Technically yesterday, but I had my first battle in the BG castle where neither duke was injured in the least.
The party, with full invisibility, took up positions in front of Belt and Liia, while Imoen and Aura stood in the back. I had actually forgotten a bit about this fight, and didn't properly cover Liia, but it worked out. (She wisely backed up and took advantage of the situation to self-buff) As soon as the "nobles" poofed, Imoen laid down web after web while Aura laid down a horror. Sirene and Isra, equipped with free-action, leisurely eliminated MOST of the bad guys. The few who made their saves were running around aimlessly. When that wore off, Imoen laid down a chaotic command.
End result? Isra and Sirene took a few HP of damage, while everyone else in the room who wasn't a doppelganger came out unscathed. Somewhat hilariously, Isra and Sirene had to chase one straggler through the first floor a couple of times before trapping it with a piece of furniture.
Today was the first time I tried blinding a basilisk.
It was remarkably effective because it seemed to completely disable its gaze attack. It was the effect I was hoping for - it seems logical that a blinded creature can't use a gaze attack - but I didn't know whether it had been implemented in the game.
Now I just have to see if the tactic works on Aec'Letec . . .
The basilisk's gaze attack is implemented as a ranged weapon. The relevant AI bit ... if it sees a non-stoned enemy in melee range, it (randomly) either equips the gaze attack and tries to make some distance before trying to use that, or equips the melee attack and uses it.
A blinded basilisk will never attack with the gaze, because once it makes that distance it doesn't see the enemy it wanted to attack.
Aec'Letec's death gaze is handled differently; it's a spell that uses the "gaze" projectile. Looking at the (vanilla) script ... nearly everything he does has a prerequisite of him being able to see the protagonist. He doesn't necessarily need to see the target of his gaze, though.
So, then, if you blind Aec'Letec, keep the protagonist out of melee range. The easier approach? Make your protagonist invisible, and stay that way. That reduces the demon to a simple melee attacker that doesn't use any spells. He still hits hard (1d10+8 slashing damage at THAC0 zero and 4 APR) but that's it.
The easier approach? Make your protagonist invisible, and stay that way. That reduces the demon to a simple melee attacker that doesn't use any spells. He still hits hard (1d10+8 slashing damage at THAC0 zero and 4 APR) but that's it.
@jmerry I'm curious, would the "partial invisibility state" from Improved Invisibility work the same way? (That is, after someone has attacked with improved invisibility on, but the spell hasn't been dispelled yet.)
Definitely no. This AI-manipulation trick is conditioned on the enemy not seeing you at all. Since the room is party-required, being fully invisible or blinding the enemy (difficult, given 50 MR and excellent saves) are basically the only ways to pull it off.
Definitely no. This AI-manipulation trick is conditioned on the enemy not seeing you at all. Since the room is party-required, being fully invisible or blinding the enemy (difficult, given 50 MR and excellent saves) are basically the only ways to pull it off.
when you say party required are you talking about Aec'Letec's summoning room? because it definitely is not, any time i would fight that guy i would just buff up my 3 top melee chums with potions and spells and only have them run into the summoning room, while my weaker characters just chilled upstairs
OK, bad memory there. I guess I've never tried traversing the stairs with less than a full party. Even simpler, then: leave the protagonist upstairs, and it ruins Aec'Letec's script so he can't cast spells.
That vanilla AI script for Aec'Letec is a really strange one. There are gender checks on the protagonist, of all things, to help determine who to use the death gaze on. By my reading, a solo male protagonist will never face the gaze, but a solo female protagonist will.
Given the undead reanimation effect, we can be more specific: he's a necrophiliac. (Side note: gender "male" in the game files. That's why I've been using the male pronouns.)
"Hey! Get your filthy demon eyes off me. I may be dead, but I don't swing that way!" - Hexxat.
Given the undead reanimation effect, we can be more specific: he's a necrophiliac. (Side note: gender "male" in the game files. That's why I've been using the male pronouns.)
"Hey! Get your filthy demon eyes off me. I may be dead, but I don't swing that way!" - Hexxat.
This actually would make SO much sense too considering that Aec'Letec is a Nabassu, a tanar'ri with strong ties to the undead and are frequently found in service to Orcus. XD
I have run into more 975 XP Carrion Crawlers. I assume it must be a bug or possibly a feature introduced by a mod. I have no idea which mod is causing it though.
Carrion Crawlers are worth 975 XP in BG2. Looking at your playthrough thread ... probably EET's fault, standardizing to the BG2 version even though they're far more common in BG1.
so yesterday night was the first time ever, that i defeated draconis and abizigal in the laziest fashion possible on insane difficulty with double damage on
usually when i get to this point of the game i just quit because those 2 fights are so boring for how cheap they are, but for whatever reason, they were easy as pie last night, only a couple reloads each
so party composition;
charname; halfling swashbuckler ( 187 HP, -8/-6 thac0, -24 AC, level 39, all saves are 0 or lower )
sarevok
mazzy
anomen
imoen
nalia
so for the battle against draconis the battle prep spells were;
protection from evil 10' radius
invoke courage
haste
true seeing
stoneskin
then went up to stinky ol' draconis and started battle, as soon as his contingency goes off, have anomen cast mass raise dead, everyone gets healed to full, and then i would get nalia and imoen to blast him with wands of spell striking, then draconis wing buffets the top 3 chums and since they are stuck inside him, they go nowhere, and then i start greater whirlwinding/whirlwinding him and another charge of wand of spell striking and then before i can get off a second mass raise dead, he breath weapons my charname and kills him instantly and game over
this happened about 3 or 4 times in a row, and then by time 4 or 5 instead of him breath weaponing my guy, he just does it on mazzy, and luckily she only dies and doesn't explode ( apparently having just over 200 HP isn't enough to survive a wing buffet and breath weapon, bleh ) anyway, the whirlwinds finish him off and a mass raise dead brings mazzy back so onwards to abizigal
battle prep for abizigal;
same as draconis +
x5 protection from lightnings ( level 5 mage spell, sarevok wears the cloak of reflection )
x6 protection from magical weapons imoen
so first i go around killing off all the annoying ice salamanders and then save the game and take on abizigal, although the first time i didn't time it right and when i sent imoen up to abizigal he just casually dealt 90 damage to her without a critical hit and she exploded
so second time, cast the spell with much better timing making her immune to abizilame and brought in the party around the holmes but making sure imoen was the closest so that he wouldn't change targets, then had everyone attack en masse with whirlwinds and the such
seconds later abiziwad explodes and luckily blows everyone back which was great
right away i get anomen casting mass raise dead to heal everyone up and i try to bring in nalia to soak up the remove magic from abiziholmes because she has the cloak of mirrors on so that should make her immune to his breath weapon still
but unluckily abizichum has other ideas and went straight for my charname and blasted him with the remove magic so i quickly ran him out of the way to make sure no one else got hit with it, during that time i had imoen and nalia blast abizibud with a charge each from the wand of spell striking, at which point dragon bud hits nalia with a greater malison and charges up with a breath attack which damaged no one to my surprise, party on
and then since imoen was right there standing around, dragon holmes went straight for her so i had imoen cast protection from magical weapons and our dragon friend just went to town with his weapon ineffectives, all the while i brought everyone else into the fray with whirlwinds and such, and the battle was over
couldn't believe it, i don't think i've ever won that lazily before, usually before both battles i would just be spell prepped to the absolute max and still barely win, and yet here, virtually no muss or fuss, good times
Carrion Crawlers are worth 975 XP in BG2. Looking at your playthrough thread ... probably EET's fault, standardizing to the BG2 version even though they're far more common in BG1.
That's almost definitely the culprit. Well spotted. I was beginning to think I had clicked on some weird option in the Tweak pack.
The standard capacity of the ammo belt (at least in BG2, and this one is probably a clone of it) is 2000. You really should have sold those +1 arrows.
Today ... I faced the Underdark beholder hive with a full party. Well, five out of six. I've always sent in one protected character before, but five protected characters is just better, isn't it?
The protection in question? Potions of magic protection, for 100% or more magic resistance.
Don't try this in the unmodded game; the vanilla beholder AI will dispel the potions with anti-magic rays and proceed to wreck you with the attack rays. The SCS improved beholders, on the other hand, only use anti-magic rays when they see certain buffs or the target has a spellcasting class. Which is why the bard stayed behind. That, and I ran out of potions.
Today was the first time I rolled a Half-Orc swashbuckler:
I like the idea of playing a guy who desperately wants to be everything that the class description describes - part swordsman, part acrobat, part wit: the epitome of charm and grace - but who is sadly lacking in charisma (and who is a half-orc to boot) and so is always going to fail to live up to the image to which he aspires.
He likes the finer things in life so will always stay in the most expensive rooms and his ambition is to make a name for himself as the greatest jewel thief the Sword Coast has ever seen. He is going to start by stealing that Star Sapphire locked in the chest upstairs at the Candlekeep Inn. I've given him 57 points in lock picking so he has got just enough skill to get the gem.
I have of course given him proficiency in sword and dagger and he is going to fight with this combination from the off despite the fact that his lack of pips in two-weapon style means that at first he will be missing more often than he hits. Darn that 7 wisdom!
I'm going to play him solo on core rules but with no potions except antidotes.
It took Drogo the Dandy and awful lot of tries to get that star sapphire:
He then got seen breaking into another chest and had to spend a lot of time hiding under the bed before he could sneak past the Watcher:
He took advantage of the Gatewarden's offer of training to gain a bit more experience at lock picking. Not exactly the training the Gatewarden had in mind:
Which meant that he was able to leave Candlekeep with 670 XP. I think this is the most experience I have ever managed to amass before leaving home.
Now Drogo is heading to Beregost to do a bit of house breaking. But first he will probably have a conversation with a fellow called Marl . . .
Drogo just leveled up by talking to Marl. It's certainly not the first time that a character of mine has leveled up in this way but I think it is the first time where the responses I gave actually seemed to fit my character. The mixture of braggadocio and bonhomie felt like a perfect fit for Drogo the Dandy.
Drogo put all of his thieving points into Open Locks because I happen to know that one family in town have got a diamond locked in a chest but you have to be a good lock picker to steal it.
Drogo managed to level up again purely by picking locks.
So now he has reached third level and the only fights he has been in have been with Shank and Carbos. This time he put all his thieving points into picking pockets because when he took a room at Feldespost's Inn he noticed that one of his fellow guests had a rather fancy cloak. And Drogo, being a man of fashion, thinks the cloak would suit him rather well. Unfortunately, Drogo still only has 50 points in picking pockets so he is going to wait a while before he risks attempting to filch the cloak of his dreams.
Even with 82 points in lock picking it took a few attempts before he could steal the diamond:
But eventually he managed to pick the lock and got away without being seen.
Drogo has acquired his first diamond!
He is storing all his ill gotten gains in the wardrobe in his room at Feldepost's Inn.
He really could do with a gem bag so he could carry it all with him (and wouldn't have to rely on the honesty of Feldepost's maids). I wonder where he can find such a thing?
While he is musing on this problem, Drogo pays a visit to the Thunderhammer Smithy where he gets some magical items identified before selling them to Taerom Fuiruim. Old Taerom isn't that bright because he buys a magical bastard sword and a couple of two handed swords that Drogo stole from chests in his smithy. This means that Drogo can afford to buy himself a magical longsword and a magical dagger.
Drogo still isn't much good at fighting but he is doing alright at thieving.
Today was the first time I finished the Baldur's Gate saga (in Enhanced Edition form and including SIege of Dragonspear) with no cheating and minimal use of Story Mode/EE Keeper. And I did it on Normal Difficulty.
Starting Stats:
Final Stats at the end of Siege of Dragonspear:
Stats at the end of Shadows of Amn:
Final Stats at the end of Throne of Bhaal:
Some brief observations:
1. I gave my character four of the manuals/tomes to improve his stats. The exceptions were the Intelligence tome (which I gave to Neera to improve her scribe scroll abilities) and the Wisdom tomes (which I gave to Voghiln so he could use The Forest Queen's Benediction). I also exercised control over the items I imported: The Golden Pantaloons, the Claw of Kaz'garoth, Fallorain's Plate and Battle Axe of Maueltar from the first game, ten items including the Voidsword from Siege of Dragonspear and all the Cromwell crafts except the Silver Sword and the Silver Pantaloons from Shadows of Amn, all into Throne of Bhaal. Yes, I did track down the Bronze Pantalettes, more on that later.
2. All of my parties had a pretty standard set-up. By that I mean they used the default party system of six characters, i.e. 2 Warriors (1 Tank, 1 Scrapper/Archer), 1 Healer, 1 Caster, 1 Thief and 1 Extra (in my case Extra meant Bard each time but IMO it's not exclusively for bards). My Charname, Magnus, was always the tank. Rasaad was the Scrapper/Archer in BG1, a role he shared with Corwin in SoD, and Valygar took his place in SoA and ToB. My Healers were respectively Branwen, M'Khiin and Cernd. No, I did not suffer too much for neglecting a Cleric in BGII (I briefly recruited Anomen to use Sanctuary to steal stuff from the de'Arnise vault). Neera served as my caster all the way through, partially so I could see her questline and character development in full scope over the series, partially because she's one of only two romance options for male Dwarves and partially because of all the EE characters she's the one I like the most. Imoen served as my Thief for most of BGI before I swapped her out for Alora to ensure a proper transfer of equipment, then Glint served that role in SoD and finally, I used Yoshimo, then Imoen, then briefly Hexxat (because I wanted to play through her ToB quest and see one of the ways it ended) in BGII. Finally, the role of Extra went to the bards of each game: Garrick in BGI, Voghiln in SoD and Haer'Dalis in BGII, and I really enjoyed playing with all of them.
3. This isn't the first time I've completed any of these games but it is the first time I've done so while playing fair. In past playthroughs I'd usually just give up partway through and just kill an enemy that was giving me trouble with Ctrl-Y or pump Gold into my own wallet. It felt a lot better to earn my way up to each significant benchmark and accomplishment. I worked hard for everything, from the money to the magic items. Slaying dragons, forging god-tier hammers, re-imprisoning demon princes of Baator... all of them were so much more satisfying for it. The secret in this instance was redeeming Steam codes for the relevant games and playing through them with Debug Mode turned off.
4. In the pure caster priest smackdown, Cernd rules okay. I don't know if it's that druid shapeshifting started poorly balanced and was made better by Beamdog's tweaks, or it was always awesome and people just couldn't get around the spells druids lose out on compared to clerics, but every time Cernd would nail someone with his sling, slash them with his claws, crush them with his big earthy fists or simply shut down their casting with his little insect friends, I'd laugh a little inside at how he was proving the tier setters wrong. Maybe Shapeshifter was a weak-ass class back in the day, but now it's one of the better ones, I'd say. Roll a pure caster Shapeshifter, transform into frontline scrapper, turn back. Best of both worlds without having to be statistically optimised.
5. The only thing more satisfying than landing an Insect Plague spell is seeing Valygar, wearing a Girdle of Stone Giant Strength and armed with the upgraded Staff of the Ram, strike an unsuspecting wizard from stealth with a 14-22 total damage weapon at 20 Strength (meaning an extra +8 to damage) as a warrior with a x4 backstab modifier, chunking them long before they can get their fancy spells up. Thanks for teaching me that, Neera's ToB quest.
6. I hate Protection from Magical Weapons, Timestop and Imprisonment with a burning passion. I cannot believe there are optional bosses that can spam the latter as an infinite use move.
7. The Steam achievements are awesome. Really encouraged me to seek out as many parts of the saga as possible and gave me a great feeling of satisfaction when I did. Also, like I said Neera is the EE character I like the most because she gets the best character development, the best personal quests and by far the best ending of all of them (except Wilson whose ending is hilarious), and her using Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to cast Wish is a high point in my gameplaying experience. It will be hard to use any other mage now but I believe I will manage.
8. Given the Big Metal Unit's history as one of the first old-save-import perks in BioWare history, I'm surprised it doesn't have its own achievement. No matter, it's still very satisfying to accomplish and gives Cernd something to wear for a change.
9. I call the character build I used (Dwarven Defender with High Mastery in Axes and Hammers, Mastery in Two-Weapon Fighting and Specialization in Flails/Morningstars, ultimately wielding Crom Faeyr in the off-hand and the (upgraded) Axe of the Unyielding, (upgraded) Runehammer, Defender of Easthaven flail and Dwarven Thrower throwing hammer, protected with Full Plate Armours including Shuruppak's Plate and the Helm of Dumathoin, drawing upon the power of artifacts like the Ring of Gaxx, Senses of the Cat boots, Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, Crusher of the Hills belt and Cloak of the Lich, among others) Mountain King, after the term used for elite dwarf warriors in the Warcraft series. When you can have 25 Strength, 18-19 Dexterity and 24 Constitution, which combined with Defensive Stance, innate resistances, Improved Haste and HLAs make both you an unstoppable force and an immovable object, who cares if you have barely any Intelligence or Wisdom?
10. While I primarily play games for fun rather than to compete, it seems I can still be a bit of a powergamer when I feel like it. In fairness, this series favours the powergamers.
shouldn't that have been his second one? there is a diamond in a tree directly above the location of xzar and montaron
then if you went to the area where you meet elminster for the first time go north a bit then a bit east and you will see a big rock by itself and there is a ring of protection +1 in there
Comments
That explains the red circles around them!
The party, with full invisibility, took up positions in front of Belt and Liia, while Imoen and Aura stood in the back. I had actually forgotten a bit about this fight, and didn't properly cover Liia, but it worked out. (She wisely backed up and took advantage of the situation to self-buff) As soon as the "nobles" poofed, Imoen laid down web after web while Aura laid down a horror. Sirene and Isra, equipped with free-action, leisurely eliminated MOST of the bad guys. The few who made their saves were running around aimlessly. When that wore off, Imoen laid down a chaotic command.
End result? Isra and Sirene took a few HP of damage, while everyone else in the room who wasn't a doppelganger came out unscathed. Somewhat hilariously, Isra and Sirene had to chase one straggler through the first floor a couple of times before trapping it with a piece of furniture.
It was remarkably effective because it seemed to completely disable its gaze attack. It was the effect I was hoping for - it seems logical that a blinded creature can't use a gaze attack - but I didn't know whether it had been implemented in the game.
Now I just have to see if the tactic works on Aec'Letec . . .
A blinded basilisk will never attack with the gaze, because once it makes that distance it doesn't see the enemy it wanted to attack.
Aec'Letec's death gaze is handled differently; it's a spell that uses the "gaze" projectile. Looking at the (vanilla) script ... nearly everything he does has a prerequisite of him being able to see the protagonist. He doesn't necessarily need to see the target of his gaze, though.
So, then, if you blind Aec'Letec, keep the protagonist out of melee range. The easier approach? Make your protagonist invisible, and stay that way. That reduces the demon to a simple melee attacker that doesn't use any spells. He still hits hard (1d10+8 slashing damage at THAC0 zero and 4 APR) but that's it.
@jmerry I'm curious, would the "partial invisibility state" from Improved Invisibility work the same way? (That is, after someone has attacked with improved invisibility on, but the spell hasn't been dispelled yet.)
when you say party required are you talking about Aec'Letec's summoning room? because it definitely is not, any time i would fight that guy i would just buff up my 3 top melee chums with potions and spells and only have them run into the summoning room, while my weaker characters just chilled upstairs
That vanilla AI script for Aec'Letec is a really strange one. There are gender checks on the protagonist, of all things, to help determine who to use the death gaze on. By my reading, a solo male protagonist will never face the gaze, but a solo female protagonist will.
Aecletec is a pervert
"Hey! Get your filthy demon eyes off me. I may be dead, but I don't swing that way!" - Hexxat.
This actually would make SO much sense too considering that Aec'Letec is a Nabassu, a tanar'ri with strong ties to the undead and are frequently found in service to Orcus. XD
so yesterday night was the first time ever, that i defeated draconis and abizigal in the laziest fashion possible on insane difficulty with double damage on
usually when i get to this point of the game i just quit because those 2 fights are so boring for how cheap they are, but for whatever reason, they were easy as pie last night, only a couple reloads each
so party composition;
charname; halfling swashbuckler ( 187 HP, -8/-6 thac0, -24 AC, level 39, all saves are 0 or lower )
sarevok
mazzy
anomen
imoen
nalia
so for the battle against draconis the battle prep spells were;
protection from evil 10' radius
invoke courage
haste
true seeing
stoneskin
then went up to stinky ol' draconis and started battle, as soon as his contingency goes off, have anomen cast mass raise dead, everyone gets healed to full, and then i would get nalia and imoen to blast him with wands of spell striking, then draconis wing buffets the top 3 chums and since they are stuck inside him, they go nowhere, and then i start greater whirlwinding/whirlwinding him and another charge of wand of spell striking and then before i can get off a second mass raise dead, he breath weapons my charname and kills him instantly and game over
this happened about 3 or 4 times in a row, and then by time 4 or 5 instead of him breath weaponing my guy, he just does it on mazzy, and luckily she only dies and doesn't explode ( apparently having just over 200 HP isn't enough to survive a wing buffet and breath weapon, bleh ) anyway, the whirlwinds finish him off and a mass raise dead brings mazzy back so onwards to abizigal
battle prep for abizigal;
same as draconis +
x5 protection from lightnings ( level 5 mage spell, sarevok wears the cloak of reflection )
x6 protection from magical weapons imoen
so first i go around killing off all the annoying ice salamanders and then save the game and take on abizigal, although the first time i didn't time it right and when i sent imoen up to abizigal he just casually dealt 90 damage to her without a critical hit and she exploded
so second time, cast the spell with much better timing making her immune to abizilame and brought in the party around the holmes but making sure imoen was the closest so that he wouldn't change targets, then had everyone attack en masse with whirlwinds and the such
seconds later abiziwad explodes and luckily blows everyone back which was great
right away i get anomen casting mass raise dead to heal everyone up and i try to bring in nalia to soak up the remove magic from abiziholmes because she has the cloak of mirrors on so that should make her immune to his breath weapon still
but unluckily abizichum has other ideas and went straight for my charname and blasted him with the remove magic so i quickly ran him out of the way to make sure no one else got hit with it, during that time i had imoen and nalia blast abizibud with a charge each from the wand of spell striking, at which point dragon bud hits nalia with a greater malison and charges up with a breath attack which damaged no one to my surprise, party on
and then since imoen was right there standing around, dragon holmes went straight for her so i had imoen cast protection from magical weapons and our dragon friend just went to town with his weapon ineffectives, all the while i brought everyone else into the fray with whirlwinds and such, and the battle was over
couldn't believe it, i don't think i've ever won that lazily before, usually before both battles i would just be spell prepped to the absolute max and still barely win, and yet here, virtually no muss or fuss, good times
That's almost definitely the culprit. Well spotted. I was beginning to think I had clicked on some weird option in the Tweak pack.
The voice acting from Amber Hood and Jim Meskimen is great here. The two of them make a fine double act.
And it's going to take a long time to get through them if Alora only uses one per fight.
Today ... I faced the Underdark beholder hive with a full party. Well, five out of six. I've always sent in one protected character before, but five protected characters is just better, isn't it?
Don't try this in the unmodded game; the vanilla beholder AI will dispel the potions with anti-magic rays and proceed to wreck you with the attack rays. The SCS improved beholders, on the other hand, only use anti-magic rays when they see certain buffs or the target has a spellcasting class. Which is why the bard stayed behind. That, and I ran out of potions.
I like the idea of playing a guy who desperately wants to be everything that the class description describes - part swordsman, part acrobat, part wit: the epitome of charm and grace - but who is sadly lacking in charisma (and who is a half-orc to boot) and so is always going to fail to live up to the image to which he aspires.
He likes the finer things in life so will always stay in the most expensive rooms and his ambition is to make a name for himself as the greatest jewel thief the Sword Coast has ever seen. He is going to start by stealing that Star Sapphire locked in the chest upstairs at the Candlekeep Inn. I've given him 57 points in lock picking so he has got just enough skill to get the gem.
I have of course given him proficiency in sword and dagger and he is going to fight with this combination from the off despite the fact that his lack of pips in two-weapon style means that at first he will be missing more often than he hits. Darn that 7 wisdom!
I'm going to play him solo on core rules but with no potions except antidotes.
He then got seen breaking into another chest and had to spend a lot of time hiding under the bed before he could sneak past the Watcher:
He took advantage of the Gatewarden's offer of training to gain a bit more experience at lock picking. Not exactly the training the Gatewarden had in mind:
Which meant that he was able to leave Candlekeep with 670 XP. I think this is the most experience I have ever managed to amass before leaving home.
Now Drogo is heading to Beregost to do a bit of house breaking. But first he will probably have a conversation with a fellow called Marl . . .
Drogo has acquired his first diamond!
He is storing all his ill gotten gains in the wardrobe in his room at Feldepost's Inn.
He really could do with a gem bag so he could carry it all with him (and wouldn't have to rely on the honesty of Feldepost's maids). I wonder where he can find such a thing?
While he is musing on this problem, Drogo pays a visit to the Thunderhammer Smithy where he gets some magical items identified before selling them to Taerom Fuiruim. Old Taerom isn't that bright because he buys a magical bastard sword and a couple of two handed swords that Drogo stole from chests in his smithy. This means that Drogo can afford to buy himself a magical longsword and a magical dagger.
Drogo still isn't much good at fighting but he is doing alright at thieving.
Starting Stats:
Final Stats at the end of Siege of Dragonspear:
Stats at the end of Shadows of Amn:
Final Stats at the end of Throne of Bhaal:
Some brief observations:
1. I gave my character four of the manuals/tomes to improve his stats. The exceptions were the Intelligence tome (which I gave to Neera to improve her scribe scroll abilities) and the Wisdom tomes (which I gave to Voghiln so he could use The Forest Queen's Benediction). I also exercised control over the items I imported: The Golden Pantaloons, the Claw of Kaz'garoth, Fallorain's Plate and Battle Axe of Maueltar from the first game, ten items including the Voidsword from Siege of Dragonspear and all the Cromwell crafts except the Silver Sword and the Silver Pantaloons from Shadows of Amn, all into Throne of Bhaal. Yes, I did track down the Bronze Pantalettes, more on that later.
2. All of my parties had a pretty standard set-up. By that I mean they used the default party system of six characters, i.e. 2 Warriors (1 Tank, 1 Scrapper/Archer), 1 Healer, 1 Caster, 1 Thief and 1 Extra (in my case Extra meant Bard each time but IMO it's not exclusively for bards). My Charname, Magnus, was always the tank. Rasaad was the Scrapper/Archer in BG1, a role he shared with Corwin in SoD, and Valygar took his place in SoA and ToB. My Healers were respectively Branwen, M'Khiin and Cernd. No, I did not suffer too much for neglecting a Cleric in BGII (I briefly recruited Anomen to use Sanctuary to steal stuff from the de'Arnise vault). Neera served as my caster all the way through, partially so I could see her questline and character development in full scope over the series, partially because she's one of only two romance options for male Dwarves and partially because of all the EE characters she's the one I like the most. Imoen served as my Thief for most of BGI before I swapped her out for Alora to ensure a proper transfer of equipment, then Glint served that role in SoD and finally, I used Yoshimo, then Imoen, then briefly Hexxat (because I wanted to play through her ToB quest and see one of the ways it ended) in BGII. Finally, the role of Extra went to the bards of each game: Garrick in BGI, Voghiln in SoD and Haer'Dalis in BGII, and I really enjoyed playing with all of them.
3. This isn't the first time I've completed any of these games but it is the first time I've done so while playing fair. In past playthroughs I'd usually just give up partway through and just kill an enemy that was giving me trouble with Ctrl-Y or pump Gold into my own wallet. It felt a lot better to earn my way up to each significant benchmark and accomplishment. I worked hard for everything, from the money to the magic items. Slaying dragons, forging god-tier hammers, re-imprisoning demon princes of Baator... all of them were so much more satisfying for it. The secret in this instance was redeeming Steam codes for the relevant games and playing through them with Debug Mode turned off.
4. In the pure caster priest smackdown, Cernd rules okay. I don't know if it's that druid shapeshifting started poorly balanced and was made better by Beamdog's tweaks, or it was always awesome and people just couldn't get around the spells druids lose out on compared to clerics, but every time Cernd would nail someone with his sling, slash them with his claws, crush them with his big earthy fists or simply shut down their casting with his little insect friends, I'd laugh a little inside at how he was proving the tier setters wrong. Maybe Shapeshifter was a weak-ass class back in the day, but now it's one of the better ones, I'd say. Roll a pure caster Shapeshifter, transform into frontline scrapper, turn back. Best of both worlds without having to be statistically optimised.
5. The only thing more satisfying than landing an Insect Plague spell is seeing Valygar, wearing a Girdle of Stone Giant Strength and armed with the upgraded Staff of the Ram, strike an unsuspecting wizard from stealth with a 14-22 total damage weapon at 20 Strength (meaning an extra +8 to damage) as a warrior with a x4 backstab modifier, chunking them long before they can get their fancy spells up. Thanks for teaching me that, Neera's ToB quest.
6. I hate Protection from Magical Weapons, Timestop and Imprisonment with a burning passion. I cannot believe there are optional bosses that can spam the latter as an infinite use move.
7. The Steam achievements are awesome. Really encouraged me to seek out as many parts of the saga as possible and gave me a great feeling of satisfaction when I did. Also, like I said Neera is the EE character I like the most because she gets the best character development, the best personal quests and by far the best ending of all of them (except Wilson whose ending is hilarious), and her using Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to cast Wish is a high point in my gameplaying experience. It will be hard to use any other mage now but I believe I will manage.
8. Given the Big Metal Unit's history as one of the first old-save-import perks in BioWare history, I'm surprised it doesn't have its own achievement. No matter, it's still very satisfying to accomplish and gives Cernd something to wear for a change.
9. I call the character build I used (Dwarven Defender with High Mastery in Axes and Hammers, Mastery in Two-Weapon Fighting and Specialization in Flails/Morningstars, ultimately wielding Crom Faeyr in the off-hand and the (upgraded) Axe of the Unyielding, (upgraded) Runehammer, Defender of Easthaven flail and Dwarven Thrower throwing hammer, protected with Full Plate Armours including Shuruppak's Plate and the Helm of Dumathoin, drawing upon the power of artifacts like the Ring of Gaxx, Senses of the Cat boots, Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, Crusher of the Hills belt and Cloak of the Lich, among others) Mountain King, after the term used for elite dwarf warriors in the Warcraft series. When you can have 25 Strength, 18-19 Dexterity and 24 Constitution, which combined with Defensive Stance, innate resistances, Improved Haste and HLAs make both you an unstoppable force and an immovable object, who cares if you have barely any Intelligence or Wisdom?
10. While I primarily play games for fun rather than to compete, it seems I can still be a bit of a powergamer when I feel like it. In fairness, this series favours the powergamers.
shouldn't that have been his second one? there is a diamond in a tree directly above the location of xzar and montaron
then if you went to the area where you meet elminster for the first time go north a bit then a bit east and you will see a big rock by itself and there is a ring of protection +1 in there