@Wise_Grimwald. Hard luck with Giles. Level 1 protection still applies, but it's never been foolproof and I wouldn't rely on it.
Noobering Firebead refers to talking to him about 30 times - he eventually gets fed up and pays you 300 gold to get you to go away (that goes back to vanilla).
@Grond0 Thanks for the info. I never heard about that one, and it is hardly something that you would try. Maesteg has almost got to level 4 by helping Mellicamp. Click on Maesteg009.jpg to view. To get there he had a fierce battle with some gnolls.
ToB started with Illasera being vorpalled almost immediately.
A planetar also joined in the fun at the end of the first Pocket plane challenge (I got up to level 27 at some point during that).
In Saradush a few last scrolls were purchased before sneaking through the prison to get to Gromnir - he didn't last long.
Working through some soldiers in the North Forest got me to level 28 before going to sort out some undead at the Forest of Mir.
Moving on to the Fire Temple I had some fun by using rat form for the first time and filling some fire giants full of cloudkills.
Most of the damage in the rest of the Temple was done by planetars sheltering behind mordy swords and I got up to level 29 in the lower temple and level 30 in the upper.
This time I remembered to go back to the Temple of Mir before going to confront Yaga-Shura again - improved alacrity and a couple of doses of skull trap sequencers making short work of him.
For the second pocket plane challenge my clone got lucky with his MR against a first use of a chain contingency (loaded with wiltings) followed by a torrent of skull traps and he just hung on long enough to beat up attacking summons as well. That meant I had to resort to running round inside a toxic field of mixed cloudkill, incendiary cloud and death fog to finish it off - providing me with my final level.
I had enough money already, so at the Oasis just ran straight through on the way to Amkethran. Moving on to Sendai's Enclave I chopped a woodcutter down to size to get entry and quickly moved on through. There were no problems until dealing with Sendai herself. I hadn't bothered setting up a project image to conserve summons and ran out of planetars for the real Sendai. I'd allowed that as I had intended to kill her by lowering resistance and using skull traps, but she appeared to have high resistance to magic damage and I failed to do enough damage to finish her off. That resulted in large numbers of summons appearing on the battlefield while Sendai used constant true sights. I counter-acted the latter with continual switching of the Staff of the Magi while using a couple of limited wishes to generate some reckless dweomers.
With those in hand I used a normally memorised death spell to deal with most of the summons
before using a dweomer to generate a planetar. Several breaches (more successful than this one)
supported the planetar in eventually taking her down.
Congrats on your progress Grond0 Maesteg reached level 4 by talking to Noober and went up 2 in reputation by talking to Oublek and a woman who needed a babysitter. Going south he was assaulted by Zargos Flintblade, a dwarf assassin who fled until Maesteg's barbarian rage had worn off. Sneaky tactic that, the sort that I might have used! However he died with the result that Maesteg acquired a +1 axe. Very useful!
Upon returning to Beregost, he returned a lost sword to the appropriately named Perdue, and managed to get Alanna's neighbour back into shape. As a result Maesteg is now a hero. He killed some spiders and gained the rewards from Landrin and whilst there aquired some pantaloons. He then decided to head south and started with Greywolf. Both were at the point of death and Maesteg took the risk of carrying on the fight only to lose.
I afterwards realised that with his low dexterity, she should have postponed this fight until he had the gauntlets of dexterity. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Cavan survived the caverns beneath Dragonspear Castle and marched onward. Not without difficulty, however:
Hephernaan and his backup proved to be pretty tough. Cavan wanted to run away, but Dynaheir had been stunned and Safana mazed... so he had to hold his ground until they came back to their senses. Fortunately, there were no casualties.
At parlay outside camp, Cavan contemplated helping Caelar free the lost souls from hell. Instead, he tried to warn her about Hephernaan. The conversation didn't get very far, though... and the result was crusaders assaulting our camp.
Cavan told the defenders to buck up. Viconia sighed in disgust. She walked out of the camp just before the assault... this time, probably for good.
The crusaders marched into camp, only to strike an immovable wall in Cavan and his soldiers. No casualties. The enemy died swiftly.
Cavan secured the courtyard at Dragonspear by defeating a winged creature, Ashatiel, in battle. One stunning dart pricked the creature through her stoneskins... and then all of her defenses were worth nothing.
Now he prepares to enter the keep proper.... next on Days of our SoD lives...
Go @Grond0! Almost there...hope you got some PfMW scrolls with you.
Entering the No-Reload challenge, Gares Bog, Cavalier. Weidu same as last time.
Had a roll of 91 to begin with.
Anyhow, to game. Took Imoen with me, did minor stuff round Beregost and in it, got to level 2 by delivering boots to Furlong. This proved a very good idea - I wanted to visit High Hedge to buy a Pro Acid scroll for ankhegs, and there this happened:
I hate gnolls. With their massive-damage halberds and extra critical chance, they're as lethal as they get in my install. I had Imoen use Wand of Lighting on them to avoid melee. I spent most of my potions in Ankheg farm, but it was worth of it; both Gares and Imoen got level 4 there.
Next was Droth for some critical hit protection. Wand of Fire did the trick on him, taking Shoal down as well.
I didn't fight the big ogre group there, but having used Mind protection potion from Candlkeep to avoid Droth's magics, I fought the 3 sirens there (cavalier isn't immune to charm until level 5 with KR).
Next nashkel - take Minsc - travel to Gnoll Stronghold/kill everyone on way for equipment/disband Dyna/pick up Branwen/do some more killing around the maps (Minsc also want criticals protection)
Pick up Neera & Dorn. I have "happy" patch from BGtweaks so Dorn won't complain about rep (fwiw, with IR rep doesn't affect prices so it's kind of irrelevant anyway); go to Durlag for some fast XP boost. Had huge problems with ghast; they paralyzed both Minsc & Dorn. I had to resort to some Wild Mage casting but all was fine.
In the guardian floor, dualed Imoen to mage (she hit level 6; I use revised XP tables so she progresses slower), a spider killed Branwen, I explored all of the area anyway and exited w/o fighting statues; I'll leave that for much later.
Next, Muta & basilisk - Imoen and Gares did the whole area themselves - Gares tanks while Imoen blasts the wands.
Took down Bassilus (Silence) and explored rest of the wilderness areas, did lighthouse etc. Still level 6 on everyone. A strange occurence happened vs Vampiric Wolf of Ulcaster - one of the undeads drank a potion of fortitude...
Finally for today, did Dorn's and Neera's quests. Dorn's was easy, while Neera's could have ended fairly badly - I don't know how this battle is w/o SCS, with it it's Cone of Cold galore.
We did find a scroll of Stoneskin on the mage, which made me very happy.
The Adventures of Kythran: Part 11 - Another Mine: Cloakwood Mines.
The party went through the Cloakwood. Fighting animals, druids, and Dryads until coming up to the mines itself.
The party found a group of mercenaries, and dispatched them with magic. Khalid cast Resist Fear on most of the party. While Dynaheir cast haste on most of the party as well.
Then, the party went down to the mine proper. Decending it, freeing the slaves of the mine, as well as killing bandits, and hobgoblins.
Finally, on the final level of the mine. A mage was at the bottom of it. He teleported around, and he hit Jaheira with a Lightning Bolt, which forced her to have to quaff an Elixir of Health. While Khalid cast Resist Fear, and Dynaheir cast haste. Then, Kythran put his bow away and took out his dual long swords, and helped Minsc hack at the mage, when he cast a hold spell on Jaheira. The mage was dead before he could strike at Jaheira anymore.
Note: Onwards to Baldur's Gate! From there? No idea.
@Aasim Branwen leaves after the first dungeon in SoD. She gives some warning that she is about to do so... still, I thought I'd just go find her in a tavern again or something. Alas.... she was gone for good. I was sad to see her go... and sad to lose the items she was wearing. Beware of fickle companions!
In other news, Cavan has
somehow ended up in the nine hells, thanks to that bad Hephernaan guy. Hephernaan also wiped all my buffs first... unfortunate. I spent a lot of time and money on green scrolls only to have him dispel the lot with one go.
Cavan is hoping he brought enough potions of fire resistance & some means of charm protection, or things are going to get ugly quick.
Next on Days of our SoD lives, we explore the heat and passion of the nether planes!
I decided to attempt to clear the three underdark caves (home of kuo-toas, beholders and illithids) before entering the drow city. While the kuo-toas themselves didn't really stand a chance against Luna's skeleton warriors, there's always the demon knight battle.
A full set of buffs later, and I had the party assume a defensive, ranged position, with an AoP-wearing Owain and some skeletons as tanks. Being immune to every symbol and staying away from enemy fireballs, the party killed one demon knight after the other:
With three great new items available, the beholder lair was next. I added protection from petrification to my usual buffs and used spell turning to protect Goibniu (via the book of many spells); The party charged and killed the first beholder:
The elder orb was killed as well. Luckily, both opponents didn't manage to use an anti magic ray before dying. Now, I started having Donar with the Shield of Balduran explore the caves while the party used their still active buffs to deal with another illithid group. For the second elder orb, Luna summoned skeleton warriors again (I don't want Donar to be affected by imprisonment, so he only provided ranged support):
The illithid city remained. After buffing with protection from evil 10' radius and chaotic commands, the party started killing all of the mind flayers. Skeleton warriors helped with the bigger groups, serving as a distraction:
I encountered no issues in this area. For the elder brain, the usual buffs were added. One of the brain golems kept chasing Luna around despite my attempts to have him change targets, but he was unable to kill her in time:
Go @Grond0! Almost there...hope you got some PfMW scrolls with you.
I'm fairly sure I've got one or two, but I'll be using more of my memorised spells for that purpose this time ... Wild mage {8} (update 7)
For the third challenge I used chain contingency to reduce the slayer's MR, then PfMW to allow me to bomb it with skull traps. However, that quickly induced a polymorph surge - requiring me to run round for quite a while until that effect faded and I could summon a planetar to help out.
For Draconis I used a project image to produce summons and send them to attack Draconis in human form (using farsight) while I stayed at the end of the area and buffed. That seemed to be timed perfectly and when Draconis appeared he was hit with a triple lower resistance contingency. However, despite having true sight active the attempt to target him with improved alacrity failed initially when he went invisible. After refreshing PfMW I tried casting improved alacrity again - only to get a sex change instead.
An attempted PW:blind was then wasted when Draconis went invisible again at exactly the wrong moment and a further attempt at alacrity failed to another surge. I did finally get it to work - but only in the instant that spell immunity ran out and Draconis breached me (forcing me to run immediately before a breath / melee combination followed me off). I made a final attempt to compete by attempting to throw a skull trap sequencer at him, but that surged as well - that battle really demonstrating the 'wild' in wild mage!
After resting in Amkethran and resetting spells I returned to find Draconis. This time he was more generous than in the previous run - starting a little way away and allowing me to cast protection from acid and spell immunity (abjuration) before he turned up.
A planetar then briefly occupied Draconis while I added PfMW and a chain contingency fired to lower the dragon's magic resistance. Improved alacrity was then followed by a skull trap bombardment. Draconis tried going invisible again during that, but it was too late this time and he slumped to the ground.
I didn't manage much progress with my wild mage yesterday, but we did get in a decent session of multi-player . The previous session was very smooth and that was also the case with much of this one, but there were a few lapses of concentration that could have been costly ...
The session started in Athkatla by going to forge the dragon scale armour. On the way to that we found Sansuki calling for help and consented to do so.
Then on the way back we ran into Parisa. Ozzy is still forbidden to cast spells in the city, but has items available to help out instead.
Valygar provided a posthumous service by allowing us into the Planar Sphere and we dealt with the halflings without trouble. The first potential problem occurred though when I allowed Ozzy to get too close to Toriac and he was caught in the fringes of a confusion spell by Necre. Fortunately Toriac has been using the Shield of Harmony to avoid most status affects at this stage and was able to deal with the situation.
Moments later though it was Toriac's turn to get into trouble when his intention to draw some golems out of hiding succeeded too well. A stone golem slowed him, resulting in him taking a lot of punishment in a short time and that was almost fatally added to when he ran over a gas trap.
Ozzy was able to intervene at that time, however and the golem had no chance to get through his stoneskins quickly. Lavok was struck down by our own golem while Ozzy looked on invisibly. The Tanar'ri then didn't last long against a buffed joint attack
and Tolgerias' defences were breached by a stream of MMMs. There was though another unexpected problem in the hot room when the noble efreeti there produced a clone and targeted Ozzy with a scorcher
- he then stayed well out of sight while Toriac dealt with the troublesome pair.
There were no concerns at the de'Arnise Hold where TorGal was dragged away from his companions and summarily dealt with (Toriac having used resist fear to avoid any nasty surprises).
It appeared to be Ozzy's birthday back in Athkatla when Toriac appeared with a nicely wrapped package that proved to be the Robe of Vecna. That was soon put to use in Windspear Hills - where Ozzy picked up some easy kills with fast-casting death spells. Everything seemed to be going pretty well there as Toriac sent some undead running (in vain) and various werewolves found that regeneration can only help so much. I think Conster targeted Toriac with a FoD, but he saved and the mage didn't manage anything else of concern.
Downstairs I was surprised how easily Firkraag died - his stoneskin was breached and his attacks failed to even get through Ozzy's first stoneskin in return.
Samia's group was also very clean,
but there was one final moment of concern when the Director appeared to have cast 2 ice storms rather than the expected one. On my screen it was quite clear that neither of those extended out of his room into the corridor, but on Gate's screen that wasn't the case and he had to give me firm instructions to move away more as Ozzy lingered long enough to be taken down to single figure HPs again
Ozzy, fighter 12 / mage 12, 84 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 378 kills (232 in BG1) Toriac, undead hunter 14, 148 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm, 10 from bracers), 320 kills (172 in BG1), 0 deaths (1 in BG1)
@Grond0 Well done against Draconis. "He who fights and runs away..." Ozzy definitely cut it fine there! @Blind_Visionary In SoD the enemies that look the worst aren't always the most dangerous. @Aasim Looking good after some scary moments. @Enuhal Well played.
If you remember, the party of a sorcerer, a dwarven defender, a priest of Tyr, a totemic druid and Xan defeated Davaeorn. In the Mines I lost my assassin, and because of the rules I had implemented I had to create a new character without experience.
So the first thing to do was to power a new assassin up a bit. I removed all the rest party members (a note - in the current version you have only 2 dialogue choices with custom characters: to let them stay in the party and to dismiss them. If you let them go they disappear. As a walkaround, I sent my characters into a building and only then dismissed them - so the dialogue didn't appear and I could take them back later).
So, Mortuus and Hades (the assassin) proceeded into the ankheg lair and kept resting there to get several levels for Hades. Mortuss didn't know Sleep but had the Wand of Sleep.
HP rolls were quite fortunate (Hades has 16 CON) : 8, 6, 6 and 7. This way Hades, while still having lower XP than the rest of the party, could more or less contribute to the party (the 5th level of a thief brings 3x backstabs). Mortuus also levelled up, getting 4 HPs and acquiring Invisibility, 10 radius as a new spell.
As the party had an access to Baldur's Gate, Hades got the Dexterity tome (his DEX became 19). So, while still being of the 5th level, the assassin now had 65 in Open Locks and 55 in Find Traps (70 and 60 under Xan's Luck spell respectively).
The party completed several quests in the city (A Bard's request, Petrine's Cat, The Captive Nymph, Basilisk on the Loose, Nadine and Euric, G'axir the Seer, a Ring for a Lady).
The fight against Ragefast was interesting because Xan removed his spell protections with Spell Thrust and Ragefast hit himself with his own Fireball. After that he had only 1 HP left, and Hades killed him with one hit of Varscona (Stoneskin prevented physical damage but Fireball helped here).
The fight against Desreta and Vay-ya went smoothly because Mortuus had Detect Invisibility learned and could reveal dangerous backstabber each time she went invisible.
Xan got a new level (2 HPs) and now could cast Stoneskin.
The party dealt with doppelgangers in both merchants' buildings.
The fight against Sunin was rather long but not dangerous because Poison from bolts blocked Sunin's casting at the start:
After numerous attempts Sunin failed his saving throw against Spook.
Mortuus didn't succeed in dispelling combat protections from Sunin (because of his higher level). But poisoned from multiple sources (Spirit Snake, Hades' bolts, Yahiko's Dagger of Venom), the mage died.
I tried to rest, and each time it got interrupted by a new ankheg. As soon as it was killed, I tried to rest again and again a new ankheg appeared. The ankheg bodies disappeared only when the rest attempt didn't fail.
JuliusBorisov said:I tried to rest, and each time it got interrupted by a new ankheg. As soon as it was killed, I tried to rest again and again a new ankheg appeared. The ankheg bodies disappeared only when the rest attempt didn't fail. @Aasim That is normal, especially when underground. If you have a bag of holding in your set-up, it is a good way of getting rich and very experienced quickly. If you really need to rest, go to the FAI or the Bridge into Baldur's Gate. You can get a good night's rest in peace at either of those places. Attacks whilst in transit are rare. I try not to over-use this method of getting wealth and experience as it feels a bit cheesy. I will sleep there if I really need to sleep, (Having run out of spells, or being tired) but not otherwise. In the case of JuliusBorisov's current game, it was a case of needs must, largely because of a self-imposed rule. If you take the shells to the Forge, put the shells on the ground, and only pick them up one at a time to sell them, otherwise you won't get what they are worth. Also don't leave a large time lag between sales or you will be told that they are too old to be used.
Edit
Do I take it that the devs already know that the Morningstar BLUN1D is not equippable by a fighter/cleric as it should be, as I have seen a number of posts regarding buggy clerics?
Got it. I use that tweak to disable rest spawns simply because sometimes I *need* to rest and the ammount of XP gained can be a bit too much (Beholder lair resting can spawn 3 gauths for 27K XP for example).
Anyhow, Gares Bog, 2nd update in BG1
Did I mention Neera dies often? She has so low HP that a single Acid Arrow casting kills her..
Stray arrow or how to get from 18HP to 0 in one second..
And ofc, Mine entrance battle. This was an interesting one. Both my protagonist and Dorn fell to Sleep (sleep is more powerful in SR, it affects evenn above 5th level). This led to front line collapsing, and chain-plated Minsc can't tank yet.
Branwen tastes the Ogre berserker hit and dies first.
Neera....
And Imoen...
Minsc held the group for few rounds left on sleep effect to vanish, killed both of their fighters and then succumbed to magics.
Revenge was as sweet as ever. Loosing all this party members required a 10 minutes "drop&stash in a cointainer while I raise the dead in the temple" game which I hate.
Davaeorn proved much less problematic with Boots of the North to somewhat counter his Cone of Cold castings; and died quickly - the bigest bang was his Sunfire.
@Aasim Revenge is indeed sweet. Grimwald is back with his party and is STORMING through the sword coast with his gnomes Cumulo and Gnimbus.
They firstly equipped Cumulo which left them with 1 gold piece. Gnimbus broke into a chest but was spotted and they had to pay that gold piece as a fine. They then emptied that and some other chests. Once again they were caught, but that guard was willing to take alternative payment. They dealt with the three assassins in Candlekeep with ease. Two of the the inhabitants also gave VERY warm goodbyes.
In Beregost Gnimbus practised opening locks thus increasing her experience. They then took revenge on some ogrillon.
Going north they proved themselves to be wimps by running away from an ogre.
After resting they took sweet revenge.
They picked up a couple of useful rings before slaying Tarnish.
Two of the spells on Tarnesh were useful to Gnimbus.
In Abazigal's Lair the salamanders were killed by missile fire. At that stage I checked my spells for a final time and noted that I'd still got protection from acid rather than protection from electricity memorised. That wasn't really a great problem as the protection could have been given in several other ways. However, I decided to use wish to restore spells in order to start the battle in tip-top condition - that was a bad mistake! I could have just gone back to the Pocket Plane and rested there, but I suppose I was thinking ahead to the battle at the Throne - where I was intending to use wish rests between battles - and decided to test it out.
In vanilla BG2 it's possible to use multiple chaos shields in sequencers to cast spells using Nahal's Reckless Dweomer with no possibility of a dangerous surge, but that's not possible in EE. At high levels surges out of combat are not normally dangerous, but there is one that potentially is - casting another spell of the same level. Spells that could definitely be fatal as a result of that at this stage of the game (casting from full health and not-disabled) are maze and imprisonment. I'm not sure about wail of the banshee, though even if that was counted as affecting the caster it's possible that a saving throw would still be valid against it. For maze and imprisonment, however, I don't think there's any defense as spell protections and magic resistance will be bypassed by effectively casting the spell on yourself. That means that casting 8th or 9th level spells is dangerous even when done out of combat. The chance of disaster is small, but in a no-reload context even small can be less than beautiful - and on this occasion the wheel of fate determined I needed to spend the rest of eternity in prison ...
The inquisitor has survived the siege of Dragonspear and resolved his conflict with the Shining Lady.
After finding himself in the first plane of the nine hells, Cavan dialed up his buffs to 11. (Having reached the XP cap, we figured it was time to start chugging potions and using green scrolls. It turned out we had more than enough stockpiled.)
Things were a little dicey buffing without Viconia. Fortunately, the party had purchased a bunch of mage scrolls that provided acceptable coverage.
Cavan followed Caelar and her last surviving lieutenants to the base of a basalt tower.... where Cavan gambled his soul on a riddle. (At first I thought I was gambling on my ability to survive the next battles... which I figured I was already doing in no-reload. Not a riddle...) But he guessed correctly and took a magical sword in hopes it might be useful.
At the top of the tower, Cavan joined Caelar in opposition to Hephernaan and his demonic master. The two decided to fight side-by-side.
Hephernaan proved to be much weaker in his demon form than as a mage. Perhaps that's because Corwin tagged him with a few "miscast magic" arrows at the start of the battle? In any case, he didn't get off any spells before going down.
Next Cavan turned his attention to the big demon. With his buffs, he was basically immune to the demon's attacks. He ignored the lesser demons and had everyone concentrate on the big ugly one... even when they were all engulfed in fire.
In the end, it was a lesser demon that lashed out with its spiky tail and accidentally finished the master off.
After a lengthy epilogue, Cavan was captured by the Exile and rendered unconscious.
Next stop: Athkatla.
(This is the first time I have entered BG2 in a no-reload...)
@Grond0 Sorry for that self-imprisonment. By the way, the surge, does it cast a spell you do or don't know? Because if it can only cast what you know, can you protect yourself by not scribing imprisonment and maze?
@Blind_Visionary Congrats on making it to BG 2 no-reload for the 1st time! Be careful! Good number of insta-death type stuff in BG 2 (petrification traps, imprisonment, finger of death, disintegrate, etc.)
That is a truly unfortunate way to go. Congrats on another astonishing run, Grond0... tragic, but astonishing!
Thanks Blind-Visionary, but if we're talking about good performances then I think your blind no-reload on SoD must top the lot (makes me want to have another go at that ...). Best of luck keeping things going in BG2.
@Grond0 Sorry for that self-imprisonment. By the way, the surge, does it cast a spell you do or don't know? Because if it can only cast what you know, can you protect yourself by not scribing imprisonment and maze?
Surges are taken from all spells of the level cast, not just those you know (I didn't actually know imprisonment).
Finished BG rather smoothly I guess. Iron Throne flunkies was a 2 floor battle - some delved downstairs, some stayed upstairs. They all died however. I feel better having equipped RoFA now (I didn't want to kill Joia, being a paladin and all...)
Candlekeep held no bad surprises either, even Neera survived all of it. Minsc had a close call vs Krystin & Slythe but managed to survive, even if barely.
Vs Dopes I took a different approach, focusing on dope mage first. Worked brilliantly - no Confusion casting:)
Both Belt & Liia survived.
Sarevok didn't go as planned, Angelo thwarted Minsc's hide & shoot tactic by Invisibility purge. With SR, this spell "ticks" like True seeing, preventing any further invisibility attempts.
Minsc retreats, while Angelo cast Imp.Haste and charges in front of his group, then proceeds to Breach Imoen.
Bad move, since neera use Paralyzation wand and holds him in place. Imoen uses MS wand to get some meatshields. We kill Angelo while the rest of Sarevok's goons come to get us. Diramid breaks formation, and we cut him down.
Next, Tazok dies. Semaj is held by Hold person and Imoen is taking pot shots at him; Sarevok cuts through summons. Things are looking bright...
In the end, a summoned Gnoll actually does him. Hahahah....critical hit.
Comments
Noobering Firebead refers to talking to him about 30 times - he eventually gets fed up and pays you 300 gold to get you to go away (that goes back to vanilla).
Maesteg has almost got to level 4 by helping Mellicamp.
ToB started with Illasera being vorpalled almost immediately.
In Saradush a few last scrolls were purchased before sneaking through the prison to get to Gromnir - he didn't last long.
Working through some soldiers in the North Forest got me to level 28 before going to sort out some undead at the Forest of Mir.
For the second pocket plane challenge my clone got lucky with his MR against a first use of a chain contingency (loaded with wiltings) followed by a torrent of skull traps and he just hung on long enough to beat up attacking summons as well. That meant I had to resort to running round inside a toxic field of mixed cloudkill, incendiary cloud and death fog to finish it off - providing me with my final level.
I had enough money already, so at the Oasis just ran straight through on the way to Amkethran. Moving on to Sendai's Enclave I chopped a woodcutter down to size to get entry and quickly moved on through. There were no problems until dealing with Sendai herself. I hadn't bothered setting up a project image to conserve summons and ran out of planetars for the real Sendai. I'd allowed that as I had intended to kill her by lowering resistance and using skull traps, but she appeared to have high resistance to magic damage and I failed to do enough damage to finish her off. That resulted in large numbers of summons appearing on the battlefield while Sendai used constant true sights. I counter-acted the latter with continual switching of the Staff of the Magi while using a couple of limited wishes to generate some reckless dweomers.
Maesteg reached level 4 by talking to Noober and went up 2 in reputation by talking to Oublek and a woman who needed a babysitter.
Going south he was assaulted by Zargos Flintblade, a dwarf assassin who fled until Maesteg's barbarian rage had worn off. Sneaky tactic that, the sort that I might have used!
However he died with the result that Maesteg acquired a +1 axe. Very useful!
Upon returning to Beregost, he returned a lost sword to the appropriately named Perdue, and managed to get Alanna's neighbour back into shape. As a result Maesteg is now a hero.
He killed some spiders and gained the rewards from Landrin and whilst there aquired some pantaloons.
He then decided to head south and started with Greywolf.
Both were at the point of death and Maesteg took the risk of carrying on the fight only to lose.
I afterwards realised that with his low dexterity, she should have postponed this fight until he had the gauntlets of dexterity. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Hephernaan and his backup proved to be pretty tough. Cavan wanted to run away, but Dynaheir had been stunned and Safana mazed... so he had to hold his ground until they came back to their senses. Fortunately, there were no casualties.
At parlay outside camp, Cavan contemplated helping Caelar free the lost souls from hell. Instead, he tried to warn her about Hephernaan. The conversation didn't get very far, though... and the result was crusaders assaulting our camp.
Cavan told the defenders to buck up. Viconia sighed in disgust. She walked out of the camp just before the assault... this time, probably for good.
The crusaders marched into camp, only to strike an immovable wall in Cavan and his soldiers. No casualties. The enemy died swiftly.
Cavan secured the courtyard at Dragonspear by defeating a winged creature, Ashatiel, in battle. One stunning dart pricked the creature through her stoneskins... and then all of her defenses were worth nothing.
Now he prepares to enter the keep proper.... next on Days of our SoD lives...
Entering the No-Reload challenge, Gares Bog, Cavalier. Weidu same as last time.
Had a roll of 91 to begin with.
Anyhow, to game. Took Imoen with me, did minor stuff round Beregost and in it, got to level 2 by delivering boots to Furlong. This proved a very good idea - I wanted to visit High Hedge to buy a Pro Acid scroll for ankhegs, and there this happened:
I hate gnolls. With their massive-damage halberds and extra critical chance, they're as lethal as they get in my install. I had Imoen use Wand of Lighting on them to avoid melee.
I spent most of my potions in Ankheg farm, but it was worth of it; both Gares and Imoen got level 4 there.
Next was Droth for some critical hit protection. Wand of Fire did the trick on him, taking Shoal down as well.
I didn't fight the big ogre group there, but having used Mind protection potion from Candlkeep to avoid Droth's magics, I fought the 3 sirens there (cavalier isn't immune to charm until level 5 with KR).
Next nashkel - take Minsc - travel to Gnoll Stronghold/kill everyone on way for equipment/disband Dyna/pick up Branwen/do some more killing around the maps (Minsc also want criticals protection)
Pick up Neera & Dorn. I have "happy" patch from BGtweaks so Dorn won't complain about rep (fwiw, with IR rep doesn't affect prices so it's kind of irrelevant anyway); go to Durlag for some fast XP boost. Had huge problems with ghast; they paralyzed both Minsc & Dorn. I had to resort to some Wild Mage casting but all was fine.
In the guardian floor, dualed Imoen to mage (she hit level 6; I use revised XP tables so she progresses slower), a spider killed Branwen, I explored all of the area anyway and exited w/o fighting statues; I'll leave that for much later.
Next, Muta & basilisk - Imoen and Gares did the whole area themselves - Gares tanks while Imoen blasts the wands.
Took down Bassilus (Silence) and explored rest of the wilderness areas, did lighthouse etc.
Still level 6 on everyone. A strange occurence happened vs Vampiric Wolf of Ulcaster - one of the undeads drank a potion of fortitude...
Finally for today, did Dorn's and Neera's quests. Dorn's was easy, while Neera's could have ended fairly badly - I don't know how this battle is w/o SCS, with it it's Cone of Cold galore.
We did find a scroll of Stoneskin on the mage, which made me very happy.
Is Branwen available in SoD?
The party went through the Cloakwood. Fighting animals, druids, and Dryads until coming up to the mines itself.
The party found a group of mercenaries, and dispatched them with magic. Khalid cast Resist Fear on most of the party. While Dynaheir cast haste on most of the party as well.
Then, the party went down to the mine proper. Decending it, freeing the slaves of the mine, as well as killing bandits, and hobgoblins.
Finally, on the final level of the mine. A mage was at the bottom of it. He teleported around, and he hit Jaheira with a Lightning Bolt, which forced her to have to quaff an Elixir of Health. While Khalid cast Resist Fear, and Dynaheir cast haste. Then, Kythran put his bow away and took out his dual long swords, and helped Minsc hack at the mage, when he cast a hold spell on Jaheira. The mage was dead before he could strike at Jaheira anymore.
Note: Onwards to Baldur's Gate! From there? No idea.
Branwen leaves after the first dungeon in SoD. She gives some warning that she is about to do so... still, I thought I'd just go find her in a tavern again or something. Alas.... she was gone for good. I was sad to see her go... and sad to lose the items she was wearing. Beware of fickle companions!
In other news, Cavan has
somehow ended up in the nine hells, thanks to that bad Hephernaan guy. Hephernaan also wiped all my buffs first... unfortunate. I spent a lot of time and money on green scrolls only to have him dispel the lot with one go.
Cavan is hoping he brought enough potions of fire resistance & some means of charm protection, or things are going to get ugly quick.
Next on Days of our SoD lives, we explore the heat and passion of the nether planes!
I decided to attempt to clear the three underdark caves (home of kuo-toas, beholders and illithids) before entering the drow city. While the kuo-toas themselves didn't really stand a chance against Luna's skeleton warriors, there's always the demon knight battle.
A full set of buffs later, and I had the party assume a defensive, ranged position, with an AoP-wearing Owain and some skeletons as tanks. Being immune to every symbol and staying away from enemy fireballs, the party killed one demon knight after the other:
With three great new items available, the beholder lair was next. I added protection from petrification to my usual buffs and used spell turning to protect Goibniu (via the book of many spells); The party charged and killed the first beholder:
The elder orb was killed as well. Luckily, both opponents didn't manage to use an anti magic ray before dying. Now, I started having Donar with the Shield of Balduran explore the caves while the party used their still active buffs to deal with another illithid group. For the second elder orb, Luna summoned skeleton warriors again (I don't want Donar to be affected by imprisonment, so he only provided ranged support):
The illithid city remained. After buffing with protection from evil 10' radius and chaotic commands, the party started killing all of the mind flayers. Skeleton warriors helped with the bigger groups, serving as a distraction:
I encountered no issues in this area. For the elder brain, the usual buffs were added. One of the brain golems kept chasing Luna around despite my attempts to have him change targets, but he was unable to kill her in time:
Ust'Natha awaits!
Enuhal
Wild mage {8} (update 7)
For the third challenge I used chain contingency to reduce the slayer's MR, then PfMW to allow me to bomb it with skull traps. However, that quickly induced a polymorph surge - requiring me to run round for quite a while until that effect faded and I could summon a planetar to help out.
For Draconis I used a project image to produce summons and send them to attack Draconis in human form (using farsight) while I stayed at the end of the area and buffed. That seemed to be timed perfectly and when Draconis appeared he was hit with a triple lower resistance contingency. However, despite having true sight active the attempt to target him with improved alacrity failed initially when he went invisible. After refreshing PfMW I tried casting improved alacrity again - only to get a sex change instead.
After resting in Amkethran and resetting spells I returned to find Draconis. This time he was more generous than in the previous run - starting a little way away and allowing me to cast protection from acid and spell immunity (abjuration) before he turned up.
Ozzy, elf fighter/mage (Grond0) & Toriac, human undead hunter (Gate70)
I didn't manage much progress with my wild mage yesterday, but we did get in a decent session of multi-player
The session started in Athkatla by going to forge the dragon scale armour. On the way to that we found Sansuki calling for help and consented to do so.
Valygar provided a posthumous service by allowing us into the Planar Sphere and we dealt with the halflings without trouble. The first potential problem occurred though when I allowed Ozzy to get too close to Toriac and he was caught in the fringes of a confusion spell by Necre. Fortunately Toriac has been using the Shield of Harmony to avoid most status affects at this stage and was able to deal with the situation.
There were no concerns at the de'Arnise Hold where TorGal was dragged away from his companions and summarily dealt with (Toriac having used resist fear to avoid any nasty surprises).
It appeared to be Ozzy's birthday back in Athkatla when Toriac appeared with a nicely wrapped package that proved to be the Robe of Vecna. That was soon put to use in Windspear Hills - where Ozzy picked up some easy kills with fast-casting death spells. Everything seemed to be going pretty well there as Toriac sent some undead running (in vain) and various werewolves found that regeneration can only help so much. I think Conster targeted Toriac with a FoD, but he saved and the mage didn't manage anything else of concern.
Ozzy, fighter 12 / mage 12, 84 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 378 kills (232 in BG1)
Toriac, undead hunter 14, 148 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm, 10 from bracers), 320 kills (172 in BG1), 0 deaths (1 in BG1)
Ozzy definitely cut it fine there!
@Blind_Visionary In SoD the enemies that look the worst aren't always the most dangerous.
@Aasim Looking good after some scary moments.
@Enuhal Well played.
Mortuus, the Elven Sorcerer (12th BG1 update)
If you remember, the party of a sorcerer, a dwarven defender, a priest of Tyr, a totemic druid and Xan defeated Davaeorn. In the Mines I lost my assassin, and because of the rules I had implemented I had to create a new character without experience.
So the first thing to do was to power a new assassin up a bit. I removed all the rest party members (a note - in the current version you have only 2 dialogue choices with custom characters: to let them stay in the party and to dismiss them. If you let them go they disappear. As a walkaround, I sent my characters into a building and only then dismissed them - so the dialogue didn't appear and I could take them back later).
So, Mortuus and Hades (the assassin) proceeded into the ankheg lair and kept resting there to get several levels for Hades. Mortuss didn't know Sleep but had the Wand of Sleep.
HP rolls were quite fortunate (Hades has 16 CON) : 8, 6, 6 and 7. This way Hades, while still having lower XP than the rest of the party, could more or less contribute to the party (the 5th level of a thief brings 3x backstabs). Mortuus also levelled up, getting 4 HPs and acquiring Invisibility, 10 radius as a new spell.
As the party had an access to Baldur's Gate, Hades got the Dexterity tome (his DEX became 19). So, while still being of the 5th level, the assassin now had 65 in Open Locks and 55 in Find Traps (70 and 60 under Xan's Luck spell respectively).
The party completed several quests in the city (A Bard's request, Petrine's Cat, The Captive Nymph, Basilisk on the Loose, Nadine and Euric, G'axir the Seer, a Ring for a Lady).
The fight against Ragefast was interesting because Xan removed his spell protections with Spell Thrust and Ragefast hit himself with his own Fireball. After that he had only 1 HP left, and Hades killed him with one hit of Varscona (Stoneskin prevented physical damage but Fireball helped here).
The fight against Desreta and Vay-ya went smoothly because Mortuus had Detect Invisibility learned and could reveal dangerous backstabber each time she went invisible.
Xan got a new level (2 HPs) and now could cast Stoneskin.
The party dealt with doppelgangers in both merchants' buildings.
The fight against Sunin was rather long but not dangerous because Poison from bolts blocked Sunin's casting at the start:
After numerous attempts Sunin failed his saving throw against Spook.
Mortuus didn't succeed in dispelling combat protections from Sunin (because of his higher level). But poisoned from multiple sources (Spirit Snake, Hades' bolts, Yahiko's Dagger of Venom), the mage died.
Mortuus, sorcerer, 73681 XP, lvl 7, 38 hps
Woden, dwarven defender, 63322 XP, lvl 6, 64 hps
Uzume, priest of Tyr, 63151 XP, lvl 7, 36 hps
Yahiko, totemic druid, 62917 XP, lvl 8, 59 hps
Xan, enchanter, 63652 XP, lvl 7, 22 hps
Hades, assassin, 17847 XP, lvl 5, 35 hps
How do you have so many ankhegs in that screenshot? Did you round them up?
@Aasim
That is normal, especially when underground. If you have a bag of holding in your set-up, it is a good way of getting rich and very experienced quickly. If you really need to rest, go to the FAI or the Bridge into Baldur's Gate. You can get a good night's rest in peace at either of those places. Attacks whilst in transit are rare.
I try not to over-use this method of getting wealth and experience as it feels a bit cheesy. I will sleep there if I really need to sleep, (Having run out of spells, or being tired) but not otherwise.
In the case of JuliusBorisov's current game, it was a case of needs must, largely because of a self-imposed rule.
If you take the shells to the Forge, put the shells on the ground, and only pick them up one at a time to sell them, otherwise you won't get what they are worth.
Also don't leave a large time lag between sales or you will be told that they are too old to be used.
Edit
Do I take it that the devs already know that the Morningstar BLUN1D is not equippable by a fighter/cleric as it should be, as I have seen a number of posts regarding buggy clerics?Anyhow, Gares Bog, 2nd update in BG1
Did I mention Neera dies often? She has so low HP that a single Acid Arrow casting kills her..
Stray arrow or how to get from 18HP to 0 in one second..
And ofc, Mine entrance battle. This was an interesting one. Both my protagonist and Dorn fell to Sleep (sleep is more powerful in SR, it affects evenn above 5th level). This led to front line collapsing, and chain-plated Minsc can't tank yet.
Branwen tastes the Ogre berserker hit and dies first.
Neera....
And Imoen...
Minsc held the group for few rounds left on sleep effect to vanish, killed both of their fighters and then succumbed to magics.
Revenge was as sweet as ever. Loosing all this party members required a 10 minutes "drop&stash in a cointainer while I raise the dead in the temple" game which I hate.
Davaeorn proved much less problematic with Boots of the North to somewhat counter his Cone of Cold castings; and died quickly - the bigest bang was his Sunfire.
Off to BG.
Grimwald is back with his party and is STORMING through the sword coast with his gnomes Cumulo and Gnimbus.
Gnimbus broke into a chest but was spotted and they had to pay that gold piece as a fine. They then emptied that and some other chests. Once again they were caught, but that guard was willing to take alternative payment.
They dealt with the three assassins in Candlekeep with ease. Two of the the inhabitants also gave VERY warm goodbyes.
In Beregost Gnimbus practised opening locks thus increasing her experience.
They then took revenge on some ogrillon.
Going north they proved themselves to be wimps by running away from an ogre.
After resting they took sweet revenge.
Two of the spells on Tarnesh were useful to Gnimbus.
In Abazigal's Lair the salamanders were killed by missile fire. At that stage I checked my spells for a final time and noted that I'd still got protection from acid rather than protection from electricity memorised. That wasn't really a great problem as the protection could have been given in several other ways. However, I decided to use wish to restore spells in order to start the battle in tip-top condition - that was a bad mistake! I could have just gone back to the Pocket Plane and rested there, but I suppose I was thinking ahead to the battle at the Throne - where I was intending to use wish rests between battles - and decided to test it out.
In vanilla BG2 it's possible to use multiple chaos shields in sequencers to cast spells using Nahal's Reckless Dweomer with no possibility of a dangerous surge, but that's not possible in EE. At high levels surges out of combat are not normally dangerous, but there is one that potentially is - casting another spell of the same level. Spells that could definitely be fatal as a result of that at this stage of the game (casting from full health and not-disabled) are maze and imprisonment. I'm not sure about wail of the banshee, though even if that was counted as affecting the caster it's possible that a saving throw would still be valid against it. For maze and imprisonment, however, I don't think there's any defense as spell protections and magic resistance will be bypassed by effectively casting the spell on yourself. That means that casting 8th or 9th level spells is dangerous even when done out of combat. The chance of disaster is small, but in a no-reload context even small can be less than beautiful - and on this occasion the wheel of fate determined I needed to spend the rest of eternity in prison ...
The inquisitor has survived the siege of Dragonspear and resolved his conflict with the Shining Lady.
After finding himself in the first plane of the nine hells, Cavan dialed up his buffs to 11. (Having reached the XP cap, we figured it was time to start chugging potions and using green scrolls. It turned out we had more than enough stockpiled.)
Things were a little dicey buffing without Viconia. Fortunately, the party had purchased a bunch of mage scrolls that provided acceptable coverage.
Cavan followed Caelar and her last surviving lieutenants to the base of a basalt tower.... where Cavan gambled his soul on a riddle. (At first I thought I was gambling on my ability to survive the next battles... which I figured I was already doing in no-reload. Not a riddle...) But he guessed correctly and took a magical sword in hopes it might be useful.
At the top of the tower, Cavan joined Caelar in opposition to Hephernaan and his demonic master. The two decided to fight side-by-side.
Hephernaan proved to be much weaker in his demon form than as a mage. Perhaps that's because Corwin tagged him with a few "miscast magic" arrows at the start of the battle? In any case, he didn't get off any spells before going down.
Next Cavan turned his attention to the big demon. With his buffs, he was basically immune to the demon's attacks. He ignored the lesser demons and had everyone concentrate on the big ugly one... even when they were all engulfed in fire.
In the end, it was a lesser demon that lashed out with its spiky tail and accidentally finished the master off.
After a lengthy epilogue, Cavan was captured by the Exile and rendered unconscious.
Next stop: Athkatla.
(This is the first time I have entered BG2 in a no-reload...)
Finished BG rather smoothly I guess. Iron Throne flunkies was a 2 floor battle - some delved downstairs, some stayed upstairs. They all died however. I feel better having equipped RoFA now (I didn't want to kill Joia, being a paladin and all...)
Candlekeep held no bad surprises either, even Neera survived all of it. Minsc had a close call vs Krystin & Slythe but managed to survive, even if barely.
Vs Dopes I took a different approach, focusing on dope mage first. Worked brilliantly - no Confusion casting:)
Both Belt & Liia survived.
Sarevok didn't go as planned, Angelo thwarted Minsc's hide & shoot tactic by Invisibility purge. With SR, this spell "ticks" like True seeing, preventing any further invisibility attempts.
Minsc retreats, while Angelo cast Imp.Haste and charges in front of his group, then proceeds to Breach Imoen.
Bad move, since neera use Paralyzation wand and holds him in place. Imoen uses MS wand to get some meatshields. We kill Angelo while the rest of Sarevok's goons come to get us. Diramid breaks formation, and we cut him down.
Next, Tazok dies. Semaj is held by Hold person and Imoen is taking pot shots at him; Sarevok cuts through summons.
Things are looking bright...
In the end, a summoned Gnoll actually does him. Hahahah....critical hit.
Off to SoD, bit smarter than last time.