Ramazith was charmed, but refused to leave the ground floor of his tower. Rather than bring something in to tackle him, Chiron just zipped in and out of the door with stealth attacks.
Chiron's range of cloaks were expanded with Balduran's and the Nymph, but he got rid of Displacement to make a bit of room. He also picked up a Necklace of Missiles from Nadine and did some more stair hopping to get another from Delorna.
He sneaked into the Iron Throne and was actually ready to return to Candlekeep. However, as he hadn't fought the Iron Throne gang, I felt he had a moral duty to clear up the Seven Suns. That seemed to be going well enough as Chiron was doing plenty of damage while stealthing round the pillars. However, I never learn and once more was trying to both play the game and concentrate on a conversation with my son. As Harpagornis has just been noting, it's a dangerous business getting hit if you don't have a helmet and a critical for 60 damage was slightly too much for him ...
@Grond0 I'll second @Blackraven in advising you to pick a slightly stouter class for your next run and, maybe, juuust maybe, it's all speculation and friendly suggestion fellow runner, that you might, if the circumstances ever occur, allow yourself to use a healing potion ?
Falling back to Fighter/Cleric would be nice @Grond0 - cant get much sturdier!
Myself is not following his own advice and so i started Braxx V. - another Dwarven Swashbuckler!
No deadly ambushes until now so he just reached level 6 with the Basilisks still to go. After many easy-to-do-quests he is doing pretty fine and already aquired some essential objectives: Algernons Cloak, Ring of Free Action, Greenstone Amulet, Displacer Cloak, Light Crossbow of Speed, Shadow Armor, Drizzts Scimitars, Dales Protector, Ring of Fire Resistance and the anti piercing + blunting belt. Meilum should follow soon. As long as Braxx does not run into another ambush things should be pretty easy thanks to stealth. Some Invisibility Potions and/or Sandthief Ring will hopefully do the job - in case of emergency!
Braxx also makes som fun charming named ones and moving them into enemy armies. For instance: While Silke died to the spiders, big bad Bassilus was killed by the Hobgoblins bandits west of him. Always funny!
EDIT: Okay, Meilum is dead. Fighting some poisoning Kobolds brought him down to nearly dead - five bolts later he was history!
EDIT2: The Basiliks went pretty smoothly - until Mutamin. Korax failed to paralyze the Gnome and soaked up Acid Arrows, Magic Missiles and even a Half-Ogre summon. He was already nearly dead until he managed to stun Mutamin and the Half-Ogre long enough so that Braxx - dual wielding Scimitars and hasted up - could hack them down both. However: After some sweat level 7 reached! Maybe next time i should just charm Mutamin and watch how he transforms into another statue!
OK - as always I'm taking the advice of my fellow Forumites - obviously not to use healing potions, but to try something more sturdy . I think I only had one go with Frew the fighter/cleric before (as that just seemed too easy), but have resorted to that again (though he's been re-rolled with flail proficiency for some strange reason ).
He had a poor start in Candlekeep when he was firing his sling at a nobleman in the inn upstairs (to wear him down prior to making him unconscious with fists, so Frew could steal from a chest without attracting notice), but a big critical with his final shot proved a killer. Ignoring the reputation loss Frew cleaned up all the tasks before going to collect a rather bigger reward from Shoal.
Doom and hold person proved effective against the gnolls in High Hedge before Algernon met his usual fate. Heading north, the magical flail from the fishermen was a nice bonus on the way to kill Dushai. Frew's reputation of 3 wouldn't make him terribly welcome in Nashkel, but using sanctuary to rob an ankheg's nest, returning Joia's ring and finding a book for Firebead made him seem a bit more respectable when he went to retrieve the ankheg armor.
After charming Meilum to get his bracers, Frew cleaned up his inventory by giving Perdue back his sword. He then charmed Perdue and used him as a distraction to doom and hold Karlat - Frew dual wielded his flail with fists to ensure Karlat didn't recover.
The basilisks met with Frew's flail - but didn't enjoy the experience. Frew then made a first use of skeletons as he charmed and pulled away Kirian's comrades to be chopped without the need to set them against enemies. Kirian was silenced, doomed, chanted and held.
Wave 1 went great. Oaen pre-cast several Webs and Spider Spawns, and asked the archers to back him up. Many of the trolls and ogres were held by the Webs at the beginning of the battle. Oaen kept casting webs and malisons, and he summoned more spiders when his first minions were unsummoned. Inbetween castings he contributed with bolts of fire. All the archers held the line until they ran out of ammo, and switched to melee weapons. Some of them got held but they all survived. A screenshot from the latest stages of the battle.
Wave 2 didn't start out as well because waiting for the last Webs from battle 1 to expire, so that the game could be saved, led to Oaen reaching Dosia too late to get his spells refreshed. Thankfully he had lots of scrolls, including several Greater Malison, Web, and Spider Spawn scrolls. He had the coldhearth undead thralls soak up the crusader mage's spells, and had the spiders poison the odd enemy. Oaen shot many arrows of dispelling at buffed enemy mages, to make sure there would always be some mages trapped in his webs. The spiders weren't as effective in this battle because of the enemy's disablers and damage spells. Oaen removed fear twice, but could do little against confusion spells. Still, the battle dragged on long enough for the mages to run out of spells. Oaen kept summoning monsters with his wand and they helped him prevail.
For Wave 3 Oaen did get his spells refreshed by Dosia. He called on the war mages to help him out against the priests and paladins. He opened with a Malison to increase the effectiveness of his spells and those of his helpers. He cast more Webs and summoned more Spiders, and he was particularly successful with Chaos, a spell he cast at least three times (doesn't last that long). Almost all foes were affected by it. One hasted, confused Dwarven warrior rushed past Oaen. In hindsight I think this was no problem, the coalition members near the bonfire would have probably known what to do with him. My mistake was to have Oaen follow the Dwarf. The messenger saw Oaen, and shouted that this battle was lost.
Once the messenger says that, the next wave is automatically triggered. Thus the last wave of crusader attackers arrived while Oaen and the war mages were still busy with the third wave. It's a bit sad that an engine limitation - incapability of distinguishing between a scenario where Charname is truly overrun by the enemy and one where the battle can stil go both ways and Charname is merely taking care of one stray, relatively harmless foe - led to Oaen's downfall. He actually managed to paralyze the Dwarf with his wand of paralyzation,
and the coalition members at the bonfire finished him, so there was really nothing to be worried about. Anyway crusader reinforcements arrived, whereas coalition reinforcements, which would have included some unkillable allies, did not. Now Oaen and the mages were overrun. Oaen's ound himself on the receiving end of a lot of aggro in a short time. His buffs got dispelled, and he sustained quite a bit of damage. Due to an unclear aura (resulting from a Chaos that he had cast right before his buffs got dispelled), all he could do against an enemy mage's wand of paralyzation was hope for a good save roll. Sadly, the roll wasn't good enough.
My lesson for you all: never retreat in the middle of any of the first three coalition camp battles, no matter the circumstances! I don't think there's a timer in any of the battles for the arrival of the next wave. As long as you can hold the enemy you're good. Summons are essential though. Without them enemies are more likely to slip past you, toward the bonfire, where you can only hope that the coalition allies know how to deal with them.
Edit: Good luck @Grondo, nice to see you follow the advice of your caring forum friends.
Too bad @Blackraven seeing Oaen getting overwhelmed. This happened to me several times before mostly when some Trolls went on killing mission running just by to the barrels. Your strategy looked pretty solid - damn it. Without the unkillable allies the last wave is a huge pain as you have to kill all named ones first to stop the neverending waves of incoming Crusaders. Damn again!!!
SoD enemies really don't pull any punches. Condolences, @Blackraven.
There's so much I don't know about SoD... I've only played through it twice. Under what circumstances exactly does that messenger appear? How do you prevent him from showing up?
SoD enemies really don't pull any punches. Condolences, @Blackraven.
There's so much I don't know about SoD... I've only played through it twice. Under what circumstances exactly does that messenger appear? How do you prevent him from showing up?
Thanks @semiticgod. The messenger doesn't appear, he's always there during the battles, waiting at a point roughly between the spawning point of the enemy and the bonfire. In the screenshot of the map below you can see the spawning points indicated with the red dots.
The left dot is where the first wave spawns, the middle dot is a bit below the spawning point of the second wave, and the dot on the right is at the spawning point of the third wave of attackers. I've marked the position of the messenger the locations where the messanger will see you with 1 for the first battle, 2 for the second battle, and 3 for the third battle.
Once he sees Charname (or a party member, I assume), he'll say the current battle is lost, and the game automatically adds the next wave of attackers without giving you the opportunity to heal/rejuvenate with Dosia, or ask support from one of the troops (archers, mages, assassins etc). Therefore it's essential not to retreat or go after a single enemy that happens to pass by, as was the case with Oean.
@Harpagornis, thank you too. I think my strategy was indeed fine. Am not saying Oaen would have made it if he had just let the confused Dwarf go, but there was no reason to expect failure either at that point. After having played the crusader attacks, I'm even more amazed at your no-reloading a Fighter/Thief through this encounter. Oaen's webs and spiders were key to his success in the first two battles. The item summons (ankhegs, shrooms, mephits) seem much weaker in comparison. Chapeau, I repeat!
Deciding it was time to crack on with the main quest, Frew went to the Nashkel Mine. Sanctuary allowed him to bypass everything on the way to Mulahey's cave. His charisma wasn't up to convincing Mulahey to stay neutral, but that wasn't a problem when Mulahey found himself struck dumb.
The same fate befell both Nimbul and Tranzig, before Frew got a lift to the Bandit Camp with Raiken. Sanctuary allowed him to fully loot the main tent before charming Taurgosz to get an armor upgrade.
With Bhaal horror gained (not really required since he can use a wand of fear, but slow poison isn't really required either), Frew did the round of reputation quests. There were no problems with those, other than having to charm Brage who had gone hostile after seeing his cousin silenced and killed by skeletons. Even with reputation up at 19 though, Frew's charisma of 11 (including cloak), was insufficient to get a good word in from Drienne, but Officer Vai supplied the final point to open up some shopping opportunities.
At the Lighthouse, skeletons acted as meat(less) shields even when feeble-minded to allow Frew to kill the sirines. They weren't quite up to dealing with the golems though, so Frew used his sling to finish those off.
At Durlag's Tower, moving the skeletons round and using buffs made them just tough enough to deal with the battle horrors. With the help of a few ghasts inside that got Frew his last clerical level and more skeleton shenanigans to finish off the remaining ghasts and the basilisks on the roof matched that with his last fighter level.
In the Cloakwood the only thing intended was to get the potion of invulnerability from Laskal. However, a mis-click meant Frew hastily disappearing into sanctuary before the heavens opened on his head. I haven't fought Laskal often, so was surprised when a few skeletons laying into him resulted in Frew's reputation halving - oh well, easy come, easy go.
Dont forget that my F/T used some more "cheese" regarding the Crusader Waves @Blackraven!
- Using Fire Protection Scrolls on vital allies to reduce Arrow of Detonation Damage - Trap stacking to soften the Trolls and Ogres quite a bit - Charming Coalition Troops before the first Wave triggers (not really needed imo)
The rest was business as usual: 4 APR Arrows of Detonation for AoE damage, Arrows of Dispelling against the Mages and some summons in between. No need for Web and Co. even though they would make things even easier!
At the Cloakwood Mine Genthore and the mages were charmed and pulled away into a skeleton trap - which then descended on Drasus along with a couple of summons created by the mages before they died. In the Mine Frew used sanctuary to get down to the bottom level and charmed the guard there. The battle horrors were pulled back to be killed by skeletons before Frew silenced Davaeorn and used sanctuary to sight him for attack by the others.
In the City Frew did a couple of reputation quests I don't normally bother with in order to push that back up to 20. Gathering equipment all went smoothly and I resisted the temptation to take on the fight at the Iron Throne. A potion of magic blocking ensured Frew survived the greeting party at Candlekeep. He looted the tombs using a potion of cloud giant strength topped up by DUHM before sneaking past the dopplegangers and Prat (though he did bring out some skeletons for the basilisks).
Back in Baldur's Gate I remembered Frew hadn't yet got the Necklace of Missiles from Delorna. Skeletons soon changed that and Frew went to put a full charge on all 3 necklaces. After coming back, a group of skeletons killed Slythe and drained Krystin of most of her spells before Frew finished her off. At the Palace he charmed a number of the guards and summoned some more help before starting the conflict. I had hoped to use skeleton warriors to chase the doppleganger mage around and keep it occupied, but it persistently targeted Frew with MMMs and dispels and he had to quickly take a magic blocking potion at one point to prevent a minor sequencer double acid arrow from killing him. However, eventually the numbers told and the last of the dopplegangers went down. Sarevok killed Liia, but Belt was safely out of sight. I would have liked to recharge Liia's invisibility ring, but accidentally sold it to Black Lily and her demand for 28,000 gold put it beyond Frew's price range .
After beating his way through the maze, Frew bypassed the Undercity party and went on to the temple. After resting and going inside though he found 3 skeleton warriors suddenly deciding to join him. After dealing with those he rested again and activated Sarevok. As usual, Sarevok and others except Angelo were dumped in a corner. Skeletons were then able to deal with Angelo, though I realised while Frew was shooting down the skeleton warrior that replaced Angelo that he was short on sling ammunition. As it was too late to do anything about that Frew continued with a fireball bombardment, but added a scroll of PfU to avoid being distracted by skeleton warriors. When the others were dead Frew used potions of mind focusing, speed, heroism and storm giant strength to get best value from his ammunition, while doing a bit of bonus damage with wand magic missiles. Fortunately, in the SCS installation Sarevok does not have missile resistance, so shots were doing a lot of damage. Frew still had nearly 50 bullets left when Sarevok fell.
Now, what are the odds I can actually get out of the dungeon this time ...
Oh - my - goodness! So much sloppy play - its unbelievable that Braxx is still alive!
In the Nashkel Mines Braxx got caught as he tried to disarm traps so a whole bunch of bobolds started hunting him. Once back in stealth he realized that the path to the lower parts was blocked. With other words: He had to alarm the Kobolds one more time luring the away from the bridge - which costed him one invisibility charge. Mulahey himself was easy thanks to the ususal charming and self suiciding at the northern kobolds. Braxx grabbed all loot and sneaked out - this time unseen!
Meeting Tranzig in Beregost was another shocker. Braxx charmed the Noble on the fist floor to soak up some spells from the Mage. He died to the first incoming Chromatic Orb so Braxx put on Shield Amulet and Greenstone Amulet to counter his spells. What i have totally missed: Tranzig can cast two Chromatic Orbs! How could i have forgotten that one? "Damn it" was my first thought when i saw the Orb right before impact. Drinking a Potion was too late. A moment later the relieve: Braxx rolled his save and kited Tranzig down with ease. This could have been another end of the story!
In the Bandit Camp Braxx slipped into the tent grabbing the chest loot and talking to the prisoner. As i couldnt put all the loot into the backpack at once he had to click one more time onto the chest - and this was the half second that gave Venkt the chance to throw a Horror at Braxx. Right after he turned invisible the spell landed and he missed his save - running around in panick. Thanks to the good gods that Venkt could not dispel his Invisibility otherwise Braxx would have met his doom!
Holy cow! I am playing as bad as never before! Maybe the Lord of Murder is unpleased for an unknown reason. Or maybe i take the challenge a little bit too easy. Maybe!
EDIT: The chaos continued when meeting Drasus. Killing him should have been easy thanks to the entrance guards but for some reason he went hostile in the middle of the battle so Braxx had to burn and shoot him down out of stealth while the last guard was constantly searching for him. If this wasnt funny enough Braxx charmed Kysus and tried to kill Genthore and Rezdan with his summons and some more spells. Some moments later everyone was panicked or confused running around like crazy with no one going down. Braxx watched this chaos from stealth not really believing what theathre of idiocy he had created. At the end everyone went down - somehow, somewhere. Braxx grabbed the loot shaking his head one more time...
And the answer to that question is - not good, not good at all.
Initially I tried wearing down the mercenaries outside Porios' door with skeletons. In principle, if resting is possible, that could be done with minimal risk. I did successfully rest a couple of times and had killed about half the opposition when I tried resting again - and again - and again - and again - and again. Getting the space for that last attempt was pretty difficult as all the enemies try and crowd round you whether invisible or not. However, the AI tries to avoid getting too close, so if enemies don't crowd the space available too much it is still possible to move.
Once the number of enemies gets too great though the AI essentially gets locked into position, so finally Frew found himself stuck with little or no prospect of being able to move again.
I hoped that killing Porios would cause the others to surrender, so used potions to up damage and sling shots to kill him in between taking potions of invisibility. However, him being dead made no apparent difference. More buffs followed, including PfU, in a vain attempt to do more damage, but the end wasn't long in coming.
I vaguely remember someone suggesting that I could just sneak into Porios' room and take the mercenaries there on. I don't really approve of trying out tactics outside of no-reload runs, but did have a quick look at trying that with the autosave. The enemies outside the room are blocking it, but they can be distracted away and the room entered using sanctuary. However, the group inside are too tough even by themselves for Frew to have any realistic chance of success if Porios refuses to surrender.
Killing him using multiple invisibilities would be one option (without resting, so that his key could be grabbed to get into the next area) - it would be nice though not to be using so many resources early on. Charming multiple enemies would be another possible way forward, but I suspect there would also need to be quite intensive use of invisibility to give that a decent chance if no resting is risked.
Noooo @Grond0! Overwhelmed by Korlasz troops? This cannot be!!!
The easiest way for you would have been:
1. Summon a Skeleton that soaks all engagement of the troops in front of the door 2. Go invisible and open the door to Porios while the Skeleton gets attacked 3. Talk to Porios and convince him to surrender (no skill-check required) 4. Move on to the lower catacombs and Korlasz
Died again, this time to an Ogre Mage ambush. One Sleep spell and I'm gone. It's not like Spell Revisions, where a single hit can wake you up.
This is very frustrating. Is there any way of preventing that at all? I was running a Cleric/Mage this time and I'd have needed 40,000 XP to hit level 5 and become immune to Sleep. Going invisible wasn't an option because Sanctuary took too long (casting time 4), I didn't have the Invisibility mage spell (85% scribing chance anyway), and I didn't have a Potion of Invisibility, either.
1. Marl grants 300 XP. 2. Shoal grants 5,000 XP after 90 rounds of anxiety-inducing kiting with a very vulnerable Fairy Dragon familiar. 3. Basilisks grant a few thousand more, but I had yet to deal with them (a Cleric/Mage only has 1 APR, which means Blindness and Protection from Petrification aren't necessarily enough to tackle them without having to run away and rest). A green scroll of Protection from Petrification lasts 6 hours, which is enough to kill about 3 of them. But Greater Basilisks resort to melee if you're immune to petrification, which means you have to kite them--which dramatically slows things down, and cuts down on the duration of Protection from Petrification. And because the fights last so long, Korax goes hostile before he can kill more than two basilisks--or even just one. 4. Winter Wolves grant 975 XP apiece, but I couldn't find any before the Ogre Mage struck. 5. Ankhegs grants 975 XP apiece as well, but I wasn't high enough level to cast Web, and I still needed to be able to scribe a Web scroll, which would have a 15% chance of failure. And I have access to no Potions of Genius to scribe it, anyway. 6. Melicamp grants a couple thousand. But that's entirely luck-dependent.
I've tried tackling the Beregost spiders as a solo character before, but when I ran outside, they teleported after me and surrounded me, boxing me in and trapping me the moment I got outside. The only way to escape was releasing my familiar to teleport myself out, and it still gave them enough time to poison me and nearly kill me.
I got rid of Item Randomizer, which means Sanctuary got me a Wand of Fire and Wand of Monster Summoning. But both are far weaker in LoB mode, opening the question of where I find the money to recharge the wands, and if I need to save those charges for specific fights.
Also, what traps are there in the Flesh Golem cave? A Cleric/Mage cannot disarm them, and without Spell Revisions or Haste, I can't jump over them. Could a 30-HP character survive each one individually?
I need 2 Potions of Genius in order to get a 100% chance of spell scribing (the Red Potion works, too, but there's only one such potion). I can't buy them at Thalantyr's, so where else could I get them?
I assumed it was an encounter reaction check . None of the conversation options looked particularly promising, so I suppose you need a helping hand from Lady Luck (or Lady Walkthrough) to pick the right option ...
Too bad @semiticgod! I died to ambushes two times in the last days too...
Here are the quests/objectives that i nearly always run at the start:
- Shoal (5k XP) - Tenya and the fishermen (2.5k XP) - Marl (900 XP) - Firebead (300 XP) - the Coquetle family amulet (250 XP) - Noober (400 XP) - Albert and Rufie (1k XP) - Drienne (200 XP) - Brage (1k XP) - Samuel the Deserter (500 XP) - Melicamp (2,5k XP) - Landrin (800 XP) - Dryad of Cloudpeak (850 XP) - Mutamin's garden (>26k XP)
Landrins spider surrounding you? Move in with Sanctuary, get close the exit point, shoot & retreat when they start reacting. Once outside the should never be able to surround you. At least this works pretty fine for me!
I normally counter the traps in the Flesh Golem Cave with Greenstone Amulet - i love this item!
Korax works great in Mutamins Garden! What i mostly do to speed up the killing is Dual Wielding + Haste. As Korax will paralyze the Basilisks quite often they will melt in no time. In my runs Korax never went hostile until the last Basilisk had gone down.
EDIT: Finally i am back to business! Or with other words: Davaeorn died without any problems using the usual Anti Magic Protection, Necklace burning and some kiting with the Crossbow of Speed! Level 8 reached. Braxx will now take some rest in Baldurs Gate!
@Harpagornis: I'm not familiar with many of those options.
1. I've done the Tenya quest and I'm not sure how best to handle. Once, Tenya was friendly and I could resolve the quest with no violence. But the next time I tried, she was hostile, and she's a rather high-level cleric for early BG1. How do I finish that quest without fighting her?
2. Where is the Coquetle family amulet and where should I bring it?
Testing has found that Algernon's Cloak does in fact make the basilisk area much, much easier. Basically, you use Korax to handle the first one or two Lesser Basilisks, and then, while they're distracted, charm the Greater Basilisk behind them using Algernon's Cloak. The Greater Basilisk should be able to petrify them shortly, at which point you can cast Protection from Petrification on the Greater Basilisk to make sure it doesn't get killed later.
When I tried that, Korax turned hostile soon after, but I was able to run from him and then wipe out all of the basilisks and all of the Medusas (a mod-introduced enemy with poison and paralysis as well as petrification attacks) just by using that one Greater Basilisk.
Mutamin went hostile, but he fled to the west, giving us enough time to petrify the remaining basilisks and then head east to get rid of the Medusas. It was enough to net 38,000 XP. Of that, 14,000 came from the mod-introduced Medusas.
Alternatively, if you don't have the Protection from Petrification spell, you can use stealth instead, by sneaking up on a lone basilisk (separate from the others) and attempting to charm it. If the attempt fails, you can retreat, rest, and try again.
But if it succeeds, you can use your Protection from Petrification green scroll on the basilisk instead of yourself. You can then go invisible and lead the basilisk all over the map, petrifying all the others much faster and more reliably than you could by using ranged weapons.
This would also allow you to fight Mutamin without having to worry about his basilisk friends. Plus, you could turn Korax against Mutamin, as Korax would no longer be necessary to take down the basilisks.
@Harpagornis: I'm not familiar with many of those options.
1. I've done the Tenya quest and I'm not sure how best to handle. Once, Tenya was friendly and I could resolve the quest with no violence. But the next time I tried, she was hostile, and she's a rather high-level cleric for early BG1. How do I finish that quest without fighting her?
2. Where is the Coquetle family amulet and where should I bring it?
3. What is the Drienne quest?
4. What is the Samuel the Deserter quest?
5. What is the Dryad of the Cloudpeaks quest?
6. Where can I find the Greenstone Amulet?
You always have to hit Tenya before she loses hostility, you don't even have to come close to killing her it's more like taking 10 hp of her or so. Drienne should be the little girl with her cat I might be wrong tho it's late. Samuel the deserter is east of the Nashkel Mines, same map as the anti fire ring, you gotta talk to a grill and agree to bring him to Friendly Arm. Dryad of the cloudpeaks is on the same map as Drienne, which is east of the gnoll stronghold. (There's a big waterfall) You can buy Greenstone in Ulgoth's Beard (barkeep)
You can use it to charm Gerde at the Ankheg farm and turn her against the local Ankhegs. She broke her spear in my game and got killed eventually, but she might be able to take down one or two Ankhegs by herself. It would be a safe source of XP if you're not yet strong enough to tackle Ankhegs otherwise.
You can also use it to charm Firebead Elvenhair and turn him against Silke. He has much better spells and can mop the floor with her. You can also have Firebead summon some monsters and then repeatedly order the monsters not to attack Silke, allowing Silke to kill Firebead before you send Firebead's summoned critters after her. On top of that, Firebead can cast Improved Invisibility on your character, which means you can kill Silke and get Firebead's robe and a couple extra potions at zero risk.
Also, if you have another source of charm, like a Charm Person or Charm Person or Mammal spell (I used the charm ability from Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influence, which I think is from a mod), you can charm Algernon and then throw him against the Beregost spiders. This lets you kill him and get his cloak without losing reputation.
I forgot to mention: there is only one basilisk that has no friends nearby. It's the Lesser Basilisk to the west of Mutamin. Characters with strong stealth are best off choosing that one to charm with Algernon's Cloak, as charming it will not expose it to petrification in the 6 seconds before you can use a scroll of Protection from Petrification on it (charming a different basilisk might just end up getting that basilisk petrified by its nearby friends).
More about Algernon's Cloak:
As @Adul told me in another thread, you can charm the Sirines at the Temple of Helm east of Beregost, take them outside by making them cast Dire Charm or Improved Invisibility on you right before you go outside, and then kill them for 2,000 XP, just like any other Sirine (8,000 XP total).
Bear in mind that even if the Sirines are friendly, their charms will still end the game if you fail your save, so make sure to get through the door before they finish casting. Also note that they'll exit through the northwest door, even if you leave through the main door.
Unlike the fights by the coast, there's a safe way of taking down the Sirines at the Temple of Helm even if you have no defense against poison, charm, or feeblemind. Not only can you turn the Sirines against each other; you can even turn Kelddath Ormlyr against the Sirines. He comes pre-buffed with a Chaotic Commands effect, but if you wait it out (I believe it lasts only a single in-game hour), you can charm him. He has multiple castings of Flame Strike and Harm, which can kill the Sirines very quickly. Plus, he comes with Chaotic Commands memorized, so he can make himself immune to the Sirines' feeblemind attacks.
And since the Sirines can cast Improved Invisibility on you, you can spend the whole fight completely hidden.
You can also safely take down Dushai at level 1 with any character using Algernon's Cloak. If you charm Hurgan Stoneblade and lure him outside by ordering him to attack you before you exit the tavern, you can use him to kill Dushai. It'll cost you some reputation (6 points in my case), but it obviates the need for kiting and summoned critters.
Dushai appears to have a lot of very strong spells, but if you charm her beforehand, you can force her to waste all of her spells, at which point Hurgan Stoneblade can overpower her.
Note that Dushai has 50% magic resistance, so she'll be much harder to charm than Hurgan Stoneblade. It's best to try charming Dushai before Hurgan if you want to take control of both of them.
The expired certificate on the site is preventing me from using my normal browser, but I'll see if I can post a response to a few of the things @semiticgod asked about using an alternative:
Ogre mage ambush - I usually avoid area transitions with the potential for this ambush until I'm level 5. The alternative is to use a potion such as invisibility or magic blocking. If you're a mage of course then you can just travel safely using invisibility ...
In my installation the basilisks are not good at recognising green scroll protection (or potions of mirror eyes, or familiar immunity), which opens the opportunity for using much more effective melee attacks. If you use a range 2 weapon you can position yourself far enough away to hit them, while they have to move before they can hit you (allowing you to react and move away before being attacked).
Potions of genius (and mind focusing) are on sale at the FAI temple.
To avoid being boxed in by the Beregost spiders you need to: 1) pause as soon as you enter their house (incidentally this is one of the encounters where the EE has disabled autopause enemy sighted - which is why I no longer use that). 2) immediately leave. 3) pause immediately on exit. 4) move away from the entrance. it's possible that some or all of the spiders won't follow you (in which case just repeat).
Flesh golem cave has damage traps to the right. They will be dangerous to a mage, though I tend to go that way with higher HP characters to avoid using any resources. To the left there's a hold trap, then charm.
Colquetle family amulet is on the ground near the hobgoblins in the area south and south again of Beregost. Take it to the house north of Firebead in Beregost and commiserate with Mr Colquetle.
If you kill the fishermen prior to talking to Tenya you get a conversation option to just give her the bowl - no need to fight her at all then.
The power of the Cloaks of Cheese is endless as my old compagnion @Vynn said earlier. He used similiar tricks in the past turning everyone against each other. Thats quite funny and - like Korgath showed - you can also break SoD into parts if you abuse it heavily. If all of this is really neccesary is another story.
EDIT: I tested Mutamins Garden using @semiticgod tactic. Charming the western solo Basilisk while Korax and Braxx (protected from Petrification) rushed into the groups. The friendly Basilisk gives so much more fire power thanks to petrification that the garden was stormed in no time. And the best: The Basilisk never was targeted as Korax and Braxx soaked up all attention. Even Mutamin himself was turned to stone - hah! Really great finding at @semiticgod. Should get the new standard tactic no?
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Chiron's range of cloaks were expanded with Balduran's and the Nymph, but he got rid of Displacement to make a bit of room. He also picked up a Necklace of Missiles from Nadine and did some more stair hopping to get another from Delorna.
He sneaked into the Iron Throne and was actually ready to return to Candlekeep. However, as he hadn't fought the Iron Throne gang, I felt he had a moral duty to clear up the Seven Suns. That seemed to be going well enough as Chiron was doing plenty of damage while stealthing round the pillars. However, I never learn and once more was trying to both play the game and concentrate on a conversation with my son. As Harpagornis has just been noting, it's a dangerous business getting hit if you don't have a helmet and a critical for 60 damage was slightly too much for him ...
Myself is not following his own advice and so i started Braxx V. - another Dwarven Swashbuckler!
No deadly ambushes until now so he just reached level 6 with the Basilisks still to go. After many easy-to-do-quests he is doing pretty fine and already aquired some essential objectives: Algernons Cloak, Ring of Free Action, Greenstone Amulet, Displacer Cloak, Light Crossbow of Speed, Shadow Armor, Drizzts Scimitars, Dales Protector, Ring of Fire Resistance and the anti piercing + blunting belt. Meilum should follow soon. As long as Braxx does not run into another ambush things should be pretty easy thanks to stealth. Some Invisibility Potions and/or Sandthief Ring will hopefully do the job - in case of emergency!
Braxx also makes som fun charming named ones and moving them into enemy armies. For instance: While Silke died to the spiders, big bad Bassilus was killed by the Hobgoblins bandits west of him. Always funny!
EDIT: Okay, Meilum is dead. Fighting some poisoning Kobolds brought him down to nearly dead - five bolts later he was history!
EDIT2: The Basiliks went pretty smoothly - until Mutamin. Korax failed to paralyze the Gnome and soaked up Acid Arrows, Magic Missiles and even a Half-Ogre summon. He was already nearly dead until he managed to stun Mutamin and the Half-Ogre long enough so that Braxx - dual wielding Scimitars and hasted up - could hack them down both. However: After some sweat level 7 reached! Maybe next time i should just charm Mutamin and watch how he transforms into another statue!
(But Ioun stones actually act as Helmets ther.
He had a poor start in Candlekeep when he was firing his sling at a nobleman in the inn upstairs (to wear him down prior to making him unconscious with fists, so Frew could steal from a chest without attracting notice), but a big critical with his final shot proved a killer. Ignoring the reputation loss Frew cleaned up all the tasks before going to collect a rather bigger reward from Shoal.
Doom and hold person proved effective against the gnolls in High Hedge before Algernon met his usual fate. Heading north, the magical flail from the fishermen was a nice bonus on the way to kill Dushai. Frew's reputation of 3 wouldn't make him terribly welcome in Nashkel, but using sanctuary to rob an ankheg's nest, returning Joia's ring and finding a book for Firebead made him seem a bit more respectable when he went to retrieve the ankheg armor.
After charming Meilum to get his bracers, Frew cleaned up his inventory by giving Perdue back his sword. He then charmed Perdue and used him as a distraction to doom and hold Karlat - Frew dual wielded his flail with fists to ensure Karlat didn't recover.
The basilisks met with Frew's flail - but didn't enjoy the experience. Frew then made a first use of skeletons as he charmed and pulled away Kirian's comrades to be chopped without the need to set them against enemies. Kirian was silenced, doomed, chanted and held.
Wave 1 went great. Oaen pre-cast several Webs and Spider Spawns, and asked the archers to back him up. Many of the trolls and ogres were held by the Webs at the beginning of the battle. Oaen kept casting webs and malisons, and he summoned more spiders when his first minions were unsummoned. Inbetween castings he contributed with bolts of fire. All the archers held the line until they ran out of ammo, and switched to melee weapons. Some of them got held but they all survived. A screenshot from the latest stages of the battle.
Wave 2 didn't start out as well because waiting for the last Webs from battle 1 to expire, so that the game could be saved, led to Oaen reaching Dosia too late to get his spells refreshed. Thankfully he had lots of scrolls, including several Greater Malison, Web, and Spider Spawn scrolls. He had the coldhearth undead thralls soak up the crusader mage's spells, and had the spiders poison the odd enemy. Oaen shot many arrows of dispelling at buffed enemy mages, to make sure there would always be some mages trapped in his webs. The spiders weren't as effective in this battle because of the enemy's disablers and damage spells. Oaen removed fear twice, but could do little against confusion spells. Still, the battle dragged on long enough for the mages to run out of spells. Oaen kept summoning monsters with his wand and they helped him prevail.
For Wave 3 Oaen did get his spells refreshed by Dosia. He called on the war mages to help him out against the priests and paladins. He opened with a Malison to increase the effectiveness of his spells and those of his helpers. He cast more Webs and summoned more Spiders, and he was particularly successful with Chaos, a spell he cast at least three times (doesn't last that long). Almost all foes were affected by it. One hasted, confused Dwarven warrior rushed past Oaen. In hindsight I think this was no problem, the coalition members near the bonfire would have probably known what to do with him. My mistake was to have Oaen follow the Dwarf. The messenger saw Oaen, and shouted that this battle was lost.
Anyway crusader reinforcements arrived, whereas coalition reinforcements, which would have included some unkillable allies, did not. Now Oaen and the mages were overrun. Oaen's ound himself on the receiving end of a lot of aggro in a short time. His buffs got dispelled, and he sustained quite a bit of damage. Due to an unclear aura (resulting from a Chaos that he had cast right before his buffs got dispelled), all he could do against an enemy mage's wand of paralyzation was hope for a good save roll. Sadly, the roll wasn't good enough.
My lesson for you all: never retreat in the middle of any of the first three coalition camp battles, no matter the circumstances! I don't think there's a timer in any of the battles for the arrival of the next wave. As long as you can hold the enemy you're good. Summons are essential though. Without them enemies are more likely to slip past you, toward the bonfire, where you can only hope that the coalition allies know how to deal with them.
Edit: Good luck @Grondo, nice to see you follow the advice of your caring forum friends.
There's so much I don't know about SoD... I've only played through it twice. Under what circumstances exactly does that messenger appear? How do you prevent him from showing up?
position of the messengerthe locations where the messanger will see you with 1 for the first battle, 2 for the second battle, and 3 for the third battle.Once he sees Charname (or a party member, I assume), he'll say the current battle is lost, and the game automatically adds the next wave of attackers without giving you the opportunity to heal/rejuvenate with Dosia, or ask support from one of the troops (archers, mages, assassins etc). Therefore it's essential not to retreat or go after a single enemy that happens to pass by, as was the case with Oean.
@Harpagornis, thank you too. I think my strategy was indeed fine. Am not saying Oaen would have made it if he had just let the confused Dwarf go, but there was no reason to expect failure either at that point.
After having played the crusader attacks, I'm even more amazed at your no-reloading a Fighter/Thief through this encounter. Oaen's webs and spiders were key to his success in the first two battles. The item summons (ankhegs, shrooms, mephits) seem much weaker in comparison. Chapeau, I repeat!
The same fate befell both Nimbul and Tranzig, before Frew got a lift to the Bandit Camp with Raiken. Sanctuary allowed him to fully loot the main tent before charming Taurgosz to get an armor upgrade.
With Bhaal horror gained (not really required since he can use a wand of fear, but slow poison isn't really required either), Frew did the round of reputation quests. There were no problems with those, other than having to charm Brage who had gone hostile after seeing his cousin silenced and killed by skeletons. Even with reputation up at 19 though, Frew's charisma of 11 (including cloak), was insufficient to get a good word in from Drienne, but Officer Vai supplied the final point to open up some shopping opportunities.
At the Lighthouse, skeletons acted as meat(less) shields even when feeble-minded to allow Frew to kill the sirines. They weren't quite up to dealing with the golems though, so Frew used his sling to finish those off.
At Durlag's Tower, moving the skeletons round and using buffs made them just tough enough to deal with the battle horrors. With the help of a few ghasts inside that got Frew his last clerical level and more skeleton shenanigans to finish off the remaining ghasts and the basilisks on the roof matched that with his last fighter level.
In the Cloakwood the only thing intended was to get the potion of invulnerability from Laskal. However, a mis-click meant Frew hastily disappearing into sanctuary before the heavens opened on his head. I haven't fought Laskal often, so was surprised when a few skeletons laying into him resulted in Frew's reputation halving - oh well, easy come, easy go.
- Using Fire Protection Scrolls on vital allies to reduce Arrow of Detonation Damage
- Trap stacking to soften the Trolls and Ogres quite a bit
- Charming Coalition Troops before the first Wave triggers (not really needed imo)
The rest was business as usual: 4 APR Arrows of Detonation for AoE damage, Arrows of Dispelling against the Mages and some summons in between. No need for Web and Co. even though they would make things even easier!
Keep going @Grond0 - SoD is waiting!
No time for Braxx right now - hope i can give some update soon!
In the City Frew did a couple of reputation quests I don't normally bother with in order to push that back up to 20. Gathering equipment all went smoothly and I resisted the temptation to take on the fight at the Iron Throne. A potion of magic blocking ensured Frew survived the greeting party at Candlekeep. He looted the tombs using a potion of cloud giant strength topped up by DUHM before sneaking past the dopplegangers and Prat (though he did bring out some skeletons for the basilisks).
Back in Baldur's Gate I remembered Frew hadn't yet got the Necklace of Missiles from Delorna. Skeletons soon changed that and Frew went to put a full charge on all 3 necklaces. After coming back, a group of skeletons killed Slythe and drained Krystin of most of her spells before Frew finished her off. At the Palace he charmed a number of the guards and summoned some more help before starting the conflict. I had hoped to use skeleton warriors to chase the doppleganger mage around and keep it occupied, but it persistently targeted Frew with MMMs and dispels and he had to quickly take a magic blocking potion at one point to prevent a minor sequencer double acid arrow from killing him. However, eventually the numbers told and the last of the dopplegangers went down. Sarevok killed Liia, but Belt was safely out of sight. I would have liked to recharge Liia's invisibility ring, but accidentally sold it to Black Lily and her demand for 28,000 gold put it beyond Frew's price range
After beating his way through the maze, Frew bypassed the Undercity party and went on to the temple. After resting and going inside though he found 3 skeleton warriors suddenly deciding to join him. After dealing with those he rested again and activated Sarevok. As usual, Sarevok and others except Angelo were dumped in a corner. Skeletons were then able to deal with Angelo, though I realised while Frew was shooting down the skeleton warrior that replaced Angelo that he was short on sling ammunition. As it was too late to do anything about that Frew continued with a fireball bombardment, but added a scroll of PfU to avoid being distracted by skeleton warriors. When the others were dead Frew used potions of mind focusing, speed, heroism and storm giant strength to get best value from his ammunition, while doing a bit of bonus damage with wand magic missiles. Fortunately, in the SCS installation Sarevok does not have missile resistance, so shots were doing a lot of damage. Frew still had nearly 50 bullets left when Sarevok fell.
Now, what are the odds I can actually get out of the dungeon this time ...
In the Nashkel Mines Braxx got caught as he tried to disarm traps so a whole bunch of bobolds started hunting him. Once back in stealth he realized that the path to the lower parts was blocked. With other words: He had to alarm the Kobolds one more time luring the away from the bridge - which costed him one invisibility charge. Mulahey himself was easy thanks to the ususal charming and self suiciding at the northern kobolds. Braxx grabbed all loot and sneaked out - this time unseen!
Meeting Tranzig in Beregost was another shocker. Braxx charmed the Noble on the fist floor to soak up some spells from the Mage. He died to the first incoming Chromatic Orb so Braxx put on Shield Amulet and Greenstone Amulet to counter his spells. What i have totally missed: Tranzig can cast two Chromatic Orbs! How could i have forgotten that one? "Damn it" was my first thought when i saw the Orb right before impact. Drinking a Potion was too late. A moment later the relieve: Braxx rolled his save and kited Tranzig down with ease. This could have been another end of the story!
In the Bandit Camp Braxx slipped into the tent grabbing the chest loot and talking to the prisoner. As i couldnt put all the loot into the backpack at once he had to click one more time onto the chest - and this was the half second that gave Venkt the chance to throw a Horror at Braxx. Right after he turned invisible the spell landed and he missed his save - running around in panick. Thanks to the good gods that Venkt could not dispel his Invisibility otherwise Braxx would have met his doom!
Holy cow! I am playing as bad as never before! Maybe the Lord of Murder is unpleased for an unknown reason. Or maybe i take the challenge a little bit too easy. Maybe!
EDIT: The chaos continued when meeting Drasus. Killing him should have been easy thanks to the entrance guards but for some reason he went hostile in the middle of the battle so Braxx had to burn and shoot him down out of stealth while the last guard was constantly searching for him. If this wasnt funny enough Braxx charmed Kysus and tried to kill Genthore and Rezdan with his summons and some more spells. Some moments later everyone was panicked or confused running around like crazy with no one going down. Braxx watched this chaos from stealth not really believing what theathre of idiocy he had created. At the end everyone went down - somehow, somewhere. Braxx grabbed the loot shaking his head one more time...
Initially I tried wearing down the mercenaries outside Porios' door with skeletons. In principle, if resting is possible, that could be done with minimal risk. I did successfully rest a couple of times and had killed about half the opposition when I tried resting again - and again - and again - and again - and again. Getting the space for that last attempt was pretty difficult as all the enemies try and crowd round you whether invisible or not. However, the AI tries to avoid getting too close, so if enemies don't crowd the space available too much it is still possible to move.
Once the number of enemies gets too great though the AI essentially gets locked into position, so finally Frew found himself stuck with little or no prospect of being able to move again.
I vaguely remember someone suggesting that I could just sneak into Porios' room and take the mercenaries there on. I don't really approve of trying out tactics outside of no-reload runs, but did have a quick look at trying that with the autosave. The enemies outside the room are blocking it, but they can be distracted away and the room entered using sanctuary. However, the group inside are too tough even by themselves for Frew to have any realistic chance of success if Porios refuses to surrender.
Killing him using multiple invisibilities would be one option (without resting, so that his key could be grabbed to get into the next area) - it would be nice though not to be using so many resources early on. Charming multiple enemies would be another possible way forward, but I suspect there would also need to be quite intensive use of invisibility to give that a decent chance if no resting is risked.
Oh well, back to the drawing board.
The easiest way for you would have been:
1. Summon a Skeleton that soaks all engagement of the troops in front of the door
2. Go invisible and open the door to Porios while the Skeleton gets attacked
3. Talk to Porios and convince him to surrender (no skill-check required)
4. Move on to the lower catacombs and Korlasz
No need for fighting here!
This is very frustrating. Is there any way of preventing that at all? I was running a Cleric/Mage this time and I'd have needed 40,000 XP to hit level 5 and become immune to Sleep. Going invisible wasn't an option because Sanctuary took too long (casting time 4), I didn't have the Invisibility mage spell (85% scribing chance anyway), and I didn't have a Potion of Invisibility, either.
1. Marl grants 300 XP.
2. Shoal grants 5,000 XP after 90 rounds of anxiety-inducing kiting with a very vulnerable Fairy Dragon familiar.
3. Basilisks grant a few thousand more, but I had yet to deal with them (a Cleric/Mage only has 1 APR, which means Blindness and Protection from Petrification aren't necessarily enough to tackle them without having to run away and rest). A green scroll of Protection from Petrification lasts 6 hours, which is enough to kill about 3 of them. But Greater Basilisks resort to melee if you're immune to petrification, which means you have to kite them--which dramatically slows things down, and cuts down on the duration of Protection from Petrification. And because the fights last so long, Korax goes hostile before he can kill more than two basilisks--or even just one.
4. Winter Wolves grant 975 XP apiece, but I couldn't find any before the Ogre Mage struck.
5. Ankhegs grants 975 XP apiece as well, but I wasn't high enough level to cast Web, and I still needed to be able to scribe a Web scroll, which would have a 15% chance of failure. And I have access to no Potions of Genius to scribe it, anyway.
6. Melicamp grants a couple thousand. But that's entirely luck-dependent.
I've tried tackling the Beregost spiders as a solo character before, but when I ran outside, they teleported after me and surrounded me, boxing me in and trapping me the moment I got outside. The only way to escape was releasing my familiar to teleport myself out, and it still gave them enough time to poison me and nearly kill me.
I got rid of Item Randomizer, which means Sanctuary got me a Wand of Fire and Wand of Monster Summoning. But both are far weaker in LoB mode, opening the question of where I find the money to recharge the wands, and if I need to save those charges for specific fights.
Also, what traps are there in the Flesh Golem cave? A Cleric/Mage cannot disarm them, and without Spell Revisions or Haste, I can't jump over them. Could a 30-HP character survive each one individually?
I need 2 Potions of Genius in order to get a 100% chance of spell scribing (the Red Potion works, too, but there's only one such potion). I can't buy them at Thalantyr's, so where else could I get them?
Here are the quests/objectives that i nearly always run at the start:
- Shoal (5k XP)
- Tenya and the fishermen (2.5k XP)
- Marl (900 XP)
- Firebead (300 XP)
- the Coquetle family amulet (250 XP)
- Noober (400 XP)
- Albert and Rufie (1k XP)
- Drienne (200 XP)
- Brage (1k XP)
- Samuel the Deserter (500 XP)
- Melicamp (2,5k XP)
- Landrin (800 XP)
- Dryad of Cloudpeak (850 XP)
- Mutamin's garden (>26k XP)
Landrins spider surrounding you? Move in with Sanctuary, get close the exit point, shoot & retreat when they start reacting. Once outside the should never be able to surround you. At least this works pretty fine for me!
I normally counter the traps in the Flesh Golem Cave with Greenstone Amulet - i love this item!
Korax works great in Mutamins Garden! What i mostly do to speed up the killing is Dual Wielding + Haste. As Korax will paralyze the Basilisks quite often they will melt in no time. In my runs Korax never went hostile until the last Basilisk had gone down.
EDIT: Finally i am back to business! Or with other words: Davaeorn died without any problems using the usual Anti Magic Protection, Necklace burning and some kiting with the Crossbow of Speed! Level 8 reached. Braxx will now take some rest in Baldurs Gate!
1. I've done the Tenya quest and I'm not sure how best to handle. Once, Tenya was friendly and I could resolve the quest with no violence. But the next time I tried, she was hostile, and she's a rather high-level cleric for early BG1. How do I finish that quest without fighting her?
2. Where is the Coquetle family amulet and where should I bring it?
3. What is the Drienne quest?
4. What is the Samuel the Deserter quest?
5. What is the Dryad of the Cloudpeaks quest?
6. Where can I find the Greenstone Amulet?
When I tried that, Korax turned hostile soon after, but I was able to run from him and then wipe out all of the basilisks and all of the Medusas (a mod-introduced enemy with poison and paralysis as well as petrification attacks) just by using that one Greater Basilisk.
Mutamin went hostile, but he fled to the west, giving us enough time to petrify the remaining basilisks and then head east to get rid of the Medusas. It was enough to net 38,000 XP. Of that, 14,000 came from the mod-introduced Medusas.
Alternatively, if you don't have the Protection from Petrification spell, you can use stealth instead, by sneaking up on a lone basilisk (separate from the others) and attempting to charm it. If the attempt fails, you can retreat, rest, and try again.
But if it succeeds, you can use your Protection from Petrification green scroll on the basilisk instead of yourself. You can then go invisible and lead the basilisk all over the map, petrifying all the others much faster and more reliably than you could by using ranged weapons.
This would also allow you to fight Mutamin without having to worry about his basilisk friends. Plus, you could turn Korax against Mutamin, as Korax would no longer be necessary to take down the basilisks.
Drienne should be the little girl with her cat I might be wrong tho it's late.
Samuel the deserter is east of the Nashkel Mines, same map as the anti fire ring, you gotta talk to a grill and agree to bring him to Friendly Arm.
Dryad of the cloudpeaks is on the same map as Drienne, which is east of the gnoll stronghold.
(There's a big waterfall)
You can buy Greenstone in Ulgoth's Beard (barkeep)
You can use it to charm Gerde at the Ankheg farm and turn her against the local Ankhegs. She broke her spear in my game and got killed eventually, but she might be able to take down one or two Ankhegs by herself. It would be a safe source of XP if you're not yet strong enough to tackle Ankhegs otherwise.
You can also use it to charm Firebead Elvenhair and turn him against Silke. He has much better spells and can mop the floor with her. You can also have Firebead summon some monsters and then repeatedly order the monsters not to attack Silke, allowing Silke to kill Firebead before you send Firebead's summoned critters after her. On top of that, Firebead can cast Improved Invisibility on your character, which means you can kill Silke and get Firebead's robe and a couple extra potions at zero risk.
Also, if you have another source of charm, like a Charm Person or Charm Person or Mammal spell (I used the charm ability from Lord Foreshadow's Ring of Human Influence, which I think is from a mod), you can charm Algernon and then throw him against the Beregost spiders. This lets you kill him and get his cloak without losing reputation.
More about Algernon's Cloak:
As @Adul told me in another thread, you can charm the Sirines at the Temple of Helm east of Beregost, take them outside by making them cast Dire Charm or Improved Invisibility on you right before you go outside, and then kill them for 2,000 XP, just like any other Sirine (8,000 XP total).
Bear in mind that even if the Sirines are friendly, their charms will still end the game if you fail your save, so make sure to get through the door before they finish casting. Also note that they'll exit through the northwest door, even if you leave through the main door.
Unlike the fights by the coast, there's a safe way of taking down the Sirines at the Temple of Helm even if you have no defense against poison, charm, or feeblemind. Not only can you turn the Sirines against each other; you can even turn Kelddath Ormlyr against the Sirines. He comes pre-buffed with a Chaotic Commands effect, but if you wait it out (I believe it lasts only a single in-game hour), you can charm him. He has multiple castings of Flame Strike and Harm, which can kill the Sirines very quickly. Plus, he comes with Chaotic Commands memorized, so he can make himself immune to the Sirines' feeblemind attacks.
And since the Sirines can cast Improved Invisibility on you, you can spend the whole fight completely hidden.
You can also safely take down Dushai at level 1 with any character using Algernon's Cloak. If you charm Hurgan Stoneblade and lure him outside by ordering him to attack you before you exit the tavern, you can use him to kill Dushai. It'll cost you some reputation (6 points in my case), but it obviates the need for kiting and summoned critters.
Dushai appears to have a lot of very strong spells, but if you charm her beforehand, you can force her to waste all of her spells, at which point Hurgan Stoneblade can overpower her.
Note that Dushai has 50% magic resistance, so she'll be much harder to charm than Hurgan Stoneblade. It's best to try charming Dushai before Hurgan if you want to take control of both of them.
Ogre mage ambush - I usually avoid area transitions with the potential for this ambush until I'm level 5. The alternative is to use a potion such as invisibility or magic blocking. If you're a mage of course then you can just travel safely using invisibility ...
In my installation the basilisks are not good at recognising green scroll protection (or potions of mirror eyes, or familiar immunity), which opens the opportunity for using much more effective melee attacks. If you use a range 2 weapon you can position yourself far enough away to hit them, while they have to move before they can hit you (allowing you to react and move away before being attacked).
Potions of genius (and mind focusing) are on sale at the FAI temple.
To avoid being boxed in by the Beregost spiders you need to:
1) pause as soon as you enter their house (incidentally this is one of the encounters where the EE has disabled autopause enemy sighted - which is why I no longer use that).
2) immediately leave.
3) pause immediately on exit.
4) move away from the entrance.
it's possible that some or all of the spiders won't follow you (in which case just repeat).
Flesh golem cave has damage traps to the right. They will be dangerous to a mage, though I tend to go that way with higher HP characters to avoid using any resources. To the left there's a hold trap, then charm.
Colquetle family amulet is on the ground near the hobgoblins in the area south and south again of Beregost. Take it to the house north of Firebead in Beregost and commiserate with Mr Colquetle.
If you kill the fishermen prior to talking to Tenya you get a conversation option to just give her the bowl - no need to fight her at all then.
EDIT: I tested Mutamins Garden using @semiticgod tactic. Charming the western solo Basilisk while Korax and Braxx (protected from Petrification) rushed into the groups. The friendly Basilisk gives so much more fire power thanks to petrification that the garden was stormed in no time. And the best: The Basilisk never was targeted as Korax and Braxx soaked up all attention. Even Mutamin himself was turned to stone - hah! Really great finding at @semiticgod. Should get the new standard tactic no?