Okay, so I just hit level 6 with a Dragon Disciple and my health is 42. That's 42 out of 48.
Either I've gotten really lucky rolls or it's much easier to get high HP rolls than in past games. My Orc Berserker is at level 5 and has 73 Health - that's 73 out of 75.
I'm playing on core rules - I don't know if it has to be a higher difficulty for the rolls to be truly random or not. It just really seems rigged in the player's favor. I remember vanilla BG having to save and reload again and again because really crappy rolls were almost a given. It was especially hard with multiclass characters for some reason.
But this game is the exact opposite. Did Beamdog fool around with the mechanics of leveling up? I have no problem with it if they did, believe me. Maybe this is anecdotal and others haven't had this experience.
Personally, in PnP (AD&D), I prefer:
1D2 (coin flip) +2 + con bonus 1D4 +2 + con bonus 1D6 +2 + con bonus 1D6 +4 + con bonus 1D6 +6 + con bonus
Did Beamdog do something like this?
You're not alone, the rolls are definitely skewed. I've referred to this issue a number of times in posts, but have never seen any explanation for it. It's not a simple mechanical issue, i.e. it's perfectly possible to still get minimum HP rolls. There's just a tendency for rolls to be good such that fully developed characters will virtually always have above 'average' HPs.
.... case in point, just had to roll some saves against Symbol, Stun!
Svifneblin Village, Balor: casts instantly, apparently, despite not having SCS-enhanced demons.
Assuming Stun uses Spell save with -4 penalty, my saves are not high enough to succeed reliably (forgot Imp Invisibility).
One should never roll for a save in a well played no-reload run. The Symbol got my summons and Minsc, but not charname.
Luckily, the encounter was short thanks to Viconia's Bolt of Glory. She is an absolute beast! Has 75% MR and has some of the few MR-bypassing damage spells. Currently, packing a THACO of 0 with Sling of Everard (still only 1 APR, of course).
Lesson is: don't take things for granted.
--
Side note: I deliberately had avoided all liches, the Flayer Lair, and the Twisted Rune in chapters 2 & 3. (Though, successfully killed a lich in the Asylum with Summon spam.) I have not yet decided, if I want to risk SCS liches upon return.
(Kangaxx, if memory serves, can be cheesed by a berserk Minsc or by a Prot from Magic scroll. But it has been a long time since I have done it.)
Alchra Diagott (a trapped lich, apparently) just cast a Wish.
... and apparently got a Time Stop + Alacrity thing going via Wish!!!
Currently waiting mid-pause with half a dozen spells queued in mid air. The guy is still not done casting. AND his first two spells are Remove Magic + Greater Malison upon charname.
Does MR stop Greater Malison? It appears to. (Thank you, Carsomyr, in this case.) (EDIT: maybe not. I may have not accounted the saves accurately as Diagott did not dispel my Imp Invisibility.)
Fire immunity via items + Belt of Intertial Barrier goes a long way to mitigate damage, it seems.
As usual I'd been slipping back into bad habits and taking more risks over time. At Durlag's Tower the battle horrors were easy enough, but I tried to kill the doom guard as well when low on spells and without summons. I did successfully blind it and landed quite a few backstabs, but it was still only badly wounded when it recovered its sight and had got one hit in on Melody in the process. I decided it would be best to try and finish it off inside the Tower, but that was complicated by another doppleganger spawning outside. To deal with that Artemis took the doom guard off for a stroll, while Perky was intended to lead the doppleganger separately into the Tower for the others to shoot down. That would all have worked except that I must somehow have mis-clicked with Melody - she came inside on her own, rather than waiting for Artemis to come back and arrived right on top of the grateful doppleganger.
As I'd already lost a life to Shoal that didn't seem too much of an issue though and I continued the run. However, it seemed caution was now out of the window as another death occurred within minutes. I noticed that Tawny did not yet have a proficient magical weapon and returned to Firewine to try and charm Poe to get his spear. After failing at the first attempt at that I should have either put everyone into invisibility/stealth or gone to the edge of the map, but just tried resting in place. A large spawn of skeletons then showed no mercy for Whistle.
The WIP revived Whistle and got back to Durlag's where they made everyone invisible to go inside. Summons then helped sort out the doom guard and the upper part of the Tower was soon clear except for Kirinhale.
I then decided to explore the Firewine Ruins using invisibility. Arriving there the WIP used their 5 available invisibility spells to turn everyone except Whistle invisible. He failed a couple of times to hide before I decided to rest anyway. I did go close to the map edge, but not quite close enough - and shots from the skeletons as the area transition triggered meant the WIP arrived at their destination lugging a dead body. Fortunately, on returning Whistle's equipment was still there. After visiting the Beregost Temple the party tried to rest to heal up Whistle, but once again I wasn't fully concentrating and didn't pause the game instantly on clicking out of the rest screen - where a pair of worgs were waiting to gobble up Misty. This dying lark is really remarkably easy if you don't pay full attention .
The Temple was still not offering discounts for multiple purchases, so the WIP decided to restore funds by hacking down Bassilus - meaning everyone now had a +2 or +3 weapon. Returning to the Firewine ruins, everyone was invisible as Melody started disarming the traps. I'm not sure if I was just being impatient or something else was going on, but I had to wait much longer than I expected before she eventually detected the first trap she stood next to. The next one was no problem, but the one after that again didn't register after a number of seconds - which it should have done given that a round is only 3 seconds long playing at 60 fps. Thinking possibly I'd misremembered exactly where the trap was Melody moved forward slightly and ... I think that's enough party play for me for the moment .
I never actually saw the Cloak of Mirroring to be of much use. I never made a strategy out of it; I just threw it on Charname so I wouldn't have to cast Protection from Magic Energy on them in the event of a Horrid Wilting spell. A better use would probably be to throw it on the party's tank and bomb them with Skull Traps, but I never saw much interest in that.
When you think about it, a cloak that grants immunity to damage spells is not that much more powerful than a cloak that gives your mage a few extra spell slots. The only difference is that the former is not dispellable (a pretty big deal in a no-reload context, granted) and requires less maintenance.
Agreed. Now I think about it I usually have Protection from Magic Energy on my main, that and Death Ward are my first buffs. Tough luck on that ring....
About HP rolls, I still think it's a RNG as I definitely remember getting low HP rolls, in 2.x in particular. But let's have a look at my current party:
So each of them got more than 'average' HPs but we have to take into account 3 characters are multiclass, and with multiclass the chances of getting overall more favourable HP total are bigger (as the roll for each 'full' level happens twice instead of once). The characters are still to get a lot of level ups before reaching the 9th level, and I have a feeling it will all even itself out in the end.
@Grond0 Sad to see another failure! Now I'm really starting to worry about my group.
At this point (Underdark just started), the run seems too easy.
GOOD
KEEP IT THAT WAY
Of course, what has ALWAYS happened in the past is that whenever Charname feels that confident, he manages to die in a very creative unforeseen way. (I am my biggest enemy.)
Which is why I am actively trying to avoid keeping the charname from the front line alone. (Usually have a few summons and Minsc next to charname, with party always nearby, with AWACS services provided beforehand by Jan. I have no metagame memory beyond this point.)
We'll see if luck will hold....
You think it's easy/ Then you step on a trap/ There's no going back/ You've lost your PC.
etc. etc. But life on the edge is more fun .
Edit: Oops, didn't even see that Grond0 had just done that... commiserations.
I am terrified as I have realised that I haven't fought vanilla Melissan in about 10 years. Went with Ascension/ SCS for awhile or didn't finish ToB due to boredom.... EE Melissan is that most terrifying of things- an unknown quantity.
The characters are still to get a lot of level ups before reaching the 9th level, and I have a feeling it will all even itself out in the end.
I sincerely doubt it. I keep a close eye on actual vs average for all my characters and the chances of a fully developed character being below average in the EE are tiny. I would be surprised if any of your 6 characters do that and amazed if more than one does . I agree though that the roll is still produced by a RNG, it's just that (to misquote Animal Farm) "all rolls are random, but some rolls are more random than others".
@Grond0 Larger parties can be distracting at times, that's for darn sure. I start feeling anxious just seeing more than 2 or three on the side bar traveling with me.
Mage F95 - the unkitted mage -> fighter with a lab rat kind of name..
@JuliusBorisov : sorry about the name for my charname. Its not that inventive, but great for sorting runs that run at the same time... like lab rats...
Next up was cloakwood. With the RoFA I just ran past most of the critters. I had plenty of XP and not that many antidotes.
The first enemy I chose to fight was Drasus party. The fighters where drawn out one by one. The NOT Drasus guy was slinged to death. At full health I suddenly felt confident enough to duke it out with Drasus unbuffed. A wand of paralyzation saved the day and my ass after a severe beating. I really should have buffed beforehand... stupid mistake
Next up Davaeorn... but first Hareishan. I thought I could sneak by her. But Hareishan is a wanderer even in a non SCS game. I was yet again unbuffed - same mistake within 5 minuttes... a wand of fire helped me out with the bandits and black talon elite.
Against Davaeorn I didnt make the mistake again.. I buffed with 2 potions of insulation, 2 potions of fire resistance, a potion of heroism, a potion of hill giant str. - the liquid menu was off course inspired by Alesia_BH . I topped it all with a charge from the greenstone amulet...
I started off by walking through the traps, catching the attention of the two battle horrors - and dumping them in the front room by using the sandthief ring.. I then chased down Davaeorn.
I walked uninjured from the fight. Carefull planning and buffing helps. Go figure.. Next stop the Big City.
I did a number of small quests
Got the tomes
The cloak and helmet of balduram where picked up without a fight. I stunned Quenesh with the wand of paralyzation, and then picked her pocket. I did the same with priest who has the tome
The priest even id’ed the tome afterwards. I thought it was a fool proof plan. But later tests showed me that some dont take kindly to beeing stunned. Whats up with that? Is getting paralyzed not an attack unless you make the save against wand?
After supplying and gathering my stuff, I used the sandthief ring to get the papers at the Iron Throne
After that it was off to CK. At the moment nothing has come before me, that I couldnt handle.. Well besides me. My erratic playing (and roleplaying) will surely be the death of me..
Ps. I allways seem to get good HP rolls?? Pps. Oh sorry - had the max HP on level up button activated.. oh well I will have to live with your scorn whilst I enjoy my massive HP pool
Being afraid of getting the amazon ambush without needed items (and by items I, first of all, mean the wand of monster summoning to confuse thieves before they're revealed by Detect Invisibility) I decided to concentrate on getting wands. The F/T finally had 50 in Open Locks, so was able to pick the container with the wand of lightning in Beregost. On the way to Nashkel Mines the group was waylaid by hobgoblin archers (this is what I get for not speaking with Dorn in the FAI due to the party being "good").
I don't like to play with Autopause (maybe it's quite wasteful but as I consider Autopause OP ) but I still managed to pause the game the exact moment the ambush happened and put on armor on the F/I and the C/M as @Grond0 advised. The C/M was again hurt but not killed this time as the group quickly escaped the encounter.
After looting the wand of frost the group decided to help Prism the Sculptor. Greywolf at first failed twice his saving throw against Command, but when he got up he suddently decided to attack the druid and not the spirit bear (the druid was trying to heal the bear). The druid survived, though, and Blindness finally worked on Greywolf. He was soon dead, but while the party chased the bounty hunter they stumbled across a pack of wolves. A few injuries, but everybody survived.
Upon reaching the Valley of the Tombs, the F/I used the green scroll of PfU to deal with the undead there, and the Revenant's death brought new levels for the druid and the C/M. It meant the spirit animals now were of the 5th level, and according to these stats all of them, except for the wolf, had Free Action and thus weren't affected by Web.
The group approached Narcillicus and after the mage refused to share his spell, immediately retreated. Silence, Web and Blindness all worked in the end, while the Spirit Snake managed to poison the mage. The speed at which the snake was killed by the jellies made the group realize they would have to return to this area later if they wanted to survive the fight.
At this moment *I think* I was ready for a potential amazon ambush, but it still didn't happen and the group successfully travelled to the Red Canyons area. There they made Bassilus believe Jagen was his parent, and the lone priest was first Silenced, then Webbed.
At last, dealing with general enemies became easy. Web, or two, then the spirit animal destroyed everything while the group covered from a distance.
Antichickenator didn't work this time, sadly for Melicamp, but at least the group bought the Wand of Fear from Thalantyr. The money they got for reporting about Bassilus let them also acquire the Army Scythe.
Here’re the current standings: Jagen, sorcerer, lvl 4, 16 HPs, 15 kills (5% in the group) Glod, fighter/illusionist, lvl 3/3, 23 HPs, 62 kills (22% in the group), 0 deaths Uzume, fighter/thief, lvl 3/4, 30 HPs, 66 kills (24% in the group), 0 deaths Cochrane, archer, lvl 4, 32 HPs, 98 kills (35% in the group), 0 deaths Sigyn, totemic druid, lvl 5, 41 HPs, 16 kills (5% in the group), 0 deaths Dazbog, cleric/mage, lvl 4/3, 18 HPs, 16 kills (5% in the group), 2 deaths (both by a kobold commando)
@Corey_Russell I think only 1 of my runs was actually ended by the main character dying. The others I decided not to continue following chunkings. That's been the most common end to my party runs for a while now, even playing on core. Avoiding anyone going below -10 HPs is made considerably harder though by the doubled damage in LoB, so some specific assistance from Tymora probably would be handy - particularly when you can't resist taking on risky challenges .
@Corey_Russell I think only 1 of my runs was actually ended by the main character dying. The others I decided not to continue following chunkings.
*nod*
I play with the "prevent NPCs from permanently dying" for that reason. I just don't have the heart to not have their banter alongside my quest. But it sometimes doesn't help.
The following is from a past run where I lost Minsc to chunking by my own hand. After the lament of the event, I abandoned that run same as you:
(Forgive the long pasted post)
"Your mighty berserker spirit shall not go unavenged, Minsc! But, but it was by my own hand.
It all started with journey to de Arnise Keep which we never managed to reach. First, we ran into a bunch of thugs attacking a guy named Renfeld who was also poisoned (why bother posioning someone that you are already beating is beyond my ken, but those thugs weren't the smartest of the bunch perhaps). On our way to deliver Renfeld to his friends, we got beset first by muggers and then a mad cleric. Not dismayed by the few bruises we got on the way, we delivered Renfeld to a secretive looking building. Time for a bit of a rest before get back on the road to to de Arnise Keep. Meanwhile, of course, Minsc is bugging me to go to Imnesvale to help the little kid who asked for help and Aerie is on my nerves to go meet someone named Realis, and all three girls are constantly nagging about their unending personal troubles. Instead of party I seem to be leading a self-help circle. Only Jan, bless him, isn't on about some personal obsession, though turnips probably count as one.
Anyway, after dropping Renfeld we stop by for a drink at this place called Sea's Bounty and out of nowhere this Ployer guy appears. After his tirade, he curses Jaheira and neither rest or magic could cure her. With the help of Bernard we track Ployer to his hide-out in the slums for some well deserved justice. I know that I am about to walk in to a fight and though Ployer seemed like a push-over I am not going to risk anyone in case of a trap.
We prepare: all that magic can grant as protection against steel and spell. But Ployer was also prepared. Three mages teleport in - and immediately disappear in to shadowed doors. Viconia true-sees in response. While Ployer is being hammered by us all we are surrounded by the three mages, now -visible, wreathed in flames, shielded with barriers against sword and spell. Minsc lets out a battlecry and starts hammering on one of the mages with his sword Lillalcor shouting along with glee. Minsc's blows have no effect and each hit burns him instead with cold flames, but he does not let up. Jan and I attempt to remove the magic of the mages, but their spells are stronger than ours. Jaheira summons insects but fiery shields of the mages stop them. I decapitate Ployer where he stands. His expression is not shock, not fear, not remorse, but satisfaction. He knew. The bastard knew that he would die here. He is certain that so will we. Right here.
We shall see.
Between me and Aerie we have two spell thrusts and I have but one Breach memorized. We can handle a mage. We have planned for it. We are ready. But three at the same time? Jan's Flasher bolts stuns one of the mages and Minsc and I start wailing at him. My mind is protected against their magics. I try to stand between the two other mages and the party in the small space. With one of their ranks fallen to our swords the two remaining mages seem to be even more hellbent to takes us down.
Two mages nod to one another. I can trace their spells as their are being cast. As I rush across the room, followed closely by Minsc's battlecry, I know that I am too late. The first mage casts a dispelling incantation and all our protection spells dissolve around us. The second mage almost simultaneously casts Chaos.
And the room around me becomes a blur.
I remember flailing my swords at the phantoms that apparate around me. The rest of the story I piece together later from Jan's visions. He remembers it all as his mind was not addled by the terrible spell. Neither was Aerie's, but she will not talk to me. She knows, I know that she will never forget what came upon Minsc in that room by my own hand.
Jaheira, Viconia, and I stumble around the room randomly exchanging blows. Viconia is apparently heavily wounded by my hand in the bout while Jaheira randomly attacks Aerie. Jan remembers what the elder mage has cast as Minsc lunges at him: Stone to Flesh. It turns Minsc into an angry statue. It could have been me. It could have been me, but it got Minsc. There are magics to reverse even that, of course, if only we can make it out of there alive. Neither Jan nor Aerie flees the battle, though there is little hope. They have no means of dispelling the mind addling charms or to return Minsc to his form. The magic missiles they have left in their arsenal cannot penetrate the magic shields of either mage. Jan grabs his glowing short sword and runs after the elder mage. A contingency blocks Jan's stabs as the mage's now exposed skin turns again to sheets of stone.
I remember lunging against a shadowy figure as fire and acid eats through my skin. One of the mages lies dead at my feet. Wounded I attack the next one. Sheated in a skin of stone. I hit him and my strike rings true. As the mage's image shatteres before me, I realize even through the fog of magical confusion that addles me, that someting is wrong. Instead of dispelling the last of the stoneskins of the mage, I have utterly destroyed the statue that was once Minsc.
Minsc is dead. Not only dead, but broken, literally, into tiny pieces. His screaming sword Lilarcor, his massive armor, his apparently useles protective cloak, all shattered with him. His companion Boo, shattered with him.
What saves our wretched lives is a mistake. The last mistake of the mage. The mage dispels -dispels- our magics. Probably out fear of what Jan and Aerie are about to do to him. This immeaditely clears our minds. Viconia is almost dead. We are all wounded. But our minds are ours. This is not the time for regret - I react with instinct and, along with Jan, I hit the mage as the last of his stoneskins dissipate. This time I am certain that it is HIM, not the mirage of a friend.
But we fail to interrupt his last spell: A chain of lightning sparks out of his hands. Killing Viconia immediately and leaving the rest of us within an inch of our lives. But my sword ends his next incantation.
I stand in the room. Covered in blood, most of it my own. A wave of pain passes through Aerie's eyes and it is the last time she looks at me. She lowers her gaze. Everyone lowers their gaze. There are magics to bring back the dead. But Minsc is gone forever.
3:36 SCIENCE! 6:58 Davaeorn defeated 20:45 Simmeon slaughtered 36:50 ♪ Time to face the strange (ch-ch-ch-CHANGES!) ♪ 39:06 Mutamin's Garden (this is the rest of the session) 40:47 Mutamin murdered 44:19 Kirian killed, Baerin beheaded, Lindin lacerated, and Peter... uhh... pkilled. 1:01:20 Requisite Ending Character Sheet View
Several runs through BG1 have taught me that BG1 gameplay, especially no-reload play, is overwhelmingly dominated by items. All manner of potions, all manner of wands, all manner of arrows and darts, and the Greenstone Amulet and Necklace of Missiles--BG1 weapons and armor might be pitiful +1 trash, but expendables make or break a no-reload run.
I don't want to beat Sarevok with yet another Wand of Monster Summoning. But shooting down my best options just because they're my best options is not my style, and I don't want to go for a poverty run because death would be virtually irreversible all through BG1--and all the way through SoD, too, unless I picked a non-multi-classed cleric, which would be a profoundly sub-optimal pick for ToB.
So for this run, I've got a different set of rules. I can use any items I want, including mod items... except for all of the items I've used more than once or twice, ever. Items I've only used in IWD or Item Revisions don't get counted, nor do mage scrolls or items created by spells; I can still use a +1 morningstar, the Ring of Energy, and Minute Meteors, and I can still learn mage spells from scrolls. Nonmagical items with no special effects are fine, but otherwise, I can't use any item I've ever equipped for more than a moment or used on more than one or two occasions.
Having played this game for 17 years, that doesn't leave a whole lot left. I can't even equip Peridan, the one weapon that's spent more time sitting at the bottom of a Bag of Holding than any other weapon in any of my games. The only saving grace is that, if I die and start over, the item restrictions are the same as the previous run. So if I use a bunch of items in this run and still fail, the challenge will not become a complete poverty run if I try it again.
There's one extra requirement: I have to try any new mod-introduced quests that I come across, since I've previously avoided them due to not knowing the dangers involved.
Our party is themed after Night in the Woods! It's a very text-oriented game with lovable and interesting characters, a bit like Undertale. Unlike my previous two NITW-themed no-reload runs, which had the four main characters of Night in the Woods (and which ended to a Fireball and then boredom), this one just has five different versions of the protagonist, Mae Borowski, a rather screwed-up girl who dropped out of college for reasons that become clear late into the game.
First up is Mae herself, a Berserker whom I will dual-class to mage at level 7. The Berserker rage immunities will be absolutely critical considering we can't use the Greenstone Amulet, Potions of Clarity, or Potions of Invulnerability or Magic Shielding to ward off disablers. The portrait is Mae's "astral" self, seen only in her dreams.
The Berserker class is actually an excellent fit for Mae. See that bat she's carrying? It's a reference to an incident in her childhood when she attacked another kid with a baseball bat during a psychotic episode in which everything in the world appeared to be just "shapes" to her. It made her infamous in her hometown for years and earned her the nickname "Killer," which is also the name of our Bounty Hunter.
Bounty Hunter traps are absolutely devastating in BG1 due to the sheer damage, and in late SoA, their Maze traps make fantastic crowd control options. Notice the low Wisdom in this version of Mae as well. Aside from that psychotic episode, Mae has a history of making self-destructive decisions, so low Wisdom makes sense. But since this is a no-reload run, our Fighter/Cleric has maxed-out Wisdom.
Trash Mammal is a reference to a drunken speech she gave at a party once, in which she declared herself to be a total trash mammal. Night in the Woods has a lot of colorful dialogue, and Mae has a lot of the best lines. Normally I don't like Fighter/Clerics, because I find them kind of boring, but Trash Mammal will give us some very sorely-needed cleric buffs. But she's not our only priest. We also have Witch Dagger, a Wizard Slayer who will dual-class to druid at level 7. Notice that all of these characters already have some XP; the screenshots were taken after Beregost.
The costume is from the Harvest Festival (Harfest) in Night in the Woods. Mae snarls "Witch Daggah!" at herself when she's checking out her costume in the mirror, hence the name. Wizard Slayer/Druids can apply area-effect spell failure via Fire Seeds, bypassing all weapon immunities, so Witch Dagger will absolutely destroy every SCS mage in SoA and ToB. Finally, we have a sorcerer, the classic powergaming class now that Kensai/Mages have fallen out of fashion.
Mayday is a nickname created by Mae's childhood friend, Bea.
I had to design this party very carefully in order to cover all the holes that our item restrictions have poked in my normal strategies. Each character is designed to counter a very specific kind of threat that could otherwise prove fatal:
1. Mae, our Berserker/Mage, is my standard defensive Charname, taking advantage of those rage immunities to block the various game-ending disablers of the saga, Stoneskin to avoid fatal backstabs, and PFMW to survive Ascension Melissan. 2. Mayday, our sorcerer, is there to cast Invisibility in BG1 to avoid bandit ambushes and Wish in ToB to give us some extra resources for the Five. 3. Killer, our Bounty Hunter, is there to tear up BG1 mobs, wound SoD mobs, screw around with SoA mobs, and Maze ToB mobs, as well as nuke the Five at the Throne of Bhaal. 4. Trash Mammal, our Fighter/Cleric, is there to cast Remove Fear in BG1, Raise Dead in SoD, Chaotic Commands in SoA, and Harm+Critical Strike in ToB. 5. Witch Dagger, our Wizard Slayer/Druid, is there to shut down BG1 and SoD wizards with darts and shut down SoA and ToB wizards with Fire Seeds.
We have one slot left to bring in NPCs, which will open up some mod quests that I otherwise couldn't access. Sandrah is the first to join the party. But because her presence causes inexplicable inventory lag, I decide to boot her from the party. But not before I sell off her unique equipment, which happens to be worth the entire town of Beregost.
We bump our reputation up to 18 right away, because we have no plans for killing Dushai--there's no reason to steal her Ring of Free Action when we can't even equip it. Now we just have to collect some XP. First up, the spiders. Killer makes short work of them with her traps.
Bounty Hunters are crazy overpowered in early BG1. And in my install, unlike @Grond0's, Special Snares can still be thrown.
Next is Silke. But how are we supposed to tackle Silke with a level 1 party and no magical items at all? Well, Command is a crapshoot, but Witch Dagger imposes 25% spell failure for 5 rounds with every dart she lands on Silke, which means Silke, courtesy of her SCS script, resorts to a Minor Sequencer to get around the spell failure that would otherwise ruin her Lightning Bolt spell. With a Wizard Slayer throwing darts at her, all Silke can really do it whomp us with her staff, and she doesn't get the lucky critical hits she would need to actually kill someone.
Once again, Haiass is on the team, ready to devour all the kobolds and hobgoblins we don't want to mess with. As I've said before, he can probably solo the game if you stay invisible, but we don't need him for Tarnesh. Partly because we have a Wizard Slayer and a Remove Fear spell, but mostly because Tarnesh, due to a poorly designed Thunderslap spell pre-buff, stuns himself on round 1.
Some duergar surprise us on the way north and nearly kill Witch Dagger, but we can withdraw and let Killer take them down more or less single-handedly using her traps.
Killer's traps are also very effective against the ankhegs, though a level 1 Bounty Hunter always has a small chance of killing themselves when setting a trap.
Mayday can cast Blindness on Killer, allowing us to set traps in plain sight, but it's not really necessary. Putting aside Haiass and his stupendous combat abilities (despite being an ostensibly nonmagical wolf), it's not like we can't just clear out the ankheg nest with Trash Mammal's Command spells. We pawn the shells to Taerom one at a time and watch Melicamp die for I think the fifth time in a row.
I pay a visit to Bassilus' map, but it seems that Zargal comes with a pair of giant Ettins in my install, and they have lots of HP and hit really, really hard. Fortunately, the Ettins walk very slowly, buying us enough time to pepper them with ranged attacks.
Notice Haiass chunking the last Ettin. Don't worry; Haiass isn't going to be winning all our fights in this run.
He's actually going to be winning very few of them.
Also notice Morwen in the party. She's a level 5 Skald mod NPC who comes with some really awesome equipment that I unfortunately had to sell because I've used her in a previous run. But it does give us a strong NPC right off the bat.
We tackle Bassilus. Witch Dagger fails a save against Hold Person and Bassilus gets Sanctuary off the ground to heal himself, but we manage to scrape by with only a single death by using our many ranged options.
Due to our item restrictions, I cannot use the Doofus Saber or that 5 APR dagger I used in the Undergate run. But I can still pawn them off for big money, which means Tristan and Isolde are next. Turns out they have pretty low HP despite having such incredibly high offensive output.
To Nashkel! I pay a visit to a local cobbler and discover a bunch of really, really powerful mod items I haven't tried before. Aside from some very scarce healing items that will compensate for our complete inability to use normal healing potions, and a new kind of Bullet of Detonation besides the one I used in my Undergate run, two pairs of boots in particular stand out.
That Nature's Beauty spell works just like the real thing: permanent blindness on any hostile critter, and humanoid enemies have to save vs. spell at +3 or die. It costs thousands of gold, but I doubt we'll ever run low on money considering how much stuff we can't use, and will only be able to sell.
The Boots of Boredom are more interesting. They do give you complete invisibility to all critters, just like an undispellable Protection from Undead scroll that applies to living critters as well as undead. On top of that, it also grants immunity to level 1-9 spells. And while it does set your APR to 0, you can override that simply by equipping a bow!
But there is one crushing drawback to this item. It also grants immunity to level 0 spells, and I already know that this will prevent the user from getting any XP from any source as long as they wear the boots. It might also block some other important effects--it might even prevent Mae from receiving plot items via dialogue! I do not plan on using these boots much; they're too strong to be interesting and yet they also have the ability to screw up our game.
But I do want to see what they're like. I try them out on Narcillus Wallace. He can't see us at all!
I send in Killer with the boots and set some traps right next to him. Sure enough, it's a perfect way to butcher him.
No, I don't think I'll use these much. But I will keep them in Mae's inventory, because they're the only escape option I've got.
Both Tarnesh and Zordral killed themselves using a Thunderslap spell, but they're not the only ones who can cast the spell. Thalantyr happens to sell a couple copies of the scroll. And while I can't drink Potions of Genius or Mind Focus, I did tweak scroll scribing to be a 100% chance because I didn't want to deal with the agony of scribing failures, or downgrade to Normal mode and make the enemies deal 25% less damage. Morwen can now cast it.
Thunderslap is a level 2 spell that deals a small amount of electricity damage and stuns the target for 6 seconds. It bypasses the target's magic resistance and offers no save, but the caster has to land an attack roll to get it to work.
Or at least, that's what the description says. And that description is probably why somebody made Thunderslap into a pre-buff for certain low-level mages. But the description is a lie. Thunderslap is not an upgraded Shocking Grasp; it doesn't create a magical weapon that only works if you can land a hit with it.
It's an on-target spell with a short range. You have to be close to the target, but no attack roll is required. The duration is poor, but the spell bypasses AC, MR, and saving throws.
So.
Guess what incredibly dangerous critter relies on AC, MR, and saving throws to stay alive?
We kill Drizzy O'Derper in a single round, and discover that murdering the famous hero is actually considered a crime. We'll have to donate a bunch of money to get our reputation back up to 18. But first, we need to get away from these gnolls. I lure them into a bunch of traps that were actually our backup plan in case Thunderslap didn't work against Drizzy...
...and when Jemby and the gang attack us, we manage to finish them off as well by using missile weapons and a Command spell.
Killing Drizzy was actually a huge gain for us, despite the reputation drop. See, because I'm relatively new to BG1 and my item habits are nonstandard, there are some important BG1 items that I have never actually used before, and therefore am able to use in this run.
Twinkle is off-limits for us due to alignment restrictions, but Mae now has Frostbrand, granting her 50% fire resistance and a +3 weapon right at the beginning of BG1. And because of a special scimitar, Gift of Mystra, that one of my mods gave us in Candlekeep, Mae can dual-wield them to attain 100% fire resistance whenever I see a Fireball or Sunfire spell ready to roast the party. We now have an endgame weapon for Mae that will last us all the way to Big B in SoD.
Since this is a Night in the Woods-themed run and there is no Frisk or Chara here, I do not have to come up with an Undertale-themed line at the end of every post.
Not having to finish every post with a line about determination fills us with determination.
we got cocky, thats the bottom line... I should have stopped to rest again after dealing with the smiths but I didn't and Puk payed for my mistake in order to save me.
party; Sarah, (lob... I may add a mod to fix turn undead and perhaps a special magic item if she survives spellhold) Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo
I wasn't sure what I should do next. I toyed with Corey's idea of an all barbarian party, but fancied trying something more melee focused - and I think a bunch of berserkers should be able to do quite a bit of work in close quarters. The party is made up of 5 ugly dwarfs led by a charismatic halfling. If I'd noticed @Tresset's fix to avoid chunking before rolling them up I might have been tempted to apply that to my previous party and have another go with that. However, I've added it to the berserkers instead. That's made no difference so far, but should give them a rather better chance to make decent progress than the previous mixed party.
Everyone has got sword and shield proficiency and, with heavy armor as well, the sorts of archer ambushes that can be deadly for other characters are not much of a threat to them.
They quickly headed north from Beregost in search of Dushai's ring and Tymora was looking after them when Prime managed to charm him on the very first attempt - is that a good sign this will be a lucky run?
I didn't think melee was viable for most encounters until they'd got at least a level (level 1 protection doesn't apply to them as they all started with more than 13 HPs) and I didn't seek out major experience early on - so there was still plenty of kiting (using non-proficient slings) initially on people like Greywolf with no distance attacks.
I was going to report that everyone got to level 3 by running Bjornin's half-ogres round, but with the last of those nearly dead I got careless and Seize suffered the consequence.
With one death already incurred I was willing to take more risks and attempted to use HPs to run Jemby out of magic missiles - but she managed to do enough with the last of those to exactly kill Pluck before the others took revenge.
Incidentally you might notice in the screenshots with Jemby that Prime is down to 3 HPs. That wasn't the result of fighting the mage, but an earlier bit of friendly fire when I was speeding through changing weapon selections for the group. As occasionally happens the game didn't immediately respond to the directed change - which meant that pressing the '6' key didn't select Prime, but instead prompted an attack on him by Clasp ...
Beating up 3 ankhegs to get to their treasure allowed the Boys to help out Farmer Brun and push reputation up to 20. That prompted the purchase of the remaining melee weapons to fill out the following collection in character order: +3 scimitar - watching Drizzt die in slow motion against some gnolls +2 long sword - shooting down Greywolf +2 hammer - raging and meleeing Bassilus, interrupting one potentially fatal spell in the process
+1 bastard sword - breaking open chest in Beregost smithy +1 axe - purchased at Feldepost's +2 dagger of venom - purchases at Beregost smithy They also bought the full plate armor from Beregost and coughed up for a second set of ankheg armor, so that everyone now has a minimum protection of plate mail. They're ready now to start hitting the high XP spots on the Sword Coast.
At the basilisk area Prime used the green scroll before turning the basilisks a bit greener than usual with his dagger.
After charming Kirian's companions they tried a straight assault after surrounding Kirian only for Pluck to immediately die of a chromatic orb.
One of her successor spells was interrupted as she was taken down without apparently taking further casualties.
However, Seize had been affected by an acid arrow and that ticked on and on and eventually killed him (I deemed using a potion of magic blocking to be not worthwhile).
A sirine fest proceeded from Beregost temple to the Lighthouse to Shoal's area. While at the Lighthouse the golems in the pirate cave got the Boys up to level 5 - none of them managing more than 1 hit against mainly Pluck's -10 AC boosted further by a belt.
I considered giving the constitution tome to Pluck, but regeneration is of less use against SCS enemies so eventually Prime took it to boost his constitution to 19 to match the dwarves.
In Shoal's area Grip sacrificed himself on the altar of Shoal's beauty, but got up in time to throw some darts of wounding to help spoil Droth's concentration - the ogre mage failing to complete any more spells after that.
Mad Arcand was recruited to help put the ogre clan to sleep, but did something of the same to me as I didn't realise both ogre berserkers were targeting Clasp - and both hit pretty much together.
Back from the Temple the remaining ogre berserker demonstrated once more it's a big hitter - but the Boys matched it.
Once more at the ankheg area the monsters needed a critical to hit, but when they did hit they hurt and 2 criticals in a row meant another trip to the temple for Pluck.
The next 11 or so ankhegs only managed a single hit between them, but as I was leaving the area 2 more spawned - and as I retreated to try and separate those another 2 respawned . Without being able to concentrate attacks against a single target trying to use missile weapons the Boys took a lot of damage from those and the final ankheg killed Grip - that would have taken him down to -16 HPs, so he could have been saved by the anti-chunking fix there.
Next for the chop were the battle horrors at Durlag's Tower. The first of those failed to hit at all, but the second found 3 criticals in 4 attacks to nearly kill Pluck again.
The doom guard went one better, being lucky both with its own good attacks and the poor ones from the boys - eventually the fight claimed the life of Seize and, with everyone else being severely wounded, I was actually considering using the wand of magic missiles to do the last few HPs required when Grip landed a hit.
After hacking down various ghasts, Prime potioned up with speed, giant strength and heroism in order to be able to kill the 4 basilisks on the roof at the cost of an additional 3 potions of mirrored eyes.
Killing Meilum and a few odds and sods elsewhere tipped the boys over to level 6.
One slight irritation is that I've managed to lose the scroll case somehow, but it's not like the Boys will be using a lot of scrolls anyway.
@Grond0 that's an insane screenshot at Durlag's, with 5/6 of the party at near death - nice job keeping everyone alive. I'm sure if I had a party like that I would have lost someone.
With the party around level 4 and 5, we sail through the Nashkel mines, using missile weapons to avoid engaging the Kobold Guards. This is an extremely important detail: their poison might not be as bad as a Phase Spider, but we can't use Antidotes or Elixirs of Health, which means a perfectly interruptable Slow Poison is our only answer to poison.
Killer's Special Snares play a huge role in taking down groups of enemies before they become unmanageable. Invisibility saves Witch Dagger when she fails a save against a Kobold Shaman's Hold Person.
I try setting some traps for Mulahey, but it seems that it turns the local kobolds hostile early. They shoot Killer down.
But Mulahey himself is a cinch thanks to Thunderslap.
Command offers a save, unlike Thunderslap, but it still manages to take down Nimbul. Tranzig makes his saves, but with Witch Dagger imposing 25% spell failure with every dart, Tranzig cannot translate his successful saves into spellcasting.
This party is actually really well-equipped to handle BG1. The two biggest and most common threats in BG1 are mages and groups of weaker enemies, and having a Wizard Slayer and Bounty Hunter in the party can quickly and reliably neutralize both of those threats.
When we get into trouble, that's where our other resources come in. We run into some trolls at the Firewine bridge and realize we have no fire or acid spells or items, but we can blind them with a pair of mod-introduced boots we got in Nashkel.
In Firewine itself, I just have Killer wander around invisibly while disarming traps, leaving Haiass to gobble up all the tasty kobolds.
Lendarn and the Ogre Mage are a bigger problem. Witch Dagger is a fantastic anti-mage tool, but there's always a small chance that bad attack rolls and lucky percentile rolls let enemy mages get spells off the ground. And there's always a strong chance that a human Wizard Slayer, with no immunities or save bonuses, will get disabled.
I would later realize that Lendarn had Protection from Normal Missiles active, and that's the real reason Witch Dagger couldn't impose any spell failure.
We turn Witch Dagger invisible, fall back, and pick off the weaker enemies so we can recover and return.
Killer takes a peek at Lendarn and the Ogre Mage, currently hiding to the west. She baits out a divination spell and sets a few traps before luring the Ogre Mage across them. He goes down.
Witch Dagger engages Lendarn with a mod-introduced scimitar (nothing particularly strong; just a magical weapon) and gets past his Protection from Normal Missiles.
Lamalha is a bit of a mess, but we arrive at the ambush while invisible, allowing us to reposition, set a trap, and pick our targets carefully.
One of my mods adds some rather impressive items to various enemies. Killer gets a new shortbow!
The APR bonus is normal for a bow; it grants 2 APR, not 3.
Anyway, Mayday has enough spell slots to cover the whole party with Protection from Petrification. But remember when I said that Haiass would not be winning us many battles?
Haiass got petrified and vanished, and his whistle fails to bring him back. I was fairly certain that Haiass merely respawned when he got petrified, but it seems not. Haiass was really powerful, but I never found him particularly interesting, but I don't really mind the loss.
Unfortunately, Haiass is not our only loss.
I inadvertently sent Killer to throw some traps at the local Medusas, but failed to buff them with Protection from Petrification before doing so (I took down the southern basilisks, but that was before we rested and lost our immunities to petrification). I noticed this at the very last moment and was about to get Killer out of the Medusa's very short range, but Killer fails her first and only saving throw.
Killer has not been shattered. But because of my item restrictions, I can't use green Stone to Flesh scrolls. Ever. The only kind I could use are the blue kind, the level 6 scroll for mages, but I have no idea where I could find those in BG1.
I can always come back in BG2 with one of those scrolls, since this is an EET install and I can re-visit BG1 areas besides Baldur's Gate itself. But that's a long way off, and Killer is a critical part of our BG1 strategy. Losing Killer is a huge setback.
I need a little extra power in the party, and I remember that one of my mods makes Tenya into a joinable NPC. And I also remember that Tenya has several Mephit spells, including Boiling Rain Storm. So I hike up to the bridge to Baldur's Gate. On the way, I decide to get rid of a batch of mod-introduced archers nearby. Their arrows deal massive damage and inflict paralysis, and there's no way I could hope to survive them, but Mae can don the Boots of Boredom, equip a bow to override the boots' zero APR, and then just shoot the archers while they're helpless to respond. Notice the farmer who has gone hostile for some reason.
Mae doesn't get any XP from this method, but we do still get those powerful arrows. Unfortunately, the enemies have high HP and low AC and it takes a very, very long time to kill even a single one.
But I keep at it, and once I've grabbed some Arrows of Freezing and Arrows of Piercing, it becomes much easier to kill the rest.
But the arrows aren't the only prize. We also get a very nice item for Trash Mammal.
One of my mods allows Yeslick to use axes. The side effect is that all fighter/clerics can use axes and put pips in them, which means Trash Mammal now has a +3 weapon that does 6.5 more damage than a normal +3 axe. We haven't even visited the bandit camp yet and we already have weapons that can hurt Big B in SoD.
Morvin and company ambush us, but we deploy our Nature's Beauty boots and blind the lot of them. Morvin resists the effect, but Thunderslap does him in.
We find a special version of the Gauntlets of Dexterity borrowed from Item Revisions, which we don't have installed. We also find a special version of the Firetooth crossbow...
...and because it has an undocumented 4 APR, it doesn't count as the original Firetooth. And since I've never used this version before, only the original one, I can actually use it.
I finally go grab Tenya. Her stats are mediocre, but she can cast a whole of water-oriented Mephit spells.
Salt Crystal, Water Jet, and Boiling Rain Storm all stun the targets on a failed save, and the last two are area-effect spells using the Cone of Cold projectile and a party-safe projectile. After blinding a mod-introduced ambush using our boots, we use Tenya's stun spells to hold them down while we apply ranged pressure.
Sirines appear to be much nastier in my install. They get area-effect blind clouds that appear to offer no saving throw, and their charm effects are also area-effect.
The blindness makes it nearly impossible to harm the Sirines, but it takes me several rounds before I realize I need to fall back and escape the cloud. Mayday nearly dies to the Sirines' poisoned arrows, only surviving thanks to Slow Poison and Invisibility.
We still suffer a couple of Slow effects, but without blindness, we're able to take down the Sirines with no casualties.
Safana happens to be nearby, and I see an opportunity to replace our Bounty Hunter, since my mods will let me assign her the Bounty Hunter kit. But she won't join us because our party is all-female; we'll have to come back later.
Some of the Sirines in this area have been replaced by Nereids. Turns out they can summon Water Weirds, which have paralysis attacks as well as an instant death attack.
We retreat, using Tenya's Mephit spells, missile weapons, and Blindness to very slowly wear down the enemy. It's a very long process, but I'm not willing to risk another drowning, so I never engage in melee.
We have to repeat the process for Sil, who starts out hostile even though I remember being able to get past her without violence in my previous run, which had the same install. We loot the flesh golem cave, but there's nothing in it that we're allowed to use. It's just more gold fodder.
Even though we were unable to side with Sil against the pirates, I still fight the pirates. Tenya's Boiling Rain Storm is extremely effective, as is the Slow spell that Mayday learned after the cave.
We recruit Ajantis just long enough to rope Safana into the party, where we give her the Bounty Hunter kit. Unless I can somehow, miraculously find a blue Stone to Flesh mage scroll, Safana will have to take Killer's place.
It's high time I moved on to the bandit camp. On the way, I spot Osmadi, and for once, fighting him does not crash the game. A simple Command spell, followed by Thunderslap, is enough to doom him.
Morwen used to cast Thunderslap for us, but now Mayday does. I figured it was worth one of our few sorcerer spell picks. Thunderslap won't bypass MGOI and can't affect undead, but it's still an incredibly powerful option against enemy fighters and clerics that would otherwise be difficult to hit.
Now for the bandit camp. I blind Safana to prepare for the main tent, but when she tries to set a trap in plain sight, it somehow fails.
Bounty Hunters are great when blinded, but if they can't set traps, they're pretty much useless. Stealth should still be possible, but Safana has terrible HiS and MS, rendering one of our most important characters suddenly impotent.
We still have Mayday's Slow and Tenya's Boiling Rain Storm to stun the enemy, but it comes at a price. While Tenya can cast Storm Shield to block normal arrows and has strong AC, Mayday has terrible AC and only Mirror Image to protect her. She dies right after going invisible.
It's a major loss, since Slow would really help us outside, and Thunderslap would be great against Ardenor Crush and Taurgosz Khosann, but Tenya's Boiling Rain Storm ensures that we win the main tent fight without any further setbacks. We head outside and brace ourselves for the horde.
Safana is an easy target due to her horrible AC and low HP, and Taurgosz takes out more than half her HP in one hit, but this time, she's able to set a trap successfully. The enemy deals massive damage to the party, but Safana is a powerful force as long as she stays alive.
Trash Mammal finishes off Taurgosz with a Command spell and Witch Dagger hurries to the west to distract the incoming enemies while Safana clears out the wounded bandits to the east.
A Hobgoblin Elite appears, and know that poison could easily be fatal, so I have Tenya knock him out. It's not as dramatic as Safana's traps, but it's an important detail for no-reload play.
Safana uses her last trap, but the battle is almost won. The only remaining threat is Ardenor Crush, and though he nearly kills Witch Dagger, Mae lands a kill with Firetooth.
Victory! The bandit camp is ours, and so begins the long process of collecting all the loot. I probably shouldn't bother; the only items I can use in the whole area are a Flame Arrow scroll and a Potion of Magic Blocking.
Yes, I can still use Potions of Magic Blocking. I've only used them once, ever, which means they are still allowed. But knowing me, I'll probably still never drink them.
On to the Cloakwood! Because I don't think I'm ready for Durlag's Tower. Centeol blasts us with a wand, but we return the favor with Boiling Rain Storm and blind traps. Both of them are effectively party-friendly Fireballs that bypass MGOI (if not other defenses).
Notice that Centeol uses the Lady of Pain sprite from PST in my install. I don't know why.
Safana threatens to leave if we don't get her the treasure from the flesh golem cave, but we already did. A quick look online tells us that all we have to do is talk to her while the tome is in our inventory, so we just have to buy back the tome from Thalantyr.
Tenya is actually pretty well-written. She's just a child, and her dialogue takes that into account.
We get surprised by a mod-introduced ambush with Najara, but Boiling Rain Storm makes short work of the enemy, and I discover a very special new item.
All other bracers are off-limits, but this one, which is easy to mistake for the AC 6 version, is permissible. But I put it on Mayday, who can already cast Shield for the same AC, instead of giving it to Safana, whose armor options are severely limited by our item restrictions.
We sell off the rest of Najara's loot, along with a bunch of other stuff we've gathered, and increase our gold supply by 90,000, doubling our total. I don't know what we're going to do with all that gold, though since we can't use almost any of the items available for sale, and recharging wands is pointless because the only wands we can use are Wands of Sleep and Wands of Fear, for which I have precious little use.
Witch Dagger and Mae are both level 6, which means they're just one level away from dual-classing to druid and mage, respectively. This presents me with a problem: I'm not confident we can tackle Davaeorn without our normal items, but if I wait until we've gathered more XP, we'll either end up wasting a lot of XP after level 7, or we'll end up fighting Davaeorn when Witch Dagger's darts no longer inflict spell failure. I decide to enter the mines in the hope that we'll hit level 7 right before Davaeorn.
Drasus' party is a problem. Area-effect stuff can help us deal with the fighters, but Witch Dagger won't be able to apply enough spell failure to both mages at once to block both of their spells. We Slow the enemy, but lose much of our defenses.
Witch Dagger tries to shut down Kysus (the other mage is already suffering from high spell failure and won't be casting much for the next 4 or 5 rounds), but she cannot stop a Chaos spell from disabling her. With heavy missile pressure and Safana's traps, we weaken the enemy before it can finish off Witch Dagger.
I catch Kysus trying to cast a Sunfire spell. I get Mae out of range before she gets in trouble, but not everyone makes it in time.
There's still not much I can do to Kysus, but the other enemies are quite vulnerable. Mayday manages to blind Safana, allowing her to set one more trap in the middle of combat. With Mae's help, she clears out the last of the fighters.
I didn't want to rely on the Nature's Beauty boots very much, but to make sure he doesn't cause any more trouble, we blind Kysus. It makes little difference, however: his MGOI runs out, and when he fails a save against Salt Crystals, he's done for.
Rezdan is back, and Witch Dagger's spell failure has worn off. But he, too, fails a save against Salt Crystals.
These guys aren't our only problem. In the mine itself, near Hareishan, we have to deal with Skeleton Lords, who cast Lightning Bolt spells in close quarters. I bait out a couple spells from the enemy.
The Skeleton Lords stay put, but Hareishan pursues. By herself, she shouldn't be too much trouble, but the Skeleton Lords worry me, and I don't want Hareishan to put us in a bad position when we tackle them. I blind her and keep out of our way.
I probe the Skeleton Lords with a Skeleton Warrior summons from Trash Mammal, but it seems the enemy can cast more than one Lightning Bolt per day, and our skeleton isn't tough enough to survive on its own.
I send out Mayday to check on the situation, and discover that the Skeleton Lords apparently can cast Lightning Bolt at will. Mayday gets fried, and Trash Mammal gets wounded while testing out a Holy Smite spell.
Trash Mammal flees to heal and recover, and the Skeleton Lords keep casting, though only Hareishan suffers for it.
Tenya can cast Storm Shield and is therefore totally immune to Lightning Bolt. But she doesn't have the AC to handle the Skeleton Lords, who apparently have THAC0 well below 10.
In the end, we just kite them mercilessly.
Natasha is a much lower threat, partly because she comes without Skeleton Lord allies and partly because she prefers evocation spells in my experience rather than disablers. This means Witch Dagger can simply soak up Natasha's first two spells; she doesn't have to make a saving throw to get Natasha up to 100% spell failure.
One last major fight before Davaeorn, a small party in an even smaller space. The biggest threat is an archer with Arrows of Detonation, and while I don't have a Wand of Monster Summoning to absorb the damage, a Skeleton Warrior is a decent alternative.
But Nature's Beauty ends up breaking the difficulty once again.
I think I'll cut back on using that item pretty soon.
We buff up the party, disarm some traps, and send Witch Dagger ahead to hit Davaeorn with a dart and impose a little spell failure before he confronts us. Unfortunately, human Wizard Slayers have terrible saves and Witch Dagger dies shortly after getting webbed.
We're in trouble. I was counting on Witch Dagger to shut down Davaeorn's spellcasting; she was our most important asset in this fight. Davaeorn appears and begins his spellcasting completely unopposed.
I've been going without healing potions for this entire run, but as it happens we do have some mod-introduced potions that I never actually used in my previous runs.
They're basically duplicates of Potions of Extra Healing, but since they don't have the same name, they constitute a different item. Items need to have a matching name and stats (if not icon or appearance) to qualify as a true duplicate that I cannot use.
Mae drinks the first healing potion of our run and Davaeorn vanishes. We take the opportunity to finish off the Battle Horrors.
Davaeorn returns. We really need to get past Davaeorn's defenses, so Safana uses the Nature's Beauty boots.
But Davaeorn wanders out of range just as the spell casts. He is completely unaffected.
With neither Witch Dagger's spell failure or Nature's Beauty, we are running very low on good options. Davaeorn's MGOI is gone, but we fail to hit him with Slow, and we lose some of our defenses.
Then, just as Davaeorn gets Teleport Field off the ground, I see that he's lost his Improved Invisibility pre-buff.
We finally have an opening! It takes time to get Mayday in position due to the Teleport Field, but she manages to nail Davaeorn with Thunderslap.
But to my dismay, he appears to be immune to stun. The electrical damage disrupted his spell, but Davaeorn remains functional.
Our only remaining choice is to simply overwhelm him with APR. But surprisingly enough, we can actually make it happen.
We dual-class Witch Dagger to a druid and Mae to a mage. Mae will be terribly vulnerable and we will no longer have a strong anti-mage character, but it's an important long-term investment for the challenges waiting for us in BG2. Mae scribes a bunch of scrolls and gets a cat familiar that will remain in our inventory until either Mae or Melissan is dead.
Cromarty, Yvette, Kelsey, Sirene, Valygar, & Sarevok's saga.
Moving on through Watcher's Keep we encountered a bunch of tieflings. The air crackled with wild magic so we stuck to item use and ensured their spellcasting was also disrupted to ensure that nothing crazy occured... and headed on to the Demon Knight area.
On arrival there were no indications of any strangeness... but somehow Sirene narrowly avoided being petrified and our gold stash was vapourised by wild surges. And then the Demon Knights started flinging spells without any wild effects. In response we chugged some potions and summoned some Shambling Mounds and Dire Wolves to assist with the attack as I couldn't risk casting again. This worked passably initially but then the cumulative effect of several Symbols (Spell Revisions version) kicked in and suddenly Sarevok was dead due to stat drains and Valygar and Sirene had grown too weak to move. Gulp. Lucky Cromarty wasn't first in line or that could have been him.
Fortunately Yvette was able to unleash a Sunray from the Helm of Brilliance to blind the Cambion, and Sirene & Valygar could use items & innates to restore their condition. They were then able to take down the opposition, though the real stars were the pack of Dire Wolves who helped pull down a Demon Knight! Wand of Monster Summoning all the way...
I realised however that in order to progress further we should have to go back and take on the Tanar'ri, but after poking my head in I realised that the room would be quite tough, especially as Kelsey would be relatively useless. I accordingly resolved to visit Balthazar first before deciding whether to go on with Watcher's Keep, possibly calling on Ajantis to help with that particular room.
We stormed the monastery without further ado, though Sarevok seemed to be suffering from some sort of Quivering Palm allergy. Preparing for Battle Royale we crashed in and... Balthazar succumbed to the sheer power of Cromarty's righteous schwartz in dialogue. His suicide left us with the prospect of a different demon battle in the grove, heading back to Watcher's Keep once again, or doing some of the Pocketplane challenges. After some inventory shuffling I left the party as they were, contemplating another run at the tanar'ri for now...
The boys forced their way through the Nashkel Mine. Their good defenses against missiles made it possible to make reasonably rapid progress, though they did have to retreat to rest up several times. Mulahey didn't last long and though his guards put up a decent fight they didn't manage any casualties.
Nimbul was unable to fight his way out of a cage, while Tranzig was similarly stuck in a corner.
Rather than reducing the odds by charming their way through the Bandit Camp, the Boys tried to rely initially on their good missile defences in a running fight. However, a few criticals and the difficulty of managing a hasted Taurgosz meant they retreated after only killing a few bandits. On their way back they ran into Molkar. That was a fairly well-balanced fight, but the Boys' rage just gave them the edge.
After resting they headed for High Hedge to sell Molkar's gear, but ran into some Amazons. Just to make things even more interesting they had some kobolds with them as well. Pluck managed to draw the attention of Telka and Maneira and their attempted backstabs bounced off his armor. Lamalha's attempted animate dead was interrupted and the amazons were then outclassed in melee combat. I expected there to be no casualties, but once more got caught out by the AI's nasty habit of switching to missile weapons even while closely engaged in melee - Maneira taking advantage to give Clench his first death just before the end of the fight.
The Boys then bounced in and out of the Bandit Camp for a while, usually just killing a single enemy at a time. After a while that left Venkt exposed in the front line and he was shut in a cage and swiftly cut down before help could arrive. Progress after that was much quicker and there were no casualties. Regrettably, however, the major expected prize from the area was missing - there was no more full plate armor. Early on in the contest Prime had charmed Taurgosz and told him to attack. The Boys ran away soon afterwards and I hadn't seen any text saying Taurgosz been killed, but there was no sign of him anywhere later on.
Shrugging off their disappointment the Boys settled for the consolation prize of another pair of gauntlets of weapon expertise and moved on to the Cloakwood. In the first area elemental damage helped shut down Seniyad in order to make a potential bastard sword upgrade for Clench available later. In the second area Pluck handled the web traps with his ring of free action while enemies were pulled back near the map edge to be able to run away in the event of poison. That worked well and it should have been easy enough to run in and out of the nest to shoot Centeol - but I was slow at one point and found when I got back outside I was carrying a frozen body (fortunately he only just died, so wasn't chunked).
While visiting the Temple the Boys also undertook some nefarious activities to reduce their reputation to 9. Travelling back they were ambushed as usual by ettercaps, but this time I must have strayed slightly when escaping and triggered the web trap. That resulted in Grip dying and Prime having to use a valuable PfP scroll to stay alive. Finally they got back to Centeol to find he had emptied his wand and could be killed out of hand. Spider's Bane won't be used as a weapon, but is potentially useful as a second source of free action.
I'd just finished writing the note about Spider's Bane and went back to the game - to see the animation of a crumbling statue in progress. Once more I'd not been careful about pausing the game and some respawned spiders had been given just enough time to take Prime's number ...
Things where going smoothly. The ability to use wands and scrolls work well in a figther setup.
I entered the CK crypt, and picked up the tomes thanks to knock spells (I have one 2. Level spell per day).
I took no chances with Prat and his gang
Used a charge of the sandthief ring...
Afterwards it was Durlags Tower. Picked up the tome there - used a charge of the greenstone amulet
My stats are pretty good
And my build and inventory are also up to par...
I just needed to finish the Iron Throne, the undercellar, the coronation, the Maze and Sarevok...
The Iron Throne and the undercellar where manageble with a wand og monster summoning and a sling.
Next up the coronation and the super easy fight there. No re loaders have ever died there, so why worry ?
I did buff for the fight, forgetting only DUHM in the end... I chose not to use any of my 9 potions of magic shielding or 3 scrolls of protection from magic. I considered - but chose not to use them... !? well because its way cooler to loose 9 potions in transition from bg1 to bg2 (SoD is not an option yet on iPhone) than 8 or 7.
The fight started really well: dualwielding longswords with cloud giant str, hasted added with a pot of herroism... but something went wrong - and within seconds this happend:
Before the start of my game I promised my selv to be patient and prepare my self better. I was granted a supreme roll at character creation and luck (wands) was by my side more than once.
I found my end where many (and wastly more skilles players) fail - and the reason was overconfidence and lack of preperation. There are no excuses for failing - it was all me... RIP Mage F95.
Thanks. The build is super strong, and worked well. The idea was picked up in another thread... its very fun, and I would very much like to see you having a go at the build. Yout games are always an inspiration.
I actually dont know what happened. I Think I Saw a flame strike - bit it couldnt be that alone - my HP was over 100 before the incident. My shortcummings and lack of skill is really showing off. It was an unmodded game, so nothing aught to be a surprise.
I ask because, if it was damage that killed your character, there should have been a damage line directly above the death line in the dialogue box. The only other way for a death line to appeared without anything accompanying it would be if you died of stat drain (not possible unless you were drinking like 6 Potions of Stone Form), Power Word: Kill (not present anywhere in BG1 but with the Demon Knight, and using a different opcode), or an instant kill script.
My initial guess was that you got an instant kill because the Grand Dukes died, but when I let the Grand Dukes die, all I got was a dialogue box and then I was stuck in the palace; I didn't actually die. Granted, that was in a modded game.
Has anyone seen a death line in the dialog box that did not have a damage line directly above it?
@StummvonBordwehr If both dukes die, then you automatically get hit with a lethal flame strike that cannot be resisted. You can also get hit if you accuse Sarevok, but don't have the evidence on him, or you don't show your invitations when you enter the coronation area initially.
Comments
Svifneblin Village, Balor: casts instantly, apparently, despite not having SCS-enhanced demons.
Assuming Stun uses Spell save with -4 penalty, my saves are not high enough to succeed reliably (forgot Imp Invisibility).
One should never roll for a save in a well played no-reload run. The Symbol got my summons and Minsc, but not charname.
Luckily, the encounter was short thanks to Viconia's Bolt of Glory.
She is an absolute beast! Has 75% MR and has some of the few MR-bypassing damage spells. Currently, packing a THACO of 0 with Sling of Everard (still only 1 APR, of course).
Lesson is: don't take things for granted.
--
Side note: I deliberately had avoided all liches, the Flayer Lair, and the Twisted Rune in chapters 2 & 3. (Though, successfully killed a lich in the Asylum with Summon spam.) I have not yet decided, if I want to risk SCS liches upon return.
(Kangaxx, if memory serves, can be cheesed by a berserk Minsc or by a Prot from Magic scroll. But it has been a long time since I have done it.)
Alchra Diagott (a trapped lich, apparently) just cast a Wish.
... and apparently got a Time Stop + Alacrity thing going via Wish!!!
Currently waiting mid-pause with half a dozen spells queued in mid air. The guy is still not done casting. AND his first two spells are Remove Magic + Greater Malison upon charname.
Damn you, SCS! *shakes fist*
Does MR stop Greater Malison? It appears to. (Thank you, Carsomyr, in this case.)
(EDIT: maybe not. I may have not accounted the saves accurately as Diagott did not dispel my Imp Invisibility.)
Fire immunity via items + Belt of Intertial Barrier goes a long way to mitigate damage, it seems.
Wow! I am tanking an SCS-lich!
Bring it, Diagot!!
The crowd goes wild for Viconia again.
(Well, actually, Jan and Imoen bombarded the lich with Protection removers first and my Cavalier did soften him a bit.)
Can't wait to try this on Athakla liches upon return.
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/908775/#Comment_908775
As usual I'd been slipping back into bad habits and taking more risks over time. At Durlag's Tower the battle horrors were easy enough, but I tried to kill the doom guard as well when low on spells and without summons. I did successfully blind it and landed quite a few backstabs, but it was still only badly wounded when it recovered its sight and had got one hit in on Melody in the process. I decided it would be best to try and finish it off inside the Tower, but that was complicated by another doppleganger spawning outside. To deal with that Artemis took the doom guard off for a stroll, while Perky was intended to lead the doppleganger separately into the Tower for the others to shoot down. That would all have worked except that I must somehow have mis-clicked with Melody - she came inside on her own, rather than waiting for Artemis to come back and arrived right on top of the grateful doppleganger.
As I'd already lost a life to Shoal that didn't seem too much of an issue though and I continued the run. However, it seemed caution was now out of the window as another death occurred within minutes. I noticed that Tawny did not yet have a proficient magical weapon and returned to Firewine to try and charm Poe to get his spear. After failing at the first attempt at that I should have either put everyone into invisibility/stealth or gone to the edge of the map, but just tried resting in place. A large spawn of skeletons then showed no mercy for Whistle.
The WIP revived Whistle and got back to Durlag's where they made everyone invisible to go inside. Summons then helped sort out the doom guard and the upper part of the Tower was soon clear except for Kirinhale.
I then decided to explore the Firewine Ruins using invisibility. Arriving there the WIP used their 5 available invisibility spells to turn everyone except Whistle invisible. He failed a couple of times to hide before I decided to rest anyway. I did go close to the map edge, but not quite close enough - and shots from the skeletons as the area transition triggered meant the WIP arrived at their destination lugging a dead body. Fortunately, on returning Whistle's equipment was still there. After visiting the Beregost Temple the party tried to rest to heal up Whistle, but once again I wasn't fully concentrating and didn't pause the game instantly on clicking out of the rest screen - where a pair of worgs were waiting to gobble up Misty. This dying lark is really remarkably easy if you don't pay full attention
The Temple was still not offering discounts for multiple purchases, so the WIP decided to restore funds by hacking down Bassilus - meaning everyone now had a +2 or +3 weapon. Returning to the Firewine ruins, everyone was invisible as Melody started disarming the traps. I'm not sure if I was just being impatient or something else was going on, but I had to wait much longer than I expected before she eventually detected the first trap she stood next to. The next one was no problem, but the one after that again didn't register after a number of seconds - which it should have done given that a round is only 3 seconds long playing at 60 fps. Thinking possibly I'd misremembered exactly where the trap was Melody moved forward slightly and ...
I think that's enough party play for me for the moment
Jagen, sorcerer, 15 CON, lvl 4, 16 HPs - 5 starting HPs = 11 HPs during 3 level ups i.e. 11/15
Glod, fighter/illusionist,16 CON, lvl 3/3, 23 HPs - 9 starting HPs = 14 HPs during 4 multiclass level ups, 14/18
Uzume, fighter/thief, 17 CON, lvl 3/4, 30 HPs - 11 starting HPs = 19 HPs during 5 multiclass level ups, 19/26
Cochrane, archer, 14 CON, lvl 4, 32 HPs - 10 starting HPs = 22 HPs during 3 level ups, 22/30
Sigyn, totemic druid, 15 CON, lvl 4, 33 HPs - 9 starting HPs = 24 HPs during 3 level ups, 24/27
Dazbog, cleric/mage, lvl 3/3, 15 HPs - 6 starting HPs = 9 HPs during 4 multiclass level ups, 9/12
So each of them got more than 'average' HPs but we have to take into account 3 characters are multiclass, and with multiclass the chances of getting overall more favourable HP total are bigger (as the roll for each 'full' level happens twice instead of once). The characters are still to get a lot of level ups before reaching the 9th level, and I have a feeling it will all even itself out in the end.
@Grond0 Sad to see another failure! Now I'm really starting to worry about my group.
Then you step on a trap/
There's no going back/
You've lost your PC.
etc. etc. But life on the edge is more fun
Edit: Oops, didn't even see that Grond0 had just done that... commiserations.
I am terrified as I have realised that I haven't fought vanilla Melissan in about 10 years. Went with Ascension/ SCS for awhile or didn't finish ToB due to boredom.... EE Melissan is that most terrifying of things- an unknown quantity.
@JuliusBorisov : sorry about the name for my charname. Its not that inventive, but great for sorting runs that run at the same time... like lab rats...
Past updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/908470/#Comment_908470
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/908639/#Comment_908639
Next up was cloakwood. With the RoFA I just ran past most of the critters. I had plenty of XP and not that many antidotes.
The first enemy I chose to fight was Drasus party. The fighters where drawn out one by one. The NOT Drasus guy was slinged to death. At full health I suddenly felt confident enough to duke it out with Drasus unbuffed. A wand of paralyzation saved the day and my ass after a severe beating. I really should have buffed beforehand... stupid mistake
Next up Davaeorn... but first Hareishan. I thought I could sneak by her. But Hareishan is a wanderer even in a non SCS game. I was yet again unbuffed - same mistake within 5 minuttes... a wand of fire helped me out with the bandits and black talon elite.
Against Davaeorn I didnt make the mistake again.. I buffed with 2 potions of insulation, 2 potions of fire resistance, a potion of heroism, a potion of hill giant str. - the liquid menu was off course inspired by Alesia_BH . I topped it all with a charge from the greenstone amulet...
I started off by walking through the traps, catching the attention of the two battle horrors - and dumping them in the front room by using the sandthief ring.. I then chased down Davaeorn.
I walked uninjured from the fight. Carefull planning and buffing helps. Go figure.. Next stop the Big City.
I did a number of small quests
Got the tomes
The cloak and helmet of balduram where picked up without a fight. I stunned Quenesh with the wand of paralyzation, and then picked her pocket. I did the same with priest who has the tome
The priest even id’ed the tome afterwards. I thought it was a fool proof plan. But later tests showed me that some dont take kindly to beeing stunned. Whats up with that? Is getting paralyzed not an attack unless you make the save against wand?
After supplying and gathering my stuff, I used the sandthief ring to get the papers at the Iron Throne
After that it was off to CK. At the moment nothing has come before me, that I couldnt handle.. Well besides me. My erratic playing (and roleplaying) will surely be the death of me..
Ps. I allways seem to get good HP rolls??
Pps. Oh sorry - had the max HP on level up button activated.. oh well I will have to live with your scorn whilst I enjoy my massive HP pool
Prologue
First Steps
First Level Ups
First Real Challenges
First Casualties
Being afraid of getting the amazon ambush without needed items (and by items I, first of all, mean the wand of monster summoning to confuse thieves before they're revealed by Detect Invisibility) I decided to concentrate on getting wands. The F/T finally had 50 in Open Locks, so was able to pick the container with the wand of lightning in Beregost. On the way to Nashkel Mines the group was waylaid by hobgoblin archers (this is what I get for not speaking with Dorn in the FAI due to the party being "good").
I don't like to play with Autopause (maybe it's quite wasteful but as I consider Autopause OP
After looting the wand of frost the group decided to help Prism the Sculptor. Greywolf at first failed twice his saving throw against Command, but when he got up he suddently decided to attack the druid and not the spirit bear (the druid was trying to heal the bear). The druid survived, though, and Blindness finally worked on Greywolf. He was soon dead, but while the party chased the bounty hunter they stumbled across a pack of wolves. A few injuries, but everybody survived.
Upon reaching the Valley of the Tombs, the F/I used the green scroll of PfU to deal with the undead there, and the Revenant's death brought new levels for the druid and the C/M. It meant the spirit animals now were of the 5th level, and according to these stats all of them, except for the wolf, had Free Action and thus weren't affected by Web.
The group approached Narcillicus and after the mage refused to share his spell, immediately retreated. Silence, Web and Blindness all worked in the end, while the Spirit Snake managed to poison the mage. The speed at which the snake was killed by the jellies made the group realize they would have to return to this area later if they wanted to survive the fight.
At this moment *I think* I was ready for a potential amazon ambush, but it still didn't happen and the group successfully travelled to the Red Canyons area. There they made Bassilus believe Jagen was his parent, and the lone priest was first Silenced, then Webbed.
At last, dealing with general enemies became easy. Web, or two, then the spirit animal destroyed everything while the group covered from a distance.
Antichickenator didn't work this time, sadly for Melicamp, but at least the group bought the Wand of Fear from Thalantyr. The money they got for reporting about Bassilus let them also acquire the Army Scythe.
Here’re the current standings:
Jagen, sorcerer, lvl 4, 16 HPs, 15 kills (5% in the group)
Glod, fighter/illusionist, lvl 3/3, 23 HPs, 62 kills (22% in the group), 0 deaths
Uzume, fighter/thief, lvl 3/4, 30 HPs, 66 kills (24% in the group), 0 deaths
Cochrane, archer, lvl 4, 32 HPs, 98 kills (35% in the group), 0 deaths
Sigyn, totemic druid, lvl 5, 41 HPs, 16 kills (5% in the group), 0 deaths
Dazbog, cleric/mage, lvl 4/3, 18 HPs, 16 kills (5% in the group), 2 deaths (both by a kobold commando)
I play with the "prevent NPCs from permanently dying" for that reason. I just don't have the heart to not have their banter alongside my quest. But it sometimes doesn't help.
The following is from a past run where I lost Minsc to chunking by my own hand. After the lament of the event, I abandoned that run same as you:
(Forgive the long pasted post)
"Your mighty berserker spirit shall not go unavenged, Minsc!
But, but it was by my own hand.
It all started with journey to de Arnise Keep which we never managed
to reach. First, we ran into a bunch of thugs attacking a guy named
Renfeld who was also poisoned (why bother posioning someone that you
are already beating is beyond my ken, but those thugs weren't the
smartest of the bunch perhaps). On our way to deliver Renfeld to his
friends, we got beset first by muggers and then a mad cleric. Not
dismayed by the few bruises we got on the way, we delivered Renfeld to
a secretive looking building. Time for a bit of a rest before get back
on the road to to de Arnise Keep. Meanwhile, of course, Minsc is
bugging me to go to Imnesvale to help the little kid who asked for
help and Aerie is on my nerves to go meet someone named Realis, and
all three girls are constantly nagging about their unending personal
troubles. Instead of party I seem to be leading a self-help circle.
Only Jan, bless him, isn't on about some personal obsession, though
turnips probably count as one.
Anyway, after dropping Renfeld we stop by for a drink at this place
called Sea's Bounty and out of nowhere this Ployer guy appears. After
his tirade, he curses Jaheira and neither rest or magic could cure
her. With the help of Bernard we track Ployer to his hide-out in the
slums for some well deserved justice. I know that I am about to walk
in to a fight and though Ployer seemed like a push-over I am not going
to risk anyone in case of a trap.
We prepare: all that magic can grant as protection against steel and
spell. But Ployer was also prepared. Three mages teleport in - and
immediately disappear in to shadowed doors. Viconia true-sees in
response. While Ployer is being hammered by us all we are surrounded
by the three mages, now -visible, wreathed in flames, shielded with
barriers against sword and spell. Minsc lets out a battlecry and
starts hammering on one of the mages with his sword Lillalcor shouting
along with glee. Minsc's blows have no effect and each hit burns him
instead with cold flames, but he does not let up. Jan and I attempt to
remove the magic of the mages, but their spells are stronger than
ours. Jaheira summons insects but fiery shields of the mages stop
them. I decapitate Ployer where he stands. His expression is not
shock, not fear, not remorse, but satisfaction. He knew. The bastard
knew that he would die here. He is certain that so will we. Right
here.
We shall see.
Between me and Aerie we have two spell thrusts and I have but one
Breach memorized. We can handle a mage. We have planned for it. We are
ready. But three at the same time? Jan's Flasher bolts stuns one of
the mages and Minsc and I start wailing at him. My mind is protected
against their magics. I try to stand between the two other mages and
the party in the small space. With one of their ranks fallen to our
swords the two remaining mages seem to be even more hellbent to takes
us down.
Two mages nod to one another. I can trace their spells as their are
being cast. As I rush across the room, followed closely by Minsc's
battlecry, I know that I am too late. The first mage casts a
dispelling incantation and all our protection spells dissolve around
us. The second mage almost simultaneously casts Chaos.
And the room around me becomes a blur.
I remember flailing my swords at the phantoms that apparate around me.
The rest of the story I piece together later from Jan's visions. He
remembers it all as his mind was not addled by the terrible spell.
Neither was Aerie's, but she will not talk to me. She knows, I know
that she will never forget what came upon Minsc in that room by my own
hand.
Jaheira, Viconia, and I stumble around the room randomly exchanging
blows. Viconia is apparently heavily wounded by my hand in the bout
while Jaheira randomly attacks Aerie. Jan remembers what the elder
mage has cast as Minsc lunges at him: Stone to Flesh. It turns Minsc
into an angry statue. It could have been me. It could have been me,
but it got Minsc. There are magics to reverse even that, of course, if
only we can make it out of there alive. Neither Jan nor Aerie flees
the battle, though there is little hope. They have no means of
dispelling the mind addling charms or to return Minsc to his form. The
magic missiles they have left in their arsenal cannot penetrate the
magic shields of either mage. Jan grabs his glowing short sword and
runs after the elder mage. A contingency blocks Jan's stabs as the
mage's now exposed skin turns again to sheets of stone.
I remember lunging against a shadowy figure as fire and acid eats
through my skin. One of the mages lies dead at my feet. Wounded I
attack the next one. Sheated in a skin of stone. I hit him and my
strike rings true. As the mage's image shatteres before me, I realize
even through the fog of magical confusion that addles me, that
someting is wrong. Instead of dispelling the last of the stoneskins of
the mage, I have utterly destroyed the statue that was once Minsc.
Minsc is dead. Not only dead, but broken, literally, into tiny pieces.
His screaming sword Lilarcor, his massive armor, his apparently useles
protective cloak, all shattered with him. His companion Boo, shattered
with him.
What saves our wretched lives is a mistake. The last mistake of the
mage. The mage dispels -dispels- our magics. Probably out fear of what
Jan and Aerie are about to do to him. This immeaditely clears our
minds. Viconia is almost dead. We are all wounded. But our minds are
ours. This is not the time for regret - I react with instinct and,
along with Jan, I hit the mage as the last of his stoneskins
dissipate. This time I am certain that it is HIM, not the mirage of a
friend.
But we fail to interrupt his last spell: A chain of lightning sparks
out of his hands. Killing Viconia immediately and leaving the rest of
us within an inch of our lives. But my sword ends his next
incantation.
I stand in the room. Covered in blood, most of it my own. A wave of
pain passes through Aerie's eyes and it is the last time she looks at
me. She lowers her gaze. Everyone lowers their gaze. There are magics
to bring back the dead. But Minsc is gone forever.
I killed Boo. I killed Minsc."
♫ Sir Garrick Led The Way ♫
3:36 SCIENCE!
6:58 Davaeorn defeated
20:45 Simmeon slaughtered
36:50 ♪ Time to face the strange (ch-ch-ch-CHANGES!) ♪
39:06 Mutamin's Garden (this is the rest of the session)
40:47 Mutamin murdered
44:19 Kirian killed, Baerin beheaded, Lindin lacerated, and Peter... uhh... pkilled.
1:01:20 Requisite Ending Character Sheet View
Night in the Woods: Mae in Baldur's Gate
Part 1Several runs through BG1 have taught me that BG1 gameplay, especially no-reload play, is overwhelmingly dominated by items. All manner of potions, all manner of wands, all manner of arrows and darts, and the Greenstone Amulet and Necklace of Missiles--BG1 weapons and armor might be pitiful +1 trash, but expendables make or break a no-reload run.
I don't want to beat Sarevok with yet another Wand of Monster Summoning. But shooting down my best options just because they're my best options is not my style, and I don't want to go for a poverty run because death would be virtually irreversible all through BG1--and all the way through SoD, too, unless I picked a non-multi-classed cleric, which would be a profoundly sub-optimal pick for ToB.
So for this run, I've got a different set of rules. I can use any items I want, including mod items... except for all of the items I've used more than once or twice, ever. Items I've only used in IWD or Item Revisions don't get counted, nor do mage scrolls or items created by spells; I can still use a +1 morningstar, the Ring of Energy, and Minute Meteors, and I can still learn mage spells from scrolls. Nonmagical items with no special effects are fine, but otherwise, I can't use any item I've ever equipped for more than a moment or used on more than one or two occasions.
Having played this game for 17 years, that doesn't leave a whole lot left. I can't even equip Peridan, the one weapon that's spent more time sitting at the bottom of a Bag of Holding than any other weapon in any of my games. The only saving grace is that, if I die and start over, the item restrictions are the same as the previous run. So if I use a bunch of items in this run and still fail, the challenge will not become a complete poverty run if I try it again.
There's one extra requirement: I have to try any new mod-introduced quests that I come across, since I've previously avoided them due to not knowing the dangers involved.
Our party is themed after Night in the Woods! It's a very text-oriented game with lovable and interesting characters, a bit like Undertale. Unlike my previous two NITW-themed no-reload runs, which had the four main characters of Night in the Woods (and which ended to a Fireball and then boredom), this one just has five different versions of the protagonist, Mae Borowski, a rather screwed-up girl who dropped out of college for reasons that become clear late into the game.
First up is Mae herself, a Berserker whom I will dual-class to mage at level 7. The Berserker rage immunities will be absolutely critical considering we can't use the Greenstone Amulet, Potions of Clarity, or Potions of Invulnerability or Magic Shielding to ward off disablers. The portrait is Mae's "astral" self, seen only in her dreams.
The Berserker class is actually an excellent fit for Mae. See that bat she's carrying? It's a reference to an incident in her childhood when she attacked another kid with a baseball bat during a psychotic episode in which everything in the world appeared to be just "shapes" to her. It made her infamous in her hometown for years and earned her the nickname "Killer," which is also the name of our Bounty Hunter.
Bounty Hunter traps are absolutely devastating in BG1 due to the sheer damage, and in late SoA, their Maze traps make fantastic crowd control options. Notice the low Wisdom in this version of Mae as well. Aside from that psychotic episode, Mae has a history of making self-destructive decisions, so low Wisdom makes sense. But since this is a no-reload run, our Fighter/Cleric has maxed-out Wisdom.
Trash Mammal is a reference to a drunken speech she gave at a party once, in which she declared herself to be a total trash mammal. Night in the Woods has a lot of colorful dialogue, and Mae has a lot of the best lines. Normally I don't like Fighter/Clerics, because I find them kind of boring, but Trash Mammal will give us some very sorely-needed cleric buffs. But she's not our only priest. We also have Witch Dagger, a Wizard Slayer who will dual-class to druid at level 7. Notice that all of these characters already have some XP; the screenshots were taken after Beregost.
The costume is from the Harvest Festival (Harfest) in Night in the Woods. Mae snarls "Witch Daggah!" at herself when she's checking out her costume in the mirror, hence the name. Wizard Slayer/Druids can apply area-effect spell failure via Fire Seeds, bypassing all weapon immunities, so Witch Dagger will absolutely destroy every SCS mage in SoA and ToB. Finally, we have a sorcerer, the classic powergaming class now that Kensai/Mages have fallen out of fashion.
Mayday is a nickname created by Mae's childhood friend, Bea.
I had to design this party very carefully in order to cover all the holes that our item restrictions have poked in my normal strategies. Each character is designed to counter a very specific kind of threat that could otherwise prove fatal:
1. Mae, our Berserker/Mage, is my standard defensive Charname, taking advantage of those rage immunities to block the various game-ending disablers of the saga, Stoneskin to avoid fatal backstabs, and PFMW to survive Ascension Melissan.
2. Mayday, our sorcerer, is there to cast Invisibility in BG1 to avoid bandit ambushes and Wish in ToB to give us some extra resources for the Five.
3. Killer, our Bounty Hunter, is there to tear up BG1 mobs, wound SoD mobs, screw around with SoA mobs, and Maze ToB mobs, as well as nuke the Five at the Throne of Bhaal.
4. Trash Mammal, our Fighter/Cleric, is there to cast Remove Fear in BG1, Raise Dead in SoD, Chaotic Commands in SoA, and Harm+Critical Strike in ToB.
5. Witch Dagger, our Wizard Slayer/Druid, is there to shut down BG1 and SoD wizards with darts and shut down SoA and ToB wizards with Fire Seeds.
We have one slot left to bring in NPCs, which will open up some mod quests that I otherwise couldn't access. Sandrah is the first to join the party. But because her presence causes inexplicable inventory lag, I decide to boot her from the party. But not before I sell off her unique equipment, which happens to be worth the entire town of Beregost.
We bump our reputation up to 18 right away, because we have no plans for killing Dushai--there's no reason to steal her Ring of Free Action when we can't even equip it. Now we just have to collect some XP. First up, the spiders. Killer makes short work of them with her traps.
Bounty Hunters are crazy overpowered in early BG1. And in my install, unlike @Grond0's, Special Snares can still be thrown.
Next is Silke. But how are we supposed to tackle Silke with a level 1 party and no magical items at all? Well, Command is a crapshoot, but Witch Dagger imposes 25% spell failure for 5 rounds with every dart she lands on Silke, which means Silke, courtesy of her SCS script, resorts to a Minor Sequencer to get around the spell failure that would otherwise ruin her Lightning Bolt spell. With a Wizard Slayer throwing darts at her, all Silke can really do it whomp us with her staff, and she doesn't get the lucky critical hits she would need to actually kill someone.
Once again, Haiass is on the team, ready to devour all the kobolds and hobgoblins we don't want to mess with. As I've said before, he can probably solo the game if you stay invisible, but we don't need him for Tarnesh. Partly because we have a Wizard Slayer and a Remove Fear spell, but mostly because Tarnesh, due to a poorly designed Thunderslap spell pre-buff, stuns himself on round 1.
Some duergar surprise us on the way north and nearly kill Witch Dagger, but we can withdraw and let Killer take them down more or less single-handedly using her traps.
Killer's traps are also very effective against the ankhegs, though a level 1 Bounty Hunter always has a small chance of killing themselves when setting a trap.
Mayday can cast Blindness on Killer, allowing us to set traps in plain sight, but it's not really necessary. Putting aside Haiass and his stupendous combat abilities (despite being an ostensibly nonmagical wolf), it's not like we can't just clear out the ankheg nest with Trash Mammal's Command spells. We pawn the shells to Taerom one at a time and watch Melicamp die for I think the fifth time in a row.
I pay a visit to Bassilus' map, but it seems that Zargal comes with a pair of giant Ettins in my install, and they have lots of HP and hit really, really hard. Fortunately, the Ettins walk very slowly, buying us enough time to pepper them with ranged attacks.
Notice Haiass chunking the last Ettin. Don't worry; Haiass isn't going to be winning all our fights in this run.
He's actually going to be winning very few of them.
Also notice Morwen in the party. She's a level 5 Skald mod NPC who comes with some really awesome equipment that I unfortunately had to sell because I've used her in a previous run. But it does give us a strong NPC right off the bat.
We tackle Bassilus. Witch Dagger fails a save against Hold Person and Bassilus gets Sanctuary off the ground to heal himself, but we manage to scrape by with only a single death by using our many ranged options.
Due to our item restrictions, I cannot use the Doofus Saber or that 5 APR dagger I used in the Undergate run. But I can still pawn them off for big money, which means Tristan and Isolde are next. Turns out they have pretty low HP despite having such incredibly high offensive output.
To Nashkel! I pay a visit to a local cobbler and discover a bunch of really, really powerful mod items I haven't tried before. Aside from some very scarce healing items that will compensate for our complete inability to use normal healing potions, and a new kind of Bullet of Detonation besides the one I used in my Undergate run, two pairs of boots in particular stand out.
That Nature's Beauty spell works just like the real thing: permanent blindness on any hostile critter, and humanoid enemies have to save vs. spell at +3 or die. It costs thousands of gold, but I doubt we'll ever run low on money considering how much stuff we can't use, and will only be able to sell.
The Boots of Boredom are more interesting. They do give you complete invisibility to all critters, just like an undispellable Protection from Undead scroll that applies to living critters as well as undead. On top of that, it also grants immunity to level 1-9 spells. And while it does set your APR to 0, you can override that simply by equipping a bow!
But there is one crushing drawback to this item. It also grants immunity to level 0 spells, and I already know that this will prevent the user from getting any XP from any source as long as they wear the boots. It might also block some other important effects--it might even prevent Mae from receiving plot items via dialogue! I do not plan on using these boots much; they're too strong to be interesting and yet they also have the ability to screw up our game.
But I do want to see what they're like. I try them out on Narcillus Wallace. He can't see us at all!
I send in Killer with the boots and set some traps right next to him. Sure enough, it's a perfect way to butcher him.
No, I don't think I'll use these much. But I will keep them in Mae's inventory, because they're the only escape option I've got.
Both Tarnesh and Zordral killed themselves using a Thunderslap spell, but they're not the only ones who can cast the spell. Thalantyr happens to sell a couple copies of the scroll. And while I can't drink Potions of Genius or Mind Focus, I did tweak scroll scribing to be a 100% chance because I didn't want to deal with the agony of scribing failures, or downgrade to Normal mode and make the enemies deal 25% less damage. Morwen can now cast it.
Thunderslap is a level 2 spell that deals a small amount of electricity damage and stuns the target for 6 seconds. It bypasses the target's magic resistance and offers no save, but the caster has to land an attack roll to get it to work.
Or at least, that's what the description says. And that description is probably why somebody made Thunderslap into a pre-buff for certain low-level mages. But the description is a lie. Thunderslap is not an upgraded Shocking Grasp; it doesn't create a magical weapon that only works if you can land a hit with it.
It's an on-target spell with a short range. You have to be close to the target, but no attack roll is required. The duration is poor, but the spell bypasses AC, MR, and saving throws.
So.
Guess what incredibly dangerous critter relies on AC, MR, and saving throws to stay alive?
We kill Drizzy O'Derper in a single round, and discover that murdering the famous hero is actually considered a crime. We'll have to donate a bunch of money to get our reputation back up to 18. But first, we need to get away from these gnolls. I lure them into a bunch of traps that were actually our backup plan in case Thunderslap didn't work against Drizzy...
...and when Jemby and the gang attack us, we manage to finish them off as well by using missile weapons and a Command spell.
Killing Drizzy was actually a huge gain for us, despite the reputation drop. See, because I'm relatively new to BG1 and my item habits are nonstandard, there are some important BG1 items that I have never actually used before, and therefore am able to use in this run.
Twinkle is off-limits for us due to alignment restrictions, but Mae now has Frostbrand, granting her 50% fire resistance and a +3 weapon right at the beginning of BG1. And because of a special scimitar, Gift of Mystra, that one of my mods gave us in Candlekeep, Mae can dual-wield them to attain 100% fire resistance whenever I see a Fireball or Sunfire spell ready to roast the party. We now have an endgame weapon for Mae that will last us all the way to Big B in SoD.
Since this is a Night in the Woods-themed run and there is no Frisk or Chara here, I do not have to come up with an Undertale-themed line at the end of every post.
Not having to finish every post with a line about determination fills us with determination.
SP-6,
I survived the starting dungeon,... but Puk didn't
we got cocky, thats the bottom line... I should have stopped to rest again after dealing with the smiths but I didn't and Puk payed for my mistake in order to save me.
party;
Sarah, (lob... I may add a mod to fix turn undead and perhaps a special magic item if she survives spellhold)
Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo
I wasn't sure what I should do next. I toyed with Corey's idea of an all barbarian party, but fancied trying something more melee focused - and I think a bunch of berserkers should be able to do quite a bit of work in close quarters. The party is made up of 5 ugly dwarfs led by a charismatic halfling. If I'd noticed @Tresset's fix to avoid chunking before rolling them up I might have been tempted to apply that to my previous party and have another go with that. However, I've added it to the berserkers instead. That's made no difference so far, but should give them a rather better chance to make decent progress than the previous mixed party.
Everyone has got sword and shield proficiency and, with heavy armor as well, the sorts of archer ambushes that can be deadly for other characters are not much of a threat to them.
They quickly headed north from Beregost in search of Dushai's ring and Tymora was looking after them when Prime managed to charm him on the very first attempt - is that a good sign this will be a lucky run?
I didn't think melee was viable for most encounters until they'd got at least a level (level 1 protection doesn't apply to them as they all started with more than 13 HPs) and I didn't seek out major experience early on - so there was still plenty of kiting (using non-proficient slings) initially on people like Greywolf with no distance attacks.
I was going to report that everyone got to level 3 by running Bjornin's half-ogres round, but with the last of those nearly dead I got careless and Seize suffered the consequence.
Beating up 3 ankhegs to get to their treasure allowed the Boys to help out Farmer Brun and push reputation up to 20. That prompted the purchase of the remaining melee weapons to fill out the following collection in character order:
+3 scimitar - watching Drizzt die in slow motion against some gnolls
+2 long sword - shooting down Greywolf
+2 hammer - raging and meleeing Bassilus, interrupting one potentially fatal spell in the process
+1 axe - purchased at Feldepost's
+2 dagger of venom - purchases at Beregost smithy
They also bought the full plate armor from Beregost and coughed up for a second set of ankheg armor, so that everyone now has a minimum protection of plate mail. They're ready now to start hitting the high XP spots on the Sword Coast.
Pluck - L3, 36 HPs, 26 kills, 1 death
Seize - L3, 37 HPs, 31 kills, 1 death
Grip - L3, 38 HPs, 35 kills, 0 deaths
Clench - L3, 42 HPs, 22 kills, 0 deaths
Clasp - L3, 41 HPs, 26 kills, 0 deaths
Prime - L3, 37 HPs, 23 kills
Previous updates:
At the basilisk area Prime used the green scroll before turning the basilisks a bit greener than usual with his dagger.
A sirine fest proceeded from Beregost temple to the Lighthouse to Shoal's area. While at the Lighthouse the golems in the pirate cave got the Boys up to level 5 - none of them managing more than 1 hit against mainly Pluck's -10 AC boosted further by a belt.
In Shoal's area Grip sacrificed himself on the altar of Shoal's beauty, but got up in time to throw some darts of wounding to help spoil Droth's concentration - the ogre mage failing to complete any more spells after that.
Once more at the ankheg area the monsters needed a critical to hit, but when they did hit they hurt and 2 criticals in a row meant another trip to the temple for Pluck.
Next for the chop were the battle horrors at Durlag's Tower. The first of those failed to hit at all, but the second found 3 criticals in 4 attacks to nearly kill Pluck again.
Killing Meilum and a few odds and sods elsewhere tipped the boys over to level 6.
One slight irritation is that I've managed to lose the scroll case somehow, but it's not like the Boys will be using a lot of scrolls anyway.
Pluck - L6, 74 HPs, 64 kills, 3 deaths
Seize - L6, 69 HPs, 56 kills, 3 deaths
Grip - L6, 73 HPs, 68 kills, 2 deaths
Clench - L6, 76 HPs, 50 kills, 0 deaths
Clasp - L6, 78 HPs, 52 kills, 1 death
Prime - L6, 76 HPs, 56 kills
Night in the Woods: Mae in Baldur's Gate
Part 2https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909103/#Comment_909103
With the party around level 4 and 5, we sail through the Nashkel mines, using missile weapons to avoid engaging the Kobold Guards. This is an extremely important detail: their poison might not be as bad as a Phase Spider, but we can't use Antidotes or Elixirs of Health, which means a perfectly interruptable Slow Poison is our only answer to poison.
Killer's Special Snares play a huge role in taking down groups of enemies before they become unmanageable. Invisibility saves Witch Dagger when she fails a save against a Kobold Shaman's Hold Person.
I try setting some traps for Mulahey, but it seems that it turns the local kobolds hostile early. They shoot Killer down.
But Mulahey himself is a cinch thanks to Thunderslap.
Command offers a save, unlike Thunderslap, but it still manages to take down Nimbul. Tranzig makes his saves, but with Witch Dagger imposing 25% spell failure with every dart, Tranzig cannot translate his successful saves into spellcasting.
This party is actually really well-equipped to handle BG1. The two biggest and most common threats in BG1 are mages and groups of weaker enemies, and having a Wizard Slayer and Bounty Hunter in the party can quickly and reliably neutralize both of those threats.
When we get into trouble, that's where our other resources come in. We run into some trolls at the Firewine bridge and realize we have no fire or acid spells or items, but we can blind them with a pair of mod-introduced boots we got in Nashkel.
In Firewine itself, I just have Killer wander around invisibly while disarming traps, leaving Haiass to gobble up all the tasty kobolds.
Lendarn and the Ogre Mage are a bigger problem. Witch Dagger is a fantastic anti-mage tool, but there's always a small chance that bad attack rolls and lucky percentile rolls let enemy mages get spells off the ground. And there's always a strong chance that a human Wizard Slayer, with no immunities or save bonuses, will get disabled.
I would later realize that Lendarn had Protection from Normal Missiles active, and that's the real reason Witch Dagger couldn't impose any spell failure.
We turn Witch Dagger invisible, fall back, and pick off the weaker enemies so we can recover and return.
Killer takes a peek at Lendarn and the Ogre Mage, currently hiding to the west. She baits out a divination spell and sets a few traps before luring the Ogre Mage across them. He goes down.
Witch Dagger engages Lendarn with a mod-introduced scimitar (nothing particularly strong; just a magical weapon) and gets past his Protection from Normal Missiles.
Lamalha is a bit of a mess, but we arrive at the ambush while invisible, allowing us to reposition, set a trap, and pick our targets carefully.
One of my mods adds some rather impressive items to various enemies. Killer gets a new shortbow!
The APR bonus is normal for a bow; it grants 2 APR, not 3.
Anyway, Mayday has enough spell slots to cover the whole party with Protection from Petrification. But remember when I said that Haiass would not be winning us many battles?
Haiass got petrified and vanished, and his whistle fails to bring him back. I was fairly certain that Haiass merely respawned when he got petrified, but it seems not. Haiass was really powerful, but I never found him particularly interesting, but I don't really mind the loss.
Unfortunately, Haiass is not our only loss.
I inadvertently sent Killer to throw some traps at the local Medusas, but failed to buff them with Protection from Petrification before doing so (I took down the southern basilisks, but that was before we rested and lost our immunities to petrification). I noticed this at the very last moment and was about to get Killer out of the Medusa's very short range, but Killer fails her first and only saving throw.
Killer has not been shattered. But because of my item restrictions, I can't use green Stone to Flesh scrolls. Ever. The only kind I could use are the blue kind, the level 6 scroll for mages, but I have no idea where I could find those in BG1.
I can always come back in BG2 with one of those scrolls, since this is an EET install and I can re-visit BG1 areas besides Baldur's Gate itself. But that's a long way off, and Killer is a critical part of our BG1 strategy. Losing Killer is a huge setback.
I need a little extra power in the party, and I remember that one of my mods makes Tenya into a joinable NPC. And I also remember that Tenya has several Mephit spells, including Boiling Rain Storm. So I hike up to the bridge to Baldur's Gate. On the way, I decide to get rid of a batch of mod-introduced archers nearby. Their arrows deal massive damage and inflict paralysis, and there's no way I could hope to survive them, but Mae can don the Boots of Boredom, equip a bow to override the boots' zero APR, and then just shoot the archers while they're helpless to respond. Notice the farmer who has gone hostile for some reason.
Mae doesn't get any XP from this method, but we do still get those powerful arrows. Unfortunately, the enemies have high HP and low AC and it takes a very, very long time to kill even a single one.
But I keep at it, and once I've grabbed some Arrows of Freezing and Arrows of Piercing, it becomes much easier to kill the rest.
But the arrows aren't the only prize. We also get a very nice item for Trash Mammal.
One of my mods allows Yeslick to use axes. The side effect is that all fighter/clerics can use axes and put pips in them, which means Trash Mammal now has a +3 weapon that does 6.5 more damage than a normal +3 axe. We haven't even visited the bandit camp yet and we already have weapons that can hurt Big B in SoD.
Morvin and company ambush us, but we deploy our Nature's Beauty boots and blind the lot of them. Morvin resists the effect, but Thunderslap does him in.
We find a special version of the Gauntlets of Dexterity borrowed from Item Revisions, which we don't have installed. We also find a special version of the Firetooth crossbow...
...and because it has an undocumented 4 APR, it doesn't count as the original Firetooth. And since I've never used this version before, only the original one, I can actually use it.
I finally go grab Tenya. Her stats are mediocre, but she can cast a whole of water-oriented Mephit spells.
Salt Crystal, Water Jet, and Boiling Rain Storm all stun the targets on a failed save, and the last two are area-effect spells using the Cone of Cold projectile and a party-safe projectile. After blinding a mod-introduced ambush using our boots, we use Tenya's stun spells to hold them down while we apply ranged pressure.
Sirines appear to be much nastier in my install. They get area-effect blind clouds that appear to offer no saving throw, and their charm effects are also area-effect.
The blindness makes it nearly impossible to harm the Sirines, but it takes me several rounds before I realize I need to fall back and escape the cloud. Mayday nearly dies to the Sirines' poisoned arrows, only surviving thanks to Slow Poison and Invisibility.
We still suffer a couple of Slow effects, but without blindness, we're able to take down the Sirines with no casualties.
Safana happens to be nearby, and I see an opportunity to replace our Bounty Hunter, since my mods will let me assign her the Bounty Hunter kit. But she won't join us because our party is all-female; we'll have to come back later.
Some of the Sirines in this area have been replaced by Nereids. Turns out they can summon Water Weirds, which have paralysis attacks as well as an instant death attack.
We retreat, using Tenya's Mephit spells, missile weapons, and Blindness to very slowly wear down the enemy. It's a very long process, but I'm not willing to risk another drowning, so I never engage in melee.
We have to repeat the process for Sil, who starts out hostile even though I remember being able to get past her without violence in my previous run, which had the same install. We loot the flesh golem cave, but there's nothing in it that we're allowed to use. It's just more gold fodder.
Even though we were unable to side with Sil against the pirates, I still fight the pirates. Tenya's Boiling Rain Storm is extremely effective, as is the Slow spell that Mayday learned after the cave.
We recruit Ajantis just long enough to rope Safana into the party, where we give her the Bounty Hunter kit. Unless I can somehow, miraculously find a blue Stone to Flesh mage scroll, Safana will have to take Killer's place.
It's high time I moved on to the bandit camp. On the way, I spot Osmadi, and for once, fighting him does not crash the game. A simple Command spell, followed by Thunderslap, is enough to doom him.
Morwen used to cast Thunderslap for us, but now Mayday does. I figured it was worth one of our few sorcerer spell picks. Thunderslap won't bypass MGOI and can't affect undead, but it's still an incredibly powerful option against enemy fighters and clerics that would otherwise be difficult to hit.
Now for the bandit camp. I blind Safana to prepare for the main tent, but when she tries to set a trap in plain sight, it somehow fails.
Bounty Hunters are great when blinded, but if they can't set traps, they're pretty much useless. Stealth should still be possible, but Safana has terrible HiS and MS, rendering one of our most important characters suddenly impotent.
We still have Mayday's Slow and Tenya's Boiling Rain Storm to stun the enemy, but it comes at a price. While Tenya can cast Storm Shield to block normal arrows and has strong AC, Mayday has terrible AC and only Mirror Image to protect her. She dies right after going invisible.
It's a major loss, since Slow would really help us outside, and Thunderslap would be great against Ardenor Crush and Taurgosz Khosann, but Tenya's Boiling Rain Storm ensures that we win the main tent fight without any further setbacks. We head outside and brace ourselves for the horde.
Safana is an easy target due to her horrible AC and low HP, and Taurgosz takes out more than half her HP in one hit, but this time, she's able to set a trap successfully. The enemy deals massive damage to the party, but Safana is a powerful force as long as she stays alive.
Trash Mammal finishes off Taurgosz with a Command spell and Witch Dagger hurries to the west to distract the incoming enemies while Safana clears out the wounded bandits to the east.
A Hobgoblin Elite appears, and know that poison could easily be fatal, so I have Tenya knock him out. It's not as dramatic as Safana's traps, but it's an important detail for no-reload play.
Safana uses her last trap, but the battle is almost won. The only remaining threat is Ardenor Crush, and though he nearly kills Witch Dagger, Mae lands a kill with Firetooth.
Victory! The bandit camp is ours, and so begins the long process of collecting all the loot. I probably shouldn't bother; the only items I can use in the whole area are a Flame Arrow scroll and a Potion of Magic Blocking.
Yes, I can still use Potions of Magic Blocking. I've only used them once, ever, which means they are still allowed. But knowing me, I'll probably still never drink them.
On to the Cloakwood! Because I don't think I'm ready for Durlag's Tower. Centeol blasts us with a wand, but we return the favor with Boiling Rain Storm and blind traps. Both of them are effectively party-friendly Fireballs that bypass MGOI (if not other defenses).
Notice that Centeol uses the Lady of Pain sprite from PST in my install. I don't know why.
Safana threatens to leave if we don't get her the treasure from the flesh golem cave, but we already did. A quick look online tells us that all we have to do is talk to her while the tome is in our inventory, so we just have to buy back the tome from Thalantyr.
Tenya is actually pretty well-written. She's just a child, and her dialogue takes that into account.
We get surprised by a mod-introduced ambush with Najara, but Boiling Rain Storm makes short work of the enemy, and I discover a very special new item.
All other bracers are off-limits, but this one, which is easy to mistake for the AC 6 version, is permissible. But I put it on Mayday, who can already cast Shield for the same AC, instead of giving it to Safana, whose armor options are severely limited by our item restrictions.
We sell off the rest of Najara's loot, along with a bunch of other stuff we've gathered, and increase our gold supply by 90,000, doubling our total. I don't know what we're going to do with all that gold, though since we can't use almost any of the items available for sale, and recharging wands is pointless because the only wands we can use are Wands of Sleep and Wands of Fear, for which I have precious little use.
Witch Dagger and Mae are both level 6, which means they're just one level away from dual-classing to druid and mage, respectively. This presents me with a problem: I'm not confident we can tackle Davaeorn without our normal items, but if I wait until we've gathered more XP, we'll either end up wasting a lot of XP after level 7, or we'll end up fighting Davaeorn when Witch Dagger's darts no longer inflict spell failure. I decide to enter the mines in the hope that we'll hit level 7 right before Davaeorn.
Drasus' party is a problem. Area-effect stuff can help us deal with the fighters, but Witch Dagger won't be able to apply enough spell failure to both mages at once to block both of their spells. We Slow the enemy, but lose much of our defenses.
Witch Dagger tries to shut down Kysus (the other mage is already suffering from high spell failure and won't be casting much for the next 4 or 5 rounds), but she cannot stop a Chaos spell from disabling her. With heavy missile pressure and Safana's traps, we weaken the enemy before it can finish off Witch Dagger.
I catch Kysus trying to cast a Sunfire spell. I get Mae out of range before she gets in trouble, but not everyone makes it in time.
There's still not much I can do to Kysus, but the other enemies are quite vulnerable. Mayday manages to blind Safana, allowing her to set one more trap in the middle of combat. With Mae's help, she clears out the last of the fighters.
I didn't want to rely on the Nature's Beauty boots very much, but to make sure he doesn't cause any more trouble, we blind Kysus. It makes little difference, however: his MGOI runs out, and when he fails a save against Salt Crystals, he's done for.
Rezdan is back, and Witch Dagger's spell failure has worn off. But he, too, fails a save against Salt Crystals.
These guys aren't our only problem. In the mine itself, near Hareishan, we have to deal with Skeleton Lords, who cast Lightning Bolt spells in close quarters. I bait out a couple spells from the enemy.
The Skeleton Lords stay put, but Hareishan pursues. By herself, she shouldn't be too much trouble, but the Skeleton Lords worry me, and I don't want Hareishan to put us in a bad position when we tackle them. I blind her and keep out of our way.
I probe the Skeleton Lords with a Skeleton Warrior summons from Trash Mammal, but it seems the enemy can cast more than one Lightning Bolt per day, and our skeleton isn't tough enough to survive on its own.
I send out Mayday to check on the situation, and discover that the Skeleton Lords apparently can cast Lightning Bolt at will. Mayday gets fried, and Trash Mammal gets wounded while testing out a Holy Smite spell.
Trash Mammal flees to heal and recover, and the Skeleton Lords keep casting, though only Hareishan suffers for it.
Tenya can cast Storm Shield and is therefore totally immune to Lightning Bolt. But she doesn't have the AC to handle the Skeleton Lords, who apparently have THAC0 well below 10.
In the end, we just kite them mercilessly.
Natasha is a much lower threat, partly because she comes without Skeleton Lord allies and partly because she prefers evocation spells in my experience rather than disablers. This means Witch Dagger can simply soak up Natasha's first two spells; she doesn't have to make a saving throw to get Natasha up to 100% spell failure.
One last major fight before Davaeorn, a small party in an even smaller space. The biggest threat is an archer with Arrows of Detonation, and while I don't have a Wand of Monster Summoning to absorb the damage, a Skeleton Warrior is a decent alternative.
But Nature's Beauty ends up breaking the difficulty once again.
I think I'll cut back on using that item pretty soon.
We buff up the party, disarm some traps, and send Witch Dagger ahead to hit Davaeorn with a dart and impose a little spell failure before he confronts us. Unfortunately, human Wizard Slayers have terrible saves and Witch Dagger dies shortly after getting webbed.
We're in trouble. I was counting on Witch Dagger to shut down Davaeorn's spellcasting; she was our most important asset in this fight. Davaeorn appears and begins his spellcasting completely unopposed.
I've been going without healing potions for this entire run, but as it happens we do have some mod-introduced potions that I never actually used in my previous runs.
They're basically duplicates of Potions of Extra Healing, but since they don't have the same name, they constitute a different item. Items need to have a matching name and stats (if not icon or appearance) to qualify as a true duplicate that I cannot use.
Mae drinks the first healing potion of our run and Davaeorn vanishes. We take the opportunity to finish off the Battle Horrors.
Davaeorn returns. We really need to get past Davaeorn's defenses, so Safana uses the Nature's Beauty boots.
But Davaeorn wanders out of range just as the spell casts. He is completely unaffected.
With neither Witch Dagger's spell failure or Nature's Beauty, we are running very low on good options. Davaeorn's MGOI is gone, but we fail to hit him with Slow, and we lose some of our defenses.
Then, just as Davaeorn gets Teleport Field off the ground, I see that he's lost his Improved Invisibility pre-buff.
We finally have an opening! It takes time to get Mayday in position due to the Teleport Field, but she manages to nail Davaeorn with Thunderslap.
But to my dismay, he appears to be immune to stun. The electrical damage disrupted his spell, but Davaeorn remains functional.
Our only remaining choice is to simply overwhelm him with APR. But surprisingly enough, we can actually make it happen.
We dual-class Witch Dagger to a druid and Mae to a mage. Mae will be terribly vulnerable and we will no longer have a strong anti-mage character, but it's an important long-term investment for the challenges waiting for us in BG2. Mae scribes a bunch of scrolls and gets a cat familiar that will remain in our inventory until either Mae or Melissan is dead.
Moving on through Watcher's Keep we encountered a bunch of tieflings. The air crackled with wild magic so we stuck to item use and ensured their spellcasting was also disrupted to ensure that nothing crazy occured... and headed on to the Demon Knight area.
On arrival there were no indications of any strangeness... but somehow Sirene narrowly avoided being petrified and our gold stash was vapourised by wild surges. And then the Demon Knights started flinging spells without any wild effects. In response we chugged some potions and summoned some Shambling Mounds and Dire Wolves to assist with the attack as I couldn't risk casting again. This worked passably initially but then the cumulative effect of several Symbols (Spell Revisions version) kicked in and suddenly Sarevok was dead due to stat drains and Valygar and Sirene had grown too weak to move. Gulp. Lucky Cromarty wasn't first in line or that could have been him.
Fortunately Yvette was able to unleash a Sunray from the Helm of Brilliance to blind the Cambion, and Sirene & Valygar could use items & innates to restore their condition. They were then able to take down the opposition, though the real stars were the pack of Dire Wolves who helped pull down a Demon Knight! Wand of Monster Summoning all the way...
I realised however that in order to progress further we should have to go back and take on the Tanar'ri, but after poking my head in I realised that the room would be quite tough, especially as Kelsey would be relatively useless. I accordingly resolved to visit Balthazar first before deciding whether to go on with Watcher's Keep, possibly calling on Ajantis to help with that particular room.
We stormed the monastery without further ado, though Sarevok seemed to be suffering from some sort of Quivering Palm allergy. Preparing for Battle Royale we crashed in and... Balthazar succumbed to the sheer power of Cromarty's righteous schwartz in dialogue. His suicide left us with the prospect of a different demon battle in the grove, heading back to Watcher's Keep once again, or doing some of the Pocketplane challenges. After some inventory shuffling I left the party as they were, contemplating another run at the tanar'ri for now...
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909177/#Comment_909177
The boys forced their way through the Nashkel Mine. Their good defenses against missiles made it possible to make reasonably rapid progress, though they did have to retreat to rest up several times. Mulahey didn't last long and though his guards put up a decent fight they didn't manage any casualties.
Nimbul was unable to fight his way out of a cage, while Tranzig was similarly stuck in a corner.
Rather than reducing the odds by charming their way through the Bandit Camp, the Boys tried to rely initially on their good missile defences in a running fight. However, a few criticals and the difficulty of managing a hasted Taurgosz meant they retreated after only killing a few bandits. On their way back they ran into Molkar. That was a fairly well-balanced fight, but the Boys' rage just gave them the edge.
After resting they headed for High Hedge to sell Molkar's gear, but ran into some Amazons. Just to make things even more interesting they had some kobolds with them as well. Pluck managed to draw the attention of Telka and Maneira and their attempted backstabs bounced off his armor. Lamalha's attempted animate dead was interrupted and the amazons were then outclassed in melee combat. I expected there to be no casualties, but once more got caught out by the AI's nasty habit of switching to missile weapons even while closely engaged in melee - Maneira taking advantage to give Clench his first death just before the end of the fight.
The Boys then bounced in and out of the Bandit Camp for a while, usually just killing a single enemy at a time. After a while that left Venkt exposed in the front line and he was shut in a cage and swiftly cut down before help could arrive. Progress after that was much quicker and there were no casualties. Regrettably, however, the major expected prize from the area was missing - there was no more full plate armor. Early on in the contest Prime had charmed Taurgosz and told him to attack. The Boys ran away soon afterwards and I hadn't seen any text saying Taurgosz been killed, but there was no sign of him anywhere later on.
Shrugging off their disappointment the Boys settled for the consolation prize of another pair of gauntlets of weapon expertise and moved on to the Cloakwood. In the first area elemental damage helped shut down Seniyad in order to make a potential bastard sword upgrade for Clench available later. In the second area Pluck handled the web traps with his ring of free action while enemies were pulled back near the map edge to be able to run away in the event of poison. That worked well and it should have been easy enough to run in and out of the nest to shoot Centeol - but I was slow at one point and found when I got back outside I was carrying a frozen body (fortunately he only just died, so wasn't chunked).
While visiting the Temple the Boys also undertook some nefarious activities to reduce their reputation to 9. Travelling back they were ambushed as usual by ettercaps, but this time I must have strayed slightly when escaping and triggered the web trap. That resulted in Grip dying and Prime having to use a valuable PfP scroll to stay alive. Finally they got back to Centeol to find he had emptied his wand and could be killed out of hand. Spider's Bane won't be used as a weapon, but is potentially useful as a second source of free action.
I'd just finished writing the note about Spider's Bane and went back to the game - to see the animation of a crumbling statue in progress. Once more I'd not been careful about pausing the game and some respawned spiders had been given just enough time to take Prime's number ...
Fifth and final update
Previously
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/908639/#Comment_908639https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909003/#Comment_909003
Things where going smoothly. The ability to use wands and scrolls work well in a figther setup.
I entered the CK crypt, and picked up the tomes thanks to knock spells (I have one 2. Level spell per day).
I took no chances with Prat and his gang
Used a charge of the sandthief ring...
Afterwards it was Durlags Tower. Picked up the tome there - used a charge of the greenstone amulet
My stats are pretty good
And my build and inventory are also up to par...
I just needed to finish the Iron Throne, the undercellar, the coronation, the Maze and Sarevok...
The Iron Throne and the undercellar where manageble with a wand og monster summoning and a sling.
Next up the coronation and the super easy fight there. No re loaders have ever died there, so why worry ?
I did buff for the fight, forgetting only DUHM in the end... I chose not to use any of my 9 potions of magic shielding or 3 scrolls of protection from magic. I considered - but chose not to use them... !? well because its way cooler to loose 9 potions in transition from bg1 to bg2 (SoD is not an option yet on iPhone) than 8 or 7.
The fight started really well: dualwielding longswords with cloud giant str, hasted added with a pot of herroism... but something went wrong - and within seconds this happend:
Before the start of my game I promised my selv to be patient and prepare my self better. I was granted a supreme roll at character creation and luck (wands) was by my side more than once.
I found my end where many (and wastly more skilles players) fail - and the reason was overconfidence and lack of preperation. There are no excuses for failing - it was all me... RIP Mage F95.
But I don't understand what happened. How did he die?
Thanks. The build is super strong, and worked well. The idea was picked up in another thread... its very fun, and I would very much like to see you having a go at the build. Yout games are always an inspiration.
I actually dont know what happened. I Think I Saw a flame strike - bit it couldnt be that alone - my HP was over 100 before the incident. My shortcummings and lack of skill is really showing off. It was an unmodded game, so nothing aught to be a surprise.
My initial guess was that you got an instant kill because the Grand Dukes died, but when I let the Grand Dukes die, all I got was a dialogue box and then I was stuck in the palace; I didn't actually die. Granted, that was in a modded game.
Has anyone seen a death line in the dialog box that did not have a damage line directly above it?