Did the Planar Sphere and Nalia's quest. I was strongly tempted to keep Valygar around as he's also a former military scout... but for now Nalia is running the sphere (NPC strongholds). Anomen got knocked out once by golems but apart from that the group pulled through. I have the feeling that this tank-light group will be stronger in the late game due to the abundance of available protections but haven't decided if Kivan will be switched for Sarevok yet.
Have not gained an experience point in many weeks but finally decided to try another hero for a no-reload BG2. As usual SCS, core difficulty, limited resting, limited meta (which isn't very hard for me since I remember nothing past act 2).
For the first time in a long while I decided on the party before the class I wanted to play so I'm rolling with Jaheira, Minsc, Aerie and will add Nalia when I do her quest and Imoen when I get to spellhold.
Charname is Keen, a FMT with stellar stats 18/92, 19, 17, 18, 6, 10. Two pips in daggers, two in longswords and two in TWF.
First dungeon went very smoothly, swimming in healing potions once I got out. Did circus and some minor errands including buying three points of reputation from a priest of Ilmater before I had my first rest.
Before our second rest Keen and co did slavers (that last guard outside the boat in the slums that has rage is a beast) and lilarcor, the city ambushes, harper quest, all thief quests (one hit bs on the cowled wizard, 52 damage with varscona!) except killing Mae'var, buried alive, fallen paladins, bridge investigation (didn't fight the rune assassins or the bone golem though), the two minor quests in the graveyard and killed Neb the evil gnome.
This left Keen with about 27k gold, 20 rep, 450k xp, empty spellbooks and fatigue from the lesser restoration you get from killing Neb.
Bought lots of scrolls to make better use of Aeries and Keens mage levels, limited wish scroll for a +2 full plate, fortress shield and a strength belt all for my new tank Jaheira, reflection shield for Aerie and then I was back at 4k gold or so.
Plan now is to finish up the thief quest, go pick a fight with a famous mercenary company in the bridge district and clear the sewers before venturing to Trademeet and then De'Arnise.
This is the second run of Keen btw, he tried disarming a trap with his plate mail equipped while I talked with one of my kids irl, then I tried to open the door and saw the reload screen.. I think the smooth sailing so far is to make up for my silly mistake.
I will be posting the run of Simon de Montfort as far as Dragonspear soon, perhaps tomorrow. My game has still has the level cap of 161,000 and it is my belief that in Dragonspear it should be higher than that. If somebody knows what the cap should be in Dragonspear, could you inform me and I will change it to the correct value. EDIT I have just read that it should be 500,000 for SoD. Is that correct?
@Wise_Grimwald: It is indeed 500,000 for SoD. I personally think it should be higher still, as it's a very oppressive cap for a small party.
At least my party is very well equipped. I spent a fortune before leaving the Gate as I am aware that the gold disappears and powerful arrows and the like don't.
Upon fleeing the site of Gorion's murder, I fled southward where I was attacked by some gnolls who seriously injured me. I however am still alive. They are not
!
After healing myself with potions I was able to help Melicamp.
In Beregost I calmed down Marl and took a tome to Firebead. I then headed southward, killed some ogrillion and some overly officious Flaming Fist mercenaries.
In transit, I was attacked by a winter wolf whose magic was ineffective due to a belt that I found on Gorion's body.
I then helped a dryad whose tree was being threatened.
Upon going to the Nashkel Carnival I was attacked by a mage who paid the price for his agression.
When I headed south I was attacked by Zargos Flintblade. He too paid the price. He was easy to kill once he panicked.
Realising that I was in a dangerous area, I headed north, only to find that it was equally dangerous there.
Sonner then asked for help pretending that he was righteous. I therefore attacked Tenya who put me to sleep. However, once I awoke, she quickly sought peace.
Just north of her I then killed an ankheg.
I was directed to Bassilus and killed him too, though the battle was bloody for both of us, more so for him than for me.
I then proceeded to the gnoll stronghold where I killed Hairtooth and his ally.
Heading northwards, I killed some gnolls and a polar bear.
I then helped the archaeologist Charleston Nib.
In transit, another winter wolf attacked amd it also died.
I then visited the lighthouse area where I killed some sirene and flesh golems.
I did however make friends with some of the sirene and as a result came into conflict with their enemies, the pirates.
I then headed to the area to the east of Nashkel and killed a revenant and Narcillicus Harwilliger Neen who killed himself with poor spell choices.
Heading for the Nashkel mines, I killed Greywolf. No great loss there!
I then decided that I needed some help but sadly chose the wrong companions though they did help me somewhat, first against Droth and Shoal:
and then by pickpocketting whoever they thought might have something of value. Realising that our ethics were incompatible, I dumped them and proceeded to the basilisk area where I was attacked by some adventurers. Seeing a spell coming, I fled whereupon the "Rigid Thinking" spell had little effect as they didn't follow it up with anything else.
However, realising that they had no interest in fair fighting, I used my necklace of missiles to great effect before moving in for thekill:
I then proceeded to Durlag's Tower and had considerable success:
At that point, I reached level 8. I then went looking for more compatible companions and came up with the conjurer/thief Imoen, and Gavin, a priest of Lathander.
Imoen was very interested in some new pink clothing (You can see why I edited the portrait)
Together we went to the basilisk area. I used a scroll to protect myself and attacked the basilisks, medusae and of course Mutamin without needing their help.
In Ulcaster, they were a lot more useful as they were fighting Arghain to the south.
Just south of Arghain, we were unsuccessfully attacked by more assassins.
We then successfully took on sarhedra's challenge before rescuing a cow from some xvart.
We were then asked to do the last of Gavin's challenges. and once more were successful:
We then thought ourselves ready for the challenge of facing the demons in the Nashkel mines, however all we came across were duerger, kobolds and a half-orc:
Afterwards we encoutered Tristan and Isolde and by using web were able to prevail.
We were directed to the bandit camp where we fought Tazok until he realised that discretion is the better part of valour:
We then little by little cleared the camp of bandits:
We then dealt with some caravan bandits,
before dealing with Tranzig himself:
We then took on Silke who turned out to be as unwise as Narcillicus in using lightning bolts:
We returned to the bandit camp and discovered that we had not quite finished the job:
Imoen then gave me "The Talk"
We then headed through Cloakwood to the mines, killing spiders galore, a dragon and wyrms on the way:
We then cleared the mines of enemies. Unfortunately Dynaheir was killed in one of the battles.
We raised Dynaheir at the Beregost Temple before heading for the Friendly Arms Inn for provisions. Unfortunately we were attacked by some deceived good guys and were forced to kill them in self-defence.
Just a stones throw to the south Davenport and his cronies attacked us:
We then proceeded to Baldur's Gate where yet more assassins awaited us:
In Baldur's Gate itself, we went to rest in an inn and were acosted by larze who did not survive:
Somehow a bug emerged in the game. The next levelling point became ridiculous: However I got by with a little help from my friends. It needed a fresh installation which introduced some very minor bugs but solved the major ones. Marek also killed himself with lightning bolt. It seems that the mages in BG need some training. The computer is now needed for other things, so will post the rest of the run later.
We then went in search of Rieltar at Candlekeep. This ended up with us having to flee into a secret part of Candlekeep where we had to deal with more assassins as well as spiders and medusae:
We then intended to sneak into the Section HQ in Beregost, but somehow we were spotted despite thinking that we were invisible. We were transported to the depths of the HQ where we fought Paul Wolfe and his cronies before fighting our way out. Sadly Minsc was killed, this was quite annoying as one of the main reasons for going to the HQ was to increase the experience of him and Dynaheir:
We returned to Baldur's Gate where we rescued Duke Eltan by stealth before fighting Cythandra, Krystin and Slythe:
We then went to challenge Sarevok and with the help of summons and web we defeated him, causing him to flee.
We were then asked to discover what had happened to Balduran and did so sadly having to wipe out the populace of the island to succeed:
Upon our return we were sent to Ice Island and were able to retrieve Shandalar's Cloak after much fighting.
We then went to the Firewine Bridge and defeated Meilum and Khaark.
From there we entered some underground passages and emerged in Gullykin. Now teatime. Images to follow.
Legacy of Bhaal Genocide Run: Carl the Llama in BG2 (first post here)
Sooner or later, I'm going to have to wipe out the population, so I may as well get started. I pick my fights carefully, though, lest I turn somebody important hostile.
Edwin is quite pleased with our progress.
I like Priss better, so I decide to give her a boost.
I'm not sure if that will be enough, so I decide to take a more active role in the proceedings.
Unfortunately, Priss prefers to fight her own battles, and Rumar is upset that we interrupted a perfectly good catfight. Everyone in the back rooms goes hostile.
I mop the floor with their brains and poke around the tables to see if the rest of the tavern noticed. Our shenanigans have gone unpunished.
I do get a weird message on the way to the slavers' hideout...
...but the tieflings never show up to fight us. I'm not sure why this happens.
We single-handedly wipe out the local slave trade, heroic heroes that we are. We even take down the slavers' accomplices.
Unfortunately, our deeds attract the attention of some crooked cops. It seems that even the authorities are pawns of the slave traders.
We cannot stand for such injustices, and take on the noble burden of eliminating government corruption ourselves. Carl hides the party with Invisibility Sphere and we toss out some summons to hold the front line.
Unfortunately, the enemy is stronger than we thought. One of them is an epic-level mage. Edwin's defenses collapse, forcing him to use a rare escape option.
That Spell Trigger was actually done in response to a Pierce Shield from Carl, which wiped out the mage's defenses. But it only takes one more round to tear down that PFMW spell and render the mage vulnerable.
Victory! Culture will defeat those loutish brutes each and every time. But in a galling act of disrespect for the basic norms of society, our foes claim to be paladins.
Obviously we will not fall for such blatant lies.
I really, really need Edwin to learn some more spells. He already has lots of high-level spells slots, but nothing to fill them with. The problem with Item Revisions is that it replaces Potions of Genius and Mind Focusing with Potions of Vocalize and Restoration, respectively. This means it's incredibly hard to get high Intelligence, and scribing scrolls is therefore risky.
Of course, I can always get party-wide 25 Intelligence with Wish, if only for 4 rounds. But I didn't think of that at the time. Instead, we head to the Planar Sphere to start the mage stronghold quest, because the Dagger of Charname in IR grants +1 INT.
The halfling cannibals aren't much trouble. I only have two screenshots, showing their humongous prebuffs and a nasty Prismatic Spray.
I'm pretty sure I just dispelled Kayardi's invisibility with Flowey's Detect Illusion, then nailed Kayardi with Pierce Shield and trampled the halflings with brute force. Pierce Shield is a very high-level spell, but it works like an unblockable Breach spell.
Right about now, I got tired of using my custom Improved Alacrity spell to buff the party. Instead, I created a custom buffing spell to cast all of our buffs simultaneously. It also rests the party and heals everybody. Our buffs now only take a few clicks to activate.
Notice the Non-Detection spells. In Spell Revisions, they basically function as an 8-hour SI: Divination spell, so the only way the enemy can remove our illusion spells is with Dispel Magic (to dispel the illusions themselves, or just to dispel Non-Detection). It's a great spell, but bear in mind that True Seeing lets enemies target invisible characters anyway, so enemy mages may still be able to hit you with Breach and the like.
Flowey lands a Charm on Lavok! Once a round passes, we'll control him for three whole rounds!
Lavok has a save vs. spell of -4 thanks to his LoB bonuses, but at Flowey's level, there's actually still a chance of charming him, as a Seducer's Charm gets stronger with levels.
Or at least, there would be a chance, if a recent update did not grant plot-critical characters--those with the MINHP1.itm that prevents death and all disablers--immunity to opcode 241.
I find this totally unnecessary. The only way the player can use opcode 241 is via Control Undead, and the only undead critter with the MINHP1.itm is Kangaxx's lich form. And the only way you'd ever get the spell to work with Kangaxx's save vs. spell of 1 is if you cast Control Undead as a Necromancer for the -2 save penalty or used Called Shot to lower Kangaxx's save vs. spell. And even then it's unlikely.
The point of such immunities is to ensure death-related dialogues trigger properly. But the only player who would know how to charm Kangaxx would also know it would screw with the timing of Kangaxx's transformation dialogue. A critical part of the Seducer kit has just been removed. The whole point of creating the Seducer kit is to screw around with charm-immune enemies and make crazy weird stuff happen.
Whatever. I can always tweak the MINHP1.itm to remove the immunity; plot immunity stuff has never been hardcoded. I'll consider it simply a component of the Seducer kit.
Lavok opens with Remove Magic, a very common option for SR+SCS mages. Edwin restores our Dispelling Screen buff, Viconia responds with Unholy Word (just in case Lavok doesn't have the right defenses active), and Carl fires off a Pierce Shield, wiping out all of Lavok's combat and specific protections and therefore triggering a PFMW Contingency.
Pierce Shield has a very long casting time of 8, but if you have True Seeing active, the enemy can't escape it by going invisible, and SR's stronger defensive spells can virtually ensure there's no disruption. An SCS mage above level 11 will basically always have a Contingency active that will trigger the moment they lose their Stoneskins or weapon immunity spells, but after Pierce Shield, all it takes is another Breach spell to remove it. Lavok is defenseless in moments.
He collapses shortly afterwards.
The only way an enemy mage in SCS can protect its defenses from Breach after an SR Pierce Shield is to use a standard Spell Deflection+Spell Shield+PFMW Spell Trigger. But Pierce Shield will take down that PFMW even if Breach will not. As long as your mages are properly prepared, it's a guaranteed two-round elimination of an enemy mage's defenses. It's a high-level spell, but it works on enemy mages of any level.
Enemy mages basically never come in groups, and no SCS mage uses Pierce Shield, even the SR version. This spell only works in your favor.
I normally avoid Lea'liyl and just grab a Demon Heart from the unnamed Tanar'ri, but I only get one chance to kill the demons on the next map. Disturbingly enough, Lea'liyl comes bolstered with another unnamed Tanar'ri, and we get hit by two Remove Magic spells simultaneously. Dispelling Screen only blocks a single Remove Magic, which means we can never block two at once unless we time a re-cast Dispelling Screen at just the right moment.
And because Dispelling Screen has a longer casting time than Remove Magic, and Remove Magic doesn't hit until its projectile hits, and because the timing of the projectile is dependent on (1) casting time, (2) the initial target position and movement, and (3) the position of each character relative to the initial target, it's virtually impossible to time Dispelling Screen correctly. If the enemy uses 2 Remove Magic spells in one round, there is NO way for you to block the second one in SR.
Edwin and Flowey both lose all their defenses.
Flowey and Viconia are both pretty sturdy, but the enemy demons hit hard.
Carl bails them out with a WoL Wish, healing the party and buffing it with Hardiness. All the while, Edwin keeps re-casting Dispelling Screen in an attempt to avoid another dangerous Remove Magic spell.
I didn't plan on using the (admittedly nerfed) Wand of Lightning trick in this run, but I never liked that Wish is so unreliable. Getting an extra two chances of a good result does a lot to mitigate the randomness. It's irritating to cast Wish and get nothing truly useful.
We hang on and the enemy gradually succumbs to the pressure.
The extra Demon Heart is worthless. Only in Improved Anvil (and I think some other mod) is there a use for the spare heart.
Tolgerias is the only major obstacle left. After buffing the hell out of the party, we approach Tolgerias and his friend while invisible and spread out the party to make sure he can't nail all of us at once with an area-effect spell. Once we break invisibility, Tolgerias activates the standard Horrid Wilting Chain Contingency, but Viconia has over 100 magic resistance thanks to the SR Magic Resistance spell.
It's not really necessary for the first round, since you can avoid the Horrid Wilting just by staying out of range.
This fight can be complicated. Tolgerias is strong on his own, but his mage friend can distract you from the true danger. Edwin starts out with a Spell Thrust (an area-effect spell in SR) to remove Spell Shield or Dispelling Screen, while Flowey removes the enemy's illusions.
Viconia cast Unholy Word before, and our Planetar fires off a Holy Word in the hopes of stacking the effect...
...but as I failed to notice at the time, Tolgerias just absorbs the spells. That blue shell around him is an SR spell deflection buff, which can absorb area-effect spells like Holy Word.
But Pierce Shield goes right through Tolgerias' defenses.
That's all we really needed.
We begin the mage stronghold and claim the one thing I was actually trying to find here.
Edwin's chance of scribing Conjuration spells is already at 100% thanks to his Conjurer bonuses and 18 INT (base 85% chance plus 15% from his kit), but his chance of scribing other spells is a pitiful 70%, as specialist mages suffer a -15% penalty when scribing scrolls outside their favored school. The Dagger of Carl boosts his INT from 18 to 19 and increases his chance of learning a spell from 70% to 80%.
It's still pitiful, but it's the best we can manage before I realize we can Wish for automatic spell scribing. We've been saving up a small hoard of scrolls, and now Edwin can finally scribe them. He gets a lot of the most important spells we have--we got lucky this time.
Anyway, time to kill our apprentices.
But because I screw up the quest using CTRL-J, interrupting one of the critical events, I end up with Morul still alive, but his friends dead. This means his dialog can't proceed properly.
Since this only happened due to CTRL-J, which I only use to replicate normal movement for the purposes of no-reload runs, I'm willing to fix the problem. But I can't figure out for sure if we got the staff successfully. Looking at the save file in Near Infinity, it seems like I was supposed to get the Staff of Power, but I can't confirm it.
After a little research, I realize that the staff is supposed to appear on Morul's body if the experiment is successful. I use CTRL-Y and find the staff on his body--we got it! The Staff of Power grants +2 to AC and saves, which will help protect Carl if and when he gets debuffed.
Teos isn't very pleased with the results. One of the dialogue options is just perfect for Carl.
Now that we know we can handle high-level mages, we're ready to tackle the Temple Ruins and the two liches who will surely spawn at our levels.
EDIT: I left a lot of unused screenshot thumbnails at the bottom of one of my posts, but didn't want to remove them by hand. Instead, I copied and pasted the whole text into another post, then deleted the first one. Refreshing the page before posting a comment will also remove unused images at the bottom of the post.
In the Friendly Arms we were asked to retrieve a red bag guarded by sirens and the like. We were successful, but it turned out to be every bit as dangerous as we were warned. Sadly the store that the mod gives causes the game to crash.
In transit we killed another basilisk.
We then sold Dradeel's Recipe Book:
We then did a little ankheg hunting to raise Minsc's experience to the cap and to gain enough gold to go on a shopping spree.
Finally we went after Sarevok and killed both him and his cronies.
I have arrived back in the Ducal Palace to find the city in turmoil. Imoen has been badly hurt and all my friends have left but for Thorin and Gavin. I feel a bit out of my depth as everyone is expecting me to solve their problems. Just because I killed Sarevok doesn't make me invincible, but the crowds beg to differ.
@Arctodus: I do. It's the only way to make sure enemies use SR spells. Aside from that triple Chaos Spell Trigger, they've been using SR spells from Moment of Prescience to Waves of Fatigue.
Just quickly.... did some shopping and then in a fit of boredom risked the Guarded Compound. First time around things were smooth but the game crashed so I sauntered back in and got into trouble with Kivan stunlocked to death, everyone coated in poison mist, and the party unable to make an area transition back downstairs for some reason (possibly because of Afaaq decorprealising, I'm not sure). So I was forced to use an extracurricular resource in the form of a magic map which relocated the party to a Romantic Encounters area to deal with some kidnappers. This done we returned and put the miscreant slavers to the sword.
Following that I stopped messing about and cleaned out the vampire lair and headed over to Spellhold with little trouble, being as rude as possible to all and declining some subquests along the way. Now wandering through the Spellhold maze and trying to remember the damn place as I've used the Spellhold Gauntlet several times.
Legacy of Bhaal Genocide Run: Carl the Llama in BG2 (first post here)
Finally, we go to the Temple Ruins. Sure enough, a lich spawns in the room with the Wyvern Call scroll. It surprises us with a Chain Lightning spell that nearly kills Flowey, but Carl always has full energy resistances.
Carl lands a Pierce Shield, forcing a PFMW Contingency from the lich.
Edwin prepares a Breach spell to finish off the lich's defenses, but a Greater Mummy proves very dangerous. Disease effects stack, and Greater Mummies hit very hard. It doesn't help that LoB inflicts double damage.
We manage to heal Edwin before he rots to death, however, and the poison damage doesn't interrupt Edwin's spellcasting, thanks to the new concentration checks (which I think is standard with the most recent version of EE).
Without PFMW or Stoneskin, the lich is doomed, LoB HP bonuses or not. We move on to the next lich.
The process is very similar. Edwin gets silenced early on, but after Flowey dispels the lich's invisibility, Carl lands a Breach and the lich quickly goes down.
Viconia gains a new level, and gets a fabulous new prize. EE or IR/SR (I forget which) replaces NPC cleric symbols with their own gods, which means Viconia no longer receives an inexplicable Symbol of Talos when she attains the right level.
Unlike virtually every other no-reload run I've ever played, I will be tackling Thaxll'ssillyia before the Shade Lord. Flowey sets a bunch of Time Traps and spends the first few seconds of combat cutting through the dragon's Stoneskins.
Thaxll'ssillyia responds with Remove Magic and a savage blow to Flowey's HP. Despite Flowey's 25 DEX in Fire Elemental form and his numerous buffs, Thaxll'ssillyia can easily get past Flowey's AC.
Carl restores Flowey's Dispelling Screen and Stan grants him Regeneration to help him survive against the dragon. Edwin casts Pierce Magic, which in SR sets the target's MR to 0, regardless of its original value, for 2 rounds. This guarantees a successful hit with Malison, which in SR only imposes a -2 penalty to saving throws. Despite the regeneration, Flowey simply can't tolerate Thaxll'ssillyia's melee pressure.
Notice Carl casting Feeblemind. It has a -4 save penalty in SR, and Thaxll'ssillyia still has 0 MR due to Pierce Magic, but Thaxll'ssillyia has a +5 save bonus thanks to LoB, and resists the effect.
Flowey drinks a potion and clings to life, but Thaxll'ssillyia banishes our summons and wipes out Carl's defenses. Carl responds with an undispellable Moment of Prescience spell.
Notice Viconia's critical hit in the first screenshot. In IR, only a select few items grant immunity to critical hits; a helmet will no longer block it. This means even dragons suffer double damage from critical hits.
Carl prepares to restore his buffs using Improved Alacrity and Edwin starts summoning a Simulacrum. But the rest of the party is doing badly. Viconia's AC can't hold, either, and Flowey loses his defenses to Breach (including a Stoneskin effect from the Ring of Earth Control).
Viconia runs away to heal herself, and Stan accidentally casts Regeneration on Flowey instead of himself.
Thaxll'ssillyia keeps up the pace, but our Fallen Deva lands a hit with Dolorous Decay. It's a guaranteed -1 to STR, DEX, and CON to anyone not immune to disease, but Thaxll'ssillyia also fails a saving throw, guaranteeing further stat drain and poison damage.
Carl's Planetar (around this time, I discovered that we could summon multiple celestials for some reason without needing Project Image) heals up Flowey, and Viconia pitches in as well.
The battle is dragging on. Viconia's Physical Mirror runs out, so she scurries away to restore it. Meanwhile, we lose one of our celestials.
In SR, Physical Mirror acts as a constant-effect Reflected Image spell, granting a 50% miss chance for as long as the spell lasts--2 turns, which isn't that much in LoB mode.
Stan gets knocked unconscious when casting Mass Raise Dead to heal the party, but still manages to finish the spell when he climbs to his feet. Meanwhile, Thaxll'ssillyia turns invisible. Ever since fighting Draconis the first time in ToB, I hated the idea of gigantic creatures spamming invisibility.
We chase Thaxll'ssillyia around the map, using Flowey's Detect Illusions skill to reveal the dragon a little sooner. Thaxll'ssillyia keeps hitting hard, but we're grinding him down.
Disappointingly enough, one of our summons takes the kill.
Regardless, the battle is won. And because we buffed the party beforehand with Negative Plane Protection--which lasts 50 rounds in SR--we never had to deal with the shadow dragon's level drain.
All that's left of this questline is the Shade Lord. SR's Negative Plane Protection wipes out one of his strongest options, and at our levels, we're strong enough to weather his instant death attacks. As always, we stay out of range of his Black Blade of Disaster--which is still a danger to our party. But the Shade Lord is far weaker than he normally would be, because his powerful Shadow Mantle can be taken down with a simple Pierce Shield spell.
In IR, Sunstone Bullets can't slay the Shadow Altar, so we have to attack the altar fast and early, lest we get overwhelmed by Shadows. Unfortunately, a familiar bug raises its ugly head.
Sometimes SCS instantly kills the main character due to a unique error in handling enemy deaths. Basically, if you kill an enemy, there's a chance you'll die no matter what your defenses are.
We reload and trounce the enemy once more. This time, the bug doesn't appear. Another dungeon down.
Beat BG via instilling in Sarevok a social and political awakening that respects all races (orc, goblin, duergar), all colors (green, yellow, gray) , and all orientations (chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutra-awful) by turning him into....
Legacy of Bhaal Genocide Run: Carl the Llama in BG2 (first post here)
After murdering a man in the back of a sleazy bar, we find a cuddly teddy bear. But an evil spirit tries to steal it from us in the Graveyard District.
We slay the enemy most valiantly, but the corrupt local authorities are apparently in cahoots with the undead.
Prismatic Mantle is always a very nasty spell. Flowey makes the mistake of trying to reach past it, and the spell damage slays him early on.
We bring back Flowey within the round, but Stan gets debuffed and one of the enemies nails him with a triple Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer.
We try to raise Stan as well, but the healing effects of Resurrection don't kick in until a full 2 seconds after the target comes back to life. Any amount of damage is fatal if it strikes in those 2 seconds.
Carl's defenses still hold, and the party hangs on. We erase the enemy's defenses with Pierce Shield, crush the remains, and proceed to Firkraag's lair.
For once, I'm going to fight the vampires, which I normally avoid entirely by walking around the spawning trigger in the hallway. SCS vampires summon lots of rats who deal disease damage, so we need crowd control spells to handle the situation. Viconia buffs herself with Protection from Fire and launches a Fire Storm spell, which otherwise would go right through her magic resistance.
Stan contributes an Earthquake, but it's not a party-friendly spell. Like the original version, the SR version can knock the targets unconscious, but in SR, it also has a 20% chance of instantly killing the target on a failed save vs. breath. And if Earthquake knocks you out, you don't get a saving throw against the instant death effect.
Stan gets knocked out, so Carl rushes in to awaken him with Break Enchantment, SR's unique anti-disabler spell. Break Enchantment can cure almost any mental ailment or disability.
But curing the unconsciousness won't be enough to keep Stan safe from Earthquake. Why? Because it's not the unconsciousness itself that prevents you from making a saving throw--if you fail your save vs. death, you get a -20 penalty to your save vs. breath, which Break Enchantment will not cure.
The solution is as simple as moving Stan out of the area of effect. But the 20% chance still applies to everyone else in the area.
I don't even have any screenshots illustrating how we killed the vampires. It was just pure brute force.
I actually don't have the Mace of Disruption. In IR, you can buy it at the Temple District and it slays undead on a failed save vs. spell at no penalty, instead of a failed save vs. death at -4. It's not really worth the gold in LoB mode--compared to normal SCS, it's like giving the enemies a +9 bonus to their save.
I normally don't fight the Guardians fair. They're all the same enemy and they get really repetitive, so I tend to CTRL-J to each one fully buffed and smash them. But cramming all of our party members and summons into a single area causes a problem when Stan's large circle in Earth Elemental form teleports him to the other end of the dungeon.
I'd have grounds to reload per my normal rules, but I don't have a recent save. Instead, I'm going to fight my way all the way through the dungeon just to rescue Stan. He drinks a Potion of Invisibility to await our arrival...
...and then another one when I realize that IR's Potions of Invisibility only last for 10 rounds instead of 240 hours.
We trample the entire dungeon. I have no screenshots because nothing interesting happened.
Viconia tries to land a hit on Conster with Unholy Word. This is when I actually realized that SR's spell protections were absorbing the spell.
The SR version of Holy Word and Unholy Word are better than the originals--they always affect all enemies, and only enemies, regardless of alignment--but ironically, SR weakens them by allowing enemy mages to block the spells with their standard defenses. Normally, enemies have no defense against Holy Word.
Not that it really matters. Carl only needs a single spell to doom Conster: Pierce Shield.
Only Firkraag remains.
I'm going to try and kill Firkraag with STR drain. I don't have any Archers, but I don't need them--as I mentioned in the post on Thaxll'ssillyia, in SR, Dolorous Decay drains physical stats by 1 with no save and bypasses magic resistance. Only immunity to disease or level 6 spells can block it. And if the target fails its save, it suffers even more stat drain.
Viconia and Stan have lots of level 6 spell slots, especially with Carl Wish-resting in the background. Having a Fallen Planetar doesn't hurt, either--they also have SR's Dolorous Decay.
Flowey keeps Firkraag distracted. We continue applying Dolorous Decay spells while Carl provides Wish support and Edwin Breaches Firkraag (Edwin doesn't have much else to do anyway). Firkraag tries to land a Dispel Magic, but we have lots of Dispelling Screen slots available. Only Flowey ends up losing his buffs.
Flowey retreats to safety and tries land a Charm spell, but Firkraag in LoB mode has a save vs. spell of 1. Flowey has a good chance at charming the dragon, but it's still not fully reliable.
Finally, I get the Wish option I'm looking for.
This should inflict a -12 luck penalty on everyone, but I can cure our party members using Heal. We keep chipping away at Firkraag.
Eventually I notice Firkraag isn't fighting back. What's going on? Did I Feeblemind him and not notice? Just in case, Viconia clears Firkraag's mind with Break Enchantment.
Firkraag starts fighting back, hard.
Viconia restores her fire immunity and heals herself. Firkraag is hurt, but we're done yet.
Judging by Firkraag's attack rolls, that intoxication effect isn't hurting him at all. I didn't realize this at the time, but the intoxication effect is flagged as a disabler, which means Break Enchantment can cure it. Viconia gave Firkraag a massive boost by casting Break Enchantment on him.
As a further confirmation, Stan's Implosion fails to do maximum damage.
If Firkraag still had 100 intoxication and therefore -12 luck, he would have suffered 100 damage from that spell.
The battle goes on. Some of our party members are sturdier than others.
But since the fight has lasted so long, I'm concerned that Carl's buffs might run out soon. If they do, a single breath weapon from Firkraag would be fatal. Edwin tacks on another defense, just to be sure.
We keep laying on the damage, with Viconia using a sling to avoid getting crushed in melee. Firkraag has over 5,000 HP in LoB mode with SCS, and he has physical damage resistances on top of that, so he can take a lot of punishment.
Flowey lands the final blow. Firkraag goes down.
If I wasn't using UAI to equip the Fire Elemental Token, Flowey would be using Carsomyr. But IR nerfs the MR to 20%. On the plus side, the Dispel Magic ability, while it only works once per day, has 100% chance of dispelling all dispellable effects on the target, regardless of level. If you first remove the enemy's Dispelling Screen, if any, with a Remove Magic spell (it doesn't matter what level you are; it always removes Dispelling Screen), Carsomyr can dispel anything.
Got through Spellhold, but missed many items as I had misremembered where the exit to the testing was. Irenicus was then mown down with little difficulty. We detoured to the Sahaugin City where Whitworth tested out his pickpocketing skills a little as we killed the Prince and fleeced the King. Now in the Underdark, where I intend to exercise some caution and avoid the Illithid lair.
Last Post: Because we do the Trio so infrequently (once a week, but sometimes the schedules don't work which mean can be even longer) its hard to find my last post. So instead will just the put the game type each post so people know what we are playing.
SETUP: BGT Tobex Fixpack
Corey_Russell had less time this session, mainly because he needed to pick up his wife from work (icy road conditions). In addition, the start was also delayed because Corey_Russell forgot to copy the save game played last week onto the new PC. Grond0 and Gate70 got their BGTs to match, which means the Trio can play on the PC instead. The laptop was overheating plus Skype would drop for no reason, which hardly helped our sessions (especially as I'm the host the run being the protagonist). But we once we got all this cleared up the run was underway.
First step was getting the goodies from Aran Linvail. Then we tried to go to D'Arnise Keep. We didn't quite make it though, Had to help Renfeld. So then we doubled back to the Docks District. While here, Corey_Russell wanted Xzar's +2 staff. So the trio deals with Prebek. Gremlin's traps and Vorgan's True Seeing made a mockery of the opposition - they had no hope. The Staff now belongs to Corsen (after properly looting the Harpers HQ of course). We didn't bother avenging Xzar this run.
So we make it D'Arnise keep. Vorgan usually tanks, with Gremlin using his bow and his special arrows to deal with the trolls once down. The tanks have decent armor, and most trolls provided no trouble. The golems couldn't do much either. The crimson dart saw off the Iron Golem. True sight once again leaving the poor Yuan-ti unable to do much but cast confusion - Gremlin saved vs spells, and Vorgan had Lilacor and Corsen enrage, thus making that encounter quite simple. The giant trolls outside near the gate were putting a massive beat down on the party, despite traps, Corsen still had to gulp down a good number of potions. But the party did prevail.
With traps, Lilacor and enrage available, the Umber Hulks were seen off without any trouble. Well almost - the party did get confused a few times but the others closed doors and waited it out - this was effective.
Gremlin easily could have pulled just Torgal with stealth or invisibility ring, but Vorgan was having none of that and pulled both Torgal and one of his buddies. The party tried everything they could, but could not keep Vorgan together - Torgal got quite a few huge hits. But Corsen was able to see him off. Thus Vorgan bit it (guess he paid for his bad pull with his life. ).
Rather than deal with Temple Sewers and try to get Mekrath's RoR, Corsen recommended buying it directly instead, since gold was good. This way we are ready the next battle death - this is especially poignant, as Grond0 feels in general a session wasn't a good session without at least one party death. . This would also allow stashing Vorgan's stuff in a container, rather than than loot it all and raise him at a temple. We couldn't do that without losing lots of loot we had collected by this point. So Gremlin and Corsen pay quick visit to Ribald's, get the RoR, come back to D'Arnise Keep, and get Vogan re-equipped. The last troll was easy enough. Last fight was against Glaicas. Traps and backstabs made sure he wasn't going to make it.
By the time we reported our success to Nalia and accepted her offer of being Lord of the Keep, The duo made to the edge of the area and saved the session, as we ran out of time.
Party Status (will post it a bit later. Main stat is Vorgan has a commanding lead in the kills, and probably will keep this up indefinitely, since he also gets Carsomyr at some point).
Corsen (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell) level 9 berserker dualed to thief Gremlin (controlled by Grond0) Bounty Hunter Vorgan (controlled by Gate70) Inquisitor
Simon and his allies have reached Troll Claw Woods without any difficulty. Didn't have enough gold for the stone to flesh scrolls, so went after the vampire first. That gave me enough gold for the scrolls. After that went after a dwarf who had turned himself into a lich - and we survived. I had been given an item with three charges that makes defeating liches a bit easier. I needed two of them.
Andur, lawful good half-elven cleric/ranger (solo), update 2
Back in Baldur's Gate, I quickly rescued Eltan, re-investigated the iron throne and used my final few spells for Slythe and Krystin:
I rested, bought some potions and prepared for the duchal palace (my first time soloing this encounter). I decided to go for a maximum damage approach instead of hoping for lucky disabling spells/wands to work. This meant buffing with potions of heroism, power and cloud giant strength (25 strength with duhm), using an oil of speed, summoning five skeletons and casting chant & bless for the best possible thac0. The fight was incredibly close: Liia died rather quickly, and Belt was as good as dead when I finally managed to kill the last doppelganger.
I'm guessing there is a safer and more reliable way to do this?
Anyway, with the encounter finished, Andur bought some more potions and used sanctuary plus various protection spells to move through the maze and the undercity. Here are Andur's buffed statistics, pre-Sarevok:
I started the battle, and Semaj teleported to my right, trying (and failing) to dispel all of the prebuffs. He was quickly killed in Melee combat, his only successful spell being a greater malison. Sarevok's other friends didn't appear, so I cast defensive harmony and joined my summoned skeletons in battle to defeat the final boss:
I started attacking with my sling until all of the skeletons were destroyed. Finally, a melee duel ensued, and Andur was the clear victor.
For the purpose of this playthrough, I'm skipping SoD. Instead, I imported Andur into BG2EE and had him fight his way out of the dungeon, allowing him to start his adventures in Amn.
I'm guessing there is a safer and more reliable way to do this?
Grond0 in particular has lamented the fact that winning Duchal Palace solo in EE is far, far more difficult, even random at times. E.g., one time he succeeded. He tries again, exact same strategy and fail. In vanilla BG, high damage approach for solo class usually worked, (though sometimes not) - in EE it is more random, might work or might not. I think they raised the level of the dopplegangers which makes sleep a non-option, significantly increasing the risk for solo characters.
Legacy of Bhaal Genocide Run: Carl the Llama in BG2 (first post here)
I have to tackle the Improved Ust Natha component of SCS later on, which means I need to scavenge every last scrap of XP I possibly can. Next on the chopping block is the Unseeing Eye. Beholders are nightmares in LoB mode, which boosts their only weakness--poor defenses--by improving their HP pool. But that's what summons and HLAs are for.
Like a fair amount of SCS battles, this one is boring and slow and simplistic. Beholder fights in general are pretty reductive: the enemies themselves have massive immunities (for some reason) but no resistances or spell protections, and the only means of survival is either gaining undispellable immunity to their rays or tricking them into spamming Anti-Magic Rays (assuming such rays block hostile rays in your SCS install, as they do in PnP). This means most Beholder fights involve just whomping them while your spellcasters wait around, unable to use any magic.
We also have to tackle the lich in the Pit of the Faithless. This is actually where my previous, non-genocide LoB run ended--I accidentally entered the area from the south, triggering the lich before I was ready. The party got blasted with magic damage and my Charname was just barely in range.
This time, we're definitely ready. Viconia hobbles the lich early with Unholy Word, as it arrived without any spell deflection spells active.
Carl follows up with Pierce Shield. As always, it's an unstoppable Breach that completely breaks the difficulty of the fight.
Carl realizes that he is not immune to Cloudkill, an important reminder that we need to buff him with Neutralize Poison, which grants immunity to poison in SR.
We retrieve the Gauntlets of Dexterity, boosting Carl's DEX from 19 to 21 and giving him an extra point of AC.
I summon multiple celestials at a time to handle the Beholders because there is no simply reason to bother fighting them fairly.
We use the Rift Device on the Unseeing Eye, but for some reason, our celestials can't hurt it, even after an additional Breach.
That should have removed the beholder's weapon immunities. I keep fighting, and find that only +4 weapons, like Stan's Earth Elemental Token, can harm it.
But the damage isn't quite what I was expecting.
It seems the Unseeing Eye has about 90% damage resistance. This means the SCS Rift Device isn't working properly--it's supposed to remove all of his special SCS defenses, but there's a bug where it fails to take away the item that grants all those defenses. This means the Unseeing Eye is immune to +3 weapons, has demilich-grade damage resistances, and demilich-grade spell level immunities--if I'm not mistaken, it is immune to spell levels 1-9.
Maybe I should reconsider my policy of just rolling with bugs, regardless of whether they work in my favor.
On top of all that, we also have two fresh Death Tyrants to deal with. I keep fighting despite the bug, trying to weaken the Unseeing Eye with Breach, but it doesn't work. We'll just have to keep dealing scratch damage.
Knowing that the Unseeing Eye is immune to +3 weapons and below, I have Viconia and our celestials tackle the Death Tyrants instead. Flowey and Stan attack the Unseeing Eye with the tokens when Edwin and Carl run out of Energy Blades.
To help against the head beholder, Viconia casts Spiritual Weapon. In SR, the hammer strikes from range and deals nonmagical magic damage that bypasses spell protections. Unlike the original spell, the enchantment value goes all the way up to +5, which means Viconia can still deal some damage to the beholder. The Unseeing Eye resists mightily, but it finally crumbles.
Gaal is next. He's normally not an interesting fight after the Unseeing Eye, but we do get one surprise: apparently, SR's Comet spell is not party-friendly!
Since it does crushing damage, however, a single Stoneskin can block all of the damage outright. Carl, Stan, and Edwin remain unharmed.
As long as I'm in the area, I pay a visit to Dorn and agree to crash a wedding for some reason. There is no requirement to take the quest seriously.
That dialogue option is available even if your character is male.
Our disruption somehow causes the wedding to break out into violence... I'm a bit sketchy on the reasoning. LoB bonuses apply to commoners as well as monsters, which means Colin has the HP to suffer extra long.
Like any good pop culture reference, the Red Wedding quest allows you to be silly.
We chase down the last of the guests and execute them one by one. Dorn's patron is pleased with the random violence, but we have no real need for Dorn. I foresee him just getting crushed in the future due to a lack of defenses. We boot him from the party.
Time to nab Celestial Fury. Not because Flowey will be using it--the normally-powerful save vs. spell is at +5 in LoB mode--but because... well... I guess we don't really have a good reason.
Viconia's MR once again proves delightfully stackable with the SR Magic Resistance spell.
Notice the Moment of Prescience spell. Sion now has +20 to AC and saves for 4 rounds.
Well, one round.
Because Pierce Shield breaks through everything.
Sion is basically helpless, but Koshi is still dangerous. Until Edwin disables him for 10 rounds without a save.
Stan casts Mass Raise Dead to heal Flowey while we cut down Sion with Energy Blades and the Fire Elemental Token.
Ketta is also dangerous. Until Edwin disables her, too.
That's all I have for the Guarded Compound. Pierce Shield, PW: Blind, and PW: Stun.
Back to Trademeet to solve the second half of the skinner quest. Being the merciful people we are, we offer to grant Raissa a painless death.
Painless for us, anyway.
A lot of things in this run are things I've never done before, or have almost never done. The Crooked Crane lich is a good example, as I've never considered Daystar worth the risk in SCS--Sunray won't kill SCS liches since they have saves vs. spell of 1, and most liches, including this one, come buffed with Protection from Magical Energy, meaning Sunray does nothing. But SR makes the fight trival at our level. The lich manages to land a Time Stop...
...and it does manage to hit us with Remove Magic, forcing us to cast Dispelling Screen, and lay some Webs on the map, and debuff Stan and Flowey...
...but we have SR's Pierce Shield.
I don't know how the lich managed to get Improved Alacrity off the ground with all that damage coming in. But with Edwin and Carl to follow up Pierce Shield with Ruby Ray and Breach, and with Flowey to use Detect Illusions, there's simply no way the lich could possibly keep us at bay. Pierce Shield is just that strong.
The Shade Lich does more to hurt us, and even throws out a nasty Spell Trigger and Imprisons a celestial. But, again, we have Pierce Shield.
There is no "wizard chess" with Pierce Shield. I've suggested @Demivrgvs nerf it, but he's pointed out that it's a level 8 spell with a very long casting time, and deserves to be rather powerful.
Comments
For the first time in a long while I decided on the party before the class I wanted to play so I'm rolling with Jaheira, Minsc, Aerie and will add Nalia when I do her quest and Imoen when I get to spellhold.
Charname is Keen, a FMT with stellar stats 18/92, 19, 17, 18, 6, 10. Two pips in daggers, two in longswords and two in TWF.
First dungeon went very smoothly, swimming in healing potions once I got out. Did circus and some minor errands including buying three points of reputation from a priest of Ilmater before I had my first rest.
Before our second rest Keen and co did slavers (that last guard outside the boat in the slums that has rage is a beast) and lilarcor, the city ambushes, harper quest, all thief quests (one hit bs on the cowled wizard, 52 damage with varscona!) except killing Mae'var, buried alive, fallen paladins, bridge investigation (didn't fight the rune assassins or the bone golem though), the two minor quests in the graveyard and killed Neb the evil gnome.
This left Keen with about 27k gold, 20 rep, 450k xp, empty spellbooks and fatigue from the lesser restoration you get from killing Neb.
Bought lots of scrolls to make better use of Aeries and Keens mage levels, limited wish scroll for a +2 full plate, fortress shield and a strength belt all for my new tank Jaheira, reflection shield for Aerie and then I was back at 4k gold or so.
Plan now is to finish up the thief quest, go pick a fight with a famous mercenary company in the bridge district and clear the sewers before venturing to Trademeet and then De'Arnise.
This is the second run of Keen btw, he tried disarming a trap with his plate mail equipped while I talked with one of my kids irl, then I tried to open the door and saw the reload screen.. I think the smooth sailing so far is to make up for my silly mistake.
EDIT
I have just read that it should be 500,000 for SoD. Is that correct?
Half-orc(half-minotaur). Cleric/thief, BGEE insane difficulty, no mods, no items, no worry.
Here are the previous entries, it was a long time ago:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/767118/#Comment_767118
The journal of Simon de Montfort
The journal of Simon de Montfort
I then headed to the area to the east of Nashkel and killed a revenant and Narcillicus Harwilliger Neen who killed himself with poor spell choices.and then by pickpocketting whoever they thought might have something of value. Realising that our ethics were incompatible, I dumped them and proceeded to the basilisk area where I was attacked by some adventurers. Seeing a spell coming, I fled whereupon the "Rigid Thinking" spell had little effect as they didn't follow it up with anything else.
In Ulcaster, they were a lot more useful as they were fighting Arghain to the south.
The journal of Simon de Montfort
Just south of Arghain, we were unsuccessfully attacked by more assassins.The journal of Simon de Montfort
We raised Dynaheir at the Beregost Temple before heading for the Friendly Arms Inn for provisions. Unfortunately we were attacked by some deceived good guys and were forced to kill them in self-defence.We then proceeded to Baldur's Gate where yet more assassins awaited us:
In Baldur's Gate itself, we went to rest in an inn and were acosted by larze who did not survive:
The journal of Simon de Montfort
We then went in search of Rieltar at Candlekeep. This ended up with us having to flee into a secret part of Candlekeep where we had to deal with more assassins as well as spiders and medusae:We then intended to sneak into the Section HQ in Beregost, but somehow we were spotted despite thinking that we were invisible. We were transported to the depths of the HQ where we fought Paul Wolfe and his cronies before fighting our way out. Sadly Minsc was killed, this was quite annoying as one of the main reasons for going to the HQ was to increase the experience of him and Dynaheir:
We returned to Baldur's Gate where we rescued Duke Eltan by stealth before fighting Cythandra, Krystin and Slythe:
We then went to challenge Sarevok and with the help of summons and web we defeated him, causing him to flee.
Upon our return we were sent to Ice Island and were able to retrieve Shandalar's Cloak after much fighting.
From there we entered some underground passages and emerged in Gullykin. Now teatime. Images to follow.
(first post here)
Sooner or later, I'm going to have to wipe out the population, so I may as well get started. I pick my fights carefully, though, lest I turn somebody important hostile.
Edwin is quite pleased with our progress.
I like Priss better, so I decide to give her a boost.
I'm not sure if that will be enough, so I decide to take a more active role in the proceedings.
Unfortunately, Priss prefers to fight her own battles, and Rumar is upset that we interrupted a perfectly good catfight. Everyone in the back rooms goes hostile.
I mop the floor with their brains and poke around the tables to see if the rest of the tavern noticed. Our shenanigans have gone unpunished.
I do get a weird message on the way to the slavers' hideout...
...but the tieflings never show up to fight us. I'm not sure why this happens.
We single-handedly wipe out the local slave trade, heroic heroes that we are. We even take down the slavers' accomplices.
Unfortunately, our deeds attract the attention of some crooked cops. It seems that even the authorities are pawns of the slave traders.
We cannot stand for such injustices, and take on the noble burden of eliminating government corruption ourselves. Carl hides the party with Invisibility Sphere and we toss out some summons to hold the front line.
Unfortunately, the enemy is stronger than we thought. One of them is an epic-level mage. Edwin's defenses collapse, forcing him to use a rare escape option.
That Spell Trigger was actually done in response to a Pierce Shield from Carl, which wiped out the mage's defenses. But it only takes one more round to tear down that PFMW spell and render the mage vulnerable.
Victory! Culture will defeat those loutish brutes each and every time. But in a galling act of disrespect for the basic norms of society, our foes claim to be paladins.
Obviously we will not fall for such blatant lies.
I really, really need Edwin to learn some more spells. He already has lots of high-level spells slots, but nothing to fill them with. The problem with Item Revisions is that it replaces Potions of Genius and Mind Focusing with Potions of Vocalize and Restoration, respectively. This means it's incredibly hard to get high Intelligence, and scribing scrolls is therefore risky.
Of course, I can always get party-wide 25 Intelligence with Wish, if only for 4 rounds. But I didn't think of that at the time. Instead, we head to the Planar Sphere to start the mage stronghold quest, because the Dagger of Charname in IR grants +1 INT.
The halfling cannibals aren't much trouble. I only have two screenshots, showing their humongous prebuffs and a nasty Prismatic Spray.
I'm pretty sure I just dispelled Kayardi's invisibility with Flowey's Detect Illusion, then nailed Kayardi with Pierce Shield and trampled the halflings with brute force. Pierce Shield is a very high-level spell, but it works like an unblockable Breach spell.
Right about now, I got tired of using my custom Improved Alacrity spell to buff the party. Instead, I created a custom buffing spell to cast all of our buffs simultaneously. It also rests the party and heals everybody. Our buffs now only take a few clicks to activate.
Notice the Non-Detection spells. In Spell Revisions, they basically function as an 8-hour SI: Divination spell, so the only way the enemy can remove our illusion spells is with Dispel Magic (to dispel the illusions themselves, or just to dispel Non-Detection). It's a great spell, but bear in mind that True Seeing lets enemies target invisible characters anyway, so enemy mages may still be able to hit you with Breach and the like.
Flowey lands a Charm on Lavok! Once a round passes, we'll control him for three whole rounds!
Lavok has a save vs. spell of -4 thanks to his LoB bonuses, but at Flowey's level, there's actually still a chance of charming him, as a Seducer's Charm gets stronger with levels.
Or at least, there would be a chance, if a recent update did not grant plot-critical characters--those with the MINHP1.itm that prevents death and all disablers--immunity to opcode 241.
I find this totally unnecessary. The only way the player can use opcode 241 is via Control Undead, and the only undead critter with the MINHP1.itm is Kangaxx's lich form. And the only way you'd ever get the spell to work with Kangaxx's save vs. spell of 1 is if you cast Control Undead as a Necromancer for the -2 save penalty or used Called Shot to lower Kangaxx's save vs. spell. And even then it's unlikely.
The point of such immunities is to ensure death-related dialogues trigger properly. But the only player who would know how to charm Kangaxx would also know it would screw with the timing of Kangaxx's transformation dialogue. A critical part of the Seducer kit has just been removed. The whole point of creating the Seducer kit is to screw around with charm-immune enemies and make crazy weird stuff happen.
Whatever. I can always tweak the MINHP1.itm to remove the immunity; plot immunity stuff has never been hardcoded. I'll consider it simply a component of the Seducer kit.
Lavok opens with Remove Magic, a very common option for SR+SCS mages. Edwin restores our Dispelling Screen buff, Viconia responds with Unholy Word (just in case Lavok doesn't have the right defenses active), and Carl fires off a Pierce Shield, wiping out all of Lavok's combat and specific protections and therefore triggering a PFMW Contingency.
Pierce Shield has a very long casting time of 8, but if you have True Seeing active, the enemy can't escape it by going invisible, and SR's stronger defensive spells can virtually ensure there's no disruption. An SCS mage above level 11 will basically always have a Contingency active that will trigger the moment they lose their Stoneskins or weapon immunity spells, but after Pierce Shield, all it takes is another Breach spell to remove it. Lavok is defenseless in moments.
He collapses shortly afterwards.
The only way an enemy mage in SCS can protect its defenses from Breach after an SR Pierce Shield is to use a standard Spell Deflection+Spell Shield+PFMW Spell Trigger. But Pierce Shield will take down that PFMW even if Breach will not. As long as your mages are properly prepared, it's a guaranteed two-round elimination of an enemy mage's defenses. It's a high-level spell, but it works on enemy mages of any level.
Enemy mages basically never come in groups, and no SCS mage uses Pierce Shield, even the SR version. This spell only works in your favor.
I normally avoid Lea'liyl and just grab a Demon Heart from the unnamed Tanar'ri, but I only get one chance to kill the demons on the next map. Disturbingly enough, Lea'liyl comes bolstered with another unnamed Tanar'ri, and we get hit by two Remove Magic spells simultaneously. Dispelling Screen only blocks a single Remove Magic, which means we can never block two at once unless we time a re-cast Dispelling Screen at just the right moment.
And because Dispelling Screen has a longer casting time than Remove Magic, and Remove Magic doesn't hit until its projectile hits, and because the timing of the projectile is dependent on (1) casting time, (2) the initial target position and movement, and (3) the position of each character relative to the initial target, it's virtually impossible to time Dispelling Screen correctly. If the enemy uses 2 Remove Magic spells in one round, there is NO way for you to block the second one in SR.
Edwin and Flowey both lose all their defenses.
Flowey and Viconia are both pretty sturdy, but the enemy demons hit hard.
Carl bails them out with a WoL Wish, healing the party and buffing it with Hardiness. All the while, Edwin keeps re-casting Dispelling Screen in an attempt to avoid another dangerous Remove Magic spell.
I didn't plan on using the (admittedly nerfed) Wand of Lightning trick in this run, but I never liked that Wish is so unreliable. Getting an extra two chances of a good result does a lot to mitigate the randomness. It's irritating to cast Wish and get nothing truly useful.
We hang on and the enemy gradually succumbs to the pressure.
The extra Demon Heart is worthless. Only in Improved Anvil (and I think some other mod) is there a use for the spare heart.
Tolgerias is the only major obstacle left. After buffing the hell out of the party, we approach Tolgerias and his friend while invisible and spread out the party to make sure he can't nail all of us at once with an area-effect spell. Once we break invisibility, Tolgerias activates the standard Horrid Wilting Chain Contingency, but Viconia has over 100 magic resistance thanks to the SR Magic Resistance spell.
It's not really necessary for the first round, since you can avoid the Horrid Wilting just by staying out of range.
This fight can be complicated. Tolgerias is strong on his own, but his mage friend can distract you from the true danger. Edwin starts out with a Spell Thrust (an area-effect spell in SR) to remove Spell Shield or Dispelling Screen, while Flowey removes the enemy's illusions.
Viconia cast Unholy Word before, and our Planetar fires off a Holy Word in the hopes of stacking the effect...
...but as I failed to notice at the time, Tolgerias just absorbs the spells. That blue shell around him is an SR spell deflection buff, which can absorb area-effect spells like Holy Word.
But Pierce Shield goes right through Tolgerias' defenses.
That's all we really needed.
We begin the mage stronghold and claim the one thing I was actually trying to find here.
Edwin's chance of scribing Conjuration spells is already at 100% thanks to his Conjurer bonuses and 18 INT (base 85% chance plus 15% from his kit), but his chance of scribing other spells is a pitiful 70%, as specialist mages suffer a -15% penalty when scribing scrolls outside their favored school. The Dagger of Carl boosts his INT from 18 to 19 and increases his chance of learning a spell from 70% to 80%.
It's still pitiful, but it's the best we can manage before I realize we can Wish for automatic spell scribing. We've been saving up a small hoard of scrolls, and now Edwin can finally scribe them. He gets a lot of the most important spells we have--we got lucky this time.
Anyway, time to kill our apprentices.
But because I screw up the quest using CTRL-J, interrupting one of the critical events, I end up with Morul still alive, but his friends dead. This means his dialog can't proceed properly.
Since this only happened due to CTRL-J, which I only use to replicate normal movement for the purposes of no-reload runs, I'm willing to fix the problem. But I can't figure out for sure if we got the staff successfully. Looking at the save file in Near Infinity, it seems like I was supposed to get the Staff of Power, but I can't confirm it.
After a little research, I realize that the staff is supposed to appear on Morul's body if the experiment is successful. I use CTRL-Y and find the staff on his body--we got it! The Staff of Power grants +2 to AC and saves, which will help protect Carl if and when he gets debuffed.
Teos isn't very pleased with the results. One of the dialogue options is just perfect for Carl.
Now that we know we can handle high-level mages, we're ready to tackle the Temple Ruins and the two liches who will surely spawn at our levels.
EDIT: I left a lot of unused screenshot thumbnails at the bottom of one of my posts, but didn't want to remove them by hand. Instead, I copied and pasted the whole text into another post, then deleted the first one. Refreshing the page before posting a comment will also remove unused images at the bottom of the post.
The Journal of Simon de Montfort
Battles under Firewine:The Journal of Simon de Montfort
I have arrived back in the Ducal Palace to find the city in turmoil. Imoen has been badly hurt and all my friends have left but for Thorin and Gavin. I feel a bit out of my depth as everyone is expecting me to solve their problems. Just because I killed Sarevok doesn't make me invincible, but the crowds beg to differ.Following that I stopped messing about and cleaned out the vampire lair and headed over to Spellhold with little trouble, being as rude as possible to all and declining some subquests along the way. Now wandering through the Spellhold maze and trying to remember the damn place as I've used the Spellhold Gauntlet several times.
Journal of Simon de Montfort
WE have reached the Coast Way Crossing meeting little in the way of opposition.(first post here)
Finally, we go to the Temple Ruins. Sure enough, a lich spawns in the room with the Wyvern Call scroll. It surprises us with a Chain Lightning spell that nearly kills Flowey, but Carl always has full energy resistances.
Carl lands a Pierce Shield, forcing a PFMW Contingency from the lich.
Edwin prepares a Breach spell to finish off the lich's defenses, but a Greater Mummy proves very dangerous. Disease effects stack, and Greater Mummies hit very hard. It doesn't help that LoB inflicts double damage.
We manage to heal Edwin before he rots to death, however, and the poison damage doesn't interrupt Edwin's spellcasting, thanks to the new concentration checks (which I think is standard with the most recent version of EE).
Without PFMW or Stoneskin, the lich is doomed, LoB HP bonuses or not. We move on to the next lich.
The process is very similar. Edwin gets silenced early on, but after Flowey dispels the lich's invisibility, Carl lands a Breach and the lich quickly goes down.
Viconia gains a new level, and gets a fabulous new prize. EE or IR/SR (I forget which) replaces NPC cleric symbols with their own gods, which means Viconia no longer receives an inexplicable Symbol of Talos when she attains the right level.
Unlike virtually every other no-reload run I've ever played, I will be tackling Thaxll'ssillyia before the Shade Lord. Flowey sets a bunch of Time Traps and spends the first few seconds of combat cutting through the dragon's Stoneskins.
Thaxll'ssillyia responds with Remove Magic and a savage blow to Flowey's HP. Despite Flowey's 25 DEX in Fire Elemental form and his numerous buffs, Thaxll'ssillyia can easily get past Flowey's AC.
Carl restores Flowey's Dispelling Screen and Stan grants him Regeneration to help him survive against the dragon. Edwin casts Pierce Magic, which in SR sets the target's MR to 0, regardless of its original value, for 2 rounds. This guarantees a successful hit with Malison, which in SR only imposes a -2 penalty to saving throws. Despite the regeneration, Flowey simply can't tolerate Thaxll'ssillyia's melee pressure.
Notice Carl casting Feeblemind. It has a -4 save penalty in SR, and Thaxll'ssillyia still has 0 MR due to Pierce Magic, but Thaxll'ssillyia has a +5 save bonus thanks to LoB, and resists the effect.
Flowey drinks a potion and clings to life, but Thaxll'ssillyia banishes our summons and wipes out Carl's defenses. Carl responds with an undispellable Moment of Prescience spell.
Notice Viconia's critical hit in the first screenshot. In IR, only a select few items grant immunity to critical hits; a helmet will no longer block it. This means even dragons suffer double damage from critical hits.
Carl prepares to restore his buffs using Improved Alacrity and Edwin starts summoning a Simulacrum. But the rest of the party is doing badly. Viconia's AC can't hold, either, and Flowey loses his defenses to Breach (including a Stoneskin effect from the Ring of Earth Control).
Viconia runs away to heal herself, and Stan accidentally casts Regeneration on Flowey instead of himself.
Thaxll'ssillyia keeps up the pace, but our Fallen Deva lands a hit with Dolorous Decay. It's a guaranteed -1 to STR, DEX, and CON to anyone not immune to disease, but Thaxll'ssillyia also fails a saving throw, guaranteeing further stat drain and poison damage.
Carl's Planetar (around this time, I discovered that we could summon multiple celestials for some reason without needing Project Image) heals up Flowey, and Viconia pitches in as well.
The battle is dragging on. Viconia's Physical Mirror runs out, so she scurries away to restore it. Meanwhile, we lose one of our celestials.
In SR, Physical Mirror acts as a constant-effect Reflected Image spell, granting a 50% miss chance for as long as the spell lasts--2 turns, which isn't that much in LoB mode.
Stan gets knocked unconscious when casting Mass Raise Dead to heal the party, but still manages to finish the spell when he climbs to his feet. Meanwhile, Thaxll'ssillyia turns invisible. Ever since fighting Draconis the first time in ToB, I hated the idea of gigantic creatures spamming invisibility.
We chase Thaxll'ssillyia around the map, using Flowey's Detect Illusions skill to reveal the dragon a little sooner. Thaxll'ssillyia keeps hitting hard, but we're grinding him down.
Disappointingly enough, one of our summons takes the kill.
Regardless, the battle is won. And because we buffed the party beforehand with Negative Plane Protection--which lasts 50 rounds in SR--we never had to deal with the shadow dragon's level drain.
All that's left of this questline is the Shade Lord. SR's Negative Plane Protection wipes out one of his strongest options, and at our levels, we're strong enough to weather his instant death attacks. As always, we stay out of range of his Black Blade of Disaster--which is still a danger to our party. But the Shade Lord is far weaker than he normally would be, because his powerful Shadow Mantle can be taken down with a simple Pierce Shield spell.
In IR, Sunstone Bullets can't slay the Shadow Altar, so we have to attack the altar fast and early, lest we get overwhelmed by Shadows. Unfortunately, a familiar bug raises its ugly head.
Sometimes SCS instantly kills the main character due to a unique error in handling enemy deaths. Basically, if you kill an enemy, there's a chance you'll die no matter what your defenses are.
We reload and trounce the enemy once more. This time, the bug doesn't appear. Another dungeon down.
Beat BG via instilling in Sarevok a social and political awakening that respects all races (orc, goblin, duergar), all colors (green, yellow, gray) , and all orientations (chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutra-awful) by turning him into....
Sare-Woke!
(first post here)
After murdering a man in the back of a sleazy bar, we find a cuddly teddy bear. But an evil spirit tries to steal it from us in the Graveyard District.
We slay the enemy most valiantly, but the corrupt local authorities are apparently in cahoots with the undead.
Prismatic Mantle is always a very nasty spell. Flowey makes the mistake of trying to reach past it, and the spell damage slays him early on.
We bring back Flowey within the round, but Stan gets debuffed and one of the enemies nails him with a triple Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer.
We try to raise Stan as well, but the healing effects of Resurrection don't kick in until a full 2 seconds after the target comes back to life. Any amount of damage is fatal if it strikes in those 2 seconds.
Carl's defenses still hold, and the party hangs on. We erase the enemy's defenses with Pierce Shield, crush the remains, and proceed to Firkraag's lair.
For once, I'm going to fight the vampires, which I normally avoid entirely by walking around the spawning trigger in the hallway. SCS vampires summon lots of rats who deal disease damage, so we need crowd control spells to handle the situation. Viconia buffs herself with Protection from Fire and launches a Fire Storm spell, which otherwise would go right through her magic resistance.
Stan contributes an Earthquake, but it's not a party-friendly spell. Like the original version, the SR version can knock the targets unconscious, but in SR, it also has a 20% chance of instantly killing the target on a failed save vs. breath. And if Earthquake knocks you out, you don't get a saving throw against the instant death effect.
Stan gets knocked out, so Carl rushes in to awaken him with Break Enchantment, SR's unique anti-disabler spell. Break Enchantment can cure almost any mental ailment or disability.
But curing the unconsciousness won't be enough to keep Stan safe from Earthquake. Why? Because it's not the unconsciousness itself that prevents you from making a saving throw--if you fail your save vs. death, you get a -20 penalty to your save vs. breath, which Break Enchantment will not cure.
The solution is as simple as moving Stan out of the area of effect. But the 20% chance still applies to everyone else in the area.
I don't even have any screenshots illustrating how we killed the vampires. It was just pure brute force.
I actually don't have the Mace of Disruption. In IR, you can buy it at the Temple District and it slays undead on a failed save vs. spell at no penalty, instead of a failed save vs. death at -4. It's not really worth the gold in LoB mode--compared to normal SCS, it's like giving the enemies a +9 bonus to their save.
I normally don't fight the Guardians fair. They're all the same enemy and they get really repetitive, so I tend to CTRL-J to each one fully buffed and smash them. But cramming all of our party members and summons into a single area causes a problem when Stan's large circle in Earth Elemental form teleports him to the other end of the dungeon.
I'd have grounds to reload per my normal rules, but I don't have a recent save. Instead, I'm going to fight my way all the way through the dungeon just to rescue Stan. He drinks a Potion of Invisibility to await our arrival...
...and then another one when I realize that IR's Potions of Invisibility only last for 10 rounds instead of 240 hours.
We trample the entire dungeon. I have no screenshots because nothing interesting happened.
Viconia tries to land a hit on Conster with Unholy Word. This is when I actually realized that SR's spell protections were absorbing the spell.
The SR version of Holy Word and Unholy Word are better than the originals--they always affect all enemies, and only enemies, regardless of alignment--but ironically, SR weakens them by allowing enemy mages to block the spells with their standard defenses. Normally, enemies have no defense against Holy Word.
Not that it really matters. Carl only needs a single spell to doom Conster: Pierce Shield.
Only Firkraag remains.
I'm going to try and kill Firkraag with STR drain. I don't have any Archers, but I don't need them--as I mentioned in the post on Thaxll'ssillyia, in SR, Dolorous Decay drains physical stats by 1 with no save and bypasses magic resistance. Only immunity to disease or level 6 spells can block it. And if the target fails its save, it suffers even more stat drain.
Viconia and Stan have lots of level 6 spell slots, especially with Carl Wish-resting in the background. Having a Fallen Planetar doesn't hurt, either--they also have SR's Dolorous Decay.
Flowey keeps Firkraag distracted. We continue applying Dolorous Decay spells while Carl provides Wish support and Edwin Breaches Firkraag (Edwin doesn't have much else to do anyway). Firkraag tries to land a Dispel Magic, but we have lots of Dispelling Screen slots available. Only Flowey ends up losing his buffs.
Flowey retreats to safety and tries land a Charm spell, but Firkraag in LoB mode has a save vs. spell of 1. Flowey has a good chance at charming the dragon, but it's still not fully reliable.
Finally, I get the Wish option I'm looking for.
This should inflict a -12 luck penalty on everyone, but I can cure our party members using Heal. We keep chipping away at Firkraag.
Eventually I notice Firkraag isn't fighting back. What's going on? Did I Feeblemind him and not notice? Just in case, Viconia clears Firkraag's mind with Break Enchantment.
Firkraag starts fighting back, hard.
Viconia restores her fire immunity and heals herself. Firkraag is hurt, but we're done yet.
Judging by Firkraag's attack rolls, that intoxication effect isn't hurting him at all. I didn't realize this at the time, but the intoxication effect is flagged as a disabler, which means Break Enchantment can cure it. Viconia gave Firkraag a massive boost by casting Break Enchantment on him.
As a further confirmation, Stan's Implosion fails to do maximum damage.
If Firkraag still had 100 intoxication and therefore -12 luck, he would have suffered 100 damage from that spell.
The battle goes on. Some of our party members are sturdier than others.
But since the fight has lasted so long, I'm concerned that Carl's buffs might run out soon. If they do, a single breath weapon from Firkraag would be fatal. Edwin tacks on another defense, just to be sure.
We keep laying on the damage, with Viconia using a sling to avoid getting crushed in melee. Firkraag has over 5,000 HP in LoB mode with SCS, and he has physical damage resistances on top of that, so he can take a lot of punishment.
Flowey lands the final blow. Firkraag goes down.
If I wasn't using UAI to equip the Fire Elemental Token, Flowey would be using Carsomyr. But IR nerfs the MR to 20%. On the plus side, the Dispel Magic ability, while it only works once per day, has 100% chance of dispelling all dispellable effects on the target, regardless of level. If you first remove the enemy's Dispelling Screen, if any, with a Remove Magic spell (it doesn't matter what level you are; it always removes Dispelling Screen), Carsomyr can dispel anything.
Last Post: Because we do the Trio so infrequently (once a week, but sometimes the schedules don't work which mean can be even longer) its hard to find my last post. So instead will just the put the game type each post so people know what we are playing.
SETUP:
BGT
Tobex
Fixpack
Corey_Russell had less time this session, mainly because he needed to pick up his wife from work (icy road conditions). In addition, the start was also delayed because Corey_Russell forgot to copy the save game played last week onto the new PC. Grond0 and Gate70 got their BGTs to match, which means the Trio can play on the PC instead. The laptop was overheating plus Skype would drop for no reason, which hardly helped our sessions (especially as I'm the host the run being the protagonist). But we once we got all this cleared up the run was underway.
First step was getting the goodies from Aran Linvail. Then we tried to go to D'Arnise Keep. We didn't quite make it though, Had to help Renfeld. So then we doubled back to the Docks District. While here, Corey_Russell wanted Xzar's +2 staff. So the trio deals with Prebek. Gremlin's traps and Vorgan's True Seeing made a mockery of the opposition - they had no hope. The Staff now belongs to Corsen (after properly looting the Harpers HQ of course). We didn't bother avenging Xzar this run.
So we make it D'Arnise keep. Vorgan usually tanks, with Gremlin using his bow and his special arrows to deal with the trolls once down. The tanks have decent armor, and most trolls provided no trouble. The golems couldn't do much either. The crimson dart saw off the Iron Golem. True sight once again leaving the poor Yuan-ti unable to do much but cast confusion - Gremlin saved vs spells, and Vorgan had Lilacor and Corsen enrage, thus making that encounter quite simple. The giant trolls outside near the gate were putting a massive beat down on the party, despite traps, Corsen still had to gulp down a good number of potions. But the party did prevail.
With traps, Lilacor and enrage available, the Umber Hulks were seen off without any trouble. Well almost - the party did get confused a few times but the others closed doors and waited it out - this was effective.
Gremlin easily could have pulled just Torgal with stealth or invisibility ring, but Vorgan was having none of that and pulled both Torgal and one of his buddies. The party tried everything they could, but could not keep Vorgan together - Torgal got quite a few huge hits. But Corsen was able to see him off. Thus Vorgan bit it (guess he paid for his bad pull with his life.
Rather than deal with Temple Sewers and try to get Mekrath's RoR, Corsen recommended buying it directly instead, since gold was good. This way we are ready the next battle death - this is especially poignant, as Grond0 feels in general a session wasn't a good session without at least one party death.
By the time we reported our success to Nalia and accepted her offer of being Lord of the Keep, The duo made to the edge of the area and saved the session, as we ran out of time.
Party Status (will post it a bit later. Main stat is Vorgan has a commanding lead in the kills, and probably will keep this up indefinitely, since he also gets Carsomyr at some point).
Corsen (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell) level 9 berserker dualed to thief
Gremlin (controlled by Grond0) Bounty Hunter
Vorgan (controlled by Gate70) Inquisitor
Journal of Simon de Montfort
Simon and his allies have reached Troll Claw Woods without any difficulty.Didn't have enough gold for the stone to flesh scrolls, so went after the vampire first. That gave me enough gold for the scrolls. After that went after a dwarf who had turned himself into a lich - and we survived. I had been given an item with three charges that makes defeating liches a bit easier. I needed two of them.
Back in Baldur's Gate, I quickly rescued Eltan, re-investigated the iron throne and used my final few spells for Slythe and Krystin:
I rested, bought some potions and prepared for the duchal palace (my first time soloing this encounter). I decided to go for a maximum damage approach instead of hoping for lucky disabling spells/wands to work. This meant buffing with potions of heroism, power and cloud giant strength (25 strength with duhm), using an oil of speed, summoning five skeletons and casting chant & bless for the best possible thac0. The fight was incredibly close: Liia died rather quickly, and Belt was as good as dead when I finally managed to kill the last doppelganger.
I'm guessing there is a safer and more reliable way to do this?
Anyway, with the encounter finished, Andur bought some more potions and used sanctuary plus various protection spells to move through the maze and the undercity. Here are Andur's buffed statistics, pre-Sarevok:
I started the battle, and Semaj teleported to my right, trying (and failing) to dispel all of the prebuffs. He was quickly killed in Melee combat, his only successful spell being a greater malison. Sarevok's other friends didn't appear, so I cast defensive harmony and joined my summoned skeletons in battle to defeat the final boss:
I started attacking with my sling until all of the skeletons were destroyed. Finally, a melee duel ensued, and Andur was the clear victor.
For the purpose of this playthrough, I'm skipping SoD. Instead, I imported Andur into BG2EE and had him fight his way out of the dungeon, allowing him to start his adventures in Amn.
Enuhal
Grond0 in particular has lamented the fact that winning Duchal Palace solo in EE is far, far more difficult, even random at times. E.g., one time he succeeded. He tries again, exact same strategy and fail. In vanilla BG, high damage approach for solo class usually worked, (though sometimes not) - in EE it is more random, might work or might not. I think they raised the level of the dopplegangers which makes sleep a non-option, significantly increasing the risk for solo characters.
(first post here)
I have to tackle the Improved Ust Natha component of SCS later on, which means I need to scavenge every last scrap of XP I possibly can. Next on the chopping block is the Unseeing Eye. Beholders are nightmares in LoB mode, which boosts their only weakness--poor defenses--by improving their HP pool. But that's what summons and HLAs are for.
Like a fair amount of SCS battles, this one is boring and slow and simplistic. Beholder fights in general are pretty reductive: the enemies themselves have massive immunities (for some reason) but no resistances or spell protections, and the only means of survival is either gaining undispellable immunity to their rays or tricking them into spamming Anti-Magic Rays (assuming such rays block hostile rays in your SCS install, as they do in PnP). This means most Beholder fights involve just whomping them while your spellcasters wait around, unable to use any magic.
We also have to tackle the lich in the Pit of the Faithless. This is actually where my previous, non-genocide LoB run ended--I accidentally entered the area from the south, triggering the lich before I was ready. The party got blasted with magic damage and my Charname was just barely in range.
This time, we're definitely ready. Viconia hobbles the lich early with Unholy Word, as it arrived without any spell deflection spells active.
Carl follows up with Pierce Shield. As always, it's an unstoppable Breach that completely breaks the difficulty of the fight.
Carl realizes that he is not immune to Cloudkill, an important reminder that we need to buff him with Neutralize Poison, which grants immunity to poison in SR.
We retrieve the Gauntlets of Dexterity, boosting Carl's DEX from 19 to 21 and giving him an extra point of AC.
I summon multiple celestials at a time to handle the Beholders because there is no simply reason to bother fighting them fairly.
We use the Rift Device on the Unseeing Eye, but for some reason, our celestials can't hurt it, even after an additional Breach.
That should have removed the beholder's weapon immunities. I keep fighting, and find that only +4 weapons, like Stan's Earth Elemental Token, can harm it.
But the damage isn't quite what I was expecting.
It seems the Unseeing Eye has about 90% damage resistance. This means the SCS Rift Device isn't working properly--it's supposed to remove all of his special SCS defenses, but there's a bug where it fails to take away the item that grants all those defenses. This means the Unseeing Eye is immune to +3 weapons, has demilich-grade damage resistances, and demilich-grade spell level immunities--if I'm not mistaken, it is immune to spell levels 1-9.
Maybe I should reconsider my policy of just rolling with bugs, regardless of whether they work in my favor.
On top of all that, we also have two fresh Death Tyrants to deal with. I keep fighting despite the bug, trying to weaken the Unseeing Eye with Breach, but it doesn't work. We'll just have to keep dealing scratch damage.
Knowing that the Unseeing Eye is immune to +3 weapons and below, I have Viconia and our celestials tackle the Death Tyrants instead. Flowey and Stan attack the Unseeing Eye with the tokens when Edwin and Carl run out of Energy Blades.
To help against the head beholder, Viconia casts Spiritual Weapon. In SR, the hammer strikes from range and deals nonmagical magic damage that bypasses spell protections. Unlike the original spell, the enchantment value goes all the way up to +5, which means Viconia can still deal some damage to the beholder. The Unseeing Eye resists mightily, but it finally crumbles.
Gaal is next. He's normally not an interesting fight after the Unseeing Eye, but we do get one surprise: apparently, SR's Comet spell is not party-friendly!
Since it does crushing damage, however, a single Stoneskin can block all of the damage outright. Carl, Stan, and Edwin remain unharmed.
As long as I'm in the area, I pay a visit to Dorn and agree to crash a wedding for some reason. There is no requirement to take the quest seriously.
That dialogue option is available even if your character is male.
Our disruption somehow causes the wedding to break out into violence... I'm a bit sketchy on the reasoning. LoB bonuses apply to commoners as well as monsters, which means Colin has the HP to suffer extra long.
Like any good pop culture reference, the Red Wedding quest allows you to be silly.
We chase down the last of the guests and execute them one by one. Dorn's patron is pleased with the random violence, but we have no real need for Dorn. I foresee him just getting crushed in the future due to a lack of defenses. We boot him from the party.
Time to nab Celestial Fury. Not because Flowey will be using it--the normally-powerful save vs. spell is at +5 in LoB mode--but because... well... I guess we don't really have a good reason.
Viconia's MR once again proves delightfully stackable with the SR Magic Resistance spell.
Notice the Moment of Prescience spell. Sion now has +20 to AC and saves for 4 rounds.
Well, one round.
Because Pierce Shield breaks through everything.
Sion is basically helpless, but Koshi is still dangerous. Until Edwin disables him for 10 rounds without a save.
Stan casts Mass Raise Dead to heal Flowey while we cut down Sion with Energy Blades and the Fire Elemental Token.
Ketta is also dangerous. Until Edwin disables her, too.
That's all I have for the Guarded Compound. Pierce Shield, PW: Blind, and PW: Stun.
Back to Trademeet to solve the second half of the skinner quest. Being the merciful people we are, we offer to grant Raissa a painless death.
Painless for us, anyway.
A lot of things in this run are things I've never done before, or have almost never done. The Crooked Crane lich is a good example, as I've never considered Daystar worth the risk in SCS--Sunray won't kill SCS liches since they have saves vs. spell of 1, and most liches, including this one, come buffed with Protection from Magical Energy, meaning Sunray does nothing. But SR makes the fight trival at our level. The lich manages to land a Time Stop...
...and it does manage to hit us with Remove Magic, forcing us to cast Dispelling Screen, and lay some Webs on the map, and debuff Stan and Flowey...
...but we have SR's Pierce Shield.
I don't know how the lich managed to get Improved Alacrity off the ground with all that damage coming in. But with Edwin and Carl to follow up Pierce Shield with Ruby Ray and Breach, and with Flowey to use Detect Illusions, there's simply no way the lich could possibly keep us at bay. Pierce Shield is just that strong.
The Shade Lich does more to hurt us, and even throws out a nasty Spell Trigger and Imprisons a celestial. But, again, we have Pierce Shield.
There is no "wizard chess" with Pierce Shield. I've suggested @Demivrgvs nerf it, but he's pointed out that it's a level 8 spell with a very long casting time, and deserves to be rather powerful.