As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood looking at a basalt tower. This will be our final Siege of Dragonspear post, regardless of outcome.
We have a last rest and fudge around in our bags. Kolla opts for scrolls of protection from magic. Sapper reminds her about what may lie ahead and we add scrolls to protect against poison then kick the elevator into action.
It's a long long way to go, and we play a drinking game while we wait. Heroism, Mind Focusing, Frost Giant Strength and Oils of Speed. Possibly more. A few enemies teleport in but cause little trouble.
Caelar Argent and Belhifet await us. Hephernaan too.
Kolla convinced Caelar to fight with us, and combat begins. Kolla immediately panics, having forgotten demon fear is not magical. She runs around with Sapper briefly trying to protect her, but he soon realises she is fast enough to stay out of danger and turns back to the fight.
A few rounds later the panic subsides and Kolla considers her options. Sapper suggests a potion of Clarity but we have none. Magic Protection it is, offering 3 turns of fearless antics.
Belhifet , Sapper and Caelar are all taking heavy damage while Kolla remains safely at range with Arrows of the Void aimed at our enemy. Caelar is taking fire damage and is also bleeding, but Belhifet can't stand the pace and is the first to fall. Kolla guides Caelar out of the remaining fires and uses a scroll of protection from poison on her (interestingly, Caelar will not un-equip her potions so has to be helped with scrolls).
Kolla and Sapper aren't too interested in remaining events, trying to find the quickest way back and through the ensuing trial. A hush hush deal to leave the city is agreed, and the duo head into the night only to bump into Imoen and friends. In trying to escape their interest, the duo blunder into an ambush...
Shadows of Amn So Imoen got us into this mess, but at least she got us out of it. Well done, thought Kolla, as she banished her. By this time Kolla and Sapper thought they'd known each other for long enough that they should keep an eye on each other, especially as Kolla's makeover left her less of a doppelClara and more of a Skiealike. Sapper duly presented Kolla with a self-portrait so she'd remember who to look for.
(we saved and reloaded here so the portrait was picked up without thinking of the consequences...)
Half way around the area Sapper started talking to a wall. Kolla knew the last few days had been a strain for the dwarf but really. He was trying to negotiate trade of a sword with the freedom of an imaginary genie. (genie will have moved due to the reload) Things got a bit clouded when dealing with Illyich and his duegar then Imoen piped up from where we started. We said go away before and we mean it. Begone crone. (that will also have happened due to the reload)
Anyways. We'd freed the genie and Kolla pushed on into an elemental plane so Sapper could get his dwarven hands onto the Sword of Chaos. Hang on a minute said Sapper. We've already got it. Oh yeah.
Once out of the dungeon we wasted no time in heading to the circus and recruiting Aerie. Sapper asked what the devil was happening, breaking into a laugh as Kolla took Aerie's robe and left Aerie shivering.
We could only make our way to the Slums district, where Gaelan Bayle greeted us. No we don't want to rescue Imoen, but as she may have filched some valuable items during her incarceration perhaps we ought to catch up with her later. On leaving his abode we felled a pair of uncouth brigands and headed into the Copper Coronet. Quests from Jierdan and Nalia sounded interesting but Hexxat and her tomb were a bit creepy for us, so we declined.
We arranged for changed ownership of the Copper Coronet then headed into the night to seek out adventure. Suna Seni and her slavers were first, duly followed by kidnappers who failed to make off with Renfeld. He wanted a lift to the Harper Hold, and on the way we picked up some second hand armour from Officer Dirth.
With Renfeld returned, Xzar made an appearance. We'll help him later but first an appointment with a potion case near Watchers Keep. Since we were there, we ventured inside and looted the entire area without bothering to look for a way to descend any lower.
Having picked up some decent equipment we called it a day.
The session started with leaving the old Umar Temple and going to find a more up to date temple to raise Coreranger. Deciding that discretion ruled OK we decided to go and sort out a few tasks in the Bridge District. The skinner murders were soon solved and the Rune Assassins punished for their misdeeds, but there was a slight glitch when Meffal decided to trust to luck against a petrification trap while the others were busy shopping.
Coreranger added him back into the party with the help of his earth elemental ring, though not without getting a stern lecture from the Cowled Wizards about using magic responsibly.
After picking up the pantaloons, a trip through the sewers to fumigate another nest of slavers was used to restore reputation.
While in the mood for smelly locations the Trio moved on to the sewers in the Temple District. There was an early problem there when Coreranger tried to take a short-cut through the centre of the area, only for his stealth to break. A kobold shaman held him and the others were too far away to save him. Meffal then started running in terror, but fortunately didn't run into any new enemies while Babar finished off the attackers.
After another trip (rather shorter this time) to a temple, an alternative method for resurrection was gained by cutting down Mekrath. The intention at this point was really to go on and acquire the Ring of Gaxx, but Babar felt bad about leaving any enemies (or potential enemies) behind him - hence he ordered an attack on Tarnor's gang. A stinking cloud from the efreeti and a couple of successful webs from Kitthix provided a promising start, but unfortunately Gaius recovered from the cloud as he was being targeted and quickly buffed to ensure he didn't succumb again. Babar's companions couldn't bear the smell and kept well back themselves, while the efreeti tried his luck in the cloud but immediately lay down for an extended nap. That resulted in a finger of death being cast on Babar - that had a 5% chance of success, but his luck held to start with. Gaius tried a couple more spells without joy before realising that Tarnor's flying axes had worn Babar down just far enough for a PW:stun to be effective. Babar had seen the danger and prepared to re-cast his rage during a brief window in the combat, but the window swung shut on his fingers before he could activate the ability.
Unfortunately that coincided with the appearance of an invisible stalker on the battlefield right next to Babar and its attacks combined with more axes from Tarnor meant Babar failed to survive the 1-4 rounds of stun.
Trio EE Multiplayer 2, session1 2 Fresh from our previous success (well, we all died separately in the above post) we picked up the EE Trio session started on 22 July.
Gate70: Teere, human female Priest of Tyr. Corey Russell: Corarcher, elf male Archer. Grond0: Mis, elf female Archer.
Fourteen days we've been standing on these steps. A brief discussion sees Corarcher declare he's carrying too much spoil so we head inside to see what proof of ownership Bentley Mirrorshade requires. None, it seems. Sold.
Teere wants to head upstairs in search of pantaloons but Mis is wise to this and suggests coming back later to avoid accidentally returning them when we find Landrin's belongings (not that we know of her or them yet, nor that we've ever heard of anyone doing so foolish a mistake).
Fine, fine. We'll hunt around outside - Teere going anti-clockwise and Mis going clockwise. Corarcher is otherwise occupied, either filling or emptying his backpack no doubt. In search of potions perhaps?
By the time Corarcher catches up he's passed one trail of hobgoblin corpses and unaware of a similar trail leading in the opposite direction. He wanders over to ask what's going on and Teere promptly moves off northward. Both archers immediately use their ranger skills to discern strange happenings are underfoot. Ankhegs they suggest, best steer clear.
Nonsense says Teere. Nothing down this hole other than, well, nothing. Come on, I'll show you. Yep, nothing here.
Teere resorts to using two healing potions while clearing the nest. Corarcher asks her whether she wants a magical flail picked up from one of the angry, dead, fishermen outside. No says Teere, I have a club. Why do I have a club. I'm not sure I want to learn to backstab anything now.
We emerge from the ankheg nest empty hole and head north for a rest at Ulghth's Beard. Not the inn itself, you understand. Just outside. Corarcher suggests investigating a gnoll stronghold but that sounds like hard work to Teere so we head south to the carnival. A scroll of protection from petrification is extravagantly priced due to a lack of charisma (4, 8, 8) and reputation but needs must.
After adding basilisks to the list of endangered species we encounter Mutamin. Teere has cast a protection against fear so we are in little danger, but then we spice matters up by turning him into Mute-mutamin and shoot him down in silence.
With no further basilisks in the area we rest so Teere can memorise new spells. Then Mis sights out Kirian and her gang. Teere protects against horror once more, then calls forth two skeletons and chants. With this done, she casts Silence twice to catch Kirian and Peter. Mis thinks this will suffice and attacks but Teere adds in Hold Person so a silenced Peter is forced to protect his three companions against arrows. The odds are almost insurmountable... so Teere Commands him.
Time is ticking on, and Corarcher wants to empty his pockets again so we return to Beregost but the shops are shut. A rest at the inn is enough for us to be on our way again and we arrive at the coast, hoping the lighthouse nearby will remind us that we're here to hunt sirines and steal treasure hoarded by Black Alaric. Or we could just stare at each other until either we remember, or go do something else.
I am but a dabbler in more aesthetically pleasing roguelikes and so for now I am still discovering ways to die. My most recent one was learning that I can break my neck falling off a ladder while carrying too much loot...
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood outside Watchers Keep having ransacked the opening area. We'd done enough here, time to move on. How about settling a dwarven grudge even if it is a bit painful.
Since we were in the area it seemed reasonable to pick up a rod of resurrection and skulltrap salamanders.
Mae'var and his Shadow Thieves found Sapper to be more than a match for them.
We then did some prep work for liches, opening a couple of doors and clearing out minotaurs. Kolla was all for making a start but Sapper reminded her that the old tunnels in the sewers had not been visited so instead we set out for Trademeet and took Cernd out for lunch.
I forgot Imoen takes her gear with her including the monster summon and arrows of dispel. nothing we five couldn't handle at this level and only Neera temperately died once.
... I'm done with the gate once I do some shopping and hire new guards | friends to travel with.
Hello everyone. Another one of my whirlwind updates. Cromarty has made some good progress through the early stages of Amn. His party are currently running just shy of a million XP, having completed some of the easier quests like the Circus and the Harpers, explored some new areas like Southern Edge, and completed the Trademeet quests and rid the Windspear Hills of their draconic overlord.
Among the regular members of his party have been Minsc, Sirene, Xan, Kelsey, Yvette, and Cernd, with Anomen and Isra also joining up briefly. Minsc grows increasingly crazed however, adopting Aerie as his witch, and will probably not last that much longer in the group. I'm thinking that Sirene, Xan, and Yvette are the present core, with Cernd filling in as an inverse Verr'Sza and the final slot being filled by different quest npcs. Accepting Cernd back led to our closest shave so far however. No sooner had he returned to the party than his nemesis Deril reappeared as a lich (courtesy of Almateria's Restorations), right in the Council of Six building!
One would have though that the security would have responded instead of just yelling "For the Glory of Amn". After burning a number of high level summons scrolls to distract the lich while it was under PfMW we made it teleport away for now. For RP purposes I think we shall be going out of town for awhile though, we're lucky to still have permission to cast magic...
Trying out a Holly Strategist of the Red Knight for the first time. The main advantage of this kit is haste once per day. The intention was to have a cleric only party.
Cynwise dealt with Candlekeep easily due to haste despite giving the assassins extra equipment to make them dangerous. The equipment was largely useless to her however as it was designed for the assassins and so was mainly unuseable. After the ambush she set off for the FAI and continued northwards. She helped a widow by killing her undead husband who was pestering her and agreed to help Sonner. However, upon discovering that the priestess that they wanted killing was a little girl and that it was Sonner who was evil, she switched sides and killed the fishermen, getting a decent flail for her efforts. Upon returning to Tenya, she invited her to join her party and she accepted. At the Friendly Arms Inn another cleric called Helarine joined the party. Both Helarine and Tenya lacked strength and couldn't even wield flails without first buffing.
They headed for Beregost going via High Hedge. They helped Mellicamp and Cynwise afterwards had an enjoyable picnic with him.
They were able to defeat some ogrillons south of Beregost and afterwards three mercenaries. This yielded some better armour but it was on the heavy side. for her allies.
She headed towards the carnival and was attacked by kobolds. However, to her dismay, some of them were kobold guards and poisoned her. She didn't have time to rectify this before she died.
I have only just started playing on the "Hard setting," so those guards came as a nasty shock. I noticed the commandoes, but not them. I am wondering if the armour of Cynwise broke as she was reasonably well armoured.
Next game will be another new kit. A Gallant Fighter kit which is somewhere between a paladin and a bard. It looks to be fairly balanced.
- do good and lawful things (duh… ), but with a preference on good over law when conflicts emerge
- god : Lathander - spare as much lives as I can - no mercy whatsoever with undeads (must be killed, no matter what)
- 10 magical items max - 4 weapons (including ammos) - 1 armor - 1 shield - 4 misc (include items like potion of Hill Giant strength and green scrolls, but not healing potions and antidotes)
- never lie (oath) - tithe : 10% to the Song of the Morning Temple when I come back from adventuring (and before buying stuff) - no neutral allies, only good ones - no stealing, minimum thieving (traps and locks, mostly) - only use and swap between allies items placed in quickslot
I've been away from home last week, so I just got back into action.
We were about to go into Cloakwood Forest to hunt down Davaeorn. On the way, I decided to fight the druids on the behalf of Aldeth Sashenstar. I tried to have a peaceful solution to the matter, but the druids wouldn't hear of it. It's a bit risky to fight them, because if they manage to cast Call Lightning, they can do a crapton of damage. However, Fear from a wand did wonders : every druids except Seniyad failed their save.
After that, we just had to control Seniyad with Magic Missiles and elemental damage to prevent further casting from him. When he died, we killed the rest of his team one by one easily. I also dispatched Centeol and her spiders to get Spider's Bane for Sirene.
The next hurdle was the Drasus party. I forgot to take pictures, but I should have, because the fight was much rougher than it should have been. Only Nordgaard and Rasaad survived. It's simple : I gave the mages too much freedom to act. I don't have much anti-mage spells at this point, so yeah, it was complicated. However, bad positions and lack of movement were my biggest mistake. I had to go back to FAI to raise everybody up.
In the mines, I killed Hareishan, Natasha and the Ogre-mage with much less trouble. Davaeorn was however more troublesome. My initial strat was to park Rasaad and Sirene in front of the door to cover our back, while all the others would go after Davey. I tried to have Imoen attack him with a Ghoul's Touch, but as soon as invisible Imoen approached him, he went away after having cast his web/stinking cloud combo. That took me by surprise, because I remember being able to attack him before he activated. Maybe the scripted talk Davey has with Sirene activate him by default. It's weird because, in a previous game, I even devised a bit of SR cheese with Davey : an invisible level 7 or 8 priest can cast Cause Critical Wound, which cause 4D8 +4/per level damage to the enemy, ignoring MR. At level 8, your chance of outright killing him is high. In this previous game, I totally could approach Davey invisible without activating him. I couldn't use this strat though, because Finch wasn't high level enough to cast it, but I thought that I could still try something similar. Oh well.
So, Imoen got caught in the web/stinking cloud, and was later killed by a Davey's Fireburst (Sunfire in vanilla). We lured his Battle Horrors into our rank and took care of them pretty quickly, thanks to a bunch of Magic Missiles from Finch and Valerie. After, Davey decided to cast web straight into our rank, catching Finch in the process. She died to a Cone of Cold a bit later. Nordgaard was safely tucked under a Prot. from Magic scroll while trying to chase Davey with his sword, but couldn't do much except soaking most of Davey's spells.
During that time, Werewolf-Rasaad and Sirene were holding the door front effectively. However, after a while, the werewolf shapechange wore off, changing Rassad back into a mediocre fighter. The door was harder to defend then. They both took a good bit of damage, so I decided to move them away from the BlackTalons mercs, which were starting to be in great number. Bad damage management with Valerie got her killed by a mere Magic Missiles spell. So we were down to three. We let Davey's guards surround him, blasted them all continuously with the sleep wand, while Nordgaard was hacking at Davey and Rasaad throwing Darts of Wounding. Davaeorn eventually fell and the BlackTalons mercs ran out in fear.
It was not a good fight, but at least we made it through. I'm not proud of the way it went, though.
We got out of the mines, flooded it, revived everybody and went to Baldur's Gate. There, after a bit of shopping at the Sorcerous Sundries, we triggered Rasaad's quest. We went through it very easily. We killed Gamaz (with barely a scratch taken), took the Big Fisted Belt for Sirene and got back to Baldur's Gate.
So, Nordgaard is about to start doing Scar's quest. I plan to do the Werewolf Island for the nice loot involved (there's much better items with IR) and probably head straight to the end game after that. Maybe a dip into Durlag's Tower, depending on what Item Randomizer has in store for me. We'll see.
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood listening to Cernd gnawing on some bones. Back to Trademeet then, selling loot and collecting rewards for our previous deeds plus dealing with Rejiek and returning a mantle to the mayor.
Sapper has been mighty impressive to date so Kolla decides he should be rewarded with the ring of Gaxx, just the minor task of obtaining it first. She mistakenly reads the description of Foebane, needing her dwarven assistant to point out the smallprint (+6 damage vs undead, not +6 to hit). Moot point as Sapper has Kangaxx covered.
The sewers and slavers in the Slums district don't take long to do, Kolla using a few spells while Sapper powers on.
The Planar Prison is visited next as Sapper needs new bracers, helping himself to speedy boots while there. Sapper points out some Umber Hulks and Kolla for once refuses to Cloudkill them as it's time to try out her Death spell.
The Fallen Paladins are felled once Sir Sarles is run out of town, then it's time to visit Umar Hills and nearby temple ruins. A greater mummy gives Sapper a run for his money but some unusual dual-wielding (2x berserk warriors thanks to an upgrade glitch) give him enough of a breather for the mummy to perish first.
The session draws to a close so no need to try and remember what we're doing next time.
New game with a Dwarven Gallant using Halberds and Short Bows. My next one will probably revert to type and use axes or hammers, but I had these lovely portraits with her wielding a halberd. Backgound is from trekking in Nepal.
Journal of Hrodwyn Halberdier the Gallant
I was able to defeat the assassins in Candlekeep and also had "interesting" times there with both Hall and a kinky guard.
I left with Gorion and ended up at the FAI after Gorion was murdered.
I then went north where I killed a zombie who was harrassing his former wife. I agreed to help Sonnor and his friends, but upon learning that Tenya was more righteous than they, I switched sides and killed them. Afterwards Tenya joined me in my adventure.
We headed for High Hedge and then headed southwards after calming down Marl in Beregost.
With the help of summoned skeletons we killed a couple of ogrillon and three Mercenaries thus gaining some plate armour which I donned, giving my Splint Mail to Tenya as she was too weak to wear heavy armour.
We continued by defeating some hobgoblins and ghouls, eventually ending up at Nashkel where I found some ankheg armour which I gave to Tenya. I spent some time "massaging" Bardolan after having a chat with Noober.
We then headed south-east and reunited Rufie with his owner before taking on Vax and his friend. We killed them and I donned the bracers.
We continued eastwards, killing bears and then a couple of men who were threatening a dryad's tree. We then took on a winter wolf which was easily killed, but then ran into a party of ogrillons, ogres, and an ogre mage. In hindsight fleeing would have been the best option as Tenya was killed due to us not being able to fight. We were both affected by a panic spell.
However I killed them all except the ogre mage who disappeared.
I went to the Temple at Beregost where Tenya was raised at the cost of 2/3 of my gold.
We then returned the Colquetle amulet and killed Bassilus.
We then headed south and killed Greywolf and yet another assassin.
Heading north, we cleared the ankheg infestation and after picking up Montaron he picked up a lot of useful items both at Beregost and Ulgoth's Beard.
A woman gave us a ring as a reward for bringing news of her husband. We left Montaron upstairs in her house. I do hope that he doesn't take advantage of her.
So I've decided to give this thing a try. Meet Larissa, Neutral Evil Elven Thief/Mage. Stats: 10/18/10/15/9/13
Core difficulty, no mods aside from BG1 NPC project. Gonna try to RP evil as much as possible.
Things started out pretty standard - picked up Imoen, Xzar, Monty, Jaheira and Khalid, the usual. Found out about the Girdle of Piercing from Unshey, decided to keep it. Headed down to Beregost, where I dealt with Neera and the red wizards - fortunately, nobody from our group died; unfortunately, Neera didn't die either, so no gem bag just yet. Also, our rep dropped pretty low because of Monty attacking Marl. Did a few minor quests for exp then headed to Nashkel.
Imoen died when we were ambushed by a bunch of skeletons and I didn't bother raising her - as we ran away, I figured we wouldn't have time to pick up her body, and besides, she was starting to get on Larissa's nerves anyway. Picked up Edwin instead and headed into the mines area to deal with Prism, where I found out that if you kill him yourself, Greywolf doesn't show up, so no Varscona. Oh well. Sold the emeralds.
Decided to get the Gnoll Stronghold out of the way so Edwin wouldn't complain. On the way there, discovered the BG1 NPC project spiced up the Cloud Peaks dryad quest a bit - Xzar wants to harvest the dryad's blood, and if you let him, Khalid and Jaheira turn on you, and you also lose some rep. So the party was down to four.
As a result, clearing out the Gnoll Stronghold was a bit of a chore. I tried using Montaron as a tank, which worked out pretty well, until he got killed by a crit from the Gnoll chieftain, so for the rest of it, I had to use the 3 squishy mages with terrible THAC0 to kite the gnolls and slowly whittle them down. And I think something bugged out, because Edwin said nothing at all when we killed Dynaheir - I'm pretty sure even in the vanilla game he had some dialogue about it.
Due to the state the group was in, I didn't even bother trying to go for the Charisma tome. Instead, I headed to the Archaeological Site area to confront Captain Brage and get back to Nashkel. There, I raised Monty and donated a chunk of money to prepare for the incoming rep hit, then headed back north to pick up Dorn and Vicky. Also, finally killed Neera and picked up the gem bag.
Now, with the party filled out again, I'll probably try to get a bit more exp before taking on the Nashkel mines. I'm also considering dropping Edwin for Kagain - three mages might be a bit much, and the group's kinda lacking a real sturdy frontliner at the moment.
Dropped Edwin as I was planning, but not before equipping him with a certain cursed girdle - because, well, how else are you gonna use that? Incidentally, the BG1 NPC project adds an amusing interjection from him.
Having left Eddie to deal with his plight, I picked up Kagain. Since his quest is fixed with the mod, I got that out of the way, and then headed to the Ankheg farm area for some easy exp - or so I thought. Turns out Ankhegs hit a lot harder than I remember, and I lost Dorn, Kagain and Monty when I tried to take on two of them at once.
We did take down the Ankhegs, but that was little consolation, as getting everyone raised took a toll on our already depleted funds. Retrieving their equipment also turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than I was expecting, as immediately upon re-entering the area, we were attacked by 5 bandits and Ajantis, but fortunately we managed to get through that without any more deaths and get all our gear back - and pick up two Ankheg shells.
I decided it was wiser to leave that area for now, and head back to Beregost. Selling one of the shells to the smithy earned just enough to commission a suit of Ankheg armour out of the other. While that was being crafted, I decided to go after Bassilus, as we were now well and truly broke.
The mad priest was easily dealt with, and I also cleared out the half-ogres in the area south of there for Bjornin's quest. Picked up Melicamp as well, but ended up telling Thalantyr to go stuff himself when he said he wouldn't pay me. I've got better things to do than run around hunting skeletons for a quest that has like, what, 10% chance to succeed?
Unfortunately this group doesn't have anyone who can effectively use Ashideena at the moment, though I'm planning to put Kagain's next proficiency point into warhammers.
If you have BG1 Romantic Encounters installed, there are many very humorous ways to use the belt. You also have humorous conversations with a number of characters. I'll say no more else it would spoil it for you.
I took the time to clear out some more areas and do a few sidequests, including killing the ogre mage for Shoal (and getting a sweet helmet out of it) and turning in Samuel to the Flaming Fist, and a whole bunch of other minor quests or encounters. Bit of a funny incident - the gnoll bandit who wants to duel your strongest warrior chose Viconia over Dorn and Kagain.
Things took a turn for the worse when those druids who spawn to hunt down Xzar for taking the nymph's blood wiped out everyone except Larissa and Xzar (those damn Call Lightnings...). That wouldn't have been so bad, as I had enough gold to res everyone; however, by the time I got back, all the equipment had disappeared.
So now I'm down two suits of Ankheg armour, the Gift of Peace, Ashideena, the Stupefier, a Ring of Protection, a Ring of Fire Resistance, Dorn's sword, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. If I'd known I wouldn't make it back in time, I could have possibly picked some of the gear up, but unfortunately I overestimated the despawn timer.
Anyhow, after this I was truly determined to go after those druids and wipe their filthy lineage right out of the realms. This time, I was better prepared. I had Monty scout out their location, then Viconia fired off a Silence spell just outside their sight range. Had to rest once before they both failed their save, but after that, they went down easily enough.
I suppose I'm clearing the mines next, as it looks like I'll have to rely on non-magical weapons for a while yet...
- do good and lawful things (duh… ), but with a preference on good over law when conflicts emerge
- god : Lathander - spare as much lives as I can - no mercy whatsoever with undeads (must be killed, no matter what)
- 10 magical items max - 4 weapons (including ammos) - 1 armor - 1 shield - 4 misc (include items like potion of Hill Giant strength and green scrolls, but not healing potions and antidotes)
- never lie (oath) - tithe : 10% to the Song of the Morning Temple when I come back from adventuring (and before buying stuff) - no neutral allies, only good ones - no stealing, minimum thieving (traps and locks, mostly) - only use and swap between allies items placed in quickslot
Nordgaard's done. He fell in the Iron Throne fight. Everything was going smooth, until he failed his save against Charm. Then, Imoen too. I had one casting of Break Enchantment, but it was already used on Sirene who got confused earlier. I tried to run down the stairs to regroup a bit, but, for some reason, my team just couldn't. And nothing was blocking the way. I'm pretty sure you can go up and down the stairs without needing you whole party in this map, because that's how I sometimes beat this fight (however, since I was a paladin, I thought I should do it with honor, straight up front). Because I couldn't go down the stairs, my team was quickly surrounded and sliced up. Couldn't cast even a single invisibility, because I kept being interrupted.
Here we are just before our doom :
We seemed to be surrounded by a lot of enemies, but only two of the Iron Throne bosses really left in that fight. We were almost done.
Usually, I should have had the Greenstone Amulet on, but, because of Item Randomizer, I hadn't found it. Also, the item restriction (10 max, 4 misc only) for my paladin was quite difficult to play, because SCS was not design around low level of prebuffing. Since he was already at max, he couldn't prebuff more, like with a potion of Clear Thought. These restrictions were probably a bit too harsh to be realistic. Oh well... I had fun while it lasted.
I'll be back in a while, probably with a Jester, without any restriction this time however !!
I was near the end of Shadows of Amn on my first solo tetralogy run with a Seducer. I was doing fantastic in nearly every fight. I even took down Breudayael and the SCS Siege of Ust Natha without using mod items.
I just died to a mod-introduced fight, I believe the Chosen of Cyric encounter, when a fully-buffed group of thieves ambushes you, traps you in a cramped area, removes all of your defenses, and then throws out 50-damage backstabs, Harm, Detect Illusions, and some bizarre spell that removes Non-Detection. The whole party crumbled (Seducers can bring charmed critters into the party, hence the "solo" run with a full party) and I don't understand how we possibly could have survived given the resources at our disposal.
My Seducer went invisible and my two mages cast PFMW. But the enemy apparently backstabs with normal weapons, and my primary mage died instantly. My Seducer was revealed instantly, but miraculously made a saving throw against a Greater Malison+Slow+Chaos Spell Sequencer. She followed up with a Potion of Magic Shielding, expecting more disablers.
My secondary mage began to cast Time Stop, thinking he could take down a few enemies before it ran out. Then he got backstabbed as well despite PFMW, even though I remember picking up lots of magical weapons when I somehow won this fight in the Undergate run. His last act was to cast Non-Detection on my Seducer so she could hide behind a Potion of Invisibility without worrying about being exposed. Then a Power Word: Kill spell finished him off.
The enemies backstabbed us constantly, yet I saw no Mislead clones, and my front line--which could easily deal over 200 damage per round without buffs--could not kill a single enemy. Only one other character remained, because for some reason, one of my characters couldn't use the Rod of Resurrection. It just wouldn't fire.
My Seducer drank a Potion of Invisibility. But to my absolute disbelief, the enemy had some sort of spell that removed Non-Detection, and suddenly she was visible once more. They even removed the Stoneskin she had cast from the Boots of the Gargoyle. Then the enemy cleric landed a Harm spell, triggering some weird Hexxat-style mist form that my main character had gotten from some mod that turned her into a vampire (I never understood what this entailed, because all of the text that explained it was in German). She was invincible for a time, but I couldn't control her; she was panicked somehow.
Right after using the Rod of Resurrection to heal my Seducer, the last other party member died to a string of backstabs despite -13 AC, 277 HP, and 40% damage resistance. My main character remained invincible, but I still couldn't control her.
Then she lost her invincibility. But I still couldn't control her, even then.
The enemy cast Maze, but the enemy killed her before it could even take effect, even though she was immune to backstabs.
With my invisibility and Stoneskins removed at the start of combat, nowhere to run and no means of escaping the battle without using a spell that neither of my mages had time to use, no means of using invisibility or Non-Detection to escape pressure, no clear means of keeping my mages safe due to PFMW not working, with the Rod of Resurrection somehow unusable for several critical seconds when we desperately needed it, no time to reveal the enemies before they could land backstabs, no Mislead clones we could have killed to prevent the constant backstabs, this party...
...which wiped out all of Ust Natha without suffering a single death, without using our secret weapon, and without using a single mod-introduced item...
...died in a few rounds.
I know there's a way to avoid the fight, but the last time I wriggled my way out of the encounter peacefully, the game crashed repeatedly, forcing me to fight through it. I chose to fight this battle partly because I didn't expect it to be so bad, but also because I was all but positive that a CTD bug would prevent me from avoiding it. Just like it did in my Undergate run.
But in my Undergate run, being forced to fight a battle that's supposed to be optional was not fatal. Because my main character had a Staff of the True Magi to instantly go invisible when the enemy used their Detect Illusions ability. That fight is documented here. But this time, all I had was Non-Detection, which the enemy can remove somehow.
Testing found that in this install, the game no longer crashes when I try to avoid this fight. If I had known my install was NOT broken, I might have avoided the fight. But I don't really know.
What especially bothers me is that I'm not sure how I would have won this fight, with this party or any party, without the mod items I had in the Undergate run.
Considering my 277 HP, -13 AC, poison-immune, 40% damage resistance tank died in two rounds, I do not believe there is any way to stay alive in this encounter without either being in jelly form (for immunity to piercing damage) or having mage-style defenses. But they can get past PFMW. They can dispel Stoneskin. And if you used a Spell Trigger or Chain Contingency to cast both PFMW and Stoneskin and SI: Abjuration, they also have at least two mages who use magic attacks to remove spell protections.
And if you have a Barbarian or Dwarven Defender or Fighter/Druid with 80-90% damage resistance? That's not enough; they'll just kill you with Harm instead.
Non-mages will simply die; the enemy's APR, THAC0, and backstab damage will be fatal to anyone who can't attain at least 90% immunity to piercing damage. But mages lose all of their buffs due to a script, and the enemy has the resources to break down anything short of a Chain Contingency+Spell Trigger setup followed by an aura-ignoring SI spell. You can try jelly form to block the piercing damage and Harm, but the enemy has slashing and crushing weapons, too.
Has anyone else in this thread beaten the Chosen of Cyric encounter in Chapter 6? Is there any way for a character to survive the first few rounds without being an epic-level mage?
At least I managed to beat Breudayael and the Siege of Ust Natha without relying on mod items--although, granted, the Seducer kit can be pretty freaking powerful if you know how to exploit its abilities. I'll probably discuss some of the tricks I pulled in that run--it would be nice if other people could see the cool weird stuff that Seducers can do--but for now, I just feel tired.
As fun as the solo Seducer run was, I don't think I have it in me to do it all over again. I've already gone through BG1 twice and SoD 1.5 times, respectively, and I'm not sure re-tracing my steps in SoA would be all that much fun.
I've wanted to do another tetralogy no-reload run with some sort of extra restriction(s)--solo, LoB, no mod items, poverty, or something else--but once again, I'm at a loss for what that would look like. There's only one thing I know about my next run.
@semiticgod you mentioned the seducer bringing people into the party. Is the mechanic for that the same as normal recruiting of NPCs (I wondered whether that might be the reason rod of resurrection didn't work on other party members)?
Aren't potions non-dispellable in your set-up? If so it should be straight-forward for a tank to add magic resistance on top of their weapon resistance.
Do the enemies use death spell? If not then mordy sword / Ras could be a good option.
You could try using protection from normal weapons and locking it in with spell protections. Another option would be boots of etherealness, though I guess that effect could probably be dispelled.
A druid could combine shield of the archons with an earth elemental transformation.
@Grond0: Seducers can bring almost any creature into the party, and they work just like normal NPCs. It's the only way I could allow the player to give the charmed critter new items and get them to use potions and such.
Basically, you have to charm the target creature using Domination, the standard Seducer charm spell. Then, while not in combat, you have to use Seduction to charm them a second time, while Domination is still in effect (which can be hard, because the duration of Domination varies due to chance). If the critter fails its save and is half the Seducer's level or lower, then the Seduction spell overrides the critter's scripts, giving it a new script that causes it to join the party.
If it doesn't have a valid character class, its class is set to fighter and it suffers a 50% XP penalty. Critters with the MINHP1 item are immune, as are golems and statues and swords, since they have no minds (also because Clay Golems and plot-immune critters would be game-breaking). The whole process can take a long time, but if you keep at it, your Seducer can eventually persuade the critter to join the party. It won't usually have its normal spells, but it will have its normal items and stats.
You can get some very weird parties using Seduction, with very strange advantages and disadvantages. Played optimally, a solo Seducer is actually roughly as powerful as a solo mage, or even fighter/mage. But that requires pulling some really weird stunts.
About your other questions:
1. Potions are dispellable in my install because I created a new install without SR or IR. 2. I never found Ras due to Item Randomizer, I'm guessing the two enemy mages would make short work of a Magical Sword, and the Chosen of Cyric probably wouldn't focus on either sword, since they can easily reveal any invisible party members and attack them instead. 3. Protection from Normal Weapons won't work, either. They don't use only normal weapons; they have lots of extremely powerful magical weapons as well, which they drop after the fight. 4. A druid or fighter/druid would probably have a good shot, if the cleric tries landing Harm before the mages remove Shield of the Archons. Unfortunately, there are basically zero druids and fighter/druids for a Seducer to add to the party, and I had been doing so well in the run that I didn't bother with many side quests, leaving the party far short of epic levels (my Seducer herself only hit 1.6 million XP by Chapter 6).
Ouch! Chosen of cyric nasty. There is a thief in the party that detects illusions via thief ability and you have tons of disablers coming your way. No way to hide very easily... One of the better tactical encounters though, but without knowing what comes towards you, deadly for a noreload.
I am sure non-detection only works with thief hide in shadows, it does not block invisibility dispel when invisibility originates from spells or potions.
You can talk your way out of the fight if you have the right stats.
Doesn't Non-Detection protect invisibility that comes from items and potions? I thought it worked with Potions of Invisibility, the Staff of the Magi, and the Sandthief Ring, because none of them were classified as "illusionary protection" spells.
I grabbed a bag of holding and a cleric then sang to some rocks, rescued a friendly giant only to leave them in that cave... recoverd a shield from a vampire, pocked around some dank dark holes for lot, o and set fire to a LOT of crusaders
I did get a spot of bad luck with Safana getting chunked but the Glint guy will do her job without major stress... the bridge is secured now so I'm looking for Neera to replace Edwin.
We found a ring of fire protection and Samuel nearby. We took him to the FAI and killed a few more ankheg. We rescued Annabelle by siccing some skeletons on the xvarts. The same skeletons defeated some assassins and the gnolls. We will use them on whatsoever eneemies we meet in the area.
EDIT
BTW I made a new discovery. If you use the skeletons against the xvarts without getting into line of sight with the cow's owner, the xvarts don't attack the cow so the quest becomes a lot easier. Of course if you are powerful enough it is straightforward anyway. However no rep increase in my new set-up. Rep still only 16 despite doing a lot of tasks that used to give a rep boost.
Doesn't Non-Detection protect invisibility that comes from items and potions? I thought it worked with Potions of Invisibility, the Staff of the Magi, and the Sandthief Ring, because none of them were classified as "illusionary protection" spells.
I am quite sure it doesn't. Maybe it needs a small test or something.
Non-detection does not protect invisibility from items generally, but the Staff of the Magi is an exception - that's a feature (or bug depending on your perspective) that goes back to the original game. Non-detection (cloak not spell), also locks in stealth - and that might be worth thinking about for your Chosen of Cyric encounter @semiticgod. Quite apart from the havoc a shadowdancer could cause I think you've been fond of using stealth with blinded characters in the past.
Comments
Kolla (Female Half-Elf Fighter/Mage), Gate70
Sapper (Male Dwarf Fighter), Grond0
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood looking at a basalt tower. This will be our final Siege of Dragonspear post, regardless of outcome.
We have a last rest and fudge around in our bags. Kolla opts for scrolls of protection from magic. Sapper reminds her about what may lie ahead and we add scrolls to protect against poison then kick the elevator into action.
It's a long long way to go, and we play a drinking game while we wait. Heroism, Mind Focusing, Frost Giant Strength and Oils of Speed. Possibly more. A few enemies teleport in but cause little trouble.
Caelar Argent and Belhifet await us. Hephernaan too.
Kolla convinced Caelar to fight with us, and combat begins. Kolla immediately panics, having forgotten demon fear is not magical. She runs around with Sapper briefly trying to protect her, but he soon realises she is fast enough to stay out of danger and turns back to the fight.
A few rounds later the panic subsides and Kolla considers her options. Sapper suggests a potion of Clarity but we have none. Magic Protection it is, offering 3 turns of fearless antics.
Belhifet , Sapper and Caelar are all taking heavy damage while Kolla remains safely at range with Arrows of the Void aimed at our enemy. Caelar is taking fire damage and is also bleeding, but Belhifet can't stand the pace and is the first to fall. Kolla guides Caelar out of the remaining fires and uses a scroll of protection from poison on her (interestingly, Caelar will not un-equip her potions so has to be helped with scrolls).
Kolla and Sapper aren't too interested in remaining events, trying to find the quickest way back and through the ensuing trial. A hush hush deal to leave the city is agreed, and the duo head into the night only to bump into Imoen and friends. In trying to escape their interest, the duo blunder into an ambush...
So Imoen got us into this mess, but at least she got us out of it. Well done, thought Kolla, as she banished her. By this time Kolla and Sapper thought they'd known each other for long enough that they should keep an eye on each other, especially as Kolla's makeover left her less of a doppelClara and more of a Skiealike. Sapper duly presented Kolla with a self-portrait so she'd remember who to look for.
(we saved and reloaded here so the portrait was picked up without thinking of the consequences...)
Half way around the area Sapper started talking to a wall. Kolla knew the last few days had been a strain for the dwarf but really. He was trying to negotiate trade of a sword with the freedom of an imaginary genie.
(genie will have moved due to the reload)
Things got a bit clouded when dealing with Illyich and his duegar then Imoen piped up from where we started. We said go away before and we mean it. Begone crone.
(that will also have happened due to the reload)
Anyways. We'd freed the genie and Kolla pushed on into an elemental plane so Sapper could get his dwarven hands onto the Sword of Chaos. Hang on a minute said Sapper. We've already got it. Oh yeah.
Once out of the dungeon we wasted no time in heading to the circus and recruiting Aerie. Sapper asked what the devil was happening, breaking into a laugh as Kolla took Aerie's robe and left Aerie shivering.
We could only make our way to the Slums district, where Gaelan Bayle greeted us. No we don't want to rescue Imoen, but as she may have filched some valuable items during her incarceration perhaps we ought to catch up with her later. On leaving his abode we felled a pair of uncouth brigands and headed into the Copper Coronet. Quests from Jierdan and Nalia sounded interesting but Hexxat and her tomb were a bit creepy for us, so we declined.
We arranged for changed ownership of the Copper Coronet then headed into the night to seek out adventure. Suna Seni and her slavers were first, duly followed by kidnappers who failed to make off with Renfeld. He wanted a lift to the Harper Hold, and on the way we picked up some second hand armour from Officer Dirth.
With Renfeld returned, Xzar made an appearance. We'll help him later but first an appointment with a potion case near Watchers Keep. Since we were there, we ventured inside and looted the entire area without bothering to look for a way to descend any lower.
Having picked up some decent equipment we called it a day.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/879185/#Comment_879185
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/884558/#Comment_884558
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/885941/#Comment_885941
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/887501/#Comment_887501
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/893741/#Comment_893741
The session started with leaving the old Umar Temple and going to find a more up to date temple to raise Coreranger. Deciding that discretion ruled OK we decided to go and sort out a few tasks in the Bridge District. The skinner murders were soon solved and the Rune Assassins punished for their misdeeds, but there was a slight glitch when Meffal decided to trust to luck against a petrification trap while the others were busy shopping.
After picking up the pantaloons, a trip through the sewers to fumigate another nest of slavers was used to restore reputation.
While in the mood for smelly locations the Trio moved on to the sewers in the Temple District. There was an early problem there when Coreranger tried to take a short-cut through the centre of the area, only for his stealth to break. A kobold shaman held him and the others were too far away to save him. Meffal then started running in terror, but fortunately didn't run into any new enemies while Babar finished off the attackers.
After another trip (rather shorter this time) to a temple, an alternative method for resurrection was gained by cutting down Mekrath. The intention at this point was really to go on and acquire the Ring of Gaxx, but Babar felt bad about leaving any enemies (or potential enemies) behind him - hence he ordered an attack on Tarnor's gang. A stinking cloud from the efreeti and a couple of successful webs from Kitthix provided a promising start, but unfortunately Gaius recovered from the cloud as he was being targeted and quickly buffed to ensure he didn't succumb again. Babar's companions couldn't bear the smell and kept well back themselves, while the efreeti tried his luck in the cloud but immediately lay down for an extended nap. That resulted in a finger of death being cast on Babar - that had a 5% chance of success, but his luck held to start with. Gaius tried a couple more spells without joy before realising that Tarnor's flying axes had worn Babar down just far enough for a PW:stun to be effective. Babar had seen the danger and prepared to re-cast his rage during a brief window in the combat, but the window swung shut on his fingers before he could activate the ability.
Fresh from our previous success (well, we all died separately in the above post) we picked up the EE Trio session started on 22 July.
Gate70: Teere, human female Priest of Tyr.
Corey Russell: Corarcher, elf male Archer.
Grond0: Mis, elf female Archer.
Fourteen days we've been standing on these steps. A brief discussion sees Corarcher declare he's carrying too much spoil so we head inside to see what proof of ownership Bentley Mirrorshade requires. None, it seems. Sold.
Teere wants to head upstairs in search of pantaloons but Mis is wise to this and suggests coming back later to avoid accidentally returning them when we find Landrin's belongings (not that we know of her or them yet, nor that we've ever heard of anyone doing so foolish a mistake).
Fine, fine. We'll hunt around outside - Teere going anti-clockwise and Mis going clockwise. Corarcher is otherwise occupied, either filling or emptying his backpack no doubt. In search of potions perhaps?
By the time Corarcher catches up he's passed one trail of hobgoblin corpses and unaware of a similar trail leading in the opposite direction. He wanders over to ask what's going on and Teere promptly moves off northward. Both archers immediately use their ranger skills to discern strange happenings are underfoot. Ankhegs they suggest, best steer clear.
Nonsense says Teere. Nothing down this hole other than, well, nothing. Come on, I'll show you. Yep, nothing here.
We emerge from the
ankheg nestempty hole and head north for a rest at Ulghth's Beard. Not the inn itself, you understand. Just outside. Corarcher suggests investigating a gnoll stronghold but that sounds like hard work to Teere so we head south to the carnival. A scroll of protection from petrification is extravagantly priced due to a lack of charisma (4, 8, 8) and reputation but needs must.After adding basilisks to the list of endangered species we encounter Mutamin. Teere has cast a protection against fear so we are in little danger, but then we spice matters up by turning him into Mute-mutamin and shoot him down in silence.
With no further basilisks in the area we rest so Teere can memorise new spells. Then Mis sights out Kirian and her gang. Teere protects against horror once more, then calls forth two skeletons and chants. With this done, she casts Silence twice to catch Kirian and Peter. Mis thinks this will suffice and attacks but Teere adds in Hold Person so a silenced Peter is forced to protect his three companions against arrows. The odds are almost insurmountable... so Teere Commands him.
Kolla (Female Half-Elf Fighter/Mage), Gate70
Sapper (Male Dwarf Fighter), Grond0
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood outside Watchers Keep having ransacked the opening area. We'd done enough here, time to move on. How about settling a dwarven grudge even if it is a bit painful.
Since we were in the area it seemed reasonable to pick up a rod of resurrection and skulltrap salamanders.
Kolla has 145 SoA kills to date, Sapper 185.
SD-2,
a shopping we will go,I forgot Imoen takes her gear with her including the monster summon and arrows of dispel. nothing we five couldn't handle at this level and only Neera temperately died once.
... I'm done with the gate once I do some shopping and hire new guards | friends to travel with.
Among the regular members of his party have been Minsc, Sirene, Xan, Kelsey, Yvette, and Cernd, with Anomen and Isra also joining up briefly. Minsc grows increasingly crazed however, adopting Aerie as his witch, and will probably not last that much longer in the group. I'm thinking that Sirene, Xan, and Yvette are the present core, with Cernd filling in as an inverse Verr'Sza and the final slot being filled by different quest npcs. Accepting Cernd back led to our closest shave so far however. No sooner had he returned to the party than his nemesis Deril reappeared as a lich (courtesy of Almateria's Restorations), right in the Council of Six building!
One would have though that the security would have responded instead of just yelling "For the Glory of Amn". After burning a number of high level summons scrolls to distract the lich while it was under PfMW we made it teleport away for now. For RP purposes I think we shall be going out of town for awhile though, we're lucky to still have permission to cast magic...
Cynwise dealt with Candlekeep easily due to haste despite giving the assassins extra equipment to make them dangerous. The equipment was largely useless to her however as it was designed for the assassins and so was mainly unuseable.
After the ambush she set off for the FAI and continued northwards.
She helped a widow by killing her undead husband who was pestering her and agreed to help Sonner. However, upon discovering that the priestess that they wanted killing was a little girl and that it was Sonner who was evil, she switched sides and killed the fishermen, getting a decent flail for her efforts. Upon returning to Tenya, she invited her to join her party and she accepted. At the Friendly Arms Inn another cleric called Helarine joined the party. Both Helarine and Tenya lacked strength and couldn't even wield flails without first buffing.
They headed for Beregost going via High Hedge. They helped Mellicamp and Cynwise afterwards had an enjoyable picnic with him.
They were able to defeat some ogrillons south of Beregost and afterwards three mercenaries. This yielded some better armour but it was on the heavy side. for her allies.
She headed towards the carnival and was attacked by kobolds. However, to her dismay, some of them were kobold guards and poisoned her. She didn't have time to rectify this before she died.
I have only just started playing on the "Hard setting," so those guards came as a nasty shock. I noticed the commandoes, but not them. I am wondering if the armour of Cynwise broke as she was reasonably well armoured.
Next game will be another new kit. A Gallant Fighter kit which is somewhere between a paladin and a bard. It looks to be fairly balanced.
Nordgaard of Candlekeep, Undead Hunter
BG1 posts : 1, 2, 3Notable mods :
- IR/SR
- Rogue Rebalance
- plenty of NPC mods
- ATweaks
- Tweak Anthology
- Item Randomizer
Paladin's restriction :
- do good and lawful things (duh…
- god : Lathander
- spare as much lives as I can
- no mercy whatsoever with undeads (must be killed, no matter what)
- 10 magical items max
- 4 weapons (including ammos)
- 1 armor
- 1 shield
- 4 misc (include items like potion of Hill Giant strength and green scrolls, but not healing potions and antidotes)
- never lie (oath)
- tithe : 10% to the Song of the Morning Temple when I come back from adventuring (and before buying stuff)
- no neutral allies, only good ones
- no stealing, minimum thieving (traps and locks, mostly)
- only use and swap between allies items placed in quickslot
I've been away from home last week, so I just got back into action.
We were about to go into Cloakwood Forest to hunt down Davaeorn. On the way, I decided to fight the druids on the behalf of Aldeth Sashenstar. I tried to have a peaceful solution to the matter, but the druids wouldn't hear of it. It's a bit risky to fight them, because if they manage to cast Call Lightning, they can do a crapton of damage. However, Fear from a wand did wonders : every druids except Seniyad failed their save.
After that, we just had to control Seniyad with Magic Missiles and elemental damage to prevent further casting from him. When he died, we killed the rest of his team one by one easily. I also dispatched Centeol and her spiders to get Spider's Bane for Sirene.
The next hurdle was the Drasus party. I forgot to take pictures, but I should have, because the fight was much rougher than it should have been. Only Nordgaard and Rasaad survived. It's simple : I gave the mages too much freedom to act. I don't have much anti-mage spells at this point, so yeah, it was complicated. However, bad positions and lack of movement were my biggest mistake. I had to go back to FAI to raise everybody up.
In the mines, I killed Hareishan, Natasha and the Ogre-mage with much less trouble. Davaeorn was however more troublesome. My initial strat was to park Rasaad and Sirene in front of the door to cover our back, while all the others would go after Davey. I tried to have Imoen attack him with a Ghoul's Touch, but as soon as invisible Imoen approached him, he went away after having cast his web/stinking cloud combo. That took me by surprise, because I remember being able to attack him before he activated. Maybe the scripted talk Davey has with Sirene activate him by default. It's weird because, in a previous game, I even devised a bit of SR cheese with Davey : an invisible level 7 or 8 priest can cast Cause Critical Wound, which cause 4D8 +4/per level damage to the enemy, ignoring MR. At level 8, your chance of outright killing him is high. In this previous game, I totally could approach Davey invisible without activating him. I couldn't use this strat though, because Finch wasn't high level enough to cast it, but I thought that I could still try something similar. Oh well.
So, Imoen got caught in the web/stinking cloud, and was later killed by a Davey's Fireburst (Sunfire in vanilla). We lured his Battle Horrors into our rank and took care of them pretty quickly, thanks to a bunch of Magic Missiles from Finch and Valerie. After, Davey decided to cast web straight into our rank, catching Finch in the process. She died to a Cone of Cold a bit later. Nordgaard was safely tucked under a Prot. from Magic scroll while trying to chase Davey with his sword, but couldn't do much except soaking most of Davey's spells.
During that time, Werewolf-Rasaad and Sirene were holding the door front effectively. However, after a while, the werewolf shapechange wore off, changing Rassad back into a mediocre fighter. The door was harder to defend then. They both took a good bit of damage, so I decided to move them away from the BlackTalons mercs, which were starting to be in great number. Bad damage management with Valerie got her killed by a mere Magic Missiles spell. So we were down to three. We let Davey's guards surround him, blasted them all continuously with the sleep wand, while Nordgaard was hacking at Davey and Rasaad throwing Darts of Wounding. Davaeorn eventually fell and the BlackTalons mercs ran out in fear.
It was not a good fight, but at least we made it through. I'm not proud of the way it went, though.
We got out of the mines, flooded it, revived everybody and went to Baldur's Gate. There, after a bit of shopping at the Sorcerous Sundries, we triggered Rasaad's quest. We went through it very easily. We killed Gamaz (with barely a scratch taken), took the Big Fisted Belt for Sirene and got back to Baldur's Gate.
So, Nordgaard is about to start doing Scar's quest. I plan to do the Werewolf Island for the nice loot involved (there's much better items with IR) and probably head straight to the end game after that. Maybe a dip into Durlag's Tower, depending on what Item Randomizer has in store for me. We'll see.
See ya !
Kolla (Female Half-Elf Fighter/Mage), Gate70
Sapper (Male Dwarf Fighter), Grond0
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood listening to Cernd gnawing on some bones. Back to Trademeet then, selling loot and collecting rewards for our previous deeds plus dealing with Rejiek and returning a mantle to the mayor.
Sapper has been mighty impressive to date so Kolla decides he should be rewarded with the ring of Gaxx, just the minor task of obtaining it first. She mistakenly reads the description of Foebane, needing her dwarven assistant to point out the smallprint (+6 damage vs undead, not +6 to hit). Moot point as Sapper has Kangaxx covered.
The session draws to a close so no need to try and remember what we're doing next time.
Journal of Hrodwyn Halberdier the Gallant
I was able to defeat the assassins in Candlekeep and also had "interesting" times there with both Hall and a kinky guard.I left with Gorion and ended up at the FAI after Gorion was murdered.
I then went north where I killed a zombie who was harrassing his former wife.
I agreed to help Sonnor and his friends, but upon learning that Tenya was more righteous than they, I switched sides and killed them. Afterwards Tenya joined me in my adventure.
We headed for High Hedge and then headed southwards after calming down Marl in Beregost.
With the help of summoned skeletons we killed a couple of ogrillon and three Mercenaries thus gaining some plate armour which I donned, giving my Splint Mail to Tenya as she was too weak to wear heavy armour.
We continued by defeating some hobgoblins and ghouls, eventually ending up at Nashkel where I found some ankheg armour which I gave to Tenya. I spent some time "massaging" Bardolan after having a chat with Noober.
We then headed south-east and reunited Rufie with his owner before taking on Vax and his friend.
We killed them and I donned the bracers.
We continued eastwards, killing bears and then a couple of men who were threatening a dryad's tree. We then took on a winter wolf which was easily killed, but then ran into a party of ogrillons, ogres, and an ogre mage. In hindsight fleeing would have been the best option as Tenya was killed due to us not being able to fight. We were both affected by a panic spell.
However I killed them all except the ogre mage who disappeared.
I went to the Temple at Beregost where Tenya was raised at the cost of 2/3 of my gold.
We then returned the Colquetle amulet and killed Bassilus.
We then headed south and killed Greywolf and yet another assassin.
Heading north, we cleared the ankheg infestation and after picking up Montaron he picked up a lot of useful items both at Beregost and Ulgoth's Beard.
A woman gave us a ring as a reward for bringing news of her husband. We left Montaron upstairs in her house. I do hope that he doesn't take advantage of her.
Stats: 10/18/10/15/9/13
Core difficulty, no mods aside from BG1 NPC project. Gonna try to RP evil as much as possible.
Things started out pretty standard - picked up Imoen, Xzar, Monty, Jaheira and Khalid, the usual. Found out about the Girdle of Piercing from Unshey, decided to keep it. Headed down to Beregost, where I dealt with Neera and the red wizards - fortunately, nobody from our group died; unfortunately, Neera didn't die either, so no gem bag just yet. Also, our rep dropped pretty low because of Monty attacking Marl. Did a few minor quests for exp then headed to Nashkel.
Imoen died when we were ambushed by a bunch of skeletons and I didn't bother raising her - as we ran away, I figured we wouldn't have time to pick up her body, and besides, she was starting to get on Larissa's nerves anyway. Picked up Edwin instead and headed into the mines area to deal with Prism, where I found out that if you kill him yourself, Greywolf doesn't show up, so no Varscona. Oh well. Sold the emeralds.
Decided to get the Gnoll Stronghold out of the way so Edwin wouldn't complain. On the way there, discovered the BG1 NPC project spiced up the Cloud Peaks dryad quest a bit - Xzar wants to harvest the dryad's blood, and if you let him, Khalid and Jaheira turn on you, and you also lose some rep. So the party was down to four.
As a result, clearing out the Gnoll Stronghold was a bit of a chore. I tried using Montaron as a tank, which worked out pretty well, until he got killed by a crit from the Gnoll chieftain, so for the rest of it, I had to use the 3 squishy mages with terrible THAC0 to kite the gnolls and slowly whittle them down. And I think something bugged out, because Edwin said nothing at all when we killed Dynaheir - I'm pretty sure even in the vanilla game he had some dialogue about it.
Due to the state the group was in, I didn't even bother trying to go for the Charisma tome. Instead, I headed to the Archaeological Site area to confront Captain Brage and get back to Nashkel. There, I raised Monty and donated a chunk of money to prepare for the incoming rep hit, then headed back north to pick up Dorn and Vicky. Also, finally killed Neera and picked up the gem bag.
Now, with the party filled out again, I'll probably try to get a bit more exp before taking on the Nashkel mines. I'm also considering dropping Edwin for Kagain - three mages might be a bit much, and the group's kinda lacking a real sturdy frontliner at the moment.
Having left Eddie to deal with his plight, I picked up Kagain. Since his quest is fixed with the mod, I got that out of the way, and then headed to the Ankheg farm area for some easy exp - or so I thought. Turns out Ankhegs hit a lot harder than I remember, and I lost Dorn, Kagain and Monty when I tried to take on two of them at once.
We did take down the Ankhegs, but that was little consolation, as getting everyone raised took a toll on our already depleted funds. Retrieving their equipment also turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than I was expecting, as immediately upon re-entering the area, we were attacked by 5 bandits and Ajantis, but fortunately we managed to get through that without any more deaths and get all our gear back - and pick up two Ankheg shells.
I decided it was wiser to leave that area for now, and head back to Beregost. Selling one of the shells to the smithy earned just enough to commission a suit of Ankheg armour out of the other. While that was being crafted, I decided to go after Bassilus, as we were now well and truly broke.
The mad priest was easily dealt with, and I also cleared out the half-ogres in the area south of there for Bjornin's quest. Picked up Melicamp as well, but ended up telling Thalantyr to go stuff himself when he said he wouldn't pay me. I've got better things to do than run around hunting skeletons for a quest that has like, what, 10% chance to succeed?
Unfortunately this group doesn't have anyone who can effectively use Ashideena at the moment, though I'm planning to put Kagain's next proficiency point into warhammers.
Things took a turn for the worse when those druids who spawn to hunt down Xzar for taking the nymph's blood wiped out everyone except Larissa and Xzar (those damn Call Lightnings...). That wouldn't have been so bad, as I had enough gold to res everyone; however, by the time I got back, all the equipment had disappeared.
So now I'm down two suits of Ankheg armour, the Gift of Peace, Ashideena, the Stupefier, a Ring of Protection, a Ring of Fire Resistance, Dorn's sword, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. If I'd known I wouldn't make it back in time, I could have possibly picked some of the gear up, but unfortunately I overestimated the despawn timer.
Anyhow, after this I was truly determined to go after those druids and wipe their filthy lineage right out of the realms. This time, I was better prepared. I had Monty scout out their location, then Viconia fired off a Silence spell just outside their sight range. Had to rest once before they both failed their save, but after that, they went down easily enough.
I suppose I'm clearing the mines next, as it looks like I'll have to rely on non-magical weapons for a while yet...
Nordgaard of Candlekeep, Undead Hunter
Final update
BG1 posts : 1, 2, 3Notable mods :
- IR/SR
- Rogue Rebalance
- plenty of NPC mods
- ATweaks
- Tweak Anthology
- Item Randomizer
Paladin's restriction :
- do good and lawful things (duh…
- god : Lathander
- spare as much lives as I can
- no mercy whatsoever with undeads (must be killed, no matter what)
- 10 magical items max
- 4 weapons (including ammos)
- 1 armor
- 1 shield
- 4 misc (include items like potion of Hill Giant strength and green scrolls, but not healing potions and antidotes)
- never lie (oath)
- tithe : 10% to the Song of the Morning Temple when I come back from adventuring (and before buying stuff)
- no neutral allies, only good ones
- no stealing, minimum thieving (traps and locks, mostly)
- only use and swap between allies items placed in quickslot
Nordgaard's done. He fell in the Iron Throne fight. Everything was going smooth, until he failed his save against Charm. Then, Imoen too. I had one casting of Break Enchantment, but it was already used on Sirene who got confused earlier. I tried to run down the stairs to regroup a bit, but, for some reason, my team just couldn't. And nothing was blocking the way. I'm pretty sure you can go up and down the stairs without needing you whole party in this map, because that's how I sometimes beat this fight (however, since I was a paladin, I thought I should do it with honor, straight up front). Because I couldn't go down the stairs, my team was quickly surrounded and sliced up. Couldn't cast even a single invisibility, because I kept being interrupted.
Here we are just before our doom :
We seemed to be surrounded by a lot of enemies, but only two of the Iron Throne bosses really left in that fight. We were almost done.
Usually, I should have had the Greenstone Amulet on, but, because of Item Randomizer, I hadn't found it. Also, the item restriction (10 max, 4 misc only) for my paladin was quite difficult to play, because SCS was not design around low level of prebuffing. Since he was already at max, he couldn't prebuff more, like with a potion of Clear Thought. These restrictions were probably a bit too harsh to be realistic. Oh well... I had fun while it lasted.
I'll be back in a while, probably with a Jester, without any restriction this time however !!
I just don't believe it.
I was near the end of Shadows of Amn on my first solo tetralogy run with a Seducer. I was doing fantastic in nearly every fight. I even took down Breudayael and the SCS Siege of Ust Natha without using mod items.
I just died to a mod-introduced fight, I believe the Chosen of Cyric encounter, when a fully-buffed group of thieves ambushes you, traps you in a cramped area, removes all of your defenses, and then throws out 50-damage backstabs, Harm, Detect Illusions, and some bizarre spell that removes Non-Detection. The whole party crumbled (Seducers can bring charmed critters into the party, hence the "solo" run with a full party) and I don't understand how we possibly could have survived given the resources at our disposal.
My Seducer went invisible and my two mages cast PFMW. But the enemy apparently backstabs with normal weapons, and my primary mage died instantly. My Seducer was revealed instantly, but miraculously made a saving throw against a Greater Malison+Slow+Chaos Spell Sequencer. She followed up with a Potion of Magic Shielding, expecting more disablers.
My secondary mage began to cast Time Stop, thinking he could take down a few enemies before it ran out. Then he got backstabbed as well despite PFMW, even though I remember picking up lots of magical weapons when I somehow won this fight in the Undergate run. His last act was to cast Non-Detection on my Seducer so she could hide behind a Potion of Invisibility without worrying about being exposed. Then a Power Word: Kill spell finished him off.
The enemies backstabbed us constantly, yet I saw no Mislead clones, and my front line--which could easily deal over 200 damage per round without buffs--could not kill a single enemy. Only one other character remained, because for some reason, one of my characters couldn't use the Rod of Resurrection. It just wouldn't fire.
My Seducer drank a Potion of Invisibility. But to my absolute disbelief, the enemy had some sort of spell that removed Non-Detection, and suddenly she was visible once more. They even removed the Stoneskin she had cast from the Boots of the Gargoyle. Then the enemy cleric landed a Harm spell, triggering some weird Hexxat-style mist form that my main character had gotten from some mod that turned her into a vampire (I never understood what this entailed, because all of the text that explained it was in German). She was invincible for a time, but I couldn't control her; she was panicked somehow.
Right after using the Rod of Resurrection to heal my Seducer, the last other party member died to a string of backstabs despite -13 AC, 277 HP, and 40% damage resistance. My main character remained invincible, but I still couldn't control her.
Then she lost her invincibility. But I still couldn't control her, even then.
The enemy cast Maze, but the enemy killed her before it could even take effect, even though she was immune to backstabs.
With my invisibility and Stoneskins removed at the start of combat, nowhere to run and no means of escaping the battle without using a spell that neither of my mages had time to use, no means of using invisibility or Non-Detection to escape pressure, no clear means of keeping my mages safe due to PFMW not working, with the Rod of Resurrection somehow unusable for several critical seconds when we desperately needed it, no time to reveal the enemies before they could land backstabs, no Mislead clones we could have killed to prevent the constant backstabs, this party...
...which wiped out all of Ust Natha without suffering a single death, without using our secret weapon, and without using a single mod-introduced item...
...died in a few rounds.
I know there's a way to avoid the fight, but the last time I wriggled my way out of the encounter peacefully, the game crashed repeatedly, forcing me to fight through it. I chose to fight this battle partly because I didn't expect it to be so bad, but also because I was all but positive that a CTD bug would prevent me from avoiding it. Just like it did in my Undergate run.
But in my Undergate run, being forced to fight a battle that's supposed to be optional was not fatal. Because my main character had a Staff of the True Magi to instantly go invisible when the enemy used their Detect Illusions ability. That fight is documented here. But this time, all I had was Non-Detection, which the enemy can remove somehow.
Testing found that in this install, the game no longer crashes when I try to avoid this fight. If I had known my install was NOT broken, I might have avoided the fight. But I don't really know.
Considering my 277 HP, -13 AC, poison-immune, 40% damage resistance tank died in two rounds, I do not believe there is any way to stay alive in this encounter without either being in jelly form (for immunity to piercing damage) or having mage-style defenses. But they can get past PFMW. They can dispel Stoneskin. And if you used a Spell Trigger or Chain Contingency to cast both PFMW and Stoneskin and SI: Abjuration, they also have at least two mages who use magic attacks to remove spell protections.
And if you have a Barbarian or Dwarven Defender or Fighter/Druid with 80-90% damage resistance? That's not enough; they'll just kill you with Harm instead.
Non-mages will simply die; the enemy's APR, THAC0, and backstab damage will be fatal to anyone who can't attain at least 90% immunity to piercing damage. But mages lose all of their buffs due to a script, and the enemy has the resources to break down anything short of a Chain Contingency+Spell Trigger setup followed by an aura-ignoring SI spell. You can try jelly form to block the piercing damage and Harm, but the enemy has slashing and crushing weapons, too.
Has anyone else in this thread beaten the Chosen of Cyric encounter in Chapter 6? Is there any way for a character to survive the first few rounds without being an epic-level mage?
At least I managed to beat Breudayael and the Siege of Ust Natha without relying on mod items--although, granted, the Seducer kit can be pretty freaking powerful if you know how to exploit its abilities. I'll probably discuss some of the tricks I pulled in that run--it would be nice if other people could see the cool weird stuff that Seducers can do--but for now, I just feel tired.
As fun as the solo Seducer run was, I don't think I have it in me to do it all over again. I've already gone through BG1 twice and SoD 1.5 times, respectively, and I'm not sure re-tracing my steps in SoA would be all that much fun.
I've wanted to do another tetralogy no-reload run with some sort of extra restriction(s)--solo, LoB, no mod items, poverty, or something else--but once again, I'm at a loss for what that would look like. There's only one thing I know about my next run.
The Chosen of Cyric are going to suffer for this.
Aren't potions non-dispellable in your set-up? If so it should be straight-forward for a tank to add magic resistance on top of their weapon resistance.
Do the enemies use death spell? If not then mordy sword / Ras could be a good option.
You could try using protection from normal weapons and locking it in with spell protections. Another option would be boots of etherealness, though I guess that effect could probably be dispelled.
A druid could combine shield of the archons with an earth elemental transformation.
Basically, you have to charm the target creature using Domination, the standard Seducer charm spell. Then, while not in combat, you have to use Seduction to charm them a second time, while Domination is still in effect (which can be hard, because the duration of Domination varies due to chance). If the critter fails its save and is half the Seducer's level or lower, then the Seduction spell overrides the critter's scripts, giving it a new script that causes it to join the party.
If it doesn't have a valid character class, its class is set to fighter and it suffers a 50% XP penalty. Critters with the MINHP1 item are immune, as are golems and statues and swords, since they have no minds (also because Clay Golems and plot-immune critters would be game-breaking). The whole process can take a long time, but if you keep at it, your Seducer can eventually persuade the critter to join the party. It won't usually have its normal spells, but it will have its normal items and stats.
You can get some very weird parties using Seduction, with very strange advantages and disadvantages. Played optimally, a solo Seducer is actually roughly as powerful as a solo mage, or even fighter/mage. But that requires pulling some really weird stunts.
About your other questions:
1. Potions are dispellable in my install because I created a new install without SR or IR.
2. I never found Ras due to Item Randomizer, I'm guessing the two enemy mages would make short work of a Magical Sword, and the Chosen of Cyric probably wouldn't focus on either sword, since they can easily reveal any invisible party members and attack them instead.
3. Protection from Normal Weapons won't work, either. They don't use only normal weapons; they have lots of extremely powerful magical weapons as well, which they drop after the fight.
4. A druid or fighter/druid would probably have a good shot, if the cleric tries landing Harm before the mages remove Shield of the Archons. Unfortunately, there are basically zero druids and fighter/druids for a Seducer to add to the party, and I had been doing so well in the run that I didn't bother with many side quests, leaving the party far short of epic levels (my Seducer herself only hit 1.6 million XP by Chapter 6).
I am sure non-detection only works with thief hide in shadows, it does not block invisibility dispel when invisibility originates from spells or potions.
You can talk your way out of the fight if you have the right stats.
SD-3,
river crossing,I grabbed a bag of holding and a cleric then sang to some rocks, rescued a friendly giant only to leave them in that cave... recoverd a shield from a vampire, pocked around some dank dark holes for lot, o and set fire to a LOT of crusaders
I did get a spot of bad luck with Safana getting chunked but the Glint guy will do her job without major stress... the bridge is secured now so I'm looking for Neera to replace Edwin.
Journal of Hrodwyn Halberdier the Gallant
We found a ring of fire protection and Samuel nearby. We took him to the FAI and killed a few more ankheg.We rescued Annabelle by siccing some skeletons on the xvarts. The same skeletons defeated some assassins and the gnolls. We will use them on whatsoever eneemies we meet in the area.
EDIT
BTW I made a new discovery. If you use the skeletons against the xvarts without getting into line of sight with the cow's owner, the xvarts don't attack the cow so the quest becomes a lot easier. Of course if you are powerful enough it is straightforward anyway. However no rep increase in my new set-up.