Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and cannot use any elemental protection spells
I will add Leira soon to our list while waiting for more feedback on Talos!
Loreth in the meanwhile managed to grab Durlags Goblet and Kiels Helmet. As usual she played hit & stealth until it failed forcing her to use Greenstone Amulet and running away as Avarice smelled some blood. After managing to restealth a quick hit & stealth let Love wander around... until he decided to walk the trap path which Loreth used to burn the poor ghost to ashes. With Goblet in the Pocket it might be time to take on Karoug... maybe...
Wow, I have only played SoD a couple of times (once RP with party, once solo M/C insane where I gave up at B ), and yeah, wow, I forgot how many enemies. Lucky to have polymorph other + greater malison to deal with Korlasz asap
Plus theres wierd things going: If I let my familiar out of the bag it disappears; and I just killed the assassins and one of them dropped a stack of 80 oils of speed....
edit: wait, is that imoen's corpse with the oils of speed. wow.
edit 2, because I do not want to spam the thread too much:
Even mighty neothelids cannot resist a dragon disciples will for everything to become squirrel barbecue.
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and cannot use any elemental protection spells
Envious Transmuters will welcome this proposal, but other casters not so much haha. I can vote in favor of the weather on. I'm not super enthusiastic about banning elemental protection spells. First of all, inventory management is complicated already, and having to make space for potions/scrolls is a bit burdensome. Secondly casters have access to fewer items that grant elemental protections, think Icingdeath and Gift of Peace in BG1, Daeros's full plate in SoD, the Dragon Helm, Peridan, and several armors in BG2. Thirdly it disallows legitimate element-based strategies for certain casters. @alice_ashpool's Dragon Disciple for example used her own fire resistance to defeat powerful foes in Durlag's Tower. Anyway, I don't want to spoil the fun, these are just my 2 cents.
Loreth in the meanwhile managed to grab Durlags Goblet and Kiels Helmet. As usual she played hit & stealth until it failed forcing her to use Greenstone Amulet and running away as Avarice smelled some blood. After managing to restealth a quick hit & stealth let Love wander around... until he decided to walk the trap path which Loreth used to burn the poor ghost to ashes. With Goblet in the Pocket it might be time to take on Karoug... maybe...
Great stuff this! Still no-reload right? SoD looms in the distance for Loreth!
Ganja is on a lucky streak. I completely forgot that Basilisk waylay was a thing and going to Durlag's Tower escaped it without PfP. And then got Confused in the tower basement, but Ghasts didn't find me.
Btw I have to ask before I continue looting. Does less than 2h buffing restrict also trap prevention? So I can't open Charm trap with Greenstone or Clarity? Although I could commence battle with enemy, buff and then run to the chest...
Yeah, i ran into the same problem in Durlags Tower facing the charm trap @histamiini. I would call Greenstone Amulet also a spell buff so i triggered the Skels in the room nearby, stealthed away and had more than enough time to trigger the trap.
Loreth has collected all Tomes and i also tested the Demon Knight with my old test dummy. Even though the Demon can see through invsibility hit and run works perfectly fine after the Mirror Fiend took him down to badly wounded. Lets hope she can make her way to the other levels.
The coronation will for sure be the toughest battle but with full buffs and constant stabbing there should be some hope. Maybe i should plan this battle first...
Making Talos a weather only curse feels rather weak @Blackraven, so if you have other ideas feel free to post them!
Did 10 quick test fights with my old Shadowdancer6/Fighter dummy against the Palace Ambush...
1. If i get caught by Liias Dispel Magic - not good
2. If i cannot Shadow Step Remove Magic before the spell is going off - also bad
3. If the Dopplegangers focus heavily on the Dukes and Fireballs hit hard its GG
4. If Teleport Field comes out it sometimes confuses the Dopplegangers - no GG
After all 5 wins and 5 losses... it was a coin flip. Maybe with better prebuffing chances go up but the guards die so pretty damn fast its not funny and with no summons as decoys the Dukes can get under heavy fire early on. So for the moment i am toying around with the idea to choose Sune for the first part so Loreth can charm the Nobles using Algernons Cloak - which had succesfully been stolen before - and then switching to Waukeen for SoD. Will have to sleep about this one...
@Harpagornis, I quite like the challenge as it is right now, and I feel that if we keep adding new curses maybe they shouldn't apply to runs in progress? The thing is that in some cases one might have made different decisions in terms of spell picks, weapon specializations, gear left behind etc if those curses had applied from the outset? Maybe I'm taking this way too seriously (probably the lawyer in me).
Let's say @histamiini's Beastmaster/Cleric wants to don the Gift of Peace, cast PfFire, cast some Fire Storms centered on Charname and beat up groups of enemies with the Club of Detonation, and then suddenly he's no longer allowed to. I'm not saying he should play his character that way, but this is to just to exemplify how having to respect a new curse in the middle of an ongoing run can be a bit of a pain.
Having said all this, I do agree that Talos's could be made stronger. What if we focus more on the destruction side of Talos:
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning, three potions that aren't healing potions are destroyed.
I excluded healing potions because they're too cheap and plentiful. If one decides to take along three potions of infravision to sacrifice to Talos, that's fine as it takes up valuable inventory space.
Yeah @Blackraven i think that for runs in progress each player can choose if he wants to adapt to the new curses or play on with the old settings. We all know about @histamiini ´s long-term-planning! ;o)
Your idea about Talos sounds very interesting... potion destruction whenever Lightning strikes you... sounds pretty cool and makes one think twice standig near to a wall when some lightning bolt is coming at you!
I already mentioned yesterday that my 96-point amazon Berserker had fallen to an ogre mage's Chromatic Orb. Instead of restarting with her I decided to roll a new Berserker, as I wasn't quite happy with her 18/71 STR. For an axe thrower, her carrying capacity wasn't all that. Rolling another 96 might well have taken hours, so I was quite willing to settle for a 92-point Charname with 18/91 STR, two pips in Axe and two in TWF:
Early game log:
- 455 XP Candlekeep
- 900 XP Marl
- 500 XP Family Quarrel in Beregost
- 100 XP Drunk Outside Beregost
- 100 XP Stone to Flesh on Corianna, receive Potion of Mirrored Eyes
Level 2 reached: +13 HPs
- 200 XP Wounded hobgoblin
- 12k XP lift Tyr's curse and mercy-kill Drizzt (using non-proficient sling because throwing axe could be slower to hit than the attacking gnolls)
Levels 3 & 4 reached: +24 Hps, 3rd pip in Axe
- 1st ambush: non-hostile wild dogs
- Nashkel: rest for Drain innate, sell mithral armor, keep scimitars for on-demand protections, donate for 12 rep
- Oublek
- 300 XP Babysitting in Nashkel
- 300 XP Firebead
- 250 XP Colquetle
- 300 XP Frightened Widow
- 2,5k Xp Tenya
This almost went horribly wrong. Aernalf's Drain didn't interrupt Tenya's casting of an Unholy Blight, and Aernalf didn't make it into her home in time. Thanks to a 20 rolled on his save he "only" suffered 42 magic damage. Thankfully she didn't follow him inside, so he could quaff his three healing potions and wait out her buffs (DUHM, AoF, Enchanted Hammer). He still needed a hit though. Enraged, he succeeded rolling a 13.
Level 5 reached: +14 HPs
- 2nd ambush: gibberlings
- 1k XP Albert & Rufie
- Skip Drienne as I realize just in time that Reaction is too low for her PfUndead scroll reward, keep dead cat, postpone quest
- 1k XP Brage
- 3rd ambush: hobgoblin archers
- 500 XP Samuel
- 435 XP Joia’s Flamedance Ring (easiest of the violent quests with rep awards)
- 300 XP Tamah Rescued (reputation 20)
- 4k XP Kirinhale, pick up wisdom tome using Rage
Had to travel to Durlag’s Tower twice because I only discovered back in Beregost I hadn’t reported back to Kirinhale for the XP. Twice managed to get past battle horrors without getting hit, thanks to one critical miss on their part.
- 4th ambush: hobgoblin archers
- 150 XP Warm Place for Noober
- Misclick at Nashkel Carnival: consume potion of mirrored eyes; travel straight to Ulgoth’s Beard to buy new one
- 5th ambush: hobgoblin archers
- 300 XP Drienne
- 6th ambush: ogrillon
- 4k XP 2x flesh golem at High Hedge
This took 62x Beruel’s Retort. Selling back individual BRs increases Taerom's stock, so as long as Aernalf has the gold he can always have BRs until he gets rid of Prat.
- Buy 3x potion of healing and 2x potion of magic blocking.
- Beregost: break into manor house, force lock for invisibility potion.
- 7th ambush: melee kobolds
- 5k XP Shoal
Failed to save vs breath, quickly swigged invisibility potion before passing out, rested next to ship (applying a broad definition of "house" here), hit Shoal, got targeted with a Chromatic Orb by Droth, immediately countered with potion of magic blocking, ran away from Droth, took on Shoal alone with throwing axes, leaving Droth for later as current attack speed insufficient for melee and too few throwing axes to finish him.
Level 6 reached: +13 HPs, 4th pip in Axe
- 300 XP Arcand the Mad
At 35,190 XP Aernalf knows that only Mutamin's Garden and a few minor quests (like Zhurlong, Mirianne) stand between him and level 7, the level at which he will probably dual-class to Mage. I'd prefer level 9 for the extra HPs (although HP rolls have been very, very good so far), an extra Rage, and slightly better Thac0. But then I remember the Ducal Palace and I cannot see a reasonably reliable way for single-class Aernalf to tackle that. Gold is a bit of a problem due to only 13 CHA, but that should no longer be so once dual-classed, with the charisma tome and the Friends spell.
Executive Summary: While clearing the Small Teeth Pass and North Forest, Angelo defeats a certain drow ranger... again...
If Angelo had the choice of who he encountered first after escaping the Underdark, an elven war party would not have been high on his list. He would have much preferred checking in with Jariel at his thieves' guild... or even a harlot from the Trademeet pleasure tent. Still, it could have been worse... at least these elves weren't drow!
Elhan the Elf
A generic warrior greeted our hero and exchanged veiled threats disguised as pleasantries. After General Sovalidaas warned him that, despite appearances, the elves were legion, Elhan arrived and ordered his complicity in answering some questions. Playing along, Angelo described his hatred of Irenicus and his trials and tribulations in the Underdark. Elhan nodded as he reached his conclusion. "You obviously bear no love for Irenicus, making you an enemy of our enemy. Classically speaking, this might make you our friend."
"Intuitionist logic was always a sham," Angelo concurred.
"Obtain the Rhynn Lanthorn" Elhan continued, ignoring Angelo's remark. "Snuff out Bodhi's evil essence with this elven holy water and these wooden stakes." Accepting these, Angelo also took the liberty of stealing Elhan's poition of magic protection and 2 potions of extra healing before he left the area. It must have slipped Elhan's mind to offer them, so Angelo slipped them from his pockets instead.
Do'Urden Goes Down Under
Angelo had planned on fleeing any ambush he encountered, but he made an exception for the motley band who crossed his path. The instant he was waylaid, he entered Stealth, cutting off the opportunity for dialogue auto-initiation and allowing him sneak away to plant a time trap in the undergrowth and set up an invisible Mislead clone.
Using the bracers of blinding strike to cast Improved Haste, Angelo then reapplied Invisibility (else he be detected like a post-attack Improved Invisibility) and stole 5 potions of extra healing, an oil of speed, a potion of stone giant strength and Twinkle from Drizzt. "I could only steal Icingdeath before," he murmured, thinking back to their last meeting.
It appeared that the drow ranger had also not forgotten that fateful encounter. "You're the scoundrel that attacked me for no good reason outside Baldur's Gate and made off with my equipment!"
"Technically speaking, it was the gnolls that killed you," Angelo insisted, "I just watched them do it."
"Silence!" Drizzt snapped. "Your semantic trickery may bedazzle the lesser of wit, but I will not be deceived so easily. Are you such an incorrigible murderer that you will not repent under pain of death?"
"I will not repent," Angelo retorted, "for I am not sorry. I would gladly kill you again... and I will!" This task was easier said than done: Drizzt had -24AC and 98% MR, so there was no way Angelo would get through his defences easily... much easier to goad Guenhwyvar, Drizzt's newly summoned pet panther, to peramble around the map at double-speed until she stumbled into the time trap. Drizzt's excellent AC was worthless in temporal stasis and with Improved Haste active, Angelo was just quick enough to slice Faerun's most famous reformed dark elf into ribbons before the space-time continuum's normal service resumed.
Next up after a Mislead renewal was Catti-Brie, not only for her 12,000 XP tag, but also her juicy copies of Tansheron's Bow and the ring of invisibility. Regis was only worth 1,500 XP, but he was easy to hit and his ruby amulet of beguiling was a unique treasure (Dire Charm once/day for a turn). Wulfgar would have been a higher priority had his hammer Aegis Fang functioned in anyone's hands than his own - thankfully, he was classed as a fighter, not a barbarian, and was susceptible to backstabbing. If R A Salvatore's writings were to be believed, death would only return Guenhwyvar to her home plane, so Angelo was doing her a favour by cutting her down. Finally, although his -17 AC proved troublesome, dwarf Bruenor gained no shorty bonuses to his saving throws. Sadly, mithral plate +2 differed from its Icewind Dale counterpart in that it didn't support the simultaneous adornment of magical protective jewellery, but it would likely sell for a pretty penny.
Passing on the Small Teeth Pass
"This looks like a newly accessible area, Felicity," Angelo said as they entered Small Teeth Pass. "Since the game can assume we're high level now, I'm hoping for lots of powerful monsters with some nice treasure to boot."
"Prepare to be disappointed," the imp replied. "It seems like this level was one that the developers designed quickly, put on the backburner and then didn't have time to spruce up before release."
Angelo scoffed, but as he invisibly explored the pass, he had to agree. A few ankhegs and werewolves were simply not exciting enough for him to break his illusion to tackle, especially as none had any interesting loot, so he left them all in place. Hopefully, there would be more to see elsewhere.
North Forest Has 'Northern' of Interest
Angelo arrived in North Forest in the dead of night. Sensing that all manner of mists could nocturnally assail him, he vanished and waited until the dawn broke before scouting around. Closer inspection showed a party of adventurers (consisting of a mage, a priest of Cyric, an archer, a duergar, a mist mephit, an orog mercenary, two skeleton warriors and a hidden thief) as the wood's main attraction. There was also a chest guarded by a dao and an efreeti (at night, these switched to two ancient vampires) and a greater wyvern camping out on the southern border.
While the chest was hard to bash open - not even slayer form would suffice, Felicity informed him - it yielded to Knock and Angelo stuffed his pockets with assorted gems, along with a random level 7 scroll. The efreeti initiated proceedings with a swift Fireball that bounced off Angelo's recently cast Protection from Fire spell, but interrupted the dao's magic. Backing away, Angelo vanished just as another Fireball came hurtling his way and left the genies to guard an empty chest.
As for the adventurers, Angelo had noticed the mage clutching a Time Stop scroll. Since the party was already hostile, Angelo couldn't steal it and so they would have to die. Having briefly considered his options, Angelo lazily chose to assassinate the mage with Mislead. It wasn't his fault that Mislead was such a broken spell and this area was a Chapter 6 exclusive - if he wasn't able to cut loose by now, then when would he?
Surprisingly, the mage's precast defences activated, including Stoneskin, Mantle, Fireshield: Blue and Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Retreating, Angelo waited out this magic before returning to finish the job. This time, the mage had no answer and being shuttled around by a Teleport Field wasn't enough of a deterrant. The mephit managed to fire off an erroneous mist ball onto him, but the temporary blindness didn't stop Angelo from killing his target.
Besides the mage (15,000 XP), the other high priority target would have been the priest of Cyric (12,000 XP), but Angelo chose not to add insult to injury by killing them too. He had already gotten what he came for - extra, in fact, for the mage also carried a wand of paralysation - and it wasn't as if he was short of experience. Omitting the greater wyvern on similar grounds, Angelo saved the Forest of Tethir to pad out another segment and began the voyage back to Athkatla.
Back to Athkatla
Not sooner had he entered Waukeen's Promenade than he found a githyanki named Kruin waiting outside the Adventurer Mart. Luckily, as he had travelled invisible, Kruin didn't auto-initiate dialogue, allowing Angelo to steal a potion of invisibility and 2 potions of extra healing. He wasn't wearing his gloves of pickpocketing at first and he initially failed a pickpockets check, but donning the gloves allowed him to further extract a silver hilt from Kruin. He then talked to the githyanki, resetting its variables before it had a chance to turn hostile.
"Give me back the silver sword blade and this will end peacefully," Kruin threatened.
"It's yours," Angelo replied. "Search through my entire inventory, then be on your way."
"You are too kind," Kruin smiled, performing said inventory sweep before departing. Unfortunately, though the sweep did include the bag of holding, it did not include the floor where Angelo stood, ground onto which Angelo had conveniently dropped the hilt and the blade before the conversation had begun. Once the githyanki had gone, Angelo picked up both components and went into the Adventurer Mart to sell his excess wares.
Heading back to the Docks, Angelo confirmed that his thieves' guild was no longer automatically confiscated during his extended absence, a problem Felicity told him had plagued the non-EE version. Having raided his store cupboard keeping his pre-Chapter 4 memorobilia, he had now gathered the components of the Equaliser, the bow of Gesen and the silver sword - weapons that he didn't hesitate to have Cromwell forge for him after checking in on his stronghold.
"Cromwell mentioned that you needed a shaft to complete Wave, along with a scroll and gauntlets of ogre power to complete Crom Faeyr," Felicity remarked as they left the dwarven smith.
"What a happy coincidence," Angelo agreed, "we're obtaining them next."
I've burned out - been playing farr too much and there's something about SoD that feels relentless + the idea that Sophia has no chance in, well, in hell of defeating big bad B is demoralising. Got to the coalition camp atleast though. Really feeling how little I know this game compared to BG1 and 2, and the inventory pressure is getting unpleasant, thanks Illmater!
Sophia is also only level 10 of 12 and I am wondering how to scrape up the extra XP.
Recruited Undead under PfU
Ziatar: Feebleminded
Neolithid: Greenstone amulet and WoMS then Polymorphed & Firebreathed
Morentherene: Protection from poison, oil of speed then Feebleminded, Polymorphed & Firebreathed while running round in circles. Horrid fight, died +++ times.
Everyone else either feebleminded, polymorphed, blinded and WoMS or ignored (no way I could think of to deal with the mind flayer without quick physical damage, though I killed his squad).
Savescummed the bridge with WoP on the mage, didn't think to use the Victor because i was so annoyed that there was not enough time to get off a detect invisible + feeblemind which worked 9/10 times but a fraction of a second after the "portal" is opened, hollow revenge.
Minimising game for 1.5h while Sophia hacked away at a feebleminded member of the mindflayer crew with staff was the tedious highlight.
What I would really like to do is get to Belhifet, save after all the cutscene stuff which iirc is tediously long if you are reloading lots and then try out a bunch of DD strats and builds with shadowkeeper to see what is possible with the messed up saves.
I spent quite a while re-rolling Shagrat to maximise his charisma. That's not particularly important in game play for this challenge, but I thought rolling a fresh character might give me a bit of incentive to look after him better. I was a bit torn about which curse to lift. If the saving fix applies, then the chance of killing Belhifet using Scrolls of Ailment is very limited - and I'm dubious about the likely success of any other tactics. However, Belhifet is a long way away and there are lots of situations where it's easier to use dancing spirits if another summons is available as well. Still, I decided to lift Mystra's curse as that will potentially help with some other spell tactics as well.
There's a big difference in how quickly the second tier spirits can win combats, so the first aim was to get up to level 6 as soon as possible to activate those. Mutamin and all his basilisk friends provided the first big whack up to about 28k. Quests added a few more thousand before Shagrat went to find Shoal. Last time he tried that her kiss rendered him unconscious, but his spirits occupied her for the short period until he got up. This time he saved against the kiss. However, like last time, Shoal again refused to give up and he had to settle for the 5k XP from her.
Ardrouine, Brage and Rufie provided the level and the upgraded spirits were quickly making their mark on the golems at High Hedge. Shagrat has now moved on to Durlag's Tower and just ground down the first of the battle horrors there.
Shaman L6, 49 HPs, 12 kills
One point I wanted to check on. Are nymphs restricted from using domination? If so I probably won't take them as a spell just because remembering to waste their spells or attempting to constantly over-ride their AI is a pain.
The remaining battle horrors at Durlag's should have been dealt with routinely, but with weather on there's no such thing as a routine fight! I've not played with it active for a while, but in the past it was very unusual for lightning to cause damage twice to the same target - it would regularly hit more than once, but only occasionally cause damage on the second or succeeding occasion. However, I'd already noted a worg at the Lighthouse that had been killed by a second strike, so I was aware that might have changed in this installation - so had in mind the potential need to break contact and run away if struck by lightning. In the event though there was absolutely nothing I could do when fighting the battle horror on the wall. It was badly injured and surrounded by spirits, so I wasn't concentrating closely - but still immediately noticed when half of Shagrat's health suddenly disappeared. The good thing was he had 49 HPs - and natural lightning rounds down the 50% damage of full health caused, so I knew a second strike wouldn't kill him. I had very little time to take comfort from that though. I was still reaching for the pause button when, less than 2 seconds after the first strike a second one hit - and then a third only a fraction of a second later .
@alice_ashpool If you want just to test Belhifet fight, you can teleport to that level with console command, C:MoveToArea("BD4700")
I've tested Karoug fight little, and it's almost a crapshoot with his 30hppr regen, for fully kitted Beast Master with Silver Staff. Beast Master can do 48avg damage per round, but it still depends on luck, because you need to apply that average (or better) 278hp in a row. Say if you get him like 10hp, have fun when you don't hit him the next 10 times a row and then hit less than average a while. I still like my chances against him more than the endles traps and whatnots for Demon Knight.
Good to see some runs still going and... well... sorry for your loss @Grond0. These Lighting strikes can be a tricky thing.
Ah, finally your Beserker starts rolling @Blackraven... cool... dualing to Mage looks like a decent option!
Oh, yeah i know these moments too @alice_ashpool... when you are burned out... taking a pause is always a good idea then.
Interesting that a Beastmaster has such a rough time against Karoug @histamiini when looking at the numbers. For a Shadowdancer/Fighter he goes down in a minute thanks to constant stabbing.
What about @Blackraven ´s idea of putting in Talos?
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning, three potions that aren't healing potions are destroyed.
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning, three potions that aren't healing potions are destroyed.
Any opinions on that one?
I like it, protection against shock still protects right?
I think @Blackraven ´s idea was that the three potions of your choice are always destroyed when you got hit, regardless if your character takes damage or not. Otherwise it would be far too easy avoiding it, no? ;o)
Hmm that might be quite hard, a trap could cost like 9 potions without possibility to escape. Maybe 3 of any items (not equipped) would be more immersive and slightly less punishing, you are carrying almost always some junk around?
We have several options here @histamiini. One idea would be that each time Charname gets hit by lightning he can chose to lose either...
1. Three Potions
OR
2. One magical item
Or we could lower the number of potions getting destroyed. Always having some junk stuff around would also mean more problems with Ilmater... ah, l like this suffering!
You could limit the loss to 3 potions for each time a trap is triggered or a spell cast (or against a particular lightning storm) - so if you get hit multiple times by rebounds it doesn't cost more.
I like @Grond0 idea the most, once for every trigger. Also normal electrical damage doesn't apply right, it needs to be lightning? So that enemies like Abazigal don't destroy every item in your inventory, and it would also be very hard to track something like this in major battles.
Losing stuff only once looks rather lame so what about this:
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning ( Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning or Weather Lightning) he/she has to chose which of the following items will be destroyed:
1. Three Potions that are no Healing Potions
OR
2. One magical item in the inventory
If Charname has neither of them nothing will happen
If someone now gets really smart dropping stuff to the ground before a Lightning Bolt hits - here is some upgrade for Ilmater
Ilmater: No containers of any kind. Items that are dropped on the ground are lost.
I would like to hear what @Blackraven has to say about this... each hit or just the first hit?
Hi there, this thread has been interesting me for a long time to the point where i decided to attempt the challenge but without SCS for my first time (next time i'm using it for sure but will attempt insane first to get used to the AI changes). It is litterally a gold mine for strategies. I've read most of your runs, most specifically all Histamiini, Semisticgod and Harpagonis playthroughs and i wouldn't have made it without them. So here is a small summary of my adventure through the trilogy + SoD on LoB without using SCS for my first time. It wasn't NR but i really didn't die often. Surprisingly, the hardest fight i had was with the Aurumach Rilmani from the Watcher's keep due to his nearly infinite spells and he would recast protection as soon as i dispelled him so i had to find another tactic. The fun thing is, i might have to use alternative tactics for my next SCS run!
My character was Kayne, the neutral/good gnomish Fighter/Illusionnist, stats were 18-18-18-19-15-3 for a 91 roll, **into scimitars then ** into two weapon fighting.
BG1:
Going through BG1 was pretty simple. Find familiar was a must from the start. Not only it was great for agro, but the HP increase was an insane advantage. While it deals pretty weak damage, it could hit targets pretty easily especially once blinded and it's regeneration made him an awesome tank. Did all quests in Candlekeep for a bit of xp except for the rats and left with Gorion.
Leveling phase was like this:
Got the hidden evermemory for additionnal blind spells and murdered the fishermen with pseudo dragon, gave the bowl back to Tenya for 2.5k xp then left for Beregost to talk with Marl, killed Algernon for his cloak with dragon and gave Firebeard his book for more XP, then i broke into the north house for an invisibility potion. My goal here was to get to level 2 spells for invisibility and web spell so i could auto-hit enemies and deal great damage. After Beregost i went to buy a few scrolls in High Edge, invisibility and strength being the priority (more dragon damage), then went to kill Shoal the Nereid for another 5k xp and went to save Brage for a fast travel to Nashkel, got some gold from selling gear and gave the Revenant his dagger back and picked the invisibility potion. Discovered the maps back to FFAI so i could save Samuel in time then went to hear Drizzt being killed by Gnolls to steal his gear (getting fixed in 2.6, will have to wait until Otiluke+Fireshield on that patch).
Then i went to Ulgoth 's Beard, got GM and managed to shoot Dushai without making anybody hostile and dragged her to the bottom right of the map. It seems that if there is just her in the fog of war, the other villagers don't agro when attacking him. Pseudo Dragon dispatched of him pretty quickly with Strength. Got web and edventar's gift for free action and went to loot maps using invisibility and completed minor side quests:
I got: 2x Wand of Fire, 1x Wand of Monster Summoning, 1x Wand of Paralysation, 1x Wand of Frost, absorption potions, Manual of bodily health, Tome of Leadership and Influence, Legacy of the Masters and a ton of unimportant stuff to sell after buying my reputation back to 14 and doing a rep run (Joia's ring +1, Oublek +1, Prism +1, Half Ogre +1, Drienne's cat with Cloak&Friend spell +1, Dryad Falls +1) to raise it to 20 to get the best prices after cloak + friend.
Used gold to recharge Wand of Paralysation and Wand of Monster Summoning for very quick kills. Ogres could hit blinded enemies pretty well without paralysation if needed. Method of dispatching enemies was: Immobilize the enemies either with web, WoP or Hold Monster, if weak just attack with the two Drizzt's Scimitars, against bigger threats spam Wand of Monster Summonning and Wand of Paralysation on enemies/blind if weak and easy to hit. Wand of Paralysation works surprisingly well at -4 save penalty and allows summons to not miss a single hit, which makes them kill anything very quickly especially Ogres. Web works very well with Free Action from the ring but only you can stand in it until we get spider spawn.
Finished my XP run with the battle horror in front of Durlag's tower dispatched with Web + auto-attack with Drizzt Scimitar then the 4 basilisks, i reached max level at this point.
Tranzig killed with WoMS, got escorted to bandit camp, charmed Bandit Leader with Algernon's cloak to be able to stack web and paralyse everybody before agro, charmed Taurgosz to let him die to some skeletons for his gear.
Chapter 4:
Completed invisible, managed to complete the spider cave for fun by luring all spider and ettercaps next to a wall and killed them with off screen fireballs/OGL charges. Drasus party was dealt with luring them separately them WoP + WoMS for quick kills, tanking and wasting mage spells. Dealt with the mage inside the mine with web and paralyse, didn't care about the rest of the party as it was for the haste spell for my summons. Dealt with the Ogre Mage for the Katana +1 for extra gold. Got to Davaeorn, lured the battle horrors to the top room and dealt with them using web. Resting in this dungeon is the worst... Davaeorn was then depleted of his spells using summons then quickly killed with monsters+Wand of Frost.
Chapter 5:
Got to Baldur's Gate and reached my final BG1form. Got Nymph Cloak, Helm of Balduran, Cloak of Balduran, Robe of the good Archimagi, Metaspell amulet, ring of Kazgaroth, Guard's Ring and the very good wand of Polymorphing, allowing us to 1 hit kill tough enemies which is very useful to save web charges for undeads like Ghouls and allowing monsters to tank them while we polymorph them and 1 shot them with arrows one by one. The extra ST bonuses from gear also allowed be to get bellow -2 spell save to be able to stand in my own web hasted for some devastating 4 APR guaranteed damage on webbed enemies. Claw of Kazgaroth only dropped my constitution to 17 which was honestly negligible as i was aiming not getting hit and paralysation could be avoided with Edventar's gift.
For the Iron Throne fight, i used Nymph cloak to avoid the dialogue and charmed all of them one by one and made them fight each other, also using summons and both WoP for quick kills as they were returning hostile mid fight, but some of them keep fighting each other still.
Chapter 6:
Pretty easy and straightforward. Killed Rieltar and his group by charming him and letting him agro everybody with his lightning. He turned hostile afterwards and they still kept fighting against each others. Finished the survivors with stacked webs+GM and WoP+WoMS. Looted the catacombs with invisibility and immunity from traps using Protection from Fire+Shield+Mirror Image+Stoneskin+Potion of absorption, finally got all attribute tomes and that great 19 strength for more DPS.
Chapter 7:
Palace fight was easily done by WoMS before triggering the fight then GM+Chaos+WoP for the dopplegangers. It was actually easier than insane as the Dukes had way more hp to tank hits. This is where i chose to do Durlag's Tower. The maze was done using the same tactic as before. I baited all spells from the entry mage party using summons and used some charmed winter wolves to finish them off. Tried nymph cloak for the Ankhegs but i never really seem to be able to use the charm items that effectively so far. Charmed creature seems to constantly go hostile again mid-fight, causing additionnal problems. Paralysation never fails however. Got stoneskin, which i honestly should have got much earlier.
Durlag's Tower and Aec'Latec:
Level 1: Had no trouble with anything but those skeleton warriors that made me do the biggest mistake (more about it on SoD): use my protection from undead scrolls. I should have just dragged them away ignored them. WoMS could easily take care of the flesh golems. That repeatable trap near the warden took the greater dopplegangers out after using a protection from magic scroll, then the wardens. Potion of magic protection would have probably been better here as i couldn't use spells. Had to wait a bit the the globe of protection to end to damage the last one. The tactic was to use a potion of invisibility once the targets were in the trap areas and just repeatably trigger it until they die.
Level 2 : Nothing special here except that the south west repeatable fire traps took care of the ghouls and the dwarven doom guards with protection from fire + invisibility. Still used WoMS/melee + WoP for most kills. Traps in this dungeon are really an ally. Got Kiel's helmet and Durlag's goblet, key items for Dragonspear. My dumb self forgot Kiel's helmet before SoD so i still had to use potion of clarity for healing... oh well.
Level 3 : The fireball trap at the beginning of the level is really a gift. Lured all the greater Wyvern into it while protected from fire, then lured the 4 mini-bosses into the repeatable traps near the Phoenix guard room. Had to use Edventar's gift on top of protection from cold for Kaldran the Bear to avoid being held in place while not taking damage. Pheonix guard was constantly coming back to life, an issue i didn't have on insane. For some reason, acid arrows did the trick and killed him for good after trying for 10+ time with ''my'' scimitars.
Chess Board : Did it like i always did, wasted a ton of WoF and OGL charges and stayed safe.
Level 4 : Mostly done invisible, used a potion of speed + paws of the cheetah and Aganhazar's Scorcher from WoF for the spider room, used WoMS as baits for the paralysing monsters near Grael and turning them all into Squirrels after using greater malison. For the Demon Knight, he litterally got killed by his own shadow after i broke the mirror and i finished the fight with some hasted monsters while staying safe.
Ulgoth's Beard and Aec'Latec : Usual stun tactics worked well here along using the nymph cloak for the cultist ambush, going back inside the Tavern for quick rests. I used invisibility to wait the mage buffs out inside the building as he wasted his spells on summons and finished everybody with webs/paralysation. For Aec'Latec, i dealt with the cultist using a potion of speed and Aganhazar's Scorcher running around in circles. Kiel's Helmet + Goblet was used to keep myself alive (probably should have used potions of magic shielding here). He was totally not interested by summons and focused on me no matter what. I bought a ton of GM scrolls from sorcerous sundries before the fight and threw them until one worked, which took only 3 tries, then i spammed wand of paralysation. Once it was paralysed, he was dead far before being about to regain movement.
Undercity and Sarevok :
I was really short on cash here so i dumped most of my extra stuff (including Kiel's helmet, a huge mistake) in ''my'' Beregost house (the one with spider that i used as a loot stash) and dealt with the welcoming party with nymph cloak. They kept fighting against each other even if they turned hostile and i dispatched the last one with WoMS. Tamoko was paralysed and killed then i went back to the city to sell everything and totally forgot my extra stuff in Beregost, which i didn't notice until mid-SoD. Recharged by WoF, WoMS, WoPoly,WoPara, Nymph cloak and Durlag's Goblet.
For Sarevok, a scroll of magic protection was used and a potion of invisibility to abuse the repeatable skull traps in the center of the room (will have to try something else for SCS for sure, the trap might still work with proper positionning however). I did the fight a few times before going to SoD and had a few other winning tactics, WoP + WoMS being one by triggering the fight invisible, killing Semaj ASAP (hello arrows of dispelling, still useful even without a pip into bows, was definitely useful in SoD) then only luring Sarevok with an offscreen fireball to WoP him and kill him with summons.
End of BG1, my SoD story filled with mistakes... and success, coming soon.
Hmmm, @Grond0's suggestion (1 trigger) combined with @Harpagornis's proposed change in his post above looks like a reasonable compromise, no? Even one trigger is likely to have repercussions because we simply don't have the inventory space to carry around a lot of junk potions or magical items. Ilmater's was one of the severest for me and now it's only getting worse, which befits a deity of martyrdom
On a different note: when I dual-class my Berserker into Mage, would you advise me to dual at level 7 and level up as Mage normally, "sacrificing" the lvl 6 Mage weapon proficiency to become a full-fledged Berserker(7)/Mage(8) in BG1?
Or would you rather not level up to Mage level 6, and wait for level 9 to gain grandmastery in axes? In the latter case it would make sense to dual-class at level 8 because I'd end BG1 as a level 5 Mage anyway. I can see a fully buffed lvl 8 single-class Berserker prevail against the Demon Knight and hopefully Karough (in spite of non-proficiency in the relevant weapons), but would the Ducal Palace and Sarevok be doable as a level 5 Mage, relying pretty much entirely on scrolls and wands as opposed to physical damage output? Please share your thoughts with this inexperienced dual-classer and inexperienced LoB challenger...
@XDarkStrikerX, well met and welcome! That's a hell of an entrance you're making! Congratulations on your BG1 success!!
but would the Ducal Palace and Sarevok be doable as a level 5 Mage, relying pretty much entirely on scrolls and wands as opposed to physical damage output? Please share your thoughts with this inexperienced dual-classer and inexperienced LoB challenger...
The only thing all that different from my DD would be you would lack all the casts of invisibility to get yourself out of fixes with Sarevok and Dukes, apart from that Sophia did it all almost entirely with wands and scrolls.
Here is the compromise... if i got something wrong... tell me!
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning (Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning, Static Charge or Weather) he/she has to chose which of the following items are destroyed:
1. Three Potions that are no Healing Potions
OR
2. One magical item in the inventory
If Charname has neither of them nothing will happen. Multiple hits by rebounds will not cost more.
Any words on the Ilmater change?
Ilmater: No containers of any kind. Items that are dropped on the ground are lost.
Welcome to our challenge @XDarkStrikerX - hope you will enjoy your adventure. Good luck!
@Blackraven: No idea about Mage Duals as i lack experience here - but others might help for sure!
Okay, here is the updated list of curses. New lines are in bold so everyone can catch up with the latest changes. I removed Torm´s curse of Familiars not being able to attack - i hope this is okay! I also did not add Lliiras curse regarding maximum gold as we already have curses pointing at the inventory. Thanks a lot for all your feedback and ideas pushing this whole challenge into a new dimension! : o)
Charname is afflicted with 15 divine curses out of the following 16. After each part he or she can change the curse once:
Chauntea: No XP farming unless Charname has gained 3.000.000 XP´s
Cyric: Potion- and spellbuffs with a duration of less than 2 hours may only be applied during combat
Gond: Jegg, Cromwell, and Cespenar can each upgrade just one item
Ilmater: No containers of any kind. Items dropped on the ground are lost
Leira: Charname cannot use or equip unidentified items
Lolth: No antidots or elixirs of health
Malar: Except for Beast Masters only one summon spell can be active in combat
Mask: The inventory may be accessed during combat to use consumables but not to switch items
Mystra: Each creature gains the saving throw fix
Selune: Resting is only allowed in inns and cleared dungeon floors. In the wilderness it only works near houses
Sune: Creatures cannot be charmed or dominated unless using an innate ability
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning (Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning, Static Charge or Weather) he/she has to chose which of the following items are destroyed:
1. Three Potions that are no Healing Potions
OR
2. One magical item in the inventory
If Charname has neither of them nothing will happen. Multiple hits by rebounds will not cost more
Tempus: Except for Wizard Slayers retreats from ambushes are only possible if
1. At least one enemy takes damage
2. Charname takes damage from a physical attack or gets hit by a spell/gaze
OR
3. Charname has to kill one enemy
Tymora: Random number of Hit Points on level up and no INT-buffing for scroll scribing
Tyr: No attacking or killing of innocents unless they can be provoked through dialogue
Waukeen: Items can be recharged only once in shops
@XDarkStrikerX Welcome. Very nice first post. SCS does make BG different, but it doesn't change SoD I don't think, because SoD was already designed with that in mind. So you'll see what is in store for BG with SCS. Although SoD enemy hordes are a lot bigger than BG with SCS, minus few call for help encounters.
@Blackraven I think lv5 mage should easily dispatch Sarevok out of sight with enough WoF, and or Ring of Energy kite. Palace Ambush is another story. I feel it's the bottleneck in this challenge without charm, and lv5 mage will have hard time.
@Harpagornis The challenge now looks very well thought out, I like the curse change mechanic too, and I'm already thinking ditching Waukeen for Ilmater for SoD. Because Ilmater is just brutal.
Took a break from BG and played some solo IWD HoF. I don't remember ever playing further than kuldahar but even blind the game is a completely different experience, nothing quite like being able to project image + 6 x efreeti, + 5 x sphere of chaos, rather than kiting around with throwing knives for 45 minutes. Turns out its a mode that really lets high level sorceress shine to her full potential. Nice change of pace.
The only thing all that different from my DD would be you would lack all the casts of invisibility to get yourself out of fixes with Sarevok and Dukes, apart from that Sophia did it all almost entirely with wands and scrolls.
Interesting, I read that you used Malison, summons, and wand stuns. I doubt that the stuns will work well in a setup that includes Mystra's curse. But with the variety and amount of scrolls available at Sorcerous Sundries, I think it'll be worth a try to dual at Berserker lvl 8 and finish the game as a lvl 5 Mage, despite @histamiini's reservations (that I do share). I think there are 2x Animate Dead scrolls (Ulgoth's Beard and SS), 2x Spider Spawn for Phase Spiders, 1x Teleport Field to be cast on self, lots of Malison and Chaos scrolls, Slow, a few Haste scrolls (which affect the Dukes and the Fists as well), so quite a bit to play with if I can stay out of harm's way.
Aernalf the Berserker (2)
Aernalf is preparing himself for the Nashkel Mines. If it wasn't for his 13 CHA (and his refusal to wear Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influence for the purpose of this challenge), he'd be ready now.
In my previous report, Aernalf had just over 35k XP. These are my notes of his journey toward 64k XP and Berserker level 7:
550 XP Ogrillons and Mirianne
16,4 XP 1x greater basilisk, 6x lesser bassilisk, Mutamin (9,8k XP still remaining, due to Korax turning hostile)
Aernalf and Korax got pestered by a gnoll slasher that made them waste valuable time, and one lesser basilisk kept saving vs paralysis.
- 900 XP Revenant's dagger, pocket invisibility potion
- Nashkel Manor, pocket 2nd invisibility potion
- 1880 XP Spiders (kited) & report to Landrin (after Tarnesh slain by guard)
- Nashkel: sell ring of wizardry
- Ulgoth's Beard: buy Cloak, sell Belt of Antipode
- 270 XP rogue ogre
- 175 XP Korax
- 9,8k XP Remaining basilisks Mutamin's Garden (max. carrying capacity 240 axes: used 189 axes, with green scroll for PfPetrification and potion of mind focusing for +2 ranged Thac0)
Level 7: +9 HPs
- Beregost/Nashkel: steal Stupefier mace, sell it along with Drizzt's scimitars; taunt Zordral, leave with Bentha's loot and sell it (except for potion of heroism)
- Ulgoth's Beard: buy Sandthief ring for 16,975 GP (ouch)
- Temple of Wisdom: buy 1x potion of mind focusing and some potions of healing.
Aernalf has 65,3k XP right now, and only 46 GPs to his name. He intends to steal a potion of defense in Gullykin, and he wants more healing potions than his current 19 (my Beastmaster needed about 30 against Mulahey). So he'll probably rob some homes in Beregost to generate a bit of an income. He'd also love to get an oil of speed but doesn't know where to acquire one. He's reluctant to spend Sandthief charges to get the two Durlag's Tower potions, and he considers killing Imoen for hers crossing a line he's not willing to cross. The Nashkel Carnival potions merchant has one, but Aernalf doesn't know how much STR he needs to bash the lock on the chest containing it. He wonders if other challengers have any clues.
Aernalf's inventory looks better than the last time:
Comments
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and cannot use any elemental protection spells
I will add Leira soon to our list while waiting for more feedback on Talos!
Loreth in the meanwhile managed to grab Durlags Goblet and Kiels Helmet. As usual she played hit & stealth until it failed forcing her to use Greenstone Amulet and running away as Avarice smelled some blood. After managing to restealth a quick hit & stealth let Love wander around... until he decided to walk the trap path which Loreth used to burn the poor ghost to ashes. With Goblet in the Pocket it might be time to take on Karoug... maybe...
Plus theres wierd things going: If I let my familiar out of the bag it disappears; and I just killed the assassins and one of them dropped a stack of 80 oils of speed....
edit: wait, is that imoen's corpse with the oils of speed. wow.
edit 2, because I do not want to spam the thread too much:
Even mighty neothelids cannot resist a dragon disciples will for everything to become squirrel barbecue.
Envious Transmuters will welcome this proposal, but other casters not so much haha. I can vote in favor of the weather on. I'm not super enthusiastic about banning elemental protection spells. First of all, inventory management is complicated already, and having to make space for potions/scrolls is a bit burdensome. Secondly casters have access to fewer items that grant elemental protections, think Icingdeath and Gift of Peace in BG1, Daeros's full plate in SoD, the Dragon Helm, Peridan, and several armors in BG2. Thirdly it disallows legitimate element-based strategies for certain casters. @alice_ashpool's Dragon Disciple for example used her own fire resistance to defeat powerful foes in Durlag's Tower. Anyway, I don't want to spoil the fun, these are just my 2 cents.
Great stuff this! Still no-reload right? SoD looms in the distance for Loreth!
Btw I have to ask before I continue looting. Does less than 2h buffing restrict also trap prevention? So I can't open Charm trap with Greenstone or Clarity? Although I could commence battle with enemy, buff and then run to the chest...
Loreth has collected all Tomes and i also tested the Demon Knight with my old test dummy. Even though the Demon can see through invsibility hit and run works perfectly fine after the Mirror Fiend took him down to badly wounded. Lets hope she can make her way to the other levels.
The coronation will for sure be the toughest battle but with full buffs and constant stabbing there should be some hope. Maybe i should plan this battle first...
Making Talos a weather only curse feels rather weak @Blackraven, so if you have other ideas feel free to post them!
1. If i get caught by Liias Dispel Magic - not good
2. If i cannot Shadow Step Remove Magic before the spell is going off - also bad
3. If the Dopplegangers focus heavily on the Dukes and Fireballs hit hard its GG
4. If Teleport Field comes out it sometimes confuses the Dopplegangers - no GG
After all 5 wins and 5 losses... it was a coin flip. Maybe with better prebuffing chances go up but the guards die so pretty damn fast its not funny and with no summons as decoys the Dukes can get under heavy fire early on. So for the moment i am toying around with the idea to choose Sune for the first part so Loreth can charm the Nobles using Algernons Cloak - which had succesfully been stolen before - and then switching to Waukeen for SoD. Will have to sleep about this one...
Let's say @histamiini's Beastmaster/Cleric wants to don the Gift of Peace, cast PfFire, cast some Fire Storms centered on Charname and beat up groups of enemies with the Club of Detonation, and then suddenly he's no longer allowed to. I'm not saying he should play his character that way, but this is to just to exemplify how having to respect a new curse in the middle of an ongoing run can be a bit of a pain.
Having said all this, I do agree that Talos's could be made stronger. What if we focus more on the destruction side of Talos:
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning, three potions that aren't healing potions are destroyed.
I excluded healing potions because they're too cheap and plentiful. If one decides to take along three potions of infravision to sacrifice to Talos, that's fine as it takes up valuable inventory space.
Your idea about Talos sounds very interesting... potion destruction whenever Lightning strikes you... sounds pretty cool and makes one think twice standig near to a wall when some lightning bolt is coming at you!
More feedback is welcome!
I already mentioned yesterday that my 96-point amazon Berserker had fallen to an ogre mage's Chromatic Orb. Instead of restarting with her I decided to roll a new Berserker, as I wasn't quite happy with her 18/71 STR. For an axe thrower, her carrying capacity wasn't all that. Rolling another 96 might well have taken hours, so I was quite willing to settle for a 92-point Charname with 18/91 STR, two pips in Axe and two in TWF:
Early game log:
- 455 XP Candlekeep
- 900 XP Marl
- 500 XP Family Quarrel in Beregost
- 100 XP Drunk Outside Beregost
- 100 XP Stone to Flesh on Corianna, receive Potion of Mirrored Eyes
Level 2 reached: +13 HPs
- 200 XP Wounded hobgoblin
- 12k XP lift Tyr's curse and mercy-kill Drizzt (using non-proficient sling because throwing axe could be slower to hit than the attacking gnolls)
Levels 3 & 4 reached: +24 Hps, 3rd pip in Axe
- 1st ambush: non-hostile wild dogs
- Nashkel: rest for Drain innate, sell mithral armor, keep scimitars for on-demand protections, donate for 12 rep
- Oublek
- 300 XP Babysitting in Nashkel
- 300 XP Firebead
- 250 XP Colquetle
- 300 XP Frightened Widow
- 2,5k Xp Tenya
- 2nd ambush: gibberlings
- 1k XP Albert & Rufie
- Skip Drienne as I realize just in time that Reaction is too low for her PfUndead scroll reward, keep dead cat, postpone quest
- 1k XP Brage
- 3rd ambush: hobgoblin archers
- 500 XP Samuel
- 435 XP Joia’s Flamedance Ring (easiest of the violent quests with rep awards)
- 300 XP Tamah Rescued (reputation 20)
- 4k XP Kirinhale, pick up wisdom tome using Rage
- 150 XP Warm Place for Noober
- Misclick at Nashkel Carnival: consume potion of mirrored eyes; travel straight to Ulgoth’s Beard to buy new one
- 5th ambush: hobgoblin archers
- 300 XP Drienne
- 6th ambush: ogrillon
- 4k XP 2x flesh golem at High Hedge
- Beregost: break into manor house, force lock for invisibility potion.
- 7th ambush: melee kobolds
- 5k XP Shoal
- 300 XP Arcand the Mad
At 35,190 XP Aernalf knows that only Mutamin's Garden and a few minor quests (like Zhurlong, Mirianne) stand between him and level 7, the level at which he will probably dual-class to Mage. I'd prefer level 9 for the extra HPs (although HP rolls have been very, very good so far), an extra Rage, and slightly better Thac0. But then I remember the Ducal Palace and I cannot see a reasonably reliable way for single-class Aernalf to tackle that. Gold is a bit of a problem due to only 13 CHA, but that should no longer be so once dual-classed, with the charisma tome and the Friends spell.
Current inventory:
Aernalf, Berserker lvl 6, 78 HPs, 10 kills.
Executive Summary: While clearing the Small Teeth Pass and North Forest, Angelo defeats a certain drow ranger... again...
If Angelo had the choice of who he encountered first after escaping the Underdark, an elven war party would not have been high on his list. He would have much preferred checking in with Jariel at his thieves' guild... or even a harlot from the Trademeet pleasure tent. Still, it could have been worse... at least these elves weren't drow!
"Intuitionist logic was always a sham," Angelo concurred.
"Obtain the Rhynn Lanthorn" Elhan continued, ignoring Angelo's remark. "Snuff out Bodhi's evil essence with this elven holy water and these wooden stakes." Accepting these, Angelo also took the liberty of stealing Elhan's poition of magic protection and 2 potions of extra healing before he left the area. It must have slipped Elhan's mind to offer them, so Angelo slipped them from his pockets instead.
It appeared that the drow ranger had also not forgotten that fateful encounter. "You're the scoundrel that attacked me for no good reason outside Baldur's Gate and made off with my equipment!"
"Technically speaking, it was the gnolls that killed you," Angelo insisted, "I just watched them do it."
"Silence!" Drizzt snapped. "Your semantic trickery may bedazzle the lesser of wit, but I will not be deceived so easily. Are you such an incorrigible murderer that you will not repent under pain of death?"
"I will not repent," Angelo retorted, "for I am not sorry. I would gladly kill you again... and I will!" This task was easier said than done: Drizzt had -24AC and 98% MR, so there was no way Angelo would get through his defences easily... much easier to goad Guenhwyvar, Drizzt's newly summoned pet panther, to peramble around the map at double-speed until she stumbled into the time trap. Drizzt's excellent AC was worthless in temporal stasis and with Improved Haste active, Angelo was just quick enough to slice Faerun's most famous reformed dark elf into ribbons before the space-time continuum's normal service resumed.
Next up after a Mislead renewal was Catti-Brie, not only for her 12,000 XP tag, but also her juicy copies of Tansheron's Bow and the ring of invisibility. Regis was only worth 1,500 XP, but he was easy to hit and his ruby amulet of beguiling was a unique treasure (Dire Charm once/day for a turn). Wulfgar would have been a higher priority had his hammer Aegis Fang functioned in anyone's hands than his own - thankfully, he was classed as a fighter, not a barbarian, and was susceptible to backstabbing. If R A Salvatore's writings were to be believed, death would only return Guenhwyvar to her home plane, so Angelo was doing her a favour by cutting her down. Finally, although his -17 AC proved troublesome, dwarf Bruenor gained no shorty bonuses to his saving throws. Sadly, mithral plate +2 differed from its Icewind Dale counterpart in that it didn't support the simultaneous adornment of magical protective jewellery, but it would likely sell for a pretty penny.
"Prepare to be disappointed," the imp replied. "It seems like this level was one that the developers designed quickly, put on the backburner and then didn't have time to spruce up before release."
Angelo scoffed, but as he invisibly explored the pass, he had to agree. A few ankhegs and werewolves were simply not exciting enough for him to break his illusion to tackle, especially as none had any interesting loot, so he left them all in place. Hopefully, there would be more to see elsewhere.
While the chest was hard to bash open - not even slayer form would suffice, Felicity informed him - it yielded to Knock and Angelo stuffed his pockets with assorted gems, along with a random level 7 scroll. The efreeti initiated proceedings with a swift Fireball that bounced off Angelo's recently cast Protection from Fire spell, but interrupted the dao's magic. Backing away, Angelo vanished just as another Fireball came hurtling his way and left the genies to guard an empty chest.
As for the adventurers, Angelo had noticed the mage clutching a Time Stop scroll. Since the party was already hostile, Angelo couldn't steal it and so they would have to die. Having briefly considered his options, Angelo lazily chose to assassinate the mage with Mislead. It wasn't his fault that Mislead was such a broken spell and this area was a Chapter 6 exclusive - if he wasn't able to cut loose by now, then when would he?
Surprisingly, the mage's precast defences activated, including Stoneskin, Mantle, Fireshield: Blue and Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Retreating, Angelo waited out this magic before returning to finish the job. This time, the mage had no answer and being shuttled around by a Teleport Field wasn't enough of a deterrant. The mephit managed to fire off an erroneous mist ball onto him, but the temporary blindness didn't stop Angelo from killing his target.
Besides the mage (15,000 XP), the other high priority target would have been the priest of Cyric (12,000 XP), but Angelo chose not to add insult to injury by killing them too. He had already gotten what he came for - extra, in fact, for the mage also carried a wand of paralysation - and it wasn't as if he was short of experience. Omitting the greater wyvern on similar grounds, Angelo saved the Forest of Tethir to pad out another segment and began the voyage back to Athkatla.
"Give me back the silver sword blade and this will end peacefully," Kruin threatened.
"It's yours," Angelo replied. "Search through my entire inventory, then be on your way."
"You are too kind," Kruin smiled, performing said inventory sweep before departing. Unfortunately, though the sweep did include the bag of holding, it did not include the floor where Angelo stood, ground onto which Angelo had conveniently dropped the hilt and the blade before the conversation had begun. Once the githyanki had gone, Angelo picked up both components and went into the Adventurer Mart to sell his excess wares.
Heading back to the Docks, Angelo confirmed that his thieves' guild was no longer automatically confiscated during his extended absence, a problem Felicity told him had plagued the non-EE version. Having raided his store cupboard keeping his pre-Chapter 4 memorobilia, he had now gathered the components of the Equaliser, the bow of Gesen and the silver sword - weapons that he didn't hesitate to have Cromwell forge for him after checking in on his stronghold.
"Cromwell mentioned that you needed a shaft to complete Wave, along with a scroll and gauntlets of ogre power to complete Crom Faeyr," Felicity remarked as they left the dwarven smith.
"What a happy coincidence," Angelo agreed, "we're obtaining them next."
Sophia is also only level 10 of 12 and I am wondering how to scrape up the extra XP.
Recruited Undead under PfU
Ziatar: Feebleminded
Neolithid: Greenstone amulet and WoMS then Polymorphed & Firebreathed
Morentherene: Protection from poison, oil of speed then Feebleminded, Polymorphed & Firebreathed while running round in circles. Horrid fight, died +++ times.
Everyone else either feebleminded, polymorphed, blinded and WoMS or ignored (no way I could think of to deal with the mind flayer without quick physical damage, though I killed his squad).
Savescummed the bridge with WoP on the mage, didn't think to use the Victor because i was so annoyed that there was not enough time to get off a detect invisible + feeblemind which worked 9/10 times but a fraction of a second after the "portal" is opened, hollow revenge.
Minimising game for 1.5h while Sophia hacked away at a feebleminded member of the mindflayer crew with staff was the tedious highlight.
What I would really like to do is get to Belhifet, save after all the cutscene stuff which iirc is tediously long if you are reloading lots and then try out a bunch of DD strats and builds with shadowkeeper to see what is possible with the messed up saves.
I spent quite a while re-rolling Shagrat to maximise his charisma. That's not particularly important in game play for this challenge, but I thought rolling a fresh character might give me a bit of incentive to look after him better. I was a bit torn about which curse to lift. If the saving fix applies, then the chance of killing Belhifet using Scrolls of Ailment is very limited - and I'm dubious about the likely success of any other tactics. However, Belhifet is a long way away and there are lots of situations where it's easier to use dancing spirits if another summons is available as well. Still, I decided to lift Mystra's curse as that will potentially help with some other spell tactics as well.
There's a big difference in how quickly the second tier spirits can win combats, so the first aim was to get up to level 6 as soon as possible to activate those. Mutamin and all his basilisk friends provided the first big whack up to about 28k. Quests added a few more thousand before Shagrat went to find Shoal. Last time he tried that her kiss rendered him unconscious, but his spirits occupied her for the short period until he got up. This time he saved against the kiss. However, like last time, Shoal again refused to give up and he had to settle for the 5k XP from her.
Ardrouine, Brage and Rufie provided the level and the upgraded spirits were quickly making their mark on the golems at High Hedge. Shagrat has now moved on to Durlag's Tower and just ground down the first of the battle horrors there.
Shaman L6, 49 HPs, 12 kills
One point I wanted to check on. Are nymphs restricted from using domination? If so I probably won't take them as a spell just because remembering to waste their spells or attempting to constantly over-ride their AI is a pain.
Previous updates
The remaining battle horrors at Durlag's should have been dealt with routinely, but with weather on there's no such thing as a routine fight! I've not played with it active for a while, but in the past it was very unusual for lightning to cause damage twice to the same target - it would regularly hit more than once, but only occasionally cause damage on the second or succeeding occasion. However, I'd already noted a worg at the Lighthouse that had been killed by a second strike, so I was aware that might have changed in this installation - so had in mind the potential need to break contact and run away if struck by lightning. In the event though there was absolutely nothing I could do when fighting the battle horror on the wall. It was badly injured and surrounded by spirits, so I wasn't concentrating closely - but still immediately noticed when half of Shagrat's health suddenly disappeared. The good thing was he had 49 HPs - and natural lightning rounds down the 50% damage of full health caused, so I knew a second strike wouldn't kill him. I had very little time to take comfort from that though. I was still reaching for the pause button when, less than 2 seconds after the first strike a second one hit - and then a third only a fraction of a second later
I've tested Karoug fight little, and it's almost a crapshoot with his 30hppr regen, for fully kitted Beast Master with Silver Staff. Beast Master can do 48avg damage per round, but it still depends on luck, because you need to apply that average (or better) 278hp in a row. Say if you get him like 10hp, have fun when you don't hit him the next 10 times a row and then hit less than average a while.
Ah, finally your Beserker starts rolling @Blackraven... cool... dualing to Mage looks like a decent option!
Oh, yeah i know these moments too @alice_ashpool... when you are burned out... taking a pause is always a good idea then.
Interesting that a Beastmaster has such a rough time against Karoug @histamiini when looking at the numbers. For a Shadowdancer/Fighter he goes down in a minute thanks to constant stabbing.
What about @Blackraven ´s idea of putting in Talos?
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning, three potions that aren't healing potions are destroyed.
Any opinions on that one?
1. Three Potions
OR
2. One magical item
Or we could lower the number of potions getting destroyed. Always having some junk stuff around would also mean more problems with Ilmater... ah, l like this suffering!
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning ( Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning or Weather Lightning) he/she has to chose which of the following items will be destroyed:
1. Three Potions that are no Healing Potions
OR
2. One magical item in the inventory
If Charname has neither of them nothing will happen
If someone now gets really smart dropping stuff to the ground before a Lightning Bolt hits - here is some upgrade for Ilmater
Ilmater: No containers of any kind. Items that are dropped on the ground are lost.
I would like to hear what @Blackraven has to say about this... each hit or just the first hit?
My character was Kayne, the neutral/good gnomish Fighter/Illusionnist, stats were 18-18-18-19-15-3 for a 91 roll, **into scimitars then ** into two weapon fighting.
BG1:
Going through BG1 was pretty simple. Find familiar was a must from the start. Not only it was great for agro, but the HP increase was an insane advantage. While it deals pretty weak damage, it could hit targets pretty easily especially once blinded and it's regeneration made him an awesome tank. Did all quests in Candlekeep for a bit of xp except for the rats and left with Gorion.
Leveling phase was like this:
Then i went to Ulgoth 's Beard, got GM and managed to shoot Dushai without making anybody hostile and dragged her to the bottom right of the map. It seems that if there is just her in the fog of war, the other villagers don't agro when attacking him. Pseudo Dragon dispatched of him pretty quickly with Strength. Got web and edventar's gift for free action and went to loot maps using invisibility and completed minor side quests:
I got: 2x Wand of Fire, 1x Wand of Monster Summoning, 1x Wand of Paralysation, 1x Wand of Frost, absorption potions, Manual of bodily health, Tome of Leadership and Influence, Legacy of the Masters and a ton of unimportant stuff to sell after buying my reputation back to 14 and doing a rep run (Joia's ring +1, Oublek +1, Prism +1, Half Ogre +1, Drienne's cat with Cloak&Friend spell +1, Dryad Falls +1) to raise it to 20 to get the best prices after cloak + friend.
Used gold to recharge Wand of Paralysation and Wand of Monster Summoning for very quick kills. Ogres could hit blinded enemies pretty well without paralysation if needed. Method of dispatching enemies was: Immobilize the enemies either with web, WoP or Hold Monster, if weak just attack with the two Drizzt's Scimitars, against bigger threats spam Wand of Monster Summonning and Wand of Paralysation on enemies/blind if weak and easy to hit. Wand of Paralysation works surprisingly well at -4 save penalty and allows summons to not miss a single hit, which makes them kill anything very quickly especially Ogres. Web works very well with Free Action from the ring but only you can stand in it until we get spider spawn.
Finished my XP run with the battle horror in front of Durlag's tower dispatched with Web + auto-attack with Drizzt Scimitar then the 4 basilisks, i reached max level at this point.
Time to finally begin quests:
Chapter 2 :
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 5:
For the Iron Throne fight, i used Nymph cloak to avoid the dialogue and charmed all of them one by one and made them fight each other, also using summons and both WoP for quick kills as they were returning hostile mid fight, but some of them keep fighting each other still.
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:
Durlag's Tower and Aec'Latec:
Level 2 : Nothing special here except that the south west repeatable fire traps took care of the ghouls and the dwarven doom guards with protection from fire + invisibility. Still used WoMS/melee + WoP for most kills. Traps in this dungeon are really an ally. Got Kiel's helmet and Durlag's goblet, key items for Dragonspear. My dumb self forgot Kiel's helmet before SoD so i still had to use potion of clarity for healing... oh well.
Level 3 : The fireball trap at the beginning of the level is really a gift. Lured all the greater Wyvern into it while protected from fire, then lured the 4 mini-bosses into the repeatable traps near the Phoenix guard room. Had to use Edventar's gift on top of protection from cold for Kaldran the Bear to avoid being held in place while not taking damage. Pheonix guard was constantly coming back to life, an issue i didn't have on insane. For some reason, acid arrows did the trick and killed him for good after trying for 10+ time with ''my'' scimitars.
Chess Board : Did it like i always did, wasted a ton of WoF and OGL charges and stayed safe.
Level 4 : Mostly done invisible, used a potion of speed + paws of the cheetah and Aganhazar's Scorcher from WoF for the spider room, used WoMS as baits for the paralysing monsters near Grael and turning them all into Squirrels after using greater malison. For the Demon Knight, he litterally got killed by his own shadow after i broke the mirror and i finished the fight with some hasted monsters while staying safe.
Ulgoth's Beard and Aec'Latec : Usual stun tactics worked well here along using the nymph cloak for the cultist ambush, going back inside the Tavern for quick rests. I used invisibility to wait the mage buffs out inside the building as he wasted his spells on summons and finished everybody with webs/paralysation. For Aec'Latec, i dealt with the cultist using a potion of speed and Aganhazar's Scorcher running around in circles. Kiel's Helmet + Goblet was used to keep myself alive (probably should have used potions of magic shielding here). He was totally not interested by summons and focused on me no matter what. I bought a ton of GM scrolls from sorcerous sundries before the fight and threw them until one worked, which took only 3 tries, then i spammed wand of paralysation. Once it was paralysed, he was dead far before being about to regain movement.
Undercity and Sarevok :
For Sarevok, a scroll of magic protection was used and a potion of invisibility to abuse the repeatable skull traps in the center of the room (will have to try something else for SCS for sure, the trap might still work with proper positionning however). I did the fight a few times before going to SoD and had a few other winning tactics, WoP + WoMS being one by triggering the fight invisible, killing Semaj ASAP (hello arrows of dispelling, still useful even without a pip into bows, was definitely useful in SoD) then only luring Sarevok with an offscreen fireball to WoP him and kill him with summons.
End of BG1, my SoD story filled with mistakes... and success, coming soon.
On a different note: when I dual-class my Berserker into Mage, would you advise me to dual at level 7 and level up as Mage normally, "sacrificing" the lvl 6 Mage weapon proficiency to become a full-fledged Berserker(7)/Mage(8) in BG1?
Or would you rather not level up to Mage level 6, and wait for level 9 to gain grandmastery in axes? In the latter case it would make sense to dual-class at level 8 because I'd end BG1 as a level 5 Mage anyway. I can see a fully buffed lvl 8 single-class Berserker prevail against the Demon Knight and hopefully Karough (in spite of non-proficiency in the relevant weapons), but would the Ducal Palace and Sarevok be doable as a level 5 Mage, relying pretty much entirely on scrolls and wands as opposed to physical damage output? Please share your thoughts with this inexperienced dual-classer and inexperienced LoB challenger...
@XDarkStrikerX, well met and welcome! That's a hell of an entrance you're making! Congratulations on your BG1 success!!
The only thing all that different from my DD would be you would lack all the casts of invisibility to get yourself out of fixes with Sarevok and Dukes, apart from that Sophia did it all almost entirely with wands and scrolls.
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning (Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning, Static Charge or Weather) he/she has to chose which of the following items are destroyed:
1. Three Potions that are no Healing Potions
OR
2. One magical item in the inventory
If Charname has neither of them nothing will happen. Multiple hits by rebounds will not cost more.
Any words on the Ilmater change?
Ilmater: No containers of any kind. Items that are dropped on the ground are lost.
Welcome to our challenge @XDarkStrikerX - hope you will enjoy your adventure. Good luck!
@Blackraven: No idea about Mage Duals as i lack experience here - but others might help for sure!
Charname is afflicted with 15 divine curses out of the following 16. After each part he or she can change the curse once:
Chauntea: No XP farming unless Charname has gained 3.000.000 XP´s
Cyric: Potion- and spellbuffs with a duration of less than 2 hours may only be applied during combat
Gond: Jegg, Cromwell, and Cespenar can each upgrade just one item
Ilmater: No containers of any kind. Items dropped on the ground are lost
Leira: Charname cannot use or equip unidentified items
Lolth: No antidots or elixirs of health
Malar: Except for Beast Masters only one summon spell can be active in combat
Mask: The inventory may be accessed during combat to use consumables but not to switch items
Mystra: Each creature gains the saving throw fix
Selune: Resting is only allowed in inns and cleared dungeon floors. In the wilderness it only works near houses
Sune: Creatures cannot be charmed or dominated unless using an innate ability
Talos: Charname has to play with weather effects "on" and whenever they're affected by natural or magical lightning (Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning, Static Charge or Weather) he/she has to chose which of the following items are destroyed:
1. Three Potions that are no Healing Potions
OR
2. One magical item in the inventory
If Charname has neither of them nothing will happen. Multiple hits by rebounds will not cost more
Tempus: Except for Wizard Slayers retreats from ambushes are only possible if
1. At least one enemy takes damage
2. Charname takes damage from a physical attack or gets hit by a spell/gaze
OR
3. Charname has to kill one enemy
Tymora: Random number of Hit Points on level up and no INT-buffing for scroll scribing
Tyr: No attacking or killing of innocents unless they can be provoked through dialogue
Waukeen: Items can be recharged only once in shops
New ideas are always welcome! ;o)
@Blackraven I think lv5 mage should easily dispatch Sarevok out of sight with enough WoF, and or Ring of Energy kite. Palace Ambush is another story. I feel it's the bottleneck in this challenge without charm, and lv5 mage will have hard time.
@Harpagornis The challenge now looks very well thought out, I like the curse change mechanic too, and I'm already thinking ditching Waukeen for Ilmater for SoD. Because Ilmater is just brutal.
Interesting, I read that you used Malison, summons, and wand stuns. I doubt that the stuns will work well in a setup that includes Mystra's curse. But with the variety and amount of scrolls available at Sorcerous Sundries, I think it'll be worth a try to dual at Berserker lvl 8 and finish the game as a lvl 5 Mage, despite @histamiini's reservations (that I do share). I think there are 2x Animate Dead scrolls (Ulgoth's Beard and SS), 2x Spider Spawn for Phase Spiders, 1x Teleport Field to be cast on self, lots of Malison and Chaos scrolls, Slow, a few Haste scrolls (which affect the Dukes and the Fists as well), so quite a bit to play with if I can stay out of harm's way.
Aernalf the Berserker (2)
Aernalf is preparing himself for the Nashkel Mines. If it wasn't for his 13 CHA (and his refusal to wear Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influence for the purpose of this challenge), he'd be ready now.
In my previous report, Aernalf had just over 35k XP. These are my notes of his journey toward 64k XP and Berserker level 7:
550 XP Ogrillons and Mirianne
16,4 XP 1x greater basilisk, 6x lesser bassilisk, Mutamin (9,8k XP still remaining, due to Korax turning hostile)
- Nashkel Manor, pocket 2nd invisibility potion
- 1880 XP Spiders (kited) & report to Landrin (after Tarnesh slain by guard)
- Nashkel: sell ring of wizardry
- Ulgoth's Beard: buy Cloak, sell Belt of Antipode
- 270 XP rogue ogre
- 175 XP Korax
- 9,8k XP Remaining basilisks Mutamin's Garden (max. carrying capacity 240 axes: used 189 axes, with green scroll for PfPetrification and potion of mind focusing for +2 ranged Thac0)
Level 7: +9 HPs
- Beregost/Nashkel: steal Stupefier mace, sell it along with Drizzt's scimitars; taunt Zordral, leave with Bentha's loot and sell it (except for potion of heroism)
- Ulgoth's Beard: buy Sandthief ring for 16,975 GP (ouch)
- Temple of Wisdom: buy 1x potion of mind focusing and some potions of healing.
Aernalf has 65,3k XP right now, and only 46 GPs to his name. He intends to steal a potion of defense in Gullykin, and he wants more healing potions than his current 19 (my Beastmaster needed about 30 against Mulahey). So he'll probably rob some homes in Beregost to generate a bit of an income. He'd also love to get an oil of speed but doesn't know where to acquire one. He's reluctant to spend Sandthief charges to get the two Durlag's Tower potions, and he considers killing Imoen for hers crossing a line he's not willing to cross. The Nashkel Carnival potions merchant has one, but Aernalf doesn't know how much STR he needs to bash the lock on the chest containing it. He wonders if other challengers have any clues.
Aernalf's inventory looks better than the last time: