He's throwing normal darts most of the time, occasionally switching to Aule's staff +3. Shar Teel is in slot 2. She's using Varscona +2 / Harrower +1/3 undead longswords. Monty is in slot 3. Sling +1 and normal bullets. Short sword +1 as required. Viconia takes slot 4. Sling of Unerring Accuracy and normal bullets. Non-proficient with Ashideena. Xzar is in slot 5. Throwing daggers. Held on to the revenant's Dagger of the Golem. Eldoth is at the back. Dead Shot +2 longbow, normal arrows. Rashad's Talon +2.
Since last time, a wyvern cave was cleared and Cloakwood Mines has been flooded. The city Tomes have been retrieved as has the one from Durlags Tower. Scar's quests have been done and Blaggerd is considering picking up a few items before sorting out the Iron Throne.
Monty has 100% in locks but 60% traps and lots of xp to the next level so that will have to be worked around by swapping gauntlets and checking the potion case.
Blaggerd and Shar Teel both have Boots of Speed (courtesy of Drasus and Lothander). Eldoth is hoarding poisoned arrows, Blaggerd trying not to visit the NE section to avoid Skie.
Edit: Booting Eldoth without allowing him to talk sort of worked. After a visit the NW section (pick up Helm of Balduran and scrolls from Degrodel plus return Nestor's dagger to Quinn) Eldoth left the party anyway but stood idle and could be recruited again. Not planning to visit the area again so hopefully he won't throw a hissy fit.
@Wise_Grimwald Congrats on your run! What's next? @Grond0 Sorry to see another debacle at the Palace... @semiticgod Yeah for sure hoarding is dangerous in no-reload context...
I was half playing and half watching the Davis Cup - and not doing either very well. As a result I wandered into range of a hobgoblin elite when at level 7 and was poisoned - resulting in having to run away off the edge of the map while badly wounded. When ambushed I then failed to react quickly enough - there was a possibility of taking an invisibility potion, but by the time I was ready to do that the fatal arrow had already been launched.
Wild mage {6} (1st and final update)
I'm about to go away for a week, but thought I'd have time for one last go at BGEE first. I got away with a wild surge when getting a familiar and trundled on through to Candlekeep (where I didn't die from using the violet potion). At the palace I this time watched Belt fighting and he didn't seem to have been hit very often, but I wasn't recording the HPs taken from the text screen so he could have taken some hefty criticals (the game wasn't showing his status so I couldn't tell directly how injured he was). Thinking he was going to win I didn't take any action even against the last doppleganger - and once more Belt failed to complete his duty.
It seems therefore that the tests I did of this fight may have given an over-optimistic picture about the chances of success. Next time I'll track his actual HPs and be ready with improved invisibility if he starts getting low and try and finish off remaining enemies with a scorcher.
A MP session was squeezed in a couple of days ago. I seem to have managed to delete all the screenshots from that, but my summary notes tell me that: - we ran through the Cloakwood. - a stinking cloud helped pacify Drasus and his companions. - Toriac took a potion of magic blocking when hunting down Davaeorn. - in the City the poison quest allowed us to pick up a second pair of boots of speed (Lothander both surrounded by monsters and greased). - Ramazith and Degrodel provided equipment upgrades. - at the Iron Throne Ozzy intended to use a scroll of protection from magic on Toriac, but forgot that is now caster only in BGEE. Instead he borrowed Toriac's armour and tanked while Toriac supported with arrow fire. - at Candlekeep the tombs were knocked open. Ozzy accidentally got too close to Prat though and was confused as a result. Toriac did well there to intervene and direct attacks on to himself. He was helped in that by Prat using improved invisibility and going off to hide, but that then proved fatal for Toriac when he tried to track him down (doing so in a web trap, next to phase spiders). - back in the City, Toriac was raised and re-equipped (apart from a helmet, which he decided he didn't need anyway). - at the palace the fight was opened by putting improved invisibility on Belt. Both Ozzy and Toriac then shot dispelling arrows to slow down all the dopplegangers before chopping them down. There was a bit of a glitch when MP confusion about placement of characters meant Belt talking to them before getting out of sight of Sarevok, but he survived anyway. - with time running short there was a messy battle in the Undercity, but we survived. In the temple there were no more mistakes with Sarevok being pulled out with a dispelling arrow. Semaj teleported out to join him into a group of monsters and died very quickly, leaving Sarevok no chance against further monster summons (screenshot is from the Final Save).
They finished the prologue with no real problems other than the fact that she was unable to put the staff back together.
Not sure what was wrong, but no real problem. It was not plot-critical.
I think I know the one ... just put the two bits back in the grave
That's what the walkthrough said. I did that and nothing happened. No big deal. If I remember rightly it wasn't that powerful anyway. I have two staffs +3 plus Neera's staff in my inventory.
More of a loss is the gold. I shouldn't have sold so much of my equipment. Fortunately I have more to sell, and I did stock up on fire arrows and as many as I could get against ogre-mages.
I probably should have got arrows of dispelling too. Didn't think of that.
Another loss is Xan. not only his spellcasting ability, but he is Seluna's lover. At least the game warned me of his imminent departure BEFORE Dragonspear.
It would be good if the people who wrote Xan's romance and friendship mods could write some Dragonspear content though as yet I don't know whether Dragonspear is worth modding. Some of the reviews are quite critical. I'm going to wait and see before judging. It doesn't bother me that they have re-used areas from other games. A lot of mods do that.
@Grond0 Have you thought of casting buffing spells and/or summoning spells upstairs before the fight and then luring some of the doppelgangers upstairs. Wild surges won't be so much of a problem up there as you won't turn anyone against you if you cast a fireball, and you would have time to use healing potions if your character gets injured.
Seluna has started to investigate the area called : and started the quest of the dwarves of Dumathoin. Whilst the following guide here is good, it is not at all comprehensive. http://guides.gamepressure.com/baldursgatesiegeofdragonspear/guide.asp?ID=35280 Seluna didn't stop until every door and chest had been opened. Because of boots from BG1EE she was able to kill the lich with relative ease. If I had started the game without doing BG1 first it would probably have been quite difficult. This gave her more understanding, more weaponry, more treasure and much more experience.
Yes I did. and I told him afterwards that he is a credit to his race. I don't know if I will meet any more liches, but if I do, I have 3 uses of that weakening vial left.:)
EDIT
The walkthrough in the above link only mentions two methods of getting the halfling shield. I used a third method, pickpocket. Nikita used a potion of master thievery to raise her pick-pocket skill to 100 first.
The Adventures of Kythran: Part 8 - Venture into the Nashkel Mines.
Kythran went deep into the Nashkel Mines and defeated a Half-Orc named Mulahey. It wasn't easy, as Mulahey summoned some skeletons and Kobolds. He also cast some hold spells, and eventually killed Minsc, and nearly killed Jaheira. But if it wasn't for Dynaheir casting Magic Missile, then Jaheira surely would be dead.
Then, Kythran returned to Nashkel. Another assassin named Nimbul was waiting for him there. Dynaheir cast an armor spell, but Imoen used her last charges of her Wand of Magic Missile, and he was defeated.
Lastly, Kythran returned to Beregost. He spoke to Elminster and Officer Vai. And his task was now clear. It was going after Bandits.
Edit: For some reason I thought that Officer Vai's name was Jai. Har.
Cavan saved the dukes from assassination, using every tool at his disposal to thwart the dopplegangers and Sarevok. Maximum summons. Maximum buffing. Dispelling enemy haste. Having Quayle cast malison from a scroll, followed up by darts of stunning, wands of fear, slow from scroll, true sight, more darts of stunning, and then a few swipes with a magical sword that hates dopplegangers...
Heading into the Undercity for my first time in a no-reload run.
Cavan stopped Sarevok's plans for ascension... It wasn't very glorious, but it was effective. The undercity party got the exploding arrow treatment. In the temple, the strategy was to establish movement rate advantage and then pepper the enemies with poison arrows. We drew out Sarevok's acolytes with buffed and hasted skelly fodder. Cavan used a dispel magic on Sarevok to get rid of his haste, then buffed with a pro-magic scroll. Meanwhile, the rest of the team used invisibility potions and hid in the corners.
After that, it was just a matter of getting rid of Diarmid (since his poison arrows hurt), then Tazok, then drawing out the mages with true sight and invisibility purge, followed by darts of stunning. It took a long time, but the enemy never really had any hope.
That's the first time I've ever won a no-reload campaign! SCS and item randomizer make it harder for sure... but much more so early in the campaign rather than the endgame. When I'm struggling to find items, gain levels, and earn enough cash to buy critical gear, that's when I usually fail. Item randomizer forces you to face Davaeorn before getting access to lots of helpful goodies... Many of my runs have ended there. It'll be interesting to try this again with a different shuffle of the cards.
Anyway, I'm thinking that Cavan should go to Siege of Dragonspear next... onsight no-reload. I've never played it before.
OK, this is going to be interesting. Cavan lost a lot of items in the fight with Sarevok. (Switching to SOD got rid of all the items modded by Thalantyr, my bag of holding, my scroll case, my ammo belt and my potion case... and I spent most of my gold on goodies before going to see Sarevok. There will be no replacing this stuff.)
So the team is going to have to improvise...
A few house rules I'm applying: * No reload (because of course) * No scouting ahead. That means no walkthroughs, and it means no switching to minimal-reload format. If I die, I must re-roll a randomized character and start again in Candlekeep. * I can use any and all NPCs and items and whatnot I encounter during the campaign. * Core rules, no mods
Fellow No-Reloaders, hello. Good to see nearly all Bioware people here. Anybody from old forums remember this little girl?
She pulled it through. I did need to reload once since the game crashed half-way through Ascension (and my archer was chunked at the time). So it can't really apply for a No-Reload success, even if I feel the trio left would finish it. However, chances of something going wrong is pretty high there so I can't vouch for that. Anyhow, if somebody is interested in how Ascension plays on SCS(full prebuff, extra HP for Demons) + aTweaks (gating + SCS hitpoints) - enjoy.
Hey peeps! Long time no see. So much going on here. And nice to see that my dear Bioware no-reloader friends have found their way to these forums.
I haven't played much this year, and I don't expect to produce dozens of Charnames per year, as I used to, but with the release of SoD another playthrough was always on the horizon. I actually had a SCS LoB run with Melody, my Halfling Shadowdancer, whom I posted about some months ago. But she fell last week in the caves below Candlekeep when I was too fascinated by Yeslick's battle against a Phase Spider to see Melody fail a stealth check and die from (probably) another Phase Spider. A typical Blackraven move. I still have Bardin, Gnome Cleric/Thief who's only three big hurdles away from success (Sendai, Abazigal and Melissan), but when I played around a bit again in Watcher's Keep I was not feeling in control on the demons level. I think I'm too forgetful to know how to properly handle him.
So I decided to go back to Candlekeep. I have a LoB solo Fighter/Thief who's had a pretty good start, but playing her I found I wanted something different from my usual rogues. I got interested in shapeshifting and opted for a core difficulty run rather than a LoB run where solo meleeing seems pretty suicidal in BG1. Mods are SCS (everything) and some minor tweaks (Free Action protects against Stun). Had difficulty deciding what class to pick: I've rolled Shapeshifter (single class), Shapeshifter/Fighter (dual at 13), Avenger (great early on, probably less so in BG2), Figher/Druid (mainly for Elemental forms and GWW + Hardiness play), or a wizard type (for Polymorph Self and Shapechange), and considered a custom party but expected to get bored without banter. The Fighter/Druid got herself killed in an ambush by an Ogre Mage, the Shapeshifter (single class) has been exploring Beregost and vicinity. The others are still in Candlekeep. But it's
Owanna TN Gnome Cleric/Illusionist (BG1)
who inspired me to post again. I'm a bit late to post though, as she's already completed BG1 without much trouble. Early on there was no way for her to take different forms, so she cautiously accumulated XP, reputation points, and useful items, starting on the Coast Way and slowly into the wilderness. She got rid of Tarnesh using Silence, and Blinded other dangerous foes like Melicamp's wolf and skeleton, and Greywolf (who wandered way too much to Owanna's liking, alerting Kobolds in the area). With her bunny successfully hiding from Flesh Golems and disarming snares in Alaric's cave, Owanna managed to get her hands on Relair's Mistake. Since I purposely gave her suboptimal physical stats, the cloak was a welcome item. As I would discover later, the Wolf-form as per the cloak was better for Owanna than the Polymorph Self version. It sets STR to 18 and DEX to 17, while the spell version sets STR to 15 and DEX to 18. Both give 2 APR. The cloak enabled Owanna to carry bodies and other heavy baggage, such as Brun's son (under Sanctuary) and Samuel. At lower levels, the Gnome's buffs were few and short-lived, so rather than a buffing and transforming routine she chose to disable and transform to finish off her foes. Obvious disabling spells were Sleep, Silence and Hold Person, as Meilum would find out for example.
Mutamin's and Durlag's Basilisks gave Owanna a huge XP boost, and enough confidence to pursue the main plot quests. Mulahey was Silenced and finished off with the help of wand-summoned monsters. Nimbul and Tranzig were disabled and done in in wolf form.
Bassilus was Silenced, Blinded and left to some wand-summons called to prevent the priest from wandering. Molkar and Lamalha's parties were evaded. I had to do the Bandit Camp twice, due to Chapter 4 not triggering after the first time. In both cases Owanna's thinned the enemy's ranks with wand-scorchers and dealt with Venkt personally, in wolf form.
In Cloakwood she skipped everything except for Centeol's den, which she entered in wolf form and Sanctuaried in order to loot (and later sell) Spider's Bane and to bring late Chelak's body to his brother. In front of the mine, Owanna attempted to Hold Drasus, but he seemed to recognize the Gnome's incantation because he quaffed a potion of freedom, just in time.
It conveniently canceled the haste effect from his boots. Owanna managed to Blind the warrior, and she finished him off with wands of frost and of the heavens, reluctant as she was to even melee a Blinded Drasus. Kysus and Rezdan wasted their most important spells on summons, and stood little chance of affecting her anyway thanks to the Greenstone Amulet. The former was scorchered to death, the latter finished off in wolf form. Owanna stayed invisible as she made her way to Davaeorn. With only one potion of magic protection she did not dare to engage the wizard without reading a PfMagic scroll first. She used her wands to overcome her foes (frost for the Battle Horrors, fire for Davaeorn and his cronies).
In BG Owanna learned new shapes that she could change into, thanks to Polymorph self. She used that spell to defeat Marek with the help of her Skeletal warriors.
That quest was undertaken to get the Tome of Wisdom at the Lady's House in a non-violent way. Otherwise the Gnome did very few quests in the city. She did make the mistake of deep-freezing Ramazith with her wand though, which cost her a metaspell influence amulet and a ring of protection +2.
The Iron Throne acolytes were engaged using wands and divide and conquer tactics, with Owanna focusing on Alai for his Minor Sequencer spell. She eliminated some others as well though. Btw Owanna kept a lowish reputation at this stage, which would help her to two spells that she would otherwise never be able to cast: Horror and Vampiric Touch. She fought no one in or below Candlekeep but did make sure to bring some souvenirs from the catacombs, putting her Knock spell to good use. She then made a brief detour to Ulgoth's Beard, and from there to the Ice Island, where she read a PfMagic scroll, quaffed an invisibility potion, and killed Dezkiel with Flamestrikes.
She was rewarded with a Stoneskin scroll. She aquired the Golden Girdle in Mutamin's Garden, and fought Slythe and Krystin in Mustard Jelly form with the aid of Skeleton Warriors. The undead killed Slythe, but Krystin slew some of the summons. She could do nothing against Owanna though, so she went invisible. The Gnome left her there.
The Ducal Palace fight was messy. Owanna had three Skeletal summons, boosted by Strength of One, PfE, and Haste, and enjoyed several (mainly potion) buffs herself as well. The Gnome revealed herself as she cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath. She had to retreat as the Doppelganger mage managed to dispel most of her buffs, witnessed the fall of Duke Belt from afar, and noticed that Duchess Jannath had done something to reveal herself or had been revealed by a detection spell. Owanna cast another Invisibility on a badly injured Jannath, and finished off the remaining Greater Doppelgangers with wands.
Thankfully Jannath did not become visible during the unmasking of Sarevok, so off to the undercity. There was some stress in Sarevok's temple, as she got poisoned early on by Diarmid, and saved vs Chaos before she could swig a potion of magic shielding.
I wasn't completely focused there, possibly because the final battle almost always goes well. As her foes were too powerful to be susceptible to Owanna's disablers, and her shapeshift forms appeared too vulnerable for melee (even with short priestly buffs), the Gnome finished her enemies one by one with +2 sling bullets, and wand attacks.
She's now ready for SoD, my first, blind playthrough of that expansion. She'll accept the company of NPCs there as I'm quite curious about the content.
The Adventures of Kythran: Part 9 - Who the heck is that Drow?
The party went to Feldepost's Inn, and fought Tranzig. Dynaheir only cast one magic missile spell, and splat went the Tranzig when the tanks and the archers did their jobs.
Then some wilderness exploring happened, where people in the party got stronger. Followed by finding a drow, and slaughtering him! Because not all drow are like Drizzt! Nothing special used on Baeloth.
The party tried to sell Baeloth's robes, but apparently Thalantyr doesn't take stolen items! It isn't stealing if the person that owns the garb is dead! #adventuringlyfe #murderhobo
Note: Extremely short update. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more this week, since the new schedule is starting on Monday.
Well, I suppose I should post my run as well. I switched from Apple to PC due to logic board issues, and since my copies of the EEs were through the Apple App store, I'm running Tutu and the regular BG2 for the first time. Going to miss certain features, but there're certain mods out there that haven't updated that I'm rather interested in trying at some point.
For now, though, I'm only running A.I. and harder battles of SCS (no quick prebuffs), Rogue Rebalancing, a few ease-of-use stuff from BG2Tweaks, and the more-or-less-useless-for-this-run BG1 NPC Project. At some point I might try Kit Revisions, but not this run.
Starting back up with the pacifist Skald route, again with the rule that the Skald himself is not allowed to take any kills or the run is failed.
Rondo: Half-elf Skald. 9/18/16/18/11/15 Grant: Human Monk. 18/18/16/12/12/10 Maple: Half-elf Totemic Druid. 11/18/16/11/18/15 Quinn: Human Swashbuckler. 18/18/16/11/9/10 Truth: Halfling Priest of Helm. 16/19/16/11/17/9
Last slot is going to be reserved for Imoen in BG2. I'll have no strict Warrior types, seemingly bad with a Skald's focus on physical damage... But Quinn and Grant at least get full THAC0, Maple gets her summons, and Truth gets Seeking Sword and heavy armor. The early-game is going to be a bit rough though without any arcane casters besides Rondo, but we'll see...
So far so good in SoD. Cavan has survived his first test. The hardest part so far is item management... I miss my bag of holding!
I have two. It must be the mods that I installed.
Seluna has reached the forest of wyrms. That sounds tough but so far only wyverns. Starlight did get poisoned, but they have an ample supply of potions to deal with that.
EDIT
There was a genuine dragon in there too. It might have been small but it was tough. Dynaheir panicked but fortunately there was nowhere to run to so remove fear was effective.
Nikita got the dragon's hoard. However unless they are given a good reason to fight it, they will not return to fight it as it is far too powerful unless they are able to discover some weakness or find some dragonproof armour.
EDIT 2
I changed my mind and as a result Seluna got a lot of experience and some green dragon scales.
It wasted its poison breath on summoned monsters who were quite effective in fighting it. An ogre even survived the fight! Buffs of Bless, Chant, protection from acid, protection from fear, drawupon holy might, rage, defensive stance, haste, barkskin and the like were used and the battle gradually became one sided in favour of Seluna as the dragon didn't seem to be able to blast the party a second time. Dynaheir was poisoned but a potion rapidly disposed of the poison and as the dragon was dead she withdrew to let the others dispose of the greater wyverns.
@JuliusBorisov, thanks for the warm welcome back The Fighter/Thief I mentioned is a LoB run, but Owanna is full SCS on core difficulty. The reasons are that I haven't played at all in recent months, that I wanted to play SoD which being new to me will probably be hard enough as it is, and for this specific run, that shapeshifting doesn't really seem viable on LoB difficulty. Enemies have such royal pools of HPs that I expect debilitated enemies to simply take Owanna's blows and outlast her spells' effects, even when she's buffed and changed into wolf form with 2 APR (3 when Hasted).
@BlindVisionary, good to see you here too. Did you import your character, or did you continue from your BG1 Final Save? I tried both, and I found that the latter allowed Owanna to keep her gem bag, potion case, and familiar, whereas the former didn't.
@Blackraven - I think I imported my character from a final save? But I also switched from a modded install without SoD to a clean install with it. Either probably explains my item loss problems. But... this is a challenge, right? Not a no-reload walk in the park... There's no going back to fix mistakes.
I'll just have to say that Cavan had a rough go of it in the Undercity. Maybe some kind of unholy fire consumed his potion case as he took a final swig of his draught of invulnerability before striking down Sarevok... Maybe a bat flew away with the gem bag. Maybe Neb was hiding in the shadows and he pickpocketed the scroll case after the fight. Maybe Cavan actually used more arrows from his ammo belt than he thought. Maybe an anti magic zone in the temple caused the bag of holding to turn inside-out and disappear with a loud "pop".
In any case, Cavan, despite becoming the Hero of Baldur's Gate, actually had a pretty rough day when he went after Sarevok, walking out with little more than the armor on his back and the sword in his hand. And his friends wandered off after the fight to carouse in the taverns, forgetting that they were carrying some quite valuable items, like the boots of speed... Silly Alora.
Cavan, being a stoic inquisitor, will soldier on, whatever the consequences...
@Blind_Visionary In view of your lack of equipment, I would strongly advise you NOT to try and kill the dragon that Seluna killed today. By all means try and steal the treasure if suitably buffed, but don't try and kill it.
Continuing story of Seluna
After killing the dragon, Seluna progressed through the caves and defeated a mind flayer. Unfortunately Starlight was killed in the exchange. If any other party member had been killed there would have been no problem as Starlight can cast resurrection, but the enemy hit where it hurt most. Only the death of Seluna herself could have been worse. She now has the stone that allows teleportation. So far she has been blundering through but appears to be doing OK without knowing why. There have clearly been some missed conversations.
The first thing that Seluna will have to do is get Starlight raised. She now has over 4000 gold pieces so the cost is no problem. I don't know how much gold will be needed to make green dragon armour, but suspect that the current amount of gold will be insufficient.
EDIT First of all Seluna returned to the healer who wouldn't raise Starlight. She went to Boarskyr Bridge using the teleporter and to her relief she was able to raise Starlight at the cost of 800gp. Seluna had a shield made from the scales. It is +4 with other benefits too. What's more making it cost nothing. Not like the boots the cobbler is making: 1000gp! Ouch!! Hope it is worth it. We'll have to see tomorrow. She found 4 spider eggs but has no idea why she picked them up. As somebody once said in another situation: "Because they were there."
Comments
He's throwing normal darts most of the time, occasionally switching to Aule's staff +3.
Shar Teel is in slot 2. She's using Varscona +2 / Harrower +1/3 undead longswords.
Monty is in slot 3. Sling +1 and normal bullets. Short sword +1 as required.
Viconia takes slot 4. Sling of Unerring Accuracy and normal bullets. Non-proficient with Ashideena.
Xzar is in slot 5. Throwing daggers. Held on to the revenant's Dagger of the Golem.
Eldoth is at the back. Dead Shot +2 longbow, normal arrows. Rashad's Talon +2.
Since last time, a wyvern cave was cleared and Cloakwood Mines has been flooded. The city Tomes have been retrieved as has the one from Durlags Tower. Scar's quests have been done and Blaggerd is considering picking up a few items before sorting out the Iron Throne.
Monty has 100% in locks but 60% traps and lots of xp to the next level so that will have to be worked around by swapping gauntlets and checking the potion case.
Blaggerd and Shar Teel both have Boots of Speed (courtesy of Drasus and Lothander).
Eldoth is hoarding poisoned arrows, Blaggerd trying not to visit the NE section to avoid Skie.
Edit:
Booting Eldoth without allowing him to talk sort of worked. After a visit the NW section (pick up Helm of Balduran and scrolls from Degrodel plus return Nestor's dagger to Quinn) Eldoth left the party anyway but stood idle and could be recruited again. Not planning to visit the area again so hopefully he won't throw a hissy fit.
@Grond0 Sorry to see another debacle at the Palace...
@semiticgod Yeah for sure hoarding is dangerous in no-reload context...
A quick question.
If your party has members from mods, do you get to keep them in Dragonspear?
@Grond0 This is what is next.
Selûna and party have started the Dragonspear extension.
They finished the prologue with no real problems other than the fact that she was unable to put the staff back together.
Not sure what was wrong, but no real problem. It was not plot-critical.
She awoke to find two things have gone disastrously wrong. Firstly her lover Xan has disappeared and so has her gold!!
At least she has some saleable possessions- if she can find a store where she can sell them.
I am not really expecting to survive here. Little to no experience of the extension.
I was half playing and half watching the Davis Cup - and not doing either very well. As a result I wandered into range of a hobgoblin elite when at level 7 and was poisoned - resulting in having to run away off the edge of the map while badly wounded. When ambushed I then failed to react quickly enough - there was a possibility of taking an invisibility potion, but by the time I was ready to do that the fatal arrow had already been launched.
Wild mage {6} (1st and final update)
I'm about to go away for a week, but thought I'd have time for one last go at BGEE first. I got away with a wild surge when getting a familiar and trundled on through to Candlekeep (where I didn't die from using the violet potion). At the palace I this time watched Belt fighting and he didn't seem to have been hit very often, but I wasn't recording the HPs taken from the text screen so he could have taken some hefty criticals (the game wasn't showing his status so I couldn't tell directly how injured he was). Thinking he was going to win I didn't take any action even against the last doppleganger - and once more Belt failed to complete his duty.
Ozzy, elf fighter/mage (Grond0) & Toriac, human undead hunter (Gate70)
A MP session was squeezed in a couple of days ago. I seem to have managed to delete all the screenshots from that, but my summary notes tell me that:
- we ran through the Cloakwood.
- a stinking cloud helped pacify Drasus and his companions.
- Toriac took a potion of magic blocking when hunting down Davaeorn.
- in the City the poison quest allowed us to pick up a second pair of boots of speed (Lothander both surrounded by monsters and greased).
- Ramazith and Degrodel provided equipment upgrades.
- at the Iron Throne Ozzy intended to use a scroll of protection from magic on Toriac, but forgot that is now caster only in BGEE. Instead he borrowed Toriac's armour and tanked while Toriac supported with arrow fire.
- at Candlekeep the tombs were knocked open. Ozzy accidentally got too close to Prat though and was confused as a result. Toriac did well there to intervene and direct attacks on to himself. He was helped in that by Prat using improved invisibility and going off to hide, but that then proved fatal for Toriac when he tried to track him down (doing so in a web trap, next to phase spiders).
- back in the City, Toriac was raised and re-equipped (apart from a helmet, which he decided he didn't need anyway).
- at the palace the fight was opened by putting improved invisibility on Belt. Both Ozzy and Toriac then shot dispelling arrows to slow down all the dopplegangers before chopping them down. There was a bit of a glitch when MP confusion about placement of characters meant Belt talking to them before getting out of sight of Sarevok, but he survived anyway.
- with time running short there was a messy battle in the Undercity, but we survived. In the temple there were no more mistakes with Sarevok being pulled out with a dispelling arrow. Semaj teleported out to join him into a group of monsters and died very quickly, leaving Sarevok no chance against further monster summons (screenshot is from the Final Save).
Ozzy, fighter 7 / mage 7, 62 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 232 kills
Toriac, undead hunter 8, 106 HPs, 172 kills, 1 death
They finished the prologue with no real problems other than the fact that she was unable to put the staff back together.
Not sure what was wrong, but no real problem. It was not plot-critical.
I think I know the one ... just put the two bits back in the grave
That's what the walkthrough said. I did that and nothing happened.
More of a loss is the gold. I shouldn't have sold so much of my equipment.
I probably should have got arrows of dispelling too. Didn't think of that.
Another loss is Xan. not only his spellcasting ability, but he is Seluna's lover.
It would be good if the people who wrote Xan's romance and friendship mods could write some Dragonspear content though as yet I don't know whether Dragonspear is worth modding. Some of the reviews are quite critical. I'm going to wait and see before judging. It doesn't bother me that they have re-used areas from other games. A lot of mods do that.
Have you thought of casting buffing spells and/or summoning spells upstairs before the fight and then luring some of the doppelgangers upstairs. Wild surges won't be so much of a problem up there as you won't turn anyone against you if you cast a fireball, and you would have time to use healing potions if your character gets injured.
Congrats on your success in the other game.
An imp in the hand;
Hear text as mp3,
I sent my Imp to scout around the mad cleric before attacking, lets face it
The reward money payed for a new frost wand and Sarah + myself killed the last battle horror. It only took 8 shots so I still have 20 for later.
Sarah gets the wisdom tomb from the keep and I only need 600 points for my third level spell and innate fireball.
Whilst the following guide here is good, it is not at all comprehensive.
http://guides.gamepressure.com/baldursgatesiegeofdragonspear/guide.asp?ID=35280
Seluna didn't stop until every door and chest had been opened.
Because of boots from BG1EE she was able to kill the lich with relative ease.
If I had started the game without doing BG1 first it would probably have been quite difficult.
This gave her more understanding, more weaponry, more treasure and much more experience.
Kicking myself for forgetting to do screenshots.
I don't know if I will meet any more liches, but if I do, I have 3 uses of that weakening vial left.:)
EDIT
The walkthrough in the above link only mentions two methods of getting the halfling shield. I used a third method, pickpocket.Kythran went deep into the Nashkel Mines and defeated a Half-Orc named Mulahey. It wasn't easy, as Mulahey summoned some skeletons and Kobolds. He also cast some hold spells, and eventually killed Minsc, and nearly killed Jaheira. But if it wasn't for Dynaheir casting Magic Missile, then Jaheira surely would be dead.
Then, Kythran returned to Nashkel. Another assassin named Nimbul was waiting for him there. Dynaheir cast an armor spell, but Imoen used her last charges of her Wand of Magic Missile, and he was defeated.
Lastly, Kythran returned to Beregost. He spoke to Elminster and Officer Vai. And his task was now clear. It was going after Bandits.
Edit: For some reason I thought that Officer Vai's name was Jai. Har.
Heading into the Undercity for my first time in a no-reload run.
After that, it was just a matter of getting rid of Diarmid (since his poison arrows hurt), then Tazok, then drawing out the mages with true sight and invisibility purge, followed by darts of stunning. It took a long time, but the enemy never really had any hope.
That's the first time I've ever won a no-reload campaign! SCS and item randomizer make it harder for sure... but much more so early in the campaign rather than the endgame. When I'm struggling to find items, gain levels, and earn enough cash to buy critical gear, that's when I usually fail. Item randomizer forces you to face Davaeorn before getting access to lots of helpful goodies... Many of my runs have ended there. It'll be interesting to try this again with a different shuffle of the cards.
Anyway, I'm thinking that Cavan should go to Siege of Dragonspear next... onsight no-reload. I've never played it before.
So the team is going to have to improvise...
A few house rules I'm applying:
* No reload (because of course)
* No scouting ahead. That means no walkthroughs, and it means no switching to minimal-reload format. If I die, I must re-roll a randomized character and start again in Candlekeep.
* I can use any and all NPCs and items and whatnot I encounter during the campaign.
* Core rules, no mods
She pulled it through. I did need to reload once since the game crashed half-way through Ascension (and my archer was chunked at the time). So it can't really apply for a No-Reload success, even if I feel the trio left would finish it. However, chances of something going wrong is pretty high there so I can't vouch for that.
Anyhow, if somebody is interested in how Ascension plays on SCS(full prebuff, extra HP for Demons) + aTweaks (gating + SCS hitpoints) - enjoy.
I haven't played much this year, and I don't expect to produce dozens of Charnames per year, as I used to, but with the release of SoD another playthrough was always on the horizon. I actually had a SCS LoB run with Melody, my Halfling Shadowdancer, whom I posted about some months ago. But she fell last week in the caves below Candlekeep when I was too fascinated by Yeslick's battle against a Phase Spider to see Melody fail a stealth check and die from (probably) another Phase Spider. A typical Blackraven move.
I still have Bardin, Gnome Cleric/Thief who's only three big hurdles away from success (Sendai, Abazigal and Melissan), but when I played around a bit again in Watcher's Keep I was not feeling in control on the demons level. I think I'm too forgetful to know how to properly handle him.
So I decided to go back to Candlekeep. I have a LoB solo Fighter/Thief who's had a pretty good start, but playing her I found I wanted something different from my usual rogues. I got interested in shapeshifting and opted for a core difficulty run rather than a LoB run where solo meleeing seems pretty suicidal in BG1. Mods are SCS (everything) and some minor tweaks (Free Action protects against Stun).
Had difficulty deciding what class to pick: I've rolled Shapeshifter (single class), Shapeshifter/Fighter (dual at 13), Avenger (great early on, probably less so in BG2), Figher/Druid (mainly for Elemental forms and GWW + Hardiness play), or a wizard type (for Polymorph Self and Shapechange), and considered a custom party but expected to get bored without banter. The Fighter/Druid got herself killed in an ambush by an Ogre Mage, the Shapeshifter (single class) has been exploring Beregost and vicinity. The others are still in Candlekeep. But it's
Owanna TN Gnome Cleric/Illusionist (BG1)
Early on there was no way for her to take different forms, so she cautiously accumulated XP, reputation points, and useful items, starting on the Coast Way and slowly into the wilderness. She got rid of Tarnesh using Silence, and Blinded other dangerous foes like Melicamp's wolf and skeleton, and Greywolf (who wandered way too much to Owanna's liking, alerting Kobolds in the area). With her bunny successfully hiding from Flesh Golems and disarming snares in Alaric's cave, Owanna managed to get her hands on Relair's Mistake. Since I purposely gave her suboptimal physical stats, the cloak was a welcome item.
As I would discover later, the Wolf-form as per the cloak was better for Owanna than the Polymorph Self version. It sets STR to 18 and DEX to 17, while the spell version sets STR to 15 and DEX to 18. Both give 2 APR. The cloak enabled Owanna to carry bodies and other heavy baggage, such as Brun's son (under Sanctuary) and Samuel. At lower levels, the Gnome's buffs were few and short-lived, so rather than a buffing and transforming routine she chose to disable and transform to finish off her foes. Obvious disabling spells were Sleep, Silence and Hold Person, as Meilum would find out for example.
I had to do the Bandit Camp twice, due to Chapter 4 not triggering after the first time. In both cases Owanna's thinned the enemy's ranks with wand-scorchers and dealt with Venkt personally, in wolf form.
In front of the mine, Owanna attempted to Hold Drasus, but he seemed to recognize the Gnome's incantation because he quaffed a potion of freedom, just in time.
Owanna stayed invisible as she made her way to Davaeorn. With only one potion of magic protection she did not dare to engage the wizard without reading a PfMagic scroll first. She used her wands to overcome her foes (frost for the Battle Horrors, fire for Davaeorn and his cronies).
In BG Owanna learned new shapes that she could change into, thanks to Polymorph self. She used that spell to defeat Marek with the help of her Skeletal warriors.
The Iron Throne acolytes were engaged using wands and divide and conquer tactics, with Owanna focusing on Alai for his Minor Sequencer spell. She eliminated some others as well though.
Btw Owanna kept a lowish reputation at this stage, which would help her to two spells that she would otherwise never be able to cast: Horror and Vampiric Touch.
She fought no one in or below Candlekeep but did make sure to bring some souvenirs from the catacombs, putting her Knock spell to good use. She then made a brief detour to Ulgoth's Beard, and from there to the Ice Island, where she read a PfMagic scroll, quaffed an invisibility potion, and killed Dezkiel with Flamestrikes.
She aquired the Golden Girdle in Mutamin's Garden, and fought Slythe and Krystin in Mustard Jelly form with the aid of Skeleton Warriors. The undead killed Slythe, but Krystin slew some of the summons. She could do nothing against Owanna though, so she went invisible. The Gnome left her there.
The Ducal Palace fight was messy. Owanna had three Skeletal summons, boosted by Strength of One, PfE, and Haste, and enjoyed several (mainly potion) buffs herself as well. The Gnome revealed herself as she cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath. She had to retreat as the Doppelganger mage managed to dispel most of her buffs, witnessed the fall of Duke Belt from afar, and noticed that Duchess Jannath had done something to reveal herself or had been revealed by a detection spell. Owanna cast another Invisibility on a badly injured Jannath, and finished off the remaining Greater Doppelgangers with wands.
She's now ready for SoD, my first, blind playthrough of that expansion. She'll accept the company of NPCs there as I'm quite curious about the content.
The party went to Feldepost's Inn, and fought Tranzig. Dynaheir only cast one magic missile spell, and splat went the Tranzig when the tanks and the archers did their jobs.
Then some wilderness exploring happened, where people in the party got stronger. Followed by finding a drow, and slaughtering him! Because not all drow are like Drizzt! Nothing special used on Baeloth.
The party tried to sell Baeloth's robes, but apparently Thalantyr doesn't take stolen items!
It isn't stealing if the person that owns the garb is dead! #adventuringlyfe #murderhoboNote: Extremely short update. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more this week, since the new schedule is starting on Monday.
For now, though, I'm only running A.I. and harder battles of SCS (no quick prebuffs), Rogue Rebalancing, a few ease-of-use stuff from BG2Tweaks, and the more-or-less-useless-for-this-run BG1 NPC Project. At some point I might try Kit Revisions, but not this run.
Starting back up with the pacifist Skald route, again with the rule that the Skald himself is not allowed to take any kills or the run is failed.
Rondo: Half-elf Skald. 9/18/16/18/11/15
Grant: Human Monk. 18/18/16/12/12/10
Maple: Half-elf Totemic Druid. 11/18/16/11/18/15
Quinn: Human Swashbuckler. 18/18/16/11/9/10
Truth: Halfling Priest of Helm. 16/19/16/11/17/9
Last slot is going to be reserved for Imoen in BG2. I'll have no strict Warrior types, seemingly bad with a Skald's focus on physical damage... But Quinn and Grant at least get full THAC0, Maple gets her summons, and Truth gets Seeking Sword and heavy armor. The early-game is going to be a bit rough though without any arcane casters besides Rondo, but we'll see...
Seluna has reached the forest of wyrms. That sounds tough but so far only wyverns. Starlight did get poisoned, but they have an ample supply of potions to deal with that.
EDIT
There was a genuine dragon in there too. It might have been small but it was tough. Dynaheir panicked but fortunately there was nowhere to run to so remove fear was effective.Nikita got the dragon's hoard. However unless they are given a good reason to fight it, they will not return to fight it as it is far too powerful unless they are able to discover some weakness or find some dragonproof armour.
EDIT 2
I changed my mind and as a result Seluna got a lot of experience and some green dragon scales.It wasted its poison breath on summoned monsters who were quite effective in fighting it. An ogre even survived the fight!
Buffs of Bless, Chant, protection from acid, protection from fear, drawupon holy might, rage, defensive stance, haste, barkskin and the like were used and the battle gradually became one sided in favour of Seluna as the dragon didn't seem to be able to blast the party a second time. Dynaheir was poisoned but a potion rapidly disposed of the poison and as the dragon was dead she withdrew to let the others dispose of the greater wyverns.
The Fighter/Thief I mentioned is a LoB run, but Owanna is full SCS on core difficulty. The reasons are that I haven't played at all in recent months, that I wanted to play SoD which being new to me will probably be hard enough as it is, and for this specific run, that shapeshifting doesn't really seem viable on LoB difficulty. Enemies have such royal pools of HPs that I expect debilitated enemies to simply take Owanna's blows and outlast her spells' effects, even when she's buffed and changed into wolf form with 2 APR (3 when Hasted).
@BlindVisionary, good to see you here too.
I'll just have to say that Cavan had a rough go of it in the Undercity. Maybe some kind of unholy fire consumed his potion case as he took a final swig of his draught of invulnerability before striking down Sarevok... Maybe a bat flew away with the gem bag. Maybe Neb was hiding in the shadows and he pickpocketed the scroll case after the fight. Maybe Cavan actually used more arrows from his ammo belt than he thought. Maybe an anti magic zone in the temple caused the bag of holding to turn inside-out and disappear with a loud "pop".
In any case, Cavan, despite becoming the Hero of Baldur's Gate, actually had a pretty rough day when he went after Sarevok, walking out with little more than the armor on his back and the sword in his hand. And his friends wandered off after the fight to carouse in the taverns, forgetting that they were carrying some quite valuable items, like the boots of speed... Silly Alora.
Cavan, being a stoic inquisitor, will soldier on, whatever the consequences...
Continuing story of Seluna
After killing the dragon, Seluna progressed through the caves and defeated a mind flayer.Unfortunately Starlight was killed in the exchange. If any other party member had been killed there would have been no problem as Starlight can cast resurrection, but the enemy hit where it hurt most. Only the death of Seluna herself could have been worse.
She now has the stone that allows teleportation.
So far she has been blundering through but appears to be doing OK without knowing why.
There have clearly been some missed conversations.
The first thing that Seluna will have to do is get Starlight raised. She now has over 4000 gold pieces so the cost is no problem. I don't know how much gold will be needed to make green dragon armour, but suspect that the current amount of gold will be insufficient.
EDIT
First of all Seluna returned to the healer who wouldn't raise Starlight.
Seluna had a shield made from the scales. It is +4 with other benefits too. What's more making it cost nothing.
Not like the boots the cobbler is making: 1000gp! Ouch!! Hope it is worth it. We'll have to see tomorrow.
She found 4 spider eggs but has no idea why she picked them up.