Children of Fire (Theme: Dragon Disciple & Fire Spells - Status: COMPLETE)
Moonheart
Member Posts: 520
So it is time for me to start over my playthrough, now I've got back some motivation for it.
What this playthrough is about?
I've started to write about the Children of Fire for two reasons:
First, I wished to show why the Dragon Disciple class is a truly underated kit for a main protagonist, often see as inferior to the standard Sorcerer, while in fact, it just bring a different way to play, that you need to know how to exploit to make it as good as the former one
Second, I wished to show another way to deal with encounters, with minimal use of buff and debuff. Idealy, my Children of Fire would never start a fight with buffs prepared, and ignore most of opponent's buffs, to concentrate on pure offensive spellcasting
On this second playthrough of the Children of Fire, I wish to pursue this original goal, but explaining things better, bring more screenshots and add a little challenge in addition: play the game at the "first person", only managing the main character during the fight, and letting the IA manage the companions rather than supervising them during battles.
And also, fix some little mistakes in my party management, mostly the late time I picked Rasaad, the only character of the party strongly dependant of levels.
What this playthrough is about?
I've started to write about the Children of Fire for two reasons:
First, I wished to show why the Dragon Disciple class is a truly underated kit for a main protagonist, often see as inferior to the standard Sorcerer, while in fact, it just bring a different way to play, that you need to know how to exploit to make it as good as the former one
Second, I wished to show another way to deal with encounters, with minimal use of buff and debuff. Idealy, my Children of Fire would never start a fight with buffs prepared, and ignore most of opponent's buffs, to concentrate on pure offensive spellcasting
On this second playthrough of the Children of Fire, I wish to pursue this original goal, but explaining things better, bring more screenshots and add a little challenge in addition: play the game at the "first person", only managing the main character during the fight, and letting the IA manage the companions rather than supervising them during battles.
And also, fix some little mistakes in my party management, mostly the late time I picked Rasaad, the only character of the party strongly dependant of levels.
Post edited by Moonheart on
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Comments
Objectives
- Introduce the main protagonist
- Discuss character creation choices
Sequence story
I remember the past, before the jail.
My mother, an elven woman with some dragon blood in her vein, died before I could remember her, and yet, I've never felt alone.
My foster father, Gorion, and my foster sister, Imoen, have always been with me at that time.
I discovered my legacy rather soon, and asked Gorion to help me to master some of it, earning some native control over magic and learning to cast some spells, which turned to be often fire-oriented.
Gorion told me that the dragon blood in my veins should be the one of a fire dragon, explaining that tendancy.
Alas, the peaceful days didn't last after the death of this wise man, and I ended to travel with some people that earned my trust and the one of Imoen: Jaheira, a old acquaintance of Gorion, Khalid, her husband, Minsc, a warrior we encountered later and Dynaheir, the mage he sworn to protect.
All become close friends, and Dynaheir helped me more with my learning of magic.... she saw how I could struggle to restrain it some time, and was always careful to use fire protection spells on our little group so I will harm no one by accident.
I became a Dragon Disciple with time, as I was forced to draw deeper in my dragon lineage to counter the influence of another legacy I discovered in me: I'm a Bhaalspawn, son of an evil god, and as far I didn't want to spit of everything Gorion as made for me, I've sworn myself that I'll rather face my own inner flames that take the wrong path because of this.
But now, I'm in that jail and my mind become more and more clouded.
To keep the suffering in check, I've focused myself on my rage against the mage holding me captive and performing experiments on me. And the more my rage grows, the more I feel the Fire within me burn, asking me to consume, asking me to scorch...
My companions have not be seen since weeks. I miss their appeasing influence, I miss the confort to feel Dynaheir watching me so my magic don't go hairwire... I just feel this Fire... always burning fiercly... deep inside me.
Sequence aftermath
So, here comes our first Children of Fire, the protagonist:
Dragon Disciple only allows three races: humain, half-elf, and elf.
Human brings no profit to anything that doesn't plan to dual class. And I cannot dual class a Dragon Disciple, nor would want to do it if I could.
Elf is the best race stat-wise, but is kinda inconsistant story-wise: due to the time a elf mature from being a child, Gorion would actualy be dead before you could stop wearing diapers. So I made the protagonist an half-elf as a good middle ground
Raised by Gorion, the protagonist has more chance to be good than evil. But anyway, I do like playing heroes.
Also, the Neutral Good alignement gives a Pseudo Dragon familiar... and I like the idea of my Dragon Disciple having a Pseudo Dragon in his pocket
Finaly, for the abilities:
- Dexterity and Constitution are useful in combat at low levels, and are top priorities to raise, so 18
- Charisma is nice if your protagonist is your party leader, and mine is, so 18 too
- Wisdom only has an use if you plan to use Wish.. I don't truly, so it is a stat were to dump extra points only
- Strength and Intelligence are completly worthless to a Dragon Disciple. He does not use any of the two, so you can get the minimum 10 str and 9 intelligence (not 8, because you need to be able to read scrolls)
Finaly, as I rolled a 93, I had enough to get 18 to Wisdom, and well... not needing anything else, I raised in to 11, even if it's compeltly useless
The starting spells are:
- Level 1: Magic Missile (always nice to have at start), Identify (makes life easier), Protection from Evil and Petrification (only to be consistant with BG1) and Find Familiar (for fun and because there is nothing useful at this level)
- Level 2: Aganazar's Scorcher (I always like to have one attack spell per spell level, and this one is fire-based), Knock (nice tactical spell, allows you to open doors safely from distance and thus, keep some distance from what's inside), Mirror Image (will help at low level, because it fends aoe spells, including your own)
- Level 3: Fireball (not surprised? good, you understood what this playthrough is about!) and Skull Trap (always need replacements to deal with fire immune foes)
With all that, we're ready!
Objectives
- Get out of there!
Sequence story
Out of the cage, at least!
I don't know what is going on, and I don't truly care. What it counts is that Imoen and me are out.
I hear a bit about how she got out, and then notice Jaheira and Minsc in the back of the room.
We'll need to get them out soon, but I don't have the keys, and also, they have no armor or decent weapons...
... also, I currently feel an urge to let my fire magic get out, and Dynaheir not being around, I do not feel it's the right time to have them around.
So, Imoen and me resolve to secure the way out first, then come back for them.
We also need to find the two missing crew members.
The corridors are filled with weaklings like goblins and mephits, that are not much a threat to me. I merely have to cast some basic protections like Stoneskin and Mirror Image and then can blast them off without taking more than a few light burns
Imoen is mostly standing back, but I need her around to open doors and disarm traps.... more or less there is few opposition to my magic, and the only serious problem I found are two golems waiting in a room.
Those two could cause us some trouble later, so I decide to destroy them right now.
As I thought, my magic is not strong enough to deal with them yet, so I'm going to do something I usualy never do: I'll enter the melee.
I'm thougher than most mages, even if I would never do something like that against a major golem.
But with Stoneskin and Mirror Image, I actualy can stand long enough for Imoen and me to crush those pesty construct into pieces...
I sometimes reach some foes immune to fire, like an annoying cambion trapped in the depths of the place... but this is for what I asked Dynaheir to help me to master some non-fire spells, like Skull Trap.
Using Skull Trap at point blank range is far more harmful to me than use a Fireball because only Mirror Image can fend some of its damage... still, due to my superior health, I end in far better shape that any other mage could by using it this way.
After many fights, we finaly find the exit, not having be able to find our two missing friend despite of having searched all the place.
We decided to get back to free Minsc and Jaheira neverless, and this is only at this point we heard about their deaths.
Dynaheir lost, Minsc and Jaheira's mind severly shaken, I cannot rely about anyone except Imoen... or so I thought until we suddently felt in a trap right at the exit, and my foster sister got abducted once again!
After a moment of hesitation, I ask to Minsc and Jaheira to go wait somewhere calm to recover, and start to visit the town to gather information that could help us to rescue her....
Sequence aftermath
One of the most common argument against the Dragon Disciple kit is the lower amount of spell you have.
But one thing that multiple runs with different classes has shown me is that this argument is often irrelevant...
For exemple, in the first part of the game, the Dragon Disciple's innate fire resistance allows him to use Fireballs without risking to harm himself much (or any at all a bit later in the game), which means he can use it more often, which means that he need in fact -a lot less- spells to clear the ennemy packs.
As a result, I always have killed more enemies in the first part of the game with a full pack of Dragon Disciple's spells than with a full pack of Sorcerer's spells.
Doing the same with a Sorcerer would requier to sacrifice spell picks, buff more before each fight, and this only to end with something which doesn't perform better with this kind of strategies, and have less hp and less AC, two things that in those early stages, truly helps a lot with survivability.
I had two levels up during this sequence and picked as new spells:
- Blur: not useful by the end of the game, but there is nothing much useful anymore at spell level 2, and I'll have to tank a few foes before the mid-game
- Dispel Magic: much a safety than anything else, I never had to use it during the first playthrough, but there is nothing much useful anymore at spell level 3 either
- Stoneskin: utterly useful at low levels, it will help my protagonist to survive ambushes of the chapter 2
Objectives
- Recruit Rasaad
- Make money for the Shadow Thieves and the Mage Stronghold
Sequence story
I need two things for now: Help and money.
But I also promised to bring back something to the dryads that were hold captive in Irenicus' dungeon, and I should probably bring their accorn in safety before I start anything dangerous.
Hopefuly, I hear in the Copper Coronet from a noble the location I need to bring them to, so I sell every item I found earlier to travel light and take my package for a trip.... which prove to be a good idea as I fall into an ambush even before I get out of the city
Hopefuly, those brigands are not much a threat. I almost feel better after having unleash some fire on them... the perks of traveling alone, for once
Another ambush awaits me as soon I put a feet out of the city walls, which does cause me more trouble than the previous one.
I thanks my natural thoughness for that: I can withstand their attack just long enough to scorch them to the core... but it force me to get back to the city to bring back one of their victim to the local branch of harpists... that I can recognize simply because this is where Jaheira is waiting for some news.
As I don't feel her stable enough, I let her at this place for now, she need time to mourn Khalid, and head once again for the city gate, firmly decided this time to rally the dryad's spot, but things seems all decided to prevent me to do it as someone ask me for help at the city gate... appearently some trouble at the city of Trademeet.
Well... since it is on my way, I can check what is happening before deciding.
After a bit of travel, it seems that the local fauna has some grudge against the inhabitants. This is sure a huge problem according to the number of casualties, but my sister have some trouble too, and it seems the guard are holding those beast back since several days, they could probably deal with it a bit more without me.
I'm about to resume my travel when I cross a familiar face on the main place: Rasaad, and old acquaintance of ours... which seems to have some trouble too.
After hearing his story, I agree to help him, but without deciding if I would do it after or before rescuing Imoen yet... anyway, his help will be welcome and he follows me on my travel
The hills where the Dryad's spot is seems to be under some nasty magic confusing people who travel here. After have felt for it a moment, I meet someone explaining me the problem, just before his house is assaulted by some bandits
This narrow battlefield is clearly not at my advantage, especialy since Dynaheir isn't here anymore to protect my allies against my own fire, so I aim my Fireball the opposite direction of the one Rasaad choose to fight.
It almost turns bad, but we barely manage to win this fight anyway.
For now, we deliver the accorns to the Dryad Mother, but we'll need to come back there someday to help the locals... I feel bad to not do it now, but time grows thin for my sister too.
Anyway, back to the town to talk to the contact we have been directed to by Gallen.
Seems a murderer escaped outside the town, but it proves no real difficulty to track it back to Umar Hills, where we give a quick hand to several people.
As long it doesn't take much time... why not?
It's a good opportunity to test my new Lower Resistance spell see if I can deal with some golems... and it seems I can, which is a relief, truly.
We learn from the "murderer" that the bad guys could not be the ones we have been pointed at. No kidding. As if I had trust any of this Cowled Wizard bullshit... and accept to help the muderer-victim to deal with the problem of a Planar Sphere in the slums of Athkatla.
It could take a bit time, but a reward is planned, so it goes in the right direction to save Imoen....
The place has golems everywhere, so I'm relieved to have learn the Lower Resistance spell, but that's Rasaad which proves the most useful to dispatch the Clay Golems kind
Everyone should spend some time in a monastery, if you ask me...
Anyway I soon learn a new spell: Farsight, that provide use some useful intel and allow us to prepare better for each battle, which turns truly useful to deal with the lich of the place
After that, Rasaad provide once again a great help to clear some imps and salamanders in some lost plane where we need to find a demon's heat... a good thing since they are immune to fire damage
After more golems and more trouble, we bring back the Planar Sphere on the prime plane and are offered by the Cowled Wizards to keep it as a reward.
I'm more interested by all the magical items that I got inside and who provide me enough gold to equip myself with a powerful magical item bought at the adventurer mart, and still leave me enough gold to almost pay the Shadow Thieves fee... but that's always good to take
That greed of my however almost cost us our lives when an ambush happen into our new stronghold...
Being cornered into a narrow place is definitively giving me a lot of trouble, but we manage to stay alive neverless.
Sequence aftermath
Rasaad is one of the reason I started over my previous playthrough about the Children of Fire.
He's an amazing character to have by the end of the game, but only if his level is high, which force to recruit him early.
Instead it's easier to recuit Viconia, but Viconia won't benefit a lot from having a lot of levels by the end of the game, so it's all a question about if you want to have some easy life during the chapter 2 to 5, or 6 and later.
For the moment, I have often to keep Rasaad back from the fight so I can use my firespells, still, he truly hit like a truck, especialy with the Hands of Takkok found in the Planar Sphere.
The new spells earned during this sequence are:
- Resist Fear: More likely a safety I will never use, but once again, there is nothing useful left in the spell level 2
- Haste: It helps to clear the slows from the golems in the planar sphere and could be useful on rare occasions... but nothing really mandatory
- Farsight: Great intel spell. I prefer it to Wizard's Eye because it sees through doors and can't be destroyed
- Minor Sequencor: Because there is not much left useful in the spell level 4, but being able to instently raise Mirror Image and Blur can help against low level ambushes
- Lower Resistance: Totaly mandatory to deal against everything that have magical resistance
- Sun Fire: Because it's a fire spell, and a good one in addition
New items:
- Hands of Takkok: improves Rasaad attack power
- Robe of Vecna: the best mage item of the game, which my protagonist will wear until the end of the game
- Shield of the Lost: will serve later
EDIT: I forgot to mention one funny thing!
During the ambush, I managed to hit Teos with a Fireball while trying to defend myself... so he turned hostile, which could have been annoying to complete the Mage Stronghold quest...
Could. Because there is a solution for that kind of case:
Charm the NPC, talk to him, complete the quest... then, if he just don't run away like many of the quest NPC, kill him once you got your rewards! XD
=> Children of Fire's approved method for dealing with stupid NPC
Objectives
- Acquire Dragonir's Respite
- Earn a few more gold to pay the Shadow Thieves
Sequence story
Selling everything I can spare, which is about everything except one exemplary of each scroll I have found so Imoen could study them once I'll have saved her, I'm short only of 500 golds to pay the Shadow Thieves
Almost everything could suffice to complete the sum, but when I hear that women in the Copper Coronet talk about a "treasure", I can't help but hope to earn a good amount of cash so I could perhaps buy another magic item before I run to rescue my sister.
Anyway, it cost nothing to try, so Rasaad and me follow Hexxat in a tombe of the graveyard to seek for this treasure... and naturaly, you know how it goes: you can be certain that if someone knows about a treasure that have not been plundered yet after centuries of adventurers travelling all the countries, it means that it is either a hoax, either a deathtrap.
This one ended to be a bit of two: first we had to deal with an elder vampire trapped in the tomb for no ones remember how long
I was enough stupid to let me get dominated near the end of the fight, but hopeful, Rasaad's have some anti-undead magics which managed to achieve the task.
Then, our guide died from the very hands of the "treasure" she asked her to seek for...
"Treasure" my ass. We know have to deal with an obnoxious and full of herself for no reason vampire that in addition ask us some help to finish the job she failed to complete alone.
This little errand made us fight a mummy... rumored to be very powerful...
... nothing yet that I can single-handed kill just by timing my Fireballs so this creature will never get a chance to complete a spell cast...
The three old mage we encountered finaly in the third tombe where sightly harder, but after have close the door of their room to prevent them to cast their spell at me and casting a Farsight to get some intel, I noticed they were all waiting just behind it for me to open it again.
Well, sure. Why not? Just after I summoned 6 Skull Traps just before the door...
... and open it afterward safely from distance with Knock...
That's a pity they probably didn't have the time to appreciate my strategical effort!
Anyway, those adventures were completly disappointing in terms of gold or useful magical trinkets, even if I managed to earn the few hundreds gold missing from the few jewels I found in the tomb... and for the vampires... well, we told her good bye because neither Rasaad and me feel inclined to suffer the presence of a blood sucker besides us while we are going to pick on a dangerous foe.
Sequence aftermath
The main point of this was only to get my first bag of holding, so I can manage my inventory more easily.
Also, what I learned from my first playthrough is that the Hexxat's quests become unavailble after Imoen's rescue, so I wished to do it now, so I avoid to miss the xp.
Out of the story, I also returned to the hill to kill the Rukh Transmuter and grab his loot.
It was an annoying foe because he has a high level magic immunity, and is also immune to weapon with lower bonus than +2, so Rasaad cound't harm him.
I had to buff my protagonist with Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Haste and (bhaal power) Divine Might, and kill him slowly with my +2 staff
New spells:
- True Sight: Because you can't lower the resistance of something you cannot see, and some of the most dangerous spellcasters in this game have both magic resistance and invisibility spells. It also destroy Mirror Image, which is an annoying spell able to fend some aoe damage.
New gear:
- Ballista's Passport: give 40% fire resistance to Rasaad. Still not enough, but a good start
Objectives
- Earn our pass for Spellhold
Sequence story
Now that the money issue is solved, it's time to get back to Aran and listen how he will help us to rescue Imoen.
Naturaly, I'm not surprised to hear that those thieves don't plan to respect the deal as it was agreed in the first place, but knowing that what they ask us to complete the task is to stake some vampires, it's like hitting two birds with a stone: We prepare Imoen's Rescue, and we turn some blood suckers in cinders.
The tomb where Bodhi and her underlings are hidding is not much a dangerous place for itself, but we have to solve a littler problem: Rasaas don't seems able to use the anti-vampire amulet Aran gave us...
So I guess I'll have Rasaad can hit them in the back while I act as a meatshield using my protective magic.
The good point is that as long Rasaad use his monk abilities, I still able to cast Fireballs at point-blank range without damaging much either of us
Anyway, that tactic works like a charm and allow us to crush the lair's defense like nothing
Alas, the mistress of the place turns to be a greater challenge: Not only Rasaad's fist are not yet trained enough to wound her, but she also have a good amount of magic resistance that make difficult to hit her with my spell.
I have to make Rasaad retreat out of her reach while I patiently alternate defensive and offensive spells, starting with Lower Resistance.... and even like that she almost deplete my full stock of spells before I succeed to force her to flee
... almost. I would have been easier if Bodhi didn't manage to resist to every Rasaad's anti-undead powers, but I'm relieved that my own spells were sufficient
Anyway, just the time to get back to Aran, and we jump on a ship in direction of Spellhold, having completed our part of the deal once for all
Sequence aftermath
That's the first time I actualy made me worry about the lower amount of spells of a Dragon Disciple.
On my first run, Viconiahad a +3 weapon to wound Bodhi so I didn't had to rely on my protagonist spells only
Still, even suceeding all her saves against my spells, Bodhi felt with the standard spell stock of the Dragon Disciple, prooving once more that you don't need as many spells as the Sorcerer have to deal with all the content of the game
Viconia was also able to wear the Amulet of Power to be immune to vampires levels drain and thus, do all the tanking work
Rasaad is clearly disavantaged compared to any fighter or cleric in that place, but hopefuly, a Dragon Disciple is a rely powerful tank once wrapped in its defensive spells (Stoneskin, Blur, Mirror Image). This is one of the really rare spots of the game were monks doesn't shine even with a sufficient level.
Bodhi's fight allowed me to level up, so I was able to pick some new spells:
- Greater Malison: Not truly needed, but it could serve to make the opponent fail their saving throws against my fire spells in a tough fight someday
- Spell Immunity: Just preparing for the fight against opponents using Imprisonment
- Contingency: Really nice spell to gain time at the start of a fight, and thus, take the advantage during the battle. I personaly like to use it with True Sight, but I need to reach level 18 first for that
Strategy breakthrough
In the next sequence, we will start to discuss strategy, as the Children of Fire party will start to be prepared enough for that. I hope you will enjoy it
Objectives
- Rescue Imoen, at least!
- Harvest a LOT of useful items
Sequence story
Soon as we reach the island, we have to face one more ambush after ambush planned from Irenicus.
Seems he expected me coming there, which is not much surprising, but that's not like if not rescuing Imoen would be an option either.
The first ambush at our boat by vampires looks like a poor joke: we forced their mistress to retreat, yet, they think they will be able to hold us? Pityful.
The second ambush by a brainwashed cowled wizard is not much more a challenge. Rasaad just kick his butt without even need for assistance.
But the third... damn, that was a trap for once.
Even if we have indeed found Imoen, we are now two people deprivated from a soul, and slowly dying. I'm even surprised that I can still live without my soul at all...
Prioritary things first, we need to get out from Bhodi's Gauntlet. I should thanks she's feeling playful, it truly gives us a chance to recover, even if she probably doesn't intend to play it fair... good... I do not either, and hand Imoen my scroll case, asking her to study all the content before we move one, building her a very interesting spellbook.
Most of the place doesn't provide much threat even in our state, but some neverless... the first being a damned portal summoning different foes, some being more problematic than the usual crap
The greater werewolf that comes at using this portal proved to be the most annoying. I'm cursing to not have a Cold Iron dagger at hand to screw its damned regeneration, which force us three to go all out: Rasaad activate his Greater Sun aura and Fiery Fists, and Imoen and me unleash as many Fireballs as possible... and we finaly succeed to overcome it
On the second level, we encounter another summoning artifact, and I let Rasaad train his skills on them, but overwtaching him carefuly in case he need some help
... and he doesn't, even managin to solo a Mind Flayer and a Beholder all by himself!
Seems I was right to ask his help.
Anyway, aside a pack of undeads that requiered Imoen and me to unleash hellfire on them to help our friend, he single-handly manage us a way to the exit.
We finaly reach Irenicus once again, this time with the help of the prisonners, which almost take him down without our help, and force him to flee, but we soon understand that a worst threat was coming when assassins jumped on us from the shadows.
We ran in the corridor to avoid to harm our allies with our fire spells, when once again, Imoen and me chain-cast Fireball to help Rasaad to deal with our opponents, only interrupting the constant fire to raise some Stonekins to protect us from harm
Finaly able to leave the place, but requiering to chase Irenicus once more to recover our souls, we accept the captain's deal... which we should not have to.
We end sunk in the bottom of the sea, which finaly, by luck, prove to be less dangerous than expected and allow us to get some new interesting items before entering the Underdark...
Sequence aftermath
This sequence had few interesting fights because the Gauntlet and the City of Cavern is mostly filled with weaklings that Rasaad can turn into pulp with his fists only, or who fall after 2-3 Fireballs.
On the first playthrough I have put a huge deal of efforts to beat Irenicus... but since then, I've learnt that, in fact, you almost don't need to do anything to beat him, since the prisonnes including mages, and one of them is a mage so powerful he can cast Time Stop and Horrid Wilting doing a HUGE amount of harm on Irenicus... so mainly, the only true task in this fight is to stay out of the Aoe, and then deal with assassins.
But this is a really rewarding sequence anyway, which pumped the party power up by a huge amount, as the protagonist reached the wonderful spell level 7 and Rasaad acquiered his magic resistance.
This is the point of the game where everything change and most of the content turn to a joke to leave only a a few notable, very more difficult challenges to overcome, which are the one I'm going to aim for now... but I still have some XP and item to harvest before the next one.
For the new spells:
- Mordenkanein's Sword: The most awesomely powerful anti-physical spell of the game. There is absolutly NOTHING a non-spellcaster can do against this summon, as he ignores any damage type that a physical attacker can do, as well as most of the side effects caused by hits of surnatural creatures
New items:
- Dusty Rose Ioun Stone: The best "helmet" Rasaad can wear, earning him an additional +1AC
- Paws of the Cheetah: Really nice to have for comfort, I'm putting it on my protagonist as Rasaad moves already fast all by himself
- Ring of Regeneration: As I lack a healer for now, putting this on Rasaad helps a lot to recover his hp
- Edventar's Gift: One of the best ring Rasaad can have, but for now, I prefer the Regeneration ring. Rasaad is the only character that can use Edventar's Gift to its fullest, as his movement speed is not hindered by it
- Cloak of Mirroring: The 2nd most powerful item of the game, after the Robe of Vecna, which renders one for all Rasaad immune to the Fireball of his compainions. I switched the Ballista's Passport on Imoen, but I still have to keep her out of the blast radius because 40% fire resistance is not enough
..woot that's truly a huge amount of impressive items for such an easy sequence.
Strategy breakthrough
It is time to speak about the Children of Fire strategies!
I've waited so far, simply because to illustrate correctly those strategies, you need some minimum requierments that were delayed in this second playthrough by the fact I choosed to recruit Rasaad as the 2nd Child of Fire.
It proved to be a noticeable delay comparing to the "Viconia as 2nd" option, but Rasaad will soon prove to be worth the effort.
As the first strategy of the lot, I must to start to speak of what I called, since the 1st playthrough, the "Bruteforce Method"
It is a very simple tactic mean to dispatch the simpliest way possible all the weaklings the game throws in the way of the Children, without much effort
The Bruteforce Method consist to:
- Set the AI of the chracters relying on physical attacks (actualy Rasaad only) to "standard attack"
- Give them some improved movement items if they need it (Rasaad and ranged characters don't need this)
- Let them charge ahead on each enemy sighted
- Shower the battlefield with Fireballs coming from the protagonist, or the protagonist + Imoen if need
- Try to sync a bit the Fireballs so they interrupt every enemy casts if there are some spellcasters in it
This simple method litteraly ends with no effort 60% of the encounters of the game, but does not work if one or several of the following conditions are met:
- The opponents use special attacks that shred normal physical characters
- The enemy forces are strong enough to wound noticeably the frontliners AND are resistant to fire spells themselves
- The enemies included on or more spellcaster able to ward themselves against interruption of the Fire spells
Only 30-40% of the encounters of game include one of this characteristics, which is still a good part of the game, that's why we are going to start to speak of the "improved tactics" of the Children of Fire in the next sequence, providing exemple as they come into the Underdark
Objectives
- Acquire some useful magical items
- Find where Irenicus is gone
Sequence story
We enter the underdark unoticed, even if our foe is probably aware we are on his tail, due to Bodhi warning him.
It is a dangerous place in many regards, but with Imoen and Rasaad besides me, I'm feeling confident. My magic power have grown too, and I'm more than ready to cross the place and find out what Irenicus is up to here.
But not having any true direction to follow, we are going to need to explore every tunnel to seek clues...
We found many oppositions around. Portals summoning almost infinite supply of hostiles elementals, Kuo-Tas.. which are for most easily disptached by Rasaad's martial prowess
Things however turns a bit more dangerous when we fall in the trap of one of the most dangerous race around: The Mind Flayers.
Hopefuly for us, I'm prepared this time... and those creatures quickly find they captured the wrong group when I start to slaughter their ranks
The method to deal with Illithids, when you have the initiative against them, is rather simple: First, spot them using some scrying magic
... then summon something which has no mind they can affect, and send it screw them hard
Don't get me wrong: Mind Flayers ARE dangerous creatures, but their biggest asset is also their first weakness: they are so used to dominate only using their psionic powers that they have nothing prepared to win against something that is immune to it.
It means that mostly, I walk, room after room, and paint their floor red with their own blood, including the one of their master brain, as long I keep control over my sword enough to not stupidly attack the golems it controls and that, like Clay Golem, are immune to their damage
Freed from their grasp, we return in the tunnels to land against more threats, including drows against which Rasaad need a lot of my and Imoen's support fire
We even encounter a lich a bit farther, that the drow managed to trap gods know how...
Those things having a lot of magic immunity, I decied to send Rasaad and some Mordenkanein's Sword together to overwhelm it
Hopefuly this creature was weakened, because liches tend to be much more dangerous most of times.
We even encounter some fiends in those tunnels, like a Balor that we deal with the same way we did with the lich, as it is mostly immune to our fire spells
But the only true challenge we encountered down there was some Demon Knight we accidentaly summoned in a lost altar dedictaed to Demogorgon: Feeling something wrong, I made Rasaad and Imoen retreat with me out of the altar room and summoned some Mordenkanein's Sword to test their strength
Three Swords killed in a blind is impressive, but there is something about the way they killed it that made me think they would not be able to keep the rythm, and thus, I decided to chain summon them... which proved to be a fine way to kill those creatures on the long term
Despite of all this opposition, we didn't find most clue so far about Irenicus, so we will be soon be forced to follow the clue left to us to some Deep Gnomes we encountered, and meet some mysterious creature called Adalon...
Sequence aftermath
This was mostly a leveling sequence there, bringing some new spells and items to use
Spells:
- Breach: In some case, it could be interesting to dispel some resistance against fire magic... but in the first playthrough I didn't find a true need for it. Yet, since I have all the level 5 spells I need, why not take it as in insurance?
- Protection against Magical Weapon: About the same case than Breach, could be useful, even if I still I find a real need for it
Items:
- Ring of Fire Control: With the Ballista's Passport, this gives to Imoen 90% resistance against fire
- Armor of the Hart: Will be useful later
- Girdle of Frost Giant Strength: I give it to Rasaad for now, and with the Gauntlet of Crushing, he turns into a true killing machine
- Bracers of Blinding Strike: could be useful a loooot later
Strategy breakthrough
This sequence showed some exemple where the bruteforce method doesn't work well.
The case most often illustrated here was the one of opponents that can overwhelm the frontliners, especialy creatures with "on-hit" effects:
- Mind flayers drain intelligence on hit
- Balors can inflict the "hold" effect
- Demon Knights drains a huge amount of levels on hit
In those case, even with the support of the mages firepower, it is unlikely the frontliner (Rasaad here) will survive, so he needs to be replaced by something tougher: The Mordenkanein's Sword
This summon is immune to most of the "on-hit" effects and also immune to every damage type that physical attacks can inflict. Magical damage come from spells only, so only an exceed of level drain can cause the death of this summon to the hands of physical attackers
But as the fights against Demon Knights shown, despite of their huge level drain, it is still possible to kill them with this summoning spell only, if you just keep going with it
I call it the "Unlimited Bladeworks" method, but to me, however, it still a tactics close to the "Bruteforce" method since it is only mostly replacing the frontline of companions by a frontline of summons, without changing anything else. You can still shower the battlefield with fireballs while using it, you can even send the companion frontliner if you manage it enough to keep them from being targeted...
Which bruteforce method to deal with weaklings, and unlimited bladeworks method to deal with the few dangerous physical creatures, the only threat we have still to face are spellcasting creatures protected against interruptions.... and we are going to see they are the most challenging part of the game for the Children of Fire very soon, and speak of strategies they can use to deal with them
Objectives
- Slaughter the drows!
Sequence story
Adalon happen to be a Silver Dragon who have for duty to guard the entrance of the Underdark and keep peace between the surface elves, and the drows.
Stupidly, she had let Irenicus steal her eggs, which, I'll learn later were the price she earned from Corelion in return of her guardianship.
Naturaly, the drows blackmailed her so she won't interfere in their planned raid to the surface... but what Irenicus gains in the barter is beyond my understanding yet
Neverless, according to this dragon, if I want to escape the underdark to follow Irenicus, I have no choice but recover her eggs.
Nice... she let the drow do as they want, but would block my path while time is counted for Imoen and me, so she can have pawns to solve her own problem? Silver Dragons are not what they used to be.
Neverless, I accept the task and we find ourselves dressed as drow due to Adalon's magic and head for the drow city.
Despite of their reputation, drows, taken individualy, are not worthy opponents, as we have the opportunity to check in their arena.
Rasaad can turn them to bloody pulp one to one, with no care for their magic resistance
... while I'm more capable myself to turn them in a pile of ashes with my firespells.
Neverless, in order to gain an opportunity to recover Adalon's eggs, we play the underling role and accept to save the daughter of a drow noble that was captured by the Illithids... and knowing those creatures, I set personaly a deathtrap from them
As usual, the Mind Flayers are no match against those summons and allow us to free that little pest of a drow.
At this point, we have seen enough to agree that all this dark elves deserve a good bunch of Fireball in the face, but we have to play along for a little more.
That doesn't imply we won't kick some drow asses as the opportunity raise, naturaly... and you know what? Drows love to give opportunities to kill other drows... like angered mercenary asking us to kill a drow lich
... or slaughtering a full drow house
Two things that was made a more lot easier since I learnt a new spell called Incendiary Cloud
Finaly, we locate and earn an opportunity to retrieve Adalon's Eggs, weakly guarded by some golems that Rasaad have not trouble to turn into pieces all by himself
Finaly, as we escape the place, as we don't see the use to hide themselve anymore, we slaughter every drow in sight, entering each house, each tavern, and turning the city into a lifeless place, freeing some slaves in the process.
Back in the tunnel, we push the exploration a bit more before returning back to Adalon, clearing a Beholder nest on the way
We also find another spot where drow are present, and following it, we land on some surface elves that push us to speak to their leader, and end suddently at the surface, without the help of the Silver Dragon!
What? Why did we exactly faced a full city of drow for?
Adalon will have to give us some explanation about it later, if she want to have her eggs back
Sequence aftermath
Completing the Underdark allowed me to test if the Beholders were a huge problem for the party without the Shield of Balduran I used in the first playthrough. The answer is: not at all.
Rasaad is such an offensive powerhouse compared to Viconia that he crushed all the Beholders with just a little support of my protagonist to cast Dispel Magic when he was hit by a Hold Person ray
New spells:
- Incendiary Cloud: Probably the best offensive spell of the Children of Fire, this spell can turn a room into a little personal hell interrupting foes each round, and burning everything that his not fire immune or protected by decent anti-magic spells
New items:
- Harbinger: Oh, I bought a garbage item there. I mean... who would like to use the a sword that triggers fireballs at point blank range on hit? Well, the Children of Fire, naturaly! All I need is to recruit someone able to use it.... you guessed it: I plan to.
- Firetooth: A good item for Imoen to participate a bit to the fights without wasting her spells when not needed. She'll get better later however
- Kaligun's Amulet: Will serve later, but for now, Rasaad can have it, pumping his magic resistance up to 67%
- Sentinel: Will serve later too
Strategy breakthrough
In this sequence, we face foes that can overwhelm the frontline not because of special abilities, but because they come in huge numbers including several spellcasters.
The bruteforce method still works anyway, as long you can upgrade the supporting fire with Incendiary Cloud, that acts more or less like a Fireball throw each round during a full turn (so 10 rounds) which helps a lot to interrupt all the spellcasters. At once.
Nothing that need us to build a new strategy there. The Children of Fire still dominate easily those kind of fights
Objectives
- Reach our first HLA
- Recruit Viconia
- Made her a decent Child of Fire
Sequence story
Now we are out and free, we have to plan things a bit ahead
Last time we rushed to Irenicus, he set a trap that deprivated Imoen and me of our souls. It is probable that he will prepare something for our return as well.
That's why, this time, I'm going to get allies that I can fully trust, and reinforce our team before take care of her sister once for all to recover the item the leader of elves told us necessary to enter the elf city.
But first, there are some people we promised to help and have left waiting out, and since we have a bit of free time, we could as well get care of all those unfinished business
The first task consist in helping the woman named Nalia who asked our help in the Copper Coronet. A task easily and quickly finished, as Rasaad dominate every troll we encounter, and Imoen's Firetooth finish them all after that.
The second consist to investigate the murder case in the Bridge District. A task which leads us to the Umar Hills once again, where we could also take care of the third task and help local with their recent cases of diasppearance.
It appears that a Shadow Lord raised nearby and would be responsible for that. Rasaad take care of most of the threat by himself, neverless
Finaly, we reach the Shadow Lord guardian, a black dragon...
Hopefuly, the said dragon can't see us coming, which allows me to prepare the battlefield, surrounding him with Mordenkanein's Sword, before throwing an Incendiary Cloud and ravaging his magical resistance with Lower Resistance
Alas, Rasaad seems to be unable to damage the dragon through its thick scales.
Only Imoen, using her new Gesen Bow and my Mordenkanein's Sword succeed to scratch it, making them good decoys to maintain him inside the fire cloud which slowly roast it.
The Shadow Lord himself looks like a weakling after his guardian, but alas, it only solves one case of the two, as the murders in the Bridge District seems unrelated.
The only clue we have is a contact that we will not convaince to tell us more unless we bring him some blood of a Silver Dragon... mm... Silver Dragon you said?
We return to Athkatla to prepare ourselves to descend once more into the Underdark to speak to Adalon, when we land on a disgusting show in the Governement district: a mob is about to burn a drow that I already seen in the past, and who begs me to save her.
Honestly... Viconia is not truly what I'll call a good person, but she could be loyal to us if we help her... and my hesitation came to a end when Rasaad, which should be the one with the most motives to let a disciple of Shar burn, intercede in her favor
Fine then, things are settled.
We interfere in the execution and free Viconia that accept to help us in return.
Back to Adalon's Lair, now.
It is strange to come back with a drow after have left no drow alive in that corner of the Underdark... anyway, I intend to trade her eggs to Adalon in exchange of her help against the drow forces sent toward the surface, or a bit of her blood.
What a surprise it is to me to hear her confess I never had need of her help, and that she doesn't intend to do anything against the drow.... so... not only she knew she was scamming me, but she would abandon the duty that allowed her to get her precious eggs in the first place?
I feel my blood boil at the thought, and as she teleport us uselessly to the exist, I decide I'll have her blood by force. We don't need silvers dragons that use mortal as pawns and forfeit their sense of good.... and as soon we reach the place, I use my new Time Stop spell to prepare her demise
Seeing how fast she teleported us here, I guess she will attempt to run away with her precious eggs the same way once she understand the danger, so I use the time I get to cast another of my new spells Improved Alacrity to chain what is coming next
Using Lower Resistance first, I destroy her magical resistance, then throw every spell I can into her direction
When the time resumes, explosions triggers all together, obliterating everything except our team, and as expected, Adalon, severly wonded, attempt to teleport away... but this is without counting the Horrid Wilting I casted too and which tigger just a fraction second later
Viconia seems satisfied of the outcome, and neither Rasaad and Imoen object as I pick some of the blood of the dead corpse of Adalon
Alas, the contact in Umar Hills blow our cover just after we give it the vial and we are forced to kill him too, leaving us without a single clue to pursue the true mastermind behind the murder cases... but as disgusting could be the result, the suit of armor he created with the blood would in fact perfectly enhance Viconia's abilities.
A sour defeat, but not a complete loss.
Sequence aftermath
I've waited to kill Adalon this way, because Adalon's reward for her egg is huge (78.500 xp per character) but once she get her egg, she triggers a script leaving only 2 rounds to kill her for her blood.
As I needed those two rounds, when I left the Underdark in the previous sequence, I lured the drows in another room using summons to get out without killing them... and them lured them back to the door when I returned
Without them Adalon teleport away as soon she reach the door, so this trick was needed as I didn't have the proper spell yet to kill her in two rounds the first time I've gone in the underdark. Too few questing during the chapter 2, perhaps.
New spells:
- Spell Sequencor: Allows to send 3 Fireballs at once, once per fight
- Horrid Wilting: The best damage spell of the game, outside the special case of the Children of Fire. Party friendly, magic damage, and area of effect. Yummy
- Time Stop: The most powerful non-HLA spell
- Improved Alacrity: The most powerful HLA spell, when combinated with the Robe of Vecna. The two together is already a game-breaking combo. Adding Time Stop to this only make it worst
New items:
- Gesen Bow: The final weapon Imoen will use. +4 bow with infinite arrows
- Mace of the Handmaiden: Earned by romancing Viconia, it's one of the best weapons she can have in SoA
- Armor of Flesh: with the Shield of the Lost and the Kaligun Amulet harvested in earlier sequence, give 100% magical resistance to Viconia, making her immune to the fire spells of the protagonist and his sister.
New member:
- Viconia: 100% magic resistance with the right item, brings clerical spells to the teams, which have been missing for long
Strategy breakthrough
Adalon is a perfect exemple to illustrate the third strategy of the Children of Fire the "Nuke" method. A tactic meant to anihilite the ennemy in less of 2 rounds.
This is a method that can work with a Sorcerer, but the Sorcerer can't use it in a such narrow place, because it would kill his teammate as well unless he somewhat "cheated" by buffing everyone against fire before even seeing the fight coming.
The method work this way:
- Cast Time Stop => With the Robe of Vecna, a mage can do this in half a round
- Cast Improved Alacrity in the first round of Time Stop => With the Robe of Vecna it will allow to use the two left round to cast a HELL of amount of spells
- if the opponent is resistant against magic, cast 3-4 Lower Resistance at him (at higher level, you can do this faster with Spell Trigger)
- Use a Spell Sequensor to cast 3 Fireballs
- Cast every Fireball and Incendiary Cloud possible
For Adalon, as I wanted to truly secure the kill, I used Horrid Wilting instead of Incendiary Cloud, since I wanted the damage to happen faster. In total, Adalon recieved 4 Lower Resistance, 9 Fireball, 4 Horrid Wilting and 5 Magic Missile in less than two rounds
The only thing you have to get cautionous is the timing: Fireballs needs to hit after the Lower Resistance, but will start to act at the same time, so, the good way to cast them is to aim farther from the true target, so the Fireball will have to travel more, then the blast effect travel back at the target, earning to the Lower Resistance enough time to act.
The Nuke strategy is probably the most suited to the Children of Fire, using all their strength together and able to clear almost all fights in the game. The only reason to use the bruteforce or the infinite bladework one is that those method clearly requiers less effort
The only opponents that can survive the Nuke strategy are the ones with insane magical defense, able to cancel lots of Fire spells, as well as survive 4-5 Horrid Wiltings. That's about 1-2% of the fights of the game... and we are going to speak of them now that we get close of the end of Shadows of Amn
But first... let's complete the Children of Fire team
Objectives
- Harvest more anti-fire gear
- Recruit Jaheira
Sequence story
We still have some cases to deal with, and one of them is that old one where a noble used an illusion to make use kill a bunch of soldier.
Whatever it is related to Irenicus schemes or not, I do plan to put that one out of the picture and free Garan's child as well, so we head for Windspear Hills once more and enter the lair where we were challenge to go.
The place is full of lowly peons that even deserve a fire spell from me, with the exception of a very few of them, like a room full of vampires...
... which doesn't stand even more than a few second against the level of power I'm now holding.
Same goes for Greater Werewolves later, even if they need to be struck with some Lower Resistance first, otherwise, Rasaad and Viconia just crush everything in sight without a need for me to lift a finger.
The master of the Lair happen to be a dragon that tricked us using an human form. Too bad for him, he severly understimated us.
Even if he's naturaly immune to fire like all red dragons, once hit with Lower Resistance, he just doesn't have any magical defense to fend my Horrid Wiltings and dies almost as easily as all his underlings
With that, we have one thing less to worry.
We bring back his daughter to Garen, and I take a bit of time to consider the magical items we have harvested... it's perhaps time to pay a visit to a old aquaintance of mine.
Back to Athkatla, we walk to the Harper Hold to find Jaheira precisely where she was the last time. Looking in her eyes, she seems going a bit better, and be ready to fight the one who murderer Khalid, so I have her to join, then spend some time making sure she gets enough protective items to withstand our firepower without the help of the lost Dynaheir.
This is good to have her back, but unexpected problems seems to be on her tail, and we find ourselves needed to do a bit of clean up before we can concentrate on our preparations for the fight against Bodhi.
The behavior of culpits against Jaheira are such that I don't even intend to see if my companions can deal with them by themselves as I usualy do, and unleash hell on each of the groups harassing her
Like on that stupid baron, and his even more stupid mage mercenaries unable to spot their better...
... or that stupid moron thinking he can use me and Jaheira to enforce his leadership on the local branch of the harpers ...
... or the old mentor of Jaheira that truly shouldn't have turned his back to her.
The good point in all this, is that Jaheira finaly don't even get expelled from the Harper, Elminster himself having witnessed the case and agreed on her choices.
She even earned her official Harper Pin in the process... and I secretly also admit feeling a lot better after have burned to the core all those scums, I truly should do that more often
Sequence aftermath
With this, the party is almost complete. All I need is to wait a bit for Rasaad to get a bit more magic resistance with levels, so I can transfer the Cloak of Mirroring from him and add a 6th member.
During Jaheira's quest, I've put Viconia aside for two reasons:
- first I wanted to romance Jaheira, and since I romanced Viconia earlier for the Handmaiden Mace, I'll have to remove her temporaly from the team so she doesn't prevent Jaheira's love banters to trigger
- second, the quest go better if the reputation of the party is high, and Viconia's presence lower it by 2
New spells:
- Spell Trigger: Allows to cast 3 Lower Resistance at once, which is enough to completly destroy that kind of defense anytime its needed
- Chain Contingency: a great combo with Project Image, allowing to cast 3 level 8 spells for the cost of a level 7 spell, cast almsot instantly
New items:
- Dragon Scale Shield: Found in Firekraag's Lair
- Dragon Scale Armor: Forged out of Firekraag's scales
- Helm of Brillance: Brought from the special wares of the Adventurer Mart
New member:
- Jaheira: With the three aforementioned item, Jaheira is perfectly protected against fire. But more than this, as a Druid, she'll earn a bit native fire resistance later with levels, allowing her to change her shield for a better one. Plus... well, it's Jaheira! Probably the most iconic female companion of the game
Strategy breakthrough
As some of the fights illustrated there, the "nuking" strategy would be a huge problem to use if the party was not competly fire immune. Imoen that takes actualy only 10% of any fire damage takes enough damage from a nuke to destroy half of her HP (I'll fix that very soon) and some fights can happen in narrow places likes houses or corridors that let nowhere to hide for the companions
Using a Dragon Disciple as a main protagonist allows to equip on more party member with fire-protection items, and this is where this kit shines. You do not lose time to buff. You come, you stop time, you nuke. Period.
Firekraag illustrate one of the only failure case of nuking: he's naturaly immune to fire, and there is no spell that can lower naturaly fire resistance in BG2, so a regular nuking just won't do.
However, his protection against Horrid Wilting is really low, so this spell is enough to kill it. That's a variation of the "Nuke" strategy that I call the "Neutral Nuke"
However, even with the two variations of the Nuke, there still some rare opponents that can cause some trouble. Not many. We're clearly falling under the 1% case here, and we'll see later how to solve those... after some hunting for items that will perfect the gears of the Children.
I've tried to ameliorate the format with time... I feel it's a bit better wrote like that that during the 1st playtrhough.
I'm getting close of the end of SOA, but there are many items I want to get before I turn Bodhi into a little pile of ashes. Still, I'm growing impatient to tackle ToB content now
Objectives
- Complete Imoen's anti-fire gear
Sequence story
Despite of Imoen and me having a huge trouble incoming, our inner withering doesn't seems to progress as fast as our opponent expected it.
We both feel to have still plenty of time left, at least enough to help a few more people around.
And since we're at it, why not help a old friend of ours ?
Neera is a fine girl that only never made it into our party because Imoen and me are both more powerful and more reliable when it comes from spellcasting... still, knowing the thayans plan to use her and people like her like guinea pigs is not something we feel inclinated to accept
That's why we head to the Wild Mage Refuge.
Hopefuly, with helps like Rasaad, Viconia and Jaheira, we don't need to cast a single spell while crossing the Wild Forest, and once in a camp we can hear about the current wild mage problems.
It does not take long before the thayans appear before us when we try to help them...
Sadly for them, they don't get a single clue about what kind of allies the wild mages have now, and they grasp the mess far to late to flee my wrath
It is however a bit delicate to fight against them while nearby innocent or non-involved people are around and I have to be cautious with my spells. Unleash my fires in this tavern would probably have slaughter every client and employee of the place.... as well as Neera in the process
Anyway, things never go as we want, and we are soon forced to pay a visit to the nearby thayan enclave...
All considered, I'm perhaps being too cautious. I don't know exactly why I spared this merchant...
My mind is still pondering about that when I open the next door of the enclave, and notice how crowded the place is...
I stay idle on the doorstep a moment... then just shoot out loud "Time to burn, scum!"
Then I slam the door and keep it firm close immediatly after that, thinking that it was not precisely the most intelligent thing I ever did
Using a Farsight spell, I witness the degree of hostility in the said room...
... yup, that's very hostile.
And I spotted Miranda in the back, so I'll have to be a bit careful... just a bit...
I cast a Time Stop and open the door again while the time is frozen, a large, devilish grin on my face... and as when time resume, I have only a fraction of second to see the glimpse of terror in all their eyes
I count the burned corpses on the floor... one, two, three...
Damn, I can't believe that I just killed 16 people at once. I think I'm starting to take human lives a bit lightly there.
Anyway, time to finish this task once for all, and I head in the back room after have freed some slaves.
Sadly, those ones are stupid enough to call the guards, so I'm forced to hold back once more as I decide to deal with Lanneth...
A fast and efficient spellcasting allow me to kill protect everyone from harm, and as the guard departs, I take the keys on Lanneth's corpse, to acceed the secret rooms I know to be there...
Kinda tired, I let Rasaad take the three last thayans alone, and we finaly free Neera's friends from their cages
Sequence aftermath
Nothing very new here, I'm merly perfecting the gear, earning a Robe of Invocation (looted on Lanneth) to Imoen so she will not take a single point of fire damage anymore
On a fun side note, that thayan bar fight truly felt like:
Strategy breakthrough
The fights against the thayans illustrate the second case the Children of Fire have to use "Neutral nukes": the presence of "innocent" people nearby.
Neutral Nukes are rather efficient, and one could ask the usefulness of standard Nukes when you can Neutral Nuke people, and thus, question again the usefulness of the Dragon Disciple kit.
Well, let's do a bit of math there:
When using the Time Stop + Improved Alacrity + Robe of Vecna combo, you can cast 6 Fireballs, 6 Sunfire and 6 Delayed Fireballs
The standard Nuke does this way 240d6 damage as soon the combo is accessible (level 18), for an average of 840 fire damage prior save throws
With a Neutral Nuke, you only have the time to cast 5 Horrid Wilting during the duration left after Improved Alacrity. Each doing 1d8 damage per level, so 5d8 damage, 22.5 average per level (always prior save throws)
So, to have the same damage potential, a Neutral Nuke must be used by a spellcaster having level of.... 840/22.5 = 38 !
Yup, you got it: a Neutral Nuke will NEVER do as much damage as a standard Nuke during the duration of the game against creature having no fire resistance
The Neutral Nuke is also susceptible to utterly fail against a simple Mirror Image, a defense the standard Nuke completly laugh about: You will fend 8 explosions? Cool. Now eat the 10 others!
But the question about which is better between the neutral or standard Nuke is not truly a good question, IMHO.
The main good thing about the Dragon Disciple is not to have a better nuke tool, but rather to be able to choose between two of them, at anytime of the game, without any preparation needed.
You could even do both, one just after the other, during a same fight, since they don't use spells of the same level... theoricaly speaking, naturaly, because if you pick the right one first, nobody will be left alive to see the second one
Objectives
- Keep improving the Children's gear
- Kick some lich butts
Sequence story
Things are starting to settle down as we have answered all help requests that have been made to use... well, almost. Rasaad still have some trouble to solve with his monk order, so we decide to dust our packs in the Waukeen's Promenade before we seek for this Dark Moon Heresy.
Alas, as we do so, we cross on our way a crying children in the middle of the promenade.
Seems something odd occurred in the circus, as the guard seems... well, on his guard.
After some work, we suceed to free her mother by breaking the illusion that a mad gnome have put on the circus... I can't believe the guard couldn't solve something as trivial, there was not much danger in it... but anyway, the circus leader soon ask us if we could also help one of his friend, Raelis.
Well... since we're at it.
Raelis' problem is that one of the member of her troupe have been captured by a dangerous wizard, hiding in the sewers.
I don't realy understand what an actor was doing in such a place, but we head for the temple district, where we cross more people asking our help, to investigate a strange cult leaded by some blind people...
This is on our way, we agree to take a look at it while we are down there, and this is like that that we start to explore its underground tunnels.
We start to find a place that serve as an illithid nest, and decide to clear it before it becomes a problem for Akhtala's citizen
This is not a hard task now, we are used to deal with those creatures
Mordenkanein's Sword as always put them in great difficulties, and I have just to keep a constant flow of them in the mind flayers tunnels to bring peace to this side of the sewers.
On the almost the opposite side, we find some trace of the blind priests... it does not take long to confirm what was my first guess about the matter: this is a beholder cult.
People's stupidy truly have no bounds
Anyway, as prepared as we are to deal with a greater threat that all this crap, I decide to let Rasaad take the whole matter in hand, the others and myself merely following him as he clears the whole place of this twisted cult
This allow us however to discover a strange tomb, guarded by an ancient lich... at least -one- worthy opponent that I decide to take care by myself
Alas, I remember a bit too late that lich have some tendancies to ignore low level spells, and my fire spells get wasted... which shows that dealing with too much weaklings make me lower my guard.
Still, I have more than a trick in my sleeve, and some contingencies waiting to be triggered, so I summon a Project Image to unleash some high level spells intantly on that foe
This deal with that undead once for all, and I discover in its sarcophagus a part of a golden skeleton... mm... weird. I'll perhaps have the time to investigate about that later
Still, the mage we seek for is still not in that part of the sewers, so we return to the tunels, were we finaly find it.
After a small bargain, we obtain the release of the actor, which seems to be also a thief... Raelis didn't told us the whole story
Back to the inn, we ask for explanation and decide to help the exiled of sigil until the end, which soon force us to enter into a planar prison to free all those people from the jail.... and we get ambushed at the very first step we make in it
Those people should learn the first rule of a good ambush: check who you are going to trap in it.
The ennemies in that place are more dangerous than usual, however, so I decide to take the lead instead of Rasaad, and scorch this prison room after room
... and like that, we close this case, which made us make a lot of detours.
At least, it was for a good cause, and we found some useful items in the process.
I don't think we can have too much of magical items to deal with Bodhi once for all
Sequence aftermath
Those were some little quests easy to do with the current level of power of our Children of Fire.
On the top of its level 24, Rasaad is a killing maching able to take over by himself 80% of the foes
Imoen, Viconia and Jaheira are merely here for flavor and utility, while my protagonist blast any stuff looking serious enough to kill Rasaad
New items:
- Paws of the Cheetah: With those boots on Jaheira, all my frontliners have now some increased movement rate
- Sling of Everard: Bought in the Copper Coronet, it gives to Viconia a ranged option, letting Rasaad charge alone in melee, since he has a better defense
- Amulet of Magic Resistance: Increase Rasaad's magic resistance of 5%
- Cloak of the Sewers: Increase Jaheira's AC
Strategy breakthrough
I think it is a good time to talk about Contingencies, since I used them during the Shade Lich fight
During the 1st playthrough of the Children of Fire, I discovered that Contingencies could be triggered with a great control by setting the "helpless" condition, then becoming helpless on purpose by casting a Project Image spell
Since Project Image is almost instantaneous, this combo give 4 free cast during a fight.
I personnaly put 3 Horrid Wilting in the Chain Contingency, aiming the nearest ennemy, and a True Sight in the normal Contingency
This allow to unleash some nice surefire burst at the start of any fight if I want, even if I did it here not exactly at the start.
Lich are special ennemies that have anti-spell defense you cannot cancel, but normal liches still suffer greatly from level 8 spells like Horrid Wilting and Incendiary Cloud, so they are not dangerous at all at this kind of level.
The only thing to be cautionous is to clear their Mirror Image if they raise it with a Contingency, before you trigger the Horrid Wilting
Guess what? That's precisely why I put True Sight in the normal contingency, and this is why this lich felt in fact with only one spell cast: Project Image, which triggered the domino effect ending its existence
Objectives
- Keep improving the Children's gear
- Kick some MORE lich butts
Sequence story
I'm still worried about the part of skeleton we found in the sewer.
Those bones are definitely not normal, and irradiate a very omnious feeling. I don't know what is this "Kangaxx" the Shade Lich was guarding, but something tells me we shouldn't ignore it.
So, I settle in an inn with Imoen and we start together to perform some divination magic to find out some clue about where those bones are coming from, and after some time, find three places in Akhtala that emit some similar radiations... mm... three?
I decide to start with the location in the Bridge District, which seems to be an abandonned building with two locked and trapped door, as Imoen warn us about.
Trapped doors in the street is not meaning anything good, and I ask my sister to disarm them so we can enter in, alas, one of them is also warded with a powerful magic that would, I figure after some investigation, need a rare stone of sort to pass through...
As I seems to not have the right stone on me currently, we decide to check the other door, and find another sarcophagus in the basement, guarded by another lich
This lich knows how to fight a lot better than most opponent, but I already seen how that kind of strategy can be beaten, and I summon my Project Image to trigger my usual Contingencies
That make two less threat for the citizen of Akhtala, and I find another part of that golden skeleton...
There still this doors to investigate, but also two other places to check, that would probably not requier a rare stone to enter, so I head for the docks and find another derelict house with a suspicious door... and a third sarcophagus in the dungeon
In this one, a lich pretend to have been betrayed by the others, and kept in sleep by a ward on his bones.
It also pretend to be good willed... seriously, who would believe such a lie feeling how omnious its bonus feels like?
But I have to make sure that there is no threat, and accept to give back its bonue to the thing... who naturaly betrays us instantly
Since I was on my guard, I renewed the Contingenies before hand, and trigger them once more, but this one since more resistant as it manage to survive that initial assault, and force me to cast an Incendiary Cloud to prevent it to cast his own spells
Soon, it reveal that itself to its true form: the one of a dreaded demi-lich, totaly immune to every spell throw at it, which is going to cause me a lot of trouble
The only kind of spell I can use in this situation are summons, but I soon also discover that this demilich have the abilities to cast Imprisonment and death, which could deplete all my summoning spells really fast, so I ward myself with spell immunity and jump to close range to fend its spell, before I call forth another Project Image that will do the summoning for me
Finaly, with the help of my companion who are attacking the demilich from distance, I succeed to lower the demilich necromantic energy enough to blast it with a fire breath, one ability I rarely use since my fire spells usualy do better, but which has this good point to cannot be canceled by the demilich protections
That's one big threat on innocent lives removed, but I want to check the third location anyway.
Doing so, I discover, hidden in a secret room of the inn by the city gate, once last lich appearently unrelated to other but as dangerous for people as the other, that I promptly put in internal sleep with my usual Contingencies
With that, there is only this strange door in the Bridge District left, but finding the right key could take a lot of time, and I definitively need us to make some move toward our personal goals...
Sequence aftermath
I could have dealt with Kangaxx earlier, since everything it truly requiers is an access to level 9 spells, mordenkanein's sword and spell immunity, but I wished to have some excuse to bring it into the story of this playthrough
Progress in the party is becoming slower, so I'm going to zap a bit forward and hit Bodhi in the next sequence
New items:
- Ring of Gaax: Magnificient item that pump up both Rasaad's AC and magic resistance
Strategy breakthrough
Demilich are very special ennemies that can't be affected directly by spells, that's why the only way for a spellcaster to fight them is to bring summons and use protective magic to soak the own casting of the demilich
Hopefuly Kangaxx is the only demilich of SoA, otherwise spellcaster would get a truly hard life.
However, please note that the Dragon Disciple's Breath, or every dragon breath except the Dragon Breath spell are not considered as magic, but supernaturaly innate abilities
So, mostly, they ignore most of not all the protection against magic
That's why I always use the breath weapon of my Child of Fire protagonist to end Kangaxx existence
Objectives
- Kill Bodhi
Sequence story
Now that seems to have a clear way to Bodhi, it's more than time that we attempt to recover Imoen's soul.
We could have seek some help, but having people vulnerable to fire besides us could weaken our strike force more than improve it, so we only my companion that I head for the graveyard... and get once more ambushed: Bodhi abducts Jaheira as an attempt to "give me a lesson".
... all it succeed to enrage me, and now, I'm more than ever decided to turn her once for all into a little pile of ashes.
As soon we put a feet in the place, I unleash my fire without even wondering if Rasaad would not be able to take care of them. I just cannot hold back anymore
Vampires are blasted by the explosions of my magic like nothing, and I purge the place room by room, corridor by corridor.
I'm coming Bodhi, I'm coming... do you hear the roaring sound of your imminent doom, or are you too stupid to understand what it means?
Finaly, I reach them in the basement room, and tun the place into a small corner of hell, without holding back.
Bodhi however manage to survive the first wave of spells, but this is too late for her. I'm not the one caught with her in a room... she IS the ont caught with me there, and I cast immediatly and Incendiary Cloud to slowly roast her, and finaly, she falls with a scream of despair that sounds like a soft music to my ears.
We finaly recover Imoen's Soul, but Jaheira is nothing more than a lifeless corpse for the moment.
Hopefuly, Bodhi admitted she didn't had the time fully turned her into a vampire, which give me some hope.
Researching her library, I find some hint of how to solve the issue: we have to return to the place where we cleansed the evil influence of the Shadow Lord, and perform an ancient ritual.
I can't believe it could be so easy, but I have to try
Finaly, everything turns to be for the better, and Jaheira recover her life indeed easily.
I should probably try to speak to the temples about this... a way to turn vampire back is a huge discovery, but I have more to do before
Sequence aftermath
I rushed things a bit in this sequence because I want to close SoA asap to start as soon as possible the content I didn't do in my first playthrough.
The vampire lair is a piece of cake at this stade of the game, so I had some fun with nukes without trying even to economize my spell by letting my companion do the easy stuff
In the next sequence, I'll try to close all the notables sidequests I left aside so far, in one run, so I'll hit the elven city just after that.
Strategy breakthrough
There is nothing new to speak right now about strategy.
Bodhi just turn to be slightly more resistant than most, due to having a good amount of hp on top of some magic resistance even if I have hit her with a Spell Trigger (Lower Resistance x3), and I had to do a few spells after the nuke to end her existence.
This is also because I had to spread the fireballs across the room because the ennemies appears on each side of it during this battle... If I had concentrate the firepower on her only, the Nuke would probably have killed her immediatly.
Still it shows that the Nuke strategy have some extra power left in the sleeve after its initial burst.
Blasting all the minions at once and still have a full stock of the level 8 spells after that truly goes a long way in terms of efficiency
Objectives
- Clear Dorn quests
- Clear Trademeet quests
- Clear Rasaad quest
Sequence story
I feel relieved that Imoen got back her soul.
Still, I still myself in trouble, even if my decaying rate seems far lower than hers.
I should take on Irenicus soon, but something is currently worrying me: our companions seems to be a tad unhappy.
Viconia thinks we are spending too much time helping "stupid rivvils" with no gain, Rasaad is still concerned by the future of his order, and Jaheira is wondering more and more if our acts are balanced
And I certainly do not want to fight against an opponent that screwed us 3 times already with allies that are not truly concentrated on the matter.
I'm still pondering about that when I happen to cross someone I don't truly like in the temple district: a blackguard named Dorn.
I would usualy have him promptly dismissed, or killed... but then I think to a plan to solve everyone concerns: I could use that orc show to Viconia and Jaheira that having more "balance" would do us no good, and potentialy screw that idiot in the process somewy
This is why Dorn become a temporary member of the party.
I grin thinking he could "accidently" die anytime I don't need him anymore by simply using my fire spells
Anyway, our first task with him is appearently to play the wedding crashers.
A task I surely don't like, but I succeed to use my wit to limitate the bloodshed to the strict minimum, something that damned blackguard would have certainly no do if he had been left alone
After that, we have to find an helmite and kill him.
Once again I try to use my wit to minimize Dorn's actions, but alas, the helmites refuse to hear me, and we soon end forced to fight the whole camp
I feel a lot of culpability on this one. I perhaps overestimated my wit, and it resultted to a huge loss of lives.
At least, Viconia is smiling for once, and I start to see some doubt about the "balance" appear on Jaheira's face... and also, I suceed to blame it all on Dorn's fiendish patron, and instill some doubt in Dorn
Finaly the opportunity I wished for present itself, and I suceed soon after that to deprivate the orc from his Blackguard power, convaincing Viconia it would not be a great use anymore, and after have also convainced Jaheira to stop to want a "more balanced" party
Still, if the team's spirit got a bit better, our reputation got a huge hit from this trip. And I would not enjoy to have some people putting bounty on our heads right now.
Plus... I feel I truly need to compensate for the death of the helmites
This is why we head for Trademeet, a place that asked our help, and that could lighten the rumor spreading about us.
If the concern of those people are nothing hard to deal with with our level of power, it indeed earn us some positive tales for the bards to spread on our party.
During that time, I charge Rasaad to deal with all the problem, keeping his mind busy as he is the most worried about our recent actions.
... a task he doesn't have any trouble to fulfill until the very end
Still, I see that he can't forget about his personnal trouble, and I finaly lead our party to solve them once for all
I have some trouble however to keep Viconia to not mess all the matter, as she feels also involved in this Dark Heresy story. Rasaad on his side try to get some good of it from her, with no real success
In order to keep the spirits high, I mess around as much as possible, distracting everyone's mind
... sorry Sister.
Still, this story finaly doesn't end good for anyone, as we have suddently to fight a sharran force, at the complete horror of Viconia
Still, nothing a good and careful amount of magic could not solve without a single casualty on our side
Finaly, the good point is that Viconia and Rasaad probably cannot return to their own orders for a long time, and feel a lot least inclined to complain.
All those stories did them no good, and this is sulking, but without a single protest they accept to follow my lead again.
I do feel sorry for them, but truly, they are the ones who asked for all this. I'll try to smooth everything after Irenicus is dead
Sequence aftermath
Mostly, there is two reasons to do Dorn's quests:
- First, the reputation of the party was 16, and Viconia would have left if any more positive reputation point was earned, so those quest were a good way to lower the reputation while earning xp
- Second, in ToA, Dorn quests allow to earn a very useful item for the party
Trademeet quest are a quick way to earn some reputation back, since Dorn quests damage the reputation a bit more than I would like to. You can lose up to 12 reputation point during them, and even if I managed to limit it to 8, I wanted to have at least 10 reputation
Finaly, I didn't Rasaad quests simply because it's probably the most interesting side story of BG2EE.
The dialogs between Rasaad and Victonia during it are truly fun and interesting
Strategy breakthrough
Strategicaly speaking, nothing new.
Rasaad is now a 1vs1 killing machine able to solo liches, and everytime 1vs1 is not enough, I just nuke everything in sight
I used mostly neutral nukes because those quests bring a lot of neutral NPCs around, and I did not truly wish to kill Dorn at each step of his quest
Objectives
- Clear Mae'Var quest
- Clear Edwin quest
- Clear Korgan quest
- Destroy the Twisted Rune
Sequence story
Time to return to the topic of this strange door in the Bridge District, but to find the right key, I need to harvest a lot of samples first... and if I don't know a lot of jewelers, I surely know people that have a lot of interests in jewels.
So... With that in mind, we head back to the Shadow Thieves hold.
Asking around, I find someone ready to give us a task that would probably allow me to gain a lot of different gems: I am supposed to investigate the Mae'Var house, a branch of the Shadow Thieves which had some anormal activities recently.
Not that I care, but this is the perfect opportunity to thieve the thiefs to get what I'm seeking for
The task end to be rather simple as the leader of the house is so full of himself that he falls in every deception I throw at him.
The local mage, called Edwin, is more cunning, but also everything but loyal, and end to give us a end in the task
In return, he asks use to help him to visit a tomb which should contain some rare scroll he wishes to obtain.
Well, tombs are also place to find some unused jewels usualy, so why not? I even remember another person in the Copper Coronet who wished to visit the same place, so it'll kill two... no three birds with the same stone
So, after some hours of grave crawling, and dealing with some problems with the two people I brang there, we end with a full bag of varied jewel, and tell goodbye to the two to head from the Bridhe District once more
The door's seal open with a Rogue Strone, and teleports us in a strange secret room, where we are assaulted by a strange party calling itself the "Twisted Rune".
Rasaad jumps immediatly into the battle, and as I try to assess the situation, bring down one of our enemies
One of the spellcaster use Time Stop, but completly waste the opportunity by trying to affect Rasaad by some domination spells.
Well, he just don't know who he is... and I see my friend bring down a second foe as the time resumes
This is when the second spellcaster use Time Stop too, sending a chill to my spine.
If I was her, I would not do the same mistake than the first one, and I burst out laughing when I see what she did during that time: call forth a Meteor Swarm
Those guys seriously didn't grasp at all who they are fightning, and I lower my hands when I see Rasaad take down a third target... the first of the two spellcasters
At this point, I lost any will to fight seriously those people. They are no match to our martial artist, obviously, and I cross my arms with a grin, looking him punch the vampire of the Twisted Rune into a bloody pulp...
I see the last one shivers when I look at her with a large smile. She knows what is coming, but she utterly fail to do any intelligent move to try to avoid her fate...
Well, I can blame her, Rasaad is like slaughtering machine almost completly immune to any spell. She should have try to summon something... well, she tried, but managed to kill it with her own spells... so... the conclusion is evident
I look at the mess into that small secret room. Whatever the Twisted Rune was, it's not more.
Not that I feel any remorse: when you attempt to kill perfect strangers, one day, you attempt to kill someone stronger than you. People like the Children of Fire
Sequence aftermath
Well, that was unexpected. I was planning to test Rasaad's worth in battle a bit, not to see him destroy the whole encounter by himself !
Right now, Rasaad has reached the peak of its power, and has a magic resistance of 93%
He will reach 98% with an additionnal item, and then I'll recruit our 6th Child of Fire
But, yes... if someone tells me that Rasaad is not the best frontliner of the game by the end of SOA, I'll give him a link of that sequence ^^
Strategy breakthrough
So... well, let me explain how you can kill the Twisted Rune easily if you don't have a Rasaad to punch them into oblivion
First, the Twisted Rune include two powerful spell casters: Shangalar and Layene
The three others are basically ennemies who are going to spam simple attacks, even if one of them is a Beholder
The main thing is to avoid to have the spellcasters of the party caught by the three others, and deny the two first the ability to cast spell
A simple nuke can kill the Beholder and one other member of the Twisted Rune, then, you can cast Incendiary Clouds to lock down Shangalar and Layene with constant interruption, then finish how you want: Neutral Nuke, Mordenkanein's Swords, or just letting your companion finish the work
That's how I beaten them in the first playthrough of the Children of Fire, if you want to take a look at it.
But now, you can see why I started over to have Rasaad early: he's just a plain destroyer that solves most of enconters alone if he has enough level for that
Objectives
- Clear a few quests the story will not even speak about
- Kill Irenicus, at least!
Sequence story
Before we head to the elven city, I decide we should take a short rest to the Copper Coronet.
It truly ended to be a very relaxed and lazy moment where merely burned every slaver in the city, helped a few more people... well, when I say that "we" did it, I mean: I sent Rasaad did it.
But anyway, this is with high spirits that our party return to the entrance of the underdark with the Lanthorn, granting us the access to the place where our arch-foe ran.
The elven city, even under assaut, is not a place that brang us more difficulty.
Here too, Rasaad, cleaned almost all the threat alone, and needed two heals from Viconia after have shattered some adamantine golems with his fists.... not too bad, thinking that for almost anyone else, it would have been the reverse way
The only noticeable threat that appeared in front of us was a black dragon that Irenicus managed to make work for him... and even if my opinion of Rasaad is truly high, on that matter, I decided to take the thing in hands
It's good to see that we didn't perfect our skills for nothing, at least
Irenicus retreated himself on the Tree of Life, taking the elven queen in hostage.
I immediatly see as the start of the fight that Irenicus knows how to protect himself against magic: Spell Trap activate by Contingency? Honestly, even I can perform something like that.
That's why I sent to Rasaad to start to harass him with plain melee attacks, as he didn't bother to protect himself with any physical wards that would last long
By the time our foes wasted a bunch of major spell on our quite-resistant to magic friend, his Absolute Immunity wore off, and Rasaad's fist started to punch him hard.
Alas, his Fire Shields also took their toll on the health of our companions, so I sent also Viconia as a backup to sustain him with her healing spells.
All that time, I stayed ready to unleash my magic on him... but I soon understood that Rasaad and Viconia alone surpassed since a long time the trure strength of Irenicus
Finaly, that old enemy felt to our feet...
... but not without a last bravado.
Pulled into hells forcibly, our souls got challenged by several trials. Or my soul only, perhaps.
But even the hells are not something that would stop us now.
In the place, Rasaad as always took care alone of most problems, except for a trio of Elder Orbs, dangerous creatures only because thay can cast Imprisonement, one of the only magic that Rasaad can't cancel
Well, that's why I learnt the Incendiary Cloud spell, in the very place. It is amazing how few spellcaster manage to pull out a successful cast when their skins are slowly roasting...
So, at the end, we found Irenicus, one last time. With reinforcements
But demons could be immune to fire, and hit hard enough to wound Rasaad, they are wasted immediatly by a series of Horrid Wiltings of mine...
... and even like that, I still have enough time during my Time Stop to summon five Mordenkanein's Swords, that I sent chase Irenicus that teleported away.
Alas, he seems he saw it coming, and destroyed all of them with a Death Spell.
Whatever, the most dangerous threat, Rasaad, is still above that and keep pushing him again and again.
As previously, I decide then to send Victoria to support him against the damage of Irenicus' Fire Shields, and this is with still with the main part of my magical arsenal unused that this scum died... once for all.
Sequence aftermath
This was... well, a bit anti-climatic.
One the first playthrough, the first battle against Irenicus was quite challenging, as I had to passy by all his magical defense with my spells to kill him.
But bow, there is just no doubt left that I made the right choice to do this second playthrough where I recruited Rasaad early. Except perhaps that he made things just too easy, somehow.
Nevermind, I never pretended to try to be fair with that game... this is after all more a show than anything else
Strategy breakthrough
I did not speak enough of Incendiary Cloud, one of the best spell a Dragon Disciple can use.
On a regular sorcerer, you need to protect yourself against fire first to avoid this spell to backfire, however, the Incendiary Cloud on a Dragon Disciple can be used in the very first round of a fight and is, with Cloudkill, the best spellcaster disabler of all the game.
Cloudkill comes sooner, but Incendiary Cloud can be made party friendly like with my Children of Fire, and does a lot more damage
Even if a spellcaster is immune to fire, he will still be interrupted at each round, except for someone using Spell Trap, or Mirror Image.
- Mirror Image is easily dispelled by True Sight. Sometimes, I even regret not having learnt Oracle, as Oracle produce an instant dispell of most illusion even during a Time Stop
- For Spell Trap, the best counter I know if the Ruby Ray of Reversal. I spell I learnt too, in preparation to fight Irenicus... alas, well, you know, Rasaad just stole all the glory!
The only reason why I very rarely use Incendiary Cloud is because... well... if my protagonist has to start casting, I can just nuke the whole battleground with it.
Still it's a very good spell on the Dragon Disciple kit
Objectives
- Make a little talk about the full Children of Fire party, with the 6 characters, and the items at the start of the chapter 8
Sequence story
The peace didn't last long.
This is what it is to be a bhaalspawn, I guess, but none of my companion complain about it.
All of us, after some weeks of rest, were starting to feel the call for adventure rushing in our veins.
And the dventure came to us...
I do not understand quite well what is happening right now, but I know that it gives me the opportunity, through this mysterious "pocket plane" we discover very soon, to summon a old friend of us to our side.
Boo, the only giant hamster of the miniature space and his ranger sidekick, Minsc.
It is also somehow a good time to give him the full story of what happened to us since the last time we saw each other in Irenicus' prison, and hand him a few items I have kept in my bag of holding thinking we could walk again side by side...
Sequence aftermath
Very short story, but very long aftermath coming, as I want to present you all the detail of the now complete Children of Fire party.
Ready? Here we go:
Child of Fire #1: The protagonist
"Gonna nuke them all!"
- Fire protection: Resistance to Fire 120% (100 from the class kit, 20 from the hell bonus)
- Noticeable items: Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power
The magic powerhouse of the Children of Fire, which basicaly has to cast very rarely, but destroy absolutly anything if he does.
Superisingly, he's also the character with the second best defense of the party, with a AC of -9 and 103hp, plus all the protective spell he's able to cast.
Child of Fire #2: Rasaad
"Bruce who?"
- Fire protection: Resistance to Magic 98%(78% from the class, 10% from the Ring of Gigaxx, 10% from the Amulet of the Seldarine)
- Other noticeable items: Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, Gauntlets of Crushing
The physical powerhouse of the Children of Fire, which provide an unlimited amount of damage at no cost, with a THACO of -12 (keep improving) and average damage per hit of 22.5 (keep improving too), a base APR of 4, and sevent charges of Greater Wirlwind (that I never use...)
Rasaad is also the most resilient character of the party, virtualy almost immune of most spells, and featuring a AC of -13 (keep improving)
The perfect and unmatched frontliner of this game, unless you build a frontliner protagonist yourself
Child of Fire #3: Imoen
"I could nuke everyone too, but I'm too lazy"
- Fire protection: Cloak of Mirroring
- Other noticeable items: Bow of Gesen, Aslyferung Elven Chain +5, Ring of Danger Sense
The utilitary character of the party, in charge of traps and locks, Imoen is also a powerful spellcaster right now. She can nuke reasonably well, even if the protagonist does it better due to having more spell charge, but her arsenal would be enough to probably fill the role of the protagonist if I wanted too...
This makes the party having virtualy two nukers, but never needing more than one.
Child of Fire #4: Viconia
"I can't believe I'm still following this party of boyscouts"
- Fire protection: Resistance to Magic 100% (65% native, 10% from Kaligun's Amulet, 20% from the Armor of Flesh, 5% from the Shield of the Lost)
- Other noticeable items: I feel a bit regretful to not have crafted the Crom Fraeyr for her, but I need the strength items for others
The healer of the Children of Fire, which almost serve no other purpose that to heal sometimes the frontliners. By the end of ToB, Viconia can get an impressive defense too, as she will get some items that will allow her to raise her mediocre AC of -6 to a far better score, without losing the 100% magic resitance.
Alas, those items juste come a LOT to late to make her a decent meatshield, and she will never compete by even a long way with Rasaad damage potential... so, yes, she's here because she's a healer immune to fire
Child of Fire #5: Jaheira
"I'm not going to provide you a stupid quote for your show"
- Fire protection: Resistance to Fire 100% (50% from the Red Dragon Scale, 25% of the Dragon Helm, 25% of the Dragon Scale Shield +2)
- Other noticeable items: nothing (for the moment ^^)
Almost only here for flavor, Jaheira contribue a bit to the cleansing of weak foes by using the Fire Tooth +3 with talent. In some level, she will also get a natural fire resistance from her druid class, which will allow her to get a better shield and raise a bit her AC, but she will never be a good damage dealer, not a good frontliner.
Still, I do love this character so much, she's by far the most interesting romanceable character of the game... plus, she'll get a little and fun improvement soon
Child of Fire #6: Minsc
"Boo is a Child of Fire too, he's the only fire immune hamster in the multiverse. He taught me everything on the topic"
- Fire Protection: Resistance to Fire 110% (50% from the ring of Fire control, 40% of the Ballista's Passeport, 25% from the Gift of Peace)
- Other noticeable items: Harbringer +3, The Brawling Hands
He's here! The 6th Child I'll never have been able to include in the party if I didn't do that 2nd playthrough with an early include of Rasaad.
Minsc is not really useful due to his low level, but he is a fun character to have around, a natural companion of every of my party and he can dish out some damage.
I will however always have to get an eye on him, because he's very vulnerable for a melee character... still, it's good to have at least a full party!
Strategy breakthrough
You probably noticed that I switched the fire protection items of Imoen on Minsc instead of just handing him the Cloak of Mirroring. Did you wonder why?
The answer lies in the weapon I gave Minsc: the Harbringer, a two handed sword that sometimes trigger a fireball on hit.
The problem is that the Cloak of Mirroring, as overpowered it can be, does not protect the wearer against the fireballs itself. So, with the Harbinger in hand, Minsc would have harmed himself during battle.
Imoen can always aim her fire spells farther from her if I want her to make cast them for any reason, but Minsc will always be in the range of the Harbinger's Fireballs when they will happen, so it's more interesting to switch the items this way
By the way, I just tried it, and seeing Minsc trigger fireballs by hacking ennemies is a very fun sight
Objectives
- Clear Saradush
- Start the Watcher Keep
Sequence story
Once out of the pocket plane, we land into an assieged city that seems to serve as a refuge for many other Bhaalspawns.
Now I think about it, Sarevok was quite stupid to chase me seeing how many "half-siblings" we seem to have.
Bhaal was such a busy rapist...
Anyway, it will do no good if we let the situation stay as it, and this is why I promptly lead my companion to set some order in the city by putting down the local tyrant.
Something he expected to happen as he prompty take us in an pincer attack ambush
That doesn't prevent me to set fire to his throne room, just to kill him in a single magic assault, as I'm forced to split my firepower between each side of the room...
But what this man can do alone against Rasaad anyway?
Even if the opponents of this country seems to provide a greater challenge to him, my friend promptly end Gromir's life once I stripped him of his allies
This short interlude however make me think we are going to face unprecedent foes soon. It was such a long time I didn't see someone able to wound Rasaad.
So, I decide that we should get more training, an inspiration that by the past served us well.
With this thought in mind, I lead the party to the Watcher Keep, where we recieved a call for help that I never had time to deal with before. And since the threat contained in that place is stable since decade, I could afford to delay my answer.
Now, however, I feel it could be a nice place to start to get my companion back in shape...
The place litteraly crowd of unusual dangers, forcing us to improvise many times, which is a good thing, because I have the feeling we will need a lot of improvisation when we'll deal with the people hunting the bhaalspawns
The first serious of those foes happen to be a chromatic demon we find in the 2nd level, almost resilient to every of our attacks
It could have worked if I didn't found too many information about him in the libraries around, and knew I just had to play with his pride about this transformation powers... and making our best to delay the fight by having Viconia sustain Rasaad, he soon commit the very mistake I hoped him to do: take his ice form, opening himself to my magic attacks
On the third level, we reach a group of thielings leaded by a being fond of gambling, who bait me into a game with the way to exit the level as a prize.
I do not truly care, as I don't intend to stay there, winning or losing this game, something he understand too late... when a mix of my fire and non-fire spells destroy them all at once
But this is only truly in the fourth level that things become worrisome... as this level seems to be the refugee of several lethal foes.
In the depth of a gith enclave, I find an old lich waiting there, a demi-lich even.
And I do remember the last one, Kargaax, and how troublesome it has been, with his immunity to magic and his fondness for the Imprisonment spell
This time however, I have a better weapon to strike him physicaly than my Mordenkanein's Swords, and call Rasaad to flank this undead abomination while I soak his spells under my Spell Immunity
But this enemy, as dangerous it was for a moment, was not comparable to the one waiting us in the other side of the level, in the ilithid enclave... an ancien red dragon called Saladrex
Sure, I already killed one red dragon before, but this one is different at the very first sight: he's cunning. And there is absolutly nothing worst we could find on a beast naturaly resistant to most of my spells.
Make to much preparations can warn such a beast of what is coming and leading it to attack first, so I avoid to cast any spell and just becons Viconia and Rasaad to build a wall in front of the beast, because I'll need a few seconds between when he'll understand my moves and the time of its demise
I take a big breath, and make a single move of my hand, a signal that I never had to use before, know of my sister only, that suddently release her own Spell Trigger to destroy its magical defense, and then, start to cast a Project Image and immediatly follow it by a Time Stop as Imoen's spells hits the beast
I unleash as many neutral damage spell I can, including a old spell I didn't use since a long time: Skull Trap, that adds to my Horrid Wilthings to immediatly overwhelm the foe as the time resumes
Finaly, I open the way to the last level, after taking a long rest to restore our strength... as well as make a quick inventory of some interesting items we found in the first four levels
Sequence aftermath
The deck of many things and the machine of lum increased Rasaad's defense even furture, allowing him to recover a magic resistance superior to 100% and earning him 2 AC by the gain of a nice ring, and the gain of one dexterity point, for a total of -17 AC
Viconia reached her level 25, and her new holy symbol give her the 5% magical resistance that allow her to switch the Shield of the Lost for the Sentinel, increasing her defense as well
New items:
- Warder's Signet: won with the deck of many things, give Rasaad 1 bonus AC and 3 bonus to all saving throws
- Staff of the Ram +6: a nice melee option for Imoen, if she ever need it
- Quiver of Plenty +2: allow Minsc to have an unlimited ranged option as all companions except Rasaad
- Circlet of Netheril: a nice helmet for my spellcaster protagonist
Strategy breakthrough
Saladrex is by far the most intelligent and difficult foe I found in that playthrough.
"Intelligent" as in "the devs paid some attention to his AI": this AI make him attack if you cast any summon spell near it, or just more and one or two buffs... it also make it try to attack the spellcaster of your party in priority instead of just attacking the closest foe as most monsters of this game.
Which mean: he's truly hard to tank.
Add to this that he is fire immune, meaning I can't nuke it, that it has more hp that usual dragon, meaning he won't even die if he take a full Time Stop worth of Horrid Wilthings (and thus, can survive a Neutral Nuke), and that he is magic resistant, and you have one of the most annoying critter our Children of Fire could meet.
So... what strategy to use against it?
If you readed the story part, you have seen I have sent two precise characters at its contact: Viconia and Rasaad, the two of the Children not only holding a full fire resistance, but a full magic resistance.
The goal of the two is to keep the dragon in place while I prepare the spells.
Imoen was the one in charge to destroy the magic resistance of Saladrex, because I wanted to use the Project Image trick to gain 3 free Horrid Wilthings, but once in the image form, the Spell Trigger of my protagonist will not work anymore
Finaly, during the Time Stop, I casted not only the 4 Horrid Wilthings, but also a Greater Malison and the full stock of Skull Traps.... for a total of 7 Horrid Wilthings and 6 Skull Traps exploding together at the end of the Time Stop
The best thing being that Rasaad and Viconia will resist the totality of the damage
I decided to call this an "Extended Neutral Nuke" and it utterly destroyed Saladrew where a simple Nuke would have failed
Objectives
- Kill Demogorgon
Sequence story
Immedialty after we enter the 5th level of the Watcher Keep, an Helmite Ghost gives us a stupid series of Trials.
On of them is supposed to be a test of Courage, but... I think this ghost don't get a clue about what ordeals we have gone through to reach the place as he think he can test our courage by making us face another dragon... a green dragon
Truly, it was not even remotely close to the threat of Saladrex... nothing that can't stand my flames is truly worth being called a threat anyway...
But I soon see greater troubles coming, as the seals to the Imprisoned One chambers happen to be guarded.
The first is a powerful lich that appears flanked by some flaming skulls, probably immune to fire.
I send Rasaad meet him alone, but order him to run in a room nearby as soon as I see he won't bring down his physical defense soon enough to prevent him to cast his Time Stop
This first problem solved, Rasaad can just run back to him and hammer him without letting him a chance to cast any other spell, including the Imprisonement one he will have certainly used if Rasaad where in reach when the time was stopped
For the second group of guardians, I chose another approach by summoning a circle of Mordenkanein's Swords around me before opening the seal
When the creatures appear, I understand it will be more efficient to call Rasaad again, as all of them are magic resistant, and half of them fire immune on top of that.
I would probably have them killed one by one while they where busy with my summon, but when it comes to one to one, my martial artist friend is just better
Hopefuly, the third group is nowhere as threatening as the two first, and we reach finaly the jail where the foe awaits
We, alas, learn we have been tricked as the ritual scroll jails us with the beast instead of just strengthening her bonds.
Our only choice to escape would be to ally with it, or kill it.... and guess what I chose?
Yup, I rarely ally myself with evil beings unless I have a greater scheme in head, something I have not here. I won't play that being game.
But perhaps should have...
The Imprisoned One happen to be nothing less than a demon prince, a being that immediatly gate two Marilith on us, forcing us to retreat on the top of the stairs, where his imposing size doesn't allow it to follow us, and where we can take care of the Mariliths first
But this is not giving us much time to rest, as he gates immediatly after that eight Glazebrus to deal with our lives.
As I see them climbing the stairs, I send Rasaad take care of one of the two stairs, and obstruct the second with a Mordenkanein's Sword, ordering all my other compation to shoot at the demons it starts blocks
Alas, I soon understand that Demogorgon can gate simply an infinite supply of those demons.
Each time we attempt to get down the stairs, he gates two waves of four of them, and force us to retreat upstair once more, leaving us in a stalemate...
A few try learned me that the foe is immune to most of spells expect for the strongest, and I don't know a spell strong enough to destroy the magic resistance it use to cancel those last ones...
Imoen does.
While we were in Saradush, I've spend more that 200.000 golds to have my sister study -every- scroll that a mage name Lazarus Librarius had, turning her into a walking library of spells.
I call Imoen to my side to think to a strategy to get us out of there, and resolve to have her change her Chain Contingency to cast three Pierce Shield as soon she get a sight of an enemy.
It is a spell that do not do better than my Lower Resistance usualy, but this time, it is the key to our victory
After repositioning our friend, I order Imoen to get down cautiously the stair, to trigger her Contingency on Demogorgon
As soon her task complete, Imoen runs up, letting our line of defense fend the wave of demons coming at us, with the order to unleash all their power as my strategy is all about tme
As I see the last of them falling down, I cast Time Stop and run downstairs, staying our of reach of Demogorgon, as I also tested previously that the Prince of Demon is immune to this spell... and use Improved Alacrity to chain up a Farsight allowing me to pinpoint its exact position, before I cast 4 Horrid Wilthing
And this is how, as the time resume, Demogorgon suddently see all of them explode near him at the very same time from an enemy that was out of his sight
As he understand the threat, he rushes toward me... but not fast enough to prevent me to unleash one more spell that end his cursed life, owning us our ticket out.
Sequence aftermath
There was not much progression in the party during this sequence, but it was a fun one to play, with many interesting fights
There is only one artifact that is worth noticing: the Club of Detonation +5 that I gave to Jaheira as a melee option.
Like the Harbinger, this is a weapon that trigger fireballs on hit, so a perfect weapon for a Children of Fire, even if the probability I'll let anyone except Rasaad go to melee is still low
Strategy breakthrough
The second group of guardian felt like if I was fightning the Children of Fire themselve. 6 foes, all immune to magic or fire... I felt the pain my opponents can feel when they have to fight my party.
Point is, there is not spell that lower magic resistance on a whole area, so to destroy the magic resistance of 6 foes, you need to cast at least 18 spells, during which they can do a lot of harm, that's why I did prefer to assault them physicaly
However, Rasaad alone could not kill them because the Marilith was hitting him really too hard, so I had to make the Mordenkanein's Sword tank to give him more time.
Demogorgon is on the same level of Saladrex as an enemy bringing a lot of problems for the Children of Fire: he's almost immune to nuke, and strong enough to destroy Rasaad in melee
If I was going to take it physicaly, I'll have to make all my fighter go to the front line and focus their Great Wirlwind on him and cross fingers.
This is probably the way most people use against it, I guess... but you know what? I'm doing a "Children of Fire" playthrough.
If I can, I'll always try to nuke the big targets! So, how to you nuke something immune to nuke?
By solving the problems one by one, as always.
1- Demogogon's Magic Resistance
Usualy, I destroy the magic resistance with a Spell Trigger (Lower Resistance x3) but Demogorgon is simply immune to all spell under level 8th, which include the Lower Resistance spell.
The only option to lower its resistance is the Pierce Shield spell, that I charged into a Contingency so Imoen would not have to stay long in the stair case and will not be caught by the Glazebru
Pierce Shield is probably a spell my protagonist should have taken, but well... I lacked some oversight on the topic, but Imoen has to be useful someday, isn't it?
2- Demogorgon's Time Stop immunity
Time Stop is a spell that have to goal to allow you to play several spell at once. Something a spell trigger could do, except that with Improved Alacrity, Time Stop allow you to do it with more spells, and bring no limit to the level of spells used.
Demogorgon can move while the time is stopped, but it doesn't change the fact your spells will all resolve together at the end of the Time Stop, so it still half-working
All it take to make it full, and thus allow a "Nuke" which is a stack of explosion, is to prevent Demogorgon to act during the Time Stop
Point is: If you followed the adventures of my Children of Fire since the beginning, you will perhaps remember that I was doing this far before my level 9th spell, by combining Farsight with Skull Trap and Delayed Fireballs...
And, sure, Skull Trap and Delayed Fireball won't affect Demogoron, but Farsight + using the area radius of blast spell from out of range still make impossible for a foe to retaliate during the preparations, meaning that this very method "fix" the Time Stop in this fight
So... yes, you can nuke Demogorgon. It's just a matter of methodology.
Objectives
- Kill Dorn
Sequence story
Now that I'm thinking about them, those statues in the pocket plane could be an opportunity to close a old case that have been on my mind since a long time.
Dorn, the half-orc ex-blackguard that I manipulated to solve some psychological issue within my party, has been given some time to reflect on his life since I severed his link with his demonic patron.
It is now the time to know if he became a more decent being, and if not, face his destiny, has I'm not used to let dangerous criminal alive behind me.
So, I use the power of the statues to summon him, and offer him to travel with us no more, giving some time to rest to Minsc into the pocket plane meanwhile.
It doesn't take long as we travel with the half-orc to figure if her learnt something for his past mistakes, as a Planetar, claiming his name has been wrote on the Scroll of Retribution, a document on which Tyr write the name of people who have done too much crimes and escaped their judgement too long.... so be it, I don't know what Dorn did this time, but he surely made something awful to deserve this punishment, which settle the matter.
Alas, the Planetar doesn't make the difference between Dorn and people standing besides him, and attack all at once, forcing me to defend us first
I do know feel very happy to have kill those crusaders, but I'll feel even less happy to get killed because of that stupid half-orc... and since I'm on it, I make sure that Dorn suffer the same fate
Defeated, the Planetar seems to see nothing redeeeming in Dorn's execution, and claim he'll make my name wrote on the scrolls as well... wait what?
So, I defend myself, and do his job, and he'll make me hunted by the forces of heaven for it?
No matter how I look at it, this is unacceptable, so I decide to take some move to have my name removed from this celestial artifact by entering Tyr's plane using the portal the Planetar left by.
Hopefuly, Tyr's servants are not immune to some quick tongue, and I really easily manipulate them to have this part achieved.... except that some servants seems to detect my doings at the really last moment, and two silver dragons quickly block on the only way out.
I walk to them fearlessly after have asked the other to stay behind, and give to the two beasts a chance to let me pass peacefuly.
Alas, what I was suspecting happened: they don't listen to me, and force me to fight them.
As powerful as they are, they probably didn't thought they could be so easily defeated, but I fight immortals, lich, and dragons since a long time know, and I perfectly know how to deal with powerful opponents.
Plus, individualy, they are less dangerous than Saladrex was, so I just had to make sure they'll get taken together in the area of effect of my spells.
Anyway, Dorn case is closed.
We bring his corpse in the pocket plane, where nobody will ever find him to resurrect him... even if he could find someone caring about him enough for that, something I strongly doubt of.
Even Viconia didn't contest his death
Sequence aftermath
The reason why I followed Dorn's quest until ToB is very simple: Silver Dragon Scales
Those scales allow me to make the imp of the pocket plane craft two set of Silver Dragon Armor, which are the best armors Viconia and Jaheira can wear in this game!
- Viconia has to drop the Sentinel to take back the Shield of the Lost once again to keep 100% magic resistance, but even like that, it's a net 3 AC bonus for her
- For Jaheira, I switch Minsc's Ring of Fire Control with the Red Dragon Armor to maintain her 100% fire resistance, and she gains 2AC and 15% magic resistance on top of it
Honestly, however, if Adalon dropped a single exemplary of the Silver Dragon Scales, I would never have make my Children of Fire befriend Dorn a second.
Killing him was a true relief, because it was not really suiting my party to let him alive so long
Strategy breakthrough
The couple of Silver Dragons were not has hard as Saladrew, but like him, they can't be killed with a simple Nuke or Neutral Nuke.
They have a non-neglectible amount of fire resistance which explain the Nuke cannot destroy them in one blow, and the Neutral Nuke does a bit less of damage
This is why I used the Extended Neutral Nuka as I did with the red dragon of the Watcher Keep.
Skull Trap nicely completed the damage needed, and only one of them survived with so few hit points I only needed to cast once after the Time Stop to finish it
The only true difficulties was to not forget I needed to debuff the two of them with Lower Resistance, and to aim accuratly my spells exactly between the to so they will damage them both.
But they where looking more dangerous than they truly were.
Objectives
- Kill Dorn
Sequence story
Rasaad came this morning to ask me if we could pursure Alorogth, since he got some clue about his whereabouts recently.
After a bit of hesitation regarding how Viconia could react to this, I finaly decided to agree about it.
It is a matter that have been in wait for too long for my friend, and I certainly owe him that much.
So, we follow the clues to a little household of dwarves, that seems to have been overrung by the sharans.
I'm surprised to see how few Viconia objects this time.
For some reason, Shar didn't removed her favor to her, and perhaps this twited goddess has some plan involving to let us kill her Harbinger if we're strong enough to do so...
I do not like much the thought, but I have to accept it if I want to repay Rasaad, and thus we enter the darwen mines to deal with the sharan forces without a complain of our drow friend
Several large groups of sharans are guarding them, and forces me to use my magic to clean the place
It is good to see that despite of having encountered some exceptions recently, my Fire still brung fiercly and can dispatch a little army all by itself, and this is followed by the roar of flames that we locate our target, and follow it into the Shadow Plane itself
Alorgoth alas got some reinforcement, a strange woman that soon happen to be a Shadow Dragon in disguise.
A battle immediatly start, and I use my Time Stop spell to prepare his demise, and wince as I see that this evil beast used an invisibility to prevent me to target him directly.
Which is annoying because a Shadow Dragon surely have some magic resistance that will cancel my spells if I can use my Lower Resistance on him
Changing my mind immediatly, I launching several Fire spells toward him and another spell of mine, and then running close to him...
This is exactly when the time resume than my last spell trigger, canceling its invisibility... and that I activate my Spell Trigger to cancel his magic resistance just before the Fireballs and Dragon Breath catch up, after having traveled from my former position to him
In a huge explosion, Yxtrazzal dies, unable to sustain my attack
The death of the dragon bring the cave on the verge of collapse however, and I have to drag Rasaad forcibly so he would not get killed by the said collaspe
As we almost get out, we see the Shadows of the place betray Alorgoth, and assault him, angered by his failure...
This is perhaps what Shar planned. Alorgoth failed several times in front of Rasaad after all, and she perhaps used us as a trial to see if her servant was worth his title.... and as he failed once more, even with the help of a powerful dragon, his goddess turned her back to him.
Turning our eyes to Viconia, I get no answer, and no anger or anxiety for what we did.
Whatever would be the truth, Shar will preserve her secret, as she always do.
Sequence aftermath
No item or spell of importance this time, but since one of my party member got an extended quest in ToB, I wished to do it
I will not pursue Hexxat and Neera's quest as my party is full.
Dorn was an exception only due to the exceptional armors it contained
It's time now to return to the main quest!
Strategy breakthrough
Yxtrazzal's fight was an unusual one, because it use an annoying combination of magic resistance and invisibility:
- Magic Resistance cancel damage spells.
- Invisibility prevents Magic Resistance to be debuffed.
So to nuke Yxtrazzal, you need to first cancel its invisibility, then Lower Resistance, then Nuke
The problem is there is no anti-visibility spell that works during Time Stop, because True Sight is poorly implemented: he should be a buff that allow a character to ignore illusions, not a spell that destroy illusion every round. This have been implemented better in the Neverwinter Nights series, but not in BG2
So, since I had already started to cast Time Stop when he activated the invisibility, I could not cancel the invisibility, thus cast no Lower Resistance at him during the Time Stop duration, which was annoying
To solve the matter, I proceeded like this:
1- I took position the farthest possible to cast the Fireball and Dragon Breath spells I had.
2- I casted Oracle
3- I ran to close quarter, waiting for Time Stop end, and then use my Spell Trigger (Lower Resistance x3)
Oracle being an instant spell (and not a spell based on a timer like True Sight), it will activate as soon the time resume to destroy Yxtrazzal's invisibility.
The Fire spells, on their side, being casted from afar and behaving like projectiles, will start to travel to the target at that time, only reaching it 1-1.5s later
It means that during that time, the dragon is both targettable by Lower Resistance and yet not hit by the damage spells, and this is every short time frame that I activate the Spell Trigger which destroy the magic resistance.
The reason why I ran closer to it after I casted the Fire spells is that if I didn't, the Lower Resistance will have need some travel time too, and I'll have probably missed the short time frame needed to Nuke that Shadow Dragon
Neverless, with a mix of knowledge about spell mechanics and quick fingers, I once more overcame the defense my opponent put in front of me to prevent me to Nuke it.
Sorry, try again BG2 !
Objectives
- Kill Yaga Shura
Sequence story
Now the last unfinished business is completed, it's time to return to the topic of this invulnerable bhaalspawn giant...
As suggested by Melissan, we quickly go to investigate the Myr Forest that doesn't cause us any trouble, and meet the foster mother of Yaga Shura here, that give us all the information we need to cancel our ennemy's invulnerability
We are forced to go to Yaga Shura hold, which is filled with Fire Giant and a few other threats that just cause no real trouble to Rasaad as long as I direct him correctly to avoid to take 5 giant together, and rather easily neverless to recover the heart of the giant
The foster mother that betrayed her son seems to feel some regret after she performed the right ritual for us, but it is to late. We promptly dispatch her, then rush to the siege camp to stop Yaga Shura and his army.
As he see in the first second of the fight he lost is protection, Yaga Shura flees, but is stupid enough to come back thinking that with a bit of reinforcement, it will win anyway...
... he won't.
In fact, I do feel Melissan over stated the threat. Saradush suffered from Yaga Shura's army, but the leader itself was pretty weak, at least compared to us.
Sequence aftermath
A very short sequence, because the whole thing with Yaga Shura didn't provide anything really interesting to tell about.
The Children of Fire are now almost to the climax of their power, with my protagonist getting close to the xp cap (only one level remaining)
Strategy breakthrough
Not much to tell... Yaga Shura is a Fire Giant, so immune to Fire, but a simple Neutral Nuke destroy 95% of his hp and all his allies.
Rasaad finished the business.
Let's hope for new challenges in the two last chapters.
Objectives
- Kill Sendai
Sequence story
A new trial awaits me in the pocket plane, where a kind of.... clone of me pretend that if I hadn't be raised by Gorion, I would have ended exactly like Sarevok.
I don't know who is truly this clown, but I don't believe in destiny or pre-determined outcomes. Whoever raised me, I'm the master of my destiny and for a proof, I'll start to figure if this guy is truly "me"
By my ascendency, I'm at home in the middle of the roaring flames, but this guy is not. Which definitively make the point that when you don't know who is who, just burn the whole place, it will sort things out.
Anyway, now this clownry is over, it's time to head to the city Melissan pointed us out.
And in every city, there are some people in need... like this guy who put himself at trouble is a lich...
Even if this guy was pretty stupid to bargain his soul to an psycopathic undead spellcaster, stupidity is not a good reason to let someone die, and her daughter surely not deserve such a fate, so I decide to fight this undead abomination and save them both
Alas, as soon that the battle starts, the lich summons banshees, and one of them case after the stupid merchant...
As I scorch the room, I send a volley of basic magic missile to the chasing banshee, now out of the range of the flames, while Rasaad charge in his back
We succeessfuly kill all those undead just in time before the banshee kills the merchant, and retrieve the soul stone of his daughter.
I hope this mess learned him some wisdom, at least
This thing over, we take a bit of rest, and seek for Sendai's lair in the area close to the town.
It doesn't take long before we found it, despite of the idiotic efforts of the guard to confuse us with illusions
The place is litteraly crowded with drows, that Rasaad have almost no trouble to dispatch alone, even if Sendai seems to be decided to send us her minions one by one....
The first one appear to be a drow named Thelynn'ss that seems to have an impressive martial skill, and force Rasaad to charge him and spam his Greater Whilwind technique to kill him quickly before he can do some real damage
Finaly, even this doesn't change the outcome of the battle, and Rasaad clean this room alone like the others
A bit farther, we meet Sendai's slaver which send us a continuous flow of poor, that fall in mass under the fists of Rasaad
And then a lich, an illithied, and even a strange earth elemental, strong enough to threaten Rasaad, forcing all the team to support him with ranged attacks to take him down
In a remote room, we find another of Sendai's underling, who is stupid enough to challenge me in duel
Well, everyone know how this is going to end. I just use Time Stop, Improved Alacrity, Lower Resistance and a stack of fire spells to turn him in a nice pile of ashes
Finaly, we meet Sendai herself, which summon 7 copies of herself... which make 8 Sendai to beat. Like the legs of a spider.... drows like this number
Anyway, I send Rasaad one the first of the copy which falls down in no time, just before some reinforcement enter the room from where we came.
Seems I'm going to take care of the clones myself while Rasaad blocks the reinforcement... no problem, I do know how to clone myself too: I cast a Project Image, which in turns trigger my contingencies that immediatly destroy another of Sendai's clone
Then I order my image to use Time Stop to nuke a third clone immediatly, then another one to kill a fourth with Horrid Wilthing, never forgetting to use Lower Resistance on her clone to destroy their magic resistance
At this point, my clone starts to running a bit low in spells, and just have enough to damage a bit the fifth clone that Rasaad finish of, even if I can't manage to direct the other to avoid them to take a few blows before
Sacrifying my against the sixth of Sendai's ones, I cast Projet Image once more to get a fresh one, and immediatly follow this with the same sequence of two Time Stops to brun the sixth clone and kill the seven with Horrid Wilting
Finaly, as Rasaad depletes the reinforcement, I let him take care of the very last copy of Sendai, closing her case once for all
Sequence aftermath
New interesting items are become rare for the Children of Fire, but this sequence provide two to them:
- The Dark Steel Shield, which replace Jaheira's shield and without dropping her 100% fire resistance (with the Helm of Brillance and the Ring of Fire Control), increasing her total AC
- The Wong Fei's Ioun Stone, which replace Rasaad's Ioun Stone, increasing his hp regeneration without making him lose any AC
The slaver room just achieve to overload my party with loot, the Bag of Holding dedicated to loots full, as well as all my companion's inventories.
In total, Rasaad killed 80 opponents in a row in his room, and lost less that 40hp doing so.
Strategy breakthrough
Sendai was quite an amusing fight. A kind of endurance match
Normaly, with 8 target coming one by one, all featuring magic resistance, my Dragon Disciple should get depleted of his spells... alas for Sendai, Projet Image duplicates the stock of spells on each clone it produce, meaning that my protagonist can in fact use his full stock 8 times in a row.
Without Project Image, the best bet would be to use Wish: Rest to recover spells, and if we don't like Wish too, we could also fill the room with Incendiary Clouds and make sure to hold the line long enough for her clones to burn despite of their magic resitance
But anyway, I didn't need so many options: I don't have any grudge against Project Image and only two of them were enough however to clear most of Sendai's clone, alternating Nukes and Neutral Nukes to kill them one by one.
Objectives
- Kill Abazigal
Sequence story
We reach Abazigal's lair in the same day, who happen to have it's entrance guarded by the son of Abazigal himself.
It's time for me to confort a similar kind to myself, people having both dragon and god blood... and for sure, they intend to show me they are the best of us...
Draconis in his human form alas for him cannot match Rasaad, but I know already that even him cannot handle physicaly a dragon in his true form, that's why I force my friend to retreat as soon he assumer his reptilian one, while I start to cast Time Stop
Like the Shadow Dragon of a few days ago, Draconis casted invisibility on himself to prevent me to destroy his magical resistance, but I have however already found a counter for this... Rasaad having already retreated too far, I prefer to cast some physical protection on myself before I approach our foe myself
That's a lot of protection this big ugly lizard put on himself, but only his invisibility and magical resistance us a true protectation against my magical fire, especialy since he's not a red dragon. That's why I start to use the very same strategy than with the Shadow Dragon: I cast my fire spells and Oracle from afar, then rush in close range, ready to use my Spell Trigger as soon the time resumes...
Alas for me, I mess up as I didn't cast those spells from far enough and most of them are canceled by his magical resistance before my Lower Resistance destroy it.
With a stroke of panic, I improvise a new course, and invoke a Project Image
I smirk when I see Draconis getting killed by the Horrid Wiltings from my Chain Contingency... I bet he didn't see it coming, but that's why I'm always prepared with that kind of spell anyway.
The defenses of Abazial easy falls one after the other to Rasaad, and I finaly reach her lair without much difficulty.
As with his son, I send Rasaad forward while he is in human form...
Taken by surprise, as I see Rasaad being outmatched by an humanoid, I quickly decide to make him retreat, summoning a Mordenkanein's Sword to replace him... then I ask Viconia to heal his wound, before I send him back to strike at Abazigal's back
Soon, Abazigal gives up like his son, and turns in his true form, which is the signal for me to cast Time Stop...
... to see that he managed to completely ignore the spell !
I quickly run back to improvise a counter and even summon a second magical, as some time passed since the first was called
And I sure had a good intuition as he cast Maze on the first one, temporaly dispelling it. As least, I still and one shield to fend his attack while I prepare for the next move...
I let the time resume as I don't want to get close as long I can't send my Mordenkanein's Sword forward to keep him busy, then cast several Incendiary Clouds from the extreme limit of his range. And this is only when my first magical sword get back from the Maze that I step forward, releasing my Spell Trigger on him
My Foe slowly start to roast under the clouds, and even if he seems able to damage my Mordenkanein's Sword, he does it too slowly to get out of this Deadly Trap.
I send him a third sword, that reach him only a few seconds before he finaly dies.
As we return victorious from this trial, all that remains to do is to deal with Balthazar.
Being an honorable person, even if too stupid to understand that there is nothing like destiny, I make him the honor of a fair fight against Rasaad, but he is just no match, even with the help of several of its disciple.
We simply have the strongest monk of the Sword of the Coast among us.
Sequence aftermath
Only one chapter left!
This has been a long walkthrough for sure...
I have already completed the last chapter in fact... but I need a bit more time to sort the screenshot and think about what is interesting to write about and what is not.
With a bit of luck, I'll close this walkthough today.
As I reached the very last level of my protagonist, I pick Pierce Shield since this level is high enough to combine it with Lower Resistance in my Spell Trigger.
The two spells can be combined regarding your current level:
- At level 24, you need only 3 Lower Resistance to destroy a 100% magical resistance
- At level 27, you can do the same with 2 Lower Resistance and 1 Pierce Shield, but I didn't get opportunity to pick the spell so far
- At level 30, you can do the same with 1 Lower Resistance and 2 Pierce Shield
Pierce Shield add some magical dispelling to the mix, so the more you have in the Spell Trigger, the best it is... as long you still cumulate -100% magical resistance
Strategy breakthrough
I got caught by surprise several times in his sequence, for the simple reason that I never made it so far in the game until then.
The Children of Fire will be the first party that I will bring to the end, and I had a blast with it
Anyway, I should have killed Draconis easier if I used Time Stop correctly. When you need to overcome an invisibility, you must truly try to cast the offensive spells from as far as you can.
Idealy, you can start out of range of the foe, and add a Farsight to the mix to aim the area of effect spells...
Abazigal immunity to Time Stop was a true surprise, but as long you can keep a foe busy with something else, an arcane spellcaster can solve almost anything.
Hopeful, the magical damage of Abazigal was not as high as his physical damage, or things would have been more complicated
Still, it's good to use something else than Nukes for once. Incendiary Cloud is a very good spell I didn't have enough opportunities to use.
Objectives
- Complete the game!
Sequence story
Seems all this mess is almost behind me, but before we can truly take a rest, the Solar of the Pocket Plane has some revealation for me... and after that, another trial.
What is truly the point of them anyway? I don't get it... gods have such weird ideas sometimes.
Anyway, I try to get rid of it quickly, because I truly want to burn the damned witch which is the mastermind behind the slaughter of Saradush...
This tries involves to fight against an entity called the Ravager... and entity which seems to have a thing for summonin magicaly animated swords.
Not that I can blame it, I'm fond of it myself, so I cast Time Stop, then the usual Improved Alacrity... followed by five Mordenkanein's Swords, my Spell Trigger and three Incendiary Clouds
As a result, my summons block his summons, and outmatches them, while the clouds burn slowly this entity that pretended, as many before it, to kill me, until this problem is solved.
This grants me the access to the Throne of Bhall, where Melissant awaits us...
Rasaad punch her good one time, then we have to deal with a kind of air elemental...
Rasaad punch her good a second time, but she starts to defend better, then we have to deal with a kind of ice elemental...
Mmm there is like a kind of pattern there, and since Rasaad started to have some difficulty to hold both Melissan and her pets, I decide to prepare the battlefield before she returns
I expected like this to hold the pets with my summons, 5 Mordenkanein's Sword, one Project Image and one Simulacrum, and have Rasaad punch her once more but as soon she appears, she teleports aways, to the north
My summon overwhelm anyways her pets, with the support of everyone's ranges attacks and a few greater whirlwinds and I push my paws forward by the west to distract her after have casted an Incendiary Cloud on her postion.
As she retreats a bit out of the Cloud, I have my Project Image start to destroy magic resistances with some Pierce Magic after have cast an Improved Alacrity by the east
Then sending my Mordenkanein's Sword one by one to keep her attention on them, I then order my Image to chain-cast every Skull Trap it has, and force her to retreat once more
My Project Image has used a lot of its spells, but it still have enough for a bit more work, and I also have some time remaning on my Mordenkanein's Swords, so I send them immediatly on the last plateform without taking a breath, and have them together and with a bit of help of Rasaad clear every foe present there
As there is no more plateform remaining, I guess that Melissan is going to give her full at the next attack, so make sure everyone is healed before I destroy her last power souce....
As expected she gets back, but I was ready. I suddently cast an Improved Alacrity, and send her once against a batch of Piece Magic followed with all my Skull Traps... alas, this is when Minsc's madness choose to trigger has he unexpectedly rushed forward and get damaged by most of the skulls as well.
But hopefuly, at this point the only thing that takes to end her ambitions are two more Horrid Wiltings.
Sequence aftermath
.... aaaannnd CUT ! BG2 is compelte at least ! XD
Strategy breakthrough
Melissan was rather weak once I understood that Time Stop would not work on her.
She can cast Time Stop as well but doesn't do anything great with it, plus my Incendiary Cloud prevented her to cast it in the second try.
The point is, even without Time Stop, Improved Alacrity + Robe of Vecna is an amazing combo which can shred foe like nothing.
Melissan was also immune to fire, so I choosed to harass her with Skull Trap, as the whole batch can be cast in a blink of eye under Improved Alacrity, resulting in a stronger burst than using Horrid Wilting
This is the kind of things that make the Robe of Vecna the strongest item of all BG2
The hardest thing in this fight was to keep everyone alive due to the large amount of hard hitting summons she throws at the party
I won't spoil the ending further, those who have seen it doesn't need it, and those who didn't shouldn't be spoiled.
I'm rather glad to have completed this wonderful game, as I before that always had a new party idea before I complete the run... and starting over.
Having some people looking at my playthrough encouraged me to go to the very end with the Children of Fire and I'm glad to have completed the game with this one.
I hope you had all as much fun to read this long playthrough that I had to write it, thanks for reading me until the end!
I'm now out for a break, pondering what I could play next... I have some little things that turns into my head like a no rest or a no loot run... perhaps another playthrough, who knows?
Feel free to give me your feeling about it