Congrats Enuhal! Hopefully your band of misfits can keep up their good work in BG 2. I would think it would be a bit easier in BG 2, in part due to some of the powerful weapons (helping things like Thac0), but also more powerful spells and summons. BG 1 is the real slog with a true random party.
Thanks Corey_Russell. I have some experience with randomized parties in BG2 (2 of my randomized triology attempts did make it to BG2 before, but more importantly, I used to do randomized parties in a BG2+ToB-only challenge and once had success), and in my opinion, while BG2 isn't as painful as early BG1, there are still some relatively tough stages: Early BG2 is still quite hard if you're used to normal parties, so I'll have to go for the easiest quests possible, and some enemies with high physical damage like golems can be especially rough - but as you say, if you get some of the more powerful equipment, things get easier. The one thing that doesn't really get better are the hp scores, so I basically try to play as if I'd be playing on insane difficulty, which is fairly accurate, since decent characters might have double the hp my party currently has. Luckily, the fact that I have an arcane spellcaster this time does negate many of the usual problems a randomized party tends to face in BG2 and especially ToB.
I see. In BG 2, wouldn't MMM be useful against golems if you have an arcane party member? With proper buffs the arcane can even tank the golems. Finally, High AC (such as a tank using Fortress Shield - though granted if he isn't strong enough to use that, that's a problem, but even a weak tank can use the Shield of Harmony) plus using things like Ilbratha, improved invisibility via spell or RoAC can boost a tank against a golem, even a tank with poor stats. But if you are desparate, guess someone can run around while the rest of the party ranges...
I do indeed count on stoneskin+MI to solve my golem problem, which is one of the reasons I mentioned that having an arcane spellcaster will make this attempt certainly easier. Owain, who, by the way, has 25 max hp right now, will ironically be by far my best tank (though that's generally always the case with arcane spellcasters once you reach BG2 and get the really powerful defensive spells).
The "running around" thing is often not possible against golems (they tend to be hasted and can also slow your party down), which is one of the reasons they can be so tough. They also kill summons really quickly, and good ac isn't really something you get if none of the characters capable of using a shield or even any armor at all has a dexterity bonus to ac. Plus, the gauntlets of dexterity aren't available early on, and even a character with a good ac score is taking a huge risk trying to tank a golem - golems are still very capable of dealing damage faster than the character can drink healing potions. The other dangerous thing about them is that, due to their high damage output, they sometimes chunk killed characters, which is obviously terrible if you're not allowed to simply pick up another NPC.
Let's not get too off topic, though. I'm sure that, with Owain in my party, golems won't be the thing that ends my run (famous last words, I know).
Aethel has picked up Gavin, mainly for RP reasons, killed Bassilus, Zargal et al, Shoal and Droth, the Sirenes nearby, the gnolls attacking Drizzt, the bandits and the half-ogres nearby. Took a lot longer to do than to write.
The priest at the Morninglord Temple has asked Aethel to deasl with Mutamin. Before setting off, Aethel bought Imoen a new robe that gives +2 to armour protection and 30% magic resistance. Back to being poor again!!!
Good points @Enuhal - but you are also right, wouldn't want to lead the thread astray. But I'm sure some readers of this thread are finding it educational, not realizing the challenges a true random stat party has in trying to complete no-reload.
Maralie's adult voice as the narrator is also charming, but the tone is very different. I have to stress again that despite being a hack-and-slash game, IWD2 has some very strong, emotionally compelling writing in it.
The Legion of the Chimera has touched Kuldahar as well.
We land safely. Child Maralie continues to be adorable.
Then we get accosted by a monstrous orcish Dreadmaster of Bane, swinging a huge flail. Somehow, it fails its Intimidate check against Maralie.
Asriel questions Heipherus on theological grounds. He doesn't take it very well.
After hiding our still-vulnerable sorcerer Frisk with Sanctuary, Asriel and Chara get to work on the boring horde of undead grunts around us.
The Holy Swizarnian Hammer of Lucerne, a spear of disruption, destroys undead on a Will save with a 24 DC. Few undead can handle it in normal mode.
Notice also the energy drain effect on Chara and Asriel. In IWD2, it slightly decreases your HP and I think also your attack rolls and possibly your damage rolls and saving throws. Unlike BG, it does not rob you of spell slots, making it a lot less dangerous.
We find Jermsy in the watchtower. Jermsy is the little boy you rescue from orcs in the first Icewind Dale game. He's grown up now, but having his family murdered by orcs had a strong influence on him, understandably making him into a grumpy jerkface. Jerksy explains that Hiepherus is trying to wrest the powerful scrying device, the Heartstone Gem, from Kuldahar's current archdruid.
Arundel was the old archdruid in the previous game, but he died. They replaced him instead of resurrecting him because druids are too poor to afford to raise the dead.
We cast Sanctuary on Frisk once more and go tackle Hiepherus. His Heal spells keep him going for a long time, enough for Chara to deal considerable damage to the orogs just by wearing the Shiny Black Urchin.
That shield casts Poison on enemy attackers, dealing 20 damage over 20 seconds on a failed Fortitude save. Chara gets hit all the time due to their low AC, so the shield is a surprisingly strong asset. Honestly that monk level was kind of a waste; Chara is always safer wearing armor.
Chara's half-dragon immunities show their worth once more. Blasphemy, IWD2's deadly counterpart to Holy Word, does nothing to them.
Especially in Tactics, enemy spellcasters in IWD2 will chain-cast Blasphemy. The effects vary for weaker critters, but for high-level critters like us, Blasphemy stuns the target for one round with no save. It works against both neutral and good-aligned critters, so evil alignments are actually a strong powergaming choice--just because Blasphemy is so dangerous in the late game.
Hiepherus (what a fancy name for such a brutish character) eventually runs out of Heal spells. Asriel foolishly declines a reward from Jerksy...
...but we can still purchase a powerful item from Nathaniel.
In IWD2, Charisma- and Wisdom-boosting items behave differently regarding spell slots. Removing a Charisma-boosting item will also remove any extra spell slots the bonus gave you, but the same does not apply for Wisdom-boosting items like the Every God ring. This means both Asriel and Chara get extra spell slots, and Chara gets even higher save DCs for their Static Charge spells.
After killing the Yuan-ti infesting the town, we speak to the archdruid, Iselore (cool name for a druid, really). He explains that Isair and Madae are cambions born of Maiden Ilmadia, a half-elf you kill in the first Icewind Dale.
Ilmadia committed suicide after giving birth. Instead, Mother Egenia, a cleric of Ilmater, took the children in. Knowing humankind would not treat them well, Egenia raised the in seclusion.
Then, one day, Egenia died, and her children went to bury her. When the townspeople saw the twin cambions with their mother's body...
...the humans attacked. The cambions fought back, and killed them.
Ever since then, Isair and Madae have tried to find a home, but there was nowhere they could go where they would be accepted. Bitter and confused, they turned their backs on Ilmadia's teachings, placing their faith in their own power and muscle. Now, Madae is no longer a priest of Ilmater, the god of martyrdom and sacrifice. She is a priest of Iyachtu Xvim, the son of Bane, god of tyranny and domination. Isair has become a sorcerer, and the two of them have built up the Legion of the Chimera, hoping to forge a new world... through force of violence.
The story of Egenia's burial strikes a chord with us. Because that's how Asriel and Chara died. Humans attacked Asriel when they saw a monster carrying a human child, because they thought the monster had killed it. But Asriel did not fight back--he walked away and left them in peace. Chara and Asriel died as a result.
Isair and Madae were faced with the same choice. But where Asriel chose peace, Isair and Madae chose war.
This is a problem. Chara has more power than they seem, and they can take control of this world if they wish, so it's very important--more important than anything else--that they understand that the world is not "kill or be killed." But we are fighting against that idea itself. What happens if we lose?
Isair and Madae chose a different path than Asriel. Chara will see whose philosophy wins out in the end.
I have played BG1 without killing ANYONE! I played a number of games where Sarevok was my only death, but then one of these games there was a trap went off which set off a lightning bolt and simultaneously one of his cohorts shot at my character with an arrow of explosions. I don't know which killed him as at the time I was out of his sight.
When I finished, my favourite weapon was fists. I used Algernon's cloak to charm opponents so that Mulahey was killed by his summoned monsters and Davaeopn by the battle horrors.
I got a real buzz when Sarevok also fell at the hands of his cohorts as well.
We returned to the Docks to kill thieves after jumping on some goblins under the slums... Nice trinket.
The head man cowered inside his lair but we countered most of his defences by simply staying out of the room... The loot includes armour for Imoen, a necklace of power for me, a ring of defence for katarina & another summoning item for Puk.
This thread is buzzing right now! Or is it just me who is slow?
Update on Dice the FMT:
After killing Torgal and dropping of Wilson at his friend Dice and co ends up running around A LOT for all the fetching associated with Neeras personal quest. Fatigue is now quite a problem but since I have a few spells left I try to tackle the red wizard enclave even so.
Getting the mercenaries drunk enough to rebel against their masters is a really fun solution to the first part, well done Beamdog I say!
Killing Lanneth and all her wizards is quite a bother with all the pre-casting and sequensers they've got. After a scripted escape and I don't know how many invis potions and shadow doors I finally get an insect plague to stick to Lanneth but during the routine beatdown she fires off a few flame arrows (I didn't see quite how many but more than one) at Aerie who is neither protected nor has all that much health, she went from 44/44 to dead. Luckily she wasn't chunked so my good friend over at the church of Ilmater brought her back to us. She seems weirldy unaffected by what must have been quite a traumatic experience..
All the wild mages save the cat loving one survived, I just can't bring myself to complete that particular fetch quest even though I always try my hardest to get the best possible outcomes.
Hayes bites the dust and I return to Waukeens to sell lots of gear for a tremendous amount of gold.
Next up is our third rest. After that I'm undecided, depends on how tired I am when I get to play next time. I do really long for AoP though, a great way to spend 30k gold (the discount with my scs installation).
Aethel and party went to Durlag's Tower and cleared the upper reaches of it of enemies. Imoen used knock to open the chests as she hasn't got her thieving abiluities back yet. She was fortunate to find a knock scroll on the body of one of the deceased enemies after an ambush.
William used the tome to increase wisdom and now has extra spells.
On exit a number of items were sold in order to buy a wand of fire.
This was used to wipe out a party of evil adventurers in the basilisk area. They were webbed and so not too much of a problem.
Aethel then used a potion of haste and the scroll of protection from petrification to enable her to wipe out the basilisks, medusae and finally Mutamin. After doing this Imoen got her thieving abilities back.
After telling the Morningmaster of their exploits, they went to visit Gavin's home.
Unfortunately his parents were not at home. Another poster has had the same problem so I will have to read the thread in detail to find the answer to the problem. Probably a mod conflict.
The thread did not help. Does anybody know the creature code for Gavin's parents?
I don't know the answer to your question @Wise_Grimwald - but you probably could have guessed that since you know I don't use mods...good luck with your search for answers for that.
Now that I'm starting with BG2, let me share some updated charscreens of my randomized party with you - look and tremble at their magnificent hp scores:
Goibniu:
Donar:
Anapa:
Luna:
Helios:
Owain:
Now, let's start with Irenicus' Dungeon:
After gathering some equipment, the party explored the dungeon and let skeletons, supported by a backstabbing Donar, deal with most enemies. Some buffs (including invisibility 10' radius) were used to deal with Illych:
Before fighting the mephits guarding the genie, a rest was in order. The refreshed party once again used skeletons and buffs to deal with this encounter:
Another rest before entering the second level, where the mephit portals were quickly destroyed before the party moved on to deal with the clone. As you can see, Donar's backstabs are still quite weak, though I plan to use them more often as soon as I get the right weapons:
To save Kuldahar from the invading Yuan-ti, we have to close the Crossroads, a portal to the jungles of Chult that opened for some reason. To close the portal, we have to kill a black dragon... or we could just wipe out all the foes in a temple to Sseth. Or both! But the dragon is really freaking tough, and I'm sure Tactics makes it even deadlier. We'll just fight snake people instead.
Some of the enemies, curiously enough, are humans who have taken an interest in the evil snake god Sseth, forsaking their people's god Ubtao. It wasn't a good choice.
I've leveled up Frisk a bit, just enough to upgrade their Chromatic Orb to the deadly level 7 version that paralyzes the target for 13 rounds, currently on a save DC of 21.
The bigshot enemy cleric in charge of this operation is Ojaiha, who doesn't have strong enough defenses to hold off the giant sexy dragon lady with the humongous sword.
I've finally decided: the black bikini is hotter than the red. Too bad the red half-dragon is stronger.
Asriel stumbles onto some better-defended enemies with Improved Invisibility. Asriel reveals them, though Invisibility Purge, the strongest anti-illusion spell in IWD2, does not reveal Mirror Image.
Asriel and Chara work on the mages while Frisk lingers safely out of the room. But Inhatri, an enemy backstabber, finds Frisk and attacks, only to roll miserably against Ray of Enfeeblement.
Enemies don't have to deal with encumbrance, so Inhatri just suffers a -7 or -8 penalty to hit and damage, rather than being pinned down. Frisk can't quite run away. Instead, they join the fight against the mages, deploying Gedlee's Electric Loop to knock them out.
Electric Loop doesn't deal much damage (5d6 tops), but the 1-round stun effect bypasses magic resistance and the spell comes out fast, making it great for dealing with crowds, spellcasters, and in this case, crowds of spellcasters.
Another enemy thief, Ashra, comes to join the fight, also dealing IWD2's typical backstabs on every hit even when fully visible and in front of the target. Like many enemies in Tactics, Ashra has Evasion and the Reflex saves to dodge a DC 29 Static Charge.
More thieves have joined the fight, but Frisk can't escape--Ashra's Crippling Strike sneak attacks reduced Frisk's Strength to 1--so they have to use Mirror Image to stay safe.
Asriel gets stunned somehow, and somebody begins casting Flesh to Stone. Frisk hides him--he has no immunity to petrification.
It works! Asriel is safe! Except...
...yeah. And right after we kill Inhatri, the statue explodes.
It's no big worry; bringing Frisk back to level 1 again won't hurt us too much.
I notice that we're getting no XP from these kills, so we need to bring back a new Frisk. Otherwise our average level is too high. Asriel casts Sanctuary on Chara and himself and we escape the temple to re-create Frisk.
We return to combat with Ashra, who has an inexplicably high attack bonus for a thief. Being able to backstab from the front, while fully visible, from a distance--with what looks like a bow just floating in front of her--makes this seem even less realistic.
Look at her main hand. Empty. Her off hand has a weapon. And she's clearly attacking with an off-hand weapon and Arrows of Piercing.
Ashra is dual-wielding a bow and a sword. With one hand empty.
We slay Ashra's buddies and engage her in melee combat. When Chara's damage resistance somehow falls to 8, they crank it up with Wyvern form.
Even the Wyvern form's resistances can't hold off automatic backstabs. Asriel bails Chara out.
The fight drags on and on, until finally we get our paltry reward.
That gear is spectacular, but in our party, all it's good for is keeping Frisk slightly safer while they gather XP for the next big level jump. It'd be a spectacular option for Asriel if lawful characters could wear that armor.
Elsewhere, though, we find an incredible suit of armor for Goat Bro. Another mod-introduced item.
It looks stupid but it's the strongest set of armor we've got for him.
We also have a sword that has a vicious Doom effect! But it's bugged.
Notice Chara is in Treant form. I've never used it before, since it was bugged to only appear long after Chara chose the relevant feat. But it has a 20- resistance to physical damage, making it almost impossible to damage.
Our journal indicates our work isn't done. We search all over the temple and finally defeat Jezrael, therefore saving Kuldahar.
We feel relieved for a moment and THEN WE FIND ANOTHER DEAD CAT
Poor Asriel just keeps finding these things. Why can we bring back Frisk but never any of these little kitty cats?
We've got one last thing to do--solve a puzzle for some extra loot. The puzzle can be solved through logical deduction but I've found it's faster to just click the blocks over and over.
Among even more +3, +4, and +5 weapons (they're all over this place), we find an amazing sword that still isn't as good as the Golden Heart of Frisk and a bow that Frisk is too weak to use anyway.
We promise to get Asriel a live kitten someday when all of this violence is over. Making Asriel feel a little better fills us with determination.
The moment we reach Kuldahar, I realize we're in big trouble. I forgot there's an extremely long fight here, and I didn't rest the party.
And in Tactics, Iselore isn't invincible. He just has improved AI and strong levels to keep him safe. If he dies, the game is over.
We're low on resources, facing a tremendous and taxing battle where we have to protect an NPC from wave after wave of enemies. This is going to be really, really difficult.
And I forgot that the Heartstone Gem can be used to heal the party. The battle was balanced assuming the player uses it.
Madae has ordered the yuan-ti half-breeds to take the Heartstone Gem from Iselore, who knows its power is the only thing keeping Kuldahar safe. Madae takes her victimhood as an excuse for violence, and mocks Iselore's claim of persecution.
For all her claims to be the defender of outcastes, Madae is not shy about showing the darkness in her mind.
Cedra is a sorcerer and comes with Improved Invisibility and multiple castings of Mirror Image, like many Tactics spellcasters.
Battle has only just begun, and suddenly we face a setback.
That's not a Blasphemy spell that stunned Asriel--that's Power Word: Stun. He's going to be down for several rounds, and he is in no shape to survive it.
If Asriel dies, we are in deep trouble. Neither Frisk nor Chara can raise him, and without him, we're very, very low on healing spells. I doubt we can survive this lengthy fight without him. We need a rescue option.
Frisk might be able to take down Cedra with a Stunning Bolt. We only have a few and they're very precious, but with Dragu's Hell Bolter, Frisk has many chances to land a hit.
The effort fails; Improved Invisibility and high AC ward off the bolts. We need to try something else.
Frisk scours our inventory for scrolls. We have two choices: an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to cast on Asriel (no saving throw for allies), or a Power Word: Stun to knock out Cedra.
The safer choice is Resilient Sphere. But I think PW: Stun has a decent chance of working, and Resilient Sphere is the more valuable option for later in the run, if we run into an even bigger problem later on.
Bad move.
Cedra remains safe. I keep a Resilient Sphere on hand in case we need to bail out Asriel, but his Stoneskins hold steady. I was wrong! He recovers!
Asriel heals himself quickly, lest Cedra stun him again. PW: Stun would last much longer if Cedra caught him with low HP.
I need to keep Asriel's HP about 150, close to the max, if he's going to stay safe from PW: Stun. After all, if he even gets stunned for one round, the damage could build up and make him even more vulnerable to a chain-cast PW: Stun.
The orogs focus more on Chara, and the Shiny Black Urchin stacks the poison damage high.
Nice shot of Chara's half-dragon form, too. Just throwing that out there.
Then, even more trouble.
Chara has no Death Ward; it wore off. Even if Asriel had an extra casting, it would take too long to buff them. Chara downs a potion to escape.
The spell hits Asriel instead, but he makes his save.
But that message is not all good news.
Asriel has Death Ward active. So why didn't it say "Unaffected by effects of Disintegrate?"
Does Disintegrate bypass Death Ward?
If it does, we have no way to block it; just a maximum 95% survival rate with IWD2's saving throw system.
There's nothing we can do but try to hasten Cedra's death. We keep up the pressure. Asriel makes sure to keep his HP high, lest Cedra throw out another PW: Stun.
Chara could switch to red half-dragon form to block that fire damage from Cedra, but I want to save that form; there are many battles to come. Cedra drags on the fight with another Mirror Image spell.
She just won't go down. We barely escape another Disintegrate spell.
This can't keep happening; sooner or later we're going to roll a low save or critical failure. With Chara nearly dead, Asriel jumps in to rescue them, making the most out of his Heal spell. We don't have many of those to spare.
Round after round, we struggle to harm Cedra. Eventually Iselore gets bored of the orogs and comes over to help.
The fight runs so long that Asriel loses Death Ward and Chaotic Commands, and everyone loses Bless. Even if Death Ward could have blocked Disintegrate before, it can't block it now.
Finally, finally Cedra expires. The moment she does, we see the first of her little sisters joining the fight.
There are multiple sorcerers in this fight. All of them are going to have those spectacular defenses. This is going to suck.
A new wave of enemies moves in from the east. I don't even know where some enemies get their resistances.
Immunity to Prayer? How is that even a thing?
The sorceress hits Iselore hard. We're going to have to pay close attention to his HP. I took many screenshots documenting his status, but screenshots apparently don't record tooltips. Asriel buffs Iselore with his only Stoneskin spell. Iselore is worth it.
Oddly, Stoneskin doesn't block Skull Trap. More confusingly still, those burly orogs somehow have Evasion.
Iselore is in very bad shape, and the enemy is still very healthy. Desperate to improve our standing, Asriel equips the Black Adder and attacks Chara, hoping to spawn a viper as per the Vipergout spell. Asriel hits more or less automatically against Chara's low AC, and the Black Adder's poison effect won't hurt a high-level druid like Chara, but the chance of summoning a viper is only 33%--very unreliable.
Asriel suffers a lot to summon a single viper.
Iselore's condition deteriorates. We need to take drastic measures. Frisk seals him away.
The enemy is summoning Boneguard Skeletons to pester us; the horde is getting thicker. We need to crush them before Iselore breaks out of the sphere; I don't know if scrolls cast at level 1 or level 10 or use the caster's level. The duration could vary.
To thin the herd, Frisk takes out the Necklace of Missiles we bought so long ago from Beodaewn, way back before the ice temple.
We make slow progress. Eventually, I decide this fight is won. Suspecting the enemy will next come in from the east, I have Chara layer a Fiery Cloud on top of an Entangle spell, hoping to snare and immolate the incoming horde. Asriel and Frisk pick away at the remaining enemies; their slow pace gives Chara time to cast spells.
Chara's 8 Strength prevents them from carrying much equipment or doing damage with certain ranged weapons when they're not shapeshifted. As a compromise, I give them the Screaming Axe, which does not suffer from Strength penalties. It's called the Screaming Axe because it likes to scream. It's actually kind of hilarious.
The situation is dire, and we have many more taxing, high-pressure fights before we are safe.
The Screaming Axe's battlecry fills us with determination.
Thank you! I try to make my posts very image-dense, and post battle turning points round-by-round, which I think gives a strong impression of what's really going on in the more exciting parts of the run.
After some years and 111 (mostly sad) stories of our multi-player attempts recorded on the Bioware Forums, here's our first Beamdog effort to do or die ...
As usual we picked up a free level from Shoal. That was made even easier by a first successful casting of a totemic summons (I had been baffled on a couple of previous occasions by the different mechanic used for this in BGEE).
There was then a bit of work in Beregost, including introducing Silke to the delights of poison.
On to the next major port of call at the basilisk area. Typically there we recruit Korax to help with Kirian's party after killing the basilisks, but a summoned snake and Dorral's ability to stealth meant that wasn't necessary this time.
Pole wearing ankheg armour was able to occupy most enemies' attention, allowing Dorral to shoot them up as the duo quickly ran through various encounters while pushing reputation up to 20. There was an annoying moment during that when conducting Brage back to the temple and Pole demonstrated the EE problem with pathfinding when unable to get past Dorral in the cutscene to talk to the priest (Gate70 dropping out solved that).
Some ankhegs didn't delay us long on the way to Ulgoth's Beard to pick up a few goodies. Then it was back south in the hunt for another XP feast at Durlag's Tower. Summons lasted just long enough to sort out a couple of battle horrors before Pole used a mirror potion to kill a lesser basilisk on the roof. Going on upstairs he was in the process of summoning some assistance for the greater basilisks (the totemic summons are immune to petrification) when Dorral came up to join him. Unfortunately, while one character going onto the top roof is out of sight of the first basilisk, that's not the case for others coming up - Dorral immediately turned to run, but the basilisk gaze followed him downstairs and he arrived in stony silence.
After a visit to a temple to get a stone to flesh scroll Pole returned to get Dorral back in shape before deciding it was time to crack on with the main quest. The Nashkel Mines didn't delay things long, with Mulahey unable to complete any spells while being attacked by a totemic summons. Nimbul and Tranzig fared no better before the duo arrived at the Bandit Camp. After shooting down the bandits (who needed a critical to hit Pole due to missile protection from cloak and boots), Taugosz failed to last long against a spirit lion. We had a quick debate about possible tactics inside the tent before (unusually for us) wimping out and going back to Ulgoth's Beard to buy the invisibility ring. That allowed a couple of summons to join in against Venkt and co - giving them no chance.
The final action of the session saw a quick trip through the Cloakwood - typically the only thing we do on that route is get Spiders' Bane, but we didn't even bother with that this time. Arriving at the mine entrance summons were too much for Drasus & co to cope with - both the mages there being killed within a few seconds of the start of the fight.
@Grond0 The links to your photos don't work. I checked to ensure that photobucket is not down. It isn't so there is another problem.
I am waiting for a solution to a bug in my Aethel, Wilfred and William game and in the meantime will start an Icewind Dale game. I haven't downloaded the mods yet though. I haven't yet bought the IWD EE game though I probably will. However since it is ages since I played IWD and I have never played it modded, now is possibly the time to unearth it again.
@Grond0 The links to your photos don't work. I checked to ensure that photobucket is not down. It isn't so there is another problem.
I get confused as the methodology for posting images on these Forums has changed at least twice in recent months - so the appropriate format is different depending on whether I'm making a new post or updating an old one. I suspect you looked at the post while I was fiddling with it - the images now display OK to me
@Wise_Grimwald Thanks, though the simple reason I'm using this portrait for Luna is that it helps me to always remember that she's a single class cleric, like Branwen. With randomized characters and especially randomized names, when the party is just starting out, it's not always to remember who is who and what each character can do, so that's generally the reason for my portrait choices. I'm not really going for immersion in this run.
Goibniu, human paladin, update 16
The party sold and bought various things around Waukeen's Promenade, and Luna learned true sight to deal with the circus tent illusions. Kalah was killed with ranged weapons and magic missles, and I moved on to the slums before travelling to the city gates. While walking through the city, the party was ambushed for the first time:
A quick haste spell, some skeletons and magic missles helped with the fight. At the city gates, Helios stole Daystar for Anapa, who now deals really high amounts of damage against evil opponents and especially undead. Goibniu explored the city to pick up some quests and gather some useful items. With the help of Daystar, the party also started clearing some of the crypts at the graveyard. The party helped Viconia and Jan, completed some minor combat encounters, started and later completed the Sir Sarles quest and Xzar's quest, killed Tidir's abducters, brought Wellyn's teddy bear back and found a caretaker for Risa.
The next quest Goibniu started was to deal with the fallen paladins, and this one proved to be much harder, because of the high physical damage involved. Skeletons weren't really enough to deal with the enemies, and Owain didn't learn any new spells yet (since I always wait until I have a lot of scrolls and then use potions of genius to raise his intelligence).
Goibniu only managed to kill Anarg himself and take his weapon before the party had to retreat, since Donar, Anapa and Helios were almost dead. They tried to flee to another district, but the party was ambushed by slavers and orogs! A close fight, and I had to use some healing potions:
After resting, the party prepared with some buffs and returned to the bridge. This time, they defeated the fallen paladins, though the battles was somewhat close once again:
By the way, I don't have a magic license - some offensive spells by Owain would've made this fight much easier (he's usually just casting haste and some defensive buffs while the party hides in a building).
However, while these screenshots might look rough, the fallen paladins are no real danger, since they can only attack in melee combat, so I can always just run away and try again.
Chara’s preparations fail; the enemy takes so long to arrive that their Entangle and Fiery Cloud spells dissipate.
We want to keep Iselore’s HP high, so Chara deploys Tortoise Shell for the first time, which will absorb the next 100 damage he takes. Chara switches to wyvern form to protect the Tortoise Shell.
We’ve got more Yuan-ti spellcasters to deal with, including another sorcerer. We focus on the easier target first.
Frisk only has 10 HP total, so it’s important to keep them out of harm’s way.
Chara’s Evasion proves useful even with their lower Reflex saves when shapeshifted. Saves us a bit more damage.
Chara switches to Remorhaz form. Wyvern form just isn’t doing enough to all the enemies around us—we need Frisk to pitch in. Our Necklace of Missiles proves instrumental, and Chara’s Remorhaz form blocks the fire damage.
The Necklace of Missiles offers no save, so Evasion does not block it. Notice Frisk has fled to the west; the east has too many enemies that might notice them on a failed stealth check.
Frisk keeps launching fireballs from afar, eventually burning through Chara’s Tortoise Shell. Iselore is vulnerable once more. [spoiler]
By focusing so much attention on the Yuan-ti, we end up ignoring another major threat: the Greater Mummy.
Asriel no longer has Chaotic Commands active, which I don’t think can block hopelessness anyway (it’s a separate opcode in IWD2). And with a casting time of 3, it comes out too fast to dodge. Mercifully, we make our saves.
That could have easily been fatal.
Then, more trouble. Chara is no longer in half-dragon form, and therefore is no longer immune to stun.
Without Stoneskin, Asriel is especially vulnerable to the enemy’s attacks. A round of automatic hits during the stun effect cuts Asriel’s HP in half.
Frisk has been trying to help out using Dragu’s Hell Bolter and +2 bolts (we have tons), but they don’t do much before getting disabled.
Asriel recovers from the blows and Chara finally takes down the priestess.
We still have to deal with a sorceress, and many other enemies besides. Iselore joins the fight and Asriel, desperate to take down that mummy, finds a use for our old friend Sunscorch.
I haven't used that in ages.
Round after round, we grind away at the enemy. It's slow, painful work, and I have to monitor every second in case something goes wrong.
Eventually, the sorcerer goes down, and we turn our attention to the remaining foes. Frisk speeds things up with the Necklace of Missiles and their bolts.
More bad news…
More fun shouting…
And more bad news.
Those sorcerers are so hard to hit! Even Invisibility Purge is no help. Frisk resorts to use Flaming Oil just to take down a Mirror Image, but even that is too much to ask.
Finally, we get lucky. It takes forever, but it happens.
We also have another priestess to deal with. Again.
Every round we lose HP and our spells slip away like sand in an hourglass.
Finally, we get down to one enemy. While the enemy pressure is low, Chara switches to human form to cast some healing spells, easing the burden on our main healer, Asriel.
The moment the last Yuan-ti goes down, we see a grim reminder of the course of battle.
We struggled so much to deal with those sorceresses. But they just keep coming.
The next group of enemies is very high in orog fighters. Chara crawls out in Remorhaz form while Frisk bombs the enemy with the Necklace of Missiles. Asriel fires away with Dragu's Hell Bolter and Bolts +2, because I'm willing to use up magical ammunition to hasten the end of this fight.
Chara unwisely used the bridge as a chokepoint, forcing other orogs to come around the other bridge and engage Asriel in melee. Asriel switches to the Golden Heart of Frisk and we continue the defense.
The enemy sorceress uses the same spells as her predecessors. Chara shrugs off blows that tear our enemies to shreds--if they even hit Chara in the first place.
Iselore, Chara, and Asriel cut down the enemies in turn.
The enemy sorceress dodges blow after blow, and targets our most valuable ally with evocation spells.
If Iselore dies, the game is over.
But finally--finally--the last sorceress goes down. Chara bashes in her skull and trods over her body, chuckling. Just like Caballus did to Asriel so long ago.
Frisk inexplicably gets struck by lightning, and then inexplicably survives.
Level 1 characters can't get one-shotted at full HP.
The Heartstone Gem is safe and Kuldahar is saved. We're worn down to the bone and bitterly tired. And Iselore still makes it seem like we only did half our job.
We spend a very long time collecting all the treasure the enemies left behind. Unlike in EE, there is no quick loot feature, and we have to click every single one.
We sell everything until we're rich enough to buy and sell a Throne of Bhaal Charname. We have OVER ONE MILLION GOLD.
Chara is inching closer to druid level 21, and therefore the final half-dragon form. They're miserably underleveled and it's keeping us weaker as a group, but once we hit that milestone, we're in the clear.
Inexplicably being struck by lightning fills us with determination.
Now we have to invade Dragon's Eye, partly because the developers needed to nod to the first game and partly because murdering everyone in the temple in Chult wasn't enough to sate the developers' lust for killing half-breeds.
Fun fact: if you kill the Greater Werewyvern, or whatever it is that carries the Modified Mandrake Root, and snatch up the root before Mandal Graye's ghost can lead you to it, you can create a game-breaking bug. So don't explore the southwest quarter of level 1 until Mandal Graye's ghost talks to you.
The enemies on the first level are rather troublesome, as the local thieves have a serious addiction to Potions of Invisibility.
They're one of the worst kinds of enemies: the folks that don't pose enough of a threat to be interesting, but still take forever to kill. Much like trolls.
Yuan-ti have some wicked traps, including an automatic Dispel Magic effect that works even when Asriel makes his save.
Normally you can scurry past the next trap, but Asriel has bad timing and gets struck multiple times. Worse yet, each hit bypasses damage resistances!
I decide to put off that section of the map and head south. Not all the prisoners shower you with praise when you free them.
There's a cute part here where a mage spends several rounds buffing himself up without explanation, only to belatedly attack you.
I don't like waiting for it, but the concept makes sense: not every one of your enemies is going to be obviously hostile, and some of them are going to bide their time before they strike. I find it especially hilarious that he does it right in front of you.
Until he starts casting this, at which point I decide it's not funny at all.
The spell reminds me that I desperately need to cover everyone in the party with Death Ward, just in case this happens.
It is such a huge difference that you can roll a 1 and fail any saving throw in IWD2. Don't know what the weird red square on that image is.
Anyway, we kill him. His defenses don't last that long. He might have Seven Eyes, but he fails to re-cast Mirror Image.
I finally dash past the blade trap up north and tackle Commander John Grisham, the famous novelist-turned-throwing axeman. Various enemies here deal tiny amount of elemental damage, bypassing Chara's damage resistances and spell resistance.
Another curiosity is the Histachii, who show us that druids may be immune to poison, but they have no immunity to disease. Asriel has to heal Chara.
You have to light up braziers in this room using Fire Agates. If you fail to pick up enough of the gems from the enemies here, you can purchase more from Oswald (we bought enough agates all the way back in Targos).
The next area is just swarming with Yuan-ti spellcasters, both priests and sorceresses. With the former casting Blasphemy and the latter being immune to Invisibility Purge, they're just as irritating as they were back in Kuldahar.
I took many screenshots, but they all show the same tiresome tactics, hurling out the same spells and taking forever to die. One interesting thing, though, is a Lance of Disruption passing through 50 feet of solid rock just to smack Frisk in the face.
Another, even less welcome surprise is enemy spellcasters using Blink. Like Improved Invisibility, this blocks half of all attacks. Unlike Improved Invisibility, the Blind-fight feat can't help you get past Blink's miss chance.
The downside of the spell is that the caster loses 20% of their own attacks and spells. But our problem here is the fight taking too long; it doesn't actually help us that the sorceress loses its offensive power.
More Dispel Magic traps. It's a bad omen; we rely very heavily on a suite of buffs.
The Dispel Magic spell offers a Will save, which most casters will make anyway, but these traps don't appear to offer any save. And IWD2 has no such thing as Spell Immunity to block this stuff.
Nathaniel is down here! He's actually a rakshasa in disguise, and Asriel and Chara can both sense its evil. But at 8 Intelligence each, neither of them is smart enough to see through the rakshasa's lies.
Seeing a good friend in a dark place fills us with determination.
Chara is inching closer and closer to druid level 21. Just a little bit more, and they'll be able to use the final, absurdly powerful half-dragon form that will carry us for the rest of the game.
I've been looking forward to this more than anything else in the run. I've been planning this for so long, and we're so close.
First, we need to get to the lab to progress through the Histachii transformation quest. There's a big fight right outside the lab, but the basics are the same. It's just a larger version of the same fights we've been dealing with since the attack on Kuldahar. Chara tanks most of the enemies while Asriel engages fewer...
...and though we lose HP, Asriel has the cleric levels to get it back quickly...
...but one novelty is that I've started using Holy Aura, which, combined with Spell Resistance, bumps Asriel's spell resistance up to 50.
I'm not sure if there are critical failures or successes for spell resistance, but your spell resistance is checked against the enemy's caster level plus 1d20, which means a level 30 spellcaster would need to roll a 20 to get past an SR of 50 (the cap). The Spell Penetration feat can add +2 or +4 to the caster's level, but 50 SR should grant immunity to spells at this point of the game.
Except various spells bypass SR for some reason.
Even with 50 SR, sorcerers still take forever to kill. Their spell power isn't threatening, but their defenses drag out the fight.
We poke around the lab, grabbing various scrolls, including a scroll of Protection from Magic! It works just like the BG version, granting immunity to all spell levels but disabling spellcasting. I view it as more of an offensive option than defensive, and I will be saving it for shutting down future spellcasters, especially in the final battle.
Chara is only a single tiny fight away from the next level, and the final half-dragon form I've been looking forward to for so long.
One of the containers in the lab is locked, but druid shapeshifting can break any lock even in an unmodded game. I worry that there might be a trap--the Yuan-ti love setting traps all over their homes and places of business--but Chara has the saves and spell resistance to resist it.
I was wrong.
My heart stops. This is bad.
If this plays out like Frisk's petrification by Imphraili, Chara will shatter in a few seconds and become impossible to recover. We can always create a new Chara, but we'll lose 2,000,000 XP in the process. Chara will never get that strong again; we'll be crippled for the remainder of the run.
I honestly don't think we can proceed without Chara. When I think about the Fields of Slaughter and the Severed Hand especially--to say nothing of the final battle--I simply see no way that Asriel and an underleveled Frisk and Chara could possibly survive. We're just not strong enough. Not even remotely close.
If we lose Chara, this run is over.
Luckily, we purchased several scrolls of Stone to Flesh from the fake Nathaniel just a few minutes ago! The only problem is that Frisk has them, and Frisk is far away.
Frisk takes out a scroll and dashes over to rescue Chara before they shatter. Since there are no active spells or enemies on the map, I figure that Chara won't shatter.
Then, I get a second auto-pause.
Chara has shattered.
I try to think of some way we could go on without Chara, and I simply can't. Asriel is sturdy, but Chara has always been the backbone of the party, from winning us that critical wolf talisman from Guthewulfe that we needed to defeat Caballus to tanking deadly spells and heavy pressure at Shaengarne to taking down the Horde Fortress with the Spear of Justice to smashing apart the ice temple in Remorhaz form to slicing our way through the Underdark passage in half-dragon form, stomping over the monk golems of the Black Raven Monastery, hacking apart the Viciscamera, sacking the temple of Sseth, and defending Kuldahar and Iselore when the party was at its very weakest.
If we continue this run with a level 1 Chara, no matter what their class is, there are only two realistic possibilities:
1. We struggle at every stage, exploiting every resource we have, and barely scrape by the final battle. It will be a long, stressful, tiring, and painful process.
2. We struggle at every stage, exploiting every resource we have, and see all our efforts after all this time end in a crushing failure.
Even if we succeed, the rest of the game will not be much fun. There is no future to this run without Chara.
I search for an excuse to reload, and can't find any.
I target Chara's portrait with both Raise Dead, Resurrection, and a scroll of Stone to Flesh. None of them work. Petrification in IWD2 seems to be an automatic chunking--and Stone to Flesh apparently useless.
Chara was just one fight away from the final half-dragon form. I'd been thinking about that moment for days, and now it's gone.
Out of curiosity, I try targeting Chara's dropped loot instead of their portrait. Like in any IE game, you can target items on the ground. There's no reason targeting the loot on their body would raise them, but wasting a scroll or spell won't make any difference at this point. This run is already over.
I try it out.
It works.
It works!
CHARA'S BACK, CHARA'S BACK, CHARA'S BACK!
Wow. I don't believe it. Targeting a petrified character's portrait doesn't work, but targeting their fallen body does. That makes no sense.
I was so close to just quitting the game. If I did, I'd never have realized this was possible.
But I'm not dealing with this nonsense again. No. I export the whole party. If there is a way of getting a character truly chunked in IWD2, and it happens to one of us, I'll import them. Seeing Chara die again without being able to import them back would be wrenching. It would hurt too much to lose all the progress we've worked so hard for.
I was so sure Chara was gone and the run was over. But now they're back, as strong as ever.
We run into the last enemy group in the area. After another long and slow fight, Chara hits 231,000 XP. That's enough to hit level 21, but since Chara took a level as a monk, they need level 22 to reach druid level 21. How do we get the next 20,000 XP?
We have an item for that, which I bought for just this occasion.
My favorite part is "The Wooden Citadel of Darmos the Old and Crippled." Again, good writing from a mostly hack-and-slash game. Chara sits down for a long read.
Chara levels up and chooses the last three elemental damage feats: Aegis of Rime, Aqua Mortis, and Spirit of Flame. They already have Scion of Storms. These feats grant 5- resistance to each element (cold, acid, fire, and electricity, respectively) and a 20% boost to all such damage dealt. Chara gets all the remaining half-dragon forms at once.
The final form is the Elemental Half-Dragon form. Defensively, it's a fortress:
Offensively? I have no words to describe it.
Chara has more damage output in this form than any other character possibly could at this level. With those elemental feats, Chara does 90 damage per hit on average, at 5 attacks per round when hasted.
Normally, you'd end the game 3-5 levels before you got this form, but with a small party and very, very intensive level-squatting, we've got the final form midway through Dragon's Eye. We had to spend a long time with a weaker party to make this happen, but the payoff is worth it.
Chara absolutely thrashes everything in the next area, from flesh...
...to stone...
...to iron...
Chara is back, and stronger than ever.
Going from flesh to stone to iron fills us with determination.
Comments
The one thing that doesn't really get better are the hp scores, so I basically try to play as if I'd be playing on insane difficulty, which is fairly accurate, since decent characters might have double the hp my party currently has. Luckily, the fact that I have an arcane spellcaster this time does negate many of the usual problems a randomized party tends to face in BG2 and especially ToB.
The "running around" thing is often not possible against golems (they tend to be hasted and can also slow your party down), which is one of the reasons they can be so tough. They also kill summons really quickly, and good ac isn't really something you get if none of the characters capable of using a shield or even any armor at all has a dexterity bonus to ac. Plus, the gauntlets of dexterity aren't available early on, and even a character with a good ac score is taking a huge risk trying to tank a golem - golems are still very capable of dealing damage faster than the character can drink healing potions. The other dangerous thing about them is that, due to their high damage output, they sometimes chunk killed characters, which is obviously terrible if you're not allowed to simply pick up another NPC.
Let's not get too off topic, though. I'm sure that, with Owain in my party, golems won't be the thing that ends my run (famous last words, I know).
Enuhal
The priest at the Morninglord Temple has asked Aethel to deasl with Mutamin. Before setting off, Aethel bought Imoen a new robe that gives +2 to armour protection and 30% magic resistance. Back to being poor again!!!
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/47215/undertale#latest
Maralie's adult voice as the narrator is also charming, but the tone is very different. I have to stress again that despite being a hack-and-slash game, IWD2 has some very strong, emotionally compelling writing in it.
The Legion of the Chimera has touched Kuldahar as well.
We land safely. Child Maralie continues to be adorable.
Then we get accosted by a monstrous orcish Dreadmaster of Bane, swinging a huge flail. Somehow, it fails its Intimidate check against Maralie.
Asriel questions Heipherus on theological grounds. He doesn't take it very well.
After hiding our still-vulnerable sorcerer Frisk with Sanctuary, Asriel and Chara get to work on the boring horde of undead grunts around us.
The Holy Swizarnian Hammer of Lucerne, a spear of disruption, destroys undead on a Will save with a 24 DC. Few undead can handle it in normal mode.
Notice also the energy drain effect on Chara and Asriel. In IWD2, it slightly decreases your HP and I think also your attack rolls and possibly your damage rolls and saving throws. Unlike BG, it does not rob you of spell slots, making it a lot less dangerous.
We find Jermsy in the watchtower. Jermsy is the little boy you rescue from orcs in the first Icewind Dale game. He's grown up now, but having his family murdered by orcs had a strong influence on him, understandably making him into a grumpy jerkface. Jerksy explains that Hiepherus is trying to wrest the powerful scrying device, the Heartstone Gem, from Kuldahar's current archdruid.
Arundel was the old archdruid in the previous game, but he died. They replaced him instead of resurrecting him because druids are too poor to afford to raise the dead.
We cast Sanctuary on Frisk once more and go tackle Hiepherus. His Heal spells keep him going for a long time, enough for Chara to deal considerable damage to the orogs just by wearing the Shiny Black Urchin.
That shield casts Poison on enemy attackers, dealing 20 damage over 20 seconds on a failed Fortitude save. Chara gets hit all the time due to their low AC, so the shield is a surprisingly strong asset. Honestly that monk level was kind of a waste; Chara is always safer wearing armor.
Chara's half-dragon immunities show their worth once more. Blasphemy, IWD2's deadly counterpart to Holy Word, does nothing to them.
Especially in Tactics, enemy spellcasters in IWD2 will chain-cast Blasphemy. The effects vary for weaker critters, but for high-level critters like us, Blasphemy stuns the target for one round with no save. It works against both neutral and good-aligned critters, so evil alignments are actually a strong powergaming choice--just because Blasphemy is so dangerous in the late game.
Hiepherus (what a fancy name for such a brutish character) eventually runs out of Heal spells. Asriel foolishly declines a reward from Jerksy...
...but we can still purchase a powerful item from Nathaniel.
In IWD2, Charisma- and Wisdom-boosting items behave differently regarding spell slots. Removing a Charisma-boosting item will also remove any extra spell slots the bonus gave you, but the same does not apply for Wisdom-boosting items like the Every God ring. This means both Asriel and Chara get extra spell slots, and Chara gets even higher save DCs for their Static Charge spells.
After killing the Yuan-ti infesting the town, we speak to the archdruid, Iselore (cool name for a druid, really). He explains that Isair and Madae are cambions born of Maiden Ilmadia, a half-elf you kill in the first Icewind Dale.
Ilmadia committed suicide after giving birth. Instead, Mother Egenia, a cleric of Ilmater, took the children in. Knowing humankind would not treat them well, Egenia raised the in seclusion.
Then, one day, Egenia died, and her children went to bury her. When the townspeople saw the twin cambions with their mother's body...
...the humans attacked. The cambions fought back, and killed them.
Ever since then, Isair and Madae have tried to find a home, but there was nowhere they could go where they would be accepted. Bitter and confused, they turned their backs on Ilmadia's teachings, placing their faith in their own power and muscle. Now, Madae is no longer a priest of Ilmater, the god of martyrdom and sacrifice. She is a priest of Iyachtu Xvim, the son of Bane, god of tyranny and domination. Isair has become a sorcerer, and the two of them have built up the Legion of the Chimera, hoping to forge a new world... through force of violence.
The story of Egenia's burial strikes a chord with us. Because that's how Asriel and Chara died. Humans attacked Asriel when they saw a monster carrying a human child, because they thought the monster had killed it. But Asriel did not fight back--he walked away and left them in peace. Chara and Asriel died as a result.
Isair and Madae were faced with the same choice. But where Asriel chose peace, Isair and Madae chose war.
This is a problem. Chara has more power than they seem, and they can take control of this world if they wish, so it's very important--more important than anything else--that they understand that the world is not "kill or be killed." But we are fighting against that idea itself. What happens if we lose?
Isair and Madae chose a different path than Asriel. Chara will see whose philosophy wins out in the end.
We are filled with determination.
When I finished, my favourite weapon was fists. I used Algernon's cloak to charm opponents so that Mulahey was killed by his summoned monsters and Davaeopn by the battle horrors.
I got a real buzz when Sarevok also fell at the hands of his cohorts as well.
They fort the law and I won;
Hear text as mp3,
We returned to the Docks to kill thieves after jumping on some goblins under the slums... Nice trinket.
The head man cowered inside his lair but we countered most of his defences by simply staying out of the room... The loot includes armour for Imoen, a necklace of power for me, a ring of defence for katarina & another summoning item for Puk.
P.s, time to go get my sister back!
Update on Dice the FMT:
After killing Torgal and dropping of Wilson at his friend Dice and co ends up running around A LOT for all the fetching associated with Neeras personal quest. Fatigue is now quite a problem but since I have a few spells left I try to tackle the red wizard enclave even so.
Getting the mercenaries drunk enough to rebel against their masters is a really fun solution to the first part, well done Beamdog I say!
Killing Lanneth and all her wizards is quite a bother with all the pre-casting and sequensers they've got. After a scripted escape and I don't know how many invis potions and shadow doors I finally get an insect plague to stick to Lanneth but during the routine beatdown she fires off a few flame arrows (I didn't see quite how many but more than one) at Aerie who is neither protected nor has all that much health, she went from 44/44 to dead. Luckily she wasn't chunked so my good friend over at the church of Ilmater brought her back to us. She seems weirldy unaffected by what must have been quite a traumatic experience..
All the wild mages save the cat loving one survived, I just can't bring myself to complete that particular fetch quest even though I always try my hardest to get the best possible outcomes.
Hayes bites the dust and I return to Waukeens to sell lots of gear for a tremendous amount of gold.
Next up is our third rest. After that I'm undecided, depends on how tired I am when I get to play next time. I do really long for AoP though, a great way to spend 30k gold (the discount with my scs installation).
William used the tome to increase wisdom and now has extra spells.
On exit a number of items were sold in order to buy a wand of fire.
This was used to wipe out a party of evil adventurers in the basilisk area. They were webbed and so not too much of a problem.
Aethel then used a potion of haste and the scroll of protection from petrification to enable her to wipe out the basilisks, medusae and finally Mutamin. After doing this Imoen got her thieving abilities back.
After telling the Morningmaster of their exploits, they went to visit Gavin's home.
Unfortunately his parents were not at home. Another poster has had the same problem so I will have to read the thread in detail to find the answer to the problem. Probably a mod conflict.
The thread did not help. Does anybody know the creature code for Gavin's parents?
Now that I'm starting with BG2, let me share some updated charscreens of my randomized party with you - look and tremble at their magnificent hp scores:
Goibniu:
Donar:
Anapa:
Luna:
Helios:
Owain:
Now, let's start with Irenicus' Dungeon:
After gathering some equipment, the party explored the dungeon and let skeletons, supported by a backstabbing Donar, deal with most enemies. Some buffs (including invisibility 10' radius) were used to deal with Illych:
Before fighting the mephits guarding the genie, a rest was in order. The refreshed party once again used skeletons and buffs to deal with this encounter:
Another rest before entering the second level, where the mephit portals were quickly destroyed before the party moved on to deal with the clone. As you can see, Donar's backstabs are still quite weak, though I plan to use them more often as soon as I get the right weapons:
The party managed to kill their first vampire:
And finally, Goibniu left the dungeon.
Enuhal
To save Kuldahar from the invading Yuan-ti, we have to close the Crossroads, a portal to the jungles of Chult that opened for some reason. To close the portal, we have to kill a black dragon... or we could just wipe out all the foes in a temple to Sseth. Or both! But the dragon is really freaking tough, and I'm sure Tactics makes it even deadlier. We'll just fight snake people instead.
Some of the enemies, curiously enough, are humans who have taken an interest in the evil snake god Sseth, forsaking their people's god Ubtao. It wasn't a good choice.
I've leveled up Frisk a bit, just enough to upgrade their Chromatic Orb to the deadly level 7 version that paralyzes the target for 13 rounds, currently on a save DC of 21.
The bigshot enemy cleric in charge of this operation is Ojaiha, who doesn't have strong enough defenses to hold off the giant sexy dragon lady with the humongous sword.
I've finally decided: the black bikini is hotter than the red. Too bad the red half-dragon is stronger.
Asriel stumbles onto some better-defended enemies with Improved Invisibility. Asriel reveals them, though Invisibility Purge, the strongest anti-illusion spell in IWD2, does not reveal Mirror Image.
Asriel and Chara work on the mages while Frisk lingers safely out of the room. But Inhatri, an enemy backstabber, finds Frisk and attacks, only to roll miserably against Ray of Enfeeblement.
Enemies don't have to deal with encumbrance, so Inhatri just suffers a -7 or -8 penalty to hit and damage, rather than being pinned down. Frisk can't quite run away. Instead, they join the fight against the mages, deploying Gedlee's Electric Loop to knock them out.
Electric Loop doesn't deal much damage (5d6 tops), but the 1-round stun effect bypasses magic resistance and the spell comes out fast, making it great for dealing with crowds, spellcasters, and in this case, crowds of spellcasters.
Another enemy thief, Ashra, comes to join the fight, also dealing IWD2's typical backstabs on every hit even when fully visible and in front of the target. Like many enemies in Tactics, Ashra has Evasion and the Reflex saves to dodge a DC 29 Static Charge.
More thieves have joined the fight, but Frisk can't escape--Ashra's Crippling Strike sneak attacks reduced Frisk's Strength to 1--so they have to use Mirror Image to stay safe.
Asriel gets stunned somehow, and somebody begins casting Flesh to Stone. Frisk hides him--he has no immunity to petrification.
It works! Asriel is safe! Except...
...yeah. And right after we kill Inhatri, the statue explodes.
It's no big worry; bringing Frisk back to level 1 again won't hurt us too much.
I notice that we're getting no XP from these kills, so we need to bring back a new Frisk. Otherwise our average level is too high. Asriel casts Sanctuary on Chara and himself and we escape the temple to re-create Frisk.
We return to combat with Ashra, who has an inexplicably high attack bonus for a thief. Being able to backstab from the front, while fully visible, from a distance--with what looks like a bow just floating in front of her--makes this seem even less realistic.
Look at her main hand. Empty. Her off hand has a weapon. And she's clearly attacking with an off-hand weapon and Arrows of Piercing.
Ashra is dual-wielding a bow and a sword. With one hand empty.
We slay Ashra's buddies and engage her in melee combat. When Chara's damage resistance somehow falls to 8, they crank it up with Wyvern form.
Even the Wyvern form's resistances can't hold off automatic backstabs. Asriel bails Chara out.
The fight drags on and on, until finally we get our paltry reward.
That gear is spectacular, but in our party, all it's good for is keeping Frisk slightly safer while they gather XP for the next big level jump. It'd be a spectacular option for Asriel if lawful characters could wear that armor.
Elsewhere, though, we find an incredible suit of armor for Goat Bro. Another mod-introduced item.
It looks stupid but it's the strongest set of armor we've got for him.
We also have a sword that has a vicious Doom effect! But it's bugged.
Notice Chara is in Treant form. I've never used it before, since it was bugged to only appear long after Chara chose the relevant feat. But it has a 20- resistance to physical damage, making it almost impossible to damage.
Our journal indicates our work isn't done. We search all over the temple and finally defeat Jezrael, therefore saving Kuldahar.
We feel relieved for a moment and THEN WE FIND ANOTHER DEAD CAT
Poor Asriel just keeps finding these things. Why can we bring back Frisk but never any of these little kitty cats?
We've got one last thing to do--solve a puzzle for some extra loot. The puzzle can be solved through logical deduction but I've found it's faster to just click the blocks over and over.
Among even more +3, +4, and +5 weapons (they're all over this place), we find an amazing sword that still isn't as good as the Golden Heart of Frisk and a bow that Frisk is too weak to use anyway.
We promise to get Asriel a live kitten someday when all of this violence is over. Making Asriel feel a little better fills us with determination.
The moment we reach Kuldahar, I realize we're in big trouble. I forgot there's an extremely long fight here, and I didn't rest the party.
And in Tactics, Iselore isn't invincible. He just has improved AI and strong levels to keep him safe. If he dies, the game is over.
We're low on resources, facing a tremendous and taxing battle where we have to protect an NPC from wave after wave of enemies. This is going to be really, really difficult.
And I forgot that the Heartstone Gem can be used to heal the party. The battle was balanced assuming the player uses it.
Madae has ordered the yuan-ti half-breeds to take the Heartstone Gem from Iselore, who knows its power is the only thing keeping Kuldahar safe. Madae takes her victimhood as an excuse for violence, and mocks Iselore's claim of persecution.
For all her claims to be the defender of outcastes, Madae is not shy about showing the darkness in her mind.
Cedra is a sorcerer and comes with Improved Invisibility and multiple castings of Mirror Image, like many Tactics spellcasters.
Battle has only just begun, and suddenly we face a setback.
That's not a Blasphemy spell that stunned Asriel--that's Power Word: Stun. He's going to be down for several rounds, and he is in no shape to survive it.
If Asriel dies, we are in deep trouble. Neither Frisk nor Chara can raise him, and without him, we're very, very low on healing spells. I doubt we can survive this lengthy fight without him. We need a rescue option.
Frisk might be able to take down Cedra with a Stunning Bolt. We only have a few and they're very precious, but with Dragu's Hell Bolter, Frisk has many chances to land a hit.
The effort fails; Improved Invisibility and high AC ward off the bolts. We need to try something else.
Frisk scours our inventory for scrolls. We have two choices: an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to cast on Asriel (no saving throw for allies), or a Power Word: Stun to knock out Cedra.
The safer choice is Resilient Sphere. But I think PW: Stun has a decent chance of working, and Resilient Sphere is the more valuable option for later in the run, if we run into an even bigger problem later on.
Bad move.
Cedra remains safe. I keep a Resilient Sphere on hand in case we need to bail out Asriel, but his Stoneskins hold steady. I was wrong! He recovers!
Asriel heals himself quickly, lest Cedra stun him again. PW: Stun would last much longer if Cedra caught him with low HP.
I need to keep Asriel's HP about 150, close to the max, if he's going to stay safe from PW: Stun. After all, if he even gets stunned for one round, the damage could build up and make him even more vulnerable to a chain-cast PW: Stun.
The orogs focus more on Chara, and the Shiny Black Urchin stacks the poison damage high.
Nice shot of Chara's half-dragon form, too. Just throwing that out there.
Then, even more trouble.
Chara has no Death Ward; it wore off. Even if Asriel had an extra casting, it would take too long to buff them. Chara downs a potion to escape.
The spell hits Asriel instead, but he makes his save.
But that message is not all good news.
Asriel has Death Ward active. So why didn't it say "Unaffected by effects of Disintegrate?"
Does Disintegrate bypass Death Ward?
If it does, we have no way to block it; just a maximum 95% survival rate with IWD2's saving throw system.
There's nothing we can do but try to hasten Cedra's death. We keep up the pressure. Asriel makes sure to keep his HP high, lest Cedra throw out another PW: Stun.
Chara could switch to red half-dragon form to block that fire damage from Cedra, but I want to save that form; there are many battles to come. Cedra drags on the fight with another Mirror Image spell.
She just won't go down. We barely escape another Disintegrate spell.
This can't keep happening; sooner or later we're going to roll a low save or critical failure. With Chara nearly dead, Asriel jumps in to rescue them, making the most out of his Heal spell. We don't have many of those to spare.
Round after round, we struggle to harm Cedra. Eventually Iselore gets bored of the orogs and comes over to help.
The fight runs so long that Asriel loses Death Ward and Chaotic Commands, and everyone loses Bless. Even if Death Ward could have blocked Disintegrate before, it can't block it now.
Finally, finally Cedra expires. The moment she does, we see the first of her little sisters joining the fight.
There are multiple sorcerers in this fight. All of them are going to have those spectacular defenses. This is going to suck.
A new wave of enemies moves in from the east. I don't even know where some enemies get their resistances.
Immunity to Prayer? How is that even a thing?
The sorceress hits Iselore hard. We're going to have to pay close attention to his HP. I took many screenshots documenting his status, but screenshots apparently don't record tooltips. Asriel buffs Iselore with his only Stoneskin spell. Iselore is worth it.
Oddly, Stoneskin doesn't block Skull Trap. More confusingly still, those burly orogs somehow have Evasion.
Iselore is in very bad shape, and the enemy is still very healthy. Desperate to improve our standing, Asriel equips the Black Adder and attacks Chara, hoping to spawn a viper as per the Vipergout spell. Asriel hits more or less automatically against Chara's low AC, and the Black Adder's poison effect won't hurt a high-level druid like Chara, but the chance of summoning a viper is only 33%--very unreliable.
Asriel suffers a lot to summon a single viper.
Iselore's condition deteriorates. We need to take drastic measures. Frisk seals him away.
The enemy is summoning Boneguard Skeletons to pester us; the horde is getting thicker. We need to crush them before Iselore breaks out of the sphere; I don't know if scrolls cast at level 1 or level 10 or use the caster's level. The duration could vary.
To thin the herd, Frisk takes out the Necklace of Missiles we bought so long ago from Beodaewn, way back before the ice temple.
We make slow progress. Eventually, I decide this fight is won. Suspecting the enemy will next come in from the east, I have Chara layer a Fiery Cloud on top of an Entangle spell, hoping to snare and immolate the incoming horde. Asriel and Frisk pick away at the remaining enemies; their slow pace gives Chara time to cast spells.
Chara's 8 Strength prevents them from carrying much equipment or doing damage with certain ranged weapons when they're not shapeshifted. As a compromise, I give them the Screaming Axe, which does not suffer from Strength penalties. It's called the Screaming Axe because it likes to scream. It's actually kind of hilarious.
The situation is dire, and we have many more taxing, high-pressure fights before we are safe.
The Screaming Axe's battlecry fills us with determination.
@Enuhal
I'm enjoying your write-up, but Luna doesn't look very much like a half-orc to me. There are a number of female orc portraits available on the web if you are interested.
https://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A7x9UkwmwL5XkA0AR1iP3olQ;_ylu=X3oDMTBsYWhiN2NvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2lyMgR2dGlkAw--?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-mozilla-102&va=half+orc+portraits+female&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-102
Pole, human totemic druid (Grond0) & Dorral, elven archer (Gate70)
After some years and 111 (mostly sad) stories of our multi-player attempts recorded on the Bioware Forums, here's our first Beamdog effort to do or die ...
As usual we picked up a free level from Shoal. That was made even easier by a first successful casting of a totemic summons (I had been baffled on a couple of previous occasions by the different mechanic used for this in BGEE).
There was then a bit of work in Beregost, including introducing Silke to the delights of poison.
On to the next major port of call at the basilisk area. Typically there we recruit Korax to help with Kirian's party after killing the basilisks, but a summoned snake and Dorral's ability to stealth meant that wasn't necessary this time.
Pole wearing ankheg armour was able to occupy most enemies' attention, allowing Dorral to shoot them up as the duo quickly ran through various encounters while pushing reputation up to 20. There was an annoying moment during that when conducting Brage back to the temple and Pole demonstrated the EE problem with pathfinding when unable to get past Dorral in the cutscene to talk to the priest (Gate70 dropping out solved that).
Some ankhegs didn't delay us long on the way to Ulgoth's Beard to pick up a few goodies. Then it was back south in the hunt for another XP feast at Durlag's Tower. Summons lasted just long enough to sort out a couple of battle horrors before Pole used a mirror potion to kill a lesser basilisk on the roof. Going on upstairs he was in the process of summoning some assistance for the greater basilisks (the totemic summons are immune to petrification) when Dorral came up to join him. Unfortunately, while one character going onto the top roof is out of sight of the first basilisk, that's not the case for others coming up - Dorral immediately turned to run, but the basilisk gaze followed him downstairs and he arrived in stony silence.
After a visit to a temple to get a stone to flesh scroll Pole returned to get Dorral back in shape before deciding it was time to crack on with the main quest. The Nashkel Mines didn't delay things long, with Mulahey unable to complete any spells while being attacked by a totemic summons. Nimbul and Tranzig fared no better before the duo arrived at the Bandit Camp. After shooting down the bandits (who needed a critical to hit Pole due to missile protection from cloak and boots), Taugosz failed to last long against a spirit lion. We had a quick debate about possible tactics inside the tent before (unusually for us) wimping out and going back to Ulgoth's Beard to buy the invisibility ring. That allowed a couple of summons to join in against Venkt and co - giving them no chance.
The final action of the session saw a quick trip through the Cloakwood - typically the only thing we do on that route is get Spiders' Bane, but we didn't even bother with that this time. Arriving at the mine entrance summons were too much for Drasus & co to cope with - both the mages there being killed within a few seconds of the start of the fight.
Pole, totemic druid 8, 63 HPs, 64 kills
Dorral, archer 6, 58 HPs, 173 kills, 0 deaths (1 stoning)
I am waiting for a solution to a bug in my Aethel, Wilfred and William game and in the meantime will start an Icewind Dale game. I haven't downloaded the mods yet though. I haven't yet bought the IWD EE game though I probably will. However since it is ages since I played IWD and I have never played it modded, now is possibly the time to unearth it again.
Goibniu, human paladin, update 16
The party sold and bought various things around Waukeen's Promenade, and Luna learned true sight to deal with the circus tent illusions. Kalah was killed with ranged weapons and magic missles, and I moved on to the slums before travelling to the city gates. While walking through the city, the party was ambushed for the first time:
A quick haste spell, some skeletons and magic missles helped with the fight. At the city gates, Helios stole Daystar for Anapa, who now deals really high amounts of damage against evil opponents and especially undead. Goibniu explored the city to pick up some quests and gather some useful items. With the help of Daystar, the party also started clearing some of the crypts at the graveyard. The party helped Viconia and Jan, completed some minor combat encounters, started and later completed the Sir Sarles quest and Xzar's quest, killed Tidir's abducters, brought Wellyn's teddy bear back and found a caretaker for Risa.
The next quest Goibniu started was to deal with the fallen paladins, and this one proved to be much harder, because of the high physical damage involved. Skeletons weren't really enough to deal with the enemies, and Owain didn't learn any new spells yet (since I always wait until I have a lot of scrolls and then use potions of genius to raise his intelligence).
Goibniu only managed to kill Anarg himself and take his weapon before the party had to retreat, since Donar, Anapa and Helios were almost dead. They tried to flee to another district, but the party was ambushed by slavers and orogs! A close fight, and I had to use some healing potions:
After resting, the party prepared with some buffs and returned to the bridge. This time, they defeated the fallen paladins, though the battles was somewhat close once again:
By the way, I don't have a magic license - some offensive spells by Owain would've made this fight much easier (he's usually just casting haste and some defensive buffs while the party hides in a building).
However, while these screenshots might look rough, the fallen paladins are no real danger, since they can only attack in melee combat, so I can always just run away and try again.
Enuhal
Chara’s preparations fail; the enemy takes so long to arrive that their Entangle and Fiery Cloud spells dissipate.
We want to keep Iselore’s HP high, so Chara deploys Tortoise Shell for the first time, which will absorb the next 100 damage he takes. Chara switches to wyvern form to protect the Tortoise Shell.
We’ve got more Yuan-ti spellcasters to deal with, including another sorcerer. We focus on the easier target first.
Frisk only has 10 HP total, so it’s important to keep them out of harm’s way.
Chara’s Evasion proves useful even with their lower Reflex saves when shapeshifted. Saves us a bit more damage.
Chara switches to Remorhaz form. Wyvern form just isn’t doing enough to all the enemies around us—we need Frisk to pitch in. Our Necklace of Missiles proves instrumental, and Chara’s Remorhaz form blocks the fire damage.
The Necklace of Missiles offers no save, so Evasion does not block it. Notice Frisk has fled to the west; the east has too many enemies that might notice them on a failed stealth check.
Frisk keeps launching fireballs from afar, eventually burning through Chara’s Tortoise Shell. Iselore is vulnerable once more.
[spoiler]
By focusing so much attention on the Yuan-ti, we end up ignoring another major threat: the Greater Mummy.
Asriel no longer has Chaotic Commands active, which I don’t think can block hopelessness anyway (it’s a separate opcode in IWD2). And with a casting time of 3, it comes out too fast to dodge. Mercifully, we make our saves.
That could have easily been fatal.
Then, more trouble. Chara is no longer in half-dragon form, and therefore is no longer immune to stun.
Without Stoneskin, Asriel is especially vulnerable to the enemy’s attacks. A round of automatic hits during the stun effect cuts Asriel’s HP in half.
Frisk has been trying to help out using Dragu’s Hell Bolter and +2 bolts (we have tons), but they don’t do much before getting disabled.
Asriel recovers from the blows and Chara finally takes down the priestess.
We still have to deal with a sorceress, and many other enemies besides. Iselore joins the fight and Asriel, desperate to take down that mummy, finds a use for our old friend Sunscorch.
I haven't used that in ages.
Round after round, we grind away at the enemy. It's slow, painful work, and I have to monitor every second in case something goes wrong.
Eventually, the sorcerer goes down, and we turn our attention to the remaining foes. Frisk speeds things up with the Necklace of Missiles and their bolts.
More bad news…
More fun shouting…
And more bad news.
Those sorcerers are so hard to hit! Even Invisibility Purge is no help. Frisk resorts to use Flaming Oil just to take down a Mirror Image, but even that is too much to ask.
Finally, we get lucky. It takes forever, but it happens.
We also have another priestess to deal with. Again.
Every round we lose HP and our spells slip away like sand in an hourglass.
Finally, we get down to one enemy. While the enemy pressure is low, Chara switches to human form to cast some healing spells, easing the burden on our main healer, Asriel.
The moment the last Yuan-ti goes down, we see a grim reminder of the course of battle.
We struggled so much to deal with those sorceresses. But they just keep coming.
The next group of enemies is very high in orog fighters. Chara crawls out in Remorhaz form while Frisk bombs the enemy with the Necklace of Missiles. Asriel fires away with Dragu's Hell Bolter and Bolts +2, because I'm willing to use up magical ammunition to hasten the end of this fight.
Chara unwisely used the bridge as a chokepoint, forcing other orogs to come around the other bridge and engage Asriel in melee. Asriel switches to the Golden Heart of Frisk and we continue the defense.
The enemy sorceress uses the same spells as her predecessors. Chara shrugs off blows that tear our enemies to shreds--if they even hit Chara in the first place.
Iselore, Chara, and Asriel cut down the enemies in turn.
The enemy sorceress dodges blow after blow, and targets our most valuable ally with evocation spells.
If Iselore dies, the game is over.
But finally--finally--the last sorceress goes down. Chara bashes in her skull and trods over her body, chuckling. Just like Caballus did to Asriel so long ago.
Frisk inexplicably gets struck by lightning, and then inexplicably survives.
Level 1 characters can't get one-shotted at full HP.
The Heartstone Gem is safe and Kuldahar is saved. We're worn down to the bone and bitterly tired. And Iselore still makes it seem like we only did half our job.
We spend a very long time collecting all the treasure the enemies left behind. Unlike in EE, there is no quick loot feature, and we have to click every single one.
We sell everything until we're rich enough to buy and sell a Throne of Bhaal Charname. We have OVER ONE MILLION GOLD.
Chara is inching closer to druid level 21, and therefore the final half-dragon form. They're miserably underleveled and it's keeping us weaker as a group, but once we hit that milestone, we're in the clear.
Inexplicably being struck by lightning fills us with determination.
Brevity good!
Now we have to invade Dragon's Eye, partly because the developers needed to nod to the first game and partly because murdering everyone in the temple in Chult wasn't enough to sate the developers' lust for killing half-breeds.
Fun fact: if you kill the Greater Werewyvern, or whatever it is that carries the Modified Mandrake Root, and snatch up the root before Mandal Graye's ghost can lead you to it, you can create a game-breaking bug. So don't explore the southwest quarter of level 1 until Mandal Graye's ghost talks to you.
The enemies on the first level are rather troublesome, as the local thieves have a serious addiction to Potions of Invisibility.
They're one of the worst kinds of enemies: the folks that don't pose enough of a threat to be interesting, but still take forever to kill. Much like trolls.
Yuan-ti have some wicked traps, including an automatic Dispel Magic effect that works even when Asriel makes his save.
Normally you can scurry past the next trap, but Asriel has bad timing and gets struck multiple times. Worse yet, each hit bypasses damage resistances!
I decide to put off that section of the map and head south. Not all the prisoners shower you with praise when you free them.
There's a cute part here where a mage spends several rounds buffing himself up without explanation, only to belatedly attack you.
I don't like waiting for it, but the concept makes sense: not every one of your enemies is going to be obviously hostile, and some of them are going to bide their time before they strike. I find it especially hilarious that he does it right in front of you.
Until he starts casting this, at which point I decide it's not funny at all.
The spell reminds me that I desperately need to cover everyone in the party with Death Ward, just in case this happens.
It is such a huge difference that you can roll a 1 and fail any saving throw in IWD2. Don't know what the weird red square on that image is.
Anyway, we kill him. His defenses don't last that long. He might have Seven Eyes, but he fails to re-cast Mirror Image.
I finally dash past the blade trap up north and tackle Commander John Grisham, the famous novelist-turned-throwing axeman. Various enemies here deal tiny amount of elemental damage, bypassing Chara's damage resistances and spell resistance.
Another curiosity is the Histachii, who show us that druids may be immune to poison, but they have no immunity to disease. Asriel has to heal Chara.
You have to light up braziers in this room using Fire Agates. If you fail to pick up enough of the gems from the enemies here, you can purchase more from Oswald (we bought enough agates all the way back in Targos).
The next area is just swarming with Yuan-ti spellcasters, both priests and sorceresses. With the former casting Blasphemy and the latter being immune to Invisibility Purge, they're just as irritating as they were back in Kuldahar.
I took many screenshots, but they all show the same tiresome tactics, hurling out the same spells and taking forever to die. One interesting thing, though, is a Lance of Disruption passing through 50 feet of solid rock just to smack Frisk in the face.
Another, even less welcome surprise is enemy spellcasters using Blink.
Like Improved Invisibility, this blocks half of all attacks. Unlike Improved Invisibility, the Blind-fight feat can't help you get past Blink's miss chance.
The downside of the spell is that the caster loses 20% of their own attacks and spells. But our problem here is the fight taking too long; it doesn't actually help us that the sorceress loses its offensive power.
More Dispel Magic traps. It's a bad omen; we rely very heavily on a suite of buffs.
The Dispel Magic spell offers a Will save, which most casters will make anyway, but these traps don't appear to offer any save. And IWD2 has no such thing as Spell Immunity to block this stuff.
Nathaniel is down here! He's actually a rakshasa in disguise, and Asriel and Chara can both sense its evil. But at 8 Intelligence each, neither of them is smart enough to see through the rakshasa's lies.
Seeing a good friend in a dark place fills us with determination.
Chara is inching closer and closer to druid level 21. Just a little bit more, and they'll be able to use the final, absurdly powerful half-dragon form that will carry us for the rest of the game.
I've been looking forward to this more than anything else in the run. I've been planning this for so long, and we're so close.
First, we need to get to the lab to progress through the Histachii transformation quest. There's a big fight right outside the lab, but the basics are the same. It's just a larger version of the same fights we've been dealing with since the attack on Kuldahar. Chara tanks most of the enemies while Asriel engages fewer...
...and though we lose HP, Asriel has the cleric levels to get it back quickly...
...but one novelty is that I've started using Holy Aura, which, combined with Spell Resistance, bumps Asriel's spell resistance up to 50.
I'm not sure if there are critical failures or successes for spell resistance, but your spell resistance is checked against the enemy's caster level plus 1d20, which means a level 30 spellcaster would need to roll a 20 to get past an SR of 50 (the cap). The Spell Penetration feat can add +2 or +4 to the caster's level, but 50 SR should grant immunity to spells at this point of the game.
Except various spells bypass SR for some reason.
Even with 50 SR, sorcerers still take forever to kill. Their spell power isn't threatening, but their defenses drag out the fight.
We poke around the lab, grabbing various scrolls, including a scroll of Protection from Magic! It works just like the BG version, granting immunity to all spell levels but disabling spellcasting. I view it as more of an offensive option than defensive, and I will be saving it for shutting down future spellcasters, especially in the final battle.
Chara is only a single tiny fight away from the next level, and the final half-dragon form I've been looking forward to for so long.
One of the containers in the lab is locked, but druid shapeshifting can break any lock even in an unmodded game. I worry that there might be a trap--the Yuan-ti love setting traps all over their homes and places of business--but Chara has the saves and spell resistance to resist it.
I was wrong.
My heart stops. This is bad.
If this plays out like Frisk's petrification by Imphraili, Chara will shatter in a few seconds and become impossible to recover. We can always create a new Chara, but we'll lose 2,000,000 XP in the process. Chara will never get that strong again; we'll be crippled for the remainder of the run.
I honestly don't think we can proceed without Chara. When I think about the Fields of Slaughter and the Severed Hand especially--to say nothing of the final battle--I simply see no way that Asriel and an underleveled Frisk and Chara could possibly survive. We're just not strong enough. Not even remotely close.
If we lose Chara, this run is over.
Luckily, we purchased several scrolls of Stone to Flesh from the fake Nathaniel just a few minutes ago! The only problem is that Frisk has them, and Frisk is far away.
Frisk takes out a scroll and dashes over to rescue Chara before they shatter. Since there are no active spells or enemies on the map, I figure that Chara won't shatter.
Then, I get a second auto-pause.
Chara has shattered.
I try to think of some way we could go on without Chara, and I simply can't. Asriel is sturdy, but Chara has always been the backbone of the party, from winning us that critical wolf talisman from Guthewulfe that we needed to defeat Caballus to tanking deadly spells and heavy pressure at Shaengarne to taking down the Horde Fortress with the Spear of Justice to smashing apart the ice temple in Remorhaz form to slicing our way through the Underdark passage in half-dragon form, stomping over the monk golems of the Black Raven Monastery, hacking apart the Viciscamera, sacking the temple of Sseth, and defending Kuldahar and Iselore when the party was at its very weakest.
If we continue this run with a level 1 Chara, no matter what their class is, there are only two realistic possibilities:
1. We struggle at every stage, exploiting every resource we have, and barely scrape by the final battle. It will be a long, stressful, tiring, and painful process.
2. We struggle at every stage, exploiting every resource we have, and see all our efforts after all this time end in a crushing failure.
Even if we succeed, the rest of the game will not be much fun. There is no future to this run without Chara.
I search for an excuse to reload, and can't find any.
I target Chara's portrait with both Raise Dead, Resurrection, and a scroll of Stone to Flesh. None of them work. Petrification in IWD2 seems to be an automatic chunking--and Stone to Flesh apparently useless.
Chara was just one fight away from the final half-dragon form. I'd been thinking about that moment for days, and now it's gone.
Out of curiosity, I try targeting Chara's dropped loot instead of their portrait. Like in any IE game, you can target items on the ground. There's no reason targeting the loot on their body would raise them, but wasting a scroll or spell won't make any difference at this point. This run is already over.
I try it out.
It works.
It works!
CHARA'S BACK, CHARA'S BACK, CHARA'S BACK!
Wow. I don't believe it. Targeting a petrified character's portrait doesn't work, but targeting their fallen body does. That makes no sense.
I was so close to just quitting the game. If I did, I'd never have realized this was possible.
But I'm not dealing with this nonsense again. No. I export the whole party. If there is a way of getting a character truly chunked in IWD2, and it happens to one of us, I'll import them. Seeing Chara die again without being able to import them back would be wrenching. It would hurt too much to lose all the progress we've worked so hard for.
I was so sure Chara was gone and the run was over. But now they're back, as strong as ever.
We run into the last enemy group in the area. After another long and slow fight, Chara hits 231,000 XP. That's enough to hit level 21, but since Chara took a level as a monk, they need level 22 to reach druid level 21. How do we get the next 20,000 XP?
We have an item for that, which I bought for just this occasion.
My favorite part is "The Wooden Citadel of Darmos the Old and Crippled." Again, good writing from a mostly hack-and-slash game. Chara sits down for a long read.
Chara levels up and chooses the last three elemental damage feats: Aegis of Rime, Aqua Mortis, and Spirit of Flame. They already have Scion of Storms. These feats grant 5- resistance to each element (cold, acid, fire, and electricity, respectively) and a 20% boost to all such damage dealt. Chara gets all the remaining half-dragon forms at once.
The final form is the Elemental Half-Dragon form. Defensively, it's a fortress:
Offensively? I have no words to describe it.
Chara has more damage output in this form than any other character possibly could at this level. With those elemental feats, Chara does 90 damage per hit on average, at 5 attacks per round when hasted.
Normally, you'd end the game 3-5 levels before you got this form, but with a small party and very, very intensive level-squatting, we've got the final form midway through Dragon's Eye. We had to spend a long time with a weaker party to make this happen, but the payoff is worth it.
Chara absolutely thrashes everything in the next area, from flesh...
...to stone...
...to iron...
Chara is back, and stronger than ever.
Going from flesh to stone to iron fills us with determination.