Greetings BG veterans and tacticians , your stories and adventures are so exciting. I got attracted and wish to join. This is my first LOB + SCS playthrough so I will use an easier class, a mage. Was going to use a sorcerer, but I worry the spells I am familiar with won't work on LOB, so a mage to keep things flexible.
My character and game settings:
Lias the Human Conjurer, str 18 dex 18 con 16 int 18 wis 15 cha 10, dagger *, starting spells are sleep, find familiar and shield. (with No difficulty based damage changes unchecked. But SCS says it is strongly recommended, do you guys check or uncheck it?)
Journey begins:
Candlekeep, tried to sleep carbos without success, already glad I chose a mage over a sorcerer. Then I tried to use my familiar to fight him, and it worked! To my surprise it was so tanky and could even regenerate. Then I followed Gorion to the wilderness and he got killed. Lias murdered Xzar and his friend just to get some scrolls (don't know who is the evil one ). Tried using the familiar to fight a wolf, failed. Then tried using it to fight 2 gibberlings, and it killed them. Then she went to friendly arm inn.
The mage guarding the inn's gate wasn't much of a trouble, Lias cast shield and let the mage cast horror and sleep spells on her. Then the familiar charged at him and kill him while Lias slept through the whole fight. Familiar took some magical damage from him but it survived. (but the mage didn't use melee much after spending his spells, he basically just stood there, strange)
Lias went to do some quests that didn't require combat like calming Marl at Feldepost's Inn, but still couldn't reach level 2. Lias didn't know what to do because she couldn't kill anything. Then she found out her familiar couldn't be petrified, so she went to the basilisk garden and tried her luck. The familiar and the friendly ghoul together ate every single basilisk and the gnome mage alive! The ghoul turned on the familiar while they were fighting the last group of basilisks, but the familiar kill the ghoul too. OMG I have never expected the familiar can be so powerful on LOB. Now Lias reached level 5 and so she went to High hedge to buy some scrolls.
The familiar also fetched me Algernon's Cloak and a ring of freedom, didn't ask where it got them, hope it didn't hurt anybody . Lias also picked up the monster summoning wand.
Met Neira at the Nashkel inn. Kited her big skeleton summon far away while the familiar tanked her until she used all her spells then Lias joined in and cast all her damage spells on Neira. Neira wasn't tough at all. Went down to the Nashkel mine without any trouble as Lias could cast invisible now. Mulahey fight was a bit tough, but 4 charges of monster summoning and a few skull traps took him down. A lone assassins called himself death was waiting for me at Nashkel inn. He proofed no challenge at all, Lias and her familiar beat him to the ground just fine.
Tranzig wasn't a problem either, he just cast a lot of protection spells, the familiar killed him too. Lias joined the bandit and Tazok wanted to kill her, the familiar kited him while she cast all her spells on him and then he decided to let her live. She tried to kill the bandits outside but failed. Even the bad guys in the big tent came out to attack Lias. Tried a couple of times and I knew I couldn't win this fight. Time to say goodbye to LOB + SCS. But suddenly I realized the big tent should now be empty. Then I cast invisibility on Lias and ordered her to go into the tent. WOOT, it was empty indeed! Lias talked to the prisoner inside. He told Lias the secret of the Iron Throne and then left the tent. (before Lias could tell him it wasn't safe outside, he just went... god bless him )
At the time Lias needed to recharge the monster summoning wand. But she didn't have enough gold. She then tried to grabbed all the treasure that didn't require combat and did all the quests she could to raise her reputation. Finally she got 24000 gp and a reputation of 20. She could now recharge her monster summoning wand at the price of 20000 gp. Also bought the one gift lost amulet.
Lias also fought Greywolf. Her familiar tried to fight him, proofed foolish and he killed him with just a few swings. Reloaded and this time the familiar kited him, while Lias stood still and cast all her spells on him. Wasted a wand of magic missiles and a frost wand too and he was finally down.
It was time to go to the cloakwood mines. Avoided all fight with invisibility. Pick up the remove magic scroll and kill a female mage on level 3 to get some more scrolls. And now Lias faced Davaeorn. Lias had invisible spell on her and she charged at Davaeorn, the conversation dialogue triggered anyway and I don't know why all the guards and Davaeorn himself rushed to the entrance room. Lias use the fireball wand on them. They still wanted to stay in the entrance room (SCS improved AI behaves like that?). Feeling lucky and happy, Lias spammed one gift lost and fireball wand on them until most of them died. Then Lias used the monster summoning wand to finish them off. Davaeorn cast spells on the monsters like mad, poor guy didn't know spells couldn't do much damage on LOB.
Flooded the mines and Lias went to the Sorcerous Sundries to buy some new scrolls. Then she went back to the mines to fight Drasus.
Drasus fight proofed to be much tougher. Lias tried the monster summoning trick, didn't work, the mages turned them into their slaves quickly. Then she tried to stack skull traps, and then slept and stack traps again and again. Then she cast icestorm on them and they ran toward her triggering the traps. They still didn't eat dirt. Then Lias slept again and found that they didn't regenerate. So she stacked skull traps again and finally got Drasus and a mage killed. Only 2 of them left, Lias tried to sleep again and stack traps again, but then she found them to have regenerated, strange. But since there are only 2 of them, Lias summon monsters to grind them down. For the whole cloakwood mines, Lias used in total 20 charges of the one gift lost and fire wand, 8 charges of monster summoning wand.
Now she is wondering what to do next. (or what she can actually do, feeling very weak.)
Welcome @zaknas and good luck on the challenge! Be aware that you will have to use some very specific strategies for SoD as a pure mage class but if that's fine with you, you should have a blast for the rest of the game. Make sure to overprepare for Belhifet .
Candlekeep, tried to sleep carbos without success, already glad I chose a mage over a sorcerer. Then I tried to use my familiar to fight him, and it worked! To my surprise it was so tanky and could even regenerate. Then I followed Gorion to the wilderness and he got killed. Lias murdered Xzar and his friend just to get some scrolls (don't know who is the evil one ). Tried using the familiar to fight a wolf, failed. Then tried using it to fight 2 gibberlings, and it killed them. Then she went to friendly arm inn.
Sleep is useless on LoB because all enemies have +12 level and it can only affect enemies that are level 5 or lower (lower than 5 HD), pretty much anything that require low HP or low level will have no use at all. Blind however is a much better alternative as a level 1 spell. Summons does get a specific summon LoB bonuses however, familiar included, which is really good as you noticed.
Looks like it's going well, you should be facing the palace ambush anytime soon!
Thanks @XDarkStrikerX. I beat Belhifet on insane (no scs) with my solo blackguard sometime ago, was a mess. I don't know how my mage can beat him on lob + scs. Don't even know how do I defend the coalition camp either. SoD alone gives me nightmare.
@zaknas I strongly advice that you read Histamiini's comments on Prada the Sorcerer from page 178 to 180. SemiticGodess also seemed to have a successful try with a Diviner i think. Pretty much the only possibilities are:
-Abusing the level 1, 1HP trick to be immune to damage and defeat him relying on critical hits with Archer's Eye + Enchanted Weapon. Note that you can level drain yourself with an undead just before the crusader ambush down to level 1 but you will need 1 constitution that you can get down to 3 by killing a familiar then equipping Claw of Kazgaroth, removing it before the lift with a remove curse scroll then drink the violet potion so it stays set at 1 without killing you. This means doing the ambush at level 1. Best way to deal with it is to have as many charged One Gift Lost, Wand of Fire and summon items as possible (WoMS, Myconids, stone ally, Ankhegs, water elementals...) and a ton of scrolls for skull traps, cloudkill, web and other AOE you might find useful but those are the big ones.
-Using Lower Resistance + wand of polymorphing with oracle to break his improved invisibility, which is extremely unlikely as he recast it at will without following the round rule and it's instant. It is in the end more suitable for a mage/thief due to detect illusion but still a real pain to land. If you manage to do it, you can finish his remaining hp with fireshield blue + otiluke resilient sphere. Nobody managed to land this with a mage however, especially that i personnally feel like the ST might have been fixed as i'm failing my save much more often than before. It would be possible if it isn't the case but if it is, even if under Greater Malison his saves is going to be at -1 due to the invisibility save bonus. I never managed to make wand of paralysis work but i can't see it being a viable option anyway, but it could buy time to land the whole combo if someone ever manage to land it. Forget chaining Otiluke + Fireshield blue. It is viable for insane, for LoB i managed to get him to barely injured after over 5 hours of tries and 7 or 8 consecutive spheres which are incredibly RNG heavy (if an Erinyes see you while under the sphere, you're done).
I am myself starting a sorcerer run that i started yesterday. Not sure if i'll make it there before you do, but i'm aiming to try the fight doing the 1 hp at level 1 trick + jelly form. One thing i have to test is if recasting polymorph self scrolls from jelly form extend the overall duration of the forms while keeping me polymorphed because once a jelly, i don't want to go back to human form and i don't want to use the permapoly exploit. My starting constitution was 6 however as i'm playing as an elven sorcerer. Yep, that fight and the crusader ambush are really that ridiculous. It's usually the spot where some runs ends, like for single class thieves, clerics and single class mages.
Rolled Daken, a lawful Evil elven sorcerer who rolled a ridiculous 94 roll after a few clicks. Actually auto-rolled him as neutral evil with 91 just before that but didn't like the Dust Mephit, decided to not use it as i would need a mid 80 roll to be very efficient and got this after 20 seconds of clicks... good start! Low Constitution as i will try to use the 1 hp at level 1 exploit in SoD by level draining which should be pretty simple using stoneskin. Will play normally until then. 6 constitution should be -1 hp per level until level 10 for 10 less HP than a 14 Con sorcerer, which is a good trade-off for the possible immunity of SoD while i can always drink a potion of fortitude or use the Girdle of Fortitude for 18 con if i need it. Went with lawful evil mostly for Imp with polymorph self jelly and i should get the Evil archimagi robe from Davaeorn which is good.
Overall preparation. XP, Gold, Rep, Wands and other essential items.
Started with Find Familiar and Identify for the two first spells
Candlekeep 345 xp, Imp changed into spider form to kill the rats for a little bit more XP
Waylaid by skeletons, survived with 1 HP
Marl 900xp
Tarnesh killed by Imp turned into Mustard Jelly 120 xp
Seems like the LoB ST aren't fixed as Tarnesh saves vs Death with 22.
Imp killed the fisherman and we gave Tenya back her bowl for 1500xp, seems like this got slightly nerfed by 1k xp. Level up.
Looks like Imp doesn't gain any HP back from the time spent by resting or switching maps despite the 1hp/round regen, either in the inventory or outside... it's certainly something that i didn't notice before or it got changed in 2.6.
Imp jelly killed a skeleton for a skull for 60 xp in High Hedge
Sold flail+1, scrolls, ring of prince and cold belt for 3,7k, bought the 3 invisibility scrolls.
Regen from imp simply seem glitched... not sure why. It would stay badly injured forever.
Helped Brage and went straight to Nashkel, hopefully getting a heal spell will make me able to heal him.
Gave 300 gold for 11 rep
Noober 400 xp
Sold Sword of berserking, Ankheg plate and pearl for an additionnal 4.8k
Killed Algernon for his cloak and -4 rep, now at 7 and 20 charisma
Imp spider killed Shoal for 5k xp, had to switch to jelly as he came to near death with 1 damage punches. Definitely bugged.
Level up to 3, picked protection from petrification.
Went into Ulgoth Beard, now imp actually healed when i took him out of my backpack to rest.
Killed Dushai for the Edventar's gift and web scroll, Imp was regenerating this time so it was easy. Seems like the polymorph might bug his regen a bit. Rep down to 5
Helped Neera with Jelly imp and charmed one of the Thayan bodyguard.
Used the body guard and imp for Silke but she finished the guard and jelly ended so i rested and charmed some spiders to help instead.
Jelly imp and 2x spider finished Silke with the last spider dying just before her, another pretty fun glitch is now happening and it's that the imp retain it's speed even in jelly form, so it travels super fast.
Leveled up and chose invisibility for easier charm attempts, looting, resting and travelling.
Charmed the wolf aside Melicamp, he needed a 5 vs 1 with a skeleton, another wolf and the hobgoblin party to die.
Charmed Bassilus 1st try and made him summon 2x skeleton warrior and aerial servants who swept the map and finished him in seconds.
Bought rep back from 5 to 13, killed Neera for the gem bag then turned in some quests for rep and xp: Spider (xp), Joia ring (400 xp, +1), Farmer Brun's son + 100 gold (WoF, 1500xp +1), Bassilus (1k xp, 5k gold), Firebeard (1 rep, scroll case), Melicamp (2k xp, 1 rep), charmed Ogrillon for Mirianne (RoP, 300 xp), Mr. Collette amulet (250xp, 1rep, level up, chose Magic Missile and web).
At this point i figured out that maybe the ST was indeed fixed despite rolling over 20.. because they for sure saved a lot.
Did the basilisk garden and cleared the lower half with Korax and Imp. Has to reload here because i assumed that the imp was immune to petrification but he's not.
I'm pretty positive that the ST got fixed as Korax really struggled to paralyse basilisks, i even killed a greater one without being able to paralyse it... next time i'm waiting for the wand. It also seems that there are more basilisks than before.
Imp had to kill Korax under Web before Mutamin. I decided that i would try to charm a lesser basilisk to do the rest of the job, with Gore off of course.
Casted Protection from Petrification on it and he cleared the rest with invisible imp while i was chilling there. Has to charm Lindin for Kirian party as basilisk would miss all the time and wouldn't petrify anymore then finished him with Web + Jelly + Magic missile (12 casts is a lot of damage).
Leveled up to 6 and chose skull trap.
Went to Durlag for the 2 Battle Horror who couldn't harm Jelly imp. Killed them with magic missile+web+skull trap 1 by 1 for 8k xp.
I wasn't Greywolf for +1 rep, now at 19.
Went to kill Greywolf using a small skull trap ambush that wasn't enough and had to finish him with the web+jelly+missile combo, rep +1 for 20.
Got OGL, Shield amulet, violet and red potion.
Went to Valley of Tombs, killed the Revenant with the usual tactic but he was very hard to web (i'm sure ST are fixed... it shouldn't be that hard really) and kept the Dagger +2 and 3k xp, level up to 7, went with Chromatic Orb, Mirror Image and Haste. Got WoMS then left for the WoPara.
Killed Sil by paralysing the 2 Sirine first to let hasted jelly deal with them, then once the two were immobilized i used one charge of WOMS to end them. Had to kill Sil without paralysis as it wouldn't land at all, jelly still killed her pretty fast while she managed to make the rest of the summons passive.
Helped Ardougne even if i didn't need it and left.
Nashkel mine and a few other quests
Went to Nashkel Mine and got a Vial of Mysterious Liquid by agroing kobold on top of jelly imp, web, then skull trap + MM + hasted jelly for a few kills.
Stacked about 20 skull traps for charmed Mulahey would barely survived and i ended him with a magic missile.
Killed Nimbul with haster WoMS + jelly, seems like we now can stay invisible while casting haste which is great.
Marl KO Transig and imp gave the last blow. Went to get Perdu short sword on the way to recharge WoMS and WoPara which were really cheap at 20/20 (16k+8k)
Decided to do a small stop to see Mellum who died to Khark, who then died to wand of paralysation + hasted WoMS + Jelly.
Got the party with Zeela in it. Drank an invisbility potion and managed to charm the talker right away who died quickly, then WoMS + Haste + MM killed the rest.
Did the Half Ogre near Beregost and validated Drizzt new AI. No more early game cheese. Chromatic orb was great to stun the ogre to finish them with dual daggers + imp.
Met the Dwarf party on my way back but didn't try to charm this time. Straight WoMS + WoP and i leveled up to 8, took GM as i'm really not getting hit often for the moment so Stoneskin will wait until 9.
Went to save Samuel, got fire resist ring and PFM.
Overall prep done, i just aim towards getting enough gold to get the essential items so rest of BG1 shouldn't take much time, level 9 spells should be Knock, Protection from Fire and Stoneskin. The reason why i don't bother with Durlag's Tower is that i don't need any items from it as far as i remember except the wisdom tome. Those extra sections would be dealt with the same way as i did it with my F/I, which was spamming WoP and WoMS everywhere, Polymorphing Loup Garou and Karoug and i would probably would have to finish them with a wand of lightning instead or an unhealty amount of skull traps as it isn't possible for a sorcerer to use the sword of Balduran. The good thing is, i really can't use much equipment so gold is super easy to get and i don't have to look for scrolls.
Never knew there was a 1 hp trick, not sure if I understand its mechanics correctly, but now I think my char can't abuse it. She is a conjurer and has 16 con, she will need 13 vials of mysterious liquid from Nashkel mine to lower her con to 3, but I can only get 2 vails. Respawning kobolds never dropped any for me.
And I can't kill my familiar 13 times either, as Histamiini already mentioned, that would give me -13 con penalty. When I drink the violet potion the system will calculate that I have 3 - 13 = -10 con which will kill me.
Crap, need to start over with a new character thanks for the pointers @XDarkStrikerX so I don't have to face belhifet and just to find out I have no way of beating him.
Need to consider what I should do with my next character.
Yeah, SoD is the major hump - despite doing BG1 LoB+SCS 3 times now I have never had the patience or will to get through SoD. There is a definite bias towards classes with some physical damage component.
The odd ones out are afaik: 1HP trick sorcerer, single class druids because of harm, and cleric/mage because of having both that fancy hammer and knock to get it. And of course Harpagonis's Bounty Hunter. But iirc that involved drinking >100 Invisibility potions during the Bel fight?
@XDarkStrikerX - I have a new challenge if you are looking for one, you should check out the Improved Heart of Fury mod for Icewind Dale, its a total blast (and very frustrating - more Improved Anvil than SCS). Didn't manage to solo the whole thing but got quite close before the frustration blew me out. Went with Shapeshifter -> Fighter, but your Fighter/Illusionist could give it a run for its money.
One thing i have to test is if recasting polymorph self scrolls from jelly form extend the overall duration of the forms while keeping me polymorphed because once a jelly, i don't want to go back to human form and i don't want to use the permapoly exploit.
Nope. "You have already cast a polymorph-type spell on yourself". SPWI416 (Polymorph Self) grants immunity to SPWI416 (Polymorph Self) and SPWI916 (Shapechange) for its full duration. You can't renew the spell, even by scroll, until it expires.
@zaknas@XDarkStrikerX Are you both using 2.6? My 2.5 install is broken at the moment and I haven't tried installing SCS on the 2.6 install yet. Thinking of cooking up a F/M/T or F/M/C for maximum "owning".
@alice_ashpool yes 2.6 installation. And looks like they will release new patches frequently. There was a new one a day ago so I had to reinstall again.
@zaknas@XDarkStrikerX Are you both using 2.6? My 2.5 install is broken at the moment and I haven't tried installing SCS on the 2.6 install yet. Thinking of cooking up a F/M/T or F/M/C for maximum "owning".
Yes 2.6, i had to reinstall everything too. Changed a few settings for BG2, mainly disabling the scroll additions and clone quickslot as i don't need them but kept the same config with BG1. You can speed things up by making a shortcut of SCS.exe and under proprieties, add --reinstall (with a space before the --) after the '' in the target line. This should install everything like it was and it will work even if you decided to change something in the stratagems.ini file like i did, it also worked with Ascension for me. Saved a ton of time and didn't have to reinstall the whole game completely doing that. With BG1 however, i had to reuse modmerge first but it wouldn't work at all at first. What i had to do was:
Delete "sod-dlc.disabled"
Delete "sod-dlc.key" and "chitin.key.bak"
Delete "sod-dlc" subfolder.
Then modmerge worked properly. You might have to reinstall everything manually if you didn't do this step first as SCS installation will have an error and won't complete.
I had a hard time to not use a class that wasn't a fighter honestly especially for that cursed Bel fight. They're super good and fun to use especially multiclassed. I tried hard not to go F/M/C.
Nope. "You have already cast a polymorph-type spell on yourself". SPWI416 (Polymorph Self) grants immunity to SPWI416 (Polymorph Self) and SPWI916 (Shapechange) for its full duration. You can't renew the spell, even by scroll, until it expires.
Yeah i discovered that sad reality yesterday... looks like it's going to be with enchanted daggers +1 Histamiini style. Would have been fine but retransforming makes the violet potion useless as it set strength to 14. I also can't seem to do the infinite form trick anymore. Maybe i forgot how to do it properly but it seems that switching forms is now instant instead of taking 1,2 seconds. Maybe a small detail that i missed in the patchnotes.
Harmony the Neutral Good Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief
SoD 2.6, LoB, All SCS AI & challenges + IWD spells + sequencer changes + increased spell scroll selection and a few other changes.
1. Change appearance to elf-thief for aesthetics. Complete candlekeep w/o rats.
Harmony summons her familiar, giving 31HP, and buys a helmet + bolts and does all the early quests + stealing, except the rats.
The Pseudodragon can quite easily tank against Carbos and Shank (who we crit-chunk on LoB mode heh) while Harmony pokes away with her quarterstaff. It has regeneration and immunity to petrification. Everything the body needs.
Two-handed weapon style gives us hits on 19 and 20 meaning we will hit 1 time in 10 rather than 1 time in 20. Not to be underestimated.
Carbos:
2. The usual stuff: Loot Imoen, Xzar and Monty, Gorion's corpse, Diamond, RoP+1, Ring of Wizardry, High Hedge and Scroll of PfP.
This is the first time I have played a F/M(/X) and Pooky + Harmony are quite able to beat down a skeleton even at level 1/1/1. She collects a skull for later.
Harmony buys a scroll of Friends, learns and memorises, then buys a scroll of PfP
3. Mutamin's
We do the usual luring Korax as close as possible before talking to him deal to get maximum "Korax Time". It is not such a big issue with this class but with classes with only 18STR I found it essential. Add to this the fix to saving throws seems obvious obvious in Mutamin's as Korax takes longer to paralyze Basilisks. Not that much longer though and it is enough to clear out all Basilisks + Mutamin.
This gives Levels 4/3/4 - All skill points still in stealth.
Basilisks:
4. Reputation Round
Did my usual route where Harmony buys reputation up to 13 with 500 + 800GP and a Stone to Flesh Scroll. Tamah and Firebeard bring rep to 15, then Brage and Oublek to 17. Colquette and Samuel to 19. Drienne's cat for 20.
That gets Harmony to 4/4/5 - She takes Stealth to 100/100 which should, in theory give 99% success inside/at night.
Bought essential spells: Mirror Image, Luck, Invisibility, Protection from Evil, Shield and Identify. Failed to scribe invisibility not once but twice - fortunately Thalantyr has 3 copies, but apart from that all good.
Complete Brun's Son and the Bowl. Almost wipe because of a Stealth Fail in the Ankheg cave. Whoops. Picked up Greenstone Amulet and Aule's Staff +3 in Ulgoth's Beard and traveled to Durlag's Tower.
5. Durlag's Tower
Utilised "ultimate pro-gamer strats" to kill the Battle Horrors outside, minimising the game while Harmony rolled for 19s+ for about 6 hours of in game time.
Fight the lesser and greater basilisks rolling for 15s from stealth for big-money backstabs while Pooky tanks. 1 in 10 chance of hitting for around 88 damage is p. nice.
This brings 5/5/6. Harmony pumps Pickpocket to 60.
"pro-gameplay" + Tower Basilisks:
6. Clearing Up and Nashkel Mines
We backstab a Blind wolf to save Melicamp. Melicamp himself did not survive the transformation process. That makes 3 games in a row that he has failed.
Pick up Minor Spell Deflection
It takes only 3 casts to blind both Ogrillons then a series of chained backstabs to chunk them. Swinging futile-ly at Pooky stops them running around like chickens.
The Neera battle is tough. Pooky almost gets wasted by taking a high-level Flame Arrow, morale broken and near death. Harmony quickly blinds the two goons and the baby-mage wastes all his spells on immortal Neera. We beat him up with Aule's while he stands immobile. Neera is very unhelpful, causing the blind enemies to run all over the map, and the sun rises (halfing Hide in Shadows chance) before we win with chained backstabs. Anyway, we steal her gem-bag.
Buy OGL and head to Nashkel
Kylee's Dagger and joseph's Ring are minuscule XP, and we need almost 27k for Harmony's next level, but we do them anyway.
Harmony travels invisible through the mine, but this time she can detect and disarm all the traps along the way. F/M/T has it all.
Mulahey - I used my usual method, but it also turns out if you stand exactly right, before you aggro Mul you can fire as many blinds at him as you want. 5 were enough to proc and aggro him. After that it was 10 fireballs to kill his minions - with 2.6 bizarrely the fireballs from OGL and WoF are different lmao - and 3 backstabs to chunk him.
Ogrillon Backstabbing:
Neera Battle in 3 parts:
Chunking Mulahey:
7. Clearing up 2 and Bandit Camp
Visited the Pirate cave and pseudo-backstabbed a Flesh golem to pieces, only took 15 hits, all for 2000XP. Left the other 2 and took all the good stuff.
Stole an invisibility potion from the Nashkel Manor.
Mad Arcand
I Normally skip this fight but for Tranzig, absorbed some spells with Minor Spell Deflection/Shield then waited out his MSD invisible and blinded him. Enough backstabs and he was dead. A big advantage of the quarterstaff as a backstab weapon is its two-handed range. Backstabbing from Blind-OoLoS and retreating quick-fast works great unless an enemy has the SCS blind-wander script.
Harmony talked her way into the bandit camp, invisibility in to the Big Tent, Insulation potion, loot and Invisi-potion out. Done.
Recharged OGL and took out the Red wizards for the Victor. Denak and gang eat 16 fireballs due to fixed saves. The last one is backstabbed to chunks just because. They might have a -11AC bonus but that's starting from a very high base.
Dealt with Gnarr and Hairtooth using Blind + Backstabs. Even LoB half-ogres cant stand more that 2 critical hit 3x Backstabs. Collected Charisma tome for ol' time sake.
Chunking Tranzig:
Red Wizards:
8. Cloakwood Mines
Recharge OGL again and Invisible through the woods all the way to the mines. Lure the two guards and backstab to pieces. Skip Drasus and full stealth all the way down to Dav. 18 Fireballs and 12 shots from the Victor to bring him down.
Invis-rest multiple times to Knock everything open. Flood mine, level up, and invisibility all the way to Baldurs Gate.
Harmony stats
Deaths: 0
Level: 6/5/6 (Extra pips are: ++Flails)
Kills: 65
Number of enemies charmed or WoMS'd: 0
/////
@XDarkStrikerX - re: the Imp regen. It seems really bugged. The polymorph does not play nicely with the familiar's regeneration. Also the speed thing is funny too. I had the same thing in IWD, you could manipulate it with resting and polymorphing to make sure you jelly-imp was lightning-fast.
Lias the Wild Mage enters the scene. Hopefully she will be able to achieve what her predecessor couldn't do.
This time I go with 5 con, because I am going to use my familiar before the vampire so I can't go 3 con. Now she just beat cloakwood mines. Basically did exactly the same things in my last run.
Found a cheese to neutralize all SCS mages and priests AI and precast stuff. I just stack skull traps right next to the target without letting them see me. Then I trigger the traps by summoning monsters right on top of the traps. And Bang, everything dies within the radius. The mages and priests won't be able to precast anything and literally don't know what hit them. And I cheesed through ice island just like that.
The wild surge firework is fun to see if it doesn't kill you.
Having been playing and struggling with a mod-related bug with the IWD spells component of SCS - the SCS IWD-spells do not want to play nice with 2.6(.6) - All I get is "invalid:[numbers]" - Tried re-installing to no avail so have uninstalled it for now. No IWD spells for me.
Killed the mage party for The victor with charm and web+jelly.
Taurgosz died charmed to skeletons, charmed Hakt barely made it to kill Raemon then Britik swept the tent before dying webbed, survived the trap without issue with 50% LR boots and 20% LR robe.
Went to Cloakwood and charmed a Wyvern 1st try for it's head, got Gurze cloak by using web+skull trap and turned the quests in, seems like you cannot get a reward for it without having Coran anymore so i just sold it.
Fed the whole Krasus party to the guard and finished them at near death with web+skull trap.
Went into the mine and killed the ogre mage with WoMS + GM + WoP, almost got me there as a magic missile left me at 12hp but he got paralysed on the first try.
Charmed Davaeorn and he got killed by his men, finished by the two battle horrors. For some reason he didn'T have his AC gauntlets.
I wanted to kill the battle horrors for XP but once i webbed them and saw them they instantly died. Should have done it before Davaeorn... oh well.
Baldur gate overall prep
Did the two Scar's job, cleared the Seven Suns with WoMS and the Ogre Mage with Web+GM+Skull trap and MM to finish him, did the Iron Throne invisible and didn't bother fighting any of them.
Charmed Resar and WoP+WoMS him for his fireshield blue scroll.
Went to get all of the attribute tomes and stopped by Durlag tower to finish the Basilisk there with WoP+WoMS using protection from petrification on the monsters as i wouldn't have enought melee damage to finish an enemy in 1 turn with 18 strength. Hit level cap, got Knock (needed before Candlekeep), Protection from Fire and Stoneskin. I'm thinking about skipping Spider spawn and going with Contagion with this character eventually... maybe the stat drain could be useful with GM.
Killed the Ghost by charming Riggilo until he had no spell left then GM+WoP once his buffs ran out. Finished Riggilo with web + magic missile after that. I'm thinking about keeping the wand of lightning to help against the hellcats in the lift to Belhifet. I don't think any of those are immune to lightning and it should speed things up.
Got claw of Kazgaroth and finished the Tome run before Candlekeep, dealt with Ragefast for nymph cloak, Vitiare for the WoPoly, got cloak of Balduran, dealt with Marek&Lothander then Ramazith on the way there.
Candlekeep and the easiest possible palace ambush
Went to Candlekeep, drank an invisibility potion to avoid the 4 ogre mages and got the clarity + star sapphire from the inn before looting the castle and making Rieltar party kill themselves.
Looted the two last skill books protected by absorption potion, shield amulet, Protection from fire, stoneskin and mirror image.
Prat party got cleared by Tam who died against Bor who i left alive.
Saved the Duke then Larze killed both Slythe and Krystin, who i had to reveal using a skull trap.
I decided to bring a new pet along for the ambush. The greater basilisk from the Warehouse. Let see how it goes.
Moved 2 noblemen and recharmed the basilisk.
Needless to say, the basilisk was a total beast and ended the inital doppleganger in seconds then finished the shaman and mage separately before they could do much leaving Belt injured and Jana uninjured.
However, basilisk petrified Sarevok which brang down a glitched Winski Perorate so i had to redo the whole thing and hide the basilisk from Sarevok.
The glitch happened again, it seems that if a guard managed to hit Winski, the teleport animation will get interrupted and he'll stand there invulnerable, soft locking your game. Good to know.
Again on the 3rd try, the fight was done very quickly so the basilisk is definitely consistent.
Undercity and end of BG1
Went to the undercity and Gorf dealt with the party and Tamoko before walking in a few skull traps.
Before the final fight, went to recharge my gear : 2x WoF, WoPoly, 2x OGL, WoPara, WoMS.
Picked up the constitution book and went for Sarevok.
Seems like they changed more than i though with 2.6. The wand of monster summoning can now be casted invisible so i used it once on Sarevok to get his gang close together. This can be ridiculously OP.
Waited Diarmid PFM and spammed OGL until they all died. New update disabled the console again so i decided to wait the 5-10 minutes for the buffs to end.
Debuffed them with GM for lower saves then 19 OGL killed Tazok, 27 Angelo, Diarmid 38 and seems like i missed Semaj who died earlier with all the feedback chaos going on.
Dragged the skeleton warriors down after GM+Web on Sarevok until he got held, WoMS and he got paralysed with of WoP.
BG1 went really smooth as i mostly charmed my way through and barely had to use wands, plan for SoD is to avoid as much as possible only getting the best gear for saves. Gear i'm aiming for is:
Silver Circlet +1 saves, Archer's Eyes amulet, Cloverleaf belt, ring of the crusade +3 vs demons, Evil robe of the archimagi +1, Guard ring +2 for 7 saves bonus which should set my base save vs death at 7 while at level 1. 3x Potions of stone form should bring my saves to -2, making me immune to both Belhifet's disease (-2) and Cornugon stun attack (0). I should be able to have a total of 7 fireshield blue scroll as i got 1 from BG1, choosing Fireshield Blue as a level 4 spells could net an additionnal cast using the sequencer robe but i don't thing i'm going to need it as i'm going to prefer Enchanted Weapon as a spell choice instead to be able to hit enemies with +3 using shapechange during BG2. I remember where to get the first enchanted weapon scroll but not the second one so i'll have to look that up first, 150 rounds of 3APR throwing daggers +1 with 7 fireshield should end the fight without much issues as long as i don't forget to refresh stone forms and clarity.
Edit: Forgot to add cloak of Balduran for the save calc so that's one lower.
Harmony the Neutral Good Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief - Part 2
1. Mopped up quests in BG
Did the easiest quests: Killed the Basilisk + related quests, Grabbed Helm and Cloak of Balduran, Returned a Child's Body and some Gauntlets, Found a missing child, and Stole a Telescope all for 6/6/7 which is level cap. Pumped pickpocket so its at 90. Also lots of nice loot.
2. Shopping and Acquisition 1
Stole Dushai's ring of free action, web scroll etc. She went hostile but only on the last pick attempt. Whoops. Harmony runs away.
Bought Robes of the Good Archmagi
Backstabbed Ramazith then sat out his buffs and got back to backstabbing. Only annoying thing were his 2x invisibility.
Clear out the 7 suns with backstabs
Run through candlekeep quickly for the tome + other loot, With Invisibility and Knock this is much easier than most times i've been through here. Boost Str to 19. Killed the Greater Basilisks and nothing else. Got a thac0 as low as... 6. Enough to reliably backstab things.
Picked up the Wand of Monster Summoning using steath + invisibility
double web + cloudkill on Drasus+gang was not as effective as it has been in the past. Instead D did the thing where he drinks a potion of Freedom, negating his boots of speed so he was split-lured, and once berserk wore off paralysed and chunked. Chunked Genthore with boots of haste allowing endless stealth-backstabs but left the two mages, far too dangerous, Harmony can manage without a Fireshield(red) scroll.
Durlags - always super dangerous. Managed to get pinched by greater dopplegangers while getting the Mallethead but Harmony finessed her way out with WoMS + Invisibility and ran away. Almost die multiple times, inc down to 1HP due to lazy trap management but just invisi-rest it off every time.
Fear, Pride and Love fireball-lightning trapped to death. Avarice got lost somewhere - collected Kiel's and Durlag's then left to sell up loot.
Kirian and her whole group were chain-backstabbed to pieces. Took out all 4 beginning with the archer. Claimed loot inc Golden Girdle.
Bought 60 arrows of detonation from SS, and 3rd OGL from the duplicate merchant. Charged WoMS, WoPara, Greenstone, Victor, Durlags. A few more things to buy but Harmony needs more cash.
Remaining stuff:
Shopping/Charging
Durlags 2 to 4
Slythe & Krystin
Dukes
Sarevok
Harmony stats
Deaths: 0
Level: 6/6/7
Kills: 80
Number of enemies charmed or WoMS'd2death: 0
Work in Progress Shopping List:
Ring of Free Action Robe of the Good Archmagi Golden Girdle 3rd One Gift Lost
4th One Gift Lost Boots of Speed Kiel's Helmet Durlag's Goblet
Staff of Striking
Algernon's Cloak
Nymph Cloak Cloak of Protection +2 Ring of Protection +2 Tome of Intelligence Tome of Strength
Charged Wand of Polymorph
Charged Wand of Fire Charged Wand of Paralysiation Charged Wand of Monster Summoning 62(?) Arrows of Detonation
All PfU
P O T I O N S
One other thing: I knew there was a reason I took pickpocket so high - double-selling really expensive items. Sell high value item to stealable merchant, steal back, sell to fence for double cash. Or, sell Evermemory for 9,000GP, steal and place back on finger - free 9,000GP. Did I mention that it can be done with OGL to sell then steal back full charged? Well it can - only once, since afterwards you can only sell to a Fence, but still *money rains down*
@alice_ashpool For pickpocketing, there is also only one merchant to the far south of the Iron Throne building that will recharge wands. If you don't want to invest into pickpocket at all, stacking 4-5 potions of master thievery will guarantee 100% success (around 220-240 as i remember) at base skill level. This means that you've got 1 ''free'' wand recharge per wand which is pretty insane.
I wonder if you could actually make some decent cash from buying all wands from sorcerous sundries at 20 rep 20 cha, pickpocket them to sell them back fully charged. The only items that i wouldn't recommend doing it is the nymph cloak and durlag's Goblet as they're super cheap to recharge and you'll only be able to recharge it at a fence which are more limited.
Wand of Fire
Purchase from SS at: 5896
Sell to general store for: 4400
Sell to Fence: 11000
WoMS
Purchase from SS at: 3350
Sell to general store for: 2500
Sell to fence: 12500
Yeah, you can make a lot of money - WoMS is the better deal. Still the 1% chance of critical failure though, but at the end of the game it's no big issue I don't think.
@alice_ashpool Very nice to know, that's insane profit per wand. I think the critical failure only applies to stealing from people outside of the trading window so you should be able to steal/sell loop all day without getting caugh, which is even better in BG2 as you can steal from some fences unless they patched it with 2.6.
Yep, turns out for any class with a little bit of thief (inc. bards), once you get to BG you can quickly get enough money to buy every item in the game you could possibly want - couple with the free recharge means your outgoings are low too - limited to potions, scrolls and things you will want to recharge multiple times (Victor, Durlags).
Contemplating not going down Durlag's now since I can just take disposable 2x 50 charge WoF (+ the 3x OGL Harmony already has) into Sarevok instead, all basically for free. Probs going to die to the Dukes anyway since I cant remember how to do it.
It also makes a low rep run possible I think since my earlier No Charm run ended when I killed my rep by saving the dukes in a fiery inferno, killing too many innocents to be able to recharge things... But if I could steal-recharge...
Plus with near-infinite money you might be able to do push the Arrows of Detonation trick to the max to get endless arrows of detonation? idk if it still works/works in BG1
Exaust everything, a couple of remove magics then just backstab him to pieces x5 - easiest I've ever had it. Didn't even matter that Krystin was right there. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that unless there is something I have not thought about F/M/T has all the tools. Except for Level 9 Spells. But Mislead Backstabs with SI:D... oh my.
Just as a heads up. idk if this is a 2.6 issue or just an example of how badly the Dukes Ambush is coded in general but if you cast Dispel Magic, Chaos, Greater Malison, like anything AoE during the Dukes Ambush and it catches Sarevok that's game over since Winski will just teleport in and blast you. Screw that guy. I am unsure if these were also aggroing him or if it was just the ORS (see below)
Edit: Now i'm wondering if its putting Belt in a ORSphere thats doing it. I can't work out what is going on in this fight but every attempt results in Saravok aggroing and game over.
Edit 2: So it turns out that yes, 2.6 changes it so you can put an ally in an Otiluke's Sphere without them saving. Buuut Belt is pissed when he gets out, and thats game over.
The Dukes Ambush is not actually that hard with the F/M/T, my strategy this time:
Pre-summon monsters
Lose aggro by stealthing after the change triggers but before any hostile circles appear
Hit 'em from OoLoS with 2x remove magic (spellslots) to get rid of haste&blur then a Greater Malison (scroll)
Proceed to WoPara every Doppleganger while topping up summons and let them do their work
Well I did it, but pretty sure something has gone very wrong with my install. For some reason Sarevok can't save vs wand. Turned him into a squirrel 7 times in a row to check. That shouldn't be possible. I have noticed better saves all round in 2.6, until now, where the last boss seems to have no save.
I might hold off SCS+LoB until I can get SCS working properly
and this would be why, but does not actually explain things:
Seems like your Sarevok is heavily bugged. I didn't have that issue personnally. However i'm having another one... it seems that there is no way for me to reload a save when i have 1 hp as i automatically die when loading. I really don't know why as i can rest forever and have no issues at all. 2HP is also auto-kill, 4 hp/4 constituion minimum is fine, anything lower is insta-death so i will have to do the whole segments without reloading once from the vampire hideout, or quicksaving before drinking a fortitude potion to be able to stay alive when i reload. I also had to drink a fortitude potion to be level drained properly as i would die reaching level 3. Killing the familiar and drinking the vial after would allow me to level drain down to 1 without issue but i wouldn't be able to load at all still.
The same thing happen while drinking the violet potion. 1 HP is fine but i cannot load the game, which makes not making a single mistake resulting death. It shouldn't be too bad to reach the lift in 1 go however with damage immunity, as i don't have another fortitude potion at hand but being able to buy a few more from Belegarm should give me some more space. A good way for good characters would be to use the ring of purity... but for a first i chose to go evil!
Edit: Another bug... for some reason a messenger call the fight done barely 1 minute into the troll fight, which brings all the waves at the same time. Hopefully this won't last... not a fan of the new version so far.
Ok some i'm having nearly gamebreaking issues right now but i'm almost done. Resting for example is an auto-kill. I managed to get to Belhifet but the no save make restarting extremely tedious. Also, apparently he diseases at -2 saves Vs death. I was way overkill and still died from it so i guess that the ioun stone is the way to do it properly. Not having a ton of fun with Dragonspear at all... much glitchier and it's really not like the previous successful runs. Chances are, i won't be playing an evil sorcerer anymore for 2 reasons:
-Glitched imp
-1HP mage is insta-killed on dreams and loading a save. Hp shows 0/11 or 0/21 on the reload window screen which doesn't make any sense.
-No ring of purity to be able to easily save. That would have barely made a difference. I wouldn't be surprised that my bug is due to the imp too.
Edit: Best run so far! Seems like i need 1x more stone form potions than i calculated, ill probably go back to the previous chapter to split my stone form potions with some spirit armor scrolls. Stil, 3x potions should make me save vs death from both the stun and the disease but it doesn't work, i need 4 and i can't understand why. Base 14, ring of the crusade -3, guard ring -2, evil robe -1, silver circlet -1 for 7. with 3 potions, i should be at -2. I might actually go back to the previous chapter and get the spirit armor scrolls to avoid having to chug 4 potions all the time. Purification stone should set it to 1 and require 3 instead but it again doesn't work and i get stunned pretty quickly, with 4 i have no problem but it's pretty expensive and i only have 15 potions.
Still possible to finish it but it's extremely tedious to have to do the lift every single time due to my HP loading bug, where i saved after drinking a fortitude potion. The only way i imagine that could work would be to make a save with a fortitude potion then immediately use the console to advance 3 hours to be able to continue... yet it is cheating but the game keeps cheating on me here. A good sorcerer could simply use the ring of purity... i regret my choice a lot here.
178 hp left. Got a -4 strength debuff from something and i'm sure that if i can avoid it, i can finish it. I don't really think that i won't have to rely on my sling bullets +3 for the kill. Another thing that doesn't help is that i can't rest at all so i'm stuck with the lowest rolls all the time. 1 more fireshield blue would have sealed the deal. Same if the sequencer's Enchanted Weapon wasn't bugged into the old version of the original so i would have another 50 rounds of knife throwing at 3 apr which is pretty much guaranteed success. Last time (probably not) i'm playing a pure casting class solo. I can't imagine someone trying this tactic no-reload and dying from a dream sequence or just loading their save...
Sorry to hear about all the bugs. With the bugged imp causing (potentially) so many problems it looks like lawful/neutral good are by far the best alignment - increased rep at the beginning, pseudodragon, and ring of purity. If you could equip helmets you could have finessed the helm of opposite alignment but yeah.
Congrats about getting the Sorc to Bel though. I only ever took my DD to the Coalition Camp since she was not 1HP ready. She did do it cataclysm style though
Anyway, trying again:
Hesperia the Neutral Good Elven F/M/T
Kills: 23; Deaths: 0
I have changed some things around - running on a 2.6.5 rather than 2.6.6, and on BG1:EE rather than SoD and the steam install not the Beamdog install(er). SCS installed fine. No broken spells, no "Invalid" AI, no strange enemies with no name, hopefully no +19 to Sarevoks saves either.
Did the usual of basilisks then Rep run. Did Mulahey using the new Blind Cheese, but he did cast Remove Disease on himself. Think the SCS AI is working better now. Anyway, remove disease could do nothing against Fireballs and Scorchers. RIP. Going to go quickly down to Dav so she can Pickpocket herself infinite money and I'll test the infinite Arrows of Detonation trick.
I managed to do it! I made a checkpoint using jelly form for the 3rd wave in the lift and for some reason, it ended leaving me in jelly form permanently without a way to switch back to human form unless i use another scroll, no clue how it happened. I only took 3x stone form and clarity and attempted to switch back to human form and it ended like this. Not sure if enemies can ''interrupt'' the human form so you always stay as a jelly doing that. The good thing is, jelly hit at +3 so you can slowly bring down his remaining hp with only an oil of speed wearing the purification stone to avoid sickness. The other downside is that it takes a bit more time to deal damage as a crit will slow Bel so he won't hurt himself as much with the fireshield blue. Caelar easily died to stone ally and water elemental afterwards... the problem was, i died using greater restoration so i have to do it again but it's a pretty safe bet, it only take like... 10 minutes compared to a 1 minute kill with my F/I playing normally.
Now what i'll have to do:
-Polymorph back
-Con tome for 4 base
-Drink Fortitude potion again
-Greater restoration to finally end this nightmare.
On another note on the lift, wand of lightning totally destroy the 2nd and 3rd wave with good positioning. You have to aim the wand perfection horizontal and it will hit everything 5 times per cast. Ending the last wave leaving a frozen demon with the wand of frost allowed me to save and delay the Bel fight so i could use a fortitude potion and save, buff as i wanted, shatter it and keep going.
Needless to say, i really don't recommend the level drain method with a mage class, while it might work better with a blade as you don't need to kill your familiar and can just use martyr morningstar. I didn't manage to end him with enchanted weapon and my sling bullets +3 so far. Always at 100-120 hp left then stone form ends and i die or get perma-stunned. The only way i see it work now is doing a complete level 1 playthrough, as the mix of constitution penalty with the level drain seems to be the source of the problem. Doing one or the other seems fine though.
On another note, i'm 100% sure that some save bonus items aren't working at all as a level drained character will only show the base save without equipment bonus, yet i need stone forms until i hit 2 (4x-3) in the case of the stun or -1 for Belhifet disease, so it's not 4 but 5 which doesn't make sense at all with save gear. I though it was 4 because the previous effect was still on when i drank the other potions.
On another note, i'm 100% sure that some save bonus items aren't working at all as a level drained character will only show the base save without equipment bonus, yet i need stone forms until i hit 2 (4x-3) in the case of the stun or -1 for Belhifet disease, so it's not 4 but 5 which doesn't make sense at all with save gear. I though it was 4 because the previous effect was still on when i drank the other potions.
Unless there was some change in 2.6 level drain also removes all save bonuses provided by equipment.
Comments
My character and game settings:
Lias the Human Conjurer, str 18 dex 18 con 16 int 18 wis 15 cha 10, dagger *, starting spells are sleep, find familiar and shield. (with No difficulty based damage changes unchecked. But SCS says it is strongly recommended, do you guys check or uncheck it?)
Journey begins:
Candlekeep, tried to sleep carbos without success, already glad I chose a mage over a sorcerer. Then I tried to use my familiar to fight him, and it worked! To my surprise it was so tanky and could even regenerate. Then I followed Gorion to the wilderness and he got killed. Lias murdered Xzar and his friend just to get some scrolls (don't know who is the evil one
The mage guarding the inn's gate wasn't much of a trouble, Lias cast shield and let the mage cast horror and sleep spells on her. Then the familiar charged at him and kill him while Lias slept through the whole fight. Familiar took some magical damage from him but it survived. (but the mage didn't use melee much after spending his spells, he basically just stood there, strange)
Lias went to do some quests that didn't require combat like calming Marl at Feldepost's Inn, but still couldn't reach level 2. Lias didn't know what to do because she couldn't kill anything. Then she found out her familiar couldn't be petrified, so she went to the basilisk garden and tried her luck. The familiar and the friendly ghoul together ate every single basilisk and the gnome mage alive! The ghoul turned on the familiar while they were fighting the last group of basilisks, but the familiar kill the ghoul too. OMG I have never expected the familiar can be so powerful on LOB. Now Lias reached level 5 and so she went to High hedge to buy some scrolls.
The familiar also fetched me Algernon's Cloak and a ring of freedom, didn't ask where it got them, hope it didn't hurt anybody
Met Neira at the Nashkel inn. Kited her big skeleton summon far away while the familiar tanked her until she used all her spells then Lias joined in and cast all her damage spells on Neira. Neira wasn't tough at all. Went down to the Nashkel mine without any trouble as Lias could cast invisible now. Mulahey fight was a bit tough, but 4 charges of monster summoning and a few skull traps took him down. A lone assassins called himself death was waiting for me at Nashkel inn. He proofed no challenge at all, Lias and her familiar beat him to the ground just fine.
Tranzig wasn't a problem either, he just cast a lot of protection spells, the familiar killed him too. Lias joined the bandit and Tazok wanted to kill her, the familiar kited him while she cast all her spells on him and then he decided to let her live. She tried to kill the bandits outside but failed. Even the bad guys in the big tent came out to attack Lias. Tried a couple of times and I knew I couldn't win this fight. Time to say goodbye to LOB + SCS. But suddenly I realized the big tent should now be empty. Then I cast invisibility on Lias and ordered her to go into the tent. WOOT, it was empty indeed! Lias talked to the prisoner inside. He told Lias the secret of the Iron Throne and then left the tent. (before Lias could tell him it wasn't safe outside, he just went... god bless him
At the time Lias needed to recharge the monster summoning wand. But she didn't have enough gold. She then tried to grabbed all the treasure that didn't require combat and did all the quests she could to raise her reputation. Finally she got 24000 gp and a reputation of 20. She could now recharge her monster summoning wand at the price of 20000 gp. Also bought the one gift lost amulet.
Lias also fought Greywolf. Her familiar tried to fight him, proofed foolish and he killed him with just a few swings. Reloaded and this time the familiar kited him, while Lias stood still and cast all her spells on him. Wasted a wand of magic missiles and a frost wand too and he was finally down.
It was time to go to the cloakwood mines. Avoided all fight with invisibility. Pick up the remove magic scroll and kill a female mage on level 3 to get some more scrolls. And now Lias faced Davaeorn. Lias had invisible spell on her and she charged at Davaeorn, the conversation dialogue triggered anyway and I don't know why all the guards and Davaeorn himself rushed to the entrance room. Lias use the fireball wand on them. They still wanted to stay in the entrance room (SCS improved AI behaves like that?). Feeling lucky and happy, Lias spammed one gift lost and fireball wand on them until most of them died. Then Lias used the monster summoning wand to finish them off. Davaeorn cast spells on the monsters like mad, poor guy didn't know spells couldn't do much damage on LOB.
Flooded the mines and Lias went to the Sorcerous Sundries to buy some new scrolls. Then she went back to the mines to fight Drasus.
Drasus fight proofed to be much tougher. Lias tried the monster summoning trick, didn't work, the mages turned them into their slaves quickly. Then she tried to stack skull traps, and then slept and stack traps again and again. Then she cast icestorm on them and they ran toward her triggering the traps. They still didn't eat dirt. Then Lias slept again and found that they didn't regenerate. So she stacked skull traps again and finally got Drasus and a mage killed. Only 2 of them left, Lias tried to sleep again and stack traps again, but then she found them to have regenerated, strange. But since there are only 2 of them, Lias summon monsters to grind them down. For the whole cloakwood mines, Lias used in total 20 charges of the one gift lost and fire wand, 8 charges of monster summoning wand.
Now she is wondering what to do next. (or what she can actually do, feeling very weak.)
Sleep is useless on LoB because all enemies have +12 level and it can only affect enemies that are level 5 or lower (lower than 5 HD), pretty much anything that require low HP or low level will have no use at all. Blind however is a much better alternative as a level 1 spell. Summons does get a specific summon LoB bonuses however, familiar included, which is really good as you noticed.
Looks like it's going well, you should be facing the palace ambush anytime soon!
-Abusing the level 1, 1HP trick to be immune to damage and defeat him relying on critical hits with Archer's Eye + Enchanted Weapon. Note that you can level drain yourself with an undead just before the crusader ambush down to level 1 but you will need 1 constitution that you can get down to 3 by killing a familiar then equipping Claw of Kazgaroth, removing it before the lift with a remove curse scroll then drink the violet potion so it stays set at 1 without killing you. This means doing the ambush at level 1. Best way to deal with it is to have as many charged One Gift Lost, Wand of Fire and summon items as possible (WoMS, Myconids, stone ally, Ankhegs, water elementals...) and a ton of scrolls for skull traps, cloudkill, web and other AOE you might find useful but those are the big ones.
-Using Lower Resistance + wand of polymorphing with oracle to break his improved invisibility, which is extremely unlikely as he recast it at will without following the round rule and it's instant. It is in the end more suitable for a mage/thief due to detect illusion but still a real pain to land. If you manage to do it, you can finish his remaining hp with fireshield blue + otiluke resilient sphere. Nobody managed to land this with a mage however, especially that i personnally feel like the ST might have been fixed as i'm failing my save much more often than before. It would be possible if it isn't the case but if it is, even if under Greater Malison his saves is going to be at -1 due to the invisibility save bonus. I never managed to make wand of paralysis work but i can't see it being a viable option anyway, but it could buy time to land the whole combo if someone ever manage to land it. Forget chaining Otiluke + Fireshield blue. It is viable for insane, for LoB i managed to get him to barely injured after over 5 hours of tries and 7 or 8 consecutive spheres which are incredibly RNG heavy (if an Erinyes see you while under the sphere, you're done).
I am myself starting a sorcerer run that i started yesterday. Not sure if i'll make it there before you do, but i'm aiming to try the fight doing the 1 hp at level 1 trick + jelly form. One thing i have to test is if recasting polymorph self scrolls from jelly form extend the overall duration of the forms while keeping me polymorphed because once a jelly, i don't want to go back to human form and i don't want to use the permapoly exploit. My starting constitution was 6 however as i'm playing as an elven sorcerer. Yep, that fight and the crusader ambush are really that ridiculous. It's usually the spot where some runs ends, like for single class thieves, clerics and single class mages.
Rolled Daken, a lawful Evil elven sorcerer who rolled a ridiculous 94 roll after a few clicks. Actually auto-rolled him as neutral evil with 91 just before that but didn't like the Dust Mephit, decided to not use it as i would need a mid 80 roll to be very efficient and got this after 20 seconds of clicks... good start! Low Constitution as i will try to use the 1 hp at level 1 exploit in SoD by level draining which should be pretty simple using stoneskin. Will play normally until then. 6 constitution should be -1 hp per level until level 10 for 10 less HP than a 14 Con sorcerer, which is a good trade-off for the possible immunity of SoD while i can always drink a potion of fortitude or use the Girdle of Fortitude for 18 con if i need it. Went with lawful evil mostly for Imp with polymorph self jelly and i should get the Evil archimagi robe from Davaeorn which is good.
Overall preparation. XP, Gold, Rep, Wands and other essential items.
Candlekeep 345 xp, Imp changed into spider form to kill the rats for a little bit more XP
Waylaid by skeletons, survived with 1 HP
Marl 900xp
Tarnesh killed by Imp turned into Mustard Jelly 120 xp
Seems like the LoB ST aren't fixed as Tarnesh saves vs Death with 22.
Imp killed the fisherman and we gave Tenya back her bowl for 1500xp, seems like this got slightly nerfed by 1k xp. Level up.
Looks like Imp doesn't gain any HP back from the time spent by resting or switching maps despite the 1hp/round regen, either in the inventory or outside... it's certainly something that i didn't notice before or it got changed in 2.6.
Imp jelly killed a skeleton for a skull for 60 xp in High Hedge
Sold flail+1, scrolls, ring of prince and cold belt for 3,7k, bought the 3 invisibility scrolls.
Regen from imp simply seem glitched... not sure why. It would stay badly injured forever.
Helped Brage and went straight to Nashkel, hopefully getting a heal spell will make me able to heal him.
Gave 300 gold for 11 rep
Noober 400 xp
Sold Sword of berserking, Ankheg plate and pearl for an additionnal 4.8k
Killed Algernon for his cloak and -4 rep, now at 7 and 20 charisma
Imp spider killed Shoal for 5k xp, had to switch to jelly as he came to near death with 1 damage punches. Definitely bugged.
Level up to 3, picked protection from petrification.
Went into Ulgoth Beard, now imp actually healed when i took him out of my backpack to rest.
Killed Dushai for the Edventar's gift and web scroll, Imp was regenerating this time so it was easy. Seems like the polymorph might bug his regen a bit. Rep down to 5
Helped Neera with Jelly imp and charmed one of the Thayan bodyguard.
Used the body guard and imp for Silke but she finished the guard and jelly ended so i rested and charmed some spiders to help instead.
Jelly imp and 2x spider finished Silke with the last spider dying just before her, another pretty fun glitch is now happening and it's that the imp retain it's speed even in jelly form, so it travels super fast.
Leveled up and chose invisibility for easier charm attempts, looting, resting and travelling.
Charmed the wolf aside Melicamp, he needed a 5 vs 1 with a skeleton, another wolf and the hobgoblin party to die.
Charmed Bassilus 1st try and made him summon 2x skeleton warrior and aerial servants who swept the map and finished him in seconds.
Bought rep back from 5 to 13, killed Neera for the gem bag then turned in some quests for rep and xp: Spider (xp), Joia ring (400 xp, +1), Farmer Brun's son + 100 gold (WoF, 1500xp +1), Bassilus (1k xp, 5k gold), Firebeard (1 rep, scroll case), Melicamp (2k xp, 1 rep), charmed Ogrillon for Mirianne (RoP, 300 xp), Mr. Collette amulet (250xp, 1rep, level up, chose Magic Missile and web).
At this point i figured out that maybe the ST was indeed fixed despite rolling over 20.. because they for sure saved a lot.
Did the basilisk garden and cleared the lower half with Korax and Imp. Has to reload here because i assumed that the imp was immune to petrification but he's not.
I'm pretty positive that the ST got fixed as Korax really struggled to paralyse basilisks, i even killed a greater one without being able to paralyse it... next time i'm waiting for the wand. It also seems that there are more basilisks than before.
Imp had to kill Korax under Web before Mutamin. I decided that i would try to charm a lesser basilisk to do the rest of the job, with Gore off of course.
Casted Protection from Petrification on it and he cleared the rest with invisible imp while i was chilling there. Has to charm Lindin for Kirian party as basilisk would miss all the time and wouldn't petrify anymore then finished him with Web + Jelly + Magic missile (12 casts is a lot of damage).
Leveled up to 6 and chose skull trap.
Went to Durlag for the 2 Battle Horror who couldn't harm Jelly imp. Killed them with magic missile+web+skull trap 1 by 1 for 8k xp.
I wasn't Greywolf for +1 rep, now at 19.
Went to kill Greywolf using a small skull trap ambush that wasn't enough and had to finish him with the web+jelly+missile combo, rep +1 for 20.
Got OGL, Shield amulet, violet and red potion.
Went to Valley of Tombs, killed the Revenant with the usual tactic but he was very hard to web (i'm sure ST are fixed... it shouldn't be that hard really) and kept the Dagger +2 and 3k xp, level up to 7, went with Chromatic Orb, Mirror Image and Haste. Got WoMS then left for the WoPara.
Killed Sil by paralysing the 2 Sirine first to let hasted jelly deal with them, then once the two were immobilized i used one charge of WOMS to end them. Had to kill Sil without paralysis as it wouldn't land at all, jelly still killed her pretty fast while she managed to make the rest of the summons passive.
Helped Ardougne even if i didn't need it and left.
Nashkel mine and a few other quests
Stacked about 20 skull traps for charmed Mulahey would barely survived and i ended him with a magic missile.
Killed Nimbul with haster WoMS + jelly, seems like we now can stay invisible while casting haste which is great.
Marl KO Transig and imp gave the last blow. Went to get Perdu short sword on the way to recharge WoMS and WoPara which were really cheap at 20/20 (16k+8k)
Decided to do a small stop to see Mellum who died to Khark, who then died to wand of paralysation + hasted WoMS + Jelly.
Got the party with Zeela in it. Drank an invisbility potion and managed to charm the talker right away who died quickly, then WoMS + Haste + MM killed the rest.
Did the Half Ogre near Beregost and validated Drizzt new AI. No more early game cheese. Chromatic orb was great to stun the ogre to finish them with dual daggers + imp.
Met the Dwarf party on my way back but didn't try to charm this time. Straight WoMS + WoP and i leveled up to 8, took GM as i'm really not getting hit often for the moment so Stoneskin will wait until 9.
Went to save Samuel, got fire resist ring and PFM.
Overall prep done, i just aim towards getting enough gold to get the essential items so rest of BG1 shouldn't take much time, level 9 spells should be Knock, Protection from Fire and Stoneskin. The reason why i don't bother with Durlag's Tower is that i don't need any items from it as far as i remember except the wisdom tome. Those extra sections would be dealt with the same way as i did it with my F/I, which was spamming WoP and WoMS everywhere, Polymorphing Loup Garou and Karoug and i would probably would have to finish them with a wand of lightning instead or an unhealty amount of skull traps as it isn't possible for a sorcerer to use the sword of Balduran. The good thing is, i really can't use much equipment so gold is super easy to get and i don't have to look for scrolls.
And I can't kill my familiar 13 times either, as Histamiini already mentioned, that would give me -13 con penalty. When I drink the violet potion the system will calculate that I have 3 - 13 = -10 con which will kill me.
Crap, need to start over with a new character
Need to consider what I should do with my next character.
The odd ones out are afaik: 1HP trick sorcerer, single class druids because of harm, and cleric/mage because of having both that fancy hammer and knock to get it. And of course Harpagonis's Bounty Hunter. But iirc that involved drinking >100 Invisibility potions during the Bel fight?
@XDarkStrikerX - I have a new challenge if you are looking for one, you should check out the Improved Heart of Fury mod for Icewind Dale, its a total blast (and very frustrating - more Improved Anvil than SCS). Didn't manage to solo the whole thing but got quite close before the frustration blew me out. Went with Shapeshifter -> Fighter, but your Fighter/Illusionist could give it a run for its money.
Yes 2.6, i had to reinstall everything too. Changed a few settings for BG2, mainly disabling the scroll additions and clone quickslot as i don't need them but kept the same config with BG1. You can speed things up by making a shortcut of SCS.exe and under proprieties, add --reinstall (with a space before the --) after the '' in the target line. This should install everything like it was and it will work even if you decided to change something in the stratagems.ini file like i did, it also worked with Ascension for me. Saved a ton of time and didn't have to reinstall the whole game completely doing that. With BG1 however, i had to reuse modmerge first but it wouldn't work at all at first. What i had to do was:
Delete "sod-dlc.disabled"
Delete "sod-dlc.key" and "chitin.key.bak"
Delete "sod-dlc" subfolder.
Then modmerge worked properly. You might have to reinstall everything manually if you didn't do this step first as SCS installation will have an error and won't complete.
I had a hard time to not use a class that wasn't a fighter honestly especially for that cursed Bel fight. They're super good and fun to use especially multiclassed. I tried hard not to go F/M/C.
Yeah i discovered that sad reality yesterday... looks like it's going to be with enchanted daggers +1 Histamiini style. Would have been fine but retransforming makes the violet potion useless as it set strength to 14. I also can't seem to do the infinite form trick anymore. Maybe i forgot how to do it properly but it seems that switching forms is now instant instead of taking 1,2 seconds. Maybe a small detail that i missed in the patchnotes.
Harmony the Neutral Good Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief
SoD 2.6, LoB, All SCS AI & challenges + IWD spells + sequencer changes + increased spell scroll selection and a few other changes.
Auto-rolled myself up a very unwise character:
Pips: ++Quarterstaff +Two-handed Weapon +Single weapon style
Spells: Find Familiar, Blind
Thief Skills: all stealth
Lets see if I can remember how to do this.
1. Change appearance to elf-thief for aesthetics. Complete candlekeep w/o rats.
- Harmony summons her familiar, giving 31HP, and buys a helmet + bolts and does all the early quests + stealing, except the rats.
- The Pseudodragon can quite easily tank against Carbos and Shank (who we crit-chunk on LoB mode heh) while Harmony pokes away with her quarterstaff. It has regeneration and immunity to petrification. Everything the body needs.
- Two-handed weapon style gives us hits on 19 and 20 meaning we will hit 1 time in 10 rather than 1 time in 20. Not to be underestimated.
Carbos:2. The usual stuff: Loot Imoen, Xzar and Monty, Gorion's corpse, Diamond, RoP+1, Ring of Wizardry, High Hedge and Scroll of PfP.
3. Mutamin's
- We do the usual luring Korax as close as possible before talking to him deal to get maximum "Korax Time". It is not such a big issue with this class but with classes with only 18STR I found it essential. Add to this the fix to saving throws seems obvious obvious in Mutamin's as Korax takes longer to paralyze Basilisks. Not that much longer though and it is enough to clear out all Basilisks + Mutamin.
- This gives Levels 4/3/4 - All skill points still in stealth.
Basilisks:4. Reputation Round
5. Durlag's Tower
- Utilised "ultimate pro-gamer strats" to kill the Battle Horrors outside, minimising the game while Harmony rolled for 19s+ for about 6 hours of in game time.
- Fight the lesser and greater basilisks rolling for 15s from stealth for big-money backstabs while Pooky tanks. 1 in 10 chance of hitting for around 88 damage is p. nice.
- This brings 5/5/6. Harmony pumps Pickpocket to 60.
"pro-gameplay" + Tower Basilisks:6. Clearing Up and Nashkel Mines
- We backstab a Blind wolf to save Melicamp. Melicamp himself did not survive the transformation process. That makes 3 games in a row that he has failed.
- Pick up Minor Spell Deflection
- It takes only 3 casts to blind both Ogrillons then a series of chained backstabs to chunk them. Swinging futile-ly at Pooky stops them running around like chickens.
- The Neera battle is tough. Pooky almost gets wasted by taking a high-level Flame Arrow, morale broken and near death. Harmony quickly blinds the two goons and the baby-mage wastes all his spells on immortal Neera. We beat him up with Aule's while he stands immobile. Neera is very unhelpful, causing the blind enemies to run all over the map, and the sun rises (halfing Hide in Shadows chance) before we win with chained backstabs. Anyway, we steal her gem-bag.
- Buy OGL and head to Nashkel
- Kylee's Dagger and joseph's Ring are minuscule XP, and we need almost 27k for Harmony's next level, but we do them anyway.
- Harmony travels invisible through the mine, but this time she can detect and disarm all the traps along the way. F/M/T has it all.
- Mulahey - I used my usual method, but it also turns out if you stand exactly right, before you aggro Mul you can fire as many blinds at him as you want. 5 were enough to proc and aggro him. After that it was 10 fireballs to kill his minions - with 2.6 bizarrely the fireballs from OGL and WoF are different lmao - and 3 backstabs to chunk him.
Ogrillon Backstabbing:Neera Battle in 3 parts:
Chunking Mulahey:
7. Clearing up 2 and Bandit Camp
- Visited the Pirate cave and pseudo-backstabbed a Flesh golem to pieces, only took 15 hits, all for 2000XP. Left the other 2 and took all the good stuff.
- Stole an invisibility potion from the Nashkel Manor.
- Mad Arcand
- I Normally skip this fight but for Tranzig, absorbed some spells with Minor Spell Deflection/Shield then waited out his MSD invisible and blinded him. Enough backstabs and he was dead. A big advantage of the quarterstaff as a backstab weapon is its two-handed range. Backstabbing from Blind-OoLoS and retreating quick-fast works great unless an enemy has the SCS blind-wander script.
- Harmony talked her way into the bandit camp, invisibility in to the Big Tent, Insulation potion, loot and Invisi-potion out. Done.
- Recharged OGL and took out the Red wizards for the Victor. Denak and gang eat 16 fireballs due to fixed saves. The last one is backstabbed to chunks just because. They might have a -11AC bonus but that's starting from a very high base.
- Dealt with Gnarr and Hairtooth using Blind + Backstabs. Even LoB half-ogres cant stand more that 2 critical hit 3x Backstabs. Collected Charisma tome for ol' time sake.
Chunking Tranzig:Red Wizards:
8. Cloakwood Mines
Harmony stats
Deaths: 0
Level: 6/5/6 (Extra pips are: ++Flails)
Kills: 65
Number of enemies charmed or WoMS'd: 0
/////
@XDarkStrikerX - re: the Imp regen. It seems really bugged. The polymorph does not play nicely with the familiar's regeneration. Also the speed thing is funny too. I had the same thing in IWD, you could manipulate it with resting and polymorphing to make sure you jelly-imp was lightning-fast.
This time I go with 5 con, because I am going to use my familiar before the vampire so I can't go 3 con. Now she just beat cloakwood mines. Basically did exactly the same things in my last run.
Found a cheese to neutralize all SCS mages and priests AI and precast stuff. I just stack skull traps right next to the target without letting them see me. Then I trigger the traps by summoning monsters right on top of the traps. And Bang, everything dies within the radius. The mages and priests won't be able to precast anything and literally don't know what hit them. And I cheesed through ice island just like that.
The wild surge firework is fun to see if it doesn't kill you.
Bandit camp, cloakwood and the mine.
Taurgosz died charmed to skeletons, charmed Hakt barely made it to kill Raemon then Britik swept the tent before dying webbed, survived the trap without issue with 50% LR boots and 20% LR robe.
Went to Cloakwood and charmed a Wyvern 1st try for it's head, got Gurze cloak by using web+skull trap and turned the quests in, seems like you cannot get a reward for it without having Coran anymore so i just sold it.
Fed the whole Krasus party to the guard and finished them at near death with web+skull trap.
Went into the mine and killed the ogre mage with WoMS + GM + WoP, almost got me there as a magic missile left me at 12hp but he got paralysed on the first try.
Charmed Davaeorn and he got killed by his men, finished by the two battle horrors. For some reason he didn'T have his AC gauntlets.
I wanted to kill the battle horrors for XP but once i webbed them and saw them they instantly died. Should have done it before Davaeorn... oh well.
Baldur gate overall prep
Charmed Resar and WoP+WoMS him for his fireshield blue scroll.
Went to get all of the attribute tomes and stopped by Durlag tower to finish the Basilisk there with WoP+WoMS using protection from petrification on the monsters as i wouldn't have enought melee damage to finish an enemy in 1 turn with 18 strength. Hit level cap, got Knock (needed before Candlekeep), Protection from Fire and Stoneskin. I'm thinking about skipping Spider spawn and going with Contagion with this character eventually... maybe the stat drain could be useful with GM.
Killed the Ghost by charming Riggilo until he had no spell left then GM+WoP once his buffs ran out. Finished Riggilo with web + magic missile after that. I'm thinking about keeping the wand of lightning to help against the hellcats in the lift to Belhifet. I don't think any of those are immune to lightning and it should speed things up.
Got claw of Kazgaroth and finished the Tome run before Candlekeep, dealt with Ragefast for nymph cloak, Vitiare for the WoPoly, got cloak of Balduran, dealt with Marek&Lothander then Ramazith on the way there.
Candlekeep and the easiest possible palace ambush
Looted the two last skill books protected by absorption potion, shield amulet, Protection from fire, stoneskin and mirror image.
Prat party got cleared by Tam who died against Bor who i left alive.
Saved the Duke then Larze killed both Slythe and Krystin, who i had to reveal using a skull trap.
I decided to bring a new pet along for the ambush. The greater basilisk from the Warehouse. Let see how it goes.
Moved 2 noblemen and recharmed the basilisk.
Needless to say, the basilisk was a total beast and ended the inital doppleganger in seconds then finished the shaman and mage separately before they could do much leaving Belt injured and Jana uninjured.
However, basilisk petrified Sarevok which brang down a glitched Winski Perorate so i had to redo the whole thing and hide the basilisk from Sarevok.
The glitch happened again, it seems that if a guard managed to hit Winski, the teleport animation will get interrupted and he'll stand there invulnerable, soft locking your game. Good to know.
Again on the 3rd try, the fight was done very quickly so the basilisk is definitely consistent.
Undercity and end of BG1
Before the final fight, went to recharge my gear : 2x WoF, WoPoly, 2x OGL, WoPara, WoMS.
Picked up the constitution book and went for Sarevok.
Seems like they changed more than i though with 2.6. The wand of monster summoning can now be casted invisible so i used it once on Sarevok to get his gang close together. This can be ridiculously OP.
Waited Diarmid PFM and spammed OGL until they all died. New update disabled the console again so i decided to wait the 5-10 minutes for the buffs to end.
Debuffed them with GM for lower saves then 19 OGL killed Tazok, 27 Angelo, Diarmid 38 and seems like i missed Semaj who died earlier with all the feedback chaos going on.
Dragged the skeleton warriors down after GM+Web on Sarevok until he got held, WoMS and he got paralysed with of WoP.
BG1 went really smooth as i mostly charmed my way through and barely had to use wands, plan for SoD is to avoid as much as possible only getting the best gear for saves. Gear i'm aiming for is:
Silver Circlet +1 saves, Archer's Eyes amulet, Cloverleaf belt, ring of the crusade +3 vs demons, Evil robe of the archimagi +1, Guard ring +2 for 7 saves bonus which should set my base save vs death at 7 while at level 1. 3x Potions of stone form should bring my saves to -2, making me immune to both Belhifet's disease (-2) and Cornugon stun attack (0). I should be able to have a total of 7 fireshield blue scroll as i got 1 from BG1, choosing Fireshield Blue as a level 4 spells could net an additionnal cast using the sequencer robe but i don't thing i'm going to need it as i'm going to prefer Enchanted Weapon as a spell choice instead to be able to hit enemies with +3 using shapechange during BG2. I remember where to get the first enchanted weapon scroll but not the second one so i'll have to look that up first, 150 rounds of 3APR throwing daggers +1 with 7 fireshield should end the fight without much issues as long as i don't forget to refresh stone forms and clarity.
Edit: Forgot to add cloak of Balduran for the save calc so that's one lower.
1. Mopped up quests in BG
2. Shopping and Acquisition 1
Remaining stuff:
Harmony stats
Deaths: 0
Level: 6/6/7
Kills: 80
Number of enemies charmed or WoMS'd2death: 0
Work in Progress Shopping List:
Robe of the Good Archmagi
Golden Girdle
3rd One Gift Lost
4th One Gift Lost
Boots of Speed
Kiel's Helmet
Durlag's Goblet
Staff of Striking
Algernon's Cloak
Nymph Cloak
Cloak of Protection +2
Ring of Protection +2
Tome of Intelligence
Tome of Strength
Charged Wand of Polymorph
Charged Wand of Fire
Charged Wand of Paralysiation
Charged Wand of Monster Summoning
62(?) Arrows of Detonation
All PfU
P O T I O N S
I wonder if you could actually make some decent cash from buying all wands from sorcerous sundries at 20 rep 20 cha, pickpocket them to sell them back fully charged. The only items that i wouldn't recommend doing it is the nymph cloak and durlag's Goblet as they're super cheap to recharge and you'll only be able to recharge it at a fence which are more limited.
Wand of Fire
Purchase from SS at: 5896
Sell to general store for: 4400
Sell to Fence: 11000
WoMS
Purchase from SS at: 3350
Sell to general store for: 2500
Sell to fence: 12500
Yeah, you can make a lot of money - WoMS is the better deal. Still the 1% chance of critical failure though, but at the end of the game it's no big issue I don't think.
Contemplating not going down Durlag's now since I can just take disposable 2x 50 charge WoF (+ the 3x OGL Harmony already has) into Sarevok instead, all basically for free. Probs going to die to the Dukes anyway since I cant remember how to do it.
It also makes a low rep run possible I think since my earlier No Charm run ended when I killed my rep by saving the dukes in a fiery inferno, killing too many innocents to be able to recharge things... But if I could steal-recharge...
Plus with near-infinite money you might be able to do push the Arrows of Detonation trick to the max to get endless arrows of detonation? idk if it still works/works in BG1
Exaust everything, a couple of remove magics then just backstab him to pieces x5 - easiest I've ever had it. Didn't even matter that Krystin was right there. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that unless there is something I have not thought about F/M/T has all the tools. Except for Level 9 Spells. But Mislead Backstabs with SI:D... oh my.
Edit: Now i'm wondering if its putting Belt in a ORSphere thats doing it. I can't work out what is going on in this fight but every attempt results in Saravok aggroing and game over.
Edit 2: So it turns out that yes, 2.6 changes it so you can put an ally in an Otiluke's Sphere without them saving. Buuut Belt is pissed when he gets out, and thats game over.
The Dukes Ambush is not actually that hard with the F/M/T, my strategy this time:
Do not put anyone in an ORS ^_^
I might hold off SCS+LoB until I can get SCS working properly
and this would be why, but does not actually explain things:
The same thing happen while drinking the violet potion. 1 HP is fine but i cannot load the game, which makes not making a single mistake resulting death. It shouldn't be too bad to reach the lift in 1 go however with damage immunity, as i don't have another fortitude potion at hand but being able to buy a few more from Belegarm should give me some more space. A good way for good characters would be to use the ring of purity... but for a first i chose to go evil!
Edit: Another bug... for some reason a messenger call the fight done barely 1 minute into the troll fight, which brings all the waves at the same time. Hopefully this won't last... not a fan of the new version so far.
-Glitched imp
-1HP mage is insta-killed on dreams and loading a save. Hp shows 0/11 or 0/21 on the reload window screen which doesn't make any sense.
-No ring of purity to be able to easily save. That would have barely made a difference. I wouldn't be surprised that my bug is due to the imp too.
Edit: Best run so far! Seems like i need 1x more stone form potions than i calculated, ill probably go back to the previous chapter to split my stone form potions with some spirit armor scrolls. Stil, 3x potions should make me save vs death from both the stun and the disease but it doesn't work, i need 4 and i can't understand why. Base 14, ring of the crusade -3, guard ring -2, evil robe -1, silver circlet -1 for 7. with 3 potions, i should be at -2. I might actually go back to the previous chapter and get the spirit armor scrolls to avoid having to chug 4 potions all the time. Purification stone should set it to 1 and require 3 instead but it again doesn't work and i get stunned pretty quickly, with 4 i have no problem but it's pretty expensive and i only have 15 potions.
Still possible to finish it but it's extremely tedious to have to do the lift every single time due to my HP loading bug, where i saved after drinking a fortitude potion. The only way i imagine that could work would be to make a save with a fortitude potion then immediately use the console to advance 3 hours to be able to continue... yet it is cheating but the game keeps cheating on me here. A good sorcerer could simply use the ring of purity... i regret my choice a lot here.
178 hp left. Got a -4 strength debuff from something and i'm sure that if i can avoid it, i can finish it. I don't really think that i won't have to rely on my sling bullets +3 for the kill. Another thing that doesn't help is that i can't rest at all so i'm stuck with the lowest rolls all the time. 1 more fireshield blue would have sealed the deal. Same if the sequencer's Enchanted Weapon wasn't bugged into the old version of the original so i would have another 50 rounds of knife throwing at 3 apr which is pretty much guaranteed success. Last time (probably not) i'm playing a pure casting class solo. I can't imagine someone trying this tactic no-reload and dying from a dream sequence or just loading their save...
Congrats about getting the Sorc to Bel though. I only ever took my DD to the Coalition Camp since she was not 1HP ready. She did do it cataclysm style though
Anyway, trying again:
Hesperia the Neutral Good Elven F/M/T
Kills: 23; Deaths: 0
I have changed some things around - running on a 2.6.5 rather than 2.6.6, and on BG1:EE rather than SoD and the steam install not the Beamdog install(er). SCS installed fine. No broken spells, no "Invalid" AI, no strange enemies with no name, hopefully no +19 to Sarevoks saves either.
Did the usual of basilisks then Rep run. Did Mulahey using the new Blind Cheese, but he did cast Remove Disease on himself. Think the SCS AI is working better now. Anyway, remove disease could do nothing against Fireballs and Scorchers. RIP. Going to go quickly down to Dav so she can Pickpocket herself infinite money and I'll test the infinite Arrows of Detonation trick.
Now what i'll have to do:
-Polymorph back
-Con tome for 4 base
-Drink Fortitude potion again
-Greater restoration to finally end this nightmare.
On another note on the lift, wand of lightning totally destroy the 2nd and 3rd wave with good positioning. You have to aim the wand perfection horizontal and it will hit everything 5 times per cast. Ending the last wave leaving a frozen demon with the wand of frost allowed me to save and delay the Bel fight so i could use a fortitude potion and save, buff as i wanted, shatter it and keep going.
Needless to say, i really don't recommend the level drain method with a mage class, while it might work better with a blade as you don't need to kill your familiar and can just use martyr morningstar. I didn't manage to end him with enchanted weapon and my sling bullets +3 so far. Always at 100-120 hp left then stone form ends and i die or get perma-stunned. The only way i see it work now is doing a complete level 1 playthrough, as the mix of constitution penalty with the level drain seems to be the source of the problem. Doing one or the other seems fine though.
On another note, i'm 100% sure that some save bonus items aren't working at all as a level drained character will only show the base save without equipment bonus, yet i need stone forms until i hit 2 (4x-3) in the case of the stun or -1 for Belhifet disease, so it's not 4 but 5 which doesn't make sense at all with save gear. I though it was 4 because the previous effect was still on when i drank the other potions.
Unless there was some change in 2.6 level drain also removes all save bonuses provided by equipment.