Executive Summary: Angelo completes all bar one of the peaceful quests initially available in Athkatla.
Although Chapter 1 was basically complete, Angelo wandered through into the Slums Disctrict and accepted Gaelan Bayle's offer to raise 20,000 GP, thereby formalising proceedings. Sadly, he got no more XP for starting Chapter 2 (this wasn't SoD, which doled out XP for advancing the plot), but Felicity informed him that this would not be a problem...
Looking back, I was perhaps a little too brief in my writeup of BG's starter quests. At the risk of paying excruciating detail to rather tedious gameplay, I won't make the same mistake again.
A Grave Matter
Angelo's first port of call was the Graveyard District. Wandering around, he found Tirdir, a kidnapped man who'd been dropped into an unmarked grave before Sethle the gravekeeper had accidentally loaded spadefuls of dirt on top of him. Rescuing the noble gave Angelo 6,500 XP and confronting Sethle about it prompted him to look for a man in red in the Bridge District. Angelo held onto that lead for now, vowing to confront the kidnappers once he'd levelled up a bit more.
The grave was also conveniently next to the paladin Kamir, who had failed to protect his adopted son. Although Angelo wanted nothing more than to scoff at the knight's ineptitude, he sensed it was more profitable to talk to the priest Arenthis elsewhere in the district. This allowed him to persuade Kamir to adopt orphan girl Risa, earning Angelo 12,250 XP. Going back to Arenthis prompted another 3,000 XP boost and serious concerns about Athkatla's social services.
Getting 'Wellyn'
Waiting until nightfall, Angelo found restless child spririt Wellyn looking for his stuffed bear. After promising to get it back, Angelo quickly ducked into the crypts to cast Invisibility. Although the Cowled Wizards had warned him about using arcane spells within city limits, they didn't seem the brightest bunch since casting indoors seemed safe enough, with a few exceptions. This turned out to be a wise manoeuvre, as he was set upon by Suna Seni, Eldarin and some slaver thugs. The slaver wizard quickly dispelled the invisibility, but it gave him enough time to make it halfway to the exit. Neither spells nor the backstabbing rogue could reach him before he could escape, although a couple of arrows did find their painful mark.
After a little encouragement, Lehtinan allowed Angelo access to the Copper Coronet's backrooms. Cowering in the first corridor, Llynis was eager to surrender Littleman the stuffed bear, which Angelo took as a fair trade for his miserable life, and giving it to Wellyn earned a further 15,500 XP. While he was exploring the Copper Coronet, Angelo also took master pickpocket Yarin's gloves from the adjacent cabinet, figuring he'd put these to good use soon enough.
Finding the Hiding Hidesman
The Bridge District was unsafe after dark (LoB lifted the muggers' stats to superhuman proportions), so Angelo waited until dawn had broken before continuing. Lieutenant Aegisfeld informed him that there was a murderer on the loose and since Angelo could not bear to have anyone cramping his style, he vowed to investigate. Claiming he hadn't a penny in the world, despite his ostentatious possessions saying otherwise, Rampah unquestioningly handed over the exotic hide. Rose Bouquet (perhaps a relative of Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances) would not be argued down, so Angelo bit the bullet and paid 20 GP for her to say she'd smelled something like guril berries. A quick trip to Bel Dalemark identified the hide as elephant and gave a trio of samples for Angelo to bring back to Rose. Apparently, the smell emanated from oak bark, which was used in tannins to make leather. Both of these clues pointed to the tanner, Rejiek Hidesman, who confessed for 23,250 XP and fled when Angelo came knocking.
Both clues must be uncovered before Rejiek admits his guilt (Faraji, a light-fingered child, accuses Mrs Cragmoon, but this is a red herring with no consequence).
The tanner shop's top floor was one of the aforementioned exceptions to the Cowled Wizards' ignorance
about casting indoors, so Angelo descended to the basement (which had no such restriction). After Rejiek retreated again, Angelo disarmed a quartet of traps (the floor traps released Cloudkill, Lightning Bolt and Fireball, while the chest was Call Lightning and the shelves had a hidden spear), but did not follow the tanner downstairs. Instead, he returned to the surface and visited an unmarked NE house. The ground floor's traps were both electricity-based (Glyph of Warding on the ground, Lightning Bolt on the chest), but the first floor's were deadlier: petrification awaited a failed save when raiding the side cabinet while the chest was guarded by a Maze spell. Disarming them all, Angelo took the Silver Horn of Valhalla, a prized item that he would be upgrading shortly.
Eliciting the 'Illithium'
Next on Angelo's list was the Temple District, where he ran into some proselytisers spreading the word of the Unseeing Eye. Despite being evil, it was High Watcher Oisig who requested that Angelo go to the Temple of Helm to discuss hot to deal with this new cult. Angelo would tackle the Unseeing Eye later, but he was more interested in the subsidiary quest for now. This involved tracking down Sir Sarles for Guardian Telwyn to make a new artwork. Angelo duly traipsed over to the Jysstev estate in the Government District only to be told to seek out Jerlia in Waukeen's Promenade. Only the finest ore for Sir Sarles, or something like that.
Being an illithium merchant was a profitable business: after paying 1,000 GP for Jerlia to reveal her source, Angelo also promised to a 200 GP subsidy for an alloy substitute. A day later, the price had jumped to 500 GP, but Angelo avoided paying by once again claiming he hadn't the cash... and when he returned moments later, she gave him the ore for free despite nominally charging him half a grand for it. Ever a stickler for details, Sir Sarles refused to accept the substitute (Angelo refused to use the word 'cheap', even if it had been free!), but the Temple of Helm turned out not to be so picky. For his efforts, he was rewarded with a helm of the noble and 10,000 XP and he still had the opportunity to follow up the real illithium with Unger Hilldark, Jerlia's source, in the Copper Coronet.
The Dawning of the Dawn Ring
In the meantime, Guardian Telwyn directed Angelo to Dawnbringer Sain in the temple of Lathander next door. Promising he'd retrieve the temple's stolen dawn ring, Angelo tracked down Travin by scouting the northern Slums district after dark (being sure to wind around clockwise to avoid thugs Bregg and Cohrvale, at least for the time being). Refusing to pay for information redirected Angelo to Borinall's house, which he bashed his way into using Draw Upon Holy Might and pacified Borinall by asking to see his wares. Aided by DUHM and his new gloves, Angelo picked the dawn ring straight out of Borinall's pocket and returned it to Sain for 16,250 XP and 1,000 GP.
In classic BG2, it was possible to steal the dawn ring from the temple of Talos before this quest had been assigned, but BG2EE has apparently closed this exploit. Now only thieves, priests of Talos or characters with pilfery-capable familiars can complete the quest without violence.
Getting Pally with the Paladins
Much as it pained Angelo to do so, he spent part of his wages upping his reputation to 10 (had they not heard of the hero of Baldur's Gate?!). This enabled Sir Ryan Trawl in the High Hall of the Radiant Heart to give him the task of bringing the fallen paladins to justice. He found Reynald de Chantillon and the fallen paladins having a barney with Rindus and some assorted smugglers in the NE Bridge District. Since the former knights seemed more than capable of winning the battle on their own, Angelo didn't intervene, but this didn't seem to matter to Reynald, who tasked him with returning Anarg's cup.
After persuading a reluctant Trawl to loan it out, Angelo offered it to Trawl, who doled out 10,250 XP and summoned Anarg. Of course, if Anarg initiated dialogue, then a fight would start, so Angelo didn't give him the chance. Deciding that the fallout would be better dealt with later, Angelo walked off before Anarg could arrive.
Nicking the Necklace
Not recognising that Angelo wasn't the worshipper of Cyric he claimed to be, the mad cleric outside the thieves' guild in the Docks wandered away. Eyeing Angelo up and down, the bouncer admitted him entry, an opportunity Angelo took to speak to Renal Bloodscalp and agree to infiltrate Mae'Var's complex. Showing Renal's letter of transfer to frontman Gorch when asking for Mae'Var did the trick and Angelo was allowed downstairs to speak with Mae'Var. As Angelo already had reputation > 10, he was tasked with stealing the necklace of Talos from the corresponding temple, an easy task given that it was nocturnally dumped in a chest by her bed. Merely grabbing it earned 20,000 XP and returning it to Mae'Var earned 29,500 XP more and the opportunity to undertake further quests from Edwin. Unfortunately, Edwin's first job would require assassination, a task which Angelo wasn't quite ready to contemplate, so he put that on hold for the time being. Leaving Mae'Var's guildhall, he skirted the perimeter clockwise as he exited the slums, avoiding the brigand-filled central lane.
Had Angelo had < 10 reputation, he would have been tasked with stealing the necklace of Lathander, rather than Talos, which lacked the 20,000 XP 'pickup' reward.
His business in Athkatla concluded, Felicity estimated there was roughly 145,500 XP to be earned peacefully in the city (discounting thief skills, mage scribing and so on). There was one more urban quest that could be completed pacifistically, but Angelo preferred to save this for another day. His next plan was to explore outside the city's limits, as there was plenty to be gained by setting his sights further afield.
Part 48: Angelo Dispatches the Druids and the Djinn
Executive Summary: After some important setup, Angelo completes all of Trademeet's many quests.
"The next few updates might be slightly awkward," Felicity Foreshadow warned, living up to her name. "In an actual playthrough, you'd go through all pacifist quests before engaging in combat, but describing this would involve lots of backtracking. Readers may find it hard to keep track of what's been done where, and it wouldn’t lead to satisfactory narrative partitioning."
“How about we compromise?” Angelo asked. “We make a disclaimer saying that we'll push the non-combat angle as far as possible, but then do the combat afterwards, clearly stating the delineation. During our inevitable 'SoA roundup', you can summarise the pacifist quests into a 'this is how we would have done it' post. That way, we can keep continuity flowing within the narrative while also providing the ‘optimal’ route."
Putting Trademeet, Umar Hills and the D'Aernise Keep on the Map [No Combat]
To his annoyance, he could not leave Athkatla blindly - he needed to have some idea where he was going. Fortunately, he did, so he met with the characters capable of updating his world map. Visiting the Copper Coronet afforded both Lord Jierdan Firkraag and Nalia D'Aernise to beset him with their problems; the former wasn't actually necessary (curiously, the Windspear Hills automatically shows up on the world map), but the latter unlocked the D'Aernise Keep location. Agreeing to Tolgerias' quest in the Council of Six building opened up the Umar Hills and talking to Flydian at the City Gates added Trademeet to Angelo's atlas. After watching Bandon pass off some illicit wares, these new destinations became accessible through the open gate.
Curiously, the Windspear Hills automatically shows up on the world map and is accessible without first 'enabling' it by going through the City Gates (although you must visit the Slums to start Chapter 2 beforehand).
Before he left, Angelo sold his excess gear and purchased a scroll of Protection from Undead. These were significantly rarer in BG2 than the original, so he only bought what was absolutely necessary. Other items could have potentially been useful, and Angelo would comment on those when the opportunity arose.
Watcher's Keep Service Station [No Combat]
Felicity informed Angelo of the possibility of several nasty waylays that could occur when travelling into or out of the wilderness. The Cowled Wizards' magical amnesty made it finnicky to precast Invisibility prior to travel, but Angelo knew a solution. To his knowledge, probabilities for waylays to occur were only given between SoA areas, and had not been updated for ToB. Since Watcher's Keep was an expansion area, travelling to and from there would never result in waylay, so it was a useful stepping stone to other places.
This time, there was another reason for Angelo's visit. Agreeing to assist Odren teleported the motley crew to the roof, after which Sister Garlena's shop opened up. Her wares’ highlights were the short sword of mask +4 and light crossbow Firetooth +4, but Angelo was more interested in the potion case, the latter being the only pre-ToB example available. This would complement his gem bag (c.f. Ribald Barterman) and scroll case (c.f. Lady Yuth, also of the Adventurers' Mart) nicely. Elsewhere, Brother Pol was happy to give him a vigil stone (required to enter and leave the top floor) and a ritual scroll (to imprison the Imprisoned One... the Knights of the Vigil were big on tautologies!), and Angelo used the first item straight away. Once inside, rather than go through the main door, Angelo ducked left, disarmed the chest’s Chain Lightning trap and took the paladin's bracers. The shelves’ Horror trap was similarly dealt with, although its treasures weren't as notable.
Using Invisibility, he continued clockwise past the stone golem and the literature-appraising trolls. Closing the door behind him, Angelo disarmed the level drain (right bookshelf) and Call Lightning (chest) traps to loot the crimson dart +3 and case of plenty +1. This room was also a haven to conjure some expendable summons, which were used to lure the trolls from the library into this room. Shutting them in, Angelo was free to loot the golem manual from the topmost bookshelf before leaving Watcher's Keep. Its completion would require more firepower than Angelo currently possessed and there was easier XP to be gained elsewhere.
It is technically possible to pacify the priest, memorise the ritual and light the fireplace (for 32,000 XP total) using stealth and summons as distractions. However, this involves entering the central chamber, where the wandering horror and the pair of vampiric wraiths follow you even when invisible (although the poison mist doesn't care). Vampiric wraiths are fast and can open doors, making them difficult to evade, and are incredibly difficult to kill if you don't know their weaknesses. It's ultimately not worth the hassle tackling them at this stage, especially since returning later will trivialise the combat.
(Trade)Meeting the Druids [No Combat]
Another nice thing about stopping off at Watcher's Keep was that by casting Invisibility, Angelo was able to arrive in Trademeet out of sight, so the hostile animals would focus on the town guards. Ignoring them, Angelo strode into the mayor's house and spoke to High Merchant Logan Coprinth, who recommended he talk to Cernd. Despite the shapeshifter begging to join his party (who could blame him?), Angelo had no need of BG2's objectively worst NPC (https://www.resetera.com/threads/rttp-baldurs-gate-2-a-careful-analysis-as-to-why-cernd-sucks.69659/) and settled for having the Druid Grove added to his map.
On his way out, Angelo was sure to meet Neeber in the town square. Like his BG counterpart, Noober, the quickest way of dealing with Neeber was to repeatedly click on him - 17 dialogues later, Neeber gave up chatting and gave out 1,000 XP. He also watched Rasaad yn Bashir beat up Tannath and Treya, but refused to get involved. Finally, Wilfred the Red boasted about stealing a red dragon's hoard during a visit to a pleasure tent, but Angelo threatened him into admitting his lies, earning 1,000 XP and 100 GP.
Once at the Druid Grove, Angelo relieved the troll mound of its bracers of archery and spear of the unicorn +2, but the real prize was Belm, a scimitar of speed +2 lying in the ogre’s tower. Putting everyone's favourite off-hand weapon in his main hand, he used summons to lure some shambling mounds of position and passed over the bridge pointing westwards. After Cernd seemed unimpressed by his progress, Angelo sneaked past Dalok and the assorted druids and bears into the grove proper to meet Faldorn. Displaying as much haughtiness as she did in BG, Faldorn would not be displaced without a druid challenger... and Angelo knew just the candidate.
Cernd was eager to volunteer, but Angelo again shunned his joining offer. This time, Angelo had his interests in mind, as accepting would have removed Cernd's 'prospective NPC invulnerability'. As it stood, although Cernd could only hit Faldorn on a 20, she couldn't reduce him below 1 HP... making the druid ascension battle a mere timewasting formality.
I'm not kidding about the 'timewasting' bit... it takes nearly a real-time hour for Cernd to beat down Faldorn with his quarterstaff!
On his way back to Trademeet, Angelo dropped into Adratha's cottage. He hadn't spoken to Khan Zahraa in Trademeet yet, so the witch was amiable and had an impressive 10 potions of power in stock. So engaged was she in doing business that she didn't spot Angelo lifting the periapit of proof against poison from her pockets, although he unsurprisingly couldn't steal the Ihtafeer's Head helmet she wore... which would have made his upcoming quest significantly easier! Not to be discouraged, he slunk back to Logan Coprinth for 2,000 GP and 18,000 XP.
If you are of evil alignment, Lord Khellon Menold will offer you Sulphurous Poison to use on the grove after leaving Coprinth's house for the first time. In this case, you will get 23,000 XP and a second Shield of Harmony, but you will not be able to complete Family Feuds (and I wasn't able to trigger Rejiek's quest either). Should you choose this path, you also have to kill Faldorn after poisoning the grove (the others disappear once she goes down), but you can use summons to block off most of the enemy troops.
Death to the Dao [Combat]
Next, Guildmistress Busya wanted him to remove the dao genies blocking the markets. Angelo found Khan Zahraa and his associate Faafirah in a nearby tent, but Felicity insisted that talking to them would make Adratha irrevocably hostile. This simply wasn't on - and besides, as Vidhadyar had illustrated in SoD, rakshasas are awkward for low level parties to kill - so the djinn would have to die. The tent's bodyguard, Taquee, also had a lovely efreeti bottle (whose summon could cast Invisibility to make any character stealth-capable... wizard slayers excepted, naturally!) which would have required violence to acquire had Angelo not been able to filch from his pocket.
Neither Khan Zahraa nor Faafirah seemed aware of the first rule of business: never trust Angelo period, but especially not when he sets spike traps around you, then summons troops and buffs them. Angelo tried to start the fight with a bang and a backstab, but missed and Khan Zahraa erected his Stoneskin defences after the traps sliced his health in half. Had Angelo's backstab connected, the fight would have been over in an instant, but Angelo was not afraid of working for his money... he'd just rather not!
While his summons tied up Khan Zahraa, Angelo exploited the dao’s rubbish saving throws and cast Blind on Faafirah. Angelo gave Khan Zahraa the same treatment, but he still fought valiantly against the skeleton and arachnid summons. Unfortunately, although the djinn only let his Stoneskin slip for an instant, it was enough for a spider to deliver what would ultimately be the fatal blow.
This provided Angelo with an early demonstration of why Spider Spawn, even more than Animate Dead, was a low-level mage's ticket to stardom. The arachnids were immune to Web, their poisons stacked and since Spider Spawn was a 4th level spell, he could summon a decent number of them. Khan Zahraa was interrupted whenever he tried to renew his Stoneskin and had he gotten an Invisibility off, Angelo's Detect Illusions would have torn it down. In some ways, Angelo would be sad when he reached wizardly level 12 and his phase spiders would be 'upgraded' to non-venomous sword spiders, but such an advancement would reap its own rewards.
On the subject of reaping rewards, Angelo received 5,000 XP for Khan Zahraa's death (the other dao disappeared once their master was vanquished) and returned to Guildmistress Busya for 7,500 GP, some jewellery (including a rogue stone, whose value would become apparent later) and the shield of harmony +2. Had Angelo not secured Belm, he would have been delighted with Khan Zahraa's scimitar +2... but he still kept it around, despite his lack of two-weapon fighting proficiency, he knew it would prove useful.
Taquee disappears when Khan Zahraa dies, so kill Taquee first if you can't steal the efreeti bottle. The remaining djinn will begin hostile, but the bottle is worth this inconvenience.
Family Feuds [Combat]
The shield of harmony was good, no denying that... but Angelo wanted more! Logan Coprinth sensed discontent and awarded Angelo 25,250 XP and 10,750 GP for ridding Trademeet of both its problems. Being the new hero of Trademeet attracted the attentions of Lady Lilith Lurraxol and Lord Skaerman Alibakkar, giving Angelo yet another issue to poke his nose into.
Although it made little difference which family Angelo plumped for, the latter yielded elven chainmail if they were killed post-quest, so they were the 'lucky' winners. Using the Trademeet Tomb Key, Angelo opened the crypt, but did not like its inhabitants - two regular skeletons and two skeleton warriors, one of which cast Animate Dead ad infinitum to summon more critters. Not fancying those odds, Angelo retreated and conjured troops of his own. Fortunately, the mindless undead were just that, and any skeletons incapable of casting spells followed Angelo outside for a drubbing from his buffed summons. Both the efreet and the clay golem applied crushing damage, so both skeletons fell fast for 65 XP each and the skeleton warrior followed for 4,000 XP.
After a rest, Angelo realised that if the casting skeleton didn't finish its spell, they'd start from scratch every time. Since Animate Dead has a casting time of 1 round, Angelo could duck in and summon the efreet and golem (along with the berserk warrior) before retreating to prevent enemy reinforcements. After two attempts, the skeleton gave up casting, but by then, its 4,000 XP fate was sealed. Delivering the mantle of Waukeen from its corpse to Logan Coprinth provided 8,000 XP, 250 GP, 1 reputation and the chance to slaughter the Alibakkar estate later if Angelo so chose.
Finding the Hiding Hidesman [Combat]
No sooner had he left Logan Coprinth's house than Jenia implored him to help her son Tiris find his kidnapped girlfriend Raissa. The case had similarities with the tanner murders, so Angelo agreed to search the southwest of town. There, he stumbled across Darsidian Moor, a hunter who'd conveniently tracked the 'skin dancer' responsible to an orange pavilion above the east gate. This seemed too good to be true, and Angelo smelled a rat.
His suspicions grew when he found Darsidian and Raissa together with an unconscious Rejiek in the pavilion. That said, he felt they could have kept the ruse up longer, as he only needed to speak with Raissa once for the charade to be dropped. Angelo let the militia handle the first rounds, which were all he needed to summon assistance. Applying Haste, the skeletal pair went down quickly, earning a measly 15 XP for Rejiek and a whopping 1,400 XP for Darsidian.
Her captors dead, Raissa lamented that only Restoration would cure the affliction she'd acquired from her attackers. A visit to the caravan merchant in a tent by the dao djinni's provided just such a spell (and at a cost lower than the Temple of Waukeen to boot). Glad that non-divine casters could read the relevant scroll, Angelo cured Raissa for 30,000 XP and visiting Jenia and husband Gristor afterwards granted an additional reputation point.
It amused Felicity to note that, in addition to its 97,795 XP (20,000 XP of which was earned without a fight), completing Trademeet also yielded 20,250 GP... which (accounting for the Restoration scroll’s cost, but ignoring any sold items’ proceeds) was almost enough to pay Gaelan Bayle's fee by itself. Angelo had just begun exploring the great beyond... and it was already bearing fruit!
Executive Summary: Angelo abuses the AI's reluctance to turn hostile to rinse the Windspear Hills in style.
"Remember lying Wilfred that we encountered yesterday?" Angelo asked Felicity as they ventured back towards Watcher's Keep service station. "He claimed that he'd robbed a dragon's horde, but that was obviously nonsense. The only person who'll be killing red dragons around here is me."
Locating the Labyrinth [Combat]
A bunch of ogres, gnolls and a wyvern was not the welcoming committee that Angelo was expecting upon his arrival at the Windspear Hills, but he tried to put on a friendly face. His efforts were not appreciated, so Angelo cast Invisibility and left them to stew on their own. Wandering around the area revealed an important looking tomb, but its entrance was labelled as blocked even when it clearly wasn't. "Fine, I'll play ball," Angelo muttered as he went back to the monsters. Summoning some skeletons just out of sight, along with his trusty golem and efreet, he promptly hasted them and sent them forth to do his dirty work. And do it they did... the monsters never really stood a chance!
As soon as the final creature kicked the bucket, earning 27,000 XP in total (an ogre and the baby wyvern were 6,000 XP each, while the other trio were 5,000 XP apiece), Garren Windspear showed up to implore Angelo to follow him. Angelo looked to Felicity for wisdom and she shook her head - for accepting Windspear's charity would result in an unavoidable fight - so Angelo refused. Another Invisibility allowed Angelo to sneak back across the map to the tomb... only for Garren to beat him to it. Keen to get on with dungeon crawling, Angelo agreed to find Garren's child in exchange for a moment's peace and after recasting Invisbility proceeded to enter the dungeon proper.
Skirting through the first floor, Angelo avoided the Chieftain Digdag and the hobgoblins as much as possible, lest their shamans dispel his Invisibility, and didn't even attempt to go for the amulet of protection +1 hidden in the lake, as this would invoke the attention of an illusion-sensing vampiric mist for little reward. Starting neutral, the rakshasa transmuter was too tempting a target for a pickpocket, and a ring of fire resistance was painlessly acquired before yet another Invisibility was used to escape the kamikaze kobolds.
The next floor began with shielded orc archers readying their bows and arrows and Angelo was sure he would have been peppered had he not been invisible upon entering. The illusion allowed him to squat behind the front door, where there was a small blind spot out of sight of the archers where Angelo could rest and memorise Knock.
Unlocking the first door with Knock before turned invisible, Angelo repeated the process on the second door and his Stoneskin deflected the few orc arrows that were snapped off before he disappeared. Moving straight onwards and ignoring the clay golems in the perpendicular corridor, Angelo sneaked past the vampires and lured the wraiths and shadows out of their passage with some disposable summons. Using the chapel key from the chest to unlock the door opposite, Angelo left the undead behind as he progressed to the next stage.
Mamma Mia Samia [Combat]
Angelo didn't buy for one moment that Samia was an academic looking for some long lost treasure, but he did fancy Samia's key to open the maze. Well, he called it a 'maze', but it was actually quite easy to navigate provided he followed a few simple rules:
Trapped doors lead nowhere and the trap can be safely disarmed for XP.
The northmost locked door leads to the treasure corridor beyond the undetectable fire elemental.
The other locked door leads to a 'director' beholder guarding a trapped door which can be circumvented.
Unlocked and untrapped doors lead to efreet guardians who can be pickpocketed for their mask pieces.
For demonstration of these rules, see Exhibit A.
By immediately turning invisible after stealing the mask pieces, Angelo could escape the guardians (they could launch fire spells if the cast was not immediate and they are able to open doors). Pickpocketing all 6 mask pieces, the Mask of King Strohm was automatically assembled for 24,550 XP. Despite its description mentioned how it allowed him to see things he wasn't able to before, Angelo didn't see his Detect Illusion skill rise and assumed that it would only allow him to this particular challenge.
Donning the mask brought the Guardian (who seemed remarkably like a fire elemental) into focus. Its job done, Angelo replaced the mask with his helm of Balduran in the small chamber linking the efreet guardian, the elemental guardian and the beholder. Of his regular summons, the skeletons and berserker could not harm the elemental guardian, but the golem and efreet could... and while they were too shortlived to complete the job, Angelo's Belm +2 finished what they started.
The Guardian's 10,000 XP death opened the topmost door, allowing Angelo access to the tomb. Assuming that the dragon scale shield (notably not as good as SoD's equivalent) and Peridan +2 was the treasure that Samia was after, there was no way that Angelo was surrendering these. Invisibility allowed him to sneak past Samia (Fighter) and her newfound chums Akae (Kensai), Kaol (Enchanter), Ferric Ironblade (F/T), Legdoril (Cleric) and Chak (umm... Orog?!) who had materialised in the dead Guardian's corridor.
Conning the Conster [No Combat]
Gliding past the wolves in the passage leading away from the maze, Angelo disarmed the Lightning Bolt floor trap and unlocked the door beyond the bridge, vanishing from the view before the orogs could do much. This allowed him to loot the faraway chamber into which Grancor was eager to lure Angelo by asking for healing. Eager to appear the clueless victim, it was Angelo who actually did the luring by fallaciously offering his healing services if only Grancor and Falik were to move into the faraway chamber. They moved there expecting Angelo to swiftly follow... they would be waiting quite a while.
After a quick rest, Garg, Captain and Troll were ignored completely and summons lured the golems away from their positions so that Angelo could loot the beljuril gem and Heartseeker +3. The rest seemed to have dispersed the orogs from swarming the bridge, so Angelo used the opportunity to winch up the well and take the dragon helm (neither dispelled his Invisibility, so he did not alert the angry air elemental). Sadly, the orogs had only been shifted to the landing, so Angelo displaced them again before disarming the Cloudkill trap on the stairs and slipping past Tazok into the next floor.
Given the grandeur of the stairs, Angelo was surprised to see the human mage Conster first before any hint of a dragon, but this gave him an idea. Since Conster was one of these select NPCs who didn't turn hostile after making a successful save against charm, Angelo could happily fire spells until one succeeded. This allowed Angelo to order Conster backwards so that he could approach the mage out of sight of Firkraag and Pick Pocket Conster's key from him.
A F/T or shadowdancer could also use a simulacrum (from Vhailor's helm) or shadow twin to pull this off... but don't try a nymph cloak (since this needs the target to be adjacent)!
This theft allowed the use of a cute trick. By immediately backtracking, Angelo could unlock the jail upstairs and rescue Garren's child Iltha for 23,750 XP. Nipping back downstairs while Conster was still charmed, Angelo claimed that Firkraag owed him and (being of evil alignment) offered to retrieve the deed to Windspear Hills from Garren. This would cause Conster to teleport away, so Angelo didn't have to deal with a hostile mage when the charm expired... and Angelo could visit Garren and Iltha in the Windspear Cabin to earn 44,500 XP more (not forgetting a secret star sapphire hidden in a groove behind his hut). The deeds were a simple Pick Pocket away, after which Angelo could return to Firkraag for yet another 40,500 XP and a cloak of the shield.
Wiping Out the Wyrm [Combat]
"Just to get this straight," Angelo muttered, "you are in possession of red dragon scales and Carsomyr, but you chose to give me the cloak of the shield?!"
"You got at least 40,500 Fed-XP more than you normally would," Firkraag growled in honeyed tones, "I wouldn't be too salty if I were you."
Obviously Firkraag had not studied Angelo too hard, since such saltiness was Angelo's modus operandi. But Angelo apologised through gritted teeth sufficiently convincingly that the dragon failed to notice his reorganisation of his spellbooks. Another rest in Firkraag's chamber (which never resulted in ambush) and Angelo was ready to show off what would become one of his staple tactics.
Feeblemind was never a bad spell to memorise against tough single opponents, but there weren't many opportunities to abuse it in BG1. The sequel, however, sought to rectify this deficiency as quickly as possible, since not only did it offer multiple foes who were deserving of being feebleminded, but it didn't turn some of them hostile if they were to make their saving throw. And one of these creatures, as luck would have it, was Firkraag...
After just one of the unlimited tries had connected, that was it. Permanently lobotomised, Firkiraag could do little more than gurgle as Angelo cut him to shreds.
His 64,000 XP death was neither quick nor painless - it took nearly half an hour of real-time hacking before the dragon finally fell - but it was a guaranteed kill and 100% safe... how often could that be said about a PC just out BG2's starting blocks taking out one of the game's most infamous bosses?
As Angelo stuffed Carsomyr into his backpack - Use Any Item couldn't come quickly enough - Felicity found her voice. "Firkraag's Dungeon is arguably one of the most fearsome dungeons in cRPGs (https://medium.com/@felipepepe/what-makes-a-good-rpg-dungeon-505180c69d00 )... and yet, with the right tactics, it was almost a formality."
"Sounds very similar to another entry on that list," Angelo smirked. "Anyway, I hope you're not bored of slaying dragons yet, Felicity... we're going to do it all over again tomorrow!"
Executive Summary: Despite some unexpected company, Angelo sweeps through the Umar Hills and Temple Ruins.
Non-Brits probably won't appreciate the title; Brits probably won't appreciate it either, but for different reasons!
Felicity calculated that Angelo had earned 133,300 XP for doing quests and 101,000 XP for killing monsters in the Windspear Hills. In total, this gave him 234,300 XP - nearly a quarter of a million - and there was plenty more where that came from!
"Umar Goodness, It's an Ogre!" [No Combat]
Angelo arrived in the Umar Hills to see Minister Lloyd calm a crowd of locals assembled around a central fountain. Remembering how Trademeet had been spruced up, Angelo wanted to leave his likeness on another town centre and took on Lloyd's quest to find Merella and adventurers hired to investigate her disappearance. Although wolves and witch Umar had been mentioned amidst the squabbling, Angelo thought he'd have most luck with ogre Madulf north of the town. Since she started neutral, Angelo knew the likelihood of parley was high and hearing Madulf out allowed for Angelo to tell Lloyd that they came in peace. Angelo hoped for a Nobel Peace Prize for smoothing their relations, but he'd make do with the easiest 27,500 XP in the game. After a few hours, Lloyd and Madulf's negotiations had concluded and the ogre gave Angelo a Shield of the Lost +2.
Angelo Feels Like Chicken Tonight [No Combat]
Angelo only had to mention 'adventurer' and a 20 GP bribe for Jeb's tongue to wag about Erlick Hendrick stuffing a beljuril gem down his chicken's throat. Although Erlick's wife Enna tried to stop him giving their livestock away, Erlick took Angelo's empty threat seriously and allowed him free range to slaughter the free range produce. Since the jewel had already been deposited in his inventory, Angelo didn't bother chopping the chickens, but saved it in his gem bag to upgrade his silver horn of Valhalla (along with the one from Firkraag's dungeon, this was the only beljuril in the game).
I believe this quest is a sly reference to a Baldur's Gate Easter Egg. Before BG2 was released, a rumour spread online that in early versions of BG1, a random squirrel carried an Ioun Stone of Luck. This led to adventurers massacring the wildife across the Sword Coast in pursuit of an item that, in all likelihood, never existed.
A Holiday to Jermien-y [Combat]
Outside Jermien's house, the guard Daar was so dour that he didn't stop Angelo from entering. The Cowled Wizard asked Angelo for mimic blood, but where would he find a mimic? The first place Angelo looked was the Umar Cave, where a chest randomly sat beside a stalagmite. Thinking this was a weird place for a box, Angelo's efreet launched a Fireball - the chest itself was untargetable, but Angelo figured it would be hit by an AoE spell... and he was right!
Angelo moved some summoned fodder next to the chest so the mimic would reveal itself. The distracted mimic was dispatched (for 3,000 XP) by the efreet's remaining spells... Angelo didn't lift a finger himself. Storing the diamond (also useful for the silver horn of Valhalla upgrade!), Angelo returned to Jermien for his 19,250 XP and Ilbratha +1 reward.
When Jermien failed to animate his stone golem properly, he was glad that Angelo had laid spike traps in anticipation. Thankfully, the golem aimed for its creator, allowing Angelo to summon a golem of his own. While Jermien pelted the construct uselessly with magic missiles (these Cowled Wizard exams must be easy!), Angelo spent his time more wisely hasting his summons. Although he didn't deserve to, Jermien outlasted his golem, netting Angelo 8,000 XP from its death and 21,250 XP from his realisation of his foolishness.
Boys Will Be Boys [No Combat]
When teenage boy Dirbert approached him, Angelo knew that he would be asked to buy alcohol, but he hadn't expected to buy 3 bastard swords as well. "Perhaps gangs in villages don't have their own weapons," he mused as he bought the swords from Elence Fielding and De'Tranion's Baalor Ale from Min Minling outside Umar Inn (for just over the 200 GP the boys gave him... that's gratitude!). Returning these to the youths yielded 2,000 XP and they charged off into the wilderness. In 24 hours, they'd be gibbering in front of a gibberling in the Umar Cave, a fate from which Angelo had no intention of rescuing them.
Valeting Valygar [No Combat]
Up the stairs by the Umar Cave, guard Derrick was satisfied once Angelo said he was seeing Valygar with no hostile intentions. This was the truth, as Valygar enjoyed 'important NPC protection and was impossible to kill for Angelo to use his body as a key.
Testing shows off Valygar's invincibility!
Valygar wanted to join Angelo and investigate the Planar Sphere, but since Angelo was only interested in the latter option, the stalker left for Athkatla, which was much more convenient.
Combing the Tomb [No Combat]
To advance the main plot, Angelo found Merella's journal and a note from Mazzy Fentan in the Ranger's Cabin. Together, these documents put the Temple Ruins on Angelo's map and 22,500 XP in his account. Following their directions, Angelo came across Lellyn, a dying shadow thief and a member of Mazzy's adventuring band. "A halfling paladin-lite in league with the shadow thieves," Angelo ruminated, "stranger and stranger."
Werewolf Anath drew Angelo into her cave only to inform him that she would charge against the Shade Lord. Unwilling to interfere in her destiny, Angelo followed her invisibly, arriving to witness her dying message to activate the mirror. Wondering how she could judge his invisible hair, Angelo skipped the inconsequential mirroring and showed face in the opening crypt to remove Amauna's bones, but he vanished before the assembled undead could draw a bead on him. He then passed the jail cells into the statue room where, using Felicity's 9th level spell Google, he offered the correct ritual dialogue options:
Morning: 2-3-1
Noontide: 3-1-1
Evening: 1-3-2
Doing this earned 45,500 XP and a sun ray symbol which Angelo would shortly put to good use.
Felicity also said that shadows were following that could sense his invisible presence and cling to him like limpets. This was unacceptable, so Angelo sneaked into the sun gem room and rested - any shadows would be destroyed when they entered, guaranteeing safety, and the monsters' tracking was reset upon a successful rest. Making sure he wasn't visible, Angelo stuffed the jewel into his gem bag and backtracked towards the jail. Despite pickpocketing the shadow prison key from the shadow jailor, rescuing inmate Mazzy offered no reward, so Angelo sent her to Trademeet. Good luck finding shadow thieves there!
Unexpected Undead [No Combat]
The first sun gem allowed him through the first shadow barrier and Invisibility stopped the shadows that appeared once he'd reached the bridge's centre in their tracks. However, approaching the Fireball-trapped wall mural through the lava, Angelo was horrified to see a lich's contingencies spring up in the room beyond. Some of BG2's encounters scaled by level, and this was obviously one of them. Fortunately, aside from a Wyvern's Call scroll, there was nothing noteworthy there... and losing Wyvern Call was a price worth paying to skip the lich! Instead, he gave Amauna's bones to the ghosts of Dettseh and Badon, who promptly died so that their child could live. Along with 17,750 XP, Amauna gave Angelo a shadow dragon wardstone and a dawn's light symbol.
Angelo had planned to skip through to find the third symbol, but Felicity informed him of a problem. Although the crossroad's undead were usually toothless, Angelo's higher XP now meant another lich had joined their ranks... one he couldn't avoid. Furthermore, on Angelo's install, Protection from Undead only stopped liches from attacking - they were happy to pelt him with spells! His only strategy would be to drain the lich's magic, then use Protection from Undead to prevent it from shooting with Energy Blades. He'd only brought a single scroll and had hoped to keep it to use in its entirity on the boss... but c'est la vie!
In hindsight, it's easier to tackle this area sooner rather than later, but we'll ring the changes here!
After resting to rejig his spells, Angelo began systematically running into and out of view. Because the other undead couldn't see through Invisibility, he could only attract the lich's attention and they were fairly stationary, so Angelo knew he wouldn't be pursued. As long as he was out of view when the dark planetar arrived, it could be waited out in a parallel corridor. The Invisibility's +4 bonus to saving throws helped against the lich's triple Otiluke's Frozen Sphere Spell Trigger and clutching Peridan provided fear immunity to nullify its double Horror Minor Sequencer. The biggest threat was its triple Remove Magic Spell Sequencer - along with its single Remove Magic cast, this could dispel both Invisibility and Protection from Undead, so it was baited out with some inessential buffs first.
Once confident that the lich had exhausted its supplies, Angelo acted. However, the block of undead was too thick to pass without summoning some fodder to disperse them, and this gave the lich an excuse to drop some Abi-Dalzim's Horrible Wilting bombs. Cursing, Angelo used his Protection from Undead scroll, cast Invisibility and drank some potions of healing (9 HP was a triviality by this stage, but they were good when he needed healing, but daredn't rest). Spelling out the sun god Amaunator on the floor, Angelo snaffled the second sun gem and the lightstone symbol, completing the symbol of Amaunator and earning 21,250 XP. The Protection from Undead's scope didn't include bone golems, but Invisibility's did and this allowed a clean getaway.
The Shade of It All [Combat]
The second sun gem dispelled the third shadow barrier (the second barrier was impenetrable) and the Amaunator holy symbol unlocked the final door to Thaxll'ssillyia, the shadow dragon. For now, Angelo left it be, for he needed to finish off what lay beyond while his protection scroll was still active. While it lasted, neither the shade lord nor the shadows (regular or special, Patrick edition) could sense him, and this was important to stop the shade lord's magical defences from going up. The shadow altar summoned a shadow every 4.25 seconds, though, and so he would be overwhelmed once the protection wore off.
Since Angelo had less time than he thought, he'd made sure they'd die quickly. After a double helping of Lower Resistance to reduce the shade lord's 50% MR, Angelo cast Greater Malison followed by Hold Undead. Third time was the charm and, dual-wielding scimitars, Angelo hacked at the helpless shadow's body; once, he turned invisible for an automatic backstab, but the shade lord's resistances effectively muted that tactic.
Nevertheless, focussed slashing caused it to crumble for 25,000 XP. Not stopping, else he get cut off, Angelo closed on the shadow altar - its 75% MR and saves were better than the shade lord's but its AC was worse, so it went down more quickly. Destroying both the shade lord and the altar caused the darkness to recede, earning 44,250 XP and some decent treasure.
Thrashing Thaxll'ssillyia [Combat]
Finally, Angelo killed Thaxll'ssillyia in a similar manner to Firkraag. Pulling this off was significantly more annoying since the shadow dragon wardstone seems to be bugged - Thaxll'ssillyia would happily turn invisible, cast Greater Malison and use its breath weapon without turning hostile, and although the latter's level drain wore off after a turn, any lost spells weren't rememorised. This forced a dance where Angelo would cast Feeblemind before the dragon drained his levels and immediately rested if the spell didn't connect. Luckily, Thaxll'ssillyia couldn't maintain these nuisance tactics indefinitely.
Thaxll'ssillyia's lower physical resistance meant its (45,000 XP) death arrived more quickly than Firkraag's... but Angelo derived double the satisfaction.
Chucking the useless shadow dragon wardstone and symbol of Amaunator (no Item Upgrades mod for this playthrough!), Angelo departed. Disappointingly, the undead inside the temple remained active, but now he didn't need to explore their chambers, he ran past them invisibly. Minister Lloyd was duly updated of the progress, and Angelo accepted whatever the mayor could offer... which amounted to 28,000 XP, 100 GP and the Night's Gift +5.
When all was said and done, Felicity that reckoned Angelo had earned 271,750 XP from quests and 81,000 XP from combat for a whopping 352,750 XP altogether. Now it was time for the final rural area available... onwards to the De'Arnise Keep!
Executive Summary: Angelo liberates the de'Arnise Keep while only killing a single a troll!
"I'm in a bind, Felicity," Angelo explained to his familiar on the way back from the Umar Hills. "Completing the de'Arnise Keep will involve some 'safe' combat, where fighting is essential, but the killing is entirely risk-free. This isn't strictly 'No Combat', but it's still safer than some of our earlier encounters. Not that relying on summons and so on is particularly dicey, but our combat will be even more intermediate than that."
"It's your walkthrough," Felicity reminded him, "label the sections how you want!"
How Much Is That Doggy in the Courtyard? [Safe Combat]
Before venturing to the de'Arnise Keep, Angelo stopped off at Trademeet to buy Tansheron's Bow and sell his miscellanea. The bow was an excellent ranged weapon with unlimited +3 ammunition for a low price, although its damage per shot left something to be desired. His treasury was still buoyant after the purchase, but selling the items was more to free up backpack space. Angelo wanted to have at least 4 spaces free, as there would be a lot of toing and froing coming up without adding further inventory management.
From there, it was onto the keep itself, which looked unassailable before Nalia pointed out the side entrance. Switching on his Find Traps skill to automaticallly detect secret doors, Angelo sneaked into the fortress to find Daleson. Not for Daleson's sake, but because he had to pass Daleson to reach the keep's courtyard, where he found a canine quartet. Using his new bow, Angelo shot poor Rex, Sparky, Spot and Rover to pieces, then picked up those pieces to turn into stew. Although they didn't fight back directly, Rover ignored Angelo's call to sit and wandered towards a nearby otuyugh, which meant Angelo couldn't kill it without attracting the monster's attention. After blinding it, Angelo showed the otuyugh more mercy than the dogs and left it alone once he'd finished off the dogs.
Apart from the 140 XP for killing the quartet (4 x 35 XP), Angelo gained 11,500 XP from invisibly taking the four dog meats to the kitchen and cooking up a stew. He also found a dagger +2 and 450 GP in the Sleep-trapped chest in the passage to the courtyard, where he stored the stew for the time being.
Drawing the Bridge [No Combat]
Casting Invisibility, Angelo sneaked up to the upper floor and into the study. The back bookcase was blocked by a troll, so Angelo had to wait a couple of tantalising seconds before he could loot the keep key.
Vanishing as the creatures turned his way, Angelo disappeared up the stairs behind the yuan-ti mage. Another set of stairs on the keep's roof led down to the battlements where Angelo could access the gate lever and lower the drawbridge, earning another 29,750 XP. Rather than revealing Captain Cernick and the greater yuan-ti in the otuyugh's courtyard, which would conjure an extra troll just inside the keep, Angelo nipped back through the library and onto the ground floor again.
Flailing Around [Safe Combat]
Sneaking past Daleson in the other direction, Angelo located the forge and found the cold head of the Flail of Ages in an unlocked chest. To locate the second, he nipped back upstairs and moved anticlockwise away from the library. Opening the first door he came across, he turned left into a bedroom with a fireplace hiding a wand of frost and a Flame Strike trap. There was also a secret door in the back wall, a passage leading to a room with a pair of trolls that Angelo lured away by presenting himself as bait. Keen to catch themselves some F/M/T action, the trolls were left disappointed as they were dumped in the bedroom.
Draw Upon Holy Might was enough to force open the locked door barring his progress. It also set off a lightning trap of some sort, but Angelo couldn't tell exactly what since the trap was wholly ineffective. Summoning a clay golem, Angelo opened the door and sent the golem in first to attract the attention of the initially hostile Glacius, who glugged an oil of speed before engaging. Sadly, he could down as many potions of fire giant strength as he liked... he would not harm the golem using a normal two-handed sword.
Angelo could have buffed the golem, shut the door and chalked up an easy victory, but another method was more productive. As he'd entered combat, Glacius had uttered a speech that made Angelo believe he had been charmed and wondered what would happen if he also went on a charm offensive. Distracted and afar, the fighter's decent saving throw was no match for repeated application of Domination's -2 penalty and once its effects hit, Glacius surrendered the acid flail head and 22,550 XP.
To obtain the third, Angelo looped back around through the library and used the keep key he'd snatched earlier to open the door to Lady Delcia Caan's room. Arrogant, haughty and extremely stubborn, Angelo chose not to inform Nalia's aunt of her rescue, but went through a couple of secret doors into the chapel. Although he could have taken the fire flail head without the guardians reacting, Angelo had fancied both the remaining treasure and some extra XP and concocted a dastardly way to get both.
The iron golem was taken out first. Shooting it turned it hostile without awakening the other golems, and Angelo capitalised by ducking out into the corridor. Unable to fit through the small door, the golem could only huff, puff and blow clouds of poison gas... a danger mitigated by Angelo's donning of the periapt of proof against poison he'd stolen from Ihtafeer. A cup of tea's worth of arrow from Tansheron's bow later, the golem collapsed into pieces. Lady Delcia's guard tried to join in and steal Angelo's 13,000 XP kill... but its immunity to <+2 weapons soon saw to that!
The remaining golems were small enough to fit through the doorway, but Angelo was not to be deterred. The de'Arnise guard was a useful idiot in that he could block the door by futilely attacking the golem, but he could also charge the golem before it reached the entrance and once he'd left, it'd be difficult to slot him back into place. A more reliable tactic would be to turn Felicity invisible and have her on door-blocking duties (besides the fact that he didn't need to, Angelo didn't get his familiar out earlier since they were not immune to poison).
Doing this, Angelo could safely take out the two flesh golems and the two stone golems. Had he brought a magical quarterstaff or a sling with a case of plenty, he could have thought about smashing the clay golem as well (they required magical blunt weapons to hit and quarterstaffs were the only blunt weapons with enough range to avoid getting counterattacked)... but the 20,000 XP he'd already earned from killing the smaller golems (2 x 2,000 XP + 2 x 8,000 XP) was good enough. Especially since taking the three heads to the forge earned him a further 22,350 XP, along with the Flail of Ages. An excellent weapon, no doubting that, but one Angelo would have no use for.
The Dog Days Are Over [No Combat]
Returning to the chapel, Angelo was amused to see that his UI still insisted that two golems came to life when he stole the remaining treaures. Dumping the lone clay golem with Invisibility, he descended to the basement and crossed into a room with a quintet of umber hulks. Looking to use the meal he'd prepared earlier, Angelo sneaked into the jail cell and deposited the dog stew amongst the dog bones that he found there. In the ensuing stampede to reach the fresh meat, none of the umber hulks noticed an invisible Angelo slip behind them or the slamming of the door trapping them inside the prison and earning Angelo 18,750 XP.
Tackling TorGal [Combat]
The 'Improved De'Arnise Keep' component of SCS upped top troll TorGal's stats significantly, and Angelo knew that it was foolish to try to tackle him head on - with 5 ApR and barbarian rage, TorGal would smash through summons pretty quickly. However, it was also difficult to know how to truly threaten him - the same rage powers also prevented lots of CC, his enhanced trollish regeneration (2HP/second!) would quickly shrug off regular blows and, being a barbarian, he was immune to backstab! Difficult, but not impossible...
Angelo started by casting Resist Fear on himself to prevent TorGal's recurring Cloak of Fear spell from affecting him. He then cast Animate Dead to summon some skeletal warriors, which would also be immune to the fear effects. Finally, he cast Invisibility before poking his head inside the shrine to Tyr until he could just see TorGal, ordering his skeletons to stay back and wait for the fireworks to start.
TorGal could smell Angelo's scent and lurched towards him, which Angelo was counting on to isolate him from his cronies. Leading him out of the shrine, Angelo kept his skeletons at arm's length so that TorGal would lose interest in the invisible prey and go for the more corporeal skeletons (not often he could call them that!) across the room. With some distance between them, Angelo was free to cast Lower Resistance of TorGal (his MR was normally 30%), followed by Greater Malison and a final helping of Polymorph Self. TorGal's saves were pretty decent, so the chances of failure were comparatively high... but Angelo would have time to duck away into the jail cells on the opposite side of the horseshoe to the umber hulks. In such a case, the skeletons could be summoned for a rematch, since the jail's doors could stop TorGal (disengaged by the rest) from starting proceedings prematurely.
As soon as TorGal turned into a squirrel, his maximum HP dropped from 556 to 27, making his regeneration far less formidable. It was at this point that Angelo summoned the berserk warrior and the clay golem, which made short work of their rodent opponent. As expected, TorGal flopped onto the deck when his health was reduced to unity, but Angelo noted his appearance transformed back to troll... evidently if he was allowed to regenerate, he would return back to normal, rather than squirrel, maximum. A swift Flame Arrow from a summoned efreet prevented this from happening, earning 15,000 XP.
After another rest, Angelo cast Invisibility and Stoneskin before diving back into the shrine for its treasure. The former permitted him to approach the hollow statue and cast Draw Upon Holy Might to bash it open, while the latter shielded him from enough blows to vanish straight after the looting. Timing his bashing when the yuan-ti mage was in the middle of an Oracle spell stopped it from casting while he was visible and while Spell Immunity: Enchantment would not protect against umber hulks' non-magical discombobulation, the shield of harmony stopped the confusion from taking hold.
In addition to the statue's 2,126 GP, Angelo also received 650 GP from Nalia once he told her of TorGal's death, as well as 45,500 XP. However, being the keep's custodian sounded like too much work, so Angelo politely declined the offer of a lordship.
In BG2, it was possible for multi-class characters to acquire two strongholds by first obtaining the stronghold of their non-warrior class before liberating the de'Arnise keep. This was obviously a loophole, though, one that BG2:EE has closed.
As it happened, Angelo already had plans for a stronghold... plans that would have him return to Athkatla. Stronger, wiser and richer than before, he was now ready for the challenges that the city could throw at him.
Wow, has it really been half a year since I started writing up this playthrough? Apparently so... and in a nice piece of symmetry, the walkthrough is just over halfway through and Angelo is just over halfway towards the all-important 3,000,000 XP mark where High Level Abilities manifest. At that point (in fact, slightly before it, but especially after it), he'll accelerate, Felicity will stop counting XP and he will go from avoiding combat for safety reasons to avoiding it because, well, life's too short. So packing 5/6 of the game's XP into half of the game's walkthrough will be no trouble at all.
Elsewhere, there is good news and bad news on the wizard slayer C/M front. The good news is that they have successfully passed the coalition camp attacks using the level 1 Marytr's trick, which gives further illustration of just how powerful scrolls are; the bad news is that the spell sequencer trick I hinted at earlier is off-limits because a wizard slayer can't acquire the robe of arcane aptitude (they can wear it, but they can't use the spectacles of spectacle to summon Zhadroth to get it). So it's back to good, old bashing Belhifet using Champion's Strength and Chaotic Commands... those spell scrolls are coming good again!
Executive Summary: Angelo begins his second sweep of the city by abusing the Web spell in several ways.
Felicity totted up that Angelo had earned 883,385 XP outside the city's gates. This gave him confidence that he could tackle the assortment of combat-laden encounters that lay within Athkatla's walls.
Valen the Vampiric Valet
It was not every day that Angelo arrived in Waukeen's Promenade to find a chauffeur awaiting him, although he did think it would be more welcoming still if he was to know more about its organizer. Valen offered a meeting to dispel his ignorance, but Angelo refused the invitation for the time being. Not for any particular reason, but he thought it neater to keep all of his Chapter 3 adventures in one place. He also rebuffed Brus, Gaelan Bayle's nephew, for exactly the same reason.
She's a Kalah... Queen!
While the circus was always the first port of call during a normal playthrough, it was no longer such a pushover in LoB mode. Still, Kalah was one of the few LoB-mages incapable of high-level hijinks, so he was an obvious candidate for Angelo's first Athkatla kill.
Sweet-talking his way past the guard led Angelo to a puzzle-bearing genie. The riddle had deliberately complex wording but it was possible to determine that option 3 was the correct answer.
As no numbers were given in the question, Angelo could not set up and solve a system of equations: the best that could be done would be to obtain relationships between the ages, at which point he would be reduced to substituting the possible answers... so he may as well do this from the start! If 'the princess is as old as the prince will be', then the princess must be older than the prince, which narrowed the options to 1 and 3. In both of these, the difference between the princess' and prince's ages was 10 years, which will not change with time. Working backwards using option 3's values, if 'the princess's age was half the sum of their present ages', then the princess was 35 and the prince was 25, so the princess would be 50 and the prince 40... hence the princess is 40 and the prince 30, which match the initial values. This does not occur with option 1, so option 3 must be correct.
"You could just have asked Felicity to Google it," the genie muttered sulkily as he granted 19,500 XP and disappeared.
Entering the complex, Angelo listened to an ogre suggest he obtain a key from some disguised commoners. This was easily done by sneaking up to the male 'peasant', picking their pocket and then casting Invisibility before running away. Returning the 'sword' to the 'ogre' freed Aerie, earning another 18,500 XP in the process.
Although she made some allusions to illusions, the rule of engagement was straightforward. If it was a werewolf, then it wasn't real and could be dispelled by standing next to it using Detect Illusion; if it was a shadow, then it was real and would have to be killed the conventional way. Angelo took advantage of this to move invisibly through the antechamber dispelling the werewolves and looting the vases before renewing his Invisibility to dump the shadows away from the door.
To defeat Kalah, Angelo planned to exploit the fact that although globes of protection did not prevent Dispel/Remove Magic from working, the globes themselves were unaffected. This would allow Angelo to stride through Web spells with a Minor Globe of Invulnerability in the knowledge that Kalah could not hit him with attack spells (such as his double-Melf's Minor Sequencer). As a conjurer, Kalah's strongest spells were summoning, but as long as Angelo prevented him from casting Spider Spawn, these would be caught in the web.
Given that the circus is largely illusory, it's ironic that Kalah is a conjurer (and illegal, given his gnomish race!). He also has illegal priest spells memorised and his stats are similar to Quayle's from BG. Could he have been modified from the NPC template? Place your bets...
After pre-buffing with Invisibility, Stoneskin and Protection from Fire (Kalah could throw pre-cast Melf's Minute Meteors), Angelo entered the main tent. Sneaking next to the werewolf with Detect Illusion dispelled it, and Angelo noticed that although there was no spot in the tent where he could hide from Kalah, this vantage point was out of sight of the two remaining shadows.
To make the kill, Angelo positioned himself behind Kalah before backstabbing. As Kalah spun around, his precast Mirror Image and Stoneskin defences shot up, but Angelo countered by dropping a Web duo from a Minor Sequencer. This tied up the shadows and interrupted Kalah's spell, allowing Angelo to hack away at the stone skins while Detect Illusion tore down the mirror images. For good measure, Angelo summoned a clay golem, whose 100% MR gave it freedom to smash away. Kalah momentarily broke free of the fibrous chains and released a Remove Magic, but the globe, as predicted, did not give way... unlike Kalah's body when Belm pierced its flesh.
Kalah's death granted 2,000 XP and returned the tent to normal, earning another 25,000 XP. After looting the ring of human influence and girdle of piercing, Angelo talked to Hannah, a former illusory spider who awarded 500 XP for her release.
Dominating the Den of the Seven Vales
A brace of misfortunes beset the adventuring band of Mencar Pebblecrusher, Smaeluv Orcslicer, Brennan Risling and Sorcerous Amon (with imp familiar Pooky): they happened to encounter the adventuring party of Angelo (with imp familiar Felicity) and Risling carried a ring of invisibility which could not be stolen. However, one look at Risling told Angelo he was the cowardly type and would flee once his health dropped low enough. If Angelo wanted to walk away with the jewellery (and he did), then he would have to stop Risling from doing that exact same thing.
Fortunately, despite being a high-level necromancer and invoker respectively, neither Amon nor Pooky possessed spells commensurate with their abilities. Furthermore, for all Mencar's bluster, as long as Angelo chose the passive response, he could keep the party neutral indefinitely, allowing him to pre-emptively pepper the battlefield with traps. As Angelo's traps did ongoing poison damage, the mages were the obvious target. Throwing down seven of them around Amon gave Angelo confidence that the casters would not be casting anytime soon.
To ensure that the rest of the group would not be doing anything either, Angelo summoned as many arachnids as he could and fired four Web spells from the doorway. Once his UI showed that Risling and the casters were ensnared, he cast Haste on the spiders and set them loose on the casters. The thief Risling was prone to backstabbing, which was strictly our protagonist's shtick, and Angelo didn't want him having any chance of escaping. That said, it was more economical to take out the casters first, else their minor globes of invulnerability kick in and they become immune to the webs thereafter.
Once the hostilities began, the traps fired and it only took a few pokes from the spiders to finish poor Amon off. Pooky's red fire shield flared, but its flames didn't burn through the webs and the spiders' poison took the imp out without suffering too many fiery counterstrikes. Risling was next and what with being webbed, he couldn't activate his leaving animation before his health ran out. By this time, Mencar and Smaulev had freed themselves, but the spiders held them up while Angelo blinded them and renewed his ranks with Animate Dead. Another application of Haste and it was all over for the warriors, who lacked the numbers, the power or the vision to put up a decent fight.
Rinsing Ribald
The selling of Angelo's excesses was not much of a cause celebre in itself, but now that he was furnished with gloves of pickpocketing, he did take the opportunity to relieve Ribald of his ring of regeneration and long sword +2. Lady Yuth also had a pair of pilferable potions but, alas, the Amnian solider by the door no longer possessed a high level spell scroll (as he did in the original BG2).
"Shall we go and see what Brus was moaning about?" Angelo asked Felicity as he left the Adventurer Mart. "We were heading that way anyway... the Slums District was next on our list!"
In other news, the C/I attempting the wizard slayer challenge has completed SoD! Funnily enough, getting to Belhifet was much harder than smacking him down... although if the right tactics are used, then it's basically a formality. Hopefully BG2 will be a far easier ride, at least until the ToB madness begins... but any class that can clear the initial wizard slayer hurdles should have at least a fighting chance at completing the saga and the C/I is more versatile than most.
In other news, the C/I attempting the wizard slayer challenge has completed SoD! Funnily enough, getting to Belhifet was much harder than smacking him down... although if the right tactics are used, then it's basically a formality. Hopefully BG2 will be a far easier ride, at least until the ToB madness begins... but any class that can clear the initial wizard slayer hurdles should have at least a fighting chance at completing the saga and the C/I is more versatile than most.
What is the wizard slayer challenge ? I'm guessing no items except for weapons/armor ? And scrolls for scribing for mages (can they cast them from quickslot too?)
How did you fight against Belhifet as a C/I, especially without (ab)using items such as scrolls of Champion's Strength ?
On a side note, I recently "almost" finished a LoB solo run with a "cheat" character:
an evil multi-class dwarven defender/cleric (adding the DD kit via EEKeeper proved really cheated ^^).
This combination allows for easy 100% physical damage resistance:
- can go up to 100% against slashing and missile in SoD for the final battle (didn't though, for reasons explained below) ;
- 100% against all damage in BG2 once you hit Fighter14/Cleric15 (and even more after that, but you can't get past 100% unlike elemental resists).
Slashing resists in SoD (lvl9/9) :
5% innate
10% Stalwart Scales armor
15% The Guardian Devil helmet
5% Kendra's Chain
5% Cloak of the Gargoyle
50% defensive stance (3 casts, so 30 rounds)
10% Armor of Faith spell (lasts 12 rounds at this level)
In the end, I did not rely on Armor of Faith, because I wouldn't have had a sufficient thac0 to kill Belhifet. Instead, I gulped a few Potions of Heroism, a potion of Regeneration, also had a few elemental defenses up, and then added 7 (IIRC) scrolls of Champion's Strength and beat Belhifet very easily.
Missile resistance was even higher thanks to the Rhino Beetle shield (+15% missile resist).
BG2 went mainly like this:
Before lvl14/15 (3,15 mil XP):
- Innate 10% (DD lvl10) + Defensive Stance 50% physical damage resistance
- Armor of Faith spell : 15% ALL damage resistance (includes fire, cold, ele, acid and magical damage)
- Helmet of Dumathoin for the most part (I later switched to Dragon Helm and then went to grab the Helm of the Rock who also adds acid resistance)
- Defender of Easthaven (+20% melee damage resistance)
- Belt of Inertial barrier (50% magical damage resist / 25% missile resist)
- Shadow Dragon scale (50% acid resistance)
- Shield of Fyrus Khal (10% resist fire, cold, ele AND acid, plus a nice to have spell turning)
- Amulet of Power (especially for the -1 casting time, allows for immediate recasting of Armor of Faith and Draw upon Holy Might)
- Ring of Gaxx (for the regen and the Poison immunity)
With a few other buffs, such as Chaotic Commands, Free Action, Protection from Fire/Cold (lvl2 version) and Protection from Electricity, I was nigh invulnerable:
- 95% damage resistance (98% with Dumathoin's helm)
- 100% all elemental resistances (although the protection from Fire/Cold was the first to expire, protection from Electricity lasts for days, and the acid damage resistance was provided by gear and Armor of Faith spell that could be reapplied instantly)
- 65% magical damage resistance: the sole real threat damage wise in the end. Valygar's armor would have come in reaaally handy
- negative saving throws, coupled with Chaotic Commands, Protection from negative plane (from the amulet) and Free Action and no disabler ever threatened me (only Imprisonment was a threat, and I was very careful on those few encounters not to let the enemy get any occasion to target me with the spell).
The biggest threat, obviously, were dispels: especially repeated dispels (beholders, devas, Ravager).
At higher levels, those immunities against physical & elemental damage were only easier to attain, and I switched my shield for dual wielding Flail of Ages and Defender of Easthaven.
As fighter HLA's, I took exclusively Hardiness, a few Power Attacks (rarely used), and quite a few Critical Strikes.
I lacked a bit on the APR department, but more than made up for it for sheer power (all hail Righteous Magic) and tankiness.
This did though end up with hilariously long fights against Adamantite Golems or the Demon Wraith on WK's compass level, who also have 90% damage resistance. The Demon Wraith fight was particularly long, and funny to look at as I kept pounding on his head while his ghosts pounded on mine. It felt a bit cartoonish.
Most dragons and a few bosses (Demogorgon and the Ravager notably) were taken care of with a combination of:
- a few summons to attract attention
- Magic Resistance spell to actually reduce the opponents MR to 40% (by lvl cap)
- Harm
- Critical Strike
- rinse and repeat until it works (I had 6 casts of Harm and Critical Strike, since there are not that many useful lvl6 spells for that kind of character anyway).
In the end, I was stuck in the fight against Mel. First sequence I barely had the time to land a MR spell + harm, next one I had to resort on hacking her, but I wasn't fast enough for the next instances and lost the war of attrition between her unlimited summons, repeated stoneskins, and occasional debuffs.
It became especially difficult once she summoned Elder Orbs.
Anyway, I know this combination of multiclass with a kit is cheated (this one even more so I guess), but I had so much fun and enjoyment running it that I felt I had to share it.
What is the wizard slayer challenge ? I'm guessing no items except for weapons/armor ? And scrolls for scribing for mages (can they cast them from quickslot too?)
The 'wizard slayer' challenge is one of several additional challenges listed on the thread's first page. It artificially enforces the wizard slayer's item restrictions on your character. Effectively, you're limited to weapons, armour, shields, helmets, boots and scrolls, as well as healing potions and antidotes. You can use spell scrolls either for scribing or casting from quick slots. If in doubt, dual-class a wizard slayer test character and see if they can use the item.
How did you fight against Belhifet as a C/I, especially without (ab)using items such as scrolls of Champion's Strength ?
Beating Belhifet relies on a very clever trick (not my own, I hasten to add). Level 1 characters cannot be killed in 1 hit and on maximum difficulty, all damage your characters receive is doubled. Together, these mean that if your character is level 1 with 1 HP maximum, they are effectively immune to damage. In Chapter 10 of SoD, there is a fledgling vampire that can level drain you to level 1 (there's also a level drain trap on a chest in Castle Dragonspear's basement that drains 2 levels, but this isn't as useful). Martyr's Morningstar subtracts 10 HP from its user's maximum health, to a minimum of 1 HP, so you can ignore all incoming damage. Single class wizards with 3 Constitution can also use the Claw of Kazgaroth (or kill their familiar several times if they're doing the wizard slayer challenge)
For what it's worth, this is not an automatic 'I win' button for any class that can use it. Martyr's is only a +2 weapon whereas Belhifet requires +3 weapons to hit, so you either need to be dual-wielding or cast Enchanted Weapon. Getting level drained resets your character's saving throws, so you'll be vulnerable to game-ending status effects like getting charm, being constantly feared or permanently stun-locked unless you can protect yourself. Belhifet has 100% MR and regenerates, so if you can't deal damage fast enough, you'll either end up in eternal stalemate or exhaust your protections and die from attrition. You can also only access the fledgling vampire before the parley in Dead Man's Pass, so you'll have to complete the coalition camp attacks and Avernus as a level 1 character, which are no cakewalks. But if you can, it's by far the most reliable method I know of for taking out Belhifet that obeys the wizard slayer restrictions.
Dwarven defenders are always solid and if they can get past SoD, dwarven fighter/clerics are definite contenders. I'm a little surprised that you took Hardiness when you have Defensive Stance available, but if you're wanting to live forever, it's understandable. You might also be able to use Divine Protection and Greater Divine Protection (Icewind Dale spells that SCS adds) to shield yourself long enough to set up the Harm + Magic Resistance + Critical Strike combo. If you can cast it while Melissan is stunned after The Five have fallen, that may give you the window you need.
In any case, well done on getting that far! It's definitely an achievement even with 'illegal' characters... and that final fight is brutal, no doubt about that! Unfortunately, without Harm, a F/C doesn't have that many options available other than to slug it out. Did you use the rift device to reduce Mel's HP to 40%? That's a big help.
Water under the bridge now, but the rod of smiting can deal with adamantine golems fairly painlessly. If only there was a weapon like that for demons!
Executive Summary: After proceeding as far as he could without violence, Angelo clears out the Slums District.
"Remember that last remaining urban pacifist quest that we mentioned, but didn't complete earlier?" Angelo asked Felicity as they followed up Brus' tip. "Let's finish that off now."
Bayle-ing on Gaelan Bayle [No Combat]
"Miraculous," Angelo muttered. "As soon as I receive a cheaper offer of assistance, you drop your rates to match it. Almost as if you knew your initial offer was extortionate, but tried it on anyway."
"How do you know what Valen was after?" Gaelan countered. "She might not attempting to enlist your servies for 5,000 GP less. Besides, it's our summer sale at the moment and I thought you might appreciate the special offer..."
"Enough," Angelo snapped. "I will explore the rest of the city and then make my choice."
Gaelan's lip curled, but he held his nerve. "Well, unlike Valen's mistress, I will allow you time to consider your decision. Take that into account when you've finished playing tourist."
"Sure I will," Angelo replied as he nipped upstairs and bought glasses of identification from Arledrian. He sensed that this merchant would become unavailable if he didn't accept Bayle's offer, so he took advantage of it while he could.
Casing the Copper Coronet [No Combat]
Having already sweet-talked Lehtinan when rescuing Wellyn's bear, Angelo could stride around the Copper Coronet with abandon. However, given that an earlier bouncer confirmed that he was free to look around, Angelo was quite surprised to be admonished by a backroom guard for being in a restricted area. Angelo swiftly retreated, apologising all the while, satisfied that he'd lured them into the topmost corner.
Angelo waited until he successfully hid in the shadows before opening the door to the arena. While still out of sight, Angelo passed the hostile winter wolf waiting in the pit, but stopped short of the jail corridor. Repeating this trick, Angelo waited until he'd disappeared again before moving any further.
The shadows allowed Angelo to approach the Beastmaster without his dialogue immediately triggering... and the proximity afforded Angelo the chance to use his Pick Pockets skill. The lag between Stealth ending and becoming visible allowed Angelo to make several attempts and even though he failed a couple, this didn't matter since he succeeded in pilfering the beastmaster key (along with a Stone to Flesh scroll and 25 GP). Once he became visible, the Beastmaster's dialogue fired, resetting its variables and offering Angelo the chance to promise to leave. Going back to where he had previously taken cover from the wolf, Angelo re-entered Stealth to pass the wolf once more. With the guard planted in the corner, Angelo could use his freshly acquired key to unlock the surrounding pair of cells and rescue the children for 2,500 XP apiece.
Now all that was left was for Angelo to sneak through and rescue Hendak from the central chamber. Besides granting 7,500 XP, Hendak was keen to right the wrongs against him and charged through to the main area. Keen to watch the fight, Angelo entered Stealth yet again to sneak past the remaining gladiator-guard appetiser bouts. He arrived just in time to see Hendak and Lehtinan drawing their blades and wailing on each other. In the end, it was the seasoned gladiator who emerged victorious (although had it looked in doubt, Angelo would have intervened). Grateful for the assistance, Hendak doled out 48,750 XP and Angelo took the assorted gems and scrolls of Death Fog and Summon Nishruu.
Angelo Slaves Away [No Combat]
The corridor to the backrooms boasted two secret doors, the first leading to an unimportant bedroom and the second to the sewers. Following Hendak's lead, Angelo cast Invisibility and searched for the slaver boat entrance... which, apart from disarming a petrification trap on a door-shaped central bridge and a repeating Cloudkill trap, was fairly straightforward. Had he not been hidden, then he would have had to fight several slaver guards and captain Haegan upon his arrival, but his invisibility allowed him to leave uncontested. The two guards by the stairs stood on a diagonal disguising an acidic Hold Person trap, but there was a nook on the left which someone could get through without setting it off.
Since disarming traps didn't break his invisibility, Angelo disarmed this, along with several other traps:
Opening to head of crossroads 'T' - Prismatic Spray, repeating
Stairs from mages' room - poisoned arrow, repeating
Shelves - Flame Strike
Chest in yuan-ti room - arrow of detonation
Chest in wizard room - double arrow trap
Hazards disabled, Angelo then approached the twin doors on the sides of the middle corridor. Most locked doors that required keys were impermeable to the Knock spell, but not these ones... although Haegan's key was but a Pick Pocket had Angelo required it. Diving inside the first room, Angelo freed the first child for 2,500 XP and relied on his Stoneskin spell to survive long enough to cast Knock on the other door and then renew his Invisibility. Having drawn several of the slavers into the room, he then shut them in, walked into the opposite room and freed the second child for another 2,500 XP.
Captain Haegan was not chuffed to see Angelo appear, nor was she happy when the adjacent door swung open after being hit by a Knock spell. To compound her unhappiness, Angelo disappeared again to shut himself in with the trolls and speak with the girl, granting 3,500 XP and +1 reputation. The pair of trolls could swipe through Angelo's stone skins fairly quickly, but they couldn't prevent a summoned efreeti from casting Invisibility on our protagonist, allowing him to escape back to Hendak. Unaware that the slavers were still at large, Hendak doled out 38,000 XP, 3,900 GP, +1 reputation and Kondar +1/+4 bastard sword.
Beasting the Beastmaster [Combat]
Of course, there was still the small matter of the four hostile bouncers milling around the Copper Coronet. This was not an inconvenience that Angelo was willing to countenance, so he summoned some skeletal buddies using Animate Dead. While the remaining quartet of guards offered little resistance, the winter wolf put up even less of a fight since the skeletons were immune to its cold attacks. Finally, the animals in the surrounding cells were not released if their leader was attacked pre-emptively... and not even the illegitimate use of a spear and metal armour was enough to make a viable combatant out of a beastmaster with no beasts!
The real bonus (or should that be bow-nus?) from this encounter was the beastmaster's missile launcher. The Tuigan bow was a beast (ahem) of a weapon, one that Angelo would be putting to good use later.
The Sword in the Stone Sewer [Combat]
Invisibility enabled Angelo to salvage the severed hand from the grating without disturbing the otyugh and to sneak past the hobgoblins to retrieve the ring from the finger of the skeleton hanging on the nearby wall. Locating and clicking on the four sewer pipes also enabled new dialogue with the kobold shaman in the opposite passage. Only a 2,000 GP bribe would part the shaman from his staff (it couldn't be pickpocketed) but Angelo did have the satisfaction of watching the remaining kobolds cut down their leader. Tossing the circlet of lost souls (a shaman-exclusive trinket introduced in the Enhanced Edition), Angelo disappeared again.
Unfortunately, he could not complete the 'riddle of the sewers' without violence. The final item - 'the blood of a friend true', according to the pipe - also could not be pickpocketed from Quallo's pet carrion crawler (for obvious reasons!). Still, Animate Dead's skeletons were immune to its paralysis, so its death was but a formality. From Quallo's clues, Angelo deduced that the staff (in the fourth pipe) was to be placed last, so the ring (in the first pipe) must be placed second; the hand (in the third pipe), being of prime import, should go first and so the blood (in the second pipe) must go third. Congratulating himself on not using Felicity Foreshadow's Google capability, Angelo took the 18,500 XP and Lilarcor as payment.
Strangely, the map didn't highlight the upper area where the minotaur Andorian died at the hands of the Myconid King. Angelo took this as evidence of the fact that much of its content had been presumably scrapped mid-production, so ignored it entirely.
Enslaving the Slavers [Combat]
Returning to the slaver boat, Angelo sneaked around until he found an empty room by the main entrance to conjure some skeletons and spiders. Hasting his summons before cowardly vanishing, he sent them out to face the enemy while staying out of the way, lest any enemy spells reveal or otherwise affect him. He ordered them to take out the wizards and priest first if there was an opportunity, then the archers, only hitting the grunts when there was no other way of making progress. When the first wave fell, he ducked out of sight, summoned a second batch (using his remaining spells and items like the efreeti bottle) and after rebuffing, sent them in for round two.
Although most slavers fell to this initial assault, Angelo felt it wiser to recuperate in the Copper Coronet before rinsing and repeating. Once he saw both trolls hit the deck, he summoned his efreeti to deliver a swift pair of Flame Arrows to guarantee they wouldn't get back up. Amazingly, when Angelo left the boat via the main entrance (from this side, it was unlocked), the door guard was unaware of the commotion inside. He didn't realise it, but this actually saved his life, as Angelo balked at killing him unnecessarily. Ignorance is bliss.
Bregg-ing Rights [Combat]
Angelo's reluctance to kill didn't extend to Cohrvale and Bregg, a pair of thugs determined to get in his way. Up until now, he had used Stealth to pass them, but the time had come to indulge their death wish. Angelo lured them into the Copper Coronet, where an army of summons were presciently awaiting their arrival. Fighter Cohrvale's death earned 6,000 XP while chopping down thief Bregg only gained 4,000 XP, but it was more the convenience of being able to wander the steets unmolested that drove their destruction.
Completing the last pacifist quest earned Angelo 99,250 XP in total. Now it was time to finish off several other threads he'd left dangling earlier - Tirdir's kidnappers were still at large, Anarg and Reynald de Chantillion were still hanging around and despite Rejiek's untimely demise in Trademeet, the tanner murders had still not been dealt with. All of these matters converged on one location... the Bridge District!
Executive Summary: Angelo's various summons finish off several of the Bridge District's incomplete quests.
It was funny, Angelo thought, that so many of the initial quests he'd undertaken when he first arrived in Athkatla involved the Bridge District. High time, then, for him to return and finish what he started now that he was battle-ready.
Getting Nearer to Neera
Before he could fight any battles himself, he had to watch Neera battle with her magical temperament. Despite teleporting wayward girl Mereth away, Neera's escape from Red Wizard Lanneth and her guards Warwick or Ellis was much more dicey. To wrap up this loose end quickly, Angelo immediately left the area, whereupon Neera ambushed him. "Nope, never heard of you," Angelo lied, "and I certainly didn't steal your gem bag when you were staying in Beregost." Fobbed off with vague assurances that he'd check out the hidden refuge at some point, Neera left Angelo alone to resume his questing.
Tanning the Tanner
As soon as he returned to the Bridge District, Angelo hid in the shadows to avoid Anarg and the Fallen Paladins tracking him down (he was outside, so the Cowled Wizards would have intervened had Invisibility been cast). Sneaking into the tanner shop, Angelo descended beyond the second level, where he'd been before, to the bottom floor of the basement. Vellin Dahn saw through Angelo's stealth instantly and no response could stop him from teleporting away, but he did not alert the pair of ghasts, twin rune assassins or the bone golem in doing so.
Since he was still hidden, Angelo could take advantage of a gap in the creatures' peripheral awareness. The quay in the bottom right was out of the monsters' sight, so he could summon and buff his usual assortment of skeletons and spiders (the Cowled Wizards couldn't find him in these lower levels).
Making himself invisible as an insurance policy, Angelo then sent his summons to do his dirty work. The spiders weren't so useful this time around, as they were vulnerable to backstabs and undead nasties were immune to poison, but the skeletons were pretty solid. A second round of summons from his items was enough to obliterate any survivors from his initial wave and freed him to loot the various containers. Disarming the respective Ice Storm and Fireball traps on the large and small crates, Angelo helped himself to the bow of Gesen shaft before leaving for pastures new.
Felling the Fallen Paladins
As previously mentioned, the intermediate basement floor was a nice place for Angelo to rest and renew his summons. He hoped that the skeletons would follow him upstairs, but they resolutely refused to budge. Worse, Anarg's tracking obviously extended to inside buildings and was already on the top floor spitting vituperations. Angelo had hoped to take the battle to the fallen paladins, but they had instead taken it to him.
Still, there were advantages to the current state of affairs. Firstly, this inadvertently isolated Anarg from Reynald de Chantillion and his men. Anarg also didn't turn hostile after finishing his speech, so Angelo was free to leisurely nip back to buff his summons before engaging. Better yet, pursuing Angelo downstairs dumped Anarg right in the middle of said summons. If the skeletons would not come to Anarg, then Anarg would have to come to the skeletons!
Needless to say, Anarg didn't survive along against the undead onslaught. Venturing outside, it amused Angelo to find that Reynald had wisely taken leave of absence, but the other fallen paladins milled around in the square. Much like Vellin Dahn, they seemed unaware that their leader had been killed in action and Angelo was in no hurry to enlighten them. Quite the opposite was true of Sir Ryan Trawl, who was informed of Anarg's demise as quickly as possible for a reward of 17,500 XP, +1 reputation and gloves of healing.
A Study in Scarlet
Locating the man dressed in red responsible for dropping Tirdir in the (Tir)dirt, Angelo took the precaution of heavily trapping the narrow passage leading to the leftmost building. Angsty Am-Si confessed immediately and fled into the nearby building, but any sympathy he was expecting from comrades Reti and Camitis turned out to be misplaced as Camitis cut him down as soon as Angelo poked his head in the door. Both conspirators left immediately after, but Angelo gave chase, wanting a cut of this kidnapping pie.
Since he'd exited as quickly as possible, Angelo's newly summoned flesh golem cut off the narrow avenue of escape (using magical items didn't alert the Cowled Wizards). A swift arrow from Angelo at Camitis may have missed its mark, but it did turn the pair hostile and the spray of arrows from the adjacent traps were not so inaccurate. Aiming at Camitis ensured that he turned hostile first and attracted most of the traps' arrows, meaning the tougher opponent took the brunt of the damage.
As long as Angelo ensured that the efreeti targeted its Flame Strike on Camitis, the fight was over bar the celebrations. Felling Camitis gave 3,000 XP while Reti yielded 1,250 XP and boots of avoidance, but the best treasure was yet to come. Not in the form of Lady Elgea, who seemed to think that she could insult her way out of being ransomed, but in the form of the silver pantaloons that Welther would give him for the note from the upstairs shelves next to her. In fact, although Welther wouldn't nocturnally appear outside the Copper Coronet until this part of the quest had been triggered, Angelo avoided the -2 reputation hit associated with the exchange by picking Welther's pocket without talking to him. They would go nicely with his golden pantaloons. If only he could complete the set...
Nobbling Neb
On the subject of the Copper Coronet and triggering quests, it was time to tie up another loose end. Speaking to Unger Hilldark after Jerlia had previously revealed him as her illithium source spawned Neb in the derelict house in the Bridge District (it was otherwise empty). Bashing the door in with Draw Upon Holy Might, Angelo entered hoping that his evil alignment would allow him to talk Neb into yielding the illithium. This option was seemingly only available before Sir Sarles was dealt with since the gnome insisted on aggression no matter what conversation he pursued.
Although the Cowled Wizards turned a blind eye to using a special ability on a door, they drew the line at using spells inside to defeat a serial killer. The ghostly children that Neb summoned to defend himself were vicious little squirts, draining a level with each hit, so Angelo wanted to minimise his dealings with them. Luckily, his efreeti could safely cast Invisibility on him without provoking the Cowled Wizards and Angelo was happy to let it and the clay golem take the heat for him.
He saw Jeb gulp down a potion of invisibility, but Detect Illusion soon foiled that escape plan. The gnome didn't seem to have a backup scheme, as he stood still, unmoving as the summons blasted chunks out of him. They could only get him down to Near Death status before their durations expired, leaving Angelo stranded invisible surrounded by angry spirits. He only had one shot at Jeb, but luckily that was all he needed.
With their master slain, the ghostly quartet evaporated, each leaving 2,500 XP and a pearl behind. As they left, they cast Lesser Restoration and the onset of magical fatigue was a small price to pay for his lost levels. The minor gems hidden behind the acid-hold-trapped painting offered scant reward, but taking Jeb's head to Chief Inspector Brega in the Government District's Council of Six building earned 2,500 GP and another reputation +1.
Although the Bridge District had the breadth of incomplete quests, other areas had the depth. And no district of Athkatla had more easily available depth than the Docks.
Executive Summary: Combining both his latest tricks, Angelo uses Web and summons to earn himself a stronghold!
"Do the ruffians stop threatening you once you reach a certain level?" Angelo asked Felicity as they wandered the Docks District. "They seem to be a lot less threatening than before."
The imp just shrugged. "It seems that Google doesn't know everything after all."
Some Quayside Shopping
Before any of the other festivities began, Angelo visited blind dwarven smith Cromwell and upgraded his pair of dragon scales into proper armour. The red dragon scales became (nearly) full plate +2 with 50% fire resistance on top while the shadow dragon scales were turned into effectively studded leather armour +6 with 50% acid resistance. Both were stashed away for a rainy day, as was the Nymph Cloak Angelo bought from Gorch in Mae'var's Guildhall. It was imperative that Angelo bought this before the hostilities began, so now was as good a time as ever.
Gethras is a Goner
Angelo had left off investigating Mae'var's guilt for Renal Bloodscalp when Edwin asked him to assassinate Rayic Gethras, a high level conjurer. The first problem was actually getting to Gethras - it was not as simple as simply wandering up his tower since the first floor stairs were blocked by 2 fire mephits, 2 magma mephits and an ice mephit. Luckily, this was not an insurmountable difficulty, as Angelo invisibly cast a double helping of Protection from Fire and Protection from Cold before summoning a berserk warrior. This defensive magic immunised him from the mephits' elemental damage, but their attacks would still disrupt his spells, so Angelo got his efreeti to cast Invisibility on him after he'd looted the room's minor treasures. The mephit blocking the stairs foolishly moved away and didn't return after Angelo escaped and rested, so he left them to their own devices.
Passing the stone golems on the second floor, Angelo found his target in the centre of the uppermost level. Though Gethras' field of view almost completely covered the room, the corner in the bottom right was out of sight, allowing Angelo to summon some monsters. However, he did not bring out the big guns instantly. As a conjurer, Gethras had multiple summoning spells of his own which needed to be teased out first.
There wasn't enough space for Angelo to stand in the corner and surround himself without Gethras noticing the summons and reacting with his own. Despite being a conjurer, Gethras had True Sight memorised, so Angelo was careful not to 'activate' the wizard by appearing in their view. Nevertheless, he turned invisible when Gethras cast Teleport Field, on the off-chance that a monster spotted him after an accidental teleportation and gave the whole game up.
After draining his spells with several bouts of Monster Summoning I, Angelo went for the kill with a triple Animate Dead. Gethras died a 9,000 XP death without Angelo ever actually seeing him once the battle had begun. Even better, after disarming the acid-hold trap on the large table (along with the Fireball trap on the small bowl), Angelo found a Mislead scroll. He placed this in his scroll case, planning to put it to good use shortly.
Sneaking back down past the golems and mephits, Angelo went back to Edwin to earn 20,000 XP from reporting Gethras' death.
Marking Marcus
Rayic Gethras acted as a roadblock preventing players from earning the XP that lay beyond. Edwin's next task was for Angelo to obtain some documents from Marcus, who was staying at the Sea Bounty tavern. The merchant offered to sell them for 250 GP, Angelo sensed that he could obtain them for less and he ended up acquiring them for 0 GP by picking Marcus' pocket. Returning them to Edwin granted a further 10,000 XP... not a bad return, all things considered!
Embalming Embarl
Edwin's last quest was to dispose of a so-called traitor, Embarl, who also happened to be staying at the Sea Bounty. It didn't take long for Embarl to spill the beans, however, and confess that he'd overheard Mae'var plotting to kill Renal. Taking Embarl's donated dagger back gained Angelo another 18,750 XP and an offer from Edwin to join the group. Angelo refused this, but gratefully accepted the proffered strongbox key, which was promptly looted and its contents returned to Renal for 48,250 XP.
Murdering Mae'var
The last part of this quest was to kill Mae'var and his chums. Having already bought all he wanted, Angelo was unphased by Gorch's newfound hostility and used Stealth to pass him down to the basement. In the corridor leading up to Mae'var, Angelo summoned as many spiders as he could, then fired as many Web spells as he could into the central chamber. Once he saw that Mae'var was tangled up, Angelo hasted his summons and sent them forth to accomplish his mission.
As a human multiclass thief/conjurer (just count the illegalities in that combination!), Mae'var's P/P/D saves were not good and the spider's poison easily coursed through his veins. His mirror images sprang up even though he was webbed (luckily, his Minor Globe of Invulnerability did not) and Angelo could not cross the webbed area to Detect Illusion beside him. Though incapable of detecting illusions, Angelo's arrows could cross the webbed area and did a pretty good job of cutting through the images along with the spiders' thrusts.
Mae'var's death brought 14,000 XP, after which the spiders began their work on any webbed assassins. Angelo had long since turned invisible and retreated, so the arachnids were the first to face the chop when the Web spells ran out. Once Angelo's summoning slots became available (Gethras had proven that the 5 creature summoning limit did not apply to enemies), he filled them with skeletons and sent them back in. The thieves' backstabs weren't nearly as effective against their bony armour and their Detect Illusion skill wasn't nearly enough to remove Angelo's own invisibility. Their deaths were worth 7,000 XP, while the random priest of Cyric was only worth a mere 2,000 XP.
After freeing Kamuzu from his cell, Angelo referred the news to Renal for 45,500 XP. Although it was one of the lesser strongholds available, there was also some lingering confusion regarding its status online and Angelo wanted to put this misinformation to rest once and for all. Besides, it was one of the more flavoursome choices... who doesn't love a thieves' guild? In any case, Angelo accepted Renal's offer to take over where Mae'var left off, giving him 10,500 GP extra (he'd have preferred the Short Sword +3 that he'd have received had he not been a thief or refused the stronghold, but it was all gravy).
If Angelo had truly been min-maxing, he would go for the mage stronghold every time... although the ranger and druid ones had useful items if they were played through to the end.
One more district remained for Angelo to plunder before he was to advance the plot further. Time to take a trip to the Temple District!
I just stopped by after a long hiatus and am delighted to see the challenge going strong! I hope @histamiini returns and finishes off Melissan without trouble.
I don't think I'll be returning to the challenge, personally. I think I learned my lesson from my punishing 38-hour Archer run, which I still need to record commentary for and post in full.
Executive Summary: Angelo adds another string to his bow and uses it to clear the sewers beneath the Temple District.
"I'm so close to becoming a level 12 mage," Angelo murmured as he approached the Temple District. "When I get there, I'll unlock my full potential." And yet his face creased up slightly. "But perhaps I should only use it sparingly. l don't want to become reliant on it."
The imp's eyes rolled. "Just because your horizons will have broadened doesn't mean that you can't illustrate other strategies where you can. But Legacy of Bhaal is hard enough without deliberately playing with one hand behind your back. Why be a F/M/T, after all, if you never use your class nuke?"
Mekrath's Imp-udent Imp
Descending into the sewers, Angelo cast Invisibility and sneaked around looking for business. A secret door in the north east led him into a level that looked strangely like the third floor of Durlag's Tower. Passing some miscellaneous imps, Angelo ventured clockwise until he came across Mekrath, a grumpy elf conjurer (illegal!) who eventually admitted that he wanted his mirror returned from an imp that had stolen it. Angelo made sure Felicity was stowed away safely in his pack, else Mekrath mistake her for the mischievous thief.
After sneaking back into the sewers, it didn't take much scouting to find the culprit camping out in the southeastern corner. Finding a quiet spot to summon some skeletons, Angelo ignored its lesser earth elemental companion (who was immune to the skeletons' +1 weapons anyway) and sent his minions to kill the imp, invisibly snatching the mirror after they'd done so and were busy getting mauled by the elemental. Returning to Mekrath gave 18,750 XP and access to Haer'Dalis, who Angelo sent away to the Five Flagons.
Before he departed, the tiefling blade mentioned a gem that may be found on an altar. Remembering the layout of Durlag's Tower, Angelo used Invisibility to evade the 3 yuan-ti mages, 1 yuan-ti and 1 greater yuan-ti en-route to the chapel (there were disadvantages to being high level!). After disarming the acid-hold floor trap and Dire Charm altar trap (at least it could be disarmed this time!), Angelo took the harp of discord and portal gem contained therein.
While he was at it, he took the rod of resurrection from the container next to Mekrath and the necklace of form stability from a chest (trapped with Lightning Bolt) in the eastern chamber before the yuan-ti. There were several other trapped containers (the eastern chamber's other chest had a stunning Chromatic Orb trap, the yuan-ti chest had a Lightning Bolt trap and a cupboard in the southern room had an arrow trap), but they didn't have much treasure, so Angelo ignored them.
Trolling Roger the Fence
Angelo found Roger the Fence milling around the southern end of the sewers. A bit of cajoling revealed that he'd been having some troll problems, which Angelo naturally offered to sort out. Summoning his usual assortment of skeleton warriors and spiders, he invisibly crept westwards. "It's only one sea troll," he said to himself, "what's the worst that could happen?"
"You have got to be kidding me?!" Angelo choked as the beholder and two gauths teleported in uninvited and began spamming eye beams at his creatures. Having not thought to bring the shield of Balduran - not that it was much use after SCS telekinetically nerfed it - Angelo crossed his fingers and prayed for the best.
As it happened, though, he had stumbled onto one of only a few tactics that could reliably bring down beholders. Animate Dead's skeletons were immune to many of the deadliest beams and although the spiders fell almost immediately, the skeletons fearlessly hacked away at the floating eyes. With 100% MR, the flesh golem was also protected from the nasty effects - a marvellous fact that Angelo was quick to exploit.
After letting the beholders down not so gently, it was the turn of Roger's sea troll. With no floating eyes to defend it, the troll was unceremoniously smacked into the ground, with an efreeti's Flame Arrow ensuring it did not get back up. Roger the Fence gave Angelo 500 GP for completing the job, although Felicity told him some walkthroughs advocated that Roger would have coughed up even if he hadn't followed through (these walkthrough also say that Angelo would gain 9,500 XP for it, though, and that never transpired!).
After felling the beholders, Angelo noticed that the miniature cross had appeared in the top right corner of his portrait. This meant he was now a level 12 mage, and the loss of phase spiders to their sword spider 'upgrades' in Spider Spawn would be more than compensated by what he could now cast...
Testing Out Tarnor
The bounty hunters Angelo had passed in the northern tunnels looked nasty, and Angelo wondered if there were any dirty tricks he could pull to even the odds. Initial signs were good, as Angelo realised that a couple of them were strangely reluctant to turn hostile as long as he kept out of sight of leader Tarnor the Hatchetman. This meant he basically had a free Blind (or Feeblemind) on fighter/cleric Rengaard...
... and cleric Zorl...
Unfortunately, being divine casters, both could cast Cure Disease on themselves, which removed blindness (and Feeblemind) and made it difficult to meaningfully capitalise on this advantage. Web from afar was also tricky, as elven necromancer (again, illegal!) Gaius had a stupedously low save versus spell (3 before LoB's bonus, making him immune to Feeblemind cast by a non-enchanter). His defences would automatically spring up, preventing a quick kill, and his pair of Death Spells would kill Angelo's summons outright.
There was, however, a solution to this dilemma - make sure that his defences were never activated...
Burying the Hatchetman
As if the fact that Mislead allowed Angelo free attacks without retaliation AND he could backstab to his heart's content weren't enough, Mislead users didn't aggrevate precast spells. Any enemies hit by someone using it either stood still helplessly or wandered around dumbfounded. Unless the defender could see invisible creatures, dispel the illusion or somehow protect themselves, they were dead meat.
One annoyance is that Mislead gave no indication of its remaining duration, so it could suddenly wear off with no warning. To prevent this, Angelo had a cute trick: he'd begin by casting (Improved) Haste followed immediately by Spell Immunity: Divination (Spell Immunity being the only exception to the 1 spell/round action economy outside Improved Alacrity, as it could be cast the instant another spell was finished). This created a large visual bubble around Angelo, who then cast Mislead. Spell Immunity both have the same duration, so when Spell Immunity's bubble disappeared, then Angelo knew he had 1 round to get the heck out of dodge before his clone disappeared.
Of course, being only a level 12 mage, Angelo's one available level 6 spell was taken up by Mislead, so Improved Haste was off the cards. However, as the bandits would discover, Haste was all that Angelo needed to dispatch Gaius.
Somehow, Gaius managed to summon some skeletons before he died (for 4,000 XP), but as they couldn't find Angelo's clone (cunningly hidden by the steps to Mekrath's lair), they were as good as useless. The clerics were next. They wore heavy armour, so it was harder to kill them quickly, but Rengaard (worth 6,000 XP) was unable to cast Sanctuary and escape Angelo's flashing blade.
Angelo managed to kill Zorl (2,000 XP) and bow-toting fighter Gallchobhair (7,200 XP - presumably the cousin of Ioin Gallchobhair the Lonely Peaks bandit from BG1) before his Mislead expired. Amusingly, Gallchobhair stumbled on Angelo's clone and peppered it with arrows while Angelo frantically stood behind him hacking away. Although plain fighters Tarnor (8,000 XP) and Draug Fea (7,000 XP) heard all the commotion, Angelo's invisible body blocked their advance just enough that they couldn't see the clone.
Having taken out the truly dangerous threats, hasted skeletons were enough to take down both Tarnor and Draug Fea, along with the remaining summons.
Interlude: The 'Best Spell in the Game'?
What is not often mentioned during the perennial 'best spell in the game' debate is that the answer depends on who is casting it. A F/M could make a case for Improved Haste being the spell that does the most for them while Project Image is hard to beat for a dedicated sorcerer. The ease of acquisition is a definite factor, as is the length over which the spell retains its usefulness (https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2017/08/Best-Arcane-Spells-Baldurs-Gate-and-Baldurs-Gate-2.html). Some spells benefit greatly from being cast in combination with others (Time Stop and Improved Alacrity, I'm looking at you!), and some buffs require other team members to truly shine. And while the power of the Wish spell is well documented, its unpredictable nature means its seat at the high table is not necessarily guaranteed.
Despite this, however, I claim that Mislead is the F/M/T spell that rules them all. It is no exaggeration to say that with Mislead, at least 65% of the remainder of the game becomes almost trivial for a F/M/T. The fact that only they can truly utilise it (F/M can't backstab and M/T can't hit properly) is an added bonus. If you are averse to so-called 'cheesy exploitation' of this spell, I suggest you stop reading now (although using a spell exactly how it was intended doesn't strike me as an exploit at all!).
Incidentally, this also makes what I said in my BG1 reflection about scimitars being a poor option when not dual-wielding completely wrong. One extra attack per round is one extra backstab opportunity when you're using Mislead and single weapon style allows extra critical hits.
Splatting the Rakshasa
Whereas Angelo had previously shirked away from fighting rakshasa, he hoped that his new tactic would even the odds. His suspicion proved correct and the beast didn't even try to escape its 3,000 XP fate.
Flinging the cloak of the sewers around his neck, Angelo left the scene, leaving the kobolds clean up his mess. Still invisible, he ignored Keldorn's duel with a zombie to head down the northwest passage.
Killing those beholders in the sewers would serve as good practice, Angelo thought, to tackling the cult of the Unseeing Eye. With his latest weapon now tried and tested, nothing could go wrong... could it?
Good to see you're still around, @semiticgod. I, for one, would be interested in hearing your commentary. I'm surprised it only took you 38 hours - Angelo has surely been going for much longer than that! - but he is being very thorough and I hope that subsequent playthroughs will be much speedier (I certainly won't be writing them up in half as much detail!).
By the way, would it be possible to update the front page of currently running challengers? At the moment, I'm playing Angelo the F/M/T on 'regular' difficulty, as well as Arcand the C/I as part of the wizard slayer challenge (although I will be frank... he may magically become a M/C when I come to writing him up should I find no alternative to the 'Skull Trap surprise' for taking out Melissan). I would ask @Harpagornis to do it, but I've not seen them around for a while and I don't want to miss out on any celebrity status (*ahem*) that comes with attempting the challenge.
@AvidGamerFan: Part of the "short" duration was the fact that it didn't factor in all of my failed attempts and subsequent restarts from Candlekeep (mostly this was early failures in BG1, but still). The other half is that I used CTRL-J to jump around and I got incredibly fast at that... My fingers were moving so fast that I actually injured myself and for several weeks or months I had to intentionally ease up on the games I played to heal my hands. The runs definitely get faster the more you do them.
It would also be nice to have a single location for @histamiini's very informative info drops about where to find items in each game. A single post near the start of the thread listing Potions of Invisibility in BG1, Potions of Heroism in SoD, and Time Stop scrolls in BG2 would be very convenient.
@semiticgod I definitely agree that having some reference posts would be a good idea and @histamiini has compiled some great info. Personally, I wouldn't rate BG1 and SoD potions that high a priority, purely because invisibly looting the bodies in the Chapter 11 battle is so profitable. At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I do think that my lists of the XP available without combat are useful, if a little overkill.
An overview of the 'bottlenecks' that must be planned for might also be handy, along with some proven solutions. We've already seen several challengers rock up to the coalition camp attacks without enough arrows of detonation. For example, in BG1, you must have some strategy for tackling Mulahey, Davaeorn, Slythe, the Duchal Palace ambush and Sarevok; common solutions involve Algernon's cloak, various wands and necklaces of missiles or potions of explosions.
Part 57: Angelo Delivers a Blow to the Temple District {Edited For Accuracy}
Executive Summary: After smuggling the rift device out of the sewers, Angelo discovers some limits on his newfound power.
"Mislead is so powerful," Angelo boasted as he left the sewers for the Old Tunnels, "I'm not sure how anything will be able to stop me." Felicity nodded her approval, but couldn't shake the feeling that fate had a sobering lesson in store...
The Mysterious Mists
The locked doorway halfway down the looping passageway proved impossible to open, so Angelo cast Invisibility and moved into an open antechamber which filled with ettercaps once he'd progressed into it. Wherever ettercaps were found, Web traps would surely follow and after a moment's searching, Angelo found and disarmed the nearby offender.
Felicity warned him that going near the central gas vent in the circular chamber that followed would slam the doors while releasing a Cloudkill and some vampiric mists. Worse, this interaction would 'alert' the mists, so they could assail him as if he'd attacked after casting Improved Invisibility; renewing Invisibility would make him vanish again, but they would hug his every move, waiting for him to reveal himself. Once down to Badly Injured, they became able to see through even his renewed illusion and ignored any summons to target him exclusively.
It appeared that this unpleasantness could be avoided by not going near the vent, so Angelo avoided it.
Gaal, the cult leader, accepted that Angelo could retrieve an artifact in return for his continued sight. Recasting Invisibility, Angelo retraced his steps, but this time the vampiric mists would not let him escape. Although his periapt gave him immunity to Cloudkill's poison, the mists would disrupt any spells he would cast. Luckily, the golem manual's summoning was uninterruptible and the golem was also immune to the mists' nonmagical attacks. This made it the perfect lure as Angelo circled back to Gaal's chamber to shut the mists in and summon more assistance.
However, as predicted, the mists made a beeline towards Angelo once they reached Badly Injured status, showing off their ability open doors. Angelo endured a couple of level draining hits to haste his skeletons and ran around while the animated undead did their job. He'd have to sneak back to a priest to restore his levels, but being beneath the Temple District had its perks!
Activating the mists seems buggy - it is sometimes possible to sneak through without them appearing. Still, it seems more probable than not, so Angelo didn't save scum to complete this section pacifistically.
Assisting Sassar
The previously impassible door opened once Angelo inserted Gaal's key into the lock. Removing a level draining arrow trap in the corridor beyond, Angelo agreed to locate the missing artifact pieces. Sassar may have claimed that this was the only way to destroy the Unseeing Eye, but Angelo had other ideas...
The sarcophagus looked as if it housed something nasty, so Angelo disarmed a Lightning Bolt floor trap and invisibly descended the stairs. Moving into the next chamber caused three huge spiders to spawn underneath its sidebound pipes, but Angelo ignored them and the screaming visage (which could summon 5 sets of extra spiders and a wandering horror if clicked on). After disarming the nose's Cloudkill trap, Angelo looted it before disappearing and dumping the arachnids. The undead troupe of mummies and ghasts were likewise evaded and the Prismatic Spray trap on the lowest stair disarmed.
Clicking on the dome released the so-called guardian whose riddles were easily solved ('Life', 'time' and 'the current one' respectively) for 42,250 XP. At the end of the now-fixed bridge, several beholders lay in wait... and although Angelo did pop into view when he raided the nearby alcove, beating a retreat gave enough time to cast Invisibility before they could find him. The shadows that followed were similarly clueless and Angelo moved around the petrification trap guarding the sunken temple's entrance.
Inside the temple was a demonic Empathic Manifestation, but once Angelo realised that it couldn't see invisible creatures, he sneaked past it and looted the altar. The Empathic Manifestation's ensuing attacks only did nonlethal damage, making Angelo wonder if it was one of those 'internal demons' that fantasy authors were so fond of. "These Cure Serious Wounds scrolls would be useful if I could cast them," he muttered, instead using his Cure Light Wounds special ability to kill the Empathic Manifestation. The subsequently awakened avatar doled out 25,750 XP for its rescue and, after waxing lyrical about how the completed artifact should never leave the sewers, half of the rift device.
Down Among the Dead Men
Upon his return, Sassar informed Angelo to find Tad in the cult's lair. Doing this unlocked the pathway to the Unseeing Eye, a one-way trip whose steep descent could not be reversed. Angelo skipped the minor treasures on the first corpse so as to not to alert the adjacent band of mummies and ghouls, but the second group was bunched so densely that he couldn't circumvent them without further dispersion.
To kill time, Angelo entered the Ghoul Lord's room, where a neutral Threshal was surrounded by multiple enemies. He was about to sneak past and loot the pile of dead bodies when Felicity informed him that he was of high enough level that a lich would spawn if he crossed the chamber. This lich could see through invisibility, making tackling it an absolute no-no, so Angelo passed up the gauntlets of dexterity. Instead, he sneakily approached Threshal and pickpocketed the Skin of the Ghoul +4 before dancing back and casting Invisibility. No monster could close before his spell kicked in, and repeating this afforded the looting of the barrel. Angelo was sure to pick up the dropped ammunition before making his exit.
After invisibly resting as far up the steep descent as he could, Angelo set about dispersing the crowd. This wasn't trivial, since he could get trapped on the narrow bridges between the second group and the first bringing up the rear. Summoning a distraction at the crossroads, Angelo cast Invisibility and followed the initially neutral zombie into the Ghoul Lord's room, making a circuit around and leaving via the other door. Arriving out the second entrance to see his distraction get slaughtered at the first one, Angelo abandoned it and entered the Pit of the Faithless.
Although nominally a difficult area, sneaking through the pit was easy if the cultists huddled around the central pool were avoided. The second rift device piece was found in the rightmost pool and although its gauth guardian fired off a damaging eye beam, this did not prevent Angelo from vanishing with his ring of invisibility. The rift device automatically assembled once both parts were together, which caused the Unseeing Eye to appear. It immediately began casting True Sight, which Angelo took as his cue to leave.
Rogering the Fence
The avatar had told Angelo that he should not remove the rift device from the sewers, and the artifact's description backed this up. However, Angelo noticed that this warning applied specifically to him. What would happen, he wondered, if someone else tried on his behalf?
Leaving the rift device in a chest beside Sassar's companions Zaelas and Garuk, Angelo bought the choiciest potions (namely those of magic blocking and shielding) from Roger the Fence. Angelo then used the nymph cloak to charm the vendor - as the target did not turn hostile if the attempt failed and its charm lasted 12 hours, this was the best option. Sneaking him past Keldorn using Invisibility 10' Radius, Angelo kept him moving so that he couldn't fire arrows at passing foes. Finally, Angelo broke his own invisibility by casting something inconsequential, then ordered Roger to attack him before transitioning back into the Old Tunnels. Although charmed creatures couldn't normally transition areas, they could if they were undergoing an attack order so Roger appeared beside Angelo.
Telling Roger to back off, Angelo went back to Zaelas and Garuk (sneaking in case some monster had spawned while he was away). Dropping all his possessions into the chests, Angelo took the rift device to Roger, where he had the thief Pick Pocket it from him (since his inventory was empty, the rift device was quickly stolen). Repeating the area-transition trick to get Roger into the sewers, Angelo cast Invisibility 10' Radius again and sneaked them to the main grate. Another spell-attack-transition later, both Angelo and Roger were out in the Temple District, the latter in possession of the rift device.
When you attempt to enter or exit the sewers, the game checks your inventory to see if you have the rift device - if you do, then an automatic death scene triggers. However, although it checks your PC allies, it does not check charmed companions and Roger's Pick Pockets allows you to pass items into his inventory. Be aware that Roger has 85% PP and stealing is an opposed check - if you have > 85% natural PP, he cannot steal from you! Angelo had 80% natural PP and achieved his 100% PP via the gloves of pickpocketing... another reason why you should remove all your gear!
Having outlived his usefulness, Roger was taken aside while Angelo descended alone to retrieve his stuff. Roger's death by the hands of Angelo's golem, efreeti and berserker summons attracted the attention of two nosey prophets, collateral damage whose deaths didn't cost Angelo any reputation! Once Roger fell, Angelo retrieved the rift device intact from his corpse.
Stashing it in his regular trove, Angelo returned to the sewers. It was time for a reckoning.
One in the Unseeing Eye for Angelo
Given that the Unseeing Eye was... unseeing... Angelo suspected that Mislead's illusion would work even better than usual. Somewhat paradoxically, the Unseeing Eye had already displayed the ability to cast True Sight, but his Spell Immunity: Divination would protect him from that. And if all else failed, there was always the tried and tested Animate Dead to fall back on. "Dunno why everyone's so afraid of this floating iris," Angelo muttered as he made his usual preparations.
He soon found out, as the beholder seemed totally unaffected by his Belm backstab attack. "Immune to +2 weapons?" Angelo grumbled, whipping out Lilarcor +3. Fine, he may not be able to backstab with it, but slow and steady would win the race... or it would have had the Unseeing Eye not been immune to +3 weapons as well. This would obviously invalidate his Animate Dead tactics, but Angelo tried anyway... only to find that the Unseeing Eye fired a triple Invisible Stalker sequencer upon sight that smashed his summons to pieces.
"What am I to do?" he asked his familiar desperately. "There are very few +4 weapons available at this stage in the game."
"I wouldn't get too excited about them, either," Felicity replied. "Even if your strikes were true, it still has 95% resistance to all physical damage, as well as 100% resistance to cold and lightning and a mound of hit points. It's only got 3 Charisma... but it's also got an unlisted immunity to level 1 - 4 spells, so no Contagion for you." Felicity gasped as she surveyed its stats. "Blimey, it's immune to level 6 - 9 magic too, along with a host of specific immunities to level 5 spells. Short of spamming Feeblemind, which does work, I can't see a way to win... but its eye beams will disrupt you as fast as you - or it - can blink."
Angelo rubbed his chin pensively. "I can think of a way to bring it down," he said eventually, "a trick that I've never seen described before. But I'm not in a position to pull it off at the moment..."
"It's a pity that the killing the vampiric mists seems compulsory," Felicity opined as they left the Pit of the Faithless. "Otherwise this segment could have been completed pacifistically. At least there's still the sarcophagus to check out, in case you'd forgotten."
Angelo had not forgotten about the mystery coffin and he would not forget about the Unseeing Eye. But now was not the time to tackle these problems. Now was the time, though, to take a trip to the Graveyard District and start Chapter 3.
Worse, this interaction would 'alert' the mists, so they could assail him as if he'd attacked after casting Improved Invisibility; renewing Invisibility would make him vanish again, but they would still hug his every move, waiting for him to reveal himself. As if this wasn't enough, once down to Badly Injured, they became able to see through even his renewed illusion and ignored any summons to target him exclusively.
Standard vampiric mists, and most other mists, see through invisibility. I'm not sure why they wouldn't just attack you.
He was about to sneak past and loot the pile of dead bodies when Felicity informed him that he was of high enough level that a lich would spawn if he crossed the chamber.
The summoning trigger only blocks the entrance to the larger hut. Entering from Theshal's side, you can cross the chamber safely. Of course, Angelo doesn't need the gauntlets since he already has more Dex than that.
Given that the Unseeing Eye was... unseeing... Angelo suspected that Mislead's illusion would work even better than usual. Somewhat paradoxically, the Unseeing Eye had already displayed the ability to cast True Sight, but his Spell Immunity: Divination would protect him from that.
The Eye innately sees through invisibility, but it can't use eye rays on invisible targets. Including the block that uses an antimagic ray on anyone with stoneskin, PfMW, invisibility, improved invisibility, bless, chant, haste, or mirror image.
Mage spells and melee attacks, though - you're vulnerable even if you're invisible.
"I wouldn't get too excited about them, either," Felicity replied. "Even if your strikes were true, it still has 95% resistance to all physical damage, as well as 100% resistance to cold and lightning and a mound of hit points." Felicity gasped as she surveyed its stats. "It's only got 3 Charisma... but it's also got an unlisted immunity to level 1 - 4 spells, so no Contagion for you. Short of spamming save-or-suck spells, I can't see a way to win... but its eye beams will disrupt you as fast as you - or it - can blink."
It's also immune to level 6-9 spells, plus specific immunities to a number of level 5 spells. The complete list of save-or-suck spells that might work is (1) Feeblemind.
The spell level immunities, weapon enchantment immunities, and damage resistances can, of course, be removed by using the Rift Device. They're an SCS-added feature, meant to make it exceedingly hard to win the fight if you don't use it.
Standard vampiric mists, and most other mists, see through invisibility. I'm not sure why they wouldn't just attack you.
I'm not sure either, but I tested multiple times and this was the behaviour I observed every time. The poison mists found on the first floor of Watcher's Keep cannot see through invisibility; the other mist-like creatures - the wandering horror and vampiric wraiths - can follow you around, but cannot attack you until you become at least partially visible. For example, Angelo can stand around invisible (with fear protection gear) here, prompting 'I should be more productive with my time', and although the others swarm without attacking, the poison mist is totally uninterested.
The summoning trigger only blocks the entrance to the larger hut. Entering from Theshal's side, you can cross the chamber safely. Of course, Angelo doesn't need the gauntlets since he already has more Dex than that.
As long as Angelo doesn't uncover the back chamber, he can use either entrance without activating the lich. In one test I did, by sneaking anticlockwise around the perimeter and looting the gauntlets from behind, he didn't trigger the lich appearing, but the behaviour wasn't repeatable, so I didn't include it.
It's also immune to level 6-9 spells, plus specific immunities to a number of level 5 spells. The complete list of save-or-suck spells that might work is (1) Feeblemind.
I only tested Feeblemind and it was vulnerable, but I didn't want to exclude later options (e.g. Disintegrate) prematurely, so I broadened the scope. I will update.
The spell level immunities, weapon enchantment immunities, and damage resistances can, of course, be removed by using the Rift Device. They're an SCS-added feature, meant to make it exceedingly hard to win the fight if you don't use it.
I can confirm that no rift device will be harmed in the killing of this creature.
Executive Summary: Angelo's summons clear the Graveyard District while he declares war on the shadow thieves.
"Is there any reason you couldn't have pursued this before?" Felicity asked Angelo as they left the sewers behind. "I sense you'll soon be acquiring a spider figurine that some adventurers may hold in higher regard."
"Not especially," Angelo shrugged. "I mainly chose this order to keep the narrative relatively clean, but if they were in desperate need of summons, they could have come here earlier. Six and half a dozen, if you catch my drift."
Interview with the Vampire
"At last," Bodhi teased as Angelo arrived at the Graveyard District after dark, "I was beginning to think you'd never make it."
"Your servant Valen made it sound like visiting was an urgent matter," Angelo replied, "but I am not one to be rushed."
"Curt, but efficient," Bodhi murmured. "Then I will reply in kind. Only this time, I will press you for a decision. Those shadow thieves cannot be trusted. They give you an offer, then change it when it suits them. Far better you put your faith in a vampire like me, who gives you a quote and sticks with it."
"Will I get to keep my stronghold if I side with you?" Angelo asked. "Some online naysayers claim that it will disappear if I accept your offer."
"Of course," Bodhi laughed with surprise. "I only turn away single class thieves for being too close for comfort. I see no contradiction between earning money for the shadow thieves guild while simultaneously working against them."
"And the monsters that lie within these tombs," Angelo continued. "Do you have any objection to me smashing them up?" Bodhi shook her head. "Good," Angelo said as he signed along the dotted line, ridding himself of 15,000 GP, earning 36,750 XP and starting Chapter 3.
Exp-lower-ing the Lower Tombs
In fact, undead wasn't the first thing that greeted Angelo when he descended after Bodhi to the Lower Tombs, but a living man called Antenos. Neither he nor any of the other human slaves (suggestively named Fetch, Chore... and Food!) had anything of interest to say, so Angelo passed them in favour of the pool of blood in a hidden chamber behind a room of coffins (which was itself hidden). Enduring the 20 HP damage netted him a mace of disruption +1, which killed undead unless they saved versus death with -4 penalty. After disarming a Lightning Bolt trap on a chest in Bodhi's Inner Sanctum, Angelo also took the katana +2 and the ashen scales (i.e. scale mail +2).
Returning to the ground floor, Angelo summoning his regular contingent, cast Invisibility and poked around. He met several groups of various arachnids (the bottommost even switched it up with a few ettercaps) - due to his undead's poison and physical resistance, the most dangerous of these were the giant spiders and their Web tangles (which, strangely, could ensnare his spiders). Still, stealth and a willingness to rest was enough to send them packing.
Despite the game regularly warning him about the presence of traps, they were concentrated in the southwestern reach (apart from a Ray of Enfeeblement floor trap on the east passage). What's more, the Skull Trap floor trap nearest the inner circle was actually avoidable if Angelo hugged the edges.
After disarming the Flame Strike trap on the chest opposite, Angelo moved along this corridor towards the exit. There, he disarmed a Chain Lightning floor trap (which was unavoidable) and a Cloudkill trap on a nearby chest for no notable benefit.
Paying Pai' Na a Visit
Angelo stuck his head into the central tower. There, he saw commoners Treddin, Bene, Samar and Philbert surrounding Pai'Na, a drow avenger. Since he was invisible, she did not immediately initiate dialogue, but something felt off about the encounter, so Angelo sneaked over to the back of the room. Out of sight of Pai'Na, he could summon his skeletons and spiders in peace. Hasting them, Angelo hid in the shadows, approached Pai'Na and picked the spider figurine right out of her pocket.
As predicted, Pai'Na immediately turned hostile, with the commoners proving themselves to be nothing more than vessels for more arachnids. Their poison caused 5 damage per tick and the tick rate was vicious - even though Angelo had his periapt on, he still cast Invisibility and slunk away while his summons engaged Pai'Na. With all of the monsters otherwise occupied, Angelo waited until his sword spiders had died, freeing up a slot for his efreeti to fill and lob Fireballs into the fog of war. While this didn't have much effect on his magic resistant skeletons, it toasted the hordes of spiders quite nicely indeed.
Pai'Na may have turned into a salamander and avoided the damage, but if she had, it was no big deal. Surrounded as she was and out of Iron Skins, she may as well have shapechanged into a sitting duck. And with a golem, a berserk warrior and newly acquired Kitthix in tow, any remaining spiders were mopped up without incident.
A Tomb with a View
Venturing into the Southern Tombs, Angelo was taken with the floor mural of an Egyptian woman. "Such intricate details are bound to disguise some nasty surrpises," he murmured switching on Find Traps... and he wasn't wrong! The left and right eyes featured, respectively, petrification and Lightning Bolt traps while the chin concealed a magical damage trap. Perhaps worst of all, hidden on the mural's left hand was a Dire Charm trap that would trigger repeatedly... until Angelo disarmed it, that is.
It was only once Angelo had moved into the centre of the room that the numerous coffins lining the chamber opened, releasing all manner of undead beasties. Luckily, Angelo was invisible and none of said beasties was a lich, so Angelo could escape through the secret door at the bottom of the chamber. This led to passage leading eastwards and southwards, the former bearing a repeating arrow trap while the latter had several traps in quick succession. The first was a monster summoning trap that could be circumvented.
This was followed by a repeating Flame Strike trap, which was also avoidable.
Finally, there was a Chain Lightning trap - again, non-compulsory.
This southernmost chamber served as an excellent base for Angelo to invisibly rest in and cast his lengthy spells to summon support. With patience and repeated applications, these summons would prove enough to tackle the parties of mummies, wraiths, ghouls and shadows posted outside the main chamber. The mummies' bandages proved especially vulnerable to the efreeti's fire-based magic, and Angelo was sure to open the coffin at the crossroads, releasing a skeleton warrior that carried Halcyon +1, a spear that did extra electrical damage.
The only thing that summons could not take out on their own was the 'vampyre' in the main chamber (Angelo had hoped that its aberrant title would signify a lesser variant, but he was out of luck). Immune to < +1 weapons and in possession of Domination and several on-hit attacks (including level drain and drink blood), SCS had significantly upped the vampiric ante. Angelo would have to respond in kind... and he had just the tools to do it!
While the vampyre was busy feasting on his throwaway summons, Angelo crept away and cast Mislead. Stowing the clone away, Angelo moved back in behind the vampyre and whipped out his new toy. Although the mace of disruption was nominally +1, it struck as a +3 weapon, which the vampyre found to its detriment.
"Guess beating my friends up was only a vam-pyrrhic victory for you," Angelo chuckled as he took his leave.
Casing the Crypts
While he was here, Angelo checked out the other tombs in the Graveyard District. Most of them had tough locks and no notable treasure (although, randomly, the middle crypt had a battle axe +2 guarded by a lightning trap). There were a couple of skeleton warriors and mummies in some of the tombs, but they didn't follow Angelo outside, so he could run in and out to plunder their threadbare treasures. The tomb left of Tirdir's premature burial site contained a (self-proclaimed) Crypt King who cast Horror - since it instantly turned hostile, there was no way for Angelo to invisibly approach to Pick Pocket the Namarra +2 it carried. Given this, Angelo let it live (if this was the right term), at least for the time being.
When looting the staff of curing from the southeastern tomb, Angelo discovered a secret door which he hadn't expected to. Felicity told him that it was connected with Clara's Hexxat's quest, which was introduced in the Enchanced Edition. "As you were," Angelo said - he'd come this far without recruiting any companions and had no intention of starting now.
As he was preparing to leave the graveyard, a messenger arrived saying that his thieves had returned to their guild and that Renal was awaiting payment. Bodhi had evidently been telling the truth - it was possible to ally with her and still keep the thieves' guild stronghold. Angelo's next port of call was the harbour... and it'd be the shadow thieves, not Angelo, who would be in the Docks!
Part 59: Angelo Shows the Shadow Thieves Who's Boss
Executive Summary: Our protagonist completes his stronghold quests and decimates the shadow thieves' ranks.
As they entered his stronghold, Felicity pondered Angelo's latest conundrum. "Why would anyone use Open Locks, Detect Illusion and Stealth if they had Knock, True Sight and Invisibility? Umm... paltry XP, circumvention of Spell Immunity and the ability to use with an antimagic shell?" The imp scratched her head. "I guess I don't really know."
Angelo's smile widened. "Exactly."
Assassinating Ama
Angelo rocked up at his new joint to find his familiar trio of thieves - Jariel was interested in talking payments, Joster was interested in taking payments and Lathan was the designated giver of quests. As usual, Joster was bought off with the leftovers from Jariel's weekly instalments, but Lathan was joined by Ama, purporting to be the shadowmaster from east Esmeltaran. Agreeing to meet her at Waukeen's Promenade at midnight to deal with a pesky local politician, Angelo was about to leave when Kamuzu, the prisoner he'd sprung from Mae'Var's gaol, showed up. "You don't want to be trusting her," he said, confirming Angelo's suspicions. "Hell hath no fury like a lover who's just found her partner's killer."
Angelo concurred, but he went to Waukeen's Promenade anyway. He arrived on the southern edge at midday, but the clock automatically progressed to midnight and he was teleported to the northern exit where Ama was waiting. "Put your weapons away," she smiled. "We want to appear unassuming."
"Would it not be more unassuming to turn invisible?" Angelo asked, rubbing his efreeti bottle. The genie arrived alongside the 'politician' Sir Greshal, who came with several assassins. "No matter," Angelo shrugged as the efreeti completed its spell and he disappeared. The thieves seemed flummoxed by this - perhaps they thought that Mae'Var's killer would be helpless? In any case, the battle was as good as over, since the enemy AI didn't know what to do once the efreeti's time was up. They stood around doing nothing while the Amnian soldier standing guard thwacked them repeatedly.
Using Detect Illusion to ensure that no mugger had drunk a potion of invisibility to escape, Angelo returned to his guild. Lathan had more bad news - apparently, one of his thieves had been removing their profits, leaving Angelo with less proceeds. Unimpressed, Angelo ordered all suspects' wages docked until the rogue was caught and left it to his underlings to administer their own justice.
An Arresting Shipment
Bodhi's first task involved intercepting a shadow thief shipment taking place by the harbour. After casting Invisibility and Stoneskin, Angelo also glugged a pair of potions of master thievery, then descended to the quayside. Although Mook usually turned hostile immediately, as she couldn't see Angelo, her circle remained blue. This allowed Angelo to close in and Pick Pocket the Smuggled Shipment of wooden stakes. As she was a thief with 70% PP herself, this was an opposed check, so Angelo had drunk some elixirs to ensure he could seal the deal in time.
Once he became visible, several hidden shadow thieves tried to claim their piece of Angelo pie. However, his stone skins deflected their backstabs long enough for his ring of invisibility to kick in. Arkanis Gath carried some decent treasure (Rifthome Throwing Axe +3 and a Short Sword +2), but the others had disappointing loot, making them unworthy of Angelo's wrath. Returning to Bodhi for 28,500 XP seemed like the more economical option.
Armagaran Armageddon
Bodhi offered him a choice for his next mission - kill Armagaran Vulova or rescue Patern Flynn. Given that Vulova surrounded by few guards while Flynn was surrounded by many, the choice was not difficult. Being a nobleman, Vulova was found (unsurprisingly) in the Goverment District, where he resided (equally unsurprisingly) in the Vulova estate. As long as Angelo promised to leave when first challenged, Vulova didn't belabour the point and was happy to be ambushed. The Cowled Wizards would beam in if magic was used, but this didn't stop Angelo setting as many mechanical traps as he could.
After the devices had been laid, all it took was a single backstab to activate them and crumple Vulova. The guards were slow to react, so Angelo dumped the replica cloak and dagger in the fountain as requested, then used his invisibility ring to quit the scene. Bodhi sensed the deed was done and doled out 28,500 XP for his trouble.
You can warn Vulova of Bodhi's intentions, whereupon he leaves while setting the guards on you, but Bodhi awards no XP in this case.
Pushing the Red Button
The last mission was to take out Aran Linvail, head of the shadow thieves, and Bodhi suggested that Angelo 'persuade' old associate Gaelan Bayle to give up his shadow thief cellar key. Angelo knew there was no hope of that - besides the fact that Bayle had 120% Pick Pocket skill, requiring lots of buffing to have any chance of success on the opposed check, but the key wasn't pilferable even if he'd imbibed an inordinate amount of potions. Luckily, Bayle was only a swashbuckler, incapable of backstabbing, and so striding into his abode with Stoneskin and animating several skeletons would take him down.
Invisibly entering the abandoned top floor of the shadow thief guildhall, Angelo disarmed a Magic Missile trap on a left chest and a Dire Charm trap chest on the right (which required Galen's key to open, but housed no notable treasure). The shadowy welcoming committee lay downstairs, but Angelo could sneak past them and Bayle's key opened the cellar entrance disguised as grey bricks on the right wall.
Bodhi had mentioned that freeing her imprisoned associate Tizzak would be useful. Angelo doubted this, but set about it anyway. Jailer Booter began neutral, allowing an invisible Angelo to close and steal the shadow thief prison key (and his two-handed sword +2). Vanishing to shake him off, Angelo unlocked Tizzak's voluminous cell to be informed that getting to Linvail required pushing a red button and acquiring a key from wizard Haz. Then he left, without being so gracious as to offer any XP. "Needn't have bothered with that," Angelo muttered, for Felicity provided all his metagaming needs.
Getting to the button involved navigating some rickety bridges with neutral fighter Dedral and an undetectable Cloudkill trap poised at their centre. Passing up the opportunity for theft, Angelo crossed the bridges and entered a stage seemingly out of a Western movie. The cobblestones disguised a pair of Maze traps that Angelo promptly disarmed, lest his adventure accidentally end rather swiftly.
The button lay at the end of the upper passage, but there were several latent dangers involved in reaching it. Disarming a Dire Charm floor trap, a Skull Trap floor trap and a Fireball floor trap, Angelo finally pushed the button for 17,500 XP. There was no way to disarm the spiked rollers, which inflicted small amounts of damage every few seconds, but Stoneskin blocked it while Angelo made it across and back.
Haz is a Has-Been
The other corridor from the cobbled facade led to a Lightning Bolt trap and a bunch of orcs that were clumped loosely enough for Angelo to sneak through invisibly. Beyond a connecting duct lay another Fireball trap and Haz with some requisite thieves and a priest of Mask. Behind the priest was a corridor culminating in an one-way exit that would dump Angelo in the Dock district. This corridor was conveniently long, allowing Angelo to summon his critters out of sight and send them to dispose first of the priest, then the others. As Haz was already hostile, thievery was not an option - Angelo would have to go for the kill.
Haz had a duo of Death Spells in tow, but was strangely willing to waste his magic - Charm Person, for instance, was cast repeatedly on Angelo's sword spiders and Chaos was never going to work against skeletons. Stowing away around the corner, Angelo sent his minions to individually drain Haz's supplies before finally biting the bullet once the enchanter was dry. Mirror Image was no match for Detect Illusion and Belm cut through Haz's stone skins faster than they were replenished. The enchanter's death yielded 7,000 XP and the key to Aran's Lair, while the priest was worth 2,000 XP and the thieves were 1,400 XP each.
As it happened, the exit to the Docks was perfectly placed. Angelo had exhausted his spells and couldn't rest in the cellar, so he welcomed the chance to go to an inn. Renewing his Invisibility at his stronghold, Angelo went back into the guildhall to retrace his steps. This time, he did pick Dedral's pockets, obtaining the ring of lock picks and various items of lint (potions of freedom and extra healing, and a jade ring). Dedral refused to engage, retreating towards the cobbled area while calling for the guillotines to be halted. No doubt, he wanted to ambush Angelo there, but the joke was on him since Angelo disappeared and went in the opposite direction.
The Ballad of Aran Linvail
Having pushed both the red and Haz's buttons, it was time to finish things. The secret door in the main entrance chamber evidently led to Linvail's abode, but a Flame Strike trap and group of orcs blocked Angelo off from entering unannounced. Still, conjuring some distractions caused enough ruckus for Angelo to disappear and move through them in the commotion. Using a temporary summon which expired after a turn meant that Angelo could progress without risk of them following. Angelo wanted his time with Aran to be uninterrupted, so he welcomed their disappearance.
After passing over the previous connecting duct and an angry air elemental, Angelo arrived at Linvail's chamber. To delay the onset of addiction, he had avoided Mislead up until this point, but he allowed himself an indulgence. Spell Immunity would prevent his priest and wizard lackeys from rooting him out and the bedroom doors would cordon off any premature discovery while he instigated Aran's 17,000 XP death. He even had time to kill said lackeys and loot the room (for a katana +2 and a ring of djinni summoning) before Mislead expired and he beat his retreat.
Bumping back into the air elemental reminded Angelo to be more careful. Casting Invisibility, Angelo left the cellar via the main door, but the air elemental came thundering after him, having somehow followed him through the cellar. Luckily, the door to the main guildhall was shut, so the other shadow thieves were not alerted, and this gave Angelo an idea. The billowing air elemental was too big to fit through the small gap in the curtain, so all it could do was whirlwind Angelo from afar. A Blind spell soon put paid to that, after which it was sniped to its 7,000 XP death with Tansheron's bow.
With his unexpected assailant down and out, it was time for Angelo to go.
Tying Up Loose Ends
Dropping in on his stronghold, Lathan informed him that Darronal Gwin II had turned up dead and the profit skimming had ceased. Sensing that this would be the last complication he'd encounter with his stronghold, Angelo did a bit of shopping. Finally, he returned to Bodhi to earn 50,000 XP and the offer of a ship out of Athkatla.
"Will this affect my thieves' guild's activities?" Angelo asked the vampire. "Felicity has heard rumours that in previous editions, most strongholds were unaffected by this trip, but thieves lost their guild because they couldn't make the weekly payments while they were away."
"When you sensed that Gwin's death was your stronghold's last complication," Bodhi purred, "you were not wrong."
"Have we bought everything we need?" Angelo asked, turning to Felicity. The imp nodded and Angelo turned back to Bodhi. "We accept your terms and we will leave immediately. The high seas await."
As a break from compiling reference post results for @semiticgoddess , I thought it good to share a new tactic I've found to include in it. Ideally, I'd only reveal it in the corresponding playthrough, but as we all know that's miles away...
At one time, I considered taking out all the SCS-LoB wardens a near impossible task - it certainly defeated Angelo the F/M/T when he tried it - but it's actually quite straightforward. What you do is lure them into the floor's top left corner, where you would usually assemble the gong, then disappear. Assuming you can avoid Fear's stunning gaze and Avarice's backstab, then you're golden. The wardens will follow there, but will stand still once they lose sight of you, allowing you to invisibly dance over the nearby repeating Fireball's trap's trigger to your heart's content.
I know what you're thinking... wouldn't Love's persistent Minor Globe of Invulnerability make her immune to Fireball? Indeed, it would, but it only springs up once she sees you. Leave her alone in the corridor, wait for her defences to fall off and then invisibly blast her to smithereens. She deserves it!
Here's Tranzig, my trusty avenger, illustrating the method:
Not even Fear's awesome regeneration can survive such a roasting.
Tricky dicky Avarice also kicks the bucket. He deserves it almost as much as Love.
And speaking of Love...
Pride is equally vulnerable, but I didn't get a screenshot. :-(
If you can, once you've invisibly lured them into the corridor, run away and rest - this resets Avarice's roaming and stops him from wandering off. An efficient method in a WS run is to use a Protection from Magic scroll to loot the Wisdom tome and the odd looking key (both are guarded by charm traps that are difficult to protect against in a WS run), then use the remaining duration to kill Love - the globe means you can't use spells to disappear and potions are out for a WS run, but it can be done with Stealth. And why couldn't Angelo use this method? Because, gosh darn it, he'd already disarmed the repeating trap on the way to fighting the wardens. Still, if he had, he could have gotten through the whole of Durlag's Tower without killing a single creature himself!
Nice work @AvidGamerFan! Personally I prefer the trapped corridor southwest of the elevator. It has a fireball trap, a lightning bolt trap, a cloudkill trap, and another fireball trap. The first fireball trap barely requires any luring of Love. If you flee toward the corridor after activating him or use a summon, he'll follow you for a bit. You can then go invisible without having to deal with the other dangerous warders. Unfortunately the warders are immune to the lightning and cloudkill traps. Oaen, a fighter/illusionist buried deep in this thread got rid of the warders this way.
Executive Summary: Neither pirates nor a dead god are a match for Wraithform!
The voyage from Athkatla was blissfully uneventful. Bodhi muttered something about disliking the ocean crossing - a liberal interpretation of vampire’s hatred of running water, perhaps – but Angelo’s own trip was plain sailing. "The easiest way to proceed is just to bribe Desharik's guard with 300 GP, then convince the pirate lord that you're insane," Felicity muttered once Saemon had left.
"And miss out on all of Brynnlaw's subquests?" Angelo shook his head. "For once, we'll take the scenic route."
Gallavanting with Galvena [Optional]
Following captain Saemon's hint, Angelo dropped in on Sanik at the Vulgar Monkey tavern. Just as he was about the spill the beans on entering Spellhold, an assassin ported in and shot him... except it was LoB mode, so it actually took several shots to end the cutscene. This ate away at the assassin's supply of 20 arrows +1, after which he reverted to a regular short sword... allowing Angelo to cast Wraithform to immunise himself to the assassin's attacks.
After the assassin's 900 XP death, the bartender suggested finding Claire, Sanik's girlfriend and courtesan Lady Galvena. Angelo didn't need any encouragement to visit the prostitutes outside Lady Galvena's Festhall, although they needed some to engage with him. Acquiring Galvena's medallion from nearby pimp Chremy was necessary for further solicitation - despite being a rogue, Chremy only had 5% Pick Pockets, so the opposed stealing check was not difficult. After this and some assurances that Lady Galvena would come to harm, the courtesan was happy to escort him to her bedroom.
Inside, the courtesan offered Angelo a sleeping draught to take to the cook down the corridor. The guards were initially on edge, but Angelo assuaged their suspicions by pretending to be new and promising to leave. The chef Ellie needed little persuasion to drop it into the guard's beers, earning Angelo 1,000 XP, and talking to the courtesan nearby before hopping out into the corridor initated a cutscene that drugged the soldiers. One of the room they were guarding contained Captain Rerdes, who became similarly intoxicated for 4,000 XP, and a bookshelf with Galvena's key to open the far door.
Angelo was pleased to see a set of jail cells, as this allowed him to easily hide Mislead's clone behind a closed door (if Angelo entered another area, Mislead's illusion would fail, but hiding the clone within the same area was kosher).
Since Galvena and conjurer Vadek would turn hostile on sight anyway, Angelo took pre-emptive action to prevent them from becoming a threat. Being unable to defend themselves, both Galvena and Vadek were easily disposed for 4,000 XP and 8,000 XP apiece.
After he'd looted their bodies, Claire gave out 10,000 XP and accompanied Angelo to Golin, the captain of a ship that she would have used to sail away with Sanik had he not been assassinated. The dialogue revealed the presence of Perth the Adept, a retired cowled wizard with a wardstone that accessed Spellhold, although Angelo could also persuade Desharik of his insanity with Golin offering to put in a good word to placate the guard. None of this was necessary for Angelo, who had the help of Felicity's metagaming, but the 22 GP from asking for a reward was kinda nice.
(Cala)Handling Ginia [Optional]
Before proceeding with the main story, Angelo checked out Brynnlaw's only subplot. Locating Ginia on the east side of town (and the wand of paralysation hidden in a niche nearby), Angelo refused to pay 1 GP to hear her sob story... whereupon she told it anyway. Figuring he'd help out, he paid 200 GP to Calahan to secure 2,000 XP and Ginia safe passage (along with brother Ason). Having already given up Galvena's medallion, Chremy then gave up his 1,100 XP life, his normal short sword unable to penetrate Angelo's Wraithform spell. Talking to Ginia again earned 9,000 XP more as she vowed to leave and never return.
Perth the Not So Adept [Optional]
Initially, Angelo decided to see if there were any other methods of entering Spellhold that Golin didn't know about. Felicity informed him that crossing the bridge without Perth's wardstone would set off petrification wards, but this was an easy status to protect against... and sure enough, the 1st level spell was enough to let him cross without incident.
However, Spellhold's door remained closed with no option to Knock to pick its lock. And although the enemies that prowled the area by day could be avoided using Invisibility, the mists that appeared at night would follow him around, so Angelo decided to leave while the going was good.
So either Perth or Desharik would have to be pursued. Since Perth carried the book of infinite spells as well as the wardstone, it made sense for Angelo to take him out. And although Perth could be approached invisibly and relieved of his possessions via Pick Pocket, he was capable of summoning a dark planetar that could see through Angelo's illusions (as well as occasionally casting True Sight illegally). Better off to just kill him outright.
Fortunately, there was a neat way to do this. Perth would initiate dialogue if approached, but spells could by fired from the entrance before engagement. Perth would also turn hostile if an unsuccessful Feeblemind was attempted, but Domination suffered from no such hang up. As soon as Perth was charmed, Angelo wasted no time in making him cast Bigby's Clenched Fist on himself, a disabler that stunned with no save and allowed Angelo to kill him before its duration ran out.
Perth's memorised spells vary, but there should be some way for him to commit suicide.
After Perth's 20,000 XP death, Angelo disarmed the Power Word Silence trap on the chest and looted the rather unexciting items. With the wardstone in his possession, Angelo could now pass the bridge to Spellhold, but the alternative would prove more rewarding. Having the option to pursue one path would not disqualify Angelo from taking another one.
Pirating the Pirate Lord
Since Angelo had completed Sanik and Claire's quest, Golin's referral could be used in lieu of 300 GP to pass the guard and enter the Pirate Lord's Home. Figuring there would be some treasure, Angelo disarmed the poison arrow trap on the locked painting and the spear trap on a chest before taking the lot. In truth, it wasn't very exciting, but it could be sold at the Brynnlaw store to make up for the gold spent in Athkatla before Angelo took the boat. The proceeds could also buy a girdle of bluntness from the Temple of Umberlee, which Angelo had a sneaking feeling he'd be using in the near future.
Hearing Angelo's battle with himself caused Desharik to ponder that his 'ravings would seem forced coming from a less charismatic person'. Angelo tapped his ring of human influence and explained how this put him above the 16 Charisma threshold. Desharik accepted his explanation, awarding 38,500 XP, and admitted Angelo to the asylum. "Strange that a low Wisdom is of no help here," Felicity muttered as they left.
"Low Wisdom coming right up," Angelo replied with more than a hint of irony.
Having a Bhaal
Lonk the Sane welcomed Angelo to the asylum by giving him pointers on which inmates to avoid, advice that Angelo proceeded to ignore. Talking to Naljier Skal gave 5 random gems (and picking his pocket a potion of extra healing), but beyond the rogue stone on the lounge table, there was little solid to be gained beyond a few Easter eggs. After waiting for a few minutes, Irenicus spawned in and informed Angelo that Saemon had poisoned his food, causing him to fall into a deep slumber.
It was Imoen who greeted Angelo when he awakened in Candlekeep, speaking in riddles assuring Angelo of an upcoming lesson in self-acceptance. It was no surprise, therefore, when a demon confronted him demanding that he give up some of his essence. Unfortunately, Angelo knew of no clever way of circumventing this (all the usual suspects - Feeblemind, stat drain, etc. - did not work, and probably wouldn't anyway since he needed passage to the next are enabled, rather than the demon killed per se). After consulting with Felicity, he declared that Wisdom was the stat he'd be sacrificing.
Assuming min-maxing, this is probably the best choice for all non-divine casters. For divine casters, Intelligence is the next best loss: anyone not an elf or halfling could go up to 20 max Dexterity unbuffed, but although there's no difference between 19 and 20 Dexterity except for thief skills, 1 fall point should be set aside for the selfless path in Hell. A C/M and a F/M/C won't be happy, but they should view it as punishment for being so awesome elsewhere. And elf or halfling divine casters don't count because we're assuming min-maxing!
After the sacrifice, Candlekeep opened up and Imoen suggested drawing the avatar of Bhaal outside to her. Since preliminary tests had already confirmed that it was otherwise indestructible, Angelo was keen to lure it to its doom. However, it was surprisingly hard to get Bhaal to play (ahem) ball, so Angelo required a cunning workaround. For all its supposed divine power, Bhaal used a normal weapon, so Angelo cast Wraithform and allowed it to realise that its weapon was useless. Having lured the avatar to Candlekeep's entrance, Angelo then summoned a critter and once Bhaal changed focus, ordered it to attack him. Finally, he then entered Candlekeep, followed by the critter (using the same 'area-transition' trick as he used with Roger the Fence) followed by Bhaal (who could similarly transition when attacking something else).
Not that I can see them reaching this point, but wizard slayers would have real problems here with no means of summons. Since this part is compulsory, going inside Candlekeep and cheating the avatar inside (using C:CreateCreature("ppbhaal"); see https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65091/bhaal-wont-follow-me-into-candlekeep-so-i-can-fight-him). Apparently, it's a mod-related problem that doesn't show up in normal installs.
Once Bhaal was inside Candlekeep and in sight of Imoen, Angelo cut the fiend down with Wraithform still active. It used some potions, which could be stolen before battle commenced by approaching invisibly, but the result was never in doubt.
This caused the dream to collapse and Angelo reappeared inside Irenicus' torture chamber. Although his escapade earned him 48,500 XP, Irenicus declared that the experiment had been a success. Triumphant, he bid Bodhi dispose of the evidence and Angelo's screen went dark...
As he blacked out, Angelo felt the pang of ignominious defeat. In tracking down his foe, he had allowed his Bhaalspawn power, along with Imoen's, to be extracted. And he was due to be executed by the vampire that had brought him here. It seemed that his Wisdom, now lower than before, had never been that high to begin with...
Part 61: Angelo, Imoen and the Loony Bin {Edited For Accuracy}
Executive Summary: Completing the Asylum's first two floors is a curious mix of easy, tedious and difficult.
Not even having his soul ripped from his body was enough to keep our intrepid protagonist down for long. He awoke to find Bodhi gloating at length about why keeping him alive was not a terrible idea. "I thought I'd even give you back Imoen," she dangled teasingly, "as a way of raising the stakes."
"The only stakes I'll be raising," Angelo promised, "are those I'll be plunging into your dark heart!" But Bodhi had disappeared, leaving him to rot in deepest Spellhold.
Riddle Me This
For all of Angelo's heartlessness, he felt a genuine pang of guilt abandoning Imoen for a second time. Surely the thought of his arrival was the only thing that had kept her going during her darkest hours... and when her saviour, the one she had dreamed about for so long, finally shows up, he casts her out to find her way alone simply to satisfy his own pride in completing his trials alone? Were Angelo not 100% confident that this would spare her further pain, he would have taken her to his breast in a heartbeat. But rulez is rulez and Angelo ain't nuffink if not a stickler for rulez!
Almost as apology for whisking away his Bhaalspawn powers, Angelo found that this area offered multiple opportunities for easy XP. The dozen stone masks could be investigated while invisible, with the completion of their conundrums offering 5,000 XP and a ring of regeneration; similarly, transporting all the items from a central chest to their respective containers earned 20,000 XP for very little work. In addition to a dusty rose ioun stone (did Angelo look like a kensai?!), the latter also offered a sapphire stone which could be invisibly deposited into the nearby portal without alerting the rakshasa rukh or the surrounding mephits. This summoned a djinni, who donated plate mail +3 and words of encouragement.
Since Angelo was prepared for place himself in a modicum of danger, the treasures climbed yet higher. Only some gibberlings stood between him and a spear +3 (plus some bullets, throwing axes and throwing daggers) and a clay golem was slow enough for Invisibility to be recast after Angelo had looted the arrows and darts it was guarding. The barrel was trapped (with a Death Spell - harmless, since Angelo was above level 8) and with good reason... the bag of holding was a timely addition and the end to Angelo's inventory management problems.
What Felicity could tell him, however, is that the traps in the northern corridor were unremovable and would kill any thief that attempted it. Pitying any poor ironman character who lacked this vital insight, Angelo ignored the possibility of luring creatures into it with summons, as nothing on this floor was worth fighting. Instead, he left for the second floor via the entrance by the clay golem room (rather than the one in the main chamber), vowing to consistently use this one since the other would dump him in an umber hulk scrum ('scrumber hulk'?).
R A Salvatore's Kurtulmak's Crystal Shard
No sooner had Angelo set foot on the second floor than his spider sense detected a secret door. Summoning and hasting his usual contingent of skeletons and arachnids, Angelo investigated to find a selection of kobolds and imps (much weaker than those he'd fought in SoD's Avernus, he noted wryly). With a sigh - this sorry bunch wasn't worth wasting a Mislead on - Angelo set his summons on them and invisibly watched the slaughter.
After his conjured army had killed the trash mob, Angelo saw the large crystal begin to pulse, teleporting in a pair of kobold shamans who proceeded to summon a trio of kobolds (including an xvart lookalike) and a kobold witch doctor... obviously Black Isle had been reading the AD&D adventure Dragon Mountain! His summons were looking slightly the worse for wear, so Angelo cast Wraithform and waded in himself to assist them, the illusion shielding him from most of their blows. Once this kobold wave had subsided, the crystal admitted defeat and allowed a shard to be broken from its surface. One of the shamans carried a stake, which Angelo surmised he would be using very shortly.
A Most Rewarding Read
As well as a hidden crystal, the entrance chamber also housed an ancient tome mounted on a pedestal. Never one to ignore such a blatant trap, Angelo summoned his battalion once more before invisibly turning its pages. Although he was not surprised that something appeared, he was surprised that it was only a kobold captain... a monster he reckoned he could just about tackle without his bodyguards. The sword spider that arrived next was slightly less disappointing, but was dispatched with equal ease, and while the umber hulk's confusion and crushing attacks caused problems for his spiders and skeletons respectively, it could not stand against both simultaneously.
However, just as Angelo was getting comfortable, the book threw him a curveball. Unlike SoD's Darkshelin, the newly-conjured mindflayer was SCS-enabled and hence a real nuisance. Within an instant, a psionic attack disabled the live summons and new toy Detonate exploded his undead minion. This disabled the usual way of dispatching mindflayers - Animate Dead's skeletons were previously immune to psionics - and seeing the mindflayer advance told Angelo that they could see through invisibility. This vastly diminished Mislead's power and the mindflayer's 50% physical resistance diluted it yet further. However, even this was preferable to chancing their universally good saving throws and 90% magic resistance. Added to their array of psionic attacks, at will invisibility/teleportation and their 5 ApR draining 5 Intelligence per hit, Angelo had no qualms in designating SCS mindflayers the most dangerous opponents in the game.
These abilities mean there are precious few ways to deal with LoB-SCS mindflayers at the best of times... at this early stage, even fewer still... but luckily the circumstances were tilted in Angelo's favour here. Felicity had warned him of its imminent arrival and Angelo had set as many traps as he could. As a level 14 thief, Angelo's traps inflicted poison damage every round in addition to its initial burst and the mindflayer could only explode one skeleton per round. Keeping himself out of harm's way, Angelo knew he'd only have to survive a few rounds before the stacked poisons did their job. Just to be bitchy, the mindflayer invoked Planar Travel and escaped once it reached Badly Injured, denying Angelo the 9,000 XP he'd gain from its death, but at least it was gone, one way or another.
Another read of the book summoned a further opponent that was difficult to defeat if a hard-counter was not used. Luckily, Angelo possessed such a counter - it was the shield of Balduran, not Animate Dead, that was obsoleted by SCS this time - and Angelo invisibily let the skeletons take the brunt of the beholder's rays. A final glance at the tome produced a ring of free action, as well as scrolls of Simulacrum and Summon Fiend, which seemed suitable reward for the horrors he'd endured to obtain them.
It is possible to activate the book 5 times and acquire the treasure without breaking Invisibility... but since the mindflayer can see through the illusion anyway, it's not easy to capitalise on this.
Dace of Disruption
The next chamber contained a 3,000 XP mist horror whose immunity to <+1 weapons made Angelo's summons useless. "Two can play at that game," Angelo murmured as he cast Wraithform - its immunity to normal weapons also applied to its attacks while the mist horror's defences did not extend to Belm. Cutting it down at his leisure, Angelo took the Simulacrum scroll from the vases nearby, wondering why he bothered to finish the book.
As he meandered down the corridor, he heard the sound of enemy skeletons being raised. There were very few enemies that could perform such a deed, and Angelo correctly guessed that a lich was up ahead. Although his Invisibility shielded him from the gaze of the surrounding ghasts, mummies and bone golems, the lich saw right through it and began casting Time Stop. Taking evasive action, Angelo shut himself in the adjacent library to peruse the Finger of Death and Power Word: Stun scrolls while the Time Stop passed harmlessly.
He used the breathing space to take stock of the situation. On the one hand, the mob guarded a vase with a quarterstaff +3, which was nice but unessential. On the other hand, if the mindflayer was the most difficult foe in BG2, then the lich wasn't far behind. Immune to level <5 spells and non-magical weapons, liches also possessed the standard undead immunity suite and could see through Invisibility to boot. And even once it had exhausted its magical armoury, SCS provided them with an unlimited supply of Energy Blades which they hurled with unerring accuracy.
Luckily, Angelo could use the lich's torpidity to dash out while it cast some spell it would abandon once Angelo left its line of sight. Seeing an upcoming neutral vampire reminded Angelo to retrieve the mace of disruption he'd brought with him from Athkatla before starting his usual Mislead preparations. Maces did not allow for backstabs, but Mislead allowed Angelo disruption without interruption, basically guaranteeing the 8,500 XP kill. A followup stake to the coffin (courtesy of the earlier kobold shaman) prevented the vampire's escape, earned 9,000 XP and deposited the hand of Dace in his inventory.
His business concluded, Angelo ran back into the lich's chamber, hoping that he could grab the staff and go (unlike Invisibility, Mislead allowed the safe looting of containers without dispelling its illusion). He'd reckoned without its triple Remove Magic sequencer, but his ring of invisibility provided an uninterruptible getaway before the hordes could enclose and cut off his escape route. Similar tactics evaded the selection of yuan-ti who had gathered around the large statue head on the first floor, allowing Angelo to plunder the Delayed Blast Fireball and Project Image scrolls without retaliation. Having both Kurtulmak's crystal shard and the hand of Dace opened the statue's mouth, giving Angelo 29,500 XP and access to the third floor.
"So long, suckers," Angelo scoffed as he left the yuan-ti high and dry. He had a date with a double-crossing vampire... and he didn't want to be late!
Comments
Executive Summary: Angelo completes all bar one of the peaceful quests initially available in Athkatla.
Although Chapter 1 was basically complete, Angelo wandered through into the Slums Disctrict and accepted Gaelan Bayle's offer to raise 20,000 GP, thereby formalising proceedings. Sadly, he got no more XP for starting Chapter 2 (this wasn't SoD, which doled out XP for advancing the plot), but Felicity informed him that this would not be a problem...
Looking back, I was perhaps a little too brief in my writeup of BG's starter quests. At the risk of paying excruciating detail to rather tedious gameplay, I won't make the same mistake again.
The grave was also conveniently next to the paladin Kamir, who had failed to protect his adopted son. Although Angelo wanted nothing more than to scoff at the knight's ineptitude, he sensed it was more profitable to talk to the priest Arenthis elsewhere in the district. This allowed him to persuade Kamir to adopt orphan girl Risa, earning Angelo 12,250 XP. Going back to Arenthis prompted another 3,000 XP boost and serious concerns about Athkatla's social services.
After a little encouragement, Lehtinan allowed Angelo access to the Copper Coronet's backrooms. Cowering in the first corridor, Llynis was eager to surrender Littleman the stuffed bear, which Angelo took as a fair trade for his miserable life, and giving it to Wellyn earned a further 15,500 XP. While he was exploring the Copper Coronet, Angelo also took master pickpocket Yarin's gloves from the adjacent cabinet, figuring he'd put these to good use soon enough.
Both clues must be uncovered before Rejiek admits his guilt (Faraji, a light-fingered child, accuses Mrs Cragmoon, but this is a red herring with no consequence).
The tanner shop's top floor was one of the aforementioned exceptions to the Cowled Wizards' ignorance
about casting indoors, so Angelo descended to the basement (which had no such restriction). After Rejiek retreated again, Angelo disarmed a quartet of traps (the floor traps released Cloudkill, Lightning Bolt and Fireball, while the chest was Call Lightning and the shelves had a hidden spear), but did not follow the tanner downstairs. Instead, he returned to the surface and visited an unmarked NE house. The ground floor's traps were both electricity-based (Glyph of Warding on the ground, Lightning Bolt on the chest), but the first floor's were deadlier: petrification awaited a failed save when raiding the side cabinet while the chest was guarded by a Maze spell. Disarming them all, Angelo took the Silver Horn of Valhalla, a prized item that he would be upgrading shortly.
Being an illithium merchant was a profitable business: after paying 1,000 GP for Jerlia to reveal her source, Angelo also promised to a 200 GP subsidy for an alloy substitute. A day later, the price had jumped to 500 GP, but Angelo avoided paying by once again claiming he hadn't the cash... and when he returned moments later, she gave him the ore for free despite nominally charging him half a grand for it. Ever a stickler for details, Sir Sarles refused to accept the substitute (Angelo refused to use the word 'cheap', even if it had been free!), but the Temple of Helm turned out not to be so picky. For his efforts, he was rewarded with a helm of the noble and 10,000 XP and he still had the opportunity to follow up the real illithium with Unger Hilldark, Jerlia's source, in the Copper Coronet.
In classic BG2, it was possible to steal the dawn ring from the temple of Talos before this quest had been assigned, but BG2EE has apparently closed this exploit. Now only thieves, priests of Talos or characters with pilfery-capable familiars can complete the quest without violence.
After persuading a reluctant Trawl to loan it out, Angelo offered it to Trawl, who doled out 10,250 XP and summoned Anarg. Of course, if Anarg initiated dialogue, then a fight would start, so Angelo didn't give him the chance. Deciding that the fallout would be better dealt with later, Angelo walked off before Anarg could arrive.
Had Angelo had < 10 reputation, he would have been tasked with stealing the necklace of Lathander, rather than Talos, which lacked the 20,000 XP 'pickup' reward.
His business in Athkatla concluded, Felicity estimated there was roughly 145,500 XP to be earned peacefully in the city (discounting thief skills, mage scribing and so on). There was one more urban quest that could be completed pacifistically, but Angelo preferred to save this for another day. His next plan was to explore outside the city's limits, as there was plenty to be gained by setting his sights further afield.
Executive Summary: After some important setup, Angelo completes all of Trademeet's many quests.
"The next few updates might be slightly awkward," Felicity Foreshadow warned, living up to her name. "In an actual playthrough, you'd go through all pacifist quests before engaging in combat, but describing this would involve lots of backtracking. Readers may find it hard to keep track of what's been done where, and it wouldn’t lead to satisfactory narrative partitioning."
“How about we compromise?” Angelo asked. “We make a disclaimer saying that we'll push the non-combat angle as far as possible, but then do the combat afterwards, clearly stating the delineation. During our inevitable 'SoA roundup', you can summarise the pacifist quests into a 'this is how we would have done it' post. That way, we can keep continuity flowing within the narrative while also providing the ‘optimal’ route."
Curiously, the Windspear Hills automatically shows up on the world map and is accessible without first 'enabling' it by going through the City Gates (although you must visit the Slums to start Chapter 2 beforehand).
Before he left, Angelo sold his excess gear and purchased a scroll of Protection from Undead. These were significantly rarer in BG2 than the original, so he only bought what was absolutely necessary. Other items could have potentially been useful, and Angelo would comment on those when the opportunity arose.
This time, there was another reason for Angelo's visit. Agreeing to assist Odren teleported the motley crew to the roof, after which Sister Garlena's shop opened up. Her wares’ highlights were the short sword of mask +4 and light crossbow Firetooth +4, but Angelo was more interested in the potion case, the latter being the only pre-ToB example available. This would complement his gem bag (c.f. Ribald Barterman) and scroll case (c.f. Lady Yuth, also of the Adventurers' Mart) nicely. Elsewhere, Brother Pol was happy to give him a vigil stone (required to enter and leave the top floor) and a ritual scroll (to imprison the Imprisoned One... the Knights of the Vigil were big on tautologies!), and Angelo used the first item straight away. Once inside, rather than go through the main door, Angelo ducked left, disarmed the chest’s Chain Lightning trap and took the paladin's bracers. The shelves’ Horror trap was similarly dealt with, although its treasures weren't as notable.
Using Invisibility, he continued clockwise past the stone golem and the literature-appraising trolls. Closing the door behind him, Angelo disarmed the level drain (right bookshelf) and Call Lightning (chest) traps to loot the crimson dart +3 and case of plenty +1. This room was also a haven to conjure some expendable summons, which were used to lure the trolls from the library into this room. Shutting them in, Angelo was free to loot the golem manual from the topmost bookshelf before leaving Watcher's Keep. Its completion would require more firepower than Angelo currently possessed and there was easier XP to be gained elsewhere.
It is technically possible to pacify the priest, memorise the ritual and light the fireplace (for 32,000 XP total) using stealth and summons as distractions. However, this involves entering the central chamber, where the wandering horror and the pair of vampiric wraiths follow you even when invisible (although the poison mist doesn't care). Vampiric wraiths are fast and can open doors, making them difficult to evade, and are incredibly difficult to kill if you don't know their weaknesses. It's ultimately not worth the hassle tackling them at this stage, especially since returning later will trivialise the combat.
On his way out, Angelo was sure to meet Neeber in the town square. Like his BG counterpart, Noober, the quickest way of dealing with Neeber was to repeatedly click on him - 17 dialogues later, Neeber gave up chatting and gave out 1,000 XP. He also watched Rasaad yn Bashir beat up Tannath and Treya, but refused to get involved. Finally, Wilfred the Red boasted about stealing a red dragon's hoard during a visit to a pleasure tent, but Angelo threatened him into admitting his lies, earning 1,000 XP and 100 GP.
Once at the Druid Grove, Angelo relieved the troll mound of its bracers of archery and spear of the unicorn +2, but the real prize was Belm, a scimitar of speed +2 lying in the ogre’s tower. Putting everyone's favourite off-hand weapon in his main hand, he used summons to lure some shambling mounds of position and passed over the bridge pointing westwards. After Cernd seemed unimpressed by his progress, Angelo sneaked past Dalok and the assorted druids and bears into the grove proper to meet Faldorn. Displaying as much haughtiness as she did in BG, Faldorn would not be displaced without a druid challenger... and Angelo knew just the candidate.
Cernd was eager to volunteer, but Angelo again shunned his joining offer. This time, Angelo had his interests in mind, as accepting would have removed Cernd's 'prospective NPC invulnerability'. As it stood, although Cernd could only hit Faldorn on a 20, she couldn't reduce him below 1 HP... making the druid ascension battle a mere timewasting formality.
I'm not kidding about the 'timewasting' bit... it takes nearly a real-time hour for Cernd to beat down Faldorn with his quarterstaff!
On his way back to Trademeet, Angelo dropped into Adratha's cottage. He hadn't spoken to Khan Zahraa in Trademeet yet, so the witch was amiable and had an impressive 10 potions of power in stock. So engaged was she in doing business that she didn't spot Angelo lifting the periapit of proof against poison from her pockets, although he unsurprisingly couldn't steal the Ihtafeer's Head helmet she wore... which would have made his upcoming quest significantly easier! Not to be discouraged, he slunk back to Logan Coprinth for 2,000 GP and 18,000 XP.
If you are of evil alignment, Lord Khellon Menold will offer you Sulphurous Poison to use on the grove after leaving Coprinth's house for the first time. In this case, you will get 23,000 XP and a second Shield of Harmony, but you will not be able to complete Family Feuds (and I wasn't able to trigger Rejiek's quest either). Should you choose this path, you also have to kill Faldorn after poisoning the grove (the others disappear once she goes down), but you can use summons to block off most of the enemy troops.
Neither Khan Zahraa nor Faafirah seemed aware of the first rule of business: never trust Angelo period, but especially not when he sets spike traps around you, then summons troops and buffs them. Angelo tried to start the fight with a bang and a backstab, but missed and Khan Zahraa erected his Stoneskin defences after the traps sliced his health in half. Had Angelo's backstab connected, the fight would have been over in an instant, but Angelo was not afraid of working for his money... he'd just rather not!
While his summons tied up Khan Zahraa, Angelo exploited the dao’s rubbish saving throws and cast Blind on Faafirah. Angelo gave Khan Zahraa the same treatment, but he still fought valiantly against the skeleton and arachnid summons. Unfortunately, although the djinn only let his Stoneskin slip for an instant, it was enough for a spider to deliver what would ultimately be the fatal blow.
This provided Angelo with an early demonstration of why Spider Spawn, even more than Animate Dead, was a low-level mage's ticket to stardom. The arachnids were immune to Web, their poisons stacked and since Spider Spawn was a 4th level spell, he could summon a decent number of them. Khan Zahraa was interrupted whenever he tried to renew his Stoneskin and had he gotten an Invisibility off, Angelo's Detect Illusions would have torn it down. In some ways, Angelo would be sad when he reached wizardly level 12 and his phase spiders would be 'upgraded' to non-venomous sword spiders, but such an advancement would reap its own rewards.
On the subject of reaping rewards, Angelo received 5,000 XP for Khan Zahraa's death (the other dao disappeared once their master was vanquished) and returned to Guildmistress Busya for 7,500 GP, some jewellery (including a rogue stone, whose value would become apparent later) and the shield of harmony +2. Had Angelo not secured Belm, he would have been delighted with Khan Zahraa's scimitar +2... but he still kept it around, despite his lack of two-weapon fighting proficiency, he knew it would prove useful.
Taquee disappears when Khan Zahraa dies, so kill Taquee first if you can't steal the efreeti bottle. The remaining djinn will begin hostile, but the bottle is worth this inconvenience.
Although it made little difference which family Angelo plumped for, the latter yielded elven chainmail if they were killed post-quest, so they were the 'lucky' winners. Using the Trademeet Tomb Key, Angelo opened the crypt, but did not like its inhabitants - two regular skeletons and two skeleton warriors, one of which cast Animate Dead ad infinitum to summon more critters. Not fancying those odds, Angelo retreated and conjured troops of his own. Fortunately, the mindless undead were just that, and any skeletons incapable of casting spells followed Angelo outside for a drubbing from his buffed summons. Both the efreet and the clay golem applied crushing damage, so both skeletons fell fast for 65 XP each and the skeleton warrior followed for 4,000 XP.
After a rest, Angelo realised that if the casting skeleton didn't finish its spell, they'd start from scratch every time. Since Animate Dead has a casting time of 1 round, Angelo could duck in and summon the efreet and golem (along with the berserk warrior) before retreating to prevent enemy reinforcements. After two attempts, the skeleton gave up casting, but by then, its 4,000 XP fate was sealed. Delivering the mantle of Waukeen from its corpse to Logan Coprinth provided 8,000 XP, 250 GP, 1 reputation and the chance to slaughter the Alibakkar estate later if Angelo so chose.
His suspicions grew when he found Darsidian and Raissa together with an unconscious Rejiek in the pavilion. That said, he felt they could have kept the ruse up longer, as he only needed to speak with Raissa once for the charade to be dropped. Angelo let the militia handle the first rounds, which were all he needed to summon assistance. Applying Haste, the skeletal pair went down quickly, earning a measly 15 XP for Rejiek and a whopping 1,400 XP for Darsidian.
Her captors dead, Raissa lamented that only Restoration would cure the affliction she'd acquired from her attackers. A visit to the caravan merchant in a tent by the dao djinni's provided just such a spell (and at a cost lower than the Temple of Waukeen to boot). Glad that non-divine casters could read the relevant scroll, Angelo cured Raissa for 30,000 XP and visiting Jenia and husband Gristor afterwards granted an additional reputation point.
It amused Felicity to note that, in addition to its 97,795 XP (20,000 XP of which was earned without a fight), completing Trademeet also yielded 20,250 GP... which (accounting for the Restoration scroll’s cost, but ignoring any sold items’ proceeds) was almost enough to pay Gaelan Bayle's fee by itself. Angelo had just begun exploring the great beyond... and it was already bearing fruit!
Executive Summary: Angelo abuses the AI's reluctance to turn hostile to rinse the Windspear Hills in style.
"Remember lying Wilfred that we encountered yesterday?" Angelo asked Felicity as they ventured back towards Watcher's Keep service station. "He claimed that he'd robbed a dragon's horde, but that was obviously nonsense. The only person who'll be killing red dragons around here is me."
As soon as the final creature kicked the bucket, earning 27,000 XP in total (an ogre and the baby wyvern were 6,000 XP each, while the other trio were 5,000 XP apiece), Garren Windspear showed up to implore Angelo to follow him. Angelo looked to Felicity for wisdom and she shook her head - for accepting Windspear's charity would result in an unavoidable fight - so Angelo refused. Another Invisibility allowed Angelo to sneak back across the map to the tomb... only for Garren to beat him to it. Keen to get on with dungeon crawling, Angelo agreed to find Garren's child in exchange for a moment's peace and after recasting Invisbility proceeded to enter the dungeon proper.
Skirting through the first floor, Angelo avoided the Chieftain Digdag and the hobgoblins as much as possible, lest their shamans dispel his Invisibility, and didn't even attempt to go for the amulet of protection +1 hidden in the lake, as this would invoke the attention of an illusion-sensing vampiric mist for little reward. Starting neutral, the rakshasa transmuter was too tempting a target for a pickpocket, and a ring of fire resistance was painlessly acquired before yet another Invisibility was used to escape the kamikaze kobolds.
The next floor began with shielded orc archers readying their bows and arrows and Angelo was sure he would have been peppered had he not been invisible upon entering. The illusion allowed him to squat behind the front door, where there was a small blind spot out of sight of the archers where Angelo could rest and memorise Knock.
Unlocking the first door with Knock before turned invisible, Angelo repeated the process on the second door and his Stoneskin deflected the few orc arrows that were snapped off before he disappeared. Moving straight onwards and ignoring the clay golems in the perpendicular corridor, Angelo sneaked past the vampires and lured the wraiths and shadows out of their passage with some disposable summons. Using the chapel key from the chest to unlock the door opposite, Angelo left the undead behind as he progressed to the next stage.
For demonstration of these rules, see Exhibit A.
By immediately turning invisible after stealing the mask pieces, Angelo could escape the guardians (they could launch fire spells if the cast was not immediate and they are able to open doors). Pickpocketing all 6 mask pieces, the Mask of King Strohm was automatically assembled for 24,550 XP. Despite its description mentioned how it allowed him to see things he wasn't able to before, Angelo didn't see his Detect Illusion skill rise and assumed that it would only allow him to this particular challenge.
Donning the mask brought the Guardian (who seemed remarkably like a fire elemental) into focus. Its job done, Angelo replaced the mask with his helm of Balduran in the small chamber linking the efreet guardian, the elemental guardian and the beholder. Of his regular summons, the skeletons and berserker could not harm the elemental guardian, but the golem and efreet could... and while they were too shortlived to complete the job, Angelo's Belm +2 finished what they started.
The Guardian's 10,000 XP death opened the topmost door, allowing Angelo access to the tomb. Assuming that the dragon scale shield (notably not as good as SoD's equivalent) and Peridan +2 was the treasure that Samia was after, there was no way that Angelo was surrendering these. Invisibility allowed him to sneak past Samia (Fighter) and her newfound chums Akae (Kensai), Kaol (Enchanter), Ferric Ironblade (F/T), Legdoril (Cleric) and Chak (umm... Orog?!) who had materialised in the dead Guardian's corridor.
After a quick rest, Garg, Captain and Troll were ignored completely and summons lured the golems away from their positions so that Angelo could loot the beljuril gem and Heartseeker +3. The rest seemed to have dispersed the orogs from swarming the bridge, so Angelo used the opportunity to winch up the well and take the dragon helm (neither dispelled his Invisibility, so he did not alert the angry air elemental). Sadly, the orogs had only been shifted to the landing, so Angelo displaced them again before disarming the Cloudkill trap on the stairs and slipping past Tazok into the next floor.
Given the grandeur of the stairs, Angelo was surprised to see the human mage Conster first before any hint of a dragon, but this gave him an idea. Since Conster was one of these select NPCs who didn't turn hostile after making a successful save against charm, Angelo could happily fire spells until one succeeded. This allowed Angelo to order Conster backwards so that he could approach the mage out of sight of Firkraag and Pick Pocket Conster's key from him.
A F/T or shadowdancer could also use a simulacrum (from Vhailor's helm) or shadow twin to pull this off... but don't try a nymph cloak (since this needs the target to be adjacent)!
This theft allowed the use of a cute trick. By immediately backtracking, Angelo could unlock the jail upstairs and rescue Garren's child Iltha for 23,750 XP. Nipping back downstairs while Conster was still charmed, Angelo claimed that Firkraag owed him and (being of evil alignment) offered to retrieve the deed to Windspear Hills from Garren. This would cause Conster to teleport away, so Angelo didn't have to deal with a hostile mage when the charm expired... and Angelo could visit Garren and Iltha in the Windspear Cabin to earn 44,500 XP more (not forgetting a secret star sapphire hidden in a groove behind his hut). The deeds were a simple Pick Pocket away, after which Angelo could return to Firkraag for yet another 40,500 XP and a cloak of the shield.
"You got at least 40,500 Fed-XP more than you normally would," Firkraag growled in honeyed tones, "I wouldn't be too salty if I were you."
Obviously Firkraag had not studied Angelo too hard, since such saltiness was Angelo's modus operandi. But Angelo apologised through gritted teeth sufficiently convincingly that the dragon failed to notice his reorganisation of his spellbooks. Another rest in Firkraag's chamber (which never resulted in ambush) and Angelo was ready to show off what would become one of his staple tactics.
Feeblemind was never a bad spell to memorise against tough single opponents, but there weren't many opportunities to abuse it in BG1. The sequel, however, sought to rectify this deficiency as quickly as possible, since not only did it offer multiple foes who were deserving of being feebleminded, but it didn't turn some of them hostile if they were to make their saving throw. And one of these creatures, as luck would have it, was Firkraag...
After just one of the unlimited tries had connected, that was it. Permanently lobotomised, Firkiraag could do little more than gurgle as Angelo cut him to shreds.
His 64,000 XP death was neither quick nor painless - it took nearly half an hour of real-time hacking before the dragon finally fell - but it was a guaranteed kill and 100% safe... how often could that be said about a PC just out BG2's starting blocks taking out one of the game's most infamous bosses?
As Angelo stuffed Carsomyr into his backpack - Use Any Item couldn't come quickly enough - Felicity found her voice. "Firkraag's Dungeon is arguably one of the most fearsome dungeons in cRPGs (https://medium.com/@felipepepe/what-makes-a-good-rpg-dungeon-505180c69d00 )... and yet, with the right tactics, it was almost a formality."
"Sounds very similar to another entry on that list," Angelo smirked. "Anyway, I hope you're not bored of slaying dragons yet, Felicity... we're going to do it all over again tomorrow!"
Executive Summary: Despite some unexpected company, Angelo sweeps through the Umar Hills and Temple Ruins.
Non-Brits probably won't appreciate the title; Brits probably won't appreciate it either, but for different reasons!
Felicity calculated that Angelo had earned 133,300 XP for doing quests and 101,000 XP for killing monsters in the Windspear Hills. In total, this gave him 234,300 XP - nearly a quarter of a million - and there was plenty more where that came from!
I believe this quest is a sly reference to a Baldur's Gate Easter Egg. Before BG2 was released, a rumour spread online that in early versions of BG1, a random squirrel carried an Ioun Stone of Luck. This led to adventurers massacring the wildife across the Sword Coast in pursuit of an item that, in all likelihood, never existed.
Angelo moved some summoned fodder next to the chest so the mimic would reveal itself. The distracted mimic was dispatched (for 3,000 XP) by the efreet's remaining spells... Angelo didn't lift a finger himself. Storing the diamond (also useful for the silver horn of Valhalla upgrade!), Angelo returned to Jermien for his 19,250 XP and Ilbratha +1 reward.
When Jermien failed to animate his stone golem properly, he was glad that Angelo had laid spike traps in anticipation. Thankfully, the golem aimed for its creator, allowing Angelo to summon a golem of his own. While Jermien pelted the construct uselessly with magic missiles (these Cowled Wizard exams must be easy!), Angelo spent his time more wisely hasting his summons. Although he didn't deserve to, Jermien outlasted his golem, netting Angelo 8,000 XP from its death and 21,250 XP from his realisation of his foolishness.
Testing shows off Valygar's invincibility!
Valygar wanted to join Angelo and investigate the Planar Sphere, but since Angelo was only interested in the latter option, the stalker left for Athkatla, which was much more convenient.
Werewolf Anath drew Angelo into her cave only to inform him that she would charge against the Shade Lord. Unwilling to interfere in her destiny, Angelo followed her invisibly, arriving to witness her dying message to activate the mirror. Wondering how she could judge his invisible hair, Angelo skipped the inconsequential mirroring and showed face in the opening crypt to remove Amauna's bones, but he vanished before the assembled undead could draw a bead on him. He then passed the jail cells into the statue room where, using Felicity's 9th level spell Google, he offered the correct ritual dialogue options:
Felicity also said that shadows were following that could sense his invisible presence and cling to him like limpets. This was unacceptable, so Angelo sneaked into the sun gem room and rested - any shadows would be destroyed when they entered, guaranteeing safety, and the monsters' tracking was reset upon a successful rest. Making sure he wasn't visible, Angelo stuffed the jewel into his gem bag and backtracked towards the jail. Despite pickpocketing the shadow prison key from the shadow jailor, rescuing inmate Mazzy offered no reward, so Angelo sent her to Trademeet. Good luck finding shadow thieves there!
Angelo had planned to skip through to find the third symbol, but Felicity informed him of a problem. Although the crossroad's undead were usually toothless, Angelo's higher XP now meant another lich had joined their ranks... one he couldn't avoid. Furthermore, on Angelo's install, Protection from Undead only stopped liches from attacking - they were happy to pelt him with spells! His only strategy would be to drain the lich's magic, then use Protection from Undead to prevent it from shooting with Energy Blades. He'd only brought a single scroll and had hoped to keep it to use in its entirity on the boss... but c'est la vie!
In hindsight, it's easier to tackle this area sooner rather than later, but we'll ring the changes here!
After resting to rejig his spells, Angelo began systematically running into and out of view. Because the other undead couldn't see through Invisibility, he could only attract the lich's attention and they were fairly stationary, so Angelo knew he wouldn't be pursued. As long as he was out of view when the dark planetar arrived, it could be waited out in a parallel corridor. The Invisibility's +4 bonus to saving throws helped against the lich's triple Otiluke's Frozen Sphere Spell Trigger and clutching Peridan provided fear immunity to nullify its double Horror Minor Sequencer. The biggest threat was its triple Remove Magic Spell Sequencer - along with its single Remove Magic cast, this could dispel both Invisibility and Protection from Undead, so it was baited out with some inessential buffs first.
Once confident that the lich had exhausted its supplies, Angelo acted. However, the block of undead was too thick to pass without summoning some fodder to disperse them, and this gave the lich an excuse to drop some Abi-Dalzim's Horrible Wilting bombs. Cursing, Angelo used his Protection from Undead scroll, cast Invisibility and drank some potions of healing (9 HP was a triviality by this stage, but they were good when he needed healing, but daredn't rest). Spelling out the sun god Amaunator on the floor, Angelo snaffled the second sun gem and the lightstone symbol, completing the symbol of Amaunator and earning 21,250 XP. The Protection from Undead's scope didn't include bone golems, but Invisibility's did and this allowed a clean getaway.
Since Angelo had less time than he thought, he'd made sure they'd die quickly. After a double helping of Lower Resistance to reduce the shade lord's 50% MR, Angelo cast Greater Malison followed by Hold Undead. Third time was the charm and, dual-wielding scimitars, Angelo hacked at the helpless shadow's body; once, he turned invisible for an automatic backstab, but the shade lord's resistances effectively muted that tactic.
Nevertheless, focussed slashing caused it to crumble for 25,000 XP. Not stopping, else he get cut off, Angelo closed on the shadow altar - its 75% MR and saves were better than the shade lord's but its AC was worse, so it went down more quickly. Destroying both the shade lord and the altar caused the darkness to recede, earning 44,250 XP and some decent treasure.
Thaxll'ssillyia's lower physical resistance meant its (45,000 XP) death arrived more quickly than Firkraag's... but Angelo derived double the satisfaction.
Chucking the useless shadow dragon wardstone and symbol of Amaunator (no Item Upgrades mod for this playthrough!), Angelo departed. Disappointingly, the undead inside the temple remained active, but now he didn't need to explore their chambers, he ran past them invisibly. Minister Lloyd was duly updated of the progress, and Angelo accepted whatever the mayor could offer... which amounted to 28,000 XP, 100 GP and the Night's Gift +5.
When all was said and done, Felicity that reckoned Angelo had earned 271,750 XP from quests and 81,000 XP from combat for a whopping 352,750 XP altogether. Now it was time for the final rural area available... onwards to the De'Arnise Keep!
Executive Summary: Angelo liberates the de'Arnise Keep while only killing a single a troll!
"I'm in a bind, Felicity," Angelo explained to his familiar on the way back from the Umar Hills. "Completing the de'Arnise Keep will involve some 'safe' combat, where fighting is essential, but the killing is entirely risk-free. This isn't strictly 'No Combat', but it's still safer than some of our earlier encounters. Not that relying on summons and so on is particularly dicey, but our combat will be even more intermediate than that."
"It's your walkthrough," Felicity reminded him, "label the sections how you want!"
From there, it was onto the keep itself, which looked unassailable before Nalia pointed out the side entrance. Switching on his Find Traps skill to automaticallly detect secret doors, Angelo sneaked into the fortress to find Daleson. Not for Daleson's sake, but because he had to pass Daleson to reach the keep's courtyard, where he found a canine quartet. Using his new bow, Angelo shot poor Rex, Sparky, Spot and Rover to pieces, then picked up those pieces to turn into stew. Although they didn't fight back directly, Rover ignored Angelo's call to sit and wandered towards a nearby otuyugh, which meant Angelo couldn't kill it without attracting the monster's attention. After blinding it, Angelo showed the otuyugh more mercy than the dogs and left it alone once he'd finished off the dogs.
Apart from the 140 XP for killing the quartet (4 x 35 XP), Angelo gained 11,500 XP from invisibly taking the four dog meats to the kitchen and cooking up a stew. He also found a dagger +2 and 450 GP in the Sleep-trapped chest in the passage to the courtyard, where he stored the stew for the time being.
Vanishing as the creatures turned his way, Angelo disappeared up the stairs behind the yuan-ti mage. Another set of stairs on the keep's roof led down to the battlements where Angelo could access the gate lever and lower the drawbridge, earning another 29,750 XP. Rather than revealing Captain Cernick and the greater yuan-ti in the otuyugh's courtyard, which would conjure an extra troll just inside the keep, Angelo nipped back through the library and onto the ground floor again.
Draw Upon Holy Might was enough to force open the locked door barring his progress. It also set off a lightning trap of some sort, but Angelo couldn't tell exactly what since the trap was wholly ineffective. Summoning a clay golem, Angelo opened the door and sent the golem in first to attract the attention of the initially hostile Glacius, who glugged an oil of speed before engaging. Sadly, he could down as many potions of fire giant strength as he liked... he would not harm the golem using a normal two-handed sword.
Angelo could have buffed the golem, shut the door and chalked up an easy victory, but another method was more productive. As he'd entered combat, Glacius had uttered a speech that made Angelo believe he had been charmed and wondered what would happen if he also went on a charm offensive. Distracted and afar, the fighter's decent saving throw was no match for repeated application of Domination's -2 penalty and once its effects hit, Glacius surrendered the acid flail head and 22,550 XP.
To obtain the third, Angelo looped back around through the library and used the keep key he'd snatched earlier to open the door to Lady Delcia Caan's room. Arrogant, haughty and extremely stubborn, Angelo chose not to inform Nalia's aunt of her rescue, but went through a couple of secret doors into the chapel. Although he could have taken the fire flail head without the guardians reacting, Angelo had fancied both the remaining treasure and some extra XP and concocted a dastardly way to get both.
The iron golem was taken out first. Shooting it turned it hostile without awakening the other golems, and Angelo capitalised by ducking out into the corridor. Unable to fit through the small door, the golem could only huff, puff and blow clouds of poison gas... a danger mitigated by Angelo's donning of the periapt of proof against poison he'd stolen from Ihtafeer. A cup of tea's worth of arrow from Tansheron's bow later, the golem collapsed into pieces. Lady Delcia's guard tried to join in and steal Angelo's 13,000 XP kill... but its immunity to <+2 weapons soon saw to that!
The remaining golems were small enough to fit through the doorway, but Angelo was not to be deterred. The de'Arnise guard was a useful idiot in that he could block the door by futilely attacking the golem, but he could also charge the golem before it reached the entrance and once he'd left, it'd be difficult to slot him back into place. A more reliable tactic would be to turn Felicity invisible and have her on door-blocking duties (besides the fact that he didn't need to, Angelo didn't get his familiar out earlier since they were not immune to poison).
Doing this, Angelo could safely take out the two flesh golems and the two stone golems. Had he brought a magical quarterstaff or a sling with a case of plenty, he could have thought about smashing the clay golem as well (they required magical blunt weapons to hit and quarterstaffs were the only blunt weapons with enough range to avoid getting counterattacked)... but the 20,000 XP he'd already earned from killing the smaller golems (2 x 2,000 XP + 2 x 8,000 XP) was good enough. Especially since taking the three heads to the forge earned him a further 22,350 XP, along with the Flail of Ages. An excellent weapon, no doubting that, but one Angelo would have no use for.
Angelo started by casting Resist Fear on himself to prevent TorGal's recurring Cloak of Fear spell from affecting him. He then cast Animate Dead to summon some skeletal warriors, which would also be immune to the fear effects. Finally, he cast Invisibility before poking his head inside the shrine to Tyr until he could just see TorGal, ordering his skeletons to stay back and wait for the fireworks to start.
TorGal could smell Angelo's scent and lurched towards him, which Angelo was counting on to isolate him from his cronies. Leading him out of the shrine, Angelo kept his skeletons at arm's length so that TorGal would lose interest in the invisible prey and go for the more corporeal skeletons (not often he could call them that!) across the room. With some distance between them, Angelo was free to cast Lower Resistance of TorGal (his MR was normally 30%), followed by Greater Malison and a final helping of Polymorph Self. TorGal's saves were pretty decent, so the chances of failure were comparatively high... but Angelo would have time to duck away into the jail cells on the opposite side of the horseshoe to the umber hulks. In such a case, the skeletons could be summoned for a rematch, since the jail's doors could stop TorGal (disengaged by the rest) from starting proceedings prematurely.
As soon as TorGal turned into a squirrel, his maximum HP dropped from 556 to 27, making his regeneration far less formidable. It was at this point that Angelo summoned the berserk warrior and the clay golem, which made short work of their rodent opponent. As expected, TorGal flopped onto the deck when his health was reduced to unity, but Angelo noted his appearance transformed back to troll... evidently if he was allowed to regenerate, he would return back to normal, rather than squirrel, maximum. A swift Flame Arrow from a summoned efreet prevented this from happening, earning 15,000 XP.
After another rest, Angelo cast Invisibility and Stoneskin before diving back into the shrine for its treasure. The former permitted him to approach the hollow statue and cast Draw Upon Holy Might to bash it open, while the latter shielded him from enough blows to vanish straight after the looting. Timing his bashing when the yuan-ti mage was in the middle of an Oracle spell stopped it from casting while he was visible and while Spell Immunity: Enchantment would not protect against umber hulks' non-magical discombobulation, the shield of harmony stopped the confusion from taking hold.
In addition to the statue's 2,126 GP, Angelo also received 650 GP from Nalia once he told her of TorGal's death, as well as 45,500 XP. However, being the keep's custodian sounded like too much work, so Angelo politely declined the offer of a lordship.
In BG2, it was possible for multi-class characters to acquire two strongholds by first obtaining the stronghold of their non-warrior class before liberating the de'Arnise keep. This was obviously a loophole, though, one that BG2:EE has closed.
As it happened, Angelo already had plans for a stronghold... plans that would have him return to Athkatla. Stronger, wiser and richer than before, he was now ready for the challenges that the city could throw at him.
Elsewhere, there is good news and bad news on the wizard slayer C/M front. The good news is that they have successfully passed the coalition camp attacks using the level 1 Marytr's trick, which gives further illustration of just how powerful scrolls are; the bad news is that the spell sequencer trick I hinted at earlier is off-limits because a wizard slayer can't acquire the robe of arcane aptitude (they can wear it, but they can't use the spectacles of spectacle to summon Zhadroth to get it). So it's back to good, old bashing Belhifet using Champion's Strength and Chaotic Commands... those spell scrolls are coming good again!
Executive Summary: Angelo begins his second sweep of the city by abusing the Web spell in several ways.
Felicity totted up that Angelo had earned 883,385 XP outside the city's gates. This gave him confidence that he could tackle the assortment of combat-laden encounters that lay within Athkatla's walls.
Sweet-talking his way past the guard led Angelo to a puzzle-bearing genie. The riddle had deliberately complex wording but it was possible to determine that option 3 was the correct answer.
Entering the complex, Angelo listened to an ogre suggest he obtain a key from some disguised commoners. This was easily done by sneaking up to the male 'peasant', picking their pocket and then casting Invisibility before running away. Returning the 'sword' to the 'ogre' freed Aerie, earning another 18,500 XP in the process.
Although she made some allusions to illusions, the rule of engagement was straightforward. If it was a werewolf, then it wasn't real and could be dispelled by standing next to it using Detect Illusion; if it was a shadow, then it was real and would have to be killed the conventional way. Angelo took advantage of this to move invisibly through the antechamber dispelling the werewolves and looting the vases before renewing his Invisibility to dump the shadows away from the door.
To defeat Kalah, Angelo planned to exploit the fact that although globes of protection did not prevent Dispel/Remove Magic from working, the globes themselves were unaffected. This would allow Angelo to stride through Web spells with a Minor Globe of Invulnerability in the knowledge that Kalah could not hit him with attack spells (such as his double-Melf's Minor Sequencer). As a conjurer, Kalah's strongest spells were summoning, but as long as Angelo prevented him from casting Spider Spawn, these would be caught in the web.
Given that the circus is largely illusory, it's ironic that Kalah is a conjurer (and illegal, given his gnomish race!). He also has illegal priest spells memorised and his stats are similar to Quayle's from BG. Could he have been modified from the NPC template? Place your bets...
After pre-buffing with Invisibility, Stoneskin and Protection from Fire (Kalah could throw pre-cast Melf's Minute Meteors), Angelo entered the main tent. Sneaking next to the werewolf with Detect Illusion dispelled it, and Angelo noticed that although there was no spot in the tent where he could hide from Kalah, this vantage point was out of sight of the two remaining shadows.
To make the kill, Angelo positioned himself behind Kalah before backstabbing. As Kalah spun around, his precast Mirror Image and Stoneskin defences shot up, but Angelo countered by dropping a Web duo from a Minor Sequencer. This tied up the shadows and interrupted Kalah's spell, allowing Angelo to hack away at the stone skins while Detect Illusion tore down the mirror images. For good measure, Angelo summoned a clay golem, whose 100% MR gave it freedom to smash away. Kalah momentarily broke free of the fibrous chains and released a Remove Magic, but the globe, as predicted, did not give way... unlike Kalah's body when Belm pierced its flesh.
Kalah's death granted 2,000 XP and returned the tent to normal, earning another 25,000 XP. After looting the ring of human influence and girdle of piercing, Angelo talked to Hannah, a former illusory spider who awarded 500 XP for her release.
Fortunately, despite being a high-level necromancer and invoker respectively, neither Amon nor Pooky possessed spells commensurate with their abilities. Furthermore, for all Mencar's bluster, as long as Angelo chose the passive response, he could keep the party neutral indefinitely, allowing him to pre-emptively pepper the battlefield with traps. As Angelo's traps did ongoing poison damage, the mages were the obvious target. Throwing down seven of them around Amon gave Angelo confidence that the casters would not be casting anytime soon.
To ensure that the rest of the group would not be doing anything either, Angelo summoned as many arachnids as he could and fired four Web spells from the doorway. Once his UI showed that Risling and the casters were ensnared, he cast Haste on the spiders and set them loose on the casters. The thief Risling was prone to backstabbing, which was strictly our protagonist's shtick, and Angelo didn't want him having any chance of escaping. That said, it was more economical to take out the casters first, else their minor globes of invulnerability kick in and they become immune to the webs thereafter.
Once the hostilities began, the traps fired and it only took a few pokes from the spiders to finish poor Amon off. Pooky's red fire shield flared, but its flames didn't burn through the webs and the spiders' poison took the imp out without suffering too many fiery counterstrikes. Risling was next and what with being webbed, he couldn't activate his leaving animation before his health ran out. By this time, Mencar and Smaulev had freed themselves, but the spiders held them up while Angelo blinded them and renewed his ranks with Animate Dead. Another application of Haste and it was all over for the warriors, who lacked the numbers, the power or the vision to put up a decent fight.
"Shall we go and see what Brus was moaning about?" Angelo asked Felicity as he left the Adventurer Mart. "We were heading that way anyway... the Slums District was next on our list!"
What is the wizard slayer challenge ? I'm guessing no items except for weapons/armor ? And scrolls for scribing for mages (can they cast them from quickslot too?)
How did you fight against Belhifet as a C/I, especially without (ab)using items such as scrolls of Champion's Strength ?
an evil multi-class dwarven defender/cleric (adding the DD kit via EEKeeper proved really cheated ^^).
This combination allows for easy 100% physical damage resistance:
- can go up to 100% against slashing and missile in SoD for the final battle (didn't though, for reasons explained below) ;
- 100% against all damage in BG2 once you hit Fighter14/Cleric15 (and even more after that, but you can't get past 100% unlike elemental resists).
Slashing resists in SoD (lvl9/9) :
5% innate
10% Stalwart Scales armor
15% The Guardian Devil helmet
5% Kendra's Chain
5% Cloak of the Gargoyle
50% defensive stance (3 casts, so 30 rounds)
10% Armor of Faith spell (lasts 12 rounds at this level)
In the end, I did not rely on Armor of Faith, because I wouldn't have had a sufficient thac0 to kill Belhifet. Instead, I gulped a few Potions of Heroism, a potion of Regeneration, also had a few elemental defenses up, and then added 7 (IIRC) scrolls of Champion's Strength and beat Belhifet very easily.
Missile resistance was even higher thanks to the Rhino Beetle shield (+15% missile resist).
BG2 went mainly like this:
Before lvl14/15 (3,15 mil XP):
- Innate 10% (DD lvl10) + Defensive Stance 50% physical damage resistance
- Armor of Faith spell : 15% ALL damage resistance (includes fire, cold, ele, acid and magical damage)
- Helmet of Dumathoin for the most part (I later switched to Dragon Helm and then went to grab the Helm of the Rock who also adds acid resistance)
- Defender of Easthaven (+20% melee damage resistance)
- Belt of Inertial barrier (50% magical damage resist / 25% missile resist)
- Shadow Dragon scale (50% acid resistance)
- Shield of Fyrus Khal (10% resist fire, cold, ele AND acid, plus a nice to have spell turning)
- Amulet of Power (especially for the -1 casting time, allows for immediate recasting of Armor of Faith and Draw upon Holy Might)
- Ring of Gaxx (for the regen and the Poison immunity)
With a few other buffs, such as Chaotic Commands, Free Action, Protection from Fire/Cold (lvl2 version) and Protection from Electricity, I was nigh invulnerable:
- 95% damage resistance (98% with Dumathoin's helm)
- 100% all elemental resistances (although the protection from Fire/Cold was the first to expire, protection from Electricity lasts for days, and the acid damage resistance was provided by gear and Armor of Faith spell that could be reapplied instantly)
- 65% magical damage resistance: the sole real threat damage wise in the end. Valygar's armor would have come in reaaally handy
- negative saving throws, coupled with Chaotic Commands, Protection from negative plane (from the amulet) and Free Action and no disabler ever threatened me (only Imprisonment was a threat, and I was very careful on those few encounters not to let the enemy get any occasion to target me with the spell).
The biggest threat, obviously, were dispels: especially repeated dispels (beholders, devas, Ravager).
At higher levels, those immunities against physical & elemental damage were only easier to attain, and I switched my shield for dual wielding Flail of Ages and Defender of Easthaven.
As fighter HLA's, I took exclusively Hardiness, a few Power Attacks (rarely used), and quite a few Critical Strikes.
I lacked a bit on the APR department, but more than made up for it for sheer power (all hail Righteous Magic) and tankiness.
This did though end up with hilariously long fights against Adamantite Golems or the Demon Wraith on WK's compass level, who also have 90% damage resistance. The Demon Wraith fight was particularly long, and funny to look at as I kept pounding on his head while his ghosts pounded on mine. It felt a bit cartoonish.
Most dragons and a few bosses (Demogorgon and the Ravager notably) were taken care of with a combination of:
- a few summons to attract attention
- Magic Resistance spell to actually reduce the opponents MR to 40% (by lvl cap)
- Harm
- Critical Strike
- rinse and repeat until it works (I had 6 casts of Harm and Critical Strike, since there are not that many useful lvl6 spells for that kind of character anyway).
In the end, I was stuck in the fight against Mel. First sequence I barely had the time to land a MR spell + harm, next one I had to resort on hacking her, but I wasn't fast enough for the next instances and lost the war of attrition between her unlimited summons, repeated stoneskins, and occasional debuffs.
It became especially difficult once she summoned Elder Orbs.
Anyway, I know this combination of multiclass with a kit is cheated (this one even more so I guess), but I had so much fun and enjoyment running it that I felt I had to share it.
The 'wizard slayer' challenge is one of several additional challenges listed on the thread's first page. It artificially enforces the wizard slayer's item restrictions on your character. Effectively, you're limited to weapons, armour, shields, helmets, boots and scrolls, as well as healing potions and antidotes. You can use spell scrolls either for scribing or casting from quick slots. If in doubt, dual-class a wizard slayer test character and see if they can use the item.
Beating Belhifet relies on a very clever trick (not my own, I hasten to add). Level 1 characters cannot be killed in 1 hit and on maximum difficulty, all damage your characters receive is doubled. Together, these mean that if your character is level 1 with 1 HP maximum, they are effectively immune to damage. In Chapter 10 of SoD, there is a fledgling vampire that can level drain you to level 1 (there's also a level drain trap on a chest in Castle Dragonspear's basement that drains 2 levels, but this isn't as useful). Martyr's Morningstar subtracts 10 HP from its user's maximum health, to a minimum of 1 HP, so you can ignore all incoming damage. Single class wizards with 3 Constitution can also use the Claw of Kazgaroth (or kill their familiar several times if they're doing the wizard slayer challenge)
For what it's worth, this is not an automatic 'I win' button for any class that can use it. Martyr's is only a +2 weapon whereas Belhifet requires +3 weapons to hit, so you either need to be dual-wielding or cast Enchanted Weapon. Getting level drained resets your character's saving throws, so you'll be vulnerable to game-ending status effects like getting charm, being constantly feared or permanently stun-locked unless you can protect yourself. Belhifet has 100% MR and regenerates, so if you can't deal damage fast enough, you'll either end up in eternal stalemate or exhaust your protections and die from attrition. You can also only access the fledgling vampire before the parley in Dead Man's Pass, so you'll have to complete the coalition camp attacks and Avernus as a level 1 character, which are no cakewalks. But if you can, it's by far the most reliable method I know of for taking out Belhifet that obeys the wizard slayer restrictions.
In any case, well done on getting that far! It's definitely an achievement even with 'illegal' characters... and that final fight is brutal, no doubt about that! Unfortunately, without Harm, a F/C doesn't have that many options available other than to slug it out. Did you use the rift device to reduce Mel's HP to 40%? That's a big help.
Water under the bridge now, but the rod of smiting can deal with adamantine golems fairly painlessly. If only there was a weapon like that for demons!
Executive Summary: After proceeding as far as he could without violence, Angelo clears out the Slums District.
"Remember that last remaining urban pacifist quest that we mentioned, but didn't complete earlier?" Angelo asked Felicity as they followed up Brus' tip. "Let's finish that off now."
"How do you know what Valen was after?" Gaelan countered. "She might not attempting to enlist your servies for 5,000 GP less. Besides, it's our summer sale at the moment and I thought you might appreciate the special offer..."
"Enough," Angelo snapped. "I will explore the rest of the city and then make my choice."
Gaelan's lip curled, but he held his nerve. "Well, unlike Valen's mistress, I will allow you time to consider your decision. Take that into account when you've finished playing tourist."
"Sure I will," Angelo replied as he nipped upstairs and bought glasses of identification from Arledrian. He sensed that this merchant would become unavailable if he didn't accept Bayle's offer, so he took advantage of it while he could.
Angelo waited until he successfully hid in the shadows before opening the door to the arena. While still out of sight, Angelo passed the hostile winter wolf waiting in the pit, but stopped short of the jail corridor. Repeating this trick, Angelo waited until he'd disappeared again before moving any further.
The shadows allowed Angelo to approach the Beastmaster without his dialogue immediately triggering... and the proximity afforded Angelo the chance to use his Pick Pockets skill. The lag between Stealth ending and becoming visible allowed Angelo to make several attempts and even though he failed a couple, this didn't matter since he succeeded in pilfering the beastmaster key (along with a Stone to Flesh scroll and 25 GP). Once he became visible, the Beastmaster's dialogue fired, resetting its variables and offering Angelo the chance to promise to leave. Going back to where he had previously taken cover from the wolf, Angelo re-entered Stealth to pass the wolf once more. With the guard planted in the corner, Angelo could use his freshly acquired key to unlock the surrounding pair of cells and rescue the children for 2,500 XP apiece.
Now all that was left was for Angelo to sneak through and rescue Hendak from the central chamber. Besides granting 7,500 XP, Hendak was keen to right the wrongs against him and charged through to the main area. Keen to watch the fight, Angelo entered Stealth yet again to sneak past the remaining gladiator-guard appetiser bouts. He arrived just in time to see Hendak and Lehtinan drawing their blades and wailing on each other. In the end, it was the seasoned gladiator who emerged victorious (although had it looked in doubt, Angelo would have intervened). Grateful for the assistance, Hendak doled out 48,750 XP and Angelo took the assorted gems and scrolls of Death Fog and Summon Nishruu.
Since disarming traps didn't break his invisibility, Angelo disarmed this, along with several other traps:
Captain Haegan was not chuffed to see Angelo appear, nor was she happy when the adjacent door swung open after being hit by a Knock spell. To compound her unhappiness, Angelo disappeared again to shut himself in with the trolls and speak with the girl, granting 3,500 XP and +1 reputation. The pair of trolls could swipe through Angelo's stone skins fairly quickly, but they couldn't prevent a summoned efreeti from casting Invisibility on our protagonist, allowing him to escape back to Hendak. Unaware that the slavers were still at large, Hendak doled out 38,000 XP, 3,900 GP, +1 reputation and Kondar +1/+4 bastard sword.
The real bonus (or should that be bow-nus?) from this encounter was the beastmaster's missile launcher. The Tuigan bow was a beast (ahem) of a weapon, one that Angelo would be putting to good use later.
Unfortunately, he could not complete the 'riddle of the sewers' without violence. The final item - 'the blood of a friend true', according to the pipe - also could not be pickpocketed from Quallo's pet carrion crawler (for obvious reasons!). Still, Animate Dead's skeletons were immune to its paralysis, so its death was but a formality. From Quallo's clues, Angelo deduced that the staff (in the fourth pipe) was to be placed last, so the ring (in the first pipe) must be placed second; the hand (in the third pipe), being of prime import, should go first and so the blood (in the second pipe) must go third. Congratulating himself on not using Felicity Foreshadow's Google capability, Angelo took the 18,500 XP and Lilarcor as payment.
Strangely, the map didn't highlight the upper area where the minotaur Andorian died at the hands of the Myconid King. Angelo took this as evidence of the fact that much of its content had been presumably scrapped mid-production, so ignored it entirely.
Although most slavers fell to this initial assault, Angelo felt it wiser to recuperate in the Copper Coronet before rinsing and repeating. Once he saw both trolls hit the deck, he summoned his efreeti to deliver a swift pair of Flame Arrows to guarantee they wouldn't get back up. Amazingly, when Angelo left the boat via the main entrance (from this side, it was unlocked), the door guard was unaware of the commotion inside. He didn't realise it, but this actually saved his life, as Angelo balked at killing him unnecessarily. Ignorance is bliss.
Completing the last pacifist quest earned Angelo 99,250 XP in total. Now it was time to finish off several other threads he'd left dangling earlier - Tirdir's kidnappers were still at large, Anarg and Reynald de Chantillion were still hanging around and despite Rejiek's untimely demise in Trademeet, the tanner murders had still not been dealt with. All of these matters converged on one location... the Bridge District!
Executive Summary: Angelo's various summons finish off several of the Bridge District's incomplete quests.
It was funny, Angelo thought, that so many of the initial quests he'd undertaken when he first arrived in Athkatla involved the Bridge District. High time, then, for him to return and finish what he started now that he was battle-ready.
Since he was still hidden, Angelo could take advantage of a gap in the creatures' peripheral awareness. The quay in the bottom right was out of the monsters' sight, so he could summon and buff his usual assortment of skeletons and spiders (the Cowled Wizards couldn't find him in these lower levels).
Making himself invisible as an insurance policy, Angelo then sent his summons to do his dirty work. The spiders weren't so useful this time around, as they were vulnerable to backstabs and undead nasties were immune to poison, but the skeletons were pretty solid. A second round of summons from his items was enough to obliterate any survivors from his initial wave and freed him to loot the various containers. Disarming the respective Ice Storm and Fireball traps on the large and small crates, Angelo helped himself to the bow of Gesen shaft before leaving for pastures new.
Still, there were advantages to the current state of affairs. Firstly, this inadvertently isolated Anarg from Reynald de Chantillion and his men. Anarg also didn't turn hostile after finishing his speech, so Angelo was free to leisurely nip back to buff his summons before engaging. Better yet, pursuing Angelo downstairs dumped Anarg right in the middle of said summons. If the skeletons would not come to Anarg, then Anarg would have to come to the skeletons!
Needless to say, Anarg didn't survive along against the undead onslaught. Venturing outside, it amused Angelo to find that Reynald had wisely taken leave of absence, but the other fallen paladins milled around in the square. Much like Vellin Dahn, they seemed unaware that their leader had been killed in action and Angelo was in no hurry to enlighten them. Quite the opposite was true of Sir Ryan Trawl, who was informed of Anarg's demise as quickly as possible for a reward of 17,500 XP, +1 reputation and gloves of healing.
Since he'd exited as quickly as possible, Angelo's newly summoned flesh golem cut off the narrow avenue of escape (using magical items didn't alert the Cowled Wizards). A swift arrow from Angelo at Camitis may have missed its mark, but it did turn the pair hostile and the spray of arrows from the adjacent traps were not so inaccurate. Aiming at Camitis ensured that he turned hostile first and attracted most of the traps' arrows, meaning the tougher opponent took the brunt of the damage.
As long as Angelo ensured that the efreeti targeted its Flame Strike on Camitis, the fight was over bar the celebrations. Felling Camitis gave 3,000 XP while Reti yielded 1,250 XP and boots of avoidance, but the best treasure was yet to come. Not in the form of Lady Elgea, who seemed to think that she could insult her way out of being ransomed, but in the form of the silver pantaloons that Welther would give him for the note from the upstairs shelves next to her. In fact, although Welther wouldn't nocturnally appear outside the Copper Coronet until this part of the quest had been triggered, Angelo avoided the -2 reputation hit associated with the exchange by picking Welther's pocket without talking to him. They would go nicely with his golden pantaloons. If only he could complete the set...
Although the Cowled Wizards turned a blind eye to using a special ability on a door, they drew the line at using spells inside to defeat a serial killer. The ghostly children that Neb summoned to defend himself were vicious little squirts, draining a level with each hit, so Angelo wanted to minimise his dealings with them. Luckily, his efreeti could safely cast Invisibility on him without provoking the Cowled Wizards and Angelo was happy to let it and the clay golem take the heat for him.
He saw Jeb gulp down a potion of invisibility, but Detect Illusion soon foiled that escape plan. The gnome didn't seem to have a backup scheme, as he stood still, unmoving as the summons blasted chunks out of him. They could only get him down to Near Death status before their durations expired, leaving Angelo stranded invisible surrounded by angry spirits. He only had one shot at Jeb, but luckily that was all he needed.
With their master slain, the ghostly quartet evaporated, each leaving 2,500 XP and a pearl behind. As they left, they cast Lesser Restoration and the onset of magical fatigue was a small price to pay for his lost levels. The minor gems hidden behind the acid-hold-trapped painting offered scant reward, but taking Jeb's head to Chief Inspector Brega in the Government District's Council of Six building earned 2,500 GP and another reputation +1.
Although the Bridge District had the breadth of incomplete quests, other areas had the depth. And no district of Athkatla had more easily available depth than the Docks.
Executive Summary: Combining both his latest tricks, Angelo uses Web and summons to earn himself a stronghold!
"Do the ruffians stop threatening you once you reach a certain level?" Angelo asked Felicity as they wandered the Docks District. "They seem to be a lot less threatening than before."
The imp just shrugged. "It seems that Google doesn't know everything after all."
Passing the stone golems on the second floor, Angelo found his target in the centre of the uppermost level. Though Gethras' field of view almost completely covered the room, the corner in the bottom right was out of sight, allowing Angelo to summon some monsters. However, he did not bring out the big guns instantly. As a conjurer, Gethras had multiple summoning spells of his own which needed to be teased out first.
There wasn't enough space for Angelo to stand in the corner and surround himself without Gethras noticing the summons and reacting with his own. Despite being a conjurer, Gethras had True Sight memorised, so Angelo was careful not to 'activate' the wizard by appearing in their view. Nevertheless, he turned invisible when Gethras cast Teleport Field, on the off-chance that a monster spotted him after an accidental teleportation and gave the whole game up.
After draining his spells with several bouts of Monster Summoning I, Angelo went for the kill with a triple Animate Dead. Gethras died a 9,000 XP death without Angelo ever actually seeing him once the battle had begun. Even better, after disarming the acid-hold trap on the large table (along with the Fireball trap on the small bowl), Angelo found a Mislead scroll. He placed this in his scroll case, planning to put it to good use shortly.
Sneaking back down past the golems and mephits, Angelo went back to Edwin to earn 20,000 XP from reporting Gethras' death.
As a human multiclass thief/conjurer (just count the illegalities in that combination!), Mae'var's P/P/D saves were not good and the spider's poison easily coursed through his veins. His mirror images sprang up even though he was webbed (luckily, his Minor Globe of Invulnerability did not) and Angelo could not cross the webbed area to Detect Illusion beside him. Though incapable of detecting illusions, Angelo's arrows could cross the webbed area and did a pretty good job of cutting through the images along with the spiders' thrusts.
Mae'var's death brought 14,000 XP, after which the spiders began their work on any webbed assassins. Angelo had long since turned invisible and retreated, so the arachnids were the first to face the chop when the Web spells ran out. Once Angelo's summoning slots became available (Gethras had proven that the 5 creature summoning limit did not apply to enemies), he filled them with skeletons and sent them back in. The thieves' backstabs weren't nearly as effective against their bony armour and their Detect Illusion skill wasn't nearly enough to remove Angelo's own invisibility. Their deaths were worth 7,000 XP, while the random priest of Cyric was only worth a mere 2,000 XP.
After freeing Kamuzu from his cell, Angelo referred the news to Renal for 45,500 XP. Although it was one of the lesser strongholds available, there was also some lingering confusion regarding its status online and Angelo wanted to put this misinformation to rest once and for all. Besides, it was one of the more flavoursome choices... who doesn't love a thieves' guild? In any case, Angelo accepted Renal's offer to take over where Mae'var left off, giving him 10,500 GP extra (he'd have preferred the Short Sword +3 that he'd have received had he not been a thief or refused the stronghold, but it was all gravy).
Felicity told him that to optimise his returns, Angelo should go for the highest risk options possible (https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Thieves'_Guild_Stronghold#Gameplay). By now, the money was immaterial, but Angelo stuck to his min-maxing guns... why give up on a good thing?
If Angelo had truly been min-maxing, he would go for the mage stronghold every time... although the ranger and druid ones had useful items if they were played through to the end.
One more district remained for Angelo to plunder before he was to advance the plot further. Time to take a trip to the Temple District!
I don't think I'll be returning to the challenge, personally. I think I learned my lesson from my punishing 38-hour Archer run, which I still need to record commentary for and post in full.
Executive Summary: Angelo adds another string to his bow and uses it to clear the sewers beneath the Temple District.
"I'm so close to becoming a level 12 mage," Angelo murmured as he approached the Temple District. "When I get there, I'll unlock my full potential." And yet his face creased up slightly. "But perhaps I should only use it sparingly. l don't want to become reliant on it."
The imp's eyes rolled. "Just because your horizons will have broadened doesn't mean that you can't illustrate other strategies where you can. But Legacy of Bhaal is hard enough without deliberately playing with one hand behind your back. Why be a F/M/T, after all, if you never use your class nuke?"
After sneaking back into the sewers, it didn't take much scouting to find the culprit camping out in the southeastern corner. Finding a quiet spot to summon some skeletons, Angelo ignored its lesser earth elemental companion (who was immune to the skeletons' +1 weapons anyway) and sent his minions to kill the imp, invisibly snatching the mirror after they'd done so and were busy getting mauled by the elemental. Returning to Mekrath gave 18,750 XP and access to Haer'Dalis, who Angelo sent away to the Five Flagons.
Before he departed, the tiefling blade mentioned a gem that may be found on an altar. Remembering the layout of Durlag's Tower, Angelo used Invisibility to evade the 3 yuan-ti mages, 1 yuan-ti and 1 greater yuan-ti en-route to the chapel (there were disadvantages to being high level!). After disarming the acid-hold floor trap and Dire Charm altar trap (at least it could be disarmed this time!), Angelo took the harp of discord and portal gem contained therein.
While he was at it, he took the rod of resurrection from the container next to Mekrath and the necklace of form stability from a chest (trapped with Lightning Bolt) in the eastern chamber before the yuan-ti. There were several other trapped containers (the eastern chamber's other chest had a stunning Chromatic Orb trap, the yuan-ti chest had a Lightning Bolt trap and a cupboard in the southern room had an arrow trap), but they didn't have much treasure, so Angelo ignored them.
"You have got to be kidding me?!" Angelo choked as the beholder and two gauths teleported in uninvited and began spamming eye beams at his creatures. Having not thought to bring the shield of Balduran - not that it was much use after SCS telekinetically nerfed it - Angelo crossed his fingers and prayed for the best.
As it happened, though, he had stumbled onto one of only a few tactics that could reliably bring down beholders. Animate Dead's skeletons were immune to many of the deadliest beams and although the spiders fell almost immediately, the skeletons fearlessly hacked away at the floating eyes. With 100% MR, the flesh golem was also protected from the nasty effects - a marvellous fact that Angelo was quick to exploit.
After letting the beholders down not so gently, it was the turn of Roger's sea troll. With no floating eyes to defend it, the troll was unceremoniously smacked into the ground, with an efreeti's Flame Arrow ensuring it did not get back up. Roger the Fence gave Angelo 500 GP for completing the job, although Felicity told him some walkthroughs advocated that Roger would have coughed up even if he hadn't followed through (these walkthrough also say that Angelo would gain 9,500 XP for it, though, and that never transpired!).
After felling the beholders, Angelo noticed that the miniature cross had appeared in the top right corner of his portrait. This meant he was now a level 12 mage, and the loss of phase spiders to their sword spider 'upgrades' in Spider Spawn would be more than compensated by what he could now cast...
There was, however, a solution to this dilemma - make sure that his defences were never activated...
One annoyance is that Mislead gave no indication of its remaining duration, so it could suddenly wear off with no warning. To prevent this, Angelo had a cute trick: he'd begin by casting (Improved) Haste followed immediately by Spell Immunity: Divination (Spell Immunity being the only exception to the 1 spell/round action economy outside Improved Alacrity, as it could be cast the instant another spell was finished). This created a large visual bubble around Angelo, who then cast Mislead. Spell Immunity both have the same duration, so when Spell Immunity's bubble disappeared, then Angelo knew he had 1 round to get the heck out of dodge before his clone disappeared.
Of course, being only a level 12 mage, Angelo's one available level 6 spell was taken up by Mislead, so Improved Haste was off the cards. However, as the bandits would discover, Haste was all that Angelo needed to dispatch Gaius.
Angelo managed to kill Zorl (2,000 XP) and bow-toting fighter Gallchobhair (7,200 XP - presumably the cousin of Ioin Gallchobhair the Lonely Peaks bandit from BG1) before his Mislead expired. Amusingly, Gallchobhair stumbled on Angelo's clone and peppered it with arrows while Angelo frantically stood behind him hacking away. Although plain fighters Tarnor (8,000 XP) and Draug Fea (7,000 XP) heard all the commotion, Angelo's invisible body blocked their advance just enough that they couldn't see the clone.
Despite this, however, I claim that Mislead is the F/M/T spell that rules them all. It is no exaggeration to say that with Mislead, at least 65% of the remainder of the game becomes almost trivial for a F/M/T. The fact that only they can truly utilise it (F/M can't backstab and M/T can't hit properly) is an added bonus. If you are averse to so-called 'cheesy exploitation' of this spell, I suggest you stop reading now (although using a spell exactly how it was intended doesn't strike me as an exploit at all!).
Incidentally, this also makes what I said in my BG1 reflection about scimitars being a poor option when not dual-wielding completely wrong. One extra attack per round is one extra backstab opportunity when you're using Mislead and single weapon style allows extra critical hits.
Flinging the cloak of the sewers around his neck, Angelo left the scene, leaving the kobolds clean up his mess. Still invisible, he ignored Keldorn's duel with a zombie to head down the northwest passage.
Killing those beholders in the sewers would serve as good practice, Angelo thought, to tackling the cult of the Unseeing Eye. With his latest weapon now tried and tested, nothing could go wrong... could it?
By the way, would it be possible to update the front page of currently running challengers? At the moment, I'm playing Angelo the F/M/T on 'regular' difficulty, as well as Arcand the C/I as part of the wizard slayer challenge (although I will be frank... he may magically become a M/C when I come to writing him up should I find no alternative to the 'Skull Trap surprise' for taking out Melissan). I would ask @Harpagornis to do it, but I've not seen them around for a while and I don't want to miss out on any celebrity status (*ahem*) that comes with attempting the challenge.
It would also be nice to have a single location for @histamiini's very informative info drops about where to find items in each game. A single post near the start of the thread listing Potions of Invisibility in BG1, Potions of Heroism in SoD, and Time Stop scrolls in BG2 would be very convenient.
An overview of the 'bottlenecks' that must be planned for might also be handy, along with some proven solutions. We've already seen several challengers rock up to the coalition camp attacks without enough arrows of detonation. For example, in BG1, you must have some strategy for tackling Mulahey, Davaeorn, Slythe, the Duchal Palace ambush and Sarevok; common solutions involve Algernon's cloak, various wands and necklaces of missiles or potions of explosions.
Executive Summary: After smuggling the rift device out of the sewers, Angelo discovers some limits on his newfound power.
"Mislead is so powerful," Angelo boasted as he left the sewers for the Old Tunnels, "I'm not sure how anything will be able to stop me." Felicity nodded her approval, but couldn't shake the feeling that fate had a sobering lesson in store...
Felicity warned him that going near the central gas vent in the circular chamber that followed would slam the doors while releasing a Cloudkill and some vampiric mists. Worse, this interaction would 'alert' the mists, so they could assail him as if he'd attacked after casting Improved Invisibility; renewing Invisibility would make him vanish again, but they would hug his every move, waiting for him to reveal himself. Once down to Badly Injured, they became able to see through even his renewed illusion and ignored any summons to target him exclusively.
It appeared that this unpleasantness could be avoided by not going near the vent, so Angelo avoided it.
Gaal, the cult leader, accepted that Angelo could retrieve an artifact in return for his continued sight. Recasting Invisibility, Angelo retraced his steps, but this time the vampiric mists would not let him escape. Although his periapt gave him immunity to Cloudkill's poison, the mists would disrupt any spells he would cast. Luckily, the golem manual's summoning was uninterruptible and the golem was also immune to the mists' nonmagical attacks. This made it the perfect lure as Angelo circled back to Gaal's chamber to shut the mists in and summon more assistance.
However, as predicted, the mists made a beeline towards Angelo once they reached Badly Injured status, showing off their ability open doors. Angelo endured a couple of level draining hits to haste his skeletons and ran around while the animated undead did their job. He'd have to sneak back to a priest to restore his levels, but being beneath the Temple District had its perks!
Activating the mists seems buggy - it is sometimes possible to sneak through without them appearing. Still, it seems more probable than not, so Angelo didn't save scum to complete this section pacifistically.
The sarcophagus looked as if it housed something nasty, so Angelo disarmed a Lightning Bolt floor trap and invisibly descended the stairs. Moving into the next chamber caused three huge spiders to spawn underneath its sidebound pipes, but Angelo ignored them and the screaming visage (which could summon 5 sets of extra spiders and a wandering horror if clicked on). After disarming the nose's Cloudkill trap, Angelo looted it before disappearing and dumping the arachnids. The undead troupe of mummies and ghasts were likewise evaded and the Prismatic Spray trap on the lowest stair disarmed.
Clicking on the dome released the so-called guardian whose riddles were easily solved ('Life', 'time' and 'the current one' respectively) for 42,250 XP. At the end of the now-fixed bridge, several beholders lay in wait... and although Angelo did pop into view when he raided the nearby alcove, beating a retreat gave enough time to cast Invisibility before they could find him. The shadows that followed were similarly clueless and Angelo moved around the petrification trap guarding the sunken temple's entrance.
Inside the temple was a demonic Empathic Manifestation, but once Angelo realised that it couldn't see invisible creatures, he sneaked past it and looted the altar. The Empathic Manifestation's ensuing attacks only did nonlethal damage, making Angelo wonder if it was one of those 'internal demons' that fantasy authors were so fond of. "These Cure Serious Wounds scrolls would be useful if I could cast them," he muttered, instead using his Cure Light Wounds special ability to kill the Empathic Manifestation. The subsequently awakened avatar doled out 25,750 XP for its rescue and, after waxing lyrical about how the completed artifact should never leave the sewers, half of the rift device.
To kill time, Angelo entered the Ghoul Lord's room, where a neutral Threshal was surrounded by multiple enemies. He was about to sneak past and loot the pile of dead bodies when Felicity informed him that he was of high enough level that a lich would spawn if he crossed the chamber. This lich could see through invisibility, making tackling it an absolute no-no, so Angelo passed up the gauntlets of dexterity. Instead, he sneakily approached Threshal and pickpocketed the Skin of the Ghoul +4 before dancing back and casting Invisibility. No monster could close before his spell kicked in, and repeating this afforded the looting of the barrel. Angelo was sure to pick up the dropped ammunition before making his exit.
After invisibly resting as far up the steep descent as he could, Angelo set about dispersing the crowd. This wasn't trivial, since he could get trapped on the narrow bridges between the second group and the first bringing up the rear. Summoning a distraction at the crossroads, Angelo cast Invisibility and followed the initially neutral zombie into the Ghoul Lord's room, making a circuit around and leaving via the other door. Arriving out the second entrance to see his distraction get slaughtered at the first one, Angelo abandoned it and entered the Pit of the Faithless.
Although nominally a difficult area, sneaking through the pit was easy if the cultists huddled around the central pool were avoided. The second rift device piece was found in the rightmost pool and although its gauth guardian fired off a damaging eye beam, this did not prevent Angelo from vanishing with his ring of invisibility. The rift device automatically assembled once both parts were together, which caused the Unseeing Eye to appear. It immediately began casting True Sight, which Angelo took as his cue to leave.
Leaving the rift device in a chest beside Sassar's companions Zaelas and Garuk, Angelo bought the choiciest potions (namely those of magic blocking and shielding) from Roger the Fence. Angelo then used the nymph cloak to charm the vendor - as the target did not turn hostile if the attempt failed and its charm lasted 12 hours, this was the best option. Sneaking him past Keldorn using Invisibility 10' Radius, Angelo kept him moving so that he couldn't fire arrows at passing foes. Finally, Angelo broke his own invisibility by casting something inconsequential, then ordered Roger to attack him before transitioning back into the Old Tunnels. Although charmed creatures couldn't normally transition areas, they could if they were undergoing an attack order so Roger appeared beside Angelo.
Telling Roger to back off, Angelo went back to Zaelas and Garuk (sneaking in case some monster had spawned while he was away). Dropping all his possessions into the chests, Angelo took the rift device to Roger, where he had the thief Pick Pocket it from him (since his inventory was empty, the rift device was quickly stolen). Repeating the area-transition trick to get Roger into the sewers, Angelo cast Invisibility 10' Radius again and sneaked them to the main grate. Another spell-attack-transition later, both Angelo and Roger were out in the Temple District, the latter in possession of the rift device.
When you attempt to enter or exit the sewers, the game checks your inventory to see if you have the rift device - if you do, then an automatic death scene triggers. However, although it checks your PC allies, it does not check charmed companions and Roger's Pick Pockets allows you to pass items into his inventory. Be aware that Roger has 85% PP and stealing is an opposed check - if you have > 85% natural PP, he cannot steal from you! Angelo had 80% natural PP and achieved his 100% PP via the gloves of pickpocketing... another reason why you should remove all your gear!
Having outlived his usefulness, Roger was taken aside while Angelo descended alone to retrieve his stuff. Roger's death by the hands of Angelo's golem, efreeti and berserker summons attracted the attention of two nosey prophets, collateral damage whose deaths didn't cost Angelo any reputation! Once Roger fell, Angelo retrieved the rift device intact from his corpse.
Stashing it in his regular trove, Angelo returned to the sewers. It was time for a reckoning.
He soon found out, as the beholder seemed totally unaffected by his Belm backstab attack. "Immune to +2 weapons?" Angelo grumbled, whipping out Lilarcor +3. Fine, he may not be able to backstab with it, but slow and steady would win the race... or it would have had the Unseeing Eye not been immune to +3 weapons as well. This would obviously invalidate his Animate Dead tactics, but Angelo tried anyway... only to find that the Unseeing Eye fired a triple Invisible Stalker sequencer upon sight that smashed his summons to pieces.
"What am I to do?" he asked his familiar desperately. "There are very few +4 weapons available at this stage in the game."
"I wouldn't get too excited about them, either," Felicity replied. "Even if your strikes were true, it still has 95% resistance to all physical damage, as well as 100% resistance to cold and lightning and a mound of hit points. It's only got 3 Charisma... but it's also got an unlisted immunity to level 1 - 4 spells, so no Contagion for you." Felicity gasped as she surveyed its stats. "Blimey, it's immune to level 6 - 9 magic too, along with a host of specific immunities to level 5 spells. Short of spamming Feeblemind, which does work, I can't see a way to win... but its eye beams will disrupt you as fast as you - or it - can blink."
Angelo rubbed his chin pensively. "I can think of a way to bring it down," he said eventually, "a trick that I've never seen described before. But I'm not in a position to pull it off at the moment..."
"It's a pity that the killing the vampiric mists seems compulsory," Felicity opined as they left the Pit of the Faithless. "Otherwise this segment could have been completed pacifistically. At least there's still the sarcophagus to check out, in case you'd forgotten."
Angelo had not forgotten about the mystery coffin and he would not forget about the Unseeing Eye. But now was not the time to tackle these problems. Now was the time, though, to take a trip to the Graveyard District and start Chapter 3.
It's limited; only five times. No infinite XP potential here.
The summoning trigger only blocks the entrance to the larger hut. Entering from Theshal's side, you can cross the chamber safely. Of course, Angelo doesn't need the gauntlets since he already has more Dex than that.
The Eye innately sees through invisibility, but it can't use eye rays on invisible targets. Including the block that uses an antimagic ray on anyone with stoneskin, PfMW, invisibility, improved invisibility, bless, chant, haste, or mirror image.
Mage spells and melee attacks, though - you're vulnerable even if you're invisible.
Aside from the weapon immunity, all beholderkin are immune to backstabs. Even if you pick up a +4 weapon, that won't help your damage rate.
It's also immune to level 6-9 spells, plus specific immunities to a number of level 5 spells. The complete list of save-or-suck spells that might work is (1) Feeblemind.
The spell level immunities, weapon enchantment immunities, and damage resistances can, of course, be removed by using the Rift Device. They're an SCS-added feature, meant to make it exceedingly hard to win the fight if you don't use it.
I'm not sure either, but I tested multiple times and this was the behaviour I observed every time. The poison mists found on the first floor of Watcher's Keep cannot see through invisibility; the other mist-like creatures - the wandering horror and vampiric wraiths - can follow you around, but cannot attack you until you become at least partially visible. For example, Angelo can stand around invisible (with fear protection gear) here, prompting 'I should be more productive with my time', and although the others swarm without attacking, the poison mist is totally uninterested.
As long as Angelo doesn't uncover the back chamber, he can use either entrance without activating the lich. In one test I did, by sneaking anticlockwise around the perimeter and looting the gauntlets from behind, he didn't trigger the lich appearing, but the behaviour wasn't repeatable, so I didn't include it.
I only tested Feeblemind and it was vulnerable, but I didn't want to exclude later options (e.g. Disintegrate) prematurely, so I broadened the scope. I will update.
I can confirm that no rift device will be harmed in the killing of this creature.
Executive Summary: Angelo's summons clear the Graveyard District while he declares war on the shadow thieves.
"Is there any reason you couldn't have pursued this before?" Felicity asked Angelo as they left the sewers behind. "I sense you'll soon be acquiring a spider figurine that some adventurers may hold in higher regard."
"Not especially," Angelo shrugged. "I mainly chose this order to keep the narrative relatively clean, but if they were in desperate need of summons, they could have come here earlier. Six and half a dozen, if you catch my drift."
"Your servant Valen made it sound like visiting was an urgent matter," Angelo replied, "but I am not one to be rushed."
"Curt, but efficient," Bodhi murmured. "Then I will reply in kind. Only this time, I will press you for a decision. Those shadow thieves cannot be trusted. They give you an offer, then change it when it suits them. Far better you put your faith in a vampire like me, who gives you a quote and sticks with it."
"Will I get to keep my stronghold if I side with you?" Angelo asked. "Some online naysayers claim that it will disappear if I accept your offer."
"Of course," Bodhi laughed with surprise. "I only turn away single class thieves for being too close for comfort. I see no contradiction between earning money for the shadow thieves guild while simultaneously working against them."
"And the monsters that lie within these tombs," Angelo continued. "Do you have any objection to me smashing them up?" Bodhi shook her head. "Good," Angelo said as he signed along the dotted line, ridding himself of 15,000 GP, earning 36,750 XP and starting Chapter 3.
Returning to the ground floor, Angelo summoning his regular contingent, cast Invisibility and poked around. He met several groups of various arachnids (the bottommost even switched it up with a few ettercaps) - due to his undead's poison and physical resistance, the most dangerous of these were the giant spiders and their Web tangles (which, strangely, could ensnare his spiders). Still, stealth and a willingness to rest was enough to send them packing.
Despite the game regularly warning him about the presence of traps, they were concentrated in the southwestern reach (apart from a Ray of Enfeeblement floor trap on the east passage). What's more, the Skull Trap floor trap nearest the inner circle was actually avoidable if Angelo hugged the edges.
After disarming the Flame Strike trap on the chest opposite, Angelo moved along this corridor towards the exit. There, he disarmed a Chain Lightning floor trap (which was unavoidable) and a Cloudkill trap on a nearby chest for no notable benefit.
As predicted, Pai'Na immediately turned hostile, with the commoners proving themselves to be nothing more than vessels for more arachnids. Their poison caused 5 damage per tick and the tick rate was vicious - even though Angelo had his periapt on, he still cast Invisibility and slunk away while his summons engaged Pai'Na. With all of the monsters otherwise occupied, Angelo waited until his sword spiders had died, freeing up a slot for his efreeti to fill and lob Fireballs into the fog of war. While this didn't have much effect on his magic resistant skeletons, it toasted the hordes of spiders quite nicely indeed.
Pai'Na may have turned into a salamander and avoided the damage, but if she had, it was no big deal. Surrounded as she was and out of Iron Skins, she may as well have shapechanged into a sitting duck. And with a golem, a berserk warrior and newly acquired Kitthix in tow, any remaining spiders were mopped up without incident.
It was only once Angelo had moved into the centre of the room that the numerous coffins lining the chamber opened, releasing all manner of undead beasties. Luckily, Angelo was invisible and none of said beasties was a lich, so Angelo could escape through the secret door at the bottom of the chamber. This led to passage leading eastwards and southwards, the former bearing a repeating arrow trap while the latter had several traps in quick succession. The first was a monster summoning trap that could be circumvented.
This was followed by a repeating Flame Strike trap, which was also avoidable.
Finally, there was a Chain Lightning trap - again, non-compulsory.
This southernmost chamber served as an excellent base for Angelo to invisibly rest in and cast his lengthy spells to summon support. With patience and repeated applications, these summons would prove enough to tackle the parties of mummies, wraiths, ghouls and shadows posted outside the main chamber. The mummies' bandages proved especially vulnerable to the efreeti's fire-based magic, and Angelo was sure to open the coffin at the crossroads, releasing a skeleton warrior that carried Halcyon +1, a spear that did extra electrical damage.
The only thing that summons could not take out on their own was the 'vampyre' in the main chamber (Angelo had hoped that its aberrant title would signify a lesser variant, but he was out of luck). Immune to < +1 weapons and in possession of Domination and several on-hit attacks (including level drain and drink blood), SCS had significantly upped the vampiric ante. Angelo would have to respond in kind... and he had just the tools to do it!
While the vampyre was busy feasting on his throwaway summons, Angelo crept away and cast Mislead. Stowing the clone away, Angelo moved back in behind the vampyre and whipped out his new toy. Although the mace of disruption was nominally +1, it struck as a +3 weapon, which the vampyre found to its detriment.
"Guess beating my friends up was only a vam-pyrrhic victory for you," Angelo chuckled as he took his leave.
When looting the staff of curing from the southeastern tomb, Angelo discovered a secret door which he hadn't expected to. Felicity told him that it was connected with Clara's Hexxat's quest, which was introduced in the Enchanced Edition. "As you were," Angelo said - he'd come this far without recruiting any companions and had no intention of starting now.
As he was preparing to leave the graveyard, a messenger arrived saying that his thieves had returned to their guild and that Renal was awaiting payment. Bodhi had evidently been telling the truth - it was possible to ally with her and still keep the thieves' guild stronghold. Angelo's next port of call was the harbour... and it'd be the shadow thieves, not Angelo, who would be in the Docks!
Executive Summary: Our protagonist completes his stronghold quests and decimates the shadow thieves' ranks.
As they entered his stronghold, Felicity pondered Angelo's latest conundrum. "Why would anyone use Open Locks, Detect Illusion and Stealth if they had Knock, True Sight and Invisibility? Umm... paltry XP, circumvention of Spell Immunity and the ability to use with an antimagic shell?" The imp scratched her head. "I guess I don't really know."
Angelo's smile widened. "Exactly."
Angelo concurred, but he went to Waukeen's Promenade anyway. He arrived on the southern edge at midday, but the clock automatically progressed to midnight and he was teleported to the northern exit where Ama was waiting. "Put your weapons away," she smiled. "We want to appear unassuming."
"Would it not be more unassuming to turn invisible?" Angelo asked, rubbing his efreeti bottle. The genie arrived alongside the 'politician' Sir Greshal, who came with several assassins. "No matter," Angelo shrugged as the efreeti completed its spell and he disappeared. The thieves seemed flummoxed by this - perhaps they thought that Mae'Var's killer would be helpless? In any case, the battle was as good as over, since the enemy AI didn't know what to do once the efreeti's time was up. They stood around doing nothing while the Amnian soldier standing guard thwacked them repeatedly.
Using Detect Illusion to ensure that no mugger had drunk a potion of invisibility to escape, Angelo returned to his guild. Lathan had more bad news - apparently, one of his thieves had been removing their profits, leaving Angelo with less proceeds. Unimpressed, Angelo ordered all suspects' wages docked until the rogue was caught and left it to his underlings to administer their own justice.
Once he became visible, several hidden shadow thieves tried to claim their piece of Angelo pie. However, his stone skins deflected their backstabs long enough for his ring of invisibility to kick in. Arkanis Gath carried some decent treasure (Rifthome Throwing Axe +3 and a Short Sword +2), but the others had disappointing loot, making them unworthy of Angelo's wrath. Returning to Bodhi for 28,500 XP seemed like the more economical option.
After the devices had been laid, all it took was a single backstab to activate them and crumple Vulova. The guards were slow to react, so Angelo dumped the replica cloak and dagger in the fountain as requested, then used his invisibility ring to quit the scene. Bodhi sensed the deed was done and doled out 28,500 XP for his trouble.
You can warn Vulova of Bodhi's intentions, whereupon he leaves while setting the guards on you, but Bodhi awards no XP in this case.
Invisibly entering the abandoned top floor of the shadow thief guildhall, Angelo disarmed a Magic Missile trap on a left chest and a Dire Charm trap chest on the right (which required Galen's key to open, but housed no notable treasure). The shadowy welcoming committee lay downstairs, but Angelo could sneak past them and Bayle's key opened the cellar entrance disguised as grey bricks on the right wall.
Bodhi had mentioned that freeing her imprisoned associate Tizzak would be useful. Angelo doubted this, but set about it anyway. Jailer Booter began neutral, allowing an invisible Angelo to close and steal the shadow thief prison key (and his two-handed sword +2). Vanishing to shake him off, Angelo unlocked Tizzak's voluminous cell to be informed that getting to Linvail required pushing a red button and acquiring a key from wizard Haz. Then he left, without being so gracious as to offer any XP. "Needn't have bothered with that," Angelo muttered, for Felicity provided all his metagaming needs.
Getting to the button involved navigating some rickety bridges with neutral fighter Dedral and an undetectable Cloudkill trap poised at their centre. Passing up the opportunity for theft, Angelo crossed the bridges and entered a stage seemingly out of a Western movie. The cobblestones disguised a pair of Maze traps that Angelo promptly disarmed, lest his adventure accidentally end rather swiftly.
The button lay at the end of the upper passage, but there were several latent dangers involved in reaching it. Disarming a Dire Charm floor trap, a Skull Trap floor trap and a Fireball floor trap, Angelo finally pushed the button for 17,500 XP. There was no way to disarm the spiked rollers, which inflicted small amounts of damage every few seconds, but Stoneskin blocked it while Angelo made it across and back.
Haz had a duo of Death Spells in tow, but was strangely willing to waste his magic - Charm Person, for instance, was cast repeatedly on Angelo's sword spiders and Chaos was never going to work against skeletons. Stowing away around the corner, Angelo sent his minions to individually drain Haz's supplies before finally biting the bullet once the enchanter was dry. Mirror Image was no match for Detect Illusion and Belm cut through Haz's stone skins faster than they were replenished. The enchanter's death yielded 7,000 XP and the key to Aran's Lair, while the priest was worth 2,000 XP and the thieves were 1,400 XP each.
As it happened, the exit to the Docks was perfectly placed. Angelo had exhausted his spells and couldn't rest in the cellar, so he welcomed the chance to go to an inn. Renewing his Invisibility at his stronghold, Angelo went back into the guildhall to retrace his steps. This time, he did pick Dedral's pockets, obtaining the ring of lock picks and various items of lint (potions of freedom and extra healing, and a jade ring). Dedral refused to engage, retreating towards the cobbled area while calling for the guillotines to be halted. No doubt, he wanted to ambush Angelo there, but the joke was on him since Angelo disappeared and went in the opposite direction.
After passing over the previous connecting duct and an angry air elemental, Angelo arrived at Linvail's chamber. To delay the onset of addiction, he had avoided Mislead up until this point, but he allowed himself an indulgence. Spell Immunity would prevent his priest and wizard lackeys from rooting him out and the bedroom doors would cordon off any premature discovery while he instigated Aran's 17,000 XP death. He even had time to kill said lackeys and loot the room (for a katana +2 and a ring of djinni summoning) before Mislead expired and he beat his retreat.
Bumping back into the air elemental reminded Angelo to be more careful. Casting Invisibility, Angelo left the cellar via the main door, but the air elemental came thundering after him, having somehow followed him through the cellar. Luckily, the door to the main guildhall was shut, so the other shadow thieves were not alerted, and this gave Angelo an idea. The billowing air elemental was too big to fit through the small gap in the curtain, so all it could do was whirlwind Angelo from afar. A Blind spell soon put paid to that, after which it was sniped to its 7,000 XP death with Tansheron's bow.
With his unexpected assailant down and out, it was time for Angelo to go.
"Will this affect my thieves' guild's activities?" Angelo asked the vampire. "Felicity has heard rumours that in previous editions, most strongholds were unaffected by this trip, but thieves lost their guild because they couldn't make the weekly payments while they were away."
"When you sensed that Gwin's death was your stronghold's last complication," Bodhi purred, "you were not wrong."
"Have we bought everything we need?" Angelo asked, turning to Felicity. The imp nodded and Angelo turned back to Bodhi. "We accept your terms and we will leave immediately. The high seas await."
At one time, I considered taking out all the SCS-LoB wardens a near impossible task - it certainly defeated Angelo the F/M/T when he tried it - but it's actually quite straightforward. What you do is lure them into the floor's top left corner, where you would usually assemble the gong, then disappear. Assuming you can avoid Fear's stunning gaze and Avarice's backstab, then you're golden. The wardens will follow there, but will stand still once they lose sight of you, allowing you to invisibly dance over the nearby repeating Fireball's trap's trigger to your heart's content.
I know what you're thinking... wouldn't Love's persistent Minor Globe of Invulnerability make her immune to Fireball? Indeed, it would, but it only springs up once she sees you. Leave her alone in the corridor, wait for her defences to fall off and then invisibly blast her to smithereens. She deserves it!
Here's Tranzig, my trusty avenger, illustrating the method:
If you can, once you've invisibly lured them into the corridor, run away and rest - this resets Avarice's roaming and stops him from wandering off. An efficient method in a WS run is to use a Protection from Magic scroll to loot the Wisdom tome and the odd looking key (both are guarded by charm traps that are difficult to protect against in a WS run), then use the remaining duration to kill Love - the globe means you can't use spells to disappear and potions are out for a WS run, but it can be done with Stealth. And why couldn't Angelo use this method? Because, gosh darn it, he'd already disarmed the repeating trap on the way to fighting the wardens. Still, if he had, he could have gotten through the whole of Durlag's Tower without killing a single creature himself!
Executive Summary: Neither pirates nor a dead god are a match for Wraithform!
The voyage from Athkatla was blissfully uneventful. Bodhi muttered something about disliking the ocean crossing - a liberal interpretation of vampire’s hatred of running water, perhaps – but Angelo’s own trip was plain sailing. "The easiest way to proceed is just to bribe Desharik's guard with 300 GP, then convince the pirate lord that you're insane," Felicity muttered once Saemon had left.
"And miss out on all of Brynnlaw's subquests?" Angelo shook his head. "For once, we'll take the scenic route."
After the assassin's 900 XP death, the bartender suggested finding Claire, Sanik's girlfriend and courtesan Lady Galvena. Angelo didn't need any encouragement to visit the prostitutes outside Lady Galvena's Festhall, although they needed some to engage with him. Acquiring Galvena's medallion from nearby pimp Chremy was necessary for further solicitation - despite being a rogue, Chremy only had 5% Pick Pockets, so the opposed stealing check was not difficult. After this and some assurances that Lady Galvena would come to harm, the courtesan was happy to escort him to her bedroom.
Inside, the courtesan offered Angelo a sleeping draught to take to the cook down the corridor. The guards were initially on edge, but Angelo assuaged their suspicions by pretending to be new and promising to leave. The chef Ellie needed little persuasion to drop it into the guard's beers, earning Angelo 1,000 XP, and talking to the courtesan nearby before hopping out into the corridor initated a cutscene that drugged the soldiers. One of the room they were guarding contained Captain Rerdes, who became similarly intoxicated for 4,000 XP, and a bookshelf with Galvena's key to open the far door.
Angelo was pleased to see a set of jail cells, as this allowed him to easily hide Mislead's clone behind a closed door (if Angelo entered another area, Mislead's illusion would fail, but hiding the clone within the same area was kosher).
After he'd looted their bodies, Claire gave out 10,000 XP and accompanied Angelo to Golin, the captain of a ship that she would have used to sail away with Sanik had he not been assassinated. The dialogue revealed the presence of Perth the Adept, a retired cowled wizard with a wardstone that accessed Spellhold, although Angelo could also persuade Desharik of his insanity with Golin offering to put in a good word to placate the guard. None of this was necessary for Angelo, who had the help of Felicity's metagaming, but the 22 GP from asking for a reward was kinda nice.
So either Perth or Desharik would have to be pursued. Since Perth carried the book of infinite spells as well as the wardstone, it made sense for Angelo to take him out. And although Perth could be approached invisibly and relieved of his possessions via Pick Pocket, he was capable of summoning a dark planetar that could see through Angelo's illusions (as well as occasionally casting True Sight illegally). Better off to just kill him outright.
Fortunately, there was a neat way to do this. Perth would initiate dialogue if approached, but spells could by fired from the entrance before engagement. Perth would also turn hostile if an unsuccessful Feeblemind was attempted, but Domination suffered from no such hang up. As soon as Perth was charmed, Angelo wasted no time in making him cast Bigby's Clenched Fist on himself, a disabler that stunned with no save and allowed Angelo to kill him before its duration ran out.
Perth's memorised spells vary, but there should be some way for him to commit suicide.
After Perth's 20,000 XP death, Angelo disarmed the Power Word Silence trap on the chest and looted the rather unexciting items. With the wardstone in his possession, Angelo could now pass the bridge to Spellhold, but the alternative would prove more rewarding. Having the option to pursue one path would not disqualify Angelo from taking another one.
Hearing Angelo's battle with himself caused Desharik to ponder that his 'ravings would seem forced coming from a less charismatic person'. Angelo tapped his ring of human influence and explained how this put him above the 16 Charisma threshold. Desharik accepted his explanation, awarding 38,500 XP, and admitted Angelo to the asylum. "Strange that a low Wisdom is of no help here," Felicity muttered as they left.
"Low Wisdom coming right up," Angelo replied with more than a hint of irony.
It was Imoen who greeted Angelo when he awakened in Candlekeep, speaking in riddles assuring Angelo of an upcoming lesson in self-acceptance. It was no surprise, therefore, when a demon confronted him demanding that he give up some of his essence. Unfortunately, Angelo knew of no clever way of circumventing this (all the usual suspects - Feeblemind, stat drain, etc. - did not work, and probably wouldn't anyway since he needed passage to the next are enabled, rather than the demon killed per se). After consulting with Felicity, he declared that Wisdom was the stat he'd be sacrificing.
Assuming min-maxing, this is probably the best choice for all non-divine casters. For divine casters, Intelligence is the next best loss: anyone not an elf or halfling could go up to 20 max Dexterity unbuffed, but although there's no difference between 19 and 20 Dexterity except for thief skills, 1 fall point should be set aside for the selfless path in Hell. A C/M and a F/M/C won't be happy, but they should view it as punishment for being so awesome elsewhere. And elf or halfling divine casters don't count because we're assuming min-maxing!
After the sacrifice, Candlekeep opened up and Imoen suggested drawing the avatar of Bhaal outside to her. Since preliminary tests had already confirmed that it was otherwise indestructible, Angelo was keen to lure it to its doom. However, it was surprisingly hard to get Bhaal to play (ahem) ball, so Angelo required a cunning workaround. For all its supposed divine power, Bhaal used a normal weapon, so Angelo cast Wraithform and allowed it to realise that its weapon was useless. Having lured the avatar to Candlekeep's entrance, Angelo then summoned a critter and once Bhaal changed focus, ordered it to attack him. Finally, he then entered Candlekeep, followed by the critter (using the same 'area-transition' trick as he used with Roger the Fence) followed by Bhaal (who could similarly transition when attacking something else).
Not that I can see them reaching this point, but wizard slayers would have real problems here with no means of summons. Since this part is compulsory, going inside Candlekeep and cheating the avatar inside (using C:CreateCreature("ppbhaal"); see https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65091/bhaal-wont-follow-me-into-candlekeep-so-i-can-fight-him). Apparently, it's a mod-related problem that doesn't show up in normal installs.
Once Bhaal was inside Candlekeep and in sight of Imoen, Angelo cut the fiend down with Wraithform still active. It used some potions, which could be stolen before battle commenced by approaching invisibly, but the result was never in doubt.
As he blacked out, Angelo felt the pang of ignominious defeat. In tracking down his foe, he had allowed his Bhaalspawn power, along with Imoen's, to be extracted. And he was due to be executed by the vampire that had brought him here. It seemed that his Wisdom, now lower than before, had never been that high to begin with...
Executive Summary: Completing the Asylum's first two floors is a curious mix of easy, tedious and difficult.
Not even having his soul ripped from his body was enough to keep our intrepid protagonist down for long. He awoke to find Bodhi gloating at length about why keeping him alive was not a terrible idea. "I thought I'd even give you back Imoen," she dangled teasingly, "as a way of raising the stakes."
"The only stakes I'll be raising," Angelo promised, "are those I'll be plunging into your dark heart!" But Bodhi had disappeared, leaving him to rot in deepest Spellhold.
Almost as apology for whisking away his Bhaalspawn powers, Angelo found that this area offered multiple opportunities for easy XP. The dozen stone masks could be investigated while invisible, with the completion of their conundrums offering 5,000 XP and a ring of regeneration; similarly, transporting all the items from a central chest to their respective containers earned 20,000 XP for very little work. In addition to a dusty rose ioun stone (did Angelo look like a kensai?!), the latter also offered a sapphire stone which could be invisibly deposited into the nearby portal without alerting the rakshasa rukh or the surrounding mephits. This summoned a djinni, who donated plate mail +3 and words of encouragement.
Since Angelo was prepared for place himself in a modicum of danger, the treasures climbed yet higher. Only some gibberlings stood between him and a spear +3 (plus some bullets, throwing axes and throwing daggers) and a clay golem was slow enough for Invisibility to be recast after Angelo had looted the arrows and darts it was guarding. The barrel was trapped (with a Death Spell - harmless, since Angelo was above level 8) and with good reason... the bag of holding was a timely addition and the end to Angelo's inventory management problems.
What Felicity could tell him, however, is that the traps in the northern corridor were unremovable and would kill any thief that attempted it. Pitying any poor ironman character who lacked this vital insight, Angelo ignored the possibility of luring creatures into it with summons, as nothing on this floor was worth fighting. Instead, he left for the second floor via the entrance by the clay golem room (rather than the one in the main chamber), vowing to consistently use this one since the other would dump him in an umber hulk scrum ('scrumber hulk'?).
After his conjured army had killed the trash mob, Angelo saw the large crystal begin to pulse, teleporting in a pair of kobold shamans who proceeded to summon a trio of kobolds (including an xvart lookalike) and a kobold witch doctor... obviously Black Isle had been reading the AD&D adventure Dragon Mountain! His summons were looking slightly the worse for wear, so Angelo cast Wraithform and waded in himself to assist them, the illusion shielding him from most of their blows. Once this kobold wave had subsided, the crystal admitted defeat and allowed a shard to be broken from its surface. One of the shamans carried a stake, which Angelo surmised he would be using very shortly.
However, just as Angelo was getting comfortable, the book threw him a curveball. Unlike SoD's Darkshelin, the newly-conjured mindflayer was SCS-enabled and hence a real nuisance. Within an instant, a psionic attack disabled the live summons and new toy Detonate exploded his undead minion. This disabled the usual way of dispatching mindflayers - Animate Dead's skeletons were previously immune to psionics - and seeing the mindflayer advance told Angelo that they could see through invisibility. This vastly diminished Mislead's power and the mindflayer's 50% physical resistance diluted it yet further. However, even this was preferable to chancing their universally good saving throws and 90% magic resistance. Added to their array of psionic attacks, at will invisibility/teleportation and their 5 ApR draining 5 Intelligence per hit, Angelo had no qualms in designating SCS mindflayers the most dangerous opponents in the game.
These abilities mean there are precious few ways to deal with LoB-SCS mindflayers at the best of times... at this early stage, even fewer still... but luckily the circumstances were tilted in Angelo's favour here. Felicity had warned him of its imminent arrival and Angelo had set as many traps as he could. As a level 14 thief, Angelo's traps inflicted poison damage every round in addition to its initial burst and the mindflayer could only explode one skeleton per round. Keeping himself out of harm's way, Angelo knew he'd only have to survive a few rounds before the stacked poisons did their job. Just to be bitchy, the mindflayer invoked Planar Travel and escaped once it reached Badly Injured, denying Angelo the 9,000 XP he'd gain from its death, but at least it was gone, one way or another.
Another read of the book summoned a further opponent that was difficult to defeat if a hard-counter was not used. Luckily, Angelo possessed such a counter - it was the shield of Balduran, not Animate Dead, that was obsoleted by SCS this time - and Angelo invisibily let the skeletons take the brunt of the beholder's rays. A final glance at the tome produced a ring of free action, as well as scrolls of Simulacrum and Summon Fiend, which seemed suitable reward for the horrors he'd endured to obtain them.
It is possible to activate the book 5 times and acquire the treasure without breaking Invisibility... but since the mindflayer can see through the illusion anyway, it's not easy to capitalise on this.
As he meandered down the corridor, he heard the sound of enemy skeletons being raised. There were very few enemies that could perform such a deed, and Angelo correctly guessed that a lich was up ahead. Although his Invisibility shielded him from the gaze of the surrounding ghasts, mummies and bone golems, the lich saw right through it and began casting Time Stop. Taking evasive action, Angelo shut himself in the adjacent library to peruse the Finger of Death and Power Word: Stun scrolls while the Time Stop passed harmlessly.
He used the breathing space to take stock of the situation. On the one hand, the mob guarded a vase with a quarterstaff +3, which was nice but unessential. On the other hand, if the mindflayer was the most difficult foe in BG2, then the lich wasn't far behind. Immune to level <5 spells and non-magical weapons, liches also possessed the standard undead immunity suite and could see through Invisibility to boot. And even once it had exhausted its magical armoury, SCS provided them with an unlimited supply of Energy Blades which they hurled with unerring accuracy.
Luckily, Angelo could use the lich's torpidity to dash out while it cast some spell it would abandon once Angelo left its line of sight. Seeing an upcoming neutral vampire reminded Angelo to retrieve the mace of disruption he'd brought with him from Athkatla before starting his usual Mislead preparations. Maces did not allow for backstabs, but Mislead allowed Angelo disruption without interruption, basically guaranteeing the 8,500 XP kill. A followup stake to the coffin (courtesy of the earlier kobold shaman) prevented the vampire's escape, earned 9,000 XP and deposited the hand of Dace in his inventory.
His business concluded, Angelo ran back into the lich's chamber, hoping that he could grab the staff and go (unlike Invisibility, Mislead allowed the safe looting of containers without dispelling its illusion). He'd reckoned without its triple Remove Magic sequencer, but his ring of invisibility provided an uninterruptible getaway before the hordes could enclose and cut off his escape route. Similar tactics evaded the selection of yuan-ti who had gathered around the large statue head on the first floor, allowing Angelo to plunder the Delayed Blast Fireball and Project Image scrolls without retaliation. Having both Kurtulmak's crystal shard and the hand of Dace opened the statue's mouth, giving Angelo 29,500 XP and access to the third floor.
"So long, suckers," Angelo scoffed as he left the yuan-ti high and dry. He had a date with a double-crossing vampire... and he didn't want to be late!