Before tackling it, Caligula was working on the first level of the Watcher's Keep. Vampiric Wraith were a pain, because level drain. So, I decided to push forward with the main quest until I was where you fight the vampire's lair. I simply took the Mace of Disruption and got out. I then upgraded it, returned to the Watcher's Keep and finished the whole first level except for the statue fights.
I then fought my first lich in the city gates. I used a Prot. from Undead scroll to approach it, totaly planning to save scum it until it fails its save against IMoD. Didn't had to, it died on the first hit.
After that, I decided to tackle Windspear hills. In Firkraag' lair, the first room didn't pose too much of a problem, because I bypassed Ruhk with invisibility. Then, against the archer ambush, the Reflection shield did its job. All the tougher enemies were killed using the choke point doorway cheese with an invisible Simulacrum blocking the way. I also decided to kill Samia, because, meh, I wanted to.
The vampires were totally save scummed with IMoD, but, in a no reload context, that wouldn't have been much different ; on a successful saving throw, I would gone invisible, got away to sleep, and tried again until all the vampires failed their saving throws. One was actually tougher, because the IMoD couldn't work on it, even after 30+ try. I CTRL-Q it to see its stats, and it had a better saving throw against death than all other vampires. So, I resolved to use the Sunray from Daystar, which worked.
After the vampires, I got through the Greater Werewolves and Wolfwere in no time. The Air Elemental was killed from outside the door without taking any risk. Golems were killed with invisibility door cheese. Against Tazok, I lured his goons outside to kill them, then kited the big guy around the table. No problem. Conster was killed by a mixture of arrows of dispelling from my simulacrum, acid arrows from me and fire spells from my Efreeti.
Because I had to fight a bunch of efreeti (plural : efreetii ?) to finish Samia's quest, I challenged the ignominious Ruhk for his prot. from fire ring. Even with cheese, that guy is a real pain. I survived his kamikaze kobolds, used the in-and-out door cheese to waste his spells and got through his numerous stonskins with the help of my summons. My summons eventually died or unsummoned themselves, so I kited him. After a long while, he finally died.
With the ring of fire protection, the helmet from the well and a scroll of Prot. from fire, the efreeti were not much of a problem. After killing them, the named beholder, aka the Director, was killed using blitzkrieg tactics with a buffed up me, my simulacrum and my efreeti. He died fast. The Guardian was tackled just after; he didn't managed to hurt anybody. So, I took the anti-dragon stuff, went invisible and bypassed Samia's friends, because I didn't want to fight them.
Here's what Caligula looks like right now, on the cusp of his first HLA :
Everything is going way smoother than I thought it would. I was actually scared of Windspear Hills, because of its nasty monsters, but it wasn't all that bad in the end. I still have the tougher sidequests to do, though : Unseeing Eye, Planar Prison and the Planar Sphere. I probably am going to do the Unseeing Eye first, because I really want to have HLA against foes like Lavok or the Warden.
Oh yeah, since I'm fully reloading on this run, I decided to go as far as I can in the Watcher's Keep !! I'll go for the evil incarnation himself : the Demogorgon !! We'll see if I can kill the thing, let alone make it here !! Caligula already went through the tougher sidequests in BG1, so why stop here ?
Not even close to you guys, but I tried about 50 times before I could blind Nimbul. He is not a must-fight but I really wanted these boots of avoidance. And indeed they proved useful for the bandit camp. Bandits, including bosses could only hit me with crits. By the way that fight was really painfully long. Not particularly hard but painfully long. With 8 guys in the same room and roughly 20 to 30 damage per round they must have been around 2 to 3k hp to deplete, with pause half of the time to properly kite my enemies. 20mins of kiting and walking around, and this is only the beginning. I really fear the upcoming Zhalimar and Sarevok fights.
By the way I discovered a bug/glitch/whatever that greatly helped me with Mulahey: if you charm him, then blind him, and attack him, he will turn hostile but his dialogue won't trigger and you won't have to fight those 10 kobolds and 5 skeletons. Well, not very legit but there really was no way I won without that.
Not even close to you guys, but I tried about 50 times before I could blind Nimbul. He is not a must-fight but I really wanted these boots of avoidance. And indeed they proved useful for the bandit camp. Bandits, including bosses could only hit me with crits. By the way that fight was really painfully long. Not particularly hard but painfully long. With 8 guys in the same room and roughly 20 to 30 damage per round they must have been around 2 to 3k hp to deplete, with pause half of the time to properly kite my enemies. 20mins of kiting and walking around, and this is only the beginning. I really fear the upcoming Zhalimar and Sarevok fights.
By the way I discovered a bug/glitch/whatever that greatly helped me with Mulahey: if you charm him, then blind him, and attack him, he will turn hostile but his dialogue won't trigger and you won't have to fight those 10 kobolds and 5 skeletons. Well, not very legit but there really was no way I won without that.
Welcome to the challenge! The ehaviour you describe for Mulahey sounds perfectly normal to me and not like a bug/glitch, that being said I never thought about it and think it's a genius idea.
Shame @Harpagornis about Big B ending your run, the F/D will avenge I am sure.:D
Still in experimental mode, I decided to generate yet another new character - the famed totemic druid! Sky didn't perform as well in Candlekeep as many of his rivals - the rats comfortably outlasting a summoned spirit lion (though one of the other animals would have been better against their physical resistance). Another lion proved a good choice against Shoal though, getting Sky to level 3 and his first summon upgrade.
Summons were still struggling to kill anything, so a number of rests had to be used to see the back of the gnolls at High Hedge. Experimentation continued around Beregost, with the bear chosen as the favorite summons for most purposes - most HPs, good damage and good chance of scaring enemies meaning it could certainly expect to kill a hobgoblin 1 vs 1. Sky got to level 4 there after successfully killing Karlat with a single bear - normally that would have stood no chance, but Karlat broke his weapon almost immediately the fight started .
Heading north, the spirit wolf got an outing against Tarnesh - cold damage and paralysis with a save vs death making it a good choice against arcane spellcasters. Killing some fishermen for Tenya took Sky to level 5 and a further summons upgrade. I wasn't sure if fear would cause an ankheg to submerge, so tried that out with a bear and found it did. The bear still took the nearby ankheg to near death, but after failing to finish it off Sky was just too slow to retreat. With an acid blob already sailing in a perfect arc towards him he quickly cast Armor of Faith - which saved him from death .
After resting, a lion finished the ankheg off before Sky moved on to Ulgoth's Beard where Dushai was charmed at the 2nd attempt - eat your heart out Harpagornis .
I didn't bother avoiding the main roads on the way down to Nashkel, but had no ambushes anyway and Sky was able to improve his AC significantly there by putting on some muddy ankheg armor. Next he went after Meilum's bracers: getting past the kobold hordes there was just as difficult as for the shaman, but eventually Sky succeeded in that after quite a few rests. More of those were needed before he finally charmed Meilum, but not for long - he reverted to hostile before being fed to some nearby kobolds. When the same thing happened again, Sky gave up on charming and just used run and shoot. I knew that would be marginal with the couple of hundred bullets he had, but Sky eventually got a killing shot in with 1 bullet left (though he also had a LMD he could have used) .
Successfully restoring Melicamp got Sky to level 6, providing an additional summons each day. He'll test out that new ability against the basilisks next.
At the basilisk area there was a major mistake when I summoned a pair of spirit lions without checking their immunities. The 5 HD lion is immune to charm, berserk, fear, polymorph, haste, slow, paralysis, grease, web, entangle, hold & stun - but you may notice something of an omission in that list! Immediately thrown back on his own resources, Sky realised he hadn't restocked ammunition after the fight with Meilum, so just got stuck in with his staff. That was good enough to kill off all the basilisks except Mutamin's special pets and get Sky to level 7 and a further summons upgrade. After resting, he sent in a couple of spirit snakes to kill Mutamin and the remaining basilisks. There was then another rest before a charmed gnoll and a couple of spirit wolves led the assault on Kirian. Charming and drawing away her comrades would obviously have been safer, but I wanted to see how the summons would survive in a more general melee .
The question of how the summons would survive proved moot, however. Sky had retreated as the others attacked Kirian, which would normally have meant she would have been casting against summons. However, one of the wolves successfully paralysed her for 3 seconds in its initial attack - meaning she was ready to start casting just as Sky moved back in and lined up a call lightning on her. That meant he was defenceless as she sent a chromatic orb in response and this time there was to be no lucky escape ...
2nd attempt for Dushai @Grond0 ? What? No! Really? ARGH!!!!
Good to see the Totemic Druid on the hunt - he should be a beast in BG1 later on! Get in some level 10 summons and drink a cup of tea while they conquer the whole Swoard Coast. Well - nearly!
EDIT: Damn - everything looked so fine! Next round!!!
@Arunsun and @Harpagornis, best of luck for Nissa and Eklun! @Arctodus, I'm kind of surprised myself that Windspear was relatively easy for you. Wishing Caligula the best in the Unseeing Eye quest! @Grond0, yes Chromatic Orbs scary in LoB, sorry to Sky fall...
I've also rolled a new character: Verity, Human Shadowdancer.
The idea is to see if the Shadowdancer's defensive ability - with HiPS and Shadowstep to escape trouble, cancel enemy spellcasting, and exhaust enemy buffs - may make me better at keeping a character alive after recent short-lived adventures with a Cleric, an Archer, and Skor the Cleric/Thief.
I intend to dual Verity into a Mage (or less likely because more difficult, Fighter) as I'm unsure of the usefulness of the Shadowdancer's HLAs: no traps, a maze ability that allows a save vs spell at -4, which is basically +1 in LoB, and clones that do get LoB-style HP boosts but that cannot use expendable items like wands and scrolls in my install. Besides I already have a LoB party run with a Halfling Shadowdancer. Being able to dual a Shadowdancer to fighter or mage requires 17 STR, 15 DEX, 15 CHA and 17 INT. It took me a long time to roll Verity's comfortable 95 total stat score. (I was actually close to settling with 92 and lower STR).
Kiting the rogue ogre took no less than 116 arrows but the belt was a must. Verity won't use the Claw of Kazgaroth because she doesn't have the CON to prevent HP loss, and my decision to make Verity TN and thus ineligible to wield Drizzt's Twinkle +3 didn't help either in making Verity competent at dodging missile attacks.
She did the easy, early quests that we all know by now (excluding Shoal, can't get myself to killing her with non-evil characters), without incident. Worth mentioning may be Verity's luring of Greywolf toward the mine entrance guards. They attacked the bounty hunter and wore him down to circa 20 HPs while Verity was havin a good time dancing in the shadows. She then lured her foe away from the guards and finished him with an arrow.
Verity was lucky that the first two ambushes were Half-Ogres that she simply ran or stealthed away from. A third ambush of bandit archers took place at level 5. She should have used Shadowstep there, but rushed to one line of archers, hoping to leave the other line in the fog of war and to impose Thac0 penalties on the other archers for coming into melee range. She nevertheless sustained her first injury here, from a critical hit.
Verity has already bought a greenstone amulet, the cloak of displacement, and the shadow armor. She also owns Algernon's cloak, gauntlets of weapon expertise, Drizzt's Icingdeath scimitar, a ring of fire resistance, a necklace of missiles, a shield amulet, and boots of stealth. All her skill points have been allocated to MS and HiS. With her boots and armor, her stealth scores at level 6 are 110 MS and 125 HiS (90/95 without boosts). I thought this would ensure succesful hiding at night, but a sirine hunting trip proved otherwise.
I also discovered that leaving the shadows by clicking on the weapon button (without actually attacking), can make Verity become visible before the cooldown period for re-stealthing has ended:
All this didn't stop Verity from slaying nine sirines, but it did cost her a couple of greenstone charges, and at one point even a potion of clarity that she had brought from Candlekeep.
I wonder now how good HiPS is. The failure at hiding only happened once. I've read on the forums that 200+ aggregate stealth ensures a probability of 99% of success at hiding at night, suggesting it's possible to roll a "critical miss" on your hiding check (a 1 on a d100). I don't know if this is correct, but I do know that this is worrying for later. As a Mage, Verity will have a clouded aura after having cast a spell; failing a stealth check can then result in trouble. And what about Verity's leaving stealth and turning visible before the completion of the cooldown period? This occurred a couple of times. Could the probability of this happening be reduced by further improving Verity's stealth scores? I was considering a late dual, at level 13, for the x4 backstab modifier, to be able to play her as a backstab and melee-oriented mage (with Polymorph, Tenser's, had already placed a pip in dual-wielding because rogue rebalancing thieves can put three *** there), but now I'm not as sure anymore. I guess I'll have to find out for myself. This uncertainty is complicating though because for a late dual I think I should also allocate some skill points to detect traps.
At 34k XP, Verity is now close to level 7, and she can still get a lot of XP from 14 Basilisks. Playing with Verity has also resparked my interest in continuing my party run with my Halfling Shadowdancer, so I'll have to decide which run to continue first.
Eklun did some easy quests in the meanwhile - mostly walking and talking - while pushing his reputation to 20. The precious Sandthief Ring will be taken soon! With the Fire Resistance Ring and Drizzt Scimitar he is already sitting at 90% FR and the Ring of Free Action from Dushai will make sure not to run into CC´s that easily. He also charmed Krumm and let him take down Caldo so the nearly dead Krumm was no challenge for Eklun and he could easily grab his Belt. Meilum on the other hand survived 71 sling bullets before going down - this time luck was on Eklun´s side and he did not run into any kobolds. The Gauntles of Weapon Expertise will prove to be very helpful in the coming fights.
So far nothing super special. Eklun got hit several times but was never in grave danger of dying - until now. For whatever reason he is ambushed a lot by Xvarts on his travels - but these slow moving fools never got him. With level 4/4 reached its time to visit the good old Basilisks. This should be funny - hopefully. Cause after reading about @Grond0´s unlucky death i probably should skip Kirian - for now!
P.S. The Shadow Dancer will be interesting @Blackraven - good luck!
Ooooh shiny, a Shadowdancer. I'd not dual to late personally, but that's just me not liking BS to much in BG2 and the Shadowdancer kit not offering much more than that when you level up. I'm back at home and will get more progress in on the SoA Great Druid (funny how it's not called Totemic anymore after level 14), my BG1 F/M/C being in Durlag's Level 4 and after that there won't be much more to BG1, except getting the odd item/spell and ofc ending the main quest.
I'm still unsure whether I should continue the F/M/C into SoD, since I don't like having no Harm vs Big B as endless usage of invis potions is not my thing at all.
I finished the planar prison (again) this time without bugs. I now know why the Warden seemed so easy the first run, because I experimented this time and facetanked him with my Druid. He is broken by LoB the same way Drizzt is, he can only cast spells (which are mostly defensive) but not attack, I assume because before LoB his APR were 5 already.
@Blackraven I uninstalled EET after I had too many crashes, but now my save is somehow bugged and I can't travel via the worldmap. The way I uninstalled was via setup-eet.exe, do you happen to know how I can fix my savefiles?
@Blackraven I uninstalled EET after I had too many crashes, but now my save is somehow bugged and I can't travel via the worldmap. The way I uninstalled was via setup-eet.exe, do you happen to know how I can fix my savefiles?
Noooo! I lost a save with my no-reload Cleric/Illusionist in Durlag's Tower, also because of uninstalling EET. EET and regular BGEE use different area codes, so unless you have a way to assign the correct area codes to each area, I'm afraid you'll have to start a new game.
The run continues for Nissa, who's now pitted against Slythe and Krysten. Cloakwood itself was basically invisibility=>Run to the mines as it is fairly uninteresting loot-wise and Nissa was already high-level enough. The fight at the entrance of the mines ended up with kiting over and over and over and was fairly easy too. Having roughly -10 AC, and another -10 against missile makes ranged enemies a joke. Just had to try a couple of times, not to get hit by those disablers. And now that Nissa has the boots of speed, probably the single best item in the game, kiting will go even more smoothly.
Invisibility led Nissa through the mines as well, and then Nissa had to face Davaeorn. A difficult fight. The idea I had was to tank Davaeorn's offensive spells till he ran out. During that time the archers etc... were stuck in the cloudkill/web he pulls off when you reveal yourself. Then I had to try and stick these battle horrors in the middle of the bunch of archer so that they couldn't move and kill me. To do that Nissa went down to the room where there are 3 chests and a mustard jelly, there she turned around and managed to get back through the long and narrow corridor that leads to that room. Here, the archers that followed her blocked the way because they were standing still and shooting at her (once again, never hitting except on a crit). That stopped the Battle Horrors and Davaeorn from coming melee. Then it was just about hitting Davaeorn with my throwing dagger. Well I thought it would be. But at some point when Davaeorn was near death the frontline archers ran out of arrows. I thought "oh crap" and had to use a wand of fire to quickly finish the job and ran to the elevator. Then Nissa drowned all of these soldiers thanks to Davaeorn's key. Blessed be quickloot though, without which I couldn't have gotten that key and the rest of Davaeorn's possessions.
Then she headed for Baldur's Gate, picked the tomes of stats that become available there (dex and int), and headed for the Iron Throne. She tried to fight Zhalimar and his group a couple of times before realising that fighting 10 high level clerics, mages, thieves and warriors would be utterly impossible, then she decided to try and get pass them, and use her unnatural charisma to convince Thaldorn to tell her where the leaders are, which is Candlekeep of course. Once there, Nissa went for the Gatewarden ignoring the 5 ogre magis that were waiting to ambush her. After saying hello to everyone there, she went to the library, headed for the last floor where she was intercepted and imprisoned. Tethtoril TPed her to the catacombs, where she got the last tomes, along with a couple of nice items, namely Cloak of protection +2 and a scroll of protection from magic. Then she walked through the catacombs invisible and quickly reached the cave. There I thought it would be nice to try and sleep, until I killed enough spiders to reach the exp cap. After that I just went through the cave invisible and headed back to Baldur's Gate. Fighting Cythandria was just about driving the golems she summons downstairs, cast invisibility for them to stop following Nissa and then waiting for Cythandria to run out of spells and kill her with a few dozens of well-thrown daggers.
The Undercellar battle is where I am now. This one proved to be tougher than I thought, because Nissa can't dispel Slythe's Invisibility, but she will probably just use stoneskin and mirror image and wait for him to use all of his invisibility potions, and then kite him. At this point my saving throws are very low thanks to the Claw of Kazgaroth so Krysten's only another red circle that occasionally throws fireballs. But enough BG for now, I grow tired and will make a break. I need all of my patience to deal with Sarevok, because I'll have to bring his skeleton warriors and their 320HP down dealing about 5 damage per hit. They can't retaliate because I am too fast so it will be a trial of patience. At least this particular challenge has taught me a thing: Flee when you can, fight when you must.
@Blackraven I uninstalled EET after I had too many crashes, but now my save is somehow bugged and I can't travel via the worldmap. The way I uninstalled was via setup-eet.exe, do you happen to know how I can fix my savefiles?
Noooo! I lost a save with my no-reload Cleric/Illusionist in Durlag's Tower, also because of uninstalling EET. EET and regular BGEE use different area codes, so unless you have a way to assign the correct area codes to each area, I'm afraid you'll have to start a new game.
I'll try reinstalling EET then I don't want to lose hours of playing if at all possible.
The Warden is a strange being @Victor_Creed_SFV. I also ran into this bug where he did not attack at all earlier but on my last tries he hacked everything into pieces in no time. Same with Abazigal in the final fight. This game is a bag of neverending surprises!
Too bad your Cleric/Illusionist seems to be gone @Blackraven - damn it!!!
Kiting rules the game @Arunsun - at least BG1 and to some degree also SoD. With regard to Slythe: Charm several Guards with Nymph Cloak before and the battle is a mild breeze!
@Blackraven Good idea, a shadowdancer/mage is a nice choice, it should be interesting ! It seems good defensive build !! I played a bit with shadowdancers in the past and, yeah, their HiPS can lead to funny (or rather unfunny) things. You just can't rely on it too much, specially in no reload context. I wouldn't stand in front of mage and HiPS to waste their spells, too dangerous !!
Caligula got through the Unseeing Eye quest yesterday. It was really, really easy. I think I have a solid blueprint for a future LoB no reload run (assuming I can make it that far!!! ). I made all the talk prior to going underground and, to get to the forgotten temple, I killed some spiders and a bunch of mummies/ghast with IMoD (THE mvp weapon so far) just before the bridge, but, at this point, that's absolutely trivial. I went invisible to bypass the group of beholders and made the talk in the temple.
In Ghoul Town, a scroll of Prot. from Undead meant it was an absolutely trivial area. I decided to kill the lich with save scumming, but, in no reload context, I would just let it be (because, who needs the Gauntlet of dex in a solo run ?). In the pit of the faithless, I used blitzkrieg strat against Gauth and Beholders : buffed up me, my simulacrum and my efreeti made short work of them. Well, the efreeti is starting to lose steam, because his saving throws are not good enough to survive gauth's and beholders' ray, but it at least draw some fire away from me and my simmy.
At this point, I already had my first HLA (whirlwind, obviously), so, against the Unseeing Eye himself, I used the same buff routine for me and my simmy I use all the time : imp. invisibility, mirror images, DuHM, haste from Arbane. All buffs are applied in the same round through save/load. When the Unseeing Eye appeared, I hitted it with the Rift Device and went all out offensively. The Unseeing Eye and its Death Tyrants made short work of the efreeti, and then they concentrated their efforts on my simmy, which actually was very tough. The Unseeing Eye casted PfMW on himself, so I switched to unenchanted bullet with my sling to hurt him. If I would have remembered that detail, I would have given unenchanted bullets to my simmy too, but that proved to be unnecessary, because I managed to kill it some time after my whirlwind was over. After that, I just went invisible and bypassed the last two Death Tyrants.
So, I then just went back in the forgotten temple to destroy the Rift Device and reported back to the Temple of Helm for my reward. Didn't went in to kill Gaal and co., because I don't know why I would do that. Except the save scumming from the lich in the Ghoul Town, everything was done without reload. Nice !!
I then bought the Everard Sling, which apply the strength bonus even to its magically created bullets !! It still does less damage than with enchanted bullets, but those stacks with the bonuses of the sling when needed. With mastery in sling, bullets +2 and 25 strength from DuHM, I can deal 23-26 damage per hit. With whirlwind, that really good damage dealt safely at a long range. Slings are nice...
I have two questions for you guys :
1. Now that I'm picking HLA, how many Hardiness should I pick ? 4, 5 ? @Harpagornis : How many did Su'kka needed ? 2. When I bought the Sling of Everard, I was browsing through Joluv stuff, and the Everard's Morning Star caught my attention... How good can that weapon be in ToB ? With WW, I can imagine stripping a mage of its bigger spells real quick... I wonder if it could be used at the throne against Sendai to prevent her from healing her buddies. Also, related to that weapon, what is Mel resistance to enchanted weapon ?
Good work @Arctodus! Thanks to the incoming HLA´s SoA should be a cakewalk now. Well - nearly!
Once i thought that getting a lot of Hardiness (>6) is essential - its not. GWW is far more important and most battles do not last long enough to take more than four (or five) of it. Maybe even two or three will work as in the longer ToB battles you can (nearly) always port to the Pocket Plane in between.
The only battle where more Hardiness would be great is Melisaan and the Big Five but even here kiting > Hardiness. Once you got the Cloak of Mirroring along with MR Mages are a joke. At least Su´kka had no more troubles against them - which surprised me a bit. But if you wanna test the Morning Star - why not? Maybe it will do some wonders! Mel needs at least +4 weapons and her resistance to physical damage is 90%!
It seems I can't reinstall EET and idk if I'd rather reinstall the whole game with mods or rrestart a completely new save, probably the later, since I wanted to get rid of EET either way.
As to Hardiness I totally agree with @Harpagornis you don't need more than 4, and doesn't the Melissan fight automatically let you rest or would you need wish for that? (in between platforms)
Yes you will automatically rest @Victor_Creed_SFV after each platform. Anyway: The final fight isnt all about Hardiness - there are many other problems to take care of.
Eklun in the meanwhile cleared the Basilisks and - once more - Korax seems the only one who never fails. Even Mutamin got paralyzed with ease so they hacked him down too. The only downsides: His second Scimitar broke on one of the first swings so Eklun had to fight with one weapon only - which reduced the killing speed a bit. He also failed against Kirian even though he charmed Lindin. But both - Korax and Lindin - were unable to damage or paralyze Kirian so both went down pretty fast while Eklun was waiting just out of vision to not run into the infamous Chromatic Orb. Eklun went for the safest option and retreated - for now! Not to forget: Thanks to over 26k XP he jumped up to level 5/6 - great!
Solid progress @Arunsun. You didn't mention the Wis tome in the city of Baldur's Gate, only Dex and Int. Did you forget about that tome or was it your intention to skip it? You won't need it for anything other than lore I think, because your starting Wis was 18, enough for Wish casting.
@Harpagornis, careful with Eklun, try not to get hit too much
@Arctodus, your handling of the Beholders and Death Tyrants sounds incredible! I find them very scary, and have actually lost a dear no-reload character (a Halfling Swashbuckler) to a Death Tyrant once. I'm surprised you didn't get hit / saved against any of the deadlier rays.
Ooooh shiny, a Shadowdancer. I'd not dual to late personally, but that's just me not liking BS to much in BG2 and the Shadowdancer kit not offering much more than that when you level up.
@Blackraven Good idea, a shadowdancer/mage is a nice choice, it should be interesting ! It seems good defensive build !! I played a bit with shadowdancers in the past and, yeah, their HiPS can lead to funny (or rather unfunny) things. You just can't rely on it too much, specially in no reload context. I wouldn't stand in front of mage and HiPS to waste their spells, too dangerous !!
Maybe you guys, and others can advise me on the best moment to dual. I've considered the following. (Spoilered because I dislike walls of text.)
Level 9: Pros: - first level with x3 backstab modifier, - only need 250k XP to regain SD levels - ends up in SoD as a level 10/11 SD/Mage (a single-class Mage also caps at level 11 in SoD) - still able to reach max level as a mage (31) in BG2, which in my install means extra spells - HP boost from BG1 Familiar Cons: - somewhat incovenient moment (having to finish BG1 with a level 6 Mage and to acquire 200k XP in SoD in order to regain Shadowdancer levels, which will be difficult) - low HiS/MS skills: 270 aggregate if I don't develop any other thieving skills at all. - will basically end up as single class Mage, because HiPs will become less important in the course of BG2, and character doesn't have any other thief skills.
The most convenient option. If the Shadowdancer's stealth score is penalized with a mere 1/3 reduction in lit, inside areas, as has been suggested here, then an aggregate stealth score of 270, boosted by thieving gear like the mercyiller ring and the boots of stealth, and DUHM if necessary, might just be enough to make HiPS work in most of SoD and SoA.
Level 10 or 11: Pros: - gain another Shadowstep ability - HP boost from BG1/SoD Familiar Cons: - go through the entirety of SoD and early SoA as a single class mage - lose one Mage level eventually
I'm not considering these because they offer little more than a second Shadowstep compared to level 9, timing is inconvenient, and level 12 is quite a bit better.
Level 12: Pros: - complete SoD as a Shadowdancer - HP boost from SoD Familiar if I can dual at the very latest moment (is this possible after Belhifet?) - copy scrolls for BG2 at the end of the game (if possible after Belhifet?) - 60 extra skill points compared to a level 9 dual, i.e. better stealth or maybe functional trap detection. - only lose out on one Mage level (max level 30) - extra weapon proficiency Cons: - requires more than 1 million XP - one level shy of backstab x4
This, like a level 9 dual, looks pretty good to me. There are ways to gain XP fast in BG2, especially for a Mage (scribing and erasing scrolls), so the only serious downside is not getting the x4 backstab multiplier that level 13 would offer.
Level 13: Pros (compared to level 12): - backstab modifier x4 - extra thieving skill points - slightly better Thac0 for a while Cons (compared to level 12): - long downtime - no HP boost from Familiar in BG1 - no spell scribing in BG1 to facilitate early BG2 (Chateau Irenicus!) - lose out on another mage level (max 29)
This would obviously make for the most roguey character, in terms of backstabbing and other skills as well. But the price to be paid is considerable.
I think it will have to go between dualing at level 9 or 12 for extra Shadowstep and stealth/thieving ability. This is clearly a very theoretic question, as Verity might well die before she even reaches level 9, but I'd still welcome your input.
I haven't played SD far enough to be an authority on the matter, but theory crafted a lot about it and gotten an SD to level 10 in BG1. My personal opinion is to dual at level 7 so you are a full fledged mage in BG1, but the option with level 9 sounds doable to me, since you don't actually need thief level2 to finish BG1 as wands and invis rule the game.
@Blackraven I don't think the stealth penalties can work as suggested in your post. Even at the end of ToB with thieves that have maximised their stealth scores (so well over 100% with a 50% reduction) they will still regularly fail to hide in lit areas.
Solid progress @Arunsun. You didn't mention the Wis tome in the city of Baldur's Gate, only Dex and Int. Did you forget about that tome or was it your intention to skip it? You won't need it for anything other than lore I think, because your starting Wis was 18, enough for Wish casting.
Actually I picked it too but I forgot to mention it, then regretted because it halved my reputation and I already was low on gold, due to missing a lot of side quests I didn't need to do (no interesting item and I had already reached the exp cap by farming those phase spiders below Candlekeep).
@Harpagornis Sarevok has fallen, the battle is won ! (empty chat log because I loaded the final save and instapressed space to take the screenshot, didn't have the reflex before the movie triggered ) Sarevok has fallen, and actually this battle was not so terribly long, because you don't have to kill the skeletons to be able to hurt Sarevok, though it was longer than it should have been because my game crashed in the middle of my first attempt, when Sarevok was injured and the rest of his buddies, except for the skeletons, were dead.
So I just had three battles left when I last related Nissa's tale. Nissa managed to deal with Slythe and Krystin separately by baiting the former into following me upstairs in the Blushing Mermaid, then she simply ran around the tables throwing the occasional dagger. It was easy enough with Oil of Speed+Boots of Speed. As for Krystin, Nissa just summoned a bit of pumped up cannon-fodder to tank her offensive spells and then spammed her with daggers as well, fairly easy in the end.
Then Nissa went to the Ducal Palace for the Coronation. These dopplegangers killed Belt and Liia Jannath twice despite them having a shit ton of Hit Points, but on my third try I managed to drag some of their aggro onto me, and eventually brought them down. Then Sarevok turned hostile and killed Liia, and very nearly killed Belt before Winski Perorate teleported him away. Out of curiosity I quicksaved and control-Qed Belt, he had 21 HP left. Not even close, as they say , given that Sarevok deals about 25 per hit
Belt teleported Nissa to the Thieves Guild, and she went through that labyrinth invisible, tanking the traps. She then passed by that last party of adventurers et could've done the same with Tamoko, but I always enjoy killing Tamoko, so I spent 2 mins doing that, an easy fight thanks to Haste and boots of speed.
Then the last battle began. Nissa killed everyone using my usual kiting technique, got Sarevok down to injured, and my game crashed. Here's a screenshot taken shortly before that happened (or during the second battle, I can't remember actually):
The second try was the right one, and Nissa killed Sarevok and his cronies without any godly intervention that would force me to start over, as shown in the first screenshot.
Let's go to the next step: SoD. But before that I'll make a break. That playthrough was very interesting and quite fun but I feel like too much of it at once will make it too tedious. More over I have no idea how I will deal with Belhifet, he requires +3 weapons to hit and I don't think there is any ranged returning weapon or unlimited ammos that match the requirement. It'll probably end with wand of frost/lightning spamming or something along those lines, but that's for another playthrough. And I would hate to rush SoD once again, this game has too many secrets I am not yet aware of, and I never made a completionist playthrough of SoD. In the end I feel like Legacy of Bhaal BG1 is actually not much harder as a solo PC, as you don't have to watch over every single one of your characters. Some fights like the one against Davaeorn or the final Bandit Camp fight would definitely have been much more complicated, or would have ended up with 5 dead mates).
P.S. Here's another screen I took by accident and just found in my Screenshot folder: If you look closely you will see Davaeorn (the rightmost character on the "second line of enemies", starting bottom, he's using improved invisibility so he's pretty hard to see, but that's where he is) and that was how I got everything stuck and unable to hit me during that fight, which definitely was the one that required the most tactical thinking and mechanics abuse in the entire game.
P.P.S.: Kudos to @chimaera and @Grond0 for succeeding with a Sorcerer, some fights must have taken you years to get through, since the only way to get enough damage in LoB is to use physical attacks, which is something sorcerers are rather bad at Unless you have a better tactic than that. I believe I could have used many more charms than I have this game, for example.
With both stealth skills at 200 I haven't seen any failed hides but maybe I don't remember.
I hate my life atm, my game doesn't work properly anymore because of the uninstalled EET and I have to reinstall the whole blasted game again, ever since SoD came out this is easily the third time and it always takes forever because of SCS and BWS.
@Blackraven Yeah, I think I remember the Swashbuckler you lost. Wasn't it because of Hide in Shadow ? Because you were revealed too quick after failing a hide check or something like that ?
You only have two options, in my opinion : 12 or 13. In both case, the down time is gonna be rough, but, although the down time SoA is technically larger, it would actually be easier to bridge, because there's just so much xp around SoA from easy early quests. Plus, the bonus from scribing scrolls is much greater in BG2 than in BG1/SoD. You also get an extra Shadow Step, which in this no reload context, is the most important ability of the shadowdancer.
Level 9 would be rough, because going through the early part of SoD as a gimped mage, seems rougher to me than at the start of SoA. Your HiPS wouldn't be all that great either, because of the lack of skill points. At dual 12/13, you could put enough points in Find Traps to be able to max it with items, which is a major life improvment, and still have a better HiPS.
So, to me, it boils down to having an extra mage HLA (level 12 dual) against a bigger backstab bonus (level 13 dual). Level 12 seems sensible to me, because I'm not sure how much you will NEED to rely on backstabbing. Plus, the extra HP seems a major advantage of this dual.
P.P.S.: Kudos to @chimaera and @Grond0 for succeeding with a Sorcerer, some fights must have taken you years to get through, since the only way to get enough damage in LoB is to use physical attacks, which is something sorcerers are rather bad at Unless you have a better tactic than that. I believe I could have used many more charms than I have this game, for example.
Spell damage is still a viable option for a sorcerer. Early on I agree that physical damage rules, but if you make sure you tackle enemies that don't run around when blinded you can just read a book while slinging away at them . Once you've got a few levels though you can rack up plenty of damage with, say, 4 skull traps and a dozen lots of magic missiles. That will roughly kill a battle horror and if you need a bit more to finish them just stick them in a web and whack them with a staff (while wearing a ring of free action). I think that type of progression should continue in BG2 - as enemies get stronger you get more and better spells in order that a days allocation should be able to kill standard enemies, even if not necessarily the big, bad bosses. The availability of invisibility makes it pretty easy to separate enemies so that you're only taking them on in bite-sized chunks.
Charms using cloaks are useful for any character. I've not used charming spells with a sorcerer in LoB, but they could certainly play a big role if you took the appropriate spells. I've used them quite a bit with druids and shamans and even charm persons with +8 on the saving throw (+6 with doom) are worth trying. A sorcerer using domination with malison would have a -1 on the saving throw (and an enchanter could get to -3 ).
Being to annoyed to make a full BG2 install and restart my Druid from scratch, I decided a new course of action.
I rolled a Totemic for BG1 and will post the progress here. I will not record the totemics BG1 progress, this way I should be a lot quicker playing thru the game and as mentioned before I will not continue my F/M/C into SoD but just finish BG1 with it. Once my Druid is in SoD I will also record my progress additional to posting it here.
My Druids name is Droolit, ofc hoping to become a Great Droolit in BG2. I managed to roll a 95, but since CH is minimum 15 I only got 8 IN with all the important stats maxed, so i will only be able to use scrolls once I get to Ramazith.
None of my recent attempts have gone very far - whether LoB or not - and I couldn't decide what to play next. I think that's indicative that I should be taking a break from BG for a while, but it would be nice to have a decent run first. I decided to restart Shagrat again, to see if he could actually make it at least through BG1 ...
After taking down Shoal (good or evil - she's got to go ) I designed a route avoiding archer ambushes as much as possible. After stripping Algernon's body of his cloak, that led up to the FAI by way of Larswood and Peldvale before going on to Ulgoth's Beard. It took 96 attempts to charm Dushai (a good attempt, but still not competitive with Harpagornis ) in order to lead him away to a slaughter pen.
I didn't want to leave reputation as low as 4 and risk running into Flaming Fist enforcers, so went to the FAI to return Joia's ring. Shagrat also charmed Jaheira there and pulled her outside to be killed in order to get an invisibility potion (I don't normally bother with that one, but want to give this run the best possible chance).
Rather than do my normal selection of work around Beregost, Shagrat pushed on down to Nashkel (using side roads), after buying a potion of genius at the temple. He grabbed the free +2 dagger from Hentold and then decided to see how many kobolds were waiting at Firewine Ruins. He was lucky there, with only a few waiting and none of those commandos. The kobolds killed Bentan so Shagrat could get his scroll of PfM, before Shagrat finished them off and sidled up the edge of the map to find Meilum. Minor animal summons aren't much use against him so Shagrat just kited him. Needing a 17 to hit that took a while, but Shagrat had plenty of ammunition this time and the end result was never in doubt.
Shagrat survived a couple of kobold ambushes on the way to the basilisk area where he raised his intelligence in order to use a scroll of PfP (and also stone to flesh). All the lesser basilisks (except Mutamin's pet) died to him running in to stab with his dagger before retreating for a second or two. The greater basilisk to the south died to sling bullets as it has a more dangerous melee attack, while Mutamin and his pets were victims of the mighty Korax. That took Shagrat to level 6 and so far he's again had amazing HP rolls with 57 HPs to date. The question next is how far to push an assault on Kirian .
And the answer to the above question is too far ...
An attempt to charm Peter failed, which meant Korax was unlikely to do much against Kirian, but I decided to let him try. However, he failed to paralyse anyone in early attacks and well before he died Shagrat was running to the edge of the map. He waited there to see if anyone would follow and it looked like good news when Peter came into sight to be greeted by 2 spirit boars. Unfortunately, a few seconds later Kirian also appeared and she started casting. In principle it would have seemed reasonable to expect she was casting at the spirits as they had already moved out to attack Peter and she would have seen them well before Shagrat. Therefore Shagrat hung around for the spell to cast to see where it was being aimed - and then left the map when an acid arrow came towards him. Everything seemed normal as he appeared in Beregost - as long as you realise that normal for me is the sight of the game over screen .
Initially I assumed that was a bug, but regrettably not. Even though Shagrat had been standing right at the edge of the map I had noticed that his icon made a slight stutter as he tried to do the area transition and that delay must have been long enough for the acid arrow to hit him. Unlike poison an area transition does not halt continuing spell damage and, as Kirian is a L17 mage that meant Shagrat had to suffer 6 rounds of acid arrow damage with a LoB average per round of 10 - so even with his superb 57 HPs the odds on survival were slightly against him.
I really must steel myself to minimise risk against Kirian's party (although for once I don't really feel I did anything wrong in that encounter). The problem is it seems like such a waste not to use Korax to start in on them as, if he's lucky with his paralysis, it is possible for him to beat them all. However, it's much safer to use Algernon's cloak to charm Peter, Lindin and Baerin individually and take them away to be dealt with on their own. Kirian is then manageable, even without using up any resources.
Droolit is almost Level 7 now and the lower area of the basilisk map is not cleared yet.
I did the kind of quests that are good early Marl, Brun, Samuel, Brage, Melicamp, Young Priestess, Firebead (not in that order). Once I reached level 5 I felt all powerful, not only do the dogees get pretty strong, you also get a 2nd one. Stunlocking mages is a joke from this point on, even Bassilus cannot cast a spell if 2 dogees are on him. I also killed Silke in the same manner, no spell was cast (on both of them doom + insects also worked 1st try but they would have been slaughtered either way). Perdues short sword was also recovered as was Joias Flamedance ring.
My first set of mirrored eyes potions was from Ulgoths, where I also bought Greenstone, I also was able to afford the dagger of venom. It is nice to note that a druid can wear Ankheg Plate, with Buckleys buckler that is -5 AC, not shabby for a spellcaster. Since I acquired the mirror potions from High Hedge I will now move back to the basilisk map, after I dealt with the rogue ogre.
I might try to kill the sirens with my dogees, they also shouldn't be too strong in melee for myself with greenstone as long as they don't get into ranged distance with poison.
Getting to level 10 with a druid is not harder than with others, if not easier (ofc no reload is a different story I died a couple of times when I overestimated myself before level 5). On level 10 I don't expect much resistance from BG1 due to opness of the dogees.
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Before tackling it, Caligula was working on the first level of the Watcher's Keep. Vampiric Wraith were a pain, because level drain. So, I decided to push forward with the main quest until I was where you fight the vampire's lair. I simply took the Mace of Disruption and got out. I then upgraded it, returned to the Watcher's Keep and finished the whole first level except for the statue fights.
I then fought my first lich in the city gates. I used a Prot. from Undead scroll to approach it, totaly planning to save scum it until it fails its save against IMoD. Didn't had to, it died on the first hit.
After that, I decided to tackle Windspear hills. In Firkraag' lair, the first room didn't pose too much of a problem, because I bypassed Ruhk with invisibility. Then, against the archer ambush, the Reflection shield did its job. All the tougher enemies were killed using the choke point doorway cheese with an invisible Simulacrum blocking the way. I also decided to kill Samia, because, meh, I wanted to.
The vampires were totally save scummed with IMoD, but, in a no reload context, that wouldn't have been much different ; on a successful saving throw, I would gone invisible, got away to sleep, and tried again until all the vampires failed their saving throws. One was actually tougher, because the IMoD couldn't work on it, even after 30+ try. I CTRL-Q it to see its stats, and it had a better saving throw against death than all other vampires. So, I resolved to use the Sunray from Daystar, which worked.
After the vampires, I got through the Greater Werewolves and Wolfwere in no time. The Air Elemental was killed from outside the door without taking any risk. Golems were killed with invisibility door cheese. Against Tazok, I lured his goons outside to kill them, then kited the big guy around the table. No problem. Conster was killed by a mixture of arrows of dispelling from my simulacrum, acid arrows from me and fire spells from my Efreeti.
Because I had to fight a bunch of efreeti (plural : efreetii ?) to finish Samia's quest, I challenged the ignominious Ruhk for his prot. from fire ring. Even with cheese, that guy is a real pain. I survived his kamikaze kobolds, used the in-and-out door cheese to waste his spells and got through his numerous stonskins with the help of my summons. My summons eventually died or unsummoned themselves, so I kited him. After a long while, he finally died.
With the ring of fire protection, the helmet from the well and a scroll of Prot. from fire, the efreeti were not much of a problem. After killing them, the named beholder, aka the Director, was killed using blitzkrieg tactics with a buffed up me, my simulacrum and my efreeti. He died fast. The Guardian was tackled just after; he didn't managed to hurt anybody. So, I took the anti-dragon stuff, went invisible and bypassed Samia's friends, because I didn't want to fight them.
Here's what Caligula looks like right now, on the cusp of his first HLA :
Everything is going way smoother than I thought it would. I was actually scared of Windspear Hills, because of its nasty monsters, but it wasn't all that bad in the end. I still have the tougher sidequests to do, though : Unseeing Eye, Planar Prison and the Planar Sphere. I probably am going to do the Unseeing Eye first, because I really want to have HLA against foes like Lavok or the Warden.
Oh yeah, since I'm fully reloading on this run, I decided to go as far as I can in the Watcher's Keep !! I'll go for the evil incarnation himself : the Demogorgon !! We'll see if I can kill the thing, let alone make it here !! Caligula already went through the tougher sidequests in BG1, so why stop here ?
See ya !!
By the way I discovered a bug/glitch/whatever that greatly helped me with Mulahey: if you charm him, then blind him, and attack him, he will turn hostile but his dialogue won't trigger and you won't have to fight those 10 kobolds and 5 skeletons. Well, not very legit but there really was no way I won without that.
The ehaviour you describe for Mulahey sounds perfectly normal to me and not like a bug/glitch, that being said I never thought about it and think it's a genius idea.
Shame @Harpagornis about Big B ending your run, the F/D will avenge I am sure.:D
Summons were still struggling to kill anything, so a number of rests had to be used to see the back of the gnolls at High Hedge. Experimentation continued around Beregost, with the bear chosen as the favorite summons for most purposes - most HPs, good damage and good chance of scaring enemies meaning it could certainly expect to kill a hobgoblin 1 vs 1. Sky got to level 4 there after successfully killing Karlat with a single bear - normally that would have stood no chance, but Karlat broke his weapon almost immediately the fight started
Heading north, the spirit wolf got an outing against Tarnesh - cold damage and paralysis with a save vs death making it a good choice against arcane spellcasters. Killing some fishermen for Tenya took Sky to level 5 and a further summons upgrade. I wasn't sure if fear would cause an ankheg to submerge, so tried that out with a bear and found it did. The bear still took the nearby ankheg to near death, but after failing to finish it off Sky was just too slow to retreat. With an acid blob already sailing in a perfect arc towards him he quickly cast Armor of Faith - which saved him from death
I didn't bother avoiding the main roads on the way down to Nashkel, but had no ambushes anyway and Sky was able to improve his AC significantly there by putting on some muddy ankheg armor. Next he went after Meilum's bracers: getting past the kobold hordes there was just as difficult as for the shaman, but eventually Sky succeeded in that after quite a few rests. More of those were needed before he finally charmed Meilum, but not for long - he reverted to hostile before being fed to some nearby kobolds. When the same thing happened again, Sky gave up on charming and just used run and shoot. I knew that would be marginal with the couple of hundred bullets he had, but Sky eventually got a killing shot in with 1 bullet left (though he also had a LMD he could have used)
Successfully restoring Melicamp got Sky to level 6, providing an additional summons each day. He'll test out that new ability against the basilisks next.
The question of how the summons would survive proved moot, however. Sky had retreated as the others attacked Kirian, which would normally have meant she would have been casting against summons. However, one of the wolves successfully paralysed her for 3 seconds in its initial attack - meaning she was ready to start casting just as Sky moved back in and lined up a call lightning on her. That meant he was defenceless as she sent a chromatic orb in response and this time there was to be no lucky escape ...
Good to see the Totemic Druid on the hunt - he should be a beast in BG1 later on! Get in some level 10 summons and drink a cup of tea while they conquer the whole Swoard Coast. Well - nearly!
EDIT: Damn - everything looked so fine! Next round!!!
@Arctodus, I'm kind of surprised myself that Windspear was relatively easy for you. Wishing Caligula the best in the Unseeing Eye quest!
@Grond0, yes Chromatic Orbs scary in LoB, sorry to Sky fall...
I've also rolled a new character: Verity, Human Shadowdancer.
I intend to dual Verity into a Mage (or less likely because more difficult, Fighter) as I'm unsure of the usefulness of the Shadowdancer's HLAs: no traps, a maze ability that allows a save vs spell at -4, which is basically +1 in LoB, and clones that do get LoB-style HP boosts but that cannot use expendable items like wands and scrolls in my install. Besides I already have a LoB party run with a Halfling Shadowdancer. Being able to dual a Shadowdancer to fighter or mage requires 17 STR, 15 DEX, 15 CHA and 17 INT. It took me a long time to roll Verity's comfortable 95 total stat score. (I was actually close to settling with 92 and lower STR).
Kiting the rogue ogre took no less than 116 arrows but the belt was a must. Verity won't use the Claw of Kazgaroth because she doesn't have the CON to prevent HP loss, and my decision to make Verity TN and thus ineligible to wield Drizzt's Twinkle +3 didn't help either in making Verity competent at dodging missile attacks.
She did the easy, early quests that we all know by now (excluding Shoal, can't get myself to killing her with non-evil characters), without incident. Worth mentioning may be Verity's luring of Greywolf toward the mine entrance guards. They attacked the bounty hunter and wore him down to circa 20 HPs while Verity was havin a good time dancing in the shadows. She then lured her foe away from the guards and finished him with an arrow.
Verity was lucky that the first two ambushes were Half-Ogres that she simply ran or stealthed away from. A third ambush of bandit archers took place at level 5. She should have used Shadowstep there, but rushed to one line of archers, hoping to leave the other line in the fog of war and to impose Thac0 penalties on the other archers for coming into melee range. She nevertheless sustained her first injury here, from a critical hit.
Verity has already bought a greenstone amulet, the cloak of displacement, and the shadow armor. She also owns Algernon's cloak, gauntlets of weapon expertise, Drizzt's Icingdeath scimitar, a ring of fire resistance, a necklace of missiles, a shield amulet, and boots of stealth. All her skill points have been allocated to MS and HiS. With her boots and armor, her stealth scores at level 6 are 110 MS and 125 HiS (90/95 without boosts). I thought this would ensure succesful hiding at night, but a sirine hunting trip proved otherwise.
I wonder now how good HiPS is. The failure at hiding only happened once. I've read on the forums that 200+ aggregate stealth ensures a probability of 99% of success at hiding at night, suggesting it's possible to roll a "critical miss" on your hiding check (a 1 on a d100). I don't know if this is correct, but I do know that this is worrying for later. As a Mage, Verity will have a clouded aura after having cast a spell; failing a stealth check can then result in trouble.
And what about Verity's leaving stealth and turning visible before the completion of the cooldown period? This occurred a couple of times. Could the probability of this happening be reduced by further improving Verity's stealth scores? I was considering a late dual, at level 13, for the x4 backstab modifier, to be able to play her as a backstab and melee-oriented mage (with Polymorph, Tenser's, had already placed a pip in dual-wielding because rogue rebalancing thieves can put three *** there), but now I'm not as sure anymore. I guess I'll have to find out for myself. This uncertainty is complicating though because for a late dual I think I should also allocate some skill points to detect traps.
At 34k XP, Verity is now close to level 7, and she can still get a lot of XP from 14 Basilisks. Playing with Verity has also resparked my interest in continuing my party run with my Halfling Shadowdancer, so I'll have to decide which run to continue first.
So far nothing super special. Eklun got hit several times but was never in grave danger of dying - until now. For whatever reason he is ambushed a lot by Xvarts on his travels - but these slow moving fools never got him. With level 4/4 reached its time to visit the good old Basilisks. This should be funny - hopefully. Cause after reading about @Grond0´s unlucky death i probably should skip Kirian - for now!
P.S. The Shadow Dancer will be interesting @Blackraven - good luck!
I'd not dual to late personally, but that's just me not liking BS to much in BG2 and the Shadowdancer kit not offering much more than that when you level up.
I'm back at home and will get more progress in on the SoA Great Druid (funny how it's not called Totemic anymore after level 14), my BG1 F/M/C being in Durlag's Level 4 and after that there won't be much more to BG1, except getting the odd item/spell and ofc ending the main quest.
I'm still unsure whether I should continue the F/M/C into SoD, since I don't like having no Harm vs Big B as endless usage of invis potions is not my thing at all.
I now know why the Warden seemed so easy the first run, because I experimented this time and facetanked him with my Druid.
He is broken by LoB the same way Drizzt is, he can only cast spells (which are mostly defensive) but not attack, I assume because before LoB his APR were 5 already.
I uninstalled EET after I had too many crashes, but now my save is somehow bugged and I can't travel via the worldmap.
The way I uninstalled was via setup-eet.exe, do you happen to know how I can fix my savefiles?
Cloakwood itself was basically invisibility=>Run to the mines as it is fairly uninteresting loot-wise and Nissa was already high-level enough. The fight at the entrance of the mines ended up with kiting over and over and over and was fairly easy too. Having roughly -10 AC, and another -10 against missile makes ranged enemies a joke. Just had to try a couple of times, not to get hit by those disablers. And now that Nissa has the boots of speed, probably the single best item in the game, kiting will go even more smoothly.
Invisibility led Nissa through the mines as well, and then Nissa had to face Davaeorn. A difficult fight.
The idea I had was to tank Davaeorn's offensive spells till he ran out. During that time the archers etc... were stuck in the cloudkill/web he pulls off when you reveal yourself. Then I had to try and stick these battle horrors in the middle of the bunch of archer so that they couldn't move and kill me. To do that Nissa went down to the room where there are 3 chests and a mustard jelly, there she turned around and managed to get back through the long and narrow corridor that leads to that room. Here, the archers that followed her blocked the way because they were standing still and shooting at her (once again, never hitting except on a crit). That stopped the Battle Horrors and Davaeorn from coming melee. Then it was just about hitting Davaeorn with my throwing dagger. Well I thought it would be. But at some point when Davaeorn was near death the frontline archers ran out of arrows. I thought "oh crap" and had to use a wand of fire to quickly finish the job and ran to the elevator. Then Nissa drowned all of these soldiers thanks to Davaeorn's key. Blessed be quickloot though, without which I couldn't have gotten that key and the rest of Davaeorn's possessions.
Then she headed for Baldur's Gate, picked the tomes of stats that become available there (dex and int), and headed for the Iron Throne. She tried to fight Zhalimar and his group a couple of times before realising that fighting 10 high level clerics, mages, thieves and warriors would be utterly impossible, then she decided to try and get pass them, and use her unnatural charisma to convince Thaldorn to tell her where the leaders are, which is Candlekeep of course. Once there, Nissa went for the Gatewarden ignoring the 5 ogre magis that were waiting to ambush her. After saying hello to everyone there, she went to the library, headed for the last floor where she was intercepted and imprisoned. Tethtoril TPed her to the catacombs, where she got the last tomes, along with a couple of nice items, namely Cloak of protection +2 and a scroll of protection from magic. Then she walked through the catacombs invisible and quickly reached the cave. There I thought it would be nice to try and sleep, until I killed enough spiders to reach the exp cap. After that I just went through the cave invisible and headed back to Baldur's Gate. Fighting Cythandria was just about driving the golems she summons downstairs, cast invisibility for them to stop following Nissa and then waiting for Cythandria to run out of spells and kill her with a few dozens of well-thrown daggers.
The Undercellar battle is where I am now. This one proved to be tougher than I thought, because Nissa can't dispel Slythe's Invisibility, but she will probably just use stoneskin and mirror image and wait for him to use all of his invisibility potions, and then kite him. At this point my saving throws are very low thanks to the Claw of Kazgaroth so Krysten's only another red circle that occasionally throws fireballs.
But enough BG for now, I grow tired and will make a break. I need all of my patience to deal with Sarevok, because I'll have to bring his skeleton warriors and their 320HP down dealing about 5 damage per hit. They can't retaliate because I am too fast so it will be a trial of patience. At least this particular challenge has taught me a thing: Flee when you can, fight when you must.
Too bad your Cleric/Illusionist seems to be gone @Blackraven - damn it!!!
Kiting rules the game @Arunsun - at least BG1 and to some degree also SoD. With regard to Slythe: Charm several Guards with Nymph Cloak before and the battle is a mild breeze!
Caligula got through the Unseeing Eye quest yesterday. It was really, really easy. I think I have a solid blueprint for a future LoB no reload run (assuming I can make it that far!!!
In Ghoul Town, a scroll of Prot. from Undead meant it was an absolutely trivial area. I decided to kill the lich with save scumming, but, in no reload context, I would just let it be (because, who needs the Gauntlet of dex in a solo run ?). In the pit of the faithless, I used blitzkrieg strat against Gauth and Beholders : buffed up me, my simulacrum and my efreeti made short work of them. Well, the efreeti is starting to lose steam, because his saving throws are not good enough to survive gauth's and beholders' ray, but it at least draw some fire away from me and my simmy.
At this point, I already had my first HLA (whirlwind, obviously), so, against the Unseeing Eye himself, I used the same buff routine for me and my simmy I use all the time : imp. invisibility, mirror images, DuHM, haste from Arbane. All buffs are applied in the same round through save/load. When the Unseeing Eye appeared, I hitted it with the Rift Device and went all out offensively. The Unseeing Eye and its Death Tyrants made short work of the efreeti, and then they concentrated their efforts on my simmy, which actually was very tough. The Unseeing Eye casted PfMW on himself, so I switched to unenchanted bullet with my sling to hurt him. If I would have remembered that detail, I would have given unenchanted bullets to my simmy too, but that proved to be unnecessary, because I managed to kill it some time after my whirlwind was over. After that, I just went invisible and bypassed the last two Death Tyrants.
So, I then just went back in the forgotten temple to destroy the Rift Device and reported back to the Temple of Helm for my reward. Didn't went in to kill Gaal and co., because I don't know why I would do that. Except the save scumming from the lich in the Ghoul Town, everything was done without reload. Nice !!
I then bought the Everard Sling, which apply the strength bonus even to its magically created bullets !! It still does less damage than with enchanted bullets, but those stacks with the bonuses of the sling when needed. With mastery in sling, bullets +2 and 25 strength from DuHM, I can deal 23-26 damage per hit. With whirlwind, that really good damage dealt safely at a long range. Slings are nice...
I have two questions for you guys :
1. Now that I'm picking HLA, how many Hardiness should I pick ? 4, 5 ? @Harpagornis : How many did Su'kka needed ?
2. When I bought the Sling of Everard, I was browsing through Joluv stuff, and the Everard's Morning Star caught my attention... How good can that weapon be in ToB ? With WW, I can imagine stripping a mage of its bigger spells real quick... I wonder if it could be used at the throne against Sendai to prevent her from healing her buddies. Also, related to that weapon, what is Mel resistance to enchanted weapon ?
See ya !!
Once i thought that getting a lot of Hardiness (>6) is essential - its not. GWW is far more important and most battles do not last long enough to take more than four (or five) of it. Maybe even two or three will work as in the longer ToB battles you can (nearly) always port to the Pocket Plane in between.
The only battle where more Hardiness would be great is Melisaan and the Big Five but even here kiting > Hardiness. Once you got the Cloak of Mirroring along with MR Mages are a joke. At least Su´kka had no more troubles against them - which surprised me a bit. But if you wanna test the Morning Star - why not? Maybe it will do some wonders! Mel needs at least +4 weapons and her resistance to physical damage is 90%!
As to Hardiness I totally agree with @Harpagornis you don't need more than 4, and doesn't the Melissan fight automatically let you rest or would you need wish for that? (in between platforms)
Eklun in the meanwhile cleared the Basilisks and - once more - Korax seems the only one who never fails. Even Mutamin got paralyzed with ease so they hacked him down too. The only downsides: His second Scimitar broke on one of the first swings so Eklun had to fight with one weapon only - which reduced the killing speed a bit. He also failed against Kirian even though he charmed Lindin. But both - Korax and Lindin - were unable to damage or paralyze Kirian so both went down pretty fast while Eklun was waiting just out of vision to not run into the infamous Chromatic Orb. Eklun went for the safest option and retreated - for now! Not to forget: Thanks to over 26k XP he jumped up to level 5/6 - great!
@Harpagornis, careful with Eklun, try not to get hit too much
@Arctodus, your handling of the Beholders and Death Tyrants sounds incredible! I find them very scary, and have actually lost a dear no-reload character (a Halfling Swashbuckler) to a Death Tyrant once. I'm surprised you didn't get hit / saved against any of the deadlier rays. Maybe you guys, and others can advise me on the best moment to dual. I've considered the following. (Spoilered because I dislike walls of text.)
Pros:
- first level with x3 backstab modifier,
- only need 250k XP to regain SD levels
- ends up in SoD as a level 10/11 SD/Mage (a single-class Mage also caps at level 11 in SoD)
- still able to reach max level as a mage (31) in BG2, which in my install means extra spells
- HP boost from BG1 Familiar
Cons:
- somewhat incovenient moment (having to finish BG1 with a level 6 Mage and to acquire 200k XP in SoD in order to regain Shadowdancer levels, which will be difficult)
- low HiS/MS skills: 270 aggregate if I don't develop any other thieving skills at all.
- will basically end up as single class Mage, because HiPs will become less important in the course of BG2, and character doesn't have any other thief skills.
The most convenient option. If the Shadowdancer's stealth score is penalized with a mere 1/3 reduction in lit, inside areas, as has been suggested here ,
then an aggregate stealth score of 270, boosted by thieving gear like the mercyiller ring and the boots of stealth, and DUHM if necessary, might just be enough to make HiPS work in most of SoD and SoA.
Level 10 or 11:
Pros:
- gain another Shadowstep ability
- HP boost from BG1/SoD Familiar
Cons:
- go through the entirety of SoD and early SoA as a single class mage
- lose one Mage level eventually
I'm not considering these because they offer little more than a second Shadowstep compared to level 9, timing is inconvenient, and level 12 is quite a bit better.
Level 12:
Pros:
- complete SoD as a Shadowdancer
- HP boost from SoD Familiar if I can dual at the very latest moment (is this possible after Belhifet?)
- copy scrolls for BG2 at the end of the game (if possible after Belhifet?)
- 60 extra skill points compared to a level 9 dual, i.e. better stealth or maybe functional trap detection.
- only lose out on one Mage level (max level 30)
- extra weapon proficiency
Cons:
- requires more than 1 million XP
- one level shy of backstab x4
This, like a level 9 dual, looks pretty good to me. There are ways to gain XP fast in BG2, especially for a Mage (scribing and erasing scrolls), so the only serious downside is not getting the x4 backstab multiplier that level 13 would offer.
Level 13:
Pros (compared to level 12):
- backstab modifier x4
- extra thieving skill points
- slightly better Thac0 for a while
Cons (compared to level 12):
- long downtime
- no HP boost from Familiar in BG1
- no spell scribing in BG1 to facilitate early BG2 (Chateau Irenicus!)
- lose out on another mage level (max 29)
This would obviously make for the most roguey character, in terms of backstabbing and other skills as well. But the price to be paid is considerable.
I think it will have to go between dualing at level 9 or 12 for extra Shadowstep and stealth/thieving ability. This is clearly a very theoretic question, as Verity might well die before she even reaches level 9, but I'd still welcome your input.
My personal opinion is to dual at level 7 so you are a full fledged mage in BG1, but the option with level 9 sounds doable to me, since you don't actually need thief level2 to finish BG1 as wands and invis rule the game.
@Harpagornis
Sarevok has fallen, the battle is won ! (empty chat log because I loaded the final save and instapressed space to take the screenshot, didn't have the reflex before the movie triggered
Sarevok has fallen, and actually this battle was not so terribly long, because you don't have to kill the skeletons to be able to hurt Sarevok, though it was longer than it should have been because my game crashed in the middle of my first attempt, when Sarevok was injured and the rest of his buddies, except for the skeletons, were dead.
So I just had three battles left when I last related Nissa's tale. Nissa managed to deal with Slythe and Krystin separately by baiting the former into following me upstairs in the Blushing Mermaid, then she simply ran around the tables throwing the occasional dagger. It was easy enough with Oil of Speed+Boots of Speed.
As for Krystin, Nissa just summoned a bit of pumped up cannon-fodder to tank her offensive spells and then spammed her with daggers as well, fairly easy in the end.
Then Nissa went to the Ducal Palace for the Coronation. These dopplegangers killed Belt and Liia Jannath twice despite them having a shit ton of Hit Points, but on my third try I managed to drag some of their aggro onto me, and eventually brought them down. Then Sarevok turned hostile and killed Liia, and very nearly killed Belt before Winski Perorate teleported him away. Out of curiosity I quicksaved and control-Qed Belt, he had 21 HP left. Not even close, as they say , given that Sarevok deals about 25 per hit
Belt teleported Nissa to the Thieves Guild, and she went through that labyrinth invisible, tanking the traps. She then passed by that last party of adventurers et could've done the same with Tamoko, but I always enjoy killing Tamoko, so I spent 2 mins doing that, an easy fight thanks to Haste and boots of speed.
Then the last battle began. Nissa killed everyone using my usual kiting technique, got Sarevok down to injured, and my game crashed. Here's a screenshot taken shortly before that happened (or during the second battle, I can't remember actually):
The second try was the right one, and Nissa killed Sarevok and his cronies without any godly intervention that would force me to start over, as shown in the first screenshot.
Let's go to the next step: SoD. But before that I'll make a break. That playthrough was very interesting and quite fun but I feel like too much of it at once will make it too tedious.
More over I have no idea how I will deal with Belhifet, he requires +3 weapons to hit and I don't think there is any ranged returning weapon or unlimited ammos that match the requirement. It'll probably end with wand of frost/lightning spamming or something along those lines, but that's for another playthrough. And I would hate to rush SoD once again, this game has too many secrets I am not yet aware of, and I never made a completionist playthrough of SoD.
In the end I feel like Legacy of Bhaal BG1 is actually not much harder as a solo PC, as you don't have to watch over every single one of your characters. Some fights like the one against Davaeorn or the final Bandit Camp fight would definitely have been much more complicated, or would have ended up with 5 dead mates).
P.S. Here's another screen I took by accident and just found in my Screenshot folder:
If you look closely you will see Davaeorn (the rightmost character on the "second line of enemies", starting bottom, he's using improved invisibility so he's pretty hard to see, but that's where he is) and that was how I got everything stuck and unable to hit me during that fight, which definitely was the one that required the most tactical thinking and mechanics abuse in the entire game.
P.P.S.: Kudos to @chimaera and @Grond0 for succeeding with a Sorcerer, some fights must have taken you years to get through, since the only way to get enough damage in LoB is to use physical attacks, which is something sorcerers are rather bad at
I hate my life atm, my game doesn't work properly anymore because of the uninstalled EET and I have to reinstall the whole blasted game again, ever since SoD came out this is easily the third time and it always takes forever because of SCS and BWS.
You only have two options, in my opinion : 12 or 13. In both case, the down time is gonna be rough, but, although the down time SoA is technically larger, it would actually be easier to bridge, because there's just so much xp around SoA from easy early quests. Plus, the bonus from scribing scrolls is much greater in BG2 than in BG1/SoD. You also get an extra Shadow Step, which in this no reload context, is the most important ability of the shadowdancer.
Level 9 would be rough, because going through the early part of SoD as a gimped mage, seems rougher to me than at the start of SoA. Your HiPS wouldn't be all that great either, because of the lack of skill points. At dual 12/13, you could put enough points in Find Traps to be able to max it with items, which is a major life improvment, and still have a better HiPS.
So, to me, it boils down to having an extra mage HLA (level 12 dual) against a bigger backstab bonus (level 13 dual). Level 12 seems sensible to me, because I'm not sure how much you will NEED to rely on backstabbing. Plus, the extra HP seems a major advantage of this dual.
Charms using cloaks are useful for any character. I've not used charming spells with a sorcerer in LoB, but they could certainly play a big role if you took the appropriate spells. I've used them quite a bit with druids and shamans and even charm persons with +8 on the saving throw (+6 with doom) are worth trying. A sorcerer using domination with malison would have a -1 on the saving throw (and an enchanter could get to -3
I rolled a Totemic for BG1 and will post the progress here.
I will not record the totemics BG1 progress, this way I should be a lot quicker playing thru the game and as mentioned before I will not continue my F/M/C into SoD but just finish BG1 with it.
Once my Druid is in SoD I will also record my progress additional to posting it here.
My Druids name is Droolit, ofc hoping to become a Great Droolit in BG2.
I managed to roll a 95, but since CH is minimum 15 I only got 8 IN with all the important stats maxed, so i will only be able to use scrolls once I get to Ramazith.
After taking down Shoal (good or evil - she's got to go
I didn't want to leave reputation as low as 4 and risk running into Flaming Fist enforcers, so went to the FAI to return Joia's ring. Shagrat also charmed Jaheira there and pulled her outside to be killed in order to get an invisibility potion (I don't normally bother with that one, but want to give this run the best possible chance).
Rather than do my normal selection of work around Beregost, Shagrat pushed on down to Nashkel (using side roads), after buying a potion of genius at the temple. He grabbed the free +2 dagger from Hentold and then decided to see how many kobolds were waiting at Firewine Ruins. He was lucky there, with only a few waiting and none of those commandos. The kobolds killed Bentan so Shagrat could get his scroll of PfM, before Shagrat finished them off and sidled up the edge of the map to find Meilum. Minor animal summons aren't much use against him so Shagrat just kited him. Needing a 17 to hit that took a while, but Shagrat had plenty of ammunition this time and the end result was never in doubt.
Shagrat survived a couple of kobold ambushes on the way to the basilisk area where he raised his intelligence in order to use a scroll of PfP (and also stone to flesh). All the lesser basilisks (except Mutamin's pet) died to him running in to stab with his dagger before retreating for a second or two. The greater basilisk to the south died to sling bullets as it has a more dangerous melee attack, while Mutamin and his pets were victims of the mighty Korax. That took Shagrat to level 6 and so far he's again had amazing HP rolls with 57 HPs to date. The question next is how far to push an assault on Kirian
An attempt to charm Peter failed, which meant Korax was unlikely to do much against Kirian, but I decided to let him try. However, he failed to paralyse anyone in early attacks and well before he died Shagrat was running to the edge of the map. He waited there to see if anyone would follow and it looked like good news when Peter came into sight to be greeted by 2 spirit boars. Unfortunately, a few seconds later Kirian also appeared and she started casting. In principle it would have seemed reasonable to expect she was casting at the spirits as they had already moved out to attack Peter and she would have seen them well before Shagrat. Therefore Shagrat hung around for the spell to cast to see where it was being aimed - and then left the map when an acid arrow came towards him. Everything seemed normal as he appeared in Beregost - as long as you realise that normal for me is the sight of the game over screen
Initially I assumed that was a bug, but regrettably not. Even though Shagrat had been standing right at the edge of the map I had noticed that his icon made a slight stutter as he tried to do the area transition and that delay must have been long enough for the acid arrow to hit him. Unlike poison an area transition does not halt continuing spell damage and, as Kirian is a L17 mage that meant Shagrat had to suffer 6 rounds of acid arrow damage with a LoB average per round of 10 - so even with his superb 57 HPs the odds on survival were slightly against him.
I really must steel myself to minimise risk against Kirian's party (although for once I don't really feel I did anything wrong in that encounter). The problem is it seems like such a waste not to use Korax to start in on them as, if he's lucky with his paralysis, it is possible for him to beat them all. However, it's much safer to use Algernon's cloak to charm Peter, Lindin and Baerin individually and take them away to be dealt with on their own. Kirian is then manageable, even without using up any resources.
I did the kind of quests that are good early Marl, Brun, Samuel, Brage, Melicamp, Young Priestess, Firebead (not in that order).
Once I reached level 5 I felt all powerful, not only do the dogees get pretty strong, you also get a 2nd one.
Stunlocking mages is a joke from this point on, even Bassilus cannot cast a spell if 2 dogees are on him.
I also killed Silke in the same manner, no spell was cast (on both of them doom + insects also worked 1st try but they would have been slaughtered either way).
Perdues short sword was also recovered as was Joias Flamedance ring.
My first set of mirrored eyes potions was from Ulgoths, where I also bought Greenstone, I also was able to afford the dagger of venom.
It is nice to note that a druid can wear Ankheg Plate, with Buckleys buckler that is -5 AC, not shabby for a spellcaster.
Since I acquired the mirror potions from High Hedge I will now move back to the basilisk map, after I dealt with the rogue ogre.
I might try to kill the sirens with my dogees, they also shouldn't be too strong in melee for myself with greenstone as long as they don't get into ranged distance with poison.
Getting to level 10 with a druid is not harder than with others, if not easier (ofc no reload is a different story I died a couple of times when I overestimated myself before level 5).
On level 10 I don't expect much resistance from BG1 due to opness of the dogees.