Even when short of time Korgath made some progress as he rushed through Umar Hills and the Temple Ruins like a flash.
But before hunting down the Shade Lord he aquired some mimic blood and helped Jermien to take down his out-of-control golem. Fast and easy xp thanks to traps and summons. More xp streamed in after mediating peace between Madulf and the townspeople.
After all the talking and walking it was finally time to move on into the Temple Ruins. Ah, i love the dark touch of the following maps with Shades lurking around every corner and dreadful noises coming from all directions. The temple could have been a neverending nightmare but thanks to some ancient knowledge Korgath stormed the whole place in no time. For instance: He used all sources of light to destroy any incoming Shades with ease – that was quite pleasing. Stealth also proved to be very useful slipping through most enemy groups - except for the Liches - unnoticed. Once he put all pieces for the Symbol of Amaunator together Korgath switched to dual wielding and buffed himself up with a PfU-Scroll, Oil of Speed, Potion of Power as well as Holy Might. All he had to do now was to hack down the Shadow Altar and the Shade Lord without any fear of retaliation. Job done! Oh, not to forget: Level 20 is not far away. But before moving on its time for some rest!
Shades everywhere:
Shade Lord finished:
P.S. After some tests with shoot-out-of-stealth-and-immediately-retreat it should be possible to beat the Shade Lord without PfU. If you are fast enough the Shade Lord wont get the time to even start his dialogue nor will the Shadow Altar spawn new Shades. Only downside: Thanks to the good DR (75% Shadow Altar, 50% Shade Lord) as well as big HP pools this one will take nearly forever.
Korgath finished the Planar Sphere but he had to take care more than one time...
Once he was inside the Sphere he collected all Golem Pieces and three piles of coal. The Golems proved to be very tough opponents up to this points so he decided to spare them until the end. The crazy Halflings were trapped and backstabbed with the help of summons but even then Korgath - like on every run – went down to this damn Fire Arrow Trigger who instakilled him with ease. The Hold Traps proved to be his best friends here so he could hack the Mages down without any problems.
The Fire Elementals were killed with traps and summons so the Guardian Golem appeared and opened several doors. With good timing Korgath got the killing blow against the Elder Orb and moved on to Lavok. The insane Mage was taken down to nearly dead right from the start thanks to backstabbing and seven traps right down his feet. After that Korgath weared down his Stoneskin and triggered the talking. But before engaging the Demons Korgath grabbed the Staff of Fire (20 charges!) and moved right into the nether plane. Thanks to seven traps and four Fire Elementals the first Demon went down without problems. Korgath just had to make sure that he lured the Demon - who saw him through invisibility - away from his guards. With the Demon Heart in his backpack Korgath moved out again.
Before returning to Lavok Korgath had some more things to do: Kill all Golems with the Fire Elementals (72k XP total) and kill Tolgerias. The latter one was pretty funny. Korgath charmed him with the Nymph Cloak and waited in stealth until he was taken down to nearly dead by the summons from the second mage. All Korgath had to do was to backstabb him to get the killing blow – fast and easy xp without much effort. Korgath moved on to clear the Frost Room until he ran out of Fire Elemental charges. With enough XP for level 21 he returned to Lavok and left the Planar Sphere again. Time to rest as well as to finally level up. Say hello to Maze and instakill traps!!! Sounds like big fun incoming – no?
Korgath destroyed the Cult of the Eyeless and had some big fun with his new traps!
For most parts Korgath used the power of stealth to slip by unnoticed. The real challenges came when he moved right into the Beholder Lair where he tested his level 21 traps for the very first time. A stack of seven was ready before the first Gauth was lured into an explosion of insta-death. Cool stuff Korgath thought and tested the same thing against a real Beholder. And again: It failed the saving throw and died instantly. For some very strange reason this did not work against every Beholder. Some of them always saved – even after 50+ tries. Dont ask me why. Anyway: Korgath cleared most of the Lair – soaking up around 100k XP before he challenged the Unseeing Eye. There he ran into a big surprise as the Protection from Magic Scroll was not able to save him from the constant Death Rays. After his second death Korgath changed his equipment to push his Saving Throws to -1 which proved to be good enough to stay alive. Thanks to the Rift Device the Unseeing Eye was instantly taken down to badly injured. Korgath lured the Elder Orbs away from the Eye before buffing himself up. For some reason it never uses its Dispel Magic Ray so Korgath had an easy time shooting it down with 4 APR using the Tuigan Short Bow. He took the Magic Resistance Amulet and said farewell to the Elder Orb. Until we meet again later on!
Gaal and his Guards were cheesed badly as Korgath charmed him with the Nymph Cloak. After setting up the trap field he rested (the Charm lasts for 12 hours) and started the fight with a backstab. As only Gaal went hostile Korgath retreated and used a Maze trap to get time setting more of his normal traps. After Gaal reappeared he died instantly to the incoming damage. Once the rift device was destroyed it was time to head back to the Temple of Helm where Korgath recieved another big xp bonus that put him right to level 23. Only one more level to go before opening up the first HLA – superb!
The crazy Halflings were trapped and backstabbed with the help of summons but even then Korgath - like on every run – went down to this damn Fire Arrow Trigger who instakilled him with ease.
You might want to consider the Reflection Shield as a counter to that. The problem though is that you probably need to keep it on for the whole of a mage fight as you get so little time to react to sequencers and triggers.
Incidentally, the death gaze by beholders is not a magical attack, which is why the scroll doesn't work.
Yeah, the Reflection Shield might help here @Grond0 but as UaI was out of reach Korgath had to fall back on his Special Traps - which worked pretty well too once they failed to save!
On my last runs the death gaze never was a problem thanks to better saves so i was a bit shocked when i saw the Loading Screen. Its good that this is not a no-reload-run!! Would have been really painful.
Caligula got through the underground passage. I managed to take down the group up the elevator by going up and down and throwing fireballs from the Necklaces. I had to empty all three I own to do it. Pretty epic stuff !!
Caligula in front of the bodies of his enemies :
Then, the poop hit the fan...
I made a beeline with the main quest progression, only to find myself in the attack of the Coalition Camp. 'Tis gonna be hard... I kinda tried a little, just to see what was coming, and I simply got my rear end handed to me on a gold plate. The first group of barbarians and trolls destroyed me and my team. I CTRL-Yed the enemy waves just to see what's next and, well, the rest is not much better.
@Harpagornis : This is where the Arrows of explosions would have been useful, am I right ?
Soooo, I went back to the drawing board - and also consulted a source to know what items could help me out. Summons could be a great way to hold these guys long enough for me to blast them with the fireball necklaces I got. Unfortunately, I didn't do the quest for the golem summons, which is a shame, a damn shame I might had. However, I already had the Myconids one. I proceeded to gather the Ankheg necklace :
Fully charged, the ankheg necklace has 10 charges. Not much, but with the Myconids, it might be just enough. So, the strats will be to have some summons with the Coalition Camp's little helpers for each waves to use as much fireballs as I can to destroy these guys. Add in some general Nymph Cloak cheese and maybe I'll be able to do it.
Any other suggestions for a measly unkitted fighter here ? I'll take anything you have. I'm not a religious person, but here goes :
Yeah, thats what happened to my Cavalier on the very first SoD-Run @Arctodus: He was doomed!
You are right: Arrows of Detonation are THE Wave Killer here. Summons alone are not enough - only Fire Elementals thanks to their immunity to normal and +1 weapons would be a gamechanger but they are out of reach for you! Necklace of Missiles is good but compared with the Arrows it lacks DPS. Kiting can be very, very tricky and may not work against all Waves. Nymph Cloak (nearly) never ever worked against the enemies. The third Wave is insanely hard without fast and constant AoE damage but IF you get past this one the rest will be easy! What you can do to easen things up are: Pre-Charm as many Allies as you can before the first Wave triggers even though this can be tricky as some sort of script will make them disappear at some point! This should put you through Wave 1 at least. Not to forget: Get as many Fire Protection Scrolls as you can and use them on your allies to reduce the Fireball damage. This helped me alot on my Druid Run! If your allies are going down too fast: Buff yourself into oblivion and get the best Tank Setup to soak up as many enemy fire as possible. Durlags Goblet - like always - will be your best friend here. Finally: Pray and hope the Gods are hearing you!
EDIT: The Mage Wave should be no big deal with Arrows of Dispelling. No ones left? Push Magic Res to 100% and hack them to pieces! I am also interested which allies you will choose for each Wave as they can make a BIG difference. These fights will be thrilling!
Korgath freed the de'Arnise Keep and finally reached level 24!
The Troll infested Keep was big fun and a wonderful playground for Korgaths traps. The big groups were treated with a Maze Trap first so he had time enough to set up six normal traps. Whichever Troll got back first went right into field of death. The instakill ability worked against all kinds of Trolls – even against the xp heavy Spirit Trolls. Also funny: Once the other Trolls had reappeared they were staying at place as if nothing had happened so Korgath could easily rest and repeat his treatment. Thanks to this cheese he farmed xp until reaching level 24 where he welcomed his first HLA. For obvious reasons he picked „Use any Item“ to cast spells like a Pro!
From now everything was quite straightforward: Lure Only-i-can-see-through-Invisibility-Torgal to the staircase room where five Fire Elementals welcomed him. This gave Korgath enough time to cast Greater Malison and Flesh to Stone. He also tried to kill him with traps but it never worked. After several reloads Torgal finally failed his saving throw and turned right into stone – hah! With the Flail of Ages and some more loot in his backpack Korgath moved straight to Nalia where he got another 45k XP – level 25 is not far away!
Caligula did it : the Coalition Camp attack has been repelled.
For the first wave, I summoned 4 myconids and 1 ankheg to go along the undead helpers. I buffed up to the max and started attacking. I first aimed an arrow of slaying (I had one in my pack) at one of the ogre-mage. Even after a few tries, the arrow didn't have any effect, which is a bug : the arrow should have killed it on hit. To repair that, after the hit, I CRTL-Y the touched ogre-mage. It's borderline cheating, but it was done to repair the bug, so I called it fair game. Surprisingly, I also managed to charmed the other ogre-mage with the Algernon's Cloak. He then promptly casted haste on my units, which actually helped a lot. Even hasted though, my units were falling rapidly. I needed to use quite a few charges of ankheg summon necklace. While the undeads were doing their thing, Caligula was tanking a bunch of barbarians and ogres with the help of self-centered fireballs (I had 100% fire resistance, obviously). After a while, I managed to defeat the first wave.
The second wave was not as hard. I went in with the wizard slayer group. These guys didn't do much, really... Two of them did survived, but only because they failed their save against sleep and spent the whole fight on the ground. Buffed up, the mages couldn't do anything against me : I dispelled their protections with the help of arrows of dispelling. So did they, though, because they managed to dispel all of my defenses. I then gulped a potion of Magic Blocking, which shut down all their magic power again. I then proceeded to melee these flimsy mages. A fighter has his pride, you know !
The holy warrior wave... was done on the first try !! The warrior mages were called for help on this one. They were by far the most effective tanking group. I told you before that I had 9 arrows of explosion left. Well, Waizahb had 5 to sell, so I could actually use 14 of them against this wave. With haste, I could shot 4 of them per round. I also sneaked in a fireball in the lot every round, which means that they were eating 5 fireballs every round. When I no longer had arrows of explosion, not to many of these guys were left. The rest was taken down at long range behind ankheg summons.
The last fight was actually only a matter of survival, because, after a while, two named allies were seemingly unkillable. I then decided to pelt the enemies at range while they did the tanking, because, you know, they can't die.
So, I think I just went through a big hurdle today... I'm quite proud actually. Though I have to admit that, without the numerous runs made by @Harpagornis, I don't think I would have been as prepared. It's my first run through SoD, but this is not a real blind run... If everything goes according to plan, I should be able to take down that big beast of a final boss this week-end.
Great stuff @Arctodus! Fighting the Waves is indeed thrilling especially when beating them for the very first time. Still my most loved SoD moment - beside Big B! I hope you are ready for him. I remember when meeting him nearly blind with my Blackguard. It was such a neverending pain. Have you read my previous Big B posts? How are you prepairing for him? Anyway: This should be even more thrilling than the Crusader Waves!
Have you read my previous Big B posts? How are you prepairing for him?
I do not have a strategy defined for him yet, other than making sure to have a +3 weapon... and a boatload of invisibility potions (I remember that you used an obscene number with Korgath). Along with 2 Santhief rings, I got more than 88 of these. We'll see if I can do this.
Ah, nice to see @Arctodus - invisibility is a real gamechanger here! 88 potions are more than enough for a pure Fighter - with some good hit & run Caligula should have a realistic chance in beating Big B on his first tries. My first Warriors went through a lot of suffering until changing to this thievish tactic. Maybe you should try it without first - just to see what i mean!
Okay, Korgath finally cheesed his way through the Liches and smashed down Kangaxx!
The Heroe of Cheese was once more the good old Mace of Disruption (thanks to UaI-HLA) who put a swift end to the Elemental and Shade Lich. As this put Korgath to level 25 he chose the infamous Spike Trap who was stacked right down at the feet of Kangaxx. As predicted he instadied to the incoming trap damage and transformed to his Demi Lich form. This one was the toughest part as Korgath missed him over and over again - even when buffed up. After several reloads he finally managed to get in a hit and instakilled Kangaxx only to swiftly grab his ring. Not really a glorious victory but - hey - i never said i will play fair!
Korgath stormed through the Planar Prison and reached level 26!
Just to make it short: With his high-level traps and the first HLA´s SoA is getting much easier - nearly too easy. Backstabbing is falling behind a bit but will get its comeback with Assassination soon. As Korgath trapped his way through the prison instakilling anything except for the Warden he also grabbed the Kundane +2 Shortsword. Like Belm +2 it adds one attack so Korgath now reaches 8 APR with improved Haste. This will hurt a lot!! Is there anything that can stop him in SoA? We will see!
Korgath destroyed the Vampire Lair and is now heading towards Imoen in the Asylum!
The vampires were just unable to counter Korgaths Stealth + Mace of Disruption Ambushs so they went down one after another. It was just a matter of time until Korgath met Bodhi herself but he tricked the little sucker with a fast retreat + rest. This triggered the final speech as if Korgath had beaten her down. Yeah, quite cheesy but he wanted to spare the real fun against her for later!
Oh, not to forget: Thanks to "Use any Item" Korgath is now the proud owner of a cute Pseudo Dragon that will guide him through the coming horrors and pushes his HP to 158 - yeah!
Korgath ran into the same bug Thorgrim faced: In the Dream after loosing his soul Bhaal is not following into the Library - damn it. So the Console is the only option - but as i am not used to it i dont know how to get the right command.
Questions are: Is this the right command? What is the Creature Code for Dream Bhaal? The Area Code AR0012 should be right. And: What about the last part of the command?
Okay, i managed to get through using following command:
C:MoveToArea("AR1512") This put me right into the first Bodhi Hunt Level. Even though the talk with her did not trigger i hope that this will not break the game. We will see!
You want a character screenshot @Aerakar? Here you go!
I am getting a bit lazy with records about Korgaths progress. Why? Cause things are running so smoothly that there is just nothing special to tell about. He rushed through Spellhold in no time and even won the first encounter with Irenicus at the very first try as his summons did a great job in distracting the Planetar while the allied Mages burned through Irenicus protections so they made short work of him. He just cleared the City of Caverns thanks to trapping and stabbing and is now ready for the Underdark. The only fight Korgath failed badly was surprisingly the one against the Spore Colonie after escaping Bodhis Hunt where he toyed around too long and got overwhelmed after some stupid positioning. Oh, and thanks to the forced console teleporting Korgath missed the following cutscenes and the Bodhi talk so he lacks the ability to transform into the Slayer. But who needs the Slayer? No one!
OH BOY !! That Belhifet fight is a war of attrition !
So, I managed to finish SoD with a pure fighter. That was fracking nutz !! I'm kinda high on that end fight right now...
I would have done it yesterday, but a nasty bug prevented me to do so... I had the Big Dude at Near Death for a while with 17 invisibility potions and a full Sandthief Ring left (which means pretty good odds at defeating him), when, after some damage, I took a sip of the Durlag's Goblet. Even though I was wearing the Kiel's helmet, Caligula got frighten !! And well, the fear from the goblet is a nasty thing : it last 12 hours... So, I decided to CTRL-R me, but that left me without any buffs !! At least 12 Dire Charm were thrown my way, so I failed a saving throw, thus ending my run. You know, that fight is LONG, REALLY LONG... You can imagine in what state of mind I was...
Here are the pics of yesterday :
Well, I came back with a vengeance, ending the Belhifet threat to the Sword Coast... And that time, I would not be denied !!!
The thing that surprised me, is that the different demons in the Nnie Hells were kind of a pushovers... I could tank then straight on without too much problems :
Ahh... Just for fun, lets post another image of Belhifet's dead body :
Watch out Amelyssan, Caligula is coming for you !!!!
@Harpagornis : You could still use EEKeeper to give yourself the Slayer ability, if you want to. It might be situationally good to use, you never know...
Otherwise, I found a funny exploit I didn't know of while buffing in the elevator. If you drink a potion, save, then reload, your aura is now clear again. That means that, by doing this, you could put all your buffs in a single round, thus maximizing their duration !!
Here's me testing that exploit, by drinking a ton of potions of Power. The thac0 bonus doesn't stack, but the HP one does !! Look at that HP... :
I decided not to use that strategy against Belhifet, because I probably could have facetank him, which is way too much exploit !!
Hrhrhr! Good stuff @Arctodus! Have i read correctly that you would have slain Big B on the very first try without the bug? Oh - have you tried it without invisibility to feel the pure suffering? The start in SoA should be a cakewalk now!
Not to forget: Have you fought fully buffed Rigah in a straight 1vs1?
The buff up + save + reload thing also works when trapping. Can save a lot of time but feels a bit borderline. Korgath looks at the moment much stronger than Su´kka the Barbarian as long as he can prepare the battlefield. Maze -> Spike Traps -> not dead? -> Maze again -> Normal Traps -> still alive? -> Maze -> Time Stop Trap -> Improved Haste -> Assassination -> DIE! Maze is not needed all the time but the option to throw it into the dark is pretty awesome. So far the enemies are dying like flies - even on LoB. Its just a matter of time. And resting!
@Harpagornis : Nah, the bug didn't occured on my first try. More my fourth time of something like that. You kinda have to get the timing of that battle right and also have a tight buffs management, otherwise, you have no chance. I was also tagged by Belhifet's opening dispel on my first try : didn't really start perfectly...
I totally forgot about Rigah ! Damn, missed opportunity... Oh well, that's too bad... I don't have any more saves near him, so I'm not gonna go through a whole chapter all over again just for him.
Also, big, big props to you @Harpagornis ; without the knowledge acquired in your numerous run, I probably wouldn't have been able to do it !!
I weirdly have the feeling that SoD is actually possible to solo no-reload with a fighter... It takes massive metagaming and a really, really tight management, but I think it's possible. There were no Ducal Palace type of fight, where you have to rely on luck to go through... SoD is fair, but room for errors are slim to none, and slim just left town...
@Grond0 : Yeah, don't hold your breath on Caligula finishing ToB, tomorrow or the day after... In addition to a full time work and two kids, I'm a freelance indexer for a publishing house, and a new contract just came in... So yeah, Amelyssan can sleep tight for a while still !!
You are right @Arctodus - with all the knowledge aquired SoD should be doable in a no-reload-scenario. Each new run was easier than the one before as one learned new tricks: At the very start SoD looked nearly impossible to beat thanks to the mostly good AI and very, very big enemy groups. Today its completly dismantled thanks to items like Nymph Cloak, Protection from Undead, Arrows of Detonation or lots of Invisibility Potions. You just have to start planning in BG 1. If you do it correctly things are running smoothly - if you screw it up you are doomed!
I even think that it should be possible to beat SoD with a Solo Level 1 Char. I have already done some planning and so far i think that it should be possible to rush through to Avernus without too much trouble. Maybe i will start another Noober in the next time once i am finished with Korgath. We will see!
P.S. Korgath is farming all day long in the Underdark for now. Maybe i should write a script for him: Trap-Rest-Trap-Rest-Trap-Rest. Maybe some backstabs in between until everything is dead.
Korgath managed to get through the Underdark - what a helltrip!
The hardest part was not to loose patience as the trapping and stabbing soaked a lot of time. And resting. It was quite funny to see most enemies dying to the full trap package over and over again. Only some big bosses like the Demon in the Gnome Village or the Hive Mother needed a special treatment including a Maze trap to set up another seven traps. Also pretty cool: Improved Haste + Assassination destroyed dangerous enemies like Mindflayers in no time thanks to the 8 APR when using Belm + Kundane. After some farming in the Beholder Lair Korgath is leaving the Underdark with level 35 - not bad. Only HLA he needs to push more is the Time Stop Trap for Amelyssan. Next stops will be Bodhi and getting the improved Human Flesh. Or maybe a trip to Firkraag? We will see!
The Time Stops are for the Big Five. With good placement each trap will trigger two times which will give Korgath a lot of time doing some nasty stuff. Still not sure about the detailed strategy for the final fight but so far Korgath is grabbing all scrolls he can get. There was no big need to use any of them up to now so two Scroll Cases are nearly fully packed. As ToB will be much tougher its better to be prepared!
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But before hunting down the Shade Lord he aquired some mimic blood and helped Jermien to take down his out-of-control golem. Fast and easy xp thanks to traps and summons. More xp streamed in after mediating peace between Madulf and the townspeople.
After all the talking and walking it was finally time to move on into the Temple Ruins. Ah, i love the dark touch of the following maps with Shades lurking around every corner and dreadful noises coming from all directions. The temple could have been a neverending nightmare but thanks to some ancient knowledge Korgath stormed the whole place in no time. For instance: He used all sources of light to destroy any incoming Shades with ease – that was quite pleasing. Stealth also proved to be very useful slipping through most enemy groups - except for the Liches - unnoticed. Once he put all pieces for the Symbol of Amaunator together Korgath switched to dual wielding and buffed himself up with a PfU-Scroll, Oil of Speed, Potion of Power as well as Holy Might. All he had to do now was to hack down the Shadow Altar and the Shade Lord without any fear of retaliation. Job done! Oh, not to forget: Level 20 is not far away. But before moving on its time for some rest!
Shades everywhere:
Shade Lord finished:
P.S. After some tests with shoot-out-of-stealth-and-immediately-retreat it should be possible to beat the Shade Lord without PfU. If you are fast enough the Shade Lord wont get the time to even start his dialogue nor will the Shadow Altar spawn new Shades. Only downside: Thanks to the good DR (75% Shadow Altar, 50% Shade Lord) as well as big HP pools this one will take nearly forever.
Once he was inside the Sphere he collected all Golem Pieces and three piles of coal. The Golems proved to be very tough opponents up to this points so he decided to spare them until the end. The crazy Halflings were trapped and backstabbed with the help of summons but even then Korgath - like on every run – went down to this damn Fire Arrow Trigger who instakilled him with ease. The Hold Traps proved to be his best friends here so he could hack the Mages down without any problems.
The Fire Elementals were killed with traps and summons so the Guardian Golem appeared and opened several doors. With good timing Korgath got the killing blow against the Elder Orb and moved on to Lavok. The insane Mage was taken down to nearly dead right from the start thanks to backstabbing and seven traps right down his feet. After that Korgath weared down his Stoneskin and triggered the talking. But before engaging the Demons Korgath grabbed the Staff of Fire (20 charges!) and moved right into the nether plane. Thanks to seven traps and four Fire Elementals the first Demon went down without problems. Korgath just had to make sure that he lured the Demon - who saw him through invisibility - away from his guards. With the Demon Heart in his backpack Korgath moved out again.
Before returning to Lavok Korgath had some more things to do: Kill all Golems with the Fire Elementals (72k XP total) and kill Tolgerias. The latter one was pretty funny. Korgath charmed him with the Nymph Cloak and waited in stealth until he was taken down to nearly dead by the summons from the second mage. All Korgath had to do was to backstabb him to get the killing blow – fast and easy xp without much effort. Korgath moved on to clear the Frost Room until he ran out of Fire Elemental charges. With enough XP for level 21 he returned to Lavok and left the Planar Sphere again. Time to rest as well as to finally level up. Say hello to Maze and instakill traps!!! Sounds like big fun incoming – no?
For most parts Korgath used the power of stealth to slip by unnoticed. The real challenges came when he moved right into the Beholder Lair where he tested his level 21 traps for the very first time. A stack of seven was ready before the first Gauth was lured into an explosion of insta-death. Cool stuff Korgath thought and tested the same thing against a real Beholder. And again: It failed the saving throw and died instantly. For some very strange reason this did not work against every Beholder. Some of them always saved – even after 50+ tries. Dont ask me why. Anyway: Korgath cleared most of the Lair – soaking up around 100k XP before he challenged the Unseeing Eye. There he ran into a big surprise as the Protection from Magic Scroll was not able to save him from the constant Death Rays. After his second death Korgath changed his equipment to push his Saving Throws to -1 which proved to be good enough to stay alive. Thanks to the Rift Device the Unseeing Eye was instantly taken down to badly injured. Korgath lured the Elder Orbs away from the Eye before buffing himself up. For some reason it never uses its Dispel Magic Ray so Korgath had an easy time shooting it down with 4 APR using the Tuigan Short Bow. He took the Magic Resistance Amulet and said farewell to the Elder Orb. Until we meet again later on!
Gaal and his Guards were cheesed badly as Korgath charmed him with the Nymph Cloak. After setting up the trap field he rested (the Charm lasts for 12 hours) and started the fight with a backstab. As only Gaal went hostile Korgath retreated and used a Maze trap to get time setting more of his normal traps. After Gaal reappeared he died instantly to the incoming damage. Once the rift device was destroyed it was time to head back to the Temple of Helm where Korgath recieved another big xp bonus that put him right to level 23. Only one more level to go before opening up the first HLA – superb!
Incidentally, the death gaze by beholders is not a magical attack, which is why the scroll doesn't work.
On my last runs the death gaze never was a problem thanks to better saves so i was a bit shocked when i saw the Loading Screen. Its good that this is not a no-reload-run!! Would have been really painful.
Caligula got through the underground passage. I managed to take down the group up the elevator by going up and down and throwing fireballs from the Necklaces. I had to empty all three I own to do it. Pretty epic stuff !!
Caligula in front of the bodies of his enemies :
Then, the poop hit the fan...
I made a beeline with the main quest progression, only to find myself in the attack of the Coalition Camp. 'Tis gonna be hard... I kinda tried a little, just to see what was coming, and I simply got my rear end handed to me on a gold plate. The first group of barbarians and trolls destroyed me and my team. I CTRL-Yed the enemy waves just to see what's next and, well, the rest is not much better.
@Harpagornis : This is where the Arrows of explosions would have been useful, am I right ?
Soooo, I went back to the drawing board - and also consulted a source to know what items could help me out. Summons could be a great way to hold these guys long enough for me to blast them with the fireball necklaces I got. Unfortunately, I didn't do the quest for the golem summons, which is a shame, a damn shame I might had. However, I already had the Myconids one. I proceeded to gather the Ankheg necklace :
Fully charged, the ankheg necklace has 10 charges. Not much, but with the Myconids, it might be just enough. So, the strats will be to have some summons with the Coalition Camp's little helpers for each waves to use as much fireballs as I can to destroy these guys. Add in some general Nymph Cloak cheese and maybe I'll be able to do it.
Any other suggestions for a measly unkitted fighter here ? I'll take anything you have. I'm not a religious person, but here goes :
Good God, have mercy on my soul...
You are right: Arrows of Detonation are THE Wave Killer here. Summons alone are not enough - only Fire Elementals thanks to their immunity to normal and +1 weapons would be a gamechanger but they are out of reach for you! Necklace of Missiles is good but compared with the Arrows it lacks DPS. Kiting can be very, very tricky and may not work against all Waves. Nymph Cloak (nearly) never ever worked against the enemies. The third Wave is insanely hard without fast and constant AoE damage but IF you get past this one the rest will be easy! What you can do to easen things up are: Pre-Charm as many Allies as you can before the first Wave triggers even though this can be tricky as some sort of script will make them disappear at some point! This should put you through Wave 1 at least. Not to forget: Get as many Fire Protection Scrolls as you can and use them on your allies to reduce the Fireball damage. This helped me alot on my Druid Run! If your allies are going down too fast: Buff yourself into oblivion and get the best Tank Setup to soak up as many enemy fire as possible. Durlags Goblet - like always - will be your best friend here. Finally: Pray and hope the Gods are hearing you!
EDIT: The Mage Wave should be no big deal with Arrows of Dispelling. No ones left? Push Magic Res to 100% and hack them to pieces!
I am also interested which allies you will choose for each Wave as they can make a BIG difference. These fights will be thrilling!
The Troll infested Keep was big fun and a wonderful playground for Korgaths traps. The big groups were treated with a Maze Trap first so he had time enough to set up six normal traps. Whichever Troll got back first went right into field of death. The instakill ability worked against all kinds of Trolls – even against the xp heavy Spirit Trolls. Also funny: Once the other Trolls had reappeared they were staying at place as if nothing had happened so Korgath could easily rest and repeat his treatment. Thanks to this cheese he farmed xp until reaching level 24 where he welcomed his first HLA. For obvious reasons he picked „Use any Item“ to cast spells like a Pro!
From now everything was quite straightforward: Lure Only-i-can-see-through-Invisibility-Torgal to the staircase room where five Fire Elementals welcomed him. This gave Korgath enough time to cast Greater Malison and Flesh to Stone. He also tried to kill him with traps but it never worked. After several reloads Torgal finally failed his saving throw and turned right into stone – hah! With the Flail of Ages and some more loot in his backpack Korgath moved straight to Nalia where he got another 45k XP – level 25 is not far away!
For the first wave, I summoned 4 myconids and 1 ankheg to go along the undead helpers. I buffed up to the max and started attacking. I first aimed an arrow of slaying (I had one in my pack) at one of the ogre-mage. Even after a few tries, the arrow didn't have any effect, which is a bug : the arrow should have killed it on hit. To repair that, after the hit, I CRTL-Y the touched ogre-mage. It's borderline cheating, but it was done to repair the bug, so I called it fair game. Surprisingly, I also managed to charmed the other ogre-mage with the Algernon's Cloak. He then promptly casted haste on my units, which actually helped a lot. Even hasted though, my units were falling rapidly. I needed to use quite a few charges of ankheg summon necklace. While the undeads were doing their thing, Caligula was tanking a bunch of barbarians and ogres with the help of self-centered fireballs (I had 100% fire resistance, obviously). After a while, I managed to defeat the first wave.
The second wave was not as hard. I went in with the wizard slayer group. These guys didn't do much, really... Two of them did survived, but only because they failed their save against sleep and spent the whole fight on the ground. Buffed up, the mages couldn't do anything against me : I dispelled their protections with the help of arrows of dispelling. So did they, though, because they managed to dispel all of my defenses. I then gulped a potion of Magic Blocking, which shut down all their magic power again. I then proceeded to melee these flimsy mages. A fighter has his pride, you know !
The holy warrior wave... was done on the first try !! The warrior mages were called for help on this one. They were by far the most effective tanking group. I told you before that I had 9 arrows of explosion left. Well, Waizahb had 5 to sell, so I could actually use 14 of them against this wave. With haste, I could shot 4 of them per round. I also sneaked in a fireball in the lot every round, which means that they were eating 5 fireballs every round. When I no longer had arrows of explosion, not to many of these guys were left. The rest was taken down at long range behind ankheg summons.
The last fight was actually only a matter of survival, because, after a while, two named allies were seemingly unkillable. I then decided to pelt the enemies at range while they did the tanking, because, you know, they can't die.
So, I think I just went through a big hurdle today... I'm quite proud actually.
See ya !!
The Heroe of Cheese was once more the good old Mace of Disruption (thanks to UaI-HLA) who put a swift end to the Elemental and Shade Lich. As this put Korgath to level 25 he chose the infamous Spike Trap who was stacked right down at the feet of Kangaxx. As predicted he instadied to the incoming trap damage and transformed to his Demi Lich form. This one was the toughest part as Korgath missed him over and over again - even when buffed up. After several reloads he finally managed to get in a hit and instakilled Kangaxx only to swiftly grab his ring. Not really a glorious victory but - hey - i never said i will play fair!
Just to make it short: With his high-level traps and the first HLA´s SoA is getting much easier - nearly too easy. Backstabbing is falling behind a bit but will get its comeback with Assassination soon. As Korgath trapped his way through the prison instakilling anything except for the Warden he also grabbed the Kundane +2 Shortsword. Like Belm +2 it adds one attack so Korgath now reaches 8 APR with improved Haste. This will hurt a lot!! Is there anything that can stop him in SoA? We will see!
The vampires were just unable to counter Korgaths Stealth + Mace of Disruption Ambushs so they went down one after another. It was just a matter of time until Korgath met Bodhi herself but he tricked the little sucker with a fast retreat + rest. This triggered the final speech as if Korgath had beaten her down. Yeah, quite cheesy but he wanted to spare the real fun against her for later!
Oh, not to forget: Thanks to "Use any Item" Korgath is now the proud owner of a cute Pseudo Dragon that will guide him through the coming horrors and pushes his HP to 158 - yeah!
What i have found so far is:
C:Eval("ActionOverride(\"Bhaal???\",MoveGlobal(\"AR0012\",Myself,[1368.1922]))")
Questions are: Is this the right command? What is the Creature Code for Dream Bhaal? The Area Code AR0012 should be right. And: What about the last part of the command?
If anyone can help me out here: Thanks a lot!
C:MoveToArea("AR1512")This put me right into the first Bodhi Hunt Level. Even though the talk with her did not trigger i hope that this will not break the game. We will see!
You want a character screenshot @Aerakar? Here you go!
Not to forget: Level 29 reached!
So, I managed to finish SoD with a pure fighter. That was fracking nutz !! I'm kinda high on that end fight right now...
I would have done it yesterday, but a nasty bug prevented me to do so... I had the Big Dude at Near Death for a while with 17 invisibility potions and a full Sandthief Ring left (which means pretty good odds at defeating him), when, after some damage, I took a sip of the Durlag's Goblet. Even though I was wearing the Kiel's helmet, Caligula got frighten !! And well, the fear from the goblet is a nasty thing : it last 12 hours... So, I decided to CTRL-R me, but that left me without any buffs !! At least 12 Dire Charm were thrown my way, so I failed a saving throw, thus ending my run. You know, that fight is LONG, REALLY LONG... You can imagine in what state of mind I was...
Here are the pics of yesterday :
Well, I came back with a vengeance, ending the Belhifet threat to the Sword Coast... And that time, I would not be denied !!!
The thing that surprised me, is that the different demons in the Nnie Hells were kind of a pushovers... I could tank then straight on without too much problems :
Ahh... Just for fun, lets post another image of Belhifet's dead body :
Watch out Amelyssan, Caligula is coming for you !!!!
Otherwise, I found a funny exploit I didn't know of while buffing in the elevator. If you drink a potion, save, then reload, your aura is now clear again. That means that, by doing this, you could put all your buffs in a single round, thus maximizing their duration !!
Here's me testing that exploit, by drinking a ton of potions of Power. The thac0 bonus doesn't stack, but the HP one does !! Look at that HP...
I decided not to use that strategy against Belhifet, because I probably could have facetank him, which is way too much exploit !!
Not to forget: Have you fought fully buffed Rigah in a straight 1vs1?
The buff up + save + reload thing also works when trapping. Can save a lot of time but feels a bit borderline. Korgath looks at the moment much stronger than Su´kka the Barbarian as long as he can prepare the battlefield. Maze -> Spike Traps -> not dead? -> Maze again -> Normal Traps -> still alive? -> Maze -> Time Stop Trap -> Improved Haste -> Assassination -> DIE! Maze is not needed all the time but the option to throw it into the dark is pretty awesome. So far the enemies are dying like flies - even on LoB. Its just a matter of time. And resting!
I totally forgot about Rigah ! Damn, missed opportunity... Oh well, that's too bad... I don't have any more saves near him, so I'm not gonna go through a whole chapter all over again just for him.
Also, big, big props to you @Harpagornis ; without the knowledge acquired in your numerous run, I probably wouldn't have been able to do it !!
I weirdly have the feeling that SoD is actually possible to solo no-reload with a fighter... It takes massive metagaming and a really, really tight management, but I think it's possible. There were no Ducal Palace type of fight, where you have to rely on luck to go through... SoD is fair, but room for errors are slim to none, and slim just left town...
@Grond0 : Yeah, don't hold your breath on Caligula finishing ToB, tomorrow or the day after... In addition to a full time work and two kids, I'm a freelance indexer for a publishing house, and a new contract just came in... So yeah, Amelyssan can sleep tight for a while still !!
I even think that it should be possible to beat SoD with a Solo Level 1 Char. I have already done some planning and so far i think that it should be possible to rush through to Avernus without too much trouble. Maybe i will start another Noober in the next time once i am finished with Korgath. We will see!
P.S. Korgath is farming all day long in the Underdark for now. Maybe i should write a script for him: Trap-Rest-Trap-Rest-Trap-Rest. Maybe some backstabs in between until everything is dead.
The hardest part was not to loose patience as the trapping and stabbing soaked a lot of time. And resting. It was quite funny to see most enemies dying to the full trap package over and over again. Only some big bosses like the Demon in the Gnome Village or the Hive Mother needed a special treatment including a Maze trap to set up another seven traps. Also pretty cool: Improved Haste + Assassination destroyed dangerous enemies like Mindflayers in no time thanks to the 8 APR when using Belm + Kundane. After some farming in the Beholder Lair Korgath is leaving the Underdark with level 35 - not bad. Only HLA he needs to push more is the Time Stop Trap for Amelyssan. Next stops will be Bodhi and getting the improved Human Flesh. Or maybe a trip to Firkraag? We will see!