So back to managing my kingdom. This is one of the lulls when you're supposed to be levelling up your kingdom, doing exploration and side quests. I unload my loot and am flush with tons of cash, so I buy another 1000BP. I also run the lawbringer gauntlets back over to Dragn in Narlkeep. The deal with Ioseph is finally fixed, so it's time for a massive building spree everywhere. I can also finally hire a diplomat, too bad Bartholomew died so I put Valerie in the role. After levelling up my regent, Octavia and I can finally annex the North Narlmarches. I get the opportunity to patronize a halfling that lets me build halfling breweries, those really help boost your relations, so I build one in every town.
At Tatzlford there's a guy accused of running off with a merchant's money at the capitol and an elf named Kimo who wants me to collect a beautiful flower growing in the swamp. I go back to the swamp witch's hut. This is when you're supposed to do that owlbear encounter there. It's not too bad at my level, although Harrim and Jaethal take some lumps, but are left standing. I head back to the capitol to ask the merchant Hassuf about Sharel in Tatzlford, he gives me a letter proclaiming his innocence. I head back to Tatzlford to finish off these artisan quests. Both Kimo and Sharel hire on with me and I build their shops in Tatzlford.
I head back home to keep levelling up my advisors. Eventually I upgrade Narlkeep to a town. Dragn comes to me complaining he was robbed and asks to see me. I also do the project to level up Regongar, since I'll be able to up his strength, and that actually increases his score as a general. Over at Narlkeep Dragn tells me lawbringer was stolen and suspects bandits at the thorn ford, so I head there. I catch a dwarf in the act of selling lawbringer. He's Dragn's brother, but I send him to jail and head back to turn in the quest at narlkeep.
I keep at it, ranking up my advisors. Amiri comes to me and asks to see me at the tavern, so I head there. At the tavern the owlbear I killed during the attack on the capitol is now a rug. Amiri tells me her tribe is in the region, which is strange, so I head out to the barbarian camp. The six bears camp is being attacked by undead, so we kill them. We meet Amiri's friend Nilak and the chief Akaia. Amiri nearly kills the chief, but I intervene, that's important to keep her alive later. They mention they're plagued by an undead giant, so we kill it. He had some nice boots that provide a +10 to speed, so Jubilost equips them. Apparently they've tried to kill the giant many times, but he just keeps coming back to attack. There's nothing else we can do now, so we head back home.
I keep levelling up my advisors and my artisans keep bringing me a steady stream of magic items, which even if they're not useful, fetch a nice price at the market. After any amount of time I spend ranking up or annexing territory, I always exit out of the kingdom interface to check and see if anyone needs to talk to me and get artisan gifts. I can finally hire a magister after ranking up my divine, and for now I put the storyteller on the job. Eventually a noble asks me to find his missing brother in Varnhold, but I can't get to there yet. I apparently pissed off Shandra with my lawful evil actions but I have Tsanna to step in.
It's time to hit the road again an explore some spots I haven't gotten to, yet. I got a letter from Maeger Varn, inviting me to visit him in Varnhold, so I head there, making a stop in silvershire to see what Mim wanted. She wants Kyonin berry wine, I'll get it for her later. I keep going to Varnhold, the guards won't let us explore but will escort us to varnhold, so we go with them and say hi to Maeger. There's an interesting, and valuable necklace in a crate called the Heart of Ira. I say hello to Maeger, and get a feel for his intentions. There's nothing else to do here, so I head back to my territory.
I drop by Arbor Rock, since I skipped past it last time I was this way. There's some earth elementals in a cave, the big one has a diamond.
I go by the hilltop trail next. It's a freaky cave with a glowing portal, so of course we go through it after killing the dweomer cats. I hate these things, they go straight for your weakest member. In the first world, we stumble upon a dweomer lion. We charge it and Harrim attempts a boneshatter, but can't get past it's magic resistance. The lion goes straight for Harrim, teleporting to him. It mauls him pretty badly, but by chugging potions, I keep him in the fight. More dweomer cats pop in. We manage to bring the lion down, and can kill the cats pretty easily.
Back home, I keep ranking up my advisors. The ancient curse starts, and I'm preoccupied with levelling and advisor and take a bit of a hit to the kingdom stats, but minor overall. I wish that alert that the curse was coming in 2 weeks actually told you when the two weeks would be up. Reg and Octavia come to inform me a spy from the Technic league is at the tavern. I deal with Bald Hilltop first. I drop a couple fire elementals and an extended haste spell before starting the fight. It's magical monsters this time. When the nymph comes out, Jubilost just keeps her pinned down with force bombs, and she can't do anything, and eventually kills her.
This where my kingdom's at currently
At the capitol I stop and get a bottle of elven absinthe for Mim, that'll work. Then pop by the tavern to see the Technic League spy with Reg and Octavia. Their previous owner is in the region. He points me to a spot in the mountains. I murder the spy so he can't work against me. Elina also wants me to get her a rok's egg for a celebration. I swap out Jaethal for Regongar and hit the road. But first I drop by silvershire to give mim her absinthe. I swing back to the capitol before I set out on Octavia/Reg's quest. In the throne room I'm informed Mim has gone off to Talon peak, and I should check up on her. There's a 14 day timer on this quest, too. This is why I set it up so I can do Reg and Octavia's quest, the Rok's egg and rescue Mim in one run, since this is all pretty far off.
That's about all the time I have for now. I got a long day of barbecuing ahead of me, and need to start smoking the salmon.
Time to handle these 3 quests. The Technic League is the first stop. I murder my way through the goons and eventually find Maestro Janush, Octavia and Reg's old master. Right at the start of the fight, Demona one shots him with a shocking grasp crit for 73 damage. He stops the fight and fireballs the cages with slaves in them. I'm going to go really out of character here, and side with Octavia to save the slaves, because the decision has very late game consequences. We save the slaves, and of course just as we rush in, Janush teleports away. In his office we find his ledgers, so Octavia and Reg can figure out where they're from. We get lucky on picking the lock here, and get Gear's Rule, a sweet item for Jubilost.
Moving through the rough mountain terrain is slow going, but we eventually come to Talon Peak. This is where Mim and the Rok's egg are. There's spiders all along the cliffs, so we use delay poison. I find Mim, but keep going on and clear the path ahead before I talk to her. Amiri's able to fix her dislocated leg and I convince her to finish climbing the mountain. At the ruins on the top of the peak, Mim's all set and the quest finishes. There's a little puzzle up here with some bricks sticking out of the wall at a few points. You have to make perception checks to find them in the first place, then hit them in the right order. They'll go click when hit in the right order and thud when hit in the wrong. A hidden chamber opens up with a mace called skullcrusher. There's a few bandits up here to kill, then we get to the Rok's nest. The Rok attacks and we kill it easily and are on our way back home, all 3 quests finished.
Back home, there's a letter from Jamandi waiting for me, apparently all contact with Varnhold has been severed, so I need to check up on Maeger and what happened over there. I'm going to be away for awhile, so I get well stocked to deal with every possible scenario, lots of restoration scrolls, remove curse, raise dead and lots of rations.
At this point the game asks me to import a save from Varnhold's lot. I'm not going to go off and do a no reload of that right now, so I just import a save from earlier. I played as an evil armored hulk and had a grenadier tiefling, aasimar magus blue dragon disciple and half orc cleric of gorum.
We can finally explore the Eastern portion of the map, now. With Jaethal's high perception, we've even spotted some of the areas at edge of the mountains. I stop in at the Overgrown cave first and talk to the barbarians. Amiri is able to talk her way through, for a change. We find out the barbarians are here looking for something, but not exactly sure what. They point me to their main camp.
I head over to Rotten Cave, next. This should be fun. On the path the first cave is a dead end with some primal manticores, so I kill them. At the top of the path is another cave with a portal to the first world in it. We go through, and it's dumping down rain with lightning everywhere. This is the only place in the game I've been hit by lightning, so we put up resist/protection from electricity, communal. This is a powerful version of the shambling mound, called Thundervine. The rain pretty much prevents an opening charge, so I hit him with ray of enfeeblement and boneshatter for an opener, to drop his strength. I take him down, easily with vampiric touch, acid bombs and sneak attack snowballs. We go through another cave and into another first world area. There's another boss creature here, Oakenhid, Poisonous Manticore-like Treant. It's no match for us. There's another portal leading out of here, and it drops us in the open air. That tunnel and jaunt through the first world took us all the way to the Northern end of the mountain range.
I head back South and stop by Shallow Gulch. I fail the stealth check to creep up on the Goblins, but find a letter to Mathian Hanvaki from his brother.
Time to check out Varnhold and see what's up. The town seems deserted, until I bump into some spriggans who attack. A creepy crow is watching me as I explore the town. I head over to the fort to find it overrun with spriggans. The fort's really uneventful, so I'll just skip to the end of it. Amiri and Harrim hit level 11. I make the intimidate check to get the leader to elaborate that they were forced from their home. I murder them all. There's 2 letters here, one unfinished one from Varn to me, and another from an unknown source threatening him for trying to ally with me. On the way out, the crow that was watching me calls me a butcher and informs me the people were punished for being thieves and taking something.
At the unfinished clearing we kill a wolf pack in a cave and some spiders at the spider lair. At Rinderpest Burial ground we get swarmed by really tough ass specters. Amiri has a full 8 levels drained, so we came close to losing her. Good thing I brought along plenty of diamond dust so Harrim can easily get rid of the drains with a restoration spell. Mirror image let Demona avoid all the attacks, so she never got hit. There's a ring of protection +3 and the Jester's Vest here. At the Blood Furrows we kill an ancient Bulette and Jubilost hits level 11. I climb the ruined tower, this is another way to find the barbarian camp if nobody has pointed you to it.
I head to the Barbarian camp. During the feast, I pour my cup out on the ground for my fallen homies and regale them with tales of my exploits. The Defaced sister wants us to find her other sisters. Dugath cares much more about his troops and wants to take them home. I agree to help the sister. There's a merchant here, he doesn't have much, but it's a much needed opportunity to unload all the loot I've picked up.
Down at the collapsed passage I get ready for a fight with a bunch of undead, that undead bane great axe Amiri's rocking comes in handy here. There's dark energy here that will heal the undead in the main chamber, so I chuck a fireball in to get their attention and run back to the side passage to lure them away from it. Once they're dead Octavia disables the plates to shutdown the dark energy. Jaethal levels up and we find a +6 strength belt. I'll give it to Regongar later, to make him a better general.
The Forsaken mound is a book event area, and we make all our skill checks and find a dead sister with an incense burner on her.
At the Linnorm grave I murder a bunch of mammoths, take that prehistory.
In southwest Varnhold, I'm just close enough to be able to manage my kingdom, so I take the opportunity to check up on things.
There's an insane wizard at Little Sellen Source, so we kill him and take his sweet +6 intelligence head band for Octavia.
At the precipice trail is a cave with a mature Athach, I open with a ray of enfeeblement and boneshatter to weaken it. I find a belt that gives +4 to strength and con, so Demona equips it, since she's got gloves that give a +4 to dex. Octavia hits level 12.
Next stop the Sepulcher of Forgotten Heroes. We use the word the defaced sister gave us to open the door. The gist of this place is you have to hit panels to open and close doors. Some of the panels will do both, so you have to split your party up in order to be able to explore it. There's lots of undead cyclopes and barbarians here. Following the path the only way we can at this point, we find a switch that'll open some doors. I head back to the green switch near the entrance and explore the passage that just opened up to the southeast. There's a hidden room with a robe of fire that Octavia equips. Once I've explored this passage as far as I can at this point, I return to the green switch and leave Jubilost there, so he can hit after I go through the doors. From the room just past the green switch I go southwest first and hit the switch there, then I go northwest to the other hall and fight my way past some barbarians to a red switch. I leave Harrim by the red switch, since it's a timed switch that only lasts a few seconds. I head back to the chamber near the green switch. Jubilost hits the switch once to open the door in that chamber, then once we're through he hits it again to close that door and open the next one. At the end of this passage is a bunch of barbarians guarding a white swtich. I leave Amiri by this switch and head back to meet Jubilost. Now with Harrim and Amiri positioned by those switches I can get into some doors in the eastern portion that I couldn't get through before. Harrim hits the red switch and we go through the door that opens. There's a mob of tough undead in here, so we use haste and slow them. On them, we find a letter from Penrod Hanvaki, an ancestor to the Hanvaki that asked us to look for his brother. We hit the white switch in the room, and have Harrim hit the red switch so we can leave the room. Amiri hits the white switch and we go through the last door. There's more barbarians in here, and we kill them. In order to get through this door, both Harrim and Amiri have to hit their switches, then my party runs through. There's a switch in this room that opens up all the doors, and Harrim and Amiri can catch up to us. There's a bunch of soul eaters up ahead, so I drop a couple of fire elementals to distract them. I send the sister on her way back to the barbarian camp. The crow shows up again and asks about why I spared her.
There's one sister left to be found, so I go to the City of Hollow Eyes. The Kellid barbarians are under attack by undead cyclopes, so help fend off the cyclopes. I loot their camp and talk to Hilla who wants us to the find the missing sister. Most of the areas fairly forgettable, bandits, wolves and cyclopes, so I start clearing the place out. One of the more interesting spots is a pillar that's transfixed a couple of cyclopes with an enchantment. I murder the cyclopes. I use the word to open the door at the ruins. I kill the defaced sister inside, heh. The crow taunts me as I leave the ruins. I bluff and tell Hilla the cyclopes killed everyone already.
I travel back to the Kellid Barbarian camp. I get fully buffed up before approaching the camp. The witch accuses me of killing the other sisters, but I only killed one. I bluff Dugath into siding against the sisters, so some of the barbarians side with me. I kill the witches and the barbarians that don't side with me, their annoying baleful gaze caused Harrim and Octavia to lose some stats. For now they can suffer a bit, I burn a restoration spell on each, but it's not enough to clear all the constitution drain. Before I talk to Dugath, I unload about 60K worth of merchandise at Dug the merchant. Dugath points me to the valley of the dead.
Before I head there, I take a little detour, just far enough that I can check on the barony and assign advisors to any events that have popped up. Nice the expert mountaineering project I started just finished. On the way over to the valley of the dead I stop by shivering glade. I use some fire elementals to help keep the soul eaters at bay. I find the sweet clockwork pendant that auto extends hast and slow spells, so Jubilost equips it.
On the south there's an event where the crow taunts us and tells us his master waits in the valley of the dead. Tristian also shows up asking to come along, I tell him to get lost.
At the valley of the dead there isn't much to do, put the incense burners in the holders and open the gate. On the path past the valley, we have an encounter with 4 undead cyclops and some minor loot around. Demona hits level 12. We continue along the snakey path through the mountains to Vordakai's tomb.
The first room has corpses that clearly died from poison gas, so I put up delay poison, and hit the switch to open the door and kill the undead cyclopes that enter. Most of the first level is linear kill cyclopes and disable traps with only one way to go. There's a book event that causes water to flood the chamber we're in, Jaethal makes the perception check to find a hidden room with some loot. Once the water clears and we reenter the room, the cyclopes give us a good thrashing, but we persevere. The crow has managed to trick Amiri and Jubilost into saying their names. I bump into an astrademon and kill it. He manages to drop Demona, but she stays up. I find an awesome scythe, The Hand of Damnation for Jaethal. A souleater appears and summons up one for each that it knows the name, Jubilost, Amiri and myself. This isn't a bad group to have attacked by them. While we 3 have to fight our soul eaters by ourselves, Octavia and Harrim summon some fire elementals. After dispatching the 3, a swarm of ancient soul eaters storms in. The real danger to these things is that they can kill you by draining wisdom. With the fire elementals as a distraction the fight's pretty easy. I rest after that fight and keep moving onward downstairs.
There's a massive horde of zombies in the first room, which is flooded. I use fire elementals to keep a line in front of Jubilost and Octavia, and the rest charge the undead mage. Not too tough a fight. I explore the passages and fight my past cyclopes and traps. Eventually I bump into the ghost of Willas Gunderson, and follow him down a hall. We have to fight through a lot of undead to reach him. I finally catch up with Gunderson's ghost and pump him for info. Vordakai is a powerful cyclopes lich and used magic to hypnotize the populace to come here. I finish off the pathetic ghost. Back tracking there's more undead and specters in the path now. There's a zombie feast happening, and they go hostile. Octavia chunks a huge amount of them with a chain lightning and hits level 13 after the fight. I find a hidden passage with an evil looking statue in it that I sprinkle with blood, it gives a permanent acid resistance 5 and +2 against death and poison saves. There's also the sweet dark acolyte's robe that Octavia puts on. There's water elementals ahead, so I put resist/protection from cold on everyone. The final showdown with Vordakai is ahead, so we rest.
Most of the party fails their saves against fear and is shaken just from entering the room. I prep with every buff I have, even stoneskin. He drops Octavia with a finger of death, but we beat him down. Then Tristian interrupts us and steals the Oculus Abadon, despite my protests. I finish beating down Vordakai. I opt to enslave Vordakai to me. He takes Maegar Varn's body as a disguise. I take the jars with the souls of the people from Varnhold so I can sell them. I make the long walk back to the capitol and as soon as I'm in range of the kingdom I start the projects to level up Reg and Ekundayo.
I make sure to drop by the tavern first and let Hanvaki know about his dead brother and his undead grandpa. I dump all the loot from Vordakai's for 87K. There's trouble at candlemere and a huge Barbarian army at the western border Jamandi set off with an army to fight. Amiri heads to the fight the Barbarians, so I'm without her for a bit, hence why I started the projects to level some people. Some Dwarves also ask for our help dealing with golems at the adamantine fortress as part of Harrim's quest. Jubilost wants to go to the Inconseuent debates for his quest. Loot from the artisans pours in. The storyteller can also restore the cloak of sold souls for me.
I've got a bit of time till Ekun and Reg level up, so I'm off to the Inonsequent Debates. I also stick Tsanna on the repopulate Varnhold project, which is 90 days and 300bp. At the debates, while reading the rules Jubilost is cursed with screaming fits. There's a kobold who couldn't read the rules, a knight cursed to say tentacles, and some gnomes with 2 of 3 of them turned to frogs. I finger the gnomes as the pranksters, but leave their prank. I answer what can move a mountain, it's own will. What weakens when owned by many and dies if owned by none, a secret. I answer knowledge for the third. During the knight dragon snag game I answer knight then dragon. I won enough that I can ask 3 questions. First I ask why the gnomes left the first world, and just a riddle. I ask how to gain power and immortality, I'm evil after all. For my last question I ask why they organized the debates, because they were bored. Jubilost hits level 12.
I get random event while walking home and fatigued, so I'm a bit worried. It's just a hell knight being detained by some peasents. I side with the hell knight and execute the peasent. I meet with him back at the capitol and let the order of the nail come into my kingdom.
Nok-Nok comes to me wanting to take care of his brethren up at Oleg's, so we go. The goblins have been chased there by a giant. I kill the giants and let the goblins go to the capitol. This is actually a good thing. Reg and Ekun's training is complete, so I swap out the Storyteller for "Maegar Varn." I put Octavia on the project to upgrade the capitol and hit the road, taking Ekun to fill the gap Amiri left.
Vengeance comes first so I go to candlemere first. The area's infested with monsters. We slaughter our way through to the portal just in time for that traitor Tristian to go through it to the temple of the Elk.
Back to the temple of elk. There's monsters there, and a portal to the first world has opened up. Of course we head through it. There's spots here where magic supposedly has a 50% chance of failure. In the past I've found it to be much higher than 50%. In the passage to the west we kill some red caps, then bump into some mimics. We find a hidden door leading to some candles. I do the candle puzzle and a ferocious devourer pops out. It manages to completely level drain the dog before I can kill. Force bombs rule the day here. We go east from where we started and kill a mob of spiders. I work my way past the traps to the north. We find a primal shambling mound. It's not too tough, but it can only be killed with negative nergy, fortunately Jaethal gets a crit with her scythe triggering it's negative energy blast, finishing it off. Jaethal hits level 12. I enter some ruins in the north and keep following the path. I find some stone golems in a library and just attack them. We find the Robe of the true master in the library. There's a book event to search the study, so we do. I keep exploring and search the rooms. I finally come to the room with a powerful nymph and the traitor Tristian. I drop a couple fire elementals into the room before I talk to the nymp. The guardian of the bloom is talking to her servant. I attack full on. Octavia uses chain lightning a few times, and the force bombs wreck the defaced sister. After we finish them off, Tristian wants to destroy the Oculus Abbadon, but I attack. The Oculus is mine, now. I make my way out, and pop out in the Verdant Chambers. From doing all the traps, Octavia hits level 14, her 10th Arcane trickster level. I take the opportunity to slaughter all the monsters the nymph tried to kill me back in chapter 2.
On the way up to the dwarven fortress I stop Saint Galan's Gullet and Brown Baldhead. The cyclops is quite a beast, but not too much trouble at our level. There's just wolves at brown baldhead.
We stop by tenacious marsh, and kill a giant slug. I find the assassin's chain shirt, a +4 adamantine chain shirt with +4 to confirm crits!
I head over to flintrock grasslands. I figure I'll do the dwar fortress when I have Amiri back. I meet up with Amiri and she wants to sneak into the camp alone. There's a lot of hidden paths with things she can push out of the way. I also need to make sure to avoid the defaced sisters. I pretend to mend a tent when one goes by, and let her pass and continue on my way. I have to kill some wolves that go hostile when I push a rack out of the way. She gets to Nilak and the defaced sister, and just loses it and kills the sister. Armag shows up and I argue with him and have to duel him. I'm pretty sure it's not possible to beat him here. Armag leaves his army for some reason, that'll be revealed later.
The rest of the party has to make their way to the barbarian camp and rescue Amiri. I arrive on the scene just in time to see Jamandi's men cut down and barely before she's killed. She is not happy with me, since I went after Tristian and held my on kingdom's needs above hers. I meet a cleric whose regiment was killed, he's going to raise them as undead to make a final stand, I encourage him to do so. I cut through the barbarians like butter and find Amiri, Dugath and Nilak alive. Weird in previous runs where I went after Tristain first Dugath died. House Surtova wants to elevate me to queen, and Jamandi grudgingly accepts. First I have to track down Dugath.
I head back home. I need to unload loot and regroup and check up on things. I arrive to find the city rebuilt in stone and no longer mud and wood. I dump all the loot for about 70K and buy another 1000BP. Linzi informs me we have some options to track Armag down. Basically there's several things that'll reduce the perception check to find it. A demon whose an ancestor to the tiefling twins drops by and wants me to go to the southern barrens. I'll put that off until I'm done with all the sweet teeth tasks, they're still busy weeding the narlmarches.
While they start trying to find Armag, I annex the dire narlmarches. A bard has composed a song Valerie takes offense to and has been yelling at others around the keep, so I should look into that. It's a just a matter of talking to the storyteller and Linzi and then Val. I also show the storytell the Oculus, and he's creeped out. I build a new town, Direburg way in the southwest, as close to Pitax as possible.
I'm going to set off for the dwar fortress and do Harrim's quest. We wreck the golem and save he dwarves. Harrim's able to knock the thing apart. The paladin thinks it's a gift from Torag, being able to unmake things. Harrim breaks the gem from the golem, and we leave.
I'm going to see if we can't find Armag's tomb on our own. We spot it from way across the river! I still try to do Pike's stretch, and Amiri takes off her armor for it, but only makes the first athletics check. I head over to Armag's tomb.
At the tomb, I convince the barbarians to turn against the defaced sister and Demona hits level 13. I get another +2 to strength and can wear and cast in heavy armor. The dungeon is long so I'm just going to hit the high points. There's an early book event to move piece across trapped puzzle, and we make all our skill checks. Gotta grab all the xp I can. We find a hidden passage bypassing an area with lightning and fire traps. There's loads of skeletal undead, specters and bloody bones beasts. At least the bloody bones beasts always drop strength belts +4. I try to dazzle Zorek the barbarian spirit with my deeds, but he's not impressed I defeated Vordakai and let him live and attacks, I easily kill him. For the showdown with Armag, I buff up fully and drop a couple fire elementals into the room before I head in. Armag has realized everything the sisters told him were lies, and kills the sister with him, then turns on me. I hammer him with bombs, slow ray of enfeeblement and boneshatter to weaken him. Octavia uses an impromptu sneak attack with a chain lightning and kills pretty much the whole rest of the mob in one shot. At this point we just pound away on Armag till he goes down, and then execute him. We find the original Armag's horde and now it's ours. The barbarians are arguing amongst themselves over who should be in charge. I offer to let them settle in my lands if they swear an oath of fealty and put Dugath in charge.
I rush home to get my reward. The Surtova back me and Linzi gives a speech at my coronation. The motto for the kingdom is life is fleeting, but law is forever. After the coronation, I spot an old man in the audience leaving who looks suspiciously like Remus that cultist I executed before. I get a sweet crown, +6 to Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma with +2 resistance to compulsion effects. It's official I'm a true monarch now.
Hi there! Are you still without reloads? Is it because the game is not difficult, or is it because you've put a lot of hours into the game? How many close calls did you have? Do you get any difficulties? How far into the game are you?
Hi there! Are you still without reloads? Is it because the game is not difficult, or is it because you've put a lot of hours into the game? How many close calls did you have? Do you get any difficulties? How far into the game are you?
The reports read as if everything is easy.
Ya, I'm still at zero reloads. I normally play on challenging, but am a habitual reloader, so I bumped down to mostly normal difficulty for my very first no reload run of anything ever, so most of the fights aren't bad for me, and I've been playing an extremely risk averse game. I've had some close calls, though. I also have to live with failed rolls to open locks and bad rolls in kingdom management, for instance I just failed a really big one that cost me about 2 points from every kingdom stat. If you don't know all the ends and outs of the game, a lot of the fights are much more difficult. Like when I killed Armag in the last post, I knew he'd be in there and dropped a couple of fire elementals into the room before entering. I've finished the game a few times, so I can put off the really hard stuff as long as possible and don't wander into spots that'd be too risky. Like back at the swamp witch's hut, I left a couple spots unexplored, because I knew it was higher level content. On a first run, the game is brutal on normal, although they've toned it down a bit from the original release. So no the game isn't easy.
I had a bit of time this morning to play before work.
First act after becoming queen is to claim Glenebon. Now my empire stretches nearly all the way across the map. I build some stuff in the new town of Glenebon. Elina tells me Ekun's run off armed to the teeth. We head over to the bridge over the Gudrin river. All the crap from Armag's tomb is worth over 100,000K. Ekun and Ntavi are out killing giants. I send Ekun down a path of firey vengeance and we kill the giants.
Before I really start exploring Glenebon, I want to get my arcane stat levelled up a bit more. Alondi, a bard Linzi knows enters, and we find out Linzi's teach Eobald the insightful has fled Pitax and is at Old Sycamore. I head over there with Linzi. The bards are being held by a mite with a bunch of centipedes. I intimidate the mite into leaving. When we talk to Eobald, I find out Alondi used to bully Linzi at the academy, I take an uncharacteristc attitude and encourage her to let him stay for now.
I keep pushing up my kingdom's arcane rank. Now at rank 3 I can build teleportation circles, and put them in every town without a mage tower. I also do the project to cut region
So now that I've got teleportation circles and faster movement, I hit the road to explore that territory I just annexed. I pop by the six bears camp and Nilak's elected chief.
Most of the spots in this region are just tiny one fight areas.
At wicked Field we stumble across a botched attempt to summon a demon and have to kill it. Jaethal levels up.
The fossil fields There's some medusas that we kill.
Giant's Palm has Hatred, a boss smilodon. These legendary monster fights are a part of a big long quest I haven't picked up, yet, so they're so worth doing. There's some minor loot, but a massive pile of diamond dust, which is handy for spells like stoneskin and restoration.
At Serpent Trail we find a portal to the first world. It's just a hydra, but we do find some gloves that make the wearer do an extra 1d6 acid damage with melee weapons.
Gnawed rocks is a battl up a mountain fighting gargoyles with Hoarfrost a boss gargoyle at the top.
Desecrated Cairn is a cave. There's some minor loot in the area, but when I'm done searching some hill giants return home to their lair. I bluff them that I'm an agent on a secret mission to spy around the kingdom of eternal summer, I even get them to bribe me to send my best guide back to send them there.
Next stop Charred Ruins has a golem we kill.
We barely escape a giant worm thing during a book event at shrewish gulch.
Two-Faced Hill has a werewolf pack. After we defeat them, Harrim levels up.
At Raspberry Gully has a druid that attacks us. We find a sealed letter and make our skill checks to unseal it. The druid was being tasked with spying on my barony.
Take me home, Country Road. There's a golem to kill here.
That's it for Glenebon, so I teleport back to my capitol. As soon as I return, there's trouble in Varnhold, so I head there to kill some rebels, this is the leathersmiths artisan quest.
After getting my diplomacy up, I can finally hire Jaethal on as my minister.
Nok-Nok and the goblins have been putting up shrines to Lamashtu, so I go investigate. I let him keep his shrines, since it'll keep both him and Tsanna happy.
@DrHappyAngry , You're making this game sound like it should be of interest to any BG no-reloaders who are looking for a new challenge in a new game. They'd have to give it a chance and probably take the time for several initial runs to "learn the ins and outs", as you put it, before they'd be able to start no-reloading it like you are. I certainly failed miserably on my first try, but our community no-reloaders are much better crpg players than I am. I'd be really interested in seeing some of our famous BG Hall-of-Fame people try their skills against Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
@DrHappyAngry , You're making this game sound like it should be of interest to any BG no-reloaders who are looking for a new challenge in a new game. They'd have to give it a chance and probably take the time for several initial runs to "learn the ins and outs", as you put it, before they'd be able to start no-reloading it like you are. I certainly failed miserably on my first try, but our community no-reloaders are much better crpg players than I am. I'd be really interested in seeing some of our famous BG Hall-of-Fame people try their skills against Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Ya, doing a no reload on your first run would be totally brutal. Once you've got a handle on the mechanics and the right order to do things in, and the spots to avoid at low levels, most of it's not bad. I have to admit, I am dreading the last couple of chapters, though.
I had a tiny bit of time before work today to play.
I keep working my kingdom. The Hellknight's show up looking for a fugitive, so I give them permission to look. Irlene, the artisan for the capitol also comes to ask me to talk to her. An event also pops up that Linxia from the Hellknights is terrorizing the populace, so I better go look at that. I make them stop, I am a populist. Darvin comes to me in the street and asks me to help him take out Linxia, I try to have him siezed but he teleports away.
I head over to lake silverstep first to find the wife of Irlene's messenger, and she tells me he's at the Southern border. I realize I forgot to swap my party back, so I switch Nok-Nok back for Octavia. Her messenger as at Dragonleaf Gulch, and killed by murderous Tatzlworms. I grab the gems off his corpse.
At the secluded lodge, Darvin ambushes Linxia, making her think I'm working with her, so all the hellknights attack me and I'm forced to kill them while Linxia flees. I try to take Garvin, but he flees again.
Back at the capitol, an order of Shelyn has been spreading bad rumors about my kingdom. I go see Valerie about this and we head out to their temple. These people have the ability to slander my kingdom, so I'll play nice. I make all my diplomacy checks and after Val makes her speech about how she never wanted to be a part of the Order her scar disappears. Hegend the paladin can't accept this and attacks us. I chunk Hegend in one hit with a vampiric touch crit! The priests stand down and agree to let us leave.
I've got less than 2 weeks till the event at bald hilltop, and a problem event I need to put someone on before the beginning of the month. So I leave the kingdom management stuff for now.
At the southern barrens, I let the demon kill the sweet teeth to save Kanerah. Kalikke is not happy about that at all.
Jaethal gets news the elf that framed her earlier has been spotted around the valley of the dead. I've got time so I head there. We meet Taneka a priestess of Urgothoa. She wants to exchange a ritual that allows the caster to transfer their conciousness into their descendents bodies in exchange for Jaethal to make her undead. I agree, but after getting the ritual, Jaethal wants to leave the priestess dead. I uphold my agreements, so I tell her to stick to the deal. After raising her, Enneo shows up with a group and I attack him. After the fight, Demona hits level 14.
Back home, Irlene wants a unicorn horn. Glad I'm evil, I failed the check to pick the lock in the first world while dealing with the traitor Tristain that had one behind the door. In the southern narlmarches you'll hit an unavoidable event. I found a herd of unicorns and slaughtered them all. That pissed of a dryad who attacked with some treants. They weren't too dangerous, but had a lot of health and tried to use confusion, which failed, fortunately. I give Irlene the horn.
A well in my capitol has dried up so I go to check it out. There's a letter from a mage trapped in a magical prison under the barrow. The key needs to be discharged by killing all the spectacular monsters in the region. Nothing else we can do down here for now.
The attack on bald hilltop begins again, this time it's evil pranksters. I put Val on the job of notifying people and head there. We kill the red caps and the nymph, who had a sweet head band of mental perfection +6 that I give to Octavia. Amiri hits level 13, too. I apparently forgot to take a screenshot during this fight.
Linxia has found Darven and asked for my help nicely, So I head down to brineheart. The mercs are battling it out with the hellknights, so I wade into the fray. Darven and his men are not match for our combined forces. After, Linxia calls me an unfit ruler, so I tell her to bring her hellknights, I'm not afraid. There's a small fortune in +1 items all the hellknights and mercs had.
I head home and being a big process of leveling up advisors, now that I've got the time. Eventually I can claim Dunswald way in the east. Dragn finally finishes his grandfather's armor, Onslaught +5 mithril full plate that gives +8 to strength and increases movement speed by 20. Since my magus can cast in heavy armor now, she equips it. I finally get the project to do faster rank ups, so they only take a week instead of 2. Nazrielle finally pays off and delivers me a scimitar called divine intervention, it's a +4 holy flaming scimitar that lets me cast divine power.
Nok-Nok is confused about getting what seems to be a message from the dead goblin king. We head to the shrine of lamashtu. The king's body has been taken over by a barghest. I convince the king to tell me the terms that requires him to kill and an ally and enrage him when I bluff that Nok-Nok isn't a hero. We take advantage of the confusion to attack with the other goblins on our side. I chunk him with a crit on a vampiric touch.
After some more leveling up Jubilost comes to me. He's made progress on the riddle and we conclude it's something to do with the 24th of the month a book by Willas Gunderson. Verdel the merchant has the book I need, so I take it to Jubilost. From the book we conclude we have to meet in the tavern on the 24th of the month. On the 24th I head to the tavern. We meet an aasimar named luna, and she gives us a map to a dungeon by candlemere, so go there. So big time spoilers.
The gnomes came to this world to play at death and the god Pharasma didn't take kindly to that, so cursed them with the bleaching, so they'd experience it for real. The Host from the debates shows up, and says there's nothing that can be done for the gnomes, since that would defy a god, but one gnome can be saved. Jubilost declines the offer of being saved the bleaching and we instead pick Xae, the ghost of a gnome that led them here. This'll have big ramifications later.
A golem from the dwarf clan shows up asking us to help. Outside the dwarf fortress, Octavia levels up to 15. We kill our way through the golems and the ghost of Offeld Skjegge comes out. We agree to leave the ghost alone.
The creeping death attacks bald hilltop and Nok-Nok is up to something I should check out. Bald hilltop takes priority. There's some really nasty Mandrogora swarms this fight, so I use summons to pull them and kill them at a distance, then when they go down Jaethal tanks the swarms. Once they're down we kill our way through the rest. When Marquis Dazzlelight, a high level wisp, shows up we throw up protection/resist electricity to stop his chain lightnings. Jaethal hits level 14.
Over at the goblin clearing lamashtu Nok-Nok has had a pair of statues constructed. Apparently the little one is supposed to be me. I let him have his statue, the wretch.
Linzi brings an invitation to The Rushlight tournament in Pitax, opening up the next chapter and the Pitax section of the map.
Here's where my kingdom's at. I've been glossing over a lot of it, since it'd make for tediuos work documenting it all.
So I finally looked into how to bulk resize images with imagemagick, since I play on 4k, and all the images are getting huge. Easier than I thought, and they're less than 1/3 the size when I brought them down to 1080p.
Off to the rushlight tournament in Pitax. Thanks to my aviaries built in Gleneshire, I can even manage my kingdom while I'm there. I drop Harrim and take Linzi, since some stuff from her companion quest is here. Irovetti greets me himself. There's 3 events to win here, a fisherman's competition, a drunken brawl and a boasting competition. Before any of that I check out the merchants, since these are the first new merchants I've had access to in a long while and I've brought 750,000 gold. After shopping, I get a quest from a noble to take care of some river pirates. From the bards we find out Irovetti didn't fire Eobald the insightful, and he was let go for his student Alondi pulling a lethal prank on somebody. Man, Octavia failed the lock picking contest by 1. I win the fishermen's contest by having Octavia cheat like mad. Demona wins the boasting contest handily and hits level 15 and finally earns her wings. Interesting, now all spells get dispelled and equipment removed when you enter the drunken melee, either way Demona easily beats all the other competitors with 24 strength thanks to the abyssal bloodline. I win the competition, and make Irovetti look like a tool during his speech. Jubilost hits level 14.
Back home Amiri wants to talk about her tribe at the tavern. Linzi tears into Eobald, but we decide to keep the academy intact when we take over Pitax, but she kicks out Alondi. Amiri needs us to reforge the sword she took from the giant and Armag broke, so she can appease the spirit and get it to leave her tribe alone. It's a 45 day long project, so it'll be awhile till we can do anything with it.
Reg and Octavia want to talk to me about what they found in the Technic leagues records. Reg finds out he's from the sharp fangs tribe and Octavia's Pitaxian nobility. I can't get into the city of Pitax, yet, so hers will have to wait, but I set out to do Reg's quest. Reg's tribe was wiped out. Him and his brother were supposed the chief's sons, but the tribe only needs one cheif, so Reg was sold into slavery so there wouldn't be competition. His brother slew the tribe over selling Reg when he got older. Reg buries the remains and we get out of there.
Linzi is in a tizzy, somebody has made off with my throne. I talk to some people around town, but for now the investitgation is cold.
Linzi and the storyteller figure out a way we can invade Nyrissa the evil nymphs dreams, so I need to start that project.
The sword is reforged, so we head over to Amiri's tribe to give it to them. The sword's a prison for the giants evil brother. We give the sword back to the ghost, but need to sacrifice a chieftain. The old chief Akaia volunteers, and the ghost leaves.
Linzi has yet another emergency. Now there are thugs raiding the border, monsters appearing and bards sowing dissent in my kingdom. I need to go take care of this crap. There are bards in the square I chase off and they drop flyers made in littleton, so that's where they're based at.
I go to the Menagerie in Pitax. Nyrd Zottentropple is the one teleporting monsters into my domain. I kill her and her monsters. I find another sweet scimitar called thundercrack, +5 agile, 1d6 electricity and a runic mage blade.
I stop by the river bend to clear out those pirates the bard at the rushlight tournament told us about. I sneak and start killing them, when their leader comes out, it becomes apparent these aren't pirates. Damn I failed my diplomacy check to convince them it was all a mistake, so I have to slaughter them all.
At littletown, I murder all the bards. An impromptu sneak attack chain lightning will make anyone think twice before messing with my kingdom.
I find the river blades camp and kill the mercs.
At the Ornate Ruins, we kill a skillfully crafted golden golem and Jaethal gets to level 15.
In the middle of nowhere, we find a weird door, Octavia picks it and hits level 16. There's a mage, Blakemoor working on a book. I convince him to finish it and he gives me a copy. Not sure what's up here, normally there's a massive demon attack, but nothing happens, so I leave.
At wicked hill, another failed demon summoning attempt. Demona hits level 16. I can cast level 6 spells, which is the top for a magus.
Back home, Kyonin demands we turn of Jaethal over to them. That's not going to happen so we go to meet up with them. Jaethal's daughter is there. I convince some of the elves to leave, but fight the rest. Jaethal is presented with a choice, sacrifice her daughter to be the perfect undead or use the ritual to body hop to her daughter and live again. I have her sacrifice her daughter and remain undead. She gets an ability Eternal Clarity, a permanent +2 to wisdom and charisma.
So I barely did anything before I decided I wanted to just get drunk. It's been a stressful last couple of days, dealing with a security breach at work and auditing a bunch of shit.
I've finished the project to enter Nyrissa's dreams, so it's time to enter them. We see Nyrissa in more innocent times, when she was trying to build her own fey kingdom, and the same damn interaction between her and one of the eldest we saw back in the season of the bloom. At one point we have to fight copies of all of Nyrissa's lackies, The Stag Lord, Tristian, Armag, myself and Irovetti. They can be powerful, but die with a single hit. Armag manages to do some serious damage before I land a blow, since it's just me and Linzi. Nyrissa doesn't care whether me or Irovetti wins the war, since either's victory helps her, so she tells me to check out whiterose abby in Pitax. Jubilost hits leve 15 and Linzi hits 13.
We stop by whiterose abby. The were-creature mobs go down easy with Octavia sneak attacking with fireball and chain lightning. We find a nymph trapped in some sort of enclosure, and Demona cracks it open with her massive 32 strength. Apparently the bodies of some of the Pitaxian nobility are hidden here. This is good info to have that will help get the Pitaxian nobility to side with me against Irovetti. I make my athletics and knowledge checks to ID the remains as belonging to the trade houses of Pitax and find a ring and a dagger in the lake depths.
On the walk home, we bump into the goblin merchant, and he's got my throne. I threaten to hang him and he gives it back.
At the capitol a Pitaxian envoy is waiting for me. Stefano claims things aren't going well in my kingdom (hah, my kingdom's state is serene), and Irovetti would be willing to accept my vassalage. I send the messenger's head back to Irovetti as my reply.
You may have noticed I've tried to rush things with Pitax as much as possible. This is because they keep sending difficult events at my kingdom, so in order to stop it I have to resolve this. The book Linzi and Eobald were working on is done, and she wants to come along to Pitax and see the effect it's having, so I swap her in for Jaethal. I let the noble Gasperre know about the bodies of he nobles I found at whiterose abby, so he'll take my side against Irovetti. I pop in at the lonely mansion so Octavia can meet and forgive her mom. I find the bard and judge who set me up to attack the traders that I was told were pirates. They want to arrest me, I make my checks to convince everyone of my innocence, but the judge still declares me guilty and a fight ensues, but murdering a judge is easy. I convince the bard Atalia to side with me. Annamede approaches with a counter offer, let her lead the bards instead of Atalia, and make her head of the academy after I take over. I take her up on the offer, she does seem like a better rebel leader than the aging Atalia. In the tavern at the docks, a first mate wants me to help him overthrow his captain. I've actually got the book they want, but I'd rather use persuasion here for the huge xp boost. I make all my persuasion checks for over a million XP straight to Demona and skips from level 16 to level 18! I pickup blind fight and toughness, as well as another +2 to strength from my bloodline. They also work for me, so I get a +5 to economy, stability and espionage. Back in the main square, I convince the captain of the guards to side with me by telling them I'll help clean up the thieves guild and drug trade. With the whole city turned against Irovetti, it's time to force the confrontation with him. I've got the bards, the city guard, the nobles and the priest of Calistria on my side. So he's just got some thieves and a few guards loyal to him. Of course Irovetti retreats inside his castle and we swarm the guards and thieves.
Inside we kill the door guards. Of course the main hall to reach Irovetti is locked, so we'll have to explore. The guards are starting to flee like rats from a sinking ship. There's a horde of werecreatures guarding the northwest portion. I stumble across the other Zottentropple brothers trying to flee. I kill them. I get ambushed from behind while searching the room, trolls and pitaxian wardens. Down in the basement I kill some sort of monster, either a demon or gargoyle and it's smilodons. There's a big ass monster in the basement I'll come back later on to kill. There's a swarm of guards down here, so Octavia and I drop a couple of siroccos to mess them up. I rest in the basement.
I pop out of the basement in the northwest of the castles ground floor. I encounter the leader of the werecreatures with a bunch of wardens. We drop a couple of Sirroccos into the room and let the few that don't fall follow us back into the hallway. Demona hits level 19 I get greater spell access and get to pick 6 spells from the wizard list, so can pick up some spells magi can't normally cast. The annoying thing about the Oculus Abadon is that it makes my sirroccos last forever before I can enter the room. We flip some candles to open up a hidden room. It's full of oozes and mimics. Linzi hits level 14. Now the hallway's opened up and I can proceed. There's a massive fight in the hallway to get to Irovetti. The magus actually manages to knockout Demona and Linzi gets knocked out by the archers. The almost take down Amiri, but Jubilost bombs the magus and finishes them off. That was actually pretty close, I should have taken that fight more seriously. We rest afterwards, before the big showdown with Irovetti.
Before the showdown I ask Irovetti what was up with Tartuccio, he tells me what Tartuccio took from old sycamore was an artifact Nyrissa's been searching for, for thousands of years. This is a big fight, so Im using spells like communal stone skin and legendary proportions. After I kick Irovetti's butt, he tries to call for help from a snake monster, but Nyrissa intervenes, because he took the artifact she was looking for causing the snake monster to kill Irovetti. She tries to put up seamantle, and Demona tears it down with greater dispel magic. Jubilost hits level 16.
Outside there are riots around the academy. Alondi is leading the riot and calling for the academy to be burned down. This is my city now, so that's not going to fly. I give them the option to hand over the troublemakers and leave or I'll get violent. They hand Alondi over. Harrim hits level 16. All the events on my kingdom from Pitax are ended and I get a +20 to most of the kingdom stats. I annex the Tors Levines while I'm waiting for things to settle down, and do all the projects to level up my party. The nobility from Pitax is willing to let me take the crown, and recommends Gasperre for governor. I'll go with him since he's been loyal to me against Irovetti and I promised to get rid of the thieves guild. I sentence Kharne Vereel to death, ending the thieves guilds hold on the city. I uphold my agreement with Annamede and make her headmaster of the academy. I get another big boost my kingdom stats.
I just beat the game for the second time in a month. Had a much more satisfying ending this time around, but I can’t sing your praises enough for doing so well on this run! I did a sylvan sorcerer run this time, draconian eldritch scion run on last (first win was with a paladin totaling three game completions). Arcane is definitely king, as in most games of this sort. I crossed over 1040 hours of game time since launch, so I’m probably done with it for a while. That said, this run definitely made me re-think where I factor this game in my personal favorites list. It’s officially top five now (just don’t ask me to commit to what those five are outside of listing them). Considering I was Ranting against it not long ago, I give MAJOR props to the dev crew for making massive fixes along the way. Easily some of the most committed devs I’ve personally witnessed. To make a comparison, TOEE was largely saved for us fans by Circle of Eight modding community. Owlcats are largely doing the same for PF:KM that CO8 did for TOEE.
Best of luck with your run! I still can’t see your pictures on mobile, but your narration is easy to follow along due to familiarity of the game.
Glad you're enjoying the run @EnialusMeliamne, still weird that you can't see the images, I was hoping downsizing them all might help with that.
So, I think it's time to go dragon hunting. There's a body covered with acid burns, the game's clearly warning you to put up acid protections. This is a big fight so I'm also using spells like legendary proportions, communal stoneskin and dropping some summons. Remove fear is needed, since I'm fighting a dragon. After my inital charge, Demon and Octavia drop sirroccos on the dragon. Harrim and Demona drop the dragon's defenses with greater dispel magics (I love that I can still attack and cast as a Magus), and we kill the dragon. Octavia hits level 17 and Amiri level 16. I take a belt of physical perfection +8 off the dragons corpse.
I drop in on the carnival glade on may back home. There's a portal to the first world here. It's just fly trap, but it's got a lot of hit points.
All the merchants from the rushlight tournament are now in the main square at Pitax, and restocked their inventories. I take the opportunity to get another +4 adamantine plate mail and +6 belt of physical perfection.
I'm going to hit up all the mysterious shrines now. I'm going to gloss over visiting each one and moving the stone to the right spot, since you can just google smack the solution if you need it. So anyways, I visit all the mysterious shrines and move the stones around and head to Giggling Hill. After the last stone, queen Ravena is released, and I kill because I'm the only queen here. She's not the most dangerous thing on this map, though. There's a first world portal, so we head through. There's another sweet scimitar here that I'm tempted to use, in some ways better than what I have in other ways, not quite as good. It's the thundering claw of the bear god.
I drop back in on the castle at Pitax. I'm going to try and get through that wall in the basement I passed by earlier. It's behind a really high athletics check, so I use greater heroism, take off my armor and equip the professor's hat to try and get the best chance. Success! I put my gear back on and buff up for a fight with undead. The ghost that designed the castle has been haunting it, and feels I'm unworthy of it, so attacks. He drops a sweet robe of the dark master.
I drop by the Forest Ballroom, next. We fight some primal treants and a satyr here. Lady Primrose a high level nymph shows up with a bunch of satyrs and this huge worm thing that swallows Harrim. Asides from taking Harrim out of the fight they're nothing we can't handle, and an impromptu sneak attack chain lightning kills most of the satyrs. This is also the last of the monsters I needed to kill to unlock the magical prison back at the barrow.
We pop by weeping grove. There's a few treants here, so we attack, after the fight starts, a ton of ancient wisps swarm in and I rush to put up protection/resistance electricity communual up. Once those spells go up, they can't hurt me, and we mop up. We find a black dragon breast plate here.
The grocery stalls has a cave with a first world portal. There's an Immense Mandragora here. It's not too much trouble for us.
The castle of knives is a larger more difficult area than the surrounding spots. In the southwest, Kamala the phoenix wants to test me. The first deals with distracting a couple of fey while Kamala opens a portal to send them home. There's a worm guy and a huge old crone fighting it out. I sit on the sidelines and watch. I encounter Shyka the many, a weird fey of some sort, constantly shifting forms. Shyka wants me to track down the first crown. I spy some of those nasty Mandragora swarms up ahead, so I'll use summons to tank them. I dump out cloudkill and siroccos and use AOE spells and bombs to hit the swarms and keep my distance. When the summons go down, I have Jaethal tank them.
I bump into some Treants and bluff them into giving me their piece of the first crown. I tried to bluff the satyr that wriggling man sent me and fail the check so have to fight him. We fight more of those purple worms and run into Salim Ghadafar, who tells us the cragg linnorm swalled the piece of the crown. We kill it in a single round. Hard to believe the one in chapter 3 was so dangerous. There's an elven ghost from the first kingdom nyrissa destroyed in the crown. I know there's a big bad ass ghost mob up ahead so I drop some summons to distract. We still get beat up pretty bad and Harrim has to use a couple of heal spells on me. Just when I'm finishing the ghosts, a swarm of Ankou demons rushes me and starts shooting prismatic sprays all over the place, knocking Octavia out . Once they've used their prismatic sprays, they're not too tough, so we finish them and heal up. Jubilost got hit with insanity, so I have to use a heal spell to cure him. Up in a tower there's more ghosts and we find a rod of greater empowerment up there, sweet. I give the crown to Shyka. Jaethal hits level 16.
I check up on things at home before I head back to the temple of elk. I leave my party at the entrannce and Demona heads in alone. Visaka the unicorn's test is to deal with the monsters without attacking them. So I just use improved invisibility and keep the rest of the party out of the way. I pass his test, and the next test is at talon peak.
On the way to talon peak, I stop at the lonely barrow to finish up that quest with the trapped mage. This is going to be a nasty fight, so prepare with tons of buffs including communal stone skin, death ward, legendary proportions and dump some summons into the room. We take some bad damage from his banshee blast, but keep the pressure on and pin him down with force bombs. He had a hat of mental perfection +8, a sweet crossbow and an axe.
I make sure to be well rested before I head into talon peak. Puja the wolf claims I took too long and need to head to the castle of knives quickly. I use the teleport option from my capitol to hop to Pitax and get over there faster. I drive my party to exhaustion, but rest outside the castle of knives. Puja is much more polite, and I've passed his test. I pump him for info about his group. This'll be handy in a bit. I talk to Vidya the Lion and she asks me questions about their order to see if I've been paying attention. The questions are randomized, so you won't get the same ones each time. Their main temple is nowhere, the way of the hero is to make the world a better place, and the name of the order means the way of the hero. They offer me their aid and some loot.
I've pretty much explored everything, so it's time to head home. Kimo wants to talk to me so I head over to Tatzlford. He wants an emerald necklace for his fey girlfriend, and I just so happen to have one on me. I keep ranking up and improving my kingdom since I've got nothing else to do. Sharel tells me Morhalon has fled, so I have to send my warden to track him down. Once the project's finished I go to the Poacher's hideout. I opt to kill them for poaching in my lands. Some poachers are no threat to us.
The next attack on Bald Hilltop is the Wildhunt. These fey are extremely nasty and will paralyze your ass, so everyone needs freedom of movement up. Amiri and Harrim already have items that grant that. I use a cloudkill to wreak havoc on them, since I'm immune to the poison. They're not so tough if you've got freedom of movement, so we persevere.
Kimo says his nymph's rejected him, so I head back to Tatzlford to sort this crap out. The dryad's no match for my silver tongue, so I convince her to get back together with Kimo.
While I'm managing my kingdom, Bokken finally comes through with that potion, Elixir of Inconcievable Transmutations of Body, and Soul, and Also Mind. Remember way back in chapter 2 or 3 when I said doing his quest would pay off, it totally did, this potion gives you a +2 to all attributes permanently.
I got a letter demanding I help a foreign queen track down a fugitive hiding in the kingdom in exchange for a lucrative trading contract, now that the project to track them is complete, I head out to find the fugitive. The fugitive's actually the sister of the queen and tries to get me to back her to usurp the throne. I've already got an agreement with the rightful queen, so I stick to it and kill her.
During this massive stretch of downtime, I finally manage to rank up every stat in my kingdom to 10 and then finish up all the region upgrades.
At this poing, I'm literally just hitting skip day in the kingdom interface, because there's nothing to do but wait. Jubilost hits level 17. Finally the last showdown at bald hilltop. More wildhunt scouts and a Jabberwock come at me, but I've got literally every buff I can have up, so there's not much they can do.
I make sure to stock up on things like scrolls, diamond dust and dinosaur bones. Harrim hits leve 17 from the xp payout after the bald hilltop event is complete. This is it, a new more massive bloom is starting to plauge the land, so it's time to take the fight to Nyrissa. It' time to head to the castle of knives again. We meet the horned hunter and he sics a couple of jabberwockies on us. Their burble is annoying as all hell, since it can cause confusion. After we kill them, Amiri hits level 17, her 10th stalwart defender level. Before going into the portal, I cast freedom of movement on everyone. We're split up as we fall through the portal. When I land, Demona hits level 20.
This is it, the infamous house at the edge of time. I've made it this far without a reload. I see an imprint of the memory of Linzi passing by here and Nyrissa seducing her with access to her library. Evindra the fey I killed back at whiterose abby still wants to help me, since I'm her best chance to get free. She gives me another one of those lanterns that allow you to pass through first world mist, so it'll be kind of like at the end of chapter 3. There's a fey merchant here, named Issili. I take the opportunity buy a new scythe, scimitar and ring of greater ultimate protection then jump down the well.
Inside, I need to assemble my team fast. The tiefling twins are able to be exist at the same time here. Val's the next companion I stumble across.
Reg and Octavia are the next ones I bump into. I did their missions correctly, so they both survive.
I find Amiri, who dutifully waits for me.
Nyrissa tries to trick Harrim into thinking she's Groetus and releasing his life. He holds onto his memories and lesson I helped him learn, and lives.
Nyrissa tries to tempt Jubilost with the ability to explore the first world, and he turns her down so she kills him. Because I save Xae, she comes back to save Jubilost.
She kills Nok-Nok, but he plays dead, and makes it.
She pits Jaethal and Tristian against each other. Even though I killed Tristian. Because I killed him and failed his quest, but completed Jaethal's quest in the evil way, Jaethal lives. Now the whole gang is back together.
Anoriel 8 eyes pops in, I can hire mercs outside the house now.
Nyrissa fails to tempt Ekun into fighting a massive troll on his own. I kill the troll. He had some sweet loot. Cloak of resistance +6, Belt of physical perfection +8, manticore skin boots. Octavia hits level 18.
Linzi's been trying to spy, and for this Nyrissa kills her. There's a big fight with some satyrs and wild hunters in the room. Linzi's inside my journal now. She shuffled her conciousnes into the book.
So, I saved everyone I could, except for Tristian, who I purposely killed. Failing companion quests would have gotten them killed. No matter what, Linzi dies and gets put into the book. I've heard Val will never die even if you don't complete her quest, but never tried it.
I meet a ghost in a mirror who asks for help getting out.
I've explored the ground floor in one world, now I turn off the lantern and go through the mist to the other world. There's more wild hunters to kill here.
We run into our first Wildhunt Monarch. While these guys are alive, none of the wildhunters nearby can be killed, so they're a priority. They also use greater dispel magic, but with much less effectiveness than in the original release of the game. He only manages to dispel haste from Harrim. In earlier versions, they could tear down all your spells, and if they took down your freedom of movement, you were boned.
I've explored everywhere in both worlds on the ground floor, so I go down to explore as much of the basement as I can get to right now. There's not much in the first world I'm in, so I flip through the mist and fight more ghosts.
I run into the crone from earlier, the Knurly Witch. She tells me on the top floor in Nyrissa's shrine has the goblet, but I need 3 keys to open it. She has one and agrees to give it to me if I kill the Wriggling Man, who has one of the others. The third's hidden somewhere around (which is what Linzi's riddle was hinting at about going through the mist. I agree to kill the Wriggling Man.
I haven't gone outside in one of the world's, so through the mist again, and back outside. None of my companions are there and I kill a quickwood treant. I try to rest, but get swarmed by a giant undead cyclops, some ferocious devourers and giant skeletal warriors. Amiri and Harrim take some level drains, but we come through OK. I have tons of restoration scrolls and plenty of diamond dust for the spell component.
Having explored the ground floor and what we can of the basement in both worlds, I head upstairs. Needless to say everyone has freedom of movement up at all times here. There's some more wild hunters along the hallway. We come to a room with a jabberwocky statue that has a wild hunt monarch in it. As always he's the priority, since he'll dispel buffs and none of the other wild hunters can die while he's up. Looks like they've modified this encounter since my last time here, there weren't any autumn golems before. Jaethal reaches level 17 after the fight.
We kill our way past some nymphs and treants. There's one of those really nasty mandroga swarms up ahead, so we use sirocco, cloud kill and bombs to kill it with summons distracting to tank the swarm.
I go through some mist in the southeast, but pop out up in the northern portion of the map that was inaccessible. A massive fight ensues in the next room with a few nymphs and a ton of autumn and summer golems. Harrim was dumping out heals that fight, so when it's over I rest and keep exploring. I have a bit of a close call with some more golems, these suckers are tough. I reach the end of the hallway and am able to unlock it, so we can move through again.
I go through the mist again and get teleported up the north end of the map, but in the other world. Now I make my way back through the hallway but in this world. This time there's a wild hunt monarch with lots of wild hunters and nymphs backing them up. They really beat on Harrim and Jaethal during this fight, and Octavia has to blow through 2 impromptu sneak attack chain lightnings, but we make it through.
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I go through the mist again to explore the western part of the map in the other world. In the room with the jabbberwocky statue, we find the wriggling man. The deal with him is he's next to impossible to damage directly, but AOE spells tear him apart, along with bombs. We handily defeat him with fireball, acidic spray, flame strike and horrid wilting in a single round. I take the first key from his corpse.
I officially hate those ghosts, I came about a hair away from losing Demona in a fight with a swarm of them, but Harrim and Jaethal came through with the heal spells in the knick of time, and fortunately they get rid of bewildering injuries and strength damage. I make my way to the southeast of the room with the statue and this time it's loaded with those Mandragora Swarms. I dump some summons to form a wall between us and them, then dump every AOE spell I have on them, while jubilost bombs away.
We're ambushed from behind by another mob of those ghosts, this time with a mage, who manages to scare Jubilost up and dump out a blinding sickness spell on us. Harrim goes down and Jaethal has to use remove fear on Jubilost to get him back in the fight. Afterwards we have to heal up with treat afflictions to cure the blinding sickness and restorations to heal the strength damage those things do.
I take the southeast exit on the top floor, which takes me to a section of the basement I previously couldn't reach.
Mostly medusas in the southern portion of the map, with another ambush by wild hunters followed by an ambush by more ghosts.
Oh my, when I try to rest, I'm ambushed by the biggest mob of hydras with an ancient bulette. Octavia nearly bites it, we've already blown our delay poisons, but Octavia was the only one who couldn't make the saves. I apparently didn't get a screenshot of the biggest swarm of hydras I've ever seen in the game.
I drop back in on the Knurly Witch and let her know I killed the Wriggling Man. She gives me the key to the pantry where her key's supposedly stored. I check the pantry. It's a trap! I tempt her with an offer to work for me, and accepts, since I'm evil.
I bump into Shyka the Many, who doesn't remember me at all, time working backwards for her and all.
I kill my way through more wild hunters and another monarch in the northeast basement. I also find water vessel and break it open freeing an imp, named Pludok. He goes splat when i convince him to tell me where Nyrissa's hiding.
I'm going to go and deal with the mirrors before I explore the rest of the basement in the other world. After tagging the other 3 mirrors in the right order, it's revealed the ghost is the original spirit of the wriggling man. Originally a tyrranical wizard that helped found a state in the stolen lands.
I drop back at the camp outside and pick up more rations and rest. Then head back to the basement and pop into the other world to explore it from there.
I start a fight with a swarm of ghosts and wild hunters. We hit about the worst case scenario, Harrim and Jubilost get with fear and go running into two different rooms, pulling even more wild hunters, golems and other crap at us. It gets super close, with just Amiri and Demona staying up. I'm constantly having to recast mirror image while using spell combat, but we just barely survive. Now we have to go rescue Harrim and Jubilost from the other room after we heal up. I kill off the golems to fight my way to where Harrim and Jubilost are unconscious. That was the damn closest I've come to dying this whole game.
After killing some more of those ghostly guards and their mage, Jubilost reaches level 18. After killing more golems, Harrim also reaches level 18.
There's a magic dead zone, with a bunch of those tough ass golems in the southern portion of the map. I lure them back up to the hallway, where magic works before engaging them.
In the southwest there's a swarm of those Ankou demons. They love to spam prismatic spray everywhere as an opener, which is a bitch. So I dump a ton of summons up there to take the sprays, then engage. I've pretty much cleared everything. Time to go through the mist in the eastern portion of the basement, like Linzi said to.
Looks like they've reworked it a bit, and there's no intermediate area between the room with Vilderavn. He's a nasty fey with some golems to back him up. After the fight we head back up to rest and restock. I'm missing one of the books for the book puzzle, I guess it's probably in a chest I failed to pick, so I'm not going to worry about it.
This is it, the big showdown with Nyrissa. I head back upstairs. I've found the fight easiest in the past if I enter from the northeastern door. I pull out all the buffs before I enter and drop some level 9 summons into the room. I kill the horned hunter and Nyrissa enters. She uses wail of the banshee as an opener so my whole group runs back to dodge it then attacks. She repeatedly uses heal spells on herself and has a short charm effect that can take control of party members for a few rounds. I keep the pressure on her, healing and dispelling her buffs as needed. Of course My magus is using spells like mirror image and shocking grasp. I use mass icy prison, and even though she makes the save, she still takes damage each turn. Harrim has an empowered boneshatter so it'll at least fatigue her. Jubilost hammers away with force bombs, while Amiri uses defensive stance. Eventually we get her.
This is it, the last 1000th grain of dust falls into the cup, the grain is from her kingdom falling to me. So, at this point I could just give her the goblet and walk away, and that'd be the end of the game. So it's do-able as a no reload. However, I'm going to go for the brass ring and do the optional last chapter. I murder Nyrissa.
The Horned Hunter gets back up. He shows he was Remus, going all the way back to the first chapter and the issues with the cult I disbanded with Tristian. Next he's the gnome we met in the first world during the season of the bloom. Finally he reveals he's the lantern king, the eldest that cursed Nyrissa. He is not happy I took away his toy. He threatens to repay me with my own coin whatever that means. In case you're wondering Nyrissa didn't have much loot on her, bracers of armor +8, amulet of natural armor +5 and a quicken metamagic rod. Nothing I don't have. Amiri hits level 18.
We rest and put up all our buffs again before even looking at that portal. What's behind it? Tune in next time for the final chapter to the game.
We go through the portal. The lantern king's curse is wreaking havoc across the kingdom. The first world is spilling over into the land everywhere. I try to attack the Lantern King, but he puts a curse on us. The Lantern King likes to watch, so he wants to see a show while I try to save my kingdom. The curse he put on me right now has the following effects, 40% chance to roll a 1 on all d20 attempts, all enemies have a 40% chance to roll a 20 on d20 attempts, we deal 60% less damage, base attack bonus, saving throws, and HP are reduced by 60%, and we only have access to the lowest level spells. Specifically, we can only cast cantrips right now. This is part of the reason I rested and put up all my buffs before going through the portal. Jaethal reaches level 18.
I'll have to fight my out and find out what the hell's going on. there's lots of magical beasties, hydras, owlbears and dweomer cats. I bump into the shadow of Nugrah, the old druid that was the Stag Lord's "father." Even our weakened state we take him easily. The storyteller's got some sort of forcewall up to protect the locals. We get to a camp where a resistance is mounting. I need to lift the curse so I can face the Lantern King. In order do this, I'll need to go to various parts of the kingdom and gather help. Octavia hits level 19.
I drop by Oleg's Trading post first. Oleg, Kesten and Jhod have been holding the place from bandit attacks. None other than the Stag Lord shows up. Even with just cantrips, we manage to kill them all with barely a scratch, got to love that damage reduction from legendary proportions. When we finish them off, we lift part of the curse and our die rolls aren't hampered and we can use first level spells again, Octavia and Harrim can even use their second level spells.
I head over to Trobold next. Oh noes, a wandering toad wastes 6 hours of my time and all my buffs have expired. I fight my way past some trolls and spy Tartuk and Halgard, the Kobold and Troll from chapter 2. I finally remember I've been sitting on a bunch of wands and pull out my wand of good hope and wand of slow. Jubilosts bombs still work at reduced damage, so we're pretty well off in this fight. Harrim even uses a wand of prayer. This is a pretty nasty fight, and I wind up with all the bone shamans hammering Demona with boneshakers while every troll goes straight for her, the only way I keep up is chugging potions while Harrim uses heal scrolls, which are onlly healing 60 HP with the curse going. We eventually kill them all, pretty much because of Jubilosts bombs.
Tsanna is at the shrine of Lamashtu, I convince her to go back and help.
I drop in on Varnhold, next. At leat the cyclops zombies are on my side now. I run into Vordakai, the shade of Maegar Varn has taken over the fort. After we kill him, some more of the curse is lifted.
On the way to the Rostland border, some fireflies waste more of our time and our buffs expire. I decide I'll head back and rest with the storyteller, since Jubilost has blown all his shield spells. At Rostland the barbarians are battling the Rostland soldiers and both are hostile to us. Some Brevoy troops show up with Shandra and the Surtovas to help. After fighting off several waves of barbarians another piece of the curse is lifted. I run into the scythe tree and kill it one round. Dugath's also here, I tell him to go help us at the capitol.
Back to Irovetti's castle in Pitax. It's a swarm of Irovettis. We fight our way through the copies to the throne room and face Irovetti while swarms of clones enter the room. The clones aren't really a big deal, but we rush the real one. Once he's gone it's easy to mop up the rest. With that, the lantern king's curse is lifted,and we're back at full power and can use all our spells.
I'm all set to go after Nyrissa, but then The Forefather comesand takes Kalikke and Kanerah, so I suppose I'll have to go save them. Because I sacrificed the sweet teeth Kanerah sacrifices herself and the devil takes her.
This time we're really marching off to the final battle. All my allies march past. You can have final chat with each of your companions before setting off. I battle my way through the fragmented city. I find a fragment of the apology guarded by a wild hunt monarch.
Good old Vordakai.
Fighting our way through the fey, we eventually find another piece of the apology and a bunch of wild hunters spawn in when we grab it. There's an adamantine golem in the next building, Vordakai helps, sort of. Apparently a mite thinks it can handle wild hunters.
There's a pair of jabberwockys and a mob of wild hunters guarding the last piece. The warbles keep some of the party confused, but we eventually get them with Harrim spamming heal and harm spells throughout the fight. After I give the last piece to the storyteller to destroy Jubilost reaches level 19.
This is the final showdown. I'm nervous as hell about this fight, since I haven't reloaded once and it's going to be a tough 3 stage fight. I put every single buff I have. I'm going to cheese the hell out of this fight. I blanket the room with Polar midnight, sirroccos and blade barriers, I even throw in some empowered and heightened siroccos to help. During the first phase he repeatedly dispels my buffs as I get more up. We keep fighting and take down his first form. The second form fights with a bunch gnome clones of his, but isn't too bad. The third is his Horned hunter persona along with a bunch of wild hunters and a wild hunt monarch. We go full ranged and keep them pinned in the swarm of spells I've dumped and they gradually take their toll. I make sure to try and lure the archers onto the blade barrier. The fourth form is the lantern kings glowing orb thing. I manage to succeed at my bluff check to keep the lantern kings spell from affecting me. Octavia also succeeds a lore check to help. His last form is his glowing sun form, which is actually the easiest form to fight if you throw protection/resist fire. We finish him off. I tell him to GTFO and leave us alone, I don't trust any deals with him.
That's it he's defeated, and the ending slides play. They're different depending on your choices in each area and how you completed the companions quests, just like how youd expect from an Obsidian game. Obviously, big time spoilers here.
So it is done. I finished the game, including the optional extra chapter, with the crippling curse and the hard ass lantern king fight at the end of it. All without reloading. Once you have a handle on the game, it's really not any worse than the Baldur's Gate games for getting through it. The closest call was actually in the house at the edge of time, dealing with 3 mobs that should have been dealt with one at a time.
Congratulations! That's quite an accomplishment. As far as I know, you also have the honor of being the first person to show it can be done.
I hope it encourages you to give the game another shot, maybe just not do a no reload run for your first complete game. That was a bold move going for no reload on your first try, though.
I've recently got into this game after doing the stuff I wanted to do in PoE and I think it is absolutely wonderful. The typos and the terrible writing quality/use of modern slang in fantasy setting grate on me, but the gameplay is fantastic, so many options, so much freedom, and so far I do think the game is very "fair", no complaints from me about wtf moments (but I've never advanced further than Stag Lord so far so plenty of time!)
I've dived straight into solo no-reload as I can never be bothered with parties. I've started lots of different playthroughs just to experiment with different classes and options and what strategies work and what you need to survive. The main conclusion I have drawn is that my favourite class is the sword saint...which I find amusing, considering I have always hated kensai in no-reload BG games (berserker all the way if you want a fighter).
I've probably had about 20 failed runs so far, and I'm fine with that as the learning curve is always harsh in solo no-reload. A real barometer for survivability is the Technic League Ambush, at which you are usually level 4 and you have to do it unprepared (and sometimes fatigued/without spells depending on where you were travelling to). If you can get through that unscathed the character maybe has some potential. The other big test so far is the Stag Lord.
I have reached the Stag Lord three times; first time was with a pure level 7 Sword Saint; the second and third times have been with level 8 characters who mixed in rogue and barbarian levels to sword saint. Each time I have ended up taking on the whole of the Stag Lord's force, as alarm has been raised one way or another.
It's been third time lucky for me:
This is my PC at level 8:
Level progression has been as follows:
1-2: Sword Saint 1-2 (main class, start with Estoc, enable Spellstrike)
3: Rogue 1 (weapon finesse and took fencing grace with feat)
4-5: Sword Saint 3-4 (level 2 spells)
6-7: Barbarian 1-2 (a bit of BAB and HPs but mainly for most direct route to Uncanny Dodge, without having to go to Rogue 4)
8: Rogue 2 (to get BAB to 6 to enable second attack since Sword Saint 5 does not increase BAB, and also for Evasion and Fast Stealth feats)
Hereon I am going to try to get to level 10 in Sword Saint (level 4 spells) and other 6 levels will be Duelist. Assuming I survive of course
Just the wererats in Ratnook Hill ;eft before finishing the Stolen Land.
@Jaheiras_Witness , Out of curiosity, how are you handling kingdom management for a solo game? Do you take the party members long enough drop them in your castle as advisors?
Just a warning, the late game might not be possible to solo. I know @SorcererV1ct0r tried, eventually went with a small party, but had to go with a full party for the very late game. Maybe now that the game's more explored, and there's more info about it, it might be possible. I know they was also supposed to be rebalancing of some stuff with the EE that just came out, particularly the late game, so maybe it's do-able now. For me it's kind of hard to picture getting through those late game encounters solo, but I'd love to be proven wrong and see someone make it.
I don't know about kingdom management as I haven't got there yet! But I have 4 other characters at Oleg's, so maybe they can be appointed even if they are not adventuring with me? I also had to take Amiri in my party briefly to do Tuskgutter, so maybe this game cannot be pure 100% solo, I might have to take individual NPCs briefly for their quest and let them to kingdom management stuff.
I'm playing blind from hereon. Maybe it is not possible to solo and I'll get my butt whupped in an insurmountable situation, but I can give it a shot. And there's plenty of games that seem impossible to solo until someone figures it out and then it seems trivial and obvious. The fact I am getting BG1 style 6x XP onto one character should mean I'm overlevelled for a significant portion of the game; and often in solo, it is easier just to make one character invincible than babysit 6 weaker characters. By the time I get to late game when you would have a party of 6 high level characters instead of just 1, and the challenges are geared towards that, well...I'll just have to figure it out when I get there.
At the moment I am still on no-reload for this character. If I die in this run I might decide to carry on as min-reload just to see some of the later game and assess how feasible it is and what I need.
I haven't read most of this thread yet to avoid spoilers, so it would be good to at least complete one game so I can start reading about other people's strategy and ideas.
Just a warning, the late game might not be possible to solo. I know @SorcererV1ct0r tried, eventually went with a small party, but had to go with a full party for the very late game. Maybe now that the game's more explored, and there's more info about it, it might be possible. I know they was also supposed to be rebalancing of some stuff with the EE that just came out, particularly the late game, so maybe it's do-able now. For me it's kind of hard to picture getting through those late game encounters solo, but I'd love to be proven wrong and see someone make it.
I heard stories shortly after release that people couldn’t get through HATEoT with a full party on story mode. I’m about to get there with my current run so I’ll report back if it’s much easier now.
Still trying to decide what to do for my next run. I thought about an Unfair no reload just to see if I could even get out of the prologue X-). I think animal companions would be key...
Just a warning, the late game might not be possible to solo. I know @SorcererV1ct0r tried, eventually went with a small party, but had to go with a full party for the very late game. Maybe now that the game's more explored, and there's more info about it, it might be possible. I know they was also supposed to be rebalancing of some stuff with the EE that just came out, particularly the late game, so maybe it's do-able now. For me it's kind of hard to picture getting through those late game encounters solo, but I'd love to be proven wrong and see someone make it.
I don't know if solo is possible since i don't know much about divine casters and melee warriors, but my experience trying to solo as sorcerer was :
- On the beginning, was not that hard if you raise swarms of monsters with summoning spells
- Then when you explore larger areas, resting will be a nightmare and managing spell slots too.
- Due the fact that i was reloading like 10 times to be able to regain spell slots, i decided to play with 3 party members
- Then needed more party members only to solve some puzzles that i will not spoil
- Then after an relative long run, an enemy called wild hunt appeared. Tried to kill then with an small party but failed miserably every time, doesn't matter what strategy i use.
- Then increased my party size and defeated then on my first try
- Reached the final dungeon but has no clue about what to do. My party level is extremely unbalanced. I have lv 12 guys and my MC is lv 18 due the non XP sharing option.
I saw videos of people soloing, but not with an sorcerer. If someone mods the spell that creates an pocket dimension to you rest and more scrolls like freedom of movement(never saw to be purchased), maybe i can solo the game. Not on the difficulty that i an at moment(custom to make more pnp-like as possible, i will need to weaken certain enemies)
I will try the game again, but honestly soloing this game is much harder than soloing IWD and you will gonna need party members on some puzzles.
Comments
At Tatzlford there's a guy accused of running off with a merchant's money at the capitol and an elf named Kimo who wants me to collect a beautiful flower growing in the swamp. I go back to the swamp witch's hut. This is when you're supposed to do that owlbear encounter there. It's not too bad at my level, although Harrim and Jaethal take some lumps, but are left standing. I head back to the capitol to ask the merchant Hassuf about Sharel in Tatzlford, he gives me a letter proclaiming his innocence. I head back to Tatzlford to finish off these artisan quests. Both Kimo and Sharel hire on with me and I build their shops in Tatzlford.
I head back home to keep levelling up my advisors. Eventually I upgrade Narlkeep to a town. Dragn comes to me complaining he was robbed and asks to see me. I also do the project to level up Regongar, since I'll be able to up his strength, and that actually increases his score as a general. Over at Narlkeep Dragn tells me lawbringer was stolen and suspects bandits at the thorn ford, so I head there. I catch a dwarf in the act of selling lawbringer. He's Dragn's brother, but I send him to jail and head back to turn in the quest at narlkeep.
I keep at it, ranking up my advisors. Amiri comes to me and asks to see me at the tavern, so I head there. At the tavern the owlbear I killed during the attack on the capitol is now a rug. Amiri tells me her tribe is in the region, which is strange, so I head out to the barbarian camp. The six bears camp is being attacked by undead, so we kill them. We meet Amiri's friend Nilak and the chief Akaia. Amiri nearly kills the chief, but I intervene, that's important to keep her alive later. They mention they're plagued by an undead giant, so we kill it. He had some nice boots that provide a +10 to speed, so Jubilost equips them. Apparently they've tried to kill the giant many times, but he just keeps coming back to attack. There's nothing else we can do now, so we head back home.
I keep levelling up my advisors and my artisans keep bringing me a steady stream of magic items, which even if they're not useful, fetch a nice price at the market. After any amount of time I spend ranking up or annexing territory, I always exit out of the kingdom interface to check and see if anyone needs to talk to me and get artisan gifts. I can finally hire a magister after ranking up my divine, and for now I put the storyteller on the job. Eventually a noble asks me to find his missing brother in Varnhold, but I can't get to there yet. I apparently pissed off Shandra with my lawful evil actions but I have Tsanna to step in.
I drop by Arbor Rock, since I skipped past it last time I was this way. There's some earth elementals in a cave, the big one has a diamond.
I go by the hilltop trail next. It's a freaky cave with a glowing portal, so of course we go through it after killing the dweomer cats. I hate these things, they go straight for your weakest member. In the first world, we stumble upon a dweomer lion. We charge it and Harrim attempts a boneshatter, but can't get past it's magic resistance. The lion goes straight for Harrim, teleporting to him. It mauls him pretty badly, but by chugging potions, I keep him in the fight. More dweomer cats pop in. We manage to bring the lion down, and can kill the cats pretty easily.
Back home, I keep ranking up my advisors. The ancient curse starts, and I'm preoccupied with levelling and advisor and take a bit of a hit to the kingdom stats, but minor overall. I wish that alert that the curse was coming in 2 weeks actually told you when the two weeks would be up. Reg and Octavia come to inform me a spy from the Technic league is at the tavern. I deal with Bald Hilltop first. I drop a couple fire elementals and an extended haste spell before starting the fight. It's magical monsters this time. When the nymph comes out, Jubilost just keeps her pinned down with force bombs, and she can't do anything, and eventually kills her.
This where my kingdom's at currently
At the capitol I stop and get a bottle of elven absinthe for Mim, that'll work. Then pop by the tavern to see the Technic League spy with Reg and Octavia. Their previous owner is in the region. He points me to a spot in the mountains. I murder the spy so he can't work against me. Elina also wants me to get her a rok's egg for a celebration. I swap out Jaethal for Regongar and hit the road. But first I drop by silvershire to give mim her absinthe. I swing back to the capitol before I set out on Octavia/Reg's quest. In the throne room I'm informed Mim has gone off to Talon peak, and I should check up on her. There's a 14 day timer on this quest, too. This is why I set it up so I can do Reg and Octavia's quest, the Rok's egg and rescue Mim in one run, since this is all pretty far off.
That's about all the time I have for now. I got a long day of barbecuing ahead of me, and need to start smoking the salmon.
Moving through the rough mountain terrain is slow going, but we eventually come to Talon Peak. This is where Mim and the Rok's egg are. There's spiders all along the cliffs, so we use delay poison. I find Mim, but keep going on and clear the path ahead before I talk to her. Amiri's able to fix her dislocated leg and I convince her to finish climbing the mountain. At the ruins on the top of the peak, Mim's all set and the quest finishes. There's a little puzzle up here with some bricks sticking out of the wall at a few points. You have to make perception checks to find them in the first place, then hit them in the right order. They'll go click when hit in the right order and thud when hit in the wrong. A hidden chamber opens up with a mace called skullcrusher. There's a few bandits up here to kill, then we get to the Rok's nest. The Rok attacks and we kill it easily and are on our way back home, all 3 quests finished.
Back home, there's a letter from Jamandi waiting for me, apparently all contact with Varnhold has been severed, so I need to check up on Maeger and what happened over there. I'm going to be away for awhile, so I get well stocked to deal with every possible scenario, lots of restoration scrolls, remove curse, raise dead and lots of rations.
At this point the game asks me to import a save from Varnhold's lot. I'm not going to go off and do a no reload of that right now, so I just import a save from earlier. I played as an evil armored hulk and had a grenadier tiefling, aasimar magus blue dragon disciple and half orc cleric of gorum.
We can finally explore the Eastern portion of the map, now. With Jaethal's high perception, we've even spotted some of the areas at edge of the mountains. I stop in at the Overgrown cave first and talk to the barbarians. Amiri is able to talk her way through, for a change. We find out the barbarians are here looking for something, but not exactly sure what. They point me to their main camp.
I head over to Rotten Cave, next. This should be fun. On the path the first cave is a dead end with some primal manticores, so I kill them. At the top of the path is another cave with a portal to the first world in it. We go through, and it's dumping down rain with lightning everywhere. This is the only place in the game I've been hit by lightning, so we put up resist/protection from electricity, communal. This is a powerful version of the shambling mound, called Thundervine. The rain pretty much prevents an opening charge, so I hit him with ray of enfeeblement and boneshatter for an opener, to drop his strength. I take him down, easily with vampiric touch, acid bombs and sneak attack snowballs. We go through another cave and into another first world area. There's another boss creature here, Oakenhid, Poisonous Manticore-like Treant. It's no match for us. There's another portal leading out of here, and it drops us in the open air. That tunnel and jaunt through the first world took us all the way to the Northern end of the mountain range.
I head back South and stop by Shallow Gulch. I fail the stealth check to creep up on the Goblins, but find a letter to Mathian Hanvaki from his brother.
Time to check out Varnhold and see what's up. The town seems deserted, until I bump into some spriggans who attack. A creepy crow is watching me as I explore the town. I head over to the fort to find it overrun with spriggans. The fort's really uneventful, so I'll just skip to the end of it. Amiri and Harrim hit level 11. I make the intimidate check to get the leader to elaborate that they were forced from their home. I murder them all. There's 2 letters here, one unfinished one from Varn to me, and another from an unknown source threatening him for trying to ally with me. On the way out, the crow that was watching me calls me a butcher and informs me the people were punished for being thieves and taking something.
At the unfinished clearing we kill a wolf pack in a cave and some spiders at the spider lair. At Rinderpest Burial ground we get swarmed by really tough ass specters. Amiri has a full 8 levels drained, so we came close to losing her. Good thing I brought along plenty of diamond dust so Harrim can easily get rid of the drains with a restoration spell. Mirror image let Demona avoid all the attacks, so she never got hit. There's a ring of protection +3 and the Jester's Vest here. At the Blood Furrows we kill an ancient Bulette and Jubilost hits level 11. I climb the ruined tower, this is another way to find the barbarian camp if nobody has pointed you to it.
I head to the Barbarian camp. During the feast, I pour my cup out on the ground for my fallen homies and regale them with tales of my exploits. The Defaced sister wants us to find her other sisters. Dugath cares much more about his troops and wants to take them home. I agree to help the sister. There's a merchant here, he doesn't have much, but it's a much needed opportunity to unload all the loot I've picked up.
Down at the collapsed passage I get ready for a fight with a bunch of undead, that undead bane great axe Amiri's rocking comes in handy here. There's dark energy here that will heal the undead in the main chamber, so I chuck a fireball in to get their attention and run back to the side passage to lure them away from it. Once they're dead Octavia disables the plates to shutdown the dark energy. Jaethal levels up and we find a +6 strength belt. I'll give it to Regongar later, to make him a better general.
The Forsaken mound is a book event area, and we make all our skill checks and find a dead sister with an incense burner on her.
At the Linnorm grave I murder a bunch of mammoths, take that prehistory.
In southwest Varnhold, I'm just close enough to be able to manage my kingdom, so I take the opportunity to check up on things.
There's an insane wizard at Little Sellen Source, so we kill him and take his sweet +6 intelligence head band for Octavia.
Next stop the Sepulcher of Forgotten Heroes. We use the word the defaced sister gave us to open the door. The gist of this place is you have to hit panels to open and close doors. Some of the panels will do both, so you have to split your party up in order to be able to explore it. There's lots of undead cyclopes and barbarians here. Following the path the only way we can at this point, we find a switch that'll open some doors. I head back to the green switch near the entrance and explore the passage that just opened up to the southeast. There's a hidden room with a robe of fire that Octavia equips. Once I've explored this passage as far as I can at this point, I return to the green switch and leave Jubilost there, so he can hit after I go through the doors. From the room just past the green switch I go southwest first and hit the switch there, then I go northwest to the other hall and fight my way past some barbarians to a red switch. I leave Harrim by the red switch, since it's a timed switch that only lasts a few seconds. I head back to the chamber near the green switch. Jubilost hits the switch once to open the door in that chamber, then once we're through he hits it again to close that door and open the next one. At the end of this passage is a bunch of barbarians guarding a white swtich. I leave Amiri by this switch and head back to meet Jubilost. Now with Harrim and Amiri positioned by those switches I can get into some doors in the eastern portion that I couldn't get through before. Harrim hits the red switch and we go through the door that opens. There's a mob of tough undead in here, so we use haste and slow them. On them, we find a letter from Penrod Hanvaki, an ancestor to the Hanvaki that asked us to look for his brother. We hit the white switch in the room, and have Harrim hit the red switch so we can leave the room. Amiri hits the white switch and we go through the last door. There's more barbarians in here, and we kill them. In order to get through this door, both Harrim and Amiri have to hit their switches, then my party runs through. There's a switch in this room that opens up all the doors, and Harrim and Amiri can catch up to us. There's a bunch of soul eaters up ahead, so I drop a couple of fire elementals to distract them. I send the sister on her way back to the barbarian camp. The crow shows up again and asks about why I spared her.
There's one sister left to be found, so I go to the City of Hollow Eyes. The Kellid barbarians are under attack by undead cyclopes, so help fend off the cyclopes. I loot their camp and talk to Hilla who wants us to the find the missing sister. Most of the areas fairly forgettable, bandits, wolves and cyclopes, so I start clearing the place out. One of the more interesting spots is a pillar that's transfixed a couple of cyclopes with an enchantment. I murder the cyclopes. I use the word to open the door at the ruins. I kill the defaced sister inside, heh. The crow taunts me as I leave the ruins. I bluff and tell Hilla the cyclopes killed everyone already.
I travel back to the Kellid Barbarian camp. I get fully buffed up before approaching the camp. The witch accuses me of killing the other sisters, but I only killed one. I bluff Dugath into siding against the sisters, so some of the barbarians side with me. I kill the witches and the barbarians that don't side with me, their annoying baleful gaze caused Harrim and Octavia to lose some stats. For now they can suffer a bit, I burn a restoration spell on each, but it's not enough to clear all the constitution drain. Before I talk to Dugath, I unload about 60K worth of merchandise at Dug the merchant. Dugath points me to the valley of the dead.
Before I head there, I take a little detour, just far enough that I can check on the barony and assign advisors to any events that have popped up. Nice the expert mountaineering project I started just finished. On the way over to the valley of the dead I stop by shivering glade. I use some fire elementals to help keep the soul eaters at bay. I find the sweet clockwork pendant that auto extends hast and slow spells, so Jubilost equips it.
On the south there's an event where the crow taunts us and tells us his master waits in the valley of the dead. Tristian also shows up asking to come along, I tell him to get lost.
At the valley of the dead there isn't much to do, put the incense burners in the holders and open the gate. On the path past the valley, we have an encounter with 4 undead cyclops and some minor loot around. Demona hits level 12. We continue along the snakey path through the mountains to Vordakai's tomb.
The first room has corpses that clearly died from poison gas, so I put up delay poison, and hit the switch to open the door and kill the undead cyclopes that enter. Most of the first level is linear kill cyclopes and disable traps with only one way to go. There's a book event that causes water to flood the chamber we're in, Jaethal makes the perception check to find a hidden room with some loot. Once the water clears and we reenter the room, the cyclopes give us a good thrashing, but we persevere. The crow has managed to trick Amiri and Jubilost into saying their names. I bump into an astrademon and kill it. He manages to drop Demona, but she stays up. I find an awesome scythe, The Hand of Damnation for Jaethal. A souleater appears and summons up one for each that it knows the name, Jubilost, Amiri and myself. This isn't a bad group to have attacked by them. While we 3 have to fight our soul eaters by ourselves, Octavia and Harrim summon some fire elementals. After dispatching the 3, a swarm of ancient soul eaters storms in. The real danger to these things is that they can kill you by draining wisdom. With the fire elementals as a distraction the fight's pretty easy. I rest after that fight and keep moving onward downstairs.
There's a massive horde of zombies in the first room, which is flooded. I use fire elementals to keep a line in front of Jubilost and Octavia, and the rest charge the undead mage. Not too tough a fight. I explore the passages and fight my past cyclopes and traps. Eventually I bump into the ghost of Willas Gunderson, and follow him down a hall. We have to fight through a lot of undead to reach him. I finally catch up with Gunderson's ghost and pump him for info. Vordakai is a powerful cyclopes lich and used magic to hypnotize the populace to come here. I finish off the pathetic ghost. Back tracking there's more undead and specters in the path now. There's a zombie feast happening, and they go hostile. Octavia chunks a huge amount of them with a chain lightning and hits level 13 after the fight. I find a hidden passage with an evil looking statue in it that I sprinkle with blood, it gives a permanent acid resistance 5 and +2 against death and poison saves. There's also the sweet dark acolyte's robe that Octavia puts on. There's water elementals ahead, so I put resist/protection from cold on everyone. The final showdown with Vordakai is ahead, so we rest.
Most of the party fails their saves against fear and is shaken just from entering the room. I prep with every buff I have, even stoneskin. He drops Octavia with a finger of death, but we beat him down. Then Tristian interrupts us and steals the Oculus Abadon, despite my protests. I finish beating down Vordakai. I opt to enslave Vordakai to me. He takes Maegar Varn's body as a disguise. I take the jars with the souls of the people from Varnhold so I can sell them. I make the long walk back to the capitol and as soon as I'm in range of the kingdom I start the projects to level up Reg and Ekundayo.
I make sure to drop by the tavern first and let Hanvaki know about his dead brother and his undead grandpa. I dump all the loot from Vordakai's for 87K. There's trouble at candlemere and a huge Barbarian army at the western border Jamandi set off with an army to fight. Amiri heads to the fight the Barbarians, so I'm without her for a bit, hence why I started the projects to level some people. Some Dwarves also ask for our help dealing with golems at the adamantine fortress as part of Harrim's quest. Jubilost wants to go to the Inconseuent debates for his quest. Loot from the artisans pours in. The storyteller can also restore the cloak of sold souls for me.
I get random event while walking home and fatigued, so I'm a bit worried. It's just a hell knight being detained by some peasents. I side with the hell knight and execute the peasent. I meet with him back at the capitol and let the order of the nail come into my kingdom.
Nok-Nok comes to me wanting to take care of his brethren up at Oleg's, so we go. The goblins have been chased there by a giant. I kill the giants and let the goblins go to the capitol. This is actually a good thing. Reg and Ekun's training is complete, so I swap out the Storyteller for "Maegar Varn." I put Octavia on the project to upgrade the capitol and hit the road, taking Ekun to fill the gap Amiri left.
Vengeance comes first so I go to candlemere first. The area's infested with monsters. We slaughter our way through to the portal just in time for that traitor Tristian to go through it to the temple of the Elk.
Back to the temple of elk. There's monsters there, and a portal to the first world has opened up. Of course we head through it. There's spots here where magic supposedly has a 50% chance of failure. In the past I've found it to be much higher than 50%. In the passage to the west we kill some red caps, then bump into some mimics. We find a hidden door leading to some candles. I do the candle puzzle and a ferocious devourer pops out. It manages to completely level drain the dog before I can kill. Force bombs rule the day here. We go east from where we started and kill a mob of spiders. I work my way past the traps to the north. We find a primal shambling mound. It's not too tough, but it can only be killed with negative nergy, fortunately Jaethal gets a crit with her scythe triggering it's negative energy blast, finishing it off. Jaethal hits level 12. I enter some ruins in the north and keep following the path. I find some stone golems in a library and just attack them. We find the Robe of the true master in the library. There's a book event to search the study, so we do. I keep exploring and search the rooms. I finally come to the room with a powerful nymph and the traitor Tristian. I drop a couple fire elementals into the room before I talk to the nymp. The guardian of the bloom is talking to her servant. I attack full on. Octavia uses chain lightning a few times, and the force bombs wreck the defaced sister. After we finish them off, Tristian wants to destroy the Oculus Abbadon, but I attack. The Oculus is mine, now. I make my way out, and pop out in the Verdant Chambers. From doing all the traps, Octavia hits level 14, her 10th Arcane trickster level. I take the opportunity to slaughter all the monsters the nymph tried to kill me back in chapter 2.
On the way up to the dwarven fortress I stop Saint Galan's Gullet and Brown Baldhead. The cyclops is quite a beast, but not too much trouble at our level. There's just wolves at brown baldhead.
We stop by tenacious marsh, and kill a giant slug. I find the assassin's chain shirt, a +4 adamantine chain shirt with +4 to confirm crits!
I head over to flintrock grasslands. I figure I'll do the dwar fortress when I have Amiri back. I meet up with Amiri and she wants to sneak into the camp alone. There's a lot of hidden paths with things she can push out of the way. I also need to make sure to avoid the defaced sisters. I pretend to mend a tent when one goes by, and let her pass and continue on my way. I have to kill some wolves that go hostile when I push a rack out of the way. She gets to Nilak and the defaced sister, and just loses it and kills the sister. Armag shows up and I argue with him and have to duel him. I'm pretty sure it's not possible to beat him here. Armag leaves his army for some reason, that'll be revealed later.
The rest of the party has to make their way to the barbarian camp and rescue Amiri. I arrive on the scene just in time to see Jamandi's men cut down and barely before she's killed. She is not happy with me, since I went after Tristian and held my on kingdom's needs above hers. I meet a cleric whose regiment was killed, he's going to raise them as undead to make a final stand, I encourage him to do so. I cut through the barbarians like butter and find Amiri, Dugath and Nilak alive. Weird in previous runs where I went after Tristain first Dugath died. House Surtova wants to elevate me to queen, and Jamandi grudgingly accepts. First I have to track down Dugath.
I head back home. I need to unload loot and regroup and check up on things. I arrive to find the city rebuilt in stone and no longer mud and wood. I dump all the loot for about 70K and buy another 1000BP. Linzi informs me we have some options to track Armag down. Basically there's several things that'll reduce the perception check to find it. A demon whose an ancestor to the tiefling twins drops by and wants me to go to the southern barrens. I'll put that off until I'm done with all the sweet teeth tasks, they're still busy weeding the narlmarches.
While they start trying to find Armag, I annex the dire narlmarches. A bard has composed a song Valerie takes offense to and has been yelling at others around the keep, so I should look into that. It's a just a matter of talking to the storyteller and Linzi and then Val. I also show the storytell the Oculus, and he's creeped out. I build a new town, Direburg way in the southwest, as close to Pitax as possible.
I'm going to set off for the dwar fortress and do Harrim's quest. We wreck the golem and save he dwarves. Harrim's able to knock the thing apart. The paladin thinks it's a gift from Torag, being able to unmake things. Harrim breaks the gem from the golem, and we leave.
I'm going to see if we can't find Armag's tomb on our own. We spot it from way across the river! I still try to do Pike's stretch, and Amiri takes off her armor for it, but only makes the first athletics check. I head over to Armag's tomb.
At the tomb, I convince the barbarians to turn against the defaced sister and Demona hits level 13. I get another +2 to strength and can wear and cast in heavy armor. The dungeon is long so I'm just going to hit the high points. There's an early book event to move piece across trapped puzzle, and we make all our skill checks. Gotta grab all the xp I can. We find a hidden passage bypassing an area with lightning and fire traps. There's loads of skeletal undead, specters and bloody bones beasts. At least the bloody bones beasts always drop strength belts +4. I try to dazzle Zorek the barbarian spirit with my deeds, but he's not impressed I defeated Vordakai and let him live and attacks, I easily kill him. For the showdown with Armag, I buff up fully and drop a couple fire elementals into the room before I head in. Armag has realized everything the sisters told him were lies, and kills the sister with him, then turns on me. I hammer him with bombs, slow ray of enfeeblement and boneshatter to weaken him. Octavia uses an impromptu sneak attack with a chain lightning and kills pretty much the whole rest of the mob in one shot. At this point we just pound away on Armag till he goes down, and then execute him. We find the original Armag's horde and now it's ours. The barbarians are arguing amongst themselves over who should be in charge. I offer to let them settle in my lands if they swear an oath of fealty and put Dugath in charge.
I rush home to get my reward. The Surtova back me and Linzi gives a speech at my coronation. The motto for the kingdom is life is fleeting, but law is forever. After the coronation, I spot an old man in the audience leaving who looks suspiciously like Remus that cultist I executed before. I get a sweet crown, +6 to Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma with +2 resistance to compulsion effects. It's official I'm a true monarch now.
The reports read as if everything is easy.
Ya, I'm still at zero reloads. I normally play on challenging, but am a habitual reloader, so I bumped down to mostly normal difficulty for my very first no reload run of anything ever, so most of the fights aren't bad for me, and I've been playing an extremely risk averse game. I've had some close calls, though. I also have to live with failed rolls to open locks and bad rolls in kingdom management, for instance I just failed a really big one that cost me about 2 points from every kingdom stat. If you don't know all the ends and outs of the game, a lot of the fights are much more difficult. Like when I killed Armag in the last post, I knew he'd be in there and dropped a couple of fire elementals into the room before entering. I've finished the game a few times, so I can put off the really hard stuff as long as possible and don't wander into spots that'd be too risky. Like back at the swamp witch's hut, I left a couple spots unexplored, because I knew it was higher level content. On a first run, the game is brutal on normal, although they've toned it down a bit from the original release. So no the game isn't easy.
I had a bit of time this morning to play before work.
First act after becoming queen is to claim Glenebon. Now my empire stretches nearly all the way across the map. I build some stuff in the new town of Glenebon. Elina tells me Ekun's run off armed to the teeth. We head over to the bridge over the Gudrin river. All the crap from Armag's tomb is worth over 100,000K. Ekun and Ntavi are out killing giants. I send Ekun down a path of firey vengeance and we kill the giants.
Before I really start exploring Glenebon, I want to get my arcane stat levelled up a bit more. Alondi, a bard Linzi knows enters, and we find out Linzi's teach Eobald the insightful has fled Pitax and is at Old Sycamore. I head over there with Linzi. The bards are being held by a mite with a bunch of centipedes. I intimidate the mite into leaving. When we talk to Eobald, I find out Alondi used to bully Linzi at the academy, I take an uncharacteristc attitude and encourage her to let him stay for now.
I keep pushing up my kingdom's arcane rank. Now at rank 3 I can build teleportation circles, and put them in every town without a mage tower. I also do the project to cut region
Most of the spots in this region are just tiny one fight areas.
At wicked Field we stumble across a botched attempt to summon a demon and have to kill it. Jaethal levels up.
The fossil fields There's some medusas that we kill.
Giant's Palm has Hatred, a boss smilodon. These legendary monster fights are a part of a big long quest I haven't picked up, yet, so they're so worth doing. There's some minor loot, but a massive pile of diamond dust, which is handy for spells like stoneskin and restoration.
At Serpent Trail we find a portal to the first world. It's just a hydra, but we do find some gloves that make the wearer do an extra 1d6 acid damage with melee weapons.
Gnawed rocks is a battl up a mountain fighting gargoyles with Hoarfrost a boss gargoyle at the top.
Desecrated Cairn is a cave. There's some minor loot in the area, but when I'm done searching some hill giants return home to their lair. I bluff them that I'm an agent on a secret mission to spy around the kingdom of eternal summer, I even get them to bribe me to send my best guide back to send them there.
Next stop Charred Ruins has a golem we kill.
We barely escape a giant worm thing during a book event at shrewish gulch.
Two-Faced Hill has a werewolf pack. After we defeat them, Harrim levels up.
At Raspberry Gully has a druid that attacks us. We find a sealed letter and make our skill checks to unseal it. The druid was being tasked with spying on my barony.
Take me home, Country Road. There's a golem to kill here.
That's it for Glenebon, so I teleport back to my capitol. As soon as I return, there's trouble in Varnhold, so I head there to kill some rebels, this is the leathersmiths artisan quest.
After getting my diplomacy up, I can finally hire Jaethal on as my minister.
Nok-Nok and the goblins have been putting up shrines to Lamashtu, so I go investigate. I let him keep his shrines, since it'll keep both him and Tsanna happy.
Ya, doing a no reload on your first run would be totally brutal. Once you've got a handle on the mechanics and the right order to do things in, and the spots to avoid at low levels, most of it's not bad. I have to admit, I am dreading the last couple of chapters, though.
I had a tiny bit of time before work today to play.
I keep working my kingdom. The Hellknight's show up looking for a fugitive, so I give them permission to look. Irlene, the artisan for the capitol also comes to ask me to talk to her. An event also pops up that Linxia from the Hellknights is terrorizing the populace, so I better go look at that. I make them stop, I am a populist. Darvin comes to me in the street and asks me to help him take out Linxia, I try to have him siezed but he teleports away.
I head over to lake silverstep first to find the wife of Irlene's messenger, and she tells me he's at the Southern border. I realize I forgot to swap my party back, so I switch Nok-Nok back for Octavia. Her messenger as at Dragonleaf Gulch, and killed by murderous Tatzlworms. I grab the gems off his corpse.
At the secluded lodge, Darvin ambushes Linxia, making her think I'm working with her, so all the hellknights attack me and I'm forced to kill them while Linxia flees. I try to take Garvin, but he flees again.
Back at the capitol, an order of Shelyn has been spreading bad rumors about my kingdom. I go see Valerie about this and we head out to their temple. These people have the ability to slander my kingdom, so I'll play nice. I make all my diplomacy checks and after Val makes her speech about how she never wanted to be a part of the Order her scar disappears. Hegend the paladin can't accept this and attacks us. I chunk Hegend in one hit with a vampiric touch crit! The priests stand down and agree to let us leave.
At the southern barrens, I let the demon kill the sweet teeth to save Kanerah. Kalikke is not happy about that at all.
Jaethal gets news the elf that framed her earlier has been spotted around the valley of the dead. I've got time so I head there. We meet Taneka a priestess of Urgothoa. She wants to exchange a ritual that allows the caster to transfer their conciousness into their descendents bodies in exchange for Jaethal to make her undead. I agree, but after getting the ritual, Jaethal wants to leave the priestess dead. I uphold my agreements, so I tell her to stick to the deal. After raising her, Enneo shows up with a group and I attack him. After the fight, Demona hits level 14.
Back home, Irlene wants a unicorn horn. Glad I'm evil, I failed the check to pick the lock in the first world while dealing with the traitor Tristain that had one behind the door. In the southern narlmarches you'll hit an unavoidable event. I found a herd of unicorns and slaughtered them all. That pissed of a dryad who attacked with some treants. They weren't too dangerous, but had a lot of health and tried to use confusion, which failed, fortunately. I give Irlene the horn.
A well in my capitol has dried up so I go to check it out. There's a letter from a mage trapped in a magical prison under the barrow. The key needs to be discharged by killing all the spectacular monsters in the region. Nothing else we can do down here for now.
The attack on bald hilltop begins again, this time it's evil pranksters. I put Val on the job of notifying people and head there. We kill the red caps and the nymph, who had a sweet head band of mental perfection +6 that I give to Octavia. Amiri hits level 13, too. I apparently forgot to take a screenshot during this fight.
Linxia has found Darven and asked for my help nicely, So I head down to brineheart. The mercs are battling it out with the hellknights, so I wade into the fray. Darven and his men are not match for our combined forces. After, Linxia calls me an unfit ruler, so I tell her to bring her hellknights, I'm not afraid. There's a small fortune in +1 items all the hellknights and mercs had.
I head home and being a big process of leveling up advisors, now that I've got the time. Eventually I can claim Dunswald way in the east. Dragn finally finishes his grandfather's armor, Onslaught +5 mithril full plate that gives +8 to strength and increases movement speed by 20. Since my magus can cast in heavy armor now, she equips it. I finally get the project to do faster rank ups, so they only take a week instead of 2. Nazrielle finally pays off and delivers me a scimitar called divine intervention, it's a +4 holy flaming scimitar that lets me cast divine power.
Nok-Nok is confused about getting what seems to be a message from the dead goblin king. We head to the shrine of lamashtu. The king's body has been taken over by a barghest. I convince the king to tell me the terms that requires him to kill and an ally and enrage him when I bluff that Nok-Nok isn't a hero. We take advantage of the confusion to attack with the other goblins on our side. I chunk him with a crit on a vampiric touch.
After some more leveling up Jubilost comes to me. He's made progress on the riddle and we conclude it's something to do with the 24th of the month a book by Willas Gunderson. Verdel the merchant has the book I need, so I take it to Jubilost. From the book we conclude we have to meet in the tavern on the 24th of the month. On the 24th I head to the tavern. We meet an aasimar named luna, and she gives us a map to a dungeon by candlemere, so go there. So big time spoilers.
A golem from the dwarf clan shows up asking us to help. Outside the dwarf fortress, Octavia levels up to 15. We kill our way through the golems and the ghost of Offeld Skjegge comes out. We agree to leave the ghost alone.
The creeping death attacks bald hilltop and Nok-Nok is up to something I should check out. Bald hilltop takes priority. There's some really nasty Mandrogora swarms this fight, so I use summons to pull them and kill them at a distance, then when they go down Jaethal tanks the swarms. Once they're down we kill our way through the rest. When Marquis Dazzlelight, a high level wisp, shows up we throw up protection/resist electricity to stop his chain lightnings. Jaethal hits level 14.
Over at the goblin clearing lamashtu Nok-Nok has had a pair of statues constructed. Apparently the little one is supposed to be me. I let him have his statue, the wretch.
Linzi brings an invitation to The Rushlight tournament in Pitax, opening up the next chapter and the Pitax section of the map.
Here's where my kingdom's at. I've been glossing over a lot of it, since it'd make for tediuos work documenting it all.
Off to the rushlight tournament in Pitax. Thanks to my aviaries built in Gleneshire, I can even manage my kingdom while I'm there. I drop Harrim and take Linzi, since some stuff from her companion quest is here. Irovetti greets me himself. There's 3 events to win here, a fisherman's competition, a drunken brawl and a boasting competition. Before any of that I check out the merchants, since these are the first new merchants I've had access to in a long while and I've brought 750,000 gold. After shopping, I get a quest from a noble to take care of some river pirates. From the bards we find out Irovetti didn't fire Eobald the insightful, and he was let go for his student Alondi pulling a lethal prank on somebody. Man, Octavia failed the lock picking contest by 1. I win the fishermen's contest by having Octavia cheat like mad. Demona wins the boasting contest handily and hits level 15 and finally earns her wings. Interesting, now all spells get dispelled and equipment removed when you enter the drunken melee, either way Demona easily beats all the other competitors with 24 strength thanks to the abyssal bloodline. I win the competition, and make Irovetti look like a tool during his speech. Jubilost hits level 14.
Back home Amiri wants to talk about her tribe at the tavern. Linzi tears into Eobald, but we decide to keep the academy intact when we take over Pitax, but she kicks out Alondi. Amiri needs us to reforge the sword she took from the giant and Armag broke, so she can appease the spirit and get it to leave her tribe alone. It's a 45 day long project, so it'll be awhile till we can do anything with it.
Reg and Octavia want to talk to me about what they found in the Technic leagues records. Reg finds out he's from the sharp fangs tribe and Octavia's Pitaxian nobility. I can't get into the city of Pitax, yet, so hers will have to wait, but I set out to do Reg's quest. Reg's tribe was wiped out. Him and his brother were supposed the chief's sons, but the tribe only needs one cheif, so Reg was sold into slavery so there wouldn't be competition. His brother slew the tribe over selling Reg when he got older. Reg buries the remains and we get out of there.
Linzi is in a tizzy, somebody has made off with my throne. I talk to some people around town, but for now the investitgation is cold.
Linzi and the storyteller figure out a way we can invade Nyrissa the evil nymphs dreams, so I need to start that project.
The sword is reforged, so we head over to Amiri's tribe to give it to them. The sword's a prison for the giants evil brother. We give the sword back to the ghost, but need to sacrifice a chieftain. The old chief Akaia volunteers, and the ghost leaves.
Linzi has yet another emergency. Now there are thugs raiding the border, monsters appearing and bards sowing dissent in my kingdom. I need to go take care of this crap. There are bards in the square I chase off and they drop flyers made in littleton, so that's where they're based at.
I go to the Menagerie in Pitax. Nyrd Zottentropple is the one teleporting monsters into my domain. I kill her and her monsters. I find another sweet scimitar called thundercrack, +5 agile, 1d6 electricity and a runic mage blade.
I stop by the river bend to clear out those pirates the bard at the rushlight tournament told us about. I sneak and start killing them, when their leader comes out, it becomes apparent these aren't pirates. Damn I failed my diplomacy check to convince them it was all a mistake, so I have to slaughter them all.
At littletown, I murder all the bards. An impromptu sneak attack chain lightning will make anyone think twice before messing with my kingdom.
I find the river blades camp and kill the mercs.
At the Ornate Ruins, we kill a skillfully crafted golden golem and Jaethal gets to level 15.
In the middle of nowhere, we find a weird door, Octavia picks it and hits level 16. There's a mage, Blakemoor working on a book. I convince him to finish it and he gives me a copy. Not sure what's up here, normally there's a massive demon attack, but nothing happens, so I leave.
At wicked hill, another failed demon summoning attempt. Demona hits level 16. I can cast level 6 spells, which is the top for a magus.
Back home, Kyonin demands we turn of Jaethal over to them. That's not going to happen so we go to meet up with them. Jaethal's daughter is there. I convince some of the elves to leave, but fight the rest. Jaethal is presented with a choice, sacrifice her daughter to be the perfect undead or use the ritual to body hop to her daughter and live again. I have her sacrifice her daughter and remain undead. She gets an ability Eternal Clarity, a permanent +2 to wisdom and charisma.
I've finished the project to enter Nyrissa's dreams, so it's time to enter them. We see Nyrissa in more innocent times, when she was trying to build her own fey kingdom, and the same damn interaction between her and one of the eldest we saw back in the season of the bloom. At one point we have to fight copies of all of Nyrissa's lackies, The Stag Lord, Tristian, Armag, myself and Irovetti. They can be powerful, but die with a single hit. Armag manages to do some serious damage before I land a blow, since it's just me and Linzi. Nyrissa doesn't care whether me or Irovetti wins the war, since either's victory helps her, so she tells me to check out whiterose abby in Pitax. Jubilost hits leve 15 and Linzi hits 13.
On the walk home, we bump into the goblin merchant, and he's got my throne. I threaten to hang him and he gives it back.
At the capitol a Pitaxian envoy is waiting for me. Stefano claims things aren't going well in my kingdom (hah, my kingdom's state is serene), and Irovetti would be willing to accept my vassalage. I send the messenger's head back to Irovetti as my reply.
You may have noticed I've tried to rush things with Pitax as much as possible. This is because they keep sending difficult events at my kingdom, so in order to stop it I have to resolve this. The book Linzi and Eobald were working on is done, and she wants to come along to Pitax and see the effect it's having, so I swap her in for Jaethal. I let the noble Gasperre know about the bodies of he nobles I found at whiterose abby, so he'll take my side against Irovetti. I pop in at the lonely mansion so Octavia can meet and forgive her mom. I find the bard and judge who set me up to attack the traders that I was told were pirates. They want to arrest me, I make my checks to convince everyone of my innocence, but the judge still declares me guilty and a fight ensues, but murdering a judge is easy. I convince the bard Atalia to side with me. Annamede approaches with a counter offer, let her lead the bards instead of Atalia, and make her head of the academy after I take over. I take her up on the offer, she does seem like a better rebel leader than the aging Atalia. In the tavern at the docks, a first mate wants me to help him overthrow his captain. I've actually got the book they want, but I'd rather use persuasion here for the huge xp boost. I make all my persuasion checks for over a million XP straight to Demona and skips from level 16 to level 18! I pickup blind fight and toughness, as well as another +2 to strength from my bloodline. They also work for me, so I get a +5 to economy, stability and espionage. Back in the main square, I convince the captain of the guards to side with me by telling them I'll help clean up the thieves guild and drug trade. With the whole city turned against Irovetti, it's time to force the confrontation with him. I've got the bards, the city guard, the nobles and the priest of Calistria on my side. So he's just got some thieves and a few guards loyal to him. Of course Irovetti retreats inside his castle and we swarm the guards and thieves.
Inside we kill the door guards. Of course the main hall to reach Irovetti is locked, so we'll have to explore. The guards are starting to flee like rats from a sinking ship. There's a horde of werecreatures guarding the northwest portion. I stumble across the other Zottentropple brothers trying to flee. I kill them. I get ambushed from behind while searching the room, trolls and pitaxian wardens. Down in the basement I kill some sort of monster, either a demon or gargoyle and it's smilodons. There's a big ass monster in the basement I'll come back later on to kill. There's a swarm of guards down here, so Octavia and I drop a couple of siroccos to mess them up. I rest in the basement.
I pop out of the basement in the northwest of the castles ground floor. I encounter the leader of the werecreatures with a bunch of wardens. We drop a couple of Sirroccos into the room and let the few that don't fall follow us back into the hallway. Demona hits level 19 I get greater spell access and get to pick 6 spells from the wizard list, so can pick up some spells magi can't normally cast. The annoying thing about the Oculus Abadon is that it makes my sirroccos last forever before I can enter the room. We flip some candles to open up a hidden room. It's full of oozes and mimics. Linzi hits level 14. Now the hallway's opened up and I can proceed. There's a massive fight in the hallway to get to Irovetti. The magus actually manages to knockout Demona and Linzi gets knocked out by the archers. The almost take down Amiri, but Jubilost bombs the magus and finishes them off. That was actually pretty close, I should have taken that fight more seriously. We rest afterwards, before the big showdown with Irovetti.
Before the showdown I ask Irovetti what was up with Tartuccio, he tells me what Tartuccio took from old sycamore was an artifact Nyrissa's been searching for, for thousands of years. This is a big fight, so Im using spells like communal stone skin and legendary proportions. After I kick Irovetti's butt, he tries to call for help from a snake monster, but Nyrissa intervenes, because he took the artifact she was looking for causing the snake monster to kill Irovetti. She tries to put up seamantle, and Demona tears it down with greater dispel magic. Jubilost hits level 16.
Outside there are riots around the academy. Alondi is leading the riot and calling for the academy to be burned down. This is my city now, so that's not going to fly. I give them the option to hand over the troublemakers and leave or I'll get violent. They hand Alondi over. Harrim hits level 16. All the events on my kingdom from Pitax are ended and I get a +20 to most of the kingdom stats. I annex the Tors Levines while I'm waiting for things to settle down, and do all the projects to level up my party. The nobility from Pitax is willing to let me take the crown, and recommends Gasperre for governor. I'll go with him since he's been loyal to me against Irovetti and I promised to get rid of the thieves guild. I sentence Kharne Vereel to death, ending the thieves guilds hold on the city. I uphold my agreement with Annamede and make her headmaster of the academy. I get another big boost my kingdom stats.
Best of luck with your run! I still can’t see your pictures on mobile, but your narration is easy to follow along due to familiarity of the game.
So, I think it's time to go dragon hunting. There's a body covered with acid burns, the game's clearly warning you to put up acid protections. This is a big fight so I'm also using spells like legendary proportions, communal stoneskin and dropping some summons. Remove fear is needed, since I'm fighting a dragon. After my inital charge, Demon and Octavia drop sirroccos on the dragon. Harrim and Demona drop the dragon's defenses with greater dispel magics (I love that I can still attack and cast as a Magus), and we kill the dragon. Octavia hits level 17 and Amiri level 16. I take a belt of physical perfection +8 off the dragons corpse.
I drop in on the carnival glade on may back home. There's a portal to the first world here. It's just fly trap, but it's got a lot of hit points.
All the merchants from the rushlight tournament are now in the main square at Pitax, and restocked their inventories. I take the opportunity to get another +4 adamantine plate mail and +6 belt of physical perfection.
I drop back in on the castle at Pitax. I'm going to try and get through that wall in the basement I passed by earlier. It's behind a really high athletics check, so I use greater heroism, take off my armor and equip the professor's hat to try and get the best chance. Success! I put my gear back on and buff up for a fight with undead. The ghost that designed the castle has been haunting it, and feels I'm unworthy of it, so attacks. He drops a sweet robe of the dark master.
I drop by the Forest Ballroom, next. We fight some primal treants and a satyr here. Lady Primrose a high level nymph shows up with a bunch of satyrs and this huge worm thing that swallows Harrim. Asides from taking Harrim out of the fight they're nothing we can't handle, and an impromptu sneak attack chain lightning kills most of the satyrs. This is also the last of the monsters I needed to kill to unlock the magical prison back at the barrow.
We pop by weeping grove. There's a few treants here, so we attack, after the fight starts, a ton of ancient wisps swarm in and I rush to put up protection/resistance electricity communual up. Once those spells go up, they can't hurt me, and we mop up. We find a black dragon breast plate here.
The grocery stalls has a cave with a first world portal. There's an Immense Mandragora here. It's not too much trouble for us.
The castle of knives is a larger more difficult area than the surrounding spots. In the southwest, Kamala the phoenix wants to test me. The first deals with distracting a couple of fey while Kamala opens a portal to send them home. There's a worm guy and a huge old crone fighting it out. I sit on the sidelines and watch. I encounter Shyka the many, a weird fey of some sort, constantly shifting forms. Shyka wants me to track down the first crown. I spy some of those nasty Mandragora swarms up ahead, so I'll use summons to tank them. I dump out cloudkill and siroccos and use AOE spells and bombs to hit the swarms and keep my distance. When the summons go down, I have Jaethal tank them.
I bump into some Treants and bluff them into giving me their piece of the first crown. I tried to bluff the satyr that wriggling man sent me and fail the check so have to fight him. We fight more of those purple worms and run into Salim Ghadafar, who tells us the cragg linnorm swalled the piece of the crown. We kill it in a single round. Hard to believe the one in chapter 3 was so dangerous. There's an elven ghost from the first kingdom nyrissa destroyed in the crown. I know there's a big bad ass ghost mob up ahead so I drop some summons to distract. We still get beat up pretty bad and Harrim has to use a couple of heal spells on me. Just when I'm finishing the ghosts, a swarm of Ankou demons rushes me and starts shooting prismatic sprays all over the place, knocking Octavia out . Once they've used their prismatic sprays, they're not too tough, so we finish them and heal up. Jubilost got hit with insanity, so I have to use a heal spell to cure him. Up in a tower there's more ghosts and we find a rod of greater empowerment up there, sweet. I give the crown to Shyka. Jaethal hits level 16.
I check up on things at home before I head back to the temple of elk. I leave my party at the entrannce and Demona heads in alone. Visaka the unicorn's test is to deal with the monsters without attacking them. So I just use improved invisibility and keep the rest of the party out of the way. I pass his test, and the next test is at talon peak.
On the way to talon peak, I stop at the lonely barrow to finish up that quest with the trapped mage. This is going to be a nasty fight, so prepare with tons of buffs including communal stone skin, death ward, legendary proportions and dump some summons into the room. We take some bad damage from his banshee blast, but keep the pressure on and pin him down with force bombs. He had a hat of mental perfection +8, a sweet crossbow and an axe.
I make sure to be well rested before I head into talon peak. Puja the wolf claims I took too long and need to head to the castle of knives quickly. I use the teleport option from my capitol to hop to Pitax and get over there faster. I drive my party to exhaustion, but rest outside the castle of knives. Puja is much more polite, and I've passed his test. I pump him for info about his group. This'll be handy in a bit. I talk to Vidya the Lion and she asks me questions about their order to see if I've been paying attention. The questions are randomized, so you won't get the same ones each time. Their main temple is nowhere, the way of the hero is to make the world a better place, and the name of the order means the way of the hero. They offer me their aid and some loot.
I've pretty much explored everything, so it's time to head home. Kimo wants to talk to me so I head over to Tatzlford. He wants an emerald necklace for his fey girlfriend, and I just so happen to have one on me. I keep ranking up and improving my kingdom since I've got nothing else to do. Sharel tells me Morhalon has fled, so I have to send my warden to track him down. Once the project's finished I go to the Poacher's hideout. I opt to kill them for poaching in my lands. Some poachers are no threat to us.
The next attack on Bald Hilltop is the Wildhunt. These fey are extremely nasty and will paralyze your ass, so everyone needs freedom of movement up. Amiri and Harrim already have items that grant that. I use a cloudkill to wreak havoc on them, since I'm immune to the poison. They're not so tough if you've got freedom of movement, so we persevere.
Kimo says his nymph's rejected him, so I head back to Tatzlford to sort this crap out. The dryad's no match for my silver tongue, so I convince her to get back together with Kimo.
While I'm managing my kingdom, Bokken finally comes through with that potion, Elixir of Inconcievable Transmutations of Body, and Soul, and Also Mind. Remember way back in chapter 2 or 3 when I said doing his quest would pay off, it totally did, this potion gives you a +2 to all attributes permanently.
I got a letter demanding I help a foreign queen track down a fugitive hiding in the kingdom in exchange for a lucrative trading contract, now that the project to track them is complete, I head out to find the fugitive. The fugitive's actually the sister of the queen and tries to get me to back her to usurp the throne. I've already got an agreement with the rightful queen, so I stick to it and kill her.
During this massive stretch of downtime, I finally manage to rank up every stat in my kingdom to 10 and then finish up all the region upgrades.
I make sure to stock up on things like scrolls, diamond dust and dinosaur bones. Harrim hits leve 17 from the xp payout after the bald hilltop event is complete. This is it, a new more massive bloom is starting to plauge the land, so it's time to take the fight to Nyrissa. It' time to head to the castle of knives again. We meet the horned hunter and he sics a couple of jabberwockies on us. Their burble is annoying as all hell, since it can cause confusion. After we kill them, Amiri hits level 17, her 10th stalwart defender level. Before going into the portal, I cast freedom of movement on everyone. We're split up as we fall through the portal. When I land, Demona hits level 20.
This is it, the infamous house at the edge of time. I've made it this far without a reload. I see an imprint of the memory of Linzi passing by here and Nyrissa seducing her with access to her library. Evindra the fey I killed back at whiterose abby still wants to help me, since I'm her best chance to get free. She gives me another one of those lanterns that allow you to pass through first world mist, so it'll be kind of like at the end of chapter 3. There's a fey merchant here, named Issili. I take the opportunity buy a new scythe, scimitar and ring of greater ultimate protection then jump down the well.
Inside, I need to assemble my team fast. The tiefling twins are able to be exist at the same time here. Val's the next companion I stumble across.
Reg and Octavia are the next ones I bump into. I did their missions correctly, so they both survive.
I find Amiri, who dutifully waits for me.
Nyrissa tries to trick Harrim into thinking she's Groetus and releasing his life. He holds onto his memories and lesson I helped him learn, and lives.
Nyrissa tries to tempt Jubilost with the ability to explore the first world, and he turns her down so she kills him. Because I save Xae, she comes back to save Jubilost.
She kills Nok-Nok, but he plays dead, and makes it.
She pits Jaethal and Tristian against each other. Even though I killed Tristian. Because I killed him and failed his quest, but completed Jaethal's quest in the evil way, Jaethal lives. Now the whole gang is back together.
Anoriel 8 eyes pops in, I can hire mercs outside the house now.
Nyrissa fails to tempt Ekun into fighting a massive troll on his own. I kill the troll. He had some sweet loot. Cloak of resistance +6, Belt of physical perfection +8, manticore skin boots. Octavia hits level 18.
Linzi's been trying to spy, and for this Nyrissa kills her. There's a big fight with some satyrs and wild hunters in the room. Linzi's inside my journal now. She shuffled her conciousnes into the book.
So, I saved everyone I could, except for Tristian, who I purposely killed. Failing companion quests would have gotten them killed. No matter what, Linzi dies and gets put into the book. I've heard Val will never die even if you don't complete her quest, but never tried it.
I meet a ghost in a mirror who asks for help getting out.
I've explored the ground floor in one world, now I turn off the lantern and go through the mist to the other world. There's more wild hunters to kill here.
We run into our first Wildhunt Monarch. While these guys are alive, none of the wildhunters nearby can be killed, so they're a priority. They also use greater dispel magic, but with much less effectiveness than in the original release of the game. He only manages to dispel haste from Harrim. In earlier versions, they could tear down all your spells, and if they took down your freedom of movement, you were boned.
I've explored everywhere in both worlds on the ground floor, so I go down to explore as much of the basement as I can get to right now. There's not much in the first world I'm in, so I flip through the mist and fight more ghosts.
I run into the crone from earlier, the Knurly Witch. She tells me on the top floor in Nyrissa's shrine has the goblet, but I need 3 keys to open it. She has one and agrees to give it to me if I kill the Wriggling Man, who has one of the others. The third's hidden somewhere around (which is what Linzi's riddle was hinting at about going through the mist. I agree to kill the Wriggling Man.
I haven't gone outside in one of the world's, so through the mist again, and back outside. None of my companions are there and I kill a quickwood treant. I try to rest, but get swarmed by a giant undead cyclops, some ferocious devourers and giant skeletal warriors. Amiri and Harrim take some level drains, but we come through OK. I have tons of restoration scrolls and plenty of diamond dust for the spell component.
We kill our way past some nymphs and treants. There's one of those really nasty mandroga swarms up ahead, so we use sirocco, cloud kill and bombs to kill it with summons distracting to tank the swarm.
I go through some mist in the southeast, but pop out up in the northern portion of the map that was inaccessible. A massive fight ensues in the next room with a few nymphs and a ton of autumn and summer golems. Harrim was dumping out heals that fight, so when it's over I rest and keep exploring. I have a bit of a close call with some more golems, these suckers are tough. I reach the end of the hallway and am able to unlock it, so we can move through again.
I go through the mist again and get teleported up the north end of the map, but in the other world. Now I make my way back through the hallway but in this world. This time there's a wild hunt monarch with lots of wild hunters and nymphs backing them up. They really beat on Harrim and Jaethal during this fight, and Octavia has to blow through 2 impromptu sneak attack chain lightnings, but we make it through.
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I go through the mist again to explore the western part of the map in the other world. In the room with the jabbberwocky statue, we find the wriggling man. The deal with him is he's next to impossible to damage directly, but AOE spells tear him apart, along with bombs. We handily defeat him with fireball, acidic spray, flame strike and horrid wilting in a single round. I take the first key from his corpse.
I officially hate those ghosts, I came about a hair away from losing Demona in a fight with a swarm of them, but Harrim and Jaethal came through with the heal spells in the knick of time, and fortunately they get rid of bewildering injuries and strength damage. I make my way to the southeast of the room with the statue and this time it's loaded with those Mandragora Swarms. I dump some summons to form a wall between us and them, then dump every AOE spell I have on them, while jubilost bombs away.
We're ambushed from behind by another mob of those ghosts, this time with a mage, who manages to scare Jubilost up and dump out a blinding sickness spell on us. Harrim goes down and Jaethal has to use remove fear on Jubilost to get him back in the fight. Afterwards we have to heal up with treat afflictions to cure the blinding sickness and restorations to heal the strength damage those things do.
I take the southeast exit on the top floor, which takes me to a section of the basement I previously couldn't reach.
Mostly medusas in the southern portion of the map, with another ambush by wild hunters followed by an ambush by more ghosts.
Oh my, when I try to rest, I'm ambushed by the biggest mob of hydras with an ancient bulette. Octavia nearly bites it, we've already blown our delay poisons, but Octavia was the only one who couldn't make the saves. I apparently didn't get a screenshot of the biggest swarm of hydras I've ever seen in the game.
I drop back in on the Knurly Witch and let her know I killed the Wriggling Man. She gives me the key to the pantry where her key's supposedly stored. I check the pantry. It's a trap! I tempt her with an offer to work for me, and accepts, since I'm evil.
I bump into Shyka the Many, who doesn't remember me at all, time working backwards for her and all.
I kill my way through more wild hunters and another monarch in the northeast basement. I also find water vessel and break it open freeing an imp, named Pludok. He goes splat when i convince him to tell me where Nyrissa's hiding.
I'm going to go and deal with the mirrors before I explore the rest of the basement in the other world. After tagging the other 3 mirrors in the right order, it's revealed the ghost is the original spirit of the wriggling man. Originally a tyrranical wizard that helped found a state in the stolen lands.
I drop back at the camp outside and pick up more rations and rest. Then head back to the basement and pop into the other world to explore it from there.
I start a fight with a swarm of ghosts and wild hunters. We hit about the worst case scenario, Harrim and Jubilost get with fear and go running into two different rooms, pulling even more wild hunters, golems and other crap at us. It gets super close, with just Amiri and Demona staying up. I'm constantly having to recast mirror image while using spell combat, but we just barely survive. Now we have to go rescue Harrim and Jubilost from the other room after we heal up. I kill off the golems to fight my way to where Harrim and Jubilost are unconscious. That was the damn closest I've come to dying this whole game.
After killing some more of those ghostly guards and their mage, Jubilost reaches level 18. After killing more golems, Harrim also reaches level 18.
There's a magic dead zone, with a bunch of those tough ass golems in the southern portion of the map. I lure them back up to the hallway, where magic works before engaging them.
In the southwest there's a swarm of those Ankou demons. They love to spam prismatic spray everywhere as an opener, which is a bitch. So I dump a ton of summons up there to take the sprays, then engage. I've pretty much cleared everything. Time to go through the mist in the eastern portion of the basement, like Linzi said to.
Looks like they've reworked it a bit, and there's no intermediate area between the room with Vilderavn. He's a nasty fey with some golems to back him up. After the fight we head back up to rest and restock. I'm missing one of the books for the book puzzle, I guess it's probably in a chest I failed to pick, so I'm not going to worry about it.
This is it, the big showdown with Nyrissa. I head back upstairs. I've found the fight easiest in the past if I enter from the northeastern door. I pull out all the buffs before I enter and drop some level 9 summons into the room. I kill the horned hunter and Nyrissa enters. She uses wail of the banshee as an opener so my whole group runs back to dodge it then attacks. She repeatedly uses heal spells on herself and has a short charm effect that can take control of party members for a few rounds. I keep the pressure on her, healing and dispelling her buffs as needed. Of course My magus is using spells like mirror image and shocking grasp. I use mass icy prison, and even though she makes the save, she still takes damage each turn. Harrim has an empowered boneshatter so it'll at least fatigue her. Jubilost hammers away with force bombs, while Amiri uses defensive stance. Eventually we get her.
This is it, the last 1000th grain of dust falls into the cup, the grain is from her kingdom falling to me. So, at this point I could just give her the goblet and walk away, and that'd be the end of the game. So it's do-able as a no reload. However, I'm going to go for the brass ring and do the optional last chapter. I murder Nyrissa.
The Horned Hunter gets back up. He shows he was Remus, going all the way back to the first chapter and the issues with the cult I disbanded with Tristian. Next he's the gnome we met in the first world during the season of the bloom. Finally he reveals he's the lantern king, the eldest that cursed Nyrissa. He is not happy I took away his toy. He threatens to repay me with my own coin whatever that means. In case you're wondering Nyrissa didn't have much loot on her, bracers of armor +8, amulet of natural armor +5 and a quicken metamagic rod. Nothing I don't have. Amiri hits level 18.
We rest and put up all our buffs again before even looking at that portal. What's behind it? Tune in next time for the final chapter to the game.
I'll have to fight my out and find out what the hell's going on. there's lots of magical beasties, hydras, owlbears and dweomer cats. I bump into the shadow of Nugrah, the old druid that was the Stag Lord's "father." Even our weakened state we take him easily. The storyteller's got some sort of forcewall up to protect the locals. We get to a camp where a resistance is mounting. I need to lift the curse so I can face the Lantern King. In order do this, I'll need to go to various parts of the kingdom and gather help. Octavia hits level 19.
I drop by Oleg's Trading post first. Oleg, Kesten and Jhod have been holding the place from bandit attacks. None other than the Stag Lord shows up. Even with just cantrips, we manage to kill them all with barely a scratch, got to love that damage reduction from legendary proportions. When we finish them off, we lift part of the curse and our die rolls aren't hampered and we can use first level spells again, Octavia and Harrim can even use their second level spells.
I head over to Trobold next. Oh noes, a wandering toad wastes 6 hours of my time and all my buffs have expired. I fight my way past some trolls and spy Tartuk and Halgard, the Kobold and Troll from chapter 2. I finally remember I've been sitting on a bunch of wands and pull out my wand of good hope and wand of slow. Jubilosts bombs still work at reduced damage, so we're pretty well off in this fight. Harrim even uses a wand of prayer. This is a pretty nasty fight, and I wind up with all the bone shamans hammering Demona with boneshakers while every troll goes straight for her, the only way I keep up is chugging potions while Harrim uses heal scrolls, which are onlly healing 60 HP with the curse going. We eventually kill them all, pretty much because of Jubilosts bombs.
Tsanna is at the shrine of Lamashtu, I convince her to go back and help.
I drop in on Varnhold, next. At leat the cyclops zombies are on my side now. I run into Vordakai, the shade of Maegar Varn has taken over the fort. After we kill him, some more of the curse is lifted.
On the way to the Rostland border, some fireflies waste more of our time and our buffs expire. I decide I'll head back and rest with the storyteller, since Jubilost has blown all his shield spells. At Rostland the barbarians are battling the Rostland soldiers and both are hostile to us. Some Brevoy troops show up with Shandra and the Surtovas to help. After fighting off several waves of barbarians another piece of the curse is lifted. I run into the scythe tree and kill it one round. Dugath's also here, I tell him to go help us at the capitol.
Back to Irovetti's castle in Pitax. It's a swarm of Irovettis. We fight our way through the copies to the throne room and face Irovetti while swarms of clones enter the room. The clones aren't really a big deal, but we rush the real one. Once he's gone it's easy to mop up the rest. With that, the lantern king's curse is lifted,and we're back at full power and can use all our spells.
I'm all set to go after Nyrissa, but then The Forefather comesand takes Kalikke and Kanerah, so I suppose I'll have to go save them. Because I sacrificed the sweet teeth Kanerah sacrifices herself and the devil takes her.
This time we're really marching off to the final battle. All my allies march past. You can have final chat with each of your companions before setting off. I battle my way through the fragmented city. I find a fragment of the apology guarded by a wild hunt monarch.
Good old Vordakai.
Fighting our way through the fey, we eventually find another piece of the apology and a bunch of wild hunters spawn in when we grab it. There's an adamantine golem in the next building, Vordakai helps, sort of. Apparently a mite thinks it can handle wild hunters.
There's a pair of jabberwockys and a mob of wild hunters guarding the last piece. The warbles keep some of the party confused, but we eventually get them with Harrim spamming heal and harm spells throughout the fight. After I give the last piece to the storyteller to destroy Jubilost reaches level 19.
This is the final showdown. I'm nervous as hell about this fight, since I haven't reloaded once and it's going to be a tough 3 stage fight. I put every single buff I have. I'm going to cheese the hell out of this fight. I blanket the room with Polar midnight, sirroccos and blade barriers, I even throw in some empowered and heightened siroccos to help. During the first phase he repeatedly dispels my buffs as I get more up. We keep fighting and take down his first form. The second form fights with a bunch gnome clones of his, but isn't too bad. The third is his Horned hunter persona along with a bunch of wild hunters and a wild hunt monarch. We go full ranged and keep them pinned in the swarm of spells I've dumped and they gradually take their toll. I make sure to try and lure the archers onto the blade barrier. The fourth form is the lantern kings glowing orb thing. I manage to succeed at my bluff check to keep the lantern kings spell from affecting me. Octavia also succeeds a lore check to help. His last form is his glowing sun form, which is actually the easiest form to fight if you throw protection/resist fire. We finish him off. I tell him to GTFO and leave us alone, I don't trust any deals with him.
That's it he's defeated, and the ending slides play. They're different depending on your choices in each area and how you completed the companions quests, just like how youd expect from an Obsidian game. Obviously, big time spoilers here.
So it is done. I finished the game, including the optional extra chapter, with the crippling curse and the hard ass lantern king fight at the end of it. All without reloading. Once you have a handle on the game, it's really not any worse than the Baldur's Gate games for getting through it. The closest call was actually in the house at the edge of time, dealing with 3 mobs that should have been dealt with one at a time.
I hope it encourages you to give the game another shot, maybe just not do a no reload run for your first complete game. That was a bold move going for no reload on your first try, though.
I've dived straight into solo no-reload as I can never be bothered with parties. I've started lots of different playthroughs just to experiment with different classes and options and what strategies work and what you need to survive. The main conclusion I have drawn is that my favourite class is the sword saint...which I find amusing, considering I have always hated kensai in no-reload BG games (berserker all the way if you want a fighter).
I've probably had about 20 failed runs so far, and I'm fine with that as the learning curve is always harsh in solo no-reload. A real barometer for survivability is the Technic League Ambush, at which you are usually level 4 and you have to do it unprepared (and sometimes fatigued/without spells depending on where you were travelling to). If you can get through that unscathed the character maybe has some potential. The other big test so far is the Stag Lord.
I have reached the Stag Lord three times; first time was with a pure level 7 Sword Saint; the second and third times have been with level 8 characters who mixed in rogue and barbarian levels to sword saint. Each time I have ended up taking on the whole of the Stag Lord's force, as alarm has been raised one way or another.
It's been third time lucky for me:
This is my PC at level 8:
Level progression has been as follows:
1-2: Sword Saint 1-2 (main class, start with Estoc, enable Spellstrike)
3: Rogue 1 (weapon finesse and took fencing grace with feat)
4-5: Sword Saint 3-4 (level 2 spells)
6-7: Barbarian 1-2 (a bit of BAB and HPs but mainly for most direct route to Uncanny Dodge, without having to go to Rogue 4)
8: Rogue 2 (to get BAB to 6 to enable second attack since Sword Saint 5 does not increase BAB, and also for Evasion and Fast Stealth feats)
Hereon I am going to try to get to level 10 in Sword Saint (level 4 spells) and other 6 levels will be Duelist. Assuming I survive of course
Just the wererats in Ratnook Hill ;eft before finishing the Stolen Land.
I'm playing blind from hereon. Maybe it is not possible to solo and I'll get my butt whupped in an insurmountable situation, but I can give it a shot. And there's plenty of games that seem impossible to solo until someone figures it out and then it seems trivial and obvious. The fact I am getting BG1 style 6x XP onto one character should mean I'm overlevelled for a significant portion of the game; and often in solo, it is easier just to make one character invincible than babysit 6 weaker characters. By the time I get to late game when you would have a party of 6 high level characters instead of just 1, and the challenges are geared towards that, well...I'll just have to figure it out when I get there.
At the moment I am still on no-reload for this character. If I die in this run I might decide to carry on as min-reload just to see some of the later game and assess how feasible it is and what I need.
I haven't read most of this thread yet to avoid spoilers, so it would be good to at least complete one game so I can start reading about other people's strategy and ideas.
I heard stories shortly after release that people couldn’t get through HATEoT with a full party on story mode. I’m about to get there with my current run so I’ll report back if it’s much easier now.
Still trying to decide what to do for my next run. I thought about an Unfair no reload just to see if I could even get out of the prologue X-). I think animal companions would be key...
I don't know if solo is possible since i don't know much about divine casters and melee warriors, but my experience trying to solo as sorcerer was :
- On the beginning, was not that hard if you raise swarms of monsters with summoning spells
- Then when you explore larger areas, resting will be a nightmare and managing spell slots too.
- Due the fact that i was reloading like 10 times to be able to regain spell slots, i decided to play with 3 party members
- Then needed more party members only to solve some puzzles that i will not spoil
- Then after an relative long run, an enemy called wild hunt appeared. Tried to kill then with an small party but failed miserably every time, doesn't matter what strategy i use.
- Then increased my party size and defeated then on my first try
- Reached the final dungeon but has no clue about what to do. My party level is extremely unbalanced. I have lv 12 guys and my MC is lv 18 due the non XP sharing option.
I saw videos of people soloing, but not with an sorcerer. If someone mods the spell that creates an pocket dimension to you rest and more scrolls like freedom of movement(never saw to be purchased), maybe i can solo the game. Not on the difficulty that i an at moment(custom to make more pnp-like as possible, i will need to weaken certain enemies)
I will try the game again, but honestly soloing this game is much harder than soloing IWD and you will gonna need party members on some puzzles.