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The Adventurer's Lounge: Guidance and Support for No Reload Challengers- Newbie or Veteran

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  • velehalvelehal Member Posts: 299
    Does anybody know which traps are in the second floor of Rejek´s house. Which resistances must solo character have to safely pass through them to the third floor?
    Thank you.
  • RVNSRVNS Member Posts: 285
    Hey guys. Does anyone know what the highest open lock and find traps is needed to complete all the way to TOB?
  • RVNSRVNS Member Posts: 285
    @jmerry Thanks for the info! Trying to efficiently plot my next character. Since I am running a fighter/thief I wanted to make sure it is optimized.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    There are non-magical bracers and belts in the game. Do tthey confer any advantage whatsoever?
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,881
    Nope. The only thing they do is take up some of your weight allowance.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    It makes you wonder why they are there then. Clearly in RL they brought some advantage. Bracers would protect the wrists somewhat, and the name suggests that they would strengthen the wrists when swords clashed in combat.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    I once had a clerical kit for orcs that gave clerics of Gruumsh true sight.

    There are a few kits out there for clerics of gruumsh but I am having difficulty finding this specific one.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    I have just rolled a VERY good character which I would like to use, [Roll of 100]
    Unfortunately the game crashed upon trying to type in the name, something that happens all too frequently in my heavilly modded game.
    I have read that using EE Keeper can have unintended effects on characters, so I am trying to avoid using that tool.
    Thinking about it I thought that perhaps the best method of re-creating her was to roll a character with a lower roll, 92 for example and import a mule carrying tomes to increase Charisma [The dump stat] to what it should have been using the 100 roll.

    What I am wondering is: "Would the character created in this way be the same as the one lost in the crash?"
  • aldainaldain Member Posts: 324
    That really seems a philosophical question more than anything, since the character lost in the crash technically never existed.
    There's no detriment whatsoever to just boosting stats using tomes, but really, for simple things like altering stats there's no issue with using EE Keeper either.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    Thanks. It does help me understand somewhat. I don't like creating characters that I haven't rolled and I don't roll 100 very often.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    I recently noticed that it was possible to dual class a barbarian. Any ideas as to what level I should dual-class to thief? I was thinking of seven or nine. I was thinking that having rage would be quite an advantage in some fights.
  • EnuhalEnuhal Member, Moderator Posts: 1,060
    edited April 2022
    I'm guessing you have a mod (such as Tweaks Anthology) which allows for barbarians to be dual-classed, as they can't be in the vanilla game, despite now being a fighter kit. I would propably recommend waiting until level 9 to get the full effect of the d12 barbarian hit dice.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    Enuhal wrote: »
    I'm guessing you have a mod (such as Tweaks Anthology) which allows for barbarians to be dual-classed, as they can't be in the vanilla game, despite now being a fighter kit. I would propably recommend waiting until level 9 to get the full effect of the d12 barbarian hit dice.

    Thanks
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,881
    Yeah. As a fighter kit, there's nothing in the engine stopping a barbarian dual class now. It's just forbidden in the standard rules.

    You might also consider waiting a little longer for the dual class; barbarians get 10% physical resistance at level 11.

    Strategically speaking, barbarians can't wear the heaviest armor (and that restriction stays with them if they dual to, say, cleric) but move faster. Despite their extra hit points, they aren't really meant to be front line tanks all the time. They're meant to hit hard, and to retreat when they need to. The thief dual looks like a good combination, since that extra speed is always good with backstabbing.
  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    @jmerry That's what I thought. What's more it looks good from a role-playing point of view. It won't be my next run through as I have an idea which looks quite interesting. Not the normal run at all.
  • AriakusAriakus Member Posts: 50
    edited April 2022
    Hey all,

    Looking for advice on spell picks for a solo no-reload Heart of Fury IWDEE game. I'm playing a Shaman and currently have the following spell picks at Level 16:
    1. Armor of Faith, Cure Light Wounds, Entangle, Protection from Evil, Sunscorch
    2. Barkskin, Charm Person or Mammal, Find Traps, Flame Blade, Goodberry
    3. Call Lightning, Protection from Fire, Spike Growth, Storm Shell
    4. Call Woodland Beings, Giant Insect, Protection from Lightning, Static Charge
    5. Animal Summoning II, Insect Plague, Iron Skins, Pixie Dust
    6. Animal Summoning III, Conjure Fire Elemental, Entropy Shield
    7. Improved Sanctity of Mind, Nature's Beauty

    Ready to take Level 17 and am looking for advice on that spell pick and future ones. I've never played a Shaman or even a Druid before, so I'm not experienced with those spells. I think Shamans get the Sorcerer Known Spell progression table? If that's true, I should get the following extra spell picks eventually:

    1 3rd level
    1 4th level
    1 5th level
    2 6th level
    2 7th level.

    Unfortunately, I can only see the 7th level spell options currently. The main debate is the 5th-7th level spells. For 7th level spells, the best options appear to be:
    1. Conjure Earth Elemental - a long duration stronger summon
    2. Creeping Doom - sounds good but does it only damage foes not immune to normal weapons/attacks?
    3. Regeneration - hard to argue with healing 18HP/rnd for 15 rounds at Level 30, but have Goodberries and potions
    4. Shield of the Archons - the one I'm leaning toward currently, will absorb 15 levels worth of spells eventually
    5. Sunray - probably not, but would do 32d6 to all undead over 4 rounds with chance of blinding

    Any advice from the masters would be great. Thanks in advance!
    Post edited by Ariakus on
  • EnuhalEnuhal Member, Moderator Posts: 1,060
    My knowledge of IWD is very limited, so I can only speak from by BG experience, and the encounters are obivously quite different. From what I'm seeing there, I would add death ward (4), chaotic commands (5), Heal (6) and Shield of the Archons (7).
  • AriakusAriakus Member Posts: 50
    Enuhal wrote: »
    My knowledge of IWD is very limited, so I can only speak from by BG experience, and the encounters are obivously quite different. From what I'm seeing there, I would add death ward (4), chaotic commands (5), Heal (6) and Shield of the Archons (7).

    Thank you! I forgot to specify above (but now edited in my post) is that this is also a Heart of Fury mode campaign. I haven't played BG in probably 20 years, so I don't know if there's an equivalent there, but from what I understand it's Insane difficulty plus all enemies have something like 4 x normal HP + 80 HP and major increases to AC and other things.

    From what I've read, the main difference between BG and IWD is IWD has a lot fewer mage encounters, but some of the key battles are with casters, and there's more of them in HoF mode. Unfortunately, Chaotic Commands doesn't appear to be in the Shaman spell list, but I will definitely take a hard look at the others, thanks! :smile:
  • aldainaldain Member Posts: 324
    Maybe the spell list is different in IWDEE then; Shamans definitely get access to CC in BGEE/SoD/BG2EE.

    Shield of the Archons is solid. As you say there aren't a tremendous amount of high-level spell casters in IWDEE, but there are a few, and SotA is a good way of protecting yourself (the only spell protection available to a Shaman, in fact).
    I don't think there are enough (powerful) undead in IWDEE to motivate Sunray, but that's more a matter of taste.
    Summon Earth Elemental seems the safe choice for final L7 spell, especially given that you're doing LoB: A strong, or as strong as possible, summon for each possible spell level is a good idea then.
  • AriakusAriakus Member Posts: 50
    aldain wrote: »
    Maybe the spell list is different in IWDEE then; Shamans definitely get access to CC in BGEE/SoD/BG2EE

    This appears to be right. This is the first time I'm playing Shaman, so I looked for threads discussing their spell options to gauge whether this run would even be viable. Some of the spell picks people were suggesting aren't showing up as options for me, including Incendiary Cloud, which I thought would be a nice combo with the Fire Elementals. Oh well, adapt or die, I guess!

  • Wise_GrimwaldWise_Grimwald Member Posts: 3,866
    Ariakus wrote: »
    aldain wrote: »
    Maybe the spell list is different in IWDEE then; Shamans definitely get access to CC in BGEE/SoD/BG2EE

    This appears to be right. This is the first time I'm playing Shaman, so I looked for threads discussing their spell options to gauge whether this run would even be viable. Some of the spell picks people were suggesting aren't showing up as options for me, including Incendiary Cloud, which I thought would be a nice combo with the Fire Elementals. Oh well, adapt or die, I guess!

    You may well die, but if you die and have lerarned lesssons you haven't been wasting time. :)
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,881
    Incendiary Cloud is a mage spell, so not for shamans. Shamans get Fire Storm (priest level 7) instead, which has the nice feature of ignoring magic resistance.
  • AriakusAriakus Member Posts: 50
    Great advice and tips, thanks! :)
  • NeverusedNeverused Member Posts: 803
    So... two issues in BG2 currently - due to what I suspect is Unfinished Business, Bodhi hunting me down in Spellhold, my PC has failed to do the Slayer acquisition at all, much less the at-will version. The other possibility is that my PC was invisible when heading towards Bodhi. Regardless, I'm completely out of Spellhold now - is there any command console that should trigger the event successfully? Is it even necessary to have done that particular transform, or will the plot and dialogues work even without that command?

    Second issue is that Irenicus apparently had an Imprisonment in his spells this time around, and Minsc was Imprisoned. I don't have the SCS component that grants scrolls of Freedom in Athkatla, and I find it somewhat ridiculous that the only counter would've been having SI: Abjuration on every member of my party, Improved Invisibility still active on everyone (doubtful with all the mages around, which one at least probably cast True Seeing at some point). How opposed would people be to treating the portal in the Asylum as 2-way, so that I'd be able to return to rescue Minsc once I get Freedom scrolls? If not, I'll just play as a 5-man until I get back to the surface, which while not ideal, probably is still doable with my current setup.
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,881
    To force the Slayer ability to become available? Set the global variable GivePowerSlayer to 1; this is normally done in a dream cutscene the first time you sleep after the Spellhold scene. (In my current run, while my protagonist Dorn did transform in Spellhold, the dream never triggered. Neither did any of the other dreams; the script PLAYER1D.BCS just wasn't working.)

    As a console command, that's
    C: SetGlobal("GivePowerSlayer","GLOBAL",1)

    SI: Abjuration isn't the only way to block Imprisonment; the stronger spell defenses like Spell Turning, Spell Deflection, and Shield of the Archons do it too for as long as they're up. Although that's a bit hard to get on someone like Minsc; all there is for him is the Spell Turning mode of the Book of Infinite Spells and the Shield of Fyrus Khal that you can get in Neera's quest (convince Amanis not to play with magic, then save the wild mages).
    Really, though, if you're going to randomize enemy spell preparation so Imprisonment comes up earlier, you should make Freedom available earlier as well.
  • aldainaldain Member Posts: 324
    Bit tricky there. On the one hand, preparing for every eventuality is part and parcel of a no-reload.
    On the other hand, Imprisonment, as a no-save instant-death spell, is AD&D spellworks at its stupidest (which even SCS acknowledges in that it won't have mages target your protagonist with it.. most of the time).

    I'd weigh the blow of loosing Minsc versus how flexible you are on the come-what-may-I'll-pull-through no-reload mentality.
    If you'll abandon the run because of Minsc, go save him. If not, keep going.
  • NeverusedNeverused Member Posts: 803
    Hmm. After sleeping on it, I think my decision's gonna be to run the Underdark as 5 and plan on future attempts at Imprisonment: I did manage to pull all his equipment before the animation completed.

    I'll try the Slayer transform next time I'm able, or at least see whether I can get the ability. I hope I won't need it, but I'd bet there'd be certain circumstances...
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