We enter the elven city and start dealing with golems - once again, magical swords are used as tanks, which makes everything a lot easier. Tari doesn't get the backstab against the drow wizard, but still kills him (somehow) before his buffs activate:
A planetar helps out with big rakshasa groups, and soon we're up against the dragon. We send our summons to draw out remove magic first:
Our fighters activate hardiness and move in. We accept that we're gonna get them hit with insect plague, it barely matters to them as they charge their GWWs and go to town:
We summon the Avatar of Rillifane and move on to the tree. Irenicus dies to a few traps and melee attacks:
Good options were chosen during the hell trials all around, with a planetar helping against the beholders. We set up a few traps at the sides in order to speed up the killing Jon's demon allies at the beginning of combat:
Our damage is really going strong at this point - who needs improved haste once you have energy blades? All we need to do now is cast true sight and breach the slayer:
Now we get to start ToB and see how the money situation will shake out with Cespenar.
Our multi-player energies have been low for a while, but we took the opportunity for a session yesterday for the first time in about 7 months. The last recorded update was actually from August 2023, when we had just completed the Underground River area in Siege of Dragonspear. There must have been several sessions between then and December that I didn't manage to post on and most of my notes and all screenshots from then have evaporated since I'm afraid .
Firing up the last save I had showed that we'd just managed to kill Kangaxx at the end of the previous session. Emerging from his tomb, Whurr spotted that Rayic Gethras was still on the menu and quickly disposed of some mephits and golems blocking the way to him. Ash summoned a few skeleton warriors to help out against the mage himself.
The rest of Mae'Var's tasks were soon done and the thief stronghold was quickly over-run - Whurr being disappointed there at the lack of thieves attempting invisible backstabs.
Noting that we hadn't yet got the Amulet of Power (probably because Whurr's natural immunity to level drain made that a lower priority than usual), we paid Gaelan Bayle and then started in on Aran's tasks. A skeleton warrior ensured Lassal didn't try and charm Whurr and the guild contacts in the Bridge District were no problem. While in that area, we popped into a nearby house to check whether we'd done the skinner quest. Whurr realised belatedly that the presence of the Gesen shaft in his backpack could have confirmed the position, but we did find a bone golem there that had obviously arrived too late for the fight with the Rune Assassins.
{I did manage to find one bit of scrappy notes from a previous session suggesting that we'd had a potential problem in the original fight with those - requiring Ash to use an oil of speed to break contact with an assassin after being backstabbed}
After reporting back to Aran and deciding not to invade the vampire stronghold at this time, we headed for Umar Hills. With both of us competing to pop shadows using turn undead, we made quick progress there. XP was still a bit too low for liches to be on the menu and there were no problems making our way to Thaxy. With our immunity to level drain it seemed safe enough to attack her. She spent a while chewing through skeleton warriors while protected by her PfMW, but once that ended she went down pretty quickly under Whurr's Gaxx-hasted attacks.
The Shade Lord just managed to survive an initial flurry of Sunstone bullets, but had no chance against the Daystar sunray exploding under him.
There wasn't really any hint of danger in that session, prompting Gate70 to comment that the break must have done us good .
Its the first pocket plane challenge, and - hey, didn't we just kill you? Twice?
I decided to craft the elven chain, which might have been a mistake. I did have to hold off on niche items such as the infinite ammo cases, because we're going to need the gold for Foebane and the like. We have no invisibility scroll and are unlikely to find one, so no upgraded CoP +2 (and I propably wouldn't have been able to afford it).
So, after a few Saradush sidequests, we fight our way into Gromnir's castle. An aggressive approach with GWWs is what was called for. So far, I have not been able to find a chain contingency scroll, which would've been helpful as well. Carax, with hardiness and AoF going, tanked Gromnir's damage - which was quite a bit - while the others took him out:
Leaving the city, we faced the master wraith and talked to Nyalee:
At the marching mountains, we make full use of our magical swords to tank any big group of fire giants. The party just has to move in and out, using healing potions and fighter HLAs at will:
On the hunt for Yaga-Shura, we walk into his lieutenants to the north-west instead, revealing the wizard with true sight:
Weirdly enough, the fire giant appears far from his allies, to the south, where he's taken out by a round of fighter HLAs:
Before moving on to Amkethran, we quickly summon a planetar to help out with the oasis battle. Here, we get The Answerer, a huge upgrade for Tari - we now have Foebane as well, so we're set in terms of weapons.
Long time no posting and I really wanted to do a new run. My pc broke and I have been trying to salvage it for a month or two.
Meanwhile I am doing a bgee run on mobile with an archer that uses darts. I am doing a slow play with npcs being guided by their personal AI (however horrible that may be).
Currently I am progressing with the normal Xzar, Montaron, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid crew from the Friendly Arm Inn to Beregost.
Welcome back Iroumen, good luck with your archer run!
Abiros, the abjurer - no merchant run - Update 12
The most notable sidequest here in Amkethran is of course Vongoethe, and while the lich isn't too hard to take down with the iMoD, he left us with a very unkind greater malison + sphere of chaos combination - which turned Tari into a squirrel:
Surprisingly, none of the undead targeted her, though, and she was able to escape and get dispelled:
After travelling to Sendai's Enclave, we buffed up and dealt with the second pocket plane challenge:
Now, we have to beat the drow ambush - GWWs are unleashed, but the hive mother is still able to use her anti-magic ray on Abiros (who can still go invisible via staff of the magi, though):
Tari's best backstab so far - not bad considering that she is not using a specific weapon for that purpose:
Time to fight our way through the Enclave. Odamaron got dealt with via the old deva duel:
Magical swords tank Ogremoch:
We send a few summons towards Diaytha, who manages to turn some of her allies against herself via sunfire:
Though, to take down Diaytha and the hive mother, we had to go in by ourselves:
A quick duel win with energy blades, and a mind flayer cleanup. Money is getting really rough. We're able to afford Angurvidal, but not much else. For example, we're saving our golem book upgrade for the colossus golem, as there's no way we will afford the in-between upgrades as well. In any case, Sendai: A planetar is called in to keep the entrance safe, and the staff of the magi helps a lot against the wizard Sendai clones, who tend to use improved mantle instead of PFMW and can be dispelled with a single hit:
It was a relatively quick and convinging battle:
Next time, we will venture deeper into Watcher's Keep.
Thanks.
So far my protagonist Lucius is getting quite the number of kills. 20 kills equaling 43% of all kills in the first few areas is not bad. It is likely because hobgoblins are his favoured enemy, and with the rapid throws of darts he gets in very consistent damage.
Not all is rosy. Xvarts and gibberlings are still deadly. Khalid got hit with a double critical, and Jaheira and Montaron were equally unlucky already listing the first three deaths (and raises) of the party.
One more area before we get to Nashkel. Progress is fun.
playing on mobile is tricky. We progressed to the start of the Nashkel mines. Neira was interrupted 2x by darts, very nice. Grey wolf critically hit and killed Khalid. Montaron was killed in a hobgoblin ambush in the mountains between area transitions. Two resurrection later and we are ready to move into the mines.
I have one issue... darts are starting to run out and then I have to use either a bow or melee short swords. I will see.
Lucius 0 deaths
Khalid 2 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
Montaron 2 deaths
xzar 0 deaths
Imoen 0 deaths
I have one issue... darts are starting to run out and then I have to use either a bow or melee short swords.
@Iroumen glad you're enjoying the challenge of playing the mobile game . Have you got mods installed that limit the amount of darts sold? If not, the ammunition shop at the Carnival has an unlimited stock.
We take a few trips back and forth to town because first Khalid dies to kobold barrage and later Montaron. In the end we use the wand of frost to kill Mulahey and we take the same route back to town.
In the end Lucius was down to 2 darts.
We dump Xzar and Montaron, then go back into the mines to join Xan. We will take the back entrance and ignore the amazon's and go to the Carnival and have Branwen join. I can boot her at Tranzig.
Later I will go back to Nashkel and join Minsc and Edwin in the quest to Dynaheir. And there is still the ambush in front of the inn that did not trigger yet.
I have to consider when to get rid of Imoen (probably at either Skie or Alora) and Jaheira and Khalid (probably before I go to the next mines).
Lucius
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
I make it past the gray oozes without issue. Then I went to the carnival to unfreeze Branwen. Unlucky I mistake a tent and I enter the one with the wizard and his nonsense power word kill.
He panics literally everyone and then throws melfs acid arrow at the party one by one. Then magic missiles.
Luckily, only Branwen dies and the rest survive with few hp.
I resurrect her in Nashkel. Then with resist fear I face Nimbul. An easy target now although again Branwen dies. After another resurrect we go back to the carnival.
Lucius
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
Branwen gets her revenge against Tranzig. Then I boot her from the team.
Next we boot Khalid and Jaheira in Beregost and we join Kagain. Next we help Garrick with Silke.
We helped Samuel and then we stop for today. No further events.
I will cycle east of the map through Ulcaster where I think Kagain would like to be involved. Then we have to think about who to remove next and who to join next. Shar-Teel is on the East and we have Minsc, Edwin in the south going West.
Lucius
Kagain 0 deaths
Garrick 0 deaths
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
out of party
Montaron 3 deaths
Xzar 0 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
@lroumen if you have a mage protected by resist fear and shield they can show themselves to Nimbul. He'll try to blast them but they'll be immune to Nimbul's magic missiles then it's easy for your party to cut him down. Just a thought.
Ah, I forgot to update that. I tackled Nimbul yesterday indeed by using Branwens resist fear.
Since I had a full party with most ranged, and there is Rasaad that helps automatically, and there are 3-4 amnish soldiers.... Nimbul is not as tough as he should be.
kagain dies to a vampiric wolf hold effect in the Temple area. After resurrection we clear Ulcasters school ruins. We buy a magical axe for Kagain and then wonder whether to tackle East/Shar-Teel first or Minsc/West.
I am considering West since Shar-Teel needs to go all the way to the city for Angelo (end game npc for me) while we can drop Minsc/Edwin and Dynaheir quite quickly after.
Lucius
Kagain 1 death
Garrick 0 deaths
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
out of party
Montaron 3 deaths
Xzar 0 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
We start with Watcher's Keep level 3. The main challenge here is transitioning from no-magic zones into difficult battles (as a result, having no buffs), but there's a tiny timing window to activate the pocket plane special ability before Tahazzar turns hostile. Sometimes I manage to pause and activate the ability in time, sometimes I don't - if I don't this is one of the tougher battles in the vanilla game (and even with SCS depending on the random teleportation order), if I do it's fairly easy. This time, I managed to hit the timing, and the remaining level isn't too bad - the other room you enter from no-magic to are the succubi, and I have item-based charm protection for everyone.
So, we quickly made it to the demon wraith. The traps in this room (especially prismatic sprays) can be dangerous. We call in a planetar to distract our main foe while starting the disarms:
The wraith is unable to do anything significant to us during timestop, and we charge in - we do trigger one trap near the wraith that we missed, but luckily no one gets petrified. Time to activate our fighter HLAs:
Victory is ours. As is tradition, I lose all bets against the cambion and enter level 4. Illithids are easy to clear out by now, and we meet another dragon in the githyanki lair. We wait out the dispel while spread out and move in for the kill:
For our second demilich, we once again have no PfM or PfU scrolls. We could use Abiros with SI:A, but I decide to just limit myself to Brosk's enrage (the gamble here is that he has to get the kill before enrage runs out, but he has easily enough damage output with GWW):
Do you see something here? Gold! Raw Gold! And this is not the only time we're getting some of that - WK has a decent amount, unlike the rest of ToB. Something we can actually use! This is great - it means that we can actually afford the WK upgrades that we are getting access too and will propably have enough for the colossus golem tome. Still, I will have to skip some optional but cool stuff like the infinite ammo items, ranged weapon upgrades, intermediate golem tomes and some potential resistance items.
Some more quick battles, and we're on to level 5. The green dragon happens to hit the two characters who are immune to poison with his breath weapon:
A few riddles, an orc army (we cast protection from fire and from lightning on the party), a careful approach in the maze (avoiding poison & the ghost) and we make it to the three seals. Some normal traps are placed and despite their death effect providing a +4 to the death saving throw (and them having 6 as their stat), multiple ferrumach rilmani immediately die, apparently, to the death effect - nice. The aurumach rilmani dies as well, but that must have been to the damage.
We trap the lich (we still have our spike traps) and take down the flaming skulls before preparing for the final seal guardians. Trap the succubus, immediately kill the hive mother, use magical swords to keep the fighters and the cleric busy - this is our strategy, and it works as advertised:
Just a tip, but for no reload runs, Montaron is a great tank at level one. You just have to forego using him as a thief. (That's what Imoen is for). If you keep him at max HP, you will always be two hits from death on him. Due to the house rule for IE games about low hitpoint characters. So his low-ish hitpoints are a weird advantage early on.
17 dexterity, higher saves. He's the best frontline tank at that fragile level one stage of the game. Stack tanky gear on him, including a heavy shield. Stack him with healing potions. And the start of your runs will feel alot less nail-biting.
I frequently rely on him to clear the mines and get to the gnolls, thus getting the dexterity gloves.
Before we boot Garrick for Minsc we first go clear the amazon area. Xan casts charm person on Lamalha and Garrick casts fireball from the wand from Ulcasters dungeon.
Kagain uses a potion of fire resistence and ballistas passport and goes into the fray. Lucius uses his kai ability and Imoen uses two arrows of biting (? the poison white ones) to shoot at the mage.
While Lamalha gets a glyph of wadding off on the whole party (sans Kagain) we are barely hurt. Xans charm failed the first time, but the second time succeeds. While we kill the other three amazon's, we let Lamalha cast command on herself and while she is down we kill her off too.
Time for the rest of the area. Imoen is now level 5 meaning I can consider a dual class unless I remove her for Safana in the West. To be considered.
This run has generally been pretty smooth, but that's not an appropriate adjective to sum up our latest session ...
The action started with Sansuki calling for help as we walked through the Promenade on our way to sell some junk. The vampires appeared next to Wolfie and he was unable to break contact initially and was level-drained - Ash helped him out though with an improved haste and Russell cleaned the situation up.
We visited the Temple District for the first time next and Russell got a new cloak from a rakshasa there.
Things seemed to be going well enough when we opened up access to a lich and Russell killed that with the help of a PfU spell.
Wolfie was intending to go after more liches, but Russell pointed out that he had the Shield of Balduran in his backpack - so we headed off in search of the Unseeing Eye.
Things went rapidly downhill when Russell triggered the prismatic spray trap without bullet-proof saving throws and lost control of his character. There was no status effect shown on the character record, but we later concluded that he was probably feeble-minded by the trap. Initially we tried resting in case the effect was time-limited, but were ambushed in the attempt and killing the gibberlings that appeared attracted the attention of the nearby beholders and a pair of gauths showed themselves - meaning we couldn't try and rest again despite being invisible. Ash didn't have sufficient area damage spells to kill the gauths and the run almost ended there when Wolfie tried to circle round and help out and was panicked by a beholder off to one side of the bridge. Ash tried to load him down to prevent him running into sight of the gauths, but found his inventory full. Fortunately the beholder used an anti-magic ray to bring Wolfie back to his senses before he could be finished off.
Ash then tried immobilising the gauths in webs, but that did not prevent them from gazing at him and holding him. Wolfie tried to finish them off with his wand of heavens, but was also held and we were fortunate there that the gauths' script stopped their gaze attacks when all opponents are helpless. Once recovered, Wolfie did manage to finish them off.
We then successfully rested - which didn't help Russell .
We decided that a mercy killing was the humane thing to do, but that was slightly easier said than done as Russell had been made invisible before we rested. A mixture of sunfires and call lightning from Wolfie's staff did the job though.
We didn't have a rod or scroll to raise him up again immediately and had to trek to the temple of Lathander to recover him (Mistress Ada was closer, but she was grumpy that someone had stolen her amulet and wouldn't serve anyone at the time). The multiplayer glitches around equipment hit us hard there, with losses including Carsomyr, Shield of Harmony, Efreeti bottle, Bracers of Archery and Foebane. We did though still have the Shield of Balduran and continued the quest. After recovering half the Rift Device though, we were unable to find the ex-cult member who opens up access to the full quest. In retrospect, it was clear he was killed by the lightning trap near the undead (there's a dead body in the screenshot with the Shade Lich), though none of us noticed that at the time. In his absence Tad would not show us how to get downstairs and Wolfie eventually decided to talk to Gaal to summon the Unseeing Eye directly. That proved unfortunate for Russell as his shield was no protection against a PW:stun spell and he was already near death before a PW:kill put him out of his misery.
The Unseeing Eye appeared immune to magic attacks, but a pair of fire elementals did a good job there of tanking it and we were able to go and raise Russell once more.
There was fewer equipment lost this time, though Frostreaver and the Quiver of Plenty were noted as missing.
Deciding that it might be helpful to have a Rod of Resurrection we went to find Mekrath. He caused no trouble and Ash killed his umber hulk guards with a death spell (though Wolfie did wonder whether he really needed to gaze into their eyes before casting that, rather than send it in out of sight). Preparation for Tarnor's group included summoning pairs of elementals and nymphs and an insect plague put the casters out of action to make that fight easy.
At that point we might have withdrawn from the sewers, bloodied but unbowed - but Wolfie decided we should finish the session by taking on the illithid there. Chaotic commands made all of us immune to their spell attacks, but intelligence drain was still a potential problem and Russell collapsed while clearing the second room. This time though the rod allowed him to be brought swiftly back and he led the assault once more on Alhoon in the final room. Without Azuredge (lost in a previous death), Alhoon lasted longer than usual and managed to suck out Russell's brains once more just before he was killed himself.
With the opposition down to a pair of illithids, Wolfie and Ash tried to finish them off before bringing back Russell. Ash was out of MMMs and tried to tank using mirror images. His portrait did not appear to show any previous intelligence drain and his intelligence of 11 should therefore have made him safe from a single hit, but things are not always as they appear and a hit on him caused him to crumble leaving Wolfie all alone.
An oil of speed allowed him to kite the illithid and, with no-one else to consider, he used pause regularly to make movement and targeting easy until the illithid were dead.
Shapeshifter 13, 85 HPs, 186kills (+254 in BGEE)
Dragon disciple 13, 77 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 272 kills (+99 in BGEE), 1 death
Paladin 12, 115 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 245 kills (+194 in BGEE), 6 deaths
None of us gained a level in that session, but Ash used his death spell and fire abilities to good effect and stretched his lead in the kills count
With the higher XP demands of a full party, the Crew has been undertaking most of the potential challenges in the Underdark. Early encounters included:
- emptying the soul gem
- hacking down a balor troubling a svirfneblin village
- easily overcoming the kuo-toan prince's regeneration in the western tunnels and picking up a nice 2-handed sword for Al from some demon knights
By that stage all of the Crew had saving throws of 0 or better, so didn't worry so much about placement of the group when enemies were using crowd control spells. The odd dwarf was affected by stun or fear from symbols, but no-one has been in real danger.
Weight of attack killed the elder orb at the entrance to the beholder hive before it tried to imprison anyone.
Most of the area was then cleared by Mad Dog using the Shield of Balduran, though everyone got briefly involved to kill the other elder orb with its accompanying large group of beholders.
The illithid found their crowd control abilities were pretty ineffective against the Crew's saving throws and only the odd one managed to survive to get into hand to hand contact. The Crew picked up another level there before shooting the Master Brain down from a distance.
Al (PC) - L18, 137 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 206 kills (+305 in BGEE/SoD), ***** 2-handed sword / ***** longbow
Baby Face - L18, 138 HPs, 318 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, ***** long sword / ***** crossbow
Bugsy - L18, 132 HPs, 214 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, ***** hammer / ***** shortbow
Carlo - L18, 142 HPs, 238 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, ***** flail / ***** sling
Mad Dog - L18, 152 HPs, 435 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 3 deaths, ***** axe / ** dagger / ** dual wielding
Vito - L18, 135 HPs, 211 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, ***** scimitar / ***** darts
If you've been following this run, you may have seen that, so far, the party has been very good at dodging full remove magic threats during the various dragon battles (especially when compared to my previous run). Draconis is the most dangerous of the bunch - we really want to keep our buffs here as much as possible, especially with limited access to acid protection items (no green scrolls, no Aegar's Hide).
We start off as we should, spread out at range, with a planetar at the front, taking out the human form of our foe:
As Draconis loses health, we activate SI:A on Abiros to keep him safe in case he's the remove magic target once the dragon changes form. Or, at least we think we do. In practice, the spell is never finished. Checking my spellbook later, the spell is never even started. I remember with certainty that I gave the command to cast it - so my best explanation is that, during the same pause, I issued another command to Abiros after being done with all the other party members (either forgetting about the SI:A or thinking that it was already applied). Well... You can imagine what happens next - Abiros is, indeed, the target and loses his buffs:
This is the worst possible outcome. 97 hp is not enough to reliably survive Draconis' breath weapon (never mind if he adds in melee hits). I propably should have instantly gone invisible as the first step now (I think Draconis doesn't have innate true sight, though I'm not sure - Abazigal has it, but I can't find it for Draconis in the wiki), but instead my first instinct was to just run and try to distract the dragon with my other (still buffed) party members. The others attacked, but the dragon, as I feared, immediately used his breath weapon on Abiros. A failed saving throw here (entirely possible, though at a low percentage chance) could have ended the run right there, but luckily we saved and ended up at 29 hp - finally realizing that we could go invisble at will via staff of the magi (or, since our aura was clear, with a potion):
I'm quite happy now that I had decided to get that Robe if Invocation from Neera's SoA quest earlier on. Still would have survived without it, doing the math now, but it would've been extremely close. I'm also happy that I didn't fail a save against dragon fear, which could also have ended the run. Well, needless to say, while everyone else got busy taking down the dragon, Abiros stayed far, far away from combat:
Draconis still dealt a lot of damage to Brosk before finally going down. A tough foe, as per usual.
Well, the rest of Abzigal's Lair is a bit underwhelming in comparison in the vanilla game. We call in another cestial to help with the kuo-toas and use our cloak of mirrorring for the battles against the eyes before resting and buffing up for Abazigal. We also upgrade our golem tome, leaving us at below 10k gold, but all other Cespenar recipes are entirely optional. This time, we don't lose any buffs and execute our gameplan - the GWWs take Abazigal down shortly after we return to his position following the wing buffet:
Sadly, we have not found a chain contingency scroll during the entire run, so we have to fight our way to Balthazar:
However, the monk himself is not much of a challenge, as per usual in party-based vanilla runs:
We prepare for the Ravager. Tari is able to sneak into his part of the pocket plane with double haste effects, which works some of the time (I heavily relied on it working for my FMT solo run, but this party doesn't really need it - it's just a nice bonus), and she uses that to throw down a few spike traps to speed up our kill:
After the "chaos" of our last Trio update, it was back to smooth sailing for this MP pairing. Having killed the Shade Lord last time, the first port of call this session was to return to Umar Hills and collect Valygar's body on the way to reporting in to Minister Lloyd. Back in Athkatla, Whurr noticed an impatient individual waiting outside the Copper Coronet and negotiated a trade of a couple of points of reputation for some silver pantaloons. While on the way to grease the locks of the Planar Sphere with Valygar's body, Sansuki called for help. As both of us were immune to level drain, the vampires after him were no real threat and Daystar quickly sorted them out.
The Sir Sarles quest was next and we handed over the false illithium to the temple and collected the follow-up quest. While waiting for the contact in the Slums to turn up for that, we were tempted into having a look inside the Planar Sphere. The encounters there were generally straight-forward, with skeleton warriors occupying the more dangerous enemies like the murderous halflings and Tolgerias. One unusual wrinkle for us is that we had no +3 missile weapons to make dealing with the adamantite golems simple. Instead, Whurr used the Sewer Cloak to assume rat form and tanked them. Ash buffed himself, including using 2 instances of Boon of Lathander to push APR to 3, and the rat form only ran out just before the second of the big golems fell.
On the way to get the real illithium from Neb, we looted the trapped house in the Bridge District to get the berserk warrior - though this pairing doesn't really need that. Ash buffed up again in an attempt to kill Neb before he could go invisible and attacking from sanctuary successfully achieved that.
At this point Whurr decided to splash out some of our hard-earned funds on Azuredge, despite us being down to our last 150k of gold . That was immediately put to good use as we invaded the vampire den under the Graveyard District. Whurr's save vs spell of 0 meant the vampires had a small chance of dominating him before they were sliced in half by Azuredge or disintegrated by Ash's turn undead. They did succeed in that once, but that meant they stopped attacking him and Ash could just wait the charm out. One interesting point was that I remembered one of my SP games ending while attacking Tanova as a result of lightning bouncing a large number of times along the corridor she's in - and, unusually, decided to protect us from lightning. That proved a good investment as lightning did indeed bounce around - crashing through Whurr at least 5 times without effect. Downstairs, we decided to trip the lightning trap just for the pleasure of being tickled by that bouncing around a small room . Bodhi then lasted only moments before deciding we were more than a match for her.
We chose not to take ship immediately, but went to upgrade the Mace of Disruption to provide Ash with an alternative method of killing undead. The final action of the session was a trip to Watcher's Keep. The Crimson Dart was no longer much use to Whurr, now he had Azuredge, but he was pleased to collect the paladin's bracers there. Despite now having +3 ranged ability, Whurr fancied attacking the Guardian Golems in melee. They don't have the same physical resistance of adamantite goliems and lasted only moments. Before leaving, we attacked the first 2 statues to get Foebane, though that's unlikely to see any use.
Priest of Lathander 18, 79 HPs, 152 kills
Undead hunter 15, 149 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm; 10 from bracers), 399 kills, 3 deaths
I had to do a fresh install on my tablet, can I get a breakdown on what classes have not completed this challenge so I can give it another go?
@Klorox see the first post on the thread - classes remaining are (though I suspect the abjurer will be ticked off very shortly now ):
Stalker
Priest of Helm, Priest of Talos
Avenger
Abjurer, Conjurer, Diviner, Necromancer
In addition, currently there are promising runs for an avenger and a necromancer being played by @Trouveur and @aldain , and I am aiming for a Priest of Talos next, so if you want to be sure to try something without overlap, I would recommend Stalker, Priest of Helm, Conjurer or Diviner (though any of the mentioned runs might still fail, and you might just want to play whatever seems most fun to you )
Abiros, the abjurer - no merchant run - Final Update
We prepare a full array of buffs, including our remaining potions, before entering the throne. We have a ton of GWWs by now, and we're not afraid to use them. Mel's first incarnation is quickly taken out with those fighter HLAs - not much else is needed:
Time to regain some health and add in summons. We call a planetar and a few magical swords (to tank the air creatures at the first essence pool); Once again, all fighter types activate GWWs:
The bone fiends and Mel focus their attention on Carax, who drops extremely low and moves away; Brosk, who has more fighter HLAs than the other two, actives another GWW to get Amelyssan to leave us alone again:
A close call for Carax. I propably should have been using hardiness a bit more regularily here.
For the third battle, we have saved our spike traps. We haven't picked up too much of these, because I wanted Tari to have enough fighter HLAs for prolonged battles, but 4 are enough to guarantee a swift end to any Mel incarnation (we add in normal traps, just in case) - we have the magical swords to stave off any slayer shadows prepared, just in case. Those are not needed, though; We are free to prepare for the final pool and battle. First, Abiros takes the time to use wish (we got the scroll during the final Watcher's Keep battle and have memorized two instances). The first one is a dud, but we get the full rest with our second cast - nice!
Now, we have two timestop scrolls for Tari in order to clear the fallen solar. We use the improved haste from the darkfire bow, which lasts quite long compared to other item-based improved haste effects, activate timestop and move in:
With the second scroll, everything but the Mariliths is killed, and we breach and defeat those next. Well. Now, with the wish rest that we got I decided to take zero risks and place down those spike traps once again to ensure Abiros' way into the hall. No trap restrictions for this run, so I didn't feel too bad about it:
And that was it. The solar appears and we relinquish our Bhaal essence. It seems like we don't need stoneskins to survive with a wizard after all, given enough care. The one big mishap with Draconis wasn't even a matter of physical damage.
Good luck to everyone in the community. I've already started a Priest of Talos run, but I'm not sure when I will start reporting on it.
I had to do a fresh install on my tablet, can I get a breakdown on what classes have not completed this challenge so I can give it another go?
@Klorox see the first post on the thread - classes remaining are (though I suspect the abjurer will be ticked off very shortly now ):
Stalker
Priest of Helm, Priest of Talos
Avenger
Abjurer, Conjurer, Diviner, Necromancer
In addition, currently there are promising runs for an avenger and a necromancer being played by @Trouveur and @aldain , and I am aiming for a Priest of Talos next, so if you want to be sure to try something without overlap, I would recommend Stalker, Priest of Helm, Conjurer or Diviner (though any of the mentioned runs might still fail, and you might just want to play whatever seems most fun to you )
Awesome, thanks guys. Does this list include weird dual classes like archer > cleric (IDK why that combo intrigues me)?
I was doing an avenger run a while back but got bored. It’s too bad, it’s a very good class.
I’ll return from vacation tomorrow. Maybe I’ll give a stalker a try, I just saw that YouTuber Daveorn ascended as a stalker so it’s definitely doable!
I just need to balance in my head the pros and cons of elf vs. half elf, as the former gets much better charm resistance, as well as a small bonus to hit with a bow and swords, and the other gets 9 more HP.
I’m also going to give Grond0’s old play style a try; that of only playing for an hour at a time.
This will definitely stop me from making dumb mistakes and also encourage me to update my progress, something I’m really terrible at doing.
Another run I’m considering is rebooting my minimum stat challenge. That was a lot of fun. I need to stop running multiple games because I’m never gonna finish this dang thing if I keep letting myself get distracted. LOL.
Comments
We enter the elven city and start dealing with golems - once again, magical swords are used as tanks, which makes everything a lot easier. Tari doesn't get the backstab against the drow wizard, but still kills him (somehow) before his buffs activate:
Ash (male dwarf priest of Lathander, Grond0); Whurr (male human undead hunter, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1200529/#Comment_1200529
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1200827/#Comment_1200827
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1201160/#Comment_1201160
Our multi-player energies have been low for a while, but we took the opportunity for a session yesterday for the first time in about 7 months. The last recorded update was actually from August 2023, when we had just completed the Underground River area in Siege of Dragonspear. There must have been several sessions between then and December that I didn't manage to post on and most of my notes and all screenshots from then have evaporated since I'm afraid
Firing up the last save I had showed that we'd just managed to kill Kangaxx at the end of the previous session. Emerging from his tomb, Whurr spotted that Rayic Gethras was still on the menu and quickly disposed of some mephits and golems blocking the way to him. Ash summoned a few skeleton warriors to help out against the mage himself.
Noting that we hadn't yet got the Amulet of Power (probably because Whurr's natural immunity to level drain made that a lower priority than usual), we paid Gaelan Bayle and then started in on Aran's tasks. A skeleton warrior ensured Lassal didn't try and charm Whurr and the guild contacts in the Bridge District were no problem. While in that area, we popped into a nearby house to check whether we'd done the skinner quest. Whurr realised belatedly that the presence of the Gesen shaft in his backpack could have confirmed the position, but we did find a bone golem there that had obviously arrived too late for the fight with the Rune Assassins.
After reporting back to Aran and deciding not to invade the vampire stronghold at this time, we headed for Umar Hills. With both of us competing to pop shadows using turn undead, we made quick progress there. XP was still a bit too low for liches to be on the menu and there were no problems making our way to Thaxy. With our immunity to level drain it seemed safe enough to attack her. She spent a while chewing through skeleton warriors while protected by her PfMW, but once that ended she went down pretty quickly under Whurr's Gaxx-hasted attacks.
There wasn't really any hint of danger in that session, prompting Gate70 to comment that the break must have done us good
Summary stats (with screenshots of current character records)
Priest of Lathander 16, 75 HPs, 115 kills
Undead hunter 14, 136 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 315 kills, 3 deaths
Its the first pocket plane challenge, and - hey, didn't we just kill you? Twice?
So, after a few Saradush sidequests, we fight our way into Gromnir's castle. An aggressive approach with GWWs is what was called for. So far, I have not been able to find a chain contingency scroll, which would've been helpful as well. Carax, with hardiness and AoF going, tanked Gromnir's damage - which was quite a bit - while the others took him out:
Meanwhile I am doing a bgee run on mobile with an archer that uses darts. I am doing a slow play with npcs being guided by their personal AI (however horrible that may be).
Currently I am progressing with the normal Xzar, Montaron, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid crew from the Friendly Arm Inn to Beregost.
Abiros, the abjurer - no merchant run - Update 12
The most notable sidequest here in Amkethran is of course Vongoethe, and while the lich isn't too hard to take down with the iMoD, he left us with a very unkind greater malison + sphere of chaos combination - which turned Tari into a squirrel:
So far my protagonist Lucius is getting quite the number of kills. 20 kills equaling 43% of all kills in the first few areas is not bad. It is likely because hobgoblins are his favoured enemy, and with the rapid throws of darts he gets in very consistent damage.
Not all is rosy. Xvarts and gibberlings are still deadly. Khalid got hit with a double critical, and Jaheira and Montaron were equally unlucky already listing the first three deaths (and raises) of the party.
One more area before we get to Nashkel. Progress is fun.
I have one issue... darts are starting to run out and then I have to use either a bow or melee short swords. I will see.
Lucius 0 deaths
Khalid 2 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
Montaron 2 deaths
xzar 0 deaths
Imoen 0 deaths
I just pick and buy as I encounter. After the mines I will check the carnival, thanks.
In the end Lucius was down to 2 darts.
We dump Xzar and Montaron, then go back into the mines to join Xan. We will take the back entrance and ignore the amazon's and go to the Carnival and have Branwen join. I can boot her at Tranzig.
Later I will go back to Nashkel and join Minsc and Edwin in the quest to Dynaheir. And there is still the ambush in front of the inn that did not trigger yet.
I have to consider when to get rid of Imoen (probably at either Skie or Alora) and Jaheira and Khalid (probably before I go to the next mines).
Lucius
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
out of party
Montaron 3 deaths
Xzar 0 deaths
He panics literally everyone and then throws melfs acid arrow at the party one by one. Then magic missiles.
Luckily, only Branwen dies and the rest survive with few hp.
I resurrect her in Nashkel. Then with resist fear I face Nimbul. An easy target now although again Branwen dies. After another resurrect we go back to the carnival.
Lucius
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
out of party
Montaron 3 deaths
Xzar 0 deaths
Next we boot Khalid and Jaheira in Beregost and we join Kagain. Next we help Garrick with Silke.
We helped Samuel and then we stop for today. No further events.
I will cycle east of the map through Ulcaster where I think Kagain would like to be involved. Then we have to think about who to remove next and who to join next. Shar-Teel is on the East and we have Minsc, Edwin in the south going West.
Lucius
Kagain 0 deaths
Garrick 0 deaths
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
out of party
Montaron 3 deaths
Xzar 0 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
Since I had a full party with most ranged, and there is Rasaad that helps automatically, and there are 3-4 amnish soldiers.... Nimbul is not as tough as he should be.
I am considering West since Shar-Teel needs to go all the way to the city for Angelo (end game npc for me) while we can drop Minsc/Edwin and Dynaheir quite quickly after.
Lucius
Kagain 1 death
Garrick 0 deaths
Imoen 0 deaths
Xan 0 deaths
out of party
Montaron 3 deaths
Xzar 0 deaths
Branwen 2 deaths
Khalid 3 deaths
Jaheira 1 death
We start with Watcher's Keep level 3. The main challenge here is transitioning from no-magic zones into difficult battles (as a result, having no buffs), but there's a tiny timing window to activate the pocket plane special ability before Tahazzar turns hostile. Sometimes I manage to pause and activate the ability in time, sometimes I don't - if I don't this is one of the tougher battles in the vanilla game (and even with SCS depending on the random teleportation order), if I do it's fairly easy. This time, I managed to hit the timing, and the remaining level isn't too bad - the other room you enter from no-magic to are the succubi, and I have item-based charm protection for everyone.
So, we quickly made it to the demon wraith. The traps in this room (especially prismatic sprays) can be dangerous. We call in a planetar to distract our main foe while starting the disarms:
Some more quick battles, and we're on to level 5. The green dragon happens to hit the two characters who are immune to poison with his breath weapon:
17 dexterity, higher saves. He's the best frontline tank at that fragile level one stage of the game. Stack tanky gear on him, including a heavy shield. Stack him with healing potions. And the start of your runs will feel alot less nail-biting.
I frequently rely on him to clear the mines and get to the gnolls, thus getting the dexterity gloves.
Kagain uses a potion of fire resistence and ballistas passport and goes into the fray. Lucius uses his kai ability and Imoen uses two arrows of biting (? the poison white ones) to shoot at the mage.
While Lamalha gets a glyph of wadding off on the whole party (sans Kagain) we are barely hurt. Xans charm failed the first time, but the second time succeeds. While we kill the other three amazon's, we let Lamalha cast command on herself and while she is down we kill her off too.
Time for the rest of the area. Imoen is now level 5 meaning I can consider a dual class unless I remove her for Safana in the West. To be considered.
Wolfie - half-elf shapeshifter (Grond0)
Ash - human dragon disciple (Gate70)
Russell XXXVI - human paladin (Corey_Russell)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208471/#Comment_1208471
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208625/#Comment_1208625
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208890/#Comment_1208890
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208991/#Comment_1208991
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209094/#Comment_1209094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209253/#Comment_1209253
This run has generally been pretty smooth, but that's not an appropriate adjective to sum up our latest session ...
The action started with Sansuki calling for help as we walked through the Promenade on our way to sell some junk. The vampires appeared next to Wolfie and he was unable to break contact initially and was level-drained - Ash helped him out though with an improved haste and Russell cleaned the situation up.
We visited the Temple District for the first time next and Russell got a new cloak from a rakshasa there.
Things went rapidly downhill when Russell triggered the prismatic spray trap without bullet-proof saving throws and lost control of his character. There was no status effect shown on the character record, but we later concluded that he was probably feeble-minded by the trap. Initially we tried resting in case the effect was time-limited, but were ambushed in the attempt and killing the gibberlings that appeared attracted the attention of the nearby beholders and a pair of gauths showed themselves - meaning we couldn't try and rest again despite being invisible. Ash didn't have sufficient area damage spells to kill the gauths and the run almost ended there when Wolfie tried to circle round and help out and was panicked by a beholder off to one side of the bridge. Ash tried to load him down to prevent him running into sight of the gauths, but found his inventory full. Fortunately the beholder used an anti-magic ray to bring Wolfie back to his senses before he could be finished off.
We decided that a mercy killing was the humane thing to do, but that was slightly easier said than done as Russell had been made invisible before we rested. A mixture of sunfires and call lightning from Wolfie's staff did the job though.
Deciding that it might be helpful to have a Rod of Resurrection
At that point we might have withdrawn from the sewers, bloodied but unbowed - but Wolfie decided we should finish the session by taking on the illithid there. Chaotic commands made all of us immune to their spell attacks, but intelligence drain was still a potential problem and Russell collapsed while clearing the second room. This time though the rod allowed him to be brought swiftly back and he led the assault once more on Alhoon in the final room. Without Azuredge (lost in a previous death), Alhoon lasted longer than usual and managed to suck out Russell's brains once more just before he was killed himself.
Shapeshifter 13, 85 HPs, 186kills (+254 in BGEE)
Dragon disciple 13, 77 HPs (incl. 7 from ioun stone), 272 kills (+99 in BGEE), 1 death
Paladin 12, 115 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 245 kills (+194 in BGEE), 6 deaths
None of us gained a level in that session, but Ash used his death spell and fire abilities to good effect and stretched his lead in the kills count
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208151/#Comment_1208151
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208190/#Comment_1208190
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208288/#Comment_1208288
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208297/#Comment_1208297
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208312/#Comment_1208312
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1208385/#Comment_1208385
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209255/#Comment_1209255
With the higher XP demands of a full party, the Crew has been undertaking most of the potential challenges in the Underdark. Early encounters included:
- emptying the soul gem
Weight of attack killed the elder orb at the entrance to the beholder hive before it tried to imprison anyone.
The illithid found their crowd control abilities were pretty ineffective against the Crew's saving throws and only the odd one managed to survive to get into hand to hand contact. The Crew picked up another level there before shooting the Master Brain down from a distance.
Al (PC) - L18, 137 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 206 kills (+305 in BGEE/SoD), ***** 2-handed sword / ***** longbow
Baby Face - L18, 138 HPs, 318 kills (+298 in BGEE/SoD), 2 deaths, ***** long sword / ***** crossbow
Bugsy - L18, 132 HPs, 214 kills (+260 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, ***** hammer / ***** shortbow
Carlo - L18, 142 HPs, 238 kills (+283 in BGEE/SoD), 0 deaths, ***** flail / ***** sling
Mad Dog - L18, 152 HPs, 435 kills (+290 in BGEE/SoD), 3 deaths, ***** axe / ** dagger / ** dual wielding
Vito - L18, 135 HPs, 211 kills (+286 in BGEE/SoD), 1 death, ***** scimitar / ***** darts
If you've been following this run, you may have seen that, so far, the party has been very good at dodging full remove magic threats during the various dragon battles (especially when compared to my previous run). Draconis is the most dangerous of the bunch - we really want to keep our buffs here as much as possible, especially with limited access to acid protection items (no green scrolls, no Aegar's Hide).
We start off as we should, spread out at range, with a planetar at the front, taking out the human form of our foe:
Well, the rest of Abzigal's Lair is a bit underwhelming in comparison in the vanilla game. We call in another cestial to help with the kuo-toas and use our cloak of mirrorring for the battles against the eyes before resting and buffing up for Abazigal. We also upgrade our golem tome, leaving us at below 10k gold, but all other Cespenar recipes are entirely optional. This time, we don't lose any buffs and execute our gameplan - the GWWs take Abazigal down shortly after we return to his position following the wing buffet:
Next time: The Throne.
Ash (male dwarf priest of Lathander, Grond0); Whurr (male human undead hunter, Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1200529/#Comment_1200529
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1200827/#Comment_1200827
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1201160/#Comment_1201160
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1209435/#Comment_1209435
After the "chaos" of our last Trio update, it was back to smooth sailing for this MP pairing. Having killed the Shade Lord last time, the first port of call this session was to return to Umar Hills and collect Valygar's body on the way to reporting in to Minister Lloyd. Back in Athkatla, Whurr noticed an impatient individual waiting outside the Copper Coronet and negotiated a trade of a couple of points of reputation for some silver pantaloons. While on the way to grease the locks of the Planar Sphere with Valygar's body, Sansuki called for help. As both of us were immune to level drain, the vampires after him were no real threat and Daystar quickly sorted them out.
The Sir Sarles quest was next and we handed over the false illithium to the temple and collected the follow-up quest. While waiting for the contact in the Slums to turn up for that, we were tempted into having a look inside the Planar Sphere. The encounters there were generally straight-forward, with skeleton warriors occupying the more dangerous enemies like the murderous halflings and Tolgerias. One unusual wrinkle for us is that we had no +3 missile weapons to make dealing with the adamantite golems simple. Instead, Whurr used the Sewer Cloak to assume rat form and tanked them. Ash buffed himself, including using 2 instances of Boon of Lathander to push APR to 3, and the rat form only ran out just before the second of the big golems fell.
On the way to get the real illithium from Neb, we looted the trapped house in the Bridge District to get the berserk warrior - though this pairing doesn't really need that. Ash buffed up again in an attempt to kill Neb before he could go invisible and attacking from sanctuary successfully achieved that.
At this point Whurr decided to splash out some of our hard-earned funds on Azuredge, despite us being down to our last 150k of gold
We chose not to take ship immediately, but went to upgrade the Mace of Disruption to provide Ash with an alternative method of killing undead. The final action of the session was a trip to Watcher's Keep. The Crimson Dart was no longer much use to Whurr, now he had Azuredge, but he was pleased to collect the paladin's bracers there. Despite now having +3 ranged ability, Whurr fancied attacking the Guardian Golems in melee. They don't have the same physical resistance of adamantite goliems and lasted only moments. Before leaving, we attacked the first 2 statues to get Foebane, though that's unlikely to see any use.
Priest of Lathander 18, 79 HPs, 152 kills
Undead hunter 15, 149 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm; 10 from bracers), 399 kills, 3 deaths
I had to do a fresh install on my tablet, can I get a breakdown on what classes have not completed this challenge so I can give it another go?
TIA!
Stalker
Priest of Helm, Priest of Talos
Avenger
Abjurer, Conjurer, Diviner, Necromancer
We prepare a full array of buffs, including our remaining potions, before entering the throne. We have a ton of GWWs by now, and we're not afraid to use them. Mel's first incarnation is quickly taken out with those fighter HLAs - not much else is needed:
For the third battle, we have saved our spike traps. We haven't picked up too much of these, because I wanted Tari to have enough fighter HLAs for prolonged battles, but 4 are enough to guarantee a swift end to any Mel incarnation (we add in normal traps, just in case) - we have the magical swords to stave off any slayer shadows prepared, just in case. Those are not needed, though; We are free to prepare for the final pool and battle. First, Abiros takes the time to use wish (we got the scroll during the final Watcher's Keep battle and have memorized two instances). The first one is a dud, but we get the full rest with our second cast - nice!
Good luck to everyone in the community. I've already started a Priest of Talos run, but I'm not sure when I will start reporting on it.
Awesome, thanks guys. Does this list include weird dual classes like archer > cleric (IDK why that combo intrigues me)?
I was doing an avenger run a while back but got bored. It’s too bad, it’s a very good class.
I’ll return from vacation tomorrow. Maybe I’ll give a stalker a try, I just saw that YouTuber Daveorn ascended as a stalker so it’s definitely doable!
I just need to balance in my head the pros and cons of elf vs. half elf, as the former gets much better charm resistance, as well as a small bonus to hit with a bow and swords, and the other gets 9 more HP.
I’m also going to give Grond0’s old play style a try; that of only playing for an hour at a time.
This will definitely stop me from making dumb mistakes and also encourage me to update my progress, something I’m really terrible at doing.
Another run I’m considering is rebooting my minimum stat challenge. That was a lot of fun. I need to stop running multiple games because I’m never gonna finish this dang thing if I keep letting myself get distracted. LOL.