As I'm a sucker for punishment Shagrat has been continuing his wanderings across the Sword Coast. He had a couple of failures where progress was reasonable, but fell due to small errors compounded by bits of bad luck. Both those characters had only marginally above 'average' HPs, but the current attempt is another beast with 84 HPs at level 9 .
To change things around a bit for this run I spent a couple of hours trying to roll improved stats - pushing up the total from the original 88 to 92. I also took dagger as a proficiency to open up the opportunity for hit and run melee attacks as a change from other tactics. During the run I decided not to make use of Algernon's Cloak or other generic magic items in the early stages, but just rely on shaman-specific tactics. That's worked well enough that Shagrat has just hit his level cap and will shortly be entering the Nashkel Mine. Even if not being used actively though I should really have picked up the cloak earlier in order to benefit from cheaper shop prices. Still, shortage of money is not likely to be what eventually kills him ...
You get wailaid by "Travelers" who then turn into charname lookalikes with a green circle around them. They do not attack until attacked but have unlimited spells and don't seem to be effected by any spells.
@Victor_Creed_SFV is that the ambush after you've beaten up Bodhi for the final time? If so that is part of standard SoA, but I can't remember what their abilities are supposed to be - I just bypass them ...
As is stated yesterday i wanted to try out the "new-old" charming trick under no-reload restriction with good old Braxx. His preparations looked like:
1. Set up seven traps to heavily damage one or two Dopplegangers right at the start. As Braxx did not put any points into „Set Traps“ he had to rest 12 times before all of them were placed near the Nobles.
2. Charm the Nobleman that will transform into the Mage and park him in one of the next rooms so he will not be killed in the heat of the upcoming battle.
3. Rest once more and start charming the Guards as well as the Nobles in the rooms nearby. They will build a wonderful barrier and will take the first focus away from the Dukes.
4. Buff up with everything you got as this fight is THE gamestopper in BG1.
5. Calm down, take some fresh air and stay focused!!
With everything ready Braxx started the talking and immediately stealthed once the Nobles started their transformation just to make sure the Assassin would not backstab him. He waited several seconds and watched how his traps brought down two Dopplegangers down to „injured“ - a good start.
Even better: The Dopplegangers started attacking the Guards and Nobles only. With several Arrows of Dispelling he weakened the enemies and started shooting his Acid Arrows with 4 APR. He was even more lucky as the Shaman moved away from the others and started to cast his CC´s on Braxx only – without any success.
Even though the Nobles died quite quickly they gave Braxx and his allies enough time to take down one enemy after another – with the Shaman being the last. As Belt and Liia Jannnath only got „barely injured“ it was now time to wait (and rebuff) until the charm on the last Noble ended. Braxx placed him in the big room while moving the guards around him.
After around three hours of waiting (and several cups of tea) the Mage appeared and got instantly dispelled and hit by three Guards – plus Belt. Whenever he used another protection a new Arrow of Dispelling followed and his HP dropped constantly. Also his invisibilty-trigger could not save him even though he was desperatly trying to kill Braxx with his thrown Fireballs. But some healing in between always made sure that Braxx remained in good shape while the Doppleganger finally dropped to the ground. Too bad Sarevok managed to kill Liia Jannnath as the Guards rushed in too late. However: With another Sandthief Ring in the pocket Braxx got teleported to the Thief Guild hunting down Sarevok soon – hopefully!
All in all the Palace Ambush was easy like never before thanks to the charming trick. There was absolutely no moment where both Dukes were in grave danger when fighting the five Dopplegangers while the Mage alone proved to be no challenge for the remaining forces!
@Grond0 No I didn't beat Bodhi yet, as I have ScS set to the fee being 120k, so a starting char never has enough money to go to spellhold.
@chimaera Well they aren't invincible to phys damage, just to any kind of spell, they keep throwing Cloudkills, webs, Chromatic Orbs and whatnot around and neither their cloudkill nor my tries for druid spells succeeds and it keeps saying "Spell ineffective". At the end I gave up and just moved to the next map, since they don't attack unless provoked you need neither invis nor haste for that.
I made some progress and among other things i took back the druidic grove from Faldorn. I first considered waiting for my next level which would give me level 7 spells like she has, but decided against it. With a non totemic druid I would cast Miscast Magic on her, but that doesn't guarantee a win and sometimes you need to reload. I first considered cheesing and prestealthing before I trigger the dialogue but again I decided against it and my only prebuff was Ironskins. Here came another reason why totemic is so awesome. You can cast all three summons in a very short period of time and they don't incur any spellcasting penalty, so you can cast right away after again. I tried for the hot miscast play after the wolves but that took too long a shorter spell might actually have worked, but no matter, creeping doom hit me, surely I would have to reload, no? No as it turned out my three wolves kept her from casting any further spells since their cold damage interrupts thru her Ironskins, so all I had to do was run away until her doom wore off, which left me at around 20 hp, but by then the wolves had her cornered and she didn't go after me anymore and died a very short time later without further resistance.
Nice activity here these days! Good progress @Harpagornis, and @Grondo, your Shaman looks promising. @Victor_Creed_SFV, maybe you could start a documented run with a Totemic Druid?
To get over Mordica's somewhat tragic demise I've had a try with a human Cleric of Lathander that I intended to dual to thief (at level 11 or 15, for optimal skeletal summons, a couple of Aerial Servants, and meaningful Armor of Faith and other buffs). But she fell in Tazok's tent due to a real life distraction. She was a nice character though, and she had been doing pretty well thanks to a combination of disablers (Silence, Hold, Mental Domination) and undead summons. Then tried with an Archer, and I found her a lot more vulnerable than all the caster types that I've been playing most recently in this challenge. She had to resort to charming enemies in group battles, and she seemed incapable of reliably and efficiently dealing with certain enemies (think Flesh Golems, Battle Horrors, Ankhegs). She flirted with death in the battles against Kirian and co, and against Mulahey. Her vulnerability would indeed prove her downfall in the Cloakwood mine, when a Chromatic Orb from Davaeorn, whom she had been trying to take down with ranged sneak attacks, instantly slew her.
After my last no-reload Cleric/Thief fell - rather embarrassingly, considering his ability to disarm snares and to protect himself against mind altering spells with Chaotic Commands - to a Maze trap in Throne of Bhaal last year, I haven't been eager to roll a new Cleric/Thief. But with the above-mentioned Cleric and Archer out of the equation, I've decided to give this old favorite of mine another go.
The final challenge of BG1 and only one big question: Would there be any surprises waiting for Braxx or would it be an easy victory?
The start worked fine like always: He lured Sarevok and everyone except for Angelo into the SE-Corner and parked them using an invisibility potion.
Now he buffed up a bit and mocked Angelo to show himself. Both dispelled the protections from the other one so Braxx immediately retreated and rebuffed himself. The rest was a sad story for Angelo as he could not touch Braxx while the fast moving F/T was shooting one Acid Arrow after another at him. It didnt took long and Angelo went down. Braxx stabbed the Skeleton Warrior easily down and moved to the group around Sarevok.
As their protections were still up he decided to turn invisible again and wait until Diarmids PfM and Tazoks PfF expired before he started his usual Necklace of Missiles burning. Here are the numbers Braxx needed to fire: Semaj -> 24, Tazok -> 39, Diarmid -> 40. As the remaining Skeleton Warriors proved to be no danger Braxx buffed up for maximum damage and started his backstab & restealth game while debuffing Sarevok in between. Thanks to his superiour speed Braxx did not take a single point of damage until Sarevok finally went down to a 45 damage backstab - GG!
The whole no-reload-challenge proved to be much easier than expected even though the start felt really slow and tough. But once Braxx got some levels - and stealth began to work regularly - he felt nearly unstoppable. I think there are several reasons for the "easiness" so far: First the F/T - combined with Dwarf - is not only flexible but also very sturdy thanks to good HP progression and superb Saves. The next gamechanger was the aquired metagame knowledge thanks to the many runs before and big bad @Grond0 who pointed out many small details that i wasnt aware before. And last but not least it was @Blackraven who showed me several times how powerful the minimal-risk-approach can be. So far it worked wonders!
Okay – as i am really on the run at the moment i immediately played on with Braxx in SoD. As this is an old playground of mine the first steps were quite easy!
1. Braxx lured the first Followers in front of the door away, restealthed immediately and slipped through the group who desperatly tried to search for him - without success. After some short talking with Porios everyone around resigned.
2. The Undead were tricked as usual with a PfU scroll while Braxx disarmed all traps around easily until he reached the final rooms before meeting Korlasz.
3. To get a nearly 100% chance of beating Korlasz and her Elite Guards Braxx used a neat trick. He charmed the neutral Assassin near the door mechanism with Nymph Cloak on his second try. He only had to make sure that he goes invisible immediately once his stealth has broken cause otherwise some talking would trigger and the Followers would either attack or move out. As he was fast enough he got a new friend that was easily able to sneak through the hostile Followers in the room nearby.
4. Once they reached the entrance to Korlasz they had two options after buffing up: Braxx could try to charm Korlasz first using Algernons Cloak or immediately attack her with the help of his Assassin. Braxx tried to charm Korlasz first – and got lucky! All he had to do now was: Move her south to the room with the hostile Followers and watch how they beat her down. He only had to make sure to damage her in between so she turned hostile again and the final talking triggered immediately. Everyone resigned and Braxx reached the next level.
Not to forget: I tested the other option afterwards and attacked Korlasz instead of charming her. Thanks to the backstabbing Assassin and with several Arrows of Dispelling plus Acid Arrows Braxx managed to get her down to injured around the same time his new ally died to the incoming damage. This means that with careful play any Warrior Class should have a very high chance to get through the first dungeon even under no-reload-restrictions. Thats good news!
Okay, i will take a rest first – see you soon in Baldurs Gate again!
I am really tempted to only finish BG1 with my F/M/C, dump him and go for BG1 with a totemic. If I actually decide doing that I will give detailed progress here. I will however give more detail about the SoA totemic once I get to level 16 and dual to Fighter, since it will be interesting how hard/easy the fighter will have it to regain the levels. (he will have help from the fire elemental form which is really good in SoA, since not too many enemies have +2 weapons or above and also you get some of the fighters stats like APR and certain items, so the elemental doesn't stay at it's base 1 APR among other things.
@Harpagornis Wow you really bumrushed BG1 no reload I am duly impressed.
I found one ambush a low level druid can not handle in SoA, but I'm quite sure it's an Ascension component as i never encountered this before ever. You get wailaid by "Travelers" who then turn into charname lookalikes with a green circle around them. They do not attack until attacked but have unlimited spells and don't seem to be effected by any spells.
This is original game, but it sounds bugged, as they shouldn't be invincible. Maybe because they don't attack you?
At least on EET install, these appear in CH.2 for some reason - I can't say if this is an EE bug or a feature. I *think* they're actually Rakshasa (iirc they show their true appearance after some time) so they're immune to level 7 spells and below. ADHW should waste them however, but similar to @Grond0 I just run away.
I found one ambush a low level druid can not handle in SoA, but I'm quite sure it's an Ascension component as i never encountered this before ever. You get wailaid by "Travelers" who then turn into charname lookalikes with a green circle around them. They do not attack until attacked but have unlimited spells and don't seem to be effected by any spells.
This is original game, but it sounds bugged, as they shouldn't be invincible. Maybe because they don't attack you?
At least on EET install, these appear in CH.2 for some reason - I can't say if this is an EE bug or a feature. I *think* they're actually Rakshasa (iirc they show their true appearance after some time) so they're immune to level 7 spells and below. ADHW should waste them however, but similar to @Grond0 I just run away.
I have EET, too maybe EET causes them to appear too early. If they are immune to level 7 spells a druid has no hope but Deva.
Shagrat took a reputation hit by getting Algernon's Cloak (Algernon himself taking a different sort of hit) and added to that by charming Dushai at the 74th attempt to move him away for a private funeral. With his own summons available the Nashkel Mine was easier than last time he was in there, though still not exactly simple (I decided not to use up any invisibility charges). For Mulahey this time Shagrat just chucked in Spirit Fires from out of sight to kill his supporters (as resting is risk-free in the cave). The cleric himself lost out to a bit of door-hopping as well as twice being affected by rigid thinking.
After using summons on Nimbul and Tranzig Shagrat went to find the Red Wizards of Thay in search of the Ring of Energy. Their multiple use of dimension doors initially surprised him and he used both a potion of magic blocking and a scroll of PfM (plus a potion of genius to use the latter as his intelligence is currently only 8).
There were more resources used at the Bandit Camp where the first couple of charges of Sandthief's Ring were used to grab the letters from the main tent. Taurgosz was also charmed and lured away from everyone to a secluded glen where a nymph worked her wicked wiles on him (doom and hold monster ensuring he died well before a rescue party could arrive).
In the Cloakwood, Shagrat had his closest escape to date when he foolishly attempted to use the Dagger of Venom on a phase spider affected by rigid thinking (I don't know if it is intentional, but phase spiders now seem to force a save against poison just from being near you - even if they're not attacking). Though not far from the map edge the poison is so quick acting that he lost 50 HPs while taking only 3 or 4 steps and had no chance of running away. Antidotes are not allowed for him, so the odds were not in his favour, but he somehow managed to choke out his slow poison Bhaal ability before he choked for good.
After that he ran the gauntlet of more teleporting phase spiders to cross the map to find an exit. There were no more alarms on the way to the mine, where he will face new challenges tomorrow.
Very interested to see your progress with the shaman @Grond0 .
My totemic is level 14 now and became Master Druid by defeating another upstart Druid. He was stronger than Faldorn having Magic Resistance, so my newly aquired Nature's beauty did not prove to be as op as hoped. Funny enough I ended up beating him the same way I beat Faldorn using my totemic summons and just outrunning him while creeping doom was on me.
At the mine entrance Shagrat charmed Genthore and drew him away for disposal. Kysus was also charmed and made Shagrat invisible to get him the other side of Drasus. Both Kysus and Rezdan were then quickly killed trying to attack the guard immediately outside the mine with missile weapons (fortunately no ambushes occurred in the couple of rests needed for the latter). Drasus survived a bunch of nymphs thanks to his enrage, but 6 call lightnings added to missile and melee damage put him at near death and a spirit bear finished him off.
Inside the mine it very quickly became apparent this would be a real struggle. Shagrat on his own was far weaker than even a bog-standard guard and didn't have anything like enough invisibility available to be able to use that to avoid conflicts in the mine. Lots of resting later he managed to get summons up to provide a foothold in the mine entrance and started clearing a path downwards (always securing his line of retreat). Hareishan followed him back upstairs invisibly and her dimension door would have been nasty if she hadn't sent a text signal she was buffing prior to that. Summons, charm and melee hit and run all played a part to clear the level.
Shagrat just cleared a route on the 3rd level without bothering about looting or other enemies. Finally on Davaeorn's level, a couple of Spirit Fires annoyed the battle horrors and they were eventually killed by spirit summons near the exit. Davaeorn didn't react to further Spirit Fires, but when Shagrat switched to Writhing Fog he attacked immediately. Shagrat was by the exit already though and nipped upstairs. Concerned that coming back down again would risk landing in a huge pile of guards, he went to rest before descending again - and landed in a pile of guards! That cost him one of his precious invisibility potions (only one left now), but fortunately Davaeorn didn't immediately counter with a detect invisibility, so Shagrat was able to wait until all the guards arrived and then rain a few Spirit Fires on them. Ideally they wouldn't have healed when Shagrat went away to rest, but in fact not only had they healed, they'd also congregated around the exit again. Fortunately Shagrat didn't land in the middle of them, but was still almost instantly taken down to 4 HPs before using his final invisibility potion (good job his HPs are so high this run) .
Now deciding that further resting was not an option, Shagrat tried to manoeuvre into a position where his spirit summons could soak up missile fire without him being targeted. That wasn't easy, but he did sort of manage it, though he used both his potions of regeneration in the process. Initially he had just enough room that melee guards chasing him could be isolated and subjected to more summons, but he was gradually pushed back up the corridor where he no longer had space to run. A charge of the invisibility ring provided a bit of room again and he decided to make use of the Necklace of Missiles. Eight charges from that and 5 exploding potions later and Shagrat was out of area damage - but Davaeorn was almost out of guards . Despite the multitude he'd used already, from somewhere the mage dredged up another lot of MMMs to put Shagrat worryingly low on HPs - but that was his last trick.
After resting to heal up, summons sorted out the mustard jelly and Shagrat looted what he could before flooding the mine.
Nice progress @Grond0! When reading the text i am really happy that i have chosen F/T cause - unlike Braxx - it seems that Shagrat has to work hard for his money.
Would be cool if you go with Totemic Druid @Victor_Creed_SFV - i am curious how hard the leveling will be after Dual Classing to Fighter. Keep us informed!
In the City Shagrat's first intended target was the intelligence tome in order to allow him to use wands and scrolls freely. Ramazith was doomed, but shrugged off 4 hold monster attempts - but couldn't quite do the same with the follow up 4 confusions. However, Shagrat had no luck getting past the mustard jellies and left them for the moment. Instead he picked up the Helm of Balduran and lured Degrodel's guards out one or two at a time where animals occupied them while spirit summons were being generated (he didn't though invest in an intelligence potion to pick up the Cloak yet).
A few reputation tasks pushed that back up to 18 and netted Shagrat another Necklace of Missiles. A third one was inherited from Shandalar's daughters who proved less adept at stair-hopping than Shagrat. However, in the course of doing that two guards were killed with the effect that reputation plummeted back down to 4 (it's odd that the guards cost reputation, but the daughters don't ...).
A few thousand in donations restored respectability before Shagrat used his last magic blocking potion to fend off some of Drelik's spells in order to turn the fight with him into a run & stab contest - in which Shagrat had a clear advantage. I thought Jardak would be easier, but he successfully resisted all the nymphs spells and Shagrat took a couple of 40+ blows before going to rest. Coming back he managed to create just enough space to get spirit summons up and they polished off Jardak without further problems. His helm allows Shagrat to get charisma up to 20 (which is why intelligence was started at 8 and not 9).
A few more reputation tasks culminated in freeing the Seven Suns and took reputation back up to 20. With prices now looking a bit more reasonable Shagrat did some shopping, including buying the +3 staff at Ulgoth's Beard. Using that he had another go at the mustard jellies in Ramazith's Tower, but it still looked like he would either need to be very lucky or use up resources to win that fight. So, saying sod that for a game of soldiers, Shagrat just ran straight upstairs to grab the tome (leaving everything else) and ran back down before the enemies could react.
After collecting the Cloak of Balduran and topping that off with the nymph cloak (Ragefast getting MGoI up, but finding that wasn't much help against hold monster), Shagrat did the poison quest to get the last tome. Then it was time for the Iron Throne. I was wary of backstabs by the Shennaras there, so set a wolf up as a target to draw them on to spirit summons. The first one though ignored the wolf and went straight for Shagrat - even managing to backstab him with a short sword while reaching over the top of the spirit bear parked in the way . Further invisible backstabs disposed of the remaining summons and Shagrat had to go invisible again to ensure his safety. Summons for the first assassin and a dart of stunning for the second then did the job.
With no more summons available and carrying injuries, Shagrat just ran away too quickly for the others to react. After resting he came back and started using the stairs to break the opposition down. There was a nasty moment against Aasim when I didn't realise that he was using his wand of heavens, but Shagrat survived even without any resistance.
He eventually wore the others down until only Zhalimar was left - at which point the game crashed. As that fight needs concentration I went to do some work for a while before loading the autosave. I got tagged by a magic missile the second time around which cost a potion of regeneration, but eventually the enemies were all dead (and the game saved). Shagrat has just arrived at Candlekeep and used a potion of magic blocking there to defuse the ogre magi bombs.
After getting supplies in BG Braxx was ready for the March to Dragonspear. Thanks to killing all Party NPC´s he had more then enough gold to get 80 Arrows of Detonation (including his old ones), 50 Arrows of Dispelling and a lot of potions. Not to forget the 80 Oil of Speed from Imoen that you can get when burning her with Necklace of Missiles during the Crusader Attack on the Palace. With level 8/9 reached things looked pretty good...
Coast Way Crossing started easy after he managed to solve some quests with ease. This left over only the Dwarven Mines which normally are no problem at all thanks to PfU. But for some very strange reason the Undead tricked Braxx badly. After he had killed the Coldhearth Lich he grabbed the Phylactery and wanted to burn it in the Flames. But after reopening the doors several Undead blocked the path and Braxx started to hack them down. This proved to be quite tough as the Shadowed Soul nearby constantly healed them up so Braxx wasted too much time. Time that the Coldhearth Lich used to respawn next to him. As his PfU was still up the Lich did not attack but Braxx still needed several minutes to get though the barrier - hoping that his protection would not expire. It did not and shortly after the phylactery burned. Finally - phew! Braxx returned to the Dwarves of Dumathoin and made sure that they will help in the coming battles.
As the bridge of Coastway Crossing got burned down Braxx and his allies will move on to Boareskyr Bridge where some decent challenges are waiting soon!
In the Candlekeep catacombs the phase spiders were annoyingly persistent in dimension dooring right next to Shagrat, even when they were already near him and in melee with spirit summons - hence he ended up shooting some of them. The violet potion allowed him to loot the strength tome before a mixture of hit & run and summons saw off the dopplegangers. He ran past Prat too quickly to be noticed before using a scroll of PfP to kill the basilisks.
Back in Baldur's Gate he went to find Slythe, but had no luck there as the thief saved against numerous spells from 5 nymphs. Shagrat retreated and rested, but found Krystin had followed him into the inn and she cleaned up another lot of summons before following him outside. Thinking that she must be running short on spells soon Shagrat had used a potion of clarity and 2 potions of magic blocking, but I misjudged the time left on the second of those. It was still active when Krystin launched a horror at a spirit summons, but not by the time the spell reached Shagrat and once he was running scared he had little chance of escape ...
Now things started to heat on as there were several challenging battles along the way.
Braxx skipped the Green Dragon and sneaked through the Bugbear Cave arriving at the Temple of Cyric.
Ziatar: The Half-Dragon can be quite dangerous if you are not careful so Braxx prepared himself! Protection from Poison for the Breath, Kiels Helmet for the Fear Aura, Oil of Speed, Potion of Power, Strength Potion along with a Scroll of Protection against Magic (for Ziatar + Neothelid + Akanna!).
Once he was buffed up Braxx opened the door to start the talking. He immediately moved back and closed the nearby door to cut down her reinforcement while luring Ziatar to follow him. Once she had moved through the door Braxx closed it to divide her from the two Mages. The following 1vs1 did not last long as Braxx hacked Ziatar down with ease while drinking Durlags Goblet whenever needed.
Neothelid: To play it safe against Akanna Braxx decided to take out the dreaded Neothelid first as it would follow him wherever he goes. After getting a first look at the beast he immediately moved back to the room before waiting for the Neothelid to teleport nearby. For some reason it never summons Mordi Swords after teleporting while the Mind Control was blocked by the Magic Protection. Braxx now started the usual hit & run while a Regeneration Potion and Durlags Goblet always made sure that any damage was quickly negated. After several minutes the Neothelid finally went down.
Akanna: The High Priestress alone is not dangerous but the invisible Air Servants hit really hard and a double-attack would easily kill Braxx. To prevent this he decided to have some fun charming three Mutated Carrion Crawlers using his Nymp Cloak. He parked them near the door to Akanna and started the talking. Once he saw the Air Servants porting in he immediately backed up, restealthed and waited for the Servants to attack the Carrion Crawlers. The distraction worked and Braxx slipped to Akanna again closing the door behind him. WIth Protection from Magic still active the poor Priestress had no chance and was hacked to pieces even though Braxx used another charge of Durlags Goblet (bringing it down to 6 charges).
Braxx grabbed the Wardstone and sneaked back through enemy lines while still ignoring the Green Dragon. The Shield from its Scales would be nice but the danger of getting caught is too high. At least for the moment!
Braxx will soon move on to Boareskyr Bridge breaking down the Crusader Camp!
Maybe at some point. There was discussion a little while ago about a mage dualling early to a fighter and I thought I might give that a go - having invisibility available feels attractive just at the moment .
I just run across the strangest and most annoying LoB bug I have yet encountered. I was starting the planar prison, my first attempt started very not promising at all, Haerdalis died to a shadow outside of the planar portal, something that would never happen outside of LoB. in my second attempt I conjured all my creatures outside the portal with the plan to rest and regain my spells upstairs in the inn. When I was ready to enter the portal everyone but Hardalis was still standing in front of the portal, ofc no dialogue possible, since technically they were captured. I thought nothing of it and entered the portal fought for hours because I wanted to kill al Youan Ti Mages for the xp. The endless summons of the mages are super annoying on LoB and the Warden was easier to kill than one Yuan Ti mage. (My wolves soloed him.)
At the end of the dungeon only Haerdalis waited for me, the rest of them still outside the portal and the quest unsolvable. Gladly I have a save before initiating the portal fight but I'm kinda mad about hours wasted.
Yeah especially since LoB never got any bugfixes associated with it, which is kinda sad but glad we all know how important secondary saves are. (and have been before lob )
To make it short: Braxx went the easiest way and convinced Khalid to surrender after he had bought all essential supplies. Many potions, 80 Arrows +3 and - last but not least - the wonderful Stalwart Shield +2 that give Dwarves +10 HP.
Once the Bridge was lowered a short pause of thinking followed as the big bad Fire Elemental on the bridge was the next target. Braxx used the old tactic to drop back out of sight until the guards have vanished and then started to shoot the Fire Elemental with +2 Arrows and 4 APR. The usual back and forth followed and after firing his 35th Arrow the bridge was saved - hurray!
It looks like the only thing that can stop Braxx is the overconfidence of his "Master" - lol.
@Harpagornis, first of all congrats!! I'm not surprised with your no-reload progress because you had been doing very well in earlier playthroughs. Nevertheless I'm impressed. Even with a minimal risk approach, it's easy to make a mistake, be unlucky or maybe overconfident as you say. Nice work with the Fire Elemental man. you've already come further in a no-reload version of this challenge than I have. What does surprise me is the ease with which Braxx dealt with the opposition in the Temple of Cyric. My Blade had a hard time dealing with Ziatar and Akanna, and she didn't even fight the Neothelid. What did you use to protect Braxx against Ziatar's poison attacks? I thought the scroll only gives protection from being poisoned (as per arrows of biting, assassin poison etc), but not against poison damage from breath attacks or Cloudkills. Anyhoo, gGood luck with your further travails!
@Grond0, very sorry to see your Shagrat fall. It was thrilling to read about his narrow escapes. Magic blocking potions are very dicey with their short durations. I tend to use them reactively rather than proactively. Looking forward to your Mage->Fighter, a very powerful character I think. When I was playing with Mordica, and finding that I was casting from scrolls all the time, I realized that a Mage->Fighter would probably be stronger than my Blade.
@Victor_Creed_SFV, maybe there's a variable that you can change in EEKeeper in order to repair the Haer'Dalis quest. Your bug may have to do with EET too. I've reverted to a normal install because of issues with EET (I've already mentioned that potions of magic blocking weren't working, but what made me give up on EET for now, was that thieves couldn't set traps).
Yes those scrolls work against Cloudkills, too. I already reloaded my earlier safe and this time made sure everything went normally before I entered the portal, I'm halfway thru the quest again, but stopped playing cause I had to prepare for being away visiting relatives, so I will be gone 2 days and probably no progress will be made.
Idk if I can just uninstall EET, since it was not possible for me to install ScS without it, due to SoD. I have many issues with EET and don't really like the BG2 part of it at all.
Thanks @Blackraven! As you said one reason why things are running so smoothly is that i have tested and fought any of the challenges in SoD so often thats its nearly like playing on autopilot. With full buffs, anti-slashing-items and some healing Ziatar for instance is not hard for a F/T. Yes the PfP does not negate the breath damage but for some strange reason even negative saving throws are sometimes not enough to protect against the poisoning - dont ask me why. Fighting the Neothelid is not hard once you know how to trick this beast: Move upstairs, wait some moment, return to the first room, wait until it teleports. Now it will not summon Mordis and normally it also "forgets" about Mind Control. Yesterday it tried to use it but the PfM blocked it. The rest is usual hit & run like fighting Ankhegs as long as you take care of the poison on the ground. The only thing i always i have to take care of is that i dont get careless and force me to use my potions and scrolls - normally i am just too lazy for full buffing and go straight in. Not a good idea for no-reloads!
The only gamestopper now could be the Crusader Waves as there are some strange "bugs" around. Big B is another story even though i am quite confident for this one - we will see!
P.S. Its quite funny how tough the Dwarven F/T is. Not only godlike Saving Throws so he wont need any special item for Fear Protection later on but his HP is at the same level my Cavalier and Blackguard reached at the XP cap of SoD: 150 HP with items only (Stalwart Shield + Helmet of Dumathoin + Ring of Purity) and 176 HP with Potion of Power. Count in the 3% DR from the Helm and you can see that he isnt easy to take down.
Comments
To change things around a bit for this run I spent a couple of hours trying to roll improved stats - pushing up the total from the original 88 to 92. I also took dagger as a proficiency to open up the opportunity for hit and run melee attacks as a change from other tactics. During the run I decided not to make use of Algernon's Cloak or other generic magic items in the early stages, but just rely on shaman-specific tactics. That's worked well enough that Shagrat has just hit his level cap and will shortly be entering the Nashkel Mine. Even if not being used actively though I should really have picked up the cloak earlier in order to benefit from cheaper shop prices. Still, shortage of money is not likely to be what eventually kills him ...
As is stated yesterday i wanted to try out the "new-old" charming trick under no-reload restriction with good old Braxx. His preparations looked like:
1. Set up seven traps to heavily damage one or two Dopplegangers right at the start. As Braxx did not put any points into „Set Traps“ he had to rest 12 times before all of them were placed near the Nobles.
2. Charm the Nobleman that will transform into the Mage and park him in one of the next rooms so he will not be killed in the heat of the upcoming battle.
3. Rest once more and start charming the Guards as well as the Nobles in the rooms nearby. They will build a wonderful barrier and will take the first focus away from the Dukes.
4. Buff up with everything you got as this fight is THE gamestopper in BG1.
5. Calm down, take some fresh air and stay focused!!
With everything ready Braxx started the talking and immediately stealthed once the Nobles started their transformation just to make sure the Assassin would not backstab him. He waited several seconds and watched how his traps brought down two Dopplegangers down to „injured“ - a good start.
Even better: The Dopplegangers started attacking the Guards and Nobles only. With several Arrows of Dispelling he weakened the enemies and started shooting his Acid Arrows with 4 APR. He was even more lucky as the Shaman moved away from the others and started to cast his CC´s on Braxx only – without any success.
Even though the Nobles died quite quickly they gave Braxx and his allies enough time to take down one enemy after another – with the Shaman being the last. As Belt and Liia Jannnath only got „barely injured“ it was now time to wait (and rebuff) until the charm on the last Noble ended. Braxx placed him in the big room while moving the guards around him.
After around three hours of waiting (and several cups of tea) the Mage appeared and got instantly dispelled and hit by three Guards – plus Belt. Whenever he used another protection a new Arrow of Dispelling followed and his HP dropped constantly. Also his invisibilty-trigger could not save him even though he was desperatly trying to kill Braxx with his thrown Fireballs. But some healing in between always made sure that Braxx remained in good shape while the Doppleganger finally dropped to the ground. Too bad Sarevok managed to kill Liia Jannnath as the Guards rushed in too late. However: With another Sandthief Ring in the pocket Braxx got teleported to the Thief Guild hunting down Sarevok soon – hopefully!
All in all the Palace Ambush was easy like never before thanks to the charming trick. There was absolutely no moment where both Dukes were in grave danger when fighting the five Dopplegangers while the Mage alone proved to be no challenge for the remaining forces!
No I didn't beat Bodhi yet, as I have ScS set to the fee being 120k, so a starting char never has enough money to go to spellhold.
@chimaera
Well they aren't invincible to phys damage, just to any kind of spell, they keep throwing Cloudkills, webs, Chromatic Orbs and whatnot around and neither their cloudkill nor my tries for druid spells succeeds and it keeps saying "Spell ineffective".
At the end I gave up and just moved to the next map, since they don't attack unless provoked you need neither invis nor haste for that.
I made some progress and among other things i took back the druidic grove from Faldorn.
I first considered waiting for my next level which would give me level 7 spells like she has, but decided against it.
With a non totemic druid I would cast Miscast Magic on her, but that doesn't guarantee a win and sometimes you need to reload.
I first considered cheesing and prestealthing before I trigger the dialogue but again I decided against it and my only prebuff was Ironskins.
Here came another reason why totemic is so awesome. You can cast all three summons in a very short period of time and they don't incur any spellcasting penalty, so you can cast right away after again.
I tried for the hot miscast play after the wolves but that took too long a shorter spell might actually have worked, but no matter, creeping doom hit me, surely I would have to reload, no?
No as it turned out my three wolves kept her from casting any further spells since their cold damage interrupts thru her Ironskins, so all I had to do was run away until her doom wore off, which left me at around 20 hp, but by then the wolves had her cornered and she didn't go after me anymore and died a very short time later without further resistance.
To get over Mordica's somewhat tragic demise I've had a try with a human Cleric of Lathander that I intended to dual to thief (at level 11 or 15, for optimal skeletal summons, a couple of Aerial Servants, and meaningful Armor of Faith and other buffs). But she fell in Tazok's tent due to a real life distraction. She was a nice character though, and she had been doing pretty well thanks to a combination of disablers (Silence, Hold, Mental Domination) and undead summons.
Then tried with an Archer, and I found her a lot more vulnerable than all the caster types that I've been playing most recently in this challenge. She had to resort to charming enemies in group battles, and she seemed incapable of reliably and efficiently dealing with certain enemies (think Flesh Golems, Battle Horrors, Ankhegs). She flirted with death in the battles against Kirian and co, and against Mulahey. Her vulnerability would indeed prove her downfall in the Cloakwood mine, when a Chromatic Orb from Davaeorn, whom she had been trying to take down with ranged sneak attacks, instantly slew her.
After my last no-reload Cleric/Thief fell - rather embarrassingly, considering his ability to disarm snares and to protect himself against mind altering spells with Chaotic Commands - to a Maze trap in Throne of Bhaal last year, I haven't been eager to roll a new Cleric/Thief. But with the above-mentioned Cleric and Archer out of the equation, I've decided to give this old favorite of mine another go.
The final challenge of BG1 and only one big question: Would there be any surprises waiting for Braxx or would it be an easy victory?
The start worked fine like always: He lured Sarevok and everyone except for Angelo into the SE-Corner and parked them using an invisibility potion.
Now he buffed up a bit and mocked Angelo to show himself. Both dispelled the protections from the other one so Braxx immediately retreated and rebuffed himself. The rest was a sad story for Angelo as he could not touch Braxx while the fast moving F/T was shooting one Acid Arrow after another at him. It didnt took long and Angelo went down. Braxx stabbed the Skeleton Warrior easily down and moved to the group around Sarevok.
As their protections were still up he decided to turn invisible again and wait until Diarmids PfM and Tazoks PfF expired before he started his usual Necklace of Missiles burning. Here are the numbers Braxx needed to fire: Semaj -> 24, Tazok -> 39, Diarmid -> 40. As the remaining Skeleton Warriors proved to be no danger Braxx buffed up for maximum damage and started his backstab & restealth game while debuffing Sarevok in between. Thanks to his superiour speed Braxx did not take a single point of damage until Sarevok finally went down to a 45 damage backstab - GG!
The whole no-reload-challenge proved to be much easier than expected even though the start felt really slow and tough. But once Braxx got some levels - and stealth began to work regularly - he felt nearly unstoppable. I think there are several reasons for the "easiness" so far: First the F/T - combined with Dwarf - is not only flexible but also very sturdy thanks to good HP progression and superb Saves. The next gamechanger was the aquired metagame knowledge thanks to the many runs before and big bad @Grond0 who pointed out many small details that i wasnt aware before. And last but not least it was @Blackraven who showed me several times how powerful the minimal-risk-approach can be. So far it worked wonders!
However: We will see us soon again in SoD!
Okay – as i am really on the run at the moment i immediately played on with Braxx in SoD. As this is an old playground of mine the first steps were quite easy!
1. Braxx lured the first Followers in front of the door away, restealthed immediately and slipped through the group who desperatly tried to search for him - without success. After some short talking with Porios everyone around resigned.
2. The Undead were tricked as usual with a PfU scroll while Braxx disarmed all traps around easily until he reached the final rooms before meeting Korlasz.
3. To get a nearly 100% chance of beating Korlasz and her Elite Guards Braxx used a neat trick. He charmed the neutral Assassin near the door mechanism with Nymph Cloak on his second try. He only had to make sure that he goes invisible immediately once his stealth has broken cause otherwise some talking would trigger and the Followers would either attack or move out. As he was fast enough he got a new friend that was easily able to sneak through the hostile Followers in the room nearby.
4. Once they reached the entrance to Korlasz they had two options after buffing up: Braxx could try to charm Korlasz first using Algernons Cloak or immediately attack her with the help of his Assassin. Braxx tried to charm Korlasz first – and got lucky! All he had to do now was: Move her south to the room with the hostile Followers and watch how they beat her down. He only had to make sure to damage her in between so she turned hostile again and the final talking triggered immediately. Everyone resigned and Braxx reached the next level.
Not to forget: I tested the other option afterwards and attacked Korlasz instead of charming her. Thanks to the backstabbing Assassin and with several Arrows of Dispelling plus Acid Arrows Braxx managed to get her down to injured around the same time his new ally died to the incoming damage. This means that with careful play any Warrior Class should have a very high chance to get through the first dungeon even under no-reload-restrictions. Thats good news!
Okay, i will take a rest first – see you soon in Baldurs Gate again!
I am really tempted to only finish BG1 with my F/M/C, dump him and go for BG1 with a totemic.
If I actually decide doing that I will give detailed progress here.
I will however give more detail about the SoA totemic once I get to level 16 and dual to Fighter, since it will be interesting how hard/easy the fighter will have it to regain the levels. (he will have help from the fire elemental form which is really good in SoA, since not too many enemies have +2 weapons or above and also you get some of the fighters stats like APR and certain items, so the elemental doesn't stay at it's base 1 APR among other things.
@Harpagornis
Wow you really bumrushed BG1 no reload I am duly impressed.
If they are immune to level 7 spells a druid has no hope but Deva.
After using summons on Nimbul and Tranzig Shagrat went to find the Red Wizards of Thay in search of the Ring of Energy. Their multiple use of dimension doors initially surprised him and he used both a potion of magic blocking and a scroll of PfM (plus a potion of genius to use the latter as his intelligence is currently only 8).
There were more resources used at the Bandit Camp where the first couple of charges of Sandthief's Ring were used to grab the letters from the main tent. Taurgosz was also charmed and lured away from everyone to a secluded glen where a nymph worked her wicked wiles on him (doom and hold monster ensuring he died well before a rescue party could arrive).
In the Cloakwood, Shagrat had his closest escape to date when he foolishly attempted to use the Dagger of Venom on a phase spider affected by rigid thinking (I don't know if it is intentional, but phase spiders now seem to force a save against poison just from being near you - even if they're not attacking). Though not far from the map edge the poison is so quick acting that he lost 50 HPs while taking only 3 or 4 steps and had no chance of running away. Antidotes are not allowed for him, so the odds were not in his favour, but he somehow managed to choke out his slow poison Bhaal ability before he choked for good.
My totemic is level 14 now and became Master Druid by defeating another upstart Druid.
He was stronger than Faldorn having Magic Resistance, so my newly aquired Nature's beauty did not prove to be as op as hoped.
Funny enough I ended up beating him the same way I beat Faldorn using my totemic summons and just outrunning him while creeping doom was on me.
Inside the mine it very quickly became apparent this would be a real struggle. Shagrat on his own was far weaker than even a bog-standard guard and didn't have anything like enough invisibility available to be able to use that to avoid conflicts in the mine. Lots of resting later he managed to get summons up to provide a foothold in the mine entrance and started clearing a path downwards (always securing his line of retreat). Hareishan followed him back upstairs invisibly and her dimension door would have been nasty if she hadn't sent a text signal she was buffing prior to that. Summons, charm and melee hit and run all played a part to clear the level.
Shagrat just cleared a route on the 3rd level without bothering about looting or other enemies. Finally on Davaeorn's level, a couple of Spirit Fires annoyed the battle horrors and they were eventually killed by spirit summons near the exit. Davaeorn didn't react to further Spirit Fires, but when Shagrat switched to Writhing Fog he attacked immediately. Shagrat was by the exit already though and nipped upstairs. Concerned that coming back down again would risk landing in a huge pile of guards, he went to rest before descending again - and landed in a pile of guards! That cost him one of his precious invisibility potions (only one left now), but fortunately Davaeorn didn't immediately counter with a detect invisibility, so Shagrat was able to wait until all the guards arrived and then rain a few Spirit Fires on them. Ideally they wouldn't have healed when Shagrat went away to rest, but in fact not only had they healed, they'd also congregated around the exit again. Fortunately Shagrat didn't land in the middle of them, but was still almost instantly taken down to 4 HPs before using his final invisibility potion (good job his HPs are so high this run)
Now deciding that further resting was not an option, Shagrat tried to manoeuvre into a position where his spirit summons could soak up missile fire without him being targeted. That wasn't easy, but he did sort of manage it, though he used both his potions of regeneration in the process. Initially he had just enough room that melee guards chasing him could be isolated and subjected to more summons, but he was gradually pushed back up the corridor where he no longer had space to run. A charge of the invisibility ring provided a bit of room again and he decided to make use of the Necklace of Missiles. Eight charges from that and 5 exploding potions later and Shagrat was out of area damage - but Davaeorn was almost out of guards
Would be cool if you go with Totemic Druid @Victor_Creed_SFV - i am curious how hard the leveling will be after Dual Classing to Fighter. Keep us informed!
A few reputation tasks pushed that back up to 18 and netted Shagrat another Necklace of Missiles. A third one was inherited from Shandalar's daughters who proved less adept at stair-hopping than Shagrat. However, in the course of doing that two guards were killed with the effect that reputation plummeted back down to 4 (it's odd that the guards cost reputation, but the daughters don't ...).
A few thousand in donations restored respectability before Shagrat used his last magic blocking potion to fend off some of Drelik's spells in order to turn the fight with him into a run & stab contest - in which Shagrat had a clear advantage. I thought Jardak would be easier, but he successfully resisted all the nymphs spells and Shagrat took a couple of 40+ blows before going to rest. Coming back he managed to create just enough space to get spirit summons up and they polished off Jardak without further problems. His helm allows Shagrat to get charisma up to 20 (which is why intelligence was started at 8 and not 9).
A few more reputation tasks culminated in freeing the Seven Suns and took reputation back up to 20. With prices now looking a bit more reasonable Shagrat did some shopping, including buying the +3 staff at Ulgoth's Beard. Using that he had another go at the mustard jellies in Ramazith's Tower, but it still looked like he would either need to be very lucky or use up resources to win that fight. So, saying sod that for a game of soldiers, Shagrat just ran straight upstairs to grab the tome (leaving everything else) and ran back down before the enemies could react.
After collecting the Cloak of Balduran and topping that off with the nymph cloak (Ragefast getting MGoI up, but finding that wasn't much help against hold monster), Shagrat did the poison quest to get the last tome. Then it was time for the Iron Throne. I was wary of backstabs by the Shennaras there, so set a wolf up as a target to draw them on to spirit summons. The first one though ignored the wolf and went straight for Shagrat - even managing to backstab him with a short sword while reaching over the top of the spirit bear parked in the way
With no more summons available and carrying injuries, Shagrat just ran away too quickly for the others to react. After resting he came back and started using the stairs to break the opposition down. There was a nasty moment against Aasim when I didn't realise that he was using his wand of heavens, but Shagrat survived even without any resistance.
After getting supplies in BG Braxx was ready for the March to Dragonspear. Thanks to killing all Party NPC´s he had more then enough gold to get 80 Arrows of Detonation (including his old ones), 50 Arrows of Dispelling and a lot of potions. Not to forget the 80 Oil of Speed from Imoen that you can get when burning her with Necklace of Missiles during the Crusader Attack on the Palace. With level 8/9 reached things looked pretty good...
Coast Way Crossing started easy after he managed to solve some quests with ease. This left over only the Dwarven Mines which normally are no problem at all thanks to PfU. But for some very strange reason the Undead tricked Braxx badly. After he had killed the Coldhearth Lich he grabbed the Phylactery and wanted to burn it in the Flames. But after reopening the doors several Undead blocked the path and Braxx started to hack them down. This proved to be quite tough as the Shadowed Soul nearby constantly healed them up so Braxx wasted too much time. Time that the Coldhearth Lich used to respawn next to him. As his PfU was still up the Lich did not attack but Braxx still needed several minutes to get though the barrier - hoping that his protection would not expire. It did not and shortly after the phylactery burned. Finally - phew! Braxx returned to the Dwarves of Dumathoin and made sure that they will help in the coming battles.
As the bridge of Coastway Crossing got burned down Braxx and his allies will move on to Boareskyr Bridge where some decent challenges are waiting soon!
Back in Baldur's Gate he went to find Slythe, but had no luck there as the thief saved against numerous spells from 5 nymphs. Shagrat retreated and rested, but found Krystin had followed him into the inn and she cleaned up another lot of summons before following him outside. Thinking that she must be running short on spells soon Shagrat had used a potion of clarity and 2 potions of magic blocking, but I misjudged the time left on the second of those. It was still active when Krystin launched a horror at a spirit summons, but not by the time the spell reached Shagrat and once he was running scared he had little chance of escape ...
Now things started to heat on as there were several challenging battles along the way.
Braxx skipped the Green Dragon and sneaked through the Bugbear Cave arriving at the Temple of Cyric.
Ziatar: The Half-Dragon can be quite dangerous if you are not careful so Braxx prepared himself! Protection from Poison for the Breath, Kiels Helmet for the Fear Aura, Oil of Speed, Potion of Power, Strength Potion along with a Scroll of Protection against Magic (for Ziatar + Neothelid + Akanna!).
Once he was buffed up Braxx opened the door to start the talking. He immediately moved back and closed the nearby door to cut down her reinforcement while luring Ziatar to follow him. Once she had moved through the door Braxx closed it to divide her from the two Mages. The following 1vs1 did not last long as Braxx hacked Ziatar down with ease while drinking Durlags Goblet whenever needed.
Neothelid: To play it safe against Akanna Braxx decided to take out the dreaded Neothelid first as it would follow him wherever he goes. After getting a first look at the beast he immediately moved back to the room before waiting for the Neothelid to teleport nearby. For some reason it never summons Mordi Swords after teleporting while the Mind Control was blocked by the Magic Protection. Braxx now started the usual hit & run while a Regeneration Potion and Durlags Goblet always made sure that any damage was quickly negated. After several minutes the Neothelid finally went down.
Akanna: The High Priestress alone is not dangerous but the invisible Air Servants hit really hard and a double-attack would easily kill Braxx. To prevent this he decided to have some fun charming three Mutated Carrion Crawlers using his Nymp Cloak. He parked them near the door to Akanna and started the talking. Once he saw the Air Servants porting in he immediately backed up, restealthed and waited for the Servants to attack the Carrion Crawlers. The distraction worked and Braxx slipped to Akanna again closing the door behind him. WIth Protection from Magic still active the poor Priestress had no chance and was hacked to pieces even though Braxx used another charge of Durlags Goblet (bringing it down to 6 charges).
Braxx grabbed the Wardstone and sneaked back through enemy lines while still ignoring the Green Dragon. The Shield from its Scales would be nice but the danger of getting caught is too high. At least for the moment!
Braxx will soon move on to Boareskyr Bridge breaking down the Crusader Camp!
P.S. Damn it @Grond0!!! Will you try it again?
I was starting the planar prison, my first attempt started very not promising at all, Haerdalis died to a shadow outside of the planar portal, something that would never happen outside of LoB.
in my second attempt I conjured all my creatures outside the portal with the plan to rest and regain my spells upstairs in the inn.
When I was ready to enter the portal everyone but Hardalis was still standing in front of the portal, ofc no dialogue possible, since technically they were captured.
I thought nothing of it and entered the portal fought for hours because I wanted to kill al Youan Ti Mages for the xp.
The endless summons of the mages are super annoying on LoB and the Warden was easier to kill than one Yuan Ti mage. (My wolves soloed him.)
At the end of the dungeon only Haerdalis waited for me, the rest of them still outside the portal and the quest unsolvable.
Gladly I have a save before initiating the portal fight but I'm kinda mad about hours wasted.
To make it short: Braxx went the easiest way and convinced Khalid to surrender after he had bought all essential supplies. Many potions, 80 Arrows +3 and - last but not least - the wonderful Stalwart Shield +2 that give Dwarves +10 HP.
Once the Bridge was lowered a short pause of thinking followed as the big bad Fire Elemental on the bridge was the next target. Braxx used the old tactic to drop back out of sight until the guards have vanished and then started to shoot the Fire Elemental with +2 Arrows and 4 APR. The usual back and forth followed and after firing his 35th Arrow the bridge was saved - hurray!
It looks like the only thing that can stop Braxx is the overconfidence of his "Master" - lol.
Nice work with the Fire Elemental man. you've already come further in a no-reload version of this challenge than I have.
What does surprise me is the ease with which Braxx dealt with the opposition in the Temple of Cyric. My Blade had a hard time dealing with Ziatar and Akanna, and she didn't even fight the Neothelid. What did you use to protect Braxx against Ziatar's poison attacks? I thought the scroll only gives protection from being poisoned (as per arrows of biting, assassin poison etc), but not against poison damage from breath attacks or Cloudkills. Anyhoo, gGood luck with your further travails!
@Grond0, very sorry to see your Shagrat fall. It was thrilling to read about his narrow escapes. Magic blocking potions are very dicey with their short durations. I tend to use them reactively rather than proactively. Looking forward to your Mage->Fighter, a very powerful character I think. When I was playing with Mordica, and finding that I was casting from scrolls all the time, I realized that a Mage->Fighter would probably be stronger than my Blade.
@Victor_Creed_SFV, maybe there's a variable that you can change in EEKeeper in order to repair the Haer'Dalis quest. Your bug may have to do with EET too. I've reverted to a normal install because of issues with EET (I've already mentioned that potions of magic blocking weren't working, but what made me give up on EET for now, was that thieves couldn't set traps).
Yes those scrolls work against Cloudkills, too.
I already reloaded my earlier safe and this time made sure everything went normally before I entered the portal, I'm halfway thru the quest again, but stopped playing cause I had to prepare for being away visiting relatives, so I will be gone 2 days and probably no progress will be made.
Idk if I can just uninstall EET, since it was not possible for me to install ScS without it, due to SoD.
I have many issues with EET and don't really like the BG2 part of it at all.
The only gamestopper now could be the Crusader Waves as there are some strange "bugs" around. Big B is another story even though i am quite confident for this one - we will see!
P.S. Its quite funny how tough the Dwarven F/T is. Not only godlike Saving Throws so he wont need any special item for Fear Protection later on but his HP is at the same level my Cavalier and Blackguard reached at the XP cap of SoD: 150 HP with items only (Stalwart Shield + Helmet of Dumathoin + Ring of Purity) and 176 HP with Potion of Power. Count in the 3% DR from the Helm and you can see that he isnt easy to take down.