Ayacalla has started SoD and faced Korlasz once more!
Sneaking, talking and PfU gave her a free ticket for another visit. Without any support Ayacalla buffed up and combined Dispelling Arrows + Acid Arrows + Poison while immediately going invisible after sniping Korlasz (as no one can dispel Invisibility there is no need for Whispers of Silence!). Three potions left the backpack before the damage on Korlasz - 23 + 25 +21 - was enough to make her surrender. Untouched by any hit Ayacalla smiled, collected a lot of loot and finished some of the quests around. This added up to 279476 XP before leaving the first dungeon - not a bad start!
Anyone else up for a new run? Whats with you @Blackraven? And why is @JuliusBorisov still hiding? Get out mate!
BtW: We are nearing the 2k posts. Thats great!! Even though things have settled down a bit. Should we blame SoD for this one - especially when looking at no-reload? How far would you have go if we had excluded this part of the challenge? Mid ToB? Melissan? Beaten all of them?
However: After my very first no-reload-run with Braxx (F/T) who only failed to Big B thanks to fear i thought that this upgraded challenge isnt that hard. But with concentration slipping away, some dumb decisions in between and misfortune showing up out of nowhere i have to assess: There are many ways to die!
But who knows more about this than big bad @Grond0 - "The Beast of a thousand Deaths"!!!
@Harpagornis, with the nice weather and with other activities going on, I don't have as much time for playing as I used to. Nevertheless I have been playing a bit, mostly during commutes (which can be tricky because of possible distractions). I currently have a Swashbuckler-led party in Chapter 2 of BG1 as I've become more interested in trying the SCS/LoB challenge with a party. In many ways partying seems to be more more challenging than soloing: slow leveling, no quest cherry picking (because you want six times as much XP), resources such as scrolls and potions are much more limited in that they're shared (think of PfUndead scrolls that trivialize SoD's first two dungeons for a solo character), and monsters seem to spawn in much larger numbers.
Am still following this thread with interest when I can. You're doing well with Ayacalla. As semiticgod said, a character with a lot of potential. Keep at it!
However: After my very first no-reload-run with Braxx (F/T) who only failed to Big B thanks to fear i thought that this upgraded challenge isnt that hard. But with concentration slipping away, some dumb decisions in between and misfortune showing up out of nowhere i have to assess: There are many ways to die!
But who knows more about this than big bad @Grond0 - "The Beast of a thousand Deaths"!!!
It is an interesting dichotomy, I agree. The more you play, the better you get - yet the less success you have . The point is that once you know you can be successful, the incentive to actually be successful is significantly reduced - and avoiding mistakes over such a long period requires incentive. So ... ask yourself what would give you fresh incentive?
Yeah, I too keep trying party runs. I'm following the thread and may continue with the beastmaster, but playing with a party is something different and currently it's what I'm do when run BG.
I agree with @Blackraven on good weather as well. It's summer already at my place, and finally I can spend a lot of time outdoors.
Also, there're work projects and other games as well
Yeah, thats absolutely understandable @Blackraven and @JuliusBorisov! Enjoy the sun and the outdoors!
In the meanwhile i am walking through the shadows with Ayacalla - helping people to free them from their property! As she has spared many precious Gems in her bag she can now sell them to push her gold income significantly. After some restocking with Arrows and Potions she will soon be heading towards Coastway Crossing!
After some shopping Ayacalla seems quite decently prepared!!
Nah, i just had a good mentor... *looking at @Grond0*
At the beginning of this challenge - when it was called the LoB Solo Warrior Challenge - my level of play was much worse than now. But it was mainly @Grond0 (and also @Blackraven) who pointed out what i can do better and where i tend to go in a wrong - or suboptimal - direction. I also have to blame him for playing no reload today - which i totally refused for a very very long time. But he was right: It gives the game a new - and very unforgiving - punch! But i like to suffer!
Too bad that a really bad headache stopped me from playing on yesterday so i hope that i will find some time today.
Ayacalla sliced through Coastway Crossing with unholy force...
Teleria: As she – and her Golem Guard – do not attack if you skip the talking both went down fast and easy. Remember that the petrified people will reward you sometimes with really nice stuff for instance PfM or PfU scrolls!
Isabella & Ikros: Ayacalla joined the hunters and faced Tsolak the Vampire. Some interesting talking followed as Tsolak realized her dark heritage: „I mean only that we both possess powers granted to us by a darker force. Together we could destroy these self-righteous hunters.“ Ayacalla thought for a moment and joined the vampire raging down the two hunters. Remember: His messenger will only appear in the camp during night!
P.S. With Sanctuary she quickly grabbed the Gemblade +1 in the southern part of the Coastway Forest - another nice gold pushing option as it can create any kind of gem available in the game (30 charges, turns into Gemblade +2 afterwards, not sellable).
Takos: With the Shield from Isabella & Ikros Aacalla had found all three heirlooms and returned them to Takos. After getting the Acid Dart +2 she also convinced him to give away his Mirror of Identification which will save a lot of money later on.
Ancient Menhirs: Ayacalla visited all Menhirs around using Sanctuary for the one with spiders and called upon the spirit of Crommus. After some talking she now knows that his equipment is somewhere hidden in the Dwarven Mines...
Dwarven Mines: Invisibility and especially PfU makes this one a walk in the park. Ayacalla sided with the Undead and collected all Amulets to show them the Coldhearth Lich. Very happy about the evil power growing in Ayacalla the Lich agreed to support her against the Crusade. On her way out she quickly looted the hidden cache of Crommus and waved a last good bye to the undead around.
Meeting Caelar: With Boots and Oil of Speed Ayacalla managed to retreat out of sight before the enemies could react safing another invisibility potion. Once the talking with Caelar is over the first part of the March to Dragonspear is finished. As there is no need to soak XP cause the level cap is already reached Ayacalla decided to move on!
Ayacalla destroyed all opposition in the Temple of Bhaal and it looked like the evil outsider smiled upon her...
Morentherene: The Green Dragon was killed instantly with a Throwing Dagger - rolling a 19. Ayacalla grabbed the Scales - rested safely - and used Sanctuary to get into the Temple unseen.
Ziatar: You can also trick the sister of Morentherene quite badly so it looks like that Dragons - or Half-Dragons - in SoD are really dumb like hell. If you retreat right after the talking and position yourself at maximum range with Ziatar barely seen you can shoot her all day long: She just stands there and will sometimes try to cast spells which will fail thanks to 4 APR Acid Arrows. She even did not use her Poison Breath. With other words: This was a short and easy piece of work.
Neothelid: Buffed up - and negating the Mind Control - Ayacalla waved a short hello at the beast and closed the doors again waiting in the entrance room for the coming teleport. With no Mordi Sword summoning and only rare Mind Controls - and one poison Nova - all Ayacalla had to do was: Move back and forth to lure it out of the ground - hit it hard once - and repeat until dead. At the end she only needed to use one charge of Durlags Goblet as the Neothelid was just too slow for her.
Akanna: After luring the Aerial Servants out she went invisible, moved back to the High Priestress and closed the door. The following 1vs1 was so onesided that it wasnt a real fight. Even the Sanctuary could not save Akanna as she was always interrupted with Necklace of Missiles Fireballs. Shortly after the clash was over so Ayacalla grabbed the Wardstone and moved out of the Temple again not bothering about the Shadow Aspect...
I wanted to try out the Earth Elmental with Improved Shapeshifting today to maybe get me back in the mood to continue Droolit. So I used EE keeper in SoA to bring a totemic to 3m xp and on the level up the ability correctly says it will give 50% Immunity, but Houston we have a problem. Since it's changed into a shapeshifting token, Totemics can't use it anymore, while vanilla Earth Elmental form is an ability . I then tried a normal fighter/druid MC but some of my mod must have bugged the HLAs and only Fighter HLAs show, while Druid HLAs are shown as a red symbol witout text. I then tried a normal Druid but only the normal shapshifts show up after choosing the HLA, somehow Improved shapeshifting from SCS messes up my install, while without it Earth Elemental worked fine (just not with 50% resistance)
That are no good news @Victor_Creed_SFV! Maybe its time for another reinstall...
Ayacalla marched through Bridgefort surrendering the fort to the Crusaders, tanking the Fire Elemental at the bridge without problems afterwards. She grabbed the Ring of the Crusade and Corinths Bow and Dragonspear Castle while aquiring the Myconid and Ankheg Summons on her way to Hephernaan. Also buying some more potions on the run she used invisibility to get out again.
The Crusader Attacks could not stop Ayacalla from getting closer to Big B!
Wave I - Ogres and Trolls A real wavestopper here is to charm Dynaheir and let her cast "Web" right before the fight. This will not only stop most of the hard hitting Ogres and Trolls but will also prevent the Mages from casting Haste. This bought a lot of time for the Undead allies and Ankhegs with Detonation Arrows raining from behind. Once the 11th Fireball exploded Ayacalla switched to Acid Arrows to finish off the last Ogres. Big bad Yarok - like always - tried to run through the lines but was immediately engaged in close combat from Ayacalla. Three blows later he was history...
Wave II - Crusader Mages To play it supersafe Ayacalla had PfM running to avoid a potentially deadly dispel + CC combo. Buffed up and with the Wizard Slayers helping out the combination of Dispelling Arrows and 12 Detonation Arrows was more than enough to finish them off - too easy!!! Wave III - Cavaliers and Clerics Here its all about constant AoE Damage (or CC) to prevent the nearly endless enemy healing. With Ankhegs and Myconids rooting the Cavaliers in place 14 Detonation Arrows killed everyone - except for two Clerics. Once Sanctuary expired they dropped like flies! Wave IV - Crusader Generals Thanks to the immortal ally support and some more Detonation Arrows the Coaliation made short work of the Named Ones... Potions looted afterwards Invisibility: 12 Power: 8 Invulnerability: 2 Speed: 1 Extra Healing: 8
Time to strike back and bring the battle right to Dragonspear Castle - but this time without dying offscreen!
Update Dragonspear Castle was finally conquered while Ashatiel lost another 1vs1 - this time against Ayacalla.
With a lot of Potions the next steps will lead directly into Avernus - back home again! No?
The demon waves proved to be no big deal. With anti-slashing-equipment they would need to roll 20´s to hit her while multiple Potions of Power buffed her HP to 250+. With another PfM scroll she negated all CC and tanked wave one and two at the bridge. The only dangerous demon - if faced in close combat - was the Hamatula cause of his Barbed Defense that damaged Ayacalla each time she hit the beast. Therefore she killed the other ones first so the reflected damage would never take her down into danger zone. Same with the second wave even though she there also had to keep an eye on the Erinyes Archer - which forced one charge of Durlags Goblet - after rolling lucky 20´s in a row. With the newly aquired Acid Longsword +3 Ayacalla used the Elevator and killed some more demons without problems.
Buffed up - using the last PfM scroll - she finally met Big B again. The combination of Caelar plus Myconids was able to hold the line quite well this time so once the last charge was used Big B had already lost ~300 HP. The Hit & Run followed always the same pattern: Wait until Big B teleports to a new spot with the other demons being away from him -> rush in hard and hit him once -> immediately step back and go invisible again!! Ayacalla got lucky that only one Erinyes Archer appeared during the whole fight so most of the time the Regeneration Potion was enough to keep HP high enough.
Another good timing followed as she switched to double Magic Protection Potions right before PfM expired so the Demons never got any chance to land one of their deadly CC´s. Rebuffed - and with Big B already down to "badly injured" the Hit & Run continued even though some mistiming forced Ayacalla to use Durlags Goblet several times in between - just to stay on the safe side.
Some bad rolls followed and the battle - which seemed to be won - continued longer than i thought especially as Big B constantly regenerated his HP too. Another full rebuffing cycle followed with more and more demons gating in - space was getting a bit closer now. Only with careful moving (not running into the dreaded Cornugon stun!), fast hitting and quick invisibilty (89 Potions used overall) Ayacalla managed to stay alive long enough to land the final blow at Big B. With all demons - except for Hephernaan - porting away the rest was a walk in the park as the traitor got oblitaterated in seconds... Time for the final cutscenes and some resting before striking on Irenicus in SoA...
But - wait a moment - werent Mages banned from the Realms?
Nah, keep going! Hope that i will find time for Ayacalla today!
P.S. But why starting SoA with level 12/12 @comebackhome? Isnt that a bit of an overkill?
12/12 because firstly with the SCS component installed all spell casters have HLA's and prebuffs if you can see from the watchers keep first level the mages have max level spells and using dragons breath etc. Secondly it's my character imported from SoD + BG EE which I played previously. In a test with remaking it from scratch and not importing I wasn't even able to get out of the starting dungeon (this of course is amping up the difficulty with additional components)
Well done with Ayacalla Harpagornis. SoA should be simple after that, but don't relax - remember that death is always waiting in ambush .
I haven't had a lot of time to play in the last week or so, but I have been using odd moments to do a re-run of Rapper the berserker dualled to mage. She's just hit mage level 8 and recovered her fighting abilities, so should be capable of making faster progress now.
There have been a few moments of danger - in particular when I was working through ghasts in Durlag's Tower using an invisible blocking familiar. I got caught out there when invisibility ended unexpectedly on the familiar and the ghast attacked it. I was reading a book at the time and didn't immediately notice what was happening - with the result that the familiar was paralysed and reached near death status as Rapper started casting invisibility. I thought the likely result of that would be one sad death followed immediately by another, but somehow the familiar survived the endless second it took to cast the spell .
If you tell me an easy-to-go video capture program @semiticgod i might consider it as i have absolutely no experience with things like that - i am just an oldschool player! But would you really like to watch one hour of hitting and running Big B over and over again?
Once i also thought that the SoA starting dungeon would be a nightmare especially for Warrior classes @comebackhome. But after doing it several times now it has lost most of its danger: Divide and conquer is the way to go - and patience! With the SoD XP cap Druids might have the easiest time here as Fire Elementals (or Spirit Summons) are untouchable by most enemies so you get time to drink another cup of tea while watching how your summons tear everything apart!
Yeah you are right @Grond0! I already had a dream stepping onto a deadly trap in the Lilarcor sewers. But first its all about the Duergar in the starting dungeon - this should be funny! May luck follow your Magerker for a "little bit" more of time!
personally use OBS it's free and while maybe not easy to go, once you watch a tutorial it should be easy enough. It's also one of the best programs out there, despite being free.
Ayacalla finally escaped the starting Dungeon of Irenicus – what a mess!
Splittpulling: With careful moving it was possbile to fight the Duergar 1vs1 – Ayacalla just had to make sure getting some distance to avoid call for help. Several things were working in the Blackguards favour here as she can not only use DUHM but also debuff enemies with Aura of Despair while boosting damage with poison (which they often fail to save). Absorb Health can be used in between to either finish off Duergar or heal up fast again. The divide & conquer also worked with Illych even though Ayacalla needed several tries to split him from the rest of his guards. On his own the Duergar leader proved to be no big deal. The only tricky situation arose when she was surrounded by one Duergar Fighter and one Mephit that appeared out of nowhere. Without panicking Ayacalla concentrated on the Duergar first who went down pretty fast thanks to some heavy crits so with the Mephit alone she could just tank on without using any healing potion!!
Key items: Ayacalla used Sanctuary to sneak past the first Duergar group to get Varscona +2 Longsword which will make close combat a lot easier. Its also quite funny to watch the colourful log thanks all the damage unleashed: Slashing + Cold + Poison! Once the Golem has opened some doors Ayacalla rushed through to Baldurans Helm luring the Duergar away using Sanctuary. More AC, more HP, more THAC0 – can you dream of more?
Resting: Whenever a Duergar or Mephit was taken down Ayacalla hided in one room and refreshed her abilities just to make sure she always walks around at maximum destruction level.
Taking care: Ayacalla did not bother to fight the hard hitting Golem Guards or the Duergar Mages (save or die). Like the big Mephit group on the air ship she sneaked past them using Sanctuary. Its also no good idea to fight any backstabbing Thieves – we are no Barbarian!
Sleeping Chamber: The traps here could easily kill Ayacalla so whenever she triggered one a rest followed – until all chests got looted. The incoming Golems were tricked with Sanctuary...
Mephit Portals: This one proved to be harder than expected after Ayacalla managed to pull four Mephits at the same time. She tanked them one after another using the portal to retreat and rest. Once the last one was down she shooted the first portal down from maximum range – only three left. As only the last Portal with the Radiant Mephit is really dangerous she gulped one Oil of Speed, casted Santcuary, moved to the fourth portal and buffed up with DUHM. Once the Radiant Mephit appeared Ayacalla immediately stepped back to avoid the CC and rushed to the portal again to hack it into pieces. She was fast enough before any more CC could go out and proceeded with the remaining two portals while always keeping a close look at her HP. With some minor Healing Potions and Absorb Health the remaining Mephits were unable to get in enough damage before the last portal exploded.
Thieves and Vampires: This one is quite easy as Ayacalla constantly attacked the vampire – who was only trying to kill the Assassins. Even better: The two summons remained friendly once the vampire (8k XP) went down and the Thieves turned hostile. With the Mage out of spells the rest was a short story...
Before moving out: Frennedan the Doppleganger was kicked without problems. Once the chests around were looted Ayacalla also grabbed the Ring of Protection +1 and – thanks to Sanctuary – she looted the Anti Crushing Belt unseen from the Duergar Guards. She did not bother to fight them as the Mage has memorized three Chromatic Orbs which could have been fatal. Safety first!
With a last Sanctuary she slipped past the Assassins and welcomed the fresh air and bright sunlight!!
Not to forget: Once stepping out Ayacalla reached level 10...
@semiticgod I think it's possible to sleep more than once in Chateau Irenicus with SCS only if you don't take Imoen with you. If I remember correctly, I think I read somewhere that it's the Imoen's comment on resting in the Chateau that triggers the restriction. I know for sure that I could rest more than once in the Chateau with my fighter's run. I'm pretty sure it's Imoen related, but I'm not so sure about the comment, though.
@Harpagornis It's just so awesome to see you tackle SoA ! Best of luck ! It theoritically should go well : with some easy quests and a bit of cheese (PfU scrolls to go through the Umar Hills questline, for instance), you should get in HLA range fast, and blow out the rest of the game after that !
I have the itch to get back in the frey, since I got a bit more free time now. However, I have to finish a run in IWDEE and I got a BGEE/BG2EE install with IR/SR on top of plenty of other mods that I wanted to sink my teeth in for a while. I'll definitively gonna be back, maybe sooner than later.
Caligula's run is pretty much over though. Since things were getting too easy with HLAs, I was missing the thrill of no reload anyway. Seems like I won't be avenging Sukka anytime soon. Sorry buddy !!
@semiticgod I think it's possible to sleep more than once in Chateau Irenicus with SCS only if you don't take Imoen with you. If I remember correctly, I think I read somewhere that it's the Imoen's comment on resting in the Chateau that triggers the restriction. I know for sure that I could rest more than once in the Chateau with my fighter's run. I'm pretty sure it's Imoen related, but I'm not so sure about the comment, though.
It's definitely Imoen related. I remember DavidW posting that he would have liked to enforce the resting restriction even on soloers, but that would have broken the Imoen conversation that triggers on rest.
Rapper went through the Nashkel Mine invisibly and charmed Mulahey at the first attempt. Nimbul was cut down with the help of an Amnian Soldier and Tranzig using Marl and Dunkin.
At the Bandit Camp Tazok was unable to kill Taurgosz in a fair fight, so a hobgoblin elite had to finish him off (in an unfair fight). Rapper then entered Tazok's tent invisibly and checked out the trapped chest before disappearing again using a potion.
After sneaking through the Cloakwood, invisibility made it easy to charm Drasus & co. In the mine there was no fighting on the way down to Davaeorn's level. The guard there was charmed and pulled back the battle horrors to be consumed by a first use of a wand of fire. The guard then went and chopped down Davaeorn, who never attempted to defend himself - much quicker than activating him and waiting for all his guards to arrive . The guard then performed a final service by lasting just long enough for Rapper to kill the mustard jelly - she successfully learnt knock and looted the treasure there.
The reward for flooding the mine pushed her reputation up to 20 and she did some shopping on the way to the City, followed by quickly returning to Durlag's Tower and using her newly learnt MSD to get the tome.
In the City Rapper had another near thing when I didn't notice Ragefast targeting her with a paralysation wand - luckily some summons had already depleted him of most spells and she survived. She spent a lot of money on scroll purchases, but still failed to learn a number of useful spells - haste will be particularly missed. Her success to date has been not much over half, compared to a notional chance of 85%. Given the amount of spells she's tried to learn gives a reasonable sample size I'm a bit suspicious that for some reason being a dualled mage is requiring her to take the 15% penalty for specialist mages - if not she's been quite exceptionally unlucky in her attempts (though I was relieved when she finally learnt web with the last of 6 attempts at that).
Summons beat up Marek, but regrettably they failed to help with Ramazith - he just disappeared with his ring of protection +2. I do normally deal with him before tackling Ragefast, but had been thinking he would just go to the top of his tower rather than disappearing entirely (in retrospect I think he only does that if you talk with him before going to Ragefast and then come back having freed the nymph).
Rapper cleared out a fair number of the encounters in the City. They included the Iron Throne, where charming from invisibility allowed the enemies to be picked off one at a time.
After reporting to Duke Eltan, Rapper was transported to Candlekeep. I was intending to use a potion of invisibility there, but the game wouldn't allow me to pause during the cut-scene effect and it was too late after the ogre magi activated so I ended up using magic blocking again.
While raiding the tombs I was again slow to react when a phase spider teleported in and Rapper had to hastily run back to the library to rest and cure the poison. The phase spiders and web traps mean it's easy to get into trouble taking on Prat and I considered wimping out of that contest - but couldn't justify doing that! Instead, Rapper went invisible to trigger all the web traps and then worked her way through the spiders using charm, blindness and summons - and paying attention to teleportation! One sword spider was left alive and used to quickly kill Prat's party as they were charmed. Sakul had a haste scroll, but Rapper once more failed to learn that (along with 3 of 4 attempts at other spells).
Back in the City Slythe was stuck by a second paralysation attempt. Krystin then wore her spells out on summons and a few charmed allies.
Before going on to the Palace I thought it would be nice to get a decent longbow, so went back to the Bandit Camp. Buffing followed by a mixture of summons and horror kept attacks on Rapper down enough for her to kill Venkt and she used a couple of regeneration potions to push HPs back up before dealing with the rest.
Doing that fight proved a mistake though. With so many enemies involved it requires concentration and care (and avoiding bad luck) and it seemed I'd used my ration of that up before moving on to the palace . Various guards and nobles were charmed and buffs used before starting the contest. The main intention for the fight was to keep Liia invisible and that strategy has been reliable for me in the past. Doing that instantly can be a mistake though as I've sometimes seen her attack in the first few seconds of the contest (though not thereafter) - so Rapper hung back as the dopplegangers changed. I noted that the assassin was shown in the text as attacking Belt, but with 2 dopplegangers converging on Liia I decided to go and make her invisible a few seconds earlier than I might otherwise have done so. That proved a fatal error as the assassin obviously switched targets and hit her with a backstab for 80+ damage - leaving her with 53 I think. That didn't interrupt Rapper's spell though and I decided to let her try and finish that rather than retreating immediately. At least one of the dopplegangers that was attacking Liia switched targets though as I noted it hitting Rapper, followed an instant later by the game over screen. The text didn't show where the hit came from, but I suspect that was the other doppleganger on Liia also deciding to be a pain - though it's possible it was a follow-up attack from the assassin.
There were several things I could have done to improve her chances there, e.g. - she had the wrong belt equipped as a result of inventory overload. - she'd pre-cast MMMs some time earlier and I didn't bother removing those even though I recognised they were not a good strategy. - she'd only got 4 summons as a result of not wanting to use a charge up to get only 1 more. Nevertheless, with a modified AC of -8 I didn't expect her to be that easy to hit and with 8 charmed allies and 4 summons on the battlefield the dopplegangers' choice of targets was pretty unfortunate ...
Circus Tent: Sanctuary and sling kiting with Oil of Speed did the job
Hendak and the Slaves: Charmed the prison guard to avoid the call for help takling. Kited the animals down first and finished the Beastmaster in close combat.
Murder in Bridge District: Running and talking...
Graveyard: Some more talking and walking...
Renfield: As Ayacalla always casts Santuary before traveling the enemies could not spot her at the beginning. She talked to Renfield, picked him up and rushed out again.
Suna Seni: As charming did not work Ayacalla had to retreat...
Maevar: Just started...
Mencar and friends: With Nymph Cloak Brennan and Ammon got charmed and taken out by their former friends. The rest was lured downstairs one by one so the Amnian Guard could take care of them. Only when „nearly dead“ Ayacalla joined the battle again kiting Mencar and Co down with her sling to soak up XP. With Cloak-of-non-Detection, Sandthief Ring and Full Plate Armor things should get a lot easier...
Ayacalla also reached level 11 – time to push reputation and getting some gold...
P.S. Why not just charming the Mage before @Grond0 and park him in next room? Still too cheesy?
P.S. Why not just charming the Mage before @Grond0 and park him in next room? Still too cheesy?
I don't mind the tactic, but with invisibility available saving Liia should be rather quicker - I've done that a number of times without too many problems.
We've had the discussion before about what determines the dopplegangers' targeting and that's really what caught me out this time. With 13 other targets available to them, all 4 of the melee-oriented dopplegangers initially attacked the dukes. Even with LoB HPs their hasted attacks would make pretty short work of the dukes, which resulted in my slight (but fatal) change of tactics.
Ayacalla continued with Maevars Quest and infilitrated Rayic Gethras house luring the Mephits outside and Golems downstairs so she could use the stairs safely for retreat. Buffed up - and protected against elementals - she started attacking Rayic moving up and downstairs to let the Mage waste his spells. But after going up again for the fourth time she got instantly hit by three (or four?) Skull traps that Rayic must have placed when she ran downstairs. As there was no casting indication in the log Ayacalla thought to be safe - but that was not the case. The resuslt: She got instantly hit by 38+42+38+34 magic damage which proved to be fatal.
This was very sloppy - and unlucky - play as i wasnt really concentrating on the game and - after crushing Mencar and friends - the deadly feeling of "nothing can go wrong" assaulted me. Too bad...
Okay, there are two options now: 1. As @Vynn somehow managed to restore the old Savegame of Eklun the Totemic Druid where he was already in the Elevator right before Big B i could try to bring him through to SoA too... 2. Start SoA with Korgath the Fighter/Thief and cheese the hell out of the game...
As i am still not in the mood for Thief like character i might give Eklun a try. But first: Some fresh air!
P.S. You are right @Grond0 - the Doppleganger targeting is really weird. Sometimes they attack anyone but the Dukes sometimes they are out for their blood only...
Tough luck Harpagornis. Sounds to me like Rayic probably targeted you with a skull trap sequencer, which you just managed to run away from in time originally - but then walked back into. The fast casting and lack of animation from sequencers makes them one of the biggest threats in both BG1 and BG2.
Maybe next time use sanctuary to get out of Rayic's sight and bring in some summons to help out?
Comments
Sneaking, talking and PfU gave her a free ticket for another visit. Without any support Ayacalla buffed up and combined Dispelling Arrows + Acid Arrows + Poison while immediately going invisible after sniping Korlasz (as no one can dispel Invisibility there is no need for Whispers of Silence!). Three potions left the backpack before the damage on Korlasz - 23 + 25 +21 - was enough to make her surrender. Untouched by any hit Ayacalla smiled, collected a lot of loot and finished some of the quests around. This added up to 279476 XP before leaving the first dungeon - not a bad start!
Maybe i should take a break...
BtW: We are nearing the 2k posts. Thats great!! Even though things have settled down a bit. Should we blame SoD for this one - especially when looking at no-reload? How far would you have go if we had excluded this part of the challenge? Mid ToB? Melissan? Beaten all of them?
However: After my very first no-reload-run with Braxx (F/T) who only failed to Big B thanks to fear i thought that this upgraded challenge isnt that hard. But with concentration slipping away, some dumb decisions in between and misfortune showing up out of nowhere i have to assess: There are many ways to die!
But who knows more about this than big bad @Grond0 - "The Beast of a thousand Deaths"!!!
No?
I currently have a Swashbuckler-led party in Chapter 2 of BG1 as I've become more interested in trying the SCS/LoB challenge with a party. In many ways partying seems to be more more challenging than soloing: slow leveling, no quest cherry picking (because you want six times as much XP), resources such as scrolls and potions are much more limited in that they're shared (think of PfUndead scrolls that trivialize SoD's first two dungeons for a solo character), and monsters seem to spawn in much larger numbers.
Am still following this thread with interest when I can. You're doing well with Ayacalla. As semiticgod said, a character with a lot of potential. Keep at it!
I agree with @Blackraven on good weather as well. It's summer already at my place, and finally I can spend a lot of time outdoors.
Also, there're work projects and other games as well
In the meanwhile i am walking through the shadows with Ayacalla - helping people to free them from their property! As she has spared many precious Gems in her bag she can now sell them to push her gold income significantly. After some restocking with Arrows and Potions she will soon be heading towards Coastway Crossing!
After some shopping Ayacalla seems quite decently prepared!!
Gold: 47201
Detonation Arrows: 80
Dispelling Arrows: 45
Invisibility Potions: 31
Oil of Speed 86
Experience: 292896
Motivation: 100%
Arriving at Coastway Crossing Ayacalla reached level 9. With Sanctuary things will get much easier - and cheaper!
At the beginning of this challenge - when it was called the LoB Solo Warrior Challenge - my level of play was much worse than now. But it was mainly @Grond0 (and also @Blackraven) who pointed out what i can do better and where i tend to go in a wrong - or suboptimal - direction. I also have to blame him for playing no reload today - which i totally refused for a very very long time. But he was right: It gives the game a new - and very unforgiving - punch! But i like to suffer!
Too bad that a really bad headache stopped me from playing on yesterday so i hope that i will find some time today.
Teleria: As she – and her Golem Guard – do not attack if you skip the talking both went down fast and easy. Remember that the petrified people will reward you sometimes with really nice stuff for instance PfM or PfU scrolls!
Isabella & Ikros: Ayacalla joined the hunters and faced Tsolak the Vampire. Some interesting talking followed as Tsolak realized her dark heritage: „I mean only that we both possess powers granted to us by a darker force. Together we could destroy these self-righteous hunters.“ Ayacalla thought for a moment and joined the vampire raging down the two hunters. Remember: His messenger will only appear in the camp during night!
P.S. With Sanctuary she quickly grabbed the Gemblade +1 in the southern part of the Coastway Forest - another nice gold pushing option as it can create any kind of gem available in the game (30 charges, turns into Gemblade +2 afterwards, not sellable).
Takos: With the Shield from Isabella & Ikros Aacalla had found all three heirlooms and returned them to Takos. After getting the Acid Dart +2 she also convinced him to give away his Mirror of Identification which will save a lot of money later on.
Ancient Menhirs: Ayacalla visited all Menhirs around using Sanctuary for the one with spiders and called upon the spirit of Crommus. After some talking she now knows that his equipment is somewhere hidden in the Dwarven Mines...
Dwarven Mines: Invisibility and especially PfU makes this one a walk in the park. Ayacalla sided with the Undead and collected all Amulets to show them the Coldhearth Lich. Very happy about the evil power growing in Ayacalla the Lich agreed to support her against the Crusade. On her way out she quickly looted the hidden cache of Crommus and waved a last good bye to the undead around.
Meeting Caelar: With Boots and Oil of Speed Ayacalla managed to retreat out of sight before the enemies could react safing another invisibility potion. Once the talking with Caelar is over the first part of the March to Dragonspear is finished. As there is no need to soak XP cause the level cap is already reached Ayacalla decided to move on!
Ayacalla destroyed all opposition in the Temple of Bhaal and it looked like the evil outsider smiled upon her...
Morentherene: The Green Dragon was killed instantly with a Throwing Dagger - rolling a 19. Ayacalla grabbed the Scales - rested safely - and used Sanctuary to get into the Temple unseen.
Ziatar: You can also trick the sister of Morentherene quite badly so it looks like that Dragons - or Half-Dragons - in SoD are really dumb like hell. If you retreat right after the talking and position yourself at maximum range with Ziatar barely seen you can shoot her all day long: She just stands there and will sometimes try to cast spells which will fail thanks to 4 APR Acid Arrows. She even did not use her Poison Breath. With other words: This was a short and easy piece of work.
Neothelid: Buffed up - and negating the Mind Control - Ayacalla waved a short hello at the beast and closed the doors again waiting in the entrance room for the coming teleport. With no Mordi Sword summoning and only rare Mind Controls - and one poison Nova - all Ayacalla had to do was: Move back and forth to lure it out of the ground - hit it hard once - and repeat until dead. At the end she only needed to use one charge of Durlags Goblet as the Neothelid was just too slow for her.
Akanna: After luring the Aerial Servants out she went invisible, moved back to the High Priestress and closed the door. The following 1vs1 was so onesided that it wasnt a real fight. Even the Sanctuary could not save Akanna as she was always interrupted with Necklace of Missiles Fireballs. Shortly after the clash was over so Ayacalla grabbed the Wardstone and moved out of the Temple again not bothering about the Shadow Aspect...
Bridgefort will be next!
BG2EE Solo Playthrough LoB + SCS Mage/Cleric polymorpher
But - wait a moment - werent Mages banned from the Realms?
Nah, keep going! Hope that i will find time for Ayacalla today!
P.S. But why starting SoA with level 12/12 @comebackhome? Isnt that a bit of an overkill?
So I used EE keeper in SoA to bring a totemic to 3m xp and on the level up the ability correctly says it will give 50% Immunity, but Houston we have a problem.
Since it's changed into a shapeshifting token, Totemics can't use it anymore, while vanilla Earth Elmental form is an ability
I then tried a normal fighter/druid MC but some of my mod must have bugged the HLAs and only Fighter HLAs show, while Druid HLAs are shown as a red symbol witout text.
I then tried a normal Druid but only the normal shapshifts show up after choosing the HLA, somehow Improved shapeshifting from SCS messes up my install, while without it Earth Elemental worked fine (just not with 50% resistance)
Ayacalla marched through Bridgefort surrendering the fort to the Crusaders, tanking the Fire Elemental at the bridge without problems afterwards. She grabbed the Ring of the Crusade and Corinths Bow and Dragonspear Castle while aquiring the Myconid and Ankheg Summons on her way to Hephernaan. Also buying some more potions on the run she used invisibility to get out again.
The Crusader Attacks could not stop Ayacalla from getting closer to Big B!
Wave I - Ogres and Trolls
A real wavestopper here is to charm Dynaheir and let her cast "Web" right before the fight. This will not only stop most of the hard hitting Ogres and Trolls but will also prevent the Mages from casting Haste. This bought a lot of time for the Undead allies and Ankhegs with Detonation Arrows raining from behind. Once the 11th Fireball exploded Ayacalla switched to Acid Arrows to finish off the last Ogres. Big bad Yarok - like always - tried to run through the lines but was immediately engaged in close combat from Ayacalla. Three blows later he was history...
Wave II - Crusader Mages
To play it supersafe Ayacalla had PfM running to avoid a potentially deadly dispel + CC combo. Buffed up and with the Wizard Slayers helping out the combination of Dispelling Arrows and 12 Detonation Arrows was more than enough to finish them off - too easy!!!
Wave III - Cavaliers and Clerics
Here its all about constant AoE Damage (or CC) to prevent the nearly endless enemy healing. With Ankhegs and Myconids rooting the Cavaliers in place 14 Detonation Arrows killed everyone - except for two Clerics. Once Sanctuary expired they dropped like flies!
Wave IV - Crusader Generals
Thanks to the immortal ally support and some more Detonation Arrows the Coaliation made short work of the Named Ones...
Potions looted afterwards
Invisibility: 12
Power: 8
Invulnerability: 2
Speed: 1
Extra Healing: 8
Time to strike back and bring the battle right to Dragonspear Castle - but this time without dying offscreen!
Update
Dragonspear Castle was finally conquered while Ashatiel lost another 1vs1 - this time against Ayacalla.
With a lot of Potions the next steps will lead directly into Avernus - back home again! No?
Invisibility: 11
Power: 24
Invulnerability: 13
Speed: 6
Extra Healing: 17
All in all thats 137 Invisibility Potions for Big B - more than enough!!
The demon waves proved to be no big deal. With anti-slashing-equipment they would need to roll 20´s to hit her while multiple Potions of Power buffed her HP to 250+. With another PfM scroll she negated all CC and tanked wave one and two at the bridge. The only dangerous demon - if faced in close combat - was the Hamatula cause of his Barbed Defense that damaged Ayacalla each time she hit the beast. Therefore she killed the other ones first so the reflected damage would never take her down into danger zone. Same with the second wave even though she there also had to keep an eye on the Erinyes Archer - which forced one charge of Durlags Goblet - after rolling lucky 20´s in a row. With the newly aquired Acid Longsword +3 Ayacalla used the Elevator and killed some more demons without problems.
Buffed up - using the last PfM scroll - she finally met Big B again. The combination of Caelar plus Myconids was able to hold the line quite well this time so once the last charge was used Big B had already lost ~300 HP. The Hit & Run followed always the same pattern: Wait until Big B teleports to a new spot with the other demons being away from him -> rush in hard and hit him once -> immediately step back and go invisible again!! Ayacalla got lucky that only one Erinyes Archer appeared during the whole fight so most of the time the Regeneration Potion was enough to keep HP high enough.
Another good timing followed as she switched to double Magic Protection Potions right before PfM expired so the Demons never got any chance to land one of their deadly CC´s. Rebuffed - and with Big B already down to "badly injured" the Hit & Run continued even though some mistiming forced Ayacalla to use Durlags Goblet several times in between - just to stay on the safe side.
Some bad rolls followed and the battle - which seemed to be won - continued longer than i thought especially as Big B constantly regenerated his HP too. Another full rebuffing cycle followed with more and more demons gating in - space was getting a bit closer now. Only with careful moving (not running into the dreaded Cornugon stun!), fast hitting and quick invisibilty (89 Potions used overall) Ayacalla managed to stay alive long enough to land the final blow at Big B. With all demons - except for Hephernaan - porting away the rest was a walk in the park as the traitor got oblitaterated in seconds...
Time for the final cutscenes and some resting before striking on Irenicus in SoA...
I haven't had a lot of time to play in the last week or so, but I have been using odd moments to do a re-run of Rapper the berserker dualled to mage. She's just hit mage level 8 and recovered her fighting abilities, so should be capable of making faster progress now.
There have been a few moments of danger - in particular when I was working through ghasts in Durlag's Tower using an invisible blocking familiar. I got caught out there when invisibility ended unexpectedly on the familiar and the ghast attacked it. I was reading a book at the time and didn't immediately notice what was happening - with the result that the familiar was paralysed and reached near death status as Rapper started casting invisibility. I thought the likely result of that would be one sad death followed immediately by another, but somehow the familiar survived the endless second it took to cast the spell
Once i also thought that the SoA starting dungeon would be a nightmare especially for Warrior classes @comebackhome. But after doing it several times now it has lost most of its danger: Divide and conquer is the way to go - and patience! With the SoD XP cap Druids might have the easiest time here as Fire Elementals (or Spirit Summons) are untouchable by most enemies so you get time to drink another cup of tea while watching how your summons tear everything apart!
Yeah you are right @Grond0! I already had a dream stepping onto a deadly trap in the Lilarcor sewers. But first its all about the Duergar in the starting dungeon - this should be funny! May luck follow your Magerker for a "little bit" more of time!
It's also one of the best programs out there, despite being free.
Splittpulling: With careful moving it was possbile to fight the Duergar 1vs1 – Ayacalla just had to make sure getting some distance to avoid call for help. Several things were working in the Blackguards favour here as she can not only use DUHM but also debuff enemies with Aura of Despair while boosting damage with poison (which they often fail to save). Absorb Health can be used in between to either finish off Duergar or heal up fast again. The divide & conquer also worked with Illych even though Ayacalla needed several tries to split him from the rest of his guards. On his own the Duergar leader proved to be no big deal. The only tricky situation arose when she was surrounded by one Duergar Fighter and one Mephit that appeared out of nowhere. Without panicking Ayacalla concentrated on the Duergar first who went down pretty fast thanks to some heavy crits so with the Mephit alone she could just tank on without using any healing potion!!
Key items: Ayacalla used Sanctuary to sneak past the first Duergar group to get Varscona +2 Longsword which will make close combat a lot easier. Its also quite funny to watch the colourful log thanks all the damage unleashed: Slashing + Cold + Poison! Once the Golem has opened some doors Ayacalla rushed through to Baldurans Helm luring the Duergar away using Sanctuary. More AC, more HP, more THAC0 – can you dream of more?
Resting: Whenever a Duergar or Mephit was taken down Ayacalla hided in one room and refreshed her abilities just to make sure she always walks around at maximum destruction level.
Taking care: Ayacalla did not bother to fight the hard hitting Golem Guards or the Duergar Mages (save or die). Like the big Mephit group on the air ship she sneaked past them using Sanctuary. Its also no good idea to fight any backstabbing Thieves – we are no Barbarian!
Sleeping Chamber: The traps here could easily kill Ayacalla so whenever she triggered one a rest followed – until all chests got looted. The incoming Golems were tricked with Sanctuary...
Mephit Portals: This one proved to be harder than expected after Ayacalla managed to pull four Mephits at the same time. She tanked them one after another using the portal to retreat and rest. Once the last one was down she shooted the first portal down from maximum range – only three left. As only the last Portal with the Radiant Mephit is really dangerous she gulped one Oil of Speed, casted Santcuary, moved to the fourth portal and buffed up with DUHM. Once the Radiant Mephit appeared Ayacalla immediately stepped back to avoid the CC and rushed to the portal again to hack it into pieces. She was fast enough before any more CC could go out and proceeded with the remaining two portals while always keeping a close look at her HP. With some minor Healing Potions and Absorb Health the remaining Mephits were unable to get in enough damage before the last portal exploded.
Thieves and Vampires: This one is quite easy as Ayacalla constantly attacked the vampire – who was only trying to kill the Assassins. Even better: The two summons remained friendly once the vampire (8k XP) went down and the Thieves turned hostile. With the Mage out of spells the rest was a short story...
Before moving out: Frennedan the Doppleganger was kicked without problems. Once the chests around were looted Ayacalla also grabbed the Ring of Protection +1 and – thanks to Sanctuary – she looted the Anti Crushing Belt unseen from the Duergar Guards. She did not bother to fight them as the Mage has memorized three Chromatic Orbs which could have been fatal. Safety first!
With a last Sanctuary she slipped past the Assassins and welcomed the fresh air and bright sunlight!!
Not to forget: Once stepping out Ayacalla reached level 10...
@Harpagornis It's just so awesome to see you tackle SoA ! Best of luck ! It theoritically should go well : with some easy quests and a bit of cheese (PfU scrolls to go through the Umar Hills questline, for instance), you should get in HLA range fast, and blow out the rest of the game after that !
I have the itch to get back in the frey, since I got a bit more free time now. However, I have to finish a run in IWDEE and I got a BGEE/BG2EE install with IR/SR on top of plenty of other mods that I wanted to sink my teeth in for a while. I'll definitively gonna be back, maybe sooner than later.
Caligula's run is pretty much over though. Since things were getting too easy with HLAs, I was missing the thrill of no reload anyway. Seems like I won't be avenging Sukka anytime soon. Sorry buddy !!
At the Bandit Camp Tazok was unable to kill Taurgosz in a fair fight, so a hobgoblin elite had to finish him off (in an unfair fight). Rapper then entered Tazok's tent invisibly and checked out the trapped chest before disappearing again using a potion.
After sneaking through the Cloakwood, invisibility made it easy to charm Drasus & co. In the mine there was no fighting on the way down to Davaeorn's level. The guard there was charmed and pulled back the battle horrors to be consumed by a first use of a wand of fire. The guard then went and chopped down Davaeorn, who never attempted to defend himself - much quicker than activating him and waiting for all his guards to arrive
The reward for flooding the mine pushed her reputation up to 20 and she did some shopping on the way to the City, followed by quickly returning to Durlag's Tower and using her newly learnt MSD to get the tome.
In the City Rapper had another near thing when I didn't notice Ragefast targeting her with a paralysation wand - luckily some summons had already depleted him of most spells and she survived. She spent a lot of money on scroll purchases, but still failed to learn a number of useful spells - haste will be particularly missed. Her success to date has been not much over half, compared to a notional chance of 85%. Given the amount of spells she's tried to learn gives a reasonable sample size I'm a bit suspicious that for some reason being a dualled mage is requiring her to take the 15% penalty for specialist mages - if not she's been quite exceptionally unlucky in her attempts (though I was relieved when she finally learnt web with the last of 6 attempts at that).
Summons beat up Marek, but regrettably they failed to help with Ramazith - he just disappeared with his ring of protection +2. I do normally deal with him before tackling Ragefast, but had been thinking he would just go to the top of his tower rather than disappearing entirely (in retrospect I think he only does that if you talk with him before going to Ragefast and then come back having freed the nymph).
After reporting to Duke Eltan, Rapper was transported to Candlekeep. I was intending to use a potion of invisibility there, but the game wouldn't allow me to pause during the cut-scene effect and it was too late after the ogre magi activated so I ended up using magic blocking again.
While raiding the tombs I was again slow to react when a phase spider teleported in and Rapper had to hastily run back to the library to rest and cure the poison. The phase spiders and web traps mean it's easy to get into trouble taking on Prat and I considered wimping out of that contest - but couldn't justify doing that! Instead, Rapper went invisible to trigger all the web traps and then worked her way through the spiders using charm, blindness and summons - and paying attention to teleportation! One sword spider was left alive and used to quickly kill Prat's party as they were charmed. Sakul had a haste scroll, but Rapper once more failed to learn that (along with 3 of 4 attempts at other spells).
Back in the City Slythe was stuck by a second paralysation attempt. Krystin then wore her spells out on summons and a few charmed allies.
Before going on to the Palace I thought it would be nice to get a decent longbow, so went back to the Bandit Camp. Buffing followed by a mixture of summons and horror kept attacks on Rapper down enough for her to kill Venkt and she used a couple of regeneration potions to push HPs back up before dealing with the rest.
Doing that fight proved a mistake though. With so many enemies involved it requires concentration and care (and avoiding bad luck) and it seemed I'd used my ration of that up before moving on to the palace
There were several things I could have done to improve her chances there, e.g.
- she had the wrong belt equipped as a result of inventory overload.
- she'd pre-cast MMMs some time earlier and I didn't bother removing those even though I recognised they were not a good strategy.
- she'd only got 4 summons as a result of not wanting to use a charge up to get only 1 more.
Nevertheless, with a modified AC of -8 I didn't expect her to be that easy to hit and with 8 charmed allies and 4 summons on the battlefield the dopplegangers' choice of targets was pretty unfortunate ...
Circus Tent: Sanctuary and sling kiting with Oil of Speed did the job
Hendak and the Slaves: Charmed the prison guard to avoid the call for help takling. Kited the animals down first and finished the Beastmaster in close combat.
Murder in Bridge District: Running and talking...
Graveyard: Some more talking and walking...
Renfield: As Ayacalla always casts Santuary before traveling the enemies could not spot her at the beginning. She talked to Renfield, picked him up and rushed out again.
Suna Seni: As charming did not work Ayacalla had to retreat...
Maevar: Just started...
Mencar and friends: With Nymph Cloak Brennan and Ammon got charmed and taken out by their former friends. The rest was lured downstairs one by one so the Amnian Guard could take care of them. Only when „nearly dead“ Ayacalla joined the battle again kiting Mencar and Co down with her sling to soak up XP. With Cloak-of-non-Detection, Sandthief Ring and Full Plate Armor things should get a lot easier...
Ayacalla also reached level 11 – time to push reputation and getting some gold...
P.S. Why not just charming the Mage before @Grond0 and park him in next room? Still too cheesy?
We've had the discussion before about what determines the dopplegangers' targeting and that's really what caught me out this time. With 13 other targets available to them, all 4 of the melee-oriented dopplegangers initially attacked the dukes. Even with LoB HPs their hasted attacks would make pretty short work of the dukes, which resulted in my slight (but fatal) change of tactics.
Ayacalla continued with Maevars Quest and infilitrated Rayic Gethras house luring the Mephits outside and Golems downstairs so she could use the stairs safely for retreat. Buffed up - and protected against elementals - she started attacking Rayic moving up and downstairs to let the Mage waste his spells. But after going up again for the fourth time she got instantly hit by three (or four?) Skull traps that Rayic must have placed when she ran downstairs. As there was no casting indication in the log Ayacalla thought to be safe - but that was not the case. The resuslt: She got instantly hit by 38+42+38+34 magic damage which proved to be fatal.
This was very sloppy - and unlucky - play as i wasnt really concentrating on the game and - after crushing Mencar and friends - the deadly feeling of "nothing can go wrong" assaulted me. Too bad...
Okay, there are two options now:
1. As @Vynn somehow managed to restore the old Savegame of Eklun the Totemic Druid where he was already in the Elevator right before Big B i could try to bring him through to SoA too...
2. Start SoA with Korgath the Fighter/Thief and cheese the hell out of the game...
As i am still not in the mood for Thief like character i might give Eklun a try. But first: Some fresh air!
P.S. You are right @Grond0 - the Doppleganger targeting is really weird. Sometimes they attack anyone but the Dukes sometimes they are out for their blood only...
Maybe next time use sanctuary to get out of Rayic's sight and bring in some summons to help out?