After killing the remaining sirines in the temple, Freya headed north. A charmed ogre provided her with a belt upgrade on the way to the FAI. A ring there gave her some additional spells, but she didn't attempt using those on Tarnesh - instead relying on a couple of charmed guards. She also killed Jaheira to get her invisibility potion.
Further north again she got another level for killing some fishermen for Tenya before going on to Ulgoth's Beard to charm Dushai and pull him away from the villagers to be shot down. That pushed reputation down to 4, but that was soon recovering thanks to Farmer Brun, Joia, Firebead (getting a second lot of 300 gold from him for talking to him 30 times) and Mr Colquetle. Other than remembering to travel invisible, that lot required no work, but saving Arabelle was slightly more effort (though by resting between xvarts it was still pretty quick and easy). Samuel was then returned to the FAI to get reputation up to 10 before Freya rested to acquire CLW.
Back south again Neira became a first victim of the vicious web and blind combination. That also was used to get a skeleton skull and subsequently successfully restore Melicamp. Those spells continued to be heavily used while picking up further reputation from Ardrouine, Charleston Nib (resting between each digger) and Brage. Greywolf's high HPs and wandering script make blindness not terribly useful against him, so he was treated to a good cloaking (though I mis-calculated HPs there and a kobold got the final blow in to steal his XP).
At level 5 Freya's 30 HPs reflect maximum die rolls on every level up so far. She's yet to take any damage on this run, but what are the odds her first damage will also be her last?
The main encounters in the Cloud Peaks were all done, picking up more reputation from the Dryad and Drienne in the process (Freya took friends as a spell last level so had no problem in getting reputation from the latter). The same tactics of web & blindness for disablers and MMs & sling for damage - with the odd bit of charming from invisibility - were generally fine for that. The xvarts guarding the charisma tome though are difficult to deal with in the tight spaces of the cave, so Freya played safe by dragging them outside. She got to level 6 by killing a bear on behalf of a scared merchant (keeping her record of maximum HPs to date).
She got around to returning Landrin's goods (not done when she was there before as she wouldn't have got some free antidotes due to her low charisma and reputation at that time). A trip to Firewine Bridge was mainly to get Meilum's bracers, but she also charmed Bentan and Poe to get their goodies without paying a reputation price.
Freya sneaked into the basilisk area to pick up another reputation point from Tamah before going to the Lake to kill some half-ogres for Bjorn (making a first use of her new skull trap spell during that). While there she also watched some gnolls cut down Drizzt too quickly for her to intervene - a charmed Teyngan exacted revenge on the gnolls for the ranger though.
With reputation up to 19 and all side reputation quests done, the natural next step for me would normally be to do the Nashkel Mine. However, I decided to try and protect Freya's record of not taking damage - which means getting stoneskin to fend off the traps there. Hence she went in search of some serious XP. The green scroll from the Carnival gave her protection against basilisks and she resorted to wand use for the first time to make sure that wouldn't run out prematurely. That got her to level 7 (just the 4 HPs that time though) before she recruited Korax to sort out Mutamin. To be safe Korax was then killed and Freya charmed Kirian's party to deal with them one at a time.
The next major source of XP was the ankheg area. They can safely be dealt with by going invisible as soon as you come into sight (stranding them on the surface), then webbing them and blinding them while held. After clearing the ankheg nest and a few more for Gerde, the one near Tenya in the next area was enough for level 8 (back to 6 HPs) to allow Freya to learn stoneskin.
The search for XP took Freya to Durlag's Tower, where blindness and web helped set a battle horror up for disposal. Unfortunately though one of the intended skull traps failed to detonate and blocked the path. Rather than risk that going off Freya left the area for now and went to the Nashkel Mine.
In the mine stoneskin did its job against the traps and Freya was alert when the shaman dispelled her invisibility. In Mulahey's cave the cleric was charmed and persuaded to indulge in a suicide pact with a summoned skeleton warrior.
On exiting the back door Freya went to kill some ghasts and pick up the wand of monster summoning - that got an immediate outing to do the hard work to kill Narcillicus and his pair of mustard jellies. Back in Nashkel Freya got her final reputation point. Just for a change Nimbul was charmed and spoiled his spells before being held in webs and blinded (Freya had also used MSD to protect against the possibility of a minor sequencer). She immediately used the find familiar scroll to produce a familiar.
After a quick tour of shops to do some shopping Freya returned to sort out the Doomsayer - using a few wand charges to finish it off rather than resting (creatures only regain 100 HPs when you rest in the same area, so you can wear down high HP enemies over a day or two if you don't want to use up resources). She then went on to the coast where a sirine in the hostile group was charmed and soaked up poison arrows from the other sirines. Freya could then use MSD to make it easy to deal with the others. One of Sil's companions was charmed and dragged away to find an enemy, but the only one on offer after a quick tour was a tasloi - and it broke its spear fairly early on. Getting tired of slow progress, Freya tried to finish it off more quickly using skull trap and invisibility, but with it almost dead I wasn't quite careful enough. Freya started casting invisibility while the sirine was out of sight, but it managed an instant shot as soon as it moved into sight - which poisoned Freya to inflict her first damage.
She finished off the rest of the sirines and the golems (largely relying on stoneskins with the latter). More sirines to the north almost took Freya to level 9, so she killed a few of the nearby ogre clan to get that last level (and yet another 6 HPs).
Freya looks like she's ona good run, big shame she wasn't able to save Drizzt. (I really had to laugh at how you worded that )
I've started another run, too but it's a normal reload run just to test some stuff this time. I'm also on the Shadowdancer trip due to Billy Pilgrims reports of success but I dualed into a mage at level 7. More ideal would be level 9 and I might yet do that on the next try to get 3x bs but it would not be easy dualing in SoD and also a shame to not get max xp in BG1.
I went Mage because of the abilities to use wands (and spells ofc :P) specifically because of the wand of lightning.
Big B is not immune to lightning damage and with the restealth trick you can not only bs but also cast a spell or use a wand and go invis straight after since HiS does not affect your aura.
This should make a kill much quicker since there is no chance to fail a hit roll with a wand (also I have the feeling that saves for half on wands are bugged but even with save for half it is a lot more damage per round than melee).
I got the xp for level 7 SD thru quests and normally killing basilisks in Mutamin's and I got the xp for regaining dual by Basilisk looping on top of Durlags.
I went Mage because of the abilities to use wands (and spells ofc :P) specifically because of the wand of lightning.
Big B is not immune to lightning damage and with the restealth trick you can not only bs but also cast a spell or use a wand and go invis straight after since HiS does not affect your aura.
You'll presumably be aiming to lower his magic resistance first to allow the wand damage to take effect as I think base MR is at least 100%. It will be interesting to see if you can strike sufficiently quickly to do significant wand damage while his MR is lowered ...
That's a good point @Grond0 I've got to admit I actually forgot about his MR. Lower Resistance lasts for 1 minute on a level 11 Mage and there's 3 Level 5 slots, 30 Wandstrikes might not be enough forhis HP depending on save vs wand I guess if it's bugged and he can't save for half then it should be enough if he saves for half and maybe MR also absorbs some hits it will only get him to half HP since there is also regen.
Still should be a lot quicker than having to melee him for all his HP.
Returning to Durlag's Tower, Freya used her newly-learned haste spell to run past the skull trap without setting it off. She killed the remaining battle horror guarding the entrance, but didn't bother clearing the external walls. She did though use MSD to grab the tome inside. She also sneaked onto the roof and used web and blindness on the basilisks - couldn't resist XP even though that hit its cap there.
Pushing on quickly now, Freya charmed Marl & Dunkin and looked on invisibly while they gave Tranzig a boxing lesson. Raiken then offered a lift to the Bandit Camp, making it easy to charm Taurgosz for his equipment. Inside Tazok's tent, Freya was protected by MSD, stoneskin, mirror image and haste - so didn't bother using an invisibility potion after rifling the treasure chest.
A bit of time was spent looting the rest of the Bandit Camp before Freya travelled invisibly through the Cloakwood (ignoring attempted ambushes by Molkar and the amazons on the way). Drasus' companions were quickly charmed and fed to the nearby bridge guards, but he proved very resistant and eventually Freya stuck him in webs and killed him directly (relying on stoneskins in case he managed to get an attack in - which he didn't).
In the mine Freya sneaked down to Davaeorn with no fighting and minimal looting. She charmed the guard and used him to pull the battle horrors back without alerting Davaeorn. She took a bit of damage while killing them and was out of most spells, so rested before sending the guard to kill Davaeorn (very briefly sighting the mage herself to avoid activating him). The guard broke his weapon early on, but was hasted and still put Davaeorn down for the count pretty quickly. The guard then died against the mustard jelly and Freya had to use 2 lots of summons there (the first had no monsters that could hit it) to finish it off.
Freya flooded the mine before leaving and has just arrived in the City.
In Baldur's Gate I, for I think the first time, decided to kill Marek and Lothander at their original meeting place - a couple of lots of summons helping out there. I expected that to mean the wisdom tome was not available without violence and that did seem to be the case, but it was duly picked up from the priest's body after he was charmed and attacked Agnasia.
Ragefast didn't last long against hasted summons to provide Freya with another cloak and she added to the list of those by going to get Balduran's favorite (I also couldn't resist killing all the statues on the way - the familiar getting the opportunity to get out of the backpack there). Ramazith and Sunin then joined the list of mages unable to deal with summoned monsters (although the latter required two lots).
Ticking off the list of potentially useful equipment, Freya picked up another couple of Necklaces of Missiles - I just sold the skyship components rather than fighting another mage though. The Silvershield Estate was robbed for a bit more cash before recharging various wands in case they are of use in SoD.
Another lot of summons aided her to clear the Seven Suns. I do tend to fight at the Iron Throne, but all charged items were pretty much full and I had quite a few valuables stashed in a gem bag as well - so Freya just sneaked in and out. She reported to Duke Eltan and managed to time her action in the transition so that she used her own invisibility spell rather than consuming a potion to avoid the ogre magi. She's about to venture into the catacombs.
@Grond0 going strong! Are you sure about the wisdom tome? I think it also comes available with the quest to get the boys body from the priestess of umberlee. She will ask you to get it and you can buy it off the guy for 500gp, go back to her and kill her for the boys body (unless that is the violence you mean ^^).
My first time I'm actually trying to get through SoD ^^ @Victor_Creed_SFV more or less saved my first run, I didn't know there is a nice amulet on the werewolf guy in the Iron throne building, well, TIL. Now I'm trying to get through the dwarven digsite, I didn't manage to save the dwarves that are fighting at the entrance. My SD just doesn't dish out enough damage, and if I start fireballing the monsters the dwarves get mad at me, understandably . The monster groups are far too large to fight, I simply don't have the patience, can I run through this with prot from undead? I noticed on the lower floor there is a guardian who is not classed as undead and sees through invis, do I need to kill him? I think its called bronze statue ~ it might be problematic as he 2 shots me ^^.
@Victor_Creed_SFV Just tried again, he sees through invis in my game and chases me around everywhere, when I go to do the leaf riddle he always kills me because I can't kite during the short cut scene.
Ill just have to pull him to the other side of the map I think and hopefully I can do it before he gets to me.
@Victor_Creed_SFV Just tried again, he sees through invis in my game and chases me around everywhere, when I go to do the leaf riddle he always kills me because I can't kite during the short cut scene.
Ill just have to pull him to the other side of the map I think and hopefully I can do it before he gets to me.
Oh ok then I totally remembered that wrong, can't you kite him with arrows or is he resistant?
@Grond0 going strong! Are you sure about the wisdom tome? I think it also comes available with the quest to get the boys body from the priestess of umberlee. She will ask you to get it and you can buy it off the guy for 500gp, go back to her and kill her for the boys body (unless that is the violence you mean ^^).
@billy_pilgrim that may well work . I hadn't started that quest at the time I talked to the priestess and just killed her then (since I expected to be able to retrieve the tome from the cleric's body I wasn't too worried about exploring alternatives anyway).
Re the bronze sentry I don't remember that being a problem. Are you actually invisible as well as using PfU?
@Grond0 & @Victor_Creed_SFV yea, both PfU and stealthed (before I reveal him) but my PfU runs out while kiting him, I have one more scroll, will I need more during SoD? Or is this the last dungeon where PfU is needed?
In the catacombs Freya used her own spells to rob the tombs. The phase spider poison is pretty deadly to summons so she dealt with them on her own - using lots of pausing to make sure they couldn't teleport and attack before she could react. I didn't bother with any of the other encounters - for once even leaving the basilisks in peace.
Back in Baldur's Gate a couple of lots of summons were just enough to finish off Slythe - Krystin was left to mourn alone.
At the palace I tried for the second time to charm the doppleganger mage - and this time remembered to rest after doing so. The fight would probably have been easy enough anyway for Freya, but the mage's absence made it more so. I didn't try and protect Belt (apart from anything else I wanted his invisibility ring), but Liia remained invisible. I turned on autopause there to make sure I didn't get surprised by the mage while not looking at the game and, once it was dead, successfully led Liia out of sight of Sarevok before she talked.
After recharging the Sandthief ring at exorbitant cost (not really a problem as cash will be no good to Freya where she's going), Freya sneaked through the maze without fighting. She similarly bypassed the Undercity party and went straight into the temple. As usual Freya used invisibility to park Sarevok in a corner, with only Angelo not following. An animate dead scroll safely tempted him out (skeletons not being subject to confusion or fear so won't run into the others). Angelo saved against a couple of malisoned paralysation attempts while he was killing the skeleton and another half dozen or so after that - but finally he stuck in place and some summons ensured he wouldn't recover.
Freya waited for Diarmid's scroll protection to end and then firebombed the others. She nearly drained all 3 of her necklaces, but eventually Sarevok was all on his own. She took no chances with him, but just kept the summons flowing (along with magic missiles and a few frost blasts) until he'd had enough.
I know a safe route through BG1 very well, so only need to avoid mistakes there. That's not the case with SoD, so Freya's chances there are not good - but while there's life, there's hope .
@billy_pilgrim: Yeah, you dont need PfU later on anymore (if you skip the Spectacle Lich!) so feel free to use one in the Dwarven Mines. With it the whole dungeon as well as the Lich gets trivial. With regard to the the Sentry: I nomally lure him into the room nearby, close the door and exit the area so he gets trapped and i can move on to Coldhearth. Leaving the area is needed as he will otherwise reopen the door. You can also fight him but its not worth the time imo. Good luck with SoD - same for @Grond0!
In the dungeon Freya pulled the guards away from the door to Porios and went invisible to get back past them and convince the mage to surrender. PfU and invisibility allowed her past various undead groups to the mercenaries guarding the gate control. I seem to remember that charming both of those doesn't end well, so tried just charming one as they left - but without success. In Korlasz's room she tried charming a mercenary, but again failed. The nymph cloak was no help there as she would need to be in sight of Korlasz to try and charm anything so waited 3 hours thinking that would be enough time for Korlasz's fire protection scroll to expire. She buffed up with stoneskin, spirit armor, mirrors, blur, haste, PfE, fireshield, MGoI and improved invisibility and attacked along with some summons. Unfortunately Korlasz was still immune to attack by scorcher and Freya wasted more time by trying to dispel mirrors using a detect invisibility scroll. She then tried wand of frost, but that also did nothing (I was thinking that was high enough level to go past MGoI, but it's not an item I use regularly and may be wrong about that).
With no more chance of a quick victory Freya went invisible and then had to do a lot of running round as the enemies all tried to surround her. Once their haste had ended she threw up more summons and then confirmed that cold damage would take effect on Korlasz. Three blasts from that wand, interspersed with keeping summons going, was sufficient to persuade Korlasz to surrender and end an untidy encounter.
On the plus side Freya got up to level 10 there, picking up a final 5 HPs to end just 3 below the possible maximum.
In the City Freya's chaotic evil nature got the better of her and the various NPCs took a hammering as a result. With the windfall profits from that Freya had plenty of money to buy a bag of holding and various things to fill it on arriving at the Coalition Camp.
The first bit of action was to travel to the Coast Way Forest and try and save the vampire in order to get a source of regeneration. It was paralysed during the fight and Freya turned it invisible. It was still there at the end of the fight as there was a spot she couldn't move through, but at some point it left without talking to her and it wasn't in its cave.
Travelling back, Freya found some battling orcs and trolls. Remembering that they had a nice upgrade for her sling, she worked her way through the enemies, though that took a while. The wand of fire would have been good there, but Freya had not yet recovered that from her chest in the camp and multiple use of webs eventually allowed her to deal with the trolls in the top cave. Rather than take the time to kill the ones down below, Freya just grabbed Firefly and the other treasure and left.
I wasn't bothered about doing the lich, but did investigate a bit. Freya failed to save any of the dwarves, but finished off their attackers before going onwards. I intended just to see what could kill the bronze sentry before leaving. It was immune to fire, but had no magic or cold resistance and it didn't take long to get it to badly wounded. However, Freya didn't quite manage to kill it in time before falling foul of my unfamiliarity with SoD. Traps are a huge danger when exploring unknown areas and I haven't learnt too many of the ones in SoD yet - though there are quite a few that can easily prove fatal. One of those resulted in Freya being confused and the bronze sentry gleefully finished her off in a few rounds (@Harpagornis I saw your comment too late!).
@Grond0 Thats a shame :< I'm happy to save scum through all of SoD, well tbh all of the game ^^ I want to finish at least one complete run before overly frustrating myself .
@Harpagornis thanks, thats good news! I guess I'll have to skip the spectacle lich, unless I can buy another PfU somewhere..
I managed to finish the dungeon more or less. I decided to help the lich, I'm chaotic neutral so any option doesn't really matter ^^ I figure I can use any help I can get in the last part of SoD. Because I was missing one amulet I had to backtrack to the top level and the monsters started moving about, which made me require a fair bit of kiting as they blocked the doorways occasionally, and I had to kite the sentry + hit the mob blocking the entrance, but I managed!
At the palace I tried for the second time to charm the doppleganger mage - and this time remembered to rest after doing so. The fight would probably have been easy enough anyway for Freya, but the mage's absence made it more so. I didn't try and protect Belt (apart from anything else I wanted his invisibility ring), but Liia remained invisible. I turned on autopause there to make sure I didn't get surprised by the mage while not looking at the game and, once it was dead, successfully led Liia out of sight of Sarevok before she talked.
Wait. So you charmed Liia Jannath, turned her invisible, and then moved her away from Sarevok? That seems like a perfect way to avoid a duke-related game over. Do you have to position yourself a certain way to charm her without starting the dialogue that triggers the doppelgangers? I thought entering the line of sight of Sarevok, Belt, or Liia would start that dialogue.
I didn't charm her, no. However, I knew where she was, so once the mage was dead Freya just briefly ran into her view before retreating back out of sight of Sarevok where she allowed Liia to catch up to have her conversation (Belt/Liia have to get close to you to trigger that conversation, although the one that starts the fight at the palace triggers at a slight distance). My impression was that Liia remained invisible after that conversation anyway, but I'm not certain and wouldn't trust to that happening.
The middle one of the line furthest from Sarevok is the mage.
@semiticgod I tried that on my SD too but Liia couldn't be moved after charming her. Her selection circle remained blue like any other npc.
If you're fast though, you don't need to wait for the charm to wear off on the doppleganger. After moving the mage you can still exit the building and rest 2x (charm lasts like 12 hours I think) when you re-enter the nobleman will still be where you left him, one of the small rooms next to the throne rooms presumably. When you trigger the fight, as long as you don't get into LOS from him you should be fine.
Btw while testing some stuff I realized back when @semiticgod recommended SCS Improved shapeshifting because of Earth Elemental immunity and I couldn't get it to work, I just didn't realize how Improved Shifting actually works. You create a Token which is put into your inventory and you have to equip it as a weapon (Ijust waited for my char to shift on its own and it never happened)
Not only does the earth elmental give you 100% phys immunity (even tho it says 50) it is also equippable in the offhand slot.
If you pick both Fire and Earth Elemental transformation you can actually dual wield the tokens and combine 120% fire res and 100% physical res. Depening on which order you equip them is the ST bonus you gonna get but also the form you're gonna take on, fire seems to fit through much more narrow spaces and after dualing the tokens unequipping them makes my game crash.
Ok I found the ultimate cheese. Shapeshifter with both Greater Werewolf and Earth Elemental token gives you of the start 40% MR + elemental resistances. Combine this with two Ring of Gaxxes (need to recruit an NPC Thief just to steal the 2nd ring) Silver Dragon Scale, Amulet of Seldarine (or the MR amulet from Droow City) and 5% from machine of Lhum and 10% of Bhaal trials. Now you are 100% phys and Magic resistant and 80% vs all elements. Your worst saving throw is a 1 for spells. If you ever get hit by combined malison and lower Res (doesn't actually happen that often) you use the ring of Air cheese. (Since you only use it after the fight has gone on for some time the chance of it getting dispelled is very low as long as you don't stay invisible but immediately attack) LAdies and Gentleman an immortal character on LoB with the main downside of not being able to use it's spells and having to make any equipment changes via shadowkeeper because left clicking anything in the inventory will crash your game.
edit: nvm I just found out you cana ctually left click the werewolf token in offhand and just unequip it.
Another edit: Shapeshifter's can't wear Silver Scale or any of the Scales anymore, guess this was fixed. Still even with 85% MR this class is insane, dualed to a fighter you can get the elemental res up to 127 (except acid which is 70) and because of better fighter Saves you can get the save vs spell which is the weakest to -3.
Ok I found the ultimate cheese. Shapeshifter with both Greater Werewolf and Earth Elemental token gives you of the start 40% MR + elemental resistances. Combine this with two Ring of Gaxxes (need to recruit an NPC Thief just to steal the 2nd ring) Silver Dragon Scale, Amulet of Seldarine (or the MR amulet from Droow City) and 5% from machine of Lhum and 10% of Bhaal trials. Now you are 100% phys and Magic resistant and 80% vs all elements. Your worst saving throw is a 1 for spells. If you ever get hit by combined malison and lower Res (doesn't actually happen that often) you use the ring of Air cheese. (Since you only use it after the fight has gone on for some time the chance of it getting dispelled is very low as long as you don't stay invisible but immediately attack) LAdies and Gentleman an immortal character on LoB with the main downside of not being able to use it's spells and having to make any equipment changes via shadowkeeper because left clicking anything in the inventory will crash your game.
edit: nvm I just found out you cana ctually left click the werewolf token in offhand and just unequip it.
Another edit: Shapeshifter's can't wear Silver Scale or any of the Scales anymore, guess this was fixed. Still even with 85% MR this class is insane, dualed to a fighter you can get the elemental res up to 127 (except acid which is 70) and because of better fighter Saves you can get the save vs spell which is the weakest to -3.
I remember trying out a druid-based run where I had like three party members dual-wielding Greater Werewolf tokens. It was pretty absurd. I even let my cleric/thief use them, and I had him use the Chain Contingency hotkey trick (no longer available in EE, I believe) to cast spells instantly.
Fun fact: those tokens also grants 1 HP regeneration per second, and constant effect haste.
Personally, I reduce the 100% resistance on the earth elemental token to 50%, in keeping with the description. I always figured a future update would bump it down to 50% anyway. It still lets you hit 90% resistance with Hardiness, which I feel is overpowered rather than game-breaking.
Either way, a Shapeshifter would definitely be an excellent character in SoA and ToB. But without removing the XP cap, I have reservations about its survivability in BG1 and especially SoD. Before level 13--which I think is the primary bottleneck of this challenge so far--the Shapeshifter's werewolf form won't soak up nearly as much enemy pressure as a Totemic Druid's summons.
But if we can figure out a way to get a Shapeshifter safely through SoD, it may well have an important edge over the Totemic Druid in the fight with Ascension Melissan.
What do you guys think about the chances of a Blade Charname? Ever since seeing a speedrun of BG1:EE with a Blade, it struck me as a very mobile character, and its ability to use wands and scrolls would be extremely important in BG1 and SoD.
Dual wielding (bugged) Shapeshifting Tokens? Interesting idea for sure but i wouldnt call this legit.
As @semiticgod stated SoD will be the bottleneck for any Shapeshifter (modded or not) and i wouldnt dare to try this with no-reload settings cause even the Totemic Druid had a tough time in Avernus. With reloads it should be doable abusing Harm + resting for the Demon Waves. For Big B Ekluns setup plus Shield Amulet should do the trick - its just a matter of time! Feel free to do a complete run with this borderline OP character @Victor_Creed_SFV!
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Further north again she got another level for killing some fishermen for Tenya before going on to Ulgoth's Beard to charm Dushai and pull him away from the villagers to be shot down. That pushed reputation down to 4, but that was soon recovering thanks to Farmer Brun, Joia, Firebead (getting a second lot of 300 gold from him for talking to him 30 times) and Mr Colquetle. Other than remembering to travel invisible, that lot required no work, but saving Arabelle was slightly more effort (though by resting between xvarts it was still pretty quick and easy). Samuel was then returned to the FAI to get reputation up to 10 before Freya rested to acquire CLW.
Back south again Neira became a first victim of the vicious web and blind combination. That also was used to get a skeleton skull and subsequently successfully restore Melicamp. Those spells continued to be heavily used while picking up further reputation from Ardrouine, Charleston Nib (resting between each digger) and Brage. Greywolf's high HPs and wandering script make blindness not terribly useful against him, so he was treated to a good cloaking (though I mis-calculated HPs there and a kobold got the final blow in to steal his XP).
At level 5 Freya's 30 HPs reflect maximum die rolls on every level up so far. She's yet to take any damage on this run, but what are the odds her first damage will also be her last?
She got around to returning Landrin's goods (not done when she was there before as she wouldn't have got some free antidotes due to her low charisma and reputation at that time). A trip to Firewine Bridge was mainly to get Meilum's bracers, but she also charmed Bentan and Poe to get their goodies without paying a reputation price.
Freya sneaked into the basilisk area to pick up another reputation point from Tamah before going to the Lake to kill some half-ogres for Bjorn (making a first use of her new skull trap spell during that). While there she also watched some gnolls cut down Drizzt too quickly for her to intervene
With reputation up to 19 and all side reputation quests done, the natural next step for me would normally be to do the Nashkel Mine. However, I decided to try and protect Freya's record of not taking damage - which means getting stoneskin to fend off the traps there. Hence she went in search of some serious XP. The green scroll from the Carnival gave her protection against basilisks and she resorted to wand use for the first time to make sure that wouldn't run out prematurely. That got her to level 7 (just the 4 HPs that time though) before she recruited Korax to sort out Mutamin. To be safe Korax was then killed and Freya charmed Kirian's party to deal with them one at a time.
The next major source of XP was the ankheg area. They can safely be dealt with by going invisible as soon as you come into sight (stranding them on the surface), then webbing them and blinding them while held. After clearing the ankheg nest and a few more for Gerde, the one near Tenya in the next area was enough for level 8 (back to 6 HPs) to allow Freya to learn stoneskin.
In the mine stoneskin did its job against the traps and Freya was alert when the shaman dispelled her invisibility. In Mulahey's cave the cleric was charmed and persuaded to indulge in a suicide pact with a summoned skeleton warrior.
On exiting the back door Freya went to kill some ghasts and pick up the wand of monster summoning - that got an immediate outing to do the hard work to kill Narcillicus and his pair of mustard jellies. Back in Nashkel Freya got her final reputation point. Just for a change Nimbul was charmed and spoiled his spells before being held in webs and blinded (Freya had also used MSD to protect against the possibility of a minor sequencer). She immediately used the find familiar scroll to produce a familiar.
After a quick tour of shops to do some shopping Freya returned to sort out the Doomsayer - using a few wand charges to finish it off rather than resting (creatures only regain 100 HPs when you rest in the same area, so you can wear down high HP enemies over a day or two if you don't want to use up resources). She then went on to the coast where a sirine in the hostile group was charmed and soaked up poison arrows from the other sirines. Freya could then use MSD to make it easy to deal with the others. One of Sil's companions was charmed and dragged away to find an enemy, but the only one on offer after a quick tour was a tasloi - and it broke its spear fairly early on. Getting tired of slow progress, Freya tried to finish it off more quickly using skull trap and invisibility, but with it almost dead I wasn't quite careful enough. Freya started casting invisibility while the sirine was out of sight, but it managed an instant shot as soon as it moved into sight - which poisoned Freya to inflict her first damage.
She finished off the rest of the sirines and the golems (largely relying on stoneskins with the latter). More sirines to the north almost took Freya to level 9, so she killed a few of the nearby ogre clan to get that last level (and yet another 6 HPs).
I've started another run, too but it's a normal reload run just to test some stuff this time.
I'm also on the Shadowdancer trip due to Billy Pilgrims reports of success but I dualed into a mage at level 7.
More ideal would be level 9 and I might yet do that on the next try to get 3x bs but it would not be easy dualing in SoD and also a shame to not get max xp in BG1.
I went Mage because of the abilities to use wands (and spells ofc :P) specifically because of the wand of lightning.
Big B is not immune to lightning damage and with the restealth trick you can not only bs but also cast a spell or use a wand and go invis straight after since HiS does not affect your aura.
This should make a kill much quicker since there is no chance to fail a hit roll with a wand (also I have the feeling that saves for half on wands are bugged but even with save for half it is a lot more damage per round than melee).
I got the xp for level 7 SD thru quests and normally killing basilisks in Mutamin's and I got the xp for regaining dual by Basilisk looping on top of Durlags.
Lower Resistance lasts for 1 minute on a level 11 Mage and there's 3 Level 5 slots, 30 Wandstrikes might not be enough forhis HP depending on save vs wand I guess if it's bugged and he can't save for half then it should be enough if he saves for half and maybe MR also absorbs some hits it will only get him to half HP since there is also regen.
Still should be a lot quicker than having to melee him for all his HP.
Pushing on quickly now, Freya charmed Marl & Dunkin and looked on invisibly while they gave Tranzig a boxing lesson. Raiken then offered a lift to the Bandit Camp, making it easy to charm Taurgosz for his equipment. Inside Tazok's tent, Freya was protected by MSD, stoneskin, mirror image and haste - so didn't bother using an invisibility potion after rifling the treasure chest.
A bit of time was spent looting the rest of the Bandit Camp before Freya travelled invisibly through the Cloakwood (ignoring attempted ambushes by Molkar and the amazons on the way). Drasus' companions were quickly charmed and fed to the nearby bridge guards, but he proved very resistant and eventually Freya stuck him in webs and killed him directly (relying on stoneskins in case he managed to get an attack in - which he didn't).
In the mine Freya sneaked down to Davaeorn with no fighting and minimal looting. She charmed the guard and used him to pull the battle horrors back without alerting Davaeorn. She took a bit of damage while killing them and was out of most spells, so rested before sending the guard to kill Davaeorn (very briefly sighting the mage herself to avoid activating him). The guard broke his weapon early on, but was hasted and still put Davaeorn down for the count pretty quickly. The guard then died against the mustard jelly and Freya had to use 2 lots of summons there (the first had no monsters that could hit it) to finish it off.
Freya flooded the mine before leaving and has just arrived in the City.
Ragefast didn't last long against hasted summons to provide Freya with another cloak and she added to the list of those by going to get Balduran's favorite (I also couldn't resist killing all the statues on the way - the familiar getting the opportunity to get out of the backpack there). Ramazith and Sunin then joined the list of mages unable to deal with summoned monsters (although the latter required two lots).
Ticking off the list of potentially useful equipment, Freya picked up another couple of Necklaces of Missiles - I just sold the skyship components rather than fighting another mage though. The Silvershield Estate was robbed for a bit more cash before recharging various wands in case they are of use in SoD.
Another lot of summons aided her to clear the Seven Suns. I do tend to fight at the Iron Throne, but all charged items were pretty much full and I had quite a few valuables stashed in a gem bag as well - so Freya just sneaked in and out. She reported to Duke Eltan and managed to time her action in the transition so that she used her own invisibility spell rather than consuming a potion to avoid the ogre magi. She's about to venture into the catacombs.
My first time I'm actually trying to get through SoD ^^ @Victor_Creed_SFV more or less saved my first run, I didn't know there is a nice amulet on the werewolf guy in the Iron throne building, well, TIL. Now I'm trying to get through the dwarven digsite, I didn't manage to save the dwarves that are fighting at the entrance. My SD just doesn't dish out enough damage, and if I start fireballing the monsters the dwarves get mad at me, understandably
Ill just have to pull him to the other side of the map I think and hopefully I can do it before he gets to me.
Re the bronze sentry I don't remember that being a problem. Are you actually invisible as well as using PfU?
Back in Baldur's Gate a couple of lots of summons were just enough to finish off Slythe - Krystin was left to mourn alone.
At the palace I tried for the second time to charm the doppleganger mage - and this time remembered to rest after doing so. The fight would probably have been easy enough anyway for Freya, but the mage's absence made it more so. I didn't try and protect Belt (apart from anything else I wanted his invisibility ring), but Liia remained invisible. I turned on autopause there to make sure I didn't get surprised by the mage while not looking at the game and, once it was dead, successfully led Liia out of sight of Sarevok before she talked.
After recharging the Sandthief ring at exorbitant cost (not really a problem as cash will be no good to Freya where she's going), Freya sneaked through the maze without fighting. She similarly bypassed the Undercity party and went straight into the temple. As usual Freya used invisibility to park Sarevok in a corner, with only Angelo not following. An animate dead scroll safely tempted him out (skeletons not being subject to confusion or fear so won't run into the others). Angelo saved against a couple of malisoned paralysation attempts while he was killing the skeleton and another half dozen or so after that - but finally he stuck in place and some summons ensured he wouldn't recover.
Freya waited for Diarmid's scroll protection to end and then firebombed the others. She nearly drained all 3 of her necklaces, but eventually Sarevok was all on his own. She took no chances with him, but just kept the summons flowing (along with magic missiles and a few frost blasts) until he'd had enough.
I know a safe route through BG1 very well, so only need to avoid mistakes there. That's not the case with SoD, so Freya's chances there are not good - but while there's life, there's hope
With no more chance of a quick victory Freya went invisible and then had to do a lot of running round as the enemies all tried to surround her. Once their haste had ended she threw up more summons and then confirmed that cold damage would take effect on Korlasz. Three blasts from that wand, interspersed with keeping summons going, was sufficient to persuade Korlasz to surrender and end an untidy encounter.
In the City Freya's chaotic evil nature got the better of her and the various NPCs took a hammering as a result. With the windfall profits from that Freya had plenty of money to buy a bag of holding and various things to fill it on arriving at the Coalition Camp.
The first bit of action was to travel to the Coast Way Forest and try and save the vampire in order to get a source of regeneration. It was paralysed during the fight and Freya turned it invisible. It was still there at the end of the fight as there was a spot she couldn't move through, but at some point it left without talking to her and it wasn't in its cave.
Travelling back, Freya found some battling orcs and trolls. Remembering that they had a nice upgrade for her sling, she worked her way through the enemies, though that took a while. The wand of fire would have been good there, but Freya had not yet recovered that from her chest in the camp and multiple use of webs eventually allowed her to deal with the trolls in the top cave. Rather than take the time to kill the ones down below, Freya just grabbed Firefly and the other treasure and left.
I wasn't bothered about doing the lich, but did investigate a bit. Freya failed to save any of the dwarves, but finished off their attackers before going onwards. I intended just to see what could kill the bronze sentry before leaving. It was immune to fire, but had no magic or cold resistance and it didn't take long to get it to badly wounded. However, Freya didn't quite manage to kill it in time before falling foul of my unfamiliarity with SoD. Traps are a huge danger when exploring unknown areas and I haven't learnt too many of the ones in SoD yet - though there are quite a few that can easily prove fatal. One of those resulted in Freya being confused and the bronze sentry gleefully finished her off in a few rounds (@Harpagornis I saw your comment too late!).
@Harpagornis thanks, thats good news! I guess I'll have to skip the spectacle lich, unless I can buy another PfU somewhere..
I managed to finish the dungeon more or less. I decided to help the lich, I'm chaotic neutral so any option doesn't really matter ^^ I figure I can use any help I can get in the last part of SoD. Because I was missing one amulet I had to backtrack to the top level and the monsters started moving about, which made me require a fair bit of kiting as they blocked the doorways occasionally, and I had to kite the sentry + hit the mob blocking the entrance, but I managed!
Which noble is the doppelganger mage?
The middle one of the line furthest from Sarevok is the mage.
If you're fast though, you don't need to wait for the charm to wear off on the doppleganger. After moving the mage you can still exit the building and rest 2x (charm lasts like 12 hours I think) when you re-enter the nobleman will still be where you left him, one of the small rooms next to the throne rooms presumably. When you trigger the fight, as long as you don't get into LOS from him you should be fine.
You create a Token which is put into your inventory and you have to equip it as a weapon (Ijust waited for my char to shift on its own and it never happened)
Not only does the earth elmental give you 100% phys immunity (even tho it says 50) it is also equippable in the offhand slot.
Depening on which order you equip them is the ST bonus you gonna get but also the form you're gonna take on, fire seems to fit through much more narrow spaces and after dualing the tokens unequipping them makes my game crash.
Shapeshifter with both Greater Werewolf and Earth Elemental token gives you of the start 40% MR + elemental resistances.
Combine this with two Ring of Gaxxes (need to recruit an NPC Thief just to steal the 2nd ring) Silver Dragon Scale, Amulet of Seldarine (or the MR amulet from Droow City) and 5% from machine of Lhum and 10% of Bhaal trials.
Now you are 100% phys and Magic resistant and 80% vs all elements.
Your worst saving throw is a 1 for spells.
If you ever get hit by combined malison and lower Res (doesn't actually happen that often) you use the ring of Air cheese. (Since you only use it after the fight has gone on for some time the chance of it getting dispelled is very low as long as you don't stay invisible but immediately attack)
LAdies and Gentleman an immortal character on LoB with the main downside of not being able to use it's spells and having to make any equipment changes via shadowkeeper because left clicking anything in the inventory will crash your game.
edit: nvm I just found out you cana ctually left click the werewolf token in offhand and just unequip it.
Another edit: Shapeshifter's can't wear Silver Scale or any of the Scales anymore, guess this was fixed.
Still even with 85% MR this class is insane, dualed to a fighter you can get the elemental res up to 127 (except acid which is 70) and because of better fighter Saves you can get the save vs spell which is the weakest to -3.
Fun fact: those tokens also grants 1 HP regeneration per second, and constant effect haste.
Personally, I reduce the 100% resistance on the earth elemental token to 50%, in keeping with the description. I always figured a future update would bump it down to 50% anyway. It still lets you hit 90% resistance with Hardiness, which I feel is overpowered rather than game-breaking.
Either way, a Shapeshifter would definitely be an excellent character in SoA and ToB. But without removing the XP cap, I have reservations about its survivability in BG1 and especially SoD. Before level 13--which I think is the primary bottleneck of this challenge so far--the Shapeshifter's werewolf form won't soak up nearly as much enemy pressure as a Totemic Druid's summons.
But if we can figure out a way to get a Shapeshifter safely through SoD, it may well have an important edge over the Totemic Druid in the fight with Ascension Melissan.
What do you guys think about the chances of a Blade Charname? Ever since seeing a speedrun of BG1:EE with a Blade, it struck me as a very mobile character, and its ability to use wands and scrolls would be extremely important in BG1 and SoD.
As @semiticgod stated SoD will be the bottleneck for any Shapeshifter (modded or not) and i wouldnt dare to try this with no-reload settings cause even the Totemic Druid had a tough time in Avernus. With reloads it should be doable abusing Harm + resting for the Demon Waves. For Big B Ekluns setup plus Shield Amulet should do the trick - its just a matter of time! Feel free to do a complete run with this borderline OP character @Victor_Creed_SFV!