Imoen crouched near the crumpled, bloodstained body of Gorion, tears streaming down her face. Aglaia sat in the dirt, looking stunned.
"I can't believe it," Imoen whispered. "And you say these assailants knew you by name?"
"They did," Aglaia grunted softly. "I've never been treated well, but this takes things to a whole new -- and wholly unacceptable -- level."
"They could still be hunting you. We can't stay here."
"Gorion told me to go northeast, to the Friendly Arm Inn. To find some friends I've never heard of before."
"Yeah, forget that," Imoen said. "If we're going to get through this, we need to be unpredictable. Let's see if old Firebead will help us. He lives in Beregost if I remember right."
"So its 'we' now, is it, Imoen?" Aglaia ran her fingers lightly across her pointed teeth. "We've never been particularly close. Gorion was the closest thing I had to family... and even he seemed uncomfortable around me. On account of what I am."
Imoen looked directly into Aglaia's eyes. "And just what are you, then?"
Diary of Seluna We were attacked by yet another assassin in Nashkel just after we had received our reward for solving the problems in the mines. Rasaad who is yet another follower of Selune wanted to join our party and since we all follow that deity, we could hardly deny him.
Just north of Nashkel we gave some turnips and grtain to some female ogres in return for Jan Jansen's life. This brought our reputation up to 20.
We proceeded to Nashkel where we investigated what would happen if we attacked Elminster. He was relatively benign about it. He turned Imoen into a chicken and teleported away. The spell wore off after a rest.
I felt that as we were chaotic neutral, atttacking Elminster was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Clearly the report that Elminster could be killed was enough to make the devs change things. This however doesn't grate as much as some of the other changes. It seems reasonable for him to change people into chickens when they attack him.
However they don't seem to like players twisting the plot, whether it is killing Elminster, Tazok and the bandit camp or the demonknight at the entrance to Durlag's Tower. Yet that is exactly what they should be able to do. It doesn't damage the plot as resurrection spells can be used to raise them again if so required for the plot. It grates on me every time Tazok cheats in order to avoid being killed, that cut-scene when his HP get's too low feels SO wrong.
Freya passed peacefully through the Nashkel Mine, using mirror images for the first time to reduce damage from the dart traps. In Mulahey's cave she blinded and killed the kobolds before preparing for Mulahey. He is scripted to automatically summon his troops if disabled (even if he hasn't seen the PC prior to that). Therefore Freya summoned more monsters and let them kill Mulahey before she finished off the few support troops that survived.
Outside the mine the amazons fell to web and blindness (with a bit of help from haste, MSD and malison).
Nimbul went the same way - as did Tranzig (who would have been immune normally, but fell foul of malison).
At that point Freya used Nimbul's find familiar scroll and picked up a nice bonus of 22 HPs as a result - the familiar clearly got an upgrade from LoB. Before going to the Bandit Camp she also went to High Hedge and bought the Claw of Kazgaroth - giving yet more protection against missile attacks. However, rather than risk combat there she just used MSD, mirrors and haste to quickly grab the contents of the chest before going invisible again. The interaction between MSD and lightning in EE is odd and despite a spell ineffective message the damage was only partially neutralised - but enough for her to survive.
After resting and getting slow poison as a Bhaal power I decided too late perhaps it should have been horror. That's far less important for an arcane character, but still probably worth having. Hence Bentan and Poe were blinded and killed at Firewine to reduce reputation before Freya travelled through the Cloakwood. Arriving at the mine she blinded Genthore and tried to kill him without disturbing the others. However, before he was quite finished off Drasus (still out of sight range) decided to react and Freya quickly retreated. Drasus didn't follow so Freya made a first use of the necklace of missiles to toss a few fireballs in to finish off Genthore. Rather than rest she then decided to keep going with the fireballs until both mages were dead
and then used haste to allow her to run round and finish off Drasus with more wand attacks.
After passing invisibly down to Davaeorn magic missiles and frost blasts killed the battle horrors.
Freya then spent a while dodging between levels to avoid loads of dire charms and hold persons before throwing 80 +1 darts at the mage - carelessly getting hit by his staff at one point in return (Davaeorn hitting with a roll of 2 )
30 darts of wounding followed, but with Davaeorn still only at injured status Freya tired of the game and produced some monsters to finish him off quickly (with enough time left to kill the mustard jelly as well).
After resting to get horror Freya left the mine, but avoided the slave outside while she went to find a temple and give them some donations. Returning to the slave then both boosted her reputation and provided her final BG1 level.
In the City the first main task was the poison quest. Jalantha was throwing around pretty vicious flame strikes to kill 2 gnolls,
but she couldn't manage the ogre.
Lothander was successfully penned in by summons, but his HPs allowed him to hang on at near death until he teleported away.
Marek had no such ability and the monsters produced by the final charge of her original wand allowed Freya to prevent any successful casts by him.
A few quick reputation tasks saw that back to 20, allowing Freya to pick up more cheap magical goods - including another monster summoning wand. That was used for the first time to overcome Ramazith and Freya went invisibly upstairs to grab the tome. With no other equipment wanted and already at the XP cap Freya then just sneaked in to the Iron Throne before reporting to Duke Eltan for duty in Candlekeep.
Shar Teel is the first to notice, on account of being fireballed regularly. Sometimes she's protected from fire, other times well Xzar's not bothering to do so. Lucky her this time.
Kahrk the ogre mage is a juicy target, until he uses a lightning bolt to dismantle a skeleton and a second to wound Monty. Everybody scatters as Monty gets a Melf's Acid Arrow, then he too hides. Kahrk's buffs wear off after a few minutes so Monty scouts him out for Xzar to try Fireball and Glitterdust. Viconia tries a silence but Kahrk is unaffected.
Still, with his buffs down he's ripe for a backstab as Shar Teel takes the brunt of his remaining attacks.
The bandit camp sees Shar Teel take a few arrow wounds but not enough to prevent the party reaching the largest tent. For once, Xzar casts Protection from Fire onto the front-woman and the party head inside buffed against fear. Blaggerd is using poisoned darts but Xzar's Fireball onto Shar Teel sees the enemy cowed and they are safely mopped up. Ender Sai has been burnt too and is attacking. He is chopped down and reputation tanks deep into single figures. Who cares, Blaggerd has already emptied Ulgoth's Beard of their valuables and has a pile of cash remaining.
On to Cloakwood where Eldoth shares some wine. Blaggerd is ready to move on but decides to invite Eldoth when he crafts some poisoned arrows.
Freya quickly passed through Candlekeep. She did kill the phase spiders (using one lot of monsters to provide initial distraction before attacking them),
but otherwise just went through invisibly with just a minor globe scroll against the fireball trap as a resource cost.
Back in the City a single lot of monsters was just enough to deal with Slythe.
On to the palace where monsters were summoned and hasted before Freya started proceedings by giving Belt spirit armour. I considered doing the same to Liia, but within a round she was already at injured status and I decided to concentrate on Belt - giving him improved invisibility. A malison was then followed by a chaos that affected 2 of the dopplegangers (though one of them was killed a moment afterwards by Belt anyway).
By this time Liia was dead and Belt was at injured status and some more monsters joined the fray in support. With the dopplegangers down to 4 and Belt still looking good a second chaos then pretty much decided the battle
and I didn't have to resort to using a teleport field scroll before they were finished off.
After going invisibly through the maze Freya went into the temple and drew Sarevok out with a magic missile. A potion of invisibility was used to park him out of the way while some pre-summoned monsters attacked Semaj as he teleported out. After a few rounds Sarevok appeared to hear the sounds of conflict and came to join in, but Semaj died moments after he arrived anyway.
About 5 more lots of summons were used, interspersed with magic missiles, until Sarevok had had enough.
Moving straight on to Jon's dungeon Freya was suddenly left without any of those lovely summons and struggled to kill the ogre mage early on - having to resort to several invisible attacks to finish it off when her magic missiles and skull traps were not quite enough.
Malisoned webs and skull traps were pretty effective on goblins and mephits though and she rested regularly while making her way through them. With many enemies having a follow-me script when attacked she had to be careful to keep invisibility available while gradually killing off Ilyich and his duergar - webs and blindness were helpful in controlling their missile attacks. The cambion took quite a long time, but she eventually finished it off with her non-proficient sling.
Her mirrors successfully prevented damage from a couple of potentially lethal traps (the spike traps required to recover the Claw of Kazgaroth and the portal key) before a triple web + malison helped hold the steam mephit in place to be killed by skull traps.
Killing the remaining mephits and returning the ogre's flask was enough to get Freya to level 10
and she took animate dead, her first summoning spell. The skeletons now available soon sorted out the clay golems to allow Freya to pass peacefully onto the next level.
More skeletons took care of the mephit portals (while Freya twiddled her thumbs)
and cleared the way for her mirrors to do their job as the smoking pipe chose the wrong arse to stick itself up.
With no more danger from traps there were then no problems finishing off the remaining opponents, including Ulvaryl.
Sorcerer L10, 73 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 59 kills (+128 in BG1) L1 - blindness, protection from petrification, identify, friends, magic missile L2 - invisibility, web, mirror image, knock L3 - minor spell deflection, haste, skull trap L4 - greater malison, improved invisibility L5 - animate dead
The Adventures of Kythran: Part 3 - In the Rescue of Damsels.
The party of Kythran, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, and Minsc made their way out of Nashkel, and were trying to get to save Minsc's damsel in a quick fashion. For Kythran figured that any man that talks to a miniature space hamster or whatever Minsc had called it, might not be in the right state of mind.
In fact, in the Cloud Peak Mountains, Kythran's party had found another band of adventurers, whose leader had called them barbarians. However, whatever offense that Kythran had taken would have to be pushed aside, he had better things to do, like saving the damsel that was obviously in distress.
Then later on, there was a Dryad that was in distress. As a ranger, Kythran couldn't ignore the derps that were trying to destroy her tree, so those two died quickly mostly being target practice for Kythran, Imoen, and Khalid.
The Dryad had given us potions, and Jaheira had gotten a Club +1 for all that had happened.
Then, back on the road to saving Minsc's Damsel. They had found a gnoll, and Minsc went berserk and killed it with his sword. Then, Minsc quickly turned his blade on Jaheira, so the rest of the party ran, leaving Minsc to stew in his rage, and when he was calm, he was rejoined by the group.
Finally, they had reached their destination, however, as soon as some...half-giants, Kythran guessed anyway, tried to collect a toll, Minsc kind of decided it was time for a fight. Of course, Minsc had died. Kythran supposed he might spend the gold to raise him later, now it was time to save the damsel in distress. Of course, the half-giants fell easily to everyone else, being pin-cushions for the archers.
Lastly, the group had to fight a lot of gnolls, and they were easily made into pin-cushions by the archers of the group, with Jaheira only quaffing a potion after. At last, they found the Damsel. Her name was Dynaheir, and Kythran accepted her into the group immediately! They always needed another mage other than Khalid. This had apparently caused Imoen to gain some more knowledge in thievery, though, if anything it may have taught her to be a kidnapper at best.
The group returned to Nashkel forthwith, to raise Minsc, get some better armor, to rest, and to plot what wilderness areas to return to.
We had to fight our way out of the docks, only to be shipwrecked by sharks.
The head man & his brother wants each other dead so naturally I obliged... The loot includes a halberd head for katarina later & another couple spells each for the casters.
Freya got to level 11 while sorting out the circus. The use of haste, invisibility and mirrors there gave her plenty of time to produce skeletons upstairs to finish off Kalah.
After checking in with Gaelan Bayle the first port of call was to travel invisibly to the Government District and pay for a license - I didn't think the cloudkill strategy I normally use to kill the Cowled Wizards would have much impact on them in LoB.
With her newly learned stoneskin Freya faced no danger from Amalas in the Copper Coronet. The animals' extra HPs took a bit of getting through though and Freya retreated for a rest before coming back to finish things off. Going straight down into the sewers skeletons provided some cover, but there was still plenty of work for webs and skull traps. After recovering Lilarcor Freya showed herself to the slavers before running back to the sewers - leading some enemies into a skeleton trap. Web and malison gave them a huge advantage and they soon finished off the guards before doing the same to some pursuing trolls (Freya used MMM to kill those).
I wasn't convinced that spell immunity would stop the acid blob trap, so Freya went back through the sewers. The other end of the slaver ship has a poison trap that would certainly be fatal if it affected Freya so she went looking for a protection from poison scroll. The Temple of Ilmater was no help, so she went back to the Promenade to get one from Ribald before returning to finish off the slavers.
On the way to Watcher's Keep to get a potion case Freya was ambushed by Suna Seni. However, she was travelling invisibly and a few skeletons and webs turned the tables on the ambushers. At the Keep skeletons couldn't hurt the stone golem, but lasted long enough for an air elemental (using the scroll from the dungeon) to win the contest. There were no vampiric wraiths in the main room, so clearing the top level should have been easy enough. Unfortunately RL intruded when my wife started explaining in detail how I should be doing some remedial sowing on a jumper for my son to take back to college. At some point in examining that the game must have been unpaused and when I looked at the screen again a sword spider had finished off the last skeleton before (presumably) making light work of Freya's stoneskins and mirror images.
That was annoying, but at least I confirmed that BG1 is not too difficult in principle for a solo sorcerer - and I'm pretty sure that SoA would be even easier. There are a couple of potential problems I can foresee in ToB, but possible solutions for those will have to wait a while before being tested out ...
Aglaia and Imoen stumbled down the steps of the Red Sheaf Inn. People on the streets, catching a glimpse of Aglaia's pale green skin and imposing frame, gave them a wide berth.
"I can't believe that just happened," said Imoen. "That dwarf killed half of the tavern."
Aglaia nodded somberly. "I guess Beregost isn't safe after all. We better get out of here before someone decides to blame us."
Imoen glanced over her shoulder, looking for pursuit. "That makes... what, two attempts on our lives this week?"
"You don't have to be here, Imoen," Aglaia responded. "You don't have to travel with me. In fact, leaving would be much safer."
"I'm not so sure about that," said Imoen. "I know about the assassins you faced in Candlekeep. They weren't just after you. More were waiting in my bedroom... I think we're in this together, whether we like it or not."
Aglaia crouched down and searched the body of the cleric who had just tried to kill her. She pulled a folded note out of a belt pouch.
"This bounty on our heads appears to have spread as far south as Nashkel," Aglaia sighed. "And these assassins are having no problem finding us, it seems."
"You do look rather distinctive," said Imoen with a mischevious grin.
Aglaia looked back over her shoulder at the imposing keep. "Do you believe Bentley, that his inn used to be a temple to Bhall?"
Imoen shivered. "I don't know. But the place gives me the creeps. And not just because that mage tried to kill us on the steps."
Aglaia nodded. Suddenly, she stopped walking and turned to face Imoen.
"Imoen, we have to make a choice. We can go back to hiding in the forest and hope this storm blows over and leaves us untouched. Or, we can go our separate ways -- you can try to blend in and live a normal life somewhere. I can go look for somewhere that I could call home... where I'm not the only half-orc, if such a place exists."
Aglaia paused. "Or, we can track down these assassination attempts to their source, and show them the light of my god."
"I have a bad feeling that this storm isn't going to blow over." Imoen shivered. "And can you imagine me living a normal life? No, I think our only way out is through. And I think our odds will be much better if we watch each others' backs."
"Very well. So why do you think these assassins are after us? Where's the money coming from?"
"I have no idea. We're not important in any way. We're just two kids from Candlekeep."
Aglaia stepped quietly into a richly appointed room, the last thing she had expected to find at the bottom of the Nashkel mines. An armored figure sat writing at a desk under flickering candlelight.
Unseen for the moment, Aglaia searched the chamber. Four kobolds appeared to hold an elf prisoner in the back of a cave. She could detect no other movement.
She whispered several silent prayers to her god. Maybe now I can find some answers.
She stepped into the room and cleared her throat. The figure at the desk looked up at the sound.
Aglaia drew a sharp breath. Here was another half-orc. The first she had ever seen.
"Who are you," Mulahey growled, "and why are you interrupting my work?"
Aglaia stepped forward cautiously. "Your kobolds are careless. I came to check up on you."
"Did Tazok send you?" Mulahey began to look contrite. "No one told me you were coming... I can explain."
"Please do," Aglaia responded, feeling both curious about this cleric who looked so much like herself, and terrified with uncertainty about what she was stepping into. She tried to keep her composure intact while waiting for the cleric to respond.
"We have crippled this mine, as instructed," Mulahey said. "True, the kobolds haven't managed to carry out orders with any kind of subtlety, but the plan is working. The mine bosses are blaming their trouble on an infestation of demons, rather than on the ore poison. While we haven't managed to keep our presence totally hidden, the stories are keeping most fools away. Well, other than a dour elf I have taken prisoner. Surely Tazok must be mostly pleased with our efforts?"
"The mine is crippled, true," Aglaia improvised. "But Tazok is worried that your trail is too easy to follow. What if someone discovered what you were doing and reported it?"
Mulahey nodded. "It is a risk, I agree. Tell Tazok that I will work harder to keep the kobolds in line, and the ore poison a secret."
"Very well," Aglaia replied. "I am also wondering, has he sent word about the bounty?"
"What bounty?" Mulahey looked nervous. "I promise you, I am loyal to Tazok, and faithful to Cyric."
"The bounty on the whelps from Candlekeep."
"Whelps from Candlekeep?" Mulahey looked confused. "What does Candlekeep have to do with any of this?"
Aglaia struggled to think of an appropriate response. She began to panic.
"I don't know the whole plan," Aglaia admitted, truthfully.
"Something's off here," Mulahey frowned. "Who are you?"
"I'm a priestess of Cyric," Aglaia said, with too much hesitation. "Doing some side work for Tazok. Like you."
"And who am I, then?" Mulahey asked, frowning more deeply.
Aglaia froze, struggling for something to say that would keep her deception intact. Wanting to keep talking with this cleric, despite his dedication to an evil god. Wanting to know more about his story -- where he came from, the circumstances of his upbringing, how he came to this place deep in an obscure mine on the outskirts of Amn, surrounded by kobolds and vats of chemicals.
"You have convinced me," she tried, smiling. "You are a loyal servant of Cyric. I can see that your efforts are succeeding, and that Tazok's fears were unfounded. I will report your diligence to him when I return."
"I don't think so," Mulahey said, picking up a mace from his desk and whistling beneath his teeth. Kobolds and skeletons rushed in, blocking any chance for Aglaia to escape. "I don't know who you are, but you're not going anywhere."
"Wait," Aglaia said. "We share the same heritage, you and I. We have the same orcish blood. I can help you."
Mulahey scowled. "You must have grown up amongst soft-skinned humans. Blood means nothing. Only loyalty to Cyric matters. And you, I can now see, have none. You will die for your blasphemy."
Kobolds began firing arrows and Mulahey began chanting a spell. Aglaia uncorked a potion with deep regret, and the room exploded into flame.
The Adventures of Kythran: Part 4 - Near Death Experience.
The exploration of the Wilderness around Nashkel had begun! By the mines Kythran had found a man named Prism, who was making a sculpture of the Queen Ellesime, and Kythran defended him from Greywolf. Minsc died, while Dynaheir cast magic missile, and Imoen used her Wand of Magic Missile. Kythran got a new Longsword as well!
After exploring some more of the Wilderness, Kythran had agreed to save a dog for a little boy. While looking for the dog, Kythran had a near Death Experience against Vex and Zal. Jaheira, Minsc, and Khalid had quickly gone down, and Kythran was close to dying, but he had potions, and used an ability that he recently unlocked that gave him health. Dynaheir used her magic missile spells, and Imoen used her wand.
Once going to, and from, Nashkel, the party had found the dog, and returned it to the boy! Only to find out that the boy wasn't actually a boy!
Lastly, the group rested in the wilderness, and were now planning their next move...While Boo ate Jaheira's medicinal herbs.
Note: Everyone seems to be leveling up at a good pace. Might do the mines soon. I'm not sure on that though. Perhaps I'll keep exploring the Wilderness.
Starting the long road again Freya has made some good progress and just seen the back of Sarevok.
Tactics were generally similar to her last run, though she did rather less work this time round in order not to waste so much XP (but still hit the XP cap at the palace). It would have been possible to significantly reduce the time taken by abusing the wand of monster summoning, but I wanted her to be relying primarily on her own spells.
There was one oddity early on when tackling Shoal. When she was almost dead Freya was hit by lightning - that was worrying as she had no healing and a second strike on her would have been fatal. There was another lightning hit, but this time it was on Shoal - killing her. Initially I was annoyed about that - thinking that Thor would pick up the XP - but fortunately Freya was awarded it anyway for some reason.
Sorcerer L9, 72 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 107 kills L1 - blindness, protection from petrification, identify, friends, magic missile L2 - invisibility, web, mirror image, knock L3 - minor spell deflection, haste, skull trap L4 - greater malison, stoneskin One slight change this time was taking stoneskin as a second L4 spell. Last time I took improved invisibility specifically to use at the palace, but having done that fight once I concluded that the single scroll available at Ulgoth's Beard was sufficient for that purpose.
@Grond0 Congratulations on beating LoB BG1 with a solo character! Sorry to see Freya 21 dead in BG2, but beating BG1 is an achievement already. Good luck to Freya 22 in BG2!
Seluna and party went to Durlag's Tower having heard that good equipment was available from a merchant there. Having arrived they decided to testb their mettle against the dungeon and discovered that the top half at least was within well their capability.Starlight acquired some excellent armour there and a cloak of protection +2 was also found for Xan. He is now quite a decent fighter. Indeed, the whole party is looking quite effective. I was surprised about Rasaad, never having played a monk before.
They then went to the gnoll stronghold where they plundered the cave having defeated a powerful party of assassins. A +3 axe and a +2 throwing axe were amongst the plunder. Seluna reached level 7.
To the north they earned a pair of snow boots and by killing Neville found a +1 sword, however the ogres to the north proved too much for Rasaad and they were forced to return to a temple to raise him. That was expensive! They didn't have a lot of gold and that made quite a dent in supplies.
Natasha the mage brought sorrow to the group. At first, the fight went smoothly, the assassin's poison stopped all of her casting.
But her pre-buffing was so good, that it kept her alive during the poison effect. She saved against further doses of poison, and as soon as she resumed casting, Karasu was one-shut by a lightning bolt.
That was a big blow to the party, as no resurrections are allowed, and the rules that I'm using for created party members state that a new party member should have 0 XP. So the party lost seven levels and 50k+ XP on an only party thief.
Natasha was dealt with, nonetheless.
I fealt that creating a new assassin before the fight against Davaeorn would not be the optimal choice (from both the game and RP points of view - a party member with less than 10 hps would not be great against SCS Davaeorn, the chances the party could meet someone new when they already were chasing Davaeorn would be very low).
Safana was called up. With her help the party killed an ogre-mage (he failed his saving throw against Command and then was poisoned by a spirit snake).
Uzume, the cleric, was chosen as the one who would tank Davaeorn with Protection from Magic and Boots of Speed, while the rest of the group, strengthened by two spirit lions, would fight reinforcements.
It went rather well, with one Battle Horror reacting to the main group and then being killed by Magic Missiles.
Davaeorn's Sunfire and Magic Missiles Wand by Uzume finished the second Battle Horror.
A summoned nymph helped to hold upcoming bandits.
As soon as Davaeorn's protections wore off, he was finished, with Safana (funny, her presence in the party was so short, and yet she managed to leave her mark) dealing the last blow to the wizard.
Uzume got a new level - which granted 5 more hps and an access to the 4th spell level.
When the group went out of the Mines, they were approached by a hooded figure. Hades, an assassin, offered them his services as he had heard the group had flooded the biggest Mine between Beregost and Baldur's Gate and thus had challenged one of the strongest organizations in the city - the Iron Throne. Hades would greatly improve his skills when hunting the Iron Throne leaders. Following the concept of non min-maxed party-members I used Yoshimo's stats for Hades:
Now, the first thing the group needed was to pump up Hades a bit, maybe completing several peaceable quests in the city.
Freya continued following much the same track as last time and escaped the dungeon, sorted out the Copper Coronet and the slaver ship and saw off the Suna Seni ambush before going to Watcher's Keep. The statues there require a fair bit of damage in LoB and she rested twice (taking advantage of the fact that enemies don't heal when you rest in the same area) while whittling them away. With just the golem sized one and a melee statue left, both badly damaged, she was nearing the end when she manoeuvred the big one into being trapped in a doorway and started pelting it with the Crimson Dart.
There were still 3 skeletons alive at that point and I was aiming to keep them to attack the final statue. However, the skeletons had the sort of follow-me script many enemies have and continued trying to attack the big statue despite being regularly sent well out of sight. After probably 15-20 rounds of that (which made little impact on the statue's HPs) I decided to try and move the skeletons right to the other end of the area to see if that would cause them to break lock. In doing that I moved the viewpoint of the map - and therefore didn't realise that the other statue had obviously decided to eventually turn up and was attacking Freya.
I was still paying partial attention to the battle though and even though I didn't notice Freya's stoneskins being crunched I did notice when the statue took a big lump out of her. I immediately tried hitting the pause button, but was a fraction too late to prevent the second (and fatal) hit
Now the question is do I have the stamina to try and break the Watcher's Keep hoodoo for a 3rd time?
@Blind_Visionary , I must say, I love your new posting style. Rather than a full novelized write-up, or a series of screen shots describing the major battles, you give us short excerpts of dialogue that let us know exactly where you are in the game.
Since you're posting in the no-reload thread, I assume that if you fail your no-reload, you'll write your main character's death scene. That adds an element of suspense to reading the story. I can't wait to see if your half-orc lives.
Also, are you playing a two-character only party, yourself and Imoen? I assume so, because you don't write any dialogue for anyone else.
A lot of great posts lately, makes me feel kind of ashamed for my own contributions.
Well Dice the FMT with Celestial Fury is dead. I was just running through Mekraths lair for a second wand of cloudkill to go complete the Unseeing Eye. I've seen quite a few different spawns but never more than 1-2 yuanti-mages before. This time I'm playing with half an eye since the 4 months old baby isn't quite sure he really wants to sleep. I figured I wouldn't run into any serious problems. 4 yuanti-mages later with PfMW, GoI, chaos, PW: stun and some really annoying sequensers Dice is dead. Tried once more but this time with proper scouting and didn't lose one single hp, but that is what no-reloading is all about. First time I lacked debuffing enough to kill all of them at the same time and all of them saved vs Nalias 2 chaos spells.
Ah well, I usually get sloppy once I've got all the gear/gold/levels I need to feel safe.
Still SCS, core, most options turned on.
Next try will be a CG half-elf (although he looks very human, the bald dangerous looking guy that is the first male picture you get) FMT that I made solely to try two-handed weapons since I am a bit tired of cookie cutter builds. Lo and behold he rolls 18/00, 18, 18, 18, 8, 9! Weapon pips were meant to be halberds but I switched for two-handed swords to finally wield that fantastic one you get in the Underdark plus the Silver Sword, staffs solely for backstabs, halberd and maxing out on two-handed style are up next.
Max saves everyone in chateu Irenicus and ends up with 18 potions of extra healing and 12-14 smaller ones, ditches everyone to gather a bit of experience solo to compensate for FMT with (almost) full party.
Circus was really lucky and hopefully a sign of what is to come. Crit bs on the first orc for 96 (!) damage, never knew you could make someone explode from a good thwack in the back with a staff. Second orc went fleeing after the first strike and fell with the second. Buffed up with blur, MI, DuHM and ran through the second floor just picking up the scrolls, walked up to Kalah and crit him for 47 damage chunking him too.
Plan now is to solo a few easy quests, Slavers, Harper, Thief, Radiant Heart, Trademeet and then go gather my party for the rest of the game. Still don't really know what NPCs to pick though, I want to take Mazzy but the improved Shade Lord is kind of scary, I also want Keldorn but getting the second strength item is also scary since you need to fight Lavok and Tolgerias. The boots of speed would be a nice bonus for backstabs but that Demon Knight is way off limits for me until chapter 6 unless really cheesing and I don't want to do that.
Also, are you playing a two-character only party, yourself and Imoen?
Yes. It felt like the right thing to do from an RP perspective. I'm not sure if it helped or hurt me as far as strategy goes. I still have a lot to learn. Its shocking how much depth this game has.
"So that was Tazok," Imoen whispered, as she walked with Aglaia into a camp full of hobgoblins and raiders.
"I can't believe he didn't recognize us," said Aglaia. "Its not like there are many female thieves wandering around in this camp."
"Speaking of which," Imoen said, "This place doesn't feel very safe. Let's see if we can find out what's going on and get out of here as fast as possible."
Comments
Imoen crouched near the crumpled, bloodstained body of Gorion, tears streaming down her face. Aglaia sat in the dirt, looking stunned.
"I can't believe it," Imoen whispered. "And you say these assailants knew you by name?"
"They did," Aglaia grunted softly. "I've never been treated well, but this takes things to a whole new -- and wholly unacceptable -- level."
"They could still be hunting you. We can't stay here."
"Gorion told me to go northeast, to the Friendly Arm Inn. To find some friends I've never heard of before."
"Yeah, forget that," Imoen said. "If we're going to get through this, we need to be unpredictable. Let's see if old Firebead will help us. He lives in Beregost if I remember right."
"So its 'we' now, is it, Imoen?" Aglaia ran her fingers lightly across her pointed teeth. "We've never been particularly close. Gorion was the closest thing I had to family... and even he seemed uncomfortable around me. On account of what I am."
Imoen looked directly into Aglaia's eyes. "And just what are you, then?"
"A half-orc," Aglaia said. "The only one I know."
We were attacked by yet another assassin in Nashkel just after we had received our reward for solving the problems in the mines. Rasaad who is yet another follower of Selune wanted to join our party and since we all follow that deity, we could hardly deny him.
Just north of Nashkel we gave some turnips and grtain to some female ogres in return for Jan Jansen's life. This brought our reputation up to 20.
We proceeded to Nashkel where we investigated what would happen if we attacked Elminster. He was relatively benign about it. He turned Imoen into a chicken and teleported away.
I felt that as we were chaotic neutral, atttacking Elminster was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Clearly the report that Elminster could be killed was enough to make the devs change things.
However they don't seem to like players twisting the plot, whether it is killing Elminster, Tazok and the bandit camp or the demonknight at the entrance to Durlag's Tower. Yet that is exactly what they should be able to do. It doesn't damage the plot as resurrection spells can be used to raise them again if so required for the plot. It grates on me every time Tazok cheats in order to avoid being killed, that cut-scene when his HP get's too low feels SO wrong.
Freya passed peacefully through the Nashkel Mine, using mirror images for the first time to reduce damage from the dart traps. In Mulahey's cave she blinded and killed the kobolds before preparing for Mulahey. He is scripted to automatically summon his troops if disabled (even if he hasn't seen the PC prior to that). Therefore Freya summoned more monsters and let them kill Mulahey before she finished off the few support troops that survived.
Outside the mine the amazons fell to web and blindness (with a bit of help from haste, MSD and malison).
Nimbul went the same way - as did Tranzig (who would have been immune normally, but fell foul of malison).
At that point Freya used Nimbul's find familiar scroll and picked up a nice bonus of 22 HPs as a result - the familiar clearly got an upgrade from LoB. Before going to the Bandit Camp she also went to High Hedge and bought the Claw of Kazgaroth - giving yet more protection against missile attacks. However, rather than risk combat there she just used MSD, mirrors and haste to quickly grab the contents of the chest before going invisible again. The interaction between MSD and lightning in EE is odd and despite a spell ineffective message the damage was only partially neutralised - but enough for her to survive.
After resting and getting slow poison as a Bhaal power I decided too late perhaps it should have been horror. That's far less important for an arcane character, but still probably worth having. Hence Bentan and Poe were blinded and killed at Firewine to reduce reputation before Freya travelled through the Cloakwood. Arriving at the mine she blinded Genthore and tried to kill him without disturbing the others. However, before he was quite finished off Drasus (still out of sight range) decided to react and Freya quickly retreated. Drasus didn't follow so Freya made a first use of the necklace of missiles to toss a few fireballs in to finish off Genthore. Rather than rest she then decided to keep going with the fireballs until both mages were dead
and then used haste to allow her to run round and finish off Drasus with more wand attacks.
After passing invisibly down to Davaeorn magic missiles and frost blasts killed the battle horrors.
Freya then spent a while dodging between levels to avoid loads of dire charms and hold persons before throwing 80 +1 darts at the mage - carelessly getting hit by his staff at one point in return (Davaeorn hitting with a roll of 2
30 darts of wounding followed, but with Davaeorn still only at injured status Freya tired of the game and produced some monsters to finish him off quickly (with enough time left to kill the mustard jelly as well).
After resting to get horror Freya left the mine, but avoided the slave outside while she went to find a temple and give them some donations. Returning to the slave then both boosted her reputation and provided her final BG1 level.
In the City the first main task was the poison quest. Jalantha was throwing around pretty vicious flame strikes to kill 2 gnolls,
but she couldn't manage the ogre.
Lothander was successfully penned in by summons, but his HPs allowed him to hang on at near death until he teleported away.
Marek had no such ability and the monsters produced by the final charge of her original wand allowed Freya to prevent any successful casts by him.
A few quick reputation tasks saw that back to 20, allowing Freya to pick up more cheap magical goods - including another monster summoning wand. That was used for the first time to overcome Ramazith and Freya went invisibly upstairs to grab the tome. With no other equipment wanted and already at the XP cap Freya then just sneaked in to the Iron Throne before reporting to Duke Eltan for duty in Candlekeep.
Sorcerer L9, 68 HPs (incl 22 from familiar), 121 kills
L1 - blindness, protection from petrification, identify, friends, magic missile
L2 - invisibility, web, mirror image, knock
L3 - minor spell deflection, haste, skull trap
L4 - greater malison, improved invisibility
Xzar learns some new tricks from Tranzig.
Still, with his buffs down he's ripe for a backstab as Shar Teel takes the brunt of his remaining attacks.
On to Cloakwood where Eldoth shares some wine. Blaggerd is ready to move on but decides to invite Eldoth when he crafts some poisoned arrows.
Freya quickly passed through Candlekeep. She did kill the phase spiders (using one lot of monsters to provide initial distraction before attacking them),
but otherwise just went through invisibly with just a minor globe scroll against the fireball trap as a resource cost.
Back in the City a single lot of monsters was just enough to deal with Slythe.
On to the palace where monsters were summoned and hasted before Freya started proceedings by giving Belt spirit armour. I considered doing the same to Liia, but within a round she was already at injured status and I decided to concentrate on Belt - giving him improved invisibility. A malison was then followed by a chaos that affected 2 of the dopplegangers (though one of them was killed a moment afterwards by Belt anyway).
By this time Liia was dead and Belt was at injured status and some more monsters joined the fray in support. With the dopplegangers down to 4 and Belt still looking good a second chaos then pretty much decided the battle
and I didn't have to resort to using a teleport field scroll before they were finished off.
After going invisibly through the maze Freya went into the temple and drew Sarevok out with a magic missile. A potion of invisibility was used to park him out of the way while some pre-summoned monsters attacked Semaj as he teleported out. After a few rounds Sarevok appeared to hear the sounds of conflict and came to join in, but Semaj died moments after he arrived anyway.
About 5 more lots of summons were used, interspersed with magic missiles, until Sarevok had had enough.
Moving straight on to Jon's dungeon Freya was suddenly left without any of those lovely summons and struggled to kill the ogre mage early on - having to resort to several invisible attacks to finish it off when her magic missiles and skull traps were not quite enough.
Malisoned webs and skull traps were pretty effective on goblins and mephits though and she rested regularly while making her way through them. With many enemies having a follow-me script when attacked she had to be careful to keep invisibility available while gradually killing off Ilyich and his duergar - webs and blindness were helpful in controlling their missile attacks. The cambion took quite a long time, but she eventually finished it off with her non-proficient sling.
Her mirrors successfully prevented damage from a couple of potentially lethal traps (the spike traps required to recover the Claw of Kazgaroth and the portal key) before a triple web + malison helped hold the steam mephit in place to be killed by skull traps.
Killing the remaining mephits and returning the ogre's flask was enough to get Freya to level 10
and she took animate dead, her first summoning spell. The skeletons now available soon sorted out the clay golems to allow Freya to pass peacefully onto the next level.
More skeletons took care of the mephit portals (while Freya twiddled her thumbs)
and cleared the way for her mirrors to do their job as the smoking pipe chose the wrong arse to stick itself up.
With no more danger from traps there were then no problems finishing off the remaining opponents, including Ulvaryl.
Sorcerer L10, 73 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 59 kills (+128 in BG1)
L1 - blindness, protection from petrification, identify, friends, magic missile
L2 - invisibility, web, mirror image, knock
L3 - minor spell deflection, haste, skull trap
L4 - greater malison, improved invisibility
L5 - animate dead
The party of Kythran, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, and Minsc made their way out of Nashkel, and were trying to get to save Minsc's damsel in a quick fashion. For Kythran figured that any man that talks to a miniature space hamster or whatever Minsc had called it, might not be in the right state of mind.
In fact, in the Cloud Peak Mountains, Kythran's party had found another band of adventurers, whose leader had called them barbarians. However, whatever offense that Kythran had taken would have to be pushed aside, he had better things to do, like saving the damsel that was obviously in distress.
Then later on, there was a Dryad that was in distress. As a ranger, Kythran couldn't ignore the derps that were trying to destroy her tree, so those two died quickly mostly being target practice for Kythran, Imoen, and Khalid.
The Dryad had given us potions, and Jaheira had gotten a Club +1 for all that had happened.
Then, back on the road to saving Minsc's Damsel. They had found a gnoll, and Minsc went berserk and killed it with his sword. Then, Minsc quickly turned his blade on Jaheira, so the rest of the party ran, leaving Minsc to stew in his rage, and when he was calm, he was rejoined by the group.
Finally, they had reached their destination, however, as soon as some...half-giants, Kythran guessed anyway, tried to collect a toll, Minsc kind of decided it was time for a fight. Of course, Minsc had died. Kythran supposed he might spend the gold to raise him later, now it was time to save the damsel in distress. Of course, the half-giants fell easily to everyone else, being pin-cushions for the archers.
Lastly, the group had to fight a lot of gnolls, and they were easily made into pin-cushions by the archers of the group, with Jaheira only quaffing a potion after. At last, they found the Damsel. Her name was Dynaheir, and Kythran accepted her into the group immediately! They always needed another mage other than Khalid. This had apparently caused Imoen to gain some more knowledge in thievery, though, if anything it may have taught her to be a kidnapper at best.
The group returned to Nashkel forthwith, to raise Minsc, get some better armor, to rest, and to plot what wilderness areas to return to.
Party:
Kythran: Stalker - 1
Imoen: Thief - 2
Jaheira: Fighter/Druid - 2/2
Khalid: Fighter/Mage - 1/1
Minsc: Ranger - 1
Dynaheir: Invoker - 1
Note: I think I just unwittingly went with the 'canon' party. Oh, well, I may switch out Imoen for Safana. I'm not sure though.
Shark bait;
Hear text as mp3,
We had to fight our way out of the docks, only to be shipwrecked by sharks.
The head man & his brother wants each other dead so naturally I obliged... The loot includes a halberd head for katarina later & another couple spells each for the casters.
I'm currently bashing elementals in the underdark
Freya got to level 11 while sorting out the circus. The use of haste, invisibility and mirrors there gave her plenty of time to produce skeletons upstairs to finish off Kalah.
After checking in with Gaelan Bayle the first port of call was to travel invisibly to the Government District and pay for a license - I didn't think the cloudkill strategy I normally use to kill the Cowled Wizards would have much impact on them in LoB.
With her newly learned stoneskin Freya faced no danger from Amalas in the Copper Coronet. The animals' extra HPs took a bit of getting through though and Freya retreated for a rest before coming back to finish things off. Going straight down into the sewers skeletons provided some cover, but there was still plenty of work for webs and skull traps. After recovering Lilarcor Freya showed herself to the slavers before running back to the sewers - leading some enemies into a skeleton trap. Web and malison gave them a huge advantage and they soon finished off the guards before doing the same to some pursuing trolls (Freya used MMM to kill those).
I wasn't convinced that spell immunity would stop the acid blob trap, so Freya went back through the sewers. The other end of the slaver ship has a poison trap that would certainly be fatal if it affected Freya so she went looking for a protection from poison scroll. The Temple of Ilmater was no help, so she went back to the Promenade to get one from Ribald before returning to finish off the slavers.
On the way to Watcher's Keep to get a potion case Freya was ambushed by Suna Seni. However, she was travelling invisibly and a few skeletons and webs turned the tables on the ambushers. At the Keep skeletons couldn't hurt the stone golem, but lasted long enough for an air elemental (using the scroll from the dungeon) to win the contest. There were no vampiric wraiths in the main room, so clearing the top level should have been easy enough. Unfortunately RL intruded when my wife started explaining in detail how I should be doing some remedial sowing on a jumper for my son to take back to college. At some point in examining that the game must have been unpaused and when I looked at the screen again a sword spider had finished off the last skeleton before (presumably) making light work of Freya's stoneskins and mirror images.
That was annoying, but at least I confirmed that BG1 is not too difficult in principle for a solo sorcerer - and I'm pretty sure that SoA would be even easier. There are a couple of potential problems I can foresee in ToB, but possible solutions for those will have to wait a while before being tested out ...
Aglaia and Imoen stumbled down the steps of the Red Sheaf Inn. People on the streets, catching a glimpse of Aglaia's pale green skin and imposing frame, gave them a wide berth.
"I can't believe that just happened," said Imoen. "That dwarf killed half of the tavern."
Aglaia nodded somberly. "I guess Beregost isn't safe after all. We better get out of here before someone decides to blame us."
Imoen glanced over her shoulder, looking for pursuit. "That makes... what, two attempts on our lives this week?"
"You don't have to be here, Imoen," Aglaia responded. "You don't have to travel with me. In fact, leaving would be much safer."
"I'm not so sure about that," said Imoen. "I know about the assassins you faced in Candlekeep. They weren't just after you. More were waiting in my bedroom... I think we're in this together, whether we like it or not."
Aglaia crouched down and searched the body of the cleric who had just tried to kill her. She pulled a folded note out of a belt pouch.
"This bounty on our heads appears to have spread as far south as Nashkel," Aglaia sighed. "And these assassins are having no problem finding us, it seems."
"You do look rather distinctive," said Imoen with a mischevious grin.
"Stop reminding me," replied Aglaia.
Imoen crawled out of her bedroll and pulled strands of hay out of her hair.
"I know that hiding out here in the forest seemed like a good idea," Imoen said. "But I need a bath."
Aglaia laughed, for what felt like the first time in weeks. "OK, I hear you. I could use something to eat besides squirrel on a stick."
"The Friendly Arm isn't far from here, I think," Imoen said, brushing herself off and rolling up her bed.
"OK, let's go. But you do the talking. I don't want to make a scene if I can help it."
Aglaia looked back over her shoulder at the imposing keep. "Do you believe Bentley, that his inn used to be a temple to Bhall?"
Imoen shivered. "I don't know. But the place gives me the creeps. And not just because that mage tried to kill us on the steps."
Aglaia nodded. Suddenly, she stopped walking and turned to face Imoen.
"Imoen, we have to make a choice. We can go back to hiding in the forest and hope this storm blows over and leaves us untouched. Or, we can go our separate ways -- you can try to blend in and live a normal life somewhere. I can go look for somewhere that I could call home... where I'm not the only half-orc, if such a place exists."
Aglaia paused. "Or, we can track down these assassination attempts to their source, and show them the light of my god."
"I have a bad feeling that this storm isn't going to blow over." Imoen shivered. "And can you imagine me living a normal life? No, I think our only way out is through. And I think our odds will be much better if we watch each others' backs."
"Very well. So why do you think these assassins are after us? Where's the money coming from?"
"I have no idea. We're not important in any way. We're just two kids from Candlekeep."
"One kid and one half-orc you mean."
Imoen shrugged.
Aglaia stepped quietly into a richly appointed room, the last thing she had expected to find at the bottom of the Nashkel mines. An armored figure sat writing at a desk under flickering candlelight.
Unseen for the moment, Aglaia searched the chamber. Four kobolds appeared to hold an elf prisoner in the back of a cave. She could detect no other movement.
She whispered several silent prayers to her god. Maybe now I can find some answers.
She stepped into the room and cleared her throat. The figure at the desk looked up at the sound.
Aglaia drew a sharp breath. Here was another half-orc. The first she had ever seen.
"Who are you," Mulahey growled, "and why are you interrupting my work?"
Aglaia stepped forward cautiously. "Your kobolds are careless. I came to check up on you."
"Did Tazok send you?" Mulahey began to look contrite. "No one told me you were coming... I can explain."
"Please do," Aglaia responded, feeling both curious about this cleric who looked so much like herself, and terrified with uncertainty about what she was stepping into. She tried to keep her composure intact while waiting for the cleric to respond.
"We have crippled this mine, as instructed," Mulahey said. "True, the kobolds haven't managed to carry out orders with any kind of subtlety, but the plan is working. The mine bosses are blaming their trouble on an infestation of demons, rather than on the ore poison. While we haven't managed to keep our presence totally hidden, the stories are keeping most fools away. Well, other than a dour elf I have taken prisoner. Surely Tazok must be mostly pleased with our efforts?"
"The mine is crippled, true," Aglaia improvised. "But Tazok is worried that your trail is too easy to follow. What if someone discovered what you were doing and reported it?"
Mulahey nodded. "It is a risk, I agree. Tell Tazok that I will work harder to keep the kobolds in line, and the ore poison a secret."
"Very well," Aglaia replied. "I am also wondering, has he sent word about the bounty?"
"What bounty?" Mulahey looked nervous. "I promise you, I am loyal to Tazok, and faithful to Cyric."
"The bounty on the whelps from Candlekeep."
"Whelps from Candlekeep?" Mulahey looked confused. "What does Candlekeep have to do with any of this?"
Aglaia struggled to think of an appropriate response. She began to panic.
"I don't know the whole plan," Aglaia admitted, truthfully.
"Something's off here," Mulahey frowned. "Who are you?"
"I'm a priestess of Cyric," Aglaia said, with too much hesitation. "Doing some side work for Tazok. Like you."
"And who am I, then?" Mulahey asked, frowning more deeply.
Aglaia froze, struggling for something to say that would keep her deception intact. Wanting to keep talking with this cleric, despite his dedication to an evil god. Wanting to know more about his story -- where he came from, the circumstances of his upbringing, how he came to this place deep in an obscure mine on the outskirts of Amn, surrounded by kobolds and vats of chemicals.
"You have convinced me," she tried, smiling. "You are a loyal servant of Cyric. I can see that your efforts are succeeding, and that Tazok's fears were unfounded. I will report your diligence to him when I return."
"I don't think so," Mulahey said, picking up a mace from his desk and whistling beneath his teeth. Kobolds and skeletons rushed in, blocking any chance for Aglaia to escape. "I don't know who you are, but you're not going anywhere."
"Wait," Aglaia said. "We share the same heritage, you and I. We have the same orcish blood. I can help you."
Mulahey scowled. "You must have grown up amongst soft-skinned humans. Blood means nothing. Only loyalty to Cyric matters. And you, I can now see, have none. You will die for your blasphemy."
Kobolds began firing arrows and Mulahey began chanting a spell. Aglaia uncorked a potion with deep regret, and the room exploded into flame.
Imoen rolled over the shattered body of Tarnesh, emptying his pockets.
Aglaia grunted. "I'm sick of all this killing. The fool should have talked."
Imoen pulled a letter from a belt pouch.
"Another missive from this Tazok fellow," Imoen said. "Just like the last assassin in Nashkel.... What does Tazok have against us?"
"I have no idea," Aglaia sighed. "Whatever it is, I don't think he's going to let it go."
"He's got some kind of camp up near Pelvdale."
"Should we go pay him a visit?"
"I can't think of another way to get this bounty off of our heads. So yeah."
"Maybe we can convince them that we're brigands wanting to join their team."
"How'd that go in the mines?" Imoen fingered the singed hem of her cloak.
Aglaia shrugged. "It's worth a shot. I'm not sure what else my heritage is good for."
The exploration of the Wilderness around Nashkel had begun! By the mines Kythran had found a man named Prism, who was making a sculpture of the Queen Ellesime, and Kythran defended him from Greywolf. Minsc died, while Dynaheir cast magic missile, and Imoen used her Wand of Magic Missile. Kythran got a new Longsword as well!
After exploring some more of the Wilderness, Kythran had agreed to save a dog for a little boy. While looking for the dog, Kythran had a near Death Experience against Vex and Zal. Jaheira, Minsc, and Khalid had quickly gone down, and Kythran was close to dying, but he had potions, and used an ability that he recently unlocked that gave him health. Dynaheir used her magic missile spells, and Imoen used her wand.
Once going to, and from, Nashkel, the party had found the dog, and returned it to the boy! Only to find out that the boy wasn't actually a boy!
Lastly, the group rested in the wilderness, and were now planning their next move...While Boo ate Jaheira's medicinal herbs.
Party:
Kythran: Stalker - 2
Imoen: Thief - 3
Jaheira: Fighter/Druid - 2/2
Khalid: Fighter/Mage - 1/1
Minsc: Ranger - 3
Dynaheir: Invoker - 2
Note: Everyone seems to be leveling up at a good pace. Might do the mines soon. I'm not sure on that though. Perhaps I'll keep exploring the Wilderness.
Starting the long road again Freya has made some good progress and just seen the back of Sarevok.
Tactics were generally similar to her last run, though she did rather less work this time round in order not to waste so much XP (but still hit the XP cap at the palace). It would have been possible to significantly reduce the time taken by abusing the wand of monster summoning, but I wanted her to be relying primarily on her own spells.
There was one oddity early on when tackling Shoal. When she was almost dead Freya was hit by lightning - that was worrying as she had no healing and a second strike on her would have been fatal. There was another lightning hit, but this time it was on Shoal - killing her. Initially I was annoyed about that - thinking that Thor would pick up the XP - but fortunately Freya was awarded it anyway for some reason.
Sorcerer L9, 72 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 107 kills
L1 - blindness, protection from petrification, identify, friends, magic missile
L2 - invisibility, web, mirror image, knock
L3 - minor spell deflection, haste, skull trap
L4 - greater malison, stoneskin
One slight change this time was taking stoneskin as a second L4 spell. Last time I took improved invisibility specifically to use at the palace, but having done that fight once I concluded that the single scroll available at Ulgoth's Beard was sufficient for that purpose.
Seluna and party went to Durlag's Tower having heard that good equipment was available from a merchant there. Having arrived they decided to testb their mettle against the dungeon and discovered that the top half at least was within well their capability.Starlight acquired some excellent armour there and a cloak of protection +2 was also found for Xan. He is now quite a decent fighter. Indeed, the whole party is looking quite effective. I was surprised about Rasaad, never having played a monk before.
They then went to the gnoll stronghold where they plundered the cave having defeated a powerful party of assassins. A +3 axe and a +2 throwing axe were amongst the plunder.
To the north they earned a pair of snow boots and by killing Neville found a +1 sword, however the ogres to the north proved too much for Rasaad and they were forced to return to a temple to raise him. That was expensive!
Natasha the mage brought sorrow to the group. At first, the fight went smoothly, the assassin's poison stopped all of her casting.
But her pre-buffing was so good, that it kept her alive during the poison effect. She saved against further doses of poison, and as soon as she resumed casting, Karasu was one-shut by a lightning bolt.
That was a big blow to the party, as no resurrections are allowed, and the rules that I'm using for created party members state that a new party member should have 0 XP. So the party lost seven levels and 50k+ XP on an only party thief.
Natasha was dealt with, nonetheless.
I fealt that creating a new assassin before the fight against Davaeorn would not be the optimal choice (from both the game and RP points of view - a party member with less than 10 hps would not be great against SCS Davaeorn, the chances the party could meet someone new when they already were chasing Davaeorn would be very low).
Safana was called up. With her help the party killed an ogre-mage (he failed his saving throw against Command and then was poisoned by a spirit snake).
Uzume, the cleric, was chosen as the one who would tank Davaeorn with Protection from Magic and Boots of Speed, while the rest of the group, strengthened by two spirit lions, would fight reinforcements.
It went rather well, with one Battle Horror reacting to the main group and then being killed by Magic Missiles.
Davaeorn's Sunfire and Magic Missiles Wand by Uzume finished the second Battle Horror.
A summoned nymph helped to hold upcoming bandits.
As soon as Davaeorn's protections wore off, he was finished, with Safana (funny, her presence in the party was so short, and yet she managed to leave her mark) dealing the last blow to the wizard.
Uzume got a new level - which granted 5 more hps and an access to the 4th spell level.
When the group went out of the Mines, they were approached by a hooded figure. Hades, an assassin, offered them his services as he had heard the group had flooded the biggest Mine between Beregost and Baldur's Gate and thus had challenged one of the strongest organizations in the city - the Iron Throne. Hades would greatly improve his skills when hunting the Iron Throne leaders. Following the concept of non min-maxed party-members I used Yoshimo's stats for Hades:
Now, the first thing the group needed was to pump up Hades a bit, maybe completing several peaceable quests in the city.
Freya continued following much the same track as last time and escaped the dungeon, sorted out the Copper Coronet and the slaver ship and saw off the Suna Seni ambush before going to Watcher's Keep. The statues there require a fair bit of damage in LoB and she rested twice (taking advantage of the fact that enemies don't heal when you rest in the same area) while whittling them away. With just the golem sized one and a melee statue left, both badly damaged, she was nearing the end when she manoeuvred the big one into being trapped in a doorway and started pelting it with the Crimson Dart.
There were still 3 skeletons alive at that point and I was aiming to keep them to attack the final statue. However, the skeletons had the sort of follow-me script many enemies have and continued trying to attack the big statue despite being regularly sent well out of sight. After probably 15-20 rounds of that (which made little impact on the statue's HPs) I decided to try and move the skeletons right to the other end of the area to see if that would cause them to break lock. In doing that I moved the viewpoint of the map - and therefore didn't realise that the other statue had obviously decided to eventually turn up and was attacking Freya.
I was still paying partial attention to the battle though and even though I didn't notice Freya's stoneskins being crunched I did notice when the statue took a big lump out of her. I immediately tried hitting the pause button, but was a fraction too late to prevent the second (and fatal) hit
Now the question is do I have the stamina to try and break the Watcher's Keep hoodoo for a 3rd time?
Since you're posting in the no-reload thread, I assume that if you fail your no-reload, you'll write your main character's death scene. That adds an element of suspense to reading the story. I can't wait to see if your half-orc lives.
Also, are you playing a two-character only party, yourself and Imoen? I assume so, because you don't write any dialogue for anyone else.
Great work.
Well Dice the FMT with Celestial Fury is dead. I was just running through Mekraths lair for a second wand of cloudkill to go complete the Unseeing Eye. I've seen quite a few different spawns but never more than 1-2 yuanti-mages before. This time I'm playing with half an eye since the 4 months old baby isn't quite sure he really wants to sleep. I figured I wouldn't run into any serious problems. 4 yuanti-mages later with PfMW, GoI, chaos, PW: stun and some really annoying sequensers Dice is dead. Tried once more but this time with proper scouting and didn't lose one single hp, but that is what no-reloading is all about. First time I lacked debuffing enough to kill all of them at the same time and all of them saved vs Nalias 2 chaos spells.
Ah well, I usually get sloppy once I've got all the gear/gold/levels I need to feel safe.
Still SCS, core, most options turned on.
Next try will be a CG half-elf (although he looks very human, the bald dangerous looking guy that is the first male picture you get) FMT that I made solely to try two-handed weapons since I am a bit tired of cookie cutter builds. Lo and behold he rolls 18/00, 18, 18, 18, 8, 9! Weapon pips were meant to be halberds but I switched for two-handed swords to finally wield that fantastic one you get in the Underdark plus the Silver Sword, staffs solely for backstabs, halberd and maxing out on two-handed style are up next.
Max saves everyone in chateu Irenicus and ends up with 18 potions of extra healing and 12-14 smaller ones, ditches everyone to gather a bit of experience solo to compensate for FMT with (almost) full party.
Circus was really lucky and hopefully a sign of what is to come. Crit bs on the first orc for 96 (!) damage, never knew you could make someone explode from a good thwack in the back with a staff. Second orc went fleeing after the first strike and fell with the second. Buffed up with blur, MI, DuHM and ran through the second floor just picking up the scrolls, walked up to Kalah and crit him for 47 damage chunking him too.
Plan now is to solo a few easy quests, Slavers, Harper, Thief, Radiant Heart, Trademeet and then go gather my party for the rest of the game. Still don't really know what NPCs to pick though, I want to take Mazzy but the improved Shade Lord is kind of scary, I also want Keldorn but getting the second strength item is also scary since you need to fight Lavok and Tolgerias. The boots of speed would be a nice bonus for backstabs but that Demon Knight is way off limits for me until chapter 6 unless really cheesing and I don't want to do that.
"So that was Tazok," Imoen whispered, as she walked with Aglaia into a camp full of hobgoblins and raiders.
"I can't believe he didn't recognize us," said Aglaia. "Its not like there are many female thieves wandering around in this camp."
"Speaking of which," Imoen said, "This place doesn't feel very safe. Let's see if we can find out what's going on and get out of here as fast as possible."