Kill it With Fire! [BG1 + BG2 playthrough, complete]

jmerry

Kill it with Fire!
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fireball

In honor of the new year, some fireworks. And in light of the traditional New Year's Eve concerts from the Vienna Philharmonic - some inappropriate music for the occasion.
Music
This explosive playthrough has a simple theme. We will try to kill as many enemies with fire as possible. We will use all those wonderful spells like Fireball and Fire Storm to devastate our foes, while making our own party immune so we don't have to worry too much about placement.

Also, I must acknowledge a major source of inspiration: the Children of Fire playthrough of BG2 on this forum. I've looked into making my version of that concept for quite a while, and this is the culmination of that. With plenty of difference, of course. That run used a variety of methods to achieve immunity - fire resistance, magic resistance, the Cloak of Mirroring. For what I plan, only 100% fire resistance is good enough. Fire Storm ignores magic resistance, and I'll be using that. Enemy mages can cast Dragon Breath and Comet - those ignore both magic resistance and the Cloak of Mirroring. And everybody can potentially use some kind of party-unfriendly fire spell; the Cloak of Mirroring doesn't protect against spells you cast yourself. With all of that, this run's party will only overlap with that one's in the protagonist and one companion - and I'll be doing something different to protect that companion.
Fortunately, the Dragon Disciple isn't the only class that gets fire resistance as a class feature. Half of our party's resistance in the endgame will come from class abilities, and some of the rest will come from personal equipment.
For BG1, we'll settle for less; just a fire-immune front line so we can use fireballs freely on melee foes.

Difficulty: Insane, no increased damage. No maximized HP rolls.

Mods in use (BGEE):

BG1 NPC project 24.9
BG1 Unfinished Business 16.0
Isra 3.4
Sword Coast Stratagems 33.7 - all tactical and AI components, only a few rule changes
Tweaks Anthology 9 - only the NPC moves and sending NPCs to inns.
Portraits Portraits Everywhere 1.01
Bigger Bard Song
Informal tweaks (my own work): Imoen has "base class" kit. Innate sequencer and contingency abilities don't pile up and give you multiple instances. Detect Illusion has range. Playable character scripts changed; Shar-Teel knows how to use thieving, Dynaheir/Xzar/Ajantis know how to use Turn Undead, automatic bard song activates even out of combat unless the bard is invisible, automatic Turn Undead actually happens when undead are nearby and takes priority over auto-attacking.

I choose to go with two PCs for BGEE. First, the protagonist.

Aerys is a chaotic neutral elven Dragon Disciple. I rolled a 97 for him, so he starts with fantastic stats: 18 Str, 19 Dex, 15 Con, 9 Int, 18 Wis, 18 Cha. Why a Dragon Disciple? Because arcane spellcasting is the best way to deliver massive fire damage, and the class gets innate fire resistance eventually increasing to 100%.
He starts with Sleep and Burning Hands as his two known spells.

Second, his companion for the BGEE portion of the run is a half-elf avenger Daine. She gets a much more mundane roll of 84: 8 Str, 18 Dex, 16 Con, 9 Int, 18 Wis, 15 Cha. Plenty there for all of the important stats, and no combat penalties for her low strength. Early on, she'll stay back casting spells and using slings. Later on, she'll fight shapeshifted, as one of the party's tanks.
She starts with three instances of Cure Light Wounds memorized; I would take some Chromatic Orbs instead, but the Avenger bonus spells can't be memorized during character creation. They're also un-memorized if the character ever leaves the party and returns.

It is important to note that SCS (the "improved shapeshifting" component, one of the few rule changes I use) significantly changes the Avenger shapeshift forms. In addition to replacing the 1/day transformations with the ability to make tokens that transform the user when equipped, they have significantly different stats than the forms in the unmodded game. Details below:

Fire salamander: Unmodded, it's 18/75 Str, 19 Dex, base AC 2, 50% fire resistance, +60% movement speed, 1 APR, and three instances of "Breathe Fireball". The weapon is two-handed and hits for 1d8+3 piercing damage with a +1 attack bonus, enchanted at +3. The fireballs deal 2d6 fire damage (no save), ignoring magic resistance and spell defenses.
Modded: 18/76 Str, 19 Dex, base AC 2, 100% fire resistance, fire shield, 1 APR + haste. The weapon is two-handed and hits for 1d8 piercing damage, enchanted at +2.
So, compared to the original, we lose one point of attack and two points of damage, but attack twice as often due to the free haste. We lose the fire breath, but get immunity to fire rather than a mere partial resistance. And that immunity is very important for our strategies. This form is Daine's staple.

Spider: Unmodded, it's 16 Str, 16 Dex, base AC 0, immunity to web, and 4 APR + haste. The weapon is one-handed and deals 2d6 piercing damage, enchanted at +1.
Modded: 16 Str, 16 Dex, base AC 0, immunity to web, and 3 APR + haste. The weapon is two-handed, enchanted at +2, and deals 1d4 damage plus 1 poison damage per 3 seconds for 36 seconds on a failed save versus poison.
Definitely a nerf for the modded form, as the poison damage can be saved against and takes time to act. The vanilla sword spider tears up helpless (webbed) enemies much faster than the modded spider. I use this form on occasion, almost always in concert with webs.

Baby wyvern: Unmodded, it's 16 Str, 17 Dex, base AC 3, immunity to entangle/grease/hold/web/level drain, and 2 APR. The weapon is one-handed, enchanted at +1, and deals 1d6+2 piercing damage plus 5 poison damage per second for 20 seconds on a failed save versus poison at -4.
Modded: 18/76 Str, 17 Str, base AC 3, 2 APR. The weapon is two-handed, enchanted at +2, and deals 2d4 piercing damage plus a 25% chance of 1 poison damage per 3 seconds for 6 seconds on a failed save versus poison.
I don't use this form at all in this run; it's massively nerfed from the unmodded version, to the point of being basically useless. No immunities, weak poison, and all you get in return is a slightly stronger physical attack. It just doesn't have a significant role. About all that can be said for it is that it's still better than the vanilla druid's wolf and bear forms.

All of the modded forms allow for at-will transformations and block effects that modify strength and dexterity. SCS v32 allowed you to play tricks like equipping the gauntlet of ogre strength for 18/00 strength in spider form, but that doesn't work in v33. Spells or potions used in normal form will take priority over the equipped values, so there are still a few ways to increase strength, but they're of very limited use. On the flip side, the enemy can't enfeeble you if you're transformed.

There are a few issues here; the spider form's AC doesn't match the token's description, the spider and wyvern forms don't have immunity effects so their poison can interrupt even creatures with poison immunity, and all druid shapeshift tokens grant a proficiency point in daggers that only serves to enable an exploit for fighter/druids. Nothing critical.

TL/DR: Daine will fight mainly in fire salamander form, which is immune to fire and has a permanent fire shield. Spider form is useful on occasion, to web enemies and then tear them up with rapid attacks. Wyvern form is terrible, and I don't use it at all.

Color-wise, it takes me a few tries to settle on the right colors. Aerys has red clothes with gold trim, while Daine leans more toward magenta with red trim. Also, Daine has an unusual skin color; her experiments into fire elemental transformation are already influencing her.

On the way through Candlekeep, Aerys starts using fire right away:

Sadly, neither Burning Hands spell is lethal. It just doesn't do much damage at character level 1. Both Shank and Carbos are killed with weapon attacks, and we'll hold off on any more fire for a while.

I rest at the inn before leaving Candlekeep, refreshing Aerys' daily spells and having Daine memorize a Chromatic Orb. Here are some snapshots of the two as they prepare to leave the fortress for the wider world:

Aerys:

Daine:

(I hit post at 12:00. I couldn't even load the error message when it failed. So, ten minutes later, I'm outside for this.)
Regular posts will begin next week.

jmerry

Part 1: Two Against the World

The first order of business after leaving Candlekeep is to dodge Imoen. I'd like to recruit her later, after Aerys and Daine have the chance to level up some. It's not easy to get away, but we eventually reach a map edge and escape. We travel west to Candlekeep, and arrange Gorion's burial.

Back on that map, we pick up some things from the battle site and a diamond hidden in a tree. There's one hostile encounter along the way - a wolf. We give it the runaround and attack from range, but Daine missteps:

Ouch. That same hit on Aerys would have killed him outright. One cure spell spent ... fully healed.

Over to the east, we pick up a ring of protection and continue north. A gibberling falls to our ranged attacks along the way.
Aerys adds another ring at the Friendly Arm; doubled level 1 spells are very useful at this early stage. And still, we continue north.

At the farm, we talk to some evil fishermen, then murder them for a bowl. The alternative is a fight with Tenya, and she's a cleric that can cast Command. Bad idea at level 1. Handing that bowl to her, on the other hand, is worth 2500 XP. We're getting pretty close to level 2 now.

There's still one place farther north to go - the zombie farm. We slip by an ankheg before it can attack, and start shooting down zombies from long range. One at a time, they're pretty easy to handle. Even Aerys' slight fatigue isn't a serious problem.
Now, multiple zombies at once? That can get hairy.

One of them manages to get close enough to make an attack roll. It rolls a 3 and misses.

There are no further close calls on the rest of the map. Daine gains a level just as she starts to feel exhaustion, gaining 7 HP (roll 5/8). Reporting to Wenric earns another 800 XP, bringing level 2 for Aerys and 7 HP (roll 6/6). We rest right there on the farm, memorizing a second Chromatic Orb and bringing Aerys up to 6 level 1 spell slots available.

Beregost comes next; we buy a +1 sling, a stack of +1 bullets, and a bunch of throwing daggers. We have to sell the diamond to pay for it, but that's what gems are for.

After a couple noncombat quests (calming down Marl, buying a book for Firebead), we head west to High Hedge.
A group of gnolls cause trouble right off the bat:

The first Sleep got a Slasher. The second Sleep got the regular gnoll. The Veteran saved both times, with modified saves of 17 and 17 - two natural 20s in a row.
Still, one melee attacker is in a bad position against two ranged attackers determined to avoid contact. We eventually take down that veteran, and mop up the other two as well. Perdue's sword is ours.

Next, we hunt golems. That's what the +1 bullets are for. Draw one out, get distracted by a skeleton:

Aerys immediately follows that spell with a dagger hit, taking the skeleton down. No more distraction.
Before I finish the chase, a flind joins in. I hit it with a Sleep, continue killing the golem, and take down the flind with normal ammo.
That flesh golem brings level 3 for Daine, and another 7 HP (roll 5/8). Level 2 spells like Web and Slow Poison are now available to her.

The second golem doesn't draw any monster attention, but we do get a good shot of Permidion Stark running away from it:

With that kill, Aerys reaches level 3. He gains another 7 HP (roll 6/6) and takes Blindness as his new spell. 18 enchanted bullets went into the golem-killing.

With the guardians disposed of, we enter the building and talk to Thalantyr. He sells us two scrolls of Protection from Petrification and a potion case. More will come later, of course.

For our next move, we head south through the first road map, avoiding all conflict. Then west to the map's border - this path has some hobgoblins along the way.

And we have Sleep.
A second pair comes soon after, and this time only one sleeps. The other gets a Chromatic Orb instead.

And that's the first enemy killed with fire. The failed save effect on a caster level 3 Chromatic Orb is fire damage, and that did just enough for the kill.

The next map has a Chill hobgoblin which I hit with another Chromatic Orb. He takes 1 damage from it. Well, that was a dud.

We inch closer along a forest, activating a single gnoll ...

Wait, wait. Let's back up a bit here. I want that kill myself. I reload a save, and this time track the damage dealt.
92 ... 86 ... 79 ... 77 ... 72 ... 67 ... 66 ... 59 ... 54 ... 51 ... 47 ... 45 ... 38 ... 31 ... 29 ... 24 ... 17 ... 14 ... 7
With Drizzt in range of a single hit, Aerys unleashes his fire breath.

One. Point. Short. I suppose we'll have to finish this the hard way. Well, at least we killed five gnolls too.
Drizzt mops up the surviving gnolls, then starts chasing Aerys, who leads him in circles around Daine. Daine uses her sling ...

It took many rounds to get that crit, but Drizzt never got close enough to attack. After an Entangle early on failed to ensnare him, Aerys stayed far enough ahead to survive.
That's level 4 for each of them. 6 more HP for Aerys (roll 5/6) and 4 more HP for Daine (roll 2/8). Daine also takes two-handed style; she'll use the scimitar Icingdeath for now, but in the long run she'll go with two-handed weapons.

At this point, our inventories are full (mostly of gnoll junk), our spellbooks are empty, and Aerys is feeling exhaustion. We head back to Beregost to rest. There's a ghoul ambush along the way, but nothing too serious.

After all, ghouls are slow.

After that rest, it's Karlat's turn. He gets a hit in on Aerys, but gets blinded in return.

Karlat then charges randomly across the room as we dodge out of the way and pelt him with ranged attacks. He has shield style, so it takes a lot of them, but the result is inevitable.

That allows us to give Perdue his sword back, for another 50 gold and 500 XP.

After a healing spell, the spiders come next. Disturb them, then cast Sleep...

The two in front fail their save, trapping the third behind them. Easy pickings for our ranged attacks.
The fourth spider inside gets our usual tactics; one character runs while the other attacks. With that last spider, Daine reaches level 5. She gains 5 HP (roll 3/8) and can now cast 3rd level spells.

Aerys and Daine return to the road next, taking on the quest targets. First, a pair of ogrillons:

Letter retrieved.
Off the road, our attack on a random ghoul is interrupted by a hobgoblin:

The arrow hits for 5 damage. The hobgoblin sleeps. And once he's asleep, he's dead.
More hobgoblins follow, eventually including one of a different color.

Zhurlong's boots are ours. Our kills on the sleeping hobgoblins are interrupted by another ghoul and a hobgoblin archer; that calls for another Sleep spell. With that help, the enemies go down without managing any attacks on us.

Back in Beregost, we visit Mirianne, Colquetle, and Zhurlong. Then we kill Zhurlong to get the boots back. Reputation 8, and we're less than 5000 party XP from Aerys reaching 16K. For this step, I try something riskier. Ankhegs await us.

And, of course, Sleep is the key to fighting them. It casts faster than they can attack. After that one ankheg outside, three await us inside on the way to the trove. Luck is with us, and none of them make their saves (60% chance of an ankheg failing against Sleep, so that's about 13% for all four). They go down without inflicting a single hit on us, and the treasure is ours.

In addition to the quest objective, that's a wand of fire. We can get serious about killing things with fire now.

Handing over the body is good for 500 XP. Another 100 gold adds 1000 XP and a point of reputation. Aerys has over 16K experience, and we're ready to start building a party.

Total fire kills so far: 6.

"If you light a fire for a man, he'll be warm for the rest of the night.
If you light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
- A modification of a well-known saying. The wording here is my own, but I'm sure I heard it somewhere. And I'm also sure that it has multiple origins.

jmerry

Part 2: The First Companion

Our path south is interrupted by a trio of bandits:

Sleep takes two down. Daine adds a Chromatic Orb, and we finish the job with weapons.

Back near Candlekeep, we finally let Imoen meet us. She gets 16K experience, and immediately levels up from 2 to 5. That gets her 16 more HP (rolls 10/18) and scimitar proficiency. Twinkle will be her melee weapon of choice. For skills, Imoen puts 25 points into Pick Pockets (a score of 50) and 50 into Find Traps (a score of 98).

We also take this opportunity to clear the rest of the map. A few diseased gibberlings have to be put down, and Montaron and Xzar join long enough to hand over their potions and scrolls. Xzar also identifies a few things before he goes.

Over at the Friendly Arm, Tarnesh awaits.

With a party of three and some levels, we're ready to take him on. That initial exchange of spells has Imoen panic, while the other three save. A second round of spells ...

Tarnesh fails a save. Aerys and Daine make theirs again. It's not a long-lasting stun, but it doesn't need to be.
Also, in retrospect, I probably should have used Sleep. While Tarnesh in the vanilla game is level 5 (with no 3rd level spells memorized), SCS reduces him to level 4.

With that, Imoen starts working on the spellbook. I also have Gellana identify the wand we picked up - we have some real firepower now.

After a rest, it's time to clear out the area, and try out the wand while we're at it. A scorcher:

Oh, yes. Now a fireball:

Overkill? Certainly. And that's never going to stop this party. Only charges will limit us, and that won't be a limit forever.

Joia brings our reputation up to 10, Landrin hands over some antidotes and gold, and we move on. After a stop in Beregost to sell ankheg shells and restock on throwing daggers, we head east.
Some hobgoblin archers interrupt us as we make our way across the north side of the temple map:

Fire isn't the only element we'll wield for destruction, just the most common by far. Daine can cast Lightning Bolt too. It's much faster to cast than Call Lightning at the same level, and faster to hit multiple enemies. In this case, we dispose of three out of four hobgoblins, and only take one arrow for our troubles.

Xvarts waylay us on the way east - a Sleep handles that. Then the basilisk map ... straight south to the edge. We're not fighting anything on this map today.
At that edge, travel to Durlag's tower is available - that's our real target.

The first challenge we face is a pair of battle horrors. I'd rather not fight them right now, so I blind them:

After three spells, both of them are blind, and the trio can sneak past without a fight.

We rest on the ground floor of the tower, then start heading up to hunt ghasts. In these tight quarters, fancy footwork is key; any party member that enters melee with ghasts is likely to be paralyzed and killed.

Of course, the wand of fire helps too. Two scorcher charges take down three ghasts in this floor's battle.
Imoen disarms the traps on this level, but the locked chests are beyond her. We'll have to come back later for them.

The third floor has more traps to disarm, and Aerys claims the wisdom tome. The charm trap gets by his elven resistance, but he still saves with an 18. The ghost's wing ... leave that alone.

The cellar comes next. We lure three ghasts up to the ground floor, and scorch them:

Burning corpses are nice to see. That's all three down in one shot, although it did take both hits.
Two more ghasts emerge from the side corridor, and fall to our normal ranged attacks. Imoen disarms the traps, and we head up to the top floor.

On the top floor, we avoid Kirinhale, but still disarm the chest trap and draw out the ghasts. Retreating to lower floors to split them up and make room to move, we again defeat the five ghasts here without letting them hit us. And that brings everyone up to 20K experience for their next levels.
Aerys reaches level 5, gaining 6 HP (roll 5/6) and then another 5 from the Con increase at that level. His new spells are Magic Missile and Mirror Image. Daine reaches level 6 and gains 6 HP (roll 4/8). Imoen reaches thief level 6, gaining 6 HP (roll 4/6) and putting another 25 points into Pick Pockets (total 75). And then, she immediately dual-classes to mage. Her starting spells are Identify and Protection from Petrification, staples she will plan on always having available. She takes dagger proficiency, for both melee and ranged options.

Of course, there are still targets we can hunt here. With the traps disarmed, the way to the roof is clear. Two scrolls of PfP allow both Aerys and Daine to go out and hunt basilisks.

A simple plan - blind them, then attack.

There are some gnolls on the landing - Sleep. The greater basilisks get blinded too:

No melee, though. If they switch to their melee attacks, and they would, they would easily defeat our party that way. Instead, we just continue pelting them with ranged attacks. Imoen even joins in once all three are blind, with some of her own throwing daggers.

Incidentally, some AI quirks I observed here:
- A vanilla basilisk will never use its gaze attack while blinded. It will either attack in melee or retreat if it sees an opponent nearby. A basilisk with SCS (or, at least, the relevant component for their AI) will sometimes use the gaze on enemies in melee range, even while blinded.
- Unlike other enemies, blinded basilisks that are under ranged attack won't go wandering in hopes they run into something they can attack. Instead, they'll just stay there and take it, even with SCS. You need some gaze protection to deliver the initial spells, but Blindness and ranged attacks are a very good way to deal with them.

It does take a while to kill the basilisks this way; our PfP spells expire just after we finish. With the two-hour duration of Blindness, that was still plenty of time to spare.

The party is still about 4K experience each away from the final NPC joining threshold of 32K, so I decide to make that up with Battle Horrors.
A doppelganger has spawned in, so we kill that on the way north. Daine aims her lightning bolt at the two horrors ...

A flat out miss. That can be a very frustrating spell, especially against moving targets.
More spells follow. A 2-damage Chromatic Orb. A Web that holds one back, but the other gets a melee hit in. A 1-damage Orb. Then, Aerys gets off a scorcher.

One down.
The second Battle Horror gets more webbing and another scorcher:

It saves, so the two hits don't finish the job. I then pass Imoen's wand of magic missiles around for the last few points ...

Done. And with that kill, Imoen is already up to mage level 4.

There's one more battle horror to face. This one comes with a bunch of skeletons, so we need another tactic. Daine casts Barkskin and Resist Fire and Cold on him, and he heads up the stairs ...

A fireball at his feet. That takes out a bunch of skeletons and hurts the Battle Horror, at the cost of only 6 damage to Aerys because of his 75% resistance.
Aerys follows up a round later with a scorcher.

That takes care of the Battle Horror and the remaining two skeletons. Through all this, the Barkskin did its job and Aerys didn't take any hits aside from the self-inflicted fire.

With that, Aerys has reached 32K experience. We're ready to recruit the rest of our party.

Total fire kills: 25.

"There is no 'overkill'. There is only 'open fire' and 'reload'."
-Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries, Schlock Mercenary.
An in-universe collection of sayings, frequently (mis)quoted by characters in the strip.

jmerry

Part 3: Beach Party

Erdane sells a wand of fire (20 fireball charges, one scorcher charge). We could buy it now, especially if we sold the Laeral's Tear necklaces the basilisks dropped, but I choose not to at this time. I'll buy the necklace of missiles in Nashkel first, and come back here later when I have more of a discount buying items.

There's a waylay by three gnolls on the way back to Beregost, but the trip to the Friendly Arm is otherwise uneventful. Khalid and Jaheira join, immediately leveling up. Khalid goes from level 1 to level 6, gaining 52 HP (rolls 37/50) and taking longbow mastery. Jaheira goes from level 1/1 to level 5/5, gaining 26 HP (rolls 14/36) and taking scimitar proficiency. I suppose terrible HP rolls for her are just something I'll have to endure, whether in this game or the next.
Khalid equips a longbow as his primary weapon, while Jaheira takes Icingdeath. She'll take some occasional shots with slings, but otherwise the scimitar will be her primary weapon for the rest of the game. 50% fire resistance is crucial, and we're willing to live with having only one attack per round for a while.

High Hedge comes next, to pick up Kivan. He goes up to level 5, gaining 24 HP (rolls 24/30) and taking two-handed style. He'll primarily use a longbow as well.
We visit Thalantyr for Kivan's spear - his new melee option - and also buy a few level 2 and level 3 scrolls so Imoen will have something to memorize in those slots. With my tweaks, Imoen no longer takes a penalty to spell learning, and a 76% chance of success is worth the gamble.

Clearing the area comes next. A pack of gnolls goes down easily to a Sleep, but skeletons cause some pain. Daine tries a lightning bolt, but they're immune. Aerys uses his fire breath on a second skeleton pack, but trees get in the way; only one of the skeletons dies to that.
The most dangerous encounter is a quartet of Huge Spiders - but they all sleep.

And then, before the spiders can all be killed, a squad of ghouls joins in.

They're immune to Sleep, and they manage a hit on Jaheira. Fortunately, she makes her save.

There's a second group of ghouls further south on the map, and Jaheira isn't so lucky this time.

We break out the attack spells to help her, but she still falls to 10/38 HP before the ghouls go down. Heal up to 33 ... then Imoen gets struck by lightning. We're out of healing for the day after helping Jaheira, so we head back to town and rest.

I also update Jaheira's stats at this point; I intend to pick her up in BG2 exactly where she left up, and that means she gets to have 17 Dex.

While we're in town, it's time for a bit more questing. Silke comes first:

That's her first spell interrupted. She doesn't put any defenses up, so the follow-up Magic Missile and Chromatic Orb get her.

Silke had a Shield and a Mirror Image memorized, but I'll take the easy kill any time.
Talking to the "thugs" simultaneously gets us two potions of defense. Then Garrick joins temporarily; he goes up to level 6, where the only stat we really care about is the 60 lore. Many items are identified, and then he's out again.

After that, it's Neera's turn.

With multiple ranged attackers, one mage with no defenses up just doesn't stand a chance.

Neera joins after that, going up to level 5 and gaining 10 HP (rolls 10/16). She then hands over her gem bag and heads back to the Friendly Arm. We'll take on her quest later, but we don't want her in the permanent party.

Imoen finishes up her little project, and now has an artifact that adds dexterity for 8 hours ... most of the time. We end up never using it. Kivan buys a composite longbow to take advantage of his strength, and we leave town to the west.

At the shore, a pack of wolves are quickly followed by the sirine Shoal.

The party continues to attack her - not enough to take her down before Droth arrives.

Aerys wakes and hits Droth with a Blindness ...

Success. That 1 HP is a lot less perilous now.
Droth follows up by casting Sleep twice. Apparently, the presence of level 4 mage Imoen (who has 5 HD) makes him think there's a vulnerable target. His third spell is a Charm Person targeting Kivan; elf resistance blocks that.

And then he goes down to our melee attacks. Kivan gets the final blow in.
The helm is a key item for this party. Jaheira takes it, the second of three pieces she'll need for fire immunity.

Continuing west, we run into ogre berserkers for the first time.

These guys ... I don't want to fight them in melee. Ever. Thankfully, we have lots of ranged attacks. Jaheira plays bait, while the rest of the party attacks.
We kill two of them, and then the rage timer runs out on the third:

Well, that's an easy kill. Khalid's arrow is the first to arrive, and the battle is over.

We talk to Mad Arcand next, and head to the ship. Two carrion crawlers later, Daine levels up. Druid level 7 reached, her most important power boost of the game. She gains 9 HP (roll 7/8, a good number for once), has access to level 4 spells (Call Woodland Beings), and can shapeshift.

Salamander form is the obvious choice. Fire immunity is far more important than any other concern. How else are we going to get away with casting fireballs into melee?
Daine has been wearing leather armor; she now takes that off, as it only serves to make her AC worse when transformed. If she ever needs AC untransformed, that's what Barkskin is for.

The next challenge on this map is a large group of ogre-kin. Daine plays bait here, with her fast movement.
We encounter five ogrillons and an ogre first - easy enough to handle even without any fancy tricks. The second half of the pack has an ogre berserker:

OK, that's more serious. In fact, this bunch deserves a fireball.

Ranged attacks finish the job, with no further hits taken.

Down in the southwest, a trio of sirines await us. Only one is visible in this shot, but they always come in threes.

As for that spell Imoen is casting - it does its job well. Two out of three sirines panic. The third goes invisible, then breaks stealth so we can focus it down.

One of the panicked ones did fire off an arrow there, and hit Daine. The sirine took more damage than she did.
That was the only arrow the three loosed, and they didn't get any charm spells off. The wolves going hostile mid-battle was only a minor distraction.

With this battle, we pick up another level - Kivan reaches level 6.

One new hit point. A 1% chance. Ouch. His proficiency goes to two-handed specialization, as can also be seen in that shot.

Kivan also has a quest on this map ... check the script ... ah, we have to wait for night. The party rests, then stands around a bit more waiting for the quest-giver to show up. We talk to her, and are brought to the shore for more of this drama of elves and sharks.

The sahuagin go hostile, of course. I hit them with a fireball. There is ... some collateral damage.

We kill two of the sahuagin, but also injure both Khalid and one of the friendly NPCs. This has the unfortunate side effect of turning the elf hostile, though he leaves on his own rather than forcing us to kill him. In retrospect, I should have used a Horror instead.

The prize for this is a Boomerang Dagger +2, an incredibly powerful weapon for BG1. That will be Aerys' primary weapon going forward, both melee and ranged. The Surgeon patches us up, and we leave the map for good.

Now, it's time to progress the plot. The party heads for Nashkel, hugging the easter edge of the southern road map to avoid conflict. We arrive fatigued, so we head for the inn right away.

And we're not so tired that we can't handle a lone priest. She doesn't come close to getting any spells off. The helmet is even more useless to us than usual; all of our helm-wearers already have infravision. So then, we just sell it.

We pick up a set of ankheg armor for Jaheira, force a door with salamander strength to talk to Joseph's wife, endure Noober, and visit the carnival. At our current discount, the ten-charge necklace of missiles costs 2540 gold. Worth it.
Vitiare goes to pickpocket us ...

He doesn't get away. Our gold is recovered, along with several potions.

Zordral comes next. He gets in the first word.

We get in the last.

Our party has 12 total APR. A lone level 6 mage can't stand up to that.

There's more to do here at the carnival, but that can wait. Next time, we head for the mines.

Total fire kills: 29. Not much fire this time.

"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow."
- Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5

jmerry

Part 4: Great Balls of Fire

The first encounter, of course, is Dorn's ambush.

We stick to normal attacks here. There's no need for a spell, and a fireball would certainly be counterproductive.

Dorn is sent on his way; we'll face his quest later.

On the mine surface map, we find and immediately identify a wand of frost - but we're not going to use it much. It's just not our element. We face assorted minor threats - war dogs, ghouls, wolves. Then the winter wolves show up:

I'm not sure if it was one of the wolves landing a hit or just attrition, but I'm sure I healed Daine after that.

Before long, the area is clear, and we meet Prism. With a new addition to the encounter:

Her addition makes Greywolf hostile immediately, so Aerys has to scramble back.

An oil of speed, attacks on Daine ...
I try some spells. Blindness fails. Magic Missile doesn't.

And it's over, with an arrow from Khalid as the final blow.
Isra offers to join us ...

... but we turn her down. She leaves. Maybe another game.
We claim the emeralds, and head down into the mines.

The first level is uneventful; just a few kobolds, easily handled. The second starts getting a bit more action. Kivan's presence allows Beldin to jump to safety:

And we are rewarded with a point of reputation. Along with the point from refusing Oublek's reward, we're up to 13 now.

The larger groups here prompt us to use a few spells:

Sleep. Always good for those crowds.

The third level brings even larger floors, and the fireballs come out.

Thirteen kills with one fireball. An excellent first shot with the necklace.
The east side offers another fireball opportunity.

So much for the north side.

The bridge is a little troublesome; with our lack of a thief, we can't do anything about the traps. Aerys triggers the two arrow traps on the bridge, taking the damage.
The kobolds around here - that's another story. We have some nice tactics available, like stealthy arrows.

Ranged attacks from stealth don't get any bonuses, but they do work well at reducing counterattacks.

Some kobolds still get attacks in - like this one.

That fire shield will provide a steady trickle of kills, and I'm definitely including them in the tally.

As we approach the boss encounter for the level, we trigger a fight with spiders on one side and kobolds on the other. Aerys pulls out the wand for this one.

No more kobolds.

And then, the bosses. We open by shooting down one guard and having Imoen cast Horror.

With all but the shaman panicked, we can focus the whole party's attention there. The shaman doesn't get any offensive spells off, and it's an easy win.

There are more unavoidable traps at the exit, so we spread the damage around. Then, summon a nymph for the mass healing. With the whole party in the green, we descend to the bottom level of the mine.
More kobolds await at the bridge, and that means another fireball.

A ghoul and some gray oozes are also nearby; we take them out, then enter the dome.

We bluff Mulahey and set up behind him, then open the chest to start the fight. Minions? Fireball.

Mulahey tries to surrender as his Hold Person spell is in the air - no.

There are a few more kobolds to mop up, but that's it for the serious fighting.

I invite Xan in briefly so he can pick up his moonblade. He's tempting with his free fire resistance from the blade, but the inability to cast fireballs is a deal-breaker. That, and Imoen's thief skills will be worth a lot.

We take the lower exit, then immediately head west to leave the map for gibberling country. After picking up a free protection spell and meeting a Flaming Fist member, we run into some dread wolves.

Hey, there's another fire shield kill.
And then, the big prize.

A ring of fire resistance. Jaheira goes up to 110% with it, and our front line is set. She can't hit very hard yet, with only one attack per round, but she's better at tanking than Daine.

The gibberling horde is next, and they get a wave of fiery death:

It's not as impressive as it could be, really. The ones in back don't get hit, and one in front somehow survives.

We clean out the remainder, then pick up Samuel and head back to civilization. There's a waylay on the way to Nashkel:

Despite surrounding us, the hobgoblins are mostly ineffective. They hit Imoen with a single arrow, and that's all before we finish them off.

Back in Nashkel, we close out a couple quests. Speaking to the mayor brings another point of reputation ... and more importantly, a new level for Aerys.

He gets another 8 HP with a perfect roll and takes staff proficiency. For his first level 3 spell ... there's only one choice. Fireball. Sure, there are other spells we want. But we want more fireballs than anything else. Fireball comes first, and the vast majority of his level 3 spells cast in BG1 will be fireballs.

But before we can cast any fireballs, we need to rest. And on the way to the inn, there's Nimbul.

Well, we're not getting any spells through that. It's a painful fight, and Aerys falls to dangerously low HP levels, but we pull through.

In retrospect, I should have called up a nymph before engaging. The nymph has higher-level spells that can go over the minor globe. I do that after the battle for the healing.
Nimbul is also an excellent target for a preemptive backstab, but this party didn't have anyone backstab-capable at the time.

That rest brings our first Bhaalspawn ability, since it's the first time we've rested since chapter 1 ended, and chapter 2 is over as well. Aerys can heal now.

We're off to Beregost next, to confront Tranzig. We open with a Magic Missile ...

Nope. Minor Spell Deflection eats it. But he isn't protected against our physical attacks. He only gets one spell off (an acid arrow) and fails a morale check when he tries to surrender. That's the end for him.

Garrick identifies our stuff, and stays on for one more thing:

Garrick used the master thievery potion from Vitiare there, going up to 105 PP so that only a critical failure would have stopped him. With the cloak, Aerys now has 20 charisma for better discounts.

We continue north, to the road area we still haven't fully cleared. Doing that now brings a crowd when we face some bandits guarding a caravan:

That's two encounters piling up on each other, actually. The caravan bandit leader is the first to see us and talk, while the other group is exclusive to chapter 3. Naturally, we give this group a fireball - the first from Aerys' spell slots.

I should have centered it farther east, but I wasn't thinking of those other bandits as enemies yet..
More bandits die - to weapon attacks - and Deke surrenders.

Bandit camp located. Those xvarts get a Sleep.

The belt ogre comes next; Daine handles it nearly on her own.

It didn't even get the chance to attack once.

A random group of bandits shows up in the western part of the map - a full ten of them.

They hit Aerys with an arrow. He hits them with a Sleep.

With that, the map is done. We head to the Friendly Arm and drop off Samuel; this brings Jaheira to druid level 6. She gains 3 HP from her new level, a minimum roll of 1/4.
We sell off the junk we've accumulated and rest. Next time, we enter the woods to hunt bandits.

Total fire kills: 75. With kobold mobs to push up the numbers, and the ability to properly cast fireballs, we're really cooking now.
No end quote this time, as the title for this part has the quote instead; a famous song title/lyric by Jerry Lee Lewis.

jmerry

Part 5: Bandit Hunting

On the way to Larswood, we are waylaid. And it's a serious threat this time - Molkar's crew.

We open with several spells - Blindness on Drakar, Chromatic Orb on Molkar, Horror on whoever we can catch, and an Armor of Faith for Jaheira. Morvin panics, while the others save.

Still, one foe less is always good. But Drakar gets off his Hold Person spell before we can pump him full of arrows, and Kivan is paralyzed.
Halacan wastes a round with a Sleep targeted at Imoen; she casts a Horror back. The latter is considerably more effective.

With Halacan panicked, we're down to two enemy threats ... except that Drakar had a Remove Fear in reserve. He didn't use it on Morvin, but he does for the mage Halacan when he wanders close enough. Still, we're attacking Halacan, and that brings an end.

That fireball Aerys is going for ... Drakar saves, and only takes 9 damage. Boo.
Molkar is next to fall, though he inflicts serious damage on Khalid in melee before that.

Drakar falls next, and we turn our attention to the still-panicked Morvin. He actually snaps out before the end; it's been a full turn.

The final blow is a hit from Daine's fire shield.

With this fight, Imoen reaches mage level 5, and access to 3rd level spells. Although we don't have a fireball scroll yet for her to learn. Maybe the enemies will stop trying to use Sleep on her now.

After completing our travel, we heal up with two cure spells and a nymph. Bandits await - first, a trio, then Teven.

He wants a fight. He gets a fireball.

The squirrel survives, barely out of range despite the graphics.

We deal with some minor encounters, sending Baeloth away. I'm not that bloodthirsty. Then we run into Nim Furlwing - a Sleep is just the thing to protect his hounds.

That gets us the best reward ... a divine scroll we'll never use.

Farther north, a truly dangerous encounter awaits us - Blacktalon elites. My stealthy scout spots them, allowing me to hit them from out of sight.

And now that they're webbed up, Daine switches to spider form and attacks. The rest of the party throws in some ranged attacks too, but the 4 APR spider attacks are the most important part.

With the +4 damage for a melee attacker against archers, it's extremely lethal against these guys.

More minor encounters follow. A gibberling rolls a nat-20 on its attack ...

... and dies for its trouble.

Finally, we come to the druids in the northeast. Mad Osmadi attacks:

Way too many bears here. Aside from having to move out of the way of a cave bear, it goes smoothly.
Then it's Corsone's turn.

He had iron skins. We shot them down before he even finished casting his first spell. In the end, he goes down without successfully casting anything offensively, and we have a magic club (Root of the Problem, added by a mod).

Peldvale comes next, and more Blacktalons.

Two webs get that for a message? There must be more than the three we saw in Larswood.
I try to get cute and throw in fireballs - one from Aerys and one from Daine. Aerys just gets webbed instead.

Aerys eventually gets lucky with his saves and escapes long enough to launch his fireball. Daine retreats ...

One Blacktalon elite killed with fire. Two killed with missile attacks. Three killed with spider bites. One enemy escaped the webs, but he was lured back in to die after firing a single arrow.

Kivan scouts ahead under stealth. Most encounters have us just walk up and fight, but I give some bandits a fireball from out of sight:

No survivors.
Aerys breaks out his other fire spell for a group of flinds:

The two that survived the initial fire are kind enough to drop level 2 scrolls. Imoen learns Web, her second level 2 spell.

There's another Blacktalon group, and we stick to the sneaky tactics that have served us well.

One manages to escape the web and hit Daine in melee. The rest die helplessly, failing to fire any arrows.

Web plus spider form is just such a brutal combination.

We eliminate one flaming idiot ...

... but don't talk to Viconia afterward. I'm leaving an option open for later.

Against Raiken's gang, I fight.

That fireball in the air (from the wand) kills all of them except Raiken himself. He inflicts some damage before he goes down, but nothing a cure spell can't handle.

And with that, Peldvale is clear. It's time to go burn the bandit camp.
I set up southeast of the camp, at a spot where only a narrow gap through the forest is passable. Kivan shoots a bandit to start things.

Then he retreats, and I double-web the approach. Imoen adds a skull trap, which takes out Credus.
As more bandits arrive, I start on the fireballs.

Daine is in spider form there so she can doesn't risk being caught in her own web.
That's also our only fireball potion. The wand, the necklace, and Aerys' two spell slots are all we have from here on out.

That's Taurgosz Khosann dead there with his armor showing; he died to arrows while webbed rather than fireballs. The leaders from the big tent are starting to take serious damage, too.
Unfortunately, for this second round, Aerys goes a little too far forward and gets caught in the web. Daine hands the necklace to Jaheira, who gets considerably more value.

Four kills, including Hakt.
Hand the necklace back to Daine for one last shot before a recharge:

That's three Blacktalon elites, a regular bandit, and Raemon.
My defenses are starting to break down at this point; Daine has to go forward to attack a Blacktalon elite who isn't quite in the webs, and the mage Venkt is close to Aerys.

Thankfully, nothing goes too wrong. I pull back safely, and Venkt goes down to arrows. Daine casts another web to renew the barrier.
Then, Britik breaks free and comes at Aerys, while a Blacktalon takes another shot at him ...

... but Britik goes down to an arrow before he can attack. And the enemy arrow doesn't do much damage to Aerys. Daine gets to that Blacktalon, and stops him from firing any more arrows by killing him.
Aerys finally gets free, and fails to cast that fireball he's been holding all this time. Retreat a bit, and use the wand instead.

In retrospect, I should have handed the wand of fire to Imoen back at the start of the fight. That would have enabled more wand fireballs.
Just three enemies remain out here, all hobgoblins. Daine handles them in melee, and the bandits are broken. We collect the various items of interest, and explore the camp at our leisure.

A few bandits still hide in tents, with a larger group of gnolls in a cave.

Two Sleep spells, and that group is toast.

Finally, we go for the main tent. Talk to Ender Sai, then open the trapped chest ... actually, wait. There's something Aerys should do first.

I dub this cat ... Balerion. Balerion will stay in Aerys' pack and sleep, providing 6 bonus hit points. While he's technically capable of thieving, he's only good at stealth; no points in traps or locks. Even the difficulty 20 trap on the chest is out of reach without a buff that we can't provide.
Anyway, the lightning bolt misses completely. One party member at the chest, one at the door, no problem. Daine gets the gauntlets.

We clear out a few random monsters from the rest of the map, then head back to the Friendly Arm with full packs. But I'll be back - there are a lot of locked chests here we can't get into yet.
Back at the inn, Imoen buys a potion of genius for a scribing session - 98% success chance, unlimited numbers. She fails to learn Larloch's Minor Drain, but otherwise fills out her spellbook pretty well. A rest earns Aerys his second Cure Light Wounds, and the party is ready to enter the Cloakwood.

119 fire kills. We don't have the resources to truly carpet-bomb the bandit camp, but we came pretty close on the chokepoint.

"Smell that? You smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like ... victory."
- Colonel Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

jmerry

Part 6: Into the Cloakwood

Our first objective in the Cloakwood isn't a fight, but a new party member. We kill a few tasloi along the way, and pick up Coran as a replacement for Kivan. He'll be about 13-14K behind the rest of the party in experience, but his thieving skills are vital.
Coran levels to 5/5 upon joining, gaining 9 HP (rolls 9/16). He takes 25 points in Open Locks (to 95) and 25 points in Set Traps (to 40).
It's a little awkward having Coran and Khalid competing for the same weapons, but we can live with one of them having a plain +1 sword. And Strength of One can boost Coran's strength for a composite longbow.

Our first encounter with Coran in the party is a pack of wolves, and we are treated to an unusual sight:

The script spreading hostility through the pack was slower to react than the combat script there. The internecine conflict doesn't last, and all of them go hostile. Then four stick around to die.

The rest of the forest is populated with random forest creatures, and the encounters are of little note. They are at least worth decent experience, since dread wolves are common here.
There is one encounter of note here: Aldeth and Seniyad. With Jaheira's aid, we talk them out of an immediate fight.

That leads to a quest. We must seek out two of Seniyad's fellows, who have run afoul of Shadow Druids deeper in the woods.
Also, Coran helps himself to the contents of the traps in the lodge.

The next area will be more troublesome, and we get a preview of it along the way:

They deal some minor damage, but no poison. We saved every time. There's a web trap in this area as well - and Coran doesn't have the skill to disarm it. That is the real challenge we face; with Coran's low trap skills, only the very easiest of the web traps can be disarmed.

We can avoid the web trap in the ambush area, but we can't avoid the first trap in the spider area. Either you have 50 skill in Find Traps, or you will trip it.

Fortunately, Daine can trigger it safely by turning into a spider, and fight the huge spiders there with the party's ranged aid.

As for the rest of the area, we can actually avoid all of the other traps by following a specific path. We head south first, then come around through the middle of the map. There are some huge spiders and ettercaps along the way, and then we come to the key passage.

It's guarded, of course. Daine is immobilized by a Web Tangle, but we easily take out the giant spider that did it along with its sword spider friend,
There's a web trap on the dirt path straight north of the party, but the grass next to the cliff is also passable and not trapped. We hug the cliff and then head north, escaping the area's traps. We'll be back, but not until Imoen has her thief skills back and can disarm the remaining web traps. A few more huge spiders, and we reach the northern edge of the map.

On the way to the next area, we are waylaid again.

Not some forest creatures this time, but a party out to kill us. Since there are two invisible thieves, I open with a Glitterdust and a Breath Weapon.

One thief is revealed, while the other takes too much damage and fails a morale check. Excellent.
The cleric Zeela goes for an Unholy Blight:

That's half our party hurt, but it's also their last real success. We eliminate the three visible foes with no further trouble.
Maneira is still running around invisibly, so I start casting AoE spells blindly ...

You don't need to be visible to die in a fireball.

We rest in the druid area after completing our travel.
Laskal hands us a potion and leaves, but the other shadow druids here are not so accommodating. The sight of Jaheira drives them to attack automatically.

Daine shifted to cast her spell and disrupt Takiyah there. The minions go for Doom ... and get burned.

Apparently, casting a hostile spell at that range is grounds for fire shield retaliation. And being Doomed twice isn't any worse than being Doomed once.
I go for a fireball, but the minions die before it can arrive and Takiyah survives it. Then he dies as well.

Izefia and his two minions get another fireball:

That doesn't outright kill the druids, but it gets them close. One of the minions aims a Doom at Daine, and dies to the fire shield.

After some amusing bullshit, we fight Peter of the North and his wyverns:

No problem. The wyverns don't land any hits to poison us.

Random encounters in this area can get pretty serious:

Yes, that's two vampiric wolves at once. We take one paralytic hit ...

... but that's all. Vampiric wolves only get one attack per round, and we kill them before they can follow up.

Finally, the treehouse. I capitalize on a key weakness of druids here - no fear protection. Imoen opens with a Horror ...

Two out of three panicked before they can do anything. The Shapeshifter that saved dies almost immediately as we focus on him, and it's just mop-up from there.
Incidentally, Aerys went for a Magic Missile on Amarande, to guarantee disrupting his first spell. That's why he's slightly damaged in that shot.

Moving forward, the party faces another ambush. This time it's a pair of wyverns.

Imoen has already spent one of her Horror spells and is saving the second, so I don't have a good way to disable them. Instead, I just go for attacks. One wyvern chases a party member, while the other fights the rest of the party. Jaheira gets poisoned and takes some damage before she can drink an antidote, but we win through.

We have two wyvern heads, but they're not the one Coran is looking for. We'll need to find the nest.

After completing our travel, the eternally annoying hamadryad is next. We have lots of elves and half-elves, but Khalid still gets charmed.

He takes it out on Imoen - that's a lot of damage in just two arrows.

We follow up with an NPC project encounter - the pack of druids tormenting Beador. I open with a wave of disablers - two Webs and a Horror. Then Daine switches to spider form to attack.

It doesn't work. Oh, the Horror was a fine move, but the webs? For no particularly good reason, these druids have the MAGE05 immunity item that grants permanent free action. Webbing them up limits my actions without hurting them at all.
That means that some of them get spells off. Aerys takes a nasty Chain Lightning hit, and retreats so he won't get hit again.

Still, we soldier on. The battle drags on, and the webs fade - now Jaheira can enter melee and Daine can assume salamander form. The whole party joins together for the final druid.

That log ... if one character with a fire shield attacks another with a fire shield, both defenses trigger exactly once. In this case, with fire-immune druids in salamander form, that means zero damage each way.
With the battle over, Beador directs us back to the shadow druid base. But first, we have wyverns to hunt.

The eastern half of the map is populated by various forest creatures. We get through them easily enough, and reach the wyvern cave.

This is a fight we can use fireballs in. That blast got one of the babies. A follow-up fire breath ...

Two more. Only the adults survive. Daine is low enough on health here that I have her run around dodging; if she got poisoned, I might not be able to react fast enough to save her. The rest of the party takes care of the wyverns, and Coran has what he wants. Also, we have a wand of fear now, for Horror not limited by spell slots.

Back outside the cave, we run into some Iron Throne guards; we're close enough to their base that they have patrols here.

I went for a scorcher this time instead of the fireball. It did a lot of damage, but only actually killed one of them.

Another minor encounter, and Coran reaches thief level 6. He gains 2 HP (roll 2/3) and adds 25 points to his Set Traps skill.
I reach the bridge to the northwest section, and ... oh, that's too perfect a setup not to use.

Multiple enemies in a line? Scorch them.
We finish off the hostile forest dwellers, running out of nonmagical arrows as we do. Now, back to the druids.

There's one more fight here - Andarthe, at the base of the tree. We rest, and Aerys gains Slow Poison. Also, three ambushes (spiders, tasloi, spiders again) before we actually get that rest.

We open with fireballs and fire arrows ... the lead druid has iron skins up and gets off a Chaos before we can disrupt him.

That is all six party members failing their saves. There is literally nothing I can do at this point except watch it play out. How will it go?

The answer? Badly. It takes a while for the enemy to work, long enough for us to regain control over some of the party. But then, a Chromatic Orb finishes off Aerys, and I'm forced to reload.

For round two, I'll play differently. I pre-summon a nymph, then add a Horror and a wand Magic Missile to the initial fireball.

That initial spell was disrupted, and the druid that got us last time is panicked. Still, Andarthe is a tougher nut. Missile attacks won't help because of that Physical Mirror, and our melee attacks have no chance of disrupting that spell until the iron skins go down. Andarthe completes his full-round cast of a Call Lightning ...

27 points. And that's with him saving. Ouch. Only Khalid (high HP) and Imoen (lightning resistance boots) would have survived a failed save. That was with the damage rolling low, too; 15d8 (for a level 13 druid) averages 67.5 damage before the save.
Coran backs off so he won't be tempted to kill himself shooting Andarthe. He gets animals summoned on him for his trouble.
Our second fireball takes out a nymph ... wait, that was our own nymph. Oops.
Finally, Andarthe surrenders.

This surrender, I accept. After all, it comes with a reputation penalty if you don't. A bit of footwork rescues Coran from the summoned animals, and we can enter the tree to talk to Maretha. Reputation up to 16.

Now, we head back. Seniyad adds 5K experience and a nice club - not that we'll ever use it.

Rather than returning to the deep forest to take on the mine, I leave it entirely. I'll come back later once Imoen can disarm traps again.
On the last leg back to civilization, we run into more ettercaps.

Ettercap poison is pretty nasty. 2/second for six rounds, on a failed save. Fortunately, we have a lot of cures. Daine cures Khalid. Then he gets poisoned again, and Jaheira cures him.
The fight continues ...

Ah, another kill for the salamander's fire. The last ettercap goes down without further incident, and we reach the safety of the Friendly Arm.

129 fire kills. Fairly light on this update, but that's mostly because the Cloakwood is full of tougher creatures that we can't just burn in droves. Friendly fire kills are included in the general kill count, so I'm including in this count too for consistency.

"And the students shooting flaming arrows, because, well ... you gotta' have flaming arrows..."
- Joss Whedon, talking about a scene in his show Buffy the Vampire Slayer

jmerry

Part 7: Building Reputation in the Wilderness

Now that we're back in civilized territory, Coran can make use of his lockpicking skills. There isn't anything really notable in the Friendly Arm, but Beregost gets us a wand of lightning and some valuable things to sell.

We'll be spending some time clearing the wilderness, and we start with the temple area just east of town. The wolf pack is the only real challenge here.

One fireball to weaken them, another fireball to follow up.

The half of the party that's standing back in this second shot has nonmagical ranged attacks. I could use enchanted arrows for the vampiric wolves, but I choose to just beat them in melee instead.
The fireballs themselves don't get many kills, but they do a good job of weakening the pack.

Aside from that fight, the area features Cattack's band of hobgoblins (trivial) and some random encounters. One of those was a trio of dread wolves, for decent experience at least.

We hit the road south of Beregost next, properly clearing the area this time. It's mostly populated by hobgoblins, which aren't any real threat. Some Flaming Fist idiots accuse the party of banditry, but Jaheira speaks up and we de-escalate the situation. It's been a long day since resting at the Friendly Arm, so we head back to Beregost and rest again.

After that, we're off to a new area west of the road. Low-level undead such as zombies and ghouls are added to the mix here ... hey, get out of our way so we can fireball these enemies!

No? Very well, then, we can still kill them the normal way.

Zargal and crew follow. We don't have any use for a +2 short sword, but Aerys does reach level 7. He gains 8 HP with a perfect 6/6 roll, and takes Shield, Melf's Acid Arrow, and Spell Thrust as his new spells.

Elsewhere on the map, a hobgoblin elite gets a lucky poison hit on Daine ...

One point of poison damage every 5 seconds, doubled to one every 2.5 seconds with haste. And each tick gets 1d10 fire damage of retaliation, if she's close enough. That hobgoblin never stood a chance.

I have Coran using auto-stealth out here. When I have him switch to melee against some skeletons, the inevitable follows:

I wasn't even trying to backstab anything, but I'll take it.

Finally, the most dangerous foe. We face Bassilus and his horde.

He buffs with Blade Barrier, Armor of Faith, and Free Action. No reason not to shoot him with arrows, then. For his minions ... do you even have to ask?

Thirteen lesser undead fell in that one blast. Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough to stop Bassilus' spell - an Unholy Blight aimed at Khalid. I scatter to dodge as much as I can ...

Khalid saves and takes 20 damage. Imoen and Coran successfully escape the area of effect, and the neutral half of our party doesn't have to worry.
Daine responds with a Chromatic Orb:

This is the level 7-9 version, which stuns for two turns. We don't need anywhere near that much to finish the job.
I level up Daine after the battle. She gains 8 HP for level 8 (roll 6/8) and takes spear proficiency.

With the area clear, we return to High Hedge ...

A success. Melicamp is restored, and our reputation is up to 17.
While we're here, we mug some skeletons for their throwing daggers.

That's four dead to the fire and two in melee.

After a rest, we head further south. We dipped into this area once for Drizzt, and we'll clear it properly now.
Some gnolls get a fireball:

Then the half-ogres Bjornin is worried about get the second:

Aerys' last daily fireball goes to the low-level bandit party:

That kills the mage and badly wounds the other two.

There were other encounters that we didn't use fire for, but the likes of a few skeletons are no big deal. Imoen picks up her sixth mage level here, after some gnoll elites. She takes dart proficiency; since she doesn't have a strength bonus, darts are better weapons for her than throwing daggers. We've picked up a few regular darts for her, and will buy some fire darts at High Hedge when we swing by there again.

Now, a group of ogre berserkers?

I'm not fighting them in melee at all. While pure missile attacks and kiting would work, Glitterdust is better. It blinds all of them, and they're easy prey from there.

Finally, a squad of flinds gets Aerys' last fire spell of the day.

Only one actually dies to it, though.

Back in Beregost, we rest and pick up Bjornin's reward. That's 18 reputation now.

We continue south to the next stretch of road. This is another low-level area, so we don't really have anything better to do with our fireballs than to use them on hobgoblins...

... and ghouls.

Not long after, an encounter follows that isn't safe for fireballs:

Charge in heroically to help. Two dead (half) ogres, and another point of reputation to 19.

In Nashkel, Rasaad joins to start his timers; he levels to 6 and takes single-weapon style and stealth. He also gains 21 HP from his five levels (rolls 21/40). Then we let him go again.

Over at the Carnival, it's time to properly clear the map. There are monsters in the north, like kobolds.

A lot of kobolds. The SCS component really cranks up the kobold numbers at these random spawn points. And you know what that means...

Twenty-seven kobolds killed in a single fireball. And for all that, the entire mob is still worth less XP than a single ogre berserker.
The fire effect on Imoen there is from a kobold commando's arrow. She wasn't in the actual fireball's range.

We now proceed west. After a non-hostile waylay (a bear), we reach the xvart village. Meet a cave bear, burn it.

Then we rest; the travel took a while, and exhaustion is an issue.
After that rest, we head up the path. Naturally, all of the xvarts attack immediately.

"You kill us when we do nothin' to you." What a deluded fool. And if you look closer, Aerys is already casting a fireball. It kills 16. And since that didn't include Nexlit, Ursa is still focusing on him rather than us.
This encounter is a little tricky for the kill tracking; some of the xvarts are worth more XP but still have the same name.

The cave brings another bear and some AC 8 bracers - since we haven't bought any archmage robes yet, that's nice for the mages.

Then there's Borda. He's inexplicably magic immune, so I go for some fire breath ...

Nope. Disrupted.
Borda drinks a potion of invisibility once he starts taking damage, so I respond with a Glitterdust. Glitterdust ignores MR - or, at least, the actual effect does. The cosmetic effects, such as the log entry saying the target was blinded and the glow, are subject to MR. It's a moot point in this case as he saves anyway - no effect. Then he misses a backstab, and we take him down.

I'll fix Glitterdust for BG2, standardizing on ignoring MR for all effects.

Now that the area is clear, we head south. Unlike the river to the west, this area has reputation bonuses, and maxing out our reputation for shopping bonuses is on the agenda.
Ludrug and his gnolls are first:

It's just not a big enough group for fire to be desirable. Incidentally, that brings the party to an even 1000 total kills.

Some animals follow, and then it's time for a couple of idiots.

She's literally shapeshifted into a towering elemental creature, and you think "bandits"? These men are too dumb to live.
And once they're dead, we talk to the dryad. 20 reputation.

We return a dead cat as well, but there's no reputation left to gain. Many animals fall before us, another cache in a cave is claimed, and Ingot dies:

He didn't go hostile, so we killed him before he could get away.
Some winter wolves get a fireball:

Imoen adds a flame arrow on the one trying to escape - not enough to kill it.
There's still one more rewarding encounter after that - a trio of dread wolves, bringing levels for Jaheira and Khalid. Jaheira reaches fighter level 6, taking scimitar specialization and gaining 6 HP (roll 4/5). Khalid reaches fighter level 7, gaining 10 HO (roll 7/10). Jaheira finally has more than one attack per round in melee.

And finally, we're ready to go to the gnoll stronghold. Gnarl and Hairtooth ... we really don't need anything fancy.

The gauntlets go to the party member with the lowest dexterity. That's Khalid, with 16 before putting them on.

We go for the cliffs first, after some healing and a rest. The xvarts are no threat, and we easily retrieve the tome. We don't use it yet, though - Imoen's daily Identify spell goes to the Protection from Undead scroll that Drienne gave us.
There's a carrion crawler in one of the caves; those creatures are incredibly weak against fireshields. It hits Daine for 2 damage, and gets hit back for an automatic 7.

Up top, the gnolls come. Usually in groups of four, and we don't bother using any spells unless more than that show up. In practice, that's just the main group around the chieftain.

That fireball ... was a little off in its aim.

Sure, Aerys hurt himself. But for seven kills, I'll take it. Once he backs off, Daine adds a fireball of her own (from the necklace):

A few survive, but they're easy to mop up. Dynaheir gets a rescue, and Imoen heads back to Nashkel to wait for us. We teach Dynaheir some of the spells we had surplus scrolls for, though she goes 0 for 4 trying to learn Armor. She also levels up to 5th, not that it'll matter for her.

We head back to Nashkel by the most direct route. There's a cave bear waylay on the way, easily handled despite Dynaheir having nothing to contribute. We rest with her in the party, getting some free Identify spells including the tome. And then, we reunite her with Minsc and let her leave the party for good. Branwen gets freed from her stone prison and provided with some basic gear, and then we invite Imoen back into the party. Next time, we'll start working on the eastern areas.

218 fire kills. We're picking up the pace now.

"Close air support and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart."
- Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries, Schlock Mercenary.

Repeating a quote source for the first time, but the collection just has so much I can use here. We will be revisiting the subject of friendly fire later, too.

jmerry

Part 8: Into the East

Or first destination is the tomb-lined valley we briefly visited before. This time, we'll clear it out properly.
We're fighting some ankhegs when Hentold shows up:

Well, at least that's only a Sleep we're casting. No friendly fire here. The ankhegs go down without dealing any damage, and we head in to meet the revenant.

We choose to fight it rather than handing over the dagger. One hit taken, and it's dead. Jaheira has a new top kill.

Heading out, we face encounters that fireballs are much better for. Ogrillons:

Then kobolds:

Then Narcillicus ... no, wait, scratch that.

Fireballs don't get through a Minor Globe, and mustard jellies resist them. So, instead of a fireball, I use Spell Thrust for the first time.
And then, after that, it's weapon attacks that do the job. A lucky ice arrow gets through the mirror images to disrupt the enemy's first spell, giving us time to burn through his defenses and finish the job.

Daine isn't actually much help against the jellies; all of her Avenger forms deal piercing damage. Only bear form or a manufactured weapon can hurt them, and she hasn't ever made a bear token. So instead of going after them like normal, I just cure the poisoning and have her retreat. Coran and Khalid switch to melee and engage with their slashing weapons.

A couple more minor encounters - some ogrillons and some ghasts - and the map is done. Actually, the ghasts were before Narcillicus and his oozes.

We head north to Firewine Bridge next; we're not ready to take on the ruins and their traps, but the surface is something we can handle. Coran hears something, alerting us to a quest he has here.
Bentan wanders off after a talk; none of the party has the pickpocket skill to take his scroll, so he gets to keep it. A group of skeletons comes next:

That was a necklace fireball.

Across the bridge, kobolds come in large numbers:

And again:

Those two necklace fireballs combined for 31 dead kobolds.

We also meet Amelia near there, the object of Coran's quest. She hands over some withered roses for us to restore at the Beregost temple.

To the north, we pick a fight with Meilum.

New gauntlets for Coran. He hit us once.

And now, Kahrk. He's a brutal fight, so I pre-summon three nymphs.

We go for a Spell Thrust, three Hold Monster spells, and ice arrows.
Kahrk goes for a Slow against our ranged line, and ...

Everyone failed their saves. But then the Hold Monster spells arrive - as 5th level AoE spells, the spell defenses wouldn't help even if they were still up.

It's quite a gamble. He saves vs spell on a 2, so that's only a 15% chance to fail the save for each spell. We got lucky.
We took three painful melee hits before the Hold landed. After that, beating up the helpless enemy is trivial. The nymph heal us, and we move on.

There are only some minor encounters left, though Aerys is willing to use a fireball on some angry dogs:

And ... oops. The nymphs get their Barkskin spells disrupted.

Back in town, we sell some junk and ankheg shells, then rest. Over at High Hedge, it's time for some serious shopping. Thalantyr recharges the wand of fire, then sells Imoen some archmage robes and Coran the Claw of Kazgaroth. Imoen gets a whole bunch of fire darts too, and I switch a pair of LotM gauntlets over to take advantage of her new 3 APR. There isn't quite enough gold left to buy a second set of archmage robes for Aerys, but we'll be back again. Until then, fire resistance robes will have to do.
On the way out, we hit some skeletons:

Of course they deserve a fireball.

We sell off a bunch of magic gear we're not using in Beregost, and we could afford those archmage robes now - we're back up to over 40K gold. But no, I'm fine with more waiting.

On the way back to the bridge, a gibberling ambush ...

They start surrounding us. That's no place for a fireball. Sleep is much more appropriate. We still pick up a fire kill with Imoen's darts.

A small group of respawned kobolds go down, and then Amelia directs us into the dungeon.

Well. This is looking sinister.

Some kobolds start trickling in - first from the entrance, then deeper in the dungeon. They're easy to ambush and slaughter in the tight quarters here. The increased range on calls for help does the enemies a disservice in a space like this.

After the battle, we head back up to the surface. Coran is charmed and removed from the party.
So, then ... I could fight Amelia, but I go for a more peaceful bargain. She gets the powders, her captives get freedom.

The amulet is a nice bonus. +1 arcane spell slots at levels 1, 2, and 3. Not usable by good characters. Aerys is set for the rest of BG1, then.
Fighting the succubus is worth less XP, and you don't get the amulet either. This bargain is the more rewarding path.

Talking to Natan afterward is worth either a material reward (several good potions) or a chunk of experience. I take the potions, after first dealing with a kobold interrupt.

Jaheira's new level (druid 7) gains her 3 more HP, a roll of 2/4. I was looking to improve on Jaheira's terrible HP rolls in BG2, and somehow rolled even once. Her level's the same as she starts there, and she has 31 base HP instead of 32.

Now that we have Coran's lockpicking skills and more general fighting ability, it's time for a return to the upper floors of Durlag's Tower. We buy that fireball-only wand, then head for the eastern battlements.

Daine tried her lightning bolt ... nope. It missed the doom guard, and the skeletons were immune.
So, then, I go for a fireball on the skeletons coming up from the other direction. Imoen's fire darts work well, too.

And now, I retreat down the stairs to get a better angle on the doom guard. Daine casts Improved Invisibility on Coran to set up a backstab ... nope. Coran hid successfully, fizzling the spell.

Then I get the backstab anyway. All's well that ends well.
It takes a while to get the final blow - slashing weapons aren't very good against the doom guard's plate mail. The doom guard is whiffing too, so it doesn't actually hurt us.

And now, into the tower. We start unlocking chests and looting, then rest as exhaustion catches up.

Up on the third floor, it's time to fight the ghost.

Coran retreats after that one good stab; the ghost puts up an impenetrable defense including PfMW. Since it's also immune to magic and elemental damage, and we don't have the levels to dispel it, there's nothing we can do until that spell expires.
Once it does, a hasted Daine pokes him and then heads downstairs to cancel his spell. He follows.

We hear chanting, and switch floors again. Repeat until we burn through the defenses.

And Jaheira gets the kill.

The chests in the ghost's room ... I unlock them, but I'm pretty sure at least one has a trap that I didn't get a chance to disarm. They can wait.

I pick a fight with Riggilo, backstabbing him ...

He retaliates in kind. For just as much damage.

All right, I shouldn't have let Coran auto-switch back to his bow. Without that switch, the stab attempt would actually have missed. THAC0 12, 4+6=10 to hit, Coran has AC 0 vs piercing with Drizzt's armor and the claw. And that's if attacking from stealth disables Dex bonuses in addition to granting +4 to hit. Which ... if it didn't, the actual stab would have missed too.
Incidentally, Riggilo's stats are a weird mishmash. He's a pure level 8 thief, with the base hit points of a level 8/8 fighter/thief and the memorized spells of a level 7 mage. Not that he can cast, since he's wearing armor.

Once Riggilo reveals himself with that stab, the kill comes quickly and we can heal Coran.

Next up, the succubus. And we're not in the mood for any sort of deal this time.

She's not very good at defending herself, but she does manage to charm Khalid.

We head downstairs to wait that out. There are a few trapped or possibly trapped containers left, but all of the enemies on the upper floors have been eliminated.

283 fire kills so far. We're carrying a good deal more item charges than we were, so we can be freer with using them.

"I don't know the scientific explanation, but fire made it good."
- Homer Simpson, The Simpsons

jmerry

Part 9: Neera and the North

Unusually for a run in which I raced through fixed encounters for early levels, I haven't gone after the basilisk area. I've passed through it, but not fought any of the basilisks there. It's time to change that now.

As usual, I go with a single designated basilisk killer. Khalid gets a strength 19 potion, an oil of speed, and a casting of Protection from Petrification. He has one hour to shred the basilisks in melee before his buffs expire.

Not long after that shot ...

Huh. I don't think I've ever seen that before. The greater basilisk switched to melee and Khalid failed his save against the poison.
I send another party member up closer to pass out some antidotes and a regeneration potion. Since that regeneration gets doubled by the haste, it's a lot of healing.

Then Khalid heads north, and runs into Mutamin. He's capable of 3rd level spells, and this iteration of him has a Remove Magic memorized. Khalid is in melee with a greater basilisk when the spell lands.

The potion buffs survive the dispel. The Protection from Petrification doesn't.
As you can see in that shot, Khalid ran away as soon as he noticed the problem. Fortunately, the first post-dispel basilisk attack was a melee attack, and he got away.

But that basilisk might still be coming, and I don't have a second PfP memorized. Khalid runs back toward the rest of the party, intent on escaping the area with them. Unfortunately, he runs too close to the Waterdhavians and provokes them. Also, Mutamin's other 3rd level spell was a Haste, and he's chasing Khalid as well. We'll have to fight our way out.
We engage near where the southern basilisks were, and Daine throws in a fireball for the approaching party.

That's Mutamin down, dead to our weapon attacks. The Waterdhavians all survived the blast. But that's not the only blast. Two more fireballs ensue...

Only Kirian survives, and Daine finishes him off with a Chromatic Orb.

Now we pick up the loot and run. We exit from the map's southern edge, and return to Beregost to rest. The escape is a success.

After some rest and a retooling of Imoen's spells - she memorizes four instances of PfP memorized today - we head back out to face the remaining basilisks. Imoen immediately starts casting her spells ... and finishes just in time.

Aerys and Imoen retreat to the south, while the four protected party members engage the attacker. The hunt is on. Korax joins too, and we move quickly. Soon, the basilisk threat in the area is eliminated.

Korax even got one of the kills there; the first lesser basilisk.

We reunite the party and return to our usual tactics. But then, there's not much left except gnolls. They provide very little threat.

And that's no reason not to use fireballs.
With the area clear, we wait ... and the inevitable end comes.

Korax couldn't stay friendly forever.
Still, we'll come back to this area at some point - I forgot to bring any scrolls of stone to flesh.

I head up to the Friendly Arm for a bit, and invite Neera into the party. Travel to Beregost, buy the +1 composite longbow, return to the Friendly Arm. That runs out her one-day timer, and her expository dialogue triggers.

A sphere of fire, eh? Well, it's their fault they didn't protect themselves. Everything's better with fire.

Now, back to the normal party. Imoen rejoins, and we head north to the ankheg farm. There's a reward here that's pretty obscure:

After giving some gold to Farmer Brun, enter one of the houses near the fishermen and speak to Wilton for a free cloak of protection. Even if you don't have a use for it, it's worth considerably more gold than you gave away.

Resting in the field brings an interruption:

Sleep ... all three ankhegs save. But by now, with a full party, we can kill them quickly enough that it doesn't matter.
The second try at rest succeeds, and we're ready to clear out the remaining ankhegs.

Three more ankegs follow in the farm's furrows, then a few hobgoblins as I ferry the shells to the edge of the map. Those hobgoblins put Coran over the line to fighter level 6 - 4 HP gained (roll 4/5) and a mostly irrelevant bastard sword proficiency. Also, I use Strength of One so he can re-equip his bow.

Inside the cave, there are six ankhegs left that we didn't kill the first time. Facing them one at a time, they're no threat.

Back outside, we run into the first bit of trouble here - a pair of ankhegs hits Imoen hard.

It certainly could have been worse, too - Imoen saved against both instances of acid, and thus only lost a little over half of her hit points.

We kill three more of the random ankhegs, then two of the pre-placed ankhegs Gerde cares about, and that's it for the area.
Imoen reaches mage level 7 with this, and her thieving abilities are back. She gains 5 HP for this level (roll 3/4), but doesn't know any 4th level spells to fill that slot. Equipment-wise, she can use a bow again, but I have her stick mainly to her fire darts for a while. Her melee option is now Twinkle, a major improvement over her old dagger.

Now, it's time for a shopping trip to help out Imoen's spellbook before we return to the Cloakwood. We buy lots of scrolls, starting with Feldepost's Inn, then heading to High Hedge ... oops, skeleton interrupt.

After burning those bones, back to the shopping. In addition to the scrolls we don't have yet, we pick up the neutral archmage robes and some potions of magic blocking.

Finally, Ulgoth's Beard. This offers a few 4th and 5th level spells, plus more equipment such as the +3 staff, the cloak of displacement, and the wand of the heavens. Imoen drinks two potions for 100% scribing success, and learns all of the scrolls I have available.

Coran starts in on trapping the area. After a rest, he continues, and I decide to speed things up with the Reform Party trick. Every time he leaves the party, daily class abilities such as Set Traps are refreshed, so I can set the equivalent of weeks worth of traps all at once. As I see it, it's an exploit to use this under pressure, but for speeding things up when you could just rest safely it's fair game.

Then something weird happens. Coran damages himself with a failed trap, then I remove him from the party ...

He goes hostile, and his remaining traps finish the job of killing him. Oops.
As best as I can tell, that's his new neutral script telling him "Oh no, a party member hurt me! Better fight back." because the damage was too recent. Lesson learned - wait a round or two after any damaging trap failures before reforming the party.

I reload, and repeat. Seven traps laid outside, seven inside Shandalar's house, and seven more in the basement. We have prepared the field for the demon cult.

Shandalar calls on us, but we put him off. The ice island will come later.

Over at the bandit camp, we loot the chests we couldn't open earlier, and grab a bunch of junk to sell. We have a fireball scroll now, but Imoen can't learn the spell until she drinks a potion - too many level 3 spells already known. Everyone who can use shields has a +1 medium shield now, and we have two wands of fear instead of just one.

After selling that junk at the Friendly Arm, we pick up Neera again. She's almost ready for her quest, and traveling to Firewine Bridge takes long enough that she opens up when we get there.
Naturally, there are kobolds there. Aerys goes for a fireball...

Oops. Time for plan B - Neera launches a wand fireball instead.

That does the trick. Some of the tougher kobold guards survive, but most of the mob is wiped out. Then she even adds a melee kill with her +3 staff.

More kobolds trickle in to help the mob; they get weapon attacks and in one case a Sleep. After a rest, we're off to Adoy's enclave.

It's pretty quiet there; aside from the oddly cooperative goblins and the paranoid ranger, there are just some wolves.

Okay, there's an ogre that gets summoned in and an angry bear we have to kill. More wolves follow:

That time, she got some kills.

Inside the cave, the goblins get meaner. They attack, and we have to kill them. We bury Rilsa and retrieve her ring, then face the goblin leader Rogdok.

A double fireball does the trick. Those archer goblins (which are technically thieves, so SCS makes them hide and backstab) all get wiped out before they can do anything.

Inside the last room, we talk to Adoy and trigger the quest's final encounter. For the Thayans ... more fire, of course.

That's a wand fireball from Neera that went out first, and Aerys' fireball is still casting. I decide they deserve even more fireball, and Daine adds one from the necklace.

With Ekandor near death, Neera goes for a Magic Missile ... no, wait, he put up a Mirror Image. That calls for a fourth fireball.

That is Neera's top kill, and it will stay that way. The bodyguards are quick to fall after that.

Adoy hands over his reward, we pick up the loot, and it's off to Magreb. I really don't like picking a fight with the goblins outside, with Neera so vulnerable.

Incidentally, Magreb's dialogue is bugged; there's an option that should appear in this case, but it has the wrong conditions and is thus practically never available. The conversation, starting at the key point:
M: "What have you discovered? Have you avenged my Rilsa?"
PC: "I took care of the troublemakers among them. You should find the survivors much more open to negotiations."
M: Maybe that's the best solution. Rilsa would be glad to know you spared those who were open to peaceful coexistence. For both myself and Rilsa, I thank you."
The conversation returns to the standard track after that, and the experience reward is the same as for the "killed them all" option you'll normally see. The problem is that this option only shows up if you've killed less than nine goblins. With exactly nine goblins inside the cave that are automatically hostile - the troublemakers - you won't see it unless you sneak past and don't kill all of the troublemakers.

Anyway, we head back to civilization to sell some junk, then dump Neera and bring Imoen back. There's one more northern area to hit - the eastern area in the Wood of Sharp Teeth. This area has two tough encounters, and both of them got me in my last run ...

We start off the area with some giant spiders, which immediately web up Daine:

That Web Tangle ability is the spiders' main threat. It holds the target for a few rounds, with a cave vs breath to avoid. Nobody has good saves versus breath at these levels.
We neutralize these spiders with a Sleep and finish them off without taking any damage, but that tactic doesn't work nearly as well when they have support from the more damaging sword or phase spiders.

Show a useless scroll to Fahrington, identify it, drop it.

And now, the Red Wizards.

We go with fireballs, of course. Denak has a Minor Globe up, but that's no protection from the necklace fireball (which hits as a level 9 spell). Aerys goes for a Spell Thrust anyway, since the necklace isn't our only fireball source.

For instance, Imoen is using a wand. And Lasala is dead now.
Jaheira adds a second necklace fireball...

Diana and Brendan are added to the tally. Only Denak remains, and we haven't even finished casting that Spell Thrust.
A round later, Denak goes invisible. Glitterdust him ...

Wait, no. Just burn him. Imoen switches to a wand fireball instead, and ...

... Denak dies.
The only effective enemy action was a double Acid Arrow sequencer on Daine. We just heal our way through that. The ring of energy, the scroll of Remove Magic, and some junk are ours.

Now, on to the spiders. We have some small groups as warmup ...

... and then face the main event. A large group of spiders in a trap-protected section of forest.

That gets the Wraith Spider; no need to worry about magic weapons. The remaining spiders go down without hitting us even once. Khalid gets webbed, but the phase spider attacks Coran instead.

After we disarm some web traps and kill a couple ettercaps, we're done with the area. That went well, unlike my last run in this area.

324 fire kills. We used quite a few fireballs, and guest star Neera really got into it.

"You know, dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported."
— David St. Hubbins, This is Spın̈al Tap

jmerry

Part 10: The Eastern Ruins

We now travel to Gullykin, where not much is going on up top.

One double group of kobolds and wolves does get a fireball from us, at least. Not that it kills any of them; the kobolds all die before the fireball arrives, and the dire wolves all survive it.
Down in the gully, we run into a trio of ankhegs:

Still easy, of course.

But the real challenge here is the dungeon. After a rest (we traveled 24 hours to get here), we head down into the Firewine ruins. A roaming kobold commando - probably riled up from our last brief visit - finds us immediately, and we head back up to the cellar to kill the commandos as they trickle in. 13 kobolds later, I've finally killed enough to start advancing.

In the dungeon as the commandos stream toward you, corners are your friend. They're in melee range when they spot you, and that means you can kill them before they shoot any arrows.

Pressing forward, I have Imoen lead and disarm the traps ... until one case where, immediately after I save, she steps on one.

5% magic resistance stops the bolt, while three kobold commandos die. Wow.
But she was moving slowly and detecting at every step. She should have seen this one. On the reload, she does, and gets our first fire kill down here:

The next corridor brings the Undead Knight into the mix:

We hand in the ancient armor for our reward, and continue to inch forward and kill a trickle of kobold commandos.

Finally, after more than fifty kobold commandos, we approach the other exit to Gullykin. Our first foray draws out more kobolds, while the second brings Lendarn.

The necklace fireball only does 5 damage to him; he's resistant to fire. At least it kills an ogrillon. The Spell Thrust works, but we don't actually follow it up with any spells. Instead, we just attack ... not enough to stop him from casting a spell just before he dies.

Oof. Aerys, Daine, and Imoen all get slowed. Fortunately, no enemies are attacking and we can just wait it out.

The ogre mage is next, and I go for a triple fireball:

Aerys takes out an ogrillon with that, just before being hit by a Magic Missile. I really should be using Shield now that I have it.
The second fireball exacerbates the ogre's injury, while the third comes late. When Daine finally moves around the obstacle and fires it, Aerys takes more damage than the enemy.

Also, that's a Glitterdust affecting Aerys and Khalid. Jaheira adds one more bit of fire ...

No more ogre mage. We clean up the last ogrillon, and the dungeon is clear.

Up top, we meet Jenkal...

He doesn't get away.

Now that we're done with the ruins themselves, I travel to the other side looking for the fallen paladin Svlast.
We run into some zombies on the way:

Then some skeletons:

After a bit of a wait, Svlast shows up - and there's the revenant too.

I go for a scorcher and a heavenly strike on this fire-vulnerable creature:

It's not quite lethal ...

... but the fire shield hit that follows is. Svlast asks us to kill him - no.

On the way out, it's another kobold mob.

That's the last of his level 3 spells for the day. Nineteen kills for that one fireball. Still more kobolds spawn in behind the party ...

Imoen takes care of this bunch.

We head back through the ruins, visit Erdane to sell some junk, and head back to Beregost through the basilisk area. We have some stone to flesh scrolls now, so we free Tamah and Corianna as we pass by. There's a worg ambush during our travel here:

Nothing special, just another fire dart kill.

After getting rid of our ankheg shells, we're off to Ulcaster next. The area is plagued by skeletons and zombies:

They burn like anything else.

Furret tries to sell us a "magic" gem, not noticing that Imoen has already picked his pockets for the decidedly nonmagical turquoise. Nice try.

There are living threats too - like kobolds on a hill...

... and hobgoblins.

They burn just fine.

Up on the plateau, it's Icharyd's turn. With SCS, he's 90% magic resistant, so our fireballs aren't going to help. Only Aerys' breath is likely to penetrate that. Jaheira also switches to her club because of Icharyd's (mod-added) resistance to non-crushing weapons and drinks a potion for 19 strength.

Phase 1 goes quickly, and we only take one hit. When he's damaged enough, he calls on his god and phase 2 begins.

Time advances, he heals fully, and he gets a Call Lightning. Khalid takes 24 damage, and Jaheira's potion expires. Aerys unleashes his fire breath here:

Jaheira takes some friendly fire damage, but that was still worth it. Just a bit more ...

... and it's over. Time advances again to morning, we heal up, and we head back to town to sell some junk and rest.

Returning to Ulcaster, there are just a couple of groups on the way to the plateau. The plateau itself brings more skeletons and a kobold mob:

This one's a bit of trouble for my kill tracking; by the time I get around to recording the fireball's effects, the sheer length of the log from all the kobold actions means it cuts off in the middle. With a bit of guesswork, I call it twelve kills.

Down in the dungeon, one weakness of the party shows itself. We haven't memorized any instances of Remove Fear, and Mal-Kalen takes advantage.

Still, he's squishy enough, and we take him down quickly.

Jaheira took a hit there. Con drain, not level drain. And looking it up ... 400 round duration. She won't get those 19 HP back until after we're done with this dungeon.

Later, when I get around to reconciling my kill counts, I find a 2000 XP/1 kill discrepancy. As best as I can tell, nobody got credit for killing Mal-Kalen, though the party did get the experience.

After Daine recovers, we head for the jellies. Daine stays back for this fight, as her piercing attacks can't hurt the mustard jelly.

Wait, what? Mustard jellies can be backstabbed? That's ... oh, that's a difference between the two games. No backstab immunity effect for jellies in BGEE. It definitely feels like a mistake.

The mustard jelly brings Aerys to level 8, and he finally has a bad HP roll. Only 4 HP (roll 2/6) this time. His new spell is Stoneskin, and his innate fire resistance improves to 50%.

We move on to the wolves' domain. Dire and dread wolves abound here, and Daine reaches level 9. She rolls 3/8 for 5 more HP, and can memorize 5th level spells now.

As we approach the big bad wolf, a bunch of dread wolves come at us:

That calls for some fire. Imoen goes for a scorcher.

No kills in the first round, but the second round takes out all three survivors.

And now, the boss. SCS seriously upgrades this fight, including both multiple Horror effects and a dispel.

And ... not the best start. One of our two tanks is panicked. Still, at least the rest of the party was out of that howl's range.
I follow up with wands of frost and the heavens. Twice.

We have some ghouls to worry about now, but we'll keep up the wand assault as well. Flame strike #3 - not quite lethal. Wand fireball...

That does it. Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Well, we are. Just not enough to stop us.

There are still some ghouls and dread wolves to clear out, and the paralyzed Coran takes some damage, but we get through it without too much trouble. Ulcaster gets his book, and we can leave the area for good.

399 fire kills. Another very fiery update.

"Am I missing... an eyebrow?"
- Adam Savage, MythBusters

jmerry

Part 11: The Western Wilds

There are just a few wilderness areas left, mostly in the western part of the map. We'll clear them out before returning to the Cloakwood.

We start in Nashkel, and it's the right time of day for a bit in the carnival we never had the opportunity for before.

Explosions? Of course we'll watch. And then kill the ogre when the act goes wrong.

Rasaad joins for a moment to give some expository dialogue, and then we restore the normal party and head northeast. The first fight here is a group of ogres:

Only the berserker survives those two fireballs. And it's badly injured, so it's over very quickly after that.
Then we talk to Sarhedra, who wanted us to kill those ogres. "That was quick."

More fights follow. Ogres:

Bandits:

Wolves:

We have lots of fireballs now.

The xvarts attacking the cow ... they don't get fireballs.

Sleep is a much better fit for this encounter, because the farmer doesn't want us to cook his cow. We still kill some of them with fire - Imoen's darts.

Then a quartet of ogre berserkers ... that calls for multiple fireballs.

The fireballs land ...

Huh. Three wasn't enough. Oh well, we can just engage. One gets past the melee line, and our ranged attackers have to scatter.

More ogres follow, and then a second bandit group:

That was our last 3rd level mage spell slot of the day. Nothing but fireballs.

There are still a few more monsters around, which we handle without the fireballs. The only tricky bit is the cave; Imoen goes in first to disarm the trap.
Incidentally, we pass a milestone here - Daine is the first party member to exceed 100K experience from kills.

That was the last of the eastern areas. Now, to the west. We'll start in the south, with the forest at the foot of the Cloud Peak mountains.
We start in the north, and that means Sendai comes first. We pick a fight, of course.

And also, of course, throw fireballs. Aerys got the kills there, but it was two fireballs rather than just one.

Since I'm not using level 1 spells offensively much at this point and Aerys has so many (11 or 12, depending on whether the amulet or ring is equipped first), I start having him use Shield even when not preparing for specific threats.

Lots of minor threats like xvarts or skeletons get wiped out with weapons, and then we run into a skeleton pack that I decide to burn:

Of course, just because I'm using Shield doesn't mean that I'm up on all of my long-duration buffs. I'm most of the way through the map when I remember that both of my mages know Stoneskin now.

Vax and Zal ... back to the fireballs.

Coran gets the bracers of archery, though I might well move them around later. He has some pretty impressive THAC0 now.

A trio of winter wolves elevates the usual level of random monsters here:

So of course, they get a fireball. No kills with it, though. Coran reaches thief level 7 with this encounter, gaining 3 HP (a perfect 3/3 roll) and adding 25 points in Set Traps (90 total). I use Strength of One so he can re-equip his composite longbow, then continue.

Rufie gets the last daily fireball ...

... after he's already dead. Oops. Instead, Imoen takes 28 damage from it. Sorry about that.

We head back to Nashkel to rest and sell some junk, then continue farther west. For this trip, I won't pick up every little thing; I'll only carry the more valuable junk back to civilization to sell.

First, Seawatcher. But before we get there, some xvarts:

One fireball. No more xvarts.

Arriving at the coast, we encounter some hobgoblins first:

A few more elites walk up after that, and one even gets a hit on Imoen before dying. Then we rest, since fatigue is catching up.

The northern reaches don't have much; just a few wolves.

It may not look like it, but that fireball did kill one of them. Imoen's fire darts get another.

I provoke Arkushule by demanding an answer ...

She dies before she can even prebuff, to two arrows and a melee hit.

And now, the main event here. The start of the path to the cave is guarded by hobgoblins and sirines:

Sirines are fire resistant, so that wand fireball is more of an attempt to disrupt their spells than anything. It doesn't work, but the party is full of elves. Daine and Khalid resist, while Coran saves. We follow up with melee and ranged attacks, killing them with no damage taken and recovering 13 of their 15 arrows of biting.

With Sil's group, I go for a backstab:

It's not quite lethal, but it's close. And with an attacker already in melee range, they don't fire any of their arrows. Also, only one charm spell was cast, and the target saved.

Inside the cave, Imoen easily disarms the traps, and we shoot down the flesh golems with no trouble. The tome gets immediate identification, and Jaheira uses it. 18 Con at least offsets her poor HP rolls a little. And I plan on updating her BG2 stats for continuity when I get there.

On the way out of the cave, there are some carrion crawlers:

Nothing fancy here, just weapon attacks. They didn't get any lucky hits in, but even if they did, they're a really bad matchup against the salamander form's fire shield.

Now, we head toward the southwest, where worgs show up:

No, not the ones at the lighthouse yet. That was just a random pack. The lighthouse trio don't get a fireball.

We collect the reward, and that's it for the area. There aren't any monsters in the last few corners of the map, though Daine does get struck by lightning.

The river comes next. We get ambushed on the way ...

Eh, just some gnolls. No problem.

Once there, we run into Neville's band:

One fireball to burn them all.
We use more fire on the northern bridge, but the hobgoblin elites and ogre berserkers are tougher:

The enemies even last long enough to get a hit on Jaheira.

The area also brings random ogre berserkers ...

Ouch. Even now, it's a bad idea to melee those guys.

The lone polar bear is no problem, and Jared hands over some boots. Random monsters in the western half of the map, though ...

That calls for a lot of fire. Three simultaneous fireballs...

Not enough. I pass the necklace over to Jaheira and go for a fourth.

That actually kills one, and the last two go down easily.

Another quartet of berserkers nearby gets the same four-fireball treatment.

Yep. That seems to be the appropriate amount of fire.

Finally, up north, we meet Laurel and face a gibberling horde.

That wave of fire gets eight of them. Most of the rest fall to our weapons, though Laurel gets one ...

... and breaks her weapon in the process. Oops.

One hungry ogre killed, and we're done with the area. Also, the gem bag is full again; we'll have to sell our gems and jewelry when we get back to civilization.

There's one last unexplored wilderness area, and we head there now. It's not very threatening, with a number of packs of dogs that don't even consistently go hostile. Ba'ruk's band does rile up some dogs, though:

We haven't rested, so we're out of memorized fireballs. I would certainly use them if I had them.

The northern section brings a notably varied tribe of gnolls, all the way up to a chieftain.

That's a rare enemy type; I'm pretty sure there are only three in the game. One here, one at the fortress, and a named one at the bandit camp (Garclax). Ingot is similar, but different enough in some ways that I won't count him here.

We help out Charleston Nib, then take the idol so we can face the Doomsayer.

It's resistant to elements and immune to missile damage, so the mages go with Magic Missile spells. I still mix in some fire, with the Wand of the Heavens.

Not the final blow, but definitely a contributing factor.

Coran scouts the last few bits of the map stealthily, and we talk to Brage. Answer his riddle, get teleported back to Nashkel. I end the session in Beregost, after emptying the gem bag and resting. It's day 87, Aerys has over 100K experience, and we have nowhere to go but back to the Cloakwood.

462 fire kills. Fireballs just solve so many problems in this game.

"I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode."
— Teal'c, Stargate SG-1, "200"

jmerry

Part 12: Return to the Cloakwood

After a bit more restocking from Thalantyr (fire darts, potions of freedom, and even some fire bullets), we return to the Cloakwood. We passed through the spiders' area the first time, but this time we're actually going to clear it out.

We talk to Tiber, and meet some respawned huge spiders nearby.

Boom. No more spiders.
We turn to the north next, and take on the ettercaps.

They're considerably sturdier, so the fireball doesn't kill them.
We disarm a few of their traps, then rest.

After waking, it's back to killing spiders. The way to the Spiderdome is clear, so the party heads there next. Dip in, then come out to ambush them on our own terms.

Jaheira gets webbed, which means the only way I can protect her is to kill the attacking spiders. With fire.

Aerys doesn't get any of them, but Imoen's fireball kills two giant spiders and an ettercap. With half of that group down, I add a third fireball:

Jaheira is poisoned and down to single-digit HP when this battle ends. Daine cures her poison, and we heal her back into the green before entering the dome. Centeol and one sword spider are still in there, but that's no problem at all.

Tiber gets his brother's body back, and we have a nice sword that we're not going to use - but the free action effect is useful enough to carry it.

Now, we go around the north side of the dome to the falls.

Phase spider poison. I don't mess around with that - Imoen drinks an antidote immediately. Then it's Coran's turn to be poisoned and drink an antidote; in his case, I miss it long enough for the poison to tick twice.

There are more phase spiders in the southwest, but we have more room to maneuver here.

One teleports after the party when Imoen is spotted disarming a trap. Two more follow, and are similarly killed without getting any hits in. The next wave is a mere pair of huge spiders, and we're nearly clear.

We do trip one web trap instead of disarming it, but the only remaining thing that gets us is a lightning strike.

A few giant spiders later, we're done with the map.

We're not quite done with spiders; traveling to the mine brings an ambush.

Aerys gets webbed, but puts the two spiders on his side to sleep before it takes effect. With only one still active, the rest is easy.

And now, the mine. Since I'll have to rest soon, I go after Drasus' party with the remainder of my daily resources. The two bridge guards are easy, and then it's time to prepare. Sequencers, Stoneskin, Shield, a Protection from Fire, and a pair of nymphs.

We scout with a stealthy Coran, then cast our webs.

Good. Attack now. Daine switches to spider form, while Jaheira goes ranged with her fire bullets.

Drasus is first to fall, dying to the fire from Jaheira's bullet. Kysus manages to become active, so I hit him with a necklace fireball:

He had a minor globe up. That doesn't help against the necklace. As a bonus, the fireball kills Rezdan.
Aerys drinks a potion of freedom so he can hit Kysus with a Spell Thrust. While he's working on that, Kysus casts Remove Magic at Daine ...

No more fire protection for her. Fireballs are no longer a good option.
Imoen actually got stuck in the webs before she could cast her own sequencer. She does so now - Web and Horror. Kysus saves against the Horror, so he can still cast spells.

Like that one. Thankfully, only Coran and a nymph fail their saves.
Aerys adds another web, keeping Kysus immobile. Daine takes advantage.

Now we fall back to wait out the Chaos. I'd rather not get my party shot up by Coran in his confusion.
Instead, Coran decides to shoot a horse.

He shoots the other horse, but only once. It lives, unable to run away as it wants to.

The boots go to Jaheira; since we have no melee skirmishers in this party, the best use for them is to make sure both of our tanks can close quickly.

Attempting to rest summons guards.

All five of them die to Aerys' fireball, second to land. The second rest attempt succeeds.

We step into the guard barracks, and engage the pair there.

It's a simple fight, but we still get a fire kill out of it. Up on the second floor, we get directions to the mine - later.

There are Blacktalon elites around, so we use Coran to scout ...

Two webs, followed by one spider attacking in melee and the rest of the party at range. One of the enemies stays free, but dies quickly. The rest are helpless.

Imoen switches to her bow for range reasons. With her darts, she might get stuck in the webs.

Most of the remaining encounters are trivial - forest creatures like tasloi and wolves. Lakadaar and his guards, though - that calls for fire.

Wand shots here, a scorcher and a fireball. Aerys runs that scorcher around and kills the initial blast's survivors.
Then more guards get involved:

They take some damage from the scorcher, but physical damage is what kills them.

A few more guards follow as we head to the mine - one in an outbuilding, two at the top of the mine. And down we go, with the previous day's stoneskins still active.

The mine level is pretty trivial - one guard at a time, and they can't do anything of note to us. The stoneskins do expire, though, their time running out.

The prison level brings actual fights, as the guards come in groups here.

This also includes a new guard variety - archers. I get my positioning a little wrong in that fight, and Imoen takes a melee hit.

Next, Hareishan's room. I disarm some traps, and send in several party members to deliver a lot of fire.

It ... could have gone getter. My people walk too far forward trying to find the right spots to fre at, and we take hits. Imoen gets poisoned with a guard's arrow, and Aerys takes a hit in melee.

At least the necklace fireball disrupts Hareishan. Her minor globe protects her from Aerys' fireball. Imoen launches her belated wand shot:

That's most of them now. Hareishan goes for a spell ... Domination.

Against that - we just back off. Jaheira stays in the room, not seeing any targets to attack. But Hareishan does follow us. We kill a guard, then start shooting. Coran and Imoen are hit with a Slow spell, but the arrows of biting pay off:

Now, back to normal arrows.

There's one last guard to finish off, and then the spell on Jaheira wears off. No enemies remain in that room, so we can move on.

There are a couple ghasts in the back passage, but that's it. One lands a sickening hit on Daine. Rill gets some money, Yeslick waits. Also, Aerys casts a new Stoneskin.

Down on the barracks level, Aerys casts a fireball for the first room.

Eh, that was only half of them. Still, none of this group are terribly tough.

We clear a few lightly populated rooms, then hit the hobgoblins' barracks:

Two are out of range. The other six die to the fireball.
Then the second room gets a wand fireball.

Same there.

Now, it's Natasha's turn. I start with a backstab ...

In retrospect, I should have given Coran the boots of speed for this. Still, he gets away cleanly. Natasha gives chase ... and there's one key buff I've spotted. It's time to fight fire with fire. Jaheira activates the flaming spear's ability...

And that's why. Attack her in melee, take a fire shield hit in retaliation, hit back with your own fire shield. We disrupt her with every melee hit, right through her stoneskins. Since she doesn't have any other source of fire resistance, we deal damage too. Even absolute spells like PfMW wouldn't help against this trick.
The result is inevitable.

The fire itself didn't kill her, but she didn't get any spells off.

There's one last threat on this level - an ogre mage.

That's an impressively lucky shot there. Maximum damage, critical hit, right through the mirror images. Coran follows up with another image-bypassing crit, and it's over. We have the +1 katana, not that we have any use for it.

That brings us to the final level, and Davaeorn. His guard up front challenges us, and gets in a hit before going down.
Next, Imoen disarms the traps and Coran sneaks forward far enough to trigger Dave's dialogue ... while still invisible. The battle horrors come after us, but the mage just stands there still doing nothing.

Battle horrors are no joke. Aerys follows that scorcher up with another, taking one down.

The other falls in melee.
Now, Davaeorn's reinforcements start to arrive - Blacktalon elites, in both ranged and melee varieties. I web up the entrance and start shooting at the trapped enemies, but it's time to do something about the boss as well.

Specifically, that. One Cloudkill, cast from a scroll.
It deals 8 damage, and he drinks a potion to heal. Then 5, then 6. Jaheira escapes the webs long enough to drink a potion of freedom, and continues her watch. 6 more damage, and the second wave arrives. I decide to level up Imoen mid-battle; 6 HP gained (roll 4/4), and she casts her Stoneskin for four skins.
2 more damage, then 9, 10, and 9. Dead; Davaeorn has 45 HP, and we've done 47 damage since he healed.

He never cast a spell. It took some lucky rolls there - seven rounds of Cloudkill only averages 36.6 damage (accounting for his 5% MR from wearing the robe) - but not that much. Even if he had survived the whole spell, I would have finished him off with a blind fireball or two.
We faced two waves of reinforcements; there can be up to five, but they stop when the boss dies. With multiple webs to trap them and a whole party to attack them, they never stood a chance.

We kill the recap guy and the mustard jelly, then claim the loot. With everything from down here, our scroll case is full now.
Yeslick gets a brief recruitment and some basic gear - helmet, splint mail, mace, shield. Then we flood the mines and send him off. The big city awaits us.

510 fire kills. Not that many by the standards of recent updates, but we did get some high-profile kills that way.

"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
- Jaya Ballard, Magic: The Gathering. Flavor text for the card Sizzle.

jmerry

Part 13: Trouble in the City

The first order of business, of course, is to leave the Cloakwood. And since the travel here has a high chance of interruption, we get two waylays on the way out. First, wyverns.

We take one 2-point melee hit, but no poison. Coran does have to run around some to avoid trouble, but nothing too extreme.
Second, ettercaps.

We take some hits, though again no poison. One ettercap even kills itself on Daine's fireshield.

Before heading to the city, we visit Beregost for some trading. Officer Vai now has 111 bandit scalps in her collection, and our archers are armed with +2 arrows. I have enough gold to keep that up for the rest of the game.

Now, we head north to the city. Kill an ankheg, collect a dagger, then cross the bridge. We enter through the gates in the morning, and head straight north.

That's some good timing on the talk. But I do believe that it's too late to hide. The poisoning quest is on.

Coran is fatigued, but the rest of the party isn't yet. As such, I press on. First, the counting house.

Not enough? Have a second fireball.

While half of them die before that second fireball can arrive, the rest burn properly. We pick up some gold that's lying around, then head back south.

Upstairs at Sorcerous Sundries, some mages are hanging out ...

Two fireballs to start, plus attacks on the one that has a protective bubble up.
But then, they launch a fireball of their own. We retaliate with a third blast:

Niemain died to arrows, while Oulam and William Garst fall to a fireball. Only Wheber Ott remains, but he'll be a tough nut to crack with that bubble of protection - and our melee forces unavailable. The necklace of missiles is unavailable as well, since one of the panicked party members is holding it.
Then Wheber casts his next spell.

37 damage on a 7d6 Skull Trap. That's what fatigue, and the accompanying negative luck, does for you. Drinking a healing potion wouldn't have quite protected him, but resting before taking this fight on would have.
But then, Wheber's defenses collapse.

Coran is avenged. We wait for the Horror to wear off, then head out.

This was a blunder. Fighting mages with the fatigue debuff is simply a bad idea, and I paid for it with a death. Fortunately, it's a recoverable blunder; we can raise Coran for 800 gold and heal up with some nymphs.

Coran applies his lockpicking skills to acquire a +1 longbow - a good stopgap until we can boost his strength for the +1 composite longbow. And again, to open the way and return Nester's dagger. We talk to Lothander and find out how to remove his geas, then head north and east to meet Brielbara.

A crucial quest. But first, rest.

We wake in the late afternoon, and immediately head upstairs to chop up a mustard jelly.

The reward is trivial, but 2000 XP for killing the jelly is worth it.

Now, it's time to get started on the night quests. We talk with the thieves and pick up a tome - Jaheira now has 18 Dex. Khalid wears the gauntlets of dexterity, because he's actually the only party member that benefits from them at all.
Darkness falls when we leave the building, so we head north for Narlen's heist immediately. Coran is the thief for this part, because of his excellent stealth.

It's very easy to get away when you aren't seen in the first place.

After a detour to the Elfsong Tavern - Imoen gives us a nice amulet, Brevlik offers another quest, and the merchant upstairs sells us a second necklace of missiles - we head south to loot Gantolandan's place.
This heist calls for Coran and Imoen working together - Imoen takes care of the trap, while Coran handles the locks. Gantolandan doesn't even start to wake.

The museum heist comes next. In and out with no one the wiser.

Finally, the main guild heist. Coran handles this one with his stealth, getting through the whole thing without being seen at all. One key hide check does fail, so he drinks an invisibility potion after retrieving the parts upstairs.
And no, you don't have to talk to Glanmarie. She doesn't set any flags with her dialogue, and she doesn't even initiate dialogue on her own.
The result of all this stealthy thievery ...

Excellent. Plenty of gold and experience. Jaheira reaches druid level 8 here, gaining 4 HP (roll 2/4).

Next, Imoen learns some new spells. I buy all the new scrolls from Sorcerous Sundries and feed her a pair of potions of genius to learn them. While I'm there, I also pick up a full stack each of arrows of dispelling and detonation.

We now have three hours of high lore for Imoen. I decide to take advantage by going after Ragefast and Ramazith.

Ragefast gets the first dispelling arrow. It works perfectly.

He took 11 damage before his protections went up (Khalid's arrow) and 8 after (Imoen's dart). Dead. Ragefast is not a very sturdy character.
Sadly, Jaheira failed her saves against that sequencer. I spend another dispelling arrow on her, so she doesn't have to fight blind for two hours. 9 damage ... wait, I should have unequipped Coran's gauntlets for less damage.

Jaheira gets the nymph cloak, and we head off to confront Ramazith.

Actually ... just kill him on the ground floor.

The mustard jellies get a hit on Daine; she makes both saves.
The ghasts get a double necklace fireball.

Same for the hobgoblin elites.

And the kobold commandos.

About half of those foes died in fire; the rest fell to our weapons as the party followed the two trailblazers.
With that, the treasure on the top floor is ours. Imoen lore-IDs the intelligence tome, and Aerys uses it.

Next, it's time to get back to the poisoning quest. We talk to Jalantha Mistmyr, buy a wisdom tome, and hear about a dead child - we're not dealing fairly with the Umberlee priestesses after that.

Well, we tried the easy way. Time for the hard way.

It's a very short battle. The lesser priestesses, who didn't get our focused attention from the start, are more trouble.

x

Specifically, lots of castings of Unholy Blight. Coran gets the worst of it. Fortunately, there aren't any more after that shot, and we don't have to raise him again.
Daine reaches level 10 here, for a fixed gain of 2 HP. Jaheira uses the wisdom tome, and is now up to 16.

Restoring the bow brings Khalid reaches level 8, gaining another 12 HP (roll 9/10). At 87 out of a possible 104 HP, he's quite sturdy.

Lothander is next, and I'd love to throw some fireballs to clear out those goons. Unfortunately, there are also innocents in the area, so we have to settle for normal attacks.

He almost gets away. Almost. Then the goons go hostile, and we take them down.

... and the one hiding behind a pillar. Can't forget him.

We return to the docks now, to save Coran's unknown child. There's trouble in the Low Lantern ...

Vay-ya has a wand of fire. Getting someone up next to her means she won't use it, and that's important. That, and Coran can get in a backstab this way.

It took two hits to kill her, but she didn't do anything dangerous.
That just leaves Desreta. Imoen casts Hold Person ... magic shielding potion. So much for the easy way. Also, she hits hard - that 17 damage is one hit on Daine.
In round two, Desreta drinks an invisibility potion. I respond with Detect Invisibility ... no backstab. She still gets in another hit before going down, though.

Jaheira gets the gauntlets, for a massive boost to her melee ability.

Downstairs, Yago lets us get into position ...

He precasts a Mirror Image and a PfNM, then dies. The book of curses is ours.

Noralee gets her gauntlets back, and then I send Jaheira after the basilisk.

This is Jaheira's new top kill, and it earns her level 7 as a fighter. In just two steps, she has more than doubled her melee damage potential. Also, she gets a perfect 5/5 roll, for 7 more hit points. Definitely her best level.

We return to Brielbara, and the baby is cured ...

... but it's not over. Coran feels guilt, but can't bring himself to act quite yet.

And now, the Blushing Mermaid. Larze on the ground floor gets a Wand of Paralyzation shot:

Unfortunately, he did get in a hit before that.

Upstairs, it's Marek's turn.

He lasts long enough to cast a Vampiric Touch on Daine; I probably should have used a dispelling arrow.
And with that, we have the antidote. Aerys is cured, and we don't have any strict time limits hanging over our heads any more. The remainder of the city's troubles can be dealt with at a more leisurely pace.

527 total fire kills. We didn't add many in this part, but then we didn't have that many kills overall.

"Look into those flames, supplicant! Raise your head, look! Is that what you wish to hold, supplicant? Is the shaping of flames what stirs your heart? Know that flames can burn, and if you would learn their power, you must suffer their touch."
— Ignus's teacher, Planescape: Torment

jmerry

Today's post slightly delayed by an uncooperative wireless connection. I couldn't so much as load this page in several hours of trying before I went outside to connect to a different (much better) access point.

Part 14: Traveling with a Tot

Now that we don't have any pressing timers, we're free to choose our targets based on what we get from them. We head to the southwest sector first. An inn overrun with green slimes? Slice them up.

Then an unmarked building holds a group of thieves:

That fireball doesn't kill any of them, but it does inflict considerable damage. They're easy prey after that.

And finally, the reason we came this way.

We let him prebuff, then step out when he starts casting. That's enough protections to be troublesome after all.
Then again, when he follows us and becomes visible ...

... we hit him with a dispelling arrow.
We try to hit him some more, but he uses a mirror image/invisibility sequencer. OK, just kill Maka instead.

With Sunin invisible, we step back inside to take on his other servant Joular. That comes quickly, and Sunin follows us again.

All right, hit him with another dispelling arrow.

And there's our prize - a new ring for Imoen. She only gets 8 total first level slots, but that's still four more than she had before.

There's also a "General Store" in this sector that buys practically anything (including wands) and is very easy to steal from, but we don't need any recharges right now.

On the other hand, the Merchants' League? That's worth looking into. Edie gets a potion of insight, we check out Zorl's office, and the doppelgangers reveal themselves. The one on the second floor and the five on the bottom floor are no problem, but the crowd upstairs?

That calls for some fireballs.
But ... the pillars are trouble. Imoen steps too far forward and is burned by Aerys' fireball.

Then she gets her own fireball off.

She gets two kills with it, but only at the cost of near death. Far too much friendly fire there.
The remaining doppelgangers are handled easily, and without any fire. Aerys reaches level 9, gaining another 5 HP (roll 3/6) and taking Glitterdust, Slow, and Improved Invisibility as his new spells.

We visit Brielbara again. Coran isn't ready to take responsibility quite yet, but stepping back out does the trick.

Coran now has to carry a baby around. It'll take him either around two and a half weeks or until chapter 7 starts before that changes - and if he gets seriously hurt during this time, he's gone. Since we got him killed outright recently, that's a serious concern.
For our troubles, we get a second potion case.

Since I don't want to risk the baby's safety too much, I head out for some side quests - lots of travel, not much danger. First, Dorn's quest.

We're at 20 reputation, so Dorn won't join ... unless we lower it first. And there's an easy method we have of doing that.

Viconia checks your reputation when she joins - except for the first time. That time, it's always yes even if you have paragon rep, so you can use her to go back down to 18. Once. This is why we didn't talk after saving her earlier.
Khalid has been stashed upstairs in the Friendly Arm to make room.

She gets some levels, but she's not going to fight so it doesn't matter. Back at the inn, we trade her for Dorn.

Dorn goes up to 5th level, taking longbow proficiency and gaining 25 HP (rolls 25/40). He'll mostly stay back and shoot at enemies, though he gets Spider's Bane for melee purposes.

We head south with him - one waylay on the way to Beregost.

And here, Dorn gets his first kill.
I look to buy a helmet ... no, it's night. The smithy is closed. On to Nashkel, then.

We rest, then talk to Taris. Since we sold some helmets here in Nashkel, we can buy one back now. And with that, we're off.

And yet another waylay. Another waylay follows, but that's an easy one with a lone ogrillon. No need for anything fancy or even a picture.

We arrive, and face a few skeletons.

Kryll must be close.
When we do meet her, there's a cutscene - and she casts Horror while still in cutscene mode. It's literally in the air before we can do anything.
Well, all right, let's respond appropriately.

Jaheira panics. Aerys doesn't, and the fireball lands among the skeletons. Daryl, Glenn, Rick, and Shane die. So much for the walking dead.
Kryll also goes down in the fireball, and the remaining skeletons (Lori and Hagar) die by script.

After waiting for Jaheira to stop running around, we head back north to face Simmeon. We get plenty of rest along the way, of course.

We open with a fireball, and that's the mage dead already. Unfortunately, she got off a Horror first. Half the party panics.
Aerys follows up with another fireball, targeting the priest:

At the same time, that's a Silence aimed at Imoen, and the enemy idiots begin their chase. They may have disabled half the party, but they're doing a terrible job of capitalizing on that.
Aerys continues with a pair of Magic Missile spells ...

No more priest. Now we just have to worry about the melee bruisers.
One Thrall of Azothet goes down to an arrow from Dorn, and the battle continues ... until the Horror runs out.

We're back. And with the whole party involved, it goes quickly. I finish Simmeon with a wand Flame Strike.

Score one for Jaheira.

With that, we're done with Dorn. We head back to the Friendly Arm, and rest. Our reputation is back up to 20.

And now, it's Rasaad's turn. We head south again to recruit him, giving him the Cloak of the Wolf as a primary "weapon".

Returning north, we reach the Baldur's Gate docks at mid-day. Time warps:

Just a few monks. They don't land a single hit on us.

The note gives us a lead - but before we follow up, we rest again at the Blade and Stars. Sorrem agrees to show us his friends, warping time again ...

We actually take a hit this time - a crit on Imoen with Shocking Grasp, for a total of 6 damage. She would likely have taken more damage if that were a normal monk fist attack.
Upstairs, we have more room to work with, and Aerys throws a fireball.

The cleric dies. And actually, that spot's quite tempting ... have some more fire. Imoen, then Aerys again.

Sorrem goes down, though the lieutenant survives. We kill him in melee, and know we know where to find their monastery.

On the way south, we're waylaid immediately.

Eh, just hobgoblins. We kill them easily. We rest at the Friendly Arm and again in Nashkel, then continue south through the mines. Some ghasts and kobolds block our path, but are easily disposed of.

And then, we reach the monastery. Upon arrival, we find a dispute:

Our intervention here has us killing all four monks. The applicants are just terrible at fighting.

The outer snows have some monsters, including snow trolls. But then, Coran brought some fire arrows.

And that is Coran's first fire kill of the game. Incidentally, these trolls don't get the SCS tweaks to their regeneration, so only fire or acid can get the final blow on them. We use fire, of course. Imoen gets the other two with her darts.

After that, we come to the stairs, guarded by actual people.

They're easy, of course. None of the enemies in this quest are actually challenging to a party at or near the level cap.
The initiates at the top of the stairs are more numerous ...

... but that just means that we break out the fireballs. Four out of six die to a single blast from Aerys.

Inside, the enemies spread out more.

We face six monks and two initiates, though not all at once. And there's never a good spot to use a fireball.

Moving slightly forward, Imoen trips an acid arrow trap for nine damage. I wasn't cautious enough there. Also, that reminds me to use Stoneskin. We do get the other traps disarmed properly, and then face Gamaz again.

He sends minions after us, of course. Rasaad's brother has definitely embraced the classic villain ways.
That fireball we're casting in that shot kills the two initiates; the monks survive only to fall to our weapons.

And in a side room here ... the Big-Fisted Belt. Coran gets it, for general convenience. We can stop memorizing Strength of One now.

The cave brings some nuisance critters and a riddle. Bassano is free, though he doesn't attack immediately.

Outside, it's the final confrontation with Gamaz. Aerys makes use of one of his new spells:

Only one blinded monk there. Meh. Other than that, we fight without magic. Target the minions first, then go after Gamaz.

Gamaz dies by script, so nobody gets the credit and XP.

On the way out, Bassano attacks.

One successful backstab, then we hit him with Glitterdust. That takes the fight out of him.
Oh, and the double "Blinded" messages? That's a bug with vanilla Glitterdust. When I standardized the MR issues with the spell (active starting in BG2), I fixed that too.

And now, we're done with companions outside our standard party. We let Rasaad go in town, reclaim Khalid, and restock on +2 arrows. Just as we return to the big city ...

The timer has run out. We don't have to worry about carrying a baby around anymore.

548 total fire-kills, after this update of lots of travel and not so much fighting.

"This little hamlet has too much boring and not enough burning... Torch everything!"
— Kefka Palazzo, Final Fantasy VI

jmerry

Part 15: Fire and Ice

Now that Coran's burden is taken care of, we can move on to riskier places. First, we head back to Ulgoth's Beard to take up Shandalar's quest.

The first enemy we meet on the ice island ... winter wolves.

There will be a lot of those. They're pretty trivial to fight, though - only the mages pose a real threat here.

The first mages are the trio in the next room - open with fireballs, of course.

On second thought - cancel those fireballs for Aerys and Imoen. They'd probably hit themselves. Also, according to that log, Andris has a lot of resistance. Fire can help a little with him, but most of the damage will have to come from other sources.
The corridor there is an awkward bottleneck for us, so we retreat to the surface. Marcellus follows us.

One down. For the other two, I make use of Insect Plague. Target Jaheira, have her draw it to them ... no, wait. Andris teleported over to us. Hit him instead.

The dispelling arrow misses so we can't stop his Chaos, but he's still doomed. And we only got two of our party confused.
Jaheira gets the final blow, and we wait out the Chaos before continuing forward.
Beyn hits us with a Slow, affecting half the party.

It doesn't help him. Divide and conquer.

We start clearing side paths, and I'm not perfect at catching the traps. Imoen blunders into one Flame Strike trap. Still, I get the rest, and approach Cuchol ...

One hit. Dead. He doesn't hold a melee weapon, and Coran rolled the maximum for damage.

I go for fireballs on Garan ...

... but he just dies to the arrows instead. No fire kills on the ankhegs either; they're tough and resistant.

Then we head toward the exit - Tellan is on the way.

Backstab survived. Coran re-hides for another try ... no. Shadow Door.
I follow up with a blind cast fireball ... miss. He's wandering too much. So I wait ... and he comes for the party before that defense wears off. The fight is on. Stoneskin goes up, I wear it down ...

All kinds of illegal there - a sequencer on a level 13 mage (no level 7 slots), ignoring the aura limit of one cast per round. But I can't blame SCS for this one - it's the NPC project that tinkered with him. He also has a Death Spell memorized, illegal for his illusionist kit.
While I have the dueling fireshields set up, Daine gets the kill with her weapon. All that trickery didn't save him.

There are a few more winter wolves before the second level, and Coran reaches fighter level 7. He gains 3 HP (roll 3/5), and that wonderfal APR boost.

The second level is mostly full of lots of winter wolves. They're worth plenty of XP, but they're boring. And then, there's Dezkiel.

Now this is a worthy fireball target. Those three fireballs don't kill anyone, but they do a good deal of damage to both Dezkiel and his Snow Golems. The dispelling arrow leaves Dezkiel vulnerable, and he dies immediately to a follow-up hit. That just leaves the snow golems:

They're highly resistant to arrows and to piercing damage. They're not resistant to magic and fire.

Dezkiel held the item Shandalar wanted, so we can leave now. And as he teleports away, we pick his pockets repeatedly.

That gets us two potions of heroism and six scrolls (Remove Curse, Feeblemind, Emotion: Hopelessness, Greater Malison, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Spirit Armor). Definitely worth it.
While I'm at it, Imoen picks Dushai's ring of free action as well. That'll give us a little more flexibility with Web.

While we're here, we speak to Mendas as well. The quest for Balduran's isle is open, though we won't go there until chapter 7. Buy out a merchant, hire Ike's tour, and we're done with Ulgoth's Beard for now.

And then, there's one more thing to do outside the city - face Shilo Chen's ogre magi in Larswood. On the way south, some half-ogres jump the gun:

Two Flame Strikes. Two dead half ogres. And we move on before fatigue can set in.

On arrival at Larswood, we move quickly - fatigue still isn't a problem when we reach the ogre magi and their minions.

That's two of the half ogres dead already. Then Aerys gets off his fireball:

No more half ogres left, and that's one of the mages down as well. Our melee forces are incapacitated (one Hold Person, one Chromatic Orb stun), but the surviving mage isn't interested in following up with melee attacks. Ranged attacks bring it down.
Before we can fully get free, some gibberlings join in:

We have more than enough fireballs for annoyances like that.

Back in the city, we pick up our reward (gloves of pickpocketing, useful for Imoen on occasion) and start working through buildings. Most are uneventful, but there are a few encounters of interest.

On to the north, where we help out a kid and a bard. Then another hostile encounter comes up.

I try a dispelling arrow - missed. A roll of 5 wasn't enough, even with THAC0 4. Drelik responds with a Remove Magic, dispelling Aerys' stoneskin but not Imoen's. Drelik tries lots of things including invisibility and charm spells, but nothing actually gets us except that initial partially effective Remove Magic.

Victory, with no damage taken.
Now, his boss upstairs gets some fire.

The scorcher wasn't terribly effective (he resisted half of it), and the flame strikes didn't activate in time. Also, he got some melee hits in. Still, he's down and his helm is ours.

I pick up a skull and a stash of gems in the Three Old Kegs, then talk to the noblewoman Areana. Over to the Elfsong ...

Cyrdemac isn't interested in talking. We close things out with Areana and Quoningar, then move on.

There's that one inexplicable shop ... instant roast chicken, anyone?

Three of them died to weapons and sixteen to fire. One of them got overkilled by 40 points there - 41 is a seriously high roll on an 8d6 fireball.

We make a delivery for Nadine, and pick up a third necklace of missiles. Excellent. After a rest, we enter the northwest sector.

The peeper Gervisse doesn't get anything fancy - just weapon attacks.

It's easily enough. He gets off a Slow, but nothing else.

We visit Pheirkas and hand over a cloak ...

... then take it right back. We definitely believe in keeping all the rewards.

The Silvershields get Eddard's pin back, and now it's time for something more involved. We enter Degrodel's house, and engage the horrors within:

Two Flame Strikes didn't quite finish that Helmed Horror. The third does.

Now, for the other foes. We attack the Doom Guards in melee - they're resistant to fire - and blast the invisible stalkers with more fire.

Imoen took some hits before she got her Stoneskin up, but it's not too bad all told. These are some very tough enemies. One more Helmed Horror lurks in the western part of the house, and then we can talk to Degrodel. Retrieve a helm? Sure.

On to the petrified adventurers. I try to be sneaky and pick a pocket ...

Wait, what? He goes hostile even if he's petrified and completely unaware of the outside world? I reload, because that's just silly. In retrospect, I probably should have charmed him with one of my cloaks.
On the second try, it's a success. I talk him into giving up the cloak, then go for the helm as well. While we're picking up the cloak from Quenash, I lay some traps in the Undercellar, again using the Reform Party trick.

Then we go to the Helm and Cloak, and set some more traps. Talk to Gorpel Hind, start teh bar fight.

Gretek takes the brunt of the traps - not quite lethal, but the next hit is. Then we focus the mage Arlin down before he can do anything.
Still, the enemies have a cleric. Unholy Blight hits us, dealing minor damage and interrupting the nymphs' spells. Daine goes for the archer Caturak while the rest of the party handles Pargus:

That's two more, and only two left. We can attack the rogue Nader, but the cleric Wilf has Sanctuary up. No targeted attacks for us.
But fireballs still work...

A bit of collateral damage there; Khalid gets burned, and we kill our own nymphs. Oh well. They already spent their Mass Cure spells before the battle, and we killed the enemy we were going for.

Coran has the lowest HP in our party, so he gets the helm. Jaheira could use the THAC0, but she needs the fire resistance from her current helm.
Then we return the helm to Degrodel ...

... and attack him for his betrayal. He doesn't defend himself, so he goes down easily. The Helmed Horrors and Doom Guards, though - those are more trouble.

Multiple fireballs, a Flame Strike - no kills, especially since the Flame Strike is mistakenly aimed at a resistant Doom Guard. Still, we beat them in melee. And with the last Invisible Stalker, Coran earns thief level 8. He puts the points into Hide in Shadows, and gains 1 HP (roll 1/3).

There's not much left in the city for us; just the main plot, the sewers, and acquiring the sea charts. We hit the Seven Suns first, and there's an odd glitch - the doppelgangers on the first floor don't transform. We kill them anyway, for less XP but better loot. The quest still completes properly, and Scar tasks us to investigate some disappearances next. The first thing we meet on entry are the sewerfolk:

Two fireballs. One kill for Imoen, three for Aerys. And because there are multiple monsters with the same name involved, I can't be entirely sure which is which for kill tracking purposes. Still, it's an informed estimate rather than a pure guess. Schlumpsha follows the others into death, we pick up a body, and we immediately leave the sewers again.

Arkion gets the body, we pick pockets for his and Nemphre's trinkets, and we turn them in to Ordulinian. That brings the final level-up:

Imoen is now a level 9 mage. She gains another 6 HP (roll 4/4) and can cast 5th level spells.

With that, the final levels and HP for the party:
Aerys: Dragon Disciple 9, 69 HP. That's 45/54 from levels, 6 from his familiar, and 18 from Con. He's +3.2 points above what average rolls would give him, or +9.2 if you don't include the familiar in the average.
Daine: Avenger 10, 63 HP. That's 45/74 from levels and 18 from Con. She's -11.5 points below average rolls.
Jaheira: Fighter 7/Druid 8, 68 HP. That's 38/67 from levels and 30 from Con. She's -10.1 points below average rolls.
Khalid: Fighter 8, 87 HP. That's 64/80 from levels and 24 from Con. He's +4.0 points above average rolls.
Coran: Fighter 7/Thief 8, 51 HP. That's 46/59 from levels and 5 from the Helm of Balduran. He's -2.7 points below average rolls, or -1.7 below average counting from his level 3/3 starting point.
Imoen: Thief 6-Mage 9, 53 HP. That's 35/48 from levels and 18 from Con. She's -2.7 below average rolls if counting from the beginning, or -2.3 below average counting from her level 2 start.

So - terrible rolls for Daine and Jaheira, good rolls for Aerys and Khalid, mildly had rolls for Coran and Imoen. At least we have enough Con to avoid most problems.
Aerys is just below the XP cap, and I end the session here. Next time, I begin the ironman run to the end.

583 total fire kills. The chickens account for nearly half our count this time, because the enemies aren't very dense in the big city.

"Some say the world will end in fire.
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire..."
- Robert Frost, Fire and Ice

jmerry

Part 16: The Fall of the Iron Throne

Starting the new session, my first task is one I overlooked earlier - picking up the sea charts. I choose to just pay the captain's tab. We've got tons of gold, so spending 900 to get the charts with no risk is fine with us.

Then, it's back down into the sewers. We land near some carrion crawlers, and Imoen flames them.

After that, phase spiders start teleporting over. Since they're in among the vulnerable members of the party, we don't use fireballs on them. They're also coming one at a time, so we can gang up on them effectively. No poison hit taken.

And then, it's the ogre mage and his crawlers.

Daine charges in and gets held, but I'm not worried. With her fireshield, she'll kill any crawlers that attack her quickly. The fireball gets five of the crawlers, with another dying to arrows before it even arrives. And that just leaves the ogre and one crawler. The ogre gets off a Magic Missile (13 damage to Jaheira) and an Acid Arrow (Aerys resists) before dying.

The remaining crawler is no problem, and we recover the ring and body. Scar will be pleased.

The next path we follow leads to more crawlers, and Daine gets a fireshield kill:

She didn't even get paralyzed. And that comparison - 1 damage taken, 7 dealt - is why carrion crawlers are helpless against the salamander-form druid.
The main group of them gets a fireball:

Fried rat, anyone?

That's the last fight of this eastern part of the sewers. The middle section is less exciting, with only some random oozes and Ratchild.

For this encounter, I draw the commandos out into the intersection, then get them all at once with a wand fireball:

Nine kills at once is always a good feeling.

And then, the west. With the sewerfolk already eliminated, this area is all about the spiders.

Most of them are phase spiders, and Khalid's habit of auto-switching to Albruin (held for the ability) rather than the long sword he's actually good with is annoying. I have to keep a close eye on things when they teleport in.
While I use a flame strike once, that doesn't get a kill. No fire kills in this section.

With the sewers complete, we report to Scar. Three party members are now at the experience cap. Duke Eltan tasks us with going after the Iron Throne, and we're off. A bit of preparation before the battle - Khalid drinks a potion for strength 19, and Imoen drinks potions to boost her lore so she can identify our newest necklace of missiles.
And now, the Iron Throne party.

Yes, that's a full barrage of six fireballs. And since they're all items, we won't be interrupted.
Many fireballs land. Khalid gets the doppelganger. Coran gets the mage Naaman and the thief Shennara. Aerys gets the cleric Diyab. Imoen gets the thief Kaalos.
Then the fighter/cleric Aasim falls to an arrow, leaving just three foes. Alai (fighter/mage) and Gardush (berserker) were out of range, while Zhalimar (berserker) drank a potion of magic shielding.
As Alai is the only spellcaster left, we hit him with a dispelling arrow and focus him down.

That leaves two fighters, and they hit back hard. Zhalimar goes down to Daine's fireshield.

Then Gardush goes after Coran ...

Haste, rage, and strength 22. There's not much we could have done, except maybe summoning some fodder to get in the way. At least Gardush falls soon after, and we're clear.

Oh well. We can just visit a temple before we do any more fighting. Three spells later, everyone's back in the green - nymph healing is very nice.

We rest in the city one last time, recharge some wands, and restock on +2 arrows. Then we're off to meet the duke and go to Candlekeep.

The ogre mages are there, of course.

They start with two Magic Missile spells on Aerys, so he casts Shield. After the missiles land, naturally. Imoen launches a wand fireball to hurt some of them, and one foe falls in melee. Another enemy goes for Glitterdust - Aerys and Khalid blinded.
I add a pair of wand horrors to ease the pressure, and then take out the leader:

The remaining ogre mages are very little trouble, though the doorkeeper is no help at all.

And now, we enter. Dispose of a doppelganger, then rest.

Once fully rested, we head to the keep, and loot it thoroughly. Along the way, we find our first greater doppelganger:

Alone, they're not scary. The Flame Strike isn't quite lethal, but the follow-up melee hit is.

Once we've finished exploring, we talk to "Koveras" and then confront the Iron Throne leaders.

A close look at the action icons will reveal our plan here. Fire away!

Rieltar is first to fall, from Khalid's fireball. Imoen gets Kestor. Coran's fireball comes a bit later - he had to walk forward to launch it - and is mostly ineffective. Bronus and Tuth die to weapon attacks instead. Jaheira does take some hits here, and spends a healing spell.

After that, it's an arrest and some cutscenes. We enter the catacombs with all but Coran at the XP cap, and Aerys at 169381 XP.

The first paths we follow down here are full of traps, but very few enemies. The second fire resistance ring is welcome, but I wait on identifying the wisdom tome. Jaheira will use it, but it's a minor enough boost that it can wait.
The last path in this part has some more dangerous enemies - phase spiders.

Those are some very considerate teleports; they aren't even targeting the ranged attackers. Needless to say, the spiders go down quickly. Imoen disarms the trap, Khalid picks the lock, and the big prize is ours. Identify them immediately, so Aerys can have 19 strength and one of our party members can get another +1 to AC and saves.

The ghast path comes next, and they come in enough numbers for fireballs to be useful.

Another pair of fireballs at the end of the hall:

Two kills for Aerys, four for Imoen. And another wand of fire for the collection. We've recharged the wands, but we really didn't need to.

The next floor brings a series of lone doppelgangers, handled with weapons. The skeleton packs, on the other hand ...

And again.

No need to ask. This party has only one plan for a pack like that.

For the false Elminster, we go with flame strikes instead, plus one fireball.

It doesn't kill the greater doppelganger, but there isn't much left for our arrows. A few lone doppelgangers follow, easily handled.

And then, we enter the caves. Prat's group gets another fiery barrage:

Bor, Sakul, and Tam all go down. Prat dodges out of the way of the last fireball, though, and lives. In fact, Imoen only damages herself with that one.
Then Prat comes after us, with his stoneskin still active since we didn't hit him with a dispelling arrows. He goes for melee attacks, and has a run of fantastic luck:

Yes, that's four crits in a row. So much for armor class. And of course, Coran auto-switched to ranged mode so he could take extra damage from the third hit when Prat went invisible.
As for the other swings ... Prat has effective THAC0 8 in melee with his axe. Coran and Jaheira each have AC -10 against slashing. He needed 18 to hit, on everything except the one stealth attack.
After that display, we spend a dispelling arrow and finish him off. Then a healing spell for Coran.

The spiders come next. Set up in Prat's area, draw them out.

With so many spiders eliminated already, it doesn't even hurt when we keep blundering into the web traps. Seriously, Imoen goes one step past where she lured the spiders out, and that triggers a trap?

Finally, a pair of basilisks. I have a bit of fun with this, protecting Aerys so he can blind them.

Then Imoen and Coran move in for the kill - no need for gaze protection, since they're using ranged attacks. Including some gratuitous fire.

With that, five out of six party members have basilisks as their current top kills. Daine is the only exception, as she has the one kill of an enemy worth more than a greater basilisk. We end chapter 6 with the full party at the experience cap, and Daine at 178607 XP.

644 total fire kills. Both mooks and real threats are falling to our fire, as we get freer with the item charges in this late stage.

"Pillage, then burn."
- Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries, Schlock Mercenary

jmerry

Part 17: Durlag's Dungeon

Now that we're in chapter 7, it's time to delve into Durlag's Tower. We've cleared out the upper floors, but we haven't gone into the dungeon areas at all.

We stop in Beregost and Nashkel for a few things (free identification, the violet potion, selling some stuff) and then travel to the tower. On the way, we are ambushed:

Imoen goes for a wand fireball on one of those groups, taking out three of the kobolds. The remainder are easily dealt with.

At the tower, the tour comes first. Ike's spiel is interrupted by the demon knight, which Daine and Jaheira attack fruitlessly.

After all, he only throws some fireballs around. Why not let the fire-immune front line have some fun?
There are a few containers upstairs left to loot, as this is the first time we've been here with both lockpick and trapfinding skills available. Once that's done, we head down into the dungeon proper.

The first danger we face is a group of spiders.

Specifically, wraith spiders. They're rare elsewhere and require magic weapons to hit - easy for us, of course.
I actually went for a double flame strike in that shot, but the spider died to the first one.

Khalid starts drinking strength potions; we have so many that we can easily afford to have him at 19 or more essentially all the time.
And now, the room of three doppemgangers:

Two fireballs isn't enough to kill any of them, but it does disrupt their initial spells. We follow up with a charge:

Daine takes a few hits, but nothing too bad. One cure spell coming up.

With the mallet head ours, we're on to other paths. I set some traps in the central area for the upcoming warder battle, and head to the north. Ghasts attack ...

Oops. At least Imoen is resistant now that she has a ring for it.
With the ghasts eliminated, we're clear to use the forge and remake the mallet.

Heading west, we reach a corridor crowded with zombies ... the regular 2 HD kind that haven't been a threat ever.

One necklace fireball, and they're gone. Well, all right, one saved. Then we shot it down.
With that corridor clear, we ring the silent gong and read the deeds of pride. Two warders are satisfied.

A skeleton warrior comes next, and that hits Daine and Coran before we take it down. We don't even try fire, since those monsters are magic resistant.
Some incautious moves have Imoen tripping a fireball trap; three party members fall into the yellow. That calls for a nymph, at least after we deal with the mustard jelly.
Before long, we reach the bedroom. Imoen lures out some spiders, and a golem follows:

They go down easily enough. The skeleton warriors don't.

Ouch. That brings us to use another nymph, plus a pair of healing potions. While I largely avoid them for much of the game, the time for restraint in item use is over. We have well over a hundred healing potions, and if they can speed up our quest, we will use them.

There's not much after that - just some looting, a switch, another flesh golem, and the wine press. Now, the warders.

I'm aiming the barrage for between Avarice and Fear, hoping to hit both of them. As it turns out ... they can't reach that spot without walking over. I reorient Daine and Khalid to target Love and Pride.

Fear holds Jaheira on its first attack, then goes down to Imoen's fireball. That's one warder taken care of. Aerys casts his fireball ... only Imoen hit. Avarice has moved out of the way, and Khalid hits it instead.
Meanwhile, I'm aiming dispelling arrows at Pride, and repeatedly missing. I eventually manage it, but ...

We take a casualty. Pride is a brutal melee attacker. The survivors take down Love, but there's nothing we can do to protect Jaheira.

Yeah, Avarice is getting into things now. It's down to four against two. Aerys gets stabbed down to 5 HP, before we finally finish off Avarice with flame strikes.

Now, with only Pride to deal with, it gets easier. We run around dodging and using Flame Strikes, until ...

OK. We have won, even if it was absolutely brutal. Now, to recover. I have four scrolls of Raise Dead, so I use two of them right here. Three nymphs and four cure spells later, the party is in the green.

Looking back at the strategy, I tried to stun Pride multiple times. I shouldn't have bothered - he's immune. Instead, I should have summoned some fodder to take his hits while I took down the others.

Completing the first level sees Aerys at 189467 XP. If not for the cap, Jaheira would be a level 9 druid.

And now, the doppelganger level. The first two greater doppelgangers here are alone, and thus easy. The third goes down cleanly as well, but that room isn't clear yet.

Fireballs for the remaining two - we're not going into that cloudkill.
One approaches the party, while the other ...

Burned. And then, I realize that Jaheira had a Zone of Sweet Air memorized. She could have cleared the air for everyone. Oops.

The torture room brings a Kiel and a Fuernebol - this room is actually random, with ten equally likely pairings evenly distributed among the five possible doppelganger states. My picture for this went missing, but Daine gets the kill on the Fuernebol with a Flame Strike.

We open some doors, and Coran starts feeling fatigue. Back up to the ground floor to rest, then.

The lava room starts with two Fuernebols and an Islanne.

I go for a barrage of fireballs. Two from necklaces, two from spell slots.

And that's all three doppelgangers dealt with. Aerys got the Islanne, while Imoen got the Fuernebols.
A Durlag joins in - very tough against physical attacks, but we like using spells. And the bonus for killing him in that form is fantastic. Two Flame Strikes, then another fireball...

Nope. It switched to Kiel, just before the final blow.
That leaves one more doppelganger, that hasn't quite entered the room yet. It's an Islanne, and it has had some time to put up some buffs. Daine takes a double Acid Arrow sequencer, we aim a dispelling arrow ... changed to Durlag. The arrow lands, and doesn't dispel anything.

More spell hits follow - not quite lethal. And the stoneskin is definitely still up, despite multiple dispel attempts. Still, that's no protection against the spells ...

... but we still don't get any full plate out of it.

There's a definite bug here - when a monster changes forms, any protections it had up remain, and become immune to all dispel/breach/protection removal effects. Fortunately, there are very few enemies that change like this and are capable of casting spells.

The dwarven doom guards come next. They're resistant to fire, so they get lightning instead.

A full 10d6 bolt from Daine, as powerful as any you'll ever see. She kills one, but the bolt rebounds to hit her. Twice. For 40 damage total, despite saving both times. Ouch.
The others don't come right away, so Imoen heads over to trigger that. She uses a wand:

That's a great spot for rebounds. Another doom guard falls, and one is badly injured. I finish that one with a scorcher.

And for the last ... lots of scorchers.

With that, we can loot Kiel's room. The morning star is useless, but the buckler allows Imoen to have 19 Dex at will, for 103 Find Traps. She can disarm the 99-difficulty trap guarding the exit wardstone now.

There's one more corridor full of enemies ... mere ghasts.

They burn well. Finishing the level brings Aerys to 199840 XP. And now, the only way forward is through the fire of a constantly exploding room.

We're up to 667 fire kills now. Not too many this update, but Durlag's tower runs on small numbers of strong enemies rather than hordes of weak ones.

"So we will walk through the fire, And let it...
burn! Let it burn! Let it burn! Let it burn!"
— Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More With Feeling"

jmerry

Part 18: Durlag's Dungeon Depths

Upon entry, we hurry across the exploding room. Well, most of the party do. The immune ones stay there passing the boots of speed around. Our destination is the northern path, where wyverns await among the dragon's bones. Free tanks are available, but no. We'll do this on our own.

Oh. That's inconvenient. But, I look it up ... they're 35% resistant. I just got unlucky and had that happen to both scorchers. Several scorchers later ...

That worked once. Repeat it.

And a third time.

No tanks needed. Just distractions.

Now, the statues? Kill them. One at a time against the full party, they don't stand a chance. Coran gets the second set of full plate, and relegates his thieving skills to outside combat.

With that, we reach the western corridor. There are a few greater ghouls here:

The fireball doesn't kill either of them, but it softens them up to die quickly. Their attacks hurt if you let them stick around.

Next, we take on the central platforms. I go with a standard pattern of two wand fireballs per platform.

It's not until the fourth platform that any of the skeletons manages to fire an arrow.

One fire arrow, absorbed by Stoneskin and a save.
It goes smoothly until the last platform, where Aerys gets hung up and doesn't fire.

I go for melee, but miss the attacks. The actual final blow is a Magic Missile.
And that's it. I use the fireballs in my standard runs - of course I'd use them here as well.

Finally, the southern garden area. It has backstabbers, so I switch everyone without stoneskin protection to melee by default. Detect Invisibility ...

All right, flame strikes ... no, it's highly resistant. Melee it is. And this one goes down cleanly, without hitting us.

The garden also has greater ghouls. Now those can die in a fire.

Well, one does. The other two die to our weapons.

The second ashirukuru makes its save against Glitterdust ...

... and then critically fails its attack roll. It goes invisible again, then fails its save against the second Glitterdust.

Once revealed, it has no chance.

More greater ghouls follow, and then the last backstabber.

Coran gets the kill on this one. Garden cleared without taking a single backstab. That's what having two instances of Detect Invisibility (one spell, one item) and lots of Glitterdust gets you.

While I didn't take much damage in this level, any incidental damage to our tanks could easily have been cleared up by adding fire resistance beyond 100% and going to stand in the explosion room. I'm pretty sure I did a bit of that.
With the main portion of this level clear, it's time for the elemental rooms. I tried a different order last time through with my warriors, but I'm going with the conventional path of fire last with this group.

First, air.

That's not just one fireball, of course. Only the last fireball's damage is visible in that shot. We follow up by killing the Air Aspect, attracting more attention, and adding another wave of fire. Only one stalker remains ...

... until Jaheira gets it.

Second, slime.

No physical attacks at all here. Just pure fire, with the AI off. Imoen gets the kill, and the fission slime doesn't split.

For ice, it's back to the fireballs.

That takes care of the winter wolves. It's back to weapons for the bear.

Before entering the fire room, we prepare. AI off, one spell cast - Daine makes Aerys invisible. All but Aerys attack the first Phoenix Guard, and we're teleported to the chessboard as soon as he dies. Having fire-immune melee makes this room so much simpler.

On the board, I pause right away ...

... but I didn't really need to. You see, that invisibility spell gives me breathing room. The chess pieces won't start charging until the protagonist becomes visible, so we get time to set up a devastating initial volley.

Six fireballs. Thirteen kills. Only one pawn, one rook, and the king remain. Yes, a fully extended log window wasn't enough to show all of them.
The second rook comes next - two flame strikes and a scorcher.

Track down the last pawn - Aerys gets the kill with another scorcher. And the king still hasn't moved. We launch blind fireballs ...

Dead. And that's what this party thinks of chess.

Down in the next level, our first target is a Helmed Horror:

That scorcher wasn't the first move. Two flame strikes came first. And that marks 100K experience for Aerys from fire kills specifically.
A second horror follows:

This one goes down to the flame strikes.
Those scorchers are also some minor free healing for Jaheira; at 110% resistance, she heals a point or two each time she gets hit.

This path brings some new gear for Jaheira - a better shield and sling. Not that she uses the sling much. We answer a riddle about the tower's history, then head back out on the next path.
The spider path comes second.

This bunch have the unique "Astral Phase Spider" leading them. It has the same highly lethal poison (same "weapon") as a standard phase spider, but it also comes with nearly twice the HP, much better saves, 5 points better THAC0, 4 points better AC, and haste.
So ... can't let it get at Imoen. She dodges, the rest of the party attacks...

No more astral spider. The rest of the enemies here are routine; we take exactly one point of damage from an ettercap attack.

After another riddle, we're back to the hub. This time, we head south to the acid caves. And with all the greater ghouls here, I'm going to use some items. Aerys gets an oil of speed and a scroll of protection from undead. 3 APR with his dagger, and a lot of damage.
Now, the crypt crawlers can still see him and attack. They get scorchers.

Sometimes the ghouls get them too.

That line AoE is just so fun to work with.
Grael has some crawlers:

Not any more.
Doing things this way, Grael doesn't get to talk. Instead, he just gets to burn.

OK, it's a dagger throw that actually finishes him off.
We keep moving and actually kill a crawler with weapons; I hit it with a scorcher, then finished it with dagger throws before the second hit.
Then the east side:

Aerys' oil of speed runs out, so I give him boots of speed. Outrunning the crawlers is important. There's one more in the last section, a few ghouls, and Aerys is done. He soloed this wing of the map without taking a single hit. And now his wand is running low on scorchers, so he swaps in a fresh fully charged one.

Imoen gets a pair of acid protection scrolls and grabs the loot. Then we creep toward the treasure room, disarming traps as we go. One last riddle, and the demon knight awaits.

For this battle, I have a cunning plan. Prepare minor sequencers, buff up, set up around the arena. Haste, protection from fire, free action for some of the party, and a few summoned distractions.

So ... what were those minor sequencers I prepared?

Imoen's sequencer is Web + PfP, targeted on herself. Aerys has Web + Mirror Image, also targeted on himself. And what this does ... self-targeted spells ignore MR. By using a sequencer this way, we get two Webs that ignore the demon knight's 85% MR. He's in deep trouble.

Held immediately. And he never gets free.

The demon knight saves vs spell on an 8, so each web has a 45% chance to hold him. Combined, that's about 70% per round. It would take 17 normal Webs to equal that effectiveness. Luck was with us, but we gave it a very good chance.

I talk to Dalton, and he heads out, walking straight through the webs. For some reason, he has ridiculously good saves. We head back up to the surface, and Jaheira has something to say:

She got the kill. That counts as "especially important".

With the tower complete, Aerys is at 224K XP. Daine would be a level 11 druid now if not for the cap, and would thus have a level 6 spell slot. We sell off a whole bunch of stuff, and also recharge our necklaces of missiles - we have four now, so we don't even need potions for any future full-party barrages. Imoen drinks two potions of genius and a potion of insight for 77 lore and certain scribing success. Only the demon knight's helm and a protection scroll evade her identification abilities; we'll have to spend spell slots on those.

728 total fire kills. A very fiery update, with us burning most of the threats in these two levels of the tower.

"The sun's fire makes a garden grow,
A forge fire tempers steel.
Why then are you surprised to find
A fire that can heal?"
— The Arbolit, verse 3, from Magi-Nation

jmerry

Part 19: The Cult and the Wolves

Now that the tower is clear, we head back to Ulgoth's Beard, with some shopping stops. There are a couple enconters along the way. First, gnolls:

We had some fireballs left, so why not use them?

A group of hobgoblins waylay us as well; they don't get any fire.

And then, we arrive.

I go for stoneskins and wand Horrors. The traps go off, killing the enforcer and the two assassins.

That just leaves a pair of archers and a pair of guards. We hit them with a Slow and attack.

A fireball would not be recommended here; too likely to hit an innocent bystander.

Since it's been more than a day since our last rest in Beregost, we rest at the inn. On to the next battle - this time without any traps.

Still, there aren't any spellcasters here. We buff up for this; Jaheira drinks a strength 22 potion, Khalid drinks strength 19, and all three warriors get potions of heroism. The field is a little clearer than where we came in, so we mix in some fireballs.

That's the archers down, cleanly. They hit us once, absorbed by a stoneskin. After that, the guards are simple. A few hits on Daine, cleared up with a Cure Medium Wounds.

In Shandalar's house, it's a different story. This is a much more dangerous group, but we have traps in place.

They go off ... only the Cult Wizard and one of the assassins remain. Dispelling arrows fired ...

Too early. The mage's buffs go up, including a Mantle. Imoen's Detect Invisibility reveals the assassin, who immediately drinks a potion to go invisible again. I go for a Spell Thrust - but I'm not waiting for that to enable Flame Strikes.

The Necklace of Missiles goes right over any spell defenses. Also, that's Khalid using Albruin for a second Detect Invisibility.
The fireballs land ...

And Daine gets the kill on this highest-level mage in BG1. The assassin is revealed as well, and unable to disappear again - doomed. A clean victory; we weren't hurt and didn't have anything dispelled.

The latest version of SCS is supposed to reduce the cult wizard's level, but it didn't for me. He was still that level 15 monster with Death Spell and Finger of Death memorized. Not that he uses those to destroy the party; his AI doesn't know how to use Finger of Death at all, and doesn't use Death Spell unless summons or insects are detected.

For Aec'Letec - more buffs. Free action, potions of mirrored eyes, fire immunity. We set some traps ...

No more mage. We won't get dispelled. Now, on to the guards. We aim our fireballs at the center of the circle where Aec'Letec is ...

It works, mostly. We're hitting lots of the guards at once. Also, the death gaze is definitely working now.
Before long, the front guards are down and we're moving on to the back. On to a second volley:

Flame strikes now, because there are only two guards left. Also, Aerys and Imoen are delivering their sequencers - attempts to blind the demon. They fail, but they at least do some damage with the paired magic missiles.
The guards go down, leaving the demon alone:

And badly injured from all those fireballs. We focus all our attention on it ...

... and Daine gets the kill with her fireshield, of all things. Aec'Letec is technically worth 0 XP, but I'm crediting her with the 16K he's meant to be.

We claim the reward, and immediately sell it. This party has no use for a hammer.

Now, on to the werewolves. I hand in the sea charts, then set some traps for Mendas - only four, since that's equivalent to before and after a rest. And then we travel.

Khalid is encumbered when we arrive, but at this point we can afford to just feed him a steady diet of giant strength potions. Loot the village ... potion expires before we even reach the northern half of the island.
Once we do ... 22 Str for Jaheira, heroism and speed for all the warriors. Jaheira now has 3 melee APR at THAC0 4 for 16-23 damage. While I'm shuffling belts - the front line should have the best slashing AC possible - the inventory goes gray ...

So much for the ironman run. The game does this sometimes when you let it run too long.

Anyway, I restore the XP when I reload, at the map transition. No actual progress lost. Apply the same buffs ...

The whole party moves fast, and we put out a lot of damage. Things go quickly.

For the sirine queen, Jaheira goes ahead while the rest of the party stays behind to ambush the minions:

No enemy arrows fired, no enemy spells successfully cast. The other two sirines don't get anything off either.

Now, Daine is taking some hits here - one from Meym, more from a dire wolf pack. I give her a potion of defense, improving her AC by 2.

I try a fireball against Palin's group ...

Oof. Our usual strategies just aren't very good against the wolfweres and their 50% magic resistance.

On the other hand, when we get to the ship ... the bottom floor is full of wolves.

Now that's a fireball target. Two kills for Coran, one for Khalid. By the time Aerys and Imoen have their fireballs arrive, the pack are all dead.
That's not quite the whole floor worth of enemies; there are still a few more when we go inside again, including two vampiric wolves. But there aren't enough to surround the party and make things messy.

I repeat my strategy against the second deck, drawing them down to a prepared position.

A wolfwere and a vampiric wolf in the first wave. Four wolfweres in the second wave. One wolfwere remains ... but Jaheira accidentally goes up another deck and attracts more attention.

Still, that's only three foes. They're easily handled. We head up and loot the second floor, handing the silver dagger to Jaheira as a (nonproficient) backup weapon.

Now, draw down the third deck - at least, the ones that didn't come earlier.

That clears them out.

For the top deck, Coran switches to melee mode with the Burning Earth sword, and hides. I want a backstab on the boss.
Daese comes first:

Dispelling arrow successful. Beat him down, then finish off the wolfwere form.

One backstab for the kill.

Coran re-hides, and we draw the next round of enemies down ... all but one. Focus on Karoug:

Unlike other wolfweres, he doesn't have MR. He's 50% resistant to elements, but we can still deal serious damage. 8 from Daine. 6 from Jaheira. 39 from Coran. 7 from Aerys. 7 from Imoen. If those had all been simultaneous, he would be dead. As it is...

Coran crit-misses his second attack, then gets the kill in the second round. The remaining wolfweres are easy to mop up.

We then head up as a group, taking care of the last wolfwere and looting the top floor.

Now, back to the village. Report success ...

We have werewolves to kill now. And buffs to reapply.
More than 30 werewolves later - we cleared out the whole village - we enter the tunnels. They show up in pairs here ...

That's not nearly enough to matter.

Our oils of speed expire, but I'll continue without them. We're just a little slower now. We could negotiate with Kaishas, but no.

We'll burn her instead.
The first few wand shots run into MR. Then Coran can't get into position for a backstab ...

Still, we persevere. More wand shots every round, as the rearguard handles the reinforcements.

And Aerys gets the kill with a scorcher.

That clears the way to travel back to Ulgoth's Beard, and one more fight.

They're nearly to the point of turning just from the traps. Just a few hits, and they transform. We hit Baresh with a pair of WoH hits:

One hits for 38, while the other is resisted. But ... with SCS, he regenerates at extremely high speed. We turn our focus to Selaad, and the damage on Baresh is soon erased. Still, Selaad doesn't regenerate.

One werewolf left. Get the non-immune melee out of there, and just use fire wands.

Keep at it ...

609 - Last wolf

Specialized anti-werewolf weapons? We don't need anything like that. Fire is good enough for us.

740 total fire kills. We only used fire in a few big battles this update, and that cuts into the numbers. Still, we got some high-profile fire kills.

"Only a fool fights in a burning house."
- Klingon proverb, Star Trek/

jmerry

Part 20: Climactic Battles

All that remains now is the plot of chapter 7. We sell off Balduran's stuff, restock on +2 arrows at Sorcerous Sundries, and make our way to the Flaming Fist castle through the sewers. There are mercenaries inside:

We have fireballs.
One of those mercenaries is out of range behind the door, and survives the initial barrage. We gang up on him and prevent any spells. The false healer goes down easily, and we pick up the duke.

Now, it's easy to get caught by the Flaming Fist as you leave the castle; there's a patrol just out of sight. We take the exit one by one, and avoid their sight. After selling a pile of plate mail, it's back down to the sewers. Come out right in front of the Iron Throne, pop back down to aim for the harbormaster instead. That spot is at the same intersection in the sewers, so it's quick.

Now, back to the Iron Throne. There are a few conversations on the way up, and then it's time to take on Cythandria and her golems.

Down to a third of her HP before the battle even starts, from our early fireballs. She offers surrender immediately, which we reject. It's considerably less XP than fighting it out, after all. Her protections go up - Shadow Door, Minor Spell Turning, Minor Globe. Well, regular fireballs won't help.
We also laid a pair of traps - they hit the golems, and that lets us take one down before they reach us.

As we're fighting the remaining golem, we throw two more necklace fireballs ...

Then Coran kills the second golem. In fact, he gets all three kills in this encounter. And we don't take any damage - just a few necklace charges used.

The basement of the Iron Throne offers a nice shortcut to the Undercellar through the sewers, which we take. Head to the center ...

As soon as they're hostile, they die. And the traps Coran laid are mis-credited to Imoen.

We head to the palace now, passing by some repopulated spiders in the sewers:

It's messy, but we don't take any damage. The mustard jelly we meet later is equally ineffective.

Inside the palace, I take the trouble to sneak up and loot before the big battle. There's really quite a lot of stuff in unwatched chests you can take.
Now, the battle. I precast an Insect Plague and add a Chaos as soon as the battle starts.

Then, add some wand Horrors. They aren't very effective, but the insects and Chaos are.

The assassin got a hit in on Coran, then panicked. It can't turn invisible in that state, so we take it down quickly. Flame strikes are involved, though the final blow isn't with fire. The mage gets arrows, and the insects finish the shaman:

Only the regular doppelgangers remain, and they're all out of it. We kill two, and the guards get the third. A clean victory - not a single death among our allies. Sarevok goes hostile, we distract him with some summons, and then we're sent to the maze.

In the maze, we start using oils of speed again. Also, switch to melee attacks - there are a lot of enemies in here that are resistant or immune to missile damage. I also don't bother with fire, since so many enemies are resistant.
Aerys' Shield spell fades, and I replace it with a potion of defense. AC -9.
Well, OK, I use a bit of fire.

Some potions expire, and we renew them. When the strength potions do - after I backtrack so I can fully clear the maze - we upgrade to strength 23.
And ... whoa, I hit a trap.

Most of the traps in here are marked on the walls, but some dead-end traps like this aren't. We drink potions for immediate resistance ... Imoen takes 2 damage, Khalid takes 18, and the rest of the party are immune.

Now, down to the Undercity. Aerys is at 266472 XP, and would be level 10 if not for the cap. Only Imoen wouldn't have at least one new level.

Rahvin's party comes first, and they get fire. Lots of fire.

I send two party members ahead under invisibility, to prevent any exploding arrow shenanigans. Then enter range, and fire.

Only the tough Gorf and the resistant Carston survive. Briefly.

Tamoko comes next. We could talk her down, but that's no fun.

Imoen kills her with the second hit of her scorcher. Her only successful actions were her prebuffs.

Now, before we go in for the final battle, we head out on an undead hunt. I have four scrolls of protection from undead, so I send four melee attackers out under that protection to clear the area. With necklaces to blast groups, of course.

That shot led to some friendly fire, actually. Khalid ran into Coran's fireball and needed some healing.
The regular packs of skeletons and zombies let us rack up some big numbers:

18 skeletons killed in a single fireball - that was a double pack.

The buffs expire just as we finish, but that's OK. We'll make new buffs for the final battle. After I do that ... unexpected quit. Reload, restore XP, do it again.

All six party members are immune to magic, fire, cold, electricity, and failing saves. All have boosted THAC0 and hit points, including the maximum possible from constitution. The warriors have 24 strength, Imoen has 18, and Daine has 25. In her spider form, that means Daine attacks four times per round for 18-21 damage plus poison at THAC0 3.

We open with some exploding arrows ... three bats, a gnoll elite, a dire wolf, and and ogre die. No enemies do, although that is at least some damage to Tazok and Semaj. Oh well, time to summon more fodder to distract Sarevok.
Diarmid is the first non-Sarevok foe to become visible, so we focus on him. He's near death when Semaj appears:

He's near death? More necklace shots.

Semaj is out. And so are another four of my summons - Coran's fireball gets the two still alive in that shot.
Diarmid is next to fall, then Tazok. Angelo survives by dint of his PfMW.

He's casting something? More fireballs, then. That's half of his HP, plus three summons and a bat. Another round of fireballs, and he's dead.

It's just the skeleton warriors and Sarevok now. I hit him with Greater Malison and a wand of paralyzation - saved. Attack the skeletons, use wands again...

It's over now. I throw in some flame strikes as part of the beatdown, but it really doesn't matter at this point.

I didn't even need any healing potions in the final battle. The summoned distractions worked, even if I had to keep resummoning them after killing them with friendly fire. If I were doing it again, the one thing I'd change is that I'd cast a True Sight to reveal the enemies faster.

Aerys will enter BG2 with 279536 XP, and Jaheira will join him with 276734. Daine will not be imported, since I'm planning to fill her slot with Cernd instead.

808 total fire kills for the whole of BGEE. The random skeletons and zombies in the Undercity really pushed up the count, but strong enemies fell to our fires as well.

"Established wisdom for modern zombie hunters:
The only thing worse than a horde of zombies is a horde of flaming zombies."
— The Zombie Survival Guide

jmerry

Final Words for BG1

No epilogues this time; only Coran properly left the party afterwards, and he gets a cameo in BG2.

Instead, have some very thorough kill counts. I tracked kills by both character and enemy type, along with which ones were killed with fire.

First, all kills by character:

Aerys: 720 kills for 259653 XP, strongest Greater Basilisk (7000).

Coran: 452 kills for 256444 XP, strongest Karoug aka Greater Wolfwere (8000).
Kivan: 90 kills for 21078 XP, strongest Shoal the Nereid (5000)

Daine: 601 kills for 253337 XP, strongest Aec'Letec (16000).

Imoen: 264 kills for 140168 XP, strongest Greater Basilisk (7000).
Neera: 19 kills for 1393 XP, strongest Ekandor (500).

Jaheira: 288 kills for 220902 XP, strongest Demon Knight (15000).

Khalid: 531 kills for 238719 XP, strongest Greater Basilisk (7000).
Dorn: 2 kills for 535 XP, strongest Thrall of Azothet (500).
Rasaad: 6 kills for 2590 XP, strongest Winter Wolf (975).

Korax the Ghoul: 1 kill for 1400 XP, a Lesser Basilisk.
Unknown: 1 kill for 2000 XP, Mal-Kalen.

I have them sorted by "party slot". Coran replaced Kivan, Neera substituted for Imoen, Dorn and Rasaad substituted for Khalid.
Aec'Letec is technically worth 0 XP with the 16000 being awarded by script, but I'm including that 16K in Daine's count. Without that, her top kill would be Drizzt at 12K.
In the case of Mal-Kalen, his death script appears to prevent any party member from getting credit. Since I didn't record who actually killed him, that goes in the "unknown" category.

While the numbers of kills vary widely, the experience counts are quite balanced. No character or party slot reaches even 20% of the total, and Imoen is the lowest of the final party at just over 10%.

Next, all kills by enemy type. The full list below, in spoiler because it's very long.

Name		XP	Num	Combined XP
Aec'Letec	16000	1	16000
Demon Knight	15000	1	15000
Drizzt		12000	1	12000
Angelo		9800	1	9800
Argh		8000	1	8000
G. Wolfwere	8000	1	8000
Ungh		8000	1	8000
G. Basilisk	7000	8	56000
Andris		6000	1	6000
Davaeorn	6000	1	6000
Jalantha M	6000	1	6000
Sirine Queen	6000	1	6000
Grael		5000	1	5000
Greater Wyvern	5000	3	15000
Queen		5000	1	5000
Shoal		5000	1	5000
Slythe		5000	1	5000
Tamoko		5000	1	5000
Air Aspect	4000	1	4000
Astral P Spider	4000	1	4000
Battle Horror	4000	5	20000
Doomsayer	4000	1	4000
Dopp. Assassin	4000	1	4000
Dopp. Mage	4000	1	4000
Dopp. Shaman	4000	1	4000
G. Doppelganger	4000	14	56000
Fuernebol	4000	3	12000
Islanne 	4000	1	4000
Kiel		4000	2	8000
Lothander	4000	1	4000
Meiala the S.	4000	1	4000
Ramazith	4000	1	4000
Skel. Warrior	4000	16	64000
Tazok		4000	1	4000
Tuth		4000	1	4000
Wolf of Ulc.	4000	1	4000
Ghost		3750	1	3750
Jardak		3600	1	3600
Kahrk		3500	1	3500
Diarmid		3001	1	3001
Fission Slime	3000	1	3000
Invis. Stalker	3000	11	33000
Kald. the Bear	3000	1	3000
Kirinhale	3000	1	3000
Krystin		3000	1	3000
Love		3000	1	3000
Semaj		3000	1	3000
Revenant	3000	2	6000
Zhalimar C.	3000	1	3000
Avarice		2500	1	2500
Pride		2500	1	2500
Schlumpsha	2500	1	2500
Carston		2400	1	2400
Snow Golem	2500	2	5000
Fear		2200	1	2200
Selaad Gan	2200	1	2200
Kaalos		2001	1	2001
Shennara	2001	1	2001
Tellan		2001	1	2001
Ashirukuru	2000	3	6000
Bishop		2000	2	4000
Cythandria	2000	1	2000
Doom Guard	2000	8	16000
Druid		2000	3	6000
Dwarven Doom G	2000	4	8000
Flesh Golem	2000	7	14000
Garan		2000	1	2000
Gorf		2000	1	2000
Hack		2000	1	2000
Helmed Horror	2000	5	10000
King		2000	1	2000
Knight		2000	2	4000
Larze		2000	1	2000
Mal-Kalen	2000	1	2000
Marcellus	2000	1	2000
Mustard Jelly	2000	12	24000
Naaman		2000	1	2000
Priest		2000	1	2000
Ragefast	2000	1	2000
Shaldrissa	2000	1	2000
Sil		2000	1	2000
Sirine		2000	12	24000
Sunin		2000	1	2000
Sword Spider	2000	8	16000
Taurgosz K.	2000	1	2000
Tracea Carol	2000	1	2000
Vampiric Wolf	2000	9	18000
Vay-ya		2000	1	2000
Tarnor		1950	1	1950
Moorlock	1900	1	1900
Aasim		1800	1	1800
Alai		1800	1	1800
Beyn		1800	1	1800
Cuchol		1800	1	1800
Cult Wizard	1800	1	1800
Degrodel	1800	1	1800
Dezkiel		1800	1	1800
Gardush		1800	1	1800
Kaishas Gan	1800	1	1800
Rahvin		1800	1	1800
Wolfwere	1800	12	21600
Desreta		1600	1	1600
Daese		1700	1	1700
Diyab		1600	1	1600
Genthore	1600	1	1600
Sakul		1600	1	1600
Baresh		1500	1	1500
Haseo		1500	1	1500
Icharyd		1500	1	1500
Jondal		1500	1	1500
Rook		1500	2	3000
Wheber Ott	1500	1	1500
William Garst	1500	1	1500
Brunos		1400	1	1400
Drasus		1400	1	1400
Greywolf	1400	1	1400
Kysus		1400	1	1400
Lendarn		1400	1	1400
Lesser Basilisk	1400	9	12600
Narcillicus	1400	1	1400
Palin		1400	1	1400
Phase Spider	1400	33	46200
Prat		1400	1	1400
Riggilo		1400	1	1400
Snow Troll	1400	3	4200
Wolfwere	1400	9	12600
Wraith Spider	1400	4	5600
Wyvern		1400	6	8400
Yago		1400	1	1400
Maka		1300	1	1300
Tam		1300	1	1300
Denak		1200	1	1200
Drakar		1200	1	1200
Drelik		1200	1	1200
Gretek		1200	1	1200
Hareishan	1200	1	1200
Joular		1200	1	1200
Kestor		1200	1	1200
Lamalha		1200	1	1200
Meilum		1200	1	1200
Molkar		1200	1	1200
Natasha		1200	1	1200
Niemain		1200	1	1200
Oulam		1200	1	1200
Peter		1200	1	1200
Raemon		1200	1	1200
Rezdan		1200	1	1200
Wudei		1200	1	1200
Centeol		1000	1	1000
Corsone		1000	1	1000
Cult Enforcer	1000	2	2000
Greater Ghoul	1000	28	28000
Karris		1000	1	1000
Kryll		1000	1	1000
Osmadi		1000	1	1000
Simmeon		1000	1	1000
Mutamin		976	1	976
Ankheg		975	38	37050
Bassilus	975	1	975
Cyrdemac	975	1	975
Droth		975	1	975
Druid		975	3	2925
Rieltar		975	1	975
Taxek		975	1	975
Teven		975	1	975
Tranzig		975	1	975
Winter Wolf	975	33	32175
Bullrush	950	1	950
Ardenor Crush	900	1	900
Borda		900	1	900
Britik		900	1	900
Gervisse	900	1	900
Kirian		900	1	900
Pargus		900	1	900
Polar Bear	900	1	900
Silke		900	1	900
Venkt		900	1	900
Wiven		900	1	900
Zeela		900	1	900
Zordral		900	1	900
Arlin		850	1	850
Wilf		800	1	800
Caturak		750	1	750
Hakt		750	1	750
Nader		750	1	750
Bor		650	1	650
Cave Bear	650	11	7150
Dread Wolf	650	48	31200
Ettercap	650	31	20150
Ghast		650	59	38350
Guard		650	1	650
Hamadryad	650	1	650
Jenkal		650	1	650
Marek		650	1	650
Morvin		650	1	650
Mulahey		650	1	650
Neira		650	1	650
Nimbul		650	1	650
Ogre Berserker	650	25	16250
Ogre Mage	650	10	6500
Raiken		650	1	650
Sewerfolk	650	2	1300
Ursa the CB	650	1	650
Zargal		650	1	650
Arkushule	600	1	600
Diana		600	1	600
Jacil		600	1	600
Lindin		600	1	600
Maneira		600	1	600
Neville		600	1	600
Sendai		600	1	600
Telka		600	1	600
Zal		600	1	600
Arghain		520	1	520
Cult Guard	500	15	7500
Ekandor		500	1	500
Thrall of Az.	500	2	1000
Senjak		500	1	500
Teyngan		500	1	500
Baby Wyvern	450	13	5850
Giant Spider	450	25	11250
Benjy		420	1	420
Blacktalon E.	420	35	14700
Carrion Crawler	420	23	9660
Crypt Crawler	420	8	3360
Doppelganger	420	38	15960
Guard		420	5	2100
Panther		420	1	420
Pheirkas	420	1	420
Sahuagin Chief	420	1	420
Werewolf	420	51	21420
Chop the L Ogre	400	1	400
Cru the L Ogre	400	1	400
Rogdok		400	1	400
Vax		400	1	400
Jemby		350	1	350
Ogre Berserker	350	1	350
Ratchild	350	1	350
Thayan Bodyg.	350	2	700
Thayan Wizard	350	2	700
Alexander	300	1	300
Baerin		300	1	300
Billy		300	1	300
Brendan		300	1	300
Cult Archer	300	5	1500
Cult Assassin	300	4	1200
Cult Guard	300	1	300
Dark Moon Cl.	300	1	300
Delgod		300	1	300
Dirk		300	1	300
I. Gallchobhair	300	1	300
Lasala		300	1	300
Meakin		300	1	300
Michael		300	1	300
Sath		300	1	300
Gray Ooze	275	9	2475
Kobold Shaman	271	1	271
Blink Dog	270	7	1890
Guard		270	42	11340
Half Ogre	270	14	3780
Huge Spider	270	54	14580
Karlat		270	1	270
Ochre Jelly	270	3	810
Ogre		270	18	4860
The Am. Oopah	270	1	270
Dark Moon Lieut	260	1	260
Bassano		250	1	250
Flaming Fist M.	250	1	250
Alvo		240	1	240
C Bandit Leader	240	1	240
Leti		240	1	240
Mati		240	1	240
Peter of the N.	240	1	240
Zed		240	1	240
Ingot		235	1	235
Dorotea		200	1	200
Halacan		176	1	176
Black Bear	175	1	175
Caldo		175	1	175
Ghoul		175	46	8050
Gnarl		175	1	175
Hairtooth	175	1	175
Korax the Ghoul	175	1	175
Krumm		175	1	175
Ogrillon	175	31	5425
Pr. of Umberlee	175	4	700
Rufie		175	1	175
Sahuagin	175	2	350
Sewerfolk	175	1	175
Ba'ruk		165	1	165
Geltik		165	1	165
Malkax		165	1	165
Dark Moon Monk	160	35	5600
Dribben		150	1	150
Pawn		150	8	1200
Dire Wolf	125	43	5375
Vitiare		125	1	125
Amarande	120	1	120
Cattack		120	1	120
Druid		120	6	720
Flind		120	15	1800
Garclax		120	1	120
Gnoll Chieftain	120	2	240
Guard		120	1	120
Izefia		120	1	120
Lakadaar	120	1	120
Skeleton	120	8	960
Stephan		120	1	120
Takiyah		120	1	120
Tarnesh		120	1	120
Wolf		120	1	120
Worg		120	23	2760
Dark Moon Monk	100	1	100
Dark Moon Init.	100	15	1500
Phoenix Guard	100	1	100
Hobgoblin Elite	95	49	4655
Skeleton	95	6	570
Zhurlong	90	1	90
Sheila		87	1	87
Kobold Chief	76	1	76
Bandit		65	54	3510
Caravan Bandit	65	3	195
Credus		65	1	65
Daryl		65	1	65
Glenn		65	1	65
Guard		65	8	520
Gnoll Elite	65	34	2210
Gnoll Slasher	65	23	1495
Gnoll Veteran	65	11	715
Green Slime	65	7	455
Knott		65	1	65
Rick		65	1	65
Ruffian		65	2	130
Sewerfolk	65	1	65
Shane		65	1	65
Skeleton	65	185	12025
Thayan Bodyg.	65	2	130
Undead Knight	65	1	65
War Dog		65	12	780
Wolf		65	61	3965
Zekar		65	1	65
Zombie		65	46	2990
Sorrem		61	1	61
Chill Hobgoblin	35	5	175
Diseased Gibb.	35	5	175
Gibberling	35	129	4515
Gnoll		35	78	2730
Hobgoblin	35	139	4865
Jebadoh		35	1	35
Kobold Commando	35	135	4725
Ludrug		35	1	35
Nexlit the X.	35	1	35
Sewerfolk	35	1	35
Sonner		35	1	35
Tasloi		35	54	1890
Tersus		35	1	35
Wild Dog	35	8	280
Xvart		35	15	525
Larriaz		30	1	30
Kobold Guard	26	101	2626
Carbos		20	1	20
Goblin		20	13	260
Shank		20	1	20
Dilos		15	1	15
Mercenary	15	5	75
Merchant	15	2	30
Xvart		15	105	1575
Digger		7	7	49
Kobold		7	227	1589
Telman		7	1	7
Horse		1	1	1
Rat		1	7	7
Rabid Chicken	1	19	19
Bat		0	5	0
Black Bear	0	2	0
Brown Bear	0	2	0
Dire Wolf	0	3	0
Gnoll Elite	0	4	0
Hobgoblin Elite	0	4	0
Nymph		0	5	0
Ogre		0	2	0
Skeleton	0	4	0
Skeleton W.	0	1	0
Total			2975	1398219

Some names are abbreviated to reduce white space.
Some of the 0 XP numbers are estimates; I killed a lot of my own summons in the final battle, so I'm not sure exactly how many go to each type. The total is correct, though.
Creatures with the same name and same XP value are counted as the same. If either differs, it gets another line.

The top ten enemy types for total experience:
1. Skeleton Warrior 64000 (16 at 4000 each)
2 (tie). Greater Doppelganger 56000 (14 at 4000 each)
2 (tie). Greater Basilisk 56000 (8 at 7000 each)
4. Phase Spider 46200 (33 at 1400 each)
5. Ghast 38350 (59 at 650 each)
6. Ankheg 37050 (38 at 975 each)
7. Invisible Stalker 33000 (11 at 3000 each)
8. Winter Wolf 32175 (33 at 975 each)
9. Dread Wolf 31200 (48 at 650 each)
10. Greater Ghoul 28000 (28 at 1000 each)

And the top ten for number of kills:
1. Kobold 227 (7 XP each)
2. Skeleton 185 (65 XP each)
3. Hobgoblin 139 (35 XP each)
4. Kobold Commando 135 (35 XP each)
5. Gibberling 129 (35 XP each)
6. Xvart 105 (15 XP each)
7. Kobold Guard 101 (26 XP each)
8. Gnoll 78 (35 XP each)
9. Wolf 61 (65 XP each)
10. Ghast 59 (650 XP each)

Now, the fire kills. First, by character:

Aerys: 414 kills for 114419 XP, strongest Greater Wyvern (5000). 57.5% of his kills and 44.1% of the XP were with fire.

Coran: 24 kills for 11606 XP, strongest Shennara (2001). 5.3% of his kills and 4.5% of the XP were with fire.

Daine: 132 kills for 58988 XP, strongest Aec'Letec (16000). 22.0% of her kills and 24.9% of the XP were with fire.

Imoen: 138 kills for 73696 XP, strongest Greater Basilisk (7000). 52.3% of her kills and 52.6% of the XP were with fire.
Neera: 18 kills for 1367 XP, strongest Ekandor (500). 94.7% of her kills and 98.1% of the XP were with fire.

Jaheira: 63 kills for 45030 XP, strongest Angelo (9800). 21.9% of her kills and 20.4% of the XP were with fire.

Khalid: 19 kills for 6030 XP, strongest Bishop (2000). 3.6% of his kills and 2.5% of the XP were with fire.

Total: 808 kills for 311136 XP. 27.2% of all kills and 22.3% of the XP were with fire.

So ... the mages got around half of their kills with fire (mostly fireball spells and wands of fire), the priests got around 20-25% (necklaces of missiles and wands of the heavens), and the archers hardly got any - they only used fire in a few big barrages late in the game.

Now, the big list of fire kills by creature:

Name		XP	Count	Combined XP
Aec'Letec	16000	1	16000
Angelo		9800	1	9800
G. Basilisk	7000	1	7000
Greater Wyvern	5000	3	15000
Queen		5000	1	5000
Tamoko		5000	1	5000
Astral P Spider	4000	1	4000
Battle Horror	4000	3	12000
Fuernebol	4000	3	12000
G. Doppelganger	4000	2	8000
Islanne		4000	1	4000
Wolf of Ulc.	4000	1	4000
Fission Slime	3000	1	3000
Invis. Stalker	3000	3	9000
Semaj		3000	1	3000
Revenant	3000	1	3000
Zhalimar C.	3000	1	3000
Avarice		2500	1	2500
Pride		2500	1	2500
Snow Golem	2500	1	2500
Fear		2200	1	2200
Selaad Gan	2200	1	2200
Kaalos		2001	1	2001
Shennara	2001	1	2001
Bishop		2000	2	4000
Cythandria	2000	1	2000
Doom Guard	2000	1	2000
Dwarven Doom G	2000	2	4000
Helmed Horror	2000	3	6000
King		2000	1	2000
Knight		2000	2	4000
Naaman		2000	1	2000
Shaldrissa	2000	1	2000
Sword Spider	2000	1	2000
Cult Wizard	1800	1	1800
Kaishas Gan	1800	1	1800
Rahvin		1800	1	1800
Diyab		1600	1	1600
Sakul		1600	1	1600
Baresh		1500	1	1500
Haseo		1500	1	1500
Rook		1500	2	3000
William Garst	1500	1	1500
Drasus		1400	1	1400
Snow Troll	1400	3	4200
Wraith Spider	1400	2	2800
Tam		1300	1	1300
Denak		1200	1	1200
Kestor		1200	1	1200
Oulam		1200	1	1200
Peter		1200	1	1200
Raemon		1200	1	1200
Rezdan		1200	1	1200
Wudei		1200	1	1200
Greater Ghoul	1000	7	7000
Kryll		1000	1	1000
Simmeon		1000	1	1000
Rieltar		975	1	975
Winter Wolf	975	5	4875
Wilf		800	1	800
Hakt		750	1	750
Bor		650	1	650
Cave Bear	650	1	650
Dread Wolf	650	4	2600
Ettercap	650	4	2600
Ghast		650	25	16250
Morvin		650	1	650
Ogre Berserker	650	5	3250
Ogre Mage	650	2	1300
Sewerfolk	650	1	650
Diana		600	1	600
Maneira		600	1	600
Neville		600	1	600
Sendai		600	1	600
Cult Guard	500	3	1500
Ekandor		500	1	500
Baby Wyvern	450	4	1800
Giant Spider	450	5	2250
Benjy		420	1	420
Blacktalon E.	420	6	2520
Carrion Crawler	420	13	5460
Crypt Crawler	420	7	2940
Doppelganger	420	4	1680
Guard		420	4	1680
Rogdok		400	1	400
Vax		400	1	400
Jemby		350	1	350
Ratchild	350	1	350
Thayan Wizard	350	1	350
Alexander	300	1	300
Baerin		300	1	300
Billy		300	1	300
Brendan		300	1	300
Dark Moon Cl.	300	1	300
Delgod		300	1	300
Lasala		300	1	300
Blink Dog	270	3	810
Guard		270	16	4320
Half Ogre	270	9	2430
Huge Spider	270	3	810
Ogre		270	3	810
Ghoul		175	2	350
Ogrillon	175	6	1050
Sahuagin	175	2	350
Sewerfolk	175	1	175
Dribben		150	1	150
Pawn		150	8	1200
Dire Wolf	125	4	500
Druid		120	1	120
Flind		120	5	600
Lakadaar	120	1	120
Skeleton	120	8	960
Worg		120	7	840
Dark Moon Init.	100	6	600
Hobgoblin Elite	95	9	855
Skeleton	95	6	570
Sheila		87	1	87
Bandit		65	29	1885
Caravan Bandit	65	1	65
Daryl		65	1	65
Glenn		65	1	65
Gnoll Elite	65	4	260
Gnoll Slasher	65	4	260
Gnoll Veteran	65	5	325
Rick		65	1	65
Sewerfolk	65	1	65
Shane		65	1	65
Skeleton	65	108	7020
War Dog		65	3	195
Wolf		65	4	260
Zombie		65	15	975
Sorrem		61	1	61
Chill Hobgoblin	35	2	70
Gibberling	35	23	805
Gnoll		35	16	560
Hobgoblin	35	33	1155
Kobold Commando	35	43	1505
Sewerfolk	35	1	35
Tasloi		35	1	35
Xvart		35	3	105
Kobold Guard	26	55	1430
Goblin		20	4	80
Mercenary	15	4	60
Xvart		15	21	315
Digger		7	1	7
Kobold		7	88	616
Rabid Chicken	1	16	16
Rat		1	2	2
Bat		0	1	0
Dire Wolf	0	3	0
Gnoll Elite	0	3	0
Hobgoblin Elite	0	4	0
Nymph		0	4	0
Ogre		0	2	0
Total			808	311136

Top ten enemy types by fire kill XP:
1. Ghast 16250 (25 at 650 each)
2. Aec'Letec 16000 (1 at 16000)
3. Greater Wyvern 15000 (3 at 5000 each)
4 (tie). Battle Horror 12000 (3 at 4000 each)
4 (tie). Fuernebol 12000 (3 at 4000 each)
6. Angelo 9800 (1 at 9800)
7. Invisible Stalker 9000 (3 at 3000 each)
8. Greater Doppelganger 8000 (2 at 4000 each)
9. Skeleton 7020 (108 at 65 each)
10 (tie). Greater Basilisk 7000 (1 at 7000)
10 (tie). Greater Ghoul 7000 (7 at 1000 each)

Top ten by number of fire kills:
1. Skeleton 108 (65 each)
2. Kobold 88 (7 each)
3. Kobold Guard 55 (26 each)
4. Kobold Commando 43 (35 each)
5. Hobgoblin 33 (35 each)
6. Bandit 29 (65 each)
7. Ghast 25 (650 each)
8. Gibberling 23 (35 each)
9. Xvart 21 (15 each)
10 (tie). Guard 16 (270 each)
10 (tie). Gnoll 16 (35 each)
10 (tie). Rabid Chicken 16 (1 each)

Fire kills are thin enough that single notable foes can make the XP short list. But the prolific lesser monsters are there too. And a special recognition to the ghasts, which made all four top ten lists. They're prolific, they're worth a good deal of XP, and they make great targets for fireballs and scorchers.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with this run. It plays well, and it's great fun just blasting everything that gets in the way. The fire-immune melee front line is crucial, because you can't afford to use fireballs only at long range. And that means ... killing Drizzt early is crucial. The 2.6 patch will allegedly close the AI exploit used here, which makes that a lot harder. Xan could also reach early fire immunity with his Moonblade, but he's a terrible choice on the front line unless you change his class.

Now, on to BG2. Our repertoire of fire spells will grow even more, and not even 100% magic resistance will stop us. Seriously - I just wiped out a pack of golems with fire storms in the session I played today (as of writing this). Of course, that also means I need more than just a front line of fire-immune characters. And it'll take a while to get there, aside from once or twice a day with temporary buffs.

jmerry

Part 21: A New Beginning

Upon import to BG2EE, Aerys immediately goes up a level. Level 10 brings 8 HP (a perfect 6/6 roll) and Chaos as his first level 5 spell. Imoen joins up, and she has retrained her thief skills and lost most of her spellbook. I leave all of that alone, as she won't be a long-term companion here. She does immediately level up to mage level 10, gaining 8 HP (4/8 rolls). Jaheira is a bit trickier, and I have to apply her continuity edits in two stages. One round of XP to level up to 7/8, another for her final total, and save-editing to apply the stat and proficiency changes. By the time she's done, she's up to level 8/10, gaining another 12 HP (rolls 5/9). She has slightly more HP than Aerys now, but that definitely won't last. Minsc joins as well, and goes up to level 8 for another 10 HP (roll 8/10).

Now that we have a party, there's a corpse in a nearby cell.

I'm choosing to interpret this as Daine's body. Rest in peace.

After picking up some basic equipment and a set of pantaloons, we head out. The party kills a smoke mephit and a lightning mephit, then casts stoneskins before speaking to Aataqah. Jaheira switches between wolf and bear form; wolf form is better for defense, bear form is better for damage, and both are far better than her ability while using a non-specialized weapon.
Aerys says he would press the button, and Aataqah summons an ogre mage. It's quite dangerous at this stage, but we're ready for it.

Against that haste, I counter with a Slow, then batter down the defenses with the full party. It works, but Jaheira still takes some nasty hits.

The defenses fall, and bear Jaheira mauls the ogre's summoned help. The ogre mage puts up a defensive minor sequencer (Mirror Image and Blur), but it isn't enough.

Not bad. It costs us some healing spells, but that's the first real threat down - and the only one we'll have to face with so little equipment.

The next corridor brings some goblins, and they drop a bow for Imoen. She'll do much better now with two ranged attacks each round. The sewage golem's room has a mephit in it, but it also has a magical weapon we can use - a +2 staff mace for Aerys. Jaheira also has a scimitar now, for when she's not in animal form. It's only 2 APR instead of 2.5 APR as a bear or wolf, but it allows her to use a shield for the best possible AC.

A nearby room has two "lesser clay golems"; we take advantage of their inactivity to bash them.

They activate after we hit them, and we take some hits in return - but no damage. It all gets absorbed by stoneskins.

The room of jars follows, as we kill more mephits. We also pick up another magic weapon - a +1 staff. With two magical blunt weapons, we backtrack for another golem:

This one doesn't wake up and attack back. Incidentally, Minsc uses the new staff here simply to take advantage of his strength. He's not proficient, but he's still better at dealing damage with it than any other party member would be.

Now, on to the library and the duergar beyond. I usually use Imoen's lightning bolt for them, but with this party I'll use fire instead.

And there's the first fire kill of BG2. Aerys retreats, the duergar follow, and we ambush them at a corner. They pile up, and that makes for a perfect occasion for a second fireball.

Ilyich survives. Barely. We finish him off, and he drops two copies of Fallorain's plate. Both Jaheira and Minsc have excellent armor now.

The cambion comes next:

We spent a pair of Magic Missile spells for substantial damage, and Aerys absorbed the melee attacks with his Stoneskin.

That marks the end of what we can do without activating the sewage golem, so we head back and do that. This opens the way to the central room, and the otyugh within.

Two disease hits. Painful, but we can just wait it out and use a few healing potions.

After that, it's a few goblins and a lot of traps. We pick up the Claw of Kazgaroth, but nobody puts it on. A statue opens the way to a platform over a windy void, and the next serious challenge of this dungeon. It's a large group of mephits, and they can hit very hard - especially since one of them has a spell that stuns on a failed breath save.
So then, I have Imoen use her Minor Globe and go forward as a tank. She draws out the spells, Aerys uses a fireball ...

Two mephits down, and the worst of their spells are expended. Now the rest of the party can come up and attack normally.

That clears the way to free another genie and pick up a magical two-handed sword for Minsc. On to the next level, then. Yoshimo joins, and we take on the mephit portals.

Ah, radiant mephits. Color Spray without a level limit. And like the original Color Spray, it ignores elf resistance. There really isn't much you can do to defend here; just accept that some of your party will get knocked out.
Indeed, the three party members still standing easily take down the portals, and we get a chance to look around.

Ah, that's what happened to him. And ... Jaheira, why are you a bear for this emotional conversation?

We clear out a few more minor threats, then go after the vampire Ulvaryl:

And ... killing her targets makes her leave early. She only takes 24 damage, out of 60 HP. Imoen could have gotten lucky with a Chromatic Orb petrification, but - well, that's life.

Then I make a silly mistake giving away trap XP for no reason, and reload. How about a different strategy against Ulvaryl?

Ah. That's different. And now we have to kill the shadow thieves.

Frennedan deals serious damage, but Aerys finishes things with a rare Burning Hands spell:

That's a new best fire kill for him.

There's one last side path, and that gets Aerys' last two area fire spells. A fireball for the goblins...

... and fire breath for the duergar.

There are just a few more shadow thieves on the way out. They like to backstab, so I have Imoen summon some meatshields and Aerys casts a Glitterdust. The Glitterdust is unsuccessful at revealing its target, but that assassin misses his attack anyway.

Hey, neat. That's a magic item, added in my latest mod update. Identifying it ... gauntlets of missile snaring. Nothing too special, but extra defense is always nice.

With all that taken care of, the party rests. Imoen spends her spell slots on identification, and we head up to the surface. Minsc reaches level 9 (8 new HP, two-handed style), but Imoen is taken away. New troubles await us in this new city - next time.

My import planning at the end of BG1 had Aerys carrying the staff mace +2, the Claw of Kazgaroth, two Fallorain's Plates, and the golden pantaloons. None of those were equipped.
The fire kill count restarts here with BG2; this dungeon has a total of 14. And all of those belong to Aerys.

It was a pleasure to burn.
— Fahrenheit 451

I edited the quote for this part; the one I had fits better a little later. And there's another bit I wanted to add;
for lack of a better place to put it, my mod list for BG2:
- Unfinished Business (most components, but not all)
- Ascension
- Isra
- Wilson Chronicles
- Yeslick BG2
- Sword Coast Strategems (same rule changes as BG1, all tactical components except the starting dungeon and removing items in Spellhold)
- Portraits Portraits Everywhere
- Additional personal tweaks, not part of a formal mod:

- Imoen has "base class" kit, so she doesn't get a penalty to spell learning
- Sequencer innate abilities don't stack up when characters leave and re-enter the party (SCS component fix)
- Enhanced Bard Song blocks insect spells (SCS component fix)
- Planetar weapons don't chunk on vorpal hits
- Stein in the graveyard and a guard in the government district aren't stuck in walls
- Larloch's Minor Drain from upgraded Foebane adds HP
- Kalah's illusionary werewolves don't use real claws unless you attack them (SCS component fix)
- Polymorph Self ogre form strikes as magical, like it does in BG1
- Isra and Yeslick get standard joining XP triggers
- The Shadow Armor +3 is available, worn by Mae'var's subordinate Zyntris; SCS removes it from Mae'var so he can cast spells, but doesn't make it otherwise available
- Resurrection effects don't break polymorph spells and sequencers. At least, they don't break in the really bad way; you can still be left with empty sequencers when you raise someone due to timing issues, but that's harmless.
- Mass Raise Dead only heals by its stated amount, instead of up to six times that much
- Drow have less ambiguous names, and some that were not elves or lacked magic resistance had that corrected. The name changes are mostly to make the kill tracking easier; no more fighting six different kinds of creature all named "Drow" at the same time.
- Glitterdust cosmetic effects match the actual effects; both ignore MR. And the extra "Blinded" text was removed
- Pierce Magic from the wand of spell striking reduces MR by a fixed 20%, rather than varying based on the user's arcane caster level (SCS component fix)
- Liches and rakshasas can be affected by True Seeing, but not by level 5 attack spells such as Feeblemind (SCS component fix)
- Party member combat scripts tweaked so that Bard Song activates even without combat, and Turn Undead activates more often than once in a blue moon

If I see something that needs a fix ... I might well fix it right then. Some of these, like the lich/rakshasa immunity tweak, were applied mid-run.

jmerry

Part 22: Aerys Alone

After leaving the map to go to the slums, Aerys dismisses the party. Minsc and Yoshimo go to the Copper Coronet, while Jaheira stays in the rooftop temple without a talk. Experience will go farther with Aerys alone, after all.

First, Aerys rises to the provocations of Amalas:

Blind him, throw daggers. And since I didn't buy enough of them, Aerys runs out and has to use his staff mace instead. That, at least, has a long enough reach that the blind Amalas can't fight back effectively.

More than 11K experience for that simple duel.

Nalia wants to talk, but I don't want that yet. So instead, I lead her toward an exit before going outside and using the other door to go inside and reach the back rooms. The first guard goes down very easily:

He has a missile weapon equipped. His chain mail is weak against crushing. Aerys has 19 strength. And these warrior guards are only level 2, with 16 HP. Dead in one hit.

Still, they're more trouble in multiples. Against the next group that spawn in, I fall back and use the stairs to ambush them.

The mages here are actually significantly tougher than the pure fighters; they have twice as many hit points. But they still don't have the levels to actually be dangerous.

Some others didn't chase me - they get a fireball.

That's the mage surviving. Temporarily.

The next room brings a winter wolf. It prefers ranged attacks, so if we sneak up on it with the aid of corners ...

A clean victory, with the aid of our quick weapon.

I thin out the beastmaster's animals before facing him directly. Two throwing dagger hits each for the mutated gibberlings. Two throws and two melee hits for the panther, which was too fast for Aerys to maintain distance. A bear and minotaur activate next, and give Aerys quite a chase:

With some incidental hits, Aerys' stonekin is exhausted. He renews it and finishes the bear off on that platform. The spectators seem oddly unconcerned with the beasts in their midst.
The minotaur has better AC; Aerys only hits it around half the time, in theory. It takes a while to bring it down, though it doesn't land any more hits without the bear's support.

The other bear follows, and it's not hard to beat alone. Then, finally, it's the beastmaster's turn.

The opening Blindness spell is successful. Aerys takes down the leopard and Tabitha with throwing daggers while running them around the fighting pits, then comes back for him. Against the blinded beastmaster, sneaky melee hits are the way to go.

Fall back after each one, and he can't retaliate at all. And when he can't see you, he goes back to holding the bow and being more vulnerable. He drinks a potion of extra healing, but that's not enough to save him. And when he goes down, it's level 11 for Aerys. That only comes with one new hit point, but it boosts all of his saves by two, adds more spell slots, and allows him to learn multiple new spells. His choices are Blur, Remove Magic, Fireshield: Red, and Sunfire.

Now it's time to free the gladiators and follow them out. Aerys gets some of the kills here, and even gets the final blow on Lehtinan.

After a restock on throwing daggers, Aerys heads down into the sewers. The hobgoblin pack here gets his second fireball of the day:

Five dead. The captain and shaman are the only survivors, and they fail morale checks; Aerys hunts them down before they can snap out of it.

Against the otyugh, Aerys gets two good melee hits in before it blocks a door and gets him instead. The final blow comes with an acid arrow instead.

There's also a mustard jelly there. For that, Aerys casts Shield and wades into melee with his staff.

Indeed, it rolls a 19 on one attack and still misses. But before it goes down, the jelly gets lucky with a crit and slows Aerys. He retreats to wait that out, then returns to finish the battle.
On to the second jelly - but Shield expires.

All right, then. Renew it and get to fighting. This one gets in another slowing crit, and waiting out the slow means that Aerys can't take the Shield into the next battles.

A pack of kobolds just standing there? Burn them.

None survive. Kobolds are not know for having high HP totals.

Another pack of hobgoblins follow. Aerys takes two consecutive arrow hits, lowering his stoneskin and then inflicting damage. But it's not enough to stop the fireball:

This time, it's an elite and a shaman surviving. The elite is still willing to fight, while the shaman fails a morale check. One thrown dagger panics the elite, and then it's just mop-up.

There's supposed to be another hostile down here, but the carrion crawler didn't spawn. Oh well. I could head up into the slaver ship, but they're not something I want to take on from this angle, with the risk of being unable to retreat.

So instead, Aerys heads outside, and takes on Bregg and Cohrvale.

I'm ranged. They're not. That makes all the difference. Bregg goes down without too much trouble. Then Cohrvale has shield style and decent armor, so he takes considerably longer; Aerys needs a 16 to hit him.

Finally. Aerys took one hit in all of that, absorbed by the Stoneskin.

The merchant out here has poisoned throwing daggers, so Aerys buys a bunch of those (sell half back to renew them, since they come in packs of two). That should kill considerably faster than the plain kind.
Check out the slaver ship ... oh, it's locked. And at difficulty 80, even 22 strength from DUHM won't bash it.

As such, it's time to recruit a companion. Fake "Hexxat" joins, and her thieving skills will allow us to hit a wider range of targets. She levels from 8 to 11, gaining 7 HP (rolls 5/12). Her skill investment goes to Pick Pockets and Find Traps.

And now, the two head off to the docks. A mad cleric is the first encounter:

A 4x backstab for 12 damage. Oh, for better weapons. After those initial melee hits, we go for range and attack with arrows and poisoned throwing daggers. The cleric doesn't get off any of his spells, and it's a clean win.

We talk to Renal Bloodscalp and accept the quest. That opens up Mae'var's practice area, which "Hexxat" clears out. Well, most of it. Then she drinks potions of perception and master thievery so she can finish the job and have enough skill to shoplift from Gorch safely. Loot his good stuff and recharge some wands, talk to Mae'var for the first quest, and head out.

It's now late enough that vampires start showing up on the streets. We spot Hareishan picking on some thieves, and intervene ...

Side note: wands are safe to use outside. The Cowled Wizards don't care about them.
This ... doesn't go well. Hareishan refuses to stop chasing, and I can't avoid level drain. Instead, I reload and skip that encounter for now.

There's only one way out of the docks without triggering it, though, so - time to face some thugs.

And that's just the visible ones. Start launching scorchers.
The second scorcher starts getting kills:

The last two foes fall to our weapons, and we're clear to leave. Aerys takes some hits on his stoneskin, but no actual damage.

On the way to the Temple District, we are ambushed. It's Suna Seni and her crew of slavers.

I go for a different wand this time - cloudkill. The enemy mage opens with a Blindness + Ray of Enfeeblement sequencer on Aerys; he saves against the first but not the second. Thankfully, being a mage, he can move some things around to avoid encumbrance.
On the second round, it's a fireball instead.

There goes the wizard. And two other enemies fail morale checks. They soon succumb to the poisonous cloud.
Suna herself gets a scorcher:

Oh, hello. I didn't know there was a backstabber hiding there. Well, not anymore.
I go for one more scorcher on the panicked Eldarin, but the cloud gets him first, and the ambush is over. Aerys waits for the cloud to disperse and the enfeeblement to wear off before picking up the loot and continuing to the temple district.

Once there, we loot the temple of Talos. The reward for picking up the necklace brings Aerys to 500K XP. And with that milestone, it's time to turn to a faster source of experience gain. We head back to the slums, where Nalia awaits.

37 total fire kills. More this time, because now Aerys can use a wand.

"We have flamethrowers. And what this indicates to me is that at some point someone said to himself, 'Gee, I'd sure like to set those people on fire over there, but I'm way too far away to get the job done. If only I had something to throw flame on them.' And it might have ended there, but he mentioned it to his friend—his friend who was good with tools. And about a month later he came back, 'Hey, quite a concept!' FWOOOSH."
— George Carlin

jmerry

Part 23: The Party Begins

Upon joining the party, Nalia goes up to mage level 11 immediately. She only gets 4 HP from her two levels, rolling a 1/4 on the tenth hit die. And then, we head out so we can make use of the false Hexxat's current thieving boosts. We need to steal some scrolls, after all.

Over in the promenade, we come in by the west interest and run into that vampire encounter we deferred.

With two mages, we're in much better shape to tackle it. The strongest Shadow Thief goes down to our fire, and Hareishan follows.

It takes four or five scorchers to get there, and we somehow manage to avoid clipping the guard with any of them. Note that there's only one fire wand here; we're passing it back and forth to get all these shots in.

With that dealt with, it's time to get to the stealing and scribing. Clara loots the inventories of Galoomp, Lady Yuth, and Jayes. Also, she pickpockets Ribald's ring on the main screen. We buy two potions of genius so Nalia can scribe with certain success. And then we dismiss Clara and start scribing. The first pass filling Nalia's spellbook brings Aerys to 650K. Level 1 scrolls, and it's just short of 700K. Level 2, and that's 815K. That brings level 12 for Aerys and Nalia; Aerys takes sling proficiency and Death Fog, while Nalia takes crossbow proficiency.
Level 3 scrolls bring Aerys to 953K, level 4 scrolls 10 1055K, and level 5 scrolls to 1125K. That's level 13, for new spells Greater Malison, Breach, and Pierce Magic. Scrolls beyond that level are sparse, but there are still enough for Nalia to join Aerys at level 13.

And now, Clara rejoins. I want to reach 1250K experience with Aerys before I let anyone else join. Our first target is the slaver ship, back in the slums. Incidentally, all of this scribing has emptied Nalia's memorization. She's stuck with nothing but wands and weapons for the rest of the day.

Now that we have thieves, we can open that outer door to the ship. The slaver guards do not take our intrusion well.

But of course, we have scorchers. One takes out the first group. Two more take out the next:

A mage approaches; he's protected by Mirror Image and a red fireshield. But of more concern, he has a minor globe up as well.

Against that? I retreat. The wand of fire is no good against that, after all. Wait out the shorter buffs outside the door, then head back in. Now Nalia can scorch him.

And that's it for another mage.

Continuing further in, we run into a guard and another mage:

This pair gets fireballs. The mage falls quickly, though he does get off a Remove Magic. With his low level, none of our buffs are affected.

Clara disarms a floor trap, and the corridor beyond brings more guards to scorch.

That's one dead and one close. More guards follow, and more scorchers.

And now, time starts catching up with us. Clara's master thievery potion expires, so we won't be shoplifting any more after this.

Still, there are more targets to fight in here. The priest of Cyric comes out, and survives two scorcher hits before falling to a 2-damage arrow. That's the first kill we've picked up in here that wasn't from the wands.
Similarly, the yuan-ti go down to weapons. They're resistant to fire, so that just isn't as efficient.

Finally, we strike at the captain.

This part requires some care; the children like to walk up to the doors where they're at risk of being hit by scorchers if we move off to the side. So then, we keep in line until Haegan is clear of that trouble.

While his guards fall to fire, the captain himself falls to a melee hit.

That key lets us open the last doors - but first, we have some trolls to kill.

Nalia gets them both, in complete safety. Once they're down, we head in to free the slave girl. And give her some gold, because Nalia. Our reputation goes up for the first time, to 11.

Hendak could offer more of a reward, but we're not going there yet. I'd like to claim that with a full party. Instead, I head off to Hexxat's quest as we inch ever closer to the key 1.25 million mark.

This quest features a very nasty challenge - devil shades. They're permanently hasted, they drain levels at 4 APR and THAC0 5, and they have 110 HP and -3 AC with substantial resistances. It even takes +2 weapons to hit them. Thankfully, they have a weakness.

Specifically, they're incredibly weak to lightning. That one wand shot deals over 100 damage. It also kills some of the fodder we summoned as distractions, but summons are there to die.
Then the bolt rebounds.

Cancel that second shot, then. And take some pain when the rebounding bolt hits both Clara and Nalia. Thankfully, both survive.

This was actually the second try. The first time, I didn't summon fodder and the point-blank lightning bolts missed completely. After Aerys got drained. I reloaded.

On to the next threat, as Nalia drinks a healing potion ... oops.

I accidentally activated the Wand of Lightning bug there; she drank the same potion six times. It was in the inventory rather than that quickslot, but the bug still triggered. Lesson learned - don't cancel out of a wand shot if you're trying to avoid that bug.

We repeat the same strategy for the second shade. The wand misses, but we have a second mage.

It then takes a second shot to finish the job, as this one doesn't rebound conveniently.

As usual, Burich is already hostile when he talks.

He gets scorched. Nalia gets drained one level, so I have Clara use a restoration scroll. It doesn't matter if she's fatigued, with what's going to happen soon.

For Dragomir? Lots of scorchers.

Also, elven charm resistance. Dragomir just loves to throw Domination around, and Aerys is nearly immune to that.

Aerys is at 1227K XP when we reach Hexxat. Very close to the threshold, but not quite there. I have Hexxat join while still in the tomb, and she goes up to thief level 14 immediately. Most of her skill points go into pickpocketing, so she can shoplift from nearly everywhere with just the pickpocket gloves. We give up a level compared to waiting, but it's not like she'll spend much time in the party.

Then I let Hexxat go anyway, and get started on the other bits of the graveyard. Leave the tombs with skeleton warriors alone, but mummies and shadow fiends?

Stepping out there, of course, allows us to avoid any risk of painful rebounds. All three foes die to that one wand shot.
Then we step back in ... and the same undead are there, perfectly alive. And again. I've stumbled onto an experience loop here.
Still, it's not an infinite loop. After six shadow fiends and two mummies, I stick around in the tomb, and the enemies don't reappear.

Tirdir is freed, and the Crypt King comes next. He gets scorchers.

The wand is running low, but it has done its job. Aerys clears the 1.25 million mark, and we can recruit a full party now.

On the way back to the slums for that - ambushed.

Right. We have to be careful with the fire here, because of Renfeld. Instead, Nalia gets out the arrows of piercing to shoot the mage - dead in two hits.

The thugs save against Aerys' Glitterdust, unfortunately. And one of them already drank an invisibility potion.
All right then, how about a Wand of Fear shot? It gets some of them, but the cleric has a Remove Fear. After an initial Silence which stops Aerys from casting anything from his spellbook.
Then the thugs get to us. One backstabs Nalia, and another hits Aerys enough to finish off his Stoneskin. Time to summon some help, then.

Then, a scorcher.

Despite all that damage, it's actually poison that takes out the first thug, from Aerys' throwing daggers. Then the second goes down to a hobgoblin elite's arrow.

Now, back to the priest. Alone, he's much easier to deal with.

He does get off a Hold Person, but that only stops one of us. Nalia is still free to kill him, and Renfeld is rescued.

With that interruption out of the way, we continue to the slums and recruit Anomen. I edit the save to give him proficiency in clubs instead of staves, and then continue. He levels up to cleric 13, gaining 13 HP - that's a 3/8 roll on the level 9 hit die. For his level 12 proficiency, he takes club specialization.

Jaheira returns as well, leveling up from 8/10 to 10/12. She gains 7 HP, a roll of 4/5 on the one fighter hit die. Her level 9 proficiency goes to sling specialization.

Now that we have Hexxat's bag, we can backtrack over already cleared areas and pick up junk to sell. There's a lot of it.

But of course, four isn't a full party. One of our planned party members isn't in Athkatla, but the other is - and now is the time to get her. Isra starts in the Den of the Seven Vales, so we head off that way.

And, of course, we get waylaid. This is a pretty nasty one, added by SCS. The visible foes aren't the only ones here, after all. It has a minimum XP requirement, but we've zoomed well past that.

Our opening volley deals minor damage all around and blinds three bandits. I'll need a Spell Thrust for the mage, though - she put up a Minor Globe.
On second thought - make some distance. If the mage can't see us, we don't have to worry about her while we fight the others. That still leaves the mage's initial Slow which catches Jaheira, but now she's out of sight.

Nalia goes for some long-range fire, aiming a fireball at the edge of our sight:

I see the mage is near the edge there. And so are both clerics.
Meanwhile, it's four of us against three of them. And we're not doing terribly well.

That's a backstabber by Nalia, going invisible again. And I don't have any quick detection ready. He gets the stab in, but ...

Aerys unleashes his highest-level available spell. Chaos, confusing all three enemies among us. Also, Nalia launches another fireball at the enemy spellcasters.
We get to work on cleaning up the confused foes, and ...

... there was another backstabber. Ugh. Fortunately, that one is already badly hurt from our fireballs. We turn our attention to him, and he is first to fall. Then the other backstabber falls, and a fireball finally kills someone.

Two fighters come next, falling to a fireball and a poisoned dagger:

Only the mage and one cleric remain. And based on the sound I just heard, I'm pretty sure the Minor Globe has expired. Time to finish this the easy way.

That cleric cast Sanctuary. It didn't help.
We keep casting fireballs, including Aerys' last 3rd level spell slot of the day ... and Jaheira decides to talk.

Just because the battle music isn't playing and we can't see any enemies - that doesn't mean we're not in combat. This really isn't the time.
A few more wand fireballs, and it's over.

Oof. That was a tough one. If we were properly rested with a decent spell arsenal, it would have gone better, but we're not. Anomen's still on his day 1 memorized spells, Nalia's running on empty, and Aerys is pretty depleted too.

And now, we can leave for the Promenade. Next time, we finish gathering the party.

62 total fire kills. That wand of fire is really getting a workout.

"Fire - as long as you're not directly touching it, it can't hurt you."
- Mike Nelson, RiffTrax for The Last Airbender

jmerry

Part 24: Completing the Party

In the Promenade, we sell some junk and visit an inn:

We can't intervene in this conversation, but Alia speaks to us afterward. If we want to get involved in this and recruit Isra, we need to head to the Government District and the Jysstev estate.

On the way there ...

Huh. This is new. It must be related.
We fight the thugs; they have decent HP, but nothing else going for them. The rescued Rana leads the rest of the way to the estate, and we speak to Isra.

Isra joins as a level 9 paladin, with all of her hit dice already rolled. 70/90 hit points from levels, 17 Con for +27 hit points from constitution. While the version installed by the mod doesn't have a joining XP trigger, I've tweaked that and given her the standard one all of the normal SoA NPCs get. With that, she goes up to 1.25 million XP and level 12. 9 more HP, and she specializes in long sword. Since she already has dual-wielding, I give her a pair of long swords to wield.

Now, of course, there's a quest to resolve. After a bit of a runaround, we find the Cowled Wizard that has been causing the trouble:

Wait ... he's not dead yet. Why does the quest think he is?
True Seeing reveals Gelion, who put up PfMW and PfNM. Nonmagical melee weapons it is, then. He casts PW:Silence. We cast Chaos. With him confused, the result is inevitable.

Huh. Maybe I should have given the mages nonmagical weapons too. But then, I would have had to be carrying some, and I don't think I was.

Back out in the government district, I talk to Jan. He joins briefly, leveling to 11/12 and investing massively in pickpocketing. Another option for looting merchants, with his 180 skill including gauntlets.

We return to the Jysstevs to complete the quest; this brings a substantial gold reward, and the option to start chapter 3 opens up. I'd rather collect that reward with a full party, though. So instead, after a visit to the docks to drop off Renfeld, we rest and head to Trademeet.
Well, OK, first we visit a temple to buy a few potions of genius. It's getting late, and ...

Ah. Some ruffians. I hit them with an Insect Plague, but I don't have any True Seeing spells ready to reveal the backstabbers. And Aerys' Glitterdust would get some unwanted attention.
As a consequence, Aerys takes a backstab. But it's for a good cause - Nalia drinks a potion and learns Breach. There are other scrolls, but they can wait.

We rest at the Copper Coronet, and that means we'll face the next day with a lot more spells available. This arsenal is immediately tested, as slavers waylay us on the way to the city gates.

I open with two fireballs. We take some friendly fire damage, but I'd call it a success.

Three slavers and two invisible bandits are dead. Two mages and two more of those bandits remain. The visible mage gets off a Chaos, affecting all of the party except Anomen. Well, he does have Dispel Magic memorized ...

Isra is free to start attacking, but the other three party members are still confused. The other mage adds to our pain with a double Acid Arrow on Nalia. Of course, the dispel wasn't just aimed at our party. It hit the mages too, and that means I can take them down quickly. A second dispel brings more of our party back into the fight:

The level check failed for Aerys, but at least Jaheira and Nalia are good now. Jaheira goes for a True Seeing, while Nalia attacks with arrows - though one of the invisible bandits has already fallen to the Insect Plague. Once revealed - well, the insects still afflict them.

The remaining enemies are trivial. Aerys attacking Nalia isn't. She gets whacked down to less than 10 HP and has to flee ... triggering a conversation.

Once the Chaos wears off, we continue to our original destination.

At the gates, it's another vampire/thief encounter.

The thieves stick around, while the vampire leaves.
With bystanders nearby, we're in no position to use a fireball here. We have to rely on weapon attacks instead. One thief dies quickly, while the other uses a potion to go invisible - but Jaheira's True Seeing is still going.

Then he drinks another potion and stabs Anomen in the front for 48 points. Ouch.

But there's a silver lining. One of the thieves drops a scroll of Find Familiar, and that means Anomen can summon Balerion again. 12 free HP brings him to 92 total.

We talk to Flydian, and then head out to Trademeet. On the way ...

Orogs and slavers. Also, that's some inconvenient placement that I'll have to back the mages out of. Once I do that, I hit them with a Slow and a Chaos. Many orogs suffer, but the enemy mage is unaffected. She hits back with a Chaos of her own, confusing Jaheira - and we've spent our Dispel Magic castings for the day. Anomen goes for a Holy Smite instead.

That clears up a bunch of the orogs, but Anomen is in trouble. He was already low on HP (I had Nalia regenerate with travel instead of him), and his AC isn't great. Also, that mage's Minor Globe is seriously getting in our way. Spell Thrust, and Hold Monster as well. The spell defenses go down, but the mage saves and continues to cause trouble. PW: Sleep, and Anomen is out of the fight. Thankfully, the enemies don't target him while he's down.
But Jaheira is in there, mostly alone, with poor AC due to her bear form and no chance to command a retreat. Orog attacks get to her, and she goes down.

I go for a Glitterdust and a Horror - most of the orogs are blinded now, so at least the remaining enemies aren't much of a threat. Except the mage, of course, and it's slow with just our mages attacking her. Another Confusion gets Aerys ... but then Anomen wakes. With him back in the fight and Isra returned from killing archers, we make short work of the mage.

The last blind orog is easily handled.
Now ... I can't raise Jaheira in the field. Anomen didn't memorize a Raise Dead. There's a temple in Trademeet, but I won't make that mistake again.

Upon reaching Trademeet, there are a few animals. Sleep.

That spell isn't worth much in BG2, but I can at least use it here.

And with that cleared up, we can head to the temple and spend 1200 gold to raise Jaheira. It's not cheap, but I'll take it. The second stop is the mayor's office, to pick up Cernd. He levels to 13 on joining, taking two-handed style and gaining greater werewolf form. With him in the party, I hit the other gates:

I've had trouble with this mage in the past, going hostile when he kills his own soldiers with friendly fire. That isn't an issue this time, as the militia wizard is a conjurer with no AoE damage spells. Instead, the one dead soldier just means a free helmet for us - one of two we need. Unfortunately, there aren't any helmets for sale in town. There's a container with a bunch of helmets, but I forgot about it this time. Instead, the party heads back to Athkatla to buy one.

While we're there, we visit Gaelan Bayle and pay his 15K fee. Chapter 3 is started, and we haven't finished any of the major quests in chapter 2.

I run into a couple of encounters on the way to the map edge. First a "shady character" that tries to mug us and dies for his foolishness, then another menacing a tourist.

We weren't fast enough to save him, but we can at least avenge him.
Habib throws some scimitars, and we're off to the docks.

We visit the shadow thief basement, and pick up three very useful items. The Amulet of Power will go to Aerys, except when I want someone in melee to have drain protection. The Guard's Ring also goes to Aerys as our first +2 protection item. And finally, the ring of lockpicks means that only a very few locks will resist Nalia's skill.

Unfortunately, exhaustion catches up to us - and trouble arrives practically as soon as we step outside.

Since we're officially working with the Shadow Thieves, we help Sansuki out. Cernd gets the amulet of power, and we supplement his melee attacks with +2 ranged attacks and a scorcher.

It's at this point that I realize Cernd doesn't have the Claw of Kazgaroth on yet. I rectify that and add a second scorcher.

There goes the leader of this bunch. A third scorcher follows, but it's still weapon attacks that end all three vampires.

Sansuki lives.

Since it's dark out, I might as well do the first quest of the chapter 3 plot. We head down to the waterfront to meet with Mook:

I add some magic, but Lassal is immortal here. There's no XP payoff for killing him because of that. On the other hand, when he summons some rats ...

My party takes a bit of damage, but that's an acceptable cost. Rat attacks can be painful with the disease they inflict. And Anomen and Nalia are resistant anyway. Eventually, we deal enough damage to Lassal, and he leaves.

We report the matter to Aran Linvail for another nice chunk of XP, and also start on another quest. The XP reward brings Anomen's 14th level, and he is the first in the party with access to level 7 spells. Correcting his earlier oversight, he memorizes a Raise Dead and a Resurrection.
With a visit to the Sea's Bounty, Jaheira is cursed. Off to the slums then, to track down Ployer and get the cure.

Shortly after, we reach Ployer's lair. And we're buffing for this fight. Fire immunity all around, plus an array of other divine buffs.

And ... that fireball gets canceled by Ployer's dialogue. Grr. Nalia's wand fireball kills Ployer, but also disrupts Aerys' next spell.

No Sunfire there. And all three mages have Minor Globes up, so wand fireballs don't help at all against them. We take out Gracien, but they get off a bunch of spells - Remove Magic, Chaos, Slow, ...

Hey! The enemy aren't supposed to use fire on us! But with some of our buffs dispelled, that hurt. And disrupted Aerys' attempt at a Spell Thrust; unlike other AoE damage spells in SCS, Sunfire disrupts even through 100% fire immunity.
Terrece follows up with a second Sunfire, and Jaheira is near death. Then a third ...

Dead.

And here, I stop. That's such a shameful way for a member of this party to die that I just have to reload and play it better. I did make obvious mistakes there, losing two spells that Aerys tried to cast.

The second time, Aerys waits until after the talk to cast a spell, and makes it a Sunfire.

That's two down. Then Nalia confuses one of the surviving mages before he can do anything, and we can focus on the one remaining mage Gracien. We take one Magic Missile spell, and that's it.

This fight marks a milestone - we have enough protection items for the full party, though the warriors don't have full plate yet. We rest, and end the session.

75 total fire kills. Not much this update, because we're a little short on permanent fire protection.

"But I need to you to dispose of this crazy-ass experiment that almost killed me. You'll have to throw it into the Sun itself. For only the thermo-nuclear inferno of the Sun has enough energy to ensure its total destruction."
- Farnsworth, Futurama

jmerry

Part 25: Nalia's Keep

Now that I have the full party together - and Cernd in particular - I'd like to go through the shapeshift forms I'll be using in BG2.

As with BG1, each form is a token that can be equipped as a two-handed weapon. These tokens set strength and dexterity to fixed values, and prohibit further alterations. They grant one dot in dagger proficiency, but use katana proficiency; you can't specialize in shapeshifting as a fighter/druid. Now, the forms.

Unkitted druids such as Jaheira have access to two forms at level 7; bear and wolf.

Bear form grants strength 18/00, dexterity 12, and armor class 7. The latter will, of course, be superseded by any armor Jaheira wears. The form grants double movement speed, but that's against the bear's very slow walking animation; it's still slow. On the attack, it deals 1d6+Str slashing damage with 2 APR and a +2 enchantment level.

Wolf form grants strength 17, dexterity 18, and armor class 6. The form grants double movement speed, and that actually means something in the wolf animation. On the attack, it deals 1d8+Str piercing damage with 2 APR and a +2 enchantment level.

Jaheira has spent much of her low-level time in bear form, as it hits harder than the manufactured weapons she has so far. Wolf form is also used for mobility. These animal forms do gain extra attacks from warrior levels, but a fighter/druid can't gain specialization bonuses for them.

Cernd, as a Shapeshifter, has access to three forms - lesser werewolf at level 1, werewolf at level 7, and greater werewolf at level 13. The tokens for these forms are given automatically when he joins the party or levels up ... and the tokens for lower-level forms are removed at the same time. Since he's already level 13 immediately after joining, only the greater werewolf form matters here.

Greater werewolf form grants strength 21, dexterity 20, and AC -4. It also grants 40% magic resistance, 50% resistance to all elements, regeneration of 6 HP per round, and haste. The haste doubles that regeneration to an effective 12 HP per round. On the offense, it deals 2d6+Str slashing damage, at 2 base APR plus 1 from the haste and a +3 enchantment level.

This form is very good for tanking, especially against elemental damage. Unfortunately, its offensive potential is held back by the Shapeshifter's poor THAC0. A pure druid has 12 base THAC0 at 2.95 million XP, worse than even a thief. And while you get +4 to hit from strength, the weapon doesn't grant any enchantment bonus to hit.

Finally, all druid gain access to two forms as high-level abilities. In vanilla, these can be taken multiple times. Here, the HLA can be taken only once, and grants the token directly.

Fire elemental form grants strength 22, dexterity 24, and AC -5. It also grants 100% fire immunity, immunity to non-magical weapons, a fireshield effect for 1d8+2 fire damage retaliation, and haste. The description claims that's just increased movement speed, but it also grants bonus APR. On the offense, the form deals 1d10+Str crushing damage and 1d10 fire damage, at 2 base APR plus 1 from the haste and a +4 enchantment level. The form sets base THAC0 to 2, even if the character's original THAC0 is better.

Earth elemental form grants strength 25, dexterity 10, and AC -5. It also grants 50% physical damage resistance and immunity to nonmagical weapons, but reduces movement speed to 75%. The form has a large selection circle, and is unable to pass through some paths that humanoids can use. The physical resistance also blocks further modification, but you can apply damage resistance effects such as Armor of Faith and Hardiness before transforming to stack with it. On the offense, the form deals 2d10+Str crushing damage, at 2 base APR and a +4 enchantment level. Like the fire elemental form, base THAC0 is set to 2.

Fire elemental form will be our staple once we reach epic levels, even for Cernd. On top of the essential fire immunity, it's fantastic for both melee damage and physical tanking. We also have earth elemental form for when fantastic AC and normal weapon immunity aren't enough, but that will be rare.

Before we go anywhere, let's do something about our party's lack of full plate. I have Isra wait in the Copper Coronet, while Hexxat joins and we visit some merchants for a five-finger discout. And while I'm at it, I spend a potion and loot Bernard's store as well. It takes a few trips to find enough merchants with appropriate stock, and the game hits us for it:

There are also several invisible foes. This could get ugly - and the bandit mage opens with a double-Horror minor sequencer.

If we had Isra, that wouldn't be a problem. But right now, we don't. The victims are out of it for ten rounds.
I choose not to use spells in this fight, and Aerys takes serious damage from the enemy backstabbers. Still, we win through and reach the Bridge District. Hexxat picks up the third full plate and the boomerang dagger, and we have what we wanted.

Back at the Copper Coronet, we restore the party. And then, we hit the sewers for Lilarcor. With a flaming sword for Isra and acid arrows for Nalia, we're ready for the trolls. Cast Stoneskin before leaving Athkatla, and go.

There's no ambush on the way to the keep for once. I could have waited. Oh well, four hours of protection after we arrive is still good.

As fits the improvements made by SCS, the first group of trolls includes a Spirit Troll.

It's still invisible in this shot, but I can hear it casting. Go for a wand fireball ... too late to interrupt the Unholy Blight, and it also flat out misses; I had to aim to avoid my front line. Still, we don't take much damage from the Blight. Only Isra is vulnerable, and she saves.
A Greater Command follows. We go after the spirit troll, but the damage is done.

From there, it's simple to mop up. And then, we wait for Anomen and Jaheira to wake.

The north brings a second group of trolls:

This bunch are easier, as they lack any spirit trolls. And this fireball is more effective than the last, picking up a kill.

With that, we're ready to head inside. Daleson says there are around thirty trolls? We'll be keeping count.
After a few quiet rooms, we find some ice trolls:

All four go down to that one fireball. One even takes 61+1 damage.
Incidentally, this is why that +1 damage effect is there in SCS. The tweaked troll regeneration doesn't make them vulnerable to death until after the first packet of fire damage, so that +1 damage allows big fire spells to kill in one hit. Ice trolls only have 15 HP, after all.

The main hall brings a large cluster of trolls, and they get a wand fireball to disrupt them.

It even works this time. But of course, it takes more than that to bring down a spirit troll. They have more spells to cast, including a Greater Command and a Flame Strike.

Several characters take strength-draining hits, and we need to heal, but it's still a win.

The next group of trolls gets a double fireball.

That basically wipes them out. The spirit troll survives, but it can't do much alone.

There's one more troll menacing a servant, and the first floor is done. Now, out to the courtyard. I go to fight the otyugh ... and get a trollish interruption.

Jaheira cures the slowing disease on Anomen, but that leaves her vulnerable; a Flame Strike brings her down to single-digit HP. She drinks a potion - a round later. Then we kill those trolls, and earn some breathing room.

The dogs get a gratuitous fireball:

Mmm, hot dogs. Rover is out of range, and has to be put down in melee.

There's one more spirit troll on the wall before we can open the gate, and then it's time for a fight. We renew our stoneskins, summon a nymph for healing, and head over to fight the invaders.

The nymph even gets a kill. There's one more troll just inside, and then it's time for the second floor.

Upstairs, we find still more ice trolls:

The wand fireball doesn't kill them all this time, but the ones it doesn't kill go unconscious. I have Nalia switch to fire arrows, because I'm counting fire kills and not acid kills.

That path leads to the yuan-ti mage, and we draw out its support first.

Incidentally, that splitting troll gets you full XP for the first kill and half XP for each of the smaller trolls it spawns.
The mage itself puts up multiple illusions, Stoneskin, and PfMW. Aerys clears all of that away with a Remove Magic.

And with the full party attacking, it doesn't last long.

We continue around the outside, clearing out some more trolls:

Ah, that's a good spot for a fireball. Four ice trolls and one regular troll die, while Cernd takes 6 damage and quickly regenerates.

The corridor beyond brings yet another pack:

Once again, ice trolls are helpless against fireballs.

And at this point ... crash. I have to redo the whole second floor. I goes pretty similarly, although Isra gets a fire kill on one of the split trolls this time:

Up on the roof, I have a very well-aimed fireball:

Four enemies hit, and only Cernd takes friendly fire. Of course it takes more than one fireball to kill a troll.

After going up the tower and handling the yuan-ti we find, it's time to meet Glaicus. I start with Cernd tanking as Jaheira casts a Charm Person or Mammal ... saved. Actually, he's a level 15 fighter with saves to match, so that had very little chance to work. Anomen comes out for a Dispel Magic, and that does work.

That's the second flail head. The third head is with the golems, and they don't care if you take it - so we do, and forge the Flail of Ages.

Now, we're back to fight the golems. It's theoretically possible to get fire kills here, since the flaming sword and flail don't care about magic resistance, but it's unlikely. We pick them off one by one, switching weapons as appropriate. We even have enough blunt weapons for everyone to get in on fighting the clay golem:

It's always nice when you kill them before they can attack.
Jaheira's curse has finally expired, so bear form is good for her again. She uses that when we attack the stone golems.
Then, for the iron golem - Isra handles that on her own, with Azuredge.

Slow, but completely safe. The only ranged attack the golem has is its poison cloud, and Isra is immune to that as a Cavalier.

With the golems down, we can loot the treasure they were guarding. And none of those weapons are of any use to us.

In the cellar, Nalia fails to detect a trap:

That's all right. Aerys just cast Shield to absorb the magic missiles instead, and retrieve the Shield Amulet.

After a small group of trolls, we come to the room full of umber hulks. Nalia casts Invisibility on Aerys so he can sneak by and feed them.

Then ... we kill them. We don't believe in leaving enemies at our backs. Nalia opens with a wand Cloudkill:

Unfortunately, she gets confused right back, and stands right in the door. We're able to get around her and bash the hulk that charged her, at least.
Once the cloud and confusion expire, we launch another.

No confusion this time, because she didn't get spotted. Still, that only kills one more - there are still two umber hulks out there. A third shot gets one, and I send Isra in to scout for the last:

There. She got it moving, and drew it into the cloud to die. We killed four of the hulks with Cloudkill and the fifth in melee.

And now, only the boss fight remains. And this one's a doozy. It's time to buff.

Four summons. Strength potions. Lots of spells. We aren't quite immune to fire, but we're close.
I open with a pair of fireballs.

That injures lots of them, but doesn't kill any. And the mages have minor globes up. They also have Mantle up, so we can't hit them with weapons. And Anomen failed his save against the umber hulk elder, so he's confused. Chaotic Commands would block that, but we didn't have one memorized.
TorGal focuses on Isra, and takes her down extremely quickly.

Then Anomen ... all right, I'm reloading. TorGal, with his barbarian speed, is just too fast for us. We need to do a better job of debuffing our enemies.

So, for the second round, I add some contingencies.

Slow/Greater Malison, when we see an enemy, targeted on self. That ignores MR (which many of these enemies have), and Slow is one disabler trolls aren't immune to.
Against the mages, I use Spell Thrusts and send in the fire elementals. They have +4 attacks, so they can hit over the Mantle.

That should keep the mages from doing anything too disruptive.
Insect Plague can't panic trolls, but it does still do decent damage. That gets us our first kill, a giant troll. We continue to take heavy damage in melee as well; Isra has to retreat, and then Jaheira.

Also, that's a Remove Magic taking out some of our buffs. But we're making progress too; Anomen takes out a Spirit Troll in melee, then a Spectral Troll and a mage with a Holy Smite:

Unfortunately, one of the mages gets off a Chaos. Anomen is confused now, and so is that fire elemental. Still, confusion isn't enough to stop the elemental from killing its target:

Just before the Stoneskin takes effect. Not that it would have helped; we had fire coming both in melee and from a fireball.
Finally, we do enough damage to TorGal. He falls unconscious, and Nalia finishes him with a fire arrow.

Not actually a fire kill. The last few trolls fall easily, and the battle is over. Except for the confusion, which leads to the fire elemental killing a nymph.

And with that, we've won. Nalia's loyalty is secured. The experience reward brings new levels for nearly the entire party - Aerys to 14 (new spell Project Image), Isra to 13, Jaheira to 11/13, Cernd to 14, and Nalia to 14. It would have been nice to have those levels before we fought that boss fight - some fireball sequencers would have made a huge difference - but that's life.

Daleson estimated about thirty foes. I count nearly a hundred in this run; 79 trolls of various kinds, ten yuan-ti, and six umber hulks.

On the way out, the Roenalls close the doors on us - but they don't bother to lock them. And since we exited through the courtyard, we can just lower the drawbridge again. If we ever wanted to, we could visit the keep's interior again.

100 total fire kills. While trolls are quite vulnerable, the SCS tweaks to their regeneration mean you can kill them with anything. It's mostly the lesser ice trolls that actually died to fire directly.

Her sword burns with such brightness that foes avert their eyes and arrows divert their paths.
— Magic: The Gathering. Flavor text for Razia, Boros Archangel.

jmerry

I just edited part 19, correcting a picture I forgot to upload the first time. Come on, readers. You didn't notice that one of the picture spots just had the picture's name there instead? I can't fix issues with these posts if I don't know they're there; the only reason I spotted this one is that I wanted to use the picture in another thread.

Part 26: The Druid Grove

After one stronghold quest, we head straight into another. It's time to secure Cernd's loyalty by taking back the druid grove.

When we go there - well, it's time for Aerys to use his new spell.

That projected image goes for a fireball right away. That kills one baby wyvern and injures another, with the party outside the area of effect. A second fireball gets the troll:

That's a bit of damage on Cernd, but he regenerates.

Now, we head down to another group of trolls.

Where's the image? I told it to cast a fireball, and it walked off in a different direction than the rest of the party. It's somewhere up in the upper left part of the screen, out of sight. I wait for it to arrive and burn the trolls ... and wait ... OK, it's clearly stuck somewhere.

New orders issued. The fireball is launched, taking out two ice trolls and one spirit troll. Cernd takes advantage to remove two more regular trolls, leaving only the two remaining spirit trolls.
I send the image in to cast a Sunfire ... nope. Expired. Instead, Nalia wakes and uses a fireball of her own.

Just one troll left now, and physical damage takes it down.

Now we cast some healing spells and wait. Spirit troll melee attacks drain strength, which is a problem for everyone but Cernd (immune while in werewolf form). The stuff on the ground was because of that; strength-drained characters dropping things so they can move.

Even before the drain expires, we press forward a bit. Cernd attracts the attention of some spiders:

That's one phase spider that teleported over to the party, and Nalia going for a wand fireball against the main spider group. Cernd can tank sword spiders indefinitely, but ...

... there's a giant spider in there too. With Web Tangle. Cernd fails a save, and the rapid attacks tear him apart in seconds. Nalia does at least kill the three little spiders and a phase spider with her fireball.
Aerys adds a second fireball - some damage, but no more kills - and the spiders are on us.

This part is no problem. We can fight spiders easily enough; we just can't afford to have one party member do it alone.

Anomen raises Cernd, who wastes a healing spell on himself. Oops. I should have adjusted his AI before now to my standard of not automatically casting spells.

We leave the troll mound alone for now, and continue forward. That doesn't mean that we don't run into some trolls, though:

They get a wand fireball. Nothing fancy, but a bit of extra fire always helps with trolls.

After another lone troll, we face a Greater Earth Elemental. We may not be terribly well-equipped, but we do at least have +2 weapons for everybody.

And since the elemental focuses on Cernd, we take no lasting damage.

The next encounter after this one brings both trolls and a party that starts friendly. Since they won't stay friendly, we don't care about collateral damage. Cast some fire protection, and break out the fireballs.

It's a rousing success. Nalia's fireball kills a couple of summons. Then Aerys gets the mage, a fighter, and a troll.

x

Our rivals take down a second troll, and we get the third in melee. The druid casts a summoning spell, and they change sides. Their summons don't, though - free bears for us. For the druid's next spellcasting attempt, I throw in a rare non-fire spell:

Magic Missile. Decent damage, instant casting for reliable disruption. They don't cause any more trouble for us.

And now, I use Aerys' second level 7 spell slot for another projected image. Another Resist Fire and Cold gets Anomen to 95% resistance, Isra and Jaheira are immune, and Cernd has MR and regeneration. Time to start burning some druids.

Just the first fireball, and one of them is already near death. Nalia adds a wand fireball for the first kill.

Kyland himself is going for salamander form, which is inconvenient. We don't like fire-immune enemies. Thankfully for us, he wants to cast spells too, and that means he can't stay transformed.
Anomen adds a Greater Command, and Aerys casts another fireball:

Oops. That's a friendly bear we just killed. But I don't mind if I'm killing druids too. I add another fireball before the end, though it only kills the other bear. Our actual enemies all fall to melee attacks.

The image still isn't done, though. We still have the bridge of spores to take on.

I'm running low on fireballs, so I go with Sunfire instead. Isra joins in to provide vision. That first trio go down to two Sunfires and some melee, and we advance to the next group:

This batch actually manage to summon some myconids. Since Isra has Lilarcor, that isn't too scary.

And the myconids are vulnerable to the fire. That fourth Sunfire takes down two spore colonies and three myconids.
One last Sunfire gets the last spore colony, and the party moves up. There are also some trolls down below the bridge, so the image throws one last fireball at them. With that, it's completely out of 3rd and 5th level slots. It goes to cast a Burning Hands - unsummoned. Still, we can mop up those trolls easily enough. And one more that didn't come up to join the fight.

That one projected image cast nine fire spells for a total of 13 kills.

With this, the way is clear to the ogre's tower. Jaheira picks up Belm, and now her animal forms are obsolete. Wielding Belm with a shield is better than fighting as a bear, both offensively (0.5 more APR) and defensively (7 points better AC).

Before facing the rakshasas, we backtrack to the troll mound.

It's a substantial group here, with multiple spirit trolls. We introduce ourselves with two fireballs, and that's two regular trolls down already (one to fire, one to Cernd's claws). Then the rest of our party joins in:

And Isra gets a kill with her flaming sword. Mop up the last troll, and head in.

Inside, it's one troll down quickly, and then a spirit troll casts Unholy Blight. We dodge out the door ...

Many trolls follow, for a close-in brawl. Anomen borrows the Amulet of Power to insta-cast Defensive Harmony. Aerys casts Chaos .. wasted. Trolls are immune to confusion.
It takes some time, but we make progress. First a giant troll dies, then a spectral troll is beaten unconscious.

Nalia's fire arrow finishes that troll off. And now that we outnumber them, the remaining trolls fall quickly.

There wasn't much left inside, either.

The spear isn't something we're interested in using. The bracers of archery are nice for Nalia - or would be, if she wasn't using AC bracers. That's a situational option, then.

And now, the rakshasas. We buff fully for this fight:

Head in, and talk to "Adratha". That starts the fight, and Ihtafeer buffs. Dispel her immediately, since we have a level advantage.

And ... even after the dispel, wielding a +2 ranged weapon with 19 Dex, Aerys still misses on a 19. These rakshasas just have ridiculous AC. For Ihtafeer, that's -5 base, another -4 for 19 Dex, and another -2 for two dots in single-weapon style. Even our warriors need pretty good rolls to hit.
Another round of dispels both ways follows:

We have the level advantage. Ours is effective, theirs isn't. They try some offensive spells:

Fire? You'll have to do better than that. Also, Isra finally realized her +1 sword wasn't good enough to hurt Ihtafeer.
More spells pile up - a Web is troublesome. But at least, we get Ihtafeer.

Cloudkill, Skull Trap ... this is getting painful. And when with the True Sight deal with those mirror images?

I retreat, but with Anomen webbed, that doesn't help.

Anomen was the only one with any resurrection spells memorized. At this point, I reload and rethink my strategy. We can't let the battlefield get that messy; if a Web comes down, we're all out.

On the second try, Aerys gets in a 36-point crit right away. Ihtafeer goes down in one round.

Then Jalaal.

Saadat takes a bit to come out of invisibility, but that doesn't save him.

And it's over, with the enemies not managing a single offensive spell. It's a very luck-dependent fight, really. At this level, anyway, when we don't have any offensive spell options.

With most of our buffs still active, we head out to take on the Shambling Mounds.

We steamroll them easily, of course. And then the haste expires, and fatigue sets in. We rest outside before taking on the remainder of this area. As this part is already pretty long, we'll continue next time.

Now, what was going on with that True Seeing not dispelling the rakshasas' illusionary defenses? That has to do with the "More Consistent Breach" component of SCS. It replaces the blanket level 5 immunity of liches and rakshasas with a list of specific spell immunities. And that list has some mistakes. On one hand, it misses certain spells like Feeblemind and Greater Command. On the other hand, it adds a spell which does work on those monsters in vanilla - the secondary spell of True Seeing, which activates on rounds 2-10. All other anti-illusion divinations, including the first round of True Seeing, work just fine against them.

I have interpreted this as a bug. After this session, I applied edits to change the immunity list, making liches and rakshasas vulnerable to True Seeing as they should be.

134 fire kills so far. Project Image really boosts our firepower.

"It's as true now as when I started adventuring - 'when in doubt, set something on fire.'"
- Belkar Bitterleaf, Order of the Stick

jmerry

Part 27: Cernd's Trials

Our rest is uninterrupted, and we wake ready for the trials to come. First, a few more spore colonies.

They're not a problem when you kill them quickly.

Some angry bears follow - they get fireballs.

Those two fireballs aren't enough to kill them, but they're injured enough that we mop up easily.

For the druids outside the entrance, Aerys makes an image.

And Cernd joins him, with a Resist Fire and Cold spell for protection. More fireballs ensue, but the druids survive with healing potions. Then Aerys walks up for some Sunfire.

They also summoned a fire elemental; that drew Cernd's focus for melee attacks until he could take it down, and inflicted considerable damage.
The second Sunfire finally gets some kills:

Then the third takes out the two Mountain Bear summons, and we chase down the panicked Adherent trying to land melee hits and Burning Hands. He goes down eventually.

Finally, this brings us to the duel. Cernd prebuffs - Protection from Lighting, Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Resist Fire and Cold, Armor of Faith, Barkskin. I have another party member hold on to the shapeshift token, then pass it over once the duel starts. That token and the staff are his only equipment here.

I don't often cast during the duel, but this time I do. His spell gets off, just after Faldorn's.

Unfortunately, her spell was a Fire Elemental. Then she follows up with a Dolorous Decay, and Cernd fails the save. Cernd tries for a Neutralize Poison ...

So much for that. Still, the damage wasn't too bad.
Then Faldorn adds an Insect Plague.

Panicked, taking poison and piercing damage ... it's not looking good. Faldorn drinks a potion - cheater. I counter by passing Cernd a potion of my own, and it's at least enough for him to live. Faldorn summons a nymph...

I give Cernd another potion for safety, but it's not needed. He has turned the corner in this battle. After another summon (a dire wolf) goes down, Faldorn falls.

There's still a hostile fire elemental in the pit. It can be ignored; it'll unsummon in an hour.

Back in Trademeet, night has fallen. We speak to Logan, but then rest before speaking to the genies. After all, the merchants only come out during the day. Anomen reaches level 15 from the experience reward, and Terl also shows up - we'll be heading back to Athkatla soon.

Day comes, and we head out. We interrupt a philosophical argument:

Invalidated your argument? Sometimes force is necessary in response to force. Even the most civilized of societies allow their police to use violence.

Then it's off to the genies, and Nalia starts drinking master thievery potions. With three and the gloves, she's prepared to loot all of this town's merchants. We go to talk to the khan, but first:

One efreeti bottle. A fire-immune summon, so we're more likely to use it than most others. Still not very likely, because it's quicker to just kill everything with our own spells.

After that talk and a visit to the mayor's home, the merchants are back in business. Nalia gets Tansheron's bow, Anomen gets Blackblood, Jaheira gets the cloak of displacement, and Aerys gets the belt of inertial barrier. All that from just the first merchant.

We loot the rest of them too, but there's one item we buy legitimately - the necklace of missiles the caravan merchant has. It comes with two charges, so we sell it and buy it back for the full 25. Now Isra can contribute fireballs for the team, and hers ignore most spell defenses because they hit as level 9.

Now, back to Athkatla. We hit the government district first, and finally do something about Viconia being tied up.

With our forces already in place before things start, the fanatics are helpless against us. Viconia offers to join, but we turn her down.

Then it's night, so we get a vampire encounter:

We win this one cleanly, without taking any hits or using any fire. Cernd is a very good AC tank, and I gave him the amulet of power in case any hits slipped through.

With that done with, we can visit Anomen's family. He considers revenge, but we talk him out of it.

And now, Cernd's quest. He has been approached by an acquaintance, so we're tracking down his infant son. After some talking in the promenade, we head back to the government district, and the Deril estate in particular. Before actually traveling, we prepare sequencers and contingencies, and Nalia drinks an insight potion to wish for glasses of identification.

At the Deril estate, we add a few more priestly buffs and enter. Deril is protected by illusions, Improved Mantle, Spell Shield, and Minor Globe. True Sight deals with the illusions, but we still aren't hitting him unless we can break those defenses down.

On the other hand, Deril doesn't have fire protection up. Higher-level AoE fire spells will go right through that defense. So while our mages start on the spell defenses, we add a Fire Storm and a hit from the necklace of missiles.
This hurts Deril, but ...

... it makes the lich Lagole Gon mad. And we really aren't equipped to fight a lich right now. The Horrid Wilting deals massive damage.
Then it gets worse. Time Stop into Improved Alacrity, Dark Planetar, and another Horrid Wilting.

A dispel has also taken out some of our buffs, so Isra has to back out or die to the fire.

We keep fighting anyway, and somehow manage to bring down Deril without losing anybody.

But Cernd still doesn't have his baby back. We try to retreat ...

Three dead to another Horrid Wilting. A fourth to the planetar. We have failed.

All right, plan B. Can we win this without offending the lich? I try without the necklace shot ... I missed the Spell Trap in the buff list. Since I don't have a Ruby Ray memorized, I'm not getting a Breach through that. Deril's melee defenses are effectively unbreakable, and fire is really our only option. The lich still gets mad because of the firestorm, and I abort this try for another reload.

Now, plan C. The "C" stands for "Cheap shot".

With the lich down, fighting Deril isn't too hard ... and then I pick up the baby, and Cernd leaves early. Reload.

Another couple of tries - that opening move does take some luck - and I get a good run.

That's the lich and the djinni down. Only Deril remains, and he's had some of his spells disrupted. The fire continues ...

And there's a new top kill for Cernd. Aerys completes his Sunfire, but the battle is already over.

The baby shows no ill effects from the fire, and Cernd picks him up. He's off to the grove, and we follow after a rest.

That fight showed us a weakness; a mage that puts up Spell Trap is basically immune to anything we can do except for a few high-level AoEs, as we are now. And if they put up the right defenses, even those won't work. Nalia will memorize a Ruby Ray to cover this weakness before we take on any further high-level mages.

Now, that trip to the grove? It's not entirely uneventful.

We are ambushed with ogres, and that Nalia in a particularly inconvenient position. Stoneskin for the mages and make some distance, then Slow for the mob.

Our melee forces crush them easily; we seriously outclass ordinary ogres now.

The rest of the way to the grove is uneventful, and Cernd rejoins us. His personal matters are done, and he's with us for good.

139 fire kills. Only a few enemies died to our fires this time, but one was the highest-value fire kill so far.

"Know that it would be untrue
Know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
I didn't set your house on fire
But it's just the way I am
Have to take it for a fact
Life can really burn you up
When you're a pyromaniac"
— The Dead Milkmen, If You Love Somebody, Set Them On Fire

jmerry

Part 28: Exhuming Trouble

With our party's loyalty quests taken care of, there's nothing we absolutely have to do now. So, then, we'll do a bunch of little things. First, we travel to Watcher's Keep. We buy a potion case and a gem bag, adjust some spell choices, then rest outside.

This leads to trouble; Aerys is far enough along in Jaheira's romance for the next event.

That hit which is supposed to take off half your HP? Aerys absorbs it with a Stoneskin. Then we open the fight with a pair of minor sequencers - Acid Arrow + Glitterdust and Acid Arrow + Horror.

That's one enemy out of the action. Do note that there are five enemies rather than four; one backstabber is invisible, and wasn't revealed by the Glitterdust.
The backstabber emerges... and misses. His target had full plate and a shield. He drinks a invisibility potion and tries again ...

Well, I was trying to reveal him with a Glitterdust, but that'll do too. Also, we've taken down two of them. It doesn't take long before only the one that panicked at the start of the battle remains.

Killing that one brings a post-fight chat with Jaheira. We pick up their stuff, and head into the keep for the first time.

Inside the keep ... Trap Not Disarmed. One of the chests in the first room has a high-difficulty trap, so we can't get the paladin bracers unless we spend a potion. Which we're not carrying. OK, we'll come back later. With a ring to do the same thing.

The first enemy we have to deal with is a stone golem. That gets a hit in on Isra before we take it down. Then come the trolls:

I'm not messing around. That's a triple-fireball sequencer. 30d6 worth of fire. And another fireball sequencer from Nalia. There's basically nothing left of the group when we're done.

That path has some good loot for us, but soon we must take on the main hall. I activate True Seeing, cast NPP on the party ...

Yep. Right there, ready to fight. And they kick our butts.

Not only does the vampiric wraith do a lot of damage with its attacks, it heals itself with them. We can't beat it down, our five-round protection runs out, and we take a bit of level drain before retreating to the surface.

All right. We need to rest after casting Restoration, and next time I'm going in with more buffs.

All right, they're back where they started rather than where we left them in the entryway. Let's fight.
It goes much better.

We only spent one healing potion there. The remaining mists are far less trouble to mop up.

Whew.

The rest of the floor has a couple of random monster groups. First, a pack of spiders:

We take a few hits, but nothing serious. And with them dealt with, the ammo belt and the +1 quiver are ours.

The spellhaunt is no problem, and neither are the mustard jellies.

And with that, we loot the room and leave. The quest bits can wait. We were just dipping into here for some goodies.

Back in Athkatla, a messenger arrives. It's time for the funeral of Lord de'Arnise. Naturally, we head over to the graveyard immediately.

Once the funeral is over, there are some other things to do in the area. First, we take care of a spontaneously risen zombie; unfortunately, his target panics. Even Isra's Remove Fear is unable to help him regain his senses:

This is an annoying weakness of the spell's party-only targeting; we can't remove the fear from a friendly being that we can't control. So then, we wait for his morale to come back naturally. It takes a while.

There are also some minor tombs we haven't hit yet; one holds some skeleton warriors:

Our tactics are simple here; the party attacks one, while Cernd tanks the other. No spells, since they're magic resistant.

Outside, it's late enough in the day that Stein has showed up. With True Seeing active, we head over for a chat.

Not a fan of grave robbers, I see. Stein and his goons go down quickly, and we get back to robbing the graves ourselves. Incidentally, Stein is worth no XP.

One tomb brings a pair of mummies and a skeleton warrior. I cast a fireball...

A one-hit kill. Nice. The friendly fire is less nice.

And now, with the lesser tombs exhausted, we head down to the main complex. Our first encounter is a group of spiders:

That was poorly aimed. The small spiders were already dead, so we hit two of them and three of us.
Still, there are more spiders down here, and more chances to get things right.

No fireball for this group. And it's a Web Tangle that Aerys saved against there.

We head into the structure there, and talk to Pai'Na. Sure, we'll retrieve Spider's Bane. And while we're here, we'll pick up that ioun stone too. Aerys equips it.

The next group of spiders is more successful with a Web Tangle:

Thankfully, he's safely behind the line, and the phase spider doesn't target him.
For the last spider group, I have Isra use her necklace:

Well done there. She actually killed some of them.

The lower tombs come next, and here I have Aerys project an image.

We do take some level drain here, as a wight hits Anomen. Still, the fire is very useful at thinning out our foes. And the Vampyre doesn't manage any hits on us.

Between turning and spell damage, we basically prevent it from even trying to attack.

That lost level does very little damage to Anomen's fighting ability, so I continue. For the next passage, I open up with the Wand of Lightning:

That hurt two mummies, and nothing else. The shadow pack hasn't spawned in yet, and they were the reason I used lightning rather than fire.
Once the mummies are disposed of, it's back to the lightning:

It's a very effective element against spectral undead in general. That first shot takes out a wraith and two shadows. The second gets a shadow fiend. And the second wraith definitely doesn't get close enough to attack.

A skeleton warrior with a unique weapon comes next:

With their magic resistance, we stick to weapon attacks. Consistently killing skeleton warriors with fire will have to wait for when we can reliably deliver more MR-ignoring fire attacks.
On the other hand, the mummies down the hall? We picked up a wand with 50 scorcher charges (but only one fireball) back in Trademeet. It's a perfect time to use that.

Two scorchers used. Four mummies and a ghast killed with them. That brings Aerys to an even hundred enemies killed with fire in SoA, and about 110K XP from them. He's just getting started.

I leave the two rooms at the ends alone; we'll come back with appropriate party members for their quest content.

Now, we have a quest to complete, and we can't do it staying here. We head over to the temple district for that. Isra speaks up ...

Aerys isn't about to turn into a dragon ... but he'd really like to. It's basically his life goal.

We detour into the temple of Helm to start up the illithium quest, then enter the sewers. The central pit is our first target:

That fireball kills eight assorted kobolds. Adding in two dead from weapon attacks, that should just leave the rakshasa. It has ridiculous AC as usual; Nalia misses on a 19. We concentrate on removing buffs ... an initial Remove Magic, another for the Mirror Image/Invisibility minor sequencer, and a Dispel Magic for the backup stoneskin.

That does the trick, and we only take a little pain from the melee attacks.

This gets us access to the workers with Spider's Bane. It's broken, so we buy it cheap for 75 gold.

Down in the south, we hit another group of kobolds:

It's a smaller group, so Nalia only gets six kills here.

I take Roger's quest now, and set out. The sea troll and otyugh come out after us, and go down easily enough:

Just a diseased hit on Jaheira. That's fine. I have no intention of bringing her into the next battle.
And here's that battle.

Beholders teleport in, and Isra uses the newly acquired cloak to transform. She's completely immune to anything they can do for the next two turns, so all that's left for us to do is add some area damage spells.

Specifically, Death Fog. Its large area of effect means I don't have to risk Aerys or Nalia being seen. Two to start with, a third fog shortly after. Aerys gets the kill on the two gauths, while Nalia gets credit for the beholder.

There's one more big battle down here, and this one calls for some more conventional preparation.

Two fire elementals, two nymphs, and some buff spells. We follow up with a wave of attack spells - sequencers from the mages, Confusion from the nymphs, and a Holy Smite. Incidentally, this is where I find out that the clone of Aerys was created with an empty sequencer - so that was a wasted cast.

The mage is protected by a Minor Globe, but most of the others are crippled. Unfortunately, our party isn't equipped to handle fighting in a Web. Jaheira and Cernd are held before they can get in any attacks.
The mage gets some spell-breaking attacks next; Pierce Magic and RRR, to be followed with a Breach.

But in that round of us not directly attacking, the mage took the opportunity for an offensive spell. Finger of Death. And Isra failed her save.
The mage's next move is a sequencer with Emotion:Hopelessness in it, and nearly our whole front line is out of the fight.

Fortunately, the sword spider being summoned in ignores the unconscious Anomen and targets a nymph instead. Nalia's Horror/Acid Arrow minor sequencer takes it out of the fight.
The mage Gaius goes down to his confused ally Rengaard, but not before using a Death Spell to kill our nymphs. And after that, it's a slow fight - with so many on both sides unable to attack, it takes a while to get anything done. Rengaard is first to break out of confusion, and he casts Sanctuary ...

Fireball doesn't care. There is no sanctuary from that spell.
Nalia takes out Gallchobhair with an acid arrow spell next, then turns to Tarnor. Cernd gets Zorl, and only two enemies remain.

Well, one we can see and one that ran off in a panic. That last enemy Draug Fea is the last to fall, at the same time the sleeping party members wake.

And now that the battle's over, Anomen can resurrect Isra.
This battle was a comedy of errors; I can think of a lot of ways to do it better. Still, we got through without too much suffering.

Now, one more side bit before we return to the graveyard:

We have a bear to return. And a broken sword. Then we whack Pai'Na as she's leaving, because Aerys is just mean like that sometimes.

What do you get for this act? More experience, and a second spider figurine. Not that we have much use for it, because the summon isn't immune to fire.

170 total fire kills. We did a lot with spell damage this time, but we mixed up the elements so it wasn't all fire. Today's late update comes from ... well, I let the buffer run out. I need to build that back up some.

"Knowledge is half the battle. Fireballs are the other half."
- YERD

jmerry

Part 29: Dealing with Criminals

With our business in the graveyard finished, it's on to a new session. And since we have a good chunk of gold, it's time to spend some of that. Aerys spends 33300 gold on the Robe of Vecna and the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, leaving the party with almost nothing left. Jaheira gets the belt and Aerys gets the robe.

We also restore Anomen and rest, before moving on to the Bridge District. We've visited briefly before, so this visit triggers Neera's scene.

Then, it's on to investigating the murders. Our investigation leads us to the tanner, and he flees into the basement ...

Hey, neat. Glitterdust worked. Still, that's only one of the two assassins revealed. The other one goes for a backstab ... and misses.
Once we've cleared out the lesser foes, the bone golem shows up:

Against it, brute force is all we have. Thankfully, Cernd draws its attention, and we can just regenerate away that nasty hit.

The man in red comes next. We inadvertently block his path, so he goes hostile ...

... and dies immediately. He's a pushover. He also unlocked that door from a distance, so we head in to the other two.
Reti tries to run ...

... and fails. That just leaves Camitis. We have all sorts of terrible attack rolls in that fight, but it's not enough to save him.
Upstairs, Aerys chooses not to free Lady Elgea, and looks into the ransom instead. Since it's midday, we won't be collecting that right away.

Then it's a visit to the playhouse to pick up another quest. We also check out a couple of empty buildings, and find traps beyond our current means; we'll have to come back later to deal with them.

Now, back to the docks, for some lucrative quests I've been neglecting. After a visit to Valygar's home, we turn to the thieves' guild quest, and Edwin's task. It's time to confront a Cowled Wizard.
First, his ground floor is full of mephits.

Most of them are immune to fire, but there are two ice mephits in the mix. They get a scorcher, and ice mephits are extremely vulnerable to fire. Unfortunately, I can't keep my party out of that entirely, and I take some friendly fire damage.
The next floor brings a pair of stone golems. Their Slow spell is brutal.

That's five out of six party members affected. And only one of the golems followed us down to die. We wait that spell out before heading up, and the second golem falls to surprise attacks before it can do anything of note.
That brings us to Rayic Gethras himself.

We hit him hard, but not quite enough for a kill before his buffs can go up. And with a Mantle in the mix, we don't have any weapons that can get through that. Retreat and wait it out.
Once those four rounds are up, we come back and Rayic activates his sequencer. Added to his prebuffs, that's two simultaneous fireshields:

Ouch. It's a subtle AI cheat here; fireshields can't stack with themselves, but the prebuff version is a different spell, so it doesn't have that problem. I head back down to wait out those round/level buffs too.
Coming back ...

It worked. With the illusions and the fireshields down, Rayic just couldn't stand up to our attacks.

Marcus' documents come next, and Isra sweet-talks him out of them. We head out for the final test of loyalty ...

Oops. It seems we'll have to take care of Nalia's problems first. Khellor is hiding up some stairs and behind a door:

He really does have a habit of spawning in inconvenient places.

Well, time to track down some evidence. Barg talks, Dirth fights:

He got one hit in. Since it was on Cernd, the damage was quickly erased.

We head to the government district next, to investigate Isaea's place and get Nalia back. While we're there, I hand in the body of the murdered inspector; that brings the party's reputation up to 14.

Head out on a side trip to talk to Jerlia - bandits waylay us.

They try to run. They burn instead.

And then, I screw up the dialogue. Reload, arrange for both real and fake illithium - but no bandit ambush this time.

And now, back to the quest.

This party really has a lot to say about him.

We hand over the dagger, get the key from Edwin, and pick up the documents. Renal Bloodscalp charges us to eliminate the traitors - on to the fighting. We prepare with party-wide fire immunity and a few other spell buffs, then enter from the top.

Project an image, then get to the fireballs.

The damage taken there is on the image; it's only 75% resistant, unlike the real Aerys. Two of the thieves up here die to the image's fire. Once they're clear, we kill the image and head downstairs.

On the first floor, Aerys makes another image.

Sunfire this time, which doesn't have the same immunity clause as a regular fireball. Party members with more than 100% resistance, like Isra in this case, will actually heal from it. On the flip side, I have to keep the real Aerys out of range or risk disrupting the image.
The strongest thief here is Zyntris, who goes down to weapons:

The armor there is my personal tweak; SCS removes the Shadow Armor from Mae'var so he can cast spells, but doesn't make it available elsewhere to compensate. I chose to give it to an underling instead.
Another pack of thieves waits in the bar area, and they get more Sunfire:

We finish them off without more fire, whack the image again, and head down to the basement for the final confrontation.

In the basement, it's Aerys himself. And he has a sequencer ready.

All four assassins and the priest die. Mae'var himself takes 54 damage, and then gets his buffs up including a Minor Globe. He's also invisible, and it would take some time to cast a new True Seeing. But no fire protection, and he's down to 6 HP ...

Isra finishes the job with her necklace. It hits as 9th level, so it goes right over that spell protection.

Returning to Renal Bloodscalp, the quest reward brings new levels for Anomen (cleric 16) and Isra (paladin 14). Anomen takes his third dot in clubs.

We still have more to do in the docks, though. It's time to get into the Harpers' building. First, we do a task for them, and take care of a couple of mages:

They cast Slow, we cast Remove Magic. No more combat buffs for the enemy mages.
And then, running on autopilot ...

Neat. The vanilla scripts basically never use automatic Turn Undead; my tweaks to the trigger conditions mean it actually comes up now. In this case, that's one ghoul popped, as the other falls to Jaheira's blade.
The mages aren't quite out of it, though, and one casts a lightning bolt for a whole lot of damage.

Still, we got through it without any losses, and we aren't going to have much combat for a while. After all, resting right after the quest ends is a good idea to run out Jaheira's "away" timer.

We summon a couple of nymphs for healing, and loot the room. This triggers undetected traps on all three containers; they have difficulty 99 for some reason. Aerys takes a bit of damage from the Magic Missile, and his Stoneskin absorbs the other two traps.

With that done, we enter the building and do our business there. Then, before I hand over the bird, I check my experience ... pretty close to levels for the two mages. The quest reward would cover about half of it. I'd like those levels before I rest, so I can memorize more spells for the next day. So then, we do a few other things first.

As we're in the docks, the pirates in the Sea's Bounty are our first target.

We open with a classic triple fireball; one from a spell slot, one from a wand, one from a necklace. And since this isn't BG1 and enemies are tougher in general, none of them die. Then the mage casts Slow, Anomen casts Dispel, and we engage with normal attacks.

It's all routine at this point, and we take very little damage. They aren't strong enough to take advantage of the slowed party members.

Night has fallen, so we head over to the slums and pickpocket Welther for the silver pantaloons. Then it's over to the bridge district. We get an encounter in the street first:

With that True Seeing, the muggers pose no threat. That first one drank an invisibility potion and the others started invisible, but they didn't get the chance for any backstabs.

No hits taken.

Over at the Five Flagons, we meet some traitorous thieves upstairs.

The guild contact doesn't believe our story after that, but his documents provide enough information to go on.

And now, it's late enough at night that the vampires come out.

Scramble for level drain protection; Isra gets the amulet, Anomen and Jaheira cast NPP, and Cernd falls back to do the same. As soon as the fight starts, the vampires all go for Domination - one on Anomen, two on Cernd. Since both are wearing helmets of charm protection, this does nothing.

One of the vampires makes another try after that ... on Aerys. He blocks it with his 90% elf resistance.
But ... in the end, we only kill one of them. The other two flee. And so, I reload, with the intention to use flame strikes to ensure that none of the vampires survive.

We open with the same drain protections, and things go much better.

That's one down.

And that's all of them. We took more damage, but it was worth it.

Now we've done enough for those mage levels. We report to Aran Linvail, and then to Xzar. Meronia comes for Jaheira, and she's temporarily out of the party. Aerys reaches level 15, taking new spells Spell Immunity, Protection from Magical Weapons, and Spell Turning. Nalia also reaches level 15, for a much more modest boost to her spellcasting arsenal. But more importantly, we can put level 5 spells in contingencies now. That will be very important in the near future ...

186 total fire kills. Some of our encounters were very fiery, but this wasn't a very combat-heavy update.
When I reconciled the kill counts during this session, I ran into some discrepancies. First, nobody got credit in their kill counts for whacking the images of Aerys. That's actually a standard thing - good, because we'll be doing that to a lot of images in the future. Second, nobody got credit for killing Tanova. That has to do with the vampire death script, and it's a recurring (but not consistent) problem. We'll have to watch out for it in the future.

"I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire."
— Johnny Cash, Ring Of Fire