building, Rylock, the man she had previously delivered poisoned Renfeld to, requested her to dispatch two evil monster summomning wizards, Prebek and Sanasha. This she did, leaving most of the dirty work to Kitthix (improved by a Dwarven smith named Cromwell) and her Efreeti, before she stepped in to finish the job.
Once inside the Harper building she didn't tarry in finding Montaron, seemingly transformed into a bird, (or in slaying three Spectral Harpists; Scintilla had more love for reaching wizard level 12 than for secret societies). The bird proved to be someone else than Montaron, a Harper assassin that promptly killed Xzar. Scintilla's Skeletons couldn't stop her.
At the Thieves Guild she learnt little about Imoen and Irenicus from the thieves, but she did learn that there was a probable traitor in their midst, and she was asked to find evidence of treachery on the part of one Mae'Var, the executive of a nearby guild hall. Scintilla agreed to infiltrate in Mae'Var's ranks. It took her a number of quests to gain Mae'Var's trust. The most complicated of those quests was taking out a Cowled Wizard named Rayic Gethras. With her Skeletons still around from the encounter with the Harper assassin, Scintilla lured Rayic's Mephit guards outside for the Skeletons to deal with them.
Kitthix helped with two Stone Golems,
and Rayic Gethras was invited to waste most of his spells on (sanctuaried) Scintilla's Skeletons and her Vhailor simulacrum
before she finished him off with her Aerial Servant and her Holy Smites.
When she finally presented written evidence of Mae'Var's planned betrayal (overtures to the Night Masks), she was asked to eliminate him.
A long, hard fight awaited her at MaeVar's guildhouse. The first few rounds were for Scintilla, whose clerical True Seeing frustrated the backstabbing Assassins, and whose summons (Kitthix, Aerial Servant, Efreeti, Skeletons) did a good job at taking out most of her foes.
It was Mae'Var alone who forced Scintilla to go on the defensive. His Chaos affected both her Efreeti (that nevertheless proceeded to slay another Assassin) and her hard-hitting Aerial Servant.
Scintilla, Shield of Harmony equipped, was never at risk. After the Gnome cast a Holy Smite at the rogue, the latter reminded her with a backstab for 50 damage that her Stoneskins were no longer in place.
The Aerial Servant was even confused a second time (by a Confusion), but eventually it remembered its allegiance, and made sure that Mae'Var would be no threat to Scintilla, in spite of his Flame and Melf's Acid Arrows, and in spite of the fact that a Silence she cast at him affected only herself, not him.
Completion of the Mae'Var quest made Scintilla reach level 12 as a Cleric, making her a lvl 12/12 Cleric/Illusionist. Her character Record and Inventory Screen:
Yelsew and Co. made their way to the Bridge District after killing Aerie for looking like a monster.
They were requested to solve the skinner murders by the guard captain there. After wasting their first warning from the Cowled Wizards (whoops)...
...they confronted the tanner. It was the beginning of the end. Jane used the Irenicus Wand of Cloudkill to soften up the Rune Assassins and the wizard, only to find the Rune Assassins were immune. Uh-oh. The mage took enough damage, but then left a departing gift.
Uh-oh.
If the damn Ghasts hadn't paralyzed Yelsew, I would have been able to escape. But I acted to free him too late.
Evebil was chunked, Quinn died, Yelsew and Bart were held, and it was up to Grynda and Jane....
...who failed miserably. Embarrassingly, painfully, -10/94 HP miserably.
If only I had just visited the Five Flagons first. Or done anything else first. Oh, the regret. I introduced a playthrough and now it ends.
BUT FEAR NOT! You have not heard the last of Yelsew and his merry band!
What definitely did me in was my lack of a dedicated mage. I love bards as much as anybody else, but I really could have used the extra spell slots. Maybe the merry band of rogues will expand into the merry band of some multiclassed rogues.
Scintilla made some more progress, though I must I'm not really happy with how I've been playing her. Defensively she's a crack with all her spell buffs. But offensively much less so. Maybe I'm too used to playing fighters and rogues, and thus to slicing up the opposition, but with Scintilla I haven't really succeeded at that yet. Perhaps I should try to go the Polymorphing/Shapechanging route (complemented with triggered Cleric buffs), a route I've never really explored before. In her most recent violent encounters she's either buffed herself to the max to prevail in prolonged battles, or (more commonly, because it's less of a hassle than casting 10+ buffs) relied on her summons, especially the Aerial Servants, often observing the spectacles in the safety of her Sanctuaries.
The following is more of a review with a focus on tactics than a typical update readers may be used to of me. Maybe some of you folks have some recommendations.
Scintilla found her Aerial Servants and Kitthix very effective against Vampires, so she tends to leave those enemies to her summons.
By way of experiment she decided in the sewers (where she was on a mission for the temple of Helm), to test her own combat (buffed) skills against a generic Rakshasa, a potentially dangerous but for my warriors/rogues normally manageable type of opponent. Her various buffs made Scintilla nigh unkillable: Stoneskin, both Fireshields, Deathward, Free Action after Haste, Strength of One to augment her lousy 12 natural STR and that of two summoned Skellies, Spell Shield. (I know some of these buffs weren't necessary, but I was and still am testing to find a universal buff list, that should work in most battles.) Either way, Scintilla wasted most of her offensive spells to make the Rakshasa's annoying Kobolds shut up, and ended up killing the Rakshasa in melee (with Holy Power + DUHM).
Scintilla misses APR though. I guess she could go after the Crom Faeyr and dualwield it with another blunt weapon and with one pip in TWF, for four APR with IH, more as a way to speed up a battle after most relevant spells have been cast, than as a permanent strategy. The more competent caster players might not care for this tactic, but I'm afraid I do. I believe Tenser's does not increase APR does it? Guess I'll have to test that as well. Scintilla recently found the scroll.
"Roleplaying" forced Scintilla to not rest in the sewers after the Rakshasa battle and had her seek out Gaal right away, invisibly. Low on spells, and level drained by a trap, all she could do to prevail over Vampiric Mists who saw right through her invisibility, Hell Hounds, and Shadows that came after her, was to rely again on HP + DUHM and when those buffs expired Cloak of the Sewers Troll form.
She rested in the quietude of the Unseeing Eye temple before she embarked on her exploration of the lower tunnels. It led to Scintilla's first confrontation with Yuan-Ti. Two Aerial Servants showed her once more how badass they were:
She buffed heavily to prevent a Prismatic Spray trap from ending her tale, and rested again. I still didn't like having Scintilla rest so often, but I reminded myself of Scintillas need to survive. Besides, I wanted to test the Aerials against a bunch of Beholders and Gauths. Scintilla approached the latter foes from the back (after having snuck past them invisibly to retrieve part of a control rod from Amaunator's avatar). Her hopes of seeing her Aerials destroy the Beholders fumbled when the summons with their natural invisibility wouldn't let themselves be buffed by her.
In two instances (with another rest inbetween, for experiment's sake), they nevertheless injured several of the eye tyrants, allowing Kitthix (made II by Scintilla) to finish them off.
Scintilla even flirted with death when she approached invisibly but otherwise unbuffed, to dispatch a last Beholder that was at near death status, with a Holy Smite.
I wonder why I can't help taking such risks, consciously. Holy Smite is a very nice spell by the way. Scintilla's been using it a lot. (I also appreciate that it works like a Detect Evil spell, but with teeth...)
After two trap-imposed level drains, Scintilla decided to to side with the Shadow Thieves because they promised her an Amulet of Power to protect her against level drains and to further accelrate her spell casting if she joined them. She did two jobs for them, protecting Mook, at which she failed (a Vampire slew her, though Scintilla had her Aerials deal with the Vampire), and slaying two Shadow Thieves and a Guild Contact who had allied themselves with the Shadow Thieves' rivals. She also dealt with several Vampires that roamed abour at night, and with a band of Fallen Paladins,
before she traveled to the Umar Hills, and back with Valygar who opened the Planar Sphere for her.
In the Planar Sphere Blackraven mistook Scintilla's brand new NPP symbol (thanks to Amulet of Power) for a Stoneskin symbol. A Clay Golem made her pay for that.
An Aerial Servant punished the Clay Golem for its insolence.
Wild Halflings were the next challenge. Scintilla's Aerials had little difficulty with a number of warriors, but the wizards weren't as tolerant.
She had to personally deal with a wizard named Kayardi, and a priest, Togan. The latter was easily dispatched thanks largely to Scintilla's Fire Shields and MMs. Kayardi lasted too long for Scintilla's taste, in that the Gnome's buffs gradually wore off. It taught her she'll have to reserve part of her spell slots to dispelling spells (Breach and the like). She had to bear a Cone of Cold (33 dmg) and an ADHW (22 dmg), while most of the damage she managed to deal came from her beloved Holy Smites. Eventually it came down again to fistycuffs, for which Scintilla resumed Troll form as per the cloak, to eliminate her many times Stoneskinned foe.
A similar procedure applied to a second pack of Wild Halflings: warriors for the Aerials, casters Necre and Mogadish for Scintilla. Necre took Scintilla by surprise with a Secret Word, that dispelled her Spell Shield but an SI:Abj prevented further harm.
Scintilla still hadn't enough dispellers so the battle took quite a long time again, before she prevailed in melee combat.
(It was thus with Taibela as well. I won't bore you with the details.)
Aerials showed them they were better fighters than Fire Elementals and Stone/Juggernaut Golems, but, unbuffable as they were, they didn't do as well against an Elder Orb that would give Scintilla a scare went it attempted to flee in her direction.
Mean old Kitthix slew the creature with her poison though.
Scintilla's next major challenge was Lavok. The Gnome was the inferior spell caster of the two. After all Lavok had HLAs and SCS insta-buffs, she didn't (though she could of course pre-buff). She summoned two Skeletons, and had one attack him. It triggered his buffs and an ADHW that killed the Skeleton (which is funny if you take into account what that spell does: "causes evaporation of water from body of every creature in the area of spell"). The second Skeleton was treated to a Comet.
Such unintelligent targeting by Lavok surprised me. Much smarter was his casting of Improved Alacrity. Scintilla's Vhailor's Simulacrum soaked a various spells, including two ADHWs before it succumbed.
Two Aerials soaked up more spells (mainly damage spells such as MMs and Chromatic Orbs), some of which cast during a Time Stop. All this time Scintilla observed things from afar, although she did Slow him at one point. A few hits from the Aerials caused Lavok to surrender.
There was no such sportsmanlike treatment of Tolgerias. Scintilla had her Aerials and Kitthix attack him while he was still blue-circled. The summons killed the wizard outright.
Scintilla deal with Tolgerias' assistant personally.
The Aerials were also instrumental in the slaying of creatures of ice and fire (that didn't wait for Scintilla to open the doors to their respective rooms) and of an astounding amount of Stone/Clay/Juggernaut Golems in an engine room.
Scintilla did her part against the latter foes as well.
Scintilla's final task was retrieving a demon's heart on a lower plane. This was only achieved in three steps (two rests), mainly due to the fact that a Nabassu and Lea'Liyl had to be dealt with at the same time and because Scintilla's Aerials tended to focus on other foes (such as Maureazhis or Imps). However when the Aerials bested the Lea'Liyl,
things became easier for Scintilla and co.They even ended up eliminating the Nabassu and a Glabrezu as well.
Scintilla is currently a lvl 14/13 Cleric/Illusionist. She should probably be very powerful, but doesn't feel that way in my inexpert hands. She's circa 150k XP shy of Mage lvl 14 and her first HLA, a Deva most likely considering my playstyle.
Comments
I understand your point re: the crippling weaknesses. As to what to play, I don't know what to recommend, but I'm giving it one try: Cleric/Thief. One of my favorite combos. They're multiclass but they're the combination of the fastest leveling classes, so they don't feel that slow in that respect. You can play them in many different ways using Thief skills to enhance the Cleric and vice versa Cleric spells to enhance the Thief. Think of stealth, detect illusions skill freeing up level 5 spell slots (Chaotic Commands, Righteous Magic, Champion's Strength on summons), sanctuary, decoy summons, spell-enhanced backstabs, etc. You'll also be casting arcane spells from scrolls with UAI, and if you kit your character as a Swashbuckler to dualwield e.g. Flails (or WW staves or 2h swords), you'll end up with charname that combines melee, thieving, arcane and divine, with loads of options. And at the same time it's not one of those typical powerclasses like Thief/Mage, Fighter/Mage or Sorcerer.
At the same time I'd also be interested to see how you'd fare with a less versatile character, like @bengoshi's Totemic Druid, or my Bounty Hunter. Maybe it could be a nice challenge for you to make the most out of your character's limited possibilities.
As to the item upgrades, I don't consider using one or two of Thalantyr's upgrades to be game-breaking (using all of them could be another matter, though I never tried that). It's more to keep things interesting and different as you say. I'd like Scintilla to not be a copy of Kathlen.
1: Shapeshifter/Fighter, for bonuses to MR and APR.
2: Berserker/Druid, for immunities.
3: Cleric of Lathander/Ranger, for extra APR and saves.
4: Beastmaster/Cleric, because everybody else starts with a kit.
5: Bounty Hunter/Mage, because Special Snares cast at the mage's level instead of the thief's level.
6: Conjurer/Thief, because we've already got a mage for divination stuffs.
The Shapeshifter duals at level 10 for two castings of Stoneskins, since dualing at level 13 for Greater Werewolf form costs 2.25 million XP to recover druid levels. The Berserker duals at 9 for grandmastery. The Cleric of Lathander duals at 11 for an extra casting of Boon of Lathander (I don't really care about the level 6 spells, so no level 12). The Beastmaster duals at level 7, for the sake of the early game, or level 10, so it can summon snakes. The Bounty Hunter duals at 11 for an extra Special Snare. And the Conjurer duals at level 10 or 11 for lots of level 5 spells, like Dispelling Screen.
This will let me use all of SR's new spells and items (discounting stuff like Carsomyr, at least before UAI), without having a group of boring single-classes. Now all I've got to decide is who is going to be our Charname.
I'm glad that you've finally made a decision, @semiticgod Actually, these 3 paragraphs epitomize the feelings of a player who's been through the game too many times.
This is why I've actually always admired @Blackraven who seemed to find a new inspiration each time.
Regarding Wand of Lightning, it's actually easy to tweak the number of bolts, do you need the technical explanation to tweak it yourself? On a side note, I wanted to make Flame Arrow spell work similarly (aka letting you pick the target of each arrow) but it would have not worked for the AI.
Scintilla continued her exploration of the Sword Coast and her search for clues as to why there was a price on her head in some of the less obvious regions (but then, the most obvious place to look, Baldur's Gate, had been locked up).
She had Gale disarm a number of traps in a pirate cave on the coast in order for her to loot its treasure, used Skeletons to deal with Basilisks (and their master),
She used that wand to purge the Nashkel Mines.
Somehow those people knew that she knew, it seemed, as the number of ambushes by bounty hunters and assassins increased. Even remote areas such as the Cloudpeaks or a Gnoll Stronghold became unsafe for Scintilla.
Mage and its lying accomplice, a Nereid. Scintilla successfully cast Emotion on the Ogre to finish it off with her Skeletons with no trouble.
In the vast Cloakwood Scintilla had run-ins with Spiders and their mistress Centeol (I did this to get the Wand of Frost from Centeol, which would become an important tool not much later),
Invisibly, she started to look for her foes and found them in pairs (the mages together and the warriors together) looking for her in different places. Away from all of them, Scintilla summoned Skeletons and buffed them as well as herself (PfE 10' Radius, Strength of One, Defensive Harmony), and she further buffed herself (MSD, Remove Fear, II). The Skeletons did little more than absorbing the wizards' spells before they fell, but an Emotion put one of the wizards to rest.
In the Iron Throne base, a mine, Scintilla met lots of slaves. She decided to try and release them (even though she knew that would cost her a couple of Invisibilities). To do so the Gnome had to free the slaves' spokesman from a prison. She had difficulty getting to that prison under the effect of Sanctuary because more and more guards came after her. When their numbers began to look dangerous, a triggered lightning trap somewhat assuaged her plight,
On the final level of the mine, Scintilla faced the Iron Throne executive, a wizard called Davaeorn and his two Battle Horror minions. She was buffed with PfFire, an oil of speed, MSD, and a potion of defense among other things, but Davaeorn removed those protections.
I know how to tweak the number of bolts in DLTCEP, but I haven't been able to get DLTCEP to edit anything since I "upgraded" from Windows XP. I'm afraid Windows Vista, 7, and 8 have all been completely incapable of ever using DLTCEP outside of read-only mode, thanks to the infamous UAC bug... which last I heard was still unfixed. It renders folders and programs incapable of ever being edited, and the UAC that implements that will automatically turn itself on if you manually disable it. It doesn't apply to everything on my computer, and it's not as big a problem as it used to be, but DLTCEP has never worked properly.
I've tried using Near Infinity instead, but I couldn't figure out how to manage it. How do you add multiple targets to a wand or spell?
Could you do it with a weapon? Because firing multiple arrows in different directions would be very crazy.
Regarding Kit Revisions, I didn't expected its changes could be considered "too mild", I was afraid of the opposite!
I successfully created several copies of Wands of Lightning that fire up to 10 separate bolts. I had to take an extra step, though: I had to right-click on "Target Type" and choose a different method of inputting the number of targets, because I couldn't just select it from the list. I typed in a decimal, "001 010," which codes for 10 targets.
You can also type in a binary value or hex value, but that's more complicated. I tested it out and found the Wand of Lightning trick was then able to summon ten copies of Kitty.
I think I will test out this multiple target thing. Maybe it'll work with area-effect spells, or something like Dimension Door.
In the city Scintilla procured a number of magical items for the Shadow Thieves and a Haalruan mage associated with them. The mage betrayed her, but unfortunately (for him), he hadn't noticed the Gnome's Wand of Fire before he attacked. He dropped a scroll of Fireshield: Blue.
Two Iron Throne lackeys, Marek and Lathander poisoned her, but thankfully a cure and a Tome of Wisdom were found on time.
At the Iron Throne she dispatched a number of guards (relying heavily on Fireballs again, though Diyab and Aasim were dealt with in single combat, Cloudwulfe was brought to near death by Confused Gardush, and the latter was Held before Scintilla felled him), but learnt that the actual Throne leaders were in Candlekeep.
The Flaming Fist sent Scintilla back to Candlekeep to seek out the Iron Throne leaders. She soon found herself arrested and falsely accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders. Tethtoril helped her escape, via catacombs below Candlekeep that were plundered with anti-trap buffs and Knocks.
Back in Baldur's Gate, wand summons and scorchers allowed Scintilla to dispatch two assassins, Krystin and Slythe.
There she summoned four Skeletons, cast PfEvil 10' Radius, Strength of One, buffed with violet potion, agility, fortitude, mind focusing, defense, magic protection, and power, cast Haste and Defensive Harmony, and confronted Sarevok and his Greater Doppelganger cronies. Most of the shapeshifting creatures were Slowed.
Scintilla woke up in the dungeon of one Irenicus she would learn. Imoen released her from her cell, and the Gnome in turn released to other prisoners, Minsc and Jaheira. None of the three would accompany her though during her escape from the dungeon. She cast Shadow Door once to enter a room containing a ward stone, so that Duergar wouldn't harrass her. A second Shadow Door saw her safely reach a room with a Golem that needed the wardstone to open a number of doors. In that room she slew a Radiant Mephit,
A corridor guarded by Duergar was cleared with the help of Skeletons and a Hold Person.
When she woke, she summoned four Skeletons, cast Ghost Armor, PfE 10' Radius, Resist Fire/Cold, and Haste. She met a Bounty Hunter named Yoshimo who wanted to join her, but she politely refused. In the next room the Gnome and her Skeletons destroyed four Mephit Portals and the Mephits they spawned.
On the surface she witnessed Irenicus' power and his and Imoen's arrest by Cowled Wizards for casting spells. The Gnome discovered she was in Athkatla, Amn, where magic was prohibited. After selling some loot, restoring peace at a Circus in turmoil,
These are her current Character Record and Inventory Screen:
The party came back to the Friendly Arm Inn after their last travel. Once again, some bounty hunters were waiting for them but they dispatched them with brutality. They decided to rest for two days to recover, sharpen their spells and weapons before going to the Bandit Camp.
Once they were totally ready, with some new equipments, the death squad travelled to the East.
After less than a day, they saw the fires of the camp and they proceed to attack it from the South. Their formation was simple, Kagain and Anselm would go into the melee, Viconia and Edwin would pelt them from afar with their magic support while Dorn and Vynd would protect the backline and finish wandering foes with their ranged weapons.
A huge battle occured, many arrows of frost pierced Anselm's armor, injuring him and forcing him to drink a few healing potions. Edwin would control the crowd with Sleep and Horror spells before destroying them with some well placed Fireballs.
After they finished off the last bandits and looted the place, including documents about the Cloakwood Mines, there was a quarrel between Dorn and Anselm.
Finally, the Human Blackguard decided to punish Dorn by using his newly discovered power, Cause Affliction which lowered the Half-Orc Strenght and Constitution while also poisoning him. Weakened, Dorn decided to not strike back.
Afterward, they wandered to the West. Slaying monsters, adventurers and innocents on their bloody path.
They even encountered a famous hero of the Realms ...
Kagain held him in melee while the others poisoned him to death.
It was the end of Drizzt.
Your playthrough makes me want to go truly evil as well...
About 1/3rd of my playthroughs are evil, and when I do I love playing evil. I think that Baldur's Gate is such a great game because you only need to change your Charname to change the way you play and experience the game, but going evil goes even further than that. It is definitely something different and I would recommend to everyone who never tried.
Especially in no-reload, the feeling of beeing hunted gives some adrenaline !
@Arnaeus Thank you ! To be honest he is easier now since the patch, he still has his infamous AC, THAC0 and Magic Resistance, but he longer deals 30+ damages per hit. He now hits for about 15-20 damage from my experience, and with a Potion of Regeneration and Kagain's Defensive Stance, along some healing potions, he did a great job at tanking him.
Still looking for new places to explore and ravage, the group of villains found an escavation. They murdered everyone and stole a statuette of an ancient god. When they left the place, a Doomsayer attacked them but it was dispatched quickly.
They continued to the West, once more, and ended up on the coast, fighting Sirens and many Hobgoblins. They found a cave with great treasure, including a Tome of Constitution which increased Anselm's Constitution from 18 to 19.
Afterward, the Blackguard decided it would be a good time to discover Ulcaster Ruins so they headed East. They went through Nashkel, a town they previously conquered. Nothing changed since last time, a few bounty hunters were killed and everyone was still scared.
When they arrived to Ulcaster, they were assaulted by a powerful Skeleton Warrior named Icharyd who was able to bend time itself to its advantage. The group needed to defeat it twice, the second time he was empowered by his god's strength and was able to cast some Call Lightning spells instantly.
In the ruins, they founded some items, guarded by not one, but two Wolves of Ulcaster (maybe a bug, a or a change in v30 of SCS). Viconia casted a Remove Fear spell at the start of the fight to protect the group from their Howl of Terror abilities, but Kagain, fast as lightning with his boots, went out of the spell area of effect before it was over. And he fell to the first howl.
The first Wolf of Ulcaster went down fast, then some Dread Wolves and Ghasts joined the fight, which required some much needed repositioning as they spawned in the backline. A single hit on Edwin or Vynd could lead them to their demise, so the remaining melee fighters tried to protect them by attacking the minions and using an Aura of Despair ability.
However, the last Wolf of Ulcaster proceeded to cast a Remove Magic spell and a Greater Malison spell during this time. As soon as the Greater Malison fired, Anselm knew the Wolf's next spell would be a devastating Howl of Terror therefore they focused on it to kill it before it could happen.
The magical creature dead, they finished the remaining foes.
With this encounter defeated, the party thought good to look in the Arcane Sanctum. A very difficult dungeon under Ulcaster Ruins. They fought some very powerful Skeleton Warriors and Skeleton Archers with Arrows of Detonation but prevailed for a time.
But a bit later, things started to go wrong as they fought a powerful spellcaster with a permanent Improved Alacrity, who started to pelt Anselm with Magic Missile at phenomenal speed. He protected himself from them with the Horn of Kazgaroth and blocked most of the damage. Then the Mage attacked him with a powerful Lightning Bolt, leaving him with 22 HP and he was already casting another spell of the same sort (red casting animation, casting time 3, either Lightning Bolt or Fireball) toward him.
Anselm fled as fast as possible from him with his Boots of Haste to gain some time to recover his action of the round, the spell fired, it was a Fireball spell. It took some times to travel to him, during the process of which Anselm switched his equipment to increase his Fire Resistance, he also had the time to drink a Critical Healing Potion (30hp) just before the impact. The Fireball did 14 damage thanks to the reduction, so he could have survived even without the potion but still, he decided to send Vynd to kill him from afar with Poison Weapon and his natural Magic Resistance.
It went very nicely.
Afterward, they triggered a trap which casted a Dire Charm spell on Anselm. The Blackguard tried to cut down Vynd for more or less 20 seconds, but he survived.
This place was pretty much a nightmare, even for them. They decided it would be better to leave for now, and to come back later with some more experience, and more importantly, more Potions of Magic Shielding / Potions of Magic Resistance.
Back to the surface, the party was ambushed by three Red Wizards of Thay, who wanted to have their magical items. Anselm's party wanted the same thing to be honest, so a battle occured.
The problem was that Kagain and Anselm were far further the rest of the group because of their respective boots, so the party was splitted at first.
They had no other choice but to send Kagain to his doom to buy enough time for the rest of the group to catch them.
The three spellcasters, all under permanent Improved Alacrity, literally melted Kagain under a barrage of Magic Missiles, killing him in about 5 seconds.
But they made good use of this time, killing one of the Mages aswell. Dorn went into melee, Vynd also started to throw some poisoned attacks. A second Mage fell, the last one was about to go down, but just before he died, he instakilled Vynd with a Chromatic Orb spell which went through his Magic Resistance and his saves.
Anselm knew he could have been the target of this spell.
They went back to the Beregost Temple, raised their deads and were assaulted by the Flaming Fist and the Morninglord Guards as soon as they entered the city, but prevailed in the end.
This is my Bhaalspawn, Yelsew. He's a jester, very impulsive, has alignment swings, and is generally Chaotic Neutral. Male Fighter 5 voiceset, for those who want to understand his character better.
This is Grynda, my melee healer. Not much to say about her. Going to try to keep her on defensive and healing spells mostly, and group buffs. Studded leather can only protect you so much.
This is Quinn. If any of you have heard the Male Bard soundset for IWD2, that's Quinn. Pretty self-centered. I'm going to try and make him my DPS, as is appropriate for a Swashbuckler. He also is my utility thief, with maxed out Open Locks and Find Traps.
This is Evebil. He's with the first thief soundset for IWD. I'm going to keep him as a backup melee, even though his backstabbing will be outrageous, eventually. Until then...shortbow.
This is Bartholomew. He is also a Cleric/Thief. He pickpockets and detects illusions. He will be a bit more offensive and summon-y than Grynda.
This is my other bard, Jane. Whereas Yelsew is more of a fighter/bard, Jane is more of a mage/bard. She will be our main spellcaster until Yelsew gets some Elven Chain.
The party's working through Château Irenicus slowly, partially from having all odds stacked against them, partially from a lot of micromanaging. I think I installed a BP-Tactics option that replaces the goblins with duergar, but that could be from somewhere else.
They are harder than goblins. Luckily, luck is on the side of the rogue. We shall see if I can even make it out of the starting dungeon. Lack of equipment doesn't help much.
Btw SCS also offers a component that replaces the Goblins with Duergar.
Her first explorations of the city, Scintilla carried out invisibly. That proved wise when she walked into an ambush in a dead end street. Rather than getting away, the Gnome decided to confront the (five) villains. Out of their sight she summoned five Skeletons, buffed with PfE 10' Radius, Ghost Armor, and Haste, and cast a Cloudkill at the ambushers, followed by a Chaos. This was enough to take down three of her foes, the remaining two were dealt with in melee combat.
She found the village without difficulty, and discovered that the source of its troubles was to be found in the nearby Temple Ruins. Before heading there however she rested, and for a local Cowled Wizard she went looking for a Killer Mimic in some of the caves on the edge of town. In front of a chest that she suspected contained such a creature, she was indeed held by one while she was in the process of summoning Skeletons to deal with it. She had only summoned one at that time, but thankfully it lasted long enough to keep the Mimic from killing Scintilla before the Hold effect wore off.
Scintilla rested a second time, and summoned more Skeletons in the Cowled Wizard's home, where something went wrong with the activation of a Stone Golem, causing it to become hostile. Unlike others of its kind, the Golem was vulnerable to normal weapons, so its destruction wasn't difficult to bring about.
Scintilla returned to Athkatla where she bought the Robe of Vecna, and left the city soon after, to help another troubled town, Trademeet. It had two problems: incessant animal attacks likely caused by vindictive Druids, and a number of Dao Djinns that had crippled all trade in Trademeet. She first sought out the Shadow Druids. Invisibly, she traversed the wilderness in which the Druids had set up their base (making sure to pick up a pair of Bracers of Archery and an enchanted scimitar on the way). Right in front of the Shadow Druid stronghold she had her Skeletons kill a guard. He dropped a number of enchanted weapons, including a Club, Gnasher +2.
Before she left for Athkatla, she ran into and slew Rejiek the skinner, and she dispatched a number of Skeletons including two Warrior variants, with Sunfires and divine buffs (Holy Power, DUHM), securing the Mantle of Waukeen which she left with Trademeet's High Merchant.
Back in Athkatla, Scintilla visited the Copper Coronet, and discovered that its owner, Lethinan, exploited slaves. The Gnome Slowed a beast master who was in on the slavery, and slew him with Aganazzar's Scorchers and sling bullets for a prison key. (His pets were Cloudkilled.) Next she released the prisoners and with them, she dispatched Lethinan and his guards.
With her summoned Efreeti she dispatched a band of Hobgoblins and an Otyugh,
A number of Kobolds (interestingly already hostile, and coming toward her rather than waiting for her in their usual place) died to a Cloudkill, and so did a second group of Hobgoblins (Scintilla lured them into a Cloudkill trap).
With a number of curiosities and the solving of a riddle she became the owner of Lilarcor before she entered the Stockade extremely well-buffed (Stoneskin, Remove Fear, PfE, MGoI, Fireshields Red & Blue, PfNW, and Haste). Two Sunfires, a Divine Wrath and foes hurting themselves on Scintilla's Fireshields soon saw most of the Slavers killed.
A woman named Valen wanted Scintilla to meet her mistress at the Graveyard District. Scintilla first went to the Adventurer Mart where she bought Vhailor's Helm, and then went to see Valen's mistress, Bodhi. She offered the Gnome a means to get to Irenicus and Imoen, at 15k GP (which was cheaper than another offer she had received from a rogue in the Slums). However most of that sum she had just spent on Vhailor's Helm, so Bodhi would have to wait.
Also at the Graveyard District, Scintilla dug up a man named Tirdir, who had been buried alive, and she ran into the restless spirit of a young boy that wanted its teddy bear. The Gnome humored the spirit by retrieving the bear from a Dwarf in the Copper Coronet, and she went looking for Tirdir's buriers in the Bridge District. On her way however she was ambushed by three thugs that had just poisoned a man. Scintilla cast a Holy Smite, and then retreated in order to safely Sunfire the thugs without hurting the poisoned man. Soon the thugs were all dead, allowing Scintilla to take their victim to the Docks District for medical care as fast as possible, although a mad Priest of Cyric held her up for a while. PfNW, Stoneskins, and Fireshields meant there was little the Cleric could do against her, but he had three potions of superior healing that kept him going for quite a while.
Good luck to your Roguealogue party!
Scintilla sought to contract Sir Sarles the sculptor (whose voiceset is terrific imo) to make a sculpture for the Temple of Helm. The artist only wished to work with true illithium however, and not with the lump of fake illithium that Scintilla offered him. The alloy did please the Helmites though. Scintilla reached Cleric level 11 here, which opened up access to lvl 6 spells). She obtained 200 lbs of real illithium, from a thief named Neb and with the help of her Aerial Servant,
Below the Graveyard District Scintilla encountered a spiders' den. She slew the Spiders with the help of her Efreeti's and her own fire magics.
In Waukeen's Promenade, she saved a rogue named Sansuki from three attacking vampires. Her Holy Smites and, again, her Aerial Servant were very convincing even though the summons suffered repeated level drains.
She decided to go to the Docks District to see if anyone at the Shadow Thieves Guildhouse had anything of interest to say to her, but was accosted by Xzar, a wizard that asked him to help his captive friend Montaron escape from a Harper compound where he was held captive. Before she was allowed entry into the Harper building, Rylock, the man she had previously delivered poisoned Renfeld to, requested her to dispatch two evil monster summomning wizards, Prebek and Sanasha. This she did, leaving most of the dirty work to Kitthix (improved by a Dwarven smith named Cromwell) and her Efreeti, before she stepped in to finish the job.
At the Thieves Guild she learnt little about Imoen and Irenicus from the thieves, but she did learn that there was a probable traitor in their midst, and she was asked to find evidence of treachery on the part of one Mae'Var, the executive of a nearby guild hall. Scintilla agreed to infiltrate in Mae'Var's ranks. It took her a number of quests to gain Mae'Var's trust. The most complicated of those quests was taking out a Cowled Wizard named Rayic Gethras.
With her Skeletons still around from the encounter with the Harper assassin, Scintilla lured Rayic's Mephit guards outside for the Skeletons to deal with them.
A long, hard fight awaited her at MaeVar's guildhouse. The first few rounds were for Scintilla, whose clerical True Seeing frustrated the backstabbing Assassins, and whose summons (Kitthix, Aerial Servant, Efreeti, Skeletons) did a good job at taking out most of her foes.
Yelsew and Co. made their way to the Bridge District after killing Aerie for looking like a monster.
They were requested to solve the skinner murders by the guard captain there. After wasting their first warning from the Cowled Wizards (whoops)...
...they confronted the tanner. It was the beginning of the end. Jane used the Irenicus Wand of Cloudkill to soften up the Rune Assassins and the wizard, only to find the Rune Assassins were immune. Uh-oh. The mage took enough damage, but then left a departing gift.
Uh-oh.
If the damn Ghasts hadn't paralyzed Yelsew, I would have been able to escape. But I acted to free him too late.
Evebil was chunked, Quinn died, Yelsew and Bart were held, and it was up to Grynda and Jane....
...who failed miserably. Embarrassingly, painfully, -10/94 HP miserably.
If only I had just visited the Five Flagons first. Or done anything else first. Oh, the regret. I introduced a playthrough and now it ends.
BUT FEAR NOT! You have not heard the last of Yelsew and his merry band!
I think they will.
Wish your merry band of thieves better luck in future incarnations.
Scintilla made some more progress, though I must I'm not really happy with how I've been playing her. Defensively she's a crack with all her spell buffs. But offensively much less so. Maybe I'm too used to playing fighters and rogues, and thus to slicing up the opposition, but with Scintilla I haven't really succeeded at that yet. Perhaps I should try to go the Polymorphing/Shapechanging route (complemented with triggered Cleric buffs), a route I've never really explored before.
In her most recent violent encounters she's either buffed herself to the max to prevail in prolonged battles, or (more commonly, because it's less of a hassle than casting 10+ buffs) relied on her summons, especially the Aerial Servants, often observing the spectacles in the safety of her Sanctuaries.
The following is more of a review with a focus on tactics than a typical update readers may be used to of me. Maybe some of you folks have some recommendations.
Scintilla found her Aerial Servants and Kitthix very effective against Vampires, so she tends to leave those enemies to her summons.
I believe Tenser's does not increase APR does it? Guess I'll have to test that as well. Scintilla recently found the scroll.
"Roleplaying" forced Scintilla to not rest in the sewers after the Rakshasa battle and had her seek out Gaal right away, invisibly. Low on spells, and level drained by a trap, all she could do to prevail over Vampiric Mists who saw right through her invisibility, Hell Hounds, and Shadows that came after her, was to rely again on HP + DUHM and when those buffs expired Cloak of the Sewers Troll form.
Scintilla approached the latter foes from the back (after having snuck past them invisibly to retrieve part of a control rod from Amaunator's avatar). Her hopes of seeing her Aerials destroy the Beholders fumbled when the summons with their natural invisibility wouldn't let themselves be buffed by her.
After two trap-imposed level drains, Scintilla decided to to side with the Shadow Thieves because they promised her an Amulet of Power to protect her against level drains and to further accelrate her spell casting if she joined them. She did two jobs for them, protecting Mook, at which she failed (a Vampire slew her, though Scintilla had her Aerials deal with the Vampire), and slaying two Shadow Thieves and a Guild Contact who had allied themselves with the Shadow Thieves' rivals.
She also dealt with several Vampires that roamed abour at night, and with a band of Fallen Paladins,
In the Planar Sphere Blackraven mistook Scintilla's brand new NPP symbol (thanks to Amulet of Power) for a Stoneskin symbol. A Clay Golem made her pay for that.
Aerials showed them they were better fighters than Fire Elementals and Stone/Juggernaut Golems, but, unbuffable as they were, they didn't do as well against an Elder Orb that would give Scintilla a scare went it attempted to flee in her direction.
Scintilla's next major challenge was Lavok. The Gnome was the inferior spell caster of the two. After all Lavok had HLAs and SCS insta-buffs, she didn't (though she could of course pre-buff). She summoned two Skeletons, and had one attack him. It triggered his buffs and an ADHW that killed the Skeleton (which is funny if you take into account what that spell does: "causes evaporation of water from body of every creature in the area of spell"). The second Skeleton was treated to a Comet.
Scintilla's Vhailor's Simulacrum soaked a various spells, including two ADHWs before it succumbed.