@Blackraven The Carnival Invisibility potion chest has 70 difficulty, which you can open with the Fire Giant potion from the other chest with 50 difficulty.
@Blackraven The Carnival Invisibility potion chest has 70 difficulty, which you can open with the Fire Giant potion from the other chest with 50 difficulty.
@XDarkStrikerX: Welcome! It's always good to see another player join the challenge. I remember when @histamiini first came here from out of nowhere and started crushing the challenge over and over again.
Ganja has finally made her way to Baldur's Gate, my god it took awhile. Davaeorn was pretty easy with this tactic. Enter invisible, open the door and go see Davaeorn, and back up. Battle Horrors will follow you to the guard even when you are invisible and stay there.
Then wait all the 20 guards to arrive, they will all hug Davaeorn.
Blast the guards from out of sight with OGL. It's good to back up after every death, because guards will change positions.
Then activate Davaeorn, I drank Potion of Magic Blocking first. Then started hitting him with Ring of Energy. He Dispelled me so I drank Potion of Magic Shielding and continued blasting him. In the end it only took like 12 hits from Ring of Energy after using full OGL.
Killing the guards nets additional 8400xp. Works with every class, well except with Wizard Slayers.
I'm going to post another update, just to let you know that my plan of action for the Nashkel Mines was not sound, but Aernalf has miraculously escaped with his life.
Preparations:
A potion of defense was secured from Gullykin. In the potion merchant's tent at the Carnival, Aernalf drank a potion of stone giant strength to open the chest on the right, followed by the potion of fire giant strength from said chest to open the chest on the left for an oil of speed, only to discover that there was no oil of speed. He did find one of those other white bottles: his third potion of invulnerability. The violet and red potions were sold for later, and Aernalf's collection of healing potions was expanded, to a total of 32 potions. To make the most out of the fire giant strength potion, Aernalf enraged and took out Neira in melee before heading down the mines.
Execution:
Aernalf picked up some tainted ore for Taerom, expended a first charge of the Sandthief ring, and took Joseph's greenstone ring without breaking invisibility. He took 34 damage from the two traps on the bridge, but avoided damage from the traps behind the chieftain and the shaman by hugging the southern wall.
Rested in Mulahey's lair, feigned allegiance with Tazok, and buffed with everything he had: mind focusing, defense, cloud giant strength, fire protection (for the kobold commando arrows), 3x invulnerability, but no oil of speed. These buffs were similar to Murdo's, my Beastmaster, except that the latter did quaff an oil of speed and wielded a +3 blunt weapon. Aernalf on the other hand was dual-wielding his +1 axes and he enjoyed high mastery in that weapon type.
Opening the chest turned Mulahey hostile. Aernalf enraged before his foe could finish a casting of Hold Person, and 3 APR prevented the priest from casting anything else. This is Aernalf slaying Mulahey.
As you can see, winded Aernalf was already pretty battered here, though he still had 28 healing potions. He equipped his shield while winded, and charged the kobolds and skeletons that were blocking the path, hoping to battle his way out of the lair. While fighting whoever stood between him and the exit, Aernalf quaffed a healing potion every round, but he soon learned that that wasn't quite enough. Things got worse when a string of crits brought him on the verge of death within a single round. With a turbid aura he saw his health decline into single digit territory. He then suffered one or two more low damage hits, which brought his health down to one HP! He even had to thank the very gods that have cursed him, for some misses, before an invisibility potion gave him a break.
He healed up, swapped the ring of fire resistance for the Sandthief's ring, and continued. Again, the enemy was quick to crit his HPs away, so the Sandthief's ring was activated. Eight more healing potions were consumed, leaving Aernalf with just three and still no path cleared.
Those three were consumed during Aernalf's subsequent ultimate attempt to escape. And escape he did!
He ran and he ran, taking another hit from one of the kobolds outside, but avoiding further damage, until he reached Nashkel.
(He got ambushed by non-hostile wolves, which was fortunate as he had already used up his Drain so he would have had to spend an oil of fiery burning.)
I'm amazed at how poor Aernalf did compared to Murdo, who actually cleared the entire lair before leaving... The oil of speed may have made a difference, but most importantly, I remember that Murdo fought the enemy with his back against the wall and using his quarterstaff, a reach weapon. For now my conclusion is that clearing Mulahey's lair is not a given for a single-class warrior in the challenge, and that details (buffs, positioning, weapon type) matter quite a lot.
@histamiini, nice work in Davaeorn's lair! Fireballing the guards is also my preferred strategy here normally. Good to know that 25 charges should be enough to finish Mulahey's guards. (Some potions could be added if necessary). I can only recharge once because of Waukeen, so will probably leave Denak (who'd need fireballs as well) for now. Maybe Davaeorn can be taken on in melee with a PfMagic scroll and.
@Blackraven Damn nice rescue! I feared exactly that kind of deal, and picked Durlag's Goblet before Mulahey. In the end it was pretty easy with Silver Staff 3apr from Oil of Speed, Defense and Storm. I think Mulahey took one Goblet and minions three when I had to blast my way through.
Davaeorn has -10AC so he's pretty hard to hit. His melee is awful though so it's safe I think.
Works with every class, well except with Wizard Slayers.
Funny, you should mention this. I'm still experimenting with an Wizard Slayer run as an archer aiming to dual-class to a cleric in BG2. I have a plan for every major hurdle in BG and SoD, but I've been thrown because Davaeorn keeps playing unfairly.
The outline of my plan is:
Use a scroll of Mental Domination to charm the initial guard. There are 2 in the game, including 1 from Ulgoth's Beard, so this is easily obtainable.
Walk with the guard to briefly enter Davaeorn's sight, pause, order guard to attack, back protagonist out of sight, select guard again and unpause.
This will turn Davaeorn hostile, which is necessary for a future step. As far as I know, this 'charm the guard' trick used to be able to kill Davaeorn without fuss, but not in my install!
The battle horrors will follow the guard, who you will still control. Back him out and into another room, parking the battle horrors elsewhere.
Out of sight, cast Horror (via special ability gained in Chapter 4) into Davaeorn's fog of war. Rest and repeat until he fails his saving throw.
While he's wandering around unable to react, hurl darts of stunning at him until you hit and he fails a save. Once he's stunned, he should be dead meat, end of story.
At max level with 18 Dexterity and 3 proficiencies in Darts, your ThAC0 will be 6 and his AC is -10, so since attack rolls hit if they equal the AC, each shot has to roll a 16 to hit (i.e. 25% chance). Davaeorn's LoB saving throw v spell should be 5 and since saving throws succeed if they equal or exceed the saving throw, he should fail 4/20 = 20% of the time. Combining these, each shot should have a 25% x 20% = 5% chance of success. There are other modifiers you could bring into play (e.g. Champion's Strength scroll, -1 saves penalty from archer's called shot, extra modifier from 19 Dex c.f. Kiel's Buckler, Entangle's AC penalty or Bless' +1 to hit), but 5% success is a decent ballpark figure. With 4 ApR from darts giving a 20% chance per round and Horror's 1 turn = 10 round duration allowing some dead time wandering around or bad luck, it is not unreasonable to expect Davaeorn to succumb to a stun effect while panicked.
Except it does not go according to plan. Davaeorn's script still fires as soon as he sees me, regardless of whether he is panicked, I am in Stealth mode or otherwise. This will summon his guards, so I aim to kill him and be off before they arrive. He still dimension doors around, so I'd better have the boots of speed to keep up (I'll figure out how to kill Drasus et al later, this is a proof of concept!). His spell turning prevents Doom from sticking and lowering his saving throws. Worst of all, his Stoneskin defences fire and I think that this blocks the stunning effect - the only way to get through before his guards arrive would be to hit him with an arrow of dispelling to remove Stoneskin, but that would dispel the Horror as well.
This is really annoying because I think I'm good to go apart from this one encounter (Mulahey is also awkward, but Champion's Strength, Entangle and darts of stunning offer good enough chances). Arrows of dispelling don't cancel his spell turning, so it's not even as if I can savescum a lucky arrow + scroll combo... and waiting for it to wear off will ensure his army of minions will arrive. Am I missing something obvious?
@AvidGamerFan I don't think stoneskin should block darts of stunning. PfMW would, as the dart would then not hit, but stoneskin just absorbs the physical damage from any attack, rather than blocking the attack completely. You can see that clearly if you use an elemental weapon like Greywolf's sword, where the elemental damage hits even though the basic damage is blocked. My guess is that Davaeorn is simply saving - try turning on the battle text so that you can see if he's rolling a saving throw against your successful attacks.
One caveat on the above. In early EE stoneskin didn't protect against poison, but now it does. I think that depends on your view of whether poison requires physical entry into the body or not (and possibly whether it's a magical effect). Personally I don't think stoneskin should stop poison, but it does in the current EE ...
@AvidGamerFan I don't think stoneskin should block darts of stunning. PfMW would, as the dart would then not hit, but stoneskin just absorbs the physical damage from any attack, rather than blocking the attack completely. You can see that clearly if you use an elemental weapon like Greywolf's sword, where the elemental damage hits even though the basic damage is blocked. My guess is that Davaeorn is simply saving - try turning on the battle text so that you can see if he's rolling a saving throw against your successful attacks.
I performed numerous tests with battle text on and there were multiple times when the save wasn't displayed. I believebthis either means that his save failed or it would have failed were it not for the LoB save bonus, but he never stopped moving, despite having multiple non-displayed saves. Eventually, I got fed up and used Ctrl+Q to charm him, Ctrl+Y to kill the guards and just kept chucking darts to see what would happen. With his protections up, he can 'fail' his save and be stunned, but it has no effect, as shown in this screenshot (the stunned icon on Davaeorn's portrait is present, but he is still controllable).
Hitting him with an arrow of dispelling removes the protection from normal missiles and stoneskin, but not the magic resistance (c.f. his robe) or the spell turning. Testing this, he can be stunned as usual. As far as I know, darts of stunning strike as +1 projectiles, so it must be Stoneskin doing the job. I was aware that elemental damage bypassed Stoneskin, so perhaps the stunning counts as a non-damaging poison effect?
Davaeorn has the MAGE05 immunity item. That grants immunity to stun, hold, slow, paralysis, grease, web, and entangle - basically, free action plus stun immunity. It's not consistent about the portraits and the like, but then that sort of item isn't meant to ever be on a party member.
So no, throwing darts of stunning at him can't ever work. If you want to keep him from fighting back, blasting him from out of sight range is really the best option. And if you're doing that, he's highly resistant to fire and electricity and has excellent saves.
@AvidGamerFan Yeah Wizard Slayer will be tough deal, I've no ideas really. Wizard Slayer probably is the hardest class to solo, and even more so in LoB when you pretty much need all the help from items.
What's supposed to be the epic of Aernalf feels more and more like a comedy of errors. After last night's incredible escape in the Nashkel Mines, Aernalf has managed to stumble his way to the big city this this morning.
Nimbul was left to the guards but Tranzig was put down, with Aernalf taking about 50 damage from an Icelance and a MM though evading other spells using the stairs.
He sought to enter the Bandit Camp with Raiken's help, since unlike Teven, Raiken doesn't require Charname to fight Tazok. Had some difficulty getting to Raiken what with bandits and black talons about, and with Lamalha's crew ambushing him (absorbed a Doom, cast a Drain).
At the camp, Aernalf looted what treasure he could before quaffing a potion of absorption and using a Sandthief charge. He looted the chest with the potion of magic blocking and the main chest, sacrificing three potions of infravision to Talos. Took some scrolls and the gauntlets, but forgot to pick up the letters until later. Another Sandthief charge, removed by Venkt with a Remove Magic, but still made it outside and back to the FAI. It was there that Aernalf learned that Cloakwood was inaccessible to him for having failed to trigger the start of Chapter 4. Returned to the camp, used another Sandthief charge to get to the chest, grabbed the letters, and left without going invisible. Aernalf had two Sandthief charges left now (one really, if he wants to recharge the ring, which he probably will). He could have had four...
Aernalf spoke to Dorn at the FAI and traveled to the Nashkel Mines to trigger his ambush. One of the bandits slain by Dorn in the cutscene dropped a potion of invisibility, which Aernalf eagerly picked up before leaving the area. He now had three invisbility potions and one Sandthief charge until Baldur's Gate.
In Cloakwood, Aernalf skipped pretty much everything, except a free potion of invulnerability from Laskal. He got through the spider area with a potion of freedom and was lucky that his only ambushes were Molkar, and ettercaps and wyverns that failed to poison him. In front of the bridge to the mine, he read Hafiz's scroll of PfMagic and then used Sandthief to sneak invisibly past Drasus, Hareishan, the final guard, and even Davaeorn himself, triggering all the traps between them. He then waited near the exit from Davaeorn's lair for all the backup to arrive and spent 24 OGL charges, three potions of explosions and two oils of fiery burning on them.
Davaeorn was only "injured" at that point, and teleported away to his battle horrors, who had moved toward the entrance to his lair. Aernalf followed but retreated when one of the battle horrors came in sight. He feared at that moment that Davaeorn and his battle horrors might be his downfall. Fortunately Davaeorn teleported around a bit more, until he seemed happy to duel Aernalf in the room to the northwest of the wizard's starting position. Aernalf was quite happy about it too, because he could position himself next to a corner that he could repeatedly round to foil Davaeorn's invocations.
Aernalf still used up his last two potions of magic blocking, to protect himself from a Chromatic Orb and a Lightning Bolt that actually missed him. Uneasy about meleeing the wizard, Aernalf used 29 charges from the wand of magic missiles to further injure his foe. For some reason Davaeorn didn't fight back even though he still had spells to cast, and the magic missiles didn't get rid of the wizard's Stonekins either. When Aernalf approached, Davaeorn resumed his spell-casting. Aernalf suffered minor injuries from a Snilloc's Snow Storm but with his thrown and melee axes he got through his foe's Stoneskins and managed to finish him off.
He looted the place, got hit hard twice (but not slowed) by the Mustard Jelly, survived another ettercap ambush and made it to Baldur's Gate.
Aernalf has almost 85k XP right now, 18k GPs, and 55 kills to his name right now. He's very low on consumables already so he's going to have to be very thrifty with his consumables. I'm already worried he might end up with insufficient resources for the remainder of the game, especially since either the Isle of Balduran or Durlag's Tower will have to be included.
BTW Speaking of Durlag's Tower, how does the chessboard interact with Talos's curse?
@Blackraven Good stuff! I see you also sacrificed three Infrareds in the Bandit tent. I'm afraid next one will be more expensive. Davaeorn teleports randomly between four positions I think, for me he didn't visit Battle Horrors.
Chess Board is interesting, I guess lightnings should work normally? I don't remember it that much, is it impossible to avoid them?
@Blackraven Good stuff! I see you also sacrificed three Infrareds in the Bandit tent. I'm afraid next one will be more expensive. Davaeorn teleports randomly between four positions I think, for me he didn't visit Battle Horrors.
Chess Board is interesting, I guess lightnings should work normally? I don't remember it that much, is it impossible to avoid them?
Thanks! Good to know about Davaeorn, there is some luck involved there then.
As for Talos, well the chessboard has so many lightning bolt triggers on it that anyone trying to cross it will either need PfMagic or MGoI or end up with zero items in their inventory
Yeah I was afraid no protection would lead situations like chessboard, which bottlenecks two bosses. Although they both can be skipped by the rules, like I'm planning to do. Need @Harpagornis input on this.
Loreth faced Slythe after picking Sune´s boon allowing her to charm Larze (four tries) and then tying to lure Slythe upstairs... which failed cause this time Kristin followed... who got slaughtered by the Ogre who saved against all her spells... cool big one. As Slythe constantly refused to follow while Loreth had to soak up four backstabs she lured Larze downstairs and poor Slythe who was already out of Invsibility Potions got hacked to pieces by Larze and some backstabs.
The Palace Ambush with charms was so much easier. Charmed the Mage parked him upstairs and also charmed Ithtyl Calantryn thanks to her powerful spells. The five Dopplegangers had no chance after getting dispelled by Liira while Ithyl hasted everyone. Loreth buffed up stabbed in between for some damage boost.
Waited until the Mage transfomed and used Ithly with Globe of Invulnerability to soak up some spells before going down. One Guard died to Chromatic Orb while the Fire Elemental got hacked to pieces right before Ithyl died to the Mage. After that it was all about patience wearing down the defenses one by one.
End of the story: Liira still untouched while Belt was around half health. Not that bad.
Next target will be most likely Karoug.
Oh, i got another idea for a curse that points at the Fog of War - something that should be addressed more i think.
Mask: Creatures that are invisible or in the fog of war cannot be damaged or affected by any status effect
This would prevent out of sight Fireball burning and such cheapos. I think this fits perfectly to the Lord of Shadow protecting all that are unseen by Charname. Whats the opinion on this one?
We would also have to rename the old Mask regarding inventory access - any ideas which god would fit?
With regard to Talos we could change the word "affected" into "damaged" so if Charname is immune no loss of items - sounds okay @histamiini?
@Harpagornis I think damaged is better, some mages might still surprise and destroy some of items. Out of sight attacks is tricky one. It would force fighters to take it, to beat Sarevok I think. It might be possible to kill Davaeorn and Sarevok minions with single charges, but managing single charge Sandthief and Goblet is very hard.
Yeah, i will update Talos to "damaged by" while Mask is indeed tricky. On the one hand fireball into the fog of war is such a lame thing while on the other hand it makes some battles (for some classes) really hard. Maybe there is some elegant way around? If you have ideas feel free to post them! ;o)
Well I've noticed I'm trying to make this challenge easier all the time, where as @Harpagornis is trying to make it harder. No surprises there. And the best solution is probably somewhere between. I agree with the out of sight bombing btw, if there's some good way to restrict that without closing classes away, I'm all for it.
I performed numerous tests with battle text on and there were multiple times when the save wasn't displayed. I believebthis either means that his save failed or it would have failed were it not for the LoB save bonus, but he never stopped moving, despite having multiple non-displayed saves.
@jmerry has explained why Davaeorn is not affected by failed saves. The reason for the non-display of some saving throws is different - and you're right, it does relate to the LoB save bonus. The non-display occurs when a target would have failed its save except for a bonus applied to the die roll. In LoB all enemies get a bonus of +5 applied to the die roll, so it's much more common to see no saving throw displayed than it is in the normal game (though if you're a devotee of chromatic orb, the +6 on that results in plenty of examples of this behavior).
Damn got lucky with Ragefast. I was level skipping his spells, which is pretty straight forward. Got out immediatelly when his stance changed, which wasted his action. I thought he was out of spells once he started spamming Wand of Paralyzation, and I countered that with Greenstone Amulet. Not so fast. Apparantly he observed Ganja enough, to time his WoP a fraction after my Greenstone was out, and stunned me. He still had the double Chromatics, which Ganja luckily evaded. Although after that he wasn't that smart when he just buggered off, and was then easily finished. Ramazith level skipping went much more smoothly as he doesn't have a wand.
Okay, i did a short test against Sarevok without out of sight bombing... it gets a bit trickier but it works. They only real change is that you have to get in view of one of them... in most cases Diarmid or Semaj and then you are free to blast them even though you will most likely get hit by an arrow... the poison ones are really nasty. This should also work against Davaeorn cause getting in vision for a short time should be no big deal. If everything fails with regard to Sarevok one could also aggro a bat and then burn them down.
Mask: Single creatures or groups that are in the fog of war cannot be damaged or affected by any status effect unless at least one of them is in vision of Charname
Arvoreen: The inventory may be accessed during combat to use consumables but not to switch items
Mask: Single creatures or groups that are in the fog of war cannot be damaged or affected by any status effect unless at least one enemy is in vision of Charname
Okay, i have compromised a lot so now its up to you @histamiini to close the gate of one of your favourite cheapos. Which one should we aim at? I am also so kind that you may chose the name of the god that curses you! *G*
I have parked Loreth in the city for the moment as i am getting bored. Maybe its a good idea to test some other classes with regard to the challenge hoping the rest of you will hopefully pass through BG going for Big B soon! ;o)
Oh, i have a lot of ideas... no spell stacking... no shifting except for druids... no time stop... no staff of magi... no wish... you see i like mages a lot... Better tell it soon cause the ban hammer will grow with each day! *G*
Yeah, the no stat change upon char creation would be an idea. But who the hell is using Autoroller here? Banned forever! :P
Okay, i did a short test against Sarevok without out of sight bombing... it gets a bit trickier but it works. They only real change is that you have to get in view of one of them... in most cases Diarmid or Semaj and then you are free to blast them even though you will most likely get hit by an arrow... the poison ones are really nasty. This should also work against Davaeorn cause getting in vision for a short time should be no big deal. If everything fails with regard to Sarevok one could also aggro a bat and then burn them down.
Mask: Single creatures or groups that are in the fog of war cannot be damaged or affected by any status effect unless at least one of them is in vision of Charname.
The bat solution seems slightly odd. Apart from the fact they move around all over the place, I wouldn't have thought bats would be considered as part of Sarevok's group - and therefore you shouldn't be entitled to affect Sarevok like that ...
It will also make some encounters significantly more difficult for me if a character doesn't have stealth. If you're spamming healing potions or Durlag's Goblet then being hit by a few more arrows may be trivial. However, if no healing potions or items are being used then every bit of damage in a contest that you can't break off from to rest can be crucial. Oh well, I guess it adds to the sweetness of life while it lasts .
Comments
Nice, Aernalf is very thankful!
Then wait all the 20 guards to arrive, they will all hug Davaeorn.
Blast the guards from out of sight with OGL. It's good to back up after every death, because guards will change positions.
Then activate Davaeorn, I drank Potion of Magic Blocking first. Then started hitting him with Ring of Energy. He Dispelled me so I drank Potion of Magic Shielding and continued blasting him. In the end it only took like 12 hits from Ring of Energy after using full OGL.
Killing the guards nets additional 8400xp. Works with every class, well except with Wizard Slayers.
I'm going to post another update, just to let you know that my plan of action for the Nashkel Mines was not sound, but Aernalf has miraculously escaped with his life.
Preparations:
A potion of defense was secured from Gullykin. In the potion merchant's tent at the Carnival, Aernalf drank a potion of stone giant strength to open the chest on the right, followed by the potion of fire giant strength from said chest to open the chest on the left for an oil of speed, only to discover that there was no oil of speed. He did find one of those other white bottles: his third potion of invulnerability. The violet and red potions were sold for later, and Aernalf's collection of healing potions was expanded, to a total of 32 potions. To make the most out of the fire giant strength potion, Aernalf enraged and took out Neira in melee before heading down the mines.
Execution:
Aernalf picked up some tainted ore for Taerom, expended a first charge of the Sandthief ring, and took Joseph's greenstone ring without breaking invisibility. He took 34 damage from the two traps on the bridge, but avoided damage from the traps behind the chieftain and the shaman by hugging the southern wall.
Rested in Mulahey's lair, feigned allegiance with Tazok, and buffed with everything he had: mind focusing, defense, cloud giant strength, fire protection (for the kobold commando arrows), 3x invulnerability, but no oil of speed. These buffs were similar to Murdo's, my Beastmaster, except that the latter did quaff an oil of speed and wielded a +3 blunt weapon. Aernalf on the other hand was dual-wielding his +1 axes and he enjoyed high mastery in that weapon type.
Opening the chest turned Mulahey hostile. Aernalf enraged before his foe could finish a casting of Hold Person, and 3 APR prevented the priest from casting anything else. This is Aernalf slaying Mulahey.
(He got ambushed by non-hostile wolves, which was fortunate as he had already used up his Drain so he would have had to spend an oil of fiery burning.)
I'm amazed at how poor Aernalf did compared to Murdo, who actually cleared the entire lair before leaving... The oil of speed may have made a difference, but most importantly, I remember that Murdo fought the enemy with his back against the wall and using his quarterstaff, a reach weapon. For now my conclusion is that clearing Mulahey's lair is not a given for a single-class warrior in the challenge, and that details (buffs, positioning, weapon type) matter quite a lot.
@histamiini, nice work in Davaeorn's lair! Fireballing the guards is also my preferred strategy here normally. Good to know that 25 charges should be enough to finish Mulahey's guards. (Some potions could be added if necessary). I can only recharge once because of Waukeen, so will probably leave Denak (who'd need fireballs as well) for now. Maybe Davaeorn can be taken on in melee with a PfMagic scroll and.
Davaeorn has -10AC so he's pretty hard to hit. His melee is awful though so it's safe I think.
Funny, you should mention this. I'm still experimenting with an Wizard Slayer run as an archer aiming to dual-class to a cleric in BG2. I have a plan for every major hurdle in BG and SoD, but I've been thrown because Davaeorn keeps playing unfairly.
The outline of my plan is:
At max level with 18 Dexterity and 3 proficiencies in Darts, your ThAC0 will be 6 and his AC is -10, so since attack rolls hit if they equal the AC, each shot has to roll a 16 to hit (i.e. 25% chance). Davaeorn's LoB saving throw v spell should be 5 and since saving throws succeed if they equal or exceed the saving throw, he should fail 4/20 = 20% of the time. Combining these, each shot should have a 25% x 20% = 5% chance of success. There are other modifiers you could bring into play (e.g. Champion's Strength scroll, -1 saves penalty from archer's called shot, extra modifier from 19 Dex c.f. Kiel's Buckler, Entangle's AC penalty or Bless' +1 to hit), but 5% success is a decent ballpark figure. With 4 ApR from darts giving a 20% chance per round and Horror's 1 turn = 10 round duration allowing some dead time wandering around or bad luck, it is not unreasonable to expect Davaeorn to succumb to a stun effect while panicked.
Except it does not go according to plan. Davaeorn's script still fires as soon as he sees me, regardless of whether he is panicked, I am in Stealth mode or otherwise. This will summon his guards, so I aim to kill him and be off before they arrive. He still dimension doors around, so I'd better have the boots of speed to keep up (I'll figure out how to kill Drasus et al later, this is a proof of concept!). His spell turning prevents Doom from sticking and lowering his saving throws. Worst of all, his Stoneskin defences fire and I think that this blocks the stunning effect - the only way to get through before his guards arrive would be to hit him with an arrow of dispelling to remove Stoneskin, but that would dispel the Horror as well.
This is really annoying because I think I'm good to go apart from this one encounter (Mulahey is also awkward, but Champion's Strength, Entangle and darts of stunning offer good enough chances). Arrows of dispelling don't cancel his spell turning, so it's not even as if I can savescum a lucky arrow + scroll combo... and waiting for it to wear off will ensure his army of minions will arrive. Am I missing something obvious?
One caveat on the above. In early EE stoneskin didn't protect against poison, but now it does. I think that depends on your view of whether poison requires physical entry into the body or not (and possibly whether it's a magical effect). Personally I don't think stoneskin should stop poison, but it does in the current EE ...
I performed numerous tests with battle text on and there were multiple times when the save wasn't displayed. I believebthis either means that his save failed or it would have failed were it not for the LoB save bonus, but he never stopped moving, despite having multiple non-displayed saves. Eventually, I got fed up and used Ctrl+Q to charm him, Ctrl+Y to kill the guards and just kept chucking darts to see what would happen. With his protections up, he can 'fail' his save and be stunned, but it has no effect, as shown in this screenshot (the stunned icon on Davaeorn's portrait is present, but he is still controllable).
Hitting him with an arrow of dispelling removes the protection from normal missiles and stoneskin, but not the magic resistance (c.f. his robe) or the spell turning. Testing this, he can be stunned as usual. As far as I know, darts of stunning strike as +1 projectiles, so it must be Stoneskin doing the job. I was aware that elemental damage bypassed Stoneskin, so perhaps the stunning counts as a non-damaging poison effect?
So no, throwing darts of stunning at him can't ever work. If you want to keep him from fighting back, blasting him from out of sight range is really the best option. And if you're doing that, he's highly resistant to fire and electricity and has excellent saves.
What's supposed to be the epic of Aernalf feels more and more like a comedy of errors.
Nimbul was left to the guards but Tranzig was put down, with Aernalf taking about 50 damage from an Icelance and a MM though evading other spells using the stairs.
He sought to enter the Bandit Camp with Raiken's help, since unlike Teven, Raiken doesn't require Charname to fight Tazok. Had some difficulty getting to Raiken what with bandits and black talons about, and with Lamalha's crew ambushing him (absorbed a Doom, cast a Drain).
At the camp, Aernalf looted what treasure he could before quaffing a potion of absorption and using a Sandthief charge. He looted the chest with the potion of magic blocking and the main chest, sacrificing three potions of infravision to Talos. Took some scrolls and the gauntlets, but forgot to pick up the letters until later. Another Sandthief charge, removed by Venkt with a Remove Magic, but still made it outside and back to the FAI. It was there that Aernalf learned that Cloakwood was inaccessible to him for having failed to trigger the start of Chapter 4. Returned to the camp, used another Sandthief charge to get to the chest, grabbed the letters, and left without going invisible. Aernalf had two Sandthief charges left now (one really, if he wants to recharge the ring, which he probably will). He could have had four...
Aernalf spoke to Dorn at the FAI and traveled to the Nashkel Mines to trigger his ambush. One of the bandits slain by Dorn in the cutscene dropped a potion of invisibility, which Aernalf eagerly picked up before leaving the area. He now had three invisbility potions and one Sandthief charge until Baldur's Gate.
In Cloakwood, Aernalf skipped pretty much everything, except a free potion of invulnerability from Laskal. He got through the spider area with a potion of freedom and was lucky that his only ambushes were Molkar, and ettercaps and wyverns that failed to poison him. In front of the bridge to the mine, he read Hafiz's scroll of PfMagic and then used Sandthief to sneak invisibly past Drasus, Hareishan, the final guard, and even Davaeorn himself, triggering all the traps between them. He then waited near the exit from Davaeorn's lair for all the backup to arrive and spent 24 OGL charges, three potions of explosions and two oils of fiery burning on them.
Davaeorn was only "injured" at that point, and teleported away to his battle horrors, who had moved toward the entrance to his lair. Aernalf followed but retreated when one of the battle horrors came in sight. He feared at that moment that Davaeorn and his battle horrors might be his downfall. Fortunately Davaeorn teleported around a bit more, until he seemed happy to duel Aernalf in the room to the northwest of the wizard's starting position. Aernalf was quite happy about it too, because he could position himself next to a corner that he could repeatedly round to foil Davaeorn's invocations.
Aernalf has almost 85k XP right now, 18k GPs, and 55 kills to his name right now. He's very low on consumables already so he's going to have to be very thrifty with his consumables. I'm already worried he might end up with insufficient resources for the remainder of the game, especially since either the Isle of Balduran or Durlag's Tower will have to be included.
BTW Speaking of Durlag's Tower, how does the chessboard interact with Talos's curse?
Chess Board is interesting, I guess lightnings should work normally? I don't remember it that much, is it impossible to avoid them?
Thanks! Good to know about Davaeorn, there is some luck involved there then.
As for Talos, well the chessboard has so many lightning bolt triggers on it that anyone trying to cross it will either need PfMagic or MGoI or end up with zero items in their inventory
Loreth faced Slythe after picking Sune´s boon allowing her to charm Larze (four tries) and then tying to lure Slythe upstairs... which failed cause this time Kristin followed... who got slaughtered by the Ogre who saved against all her spells... cool big one. As Slythe constantly refused to follow while Loreth had to soak up four backstabs she lured Larze downstairs and poor Slythe who was already out of Invsibility Potions got hacked to pieces by Larze and some backstabs.
The Palace Ambush with charms was so much easier. Charmed the Mage parked him upstairs and also charmed Ithtyl Calantryn thanks to her powerful spells. The five Dopplegangers had no chance after getting dispelled by Liira while Ithyl hasted everyone. Loreth buffed up stabbed in between for some damage boost.
Waited until the Mage transfomed and used Ithly with Globe of Invulnerability to soak up some spells before going down. One Guard died to Chromatic Orb while the Fire Elemental got hacked to pieces right before Ithyl died to the Mage. After that it was all about patience wearing down the defenses one by one.
End of the story: Liira still untouched while Belt was around half health. Not that bad.
Next target will be most likely Karoug.
Oh, i got another idea for a curse that points at the Fog of War - something that should be addressed more i think.
Mask: Creatures that are invisible or in the fog of war cannot be damaged or affected by any status effect
This would prevent out of sight Fireball burning and such cheapos. I think this fits perfectly to the Lord of Shadow protecting all that are unseen by Charname. Whats the opinion on this one?
We would also have to rename the old Mask regarding inventory access - any ideas which god would fit?
With regard to Talos we could change the word "affected" into "damaged" so if Charname is immune no loss of items - sounds okay @histamiini?
@jmerry has explained why Davaeorn is not affected by failed saves. The reason for the non-display of some saving throws is different - and you're right, it does relate to the LoB save bonus. The non-display occurs when a target would have failed its save except for a bonus applied to the die roll. In LoB all enemies get a bonus of +5 applied to the die roll, so it's much more common to see no saving throw displayed than it is in the normal game (though if you're a devotee of chromatic orb, the +6 on that results in plenty of examples of this behavior).
Mask: Single creatures or groups that are in the fog of war cannot be damaged or affected by any status effect unless at least one of them is in vision of Charname
Is this a compromise everyone can live with?
Luck follows @histamiini - like always! *G*
Arvoreen: The inventory may be accessed during combat to use consumables but not to switch items
Mask: Single creatures or groups that are in the fog of war cannot be damaged or affected by any status effect unless at least one enemy is in vision of Charname
Okay, i have compromised a lot so now its up to you @histamiini to close the gate of one of your favourite cheapos. Which one should we aim at? I am also so kind that you may chose the name of the god that curses you! *G*
I have parked Loreth in the city for the moment as i am getting bored. Maybe its a good idea to test some other classes with regard to the challenge hoping the rest of you will hopefully pass through BG going for Big B soon! ;o)
Ralishaz (god of chance) - Thou shalt not auto roll.
Yeah, the no stat change upon char creation would be an idea. But who the hell is using Autoroller here? Banned forever! :P
I think i might start some kind of Druid... tomorrow! ;o)
The bat solution seems slightly odd. Apart from the fact they move around all over the place, I wouldn't have thought bats would be considered as part of Sarevok's group - and therefore you shouldn't be entitled to affect Sarevok like that ...
It will also make some encounters significantly more difficult for me if a character doesn't have stealth. If you're spamming healing potions or Durlag's Goblet then being hit by a few more arrows may be trivial. However, if no healing potions or items are being used then every bit of damage in a contest that you can't break off from to rest can be crucial. Oh well, I guess it adds to the sweetness of life while it lasts