For some weird reason Su´kka could stun Amelyssan with Power Attack even though her saves should be too good. As i stated earlier my SoA + ToB installation feels quite buggy. But even with this bug it was all about luck as in some rounds Amelyssan just seem to forgot calling in summons. Maybe another bug. I think i will have to reinstall the game and test it again cause in my first dozens of tries Power Attack was not working at all. Your picture @histamiini brings back some painful moments as Su´kka was outnumbered and surrounded like this over and over again...
P.S. Yeah weapons lower than +4 are not working at all against Amelyssan...
P.P.S. The Slow from The Flail of Ages disturbed her quite a lot!!!
Brakko crushed through the next challenges like an avalanche...
Candlekeep was all about disarming traps, sneaking and grabbing Tomes. No need to bother with the monsters as he already had reached level 7/8. The Ogre Magres were tricked like always with quick pause + Invisibility Potion. Okay, back to Baldurs Gate.
Here he helped Duke Eltan and killed the hideous Doppleganger with his Skels. Same for Slythe. With five Skels and one guard the poor Assassin dropped down quite fast even through Kristin tried to help him - without success.
The Palace Ambush was all about preparation. Set Traps near the Nobles, charm the Mage and move him away, rest once, summon in five Skeleton Warriors and bring down the remaining Dopplegangers with Sling + Wand of Heaven. After this slaughters Brakkko parked the Mage on top of the stairs where he got death-trapped by Skeletons and the Flaming Fist. Even though Sarevok managed to kill Liia Belt survived without any scratch. Nice!
After a quick tour through the lands Brakkko collected the remaining Tomes and pushed his attributes a bit more. Finally 9 INT - no more potions needed. Time for Durlags Tower.
With buffs, Santuary and the ability to disable any trap (110 with DoHM) Brakko quickly feeded the needs of all Wardens. He summoned five Skeletons, buffed up and let them do the dirty job while watching the punching out of invisbility. Once Love went down he quickly grabbed his Wardstone and moved on to level two.
Here he found an even faster route to Durlags. Open the northern door, hit dummy two and gather the Wardstones, hit dummy three to quickly grab Kiels Helmet, move back to the entrance room and wait until Durlags triggers his final speech, hit dummy three again, sneak past the Dopplegangers and take Durlags Goblet from the ground. This took only about two or three minutes without any risk. Brakko used another Sanctuary to get out of this cursed place and will be hunting down Sarevok soon...
After activating the last pool I could teleport back to Pocket Plane and get everybody there. Then I could charm Cespenar and make him tank everybody forever as he's unkillable, which could take some pressure of when fighting Mel. How about that cheese?
That Soul Reaver could be solution, but I would have to get Fallen, anyone know what that does to Paladin?
May not be worth it. You'll basically become a fighter of the same level but without being able to attain grandmastery in weapons. You'll lose all your paladin-/cavalier-specific abilities and advantages (your immunities and resistances, your spells, you saves bonuses, your bonuses against demons and dragons).
@Blackraven Yeah tested it out by killing couple people. And as @Harpagornis mentioned I would have to reload from the Hell Trials, which is too far to play again, at least for now.
A Control Circlet would work on Cespenar; any other form of charm would fail. He couldn't deal damage due to having no weapon, and some of the enemies may ignore him due to his 100% resistance to slashing damage, since certain SCS enemies avoid attacking critters with resistances of 75% or higher.
I think the Pocket Plane would be valid, at least if Melissan follows you. It would grant you an extra set of traps and let you charm NPCs you brought in via the Fate Spirit, but resting would not be possible.
Brakko erased the first Big Boss and will start SoD soon...
The fight against Sarevok was business as usual - well nearly. First Brakko tricked Angelo with a Silence out of vision after his first protection spells expired. The incoming Skeleton Warriors now had an really easy time slaying the helpless Mage.
Semaj, Tazok and Diarmid were burned down with Necklace of Missiles even though Brakko had to switch places and use invisibility once more after the Skeletons somehow triggered the named ones. Once the Skels were down the burning continued until only Sarevok was left. With Slingshots + Wand of Heaven his evil brother slowly but surely lost his HP without being able to touch Brakko as he couldnt match Boots of Speed + Oil of Speed. Ten minutes later Sarevok went down and the gates to SoD are open once more...
Really funny: This time Brakko started SoD with nearly 223k XP which gave him an instant double-level-up. Does anyone know how the bonus-xp-transfer works? Its still a mystery to me...
Really funny: This time Brakko started SoD with nearly 223k XP which gave him an instant double-level-up. Does anyone know how the bonus-xp-transfer works? Its still a mystery to me...
Congrats @Harpagornis! As for your question, dual and multi-classes keep earning "invisible" XP, possibly even up to 161k in each class, which will only be given at the start of SoD. Single-classes don't, so they'll always start with 161k (a little more than that actually).
Leon did the bandit camp as planned. Careful use of the space bar and the stealth button allowed me to loot the different containers in the tent without ever becoming visible long enough to be trigger Raemon's speech. He picked up a cloak of non-detection, Spiders Bane (by right clicking the stash while stealthed) and a potion of invulnerability before taking on Drasus. Leon managed to lure him away from the others, using his only oil of speed, and finished him with backstabs. Davaeorn's traps were triggered with the shield amulet and Leon's only potion of magic shielding. He used 9 (of 10 available) charges of the necklace of missiles, three potion of explosions, and three oils of fiery burning to kill most of the guards before taking on Davaeorn with ranged attacks, using bolts of lightning. Leon suffered some damage from magic missiles but never got into trouble from disablers thanks to clarity and shield amulet. He made it to Baldur's Gate but I overwrote my save, so my last save is the Chapter 5 start save.
As for your question, dual and multi-classes keep earning "invisible" XP, possibly even up to 161k in each class, which will only be given at the start of SoD. Single-classes don't, so they'll always start with 161k (a little more than that actually).
My experience is different - normally, though not always, my characters irrespective of class get the invisible XP. As to why though I have no answer ...
Interesting, I've only seen it with multis and duals, never with singles. Now Harpagornis' and your findings make me wonder whether I've had this happen always with my multis.
Damn, I killed everyone else but Sarevok, who I kept alive with RoR and who lured all to himself, Melissan included, where as I was hiding in the corner. Then I timed my teleport just at the same time as Sarevok died. When I teleported back Melissan teleported onto me, but did nothing. So I beat her up, but she refused to die. Looking it up she had 1 hp, so apparently her breaking, did also not remove the amulet which lets her to have minimum 1 hp.
EDIT: actually Illasera was still alive. And when I killed her, Melissan came back to alive and reqained all his health. EDIT: no no no, got working Melissan to 3rd health bar, but then I accidentally healed her. I don't think there's possibility to beat her at this point, she's spamming Absolute Immunity all the time, which means only +6 weapons will hit her, so I can only use Ravager.
Actually did it, can't believe it. Lucky that I still tried the thing that actually won the battle, even though I was getting frustrated. So from start to finish,
Throne of Bhaal
High resistance build, DoEH, Yellow Dragon Scale, Roranach Horn, Reflection shield for Illasera. Used PfM on Sendai and Abazigal, charmed Sarevok with Control Circlet. Kept Sarevok alive with Rod of Resurrection and hacked everybody to 1 health bar and then I teleported to Pocket Plane to save (not rest).
Teleported back and hacked everybody down, except Sarevok. Amelyssan actually stayed with Sarevok so I retreated to the corner and refreshed Sarevok at this point. The two Solars were on to me, so I used Ravager on them. Again teleported and saved at Pocket Plane.
Then came back, watched Sarevok to die, and before Amelyssan teleported onto me, I teleported again to Pocket Plane. This time I rested to get back all the abilities, because Amelyssan was still in full health and everybody else was dead. This also unsummoned bunch of enemies.
So the thing that actually won the battle. Big Metal Unit and low AC build. Teleported back invisible so Mariliths didn't pick me up, and ran onto empty corner. Amelyssan teleported quickly on me, but now I could tank her, with 3 AoF's and 3 Hardinesses, which I used one by one. I used Ravager +6 everytime she had Absolute Immunity on, and changed to FoA/DoEH when it expired. Back and forth, using all the Gww's and Critical Strikes. Amelyssan summoned once pack of enemies, 2 Cambions, Succubus and Alu-Fiend, which I Ravaged pretty quickly. And slowly I grinded her down, and only using like 7 hits of Rod of Resurrection.
So Sir Vanderley actually did it, with slight cheese using Pocket Plane as his advantage. Well I think it's only fair considering how Melissan can spam spells like no other and break all the rules herself.
Well done @histamiini!! You've had a to be patient, and creative, and you found a way. Congratulations friend. (And pocketplane-saving/resting doesn't diminish your accomplishment in any way imo.)
@Blackraven Thanks! Yeah after all this it's better to finish like this than just leave it hanging.
On slight note I should've upgraded Carsomyr to +6 rather than Purifier to +5, so I could've used it against Absolute Immunity. It would've dispelled Amelyssan and done 50% more damage than Ravager.
On slight note I should've upgraded Carsomyr to +6 rather than Purifier to +5, so I could've used it against Absolute Immunity. It would've dispelled Amelyssan and done 50% more damage than Ravager.
Just on dispelling Mel, I'm not sure how much good that would do - I seem to remember that she has a unique version of stoneskin coded as undispellable. Perhaps @semiticgod or someone else with a better memory than me can confirm.
After Frack's demise I decided to treat myself to another attempt with Wimp the wild mage. I think this is the 6th significant attempt I've had with her - she's also had quite a few restarts to get her to learn the identify scroll in Candlekeep (it took 6 attempts this time). That's a result of her being somewhat intellectually challenged by mage standards (of course she's considerably more everything else challenged ).
She's just got up to level 7 thanks almost entirely to her familiar and the use of Algernon's Cloak, with just the odd bit of damage from her darts. As you can see from her last level up screen, levels don't really make much difference to her HPs at the moment (I don't suppose many people come across negative HPs when levelling up - in fact I think in P&P that was supposed to be impossible). She also rarely hits opponents anyway, but it's always nice to feel as though progress being made.
She's not yet been to Nashkel (as a result of archer travel ambushes being generally more difficult to avoid in the southern areas), but will be aiming to get there soon.
@Arctodus@Harpagornis Definitely no-reload on my mind, I'm thinking to do sometype of thief, as I've never really played a thief, never laid traps etc.
@Grond0 Yeah Mel probably has immunity to dispel also because she's immune to pretty much every effect. But Carsomyr +6 is still easily the best melee weapon against her, and her Absolute Immunity.
Average Damage vs Mel
Carsomyr +6 - 18,5 (50 magic resistance, dispel?) Staff of the Ram +6 - 17,5 (you lose Roranach's Horn and 50 crushing resistance) The Ravager +6 - 11,5 Ixil's Spike +6 - 9,5 (free action)
When Mel appears, she's immune to weapons +4 and below, but when Abazigal dies she loses her finabaz ring, and loses immunity to +4 weapons. So in the end you need +6 weapons when she has Absolute Immunity on, and at least +4 weapon in the small window she doesn't have that on.
After @histamiini had brought down Amelyssan i was shortly thinking about reactivating Eklun the Totemic Druid/Fighter but decided against it. Maybe after Brakko had reached SoA - or he died once more in @Grond0 style! However: I will take my time and only continue once my concentration is on top level again.
Brakko crashed through the start of SoD without problems:
1. Wth Sanctuary he opened the door to Porios, attacked one Follower to break invisibility to trigger the talking. Once Porios was peaced up Brakko looted some stuff (Inv Potions!) and moved on to the second level 2. With PfU, Oil of Speed and Sanctuary he disarmed some traps and stormed to the door mechanism. Brakko there got lucky and charmed the Assassin nearby so both sneaked to Korlasz (disarming the Dispel Magic Trap). 3. Brakko now summoned five Skeleton Warriors and parked them around Korlasz together with the Assassin so the mage would be unable to flee in any direction. 4. With Hold Person out of vision on one of the Skeleton Warriors Brakko triggered the talking while the spell was still mid-air. Korlasz went hostile and half a second later the Hold Person hit her - once more she failed her saving throw. 5. The rest was easy: Hack Korlasz down to badly wounded and let the Skels then switch their target. Waited until the spell expired, attacked once more to break invisibilty so the surrender talking triggered. Job done!
Time to loot the chests around before moving on to Baldurs Gate once more!
Thieves are a really good choice @histamiini. I had parked Korgath my Fighter/Thief at the start of SoA and never touched him again as he felt just too OP. Mage/Thief should be even more deadly on higher levels. I would also love to play a pure Swashbuckler but the lacking crit-immunity make things tricky. IF he survives SoD this one will get a monster in mid-late SoA. IF you get there. Personally i like Cleric/Thief a lot as you have seen. Without Arrows of Detonation and Dispelling Arrows things are a bit more interesting. Well - at least the Crusader Attacks!
I am really curious which path you will choose!
P.S. Trapping is a looot of fun later on even though it feels "a bit" cheesy!
Comments
P.S. Yeah weapons lower than +4 are not working at all against Amelyssan...
P.P.S. The Slow from The Flail of Ages disturbed her quite a lot!!!
Candlekeep was all about disarming traps, sneaking and grabbing Tomes. No need to bother with the monsters as he already had reached level 7/8. The Ogre Magres were tricked like always with quick pause + Invisibility Potion. Okay, back to Baldurs Gate.
Here he helped Duke Eltan and killed the hideous Doppleganger with his Skels. Same for Slythe. With five Skels and one guard the poor Assassin dropped down quite fast even through Kristin tried to help him - without success.
The Palace Ambush was all about preparation. Set Traps near the Nobles, charm the Mage and move him away, rest once, summon in five Skeleton Warriors and bring down the remaining Dopplegangers with Sling + Wand of Heaven. After this slaughters Brakkko parked the Mage on top of the stairs where he got death-trapped by Skeletons and the Flaming Fist. Even though Sarevok managed to kill Liia Belt survived without any scratch. Nice!
After a quick tour through the lands Brakkko collected the remaining Tomes and pushed his attributes a bit more. Finally 9 INT - no more potions needed. Time for Durlags Tower.
With buffs, Santuary and the ability to disable any trap (110 with DoHM) Brakko quickly feeded the needs of all Wardens. He summoned five Skeletons, buffed up and let them do the dirty job while watching the punching out of invisbility. Once Love went down he quickly grabbed his Wardstone and moved on to level two.
Here he found an even faster route to Durlags. Open the northern door, hit dummy two and gather the Wardstones, hit dummy three to quickly grab Kiels Helmet, move back to the entrance room and wait until Durlags triggers his final speech, hit dummy three again, sneak past the Dopplegangers and take Durlags Goblet from the ground. This took only about two or three minutes without any risk. Brakko used another Sanctuary to get out of this cursed place and will be hunting down Sarevok soon...
P.S. Soul Reaver also works and will make Mel miss (nearly) always...
P.P.S. But if you like to use it - at the end its up to you @histamiini
What else?
Maybe you should use EEKepper just to test Soulreaver first...
And like @Blackraven mentioned: The losses are quite heavily...
I think the Pocket Plane would be valid, at least if Melissan follows you. It would grant you an extra set of traps and let you charm NPCs you brought in via the Fate Spirit, but resting would not be possible.
The fight against Sarevok was business as usual - well nearly. First Brakko tricked Angelo with a Silence out of vision after his first protection spells expired. The incoming Skeleton Warriors now had an really easy time slaying the helpless Mage.
Semaj, Tazok and Diarmid were burned down with Necklace of Missiles even though Brakko had to switch places and use invisibility once more after the Skeletons somehow triggered the named ones. Once the Skels were down the burning continued until only Sarevok was left. With Slingshots + Wand of Heaven his evil brother slowly but surely lost his HP without being able to touch Brakko as he couldnt match Boots of Speed + Oil of Speed. Ten minutes later Sarevok went down and the gates to SoD are open once more...
Really funny: This time Brakko started SoD with nearly 223k XP which gave him an instant double-level-up. Does anyone know how the bonus-xp-transfer works? Its still a mystery to me...
Leon did the bandit camp as planned. Careful use of the space bar and the stealth button allowed me to loot the different containers in the tent without ever becoming visible long enough to be trigger Raemon's speech. He picked up a cloak of non-detection, Spiders Bane (by right clicking the stash while stealthed) and a potion of invulnerability before taking on Drasus. Leon managed to lure him away from the others, using his only oil of speed, and finished him with backstabs. Davaeorn's traps were triggered with the shield amulet and Leon's only potion of magic shielding. He used 9 (of 10 available) charges of the necklace of missiles, three potion of explosions, and three oils of fiery burning to kill most of the guards before taking on Davaeorn with ranged attacks, using bolts of lightning. Leon suffered some damage from magic missiles but never got into trouble from disablers thanks to clarity and shield amulet.
He made it to Baldur's Gate but I overwrote my save, so my last save is the Chapter 5 start save.
But why did i get only 176-178k XP in my last runs with Multiclass characters? Maybe the game doesnt like the Basilisk-XP-Loop?
However: Keep going @Blackraven!
EDIT: actually Illasera was still alive. And when I killed her, Melissan came back to alive and reqained all his health.
EDIT: no no no, got working Melissan to 3rd health bar, but then I accidentally healed her. I don't think there's possibility to beat her at this point, she's spamming Absolute Immunity all the time, which means only +6 weapons will hit her, so I can only use Ravager.
Throne of Bhaal
High resistance build, DoEH, Yellow Dragon Scale, Roranach Horn, Reflection shield for Illasera. Used PfM on Sendai and Abazigal, charmed Sarevok with Control Circlet. Kept Sarevok alive with Rod of Resurrection and hacked everybody to 1 health bar and then I teleported to Pocket Plane to save (not rest).
Teleported back and hacked everybody down, except Sarevok. Amelyssan actually stayed with Sarevok so I retreated to the corner and refreshed Sarevok at this point. The two Solars were on to me, so I used Ravager on them. Again teleported and saved at Pocket Plane.
Then came back, watched Sarevok to die, and before Amelyssan teleported onto me, I teleported again to Pocket Plane. This time I rested to get back all the abilities, because Amelyssan was still in full health and everybody else was dead. This also unsummoned bunch of enemies.
So the thing that actually won the battle. Big Metal Unit and low AC build. Teleported back invisible so Mariliths didn't pick me up, and ran onto empty corner. Amelyssan teleported quickly on me, but now I could tank her, with 3 AoF's and 3 Hardinesses, which I used one by one. I used Ravager +6 everytime she had Absolute Immunity on, and changed to FoA/DoEH when it expired. Back and forth, using all the Gww's and Critical Strikes. Amelyssan summoned once pack of enemies, 2 Cambions, Succubus and Alu-Fiend, which I Ravaged pretty quickly. And slowly I grinded her down, and only using like 7 hits of Rod of Resurrection.
So Sir Vanderley actually did it, with slight cheese using Pocket Plane as his advantage. Well I think it's only fair considering how Melissan can spam spells like no other and break all the rules herself.
On slight note I should've upgraded Carsomyr to +6 rather than Purifier to +5, so I could've used it against Absolute Immunity. It would've dispelled Amelyssan and done 50% more damage than Ravager.
... So, no-reload now ?
Now its time doing ALL of this "once" more using no-reload. No?
P.S. Added Sir Vanderley to the Hall of Fame - well deserved! Finally Korgath isnt alone anymore!
She's just got up to level 7 thanks almost entirely to her familiar and the use of Algernon's Cloak, with just the odd bit of damage from her darts. As you can see from her last level up screen, levels don't really make much difference to her HPs at the moment (I don't suppose many people come across negative HPs when levelling up - in fact I think in P&P that was supposed to be impossible). She also rarely hits opponents anyway, but it's always nice to feel as though progress being made.
She's not yet been to Nashkel (as a result of archer travel ambushes being generally more difficult to avoid in the southern areas), but will be aiming to get there soon.
@Arctodus @Harpagornis Definitely no-reload on my mind, I'm thinking to do sometype of thief, as I've never really played a thief, never laid traps etc.
@Grond0 Yeah Mel probably has immunity to dispel also because she's immune to pretty much every effect. But Carsomyr +6 is still easily the best melee weapon against her, and her Absolute Immunity.
Average Damage vs Mel
Carsomyr +6 - 18,5 (50 magic resistance, dispel?)
Staff of the Ram +6 - 17,5 (you lose Roranach's Horn and 50 crushing resistance)
The Ravager +6 - 11,5
Ixil's Spike +6 - 9,5 (free action)
When Mel appears, she's immune to weapons +4 and below, but when Abazigal dies she loses her finabaz ring, and loses immunity to +4 weapons. So in the end you need +6 weapons when she has Absolute Immunity on, and at least +4 weapon in the small window she doesn't have that on.
Brakko crashed through the start of SoD without problems:
1. Wth Sanctuary he opened the door to Porios, attacked one Follower to break invisibility to trigger the talking. Once Porios was peaced up Brakko looted some stuff (Inv Potions!) and moved on to the second level
2. With PfU, Oil of Speed and Sanctuary he disarmed some traps and stormed to the door mechanism. Brakko there got lucky and charmed the Assassin nearby so both sneaked to Korlasz (disarming the Dispel Magic Trap).
3. Brakko now summoned five Skeleton Warriors and parked them around Korlasz together with the Assassin so the mage would be unable to flee in any direction.
4. With Hold Person out of vision on one of the Skeleton Warriors Brakko triggered the talking while the spell was still mid-air. Korlasz went hostile and half a second later the Hold Person hit her - once more she failed her saving throw.
5. The rest was easy: Hack Korlasz down to badly wounded and let the Skels then switch their target. Waited until the spell expired, attacked once more to break invisibilty so the surrender talking triggered. Job done!
Time to loot the chests around before moving on to Baldurs Gate once more!
I am really curious which path you will choose!
P.S. Trapping is a looot of fun later on even though it feels "a bit" cheesy!