Thanks @Grond0 , that's helpful. I will have to be even more careful it seems during my city meanderings, e.g. my thief will travel with detect illusions on and holding a melee weapon. I recall random ambushes in the docks, but not in the slums. Play and learn it seems!
For number 47 I was taking more risks in BG1 and could easily have died on a couple of occasions - but didn't . However, I kept pushing my luck and eventually that ran out just before leaving for Spellhold. One problem I'd had was that Kangaxx's transformation didn't work properly and, as I normally only reload for game-ending bugs, that meant I didn't have the Ring of Gaxx. My saving throw of -1 vs spells should have meant I was more cautious about getting involved in fights, but I couldn't resist trying to add my small contribution to a planetar against the illithid in the sewers. I wasn't using any protections and was thus vulnerable to domination from the ulitharids ...
For attempt 48 I was playing through BG1 under rules that I could only use scrolls I'd found. That meant spell selection was rather patchy, but I did eventually learn protection from petrification and, despite already being at the level cap, couldn't resist hunting basilisks. I killed 3 of the basilisks on the roof at Durlag's Tower before deciding I should rest to make the last one 'easier'. I remembered that I hadn't recast PfP just as I came into sight of the beast ...
Number 49 began at a bad time when I'd just died in another game and decided I could squeeze in a bit of play on this after more than a month of doing nothing. In fact I was able to squeeze in an entire run - I didn't take care to do early area transitions at the right time of day and died in a skeleton archer ambush on the way back from killing Shoal. Not content with that I compounded things by immediately starting again and this time attacked Tarnesh early on without protection - I successfully killed him (if success includes dying immediately afterwards to a flight of just-launched magic missiles ). I really must make sure I'm in the right mood next time and have a serious go at finishing the mage class off. The start position was generated in the game prior to SoD being released and with another patch now out in beta I could do with clearing the decks of the oldest starts.
The 51st attempt was slightly better, but I was still unable to stop myself taking risks and that eventually proved fatal. I was at the level cap when ambushed by the amazons and they were quickly webbed and then cloud-killed. However, by the time they died they'd summoned a skeleton and the cleric had sent a hold person my way. I had the opportunity to run, but had only picked up the equipment of 3 of the 4 and got greedy going for the last lot - and was held ... {Edit: re-reading this some time later it appears that I accidentally loaded the game in one of my modded installations - this challenge should be played in the unmodded game where the amazons don't stage ambushes ...}
The 52nd has seen the usual problem of gilding the lily by doing unnecessary things in difficult ways. However, I have at least got past Sarevok this time. And SoA is out of the way as well. The availability of powerful summons and lack of a level cap makes that pretty easy for a solo mage (if you're able to maintain concentration and avoid risks - and I did that reasonably well this time). Regrettably though, once more I failed in ToB - this time on the second Pocket Plane challenge. My clone survived a barrage of 9 skull traps, 2 incendiary clouds and 2 wiltings among other things and started chasing me. A slight movement error allowed him to get an attack in - dispelling both my stoneskin and fire protection and narrowing the area in which I could run. I took an oil of speed to make it easier to stay away from him, but immediately after that must have clicked on an impassable bit of terrain as I failed to move - resulting in being dispelled again. I tried once more to move, but again nothing happened - other than a final blow.
It took me 53 attempts to succeed with a wizard slayer dualling to thief, so this is my last chance to avoid setting a new record high. Luck was with me in BG1 - in particular when I forgot I'd taken the ring of free action off while running Larze round in a web. The ogre hit twice and was taking his club back for a third and fatal blow when I broke free and was able to take a potion of invisibility before he launched the attack.
And I didn't survive long in BG2. In going after the Cowled Wizards I'd forgotten to memorise the appropriate spells, but decided to attack the first group anyway. Not surprisingly I got PW:stunned. That would have been only for 1d4 rounds and several rounds passed while they failed to finish me off - a number of spells being interrupted by a cloudkill. I thought I must get free any moment, but then another PW:stun hit and the killing spells quickly followed.
A 54th attempt once more dismisses Sarevok. Let's see if I can restrain my tendency to take risks this time ... Getting closer as Irenicus fails to stay out of hell. At the moment I feel minded to be cautious in ToB and try and make sure of a victory, but of course that's always subject to change! Sigh. Once more the mage failed at the final hurdle, though it wasn't totally my fault this time. The aim was to keep resources up by using an endless spells strategy and that seemed to be working fine as Mel's first 2 incarnations fell. However, after that I tried again to refresh spells by using a simmy to attack with a black blade of disaster - only to find the simmy disappearing after it hit. That happened 5 times I think and I also lost extra resources on a couple of those occasions when trying to get a new simmy only to be told that the original was still active (as if it had been mazed or imprisoned). That drained my ability to recharge spells so I was trying to conserve resources for the 3rd incarnation, but suffered an instant death there from one of her missiles (I think as a result of switching equipment round that had pushed death saving throw up to 3).
After a few weeks of doing other things I'm trying once more to finally finish this class off and Sarevok has just gone down hard. Another failure, but again not really my fault. In Trademeet I tried to clear the tomb and clicked to enter it, expecting that the Mayor would talk to me first. However, he proved to be a bit slow to open the conversation and I got inside before the conversation triggered. At that stage as he couldn't see me I was stuck in a cut-scene in which I could do nothing - but the enemies could still attack me ...
Another month goes by and I finally started a 56th attempt. BG1 is complete, though not without the odd bit of trouble. Probably the nearest thing was being targeted with a dire charm by a sirine when unprotected. Most of the time recently I've been playing LoB in an SCS installation and differences between installations can cause problems (with SCS, sirines don't continue casting if you move out of sight). Rather ironically a pretty smooth ride through SoA ended at Spellhold due to my lack of game knowledge. I'd seen someone else posting that prior to the fight with Irenicus you could bring him to near death. Although the fight is easy anyway I decided to do that and chucked an incendiary cloud in to him. However, I didn't shut the door afterwards - not realizing that he would emerge and script-kill me for attacking him at the wrong time .
Five or six more weeks and I thought it was time to have a 57th go at this. BG1 is once more complete, so let's see if I can avoid mistakes in BG2 this time. SoA is done. Can I finally get through ToB as well? And the answer is no . Once more I got to the Throne without any real trouble, but died there very quickly. On entry I summoned a planetar to attack and followed up a chain contingency triple pierce shield with a PW: blind on Mel. I probably should have moved on to skull traps immediately, but was in the middle of casting simulacrum when Mel summoned a death tyrant, so couldn't finish it off immediately. The planetar attacked it, but it was hanging on at near death when it first prevented any casting and then threw in a death ray. My save vs death was only 2, but I didn't switch equipment round to ensure saving against that ...
A few more weeks and I wasn't sure what to play, so decided to have another go at this. I wasn't concentrating though and let an ogre berserker get just too close in Shoal's area.
Four months later and a 59th attempt didn't do too much better. I decided to take a small risk by attacking the ankheg near Tenya at 5th level, rather than just dodging round it as I hadn't bought invisibility yet. I pre-cast 2 lots of stinking cloud on top of it before showing myself and immediately casting sleep. Nearly all the time that will take effect before the ankheg gets an attack in. On this occasion, however, while both the sleep and the stinking cloud rendered it unconscious, it got a good initiative roll and managed an attack just as it fell over - and that was a critical hit ...
A 60th was started the next day, but again was a poor attempt. I was nearing the XP cap in BG1 when going to sort the sirines. I used stinking cloud and skull traps to attack and thought that all of them were in the cloud when the text showed 3 lots of damage. However, that must have been the result of one of them failing a saving throw and taking 2 lots of damage as, when I moved forward slightly, I didn't notice one of the sirines well to the side casting dire charm at me ...
A year or so later and I finally got around to updating my save to v2.5. That didn't provide me with much luck though - hitting a rare skeleton archer ambush on the way back from Shoal's area and being shot down.
A 62nd attempt came immediately after I finally got another success with a dwarven defender. I was hoping that could inspire a winning streak, but I came unstuck early on against Mutamin after killing all his basilisks. I tried to blind him inside a stinking cloud, but failed with 7 attempts at that before he surprisingly came out after me. He didn't waste time buffing, but immediately cast horror and that got to me just before my attempted invisibility could activate - Mutamin then finished me off with Acid Arrows.
Trying again the next day I took quite a few risks in BGEE, but have this time at least got past Sarevok. I didn't get far in SoD though. I'd buffed a little against the Neothelid, so had spell saving throws comfortably negative to protect against being charmed. It appears though that its control body hold person effect does not use a spell saving throw ...
Another 9 months and I decided it was time to pick up this character - the oldest one still going. I gave the game some decent chances to kill me in BG1, but it was Sarevok that eventually found himself in a sticky situation.
The risks eventually caught up with me at the Crusader Camp invasion. For the third of those I was under-prepared and didn't finish the enemies off quickly - resulting in them breaking through and triggering the remaining invasion. I got killed shortly afterwards before the 4th wave arrived though - I'm not sure how as I only saw "death" on the battle text.
A month later and I tried a 65th attempt. Although I started off playing very safely, as tends to be the case I couldn't resist starting to take more risks over time. In the final BG1 fight I tried using a skull trap scroll on Semaj without any buffing and despite knowing that would bring me into his sight - a domination made me pay for that. The run was recorded on the no-reload thread.
Seven more months and I thought it was about time for another go at this one. I started off with the intention of trying to avoid any damage, but was hit by a dart almost immediately in a travel ambush. I therefore didn't bother being too careful, but at least made it past Sarevok this time - finishing him off with a first use of a minor sequencer.
Most of SoD was done without hassle, though I had to do extra work at Bridgefort when not killing Vichand quite quickly enough and turning the camp hostile. The final battle with Belhifet though was closer than I would have liked. I took 19 restoration scrolls into the combat and used 17 of them to keep Caelar going. A significant factor in that was I had failed to get a single hit - but eventually found the critical required with the final blow of the contest .
Right, Jon is down as well to end the longest of the BG instalments. For a change I decided not to invest in any temple donations early on - but as usual refused to buy almost anything until reputation hit 20. That meant I was short of equipment until rescuing some illithid slaves in the Underdark, but that doesn't make too much difference to a mage. This character has got to Melissan a number of times and failed, but hopefully that will be about to change.
And finally, after a number of failed attempts at Mel, I managed to maintain patience and concentration long enough to finish her off this time as, blinded and helpless, she was unable to prevent a rain of skull traps ...
Afterthoughts This is another strong class and really shouldn't have taken too many attempts - as demonstrated by the relative ease I was able to get to Melissan with it. The mage has loads of different strategies that can work well, e.g.: - distance attacks with MMMs and energy blades - melee with mirrors, stoneskin, PfMW etc - area damage with fireballs, cloudkills, incendiary clouds etc - sneak attacks with invisibility, mislead, SotM etc - direct damage with magic missiles, flame arrows etc - crowd control with web, cloudkill etc - save or die with hold person, feeblemind, hold monster etc - save or really die with finger of death, wail of the banshee etc - summons with wand, skeleton warriors, planetars etc - self-alteration with polymorph self and shapechange - persecute the helpless with timestop I did little or no use of death spells, polymorph and timestop, but used a mix of other tactics - though summons and area damage were probably the most common.
Shapeshifter After yet again failing at the Throne with a mage I decided to console myself by generating another new class. I selected that randomly and got a shapeshifter - I haven't played one of those for quite a while, so I'm happy with that. He's just had a pretty comfortable run through BG - here are his stats and equipment on arrival in the SoD prologue.
Thanks to the impressive melee abilities (at least in BG1) of the shapeshifter and the range of tactics available from nymphs, there were very few resources used in the run - so there was plenty of money to fully charge wands, necklaces etc in case there's a need for more assistance in SoD. I haven't completed that yet in any of these long-life runs, but have been through it a few times now in other formats so it should be a realistic possibility to make further progress. A decent first effort couldn't quite make it past SoD when I ballsed up the fight with Belhifet. I had intended to try and Harm him, but forgot to memorize the spell . I still thought I had a reasonable chance though using Bullets of Darkness and bumped strength up to 25 with the violet potion to use those. However, after only a few hits for some reason that strength disappeared - I presume due to some sort of bug given this was well into the fight and there was no indication that dispel magic had been used (and some other potion buffs were unaffected). The lack of strength bonus made a huge difference and I was slow to remember that I had bought some Champion's Strength scrolls which would partially have compensated. Belhifet was taken down to a low of about 130 HPs, but once I had to switch to staff I failed to even keep pace with his regeneration. I still had a fair amount of defensive resources left, but with Belhifet back up to nearly 250 HPs I closed the game rather than suffer death myself.
A second attempt has also made it into SoD, though not without a bit of trouble. At the palace I forgot to get rid of the nymph domination spells - resulting in the Flaming Fist and Belt all going hostile. After killing the last of the dopplegangers I was trying to charm Belt, when to my surprise he launched into his standard conversation anyway . I didn't use much in the way of resources last run, so haven't bothered taking so much through this time. I have though made a couple of changes aimed at giving more options against Belhifet - picking up Drizzt's sword and the Ring of Energy from the Red Wizards. The former can be used as a dual weapon while shapechanged without the normal THAC0 penalties and the latter should allow some extra damage to be done while Belhifet's magic resistance is lowered if Harm fails. Restarting this run after a couple of weeks doing other things I made my way through to the Underground River entrance before a lack of concentration proved costly. I had killed both mages, but lost most of my standard summons in the process and decided to try hit and run attacks on the few remaining guards. They still hit pretty hard though and my 77 HPs were disappearing rapidly, so I tried to retreat. Unfortunately though the movement order didn't take and I was a bit slow to react - by the time I tried again to move I was about to die.
Sixth months later and I thought it was about time to try this again. Sarevok is down, so let's see if I can get past SoD at the third attempt. And it proved third time lucky. Essentially I relied on Caelar in the final battle with Belhifet - I don't allow controlling her directly, but kept her going with restoration scrolls. I did though land a few blows myself by wielding Drizzt's scimitar in the off-hand while transformed and one of those got the kill.
A reasonable attempt ended just after I'd got to level 15 and picked up a first HLA along with loads of 7th level spells. Ultimately it was a predictable end when I was ambushed by Tanova and a couple of vampires - and forgot to use any protection against domination. The druid's saving throws are so poor that you just can't get away with not buffing in the way you can with shorty fighters ...
Some 29 months later I thought it was about time for another attempt - which lasted about a minute! I stole from the chest upstairs and got trapped on the stairs by the guard - whenever I used those he would appear in front of me ...
Trying again immediately I got into a similar position to double-check if there was any way out - confirming there wasn't. This time I tried to fight, but a critical hit ended that attempt.
Restarting once more for a sixth attempt, at least this time I've at least got the respectability of completing BG1 - Semaj was dominated and helped wear Sarevok down before he was finished off with a LMD.
In BG1 (unlike BG2), it's possible to dual-wield a weapon to get standard APR up to 3 - without the normal dual-wielding penalty. That, and the 19 strength in werewolf form, helps make the shapeshifter a pretty decent fighter in BG1 even before you take account of the druid spells available. SoD is out of the way as well. Having had prior experience of the potential difficulty for this character in overpowering Belhifet, I was more careful to keep Caelar alive this time and she got the final blow in.
I made reasonable progress in SoA, but at level 23 I came a cropper in the ruined temple at Umar Hills. I'd sent in a fire elemental to distract enemies from the fire storm dropped on them. I saw in the text flashing by that the lich's spell had been disrupted, but didn't note that it's spell trigger had fired immediately afterwards anyway - including a death spell to deal with the elemental. I hadn't set up any reserves and was thus caught helpless when a follow-up symbol stun arrived ...
A couple of months later a 7th attempt was another quick one. I'd got to level 6 in the basilisk area before coming to High Hedge to try and beat up the golems to get to level 7. The first of those was close to death and I decided to try and get a final hit in after being reduced to 18 HPs. Even with Armor of Faith active though, that was not quite enough ...
A week or so later I tried again, but my current dismal run continued with another failure in BG1 - this time getting charmed by a confused sirine in the Lighthouse area.
@Arctodus thanks. I can't remember where it came from originally - I did a Google image search on it the other day, but didn't get a match, so it's possible I cropped it out from a larger picture.
Blade I generated yet another class to have a go with - this time a blade. That made pretty good progress through BG1 and SoD until hitting the buffers during the crusader invasion of the Coalition Camp. The run was documented on the no-reload thread.
After a disappointing loss of a kensai attempt against Balthazar I thought I would pick up this start the best part of 2 years since the first attempt. I made it through BG1 without any particular alarms, as usual relying mainly on spells and abilities and with very little use of consumables. I had a pretty clean run through SoD until ballsing it up against Belhifet. I was intending to rely mainly on Caelar there and didn't have most of the things that would help in a solo combat against Belhifet (wand of frost, ring of energy, magic missile wand, enchanted weapon, violet potion etc). However, I carelessly allowed Caelar to get killed early on when not accounting for the extra damage Hephernan could do while a restoration spell was being cast. That was the second such spell, imposing a fatigue penalty on my attacks and that meant I struggled to keep up with his regeneration once I was out of +3 arrows and was eventually cut down after quite a bit of running around when Belhifet still had around 200 HPs.
A couple of months later and I relied heavily on spinning on the way through BG1 - though Sarevok was finished off with magic missiles.
I was again somewhat underprepared when arriving at Belhifet, but this time I managed to keep Caelar going long enough to take the victory.
Depressingly, another mistake meant another death. I'd finished nearly everything around Athkatla and was at the Twisted Rune to get the Staff of the Magi. After killing Shangalar I tried to pick up his pile of gold, but mis-clicked and moved towards it - into sight of Vaxall. I wasn't prepared for that yet and a death ray exposed the poor saving throws of the class.
A year later and a random class selection produced a blade once more. I did even less justice to that than usual though when I decided to attack Karlat at just level 2 using chill touch and offensive spin. His first attack was a critical hit, which crushed straight through my available 16 HPs .
@Grond0 , I've forgotten how you set this challenge up, but might you not have greater chances for success if you finished games without taking some of the greater optional risks, such as seeking out and summoning Kangaxx?
Or was completing every possible sidequest and optional fight on the way to winning one of your conditions?
@BelgarathMTH I'm not required to do everything, no - though Kangaxx is easy using a scroll of PfU and unless I were a wizard slayer I would definitely want his ring. A big issue for me though is getting the appropriate balance of risk. If progress is too safe then I'm likely to lose interest and start running high risks or make mistakes. If there's much risk involved though, then there's not much chance of success across the whole run .
Still, I'm not dead yet and I've not given up hope. I'm still learning and, even though I've not yet completed SoD with any of these characters, I think I know enough about it now that it's not really any more of a challenge than the other games. The only encounter in a whole run that I'd say still presents technical challenges to me at this stage is Melissan. Part of the problem there is remembering what each of her incarnations does. I get there so rarely that the information tends not to be fresh in my memory (and I don't allow test encounters outside a run), but I dare say at some stage I'll make the effort to document what's happening ...
Wizard slayer It's a few weeks since I tried one of these runs, so decided it was time I had another go. After recent discussions about the relative benefits of dwarf vs halfling for a wizard slayer I decided I should try one of those. As I don't use healing potions, the availability of regeneration for a dwarf makes that a clear favorite for me. I rolled until I got an 18(00) character - particularly important for the solo WS as they are not able to get the strength tome.
Most of BG1 went well, with HPs getting up to 110 (including Helm of Balduran) at 8th level. I'd taken a risk by not using protection when attacking Drizzt (on the grounds that the scrolls of PfM would be more needed in SoD), but otherwise things were pretty straight-forward until I arrived at the palace. A solo wizard slayer needs some luck there and things looked bad when all of the dopplegangers saved against Bhaal horror (this time I'd only learned one of those, though two probably is marginally preferable solely because of the fight at the palace). However, two of them attacked me which reduced the pressure on the dukes to give me a chance. Arrows of dispelling were used on the dukes' attackers before going into melee. I managed to whittle the attackers down and if I could have finished off the last one going for Belt the odds would have been very favorable - but that was not to be.
Quickly moving on to a second attempt, I had completed most of the hard work in BG1 before a momentary lack of caution proved fatal. I'd killed all but two of the Iron Throne gang and tried for a while to split those up on the stairs - but they were persistent about either both chasing me or both staying put. Losing patience I tried a melee attack on Alai and hit him 3 times - meaning he had a 75% spell failure rate. He was thus lucky to be able to successfully cast a chromatic orb, but that really shouldn't have been a problem. However, I hadn't got around to picking up the Helm of Balduran - which meant the orb had a 5% chance of stunning me ...
Third time lucky saw me finally through BG1. This time I took two horror spells and they each affected 1 doppleganger at the Palace - two of the others attacked me, meaning Belt survived with plenty to spare. I successfully tagged Sarevok with vampiric touch to eliminate his final HPs, though as usual it took him a while to realize he was dead.
I made decent progress in SoD before coming unstuck at the Temple. Unsurprisingly it was a failed spell saving throw that killed me, although the source of that was a surprise. After Darskhelin was dead I tried to husband arrows of detonation and just used some basic arrows on Jhan Redmoon. His spells were shut down and I thought I could ignore him as a danger for a few rounds - but apparently he uses darts of stunning when he can't cast ...
I wasn't intending to do another of these for a while, but had a bit of time this evening and tried again. I wasn't being careful and could easily have died earlier, but ultimately went down to a cheesy finish from Davaeorn. I was a bit unlucky initially in missing several opening shots with arrows of biting, which meant he started spamming dire charms. I ran away from a couple of those before successfully tagging him with an ice arrow as he tried another. I expected that damage to induce spell failure, so was a fraction slow to start running when he continued to cast and was caught just before I escaped up the stairs.
Groan. I was trying harder with a sixth attempt and got through to Sarevok without much fuss. He was being run round and was at near death when the blank portrait bug struck. Reloading the autosave I lost concentration and didn't use a PfM scroll when Semaj teleported out. His spell-casting was quickly shut down anyway and he was taken to near death, but then produced a tattoo of power which confused me. It still seemed quite possible that I would survive that with him not able immediately to cast spells, but then after a few rounds Tazok turned up to finish me off.
A 7th attempt got through to Drizzt reasonably smoothly, but his charm person got me this time. The only way to avoid that danger is to use up 2 PfM scrolls, which seems excessive though may be the best thing to do. I tried interrupting his spell with exploding arrows, but without success this time.
Carelessness cost an 8th attempt just short of level 8. I was attempting to kill the battle horror on the wall at Durlag's Tower, but had to run when HPs were reduced to 6. I'd forgotten though that I'd only killed 5 of the 6 skeletons and didn't keep out of range of the wall. The final skeleton had time to fire an arrow, got the critical required to hit and the maximum damage required to kill me ...
After having yet another mage fall at the Throne I wanted to play something without spells, so made a 9th start on this wizard slayer. That's gone very well in BG1 and Sarevok has just been shot down. I was lucky with Drizzt when both his intended charms were interrupted by hits from gnolls, meaning no resources were used there. HPs are again excellent with a total of 130 in the SoD dungeon (only 10 below the maximum possible) after taking a 9th level. A good attempt ended with the confrontation against Belhifet. I decided there to use restoration scrolls to help Caelar while I stayed out of the way. However, Belhifet's non-magical aura of fear seems to cover an extremely large area and, with a minimum saving throw of 4 against wands I was very vulnerable to that. I got Belhifet down to injured status, but then started running in fear and Caelar was killed during that (as it's a solo run she shouldn't really be in the party at all, but given the game mechanics here are odd I've compromised by allowing her to be recruited, but not then giving her any commands). As I was then badly fatigued from using 2 restoration scrolls I had no chance of victory from there and a couple more episodes of running in fear ended with me being chopped down. Next time I'll have to seek out something that provides fear immunity ...
Trying for a 10th time I've had a pretty smooth ride through BG1. This run is being documented on the no-reload thread. SoD certainly felt achievable, but I lost out when attempting to kill Vichand quickly and getting paralyzed.
After a couple of weeks I tried an 11th attempt, but wasn't in the mood to be cautious. Looking to get my final BG1 level I went hunting a battle horror and everything seemed well in control when it was near dead, while I was still only slightly wounded. However, it proceeded to hit me 6 times without reply. I had the opportunity to run at that point, but let the fight continue - and died.
I tried a couple of runs with a dwarven defender. That's a far easier class to play, but dying is always easy in BG and I duly managed that. Switching back to a wizard slayer, I've got through BGEE once more. I had to save against a sirine charm, but otherwise it's been a pretty good run to date. SoD saw a decent attempt before failing in the battle against Belhifet. There are multiple threats in that fight from charm, hold person, poison, fear, fire and lightning - quite apart from direct weapon damage. Added to my personal restriction against using healing that makes winning the fight challenging, although all the individual threats can be managed. Missile damage is not high enough to out-pace his regeneration, but I think melee combat is possible, by taking advantage of high weapon speed. However, without potions Belhifet is still not easy to hit, which means a fight is likely to take a long time and managing threats will be a constant problem. It might perhaps be easier to try and keep Caelar alive using restoration scrolls so she can do most of the damage.
A couple of months later and I've started a lucky 13th run. That's been pretty good so far in finishing off BG1. The major blemish there was forgetting to get one of my Bhaal horrors, but as it happened the one remaining horror sent 3 dopplegangers running at the Palace anyway to secure a comfortable victory there. One other downside is that I only have 93 HPs at 9th level (having levelled up as soon as I got into SoD) - that's below the theoretical average of 99 for this character, which is extremely unusual in the EE. Thirteen proved to be unlucky after all, with another rather odd death at the start of SoD. I tried to help Tsolak against Isabella, but for some reason the vampire went hostile. That meant that after I retreated the mage and paladin continued to target me and I was affected by emotion helplessness and quickly finished off.
Moving quickly on to number 14 I've got past Sarevok again. This time I remembered to do everything I intended - in particular getting 2 Bhaal horrors and relieving Tamoko of her armor (that's a real upgrade for a wizard slayer due to their inability to use protection items). On the downside HPs of 95 at 9th level are once more below average. That suggests to me that something in the program has changed (possibly as a result of a Windows update?). I'll keep a close eye on future characters to see how their HPs fare. In the meantime let's see if I can get rather further in SoD this time . Well, that was a shame. I survived a hard fight with the Neothelid, but then succumbed to Darskhelin. His spells had been shut down by my wizard slayer ability, but that didn't prevent him casting psionic blast. I should have had time to equip the Spellbreaker sword (I'd deliberately gone after that prior to doing the temple area). That would have taken my spell save down to 1, but I failed to equip it in time and was held.
After playing with a few other characters, number 15 is under way and has once more made it past Sarevok. This time I'm up to 110 HPs at 9th level, which is much more like it. Other recent characters have also had the high expected HPs, so I guess the previous 2 wizard slayers were just exceptionally unlucky with those. I haven't got a wizard slayer past Belhifet yet, but I don't think I'm far off doing that - will this be the one? In short - no. In slightly longer form I thought I was playing safe by using a scroll of PfM against the Neothelid, but it appears its Control Body ability is natural or psionic in origin rather than magical ...
I started a 16th run almost straight away, but didn't really have the patience for it and had already taken a couple of risks before going to attack the sirines with standard arrows. The first 3 died, but the 4th managed to get a charm in ...
A 17th run has at least made it past Sarevok, though I did have to survive a charm attempt by Drizzt. Let's hope I can now get through SoD for a first time with this character. Regrettably I was out of luck once more. The end came with the first encounter following the prologue. I wanted to help Tsolak the vampire to get a source of regeneration and seemed well on the way when the mage was first dispelled and then scared. However, he ran off to bump into some orcs before I could finish him. After dealing with the paladin I went to find and kill the orcs. In the meantime Tsolak was shown up in the text as having been hit by one arrow, but I didn't think that should have been too serious, so set off to check the whole area to see if he was hiding somewhere. I knew there were traps on the path leading to the vampire cave, but wasn't sure what those were - one of them was a charm trap ...
I started an 18th run the same day, but wasn't concentrating well and had already nearly died before eventually perishing at the hands of the Amazons outside Nashkel Mine.
The only potential problem in a 19th run so far was that I tried disrupting Drizzt with an exploding arrow before triggering a PfM scroll. He continued casting and that delay meant the spell got to me a fraction of an instant before the PfM went up - fortunately I saved anyway. Will Belhifet feel the might of Drizzt's swords this time, in the same way as Sarevok? Another run thrown away - this time against a gargantuan spider near the Underground River entrance. The safe way to kill that is to shoot it from distance while using Spider's Bane or Soft Feet to protect against its web. However, I remembered there had been some discussion in the EE about whether free action should protect against stun and, although I suspected it didn't, I attacked in melee anyway. That would have been fine using a 1-handed weapon as the Dragonscale shield helped push save vs death down to -1. However, with Spider's Bane equipped, my save vs death of 2 left me vulnerable ... Trying again soon afterwards I was struggling to concentrate a bit. Attacking Bentan to get his PfM scroll I was a bit unlucky in not killing him before he got around to trying a charm person and didn't leave myself enough time to run away before that arrived.
A month or so later and a 20th run is under way. Once more I didn't take quite enough care with one of the sirines and had to save against a charm there, but generally it's been reasonably plain sailing on the way to see off Sarevok.
SoD unfortunately didn't last very long. Going into the temple I used horror to disable a bugbear shaman and then tried to shoot it down. That resulted in it running down a side corridor and I turned back when I auto-followed it. Although I knew there was a feeblemind trap there, my memory was that the trap was a little way down the corridor, but my memory was playing tricks again. The trap sprang as I was running back and checking the location showed it was indeed pretty much at the turning.
I started a 21st run soon after the previous one, but pressure of work meant it's taken over a week just to complete BG1. Let's see if I can press on through SoD a bit quicker. Well I did go through a bit quicker, but paid for that when trying to complete it when I didn't really have time to spare. In trying to fight Thrix's summons I forgot that the bone fiend had a non-magical fear aura and unfortunately ran straight into the monsters and stuck there while they tore me to pieces.
Another month later and number 22 failed at Davaeorn. I missed a bit of text there - I could have run away from a dire charm I think, but the text also said dimension door and I didn't spot the spell coming until too late.
An immediate 23rd attempt didn't last long. I was following Korax round and clicked to select only Korax, but the click didn't take - subsequent movement put me just ahead of Korax coming into view of a greater basilisk and his immediate gaze made no mistake as I tried to retreat.
Starting quickly again a 24th didn't do too much better - I was a bit lazy with movement at the Iron Throne and got caught by a hold person before I could get to the stairs.
A 25th was going well up to Baldur's Gate, but I then decided to nip to Durlag's Tower to do the basilisks there. They were dispatched in a few seconds and I then ran back inside without checking whether anything had appeared. A pair of gnolls had done so and followed me inside to find me stunned by the trap ...
Number 26 has gone past Sarevok. That was generally decent play, though I realized during the fight with Sarevok that I'd never got around to picking up the pantaloons. Sigh - another one ends at Ziatar. There's always a temptation to use Drizzt's scimitar, but the Spellbreaker sword is really needed against divine casters if PfM is not up. I got caught out again by Greater Command, due to the inability to see that coming after Ziatar managed to get sanctuary up just before I could finish him off.
A few months later and a 27th attempt has made it through BGEE, though it was touch and go at the palace after Belt was killed much more rapidly than I expected with only 2 dopplegangers attacking him (one of them with haste dispelled). D... it. Once more I failed against Ziatar - this time forgetting about his dragon fear and not equipping a helm to protect against that. I appeared to only be affected once, but then spent an awful long time running around while he wore me down.
Another 3 months and a 28th attempt did well to get through SoD. I'd actually done most of the hard work in SoA and completed most of the Chapter 2 quests, but had been taking an increasing amount of risks and that eventually proved costly when I was affected by dragon fear from Firkraag. That run was detailed on the no-reload thread.
7 months later, I tried documenting a run in the hope that would build on some promising attempts with the last few tries. That didn't work too well though, with the end coming early in SoD.
Another month and number 30 was another to come a cropper at the Palace. My initial Bhaal horror didn't affect any of the dopplegangers before I switched to dispelling arrows. In the two rounds before the dukes both died I shot 6 times - and missed with 3 of those despite having THAC0 of 4 .
A couple more months and the 31st run was looking promising with most of the Chapter 2 and 3 quests done in SoA and me up to level 25. Unfortunately a spot of carelessness in the Planar Sphere meant I stayed too close to my air elemental and was stunned by a symbol cast at it.
A few days later and I decided to see if I could build on recent improvements. The fight at the Palace was once again touch and go, with Belt down to 11 HPs at the end and me on 4 HPs, but otherwise it was pretty smooth sailing through BG1. Unfortunately though, it was another run thrown away in SoD. After passing through the dragon's cave I worked through the first lot of bugbears before triggering the spike trap. Rather than waiting until I'd regenerated from that I activated more enemies and was running several of those round when the shaman appeared. I thought he was casting hold person and equipped Spider's Bane rather than run back into the dragon's cave - but it was actually command and my 80 or so HPs were not enough to survive the attacks from Snorgash and his pals.
Number 33 has once more gone past Sarevok. The battle at the Palace was a bit easier this time, with Belt on Badly Wounded and me at Injured status. After transferring to SoD and taking level 9, I've got an impressive 122 HPs out of a possible 135 - though extra HPs don't make the difference very often, good rolls are still comforting. Unfortunately I was stopped at Boareskyr Bridge. The mage there is surprisingly hard to hit with missiles (I had a THAC0 of -2, but missed him with an 8 - meaning his AC against missiles was at least -10). I missed with my first 3 shots with dispelling arrows before finally scoring with the fourth and switching to arrows of piercing. The first hit from those would have disrupted his spell - but came fractionally after he completed opening the fire portal. I could have used arrows of piercing earlier, to give a better chance of hitting, but that would mean the possibility that subsequent hits would be swallowed by mirrors and not disrupt the spell. I'm not sure which approach would give the better chance, but neither would provide guaranteed success if the dice are against you ...
Trying again, I'm once more past Sarevok. I got lucky at the palace this time, with no less than 4 dopplegangers affected by horror initially. That doesn't stop them attacking, but allowed me to get 3 of them to attack me - meaning both dukes survived pretty easily this time. HPs this time are not quite as good as last time - 109 at 9th level - but that should still be plenty to do the job. Drat, another one bites the dust as a result of a bit of carelessness. I'd killed almost all of Thrix's summons prior to going to find Belhifet. However, I relied on my save of 2 against spells rather than taking a bit longer in the fight using Spell Breaker without proficiency to make sure of those saves - and I paid for that by being held just before I could finish the last of the enemies.
I was reporting on a 35th attempt in detail on the no-reload thread in an attempt to keep focused on making progress. Unfortunately, after killing Akanna, the Neothelid and aerial servants worked some dodgy dealings to trap and crush me.
A month later and I'd just failed at the Throne with a Priest of Helm. Wanting something without the need for buffing or summons after that, I thought I'd have another go with the wizard slayer. That was pretty comfortable throughout BG1 until right at the end - when I needed a huge slice of luck. That occurred after the web and stinking cloud traps tripped with Sarevok after me. He'd already been dispelled, so rather than run him round outside the trap I used Spider's Bane to try and get him stuck. That duly happened and I thoughtlessly switched to dual wielding to try and maximise damage - and immediately got stuck myself . Sarevok's saving throw meant he only got stuck 10% of the time, compared to my 40% - so it was no surprise he broke free first and quickly whittled me down to where one more blow could be fatal. At that point I broke free, but was faced with the danger that Sarevok was about to hit again and, with his 2-handed reach, I might not be able to avoid that by withdrawing. To get distance as quickly as possible I chose not to equip Spider's Bane while double-tapping the space bar to move back a pace - only to find even that minute sliver of time (roughly 5% of a round) was sufficient for me to get trapped again. I resigned myself to seeing Sarevok cut me in half - only to see he had got trapped himself at the same time . The web trap dissipated shortly afterwards without Sarevok getting another chance to attack.
Drat - another one gone at Boareskyr Bridge. I commented before it wasn't clear whether shooting with dispelling or piercing arrows was a better option against the mage. This time I used piercing arrows and hit him 4 times before he completed his spell to open the fire portal. It's possible the last of those arrows hadn't yet reached him when the spell cast, but I suspect that it was actually a forced spell and was just unaffected by spell failure. In that case I think I'm probably back to dispelling arrows next time . A consolation is that HPs were pretty poor this time ...
An immediate 37th attempt was a bit of a washout. Davaeorn was at near death after getting caught by his own lightning bolt and I tried to finish him off. However, he ignored partial spell failure and, rather than continue with a fireball as I expected, he jumped straight to a fatal dire charm ...
Trying again in quick succession, I've at least got through BGEE this time. HPs are much better this time, which is always nice and that helped me to restrain my tendency to take risks.
And this time I did manage to get through SoD, which I now find easy with other characters but is still a challenge with a wizard slayer. The main concern in the run through there was right at the start of the fight with Belhifet when I was surprised how quickly Caelar's HPs were going down. I was out of sight range of her and don't allow her to be controlled in that fight, so it took a bit more time than usual for a greater restoration to take effect on her - and she was down at 4 HPs before it did. I still had 7 restoration scrolls left at the end when she finished off Belhifet. {Edit: and on starting BG2EE, I see I forgot to take the pantaloons out of my bag of holding. The loss of the BMU and BMR doesn't mean there would be no chance at the Throne, but it's a serious blow }.
I required a big slice of luck to get through SoA when attempting to kill Adalon. Her breath weapon paralyzed me when I didn't bother buffing with PfM and it looked like curtains. However, I had for once put on hardiness and that together with the few seconds she spent finishing off my simmy kept me alive just long enough to recover.
There were no particular further problems on the way to sorting Jon out.
I'm not confident about chances in ToB. Quite apart from the loss of the pantaloons, I now remember that the choice of short bow as a main weapon was sub-optimal as I didn't have the strength to get the string for Gesen. In addition the Amulet of Seldarine has been fixed since the last time I had a wizard slayer in ToB and is no longer usable - I was assuming it was and therefore didn't take MR in hell and no longer have a way to push that past 100%. However, while there's life there's hope. Well, I did at least manage to get to the Throne though even that wasn't straightforward. However, I lost out against Mel's first incarnation. Smite and simmy would probably have allowed me to win 2 battles against her, but I was trying to save those for later. After a while of running round I closed in and tried to use Soul Reaver to nerf her attacks. However, starting with such a poor AC meant it took longer to do that, while her summons were also hitting me fairly easily which I couldn't manage with no healing and very limited regeneration. It's conceivable that continually running round would eventually wear her down, but it would take an awfully long time without any weapons that go through her stoneskins.
No. 39 was another victim of the Neothelid. Though I made a mistake there in not re-equipping Spellbreaker, that's a pretty difficult encounter so no great shame falling again there. The run was summarized on the no-reload thread. I feel I'm close to success with this character, but will give it a bit of a break before coming back to it.
Four months later and I tried once more - but failed when Peter cast rigid thinking at me from out of sight. An immediate 41st attempt progressed well until a moment's inattention resulted in getting petrified by a basilisk in a travel ambush. Unwilling to be denied, I started a third run in the same day - that was marginally better, but still failed at the Palace. Another attempt quickly followed, but ran into a problem when Davaeorn appeared to ignore spell failure. A 44th attempt again quickly followed and this time I thought I was going to get through to Belhifet, only to find a charm person overcoming my save of -2 immediately on arrival in hell. A 45th was also started immediately, but I wasn't concentrating well on that and eventually came to grief at the Iron Throne.
A few months later and I decided to choose this class again, rather than making a random choice. The game play went pretty smoothly in BGEE and I transferred to SoD with almost 400k XP. However, I realised there that I'd forgotten to pick up the pantaloons, which will make the end game a lot harder in the unlikely prospect I make it that far. Well, no need to worry about pantaloons as I failed to make it past Boareskyr Bridge. I don't think there was anything I could do about it - you need decent rolls to hit the mage before he completes casting a portal and I didn't get any ...
I've hardly played in the last few months, but did attempt a couple of runs the other day - and both ended quickly. Rather than choose randomly again, I decided to have a 47th go at this favorite class after an eight month gap. I've managed to get past Sarevok, though needed a lot of luck to do so. In particular I got caught out attacking Kirian's mob, when I retreated behind a rock when Peter started casting hold person and thought it was all over when Baerin followed me and found a helpless victim. However, after a few whacks he broke his spear and failed to finish me off before I recovered . HPs are also excellent, with 129 (including 5 from Helm) after levelling up to L9 on transfer to SoD. Unfortunately this run ended at Boarskyr Bridge, which is one of the more challenging encounters. I'd changed the starting character to specialize in darts, which is fine for most combats - but less so here. The mage on the bridge is hard to hit with missiles and his mirrors prevent him taking damage from poison or acid darts and without bow skills you would need a lot of luck to get him with a dispelling arrow. I was thus looking for a way to disrupt his spell with area damage. An exploding arrow will do the job, but that proved too much for the barrels to stand this time. I was trying to attack someone who would be out of range of the barrels, but obviously failed in that. Next time I will probably aim to get into melee range of an enemy in order to shoot them with more control over the area of effect of the fireball ...
An immediate 48th attempt was speeding through BGEE, but came a cropper against the sirines at the Lighthouse. To save time I'd killed Drizzt with arrows of detonation, so had rather fewer of those than normal. Trying to save them for SoD, I only used 2 on the first group of sirines before switching to normal arrows - and one of the sirines got lucky with a charm.
A week or so later I tried again to see if I could keep the number of attempts under 50. I've managed to get through BGEE, though a slight downside was that the game crashed on the initial transition to SoD. The Final Save allowed me to avoid having to fight any more battles, but reloading that meant XP was set at the level cap of 161k rather than the actual amount gained in BGEE (probably over 400k). Still that shouldn't really cause much of a problem - I hope ... Another annoying end saw me fail once more at Boarskyr Bridge. Things looked good when I managed to interrupt the mage's initial spell with exploding arrow damage as referred to above. I then switched to melee with the aim of inflicting spell failure on him. However, I was dismayed when several rounds later and close to death the mage managed to open the portal at his second attempt - the hordes of creatures from that then destroyed the barrels.
A couple more weeks and number 50 failed when I took a risk with Drizzt by not using a PfM scroll to defend against his charm - that didn't come off ...
Grrr - another few weeks and number 51 goes the same way. This time I'd brought along arrows of detonation, which automatically hit and thus should disrupt spells. However, a long-standing bug means that doesn't always work and Drizzt managed to complete his spell despite being hit twice. The effect had a less than 15% chance of getting past magic resistance and spell saves - but did so ...
Two more weeks and attempt 52 is under way. I was being no more careful, but this time my luck held in BGEE - with both Drizzt's charm attempts being successfully disrupted by exploding arrows. SoD though is the big hurdle for this character, so I'll have to try and concentrate hard there to give myself a chance. Another one fails at Boarskyr Bridge. My 2 initial dart attacks on the mage both missed, while I was waiting for melee opponents to come towards me. I then used an exploding arrow, but that hit the mage just after he'd completed the fire portal spell - and there's almost no chance for a solo character after that.
The usual fortnight saw another attempt, but I didn't really feel like playing and died early on when I failed to keep out of Baerin's sight when Peter targeted me with hold person ...
After that quick failure, I started a 54th attempt the next day. Despite the usual risks, including having to save once against a basilisk gaze, I've managed to get past Sarevok. Well it felt like very hard work, but I finally managed to get through SoD again. I successfully disrupted the mage on the bridge using arrows of detonation, though the fight there was still quite tricky. There were a few other concerning moments as well, but eventually I got through to Belhifet and Caelar did her thing while I kept her going with restoration scrolls.
In Trademeet I tried to clear the tomb and clicked to enter it, expecting that the Mayor would talk to me first. However, he proved to be a bit slow to open the conversation and I got inside before the conversation triggered. At that stage as he couldn't see me I was stuck in a cut-scene in which I could do nothing - but the enemies could still attack me ...
Was this on Android, and if so did you manage to get through the door without unlocking / opening it (reported separately, and which may cause this sort of behaviour)?
@Loldrup it was on an unmodded installation from Beamdog on the PC. I was following the quest in the normal way and had the key to open it, but just moved a bit too quickly - hence getting inside before the mayor's conversation triggered. I certainly had the boots of speed on. I doubt if I was using an oil of speed in addition as doing that's fairly rare for me, but can't remember for certain.
@Loldrup it was on an unmodded installation from Beamdog on the PC. I was following the quest in the normal way and had the key to open it, but just moved a bit too quickly - hence getting inside before the mayor's conversation triggered. I certainly had the boots of speed on. I doubt if I was using an oil of speed in addition as doing that's fairly rare for me, but can't remember for certain.
Did you click on the door to open it? And did it open?
Or did your character somehow end up on the other side of the. door in some non-canonical (perhaps buggy) way?
I clicked to open it and then again to enter - but did that too quickly so that I got inside before the mayor's conversation triggered. That's not difficult to do - I've just loaded up a game to test that out.In the attached screenshot though the mayor's conversation completed normally even though I was inside the tomb. In the run where this happened to me before the cut-scene never finished while the skeletons attacked - I don't know what caused that difference.
Conjurer I've had quite a few runs with various classes in this challenge recently, but have been lacking motivation to play carefully and none of those have even got to ToB. To try and address that I've randomly chosen another new class with the aim of making a serious stab at completing that on the first attempt. It wasn't the greatest start when I skipped over a roll of 91, but the 15 minimum constitution for this class makes rolling high scores much easier and it wasn't too long before I got another 91.
Well, that was a pain. Everything went well up to taking on Prat on my return to Candlekeep. I'd played safe while finishing his party off without any problem the first time round, but I was then hit by the vanishing portrait bug. After loading the autosave, I couldn't be bothered with buffing again and this time Prat managed to break free and one-shot me with a bouncing lightning bolt.
Fighter/thief @Aerakar as you can see I have an ever-expanding list of failures with this challenge, so I'm not sure how quickly I'll get back to that one .
The next character for the chopping block was a fighter/thief - the first multi-class character I've rolled up for this thread.
He lasted all of 2 minutes or so after deciding to get a level in Candlekeep by setting traps under Firebead's feet. By that stage he'd done everything else and was out of the door and off to find Gorion before anyone in the inn turned hostile. However, that didn't prevent the whole area from becoming hostile - including Gorion! I'd certainly died in this way before, but had been thinking that was the result of playing in an SCS installation, rather than being core BGEE behavior. Oh well, back to the drawing board .
About 6 months later I had another go. Things seemed to go quite well through BG1 and SoD, but a different sort of carelessness cost me in BG2. In the Southern tombs I saved the game after killing the vampyre. When I reloaded I just clicked without looking at the screen to make sure the game was active - and walked through a petrification trap ...
Another month later and I tried again - if only briefly. At the basilisk area I took a risk by attacking Peter while Lindin and Baerin were in sight. A rigid thinking followed, leaving me out of control against 2 fighters while wearing only leather ...
A further month and I tried again. However, I've been playing quite a bit lately in one form or another and didn't have the patience to play safely. I eventually died when not taking any precautions against a rigid thinking from Lamalha. I think it's time to take a break for a bit.
Another month and another death. I started off playing very safely, but couldn't resist trying to save resources by laying traps for the first greater basilisk on the roof Durlag's Tower. Trying to rest between doing that a gnoll appeared and attacked me. I attacked back, but as its melee range was greater, that meant moving forward a fraction - into the sight of the basilisk. I was just too late reacting to that as the projectile arrived before I could swallow a potion of mirrored eyes.
An 8 month delay and another attempt was thrown away at Durlag's Tower. I had 95% find traps, which should be sufficient to deal with all the traps except the one guarding the tome. I was therefore surprised that I didn't find a trap on a chest where I expected one. Eventually I concluded my memory must have been wrong and just opened it - and was hit with a dire charm ...
Five months later I've had several disappointing attempts in a row and decided to see if I could remedy that with this 7th attempt. I had a nasty moment at one point when I set some traps for Elminster, but he just survived those and hit me with a chickenator spell - dispel magic at the temple didn't touch that, but fortunately the effect eventually wore off. I had put no points into stealth, so my ability at that was terrible, but I still couldn't resist setting Sarevok up for a final backstab.
I played safe in SoD and there were no problems there on the way to dispose of Belhifet.
Let's see if I can maintain concentration now in the far longer BG2. Right. Irenicus ran into one too many traps to open up ToB.
That's relatively short - and the availability of spike traps make it pretty easy - at least in theory ... Unfortunately though, easy or not doesn't provide much protection against cock-ups . Against Abazigal I wore the human down in order to activate the dragon. His nastiest ability against soloers is his ranged maze attack. To counter that using spell immunity, you need protection against both abjuration (to stop his remove magic) and conjuration. My first attempt to use the spell got interrupted (which I don't think should happen with scrolls, but is presumably a result of the 2-stage casting of spell immunity). After moving to a position he couldn't reach me, a second attempt succeeded in protecting against abjuration, but maze caught me before I could finish protecting against conjuration (and my aura was clouded, so I couldn't use a PFM scroll to clear the maze effect). A fighter-thief has lots of alternatives, including laying spike traps in advance, pushing MR over 100% using Carsomyr and using a simmy to put on PfM - but those will have to wait for another occasion ...
After a couple of weeks of not playing I rolled for a new character, but ended with this one - seven months after the last attempt with it. BGEE was duly completed without any major problems - Sarevok finding his haste being dispelled to make him even more vulnerable to backstabs (the traps in the screenshot are highlighted because Sarevok was standing next to those for the previous backstab and I wanted to check I could attack him and retreat safely).
After a quick and smooth run through SoD, I was able to take advantage of fighter protections and buffs to melee Belhifet into submission even before Caelar died.
SoA takes rather longer, but was also pretty smooth sailing. Multi-class fighter thieves get a lot of HLAs thanks to the low XP requirements for thieves, so there was plenty of opportunity to take the best abilities from both classes - and a few spike traps were too much for Irenicus.
Sigh - once again I managed to make the easy difficult before a glitch finished me off. In the Fire Temple I was trying to avoid combat as much as possible, but that's difficult with all the creatures that see through invisibility. However, I'd got all the tokens to go to the second level and tried to fight the ones chasing on the stairs so they couldn't all attack at once. That though resulted in me being boxed in. I didn't think that was much of a problem initially and when they started hitting got out Crom Feyr - which should have one-shotted the Fire Trolls (who were the most dangerous of the chasing pack). For whatever reason that didn't work and then an attempted hardiness was interrupted and suddenly things were serious. I tried using Blackrazor in the hope I would get healing from that, but my remaining HPs disappeared before I could cut the attackers down to size. Reloading the autosave confirmed that Crom Feyr would normally kill the trolls, but they wouldn't have been a problem anyway if I hadn't blocked myself in ...
Ten months later and another go failed relatively early in BG2EE when I tried to run down some stairs to get away from Captain Dennis, but failed to make the transition and was shot down. The run was reported on the no-reload thread.
This was the last of the 7 classes that I attempted in a simultanous run - see summary report here. I didn't concentrate very well in this run and made things difficult by forgetting to obtain quite a few useful bits of equipment, e.g. reflection shield, scrolls of PfM and Vhailor's Helm. However, my luck held - particularly when recovering just in time after being held by the Ravager's melee attack.
Enchanter I rolled up an enchanter immediately after the untimely death of the fighter/thief above, but didn't feel like playing that then.
A few short sessions over the last few days though have eventually seen that one past Sarevok, though it will probably continue to be slow progress from there. Well that was another odd ending. I surrendered the fort at Boareskyr before going to attack the mage on the bridge. I killed him pretty quickly with the help of some skeletons, but he was in the process of summoning a fire elemental as he died and that then remained. The elemental was then also killed pretty quickly with the help of frost wand blasts, but as it died it also exploded - apparently destroying the bridge and killing me ...
Cleric dualling to mage Another new character saw a first attempt with a cleric supposedly destined for future dualling to mage. However, the destiny for the first attempt was to provide a good meal for a greater basilisk while I was away from the game.
18 months later and I thought I would document a run to help me concentrate. That didn't work so well .
After a few weeks of not playing, I decided to randomly select one of the starting characters I already had - coming up with this one six months since the last attempt. This time BGEE was straightforward, with Sarevok joining the long list of enemies that failed to deal with a bunch of skeleton warriors. My character record shows I'm already not far off the SoD XP limit on transfer there. I'm not intending to dual to mage until BG2.
I continued the session and had a pretty trouble-free run through SoD as well. With Champions' Strength scrolls available I didn't bother trying to keep Caelar alive and finished off Belhifet myself.
The game had crashed just after killing Ashatiel the first time and reloading that reset XP - hence I only arrived in BG2 with enough for level 11. It took rather longer, but the slog through SoA is complete with Irenicus' final downfall. As usual my buffing was rather inconsistent and there were several occasions when I was potentially exposed, but none proved costly. I only realized too late I hadn't picked up the belt from Trademeet, which means I'm even more vulnerable than usual to breath type attacks - so will have to watch my step against dragons. Oh bleep. Well, I survived the dragons, but once more fell victim to Mel. I killed her first 3 incarnations and had her final one badly wounded, but must have been paying too much attention to her icon and not enough to mine - I died (I think just of accumulated damage), without realizing I was even in trouble ...
After about 6 weeks of not playing, I randomly selected this character once more - five months since the last attempt with it. There was one close shave in BGEE when I used sanctuary to get past the basilisk on the roof of Durlag's Tower before attempting to summon a skeleton to beat it up. There was apparently a line of sight issue though as rather than summoning I ran into sight of the basilisk and had to save against petrification before I could retreat. Things were pretty straight-forward after that though and Sarevok eventually succumbed to a dose of LMD.
A bit over a month later I finally got around to continuing this morning. As usual I did a pretty minimal amount of work in SoD on the way to aid Caelar in beating up Belhifet. I'll be dualling just before leaving Jon's dungeon.
On arrival in BG2EE I decided I would hold off dualling until level 15. Advantages of that include upgraded skeleton warriors, level 7 cleric spells (handy for putting in sequencers) and longer duration for cleric buffs. The downside is mainly to do with the longer wait to recover abilities - I can still get to mage level 27, which means spell memorization is not affected at all. However, that all proved academic when a typical bit of carelessness saw me killed by Bregg after speaking to Gaelan Bayle - his fast weapon speed managing to get a critical just as I'd turned to run after trying a sling shot.
Blackguard After a few weeks off I decided to start another new character - a Blackguard. That looked reasonably promising in getting through SoD, but the relatively poor spell saving throws (and my disinclination to buff) are always a potential problem for paladins and he became another victim of Rayic Gethras' uninterruptible Finger of Death - the run was summarized on the no-reload thread.
A few months later and a 2nd attempt has gone past Sarevok. As usual I wasn't really trying to minimize risks in BGEE and could easily have been killed after being affected by rigid thinking from Peter - but fortunately ran out of trouble rather than into it. SoD is also out of the way. Most of my recent attempts have used Caelar to kill Belhifet, but this time I decided to go for a running fight for a change.
And SoA is also ticked off. Unusually for me, I made quite a bit of use of buffing early on, mainly using the RoAC, and that helped avoid problems with saving throws. Another run fails - and yet again that was down to the game cheating. Arriving at Abazigal's lair I attacked Draconis to get him to change form - but when he did so he landed on top of me so that I couldn't move. I suppose I could have tried smite to push him back, but I don't think that works on dragons (certainly the stun component doesn't). Another alternative would have been to try and use the sewer cloak to change shape - that might well have freed me, but would have taken up a lot of time and I might well have died before seeing if it worked. Instead I tried attacking with Soul Reaver to nerf Draconis' attack. At this point the battle could have gone either way, with him badly damaged and needing high numbers to hit.
However, he then went invisible, successfully used remove magic on me to get rid of my acid protection and then breathed on me.
A year later a 3rd attempt failed to get too far with a rare death against Nimbul. With him already badly wounded and having used his horror spell I thought it would be safe to finish him off in melee. However, I got exceedingly bad rolls and only managed to hit him once more while he unloaded 4 lots of magic missiles - the final one proving fatal.
A year after the last attempt a random selection brought this up again. It was not a good day for it though as I'd already died 4 times previously with other characters and was not in the right mood. I duly made it a 5th failed run for the day when, after clearing the Lighthouse area, I failed in an attempt to shoot down an ambushing sirine when trying to rest.
After a few weeks off I decided to start another new character - a Blackguard. That looked reasonably promising in getting through SoD, but the relatively poor spell saving throws (and my disinclination to buff) are always a potential problem for paladins and he became another victim of Rayic Gethras' uninterruptible Finger of Death - the run was summarized on the no-reload thread.
Good to have you back. Really a great run, and sorry about your loss. .
The insight into SoD was most welcome imo. I found the restoration + battle tankard combo especially engenius
Avenger The latest in my ever-increasing queue of characters was an avenger. It looked to have pretty strong abilities, but took too much of a chance when meleeing ankhegs.
Trying again a couple of months later, this time I've at least completed BGEE.
The avenger is very strong offensively, so making progress is pretty easy - but saving throws suck so mistakes are likely to be punished. And a save or else effect proved costly in Cyric's temple - I only used a potion of clarity before taking on Darskhelin and got stunned by a psionic blast.
A few more months and a 3rd attempt was the worst yet - taken down by a skeleton archer ambush in the very first area transition.
I just tried a totemic druid to see if I could make decent progress with the easiest of the sole druids, but failed in SoD. Rather than try again with that immediately, I picked up the avenger again after 16 months. However, I did reroll the starting character to push strength up to the maximum 16 allowed - that will potentially allow strength of 19 in ToB, which would be worthwhile. I took a few risks in this run, with the closest escape being when I forgot that changing shape sometimes cancels the effect of equipment (you can restore effects by removing and re-equipping, but need to remember to do that. As a result I got stuck in a web with 2 ghasts waiting to see who would save first. Both of the ghasts did that and I saved against one hit from each before being able to move myself. Against Sarevok I fought fair with the intention of manipulating a creative finish. However, after the others were all dead, he saved against all the remaining spells I and a nymph had and I resorted to eliminating his final few HPs with the ring of energy.
For the second run in a row, I cocked up in SoD. Something odd happened at the beginning in the City when I got blocked from leaving the palace even before I'd said I was ready to leave the city. That meant I didn't have the Battle Tankard, which was to prove crucial later in the battle with Belhifet. For that, I got caught between 2 stools - whether to do the battle on my own using Champions Strength scrolls, or whether to keep Caelar going with greater restoration scrolls. In the end I did a bit of both, using 3 of the latter before letting Caelar die. However, the fatigue impact of the latter was far greater than I had expected - I was seeing adjustments of -12 to the attack die and I was unable to finish Belhifet off from his badly injured status at the time of Caelar's death - despite using multiple Champions Strength scrolls.
Mage dualling to cleric It was another sad story for a mage destined to dual to cleric. At the basilisk area he followed Korax round until the ghoul was eaten by a hungry basilisk. The mage killed that one in a stinking cloud, but was caught out by the next basilisk which didn't show a save being rolled in a cloud (fooling me into thinking it wasn't chasing) and a single gaze was sufficient. I really must make a proper effort with the next attempt .
Three and a half years later I finally had another go at this, but still couldn't bring myself to play cautiously. I pressed an attack on a group of kobold commandos and was shot down by the final one just as it died from a magic missile.
Another eighteen months and a third attempt showed no improvement over the previous ones. At level 3 I was ambushed by gibberlings and a bit too casual about trying to run past them - a critical hit proving too much for me.
This is still my favorite thread, ever! Just having to be careful to avoid SoD spoilers (which you heads-up well enough ) in case it is ever released to the Mac App Store.
Fighter/mage/cleric After seeing a bit of discussion about the fighter/mage/cleric triple-class, I rolled one of those up. One of the problems with the class is that you are spoiled for choice about what to do. By the time I got to the palace I was deliberately avoiding taking the safest course of action and that led to the dukes dying just before the final doppleganger went down.
A year later and I had another go at this. Reading what I'd written before I couldn't resist once more leaving something to chance at the palace - and once more the dopplegangers proved too much to handle .
Well that was fun . After a few weeks of not playing this challenge I picked a random class to try and produced this one - 15 months after the last attempt. That run took less than 2 minutes when I decided to avoid a guard by using command on it. Before the guard had even got up again, the whole area had turned hostile.
Starting a 4th run immediately, I have at least managed to get through BGEE. I was trying to avoid item use in that, though I did resort to a chaos scroll to make the fight at the coronation easy. In the final fight with Sarevok I successfully silenced Semaj from out of sight and then waited out his vocalize. I then managed to silence him again - only to find he had another vocalize . Eventually he died in a web, while Sarevok was hit with magical and mundane missiles - though finding space to do that wasn't that easy when we're moving at the same speed and he got a couple of whacks in.
After a couple of weeks of not playing I managed to get through SoD this morning. There was one moment of particular concern when I thought a potion of clarity would protect against the Greater Feyr, but its emotion put me to sleep - luckily it chose to attack the defenders of the fort rather than finishing me off quickly. I used Champion's Strength, along with other potions and scrolls to melee Belhifet.
Oh dear - I didn't even manage to get out of Irenicus' dungeon. In the wand trap room 4 skeletons chased one of the duergar that had suffered morale failure, as I was on the way to disarm the fireball trap. The first two of those set off fireballs in rapid succession before I tried to move away. The third fireball took me into danger territory, but I thought I might be out of range before the final one hit - but regrettably not ...
A bit over 2 years later and I did a 5th run as part of a group of 7 characters being played simultaneously. The F/M/C was the second of those to successfully cross the line against Melissan. A summary of the runs was reported here.
Afterthoughts While the availability of so many options allows some fun tactics, I wouldn't say this class is a particularly easy one to complete a full run with. Splitting the XP into 3 means saving throws are always a concern and the loss of 9th level mage spells (and hence nearly all HLAs) is pretty significant. My thoughts though are no doubt colored by the fact I don't really like extensive buffing and that's particularly so with this class where the UI is very clunky.
Reminds me I should get back to my pacifist cleric/thief run one of these days. I had just gotten to the point of that fight, and still have no idea how to take it on without using active spells against the doppelgängers. My conscience is already grievously troubled by both Mulahey and Davaeorn, both of which feel they could have been solved by bluffing Mulahey about his superiors, and pickpocketing Davaeorn to obtain the plug - and roleplaying some guff that we warn folks to get out before flooding the mine
@GreenWarlock do you count sleep as an active spell? If you don't mind being indirectly responsible for deaths then you could put them to sleep and let the guards and dukes do the rest. Alternatively you could charm 2 or 3 of the noblemen at slightly different times to change the odds in the fight - you could then provide healing if necessary after the first lot of dopplegangers is dead. You could also charm a nearby mage like Ithtyl. Using her to put spirit armor and improved invisibility on Belt makes a big difference.
@Grondo So far I have restrained myself from both Sleep and Charm, or any targeted spell, acquiring xp purely from thief skills, largely sneaking around under Sanctuary. Clearly I had to make two exceptions listed above, but they were targeted put-downs of exactly two people, with a heavy conscience and the most expeditious retreat I could manage.
I am resigned to needing something like sleep so that the guards can handle the doppelgängers, but been running scared of finding the exact set of spells/wands available to me as a Cleric/Thief that can handle this with the minimum of fuss - it is will known that this fight usually fails through the death of the dukes, rather than the protagonist. I have not even got as far as thinking through Sarevok afterwards!
For reference, I am running a super shy Cha 3 character, who clearly could never assemble a party to follow her, so going solo - which sucks when I need to find a good sleep spell! Getting to this encounter around 6 cleric/7 thief, and don't see much from the Cleric side but Rigid Thinking? I could splurge with the cloak that charms, but does that even work on doppelgängers?
Comments
As with my attempt at a wizard slayer to thief dual I've hit the posting limit for the pure mage - I guess that should really be telling me something
For number 47 I was taking more risks in BG1 and could easily have died on a couple of occasions - but didn't
For attempt 48 I was playing through BG1 under rules that I could only use scrolls I'd found. That meant spell selection was rather patchy, but I did eventually learn protection from petrification and, despite already being at the level cap, couldn't resist hunting basilisks. I killed 3 of the basilisks on the roof at Durlag's Tower before deciding I should rest to make the last one 'easier'. I remembered that I hadn't recast PfP just as I came into sight of the beast ...
Number 49 began at a bad time when I'd just died in another game and decided I could squeeze in a bit of play on this after more than a month of doing nothing. In fact I was able to squeeze in an entire run
The 51st attempt was slightly better, but I was still unable to stop myself taking risks and that eventually proved fatal. I was at the level cap when ambushed by the amazons and they were quickly webbed and then cloud-killed. However, by the time they died they'd summoned a skeleton and the cleric had sent a hold person my way. I had the opportunity to run, but had only picked up the equipment of 3 of the 4 and got greedy going for the last lot - and was held ...
{Edit: re-reading this some time later it appears that I accidentally loaded the game in one of my modded installations - this challenge should be played in the unmodded game where the amazons don't stage ambushes ...}
The 52nd has seen the usual problem of gilding the lily by doing unnecessary things in difficult ways. However, I have at least got past Sarevok this time.
And SoA is out of the way as well. The availability of powerful summons and lack of a level cap makes that pretty easy for a solo mage (if you're able to maintain concentration and avoid risks - and I did that reasonably well this time).
Regrettably though, once more I failed in ToB - this time on the second Pocket Plane challenge. My clone survived a barrage of 9 skull traps, 2 incendiary clouds and 2 wiltings among other things and started chasing me. A slight movement error allowed him to get an attack in - dispelling both my stoneskin and fire protection and narrowing the area in which I could run. I took an oil of speed to make it easier to stay away from him, but immediately after that must have clicked on an impassable bit of terrain as I failed to move - resulting in being dispelled again. I tried once more to move, but again nothing happened - other than a final blow.
It took me 53 attempts to succeed with a wizard slayer dualling to thief, so this is my last chance to avoid setting a new record high. Luck was with me in BG1 - in particular when I forgot I'd taken the ring of free action off while running Larze round in a web. The ogre hit twice and was taking his club back for a third and fatal blow when I broke free and was able to take a potion of invisibility before he launched the attack.
A 54th attempt once more dismisses Sarevok. Let's see if I can restrain my tendency to take risks this time ...
Getting closer as Irenicus fails to stay out of hell. At the moment I feel minded to be cautious in ToB and try and make sure of a victory, but of course that's always subject to change!
Sigh. Once more the mage failed at the final hurdle, though it wasn't totally my fault this time. The aim was to keep resources up by using an endless spells strategy and that seemed to be working fine as Mel's first 2 incarnations fell. However, after that I tried again to refresh spells by using a simmy to attack with a black blade of disaster - only to find the simmy disappearing after it hit. That happened 5 times I think and I also lost extra resources on a couple of those occasions when trying to get a new simmy only to be told that the original was still active (as if it had been mazed or imprisoned). That drained my ability to recharge spells so I was trying to conserve resources for the 3rd incarnation, but suffered an instant death there from one of her missiles (I think as a result of switching equipment round that had pushed death saving throw up to 3).
After a few weeks of doing other things I'm trying once more to finally finish this class off and Sarevok has just gone down hard.
Another failure, but again not really my fault. In Trademeet I tried to clear the tomb and clicked to enter it, expecting that the Mayor would talk to me first. However, he proved to be a bit slow to open the conversation and I got inside before the conversation triggered. At that stage as he couldn't see me I was stuck in a cut-scene in which I could do nothing - but the enemies could still attack me ...
Another month goes by and I finally started a 56th attempt. BG1 is complete, though not without the odd bit of trouble. Probably the nearest thing was being targeted with a dire charm by a sirine when unprotected. Most of the time recently I've been playing LoB in an SCS installation and differences between installations can cause problems (with SCS, sirines don't continue casting if you move out of sight).
Rather ironically a pretty smooth ride through SoA ended at Spellhold due to my lack of game knowledge. I'd seen someone else posting that prior to the fight with Irenicus you could bring him to near death. Although the fight is easy anyway I decided to do that and chucked an incendiary cloud in to him. However, I didn't shut the door afterwards - not realizing that he would emerge and script-kill me for attacking him at the wrong time
Five or six more weeks and I thought it was time to have a 57th go at this. BG1 is once more complete, so let's see if I can avoid mistakes in BG2 this time.
SoA is done. Can I finally get through ToB as well?
And the answer is no
A few more weeks and I wasn't sure what to play, so decided to have another go at this. I wasn't concentrating though and let an ogre berserker get just too close in Shoal's area.
Four months later and a 59th attempt didn't do too much better. I decided to take a small risk by attacking the ankheg near Tenya at 5th level, rather than just dodging round it as I hadn't bought invisibility yet. I pre-cast 2 lots of stinking cloud on top of it before showing myself and immediately casting sleep. Nearly all the time that will take effect before the ankheg gets an attack in. On this occasion, however, while both the sleep and the stinking cloud rendered it unconscious, it got a good initiative roll and managed an attack just as it fell over - and that was a critical hit ...
A 60th was started the next day, but again was a poor attempt. I was nearing the XP cap in BG1 when going to sort the sirines. I used stinking cloud and skull traps to attack and thought that all of them were in the cloud when the text showed 3 lots of damage. However, that must have been the result of one of them failing a saving throw and taking 2 lots of damage as, when I moved forward slightly, I didn't notice one of the sirines well to the side casting dire charm at me ...
A year or so later and I finally got around to updating my save to v2.5. That didn't provide me with much luck though - hitting a rare skeleton archer ambush on the way back from Shoal's area and being shot down.
A 62nd attempt came immediately after I finally got another success with a dwarven defender. I was hoping that could inspire a winning streak, but I came unstuck early on against Mutamin after killing all his basilisks. I tried to blind him inside a stinking cloud, but failed with 7 attempts at that before he surprisingly came out after me. He didn't waste time buffing, but immediately cast horror and that got to me just before my attempted invisibility could activate - Mutamin then finished me off with Acid Arrows.
Trying again the next day I took quite a few risks in BGEE, but have this time at least got past Sarevok.
I didn't get far in SoD though. I'd buffed a little against the Neothelid, so had spell saving throws comfortably negative to protect against being charmed. It appears though that its control body hold person effect does not use a spell saving throw ...
Another 9 months and I decided it was time to pick up this character - the oldest one still going. I gave the game some decent chances to kill me in BG1, but it was Sarevok that eventually found himself in a sticky situation.
A month later and I tried a 65th attempt. Although I started off playing very safely, as tends to be the case I couldn't resist starting to take more risks over time. In the final BG1 fight I tried using a skull trap scroll on Semaj without any buffing and despite knowing that would bring me into his sight - a domination made me pay for that. The run was recorded on the no-reload thread.
Seven more months and I thought it was about time for another go at this one. I started off with the intention of trying to avoid any damage, but was hit by a dart almost immediately in a travel ambush. I therefore didn't bother being too careful, but at least made it past Sarevok this time - finishing him off with a first use of a minor sequencer.
Afterthoughts
This is another strong class and really shouldn't have taken too many attempts - as demonstrated by the relative ease I was able to get to Melissan with it. The mage has loads of different strategies that can work well, e.g.:
- distance attacks with MMMs and energy blades
- melee with mirrors, stoneskin, PfMW etc
- area damage with fireballs, cloudkills, incendiary clouds etc
- sneak attacks with invisibility, mislead, SotM etc
- direct damage with magic missiles, flame arrows etc
- crowd control with web, cloudkill etc
- save or die with hold person, feeblemind, hold monster etc
- save or really die with finger of death, wail of the banshee etc
- summons with wand, skeleton warriors, planetars etc
- self-alteration with polymorph self and shapechange
- persecute the helpless with timestop
I did little or no use of death spells, polymorph and timestop, but used a mix of other tactics - though summons and area damage were probably the most common.
After yet again failing at the Throne with a mage I decided to console myself by generating another new class. I selected that randomly and got a shapeshifter - I haven't played one of those for quite a while, so I'm happy with that.
He's just had a pretty comfortable run through BG - here are his stats and equipment on arrival in the SoD prologue.
A decent first effort couldn't quite make it past SoD when I ballsed up the fight with Belhifet. I had intended to try and Harm him, but forgot to memorize the spell
A second attempt has also made it into SoD, though not without a bit of trouble. At the palace I forgot to get rid of the nymph domination spells - resulting in the Flaming Fist and Belt all going hostile. After killing the last of the dopplegangers I was trying to charm Belt, when to my surprise he launched into his standard conversation anyway
Restarting this run after a couple of weeks doing other things I made my way through to the Underground River entrance before a lack of concentration proved costly. I had killed both mages, but lost most of my standard summons in the process and decided to try hit and run attacks on the few remaining guards. They still hit pretty hard though and my 77 HPs were disappearing rapidly, so I tried to retreat. Unfortunately though the movement order didn't take and I was a bit slow to react - by the time I tried again to move I was about to die.
Sixth months later and I thought it was about time to try this again. Sarevok is down, so let's see if I can get past SoD at the third attempt.
And it proved third time lucky. Essentially I relied on Caelar in the final battle with Belhifet - I don't allow controlling her directly, but kept her going with restoration scrolls. I did though land a few blows myself by wielding Drizzt's scimitar in the off-hand while transformed and one of those got the kill.
Some 29 months later I thought it was about time for another attempt - which lasted about a minute! I stole from the chest upstairs and got trapped on the stairs by the guard - whenever I used those he would appear in front of me ...
Trying again immediately I got into a similar position to double-check if there was any way out - confirming there wasn't. This time I tried to fight, but a critical hit ended that attempt.
Restarting once more for a sixth attempt, at least this time I've at least got the respectability of completing BG1 - Semaj was dominated and helped wear Sarevok down before he was finished off with a LMD.
SoD is out of the way as well. Having had prior experience of the potential difficulty for this character in overpowering Belhifet, I was more careful to keep Caelar alive this time and she got the final blow in.
A couple of months later a 7th attempt was another quick one. I'd got to level 6 in the basilisk area before coming to High Hedge to try and beat up the golems to get to level 7. The first of those was close to death and I decided to try and get a final hit in after being reduced to 18 HPs. Even with Armor of Faith active though, that was not quite enough ...
A week or so later I tried again, but my current dismal run continued with another failure in BG1 - this time getting charmed by a confused sirine in the Lighthouse area.
I generated yet another class to have a go with - this time a blade. That made pretty good progress through BG1 and SoD until hitting the buffers during the crusader invasion of the Coalition Camp. The run was documented on the no-reload thread.
After a disappointing loss of a kensai attempt against Balthazar I thought I would pick up this start the best part of 2 years since the first attempt. I made it through BG1 without any particular alarms, as usual relying mainly on spells and abilities and with very little use of consumables.
I had a pretty clean run through SoD until ballsing it up against Belhifet. I was intending to rely mainly on Caelar there and didn't have most of the things that would help in a solo combat against Belhifet (wand of frost, ring of energy, magic missile wand, enchanted weapon, violet potion etc). However, I carelessly allowed Caelar to get killed early on when not accounting for the extra damage Hephernan could do while a restoration spell was being cast. That was the second such spell, imposing a fatigue penalty on my attacks and that meant I struggled to keep up with his regeneration once I was out of +3 arrows and was eventually cut down after quite a bit of running around when Belhifet still had around 200 HPs.
A couple of months later and I relied heavily on spinning on the way through BG1 - though Sarevok was finished off with magic missiles.
A year later and a random class selection produced a blade once more. I did even less justice to that than usual though when I decided to attack Karlat at just level 2 using chill touch and offensive spin. His first attack was a critical hit, which crushed straight through my available 16 HPs
Or was completing every possible sidequest and optional fight on the way to winning one of your conditions?
Still, I'm not dead yet and I've not given up hope. I'm still learning and, even though I've not yet completed SoD with any of these characters, I think I know enough about it now that it's not really any more of a challenge than the other games. The only encounter in a whole run that I'd say still presents technical challenges to me at this stage is Melissan. Part of the problem there is remembering what each of her incarnations does. I get there so rarely that the information tends not to be fresh in my memory (and I don't allow test encounters outside a run), but I dare say at some stage I'll make the effort to document what's happening ...
It's a few weeks since I tried one of these runs, so decided it was time I had another go. After recent discussions about the relative benefits of dwarf vs halfling for a wizard slayer I decided I should try one of those. As I don't use healing potions, the availability of regeneration for a dwarf makes that a clear favorite for me. I rolled until I got an 18(00) character - particularly important for the solo WS as they are not able to get the strength tome.
Quickly moving on to a second attempt, I had completed most of the hard work in BG1 before a momentary lack of caution proved fatal. I'd killed all but two of the Iron Throne gang and tried for a while to split those up on the stairs - but they were persistent about either both chasing me or both staying put. Losing patience I tried a melee attack on Alai and hit him 3 times - meaning he had a 75% spell failure rate. He was thus lucky to be able to successfully cast a chromatic orb, but that really shouldn't have been a problem. However, I hadn't got around to picking up the Helm of Balduran - which meant the orb had a 5% chance of stunning me ...
Third time lucky saw me finally through BG1. This time I took two horror spells and they each affected 1 doppleganger at the Palace - two of the others attacked me, meaning Belt survived with plenty to spare. I successfully tagged Sarevok with vampiric touch to eliminate his final HPs, though as usual it took him a while to realize he was dead.
A fourth attempt was recorded on the no-reload thread - failing at the Iron Throne.
I wasn't intending to do another of these for a while, but had a bit of time this evening and tried again. I wasn't being careful and could easily have died earlier, but ultimately went down to a cheesy finish from Davaeorn. I was a bit unlucky initially in missing several opening shots with arrows of biting, which meant he started spamming dire charms. I ran away from a couple of those before successfully tagging him with an ice arrow as he tried another. I expected that damage to induce spell failure, so was a fraction slow to start running when he continued to cast and was caught just before I escaped up the stairs.
Groan. I was trying harder with a sixth attempt and got through to Sarevok without much fuss. He was being run round and was at near death when the blank portrait bug struck. Reloading the autosave I lost concentration and didn't use a PfM scroll when Semaj teleported out. His spell-casting was quickly shut down anyway and he was taken to near death, but then produced a tattoo of power which confused me. It still seemed quite possible that I would survive that with him not able immediately to cast spells, but then after a few rounds Tazok turned up to finish me off.
A 7th attempt got through to Drizzt reasonably smoothly, but his charm person got me this time. The only way to avoid that danger is to use up 2 PfM scrolls, which seems excessive though may be the best thing to do. I tried interrupting his spell with exploding arrows, but without success this time.
Carelessness cost an 8th attempt just short of level 8. I was attempting to kill the battle horror on the wall at Durlag's Tower, but had to run when HPs were reduced to 6. I'd forgotten though that I'd only killed 5 of the 6 skeletons and didn't keep out of range of the wall. The final skeleton had time to fire an arrow, got the critical required to hit and the maximum damage required to kill me ...
After having yet another mage fall at the Throne I wanted to play something without spells, so made a 9th start on this wizard slayer. That's gone very well in BG1 and Sarevok has just been shot down. I was lucky with Drizzt when both his intended charms were interrupted by hits from gnolls, meaning no resources were used there. HPs are again excellent with a total of 130 in the SoD dungeon (only 10 below the maximum possible) after taking a 9th level.
A good attempt ended with the confrontation against Belhifet. I decided there to use restoration scrolls to help Caelar while I stayed out of the way. However, Belhifet's non-magical aura of fear seems to cover an extremely large area and, with a minimum saving throw of 4 against wands I was very vulnerable to that. I got Belhifet down to injured status, but then started running in fear and Caelar was killed during that (as it's a solo run she shouldn't really be in the party at all, but given the game mechanics here are odd I've compromised by allowing her to be recruited, but not then giving her any commands). As I was then badly fatigued from using 2 restoration scrolls I had no chance of victory from there and a couple more episodes of running in fear ended with me being chopped down. Next time I'll have to seek out something that provides fear immunity ...
Trying for a 10th time I've had a pretty smooth ride through BG1. This run is being documented on the no-reload thread.
SoD certainly felt achievable, but I lost out when attempting to kill Vichand quickly and getting paralyzed.
After a couple of weeks I tried an 11th attempt, but wasn't in the mood to be cautious. Looking to get my final BG1 level I went hunting a battle horror and everything seemed well in control when it was near dead, while I was still only slightly wounded. However, it proceeded to hit me 6 times without reply. I had the opportunity to run at that point, but let the fight continue - and died.
I tried a couple of runs with a dwarven defender. That's a far easier class to play, but dying is always easy in BG and I duly managed that. Switching back to a wizard slayer, I've got through BGEE once more. I had to save against a sirine charm, but otherwise it's been a pretty good run to date.
SoD saw a decent attempt before failing in the battle against Belhifet. There are multiple threats in that fight from charm, hold person, poison, fear, fire and lightning - quite apart from direct weapon damage. Added to my personal restriction against using healing that makes winning the fight challenging, although all the individual threats can be managed. Missile damage is not high enough to out-pace his regeneration, but I think melee combat is possible, by taking advantage of high weapon speed. However, without potions Belhifet is still not easy to hit, which means a fight is likely to take a long time and managing threats will be a constant problem. It might perhaps be easier to try and keep Caelar alive using restoration scrolls so she can do most of the damage.
A couple of months later and I've started a lucky 13th run. That's been pretty good so far in finishing off BG1. The major blemish there was forgetting to get one of my Bhaal horrors, but as it happened the one remaining horror sent 3 dopplegangers running at the Palace anyway to secure a comfortable victory there. One other downside is that I only have 93 HPs at 9th level (having levelled up as soon as I got into SoD) - that's below the theoretical average of 99 for this character, which is extremely unusual in the EE.
Thirteen proved to be unlucky after all, with another rather odd death at the start of SoD. I tried to help Tsolak against Isabella, but for some reason the vampire went hostile. That meant that after I retreated the mage and paladin continued to target me and I was affected by emotion helplessness and quickly finished off.
Moving quickly on to number 14 I've got past Sarevok again. This time I remembered to do everything I intended - in particular getting 2 Bhaal horrors and relieving Tamoko of her armor (that's a real upgrade for a wizard slayer due to their inability to use protection items). On the downside HPs of 95 at 9th level are once more below average. That suggests to me that something in the program has changed (possibly as a result of a Windows update?). I'll keep a close eye on future characters to see how their HPs fare. In the meantime let's see if I can get rather further in SoD this time
Well, that was a shame. I survived a hard fight with the Neothelid, but then succumbed to Darskhelin. His spells had been shut down by my wizard slayer ability, but that didn't prevent him casting psionic blast. I should have had time to equip the Spellbreaker sword (I'd deliberately gone after that prior to doing the temple area). That would have taken my spell save down to 1, but I failed to equip it in time and was held.
After playing with a few other characters, number 15 is under way and has once more made it past Sarevok. This time I'm up to 110 HPs at 9th level, which is much more like it. Other recent characters have also had the high expected HPs, so I guess the previous 2 wizard slayers were just exceptionally unlucky with those. I haven't got a wizard slayer past Belhifet yet, but I don't think I'm far off doing that - will this be the one?
In short - no. In slightly longer form I thought I was playing safe by using a scroll of PfM against the Neothelid, but it appears its Control Body ability is natural or psionic in origin rather than magical ...
I started a 16th run almost straight away, but didn't really have the patience for it and had already taken a couple of risks before going to attack the sirines with standard arrows. The first 3 died, but the 4th managed to get a charm in ...
A 17th run has at least made it past Sarevok, though I did have to survive a charm attempt by Drizzt. Let's hope I can now get through SoD for a first time with this character.
Regrettably I was out of luck once more. The end came with the first encounter following the prologue. I wanted to help Tsolak the vampire to get a source of regeneration and seemed well on the way when the mage was first dispelled and then scared. However, he ran off to bump into some orcs before I could finish him. After dealing with the paladin I went to find and kill the orcs. In the meantime Tsolak was shown up in the text as having been hit by one arrow, but I didn't think that should have been too serious, so set off to check the whole area to see if he was hiding somewhere. I knew there were traps on the path leading to the vampire cave, but wasn't sure what those were - one of them was a charm trap ...
I started an 18th run the same day, but wasn't concentrating well and had already nearly died before eventually perishing at the hands of the Amazons outside Nashkel Mine.
The only potential problem in a 19th run so far was that I tried disrupting Drizzt with an exploding arrow before triggering a PfM scroll. He continued casting and that delay meant the spell got to me a fraction of an instant before the PfM went up - fortunately I saved anyway. Will Belhifet feel the might of Drizzt's swords this time, in the same way as Sarevok?
Another run thrown away - this time against a gargantuan spider near the Underground River entrance. The safe way to kill that is to shoot it from distance while using Spider's Bane or Soft Feet to protect against its web. However, I remembered there had been some discussion in the EE about whether free action should protect against stun and, although I suspected it didn't, I attacked in melee anyway. That would have been fine using a 1-handed weapon as the Dragonscale shield helped push save vs death down to -1. However, with Spider's Bane equipped, my save vs death of 2 left me vulnerable ...
Trying again soon afterwards I was struggling to concentrate a bit. Attacking Bentan to get his PfM scroll I was a bit unlucky in not killing him before he got around to trying a charm person and didn't leave myself enough time to run away before that arrived.
A month or so later and a 20th run is under way. Once more I didn't take quite enough care with one of the sirines and had to save against a charm there, but generally it's been reasonably plain sailing on the way to see off Sarevok.
I started a 21st run soon after the previous one, but pressure of work meant it's taken over a week just to complete BG1. Let's see if I can press on through SoD a bit quicker.
Well I did go through a bit quicker, but paid for that when trying to complete it when I didn't really have time to spare. In trying to fight Thrix's summons I forgot that the bone fiend had a non-magical fear aura and unfortunately ran straight into the monsters and stuck there while they tore me to pieces.
Another month later and number 22 failed at Davaeorn. I missed a bit of text there - I could have run away from a dire charm I think, but the text also said dimension door and I didn't spot the spell coming until too late.
An immediate 23rd attempt didn't last long. I was following Korax round and clicked to select only Korax, but the click didn't take - subsequent movement put me just ahead of Korax coming into view of a greater basilisk and his immediate gaze made no mistake as I tried to retreat.
Starting quickly again a 24th didn't do too much better - I was a bit lazy with movement at the Iron Throne and got caught by a hold person before I could get to the stairs.
A 25th was going well up to Baldur's Gate, but I then decided to nip to Durlag's Tower to do the basilisks there. They were dispatched in a few seconds and I then ran back inside without checking whether anything had appeared. A pair of gnolls had done so and followed me inside to find me stunned by the trap ...
Number 26 has gone past Sarevok. That was generally decent play, though I realized during the fight with Sarevok that I'd never got around to picking up the pantaloons.
Sigh - another one ends at Ziatar. There's always a temptation to use Drizzt's scimitar, but the Spellbreaker sword is really needed against divine casters if PfM is not up. I got caught out again by Greater Command, due to the inability to see that coming after Ziatar managed to get sanctuary up just before I could finish him off.
A few months later and a 27th attempt has made it through BGEE, though it was touch and go at the palace after Belt was killed much more rapidly than I expected with only 2 dopplegangers attacking him (one of them with haste dispelled).
D... it. Once more I failed against Ziatar - this time forgetting about his dragon fear and not equipping a helm to protect against that. I appeared to only be affected once, but then spent an awful long time running around while he wore me down.
Another 3 months and a 28th attempt did well to get through SoD. I'd actually done most of the hard work in SoA and completed most of the Chapter 2 quests, but had been taking an increasing amount of risks and that eventually proved costly when I was affected by dragon fear from Firkraag. That run was detailed on the no-reload thread.
7 months later, I tried documenting a run in the hope that would build on some promising attempts with the last few tries. That didn't work too well though, with the end coming early in SoD.
Another month and number 30 was another to come a cropper at the Palace. My initial Bhaal horror didn't affect any of the dopplegangers before I switched to dispelling arrows. In the two rounds before the dukes both died I shot 6 times - and missed with 3 of those despite having THAC0 of 4
A couple more months and the 31st run was looking promising with most of the Chapter 2 and 3 quests done in SoA and me up to level 25. Unfortunately a spot of carelessness in the Planar Sphere meant I stayed too close to my air elemental and was stunned by a symbol cast at it.
A few days later and I decided to see if I could build on recent improvements. The fight at the Palace was once again touch and go, with Belt down to 11 HPs at the end and me on 4 HPs, but otherwise it was pretty smooth sailing through BG1.
Unfortunately though, it was another run thrown away in SoD. After passing through the dragon's cave I worked through the first lot of bugbears before triggering the spike trap. Rather than waiting until I'd regenerated from that I activated more enemies and was running several of those round when the shaman appeared. I thought he was casting hold person and equipped Spider's Bane rather than run back into the dragon's cave - but it was actually command and my 80 or so HPs were not enough to survive the attacks from Snorgash and his pals.
Number 33 has once more gone past Sarevok. The battle at the Palace was a bit easier this time, with Belt on Badly Wounded and me at Injured status. After transferring to SoD and taking level 9, I've got an impressive 122 HPs out of a possible 135 - though extra HPs don't make the difference very often, good rolls are still comforting.
Unfortunately I was stopped at Boareskyr Bridge. The mage there is surprisingly hard to hit with missiles (I had a THAC0 of -2, but missed him with an 8 - meaning his AC against missiles was at least -10). I missed with my first 3 shots with dispelling arrows before finally scoring with the fourth and switching to arrows of piercing. The first hit from those would have disrupted his spell - but came fractionally after he completed opening the fire portal. I could have used arrows of piercing earlier, to give a better chance of hitting, but that would mean the possibility that subsequent hits would be swallowed by mirrors and not disrupt the spell. I'm not sure which approach would give the better chance, but neither would provide guaranteed success if the dice are against you ...
Trying again, I'm once more past Sarevok. I got lucky at the palace this time, with no less than 4 dopplegangers affected by horror initially. That doesn't stop them attacking, but allowed me to get 3 of them to attack me - meaning both dukes survived pretty easily this time. HPs this time are not quite as good as last time - 109 at 9th level - but that should still be plenty to do the job.
Drat, another one bites the dust as a result of a bit of carelessness. I'd killed almost all of Thrix's summons prior to going to find Belhifet. However, I relied on my save of 2 against spells rather than taking a bit longer in the fight using Spell Breaker without proficiency to make sure of those saves - and I paid for that by being held just before I could finish the last of the enemies.
I was reporting on a 35th attempt in detail on the no-reload thread in an attempt to keep focused on making progress. Unfortunately, after killing Akanna, the Neothelid and aerial servants worked some dodgy dealings to trap and crush me.
A month later and I'd just failed at the Throne with a Priest of Helm. Wanting something without the need for buffing or summons after that, I thought I'd have another go with the wizard slayer. That was pretty comfortable throughout BG1 until right at the end - when I needed a huge slice of luck. That occurred after the web and stinking cloud traps tripped with Sarevok after me. He'd already been dispelled, so rather than run him round outside the trap I used Spider's Bane to try and get him stuck. That duly happened and I thoughtlessly switched to dual wielding to try and maximise damage - and immediately got stuck myself
An immediate 37th attempt was a bit of a washout. Davaeorn was at near death after getting caught by his own lightning bolt and I tried to finish him off. However, he ignored partial spell failure and, rather than continue with a fireball as I expected, he jumped straight to a fatal dire charm ...
Trying again in quick succession, I've at least got through BGEE this time. HPs are much better this time, which is always nice and that helped me to restrain my tendency to take risks.
Well, I did at least manage to get to the Throne though even that wasn't straightforward. However, I lost out against Mel's first incarnation. Smite and simmy would probably have allowed me to win 2 battles against her, but I was trying to save those for later. After a while of running round I closed in and tried to use Soul Reaver to nerf her attacks. However, starting with such a poor AC meant it took longer to do that, while her summons were also hitting me fairly easily which I couldn't manage with no healing and very limited regeneration. It's conceivable that continually running round would eventually wear her down, but it would take an awfully long time without any weapons that go through her stoneskins.
No. 39 was another victim of the Neothelid. Though I made a mistake there in not re-equipping Spellbreaker, that's a pretty difficult encounter so no great shame falling again there. The run was summarized on the no-reload thread. I feel I'm close to success with this character, but will give it a bit of a break before coming back to it.
Four months later and I tried once more - but failed when Peter cast rigid thinking at me from out of sight. An immediate 41st attempt progressed well until a moment's inattention resulted in getting petrified by a basilisk in a travel ambush. Unwilling to be denied, I started a third run in the same day - that was marginally better, but still failed at the Palace. Another attempt quickly followed, but ran into a problem when Davaeorn appeared to ignore spell failure. A 44th attempt again quickly followed and this time I thought I was going to get through to Belhifet, only to find a charm person overcoming my save of -2 immediately on arrival in hell. A 45th was also started immediately, but I wasn't concentrating well on that and eventually came to grief at the Iron Throne.
A few months later and I decided to choose this class again, rather than making a random choice. The game play went pretty smoothly in BGEE and I transferred to SoD with almost 400k XP. However, I realised there that I'd forgotten to pick up the pantaloons, which will make the end game a lot harder in the unlikely prospect I make it that far.
Well, no need to worry about pantaloons as I failed to make it past Boareskyr Bridge. I don't think there was anything I could do about it - you need decent rolls to hit the mage before he completes casting a portal and I didn't get any ...
I've hardly played in the last few months, but did attempt a couple of runs the other day - and both ended quickly. Rather than choose randomly again, I decided to have a 47th go at this favorite class after an eight month gap. I've managed to get past Sarevok, though needed a lot of luck to do so. In particular I got caught out attacking Kirian's mob, when I retreated behind a rock when Peter started casting hold person and thought it was all over when Baerin followed me and found a helpless victim. However, after a few whacks he broke his spear and failed to finish me off before I recovered
Unfortunately this run ended at Boarskyr Bridge, which is one of the more challenging encounters. I'd changed the starting character to specialize in darts, which is fine for most combats - but less so here. The mage on the bridge is hard to hit with missiles and his mirrors prevent him taking damage from poison or acid darts and without bow skills you would need a lot of luck to get him with a dispelling arrow. I was thus looking for a way to disrupt his spell with area damage. An exploding arrow will do the job, but that proved too much for the barrels to stand this time. I was trying to attack someone who would be out of range of the barrels, but obviously failed in that. Next time I will probably aim to get into melee range of an enemy in order to shoot them with more control over the area of effect of the fireball ...
An immediate 48th attempt was speeding through BGEE, but came a cropper against the sirines at the Lighthouse. To save time I'd killed Drizzt with arrows of detonation, so had rather fewer of those than normal. Trying to save them for SoD, I only used 2 on the first group of sirines before switching to normal arrows - and one of the sirines got lucky with a charm.
A week or so later I tried again to see if I could keep the number of attempts under 50. I've managed to get through BGEE, though a slight downside was that the game crashed on the initial transition to SoD. The Final Save allowed me to avoid having to fight any more battles, but reloading that meant XP was set at the level cap of 161k rather than the actual amount gained in BGEE (probably over 400k). Still that shouldn't really cause much of a problem - I hope ...
Another annoying end saw me fail once more at Boarskyr Bridge. Things looked good when I managed to interrupt the mage's initial spell with exploding arrow damage as referred to above. I then switched to melee with the aim of inflicting spell failure on him. However, I was dismayed when several rounds later and close to death the mage managed to open the portal at his second attempt - the hordes of creatures from that then destroyed the barrels.
A couple more weeks and number 50 failed when I took a risk with Drizzt by not using a PfM scroll to defend against his charm - that didn't come off ...
Grrr - another few weeks and number 51 goes the same way. This time I'd brought along arrows of detonation, which automatically hit and thus should disrupt spells. However, a long-standing bug means that doesn't always work and Drizzt managed to complete his spell despite being hit twice. The effect had a less than 15% chance of getting past magic resistance and spell saves - but did so ...
Two more weeks and attempt 52 is under way. I was being no more careful, but this time my luck held in BGEE - with both Drizzt's charm attempts being successfully disrupted by exploding arrows. SoD though is the big hurdle for this character, so I'll have to try and concentrate hard there to give myself a chance.
Another one fails at Boarskyr Bridge. My 2 initial dart attacks on the mage both missed, while I was waiting for melee opponents to come towards me. I then used an exploding arrow, but that hit the mage just after he'd completed the fire portal spell - and there's almost no chance for a solo character after that.
The usual fortnight saw another attempt, but I didn't really feel like playing and died early on when I failed to keep out of Baerin's sight when Peter targeted me with hold person ...
After that quick failure, I started a 54th attempt the next day. Despite the usual risks, including having to save once against a basilisk gaze, I've managed to get past Sarevok.
Well it felt like very hard work, but I finally managed to get through SoD again. I successfully disrupted the mage on the bridge using arrows of detonation, though the fight there was still quite tricky. There were a few other concerning moments as well, but eventually I got through to Belhifet and Caelar did her thing while I kept her going with restoration scrolls.
I'm asking on behalf of this bug report:
https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/37001#change-216328
Or did your character somehow end up on the other side of the. door in some non-canonical (perhaps buggy) way?
I've had quite a few runs with various classes in this challenge recently, but have been lacking motivation to play carefully and none of those have even got to ToB. To try and address that I've randomly chosen another new class with the aim of making a serious stab at completing that on the first attempt. It wasn't the greatest start when I skipped over a roll of 91, but the 15 minimum constitution for this class makes rolling high scores much easier and it wasn't too long before I got another 91.
@Aerakar as you can see I have an ever-expanding list of failures with this challenge, so I'm not sure how quickly I'll get back to that one
The next character for the chopping block was a fighter/thief - the first multi-class character I've rolled up for this thread.
About 6 months later I had another go. Things seemed to go quite well through BG1 and SoD, but a different sort of carelessness cost me in BG2. In the Southern tombs I saved the game after killing the vampyre. When I reloaded I just clicked without looking at the screen to make sure the game was active - and walked through a petrification trap ...
Another month later and I tried again - if only briefly. At the basilisk area I took a risk by attacking Peter while Lindin and Baerin were in sight. A rigid thinking followed, leaving me out of control against 2 fighters while wearing only leather ...
A further month and I tried again. However, I've been playing quite a bit lately in one form or another and didn't have the patience to play safely. I eventually died when not taking any precautions against a rigid thinking from Lamalha. I think it's time to take a break for a bit.
Another month and another death. I started off playing very safely, but couldn't resist trying to save resources by laying traps for the first greater basilisk on the roof Durlag's Tower. Trying to rest between doing that a gnoll appeared and attacked me. I attacked back, but as its melee range was greater, that meant moving forward a fraction - into the sight of the basilisk. I was just too late reacting to that as the projectile arrived before I could swallow a potion of mirrored eyes.
An 8 month delay and another attempt was thrown away at Durlag's Tower. I had 95% find traps, which should be sufficient to deal with all the traps except the one guarding the tome. I was therefore surprised that I didn't find a trap on a chest where I expected one. Eventually I concluded my memory must have been wrong and just opened it - and was hit with a dire charm ...
Five months later I've had several disappointing attempts in a row and decided to see if I could remedy that with this 7th attempt. I had a nasty moment at one point when I set some traps for Elminster, but he just survived those and hit me with a chickenator spell - dispel magic at the temple didn't touch that, but fortunately the effect eventually wore off. I had put no points into stealth, so my ability at that was terrible, but I still couldn't resist setting Sarevok up for a final backstab.
Right. Irenicus ran into one too many traps to open up ToB.
Unfortunately though, easy or not doesn't provide much protection against cock-ups
After a couple of weeks of not playing I rolled for a new character, but ended with this one - seven months after the last attempt with it. BGEE was duly completed without any major problems - Sarevok finding his haste being dispelled to make him even more vulnerable to backstabs (the traps in the screenshot are highlighted because Sarevok was standing next to those for the previous backstab and I wanted to check I could attack him and retreat safely).
Ten months later and another go failed relatively early in BG2EE when I tried to run down some stairs to get away from Captain Dennis, but failed to make the transition and was shot down. The run was reported on the no-reload thread.
This was the last of the 7 classes that I attempted in a simultanous run - see summary report here. I didn't concentrate very well in this run and made things difficult by forgetting to obtain quite a few useful bits of equipment, e.g. reflection shield, scrolls of PfM and Vhailor's Helm. However, my luck held - particularly when recovering just in time after being held by the Ravager's melee attack.
I rolled up an enchanter immediately after the untimely death of the fighter/thief above, but didn't feel like playing that then.
Well that was another odd ending. I surrendered the fort at Boareskyr before going to attack the mage on the bridge. I killed him pretty quickly with the help of some skeletons, but he was in the process of summoning a fire elemental as he died and that then remained. The elemental was then also killed pretty quickly with the help of frost wand blasts, but as it died it also exploded - apparently destroying the bridge and killing me ...
Another new character saw a first attempt with a cleric supposedly destined for future dualling to mage. However, the destiny for the first attempt was to provide a good meal for a greater basilisk while I was away from the game.
18 months later and I thought I would document a run to help me concentrate. That didn't work so well
After a few weeks of not playing, I decided to randomly select one of the starting characters I already had - coming up with this one six months since the last attempt. This time BGEE was straightforward, with Sarevok joining the long list of enemies that failed to deal with a bunch of skeleton warriors. My character record shows I'm already not far off the SoD XP limit on transfer there. I'm not intending to dual to mage until BG2.
It took rather longer, but the slog through SoA is complete with Irenicus' final downfall. As usual my buffing was rather inconsistent and there were several occasions when I was potentially exposed, but none proved costly. I only realized too late I hadn't picked up the belt from Trademeet, which means I'm even more vulnerable than usual to breath type attacks - so will have to watch my step against dragons.
Oh bleep. Well, I survived the dragons, but once more fell victim to Mel. I killed her first 3 incarnations and had her final one badly wounded, but must have been paying too much attention to her icon and not enough to mine - I died (I think just of accumulated damage), without realizing I was even in trouble ...
After about 6 weeks of not playing, I randomly selected this character once more - five months since the last attempt with it. There was one close shave in BGEE when I used sanctuary to get past the basilisk on the roof of Durlag's Tower before attempting to summon a skeleton to beat it up. There was apparently a line of sight issue though as rather than summoning I ran into sight of the basilisk and had to save against petrification before I could retreat. Things were pretty straight-forward after that though and Sarevok eventually succumbed to a dose of LMD.
After a few weeks off I decided to start another new character - a Blackguard. That looked reasonably promising in getting through SoD, but the relatively poor spell saving throws (and my disinclination to buff) are always a potential problem for paladins and he became another victim of Rayic Gethras' uninterruptible Finger of Death - the run was summarized on the no-reload thread.
A few months later and a 2nd attempt has gone past Sarevok. As usual I wasn't really trying to minimize risks in BGEE and could easily have been killed after being affected by rigid thinking from Peter - but fortunately ran out of trouble rather than into it.
SoD is also out of the way. Most of my recent attempts have used Caelar to kill Belhifet, but this time I decided to go for a running fight for a change.
Another run fails - and yet again that was down to the game cheating. Arriving at Abazigal's lair I attacked Draconis to get him to change form - but when he did so he landed on top of me so that I couldn't move. I suppose I could have tried smite to push him back, but I don't think that works on dragons (certainly the stun component doesn't). Another alternative would have been to try and use the sewer cloak to change shape - that might well have freed me, but would have taken up a lot of time and I might well have died before seeing if it worked. Instead I tried attacking with Soul Reaver to nerf Draconis' attack. At this point the battle could have gone either way, with him badly damaged and needing high numbers to hit.
A year later a 3rd attempt failed to get too far with a rare death against Nimbul. With him already badly wounded and having used his horror spell I thought it would be safe to finish him off in melee. However, I got exceedingly bad rolls and only managed to hit him once more while he unloaded 4 lots of magic missiles - the final one proving fatal.
A year after the last attempt a random selection brought this up again. It was not a good day for it though as I'd already died 4 times previously with other characters and was not in the right mood. I duly made it a 5th failed run for the day when, after clearing the Lighthouse area, I failed in an attempt to shoot down an ambushing sirine when trying to rest.
The insight into SoD was most welcome imo. I found the restoration + battle tankard combo especially engenius
The latest in my ever-increasing queue of characters was an avenger. It looked to have pretty strong abilities, but took too much of a chance when meleeing ankhegs.
Trying again a couple of months later, this time I've at least completed BGEE.
And a save or else effect proved costly in Cyric's temple - I only used a potion of clarity before taking on Darskhelin and got stunned by a psionic blast.
A few more months and a 3rd attempt was the worst yet - taken down by a skeleton archer ambush in the very first area transition.
I just tried a totemic druid to see if I could make decent progress with the easiest of the sole druids, but failed in SoD. Rather than try again with that immediately, I picked up the avenger again after 16 months. However, I did reroll the starting character to push strength up to the maximum 16 allowed - that will potentially allow strength of 19 in ToB, which would be worthwhile. I took a few risks in this run, with the closest escape being when I forgot that changing shape sometimes cancels the effect of equipment (you can restore effects by removing and re-equipping, but need to remember to do that. As a result I got stuck in a web with 2 ghasts waiting to see who would save first. Both of the ghasts did that and I saved against one hit from each before being able to move myself. Against Sarevok I fought fair with the intention of manipulating a creative finish. However, after the others were all dead, he saved against all the remaining spells I and a nymph had and I resorted to eliminating his final few HPs with the ring of energy.
For the second run in a row, I cocked up in SoD. Something odd happened at the beginning in the City when I got blocked from leaving the palace even before I'd said I was ready to leave the city. That meant I didn't have the Battle Tankard, which was to prove crucial later in the battle with Belhifet. For that, I got caught between 2 stools - whether to do the battle on my own using Champions Strength scrolls, or whether to keep Caelar going with greater restoration scrolls. In the end I did a bit of both, using 3 of the latter before letting Caelar die. However, the fatigue impact of the latter was far greater than I had expected - I was seeing adjustments of -12 to the attack die and I was unable to finish Belhifet off from his badly injured status at the time of Caelar's death - despite using multiple Champions Strength scrolls.
It was another sad story for a mage destined to dual to cleric. At the basilisk area he followed Korax round until the ghoul was eaten by a hungry basilisk. The mage killed that one in a stinking cloud, but was caught out by the next basilisk which didn't show a save being rolled in a cloud (fooling me into thinking it wasn't chasing) and a single gaze was sufficient. I really must make a proper effort with the next attempt
Three and a half years later I finally had another go at this, but still couldn't bring myself to play cautiously. I pressed an attack on a group of kobold commandos and was shot down by the final one just as it died from a magic missile.
Another eighteen months and a third attempt showed no improvement over the previous ones. At level 3 I was ambushed by gibberlings and a bit too casual about trying to run past them - a critical hit proving too much for me.
After seeing a bit of discussion about the fighter/mage/cleric triple-class, I rolled one of those up. One of the problems with the class is that you are spoiled for choice about what to do. By the time I got to the palace I was deliberately avoiding taking the safest course of action and that led to the dukes dying just before the final doppleganger went down.
A year later and I had another go at this. Reading what I'd written before I couldn't resist once more leaving something to chance at the palace - and once more the dopplegangers proved too much to handle
Well that was fun
Starting a 4th run immediately, I have at least managed to get through BGEE. I was trying to avoid item use in that, though I did resort to a chaos scroll to make the fight at the coronation easy. In the final fight with Sarevok I successfully silenced Semaj from out of sight and then waited out his vocalize. I then managed to silence him again - only to find he had another vocalize
A bit over 2 years later and I did a 5th run as part of a group of 7 characters being played simultaneously. The F/M/C was the second of those to successfully cross the line against Melissan. A summary of the runs was reported here.
Afterthoughts
While the availability of so many options allows some fun tactics, I wouldn't say this class is a particularly easy one to complete a full run with. Splitting the XP into 3 means saving throws are always a concern and the loss of 9th level mage spells (and hence nearly all HLAs) is pretty significant. My thoughts though are no doubt colored by the fact I don't really like extensive buffing and that's particularly so with this class where the UI is very clunky.
I am resigned to needing something like sleep so that the guards can handle the doppelgängers, but been running scared of finding the exact set of spells/wands available to me as a Cleric/Thief that can handle this with the minimum of fuss - it is will known that this fight usually fails through the death of the dukes, rather than the protagonist. I have not even got as far as thinking through Sarevok afterwards!
For reference, I am running a super shy Cha 3 character, who clearly could never assemble a party to follow her, so going solo - which sucks when I need to find a good sleep spell! Getting to this encounter around 6 cleric/7 thief, and don't see much from the Cleric side but Rigid Thinking? I could splurge with the cloak that charms, but does that even work on doppelgängers?