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Minsc turns hostile

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  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    @BelgarathMTH good idea, thanks. Never used Aerie before.
    But what will happen if I have Yoshimo with me and refuse to work with Renal Bloodscalp?
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @Arvia , I don't think he cares - he just wants you to protect him from reprisals, iirc. I'd forgotten about that storyline. Does anyone else know if Yoshimo will eventually leave the party if you don't agree to work for Renal?

    If Yoshimo can't be used because of his shady connections, who can do locks and traps for you? Also, there's the whole thieves' guild vs. vampires thing where you have to choose one.

    This is getting back towards the original thread topic. BG2 causes quite a few conundrums for the paladin player, to be sure.
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    edited April 2019
    @BelgarathMTH I have just installed the Alternatives mod, so the choice to do the Thieves guild should not happen.

    Jan Jansen? NEVER again. Once was enough. Alignment aside, he talks more than my sister AND both my children together ?

    I don't know if Nalia is good enough for traps. But she's also annoying with her "I try to behave like it doesn't matter I'm noble, but don't you ever forget I'm noble!" attitude.

    To keep Yoshimo is complicated, but I'll see. Still in Irenicus' dungeon right now.

    And it was not that he leaves I think. Bloodscalp threatened to kill him, but I never tried if they actually attacked the party.
    Post edited by Arvia on
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @Arvia Xan being fragile shouldn't be much of an issue. Keep him in the back like any good mage.
    ilduderino
  • GSMGSM Member Posts: 34
    he has brain damage

    dont worry about it ;)
  • ilduderinoilduderino Member Posts: 773
    I don’t think Yoshimo will leave if you don’t see Renal. He has good reasons to stay with you. If you join the other side in the guild war I recall that that plot line is cut off anyway (so you can be unable to recruit Edwin on taking the more evil path).
  • ilduderinoilduderino Member Posts: 773
    Are you playing on PC Arvia? If so there are some excellent mods by which you can mod Imoen or Nalia to be a single class thief. Modding Imoen in this way can fit in well with a paladin playthrough - your sister sometimes takes a questionable approach, poking her nose where it shouldn’t sometimes, but she is your sister and a good and usually honourable person
    Arvia
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    edited April 2019
    @ilduderino I'm playing BG1 on Android and BG2 on PC. Mods are possible on both. I thank you for your advice but Imoen's thieving skills are good enough for my purpose, I just wonder if I can get on without Yoshimo until I get her back. If I take Nalia and make her a thief, I still need a mage and have too many party members. If I let her the way she is, I don't know if she can actually pick the important locks (she seems okay for traps). So, maybe I will keep Yoshimo after all.
    BelgarathMTH
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    Big Yoshimo spoiler ahead
    if you leave him in the Copper Coronet, I heard he drops dead after Spellhold or something? Could I still take his heart to try to redeem him, or does it not appear because I wouldn't have known about his story? Would be one more reason to keep him...
  • ilduderinoilduderino Member Posts: 773
    Pretty sure it does not appear and you have to take him to get it
    Arvia
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    edited April 2019
    So, the Minsc issue is resolved. I started in Candlekeep again, with the NPC project mod installed, and now I like the game again. I'm beginning to like Minsc again. They are TALKING. Remembered to go save Dynaheir directly after picking up Minsc, managed to drop Khalid and Jaheira before I got too attached, got Ajantis and Branwen, (and Imoen of course) and I'm quite happy with my party.

    Now I'm stuck in the Cloakwood Mine. The first mage who was crazy enough to cast lightning bolts in a narrow hallway killed me repeatedly until I managed to interrupt her casting long enough to get out of that bottleneck, but now I'm hopelessly lost with Davaeron. He's just too fast. Everybody dead in seconds. Repeatedly. And again, and again, and again.
    I don't know if anybody will ever read this but I don't want to open a new discussion just for one silly question.
    I would really appreciate any help.
    Post edited by Arvia on
    ThacoBellBelgarathMTH
  • joluvjoluv Member Posts: 2,137
    It depends a lot on the particulars of your party and inventory. Are you able to disable the traps in the hallway leading up to him? He's going to cast Lightning Bolt, Fireball, Dire Charm, and Hold Person. Try to get one character buffed well to absorb those spells -- perhaps a berserk Minsc with the Potion of Absorption you picked up from Drasus and Resist Fire and Cold cast by Branwen. Alternatively, there's a Protection from Fire scroll at the far end of Davaeorn's level if you can sneak past him.

    Hang back with the other characters until he has exhausted those spells. After that, he's a lot less scary. Remember to use magic ammo because he has Protection from Normal Missiles up.
    ArviaThacoBell
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    @joluv I managed to disable the traps. It's the stupid lightning bolts in close quarters that finish me off all the time. And he's teleporting so fast. Forgot I have that potion... good point. Hold person is no problem, I play an undead hunter.
    joluv
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    The potion helped. And those boots of speed... I hadn't put them on before because Dynaheir had no identification spell memorized, being all prepared for battle... and it didn't fit into my idea of role playing to rest in or around the mine in that situation, just to identify something. But I reconsidered after dying the 12th or 13th time ?
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @Arvia , It helps when facing a mage who is going to cast lightning to pay careful attention to party positioning. Never have groups of people lined up in a straight line (sitting ducks to all get hit by lightning) or clustered closely together (sitting ducks for fireballs, hold person, or any other area of effect spell). A clustered group of adventurers might as well be wearing a bullseye that says "Target Fireball Here." The first thing I do when I see a dangerous mage, cleric, or dragon is to have the party scatter.

    Sometimes against Davaeorn I actually put my lowest hit point characters into separate rooms. There's one to your right just as soon as you enter Davaeorn's chambers that is usually safe from the lightning bolts. Stay out of narrow hallways and room corners that will bounce lightning. I also save all my potions of protection I can find during the first parts of the game for this encounter, because I know what I'm facing here.

    The encounter with Davaeorn in Baldur's Gate is the kind that makes me not so sure when people complain that some of BG's contemporary successors are overtuned in difficulty. Your experience going into that fight for the first time, not knowing what to expect, is typical. There will be several more encounters like that. I think a lot of people who have been playing BG for 20 years, including me, have forgotten what it felt like to face an enemy like Davaeorn for the first time, knowing nothing about what spells he would use, his teleportation trickery, or how the chamber design itself is designed to kill you.
    ArviaThacoBelljoluv
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    @BelgarathMTH, Thank you for the strategy advice. Sounds all logical, but you are right, it is different when you don't know what to expect. In BG2 I remembered most things even after 15 years, but apart from the background story I seem to have forgotten completely what happens in BG1.

    I hate lightning bolts. And it's so much more difficult with the low levels in the beginning. My own fault. Would have collected much more XP if I had taken the time to completely clear all the maps on the way. I think I should check them all out before proceeding to the city.
    But not today.

    And I also must remember to use potions and wands much more often.
    And the failure rate to learn spells is not fair, in a game that isn't full of all the good scrolls, but I decided to not reload for failing to learn a spell, to get used to the feeling of failure and prepare for a minimal reload run.

    BelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited April 2019
    @Arvia, Gellana Mirrorshade in the Friendly Arms Inn sells four Potions of Genius. I always get them as soon as I can afford them, and have Dynaheir save up scrolls until she has a lot of them. One potion lasts long enough to scribe a whole bunch of scrolls, but you have to make the attempt immediately after drinking. The potion raises her Intelligence to 21, and gives her about a 90 percent chance to succeed.

    Be aware that there is a penalty for trying to scribe a scroll of a higher level than the mage can cast, and there is a bonus for spells within the mage's specialty school. So, I always wait to scribe Web and Fireball until Dynaheir can actually cast second and then third level spells.

    Even with the potion, there is a chance to fail, so be careful about what I call "critical spells", which for me, include Identify and Protection from Petrification as first level spells. Thalantyr at High Hedge has two of each of those scrolls, and on my last run, I had to buy both Identify scrolls, because Dynaheir failed on the first attempt at Identify even with a Potion of Genius.

    If Dynaheir failed to scribe a "critical spell" when I knew there were no more scrolls of it available, while under the effects of a Potion of Genius, then I would take a reload. My reasoning is that I "paid" appropriately and took appropriate precautions by buying the potion before trying to scribe.

    If I were publicly reporting the minimal reload in the forum, I would dutifully include such a reload on my list of reloads. That would make me think twice about taking the reload, so it would depend on how much I really felt like I had to have that spell to be able to keep having fun playing.

    My list of critical spells includes, but is not necessarily limited to, Identify, Sleep (although Dynaheir can't learn it and has to use a wand), Magic Missile, Protection from Petrification, Find Familiar (for a protagonist mage - I usually take it at character creation, though), either Invisibility (preferred) or Mirror Image, Web, Fireball, Stoneskin, Breach, Protection from Magic Weapons, Lower Resistance, and Spell Immunity. Later on, I wouldn't want to be without Project Image, minor and full Sequencers, Contingency, and Time Stop.
    Arvia
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    edited April 2019
    @BelgarathMTH, this is extremely helpful, I had no idea that Intelligence also affected the probability to successfully scribe a scroll, not only the number of spells per level or the maximum level of spells a mage can learn.
    And I didn't know about the penalty for trying to scribe spells that are above the actual level you can cast.
    Reloading for very critical spells (after all the options you mentioned) sounds reasonable.

    After reading a part of your old minimal-reload thread (by the way, I'm really enjoying "Order of the Stick"), I think I'm beginning to understand why some of you, especially those with a background of real tabletop D&D, consider it unacceptable to reload without a game-ending reason.
    It must seem like cheating to you. I never saw it that way because I didn't question it, accepted saving and reloading as part of the mechanics, because that's how I had learned it.
    But I would never roll again in a board game if I didn't like the dice roll, I would have to accept the outcome. So, in a computer game, where the outcome also depends on dice rolls, I should apply the same rules.
    I know it should have been obvious, sometimes I'm a bit slow to understand things, but I'm quite convinced now that I would like playing this way.

    So, I think I will restart this current BG run when I have the time (probably later this week), and try it.
    I'm still a bit shy about sharing the run in a thread, though. I have very little experience with this game and I'm not good at telling stories, at least not in English. But I might give it a try.

    So, totally unrelated, I wondered what unknown person wrote that explanation, until I looked closer and saw the name. (no skills in Detect Illusion, I'm afraid). Where did you get that scar? ?


    Post edited by Arvia on
    BelgarathMTH
  • Humanoid_TaifunHumanoid_Taifun Member Posts: 1,055
    Intelligence does not affect how many spells your mage can cast per level - only the maximum level (and the probability of successfully scribing scrolls into your spellbook).

    As for reloads, I am certain that Baldur's Gate is supposed to be reloaded, a lot. Yes, an experienced player can avoid reloads, but there are many incidents where you run into kinds of trouble that you simply cannot predict adequately without meta knowledge. There is a reason why Baldur's Gate produces autosaves so often. There are other ways in which the developers tried to subtly help you, like adding Imoen so you would be able to reach the Friendly Arm Inn, or making it (almost) impossible for a level 1 character with <12 HP to die in a single hit.
    I think Baldur's Gate II used to have a loading screen tip telling you to make active use of the reload function too. So do not feel too bad about making use of a functionality the way it was intended to be used.
    All power to no-reloaders. but no point in shaming people who do not wish to make their downtime any harder than it has to be.
    Arvia
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    edited April 2019
    @Humanoid_Taifun I meant number of spells of a certain level you can scribe from scrolls into your spellbook, not how many you can memorize and cast. I sometimes get confused about the correct terms.

    I wasn't saying reloading is bad or something. I'm just a bit obsessive about doing things the "right" way I suppose, once I see the good points of a concept.
    I'm very fond of rules and principles. Though my parents would probably disagree.

    Edit: I didn't think anybody was shaming me or anybody else for reloading, just guessing (correctly) that I might like trying to play the other way.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited April 2019
    @Arvia, the avatar is my portrait from Pathfinder: Kingmaker, a new D&D game I've been enjoying. I liked the character portrait so much I decided to use it here, at least for a while.
    Arvia
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