On the joy of being "underpowered"
Maurvir
Member Posts: 1,093
I decided to update the mods on my BG install and start a new character, Maeri - a NG halfling cleric/thief. (Yes, I used tweaks to allow for that). I managed to get a high roll, but I spent most of the points in WIS, CON, and DEX, so she lacks a bit in the strength department. However, that's an aside to the tale.
After the events in the forest where she finds herself all alone, she meets up with Imoen, and then Xzar and Montaron. Rather than push it, the party decided to head straight to FAI to find Jaheira and Khalid. Which, of course, is where the second ambush happened.
The party got hit with sleep almost instantly, putting Maeri, Imoen, and Xzar on the ground. Only Montaron was left to fight, and to his credit, he did a fair amount of damage before he fell. Xzar was next, as a single MM wiped out his meager 4 HP. Fortunately, the guards were all over the creep, and took out the assassin before he could finish Imoen or Maeri.
And then the two survivors just laid there for another round. The guards all went back to their posts, while Maeri and Imoen got some sun. Rather than reload, I let it ride. The party had come across a diamond, and Maeri had found a bit of gold herself before the trip, but not enough to raise the two dead party members.
So, they went ahead and climbed up to the inn to find their contacts. With Jaheira and Khalid in the party, Maeri, herself a thief, took Imoen to attempt a raid on the inn. Unfortunately, NEITHER of them had enough skill in lockpick, but they did find enough stuff laying around to afford the services of the local cleric. After hocking everything they didn't need, they ran next door to raise Xzar and Monty - though not with full health.
After a night's rest, they started the trek south to Nashkel, where they almost got done in again by hobgoblins. Finally, after a skirting along the edge of the forest, and well away from the road itself, they reached Nashkel. Once more, they hocked everything they had found and bought some new armor. Which made the third ambush go a bit better. That time, no one in the party died. However, having fulfilled their obligation, the party let Xzar and Montaron go at the inn.
I sometimes forget how exciting starting new characters from scratch can be, but this was a fun romp in BG.
After the events in the forest where she finds herself all alone, she meets up with Imoen, and then Xzar and Montaron. Rather than push it, the party decided to head straight to FAI to find Jaheira and Khalid. Which, of course, is where the second ambush happened.
The party got hit with sleep almost instantly, putting Maeri, Imoen, and Xzar on the ground. Only Montaron was left to fight, and to his credit, he did a fair amount of damage before he fell. Xzar was next, as a single MM wiped out his meager 4 HP. Fortunately, the guards were all over the creep, and took out the assassin before he could finish Imoen or Maeri.
And then the two survivors just laid there for another round. The guards all went back to their posts, while Maeri and Imoen got some sun. Rather than reload, I let it ride. The party had come across a diamond, and Maeri had found a bit of gold herself before the trip, but not enough to raise the two dead party members.
So, they went ahead and climbed up to the inn to find their contacts. With Jaheira and Khalid in the party, Maeri, herself a thief, took Imoen to attempt a raid on the inn. Unfortunately, NEITHER of them had enough skill in lockpick, but they did find enough stuff laying around to afford the services of the local cleric. After hocking everything they didn't need, they ran next door to raise Xzar and Monty - though not with full health.
After a night's rest, they started the trek south to Nashkel, where they almost got done in again by hobgoblins. Finally, after a skirting along the edge of the forest, and well away from the road itself, they reached Nashkel. Once more, they hocked everything they had found and bought some new armor. Which made the third ambush go a bit better. That time, no one in the party died. However, having fulfilled their obligation, the party let Xzar and Montaron go at the inn.
I sometimes forget how exciting starting new characters from scratch can be, but this was a fun romp in BG.
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It's the sense of visceral improvement and increasing prowess and strength that is fun, not continually getting your party's butts handed to them.
At any rate, today's misadventure involved Imoem getting killed by Xvarts. The battle went well initially, with Aura putting everyone to sleep. Unfortunately their flipping bear, Ursa, didn't - so they had to focus on taking her out. In the meantime, the Xvarts woke back up and rushed Imoen.
Fortunately, at her level, it's fairly cheap to raise her. Unfortunately, it meant that, other than XP, the whole trip was a wash at best. Still, got to love those outdoor areas, especially the ambient sounds. If I had a real mod request for BG2, it would be to bring back the Cloudpeak mountains, even if just a few areas. I could live without Nashkel, but to roam the forest with a party is divine.
Except now, the party didn't have enough gold to raise everyone. Even opting for the lesser restore dead spell, they had only enough gold to raise Isra and Jaheira. I was concerned about their stuff, so I had the party sleep long enough to heal everyone, then went back to Larswood to retrieve the gear. Aura had now been dead for a couple of days, so they knew that they needed to get a move on.
With that in mind, they sold as much "spare" gear as they could, as well as a few potions, to get the 400 gold needed to raise Aura. As soon as they hit 417 gold, they ran back to the temple, and soon the party was back in the saddle - at the relatively high cost of 1200 gold total. The saving grace is that the fight yielded some nice loot, including a cursed spear that fetched 1000 gold as well as some gems (okay, jasper...) and a bit of loose gold.
I'm trying for a minimal reload game (reloading only when required due to PC death), so this setback hurt. The party had been saving up for better armor and enchanted arrows, so this was a tough lesson. From a gold standpoint, the party *lost* 180 gold, though they did pick up a nice club for Jaheira. Looking back, a strategic retreat might have been the better option, though the surviving party members did all level up.
The SECOND trip back to that part of the forest, they went across the top of the map to a similar choke point and waited for the mad one to show up. As if on queue, they did, so another entanglement spell from Jaheira, and four of the party starting pelting them with arrows. Once again, once Bassilus started dropping spells, the party scooted once again.
The last trip did the trick. Most of his skeletons and zombies had been perforated by now, so, once more, entanglement followed by a fusilade of arrows. This got the field down to just Bassilus and a single skeleton. Isra and Jaheira took on the skeleton while, luckily, Bassilus was stuck fast in the entanglement. The archers pelted him while Aura used a few charges of her wand of frost to take the edge off the cleric. Isra, having dealt with the last skeleton, started going kinetic on his backside.
Which ended the encounter with relatively few major injuries and zero deaths. A true win in my book - even if the party had to do a lot of walking to win it.
Don't threaten me with a good time! Just kidding. That sounds horrible
Dex as low as 15 is easily doable and not much of a handicap. Re-rolling has so many players cpmplacent that anything below 17 or 18 is now "underpowered".
My fighter stats were:
15-15-9-12-15-12
It was absolut doable after level 5-6, only the early game was much harder.