Berserker
The next new character to be generated was a berserker. That should be another pretty easy one to make progress with and has just gone through BGEE without much in the way of alarms.
It only took about an hour and a half to get through SoD. The only bit of non-essential content I did there was to kill Rigah for his 2-handed sword. For normal fighting I preferred the high weapon speed of the dagger of venom, but the 2-hander was just the job to chop up Belhifet in no time - unlike against the dragon disciple in my previous run, there was no question of his regeneration saving him this time and he was finished off with a mighty critical!
Groan. In Suldanesselar I nipped into the Temple and put the items on the table to summon Rillifane. In the cut scene before he appears the enemies can still hit you, so I tried to move a bit away from them and managed to exit through the door instead. That broke the quest, as Rillifane was not there when I went back in, but the items on the table had gone. Killing the enemies inside no longer offered an alternative way to proceed, and with the path to the palace remaining closed I would have had to use some form of cheat to continue. However, I will only do that when I reckon I could not avoid the bug - and in this case it was my error in exiting the temple that caused it, so this run is done.
Six weeks later I tried again - and this time, success! As I normally do, I was randomly selecting which class to attempt next and got the berserker. As a birthday treat to myself I decided to do that as a one-day challenge. I've tried that a few times in the past without success, so it was nice to be able to tick that one off my list.
Afterthoughts
The berserker is probably the easiest of all the classes to do a no-reload with. In the early stages of the game the effective immunity to charm, fear and hold while rage is up means less precision is required in fights. In later stages of the game, low saving throws and the cloak of mirroring can make shorty characters immune to the vast majority of spells. One major exception is maze - but rage protects against that as well.
The ability to use plate armor and wear any ancillary equipment means defenses against physical attacks are also strong, without the need to rely on buffs. Hence the berserker is much less vulnerable to mistakes than most classes. Of course, everything is relative - it is still easy to die if you're careless . In the case of the berserker, rage only lasts for 10 rounds and its big weakness is that you can't then use rage again immediately. That means you either need to finish all fights within that period (or at least the more dangerous opponents within those fights), or plan to retreat during the cooldown.
The latest fresh character to be generated was a druid dualled to fighter. Progress was straightforward in BGEE and SoD and things continued well after dualling early in BG2EE. At druid 12 / fighter 26 I was close to finishing all the Chaper 2 and 3 content when I got carried away after successfully Harming Firkraag and didn't retreat when follow-up attacks bounced off his stoneskin. That resulted in being affected by dragon fear and ending up as another morsel between his teeth. The run was documented on the no-reload thread.
Five months later I started this again, but only lasted 5 minutes - a ambush by skeletons on the first area transition proving fatal when they got exceedingly lucky rolls.
Another month later and I'm currently in the middle of a shaman run. However, I'm limiting that to an hour a day and rolled a random choice for another run to use up additional oddments of time. Progress was smooth to Baldur's Gate, but I once again got into trouble there when saving the game having just talked to Degrodel and talking to him again on the restart. I managed to stun him with a dart and successfully killed him to get Balduran's Helm back, but was trapped in a corner by a couple of doom guards and a helmed horror. I hadn't bought any potions, so had no regeneration available and used a potion of invisibility to take advantage of my constitution regeneration before breaking out. I'd forgotten though that potions last 12 hours rather than the 24 hours of the spell - and left the game running long enough to reappear and allow the enemies to finish their job while I was away from the computer.
Totemic druid
Thinking I would have a go at a sole class druid, I rolled up a totemic version. That made pretty easy progress through BGEE and most of SoD, before getting held by Thrix's summoned army when his cutscene appeared to last long enough to erase my buffs. That was another run summarized on the no-reload thread.
Another attempt that failed at Sendai's Enclave is summarized here. I didn't expect to beat Mel, but should really have got to her. However, I underestimated the drow that appear between Sendai's statues ...
A year later I've started a third attempt. That's now in v2.6, which made it a bit more difficult than previously to get hold of Drizzt's equipment. However, he proved pretty vulnerable after having magic resistance cast on him.
I managed to complete the rest of BGEE despite taking a few risks.
It was a similar story in SoD - the sort of slightly risky play (like not buffing for the Crusader invasions of the camp) which can so easily be costly. However, my luck held this time and Belhifet was eventually chopped up with the help of Caelar.
My luck ran out relatively early in SoA. When looting the thief guild I couldn't remember the order of the traps, but proceeded anyway. I had Shield of the Archons available, but didn't use it and got petrified as a result ...
I recently completed a playthrough with a full party of true class druids. They had enough spells and abilities to make progress relatively comfortable, though the final fight with Mel did stretch their resources a bit. Getting a solo true class druid past Mel will be a much sterner challenge I think, but I've generated one anyway. Mel is a long way off though, with plenty of potential for errors first. I started reasonably well focused, but soon lapsed into more typical careless ways - for instance being taken down to a single HP by hobgoblins in Ramazith's Tower and forgetting to pick up the violet potion (hence missing out on strength and wisdom tomes in Candlekeep). The latter was pretty annoying, but I knuckled down after that and duly finished off Sarevok without further problems.
SoD went quickly by without problems until right at the end. With Belhifet on his last legs I got carried away and forgot that my potion of magic shielding might run out - and got scared as a result. That could have been painful if I'd got trapped, but fortunately I just ran around for a bit until I'd recovered - and a few seconds later Belhifet was down.
Another disappointing end to a run thanks to more carelessness and poor druidic saving throws. I was at level 25 and only had the Windspear Hills dungeon and Twisted Rune to do before heading to Spellhold. At Windspear I aimed to use a firestorm to kill a large group of vampires - fire elementals were ready to move in as the spell cast to keep the vampires in it. However, as sometimes happens, the game decided I didn't have a proper line of sight for the spell, despite the destination mark appearing to be perfectly visible - and I moved forward into sight of the vampires. I should have either abandoned the spell by retreating immediately I started to move or gone into my inventory and equipped a spear providing charm immunity. However, I did neither and suffered the domination consequences as I retreated after the spell completed.
Three and a half years later the druid got a second attempt as part of a multiple run with 5 characters in parallel. The first time I did that with 7 characters, 5 of them were successful, but this attempt looks like being a miserable failure. A jester was the first to die in BGEE and an undead hunter followed on from that just before going to take on Sarevok. This druid is the 3rd to fail to make it. This time I got to Sarevok and only he was left when I killed myself on a lightning trap. That was essentially bloody-mindedness as a result of disappointment with the earlier characters - I knew my lightning protection would be running short, but chose not to reapply it or be careful about movement near the trap ...
Good luck with your druid runs !
I'm looking forward to see what strategies will allow you to advance in late game (summons, especially the fire elemental ones, can take care of most of SoD & BG2).
What were your preparations for the fight against Belhifet ? What weapons did you use ?
@monico preparations included green scrolls against elemental damage and poison and potions for speed, power, defense, dexterity and magic shielding. Additional power and regeneration potions were used to keep HPs up and DUHM to raise strength. In this run I only had a single scimitar from Drizzt - that did most of the damage until my use of Champion's Strength scrolls at the top of the lift ran out. I then finished Belhifet off with Bullets of Darkness after using a few more of those scrolls.
When there not that long ago with a totemic druid I used the Root of the Problem Club in my off-hand, which allowed Belhifet to be killed somewhat quicker. I partly didn't do that this time to reduce damage taken - but that would be less of an issue for most people who aren't allergic to healing items .
but that would be less of an issue for most people who aren't allergic to healing items .
I was wondering about that, btw, what is the reason behind this ?
Is it just for the duration of the fights, like resting/saving is impossible and so you don't use healing items too ? Do you allow healing items outside of battle ?
@monico there's no particular reason - and I don't use healing outside battle either (which means the ability to rest safely becomes more important, as I think it should). At one stage, quite a few years ago now, I was experimenting with making the game more challenging using a range of different restrictions and this just seemed to suit me. I always had a bit of a tendency to try and manage damage rather than just bludgeon on through and the restrictions just exaggerated that. I died quite a bit to poison to start with, but that made sense to me. I think poison should be dangerous, not something you can just swig antidotes to cure at a moment's notice.
I'm so used to not using healing now that in most cases I don't notice the lack - it's probably only the fight with Melissan that it regularly becomes a major issue. She's immune to so many things that strategies for many characters are fairly limited and with lots of summons, area damage spells, missiles flying around and regular dispels, it's hard for non-arcane characters to avoid damage - and the sheer length of the various battles without the ability to rest means that abilities like hardiness and GWW are in short supply.
The Wizard Slayer solo seemed extremely difficult, which isn't surprising. I still enjoy the class for what it is, limited as it may be.
@WarChiefZeke it's certainly not easy , but I have a soft spot for it too and have no desire to try and mod away the disadvantages. You need a bit of luck in BG1 at the palace and in several encounters in SoD. BG2 though should be easier I think due to the amount of items giving immunities in the early game. I soloed one years ago (before SoD) and I think the 100% MR you can get in ToB actually makes the game somewhat easier for them there than a standard fighter - so I'm reasonably confident I'll get the class through eventually. In fact I've been thinking it was about time for another attempt at it, so I'll probably do that after finishing the current druid run ...
but that would be less of an issue for most people who aren't allergic to healing items .
I was wondering about that, btw, what is the reason behind this ?
Is it just for the duration of the fights, like resting/saving is impossible and so you don't use healing items too ? Do you allow healing items outside of battle ?
@Grond0 I think I found the reason why you don't use healing potions ?
I've probably been playing too much BG recently and didn't fancy any of the existing characters. I decided to create a dark moon monk, which is a class I've got limited experience of, to freshen things up a bit.
However, I still soon found myself drifting back into bad habits by pushing boundaries and that proved costly on my return to Candlekeep when a near-dead greater doppleganger turned at bay, despite its morale failure, and slashed away my remaining life with a critical.
Bad habit were still a problem 18 months later when I tried this class again. I was following Korax round killing basilisks without paying full attention. The result when one of those retreated a bit was that I followed more quickly than Korax and the basilisk switched its gaze to me ...
A bit over a year later I tried this again. Progress was generally good, but with the odd major mistake. One of those caught up with me against Thaxy when I was slow to remember one big drawback with monks is their difficulty in dealing with level-draining attacks. The run was fully reported on the no-reload thread.
Fighter/mage/thief
I created a fighter/mage/thief with the intention of trying to avoid taking any damage during the run. A mistake saw me injured during the return to Candlekeep, but I continued with the run through SoD and into BG2EE. I was no longer trying to avoid damage there and progress seemed very easy, but I hit a bug when Gaelan Bayle incorrectly said he'd given me the key to a secret door in the thieves guild - rather than fiddle around with the save I ended the run there. The run was recorded on the no-reload thread.
Eight months later and this came up again as a random choice. I had one close shave in BGEE when I wasn't paying close attention during an area transition, which allowed an ambushing basilisk the time to gaze at me. I had no useful potions, but saved anyway. I used the lightning trap to kill Sarevok's companions, in order to get Angelo's exploding arrows. I then missed an attempted backstab on Sarevok and had no buffs or summons to allow me to fight toe to toe - so resorted to shooting to finish him off.
SoD was mainly straightforward. The main exception to that was when I didn't bother setting up a proper attack on Vichand and failed to kill him before the whole camp was hostile - requiring me to kill them all rather than just surrender the fort. Against Belhifet I used stoneskins to manage damage and blue fireshield to add some extra damage.
Once more I came unstuck through a lack of patience. A big problem with multi-class characters is the time it takes them to improve saving throws and my saving throw vs spell was still only at 0 even after getting half a dozed HLAs. Encountering the beholders on the way to Amaunator's temple I just attacked rather than use area damage or summons and duly died. The cause wasn't obvious on my portrait, but I presume it was a result of being charmed.
Priest of Lathander
I've had a few near misses in the last couple of months, but no more successes. I've rolled a random choice of characters at least three times I think during that period - but selected an existing character on each occasion. This time though I got some fresh blood with a Priest of Lathander. He's gone through BGEE relatively untroubled, at least until the final battle. I was aiming to avoid use of potions against Sarevok. However, a couple of skeletons and I couldn't quite finish Sarevok off before he took me dangerously low on HPs. To avoid the increased risk of a movement error trying to shoot him when he moved as fast as I did, I used an oil of speed to get the couple of missile hits necessary.
I've tended to do far more in BGEE than necessary, but cut that down somewhat this run. In SoD though, I've tended to be pretty minimalist and that was the case again this time. For a change I chose a half-orc protagonist this time rather than a shorty, which makes them much more vulnerable to status effects. That's not a problem in SoD, where the level of resources available is extremely high, but I'll need to remain cautious in BG2 after seeing off Belhifet.
SoA is done as well, which is overall pretty good, though I did forget to buff a few times and was exposed, e.g. to a domination attempt by Bodhi and a petrification trap. On the downside, I made a major mistake in getting distracted by a RL conversation and taking the wrong option in the kidnap quest - hence missing out on the silver pantaloons. Without the BMU and BMR chances will be much lower against Melissan. Up to that point this character is unusual for a cleric in being able to reach 10 APR thanks to multiple Boons and should be able to see off most challenges like that - in the same way as Irenicus.
Well, unfortunately he never got the chance to try his hand against Melissan. He'd made easy progress up to Abazigal, but came a cropper there. I think I would have been better off using fire storms against him, but attempted to fight with the help of a simmy. However, remove magic destroyed buffs and I should have tried to escape once the simmy was dead. The chance of doing that was lost when my save vs breath of 0 proved inadequate against dragon fear and I was duly chomped.
Seven months later and this class came up again. This is the first run after updating the game to v2.6. I've played that a fair amount in MP, so the odd change in gameplay shouldn't be too much of a surprise and it would be nice to make this run a good one. With poor saving throws I think his chances are limited, but he's at least completed the first hurdle - finishing off Sarevok with LMD like any Priest of Lathander should .
I did a lot of optional content in BGEE and found myself already at the SoD XP cap on transfer there.
Well, so much for good resolutions. I started SoD without taking care and quickly paid for that when Korlasz targeted me with a dire charm.
Ten more months and another attempt followed my typical story of starting with the intention of playing safely before lapsing into failure. I was up at level 7 and had just killed the sirines and golems at the lighthouse area. Coming out of the cave I tried to rest, but was ambushed by a sirine. They're easy to run away from while they go invisible, but I tried withdrawing a bit and then casting silence towards the sirine's location. However, it moved while I was casting and got its dire charm off just before it was silenced.
Question. You mention "guaranteed" saving throws. My understanding is that no matter how good your saving throws, there's always a 5% chance of critical failure. Is that correct?
@Cloutier, no it's not - at least as far as the Baldur's Gate games go. In 2nd edition D&D there are critical misses in attack rolls and some oddments of critical failures elsewhere (like in pickpocketing for instance), but there's no such thing as a critical failure of a saving throw (that's not the same in 3rd edition, like Icewind Dale 2). Some spells don't offer a saving throw, but for those that do you can guarantee success if your saving throws are low enough.
Diviner
I've been doing a shaman run for a while - reporting that on the no-reload thread. That's been limited to one hour a day though, which has sometimes left me at a loose end. As a result I've twice started other runs in recent days, though neither got too far. In both of those earlier ones, the random character chosen was an existing class, but this time a new class was selected - a diviner. Without a true dump stat, that can be a hard class to roll for, but I managed a 94 roll in only 10 minutes or so and went for a mage that's a good all-rounder - with the exception of being slightly intellectually challenged .
That attempt also ended early to a moment of carelessness though, when I neither tried hard to circle round an attacking wolf, not bothered to switch away from the sling equipped - and the wolf greedily gulped down my 18 HPs with a critical.
Starting again immediately I tried hard this time to avoid any risks. When trying that with a mage character I typically see if I can complete BG1 without taking any damage. Realistically that means you need access to invisibility reasonably early on, in order to be able to travel safely - so I compromised my normal principles and bought some scrolls and potions of genius before I'd minimized prices by raising charisma. That allowed me to make smooth progress up to almost getting to the level cap. I was just finishing clearing the top of Durlag's Tower though when I reverted to type against the last ghast. Seeing it coming I was aware it would be touch and go whether my aura cleared in time to finish it off with a magic missile - it didn't ...
Trying again straight away, it was third time lucky. I don't think I was ever attacked when I didn't have a stoneskin up, though I did get a bit careless later on and travelled between maps 2 or 3 times without being invisible - but never got ambushed. The closest I came to being damaged was when I used improved invisibility to attack Degrodel before dumping a cloudkill on him. However, a misclick sent me briefly into the cloud as well, but fortunately I was able to retreat before a poison tick took effect. Rather than cheese Sarevok, I fought him reasonably fairly. Angelo and Tazok died in webs on the dais, while invisibility helped split the others up. A couple of lots of summons then provided distraction while I finished off Semaj and finally Sarevok.
Although the objective of avoiding damage was successful, I did make a significant error in not buying scrolls from Sorcerous Sundries until after returning from Candlekeep - discovering there that I had no knocks to grab the strength and wisdom tomes. That was a consequence of only learning spells at 3 points in the game in order to use potions to boost intelligence to ensure success - typically I leave success in spell learning random, but with only a 20% chance of success with almost all useful spells I thought that would be a bit over the top this run .
I got a bit of the way through SoD without taking damage. In the old temple though I carefully rested in order to memorize protection from fire - and then immediately walked through the trap without casting it .
That was a bit disappointing, which may have contributed to the remaining work in SoD being pretty hard going. The worst encounter was the Boareskyr Bridge. I used the ring of energy to disrupt the mage's initial attempt to form a portal, which should have made the battle relatively straight forward. However, he apparently didn't like me going invisible during the fight and insta-cast a portal. My record of defeating the enemies coming through that is poor and I expected to lose this one. However, darts of stunning proved pretty effective at disabling the mephits (who will use ranged attacks on the barrels) and I just survived.
The battle with Belhifet was also a bit tougher than expected after I was too slow to use restoration to keep Caelar alive. I've been in that sort of position before and found it hopeless, but this time I'd brought along a few extra scrolls of stoneskin and fire shield and that proved enough for Belhifet to kill himself.
I've not been playing much for a while, but after about another 6 or 7 weeks I've finally managed to grind my way through SoA. I got targeted at least a couple of times with beholder death rays in the Underdark, when my saving throw was inadequate, but luck was still on my side and I made it through to finish off Jon without difficulty.
Luck ran out though in ToB. Progress had been pretty easy, but in Sendai's Enclave I didn't realize that a planetar had been killed by a death ray from the Hive Mother - resulting in me getting targeted by a PW: stun and duly finished off.
About 18 months later this came up as a random selection. As so often I started carefully, but also as so often I started taking more risks as time went on. In the battle with Sarevok I didn't use any protections and that proved costly when I triggered a lightning trap. The first hit of that wasn't fatal and I had the chance to take a potion to protect myself, but thought the lightning wasn't going to bounce back - eventually though, it did ...
A bit over 2 years later I had a 5th go. I was aiming to do BGEE in a single session and had no trouble up until Baldur's Gate when a moment of carelessness proved costly. Doing the poison quest I interrupted Marek's initial spell with a dart of wounding. A couple of sling bullets added to that disrupted his next couple of spells and I thought he was going to die from it. However, he somehow clung on and I didn't react fast enough when he successfully completed a horror spell - a series of acid arrows then did for me.
I started again straight away, but had a bit of a hiatus for 7 or 8 weeks. That was to try and resolve all my other existing games - including 4 others in this challenge - that had been building up as a result of restartitis. Those have now been almost all completed, with 3 of the 4 in this challenge being successful, so let's see if the diviner can add to that. I've just completed BGEE with the help of malison making Sarevok susceptible to his own traps.
As usual I did a pretty minimal content run in SoD and quickly completed that - relying essentially on Caelar against Belhifet.
The run came to an untimely end pretty early in SoA thanks to a major cock-up. I was faced with a first travel ambush, which should have been no trouble given that I was invisible at the time. However, after retreating out of sight I intended to summon a skeleton warrior to provide back-up, but managed somehow to cast a skull trap instead and kill myself.
I've not played much in the last couple of months, but did have a promising run recently with a cleric dualled to thief. That came unstuck in the first Pocket Plane challenge, when I forgot that Duke Eltan had physical mirror up - and several spike traps were reflected onto me ...
The usual random choice for my next attempt produced another new class with a swashbuckler - giving me an immediate opportunity to be more discriminating with traps than the previous effort . I'd been rolling stats for a little while without much success, and was thinking I'd settle for a 87 total, when a 95 appeared out of the blue - hence this character is rather more intelligent than I'd expected.
In typical fashion, I didn't always minimize risks early in BGEE. That nearly led to another failure at the Bandit Camp when I got into sight of several bandit archers at once. Two rapid criticals followed, but I managed to limp away clinging onto my last HP. I was more careful in the latter stages as I moved through to a final confrontation with Sarevok. He had no real defense against my ability to hide behind pillars and was soon struck down.
There were no particular problems going through SoD. I relied essentially on Caelar in the battle with Belhifet. That always feels uncomfortable as, once you've started using scrolls of greater restoration on him, fatigue makes it difficult or impossible to kill Belhifet if Caelar dies. However, there were no errors this time.
SoA felt like a bit of a chore towards the end - when I was at the XP cap and already had all the equipment desired, so there was little incentive to do some of the fights. Possibly because of that, I mis-clicked at the start of the hell challenges and missed out on the intended boost to elemental resistances. However, hopefully that won't make any significant difference in ToB .
Well, that was rather a waste. One of the nice things about thieves is it makes the final battles with Melissan easy - but of course you still need to take care. Apart from her, the main threats in that sequence are a vorpal from the fallen solar or charm from the succubus. Rather than directly guard against those, I just put a simmy in front of me when confronting that group. I knew that was potentially dangerous as some enemies will target the PC in preference to anything else. Even with the big saving throw penalty against the succubus charm, the chance of it getting me at the first attempt was low - but it did it anyway from the fog of war before I could even see it .
A random choice brought this class up again just a few weeks later. I've been playing quite a bit lately though and didn't really feel like it - hence there was always more chance than usual of taking one risk too many. Against the Red Wizards, I'd killed 3 of them before trying to drag their leader into a group of 4 traps. The chances were heavily in favor of that killing him - but it didn't. I was affected by horror and he had just enough spell damage available to finish me off before the horror ended.
A bit over 2 years later and I tried again - but it wasn't third time lucky. I got into SoA, but a slight lack of concentration there proved costly. At Watcher's Keep I checked whether vampiric wraiths were waiting, intending to just run away if they were (rather than resorting to a PfU scroll). However, I didn't use haste and the greater speed of the wraiths was enough to remove my HPs while waiting for the rather slow triggering of the exit (I've been caught like that before, so really should have planned to avoid that).
Another 18 months or so and I started a 4th attempt as part of a random group of 5, with wizard slayer, cleric/mage, skald and cavalier. I didn't get far with that initially, partly as a result of getting the skald killed early on and reluctantly restarting that. However, after not playing for a couple of months or so I have eventually finished off Sarevok with the swashie after a pretty smooth run through BGEE.
Cleric/Ranger
After throwing away my first swashbuckler run within minutes of success, I ranted and raved for hourssighed briefly and rolled for what the next character should be. That was another new class for this challenge - a multi-class cleric/ranger. The relatively poor saving throws and clerical restrictions mean that could be quite challenging in ToB, but in BG1 stealth and divine spells are really powerful, so progress should have been pretty easy. That was indeed the case, with one exception when I didn't realize a Red Wizard had seen me and was busy summoning a skeleton when it appeared and cast horror. Failing against that could very easily have been fatal, but I succeeded and completed remaining work without further trouble. Here's my character record on transfer to SoD.
SoD is done as well. With divine spells available, as well as fighting my favorite enemy, Belhifet was always going to be easy to take down assuming I remembered to buff - which I did . Keeping buffs up over the long haul in SoA will be harder though ...
And indeed, it was a bit of carelessness/experimentation which ended this run as well. In the underdark I attacked a pair of gauths in melee, despite thinking that my spell saving throw of 1 was probably not good enough. I was wearing the Cloak of Mirroring that protected me from their cause wounds spells, but was quickly held. With the huge number of rays they send out, the chances of ever escaping seemed infinitesimal and I ended the game there.
A couple of months later this class came up again. Progress through BGEE was mainly pretty easy, though I did have to be sharp on two occasions when ambushed by basilisks. I used almost no potions, but did use clerical buffs for Sarevok - and he had a poor set of attack rolls allowing a comfortable victory without the need to switch to my sling.
SoD was pretty straightforward. I did forget to place the Bwoosh in the Underground River, but gaining alternative access to the castle is easy enough. Buffed by Champion's Strength, potion boosts and attacking my favored enemy it didn't take long to deal with Belhifet.
When I came to start in SoA, I realized I'd overwritten my standard save at the end of SoD. I did have the final save automatically created by the game, but that means I've lost the golden pantaloons which is a bit of a shame.
SoA is complete, though it took almost 2 months to do that (reflecting that I'm not that keen on the character and SoA is a bit of a slog at the best of times). Without the Big Metal Unit and Rod, chances of success are reduced but this character should still be a reasonable prospect if I can remember to keep protections up against status effects.
Well, that was a shame. Having taken so long to get to ToB, I decided to do that the same day. I made it through to Melissan and things seemed to be going well when her first 2 incarnations fell. The third though was entirely too keen on time stops. The first of those she was on the other side of the area and never made it to me. The second she was somewhat closer and got into melee in time to give me a few nasty whacks - I survived with about 30 HPs. It was only a few rounds after that though and I still was fairly low on HPs when she completed another time stop. This one she was pretty close to start with and immediately came into melee - so I would probably have died even if I'd had full HPs at that point ...
Nearly 3 years later a 3rd go with this class came up as part of a quintet of attempts running at the same time. The first couple of times I tried that type of multiple run were pretty successful, but the third group was dreadful with four of the five characters dead without getting past the early stages of SoA. Partly as a result of that poor performance I put the remaining Priest of Tempus run on hold and decided to randomly generate a new quintet, starting off with the R/Cl. That's gone through BGEE, though with one big slice of luck when a basilisk recovered from Bhaal horror earlier than I'd expected and gazed at me while I was unbuffed and with my aura clouded. Fortunately the Cloak of Balduran's MR kicked in to save me there and I went on to finish off Sarevok with a LMD.
I've been suffering with restartitis for a while and had built up about 8 unresolved runs before deciding to work through all of those. Thus far 3 runs within this challenge have been successfully completed, so I'm hoping the cleric/ranger can make it 4 in a row. Nearly 8 months since the run started, it's just gone through SoD without trouble. With THAC0 boosted by Champion's Strength and the bonus from targeting demons as a favoured enemy, Belhifet stood no chance.
A few more days and SoA is complete as well, though that felt a bit more dodgy. There were a couple of points of particular concern. First, in the Troll Mound I was fighting a couple of giant trolls when both of those hit hard at the same time - meaning one more hit would potentially be fatal. Their fast movement meant just running from them wasn't really possible and I resorted to a rare use of a potion to disappear and buff up to finish them off. The second problem was in the beholder hive in the Underdark. I forgot that beholders, unusually, ignore sanctuary even though they can't see invisible creatures. I was lucky there in being able to run past a group of them without failing a saving throw, but did then get held by a gauth a bit further on. Even though its paralyzation only had a 5% chance of beating my saving throw, it threw out so many of those that it took around half an hour of real time before I recovered and could deal with it. There were no problems after that though and Jon duly bit the dust for the final time.
I was making quick progress through ToB as well, but impatience proved costly there against Draconis. I saw the danger when a remove magic and malison combination made saving throws vulnerable, but he was nearly dead and I tried to finish him off with a GWW. Instead though I was affected by dragon fear and failed to survive the running round that caused.
A third run in a row had an unsatisfactory finish after I generated another new class in a cleric/thief multi. That's a pretty easy class to make progress with thanks to the powerful cleric spells available in BGEE and thief traps and stealth in BG2EE supported by good all-round saving throws. However, no class can survive without being careful and a moment's inattention resulted in me leaving the Temple of Rillifane while the Avatar was in the process of being summoned - breaking the script and leaving no way to continue the game (without reloading, which I don't generally allow even for bugs). The run was reported on the no-reload thread.
Stalker
I haven't played this much in recent months, but was tempted to start a new character to take part in the BGEE speed run challenge set up by @jmerry. With half an eye on wanting to make progress beyond that I didn't set a particularly fast time, but did at least succeed at the first attempt. The character is weakened a bit by not having picked up all the tomes - particularly strength and constitution - and not having any Bhaal powers. However, he was exceptionally lucky with HP rolls, getting to 94 out of a possible 98 at level 7. Hopefully that will set him up to make further progress.
Squeezing in snatches of play between bits of work, I've managed to complete SoD today as well. With demons as my racial enemy, wielding the Tongue of Acid gained from Thrix and using Champion's Strength scrolls, I was able to carve through Belhifet's defenses in just a few rounds without taking any damage myself - no need to rely on Caelar with this character .
I didn't pick up the pantaloons in BGEE, but there's a long way to go before that might be an issue.
In the event that was not an issue thanks to taking one risk too many . I was up to level 15 and underneath the Copper Coronet on the way to the slavers. Attacking the group of hobgoblins next to Lilarcor I narrowly failed to kill the shaman before being approached by another hobgoblin and retreating. I successfully went into stealth round the corner before seeing a hold person projectile approaching. I had Arbane in a quickslot, so could have just switched to that, but decided to risk the save. That failed, but I thought I would still survive against the attacks of a single hobgoblin. I'd not appreciated though that the one approaching was a hobgoblin captain - with higher APR and damage. After my stealth failed that allowed him just enough time to finish me off before the hold person wore off ...
Wizard slayer (post continued from here)
{54th attempt continued}I carried on straight away to BG2, but quickly failed there after going in search of the Shield of Harmony. After disposing of the first genie I went in the tent and scared both the others. Unfortunately that broke their AI and both of them spammed infinite stoneskin spells several times a second. That gave them the edge when the battle proper started and, after a second attempted horror was interrupted, I tried to run. However, their haste allowed them a chance to attack while I was running and I didn't quite manage to get to the map edge ...
A couple of weeks later and I tried once more. This time though my luck failed to hold out in BG1. Just for the hell of it I attacked the Red Wizards when already at the XP cap and got sent running in horror. I could probably have survived all their spells, but unfortunately ran all the way across the map where a group of spiders waited. I saved against their web trap - but not against a phase spider sting. I did recover from the horror soon after, still with 42 HPs left, but hadn't got around to buying a protection from poison scroll yet and there's no exit from the right side of that map ...
I've only played the wizard slayer class in this challenge for a while now and thought it was about time to try something else, so generated a random choice - which turned out to be a wizard slayer . Deciding to take that as a cosmic hint I accepted the choice. I even took marginally fewer risks this time, though I still had to rely on innate magic resistance to save against an attempted charm from Drizzt. Sarevok had no chance to react in the final fight as he was gradually worn down by his own trap.
There was an annoying end to the run in SoD. I'd just gone through the Underground River and poisoned the food and water and was on my way out. Normally there's enough time to run out before the alarm spreads, but this time that happened a fraction early and the route was blocked. One attempted Bhaal horror was interrupted and I was unlucky with the other that the enemies affected still didn't provide a route out and I was gradually cut down.
Eight months later I tried a 57th attempt. That went reasonably well for most of BGEE, but hit the buffers at the palace when all 6 dopplegangers attacked the dukes - something which was always likely to be a problem.
Three months later a 58th attempt was even more short-lived. At the basilisk area Korax was in front of me when I clicked to group attack a basilisk. I didn't perceive a problem, but with using darts I must have moved forward and edged fractionally in front of Korax as the basilisk clearly decided to target me ...
A few weeks later and I decided to use a new approach to this challenge by randomly selecting a group of 7 characters and then taking it in turn to do sessions with each - the hope there that the variety will make it easier to maintain concentration. The WS was one of those selected, but also the first to fall - when commanded by a hobgoblin shaman while surrounded by other hobgoblins at the entrance to the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms. The overall run for the 7 characters is summarised here.
Four months later I had a go at number 60. Things went well in BGEE up to the final battle with Sarevok. With just Angelo and Sarevok left I got a bit careless. I'd taken quite a bit of damage from Angelo's exploding arrows and sought to finish him off quickly. However, a slight movement error meant Sarevok got an unexpected attack in which was just too much for me.
Another 6 months and I'd had several other challenges mid-way through runs for a couple of months now without playing. I felt like doing some, but wanted to start from scratch and decided to have another go at this one. Things were going well with BGEE complete and nearing the end of SoD, but then I was dire charmed by a bone fiend summoned by Thrix. At the time my spell save was -2 and I'm pretty certain the bone fiend is not supposed to have an adjustment to the save of -4, so that felt somewhat unfair. I'm not sure if the save is against a different category for some reason, or whether this was just an example of the occasional behavior of the game where a save is made, but the effect takes place anyway.
I started a 62nd run more or less immediately, but soon got into trouble. After killing the basilisks I attacked Kirian's group, but failed to shut down her spell casting quickly enough and was affected by horror. There was then little chance I would run far enough away to be safe and I wasn't ...
A couple of days later and I'm trying again. This time I'm past Sarevok, so at least an improvement on the previous attempt. However, almost unbelievably the game once more cheated on me during the fight with Thrix's summons. This time I'd killed them all except the Hamatula. In order to avoid its barbed defense I took off the dwarven boots, so that I could get the distance to use darts of stunning. When it cast hold person I switched to my long sword which should have reduced spell save to 1 - but that didn't prevent me getting held on the 3rd or 4th attempt. When I immediately checked my character record that showed spell save as 5, i.e. not taking account of the sword. Switching to inventory confirmed the sword was correctly equipped and when I switched back to the character record it now correctly showed the save as 1 - but too late . I guess I should have used the shield I had in my backpack that gives immunity to hold person ...
I would probably have ended the sequence there, but after a couple of dodgy deaths I decided to have one more go. Things went well up to getting into the City. However, after buying arrows of explosion, I went to hunt some sirines at the Lighthouse and got distinctly unlucky there. Hits with those are automatic and 4 of them will inflict 100% casting failure on the sirines. It's touch and go though whether the first targeted will be hit for the 4th time before completing a first dire charm. On this occasion it managed the cast and completed that despite the 75% spell failure - and the 30% chance of me failing the save proved too much.
A few weeks later and I've started a 65th attempt. That's just gone past Sarevok and I hope that this time I can get through the SoD bottleneck! The pain continues though, with yet another unfortunate death - though this time was very early on in SoD. At the Coast Way Forest I tried to help Tsolak and killed Ikros and Isabella for him - but a wandering orc appeared to make him hostile and he immediately used domination on me ...
I tried another attempt, this time recording that on the no-reload thread, in the hope that would change my luck. Unfortunately that didn't work with Davaeorn successfully overcoming spell failure to get me with a dire charm.
Another few months and I tried a 67th time. I got through the fight at the Coronation surprisingly easily and worked through the maze. I didn't need the XP, but decided to kill the skeleton warriors in the Undercity anyway. I didn't use a PfU scroll, as that didn't seem necessary and that seemed a perfectly reasonable decision as 4 of them fell without any trouble at all. The final one though was incredibly lucky, hitting me almost every time despite needing a 17 to do so. I had the chance to run away, but chose not to and the near-death skeleton was the one that got the final hit ...
A week or so later and another attempt perished at the Coronation. I'd intended to have 2 horrors available there, but rested at the wrong time and only had one of those. That failed to affect any of the dopplegangers, which was bad news given that all of them had initially attacked the dukes. One of them came after me once Liia was dead and I killed another and stunned two more with darts - but that wasn't enough to save Eltan.
Another week and a short-lived attempt failed when I attempted to finish off Bentan early on to get his PfM scroll, but missed with a couple of darts - allowing him to score with a charm person spell.
Thief dualling to cleric
For the first time in 8 months I generated a new class for this challenge. The random selection was for a thief due to dual to cleric and I decided to set that up by starting with a shadowdancer and not dual until well into BG2EE. Progress in BGEE was generally fairly serene, but I got caught out at the palace when the dopplegangers clawed their way through the dukes dismayingly quickly. That run was recorded on the no-reload thread.
Another 8 months later this class came up again as a random selection. Once again though I didn't do it justice. In Baldur's Gate, I unnecessarily attacked Degrodel and was surprised when stealth broke while I was lining up a backstab. I didn't react quickly enough to use any protection before the mage cast horror and the enclosed quarters meant I was an easy victim for the mage and his guards.
Necromancer
A couple of days later I generated another new class, but didn't perform well with that. At the Cloakwood Mine I tried resting in a potentially dangerous situation and was duly cut down by large numbers of guards that appeared.
Wizard slayer (post continued from here)
{54th attempt continued}I carried on straight away to BG2, but quickly failed there after going in search of the Shield of Harmony. After disposing of the first genie I went in the tent and scared both the others. Unfortunately that broke their AI and both of them spammed infinite stoneskin spells several times a second. That gave them the edge when the battle proper started and, after a second attempted horror was interrupted, I tried to run. However, their haste allowed them a chance to attack while I was running and I didn't quite manage to get to the map edge ...
A couple of weeks later and I tried once more. This time though my luck failed to hold out in BG1. Just for the hell of it I attacked the Red Wizards when already at the XP cap and got sent running in horror. I could probably have survived all their spells, but unfortunately ran all the way across the map where a group of spiders waited. I saved against their web trap - but not against a phase spider sting. I did recover from the horror soon after, still with 42 HPs left, but hadn't got around to buying a protection from poison scroll yet and there's no exit from the right side of that map ...
I've only played the wizard slayer class in this challenge for a while now and thought it was about time to try something else, so generated a random choice - which turned out to be a wizard slayer . Deciding to take that as a cosmic hint I accepted the choice. I even took marginally fewer risks this time, though I still had to rely on innate magic resistance to save against an attempted charm from Drizzt. Sarevok had no chance to react in the final fight as he was gradually worn down by his own trap.
There was an annoying end to the run in SoD. I'd just gone through the Underground River and poisoned the food and water and was on my way out. Normally there's enough time to run out before the alarm spreads, but this time that happened a fraction early and the route was blocked. One attempted Bhaal horror was interrupted and I was unlucky with the other that the enemies affected still didn't provide a route out and I was gradually cut down.
You're a champ for cataloging all these runs, let alone doing them.
Cleric dualling to fighter
I haven't played single player for 6 weeks or so, but decided to have another go yesterday. A random choice produced another new class with a cleric dualling to fighter. As fighters don't get much stronger with later levels and clerics are best in the early and middle game, I was already thinking of using a late dual. That intention was reinforced when I failed to pick up the violet potion from the carnival (a rather too regular occurrence ). Missing out on the strength tome is more of a pain as I don't have exceptional strength to start with, while the loss of a wisdom tome means I don't get a bonus 5th level spell and hence have an incentive to continue for further levels to make up for that. After Semaj was killed by skeletons, Sarevok chased me round for a while. I mixed wand magic missiles in with my slingshots and it was one of the former that eventually got the kill.
It's over 3 months since I last played single player BG, but I did eventually get around to continuing this run in SoD this morning. There were no particular problems on the way to helping Caelar deal with Belhifet, but I noticed after that I hadn't got the pantaloons in my backpack - so it looks like I was even more forgetful in BGEE than I realized previously . That will make success in ToB even more unlikely, but there will be plenty of work to do before then anyway ...
In the event I didn't have to worry about ToB. I dualled at level 11 and did plenty of hard work in getting up nearly to level 16 as a fighter before coming a cropper on the way in to the Unseeing Eye quest. After summoning the bridge, I produced a bunch of skeleton warriors to kill the group of beholders there and then used sanctuary and scouted ahead in order to sight the beholders to get the best targeting by the skeletons. Unfortunately, while beholders are unable to see through invisibility, it appears they can ignore sanctuary - and the attacks by the whole group of them killed me before I could retreat ...
Priest of Tyr
After a few months of not playing, I'm on my third run of the last few days. Mistakes saw the first of those ended when I failed to appreciate that beholders would ignore sanctuary, while in the second I fell for the classical mistake of trying to protect against a dart of stunning using free action. This time round the random choice was another new character - a priest of Tyr. It's major special ability only works on other members of the party, so as a solo character it plays pretty much the same as a standard cleric. BGEE is easy for clerics though and I had a fairly routine ride through to Sarevok. He was kited around for a while before I closed in on him for the kill.
A real piece of carelessness saw me fail at Boareskyr Bridge. I interrupted the mage's initial couple of spells with the Ring of Energy, but with the mage at near death and being attacked by 4 skeletons as well as me, I assumed he would quickly fall. Somehow though he managed to complete not one, but 2 lightning bolts - the second of which exploded the barrels on the bridge ...
Eight months later I tried again. Progress with a cleric is easy in BGEE, but you still need to take a bit of care and I didn't do so at the palace. I had 5 skeletons, which I expected to be enough and didn't bother with buffing. All but one of the dopplegangers then attacked the dukes and killed them just before I could finish off the dopplegangers ...
Thief dualling to fighter
Deciding that I wanted to have another go at completing the game at the first attempt with at least one class, I generated a new character - a shadowdancer that would have dualled to fighter in BG2EE.
I was aiming to complete BGEE without taking any damage and was successful in doing that as far as the coronation at the palace. Partly to defend that record, I decided to charm a couple of the nobles in order to reduce the initial pressure on the dukes. It's a long time since I used that tactic, but in the past the nobles would only change form to dopplegangers once the charm had worn off and I don't remember any problems with that. This time though only one of the nobles changed form and it appeared the other one had been killed by a guard while still a noble - his death didn't count towards Belt's headcount target, so the game couldn't progress after that. The run was detailed on the no-reload thread.
A couple of months later I tried this again, but with disappointing results. In the Cloakwood, I was killing ettercaps prior to going through their web traps. However, on the 3rd of those I forgot to switch back from my staff to sling and moved towards the ettercap. An attempted click to move away again failed to register and I triggered the trap before I could try again or pause - and though the text message said I'd saved I was stuck and the ettercaps quickly took advantage ...
Comments
The next new character to be generated was a berserker. That should be another pretty easy one to make progress with and has just gone through BGEE without much in the way of alarms.
It only took about an hour and a half to get through SoD. The only bit of non-essential content I did there was to kill Rigah for his 2-handed sword. For normal fighting I preferred the high weapon speed of the dagger of venom, but the 2-hander was just the job to chop up Belhifet in no time - unlike against the dragon disciple in my previous run, there was no question of his regeneration saving him this time and he was finished off with a mighty critical!
Six weeks later I tried again - and this time, success! As I normally do, I was randomly selecting which class to attempt next and got the berserker. As a birthday treat to myself I decided to do that as a one-day challenge. I've tried that a few times in the past without success, so it was nice to be able to tick that one off my list.
Afterthoughts
The berserker is probably the easiest of all the classes to do a no-reload with. In the early stages of the game the effective immunity to charm, fear and hold while rage is up means less precision is required in fights. In later stages of the game, low saving throws and the cloak of mirroring can make shorty characters immune to the vast majority of spells. One major exception is maze - but rage protects against that as well.
The ability to use plate armor and wear any ancillary equipment means defenses against physical attacks are also strong, without the need to rely on buffs. Hence the berserker is much less vulnerable to mistakes than most classes. Of course, everything is relative - it is still easy to die if you're careless
Five months later I started this again, but only lasted 5 minutes - a ambush by skeletons on the first area transition proving fatal when they got exceedingly lucky rolls.
Another month later and I'm currently in the middle of a shaman run. However, I'm limiting that to an hour a day and rolled a random choice for another run to use up additional oddments of time. Progress was smooth to Baldur's Gate, but I once again got into trouble there when saving the game having just talked to Degrodel and talking to him again on the restart. I managed to stun him with a dart and successfully killed him to get Balduran's Helm back, but was trapped in a corner by a couple of doom guards and a helmed horror. I hadn't bought any potions, so had no regeneration available and used a potion of invisibility to take advantage of my constitution regeneration before breaking out. I'd forgotten though that potions last 12 hours rather than the 24 hours of the spell - and left the game running long enough to reappear and allow the enemies to finish their job while I was away from the computer.
Thinking I would have a go at a sole class druid, I rolled up a totemic version. That made pretty easy progress through BGEE and most of SoD, before getting held by Thrix's summoned army when his cutscene appeared to last long enough to erase my buffs. That was another run summarized on the no-reload thread.
Another attempt that failed at Sendai's Enclave is summarized here. I didn't expect to beat Mel, but should really have got to her. However, I underestimated the drow that appear between Sendai's statues ...
A year later I've started a third attempt. That's now in v2.6, which made it a bit more difficult than previously to get hold of Drizzt's equipment. However, he proved pretty vulnerable after having magic resistance cast on him.
It was a similar story in SoD - the sort of slightly risky play (like not buffing for the Crusader invasions of the camp) which can so easily be costly. However, my luck held this time and Belhifet was eventually chopped up with the help of Caelar.
Three and a half years later the druid got a second attempt as part of a multiple run with 5 characters in parallel. The first time I did that with 7 characters, 5 of them were successful, but this attempt looks like being a miserable failure. A jester was the first to die in BGEE and an undead hunter followed on from that just before going to take on Sarevok. This druid is the 3rd to fail to make it. This time I got to Sarevok and only he was left when I killed myself on a lightning trap. That was essentially bloody-mindedness as a result of disappointment with the earlier characters - I knew my lightning protection would be running short, but chose not to reapply it or be careful about movement near the trap ...
I'm looking forward to see what strategies will allow you to advance in late game (summons, especially the fire elemental ones, can take care of most of SoD & BG2).
What were your preparations for the fight against Belhifet ? What weapons did you use ?
When there not that long ago with a totemic druid I used the Root of the Problem Club in my off-hand, which allowed Belhifet to be killed somewhat quicker. I partly didn't do that this time to reduce damage taken - but that would be less of an issue for most people who aren't allergic to healing items
I was wondering about that, btw, what is the reason behind this ?
Is it just for the duration of the fights, like resting/saving is impossible and so you don't use healing items too ? Do you allow healing items outside of battle ?
I'm so used to not using healing now that in most cases I don't notice the lack - it's probably only the fight with Melissan that it regularly becomes a major issue. She's immune to so many things that strategies for many characters are fairly limited and with lots of summons, area damage spells, missiles flying around and regular dispels, it's hard for non-arcane characters to avoid damage - and the sheer length of the various battles without the ability to rest means that abilities like hardiness and GWW are in short supply.
The Wizard Slayer solo seemed extremely difficult, which isn't surprising. I still enjoy the class for what it is, limited as it may be.
@WarChiefZeke it's certainly not easy
@Grond0 I think I found the reason why you don't use healing potions ?
Bad habit were still a problem 18 months later when I tried this class again. I was following Korax round killing basilisks without paying full attention. The result when one of those retreated a bit was that I followed more quickly than Korax and the basilisk switched its gaze to me ...
A bit over a year later I tried this again. Progress was generally good, but with the odd major mistake. One of those caught up with me against Thaxy when I was slow to remember one big drawback with monks is their difficulty in dealing with level-draining attacks. The run was fully reported on the no-reload thread.
I created a fighter/mage/thief with the intention of trying to avoid taking any damage during the run. A mistake saw me injured during the return to Candlekeep, but I continued with the run through SoD and into BG2EE. I was no longer trying to avoid damage there and progress seemed very easy, but I hit a bug when Gaelan Bayle incorrectly said he'd given me the key to a secret door in the thieves guild - rather than fiddle around with the save I ended the run there. The run was recorded on the no-reload thread.
Eight months later and this came up again as a random choice. I had one close shave in BGEE when I wasn't paying close attention during an area transition, which allowed an ambushing basilisk the time to gaze at me. I had no useful potions, but saved anyway. I used the lightning trap to kill Sarevok's companions, in order to get Angelo's exploding arrows. I then missed an attempted backstab on Sarevok and had no buffs or summons to allow me to fight toe to toe - so resorted to shooting to finish him off.
I've had a few near misses in the last couple of months, but no more successes. I've rolled a random choice of characters at least three times I think during that period - but selected an existing character on each occasion. This time though I got some fresh blood with a Priest of Lathander. He's gone through BGEE relatively untroubled, at least until the final battle. I was aiming to avoid use of potions against Sarevok. However, a couple of skeletons and I couldn't quite finish Sarevok off before he took me dangerously low on HPs. To avoid the increased risk of a movement error trying to shoot him when he moved as fast as I did, I used an oil of speed to get the couple of missile hits necessary.
Seven months later and this class came up again. This is the first run after updating the game to v2.6. I've played that a fair amount in MP, so the odd change in gameplay shouldn't be too much of a surprise and it would be nice to make this run a good one. With poor saving throws I think his chances are limited, but he's at least completed the first hurdle - finishing off Sarevok with LMD like any Priest of Lathander should
Ten more months and another attempt followed my typical story of starting with the intention of playing safely before lapsing into failure. I was up at level 7 and had just killed the sirines and golems at the lighthouse area. Coming out of the cave I tried to rest, but was ambushed by a sirine. They're easy to run away from while they go invisible, but I tried withdrawing a bit and then casting silence towards the sirine's location. However, it moved while I was casting and got its dire charm off just before it was silenced.
Question. You mention "guaranteed" saving throws. My understanding is that no matter how good your saving throws, there's always a 5% chance of critical failure. Is that correct?
I've been doing a shaman run for a while - reporting that on the no-reload thread. That's been limited to one hour a day though, which has sometimes left me at a loose end. As a result I've twice started other runs in recent days, though neither got too far. In both of those earlier ones, the random character chosen was an existing class, but this time a new class was selected - a diviner. Without a true dump stat, that can be a hard class to roll for, but I managed a 94 roll in only 10 minutes or so and went for a mage that's a good all-rounder - with the exception of being slightly intellectually challenged
Starting again immediately I tried hard this time to avoid any risks. When trying that with a mage character I typically see if I can complete BG1 without taking any damage. Realistically that means you need access to invisibility reasonably early on, in order to be able to travel safely - so I compromised my normal principles and bought some scrolls and potions of genius before I'd minimized prices by raising charisma. That allowed me to make smooth progress up to almost getting to the level cap. I was just finishing clearing the top of Durlag's Tower though when I reverted to type against the last ghast. Seeing it coming I was aware it would be touch and go whether my aura cleared in time to finish it off with a magic missile - it didn't ...
Trying again straight away, it was third time lucky. I don't think I was ever attacked when I didn't have a stoneskin up, though I did get a bit careless later on and travelled between maps 2 or 3 times without being invisible - but never got ambushed. The closest I came to being damaged was when I used improved invisibility to attack Degrodel before dumping a cloudkill on him. However, a misclick sent me briefly into the cloud as well, but fortunately I was able to retreat before a poison tick took effect. Rather than cheese Sarevok, I fought him reasonably fairly. Angelo and Tazok died in webs on the dais, while invisibility helped split the others up. A couple of lots of summons then provided distraction while I finished off Semaj and finally Sarevok.
I got a bit of the way through SoD without taking damage. In the old temple though I carefully rested in order to memorize protection from fire - and then immediately walked through the trap without casting it
About 18 months later this came up as a random selection. As so often I started carefully, but also as so often I started taking more risks as time went on. In the battle with Sarevok I didn't use any protections and that proved costly when I triggered a lightning trap. The first hit of that wasn't fatal and I had the chance to take a potion to protect myself, but thought the lightning wasn't going to bounce back - eventually though, it did ...
A bit over 2 years later I had a 5th go. I was aiming to do BGEE in a single session and had no trouble up until Baldur's Gate when a moment of carelessness proved costly. Doing the poison quest I interrupted Marek's initial spell with a dart of wounding. A couple of sling bullets added to that disrupted his next couple of spells and I thought he was going to die from it. However, he somehow clung on and I didn't react fast enough when he successfully completed a horror spell - a series of acid arrows then did for me.
I started again straight away, but had a bit of a hiatus for 7 or 8 weeks. That was to try and resolve all my other existing games - including 4 others in this challenge - that had been building up as a result of restartitis. Those have now been almost all completed, with 3 of the 4 in this challenge being successful, so let's see if the diviner can add to that. I've just completed BGEE with the help of malison making Sarevok susceptible to his own traps.
The usual random choice for my next attempt produced another new class with a swashbuckler - giving me an immediate opportunity to be more discriminating with traps than the previous effort
A random choice brought this class up again just a few weeks later. I've been playing quite a bit lately though and didn't really feel like it - hence there was always more chance than usual of taking one risk too many. Against the Red Wizards, I'd killed 3 of them before trying to drag their leader into a group of 4 traps. The chances were heavily in favor of that killing him - but it didn't. I was affected by horror and he had just enough spell damage available to finish me off before the horror ended.
A bit over 2 years later and I tried again - but it wasn't third time lucky. I got into SoA, but a slight lack of concentration there proved costly. At Watcher's Keep I checked whether vampiric wraiths were waiting, intending to just run away if they were (rather than resorting to a PfU scroll). However, I didn't use haste and the greater speed of the wraiths was enough to remove my HPs while waiting for the rather slow triggering of the exit (I've been caught like that before, so really should have planned to avoid that).
Another 18 months or so and I started a 4th attempt as part of a random group of 5, with wizard slayer, cleric/mage, skald and cavalier. I didn't get far with that initially, partly as a result of getting the skald killed early on and reluctantly restarting that. However, after not playing for a couple of months or so I have eventually finished off Sarevok with the swashie after a pretty smooth run through BGEE.
After throwing away my first swashbuckler run within minutes of success, I ranted and raved for hourssighed briefly and rolled for what the next character should be. That was another new class for this challenge - a multi-class cleric/ranger. The relatively poor saving throws and clerical restrictions mean that could be quite challenging in ToB, but in BG1 stealth and divine spells are really powerful, so progress should have been pretty easy. That was indeed the case, with one exception when I didn't realize a Red Wizard had seen me and was busy summoning a skeleton when it appeared and cast horror. Failing against that could very easily have been fatal, but I succeeded and completed remaining work without further trouble. Here's my character record on transfer to SoD.
A couple of months later this class came up again. Progress through BGEE was mainly pretty easy, though I did have to be sharp on two occasions when ambushed by basilisks. I used almost no potions, but did use clerical buffs for Sarevok - and he had a poor set of attack rolls allowing a comfortable victory without the need to switch to my sling.
SoA is complete, though it took almost 2 months to do that (reflecting that I'm not that keen on the character and SoA is a bit of a slog at the best of times). Without the Big Metal Unit and Rod, chances of success are reduced but this character should still be a reasonable prospect if I can remember to keep protections up against status effects.
Nearly 3 years later a 3rd go with this class came up as part of a quintet of attempts running at the same time. The first couple of times I tried that type of multiple run were pretty successful, but the third group was dreadful with four of the five characters dead without getting past the early stages of SoA. Partly as a result of that poor performance I put the remaining Priest of Tempus run on hold and decided to randomly generate a new quintet, starting off with the R/Cl. That's gone through BGEE, though with one big slice of luck when a basilisk recovered from Bhaal horror earlier than I'd expected and gazed at me while I was unbuffed and with my aura clouded. Fortunately the Cloak of Balduran's MR kicked in to save me there and I went on to finish off Sarevok with a LMD.
I haven't played this much in recent months, but was tempted to start a new character to take part in the BGEE speed run challenge set up by @jmerry. With half an eye on wanting to make progress beyond that I didn't set a particularly fast time, but did at least succeed at the first attempt. The character is weakened a bit by not having picked up all the tomes - particularly strength and constitution - and not having any Bhaal powers. However, he was exceptionally lucky with HP rolls, getting to 94 out of a possible 98 at level 7. Hopefully that will set him up to make further progress.
Squeezing in snatches of play between bits of work, I've managed to complete SoD today as well. With demons as my racial enemy, wielding the Tongue of Acid gained from Thrix and using Champion's Strength scrolls, I was able to carve through Belhifet's defenses in just a few rounds without taking any damage myself - no need to rely on Caelar with this character
In the event that was not an issue thanks to taking one risk too many
{54th attempt continued}I carried on straight away to BG2, but quickly failed there after going in search of the Shield of Harmony. After disposing of the first genie I went in the tent and scared both the others. Unfortunately that broke their AI and both of them spammed infinite stoneskin spells several times a second. That gave them the edge when the battle proper started and, after a second attempted horror was interrupted, I tried to run. However, their haste allowed them a chance to attack while I was running and I didn't quite manage to get to the map edge ...
A couple of weeks later and I tried once more. This time though my luck failed to hold out in BG1. Just for the hell of it I attacked the Red Wizards when already at the XP cap and got sent running in horror. I could probably have survived all their spells, but unfortunately ran all the way across the map where a group of spiders waited. I saved against their web trap - but not against a phase spider sting. I did recover from the horror soon after, still with 42 HPs left, but hadn't got around to buying a protection from poison scroll yet and there's no exit from the right side of that map ...
I've only played the wizard slayer class in this challenge for a while now and thought it was about time to try something else, so generated a random choice - which turned out to be a wizard slayer
Eight months later I tried a 57th attempt. That went reasonably well for most of BGEE, but hit the buffers at the palace when all 6 dopplegangers attacked the dukes - something which was always likely to be a problem.
Three months later a 58th attempt was even more short-lived. At the basilisk area Korax was in front of me when I clicked to group attack a basilisk. I didn't perceive a problem, but with using darts I must have moved forward and edged fractionally in front of Korax as the basilisk clearly decided to target me ...
A few weeks later and I decided to use a new approach to this challenge by randomly selecting a group of 7 characters and then taking it in turn to do sessions with each - the hope there that the variety will make it easier to maintain concentration. The WS was one of those selected, but also the first to fall - when commanded by a hobgoblin shaman while surrounded by other hobgoblins at the entrance to the old temple in the Forest of Wyrms. The overall run for the 7 characters is summarised here.
Four months later I had a go at number 60. Things went well in BGEE up to the final battle with Sarevok. With just Angelo and Sarevok left I got a bit careless. I'd taken quite a bit of damage from Angelo's exploding arrows and sought to finish him off quickly. However, a slight movement error meant Sarevok got an unexpected attack in which was just too much for me.
Another 6 months and I'd had several other challenges mid-way through runs for a couple of months now without playing. I felt like doing some, but wanted to start from scratch and decided to have another go at this one. Things were going well with BGEE complete and nearing the end of SoD, but then I was dire charmed by a bone fiend summoned by Thrix. At the time my spell save was -2 and I'm pretty certain the bone fiend is not supposed to have an adjustment to the save of -4, so that felt somewhat unfair. I'm not sure if the save is against a different category for some reason, or whether this was just an example of the occasional behavior of the game where a save is made, but the effect takes place anyway.
I started a 62nd run more or less immediately, but soon got into trouble. After killing the basilisks I attacked Kirian's group, but failed to shut down her spell casting quickly enough and was affected by horror. There was then little chance I would run far enough away to be safe and I wasn't ...
A couple of days later and I'm trying again. This time I'm past Sarevok, so at least an improvement on the previous attempt. However, almost unbelievably the game once more cheated on me during the fight with Thrix's summons. This time I'd killed them all except the Hamatula. In order to avoid its barbed defense I took off the dwarven boots, so that I could get the distance to use darts of stunning. When it cast hold person I switched to my long sword which should have reduced spell save to 1 - but that didn't prevent me getting held on the 3rd or 4th attempt. When I immediately checked my character record that showed spell save as 5, i.e. not taking account of the sword. Switching to inventory confirmed the sword was correctly equipped and when I switched back to the character record it now correctly showed the save as 1 - but too late
I would probably have ended the sequence there, but after a couple of dodgy deaths I decided to have one more go. Things went well up to getting into the City. However, after buying arrows of explosion, I went to hunt some sirines at the Lighthouse and got distinctly unlucky there. Hits with those are automatic and 4 of them will inflict 100% casting failure on the sirines. It's touch and go though whether the first targeted will be hit for the 4th time before completing a first dire charm. On this occasion it managed the cast and completed that despite the 75% spell failure - and the 30% chance of me failing the save proved too much.
A few weeks later and I've started a 65th attempt. That's just gone past Sarevok and I hope that this time I can get through the SoD bottleneck! The pain continues though, with yet another unfortunate death - though this time was very early on in SoD. At the Coast Way Forest I tried to help Tsolak and killed Ikros and Isabella for him - but a wandering orc appeared to make him hostile and he immediately used domination on me ...
I tried another attempt, this time recording that on the no-reload thread, in the hope that would change my luck. Unfortunately that didn't work with Davaeorn successfully overcoming spell failure to get me with a dire charm.
Another few months and I tried a 67th time. I got through the fight at the Coronation surprisingly easily and worked through the maze. I didn't need the XP, but decided to kill the skeleton warriors in the Undercity anyway. I didn't use a PfU scroll, as that didn't seem necessary and that seemed a perfectly reasonable decision as 4 of them fell without any trouble at all. The final one though was incredibly lucky, hitting me almost every time despite needing a 17 to do so. I had the chance to run away, but chose not to and the near-death skeleton was the one that got the final hit ...
A week or so later and another attempt perished at the Coronation. I'd intended to have 2 horrors available there, but rested at the wrong time and only had one of those. That failed to affect any of the dopplegangers, which was bad news given that all of them had initially attacked the dukes. One of them came after me once Liia was dead and I killed another and stunned two more with darts - but that wasn't enough to save Eltan.
Another week and a short-lived attempt failed when I attempted to finish off Bentan early on to get his PfM scroll, but missed with a couple of darts - allowing him to score with a charm person spell.
For the first time in 8 months I generated a new class for this challenge. The random selection was for a thief due to dual to cleric and I decided to set that up by starting with a shadowdancer and not dual until well into BG2EE. Progress in BGEE was generally fairly serene, but I got caught out at the palace when the dopplegangers clawed their way through the dukes dismayingly quickly. That run was recorded on the no-reload thread.
Another 8 months later this class came up again as a random selection. Once again though I didn't do it justice. In Baldur's Gate, I unnecessarily attacked Degrodel and was surprised when stealth broke while I was lining up a backstab. I didn't react quickly enough to use any protection before the mage cast horror and the enclosed quarters meant I was an easy victim for the mage and his guards.
A couple of days later I generated another new class, but didn't perform well with that. At the Cloakwood Mine I tried resting in a potentially dangerous situation and was duly cut down by large numbers of guards that appeared.
You're a champ for cataloging all these runs, let alone doing them.
I haven't played single player for 6 weeks or so, but decided to have another go yesterday. A random choice produced another new class with a cleric dualling to fighter. As fighters don't get much stronger with later levels and clerics are best in the early and middle game, I was already thinking of using a late dual. That intention was reinforced when I failed to pick up the violet potion from the carnival (a rather too regular occurrence
After a few months of not playing, I'm on my third run of the last few days. Mistakes saw the first of those ended when I failed to appreciate that beholders would ignore sanctuary, while in the second I fell for the classical mistake of trying to protect against a dart of stunning using free action. This time round the random choice was another new character - a priest of Tyr. It's major special ability only works on other members of the party, so as a solo character it plays pretty much the same as a standard cleric. BGEE is easy for clerics though and I had a fairly routine ride through to Sarevok. He was kited around for a while before I closed in on him for the kill.
Eight months later I tried again. Progress with a cleric is easy in BGEE, but you still need to take a bit of care and I didn't do so at the palace. I had 5 skeletons, which I expected to be enough and didn't bother with buffing. All but one of the dopplegangers then attacked the dukes and killed them just before I could finish off the dopplegangers ...
Deciding that I wanted to have another go at completing the game at the first attempt with at least one class, I generated a new character - a shadowdancer that would have dualled to fighter in BG2EE.
I was aiming to complete BGEE without taking any damage and was successful in doing that as far as the coronation at the palace. Partly to defend that record, I decided to charm a couple of the nobles in order to reduce the initial pressure on the dukes. It's a long time since I used that tactic, but in the past the nobles would only change form to dopplegangers once the charm had worn off and I don't remember any problems with that. This time though only one of the nobles changed form and it appeared the other one had been killed by a guard while still a noble - his death didn't count towards Belt's headcount target, so the game couldn't progress after that. The run was detailed on the no-reload thread.
A couple of months later I tried this again, but with disappointing results. In the Cloakwood, I was killing ettercaps prior to going through their web traps. However, on the 3rd of those I forgot to switch back from my staff to sling and moved towards the ettercap. An attempted click to move away again failed to register and I triggered the trap before I could try again or pause - and though the text message said I'd saved I was stuck and the ettercaps quickly took advantage ...