At Candlekeep, the party quickly entered the library, killed the iron throne leaders (without using any buffs) and was arrested. Helios disarmed some traps in the dungeons, and we acquired two new tomes: Strength for Anapa, wisdom for Luna. In the second level, I used a protection from undead scroll on Helios so he could easily disarm the traps in the center and kill the skeletons as well, while the rest of the party dealt with some doppelgangers.
For the greater doppelganger, I had Luna use chant and bless and protection from evil 3' radius - I decided to save the more powerful buffs for Prat. With some lucky ranged hits and a magic missle spell, the greater doppelganger died pretty much instantly:
Now, I still had defensive harmony, haste, strength of one and remove fear ready, plus summoned skeletons - hasted, strength-buffed skeletons are quite powerful, and with the help of Anapa and some ranged support, Prat was quickly killed - and so was his party:
The remaining skeletons and a petrification-protected Goibniu took out the greater basilisks:
And it's back to Baldur's Gate!
I actually managed to never get captured and brought before Angelo this time. Goibniu met up with Tamoko, made his way to the Flaming Fist HQ (after luring some soldiers away) and Owain showed the true potential of his emotion spell:
Upstairs, another greater doppelganger had to be killed:
Goibniu brought Eltan to the harbor master and entered the Iron Throne HQ. Cythandria's ogres were distracted by skeletons while the well-buffed party took out the mage with ranged weapons. The ogres died a few rounds later:
Slythe and Krystin were quickly disposed off, and the party made their way to the duchal palace. I had prepared two sets of buffs, so I didn't have to rest before entering. I also brought some potions to increase the party's damage output: Heroism for all three fighter-type characters, cloud giant strength for Goibniu himself. Luna and Goibniu added DUHM to the usual buffs for tough encounters. Of course, skeletons were summoned as well.
With all of these preparations, it was easy to quickly kill most of the doppelgangers, and some of them even encountered pathing issues. When Owain finished his emotion spell, only two enemies were actively attacking:
The final doppelganger eventually returned, but was faced with overwhelming odds:
Naturally, both dukes survived.
Now, the vanilla BG1 content is done except for Sarevok himself. Time for more TotSC!
My last FMT isn't really dead, but Rasaad decided he couldn't continue the charade and so very many sun soul monks needlessly lost their lives. I knew I couldn't continue so restartitis hits again.
Here goes Dice, elven FMT (18/80 19 17 16 11 11) with long sword 2 pips, TWF 3 pips, next 2 pips to katana. locks and traps 100/100 and after that detect illusion then set trap.
Going with in my opinion a pretty logical party for a good charname, also trying hard not to meta too much. Playing with SCS on core. No other mods.
One thing my restartitis has done for me is help me improve my early game.
Dice and crew are just now walking towards Trademeet where they have some kind of animal problem and this is their story so far:
Escaped the dungeon > kicked Yoshimo since I was already a thief. Keeping Jaheira and Minsc since they're dependable solid characters and Dice doesn't know he can kick the them too to go gain a bit of easy exp and then recruit the NPCs he wants.
Cleared the circus > told Aerie to wait.
Payed for my casting license.
Harper quest > Jaheira stayed since I haven't been rude to her.
Picked up Aerie since I was well over 250k xp (I know a bit too meta).
Slaver quest > Told Nalia to go wait for me at her keep > Pulled slaver boss and friends to the sewers where my FMT and Minsc cut them down with Aerie tossing in slow, holy blight, chant and bless, Jaheira in bear form is surprisingly useful since she can run away when targeted. The room with 2 casters were doable with FMT scouting and Aerie throwing in a stinking cloud followed by silence and everyone else equipped with ranged weapons, a few guards escaped to fight but the wizards died from poison and fire arrows. Actually turning in the quest had me followed by the crazy berserker guard outside in the slums (am I the only one who thinks he's just a tad too powerful?), the 2 ruffians that have a dialogue in the SE corner of the slums (that I thought I had already dispatched) and a random spawn of thieves with invis potions (of which sadly noone dropped a single invis potion), also my FMT was unbuffed and unarmored so a lot of kiting was involved.
Bridge murder > Just to be able to complete it at Trademeet. Fled from the fight though, 2 rune assassins and a bone golem with a low level party with no spells, no thank you.
Here we are now at the first well deserved rest with a tad over 400k xp on Dice and crew and with quite a bit of cash. Also 28 potions of extra healing and 4 haste potions left.
I don't have a really solid reason for Trademeet before De'Arnise RP wise except Jaheira wanted us to go there. But it is so much easier and gives better rewards, Minsc has a lot of exp left til he gets his second pip in flails after all.
I don't expect things to continue this smoothly and will start resting a lot to try to stay safe.
The party travelled to the Isle of Balduran first; After accepting all of the quests, the northern part of the island was explored. With skeletons, magical arrows, bullets and darts, killing wolves and wolfweres wasn't too hard - soon it was time to enter the shipwreck.
This is where I started using massive amounts of potions - since there's not much space to move, everyone is going to be involved in melee combat, and with poor ac scores, terrible hp scores and the wolfwere's high damage output, that didn't seem like an inviting prospect - so everyone used the following potions: Agility, defense, fortitude, strength (more powerful versions for the three fighter-type characters, who also drank a potion of heroism each) - add to that all of the usual buffs for tougher battles, and we have a party with really great ac scores, at least average hp scores, good thac0 and high damage - exactly what I need, though of course, that means a lot of my potions are now gone.
Anyway, the party quickly fought through the first couple of shipwreck levels without looting anything to keep short duration buffs active. Before facing Karoug, short duration buffs were renewed, and Owain cast invisibilty 10' radius. The party surrounded Daese and killed her instantly:
The other wolfweres were focused down one by one, with the party taking almost no damage at all. Karoug was the last to fall:
While most of the spell-based buffs ran out while the party fought their way through the werewolf village, the potions were still active when fighting Kaishas, which meant she didn't stand a chance:
Back in Ulgoth's Beard, I decided to rest before challenging Mendas. For the people using the weapons capable of hurting the Loup Garou, I once again used strength potions and heroism (better thac0 is needed due to a lack of weapon proficiencies), though no defensive potions this time. Anapa with his naturally good thac0 dealt most of the damage:
Next time, Goibniu will travel to Durlag's Tower - in my opinion the scariest place in BG1 when it comes to no-reloading, especially for a randomized party.
Success at Shaengarne doesn't always last, as the next area--the Horde Fortress--is another high-pressure area with sturdy spellcasters and large groups of enemies who will aggressively flank the party. But we've scrimped and saved enough to handle another jump in difficulty. By selling some of our best equipment, we can afford an upgrade for Asriel that will last for the rest of the game.
At well over 100,000 gold, this sword is one of the most expensive items in all the Infinity Engine games. But it's worth it. The extra +4 generic AC from haste, the +25 HP, and the Freedom of Movement make the Golden Heart of Frisk a stellar defensive asset, which we desperately need given Asriel's low Constitution.
This is what the party looks like:
They're all so cute! Picking out the right fanart for these portraits was a good investment. No-reload runs are more fun if you have an interesting character to work with.
Even though Asriel has a +5 weapon and constant effect haste, Chara's Spear of Justice is still our deadliest weapon...
...but the Golden of Heart of Frisk actually makes Asriel a superior tank, as his AC is more reliable than Chara's damage resistances.
Chara got an upgrade of their own after hitting druid level 7, but currently they only get one use of it per day: Fomorian Giant form.
The Fomorian Fist stuns the target for 3 seconds (less than half a round in IWD2 time) on a failed Fortitude save at DC 15. It's not enough to reliably stunlock anybody, but it will prevent off a few attacks.
The problem with the Horde Fortress is that enemies can spawn endless teams of Goblin Worg Riders by hitting a drum. If you let certain enemies reach the drum, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed. Destroying the drums, or the enemies who can use them, is always the top priority. We sneak across the bridge, using Asriel to absorb the trap damage (we don't have room for thief levels in our party), and Chara breaks invisibility to distract the enemies, allowing Frisk to snipe the drummer without getting mobbed in the process.
So much in the IE games depends on positioning and timing. If I didn't pick just the right time and place for Frisk and Chara and Asriel to break invisibility, we could have seen Frisk end up dead.
With the Orc Shaman disabled, Frisk can finally cast Mirror Image. They scoot down south, exposing themselves to the southwestern archers' fire, so that the more dangerous group of enemies to the north focuses on Chara. Asriel, our fastest character thanks to the Golden Heart of Frisk's haste effect, runs up north to engage a goblin spellcaster who otherwise would have stayed out of range.
In low-magic fights in the Infinity Engine games, most of the strategy is nothing but positioning.
The real challenge here is Trugnuk, a mid-level shaman who casts Call Lightning directly within range of the nearest drum. To destroy the drum and avoid being ruthlessly flanked, you need to get perilously close to Trugnuk and his many hard-hitting goons. And if you try to stop Trugnuk from launching that devastating Call Lightning spell, your neglect of the drum will bring Goblin Worg Riders dashing in from the west.
How do we divide our attention here? Will o' Wisp form is the answer, as it can soak up Trugnuk's spells while Asriel is busy cutting up the drum. Unfortunately, traps and some lucky strikes leave Chara in horrible shape when they finally arrive...
And the Will o' Wisp form's 100 spell resistance is still not foolproof somehow. Maybe it's because spell resistance is supposed to be capped at 50, and Will o' Wisps have 100.
Asriel's healing spells might not be fast enough to rescue Chara, so they drink a potion from the inventory screen.
Chara is still badly hurt, but hopefully their AC will hold out for another few seconds at least.
Even though Chara is the one with spell resistance, I send Asriel out to tackle Trugnuk instead. He can reach Trugnuk more quickly thanks to haste, and Chara is seriously struggling to move, getting boxed in by several enemies.
Frisk has finally arrived, having gotten lost across the bridge previously, but their Chromatic Orb spells fail to make the impact we're looking for.
Fireball, too, has little impact, since Asriel is getting in the way and limiting Frisk's targeting.
The solution? I have Asriel use his high movement rate to jump out of the way so Frisk can land a direct hit on Trugnuk. Chara stays in place, as Fireball cannot harm them so long as they're in Will o' Wisp form.
This fight wasn't nearly as awful as I had feared. The Horde Fortress is pretty wicked normally, but I managed to get rid of the war drums without losing focus on spellcasters like Trugnuk. The Golden Heart of Frisk made this possible. It was worth bankrupting the party to purchase it.
As a level 7 sorcerer, Frisk can paralyze enemies for 13 rounds with Chromatic Orb, and there are lots of IWD2 enemies with poor Reflex saves, at least in the early game.
Chara's Fomorian Fist also works wonders against enemy spellcasters, who are getting very sturdy as more and more of them cast Mirror Image.
In my haste to get through the dungeon, I accidentally turn poor Pondmuk hostile.
I was going to kill him anyway by triggering his ambush, but this way feels kinda mean. We're nice to Vunarg, though, who leads his people away from the tunnels to go do evil things someplace else.
The Fire Trolls in this area give us a friendly reminder that Chara's Verbeeg form is far from invincible...
...and an Orc Shaman reminds us that, no matter how strong we are, a single spell can take down all of our defenses if we roll a bad Will save.
Levels don't affect the success rate for Dispel Magic in IWD2. It's entirely based on Will saves, so there's always a 5% chance of losing all dispellable effects, no matter how many you have or where they came from. We're doing well in this area, so I keep going from one fight to the next without resting. It's faster, but it's risky. One strange thing about this area is that the enemy's resistances are inconsistent.
Ice Trolls are vulnerable to fire and crushing damage, but resistant to cold and slashing damage, since they look like ice crystals. Fire Trolls, however, are vulnerable to slashing damage, but resistant to crushing damage, fire damage, and... cold damage. You'd think their crystalline appearance would mean they were just Ice Trolls with their fire and cold resistances flipped.
Another disturbing lesson comes at the end of the area, when we're almost out of spells. Turns out Freedom of Movement does not block stun effects in IWD2.
If Freedom of Movement doesn't block stun effects, I don't know what will, and lord knows this won't be the last we see of stun effects. This could be a problem.
We have no way of dispelling the stun effect, either, which lasts for three rounds, but Chara manages to save Asriel by switching to Will O' Wisp form and distracting the enemy.
We survive the encounter, but yet another long, high-intensity fight is coming right up, and there are so many enemies that finding a safe spot is nearly impossible.
Stopping by the orcs' petting zoo and petting the cute animals fills us with determination.
I swapped Mazzy for Cernd, after saving her sister and headed off to sort the druids out of the shadows.
The area had trolls and some spiders guarding valuable loot... I laid six traps around a potion merchant then killed her before the other cats could get between us.
The actual challenge is easy; fire elemental, insect plague and werewolf bets iron skin + whatever else she had in mind then we killed the tent guard before he could teleport away with my new bottle.
I then swapped Mazzy back in and dealt with an undead issue to collect some elven armour and its time to head back into the city with the bribe money to start Imoens' rescue.
@ussnorway: Do you fight Taquee before or after Khan Zahraa? If you fight Taquee first, I don't think he ever teleports away--or at least, you can box him before he turns hostile and prevent him from running. Khan Zahraa never teleports away, though Fafiraah always will vanish when KZ dies.
This next fight is very long and very intense, with multiple enemy spellcasters and hordes of archers and melee grunts who come in waves. I normally use an Improved Alacrity item to hasten buffing, but for big fights like this when the extra duration matters, I cast buffs normally. Looks like we can't pre-cast Call Lightning, though.
I could rest to get back that spell, but I'd rather not wait. We enter the fight more or less at full strength and Frisk takes out one of the archers flanking us.
Those archers use Arrows of Flame +1 and they hit pretty hard. It's in our best interest to kill them quickly, both for the sake of our safety and the profit of our post-battle looting.
Why didn't we cast Invisibility 10' Radius first? Alas, we had to sell Caballus' staff to afford the Golden Heart of Frisk.
The fight doesn't pick up for a few seconds, so Chara starts casting Call Lightning. It removes another troublesome archer from combat.
Soon the enemies descend upon us, and Chara switches to Verbeeg form to handle the enemy Verbeegs. Wary of failing a critical save, Frisk preempts a dangerous enemy spell.
Chromatic Orb is just so strong once you hit level 5 and 7. We remove the remaining archers while Chara tanks a cluster of enemies on the stairs nearby.
Multiple enemy spellcasters converge on us, and we don't have enough party members to cut through their Mirror Image spells. We're going to have to tough out their spells.
Chara is doing great against the enemy grunts, but we have a critical problem. [spoiler]
The Verbeeg form is great against missile attacks, but flaming arrows burn right through Chara's resistances. And with their 9 AC, Chara is going to get hit basically every time. They switch to Will o' Wisp form to avoid burning up. It proves even more important than I thought; Chara would have gotten crushed by enemy magic had they remained in Verbeeg form.
I am still saving Fomorian Giant form for later in the battle, as it's our heaviest hitter.
Asriel's attack on an archer earlier on earned us some extra arrows, but it also put him in a very bad spot. Now on the upper level, he cannot hide behind Chara. Unless he flees from the fight entirely, he is within range of the enemy's spells, and though his saving throws are strong, he's still not safe from pure damage.
There are a LOT of Ice Lance spells in this fight, and each one can stun on a failed Fortitude save, making them deadly against mages and sorcerers like Frisk.
More enemies march in from the west, but a hostile Entangle spell holds them back. Frisk concentrates on taking down the enemy archers from before, using a crossbow to conserve spells.
I don't want to use Fireball just yet, when the enemy mages I'm most worried about would probably just block it with Mirror Image.
Asriel's saving throws are excellent, mostly thanks to our buffs (as a paladin, he gets save bonuses from Charisma, but his Charisma is only 12), but they can't block everything. Eventually, he rolls a 1 and gets stunned by an Ice Lance.
Asriel is in the worst place he could be. With a bunch of enemies blocking our way, we can't run over to heal him or hide him with Improved Invisibility. Worse yet, he's surrounded by foes who are too distant to distract and too numerous to stop.
Asriel makes his save against a second Ice Lance, but 1d4 rounds of stun is all it takes. His AC was his best defense, but AC is meaningless when you're disabled.
The enemies turn their attention to Chara. Chara's AC is excellent and spells like Ice Lance will do nothing to them, but I'm concerned that the pressure may be too much. Frisk hurls out a Fireball, hoping to break the fight before the enemy catches us by surprise.
When the enemy grows thin, Frisk runs out to grab Asriel's equipment, just in case we need to flee, only to put themselves in the way of IWD2's only magic attack.
Frisk needs both Shield and Mirror Image to handle enemy arrows, I think, and I'm not sure they can get both spells off the ground before getting killed. As soon as Frisk reaches Asriel's body, they equip the Golden Heart of Frisk and drink our only Potion of Invisibility.
To my dismay, I find that the enemies won't leave Frisk alone.
I think the problem is that breaking Improved Invisibility lets enemies target you even after you use a normal Invisibility effect. Whatever the case, Frisk is in trouble.
With their aura clouded by Mirror Image, Frisk can't stop an incoming Dispel Magic without a lucky attack roll. Instead, I have Chara drink an Oil of Fiery Burning. By drinking it from the inventory screen instead of a quick item slot (which is disabled when shapeshifted anyway), it explodes instantly, without the normal 1-2 second delay.
When it proves a success, I do it again. Now that Frisk knows Fireball, I'm not so worried about using up Oil of Fiery Burning potions.
The area soon goes clear.
I could leave and resurrect Asriel, but I'd like to finish up this area first. Chara tanks the next batch of enemies in Will o' Wisp form. Frisk inches closer but has to flee when the enemy spots them despite their invisibility.
The Will o' Wisp is making slow progress, so I decide to speed things up by switching to the Spear of Justice.
But the Verbeeg form isn't quite as sturdy, so I switch back to Will o' Wisp form. When the enemy begins to crumple, I switch to Fomorian Giant form to end things quickly.
There are only a few enemies left, but it turns out they're too dangerous for Chara to survive in Fomorian form. A new set of flaming arrows starts to burn through Chara's HP.
Chara switches to Will o' Wisp form one last time. The enemy can still do awful things if it lands critical hits...
...But Chara finishes off the last of the enemies safely. After gathering our loot, we raise Asriel at a tremendous cost.
Chara gains another level and gets an even stronger shapeshift than the Fomorian Giant. They now can turn into a Remorhaz, dealing even more damage, plus fire damage on hit, and having even higher damage resistances, including 15- resistance to fire damage.
We CTRL-J all the way back to the fortress and step inside. There's an Old Orc here with gobs of HP that constantly taunts you while you very slowly wear him down, but a poor roll against Chromatic Orb neutralizes him. Chara tries out their new Remorhaz form.
We eavesdrop on a conversation between two Legion of the Chimera members. Sherincal is lecturing Guthma, who must feel awfully sheepish. Poor guy.
Hearing a sexy blue lady discuss our awesomeness fills us with determination.
This area is crawling with spellcasters, and there's very little room to move around in. Somehow the Remorhaz form manages to fit, giving us a strong Fireball tank as long as Asriel stays out of the way.
In IWD2's Tactics mod, almost all mid-level spellcasters use Improved Invisibility on top of Mirror Image, which makes them extremely difficult to hit. Asriel has invested in the Blind Fight feat, cutting the Improved Invisibility miss chance in half, but it still makes things awfully slow.
When we do land a hit, though, we hit really hard.
Druid shapeshifting in my install isn't game-breaking (not even Will o' Wisp form), but their damage output, if not tanking ability, rivals a properly equipped and buffed cleric.
IWD2 does not implement size modifiers in any way, which leads to goofy nonsense like this:
Chara destroys the remaining spellcasters of the area. Only one fight is left in this chapter: Guthma himself. A unique sound track plays for this rather underwhelming fight.
Frisk has hit level 10 and can now cast Chaos, with an almost-unbeatable save DC of 29. Of course, some critters will always be immune.
On the whole, IWD2 enemies have almost no immunities, but sometimes there are exceptions. It doesn't really matter. As a melee fighter, Guthma is nothing Chara can't bludgeon into submission. We get flanked by spellcasters, but Chromatic Orb from our now-fully-rested Frisk is enough to pin them down.
There's a lot of random loot in this area. We have no thief levels to unlock containers or disarm traps, but Chara can tank traps with Will o' Wisp form and break locks with Remorhaz form.
Even without mods, druid shapeshifting is enough to break open almost every lock in the game, rendering thieves totally unnecessary.
We rescue Braston from the depopulated fortress and lead him over the bodies back to his beloved Ennelia. The chapter is finally over. Soon, we will leave Targos forever.
@ussnorway: Do you fight Taquee before or after Khan Zahraa? If you fight Taquee first, I don't think he ever teleports away--or at least, you can box him before he turns hostile and prevent him from running. Khan Zahraa never teleports away, though Fafiraah always will vanish when KZ dies.
I surround the guard with all but one of my characters and hit him as hard as possible
Before the end of that round i.e, before the two inside the tent turn hostile I jump to my guy inside and hand in the tiger head, there by getting the full quest rewards of experience and the +2 sword
Now you have to the end of this round to finish killing the guard before he teleports out. If you manage it then you get the bottle as well as other quest rewards with no reaction penalty but even if you can't kill him then he just leaves with the bottle... No harm no foul.
@ussnorway: Do you fight Taquee before or after Khan Zahraa? If you fight Taquee first, I don't think he ever teleports away--or at least, you can box him before he turns hostile and prevent him from running. Khan Zahraa never teleports away, though Fafiraah always will vanish when KZ dies.
I surround the guard with all but one of my characters and hit him as hard as possible
Before the end of that round i.e, before the two inside the tent turn hostile I jump to my guy inside and hand in the tiger head, there by getting the full quest rewards of experience and the +2 sword
Now you have to the end of this round to finish killing the guard before he teleports out. If you manage it then you get the bottle as well as other quest rewards with no reaction penalty but even if you can't kill him then he just leaves with the bottle... No harm no foul.
Not sure what bottle you are talking about. I've always just gone inside with the head.
We make one last stop by Deirdre before speaking to Oswald, but in the end I decide to save our money for future purchases. Aside from the Golden Heart of Frisk, Deirdre's items are generally weaker than future versions.
Chara continues to dominate the scene. Even heavy-hitting enemies have trouble getting through her resistances without critical hits. Frisk's Chromatic Orbs are still consistently fatal.
Even Beodaewn (I hate that unpronounceable name) can't resist Chara's attacks. Frisk's Fireball clears out Beodaewn's followers, not even scratching Chara's fire-resistant Remorhaz form.
We've got a troublesome fight up ahead against some Aurilite druids and rangers. In IWD2 Tactics, the druids will use Call Lightning to devastating effect, and by standing on unreachable ledges with Storm Shell active, they are very difficult to kill quickly.
The first phase is melee-oriented. Chara holds off the west enemies; Asriel the north. Most of the enemies have poor Reflex saves, but Odea Winterthaw is very fast, and easily dodges Frisk's evocation spells.
Interrupting Call Lightning spells is dicey. Turns out the druids have some peculiar immunities.
If I can't disrupt those spells, I have to evade them. I pull back Asriel and Frisk so the druids can't zap them. The enemy doesn't know Chara themself has Call Lightning active, so they don't know enough to dodge it.
That damage bonus comes from Scion of Storms, which grants 5- electricity resistance and a 20% boost to electricity damage.
Chara is tough enough to handle the enemies on their own. Storm Shell can block the Remorhaz's fire damage, but not its even higher crushing damage.
Frisk casts Improved Invisibility on the party and we sneak through the trap to Andora. It's supposed to soften you up for the next fight, but it's not really all that strong.
This allows us to slip out of Ilium Ar'Ghrenwoir's range. Ilium uses a powerful crossbow and strikes from out of range, but he or she can't move from their spot. It's better for us to defeat the other enemies before engaging Ilium.
IWD2 has ledges, but there's no such thing as height in the Infinity Engine, so you can strike an enemy on a cliffside if you're close enough.
Chara shows off their lethal Call Lightning strikes, while Asriel shows off his nigh-impenetrable Will save.
Chara can't quite reach Ilium in Remorhaz form, so they switch to Will o' Wisp form and wait for Call Lightning to strike. Ilium takes a savage blow.
When Ilium's bolts go right through the Will o' Wisp form's high AC, Chara switches back to Remorhaz form to boost their damage resistance. Meanwhile, Frisk gets charmed right after launching a Chromatic Orb at Ilium.
Even fully buffed, not all of our saves are really strong. It seems Frisk's Will save is less than half of Asriel's.
Lucky for us, Frisk's Chromatic Orb, still in the air, takes out Ilium despite Ilium's impressive Reflex save.
Asriel hurries over to kill Ilium before Chromatic Orb wears off. Chara joins him on the second level to help deal with the remaining enemies.
Only a few enemies remain. Chara finishes them off in Fomorian Giant form...
...and stays behind in Will o' Wisp form while Frisk and Asriel flee. This allows us to loot the place without getting zapped in the process. Static Charge and Call Lightning trigger even after the caster is dead, making it easy for them to catch you by surprise.
Notice that Chara has evasion now. They took a single level in monk, partly for evasion but mostly because it would allow them to get a +5 AC bonus from Wisdom while in Will o' Wisp form.
With Ilium dead, we can finally get the Belladonna to fix Oswald's ship.
Even if you give him the mending spell ingredients, his ship won't take off until after you're gone, even though the whole point of using his ship was to get you moving.
Icewind Dale 2 has a strangely meandering path after Oswald's crash. IWD2 kind of throws you around; there are so many unrelated places to get through before you can reach the Severed Hand.
It seems that the Legion of the Chimera is very well aware of the problems we've been causing.
It must be awfully frustrating to be leading a large conventional army and then seeing your efforts fall apart because of three people traveling in secret. How would you defend yourself against an enemy too small to see?
We've been doing okay for a while and buffing takes forever (due to a weird bug, using the Improved Initiative workaround fusses with my custom buffing item), so I decide to proceed to the next fight without buffs. That was a mistake; this one is tougher than I thought.
Frisk invested all their feats in Spell Focus: Enchantment and Evocation; they don't have Subvocal Casting. Without Vocalize either, all they can do is hurl Lamp Oil and fire bolts from Ilium's crossbow.
Without buffs, the enemy hits us much more easily and we don't strike nearly as hard, and with Frisk silenced, we can't disrupt the enemy's spells.
In the past, these barbarians were a non-issue thanks to Chromatic Orb. With Frisk silenced, I see how tough they can be. Chara's damage resistances aren't enough to protect them without Stoneskin active.
Chara gets weaker. We switch to Will o' Wisp form to improve their terrible AC. The Scion of Storms feat boosts Chara's attack damage now.
We finally slay one of the stronger barbarians, and Chara starts to recover from their previous shellacking with some higher-end potions.
But we find that even the Will o' Wisp form doesn't have the AC to hold off the enemy.
Turns out Chara was wearing armor, which gives no bonus when shapeshifted but will still disable a monk's Wisdom bonus. IWD2 doesn't forbid you from changing armor during fights, so they take it off and get an extra 5 AC.
Asriel heals Chara and Frisk recovers from silence. With Frisk on hand, the battle is over; the enemy barbarians don't have the Will save or Reflex save to handle Frisk's magic.
That went a lot worse than I expected. I can't afford to run into battles unbuffed; it's just not safe.
We move on and Chara shows off their strength against a Crystal Golem--a powerful foe for most parties.
The next group of enemies, Aurilite Frosttouches, have a habit of flooding the area with undead summons and protecting themselves with high-end cleric spells. But Frisk has a solution, and even magic-resistant Vrasillus can't stop a Call Lightning from Chara.
Will o' Wisp is great for traps, as the deadlier traps in IWD2 use spells.
We've got another two fights coming up that can be rather intense. Once we take down the next group of enemies, we get a Fire Storm raining on our heads, followed by a magic-resistant fighter, Lord Rengar, who can chop us up in short order. But with the right buffs, Chara should be able to resist both the fire damage and Rengar.
Remorhaz sometimes fire off Sol's Searing Orbs, which do tremendous damage and require no attack roll. Against a Will o' Wisp, they do nothing.
The same fire resistance lets us launch Fireballs right on top of Chara. Soon the way is clear.
The Fire Storm trap does nothing to Chara, though we find that Will o' Wisp is helpless to damage Lord Rengar. Chromatic Orbs also fail to harm him.
Rengar fails to dispel our buffs, which could have been very dangerous. Chara switches to Remorhaz form to deal crushing rather than electricity damage. Frisk's spells can't touch Rengar, but Chara once again breaks the fight.
The Cult of the Dragon Necromancers start out neutral, but they'll flank you if you proceed without fighting them. The necromancers have several buffs, but due to their specialty, they can't cast Mirror Image, the best defensive spell in IWD2.
Chaos has a +4 penalty to its saving throw, much like in the other games, and works reliably even against spellcasters. Frisk's Chaos spell has a DC of 30, when most enemies's Will saves don't reach 10. That's a 95% success rate against almost everything.
Asriel has finally gotten level 5 spells and can now grant himself spell resistance. No longer is Chara our only Fireball tank.
It's still a tad risky, though, since it's only high enough to resist about half of Frisk's spells. It will be more important in shielding him from enemy spells than from Frisk's.
We've got another tough battle coming up, with multiple spellcasters and a very resilient sexy blue lady to fight. Sherincal.
Before we go, we rescue another gnomish merchant from the belly of a Remorhaz.
We rescue his pet spider and reunite them. Playing with Aocha the friendly spider fills us with determination.
Durlag's Tower - a tough place for my randomized party. Enemies like skeleton warriors, greater doppelgangers or flesh golems kill most members of my party within seconds, unless the right buffs/potions are used, so once again I have to summon skeletons whenever I can. Luna or Goibniu can tank a little bit, but it's risky and not a great plan in general. I have to be very careful.
Helios started disarming various traps while invisbile, so they won't get in the way while fighting. The first tougher battle was against the three greater doppelgangers near the library - an encounter that ended one of my previous randomized party challenges.
I managed to lure the doppelgangers down to the library one by one into waiting skeletons, ranged weapon users with +2 ammunition and magic missle spells by Owain:
Amazingly, I managed to keep at least some skeletons alive for almost the entire level, and thus the party was able to progress carefully, but relatively quickly. However, I decided to go outside to rest before fighting the 4 sin personifications. I prepared with the usual buffs, plus heroism potions for the three fighters and one of my many giant strength potions for Goibniu (I have enough of those that one of them is active pretty much all the time by now, making Goibniu a passable melee fighter - only his hp are still quite low).
Shortly after starting the battle and moving to a better position, Anapa was dire charmed. I thought this spell would hit one of the skeletons instead - I was sure Anapa wasn't being targeted, otherwise I would've used a potion of clarity. Oh well:
Goibniu retreated, knowing how much damage Anapa can deal. A good plan, as it turned out, because the next spell, skull trap, killed Anapa instantly - it also destroyed most of the skeletons and heavily wounded the enemies themselves:
The party eventually managed to kill most enemies with their ranged weapons, though I had no choice but to engange the final opponent in melee combat;
Luckily, there are enough healing potions in Durlag's Tower, so I used them liberally. The battle was won, and the party returned to Nashkell, resurrecting Anapa, resting and returning to the tower.
Level 2: A little bit easier, since magic missle spells and ranged weapons are enough to deal with the various doppelgangers around there, though I once again had to use some healing potions. Also, this was propably my first time not accidentally triggering any traps in this level. I ended up not having to use skeletons and buffs at all, so I could save them all for the dwarven doom guard fight at the end. Using some more strength potion for my fighters helped as well, since I had to engage in melee combat. Anapa is really useful in situations like this if he doesn't get targeted. Luckily, the doom guards mostly attacked skeletons, so they stood no chance:
After resting, the party entered the next level. I started with the western path and encountered no trouble there. The middle path was next - some remaining protection from undead scrolls did all the work:
The eastern path did cost me all five skeletons, but was eventually cleared.
Now, the elemental rooms - the fission slime was killed with Luna's wand of the heavens, the air room was a matter of simple combat. For the ice room, I had Goibniu use a potion and scroll to make him immune to frost damage, so he simply stood there, immune to his foes:
Now, before entering the fire room, I prepared for the chessboard. Aside from the usual buffs, I had everyone use potions and scrolls to make my entire party immune to both lightning and fire damage - so I could move around the chessboard freely and spam fireballs via potions, necklaces, spells and wands.
This is basically the strategy: Just start spamming all available fireball charges on everything, since I won't really need them later:
Time for the final level!
The spider room was cleared with the help of skeletons:
For the southern area, everyone drank a potion of freedom - I also used some more giant strength potions, and I had to use lots and lots of healing potions (more than in every other area). Still, there was no real danger for my party:
With Greal's death, only the demon knight was left. My potion choices mostly served to maximize ranged damage, so I used heroism for the fighters once again, and some more potions of agilty. Luna also summoned skeletons upon entering the area, sending them to the enemy first, so he would focus his spells on them.
The demon knight immediately used dispel magic, only hitting Anapa, who was, of course, in melee range. I realized that his second spell, a devastating fireball, was targeted at the half-orc kensai as well, so I quickly equipped him with my two fire resistance rings and moved him away from the party and the skeletons:
Anapa returned to melee combat, but was hit with a symbol: stun - however, Goibniu got some good hits in, using arrows of dispelling:
And before the demon knight could even hit the stunned Anapa, he was slain by the party!
Durlag's Tower is done, and I'll save the return to Ulgoth's Beard for the next post.
We returned to the slums too find two groups wanting to be our pals... Valygar unlocked his uncles magic spear and we told him to wait for us inside as we pop back to the inn.
I swapped Mazzy out for Anomen, after she won a pit fight (with potion) then agreed to help two other girls with their problems... One is a long ways off but the other is just inside the grave yard so Hexxat is first.
The tomb has some minor shadows + one dangerous vampire but I have a sharman in the group so domination isn't a concern... The extra Cleric was useful against undead but he grates and has started hitting on me so no thanks.
Trio no reload (Gate70, Grond0, Corey_Russell attempt 3, session 7)
Session 7 starts with the party standing next to Gaelan Bayle with their pockets somewhat emptier than before. Aran Linvail is visited, handing over an Amulet (Unyo) and ring (Coretank)
Renfeld is returned to the Harper Hold, meaning Xzar and his peons perish shortly afterwards. Coretank wipes the traces of fireball out of his eyes, Unyo belatedly realising his decision not to protect the Undead Hunter against flames to be a misjudgement of Pins' clear the room strategy.
Lassal is kicked out of the docks in short order so the party can head to the Temple district in search of a gaudy necklace. Unyo smells trouble below their feet and Coretank takes on a new aroma thanks to a cloak retrieved from the sewers. Coretank creates more of a stink while playing with the local wildlife.
Rayic Gethras puts up a brave fight. Coretank is in his face while Pins is providing ranged distraction. Unyo casts an Insect Plague on his own nymph and they swarm all over Rayic. Down he goes.
Mae'Var's goons take full advantage of Pins' reticence to wear armour, or to purchase Stoneskin. Two backstabs please.
After fighting his way out of a corner, Unyo leaves Coretank to mop up while he heads to a temple for an 1800gp resurrection. Pins is back in action and the party head downstairs for a much cleaner encounter.
Unyo decides it is time to grab the Rod of Resurrection so Mekrath is killed off. He has salamanders and a yuan-ti nearby, Unyo getting pinned in against a salamander much to his annoyance - wanting to use True Sight on the Yuan-ti but Coretank will have it dead before the Salamander can be shifted.
Unyo suggests picking on Tarnor the Hatchetman. Coretank blanches, the excuses coming thick and fast about his save vs death not being up to the job. Unyo casts Death Ward and shoves the Undead Hunter forward. Sure, there were buffs against lightning, fire and fear too but Coretank is less than convinced. (he thinks he's going to his death...)
True Sight and Chaos are essential for Tarnor's gang. Unfortunately for them, Unyo and Pins are using them so first come first served and Tarnor's group are unable to cast their own versions. Nymph holds and an Insect Plague follow in rapid succession and Tarnor's gang are wiped out with Coretank still breathing. "See" says Unyo "nothing to worry about". He promptly walks into a Hold Person from kobolds and has to be rescued by his companions. Coretank is once more slow on the uptake as a Pins' Fireball lights him up.
With the two hours drawing to a close, there was time to head to the de'Arnise Keep and clear the courtyard. A few trolls remain on the ground floor but the party may head upstairs to see if they can lay their hands on the fabled Frostreaver axe or mythical Flail of Ages first.
Sherincal has impressive resistances and comes bolstered by several clerics, among various other melee-oriented foes. We open with a Chaos spell. Although the save DC is incredibly high, some enemies like Sherincal are immune.
Normally I run caster-heavy parties with low damage output, but with the Golden Heart of Frisk and Remorhaz form, Sherincal's resistances are a lot easier to break.
Sure Striking weapons (you get a few such arrows earlier on) are another good way to get past her resistances.
Frisk roasts a few critters with Fireball, but several enemies have spell resistance or MGOI active.
Sherincal has teleported away, so we switch focus to the necromancers. Their lack of Mirror Image spells is crippling.
Frisk keeps up the pressure, torching most of the remaining enemies and paralyzing a shaman in the middle of a healing spell.
We move forward to check on Sherincal. Chara holds back to break down a Crystal Golem flanking us. Chara is our best weapon to use against Sherry, so Asriel and Frisk choose other targets while waiting for Chara to arrive.
Finally Chara engages with Sherincal. She's a tough cookie, but Chara smashes right through her defenses.
We enter the temple. A long, tedious slog awaits us. The Ice Temple is fun and interesting the first couple times around, but there's a tremendous amount of backtracking and various other delays that make the area drag on and on.
It's not even a particularly difficult area. There are a few slightly bigger fights, but most of the combat in this area is just one long but low-intensity skirmish after another, fighting the exact same enemies. This is what most of the fights look like with our party:
Frisk does fail a save against Silence, Dispel Magic, and Hold Person in the same fight, but Asriel and Chara crush the enemy regardless.
Chara gains another level and learns an even stronger shapeshift. Now they can turn into a wyvern, which deals poison, acid, and piercing damage and has even higher damage resistances than the Fomorian Giant form. However, the poison damage offers a Fortitude save, the acid damage offers a Reflex save for half damage (and therefore Evasion can block it outright!), and many enemies are resistant to piercing damage, making it weaker than the Fomorian Giant form against many targets.
It makes little difference. The enemies aren't strong enough to get past our AC, saves, resistances, and Free Action.
Until I fight the Talisman mercenaries.
Apparently Free Action in IWD2 doesn't block stun effects. Those bolts stun the target for 2 rounds with a DC of 24. Chara has a 25% chance of failing a save with every hit. And although stun prevents critical hits, the enemy doesn't need critical damage to penetrate Chara's resistances. Chara has Stoneskin, but the Stoneskin buff is almost depleted--it only blocks 10 damage per level, total.
That was so fast. Chara only failed a single save; that was enough to doom them. And both Asriel and Frisk don't have immunities. A critical failure on the save could kill either one.
Frisk tries to bomb them. The enemies suffers horribly, but they're strong enough to shrug it off.
My screenshots don't show tooltips, but those enemies aren't even at Badly Injured.
I check out Asriel's AC. He's 3 AC short of avoiding a Bolt of Stunning +1 on anything but a critical hit.
Asriel still has a small chance of getting killed. I need to get rid of the Talisman Assassin who fired those bolts, but he's invisible and would probably just evade another Sunfire. Frisk breaks out Chaos...
But the Assassin targets them anyway, and Frisk needs a really high roll to resist the stun effect. They don't get it.
I could have attempt to rescue Frisk, but it would put him in jeopardy, and honestly, I need Asriel more than Frisk. He is, after all, the only one who can cast Raise Dead. Asriel runs away.
Frisk's Mirror Image and Improved Invisibility will hold off a few attacks, and for a moment I think they just might survive. But when they fail another save against a Bolt of Stunning +1, I know they won't escape.
Notice Asriel's new summoned monsters. I want to grab our equipment and hopefully take down that Assassin, which Asriel can't do on his own without risking a failed save against one of those awful bolts. We send in a Boneguard Skeleton, heal Asriel, and cast Sanctuary so he can monitor the situation in safety.
The Boneguard isn't tough enough, even with its damage resistances.
We will need to rest and resurrect Frisk and Chara before proceeding. I turn off "Rest until fully healed" in the options menu, and also heal Asriel completely, to make sure we don't rest so long that Frisk and Chara's equipment vanishes.
Unfortunately, resting here is not safe. We get ambushed during the rest period, and then the Talisman mercenaries catch up to us.
The Assassin could be anywhere now. Asriel runs up to the next level, rests, and brings back Frisk and Chara. Since I don't want to rest a second time, lest our equipment vanish (I don't know how many hours it takes for loot to disappear), I heal everyone without resting and buff up the party.
Our loot is still there!
We hurry over to grab it, but the Talisman mercenaries appear, including the Assassin. Chara smashes him, but he has multiple Potions of Invisibility that we have no way of interrupting.
When the Assassin chases Frisk and Asriel out of the hall, Chara has to shapeshift to get through the door to reach them. Over and over again, the Assassin turns invisible before striking. His Blind-fight feat reduces his miss rate against our Improved Invisibility by half.
The enemy cleric tries to dispel our invisibility, but Chara puts a stop to it.
Finally, the Assassin runs out of potions. Without them, he's helpless.
We finish off the rest of the mercenaries and collect our equipment, plus a cool new bastard sword.
My mods buff the rather disappointing bastard swords of Icewind Dale 2 (maybe half are cursed, and the other half are just weak). Executioner's Eyes boosts your attack bonus and critical hit range by 4. Dual-wield this sword with an axe or hammer, both of which deal triple damage on critical hits, and you have a very high-damage build. But the Golden Heart of Frisk and Tabard's Shield improve Asriel's AC by 9, which Asriel needs to survive melee combat.
If it weren't for Asriel, those mercenaries could have spelled the end of the run. Knowing that Goat Bro will always be there for us--it fills us with determination.
The Ice Temple is more than just a bunch of blue and white rooms filled with blue and white enemies. It also has a blue and white staircase that leads to different blue and white rooms depending on what you say in blueish white text.
A blueish white golem also summons monster for you to fight in an extremely lengthy tic-tac-toe game. Fortunately, Chara's can destroy white-colored enemies like Boneguards before the blue-colored golem can even finish giving directions in white text. [spoiler]
If you set the Battle Square to higher levels, you can get increasingly better items as a reward. Some of them are pretty crazy, but the game takes forever to complete and the enemies include high-level demons.
Instead, we move on to the last fight, with Oria. Guess what colors her clothes are?
Clerics come in to flank us when the fight begins. Asriel keeps Oria busy, resisting Webs and Chromatic Orb spells with the Free Action from the Golden Heart of Frisk, while Chara and Frisk pick off the enemy clerics with Remorhaz form, Chromatic Orb, and Fireball.
Finally I bring Asriel out into the hall, Oria fast on his heels, and switch Chara to Will o' Wisp form to tackle the high priestess. Improved Invisibility is a pain, but it seems dispelling it is not an option.
In IWD2, there is no True Seeing spell, and the only thing that can remove Improved Invisibility is Invisibility Purge, which Non-Detection blocks, unlike in BG. And since the only magic attack in the game is Dispel Magic, which offers a Will save, which enemy spellcasters will easily make, and since Dispel Magic is an abjuration spell, there's no Spell Focus feat to improve it. So Improved Invisibility and Non-Detection are sort of unbeatable, which is why so many mages in Tactics use them.
As sturdy as Oria is, she can't do much to us with Freedom of Movement blocking her Chromatic Orbs, and though she nails Asriel with Ice Lance and stuns him, Chara already removed all of the enemies that could finish him off while he was disabled. We just keep attacking until we eventually land a hit.
Oria breaks her staff as a final attack, to little effect.
One of the few advantages to a smaller, higher-level party in IWD2 is that area-effect spells aren't quite as strong, since you get hit fewer times. We run down to the Battle Square and Oria announces her imminent victory. She really hams it up.
Her boasting doesn't last. We turn ethereal using the Battle Square lever thingy and kill Oria without even targeting her.
With Oria gone, we can finally enter the last password in the magic staircase and loot the temple treasury.
It seems we can't go a single chapter without Asriel finding a dead kitty somewhere.
All that's left is to invoke Caged Fury's real name and break Talos' hold over the temple. But with 8 Intelligence on every party member, none of us knows to say it. And when we talk to Nickademus, we somehow seem to lock ourselves out of asking for the demon's real name.
There was an option before, but we chose the wrong dialog option and removed it without getting our answer.
We need that name to banish Caged Fury. I finally break our three-member party and let in a new character. It's Sans! Because of course it is.
Finding a decent portrait for Sans was really hard. So much Sans fan art is focused on his badass hero side, which doesn't really fit who he normally is. This is a much more accurate depiction of Sans.
To my dismay, Sans doesn't have the option of invoking the demon's real name, either. But it turns out we don't need it. We can just yell at him.
Sans teleports away with CTRL-J, since he only has 1 HP, but still gets hit by some spell. Since he survives the thing without having any electricity resistance at all, I'm guessing the spell is designed to be nonlethal.
Sans leaves the party, we report our success to Nathaniel, and we expose a group of doppelgangers on the way out. Finally, the Ice Temple is over.
Before we move on, we travel back to the first area and find Oswald left us a potion. It's the best one we could have hoped for.
The potion is randomly generated at the start of the game, so even if I had reloaded, I couldn't have gotten a different one. If you use the import/export trick to duplicate such potions, you can make any character immune to damage, as I did in a previous, glitch-intensive no-reload run a long time ago. Asriel drinks the potion, as it will not stack with Chara's damage resistances when shapeshifted, and Frisk has Mirror Image to defend them.
Sans tells us it was "ice" to see us again. We are filled with determination.
.... In IWD2, there is no True Seeing spell, and the only thing that can remove Improved Invisibility is Invisibility Purge, which Non-Detection blocks, unlike in BG. And since the only magic attack in the game is Dispel Magic, which offers a Will save, which enemy spellcasters will easily make, and since Dispel Magic is an abjuration spell, there's no Spell Focus feat to improve it. So Improved Invisibility and Non-Detection are sort of unbeatable, which is why so many mages in Tactics use them. ....
Wait. Hold on. This is very interesting: Do the mages in your IWD2 setup actually do all this? I thought IWD2 did not have a version of Tactics available, no? If so I need to polish up and have another go at IWD2 -- my favorite dungeon crawl.
Sans teleports away with CTRL-J, since he only has 1 HP, but still gets hit by some spell. Since he survives the thing without having any electricity resistance at all, I'm guessing the spell is designed to be nonlethal.
I wonder if IWD2 also has the rule that you can't be one-shotted at level 1 like in BG1.
A new chapter begins, with another well-written diary entry by our narrator, Maralie.
She has such a pretty voice. And she has a remarkably vivid script considering how hack-and-slash IWD2 is. The writing in IWD2 is surprisingly strong.
The Wandering Village is next, followed by a tedious Lost Woods-style maze in the Fell Woods. One of my mods adds some special items for good-aligned rangers--probably because rangers are generally considered the weakest class in IWD2. The mod introduces the relevant merchant in a strange way, though.
He really, really likes rangers. Wink, wink. If you're a ranger, he'll sell you this:
It's erroneously set to sell for 1 gold and crashes when we buy it, so I have to console it in. Frisk will have to take a level in ranger to use it. Same goes for a ranger-only bow that adds the user's Strength bonus to damage rolls. We also purchase the Avarine Decanter from Nym and free the djinni.
He gives us some nice items, including the Indomitable Bands, which give +5 to generic AC and 10 +2 damage reduction, which means items of +1 enchantment and lower deal 10 less damage to the wearer.
Chara has hit druid level 13 and has a new shapeshifting form, even stronger than any of the others: a white half-dragon. It comes with a humongous sword and a tiny bikini. As it should.
I still don't remember why we need to get through the Fell Woods or where we're trying to go. It has something to do with the Underdark. It doesn't really matter if you don't know what's going on; IWD2 puts you on a straight route anyway. Suoma won't let us progress until we save the local children, who have been going missing. Time to investigate!
The investigation suddenly ends. As a paladin, Asriel can sense evil, and Limha just exudes it.
Limha tells us that she turned the local children into small furry animals, so their parents would hunt and kill them. She also tells us that killing her will undo the curse. Idiot.
Limha comes very well-prepared for this fight.
Freedom of Movement once again blocks a hostile Chromatic Orb, which can otherwise be fatal. Limha is a little hard to hit right now, so I turn our attention to clearing up the trolls.
Limha surprises us with one of my favorite spells.
Then I find something very special.
Chara's half-dragon form is immune to stun! The one immunity we can't find anywhere else. Chara cuts Limha to pieces.
Giant horns. Bat wings. Alabaster skin. A six-foot-long, serrated sword. And a teeny tiny bikini. The half-dragon form has it all.
Frisk says there's an impressive wyrm in the party. Chara says hands off the merchandise.
When flirting with Chara fails, Frisk asks for a private "lesson" with Kanno the Bowyer.
We get a special book as a souvenir, but a bug prevents Frisk from using it--the description doesn't list any race or class restrictions. We use the potion swap glitch to activate it instead, but all it does is produce a couple of items that only elves and half-elves can use.
A new murder mystery crops up. Naturally, the solution is to kill a bunch of Will o' Wisps so a ghost will tell us where to find the victim's restless spirit.
We meet some skeletons in the woods, but none of them gives us any hot dogs or spaghetti. Disappointing.
After a lot of wandering, we complete the questline, and Isair and Madae, the antagonists of IWD2, stop by to lecture us. They're pretty spooky.
Isair and Madae could have been excellent characters given their backstory, but I always found them to be obnoxious and unlikeable. They scoff and sneer and mock, coming off more as snotty bullies than proper villains.
It's a petty, irritating, condescending kind of evil. Imagine if Voldemort, fighting Harry Potter at the end of Goblet of Fire, said that Harry's glasses looked stupid. It would just seem childish, and that's how Isair and Madae often sound.
We fight some zombies, then talk to Suoma to open up the next fight, then fight some trees, and finally enter the next area, where there will be more fighting. That's IWD2 for you.
Conceptually speaking, a no-reload IWD2 run is basically the polar opposite of Undertale. Undertale was all about nonviolent solutions, and reloading was a critical plot point.
Whatever. This is fun, and that's the important thing.
Turning into sexy dragon ladies and fighting with giant swords in tiny bikinis fills us with determination.
.... In IWD2, there is no True Seeing spell, and the only thing that can remove Improved Invisibility is Invisibility Purge, which Non-Detection blocks, unlike in BG. And since the only magic attack in the game is Dispel Magic, which offers a Will save, which enemy spellcasters will easily make, and since Dispel Magic is an abjuration spell, there's no Spell Focus feat to improve it. So Improved Invisibility and Non-Detection are sort of unbeatable, which is why so many mages in Tactics use them. ....
Wait. Hold on. This is very interesting: Do the mages in your IWD2 setup actually do all this? I thought IWD2 did not have a version of Tactics available, no? If so I need to polish up and have another go at IWD2 -- my favorite dungeon crawl.
IWD2 does have a Tactics mod. It's just called IWD2Tactics. I don't remember exactly which things in my install come from Tactics, but I do know Tactics prevents bard songs from stacking, improves enemy AI, and cranks up the difficulty on a lot of big fights. Once you start seeing level 8 and higher mages, almost all of them use Improved Invisibility, and I've struggled to reveal them with divination magic--I think many use Non-Detection, but some might be innately immune. Plus, spell resistance can block Invisibility Purge.
The Ease of Use mod is responsible for the druid shapeshifts I've been using; it also gives druids some additional spells like Stoneskin and Sunfire.
Sans teleports away with CTRL-J, since he only has 1 HP, but still gets hit by some spell. Since he survives the thing without having any electricity resistance at all, I'm guessing the spell is designed to be nonlethal.
I wonder if IWD2 also has the rule that you can't be one-shotted at level 1 like in BG1.
I just tested it. Confirmed. Any level 1 character with 1 HP is immune to all damage. It even works if you only have 1 HP due to energy drain. Only instant death magic and energy drain can kill such a character.
Update on Dice the FMT, him Aerie, Jaheira and Minsc spent the first rest in Waukeens Promenade.
Upon waking up they were insulted and attacked by an evil dwarf and his crew. No real pre-buffs used and our very first full plate as a suitable reward.
Trademeet > invis, picking up Belm, killing the last druids for Gnasher, having Jaheira killing Faldorn with resist fear pre-buff, almost died from creeping doom even so since Faldorn used a couple of super healing potions.
Killed the genies since I really hate those guys.
When leaving town Rasaad begs me to help him, can't say no to killing evil cultists can we?
At the amphitheater we actually manage to answer correctly and no monks needlessly lost their lives! At the mercenary company SE at that map we tell them Hojar should get the belt which makes the guy with the mirror image ring hostile. I just don't want to grab the belt for myself even though the loot is very good since that is clearly the evil option and Dice would never do that.
Everyone is fatigued once we actually reach the big bad temple, still figured we can meet the assault after all the tests. And yes we could, surprisingly easy considering we are a melee heavy party and everyone was fatigued.
De'Arnise > Resting where I picked up Nalia since everyone is BADLY fatigued and only a few spells left, also feels it breaks my run if I need to go outside to rest after clearing a part of the castle. Everything in the castle is very easy, the charmed guard even fails his save vs dominate after a doom.
Tor'gal is a very tricky beast. I pre-buff with pretty much everything I've got landing my AC vs evil piercing attacks at around -15 to -20 with Jaheira and Dice, my FMT sitting pretty at around -5 or so in all saves vs evil, Jaheira has confusion immunity from shield and Minsc from Lilarcor, all are immune to fear due to buff. Run in with the entire party hasted and first round cast web x 2 and cloudkill from wand after the talk, next round 2 x cloudkill and a fireball. The experience gains tells me he had quite a few friends of his own. The beatdown of Tor'gal goes way smoother than usual due to 3 strong melee characters with decent weapons (none wielding FoA though), great AC and Tor'gal himself failing a save vs slow (casted twice) after doom, he still managed to hit Minsc lowering his strength from 21 to around 15 or so. After that Minsc joined Aerie and Nalia in killing the Yuanti Mages and between his 4 APR with longbow, Nalias 4 with Tuigan and Aeries 5 with MMM they fell in short order.
Now to go help Neera and reunite Wilson with his dearest of friends.
There's a big fight with Snow Trolls and barbarians, but it's not very interesting. Remorhaz form and Sexy Dragon Lady form let Chara defeat the enemy almost single-handedly.
We also fight a white dragon. Chara hacks it to pieces as well.
I forgot to buy rope from Tahvo the Huntmaster, so I have to trek back to the Wandering Village before I can enter the Underdark. There's a short tunnel here that's absolutely crawling with Hook Horrors that will ruthlessly flank you. Frisk sends them into disarray with Chaos and helps Asriel and Chara cut them down with our new Mordenkainen's Sword spell.
Mordenkainen's Sword actually deals remarkable damage (3d6+3!) and has a +1 attack bonus per caster level, making it strike more or less without fail. To my disappointment, however, Tenser's Transformation doesn't seem to add attacks when it improves Frisk's attack bonus (I thought it did). Frisk is better off wielding Bloody Wroth despite their lack of proficiency with bastard swords, since Bloody Wroth's +8 to Strength and Constitution is better for their carrying capacity and HP, and does not prevent spellcasting.
When the Hook Horrors start to overwhelm us, Frisk stuns them with Gedlee's Electric Loop and roasts them with Sunfire.
When those spells run low, Frisk has even more options, as they can restore Chara's defenses and Slow the enemy.
There are some troublesome Ochre Jellies here that can only be defeated, I understand, by chain-casting damage spells. Frisk delivers.
We've also got some duergar slavers to deal with. You can get past them without violence, but we can't tolerate seeing our fellow critters enslaved.
Everyone, including the slaves, turns hostile. I assume this melee-heavy fight will be straightforward, but then I see the enemy can stun us.
I switch Chara to Sexy Dragon Lady form. The enemy's electrical bolts will still damage them, but Chara will be immune to stun and most of their normal attacks.
Frisk disables the enemy to grant us a reprieve from the Bolts of Stunning +1, but when they move in to flood the area with fire, a stray bolt stuns them.
Asriel hurries over to cast Sanctuary. Problem solved.
Asriel casts Recitation, but the buff doesn't really matter. Our damage output is too high for the enemy to handle anyway, and Asriel avoids getting stunned.
We come across a spectre, who had been tortured to death...
...but he's too out of his mind to be reasoned with. We have to put him down.
On the way out, we run into Harshom, a Luskan affiliate of Isair and Madae, who answers some important questions about his war-bears.
We ask him what he means by that, but there's no option to flirt our way out of this fight.
Harshom is immune to various disablers, as a few bosses are, but his goons are not. Chaos is unstoppable. The save DC is 31.
We focus on the mages first, using Slow to cement our advantage, and finally turn on Harshom. Asriel chunks him.
It seems he forgot to cast Improved Invisibility.
A new chapter begins. The Black Raven Monastery stands guard over the Underdark exit, though I still don't know where we're supposed to go. A flock of wyverns greets us, but does not attack.
You can steal one of their eggs for later use, but we don't have the right classes or stats to fully exploit it. No omelettes for us.
Chowing down on Iron Rations instead of hurting friendly animals fills us with determination.
The Black Raven Monastery sells a guide to adventuring that grants the user 10,000 XP. The Heart of Fury mode version, which my mods move to normal mode, grants 20,000 XP. This is important because Chara needs to hit druid level 21 (total level 22) in order to get the strongest half-dragon form, and XP is going to be hard to come by late in the game, as our higher levels will increasingly negate the XP from the bigger late-game fights. I'm not sure I can reach that level without level squatting. And I really want that final dragon form. It's far, far stronger than any of the previous forms. So I'll be saving it until it can get Chara to druid level 21, which is still a long way off.
There's a Legion of the Chimera plot going on at the monastery. Uncovering it is as simple as stealing a few documents and talking to the right person, who confesses everything.
He also confesses his love for Aruma Blane. Aww.
Chara smashes open every chest in sight. There's an awesome spear of disruption here.
The Heart of Fury version destroys undead on a failed Will save at DC 24, but I prefer the normal mode version's description, in which the middle quote is actually:
"Oh," he had then added, "and pray thee bless it as well... thou dost know, that one where it explodes undead and what-not, so that I may smite things most explosively."
Unless you kill all of the monks (for which the previous duergar slavers will reward you, if you didn't kill them), the only way to proceed is to undergo a whole bunch of trials against magic-immune monk golems. You have to do so unbuffed and unarmed besides some nonmagical weapons they provide for you, but that's not really a handicap for Chara.
Normally these trials are a nightmare. Improved shapeshifting makes them bearable.
Just for fun we fight some Iron Golems in the next area, who guard some rather unimpressive loot. When Wyvern form proves ineffective, we switch to Remorhaz form.
Notice that the Iron Golems have 4 attacks per round, and Chara's attack bonus isn't strong enough to land every hit. In IWD2, you gain attacks per round as you base attack bonus grows, but each attack is weaker than the last. When your base attack bonus hits +6, you get an extra attack at +1. When it hits +11, you get another +6 attack and a following +1 attack. Thus, each attack suffers a -5 penalty from the previous one.
Off-hand attacks and bonus attacks from Haste don't benefit from your base attack bonus at all. Only other attack bonuses apply.
The golems' Cloudkills are vicious, but as a high-level druid, Chara is immune. Even so, the golems' crushing attacks are deadly, being strong enough to get past Chara's resistances even without critical hits. Chara's Treant form has better resistances (20- damage resistance!), but a bug prevents them from using it. Instead, Asriel's newfound Heal spells have to keep Chara's HP up.
Iron Golems are brutal. With incredibly strong attacks, immunity to magic, and high damage resistance, they are overwhelming. A normal party would struggle to defeat them, but we have Chara on our side.
We meet Malavon Despana, who is much friendlier than in the original IWD. He even wants our help.
When his friend Kadresh scolds him for loving a family member, which no drow should be weak enough to do, he snaps that he's important enough to get away with it. He has a good point.
The next quest involves destroying a device that produces driders, which normally can only be created by Llolth, and only as a punishment. Turns out the Legion of the Chimera is once again responsible. Asriel's honesty ends up provoking a fight.
The next area is flooded with Drider Fighters, Drider Clerics, and Drider Sorcerers, who have gobs of HP and spell resistance to boot. Aside from some Myconids stunning Frisk early on, which Asriel fixes with Sanctuary...
...the entire area is mostly a long slog, fighting an endless stream of driders, none of whom are truly deadly. This is basically what the fights look like:
We finally track down Ginafae! We reassure her that her brother is not out to kill her.
She returns to Malavon in peace. Easy.
Besides Frisk failing a save against Dispel Magic, the last of the driders go down with little resistance. All that's left is to defeat Imphraili, the Transmuter in charge here, and destroy the Viciscamera, the awesomely-named but hideous blob machine that transforms the drow into driders.
Before we fight Imphraili, we ask her about her research. Learning about cool scientifical magicky stuff fills us with determination.
Just a brief update about Axer and the Duo that was in progress - the duo cleared the wilderness area, the Forest of Mir and then tried to tackle the large fire giant ambush when you first enter Yaga's Temple. I am sad to report while Axer's run does continue, VOMMAR got chunked!!! Axer could recruit others, but it's Melissan or bust - he decides weight of the world is on his shoulders, and he will succeed or fail all on his own. Thus, he is solo. Will update later today.
Sometimes I progress normally after party members get chunked, but often I like to create new characters to replace them. You get the character back, but it won't have as much XP as the rest of the party (in one run, I lost millions of XP due to repeated chunkings). This means that the chunking is still meaningful, but does not permanently rob the player of a likeable character, a loss that can make the game less fun.
Rarely, I will import from a previously exported character--also legal, though it makes the chunking less crippling--but only if I've made that decision before the chunking actually occurred.
@semitcgod - Remember Axer is a multi-player run, there are no NPCs in his party and never were. Vommar was being controlled by Gate70 and he doesn't like to re-roll new characters mid-run.
Also, here's Axer's final update in any case:
Axer the Half-Orc Fighter - FINAL Update!
I could go on and on about the great success Axer had. He had defeated enemies in Yaga's Temple, Yaga himself, he had defeated Draconis and Abazigal brilliantly. He skipped Oasis totally as nothing there he wanted.
He had even defeated the drow "hunter" who was really the captain guarding Sendai's lair. But drow minions (on the surface) were using power attack and stunning Axer as well as buffetting Axer all over the place - it pushed him into one particular drow who did Greater Whirlwind and killed Axer quickly. RIP Axer. Not even his groupmates from Candlekeep were there to bury his body, since Krem and Vommar got chunked earlier in the run.
Possibly Axer should have used a shield in this area, to be much more difficult to hit.
Comments
Goibniu, human paladin, update 10
At Candlekeep, the party quickly entered the library, killed the iron throne leaders (without using any buffs) and was arrested. Helios disarmed some traps in the dungeons, and we acquired two new tomes: Strength for Anapa, wisdom for Luna. In the second level, I used a protection from undead scroll on Helios so he could easily disarm the traps in the center and kill the skeletons as well, while the rest of the party dealt with some doppelgangers.
For the greater doppelganger, I had Luna use chant and bless and protection from evil 3' radius - I decided to save the more powerful buffs for Prat. With some lucky ranged hits and a magic missle spell, the greater doppelganger died pretty much instantly:
Now, I still had defensive harmony, haste, strength of one and remove fear ready, plus summoned skeletons - hasted, strength-buffed skeletons are quite powerful, and with the help of Anapa and some ranged support, Prat was quickly killed - and so was his party:
The remaining skeletons and a petrification-protected Goibniu took out the greater basilisks:
And it's back to Baldur's Gate!
I actually managed to never get captured and brought before Angelo this time. Goibniu met up with Tamoko, made his way to the Flaming Fist HQ (after luring some soldiers away) and Owain showed the true potential of his emotion spell:
Upstairs, another greater doppelganger had to be killed:
Goibniu brought Eltan to the harbor master and entered the Iron Throne HQ. Cythandria's ogres were distracted by skeletons while the well-buffed party took out the mage with ranged weapons. The ogres died a few rounds later:
Slythe and Krystin were quickly disposed off, and the party made their way to the duchal palace. I had prepared two sets of buffs, so I didn't have to rest before entering. I also brought some potions to increase the party's damage output: Heroism for all three fighter-type characters, cloud giant strength for Goibniu himself. Luna and Goibniu added DUHM to the usual buffs for tough encounters. Of course, skeletons were summoned as well.
With all of these preparations, it was easy to quickly kill most of the doppelgangers, and some of them even encountered pathing issues. When Owain finished his emotion spell, only two enemies were actively attacking:
The final doppelganger eventually returned, but was faced with overwhelming odds:
Naturally, both dukes survived.
Now, the vanilla BG1 content is done except for Sarevok himself. Time for more TotSC!
Enuhal
Here goes Dice, elven FMT (18/80 19 17 16 11 11) with long sword 2 pips, TWF 3 pips, next 2 pips to katana. locks and traps 100/100 and after that detect illusion then set trap.
Going with in my opinion a pretty logical party for a good charname, also trying hard not to meta too much. Playing with SCS on core. No other mods.
One thing my restartitis has done for me is help me improve my early game.
Dice and crew are just now walking towards Trademeet where they have some kind of animal problem and this is their story so far:
Escaped the dungeon > kicked Yoshimo since I was already a thief. Keeping Jaheira and Minsc since they're dependable solid characters and Dice doesn't know he can kick the them too to go gain a bit of easy exp and then recruit the NPCs he wants.
Cleared the circus > told Aerie to wait.
Payed for my casting license.
Harper quest > Jaheira stayed since I haven't been rude to her.
Picked up Aerie since I was well over 250k xp (I know a bit too meta).
Slaver quest > Told Nalia to go wait for me at her keep > Pulled slaver boss and friends to the sewers where my FMT and Minsc cut them down with Aerie tossing in slow, holy blight, chant and bless, Jaheira in bear form is surprisingly useful since she can run away when targeted. The room with 2 casters were doable with FMT scouting and Aerie throwing in a stinking cloud followed by silence and everyone else equipped with ranged weapons, a few guards escaped to fight but the wizards died from poison and fire arrows. Actually turning in the quest had me followed by the crazy berserker guard outside in the slums (am I the only one who thinks he's just a tad too powerful?), the 2 ruffians that have a dialogue in the SE corner of the slums (that I thought I had already dispatched) and a random spawn of thieves with invis potions (of which sadly noone dropped a single invis potion), also my FMT was unbuffed and unarmored so a lot of kiting was involved.
Bridge murder > Just to be able to complete it at Trademeet. Fled from the fight though, 2 rune assassins and a bone golem with a low level party with no spells, no thank you.
Here we are now at the first well deserved rest with a tad over 400k xp on Dice and crew and with quite a bit of cash. Also 28 potions of extra healing and 4 haste potions left.
I don't have a really solid reason for Trademeet before De'Arnise RP wise except Jaheira wanted us to go there. But it is so much easier and gives better rewards, Minsc has a lot of exp left til he gets his second pip in flails after all.
I don't expect things to continue this smoothly and will start resting a lot to try to stay safe.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/51150/raising-charname-minimal-reload-thread-bg1-sod-bg2-spoilers#latest
If you lose a run you were really enjoying, please consider continuing it as a minimal reload run.
Goibniu, human paladin, update 11
The party travelled to the Isle of Balduran first; After accepting all of the quests, the northern part of the island was explored. With skeletons, magical arrows, bullets and darts, killing wolves and wolfweres wasn't too hard - soon it was time to enter the shipwreck.
This is where I started using massive amounts of potions - since there's not much space to move, everyone is going to be involved in melee combat, and with poor ac scores, terrible hp scores and the wolfwere's high damage output, that didn't seem like an inviting prospect - so everyone used the following potions: Agility, defense, fortitude, strength (more powerful versions for the three fighter-type characters, who also drank a potion of heroism each) - add to that all of the usual buffs for tougher battles, and we have a party with really great ac scores, at least average hp scores, good thac0 and high damage - exactly what I need, though of course, that means a lot of my potions are now gone.
Anyway, the party quickly fought through the first couple of shipwreck levels without looting anything to keep short duration buffs active. Before facing Karoug, short duration buffs were renewed, and Owain cast invisibilty 10' radius. The party surrounded Daese and killed her instantly:
The other wolfweres were focused down one by one, with the party taking almost no damage at all. Karoug was the last to fall:
While most of the spell-based buffs ran out while the party fought their way through the werewolf village, the potions were still active when fighting Kaishas, which meant she didn't stand a chance:
Back in Ulgoth's Beard, I decided to rest before challenging Mendas. For the people using the weapons capable of hurting the Loup Garou, I once again used strength potions and heroism (better thac0 is needed due to a lack of weapon proficiencies), though no defensive potions this time. Anapa with his naturally good thac0 dealt most of the damage:
Next time, Goibniu will travel to Durlag's Tower - in my opinion the scariest place in BG1 when it comes to no-reloading, especially for a randomized party.
Enuhal
Success at Shaengarne doesn't always last, as the next area--the Horde Fortress--is another high-pressure area with sturdy spellcasters and large groups of enemies who will aggressively flank the party. But we've scrimped and saved enough to handle another jump in difficulty. By selling some of our best equipment, we can afford an upgrade for Asriel that will last for the rest of the game.
At well over 100,000 gold, this sword is one of the most expensive items in all the Infinity Engine games. But it's worth it. The extra +4 generic AC from haste, the +25 HP, and the Freedom of Movement make the Golden Heart of Frisk a stellar defensive asset, which we desperately need given Asriel's low Constitution.
This is what the party looks like:
They're all so cute! Picking out the right fanart for these portraits was a good investment. No-reload runs are more fun if you have an interesting character to work with.
Even though Asriel has a +5 weapon and constant effect haste, Chara's Spear of Justice is still our deadliest weapon...
...but the Golden of Heart of Frisk actually makes Asriel a superior tank, as his AC is more reliable than Chara's damage resistances.
Chara got an upgrade of their own after hitting druid level 7, but currently they only get one use of it per day: Fomorian Giant form.
The Fomorian Fist stuns the target for 3 seconds (less than half a round in IWD2 time) on a failed Fortitude save at DC 15. It's not enough to reliably stunlock anybody, but it will prevent off a few attacks.
The problem with the Horde Fortress is that enemies can spawn endless teams of Goblin Worg Riders by hitting a drum. If you let certain enemies reach the drum, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed. Destroying the drums, or the enemies who can use them, is always the top priority. We sneak across the bridge, using Asriel to absorb the trap damage (we don't have room for thief levels in our party), and Chara breaks invisibility to distract the enemies, allowing Frisk to snipe the drummer without getting mobbed in the process.
So much in the IE games depends on positioning and timing. If I didn't pick just the right time and place for Frisk and Chara and Asriel to break invisibility, we could have seen Frisk end up dead.
With the Orc Shaman disabled, Frisk can finally cast Mirror Image. They scoot down south, exposing themselves to the southwestern archers' fire, so that the more dangerous group of enemies to the north focuses on Chara. Asriel, our fastest character thanks to the Golden Heart of Frisk's haste effect, runs up north to engage a goblin spellcaster who otherwise would have stayed out of range.
In low-magic fights in the Infinity Engine games, most of the strategy is nothing but positioning.
The real challenge here is Trugnuk, a mid-level shaman who casts Call Lightning directly within range of the nearest drum. To destroy the drum and avoid being ruthlessly flanked, you need to get perilously close to Trugnuk and his many hard-hitting goons. And if you try to stop Trugnuk from launching that devastating Call Lightning spell, your neglect of the drum will bring Goblin Worg Riders dashing in from the west.
How do we divide our attention here? Will o' Wisp form is the answer, as it can soak up Trugnuk's spells while Asriel is busy cutting up the drum. Unfortunately, traps and some lucky strikes leave Chara in horrible shape when they finally arrive...
And the Will o' Wisp form's 100 spell resistance is still not foolproof somehow. Maybe it's because spell resistance is supposed to be capped at 50, and Will o' Wisps have 100.
Asriel's healing spells might not be fast enough to rescue Chara, so they drink a potion from the inventory screen.
Chara is still badly hurt, but hopefully their AC will hold out for another few seconds at least.
Even though Chara is the one with spell resistance, I send Asriel out to tackle Trugnuk instead. He can reach Trugnuk more quickly thanks to haste, and Chara is seriously struggling to move, getting boxed in by several enemies.
Frisk has finally arrived, having gotten lost across the bridge previously, but their Chromatic Orb spells fail to make the impact we're looking for.
Fireball, too, has little impact, since Asriel is getting in the way and limiting Frisk's targeting.
The solution? I have Asriel use his high movement rate to jump out of the way so Frisk can land a direct hit on Trugnuk. Chara stays in place, as Fireball cannot harm them so long as they're in Will o' Wisp form.
This fight wasn't nearly as awful as I had feared. The Horde Fortress is pretty wicked normally, but I managed to get rid of the war drums without losing focus on spellcasters like Trugnuk. The Golden Heart of Frisk made this possible. It was worth bankrupting the party to purchase it.
As a level 7 sorcerer, Frisk can paralyze enemies for 13 rounds with Chromatic Orb, and there are lots of IWD2 enemies with poor Reflex saves, at least in the early game.
Chara's Fomorian Fist also works wonders against enemy spellcasters, who are getting very sturdy as more and more of them cast Mirror Image.
In my haste to get through the dungeon, I accidentally turn poor Pondmuk hostile.
I was going to kill him anyway by triggering his ambush, but this way feels kinda mean. We're nice to Vunarg, though, who leads his people away from the tunnels to go do evil things someplace else.
The Fire Trolls in this area give us a friendly reminder that Chara's Verbeeg form is far from invincible...
...and an Orc Shaman reminds us that, no matter how strong we are, a single spell can take down all of our defenses if we roll a bad Will save.
Levels don't affect the success rate for Dispel Magic in IWD2. It's entirely based on Will saves, so there's always a 5% chance of losing all dispellable effects, no matter how many you have or where they came from.
We're doing well in this area, so I keep going from one fight to the next without resting. It's faster, but it's risky. One strange thing about this area is that the enemy's resistances are inconsistent.
Ice Trolls are vulnerable to fire and crushing damage, but resistant to cold and slashing damage, since they look like ice crystals. Fire Trolls, however, are vulnerable to slashing damage, but resistant to crushing damage, fire damage, and... cold damage. You'd think their crystalline appearance would mean they were just Ice Trolls with their fire and cold resistances flipped.
Another disturbing lesson comes at the end of the area, when we're almost out of spells. Turns out Freedom of Movement does not block stun effects in IWD2.
If Freedom of Movement doesn't block stun effects, I don't know what will, and lord knows this won't be the last we see of stun effects. This could be a problem.
We have no way of dispelling the stun effect, either, which lasts for three rounds, but Chara manages to save Asriel by switching to Will O' Wisp form and distracting the enemy.
We survive the encounter, but yet another long, high-intensity fight is coming right up, and there are so many enemies that finding a safe spot is nearly impossible.
Stopping by the orcs' petting zoo and petting the cute animals fills us with determination.
Lose your head;
Hear text as mp3,
I swapped Mazzy for Cernd, after saving her sister and headed off to sort the druids out of the shadows.
The area had trolls and some spiders guarding valuable loot... I laid six traps around a potion merchant then killed her before the other cats could get between us.
The actual challenge is easy; fire elemental, insect plague and werewolf bets iron skin + whatever else she had in mind then we killed the tent guard before he could teleport away with my new bottle.
I then swapped Mazzy back in and dealt with an undead issue to collect some elven armour and its time to head back into the city with the bribe money to start Imoens' rescue.
This next fight is very long and very intense, with multiple enemy spellcasters and hordes of archers and melee grunts who come in waves. I normally use an Improved Alacrity item to hasten buffing, but for big fights like this when the extra duration matters, I cast buffs normally. Looks like we can't pre-cast Call Lightning, though.
I could rest to get back that spell, but I'd rather not wait. We enter the fight more or less at full strength and Frisk takes out one of the archers flanking us.
Those archers use Arrows of Flame +1 and they hit pretty hard. It's in our best interest to kill them quickly, both for the sake of our safety and the profit of our post-battle looting.
Why didn't we cast Invisibility 10' Radius first? Alas, we had to sell Caballus' staff to afford the Golden Heart of Frisk.
The fight doesn't pick up for a few seconds, so Chara starts casting Call Lightning. It removes another troublesome archer from combat.
Soon the enemies descend upon us, and Chara switches to Verbeeg form to handle the enemy Verbeegs. Wary of failing a critical save, Frisk preempts a dangerous enemy spell.
Chromatic Orb is just so strong once you hit level 5 and 7. We remove the remaining archers while Chara tanks a cluster of enemies on the stairs nearby.
Multiple enemy spellcasters converge on us, and we don't have enough party members to cut through their Mirror Image spells. We're going to have to tough out their spells.
Chara is doing great against the enemy grunts, but we have a critical problem.
[spoiler]
The Verbeeg form is great against missile attacks, but flaming arrows burn right through Chara's resistances. And with their 9 AC, Chara is going to get hit basically every time. They switch to Will o' Wisp form to avoid burning up. It proves even more important than I thought; Chara would have gotten crushed by enemy magic had they remained in Verbeeg form.
I am still saving Fomorian Giant form for later in the battle, as it's our heaviest hitter.
Asriel's attack on an archer earlier on earned us some extra arrows, but it also put him in a very bad spot. Now on the upper level, he cannot hide behind Chara. Unless he flees from the fight entirely, he is within range of the enemy's spells, and though his saving throws are strong, he's still not safe from pure damage.
There are a LOT of Ice Lance spells in this fight, and each one can stun on a failed Fortitude save, making them deadly against mages and sorcerers like Frisk.
More enemies march in from the west, but a hostile Entangle spell holds them back. Frisk concentrates on taking down the enemy archers from before, using a crossbow to conserve spells.
I don't want to use Fireball just yet, when the enemy mages I'm most worried about would probably just block it with Mirror Image.
Asriel's saving throws are excellent, mostly thanks to our buffs (as a paladin, he gets save bonuses from Charisma, but his Charisma is only 12), but they can't block everything. Eventually, he rolls a 1 and gets stunned by an Ice Lance.
Asriel is in the worst place he could be. With a bunch of enemies blocking our way, we can't run over to heal him or hide him with Improved Invisibility. Worse yet, he's surrounded by foes who are too distant to distract and too numerous to stop.
Asriel makes his save against a second Ice Lance, but 1d4 rounds of stun is all it takes. His AC was his best defense, but AC is meaningless when you're disabled.
The enemies turn their attention to Chara. Chara's AC is excellent and spells like Ice Lance will do nothing to them, but I'm concerned that the pressure may be too much. Frisk hurls out a Fireball, hoping to break the fight before the enemy catches us by surprise.
When the enemy grows thin, Frisk runs out to grab Asriel's equipment, just in case we need to flee, only to put themselves in the way of IWD2's only magic attack.
Frisk needs both Shield and Mirror Image to handle enemy arrows, I think, and I'm not sure they can get both spells off the ground before getting killed. As soon as Frisk reaches Asriel's body, they equip the Golden Heart of Frisk and drink our only Potion of Invisibility.
To my dismay, I find that the enemies won't leave Frisk alone.
I think the problem is that breaking Improved Invisibility lets enemies target you even after you use a normal Invisibility effect. Whatever the case, Frisk is in trouble.
With their aura clouded by Mirror Image, Frisk can't stop an incoming Dispel Magic without a lucky attack roll. Instead, I have Chara drink an Oil of Fiery Burning. By drinking it from the inventory screen instead of a quick item slot (which is disabled when shapeshifted anyway), it explodes instantly, without the normal 1-2 second delay.
When it proves a success, I do it again. Now that Frisk knows Fireball, I'm not so worried about using up Oil of Fiery Burning potions.
The area soon goes clear.
I could leave and resurrect Asriel, but I'd like to finish up this area first. Chara tanks the next batch of enemies in Will o' Wisp form. Frisk inches closer but has to flee when the enemy spots them despite their invisibility.
The Will o' Wisp is making slow progress, so I decide to speed things up by switching to the Spear of Justice.
But the Verbeeg form isn't quite as sturdy, so I switch back to Will o' Wisp form. When the enemy begins to crumple, I switch to Fomorian Giant form to end things quickly.
There are only a few enemies left, but it turns out they're too dangerous for Chara to survive in Fomorian form. A new set of flaming arrows starts to burn through Chara's HP.
Chara switches to Will o' Wisp form one last time. The enemy can still do awful things if it lands critical hits...
...But Chara finishes off the last of the enemies safely. After gathering our loot, we raise Asriel at a tremendous cost.
Chara gains another level and gets an even stronger shapeshift than the Fomorian Giant. They now can turn into a Remorhaz, dealing even more damage, plus fire damage on hit, and having even higher damage resistances, including 15- resistance to fire damage.
We CTRL-J all the way back to the fortress and step inside. There's an Old Orc here with gobs of HP that constantly taunts you while you very slowly wear him down, but a poor roll against Chromatic Orb neutralizes him. Chara tries out their new Remorhaz form.
We eavesdrop on a conversation between two Legion of the Chimera members. Sherincal is lecturing Guthma, who must feel awfully sheepish. Poor guy.
Hearing a sexy blue lady discuss our awesomeness fills us with determination.
This area is crawling with spellcasters, and there's very little room to move around in. Somehow the Remorhaz form manages to fit, giving us a strong Fireball tank as long as Asriel stays out of the way.
In IWD2's Tactics mod, almost all mid-level spellcasters use Improved Invisibility on top of Mirror Image, which makes them extremely difficult to hit. Asriel has invested in the Blind Fight feat, cutting the Improved Invisibility miss chance in half, but it still makes things awfully slow.
When we do land a hit, though, we hit really hard.
Druid shapeshifting in my install isn't game-breaking (not even Will o' Wisp form), but their damage output, if not tanking ability, rivals a properly equipped and buffed cleric.
IWD2 does not implement size modifiers in any way, which leads to goofy nonsense like this:
Chara destroys the remaining spellcasters of the area. Only one fight is left in this chapter: Guthma himself. A unique sound track plays for this rather underwhelming fight.
Frisk has hit level 10 and can now cast Chaos, with an almost-unbeatable save DC of 29. Of course, some critters will always be immune.
On the whole, IWD2 enemies have almost no immunities, but sometimes there are exceptions. It doesn't really matter. As a melee fighter, Guthma is nothing Chara can't bludgeon into submission. We get flanked by spellcasters, but Chromatic Orb from our now-fully-rested Frisk is enough to pin them down.
There's a lot of random loot in this area. We have no thief levels to unlock containers or disarm traps, but Chara can tank traps with Will o' Wisp form and break locks with Remorhaz form.
Even without mods, druid shapeshifting is enough to break open almost every lock in the game, rendering thieves totally unnecessary.
We rescue Braston from the depopulated fortress and lead him over the bodies back to his beloved Ennelia. The chapter is finally over. Soon, we will leave Targos forever.
We make one last stop by Deirdre before speaking to Oswald, but in the end I decide to save our money for future purchases. Aside from the Golden Heart of Frisk, Deirdre's items are generally weaker than future versions.
Chara continues to dominate the scene. Even heavy-hitting enemies have trouble getting through her resistances without critical hits. Frisk's Chromatic Orbs are still consistently fatal.
Even Beodaewn (I hate that unpronounceable name) can't resist Chara's attacks. Frisk's Fireball clears out Beodaewn's followers, not even scratching Chara's fire-resistant Remorhaz form.
We've got a troublesome fight up ahead against some Aurilite druids and rangers. In IWD2 Tactics, the druids will use Call Lightning to devastating effect, and by standing on unreachable ledges with Storm Shell active, they are very difficult to kill quickly.
The first phase is melee-oriented. Chara holds off the west enemies; Asriel the north. Most of the enemies have poor Reflex saves, but Odea Winterthaw is very fast, and easily dodges Frisk's evocation spells.
Interrupting Call Lightning spells is dicey. Turns out the druids have some peculiar immunities.
If I can't disrupt those spells, I have to evade them. I pull back Asriel and Frisk so the druids can't zap them. The enemy doesn't know Chara themself has Call Lightning active, so they don't know enough to dodge it.
That damage bonus comes from Scion of Storms, which grants 5- electricity resistance and a 20% boost to electricity damage.
Chara is tough enough to handle the enemies on their own. Storm Shell can block the Remorhaz's fire damage, but not its even higher crushing damage.
Frisk casts Improved Invisibility on the party and we sneak through the trap to Andora. It's supposed to soften you up for the next fight, but it's not really all that strong.
This allows us to slip out of Ilium Ar'Ghrenwoir's range. Ilium uses a powerful crossbow and strikes from out of range, but he or she can't move from their spot. It's better for us to defeat the other enemies before engaging Ilium.
IWD2 has ledges, but there's no such thing as height in the Infinity Engine, so you can strike an enemy on a cliffside if you're close enough.
Chara shows off their lethal Call Lightning strikes, while Asriel shows off his nigh-impenetrable Will save.
Chara can't quite reach Ilium in Remorhaz form, so they switch to Will o' Wisp form and wait for Call Lightning to strike. Ilium takes a savage blow.
When Ilium's bolts go right through the Will o' Wisp form's high AC, Chara switches back to Remorhaz form to boost their damage resistance. Meanwhile, Frisk gets charmed right after launching a Chromatic Orb at Ilium.
Even fully buffed, not all of our saves are really strong. It seems Frisk's Will save is less than half of Asriel's.
Lucky for us, Frisk's Chromatic Orb, still in the air, takes out Ilium despite Ilium's impressive Reflex save.
Asriel hurries over to kill Ilium before Chromatic Orb wears off. Chara joins him on the second level to help deal with the remaining enemies.
Only a few enemies remain. Chara finishes them off in Fomorian Giant form...
...and stays behind in Will o' Wisp form while Frisk and Asriel flee. This allows us to loot the place without getting zapped in the process. Static Charge and Call Lightning trigger even after the caster is dead, making it easy for them to catch you by surprise.
Notice that Chara has evasion now. They took a single level in monk, partly for evasion but mostly because it would allow them to get a +5 AC bonus from Wisdom while in Will o' Wisp form.
With Ilium dead, we can finally get the Belladonna to fix Oswald's ship.
Even if you give him the mending spell ingredients, his ship won't take off until after you're gone, even though the whole point of using his ship was to get you moving.
Icewind Dale 2 has a strangely meandering path after Oswald's crash. IWD2 kind of throws you around; there are so many unrelated places to get through before you can reach the Severed Hand.
It seems that the Legion of the Chimera is very well aware of the problems we've been causing.
It must be awfully frustrating to be leading a large conventional army and then seeing your efforts fall apart because of three people traveling in secret. How would you defend yourself against an enemy too small to see?
We've been doing okay for a while and buffing takes forever (due to a weird bug, using the Improved Initiative workaround fusses with my custom buffing item), so I decide to proceed to the next fight without buffs. That was a mistake; this one is tougher than I thought.
Frisk invested all their feats in Spell Focus: Enchantment and Evocation; they don't have Subvocal Casting. Without Vocalize either, all they can do is hurl Lamp Oil and fire bolts from Ilium's crossbow.
Without buffs, the enemy hits us much more easily and we don't strike nearly as hard, and with Frisk silenced, we can't disrupt the enemy's spells.
In the past, these barbarians were a non-issue thanks to Chromatic Orb. With Frisk silenced, I see how tough they can be. Chara's damage resistances aren't enough to protect them without Stoneskin active.
Chara gets weaker. We switch to Will o' Wisp form to improve their terrible AC. The Scion of Storms feat boosts Chara's attack damage now.
We finally slay one of the stronger barbarians, and Chara starts to recover from their previous shellacking with some higher-end potions.
But we find that even the Will o' Wisp form doesn't have the AC to hold off the enemy.
Turns out Chara was wearing armor, which gives no bonus when shapeshifted but will still disable a monk's Wisdom bonus. IWD2 doesn't forbid you from changing armor during fights, so they take it off and get an extra 5 AC.
Asriel heals Chara and Frisk recovers from silence. With Frisk on hand, the battle is over; the enemy barbarians don't have the Will save or Reflex save to handle Frisk's magic.
That went a lot worse than I expected. I can't afford to run into battles unbuffed; it's just not safe.
We move on and Chara shows off their strength against a Crystal Golem--a powerful foe for most parties.
The next group of enemies, Aurilite Frosttouches, have a habit of flooding the area with undead summons and protecting themselves with high-end cleric spells. But Frisk has a solution, and even magic-resistant Vrasillus can't stop a Call Lightning from Chara.
Will o' Wisp is great for traps, as the deadlier traps in IWD2 use spells.
We've got another two fights coming up that can be rather intense. Once we take down the next group of enemies, we get a Fire Storm raining on our heads, followed by a magic-resistant fighter, Lord Rengar, who can chop us up in short order. But with the right buffs, Chara should be able to resist both the fire damage and Rengar.
Remorhaz sometimes fire off Sol's Searing Orbs, which do tremendous damage and require no attack roll. Against a Will o' Wisp, they do nothing.
The same fire resistance lets us launch Fireballs right on top of Chara. Soon the way is clear.
The Fire Storm trap does nothing to Chara, though we find that Will o' Wisp is helpless to damage Lord Rengar. Chromatic Orbs also fail to harm him.
Rengar fails to dispel our buffs, which could have been very dangerous. Chara switches to Remorhaz form to deal crushing rather than electricity damage. Frisk's spells can't touch Rengar, but Chara once again breaks the fight.
The Cult of the Dragon Necromancers start out neutral, but they'll flank you if you proceed without fighting them. The necromancers have several buffs, but due to their specialty, they can't cast Mirror Image, the best defensive spell in IWD2.
Chaos has a +4 penalty to its saving throw, much like in the other games, and works reliably even against spellcasters. Frisk's Chaos spell has a DC of 30, when most enemies's Will saves don't reach 10. That's a 95% success rate against almost everything.
Asriel has finally gotten level 5 spells and can now grant himself spell resistance. No longer is Chara our only Fireball tank.
It's still a tad risky, though, since it's only high enough to resist about half of Frisk's spells. It will be more important in shielding him from enemy spells than from Frisk's.
We've got another tough battle coming up, with multiple spellcasters and a very resilient sexy blue lady to fight. Sherincal.
Before we go, we rescue another gnomish merchant from the belly of a Remorhaz.
We rescue his pet spider and reunite them. Playing with Aocha the friendly spider fills us with determination.
Durlag's Tower - a tough place for my randomized party. Enemies like skeleton warriors, greater doppelgangers or flesh golems kill most members of my party within seconds, unless the right buffs/potions are used, so once again I have to summon skeletons whenever I can. Luna or Goibniu can tank a little bit, but it's risky and not a great plan in general. I have to be very careful.
Helios started disarming various traps while invisbile, so they won't get in the way while fighting. The first tougher battle was against the three greater doppelgangers near the library - an encounter that ended one of my previous randomized party challenges.
I managed to lure the doppelgangers down to the library one by one into waiting skeletons, ranged weapon users with +2 ammunition and magic missle spells by Owain:
Amazingly, I managed to keep at least some skeletons alive for almost the entire level, and thus the party was able to progress carefully, but relatively quickly. However, I decided to go outside to rest before fighting the 4 sin personifications. I prepared with the usual buffs, plus heroism potions for the three fighters and one of my many giant strength potions for Goibniu (I have enough of those that one of them is active pretty much all the time by now, making Goibniu a passable melee fighter - only his hp are still quite low).
Shortly after starting the battle and moving to a better position, Anapa was dire charmed. I thought this spell would hit one of the skeletons instead - I was sure Anapa wasn't being targeted, otherwise I would've used a potion of clarity. Oh well:
Goibniu retreated, knowing how much damage Anapa can deal. A good plan, as it turned out, because the next spell, skull trap, killed Anapa instantly - it also destroyed most of the skeletons and heavily wounded the enemies themselves:
The party eventually managed to kill most enemies with their ranged weapons, though I had no choice but to engange the final opponent in melee combat;
Luckily, there are enough healing potions in Durlag's Tower, so I used them liberally. The battle was won, and the party returned to Nashkell, resurrecting Anapa, resting and returning to the tower.
Level 2: A little bit easier, since magic missle spells and ranged weapons are enough to deal with the various doppelgangers around there, though I once again had to use some healing potions. Also, this was propably my first time not accidentally triggering any traps in this level. I ended up not having to use skeletons and buffs at all, so I could save them all for the dwarven doom guard fight at the end. Using some more strength potion for my fighters helped as well, since I had to engage in melee combat. Anapa is really useful in situations like this if he doesn't get targeted. Luckily, the doom guards mostly attacked skeletons, so they stood no chance:
After resting, the party entered the next level. I started with the western path and encountered no trouble there. The middle path was next - some remaining protection from undead scrolls did all the work:
The eastern path did cost me all five skeletons, but was eventually cleared.
Now, the elemental rooms - the fission slime was killed with Luna's wand of the heavens, the air room was a matter of simple combat. For the ice room, I had Goibniu use a potion and scroll to make him immune to frost damage, so he simply stood there, immune to his foes:
Now, before entering the fire room, I prepared for the chessboard. Aside from the usual buffs, I had everyone use potions and scrolls to make my entire party immune to both lightning and fire damage - so I could move around the chessboard freely and spam fireballs via potions, necklaces, spells and wands.
This is basically the strategy: Just start spamming all available fireball charges on everything, since I won't really need them later:
Time for the final level!
The spider room was cleared with the help of skeletons:
For the southern area, everyone drank a potion of freedom - I also used some more giant strength potions, and I had to use lots and lots of healing potions (more than in every other area). Still, there was no real danger for my party:
With Greal's death, only the demon knight was left. My potion choices mostly served to maximize ranged damage, so I used heroism for the fighters once again, and some more potions of agilty. Luna also summoned skeletons upon entering the area, sending them to the enemy first, so he would focus his spells on them.
The demon knight immediately used dispel magic, only hitting Anapa, who was, of course, in melee range. I realized that his second spell, a devastating fireball, was targeted at the half-orc kensai as well, so I quickly equipped him with my two fire resistance rings and moved him away from the party and the skeletons:
Anapa returned to melee combat, but was hit with a symbol: stun - however, Goibniu got some good hits in, using arrows of dispelling:
And before the demon knight could even hit the stunned Anapa, he was slain by the party!
Durlag's Tower is done, and I'll save the return to Ulgoth's Beard for the next post.
Enuhal
Vampires are people too;
Hear text as mp3,
We returned to the slums too find two groups wanting to be our pals... Valygar unlocked his uncles magic spear and we told him to wait for us inside as we pop back to the inn.
I swapped Mazzy out for Anomen, after she won a pit fight (with potion) then agreed to help two other girls with their problems... One is a long ways off but the other is just inside the grave yard so Hexxat is first.
The tomb has some minor shadows + one dangerous vampire but I have a sharman in the group so domination isn't a concern... The extra Cleric was useful against undead but he grates and has started hitting on me so no thanks.
P.s, Bodhi makes the better offer so Vamps it is.
Session 7 starts with the party standing next to Gaelan Bayle with their pockets somewhat emptier than before. Aran Linvail is visited, handing over an Amulet (Unyo) and ring (Coretank)
Renfeld is returned to the Harper Hold, meaning Xzar and his peons perish shortly afterwards. Coretank wipes the traces of fireball out of his eyes, Unyo belatedly realising his decision not to protect the Undead Hunter against flames to be a misjudgement of Pins' clear the room strategy.
Lassal is kicked out of the docks in short order so the party can head to the Temple district in search of a gaudy necklace. Unyo smells trouble below their feet and Coretank takes on a new aroma thanks to a cloak retrieved from the sewers. Coretank creates more of a stink while playing with the local wildlife.
Rayic Gethras puts up a brave fight. Coretank is in his face while Pins is providing ranged distraction. Unyo casts an Insect Plague on his own nymph and they swarm all over Rayic. Down he goes.
Mae'Var's goons take full advantage of Pins' reticence to wear armour, or to purchase Stoneskin. Two backstabs please.
After fighting his way out of a corner, Unyo leaves Coretank to mop up while he heads to a temple for an 1800gp resurrection. Pins is back in action and the party head downstairs for a much cleaner encounter.
Unyo decides it is time to grab the Rod of Resurrection so Mekrath is killed off. He has salamanders and a yuan-ti nearby, Unyo getting pinned in against a salamander much to his annoyance - wanting to use True Sight on the Yuan-ti but Coretank will have it dead before the Salamander can be shifted.
Unyo suggests picking on Tarnor the Hatchetman. Coretank blanches, the excuses coming thick and fast about his save vs death not being up to the job. Unyo casts Death Ward and shoves the Undead Hunter forward. Sure, there were buffs against lightning, fire and fear too but Coretank is less than convinced.
(he thinks he's going to his death...)
True Sight and Chaos are essential for Tarnor's gang. Unfortunately for them, Unyo and Pins are using them so first come first served and Tarnor's group are unable to cast their own versions. Nymph holds and an Insect Plague follow in rapid succession and Tarnor's gang are wiped out with Coretank still breathing. "See" says Unyo "nothing to worry about". He promptly walks into a Hold Person from kobolds and has to be rescued by his companions. Coretank is once more slow on the uptake as a Pins' Fireball lights him up.
With the two hours drawing to a close, there was time to head to the de'Arnise Keep and clear the courtyard. A few trolls remain on the ground floor but the party may head upstairs to see if they can lay their hands on the fabled Frostreaver axe or mythical Flail of Ages first.
Unyo (Gate70), protagonist. Shapeshifter. 196 kills (+28)
Pins (Grond0). Blade. Tome: 183 kills (+37)
Coretank (Corey_Russell). Undead Hunter. 404 kills (+76)
Sherincal has impressive resistances and comes bolstered by several clerics, among various other melee-oriented foes. We open with a Chaos spell. Although the save DC is incredibly high, some enemies like Sherincal are immune.
Normally I run caster-heavy parties with low damage output, but with the Golden Heart of Frisk and Remorhaz form, Sherincal's resistances are a lot easier to break.
Sure Striking weapons (you get a few such arrows earlier on) are another good way to get past her resistances.
Frisk roasts a few critters with Fireball, but several enemies have spell resistance or MGOI active.
Sherincal has teleported away, so we switch focus to the necromancers. Their lack of Mirror Image spells is crippling.
Frisk keeps up the pressure, torching most of the remaining enemies and paralyzing a shaman in the middle of a healing spell.
We move forward to check on Sherincal. Chara holds back to break down a Crystal Golem flanking us. Chara is our best weapon to use against Sherry, so Asriel and Frisk choose other targets while waiting for Chara to arrive.
Finally Chara engages with Sherincal. She's a tough cookie, but Chara smashes right through her defenses.
We enter the temple. A long, tedious slog awaits us. The Ice Temple is fun and interesting the first couple times around, but there's a tremendous amount of backtracking and various other delays that make the area drag on and on.
It's not even a particularly difficult area. There are a few slightly bigger fights, but most of the combat in this area is just one long but low-intensity skirmish after another, fighting the exact same enemies. This is what most of the fights look like with our party:
Frisk does fail a save against Silence, Dispel Magic, and Hold Person in the same fight, but Asriel and Chara crush the enemy regardless.
Chara gains another level and learns an even stronger shapeshift. Now they can turn into a wyvern, which deals poison, acid, and piercing damage and has even higher damage resistances than the Fomorian Giant form. However, the poison damage offers a Fortitude save, the acid damage offers a Reflex save for half damage (and therefore Evasion can block it outright!), and many enemies are resistant to piercing damage, making it weaker than the Fomorian Giant form against many targets.
It makes little difference. The enemies aren't strong enough to get past our AC, saves, resistances, and Free Action.
Until I fight the Talisman mercenaries.
Apparently Free Action in IWD2 doesn't block stun effects. Those bolts stun the target for 2 rounds with a DC of 24. Chara has a 25% chance of failing a save with every hit. And although stun prevents critical hits, the enemy doesn't need critical damage to penetrate Chara's resistances. Chara has Stoneskin, but the Stoneskin buff is almost depleted--it only blocks 10 damage per level, total.
That was so fast. Chara only failed a single save; that was enough to doom them. And both Asriel and Frisk don't have immunities. A critical failure on the save could kill either one.
Frisk tries to bomb them. The enemies suffers horribly, but they're strong enough to shrug it off.
My screenshots don't show tooltips, but those enemies aren't even at Badly Injured.
I check out Asriel's AC. He's 3 AC short of avoiding a Bolt of Stunning +1 on anything but a critical hit.
Asriel still has a small chance of getting killed. I need to get rid of the Talisman Assassin who fired those bolts, but he's invisible and would probably just evade another Sunfire. Frisk breaks out Chaos...
But the Assassin targets them anyway, and Frisk needs a really high roll to resist the stun effect. They don't get it.
I could have attempt to rescue Frisk, but it would put him in jeopardy, and honestly, I need Asriel more than Frisk. He is, after all, the only one who can cast Raise Dead. Asriel runs away.
Frisk's Mirror Image and Improved Invisibility will hold off a few attacks, and for a moment I think they just might survive. But when they fail another save against a Bolt of Stunning +1, I know they won't escape.
Notice Asriel's new summoned monsters. I want to grab our equipment and hopefully take down that Assassin, which Asriel can't do on his own without risking a failed save against one of those awful bolts. We send in a Boneguard Skeleton, heal Asriel, and cast Sanctuary so he can monitor the situation in safety.
The Boneguard isn't tough enough, even with its damage resistances.
We will need to rest and resurrect Frisk and Chara before proceeding. I turn off "Rest until fully healed" in the options menu, and also heal Asriel completely, to make sure we don't rest so long that Frisk and Chara's equipment vanishes.
Unfortunately, resting here is not safe. We get ambushed during the rest period, and then the Talisman mercenaries catch up to us.
The Assassin could be anywhere now. Asriel runs up to the next level, rests, and brings back Frisk and Chara. Since I don't want to rest a second time, lest our equipment vanish (I don't know how many hours it takes for loot to disappear), I heal everyone without resting and buff up the party.
Our loot is still there!
We hurry over to grab it, but the Talisman mercenaries appear, including the Assassin. Chara smashes him, but he has multiple Potions of Invisibility that we have no way of interrupting.
When the Assassin chases Frisk and Asriel out of the hall, Chara has to shapeshift to get through the door to reach them. Over and over again, the Assassin turns invisible before striking. His Blind-fight feat reduces his miss rate against our Improved Invisibility by half.
The enemy cleric tries to dispel our invisibility, but Chara puts a stop to it.
Finally, the Assassin runs out of potions. Without them, he's helpless.
We finish off the rest of the mercenaries and collect our equipment, plus a cool new bastard sword.
My mods buff the rather disappointing bastard swords of Icewind Dale 2 (maybe half are cursed, and the other half are just weak). Executioner's Eyes boosts your attack bonus and critical hit range by 4. Dual-wield this sword with an axe or hammer, both of which deal triple damage on critical hits, and you have a very high-damage build. But the Golden Heart of Frisk and Tabard's Shield improve Asriel's AC by 9, which Asriel needs to survive melee combat.
If it weren't for Asriel, those mercenaries could have spelled the end of the run. Knowing that Goat Bro will always be there for us--it fills us with determination.
The Ice Temple is more than just a bunch of blue and white rooms filled with blue and white enemies. It also has a blue and white staircase that leads to different blue and white rooms depending on what you say in blueish white text.
[spoiler]
If you set the Battle Square to higher levels, you can get increasingly better items as a reward. Some of them are pretty crazy, but the game takes forever to complete and the enemies include high-level demons.
Instead, we move on to the last fight, with Oria. Guess what colors her clothes are?
Clerics come in to flank us when the fight begins. Asriel keeps Oria busy, resisting Webs and Chromatic Orb spells with the Free Action from the Golden Heart of Frisk, while Chara and Frisk pick off the enemy clerics with Remorhaz form, Chromatic Orb, and Fireball.
Finally I bring Asriel out into the hall, Oria fast on his heels, and switch Chara to Will o' Wisp form to tackle the high priestess. Improved Invisibility is a pain, but it seems dispelling it is not an option.
In IWD2, there is no True Seeing spell, and the only thing that can remove Improved Invisibility is Invisibility Purge, which Non-Detection blocks, unlike in BG. And since the only magic attack in the game is Dispel Magic, which offers a Will save, which enemy spellcasters will easily make, and since Dispel Magic is an abjuration spell, there's no Spell Focus feat to improve it. So Improved Invisibility and Non-Detection are sort of unbeatable, which is why so many mages in Tactics use them.
As sturdy as Oria is, she can't do much to us with Freedom of Movement blocking her Chromatic Orbs, and though she nails Asriel with Ice Lance and stuns him, Chara already removed all of the enemies that could finish him off while he was disabled. We just keep attacking until we eventually land a hit.
Oria breaks her staff as a final attack, to little effect.
One of the few advantages to a smaller, higher-level party in IWD2 is that area-effect spells aren't quite as strong, since you get hit fewer times. We run down to the Battle Square and Oria announces her imminent victory. She really hams it up.
Her boasting doesn't last. We turn ethereal using the Battle Square lever thingy and kill Oria without even targeting her.
With Oria gone, we can finally enter the last password in the magic staircase and loot the temple treasury.
It seems we can't go a single chapter without Asriel finding a dead kitty somewhere.
All that's left is to invoke Caged Fury's real name and break Talos' hold over the temple. But with 8 Intelligence on every party member, none of us knows to say it. And when we talk to Nickademus, we somehow seem to lock ourselves out of asking for the demon's real name.
There was an option before, but we chose the wrong dialog option and removed it without getting our answer.
We need that name to banish Caged Fury. I finally break our three-member party and let in a new character. It's Sans! Because of course it is.
Finding a decent portrait for Sans was really hard. So much Sans fan art is focused on his badass hero side, which doesn't really fit who he normally is. This is a much more accurate depiction of Sans.
To my dismay, Sans doesn't have the option of invoking the demon's real name, either. But it turns out we don't need it. We can just yell at him.
Sans teleports away with CTRL-J, since he only has 1 HP, but still gets hit by some spell. Since he survives the thing without having any electricity resistance at all, I'm guessing the spell is designed to be nonlethal.
Sans leaves the party, we report our success to Nathaniel, and we expose a group of doppelgangers on the way out. Finally, the Ice Temple is over.
Before we move on, we travel back to the first area and find Oswald left us a potion. It's the best one we could have hoped for.
The potion is randomly generated at the start of the game, so even if I had reloaded, I couldn't have gotten a different one. If you use the import/export trick to duplicate such potions, you can make any character immune to damage, as I did in a previous, glitch-intensive no-reload run a long time ago. Asriel drinks the potion, as it will not stack with Chara's damage resistances when shapeshifted, and Frisk has Mirror Image to defend them.
Sans tells us it was "ice" to see us again. We are filled with determination.
Do the mages in your IWD2 setup actually do all this? I thought IWD2 did not have a version of Tactics available, no? If so I need to polish up and have another go at IWD2 -- my favorite dungeon crawl.
A new chapter begins, with another well-written diary entry by our narrator, Maralie.
She has such a pretty voice. And she has a remarkably vivid script considering how hack-and-slash IWD2 is. The writing in IWD2 is surprisingly strong.
The Wandering Village is next, followed by a tedious Lost Woods-style maze in the Fell Woods. One of my mods adds some special items for good-aligned rangers--probably because rangers are generally considered the weakest class in IWD2. The mod introduces the relevant merchant in a strange way, though.
He really, really likes rangers. Wink, wink. If you're a ranger, he'll sell you this:
It's erroneously set to sell for 1 gold and crashes when we buy it, so I have to console it in. Frisk will have to take a level in ranger to use it. Same goes for a ranger-only bow that adds the user's Strength bonus to damage rolls. We also purchase the Avarine Decanter from Nym and free the djinni.
He gives us some nice items, including the Indomitable Bands, which give +5 to generic AC and 10 +2 damage reduction, which means items of +1 enchantment and lower deal 10 less damage to the wearer.
Chara has hit druid level 13 and has a new shapeshifting form, even stronger than any of the others: a white half-dragon. It comes with a humongous sword and a tiny bikini. As it should.
I still don't remember why we need to get through the Fell Woods or where we're trying to go. It has something to do with the Underdark. It doesn't really matter if you don't know what's going on; IWD2 puts you on a straight route anyway. Suoma won't let us progress until we save the local children, who have been going missing. Time to investigate!
The investigation suddenly ends. As a paladin, Asriel can sense evil, and Limha just exudes it.
Limha tells us that she turned the local children into small furry animals, so their parents would hunt and kill them. She also tells us that killing her will undo the curse. Idiot.
Limha comes very well-prepared for this fight.
Freedom of Movement once again blocks a hostile Chromatic Orb, which can otherwise be fatal. Limha is a little hard to hit right now, so I turn our attention to clearing up the trolls.
Limha surprises us with one of my favorite spells.
Then I find something very special.
Chara's half-dragon form is immune to stun! The one immunity we can't find anywhere else. Chara cuts Limha to pieces.
Giant horns. Bat wings. Alabaster skin. A six-foot-long, serrated sword. And a teeny tiny bikini. The half-dragon form has it all.
Frisk says there's an impressive wyrm in the party. Chara says hands off the merchandise.
When flirting with Chara fails, Frisk asks for a private "lesson" with Kanno the Bowyer.
We get a special book as a souvenir, but a bug prevents Frisk from using it--the description doesn't list any race or class restrictions. We use the potion swap glitch to activate it instead, but all it does is produce a couple of items that only elves and half-elves can use.
A new murder mystery crops up. Naturally, the solution is to kill a bunch of Will o' Wisps so a ghost will tell us where to find the victim's restless spirit.
We meet some skeletons in the woods, but none of them gives us any hot dogs or spaghetti. Disappointing.
After a lot of wandering, we complete the questline, and Isair and Madae, the antagonists of IWD2, stop by to lecture us. They're pretty spooky.
Isair and Madae could have been excellent characters given their backstory, but I always found them to be obnoxious and unlikeable. They scoff and sneer and mock, coming off more as snotty bullies than proper villains.
It's a petty, irritating, condescending kind of evil. Imagine if Voldemort, fighting Harry Potter at the end of Goblet of Fire, said that Harry's glasses looked stupid. It would just seem childish, and that's how Isair and Madae often sound.
We fight some zombies, then talk to Suoma to open up the next fight, then fight some trees, and finally enter the next area, where there will be more fighting. That's IWD2 for you.
Conceptually speaking, a no-reload IWD2 run is basically the polar opposite of Undertale. Undertale was all about nonviolent solutions, and reloading was a critical plot point.
Whatever. This is fun, and that's the important thing.
Turning into sexy dragon ladies and fighting with giant swords in tiny bikinis fills us with determination.
The Ease of Use mod is responsible for the druid shapeshifts I've been using; it also gives druids some additional spells like Stoneskin and Sunfire. I just tested it. Confirmed. Any level 1 character with 1 HP is immune to all damage. It even works if you only have 1 HP due to energy drain. Only instant death magic and energy drain can kill such a character.
I will have to try this setup with IWD2 sometime.
Upon waking up they were insulted and attacked by an evil dwarf and his crew. No real pre-buffs used and our very first full plate as a suitable reward.
Trademeet > invis, picking up Belm, killing the last druids for Gnasher, having Jaheira killing Faldorn with resist fear pre-buff, almost died from creeping doom even so since Faldorn used a couple of super healing potions.
Killed the genies since I really hate those guys.
When leaving town Rasaad begs me to help him, can't say no to killing evil cultists can we?
At the amphitheater we actually manage to answer correctly and no monks needlessly lost their lives! At the mercenary company SE at that map we tell them Hojar should get the belt which makes the guy with the mirror image ring hostile. I just don't want to grab the belt for myself even though the loot is very good since that is clearly the evil option and Dice would never do that.
Everyone is fatigued once we actually reach the big bad temple, still figured we can meet the assault after all the tests. And yes we could, surprisingly easy considering we are a melee heavy party and everyone was fatigued.
De'Arnise > Resting where I picked up Nalia since everyone is BADLY fatigued and only a few spells left, also feels it breaks my run if I need to go outside to rest after clearing a part of the castle. Everything in the castle is very easy, the charmed guard even fails his save vs dominate after a doom.
Tor'gal is a very tricky beast. I pre-buff with pretty much everything I've got landing my AC vs evil piercing attacks at around -15 to -20 with Jaheira and Dice, my FMT sitting pretty at around -5 or so in all saves vs evil, Jaheira has confusion immunity from shield and Minsc from Lilarcor, all are immune to fear due to buff. Run in with the entire party hasted and first round cast web x 2 and cloudkill from wand after the talk, next round 2 x cloudkill and a fireball. The experience gains tells me he had quite a few friends of his own. The beatdown of Tor'gal goes way smoother than usual due to 3 strong melee characters with decent weapons (none wielding FoA though), great AC and Tor'gal himself failing a save vs slow (casted twice) after doom, he still managed to hit Minsc lowering his strength from 21 to around 15 or so. After that Minsc joined Aerie and Nalia in killing the Yuanti Mages and between his 4 APR with longbow, Nalias 4 with Tuigan and Aeries 5 with MMM they fell in short order.
Now to go help Neera and reunite Wilson with his dearest of friends.
There's a big fight with Snow Trolls and barbarians, but it's not very interesting. Remorhaz form and Sexy Dragon Lady form let Chara defeat the enemy almost single-handedly.
We also fight a white dragon. Chara hacks it to pieces as well.
I forgot to buy rope from Tahvo the Huntmaster, so I have to trek back to the Wandering Village before I can enter the Underdark. There's a short tunnel here that's absolutely crawling with Hook Horrors that will ruthlessly flank you. Frisk sends them into disarray with Chaos and helps Asriel and Chara cut them down with our new Mordenkainen's Sword spell.
Mordenkainen's Sword actually deals remarkable damage (3d6+3!) and has a +1 attack bonus per caster level, making it strike more or less without fail. To my disappointment, however, Tenser's Transformation doesn't seem to add attacks when it improves Frisk's attack bonus (I thought it did). Frisk is better off wielding Bloody Wroth despite their lack of proficiency with bastard swords, since Bloody Wroth's +8 to Strength and Constitution is better for their carrying capacity and HP, and does not prevent spellcasting.
When the Hook Horrors start to overwhelm us, Frisk stuns them with Gedlee's Electric Loop and roasts them with Sunfire.
When those spells run low, Frisk has even more options, as they can restore Chara's defenses and Slow the enemy.
There are some troublesome Ochre Jellies here that can only be defeated, I understand, by chain-casting damage spells. Frisk delivers.
We've also got some duergar slavers to deal with. You can get past them without violence, but we can't tolerate seeing our fellow critters enslaved.
Everyone, including the slaves, turns hostile. I assume this melee-heavy fight will be straightforward, but then I see the enemy can stun us.
I switch Chara to Sexy Dragon Lady form. The enemy's electrical bolts will still damage them, but Chara will be immune to stun and most of their normal attacks.
Frisk disables the enemy to grant us a reprieve from the Bolts of Stunning +1, but when they move in to flood the area with fire, a stray bolt stuns them.
Asriel hurries over to cast Sanctuary. Problem solved.
Asriel casts Recitation, but the buff doesn't really matter. Our damage output is too high for the enemy to handle anyway, and Asriel avoids getting stunned.
We come across a spectre, who had been tortured to death...
...but he's too out of his mind to be reasoned with. We have to put him down.
On the way out, we run into Harshom, a Luskan affiliate of Isair and Madae, who answers some important questions about his war-bears.
We ask him what he means by that, but there's no option to flirt our way out of this fight.
Harshom is immune to various disablers, as a few bosses are, but his goons are not. Chaos is unstoppable. The save DC is 31.
We focus on the mages first, using Slow to cement our advantage, and finally turn on Harshom. Asriel chunks him.
It seems he forgot to cast Improved Invisibility.
A new chapter begins. The Black Raven Monastery stands guard over the Underdark exit, though I still don't know where we're supposed to go. A flock of wyverns greets us, but does not attack.
You can steal one of their eggs for later use, but we don't have the right classes or stats to fully exploit it. No omelettes for us.
Chowing down on Iron Rations instead of hurting friendly animals fills us with determination.
The Black Raven Monastery sells a guide to adventuring that grants the user 10,000 XP. The Heart of Fury mode version, which my mods move to normal mode, grants 20,000 XP. This is important because Chara needs to hit druid level 21 (total level 22) in order to get the strongest half-dragon form, and XP is going to be hard to come by late in the game, as our higher levels will increasingly negate the XP from the bigger late-game fights. I'm not sure I can reach that level without level squatting. And I really want that final dragon form. It's far, far stronger than any of the previous forms. So I'll be saving it until it can get Chara to druid level 21, which is still a long way off.
There's a Legion of the Chimera plot going on at the monastery. Uncovering it is as simple as stealing a few documents and talking to the right person, who confesses everything.
He also confesses his love for Aruma Blane. Aww.
Chara smashes open every chest in sight. There's an awesome spear of disruption here.
The Heart of Fury version destroys undead on a failed Will save at DC 24, but I prefer the normal mode version's description, in which the middle quote is actually:
"Oh," he had then added, "and pray thee bless it as well... thou dost know, that one where it explodes undead and what-not, so that I may smite things most explosively."
Unless you kill all of the monks (for which the previous duergar slavers will reward you, if you didn't kill them), the only way to proceed is to undergo a whole bunch of trials against magic-immune monk golems. You have to do so unbuffed and unarmed besides some nonmagical weapons they provide for you, but that's not really a handicap for Chara.
Normally these trials are a nightmare. Improved shapeshifting makes them bearable.
Just for fun we fight some Iron Golems in the next area, who guard some rather unimpressive loot. When Wyvern form proves ineffective, we switch to Remorhaz form.
Notice that the Iron Golems have 4 attacks per round, and Chara's attack bonus isn't strong enough to land every hit. In IWD2, you gain attacks per round as you base attack bonus grows, but each attack is weaker than the last. When your base attack bonus hits +6, you get an extra attack at +1. When it hits +11, you get another +6 attack and a following +1 attack. Thus, each attack suffers a -5 penalty from the previous one.
Off-hand attacks and bonus attacks from Haste don't benefit from your base attack bonus at all. Only other attack bonuses apply.
The golems' Cloudkills are vicious, but as a high-level druid, Chara is immune. Even so, the golems' crushing attacks are deadly, being strong enough to get past Chara's resistances even without critical hits. Chara's Treant form has better resistances (20- damage resistance!), but a bug prevents them from using it. Instead, Asriel's newfound Heal spells have to keep Chara's HP up.
Iron Golems are brutal. With incredibly strong attacks, immunity to magic, and high damage resistance, they are overwhelming. A normal party would struggle to defeat them, but we have Chara on our side.
We meet Malavon Despana, who is much friendlier than in the original IWD. He even wants our help.
When his friend Kadresh scolds him for loving a family member, which no drow should be weak enough to do, he snaps that he's important enough to get away with it. He has a good point.
The next quest involves destroying a device that produces driders, which normally can only be created by Llolth, and only as a punishment. Turns out the Legion of the Chimera is once again responsible. Asriel's honesty ends up provoking a fight.
The next area is flooded with Drider Fighters, Drider Clerics, and Drider Sorcerers, who have gobs of HP and spell resistance to boot. Aside from some Myconids stunning Frisk early on, which Asriel fixes with Sanctuary...
...the entire area is mostly a long slog, fighting an endless stream of driders, none of whom are truly deadly. This is basically what the fights look like:
We finally track down Ginafae! We reassure her that her brother is not out to kill her.
She returns to Malavon in peace. Easy.
Besides Frisk failing a save against Dispel Magic, the last of the driders go down with little resistance. All that's left is to defeat Imphraili, the Transmuter in charge here, and destroy the Viciscamera, the awesomely-named but hideous blob machine that transforms the drow into driders.
Before we fight Imphraili, we ask her about her research. Learning about cool scientifical magicky stuff fills us with determination.
Sometimes I progress normally after party members get chunked, but often I like to create new characters to replace them. You get the character back, but it won't have as much XP as the rest of the party (in one run, I lost millions of XP due to repeated chunkings). This means that the chunking is still meaningful, but does not permanently rob the player of a likeable character, a loss that can make the game less fun.
Rarely, I will import from a previously exported character--also legal, though it makes the chunking less crippling--but only if I've made that decision before the chunking actually occurred.
Also, here's Axer's final update in any case:
Axer the Half-Orc Fighter - FINAL Update!
I could go on and on about the great success Axer had. He had defeated enemies in Yaga's Temple, Yaga himself, he had defeated Draconis and Abazigal brilliantly. He skipped Oasis totally as nothing there he wanted.
He had even defeated the drow "hunter" who was really the captain guarding Sendai's lair. But drow minions (on the surface) were using power attack and stunning Axer as well as buffetting Axer all over the place - it pushed him into one particular drow who did Greater Whirlwind and killed Axer quickly. RIP Axer. Not even his groupmates from Candlekeep were there to bury his body, since Krem and Vommar got chunked earlier in the run.
Possibly Axer should have used a shield in this area, to be much more difficult to hit.
Smite is even worse. The stun effect in the first round offers no save at all. Immunity to stun is the only thing that will block it.