Yeah, when I'm done with Caligula, I'll go with another pure class fighter. I'm also tempted by a pure cleric (probably of Lathander), because nobody seem to care about them. I think they have great potential.
Yeah it is super strange, since this tactic worked well for me before, too. What annoys me most on every single try there is no save shown. (Sometimes saves don't get displayed, but 6 times in a row?) @Grond0 Until very recently her script prevented nothing before dialogue and it was a common tactic that @Harpagornis invented I believe, that's why I asked if it worked recently maybe something got changed, but another possibility is the monk mod somehow screwing stuff up.
My familiar actually did get HP bonuses in my last install. I think the problem is that one of my mods makes Find Familiar an innate ability, and the same mod might also tweak the familiars so they don't get the normal LoB bonuses.
Otherwise, Find Familiar should be another staple for early BG1 characters, as no other class gets as much HP at level 1 than an LoB mage.
The Death Ball of Nature aka Spirit Wolves + Nymphs + Call Lightning tears the Cloakwood apart. The Spiders have been eradicated with an unnatural easiness. Now i know why you had (or have) so much fun with the Totemic Druid @Victor_Creed_SFV. Looks like it also works with no-reload on board!
Having more trouble with the no-reload aspect using an Abjurer/Thief (which can't cast Necromancy spells, instead of Transmutation spells, in my install). I managed to kill Shoal thanks to Blindness, using my familiar (with the correct HP now, finally) to distract the ogres when they joined the fight, and pickpocketed Algernon for his cloak.
But after that, I'm not sure. Ankhegs are tougher than my Fairy Dragon, charming chickens with Algernon's Cloak doesn't make much difference, and I see a problem: if I fail to hit an enemy with Blindness, how do I come back and try again?
Enemies pursue you if you run, and they have a habit of calling for help. A non-blinded enemy will chase you to the edge of the map, wait for you to come back, and in some cases keep chasing you even if you arrive invisible (and possibly even if you arrive from a different part of the map). In an area with multiple enemies, this could render the place totally unmanageable: you can't sneak up on enemies and tackle them one by one if they're running all the way around the map. Alarming the enemy, fleeing, and coming back to fight again has a habit of getting you flanked.
I've also tried charming the Sirines from the Temple of Lathander and sending them after the local enemies, hoping to soften her up until she's weak enough for my Abjurer/Thief to kill her and get the XP. But the Sirine gets crushed. I've tried charming Sarhedra, too, but she also gets overwhelmed.
@semiticgod I personally always wait for basilisks long enough, till my level progression is slowed enough that quests don't rapidly level me anymore, by then most chars can tank basilisks quite well. But I also always use Korax at least for Mutamin. Ankhegs are pretty vulnerable to blind and I haven't experienced them chasing me when I'm invis, try blind If it doesn't work go far enough away for them to bury, hide and come back later.
Algernon's Cloak may have more uses than we think. Anytime there's a non-hostile character near a hostile character, we can turn the former against the latter with enough tries. It might not be enough to win a fight (it certainly didn't let Sarhedra take down those ogres), but it could make a big difference.
Why not turn Silke against the Beregost spiders? Why not rest in the streets to summon a guard or two, and then charm the guards to turn them against Silke or Nimbul? Maybe Berrun Ghastkill could help take down Nimbul. Maybe Algernon himself could absorb a few of Tranzig's spells, or the Friendly Arm Inn guards could tackle Tarnesh for you. Slythe and Kristin might not be so dangerous if you charm a pair of guards to soak up a couple hundred damage for you.
You can get charmed creatures to follow you through doors if you order them to attack you before entering the next area. As long as there's not an auto-save during the area transition, any charmed creature should be able to follow you. Wouldn't it be possible to sic the Cloakwood Ogre Mage on Davaeorn? Could you drag a Gray Ooze out to fight Mulahey?
If you could charm a basilisk when it was abstracted from its fellows, you could cast Protection from Petrification on it and then set it loose on everything else on the map. You could do the same thing against Prat.
Maybe you could even bring Flaming Fist soldiers from the streets of Baldur's Gate and send them into the Ducal Palace to fight the doppelgangers. If you could get enough of them inside, it might not even matter if you could only keep two of them charmed at a time. They might have the AI to fight the doppelgangers themselves, and even if they didn't, the doppelgangers can't reach Belt and Liia Jannath if they're surrounded by a massive wall of neutral soldiers. The doppelgangers don't have missile attacks, after all.
Plus, a Shadowdancer should be able to use Hide in Plain Sight to nail anyone with the cloak, including hostile critters, and just vanish if the cloak fails on the first try.
You could do the same thing in BG2 with the Nymph Cloak. Wish-resting could even let you do it without needing to rest 8 hours; you could charm a whole roomful of enemies.
EDIT: You can't charm vampires with the cloak, unfortunately. They're only vulnerable to Control Undead.
@semiticgod cloak charming is indeed a powerful tool - and don't forget that there's a nymph cloak available in BG1 as well . If you use Algernon's Cloak from extreme range while invisible it's almost always possible to retreat out of sight before enemies react. Arcane characters thus have pretty much unlimited attempts at charming in addition to their other advantages.
For ankhegs it's possible to safely blind them as follows: - move into sight at extreme range to prompt the ankheg to surface - go invisible (leaving the ankheg on the surface) - cast web on the ankheg from out of sight - attempt to blind when it's held (it won't react if you get out of sight again before it escapes from the web)
Many enemies run around when blinded (so I never blind Shoal for instance as that leads to other enemies getting involved in a fight), but not all of them - so blind can be a source of easy XP. If you do have enemies that are running around then resting is a good way to fix them in place so you can locate them again (as you've noted some enemies have a follow-me script anyway so will come and find you if they're not blinded).
Back at Durlag's Tower, Dorn dodged the battle horrors before going inside. He killed some of the ghasts, but without free action there was more potential for a costly mistake and he left half of them. On the roof, 4 potions of mirror eyes accounted for the basilisks, while a first use of the Greenstone Amulet allowed Dorn to collect the tome there.
Dorn then decided it was time for the Nashkel Mine. Rather than use up resources to make that easier he worked his way down by constantly advancing and retreating in order to deal with the kobolds in ones and twos. That took quite a while and he was hit many, many times by criticals (I lost count of the number of times he took 24 damage from a basic kobold, but it was a lot - almost made me suspicious that they had some source of luck active), but eventually he got into Mulahey's cave. The conversation there kept Mulahey neutral - allowing Dorn to try 7 or 8 times to charm him before eventually succeeding. Mulahey was then worn down by the kobolds in the cave before being finished off by Dorn.
The Shielding and Greenstone Amulets were both used against Nimbul before Dorn went back to Beregost. A charmed traveller, use of stairs and a first use of the Horn of Kazgaroth all featured against Tranzig. After the hard work in the Nashkel Mine I fancied something easier at the Bandit Camp, so Dorn went to buy Sandthief's ring. He got a lift to the Bandit Camp from Raiken and then used the ring to sneak in and out of the main tent. As those 2 ring charges cost several thousand gold he recovered his losses by doing a bit of looting in the camp before charming Taurgosz and taking him away to be worn down by a hobgoblin (before Dorn applied the usual killing stroke after Taurgosz was struck with the desire to indulge in a fist-fight).
With being webbed by giant spiders now a real danger, Dorn went to Ulgoth's Beard and rested to get slow poison before attacking Dushai. At least he tried resting (lots of times) before realising the chapter change hadn't triggered. He had been careful to keep hold of the letters from the tent, but I've noticed before that the change can be slow so its quite possible to leave the tent before it activates. Thus Dorn returned to the Bandit Camp and used another charge of invisibility before going into the tent - and fortunately the chapter change did indeed trigger this time.
Back at Ulgoth's Beard Dushai was charmed quite quickly and beaten up. Even though horror is far less useful in LoB I decided that Dorn should look to get that for his next Bhaal ability - so got caught stealing in Beregost. Next up will be a quick trip through the Cloakwood.
@Grond0: Do you think Algernon's Cloak could bring Flaming Fist soldiers from the street into the Ducal Palace fight?
@semiticgod, yes I expect so - I've done that in the past, though not in this installation. There are quite a few people that could be charmed inside anyway - even the nobles can be helpful when acting as targets.
@Victor_Creed_SFV I think you can always move charmed creature between areas as long as the transition is not a party one. In a few cases it also seems to be possible for party transitions - I'm not sure what the distinction is there. If you want a charmed creature to follow you then just order it to force-attack you before you do the transition.
@semiticgod I have just done a quick test to confirm you can move guards into the palace in my current installation.
@Grond0, nice progress. Glad Dorn has the Sandthief's Ring now, I was going to recommend it to you.
@Victor_Creed_SFV, Grond0 for party transitions you'd have to attack a creature to make it go hostile, try to make it follow you, and then charm it in the new area. I know for example that Kobolds do follow Charname in and out of Mulahey's lair, which is a party area transition. @semiticgod, in my experience usually don't follow Charname into buildings, but as Grond0 said, the Ducal Palace has plenty of charm targets, so you won't really need it.
Enemies pursue you if you run, and they have a habit of calling for help. A non-blinded enemy will chase you to the edge of the map, wait for you to come back, and in some cases keep chasing you even if you arrive invisible (and possibly even if you arrive from a different part of the map). In an area with multiple enemies, this could render the place totally unmanageable: you can't sneak up on enemies and tackle them one by one if they're running all the way around the map. Alarming the enemy, fleeing, and coming back to fight again has a habit of getting you flanked.
The above applies to Siege of Dragonspear. In that game it's pretty much mandatory never to be seen by mobs, because otherwise they'll follow you (in their respective areas) for the rest of the game. So cast Invisibility before entering an area, and scout carefully before you undertake any actions that make you visible such as opening a chest, or addressing or attacking another character. For looting chests in caves, which tend to be replete with enemies, my strategy with Oaen is to enter invisibly, buff (Stoneskin, MI, etc will prevent any casting-disruptions) open chest, and go invisible again. You will be seen though, and enemies will now swarm you. I've found Dimension Door to be the most effective means of escape (Oaen always has one memorized, a bug with aTweaks' scroll scribing doesn't allow him to write it on scrolls, maybe because I have the fast IWD-style casting animation variant of the spell). However in BG1 you should find that enemies behave differently. They may follow Charname around for a bit, even when retreat and go invisible, but after a while they'll just stop somewhere. So you should be able to just go invisible after a failed attempt, get out of the enemy's sight, rest, and try again. I don't use Blindness much though, because Blinded enemies start wandering, inevitably alerting other enemies on the map. I'm more partial to Algernon's cloak, Hold Person, and the wand of paralyzation.
Another tip, if you're interested, is that you can cast Invisibility on your familiar and position it in choke points, from behind which melee enemies can safely be pelted down. You'll find choke points for Greywolf, Meilum, the Ogrillons with Mirianne's letter, the Flesh Golems in Black Alaric's cave (though they can only be hit with magic ammo), and Mulahey for example.
Dorn made his way quickly through the Cloakwood ignoring all enemies - free action ensuring there was no danger of getting webbed by spiders or traps.
Regrettably, on arrival at the mine I obviously was thinking too much about Drasus & co and not concentrating properly on the job in hand. I tried to charm one of the guards on the bridge, but failed. However, as he came out alone I thought Dorn could swap a few blows to see what happened. I didn't expect Dorn to win that combat, but thought he could always retreat. However, I obviously missed a hit at the start of a short, but not sweet contest as Dorn died just before he was going to run away - and the final hit wasn't even a critical .
And Droolit triumphed over her evil unnatural stepbrother Sarevok. Druids having no wand of monster summoning is a severe disadvantage in this fight, so she had to memorise dispel magic in all 5 slots of her level 3 spells, to make sure Sarevok loses his haste. After taking the ususal route of luring the enemies in the southeast corner and going invis, bombarding them with necklace Angeelo showed up for a short time, going invis once darts of stunning (which sadly never suceeded) removed his last stoneskin. This time he was even more dumb then against Evil Aerie the F/M/C, going back into the corner with his buddies, subjecting himself to the rest of the necklace bombardment withot showing any signs of wanting to reengage. After all minions died Droolit tried to solo a skeleton, but it took to long and she got crit quite often (only crits could hit her but idk if the skeletons have an enhanced chance), so first she tried to save on a PfU scroll (she had 4) and lure all skeletons into the nw corner and then go invis. This was sadly a waste of invis potions since they kept wandering, so to ensure the dogees don't get annoyed by skeletons Droolit went PfU (now 3 scrolls left) and lured Sarevok away from the remaining skeletons. Now it was time to go invis again and find a perfect spot to summon. 3 dire wolves and our 2 trusted spirit wolves occupied Sarevok for as long a spossible, which wasn't long, but enough to empty all 5 dispels on him. The strategy was to be hasted (potion) and having drunk a potion of power and run from west to east and back. 2 darts per half rotation and 1 charge of wand of the heavens per full rotation assured the kiting didn't take to long as somehow it never showed a save vs wand for Sarevok and due to his innate fire resistance he took an average of 19 fire damage per wand and 3-4 missile damage per stundart.
Havent there been some more Deaths in the Drasus Area before? The Cemetery is growing once more. Sad story @Grond0!
As i had told @Harpagornis long time ago: Charms rule the world. The Cloak´s are so powerful that i sometimes do not bother to use them anymore. But for no reload on the other hand "nearly anything" should be okay. Beating the whole Series will be hard enough anyway!
Vyz will be facing Drasus soon. May Lightning strike him down!!!
After recent talk of monks I thought I should give the unmodded version a try. While that would only last seconds in a straight-up fight with almost any enemy in BG1, the huge advantage it has over the kensai is the availability of stealth - allowing encounters to be avoided or shaped as desired and pretty safe resting.
Chiron made the usual start by killing Shoal for a couple of levels and calmed down Marl for another. Getting Algernon's Cloak damaged reputation and that sank further with the death of Dushai (even without a weapon he put up enough resistance to make Chiron switch from melee to sling).
A few more tasks around Beregost provided another level. Tasks included giving Zhurlong back his boots, but Chiron was keen to enhance his stealth so Zhurlong didn't have long to enjoy them (killing him costs no reputation). As usual I set Silke against the spiders in order to have her on the point of expiring from poison before killing her for the XP.
I didn't try and restore reputation on the way down to Nashkel - as monks get lay on hands anyway I was happy for Chiron to get LMD as a Bhaal ability. I did want to boost his damage potential though, so the next stop was Firewine Bridge to sneak through to Meilum and charm him (also charming Bentan on the way in order to get his scroll).
Looking for a magical weapon to hold on to, Chiron went to find Greywolf. He got the distinction of being the first successful stun victim (and still the only one by the end of the session despite a good number of attempts ) after being charmed and savaged by a wolf.
Next up were the basilisks. Monks have an attack range of 2, so provided you position carefully you have time to react to basilisks switching to melee. That allowed Chiron to beat up the southern group of basilisks without needing to run in and out against them - and he was rewarded with level 6. The northern basilisks were no more of a problem before Korax joined in the fun to paralyse Mutamin. Peter was charmed and drawn away to be paralysed by Korax, though the latter was severly injured in the process and had to be put down. Baerin, Lindin and Kirian then all fell to some charming tactics.
Chiron didn't do everything in a trip through the Cloud Peaks - in particular he left the reputation tasks for now. However, he did just enough to get up to level 7 - gaining some healing ability with lay on hands. In the EE the monk also gets the advantage of getting warrior APR bonuses, thus giving his sling a significant boost. HPs thus far are excellent at 62 out of a possible 70.
Vyz took revenge for Dorns death and let lightning wrac Havoc upon them!
The battle who wasnt a battle was one more time won by a combination of the Death Ball of Nature and the Cloak of Cheese. First Kysus was charmed so that Drasus could not see Vyz. Then he summoned two Spirit Bears as they can survive some beating and moved them near Drasus (maybe Rezdan is even better!). Three Nymps followed before Vyz turned invisible again. With Drasus, Genthore and Rezdan still neutral the Nymphs started the Lightning casts. Right before they finished them the Bears attacked and Kysus started his Chaos Spell. The Lightning the first time bringing Drasus down to nearly dead while the Chaos affected everyone! The Bears quickly switched to Rezdan who wasnt able to get up his protections and shortly after the next series of lightning hits killed Drasus and Rezdan nearly at the same time. Two rounds, two kills. Not bad. The last remainder aka Genthore had no chance and felt shortly after. Poor Kysus followed him one minute later as he moved around panicked by the Bears!!!
Edith: Did the battle several times now. Targeting Rezdan first will always instakill him. Drasus and Genthore are easy kills then especially cause Hold Person works well against Genthore!
Droolit started SoD and once again charming Korlasz was completely impossible, not due to her saving, but showing no reaction to Algernon's cloak at all. So Droolit instead went to the eastern door invisible and summoned her dogees, going invis via Sandthief ring again to be able to navigate the gogees, positioning them around Korlasz. I wanted to try for a charm a final time which was probably a dumb idea, costing me dps on Korlasz (I could have the dogees let her attack and reveal myself once she is injured). Charm failed again showing neither save nor any indication it even rolled a save, Droolit got revealed and the dogees ordered to attack her. Not many of her followers can actually damage the wolves most of them having only normal weapons, so the dogees could solo her, but she threw in an insect plague for good measure, which almost cost her since she couldn't go invis right away and got heavily damaged, when she was 3 hp away from dying but also almost able to go invis again Korlasz surrendered (the potion still triggered, kind of a waste I guess. )
@Victor_Creed_SFV, congrats man, and pleased to you take on SoD now! @Vynn, fine progress there, careful with Daveorn. His Chromatic Orbs can kill you. @Grond0, RIP Dorn; long live Chiron. Though I worry about his well-being, you masochist..)
@Blackraven I can't really argue about the masochist bit, but a monk is vastly easier to play this challenge with than a kensai. The kensai has more HPs, but even at high level has to be very careful when tackling even things like kobolds. That's also true for the monk of course - but stealth means he virtually never has to tackle things like kobolds .
The Nashkel Mine was very difficult for Dorn the kensai, but Chiron simply stealthed down to Mulahey - just being careful to never have a stealth check when passing kobolds. In the cave the conversation left Mulahey neutral and he was charmed at the 11th attempt and set against the kobolds there.
Chiron took the time to loot the Valley of the Tombs before returning to Nashkel, where a couple of charmed guards soaked up all Nimbul's spells and allowed Chiron to finish him off with run and shoot.
Back in Beregost it was Marl's turn to act as a spell sponge, allowing Chiron to finish off Tranzig with stealth attacks. At the Bandit Camp I was hoping that Chiron would be able to restealth after opening the chest, but he delayed until the lightning trap hit in order to be able to switch boots back and missed the chance to try and hide - costing him a potion of invisibility. This time I made sure the chapter change had triggered before leaving the tent. Outside, Taurgosz was the only charming victim.
After picking up a Bhaal horror, Chiron did a quick round trip collecting all the reputation left lying around previously. With that maximised he did some shopping before going to the Lighthouse. Stealth allowed him to charm the sirines safely, while the golems (that could very easily one-shot him) were filled full of magic bullets. The constitution tome gained there allows Chiron to equip the Claw of Kazgaroth without taking much of a penalty.
He's just sneaked through the Cloakwood to the mine - will he be able to avenge Dorn ...
Very nice progress on the monk Grond0, btw. the AI HiS is really awesome if you wanna rehide quickly (not only for monks ofc but I discovered that while I brought my modded monk to level 4) not when you manually wanna stealth for boot switching ofc. but its awesome when you aggroed an enemy and want to rehide as you hide instantly once the enemy is out of sight and you are not running. Ofc you can't have any other AI option like attack or find traps enabled but I personally only use that on High level chars or DDs The good stealth ability of the monk really made me think about grinding it thru BG1 as well, coupled with his move speed and 4 apr with darts at level 7 he is not a bad char at all but I personally always liked monks for their ability to facetank. The flesh golems are a perfect example for that, any char with a helmet can tank them easily as they only hit crits if your AC is decent, you have the belt and use an absorption potion, the monk can't because crits ruin their day and the BG1 engine is strange not even RR ioun stones protect from crits in my game, while in BG2 Ioun stones still do.
Davaeorn felt and at the end it was easier than expected. Vyz moved invisible through the tunnels until arriving at the area where Davaeorn resided. He charmed the Guard who lured the Battle Horrors away and triggered the traps that could not damage him. He evaded the Stinking Cloud + Web Trigger and waited invisible until all guards had moved in. Very nice: Davaeorn burned his own troops with a Fireball as he tried killing the charmed Guard. This time Vyz used the Necklace of Missiles for the first time and burned down all Guards including the Battle Horrors. Only some missteps forced him to drink several Healing Potions as the Black Talon Elite Archers brought him down to 28 HP. My fault. Quite amusing on the other hand: When killing the last Guard he reached Level 10 for even better Spirits. He quickly summoned two Wolves who alone took down Davaeorn without any problems while soaking all of his spells!
Since I really want to play the Monk mod I also started a SoA game with a monk, skipping BG1 and SoD and cheesing myself to 500k xp and Tome bonuses via SK, but other than that a legit char.
@Blackraven how did you get oversight installed? I really want those HLAs, but they are all shown as invalid + a number in my game.
example for that, any char with a helmet can tank them easily as they only hit crits if your AC is decent, you have the belt and use an absorption potion, the monk can't because crits ruin their day and the BG1 engine is strange not even RR ioun stones protect from crits in my game, while in BG2 Ioun stones still do.
You know, I tought about doing something about that since the nerf to Ioun Stones is devastating for monks. One thing that I think would be fitting is to grant immunity to crits to their "hands". So while a monk has no weapon equipped, he'd be immune to criticals.
Comments
What annoys me most on every single try there is no save shown.
(Sometimes saves don't get displayed, but 6 times in a row?)
@Grond0
Until very recently her script prevented nothing before dialogue and it was a common tactic that @Harpagornis invented I believe, that's why I asked if it worked recently maybe something got changed, but another possibility is the monk mod somehow screwing stuff up.
But you are right: The Saves are not always shown when charming Boss Enemies. For whatever reason!
Otherwise, Find Familiar should be another staple for early BG1 characters, as no other class gets as much HP at level 1 than an LoB mage.
But after that, I'm not sure. Ankhegs are tougher than my Fairy Dragon, charming chickens with Algernon's Cloak doesn't make much difference, and I see a problem: if I fail to hit an enemy with Blindness, how do I come back and try again?
Enemies pursue you if you run, and they have a habit of calling for help. A non-blinded enemy will chase you to the edge of the map, wait for you to come back, and in some cases keep chasing you even if you arrive invisible (and possibly even if you arrive from a different part of the map). In an area with multiple enemies, this could render the place totally unmanageable: you can't sneak up on enemies and tackle them one by one if they're running all the way around the map. Alarming the enemy, fleeing, and coming back to fight again has a habit of getting you flanked.
I've also tried charming the Sirines from the Temple of Lathander and sending them after the local enemies, hoping to soften her up until she's weak enough for my Abjurer/Thief to kill her and get the XP. But the Sirine gets crushed. I've tried charming Sarhedra, too, but she also gets overwhelmed.
I personally always wait for basilisks long enough, till my level progression is slowed enough that quests don't rapidly level me anymore, by then most chars can tank basilisks quite well.
But I also always use Korax at least for Mutamin.
Ankhegs are pretty vulnerable to blind and I haven't experienced them chasing me when I'm invis, try blind If it doesn't work go far enough away for them to bury, hide and come back later.
Why not turn Silke against the Beregost spiders? Why not rest in the streets to summon a guard or two, and then charm the guards to turn them against Silke or Nimbul? Maybe Berrun Ghastkill could help take down Nimbul. Maybe Algernon himself could absorb a few of Tranzig's spells, or the Friendly Arm Inn guards could tackle Tarnesh for you. Slythe and Kristin might not be so dangerous if you charm a pair of guards to soak up a couple hundred damage for you.
You can get charmed creatures to follow you through doors if you order them to attack you before entering the next area. As long as there's not an auto-save during the area transition, any charmed creature should be able to follow you. Wouldn't it be possible to sic the Cloakwood Ogre Mage on Davaeorn? Could you drag a Gray Ooze out to fight Mulahey?
If you could charm a basilisk when it was abstracted from its fellows, you could cast Protection from Petrification on it and then set it loose on everything else on the map. You could do the same thing against Prat.
Maybe you could even bring Flaming Fist soldiers from the streets of Baldur's Gate and send them into the Ducal Palace to fight the doppelgangers. If you could get enough of them inside, it might not even matter if you could only keep two of them charmed at a time. They might have the AI to fight the doppelgangers themselves, and even if they didn't, the doppelgangers can't reach Belt and Liia Jannath if they're surrounded by a massive wall of neutral soldiers. The doppelgangers don't have missile attacks, after all.
Plus, a Shadowdancer should be able to use Hide in Plain Sight to nail anyone with the cloak, including hostile critters, and just vanish if the cloak fails on the first try.
You could do the same thing in BG2 with the Nymph Cloak. Wish-resting could even let you do it without needing to rest 8 hours; you could charm a whole roomful of enemies.
EDIT: You can't charm vampires with the cloak, unfortunately. They're only vulnerable to Control Undead.
For ankhegs it's possible to safely blind them as follows:
- move into sight at extreme range to prompt the ankheg to surface
- go invisible (leaving the ankheg on the surface)
- cast web on the ankheg from out of sight
- attempt to blind when it's held (it won't react if you get out of sight again before it escapes from the web)
Many enemies run around when blinded (so I never blind Shoal for instance as that leads to other enemies getting involved in a fight), but not all of them - so blind can be a source of easy XP. If you do have enemies that are running around then resting is a good way to fix them in place so you can locate them again (as you've noted some enemies have a follow-me script anyway so will come and find you if they're not blinded).
Dorn then decided it was time for the Nashkel Mine. Rather than use up resources to make that easier he worked his way down by constantly advancing and retreating in order to deal with the kobolds in ones and twos. That took quite a while and he was hit many, many times by criticals (I lost count of the number of times he took 24 damage from a basic kobold, but it was a lot - almost made me suspicious that they had some source of luck active), but eventually he got into Mulahey's cave. The conversation there kept Mulahey neutral - allowing Dorn to try 7 or 8 times to charm him before eventually succeeding. Mulahey was then worn down by the kobolds in the cave before being finished off by Dorn.
The Shielding and Greenstone Amulets were both used against Nimbul before Dorn went back to Beregost. A charmed traveller, use of stairs and a first use of the Horn of Kazgaroth all featured against Tranzig. After the hard work in the Nashkel Mine I fancied something easier at the Bandit Camp, so Dorn went to buy Sandthief's ring. He got a lift to the Bandit Camp from Raiken and then used the ring to sneak in and out of the main tent. As those 2 ring charges cost several thousand gold he recovered his losses by doing a bit of looting in the camp before charming Taurgosz and taking him away to be worn down by a hobgoblin (before Dorn applied the usual killing stroke after Taurgosz was struck with the desire to indulge in a fist-fight).
With being webbed by giant spiders now a real danger, Dorn went to Ulgoth's Beard and rested to get slow poison before attacking Dushai. At least he tried resting (lots of times) before realising the chapter change hadn't triggered. He had been careful to keep hold of the letters from the tent, but I've noticed before that the change can be slow so its quite possible to leave the tent before it activates. Thus Dorn returned to the Bandit Camp and used another charge of invisibility before going into the tent - and fortunately the chapter change did indeed trigger this time.
Back at Ulgoth's Beard Dushai was charmed quite quickly and beaten up. Even though horror is far less useful in LoB I decided that Dorn should look to get that for his next Bhaal ability - so got caught stealing in Beregost. Next up will be a quick trip through the Cloakwood.
@semiticgod I have just done a quick test to confirm you can move guards into the palace in my current installation.
@Victor_Creed_SFV, Grond0 for party transitions you'd have to attack a creature to make it go hostile, try to make it follow you, and then charm it in the new area. I know for example that Kobolds do follow Charname in and out of Mulahey's lair, which is a party area transition.
@semiticgod, in my experience usually don't follow Charname into buildings, but as Grond0 said, the Ducal Palace has plenty of charm targets, so you won't really need it.
As for Blindness and Invisibility: The above applies to Siege of Dragonspear. In that game it's pretty much mandatory never to be seen by mobs, because otherwise they'll follow you (in their respective areas) for the rest of the game. So cast Invisibility before entering an area, and scout carefully before you undertake any actions that make you visible such as opening a chest, or addressing or attacking another character. For looting chests in caves, which tend to be replete with enemies, my strategy with Oaen is to enter invisibly, buff (Stoneskin, MI, etc will prevent any casting-disruptions) open chest, and go invisible again. You will be seen though, and enemies will now swarm you. I've found Dimension Door to be the most effective means of escape (Oaen always has one memorized, a bug with aTweaks' scroll scribing doesn't allow him to write it on scrolls, maybe because I have the fast IWD-style casting animation variant of the spell).
However in BG1 you should find that enemies behave differently. They may follow Charname around for a bit, even when retreat and go invisible, but after a while they'll just stop somewhere. So you should be able to just go invisible after a failed attempt, get out of the enemy's sight, rest, and try again.
I don't use Blindness much though, because Blinded enemies start wandering, inevitably alerting other enemies on the map. I'm more partial to Algernon's cloak, Hold Person, and the wand of paralyzation.
Another tip, if you're interested, is that you can cast Invisibility on your familiar and position it in choke points, from behind which melee enemies can safely be pelted down. You'll find choke points for Greywolf, Meilum, the Ogrillons with Mirianne's letter, the Flesh Golems in Black Alaric's cave (though they can only be hit with magic ammo), and Mulahey for example.
Regrettably, on arrival at the mine I obviously was thinking too much about Drasus & co and not concentrating properly on the job in hand. I tried to charm one of the guards on the bridge, but failed. However, as he came out alone I thought Dorn could swap a few blows to see what happened. I didn't expect Dorn to win that combat, but thought he could always retreat. However, I obviously missed a hit at the start of a short, but not sweet contest as Dorn died just before he was going to run away - and the final hit wasn't even a critical
Those guards are utterly op on LoB.
Druids having no wand of monster summoning is a severe disadvantage in this fight, so she had to memorise dispel magic in all 5 slots of her level 3 spells, to make sure Sarevok loses his haste.
After taking the ususal route of luring the enemies in the southeast corner and going invis, bombarding them with necklace Angeelo showed up for a short time, going invis once darts of stunning (which sadly never suceeded) removed his last stoneskin.
This time he was even more dumb then against Evil Aerie the F/M/C, going back into the corner with his buddies, subjecting himself to the rest of the necklace bombardment withot showing any signs of wanting to reengage.
After all minions died Droolit tried to solo a skeleton, but it took to long and she got crit quite often (only crits could hit her but idk if the skeletons have an enhanced chance), so first she tried to save on a PfU scroll (she had 4) and lure all skeletons into the nw corner and then go invis.
This was sadly a waste of invis potions since they kept wandering, so to ensure the dogees don't get annoyed by skeletons Droolit went PfU (now 3 scrolls left) and lured Sarevok away from the remaining skeletons.
Now it was time to go invis again and find a perfect spot to summon.
3 dire wolves and our 2 trusted spirit wolves occupied Sarevok for as long a spossible, which wasn't long, but enough to empty all 5 dispels on him.
The strategy was to be hasted (potion) and having drunk a potion of power and run from west to east and back. 2 darts per half rotation and 1 charge of wand of the heavens per full rotation assured the kiting didn't take to long as somehow it never showed a save vs wand for Sarevok and due to his innate fire resistance he took an average of 19 fire damage per wand and 3-4 missile damage per stundart.
As i had told @Harpagornis long time ago: Charms rule the world. The Cloak´s are so powerful that i sometimes do not bother to use them anymore. But for no reload on the other hand "nearly anything" should be okay. Beating the whole Series will be hard enough anyway!
Vyz will be facing Drasus soon. May Lightning strike him down!!!
Chiron made the usual start by killing Shoal for a couple of levels and calmed down Marl for another. Getting Algernon's Cloak damaged reputation and that sank further with the death of Dushai (even without a weapon he put up enough resistance to make Chiron switch from melee to sling).
A few more tasks around Beregost provided another level. Tasks included giving Zhurlong back his boots, but Chiron was keen to enhance his stealth so Zhurlong didn't have long to enjoy them (killing him costs no reputation). As usual I set Silke against the spiders in order to have her on the point of expiring from poison before killing her for the XP.
I didn't try and restore reputation on the way down to Nashkel - as monks get lay on hands anyway I was happy for Chiron to get LMD as a Bhaal ability. I did want to boost his damage potential though, so the next stop was Firewine Bridge to sneak through to Meilum and charm him (also charming Bentan on the way in order to get his scroll).
Looking for a magical weapon to hold on to, Chiron went to find Greywolf. He got the distinction of being the first successful stun victim (and still the only one by the end of the session despite a good number of attempts
Next up were the basilisks. Monks have an attack range of 2, so provided you position carefully you have time to react to basilisks switching to melee. That allowed Chiron to beat up the southern group of basilisks without needing to run in and out against them - and he was rewarded with level 6. The northern basilisks were no more of a problem before Korax joined in the fun to paralyse Mutamin. Peter was charmed and drawn away to be paralysed by Korax, though the latter was severly injured in the process and had to be put down. Baerin, Lindin and Kirian then all fell to some charming tactics.
Chiron didn't do everything in a trip through the Cloud Peaks - in particular he left the reputation tasks for now. However, he did just enough to get up to level 7 - gaining some healing ability with lay on hands. In the EE the monk also gets the advantage of getting warrior APR bonuses, thus giving his sling a significant boost. HPs thus far are excellent at 62 out of a possible 70.
The battle who wasnt a battle was one more time won by a combination of the Death Ball of Nature and the Cloak of Cheese. First Kysus was charmed so that Drasus could not see Vyz. Then he summoned two Spirit Bears as they can survive some beating and moved them near Drasus (maybe Rezdan is even better!). Three Nymps followed before Vyz turned invisible again. With Drasus, Genthore and Rezdan still neutral the Nymphs started the Lightning casts. Right before they finished them the Bears attacked and Kysus started his Chaos Spell. The Lightning the first time bringing Drasus down to nearly dead while the Chaos affected everyone! The Bears quickly switched to Rezdan who wasnt able to get up his protections and shortly after the next series of lightning hits killed Drasus and Rezdan nearly at the same time. Two rounds, two kills. Not bad. The last remainder aka Genthore had no chance and felt shortly after. Poor Kysus followed him one minute later as he moved around panicked by the Bears!!!
Edith: Did the battle several times now. Targeting Rezdan first will always instakill him. Drasus and Genthore are easy kills then especially cause Hold Person works well against Genthore!
So Droolit instead went to the eastern door invisible and summoned her dogees, going invis via Sandthief ring again to be able to navigate the gogees, positioning them around Korlasz.
I wanted to try for a charm a final time which was probably a dumb idea, costing me dps on Korlasz (I could have the dogees let her attack and reveal myself once she is injured).
Charm failed again showing neither save nor any indication it even rolled a save, Droolit got revealed and the dogees ordered to attack her.
Not many of her followers can actually damage the wolves most of them having only normal weapons, so the dogees could solo her, but she threw in an insect plague for good measure, which almost cost her since she couldn't go invis right away and got heavily damaged, when she was 3 hp away from dying but also almost able to go invis again Korlasz surrendered (the potion still triggered, kind of a waste I guess.
@Vynn, fine progress there, careful with Daveorn. His Chromatic Orbs can kill you.
@Grond0, RIP Dorn; long live Chiron. Though I worry about his well-being, you masochist..)
Chiron took the time to loot the Valley of the Tombs before returning to Nashkel, where a couple of charmed guards soaked up all Nimbul's spells and allowed Chiron to finish him off with run and shoot.
Back in Beregost it was Marl's turn to act as a spell sponge, allowing Chiron to finish off Tranzig with stealth attacks. At the Bandit Camp I was hoping that Chiron would be able to restealth after opening the chest, but he delayed until the lightning trap hit in order to be able to switch boots back and missed the chance to try and hide - costing him a potion of invisibility. This time I made sure the chapter change had triggered before leaving the tent. Outside, Taurgosz was the only charming victim.
After picking up a Bhaal horror, Chiron did a quick round trip collecting all the reputation left lying around previously. With that maximised he did some shopping before going to the Lighthouse. Stealth allowed him to charm the sirines safely, while the golems (that could very easily one-shot him) were filled full of magic bullets. The constitution tome gained there allows Chiron to equip the Claw of Kazgaroth without taking much of a penalty.
He's just sneaked through the Cloakwood to the mine - will he be able to avenge Dorn ...
Ofc you can't have any other AI option like attack or find traps enabled but I personally only use that on High level chars or DDs
The good stealth ability of the monk really made me think about grinding it thru BG1 as well, coupled with his move speed and 4 apr with darts at level 7 he is not a bad char at all but I personally always liked monks for their ability to facetank.
The flesh golems are a perfect example for that, any char with a helmet can tank them easily as they only hit crits if your AC is decent, you have the belt and use an absorption potion, the monk can't because crits ruin their day and the BG1 engine is strange not even RR ioun stones protect from crits in my game, while in BG2 Ioun stones still do.
Baldurs Gate isnt far anymore!!!
@Blackraven how did you get oversight installed?
I really want those HLAs, but they are all shown as invalid + a number in my game.