@semiticgod may I ask you your install order? Do you put SCS after SR? It's weird that you say SCS uses the old Sphere of Chaos because DavidW specifically use SoC only when SR is installed and only because SR version is appealing for the AI.
On a side note, thanks for reminding me to tweak Cause Wound spells so that you cannot use them against undead and golems.
@bengoshi, nice seeing you here with your own character, and good luck with your Wizard Slayer. I really like ranged axes; you can deal massive damage with them. Please remember that SCS scripting nullifies the spellcasting penalty in many cases. You can't really rely on it which I think is quite a shame. For that reason you might consider not going for grandmastery, but rather specialization in a variety of weapons. (I think Thani only achieved GM in Flails.)
@Demivrgvs, I'm really interested in your Revisions mods. But I notice you're still making adaptations (thanks to players pointing out bugs or inconsistencies). Do you think you'll have consolidated versions of your mods anytime soon? Or would I be advised to just try the mods out as they are, in one of my next playthroughs?
@Demivrgvs, I'm really interested in your Revisions mods. But I notice you're still making adaptations (thanks to players pointing out bugs or inconsistencies). Do you think you'll have consolidated versions of your mods anytime soon? Or would I be advised to just try the mods out as they are, in one of my next playthroughs?
@Blackraven I cannot give you a real ETA, I'm terrible when it comes to deliver stuff in time, but I can tell you the current state of the builds is already pretty solid (ideally IR needs only 1-2 more updates before the final release, SR a couple more). Ask @semiticgod for example how he feels about them but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't feel like "playing a beta" with them.
@bengoshi: Good for you. Honestly I've gotten kind of sick of the whole "Wizard Slayers are worthless" refrain. Magical items are pretty nice, but the best items for fighters are magical weapons and armor, which Wizard Slayers can still use, and the primary function of fighters (whomping critters with big swords) remains intact despite the limitations of the kit. Good luck!
@Demivrgvs: I used SCS2 after SR. You actually mentioned this advice to me before; I used to have SR installed on top of SCS2, since I didn't know SCS2 detected and accounted for SR. It's still possible Ekayne died for some other reason, but I couldn't see what else it might be.
Anyway, the old Sphere of Chaos is okay, too. Although it's not great for no-reload runs for the enemies to have it. I actually find it more interesting than the SR version, since the SR version is basically a party-friendly web spell with some different types of disablers and a save penalty with a new save type. The function of all the SR effects is the same now: it is strictly a disabling spell, with no other possible effects, good or bad. I think a wider spread of effects would be more suitable, like having a small chance of a Fireball triggering (or better yet, an acid ball, for variety's sake) or slowing a character for one round and giving it Improved Haste for the next round, or making the character deal 5d4 electrical damage to itself and its target on every hit. Weird stuff is fun stuff.
Scintilla dreamt about Candlekeep, a dream in which she fake-talked a Demon out of lowering one of her stats. She awoke soulless in a glass cage, courtesy of Irenicus. His sister Bodhi set her free however, in the Spellhold Maze below the actual asylum. It took her some puzzling, an unsollicited Slayer transformation, and the elimination of all manner of creatures, such Illithids, Eye Tyrants, Golems, Minotaurs, Yuan-Ti, and a Lich, to find her way out. The latter creature caused Scintilla the most trouble. She survived its Time Stops by making sure to position herself without its visual range, distracted its Glabrezu with her Deva (even though the Glabrezu kept going after her rather than the Deva), and saw the Deva imprisoned by the Lich, while she in turn used her Turn Undead ability to blow up several Skeletons the Lich animated. Some buffing/de-buffing chess followed. The Gnome - well buffed with II, SI:D and SI:A, Spell Shield, Spell Deflection, Free Action (because of the Demon), and PfME - won that game. (Scintilla generally only has about 3-4 debuffing spells memorized, relying more on her SotM for debuffing work. It saves her spell slots that can be dedicated to other types of spells, and using the SotM is safer because Spell Turning can send any debuffers straight back to Scintilla.)
A Vampire, Trolls, and one of several groups of Yuan-Ti were slain with the help of an Aerial Servant (one of Scintilla's staple spells, the observant reader must have noticed by now).
She soon found her way back into the Asylum, where she convinced Lonk the warden to release the prisoners for an assault on Irenicus. Scintilla took a very conservative approach, relying heaviliy on her temporary allies. (I didn't know at all what to expect of Scintilla's clone. I mostly solo warriors and rogues, so I had no idea what spells the clone would cast. It was interesting to see that it cast some spells that the real Scintilla had memorized herself, such as Mislead, PfMW and Simulacrum, among others, but also an Oracle, a spell that the real Scintilla knew but never memorized, as she was used to working with clerical True Seeing.)Scintilla ran away from the point where a faux Scintilla spawned, leaving a Simulacrum for the clone to spar with. Irenicus dropped a Comet on a Mislead-version of Scintilla, and used two Time Stops, mostly to buff and to cast damage spells on the inmates (not on Scintilla because she wasn't really close to him). Scintilla summoned a Deva right in front of Irenicus. It ended up imprisoned, but not before it cast three Dispel Magics at Irenicus at different moments. The last Dispel Magic (cast when the prison was already closing around the Deva), was followed by the simultaneous casting of Breach by Wanev and Scintilla's summoning of Kitty who promptly webbed their foe. Very nice. It resulted in Irenicus' surrender for that battle.
Scintilla didn't bother with her clone and Holy Smote (3x in a Sequencer) her way through a door that was blocked by invisible Murderers,
in order to get out of the Asylum and away from the island, back to the mainland.
Saemon Havarian offered to make up for his previous treachery with a place for her on his ship, except that he didn't have a ship. The Gnome stole a horn for Saemon and the two took off on the local Pirate Lord's ship. Ambushes by Githyanki and later Sahuagin saw the ship sink and Scintilla end up in a Sahuagin City. She pillaged some loot from an abandoned Drow settlement,
promised the Sahuagin King to kill a Rebel Prince and the Rebel Prince to kill the King, but buffed with Haste, Holy Power, Righteous Magic, and DUHM, and dualwielding her FoA and Blackblood, she ended up callously slaughtering first the Prince, then the King, and finally a Priestess that dropped an enchanted cloak,
before she took off for her next destination: the Underdark.
@bengoshi: Good for you. Honestly I've gotten kind of sick of the whole "Wizard Slayers are worthless" refrain. Magical items are pretty nice, but the best items for fighters are magical weapons and armor, which Wizard Slayers can still use, and the primary function of fighters (whomping critters with big swords) remains intact despite the limitations of the kit. Good luck!
My main issues with vanilla's Wizard Slayer were two:
1) Inquisitors were much better mage slayers, and even with that class out of the equation the WS was still not that effective against mages. Berserker's Rage alone was more effective against mages than any feature of vanilla's WS. Lowering magic res for a SCS wizard is not a problem (SCS uses Lower Res), PfMW protects from WS miscast inducing attacks, etc. You are right that being unable to use magic items doesn't make the WS useless, but it still takes away from him tons of stuff that could have hugely helped him perform his task.
2) Unless the WS was supposed to be a barbarian kit (similar to AD&D version but dumb as a turkey), the whole concept/background of the class made absolutely no sense. "Me hate magic, magic bad, me no use magic...ehm...but me use magic weapons, magic weapons good...well, maybe armors too, magic armors not evil".
P.S @semiticgod you have a point about vanilla's SoC being a bit more "unique". Still, it was not appealing for the AI and too much unreliable. I do have plans to re-introduce something similar though, probably as a Wild Mage only spell (I want every school to have at least 1 dedicated spell per lvl within SR).
On to Watcher's Keep. I stopped by Trademeet by accident, and unfortunately arrived on the west end of town. I was too late to save the militia members from the animals.
It didn't stop Maeruo from filching some gold off of their corpses, though.
The first level of Watcher's Keep has become a standard low-level looting trip for my no-reload runs. I usually take on the Vampiric Wraiths, a guaranteed spawn, just as soon as I get Negative Plane Protection for my Charname. Aside from that, the only problematic battles are the Guardian Golems (fairly easy to kill, oddly enough) and a random spawn that could involve Spirit Trolls and their nasty Greater Command spells. But with two castings of Chaotic Commands from Ekayne, and with Maeruo using the Dragon Helm, which in IR protects the wearer from sleep and unconscious, and with Varen and Ivinhale both protected by Dispelling Screen for 50 MR, and with Horun Fallows protected by Enrage, the whole party is more or less immune to the spell, and most disablers in general.
But we encounter Mephits instead of Spirit Trolls, so it doesn't matter. Go figure.
The first level of Watcher's Keep has a tremendous amount of loot for such minor encounters, and there are lots of locks and traps for extra XP. The big sticking point are SCS2's improved Statues. The first encounter has a couple of clerics and a couple of fighters, but the second has tons of fighters, a thief, and two mages with 9th-level spells. Way too tough for a party at our level. As usual, I clear the level without starting the ritual and awakening those statues. I don't even have any traps to set before the battle; Varen hasn't recovered her Bounty Hunter levels yet.
Garlena offers really lousy prices for our loot--she'll buy a suit of splint mail for only 8 gold, which is low even by IR standards--but she does offer the IR version of the Yamato sword, which has been moved from Saradush to Garlena, downgraded from +4 to +3, lost its AC bonus... and gained a peculiar ability.
Every time the wearer is hit in melee, the last attacker takes 1d8+3 slashing damage.
And it uses the same effect as Sanchuudoku does. Do you know what this means?
It means that Yamato can trigger the same infinite feedback loop that Sanchuudoku has with Fire Shields. If someone with Sanchuudoku and someone with Fire Shield attack one another, one of them will get hit by dozens of acid spells, and the other will get hit by dozens of fire spells, both of which bypass MR and spell protections. I test it out by cheating in Sanchuudoku and Yamato, and giving the former to Horun Fallows and the latter to Ivinhale. Ivinhale takes a swing at Horun Fallows, triggering the Acidic Backlash.
Success! We now have a means of slaying Kuroisan. All I have to do is keep the party invisible, buff Ivinhale or Horun Fallows with Protection from Acid, and have the wielder of Yamato attack Cookies. The moment we hit Cookies, we'll drink a Potion of Invisibility, and let the feedback loop slash Cookies to pieces. We might want to buy a scroll of PFMW for Ivinhale, however, to make sure she doesn't get hit by Cookies in the process. Because Cookies will lower our acid resistance if he hits us with his sword, and any vulnerability to acid means Cookies will probably live, while Ivinhale or Horun Fallows would probably die.
The last time I tried something like this, however, Cookies pulled a Shadow Door on me, and mazed my old character in the process. Ivinhale would come back pretty quick, unlike the other character, and she'd be able to reveal him with Detect Illusions without breaking invisibility. We'd have to re-establish the feedback loop, but that would just require an extra Potion of Invisibility and PFMW scroll--or just more Potions of Invisibility, since the PFMW scroll isn't a requirement.
If all goes according to plan, then we have a new name for IR Yamato: The Cookie Cutter.
I decided to try out the trick on the real Cookies. After setting up my spells and cheating in Malakar and Yamato, and buying a Robe of Acid Resistance from the Adventurer's Mart, courtesy of Item Revisions, for an extra 40% acid resistance, I spawned Cookies in outside Watcher's Keep as a test.
Ekayne has dedicated both her 5th-level spell slots to Protection from Acid. Ivinhale is her target, as Ivinhale will be using Yamato. Our druids and clerics crammed their spellbooks with summoning spells, notably Animal Summoning I, which at our level summons 5 bats. They die in one hit, but each spell will keep Cookies at bay for one round.
After Cookies turns hostile, Ivinhale casts Invisibility Sphere. Between her and Varen, we have seven such spells. We run away and start summoning our monsters. Once Ivinhale turns visible, Ekayne casts Protection from Lightning. Ivinhale turns invisible and runs over to take a swing at Cookies.
The battle had some hiccups--Ivinhale lost her immunity to acid after getting hit by a Remove Magic spell--but eventually we get the result we want. Kuroisan gets hit by Yamato, while Ivinhale has slipped and fallen unconscious on her own Grease spell.
This took many tries, as the feedback loop wouldn't continue for very long. Cookies kept running away, out of Yamato's range. But now we've got it to connect, and Yamato has broken through his Stoneskins. It is a duel between Yamato and Sanchuudoku, both furiously trying to attack their opponent's wielder, but Ivinhale is immune to Sanchuudoku's Acidic Backlash.
Cookies collapses in a pool of grease, alongside Ivinhale. It is an ignominious end for BG2's most gratuitously overpowered character.
But this does not mean victory for us. This was just a test run, outside Watcher's Keep, and normally Cookies only spawns in Athkatla. To win the real fight, we have to fight in Athkatla, and get our supplies normally. For the test, I cheated in some items, but now I have to buy them.
Thankfully, the previous adventures generated a lot of excess gold, enough for us to purchase the Robe of Acid Resistance for 1,300 gold, several extra Potions of Invisibility for a few thousand gold more, a license to use arcane magic in Athkatla for 5,000, and finally Yamato itself, for 13,100 gold. We're at just over 5,000 by the end, having lost just under 20,000 gold. This is an expensive fight, considering the magic license and the robe will, generally speaking, only be useful for this one battle.
We teleport to Firkraag's lair, since CLUAConsole is easier than walking, and find Malakar still safe in the chest.
Maeruo has had a change of heart about this sword, and now he wants us to keep it. Mae-mae knows things.
We travel to Waukeen's Promenade. It is daytime when we arrive, as planned. We don't want any random thugs joining the fight. We wait for Cookies to appear.
I double-check my inventory. Malakar is indeed there. But Cookies will not spawn.
I decide to bring him in with CLUAConsole. I will not be thwarted by a technical problem.
I bring in Cookies with the console. A man cloaked in magical energy greets us, a brilliant emerald sword already drawn, with a ioun stone swirling around his head, and a team of Mirror Images around him. He politely asks us to hand over Malakar, the +2 katana that no one in our party can use with any skill.
Maeruo says no.
Cookies starts to attack, but Ivinhale turns the party invisible before the acid kensai can do any harm. We run to the northeast to summon some critters. Ekayne takes the opportunity to cast Protection from Acid on Ivinhale.
We send our summons, bats, wolves, and skeletons, over to give Cookies a Halloween party. He tears apart the decorations. Ivinhale sneaks over to him, still invisible, and attacks. Cookies takes a swing at her, and though she has Stoneskins to block the roughly 40 damage he does per hit, the strike drops her acid resistance down to 115--which is all Ivinhale can take. One more hit, and she loses her immunity to acid, and could die in seconds to a string of Acidic Backlashes. She drinks a Potion of Invisibility and hangs back from the battle as the rest of the party calls in more summons. She plays it safe.
Cookies has already wasted his Acid Fog spells on our first pack of summons, so now he has to fight our summons individually, and we can keep him occupied for quite some time. And we need that time. It took many tries to sic Yamato on Cookies in the test run. And there's always room for bad luck. A lot could go wrong, if Ivinhale gets hurt.
Cookies casts Remove Magic, dispelling Ivinhale's immunity to acid damage. She is now completely vulnerable to Acidic Backlash, and has no Stoneskin. She drinks another Potion of Invisibility to escape further damage.
Ivinhale needs to be visible for Ekayne to restore her immunity to acid, so Ivinhale summons Kitty (she uses the Wand of Lightning trick to call in three copies of her, just because). This fails to dispel her invisibility, so she casts a Grease spell on Cookies instead. This time, she turns visible. The Grease spell fires once per round, and each time, it triggers Cookies' Acidic Backlash, as Grease is a hostile spell. But Ivinhale doesn't take too much damage before Ekayne restores her immunity. Ivinhale returns to the fray, joined by three copies of Kitty--whom I fail to notice have all turned hostile, thanks to the party-unfriendly Grease spell.
Ivinhale has also restored her Stoneskins. At 48 max HP, and slightly wounded, she could easily fall to a single blow from the acid kensai if she doesn't have Stoneskin. But she's still not safe: if she takes two strikes from Sanchuudoku, she will be once more vulnerable to Acidic Backlash and Sanchuudoku's on-hit acid damage. Cookies could still kill her in one round, if she doesn't keep a Potion of Invisibility at hand.
Ivinhale gets within range. She can't get close enough to hit Cookies, and Cookies can't reach her, but Yamato's counterattack has a range of 6--triple that of a spear, though not as long as Acidic Backlash. And the Grease spell is triggering Cookies' Acidic Backlash every round. And every Acidic Backlash brings Yamato into action.
Ivinhale slips and bonks her head on the ground, falling unconscious in her own pool of grease. Meanwhile, Yamato gets in the first hit.
Sanchuudoku struggles to get even, but Ivinhale is immune to its acid arrows, and though Ivinhale is perfectly prone and vulnerable, Cookies can't reach over the sleeping bodies of the summoned bats that have inexplicably slipped on the grease and bonked their little noggins as well. Cookies could lower Ivinhale's acid resistance and dissolve her in a single round, but he's blocked by a wall of snoozing bats.
Sanchuudoku keeps attacking from range. Yamato answers it.
Seconds later, Yamato deals the final blow to Cookies the Acid Kensai.
Ivinhale regains consciousness and finds her enemy laying dead in a pool of grease. The kittens are pawing at our bats, leopards, and skeletons, so we have to bring in a trio of Earth Elementals to subdue them.
The battle is over, and we are safe. We find a Belt of Inertial Barrier, Boots of Avoidance, five Potions of Extra Healing, and the acid katana, Sanchuudoku, on the polite kensai's greasy corpse. Maeruo was right. Retrieving Akae's katana was a very good idea.
And then it hits me.
Ivinhale just single-handedly killed the most infamous character of the Tactics mod. With a Grease spell.
@semiticgod few things: - is it just me or bats are not using bat animation on your screenshot? - thanks for pointing out Yamato's Counter Attack exploit, I'll find a way to prevent it - a few other players asked me to flag some non-damaging spells such as Grease or Entangle as not-hostile, do you agree?
The effect of the new mods was fealt as early as in the Candlekeep already: there was a third assassin there, in the Reevor's barn. He followed the fate of Shank and Carbos though.
When Hachiman left the Candlekeep he went straight for the kissing lady on the Coast: 5000 xp brought 2 levels which provided a win against the first wolf.
Then Hachiman visited Beregost and the High Hedge, completed several "find and bring" quests there. He bought a pack of throwing daggers and a cheap Axe +1 to use in melee from the Smith.
Melicamp was successfully restored to the human form which brought the 4th level soon afterwards.
Feeling the need of getting another level to deal with mages who cast Sleep the wizard slayer bought the Protection from Petrification scroll in Naskel Carnival and travelled to the Basilisk area.
With the help of Corax the Ghoul Hachiman fought all the basilisks there and reached the 5th and then the 6th level. Proficiencies he got at the 3rd and the 6th levels were spent on *** in daggers and axes respectively.
The most important fact that the warrior dealt not only with the basilisks but also with the mad mage there: cautiously approaching that encounter, Hachiman tried to stay away from the line of wizard's sight so that Corax could stun him.
Now, being of the 6th level, Hachiman could deal with Neera meeting and Tarnesh. Both wizards fell quite easily.
Because of having only 4 CHA and getting only 1/2 of reputation awards due to a tweak, Hachiman often doesn't even get quest tasks: the girdle lass in the FAI and Zhurlong (and later a farmer from the Zombie area) didn't want to speak long with the dwarf.
Hachiman bought a CON +1 buckler in the FAI so he could now regenerate while resting and travelling through the Sword Coast.
I have to admit that when the wizard slayer imposes a casting penalty on an enemy mage, it feels exciting: I think these moments are most pleasant from the RP point of view when using this kit.
Still, the maximum number of attacks for Hachiman is 5/2 with throwing daggers so there's a real need to reach the 7th level before going for Mulahey.
So the warrior travelled to the Ankheg area to fight for XP. These beasts hit heavily but 90 HPs of Hachiman proved to be enough even for the series of successful Ankheg's attacks (which, to tell the truth, happened quite often because the warrior was equipped in a general splint mail and carried a general big shield). In the Ankheg nest the warrior found a +1 shield and a +2 heavy crossbow.
There Hachiman also got a Cure Light Wounds ability.
After clearing the area Hachiman still needed about 15k till the next level so he went to the TotSC village to check for available supplies there.
The Dark Horizons mod bring a lot of new merchants to different settlements, some of them sell really powerful items:
Also, Hachiman managed to find two new NPCs: a skald and a dwarwen defender.
Not looking at the somewhat OP for the start of the game items, I think that the NPCs' kits are a good choice and items available are a fine addition - they cost much and although their properties are often a bit OP, I like the fact they are in the game. The player has a choice of either buying them or not, but the availability of them is not excessive. I can only guess how powerful new enemies will be if such strong items are being sold in the stores. Also, I like the picture of a skald. Thanks, @CoM_Solaufein !
Here're some of the merchants' items (I appreciate there're axes and daggers in particular, as well as the Helmet of the Charm Protection):
I like the Item randomiser component - not finding an Ankheg armour in Naskel that alone makes tanking in BG1 a lot easier is a plus.
The failing of casting happened to Neira and it helped to beat her:
In the Dorotea-Dorn encounter Hachiman found his first plate armour. Now, the wizard slayer is ready to explore the Sword Coast a bit in order to actually reach the 7th level.
I'd hate to see the Yamato trick go away completely. Same as with the Sanchuudoku trick. I suppose it could be done just by making Fire Shield and the two katanas give the caster/wielder immunity to the other backlash spells for one or two seconds, which would halt the backlash (or prevent it entirely). Personally I'd prefer the trick to simply be weakened... maybe we'd have that immunity only kick in after a few seconds, so there'd be a few backlashes exchanged, depending on the distance between the characters, and then it would stop. It makes sense, at least, for the two katanas to trigger each other, if not the Fire Shields.
The Tactics mod should probably be updated to include Yamato as one of the swords that Cookies seeks out, since it's now available in SoA and has been changed to a katana. But I'm too lazy to contact the mod creator.
The bats indeed are using the correct animation. Maybe they lack a sleeping animation, hence their disappearance, but it also might just be them being covered by the grease spell, due to an animation quirk. They appear perfectly fine at other times.
I think Grease and Entangle, Web and Stinking Cloud and so forth should all be non-hostile. Partly to avoid turning summons hostile, but also to avoid turning bystanders hostile. It would suck to have the whole Promenade turn against you because one guy slipped on a Grease spell.
I usually mess up in the Underdark (mostly with my solo characters not being able to keep Phaere alive). This time was no exception.
Scintilla and summons banished a Balor with overwhelming physical force for a small Svirfneblin community,
left the Svirfneblin, and then ran into a band of Drow. Retreating toward the Svirnneblin village caused the Deep Gnomes to choose the side of the Drow.
Scintilla dispatched the war party with her summons, spoke with a Silver Dragon, Adalon, about disguising as a Drow and retrieving Adalon's eggs that had been stolen by Jon Irenicus, and rested in the dragon's lair. The next morning (or whatever time of day it was in that ever dark world), her summons helped her dispatch another Drow war party (her Drow appearance didn't help her there),
and a Kuo-Toa patrol,
In the Drow city of Ust Natha she found work for one of the Houses. Her first task was to free one of their members, Phaere, from a party of Illithid. Scintilla summoned two Skeleton Warriors, Kitty, an Aerial and a Deva, who were reasonably successful at dealing with the Devourers and their Umber Hulk pets, but clumsy Scintilla slew Phaere with a Holy Smite she thought would not reach the Drow. It caused another Drow with whom she had been working on the task, to go hostile, and the city of Ust Natha to become inaccessible.
There was little else to do for Scintilla than explore the surroundings a bit in search of an exit or ask Adalon for help. The exploration led the Gnome into a Beholder lair. By going invisibly from the northwest, where she had entered the lair, counterclockwise to the eastern part of the lair, where she would find a Greenstone Amulet, she avoided a Hive Mother that was said to dwell in the center of the lair.
Adalon was unwilling to lead Scintilla to the surface; battle proved inevitable. The Gnome had rested just before her meeting with the dragon, and memorized four Project Images. On one side of an arc that was too narrow for the dragon to go through, she cast Project Image. The Project Image cast Wizard Eye and summoned a Deva, and Lower Resistance (3x) on the dragon. Vulnerable to magic, Adalon was then subjected to a Harm and, repeatedly (by subsequent Project Images that would cast their own Wizard Eyes, decoy Devas and Lower Resistances) to Death Fogs, Chain Lightnings and SotM Fire and Lightning until she fell.
She tried to flee the Underdark through Kuo-Toa tunnels in which her summons dispatched four Death Knights
and, after a rest, Kuo-Toas,
including a Kuo-Toa Prince.
The exit was guarded by another Drow war party, with two Stone Golems and two Glabrezus. Scintilla & co survived a Time Stop,
lured the Glabrezus (that teleported without error) away from the rest, and slew them with Energy Blades and FoA and Blackblood with divine buffs.
Scintilla found the Drow warriors scattered, looking for her. It allowed her to sneak past them with SotM-invisibility and leave the Underdark.
In a ruined Elven temple, she helped a number of Elves against more Drow (which made her level up as a Mage, and gain lvl 9 spells, i.e. IA).
She agreed to help the Elves against their common enemy, Irenicus and Bodhi, and returned to Athkatla to prepare a final assault on Bodhi, with the help of Drizzt and friends, Shadow Thieves, and Radiant Heart Paladins.
@Blackraven: Wow. I'm still in Chapter 2, and you're already hunting down Bodhi. Fast work!
After slaying Cookies, we paid a visit to Tarnor the Hatchetman and the other sewer-dwelling bandits. It was a complicated battle. I failed to trigger the feedback loop with Ivinhale against Gaius, because I forgot that Acidic Backlash has a spell level of 2, and is therefore completely blocked by Gaius' Globe of Invulnerability. Yamato would have worked, but I didn't think of that at the time.
While Ivinhale was busy failing to kill Gaius, the rest of the party tore down the enemy fighters and clerics. Gallchobhair, the archer, escaped our notice.
Gaius killed Ekayne with a triple Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer, and Mazed Horun Fallows after Horun's Enrage wore off. Gaius also persistently confused our remaining party members. We belatedly discovered Gallchobhair was still alive, and took him down within a few rounds. Finally, Gaius' GOI wore off, and Ivinhale knocked out both Gaius and herself with a Grease spell, triggering the feedback loop and eventually killing the mage.
Then she tried killing Gaius' lost Efreeti summons with Acidic Backlash. She died long before the Efreeti did, since she only has a little under 50 HP. The rest of the party ran in to finish the job, but the Efreeti was unsummoned right before we dealt the final blow.
We also killed the Rakshasa for the Cloak of the Sewers and met Keldorn. I checked the files and tested them, and it seems that the Hallowed Redeemer is usable by clerics, fighter/clerics, and ranger/clerics, though Ekayne doesn't have the stats to wield it. I believe this is a patching error, since I have some component installed that makes slashing and piercing weapons usable by single-, dual-, and multi-classed clerics.
The Coiled Cabal in Mekrath's lair was a bit worrisome. I spied on them with Farsight and sent in a bunch of summons to wear out their buff durations, but when they finally reached us, they were still able to get a couple of Chaos spells off the ground, disabling our summons and some of the party. Eventually we broke through their Stoneskins and took them down, though things could have been much harder had we failed more saves. Ekayne can only memorize two castings of Chaotic Commands, and Kolem Tao needs his 5th-level spell slot for Stoneskin, so our defenses against disablers aren't quite complete, when you consider that enemy mages can take down our buffs.
Mekrath died to Acidic Backlash. Nothing special.
Horun Fallows can use katanas, but I gave him GM in spears because I assumed he'd be under the same weapon restrictions as in vanilla. But it seems that in my install, Fighter/Druids can use all weapons, and so spears are no longer necessary. I decided to use Shadowkeeper to give him GM in katanas instead, since it felt rather lame to have him using Sanchuudoku and only getting 1 APR because I'd planned on him using spears instead. He will probably be dual-wielding Sanchuudoku and Yamato together, for the double backlash effect.
Ekayne is almost at level 11, which means she's about to dual-class. And it won't be long after that before Maeruo hits level 13, and dual-classes as well. After that, we will suffer a tremendous drop in our divine casting power. We won't get back those cleric and druid levels until we get another 1.2 and 1.5 million XP, respectively. For perspective's sake, the average party member would be at 2 million and 2.25 million XP at that point, so that's post-Chapter 2, I believe.
It's going to be rough, taking that drop in spellpower. But we have an instant kill option against enemies with Fire Shield, as long as I make sure Ivinhale or Horun Fallows have the right immunities, and I haven't used that trick enough to get tired of it (this is only the second time I've ever intentionally used it). Plus, the Trademeet questline is wide open, which means we'll have some easy XP right after Ekayne and Maeruo dual. We've got some tougher quests after that: the De'Arnise Hold, the Planar Sphere, and the Planar Prison, though I don't know in what order.
Hey @semiticgod, steady progress even with the occasional casualty... Scintilla has advanced faster but that's possibly to do with solo play and less planning due to dual-classing issues...
Before seeking out Bodhi, Scintilla secured the Hammer of Thunderbolts under Sanctuary
and she slew the Shadow Dragon in the Umar Hills. She used a Project Image to lower the dragon's MR and to remove its spell protections. The real Scintilla finished the creature off with a Deva, Harm and Energy Blades.
(No screenshot capturing the kill, possibly because it came unexpectedly early.)
Thus Scintilla, had all the ingredients for the forging of Crom Faeyr, only to decide against it, on the doorstep of Cromwell's forge. (I love the idea of some melee power with FoA and Crom Faeyr plus IH and Cleric buffs, but Scintilla normally walks around with the SotM and often uses that weapon to dispel enemy protections. For that purpose relinquisihing the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and seeing her STR down to 12 again, would mean quite a sacrifice. I know there are STR belts, but Scintilla finds the defensive qualities of the BotIB rather comfortable to give up, and item switching a bit risky. Dear reader, any suggestions?)
Back to Bodhi's lair it was. She met five Paladins who helped her out at the entrance against a number of Vampires, though truth be told, they were of little use. (Some of them even got the 'weapon ineffective message'. And what was even more disappointing to Scintilla was that Eric Van Straaten left her, calling her a betrayer for injuring him, after he had set himself on fire with a Fireball.)
She pushed on though and found four of Aran Linvail's master thieves battling Vampires in a large conference room. Sctintilla shone with her Mace of Disruption, but the Thieves, especially Arkanis Gath, contributed meaningfully even if all four Thieves let themselves be distracted by the Vampires's Giant Rats a bit too often for Scintilla's taste.
When Arkanis and Scintilla had cleared the room they checked in an adjacent room, that had produced the clamor of battle before but that had gone silent. In it they found the corpses of Drizzt and his companions, and three or four more Vampires.
Downstairs the two faced an overwhelming force of Vampires and Grimwarders, led by Bodhi. Arkanis fell, a Deva didn't last either, and Scintilla retreated to rest.
When she returned, as buffed up as she thought possible (Stoneskin, PfE, PfFear, CC, Blur, MI, Barkskin, II, Fireshields, HP+RM+DUHM), she found Bodhi waiting for her; the other Vampires weren't in sight. The two battled for quite a while, until both were badly injured and a Vampire Mage came teleporting in to remove Scintilla's buffs. The Gnome was about to retreat, when Bodhi, too, seemed close to giving up.
She fully healed herself however, an idea that Scintilla mimicked as soon as she Sanctuaried her way to a small chamber and locked herself in (due to the vicinity of a Glabrezu she didn't feel like fighting without certain buffs).
In the chamber she slew a Vampire that had been invisible initially, and she summoned two Skeleton Warriors that dealt with the nearby Grimwarders.
A stray Fledgling Vampire helped her discover she could now turn and explode such creatures.
Two remaining Vampires (both Mage variants) were done in with Holy Smites, Aerial aid, SotM-dispels and the Upgraded MoD,
before Bodhi was engaged a second time. Scintilla had no more Fireshields but she still had defensive buffs (MI, Blur etc), a dosis of HP+RM+DUHM, and two Gaxx-Hastes and two normal Hastes. Unlike the first time, Scintilla punished her foe without taking much damage (if any) herself.
She slew Bodhi with a wooden stake and fetched a Lanthorn that should provide her access to Suldanessalar the city of the Elves she had met near the Underdark exit, and also the place where Irenicus was supposed to be found.
I want to save Trademeet and the Druid Grove for after Ekayne dual-classes, so first I head to the De'Arnise Hold. Spirit Trolls are a pain, since their invisibility at will does so much to screw up your targeting, but thankfully they have no immunity to fire.
Between my divine casters and Varen herself, we can comfortably cast Protection from Fire five times without using up Ekayne's Chaotic Commands spells, reserved for herself and Varen. A Resist Fire spell, along with the Dragon Scale Shield, Dragon Helm, and Ring of Protection from Fire, is just enough to give Kolem Tao or Ekayne 105%. We can therefore make the entire party immune to fire, and Varen and Ivinhale can throw around Fireballs without worry. This entirely bypasses the Spirit Troll's invisibility, and also protects us from Flame Strike. We're still vulnerable to Holy Word, Unholy Blight, and to some extent Greater Command, but we manage to tough it out.
Eventually, though, I realize we're on the wrong track. I need to make the most of Ekayne's cleric spells before she loses them. And the most important place we have to use them is against the Shade Lord.
In Spell Revisions, both clerics and druids can cast Restoration, but only clerics can cast Negative Plane Protection, which in SR lasts 5 turns (like almost all SR buffs). That's the kind of immunity we need for our party when we take on the Shade Lord. We abandon the De'Arnise Hold for the time being and return to the Temple Ruins. After reorganizing our spellbooks to include enough NPP spells, Ivinhale turns the party invisible and we pay a visit to the Shadow Altar.
We're going to assail the Shade Lord with Fireballs, just like we did with the Trolls. But first we want to enter the area invisibly, so we have enough time to summon a couple of Fire Elementals to hold the fort. Horun Fallows, Ivinhale, and Varen hang back, while the rest of the party attacks Shadow Patrick and then the Shadow Altar. We're holding Horun Fallows back so he doesn't fire Acidic Backlashes on Varen and Ivinhale when they start throwing around Fireballs. The Shadow Altar takes an awful beating, but the Shade Lord also gets a little burnt.
After throwing out the second Fireball, the Shade Lord decides to put a stop to it. Ivinhale fails a save.
Considering how quick the spell came out, either the Shade Lord has a bonus to casting time, or it's just the reduced 5 casting speed of Finger of Death in SR.
Varen, however, stays protected with Death Ward, and she has enough time to send out one last Fireball. The Shadow Altar burns to the ground. The Shade Lord isn't looking too good, either.
Finally Horun Fallows enters the fray (somehow it never occurred to me to have him just unequip Sanchuudoku), while Varen retreats and turns invisible. Everyone else gathers around the Shade Lord.
Ekayne reaches level 11, gains her first 6th-level cleric spell, and promptly dual-classes. Since Ranger/Clerics in my install can use bladed weapons and pointy stuff, I give her pips in longswords and flails, since we're getting the Flail of Ages pretty soon and IR has a lot of nice longswords. Currently she's wielding the Dragonslayer.
Now Ekayne has horrible saves and can no longer cast Chaotic Commands, Remove Paralysis, Break Enchantment, or Magic Circle [A]gainst Evil. Now Kolem Tao will have to take on that role. But he won't be enough on his own. We won't be able to take on the same challenges that we used to, not for a long while at least. We report back to Minister Lloyd in Imnesvale for a quick couple of level ups for Ekayne, then return to the De'Arnise Hold to make some dog stew.
We get ambushed on the way by a pack of Trolls, including a Spirit Troll. Despite my attempt to keep Ekayne out of the way, she gets hit by Greater Command, and with a save vs. spell of 16, she has a guaranteed failed save, every round. She'll be asleep for the whole turn. We end up doing okay, since Kolem Tao makes his save and has Stoneskin to ensure he can cast Break Enchantment on Horun Fallows, who activates Enrage and gains immunity to any further disablers. Without buffs, we can't safely use Fireball, so we just have to whittle away at the Spirit Troll until it collapses.
Now we can make some dog stew, but I decide we're also perfectly equipped to take on a few more encounters. We clear the second level, including the golems, but stop short of entering the third level, with the improved Torgal in it and the large number of Umber Hulks that might just come in to aid the Spirit Trolls (never happened before, but I'm not confident it won't this time). Instead, we return to Trademeet (shout out) to take on the smaller groups of Trolls in the Druid Grove.
We'll probably skip Kyland Lind, since he's a pretty big challenge--in the past, I've relied on Web to disable him before attacking him, but I don't want to do that again--but we'll have to fight Dalok before we get Cernd to kill Faldorn, because Dalok, unlike Kyland Lind, vanishes after Faldorn is dead.
Got an interesting story here. The last half hour or so has been horribly tense. But first, the Druid Grove.
As planned, we snuck past Kyland Lind.
We also left the Troll Mound alone, since there are so many magical trolls in there. We'll go back for them later, when we're ready.
Dalok would have been a challenge, but something truly strange happened: the enemy got two Insect Plague spells off the ground, but both of them targeted Kitty, and Varen's Fireball spell turned Kitty hostile right before the spell hit. The insects got confused and attacked Dalok and his buddies. And Horun Fallows contributed his own Insect Plague just seconds later.
Lots of spell failure, but none of it on us.
We killed the djinn without much trouble--they never targeted any of us with Flesh to Stone--and also completed the Trademeet tomb quest and killed Rejiek Hidesman. We now only have two divine spellcasters, and both Maeruo and Ekayne have terrible, terrible saves, but after reviewing the spell file for a thief's trap at level 11 (Ivinhale is at 13), I decide we're ready to complete the De'Arnise Hold quest.
We cleared up the Spirit Trolls in the "cellars," torched the Umber Hulks after feeding them days-old dog stew, and finally arrived at TorGal's doorstep.
We spent ages trying to lay traps in the Umber Hulk room. Ivinhale repeatedly failed. In the first three rests, she failed 11 out of 12 times, with a Set Traps of 30. The odds of that happening are about 2% (0.7^11=0.019). The scribing failure rate is also higher than it should be. Seriously, BG2 fails badly at probability.
Eventually, we got seven traps on the ground. Ivinhale turned invisible, lured TorGal into the room, and pounced on him after he triggered the traps. He died pretty quick.
Since TorGal went down so easy, I decide we're ready to take on TorGal's buddies. Without resting or setting new traps, we being preparing for the battle.
Scintilla, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist, eleventh and final BG2 update
Scintilla postponed her death, that Blackraven expected Shattered Irenicus would bring her, by doing the Planar Prison quest first. It went without any incident even though a Master of Thralls would retreat toward the Warden before Scintilla could slay it.
The Warden was kept busy by Devas and other summons so that Scintilla could buff before engaging the Cambion. The buffing proved unnecessary however, as the Deva took care of the Cambion herself.
She traveled to Suldanessalar with the Rhynn Lanthorn, and went looking for items she needed to get access to the tree of life. One of those items was in the possession of a Black Dragon. Scintilla wouldn't obtain it though. Underestimation of the Dragon's plant growth ability (which, I know now, imposes a -10 Save penalty) meant her downfall. A fortune in magical items awaits the lucky finder in the woods west of Suldanessalar.
I planned a break from BG, but thanks to many interesting playthroughs on these forums and the Bioware forums, I'm still eager to try again. I would go back to my roots though, with a Thief. Bounty Hunter, my favorite kit, would be the obvious choice, but I'm inclined to give the Assassin another try. Either I re-roll Eydan, preferably with better stats (male Elf bow/swordsman that made it into Amn once, with 'The Nameless One' voiceset and one of my favorite portraits), or I go for a dart-throwing Halfling lass that's not be messed with. In any case Item Randomizer will be re-installed
Every once in a while, I come across a really complicated and painful battle. I will be explaining it in precise detail, as is my wont.
The Yuan-ti Mages in this battle are a critical factor. They come in with lots of high-level defenses, and like all members of the Coiled Cabal, they use a lot of irritating disablers. And we've got multiple Spirit Trolls in this fight, too, so the air is already going to be filled with area-effect disablers that Maeruo and Ekayne are going to fail their saves against.
We can't breach the mages' defenses, not with only one full-time mage on our side (Ivinhale, with her 18 INT to Varen's 19 INT, hasn't been learning many new spells, including debuffers). But we can wait them out. To do that, we cast Farsight and start sending in summons. First the little ones, the bats and the leopards, and then the big ones: the Lesser Air Elemental from Ivinhale, the Lesser Earth Elemental from Ekayne's Ring of Earth Control, and a Fire Elemental from Horun.
They don't last long, so we have to engage the enemy ourselves. We hurry forward, bunching up around the doorway, and then retreat to draw the enemies over to us. We've got a suite of buffs on everyone, including SR regeneration spells (druids have many such spells in SR, instead of the clerics' Cure Adjective Wounds) and a Chaotic Commands spell on Kolem Tao--who I forgot is wearing the Dragon Helm, which in IR already grants immunity to sleep effects like Greater Command.
I also forget to have Horun Fallows activate Enrage. He fails a save against Greater Command, as does Ekayne. Kolem Tao revives Horun with Break Enchantment, only for another Greater Command spell to knock Horun out again.
We muddle along for a little while longer, and eventually I realize things aren't going in our favor. Horun Fallows--the best damage dealer in the party, and a stellar tank on top of that--is unconscious, and he can't activate Enrage. This means he's equally vulnerable to all other disablers as well. He fails a save against both Chaos and the Umber Hulk Elder's confusion ability.
I am reminded of a quote from the Japanese emperor when announcing Japan's surrender to the US. He said the war "has not gone in Japan's favor," one of the greatest understatements in history.
Look.
Despite drinking a Potion of Rage, which I thought would give Berserker-style immunities (it disables your spellcasting and prevents you from using items or even potions; I'd have thought it at least gave you some immunities), Maeruo has fallen unconscious, and he and Ekayne are both in very bad shape. More importantly, Horun Fallows himself is nearly dead, though the many icons on his portrait hide the damage, as well as his beautiful face (he's the second in the group, right behind Kolem Tao).
Meanwhile, Ivinhale and Kolem Tao have both run out of Stoneskins, and the Spirit Trolls have breached our chokepoint. Half our party is disabled, two have lost their Stoneskins, and only one of our summons remains. All we've managed to do so far is kill the Umber Hulk Elder, courtesy of Ivinhale's Flame Arrow spells, but the big threat in this battle, besides the disablers, are the incessant Unholy Blight and Flame Strike spells that Spirit Trolls can cast endlessly. Horun Fallows is almost dead from spell damage--his Stoneskins are still perfectly intact!
Ivinhale uses Detect Illusions to reveal the Spirit Trolls, and traps one of them in a Resilient Sphere. It's a huge difference in the battle, but it's not enough. And the situation is only getting worse.
We hit the no-reloader's worst nightmare. Varen, our Charname, on whom the entire run depends, gets hit by a level 7 spell. Unfortunately, that spell is not Finger of Death.
FoD would have been much better, as Varen has a Death Ward active. But she doesn't have Chaotic Commands, because we just don't have enough 5th-level cleric spells to go around. Druids in Spell Revisions can't cast Chaotic Commands, so Kolem Tao is the only one in the party who can. This time, Varen's magic resistance is not enough.
But I have just the solution. Remember that Ivinhale is out of Stoneskins? That's because she only has one memorized. Why is that? Because I wanted her to have an extra Resilient Sphere spell.
She traps Varen in a new sphere. Varen will be out of commission for much longer, since the duration of Resilient Sphere is much longer than PW: Stun, but at least we know she'll be safe.
The rest of the party, however, is still struggling. Horun Fallows, Ekayne, and Maeruo keep failing their saves against Greater Command. They can save each round to wake up, but the save is at -4, and the Spirit Trolls keep recasting the spell.
Horun Fallows doesn't wake up in time. A Spirit Troll kills him with a spell. Horun really has no luck in this game.
By now, my hopes of winning the battle are gone. I have made no progress since the death of the Umber Hulk Elder. We still have multiple enemies spamming disablers and Holy Smite spells, and I wasn't able to disrupt any spells with Acid Arrows or the Crimson Dart or Sunfire Bullets, all of which deal damage through the Yuan-ti's Stoneskin. The only upside is that Maeruo has woken up, but he's no use, being half dead, still crippled by low-level fighter saving throws, blinded by Holy Smite, and having no real offensive power. So what's the plan?
Actually, the plan is for half the party to die. That's been the plan ever since Horun got hit by Chaos. Ekayne is simply not waking up, and I can't flee the area while she's asleep. I can, however, flee the area when they're dead, and grab their equipment and stuff it in the Bag of Holding (Ribald in Item Revisions sells one for a pittance) so I don't lose any valuable goodies on the way out. But Ekayne simply refuses to die, and killing them myself would draw attention away from the enemy. I still have a chance of bumping off a Spirit Troll with some lucky rolls, so I've avoided spending time on killing Ekayne, Maeruo, or Horun Fallows.
Then things get worse. One of the Spirit Trolls casts Unholy Word.
Kolem Tao, who has been holding the fort for quite some time, is now slowed and deafened, with 50% spell failure, as if he had any useful spells left. He's got a Break Enchantment spell or two left, but the only person who's still disabled is Ekayne, and she is doomed. For a moment I think Varen is going to have to pick all her dead friends' equipment herself, once Resilient Sphere wears off. But something odd has happened.
Varen's Resilient Sphere is not working properly. She is no longer disabled by either PW: Stun or the Resilient Sphere itself. I can select her now! And she has all the resistances of Resilient Sphere, still intact.
Now we're in business. Maeruo is clinging to life, and as grim as it may sound, he is more useful as bait than anything else. He tosses all of his equipment to his friends (as a Shapeshifter, he has no armor to take off, conveniently enough), keeping only a single potion to help him survive a little longer, and runs into TorGal's room, though the Sphere of Chaos spells. This draws the attention of the Yuan-ti, easing the pressure on the rest of the party.
This is why Horun loves Maeruo. He's a truly selfless person.
I go through Varen's spells and find a good one. She can finish off Ekayne with a Sunfire spell, and can cast it with a speed factor of zero by trading amulets with Ivinhale (IR Amulet of Metaspell Influence gives +1 to casting time, but no spell slots). The spell also kills one of the Trolls.
Kolem Tao picks up Ekayne's equipment while Varen casts Dispelling Screen, hoping to get 100 MR from stacking the effects (I forgot that she already had 100 MR thanks to Resilient Sphere). With Ekayne and Horun dead, and Maeruo at about 1 HP, we can now flee the area.
But Varen can't move.
She's boxed in by the Spirit Trolls! But this is exactly the sort of thing I've been anticipating. She escapes.
Yeah! We're out of the Spirit Troll's grasp!
What a shame Varen still can't move. Resilient Sphere is still active, and her movement rate is set to zero.
I drink a Potion of Memory (the IR replacement for the Potion of Insight, because @Demivrgvs doesn't like items that set stuff to 18) to recover the Dimension Door spell, in case she gets boxed in again before she can escape. The potion has no effect, maybe because IR potions work using spells, and the spell got blocked by Resilient Sphere's spell level immunities. Ivinhale runs over to toss Varen a new potion, and Varen turns invisible with another potion, but otherwise I don't have many ideas. If she gets boxed in when the Resilient Sphere runs out, then it'll take two rounds to drink the Potion of Memory and then teleport out. I don't know how many Stoneskins she has left, but as a level 11 caster she's got at most 5, and I don't think Spirit Trolls would have trouble cutting through that in a round or two. Varen is invisible, but Spirit Trolls can see through it; I only drank the Potion of Invisibility to mess with the Coiled Cabal.
We have no summons left. We have a scroll of Simulacrum, but we've already lost so many limited resources in this fight: Kolem Tao already drank a Potion of Magic Shielding (!) and a Potion of Stone Form (which gives 5 Stoneskins for 5 turns in IR) to keep himself afloat, plus three Oils of Speed, to haste him, to counter the slow effect of Unholy Word, and when that didn't work, to haste himself after the slow wore off. We could try our scroll of Protection from Magic, too, but we don't have a good single target for that.
Finally Resilient Sphere wears off, and Varen can move again. And thanks to Kolem Tao's distracting the Spirit Trolls--mostly just by walking over to them, actually--Varen is no longer blocked in. The way is clear!
But the Spirit Troll follows us up the stairs, and casts Greater Command the instant we get through.
Mercifully, we make our saves. But it's not over. There are more Trolls ahead of us.
Oils of Speed help us squeeze past them in the narrow hallway. But there are still more of them. This one is a Spirit Troll--my least favorite troll ever.
It doesn't deal too much damage, and we manage to get past it.
But that's still not the end of them. One last Troll starts chasing us.
I consider fleeing the area entirely, for fear that all of the previous Trolls would catch up to us and attack all at once, but decide to wait a bit beforehand.
When nobody comes after us, we run out to check on the Troll--it's alone--and lead it further from the keep. We tear it to pieces, raise Horun and Ekayne with the Rod of Resurrection, and rest.
No Trolls ambush us. We resurrect Maeruo, too, and double-check that everyone has all their equipment. All we're missing is an old spear and Horun Fallows' helmet. No important gear remains in the keep, except for the flail.
Just in case there are still any Trolls around, we send Maeruo alone, without any items, invisible, over to forge the Flail of Ages. He comes back unscathed, and we report our success to Nalia.
We lost a Potion of Magic Shielding and many others, but we got out of the place alive. The Resilient Sphere glitch helped, but it also hindered our escape by allowing Varen to waste a Dimension Door spell--her only means of escaping if she was boxed in. Had she ended up the only surviving party member, she might have been able to grab everybody's stuff and teleport past the enemies, but a failed save against Greater Command could have doomed her. Who knows?
I'm still not sure why the Hold III effect wore off early. Speaking of which... @Demivrgvs, the Barbarian Enrage spell in SR still appears to give immunity to Hold III, which could allow a Barbarian and a mage to create a truly indestructible tank, for 10 rounds per 4th-level spell slot.
Next up is probably the Planar Sphere. Maybe I'll have Varen drink a Potion of Evasion for Kayardi, to make sure she doesn't get iced by a Bone Fiend like Poppy did.
Poor Varen. This adventure has been awfully hard on her. Horun, too.
Resilient Sphere - I looked into it immediately and find the possible issue. Free Action (or Potion of Freedom) and Undead Hunter use immunty to Hold Creature 2 (185). While I understand the former (FA should be usable on an undead to stop Halt Undead) I have no idea right now why the paladin kit might need it. Anyway, I can fix FA within SR (replace opcode immunity with specific immunity to Halt Undead spell) and the paladin within KR. Can you confirm me your issue could be caused by one of these?
Barbarian Rage - SR does not touch kit abilities unless strictly necessary (e.g. Avenger and Stalker copied spells), but Kit Revisions Berserker Rage does not grant immunity to hold2, and KR's Barbarian Rage doesn't grant any mind shielding effect.
Potions - I don't necessarily have problems with potions setting Stats to X (unlike permanent items - I hate them because they make the base defining stat of a character completely irrelevant). Potions of Giant Strength are still there, I simply thought Potion of Memory and Vocalize could have a much more broader usefulness than Insight and Genius.
Free Action isn't related to this issue. Varen didn't have Free Action active. The reason she could move around is because the Hold III effect in Resilient Sphere is tagged as not bypassing magic resistance, unlike all the other effects. She never got held, which means she could move once the stun effect wore off.
We got the Robe of the Weave and Robe of Arcane Might from Ribald, which add 20 to MR and boost saves and casting level by 2, respectively. Resistances have increasing marginal returns, and Varen has to be as safe as possible, so she gets the Robe of the Weave for 70 MR after Dispelling Screen.
We pay a visit to Mencar Pebblecrusher, whom I usually fight after Gaius et al due to forgetfulness on my part. Normally Mencar and his gang should come first, as they are the weaker of the two.
Brennan Risling nearly kills Mae-mae, who has to drink a Potion of Invisibility to stay alive.
My first instinct was to drink a Potion of Extra Healing, but Brennan Risling might have turned invisible and backstabbed again, and 30 extra HP from a potion wouldn't have guaranteed Maeruo wouldn't get chunked. A Potion of Invisibility, however, would.
The game crashed for some reason and I had to start over. Out of impatience, I had Varen cast Fireburst (I actually prefer the vanilla name, Sunfire) to blast Sorcerous Amon of the Purple Brotherhood and Pooky.
I normally don't do that, since it comes out before enemy buffs do, and therefore might bypass a Fire Shield or Protection from Fire, which would be unfair, but I wanted to hurry things up.
We're starting to run low on quests, and we still need lots of XP for Ekayne and Maeruo. I decide to go ahead and complete the Mae'Var questline, even though the last part is an awful bloodbath with tons of backstabbing thieves all over the place. I solve the problem of backstabbing by starting to cast summoning spells right after I get through the door, and then have Ivinhale cast Invisibility Sphere. This allows me to call in some summons while maintaining invisibility, ensuring the summons get all of the attention. We just watch.
I am really, really loving Invisibility Sphere.
I don't remember the last time I've fought Tactics Mae'Var. Which is probably why this caught me off-guard.
I don't like it when mods cut off the exits just for difficulty's sake. I know some people use exits to screw around with enemy AI, but this also prevents me from fleeing in case things go wrong, and we've already come across one encounter where we got overwhelmed and had to run away.
Luckily for us, Mae'Var is an idiot and has no good spell protections active. We hit him with Flame Arrows and finish him off with a melee rush.
From there, we report to Renal Bloodscalp for 10,500 gold and 45,500 XP, bumping Varen up to mage level 12. She's got her Bounty Hunter levels back! On top of that, she gets a single 6th-level spell.
With traps in hand, we're equipped to take down some Statues. Just the first battle, for now--we're still not prepared to fight all of them. We line up some Special Snares along the hall, stay out of sight and let our summons absorb the fighter Statues' Whirlwind Attacks, and then retreat as the clerics pursue us (our invisibility doesn't stop them).
The clerics' Physical Mirror spells reflect the projectiles from Varen's snares, so the Statues aren't affected at all. But one of them got damaged by our summons earlier, and has to spend some time healing. The other one gets hit by Breached and surrounded.
The other one runs in to help out, just as its Blade Barrier expires, and its spellcasting is quickly shut down.
The fighter Statues no longer pose a major threat, not without their friends to distract us. Just for fun, I try backstabbing with a crossbow. It's pretty effective.
In my install, all weapons, even ranged weapons, can be used to backstab, but many of them have penalties. Light crossbows and darts only have -1 penalty, however, and since Varen invested heavily in stealth before dualing, she can excel at hit-and-fade tactics, though her base damage is still poor due to lacking proficiencies.
Notice she has a Light Crossbow +3 with Bolts +3. Both are generated by the SR Enchanted Weapon spell, which lets you create any +3 weapon, except for darts (@Demivrgvs, oversight?). Now that I have better weapons for Ekayne, Horun Fallows, and Maeruo, the only weapon the rest of the party needs is a Club +3 for Kolem Tao. Since the weapons all last 24 hours, you can have three of them active at any time if you keep Enchanted Weapon memorized and remember to re-cast it. But I actually cheat in the weapons, for convenience's sake.
I created a set of buffing spells to speed up pre-battle buffing. It was a little complicated since my characters don't all use the same buffs, and we need four separate spells (cleric, druid, innate, and mage) to make sure everyone can cast them, and that some of them can be activated via hotkeys.
I was very worried about Kayardi's Bone Fiends, since they ended Poppy's run not long ago. To make sure we're prepared--or at least, that Varen is safe--Horun Fallows casts Protection from Cold on Varen. This will keep off the Bone Fiends' Cone of Cold spells.
To be especially safe, we bombard the halflings with summons. The bats don't do so well.
They can hold back Cookies in their sleep, but they can't handle a party of extraplanar halfling psionics? Anyway, the Bone Fiends don't prove too problematic. Varen's snares do a lot to weaken them, though only one of them dies quickly (Kayardi summons two). We drink a fair amount of potions to deal with the cold damage, but the other halflings have already dropped lots of healing potions already, and we've got about 60 Potions of Extra Healing altogether.
Mogadish and Kayardi are well-defended, but I notice they have no immunity to fire. I use Sunfire again, but it doesn't bring them down.
I don't have a second Sunfire memorized, unfortunately, so Kayardi and Mogadish will remain. But then, Kayardi wanders into a Special Snare, and gets paralyzed.
Mogadish frees him immediately afterward, but the moment vulnerability allows us to tear through Kayardi's Stoneskins, and Mogadish doesn't last long after that.
I also harassed Taibela and Necre with summons, only confronting them after they had expended some of their disablers on our many animal buddies. It was kind of overkill, really, but I'm not big on going easy on enemies in no-reload runs.
Our second big challenge comes up. We need to take down Lavok, and though he doesn't have HLAs in my install (I still think a centuries-old necromancer should get HLAs, but I'm not willing to go through the trouble to tweak my install for one fight, and I'm even less willing to fight a Fallen Planetar at this level), he still has 9th-level spells. I set up a line of traps, which take him down to Badly Injured before his protections all go up. Horun Fallows guides our summons, pitching in with darts to bypass Lavok's PFMW.
Naturally, he's not quick enough to stop the Time Stop. He's not a Wizard Slayer, and that's basically the only way to stop spells during PFMW in Item Reivisons, since Firetooth can no longer deal fire damage through PFMW, and APR in IR is hard to get, since Haste is now single-target and Improved Haste only adds one attack. It's hard to break down 10 Stoneskins in 6 seconds without lots of fighter levels across the party.
Lavok has his priorities in order: Horrid Wilting, followed by Sphere of Chaos and another PFMW.
Horun gets hit by at least two Horrid Wilting spells, but holds on to life thanks to potions. Meanwhile, a steady supply of summons from the south soaks up Lavok's spells.
Horun gets paralyzed by a Sphere of Chaos spell after his Enrage wears off, but by then, we've worn through his Stoneskins, and as he descends the stairs, he triggers some more of Varen's traps.
I am reminded of a line from the description of the Skin of the Ghoul +2: "Not very epic perhaps, but practical."
The fight with Tolgerias starts out marvelously. A Special Snare thrown from afar paralyzes the mage, and since Tolgerias, unlike the mage, starts out as neutral, we can enter the room while invisible and guide our summons to attack the mage while she's helpless, and Tolgerias will do nothing to intervene.
But to my surprise, the mage breaks out of the hold effect a round later, and exposes the whole party with an Oracle spell. Tolgerias turns hostile.
Tolgerias hits us with a Horrid Wilting spell via a Chain Contingency, interrupting an Enrage spell from Horun Fallows. And without his Enrage, Horun gets Mazed by the Shadow Door Tolgerias casts during Time Stop. I thought Enrage was tagged as uninterruptable. Apparently not.
Maeruo tries to trigger a feedback loop with the other mage, having equipped the Ring of Fire Resistance and drinking a Potion of Fire Resistance to get immunity to the mage's Fire Shield, but he keeps failing, and I'm not sure why. Meanwhile, the rest of the party struggles to break through Tolgerias' Stoneskins. Finally, we get in a hit.
But he turns invisible, and we're better off trying to finish off the other mage. She proves easier to kill.
Tolgerias has run out of spells by the time we kill his friend. He just stands there while our summons break through his last Stoneskin spell, and chunk him.
It was a strange battle. It took forever, and yet, in retrospect, we were never in any real danger. Tolgerias only ever cast debuffing spells on us. We almost never took damage. I only saw two damage spells, Horrid Wilting and some single-target spell on Maeruo, and a great deal of the damage we suffered came from our Efreeti's Fireball spell.
Speaking of Efreet, right after the battle, Horun Fallows got himself killed on an enemy Efreeti's Fire Shield, stuck in a feedback loop. He just can't win!
The only remaining threat is the Tanar'ri. I line up a bunch of traps, but since I know the demon comes with lots of Mephits alongside it, who would absorb the damage from the traps before the Tanar'ri got hit, I send in a bunch of summons to help clear up the Mephits.
The disappointing thing is, the traps never did any damage to the Tanar'ri. The demon died because of our summons and some Acidic Backlashes from when the demon hit Horun Fallows with offensive spells.
We left the area with a new Ring of Acuity, which in Item Revisions grants an extra 5th, 6th, and 7th-level spell, like a Ring of Wizardry in vanilla. We're still a long way off from regaining Ekayne's and Maeruo's cleric and druid levels, but that's what you get for dualing at high levels.
Next up is probably the Unseeing Eye quest. I think I will just kill the Beholders with summons while invisible, but the Unseeing Eye could be more problematic.
. Underestimation of the Dragon's plant growth ability (which, I know now, imposes a -10 Save penalty) meant her downfall.
I planned a break from BG, but thanks to many interesting playthroughs on these forums and the Bioware forums, I'm still eager to try again. I would go back to my roots though, with a Thief. Bounty Hunter, my favorite kit, would be the obvious choice, but I'm inclined to give the Assassin another try. Either I re-roll Eydan, preferably with better stats (male Elf bow/swordsman that made it into Amn once, with 'The Nameless One' voiceset and one of my favorite portraits), or I go for a dart-throwing Halfling lass that's not be messed with. In any case Item Randomizer will be re-installed
Ouch! Didn't see it coming. Was sure a cleric/illusionist won't have troubles up until the end...
It's a pity! Thanks for sharing another attempt that just shows the size of a task everyone is facing here.
A nice surprise that you've decided to continue. If we think about it several times, then a thief is exactly a character people would expect you to beat the game with, taking into account your interest in rogues.
Hello everybody. After completing a no-reload BG1 run, I'm gonna continue with BG2. Since I NEVER played the game, are there any suggestions you might give me? Free of spoilers please :-) Like something I should particularly pay attention to, some general rules to successfully complete a no-reload run..
In the search of XP, Hachiman explored different areas where he dealt with Greywolf:
... with another assassin, this time a dwarven one:
... with the Doomsayer:
... with Billy and his pals:
... with the Polar bear:
Thus Hachiman finally reached the 7th level and got a much awaited additional 1/2 APR
Here's Hachiman's inventory before going deep to the Nashkel Mines:
The Helm of Glory was found on the "Greatest dart-thrower ever known". All the scrolls and arrows were bought with the money Hachiman gathered while exploring the areas:
On the 3rd level of the Mines Hachiman met another group of merceneries, and quicly retreated so that only their leader followed the warrior. The battle ended in Hachiman's favour. The assassin and his friends carried interesting items.
I've made a rule of not using the extra staff from the mod which I find OP.
Hachiman didn't have any troubles in dealing with kobolds in the Mines because his throwing daggers usually one-shotted any of them. And when the Kobold Shaman casted Horror on Hachiman, the wizard slayer took the Cursed Sword. Then he had to retreat to the temple in order to take the curse off.
When dealing with Mulahey, Hachiman decided to minimize all the risks and as soon as kobolds and skeletons appeardd Hachiman retreated to the previous area. He used this tactics several times - as soon as Mulahey started casting what would seems like a Hold spell, Hachiman quickly retreated. Then Mulahey was dead.
As you see, the Item randomizer mod gave a very nice surprise here: getting the Boots of Speed at that stage, especially with this character, is marvellous!
Hachiman killed Nimbul with poisonous bolts. The Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy (THACO +5) makes the fact that Hachiman doesn't have any proficiencies in crossbows insignificant. I plan to put the next 2 pips (at the 9th and the 12th levels) into crossbows so that Hachiman's first shot (with poisonous bolts that go through Stoneskin and Mirror Image) in every mage battle will have a better chance to hit.
The rest in the inn brought another Cure Wounds ability. With Tranzig, Hachiman again chose not to take any risks and went to the first floor as soon as the wizard started casting anything.
All the money available was spent on buying 20 arrows of detonation, 10 arrows of dispelling and 4 arrows of slaying (an ogre-mage).
Now, Hachiman was ready to go to the Bandit's Camp.
@Blash I appreciate your choice of asking such a question here.
Nobody could give you a better advice than experienced players. First of all, it would be great to listen to your set-up: are you soloing or going with a party / what is your character's class/kit?
If we're talking about general tips to ptevent reloading in BG2, then I'd mention:
- resting a lot so that you always have spells and abilities available; - scouting ahead so that you always see enemies first and know where they're; - skipping difficult enemies before you're feeling ready: don't fight vampires just as you start BG2, don't fight beholders/liches/other powerful creatures in the beginning - if you detect a powerful creature, go away and come back later; - use buffing spells to the max: mages have Stoneskin and Mirror Shield, as well as Minor Globe of Invulnerability, later Spell Immunities and Spell Turnings; clerics and druids have Chaotic Commands, Death Wards, later Shield of Archons; - use crowd-control spells: Greater Malison+Chaos, Greater Malison+Slow; - if you're going with a party, take at least 2 arcane casters and at least 1 divine caster with you.
Comments
On a side note, thanks for reminding me to tweak Cause Wound spells so that you cannot use them against undead and golems.
Please remember that SCS scripting nullifies the spellcasting penalty in many cases. You can't really rely on it which I think is quite a shame. For that reason you might consider not going for grandmastery, but rather specialization in a variety of weapons. (I think Thani only achieved GM in Flails.)
@Demivrgvs, I'm really interested in your Revisions mods. But I notice you're still making adaptations (thanks to players pointing out bugs or inconsistencies). Do you think you'll have consolidated versions of your mods anytime soon? Or would I be advised to just try the mods out as they are, in one of my next playthroughs?
Anyway, the old Sphere of Chaos is okay, too. Although it's not great for no-reload runs for the enemies to have it. I actually find it more interesting than the SR version, since the SR version is basically a party-friendly web spell with some different types of disablers and a save penalty with a new save type. The function of all the SR effects is the same now: it is strictly a disabling spell, with no other possible effects, good or bad. I think a wider spread of effects would be more suitable, like having a small chance of a Fireball triggering (or better yet, an acid ball, for variety's sake) or slowing a character for one round and giving it Improved Haste for the next round, or making the character deal 5d4 electrical damage to itself and its target on every hit. Weird stuff is fun stuff.
Scintilla dreamt about Candlekeep, a dream in which she fake-talked a Demon out of lowering one of her stats. She awoke soulless in a glass cage, courtesy of Irenicus. His sister Bodhi set her free however, in the Spellhold Maze below the actual asylum. It took her some puzzling, an unsollicited Slayer transformation, and the elimination of all manner of creatures, such Illithids, Eye Tyrants, Golems, Minotaurs, Yuan-Ti, and a Lich, to find her way out.
The latter creature caused Scintilla the most trouble. She survived its Time Stops by making sure to position herself without its visual range, distracted its Glabrezu with her Deva (even though the Glabrezu kept going after her rather than the Deva), and saw the Deva imprisoned by the Lich, while she in turn used her Turn Undead ability to blow up several Skeletons the Lich animated. Some buffing/de-buffing chess followed. The Gnome - well buffed with II, SI:D and SI:A, Spell Shield, Spell Deflection, Free Action (because of the Demon), and PfME - won that game. (Scintilla generally only has about 3-4 debuffing spells memorized, relying more on her SotM for debuffing work. It saves her spell slots that can be dedicated to other types of spells, and using the SotM is safer because Spell Turning can send any debuffers straight back to Scintilla.)
She soon found her way back into the Asylum, where she convinced Lonk the warden to release the prisoners for an assault on Irenicus. Scintilla took a very conservative approach, relying heaviliy on her temporary allies. (I didn't know at all what to expect of Scintilla's clone. I mostly solo warriors and rogues, so I had no idea what spells the clone would cast. It was interesting to see that it cast some spells that the real Scintilla had memorized herself, such as Mislead, PfMW and Simulacrum, among others, but also an Oracle, a spell that the real Scintilla knew but never memorized, as she was used to working with clerical True Seeing.)Scintilla ran away from the point where a faux Scintilla spawned, leaving a Simulacrum for the clone to spar with. Irenicus dropped a Comet on a Mislead-version of Scintilla, and used two Time Stops, mostly to buff and to cast damage spells on the inmates (not on Scintilla because she wasn't really close to him). Scintilla summoned a Deva right in front of Irenicus. It ended up imprisoned, but not before it cast three Dispel Magics at Irenicus at different moments. The last Dispel Magic (cast when the prison was already closing around the Deva), was followed by the simultaneous casting of Breach by Wanev and Scintilla's summoning of Kitty who promptly webbed their foe. Very nice. It resulted in Irenicus' surrender for that battle.
Saemon Havarian offered to make up for his previous treachery with a place for her on his ship, except that he didn't have a ship. The Gnome stole a horn for Saemon and the two took off on the local Pirate Lord's ship. Ambushes by Githyanki and later Sahuagin saw the ship sink and Scintilla end up in a Sahuagin City. She pillaged some loot from an abandoned Drow settlement,
1) Inquisitors were much better mage slayers, and even with that class out of the equation the WS was still not that effective against mages. Berserker's Rage alone was more effective against mages than any feature of vanilla's WS. Lowering magic res for a SCS wizard is not a problem (SCS uses Lower Res), PfMW protects from WS miscast inducing attacks, etc. You are right that being unable to use magic items doesn't make the WS useless, but it still takes away from him tons of stuff that could have hugely helped him perform his task.
2) Unless the WS was supposed to be a barbarian kit (similar to AD&D version but dumb as a turkey), the whole concept/background of the class made absolutely no sense. "Me hate magic, magic bad, me no use magic...ehm...but me use magic weapons, magic weapons good...well, maybe armors too, magic armors not evil".
P.S @semiticgod you have a point about vanilla's SoC being a bit more "unique". Still, it was not appealing for the AI and too much unreliable. I do have plans to re-introduce something similar though, probably as a Wild Mage only spell (I want every school to have at least 1 dedicated spell per lvl within SR).
It didn't stop Maeruo from filching some gold off of their corpses, though.
The first level of Watcher's Keep has become a standard low-level looting trip for my no-reload runs. I usually take on the Vampiric Wraiths, a guaranteed spawn, just as soon as I get Negative Plane Protection for my Charname. Aside from that, the only problematic battles are the Guardian Golems (fairly easy to kill, oddly enough) and a random spawn that could involve Spirit Trolls and their nasty Greater Command spells. But with two castings of Chaotic Commands from Ekayne, and with Maeruo using the Dragon Helm, which in IR protects the wearer from sleep and unconscious, and with Varen and Ivinhale both protected by Dispelling Screen for 50 MR, and with Horun Fallows protected by Enrage, the whole party is more or less immune to the spell, and most disablers in general.
But we encounter Mephits instead of Spirit Trolls, so it doesn't matter. Go figure.
The first level of Watcher's Keep has a tremendous amount of loot for such minor encounters, and there are lots of locks and traps for extra XP. The big sticking point are SCS2's improved Statues. The first encounter has a couple of clerics and a couple of fighters, but the second has tons of fighters, a thief, and two mages with 9th-level spells. Way too tough for a party at our level. As usual, I clear the level without starting the ritual and awakening those statues. I don't even have any traps to set before the battle; Varen hasn't recovered her Bounty Hunter levels yet.
Garlena offers really lousy prices for our loot--she'll buy a suit of splint mail for only 8 gold, which is low even by IR standards--but she does offer the IR version of the Yamato sword, which has been moved from Saradush to Garlena, downgraded from +4 to +3, lost its AC bonus... and gained a peculiar ability.
Every time the wearer is hit in melee, the last attacker takes 1d8+3 slashing damage.
And it uses the same effect as Sanchuudoku does. Do you know what this means?
It means that Yamato can trigger the same infinite feedback loop that Sanchuudoku has with Fire Shields. If someone with Sanchuudoku and someone with Fire Shield attack one another, one of them will get hit by dozens of acid spells, and the other will get hit by dozens of fire spells, both of which bypass MR and spell protections. I test it out by cheating in Sanchuudoku and Yamato, and giving the former to Horun Fallows and the latter to Ivinhale. Ivinhale takes a swing at Horun Fallows, triggering the Acidic Backlash.
Success! We now have a means of slaying Kuroisan. All I have to do is keep the party invisible, buff Ivinhale or Horun Fallows with Protection from Acid, and have the wielder of Yamato attack Cookies. The moment we hit Cookies, we'll drink a Potion of Invisibility, and let the feedback loop slash Cookies to pieces. We might want to buy a scroll of PFMW for Ivinhale, however, to make sure she doesn't get hit by Cookies in the process. Because Cookies will lower our acid resistance if he hits us with his sword, and any vulnerability to acid means Cookies will probably live, while Ivinhale or Horun Fallows would probably die.
The last time I tried something like this, however, Cookies pulled a Shadow Door on me, and mazed my old character in the process. Ivinhale would come back pretty quick, unlike the other character, and she'd be able to reveal him with Detect Illusions without breaking invisibility. We'd have to re-establish the feedback loop, but that would just require an extra Potion of Invisibility and PFMW scroll--or just more Potions of Invisibility, since the PFMW scroll isn't a requirement.
If all goes according to plan, then we have a new name for IR Yamato: The Cookie Cutter.
Ekayne has dedicated both her 5th-level spell slots to Protection from Acid. Ivinhale is her target, as Ivinhale will be using Yamato. Our druids and clerics crammed their spellbooks with summoning spells, notably Animal Summoning I, which at our level summons 5 bats. They die in one hit, but each spell will keep Cookies at bay for one round.
After Cookies turns hostile, Ivinhale casts Invisibility Sphere. Between her and Varen, we have seven such spells. We run away and start summoning our monsters. Once Ivinhale turns visible, Ekayne casts Protection from Lightning. Ivinhale turns invisible and runs over to take a swing at Cookies.
The battle had some hiccups--Ivinhale lost her immunity to acid after getting hit by a Remove Magic spell--but eventually we get the result we want. Kuroisan gets hit by Yamato, while Ivinhale has slipped and fallen unconscious on her own Grease spell.
This took many tries, as the feedback loop wouldn't continue for very long. Cookies kept running away, out of Yamato's range. But now we've got it to connect, and Yamato has broken through his Stoneskins. It is a duel between Yamato and Sanchuudoku, both furiously trying to attack their opponent's wielder, but Ivinhale is immune to Sanchuudoku's Acidic Backlash.
Cookies collapses in a pool of grease, alongside Ivinhale. It is an ignominious end for BG2's most gratuitously overpowered character.
But this does not mean victory for us. This was just a test run, outside Watcher's Keep, and normally Cookies only spawns in Athkatla. To win the real fight, we have to fight in Athkatla, and get our supplies normally. For the test, I cheated in some items, but now I have to buy them.
Thankfully, the previous adventures generated a lot of excess gold, enough for us to purchase the Robe of Acid Resistance for 1,300 gold, several extra Potions of Invisibility for a few thousand gold more, a license to use arcane magic in Athkatla for 5,000, and finally Yamato itself, for 13,100 gold. We're at just over 5,000 by the end, having lost just under 20,000 gold. This is an expensive fight, considering the magic license and the robe will, generally speaking, only be useful for this one battle.
We teleport to Firkraag's lair, since CLUAConsole is easier than walking, and find Malakar still safe in the chest.
Maeruo has had a change of heart about this sword, and now he wants us to keep it. Mae-mae knows things.
We travel to Waukeen's Promenade. It is daytime when we arrive, as planned. We don't want any random thugs joining the fight. We wait for Cookies to appear.
I double-check my inventory. Malakar is indeed there. But Cookies will not spawn.
I decide to bring him in with CLUAConsole. I will not be thwarted by a technical problem.
Maeruo says no.
Cookies starts to attack, but Ivinhale turns the party invisible before the acid kensai can do any harm. We run to the northeast to summon some critters. Ekayne takes the opportunity to cast Protection from Acid on Ivinhale.
We send our summons, bats, wolves, and skeletons, over to give Cookies a Halloween party. He tears apart the decorations. Ivinhale sneaks over to him, still invisible, and attacks. Cookies takes a swing at her, and though she has Stoneskins to block the roughly 40 damage he does per hit, the strike drops her acid resistance down to 115--which is all Ivinhale can take. One more hit, and she loses her immunity to acid, and could die in seconds to a string of Acidic Backlashes. She drinks a Potion of Invisibility and hangs back from the battle as the rest of the party calls in more summons. She plays it safe.
Cookies has already wasted his Acid Fog spells on our first pack of summons, so now he has to fight our summons individually, and we can keep him occupied for quite some time. And we need that time. It took many tries to sic Yamato on Cookies in the test run. And there's always room for bad luck. A lot could go wrong, if Ivinhale gets hurt.
Cookies casts Remove Magic, dispelling Ivinhale's immunity to acid damage. She is now completely vulnerable to Acidic Backlash, and has no Stoneskin. She drinks another Potion of Invisibility to escape further damage.
Ivinhale needs to be visible for Ekayne to restore her immunity to acid, so Ivinhale summons Kitty (she uses the Wand of Lightning trick to call in three copies of her, just because). This fails to dispel her invisibility, so she casts a Grease spell on Cookies instead. This time, she turns visible. The Grease spell fires once per round, and each time, it triggers Cookies' Acidic Backlash, as Grease is a hostile spell. But Ivinhale doesn't take too much damage before Ekayne restores her immunity. Ivinhale returns to the fray, joined by three copies of Kitty--whom I fail to notice have all turned hostile, thanks to the party-unfriendly Grease spell.
Ivinhale has also restored her Stoneskins. At 48 max HP, and slightly wounded, she could easily fall to a single blow from the acid kensai if she doesn't have Stoneskin. But she's still not safe: if she takes two strikes from Sanchuudoku, she will be once more vulnerable to Acidic Backlash and Sanchuudoku's on-hit acid damage. Cookies could still kill her in one round, if she doesn't keep a Potion of Invisibility at hand.
Ivinhale gets within range. She can't get close enough to hit Cookies, and Cookies can't reach her, but Yamato's counterattack has a range of 6--triple that of a spear, though not as long as Acidic Backlash. And the Grease spell is triggering Cookies' Acidic Backlash every round. And every Acidic Backlash brings Yamato into action.
Ivinhale slips and bonks her head on the ground, falling unconscious in her own pool of grease. Meanwhile, Yamato gets in the first hit.
Sanchuudoku struggles to get even, but Ivinhale is immune to its acid arrows, and though Ivinhale is perfectly prone and vulnerable, Cookies can't reach over the sleeping bodies of the summoned bats that have inexplicably slipped on the grease and bonked their little noggins as well. Cookies could lower Ivinhale's acid resistance and dissolve her in a single round, but he's blocked by a wall of snoozing bats.
Sanchuudoku keeps attacking from range. Yamato answers it.
Seconds later, Yamato deals the final blow to Cookies the Acid Kensai.
Ivinhale regains consciousness and finds her enemy laying dead in a pool of grease. The kittens are pawing at our bats, leopards, and skeletons, so we have to bring in a trio of Earth Elementals to subdue them.
The battle is over, and we are safe. We find a Belt of Inertial Barrier, Boots of Avoidance, five Potions of Extra Healing, and the acid katana, Sanchuudoku, on the polite kensai's greasy corpse. Maeruo was right. Retrieving Akae's katana was a very good idea.
And then it hits me.
Ivinhale just single-handedly killed the most infamous character of the Tactics mod. With a Grease spell.
In her sleep.
- is it just me or bats are not using bat animation on your screenshot?
- thanks for pointing out Yamato's Counter Attack exploit, I'll find a way to prevent it
- a few other players asked me to flag some non-damaging spells such as Grease or Entangle as not-hostile, do you agree?
The effect of the new mods was fealt as early as in the Candlekeep already: there was a third assassin there, in the Reevor's barn. He followed the fate of Shank and Carbos though.
When Hachiman left the Candlekeep he went straight for the kissing lady on the Coast: 5000 xp brought 2 levels which provided a win against the first wolf.
Then Hachiman visited Beregost and the High Hedge, completed several "find and bring" quests there. He bought a pack of throwing daggers and a cheap Axe +1 to use in melee from the Smith.
Melicamp was successfully restored to the human form which brought the 4th level soon afterwards.
Feeling the need of getting another level to deal with mages who cast Sleep the wizard slayer bought the Protection from Petrification scroll in Naskel Carnival and travelled to the Basilisk area.
With the help of Corax the Ghoul Hachiman fought all the basilisks there and reached the 5th and then the 6th level. Proficiencies he got at the 3rd and the 6th levels were spent on *** in daggers and axes respectively.
The most important fact that the warrior dealt not only with the basilisks but also with the mad mage there: cautiously approaching that encounter, Hachiman tried to stay away from the line of wizard's sight so that Corax could stun him.
Now, being of the 6th level, Hachiman could deal with Neera meeting and Tarnesh. Both wizards fell quite easily.
Because of having only 4 CHA and getting only 1/2 of reputation awards due to a tweak, Hachiman often doesn't even get quest tasks: the girdle lass in the FAI and Zhurlong (and later a farmer from the Zombie area) didn't want to speak long with the dwarf.
Hachiman bought a CON +1 buckler in the FAI so he could now regenerate while resting and travelling through the Sword Coast.
I have to admit that when the wizard slayer imposes a casting penalty on an enemy mage, it feels exciting: I think these moments are most pleasant from the RP point of view when using this kit.
Still, the maximum number of attacks for Hachiman is 5/2 with throwing daggers so there's a real need to reach the 7th level before going for Mulahey.
So the warrior travelled to the Ankheg area to fight for XP. These beasts hit heavily but 90 HPs of Hachiman proved to be enough even for the series of successful Ankheg's attacks (which, to tell the truth, happened quite often because the warrior was equipped in a general splint mail and carried a general big shield).
In the Ankheg nest the warrior found a +1 shield and a +2 heavy crossbow.
There Hachiman also got a Cure Light Wounds ability.
After clearing the area Hachiman still needed about 15k till the next level so he went to the TotSC village to check for available supplies there.
The Dark Horizons mod bring a lot of new merchants to different settlements, some of them sell really powerful items:
Also, Hachiman managed to find two new NPCs: a skald and a dwarwen defender.
Not looking at the somewhat OP for the start of the game items, I think that the NPCs' kits are a good choice and items available are a fine addition - they cost much and although their properties are often a bit OP, I like the fact they are in the game. The player has a choice of either buying them or not, but the availability of them is not excessive. I can only guess how powerful new enemies will be if such strong items are being sold in the stores. Also, I like the picture of a skald. Thanks, @CoM_Solaufein !
Here're some of the merchants' items (I appreciate there're axes and daggers in particular, as well as the Helmet of the Charm Protection):
I like the Item randomiser component - not finding an Ankheg armour in Naskel that alone makes tanking in BG1 a lot easier is a plus.
The failing of casting happened to Neira and it helped to beat her:
In the Dorotea-Dorn encounter Hachiman found his first plate armour. Now, the wizard slayer is ready to explore the Sword Coast a bit in order to actually reach the 7th level.
I'd hate to see the Yamato trick go away completely. Same as with the Sanchuudoku trick. I suppose it could be done just by making Fire Shield and the two katanas give the caster/wielder immunity to the other backlash spells for one or two seconds, which would halt the backlash (or prevent it entirely). Personally I'd prefer the trick to simply be weakened... maybe we'd have that immunity only kick in after a few seconds, so there'd be a few backlashes exchanged, depending on the distance between the characters, and then it would stop. It makes sense, at least, for the two katanas to trigger each other, if not the Fire Shields.
The Tactics mod should probably be updated to include Yamato as one of the swords that Cookies seeks out, since it's now available in SoA and has been changed to a katana. But I'm too lazy to contact the mod creator.
The bats indeed are using the correct animation. Maybe they lack a sleeping animation, hence their disappearance, but it also might just be them being covered by the grease spell, due to an animation quirk. They appear perfectly fine at other times.
I think Grease and Entangle, Web and Stinking Cloud and so forth should all be non-hostile. Partly to avoid turning summons hostile, but also to avoid turning bystanders hostile. It would suck to have the whole Promenade turn against you because one guy slipped on a Grease spell.
I usually mess up in the Underdark (mostly with my solo characters not being able to keep Phaere alive). This time was no exception.
Scintilla and summons banished a Balor with overwhelming physical force for a small Svirfneblin community,
The Gnome had rested just before her meeting with the dragon, and memorized four Project Images. On one side of an arc that was too narrow for the dragon to go through, she cast Project Image. The Project Image cast Wizard Eye and summoned a Deva, and Lower Resistance (3x) on the dragon. Vulnerable to magic, Adalon was then subjected to a Harm and, repeatedly (by subsequent Project Images that would cast their own Wizard Eyes, decoy Devas and Lower Resistances) to Death Fogs, Chain Lightnings and SotM Fire and Lightning until she fell.
She agreed to help the Elves against their common enemy, Irenicus and Bodhi, and returned to Athkatla to prepare a final assault on Bodhi, with the help of Drizzt and friends, Shadow Thieves, and Radiant Heart Paladins.
After slaying Cookies, we paid a visit to Tarnor the Hatchetman and the other sewer-dwelling bandits. It was a complicated battle. I failed to trigger the feedback loop with Ivinhale against Gaius, because I forgot that Acidic Backlash has a spell level of 2, and is therefore completely blocked by Gaius' Globe of Invulnerability. Yamato would have worked, but I didn't think of that at the time.
While Ivinhale was busy failing to kill Gaius, the rest of the party tore down the enemy fighters and clerics. Gallchobhair, the archer, escaped our notice.
Gaius killed Ekayne with a triple Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer, and Mazed Horun Fallows after Horun's Enrage wore off. Gaius also persistently confused our remaining party members. We belatedly discovered Gallchobhair was still alive, and took him down within a few rounds. Finally, Gaius' GOI wore off, and Ivinhale knocked out both Gaius and herself with a Grease spell, triggering the feedback loop and eventually killing the mage.
Then she tried killing Gaius' lost Efreeti summons with Acidic Backlash. She died long before the Efreeti did, since she only has a little under 50 HP. The rest of the party ran in to finish the job, but the Efreeti was unsummoned right before we dealt the final blow.
We also killed the Rakshasa for the Cloak of the Sewers and met Keldorn. I checked the files and tested them, and it seems that the Hallowed Redeemer is usable by clerics, fighter/clerics, and ranger/clerics, though Ekayne doesn't have the stats to wield it. I believe this is a patching error, since I have some component installed that makes slashing and piercing weapons usable by single-, dual-, and multi-classed clerics.
The Coiled Cabal in Mekrath's lair was a bit worrisome. I spied on them with Farsight and sent in a bunch of summons to wear out their buff durations, but when they finally reached us, they were still able to get a couple of Chaos spells off the ground, disabling our summons and some of the party. Eventually we broke through their Stoneskins and took them down, though things could have been much harder had we failed more saves. Ekayne can only memorize two castings of Chaotic Commands, and Kolem Tao needs his 5th-level spell slot for Stoneskin, so our defenses against disablers aren't quite complete, when you consider that enemy mages can take down our buffs.
Mekrath died to Acidic Backlash. Nothing special.
Horun Fallows can use katanas, but I gave him GM in spears because I assumed he'd be under the same weapon restrictions as in vanilla. But it seems that in my install, Fighter/Druids can use all weapons, and so spears are no longer necessary. I decided to use Shadowkeeper to give him GM in katanas instead, since it felt rather lame to have him using Sanchuudoku and only getting 1 APR because I'd planned on him using spears instead. He will probably be dual-wielding Sanchuudoku and Yamato together, for the double backlash effect.
Ekayne is almost at level 11, which means she's about to dual-class. And it won't be long after that before Maeruo hits level 13, and dual-classes as well. After that, we will suffer a tremendous drop in our divine casting power. We won't get back those cleric and druid levels until we get another 1.2 and 1.5 million XP, respectively. For perspective's sake, the average party member would be at 2 million and 2.25 million XP at that point, so that's post-Chapter 2, I believe.
It's going to be rough, taking that drop in spellpower. But we have an instant kill option against enemies with Fire Shield, as long as I make sure Ivinhale or Horun Fallows have the right immunities, and I haven't used that trick enough to get tired of it (this is only the second time I've ever intentionally used it). Plus, the Trademeet questline is wide open, which means we'll have some easy XP right after Ekayne and Maeruo dual. We've got some tougher quests after that: the De'Arnise Hold, the Planar Sphere, and the Planar Prison, though I don't know in what order.
Scintilla, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist, tenth BG2 update
Before seeking out Bodhi, Scintilla secured the Hammer of Thunderbolts under Sanctuary
Thus Scintilla, had all the ingredients for the forging of Crom Faeyr, only to decide against it, on the doorstep of Cromwell's forge. (I love the idea of some melee power with FoA and Crom Faeyr plus IH and Cleric buffs, but Scintilla normally walks around with the SotM and often uses that weapon to dispel enemy protections. For that purpose relinquisihing the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and seeing her STR down to 12 again, would mean quite a sacrifice. I know there are STR belts, but Scintilla finds the defensive qualities of the BotIB rather comfortable to give up, and item switching a bit risky. Dear reader, any suggestions?)
Back to Bodhi's lair it was. She met five Paladins who helped her out at the entrance against a number of Vampires, though truth be told, they were of little use. (Some of them even got the 'weapon ineffective message'. And what was even more disappointing to Scintilla was that Eric Van Straaten left her, calling her a betrayer for injuring him, after he had set himself on fire with a Fireball.)
Between my divine casters and Varen herself, we can comfortably cast Protection from Fire five times without using up Ekayne's Chaotic Commands spells, reserved for herself and Varen. A Resist Fire spell, along with the Dragon Scale Shield, Dragon Helm, and Ring of Protection from Fire, is just enough to give Kolem Tao or Ekayne 105%. We can therefore make the entire party immune to fire, and Varen and Ivinhale can throw around Fireballs without worry. This entirely bypasses the Spirit Troll's invisibility, and also protects us from Flame Strike. We're still vulnerable to Holy Word, Unholy Blight, and to some extent Greater Command, but we manage to tough it out.
Eventually, though, I realize we're on the wrong track. I need to make the most of Ekayne's cleric spells before she loses them. And the most important place we have to use them is against the Shade Lord.
In Spell Revisions, both clerics and druids can cast Restoration, but only clerics can cast Negative Plane Protection, which in SR lasts 5 turns (like almost all SR buffs). That's the kind of immunity we need for our party when we take on the Shade Lord. We abandon the De'Arnise Hold for the time being and return to the Temple Ruins. After reorganizing our spellbooks to include enough NPP spells, Ivinhale turns the party invisible and we pay a visit to the Shadow Altar.
We're going to assail the Shade Lord with Fireballs, just like we did with the Trolls. But first we want to enter the area invisibly, so we have enough time to summon a couple of Fire Elementals to hold the fort. Horun Fallows, Ivinhale, and Varen hang back, while the rest of the party attacks Shadow Patrick and then the Shadow Altar. We're holding Horun Fallows back so he doesn't fire Acidic Backlashes on Varen and Ivinhale when they start throwing around Fireballs. The Shadow Altar takes an awful beating, but the Shade Lord also gets a little burnt.
After throwing out the second Fireball, the Shade Lord decides to put a stop to it. Ivinhale fails a save.
Considering how quick the spell came out, either the Shade Lord has a bonus to casting time, or it's just the reduced 5 casting speed of Finger of Death in SR.
Varen, however, stays protected with Death Ward, and she has enough time to send out one last Fireball. The Shadow Altar burns to the ground. The Shade Lord isn't looking too good, either.
Finally Horun Fallows enters the fray (somehow it never occurred to me to have him just unequip Sanchuudoku), while Varen retreats and turns invisible. Everyone else gathers around the Shade Lord.
Ekayne reaches level 11, gains her first 6th-level cleric spell, and promptly dual-classes. Since Ranger/Clerics in my install can use bladed weapons and pointy stuff, I give her pips in longswords and flails, since we're getting the Flail of Ages pretty soon and IR has a lot of nice longswords. Currently she's wielding the Dragonslayer.
Now Ekayne has horrible saves and can no longer cast Chaotic Commands, Remove Paralysis, Break Enchantment, or Magic Circle [A]gainst Evil. Now Kolem Tao will have to take on that role. But he won't be enough on his own. We won't be able to take on the same challenges that we used to, not for a long while at least. We report back to Minister Lloyd in Imnesvale for a quick couple of level ups for Ekayne, then return to the De'Arnise Hold to make some dog stew.
We get ambushed on the way by a pack of Trolls, including a Spirit Troll. Despite my attempt to keep Ekayne out of the way, she gets hit by Greater Command, and with a save vs. spell of 16, she has a guaranteed failed save, every round. She'll be asleep for the whole turn. We end up doing okay, since Kolem Tao makes his save and has Stoneskin to ensure he can cast Break Enchantment on Horun Fallows, who activates Enrage and gains immunity to any further disablers. Without buffs, we can't safely use Fireball, so we just have to whittle away at the Spirit Troll until it collapses.
Now we can make some dog stew, but I decide we're also perfectly equipped to take on a few more encounters. We clear the second level, including the golems, but stop short of entering the third level, with the improved Torgal in it and the large number of Umber Hulks that might just come in to aid the Spirit Trolls (never happened before, but I'm not confident it won't this time). Instead, we return to Trademeet (shout out) to take on the smaller groups of Trolls in the Druid Grove.
We'll probably skip Kyland Lind, since he's a pretty big challenge--in the past, I've relied on Web to disable him before attacking him, but I don't want to do that again--but we'll have to fight Dalok before we get Cernd to kill Faldorn, because Dalok, unlike Kyland Lind, vanishes after Faldorn is dead.
As planned, we snuck past Kyland Lind.
We also left the Troll Mound alone, since there are so many magical trolls in there. We'll go back for them later, when we're ready.
Dalok would have been a challenge, but something truly strange happened: the enemy got two Insect Plague spells off the ground, but both of them targeted Kitty, and Varen's Fireball spell turned Kitty hostile right before the spell hit. The insects got confused and attacked Dalok and his buddies. And Horun Fallows contributed his own Insect Plague just seconds later.
Lots of spell failure, but none of it on us.
We killed the djinn without much trouble--they never targeted any of us with Flesh to Stone--and also completed the Trademeet tomb quest and killed Rejiek Hidesman. We now only have two divine spellcasters, and both Maeruo and Ekayne have terrible, terrible saves, but after reviewing the spell file for a thief's trap at level 11 (Ivinhale is at 13), I decide we're ready to complete the De'Arnise Hold quest.
We cleared up the Spirit Trolls in the "cellars," torched the Umber Hulks after feeding them days-old dog stew, and finally arrived at TorGal's doorstep.
We spent ages trying to lay traps in the Umber Hulk room. Ivinhale repeatedly failed. In the first three rests, she failed 11 out of 12 times, with a Set Traps of 30. The odds of that happening are about 2% (0.7^11=0.019). The scribing failure rate is also higher than it should be. Seriously, BG2 fails badly at probability.
Eventually, we got seven traps on the ground. Ivinhale turned invisible, lured TorGal into the room, and pounced on him after he triggered the traps. He died pretty quick.
Since TorGal went down so easy, I decide we're ready to take on TorGal's buddies. Without resting or setting new traps, we being preparing for the battle.
Scintilla postponed her death, that Blackraven expected Shattered Irenicus would bring her, by doing the Planar Prison quest first. It went without any incident even though a Master of Thralls would retreat toward the Warden before Scintilla could slay it.
I planned a break from BG, but thanks to many interesting playthroughs on these forums and the Bioware forums, I'm still eager to try again. I would go back to my roots though, with a Thief. Bounty Hunter, my favorite kit, would be the obvious choice, but I'm inclined to give the Assassin another try. Either I re-roll Eydan, preferably with better stats (male Elf bow/swordsman that made it into Amn once, with 'The Nameless One' voiceset and one of my favorite portraits), or I go for a dart-throwing Halfling lass that's not be messed with. In any case Item Randomizer will be re-installed
The Yuan-ti Mages in this battle are a critical factor. They come in with lots of high-level defenses, and like all members of the Coiled Cabal, they use a lot of irritating disablers. And we've got multiple Spirit Trolls in this fight, too, so the air is already going to be filled with area-effect disablers that Maeruo and Ekayne are going to fail their saves against.
We can't breach the mages' defenses, not with only one full-time mage on our side (Ivinhale, with her 18 INT to Varen's 19 INT, hasn't been learning many new spells, including debuffers). But we can wait them out. To do that, we cast Farsight and start sending in summons. First the little ones, the bats and the leopards, and then the big ones: the Lesser Air Elemental from Ivinhale, the Lesser Earth Elemental from Ekayne's Ring of Earth Control, and a Fire Elemental from Horun.
They don't last long, so we have to engage the enemy ourselves. We hurry forward, bunching up around the doorway, and then retreat to draw the enemies over to us. We've got a suite of buffs on everyone, including SR regeneration spells (druids have many such spells in SR, instead of the clerics' Cure Adjective Wounds) and a Chaotic Commands spell on Kolem Tao--who I forgot is wearing the Dragon Helm, which in IR already grants immunity to sleep effects like Greater Command.
I also forget to have Horun Fallows activate Enrage. He fails a save against Greater Command, as does Ekayne. Kolem Tao revives Horun with Break Enchantment, only for another Greater Command spell to knock Horun out again.
We muddle along for a little while longer, and eventually I realize things aren't going in our favor. Horun Fallows--the best damage dealer in the party, and a stellar tank on top of that--is unconscious, and he can't activate Enrage. This means he's equally vulnerable to all other disablers as well. He fails a save against both Chaos and the Umber Hulk Elder's confusion ability.
I am reminded of a quote from the Japanese emperor when announcing Japan's surrender to the US. He said the war "has not gone in Japan's favor," one of the greatest understatements in history.
Look.
Despite drinking a Potion of Rage, which I thought would give Berserker-style immunities (it disables your spellcasting and prevents you from using items or even potions; I'd have thought it at least gave you some immunities), Maeruo has fallen unconscious, and he and Ekayne are both in very bad shape. More importantly, Horun Fallows himself is nearly dead, though the many icons on his portrait hide the damage, as well as his beautiful face (he's the second in the group, right behind Kolem Tao).
Meanwhile, Ivinhale and Kolem Tao have both run out of Stoneskins, and the Spirit Trolls have breached our chokepoint. Half our party is disabled, two have lost their Stoneskins, and only one of our summons remains. All we've managed to do so far is kill the Umber Hulk Elder, courtesy of Ivinhale's Flame Arrow spells, but the big threat in this battle, besides the disablers, are the incessant Unholy Blight and Flame Strike spells that Spirit Trolls can cast endlessly. Horun Fallows is almost dead from spell damage--his Stoneskins are still perfectly intact!
Ivinhale uses Detect Illusions to reveal the Spirit Trolls, and traps one of them in a Resilient Sphere. It's a huge difference in the battle, but it's not enough. And the situation is only getting worse.
We hit the no-reloader's worst nightmare. Varen, our Charname, on whom the entire run depends, gets hit by a level 7 spell. Unfortunately, that spell is not Finger of Death.
FoD would have been much better, as Varen has a Death Ward active. But she doesn't have Chaotic Commands, because we just don't have enough 5th-level cleric spells to go around. Druids in Spell Revisions can't cast Chaotic Commands, so Kolem Tao is the only one in the party who can. This time, Varen's magic resistance is not enough.
But I have just the solution. Remember that Ivinhale is out of Stoneskins? That's because she only has one memorized. Why is that? Because I wanted her to have an extra Resilient Sphere spell.
She traps Varen in a new sphere. Varen will be out of commission for much longer, since the duration of Resilient Sphere is much longer than PW: Stun, but at least we know she'll be safe.
The rest of the party, however, is still struggling. Horun Fallows, Ekayne, and Maeruo keep failing their saves against Greater Command. They can save each round to wake up, but the save is at -4, and the Spirit Trolls keep recasting the spell.
Horun Fallows doesn't wake up in time. A Spirit Troll kills him with a spell. Horun really has no luck in this game.
By now, my hopes of winning the battle are gone. I have made no progress since the death of the Umber Hulk Elder. We still have multiple enemies spamming disablers and Holy Smite spells, and I wasn't able to disrupt any spells with Acid Arrows or the Crimson Dart or Sunfire Bullets, all of which deal damage through the Yuan-ti's Stoneskin. The only upside is that Maeruo has woken up, but he's no use, being half dead, still crippled by low-level fighter saving throws, blinded by Holy Smite, and having no real offensive power. So what's the plan?
Actually, the plan is for half the party to die. That's been the plan ever since Horun got hit by Chaos. Ekayne is simply not waking up, and I can't flee the area while she's asleep. I can, however, flee the area when they're dead, and grab their equipment and stuff it in the Bag of Holding (Ribald in Item Revisions sells one for a pittance) so I don't lose any valuable goodies on the way out. But Ekayne simply refuses to die, and killing them myself would draw attention away from the enemy. I still have a chance of bumping off a Spirit Troll with some lucky rolls, so I've avoided spending time on killing Ekayne, Maeruo, or Horun Fallows.
Then things get worse. One of the Spirit Trolls casts Unholy Word.
Kolem Tao, who has been holding the fort for quite some time, is now slowed and deafened, with 50% spell failure, as if he had any useful spells left. He's got a Break Enchantment spell or two left, but the only person who's still disabled is Ekayne, and she is doomed. For a moment I think Varen is going to have to pick all her dead friends' equipment herself, once Resilient Sphere wears off. But something odd has happened.
Varen's Resilient Sphere is not working properly. She is no longer disabled by either PW: Stun or the Resilient Sphere itself. I can select her now! And she has all the resistances of Resilient Sphere, still intact.
Now we're in business. Maeruo is clinging to life, and as grim as it may sound, he is more useful as bait than anything else. He tosses all of his equipment to his friends (as a Shapeshifter, he has no armor to take off, conveniently enough), keeping only a single potion to help him survive a little longer, and runs into TorGal's room, though the Sphere of Chaos spells. This draws the attention of the Yuan-ti, easing the pressure on the rest of the party.
This is why Horun loves Maeruo. He's a truly selfless person.
I go through Varen's spells and find a good one. She can finish off Ekayne with a Sunfire spell, and can cast it with a speed factor of zero by trading amulets with Ivinhale (IR Amulet of Metaspell Influence gives +1 to casting time, but no spell slots). The spell also kills one of the Trolls.
Kolem Tao picks up Ekayne's equipment while Varen casts Dispelling Screen, hoping to get 100 MR from stacking the effects (I forgot that she already had 100 MR thanks to Resilient Sphere). With Ekayne and Horun dead, and Maeruo at about 1 HP, we can now flee the area.
But Varen can't move.
She's boxed in by the Spirit Trolls! But this is exactly the sort of thing I've been anticipating. She escapes.
Yeah! We're out of the Spirit Troll's grasp!
What a shame Varen still can't move. Resilient Sphere is still active, and her movement rate is set to zero.
I drink a Potion of Memory (the IR replacement for the Potion of Insight, because @Demivrgvs doesn't like items that set stuff to 18) to recover the Dimension Door spell, in case she gets boxed in again before she can escape. The potion has no effect, maybe because IR potions work using spells, and the spell got blocked by Resilient Sphere's spell level immunities. Ivinhale runs over to toss Varen a new potion, and Varen turns invisible with another potion, but otherwise I don't have many ideas. If she gets boxed in when the Resilient Sphere runs out, then it'll take two rounds to drink the Potion of Memory and then teleport out. I don't know how many Stoneskins she has left, but as a level 11 caster she's got at most 5, and I don't think Spirit Trolls would have trouble cutting through that in a round or two. Varen is invisible, but Spirit Trolls can see through it; I only drank the Potion of Invisibility to mess with the Coiled Cabal.
We have no summons left. We have a scroll of Simulacrum, but we've already lost so many limited resources in this fight: Kolem Tao already drank a Potion of Magic Shielding (!) and a Potion of Stone Form (which gives 5 Stoneskins for 5 turns in IR) to keep himself afloat, plus three Oils of Speed, to haste him, to counter the slow effect of Unholy Word, and when that didn't work, to haste himself after the slow wore off. We could try our scroll of Protection from Magic, too, but we don't have a good single target for that.
Finally Resilient Sphere wears off, and Varen can move again. And thanks to Kolem Tao's distracting the Spirit Trolls--mostly just by walking over to them, actually--Varen is no longer blocked in. The way is clear!
But the Spirit Troll follows us up the stairs, and casts Greater Command the instant we get through.
Mercifully, we make our saves. But it's not over. There are more Trolls ahead of us.
Oils of Speed help us squeeze past them in the narrow hallway. But there are still more of them. This one is a Spirit Troll--my least favorite troll ever.
It doesn't deal too much damage, and we manage to get past it.
But that's still not the end of them. One last Troll starts chasing us.
I consider fleeing the area entirely, for fear that all of the previous Trolls would catch up to us and attack all at once, but decide to wait a bit beforehand.
When nobody comes after us, we run out to check on the Troll--it's alone--and lead it further from the keep. We tear it to pieces, raise Horun and Ekayne with the Rod of Resurrection, and rest.
No Trolls ambush us. We resurrect Maeruo, too, and double-check that everyone has all their equipment. All we're missing is an old spear and Horun Fallows' helmet. No important gear remains in the keep, except for the flail.
Just in case there are still any Trolls around, we send Maeruo alone, without any items, invisible, over to forge the Flail of Ages. He comes back unscathed, and we report our success to Nalia.
We lost a Potion of Magic Shielding and many others, but we got out of the place alive. The Resilient Sphere glitch helped, but it also hindered our escape by allowing Varen to waste a Dimension Door spell--her only means of escaping if she was boxed in. Had she ended up the only surviving party member, she might have been able to grab everybody's stuff and teleport past the enemies, but a failed save against Greater Command could have doomed her. Who knows?
I'm still not sure why the Hold III effect wore off early. Speaking of which... @Demivrgvs, the Barbarian Enrage spell in SR still appears to give immunity to Hold III, which could allow a Barbarian and a mage to create a truly indestructible tank, for 10 rounds per 4th-level spell slot.
Next up is probably the Planar Sphere. Maybe I'll have Varen drink a Potion of Evasion for Kayardi, to make sure she doesn't get iced by a Bone Fiend like Poppy did.
Poor Varen. This adventure has been awfully hard on her. Horun, too.
Resilient Sphere - I looked into it immediately and find the possible issue. Free Action (or Potion of Freedom) and Undead Hunter use immunty to Hold Creature 2 (185). While I understand the former (FA should be usable on an undead to stop Halt Undead) I have no idea right now why the paladin kit might need it. Anyway, I can fix FA within SR (replace opcode immunity with specific immunity to Halt Undead spell) and the paladin within KR. Can you confirm me your issue could be caused by one of these?
Barbarian Rage - SR does not touch kit abilities unless strictly necessary (e.g. Avenger and Stalker copied spells), but Kit Revisions Berserker Rage does not grant immunity to hold2, and KR's Barbarian Rage doesn't grant any mind shielding effect.
Potions - I don't necessarily have problems with potions setting Stats to X (unlike permanent items - I hate them because they make the base defining stat of a character completely irrelevant). Potions of Giant Strength are still there, I simply thought Potion of Memory and Vocalize could have a much more broader usefulness than Insight and Genius.
Free Action isn't related to this issue. Varen didn't have Free Action active. The reason she could move around is because the Hold III effect in Resilient Sphere is tagged as not bypassing magic resistance, unlike all the other effects. She never got held, which means she could move once the stun effect wore off.
We pay a visit to Mencar Pebblecrusher, whom I usually fight after Gaius et al due to forgetfulness on my part. Normally Mencar and his gang should come first, as they are the weaker of the two.
Brennan Risling nearly kills Mae-mae, who has to drink a Potion of Invisibility to stay alive.
My first instinct was to drink a Potion of Extra Healing, but Brennan Risling might have turned invisible and backstabbed again, and 30 extra HP from a potion wouldn't have guaranteed Maeruo wouldn't get chunked. A Potion of Invisibility, however, would.
The game crashed for some reason and I had to start over. Out of impatience, I had Varen cast Fireburst (I actually prefer the vanilla name, Sunfire) to blast Sorcerous Amon of the Purple Brotherhood and Pooky.
I normally don't do that, since it comes out before enemy buffs do, and therefore might bypass a Fire Shield or Protection from Fire, which would be unfair, but I wanted to hurry things up.
We're starting to run low on quests, and we still need lots of XP for Ekayne and Maeruo. I decide to go ahead and complete the Mae'Var questline, even though the last part is an awful bloodbath with tons of backstabbing thieves all over the place. I solve the problem of backstabbing by starting to cast summoning spells right after I get through the door, and then have Ivinhale cast Invisibility Sphere. This allows me to call in some summons while maintaining invisibility, ensuring the summons get all of the attention. We just watch.
I am really, really loving Invisibility Sphere.
I don't remember the last time I've fought Tactics Mae'Var. Which is probably why this caught me off-guard.
I don't like it when mods cut off the exits just for difficulty's sake. I know some people use exits to screw around with enemy AI, but this also prevents me from fleeing in case things go wrong, and we've already come across one encounter where we got overwhelmed and had to run away.
Luckily for us, Mae'Var is an idiot and has no good spell protections active. We hit him with Flame Arrows and finish him off with a melee rush.
From there, we report to Renal Bloodscalp for 10,500 gold and 45,500 XP, bumping Varen up to mage level 12. She's got her Bounty Hunter levels back! On top of that, she gets a single 6th-level spell.
With traps in hand, we're equipped to take down some Statues. Just the first battle, for now--we're still not prepared to fight all of them. We line up some Special Snares along the hall, stay out of sight and let our summons absorb the fighter Statues' Whirlwind Attacks, and then retreat as the clerics pursue us (our invisibility doesn't stop them).
The clerics' Physical Mirror spells reflect the projectiles from Varen's snares, so the Statues aren't affected at all. But one of them got damaged by our summons earlier, and has to spend some time healing. The other one gets hit by Breached and surrounded.
The other one runs in to help out, just as its Blade Barrier expires, and its spellcasting is quickly shut down.
The fighter Statues no longer pose a major threat, not without their friends to distract us. Just for fun, I try backstabbing with a crossbow. It's pretty effective.
In my install, all weapons, even ranged weapons, can be used to backstab, but many of them have penalties. Light crossbows and darts only have -1 penalty, however, and since Varen invested heavily in stealth before dualing, she can excel at hit-and-fade tactics, though her base damage is still poor due to lacking proficiencies.
Notice she has a Light Crossbow +3 with Bolts +3. Both are generated by the SR Enchanted Weapon spell, which lets you create any +3 weapon, except for darts (@Demivrgvs, oversight?). Now that I have better weapons for Ekayne, Horun Fallows, and Maeruo, the only weapon the rest of the party needs is a Club +3 for Kolem Tao. Since the weapons all last 24 hours, you can have three of them active at any time if you keep Enchanted Weapon memorized and remember to re-cast it. But I actually cheat in the weapons, for convenience's sake.
Next up, the Planar Sphere.
I was very worried about Kayardi's Bone Fiends, since they ended Poppy's run not long ago. To make sure we're prepared--or at least, that Varen is safe--Horun Fallows casts Protection from Cold on Varen. This will keep off the Bone Fiends' Cone of Cold spells.
To be especially safe, we bombard the halflings with summons. The bats don't do so well.
They can hold back Cookies in their sleep, but they can't handle a party of extraplanar halfling psionics? Anyway, the Bone Fiends don't prove too problematic. Varen's snares do a lot to weaken them, though only one of them dies quickly (Kayardi summons two). We drink a fair amount of potions to deal with the cold damage, but the other halflings have already dropped lots of healing potions already, and we've got about 60 Potions of Extra Healing altogether.
Mogadish and Kayardi are well-defended, but I notice they have no immunity to fire. I use Sunfire again, but it doesn't bring them down.
I don't have a second Sunfire memorized, unfortunately, so Kayardi and Mogadish will remain. But then, Kayardi wanders into a Special Snare, and gets paralyzed.
Mogadish frees him immediately afterward, but the moment vulnerability allows us to tear through Kayardi's Stoneskins, and Mogadish doesn't last long after that.
I also harassed Taibela and Necre with summons, only confronting them after they had expended some of their disablers on our many animal buddies. It was kind of overkill, really, but I'm not big on going easy on enemies in no-reload runs.
Our second big challenge comes up. We need to take down Lavok, and though he doesn't have HLAs in my install (I still think a centuries-old necromancer should get HLAs, but I'm not willing to go through the trouble to tweak my install for one fight, and I'm even less willing to fight a Fallen Planetar at this level), he still has 9th-level spells. I set up a line of traps, which take him down to Badly Injured before his protections all go up. Horun Fallows guides our summons, pitching in with darts to bypass Lavok's PFMW.
Naturally, he's not quick enough to stop the Time Stop. He's not a Wizard Slayer, and that's basically the only way to stop spells during PFMW in Item Reivisons, since Firetooth can no longer deal fire damage through PFMW, and APR in IR is hard to get, since Haste is now single-target and Improved Haste only adds one attack. It's hard to break down 10 Stoneskins in 6 seconds without lots of fighter levels across the party.
Lavok has his priorities in order: Horrid Wilting, followed by Sphere of Chaos and another PFMW.
Horun gets hit by at least two Horrid Wilting spells, but holds on to life thanks to potions. Meanwhile, a steady supply of summons from the south soaks up Lavok's spells.
Horun gets paralyzed by a Sphere of Chaos spell after his Enrage wears off, but by then, we've worn through his Stoneskins, and as he descends the stairs, he triggers some more of Varen's traps.
I am reminded of a line from the description of the Skin of the Ghoul +2: "Not very epic perhaps, but practical."
The fight with Tolgerias starts out marvelously. A Special Snare thrown from afar paralyzes the mage, and since Tolgerias, unlike the mage, starts out as neutral, we can enter the room while invisible and guide our summons to attack the mage while she's helpless, and Tolgerias will do nothing to intervene.
But to my surprise, the mage breaks out of the hold effect a round later, and exposes the whole party with an Oracle spell. Tolgerias turns hostile.
Tolgerias hits us with a Horrid Wilting spell via a Chain Contingency, interrupting an Enrage spell from Horun Fallows. And without his Enrage, Horun gets Mazed by the Shadow Door Tolgerias casts during Time Stop. I thought Enrage was tagged as uninterruptable. Apparently not.
Maeruo tries to trigger a feedback loop with the other mage, having equipped the Ring of Fire Resistance and drinking a Potion of Fire Resistance to get immunity to the mage's Fire Shield, but he keeps failing, and I'm not sure why. Meanwhile, the rest of the party struggles to break through Tolgerias' Stoneskins. Finally, we get in a hit.
But he turns invisible, and we're better off trying to finish off the other mage. She proves easier to kill.
Tolgerias has run out of spells by the time we kill his friend. He just stands there while our summons break through his last Stoneskin spell, and chunk him.
It was a strange battle. It took forever, and yet, in retrospect, we were never in any real danger. Tolgerias only ever cast debuffing spells on us. We almost never took damage. I only saw two damage spells, Horrid Wilting and some single-target spell on Maeruo, and a great deal of the damage we suffered came from our Efreeti's Fireball spell.
Speaking of Efreet, right after the battle, Horun Fallows got himself killed on an enemy Efreeti's Fire Shield, stuck in a feedback loop. He just can't win!
The only remaining threat is the Tanar'ri. I line up a bunch of traps, but since I know the demon comes with lots of Mephits alongside it, who would absorb the damage from the traps before the Tanar'ri got hit, I send in a bunch of summons to help clear up the Mephits.
The disappointing thing is, the traps never did any damage to the Tanar'ri. The demon died because of our summons and some Acidic Backlashes from when the demon hit Horun Fallows with offensive spells.
We left the area with a new Ring of Acuity, which in Item Revisions grants an extra 5th, 6th, and 7th-level spell, like a Ring of Wizardry in vanilla. We're still a long way off from regaining Ekayne's and Maeruo's cleric and druid levels, but that's what you get for dualing at high levels.
Next up is probably the Unseeing Eye quest. I think I will just kill the Beholders with summons while invisible, but the Unseeing Eye could be more problematic.
It's a pity! Thanks for sharing another attempt that just shows the size of a task everyone is facing here.
A nice surprise that you've decided to continue. If we think about it several times, then a thief is exactly a character people would expect you to beat the game with, taking into account your interest in rogues.
After completing a no-reload BG1 run, I'm gonna continue with BG2.
Since I NEVER played the game, are there any suggestions you might give me? Free of spoilers please :-)
Like something I should particularly pay attention to, some general rules to successfully complete a no-reload run..
In the search of XP, Hachiman explored different areas where he dealt with Greywolf:
... with another assassin, this time a dwarven one:
... with the Doomsayer:
... with Billy and his pals:
... with the Polar bear:
Thus Hachiman finally reached the 7th level and got a much awaited additional 1/2 APR
Here's Hachiman's inventory before going deep to the Nashkel Mines:
The Helm of Glory was found on the "Greatest dart-thrower ever known". All the scrolls and arrows were bought with the money Hachiman gathered while exploring the areas:
On the 3rd level of the Mines Hachiman met another group of merceneries, and quicly retreated so that only their leader followed the warrior. The battle ended in Hachiman's favour. The assassin and his friends carried interesting items.
I've made a rule of not using the extra staff from the mod which I find OP.
Hachiman didn't have any troubles in dealing with kobolds in the Mines because his throwing daggers usually one-shotted any of them. And when the Kobold Shaman casted Horror on Hachiman, the wizard slayer took the Cursed Sword. Then he had to retreat to the temple in order to take the curse off.
When dealing with Mulahey, Hachiman decided to minimize all the risks and as soon as kobolds and skeletons appeardd Hachiman retreated to the previous area. He used this tactics several times - as soon as Mulahey started casting what would seems like a Hold spell, Hachiman quickly retreated. Then Mulahey was dead.
As you see, the Item randomizer mod gave a very nice surprise here: getting the Boots of Speed at that stage, especially with this character, is marvellous!
Hachiman killed Nimbul with poisonous bolts. The Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy (THACO +5) makes the fact that Hachiman doesn't have any proficiencies in crossbows insignificant. I plan to put the next 2 pips (at the 9th and the 12th levels) into crossbows so that Hachiman's first shot (with poisonous bolts that go through Stoneskin and Mirror Image) in every mage battle will have a better chance to hit.
The rest in the inn brought another Cure Wounds ability. With Tranzig, Hachiman again chose not to take any risks and went to the first floor as soon as the wizard started casting anything.
All the money available was spent on buying 20 arrows of detonation, 10 arrows of dispelling and 4 arrows of slaying (an ogre-mage).
Now, Hachiman was ready to go to the Bandit's Camp.
Nobody could give you a better advice than experienced players. First of all, it would be great to listen to your set-up: are you soloing or going with a party / what is your character's class/kit?
If we're talking about general tips to ptevent reloading in BG2, then I'd mention:
- resting a lot so that you always have spells and abilities available;
- scouting ahead so that you always see enemies first and know where they're;
- skipping difficult enemies before you're feeling ready: don't fight vampires just as you start BG2, don't fight beholders/liches/other powerful creatures in the beginning - if you detect a powerful creature, go away and come back later;
- use buffing spells to the max: mages have Stoneskin and Mirror Shield, as well as Minor Globe of Invulnerability, later Spell Immunities and Spell Turnings; clerics and druids have Chaotic Commands, Death Wards, later Shield of Archons;
- use crowd-control spells: Greater Malison+Chaos, Greater Malison+Slow;
- if you're going with a party, take at least 2 arcane casters and at least 1 divine caster with you.