Sam Ashen Baldur's Gate
SamAshen
Member Posts: 123
Welcome to my Berserker (with Mage Option) Playthrough thread. The main challenge for me will be to actually finish the game. (I have general issues with overthinking and yet still getting it wrong.)
About one week ago, I finally got around to downloading BGEE and I'm excited to give it a go! I have some background in playing the original Trilogy. I will note some differences as I see them.
My general bias is towards hack and slash, mostly because I do not have much background in playing D&D. It looks like with this character I just rolled, this will change to smash and bash. My secondary goal will be to get better at using the magic system.
Primary Goal: Just Play. Finish the Game.
Measure: Campaign Days as a Ratio of Real Days.
Current Campaign Time: 1 Hour
Current Real Time: 1.5 Hours
Current Score: 67%
Secondary Goal: Get better at Magic.
Primary Measure: Caster Kills as a Ratio of Main Melee Kills.
When I downloaded BGEE, I was a week into old-school BG with the Canon Party, and D was actually creeping up to I in the count, so it might slowly be getting better.
Third Goal: Minimal Reloads.
On a forum, this is very difficult to enforce, because of no video.
Sessions will be hopefully short, about one or two hours with breaks.
We will add in some RP goals as a balance between Role Play and Game Play. By this, I mean try to do some things within a reasonably realistic storyline. For example, the normal storyline will have us get to the FAI as soon as possible, as instructed, then to Beregost, and then to Nashkel with a band of Level 1 misfits. In a YT video in one of those no-reload insane difficulty, SCS mod challenges, I see them pick up X and M, and then go to High Hedge to pick up a protection from petrification scroll, then go straight to take out a bunch of basilisks solo and gain a bunch of XP - then go assemble the party.
So by roleplay versus gameplay, I will mostly treat it like the character is being presented with decisions. I suppose with a low Wiz and a Chaotic Alignment, bad choices should come naturally! One of the first choices we will be presented with at the beginning to Chapter 1 would be if we go to the FAI or to Beregost and I can think of bunches of things to consider in this. One of these is time. If we make a beeline to the FAI, then we get there in 16 hours, or D1h23 game time, which is very late for exhausted travelers. We can get to Beregost in 12 hours, or D1h19 game time, which leaves some time to find some trouble in a couple of places. The roleplay says we should make a beeline to FAI. The gameplay says we should gain a bunch of exp while we just have two characters. We can get a bunch of this in Beregost.
After all of this chat, we have not even rolled our character!
Game: Unmodded BGEE
Setting: Core Rules
I think this is fair.
I will try to keep pictures to just a couple per post and find out if the Admin wants me to manage them better. I will choose screenies as they are most relevant.
Here is what my toon looks like:
So the character is a boring Berserker with a option to switch to Mage. Charisma got dumped and Wisdom got left at 9. I rolled 100 times to get it, total 84 with 18/85 Strength. I do not know of any big effects of Wisdom. In old school D&D it helped saving throws against magic. In BG, the penalty means we do not get much of a Lore score and that does not mean that much right now. I chose 3 Charisma, because we pick up a ring in BG2 that will help us.
Metagame: 1 Roleplay: 0
On the subject of rolling stats, I can give some detail on how I believe it works, complete with probabilities. However, I think the priority is to combine a tolerable total with a high strength score. So 25% of rolls will have over 18/75 Strength for the +4, +5, or +6 bonuses. 78 is enough to get 18 in 4 stats and a score of 78+ will occur about 40% of the time. So we have a 10% probability of combining a 78+ score with 18/75+ Strength. If we are chasing 18/90+ strength, then the probability drops to about 1 in 40. In my opinion, 18/00 Strength is very tedious to obtain. We still claim the +2/+4 bonus.
RP win - We will be slightly less strong than Minsc.
Metagame: 1 Roleplay: 1
I will dispense with the opening story, because I do not want to clog the system with MB of pictures. Gorion was able to spare us a bunch of gold today! We got 140gp.
RP Challenge: Minimize looting in Candlekeep. Leave broke.
Also. Close doors. Be polite.
We did the normal list of Prologue Quests:
20 XP - Killed Shank
50 XP - Phlydia's Book
5 XP - Killed 5 Rats
50 XP, 5gp - Reevor's Rats
20 XP - Killed Carbos
50 XP - Firebead's Scroll
50 XP, 10gp - Fuller's Bolts
50 XP - Dreppin's Cow
50 XP, 10gp - Hull's Longsword
345 XP Total
Here is my character demonstrating Sam Ashen form with the Quarterstaff against Shank.
He took a single point of damage in that fight, but is is more fun to claim he got shot in the rear by Erik.
In the old days, I would go through all ten rounds of battles with illusionary monsters. I skipped that altogether today. There used to be 21gp to be gained by going to the party from the other members, and two of the rounds granted some experience. The first round gave 6 XP and the fifth round gave 12 XP, so I would normally leave with 363 XP.
With a grand total now of 168gp and we bought equipment as follows:
Splint Mail, Large Shield, Helmet
Morning Star, Club (This is what we fall back on when we break all weapons)
5x Throwing Dagger (choice between that and axes)
Sling, 8x20 Bullets (6 to 9 damage for a 50% probability of one-shotting a Hobgoblin)
The Splint mail in my opinion is good enough until we obtain the Ankheg Plate. Currently, I do not bother with Platemail. It only offers an advantage against slashing weapons and in the early game, we are not planning to go up against too many of those. I count AC as follows:
-1 verus slashing
-2 versus piercing
-3 versus crushing or missile
Right now, we are at the very end of the Prologue and have an entire day to decide which way to go for the next game day. I still favor following the road, looting the scene of the crime, and mostly following the roads to the FAI. We will pick up two shiny objects along the way. The alternative is to take a slight diversion to Beregost, because we arrive early and can pick up about 1300 easy exp, then go to the FAI.
About one week ago, I finally got around to downloading BGEE and I'm excited to give it a go! I have some background in playing the original Trilogy. I will note some differences as I see them.
My general bias is towards hack and slash, mostly because I do not have much background in playing D&D. It looks like with this character I just rolled, this will change to smash and bash. My secondary goal will be to get better at using the magic system.
Primary Goal: Just Play. Finish the Game.
Measure: Campaign Days as a Ratio of Real Days.
Current Campaign Time: 1 Hour
Current Real Time: 1.5 Hours
Current Score: 67%
Secondary Goal: Get better at Magic.
Primary Measure: Caster Kills as a Ratio of Main Melee Kills.
When I downloaded BGEE, I was a week into old-school BG with the Canon Party, and D was actually creeping up to I in the count, so it might slowly be getting better.
Third Goal: Minimal Reloads.
On a forum, this is very difficult to enforce, because of no video.
Sessions will be hopefully short, about one or two hours with breaks.
We will add in some RP goals as a balance between Role Play and Game Play. By this, I mean try to do some things within a reasonably realistic storyline. For example, the normal storyline will have us get to the FAI as soon as possible, as instructed, then to Beregost, and then to Nashkel with a band of Level 1 misfits. In a YT video in one of those no-reload insane difficulty, SCS mod challenges, I see them pick up X and M, and then go to High Hedge to pick up a protection from petrification scroll, then go straight to take out a bunch of basilisks solo and gain a bunch of XP - then go assemble the party.
So by roleplay versus gameplay, I will mostly treat it like the character is being presented with decisions. I suppose with a low Wiz and a Chaotic Alignment, bad choices should come naturally! One of the first choices we will be presented with at the beginning to Chapter 1 would be if we go to the FAI or to Beregost and I can think of bunches of things to consider in this. One of these is time. If we make a beeline to the FAI, then we get there in 16 hours, or D1h23 game time, which is very late for exhausted travelers. We can get to Beregost in 12 hours, or D1h19 game time, which leaves some time to find some trouble in a couple of places. The roleplay says we should make a beeline to FAI. The gameplay says we should gain a bunch of exp while we just have two characters. We can get a bunch of this in Beregost.
After all of this chat, we have not even rolled our character!
Game: Unmodded BGEE
Setting: Core Rules
I think this is fair.
I will try to keep pictures to just a couple per post and find out if the Admin wants me to manage them better. I will choose screenies as they are most relevant.
Here is what my toon looks like:
So the character is a boring Berserker with a option to switch to Mage. Charisma got dumped and Wisdom got left at 9. I rolled 100 times to get it, total 84 with 18/85 Strength. I do not know of any big effects of Wisdom. In old school D&D it helped saving throws against magic. In BG, the penalty means we do not get much of a Lore score and that does not mean that much right now. I chose 3 Charisma, because we pick up a ring in BG2 that will help us.
Metagame: 1 Roleplay: 0
On the subject of rolling stats, I can give some detail on how I believe it works, complete with probabilities. However, I think the priority is to combine a tolerable total with a high strength score. So 25% of rolls will have over 18/75 Strength for the +4, +5, or +6 bonuses. 78 is enough to get 18 in 4 stats and a score of 78+ will occur about 40% of the time. So we have a 10% probability of combining a 78+ score with 18/75+ Strength. If we are chasing 18/90+ strength, then the probability drops to about 1 in 40. In my opinion, 18/00 Strength is very tedious to obtain. We still claim the +2/+4 bonus.
RP win - We will be slightly less strong than Minsc.
Metagame: 1 Roleplay: 1
I will dispense with the opening story, because I do not want to clog the system with MB of pictures. Gorion was able to spare us a bunch of gold today! We got 140gp.
RP Challenge: Minimize looting in Candlekeep. Leave broke.
Also. Close doors. Be polite.
We did the normal list of Prologue Quests:
20 XP - Killed Shank
50 XP - Phlydia's Book
5 XP - Killed 5 Rats
50 XP, 5gp - Reevor's Rats
20 XP - Killed Carbos
50 XP - Firebead's Scroll
50 XP, 10gp - Fuller's Bolts
50 XP - Dreppin's Cow
50 XP, 10gp - Hull's Longsword
345 XP Total
Here is my character demonstrating Sam Ashen form with the Quarterstaff against Shank.
He took a single point of damage in that fight, but is is more fun to claim he got shot in the rear by Erik.
In the old days, I would go through all ten rounds of battles with illusionary monsters. I skipped that altogether today. There used to be 21gp to be gained by going to the party from the other members, and two of the rounds granted some experience. The first round gave 6 XP and the fifth round gave 12 XP, so I would normally leave with 363 XP.
With a grand total now of 168gp and we bought equipment as follows:
Splint Mail, Large Shield, Helmet
Morning Star, Club (This is what we fall back on when we break all weapons)
5x Throwing Dagger (choice between that and axes)
Sling, 8x20 Bullets (6 to 9 damage for a 50% probability of one-shotting a Hobgoblin)
The Splint mail in my opinion is good enough until we obtain the Ankheg Plate. Currently, I do not bother with Platemail. It only offers an advantage against slashing weapons and in the early game, we are not planning to go up against too many of those. I count AC as follows:
-1 verus slashing
-2 versus piercing
-3 versus crushing or missile
Right now, we are at the very end of the Prologue and have an entire day to decide which way to go for the next game day. I still favor following the road, looting the scene of the crime, and mostly following the roads to the FAI. We will pick up two shiny objects along the way. The alternative is to take a slight diversion to Beregost, because we arrive early and can pick up about 1300 easy exp, then go to the FAI.
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We are as well equipped as we can be for now, but still sore from where Erik shot us in the xxse. So we limped to the clinic to be treated, but for some reason, the place was busy and we received a second healing potion instead. Then finally, we left with Gorion.
(typical ambush scene, start of Chapter 1)
Imoen joined us, bringing in 2gp, her shortbow, plus whatever prizes she managed to grab along the way. She was busy yesterday. We have another 3 healing potions for a total of 5, 1 oil of speed, and a magic missile wand with 10 charges which we will try to wisely use to disrupt a spellcaster when we badly need a hit.
We investigated the ambush scene and a little bit of the surrounding area. It looks like enemies are a little less dense than traditional BG1. Then we followed the road to the FAI, finding a couple of shinies on the way, a diamond and a ring. We encountered a total of 1 Wolf and 3 Weak Gibberlings.
Tarnesh was waiting for us as always. He was friendly right up until he cast Mirror Image, then we knew something was up. We forgot to get mad, a very dangerous mistake, especially this early in the game. However, we were able to knock down the Tarnesh images. That is when he started to cast another spell, but that was also exactly when our final blow connected.
Was this a cold-blooded murder? All Tarnesh did was say he had something for us, then cast a harmless spell, Mirror Image. Then a couple of crazies suddenly jumped on him and whacked before he could get any more spells off. There is blood all over that morningstar! Why is it the local FAI guards are not all over us right now?
According to Nessie, the guards said there was nothing we could do. He lunged at us so suddenly. Did they witness the entire scene in reverse? Were they in one of 173 alternate universes where it was Tarnesh blowing us to bits with Magic Missile after Magic Missile?
Meanwhile inside the FAI, we met Khalid and Jaheira and got treated to one of my favorite lines of the game:
How long must we wait here?! Things stir to the south as we sit!
Day 2, Hour 0
Things to do:
Configure Khalid and Jaheira AI
Configure Jaheira spells. (I am thinking 2 Doom and 1 Bless.)
Rest.
Obtain some gear for Khalid and Jaheira.
For the next day:
Talk to a few FAI guests and fill our quest log. It's not like we will be doing them soon, demonstrating RP at its finest.
Explore the local area. More specifically, find and return the ring.
Travel to Beregost. Don't forget to visit the local Ogre.
Well this went kind of rough - so much for a no reload run - or minimal reload run. I am way too early on the learning curve for a no reload run, anyway. The reload count is 7. The game has a new boss.
1 - Entered Beregost. Found Neera. Was expecting the Wizard to cast Color Spray and died. I could not see what he cast.
2 - I found out he casts Flame Arrow for 5d6 damage!
In the event of a no-reload run, I can think of a few ways to deal with this:
a) Rest the night and attack with a fresh berserker mode. 29hp is hard to kill.
b) Gain a level. 28hp is also hard to kill.
c) Just try my luck if I really want Neera early in the game. The time investment is very small.
We went with a slight change of strategy decided to seek help from Garrick first.
3 - We defeated Silke and then went in to fight Karlat. I did not like using 4 healing potions from going nose to nose and toes to toes with him and wanted to work with a better strategy.
4 - We accidentally told Garrick we do not hire out as mercenaries.
5 - Finally we got the script perfect and killed Silke, but I was not happy with the picture.
6 - This time we got everything right and took the scum save right after killing Silke so we do not have to repeat the entire process. Garrick landed a critical hit on the Thayan Wizard and it was perfect - and I forgot the picture again.
7 - Another victory similar to 6.
8 - We finally got it and the pictures.
Minimal Reload Violations: 1
Score:
2 - Thayan Wizard
1 - Karlat with a TKO
5 - Merry Misfit Mercenaries
0 - Silke
I will call this 1 Set of 7 Reloads.
Going all the way back to where we left off at the Friendly Arm Inn, we rested.
Day 2, Hour 8 - The Friendly Arm Inn
Now we can start shopping.
Khalid gets a Longbow and a bunch of arrows, and a Large Shield.
Jaheira gets Splint Mail and a Large Shield, and a Sling and a bunch of Bullets.
Sam picked up some Throwing Axes for the heck of it, for experimentation. I should have stuck with a low number.
We went to the Temple and identified the Ring of Princes, +1 Protection.
We also picked up an Antidote Potion, because we can never know when we might need an Antidote Potion.
From a bartering perspective, we left the FAI with a little less gold than we came in. Basically we traded that diamond we found for a bunch of basic equipment.
On the way out, we encountered Joia who lost her ring just outside the walls of the FAI. We went looking around.
We found another shiny, which we later identified as Evermemory. That was not a Flamedance ring and certainly not Joia's Flamedance Ring, so we kept looking. We killed 7 Hobgoblins and found it. As another prize, we happened to drop a Potion of Mind Focusing. That will come in handy one day!
Reputation 12 - Average - We returned Joia's Flamedance Ring and everybody is happy.
We sold off our ill-gotten loot from the Hobgoblins, keeping a couple of prizes, namely the potion and a Grease Scroll. Then we went back to the Temple and identified Evermemory, which will be a nice prize for somebody some day. It is time to keep moving onwards towards Beregost.
Day 2, Hour 18 - The Coast Highway
We went off the beaten path and found our Rogue Ogre. We spotted him quickly and retreated a bit for a plan. Here's the plan:
Jaheira cast Bless, then cast Doom.
Sam get mad. Throw Axe. Charge.
Khalid and Imoen stay back and shoot.
Simple.
We looked around on and off the beaten path for more baddies to kill. Body count:
1 Rogue Ogre (270 XP)
1 Wolf (65 XP)
1 Bandit (65 XP)
4 Diseased Gibberlings (35 XP)
5 Xvarts (15 XP)
2 Kobolds (7 XP)
Then we entered Beregost and that is where we ran into a continuum of reloaded universes.
Day 2, Hour 23 - Arrived in Beregost
Entering Beregost, we went straight to the house of Firebead Elvenhair. Hopefully he does not mind the intrusion at this strange hour, but he is the only person we know in Beregost. Besides, he's probably studying something arcane, anyway. It turns out we showed up just in time to save him a trip to obtain a copy of the Fateful Coin. All of the stores are closed at this hour, except Feldpost's Inn, which is right across the street. Why he does not cross the street and get it himself, I have no......
'Ere now, get OUT! I don't like your type in here!
Heh! You tell him, Marl!
Now we know why! We started a conversation with the guy and got his story and were able to calm him down. In the mean time, Imoen quickly and quietly bought the book. Then we made a hasty exit and gave the book to Firebead. He was happy and gave us another book and a Scroll Case in exchange.
Reputation 13 - Popular - This is the cheapest and easiest reputation gain I can imagine!
We were warned that Marl was not known for his steady moods, so we keep walking up the street towards the center of town. We find Garrick who is looking for mercenaries to protect Silke Rosena the Thespian Extrodinaire. He offered us 300gp, but Silke said that offer was not valid and asked us to do it for 200gp, because we had noob adventurers written all over us. Besides, an advantage of sending Level One parties on dangerous missions is they get themselves killed and you get your money back, along with whatever scrap loot they might be carrying. Well the job went south in a hurry and we lost our trust in our employer.
There is a moral to this story: Pay your mercenaries what you promised.
Going through her possessions, we got much more than we bargained for, 400gp, a Quarterstaff, and a Potion of Invulnerability. The gem merchants we saved were grateful, and they gave us a Potion of Defense. As for Garrick, he said he was out of a job, so he joined us.
Ah, good old Garrick. Everybody loves to hate him, believing he is dead weight in the party. With a Shortsword and being very fragile, he is not going to be in the front line. He will do more damage with his crossbow, d8 versus d6. He is just strong enough to use the Heavy Crossbow, so he can achieve a Thaco of 19 with an average damage of 6.5. This will put him slightly behind Khalid and Imoen with their bows, Thatco 18, average damage 3.5.
However - He is better off serving as our mascot and singing our song and bringing us luck. I will experiment with this concept tomorrow and see how this plays out. We should be a bonus to our hit roll. Does the +1 bonus to luck mean we have a 10% probability of scoring a natural 20 for a critical? Does it mean we will never roll a 1? Does it affect our damage rolls? Tomorrow, we will gather data and find out!
The Garrick Haters also complain that he has low Intelligence for a spellcaster and will struggle to learn spells. I will have to take a decision on how to deal with this. (Minimal reloads still apply.) I have to look up how many spells per level he can learn. There is something I noticed. He has a Charisma of 15. This is enough. With a Friends spell, he can achieve the maximum shop discount. For example, if we buy the Dagger of Venom, we can save ourselves 3000gp if we use Garrick and either a Friends spell or a Friends scroll. With a reputation discount, we can buy things at incredible discounts.
So Garrick will tag along as our mascot for as long as we can fit a spot in for him. We might have to drop him off for a while in Nashkel, then pick him up later and move him to Beregost. His usefulness might then be obsolete in Baldur's Gate if we use AJ and charisma enhancing items.
With Garrick in tow, we moved away from Silke's body for a while and encountered a Wild Mage named Neera. We showed up just in time to intervene in her encounter with the Red Wizards of Thay. Neera got desperate and started to cast..... something, opening up some kind of teleport rift. Their leader disappeared and we found ourselves in various positions surrounding what was left of their party. Following the chaos that goes along with a surge in wild magic, we seized the initiative and started to pelt the other Red Wizard, causing him to retreat. Jaheira was in the best position to finish the job.
The remaining lackeys were easy to dispatch. That seems to be more than enough action for one night, so we head into the Red Sheaf Inn. This is where we met Karlat.
Yer at the end of your rope, I'll wager. It's nothing personal. Normally, we are nicer in our selection of words. But dude. Maybe it's nothing personal, but we had a day. It's a 12 hour trek from the Friendly Arm Inn to Beregost and it was fully of bandits, humanoid raiders, and even an ogre. Then we went to Feldepost's Inn and got thrown out by the town drunk. Now we come in here and you want to collect a bounty. You are the fifth person. Would you care to take this outside?
So here we are at the Burning Wizard in Beregost, tossed out of every other bar in town. Apparently the entire town knows about it. The bartender says if we act up in here, then we will get the same treatment.
Here is our Band of Merry Misfits:
1483/2000 Sam 26K / 992
1031/2000 Khalid 4K / 112
1140/1250 Imoen 4K / 1270 (She killed Silke)
2271/4000 Jaheira 4K / 485
217/1250 Garrick
81/2500 Neera
We added one more reload, so the reload count is now 8. We rushed to Nashkel and when we got there, we got hit with the Rigid Thinking spell. I did not believe she was going to pull it off, because we hit her a couple times in that round, with one arrow and one magic missile. Then we started killing people at the bar.
Reload Count: 8
Death Count: 2
Minimal Reload Violations: 2
Meanwhile, back in Beregost at the Burning Wizard, word was quickly spreading about our sordid reputation.
Are we getting any drinks? No way! We arrived in this town two weeks and have already been in two barfights, thrown out of two bars, and been in two street fights. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky we got a room for the night.
Day 3, Hour 8, Beregost
We went straight to the Thunderhammer Smithy and stocked up on what little gold we have. With a Wild Mage in our party, we would do well to blow our gold before she blows it up. We upgraded Garrick to a Composite Longbow, for what it's worth, and we got Sam a Composite Longbow. He has a wide variety of missile weapons, but skill in none of them. We bought a Sling +1 for Jaheira. Then we got a few magical arrows and bullets in case they come in handy.
(As well as I understood the numbers, there was just no way we could take out the wolfpack to the east of here - so I did not even take an experimental load and find out. Besides, there has been too much random stuff going wrong with the run universe I'm in right now.)
With our gold now blown up, Neera identified for us the Elves Bane. This will help us quite a bit in a lot of battles.
Then we snuck somebody into the Red Sheaf Inn to assess the damage we did last night. We talked to a halfling there named Perdue. He wants his shortsword back. It was stolen by some Gnolls in High Hedge. Unfortunately we are not heading in that direction, so it will have to wait.
We did visit Landrin's house which was infested by spiders. Sam walked in and saw 4 Huge Spiders, then ran straight out of the door. The spiders seemed to surround him outside and we had to think quickly to stay alive. Sam flew into a rage, because getting surrounded tends to do that. Neera thought quickly and launched a Sleep Spell. Imoen, Khalid and Jaheira started firing at the Spiders. Garrick kept singing.
The spiders quickly fell. I forgot to take a picture of the glorious carnage. The locals fled the scene in panic. We are awake and causing trouble again. This time we loosed a spider infestation on the Town of Beregost. Meanwhile, entered the house and grabbed the boots and bottle as requested, and then snuck out of town. It might be a while before Landrin sees her stuff again. Such should be expected from a solid group of adventurers.
Imoen hit Level 2. We took 40 points each in Find Traps and Open Locks. That should be okay for now. We had 5 points left to dump into Detect Illusion, for what that is worth.
Day 3, Hour 13 - South Beregost Road
Walking down the road, we encountered two Ogrillions. They were easy targets. Then we encountered 3 Flaming Fist Soldiers. Our reputation must have run ahead of us and we have a laundry list. Immy had to talk fast to get us out of our situation. Of course, if we were the wanted criminals they were looking for, then why would we be on the main road in broad daylight? They kept marching towards Beregost.
We took that as a cue to get off the main road - at least for a while. We found a gang of Hobgoblins and dispatched them, claiming the Worn Whispers as a prize. Then we found a cave and a stash of 5 Healing Potions.
Day 3, Hour 18 - North Nashkel Road
There was a Hobgoblin Ambush waiting for us. Neera nearly got shot casting a sleep spell. I have to be more cautious. From the wreckage we found Colquetle's Family Amulet. When we sneak back into Beregost, we would do well to return it.
For those insisting Garrick is useless, I found another use for him!
If the baddie does not have a missile weapon, we can use him to kite. He can sing and pull and kite at the same time!
Regarding Luck, I got a little bit more of the information as well as I understand it. For a hit roll, it is counted as a bonus instead of tipping the die up by a point. So a natural 1 is still a critical miss. These appeared in my log. A natural 19 gets adjusted as normal and is not a critical hit. Only a natural 20 is a critical hit. The damage roll does appear to be a die tip, so a 1 does not appear. For the morning star, this is nice, because it's 2d4 and we have a 25% probability of scoring 8 points.
Take 2
Right after mentioning this, we had bad luck in our first Neira fight. Strange things are happening in this universe. We would do better if we saved our enrage for this exact moment. Instead, the question is if we would do better to sleep outside of Nashkel in the rough. It was 9pm. So that's what we did.
We were interrupted immediately by 2 Hobgoblins, which we quickly dispatched. Then we set up our camp. Early in the morning we trekked into Nashel.
Day 4, Hour 13 - Arrived in Nashkel - Start of Chapter Two
We only catch bits and pieces of news from messengers. Iron is running in short supply. Tensions are building between Amn and Baldur's Gate and they are preparing for war. So if they heard about all the trouble caused in Beregost, then perhaps that pleases them. We are getting a much warmer welcome.
Reputation 14 - We decided to be honest with Oublek. It is probably a cheap reputation point.
Right after that, we picked the lock on the front door of a house and snuck Immy in. So she started talking quickly and asked if they had any information about the mines. The tavern is across the street from us and Volo the Traveler is in town and we would do well to talk to him instead. While in the mines, we could look for the Joseph. It was his house we busted into, not the tavern.
Our next stop was the Fairground. We sold a bunch of the bastard swords we got from all the hobgoblins we killed, netting 212gp. There was also a statue of a woman and a halfling rogue named Zeke tried to sell us a scroll to bring her back to life. We told him sorry. Our wild mage accidentally blew up our gold supply and we are dead broke.
After that, we returned to Nashkel proper and looked around. We encountered this strange Wizard named Edwin. He thought Sam was an idiot.
If I look like an idiot, then I might do well to act like one, too. Then they will expect less from me. So Sam stomped his foot twice and kept walking.
Across the bridge, we encountered the village idiot. Right after our fine display of idiocy, we were a match and hit it off for a nice long conversation. Everybody else in the village thinks he talks too much and throws rocks at him so he would shut up. He lead us to a stash where we found some Ankheg Plate Armor and a pearl.
Our next stop was the Nashkel Shop, where we sold off a few more items. Then we went to the Temple. 500gp was way too much to pay for a stone to flesh scroll, so we bought one at the Temple for 213gp. Then we bought another Antidote potion, because we never know when one might come in handy. Now we have two in stock.
Stopping quickly in the local Inn, we found Neira. Again I forgot to take a picture, so loaded up the game just to take a picture, just because.
Our current game state is Day 4, Hour 15 and we have more choices to make. In my normal gameplay, I join Minsc and rescue Dynaheir and complete the canon party that is so popular. A big and interesting problem with this is the canon party does not leave room for any other characters. I imagine it is so popular, because it is so likely to be the first good party that gets assembled. It leaves no room for Neera and we are not planning to dump her, just yet.
That would mean Khalid and Jaheira have to go. We could pretend we are parting ways. We go with Neera, Imoen, Minsc, Branwen and rescue Dynaheir. This would mark the place where we finally say sorry to Garrick. There is no more room for him.
There is an alternative. We can run into the mines and rescue Xan instead.
Reload count: 9
Part of this is the cost of balancing gameplay with roleplay. Part of this is our current selection of characters. We hit a random encounter and found ourselves surrounded by Hobgoblins. Neera could not get a spell off because she was targeted. Garrick was also targeted. Maybe better choice of party positioning would help. Having 3 squishy characters does not help. Being level 1 and 2 does not help.
We freed Branwen and parted ways with Khalid and Jaheira. They were not happy with our decision. We have a large stock of healing potions, so we went with 3 Command spells and 1 Doom. We went back to Nashkel to heal up Brawny and get her some supplies.
So our party is:
2140/4000 Sam with 47 kills worth 3355
2000/3000 Brawny who is new here
1786/2500 Immy with 8 kills worth 1410
678/2500 Neera with 4 kills worth 140
We left behind:
1678/2000 Khalid with 14 kills worth 781
2594/4000 Jaheira with 7 kills worth 620
Then we took one final trip to the Fair to see Oopah the Amazing Exploding Ogre. The third time was the charm. He did not explode, but Immy shot him in the back.
Finally we made our way to the Nashkel Mines and found ourselves sur
reload
Finally we made our way to the Nashkel Mines.
Day 4, Hour 20 - Arrived at the Nashkel Mines
We found and identified the Wand of Frost and the Eyes of Truth. Then we settled by the mine to rest. We will tackle the mine in the morning.
Day 5, Hour 6
Prism was up working on a sculpture. That was when Greywolf showed up. It was his lucky day, two bounties for the price of one. Doom was reserved for him, but in hindsight I forgot to use it. He was also having a lucky day with saving throws, but fell to the second Command spell. As a matter of principle, I thought Brawny should land the killing blow, but that was when he got back up, so we had to finish it another way.
Chunked by a L2 Fighter.
Reputation 15 - Popular
Cost: 1 Healing Potion
Since we have 0 Healing spells, I am sure we will be spending a lot more Healing Potions.
Garrick hit Level 2 and that was enough to identify the Quarterstaff +1. We retrieved the two emeralds, which Neera secretly stashed way in her bag.
Our current party:
2777/4000 Sam with 58/4965
2637/3000 Brawny with 4/64
2415/3000 Immy with 12/1897
1327/2500 Neera with 4/140
1490/2500 Garrick our team mascot
We left off in the first level of the Nashkel Mine. We looked around and found one Kobold and one guy wanting us to send a dagger to his friend in the next level, because he's afraid to go any further into the mine.
Day 5, Hour 7 - Nashkel Mine, Level 2
We are greeted by Beldin who says he is being chased by the demons. They showed up right after him, four Kobolds armed with bows. Somehow we were able to save him. Maybe he hid behind the big guy in Ankheg Plate. This place is truly infested with kobolds. Some of them are armed with bows.
We found where most of the miners were hiding, a relative safe spot and we were able to return the dagger to Kylee. He told us what we already knew. The mine was infested with kobolds. We continue further down towards the base they set up. Two of them were carrying bottles of a strange liquid that might have something to do with the problems in the iron supply.
Day 5, Hour 8 - Nashkel Mine, Level 3
We did all of that in a single hour? Time seemed to move faster in old-school BG, depending on how much time was taken managing inventory and ammunition.
We found Joseph's ring and a body. Maybe it was Joseph. Maybe it was a warning. There was also a trap nearby. This place is infested with traps and kobolds and even a ghoul and a couple of spiders.
Imoen hit level 3. She now has 50 in Open Locks and Find Traps. She also has 10 in Detect Illusion.
Branwen also hit level 3.
Day 5, Hour 10 - Nashkel Mine, Level 4
We found their base. We took out a few more guards and scouted the perimeter. We found a Ghoul and used Garrick to kite it while singing our battle song. Around the other side, we found a couple of gray oozes and an opening in the cave leading somewhere else. However we will have to investigate that another time.
Day 5, Hour 11 - Nashkel Mine Base
We have finally reached it - the boss battle. We are still Level 2, most of us. Neera is Level 1. That is something annoying about mages. We cleared out a few guards and scouted the area, finding Xan being held prisoner. We used his room to hide, then found Mulahey. He called his guards and the fight was on.
The crew had 2 kobolds and a skeleton to deal with. That would keep Brawny busy. Against Mulahey, and the horde of skeletons and kobolds, we were on our own, but we will be allright, especially with a well-timed critical.
Mulahey went down in two shots. He did not even have time to surrender. Neera was able to put a couple of kobolds to sleep and Brawny and Immy were able to dispatch their kobolds and skeleton, then help clean up the rest of the battle.
After the smoke settled, end of Chapter Two, start of Chapter Three. We found a bunch of prizes, including a Short Sword +1 and a Ring of Holiness and some boots. We found Xan's Moonblade +3 and got Xan to join us.
Emerging from the mine, we took one more look around and found what we were looking for - a Winter Wolf. As luck would have it, Xan was the one facepulling it. Run, Xan, RUN! Sam moved forward to intercept, but Xan was in the way. We were able to sort it and return with our prize.
Day 5, Hour 16 - Arrived at the Nashkel Carnival
We had a collection of 41 shortbows we sold for 534 gp. We used 100gp of the proceeds to buy the Violent Potion of Strength and the Red potion of Intelligence. I am sure these will come in handy one day.
We returned to Nashkel and returned Joseph's ring. Then we went to see Ghastkill to claim our prize for saving the Nashkel Mine, a 900gp prize. For a short while, we are rich.
Reputation 16, Popular
Then we met our next assassin, Nimbul. He started a fight in broad daylight with guards everywhere. But who needs guards when Rasaad is there! We retreated to see how much the Amish Guards could do. Rasaad joined the fight while, and were were going to let him 1v1 Nimbul. It might have been an easy fight for Rasaad, because he was saving his spells for us. It might have enlightened that commoner.
When we were back in sight, Nimbul cast Horror. But Garrick was playing Brave Sir Robin. We invested our Scroll of Magic Missiles and another charge of our Wand of Magic Missiles. Sam was once again able to finish the fight - at Level 2.
What was this +6 bonus to hit?
With that Garrick reached Level 3 and so did Sam. We obtained more prizes and Garrick was able to identify them all.
Short Sword +1
Topsider's Crutch - Ring of Infravision
Senses of the Cat - Boots of +5 versus Missiles
We used our remaining Identify spell to identify Graywolf's Varscona +2 Longsword. We have two items left in our inventory to identify - The belt of gender changing, in case we need a clever disguise, and the boots Mulahey was wearing.
The day is still young and we should decide what to do next.
Rasaad is still in the area and we have not decided what do do with him. He lectured us about looking for trouble.
Minsc is still in the area.
We have a new and unfamiliar party and some kind of adventure with them would be interesting. Our quest arrows are also pointing back to Beregost.
Here is our party:
4028/8000 Sam 120/8627
3888/6000 Brawny 20/197
3581/5000 Immy 29/2447
2492/2500 Neera - who will soon finally reach level 2 and go from 4hp to 8.
2654/5000 Garrick
3130/5000 Xan who is still new with us
The damage bonus May be a combonation of a few things:
- your characters strength bonus (if not using bows, xbow or darts)
- weapon Profficiency bonus, and
- a +4 thaco and damage bonus if you are in melee and your foe is unarmed or is using a ranged weapon in meler. Some ranged weapon can do melee as well, but does not change its status right away. Your foe had a throwing axe, that could be used in melee, but it may not have been used as such at that time.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/12088/question-about-range-penalties-in-close-querters
Ps. I enjoy your writings, so please keep them coming
This is it. I was not aware of this rule. Then the bonuses in the screenshot were 2 from Strength, 1 from Specialization, 1 from Luck, and 4 from melee against an unarmed foe.
This was the Saturday night session and was extra long. We spent over five days trekking the wilderness, so it was pretty obvious what we did. We were supposed to return to Beregost and find Tranzig who is staying at the Feldepost Inn. If he is not hearing from Mulahey, then they might suspect something is up. Bad news travels fast. Most likely they will just send a replacement.
Instead, we encountered Minsc, who had the classic story of a damsel in distress. He was looking for some assistance to raid Gnollhold. Besides, he is bigger and stronger than our main character, and equally crazy. It is a perfect match. Who can resist?
With that, we parted ways with Garrick and Xan. Before, I was saying that Garrick had a use for dealing with the shopkeepers with a Friends spell. It appears Xan does that better. He has 16 Charisma, which is more than enough. He is also an Enchanter and will learn the Friends spell easily. We will have to drag them back some time.
From here, we entered the Nashkel Store and got some cheap equipment for Minsc. Earlier I was claiming that Splint Mail is good enough for the early game and Plate Mail is simply not worth the cost. As well as I can tell, they are equal against piercing attacks, so they perform equally in artillery duels. The Splint Mail performs better against crushing attacks. The Plate Mail has the advantage against slashing attacks. This is what the Gnolls will be resting.
We rested at the Inn and left town in the middle of the night. It will be a very long journey.
Day 6, Hour 1 - Rested
We had a dream about Candlekeep.
Day 6, Hour 11 - Waylaid by Gnolls
With Minsc in our party, it was most likely the other way around. He found and ambushed a small party of 4 Gnolls.
Neera finally reached Level 2.
Day 6, Hour 22 - We arrived at the Xvart Village.
We avoided the settlement and passed to the south, where we set up camp. We took this time to identify the Gift of Talos Boots of Grounding, and the Girdle of Masculinity / Femininity. I have a fond memory of that item from the first time I was playing the original BG. It's a magical belt. Let's put it on. Oops. My toon is a woman now and I can't take the belt off because it's cursed.
Day 7, Hour 6 - Rested
Day 7, Hour 22 - Arrived at Bear River
It is a very long journey to Gnollhold. Minsc says Boo promises we are almost there.
We were greeted by an Ogre Berserker. This used to be a kiting encounter. I think this one, Brawny used a Command and we closed in for Melee. A single round is not enough time, but Minsc was able to hack him to pieces as he got up.
The north bridge is guarded by Hobgoblins and more Ogre Berserkers. The middle bridge was undefended and that's where we headed . Jared ran by us in the opposite direction. He said he was fleeing a bear on the other side. We found the bear. Minsc was able to coax the bear on to the bridge, where we cut it down, sending it into the ravine. So we named it the Bear River. Meanwhile, Jared had already fled the camp and left behind his boots.
We tried to settle for the night, but were disturbed by another Ogre Berserker. My memory of original BG was the sleep got disturbed by 7 hours, then another 5 hours, then 3 hours, then 6 hours. So we had to keep trying (or reloading) until we got a full 8 hours rest. Based on two encounters, it looks like either you rest 8 hours, or are interrupted right away.
Minsc hit Level 3. We gave him specialized skill in Maces. We should have bought him a couple of maces, so that he could mash gnolls twice as fast.
Day 8, Hour 6 - Rested
Day 8, Hour 8 - Minsc waylaid another party of 3 Gnolls
Day 8, Hour 10 - Arrived in Gnollhold
Apparently this bridge is guarded by Gnarl and Hairtooth and they demanded 200gp to cross it. We said we did not have any gold. Our wild mage blew it all up. They did not believe us. Kill us, then take gold. Their head so dumb we can't miss it.
Our prizes were the Brawling Hands and a potion of Hill Giant Strength. There was also a potion of Cold Resistance, but it is not often I find a use for that. The Brawling Hands went to Minsc for a while. We are almost like twins. The strength potion will see little use for a while. It would take Sam from +2/+4 to +3/+7, so an advantage of +1/+3. I think it's better for Khalid and Jaheira.
Across the bridge, and with Gnollhold in sight, we do what any sensible pair of berserkers would do. We storm the keep and bash heads. I think 30 was the biggest number I have seen from Minsc so far. 42 is the theoretical maximum I get. (10+2+5+4)x2
Storming the top of the ramparts, and being charged by the Chieftain and his bodyguards, it was Neera's turn to do something crazy. You know it's really bad when her player says oh crap. We got a quadruple wild surge out of a sleep spell.
Itchy
+4 Save
Silence
Invisible
I will have to look up where on the Wild Surge Table these are. The result here was not terrible. In fact, it was rather brilliant. Only two Gnolls fell asleep, but one of them fell asleep in a really awkward position that blocked the way between us. So we stepped back and pelted them with stones and arrows.
Finally we found Dynaheir. After fighting our way into Gnollhold, we now have to fight our way out. We did. We managed. We found our way back to Gnarlen Hairtooth Bridge, which was taken down by the Gnolls while we were inside. We would have to find another way across.
We went south, but that lead nowhere. More Gnolls and lots of Xvarts. We found a few caves. We even found the legendary tome, 'Basic Manners for Ogres and Trolls.' Eventually we identified it and gave it to Sam to raise his Charisma from 3 to 4.
The south path finally dead-ended and we had to return to Gnarlen Hairtooth Bridge and fight our way north, which we did.
Day 8, Hour 19 - Returned to Bear River
There was only one bridge left and that was guarded by the Hobgoblins and Ogres. Meanwhile this side of the river was plagued by Gibberlings. The Paladin Laurel was around to help with some of them. We also encountered an Ogre who was too hungry to fight us and wanted to eat instead. I'm not sure what Sam said afterwards, but he might do well to reread Basic Manners for Ogres and Trolls. The Ogre picked up his club.
The bridge was crossed with the help of some combination of Command and Sleep. Then we were greeted by Neville, who demanded all of our money. We scouted out the location of his Hobgoblin gang and made sure he was well isolated. He was easily dispatched with another Command. The Hobgoblins were put to sleep.
Our prize from all of this was a Longsword +1. We have nobody in the party who uses Longswords, but magic weapons might come in handy in case we either run out of normal weapons to break or encounter something like a Vampire Wolf that requires a magic weapon.
Imoen hit Level 4, but chose single weapon style instead of longswords.
Day 9, Hour 5 - Rested
Day 9, Hour 17 - Returned to the Xvart Village
Nexlit was probably right. You monster! You kill us when we do nothing to you. Well, Xvarts are fun to kill and my hack and slash mentality towards the game is greater than my roleplay understanding of the dilemma our characters might be thinking. Let's take a look at the list of characters in the party.
Sam is batshxx crazy.
Minsc is batshxx crazy.
Neera is batshxx crazy.
Imoen is along for the ride, wherever it goes.
Brawny loves to fight, but prefers some just cause as opposed to just cuz.
Dynaheir might be the only sane person in the group and wondering where this rescue is leading.
Wait. I forgot Boo. Boo is sane.
So we burned a Xvart village to the ground and explored another cave. The prize from this one was a Flail +1. This is Sam's first magic weapon. We also found Bracers of Defense AC8 and a Potion of Fire Resistance, which is sure to come in handy, once we start blowing things up with fire magic.
Day 10, Hour 3 - Rested
Day 10, Hour 13 - Waylaid by Skeletons
We dispatched them. It was no big deal. There was a prize on one of them. It had a Composite Longbow. Sam used to have one, but gave it to Minsc. Then he gave his sling to Dynaheir. So he had no ranged weapon, except for the axes obtained from Nimbul.
Day 10, Hour 23 - Arrived at Brage's Camp
We arrived to the east of the camp, then circled it to the north to scout it out. We found another tribe of Gnolls and wiped it out, then moved westward, where we encountered Ba'Ruk the Hobgoblin and his band of Kobold Commandos. The combination of Sleep and Command made this also easy work. Then we found a dig site.
Reputation 17
Finally, after exploring the entire area around the campsite, we confronted Captain Brage. He had a strange riddle for us, which we answered. Then he had a moment of sanity and handed us his greatsword and hearthed us back to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel. There he will atone for his crimes.
Reputation 18
So here is our party so far:
L3 7579/8000 Sam 235 kills worth 16716
L3 7544/9000 Minsc 72 kills worth 4639
L3 6439/10000 Dynaheir 11 kills worth 980 - She has been a sniper so far!
L3 5966/10000 Neera 17 kills worth 1046
L4 7052/10000 Immy 52 kills worth 3619
L4 7248/13000 Brawny 40 kills worth 1121
Our unidentified loot is:
Two Handed Sword (Berserker +3)
Boots (of the North - Cold Resist)
10 Arrows (fire)
One shortcut would be to invite Garrick in for a couple of minutes to identify some of it. He will get the Arrows and might get the Boots. However, it is not a big priority for us.
In terms of Roleplay, we delayed too long in the wilderness rescuing Dynaheir and have lost the element of surprise in confronting Tranzig in Beregost. In terms of Gameplay, we are at a stage where we should be gearing up. Sam needs another magical flail or morningstar. Minsc needs a magical 2H sword. Brawny needs a hammer.
With Neera and Dynaheir both at Level 3, we need to start scribing L2 spells. We have 2 Web and 1 Stinking Cloud. Dynaheir has a 90% chance of scribing them and Neera has a 75% chance. The question is if we should use one of our potions to help and I am having trouble justifying the opportunity cost.
The Mind Focusing potion will improve our chance by 15%. We can sell it for 250gp or we can buy it for 750gp. We can buy a Potion of Genius for 450gp. Level 1 Spells cost 150gp. Level 2 Spells cost 300gp. We have a Dispel Magic scroll worth 450gp. Our stock of L2 and L3 spells is worth 1350gp and 15% of that is 202.5gp.
I think what I will end up doing is let Dynaheir take the 90% chance on the 2 Web Scrolls and maybe the Stinking Cloud. Neera will take the Potion, increasing her chance of learning the spell to 90%. So we will have a 90% success rate on our spells. There is still a 0.1% probability the Dynaheir strikes out on the L2 spells. With that, Neera can have a late night scribing party.
Day 11, Hour 0 - Back in front of the Nashkel Inn
It was a stormy night when we returned to Nashkel with Captain Brage, so we went into the Nashkel Inn. Neera tipped a flask of Mind Focusing and had a study party with Dynaheir.
It looks like we gained a total of 17 spells, a the cost of a Potion of Mind Focusing and a bunch of scrolls.
250gp - Potion of Mind Focusing (if selling)
450gp - Dispel Magic Scroll (lost)
150gp - Protection from Petrification Scroll (lost)
300gp - 3 Level 2 Scrolls (if selling)
900gp - 18 Level 1 Scrolls (if selling)
2050gp - Total to learn 17 spells, so an average of just over 120gp per spell. Some of them were worth nothing more than the 10 experience for scribing.
Day 11, Hour 10 - Rested. How Neera and Dynaheir can be fully rested after a study party like that, we have no idea.
We identified the Frost's Embrace Boots of the North and the Berserker Sword +3.
We took one more trip to the Nashkel Fair and interfered in some domestic dispute. For saving the witch, we obtained a Potion of Heroism.
After that, we sold our surplus scrap and looked around the north of the fairground, finding absolutely nothing. Then we continued our journey towards Beregost.
Day 11, Hour 15 - North Nashkel Road
Day 11, Hour 19 - South Beregost Road
There were a few baddies encountered, a couple of ghouls and some hobgoblins.
Day 12, Hour 0 - Arrived in Beregost
Suddenly we are very popular! The first to greet us was Elminster the sage mage. Stay tuned for Baldur's Gate 2 where we become Sam Ashen the Rage Mage. The discussion drew the attention of a little girl named Chloe, who excitedly told us Officer Vai was looking for us in the Jovial Juggler. This has to wait a bit. We have business to take care of and word of our arrival has spread way too fast. To Feldepost's we went.
We found Tranzig and a fight ensued as soon as Brawny caught sight of him. Expecting an epic battle, it did not last very long. He did not even have time to give up.
We went back to the Jovial Juggler and settled our business with Officer Vai. She said she is cut off from the Flaming Fist Headquarters and has placed a bounty on bandits.
Day 12, Hour 8 - Rested
We got our second dream sequence and another Cure Light Wounds. We identified a Knaves Robe, a Ring of the Princes and 5xArrow +1.
Now that it's daytime, we could conduct some unfinished business around Beregost. We returned the amulet we found to the Colquetle Family. Then we returned a letter to Mirianne and received a ring in return. In Thunderhammer Smithy, we had a couple of bottles of liquid from the Nashkel Mines for Thunderhammer to investigate. Time will tell.
Reputation 19, Heroic - almost there
Day 12, Hour 9 - Beregost Temple
We took a couple of trips back and forth. At the Thunderhammer Smithy, we invested a little bit of cash to buy some magical arrows and bullets, because it was time to deal with the wolfpack that has been terrorizing the area just outside the temple.
We seemed to be well protected and even the Vampire Wolf needed a natural 20 to hit us. A web spell might have been the better strategy, but we pulled this encounter the cheesy way, one at a time.
Then we took care of Cattack and his rookie gang of Chill hobgoblins. It took a few trips to the Smithy to move all the scrap.
We have some decisions to make. Neera's gembag must be getting pretty full and we have quite a sum of gold. We might do well to buy a thing or two. The Full Plate Armor comes to mind. The Mace +1 might also be good for Minsc. Then he can dual-wield. The Composite Longbow might also be a good idea. Gold spent now is gold Neera cannot blow up if and when she screws up another spell.
Speaking of Neera, we have another decision to make. She made her request to go seek out the Wild Mage Adoy. Based on the location, it is going to take a long time for us to get over there. I believe we would be going the Ruins of Ulcaster, then Firewine Bridge. This would be a trek as long as our rescue of Dynaheir.
On the plot side, we just took out Tranzig and found a letter indicating they are puzzled that they have not heard from Mulahay in some time. We have an indication of a recent location of the bandit camp. We can get there in a couple of days.
At some point, we will throw the roleplay completely out the window and do things to level our characters and get them gear.
There was one minor reload in Beregost where I misclicked on what I was going to buy, but I am not going to count it. I also did a run ahead to see if an encounter is doable, because I do not want to waste 5 Sessions only to find out I do not have the levels or resources to do an encounter.
We used some resources this session. We used one of the Antidote potions reserved for one of those emergencies, because we were not smart enough to keep Dynaheir nearby. We also used one Healing Potion.
Day 12, Hour 11 - In Beregost.
We had a bag bulging full of gems and jewelry, so we went to Feldepost's Inn to turn it into a fistful of gold. Then we went to Thunderhammer to make a few investments.
1575gp for a Mace +1 for Minsc. He also got two more Maces.
1575gp for a Shortbow +1 for Imoen.
1575gp for 3x10 Arrows of Biting.
We stocked up a little bit on Arrows +1 and Bullets +1. We will try to maintain a single stack. We are starting to encounter magical creatures.
Then we stocked up on regular Arrows and Bullets, because they are very cheap and we really never want to run out of them.
Day 12, Hour 20 - We arrived at Ulcaster Ruins
Skeletons. Skeletons everywhere. They started to show up when we started to explore. Then when we retreated our party, they spawned in behind us. We were nearly surrounded.
I do not know how to fix the AI properly. So for me it stands for Artifical Idiot. For skeletons, I normally switch my non melee characters to melee weapons and have them sit out the encounter. The Artifical Idiot switches them to a ranged weapon, which are ineffective. I suppose a solution for this would be to turn off the preference for ranged weapon. However in this case, we had a better solution.
Just have them stand somewhere out of the way and have Dumm and Dummer run around and bash everything.
Eventually we made our way to the ruins of the magic school. The ghost of Ulcaster is rumored to wander the ruins at night, but he was nowhere to be seen. We did encounter Icharyd. He wanted to taste our flesh.....
....over our dead bodies, he will. Wait a minute......
Dynaheir quickly prepared a Magic Missile, but it was too late to snipe the kill. Into the dungeon we went.
There is something most unnatural here and - I want no part of it.
Evil around every corner! Careful not to step in any.
Something I noticed so far in BGEE is I do not remember hearing complaints from my adventurers about being in dungeons.
There are s-s-sooo many places I would rather be.
An open wound in Mother Earth. I would plug it had I the power.
We explored the East side of the dungeon first, with Immy taking the lead to search for traps while playing Marco Polo.
Marco!...... Marco!..... Marco!...... There is no creepy feeling quite like going too far into the instance and finally finding some baddies - and the rest of the party you are supposed to be leading is nowhere to be found.
The rest of the party, led by Dumm and Dummer thought they were supposed to stay at the instance. Hey! There are no traps, but there are a couple of baddies for you to take out. More specifically and Ochre Jelly and a Mad Jelly - I mean - I Mustard Jelly.
We took out the Ochre Jelly just fine. Then we sent in Dumm and Dummer after the Mustard Jelly and that was a disaster. Sam got smoked, then poisoned and slowed. I will look up just how long that slowing effect lasts, but I believe it is one hour. Anyway. We did not keep the backup crew close behind, so Sam could not limp back and get healed of the poison. That would leave Minsc all alone against the Mustard Jelly. Maybe he was okay if we went berserk.
So we took an Antidote Potion. This is just fine, because this is exactly one of the emergencies we bought the Antidote Potion for, whether the emergency was the result of RNG, or idiots commanding the party. Sam got hit three times in that fight. The Mustard Jelly hit AC-4 with rolls of 18, 20, and 19. So down went a Healing Potion as well.
There were plenty of Healing Potions to be found inside the Dungeon. The Antidote Potion we will do well to replace the next time we see a Healer.
The other side of the dungeon was infested with wolves and spiders. Sam was limping through this part with the effects of getting wtfpwned by the Mustard Jelly. The wolves were annoying because they love to run around the main melee and attack somebody in the back line. I guess they know what armor looks like.
There were traps. Immy almost stepped right on top of one for lack of patience. Then finally we got to the main wolf den. We were able to pull the wolves out one at a time. Then in one more room, we found the boss Vampiric Wolf. That is when we found out we already used our Berserker Rage just this very morning, when we were clearing a very similar wolfpack near the Temple of Lathander in Beregost.
We were able to win this fight quite handily. Maybe the Mace +1 for Minsc was a good investment.
Looking again at that picture, just the few lines in the text window shows 48 points of damage, almost enough to kill the wolf by itself.
We had one more trap to clear and a couple more wolves and that big treasure pile was ours!
We found the history book for Ulcaster, but he was still nowhere to be found. I am guessing, because we arrived at 20h, it was still considered daylight and therefore the Ghost of Ulcaster did not spawn. When we reload, he will spawn and start wandering the area. Maybe he is wandering the area and we never found him.
Here is my party:
L4 11899/16000 Dumm with 278 Kills worth 25206
L4 11856/18000 Dummer with 118 Kills worth 15574
L4 10732/20000 Dynaheir with 19 Kills worth 3455
L4 10258/20000 Neera with 18 Kills worth 1111
L5 11330/20000 Immy with 63 Kills worth 4504
L4 11438/13000 Brawny with 50 Kills worth 3121
A lot of this was three or four characters standing back while Dumm and Dummer take care of everything. The +1 Mace for Minsc already seems a good investment. It means he is able to dual-wield Maces, which is almost as good as dual-wielding Flails and Morningstars. From Session to Session, the kill count was 23 and 26 for the twins.
My casters are set up as follows:
Dynaheir 2 Chromatic Orb, 2 Magic Missile, 3 Web
Neera 1 Chromatic Orb, 2 Magic Missile, 2 Sleep, 3 Identify, 3 Web
Brawny 1 Bless, 1 Doom, 2 Command, 2 Cure, 1 Hold Person, 1 Chant, 1 Cure Poison, 2 Aid
If you have suggestions on setting up my casters better, please let me know! It can be seen that I do not execute the magic part of the game that well.
I might do well to switch Evermemory from Neera to Dynaheir, in an effort to reduce the amount of chaos. Nothing terrible has happened. We did not open a gate to hell while trying to identify a couple of arrows.
L4 Chromatic Orb is Blind. With Dynaheir, it is Save versus Spells at +4 instead of +6. So if the target is a Fighter with a 13 Save, then there is still a 40% probability that he misses. Combined with Doom and that is 50%.
With Neera, it is a +6 save, so 30% probability that it hits. L5 is stun. I think those are the only two results that would take out a Fighter.
If the two Orbs are fired in the same Round, then the probability of making both saves is 42%.
Web is probably better, especially against parties. Something I can think of that's better against parties than Web is 2 Webs, especially if one of them is coming from an Invoker. Reading the manual, I see a -2 Save versus Spells. From Dynaheir, it is -4 Save. There is a party we will be encountering tomorrow.
Web is also our only option. Dynaheir also has the Stinking Cloud in her book, but I do not believe that is as good as Web. I believe the idea behind Stinking Cloud would be if we are up against creatures that are immune to web, but not to stinking cloud.
With 6 Web spells in our arsenal, I do not see any purpose of using Grease. It would come in handy if something immune to Web is not immune to Grease, but I do not see that happening tomorrow. If it does, we still have Scrolls.
I was having Neera with the Evermemory, so that she could identify a few items per day and still have L1 spells available. More specifically, Sleep. There are two alternatives. One is to pass the ring to Dynaheir and have her be the magical arsenal. Neera would be stuck with identifying two or three items per day and having little else except a couple of spells and some wands.
We also have a single Identify scroll. We could give that to Dynaheir and she has a 60% probability of learning it. Then we could pass the ring to Dynaheir and she could have 4 Identify Spells and each of the casters would have 4 Level 1 Spells. Identify Scrolls should drop reasonably often.
The most essential items to identify for tomorrow would be Ichy's Flail and the Wand of Fire.
On the surface near Ulcaster, we had a stroke of luck: We obtained an Invisibility Scroll from one of the Ghouls. This will certainly come in handy later encounters.
Here is what I have planned for sessions coming up:
Session 10
Find the Shade of Ulcaster.
Decide how to configure our caster.
Rest to Day 13, hour 9.
Travel to Gullykin. Day 13, Hour 17.
Explore Gullykin. Day 13, Hour 19.
Brawny can probably dump her two Cure spells, because we will be near a Temple and we can get healing spells at a low cost. The same applies to Slow Poison.
Session 11
Explore Firewine Bridge zone. Day 13, Hour 22.
Session 12
Explore Firewine Ruins. Day 14, Hour 2.
Session 13
Rest. Day 14, Hour 10.
Travel to Adoy's Enclave. Day 14, Hour 14.
So I will think of spell configurations that will be good for Gullykin and the Firewine Bridge encounters. There might be more items obtained from there that will come in handy against the big encounter at Adoy's Enclave. (I did one practice run to see if it could be done and I saw one video, but they were much higher level when they did it.)
Stinking Cloud versus Web ... Web is certainly more powerful most of the time. But they're party-unfriendly AoE spells, so that's a double-edged sword. And there are enough differences between them that both have their uses.
Web is hard to get immunity against; generally only spiders and full Free Action will do it. You certainly don't want to use it against spiders, and it's hard to use your own melee when using Web.
Stinking Cloud targets death saves instead of spell saves, which makes it stronger against mages in particular but weaker against fighters and most monsters (which typically use fighter save arrays). Undead are immune to it. Also, each time the effect hits it lasts longer than Web; 9 seconds instead of 7. Because of the death save targeting, you can actually get some use out of sending your own warriors and priests into a cloud even without explicit immunity; they're more likely to save and be able to keep fighting.
Level 1 mage spells Dynaheir could be using (because Magic Missile isn't all that impressive at low character level)...
Color Spray isn't as good as Sleep (less practical AoE, not party friendly), but it's about as likely to incapacitate enemies if it hits.
Blindness is a pretty solid single-target debuff, that works on just about anything.
Burning Hands is actually an AoE spell in patch 2.6 - it can put out pretty decent damage in the right circumstances. And Dynaheir's fairly sturdy as mages go with her 16 Con, so she can afford to get in there and roast a few gibberlings or whatever.
Shield is a pretty solid defensive boost, and Armor is OK if you haven't picked up a good set of bracers yet.
Larloch's Minor Drain has a reputation as the worst of the single-target damage spells, but even it has its niche. It's very quick to cast and has no projectile travel time, so it's the fastest spell for disrupting enemy spellcasters. And it's a bit of healing.
At least two blunders, but nothing too costly. No real realoads. I reloaded once at the very start to see if I had better luck finding Ulcaster. One scum save, because I did not know there was autosave.
Day 13, Hour 2 - Ulcaster Ruins
We finally found Ulcaster. He was looking over the cliffs wondering if he jumped he would float to the bottom. Such is one of the struggles of being a ghost.
Feeling lucky, we retrieved our one and only Identify Scroll and gave it to Dynaheir, and..... success at 60% probability! We can now identify items at half the risk of blowing up the world - or worse - our gold. We let Dynaheir have the Evermemory ring. The penalty paid for the bit of reloading at the start was not remembering all the mage reconfigurations. I was going to try a few cheesy strategies in case the honest attempts did not work so well.
Day 13, Hour 11 - Rested near the creepy Ruins of Ulcaster.
We identified the Wand of Magic Missiles and the Wand of Fire. Both will come in handy. We left our other two Identify spells for a later time.
Day 13, Hour 15 - We got caught in a Kobold Ambush. We got out of it pretty easily. The real time to experience ratio was terrible.
Day 13, Hour 19 - We arrived in Gullykin. Immediately, we explored the pathways to the south, supposedly leading to the legendary Durlag's Tower, but we were not going that far. We were supposed to meet some special guests at a crossroads.
More assassins! After some trash-talk, we launched two Web spells at them. Then we pelted them. Carefully walking around the web perimeter, by the time we finished them off, the Web expired.
Had I known this was such easy mode, I would not have used Brawny's Resist Fear Spell. Or I should have reserved another slot. Going through the loot, we identified a Morningstar +1. So Sam is now dual-wielding Morningstar +1 / Flail +1. I am not aware of any better weapons in this category, except another Morningstar +1. However, it is nice that it is a magical blunt instrument and those seem to be more versatile.
After exploring the area, we started to look around the Halfling Village of Gullykin. We told them we just wanted to visit their lovely little village. They are more accustomed to adventurers stopping by on the way to either Firewine Bridge or Durlag's tower - so they had to ask for some help with some Kobold raiders making a base in the Ruins.
Eh? Who's this? More intrepid fools on the road to a beating?
Day 13, Hour 21 - Inside the Ruins of Firewine Bridge.
We cleared a path to the bridge, then emerged. We saw a mighty battle coming and prepared as much as possible. Resources used:
2 Potions of Heroism for Dumm and Dummer.
1 Potion of Stone Giant Strength for Sam.
1 Potion of Hill Giant Strength for Minsc.
Then we charged into a group of Kobolds and started bashing skulls.
Maybe that was a little overkill and we got excited way too early. Our next stop was Melium.
This was the moment we realize we forgot to pack a Charm Person spell. We were going to give it a shot against Khark. Why Melium went after Minsc so hard I have no idea. It was Sam throwing all the insults. Maybe he is also a skilled ventriloquist.
Your mother was a hamster and......
Boo can't be his mother. He's a boy hamster. Maybe he's the father.
We acquired and identified the Legacy of the Masters.
Now we go after Kharl. Kharl! Do I remember to apply all my buffs? Of course not. It does not help when I do not remember exactly where to start the encounter. We started talking to the girl and she summons the Ogre Mage out of our line of sight. The correct way to deal with this situation would be to wait a couple of hours for the Ogre buffs to wear off..... But we did not get all buffed up for nothing!
Did I remember to apply all of my buffs before the big boss fight? Of course not. I was supposed to cast Bless and Chant before the start and not during the fight. That gives us a bit more room for the Magic Missile Wands.
I saw some Spell Ineffective messages, so casting a Magic Missile spell against the Mirror Image of the Ogre Mage protected from the spell is ineffective. We did see damage go through from the Wands of Magic Missiles. There were even two instances where a Magic Missile hit caused a casting failure. I did not see any effect from the Frost Wand, so lost a charge there.
There would have been 6 Mirror Images. Looking through the combat log, I only saw 4 hits where there was no associated damage. So perhaps 2 were taken out by Magic Missiles. Suddenly the Flails and Maces started connecting and Khark went down. Then it happened......
Back in real life many years ago, I was in a metal shop where they cut a piece of steel for me. I was looking somewhere and when I grabbed the piece of steel, I forgot they just cut it with a torch and burned my hand. I also remember reading old-school AD&D manuals patiently explaining the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom. Maybe my RL Wisdom score is not that high. I thought of this story when I had Dynaheir try a Wand of Fire Scorcher to see if that would have any effect on Khark. I didn't, but the trail of fire was still on his corpse when Sam walked right into it and got cooked.
We still had fresh buffs and we needed a quick trip to see the healer. There was no more point in exploring this zone any further. So back into the ruins we went. (Basically it cost us 200gp to repair the damage caused by that little blunder.)
Day 13, Hour 22 - Back in Firewine Ruins
We cleared out another path that apparently lead to some kind of base in somebody's basement.
We encountered the Mage Lendarn. He was confidently dispatched, because we still had an active Potion of Absorption. I thought he was going to blow himself up with a Lightning Bolt. Hindsight says I probably should have.
Then we had an encounter with another Ogre Mage. What did we do? We confidently charged. We should have fired an arrow and backed off, but that was just as well. The first spell was Confusion and we already used up or Berserker Rage. Luckily we actually managed the saving throw. Against Horror, we were not so lucky.
Maybe we were, because the blow landed before the spell did and Sam was freaking out over a dead Ogre. Minsc had to run in and bail him out. It is kind of interesting how long a Horror Spell lasts. It is almost long enough for Sam to circle the maze and trigger the rest of the traps.
Going upstairs, we found ourselves in a Halfling Hut and solved the mystery. Gullykin is saved. We had one more thing to do in the Ruins and that was to kill the Undead Knight and return the Armor, which we did.
Our Party:
15040/16000 Sam 326 Kills / 30966
14962/18000 Minsc 140 Kills / 22332
13829/20000 Dynaheir 22 Kills / 3476
14424/20000 Imoen 71 Kills / 5960
14489/26000? Brawny 55 Kills / 4992
Unidentified Items:
Chainmail (Mail of the Dead)
Mage Robe
2 Longswords (+1)
1 Flail (+1)
Fire Scroll, Electrical Scroll, Poison Scroll
Ring (of Protection +1)
Arrows: 86 + 2x10 + 3 + 2
Plan for tomorrow is:
Wake up about 10am.
Explore the area around Firewine Bridge, about noon.
Travel to Adoy's Enclave, about 4pm.
We probably return to the bridge area and Gullykin around 10pm.
From Gullykin and Firewine Bridge, we have a variety of places we can go. We can either return to Beregost or Nashkel.
There is one more point of Reputation I would like to acquire, but that can wait. When I am ready to go shopping, I will go pick up Xan and give him a Friends Scroll so we can buy things at amazing prices. Chapter Five is where all of this opens up, I suppose.
Most likely, I will return to Beregost and pick up the main story line right where we left off when Neera distracted us.
I should figure out how to configure my casters for the big chase tomorrow!
For resources, we have one Invisibility Potion and one Oil of Speed. One option would be to make Neera go invisible and hide - as long as I turn her AI off. The melee runs after the mages, so Dynaheir in this case will have kiting duty. We also have an Invisibility scroll we picked up from a Ghoul at Ulcaster. With a Potion of Defense, Imoen can have an AC of -4. I believe those Thayan Bodyguards like to go after whatever looks squishy.
We have a supply of Arrows of Biting and three characters with bows and enemy melee going after casters. So I suppose it is a battle over who can take out casters the quickest. So we can launch 2 arrows at the main mage and have Immy shoot the other mage. Maybe one of them gets poisoned. We have an Oil of Fiery Burning for 5d6. Brawny can throw that. I suppose with a save it's still worth 8 or 9 points of damage. Dynaheir can launch a Fireball with the wand. I think that's 6d6, so another 10.5 points of damage. Then run and have Sam chase the Melee while Minsc and Immy finish the Mages. Ekandor has a stupid number of hitpoints for a mage if I remember correctly.
How should I configure Brawny? She hit Level 5 and now has access to Level 3 spells.
At Level 1, I have a choice on if I should grab some healing spells. I am thinking I should not bother, because I am still close to a large supply of healing potions. (I might buy a bunch at Gullykin.)
Then we have a bigger long-term decision to make. What is our party going to look like in the end game and at what EXP level should I be making this decision?
The team we have right now looks very good. We have Dumm and Dummer bashing things in melee. We have Brawny for more backup if we need. We also have a buff machine. We also have two mages developing and took out a nice party with a double web spell.
If we want to continue cycling characters, we can drop Minsc and Dynaheir off at the Friendly Arm Inn. Then we can go into the Cloakwood Forest and pick up Coran and Yeslick. If we are following the Imoen dual-class mage option, then we can pick up and use Safana. She might enjoy being used like that. We still have not mentioned Kivan or Ajantas or even Rasaad.
Is the cutoff point 32kXP or is it 64k?
I will think on all of this, but tomorrow I have to decide how to configure my casters and finalize my plan for the Ekandor boss fight.
In BG2EE, the checkpoints are 125K, 250K, 500K, 750K, 1000K, and 1250K.
Kahrk starts with a Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Which expires naturally if you don't engage immediately, or can be broken by a Spell Thrust. But if you're fighting with it up, that means no spells of levels 1-3 will be effective. As for wands ... fear is level 4, magic missiles is level 8, paralyzation is level 4, fire is level 3/level 2, frost is level 3, lightning is level 3, sleep is level 4, polymorphing is level 4, heavens is level 5, and Imoen's wand of magic missiles is level 0.
So those magic missile hits that got through must have been from wands. The spell would be eaten by the minor globe. All of the status effect wands get through the globe, but Kahrk has great saves. Of the damage wands in BGEE, only wands of magic missiles and wands of the heavens beat a minor globe.
@StummvonBordwehr - Thank you for the comments! You were the first to show up when I knew I had lurkers somewhere!
Session 11 - Sometimes the Best Laid Plans Blow up in your Face and Wild Magic is not to Blame
Day 14, Hour 9 - Rested at Gullykin Village
The Halfings were kind enough to watch over us while we slept, but did not have beds big enough to accommodate us. That would be a great business for them. Besides. Where can we get some good ale? Aren't stunties known for that?
We went back into the Ruins and they are already being restocked with Kobold Commandos. We actually took a hit and were not configured with any heal spells. So back to the healer we went for another 100gp. Then we explored the area around the bridge itself. There was not much to see, so we went on to our final destination.
Day 14, Hour 16 - Arrived at Adoy's Enclave
It was a slaughter. The Goblins would not allow us to visit their god, so we started slaughtering goblins like a carnage of the Xvart Village. Besides. Some of them carry Composite Longbows and those are valuable!
The local ranger said they appeared out of nowhere and asked us to avenge his wife. Eventually we found the body and gave it a proper burial. We came prepared with a Priest of Tempus and she was dedicated to Valkur's strapping buttocks.
Rogdok the Goblin King was an easy fight. We had the brute power and also a Sleep spell to spare.
We found Adoy and started talking to him and we were starting to get into the details of pease porridge when our old friend Ekandor zoned in with a backup mage and three bodyguards. A quick conversation and a fight was on. Adoy chickened out of the fight and polymorphed one of the goons into an ogre berserker.
Sam - Berserk
Minsc - Throw Fiery Oil near Ekandor
Dynaheir - Chromatic Orb at Goon
Neera - Wand Fireball near Ekandor
Imoen - Shoot Ekandor, but apparently Protection applies to Arrows of Biting. I was not careful checking the log.
Branwen - Command at Ogre Berserker
Ogre Berserker dropped instantly, so Dumm went for the ground and pound.
Then the twin Fireballs hit and nuked everything, including Dumm. Ekandor was injured and so was Sam. The other mage didn't make it. Sometimes the best laid plans blow up in your face and Wild Magic is not to blame.
Scratch one Thayan Mage
The Ogre Berserker was on the ground and it also got nuked by the Fireballs. So with the ground and pound it did not survive much longer. Scratch one Thayan Goon.
Apparently Command counts as sleep or something. The enraged goons were not affected and we had to chase them while they chased Neera and Dynaheir around. Dynaheir was able to gain enough space to turn around and blast a Magic Missile into the face of her pursuer, which melted. Scratch the second Thayan Goon.
Neera ran around the table with her goon in hot pursuit, but Minsc was able to intercept him. Thayan Goons down. Only Enkador remained.
He put up a Fire Shield, but that did not matter to Minsc, because he was also batxxxx crazy. So he delivered the coup de grace.
We talked to the ranger on the way out and we were on our way back to Firewine Bridge and Gullykin.
Our party:
16342 Sam with 364 Kills worth 33490
16260 Minsc with 161 Kills worth 24239
15292 Dynaheir with 25 Kills worth 3853
14618 Neera with 21 Kills worth 2051
15683 Imoen with 76 Kills worth 6180
15712 Branwen with 62 Kills worth 5372
We will probably configure for a good bit of healing and recovery and we have a lot of items to identify. Most likely we will continue pursuing the storyline.
Crossing 16k experience means we can recruit characters with 16k experience instead of 8k and the gap will be small. From an RP perspective, I would like to pick up Yeslick. We might also pick up Coran. If that is the case, then we would do well to head straight to Beregost, then pick up the main story line and head to the Bandit Camp. Then we leave Minsc and Dyanaheir at the Friendly Arm Inn and head to the Cloakwood Forest and pick up Coran.
I will miss bashing things with Team Dumm and Dummer, but I understand Coran is an amazing archer! Brawny will serve as backup melee in that case.
Day 15, Hour 7
We rested again in the friendly Halfling Village of Gullykin. Then we started our trek back to Beregost.
Day 15, Hour 15
We arrived in Ulcaster once again, but there was little action going on this time. There were a few Kobolds and that was about it.
Day 16, Hour 0
We returned to the Temple of Beregost. Then we finally arrived at Beregost.
Day 16, Hour 8
We rested again and identified the rest of our loot. We spent about an hour going from one place in Beregost to another, selling stuff. From the samples of liquid we provided, Thunderhammer can now produce higher quality weapons that will no longer break in combat. This does us little good right now, because we mostly have magical weapons. However, we used this as an opportunity to buy a quality War Hammer for Brawny and a Quality Mace for Minsc. We stocked up on a few more Arrows of Biting.
Day 16, Hour 13 - The Coast Highway
Bandits are everywhere. We wiped a group led by Deke. The script says he is supposed to surrender, but we put him to sleep, so he did not have a chance.
Day 16, Hour 21
We arrived at the Friendly Arm Inn. We took this as an opportunity to return Landrin's boots and stuff. She only had to wait for us 19 days. Then we sold a few surplus items and rested and got ready for the big day coming up.
Day 17, Hour 5 - Rested
Day 17, Hour 10 - Arrived at the Ankheg Farm
We made a quick trek eastwards.
Day 17, Hour 18 - We found the Bandit Camp!
Dumm and Dummer are not well known for subtlety in their tactics as they started to look around the huts and making lots of noise and Chill Hobgoblins started to investigate. They even grabbed their leader Ardenor Crush. We pulled back a little bit so we could get a fair melee going, then struck true.
The camp is apparently divided into halves, human and non human. The human bandits were not crossing to the non-human side and letting them fight their own battle. We started going through the huts until finally Taurgosz Khosann found a gang of his best men to settle the matter. We retreated again and put up a couple of webs in defense. Taurgosz ran through it all, but fell to Brawny's Command. Soon it was over.
Finding some privacy in one of the huts, we changed some armor around. Minsc now has the Ankheg Plate Armor and it will be very confusing for a while determining who is who. Full plate is a pretty big upgrade from Splint.
After clearing out more bandit guards, we finally got to the main tent. Subtlety not being our middle name, we went in. Raemon said nobody was allowed in the tent and we did not care. So the action started.
A quick Command took Raemon out of the action. With Dumm and Dummer on the front line, he did not live much longer after that.
Sam used this as an opportunity to charge the Hobgoblin Archer and the idiot Gnoll gave chase. The Gnoll did get hit with a Chromatic Orb, so he might have been blinded as well. It is hard to tell with Neera's level.
Brawny's next Command was directed at Hakt. He did not live up to his name very well, so we called him Basht. Basht Two Pieces.
Hindsight says we should have directed that Command at the Gnoll, because now he was charging our line of casters. Meanwhile the enemy Mage was still active and got a Horror spell. Will I learn to have a Resist Fear spell up and running before walking into a mage fight? Of course not. But Sam doesn't care. He's berserk.
Sam charged the Mage next, anyway. The Gnoll seemed to be wandering around a little bit and found himself next to the action. Brawny's next spell was Hold Person, which did the trick for a short while, but not very long. We did bash the Mage, who was most likely very helpless when an Arrow of Biting found its mark.
It was just Britik the Gnoll left and he seemed bent on taking one of our mages down with him. So he got a swipe at Dynaheir before she started running. Minsc was still freaking out from the Horror spell, so it was Sam who had to deliver the coup de grace. Maybe the opposite of that is ungraceful bash.
End of Chapter 3. Start of Chapter 4. We seem to be moving the story line very fast!
After looking around and grabbing all the good stuff, our next stop was the Gnoll Cave. After that, we looked around the rest of the area for any survivors and patrols, set up camp a safe distance away. We never did find Tazok, but when he gets back, he's in for a little surprise.
Day 18, Hour 5 - Rested
Day 18, Hour 13 - Ankheg Farm
Day 18, Hour 21 - Friendly Arm Inn
Here is our party:
18172/32000 Sam 324 Kills worth 39367
13087/36000 Minsc 185 Kills worth 26688
16917/20000 Dynaheir 26 Kills worth 3888
16443/20000 Neera 23 Kills worth 2151
17495/20000 Imoen 83 Kills worth 7550
17469/27500 Brawny 64 Kills worth 5472
We have a few decisions to make. We can charge headlong into the Cloakwood Forest or we can head to a few places and get some gear first. I lean towards going into Cloakwood Forest. We can pick up Coran and he will only be a few thousand experience behind us. We have a great bow he can use.
If we are getting gear, it would be a trip to High Hedge. The Potion case would be great! After that, we would be getting some arrows and stuff. We do not have enough for the Dagger of Venom, because we kept squandering our gold on.... stuff. Actually we do have enough gold, because hidden in Neera's Bag of Goodies, there are Goodies. We can raise funds for the Dagger of Venom.
Potions would also be good. Specifically we will need Antidotes and Elixirs. We have one Protection Scroll to help us against the Spiders, but against the Wyverns, we will need Elixirs - especially if we get ambushed and surrounded. We can also get another couple of Potions of Genius.
When we break from the plot line again in an effort to develop our party exp, we should be seeing some pretty big random encounters. Is there an experience level that determines the maximum level of random spawns? I think it is determined when the map is loaded, based on the experience of the main character and the number of characters in the party.
As far as I know, all of this is done when the spawn point activates, which happens when any party member gets close enough to it.
So, you're at a bit more than a tenth of the experience cap. But by levels, you're at (5+4+4+4+5+5)=27 out of (8+8+9+9+10+8)=52 assuming a constant party, so you're a bit more than halfway to full power for the spawn points.
Then when you get to BG2EE, throw the whole thing out. Most new monsters don't have those point values, and many of them get used in spawn points. Try to spawn something with point value zero, and you reach the cap no matter what. Then all the spawn points get absurdly low difficulty values, so anything that does have a point value only spawns one no matter what. And in a lot of spawn points, use tokens that choose a group of monsters specified in a 2DA instead of an individual monster type.
Session 13 - Arachnophobia
We took another reload, so the count is.... 10? 10 - in four clusters. We went a long streak without a reload. Most likely the next one will be either figuring out how the Ogre Mage works in BGEE - or Dave the Mage.
Day 19, Hour 5
We rested at the Friendly Arm Inn, then said farewell to Minsc and Dynaheir. We are headed next to the Cloakwood Forest, very far away from civilization and a relatively safe place in case Neera blows herself up.
Then we updated our supplies of Antidote and Elixirs, because where we are going, we are very likely to need them.
Day 19, Hour 14
We arrived at the Cloakwood Lodge and the first place we went was to the bridge where Coran was waiting for us with a proposition to hunt down Wyverns. He will help us get to and through the Cloakwood Mine. We will help him carry trophy Wyvern heads back to Beregost. This guy is truly deadly with a bow. (+3 Mastery, +2 Deadshot, +2 Gauntlets, 8-13 Damage with normal Arrows and I thought I saw a Thaco of 7)
Meanwhile, we scouted the local area and shot up bunches of the wildlife. The local druids were not pleased. We killed their leader, Siniyad. Aldeth was very pleased with us and we acquired a Potion of Heroism from him.
His manner reminded me too much of Ekandor the Red Wizard of Thay. We also collected his Druid's Ring of Animal friendship.
Scouting the area further, we wiped out a small tribe of Tasloi and found the Cloak of Non Detection. Then we rested very early and there was a long journey to the Spider Lair.
Day 20, Hour 0 - Rested
We arrived and cleared much of it out. Immy went 0/9 on trap detection and eventually realized it was because I turned off her AI and had trap detection turned off. That was no big deal. We went into the spider lair and threw all the fireballs we had and opened up a time warp and..... reload....... (We blew up Brawny and I was not accepting that result.)
Day 20, Hour 8
We were ambushed by Ettercaps and the positioning was most inconvenient, like they were able to set a trap ahead of us and sneak a gang behind us. Somehow Neera, Immy, and Coran were able to run to relative safety and Sammy was able to hold 3 of them in melee and Brawny got the other one. Then we were able to fire back and take down the ambush. Then the trap found us.
Day 20, Hour 16
We arrived near the Spider Den and were greeted by Tiber, who was looking for his brother, who went in with his sword Spider Bane after a bunch of Spiders. We would find out much later that the sword grants freedom from webs, but no protection against poison.
We had a Scroll of Protection from Poison and this is the perfect place to use it. We protected Sammy because he was going to be in melee with them all the time. Immy was going to scout for web traps. So she went invisible with a potion.
In the southern part, the tip of the Italian Boot, we found a dead body with a ring and a magical scimitar. The ring was later identified to be another zombie ring, similar to what we found at the Bandit Camp. (Apparently this kills the main character. I found out at the FAI, because I thought it would be funny to see my main character as a zombie with Charisma 0.)
Coming up to the Spider Lair, we used a Scroll and Potion to protect Sam from fire, then sent him in solo. It's what you do when you find a place infested with spiders. Burn it down. He went in and threw an Oil of Fiery Burning. Then Neera followed in and we experimented with hitting Sam with a Scorcher and running around to see if it did damage to the spiders. The result was inconclusive and we might repeat the experiment at another time.
We moved Neera to a safe spot and sent in a Fireball. That got a lot more work done. Then she blew up a Sword Spider with a Magic Missile.
We found Chelak's body, but he was a big dude and his body was still too heavy for us to safely move out. So we finished clearing out the area, then moved armor around and carried the body back to his brother.
Tiber departed, leaving us alone with whatever is left out there. It was time to set up camp for the night. Neera grabbed a Potion of Genius and started a study party with a bunch of scrolls we have found.
For 97%, we were pretty unlucky. We went 11/13 and lost our Scrolls of Invisibility and Detect Illusion. Invisibility is always very useful, especially for our MVP Thief. The Detect Illusion might have been useful against Dave the Mage.
Here is our party:
26821/32000 Sam with 427 Kills worth 58052
26118 Brawny with 72 Kills worth 9102 - Maybe I check if I can actually level her.
25152 Neera with 26 Kills worth 5051
12324 Coran with 35 Kills worth 14260
26144 Imoen with 84 Kills worth 8200
Configured with that bow as described above, Coran is truly deadly. So far, he is outkilling Sam 35 to 33.
Day 21, Hour 4 - Rested
Day 22, Hour 0 - Arrive at the Cloakwood Grove
They sure made these zones distant. Interestingly, we went this far into the wilderness with no druid. I have almost never done this before.
We met some druids and went on a killing spree.
Sometimes if you look dumb, you would do well to act dumb as well. What is an archdruid? He gave us a lecture of not being saved by ignorance and he will take a moment to enlighten us, then kill us. 5 combat rounds worth of lecture later, we had all of our combat buffs up.
For such a powerful archdruid, he sure did not have much loot. Maybe his order is going extinct. It did not go extinct. We allowed Faldorn to live.
Meanwhile in a cave, Peter of the North was trying to tame some baby wyverns.
Excuse me? I'm a little lost. We're trying to find Nashkel. Can you point the way and give us an idea how far away it is?
Have you been to Candlekeep? I'm from Candlekeep.
Those colors look pretty stoooopid on you.
What's that big weapon for?
So, killed any monsters yet?
Wow, I have not had a conversation this long since, ever.
This zone sure did not have much experience in it, less than 1000 per person, 833 by what I counted. I wonder if they intended to put more depth into it and then ran out of time.
Day 22, Hour 10 - Rested
Day 23, Hour 2 - Arrived at the Wyvern Nest
There was a Hamadryad to greet us, but she was no match against a band of crazies. What is our party again?
Sam - Batxxxx crazy
Brawny - Kinda crazy
Neera - Batxxxx crazy
Coran - Batxxxx crazy
Immy - Kinda crazy
Around the zone we found bears, wolves, and baby wyverns. The parents and a few more babies were in the cave. We buffed up a little bit before going in. Neera opened it up with a Fireball and that seemed to do very little good. What do they have for saving throws?
5d6 is 17.5 on average. With a saving throw, it's 8.75 and just does not seem that impressive. Coran does 10.5 with a normal arrow. For this fight, we boosted it to 17.5 with the Acid Arrows. The fight went very fast and smooth and Neera finished it with a Flame Arrow that actually found its mark.
We will return to the cave for that platemail. It is worth 300gp, but very heavy. A Wyvern head is worth a 2000gp reward at the Temple of Beregost. Any others we find should be worth something as trophies. This far from civilization, we have to figure out inventory management.
Ammunition management has been okay so far.
Tonight's session looks like will be in the Cloakwood Mines. Here is my party again:
29961 Sam with 446 Kills worth 64132
29258 Brawny with 72 Kills worth 9102 - I find I have not been using her Holy Power and Battle Chaos as much as I should.
28232 Neera with 28 Kills worth 6516
13894 Coran with 61 Kills worth 21015
29284 Immy with 86 Kills worth 9300
Coran is a beast in all my party playthroughs. Just remember to return the wyvern head to the temple in due time or he is gone from the party (for good IIRC)….
Due to a bug, any arcanist with a kit other than "base class" takes the 15% specialist penalty. If that kit isn't one of the actual specialists, then they don't have any in-school spells to get a bonus on. So Neera's actual success chance was 83% - expected successes 10.79/13.
A number of NPCs suffer from this bug - Neera, Haer'Dalis, Imoen (she has a null kit instead of the proper "base class"). As do the many player characters that dual to mage from some kit.
Oh, and there's also an off-by-one bug. Everyone gets 1% more than what's shown. The listed success chance on your character sheet is literally never exactly correct.
Drinking two Int potions to get you to 24 or 25 int will push the base success chance to 150%, which means guaranteed success even with the specialist penalty.
Day 23 at the buttcrack of noon, we wake up and are rested. We are finally ready to head to the Cloakwood Mines.
Day 12, Hour 14, we are ambushed by Giant Spiders.
They have us surrounded, but we manage to get our squishies to safety. Once Coran has some distance, he is able to launch arrows.
Day 14, Hour 16 - Arrived at the Cloakwood Mine.
We scout the perimeter first, because nobody likes surprises. We took out a couple groups of guards, then crossed the bridge and entered the keep. Coran scouted ahead to see what was waiting for us.
The first shot did not show it all, but we could see two fighters and two mages. The rest was a fine display of what the combination of good scouting, reasonable preparation, a not so well placed web spell and a very well place archer can do. As soon as Sammy picked the fight, Coran stepped out of the shadows and launched an arrow at one of the mages. We did not get a successful poison roll until he died. Neera launched a Web Spell in the middle. Sammy was running around with the Spider's Bane trying to hit a mage with it. All he ever got was mirror images. Neera and Imoen came to the rescue with more Magic Missiles and firepower, but they got caught in the webs. Neera was eventually able to free herself long enough to get a proper spell off. Coran was still in a great position to finish that mage. So all we had left were two Fighters who kept getting caught in webs.
The big prize from this was the Paws of The Cheeta. So far this seems to be great with Coran. He can easily hide in shadows, run up at something, fire an arrow, run away or run around a corner and hide again. This was done to great effect in the Cloakwood Mines. Later we identified some Platemail when we found and rescued Yeslick.
Day 23, Hour 18 - Mine Level 1
The story was all about Coran. There were plenty of corners to hide around and shoot Guards who could not shoot back.
Day 23, Hour 19 - Mine Level 2
The same tactic works well, but if there is an entire room full of guards, it can draw a lot of attention.
What happened? You are bleeding?
Somebody shot me.
Where did he come from?
I don't know.
Where did he go?
I don't know.
There's really only one way out and one way they could have gone.
Oh. It turns out to be an entire group of them and an ambush and a crazy guy with a couple of flails.
They still left a few guards in the room and we took care of it with a couple of Sleep Spells. The first one blew up in a Wild Surge that doubled hit points for somebody. The trap Immy accidentally set off mysteriously healed.
We paid Rill to bribe the guards and evacuate the slaves from the mine and we rescued Yeslick. In his current condition, he is only useful as a fighter.
Level 3
This starts off with a fight against a bunch of Hobgoblins and Guards. We quickly turned the odds with a quick Charm spell and some well-placed shots. Then we started looking around, slaughtering a couple more groups of Hobgoblins.
There was an invisible Ogre Mage. The Invisibility Purge used to be perfect against this. It would eliminate Invisibility on all enemies on the same map. This time it did not work. That did not matter. We had our main tank character bait him and point him away from the group.
Then Coran did his magic on Natasha the Mage.
This time the poison worked right away and we know a mage is in trouble when the poison is leaking through. A couple more shots finished the job, but then we had to defend against her guardian elite hobgoblins.
Day 23, Hour 24 - Level 4
There was a single guard, which we dispatched. He has plate mail armor and we are able to carry it for now. I have to check the carrying capacity of the rest of the group to see if we have room for one more plate mail. It is worth another 300gp if we do.
The hallway where Dave was waiting for us was full of traps. We deliberately triggered the first two, because we wanted the Battle Horror. The first one kind of cut Sammy into ribbons. Then to add insult to injury, Neera finished him off with a Wand of Frost and we could not loot the frozen statue. The second battle horror only had a horn coral gem. We used a total of 11 healing potions and 1 potion of hill giant strength for this dungeon and do not have loot to show for it, but we did win 8000 exp.
Then it was time to fight Dave. Coran opened up the fight by setting off yet another trap, but that was no big deal. He fired a couple of arrows to get Dave teleporting a couple times and walking a little circuit. He got a Dire Charm spell off, but Coran was way out of harms way and made the saving throw anyway. Finally we got busted. In the game of hide and seek, Dave found us. So we launched everything we had at him and....
Apparently Sammy in his berserker rage saw through all the mirror images and his main hand morning star found nothing but skull.
We looted his private quarters, informed the miner to pull the plug and flood the mine, then made a run for it.
We crossed the 40k exp line. This means I can go along with the plot and dual Immy to mage. I can start her off with a Friends Spell and go on a study binge as well. She can be our front person and we can rob the shops in an honest way.
This does mean we will be picking up Safana soon - and this brings up a question. Do we keep Yeslick or do we keep Brawny? I will think about this overnight.
Day 24, Hour 8 - Rested
Out of the mines, we circled the area once more, taking out a few more baddies, then moved on. We have about four zones to travel and that many days of travel before we get back to civilization.
Day 24, Hour 11 - Waylaid
In spite of some great scouting by Coran, we found ourselves surrounded by giant spiders. I thought I would try a Horror spell, but what is up with a saving throw of 10?
I looked it up, Saving throws of 10. 9 for death and polymorph. Thaco 13. Maybe they are higher level monsters than I imagined.
Day 24, Hour 13 - We arrived at the Wyvern nest.
We intended to pick up that platemail armor, but forgot. We looked around the area and found nothing.
Day 24, Hour 21 - We found ourselves surrounded by giant spiders again.
Day 25, Hour 5 - Arrived at the Cloakwood Grove where we rested.
Dream Sequence 4 - We now have 2xCure Wounds and 2xSlow Poison.
Day 25, Hour 13 - Rested.
We found a few things to hunt, then moved on.
Day 25, Hour 23 - This time we are waylaid by Wyverns. Coran entered the Cloakwood Forest hunting the Wyverns. Now he is leaving the forest hunted by Wyverns.
Brawny seems to do okay as a rear guard. The Gauntlets give her 18 Dexterity. The combination of Ankhplate Armor and Shield +1 and Ring of Protection should give a total of -6 to AC. A very quick buff gets her 18/00 Strength. I am not sure if I remembered to use it for this fight.
Day 26, Hour 9 - We arrived at Spiderland.
Day 26, Hour 17 - Rested.
Wandering around, we blundered into the final trap of the area. That was when we encountered another group of Huge Spiders.
Day 27, Hour 2 - Waylaid again. This time it was Ettercaps.
Of course the encounter starts with them surrounding us and the fastest and most natural appearing escape route is blocked with a trap. We have to move carefully to get or melee engaged and our squishies away.
Day 27, Hour 10 - Arrived at the Cloakwood Lodge
Day 27, Hour 18 - Rested
The local Shadow Druids did a lot to discourage hunting in the Cloakwood Forest and with them nearly extinct, the hunting was very good, indeed. It looks like we encountered 3 groups of Dread Wolves, a pack of Worgs, and 2 groups of Tasloi, about 6100 exp total.
Day 28, Hour 1 - We are waylaid and ambushed again. It is one more kick on the way out. We went 5/5 exiting the Cloakwood Forest.
Day 28, Hour 7 - We arrived at the Friendly Arm Inn. Hindsight says we could have gone to Beregost instead and saved ourselves some hours of game time.
Day 28, Hour 16 - Rested. We will be back to a normal sleep schedule soon enough. The Cloakwood Forest does weird things to people.
Day 29, Hour 0 - Coast Highway
There were a few monsters around to kill, about 295 exp.
Day 29, Hour 4 - Beregost Temple
We finally turned in our Wyvern head for 200gp. Then we found ourselves a pack of Wild Dogs.
After that, we checked in to our regular place in Beregost, the Jovial Juggler. We had 30 Bandit Scalps to turn in. We also had a cloak to show off to that dwarf rogue.
Here is our party so far:
46737 Sam with 505 kills worth 88912
19876 Yeslick with 8 kills worth 2625
38869 Neera with 32 kills worth 11986
19260 Coran with 152 kills worth 42555
40010 Immy with 100 kills worth 12120
39924 Brawny with 77 kills worth 10422
We have nearly 15kgp and our gem bag just filled up and we have some items to sell. There are two shops in town and High Hedge is not far away. We can dual Immy to mage and go shopping with the Friends spell. That should be lots of fun!
After that, we will need to pick up another thief. Coran knows exactly who that might be.
First thing we did was level Immy to Level 7 Thief and then dual her to Mage. We took 90 in Find Traps, 90 in Open Locks, and 30 in Detect Illusion. We were probably better off just taking the points in Find Traps and Open Locks, but it will be a long while before we ever use these skills again.
With the introductory mage level, we took a single point in Darts and grabbed the spells Friends and Protection from Petrification. I took the Friends Spell, because it was going to be immediately useful the very next day. I also took the Protection from Petrification spell, because we did not succeed in writing it in Neera's book and we are going to need it in several days or so. Magic Missile will be of little use for a few levels. Sleep is already in Neera's spellbook. The other 12 spells to fill in the spellbook are likely to be in our scroll case.
Day 29, Hour 13 Rested - Who else here remembers partying or playing video games into the wee hours, then waking up in the early afternoon, only to do it again?
We went to Feldeposts with our full bag of gems and sold the cheap ones we had massive quantities of. We kept about 15 of them and sold the rest. We had about 18.6k to spend, so our next stop was our buddy Thunderhammer.
We bought:
7035gp Shadow Armor, saving 3000gp
6700gp Dagger of Venom, saving 3150gp
268gp 4x10 Arrow +1, saving 120gp
265gp 5x10 Bullet +1, saving 120gp
424gp 8x10 Dart +1, saving 192gp
So far we saved 6582gp, which is enough to buy something nice - It is almost enough for that Dagger of Venom!
We left Yeslick behind at Thunderhammer Smithy with his blessing. Go bust some heads, will ya?
If we were feeling cruel, we could have left him to hang out with Kagain.
Day 29, Hour 17 - High Hedge
We were not lying when we told Thalantyr we were interested in selling or even buying magical items. I'm sure some of the things we had to sell him were interesting, such as the Robe of the Evil Archmagi. It turns out, he is willing to buy anything and his local zone was rich in baddies to kill.
We encountered skeletons in packs of 6. In the original game, for some reason the skeletons behaved more like humans and were easily taken out one at a time with missile weapons. Instead, we sent Sam in first with the Boots of Speed, followed up by Coran and Brawny. Sometimes Sam took a hit. Having Brawny Turn Undead might also have been better, but we managed. Gnolls and Flinds also came in packs of 6.
Throwing daggers can be stacked in piles of 40 and it is possible to have a single character carry 640 of them and sell them for 1gp each.
In the old game, the first stack of 10 sold for 2gp and then the price dropped to 1gp. Now we might be able to net 500 to 1000gp with each trip to High Hedge - assuming we ever need the gold. I would say it is unlikely, but if we are unlucky, then Neera will blow it all up.
Speaking of, I have not heard Neera talk to my toon in some time. I must have said something that made her wonder why she bothers to try to talk to him. I do this often in real life as well.
Day 30, Hour 4 - Rested
It's time to go shopping at High Hedge and receive substantial discounts!
We bought:
13735gp Robe of the Neutral Archmagi, saving 6150gp
13735gp Robe of the Good Archmagi, saving 6150gp
501gp 3x Potion of Freedom, saving 225gp
1670gp 10x5 Acid Arrows, saving 750gp
330gp 10x5 Dart of Ice, saving 150gp
134gp 2x Friends Scrolls, saving 60gp
134gp 2x Protection from Petrification, saving 60gp
402gp 3x Mirror Image, saving 180gp
402gp 3x Invisibility, saving 180gp
So we sold Immy off to become a mage just so we could do a job Xan could pull off just as easily. Time will tell how the rest of this goes. I supposed we can also have her use a lot more wands.
Here is the party so far:
41586 Sam with 543 kills worth 91482
40773 Brawny with 82 kills worth 10747
39818 Neera with 36 kills worth 12626
849 Immy with 101 kills worth 12155
19684 Coran with 158 kills worth 43230
This is an experiment I never tried. Can Safana's kiss neutralize a Sirine Dire Charm or would she get chunked? It does not matter right now, because we never tried the experiment.
Day 30, Hour 20 - We arrived at the Red Canyons
Neera reached Level 6 in here and we gave her proficiency in slings. She needs a missile weapon and there there were three options I could think of. I believe the Darts would give the highest damage per round, at 3x2=6, but often needs the target to be nearby. The daggers give 2d4=5. I am still experimenting with throwing daggers on Sam. The daggers would give a home for the Dagger of Venom, but right now we really do not need her in melee. That would be better for Coran. That leaves slings, which will average us the lowest at 3.5. The range is good and it keeps her at the back.
She made very short work of the Zargal encounter. Most likely we are overleveled for it and Coran scouted ahead, so we knew exactly where they were standing and could prepare accordingly. Everybody targeted Zargal. Sam charged in like an idiot. From far behind, Neera cast Sleep and the other two ugly gnobhoblins went down.
We collected the Singing Sword +2 and have no home for it, which is unfortunate.
In the southeast corner we found Bassilius and started a conversation with him. He seems a little deranged and has converted a bunch of skeletons and zombies into family members and we pretended to be his father - except his father was dead and we were not, and he planned to fix that. By then it was too late. His undead clan crumpled by Tempus shield and Valkur's mighty blade and strapping buttocks.
With the undead horde gone, Bassilus was a very easy fight. Now who's your daddy?
In the northeast corner, we encountered a very strange chicken. We saved him from a wolf and then he talked us into returning him to High Hedge. We are, however, heading west and not north and it will be a while before we are back in High Hedge. In the mean time, he will have to sit in Immy's pack and wait.
We rested for the night.
Day 31, Hour 5 - Rested.
Day 31, Hour 21 - Arrived at Seawatcher Lighthouse
Safana was our first pickup. Maybe it was the other way around. She has a proposition to make us fabulously wealthy. She is looking for some help with some monsters guarding the way to Alaric's Cove and his legendary treasure. Of course, we already have the Holy Symbol of Bassilus and that will make us 5000gp richer and that's a lot of gold, but one thing better than a lot of gold is a lot more gold.
She starts with 75 in Open Locks and 100 in Find Traps. We gave her a skill point in Crossbows, because nobody in our party has any skill in Crossbows. Unfortunately her other skill points are in Darts and Scimitars. We can go back and retrieve the +2 Scimitar for her if we want. It is not that expensive. Then she will have a +2 weapon. (I think it would cost us 804gp and a kiss on the cheek. The net loss would be 204gp.)
We finally encountered the creatures she was talking about - Sirines. Sam ran in like a crazy idiot and they popped invisible. So Neera sent in a Fireball while Sam ran away. Then we finished the fight. Several minutes later, we had another encounter with Sil and another two Sirines. This time we were tired of the games and Coran started loading up the Acid Arrows. I do not remember how effective they were.
Inside the cave were traps guarded by Flesh Golems. This part was all about Safana and Coran acting as a team. Safana could locate and disarm all the traps. Coran popped out of the shadows to launch an arrow at a Flesh Golem only to disappear once again. Finally we located the treasure.
Above is another classic line from the game.
Here is our party so far:
46223 Sam with 572 kills wroth 98292
45410 Brawny with 84 kills worth 12782
44445 Neera with 38 kills worth 12856
35570 Safana
5472 Immy with 103 kills worth 14575
21980 Coran with 206 kills worth 57760
When we approach level cap, Immy will get her thief skills back, but will have very little use for them with Safana in the party. So they might be competing a bit. Cory also has thief skills, put I put most of those into hiding. He will probably end up with the Dagger of Venom as a mage stabbing weapon. As he is built, he is more of an Archer first, then maybe a backstabber. He can get some AC, but does not have the hp to be a tank.
So it seems to be a problem with leveling Imoen exactly as she appears in BG2. There are so many experience points where she does not have thief skills available and we need a thief in the city of Baldur's Gate. 90k. Everybody else will be at 130k, or nearly exp capped. When she does get her skills back, then we have two characters with very similar skill sets. The best thing to do would be to replace her and then we would have to level another. Minsc and Dynaheir again?
In a few places, I have read a lot of hate on Safana and I do not know why. She is short a dexterity point compared to Imoen. It looks like we developed her from Level 2 instead of Level 1, so she's missing a few hit points and might have had some misplaced skill points. It looks like she is one level away from getting 100 in Open Locks and Find Traps. Her weapon skills are misplaced. However at this stage of the game, darts might be fun.
With the Scimitar +2 she might get a good backstab in - if we can get her to hide. We gave her the Shadow Armor just so we can look at her legs.
With Brawny, I should try to get better at using the Holy Power 18/00 strength. I have become a lot worse at making use of spells - most likely because of the zones we are in.
The story line says we should be heading towards Baldur's Gate, because it is Chapter 5. However, having picked up Coran and Safana, our quest is officially hijacked.
Thanks so much! It probably goes in waves. Weekends bring me more playing time, so I get more done and lots of action to compact into such a short time. Monday session took longer than I imagined, so have a limited amount of time to write about it.
One thing I like about writing this stuff is I think more. I just finished a session. Now I am processing it. Tomorrow I will run another session and process that, too.
I have played Baldur's Gate in the past. I finished the trilogy one time - with a Cavalier. I finished BG1 a few times with a couple of characters, mostly Warriors and Paladins. My mentality tends to be brute force as opposed to creative and subtle tactics. I am trying to understand the magic system and use it better. A Wild Mage might not be the ideal choice for that, but we are running with it.
We are not playing no-reload as can be seen. I am trying to minimize the number of reloads. The count so far is 10, in 4 clusters. The first cluster was having trouble with rescuing Neera from the magic bandits. One reason I was having trouble was because I did not have experience in what could go wrong in that fight. I ran around thinking the enemy mage was casting a color spray, because that is what I saw in an earlier run but it was a flame arrow. Then there were several cosmetic reloads, for things like taking too much damage from Karlat and not taking pictures and the grand total was 7 from that cluster. The next reload was Neira, because I did not understand she could get a spell off while being pelted and Sam got confused and started killing people sitting at the bar. Then we went to the mines and we got ambushed by bandits and Garrick got shot in the head. After that, we went a very long time with no reload, because we overcame the Level 1 struggle. The most recent reload was in the spider den in the cloakwood Forest and I set off two fireballs too close to Brawny and she died.
In order to play a no-reload version of the game, I would need more experience with the end of the game as well as the beginning. The biggest challenge would be getting to Level 2. Level 3 should come much easier than Level 2, because you are nearly twice as powerful, but have an equal amount of experience to acquire. After that, it should be easy if we know all the major fights and pitfalls.
Last night, I was listening to a podcast about the Level 1 Arcane Spells and their ratings and I had a random thought. He called the Armor spell a newbie trap, in that it looks good on the surface, because it brings Neera's AC from 7 to 3 and it lasts 9 hours. On one side, the Shield spell offers superior armor, 1 normally, and -1 against missiles, and it grants immunity to magic missiles. Then he said the Robes of the Neutral Archmagi has a base AC of 5 (converts to 2 for Neera) and this will make the Armor spell obsolete.
The Robes of the Neutral Archmagi are very expensive and if we can afford them, then we are not newbies. We are very likely to have a few levels. An Armor scroll usually costs 150gp, less discounts. With a 60% probability of learning the spell, the net expected cost is 250gp.
The duration is 9 hours. This exceeds typical travel times of 16 hours. So if we are waylaid by bandits, then the armor spell will still be up and Neera will have an AC of 3 - or 2 if we equipped her with the Ring of Protection. The Armor spell decreased the probability of her getting hit by 20%. (from 35% at AC6 to 15% at AC2) This will correspond to a 10% reduction of the probability of her getting killed in a single shot. (assuming the arrow is d6 and not d6+2)
The shield spell would have to be cast very quickly. It does have a cast time of 1. I do not know if she gets it up in time. If she does, then we improved her AC to -2 and those bandits most likely need a natural 20 to hit.
In the event of a no reload game, I think the best way to get a mage character like Neera to Level 2 would be to start her off with more experience.
Well that was a fun diversion. I have not even started my AAR!
We started off near Black Alarac's Cove, where Immy grabbed a Potion of Genius and started another study party. At 21 Intelligence and 97% reduced to 82%, we went 14/19. We lost all 3 of our Blindness scrolls, but that is no big deal, because we can easily find or otherwise acquire more. We lost Melf's Acid Arrow and Fireball. So in order to get a double Fireball going, we will need a wand, which is fine. She has:
10/14 Level 1 Spells
3/14 Level 2 Spells - Knock, Web, Invisibility - and I have no idea why we scribed Knock, twice. If we have trouble with a lock for some reason, then we can simply use a scroll.
3/14 Level 3 Spells - Haste, Slow, Invisibility 10 feet
So it looks like she has some of the utility spells.
Day 32, Hour 8 - Rested
Day 33, Hour 0 - Returned to Red Canyon
Back where we took out Bassilus, there were still a bunch of Heavy Crossbows lying around and we were heading towards a great place to sell them. So we picked them up.
Safana: I'll do *anything*
Sam: Can you carry these longbows, please?
Day 33, Hour 9 - Rested
Finally we got around to identifying the Manual of Bodily Health. Sam at 19 (Constitution) is now an incredibly healthy, if a bit awkward, specimen of a human male for Safana to toy with - at least until he makes her mad. We identified the rest of our stuff as well.
I would do well to try to remember to let somebody (Imoen) use the Wolf Cloak. She does not have very good melee or range and she might do better in wolf form. Failing that, maybe she can run faster and kite things. I will have to try that in a later session.
Day 34, Hour 1 - Arrived at High Hedge
Here is the moment we have been waiting for. We triumphantly return Melicamp the Chicken to Thalantyr the Mage of Beregost. This is the moment we have been waiting for. Does Melicamp survive?
Nope. And that, as they say, is that.
After that, we sold our fat loot and bought Safana the Rashad's Talon +2 and a bunch of spells.
Day 34, Hour 10 - Rested
Day 34, Hour 18 - As well as we are able to scout the paths ahead, this time we got ambushed by the mindless undead.
Two of them had composite longows and were the most dangerous. Sam charged one and Neera blasted the other with a magic missile. After that, it was over fairly quickly, but Coran got a bit cut up in that fight. We decided not to let him heal, because we typically rest with very few healing spells. So he limped along. It helps grab attention, anyway.
Day 35, Hour 2 - Arrived at the Sword Coast
Coran's great weakness is with the ladies and Shoal the Nereid is no exception.
Unlike Melicamp, Coran is luckier, especially with the ladies. He made the save. Shoal summed her boss Ogre Mage, Droth. However, surrounded, and without any protections up, he did not stand much of a chance. Finally Brawny smashed him to bits.
I think this is the second time I have seen an ogre explode in real combat.
Coran scouted further to the south, spying a bunch more ogres. We cast Web and Sleep, both. That seemed more fun than pulling them one at a time and it was still an easy time - except for Coran getting struck by lightning.
Fortunately the Surgeon was in town. He healed Coran up and then departed, leaving us with a Potion of Magic Blocking. He was very nice to us, considering we just killed his brother Dave. It must be Safana's charm with men.
We continued to explore the area in the stormy night, but decided to call it when Sam got struck by lightning. That was 45 points of OUCH. That's potentially 5 Healing Potions worth of OUCH. 250gp. It's a price to pay if we are playing with maximum hit points per level, because it looks like the lightning hits for 50% of hit points. We only healed up a little bit and then decided a storm was not the right time to explore. So we called it a night and by the next day, the storm had blown over.
Day 35, Hour 12 - Rested
Finally, we encountered some more Sirines, but they were not match for berserker rage.
Day 36, Hour 5 - Returned to High Hedge
Day 36, Hour 13 - Rested
Day 36, Hour 17 - Arrived at the Temple of Beregost and triumphantly returned the Holy Symbol of Bassilus.
We collected our reward and went to town with lots of gold to spend.
We bought Safana the Army Scythe. Hopefully she will be killer with a crossbow.
Meanwhile, in the Thunderhammer Smithy, we might have just spotted an exploit.
Do you see infinite gold? I see infinite gold!
In the picture, it can be seen that a stack of 10 throwing daggers can be purchased for 6gp. We can sell this stack for 10gp, or a profit of 4gp. We can load a character up with 61 of these stacks, then turn around and sell them, netting a profit of 244gp. We can rinse and repeat for infinite gold!
Right now, I do not have plans to exploit this, because I see not much use for infinite gold. However, we are unlikely to worry about gold for a very long time.
Maybe we should make the switch to +1 ammunition and make some fights go slightly faster.
I forgot to give a report of the party characters.
This is a very short session. No reloads. One big scare because I had a critical location wrong. I also forgot to take a lot of pictures when I thought I had them.
Day 37, Hour 6 - Arrived at Mutamin's Garden
Day 37, Hour 14 - Rested
We encountered Korax the Ghoul. In the OGBG1 he turned on the party very quickly, but he stayed loyal to us the entire time. He must have been really entranced with Sam's Charisma score of 4.
Very soon, we ran into a collection of statues. We rescued one of them.
(Insert Safana comment about rock hard.)
Somebody needs protection right now.
So we cast Protection on Sam. Hopefully it does not fall off in the heat of battle.
There were lots of Lesser Basilisks and 2 Greater Basilisks. We found Mutamin's Rock Garden and destroyed Mutamin. He had a Mirror Image up quickly, but we took it down with a combination of Coran Arrows and Neera Magic Missiles.
Looking around, Neera stumbled into Lindin's party who badly needed a lesson in manners. Thankfully there were no arrows pointed in her direction. There was a mage casting Mirror Image and a priest casting something. We do not know. That was when Neera's web came in and Sam was there to clean up the mess while the rest picked them off with arrows.
Day 38, Hour 3 - Arrived at Beregost Temple, then Beregost
That was it! Neera finally had a few opportunities to blow things up with Fireballs. Here is our party:
F6 55110 Sam with 601 kills worth 105767
P6 54278 Brawny with 90 kills worth 14807 - She hits L7 at 55000 and we are not doing it tonight.
M6 53292 Neera with 61 kills worth 14961 - She also hits L7 at 60000.
T7 44416 Safana with 3 kills worth 19695 - She now has 100 in Find Traps and Open Locks both
M4 14307 Immy with 110 kills worth 19695
F5T6 26376 Coran with 240 kills worth 81815 - He has closed the gap and seems to be easily outkilling everybody.
We have about 5 items to identify tomorrow.
As far as the story line is concerned, from an RP perspective, the party is officially hijacked by the chaotic crazies. We are supposed to head to Baldur's Gate and investigate the Iron Throne. We wandered off to collect a bounty for a dead Wyvern, then collect a bounty for Bassilus, then picked up Safana and followed her wild treasure hunts. It's a pity we already looted Ulcaster and FIrewine Bridge. We explored the shipwreck further up the Sword Coast. Then we went the opposite side of the map on a basilisk hunt.
Our next direction with be southwards, back towards Nashkel. There are still those Half-Ogres that Bjornin was seeking revenge on. Then we will go hunting for Ogres further east in the Lonely Peaks. Then we will be in Nashkel proper. Is there anything we would like to buy at the Nashkel Fair? I have the Necklace of Missiles in mind, because we can never have too much firepower. After that, we will go on another hunting trip. This time it is for Winter Wolves. Then we will explore the southeast.
This will take us on another tangent all the way to the Friendly Arm Inn. At least that is closer to Baldur's Gate. Is that where we are heading next? Of course not. There is a whole bunch of forest around the ruins of the Bandit Camp we did not explore. There is still the Ankheg Farm. It must be way overpopulated with Ankhegs by now!
We can take yet another diversion around Ungoth's Beard. There is a dungeon full of mages and we have been having great luck taking out mages. Do we have enough power to give Durlag's Tower a go?
Or should we pick some time in that list above to pick apart Baldur's Gate?
The simple process, I see. I've been doing things differently myself for a while now - play whenever, taking notes and pictures as I go, then post on a fixed schedule, composing those posts when I get closer to that point on the schedule. For example, there was my "The Dukes Get Off Their Butts" run of BGEE - I played the whole thing in a weekend, then posted it in fourteen parts over the course of about a month.
More steps, of course, but the reliable posting schedule has its advantages. Having a buffer lets me choose how to break up the parts for narrative reasons rather than just "this session". And it gives me more time to come up with the little gimmicks I put into the writing.
The ten-bandit ambush of doom is a mix of two kinds of bandits; half with shortbows, half with longbows. Both have base THAC0 20, no stat bonuses, and a single point of proficiency with their bows. So that's effective THAC0 19 for the longbow archers and 20 for the shortbow archers. Neera with AC 2 gets hit on 17/18 depending on the type. 1d6 damage, or twice that on a crit.
Or you could just leave the main road. Only travel directly on the road has any risk of that ambush, after all. And it's a pretty low probability. Many of those legs are even completely safe; between Beregost and Nashkel, only the middle link has any ambush risk in either direction.
Alternately, you can just suck it up and raise her if she goes down. Raising a level 1 character from the dead only costs 100 GP, after all. And you're never far from a temple on the main road.