We made it all the way through the Underdark with the Sky Dancer party before I eventually realized that Imoen shouldn't have been able to take the Flare Dancer kit... the Dancer monk kits are only for lawful-aligned critters, and Imoen is Neutral Good. I was about to tackle the Twisted Rune at the lowest level I've ever done before, but it just doesn't feel right to continue the run when Imoen wasn't eligible for the class I gave her.
Still haven't gotten back to finishing the Transmuter run... or posting on the no-reload IWD2:EE run, for which there's a lot of content left to be posted still. I don't know when I'll be back to posting on the Transmuter. I'm a little more interested in a Vampyre thief kit run.
I had planned on making heavy use of Lightning Bolts in my Sky Dancer run, but found limited opportunities for it to make a difference. I probably could have done more if I had had more priest levels in the party and could have made everyone safely immune to electricity damage all the time, but the threat of accidentally frying the party with stray bolts kept me from using Lightning Bolts, whether from wands or spells, in most cases.
But the Wand of Lightning is indeed very, very strong. Across all six bolts in the BG2 version, it's 18d6 damage per charge and it can be bounced multiple times fairly reliably if you aim directly north, south, east, or west (which appears to be a little harder in the Enhanced Edition than I remember it being in vanilla). We used it to take down Tanova in spite of our party's lack of good anti-vampire tools.
I'm starting to view druids as suboptimal these days. With SCS nerfing the hell out of Insect Plague (it can be blocked by a save, Stoneskin, Fire Shield, AND immunity to nonmagical weapons, and Death Spell can dispel it even then), druids effectively lose the best disabler in the game, and druids' inability to gain high levels makes them pretty mediocre buffers for party members who can't cast SI: Abjuration or Entropy Shield: if you can't break past level 14 until very late in the game, your Chaotic Commands spells are going to get dispelled very easily. They're better than clerics in BG1 and SoD (Giant Insect is really powerful and clerics take forever to first learn Chaotic Commands--Jaheira, a multi-classed druid, learns Chaotic Commands before Viconia!), but after midgame SoA, a single-classed cleric will just have a much better caster level.
But frankly, as long as Charname can cast Cure Light Wounds, there's not much need for a full-time healer before BG2, since there are tons of Chaotic Commands scrolls in SoD (monks, paladins, and rangers can all use them) and resting can take care of basic healing duties.
I went ahead and started a new solo run this morning. Two long sessions of gameplay and the Vampyre thief kit who began today in Candlekeep is now at Bridgefort, absolutely dripping with resources and ready to blow stuff up. The path to SoA is clear; I'm just going to have to resort to kiting to deal with Belhifet (unless we can keep Caelar alive indefinitely with Greater Restoration scrolls).
But the Vampyre kit is pretty underpowered in BG1. Being able to drain HP on hit at level 1, drain levels on a failed save vs. death at level 6, and drain saves vs. death at level 12 doesn't mean much if you can only do so on melee hits and you have neither the AC to survive melee nor the THAC0 to actually land hits. The Vampyre drains more stuff on backstabs and criticals, so in practice a Vampyre thief is mostly about hit-and-fade tactics... which makes sense in its early stages. Gaining an extra 1/2 attack per round at levels 7 and 13 doesn't help much in BG1 when the haste bug still limits you to 3 APR with bows and 2 APR with swords when using Oils of Speed.
I think a single-classed, unkitted thief would have been better overall, since it would have had stronger backstabs and a LOT more skill points. But it's been very cool to work with solo thief fundamentals, and we'll be able to do scarier stuff in BG2--draining CON as well as levels. There's also excellent synergy between the Vampyre kit and the Slayer form from Slayer Revisions, which grants higher APR (yeah, yeah, I designed both mods, but I didn't intend the synergy to be there). End-game, we should be landing CON drain kills just like SCS vampires!
Our defenses will still be garbage. I'll probably end up hoarding PFMW scrolls for Melissan, though these days I run on Hardcore mode instead of Insane, which at least will mean we won't have to put up with a pair of Fallen Solars alongside the Five. I'd like to tackle Ascension solo without the Scorcher Ammunition, but I'm bringing along the Golden Pantaloons regardless, just in case I decide to use my favorite ranged weapon in spite of because of how overpowered and broken it is.
I finally tried out the auto-roller mod after I lost a 91-point Vampyre to a wolf near Shoal, and I ended up with a 97-point stat total on my dwarf, the highest I've ever seen in 20 years of playing this game.
I gave her the female human thief animation because I think it's cuter.
A lot of solo runs could be fun for most of the game, but I implicitly shy away from characters that won't have PFMW spells or Hardiness for Melissan. I just don't trust Divine Protection's 3-round duration (you'd have to time it right before Melissan started casting Time Stop; Earth Elemental form is too slow and the new SCS update prevents it from stacking with Hardiness or even Armor of Faith; and most worrying, using PFMW scrolls via Use Any Item always seemed really unsafe to me. Sure, they're immune to spell failure, but it takes 1-2 seconds just to start casting, and those little delays can make the difference between life and death for solo runs.
This is why I've been hesitant to solo as single-classed thieves or priests. But characters that can use PFMW and Hardiness seem too easy for solo runs, since mages and warriors and to some extent bards are just so conventionally powerful. The Vampyre kit's offensive potential is why I found it appealing.
Sometimes I contemplate doing a solo Bounty Hunter run in honor of @Alesia_BH's signature run, years before I entered the challenge. But it seems very imposing. Thieves have never been my strong suit, and I have no experience in rationing snares and HLA traps; bad resource management could reduce me to kiting if I don't make maximum use of the traps we have. Plus, Maze traps' inconsistent duration gives me pause.
There's new ground for a solo Bounty Hunter run. SCS has evolved a lot over the years, and we also have SoD these days.
Actually, the physical resistance from SCS improved Earth Elemental form can still stack with Armor of Faith and Hardiness. It's all about the order of operations - cast the spells and then equip the token.
A similar trick can get let you use strength boosts with shapeshift tokens, although that's obviously of limited use. Still, my 25 strength (violet potion) Avenger in spider form (4 APR) was ridiculous in the final battle of BG1.
As I'm testing 2.6 I recently finished the Palace fight in BG1. Even while I used 3 scrolls of Chaos and 2 Horror spells round 1, the enemy doppelganger mage still managed to cast Chaos and 2 of my characters fell under its effect. One of them went towards an innocent NPC there (a surviving Noblewoman) and I managed to stop him during the last second by blocking the way with 2 of my other characters.
A question: do dukes go hostile if, under the effect of Confusion, your party members kill an innocent in that room? Would that have been a game over if I failed to stop my confused character there? Or I would have just got a reputation hit?
I believe that it would have been game over. There are alternatives to blocking. You can put heavy armour in the confused character's backpack so that they can't move. Of course you still have to stop innocent characters moving within range of the confused one. Web, grease etc. can be used for that.
I think the dukes would only go hostile if you attack them; not other innocents. I've heard of folks dropping 10 or more reputation points during the palace fight without losing the run, which means killing an innocent by itself ostensibly wouldn't be game-ending.
Dropping heavy armor in a confused character's backpack is a great way to immobilize them. Due to EE changes, you can also swap out weaker weapons on a confused character. Swapping out ranged weapons with few or no ammunition would probably be great, forcing the character to use their unarmed attack--nonlethal for everyone except for a monk.
The solo Vampyre breezed through the second half of SoD today (we just used Caelar to tank Belhifet and kept her safe with Greater Restoration scrolls) and is on Aran's third task in SoA, a little over 2 million XP. We had a LOT of close calls in early BG2--not because of disablers we barely survived or would have died to, but because we kept getting hit hard by enemy fighters, from the starting dungeon duergar to Camitis and even the skeletons in the Trademeet questline. Not any big name enemies; just random critters that had solid damage output. Maybe I'm just clumsy with hit-and-fade tactics now that we no longer have the Boots of Speed to help us scurry out of enemy fighters' reach!
I'm wondering where to go from here. A lot of the remaining fights are melee heavy, like the De'Arnise Keep or Firkraag's lair or Bodhi herself (ironically, the Vampyre kit cannot join the vampire guild because it's a single-classed thief!). I don't want to get cornered by a gang of trolls or spend half an hour chasing down Tanova (last time I tried to use a Protection from Undead scroll against the pre-Spellhold vampires, they all just ran).
Even after Use Any Item, I'm not sure what kind of armor or robe we might use. We could finally get some solid AC with metal armor, but being able to use stealth mid-combat has been really important for our safety. Maybe I should bite the bullet and don plate mail and a good helmet and just operate like a less efficient, low-HP fighter.
If possible I'd like to grab UAI before Bodhi and smack Tanova with the Mace of Disruption. Getting to Spellhold early will be very useful; I plan on making liberal use of the revised Slayer form.
I think the dukes would only go hostile if you attack them; not other innocents. I've heard of folks dropping 10 or more reputation points during the palace fight without losing the run, which means killing an innocent by itself ostensibly wouldn't be game-ending.
So there is conflicting feedback to this, just as I expected. I also had a feeling that they won't go hostile if you attack noble innocents there. If anyone else has some evidence, I'd appreciate it (for future runs, of course).
And the solo Vampyre has just brought down Kangaxx and the Twisted Rune! The Underdark was very difficult because our poor THAC0; we had lots of trouble hitting the drow and landing hits on Adalon, and Soul Reaver's 20-round THAC0 penalties didn't actually last long enough to keep us safe after our opening 2 Time Traps! We ended up burning a lot of potions as well as two Tenser's Transformation scrolls and two Improved Haste scrolls just to bring down Adalon. Even the drow full plate wasn't enough to keep us safe; we got hurt a lot in our short trip through the Underdark.
We nabbed the Human Flesh +5 and now we have near-unbreakable saving throws even with minimal equipment (dwarves are the best). We used Time Traps, Improved Haste from the upgraded Cloak of Protection +2, and the revised Slayer form to butcher Firkraag within a single Time Trap at 20 APR. Kangaxx failed to do much against the Cloak of Mirroring, and while his demilich form seemed to be immune to wing buffet (and so we couldn't knock him into our Spike Traps to the west), he was completely vulnerable to Sunray from the Helm of Brilliance, making for an anticlimactic fight.
We had to reload when a Protection from Magic scroll made it impossible to escape the Twisted Rune (even after it's dispelled, Shangalar won't trigger the dialog that brings in Vaxall), but managed to kill Vaxall early with a couple Time Traps and a Spike Trap set by our clone. I got worried when Layenne proved impossible to reveal even with Detect Illusions, but when she finally broke invisibility, we used our only Time Stop scroll to break through her Mantle with Carsomyr and dual-wielding the Firetooth dagger and the Ninja-to of the Scarlet Brotherhood, netting us the Staff of the Magi. I could do a few scattered chores before ending SoA, but we're basically at our peak, with all the key items we could want and all the HLAs we'd be able to make use of.
Single-classed thieves get a lot less impressive as ToB approaches and their weak THAC0 and poor tanking ability makes it harder to actually deal damage. But I think a normal thief would still be pretty decent; I picked a lot of Improved Evasions HLA's to help the Vampyre survive in melee, but picking trap HLAs instead and adopting the evasive playstyle that got me through BG1 would probably still work just fine.
Illasera will be a non-issue, and the Staff of the Magi will trivialize Gromnir and Sendai. Yaga-Shura will warrant some Time Traps, Abazigal will probably fall to either tanking with the Answerer and Soul Reaver to penalize his AC and THAC0, or just kiting with the Scorcher Ammunition (I think an Anti-Magic Shell scroll would be a good answer to the chance of a fatal Maze spell in the new SCS with IWD spells), Balthazar can be talked down, and the Ravager should play out a lot like Abazigal.
Then comes Melissan. I'm still pretty anxious about the Throne and a Time Stop spell from Abazigal or Melissan, but I should have a whole bunch of PFMW scrolls saved up by that point.
We now have the Scorcher Ammunition. I am quite happy about that.
Dealing with dragons in ToB has been tough. Time Traps have been essential in many cases since I'm conserving Tenser's Transformation and Mislead scrolls for the final battle and it's difficult to land hits with thief THAC0. The Answerer looks great on paper, but it's not very reliable, and Soul Reaver has been wonky... sometimes the THAC0 penalties will wear off after what seems like only a few rounds instead of the 20-round duration they're supposed to have, but that might just be observation error. We had to burn a Time Stop scroll to deal with Gromnir, and only have 3 left.
The Vampyre can drain HP on melee hits and heal beyond its maximum HP, much like the upgraded vanilla Foebane, but since it offers a save vs. death, very often it doesn't make contact. And while the Vampyre can also drain the enemy's save vs. death, it takes lots of hits before failed saves get reliable. The Vampyre's CON drain suffers the same problem (I've landed only a handful of CON drain kills in the entire run, none very impactful).
An Archer is really good at draining STR and penalizing saves vs. spell because it hits so often and so reliably. The Vampyre can do the same thing in theory, and even increase its HP to absurd levels, but its poor THAC0 holds it back.
Now that I think about it, I've done a solo thief run before... the solo Shadowdancer. And eventually I bit the bullet and gave my Shadowdancer a +9 bonus to THAC0 by installing the un-nerfed THAC0 component of a tweaks mod. I haven't done that in this run, but the Vampyre's extra attack per round, and the empowered Slayer form, has also made it stronger than a typical thief--say, a Bounty Hunter.
I'm pleased with how the run has played out. The Vampyre kit is a late bloomer, and with great micromanagement it can function in a solo ToB+Ascension environment.
The Alchemy HLA has been very useful. It's very nice to have an unlimited supply of Oils of Speed. A less melee-oriented thief kit that would rely more heavily on kiting would definitely benefit from Alchemy.
I'm especially happy with how Yaga-Shura went. We ran around with the Staff of the Magi and brought him to Near Death just by burning ~20 Wand of Lightning charges on him! There are some places on the map where a lightning bolt can be bounced very reliably.
Pro tip: if you want to get a reliable angle for bouncing a lightning bolt, drop a couple items on the field, one for the wand user and one for the target. Put them directly north and south or east and west of each other and you can stand on one loot pile, fire lightning bolts at the other, and they'll bounce back and forth over the same line.
In vanilla, the Wand of Lightning did 1/3 damage on a successful save, but in EE, it does 1/2. Bounce it five times and you can deal over 150 damage with a single charge even if the enemy makes every saving throw.
Amazingly enough, the run ended at Abazigal. Very, very unexpected. Once I make it to Chateau Irenicus it's often a straight shot to the Throne. Granted, my strong suit is still more SoA than ToB.
First off, Abazigal and Tamah started out with a bug that made them unable to move--their circles overlapped. I reloaded to make it a fair fight, and when it happened again, I freed them with a Teleport Field scroll. They were not grateful, however. We began with some dispellable buffs as well as Spell Immunity on top. We lost SI to a Secret Word spell, so we used a Spell Immunity scroll.
Spell Immunity scrolls are interruptable.
Again, unlike any other scroll in the game, Spell Immunity scrolls can be disrupted. This is the one spell you can never finish casting while taking damage. Since it casts via a .2da file, the scroll is only uninterruptible for the first part of the spell, opening the menu for which spell school to become immune to. When you actually cast the real spell, whether it's SI: Abjuration or SI: Conjuration or whatever, that is treated as a normal spell--it's perfectly possible for a solid hit to disrupt it.
We took heavy damage AND clouded our aura AND lost our buffs within seconds, and I unfortunately used a Potion of Superior Healing instead of a Rod of Resurrection charge when I had some distance, so right after losing our buffs to Remove Magic, we had a clouded aura and were low on HP. Hoping that the Boots of Speed would let us dodge some melee attacks and wary of Abazigal's "ranged Maze" spell, I opted for an Anti-Magic Shell scroll rather than another healing option.
Problem was, I was being pushed up against a wall, so I had to walk past both Abazigal and Tamah to escape without getting boxed in. Since I had donned the Human Flesh +5 to get undispellable negative saving throws (Anadramatis had spooked me with a blinding attack with a deeply negative save penalty), my AC was mediocre, and the dragons just barely brought down the Vampyre.
Had I thought to equip the Defender of Easthaven, had I led the dragons in a wider circle so I'd have more consistent room to escape, had I stolen Tamah's Improved Haste spell with an Arrow of Dispelling, had I used a slower-acting Rod of Resurrection for a full heal instead of a quick-acting partial heal from a potion, had I started out with an undispellable Anti-Magic Shell rather than a dispellable Mind Blank to guard against Maze, or had I known that Spell Immunity scrolls are disruptable, Abazigal would be dead right now.
But on a more basic level, being unable to cast Hardiness and having to ration mage scrolls, with no solid way of blocking Remove Magic except for expendables, is very limiting. Kiting requires a superior movement rate, and when your haste effect can be so easily dispelled, you can't outrun hasted critters--especially not two dragons with giant circles who attack at considerable range.
I just tested the fight again, with Anti-Magic Shell to start with. The dragons didn't even bother trying to land Remove Magic, and I could kite freely, waiting out the duration of the two dragons' Improved Haste spells and then striking from ranged. A single-classed solo thief should be able to handle the dragons with nothing more than Anti-Magic Shell, Oils of Speed, ranged weapons, and a whole bunch of healing potions.
I've been thinking about a minimalist run or a speedrun, probably with a Blade, trying to get through each part of the game with the least amount of effort. But the best ways to beat the game at low levels, with low equipment, spending little time and little effort, tend to involve exploits, and a zero-exploit minimalist no-reload run would probably not be particularly minimalist if it succeeded.
I think I'm burned out on thieves for the time being, so trying my hand at the mythical solo Bounty Hunter run will have to wait.
I didn't find the Blade too interesting so the Bounty Hunter is now in Baldur's Gate! The ranged traps are very convenient, and it was especially nice to take down Drizzt with 7 pre-set traps and then a final thrown trap while he was trying to heal himself.
Note that Hurgan Stoneblade and Bjornin have some nice stealable goodies on their person, if you're a nonviolent thief who's chugging Potions of Master Thievery around Beregost in Ulgoth's Beard to nab Algernon's Cloak and Edventar's Gift.
I've been thinking about a minimalist run or a speedrun, probably with a Blade, trying to get through each part of the game with the least amount of effort. But the best ways to beat the game at low levels, with low equipment, spending little time and little effort, tend to involve exploits, and a zero-exploit minimalist no-reload run would probably not be particularly minimalist if it succeeded.
I think I'm burned out on thieves for the time being, so trying my hand at the mythical solo Bounty Hunter run will have to wait.
Your mention of a minimalist run or a speedrun, brought to mind my runs of thieves and fighter/thieves where I didn't kill a single character. One of them I killed Sarevok with my fists. That ought to have been impossible. The other was a fluke as he was killed by lightning from a trap.
As I thought about it I realised that I probably wouldn't be able to use the same tactics as Algernon's Cloak has been nerfed.
One tactic was to charm Mulahey with it and let the kobolds kill him.
Similar with Davaeorn. Charm him and let the battle horrors kill him.
It was nice to play as a thief. That is, use stealth rather than fighting. Of course you finish BG1 at a very low level.
The Bounty Hunter is in BG2. I'm going to play it cautious until I can start experimenting with Maze traps. We have good odds, and I'd like this run to succeed.
Now that I think about it, I think it's been years since I've ever used a Maze trap. While I've used Bounty Hunters in various party runs, they almost never hit level 21. I barely even know how to use Maze traps!
We just barely took down Firkraag! I am quite proud. Our Vhailor's Helm clone couldn't set any traps besides our single Spike Trap, but we still managed to set a few traps while Firkraag was Mazed, across several Maze traps. I was worried the run would end, though, when he was chasing us around and I couldn't quite outpace him just with an Oil of Speed (no Boots of Speed right now, or Arrows of Dispelling to remove Firkraag's Haste spell early). Still, we managed to keep him off of us with the help of some Lesser Fire Elementals our clone summoned from the Staff of Fire (the Staff of Striking and Ring of Energy were instrumental in dealing with Tolgerias and Lavok when we were on the way to the Staff of Fire in the Planar Sphere).
The Vhailor's Helm+Staff of Fire combo, and the free Lesser Fire Elementals it grants, have been very helpful for my solo runs in the past. A free round of 5 summons once per day is very useful, especially since they're immune to normal weapons and deal fire and crushing damage. They'll get thrashed by higher-end enemies, but they're good for dispatching groups of critters that a low-APR character like a solo thief would struggle to bring down. They're also excellent for baiting spells, since the clone can summon a new elemental every round of its duration (unless you've drained the staff enough by summoning them from the non-clone character).
I made it through okay, but Firkraag's lair is very bad for a solo thief before UAI--both my Vampire and my Bounty Hunter had to fight very hard to deal with the area. Tight areas and large groups of respawning enemies can VERY easily box in a solo character, and anyone without Teleport Field on hand will have to fight through any enemy groups that block the way to the exit or to the nearest unoccupied area to rest.
Stealth is very important for solo thieves. Potions can help you crack a lock or defuse a trap or pick a pocket, but you really do want to have high stealth so that you can escape by running around a corner. Enemies with high movement rates, however, like trolls, will easily chase you down unless you have the Boots of Speed or you tackle them with summons.
I can do thieves. But succeeding with a thief takes a lot more effort than most classes. We haven't had many close calls, but that's because we've been extremely cautious. There are a lot of quests that a solo thief is best off not attempting before Use Any Item.
We took down Twisted Rune! We used a Farsight scroll to reveal the party of area past the trigger that spawns Shangalar, which allowed us to send our clone out to set some Spike Traps without starting the fight, positioning them beneath Layenne and Vaxall, close enough to the walls that Shangalar wouldn't trigger them instead. Layenne and Vaxall both died instantly; the traps hit before their pre-buffs did.
We probably could have run right through Shangalar's trigger and laid a single Spike Trap for Layenne, but that would have clouded our aura and broke our invisibility. With bad luck or bad inputs, that would have been a nightmare. But by using a Farsight scroll--a cheap, level 4 spell scroll--we were able to set several Spike Traps for both Vaxall and Layenne and stay invisible on the first round and use our first post-dialog aura on a Protection from Undead scroll (using it before talking to Shangalar breaks the game). Sometimes the high-end strats benefit from a little extra micromanagement and smaller, subtler tools. Spike Traps deal crazy damage, but it was that little Farsight scroll that really broke the encounter.
This is what I like about BG2. Nabbing the most powerful goodies can break the game in BG1, but in BG2, the way you use those tools is a lot more important.
We now have the Staff of the Magi, and while the staff and Spike Traps can get us past most stuff in the game, there are a few places where it won't be enough. Kuo-toa, notably, are 90% resistance to magic damage and can also see through invisibility, and Death Spell scrolls are finite. What isn't finite, though, is the Skull of Death from Vithal--I actually remembered that just now, when I was writing this--and so we can wipe out the kuo-toa with per-day Death Spells, and hopefully bring down the Kuo-toa Prince with Assassination and some lucky attack rolls (I'm not investing in Time Traps because they won't be very helpful against Abazigal and Melissan).
I'm still learning how to use Maze traps effectively. The inconsistent duration has long worried me--if I set an ever-precious Spike Trap while a batch of enemies are Mazed, how do I know a low-priority scrub isn't going to return early and soak up the hit? The duration is especially weird considering Intelligence values are not always rational.
Fun fact: with almost no exceptions, yuan-ti mages have only 9 Intelligence. Regular yuan-ti have 16!
But if I can get a handle on the Maze traps, I might try to beat ToB with little or no use of the Scorcher Ammunition, my typical mainstay once I get past Ascension's quadruple dragon ambush. It would be a nice nod to @Alesia_BH's old Bounty Hunter to do my kiting with the Sling of Everard and Reflection Shield instead of Firetooth, even if it's less efficient (my dwarf doesn't have her halfling's +1 THAC0 with slings, but it does have a convenient 19 STR to increase sling damage without buffs or belts).
In general I've been a little more stringent on certain things that make the game easier these days; one of my informal pseudo-rules is that I can't flee an area or "rest and return" if a fight goes sour. That used to be one of my mainstays in my first no-reload run, loading up on "escape options" so I could get out of bad situations and tackle fights again. While my style is still kinda sloppy, I have a lot better control over fights than I used to.
I learned a couple new things today:
1. Since you can set a trap right next to you, a very short distance away, it's actually possible to hide around a corner near an enemy, set a trap outside of the corner, and hit the enemy with the trap without breaking invisibility or requiring you to break stealth to lure the enemy over the trap. I used this against the beholders in the Temple sewers, since I didn't want to go fetch the Shield of Balduran from my table at the Copper Coronet, but also didn't have the save vs. death to guarantee survival against a Death Ray. This was useful because beholders like to attack from range, and I couldn't lure them anywhere because they wouldn't follow any summons who retreated out of their line of sight.
2. One neat trick you can do to make certain items more convenient is to drop an item on the ground (say, an arrow) and then use that item as a target instead of a critter's circle. For instance, when clearing out low-level vermin with the Staff of the Magi's Lightning Bolt+Fireball power, I would drop an arrow near an enemy and then target the arrow with the power so I could hit them without entering their field of vision. What I didn't know, however, was that apparently clones can't target items on the ground. That trick can only be done by party members.
I like thieves. They're fun for solo runs because they're heavy on micromanagement but don't require pre-buffs. It gives you stuff to do without requiring lengthy pre-buffing rituals (though I admit I've been using the quick save trick to speed up trap setting).
I'm steadily getting better at using traps as time goes on, but I haven't been making much use of the Maze traps. They've only been truly instrumental against Firkraag and Adalon. Mostly we've just been relying on Spike Traps, though we had to combine it with judicious use of our two Time Traps and our clone to deal with Bodhi and her high regeneration.
We have a bunch of Blindness and PW: Blindness scrolls saved up, but so far I haven't used them. I have, however, used the blind thief trick when other enemies have blinded me. I was very amused when Kangaxx blinded my Vhailor's Helm clone and allowed her to instantly kill him by setting a Spike Trap in plain sight.
Does anybody know why a trap would apply its effects twice? Sometimes I see a single Spike Trap dealing 20d6 damage twice, a single normal snare dealing missile and poison damage twice, and I think also Time Traps lasting for 20 seconds instead of 10. So far it hasn't impacted gameplay too much, but I don't want to win a fight early and wonder if a bug saved the run.
I wouldn't say I know what's causing it, but as far as I recall it's been around since the pre-EE games.
It's definitely a bug; there's no legitimate reason a trap would fire twice.
My assumption has been that this sort of thing occurs as a result of the trap projectiles bouncing - have you noticed it when walls or other obstacles are nearby?
I believe that it would have been game over. There are alternatives to blocking. You can put heavy armour in the confused character's backpack so that they can't move. Of course you still have to stop innocent characters moving within range of the confused one. Web, grease etc. can be used for that.
I never even considered that it's possible to access a confused person 's inventory. Giving them something heavy to make them stop moving never occurred to me. That's going to be extremely useful in the future! Also that you can still switch their weapons... few things are worse than a confused character with acid arrows...
Maybe I'm the only one who embarrassingly never noticed that, but perhaps someone should put it into the "Did you know?" thread.
I believe that it would have been game over. There are alternatives to blocking. You can put heavy armour in the confused character's backpack so that they can't move. Of course you still have to stop innocent characters moving within range of the confused one. Web, grease etc. can be used for that.
I never even considered that it's possible to access a confused person 's inventory. Giving them something heavy to make them stop moving never occurred to me. That's going to be extremely useful in the future! Also that you can still switch their weapons... few things are worse than a confused character with acid arrows...
Maybe I'm the only one who embarrassingly never noticed that, but perhaps someone should put it into the "Did you know?" thread.
So, thanks a lot for very useful information!
It's not quite that good. You can't get into the inventory - but you can chuck things into it from a distance .
I believe that it would have been game over. There are alternatives to blocking. You can put heavy armour in the confused character's backpack so that they can't move. Of course you still have to stop innocent characters moving within range of the confused one. Web, grease etc. can be used for that.
I never even considered that it's possible to access a confused person 's inventory. Giving them something heavy to make them stop moving never occurred to me. That's going to be extremely useful in the future! Also that you can still switch their weapons... few things are worse than a confused character with acid arrows...
Maybe I'm the only one who embarrassingly never noticed that, but perhaps someone should put it into the "Did you know?" thread.
So, thanks a lot for very useful information!
It's not quite that good. You can't get into the inventory - but you can chuck things into it from a distance .
I see, about giving them heavy items. But then how can you change the weapon for a weaker one? Can you drop something right into their weapon slots?
I believe that it would have been game over. There are alternatives to blocking. You can put heavy armour in the confused character's backpack so that they can't move. Of course you still have to stop innocent characters moving within range of the confused one. Web, grease etc. can be used for that.
I never even considered that it's possible to access a confused person 's inventory. Giving them something heavy to make them stop moving never occurred to me. That's going to be extremely useful in the future! Also that you can still switch their weapons... few things are worse than a confused character with acid arrows...
Maybe I'm the only one who embarrassingly never noticed that, but perhaps someone should put it into the "Did you know?" thread.
So, thanks a lot for very useful information!
It's not quite that good. You can't get into the inventory - but you can chuck things into it from a distance .
I see, about giving them heavy items. But then how can you change the weapon for a weaker one? Can you drop something right into their weapon slots?
In the EE at least, you can pick the weapon slot you want to replace. Same goes for equipment slots.
I believe that it would have been game over. There are alternatives to blocking. You can put heavy armour in the confused character's backpack so that they can't move. Of course you still have to stop innocent characters moving within range of the confused one. Web, grease etc. can be used for that.
I never even considered that it's possible to access a confused person 's inventory. Giving them something heavy to make them stop moving never occurred to me. That's going to be extremely useful in the future! Also that you can still switch their weapons... few things are worse than a confused character with acid arrows...
Maybe I'm the only one who embarrassingly never noticed that, but perhaps someone should put it into the "Did you know?" thread.
So, thanks a lot for very useful information!
It's not quite that good. You can't get into the inventory - but you can chuck things into it from a distance .
I see, about giving them heavy items. But then how can you change the weapon for a weaker one? Can you drop something right into their weapon slots?
In the EE at least, you can pick the weapon slot you want to replace. Same goes for equipment slots.
@semiticgoddess I'm not sure what you mean. If the character is confused you can't access the inventory directly, though you can get others to put things into the main inventory of the confused person (but not their quick slots). Are you suggesting use of scripts or something to get a confused person to equip a new weapon after passing it to them?
Well, with Horror and Confusion (Chaos) spells, it takes some time for the projectile to reach your characters. What I usually do when I'm afraid of bad consequences, eg. during the Ducal Palace fight, is taking off weapons BEFORE the spell hits my characters. They might save against it, they might not, but at least in case they don't, they can't harm anyone (doing only non-lethal attacks with fists). Well, unless you have a monk in the party.
I believe that it would have been game over. There are alternatives to blocking. You can put heavy armour in the confused character's backpack so that they can't move. Of course you still have to stop innocent characters moving within range of the confused one. Web, grease etc. can be used for that.
I never even considered that it's possible to access a confused person 's inventory. Giving them something heavy to make them stop moving never occurred to me. That's going to be extremely useful in the future! Also that you can still switch their weapons... few things are worse than a confused character with acid arrows...
Maybe I'm the only one who embarrassingly never noticed that, but perhaps someone should put it into the "Did you know?" thread.
So, thanks a lot for very useful information!
It's not quite that good. You can't get into the inventory - but you can chuck things into it from a distance .
I see, about giving them heavy items. But then how can you change the weapon for a weaker one? Can you drop something right into their weapon slots?
In the EE at least, you can pick the weapon slot you want to replace. Same goes for equipment slots.
@semiticgoddess I'm not sure what you mean. If the character is confused you can't access the inventory directly, though you can get others to put things into the main inventory of the confused person (but not their quick slots). Are you suggesting use of scripts or something to get a confused person to equip a new weapon after passing it to them?
I don't know about quick slots specifically. But I do remember just being to swap out rings and weapons. It's not possible to remove an item from a confused character, but it is possible to replace an item by giving them an item from another character, swapping them.
Comments
Still haven't gotten back to finishing the Transmuter run... or posting on the no-reload IWD2:EE run, for which there's a lot of content left to be posted still. I don't know when I'll be back to posting on the Transmuter. I'm a little more interested in a Vampyre thief kit run.
I had planned on making heavy use of Lightning Bolts in my Sky Dancer run, but found limited opportunities for it to make a difference. I probably could have done more if I had had more priest levels in the party and could have made everyone safely immune to electricity damage all the time, but the threat of accidentally frying the party with stray bolts kept me from using Lightning Bolts, whether from wands or spells, in most cases.
But the Wand of Lightning is indeed very, very strong. Across all six bolts in the BG2 version, it's 18d6 damage per charge and it can be bounced multiple times fairly reliably if you aim directly north, south, east, or west (which appears to be a little harder in the Enhanced Edition than I remember it being in vanilla). We used it to take down Tanova in spite of our party's lack of good anti-vampire tools.
I'm starting to view druids as suboptimal these days. With SCS nerfing the hell out of Insect Plague (it can be blocked by a save, Stoneskin, Fire Shield, AND immunity to nonmagical weapons, and Death Spell can dispel it even then), druids effectively lose the best disabler in the game, and druids' inability to gain high levels makes them pretty mediocre buffers for party members who can't cast SI: Abjuration or Entropy Shield: if you can't break past level 14 until very late in the game, your Chaotic Commands spells are going to get dispelled very easily. They're better than clerics in BG1 and SoD (Giant Insect is really powerful and clerics take forever to first learn Chaotic Commands--Jaheira, a multi-classed druid, learns Chaotic Commands before Viconia!), but after midgame SoA, a single-classed cleric will just have a much better caster level.
But frankly, as long as Charname can cast Cure Light Wounds, there's not much need for a full-time healer before BG2, since there are tons of Chaotic Commands scrolls in SoD (monks, paladins, and rangers can all use them) and resting can take care of basic healing duties.
But the Vampyre kit is pretty underpowered in BG1. Being able to drain HP on hit at level 1, drain levels on a failed save vs. death at level 6, and drain saves vs. death at level 12 doesn't mean much if you can only do so on melee hits and you have neither the AC to survive melee nor the THAC0 to actually land hits. The Vampyre drains more stuff on backstabs and criticals, so in practice a Vampyre thief is mostly about hit-and-fade tactics... which makes sense in its early stages. Gaining an extra 1/2 attack per round at levels 7 and 13 doesn't help much in BG1 when the haste bug still limits you to 3 APR with bows and 2 APR with swords when using Oils of Speed.
I think a single-classed, unkitted thief would have been better overall, since it would have had stronger backstabs and a LOT more skill points. But it's been very cool to work with solo thief fundamentals, and we'll be able to do scarier stuff in BG2--draining CON as well as levels. There's also excellent synergy between the Vampyre kit and the Slayer form from Slayer Revisions, which grants higher APR (yeah, yeah, I designed both mods, but I didn't intend the synergy to be there). End-game, we should be landing CON drain kills just like SCS vampires!
Our defenses will still be garbage. I'll probably end up hoarding PFMW scrolls for Melissan, though these days I run on Hardcore mode instead of Insane, which at least will mean we won't have to put up with a pair of Fallen Solars alongside the Five. I'd like to tackle Ascension solo without the Scorcher Ammunition, but I'm bringing along the Golden Pantaloons regardless, just in case I decide to use my favorite ranged weapon in spite of because of how overpowered and broken it is.
I finally tried out the auto-roller mod after I lost a 91-point Vampyre to a wolf near Shoal, and I ended up with a 97-point stat total on my dwarf, the highest I've ever seen in 20 years of playing this game.
I gave her the female human thief animation because I think it's cuter.
This is why I've been hesitant to solo as single-classed thieves or priests. But characters that can use PFMW and Hardiness seem too easy for solo runs, since mages and warriors and to some extent bards are just so conventionally powerful. The Vampyre kit's offensive potential is why I found it appealing.
Sometimes I contemplate doing a solo Bounty Hunter run in honor of @Alesia_BH's signature run, years before I entered the challenge. But it seems very imposing. Thieves have never been my strong suit, and I have no experience in rationing snares and HLA traps; bad resource management could reduce me to kiting if I don't make maximum use of the traps we have. Plus, Maze traps' inconsistent duration gives me pause.
There's new ground for a solo Bounty Hunter run. SCS has evolved a lot over the years, and we also have SoD these days.
A similar trick can get let you use strength boosts with shapeshift tokens, although that's obviously of limited use. Still, my 25 strength (violet potion) Avenger in spider form (4 APR) was ridiculous in the final battle of BG1.
A question: do dukes go hostile if, under the effect of Confusion, your party members kill an innocent in that room? Would that have been a game over if I failed to stop my confused character there? Or I would have just got a reputation hit?
Dropping heavy armor in a confused character's backpack is a great way to immobilize them. Due to EE changes, you can also swap out weaker weapons on a confused character. Swapping out ranged weapons with few or no ammunition would probably be great, forcing the character to use their unarmed attack--nonlethal for everyone except for a monk.
I'm wondering where to go from here. A lot of the remaining fights are melee heavy, like the De'Arnise Keep or Firkraag's lair or Bodhi herself (ironically, the Vampyre kit cannot join the vampire guild because it's a single-classed thief!). I don't want to get cornered by a gang of trolls or spend half an hour chasing down Tanova (last time I tried to use a Protection from Undead scroll against the pre-Spellhold vampires, they all just ran).
Even after Use Any Item, I'm not sure what kind of armor or robe we might use. We could finally get some solid AC with metal armor, but being able to use stealth mid-combat has been really important for our safety. Maybe I should bite the bullet and don plate mail and a good helmet and just operate like a less efficient, low-HP fighter.
If possible I'd like to grab UAI before Bodhi and smack Tanova with the Mace of Disruption. Getting to Spellhold early will be very useful; I plan on making liberal use of the revised Slayer form.
So there is conflicting feedback to this, just as I expected. I also had a feeling that they won't go hostile if you attack noble innocents there. If anyone else has some evidence, I'd appreciate it (for future runs, of course).
Good to hear that you get to play the game.
According to the LoB + SCS thread the “non dukes and guards” can be killed with rep loss, but it is not an instant game over per se.
Try to see the posts from Alice Ashpool: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1160790/#Comment_1160790
Nuking the place is apparently a strategy. So go a ahead whilst we are still in 2.5 - before things changes.
We nabbed the Human Flesh +5 and now we have near-unbreakable saving throws even with minimal equipment (dwarves are the best). We used Time Traps, Improved Haste from the upgraded Cloak of Protection +2, and the revised Slayer form to butcher Firkraag within a single Time Trap at 20 APR. Kangaxx failed to do much against the Cloak of Mirroring, and while his demilich form seemed to be immune to wing buffet (and so we couldn't knock him into our Spike Traps to the west), he was completely vulnerable to Sunray from the Helm of Brilliance, making for an anticlimactic fight.
We had to reload when a Protection from Magic scroll made it impossible to escape the Twisted Rune (even after it's dispelled, Shangalar won't trigger the dialog that brings in Vaxall), but managed to kill Vaxall early with a couple Time Traps and a Spike Trap set by our clone. I got worried when Layenne proved impossible to reveal even with Detect Illusions, but when she finally broke invisibility, we used our only Time Stop scroll to break through her Mantle with Carsomyr and dual-wielding the Firetooth dagger and the Ninja-to of the Scarlet Brotherhood, netting us the Staff of the Magi. I could do a few scattered chores before ending SoA, but we're basically at our peak, with all the key items we could want and all the HLAs we'd be able to make use of.
Single-classed thieves get a lot less impressive as ToB approaches and their weak THAC0 and poor tanking ability makes it harder to actually deal damage. But I think a normal thief would still be pretty decent; I picked a lot of Improved Evasions HLA's to help the Vampyre survive in melee, but picking trap HLAs instead and adopting the evasive playstyle that got me through BG1 would probably still work just fine.
Illasera will be a non-issue, and the Staff of the Magi will trivialize Gromnir and Sendai. Yaga-Shura will warrant some Time Traps, Abazigal will probably fall to either tanking with the Answerer and Soul Reaver to penalize his AC and THAC0, or just kiting with the Scorcher Ammunition (I think an Anti-Magic Shell scroll would be a good answer to the chance of a fatal Maze spell in the new SCS with IWD spells), Balthazar can be talked down, and the Ravager should play out a lot like Abazigal.
Then comes Melissan. I'm still pretty anxious about the Throne and a Time Stop spell from Abazigal or Melissan, but I should have a whole bunch of PFMW scrolls saved up by that point.
Dealing with dragons in ToB has been tough. Time Traps have been essential in many cases since I'm conserving Tenser's Transformation and Mislead scrolls for the final battle and it's difficult to land hits with thief THAC0. The Answerer looks great on paper, but it's not very reliable, and Soul Reaver has been wonky... sometimes the THAC0 penalties will wear off after what seems like only a few rounds instead of the 20-round duration they're supposed to have, but that might just be observation error. We had to burn a Time Stop scroll to deal with Gromnir, and only have 3 left.
The Vampyre can drain HP on melee hits and heal beyond its maximum HP, much like the upgraded vanilla Foebane, but since it offers a save vs. death, very often it doesn't make contact. And while the Vampyre can also drain the enemy's save vs. death, it takes lots of hits before failed saves get reliable. The Vampyre's CON drain suffers the same problem (I've landed only a handful of CON drain kills in the entire run, none very impactful).
An Archer is really good at draining STR and penalizing saves vs. spell because it hits so often and so reliably. The Vampyre can do the same thing in theory, and even increase its HP to absurd levels, but its poor THAC0 holds it back.
Now that I think about it, I've done a solo thief run before... the solo Shadowdancer. And eventually I bit the bullet and gave my Shadowdancer a +9 bonus to THAC0 by installing the un-nerfed THAC0 component of a tweaks mod. I haven't done that in this run, but the Vampyre's extra attack per round, and the empowered Slayer form, has also made it stronger than a typical thief--say, a Bounty Hunter.
I'm pleased with how the run has played out. The Vampyre kit is a late bloomer, and with great micromanagement it can function in a solo ToB+Ascension environment.
The Alchemy HLA has been very useful. It's very nice to have an unlimited supply of Oils of Speed. A less melee-oriented thief kit that would rely more heavily on kiting would definitely benefit from Alchemy.
I'm especially happy with how Yaga-Shura went. We ran around with the Staff of the Magi and brought him to Near Death just by burning ~20 Wand of Lightning charges on him! There are some places on the map where a lightning bolt can be bounced very reliably.
Pro tip: if you want to get a reliable angle for bouncing a lightning bolt, drop a couple items on the field, one for the wand user and one for the target. Put them directly north and south or east and west of each other and you can stand on one loot pile, fire lightning bolts at the other, and they'll bounce back and forth over the same line.
In vanilla, the Wand of Lightning did 1/3 damage on a successful save, but in EE, it does 1/2. Bounce it five times and you can deal over 150 damage with a single charge even if the enemy makes every saving throw.
First off, Abazigal and Tamah started out with a bug that made them unable to move--their circles overlapped. I reloaded to make it a fair fight, and when it happened again, I freed them with a Teleport Field scroll. They were not grateful, however. We began with some dispellable buffs as well as Spell Immunity on top. We lost SI to a Secret Word spell, so we used a Spell Immunity scroll.
Spell Immunity scrolls are interruptable.
Again, unlike any other scroll in the game, Spell Immunity scrolls can be disrupted. This is the one spell you can never finish casting while taking damage. Since it casts via a .2da file, the scroll is only uninterruptible for the first part of the spell, opening the menu for which spell school to become immune to. When you actually cast the real spell, whether it's SI: Abjuration or SI: Conjuration or whatever, that is treated as a normal spell--it's perfectly possible for a solid hit to disrupt it.
We took heavy damage AND clouded our aura AND lost our buffs within seconds, and I unfortunately used a Potion of Superior Healing instead of a Rod of Resurrection charge when I had some distance, so right after losing our buffs to Remove Magic, we had a clouded aura and were low on HP. Hoping that the Boots of Speed would let us dodge some melee attacks and wary of Abazigal's "ranged Maze" spell, I opted for an Anti-Magic Shell scroll rather than another healing option.
Problem was, I was being pushed up against a wall, so I had to walk past both Abazigal and Tamah to escape without getting boxed in. Since I had donned the Human Flesh +5 to get undispellable negative saving throws (Anadramatis had spooked me with a blinding attack with a deeply negative save penalty), my AC was mediocre, and the dragons just barely brought down the Vampyre.
Had I thought to equip the Defender of Easthaven, had I led the dragons in a wider circle so I'd have more consistent room to escape, had I stolen Tamah's Improved Haste spell with an Arrow of Dispelling, had I used a slower-acting Rod of Resurrection for a full heal instead of a quick-acting partial heal from a potion, had I started out with an undispellable Anti-Magic Shell rather than a dispellable Mind Blank to guard against Maze, or had I known that Spell Immunity scrolls are disruptable, Abazigal would be dead right now.
But on a more basic level, being unable to cast Hardiness and having to ration mage scrolls, with no solid way of blocking Remove Magic except for expendables, is very limiting. Kiting requires a superior movement rate, and when your haste effect can be so easily dispelled, you can't outrun hasted critters--especially not two dragons with giant circles who attack at considerable range.
I just tested the fight again, with Anti-Magic Shell to start with. The dragons didn't even bother trying to land Remove Magic, and I could kite freely, waiting out the duration of the two dragons' Improved Haste spells and then striking from ranged. A single-classed solo thief should be able to handle the dragons with nothing more than Anti-Magic Shell, Oils of Speed, ranged weapons, and a whole bunch of healing potions.
I think I'm burned out on thieves for the time being, so trying my hand at the mythical solo Bounty Hunter run will have to wait.
Note that Hurgan Stoneblade and Bjornin have some nice stealable goodies on their person, if you're a nonviolent thief who's chugging Potions of Master Thievery around Beregost in Ulgoth's Beard to nab Algernon's Cloak and Edventar's Gift.
Your mention of a minimalist run or a speedrun, brought to mind my runs of thieves and fighter/thieves where I didn't kill a single character. One of them I killed Sarevok with my fists. That ought to have been impossible. The other was a fluke as he was killed by lightning from a trap.
As I thought about it I realised that I probably wouldn't be able to use the same tactics as Algernon's Cloak has been nerfed.
One tactic was to charm Mulahey with it and let the kobolds kill him.
Similar with Davaeorn. Charm him and let the battle horrors kill him.
It was nice to play as a thief. That is, use stealth rather than fighting. Of course you finish BG1 at a very low level.
Now that I think about it, I think it's been years since I've ever used a Maze trap. While I've used Bounty Hunters in various party runs, they almost never hit level 21. I barely even know how to use Maze traps!
The Vhailor's Helm+Staff of Fire combo, and the free Lesser Fire Elementals it grants, have been very helpful for my solo runs in the past. A free round of 5 summons once per day is very useful, especially since they're immune to normal weapons and deal fire and crushing damage. They'll get thrashed by higher-end enemies, but they're good for dispatching groups of critters that a low-APR character like a solo thief would struggle to bring down. They're also excellent for baiting spells, since the clone can summon a new elemental every round of its duration (unless you've drained the staff enough by summoning them from the non-clone character).
I made it through okay, but Firkraag's lair is very bad for a solo thief before UAI--both my Vampire and my Bounty Hunter had to fight very hard to deal with the area. Tight areas and large groups of respawning enemies can VERY easily box in a solo character, and anyone without Teleport Field on hand will have to fight through any enemy groups that block the way to the exit or to the nearest unoccupied area to rest.
Stealth is very important for solo thieves. Potions can help you crack a lock or defuse a trap or pick a pocket, but you really do want to have high stealth so that you can escape by running around a corner. Enemies with high movement rates, however, like trolls, will easily chase you down unless you have the Boots of Speed or you tackle them with summons.
I can do thieves. But succeeding with a thief takes a lot more effort than most classes. We haven't had many close calls, but that's because we've been extremely cautious. There are a lot of quests that a solo thief is best off not attempting before Use Any Item.
We probably could have run right through Shangalar's trigger and laid a single Spike Trap for Layenne, but that would have clouded our aura and broke our invisibility. With bad luck or bad inputs, that would have been a nightmare. But by using a Farsight scroll--a cheap, level 4 spell scroll--we were able to set several Spike Traps for both Vaxall and Layenne and stay invisible on the first round and use our first post-dialog aura on a Protection from Undead scroll (using it before talking to Shangalar breaks the game). Sometimes the high-end strats benefit from a little extra micromanagement and smaller, subtler tools. Spike Traps deal crazy damage, but it was that little Farsight scroll that really broke the encounter.
This is what I like about BG2. Nabbing the most powerful goodies can break the game in BG1, but in BG2, the way you use those tools is a lot more important.
We now have the Staff of the Magi, and while the staff and Spike Traps can get us past most stuff in the game, there are a few places where it won't be enough. Kuo-toa, notably, are 90% resistance to magic damage and can also see through invisibility, and Death Spell scrolls are finite. What isn't finite, though, is the Skull of Death from Vithal--I actually remembered that just now, when I was writing this--and so we can wipe out the kuo-toa with per-day Death Spells, and hopefully bring down the Kuo-toa Prince with Assassination and some lucky attack rolls (I'm not investing in Time Traps because they won't be very helpful against Abazigal and Melissan).
I'm still learning how to use Maze traps effectively. The inconsistent duration has long worried me--if I set an ever-precious Spike Trap while a batch of enemies are Mazed, how do I know a low-priority scrub isn't going to return early and soak up the hit? The duration is especially weird considering Intelligence values are not always rational.
Fun fact: with almost no exceptions, yuan-ti mages have only 9 Intelligence. Regular yuan-ti have 16!
But if I can get a handle on the Maze traps, I might try to beat ToB with little or no use of the Scorcher Ammunition, my typical mainstay once I get past Ascension's quadruple dragon ambush. It would be a nice nod to @Alesia_BH's old Bounty Hunter to do my kiting with the Sling of Everard and Reflection Shield instead of Firetooth, even if it's less efficient (my dwarf doesn't have her halfling's +1 THAC0 with slings, but it does have a convenient 19 STR to increase sling damage without buffs or belts).
In general I've been a little more stringent on certain things that make the game easier these days; one of my informal pseudo-rules is that I can't flee an area or "rest and return" if a fight goes sour. That used to be one of my mainstays in my first no-reload run, loading up on "escape options" so I could get out of bad situations and tackle fights again. While my style is still kinda sloppy, I have a lot better control over fights than I used to.
I learned a couple new things today:
1. Since you can set a trap right next to you, a very short distance away, it's actually possible to hide around a corner near an enemy, set a trap outside of the corner, and hit the enemy with the trap without breaking invisibility or requiring you to break stealth to lure the enemy over the trap. I used this against the beholders in the Temple sewers, since I didn't want to go fetch the Shield of Balduran from my table at the Copper Coronet, but also didn't have the save vs. death to guarantee survival against a Death Ray. This was useful because beholders like to attack from range, and I couldn't lure them anywhere because they wouldn't follow any summons who retreated out of their line of sight.
2. One neat trick you can do to make certain items more convenient is to drop an item on the ground (say, an arrow) and then use that item as a target instead of a critter's circle. For instance, when clearing out low-level vermin with the Staff of the Magi's Lightning Bolt+Fireball power, I would drop an arrow near an enemy and then target the arrow with the power so I could hit them without entering their field of vision. What I didn't know, however, was that apparently clones can't target items on the ground. That trick can only be done by party members.
I like thieves. They're fun for solo runs because they're heavy on micromanagement but don't require pre-buffs. It gives you stuff to do without requiring lengthy pre-buffing rituals (though I admit I've been using the quick save trick to speed up trap setting).
We have a bunch of Blindness and PW: Blindness scrolls saved up, but so far I haven't used them. I have, however, used the blind thief trick when other enemies have blinded me. I was very amused when Kangaxx blinded my Vhailor's Helm clone and allowed her to instantly kill him by setting a Spike Trap in plain sight.
Does anybody know why a trap would apply its effects twice? Sometimes I see a single Spike Trap dealing 20d6 damage twice, a single normal snare dealing missile and poison damage twice, and I think also Time Traps lasting for 20 seconds instead of 10. So far it hasn't impacted gameplay too much, but I don't want to win a fight early and wonder if a bug saved the run.
It's definitely a bug; there's no legitimate reason a trap would fire twice.
I never even considered that it's possible to access a confused person 's inventory. Giving them something heavy to make them stop moving never occurred to me. That's going to be extremely useful in the future! Also that you can still switch their weapons... few things are worse than a confused character with acid arrows...
Maybe I'm the only one who embarrassingly never noticed that, but perhaps someone should put it into the "Did you know?" thread.
So, thanks a lot for very useful information!
It's not quite that good. You can't get into the inventory - but you can chuck things into it from a distance
I see, about giving them heavy items. But then how can you change the weapon for a weaker one? Can you drop something right into their weapon slots?
@semiticgoddess I'm not sure what you mean. If the character is confused you can't access the inventory directly, though you can get others to put things into the main inventory of the confused person (but not their quick slots). Are you suggesting use of scripts or something to get a confused person to equip a new weapon after passing it to them?